#and that I would be wrong to blame my tools

[ego-sum-arbor]

I have been having fun playing guitar badly! Alas I must go slowly be gentle to my poor fingies

I originally learned on a gradually warping acoustic with increasingly high action, so I’ve never experienced the point where your fret hand fingertips stop hurting constantly. Amazingly this did not improve my learning experience.

[vingtetunmars]

Cool Your Engine

Pairing: Eddie Munson x F!Reader

Summary: A summer car breakdown leads to unexpected sparks when you're met with Eddie Munson, the mechanic.

tags: NSFW, mechanic!Eddie Munson, meet cute, hooking up, smut (18+), Eddie is flirty, but reader is equally as flirty, so Eddie gets flustered, things gets steamy. No mentions of Y/N.

A/N: Here's another one for yall who hasn't moved on from spring 2022 (dw me too). And I have to warn you guys, it's my first time writting smut. If you have any requests, suggestions, or thoughts, feel free to send me a message. Reblogs are appreciated. Please do not steal or cross-post it on another platform without asking. Thank you.

word count: 3k

masterlist

It happened three songs into your summer mixtape, somewhere between “Jessie’s Girl” and the first crackle of heat warping off the pavement. Your car coughed, shuddered, and gave up like a dramatic theater kid—right in the middle of the road.

“Seriously?” you muttered, pulling off to the shoulder with what little momentum you had left. A few horns honked in passing, but it wasn’t like you’d planned a breakdown in 90-degree weather with no shade, no A/C, and no clue what was wrong under the hood.

You kicked the tire. Like that would help.

Eventually, with sweat creeping down your back and patience fraying, you called it in. The tow truck guy took his time—of course—and an hour later, your car was being dragged into Thatcher Tires, a squat little shop tucked behind a gas station and halfway disguised by trees.

The tow truck rolled to a stop in front of an open garage bay. Music drifted from a beat-up radio inside—Ozzy—and you caught the glint of metal tools scattered across a workbench.

Then he stepped out.

He looked like a movie cliché. Grease-stained jeans, sleeveless band tee clinging to his arms, dark curls tied back with a red rag. There was a smear of oil across one cheek, a socket wrench in one hand, and the swagger of someone who’d definitely been kicked out of detention more than once.

And you knew him.

Eddie Munson.

High school’s resident chaos goblin. All leather jackets, bad reputation, and devil horns. You hadn’t really talked to him back then — different friend groups, different universes — but Hawkins High wasn’t exactly huge. You knew of him. He knew of you.

And now, apparently, he was the one holding your car’s fate in his ring-clad hands.

“Well, well,” he said with a grin, looking you up and down with obvious amusement. “Didn’t expect you to show up here. This some kind of undercover royalty mission?”

You raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

He gestured to your car with theatrical flair. “You know. Hawkins High’s golden girl, stranded in the heat. Sounds like the setup to a John Hughes movie. Except I’m pretty sure I’m the bad influence your parents warned you about.”

You stared at him. He was laying it on thick. Bold move.

“…The engine died,” you said coolly, not missing a beat. “Right after I put in gas. Which makes me think maybe it just gave up on life.”

“Tragic,” Eddie said, walking over to pop the hood. “Sounds like it’s got a flare for the dramatic. Can’t blame it. If I had to live off gas station hot dogs, I’d probably give up too.”

He bent over the engine, giving you an unfortunate front-row view of his torn shirt riding up at the back. You fought the urge to laugh.

Then, without looking at you, he added, “So, you come here often? Or do broken engines just bring us together?”

You blinked.

Oh. So he wanted to play this game.

A slow smile tugged at your lips.

You stepped a little closer, just enough that he noticed the shift in space. “Only when the universe decides to throw me at high school delinquents.”

Eddie straightened, wiping his hands on a rag that only made them slightly dirtier. He caught your gaze and faltered for just a second. “Touché.”

You tilted your head, pretending to inspect the engine. “So, you actually know what you’re doing? Or is this where you tell me I need a whole new car?”

He let out a breathy chuckle, tapping the wrench against his palm. “Nah, lucky for you, I’m the best thing that ever happened to this shop. You’ll be back on the road in no time.”

“Good,” you said, shooting him a look. “I’d hate to have to call another mechanic. One that isn’t flirting with me in broad daylight.”

That shut him up.

For a beat, Eddie opened his mouth—then closed it again. He wiped his hands harder. “Uh. Right. Yeah. I’ll, um, go take a look at the engine now.”

You bit your cheek to keep from laughing. This was going to be fun.

Eddie cleared his throat, dragging his focus back to the car like it hadn’t just gotten lightly roasted by someone way too cute to be standing in his garage, in his space, casually dismantling his ability to flirt like a functioning adult.

He leaned over the engine again, muttering something about valves as he poked around with the tip of his wrench. You folded your arms and leaned back against the car next to yours, watching him like he was a particularly entertaining movie.

“So?” you finally asked. “What’s the damage, Doc?”

Eddie popped his head up, giving you a crooked grin. “Well, after a very scientific examination—by which I mean looking at it and poking it a few times—I’d say your alternator’s fried. That, or your battery connections are shot. Could be both. Either way, your engine wasn’t getting the juice it needed.”

You blinked. “English?”

He laughed. “Car no get power. Car sad.”

You rolled your eyes, but the smile snuck in anyway. “Got it. And how long does it take to un-sad the car?”

Eddie straightened up fully, wiping his hands on the same greasy rag as before. “If it’s just the alternator, I can probably have it fixed by tomorrow evening. If I gotta order a new part, we’re talking… two days, maybe three. Depends how fast the delivery guy wants to piss me off this week.”

You nodded, pretending to calculate your suffering. “So I’m without a car for at least a day. What a tragedy.”

Eddie shrugged, tilting his head. “Could be worse. At least you broke down near home. And hey, now you get to hang out at Hawkins’ hottest summer destination: the Munson Garage.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that what this place is called now?”

“Unofficially. Only the cool people call it that.” He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck with his oil-slicked hand and instantly regretting it when he smeared grease across his skin. “Which, apparently, now includes you.”

There was a pause.

You smiled again—slow and knowing.

He caught it and groaned. “God, I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“Yep,” you said, popping the ‘p’ with satisfaction.

Eddie chuckled, shaking his head. “Alright, alright. I’m gonna pull the battery and check a few more things. You’re welcome to chill if you want. The office has A/C and a semi-functioning coffee machine. Emphasis on ‘semi.’”

You considered it, then nodded. “Fine. But if that coffee kills me, I’m suing.”

He gave you a mock salute. “Deal. You die, I get sued. That’s the American Dream, baby.”

You pushed off the car and made your way toward the garage office, brushing past him just close enough that his breath hitched—and if you smiled to yourself as you walked away, well…

He didn’t have to know that.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

You stared at the buzzing fluorescent light in the garage office. It blinked in uneven spurts, casting a depressing glow over the chipped coffee table, stained carpet, and stack of Auto Weekly magazines no one had touched since 1981. The A/C hummed like it was on its last leg, doing its best to fight off the heat bleeding through the windows.

You checked your watch. Five minutes had passed.

You tried sipping the coffee.

Immediately regretted it.

You set it down and stared at the door leading back into the garage.

You didn’t have to sit here. He’d invited you to stay, hadn’t he?

Yeah. Totally invited. It wasn’t weird. Not weird at all.

With that flimsy justification, you pushed open the door and stepped into the garage again—where the air was hotter, thicker, and scented like motor oil, grease, and faint cologne. Not that you minded.

Eddie was crouched low at the front of your car, hands deep in the engine. He hadn’t noticed you yet, music from a nearby radio low but loud enough to cover the creak of the door.

And yeah—damn.

The band tee he wore earlier had ridden up again, revealing the sharp lines of his back and the tattoos inked along his side, smeared faintly with grease. His arms flexed as he twisted something with a wrench, a loose strand of hair falling across his face. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a smudge across his temple.

You shouldn’t have stared. You definitely shouldn’t have bit your lip.

But it wasn’t your fault he looked like the cover of a very specific kind of magazine right now.

Eddie finally looked up—and startled just slightly when he saw you there. “Back so soon? Office too glamorous for you?”

You shrugged, walking over like your pulse wasn’t doing weird things. “The light was flickering like it was trying to communicate with the dead. And your coffee? Crimes against humanity.”

Eddie grinned. “Told you it was semi-functional.”

You leaned against the worktable beside him, arms crossed, pretending you weren’t definitely watching the way his curls stuck to the back of his neck. “So what’s the verdict? Is my car dead or just in a dramatic coma?”

He wiped his hands off on a rag, then gestured vaguely toward the engine. “Still coma. She’s responding to tests, though. Could pull through with some TLC and a couple hundred dollars in parts.”

“Hmm.” You leaned forward, peering into the engine like you knew what any of it meant. “You really talk about cars like they’re people.”

He looked at you, a flicker of something dancing behind his eyes. “They kind of are. You learn their moods. Their quirks. Some scream for attention, others give you the silent treatment.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Sounds like high school.”

You both laughed, and for a second, the sound softened the space between you.

Then Eddie cleared his throat. “You didn’t have to come out here, you know.”

“I know.” You looked at him, bold enough to hold the stare. “Just figured you were more interesting than a flickering light and expired magazines.”

His smile twitched, but he didn’t look away. “Careful, princess. Keep talking like that and I might start thinking you actually like me.”

You tilted your head, considering him, considering your words. “What if I already do?”

For a split second, his confidence wobbled. A flush bloomed at the base of his neck, just barely visible through the smears of grease and heat.

“Well,” he said, eyes flicking down and then quickly back up, “then I’d say you’re making some very questionable life choices.”

You smirked, leaning a little closer. “Yeah. I tend to do that in the summer.”

Eddie blinked—visibly short-circuiting.

You didn’t press your luck. Just gave him a wink, turned around, and went back to pretending to look at the tools like you hadn’t just broken his brain.

From behind you, you heard him mutter, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath.

Victory.

You eventually peeled yourself away from the garage — mostly because the heat and Eddie were making it difficult to think straight.

After making a call, you walked back to Eddie, “I’m gonna have to leave her here for the night,” you said, glancing back at your poor, sunbaked car. “I’ve got places to be, and unfortunately none of them include waiting around in a garage for a miraculous resurrection.”

Eddie wiped his hands on that same rag, slinging it over his shoulder like a towel in some kind of car commercial. “I can work on it tonight, if you want. Should have her running by tomorrow.”

You tilted your head. “You offering that as a mechanic or a... friend?”

He gave a soft snort. “Well, the mechanic gets paid. The friend just wants an excuse to see you again.”

You tried not to let your smirk show too much. “Good thing I like both of them, then.”

That time, he definitely blushed — just a flicker, but you caught it.

A car horn sounded from outside. You glanced toward the open garage doors and saw your friend’s car pulling into the lot, waving lazily out the window.

“That’s my ride,” you said, already taking a few steps back.

Eddie nodded, brushing a grease-streaked curl from his cheek. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You paused at the door, hand on the frame. “Don’t let her give you too much trouble,” you said, nodding at your car. “She can be dramatic, but she’s got heart.”

“Sounds familiar,” Eddie said, giving you a little grin — and a little look.

You raised your brows. “Careful, Munson. You flirt like that again and I might think you’re interested.”

He opened his mouth, but whatever clever reply he had fizzled the moment you winked and turned on your heel.

As you slid into your friend’s passenger seat, you couldn’t help but glance back once. Eddie was still standing there, rag over his shoulder, watching you go with a look that made the inside of your chest feel like someone had lit a match.

Yeah. Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

The next afternoon, you were back — sunglasses perched on your nose, summer breeze tousling your hair as you stepped into the garage.

Eddie was already elbow-deep in the hood of someone else’s car, but the second he looked up and saw you, something in his face lit up. He wiped his hands off and met you halfway across the garage.

“She lives,” he said, nodding toward your car parked by the side. “Got her purring like a kitten. You’re all good to go.”

You gave him a pleased grin, twirling your keys around one finger. “So does this mean I owe you dinner, or just my eternal gratitude?”

Eddie blinked — caught for just a second in that space between flustered and wanting to flirt. “Depends. Are you offering?”

You tilted your head, amused. “I might be.”

He was the one who took the step closer this time. “Careful,” he said, voice low. “You say things like that and I’ll start thinking today’s gonna get even better.”

Something in the air shifted — like it always did when you two were alone.

It was supposed to be a quick stop. Grab the car, say thank you, go. But the way Eddie was looking at you — like you were trouble in the best way — made your pulse kick up.

“You’re staring,” you said softly, but didn’t back away.

“So are you.”

He reached up, gently brushing your sunglasses to rest on top of your head. The moment your eyes met without the tint between them, something snapped.

You closed the distance first — not quite a kiss, but your lips just a breath away from his. “Is now a bad time to say I’ve been thinking about you?”

Eddie exhaled through a laugh, but his voice came out hoarse. “Only if it stops you from doing something about it.”

And then you did.

You kissed him.

It was slow at first — like testing the water — but when his hands found your waist and you backed him against the wall beside the garage’s tool chest, it deepened. His lips were soft but urgent, fingers flexing against your sides like he couldn’t believe this was real.

He broke away just long enough to say, “You’re gonna ruin me, you know that?”

You smiled against his jaw, lips brushing his skin. “I’m counting on it.”

Clothes stayed mostly on. But hands wandered. A little too long under your shirt, his rings cold against warm skin. Your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging a soft noise from the back of his throat that made your stomach flutter.

The garage door was still open.

“I should not be doing this here,” you murmured against his lips, breathless, giggling.

“Tell that to yourself, then,” Eddie said, nipping at your bottom lip.

You kissed him like you meant to stay longer — and Eddie kissed you back like he didn’t want to let you leave.

What started near the open garage doors quickly got too bold, too heated. A quiet moan slipped out before you could stop it, and Eddie froze like a deer in headlights. His eyes darted to the open lot.

“Office,” he mumbled. “Now.”

You both practically stumbled inside, laughing between kisses. The office door shut behind you with a muffled click — suddenly, the hum of the fan was the only sound, and it felt like you were in a different world.

Eddie backed you against the wall first, lips trailing down your neck, one hand resting just above your hip while the other cupped your cheek. He kissed you like he was trying to learn you — slow at first, but full of quiet hunger.

Then he stopped.

His eyes searched yours, lips parted, chest rising and falling. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice hoarse. “With me?”

You nodded, without a second of hesitation. “Are you seriously still asking that?”

A beat passed. Then he muttered, “Okay,” like a promise.

His fingers slid under your shirt again — bolder this time, less cautious — and you tugged at the hem until he helped you pull it over your head. You made quick work of his, revealing the lines of his pale torso, lean and dusted with grease smudges and freckles.

You kissed each other like you were making up for lost time.

Eddie's hands wandered lower, gripping your thighs as he lifted you up against the wall, breath hot against your cheek. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmured.

“It’s not enough,” you whispered back.

That did it. His mouth crashed into yours again — desperate, teeth and tongue and breathless heat.

Then he carried you to the desk, setting you down like you were something fragile. The fan buzzed above as his fingers skimmed over your waistband, eyes locked on yours the whole time.

“Still good?” he asked.

You answered by kissing him again, and guiding his hand where you wanted it.

His fingers traced gentle shapes over your clit — feather-light at first, almost teasing, like he wanted to hear you beg. When he slipped past the seam and touched you — properly — your breath hitched.

“God, you're soaked,” he whispered. “Is that all for me?”

You nodded, flushed and smiling. “Who else?”

He watched your expression the whole time, eyes dark, lips parted, the tips of his fingers slick with you. “Holy fuck,” he whispered. “You’re so soft…”

Your hands slid down to his belt, tugging at the buckle with shaking fingers. He let out a half-laugh, half-groan. “God, you’re gonna kill me.”

When his dick pressed against your thigh, hot and heavy even through his boxers, you felt the last of your patience snap. He leaned over you, foreheads touching, both of you half-dressed and frantic.

“Please,” you said, soft, just for him.

He kissed you again before he pushed down his boxers past his knees. When you saw his dick, thick and flushed, your stomach flipped in the best way.

He lined up, pushing in slow — steady, careful, giving you time.

His breath hitched as he slid into your entrance, stretching you in a way that made you gasp into his shoulder. His hands shook a little where they gripped the desk beside your hips.

“Fuck,” he groaned, dick buried to the hilt. “You feel… insane. You feel perfect.”

Eddie kissed every inch he could reach — your shoulders, your jaw, the hollow beneath your ear. His hands gripped your hips like he couldn’t let go. You tangled your fingers in his hair, nails dragging lightly down his back.

You whispered each other's names like secrets. You clung to him like he was the only real thing in the world.

The desk creaked beneath you with every thrust, the sound swallowed by the way your bodies met, again and again. His hands gripped your waist like you were the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

“I’m—close,” he admitted in a shaky breath, pressing his forehead to yours.

You nodded, moaning softly. “Me too. Don’t stop, Eds, don’t—”

You came first, thighs trembling, body arching as pleasure rolled through you in slow waves. Eddie followed almost instantly, hips stuttering, arms wrapping tightly around you as he let go with a broken sound against your neck.

For a long time after, the only sounds were your uneven breathing and the faint faint creak of the ceiling fan. He was still buried inside you, arms loose around your waist.

You were still curled up in the mess of discarded clothes and paperwork, your head against his chest, the fan doing a miserable job at cooling the both of you down.

Eddie was blinking up at the ceiling, completely flushed, dazed.

You grinned, breathless. “Don’t worry... I’m still gonna pay for the car.”

He let out a helpless laugh and pressed a kiss to your hair. “That’s not even close to what I’m worried about.”

[bigfatbreak]

im gonna reserve thoughts on the new season of mlb, but i do have Fears plotwise that make me apprehensive to really take in so ill state it below

marinette's lie about hawkmoth is clearly going to be the big catalyst in this series/season/wtv but my big thing is, if its going to be written, it should have some level of nuance? she's a child who was trying to spare everyone's feelings when it came to a tragedy that was thrust upon her. the rest of us can be like "oh yeah well I just would've told adrien" but that would've been equally explosive, and she really thinks this way would essentially save adrien both from a worse grief than just losing his father and also the animosity of the public. there was no answer that didn't have major repercussions, essentially, and she was taking the path more likely to help adrien's state - after all, gabriel is already dead, but the anger of the public remains. who would they take out hawkmoth's fury onto? years of being a public menace and terrorist would likely be framed at Adrien

but i feel like what's gonna happen is lila is going to reveal her lie in a very big way, (because we're already seeing the narrative push the envelope and be a bit overbearing in how the public LOVES ladybug SO SO MUCH LOOK THE PUBLIC LOVES HERRR) essentially try to sway adrien to her side (since gabe had a big thing with lila and adrien, trying to make them like. two sides of a coin or smth) and Marinette is going to have to try and fix it all whilst everyone is telling her she's a terrible person for lying as though she doesn't already resent herself for lying in the first place, which may lead to her getting akumatized and becoming lila's tool, leaving alya and the gang to fix shit

that could be good, but the issue is, when it comes to marinette the series seems to like framing her choices as foolish or stupid when they could better be framed as tragic. my big worry is when everything blows up and everyone no doubt hates ladybug/marinette for telling a falsehood to the public, there's not going to be a facet of the narrative that focuses on the tragedy of the matter: that she was a child left with a choice and she tried to save everyone and fumbled it. instead everyone is going to say she was stupid with her foolish little love goggles on and that she's just sooo airheaded when it comes to adrien, and they're going to minimize the shit that happened to her as "marinette is dumb" rather than "marinette was put into an impossible situation and no part of it wasnt going to blow up on her"

she wasn't RIGHT for lying to the public, or to her friends, but she also wasn't WRONG to try and minimize the damage. and i don't think they're gonna touch on that latter part in a way that has any sense of respect for the character, coz man. the narrative loves blaming marinette for shit she DIDN'T do, so considering she HAS done something with big consequences, I can only imagine how they're going to beat her character against the wall

[dailymothanon]

Was way too busy today to draw anything but this is how it feels to get my millionth Soundwave plot that is either cassette harm or something maybe a little interesting just for it to never actually be explored and end up tossed aside 😔(of course, I’m just over exaggerating for fun;) warning for a rant btw—

I think most if not all Soundwaves have been handled pretty solidly? Kinda? I guess 90% of the stuff he does as a character is just be an asset to keep the overall plot moving which is fair, but also mostly him just aura farming all the time lmao like girl we get it 😭 but also go off… but also I do heavily wish his character was explored more, different dynamics, change the formula! As mostly Megatron and maybe Starscream and to an extent Shockwave are often changed story and personality wise much more prominently or noticeably. Part of me also feels like 🤔 maybe the lack of change in Soundwaves (design wise? He certainly Does Change a lot) is partially because it’s hard to explore a character that tends to not be really expressive or talk much, so I don’t blame anyone… just wish that he has more juice yaknow 😌 something more filling than just stoic mech who practically carries the whole faction on his back, known to be loyal, and also has cassettes that he seems to care for a ton.. sure, you can say these are essentials to his character, but I guess like, isn’t that the point of different continuities? Endless possibilities that are all technically canon in their own regards (for example the folks who don’t like TfOne Shockwave cuz he’s very expressive and emotional, who think “he doesn’t have emotions why is he like this” well, yea, he doesn’t have emotions in THAT continuity, but in THIS continuity, he does! It’s a fun new way of seeing him!). Maybe TFA Soundwave is a good example to me of like, this is an interesting new idea of a story for him! But then it’s not really explored ever 😭 but don’t get me wrong, this does Not mean I don’t like other Soundwaves from the lack of story, I love them all very dearly!! Tfp was also an interesting and cool concept of him! Most Soundwaves have had great aspects about them to me which is why I cannot pick a definitive favorite! But one thing I think they all collectively lack a little in is exploration of character that’s past him just being a tool to keep things moving, which to me, even that within itself is something that may be explored, him being seen more as a tool than an individual, but I still completely understand why he isn’t touched on cuz obviously he won’t be the main character or anything 😛 important character Sure, but he’s almost treated like a side character at times which again, is also fine and valid, I don’t have expectations that the story would consider him cuz there’s usually not really reason to; though in comparison to the rest of the high command getting many new analyzations and different directions to go, it is a little disappointing to me when I think about it too much 📼 but I still love him a lot regardless!

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

"Why Would You Bother With Me?" - An Analysis of Kitsunami, 09/07/2024

tw: major discussions of abuse, the cycle of abuse, re-traumatizing situations, toxic and abusive relationships (non-romantic)

so like when I first read this panel my reaction was just to joke with Cori that this is a "get out of my school" moment (iykyk) but I've been thinking about it a lot recently because I... couldn't remember any specific beef Kit had with Tails?

Last we saw of them interacting one-on-one, Tails was talking Kit down from fighting, and Kit's beef with the squad later was more with Sonic than him. Tails didn't take down Surge in #56 or even affect the fight in any way, and Sonic was the one who told Kit that Surge was dead beforehand. At least that I could remember, so I went back to those comics. Indeed, in #56 he shows no animosity towards Tails specifically, nor when he talks to Surge in #55.

Then I went back to #54.

See, he does seem to blame Sonic entirely for the Surge death fakeout, and he thinks that Sonic is literally trying to kill her when he walks in. But he does have one (1) reaction to Tails, right at the end of the interaction.

In the previous issue, after Sonic and Tails saved his life, Kit immediately switched on his subservient personality and was desperate for any kind of validation from the hedgehog. We only see it for a few panels before he is told about Surge and sinks into a depressive state, but it's made very obvious.

And when he leaves to help?

Kit's conditioning under Starline means that he is excessively codependent on Surge– and if Surge isn't around, on anyone who is nice to him. The hypnotic repetition shown to us was "You live to support Surge. You'll do anything for her." Kit's sole purpose in life is to be a Support party member.

Kit's conditioning was to be the new Tails.

Starline wanted Surge and Kit to replace Sonic and Tails– that much was obvious from the get-go. But what was also obvious was his fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic and Tails's dynamic and how that negatively impacts Surge and Kit's relationship.

Starline completely misses the strong sibling bond that Sonic and Tails have. To him, Tails is just there to support Sonic, to provide the brains and tech that Sonic lacks, and so Kit needs to be there to support Surge in the same way. He sees it only as a business partnership, and not a mutual relationship built on trust, love, and shared experiences. Starline only saw other people as tools, so obviously he projected that onto Surge and Kit, hoping that they would immediately take up the closeness that Sonic and Tails did because, well, they served the same purpose to each other, right?

Except Surge and Kit don't have that relationship. These two children were forced into the same proximity and made to work together. They're coworkers at best, being told to act like a family.

Obviously their dynamic is super toxic, with Surge clearly holding a lot of power over Kit, but it's also clear that this isn't because Surge wants to beat on the kid. She was made to be Sonic, and so she has his arrogance (and possibly Shadow's, considering IS1 showed his image when Starline was talking about stealing abilities), but, as Boom!Sonic says, "Without any of the awesomeness to back it up." Okay, wrong, she's plenty awesome, the correct phrase is "Without the experience" and, most importantly, "without the altruism that makes Sonic Sonic." Surge wasn't programmed to like the people she saves, because that would conflict with Starline's goal to take over the world. So she's only made to be competitive and to want to best Sonic, anyone inbetween them be damned. This clashes with Kit's programming to not only be liked, but to be liked by Surge. Surge was also programmed to believe fully in herself in order to enhance the arrogant trait, and Kit was made to give her the help that she doesn't want.

To Surge, Kit represents everything holding her back. And she's not built to view him as a person, because Starline doesn't view him or her as people. Obviously this doesn't absolve her of her treatment of him, and later issues showing her getting more and more aware as she becomes more social is definitely going to impact the way she views him– or, if it doesn't make her reconsider Kit's personhood, it'll serve to make her more antagonistic for the viewer.

But the point is, Sonic trusts Tails because he knows and respects him as a person. It isn't just because Tails can help him, but because he knows Tails will. Surge, at this point in the comic, not only doesn't view Kit as a friend, she doesn't even care what he thinks or feels.

And despite the brainwashing, I don't think Kit is oblivious to this. He knows how bad their situation is, but he is so conditioned to accept it that he can't escape it whatsoever. In both fights with Tails, Tails talks him down easily because Kit doesn't want to hurt anyone. Kit only reacts violently when Surge is brought up, because he's meant to do anything she wants.

Like he said to Belle, he was made for Surge. And what he says directly after– "Sonic can use me, too." Kit doesn't even view himself as a person, only a tool– that's how far Starline's brainwashing went. It's clearly even affecting Surge, who realized in the latest issue, #72, how fast she and Kit fell into their abusive patterns again once Clutch took over– they were conditioned to be tools. Clutch claimed to want to help them, but really he was just using them for his own ends, just like Starline. So they went back to the familiar.

And speaking of familiar– pain is familiar to Kit, specifically pain in service to others. In his breakdown in #50, he says that Starline made him happy he'd been hurt. And in Imposter Syndrome #3 and #4, we see that him and Surge hate Starline and want to usurp him... but also are still trapped in the patterns he implanted in them. Surge still wants to kill Sonic and outperform everyone else. Kit still can't do anything but what she wants, to the point he becomes near catatonic when he believes she's dead.

Another pattern Kit is still trapped in is the idea that he has to be okay with his own suffering.

The only sense of home or family Surge and Kit have is in each other, but they fundamentally can't work together, at least as they are currently. Kit is expected to take Surge's anger, and Surge isn't expected to treat him like his own person.

And this, I think, is Kit's problem with Tails.

He was made to be Tails, and he knows this, but he can never have what Tails has. He can never live up to Tails and do what Tails can do, despite that being his entire life's purpose.

He doesn't hate Tails because he was programmed to– as he says to Surge, he only wants to destroy Sonic because she wants to. When he first encounters Tails, he refers to him as his target- a simple, unemotional term. He doesn't have the deep ingrained hatred for him that Surge does for Sonic.

Instead, he hates Tails because of what he sees in him. He sees Sonic and Tails interact, he sees how much Sonic trusts and relies on Tails, and he sees how he also loves and respects him. He sees how Tails has his own motivations and opinions, and he's experienced Tails's genuine compassion that was in part fostered by the hedgehog that raised him. In turn, Tails is loyal to Sonic, but not because he has to be– because he, in turn, loves Sonic and wants to be with him.

Kit only wants to be with Surge because he was forced to. Starline wanted to use Surge and Kit to stop Sonic and Eggman's cycle, but he made a whole new one instead. Kit is trapped in a cycle of pain, knows he's trapped in it, and is helpless to escape it.

Tails isn't, and Kit sees that in Tails. Subconsciously, he sees Tails and only sees how he fails to live up to his life's mission, and how he'll never have what Tails has.

After all, why would anyone bother with him? They already have Tails.

Is he a target? I like it here now.

[uschi-the-listener]

If you care, share

It sounds wild. Maybe even crazy. But every step is already in motion. I’d be happy to be wrong. But if this is correct… you’ll be ready.

On April 20, 2025, the United States may initiate its final steps into authoritarian rule.

That’s the day Donald Trump’s advisory committee is expected to release its findings on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act — a move that would allow him to deploy the military domestically and allow Trump to impose martial law. (San Francisco Chronicle). Given Hegseth is the main “advisor”, the conclusion is foregone.

And as his two months in office has already shown, he won’t stop at just a legal opinion.

Expect an executive order that same day or the next, officially declaring the Insurrection Act, restricting freedoms in the name of restoring control of the border and in blue-state cities, and setting the larger plan in motion.

Of course, this won’t be framed as an attack on democracy. It will be packaged as a necessary response to crisis — as authoritarian takeovers always are.

But once it happens, there’s no going back.

This will be the point of no return.

This Is How Democracy Ends: Here’s their Playbook

It won’t all happen in one night.

Instead, the process will unfold in stages, each step making resistance harder.

Free elections, a free press, and the right to protest will disappear one piece at a time, until there’s nothing left to save.

My entire goal here is to make people aware, so you can recognize it, and maybe help stop it. It’s all I, personally, can do.

Here’s how it will happen, step by step, after Trump invokes the Insurrection Act with an Executive Order:

1. “Resist!” Demonstrations Grow — Just As Planned

Left-leaning and even more centrist people will be alarmed. Peaceful protests will be organized nationwide, as they already have been being organized now, with growing numbers of people joining protests each week.

The calls to “Resist!” will grow louder, and large-scale demonstrations will begin forming in major cities.

This is exactly what Trump wants. He didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act sooner because he needed his opposition to gather first — so he could use them as a tool for his next step.

He also waited 90 days, instead of invoking it on Day 1 as Project 2025 recommended, so he would have his people in place, and remove those who would oppose them in the government, military, courts, and civil positions.

His cabal is waiting for a strong reaction — they want massive unrest. They need a justification to kick off the next steps in their plan.

2. The False Flag Crisis: Turning Protest into “Terror”

The protests will turn violent quickly. Maybe in a day, maybe during the next big protest the following weekend.

They will turn violent not because of the protesters, but because they will have been infiltrated by agents provocateurs, from militia groups like The Proud Boys, whose goal is to escalate as quickly as possible and give Trump and his cabal an excuse to trigger the next stage.

Expect “terrorist” bombings, targeted assassinations, or high-profile acts of violence, either staged or exploited, to justify the crackdown.

There may even be an extremely high profile assassination of a leading right-wing leader that changes everything in a moment… and the “woke radicals” will be blamed, and the country will rally around more extreme measures to bring back order and control.

The media will be flooded with images of chaos, pushing the public into a state of fear. Calls for “order” will follow.

3. Trump Declares Expanded Martial Law — And Calls for Militia to assist the police and Military

Trump has already invoked the Insurrection Act — so now he now declares even more extensive and repressive martial law, and orders troops into major US cities where most oppose him, branding protesters and opponents as “seditionists,” “traitors,” and the “woke mob”.

He will call on “good Americans” to grab their guns, like the patriots of 1776, and join the militias forming to “restore order” and “take back control” from the leftist threat. Using militias also gets him around resistance from military leaders who might oppose his orders.

The militias already exist — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and others — and they are not some distant fringe. They were at January 6. The most extreme and radicalized are all released from prison now. They are ready to roll, and to answer Trump’s call, which they were waiting for four years ago.

The miliita members are your neighbors. The difference between them and you? These neighbors own and have been training with AR-15s. You and your friends? Not so much.

This will be framed as “helping the police” and “keeping order.” Law enforcement will quietly welcome them — or, in some cases, will deputize them, with Trump’s support.

4. Mass Arrests of Opposition Leaders

Journalists, Democratic officials, and activists will be arrested under charges of sedition, terrorism, or “inciting violence.”

Expect Mark Milley, Liz Cheyney, and Adam Kinzinger to be arrested quickly and with great press coverage. How long the show trials take is probably a good measure of how much control Trump has established over the courts.

Key Democratic governors and attorneys general will be removed first, ensuring no state-level resistance.

Law enforcement and military ranks will be purged, with loyalty tests ensuring only Trump-aligned officers remain.

5. Military & National Guard Take Over Major Cities

Expect deployments in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and other blue-state strongholds.

Curfews and lockdowns will be imposed, justified as measures to “restore peace.”

Checkpoints and military policing will become the new normal. Expect them in particular along major highways going to Canada or Mexico, and in red states — to identify and detain seditionists, traitors, and people of questionable loyalty.

Trump’s building of detainment centers in Guantanamo, and expansion of the 106 other ICE detention centers, was not actually intended for illegal migrants. And just a few days ago, Blackwater founder and Billionaire Erik Prince offered to help Trump “privatize deportation camps” as has been being done with prisons per Trump’s Day 1 Executive Order. So now Trump has an extrajudicial place to store the disloyal and those who resist, in for-profit camps guarded by militias and loyal military. Until he decides what to do with them.

6. Press Censorship & Total Media Control

Independent news outlets will face shutdowns or takeovers. Those that resist will see their journalists arrested or harassed.

Mainstream media will be forced into compliance. Blackmail, corporate pressure, and legal threats will ensure they toe the line.

Social media platforms like X (Twitter) will amplify the official narrative, drowning out opposition.

Other social media and lines of communication will be turned off. The Internet will be monitored, people identified from this monitoring for arrest, using Palantir technology. Peter Thiel, who I’ve written about before, is co-founder of Palantir. We will fully enter thesurveillance state.

7. Borders Close & Dissidents Are Trapped Inside

Passports will be revoked for critics and opponents. If you’re on a list, you’re not leaving.

No-fly lists will expand to include activists and journalists.

ICE and DHS will be weaponized — not just against immigrants, but against political enemies.

8. Elections Are “Postponed” Indefinitely

The 2026 midterms will be suspended under the excuse of national security concerns.

Red-state legislatures will eliminate Democratic-leaning districts, ensuring permanent Republican control.

By 2028, Trump (or his handpicked successor) will run unopposed. Elections will be a formality, probalby still held. But rigged.

Project 2025 and the Insurrection Act: This Was Always the Plan

This isn’t speculation.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 lays out a detailed strategy for permanent right-wing control.

It openly advocates using the Insurrection Act to crush opposition and dismantle the administrative state.

Trump isn’t improvising — he’s following a script.

We Can’t Wait — The Time to Act Is Now

We can’t sit back and wait for Trump to fire the starting gun — because once he does, it will already be too late.

We need to prepare now.

We need to plan now.

We need to dismantle his plans before they begin.

We have one month.

That’s it.

The Only Way to Stop this Coup is by Exposing It

The only way I can think of to stop this conspiracy, which is in final planning stages, is through exposure.

If people see the playbook in advance, they will be less likely be manipulated when it happens.

They might question the narrative. “Wait. This is what they said would happen. I thought it was crazy. But maybe…”

We need to spread this narrative far and wide so that when the moment comes, no one can claim ignorance.

Maybe we will be proven wrong.

Maybe we will look silly.

Or maybe… we will have derailed the plan, by telling people what to look for, to recognize the playbook steps as (if) they happen.

Here’s what we must do before April 20:

Empower the press, law enforcement, military, and elected officials to recognize the game that’s being played. They need to understand what’s happening before they are pressured to go along with it.

Share this post, or write your own. Do your own research. Don’t take my word for it. Talk with your friends and family about this crazy conspiracy theory that can’t rally happen… can it? So if and when the steps actually happen, people recognize it for what it is.

Prepare the public so they don’t take the bait. Trump and his cabal want protests to explode into chaos. They want violence in the streets to justify their crackdown. We must be ready to outmaneuver them — to refuse to be used as pawns in their game.

Stand up to the militias — and stop friends and family from joining them. The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other armed groups will be mobilized as Trump’s shock troops. They will be framed as “restoring order” and “helping the police.” We need to be ready to counter this, to make sure our neighbors, friends, and family don’t get sucked in.

Inoculate our fellow citizens against the propaganda. Most Americans are good people — but good people can be misled. They can be scared into compliance. Our job is to make sure they see what’s happening before it’s too late.

The only way to stop this plot is to expose it, reject it, and make it unmistakably clear to every American what is happening. We must stop these malign forces from enacting their will on our country, the world, and each of us and our families.

What if we Don’t Stop It?

If it is not stopped, and Trump enacts the Insurrection Act, at that point we probably only have 48 to 72 hours to try to stop everything from happening after the Executive Order.

Once martial law is imposed, there will be a tiny window — no more than three days — before resistance becomes nearly impossible.

Stopping it before it happens is the best option.

But what if we don’t?

In my next post, I’ll outline peaceful, strategic ways to resist — while we still can. And what our reduced options are if it still happens.

If we don’t act before April 20, then by April 23, it will already be too late.

[raymurata]

Bellara's main choice and DAV's implicit (or accidental) stance on book burning

Okay, so. Prefacing this with -- I enjoyed the game. I'd even play it again. That being said, one of its biggest flaws is trying to deliver something so morally sanitized it shies away from giving its characters (aside from Solas) and plotlines (aside from Solas's) real nuance. And in the same breath, they end up sending messages that I doubt they intended to send.

Bellara's main decision is particularly annoying to me.

First, I find her arc to be lacking -- She starts the game grieving her brother and blaming herself for his death despite not being responsible for it, then she finds Cyrian again only to grieve him again, so she's back to the start, only this time she has had the guilt removed from her because Cyrian tells her what she needs to hear, and the blame is placed on a big bad evil. Fair, fine.

But I don't like the cinematography of that scene at all. There was plenty of time for Rook and Bellara to react between Anaris grabbing Cyrian's foot and throwing him at the wall. People in Thedas have survived way worse injuries, too, and Bellara literally has healing at her disposal. Why doesn't she even try? His death is clearly plot-driven but it doesn't take her arc forward all that much? But again, that's fine. Not too bad.

But then the choice I have to make for her is whether or not to keep the archive, why? At no point in the game (please correct me if I'm wrong and missed canon information that contradicts me. That would make me way less angry!!!) do they tell us that it was Bellara using the Archive that summoned Anaris, or that it could summon him at will. As far as my interpretation goes, the Archive is, as its name says, the equivalent to a library curated by a comically self-aggrandizing jerk. At no point do we hear it share any actually dangerous lore either, do we? No blueprints for nuclear weapons...

So why does the game choose this wording:

Now, unless the Archive has powers we are unaware of, what this is saying is basically "burn the ancient elven library (it will be safe)" or "don't burn the ancient elven library (it will be dangerous)" and, for a game that is so irritatingly set on giving you only 2024-morality-board-approved goodTM and unproblematic companions and allies... Why does it tell me that burning books is the safe option, ESPECIALLY given that these books are priceless historical artefacts from a marginalized and subjugated ethinic group who have long lost their history to genocide? Like, wut?? Even if the Archive were in fact a dangerous weapon, the game shows us through the Veil Jumpers' vault that they have trained capable scholars and developed (or are developing, with Bellara spearheading it) safe tools to study and keep these artefacts. How condescending is it to tell them that they won't be able to safekeep this one? How pointless? (and her cutest armor AND best skill are locked behind that choice? outrageous lmao.)

And what pisses me off is that they had everything set up already, they just had to deliver it differently. If they told us explicitly that the archive is Anaris' phylactery and that keeping it would mean allowing Anaris to eventually come back? THEN we'd have a real danger. NOW there is a non-fascist risk to maintaining knowledge.

Or what if the only reason Cyrian is back is because Anaris brought him back? What if Cyrian's life is therefore tied to Anaris', and you had to choose between letting Anaris live (perhaps that results in him getting imprisoned in the Archive, tampering with the information in it and destroying its historical value forever, plus Anaris might one day figure out a way out) or killing Anaris for good even knowing that Cyrian will also die again if you do (but then the Dalish get to keep the archive and all the knowledge in it, and Cyrian's sacrifice is not in vain)? Or maybe... The Archive is a spirit, isn't it? Drive home the fact that being tied to that device was a cruel thing Anaris did to it, and keeping it there is just as cruel, even if it would mean giving the elves access to information. Make the wording "free the archive" really mean something here, and the player really think that the knowledge will be lost. Then maybe have it that, if she frees it, it gives her information freely and with its own interpretation of that knowledge, and THEN it leaves (so it's not forever but there is a reward for being compassionate). And if she keeps the spirit in the device, then it is always rude and it gives her information curated by Anaris' point of view, but it is available to all upcoming generations. It'd be real nice and nuanced to pit her compassion against her drive for knowledge. If this were DAO or DA2, you wouldn't make the choice FOR HER. You'd make the choice yourself because you are the leader, and if you chose to keep the spirit, you'd garner lots of negative points with Bellara (and with Emmrich) because, let's be honest, she is written as inherently more compassionate than driven, and she'd resent you making an oppressing choice even if it is well-meaning and good for her people (just like Alistair resents you killing Isolde even if he understands it was a difficult choice).

I just... So many ways it could have been an actually weighted choice, or that it could have affected your relationship with Bellara (and other companions) as Bioware RPGs were wont to do. They had a good set up, but the landing was absolutely bonkers.

[drdemonprince]

Read the cop post you reblogged. Apologies if I’m being too literal. I’ve had ppl break into my house before. What am I supposed to do in that situation? Shoot the person? Let them shoot me? Genuinely asking for an alternative bc I don’t want to call the cops ever. It just feels like it’s often ppl who don’t live in areas with higher crime who post stuff like that and it feels out of touch with the reality some are living in. Most ppl in my neighborhood don’t want to abolish the police. It’s white liberals, leftists, anarchists who get to live that out more. Idk if this makes sense, but would love to hear others thoughts.

I have also had people break into my home, I've heard drills run on my block multiple times in just the past year, I've witnessed multiple shootings, violent domestic assault outside my home, etc. I also live in a racially diverse area and speak regularly with my neighbors and yeah, a 70-year-old Black grandmother in Chicago is far more likely to be a pro-cop Trump supporter than she is to be a radical anarchist. Your average person of any identity group is unlikely to be an abolitionist or anarchist... because those are still extremely fringe political positions in this world. Now it is also experience that the majority of actually committed abolitionists are Black & brown people, but that doesn't mean a majority of people from those identity groups in general are abolitionists at all. The white leftie abolitionists...mostly aren't actually abolitionists in practice from all that I've seen. Give them a roommate who doesn't pay the bills and has a mental health episode and they'll wield the tools of the state just as readily as anybody.

And that kinda brings me to one of my questions. Has calling the cops worked for you when you have had to deal with a home invasion, robbery, attack, etc? I just mentioned this in another post, but in my case *threatening* to call the cops has helped sometimes. The existence of the police state as a threat did help keep my stalker from going further when he broke into my apartment. But when a person (especially a person in a non-wealthy, majority-nonwhite area) calls the cops, how often do they show up soon enough to be helpful? How often do they confuse the attacker and the victim? How often do they blame the victim and refuse to file a report? How often do they attack or kill the wrong person? How often does their presence escalate things and cause people to panic, causing more violence?

I'm not trying to be a little shit here, I know that the answer is not "100% of the time". Sometimes, in the present world, a person is overpowered and in danger and they have no support network around them and they call the cops and the sirens or the sight of big dudes with guns scares their attacker away. I have, once or twice, witnessed some version of that too. It didn't do anything to get the victim away from their abuser or prevent harm from happening in the long term, but it did cause people to scatter.

Of course the long term abolitionist answer is that we need community networks of support to keep one another safe, to prevent crimes motivated by need, to deescalate conflict, and maybe even to secure justice and safety by scaring abusers and rapists etc off. In the absence of those things formally existing, I think we should all do what we can to build those networks of support in our communities, and thinking about how we can address problems without using the police. I wrote about some examples of that I witnessed and lived through here:

I don't think there are many great options right now if a person is attacked. I know that I minimize my involvement with the police as much as I humanly can. Again, only you can decide for yourself what you believe, what you can do, what you need, what you think is right.

[spidermans-l-o-v-e-r]

Cootie Catcher

Pairing: Buck x Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Notes: I'm going through you know the worst thing ever rn lmao, But getting back into writing has really helped so thank you for the requests! And especially thank you to @bookishbuddie because I can always count on you for a request, lmao.

"On a scale of one to ten...how mad would you be if I kissed you right now?"

“This is all your fault!” 

You wriggled around in the ropes, and Buck rolled his eyes, not even trying to move with you. 

“You’re just gonna hurt yourself.” 

“You could at least try to help me!” You narrowed your eyes with a huff, and he let his head tilt back against yours 

“I tried to tell you; Eddie was alerted that something was wrong! We just gotta… wait for him to find us.” 

“And what if he doesn’t?!” You snap, letting your head fall back against his shoulder. He listens to you sigh, and he knows you’ve given up, at least for now. 

“I’m sorry…” Buck mumbles; he wishes he could run his hands through his hair. “I’m really sorry.” 

You’re quiet for a second, wriggling a little to get comfy and leaning back against him.

“N-no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blamed you. It’s both our faults, we really should have been paying attention to our surroundings.” 

“Yeah, but what we were doing was a lot more fun.” He snickers, and you try and flick him with your fingers. 

The night had started hilariously badly. Eddie had taken his shot at matchmaking for Buck, and while the girl was pleasant! There just wasn’t any spark… he didn’t overly want to get to know her, so he was a gentleman and walked her home, thanked her for a lovely evening, and left. 

He was walking away to walk back to the restaurant for his Jeep (He’d walked her home just to see if things might go better) when Eddie called. He’d literally just texted that the date was over, too.

“What’s wrong??” He can practically hear the worry in his tone, and he smiles a little 

“Nothing, she just wasn’t really my type… it was a nice night though, anyway! She was really nice.” 

“I know., I thought maybe someone totally different from who you normally date might be a little refreshing.” 

“And it was,” Buck agrees. He squints a little; there’s a small… something crouched on the ground next to a car. “It just didn’t work out… hey, I gotta go, I think someone needs help. If I don’t call you back in 10 minutes, call for help.” 

“Yeah-yeah, I will.  Call me back,” Eddie chuckles as he hangs up.

Buck looks both ways before he crosses the street, breaking into a light jog. When he gets closer, he realizes there’s a woman crouched down next to her car and a tire next to her. She’s wearing a pink workout set and an oversized cropped pink hoodie that matches. 

“Hey there, my name is Buck. I’m a firefighter with the LAFD. Can I help you out?” 

You look up at him. The flush creeps up your neck, and you clear your throat. 

“Um- no? No, I think I’ve got it. I wouldn’t want you ruining your nice clothes.” 

He looks down at the maroon fitted dress pants he’d worn and the nice white button-down. 

“Eh, I can always buy new clothes. I don’t mind” He crouches down next to you and eases the lug wrench from your hands and you sigh in relief and plop down on your butt. 

“I swear I can do this on my own normally… the mechanic just put them on freaking tight” 

“I believe you.” Buck flashes you a smile, and you blush again; his teeth are just so… perfect. 

It’s the little things, okay? 

“You know you did a pretty good job already, got all your tools set up.” He loosens them enough to lift the car, and you take the jack and set it under the car and start pumping for him. He gestures for you to stop and starts fully removing the lug nuts. 

He rolls his sleeves up, and you bite your lip, staring at the veins in his arms as he works on removing them. he hands them to you one by one, and you put them in a straight little line on the road for him. 

“So uh… w-what’s got you all dressed up?” 

You awkwardly try and make conversation with this gorgeous man, and he eagerly accepts it.

“Oh! My friend set me up on a blind date. It didn’t really go well. There was nothing wrong with her! She was cool… but you know it just didn’t spark.” 

He rests his elbow on his knee and props his chin up with his hand 

“You know, Eddie means well. That’s my best friend. He means well… but I’m like 90% sure that girl was more his speed.” 

“You think he’ll hit her up?” Your legs are out in front of you now, and you’re propped back on your hands 

“Nah, he’s not like that. Even if he doesn’t admit he likes to hit it nearly as much as I do, he’s not a one-night stand kinda guy.” 

“Are you?” 

It was totally and completely an innocent question, like really it was. But he kinda smirks, and you let your head fall back to hide the way you cringe out of existence. 

“Uh-“ He chuckles a little “Not anymore. I’m- I’m really trying to be serious about things now, wanna do better for me and my friends and family, you know?” 

“Would you ever consider it again?” You lay out flat on the ground and slap your hands over your face. “I swear I’m not being a perv, okay!! I’m asking real questions!”  

He laughs and starts reaching for the lug nuts, and you sit back up with a huff and get closer to him to hand them to him.

“I don’t know… a pretty girl starts asking me questions like this, and I gotta think she’s after something.” His lips purse, fighting a little smirk, and you push at his arm.

“I’m not after anything! You don’t even know my name.” 

“Isn’t that like one of the rules…” He wonders, tilting his head like he’s thinking about it, and you throw a tiny pebble at him 

“I hope your pants split!” 

You and Buck go back and forth, teasing and admittedly on his part definitely flirting. He finally learns your name and tells you how pretty it is, how pretty you are… 

Anddd that’s how he ends up in your back seat. With your legs locked around his shoulders and his face buried deeply between them. He’s telling you over and over again that you’re definitely not a one-night stand.

A three-night stand, at least. 

And you’re pulling his hair, his name spilling from your lips over and over like a mantra, little whimpers and promises of love slip out, and he’s not sure if it’s from the lack of oxygen or what, but he’s definitely, totally, absolutely, in love. 

And that’s the last thing he remembers. 

It was the last thing either of you really remembered because the next thing you knew, you woke up tied to him in the middle of an empty room. 

“Plans have changed.” 

The man who’d somehow kidnapped you both comes in with what you assume are his henchmen. Which is like- wild that someone even has henchmen who even has them?? They’ve got rather interesting-looking guns on you, and you’re not about to question this man’s line of work. 

“Your mother isn’t cooperating. It’s time to up the ante. Untie them and follow me.” 

They do as he says, untying you from each other and dragging the ropes to lead you behind them. You feel the gun poke into your back, and you gulp, hurrying along and trying your best to keep up with their fast walking. 

“You know, honey… I could always carry you” The man behind you chuckles and gropes your ass and you yelp and nearly knock into Buck. 

“Get your hands off me, jerk!” You growl out and he scoffs, grabbing your ass again

“Honey, you better learn to shut that pretty mouth before I put it to better use.” 

“Oh, that is it! You disgusting-“ You go to whirl around but are met with Buck’s back. 

Bro, how did he move that fast?

He’s standing between you and the gun now

“Touch her again, and you die.” 

Gone is the sweet cinnamon roll that was begging you to cum on his lips, No, now he’s angry. He towers over this bitch and gun or not, no one is putting their hands on you. He’s not sure how he’ll protect you, but he’s going to die trying if that’s what it takes. 

“How noble.”The man who’d kidnapped you rolls his eyes and looks at his gun before shooting the man standing in front of Buck.

You scream and hide behind his back, and Buck barely flinches. He turns to look over at him, narrowing his eyes. 

“I don’t do perverts. That’s not what I’m here for. C’mere, honey.” he holds his arm out to you, and you hesitantly walk over. 

“Anyone else want a piece of this?” He gestures to you with the gun. “No? Good. I catch any of you even looking at her like you want to attack her, and that's your fate.” 

He takes charge of your ropes now and pulls you along into a large circular room. You’re instructed to stand on a box that makes you as tall as Buck, you’re tied together chest to chest, and they make sure not to touch you in any way you might not like. Your legs are tied together awkwardly, and both of your feet are tied separately… you’re not even close to his height, so they don’t even try to bind them to his. 

A large hook is brought over, and you’re attached to it securely. It starts to rise slowly, and you look around.

“What the heck are you doing?” Buck's voice is almost comically confused, and you might’ve giggled if you weren’t there with him. Suddenly, the floor starts to open, revealing a shimmering pool of water. Your mouth drops, and Buck gasps. 

“Oh no…” He says quietly, and you’re on the exact same page

“That is really cool.”

“This has got to be the coolest way to die.”

“Drowning is my number one fear, but wow, this is straight up out of a movie.” 

“Me too!” Buck wriggles in the rope.s “Oh my god are you also afraid of-“ 

“Clowns!”

“Hamsters!” 

You stare at him, blinking slowly at the excited smile on his face. You snort and look away because god he looks so stupid and it’s so cute and you’re crushing so hard and-

“I’m sorry, did you just say 'Hamsters” Dude, what did they ever do to you?” One of the guys standing next to you, the one keeping you from swinging wildly, looks at Buck like he’s insane 

“My sister had this hamster once when we were kids. And it hated me. I didn’t do shit to that guy!! I even gave him treats! And you know what he did after those treats? He bit me. Every. Single. Damn. Time.” 

You can clearly see the Hamster beef written across his face, and you let your head fall against his shoulder, giggling uncontrollably. 

“Are we done here?” Your kidnapper tilts his head, and you blush a little and look away

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“You did not just get turned on!” Buck hisses in your ear, and you wriggle against him 

“I have a thing for masks! Shut up!” You hiss back, and he bumps his forehead against yours lightly 

“I’ll remember that if we get out of this alive.” 

The kidnapper snaps a few pictures and then leaves you two to hang there. You rest your head against Buck's shoulder and sigh, trying to sort of get comfortable.

He lets his head fall back and blushes when you wiggle against him 

“I’m gonna be real… this is gonna get really awkward really fast, and I’d like to apologize.” 

You giggle and look up at him; you try to shrug your shoulders, and it’s more of a weird cringe. 

“I mean, you were eating me out like however many hours ago… I really don’t think your dick poking me is going to be weird” 

“I don’t know, maybe it’ll make you uncomfortable or something,” Buck mumbles sheepishly, and you wish you could squeeze your thighs together. 

“Uhhh, nope, I think I’m good.”

“Are they flirting?” Josh looks over at Steven as they watch you two from the cameras in the control room; they were strictly told to keep their eyes on you. Steven puts his feet up on the control panel and stuffs some popcorn in his mouth.

“I don’t know. But I hope they end up together.” 

You’re not sure how long it’s been, but your body is starting to fall asleep, and it feels weird as hell.

“You really think Eddie will find us?” 

You and Buck had been periodically talking, getting to know each other somewhat; it’s not like there was anything else to do. 

He actually told you about Eddie, like all about Eddie. Down to the size of his favorite pair of underwear, the one with the little pizzas on it. He mentioned 24-hour shifts being a bitch but you got all the tea. 

Hen was currently mad at Karen, and it had been a few days since they’d… let off some steam. Apparently, it was really starting to get to her. 

You were eager to listen to all the jobs he’d had too, and about the one time he got drunk in Budapest and couldn’t remember a single damn thing but he went home with a random number signed “BW” 

“Yeah, I know he will. Besides, they’re trying to get ransom from Athena so. He knows I’m gone at the least.” 

“Do you think she’ll pay it?” You say quietly, because you don’t exactly know these people and they’re only in it for Buck, why would they also want to pay for you? 

“Oh, absolutely not.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “She won’t need to, not her anyway. She’s the most badass woman I’ve ever met in my entire life. I’m proud to force her to be my mom. She’ll take care of you too, don’t worry… that’s just the kind of person she is. Besides! She’s a cop! It’s her job.” 

His reassurances were nice, honestly, and kinda funny. But you knew in your heart that woman had no problem being his mom, he was worth that kind of love even if he didn’t think he was. 

He was worth a lot of kinds of love. 

“Hey, Y/N?” 

It had been quiet again for a while, you’re like 90% sure you fell asleep there for a minute, or 20.

“Hmm?” You answer, letting your head fall back lazily to look at him. 

“Since you know, we’re gonna “die” and all I hope you know I’m doing the finger quotes”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay well, you know, since things are kind of shitty… I’ve just been thinking” 

“About?”

“I didn’t- when we were in the car? I kept thinking about how I was in heaven, you know?” 

Your cheeks flush deeply at the memory, and you wriggle a little against him. “O-okay?”

“And whilst I was, you know, in possibly the best position to ever be in-“

“Just spit it out, Buck.” He was giving you anxiety, but like, good anxiety. Where you just wanted him to get it over with because you knew whatever was coming next was going to be good

"On a scale of one to ten...how mad would you be if I kissed you right now?" 

It takes you a second to register the question. Because when you think about it, yeah, he didn’t actually kiss you. He was kissing your neck and your chest, and his hands were tugging at your leggings, and you were pushing him right where you wanted him. 

And he never kissed you.

“I just want to know what it feels like,” He whispers, and you swallow thickly, suddenly nervous for a hell of a lot more reasons than hanging over a pool of water. 

“Probably like a three. So you know, it’s safe”. 

“Maybe I can work that number down.” 

He leans his face down to yours, and he wishes he could hold you to him. Okay, technically you were already against him, so you know, maybe this was fine. He nuzzles his nose against yours, earning a nervous little giggle from you. His lips brush softly against yours, and you tilt your head up just a little to finally connect with him. 

A needy little whimpering noise comes from the back of his throat, and you push your lips against his harder, wishing you could hold onto him. 

His lips move in sync with yours, swallowing the little moans that fall from your lips, and you tilt your head back nipping at his bottom lip, he grins and slips his tongue in your mouth, tangling it worth yours. 

“What I wouldn’t give to hold you.” He groans against your lips, and you melt against him. You can feel his hips shift just a little against yours, and your mind spins with all the ways these ropes happen to be helping in some way. You can feel his hardness pressing into you, and you shift unconsciously against him. 

“Are you guys making out when you’re about to die?!” 

You yelp and pull away from him, well as far as you can, and he looks at you, a little dazed, and a lot excited. 

“Eddie?!” He shouts to the loudspeakers 

“Oh my god.” You laugh incredulously. “Oh my god, he found you.” 

“Us,” Buck corrects you, nuzzling his nose against your face. “He found us. There’s no way we’re not a team now. We just went through almost death together! Plus, you’re really hot, and I’ve had a boner for the last twenty minutes.” 

“You, uh- you know I can hear you, right?” Eddie clicks the button, and his voice echoes around the room. 

“When have I ever been known to have any shame whatsoever,” Buck tells the walls, and you giggle and let your head fall backward. 

“Can you just get us out of here?? Please!” 

“Oh shit yeah- okay! We’ll be down soon.” 

Eddie is sitting on one of the benches while Buck lies across the other, and you’re strapped into the bed. 

“I didn’t realize just hanging around could kill my back,” he groans, and you nod along with him. 

“I didn’t realize you could fit on that seat.” Eddie nods at him, and you snicker when he throws a towel at him. 

It turns out “Jack” was a recently released convict who had a vendetta against Athena, and what other way to get back at her would be better than kidnapping one of her kids? 

It’s almost hilarious that he chose Buck. He’d done it on purpose, too; he knew the things Harry had gone through, and he didn’t want to put any more trauma on the poor kid. May was out of town with her friends, so that left Buck. (who was hurt he was the last choice) 

You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He really should have had his own ambulance; Eddie and Chimney had to carry him into this one and set him down, but he refused to leave your side, at least until you made him go away. Which for you personally? Seemed like that was never going to happen, and he didn’t really mind that. 

“Welp, all's well that ends well!” Buck sighs, and you turn your head to look at him 

“We just got kidnapped and lost like two days of our lives??” 

“Bro, you’re going to seriously need therapy.” 

“You’re talking.” You huff quietly under your breath, and Eddie’s mouth drops wide open. 

“Dude!?! What did you tell her?!” 

You snort and turn your head to laugh into your pillow, and Buck looks over at Eddie. 

“Hey! Hey! In my defense… There was nothing to do.” 

“You and Marisol are super cute together… but I really think you should open up to her more about your PTSD I think she can handle it”. 

Buck nods along with you, he’d been telling Eddie exactly that for weeks. 

“I should have let your asses drown” 

[seat-safety-switch]

There's something magical about finding something unlocked that wasn't supposed to be. Ever since I was a young kid, the thrill of getting to peek inside a forbidden door, access shaft, or motor vehicle is unmatched. You get to learn stuff. It feels a little wrong. And sometimes you get to take home some cool industry-specific tools. Taken together, there's no reason not to randomly jiggle doorknobs as you walk past a particularly enticing cabinet.

Near my house is this truly enormous green utility box. It's at least five meters wide, and is as tall as a man. There's no label on the outside to make it obvious what its purpose is. Last week, someone did some maintenance on it, and they forgot to put the lock back on when they were done. Naturally, I decided I would go take a look.

Inside, I found a matrix of twinkling lights, a jungle of wiring, and no cool leftover tools. I thought at first that it might be a phone switch, but there were no fancy phone-company labels on it anywhere. Not even a hastily scrawled sign-in sheet on the door about what contractor to blame. I decided to reach further into the box, hoping to learn something about the world that surrounds me. And that's when it happened.

Friends, you might think that all those childhood fables about reaching into a disused closet in your least favourite aunt's house and being transported to another world are fiction. You'd be right: kids during World War II who engaged in such risky behaviour usually died of typhoid aggravated by hypothermia. They just hadn't invented magical phone-company cabinets yet. I soon found myself in a different land, soft snow falling upon my face from a starlight sky of beautiful LEDs. And then a half-goat, half-man addressed me.

"What the fuck?" asked Mr. Tumnus.

"It's my first day and my supervisor hasn't given me a safety vest yet. Where's the problem?" I grunted out, already ripping into the drywall behind me for any loose lengths of copper that I could grab and sell.

[agustdiv1ne]

telepathy (m) — cbg

pairing: choi beomgyu x fem!reader

genre: smut, strangers to ???, mind reader/telepathist!beomgyu, funeral home employee!beomgyu (it's for the plot ok???)

wc: 11.7k

synopsis: most people would abhor a packed subway car — but beomgyu, telepathist extraordinaire, relishes in it. with a career in the funeral business, he finds his morning commute to be the only thing that keeps him relatively sane. reading the mundane thoughts of mundane people maintains his tether to his humanity, but when he goes to read your mind...oh, things get a whole lot more interesting.

warnings: mdni!! 18+ only, ageless blogs dni!!!, mentions of dead bodies, embalming, and funerals (though not very descriptive — it's only bc of gyu's profession), reader is a freak that listens to nsfw audios on her way to work!, gyu is a perv so it's a match made in heaven (hell?), gyu's honestly a little strange + obsessive in this...anyways, dom!gyu, sub!mc, solo male masturbation, on my big cock beomgyu agenda, very brief mentions of daddy/sir/master kinks, explicit consent is given before anything happens bc consent is sexy <3, mind manipulation (he makes it feel like he's touching her), exhibitionism in a way (it will all make sense, trust 🙏), degradation, praise, pseudo-fingering (idk how to explain it, f receiving), gyu calls mc: pretty girl, sweetheart, slut, whore, princess, mc calls gyu sir like once...whew! that was a lot, lmk if i should add anything!

note: you know i have a terrible bout of brainrot when the warnings are all nsfw related...yeah. Yeah. *presses post and runs away*

☆ playlist ☆

masterlist

beomgyu’s commute to work is, by all means, uneventful. 

the train is packed as per usual, filled to the brim with businessmen and office workers and other miscellaneous passengers on their way to whatever the hell their destination is. like most days, he finds himself towards the middle of the passenger car, snatching a rare open seat between a stone-faced man adorned in a suit — his head buried in a newspaper — and a slumped over college student nursing a cup of coffee. the poor kid almost looks like death itself, sporting dark under eyes, rumpled clothes, and a prominent slouch to his spine. not that beomgyu could really blame him; he remembers how easily college living (if you could call it living) can chip away at a person’s mental well-being. 

people-watching like this is what keeps him sane, he thinks. being surrounded by corpses all day, every day is more than draining — it sucks the soul out of him, really, being the only person on shift most of the time that he’s working, having to embalm and clean and pretty up all those cold, gray bodies so that their loved ones can say one last goodbye. it’s quiet in their minds and it’s all too quiet in the funeral home, the only sounds being the clanking of the embalming tools he’s been trained to use, his footsteps echoing down the tiled halls, his sighs of contempt when something small goes wrong — yet the living, breathing, warm people on the train provide a sense of normalcy, something to look forward to every day. to hear their thoughts, as prosaic as they are, has become a sort of saving grace from the lifeless, cold building that he finds himself in five out of the seven days of the week. honestly, if he can maintain a little bit of his humanity via strangers among the subway, even if it’s just by hearing their thoughts, then he’ll take what he can get. 

yeah, that’s the thing: beomgyu is a mind-reader, a pretty talented one at that. not that anyone knew, of course — he wouldn’t risk the government finding out. beomgyu is not usually one for promises, but he has promised himself one thing: there’s no way in hell that he will ever become one of the government’s sick little science experiments, even if his life ever hits rock bottom. he has no idea how his powers work — just that they do, and he would like to keep it that way. it’s bad enough that he doesn’t know where he got such abilities; his parents never mentioned anything about it and only ever grew worried whenever he read back their thoughts to them, so obviously the existence of his powers is some statistical anomaly in the universe. normal people can’t read others’ minds. he was forced to learn that at a very young age in order to keep himself safe. 

“how do you know that?” he remembers his mother’s alarmed tone when he first did it unknowingly, repeating back her own thoughts to her without realizing that’s what he had done. he was maybe six at the time — innocent, curious, plagued by voices in his head that he didn’t quite understand. those voices weren’t his. rather, they were his friends’, his family’s, his dentist’s and his doctor’s and his soccer coach’s voices that ricocheted about his mind uncontrollably;it was overwhelming for the young boy’s mind. the day he first admitted that he could hear them was the first day he heard his parents argue, their yelling from downstairs colliding with their internal voices in beomgyu’s mind, their terribly poignant concern for him and this development louder than any of the venomous words that they spat at each other in the living room. all he remembers from that day was himself crying, unable to block out anything that they thought, let alone his own thoughts. too much for his young mind to handle.

he heard their fear when they took him to the doctor for the first time of many, their heartache when the doctor came back and said that he might have psychosis, but more testing was needed. he heard how they started to deny it — their little boy couldn’t have that, could he? no, no he couldn’t. there’s no way he could. 

although beomgyu was young at the time, guilt ate at him. he was the one hurting his parents, he was the one making them worry. despite his official diagnosis when he was seven, something inside him knew that the doctors were wrong. those voices weren’t just the result of the machinations of his mind at work — they were voices of the people he knew, strangers who passed him on the street. what they said wasn’t evil, it wasn’t out of the ordinary. usually, it was quite mundane. at some point, he started to practice with it, trying focus on one certain voice out of the buzzing hive in his mind, blocking out the others, switching and focusing and blocking out until the action was as natural as breathing. it took him about five years before he reached that point, and after nearly two decades of living with his abilities, he’s gotten quite used to it. his mind is usually quiet — besides his own stream of consciousness — unless he allows others in. or, rather, they allow him in, which they always do. he sees it like a set of doors; open one, and you can hear that one person’s thoughts. close it, and he no longer hears them. and none of them are ever locked since no one expects to their thoughts to be read, which simply makes his life that much easier.

if he’s being honest, he didn’t used to read minds as often as he does now, but there isn’t much he can do about that now lest he go insane. beomgyu could admit that his habit was a little creepy…okay scratch that, extremely fucking creepy. these people had no idea that their minds were being infiltrated, their mental walls bypassed and their privacy violated like a computer infected with a malicious virus. it’s borderline depraved, how nonchalantly he robs these strangers of their utmost privacy, sometimes of their deepest, darkest secrets that they would never want anyone to find out about. he could sequester quite a bit of money out of some of these people, now that he thinks about it.

and sure, that may sound immoral, but beomgyu has never considered himself to be of particularly virtuous character.

without a second thought, beomgyu taps into the mind of the kid next to him. he’s thinking about how he’s failing his statistics class because he just bombed his midterm. no, now his mind is full of what he’s going to eat after his 8 a.m. class. he shifts his focus on the businessman to his right. stocks, his cheating wife, how he’s considering leaving with his mistress in the coming days…

”what a prick,” beomgyu thinks to himself, smirking a bit. just a few more stops until he gets off, now. 

he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket, scrolling aimlessly just to keep his eyes busy. sitting on the opposite side of the college student, an elderly lady walks herself through the stew that she’s going to make for her grandchildren tonight, excitement coloring her words. it’s cute — he loves hearing things like that. wholesome thoughts are not easy to come by nowadays, given the state of the world. exhibit a: a teenager standing on the other side of the train car worries himself into a frenzy over whether the girl that he has a crush on likes him back. exhibit b: a middle aged man contemplates if he should quit his job. for a second, beomgyu thinks that he might be in the same boat as him, before realizing that he has nothing else to fall back on — exhibit c. he could keep going.

a clear, robotic voice overhead announces the subway’s arrival to the next station — his station. sighing, he sits up a little taller, slipping his phone into the pocket of his slacks. a vague sense of dread weighs down his shoulders, knowing that he has a service to set up for the moment he clocks in.

he’s not looking forward to today, and yet the train still slows to a stop, the doors still slide open, and he still grabs his work briefcase from the spot between his feet. like clockwork, beomgyu maneuvers through the crowd, out the doors, and climbs the stairs up to the chilly streets of seoul.

decompressing after a slow-moving shift can take beomgyu’s night in many directions. sometimes, he simply returns home and hops into bed after a long, scalding hot shower that removes the invisible layer of grime that lays heavy on his skin. other times — typically on fridays — he’ll stop by a bar and catch up with his friends, occasionally leaving with a woman hanging off of his arm if he drinks enough to lower his inhibitions. more often than not, however, his excursions at the underground bar that taehyun is partial to end in him stumbling home alone and waking up the next morning with a raging headache. nursing a hangover alone, eating breakfast alone, bathing alone…he has never really become acclimated to it. the monster that festers inside beomgyu’s chest craves for love, for connection, for somebody to hold when the nights are too dark and his thoughts match the shade of the sky. the lack of connection is slowly getting to him. is this what insanity feels like? he wouldn’t know, nor would he like to find out. he’s sane. he’s perfectly sane. 

beomgyu understands that his profession can be off-putting to potential lovers, but it’s not as if he had much of a choice in the matter — not when his one shot at the career of his dreams crumbled below his feet when the company filed bankruptcy, sending him tumbling back down to earth, to the reality that his college degree meant little to nothing to the vast majority of employers nowadays. though he applied to dozens of jobs, the only one he ever heard back from was from the listing titled “mortuary assistant,” and in desperation, he accepted the position without much thought. maybe if he had tried a little harder to find a different company where he could apply his skills, maybe if he had pushed himself to make connections in the industry when he had the resources to do so, maybe if he had pursued music production a little harder, had not given up so readily when things grew difficult…maybe things would be different. 

beomgyu often thinks about the maybes.

this particular night, he finds himself leaned over a bar counter, a glass of amber-hued beer in hand. he half-listens to yeonjun’s slurred account of his dance crew’s latest win while he stares down at the mahogany tabletop. some condensation has gathered on the wood, and he swipes a finger through it. a slap to his shoulder brings his focus back to his surroundings.

“gyu, dude, y’should totally try out,’’ yeonjun pitches as he sloppily swings an arm over beomgyu’s shoulders. “get out of that. that—” he stumbles over his words for a moment, expression warping into a confused grimace. “that gross ass dead people building.”

beomgyu exhales a laugh as yeonjun’s head lolls against his shoulder, quietly whining about how his head hurts. while yeonjun is substantially gone already, beomgyu is only on his second beer. scanning the spacious, dim-lit room, he shakes his head. it’s times like these where he does not feel the need to slip into people’s minds — being surrounded by his friends is enough. “nah, man. i don’t think i could keep up. it’s been a while.”

“sure y’could! you’re like th’second best dancer here!” yeonjun says as his torso slumps down against the table. the bartender eyes him from further down the bar top with concern, but beomgyu sates the employee with an apologetic smile, ensuring that he turns away before setting his attention back on his friend.

beomgyu scoffs. “and i’m assuming you’re the first best?”

“uh, obviously. i literally run th’thing,” yeonjun retorts as he glares at him with a single eye open, an ear now resting on top of his crossed arms on the counter.

“yeonjun’s right,” taehyun butts in from the other side of yeonjun’s collapsed body. though his glazed over eyes give away his inebriated state, taehyun’s tolerance tends to lean much higher than yeonjun’s; this fact is confirmed by the crystal clear enunciation of his words as he continues, “you’ve been acting differently ever since you started working there. it wouldn’t hurt to try something new.”

great, even his friends have noticed. exhaling deeply, beomgyu nods.

“yeah, i’ll think about it.” 

as the conversation meanders off into other topics, beomgyu sinks back into his own little world. curse taehyun and his acute perceptiveness. he knows that he’s been acting off, but maybe his friends are right; he once dreamed of being a choreographer, back when he was a teen, before he discovered his love for music production. perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to try.

unintentionally, he meets the gaze of a girl sitting at a booth with her friends. he quickly averts his gaze, and by the time he looks back up, she has been roped into what seems like a shot-taking contest. six other girls circle the table, one joining the first girl in taking rapid-fire shots, four others egging them on, and one laser-focused on her phone, occasionally sipping water through a straw. from what he can gather, she’s likely the group’s designated driver — though it seems her role has morphed into more of a babysitter. she’s pretty, he’ll admit. just his type. if he was on his third or fourth beer, he’d probably be over there trying to strike up a conversation with her, rather than any of her drunk friends. 

as she looks up and throws a cursory glance around the bar, she catches him staring, her kohl-lined eyes meeting his own. an eyebrow raises as her gloss-coated lips twist, as if to say “don’t even try it.”

oh, how terribly he wishes to slip into her mind and let her know that he has no intention to. 

the ear-piercing screech of yeonjun’s barstool to his right tears his gaze away from her. yeonjun now stands, one arm around taehyun and the other around soobin, the latter sporting a borderline disgusted grimace directed at the older boy hanging off of him while kai simply stands behind the trio of men. yeonjun’s head hangs low below his shoulders, chin nearly touching his chest, as he emits a pathetic groan. at least he’s not puking this time.

“we’re about to go grab some food. this one,” taehyun’s head nods to yeonjun’s sagging frame. “definitely needs it. you coming?”

unwilling to allow the night to end quite yet, beomgyu hums, quickly pays his tab, and allows the brief, silent encounter with the woman to fade away into the back of his mind.

the rest of the weekend passes without fanfare, and monday returns to rear its ugly head once again. monday is beomgyu’s least favorite day of the week; it brings a raging headache from his 5 a.m. alarm, a bone-deep fatigue that lingers for the rest of the day. it brings grumpy commuters whose knees and elbows uncomfortably bump against his own. it brings people who think that he should give up his seat, and silently tell him so with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows. how selfish, they all think whenever he actually bothers to read their thoughts. what a fucking dick, some of them even snarl within the so-called impenetrable walls of their minds, walls he so easily breaks down. he levels those ones with a half-awake glare, pupils gloomy and lifeless. internally, their uneasy reactions make him want to laugh, hysterically cackle in their faces because wow, is he really that scary? he shouldn’t be, but maybe the dark under eyes are doing something for him.

surprisingly, the subway car he frequents is less crowded than usual. not as many people stand in front of him, and he’s actually able to see directly across the car for the first time in a while. doors shut, and he’s left to look around at the regulars and the new patrons that often don’t show up again. they’re easily less interesting than the regulars. really, what can he say? the daily life updates satisfy his nosy tendencies. 

still, he hates mondays. mondays suck. mondays make him want to crawl into a hole and eventually join the bodies at his workplace. they bring out the worst in his mind. all they do is remind him of the neverending cycle that he has trapped himself in — wake up, work, go to sleep, and do it all over again the next day.

mondays bring a lot of things he fundamentally dislikes, but this particular monday also brings you. 

it’s split-second eye contact. nothing more, nothing less. your eyes grow wide, your lips parting just the slightest bit in surprise. though he has not invaded your mind (yet), he can already tell what you are thinking. fuck, he isn’t blind — he knows that he is handsome.

your eyes shoot downward, your head hanging low with your phone clenched between your fingers. one of his eyebrows raises while a small smirk plays on his lips — you’re new, and even better, you’re cute. his dark, seemingly bored gaze trails over to the earbuds nestled in your ears, then to your crossed legs. you glance up at him again, eyes blowing wide again as your thighs press together just enough for him to notice the movement. his own eyes narrow slightly, evaluating the sight. 

you seem...interesting. prim, proper, sitting in a modest-length skirt and a plain blouse and coat that paint you as an unassuming character, just another random person in this sardine can of a train car. yet there’s this glint in your eyes that tells him there is so, so much more to you than what meets the eye — that the innocent, put-together little front that you display to the world is a complete and utter lie. it’s intriguing. new patrons come and go from this particular subway car every day, but you and your fresh face have caught his interest — and so has your odd behavior. 

then, without warning, realization punches him square in the gut.

you were there the other night, with those girls at the bar. the one sitting at the end of the table with the small glass of water as you scrolled through your phone. the one who shot a piercing glare at him as you looked out for your inebriated friends. your current behavior is a far cry from the strong front he first encountered that night, small and oh-so meek and lacking the sharp, piercing edge to your gaze that initially piqued his interest in you. the change, for some reason, intrigues him more. what happened to that feisty glare, that confident air to your posture? he wants to know why you seem so meek, so he taps in to your mind and—

“you’re my dumb little slut, aren’t you? fuckin’ say it—”

beomgyu flinches in his seat, the door to your mind slamming shut as he sits there in shock. did he really just hear that? are you listening to fucking porn on the subway? what the fuck?

he’s never had this happen to him before. he’s accidentally stumbled upon the occasional horny thought before, sure, but listening to porn on the subway? that’s a new one. he decides to give you another glance; your lips are pressed together now, eyes pointed towards the floor as you further shrink into yourself. fuck, you’re so cute, but now he knows you’re also awfully perverted — and for some reason, he feels himself getting hard in his trousers at the thought of entering your mind again. 

he should do something about this little development, shouldn’t he?

yeah, he thinks that he should. a sick sort of curiosity wins over the more logical side of his brain, the side that tells him that he should feel guilty for even thinking about what he’s about to do. he can’t, can he? no, he can — he wants to, he really fucking wants to. opportunities like this don’t just present themselves on a silver platter like this on the regular. if he doesn’t take this chance, then he’d be an absolute fool. 

the subway slows to a stop, the weirdly cheery, robotic voice calling out another stop. not his, thank god. he takes this opportunity to open that pesky little door to your mind again, now fully expecting the depravity echoing in your brain — and rather than do anything drastic too quickly, he simply sits there and listens. he listens through an entire audio alongside you, ignoring the twitch of his cock as he listens to the woman be degraded and praised, in missionary and in doggy, her moans mixing with the man's in a cacophony of pleasure — he loves the way you jump when the sound of a hand striking flesh sounds through your mind. your fleeting sigh of “god, i wish that were me,” causes him to bite his lip. you like being treated like a slut, huh? like a stupid little whore only made to take cock? that’s music to his ears, really — because he likes treating girls like that too. 

as sick and disgusting as it is, he continues to listen as if mindlessly tuning in to a podcast, subtly adjusting himself in his pants as he fights off a raging boner. he wants to be the one to do those things to you. he wants to make you scream and sob and beg for mercy as he completely ravages your body, fuck you until you’re brainless, perfect little slut for him. you’d love that, according to the audios you consume for the remainder of his commute — to be fucked so hard you legs give out from under you, to be owned, fully and completely. he likes that sound of that as well.

a few minutes into the second audio, you take another glance at him, eyes squeezing shut right away once you catch his gaze — and suddenly, your thoughts are full of him. he’s encountered countless strangers who can perfectly visualize their streams of consciousness, and you seem to be yet another one of them. images of you on your knees between his thighs and sucking his cock in the middle of this subway car flood his own mind, switching to one of him fucking you from behind against the wall while everyone else watches, then to him finger fucking you with a hand around your throat…what the fuck. what the fuck? how do you just do that? how do you think of such terribly shameless things while looking so pretty and demure, as if you’re a shy little thing rather than some fucking whore? he shifts his briefcase over his lap again. fuck, he’s so hard it’s starting to hurt. shit, fuck. 

he should be appalled by you, but fiery, ardent lust is the sole emotion that floods his veins. would it be a bad idea to talk to you? no, you want it. you want it so fucking bad. just look at your mind — and he can make all your dirty little fantasies come true, if you would let him. 

just as he’s about to actually do something about you, the subway slows to a stop once again, the same cheery voice announcing his stop. god dammit. pushing himself up to his feet, he finds that you’re doing the same, wide eyes flitting around nervously as you move towards the door and stop nearly right next to him, those earbuds that hide your biggest secret in plain sight still stuck in your ears. he can still hear those degrading words and moans and slapping sounds that still echo through your mind, loud and clear as if those white earbuds are sitting snug in his own ears. 

the doors slide open, and soon enough, he loses sight of you in the surging crowd. stepping out of the subway, he looks around once, twice. you have completely disappeared; nowhere to be found, your mind has grown too far from his own for him to locate nor access, the tether between the two of you frayed to the point of snapping in half. with a brief purse of his lips, he sets off up the stairs. it’s fine, there’s always another day. it’s fine, he tells himself over and over again. there’s nothing he could have done in such a short time, anyway. 

the sun sits high in the sky today, but the bone-chilling air cuts through his puffy coat like tiny needles puncturing his skin, or millions of scalpels slicing open flesh nearly to the bone, cold and sterile and far from comforting. autumn shouldn’t be this cold, and his slightly soured mood isn’t helping his case right now. he should have done something back there, he should’ve opened up the channel between the two of you and taken the plunge. it wouldn’t have hurt to try, but no. no, he let that opportunity go like every other one he’s had in his life. with his jaw set, he promises himself that it won’t happen again. it won’t, because if he keeps living like this — allowing all these opportunities slip through his fingers like grains of sand — he’ll never be able to forgive himself.

and honestly, beomgyu is no clairvoyant, and he should brush off the tickle in his brain as a stupid, naive hunch…but he has a compelling feeling that he’ll be seeing you again tomorrow. 

when beomgyu returns home, the sun slowly sinking towards the horizon, he doesn’t unwind like he usually does. today’s shift was a slow one, with no bodies to preen and primp and no services to set up for, so most of his time was taken up with cleaning, filing documents, and sitting around aimlessly. no matter how much he tried to fend them off, thoughts of you bounced around in his brain for the entire eight hours he was on shift. fuck, he doesn’t even know your name, much less anything else about you, yet he wishes he could travel back in time and redo this morning all over again. he’s not sure how it would have panned out, exactly, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve that would’ve made it exciting.

he shakes his head. the current moment presents much more pressing matters than ruminating on this morning’s terrible decisions; the strain in his trousers proves to be a pertinent issue, a tent formed in the black fabric and aching to be touched. now that the public eye no longer holds his gaze, his apartment door locked shut behind him, he allows himself to give in to his most base instincts. a hand comes down to cup his hardness as he imagines his fingers as yours, you on your knees below him, those adorably wide eyes staring up at him in desperation. you’d wait for permission, right? you’d beg so prettily like a good little slut should? fuck yeah, you would. you’d be good, you’d take what he would give you — and you would love it. 

groaning, he crashes onto his couch, head throwing back against the back cushion as he gropes his cock harder. he’s forgone slipping off his dress shoes and has barely even slipped his coat off before he’s giving in to the pulsing ache in his groin that’s nearly unbearable, the white hot need swirling in his stomach that demands his immediate attention. his belt quickly unbuckled and his trousers pulled halfway down his thighs, he slips his cock from his boxers, gasping at how sensitive he has become. 

“oh fuck,” he breathes out into the quiet air, a shuddered sigh following when his thumb swipes over the angry red head, the bead of precum that has gathered there spreading across his skin. he brings his hand up to his lips, gathering some spit beneath his tongue before letting in loll into his palm. bringing it back down, he drags his hand up and down his shaft, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as pleasure rushes through his veins. he pumps his cock steadily, hips rolling up into his hand as if fucking your throat. eyes fluttering closed, his free hand grips the couch, fingernails digging into the worn leather and leaving half-moon indents in their wake. “fuck. god, fuck.”

would you be able to take him? he’s been told he’s big, most women barely able to take him even after extensive prep. he imagines how you’d keen as he enters you, your back arching so prettily and your walls stretching to their limits to accommodate his size. how you’d choke and gag on his cock if he decided to use your throat, tears streaming down your cheeks as you peer up at him pathetically, fingers digging into your thighs as you resist the urge to touch yourself. would you like to be slapped around a little, punished with spankings and little taps to your cheek? 

“focus,” he mumbles to no one. to you. “focus, slut. be good for me.” 

he’s delirious at this point, has dived so deep into his fantasies that he barely registers that he’s fucking his fist and not your mouth or sweet little cunt. that doesn’t stop his fingers from tightening their grip, squeezing the head before gliding back down again, then back up, the rhythm of his hips growing frenzied as his high inches closer. his free hand smooths up his stomach, taking his button-up with it as he clenches it with desperate fingers. he bites down on the fabric, pumping himself once, twice, three times before his high hits him, his cum spurting out in staccato ribbons. he’s making a mess, but he can’t bring himself to care when this is the best orgasm he’s had in months. the shirt falls from his mouth as he moans unabashedly. 

“take it,” he groans, his hips canting upward. “fuckin’— fuckin’ take it. shit. such a perfect little whore for me.”

he cums and he cums, spilling all over himself until he’s milked dry. eyes closed, his contracted muscles melt into the couch, hot pants replacing his moans and groans. a few minutes pass before he fully comes down from his headspace and returns back to earth, only for him to realize just how much he came, staining his clothes and coating his skin in creamy white. he blinks. 

reality crashes down on his head. 

he just…jerked off to you. he just came so hard he saw stars just from the mere thought of you. oh, he’s in deeper than he first thought. too deep, too quickly, he can barely breathe. 

“fuck,” beomgyu murmurs as he stares down at his cum-covered abdomen, his sticky hand. “fuck.”

beomgyu was right: you do come back the next day. and the next. and the next.

over the remainder of the work week, he watches you — well, more so listens to you, but he can’t deny himself the little glimpses he allows himself to take, drinking in how you worry your bottom lip, how the muscles in your throat contract each time you gulp. the poker face that you don crumbles oh so easily whenever he meets your stray gaze. it’s exhilarating, knowing the power he, a complete stranger, has over you. your microscopic slips in expression remain undetected to the rest of the passengers, but he sees every single one. they’re a perfectly entertaining backdrop for your explicit musings. 

he knows he could approach you like a normal human being would, but where’s the fun in that? he’s not quite a normal person in his own right, anyway. instead, he’s decided to keep you in his sights, learning what exactly you enjoy, what you like to hear, preparing for the day where he again gathers the courage to toy with you within the walls of your mind. he’s in deep, and at this point, he’s accepted it if only to justify his sadistic obsession with you. actually, on second thought, he wouldn’t quite call it an obsession, perhaps a morbid curiosity more than anything. yeah, that’s all it can be.

it’s almost as if the universe has sent him a little present in the form of you, an apology for the trials and tribulations that whatever is above has rained down on him this past year or so. of course he’s going to savor it. who wouldn’t? so he sticks to his plan, and keeps watching you, listening to you, observing you, identifying your little quirks and deepest, darkest desires. they’ll be quite useful later, he’s sure. 

over his…research period, he’s found out a lot about you. you like to be bullied, to be called a slut, a whore, but you also enjoy a little praise mixed in: good slut, good whore, pretty girl is so obedient for sir, for daddy, for master. you’re also not too picky in what you listen to, as long as it contains a male dominant in some capacity. couple’s content, threesomes, gangbangs are all on the table, as are solo audios that usually have some sort of plot to them — coworkers to lovers' first date that ends in sex? check. hot librarian who fucks over a table you after closing? that too. he could go on about what he’s heard in just the solo audios you consume, but even that list would be exhaustive. 

by the time friday rolls around, he doesn’t even have to try to search for your mind; call him crazy, but it’s almost as if you, on some subconscious level, know that he wants in and are more than willing to let him. as if you keep the door cracked open just for him. 

at least, he likes to think that you do. 

staying close, but not too close, to you proves to be difficult today. fridays bring with them a surge of new faces that crowd the subway car, which is generally quite annoying, but at the moment, he also finds it to be frustrating. no seats are open when he boards, he can’t even see you through the dense crowd, but you’re there. your mind is there, open and waiting for him to enter.

though he won’t be able to see your cute little reactions, he steps through that mental threshold. 

“it’s okay, baby. shh, don’t cry, you can cum. cum for me, just let go,” a gentle voice coos. aw, you must be having a rough morning, how sad. the only other day you listened to these kinds of audios, you looked absolutely miserable, the corners of your lips pulled down and a deep, pathetic furrow to your brows — it was wednesday, that’s right. two days ago, when you seemed frazzled and completely out of it. a little digging resulted in him learning that you had spilled your coffee all over the concrete on the way here, you thought your hair didn’t look right (even though, to him, it did, it looked perfect — he wished he could’ve told you that), and worst of all, your boss emailed you late the previous night to admonish you for your performance, demanding a meeting first thing that morning. 

still, he wishes he could take care of your boss, eliminate that weight off of your shoulders. if it were up to him, your boss would be sitting in the morgue at his place of work, gray and comatose and unable to admonish you for things that beomgyu is sure you had no control over. because that’s how offices work, right? sink or swim, big fish eat the little ones, blaming those below them for everything they should be taking responsibility for. your boss has to be one of those. he was pig-nosed and donning a constant sneer when you pictured the verbal berating you’d be getting once you got to your workplace. 

that day, he found himself thinking about how he’s become pretty talented with a scalpel. 

“good girl. doing so well for me, pretty girl,” the same voice soothes, soft cries and sniffles from the submissive mixing with the gentle words. he could treat you all sweet too. he could be anything you want, if only you knew him. 

he wants you to know him — needs you to, really.

there’s no clear cut reason for your current sour mood, your thoughts too jumbled together for him to properly decipher. are you picking apart your appearance? did you wake up late? is this all because of your boss again? he might just kill the bastard if that’s the case…if only he could approach you, tell you that everything will be okay, but he doesn’t want to knock down the house of cards he’s spent such precious time building over the course of the week. you’re too special for that. it’s the very reason why he tries to blend into the crowd, why he tries to keep eye contact to a minimum. the last thing he needs is for you to run away from him when you’re one of the only things holding him together.

when the car slows to his and your stop, disappointment nips at the space between his eyebrows. he didn’t even get to see you today, and the end of the work week means that he won’t be seeing you for two entire days. sighing, he falls into his typical routine: move towards the doors, wait for them to open, and follow the other exiting passengers out. where could you be? you’re still here, he knows that much since he’s still connected to you, still hears those soft words and moans, but where the fuck are you? you, as in your body. that you.

with a single cursory glance around, he swears he catches a glimpse of your figure before the crowd swallows you whole. as he’s shoved towards the stairs by the crowd, his chest grows heavy.

friday has just begun, but monday couldn’t come any faster. 

“so, are you gonna try out?”

yeonjun is far more sober compared to last friday night, his eyes lacking that fatigued droop they always get whenever he’s had too much. beomgyu tears his glazed-over gaze away from the television screen to look at the yeonjun, sinking further into the couch below him. he points to himself. “me?”

yeonjun rolls his eyes, a knee swinging over the arm of the armchair he sits in. “who the fuck else would i be talking to?”

scoffing, beomgyu shoots him a glare. “i don’t know, man. y’don’t have to be a dick about it.”

the open bottle of beer in beomgyu’s hand chills his fingertips, so he switches it to his other hand before taking another sip. meanwhile, soobin plops down next to him with an already open bag of chips, offering some to him. he shakes his head, and soobin shrugs, beginning to munch on them by himself. 

“i’m serious though,” yeonjun continues. “you should really try out. there’s not much to it, just dance to one song and you’re done. i’d probably pass you even if you sucked.”

“that’s nepotism,” taehyun chimes in from the floor, eyes trained on the screen as he shoots a player down in the game him and kai are currently obsessed with. the sound of gunfire fills the living room of soobin and yeonjun’s apartment, the murmurs of the two boys a low drone beneath it as they figure out their best strategy to win. 

he almost wishes he lived here with soobin and yeonjun, or with the other two. yeonjun and soobin, taehyun and kai — only beomgyu lives alone. alone doesn’t necessarily mean lonely, but in beomgyu’s case, it does. maybe that’s why he’s latched onto you so hard: to cure his loneliness. he swats that thought away like one would a pesky mosquito. he hasn’t latched onto you, he admonishes himself, he’s simply curious. yeah, curious. 

just a little innocent curiosity. 

disregarding taehyun’s comment, yeonjun raises an eyebrow towards beomgyu. “i know i was drunk when i said that shit last week, but you really have been acting weird since you started at that job. we’ve all noticed.”

“yeah, it’s like you’ve gotten more reserved, or something,” soobin says, words muffled by his chewing. beomgyu grimaces, shifting closer to the arm of the couch. 

“you’re the most introverted one here, you can’t say shit,” kai snorts. soobin throws a chip at his head.

“anyway,” yeonjun butts in with a scalding glare before an argument can begin. soobin and kai blanch, mouths closing. “we’re just…concerned about you.”

“is this some kind of intervention?” beomgyu laughs, disbelief apparent in his tone. he’s fine. he has you now.

“no, we just want you to know that there’s other things you could do that would make you happier than work at a fucking funeral home,” taehyun says, eyes still not straying from the tv. 

“like joining my dance crew,” yeonjun tacks on. 

beomgyu sighs. they’re kind of right, if he’s being honest with himself, but is he ready to put himself out there again? is he ready to face the potential of rejection, of failure? he’s had his life fall apart in front of his eyes once already, what if it happens again?

“...i guess.”

“c’mon.” yeonjun shifts around until he’s leaning on his elbows, focus solely on beomgyu. “tryouts are next saturday. i know how fast you can learn choreography. hell, you could probably learn something in a couple hours and be fine.”

“honestly, you’ll never know if you don’t try,” soobin chimes in. “it might end in something good.”

“yeah,” beomgyu says before taking another large swig of beer. “yeah, i know.”

and so another weekend passes, and monday returns once again. 

soobin’s brief, sage advice plays through his mind again and again. although he understands that soobin meant for it to apply to his current career situation, beomgyu has adopted it for his situation with you instead. he should try, he’s going to try, eventually. 

it might end in something good, he tells himself over and over again. he has to try.

mondays are a bit less excruciating now that you’re around. he has only known you for a week, but it’s been long enough to know that you make his day-to-day routine bearable — hell, he’ll stay at his terrible job as long as you keep showing up each morning. the day that you don’t will be the nail in his coffin — he chuckles at his stupid joke. yeonjun is rubbing off on him too much.

the sky is overcast today, and endless expanse of gray that contrasts the warmth of the changing leaves that line the sidewalk. it might rain soon, he surmises, but he hopes that it won’t. he’s forgone an umbrella today. digging his hands further into his coat pockets, he ducks into the subway station, descending the stairs and weaving through the crowd until he finds his usual platform. when he gets there, you’ve already arrived, ears vacant of those white earbuds, but it’s not a foreign sight to him. you typically put them in once you sit down. the fact that you get on and get off at the same stop as him…he almost likes to think of all of this as fate. 

maybe the universe really is trying to apologize. 

the subway arrives at the platform a few minutes later — minutes in which he tries not to stare at you. he’s not a creep, he swears that he’s not. he’s not a creep, he’s not a creep — he repeats this to himself as he follows behind you into the subway car the two of you frequent, he finds a seat across from you a few feet to your left. he can’t be too obvious.

and most importantly, he’s not a creep. 

you dig around in your bag. ah, here come those infamous earbuds, he’s sure of it — but then they don’t, and then the digging through your bag grows a degree more frantic, your lips parting as you continue shoving whatever is in there aside in search of your most precious possession.

you feel like crying as panic surges through your veins. oh god, you forgot them. how could you have forgotten them? what are you going to do now? 

beomgyu decides to tap into your mind in that moment, finding you in an unbelievably frazzled state. his heart clenches in his chest, he wishes he could help somehow…

wait. he could…oh my god, he could. no, that’s sick, he’s not a creep — well, no, he could. he definitely fucking could, and you’d probably end up liking it…

he could be your temporary replacement for today — no, he could become your constant source, the one you need to get through the day. he could become your audios. he wants to. they’d be far more…interactive, if he did, after all. you’d love what he could do to your pretty fucking body just with access to your mind. reading thoughts isn’t the only thing he can do — and soobin’s right: he’ll never know if he doesn’t try. how could he sit here any longer and not give in to his burning desire to ravage you? you know what? fuck it. this is the perfect opportunity, served up once again on a silver platter, waiting for him to take. he’s not going to let it slip away again — and oh, you just look so devastated right now, how terrible would he be if he didn’t help you?

in a split-second moment, beomgyu decides that today is the day. deep breath. focus. okay, he can do this. one, two, three…

“hello, pretty girl.”

you flinch before you look up and around, only to find no one is looking at you — well, he is, but through his peripherals. wouldn’t want to get caught, would he? suppressing a smirk at your reaction, he shifts in his seat.

“was someone just talking to me?” you ask yourself, brows furrowing as your eyes continue to dart around. your hand comes up to your ear to see if you accidentally remembered your earbuds, your frown deepening when you register that they are, indeed, not in your ears. glancing around again, your eyes skirt over his form. he shivers at the thought of what’s to come, biting his lip as he avoids your gaze. “is this some sort of prank?”

“calm down, sweetheart, this isn’t a prank. now, stop looking around, you’re the only one who heard me.”

your brain flits from thought to thought so quick he can barely keep up, the volume of them rising as you panic. your fingers clench the strap of your purse as if to ground yourself. “am i hallucinating right now? what the fuck? this has to be a prank. should i go to the doctor’s? no, my boss would kill me if i called out, but fuck, i should really go if i’m hearing things—”

beomgyu chuckles, the sound echoing through your mind as well. freezing, your muscles lock up as you look around again. your distressed stream of consciousness stops for a moment, before resuming at a much more rapid pace. “what the fuck, i need to call out right now, where’s my phone—”

sighing, he leans back into his seat and closes his eyes. so cute, how easily you spiral. “quiet that pretty little head of yours, pretty girl. you’re not hallucinating, this is all real. very real.”

a few moments pass before your internal freakout quiets down. for once, silence fills your mind…and rather than him break it, it’s you: “someone’s…talking to me through my mind? this is real?”

“such a smart girl. you figured it out so quickly,” beomgyu taunts, resisting the urge to coo again. adrenaline rushes through his veins, urging him to continue. you need him. he can make you happy. he just needs to hear you say it.

your thighs press together at the praise, fingers digging into the trousers you had chosen to wear. you shouldn’t be feeling like this. this is strange, terribly strange, and even a little frightening, now that you are aware that someone — that a complete stranger, at that — has full reign over your conscious. yet, at the same time, you’re curious to see how this will play out.

“and you can speak to me, too, if you focus hard enough…” his voice trails off. okay, you can do that. allowing your eyelids to flutter shut, you begin to breathe deeply until even the mechanical noises of the subway and the murmurs of passengers vacate your senses. mind empty, you exhale a shaky breath. focus. stay focused. 

“hmm, impressive. you’re a natural at this.” god, he needs to quit praising you like that with his deep voice. by the way he laughs, you know he heard that too. fuck. 

“who are you and why the fuck are you in my brain?” you decide to ask. straight to the point, no fluff to it, it’s reminiscent of your attitude at the bar where he first laid eyes upon you. this is the wall you put up towards strangers and any other threat to your life, but little do you know, beomgyu’s breached that wall already. this is just a little front. “answer me, you fucking asshole—”

“woah, woah, watch the language. why would i tell you who i am? it’s much more exciting this way, don’t you think?” the smile in his voice is unmistakable, but he purses his lips to keep them from curling upward. 

you start to gnaw on your bottom lip, biting hard enough for pain to bloom across your nerve endings. this is stranger you’re talking to right now, a stranger who you’re talking to through your fucking thoughts. this is weird. you never signed up for this. “get the hell out of my mind before— before i—” 

“before you what? can’t kick me out, you don’t know how to do that, pretty girl.”

fuck, he’s right — wait, if he’s in your mind right now, can he also control it? is he going to hurt you? is he going to make you his puppet and go on a murder spree? is he in this car with you, or somewhere else? what if…what if…

beomgyu can almost feel your panic swelling in his own chest. fuck, he needs to put a stop to your spiraling before it gets out of control. if you freak out now, then all of his work over the past week will be for naught. after all, he’s not going to do anything without your permission. the last thing he wishes to do is scare you off completely before he can have his fun. with great urgency, he cuts off your ramblings, “hey, now, relax for me, princess. i’m not going to hurt you. i’m as human as you are, just a bit…different, i guess. and i am in the same car as you right now.”

rather than respond, you look around again, eyeing every single man around you with suspicion, even him. he stares at the floor, maintaining what he hopes to be a neutral, borderline bored, expression. he needs to keep it together. he’s gotten this far, he can’t ruin this. “looking around again, huh? if i were that easy to spot, then this game wouldn’t be very fun, would it?” 

“game? fucking with my mind is a game to you?” 

the corners of his lips twitch up before he’s forcing them back down. this is it, the moment he has been waiting oh so patiently for. keep it together.

“well, not really — i actually have a proposition for you, if you’d hear me out.”

scoffing, you urge him along. “just get on with it.”

“so impatient. that’s okay. i can work with that,” he smirks. “i know what you listen to every morning, you know.”

your heart drops to your stomach. he what? oh god, you think you’re going to be sick. your arms wrap around your stomach, squeezing hard. this is bad, this is really fucking bad. “do you want money, or something? are— are you trying to blackmail me right now? i’ll have you know, i’m actually kinda broke right now. i really don’t wanna end up homeless, can you just. pick someone else to fuck with? there’s like twelve different businessmen in this car, i’m sure they’re rich and corrupt—”

beomgyu’s brows raise imperceptibly. jesus, are you always this flighty? “woah, chill. i’m not here to judge you — or blackmail you, for that matter. i’m not evil. aw, don’t look all shameful now. i told you i’m not here to judge — i actually wanna help you, if you’d let me.”

“help me?” you dumbly echo. “help me how?”

“well,” he starts. “i noticed you forgot your earbuds today, and you just looked so sad and lost without them. how else are you going to get through your commute? and then i thought maybe i could do something about that. y’know, help you out, get you through the morning.”

“so you invaded my privacy just to tell me that you wanna dirty talk to me for the rest of my commute? is that what you mean? ‘cause if so, that’s pretty weird,” you reply, though your stray thoughts that dart around tell him that you’re actually considering his offer — it’s tempting, isn’t it? to give in, to let his deep voice get you all squirmy and needy, knowing he could be anyone in this subway car. still, your words make him laugh, because of course you’re deflecting right now. it’s okay, he hasn’t given you the full story quite yet.

“that’s only part of my offer, princess,” he starts. “i can read minds, yes, but i can also do…other things.”

oh, you’re really considering it now. maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let him. his voice is nice, and maybe, just maybe, it’s kind of making you horny. after a deep, long breath, you gulp once, then, with curiosity dripping from your tone, you ask, “...like what?”

jackpot.

beomgyu’s high on a mix of adrenaline and dopamine, utterly giddy because he’s got you right where he wants you, where he needs you. he’s played his cards just right, shoved your worries to the side and drew out your curiosity enough that you’ve taken his bait. perfect, oh, this is perfect. he knew you’d be good for him.

“it would be much easier for me to show you.”

“then show me,” you immediately reply, heat flooding your cheeks at the sheer desperation in your voice. god, calm down. he hasn’t even done anything yet.

chuckling at your internal conflict, he decides not to comment. “tell me if you don’t like something. i’ll stop.” he watches as you slightly nod to yourself, a soft “okay,” echoing through your head and into his — thus, he sets his plan into action. 

something warm caresses your calf, but when you look down, there’s nothing there. your eyes widen — was that a hand? it definitely felt like one, the way it creeped up the back of your leg, calloused fingertips pressing into your skin. a shiver races down your spine. that had to have been him. 

“it was,” he confirms, then his voice is growing impossibly deeper, adopting that gruff edge that you love so much. “you want more, princess? i can give you more.”

another phantom hand skirts over your waist, dragging down over your hips to your right thigh, just to stop there. biting your bottom lip, you nod, hoping that whoever is in your head right now sees it, wherever he is. the hand moves to your inner thigh; despite how tightly pressed together they are, it skirts over your skin with ease, seemingly beneath your trousers. “i need words, pretty girl, or i might just stop right now. and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

no, you wouldn’t, not at this point. the unbearable ache currently building in your core makes you want to cry; you haven’t felt this level of desperation in a while, and you need to be touched. you need it so fucking bad. 

“please.” the single word comes out meek, quiet. shame flushes your face, a fiery heat that spreads up to your ears and down your neck. 

you hear the way his breath shudders, causing your own hitch. “fuck, you’re so cute, but i need more than that. beg. beg for me to touch you.”

his voice — fuck, his voice is so deep, so dark and wanton. you wonder what he sounds like when he’s moaning, how he would sound if he fucked you, pounded you into the mattress so hard you saw stars. the image of a faceless stranger fucking you from behind, your back arched behind you and your face buried in the sheets, as he holds your wrists behind your back flits across the big screen of your mind. you shake it away, but the man in your head is already tutting. “use your words, sweetheart, not pictures — though i’d love to do that to you too. you’ve got quite the imagination on you.” 

beomgyu’s cock twitches in his boxers as you whine, frantic pleas bubbling up from the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind once he takes the sensation of his hand away from your thigh. you sound halfway dumb already, begging for his hands, his cock, his tongue — anything. you’ll take anything just, “please, sir. please touch me. need you to touch me so bad.”

you don’t even know who he is, yet you’re being so obedient, calling him sir, begging so sweetly for him — it’s like you’re begging straight into his ear. his heart swells at the thought, as does his cock. you sound so pretty, but he finds himself wishing he could hear these words come from your lips instead. 

“yeah? my little slut needs more?” he prods, laughing meanly when you whimper out a yes. “aw, ‘course she does. desperate whores always need more, don’t they? so greedy.”

you have to swallow down a whimper at that, focusing so intently on keeping quiet that your nails have dug into your palms deep enough to almost break skin. the pain seems to help keep you grounded — that is, until you feel the sting of a palm against your backside. you flinch in your seat, gasping sharply. the man sitting next to you glances over, but you only hang your head and shrink into yourself. he looks away. 

“focus, whore. you’re drawing too much attention to yourself.”

two hands are touching you now. one cupping your pussy, the other wrapped around your throat, pressing into the sides of your neck so you start to grow dizzy. the hand on your throat releases its grip to slide down to your chest, circling around one of your nipples before a thumb swipes over the pebbled flesh. your back arches off of your seat when the sensation morphs into that of lips, plush warmth enveloping your tit before the sharp bite of teeth interrupts. you inhale a shaky breath from your nose as lips return to soothe the sting. despite the hard press of your thighs, the hand on your pussy drags up and down your folds, dipping down to your entrance before dragging up to your clit. a tiny squeak sneaks up your throat before you’re masking it with a cough. 

“aren’t you just a sensitive little thing? so wet too,” he coos, shifting his briefcase over his lap to gain some semblance of friction. his fingertips tingle as if your wetness coats them right now. fuck, he’s hard. if it were up to him, you’d be taking his cock right now, moaning so prettily as he presses you up against the wall and fucks up into you, your legs giving out from under you because he’s just making you feel so good, isn’t he? never mind that, he has a job to do. “how about i just…”

two lithe fingers breach your walls while a thumb continues to slowly circle your clit, barely brushing over the sensitive bundle of nerves. you feel like you’re going insane, trying your best to hold still as his fingers begin to move inside you, curling up into your walls. searching, he’s searching for that spot inside you that will get you crying—

then he finds it. 

your knee jerks up, your legs falling open slightly before you’re pressing them closed again as he abuses it over and over again, crooking his fingers just right to find it with each thrust. your hips roll up into the sensation, stilling as soon as you realize that you’re squirming too much, being too obvious. people are starting to stare, calm down. calm the fuck down.

god, you don’t think you can. it’s too difficult to keep still with the way he’s finger-fucking you right now. with the way there’s lips suddenly circling your clit, sucking the pearl in so that his tongue can play with it. little kitten licks that make you want to scream and cry and beg for mercy because you don’t know if you can keep up this front of normalcy with the way he’s touching you.

it’s like he’s speaking directly into your ear right now, warm breath fanning over your earlobe, your cheek. “wanna see you fall apart, wanna see you lose it in front of all of these people, baby. bet you wanna cum right now, yeah? just wanna feel good, don’t even care if you quake and cry in public? you’re that fucking desperate for it?” 

you nod to yourself, eyes squeezing shut. you’re so close. oh god, you’re going to cum. you’re going to cum like a brainless whore in the middle of a fucking subway car. you’re sick. you’re fucking sick for enjoying this.

you’re just as bad as him, beomgyu decides. he knew you’d like what he could give you, he knew you needed him. it was just a matter of time before you realized that fact. that’s okay, because he needs you just as badly. it’s a carnal need, white hot in the center of his stomach — fuck, he’s obsessed with you. he wants you to be his forever. 

and beomgyu knows you’re close, but he’s not quite ready to give you what you want. 

“please, oh god. please let me cum. fuckfuckfuck— no, please don’t stop!” you cry as he slows the pace of his fingers. “please no, ‘m so close! no no no—”

“you drive me crazy, it’s only fair if i return the favor. makes it more fun.” ripping the sensation away from you completely, he watches you bottom lip tremble as you blink back tears, your body melting into your seat as the pleasure fades away. “now, now, don’t cry, sweetheart. i have something even better for you.”

a few seconds pass before something breaches your entrance, your walls stretching to their limit, yet the sting of pain never arrives. filled to the brim, you throw your head back against the window behind you. to others, you seem to just be resting your eyes, but the way your mouth falls open is not lost on beomgyu. he knows you can feel him everywhere, knows you can feel the way the head of his cock nearly touches your cervix, how it presses into every single sensitive spot inside you. he knows he’s big, but you take it like a champ, your hips grinding down into the seat, as if to bring him deeper inside you. what a little whore, his little whore. 

“y’feel that, pretty girl? feel my big fucking cock inside you?” he asks as your chest heaves, a feeble attempt in holding yourself together. “calm down, now. i’m gonna start moving, okay?”

he doesn’t wait for your response before he’s spoon-feeding you the sensation of his cock pulling out until nothing but his cockhead remains within your walls. a few seconds pass, then your begging returns. tearful, this time, fucking pathetic. he basks in the power that rushes through his entire being. you need him. you need him in order to feel good, and he loves that you do. he brings a hand down to adjust himself in his pants, hissing quietly at the ache that the action brings. he needs to fuck you right now. physically fuck you, none of this thought manipulation bullshit — but no, he has to be patient. he can be patient as long as it’s you. 

the subway is slowing down again, and he comes to the gross realization that he only has a few minutes before both of you must depart. dammit, he has to make this quick. 

meanwhile, you’re already halfway to your high just at the mere feeling of him inside you. as soon as his cock begins to move again, you’re choking back moans, head hanging low as your muscles tense and your hands press into your lap. you can feel him in your throat each time he thrusts back in, his thrusts growing faster and faster until he’s pounding into you. 

“fuck fuck fuckkkkk!” you wail, encouraging him to continue. in reality, your walls clench around nothing, but your mind paints a different picture. you almost beg for him to cum inside, but you cant find the words, too fucked out to think about anything else but the knot in your stomach that grows tighter with each passing second. “fuck, please. please, fuck i’m, nghh—”

imaginary fingers swipe across your clit, and you’re a goner. 

thighs quaking, your release coats your panties, walls fluttering, but the movement of his cock doesn’t stop until you’re begging for mercy. beomgyu almost cums in his pants at the depraved wails you emit, half-baked sentences pleading for him to “s-slow down, please. i can’t, no, i can’t — shit!”

finally — finally — he grants you reprieve from the onslaught of pleasure. your body slumps into your seat, your eyes shut as you begin to float back down to earth. the clack-clack-clack of the subway slows until it stops completely. the usual robotic voice announces his stop, but you seem so out of it that you don’t even register that you need to get off. 

“good job, baby. you put on quite the show for me,” he praises as he rises to his feet. luckily, he decided on wearing a longer coat today which he uses to cover up his raging hard-on. this has to be fate.

no response. with an excited gleam in his eye, he disconnects from your mind and moves towards you. looming above you, he drinks in the beads of sweat that have formed along your hairline, the wrinkles in your trousers where you gripped the fabric a wee bit too hard, your dreamy eyes and how they blink down at his black loafers before raising to meet his own. concern has painted itself across his features, his head tilting as he holds your bleary gaze.

“are you alright, miss? you look a bit ill.”

you blink once. twice. god, how are you so cute even after getting fucked so hard? he can barely control himself from blurting out who he is.

“what—what stop is this?” you ask him, eyes wide and red-rimmed from your earlier tears. he tells you, and he watches those same eyes widen. “oh shit, this is my stop!”

attempting to stand, you stumble straight into his chest. he catches you with gentle hands before he’s helping you steady yourself. your legs tremble like those of a newborn fawn, sexy yet terribly adorable. he gulps at the image of you unable to walk, legs so sore that you’re forced to let him dote on you, that forms inside his mind. later. that can come later, don’t get too hasty. 

“oh, you’re a bit shaky there,” he murmurs, a hand curling around you elbow when you stumble again. “are you sure you’re alright?”

“i’m f-fine, sorry for the trouble,” you reply with a polite, yet jittery, smile, stepping away from him. he wants to tell you to come closer again, he wants to smell your sweet perfume again, feel your warm skin beneath his fingertips. 

but good things come to those who wait.

“no worries.” with a charming smile, he shuffles beside you, until the two of you have exited with the rest of the crowd. he catches your wrist before you can get too far, and you turn to face him once more. afterglow looks wonderful on you. “it looks like we’re getting off at the same stop today, so would you like me to walk with you until you’re feeling a bit better? i’m sure some fresh air will do you good.”

you pause for a moment, hesitating. have you seen him somewhere before? you feel like you have. “i…that would be great, actually. thank you.”

“of course,” he nods, holding back a smirk. he can’t help the words that escape him next.

“lead the way, then…pretty girl.”

the way you look back at him with alarmed realization — even a hint of fear — causes a grin to split open his lips. you begin to sputter as you back away, but he merely follows with light, casual steps. “w-what, who—who are you—”

his smile grows knife-sharp. the door opens — it always does. 

“aw, c’mon, sweetheart,” he coos inside your mind, biting his lip as he watches your knees buckle. “who else could it be?”

© to agustdiv1ne. do not copy, repost, steal, and/or translate.

[sillylittlespam]

please please please let me get what i want (lord knows it would be the first time)

leo valdez x reader , hate at first sight , girl who’s nice to everyone but you , enemies to lovers , miscommunication , hurt and no fluff (not yet!)

summary : you and leo started out on bad terms, and you remained on bad terms while you both occupied the argo ii. after the argo ii crashed into an island and sent you flying off the deck and tumbling into the ocean don’t laugh it’s not funny, you lost your favorite necklace in it’s sandy shores. of course, you blame leo even though you know it wasn’t intentional. so, tired of this nonsensical rivalry, leo decided to make things up to you. but they don’t turn out the way he expected.

authors note : this was written with the deftones version of the song in mind, but either will work honestly

also! this plot was inspired by a reel i saw on insta, but i can’t remember or find who it was! if you know, please comment and i can credit her :))

warnings : some swear words, i use fuck once and a couple others

part 2 coming soon :))

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“What are you doing, (y/n)?” Percy stopped just before the waves hit the sand, watching as you waded around in knee-high water with your shoulders hunched over as you stared at the water and sand below you.

You looked up at him, your eyes still squinting and the rest of your face scrunched with worry, “I lost my necklace while we were landing because of Valdez’s inability to fly the boat he built.”

Your pointed tone was directed to the Latino who had been walking on the beach a few feet behind Percy. Being in earshot, Leo stopped in his tracks, various pieces of metal scraps tucked under his arm and numerous tools gripped in his calloused hands, “What kind of shit are you talking now, (l/n)?”

His tone held its usual bitter spite, but it also had a hint of something else. Exhaustion. His precious Argo II had crashed onto this gods-forsaken island mere hours ago, yet it felt as if he had spent years trying to find out what the hell was wrong with it so they could get back in the sky. His eyes ached with exhaustion and he couldn’t tell if his limbs felt heavy or if it was just the dozens of pounds of metal he was carrying.

“I’m not talking shit,” you shot back with far too much confidence for someone who was using her feet to comb through the continental shelf under the waves, “You crashed the boat. It’s your fault I flew off of the deck and into this water. Therefore, it’s because of you that my necklace fell off and I can’t find it.”

Leo, who had opened his mouth to shoot back some half-hearted response while you were speaking, fell silent. You were right. It was his fault.

Anyone who had been around you at all knew how much you loved that necklace. It had been a gift from your godly parent when you were claimed a few years ago, and you never took it off. You grasped the pendant in your palm when you felt anxious, and the majority of your outfits coordinated with its colors.

And now it was lost somewhere in the sand, and you may never find it. All because of him.

You were still staring at him, and your eyes narrowed in response to his lack of response. You hummed once, something that usually made Leo furious, but this time it felt like a slap in the face. You turned your attention back to the murky water you stood in, and Leo knew that the conversation was over.

Percy watched you for a few seconds, his eyebrows raised as you continued to go further and further into the translucent ocean. Finally, he turned his attention to Leo who still stood behind him, watching you.

“Hey, McShizzle Man, you okay?” he asked, concern filling his attempt at a casual tone.

Leo, who finally managed to pull his eyes away from you, nodded, a forced smile coming back to his face, “Perfectly fine, man. Nothing to worry about.”

He knew that Percy wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t really care.

“I found this stuff in the forest,” he said, nodding to the pieces of metal he held under his arms, “Not to jinx our luck, or anything, but I think it’s from my dad. I’m going to take it to Festus and see what I can do.”

Percy nodded, and Leo cursed him for having such a good poker face. As the dark haired boy opened his mouth again, Leo found himself nervous for what he might say. 

“Awesome. You need anything?”

“Nah, man, I’m good. Thanks, though.” He would have walked away right there and then if Percy hadn’t looked like he wanted to say something else.

“Leo,” the older boy started out much quieter, his inflection already making Leo wish he was halfway across the beach, “That’s not your fault.”

He didn’t need to say or do anything for Leo to know that he was referring to the girl in the water who was mumbling nonsense about a stupid dragon.

“I know,” he said weakly, his eyes falling to the ground.

“The fact that you built an entire flying ship in like, three months is crazy impressive,” Percy said, his green eyes practically staring into Leo’s soul, “Don't beat yourself up because one thing went wrong.”

Leo swallowed, nodding, “Thanks, Percy.”

The boy nodded in response, and Leo finally left the beach.

It was only when he was on his back with a wrench in his hands that he allowed himself to dissect everything. The overall conclusion was that this was not looking very good for him.

First, he had made a joke about your godly parent when he first met you that did not go over too well, then he didn’t react too positively when Rachel spewed out green gas and said you were to go on the quest to California to retrieve Percy, and then he accidentally attacked Camp Jupiter, and now he lost your favorite necklace.

The first and the third events were excusable. In his mind, they were able to be taken completely separate and had no connection to his inability to get along with you. But when putting all four events together, he was beginning to understand why you didn’t like him so much. 

As someone who experienced a large amount of bullying growing up, whether it be about him being poor, in foster care, or having an accent, it caused him physical pain in his chest to think that he might have been bullying you. And while he may not have been, if he didn’t change things very quickly, there would be no denying it.

It was rather unfortunate, the way things worked out. Upon first meeting you, Leo thought you were very pretty. He thought your eyes were very enchanting and that your hair was majestic, and overall he was mesmerized with how you looked. Unfortunately, when Leo gets tongue-tied, he tends to say whatever comes to his mind first. It was completely understandable that you were offended, and he wanted to immediately take it back. But it was too late. He had already made a horrible first impression, and you were not so kind to him after that.

When you had been chosen to go with them to California, Leo didn’t react too positively. It wasn’t as if he pouted, or anything. He would never pout. He may have rolled his eyes as Chiron made the announcement to the camp, but at the moment he didn’t think that was too bad.

Attacking Camp Jupiter was NOT his fault. He was possessed by an Eidolon, which was cleared up. End of story. You still liked to bring it up.

It wasn’t that Leo wanted to constantly bicker with you. In fact, he found it exhausting having to respond to every insult you threw at him. He would never say it out loud, but he wished that the two of you were friends. He saw the way that you had heart-to-heart conversations with Percy and Annabeth, some of your childhood friends, and the way that you threw around jokes with Piper, and how you were quick to form a bond with Jason, Frank, and Hazel, three people who you literally just met. You had a great relationship with everyone on the Argo II except him, and he hated it. All he wanted was for you to look at him and smile, the way you do with your eyes sparkling and your head tilting just a bit to the side. 

Leo did not have a very good track record when it came to girls. It had never really been a problem until he found himself enamored with one, and incapable of doing anything about it. But something in the back of his mind knew that he wasn’t going to give up with you. All he needed was a way to get on your good side.

As the revelation came over him, the metal nut he had been working with fell on his forehead. He shot up from under his work station, nearly smacking his head hard enough to knock himself out.

But that didn’t matter, because he knew what to do to fix everything.

He was going to find your necklace.

“Oh my Gods, Percy, thank you!” You exclaimed as you threw your arms around the green eyed boy. Percy, however, had a puzzled look on his face as he hesitantly returned the hug.

“Uh,” he started, his eyes flickering over to Annabeth, who shared his confusion, “What did I do?”

“My necklace. You found it,” you said, pointing to the familiar chain that now hung around your neck, “Thank you so much!”

Percy blinked, trying to figure out if he was being pranked or not, “Yeah, no problem.”

See, it really was no problem because he didn’t do it.

You might as well have been skipping with how joyful you were as you walked away, your hair flowing in the wind like Aphrodite was on your side she was. Leo pouted watched from afar, his hair still damp and his teeth clenched with frustration.

Fucking fantastic.

He had spent all night searching through that goddamn shoreline, praying to his father or Aphrodite or any other god or deity who would take pity on him that he found that damn necklace. And you thought Percy did it.

Leo had nothing against Percy. The guy was a great leader and an even better fighter. But at the moment, Leo despised the man. How dare he take credit for Leo’s hard work.

“You should tell her it was you,” Leo flinched at the sound of a voice behind him. Turning around, he found Nico di Angelo in his teen angst glory watching him with a strange look on his face.

“What?” Leo asked, caught off guard.

“You should tell (y/n) that you found her necklace for her,” Nico repeated, this time slower, as if he were speaking to a young child, “I think she would appreciate it more if she knew that you were the one who did it.”

“How do you figure that?” Leo was intrigued. He hadn’t spoken to the son of Hades much, and this was the first time he had approached Leo instead of the other way around.

Nico shrugged, “You’ve made it very clear that fire doesn’t mix with water. So she would know that there was more effort and intent behind it, since you don’t have Percy’s water magic shit.  And she would like you more.”

Leo’s eyes narrowed, “What makes you think I want her to like me?”

Nico tilted his head and gave him a look that made Leo feel foolish for even asking, “Leo Valdez, I just watched you spend hours last night digging through the sand for her necklace. You don’t do something like that for someone you hate.”

A silence fell over them as Leo processed what Nico had just said. From what he could gather from Nico’s few days on the Argo II, he was pretty close with you. Before Leo could remember that Nico actually knew what he was talking about, he decided  that he didn’t care whether you liked him or not. Leo just wanted to clear his conscience. 

So what if he liked seeing you happy? So what if he felt a pit forming in his stomach when you hugged Percy? You should’ve been hugging him. You should’ve smiled at him. You should’ve-

“You’re not an idiot, Valdez,” Nico yawned, his hand coming up to rub his bloodshot eyes, “So don’t be stupid.”

“Where are you going?” Leo asked, his eyes following the boy as he turned to begin walking away.

“It’s time for my nap.”

“It’s not even noon.”

“You’re not in a place to judge me right now, Valdez.”

Leo cursed himself, realizing Nico was right. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to confess that he had been the one to find your necklace.

But would you believe him? And how would he even do it in the first place? It’s not like he could casually drop the news over dinner. Pull you aside during one of your “meditation walks” which was just a fun way to say your cooldowns so you didn’t punch someone?

He had to figure it out, and soon.

[katiefrog217]

Crowley wasn't good at doing it himself, but Aziraphale was more than happy to preen his wings for him.

-----------------------------------------------------

Crowley wasn't very good at taking care of his feathers.

Aziraphale's were always so immaculately groomed. Rarely was a feather out of place, unless he was going through a particularly ill-timed molt. Some called it vanity, Aziraphale called it "looking presentable".

He could hardly blame Crowley for his lack of self-care though; his serpentine physique was hardly equipped with the tools to care for them. If it really got bad, he could always miracle them into shape, though he hardly even bothered to do that.

It had gotten to Aziraphale one day and he had set about fussing with the demon's wings, plucking out every errant feather and straightening the remaining ones. By the time he finished his task, the black feathers shone glossy and pristine in the lamp light. He puffed up with pride as he examined his handiwork, only to wither as realization doused him like a bucket of ice water.

He glanced nervously at the owner of the wings, realizing with a start just how many feathers lay strewn about them. He could make an entire second pair of wings with them, and just as well since he had dug deep and found feathers that should have fallen out 2 molts ago (really, how had Crowley managed to stand it? It must have itched like anything)! Crowley, for his part, lay beneath the carnage, coiled tightly around Aziraphale unmoving. His glasses had long been set side, and Aziraphale turned to find himself being watched by those beautiful golden orbs. He pondered for a moment if Crowley was asleep (hard to tell since serpents couldn't blink), but a small flick of a tongue when their gazes met proved him wrong. He wished he'd been right.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Apologies my dear, i-it seems I got quite carried away..." He mumbled awkwardly, embarrassment evident in his tone, his feathers puffing reflexively. It was practically the understatement of the century. 'Carried away'. Preening one's feathers was an inherently personal, bordering on intimate, thing. Crowley especially didn't seem to like anyone touching his wings and here he had spent Heaven only knew how long preening them himself, WITHOUT SO MUCH AS ASKING HIM FIRST--

He shifted uncomfortably when Crowley didn't reply immediately, choosing instead to leisurely inspect the angelic dove's handiwork. The silence was deafening, and Crowley seemed determined to stretch it out indefinitely as his slit pupils raked over each feather individually. Aziraphale desperately searched his gaze for anything he could discern, but only found concentrated scrutiny.

Then finally, finally Crowley turned his golden gaze back to him, his tongue flickering thoughtfully. Aziraphale's heart hammered with anxiety as he unknowingly held his breath, his wings shuffling awkwardly at his side. His fluttering heart nearly took off itself when he finally heard Crowley's low drawl.

"Mhm, thanks. They look... Better. Clean. Neat. It felt... Nice," Crowley said slowly, his s's elongating as he eeked out the rare compliment, the last part mumbled so quietly Aziraphale nearly thought he imagined it. Before he could muster a reply, Crowley dipped his head, laying it firmly beneath Aziraphale's feathery breast. His coils tightened as one came up to cover his face, shielding his eyes from view. Evidently, he was done talking.

Aziraphale stood there silently for a moment, letting his racing heart slow to a more normal rhythm before he thought of trying to extract himself from the demon's coils. He had bothered Crowley enough for one night, he thought. However, the moment he made to move, those newly preened wings stretched out on either side, trapping him in, he quietly resigned himself instead.

He would find later that preening Crowley's feathers would, as many other things between them had, become part of their routine. On nights when they look particularly egregious or found themselves with nothing better to do, they would settle in a warm corner of Aziraphale's bookshop, and allow themselves this quiet, yet delicate moment between them.

[kelperine]

“If Jimmy was never there everyone would be fine and Curly would have a happy birthday 🎊 “ WRONG!

Yes Jimmy is a highly reactive catalyst, though switch him for any other man lacking emotional intelligence and we would have gotten the same result in due time.

Curly failed Anya because he can’t make any decisions to save his own crew due to his non confrontational nature. We can say curly loves Anya but it is clear he prioritizes Jimmy over her. He claims to be there for her and then dips the minute it goes against his idea of Jimmy. I love curly, he is my favorite, but I cannot deny that he is a silent enabler.

They were all doomed from the start. Anya is NOT a medic. Her license applies to pony express only and her job was only meant to be the occasional band aid and psych evaluation. A year is way to long to go without a proper doctor. I am in no way blaming her for anything, my poor girl did what she could with the tools she was given. “Anya would curl up with curly on his bed to comfort him after the crash” No she would not, she would sit on the floor and be heartbroken that he did not stick up for her. Let’s keep in mind that she is the only girl on this ship.

Daisuke is the only one to take responsibility, he might be the youngest but he does absolutely everything in his power to make this easier for everyone. I don’t think he has the intention of fixing everything but through being a silly little guy he makes life so much more tolerable. That’s why he dresses silly, that’s why he tries to fix the vents, that’s why he goes ham at game night to cheer Anya up because he knows that she is sad. They might be small acts but it is all that he can do and that is what matters. The whole point of it is that doing something matters.

I don’t blame Swansea for looking after Daisuke first, after all he is his apprentice and he sees him as a kid, making him feel responsible. I like to think that if given more info and time that he would have been there for Anya too.

Just saying “fuck jimbo” let’s the entire game go over your head. Jimmy is no doubt the main problem child here and he is a horrible person for what he did to Anya firstly and everything else. His redemption means nothing. He does not care about Anya. He only cares about the pregnancy because there is now a tangible reminder of what he has done. I’ve seen people say that Jimmy just didn’t want to be a dad when that is not the issue. He does not care that it is a baby. The baby being a baby does not matter, to Jimmy it is just evidence. All he does is run and we can see that by his final usage of the gun.

TLDR: Mouthwash kills 99% of germs but that 1% sure does fuck everything else up.

Don’t get me wrong I love seeing the happy art of everyone but I just wanted to deep dive into the nitty gritty

[artsekey]

I'd been seeing videos on Tiktok and Youtube about how younger Gen Z & Gen Alpha were demonstrating low computer literacy & below benchmark reading & writing skills, but-- like with many things on the internet-- I assumed most of what I read and watched was exaggerated. Hell, even if things were as bad as people were saying, it would be at least ~5 years before I started seeing the problem in higher education.

I was very wrong.

Of the many applications I've read this application season, only %6 percent demonstrated would I would consider a college-level mastery of language & grammar. The students writing these applications have been enrolled in university for at least two years, and have taken all fundamental courses. This means they've had classes dedicated to reading, writing, and literature analysis, and yet!

There are sentences I have to read over and over again to discern intent. Circular arguments that offer no actual substance. Errors in spelling and capitalization that spellcheck should've flagged.

At a glance, it's easy to trace this issue back to two things:

The state of education in the United States is abhorrent. Instructors are not paid enough, so schools-- particularly public schools-- take whatever instructors they can find.

COVID. The two year long gap in education, especially in high school, left many students struggling to keep up.

But I think there's a third culprit-- something I mentioned earlier in this post. A lack of computer literacy.

This subject has been covered extensively by multiple news outlets like the Washington Post and Raconteur, but as someone seeing it firsthand I wanted to add my voice to the rising chorus of concerned educators begging you to pay attention.

As the interface we use to engage with technology becomes more user friendly, the knowledge we need to access our files, photos, programs, & data becomes less and less important. Why do I need to know about directories if I can search my files in Windows (are you searching in Windows? Are you sure? Do you know what that bar you're typing into is part of? Where it's looking)? Maybe you don't have any files on your computer at all-- maybe they're on the cloud through OneDrive, or backed up through Google. Some of you reading this may know exactly where and how your files are stored. Many of you probably don't, and that's okay. For most people, being able to access a file in as short a time as possible is what they prioritize.

The problem is, when you as a consumer are only using a tool, you are intrinsically limited by the functions that tool is advertised to have. Worse yet, when the tool fails or is insufficient for what you need, you have no way of working outside of that tool. You'll need to consult an expert, which is usually expensive.

When you as a consumer understand a tool, your options are limitless. You can break it apart and put it back together in just the way you like, or you can identify what parts of the tool you need and search for more accessible or affordable options that focus more on your specific use-case.

The problem-- and to be clear, I do not blame Gen Z & Gen Alpha for what I'm about to outline-- is that this user-friendly interface has fostered a culture that no longer troubleshoots. If something on the computer doesn't work well, it's the computer's fault. It's UI should be more intuitive, and it it's not operating as expected, it's broken. What I'm seeing more and more of is that if something's broken, students stop there. They believe there's nothing they can do. They don't actively seek out solutions, they don't take to Google, they don't hop on Reddit to ask around; they just... stop. The gap in knowledge between where they stand and where they need to be to begin troubleshooting seems to wide and inaccessible (because the fundamental structure of files/directories is unknown to many) that they don't begin.

This isn't demonstrative of a lack of critical thinking, but without the drive to troubleshoot the number of opportunities to develop those critical thinking skills are greatly diminished. How do you communicate an issue to someone online? How do look for specific information? How do you determine whether that information is specifically helpful to you? If it isn't, what part of it is? This process fosters so many skills that I believe are at least partially linked to the ability to read and write effectively, and for so many of my students it feels like a complete non-starter.

We need basic computer classes back in schools. We need typing classes, we need digital media classes, we need classes that talk about computers outside of learning to code. Students need every opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to self-reflect & self correct, and in an age of misinformation & portable technology, it's more important now than ever.

[raymurata]

Just scroll (or go ahead and block my #dav critical tag) if you don't wanna read me whining abt Bellara's Archive choice again, but I'm not done with the salt.

What bugs me isn't that the choice to destroy the archive exists, it's that the game frames it, through its UI (which is the closest thing we have to a nonbiased narrator in this medium), as equally weighted against the opposite choice.

If they had worded it like this:

"Free the archive (the knowledge will be lost)" x "Keep the archive (the knowledge will be kept)"

With no extra commentary, then that would be better. If you got to be openly racist against the Dalish or openly in favor of the Dalish, period. Just like in previous games.

Bellara says "(the archive would help us) get back what made us who we were," and "With it, we could be that again."

Which is funny because... People don't study history to return to the past. It's fine if Bellara is idealistic and saying whatever unrealistic, grandiose dreams she and Cyrian had, but the Dalish would never (could never) become like the ancient elves again. For starters there is a Veil now. So what it would in fact do is help them understand where they come from, what they've been through, and trace the changes in their culture.

Of course our modern historians and scientists have tried to reclaim lost technology, too. They've figured out how the Romans made their extra sturdy concrete, and scientists in Brazil have long been trying to replicate the extra fertile Terra Preta from indigenous peoples that lived in the Amazon basin, and several South American historians would love to know how exactly the Inca used the quipu as a writing system aside from counting tool, etc... And that's super cool!!! And maybe (but that's a big maybe) the Archive could give the Dalish a technological edge to carve a corner of the world for themselves without the constant struggle with Tevinter trying to enslave them or Andrastians trying to subjugate them.

But I personally don't think anyone's reading Aztec accounts of human sacrifices to replicate the same practices in modern cults, or that there is an army out there utilizing Roman decimation as a method of discipline. We're using different horrific methods of control now, lol.

But let's say a modern general does decide that the best way to punish a battalion for one man's insurgence is to force every group of ten soldiers to violently murder the 10th man.... Do you really think that the fault would lie with the historian who unearthed that information and put it on Wikipedia? Or the insane general that decided to do this? Would modern morality and laws allow for that punishment to be executed? Do you think that the existence of that article online is inherently dangerous and controversial, and that it should be taken down? Do you think this general would have been a good and non-violent general if he hadn't ever read about Decimation? Or is it clear to you that violence and ingenuity are both inherent to mortals as a whole and can't be so easily blamed on the spread of knowledge?

Because it's not clear to DAV. The game (not Bellara, not Varric) words it very unambiguously as a dichotomy: The only safe way to deal with this Archive is to destroy it. Keeping it is inherently dangerous because the knowledge could fall in "the wrong hands."

What Bellara says is "Cyrian is gone because of what that thing knew," and "what about the bad side, the other things we did?" and "We stole the dwarves' dreams."

Again, she gets to say whatever she wants because she's a character and she's an anxious, idealistic mess. Love her for it. I like that she feels guilt here too because she has been established (through her way of dealing with Cyrian's first death) as someone who takes the blame for mistakes she didn't even commit (She certainly isn't responsible for Solas' actions). She's someone who drives herself sick cooking up the most horrific scenarios in her mind, and she's so compassionate she can't stand the thought of being the one perpetrating violence against innocents. Her misplaced guilt and dread are the emotions that lead her to consider destroying the Archive.

But no matter how guilty a young german may feel about the holocaust, destroying knowledge about gas chambers is not what will prevent other genocides from happening around the world. Individual guilt is barely productive.

Furthermore, Corinne Bursche says that DAV gives you a choice between "destroying" or "sharing" elven knowledge, which is not how the game worded it. But the point still stands even if the Veil Jumpers, for some condescending plot reason, completely lost control of this knowledge, or were so flippant as to put everything on Thedas' wikipedia without curing it at all.

Let's accept, too, that the Archive contains knowledge of how to build something equivalent to nuclear weapons, which one could argue is in fact truly dangerous, but... Well. Do you think it's fair that the countries that have nuclear arsenals are some of the most vocal about the dangers of other countries ever developing their own?

Because that's what it feels like, to me, when the game calls elven knowledge dangerous without ever allowing you to question -- what about Tevinter rituals and magic? Tevinter's millennium of slavery, still in practice at present day? Should we destroy all their libraries too to keep the world safe from dangerous magics? Why do we only get to tell the Dalish, the nomad nations severely subjugated in present Thedas (If you ever played the previous games and have the context, at least, since this game that happens in Tevinter somehow manages to completely gloss over racism against elves as if it never existed) to destroy a one-of-a-kind, ancient trove of knowledge? And have it be framed as good and safe? As "moving forward"?

If you choose to free the archive, Rook says "The elves deserve the chance to chart their own course" to which Bellara answers "Right. Define ourselves by who we are, not who we were," but once again that writing just makes me question Bioware -- Do they not understand the point of history at all? Do they think indigenous peoples are monoliths stuck in the past if they choose to study the history they lost to colonialism? What purpose do they think that keeping that history and culture extinct serves? Who do they think it benefits?

If you step outside of what the game is telling you as fact and think for yourself, with the context of the other DA games in mind, do you still agree that it's inherently dangerous to keep the Archive? Do you still think these are equally morally weighted choices?

Or would you agree that DAV has to subtly convince you, out of character, that keeping this knowledge is inherently dangerous to make this dichotomy make sense?

Again. This wouldn't bug me if they just owned up to the fact your protagonist can, once again, genocide elves/their culture, just like in previous games. And scapegoat present elves too for the sins of their thousand-years-old tyrants, now suddenly returned (it would make so much sense for characters in the narrative to scapegoat the elves, and for us as heroes to fight against that. But no, they don't even go there except through Bellara's guilt.). It's just bizarre to have an elven historian guiltily agreeing with destroying the Archive and then telling us "The Evanuris broke us and kept us broken" without anyone, either Rook or her, ever mentioning a thousand years of Tevinter slavery and several centuries of Andrastian persecution and subjugation.

No. The Evanuris are the be-all and end-all of evil and everything bad that ever happened in Thedas, ever, can be traced back to them.