#and despite the fact that it doesn’t make any sense to the rules of time travel

[moondirti]

animalic (1)

series masterlist

pairing: Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader rating: mature word count: 1.9k summary: he won't stop until he gets you warnings: enemies to lovers, injuries, kissing, minor ATSV spoilers, size kink (?), mentions of gore and death, not spell checked nor edited, honestly not my best work but the horny is all that matters notes: stayed up all night for this because i had to get it out of my system before finals. there'll be a few more parts, i promise i'm not this cruel haha

“I thought grace was a prerequisite for your little spider-club.” 

Your quip sounds disjointed – even to your own ears – entwined with wheezes that rattle your splintered rib cage. In all honesty, the circumstances don’t seem to be favouring you; he’s got you confined upon the wreckage of your own fight, hanging off the remnants of a crane that dangerously tips over a quarry. And though this isn’t the worst you’ve faced, Miguel’s presence always seems to make things more complicated than they need to be.

You’d had a stable hold on the beam, ready to pull yourself up and dematerialise to wherever he wasn’t. Until, of course, the asshole kicked your elbows off. Now, your fingers remain as your only attachment to the structure, shaking violently with their diminishing strength. Your torso isn’t faring any better, either – the bleeding both internal and trickling from the gashes in your hoodie. 

(You wonder if he’s toying with you, like a panther with its food. Of the rare times he’s assigned another spiderman to pursue you, they didn’t tend to drag it out for this long. 

But, you suppose, Miguel’s different.) 

He takes a small step forward, lifting his foot over your digits. He could crush them like this, turn the bone to powder and keep pressing until it macerates in the gore. You can’t put it past him, really, not if you utter one more self-sabotaging word. You’ve seen him rip through steel and silk alike, fueled on the resentment that simmers deep within his very essence. Yours is merely the same fate that’s befallen every other obstacle that’s dared to come his way. 

But the tension buzzes between you two, thickening until it’s palpable enough to taste. Miguel is quiet as ever, completely still save for the flickering light of his dimensional travel watch. You envy his position – that resolute stature, brimful of power as his shoulders square, his calf rippling with subdued strength, still stretched over your hand. You blame that, or the mask, slick with sweat and humid as it sticks to your nose. Or the glasses that slowly slip to reveal your squinting eyes. You blame anything apart from what it is; that fear that steadily begins to flood your senses, numbing it all into one, cohesive panic. 

You’ve never been good at life or death scenarios. 

“Or, maybe, the big boss thinks he can break his own rules?” 

The air snaps. With an infuriated roar, he lunges at you, razor-sharp talons swiping at your face. In your frenzied dunk to avoid them, your fingers drop. 

You plunge to the bottomless chasm below.

Okay. Let’s try to get this right, one last time. 

Your name doesn’t matter. It hasn’t, not for a while now. 

For the past year, you’ve been on the run from the Spider Society. You don’t exactly blame them for it, either. Every world you’ve crashed has gone to shit, despite serious lack of trying. Food-barren wastelands, borderless warzones. Truthfully, after the mantle of Earth 7BB-1 convected in on itself, you were inclined to turn yourself in. 

Independant of the fact that Nueva York seems to be the only place you can’t fuck up. Regardless of the relatability you have with the residents of its lobby. You were bitten by a radioactive spider just the same, and for all the good you’ve tried to do, you’ve never been a spider-hero. If it meant that no one else got hurt, you really would have been able to cope with lifetime confinement.

(Greater good and all that.)

Would’ve. Could’ve. If it weren’t for Miguel O’Hara’s interjection, and his goddamn alternative solution, things just might have turned out that way. 

You’re not dead. 

The realisation whips your consciousness into high alert, eyes snapping open to survey your surroundings. You process the light first, its brilliance piercing through the bromine-doused cotton that stuffs your skull. Then, it’s the pain that, up until this point, had been thrumming in the background. It crackles, marrow-deep, tearing down the tendons in your shoulders to the throbbing area around your ribs. They’re in doubtlessly worse shape than they had been at the quarry, the ache searing across to engulf your spine too. 

He had let you fall on your back, that dickhead. 

But– 

You’re not dead. 

It doesn’t take you long to figure out why that is. 

A red forcefield entraps you, droning its monotonous hum, partially obscuring everything beyond your own reflection. You can see the faint impression of a silhouette – no, multiple – stalking you on the other end, a great shadow court. They warp and grow with every passing second, gorging on your offered vulnerability, awaiting some wordless signal from the harbinger of death, to execute justice upon the one who’s been causing them so much trouble. Jess Drew. Hobie Brown. Ben Reilly. 

(They’d been more forgiving, once. Willing to negotiate peace, to treat you more than the screw up you’ve proven to be. 

His voice overrode theirs. Always.)

It’s easier to make out the devil himself – more so than the others. You’ve come to memorise the slope of those shoulders, how his fists clench at his sides as he circles you. You imagine the smug set of his jaw and those eyes, just as luminous as the cage you curl within. The puck at the base is recognisable, akin to the capture weapons he’s thrown at you previously. He’d saved your life, then.

On a technicality. You’ll bury that thought to rage over later. 

“How–”

The question hardly forms before you’re ripped in two, the atoms of all but your spirit splicing into one another in a defect of blue and orange. The glitch exacerbates the fractures that threaten to knock you out, racking through your system as it rearranges your matter into amorphous forms. It’s only when something is thrown into the enclosure do you snap back to. A bracelet clatters to the floor. 

“Didn’t know whether you’d be used to the glitching yet.” A disembodied voice remarks. It’s at a particularly whiny pitch – you assign it to Ben. 

“We… tried to get it on you, kid. But you–” A feminine inflection crops up. Jess sounds the same since the last you spoke. 

You glower at them from the corner of your eye – unsure if they can actually see you – and snap the day pass on. Your spectral abilities were handy at the best of times; to shift from the corporeal, coming into immateriality, makes the most complicated situations evadeable. You credit it for your continued survival, if nothing else. Yet to speak like you could control it, especially while unconscious, was pushing it. You clearly weren’t able to activate it when you needed it the most.

And now you’re here. 

“I’m not going to ask what you want, so let’s keep this short– y-yeah? Either you let me go, or this Earth’ll be the next to unravel.” Despite your intentions, the demand escapes you in a long-winded croak. You hear Hobie snicker, the laugh teetering the edge of approval. Anyone can tell the promise has no foundation.

“That won’t be happ–” 

“Leave us.” 

The room clips into white noise. You fail to focus on anything but that echoing order. 

His voice comes across clearer than all else, too, cadence resonating past any natural boundary, tugging your heart right where it’s tender. There’s that fear again, that singular dread, only ever triggered by his indifference. Perhaps more potent than fury, his patience gives away an all-assured determination. Deadly. 

You bite your cheek, steeling your expression into one of similar apathy. It feels like a child’s attempt at dress up, grubby hands clutched around mother’s lipstick, painting on a clown’s complexion. Crackling apprehension brushes across your most vulnerable parts; layer by layer, you’re skinned as the group files out. Bare nerves are all that’s left for your faceoff with the hulking man.

He throws another puck to the floor. His own forcefield conjoins to yours. 

His cheeks have gotten hollower, you notice, emphasising the cheekbones that are just as keen as everything else about him. He offers no smile, no grand boast of victory. Instead, he breathes – calmly, fixedly, and lets you absorb the overwhelming magnitude of his size once more. He’s aware of what it strikes in you, can see it in the way you falter upon every reintroduction. Miguel is colossal, a reality that has never been more apparent than in this cramped enclosure. 

You know that if you stop to ponder it, it’ll ruin you. 

Rearing on your heels, you bounce from your place on the ground, making a grab for his watch. He anticipates it, having caught the decision blaze in your pupils, and side steps, pivoting to gain the upper hand while your back is still turned. You rebound off the field wall, stumbling back when he yanks you by your hoodie. Your shoulder presses into his chest, and he moves to wrap himself around your form.

Your skin prickles. His body passes right through you. 

His recovery time is nearly nonexistent relative to your last fight – quick learner – but you’re still swift on your feet, bolting to his watch again. It’s a millisecond too slow, for his talons sink into your forearm when you start to pull away. 

Your pained yelp loses momentum as he slams your back against the wall, using a knee to pin your other arm in place, his free hand wrapping around your neck. 

He’s close. Too close. Your stomach flips, pushing up on your oesophagus until you choke with the bile that sears its lining. Your breaths are as deep enough as his clutch will allow, index and thumb cutting off the circulation on both sides of your neck.

Ichor blooms from the puncture points at your wrist, the warmth puddling at your palm, not yet heavy enough to drip down onto the floor. You don’t think he realises how deep his claws are, how near he is to scratching bone. You don’t think you do, either. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should, and while you’re sure you’ll regret not prioritising it sooner, you don’t think– Don’t think–

“I-I’m not goi…going home,” You gasp. 

“It’s not up to you, Wraith.” Miguel growls, chokehold loosening.

It hits you, then. Animalic. He smells addictingly animalic. Like musk, a blend of brine and hot air and hints of a patchouli aftershave that still clings to his jaw. Your eyes flutter, seeking all you can get of the latter. Unwittingly, you move in closer. 

You haven’t been this close to anyone in a long time. 

His expression oscillates between a sneer and a grimace, nose pulling up to reveal the very pointed ends of his two canines. Set side by side with plush lips, you zero in on the thought of experiencing the contrast with your own. 

He’s huge. 

Closer. 

Completely overwhelms you, in size and presence and–

Closer. 

Your ribs ache. Your back groans. You’re quickly losing feeling in your fingers, and movement – soon – if you don’t do something. 

Your breath weaves with his. He doesn’t reciprocate when your lips brush, but he doesn’t pull away, either. 

You kiss him for longer than you should. Longer than you need to. It’s firm, and not unlike what you expected. 

(World-shattering, all the same.) 

Your skin prickles. It takes all of your rationale to pull away – dematerializing out of his grasp, and into the portal you’d activated from his wrist.

chapter 2 →

follow @moondirti-archive and turn on post notifs to be notified of future updates!

[bloompompom]

˗ˏˋ guilty pleasures ˎˊ˗

☆ content: eren jaeger x female reader, modern au, reader cheats on her loser boyfriend, dirty talk, praise, pet names, masturbation, pussy job, just filth, written very fast my apologies, mentions of alcohol, explicit language, explicit sexual content, reader discretion advised 18+ ☆ word count: ~4.2k ☆ a/n: just a warm-up that got out of hand

Your boyfriend sucks. That isn’t an opinion, either. It’s a fact. The sky is blue; what goes up will always come back down; your boyfriend is and will forever be a jackass. 

At least, according to your friends, Eren in particular. Sometimes according to you, too—let’s not leave that part out, it’s important.

Countless times, your boyfriend had driven you to wit’s end and back because yes, you always took him back. You aren’t the type to leave a kicked puppy out in the rain or a groveling man lying on your doorstep. He’d come crawling back, looking all lovesick and apologetic, and you’re ashamed to admit it hasn’t failed him yet. 

Listen, Eren is just your friend. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of your relationship any more than the next guy. What he knows for sure is that your boyfriend generally sucks as a human being, and he knows you know it, too. 

And it’s about time he does something about it. 

Tonight’s as good a night as ever to make a move. Eren’s roommate, Armin, insists on hosting a game night every other week-ish to ‘get the gang together,’ as he likes to say. But game nights are hard. No one likes to learn rules. So game nights soon devolved into movie nights, which turned into drinking nights after no one could agree on a movie.

That’s the plan for this evening: drinking the beer Jean brought along with a few leftover seltzers from the last time they got together, and spending some time with you. Alone.

You walked into the apartment huffing and puffing, pissed over whatever your boyfriend did or didn’t do. You’ve spent most of the night wallowing in the displeasure, trying to hide it, but it’s not working; Eren can tell you’re furiously texting Sasha every little detail despite sitting across from one another.

If you were to ask any of your friends, they’d say they previously believed you and Eren would date. You had that energy about you—still do, frankly. But then you met your boyfriend and you’ve been seeing each other ever since. On and off, of course.

Eren dated other people, too. And sure, he liked them, but that’s all. Finding happiness with something (or someone) is difficult when he constantly sees the greener grass on the other side.

He used to believe it was a timing thing, the reason you never hooked up. It made sense back then. But now, Eren knows it’s not a timing thing because he’s single and you can dump your boyfriend any time you want—if that’s what you want. 

Eren can pry. He can be forthright and ask what you’re texting Sasha about. But that’d get him nowhere; you’d undoubtedly reply, ‘Girl stuff,’ and let the subject die there. 

He noticed you don’t talk about your boyfriend problems when he’s around. Not that he expects you to. He would have written it off by now if he hadn’t heard you confiding in Armin about it. Jean and Connie, too. How frustrating it is that you never tell the one genuinely curious person. The one who wants to know and wants to show you how much better things could be, with him. 

So Eren does just that. He catches you at the right moment, once it’s just the two of you. Armin was in bed and Sasha already left, taking Jean and Connie with her. The only guests remaining are you and Mikasa—she’s been sitting heavy-eyed on the couch for the last twenty minutes and would probably be out cold in the next ten. 

Then there’s you, all squirmy beside him. 

“Are you cold?” Eren asks. He knows you’re not, but he also knows you’d never answer the more direct ‘Are you okay?’

“I’m fine,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “I’m just—”

“Having a long night?” Eren guesses.

You merely sigh, but it’s weighty enough that it sounds like you’ve been holding it in for a while, like you must’ve needed it. 

“That’s one way of putting it.”

It’s vague, but you still feel you said too much.

You fiddle with your fingers, hands resting in your lap. You focus on that rather than the fact that you can no longer bring yourself to meet Eren’s eyes; it’s too much, it makes your insides burn uncomfortably hot.

You can’t deny how Eren makes you feel. Even more, you can’t deny that you came over tonight with him on your mind—the sort of thoughts you shouldn’t have while tangled up with another guy. 

“Is there anything I can do,” Eren slides closer to you, “to make your night better?”

Yes, you think. Yes, yes, yes.

You shake your head, gaze fixed on his leg pressing against yours. 

“It’s not your problem to fix,” you try to assure, but it lacks any sureness. Instead, it’s demure and… inviting? You almost made it sound like a dare. 

“That doesn’t mean I can’t try,” Eren says, always up for a challenge, especially if you’re the prize at the end. 

You’re better than this, you tell yourself. You’re above this. 

At the same time, you can’t help but think: what would your boyfriend do if the roles were reversed? You’ve argued about his fidelity before—hell, you argued about it hours ago—and you have no more clarity than you did from the start. 

Maybe you haven’t been perfect, either. Maybe there were times you should’ve told Eren to cut out the flirting and even times you shouldn’t have reciprocated it. You thought it was harmless then, that you’d never end up exactly where you are now. You also never imagined how invigorating, how right, it would feel. 

Eren places his large hand on your thigh, tentatively at first, light despite the guilt weighing down on you. When you don’t stop him, he becomes confident. He slides his hand higher, squeezes you gently. It’s chaste, something that could still pass as friendly if not for the way it made you weak.

I am absolutely not above this.

That’s how you ended up in his bedroom. Eren whispered for Mikasa and when she didn’t respond, he took it as the all-clear—that no one would know if you decided to head somewhere more private. Eren snuck you down the hall, shut the door behind you, and had you to himself, for the first time. 

Your heart thrums in your ears. It’s adrenaline, anticipation, a rush you never want to end. You hardly hear him when he asks, “How can I make your night better?” He nears you in a step. “What would you like me to do?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” you murmur. He wants to hear you say it: that you want him. You want his mouth on yours, maybe on your neck, his hands on your chest, smoothing down your hips and between your legs. You don’t give him the satisfaction of it. 

You lean into Eren without a word. He moves with you, meeting you halfway. You lead, he follows. You’re the one in the relationship, not him. 

You tilt your chin high to meet him. He catches it between his fingers, gently guiding you to him. Your noses brush; your lips don’t, but you’re so, so close. Close enough for your lashes to flutter softly against his cheek, for you to feel every one of his hot breaths as they break over your lips. It’s intoxicating. It’s not enough. But you can’t make yourself seal the fateful gap between you. 

“I can’t,” you regretfully stammer. It physically hurts to say the words. You wound the devil sitting atop your shoulder.

Eren doesn’t say anything, only pulls away from you. You don’t feel in control of your hand when it snatches a fistful of his shirt. You keep him there, still as close as before, eyes flitting between his pupils, big and blown, and his lips. He remains frozen, silent. He lets you decide where this would or wouldn’t go. 

“I don’t—fuck, I don’t know what do to,” you bemoan. Your head is a spinny, screwed-up mess. Screwed up from forbidden fantasies and raging hormones and the pool of warmth spreading in the depths of your stomach—all from him. 

“What do you want to do?” Eren asks in a low voice. 

It’s coaxing, cloying, but it’s needful at the same time. It’s a voice you’ve never heard from him, yet it’s familiar. It’s reminiscent of the same need burning inside you, so hot you think it might create a hole, one perhaps only he can fill.

You lick your bottom lip only to find your mouth has gone dry. 

Eren nudges the tip of his nose against yours. “I can tell you what I want to do, if that would help.”

He nuzzles lower, beneath your jawline. He doesn’t kiss you there—no, he wouldn’t do that. What he does is worse. It’s teasing. His breath fans over your ear and sends a shudder down your spine. He needs you not only to hear but to feel every word, every dirty thing he has imagined doing with you.

“I want you to touch yourself for me,” he breathes against the side of your face, warming you from the inside out. He clasps his hand over yours, then slips it between your legs. “And I want to watch.”

Eren touches your hand, encouraging you to rub. You feel the heat of your cunt through your clothes, like there’s a fire in your belly. You finally let its flames engulf you and god, burning never felt so damn good. 

You’re dizzy, you’re flustered—how could he possibly say that with such calmness? More than anything, you’re dumb to everything except the boy in front of you. 

“Can you do that for me?” he asks, smooth and soothing. “I’ll only look. I won’t touch, I promise.”

It’s a lousy excuse for a loophole. Actually, it doesn’t even qualify as a loophole.

Eren leans back, holding your shoulders in his hands. He looks you in the eyes and again, he insists, “No touching.”

Loophole or not, you can’t find it within you to care. You trust him, you think. Either that or your brain short-circuits because you can only repeat back, “No touching,” as you bob your pretty little head. 

Eren smiles down at you, runs his knuckles down the side of your face. It’s gentle, it’s praising, it brings—no, it yanks you back to him. 

“Lay on the bed,” he says. 

You do as you’re told, laying back on your forearms. He tugs your bottoms off with ease and reveals a pair of pale blue panties—a telling color. When you spread your legs for him, he can see how you’ve stained them with your arousal, soaked and ruined after some innocent teasing. 

You touch yourself without him having to ask. You trace over the damp patch and play with your clit through the fabric. He sees how easily your panties slip between your folds, how fucking wet you are, and has to stifle a curse.

Eren drops to his knees, nestled between your legs at the foot of the bed. He has a hand on either of your thighs, almost white-knuckling the plush skin.

“Look at that.” You can’t tell if he’s talking to you or your pussy. “You like it when I talk to you, huh? When I tell you what to do?”

You whine at the words, rub your clit faster. You want to come. 

“So needy. What’s the rush?” Eren tuts. He climbs onto the bed, propping his back against the headboard. “Make yourself comfortable.”

As he says it, his hand travels lower. Dangerously low. It draws your attention to how hard he is, his insistent cock tenting in his sweatpants. He palms over it once, then twice, then grips himself through the fabric. Fuck. 

You stare with too much interest. The corner of Eren’s lip curls into a smirk when you have to close your hungry mouth. He’s just as greedy, though, just as riled up as you. Even the touch of his own hand has his arm muscles tightening and twitching.

You crawl over to his side and try to relax into the pillows as best as you can. Your shoulders droop, your knees fall to either side, but there’s a tremble to your hand as it returns between your legs. Your touch remains feather-light, almost a tickle, as you dance a finger along the hem of your underwear. You watch lecherously, with your head lolled to one side as Eren mirrors you—you’re still leading. His thumb dips below his waistband.

This still counts as ‘no touching,’ right?

Eren shoves his hand down his sweatpants. You can’t see it when he takes his cock in his hand, only the outline of him slowly working over his length underneath the fabric. 

Your eyes ask the question your lips wouldn’t dare to ask. Eren responds, “You first.” His eyes flicker to your crotch—your panties, more specifically. 

Your fingers stutter and pause. You’ve already dipped your toes into the corrupt waters, so you might as well take the full plunge.  

You tuck your underwear to the side, pinching them in the crease of your thigh. Your fingers are almost cold against your wet, hot skin and you shiver in response, letting the feeling wreck down your spine. You clench around nothing, whimpering just as helplessly. 

“Fuck,” Eren breathes, an incidental hiss.  

He pushes his sweatpants and boxers down in one go, and his cock slaps his front. He aches for anything more than his hand, but it’s all he has right now. It’s agonizing how what he needs is so damn close, but out of reach. 

He pumps himself faster, tightening his grip around the sensitive tip to mimic your cunt.

He can only catch glimpses of it. Your panties persistently get in his way, and when they aren’t, you’re having to tug them back to the side. Your gasps and moans turn to little grunts, your frustration staving off your orgasm even further.

Eren goes to grab your underwear but stops himself short.

“Take them off,” he tells you, somewhere between a request and a demand. If this is his one chance to be with you, to see you, then he’s going to see all of you. 

You listen. Your hand slips from between your legs and a sticky string connecting your fingers to your cunt snaps. You hope Eren didn’t see it, but you’re sure he did based on the impatient sound that comes from the back of his throat. You lift your hips from the bed and shimmy your underwear down your legs. Then you kick them to the floor. 

You don’t settle back into the bed before Eren says, “I want to see more of you,” because this still isn’t enough. “C’mere.”

He adjusts you to his liking until you’re in front of him, lying back on your elbows, spread, with your feet caging his hips. It’s a vulnerable position, you admit. One where you’re completely bare and completely on display and there’s no shying away. You may have even found it embarrassing if not for how turned on you are. The urge to come is nagging, simmering for so long that you fear you may boil over and do something you’ll regret later. 

“Shit.” Eren’s in awe of the sight before him: your glistening cunt, swollen and practically begging to come, and the dreamy expression on your face. It’s the sexiest you’ve ever looked, and he’s not even sure it’s intentional. Your eyes are as alert as they are moony, as confident as they are flustered; a doe locked in his headlights, willing to eat out of his palm despite her better judgment. 

“Spread yourself for me,” he murmurs. You do it with two fingers. “God, look at you.”

So pretty. What a shame it was that such a pretty pussy would go unfucked tonight. 

Eren leans back again, this time with a complacent hand tucked behind his head. He spits into his other, then slathers it over his length, unblushing to how your eyes follow every fluid movement.

“Go ahead,” he says, still calmly fisting his cock. “For real this time. Make yourself come for me.”

The encouragement travels straight to your core. You sink your middle finger inside first, then you add another. Your walls pulse, sucking the digits in further. You curve them, drag them in and out, in and out, until you find a pace that has your thighs threatening to snap shut. You pull out of yourself one last time and, with properly wetted fingers, you return to your neglected clit. It only takes a few slick circles before your breath quickens. 

“Yeah, just like that—fuck.” Eren feels his cock throb against his palm. He slows, pulling and tightening his grip, still pretending his hand is anywhere near as soft as your pussy. “You’ve listened so well. You deserve to come, don’t you think?”

You moan something incoherent.

“Tell me,” he says, smug and urgent, somehow at once. “Tell me what a good girl you’ve been. That you deserve to come.”

Slippery, unforgiving sounds fill the room, from the both of you, but you’ve already shed any shred of decency you had left. You dipped your toes first, and then you took a fateful dive. But now, the current has stripped away any semblance of control you had—or thought you had.

You’ve become a passenger inside your own body. Every motion feels wild and unpredictable, yet intimately inevitable. It’s a kaleidoscope of feelings and sensations. It’s strange and exhilarating. It’s this raw and primal surrender to only what’s physical and nothing more. 

Flowery language aside, you know one thing for sure: as much as you enjoy hearing him talk filth to you; he enjoys hearing you just as much. 

“I’m a—ah, I’m your good girl,” you moan shakily. Your skin becomes unbelievably hot, your fingers stuttering, struggling to keep up with your neediness. “I d-deserve to come.”

His good girl.

Eren’s stomach lurches, abdominals tightening. He nearly comes.

What a fucking gift you are. How lucky Eren feels to witness how you get yourself off when no one’s around, how you like to tease yourself—maybe even pretend he’s the one teasing you.

You bring a hand to your chest, gingerly caressing the tips of your fingers along your nipple that pokes through your shirt. You slide the hand over your breast before groping it fully. 

“Can I see your tits?” Eren blurts. Once again, there’s no use for dancing around the truth of the matter anymore: you both wanted to get off. 

“You first.” You giggle a little, all breathy, then restate, “Take off your shirt.”

Eren smiles at you before stripping, revealing a cute flush creeping up his chest. You stick to your promise, peeling your shirt off and tossing it aside. You skipped putting on a bra this evening because it was supposed to be a quiet night-in with friends, but it worked out pretty well for this, too. 

You graze your fingers over the peaks of your breasts, bouncing just so with every rub, rub, rub of your opposite hand. You bite back a harsh gasp, but little hums escape past your teeth, anyway. 

Eren’s thighs twitch. He fights the urge to buck his hips, to fuck up into nothing. His pants turn strained, exasperated. He thinks he might be numb to his hand at this point. He could use his spit again, but why should he have to when you’re right there, as desperate as he is?

Your name’s a raspy plea on his tongue. His hands smooth up your legs as he coos, “I need to feel you, baby.” His thumbs stroke your inner thighs, growing extremely close to the apex between them. “Need you to help me come. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”

Eren’s hands wrap around your ankles, pulling a yelp from you as he drags you toward him.

“I won’t put it in,” he promises. You’re so close he can feel the heat of your cunt against the underside of his cock. His hand somehow looks small in comparison as he holds himself at his base. He angles his cock until it’s about as close as it can be without touching you. “Please.”

Your heart pounds against your ribcage, but even more frantically, it pulses between your legs, loud and demanding. It’s as impossible to ignore as the man before you. Hot and horny, with messy hair and pretty pink cheeks and an even prettier cock that leaks at the mere thought of touching you, staring at you like he wishes to devour you whole.

You nod, and Eren doesn’t hesitate to push his cock between your slit. You watch him do it, sitting higher on your elbows. Even with the faintest amount of pressure, your jaw goes slack. 

He rocks his hips, gliding his cock through you, up and down, with the ridge of his head nudging your clit. Your skin prickles despite the thin layer of sweat you’ve accumulated.

You raise your hips, dragging your pussy over him, and bring yourself back down to the bed. His cock jolts. You feel it. You repeat the undulating motion again and again, effortlessly, because you can’t recall a time you’ve been wetter. So wet he slips out a time or two. He takes advantage of it once, tapping the tip of his cock against your clit.

Eren gives a low chuckle when your head falls back between your shoulder blades. “What a pretty little mess you are.”

You tilt your hips so he’s back in place, hitting your clit just right, over and over. It doesn’t take long for your legs to shake, swaying like they may give out. He steadies you, resting his hand on the divot of your hip. 

“Oh, god—Eren.” Your voice pitches on a broken moan. “I think I’m gonna come.”

His hand curves around your side, his fingers digging into the fat of your ass. He uses the grip to keep you moving, to guide you through it. He barrels you down the hill toward your release, and you can’t stifle a single cry as they spill from you.

“Yeah, that’s it. Let it all out, baby,” Eren encourages, saccharine as always but airless. Though his own release is imminent, he refuses to allow it to happen before yours. 

He flattens his fingers against his cock, pressing and adding delicious pressure. He proves how heavy, how hard, he is for you—how much better he’d feel inside you. The mere thought of it makes you groan. You push back on him instinctively, arching your back as you teeter on the edge of your undoing.

“So fucking hot,” Eren grunts, thrusting as if he were truly fucking you. He meets you each time you bear down on him, his pelvis slapping against you as his hips rise from the bed. “So fucking hot.”

That familiar feeling fizzes in your stomach, swarmy and radiating through you. It sparks in the tips of your fingers, even in your toes, and then your orgasm rips through you. Your entire being tenses, fists knotting themselves into the sheets and eyes screwing shut. The pleasure is white-hot and leaves you with stars behind your eyelids.

Eren urges you to open your eyes. “Keep ‘em on me while you come.” 

You try your best; you don’t let your eyes roll back. What’s hidden behind your fluttering lashes is pornographic. Your soaked thighs—his soaked thighs. You don’t even want to think about the blankets below you. 

You curse and cry his name. You look ruined, with eyebrows pinched and pulled together, your mouth hanging open like you want to scream out your orgasm. Eren crudely imagines how wrecked you’d look, how much better you’d feel, if you were coming with him inside you.

Your knees snap together, thighs sealing shut around his cock. He continues to fuck between them, against your pulsing, oversensitive pussy. Your body is spent and shaking, and he is right there with you. The sinewy muscles of his chest flex as he builds toward his climax.

“God, fuck,” Eren pants. “I’m gonna come, baby. Gonna come all over this pussy.”

When he does, it’s with his head thrown back and a beautiful groan. His body is flush with yours, his cock spilling across your legs. Come drips down the creases of your thighs, smearing with the last few pumps as he draws out every drop. He can’t believe he could feel so good from something as pathetic as grinding.

Your body lies limp, sprawling across the bed with your legs still draped over him. You wait for some post-horny clarity to smack you across the face, but the only slap you feel is the truth: you deserve better. You aren’t going back.

You stay there, waiting for the rise and fall of your chest to settle. One moment, you’re staring at the ceiling, then blink, Eren’s above you, taking your cheek in his hand. His fingers curl around the side of your face before he places his mouth on yours. He’s soft, both how he feels and how he kisses you, with lips slotted perfectly against yours, coaxing them open with his tongue.

You finally let him touch you this way; you kiss him back. You wrap your arms around his neck, and you wish for the moment to stay, just for a little longer.

[montygatorshusband]

Glamrocks X Reader Headcanons

This includes Bonnie and Foxy!

No one requested this I just really wanted to do this :>

Also so sorry this took a while :< I’ll be sure to do more faster 🩵

General Information

“Sleep mode” is basically like a human sleeping, and their new charging system.

They can do stuff like eat, sleep, drink, shower etc. 

🧸Glamrock Freddy🎙️

We all know he’s a big sweetheart himbo.

I feel like he doesn’t like PDA, but does enjoy being around you. He just feels it’s very unprofessional!

But if you're upset, he’ll make an exception.

Oh, but if you're alone with him and his friends? He’ll probably just give you silent affection. Just stand behind you and nuzzle you.

When he’s on full battery, he’s a busy bee and often checks up on you before going back to work. If he’s on low battery though, he generally gets kind of sluggish and gets really tired. During those times, he just wants to cuddle you and is quite needy and clingy.

Loves it when you wear any Pizza Plex merch. Whether it be of his friends or himself.

He finds stars and space in general absolutely fascinating. Despite his wishes to not break rules… he’ll put that aside to go out to see the stars with you. 

I feel like he loves retro games. Mario and Sonic and stuff. He finds newer ones a bit complicated, and his big hands make his gameplay clunky, but he’ll happily play any you sneak in.

If your having trouble sleeping or just had a bad day, he’ll sing you My Little Sunshine until you fall asleep… probably even afterwards.

He loves singing for you, and loves it even more when you sing with him. He finds your voice hypnotic and even if you think you're bad, he’s not shy to let you know how much he loves your voice.

Plant daddy. Change my mind.

Loves it when you get along with Gregory.

Giant bear boobies. Touch em.

CHUBBY. GLAMROCK. FREDDY. SUPREMACY!!

Loves baking with you. If you don’t know how, he’s happy to teach you!

One of his all time favorite activities to do with you is just cuddling and relaxing after a looong day… watching TV or YouTube or a Movie or whatever. He loves it.

Calls you honey bear. 

If he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he’d be Envy. (Listen, I know it doesn’t fit. Like, at all. But, the way the rest of the Deady Sins fit with the other Glamrocks is perfect.)

🐊Montgomery Gator⛳️

He’s a complete blockhead. I love him, but he’s dumb. He’s a little stupid. A bit of a fool. Has a small amount of brain cells. Smooth brain. A himbo. A dumb jock. A-

He does have anger issues and destroys his room… but I see it as him being mad at Fazbear Entertainment. Bonnie promised him that when Monty finally got his part on stage, he and Bonnie would play together. Not replacing him. And now everyone sees him as a fame obsessed maniac who wants to dismantle Freddy. Sure, he’s very popular with people, probably one of the most popular, but… does that matter when the person you care about most is gone..?

He’s still a bit sad when Bonnie comes back, since he’s not up on stage with Monty.

Ok angst and stuff aside.

I am completely aware animatronics working out makes no sense but I really don’t care. Like I said, Monty is a Dumb Jock. (Don’t worry, he won’t bully you like the others. In fact he’ll beat ‘em up >:(

Yeah once Bonnie comes back his passion for pranks gets even worse.

A big prankster. Bonnie is his main target.

Flirty. And he’s not good at it.

When he’s confused or focusing really hard on something his tongue slips out of his snout. You got a picture of it and he threw a HISSY FIT. But he reluctantly let you keep it.

Oh dear Lordy. The way he gets oh so embarrassed when he sees you wearing his glasses…

He’s dragged you into the pools of Gator Golf on countless occasions. But after your initial shock, he likes just floating around in there with you.

He’ll happily teach you to swim and play golf. I mean, he’ll always beat you in golf, but the least he can do is give you a chance.

Y'know how people say Roxy is so sure of herself as a coping mechanism? Yeah Monty is like that except he’s just that confident. He thinks he’s the best, and while he doesn’t show off to the point of Roxy, he does crave praise and often boasts about himself to you, trying to impress you. Especially flexing for you.

MONTGOMERY GATOR STOP GETTING HIGH OFF MONTY MIX!

If he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he’d be Wrath.

🐓Glamrock Chica🍕

CHUBBY CHICA SUPREMACY!

Yes I’m completely aware her attraction is based around Fitness. I feel like part of her job is to teach kids being a bit more chubby than others is a-ok and comforts those who don’t feel confident for that reason.

So yeah if you're chubby she definitely comforts you if you're insecure about it better than anyone else.

She actually has some anxiety. But you generally make it better!

You're gonna have lots of lipstick on your face. She gets all pouty when you wipe it off.

Listen, if a guest is giving you a hard time, she WILL enter Mother Hen mode. 

An absolute pop diva. She’s just swag like that. (Can we bring back swag? No? Oh. Ok :(

While she doesn’t have many songs where she sings, she has an absolutely beautiful voice.

I hope you can handle lots of affection, cause she’s a real affectionate chick!

Watching Soap Operas or Dramas while eating pizza and cuddling you is literally the best thing she’s ever been introduced to.

I hope you’ve got an appetite, cause she makes food that will make you want to gorge yourself! Believe it or not, she will be more than happy to share!

Eating is her coping mechanism, and when she’s very upset and doesn’t want to cook, she resorts to eating garbage. You have to be firm with her about it, but she appreciates you not letting her go to those extremes.

Your personal lil cheerleader. 

Man, she soooooo wishes she could have social media! Too bad the higher ups are such party poopers…

Such a giggly lil thing. 

If she was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, she’d be Gluttony.

🐺Roxanne Wolf🛞

She’s gotten used to praise for the smallest things, and just because she loves you doesn’t mean you're an exception!

Despite that she’s probably taller than you. (Buff Woman make my knees wobble 🫢)

Y’know those tight outfits race car drivers wear? Yeah, imagine Roxy in that.

Despite being the most popular, only behind Freddy, she has so many self esteem issues and doubts in herself. Many nights are spent consoling her as she cries and yells before wearing herself out and finally settling down and letting you hold her, brushing her hair and tail, cleaning any runny mascara and makeup.

Reluctantly lets you put ribbons on her tail. Might even keep them on.

I feel like Roxy doesn’t use that many nicknames. But, she might call you something every once and a while. 

That anxiety of hers means she’s got comfort items, fidget toys, food, drinks, music etc in her room. She’ll add any stuff that helps you, regardless if you have anxiety or not.

Y’know how she compliments herself? Oh good GRIEF I hope you can handle compliments towards you. She CONSTANTLY praises you. But… it’s more so you don’t end up like her. An anxiety-depression ridden MESS. If you're already there though, she’ll help you the best she can. Which luckily, she is the best at!

Whether you be playing racing games, or be in Roxy Raceway, she WILL go all out. Yeah, Rip you. 

Despite what you may think, she’s VERY open and VERY proud about her relationship with you. Carrying you around, your neck covered in bite marks and purple lipstick doesn’t leave much to the imagination…

She obsessively reads fan mail in the evening. Even the… ahem, weirder, mail doesn’t bother her. Well, as much as comments from people during the day do at least.

Just… don’t play Monopoly or UNO with her… or Monty. Or Chica. Yeah, just don’t play with anyone really.

If she was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, she’d be Pride.

☀️Sundrop🖍️

He’s a little hyperactive. Ok I lied he’s the most hyperactive.

So if you're quite a lazy person he’ll just be trying to encourage you to play with him and the kids. He genuinely does not realize if you're tired unless you tell him, or it’s SUPER obvious.

I feel like he strictly follows rules, yes, but he also likes pranks. Nothing that will make you upset, maybe just a lil annoyed.

Let’s you, and other kids, draw on him. Just know if you do, A. You have to clean it off and B. He’s not a still canvas. Will be moving the entire time.

Not really a romantic headcanon, but I feel like he and Chica are real good friends.

Wraps his arms around you several times over to hug you.

He hugs you. A lot.

He obviously loves cartoons.

🌑Moondrop💤

I dunno why people see him as a little feral touch starved gremlin. I see him as a constantly sleepy boi that loves cuddling. I mean, I’m sure he cuddles plenty of kids to sleep every day!

In other ways, SOFT MOONDROP SUPREMACY!!!!

Yes, I am aware of how he acts in SB, but I see that more of a side effect of the Glitchtrap Virus rather than his general personality.

He doesn’t enjoy not having a movable mouth. He wishes he could eat candy before bed…

If they were one of the Seven Deadly Sins, they’d be Sloth. (Moondrop more so, but I can see Sun being Sloth after a long day.)

Sorry Sun and Moon don’t have a lot, I don’t really know what to say about them.

🐰Glamrock Bonnie🎳

An absolute DILF of a bunny with that ever loving Aussie accent.

He generally has that energy where anyone will do anything he says. Intimidating and quite good at manipulation (ONLY for your best interests. And his.) (Inspired by : @theodorevg923, who generally also gives me inspiration for all of this, alongside many other Tumblrs :)

He couldn’t care less about not being in the band anymore. He comes out at night and hangs out with everyone. As far as he’s concerned, the stress is taken off of him and he gets more time teaching kids bowling.

Flirty. He’s really good at it.

Loves himself some P to the D to the A.

If someone tries making fun of you for him giving you those public displays of affection, he will tell them to F out of his bowling alley. In a bit of an… angrier way.

Loooves Ice Cream. His favorite way to relax is to eat Ice Cream and go bowling with you. He pretty much has a sweet tooth in general. The public will never find out though. He’s got too much of a public image.

But… kids melt that image. He’s got a real sweet spot for the little rascals.

Monty definitely had and still has a crush on him.

He calls you Clover. I know I know, how original.

If you put on a bit more of a… ahem, reavealing outfit, he will stutter and blush like a mess before going back to his usual calm and relaxed self.

And if you pet his ears? He will absolutely melt. You usually don’t see Soft Bonnie, so take your chance!

If he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he’d be Lust.

🦊Glamrock Foxy🏴‍☠️

He’s a small grumpy old man. Ok, I’m exaggerating but I see him as the oldest, and shortest, animatronic in the Pizza Plex (Not including general animatronics like S.T.A.F.F. Bots or the Robot Wet Floor Signs. And Chica, who between you and me, doesn’t realize she’s short.) 

But he’s real sweet when he’s not a salty sea dog. 

He’s got worse anger issues than Monty, but he doesn’t show it. You can still tell though. His nose and eye twitch. Don’t call him short either, that will get them WAY worse. 

Oh yeah, the eyepatch isn't just for display. He only has one eye.

Has a taste for alcohol, specifically rum. Obviously, he can’t get drunk, but he’ll drink with ya, if you're of age and he will cut you off at your limit. 

A Bloody Irish Pirate. I will hear nothing else.

He has to rest a lot. Don’t get me wrong, he’s fast, but after he runs or something he has to rest up a little.

Unlike Bonnie, he doesn’t know his place now he’s been shafted from the band. He doesn’t even know why he’s not in the band anymore… but considering you found him pretty much erased from history aside from the odd poster, no recollection of any animatronic even being a fox… he fears the worst.

Yeah you pretty much had to throw a FIT before Fazbear Entertainment fixed Foxy up. An even bigger fit was needed to reintroduce him to the public. An even BIGGER one for him to have his hook during work hours.

Man loves gold and money. He is a pirate.

And if you give him other gifts, he’ll cherish them just as equally. 

He’s very jealous. A lonely pirate needs to keep his greatest treasure after all~

Nicknames : Sailor, Captain (Only when you’ve earned it. And only in private.), Sea Star, Pup

If he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he’d be Greed.

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT TIME TO WORK ON ACTUAL REQUESTS!

[charliemwrites]

Hello, hello! Per ceilidh's request - a Soap x Reader ficlet from the prompt thingy.

#11 "You tricked me."

I was heavily inspired by that tiktok sound (iykyk)

Rating: M CW/TW: brief/vague torture, threat of SA (doesn't happen), manipulation, dark!Soap

Being a medium in the military isn’t that much different from being a medium anywhere else.

The rules are roughly the same. Don’t talk to ghosts in living company. Don’t join idiotic 2am summoning circles. Try to help the ones you can; try not to lose sleep over the ones you can’t.

Oddly, there aren’t as many ghosts on a base as any given suburban house. Depends on the base, of course, but a reassuring number of former-military souls continue to their final rest. Even if their bodies (or parts of it) don’t make it back, tags and a symbolic burial usually suffice.

The 141’s main base only has a handful. A few you’ve already gotten closure for, sent off into the beyond. The others you’re working on, or already know they’re a lost cause. Most of them are even friendly!

There’s a corporal that haunts the mess and laments mashed potatoes. A captain appears in Price’s office occasionally, his residual energy glaring down at reports and rustling at phantom papers. On the range, you sometimes speak to the ghost of a prostitute murdered by some piece of shite back in ye olde times. She doesn’t talk back – can’t with a crushed windpipe – but she smiles when you have the privacy to acknowledge her.

Your favorite, though, is Johnny. He’s a comparatively new spirit, by your estimate. Lots of energy, still coherent. You can’t tell how he died by looking at him, but that’s not unusual. It could have been internal bleeding, or a stroke despite his youth. He won’t tell you his last name despite all your asking, always just laughs.

“Yer no’ gettin’ rid o’ me tha easily!”

He always lays the Scottish accent on in a thick velvet blanket. You want to wrap yourself up in it.

Yes, the rules for being a medium are the same, even on a military base. The main one: don’t get haunted by feelings.

That was never a concern, never even a thought, until Johnny. Until you caught his eye around Price’s shoulder during your introductory tour. He followed you for hours, interjecting little asides that put your selective hearing to the test. Always orbited just close enough to send chills down your spine and goosebumps up your arm.

You confronted him when you’d finally been dismissed back to your barrack, whirling around as he popped his mohawked head through the door. Despite yourself, you made quick friends with him.

He’s an unusual ghost. Doesn’t seem tied to a particular place or thing on base. Isn’t trapped along the same paths he walked in life. He’s always solid or near solid, doesn’t waver at certain times of day. You’re utterly charmed by his unorthodoxy, by his miraculous non-existence. And by the fact that, while he knows your secret – as all spirits do – he seems more intrigued than solicitous.

It's not that you blame other ghosts – the coherent ones – for wanting help. It’s torturous to toe that line, not alive but not at peace. Stuck and dwindling little by little. You can’t imagine what it feels like, but you can sense from some that it’s frightening, and cold. No, you’re not bothered that they ask for help. Or with the ones that are just angry; they have every reason to be.

Johnny, though… he’s special. You don’t feel so alone with him, even if the room looks like it to an outsider.

“Oh, aye, that’s pure dead brilliant. You know they’re sending you to Russia?”

You flick Johnny a glance. He’s leaning over Price’s shoulder, peering at the briefing docket that’s actively being explained. You don’t mind the extra or early info. Saved your ass a couple times before.

Your lack of response ruffles his feathers though. He stalks through the table to Gaz, flicks his pen right off the surface. You snort softly as he curses under his breath and ducks to retrieve it, trying not to interrupt Price. You make eye contact with Johnny, blink and minutely shake your head. He can see the twitching at the corners of your mouth anyway.

He smirks and wades through solid objects back to you. His presence looms behind your shoulder, an uneasy flicker at the edge of your consciousness. Like this he seems bigger, inhuman beyond ghostliness. Rougher and darker in the corner of your vision. You’ve done a double-take and gotten teased for skittishness enough times by now to quell the urge to check. It’s always just Johnny.

You’re paired with your lieutenant, Ghost. He’ll be watching with his sniper while you’re on infil. Usually, you’re paired with Gaz, but he and Roach will be at the other end of the compound taking out a target.

When the team is dismissed, Ghost only pauses long enough to give you a nod before skulking off. Not unusual for him; you take no offense. Johnny, however, is scowling something fierce after him.

For whatever reason, he’s never been a fan of your LT. The one time you asked, the lights started flickering and Johnny dismissed the question with a sharp “just don’t like him.”

You suspect that it’s because Ghost was your mentor when you joined the 141. The two of you spent the majority of your time together, training you up to run with the rest of the squad. Due to his constant proximity, your ability to respond to Johnny was greatly hindered.

Still is with how observant Ghost is. Have almost blown your cover several times and had to really watch yourself, and your reactions. You think Johnny might resent him for that.

Back in your barrack, though, Johnny happily chatters while you gear up for the mission. Base gossip and bits of intel he shouldn’t know and shouldn’t tell you. It’s standard ritual for you two; he likes to talk, and you’re accustomed to listening. You hum in the right places, storing tidbits away for your own amusement later.

A playful tug to your bitch-strap makes you yelp, then laugh when you catch Johnny’s grin. He does it again, loosening one of the buckles on your thigh. You swat him uselessly, retightening it only for him to pluck at your bootlaces while you’re occupied. He’s got so much energy, for a ghost. So adept at interacting with the physical world.

“Quit it!” you giggle, trying to dodge his darting hands.

“Why should I?” he chuckles. You curse as he gets a finger in your harness and jerks, misaligning it with the rest of your gear.

“I’ll banish you,” you lie, wriggling various straps back into place.

“Oh, sweet girl, it would take a lot more than you’ve got to get rid of me now.”

It’s an odd turn of phrase for him, but it’s the tone that draws your gaze. There’s an unfamiliar, inky darkness in his voice that pools in the pit of your stomach. You frown, open your mouth to ask what he means. But just like that, his electric smile is back, eyebrows arching as he nods to your bedside clock.

“You’re gonna be late.”

“Shit!” You snatch up your backpack and fling it across your shoulders. “I’m gonna kill you, Johnny!”

“Can’t kill something that isn’t alive,” he cackles as you sweep out the door.

You make it the transport just short of reprimand, though that doesn’t stop Ghost from narrowing his eyes as you duck into your seat. Gaz has already started a lively conversation with Roach, and Price is staying back this time.

You miss Johnny already. He may not be trapped in any particular part of the base, but he can’t come with you on missions or leave. The spaces where he’s absent feel colder and quieter. Everything seems just a bit… off. A song missing an instrument, a rainbow lacking one color.

You’re not sure when that started happening, when Johnny became such a vital part of how you perceive the rest of the world. When did longing for him become a chronic illness?

“Focus up!” Ghost barks in your ear.

You blink, shake your head, and take stock bewildered. Gone is the transport and the rest of your team. It’s just you now, hidden behind a generator, presumably about to infiltrate the target.

How?

When you try to recall, you have vague recollections of exiting the transport. Hiking to the compound. Splitting off with a few parting words amongst the lot of you. It feels watery at the edges, more of a vivid dream than a waking memory.

“Yessir.” It jumps instinctively from your tongue while you flex your cold fingers, trying to coax the nerves back to life.

You take a deep breath – lungs aching like you’ve held your breath too long – and continue with the mission. There’s no room for error now, or idle daydreams of noncorporeal men with wicked smiles.

The building is only three stories and you’re not meant to clear it. Just get to the server room, collect the information, and slip away with minimal enemy contact.

Maybe that’s why you don’t realize that something is wrong at first. You’re supposed to be avoiding guards, so you don’t notice the lack of them. Things do go right, sometimes, the intel can be good.

But it’s the quiet the finally prickles at your awareness. You may be more attuned to the dead, but you have a sense for the living as well. Always made you the worst to play hide and seek with. Now, you can feel that this building is vacant, deprived of any souls.

“LT, something is wrong,” you whisper, frozen mid-step.

“What is it?” he asks.

“It’s too quiet.”

To his credit, he doesn’t dismiss you immediately. “How?”

“I think the building is empty. Have you seen anyone?”

“Negative.” A pause as he considers, maybe scans the other windows for signs of occupation. “Sit tight, I’ll update Price.”

There’s barely a heartbeat before you hear distant gunfire. Too much and too soon for the plan. Roach and Gaz weren’t supposed to neutralize the target until you were collecting intel.

“Fuck,” Ghost snarls. “Get out of there!”

You’re already sprinting for the stairwell. Nearly pop your ankles leaping down, boot treads catching on the edge of steps. No one is chasing you, but your team needs help. Gaz is shouting in your ear, the channels reconnected for ease of communication. The situation is devolving quickly and violently.

“Almost there,” you report.

Your foot hits the last landing before the ground floor when the building explodes.

---

It takes three tries to get your vision focused. There’s not much to see once you do. A concrete room tinted by bare yellow halogen. There’s a drain in the floor just in front of you and old blood dried in the corners. It smells like rust, infection, and despair. Your head pounds; your entire body aches. Being tied to a metal chair doesn’t help the post-explosion soreness.

You’ve been stripped down to your fatigues, no boots. There isn’t a door in any of the three walls you can see, so it must be positioned behind you.

Confirmation comes about a minute later. Three sets of boots entering your little box. Only one of them walks into your line of sight; a mean-looking man with face tattoos and a gold tooth. He asks if you speak Russian, and though you do, you spew a string of English profanities and threats at him. The backhand you get in return says he understood you.

The questions start as soon as he switches to English. They want information; they always do. What you had been sent to collect and why. Who Roach and Gaz were sent for and why. You don’t speak a word. Even when the pain starts, and then doesn’t stop. You lose track of time, the head injury floating you on the edge of consciousness within the first thirty minutes.

Hours – days? – later, the man takes a step back, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“It’s alright,” he tells you, “I like taking my time, and we have plenty. Your friends think you are dead.”

That, you think through the haze, is probably true. You thought you were dead too.

“Perhaps next time we try something… else,” he muses, running a finger down your neck. “You are not as pretty now, but… prettier than you will be later, da?”

Ice forms in the pit of your stomach and climbs up your spine. It was always on the table, you know that, but facing it is something else.

Whatever expression you’re making seems to satisfy him, because he laughs heartily and finally leaves you alone.

Alone, with the promise of his next visit looming.

You squeeze your eyes shut. There’s a dripping sound nearby that you realize, vaguely, is your own blood. Maybe you’ll bleed out before he comes back. You time your breaths with it, using it as a count to get your wild and unsteady heart under control.

Reality washes over you in waves. There is no escape. Your team thinks you’re dead. Eventually, you will break and/or die. You might even become a ghost, join the collective that darkens the edges of this very room, a thing of pain and fear and rage without any coherency or singular will.

You didn’t even give Johnny a proper goodbye.

That somehow hurts the worst. Johnny, hearing second-hand that you’ll never make it back. No one to mourn with him, to offer any comfort. He’ll be alone with grief and then beyond, no one to tell his jokes or stories to.

You miss him more fiercely than you ever have. Part of you is glad he isn’t here. You know him, know he’d be too stubborn to leave you. He’d stay and watch, helpless, as you were tortured and killed. It would tear you apart to do that to him even though it wouldn’t be your own choice.

But… an awful, selfish part of you longs for him. Even just being able to see or hear him would soften the pain and fear. Would make this hell on earth almost bearable. You want to leave this world with Johnny whispering in your ear, maybe even join him when your body finally goes cold.

Given the choice, you would want him here.

You want Johnny. No, you need him. Regret ever leaving him behind, even though he couldn’t come with you. You’d do anything to change that now; anything to be with him again.

Anything?

It’s an unbidden thought, almost intrusive. Doesn’t even feel like yourself asking.

“Anything,” you whisper aloud, just to hear something other than your own despair. “Johnny…”

“You called?”

You jolt, head snapping up so fast it makes you dizzy. The world spins but he’s there, right there, crouching in front of you, arms balanced on his knees.

“Johnny?” you whisper.

Were you closer to the brink than you thought? Is this some sort of final hallucination as you slip into death?

“In the flesh.” He tilts his head, snorts. “Well, in a manner.”

“How…?” you ask, eyes already stinging.

“Told ya, you called. I’d never – hey, now, hey. No need for all that,” he soothes. He wipes the tears from your face. You can feel the warmth in his fingers. “This is a happy occasion.”

You huff in watery amusement, shaking your head. “Did you lose your glasses when you died? I wouldn’t call this celebration-worthy.”

His eyes scan over you, flicker dark. “It will be, don’t you worry.”

You blink, try to focus. Exhaustion and injury and chemical rush are making it difficult, but you know things are off. He shouldn’t be here, least of all because you called. And… something else too. Something in the way he’s holding his shoulders and the twitching around his expression. 

“Johnny, really,” you say, “why are you here?”

“You offered me anything, and I’m here to collect.”

Between one blink and the next, his eyes are black. Pitch black, from corner to corner. You suck in a breath, try to jerk back but there’s nowhere to go.

His grin is sharp enough to cut yourself on.

“I’ve been waiting for that,” he sighs.

He leans in, lips parting. His tongue rolls out, long and split at the tip. Licks a luxurious, burning trail from your chin to your temple. You make a sound borne of confused pleasure and fear, high in the back of your throat.

He shushes you, plants a slow kiss at the corner of your mouth. “My brave little lass, finally offering herself to the demon she’s been courting.”

The word bounces against the walls of your cell and burrows into your brain. Demon, demon, demon.

Johnny is…

“You tricked me,” you sob.

He cocks his head, onyx eyes soft with avarice. “Tricked you? No, angel, I’m saving you.”

His hands pet over the cruel ties around your ankles. The itch of them digging into your skin falls away. Gentle thumbs rub circles over the imprints the left behind. Hope and relief pounds hard in your chest.

“I’m only taking what you so willingly and enthusiastically offered,” he explains in hushed awe. Like you’ve given him such a wonderful gift, the greatest gift. Suppose you have.

“I’m going to take such good care of you,” he croons. His arms wrap around you, almost like a hug. His fingertips trace down your bruised arms to the cuffs biting your wrists. Those too fall away, and you find yourself reaching for him so quickly, folding into his chest, free of that wretched chair.

“There’s my girl,” he murmurs, a hand curling into blood and sweat soaked tangles.

“It… it is you, right?” you ask. “You’re my Johnny?”

“Always, angel,” he replies, “it’s always been me. I will always be yours. All you have to do is say yes.”

You tilt your head back, catch the wicked curve of fangs as he speaks. He smells like heat and woodsmoke.

“Yes to what?” you ask.

“To everything,” he answers, deep and rough. “You offered anything, and I want all of you.”

You should say no, you should throw yourself away from him.

There is not an inch of your mind or body that wants to leave the safety of his arms. This is Johnny, your Johnny, hellfire and all.

“And… in return,” you venture, “I get… you?”

“Eternally.”

Then it really doesn’t need much more thought.

“Yes. Please.”

“Good girl.”

[keegansgf]

“modern! mizu hcs”

Okay finally becoming a BES writer after I convinced myself Mizu would sooooooo be a bassist. This is a combo of modern Mizu relationship hcs and band+uni hcs :3 warning, I hardly edited this because I'm tired. Also I WILL be taking Mizu requests

pairing: mizu x fem! reader

tags: domestic bliss…?, modern! au, bassist mizu, band! au, other characters mentioned 🗣️

Mizu is oddly good at home decorating? It’s not a hobby or interest of hers, in fact, she thinks her room is quite plain, but the cohesive colors and pretty decent-looking fake plants say otherwise. (She would love to buy real plants, but she frequently gets swept up with time to care for them properly.)

A lot of your apartment is decorated by her, but in the sense that you asked her if an item would work with house and she either liked or disliked it. She wouldn’t have really cared about shopping for home decor if not for you.

Mizu gets so upset when it’s hot out since she can’t go a day without wearing layers. The apartment (or her room at least) is cold 24/7 whether you like it or not

She tries to go grocery shopping with you as often as possible despite her lack of cooking abilities. Her memory is perfect, so you rarely ever need to make a grocery list! Plus, she likes doing simple things with you. Her childhood was chaotic, so the normalcy of shopping with someone she loves puts her at peace.

She survives off of snacks; it’s a terrible habit of hers, and she knows. It gets worse when either you’re not at home to cook, or she’s out somewhere else. Normally, she walks into the kitchen when she smells food or when you call for her, but she’ll completely forget to eat a real meal otherwise.

Though Mizu rarely (if not ever) has guests over, she makes sure your space and things are respected. If you’re out and your room door is open, she’ll close it. Any special glassware that you bought for personal use, like mugs? Nobody is allowed to touch them.

She’s gotten mad at Taigen for messing with your stuff before.

She isn’t much of a clean freak, but she’d prefer to have things kept orderly as often as possible. She enjoys splitting the chores with you, especially seasonal cleaning.

She’s extremely mindful of personal space. Even if she thinks you look adorable napping on the couch, the most she’ll do is kiss your face and fix your blanket. She’d love to join, really, but she’s afraid of waking you or making you uncomfortable. The last thing she wants to do is disrespect you.

She’s extremely touch-starved but doesn’t know how to make physical contact with you at first. She opened up when you first got together and started asking her for hugs, etc. Now, she loves the smallest of purposeful, or accidental touches, whether it’s brushing up against her, or her hand resting at your hip or waist while you’re out together.

Though you have separate rooms, you’ll sleep together on most nights (usually in your room– she finds your bed more comfortable, plus your room smells like you!)

The only time she heavily insists on staying in your rooms is if one of you gets sick, no exceptions. She hardly ever falls ill, but she’d rather not risk it. That doesn’t stop her from taking care of you, even if the only hot meal she can prepare is upgraded instant noodles or an easy, fool proof soup.

She has a horrible habit of making confining rules for herself, even if she’s on track with certain goals. You have to put hard work into easing her up to let her realize she has a lot more freedom than she thinks she has.

She doesn’t mind dates that you go out for, but she loves cute little dates at home. She doesn’t dislike showing you off, she just appreciates the private intimacy between you two. Even if she isn’t a great cook, she’s happy to help you measure or chop things while you talk.

Speaking of, acts of service is a huge love language of hers. If she can’t do something well, she’ll compensate for with something else that she’s better at to make your life easier.

"Band + Uni Hcs"

Mizu has a habit of not making herself visible on stage. It’s not completely intentional, but her usual spot on stage has harsher lights and this carries over to every single venue. The constant squinting was giving her headaches.

Following up with that, she’s so light-sensitive. It takes a good minute or two for her to adjust from a dark room to bright lights. At some point, she considered getting darker-tinted glasses but keeps putting it on the back burner.

She doesn’t dislike showing you off on stage, but she’d rather not be all the talk at school when it comes to your relationship. This doesn’t mean she lets your relationship go unnoticed though– she makes it very clear she’s taken and doesn’t participate in flirty behavior with any of the audience

Taigen however

The only reason she’s the band's bassist is because nobody else knows how to play. Taigen could play in theory, but he didn’t want to, plus, he thought bass was too easy.

He says that and can’t write a bassline like Mizu. He does write insane guitar solos though, and he can definitely make up something on the spot under pressure. That's actually how a couple of his solos were made.

Ringo is so good at budgeting that it’s genuinely impressive, but he’s not thrilled at how much of that budget cuts out good quality food to keep up with his uni payments. Luckily, Akemi made sure to let him know he was free to experiment with cooking at hers anytime! He's the only one with a spare key to her house. (more on that later)

Akemi knows how to play so many instruments, but none of which are typical band instruments. Her house has a pretty extensive collection of instruments, just no drums or electric string instruments aside from an electric harp. Her father didn’t really monitor her hobbies in her own house, so she played around with whatever piqued her interest first. She had been playing piano and koto since she was young, so she’s automatically the keyboardist (and vocalist,) but she pulls out an odd instrument here and there during a show for fun.

Taigen does have a podcast. The equipment was bought by Akemi with the hopes that he’d have a new hobby, but… sigh.

Ringo is an insanely good drummer, but he couldn't care less about having a music career. He agreed to join because all his friends were in a band– plus, they needed a drummer. Turns out, he’s a natural!

Mizu knows how to play drums too, and she’s great at it, but Ringo unintentionally disses her sometimes on her technique. He’s definitely said something like “Oh, wouldn’t it be easier to…?” She doesn't care much since she knows he means well. That does NOT stop her from continuing to catch accidental strays from him

Taigen and Akemi sort of live together? Akemi’s dad is a little sour about him not returning her home on time. That got his house key privileges revoked for three months. He’s welcome to stay by Akemi’s word, but she doesn’t keep a spare key for him, so he’ll have to be let in by her. Occasionally, he'll ask Ringo to let him in if he happens to be over to cook or practice at a different location, but if Akemis dad catches them, they're both getting an earful. That hasn't happened yet, luckily

Akemi has a couple of songs with a crazy keyboard solo that she has never in her life messed up. She worked through blood sweat and tears to perfect every solo she's written and has her muscle memory down.

Taigen is actually a really good guitarist, but he does make a fair amount of mistakes that he gets dogged on for– most mistakes being dropping his pick. He doesn’t really mess up chords, but a lot of their fans are waiting for that day to come (it'll never happen honestly)

Mizu could and does definitely show off on stage sometimes, but she won’t be pushed into doing a solo for the life of her.

Nobody can touch Mizus instruments except for you and Ringo (he’s a great bass and guitar tech somehow– he just has a lot of specific things he can pick up.)

Mizu, Taigen, and Akemi do separate gigs. Mizu does a little bit of everything– a lot of the bands she plays for are usually gothic rock or metal.

Ringo makes sure Mizu’s basslines can be heard with the drums while Taigen has a running joke of playing too loudly over her basslines during practice. Mizu isn't thrilled, to say the least.

Akemi gets extremely frustrated whenever she has mic problems. Honestly, she wouldn't mind a keyboard problem, but a mic problem is too much

Mizu’s bass wasn’t decorated until you came around– She wants something that reminds her of you on her instrument, so she had you make stickers of your lipstick print to slap on the body of her bass.

By no means are they a large band– they definitely are a local uni band that probably would get popular eventually, but nobody really cared enough about their popularity enough outside of their other hobbies

Speaking of, both Taigen and Mizu do Kendo

Akemi is a top-tier lyricist– she puts her interest in poetry to work ^_^

Taigen has an insanely expensive pedalboard along with a collection of pedals (From Akemis money)

Every day, Akemi considers using a keytar, but the music shops nearby don’t carry good quality keytars and she gets so upset when they aren’t comfortable enough to play.

Taigen has a set practicing schedule on his own, but he often gets held up with classwork. He also has a set sleep schedule but sometimes takes time out of rest to catch up with practice.

Eji tries to come to their shows, but he isn’t much of a fan of the noise level when it comes to live music. He doesn’t understand Mizu’s more alternative gigs, but he’s happy she’s able to get around. He used to lecture Mizu for not wearing earplugs to her shows when she first started performing.

Taigen and Akemi have their own shoegaze duet act together outside of the band– they're getting quite popular from that!

Mizu has written a few songs herself for fun after Akemi texted the group chat about a delay on lyrics due to writers block. She actually finished up recording those songs herself after you found her notes, and urged her to actually make and post those as songs.

[i-trash-about-things]

Eddie's shitty sense of humor strikes again.

A random blurb that came to me after reading some headcannons about Eddie's childish sense of humor

777 words (nice). Suggestive but nothing happens. Reader has hair long enough to tug. GN!Reader and Ed are best friends. Swear word count: 4. English is not my first language! Sorry if something doesn't make sense and feel free to correct me! (Repost because Tumblr flunked the last time I tried posting this)

If you wanna be Eddie Munson’s friend, you’ve gotta learn a few rules. Handle his guitar with care, or else he’ll bash it in the side of your head. If W.A.S.P. is on, you do not skip a single song.

You know all of these, better than anyone with you being his best friend. His partner in crime, the one that always gets him out of trouble– or gets into trouble with him.

But there’s one rule you know better than all of the rest.

Eddie is nothing if not a damn clown.

Loud, potentially annoying, and will crack a joke like he can’t hold it back. Be it an awkward one liner at a funeral, a sarcastic remark in the middle of class or a genuine good joke in the middle of a campaign– His mouth is moving faster than his brain, and all that leaves his lips is absolute tomfoolery.

You know it, your friends know it, all of Hawkins knows it.

And an example of this behavior is that fact he can’t see any one of his friends bending down to fetch whatever fell without pretending to hump against their ass, groaning and moaning so exaggerated you never know if you wanna laugh or cringe.

Shameless.

It is kinda funny when Gareth gets all pissy afterwards, tho.

But, even though you and Eds have been friends for the good part of 4 years now– he never did this to you. Not because he didn’t want to or because it’d be weird, but because he just never had the chance.

You, differently from most people, doesn’t tend to bend down to reach something. You just crouch. Or kneel, when the moment calls for it.

It’s just something you’ve been doing since forever, so you’re more used to it. Mindless, instinct, really.

But the past few weeks, you think Eddie’s been trying to get you to bend down– like he wants to get a completion prize for humping everyone in the Hellfire Club (with the exception of the sheepies, duh). He drops his pick mid practice, asks for you to grab a figurine stacked on the box near the foot of his bed– anything, just to get you to bend over.

So far? No such luck.

But Eddie isn’t anything if not committed to the bit. So, one day, the opportunity shows itself for him and he takes it.

It wasn’t even on purpose, really. He was just getting ready to go out, both of you gathering your coats by the front door of his trailer so you wouldn’t freeze your butts off–

“Oh, hey– wait.” Your hand leaves the sleeve of your hoodie, instead reaching for him to stop moving. Your face is down, eyes on the floor, and he raises an eyebrow. “I think there’s something stuck to your shoe. Hol’ up.”

And before he has the chance to freak out in worry if it’s a spider– you’re kneeling between his feet, tugging on whatever it is stuck to his sneakers.

And, like a match dropped into gasoline, he sees his chance and goes for it.

You don’t have the chance to raise your face before you feel familiar fingers tangling into the front of your hairline, tugging your head up roughly– and Eddie let’s out an exaggerated, throaty groan, half-heartedly moving his hips that are eye level to you.

“Mmph! Oh, fuck yeah, sweetheart, just like that!” He cackles, biting his lip and tilting his head back for that extra effect… But pauses when he doesn’t hear you laughing or groaning in annoyance at his shenanigans.

So he looks back down… And something about the smirk on your face makes his heart skip a beat.

Despite the crude and sexual joke, you don’t look embarrassed in the slightest– much less uncomfortable, which was Eddie’s original fear. No… No, you look amused.

Smug.

There’s something about the way your eyes are halflided, full of mirth as you look up at him from your spot by the floor. The shit eating tilt to your smirk has a shiver running down his spine, and his grip on your hair instinctively loosens. Amused, confident even– even while literally kneeling by his feet.

Jesus H. Christ.

“You’re a dumb ass, Munson, you know that?” You say, the slight tilt to your words hinting at an affectionate tone that has him swallowing the dryness on the back of his throat. He almost doesn’t hear you over the sound of the blood rushing from his head down south.

“I live to entertain.” He hears himself say, and for once he thanks the fact his mouth moves faster than his brain.

[motivationisdead]

The fact that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were both raised in such stifling environments but in vastly different ways and how that influenced them is so interesting to me.

Wei Wuxian was raised in an environment where he was punished (verbally or physically) at will, with no rhyme or reason, and only ever him being the one singled out. In a sense there really weren’t any rules at Lotus Pier because rules would imply a structure and more than one person being held to the same standard. Which there wasn’t.

So, rather unsurprisingly, if you dish out punishment at random it eventually loses meaning and all sense of consequence. And even more unsurprisingly what Wei Wuxian learns from this is that if punishment is unavoidable either way then why not at least earn it?

And it’s pretty obvious he takes this mindset with him to the Cloud Recesses:

Wei WuXian spoke, “No matter how I answered it, he [Lan Qiren] wouldn’t like me, so I might as well just say what I wanted to say. Anyways, I didn’t try to offend him. I was just answering properly.”

- Chapter 14 of the EXR Translation

Keep in mind that it’s not that Wei Wuxian can’t recognize when there will be consequences for his actions but rather that he’s learned there will be consequences no matter what, and in that case he might as well just be himself.

Lan Wangji, meanwhile, was raised in nearly the opposite environment where there were precise rules (3,000 of them to be exact) and an exacting structure to follow. At any given time Lan Wangji knew exactly when something would get him in trouble and what the consequences would be for it.

And so Lan Wangji learns not blind obedience but rather how to identify when a rule is worth breaking and suffering consequences for. It’s not about avoiding punishment for him but rather if something is still worth doing despite the punishment.

Lan Wangji does respect the Lan Sect’s rules and makes an effort to uphold himself to them—but he also doesn’t believe they are infallible. It’s why he rescues Wei Wuxian after Nightless City and fights his sect’s seniors, but it’s also why he returns to the Lan Sect to accept his punishment. It’s why as a child he still goes to his mother’s house despite being told not to. Because for him these people are worth any punishment he could receive.

So yeah, lol, it’s no wonder Lan Wangji at fifteen is so bothered when this disciple frivolously breaks the rules at will for something like alcohol, and it’s no wonder Wei Wuxian doesn’t put much stock in the Lan Sect’s rules and punishments when before such things have held as much substance as water for him.

But I like that they’ve managed to find a balance between them after all these years. :)

[mangoisms]

circle k (back to you)

summary: in which you're just the graveyard shift employee at circle k bombarded by vigilantes.

━ chapter three: this doesn’t feel right | read chapter two

━ pairing: tim drake x f!reader

━ word count: 6.6k

━ warnings: robbery, gun gets pulled but nothing happens, brief mention of blood, basically canon-typical violence

━ masterlist

━ a/n: decided to include the last minute scene i wrote between tim and steph, specifically the one at the very end. fair warning, we shift to steph’s pov! also my first time writing for a canon chatacter so be gentle <3

“How’ve things been?”

“Like you don’t know.”

Red Robin, you think, sure has the gall to look as smug as he does right now.

After all, it’s not as if he had a point to prove to you. You very specifically told him he didn’t and that you didn’t care what he did regardless of whether he took your advice or not. 

Despite the look on his face, he manages to say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” you say, a little bit more accusingly than you mean to, following him as he ventures to the candy aisle. 

“Alright,” he concedes, not looking at you as he bends forward to peer at the display of gummy candy. “But just so you know, it ended up taking a life of its own. You’ve made a solid impression so far.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. The list of places we can visit like this without having the cops called or worse is very short.”

“But that perception works.”

“Well, sometimes it’s less about fear and more about plain disapproval. Which also does its own job but… tiring, sometimes.”

That… makes sense. The Flash can walk down the street in Keystone and Central without anyone getting all up in arms about it. These guys can’t. 

“But it’s necessary, no?” Just curiosity. Not agreeing, exactly. 

Red Robin takes two packs of sour gummy worms and straightens, turning away from you to head to the refrigerators at the back. “Doesn’t change the fact that we can find it a little bit tiring. Makes you wonder if you can strike a balance, but in the end, it’s nothing more than an ideal. Fear rules best.”

“I’m sure.”

“Civilian, remember?”

“Yeah, well, this civilian gets to pass judgment since I’m a citizen of this city just like you guys are.” 

Seems like they forget that sometimes. Or Batman does. You’ve heard whispers of metas who found out they had powers and attempted to use them for good. Only to be sharply turned away by Batman. 

There is something to be said about ensuring not just anybody goes out and does what they do, lest they get themselves and others killed, but the impression you’ve gotten is that he doesn’t allow metas in the city. No matter their experience or skill level. The only exception to the rule, so far, is Signal. 

You don’t know. When you were younger, they seemed cool. As you got older, that changed. How could you trust them? How could anyone know if they were trying to do good or if they were just enacting their own convoluted brand of justice? Red Hood’s existence several years ago proved that to you and all the others. 

Even if he was trying to set himself apart from Batman or whatever, the fact remains that everyone in East End, in Park Row, in the Narrows, in the Bowery, feared that they might be next. Didn’t matter if you were innocent or not because one’s definition of innocent differed sharply from his—from theirs. And when you were desperate like most people there were, that changed everything, too. 

Sure, the GCPD is corrupt and so is the justice system and the government and practically every institution in this city, in this country, but… you just don’t know. 

So, maybe he does have a point to prove to you.

Maybe they all do. 

“Well, look,” he starts, surprising you as he turns with two bottles of Zesti in hand. “If you want us to stop coming around, we will. No harm done.”

Fine.

Fine.

Maybe you’ll regret the decision but… it does make them all the more tangible to you. 

“It’s fine. Keep coming around. Might discourage anyone from trying their luck and it keeps my shifts interesting.”

“And it’s all about you, is it?”

“If not, find another Circle K to haunt.”

He laughs. The sound is familiar but nice, in a way. Comforting almost. It’s then you shake your head and turn away sharply, trying to push the feeling away.

There’s that, too. Maybe if you can keep Red Robin coming around long enough, you’ll figure out what exactly it is about him that bothers you, that niggles at you.

It should help take your mind off things. Like your growing concern about Tim’s lack of contact with you. You and Steph have hung out twice since she came back and both times he said he was busy. It shouldn’t be something that bothers you, but the fact that your attempt a few days ago to hang out with him alone for ice cream was also shot down with that same excuse. And of course, his sparse replies to your texts.

But he did reply eventually. Just some agreement about what you said about Signal. Didn’t exactly carry the conversation much further but at least he replied, right? Same goes for the shared group chat between you, him, and Steph.

You haven’t spoken to her about it, either, but you don’t want to.

It’s—complicated.

That’s just what your life feels like these days.

Complicated.

Red Robin keeps coming around.

The others come around, too. You don’t see much of Signal working the night shift but you do see Black Bat again. Even Spoiler, though she keeps her distance for a reason you can’t understand. Not to say she is mean or anything. She just waves at you but she never says much else. You’ll hear her and Black Bat talking quietly, though the words themselves are lost on you no matter how hard you strain your ears.

You keep worrying about Tim, of course, and hanging out with Steph, who squeezes in time to see you in between her internship with social services. 

For a while, things are calm. The vigilantes who pop up grow increasingly familiar and any wariness evaporates. 

Then you get a new face.

The guy walking around the store in the oversized grey hoodie is doing a bad job at robbing you, you think.

Well, he hasn’t actually robbed you. But his hand stays in the pocket of his hoodie, clearly grasping something as he makes a couple circuits around the store. Either scoping it out to see if there is anyone else to worry about or trying to work himself up to it. You think it’s the latter, with how nervous and sweaty he looks. 

Mostly, it’s for your own nerves to think that. 

It’s been a hot minute since the store was robbed and you were held at gunpoint (or knifepoint). You aren’t explicitly allowed to trigger the silent alarm until either of those things make an appearance, so even with the bad feeling in your gut, you can’t yet do anything. 

You are close, though. So very close. 

But you don’t have to wait any longer as he rounds the corner and pulls out the gun. 

Oh, great.

Before he can say anything, before you can say or do something, the door swings open.

When you both look, there is nothing there.

You wince at the rush of hot smelly air from the outside.

“Who—who’s there?!” he yells, then swings the gun back to you. “What did you do?!”

“I didn’t do anything—”

The arrow comes out of nowhere. 

One blink and it’s embedded in his hand, the same hand holding—previously holding—the gun. You flinch as the weapon clatters sharply to the ground, your stomach churning at the sight of the arrow embedded in his hand, blood dripping; he yells in pain, dropping to his knees. 

Then comes the owner of the arrow.

Dressed in black and dark shades of purple, the Huntress is a sight to behold. Her boots are soundless on the tiles. She looks… bored as she talks to someone. Some kind of comm, you guess. 

“Yeah, I know, I’m on my way back, I’m picking up coffee. From the—yeah. So he’s gotten to you, too? Figures. What’s the sound—? Oh, just some idiot trying to rob the store. Yeah, go ahead and call the cops.”

You stare, heart beating so quickly you feel a little dizzy, as she knocks the guy out, leaving him to slump on the ground. She kicks the gun further away from him for good measure.

Finally, she looks at you. 

The Huntress, a figure you’ve only seen in the newspaper or articles online, mostly grainy pictures, is very pretty up close. Shoulder-length dark hair, olive skin, lips painted a deep, pretty shade of purple, and sharp blue eyes, easily revealed through her mask. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, watching you carefully.

“Y-Yeah,” you stammer. “Thank you.”

A slight shrug. “All in a day’s work. Coffee?”

“Um. Over there.”

“Thanks.” 

You watch, befuddled, as the Huntress steps over the body of the now-unconscious robber and strides to the coffee machine, entirely unbothered as she grabs three cups. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know how you take your coffee, O. Give me some credit. Is Cat coming by? No? Alright, just you and BC, then.” 

As the machine sputters out coffee, she comes back over to you. “Do you have any drink carriers?”

“Yeah, they’re over there.”

You point them out, on the other side of the Slurpee machine, and she nods her thanks, grabbing one. 

She returns to the counter a couple minutes later. 

“So, um,” you start, clearing your throat. “Is there anything in particular I should say to the police about this?”

She tilts her head, confused for a moment, before realizing what you mean.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. You can say it was me. They’ll want to see the footage, too. Let them.” She pauses, giving you an appraising look. “Is there anyone you would like me to call?”

“Call?” you ask, confused as you ring up the coffees.

She fiddles with a pouch in her utility belt without taking her eyes off you, pulling out a ten dollar bill.

“Red Robin?”

“Red—no. No, I don’t think… I’m fine, I mean.” 

Huntress nods and lets it go, accepting her change. 

“The cops’ll be here in a few,” she says. “I’ll be around until then, so don’t worry.”

 “Thank you, again.”

She gives you the smallest of smiles. “Like I said. All in a day’s—night’s—work.”

You watch her go, one part of you not wanting her to leave, but the other assuaged by her promise to hang around and make sure nothing and nobody bothers you again.

The police arrive a little while after that. By the arrow in the man’s hand, they already know who saved you, but they still demand to see the footage.

“So, it was the Huntress?”

“Yes.”

“Has she ever come by?” 

“No.”

“Have you ever interacted with her anywhere else?”

You pause, barely stopping yourself from narrowing your eyes, because you do not like the accusatory tone this cop is giving you. What did he say his name was? Bullock or something. 

You send a silent apology to Sandra Bullock for having to share her last name with this idiot.

“Well?” he asks, burning cigarette hanging from his lips, arms crossed. The smell of tobacco is nauseating this close. What’s worse is you’re outside while the other guys handle things inside. Even at one in the morning, the heat edges on unbearable and the humidity is even worse, making your skin tacky with it. 

“No,” you say, a tiny bit exasperated. “I have never interacted with her before this. Why would I want to?”

“You were talking to her.”

“She was talking to me. Asked me if I was okay.” 

Unlike any of these assholes who blew in here, sirens wailing, and made you put your hands up as they came in, guns brandished, even though the guy was obviously down for the count. Honestly, they scare you more than the shooter. At least in that moment. These guys can be real trigger-happy.

Now, they’re just a pain in your ass.

You need a Slurpee, you think. No, deserve one. For your troubles.

“It’s cut-and-dry, Harv,” the other detective, Montoya, puts in, having stepped away. She sends you a sympathetic look that just annoys you even more. “Got some calls from a few other convenience stores for suspicious activity. They saw this guy, too, but he always left before doing anything. Guess he finally worked up the nerve to do it here but it didn’t work out well in his favor.”

Bullock grunts. “You run her ID?”

Oh, for the love of—

“She’s clear. We’re good.”

Behind you, two EMTs haul the still-unconscious robber out and into the ambulance, which promptly leaves; a cop with gloves on steps out, the gun in a baggie. 

Montoya asks you a few more questions, obviously trying to make up for Bullock’s brusque manner of speaking, but it’s a futile effort. You still cooperate, however, as politely as you can with the annoyance still burning inside you and this damnable heat. 

Eventually, they leave, called away to some other incident, cars peeling away from the curb, blue-and-red lights flashing, sirens wailing. 

You watch them go, allowing your scowl to come out full-force, your arms crossed tightly over your chest.

“Bullock’s always like that. It’s not personal.”

“Jesus,” you hiss, heart pounding as you whirl around; it takes a moment for your eyes to pick out Red Robin leaned against the brick apartment building next to the store, his figure mostly cloaked in shadows.

He steps into the light. Despite the nonchalant tone of his previous words, he looks, dare you say, worried.

“Just coming around?”

“No. I heard what happened. Wanted to come and see how you were.”

“Annoyed. And hot. And tired. Come on, let’s go inside. The AC isn’t that great but it’s better than this.”

Red Robin follows you in. You click your tongue upon finding the blood from the guy’s hand still on the tile. So, now you have to clean that, too, on top of the paperwork you have to fill out for the incident. Great.

You jump at the nudge of a knuckle between your shoulder blades. “What—”

“I can clean it up.”

“No, that’s—”

“Let me do it. I have more experience cleaning blood than you.”

“Charming,” you mutter. “But alright, fine. Thanks.”

“Cleaning supplies?”

“First aisle.”

A nod and he turns, cape fluttering behind him.

You rub your forehead, feeling a headache start to form, and continue for the Slurpee machine at the other end of the store. 

A few minutes later, Red Robin joins you, wiping his gloved hands with what looks and smells to be antiseptic pads. 

“Good as new,” he tells you, reaching for a Slurpee cup, too, as you sip at yours. “Like nothing ever happened.”

You sigh. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

“So,” he starts, holding the cup beneath the tube for… the Zesti Cola flavor? What a complete weirdo. 

“Are you—” he stops when he looks at you. “You’re judging me.”

“Who comes in to get a Cola-flavored Slurpee? That’s weird. You might as well just get a bottle of it.”

“Woah. It’s so not the same thing. If there was a drink form of, what do you get? Blue raspberry? Yeah. If there was a drink form of that, would you do that instead? A Slurpee is about the consistency. The slushy factor.”

Okay, that’s fair, but something about everything he just said makes you laugh. Hard.

Maybe the heat is getting to you. Maybe it’s the hysteria setting in. Maybe it’s Red Robin passionately defending his choice in Slurpee flavor and saying shit like ‘The slushy factor’ with a straight face. You don’t know. 

“You’re finally losing it, aren’t you?” Despite his words, Red Robin looks almost relieved. He really was worried, you surmise, which is a… touching thought.

You quell your giggles, shaking your head; though the laughter was nice, your head is really pounding now.

“Here,” he says, digging through a pouch at his utility belt, pulling out a mini packet of… huh. Tylenol.

“Tampered?” you ask, taking it from him, anyway.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already.”

“Again. Charming.” But it still doesn’t change the thoughtfulness of the action; he doesn’t have to. If anything, this stuff is probably best kept for him. Though with their proclivity for putting their lives in danger, you don’t imagine Tylenol would be particularly helpful against gunshot wounds, but still…

“Thanks,” you say, a little quieter now, more meaning in your voice as you tear it open and shake out two pills.

Red Robin shakes his head. “It’s the least I can do.”

You can tell he means it. Which is, again, both touching and maybe a little bit confusing, too.

But trying to decipher why he does what he does is a futile effort.

This is, after all, the same guy who dresses up and goes out fighting the worst of the worst night after night.

Best not to look too closely. Who knows what you might find.

Despite your best efforts, Steph finds out about what happened. Something about the newspaper, which is odd, because you don’t recall seeing the news there—honestly, much more crazy shit happens overnight in Gotham. Robberies are old news.

But either way, you can’t complain too much because you are appreciative of her coddling the next day, which includes, but is not limited to, ordering takeout, burrowing on your crappy couch together, and watching old 2000s movies.

The only thing missing is—

“He said he was busy but he sent me the money for takeout. To make up for it.”

You purse your lips but don’t say anything. That you don’t want his money. You just want—

Nothing.

“We don’t need him,” Steph says determinedly in the next second. Which is a departure from what she usually says—that you’ll see Tim eventually, that his work at WE will let up. You don’t have the energy to ponder why.

You sigh, sinking further into the couch. Steph is warm next to you. You can smell her shampoo. Jasmine.

“I guess not,” you concede in a mumble.

You can’t do anything but concede. After all, it’s your initial avoidance of him at the start of June that caused this, right? And he keeps dodging your calls, your requests to hang out—points in which you might’ve been able to clear the air, apologize for it, but… no.

It’s not like you could track him down. You know the apartments he lives in—down in Old Gotham, in a much more expensive building than your shitty one here in Coventry. But sometimes he spends time at the manor, too, up in Bristol and you can’t ambush him there. You couldn’t. That would be too much. Right?

Trying to find him at WE is a lost cause, too. Not just because they have three given locations throughout the city but because you wouldn’t know if he was in or not.

Or maybe you’re just looking for the easy way out.

Complicated.

Why does it have to be so complicated?

“You look tired.”

“Thank you, Red, because that’s what every girl loves to hear.”

“Just a simple observation,” he responds, leaning against the counter, eating a kolach. Your Slurpee cups sweat in the mid-June heat, creating rings of condensation on the scuffed and scratched counter. You watch a droplet slowly roll down, joining the ring of water.

Your eyelids are heavy, dragging with each blink. A dull headache reminds you of your restless sleep and you’re sure the bags under your eyes tell it to the world, too. To Red Robin, specifically.

He finishes his kolach, crumpling the wrapper in one hand, looking steadily at you all the while.

“What?”

“Is it because of what happened last week?” he asks and his voice is frightfully gentle in a way you are not emotionally prepared to deal with.

“No,” you say quickly. “It’s not that.”

The occasional nightmare bothers you but that’s normal. You can deal with that.

“Then?”

You shake your head. God, you are exhausted. You fold your arms on the counter and bury your face there.

It’s quiet for a minute.

The refrigerators hum at the back. The AC makes an odd clanging noise before it turns on. Somewhere outside, a dog barks.

“I’m a good listener,” Red hedges after a minute. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“It’s stupid,” you say, voice muffled.

“Why?”

“Because it’s, like, stupid twenty-year-old drama and not, I dunno, the latest rumors on drug trades.”

Red laughs. It’s a pleasant sound that makes something inside you unwind.

“You should be relieved to hear I am up to date on the latest rumors on drug trades. And also, believe it or not, I do like to talk about things other than crime.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

A soft chuckle. It sounds almost affectionate.

“Come on. Whatever it is, it’s making you lose sleep. That’s not good.”

“Losing some sleep isn’t the end of the world.”

“I don’t know. Feels like it might be for you.”

You grunt, an old memory from Keystone niggling at you. You set it aside for the moment.

“It’s nothing,” you say eventually. “It’s just—nothing.”

“I don’t think it’s nothing,” he remarks. “But if you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s cool, too. If you ever do—”

“Dr. Red, to the rescue.”

He laughs. “Well, I’m not a licensed therapist and I can’t promise my advice is sound, either, so…”

“Don’t sue you?”

“Like you even could. But still, I’m here.”

You want to ask why but that might be too much for you right now.

You let yourself settle with some generic explanation, that he is obligated to ask that as a vigilante, as someone who is generally supposed to be concerned with the wellbeing of the citizens of this city. And also he is trying to prove some kind of point, so this is part of that. 

“So,” you quickly say to change the topic. “What are the latest rumors on the drug trade?”

He laughs. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You look tired.”

“Thank you, Flash, that’s exactly what I’d like to hear.”

 “Just a simple observation,” he says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

“Well, rest assured, I have Tim and Steph on my case about it. They’ve both demanded a video call with me tomorrow despite me telling them I am alive and well. Apparently, just saying I’m alive isn’t reassuring. Can’t imagine why. That’s more than enough in Gotham…”

Mother hens, the both of them.

And Flash, too, apparently, though he does a better job of covering it up.

Off near the coffee machine, a melodic hum of Dancing in the Dark, the song currently playing lowly overhead, reaches you. You tune into it, the sound lulling you, both because it’s pleasant and because the song makes you think of Tim and his love for Bruce Springsteen (largely in honor of his late father, Jack Drake). Because of that, you totally miss Flash’s next words.

“—here? Oh, Jesus, Piper! Stop humming. You’re distracting her.”

“Oh, sorry!” comes the apologetic and still melodic voice of the Pied Piper. More normal now, though, letting you shake your head and focus again. Piper comes around the aisle, a big cup of coffee in hand; he gives you a handsome and apologetic smile that you wave off.

“It’s fine—what were you saying, Flash?”

He wiggles his fingers at you. “I’m just curious about those two, that’s all, since they seem very worried about you, oh, practically all the time. Not that it’s unwarranted, of course.”

“I’m fine, Flash.”

He gives you a look. “I don’t believe that but seems like they got it covered so, I’ll let it go. I’m still curious about them, though. What are we talking here? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Both boyfriend and girlfriend? That’s cool, I don’t judge.”

“Are you—what? In regards to who?”

“You, obviously.”

You shake your head quickly. “No. No, absolutely not. Tim and Steph dated when they were teens, they’re exes. That’s weird.”

A bit of an uncomfortable discussion, too, if only because you are… too aware of your own attraction to Tim. A different kind of attraction. One that has you constantly admiring him. Or had you, back when you were in Gotham. With Steph, you know she is stupidly pretty but it doesn’t fluster you.

It's… nothing.

(It has to be nothing.)

“Feelings are a natural part of life, kiddo! Nothing weird about it. Have they been weird about it?”

“We’ve never even discussed the remote possibility of me dating either of them—because that would never happen in a million years.”

“Well, if they’re friends, then it shouldn’t be a problem. You don’t get many exes who can stay friends after a breakup. Right, Pipes?”

“It’s true,” he says easily, and, hold on a fucking minute, is… is the Flash implying that he and Piper dated?

“Yes, we did,” Flash answers and oh, you said that out loud, and this is… a bit of Flash lore that you aren’t sure you ever needed to know.

But still. He continues, shooting a grin at Piper. “And we’re still great friends! Me, him, and my wife!”

“Wife?” you choke out.

Great. More lore.

Piper rolls his eyes. “Flash.”

“Okay, I didn’t mean to give that away but it’s fine, we can trust her. She’s a friend.”

The words would be sweet if you still weren’t compartmentalizing the fact that he is actually married and… apparently dated the Pied Piper at one point. The Pied Piper who used to be part of the Flash’s rogue gallery, then reformed. Huh.

“You—” you point at him for good measure “—have a wife? Someone actually married you?”

Piper bursts out laughing. It’s a pleasant sound you could get lost in… No! Focus.

Flash looks affronted. “I’ll have you know I am excellent husband material!”

Piper, still chuckling, looks at you and gives a small shrug. “It is true. The superhero community isn’t very ripe with it, for reasons I’m sure you can figure out, so, Flash is a bit of a standout in that area.”

“Because the bar is low.”

“Not true,” Flash interjects. “Superman is married. You know how hard it is to compete with Superman? It’s hard. But I manage it. We’re nearly neck-and-neck in terms of husband material, I’d say.”

He ignores Piper’s snort of laughter and leans in conspiratorially. “But you know who isn’t married? Batman. He’s not husband material. He’s not even boyfriend material.”

You look at Piper, who shrugs. “Never met the guy, thankfully, but from what I’ve heard from Flash, I have to agree. The tall, dark, and broody thing can be attractive but—”

“He’s just a sourpuss,” Flash finishes. “No sense of whimsy whatsoever.”

“Oh, and you have that?”

Piper laughs as Flash sputters. “I can have fun! Why do you think I hang around you?”

You laugh. “That’s… Alright. Fine.”

Flash cocks his head suddenly, no doubt listening to the police frequency he tunes into. Piper fishes out a twenty for everything and tells you to keep the change. In the next moment, the both of them are gone, leaving you with a sharp gust of wind and arcing blue lightning that makes your skin break out in goosebumps.

Okay, then.

Your video call is the next day—Saturday—and it goes as well as you think it will.

“You look like shit.”

Steph is more blunt about it, but the sight of Tim’s grimacing face on your laptop screen shows he very much agrees.

“Thank you, my dear friends, it is lovely to see you, too, yes, I’m doing quite well, thank you. And you?”

“Okay, fair,” Tim says, holding up a hand, “but don’t lie and saying you’re doing ‘quite well.’ Someone doing ‘quite well’ doesn’t look as exhausted as you look.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “And you wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Or boyfriend,” Steph tacks on immediately, not one to miss an opportunity to tag him. 

He rolls his eyes. You shuffle around, freshly showered, looking around for your lotion, then remember it’s in the bathroom.

“Give me a sec,” you say to them, heading over to it.

The audio of the video call feeds out from the speakers of your laptop, so you can easily hear their next conversation.

“It’s so hard, isn’t it?” Steph asks

“What is?” comes Tim’s confused question.

“The urge to resist wiring her money. It’s written all over your face, duckie.”

“Like you don’t want to, either,” he shoots back.

A pause.

“Maybe we can—"

“I can hear you!” you call as you go back to your desk, bottle of lotion in hand. They look a tad sheepish as you settle in your chair. “And look, fine, I won’t say to a couple bucks—"

“Define a couple bucks,” Tim says.

“Max twenty—for dinner—” as soon as you say that, they’re both scrambling for their phones. You grimace. “Guys, come on, it’s not that bad.”

Tim gives you a concerned look. “Even your bags have bags.”

You blink. “Did you just… quote Spongebob?”

Steph grins in the other frame. “He’s finally cultured.”

Then they both return their focus to their phones.

A second later, yours chimes with notifications from Cashapp, twenty dollars from each of them.

“Guys… everything is fine.”

“No, it’s not,” Steph says stubbornly. “But that’s fine. You know you can rely on us, right? We’re friends. That’s what friends do. I know Timothy over here doesn’t always set the greatest examples for it—”

“Thanks, Steph.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies without missing a beat. “Anyway, let us help.”

“You’re already helping,” you soothe. “So, it’s okay. This semester is going to be tough but it’ll be worth it. And after this, it’ll be easier, okay? You guys are here now—”

“Not in a way that really matters,” Tim mutters.

“Which is not an invitation to come over here,” you warn—him, mostly. Steph would go along with it but he’d be the instigator.

They both pout.

You smile. Sometimes, it’s hard to handle the fact that you have friends like this. Friends who care so deeply, who love you so much, it feels hard to breathe. Because you know you love them just as much.

“I love you guys,” you say next, because you have to say it, they have to know; it’s hard for you, sometimes, just because it scares you, but after everything, you know how important it is for the people you love to know you love them.

They soften, echoing the words, and that’s enough for you.

Of course it is.

You don’t have much. No parents, no other family.

But you have them.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A slow blink. “Updating Redbird’s security protocols?”

The garage of Tim’s townhouse smells sharply of oil and rubber. But he isn’t elbow-deep in the engine today, just seated off to the side, laptop perched on his lap and hooked up to its system. ‘Updating’ it. God knows why. The Redbird’s security protocols are just as stringent as the Batmobile’s.

Jason once regaled them with his plan, way back when, to blow it up. Bruce included. And how he went about it.

“It’s got safeguards like crazy, right? Even when it’s idle or shut down. Come up to it, fire a gun, launch a missile—doesn’t matter. Not gonna touch it before the security protocols kick in. It can sense you on thermal, air currents, video recognition, all of it.”

“So, how’d you get past it?”

“SEAL-grade wetsuit. Invisible to thermal with reflection fibers that play hell with video. But the biggest thing? Going slow. And I mean slow. Like five seconds per inch slow.”

The insane attention to detail and paranoia runs in the family, obviously.

Tim had sat in for that. Stephanie remembers the look on his face. Begrudging respect, combined with a familiar twitchiness that told her he was absolutely dying to run out and start updating his stuff.

Question everything. That’s what Bruce says.

Tim tries to separate himself from it. He really does. It gets tiring, exhausting, to live like that. But old habits die hard and his big brain precedes him sometimes. Wondering at the possibilities, at the million-in-one scenarios.

Ordinarily, Stephanie has more sympathy for him. Really. But right now, after your phone call about his little visit to Circle K…

She’s pissed.

“Don’t play dumb,” she says, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

“What is it that I’m playing dumb about?” he asks, averting his attention back to his laptop, keys clacking quickly, pausing momentarily as he takes a swig of Red Bull.

She tells him.

At the sound of your name, he stops.

But now that she’s started, she can’t stop. “Visiting her? As Red Robin? What are you thinking, Tim?”

The clack of keys resumes. The set of his gaze on the laptop screen is very intentional now. Avoiding her.

“It’s nothing, Steph,” he says and she almost believes it. But she knows him, so she doesn’t. “It’s harmless.”

“So, why won’t you hang out with us? Her? Because I assume you’re also avoiding her individually.”

A little sigh. Impatient. “I’m not avoiding her. I really was busy. Have been busy. You know how the heat messes with the city.”

It’s the excuse that bothers Stephanie.

Tim is making some kind of choice here. Choosing to favor Red Robin over himself, over Tim Drake, and it makes no sense. Red Robin isn’t your best friend. He isn’t even your favorite vigilante. (Black Canary is. She agrees, though it would be nice for Spoiler to get some spotlight but that is neither here nor there.)

You know who is your best friend? (One of them, anyway.)

Tim freakin’ Drake.

Stephanie knows why he’s avoiding you all of a sudden. The connection will be too easy to make. It’s why she—as Spoiler—keeps her distance. Tucks away her hair, hides her face even more, when she and Cass visit Circle K.

Even though! They had talked about telling you. Stephanie wanted to tell you so badly. You know who her father is. Was. You know how her mom used to be like. You know everything and you never once judged. You were, to be sure, a bit wary of them—the vigilantes—but most were. You wouldn’t turn them away if you knew.

If there is anything Stephanie knows, it is that.

But then she went away to Metropolis for a week and a half and suddenly, he’s visiting you as Red Robin. And he’s not trying to ease you into it, not trying to help you latch onto some clues, to make it easier—because they’d discussed that, too!—he’s doing it because… Well, she doesn’t really know. But there is a reason. She knows that much. A big reason.

It makes no sense to her, considering his feelings. Complicates things unnecessarily. Especially with how he’s avoiding you because of it, because he apparently got cold feet on telling you the truth.

And it’s the excuse… it’s the excuse that pisses her off.

Their relationship, back when they were kids, had some questionable origins. It did. Stephanie did things she wasn’t proud of. He did things he wasn’t proud of. It was messy. She tries not to kick herself about it—about being a silly girl in love, awed at the attention of a boy like Robin, knowing he was dating a girl (Ariana Dzerchenko, her name was, she would later find) and making moves on him despite that, moves that he always, always went along with. Like two magnets that couldn’t help but fall together.

Don’t get her wrong! The blame is not solely on her. It’s on him, too. She shouldn’t have pushed. He shouldn’t have went along with it, knowing he had a girlfriend, too. He shouldn’t have held his knowledge of her identity over her head the way he did. He isn’t mean-spirited at heart but he had an advantage over her. He knew she was Stephanie Brown. She knew him only as Robin and nothing else. Not until later on that would change and that… that was another mess entirely.

But they were dumb and young. Stephanie tries not to hold it against herself. They know better now. She knows better now. Knows what she deserves.

But this feels too close to him crossing that line.

No, he has crossed that line.

Given one persona up for another.

Approaching you as Red Robin, while you know nothing of him, and doing god knows what…

Someone is going to get hurt.

Last time, it was him. The circumstances, Bruce’s unceremonious reveal of his identity to her—a mistake, an egregious overstep—it all culminated in Tim feeling betrayed. Betrayed that Bruce would reveal that to her without Tim’s say so, without even asking him if he was okay with her knowing. Betrayed that Stephanie went along with it.

This time?

Stephanie feels it in her bones.

The person who is going to get hurt is you.

You, clueless about these lives they lead, clueless as Tim monopolizes your time as Red Robin, all the while you have no idea it’s him. You, her best friend. Stephanie loves you to the end of the universe.

She doesn’t want to see you hurt.

The mere thought of it, of the potential fallout, leaves a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Steph. Steph, it’s fine.”

She blinks, coming back to herself. Tim is standing in front of her now, dark brows knitted together, blue eyes intent on her face. Concerned.

“You’re lying to her.”

“We’ve been lying to her.”

“Not like this,” she says quietly. “Not this way. You’re… This is too much, Tim. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. What happened?”

“Nothing,” he says. For what it’s worth, to anyone else, it sounds believable. But like she said. Stephanie knows him. For better or for worse.

And on that end, she also knows he is not going to budge. No matter how much Stephanie wants to drill this into him, grab him by the shoulders and make her point. Once he’s made a decision, he commits.

Or more like he’s dug himself into this grave and he doesn’t (can’t?) want to get out.

“This is a mistake,” she says. “And you know it. I just hope you actually try to fix it sooner rather than later. Because if you break her heart, I’m going to break something of yours.”

Stephanie loves Tim. He’s a great friend. They’ve had their ups and downs—even discounting their relationship—but they’re solid. They are.

But she loves you, too. So much so it sometimes feels like she’s going to burst with it. She’s never had something like that, like this, and in the end, she doesn’t want to choose, but Tim knows better. And because he knows better, you are her first priority.

Even worse, he doesn’t seem bothered by the threat. Relieved, if anything.

“I’m counting on it, Steph.”

Which is so unfair in so many ways (fix it, she wants to yell, don’t rely on me to come clean up when shit hits the fan—do it yourself!) but she’s had enough of this conversation and all the ways this can go wrong.

Maybe he will turn around. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But she doesn’t think so. He won’t. Not until the consequences of this, of his lies, of his excuses, come hit him in the face.

She wishes it weren’t like that—knowing what it will result in.

But some things you just can’t change.

She knows better with Tim.

She really, really does.

reblogs are appreciated!

taglist: @peachesona @knoxx-seresinbradshaw @kikis-writing-service @sweetistic @soundsfunbutno @ginevraxrogers @fridaenpina

[ask to be tagged! either in my inbox or here! ^_^]

[heliads]

Hey hun, just wondering if I could get a Theo Raeken x Hale!reader basically he's an overprotective brother ❤️❤️❤️

derek would be an overprotective brother let's be real (i'm assuming that's what you meant? tbh i was a little confused about who was the brother but this is the result)

masterlist

Sneaking out of one’s house in the dead of night is already a difficult task. Factor in the fact that the adults in the building all have supernatural hearing, and getting caught seems impossible to avoid. The only factor in your favor is the fact that you absolutely refuse to give up. Derek Hale can do whatever he wants to try and rein you in, but there’s nothing he can do to stop you. Nothing at all.

Honestly, he should have seen this coming. It’s not like any of the Hales are known for their natural rule-abiding tendencies. When Derek was your age, he was crushing on girls and giving them the bite. He should just be happy that you’re not trying to turn anyone and let you do what you please.

That’s what you argue, at least. Derek sees things very differently. You know he’s just terrified to lose another family member after the fire burned your home to the ground, but times are changing. You know how to defend yourself, and you certainly won’t be going down without a fight, if you’ll ever go down at all.

Besides, you’re not looking to get into fights. Not tonight. In fact, you’re doing the exact opposite. You’re slipping out of your room not to seek out danger, nor track down hunters in the hopes of starting a fight. No, you’re practicing all this secrecy because you want to see your boyfriend, a certain Theo Raeken.

You didn’t count on Theo stealing your heart when he first arrived at Beacon Hills. True, his first few months were a little rocky, something about him trying to betray the McCall pack in the name of the Dread Doctors, but he’s come around since then. You didn’t even start thinking about him romantically until a few months after that, once you were sure that he wouldn’t try something bad like that again.

If you ask Theo, though, he’ll tell a story that’s a little different from yours. He once confessed that he started liking you from his very first day, which made it easier to switch sides once he was let out of Hell. Sometimes you wonder if he saw visions of you when he was trapped down there. You don’t think he’ll tell you for quite some time, though. Theo doesn’t like thinking about his time in Hell at all.

Neither do you. That’s why the two of you prefer to let the past stay in the past, and focus only on the future and what it holds. Theo isn’t an enemy to you, not anymore. Not to any of your friends.

That’s not what Derek seems to believe, however. No, Derek is convinced that Theo is nothing but bad news, fit only for betrayal and heartbreak. Every time he happens to see you and Theo together, you can hear his blood pressure skyrocketing and you know you’re in for a lecture once you get home. Despite the fact that Derek made plenty of worse choices in his life, such as dating a darach, you being with Theo is the worst thing your older brother has ever seen.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you, but you’re not too hung up on it to let Derek’s lack of approval stop you. You don’t need your brother, you just need Theo. So, you take care to be extra quiet when you’re lifting the sash of the window and climbing down the fire escape into the cold night. Theo’s truck is idling two blocks over, just in case. He gets out to greet you like he always does.

Despite the fact that sneaking out of the Hale residence gets harder by the hour, and Derek’s wrath is strengthening by the day, it’s all worth it. All of it. The moment Theo’s arms are around you, you think you could take on the world. Maybe you’ll have to, it doesn’t really matter. You’ve got your boyfriend, he’s got you, and you’ve never been better.

Theo presses a kiss to your cheek before opening the passenger side door of his truck. “What do you say we get out of here?”

You laugh. “Sounds great to me.”

Theo smiles too, climbing back into the driver’s side and taking off into the night. You watch the streetlights speed past you, smears of off-white and buzzing gold against the dark air. Theo navigates his way out of the endless maze of suburbs and cul-de-sacs before you’re out in uncharted territory.

You and Theo have christened a spot on the outside of Beacon Hills as yours and yours alone. The Beacon Hills Preserve is in sight, but not all that close. Too many bad supernatural encounters in those woods have somewhat lessened your favor of them. Instead, Theo parks his car on the edge of a field, letting the tall grass and wildflowers brush against his cars. The sky is wide, open as far as the eye can see. It is absolutely perfect.

Theo grabs a blanket from the backseat and spreads it across the bed of his truck. He climbs in first, then holds out a hand to help you in. You lie down on your back so you can watch the stars, leaning against Theo. His hand traces gentle patterns on your arm, soft and soothing. The night is cool, making you curl closer against him. Overhead, the constellations wink and blink, promising stories that only you could ever dare to read.

You blink once and dawn is upon you. The sun is already climbing well into the sky, coloring clouds into rose and flaxen yellow. At first, you’re content to just lie there and marvel at how easy it was to fall asleep until it occurs to you that you weren’t supposed to do that at all.

One glance at the screen of your phone has you swearing under your breath. Theo is asleep by your side, and you frantically shake him awake. He’s slow to come to consciousness at first, but he’s active in seconds when you tell him what time it is. Both of you overslept by a lot, and you overshot the time you were supposed to make it back to your house by a couple of hours. Derek shouldn’t be up, not yet, but you wouldn’t put it past him to check your room. You’ve been known to sneak out in the past, and after the lecture you got last time, you really, really don’t want to be caught again.

Theo’s rushing the whole way back, relying on his supernatural senses to stay out of an accident. That, and the fact that no one is on the road at this hour of the morning. You imagine what a picture the two of you must make– most people just starting to wake up, the earliest risers starting their cars in their garages, while you and Theo are booking it down the road out of fear that your brother would figure out what you’ve done.

Theo brings his truck to a stop close to your house. He peppers apologies in between kisses, then urges you to hurry before it’s too late. You wave goodbye, then take the steps of the fire escape two at a time in your haste to get back inside. You raise your window and climb inside. You hear no sound anywhere else in the apartment, and you have just enough time to thank your lucky stars that you managed to get away with this when the lights flick on, revealing Derek waiting in the shadows.

It takes everything in you to bite back a startled scream. “Jeez, Derek, try not to give me a heart attack, will you?” You clutch a hand to your chest, trying to stop the accursed organ from jumping out of your chest.

Derek doesn’t look remotely sympathetic to your situation. “Why, so you can see that Raeken boy again? I know where you were.”

You wince. “You do.”

“I do,” Derek confirms, “and you’re lucky today’s a school day, or I’d be yelling at you here and now. As it is, you have to get ready or you’re going to miss the bus. Do that and I’ll be even more mad than I am now.”

“I didn’t know it was possible for you to be more mad,” you joke weakly.

“It’s not,” Derek says with a glare, and storms out into the hall.

You collapse to your bed, one hand rising to your head. You really hadn’t wanted Derek to find out, but of course he’d known all along. Derek’s a survivor, he has been all this time. That means he has the instincts of someone searching for all the clues you’re trying to keep hidden. You have the school day as a buffer, but after that, you’re totally done for.

Sure enough, Derek is waiting for you, arms folded across his chest, the moment you close the door behind you in the afternoon. Not only that, but Peter Hale is lounging on the couch, languidly flipping through the day’s newspaper.

You arch a brow at your uncle. “You brought Peter into this?”

Derek groans. “He’s a figure of authority. I thought you’d respect him if you can’t respect me.”

You grin. “Are you sure that was a good idea?”

Across the room, Peter chuckles. “Of course it was. There’s nothing Derek likes more than someone who gives him even more gray hairs than you.”

You and Derek turn to shout at the same time. “Shut up!”

Peter holds up his hands in mock surrender, still laughing under his breath.

Derek looks back at you, brow furrowed. “We’re not talking about Peter, we’re talking about you. You snuck out of this apartment for the fifth time this month. I’ve told you to stay away from Theo, but you were with him. Want to explain yourself?”

“We’re dating,” you say as casually as you can.

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why? The guy tried to kill Scott and he’s probably angling to kill you. I’m not telling you all this just because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, you know. I’m trying to keep you alive.”

You scoff. “Yeah, because you’ve got a great history with your girlfriends. Weren’t you dating Kate Argent? You know, the one who burned our house down?”

Peter takes this as his sign to add his two cents. “She’s not wrong, you know.”

Derek repeats his sentiment for Peter to shut up at the same time as you encourage your uncle to keep talking. This earns you a swat to the shoulder, and your older brother picks up his lecture again.

“I’m not the one who’s being reprimanded, Y/N, that would be you. I’m serious, you have to stay away from Theo. He’s no good for you.”

“How would you know?” You counter, “all you ever do is try to be as overprotective as you can. I mean, have you ever considered the possibility that I know what I’m doing?”

Derek exhales slowly. “I know you’re capable, but you never know. I’m just trying to keep you safe, is that really so bad?”

You give him a steady look. “When you’re being this overinvolved in my life, yes it is.”

Derek opens his mouth to argue with that, but he’s interrupted by a knock at the door. He tilts his head to the side for a second, listening for heartbeats, then mutters something under his breath about Scott McCall always needing something at the worst possible time.

You interpret that as your chance to escape, so you do so with great excitement. Derek shouts that this isn’t over as you go, but you’re fairly sure it is. 

As you hurry past, Peter calls after you. “The back door is still unlocked, by the way. Derek will be busy for the next half hour or so.”

You grin. “Have I ever mentioned that you’re my favorite Hale?”

“Be sure to bring that up the next time I kill someone,” Peter grumbles, “I could use someone on my side for once.”

It’s hard to control your laugh as you head towards the back exit of the apartment. You text Theo on your way out, and soon enough you’re in his truck once again, speeding away from Derek and his suffocating tendencies as quickly as you can.

Theo shoots you a nervous look as he eases to a stop at a red light. “You’re sure everything is alright? I mean, Derek’s wrath is legendary.”

You shake your head. “We’ll be fine. Derek will stomp around for another day or so, but he doesn’t have it in him to hold grudges for long.”

Theo smiles. “As long as you’re sure about it. I don’t want to get in between you and your brother.”

“You won’t,” you assure him, “we’ve had bigger fights over much less, trust me.”

Theo assures you that he does, and you let the road disappear behind you along with your troubles. As you drive, though, your uneasiness doesn’t dissipate as quickly as usual. 

A few minutes later, you think something is wrong. Glancing back, you whisper something to Theo. “Is it just me, or has that car been following us for a while?”

Theo checks his rearview mirror, then curses. “No, you’re right. That’s a hunter, I recognize the license plate. Hold tight, I’ll try to lose him.”

Theo takes a few sporadic turns, but even his best attempts can’t shake the guy. What’s more, cars appear out of the surrounding streets, slowly but surely forcing Theo to head towards the Preserve and out of sight of any passersby. The hunters stop near the mouth of the woods, and Theo has to park as well lest he risk getting in a crash.

The two of you watch the hunters emerge from their cars, weapons in hand. “Stay in the truck,” Theo tells you, “I’ll take care of this.”

“Not a chance,” you argue, “there are too many of them, we’re doing this together.”

Theo looks like he wants to argue, but you’re already reaching for the door and stepping outside. The hunters issue out the usual threats about wanting to run all supernaturals out of town and whatnot. Thankfully, they aren’t a patient bunch, and so you’re able to skip to the fight before too long.

This isn’t your first bad encounter with the hunters of Beacon Hills, nor will it be the last. You extend your claws, letting your eyes glow. Supernatural strength courses over you and you charge. Despite the fact that the two of you are crazily outnumbered, you and Theo have one thing that the hunters don’t:  an absolute unwillingness to lose.

That’s what you think about when enemy blood is shed, when you snap knives and break guns and refuse to let your fear get the best of you. That’s what you think about when the number of hunters starts to dwindle, when they choose to run into the woods or drive away rather than join their friends in agony on the ground.

That’s why you win, you think. At last, you straighten up and look at Theo. Both of you are alive, and the remaining hunters are fleeing as quickly as they can. You start to smile, but before you can say too much, another voice encapsulates your thoughts.

“That way went better than I expected.”

You whip around to see Derek emerging from his car a few paces away, blinking in surprise. He gestures between the hunters on the ground and you and Theo. “You know, I came all this way to save your asses, but it looks like you’ve already done that.”

“Maybe it’s because I can trust Theo to keep me alive.” You say pointedly.

Derek stares at you a second longer, then sighs and gives in. “Fine, fine. The two of you can keep on seeing each other. Just don’t make that sneaking out stuff a habit.”

You wait until Derek gets back in his car and drives away before daring to look at Theo. Silently, he raises his arms in victory, making you laugh. Maybe Derek isn’t completely beyond reasoning. And maybe, just maybe, you can have both your boyfriend and your brother on your side. Impossibilities were made to be disproven.

teen wolf tag list: @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @lovesanimals0000, @rafecameronswhore, @bellabadacadabra, @23victoria,

[schraubd]

Being Perpetually at the Mercy of the Arbitrary Negligence of the State is a Punishment

At the moment, we're seeing two somewhat orthogonal trends developing in conservative legal jurisprudence, both lawless, but in distinctive ways.

The first is an increasing indifference to textualism -- being perfectly happy to manipulate or flatly ignore statutory or constitutional language in order to achieve desired results. Yesterday's Clean Water Act ruling, where the Court held 5-4 that "adjacent" doesn't mean "adjacent" because, well, they don't want it to, is a prominent example. The "major questions" doctrine is another, including the invalidation of OSHA's COVID vaccine-or-test mandate despite the fact that it fell cleanly into the clear statutory language, is another. The Court's recent voting rights jurisprudence, featuring Shelby County's entirely-invented "equal sovereignty of the states" rule, is another. The Court's recent Second Amendment jurisprudence, which has functionally decided the first half of the Second Amendment's text may as well not exist, is a yet another.

The second, by contrast, is a sort of hyper-literal textualism that zooms in so tightly on individual words that it ends up blitzing past how people actually read texts. The opinion striking down mask mandates on planes is one example here; some of the opinions striking down the eviction moratorium fit as well. Though styled as "textualism", this sort of analysis really is a dangerous confluence of putative textualists being bad at reading texts.

Slotting into the latter category is a concurring opinion by 11th Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom in Wade v. McDade, arguing that the Eighth Amendment does not forbid any level of "negligent" treatment of prisoners by prison staff --  not negligent, not gross negligence, not even criminal recklessness.  Judge Newsom's argument is deceptively simple: the Eighth Amendment forbids cruel and unusual punishments. But a punishment, he says, can by definition only be imposed intentionally. There's no such thing as a non-intentional punishment. And negligence, in all of its species, is something less than intentional. Hence:

The undeniable linguistic fact that the term “punishment” entails an intentionality element would seem to preclude any legal standard that imposes Eighth Amendment liability for unintentional conduct, no matter how negligent—whether it be only “mere[ly]” so or even “gross[ly]” so.... So on a plain reading, the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause applies only to penalties that are imposed intentionally and purposefully.

At one level, I appreciate Judge Newsom for saying the quiet part out loud here, because normally I'd spend time pointing out that Judge Newsom's position would warrant even the most grotesque acts of wanton disregard for the lives and wellbeing of prisoners. But Judge Newsom is quite happy to endorse (further) converting our prison system into a miniature gulag archipelago, so I guess I can skip that part and move to the textual question: is Judge Newsom's interpretation an "undeniable" inference from the term "punishment"?

And the answer, I think, is clearly "no".

At the outset of his opinion, Judge Newsom analogizes the negligent treatment of prisoners to that of parents and children: "Just as a parent can’t accidently punish his or her child, a prison official can’t accidentally—or even recklessly—'punish[]' an inmate." But in law, "accidental" and "intentional" are not an exhaustive binary. The whole purpose of the negligence and recklessness categories is to account for cases that lie between the pure accident and the specifically envisioned and desired consequence. And that makes sense, because while law contains different levels of "intent", legal fact patterns nearly always blend several of them together. 

Take a case where a speeding driver strikes a pedestrian with his car. Did the driver act "intentionally"? On one level, he was likely intentionally speeding (his foot wasn't literally glued to the gas pedal). On another level, he likely did not intend to hit the pedestrian (he did not seek to mow him down). Negligence captures the interstitial position where the driver intentionally acted in a fashion which foreseeably placed the pedestrian in danger (even if converting the danger into reality was not the driver's motivation). In this, negligence is very different from the pure accident not because it lacks intention, but precisely because of its intentionality.

Swap back to punishment. Imagine a more pre-modern society where we outsource punishment to private actors. I catch you stealing tools from my garage. As a consequence, I strip you of your clothes, take all the possessions you have on you (to make sure you have nothing you could attack me with), and drop you off in the middle of the woods without food or water which I can't be bothered to acquire for you, safely away from my house. You tell me "my pills are in my bag; if I don't take them each evening I might die!" I say "I don't care if you live or die. Oh, and watch out for the forest-dwellers -- they aren't always friendly." You do, in fact, have a seizure overnight and die. Are the actions I took "punishing" you?

Plainly, it seems the answer is yes. And this is so even if I genuinely was apathetic to whether you lived or died. Like the driver striking the pedestrian, my conduct is a mix of the purely intentional (I took your possessions, I dropped you off in the woods) and negligent/reckless (I do not care whether you have a stroke, I do not care if the forest-dwellers attack you). Being intentionally placed in a position where one's custodians do not care whether you live or die is obviously a punishment. Indeed, the fact that it's a "punishment" is the only thing that distinguishes it from pure sadism, abuse, or kidnapping. The fact that the seizure was not specifically intended doesn't change the fact that what happened to you in no way could be described as an "accident". It was the result of intentional actions, and the reason I acted in the way that I did -- with reckless disregard for your life or safety -- was very much tied to my desire to punish you.

In most prison litigation cases, there is similar "intent". The failure to, e.g., give a prisoner necessary medication isn't a wholly-accidental whoopsie-doodle (and if it is, then there isn't even negligence). It is an intentional choice. Indeed, a large part of what prison is, and what makes it such a terrifying prospect, is that it is a place the state sends you where the people who have control of your life do not and perhaps need not care if you live or die. Everything about that is intentional. Or put another way, the pervasive, heartless lack of intention is the intention -- being placed in such a situation is entirely the product of intentional choices at every step of the process.

There's a lot to dislike about the "deliberate indifference" standard which has taken over prison abuse litigation, but one thing it gets right is that indifference is absolutely a choice, not an accident. To fail to treat a person in your custody with requisite care is a choice, and it doesn't stop being a choice just because its foreseeable consequences were not expressly desired.

So what makes Judge Newsom go astray here? He seems to think we should chop up "punishment" into each potential negative experience one might have in prison. Being locked up, and being restricted from the yard, and being deprived of medication, and being placed in solitary, and being put into a cellblock with white supremacists liable to stab you -- each of these are separate (potential) "punishments" whose status as a "punishment" must be assessed atomistically. But this approach defies common sense. When someone is sentenced to prison for a crime, we don't think of it as a loose cluster of twenty or so discrete "punishments". It's one punishment. The punishment is being a prisoner and being subjected to the prison experience. Everything that happens in prison is part of the overall context of being punished. There is no need to parcel out individual moments and ask "but is this particular action a separate punishment", any more than we need to ask whether swinging bats in the on-deck circle or jogging out into the outfield is part of "playing a baseball game." It's all part of the game, and the hyper-zoomed-in focus on each discrete moment misses the forest for the trees.

In other words, while it may be true that something must be a "punishment" to fall under the auspices of the Eighth Amendment, all prisoners by definition are being punished. They pass that threshold categorically; none of them have been placed in jail by accident. At that point, the relevant question is whether the set of challenged actions or behaviors or what have you suffices to make that punishment into a "cruel and unusual" one. And certainly, being put in an Arkham City terrordome should qualify even (especially!) if the overseers assiduously do not care if you live or die. Perpetual, ongoing, systematic negligence (to say nothing of recklessness) towards persons who are helpless and in your care is one of the cruelest acts imaginable. Where that is part of the punishment, the punishment is cruel and unusual.

Judge Newsom concludes his opinion with the following:

Maybe it makes sense to hold prison officials liable for negligently or recklessly denying inmates appropriate medical care. Maybe not. But any such liability, should we choose to recognize it, must find a home somewhere other than the Eighth Amendment. We—by which I mean the courts generally—have been ignoring that provision’s text long enough. Whether we like it or not, the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause applies, as its moniker suggests, only to “punishments.” And whether we like it or not, “punishment[]” occurs only when a government official acts intentionally and with a specific purpose to discipline or deter.

This "whether we like or not" language is reminiscent of my Sadomasochistic Judging article. Judge Newsom seems to recognize the cruelty inherent in his position. But he leverages that cruelty into an argument for textual fidelity; the avoidance of cruelty is the hint that his colleagues have been led astray from the strictures of law. As I've demonstrated above, this isn't true; the text does not demand the cruelty Judge Newsom ascribes to it. But the pleasure of the pain of causing pain is too tempting to pass up. It's not good textualism that's motivating Judge Newsom. It's the ecstasy of bad textualism leading to bad results, whose badness is paradoxically metabolized as the purest and most faithful instantiation of textual loyalty.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/JxhXtDy

[mariacallous]

It’s very easy to laugh at those who earnestly demand to be taken seriously. This is especially true if they are deficient in the mitigating balms of humour and irony.

The Canadian professor Jordan Peterson evokes mirth for this very reason. The populist Right doesn’t like being laughed at and it likes even less to be sneered at by latte-swilling cultural ‘elites’. This was apparent in a piece I read this week about Peterson in The Critic which accused The Times of having a ‘strange fixation’ with the Canadian professor and of treating him with ‘condescension’. The article concluded that

‘Behind all of this lurks fear of the old media’s loss of status.’

I don’t think this observation is without merit. Traditional media gatekeepers (overwhelmingly privately educated) are gradually losing their ability to direct the public conversation as the cost of producing content goes down (as an example I don’t need to pitch this article to a legacy media gatekeeper in order for it to be published). It’s probably also true that some newspaper columnists do look down their noses with haughty contempt on the hoi polloi over at YouTube and here on Substack.

But the writer at The Critic confuses popularity with merit:

‘a freely available four-minute discussion online could barely muster a tenth of the views that Peterson’s three-hour paid lecture did.’

Moreover if Peterson is so popular, why worry what a failing legacy media is saying about him?

To state the obvious, just because something is popular it shouldn’t be beyond criticism. Much of Peterson’s output is silly, from his paranoid ramblings about ‘cultural Marxism’ to his ranting about the ‘tyranny’ of a paper towel dispenser to his claim that Britain is about to go communist under mild-mannered son of a tool maker Keir Starmer. Moreover, the man is utterly devoid of any sense of irony and regularly gets weepy during interviews (I dare somebody to watch this and conclude that he isn’t doing it at least some of the time for dramatic effect). Perhaps I’d find these tearful episodes more poignant if Peterson hadn’t sternly instructed readers of his bestselling book 12 Rules for Life to ‘Toughen Up, You Weasel’.

The thing to understand about Peterson and the wider populist Right is that they aren’t anti-elitists. They simply have their own pretensions to elite status and resent the fact that they aren’t treated with the prestige and reverence they believe they are entitled to. In the familiar populist tradition, they are the humiliated little men and women left behind by history. They are angry at not being invited to dinner at the big table and they just won’t take it anymore.

The French economist Thomas Piketty has written in the past about the ‘Brahmin Left’ and the ‘Merchant Right’ as a way of understanding political competition in contemporary society. Piketty makes four main arguments: 1. There has been a decline in class voting. 2. A wealthy ‘merchant class’ votes for Right-wing parties. 3. Educational voting has inverted, with educated voters increasingly voting for the Left. 4. All of this is feeding into a new division of globalists versus nativists*.

This argument has became more salient since Piketty first made it, at least as it pertains to social media. Something I find interesting about the so-called Merchant class is the way in which some of its members, despite being materially wealthy, strive for recognition from the same Brahmin cultural elites they publicly disdain. When that recognition isn’t forthcoming they seethe with resentment. People on the Left are frequently accused nowadays of adopting ‘luxury beliefs’ and ‘high status opinions’. I think this definitely happens; but it also smacks of projection because I don’t think any political faction is more obsessed with status than the insurgent online Right.

Elon Musk is a fitting example of this: a thin-skinned businessman who, despite being the richest man in the world, chafes bitterly at the fact that educated people scoff at his puerile frat-boy humour and culturally conservative politics. Again, here is somebody who possesses otherworldly riches yet his chief gripe is that this success isn’t reflected back at him by cultural elites, who regard him as a gauche figure of fun.

Notably one of the first things Musk did upon acquiring Twitter (apart from changing the name to X) was to get rid of legacy blue ticks, a status symbol of the online cultural elite. He was cheered to the rafters for doing this by the online Right, who immediately went out and purchased their own blue tick for $8 once Musk had made it possible to do so. Because it was never about being anti-elitist. It was a bunch of people whose pretensions to elite status were being thwarted by the old system.

Of course a blue tick is now cringe precisely because anybody can purchase it for pocket change and thus there is nothing ‘exclusive’ about it. Instead it demonstrates that you are probably trying a little too hard to look important, like the people who post photos on their Instagram grids of themselves standing next to Lamborghinis they’ve rented. Trying to look high status is low status.

Sartre once said that antisemites like to view themselves as part of an alternative intellectual elite. Conspiracy theorists - antisemitism is the ultimate conspiracy theory - are much the same, and alt-Right spaces nowadays are awash with a supercilious sense of unacknowledged intellectual superiority. They have ‘red pill awareness’ and wear t-shirts which say ‘they lied and you complied’ and have ‘pure blood’ because they didn’t get vaccinated.

Again, it’s usually the Left that is accused of being motivated by a ‘politics of envy’ - of wanting to cut down the tree because the apples are too high for them to reach. Yet today it is the Right that seeks to smash things up because late capitalism hasn’t turned out as they imagined it would. Everywhere you look today the ‘little guy’ is furiously railing against the system he has repeatedly voted for.

The row over companies pulling their ads from X/Twitter is an illuminating example of this latter point. People who have spent their adult lives arguing that capitalism is good and benevolent and that corporations can do as they please are aghast because big companies don’t want their ads appearing next to tweets by neo-Nazis. Musk and co know very well that it wasn’t ‘Left-wing censorship’ that resulted in people like Alex Jones (who was this week reinstated) being banned from Twitter. It was corporations not wanting their brands to be associated with extremists because it’s bad for business.

Something similar happened with YouTube during the so-called ‘Adpocalypse’ of 2017 when 250 brands pulled their advertising from the platform because it was appearing next to videos of hate preachers and fascists. The Adpocalypse resulted in a slew of policy changes at YouTube which made it easier for advertisers to select categories of videos they didn’t want their ads to appear alongside. A bunch of far-Right and manosphere channels subsequently found themselves demonetised. Predictably, the Right blamed political correctness and the Left for the adpocalypse, when again it was an example of corporations trying to protect their bottom line.

As I’ve pointed out previously, the contemporary Right has no coherent critique of consumer capitalism so instead it has to pretend that big corporations are secretly controlled by a cabal of ‘woke’ Marxists.

*Jan Rovny gives a good account of these changes over at the LSE page here.

[yallalreadyknowitsunderale]

Stupid Rambling/theory I guess

Kris and their Soul

Something that I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed when analyzing Kris’ behavior in deltarune is that, when Kris removes their soul from their body, they gain full control of their body yes, but it might be at the expense of their compassion

What if, when Kris is soulless, we assume that they are similar to Flowey in Undertale. They are incapable of feeling (or find it extremely difficult to feel) compassion for others. The rules might work differently, but the soul is still referred to as “the font of our compassion” in Deltarune’s world (although in context this is just speculation, not a hard fact)

That’s not to say Kris is a bad person, I think it’s the exact opposite. I think Kris is inherently good natured, but I think a lot of their more out there behavior might make more sense if you consider the idea that some of those decisions might have been made when they lacked their soul.

I think a good example is the intermission between Chapters 1 and 2

In between Chapters 1 and 2, Kris remorselessly eats the entire pie that Toriel left out to cool for them to share

But then, not even ten seconds later, if you make Kris take five dollars out of Asriel’s dresser drawer, five dollars that have probably been sitting there for months and clearly doesn’t mean all that much, Kris feels so bad about it that the language makes explicit that they are reluctant to do this and intend to pay Asriel back

But then, Kris later slashes the tires on Toriel’s car.

The key difference between these 3 actions though, is whether or not Kris is in possession of their soul

We don’t know why or how Kris knows what to do when they remove their soul, but a common theme is that the actions they take are actions that require a lack of compassion. Kris is not the kind of person who would slash their mother’s tires under normal circumstances, but if they are incapable of caring, that changes.

And I think this logic can apply to other strange things about Kris’ behavior.

My personal belief at current is that Kris, for some reason, has been living without a soul for a very long time. Maybe their entire life prior to Deltarune.

Noelle, despite being so close to Kris that they know each other better than anybody, repeatedly comments that she doesn’t even know if she and Kris are even friends.

Kris has apparently never even said it out LOUD before

Without a soul, maybe Kris was just unable to understand why that would be important to mention. Maybe because of their lack of a soul, despite how close the two became, Kris could never truly connect with Noelle on an emotional level. They couldn’t FEEL for her, no matter how much they tried.

Kris is also repeatedly surprised whenever Susie assumes that they don’t like her.

Kris is never scared of Susie’s threats, and might have just assumed they were playing around.

Kris might have not even realized that Susie was trying to hurt them. If they’re the kind of person who has trouble feeling or understanding empathy (without their soul, I mean) Susie’s words might not have had any impact on them. They just. Didn’t understand. They COULDN’T understand.

At the end of chapter 2’s weird route, the thing that Noelle distinctly points out as the most abnormal thing about Kris’ behavior is that they keep visiting her dad in the hospital. Rudy himself is surprised that Kris came to visit him in the hospital.

It’s not as if Kris never visits the hospital, they do, very often in fact, to play the shitty piano

It is specifically going out of their way to see Rudy that’s strange. And I think it could be inferred that it’s strange for Kris to do this because that is an act of pure compassion.

Kris might just not have been able to understand why it would be important to visit Rudy in the hospital.

Before chapter 1, Kris seemingly doesn’t talk to anybody other than their mom, they don’t do much of anything except go to school and come back home, they don’t really have any friends, their side of the room is completely empty, not from neglect by their family but because Kris seemingly didn’t care to have anything at all.

A lot of people have wondered why Kris’ actions at the end of a normal and weird route are the same despite Kris clearly being horrified and afraid of the player’s actions, and I think the explanation is right there. They remove their soul before they take those actions. They have removed the part of themself that feels these things.

And I think Kris is slowly realizing that they don’t want to live this way anymore.

In Chapter 1, Kris is repeatedly described as looking bored, or like they don’t care. Their dialogue options are incredibly basic at best and distinctly annoyed sounding at worst. They give off the impression that they want all of this to be over as soon as possible.

But in Chapter 2, their responses are starting to become more playful, they’re becoming more personally expressive, they’re enjoying the time they’re spending with their friends.

And I don’t think Kris wants to have to choose between their compassion and their autonomy.

I think it’s important to remember that Flowey was initially so depressed from his inability to love or care about anybody that he tried to erase himself from the world.

I think this is one of the things that’s so scary for Kris. It’s not just about control, it’s about becoming whole again.

[incorrectsibunaquotes]

Alfie Lewis Mini Character Analysis

Alfie had so much growth as a character without losing sight of who he is, but what I want to talk about are the three moments across all three of the seasons where Alfie is put in the most danger (at least what he perceives to be the most danger). Interestingly enough, each of these are where the core of his character growth comes out. They are the following:

Into the cellar

Into the fear tunnel

Into the chimney

1. Into the Cellar:

When Sibuna sends Alfie into the cellar in S1, it’s so the club can retrieve a new sample of Elixir. He literally draws the short straw. He’s not super thrilled about going down there, but he knows he has to do it if he wants the rest of the club to take him seriously. Granted, he doesn’t go alone (Fabian goes with him), but it’s the symbolic gesture of putting himself on the line for the good of the group. This adventure doesn’t go super well for his mental health, and he has a traumatic episode that results in Fabian not getting the sample so he can comfort Alfie; however, it jogs his memory enough that he can provide important information to Sibuna about when he was stuck down there the first time.

While the actual outcome of this mission isn’t particularly fruitful, this first Sibuna mission Alfie embarks on sows the seeds of his willingness to put aside his discomfort and fear for his friends. Up until this point, we don’t really get this from him, and it sets up all the good things we learn about Alfie from this point onward. However, it’s not a super consequential scene in the grand scheme of the story.

2. Into the Fear Tunnel

This time, Alfie does not draw the short straw. Amber does, and despite the fact that they have broken up, she still expects Alfie to take her place because that’s what a good boyfriend would do. And despite his displeasure, he does it. Regardless of whether or not you ship Amfie, this moment is incredibly significant to Alfie’s character (and Amber’s, but I’m not talking about her rn).

This moment shows that he is willing to not just put himself in danger for the sake of optics, but because he wants his friends to be safe. Alfie doesn’t go into the tunnel just because it’s Amber asking him to, because it’s clear he would do this for any of the others— despite arguably having the most potent phobias for the fear tunnel to exploit and, therefore, the most to lose. Alfie taking one for the team here is incredibly telling of not only his courage but also the deep devotion he has toward those he cares about.

3. Into the Chimney

There are a couple of scenes in the back half of Season 3 that are prime examples of Alfie’s heart and courage (him taking on Sinner!Fabian, for instance), but none are as pivotal as the chimney scene. In both the cellar and the fear tunnel, Alfie is unable to complete the mission due to his traumas coming back to haunt him. It’s not that he doesn’t try or want to succeed, but it’s literally that he is unable to do to it because of a mental block. So when Alfie asserts that he— and he alone— must scale the inside of the Gatehouse chimney to retrieve his artifact hidden at the top, he (as well as Eddie, KT, and we at the audience) knows there is a good chance he could fail. In fact, Alfie fully acknowledges that he is “afraid of everything” but that he has to be the one to do this because it’s his artifact and his “ancestors put their faith” in him.

Theoretically, any of them could have climbed that chimney to fetch it. There was no mystical rule that barred those who weren’t Descendants from finding the artifacts, but it wasn’t about capability— to Alfie, it was all about responsibility and his sense of duty. Despite the claim he makes that that sense of duty is to his ancestors, what he’s actually saying is that his duty is to Sibuna, which to him is synonymous with friendship and (found) family. And it’s for that reason why, when he’s caught, he rejects Eddie and KT’s (shoddy) attempt to help him and simply says “Sibuna!”

For a character who often comes across as overly goofy and careless, Alfie has an insanely strong sense of self-preservation. He is always the most reluctant of his friends/clubmates to take risks that put his life on the line… unless he knows that taking the risk means other people will be safer for it. He is incredibly brave and selfless, and in conclusion, Alfie is the best male character on House of Anubis.

[sustainably-du-mortain]

The art of losing

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Characters: f!detective (Sadie Langford) & Unit Bravo Word count: ~2.5k A/N: Here's my secret santa for @nsewell. I had so much fun getting to know Sadie for this @wayhavensecretsanta! She's a sweetheart and I hope I did her justice. I hope you'll enjoy this!!

A yell echoes down the corridors as soon as Morgan steps inside the warehouse, making her instinct take over as she runs to the source of the ruckus. 

The screams lead her to the living room, and although she’s not quite sure what to expect, she understood, as the screams turned into a weird mix of laughter and complaints, that she didn’t have to worry. So, when she reaches the door, it’s not worry guiding her anymore but curiosity. What she definitely didn’t expect to find though, is the rest of the team, sitting on the carpet, Ava, towering over the other three as she kneels over the coffee table; pointing an accusing finger at Farah.

“I know you’re cheating!” She growls, almost making Morgan shiver. This is a tone the commanding agent rarely uses on them - despite them constantly getting on her nerves - and Ava must have sensed the very faint hint of fear in her teammates as her tone is way softer, almost pleading, when she adds: “You keep taking the pot!”

“How the heck do you want me to cheat!? I didn’t even know the rules of that game half an hour ago! You’re just mad because you’re losing-” The young vampire retorts, before she adds with a little glint of mischief in her eyes “-loser!”

Morgan has to hold back a laugh when Ava’s ears flush red with anger and Nat quickly scouts closer to her to land a soothing hand on her friend’s shoulder. She remembers a similar night, decades ago, when they had to ban game nights after Ava forced them to play the same game for hours because she kept losing or could tell that they were letting her win on purpose. Had she known they were playing a game, Morgan would have actually avoided the living room at all cost.

She catches Sadie’s gaze and cannot hold it anymore. The detective is seated between Ava and Farah and the look of pure panic in her eyes gives away that she’s regretting not going to the local Christmas market like they had planned. That she would have rather braved the heavy-falling snow than whatever is going on right now. 

‘Get me out of here’ she mouths, but Morgan doesn’t make any move to help her. In fact, she steps even further into the room, thinking this debacle might at least entertain her for a little while. It’s not like she’s got anything else to do anyways.

The detective, realizing that she won’t be able to get out so easily, mouths again ‘I hate you’, to which Morgan answers by blowing a kiss in her direction. 

Admitting her defeat, Sadie holds up her cat in Ava’s direction. “Could you hold while I play my turn, please?” She asks, barely hiding her attempt at defusing the situation.

And for a second, Morgan thinks this might work as Ava eyes the hairless cat, barely annoyed at being handled in such a way. She watches as the commanding agent sits back down, crossing her leg, almost preparing to take the cat. That is until she goes “You’ve been holding him just fine the whole time.”

Sadie makes a face at her. “Yeah, well unlike you, my legs are getting numb.” She states, not waiting for the vampire’s answer before putting the sheriff in her lap. The cat is already falling back asleep.

There's a moment of latency as everyone waits for Ava's reaction and, as she doesn't show any sign of exasperation, Sadie reaches for something on the table and the silence falls heavier when she makes it spin.

Morgan steps a little closer and sits on the sofa behind Sadie. On the table, she makes out the blurred lines of a wooden spinning top. Underneath it, the detective is crossing her fingers as tightly as she can bear.

In front of Sadie, two glass pebbles are sitting on the table. Morgan looks around the table and noticing that the others have similar piles before them - some much bigger, like Farah’s, and others only containing one more than Sadie’s stash, like Ava’s - she understands, despite having no idea what game they’re playing, that her friend is losing. 

The four faces of the spinning top become more and more visible as it slows down and starts wobbling. Although she can now make out the symbols on the four faces of the toy, she still doesn’t know what they’re supposed to represent. She hears Sadie take a deep breath before she actually stops breathing. She can’t help but think the human is being a little-over dramatic, but then…

***

The dreidel finally tips over and…

“Nun!” she yells, much louder than she intended. 

She hears Morgan hissing sharply behind her and realizes she’s probably broken her eardrums. So she turns around and mouths a silent apology, to which the vampire answers with only a grunt, before she goes back to the game.

Sadie stares at the dreidel laying on its side and lets out a relieved sigh. She’s not losing that round either, she thinks before handing her dreidel to Ava. The vampire sitting by her side, mumbles something as she does, but Sadie doesn’t get it. 

The two are competing for the second to last place and, so far, Ava is winning. Sadie crosses her fingers once again and prays. She prays that Ava lands on ‘Shin’, which would force her to add another token into the pot, meaning they’d be even. But as she realizes what she’s praying for, Sadie is torn between shame and an irrepressible need to laugh. She’s usually not that competitive, but seeing how invested she is in that game, she guesses being around Ava is starting to rub on her.

Ava spins the dreidel and it flies across the room, making everyone duck.

“Ava!” They all scream in unison.

“What?” She asks, acting like nothing happened. She acts like it’s completely normal to turn a dreidel into a projectile, despite the fact that they all know how much control she has over her own strength. 

Her ears turn pink as they all stare at her and she sheepishly avoids their gaze. A move Sadie has grown accustomed to these past months: she is trying to hide the shame of letting her emotions get the best of her. 

A loud gasp echoes around the room and they all turn to Nat who went to fetch the toy. “Ava! It made a dent in the wall!” she cries in horror, staring at the toy encrusted in the wall. 

Sadie’s mouth falls wide open and she struggles to hold back a laugh, but as she sees Farah and Morgan trying as hard as she is not to laugh and that the rest of Ava’s face is turning a bright shade of red, she cannot help but crack up in laughter. 

Ava and Nat instantly start arguing like an old married couple about repairing that hole.

But as the argument grows in length, Sadie’s attention is caught by a flash of light in the middle of the room. She could have sworn the Christmas tree wasn’t turned on when she  got here earlier this afternoon.

Farah, noticing her confusion, leans in her direction. “I set a timer,” she whispers, “although magic would have been cool!” She adds like she had just guessed what the human was thinking.

“You can do that with Christmas lights?” Sadie asks, genuinely surprised by that fact.

“Nat bought really fancy ones” Farah explains and Sadie can’t help but chuckle at this. 

Knowing Nat she should have known everything they had gotten to decorate the place was really expensive and she dares not imagine how much she actually paid. But judging by the tree sitting in the middle of the room, she probably spent more than Sadie’s salary this month.

This tree is so gigantic it’s almost comical. Upon seeing it, her first thought had been about Ava having a heart-attack when she first saw it and having another one when Nat asked her to bring it inside. Because although Nat could probably make Ava do anything as long as she used her best pleading eyes, Sadie is still wondering what Nat could have possibly bribed Ava with so that she accepted to do it. Not that she doubts Ava could do it, in fact, Sadie knows Ava can haul a tree without any difficulty. It’s just that her brain still cannot comprehend how she managed to fit that ginormous tree - that almost touches the high ceiling and takes up half of the room - through the tiny doors of the warehouse.

Yet it’s not the size that made Sadie burst into laughter when she first saw it, but rather the wide array of colors ornating it and she instantly guesses Farah had been the one doing the decoration.

She remembers the young vampire, less than a couple weeks ago, begging Ava to get a Christmas tree so that, as she put it, she could get the best of the human experience. But the commanding agent had refused, so Sadie supposes Farah must have changed strategy after that refusal and pulled on Nat’s heartstrings so that she would indulge her, like she always does, especially when Farah pulls the ‘I never got to be human’ card.

And today, Sadie was met with this… She’s not quite sure how to describe it. Calling it an atrocity would be quite harsh, but this is definitely a little bit of an eyesore. It’s like Farah had randomly grabbed garlands and ornaments and let her excitement take over when she put them on the tree. It kind of reminds her of that time her kindergarten teacher would let them decorate the Christmas tree in her room every year.

Sadie still has to hold back a laugh when she thinks of Nat’s reaction when she first saw it. She actually snorted when they decided to settle in the living room and saw Nat scrunching her nose at the sight of it, desperately trying to hide the fact that she disliked the arrangement. Before that, she had even caught her trying to arrange some of the garlands a little more neatly and actively replacing some. Nat had begged her not to tell Farah.

There’s a loud grunt by her side and Sadie realizes Ava and Nat have stopped arguing. And it seems like Ava has already played her turn. The dreidel they both share is laying on the table and she can’t believe her eyes. Ava has to put another token into the pot.

“This isn’t fair,” the vampire grunts.

“You’ve just got bad luck,” Nat tries to soothe her.

“My spinning wasn’t optimal. The cat sleeping in my lap is reducing my range of movement.”

“Are you really blaming the sheriff because you’re losing?” Sadie asks, offended.

“All I’m saying is that I couldn’t spin the dreidel properly.”

“Yet you’re still petting the cat,” Farah points out.

Ava’s mouth opens as she looks for something to say, but nothing comes out and instead she readjusts her position to accommodate the sheriff as he shifts in her lap. Sadie shakes her head, forces herself to look away not to let her feelings transpire. Yet she can’t hide the soft smile tugging at her lips after noticing the fondness with which Ava looks at her cat. Neither can she hide her heart beating a little too erratically.

She clears her throat. “It’s your turn, Nat,” she announces, barely hiding her attempt at changing the subject.

Yet as the small wooden top starts its rotation, her attention is brought back to the vampire sitting beside her.

Ava is readjusting the hairless cat’s sweater. She tugs on it, making sure it covers most of the sheriff’s body, despite the fact that it's not cold inside the warehouse. She rolls the little collar properly so that it doesn’t bother him, and when she’s done she scratches him behind the ears, a spot he particularly likes.

She likes catching these moments where the commanding agent briefly lets her guard down. These moments where her caring nature shows. Not only with her cat, but also with the members of the team. When she helps Nat to cook, despite the fact that she herself doesn’t eat. When she listens to Farah’s new interest that week and actively asks questions so that Farah knows she’s listening even though she doesn’t really understand what she’s saying. How she closes the blinds without a word when the sun shines a little too brightly through the windows, bothering Morgan. How she often comes to check on her when she’s sleeping over at the warehouse, making sure Sadie has everything she needs.

Despite how much she hates admitting it, she cares deeply for every single one of them.

Ava looks at her, a puzzled look on her face, and Sadie quickly reverts her eyes. She tries to find something else to look at other than the vampire sitting beside her, and her eyes land on the menorah sitting on the mantel.

This is the first menorah she has lit in years and, to be honest, she didn’t expect to find one here today - just like she wasn’t expecting the Christmas tree. But what really moved her was its beauty.

Sadie is usually not a material person, but this menorah is amazingly well-crafted. 

It looks a little bit like a tree made out of brass. The trunk divides into two branches, on each of them sits four flowers to hold the eight candles. The ninth flower sits in the middle, slightly higher than the others, and holds the shamash. 

Vines spread out  on each side of the trunk and rise to coil around the two branches holding the candles. On those vines are carved small, intricate flowers.

Upon seeing it, she teared up a little at the thought that Nat must have spent so much time carefully picking such a gorgeous menorah for her.

And so, after the sunset, before they started playing, she kindled the first candle, answering Farah’s questions about its meaning.

Someone taps on her shoulder, bringing her attention back to the game. They’re all looking at her expectantly and she understands that they’re waiting for her to add another token to the pot so that they can start another round of spinning, meaning she’s left with only one glass pebble.

Ava hands her the dreidel. She spins it and once again she’s crossing her fingers.

Sadie looks around herself as the spinning top starts wobbling. Ava is discreetly trying to pet her cat who purrs in the vampire laps, making the others chuckle. Farah whispers something to Morgan and they share a mischievous look and the detective wonders what they’re up to, although she’ll come to know sooner or later. Nat is sipping on her tea, keeping a fond eye on each of them and she smiles when their gaze meets.

The dreidel lands on ‘Shin’, but Sadie doesn’t care. She does feel a tinge of disappointment, especially since she has just taught them to play. But after all, this game is all about luck and she realizes she’s been lucky enough to find a new family this year, so maybe that’s all the luck she needed. 

[4ce-of-2pades-inkwell]

I had the idea to combine my two current fixations into a Casino Cups + Wicked AU.

Elphaba and Nessa are daughters of the Devil in the most literal sense. (Ironic, considering how religious book Nessa is, and how book Elphaba wrestles with the idea of having faith and a soul.) Elphaba appears human, but is green, as one would expect. You initially assume she’s a plant hybrid, but then you see her fangs that no, she never lost, and her horns almost hidden among her dark hair, and her tail. That’s why people are afraid of her, that and her “father.” The Devil is very clear on the fact that she was more invented than born, and she assumes she is basically just another imp, albeit one that looks closer to human and is treated as an actual daughter. But still, despite the fact that she is loved, she receives far less warmth than she does expectation and responsibility. She is cold and calculating, sturdy and reliable, and serves the purposes asked of her.

Nessa, on the other hand, is the more doted on child, because she is not expected to take on responsibility, and perhaps subconsciously because she shows more of both her parents. Nessa is not a rose, as I had considered, but rather looks like any Devildice fanchild you might pull out of a hat at random, because she is. She’s a black die with golden dots, and a diamond-aligned head with three dots as her face, taking after her aunt. Her name should be some pun on dice, like Nessaroll. I can’t tell if that’s stupid or if it’ll grow on me. Maybe if I find a dice pun for “Nessa” too, or if there’s some general casino term with the word “rose” I could use instead. (Let’s say “Elphaba” means something in Enochian?) At any rate, it goes without saying that Nessa’s still a wheelchair user, but I sort of want to come up with some kind of unique cartoony or demon-ey type of accommodation for her to use instead, because it would be cool. (I’m picturing a backpack with wings or long tentacles or something to lift her off the ground.) Or perhaps I could borrow from the book and have her be armless instead? Anyway, she’s a hit singing at the Devil’s casino. Elphaba is a hit as a hitman perhaps, or maybe she’s learning to manage the finances.

Dice is getting older, and wants to retire soon, and Devil intends to retire right along with him. Ownership of the Casino is expected to pass to Elphaba for a good many decades, and possibly forever if Devil never decides to reclaim it, but when Elphaba does… I don’t know, some plot thing like in the musical… and goes AWOL, it falls to Nessa to take charge. And she takes to it remarkably naturally. Not a year of training, and she’s in charge, fully and completely, writing out soul deals of her own and ruling with an iron fist. If she does, in fact, have fists. I’m still trying to decide.

What it takes Elphaba time to discover, but I will lay out plainly for you for clarity’s sake, is that she’s not just some imp or demon that happened to get raised like a kid. She was created and designed specifically as Devil’s attempt at making an angel. He did have an interest in creating souls, didn’t he? What does an angel look like if it’s born fallen? What sort of manner of being is Elphaba, part of both worlds, belonging fully to neither? The Devil probably created this demonic angel with some kind of Big Scheme in mind, but at some point he realizes that he loves this thing like a kid, and is having a hard time balancing that with his need to use her like a weapon. Unlike Nessa, who he can certifiably call a child and nothing more or less, he doesn’t quite know what Elphaba is to him now, and that’s the source of his coldness and formality with her. If he’s gonna launch her at heaven like a nuclear weapon, he doesn’t want to get too attached.

Part of Elphaba’s estrangement is that she feels like a stepchild because she doesn’t have a connection to Dice. Nessa clearly shows both her parents. Elphaba shows only one, and that’s far offset by the green and her humanlike appearance. “Why did you invent me green though??” “Oh, it just matched your eyes. ;)” Dice has given her more than she realizes. One would never assume one of their fathers is blind because he literally gave his eyeballs to his firstborn. A demon needs demon eyes. Much of Elphaba’s being was formed from and around Dice’s demon eyes, with Devil’s magic (and some bit of holiness he had lying around somewhere). And the things that these demon eyes have seen give Elphaba a wisdom beyond her years through experiences she’ll never be able to consciously know. Also, she always knows when someone is lying. It is very difficult to hide anything from her. This is not an ability she manifests only at certain times, giving her visions of truths and desires, like with Dice, but a skill she uses continuously, one of purely mental intuition.

Glinda is an angel. Quite literally. I don’t have much to say about her story, because I don’t know much. Perhaps she senses someone of a similar nature and finds and befriends Elphaba. Perhaps they meet by chance. But this is the start of Elphaba having actual friends and a life outside the Casino. (Devil is uncertain about this, but Dice encourages him to let Elphaba have her fun. Weapon or no, she’s also a teenager, and Devil knows it.) Perhaps Gelphie becomes canon. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t, but frankly I’m too aspec to care, as long as they have a good friendship. The pair’s eventual encountering of the Wizard is, instead, an encounter with some high-level angel, or even maybe God? Probably not God. Maybe Gabriel? Elphaba is powerful, but it’s a strange and unusual power, and Gabriel is intrigued by this unknown being with angel-like abilities that no one can remember giving her. Glinda is very proud of having talent-scouted her friend, and tags along hoping she will be rewarded as well, becoming more than just a minor angel that didn’t even make it into any literature by name. Elphaba is invited to join the heavenly host or something like that. She can become important. Gabriel can teach her and learn from her as well. Or hey, she’s kind of goth, so maybe she’ll want to be trained up as some kind of angel of death like Azrael. And of course Glinda jumps at Gabriel’s now open offer for guidance. They could do this together, Elphaba and Glinda, learning and training under two great angels, finding their purpose, becoming important, etc etc etc… Of course there’s some kind of confrontation wherein Elphaba discovers dark ulterior motives. Which, coming from God, doesn’t bode well. Probably something along the lines of that one thing Devil said about being an experiment and a puppet or something. I don’t know. But Elphaba wants nothing to do with this eerily pristine, fake perfect paradise. She turns away. But Glinda doesn’t intend to fall. Even knowing what she now knows… this is just who she is. So the two good friends officially take their sides on this most legendary struggle between “good” and “evil.” Elphaba now personally understands her father’s struggle, and she’s going to make a nuclear weapon towards heaven out of herself. But she intends to do it on her own terms. So she runs away to study and plan and prepare for… something.

Okay. Other characters.

Fiyero, I think, is some kind of dish or utensil. (I can’t think of a good pun off the top of my head… something with “fork”???) Paralleling him as a prince, this AU’s Fiyero is a descendant of the Calix Animi, but one who knows all the lore… …and acts like he doesn’t care much. It was a bajillion years ago, big deal! He plays it off because, if taken seriously, that’s a lot to live up to. On his own time though, he studies his ancestors with a passion. He was friends with Elphaba before she fell from a heaven she wasn’t part of in the first place, but after Elphaba cuts ties with everyone, she runs into Fiyero again by accident because they’re both researching. Perhaps they encounter each other in the Calix Animi ruins at like 2 AM? Elphaba sticks with Fiyero after this, at first because she tells him about her cause and he decides to turn traitor on his ancestors and help her by sharing his research and knowledge and stuff. But with time… I dunno, maybe they also fall in love? Like I said, I really don’t care.

Boq. Or rather, Bog. I do frequently make reference to the singular time in the book that Elphaba calls him a frog as an insult, but if that’s not enough to convince you, consider how close “Tibbett and Crope” are to “Ribby and Croaks.” Bog is their cousin, distant or close I don’t know. From the start of the AU’s plot, he works as a waiter at their clip joint, but he really wants to do… um, I dunno? Irrigation theory? In the book he studied agriculture, and in the musical all he did was study Galinda every time he could look at her. I do think that considering all the sentient plants on the Inkwell Isles—which I suppose we should be sure to capitalize here as “Plants,” another nod to the lore of the book—there would be a lot more range when it comes to what you might call “agriculture”, or any study of plants and animals. For all I know, we could be talking Plants and Animals instead, and he technically wants to be a doctor or an anthropologist or something. But I digress. He’s got some kind of professional aspirations, and he’s working a lot of shifts at his cousins’ place saving up for a good education. (Cousins plural, because Ribby and Croaks aren’t actually versions of Tibbett and Crope here, because if they were, they’d be a couple, not related, and since I wouldn’t be changing the names at all, that would get… confusing.)

At some point Bog makes friends with Nessa, which as we all know is always the biggest mistake of his life. I dunno if he makes Nessa think he likes her in this AU, because I also dunno if and how he falls in love with Glinda (who probably doesn’t ever have a name change unless I can think of a good reason). He probably does crush on the unattainable angel though, because if we’re playing by musical rules, then it’s an obligation, and it is also an obligation that Bog share some portion of the fault for his fate due to his own bad life choices. However, this fault can come with the signing of a contract. Nessa doesn’t need to be in love this time. What she needs is ruthless business sense. Why shouldn’t she use a friend/acquaintance as the first victim of her own personal soul deals? Much easier to convince that way. Maybe she tricks him. But I think he kind of has to sign his life away as willingly as possible, so our pity for his predicament can be mixed with a fair dose of “you idiot” as it always should be. I don’t know what she offers him that he’s willing to sign his soul away—probably something to do with making Glinda like him, because I don’t think he’s cares quite that much about agriculture—but Bog goes and loses his heart soul to Nessa. And she must like him at least a little, because his deal isn’t one for eternal torment. Instead, he is Nessa’s first “hired” employee at the Devil’s Casino (under new management). He will stay by her side, serving her, forever. And call me silly, but I don’t think this arrangement is going to end up quite like it did with Devil and Dice. (Though that’s the only love story Nessa’s especially familiar with, so perhaps it’s no wonder this was her plan all along to win Bog over. It worked once, right?)

Bog goes from one waiter uniform straight to a slightly different waiter uniform, this one with a little heart on it, and in any color he wants! Fun, right? Totally worth the, y’know, eternity, right? Bog wonders what exactly he got himself into, and desperately hopes he won’t come to regret it any more than he already does, because there is no escaping this.

I’m not sure how everybody would end up meeting and becoming friends. I know there was no big friend group in the musical, but I am tempted to once again borrow a little from the book, because the Charmed Circle gives me life. However, maybe it would make more sense for them to meet by chance, in twos and threes, and have a little web of interactions, and maybe encounter all of each other in the same space a few times, but never really become a group. As always, whichever best serves the mostly nonexistent plot.

I associate Elphaba with Clubs, Glinda with Diamonds, Bog with Hearts (duh), and Fiyero with Spades. (I have no idea what Nessa is, and I kind of don’t want to decide because there are only four suits and it would mess up the balance.) All of this is up for debate.