#and yeah sure they probably work out but being 'in shape' does not equal skinny with defined muscle

[tantamounttoflirtation]

Hannibal fans its time to stop twinkifying Will and Hannibal. Instead we must bearify them. Go forth and make them both fat and hairy 🤍🌟

[goodnightallwhites]

Your Life in the Black Ruled World By BlackingPacking

Your Life in the Black Ruled World 

By BlackingPacking 

Submitted: July 24, 2019 Updated: January 7, 2020 

You're a young whiteboy in a world ruled by BBC, doing normal things in life- hanging out with your friends, crushing on girls, gossiping, fantasizing a little too much about your sisters, and jerking off your tiny dick to all the women in your life getting fucked my hung black studs. 

Contains: BBC, SPH, cucking, dubleg, strong racial content, incest. DO NOT READ unless you have a blacked fetish. 

Provided by Hentai Foundry. 

Chapter 1 - Wake Up 2 

Chapter 2 - Good Morning Abby 5 

Chapter 3 - Good Morning, Coral 8 

Chapter 4 - Good Morning Mary... 13 

Chapter 5 - And Good Morning Ellie 16 

Chapter 6 - A Good Morning to Jenny 20

Chapter 7 - A Good Morning for Lily   26

Chapter 8 - And lastly, Good Morning to Katie   31

Chapter 9 - Brunch   36

Chapter 1 - Wake Up

You wake up at around one p.m.- a minor inconvenience, as school won’t start for another few days. Besides, sleeping early was a result of an intense day of white dicklet-jerking, and you’ve spent tons of time jerking your little thing off- a medically recommended 8 cums a day, in order to reduce stress for white boys. Of course, it was hard for your little peanut-sized balls to actually muster up that much sperm, but they manage, 

You could hear a mattress banging from your parent’s room- well, your mom’s, since your dad was living in the city full-time, working his ass off for your mom as a good white husband should- with your mom screaming from the good morning fuck her bull, a 55 year-old pro with an 18 incher fit for his dad bod- Damarcus. Your first orgasm of the day was often this, jerking your dick, under 1/8th the size of his. 

“A shit! My fucking shitter! It’s so fucking streeeeetched!” She cried, clearly doing anal, which she wasn’t as good at as plenty of other girls, including your sisters. 

In about 30 seconds, you came, shooting a few pathetic drops onto your marble-sized balls. You blushed as you hear your mom getting anally destroyed in the next room while your white babydick went flaccid again. 

“Fuck baby! Fuck I’m cumming! Ah! Ah. Yes! I’m cumming with your big fucking nigger dick up my poopchute!” 

You hear a loud smack as Damarcus slaps her fat white ass as he pounded it from underneath, mighty balls probably swinging wildly. 

“Fuck baby, yeah, yeah, gimme another load of your black cum! Awwww yes right up my pooper! Shit there’s so much mmmm,” your mom, despite being 47 years old, is a grade-A slut, who not only had produced 7 snowbunny daughters (and, sadly, you), But is also involved in the Neighborhood Blacked Moms Association, organizing dates and orgies for all the women in the neighborhood. 

You hear the bed creak as your mom fell on it, exhausted from what was probably hours of sex from godly black cock. You leave the room, still nude, and nervously move your little hairless white body to the door to listen closer. Your smooth, nubby little penis gets hard again. 

“Damarcus..” your mom says, “go wake up my useless little bitch of a son so he can clean me up!” 

Your little two-incher stands at attention and you nervously push open the door to see your overweight, exhausted redhead mom on the bed while the tall, hairy piece of meat beside her was standing. 

“Bitch boy!” Your mom calls you, breathing heavily on her back, “clean me the fuck up!” She demands. 

“Clean me too, Gail,” Damarcus commands, shoving his fat, long cock in her face for her to suck all the juices off. Your mom does it wish a smile, loving her taste mixed with black cum. 

She always spent hours every morning getting fucked by his big dick, and it showed in the mess of a cream pie, if it could even be called that, spilling out what looked like gallons of thick cum from her pussy and asshole, pouring onto the bed in a hot mess. 

“Moooooom,” you whine, “how do I eat all this? It’s not even a cream pie it’s like- like- a cream feast!” 

Your mom just laughs, “cream feast? I like it! Now eat it all, you little wimp. Eat mommy’s fucking creamfeast.” 

You whine as you climb on the bed and kneel between your moms legs, holding onto her chubby, sweaty thighs for balance as you bent down to suck up the piles of cum that covered her. 

It tasted strong and virile, thick and sweet unlike your salty, watery little virgin cums. You sucked up her pussy pie first, wetly cleaning it like a good little beta boy until her puss was bare again. You want to fuck it, to even touch it, but you couldn’t, and even if you could, her pussy was so stretched that her hole was wider than your dicklet was long. Even licking her clit did little besides earn you a smack on the head. She didn’t want any pleasure from her pathetic little son. 

Next was her anal cream, an equally sticky mess flowing from her abused asshole. You ate it like candy, sucking and slurping the mix of pussy juice, anal lube, and black cum. It tasted like her butthole, sweet and warm, perfect for a superior man to fuck for ages. Her ass was stretched too, a huge gaping hole in place of her tight pucker. You couldn’t eat her ass like this, but you could scoop the cum out of it. 

“I’m done, mom,” you mutter, precum leaking in a thin, weak strand from your short dick. 

“Good little whiteboy,” she replied, feeling her now clean, still wet pussy and asshole, giggling as she pleasures herself. “How many times have you cum today?” She said and beckoned you closer as she gave Damarcus one last sloppy kiss on his cock. 

You climb over her chubby, but still hourglass-shaped body, “only once mommy.” You mutter. 

“Puny dick can’t even cum right. Are you horny? Is that pink little worm hard?” 

Almost 2.5 inches bone pressed erect, it sure didn’t look like much in comparison to what she just had. 

“Yes... I’m precumming. See it?” 

Your mom snorts, yeah, I do. Looks like a spider web. Aren’t you supposed to be above average for a white boy? I bet Damarcus’precum is stronger than your real nut.” 

“I-it is.” 

“You know it’s been a whole since I last looked at it.... Is it ever gonna grow hair? Or will you just have a babydick forever?” 

“Mom... you know I’m white.” 

“I know, but there are some whiteboys who have a bit of pubes, or fuzzy balls. You’re just pathetic,” she poked at your ballsack, “and what’s this? A little round lump under your pointy little dick? How tiny are your balls?” 

“White boys don’t drop...” 

“Sweetie- you’re an idiot. I’m just teasing you! God, white boys are dumb. Of course you’ll never measure up. Your dicks the size of a toe, your balls are so small it doesn’t even look like you have two. Isn’t that funny?” 

“I don’t know.. it makes me feel bad.” You complain. 

She slaps your little balls, “little bitchboy! You’re supposed to feel bad. Whiteboys don’t get to be happy about their tiny dicks. I love you as a son, but you’re still a fucking loser, got it, microdick?” 

“Yes ma’am.." 

“Good,” she gives your tight little nutsack a small squeeze before getting up, letting you Marvel at her full, voluptuous, motherly beauty- her ass and tits were round and huge, her belly was full from eating black cum everyday, and her legs were still long and nimble enough to lock around a bull during orgasm. 

You were shorter, smaller, skinnier than her, your hair more brown than her hot red bob. You clearly took after your father, a chubby white wimp who your mother loved very dearly, but still loved black men more. 

She strutted out of room, butt naked, waving you over, “come on beta boy, bust your little nut then come serve us breakfast.” 

Chapter 2 - Good Morning Abby  

You hobble into your room and sat on your small bed, squeezing your tiny little lump of a dicklet with two thin fingers. You poke its tip and rub it like a clit, which it was barely bigger than. You knew, at least, that it was above average for a white dick- it was slightly longer than it was wide, and your skinny, weak body meant it could stick out farther. It even got rock hard. 

Maybe that was why your mom would harass you so- the hormonal and genetic therapy given to white women, designed for them to have girls almost 80% of the time and for any men to be born exceptionally weak, must not have worked with you. Probably because you were one of two twins, the other being Jenny, of course, who soaked up all the femininity. That didn’t explain why your cocklet couldn’t grow hair. Maybe you were just a mistake. Granted, most white boys were hairless anyways. 

Probably, after all, since your mom hadn’t had sex with your dad since you were born, as a punishment for bringing in another white boy into the world. And poor Jenny, having to spend 9 months together with a white boy. She was even bullied at school for it. 

You let out a high-pitched whine as you think about how pathetic you are. Nothing gets your teenie weenie going like that. You feel your tiny little nuts tremble as another orgasm comes closer, so you grab a tissue and put it underneath your puny penis. You cum. It’s only one watery drop. 

You toss it into your full trash can and walk out of your room. Your sisters hallway and your moms bedroom smelled like sweat and cum. The only time you would sweat was when running or when trying to hold in your ejaculation for over two minutes, and it always smelled more like the girls than the black guys’. 

Your house was large and spacious, thanks to how hard your dad worked downtown, not to mention the bonuses your mom got from being a neighborhood organizer. Every woman you knew loved your moms taste in community Bulls. 

At the end of the hallway is the curved staircase, down to the open-concept ground floor, which, like the rest of the house, has a soft white and pink palette. As always, you don’t give a second thought about walking around downstairs totally naked. Everyone did so, with women being proud of their beauty, black men of their masculinity, and with white boys having nothing to hide from their superiors. 

You hop down the stairs, enjoying the bounce of your body down each step, soft skin jiggling slightly, and your tiny, flaccid baby dick bouncing upon your soft, round balls. Your feet eventually touch the cold marble floor, your chilly skin makes your pink little worm only shrivel up more. 

You ignore it, enjoying the feeling of tight, compact smallness as you walk into the kitchen to pop your sister’s food into the microwave. Already there, is Max, the husband of your oldest sister, Abby. Max had a pretty, angular face with round glasses and dirty blond hair that was as stringy as his body, and a small, pointy little penis to match. Abby thought Mac was adorable, but absolutely pathetic as well, often mocking him in front of the whole family. Wimpy little guy couldn’t even afford a house, which is why he 

lived with you. Abby, surely, was upstairs with her bull, Julius. 

You ask if Max knows how many will come to breakfast, but he only knew his wife and bull would come. Dammit- now you’ll have to go all the way back upstairs to get your sisters up. Max just goes back to scrolling through his friends posts on Snowgram. As with most Snowgram posts, it was girls enjoying the snowbunny lifestyle. 

You sigh and walk back upstairs, cold little nub of your dickie getting slightly harder as you smell the sweet aroma of interracial lust, a warmth filling your pathetic little manhood. 

First, all the way down the hall, was Abigail and Julius. Technically this was Max’s room too, but you didn’t pay enough attention to your oldest sister’s life to know. You two were never close after all- she was nearly a decade older than you, in her mid twenties now, and as long as you could remember she’d be paying attention to nothing but black guys. 

Julius was actually the bull who took Abby’s virginity back when they were in middle school, though they had only been back in contact for a few months, since a bit after she was married. Now he practically lived in the house, and Abby sure was happy to parade around his lean, toned body. He may have been ever so slightly shorter than Max, but he packed a proper BBC, thick and veiny and bulging like a balloon, it’s fat middle looking like the base couldn't hold it up. It sure could inside your sister though. What a whore she was- she’d even let Max fuck her every night. Said she wanted to see who’d get her pregnant first. 

You were hot- thinking about your sister so distractedly this afternoon, your dick had gotten hard. A cylinder the size of a pillbug, a single little drop of precum leaking. You’re sure they wouldn’t notice. 

Ear against the door, hearing nothing, you let yourself in. On the bed is only Abby, laying and sucking on her fingers, creampie dripping from her pink, used pussy. 

“Oh. It’s you,” she says, “you staring, creep? Getting a little stiffie? God,” she sighs as she gets out of bed and stretches. A fat glob of cum slides down from her pussy, hanging for an instant before falling down with a splat. Your penis twitches. 

“I-it’s time for breakfast,” you mutter, in awe of your sisters tall, blonde body. She looks like your mom in her younger days, only with blonde hair instead of red, a perfect receptacle for BBC. 

“I know. Julius will be coming too. He’s in the bathroom- you can sneak a peak if you want to,” she teases. “Oh, and clean that up.” She goes to stand in front of a mirror, spreading her pure white ass cheeks to show her cum-filled hole, fondling her big bouncy tits, patting her exhausted abs. Abby liked to experiment with positions. She was more muscular before the started eating mom’s cooking again. 

You meanwhile just had to make sure that she never noticed all the glances at her you stole as you cleaned up Julius’ thick cum. It really was a day like any other. 

After you threw the tissues away, Abby pinches her clit and waves it at you. Even rock hard, you still don’t look much bigger than a clit. If only you could suck that.. 

Smack 

Your butt stung- Abby smacked you! It didn’t hurt much, but it’s embarrassing. You clearly didn’t catch her at a good time, and she was taking her anger out on you, spanking your pale white ass and teasing your tiny dick. 

“Not a penis,” she whispered at you, Queen of Spades necklace hanging between her perfect, tanned tits as she disappeared into the bathroom. You figured it was time to go too. 

Then you see her phone. It was just lying open on the bed, probably holding all the pictures from her fuck sessions. You just couldn’t resist. 

Upon opening it, you’re far from disappointed. His huge dick, Max’s tiny one, all over her naked body. At least a dozen pictures were taken a day- her being fucked in every hole, her mocking Max, her eating her thick creampie. It was a goldmine for a dirty little white cuckold like yourself. With two fingers, you stroked the smooth little hard on as you watch a video of Julius cumming in a glass and Abby bottoms upping it. She did this a few times over the weeks, pouring some on her body, over her pussy, or just to rub into her skin. A few pictures showed Julius cumming on a dress she later wore on a date with Max. 

She’d gag on his massive cock with an outstretched arm to film, winking at the camera whenever she wasn’t choking on his length. She’d take it out and let it slap her face, the long, dark, dripping wet rod dwarfing her head. 

And her ass- you could never forget your sister’s ass. She’s slimmer than your mom by far, but just made her round, soft ass all the hotter. Julius clearly loved it, eating it out in several pictures. They were taken by him. A video showed why; Abby couldn’t control herself. The pleasure of a black man’s skilled tongue in her sensitive pink asshole made her lips quiver and her eyes roll back in her head. A few other videos show him trying to fuck her ass, keyword trying. He could fit the head in before she started screaming and crying, begging him to either stop or go further. As big as her ass was, her hole wasn’t up to the challenge. All for the better, of course- she wanted him to knock her up. Based on how many creampies she got, he probably already had. 

Your furious masturbation let go after barely a minute. You hobble over to cum in the same bin you threw away the tissues, but your ejactulation was less impressive by far, its thin little strands landing on more of your balls than the bin. You got out of there before Abby came out and could harass you. She’d probably be meaner to you than she was to Max. Then again, maybe you should stay... 

Chapter 3 - Good Morning, Coral

After Abby, you still have six sisters to wake, and so decide to walk out of her pretty blue-walled room. 

Down the hall, on the far side of your little bedroom, came out your mom from her bedroom, giggling like a far younger woman as she pulls Demarcus out too. He’s in shorts and a sleeveless tee, while she’s in an old, too-big t-shirt that covered her big ass, but her wide thighs are exposed. If she was wearing any underwear, you couldn’t tell. She turned around and winked at you, smiling cruelly at your excuse for a member, squeezing her bulls ass as they went downstairs. They’d get the coffee she’d prepared and watch some TV before anything. No rush. 

There’s plenty of time to get bullied by any one of your sisters, or even some girls in the neighborhood or at school. White dicks, while cumming twenty times as fast as big black cock, could still go all day if the boy was horny enough. Give it ten minutes, your little balls could totally muster up another drop of cum to squeeze out. 

Right across the hall from Abby’s room was the guest bedroom, occupied this summer by your second oldest sister, Coral. A university student with hair redder than your moms and more tattoos than almost any girl you knew, she may be the nicest to you of any of your sisters. She’d never enjoy sex with a penis like yours, of course, but she found white boys cute and funny, and always made sure not to point out their inferiority around them. Most of her tattoos weren’t even of the snowbunny kind- her arms and back were covered in vibrant vines and flowers, with only the occasional queen of spades tattoo- a vine one around her thigh, a ‘snowbunny’ flourish on her shoulder, and a squat spade with a Q in the center on her right freckly buttcheek. 

You knock on the door. No response. Ear against the off-white door, you turn the knob to go in. As sweet as she is, Coral’s still a girl- well, a young lady now- with needs, and the chief of those needs was a big cock to fill those holes with. She got plenty black cock at university, but she was the kind of brightly haired, round-glasses, carefree art hoe who loved herself a good dildo. Of which she’s got plenty. 

That’s what greeted you as you walked into her room- she was passed out on the bed, laying on her back, a dildo barely in her pussy and a buttplug firmly in her ass. The dildo was fat and blue, with a rounded base under the shaft and round, soft balls, molded to have large, thick veins that seemed to alone be bigger than what you were packing. You couldn’t see much of her buttplug other than that it was a rubbery black, and it seriously stretched her asshole out. 

On her desk and shelf were the rest of her collection, an impressive two dozen dildoes, some of which she’d had since high school. She also had some old ones somewhere, in a drawer or in a box somewhere, but those little twigs, silicone little cylinders and finger-sized vibrators, her favorite middle school toys that she wouldn’t let mom pass down to her little sisters, could never satisfy her anymore. She’d rather use them than a white dick, but that wasn’t a high bar. 

Her collection’s size humiliated you. The ones she has out, which she had been using in recent years, were almost all in the double digits in terms of inches. Her smallest still dwarfs you, an 8-inch pink noded vibrator. She has a few cylindrical vibrators, the purple one squatter than the green one, both under the 10 inch mark, along with an 8.5 inch warm up dildo, with a fleshy texture and suction cup bottom. 

Curious are the colors. There were many colorful ones, and even some translucent vibrators, but plenty of her collection were huge white cocks. Some are more realistic than others, but at least four or five have similar beige flesh and ruddy pink heads. Your mother sure thinks it’s weird that Coral would ever enjoy seeing a white cock in her, even an unrealistically huge one made of silicon, but honestly it doesn’t make you feel much better about your woefully inadequate size. 

She still has black ones, of course- a perfectly black, smooth two-pronged clitoral vibrator sits in the center of her collection, it’s with twice your length in places. On one side is an empty space, probably for Big Blue, the one in her right now, and on the other side is a deep chocolate god of a dildo, at least 18 inches in shaft length, thick and girthy as a football player, and just as black. Why Coral didn’t use this one every night is beyond you- hell, why Coral didn’t bring home one of the many black men she’d posted pictures with on social media stories is beyond you. Imagining her with both the dildos and the bulls, you poke your half-hard dick with one finger. 

Big Blue slides out of Coral’s pussy, the tip still dripping wet from the hours of orgasms it must have brought her last night. She stirred, waking up as she saw the light peeking through her blinds .“Hey, anyone there?” She groans in a tired voice, rubbing her eyes. 

You turn around, covering your small whiteness with one hand. “Just me, Coral.” 

She sits up, running her hands through her scarlet curls, “oh, hey little bro. Can you put big blue up for me?” 

You nod, knowing to never disobey a white goddess, picking up the large, floppy sex toy with both hands, mouth wide as you stare at it. As you put it back, you let your small hand fall from your equally wimpy crotch. Your sister notices. 

“Aww, you have a little stiffy! Don’t you usually jerk off by now?” 

“I-I do,” you respond, “I’ve already came two times today.” 

“Well, guys do get like that.” 

You nod in agreement, “Mpm and Abby’ve been shown that too today..” 

“Well, you’re just like their bulls aren’t you? Just.. a bit on the smaller side.” 

“A bit?” 

“Oh come on, lil bro, I’m being nice! Not all girls love giant black, two foot fuckin things! Is there something wrong with me thinking white guys are cute?” 

You look at her collection, then back at her. “I guess not.” 

“And you’re cute too you know- I know mom and the others give you a hard time, but you’ve always been bigger for a white boy. They’re just making sure you don’t let it get to your head.” 

“You think I’m cute?” You ask. 

“Well, yeah?” She stretches, getting out of bed. She’s a bit taller than you, with freckles on her shoulders and perky breasts, “who cares that I’m your sister. I mean, I’ve had sex in public in front of mom! You don’t think it’s weird, right?” 

You shake your head. 

“Yeah- plus, plenty of girls have had sex with their black half brothers. I’ve heard Abby and Lee did it a few years back, if you could believe it.” Lee was your half-brother, who your mom had between Abby and Coral with an old bull. He was off at college now, and was definitely a sign that black genes were more dominant than white. And you could believe it. 

You blush as you realize you’ve been dripping a tiny strand, thin as a spiders web, of precum down to her floor. 

“Aww, look at that! You don’t make too much more, do you? I know black guy’s precum is like, way thicker than even like your cum, but like, that thing doesn’t need much to lube itself up, right?” “Thats- what they teach everyone in school,” you respond, gathering weak precum on your finger. 

“I slept in biology,” she shrugged, “but if that’s a lot for you, does that mean you have to jerk off?” 

You blush, “Y-yes. I’m very horny again.” 

“Awww!” she smiled lovingly, “Wanna do it now? It’d be really cute.” 

You know you shouldn’t. You are white after all, and her body should be reserved for black bulls. Your mom would get so mad... but you’re really horny. You look up and down the tattoos on her arms, the milk white tits and her strawberry nipples. You remember how Coral could be mean too, like when your dad had said her tattoos were unbecoming, and she threw the insult right back at him when he was jerking off his tiny, old, white dick while mom was being spitroasted in her room. 

That will be you one day, jerking off as your mom or sisters or wife or daughters were blacked. If you’re even allowed to see it when you were older. You’d love to see massive black cocks pound perfect, pale white pussy for the rest of your life. 

You reach a hand down and start pulling at your little underdeveloped dick. Even the skin of your tiny balls is pulled as you jerk it. It’s all one tiny little organ. 

She squats down, “Aww! It’s like..” You stare at her sexy body, hoping you can be lucky enough to one 

day have a girl as nice as her (in more ways than one), “Like a-a little paperclip! You see it, right? Small, kinda round, fun to play with.” She pokes it. 

“Coraaaaal.” 

“Sorry little bro-” she got up, “ah, I shouldn’t, but-” she rubbed her hands all over her body. 

“I’m so hard Coral....” you mutter, barely a whisper. 

“I know,” she gasps, touching herself, “you’re adorable. Do you- well, are you a virgin?” 

You nod. 

“Pfft, what am I asking, of course you’re a virgin. And I’m not, I’m sure you remember when I got my virginity taken by a BBC. But I sometimes want something a little more low-key. A little... smaller,” she sat on the bed, “Do you wanna try and fuck me?” she spread her legs. 

“T-to fuck you?” You stutter, holding your breath so that your tiny cock doesn’t spurt out its buildup of droplets of cum. 

“Yeah. It wouldn’t be my first time with white boy penetrating me, or, like, trying to penetrate, but yours looks a tiny bit bigger, so I’m sure I can at least feel it. And it won’t be weird because I’m not like a virgin or anything. You’ve jerked off to me before, right?” 

You nod. You’ve jerked your dicklet to all your sisters of course. 

“So what’s the deal?” “I’m.. just small,” you mumble. 

She snorts. “So? It’s about the thrill. The taboo. Learn to live a little, kid. Of course I won’t be satisfied. Who cares? Just have fun.” She invites you with those long, colorful legs. 

You give in, “I didn’t think I’d lose my virginity like this...” you mutter as you walk up to her, shuffling awkwardly as you point your little needle-dick to her wide pussy. It looked weird, the same, weak pink color of white penis and white pussy coming together. You can see why- her well-fucked, hot, didlo-loving cunt utterly dwarfs your pussy. Forget black guys, white pussy’s better than what’s between your legs. You’re scared for what comes next. 

“Jeez,” she teases, “could you be any less graceful?” 

You blush hotly as you feel the tip of your dicklet touch her wetness, muttering an apology under your breath. “I’m putting it in..” “Hey, I can actually feel it,” she chirps, laying down as she lets you do all the work. 

You simply try what you’ve seen from your mom, sisters, and the porn they show on TV. You put your dick as far into her pussyhole as you can, barely touching a few of the walls in there, and certainly not pleasuring them. 

It feels rock hard, weak white nerves stirring up hormones in your addled little brain as your head spins from pleasure. The residual wet warmth of your sister’s pussy after her night of masturbation feels incredible. Your heart pounds as your dicklet quivers. 

“C’mon little bro, I believe in you,” she mutters. 

You listen to her. Yeah, you’re a whiteboy, but you’re above average! And you’re decent enough, in one way or another, to have your hot-ass sister fuck you! So you know that you can make this worth it. Maybe even- 

You lose your train of thought as you thrust in and out of her. That’s barely anything, so they’re tiny thrusts, of course, but that only makes it feel like you’re pounding into her soft, unblemished inner thighs, tattoo-less hips, and horny incestuous pussy even more. It’s not like what a black guy would do, it’s what YOU- You totally lose whatever you’re thinking of as your eyes roll back in your head, you cum at in no time at all. 

Instinctually, you pull it out and let it drip on the floor. If you’d impregnated any white girl, mom would kill you. 

As you let the last droplet fall, you look at your sister’s loving face. 

“Awww man...” all that love, and still, she’s disappointed. 

Chapter 4 - Good Morning Mary...

You leave corals room embarrassed, tiny dick shrinking back up into your smooth little crotch until the flaccid nub disappears 

You walk out of her room and sigh, looking at your disappointing size. Your balls buzz, wanting more. You’ll jerk off again before and after brunch, at least. Stream some live blacked, edge to the Humiliation Channel for all of 30 seconds, some very fun things. Such was your life everyday, jerking off to massive, dark, powerful, swinging, hung black cock as BBC tattooed white girls take them in their horny pink pussies. 

Either way, next you had to get the rest of your sisters up, going down in the jack and Jill bedrooms, which shared a bathroom, occupied by the twins, both seniors at your school- On the left is Ellie, a big, curvy girl with an ass and tits to rival your mom, whose body shape she matched most of all the girls, albeit more athletically dispositioned. She’s a cheerleader and volleyball player, and definitely in the top 5 most popular girls at your high school, meaning she always had a black boy up in her panties. Her current boyfriend is Andre, basketball player, a center big enough to be a footballer, who you know was packing over 18 inches of blackness. A massive, ripe banana to your grape. 

On the right is Mary, Ellie’s polar opposite. Thin and flat, she’s never had a boyfriend, and only been fucked by a BBC on her birthday, when young girls typically were, and in the occasional threesome with her sister and whoever she dated at the time. As some girls put it, Mary’s a femcel- shut in and bitter, she’s resentful of your sisters for being more attractive than her and at black boys for not finding her sexy enough. She especially hates white boys though, never missing a chance to let her frustration out on you. Honestly, it’d be better for her to just be normal. She spends most of her days reading and writing porn stories about BBC, instead of just getting laid. You can’t ever say that, of course, or you’d get your ass beat and your balls smacked. 

You’d still fuck Mary in a heartbeat though. She’s certainly hotter than your hand on your babydick. Or rather, your fingers. You’d give anything for a shot at a white girls vagina, even right after you disappointed Coral. If only one would show any interest... 

You’re a sick little perv aren’t you? A schoolboy, a little white wimp who fantasizes about fucking his sisters, (mostly) beautiful young women who no one who isn’t black stands a chance with. You mentally scold yourself, sounding like Mrs. Bain, your school's discipline officer. You resist the urge to reach your hand down and yet again pull at your tiny, smooth cock, and actually do what you’re here for. 

You go to the door on the right, knocking gently before opening it. It seems everyone sleeps in on summer weekends. Mary is passed out on her desk, butt ass naked, loose, small breasts hanging down. It wasn’t the most attractive, but neither was she. Your dicklet was still hard. 

Balls aching, you walk up to her, light feet not making noise on the soft carpeted floor. Her laptop is still open in front of her, and her right hand is barely on it. You could easily see she what she’s been doing... 

Since Mary is your only sister (well, only sister who was of age) who doesn’t get regularly fucked, you’ve figured that she’s gotta finger herself A LOT to make the moans you hear from her room... and she has to have something to stimulate all that... and, well, your curiosity gets the better of you. 

You press the power button on the laptop and the screen turns on, showing you what your sister was pleasuring herself to in the wee hours of this morning. Several tabs were open- some erotica, some porn, all BBC. She has pictures and videos of enormous black cocks, stuffed inside dozens of white girls. Some in pussy, some in ass, some getting run train, all looking ecstatic. Familiar stuff to you- your sister has similar tastes. No white dicks though- she seems to like the kinds where those tiny things are kept behind the camera. You can’t really blame her. 

What really catches your eye is a porn page of Mr. Africa- the man with the biggest BBC on earth, nearly three whole feet long. He could touch his chest with the lip of its mean purple head, and it dwarfed every white woman who faced it. You know Mr. Africa has a black wife, as no white girl has ever managed to take his godly cock, though plenty had tried, and plenty more want to try. Including Mary, it seems. How stupid- Mr. Africa was WAY out of any league she could be in. No way would she even get the chance. 

You also notice a story open on her Word doc- a page titled ‘Taking Mr. Africa.’ Of all things it was a fapfiction, 2nd-rarer erotica written about her and some of her few friends having sex with Mr. Africa’s unrivaled cock. She went into vivid detail, writing about how he’d pick up her thighs and slam his ‘monster dick’ across her torso, his huge, grapefruit-sized balls against her weak pussy, his dick going all the way to her cleavage. It seems her self-insert has bigger tits than she really does. 

More paragraphs, about how her friends helped her suck his godly cock, how 8 hands could be on it and not touch at all, how his huge balls smelled like pure sex, making them drool as they smothered their faces. Mary even wrote herself worshipping his ass, eating it out. You know your mom eats her lovers ass often, but you’ve only seen it once. You wonder how many times Mary, just a year older than you, has. She’s clearly seen or read about it some way, based on the detail she puts into describing how she kisses and tongues his black asshole, loving the taste of his anus in her mouth, while her arms wrap around his huge, strong thighs to feel his manly black balls, too big to even fit in her hands. 

You realize how much you want your ass eaten, or at least played with. You’ve been offered BBC dildoes, but never practiced enough to take them. You weren’t a sissy, but you start to consider fingering your butt sometime soon. Maybe a girl would even eat it- after all, yours was bald, pink, and smooth, unlike the rugged manliness of a black man’s. 

You read on, how her 3 friends all work on his cock, one at the tip and two at the sides. How they can’t even come close to fitting any of him in their mouths is written about, along with a description of his thick veins and strong pelvic muscles. She wrote that one of his veins is thicker than most white cocks she’s seen. You’re pretty sure she’s only seen yours and dads, but still, you have to check. Clicking on another tab, you go to his webpage and look at the public pictures of his actual cock- it’s depressingly massive, looking as long as your leg, while you have to pinch your legs together when you compare. His veins might just be thicker than your whole dick. It’s not called a micropenis for nothing. 

You keep reading- how he fucks all of them, getting a half or a quarter of his dick into the others, while Mary cums the second his tip sinks into her hole. 

‘I squirt more than I ever have before, the arc of my juices flying further than I thought they could. Still, as far as my orgasm sent them, they didn’t reach Mr. African’s crotch. His cock was that long.’ 

You gulp as you read that, sore little cocklet hard again. You use her laptop’s touch pad to look at other tabs, many with BBC. One has a comparison of the average white boy, the worlds smallest black man, the worlds biggest white boy, and of course, Mr. African. The average white boy, of course, is a little under two inches or so. You already know that the smallest white penis is impossible to know, because so many are less than a tenth of an inch long. The smallest black man, you’re surprized to know, is a tiny 4.5 inches, not much smaller though than the world record white boy, 5 inches. All are dwarfed by even the average BBC, of course. 

Your sister stirs, mumbling “Babe... uhhhhh... babe.. Gimme... gimme that cock...” she said, wetly smaking her words together as she reaches out her hand, grabbing right in front of you. 

You blush at the thought. Her hand was right there, wanting to grab a cock. Sure, yours was a little white dick, but you wanted it, she wanted it, so-- 

You shuffle forward, letting her fingers rest on your white boi clitty. They rub against it, before starting to almost pet the tiny thing involuntarily. 

"Is thissa cock?" she mutters, eyes closed, "it's smallll.... it's gotta be soft... is it hard? Why'ssit hard.... are you a white boy?" she snickers, "white boy white boy... tiny dick white boy.... thass dumb... I only like black guys.... nobody likes whiteboys... why's it so hard and small?...." she strokes it, easily feeling the entirety of its length with a few fingers, surprised by the tininess. She feels up your little balls, "unnf... not black in the sack... either.... it's like a baby's..." she giggles, letting her hand slip off your throbbing tininess. You jump, not wanting the stimulation to end, and grab her hand to push her palm up against your smooth little member. Her hand engulfs the miniscule thing, feeling warm and soft. You nearly cum. But then- she jumps. 

"What the fuck?!" she yells, looking at you, "Were you- using me to jerk off?!" she sees her laptop, gasps, and swings her leg up to kick your pathetic balls, "and you looked at my porn!? WHAT THE FUCK?" 

You fall onto your hands and knees in pain, muttering an apology, "please don't tell mom- I-I was just supposed to wake you up for breakfast. I didn't mean too..." 

"Stupid little fucking whiteboy can't control himself. Figures. AND you saw me naked. Gross. get the fuck out of my room, bitch, I'll be down for breakfast after I'm done washing my hands." 

You can't do anything but do as she says, and leave her room, hands between your legs, hoping she doesn't tell mom. 

Chapter 5 - And Good Morning Ellie

You close Mary’s door behind you as you put your hand over your white boy dick. It shudders. Small size making it weak against the cold hallway. Your tiny balls are clenched up, ready to cum. If you stroked it once, or even just pushed it down, you’d cum. You know it. 

You walk down the hallway to the banister above the main area of the house. There’s mom, eating Demarcus’ ass on the couch, while Abby’s hubby jerks off with a tissue. Mom never ate ass, but made an exception for her favorite huge, old black lover. She was messy, sloppy, drooling all over Damarcus’ older asshole, licking every inch of it. She probably did it because he’d do it to her- Damarcus adores eating ass, and your moms fat, full ass is probably the best he could get. She rarely came from butt stuff, but that was mostly because her asshole was tight. Both were enjoying this now. Breakfast might have to wait a little. 

You still have to go and wake up your other sisters though, so you probably shouldn’t tug one out here. You turn around, walking back to the twin bedrooms, this time to Ellie’s door. You rub the straining tip of your penis, trying hard as it can to reach that next half inch, as you knock on the door. You stop before you cum, right as it opens. 

You’re greeted by a huge, tall black boy, maybe a few years older than you, leaner than Damarcus. His hair is in a short fade and he’s unshaven on both his face and body, all covered in sweat. Right in front of your body swings his massive, half-hard black cock. It has an even width with a very round head, easily the length of your torso. It twitches, and pushes up against you. You can feel it’s warmth, it’s weight, it’s wetness. Your sisters been fucking this massive pole. Impulsively, you cum. 

Your face turns bright red as you realize Andre, Ellie’s boyfriend, is watching your tiny penis dribble cum into the carpet. He cracks up laughing, slamming his chest with a big, strong hand and the other one in a fist in front of his mouth, yelling “Yooooooo-“ 

He steps back laughing as you feel horribly embarrassed. You should’ve known this was gonna happen. As he steps back, Ellie comes forward. 

God, she’s gorgeous, tanned and curvy, thick legs strapped with muscle. She could probably crush you between those thighs- and your dicklet? Forget it. 

“What’s going on?” She asks. She’s naked too, and her long, strawberry blonde hair is wet with sweat. You wonder how she was fucked through the night. She didn’t have to wonder what you stayed up until 4 am doing, cumming twice every hour since midnight. 

“Your lil bitch brother came right in front of me!” Andre laughs on her bed. He sits on the messy, damp sheets. 

Ellie’s eyes widen and she to cracks up. “HA HA!” she points at you, walking over without bothering to cover her huge tits or perfectly smooth, tanlined crotch. “Bro- did you seriously cum at Andres’ dick? I 

mean, it’s fuckin great, almost like nineteen, twenty inches, but seriously? I didn’t know you were a faggot!” 

You blush, unable to move. She walks, no, struts right over to you with a mocking look on her face. 

“I-I’m not gay,” you insist. 

“Then what are you? If you like men you’re gay, sissy boy. I’ll lick pussy, especially if it has black cum in it, and I don’t give a fuck about if you call me a lesbo. I hear you moaning like a little girl in your room, porn on your tv. Ya watch sissy boy porn, with little white “boy,”” she makes air quotes, “butts being fucked by bbc? Little sissyclits being compared to things like that?” She points to Andre behind her, huge cock swinging as he walks to put his bag of XXL condoms in his letterman’s pocket, “or how your tiny little baby balls shoot watery fucking loads while black dick creams your ass?” 

You can’t keep up with Ellie’s motormouth. She was an excellent speaker- always hyped her team up before games, and always new how to make you feel bad. She’s probably your moms favorite. You’d just have to tell the truth. 

“I c-cummed,” you stutter, “I came because I saw how wet his dick was, and... I imagined it fucking you!” 

That just made her laugh even more, “AHAHAHAHAHAHA!” She bent over, letting her big perfect tits flop as they adjusted to gravity. “You little cuck faggot- I’m pretty sure that still makes you gay.” 

“I’m nottt!” You insist, staring at her beautiful tits bounce with every breath and movement she makes. Your pin dick gets hard again, desperately wanting to blow a little load onto your sisters heavenly tits. A single nipple could probably smother your miniscule hard on as her massive, fit ass was clapped by a huge cock. 

“Look Andre, he’s getting hard again!” She points, struggling to no collapse from laughing at you. 

“Babe, he’s a whiteboy, what do you expect? Let him have his fun,” said Andre in a cool, deep voice, walking out of the bathroom looking perfectly clean with smooth, chocolatey skin and a cock hung like your arm, “Ay, whiteboy, wanna play a game?” 

“A- a game?” You ask. You try to avoid staring at his half hard megacock, then try to avoid looking jealously at his lean and roundedly muscled body, until you look at his face. 

“Yeah. I’m horny, youre horny, how about we jerk off and see how we compare? I’ll go easy on you, totally loose, no stamina, got it?” 

“Well- I can't do much-“ 

“C'mon boy, it’ll be fun. Did Ellie ever tell you bout how when I was fucking Mrs. Danksworth, all her family members watched? I’d say you’re bigger than all those white boys.” 

“Not that that’s saying much,” laughs Ellie on the bed. 

“Okay- but we need to get breakfast!” You insist. 

“Won’t take too long. I’ll even stand further back than you. I wanna see how that little thing shoots,” 

“You’re fucking gay too, Andre,” laughs Ellie. 

“So what I like fuckin white boys? They look like girls anyways!” Both laugh at you. 

“I still need to wake up Jenny and Katie and-“ 

“Cmon lil bro, we know you’re a quick shot!” Mocks Ellie. 

“Fine,” you surrender like a typical white boy. 

“Aight,” he says, “Ellie, put on a show with that gorgeous ass of yours.” 

She smiled, bending over on the bed and sticking her ass up, beginning to shake it in wide circles. It ripples with muscles and the smallest two few of fat, swollen from the thousands of squats she religiously did just to show off to black guys. She warmed up a bit, the broke into a full on twerk. 

“Mm babe, twerk that ass,” says Andre, hand going all the way up and down his massive pole of a cock, jerking off as his girlfriend, your sister, twerks like a pro. He arches is back and relaxes, knowing that whatever he does it’ll be more than satisfying for any horny white girl. 

You jerk your little cock to her too, but to hope that you can clean it from her asscheek instead of the carpet, you hobble forward, hand tightly around and totally hiding your hairless dick. Your little balls clench as your hear the sound of her ass clapping right in front of you. You smell the sweet, horny sweat of her legs too, the kind she always smelled like when she came home after winning a volleyball game and getting fucked in the locker room. This was your weakness. 

It was all your weakness- Ellie was always the ‘dominant’ sister of her age range, as both Coral and Abby were quite a bit older than her, as compared to how the two sets of twins in your family were so close. Ellie always domineered over you along with mom, and was influential in Jenny’s development as a BBC slut just like all the rest of them. Ellie was often sweet, but whenever people from school were around, she was crueler than Mary. Just getting to jerk off to her twerking ass, for real, not in your 3 am fantasies, was a blessing. 

“Mmm fuck,” moaned Andre, dick wet and slick and with sloppy noises to boot, “I’m not even gonna try to control myself- I’m cummin fast as I can!” 

You keep jerking off, instead of using a few fingers, instead using your full hand, and your other to massage your balls. You wish you could control yourself, but honestly, it’s impossible to take your hand off your cold little baby dick, especially with Andre’s hot, massive member just feet away. You hope you can at least control your orgasm better than ever before, so that you and Andre can meet in the middle for cumming on Ellie. It wasn’t likely though. You really were a quickshot. 

Surprisingly enough with a strong, manly, “ARRGGGHHHHH,” from Andre, he aggressivley slammed his hand against his crotch and threw his head back as he came, huge, hanging black balls tightening up to deliver yet another load in this room, already smelling deliciously like black cum. 

He shot a massive arc of hot, thick ropes onto Ellie, practically cumming on her from across the room, landing in thick, strong pools on her back and bed, with one drop going splat on her sheets just close enough for her to lick. Another lands on her asscheek, a big glob of superior cum jostled by her fast ass-shaking. 

She stops twerking, using her thin hands to gather up her boyfriend’s delicious cum and eat it right up. Thanks to how much she twerked, all the cum blasted into her guts was upset, and soon came flowing from her used butthole. 

You waddle forward, feeling the little squirt inside your crotch that tells your excuse for a dick you’re about to cum. You do, lifting your thin hips to try and get as close to her butt as possible, 

You cum, tiny little spurts jumping out of the quivering tip of your dick. Some land on the muscular upper portion of her ass, well-lit by her girly ceiling fan. Most just grazed the supple skin of the curve of her ass, little drops barely sticking onto them. Some fell onto her feet. 

“Goddamn! I was like 6 feet back and I still came farther than you, boy!” laughed Andre. 

“And nobody was surprised,” smiled Ellie evily, holding her hand between her soft thighs to cup the cum flowing from her asshole and closing her legs so they didn’t drip further. You stare at your little droplets sprinkled on them, feeling that this was your best orgasm today. You knew what came next. 

Ellie stretched out her right leg, the one you came on. "Lick it up!" she demanded. Your cleaning duties were not a surprise. 

If black cum tasted like thick, sweet and salty drink, and girl's juice was sticky sweet nectar, than your wimpy little fluids were probably best described as sugar water. 

You swallowed every drop. 

Chapter 6 - A Good Morning to Jenny

After sucking the sweet sweat and your thin cum from Ellie’s goddess ass, you told them to go down for brunch soon. Your face was beet red the whole time. 

You excused yourself, waking across the hall to your room to check your phone for messages. Some from your friends, all boys. Why would girls text you of all people anyways? 

After that, you went to the room next to yours, but on the other side. While on the right wall, where the bed was up against, was your mom’s room, the other side, to the left, was your twin sister, Jenny’s room. 

Jenny has light auburn hair and a thin frame and, like you, above average assets. For you, it was an extra almost-inch to your penis, but for her, it was perfectly smooth skin, especially for her big perky tits and round sexy ass. The only blemishes on her were three freckles on the bridge of her nose, which might have made her cuter. 

She was probably the sister you knew best, bro your twin. You often had the same classes together and would even help her send nudes to her boyfriends sometimes, but she also had a rough edge. She was sort of Ellie’s opposite, who was nice in public but loved tormenting you in private. Jenny was always cruel to you at school, but was rather nice at home. “It’s just social shit. No need to get so pissy about it,” she told you when you once asked why she loved joining in when you were being bullied. “I actually really like you, bro, but what would the girls think if I showed it? Besides, little white dicks are literally always so funny.” 

You didn’t like that part of her. Yeah, gossiping after school and talking about movies and books and tv was fun, but she was always cold when you wanted her to be consistent in her affection. You wish you’d gotten more out of everything you’ve done for her. You’ve made her lunches, shaved her pussy, helped her in homework. You even told her the penis sizes of every white boy in the grade. Nobody but Jenny and you knew you did that. If she cared enough to keep the secret, of course. 

Still, you knew that once school started, she’d become a total sadist to you. You just figured it was how white girls were. Maybe you should learn your place better. 

You open her door. Her room had girly lavender furniture, with a desk, nightstand, shelf, and dresser all the same color wood, with the same white carpet as everywhere else in the upstairs, and pale rosy walls. The room looked enchanting with her lacy white curtains, but it was freezing. 

She always kept her room cold, while you liked it warm. It makes your balls feel like they could swing just a little bit, and your dick hang a few fractions of an inch lower. This cold air makes your ballsack wrinkle up against your little whiteboy taint like a lump, and your pee pee shrivels inside your body until it looks like a little bug bite. 

Jenny especially liked it when dicks were really tiny. Yours especially. 

She had never had a white boyfriend, and only had a few flings with black boys in the past 2 years of high school. Now, though, you see someone next to her in bed. It’s a long, thin, smooth black hand over her shoulder as she sleeps. 

“Jenny?” You whisper, trying to get her up. You poke her cheek to make her stir, but then feel some weird texture on it. You realize this is the same thing you often woke up feeling in your smooth, hairless white tummy, but much thicker. 

It’s cum. Your twin sisters face is covered in cum! 

You pull down the covers to expose her body. She’s totally naked, and beautiful as ever. Her tits had gotten even rounder since the last time you took nudes for her. Her pubic hair was shaved into a cute, neat little landing strip. You’re jealous of her hair down there. 

On the other side of her, you almost think it’s a girl with how lean the deep black body was. But you know Jenny wasn’t a lesbian, and all of the black guys at your school are manlier than this. So what gives? 

Then the body turns over, and you see why Jenny was sleeping with him. He has an average black dick, a hugely long thing, even though it’s half hard at most. It’s longer than your arm, and very smooth. Almost as smooth as your immature teeny white thing. Weird. 

Then Jenny stirred. “Wha..” she blinked, rubbing her hand from her sexy belly button to her puss. That’s one of moms mannerisms. She does it after she got fucked. 

“Jenny!” You whisper, covering your microdick with your little hand, “who is that guy?” 

“Wha- oh, shit!” She jumps up quickly, but with enough grace to not wake the boy who fucked her up. She gets on her feet, being a hair taller than you despite technically being younger, and puts her hands on your shoulders. “Please don’t tell mom about him. Pretty please?” 

“H-hey Jenny,” you stutter, scared of how close her pussy and tits to the wimpier dick in the room, “why would she care? She’s happy with the rest fucking any guys they like here. What’s wrong with this?” 

“It’s just..” she blushes. You were one of the only people Jenny would let herself blush in front of. Well, at home at least, at school she loved bullying you and all your tiny dicked friends for that exact reason. She continues, “he's my boyfriend!” 

You pause. “Jenny, that’s great! How long have you been dating?” 

“Three months,” she admits. 

“That’s so wonderful! Your longest boyfriend ever! Why haven’t you told anyone?” You’re genuinely happy that she’s in a relationship with a black guy with such a long dick. It makes you happy that she’ll be fucking that thing every night for the next few months. And a little horny. 

“We aren’t public yet. So you’d better not tell anyone. Got it?” 

“Okay, okay,” you say, backing up from her naked body. She really is a beautiful girl, with perky tits that bounce like gel packs, with a marvelously thin body and just enough flesh on her tummy to be squeezable. You can’t see her ass, but just thinking of the round, perked thing makes the tiny, straw-like rod of your micropenis buzz at its very base, deep inside your pathetic, cum-eating, horny little servile white boy body. 

It’s not fair how effortlessly she looks so good, when your white boy body was so unimpressive, with a featureless torso, narrow shoulders, and skinny arms. You loved her for it though. 

“And stop checking me out!” she snaps with a hushed whisper. “Why are all white boys such incestous little creeps?” 

“D-didn’t you have me shave your taint once when you were face timing Lee after you traded nudes?” You try to sound cocky in your defence, but your stutter makes it sound wimpy. It was cocky, if cockiness was applied to tiny white cocks. 

“Shut up,” she turns redder, “I’m warning you! Besides, it doesn’t count if they’re half brothers. And black!” 

“Okay, okay,” You say, trying to whisper again as the black guy on the bed stirred. He didn’t look too strong, but you were always afraid of how bad any black guy could hurt you. Especially with a cock like that. It looked like a skyscraper! Yours was, at best, a house. Not even this house, this house was two stories and an attic. Like a one story house. You shudder, trying to shake the thought of huge black dicks compared to the misplaced pinkie toe on your crotch after how much Ellie called you gay. “So,” you say, trying to get back on subject, “Why do you wanna keep this a secret? And who is he?” 

She gets really close to your face, like she was scared mom would hear, even though she’s obviously downstairs, moaning while Damarcus fucks her. “His name’s Jaylon, and he’s gonna be a freshman starting this next year.” 

“A freshman?” you ask, realizing why he didn’t look as manly “Wait, so you started dating him back when he was in-” 

“I know!” she hushes. 

“By the time he’s our age we’ll be starting college!” 

“I know!” she grabs you again, “I met him last year as a student ambassador. He’s a really, really good distance runner. Not the fastest or the strongest, but he had stamina like nobody the talent scouts have ever seen,” she says. 

“Stamina?” you joke. 

“Yeah,” she breathes hotly, biting her lower lip and staring off into space with her doe eyes. You look at her little nose freckles and feel her cold hands on her arms. Your little dick moves a little, getting just a 

tiny bit out of its teenie weenie shelter. “He was so fucking good last night. Came like a firehose.” 

Very recently, you remember how Jenny said that you came like a leaky faucet. 

“But... he’s just a kid,” you say defensively. 

“Blah, blah,” she backs up, crossing her arms, “You know you aren’t even half the man he is.” 

You feel embarrassed. Your clitty likes it. 

“So... Jenny’s dating a guy who isn’t even a freshman yet...” you say to yourself. 

That gets her upset, as expected. You know your sister. She’s the only person you’ve ever been able to act confident in front of. That’s been increased by the long summer meaning she hasn’t publicly humiliated you once. That would soon change. 

“Don’t you dare fucking tell anyone. Please, please don’t! I’ll literally do anything!” 

“Anything?” You ask her, thinking of Coral. “C-c-can I fuck you?” you stutter excitedly. 

She stops. “Can you.. What?” 

You suddenly turn very red. 

She rolls her eyes. “You’re fucking gross. You really wanna fuck Jaylon’s sloppy seconds? He may be younger than you, but his cum is probably, like, ten times thicker than anything your wimpy little balls ever whipped up. You really want that?” 

You nod, stroking your tiny worm to hardness. 

She sighs. “Fine. But you’ll literally never tell a soul, even after we go public. That’s not your place. And you’d better not make a sound, or Jaylon will kill you,” she adds venomously. 

“I promise,” you say 

“I sure won’t be making a peep,” she rolls her eyes. 

You waddle over to her with your dickie between two fingers. 

“Ugh,” she closed her eyes, “Just stop touching it! You know I hate little white dicks.” 

“S-sorry,” you mutter, licking your lips like a little pervert as you wrap your arms around your twin sister’s as you slowly raise your effeminate crotch to meet hers. With them very close together, your nubby little dick is finally close enough to rub against the folded opening to her pussy. She closes her eyes. You get ready to go into your second pussy today, and have sex for the second time in your life. 

But then, as the weak, pink tip of your puny penis pushed open her labia, her hole gapes open, and out 

runs a huge glob of thick, pearly cum. 

The fat drop of cum that Jaylon had shot in her pussy hours ago comes flowing out with a bubbly pop. It falls right onto your dick, and that one, single drop of nut covers your entire penis. If your dicklet was a caterpillar, this thick, sticky cum was its cocoon. Some even gets some on your balls. You don’t know if that says more about how much cum Jaylon’s balls make, or how truly tiny white boys’ dicks were. 

Either way, the way the hot, sticky fluid felt all over your shaky little penis was too much. It actually sticks to your penis, unlike any pussy, which is far two wide for you to feel anything. You moan pathetically as you enjoy this cum on your dick. It’s too much for you. You cum, shooting out maybe two little drops. They get lost in Jaylon’s. 

“What’s happening?” she opens her eyes as more drops of cum flow down out of her pussy, actually pleasuring her, which she didn’t expect you to do. “Oh,” she says, trying not to laugh, “You got my creampie. Told you you’d be fucking sloppy seconds.” 

You don’t do anything as you let more hot cum drip from her cunt to your smooth little crotch. Your face is beet red. 

“What are you doing?” She asked. 

“I- I already came,” you choke. 

She really laughed then “Seriously? You didn’t even fucking put it in me? You came just by feeling his cum?” 

You nod, “It’s just... so hot.” 

“Well, it is better than anything that could come out of your little dick,” she ruffles your hair. Suddenly, Jaylon starts to get up. “Fuck,” she whispers, “If you don’t wanna get you ass kicked, clean it all off yourself! Make sure not one drop hits the floor! I know mom makes sure you’re an expert cleaner!” 

You obey her, scooping up his huge loads of cum and your tiny little one off your body with your hands, pouring it into your mouth and licking your fingers clean. Then you put your mouth on her pussy, pushing her back into her nightstand, and suck all the fluid you can out of her. 

“What’s goin’ on?” asks Jaylon as he sits up. 

“My little brother is just cleaning my creampie like a good whiteboi, you know?” she tells him, pushing your face deeper in her creamy crotch. 

“Aight. I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he says, getting out of bed. 

After he’s gone, and your twin is all clean, you get up from eating her pussy. 

“Okay bro,” she says, sounding awake, “Why’d you even come in here? You know you aren’t allowed to just jerk off to us whenever you want anymore. Mom'll kill you." 

"Wha-" you wipe the cum from your lips. "Oh, yeah, mom wanted me to tell you breakfast was ready. Max is making it today." 

"That's it?" 

You nod. 

"You're a dumbass." She says. 

"Well... I gotta get Katie and Lily up," you say, leaving. That was the nicest thing you've done with your sister in a long time.

Chapter 7 - A Good Morning for Lily

What always struck you odd (when your little whiteboi brain was actually thinking about the silly, nerdy things whitebois liked to think about when they weren’t rubbing off, getting ready to rub off, or cleaning up their puny cums) was how the room arrangement changed when you got to the younger sisters. Most of the upstairs was taken up by the open space above the big family room, with a chandelier hanging down. It was what you saw when you first walked into the house. If you went straight in and took a bit of a left, you’d go up the rounded staircase to the landing and upstairs hallway. Right in front of that was the master bedroom. It was big and luxurious, and had total access to the back balcony. Black boys would sometimes jump off it into the pool in the back. When your mom wasn’t home, of course. But the hallway was rather normal. It went straight back, with a bathroom at the end. On either side of that were the oldest sisters, Abby and Coral, and then on the sides were the two sets of twin’s rooms, Mary and Ellie, and you and Jenny. At the end on the right side, right next to yours, was the guest bedroom. You could go from oldest to youngest child by walking down the hall, but that was ruined when you got to turn to the two bedrooms whose doors overlooked the living room, because the first door was your youngest sister, and the second was your second-youngest. Oh well. You were still going to get them up in order. First you went to your youngest sister, Lily’s room. You knock on the door. It actually opens itself. Well, Lily opened it. Either way, you think to yourself, finally. You wouldn’t have to shake your sisters off of their horny all-nighter activit- Actually, when the door swung wide open, your petite little sister Lily was totally naked. “L-Lily! What are you doing? Why are you naked.” With big, pretty hazel eyes, Lily just blinked and looked you up and down. She cracked a teeny bit of a smirk when going over your exposed little thing. “You’re naked too,” she pointed out. Oh- yeah, that’s true. “But I was doing this to help mom with her bull…” you explained. “Okay, well, mommy said that I should sleep naked too if I was feeling funny around her and our sister’s bulls,” she explained right back. Feeling funny? Oh. You knew this was going to happen eventually. Katie was finally getting to the age where it was legal to fuck black men. And that age was chosen for a reason. That reason was that it was what girls wanted. She was probably getting insanely horny over every black guy she saw, and even more when there were ones in the bedrooms so close to hers. She stretched and yawned big. “I’m so tired!” “Tired?” You asked, “It’s one in the afternoon!” “Yeah, but I got to sleep at like 4 am!” 4 am? What was she doing? You were gonna ask her, but then you noticed a new poster on her wall- she was a teenage girl, so of course she had a bunch of pretty boys plastered all over the wall. Most of them were whitebois or korean guys, all looking super effeminate with smooth, pale skin and big eyelashes. It kind of made you feel good that girls liked the sort of guy you were. Sure, you were tiny and effeminate, but at least they thought you were cute! Something big changed though. In the middle of her wall, put over all her old posters and stickers, was a 4-foot-tall pin up of a black model, buff as hell, oiled up so his dark brown skin was shiny, covered in tattoos, and with a bulge in his underwear that went down to his knees. “W-what were you doing to stay up so late?” you asked. “Oh,” she giggled, “I was playing with myself!” “Playing with yourself?” you had to ask. “Yes! With my kitty!” she smiled big. Lily spread her little legs open and showed you her pink, bare pussy. It had some juices still in it, and plenty of white stuff coated her folds, “Katie taught me how to touch it last week,” she ran a finger through it. Damn! “And she showed me how good this button thing here feels!” she pointed at her clitoris. “Yeah,” you explain, “that’s your clit. It’s the best part of a girl’s body. That’s what mom always tells me when I- uhmm…” you stop out of embarrassment. “When you eat her out after her bulls fuck her?” she asked with another giggle. “Y-yeah,” you say. You really never had it confirmed how much your baby sister knew. You liked to think it was nothing, that she was perfect and innocent. That couldn’t be the case of course. Not with her too being raised in the same house as the mother of all snowbunny sluts.  That BBC-loving MILF was a horrible influence on your little sister- but it was soooo hot. “W-what did you touch yourself thinking of?” you had to ask that too. “Oh- I was thinking of being a real big girl- like mommy! And getting to feel really good all day, everyday, from those big hot black guys!” “Just like our sisters…” you muttered. You hoped Lily would still be nice to you, even though she’d embraced being another black only girl in the black ruled world.   “Yeah,” she smiled, oblivious, “and all my friends sisters too! They’ve all started to touch themselves thinking of black boys, like we’re big girls!” her eyes were so wide and excited, “Aren’t you proud of us!” “Yeah…” you said, thinking of how mad mommy would get if she learned you were trying to make Lily stop falling in love with black men. But on the other hand, your insecurity about your tiny, pathetic little white nub, all hard because of your virginal little sister, made you talk. “But I thought you liked white boys? Or those k-pop guys?” She made a face. “Yeah… they’re really cute! But Katie and Ellie and Mommy always tell me, white boys are cute, but black guys are HOT! And look at the new poster I got,” she pointed at the buff, nearly naked black man on her wall, “he’s so hot. Like, you’re cute,” she said. “Wait, really?” you ask. “Oh yeah- I’ve talked to girls who are all like ‘oh, Lily, your big brothers so cute!’ I can’t say who though…” she smirked, “but anyways- you’re cute, but you’re kinda, erm, small, and you aren’t really that muscular, but look at him!” she pointed at him again, “he’s soooo hot! I was up all night touching myself thinking about him!” It really was over. Everyone in your house was a total slave to the BBC. But of course, you were so, so turned on by it. Your little clit dick was dripping. If either of you barely rubbed it, it’d probably dripple the biggest load of today onto her carpet. Ignoring your babydick as you knew all girls would, she stretched again and put on a big t-shirt to cover all her pink little girly bits. “I’m hungry, bro. When’s breakfast ready?” “It’s brunch,” you corrected, “and it actually should be ready by now. That’s why mommy actually told me to come get you.” “Oh, alright,” she nodded, running up to you, and to your big surprise, hugged you! She jumped on you and gave you a big hug, digging her head and soft, sweaty hair into your chest, “Thanks bro! I love you!” She then just kept running downstairs, that big t-shirt flapping, almost revealing her butt and pussy a few times. You looked, but didn’t dare leave the room. Your clitty was so hard… so ready to collapse into another tiny bitchboy orgasm. You thought about her small, pink little budding tits press against you, how good they felt now that her girly little boobies were growing a bit. You imagined them growing bigger, like your other sisters’ had. Would she stay the nicest of them? Or would she be cruel with her newly growing body? As much as you wished she’d be your sweet, loving baby sister forever, you knew that now that she was legal, she’d become a true slut for BBC. If she wanted to abuse you and tease you and rub your face in it, it was her right. You thought of her titties growing when a black guy makes her pregnant. And of course, of her smooth, young buttcheeks under that shirt, rubbing together as she ran. You thought the same about her wet pussy and pink little asshole. How long until she began anal play? It scared and excited you. Maybe you would help her. After all, with your small body and tiny penis, you were proportioned perfectly to have sex with a girl her size. But that would never happen. It was disgusting, you knew, to want that with your little sister. Your mom would kill you, not because you were gross, but because you touched her- after all, your mom had no issue with being gross, happily making you eat her anal creampies. If you were lucky, Lily would let you do that after she got fucked. Fucked by a real man. You felt so frustrated. Her pussy and ass had to be so tiny, but of course, those massive, spoiled black cocks had exclusive rights to them. Black men were soon gonna start doing whatever they wanted with her as they pleased, and you had to let them. Let their big cocks stretch out her holes, while you’d always be cucked and denied. It was just the way the world was meant to be. That was all it took. You shuddered, feeling your little sissy butthole tighten up, your balls clench even smaller. Relief came. You’d be denied forever, as a white boy, but at least your mommy decided she’d let you cum, right? As you came, you thought how good that tiny, watery drop, leaking from your babypenis’ head, sliding down the full inch and a half of your shaft, and sitting on the little line of skin down the middle of your tiny, smooth balls, felt. It felt so damn good, cumming from knowing how inferior you were. As you left the room, tiny cumstain on your pathetic balls, you felt better about how your sister would stop loving you, and only have eyes for black men and their glorious cocks. It was the way things were meant to be. Peepee sore from cumming without being touched, you went out of Lily’s room and went to Katie’s on the right.

Chapter 8 - And lastly, Good Morning to Katie

Right down the short walkway on the landing from Lily’s room is your other young sister, Katie’s room. Unlike Lily, who’s room only had one small window to the left of her bed, Katie is lucky enough to get a big window that totally took up the left side of her room. You’re still distracted from the high of your beta orgasm that you totally forget to knock, and barge right into Katie’s room. “Hey hottie,” she said as she heard the door open. Then she turned around. “Ew- what the fuck- it’s you?” She looks disgusted, which, to be fair, is expected. You are, after all, walking into her room totally naked with that tiny white clitdick exposed, a few messy drops of cum on your underdeveloped balls, and during a time you shouldn’t have been in her room at all, it seemed. It looks like Katie’s putting on a little show for people outside. Her blinds were all the way up and her curtains to the side. There was a perfect line of sight from her room to the street below, and vice versa. It looked like some of the neighbor boys, both white and black, were looking up at her voyeuristically. Katie had put a chair by the window and spread her legs. Her pale, pretty feet were on the window. In her hand was a white wand vibrator, which she was pleasing herself with for who knows how long before you came in. “Hello? What the fuck are you doing here, you fucking loser?” she demands as she turns off her toy. She’s not happy, But then again, she never is with you. She’s just one of those girls who loves torturing white boys. There’s no real explanation, your younger sister is just a little sadist. “You gonna answer, loser? Sheesh, I can’t believe I’m related to you. I’m so fucking tired and your dumbass has to barge into my room too? Mom just fucking cage you.” “N-no,” you said, the threat of your poor little clit-dick locked in a cold, cruel chastity cage made you remember, “I- wait, you’re tired too Why are you up doing… this?” She rolls her eyes, standing up and bending over to spread her asscheeks to the cheering group below. Your pervy little mind wished you were down there, able to see even the tiniest glimpse of your little sister's asshole. “I couldn’t sleep,” she presses her butt right against the glass, “Not with Lily being so fucking loud.” “Loud?” You ask. “Yeah. I told her how to masturbate and shit, and she went crazy these past few nights. She’s always screaming about how good it feels. She sounds worse than Abby,” she rolls her eyes, “I guess you’re not the only fuck up in this house, huh? I made a pretty big mistake. When Coral moves back out I think I’m gonna take her room, I can’t stand that loud bitch.” You feel very hurt by that. After all, Lily might be your favorite sister. “H-hey,” you defended, “L-lily’s just exploring herself. She’s allowed to cum as much as she wants. It’s healthy for her to be sexually satisfied, right? Just like you are.” Just as you said that, with one hand on her chair and the other between her legs holding that vibrator, her whole back starts shaking. Her legs against the window quake, and her anus must be puckering so tight against the glass. Finally, she gets release, and squirts everywhere. “Ahhh!” she moans as squirts of sweet clear pussy water shoot out onto her window and drip down onto the cushioned bench right below it. It already looked stained from a few squirts earlier, but this time, it’s a total mess. “Mmmm,” she sounds so satisfied, “Show’s over until that gets cleaned up,” she smiles, standing up and dropping her vibe. “See that? That’s fucking satisfaction. I didn’t know how to really make myself squirt for years. Lily should stop trying to rush shit, and actually let me fucking sleep.” “M-maybe you’re just different,” you say, “some girls only need to cum- well, how many times have you?’ “This morning? 3 or 4. I bet it’s less than you have when going into everyone’s room to wake them up.” Instead of finishing your point, you just look down and blush. How does she know? “I’m right, right? I’m guessing- you stroke for a good 30 seconds when you get up, right? Then you probably cum when eating mommy’s creampie out, no? You might even cum twice then, she always gets bulls with a lot of cum… and then you probably get to cum with Max when you wake Abby up, then you don’t even have to touch yourself to cum looking at Coral’s dried pussy juice all over her toy collection. Ellie and Mary won’t let you cum, but you’ll probably cum at least once just by trying to hard not too, because you’re a fucking loser. Jenny’s way too nice to you, she’ll probably let you jerk off while she’s on the toilet or something. I fucking hope you didn’t cum when you woke up Lily, because you should literally get your balls chopped off if you did that. So you probably did. That’s what… 7 or 8 orgasms for you?” “S-something like that,” was all you could manage to say. “Fuck, you’re fucked up. I don’t even wanna know,” she hopped off her chair and went to her dresser, where she put on some pink panties. “Don’t fucking look at me when I’m changing, perv. Mom should fucking castrate you.” You gulp. “Y-yes, I know. S-sorry.” She laughs, “yeah, that’s all whiteboys know how to say. I can’t wait to see how many of the boys watching busted in their pants while staring at my booty. I’m shocked you didn’t,” she says, but then looks down at your tiny balls. “Oh- did you?” she starts cracking up, “Is that fucking cum? Holy shit, you fucking did! Did you even touch yourself?” “N-no!” you jump back. Your tiny package bounces just a little bit. “I-it was from earlier!” She walks forward to you, bending over and pinching your tiny clitdick with her two little fingers. She lifts it up to look at your balls. “It’s still wet- how long ago did you cum?” “Um, 3 or 4 minutes ago…” you tell the truth. “So right before you came here- you fucking came to Lily, didn’t you?” she shouted, angrily slapping your little nuts. “Owwwww,” you weakly whine in pain. “You’re so fucking sick! What would mom think? She’d probably just laugh at you, but still. You’re the worst fucking white beta I know, and that’s saying a lot! I’d fucking kick you in the nuts, but you’re probably too impotent to even feel it. Ugh!” You can’t help but blush and get hard. Though Katie was only a year younger than you, she was superior to you in every way. “Stop fucking blushing!” She growls as she turns around to keep getting dressed, “And make that nub you call a dick get less hard! I can’t fucking stand whiteboi stiffies near me,” she said, slipping on some black leggings, “When I have kids, if any of them are fucking boys- well, white “boys’” she makes air quotes, “I’m not gonna do any of mom’s ‘let them cum so they don’t try and touch girls’ bullshit. I don’t care what doctors of Church of the BBC magazine writers say, it obviously doesn’t fucking work. I’m putting any fucking white sons I push out in cages 24/7.” “W-why are you telling me this?” you ask, struggling to hide your tiny boner. She shrugs. “You taught me it’s fun torturing whitebois. It’s the one thing you’re good for. Stop staring at my tits,” she said, putting on a tight t-shirt.” “S-sorry.” “Yeah, whatever. You told Lily brunch is ready, right?” she asks. “Yeah, we should go down.” “Yeah, I will. First I wanna go outside and see if any of those cucks stayed by the house hoping to get some,” she laughed, “but before that,” she walked over to the bathroom she and Lily shared, and brought some paper towels, “you’re gonna clean up my squirts. And use your tongue as cleaning spray.” “Y-yes Katie, of course,” you go over and grab the towels, heading over to keel on her bench and start licking at and wiping your window. “Nuh-uh,” she says right as you start, “stand up. Show off your boy pussy. I wanna post this on Snowgram.” W-what? She was gonna post your white boy hole on social media? That really scared you, but it was so humiliating, it turned you on. That made it worse. Would everyone see your tiny clit? They’d laugh at it, wouldn’t they. “Oh come on, hurry up,” she says, taking out her phone. You obey her, spreading your legs wide to show off that smooth, pink bussy. You hear the phone click as she laughs. “Aright, see ya bro. I’m gonna go eat now,” she walks away. You stay, licking up her pussy juice and residues from her nasty window. It must’ve been days since it was cleaned. Thankfully, you’re a good worker. When you finish, you go back to your room. Your phone is out, with its BLACKED porn background. You open it, go to snowgram, and look at the latest posts. Sure enough, there’s Katie, with a picture of your exposed beta boi ass, captioned ‘cleaning- the one thing white brothers are good for!” Before that post was one of her holding her vibrator between her legs as she woke up, announcing her ‘show’ this morning. It had a ton of white boys from her grade commenting about it, but she pinned one from a girl; “All these white boys tryna shoot their shot, boi u can’t even shoot past your balls!” It had the most likes too. As you read that, you shot another drop of cum. It didn’t go past your balls either You added it to the pile of barely wet tissues in your garbage bin. The trash, where whiteboy cum belongs. Then, you go downstairs for breakfast.

Chapter 9 - Brunch 

You reach down between your legs and feel your balls. Rather, your ballsack. The tiny little testicles in that flimsy little bag of skin are totally shriveled up thanks to you cumming 8 times already today. Those poor little glands are already exhausted by producing so much worthless little sperm… and it wasn’t even 2pm yet! You’d probably cum plenty more times today. It would surely end up being just impotent, clear prostate fluid. Well… more impotent than usual. You sniffle at your inferiority. You’re at the top of the stairs, and look down at the clatter below. You walk over to your room and get your clothes on, a simple pair of black shorts and white t-shirt over your unimpressive little body. Then you go downstairs to finally eat brunch. The kitchen is visible right at the bottom of the stairs, which are right in front of the hallway where you and all your siblings' bedrooms are. At the bottom of those stairs was a glossy marble floor, just like the rest of the house. There was also a lower, carpeted living room area with fluffy floors and white and red couches, and even a TV from a tall divider between the living room and the marble. Your mom’s a good decorator, with pretty white and red flowers all on top. To the right of that was the entryway, and to the left was the kitchen. The kitchen is a large space with white tile floors, lined with kitchen appliances that had an island in the middle. In the far corner, next to the back door, was a small table. In the front, close to the living room, was a bigger glass table. Your whole family is already eating. Your mom was at the head of the table, with Damarcus next to her. He was shirtless, but even though he wore gym shorts, the massive, fat snake in them peaked out. He selfishly grabbed at her thick thigh. On the opposite side of the table was Coral, with Mary slouched between her and Ellie. Andre had his arm around Ellie. He was so fucking cocky. On the other side of the table were Jenny, Jayvon, Lily, and Katie. Meanwhile, at the small table, Abby and her man, Julius, and her cuck boi, Max. You gulp as you go to take your seat right next to Katie. She still looks disgusted by you. “H-hey, thanks for getting my food today,” you said. Sometimes, if Abby was making breakfast, she wouldn’t give you any food, and you’d just have to get something yourself. “Oh, sweetie, thank Max. You white boys sure do know how to stick together,” your Mom smiled at you. Max, over with his wife and her bull, was getting his little dick teased from under his shorts by Abby. Though the three were off on their own, with Julius eating his fill of breakfast. Max was struggling to not acknowledge his arousal. Instead, he just kept thanking Julius over and over for enjoying his cooking. After all, if he so much as moaned from having his little dick touched by his wife’s feet, he’d be punished. It wasn’t a whitebois role to be turned on, especially not in public. Cruel girls like Abby didn’t give a shit though. It turns you on a little, as shameful as it feels. Max must’ve been ashamed too, after all, the massive bulge in Julius’ shorts was obvious. It wasn’t like he could ever measure up to what his wife really enjoyed, and he had to thank Julius for everything he did. Being a cuckboi was harder than it looked. “Son,” scolded your mom. You look back at her. You know that you aren’t supposed to start drooling at your sister’s feet. But you definitely weren’t supposed to drool at your mommy’s tits either. “Sorry, mom,” you whisper. You just look down at your food and start eating. This was a snowbunny’s household, and you were ignored. To stay out of trouble, you should ignore them too. But still, you didn’t wanna make the silence awkward. Or make silence in the first place. These people were your family, after all. Now that your mom was calmed down compared to how she was after those hours of being plowed by Damarcus, she could be an attentive mother. Even Ellie or Katie weren’t gonna attack you over breakfast. You look over at Jenny and Jaylon. While Damarcus dwarfed your mom, Andre made Ellie look just as small as Mary, and Julius was the king of the table where ‘Max’s’ family sat, Jaylon was the only small black boy there. Not that he was any smaller down there. Still… you had to ask. “So, um, Jaylon,” you say respectfully. You know you should be submissive to your black masters, even the younger ones, “you met my mom now?” “Howdya know my name, whiteboi?” he asked, looking over. He even spoke with a high pitched voice. But he degraded you like any other superior. It really was humiliating. First, your twin sister was stolen by this black kid, then your dignity in the family. As if you had much. “Because I told him, baby,” sighed Jenny, patting Jaylon’s hand, “Anyway bro, yeah, I told mom about us. She was really approving! I was kinda surprised… but I’m glad we all respect who we love, right?” she asked. She glared distinctly at Coral. “That’s not exactly how I remember it, Jenny,” smiled your mom. “I remember you freaking out when you tried to get him out the door this morning! You should know better that your momma’s got a soft spot for cute things like Jaylon. I told everyone here…. Who wasn’t late… to congratulate Jenny on her new boyfriend.” Jenny leaned back to talk to you, “Don’t sweat it bro, you already congratulated me enough,” she smiled. “Ayo, what’s that mean?” Jaylon asked. “Nothing baby,” she said as she checked her phone, “He just does all my chores and shit. He’s my brother.” she shrugged. At least someone appreciates the only whiteboy in the family. “Still, I think it’s funny that Jenny’s first boyfriend is some lightskin little kid. If she said she wanted to date whitebois, I’m sure mom would be okay with that too,” laughed Coral. Of course she had to be the one bringing up sex with whitebois. The subject actually made you uncomfortable. After all, it just felt like more pressure to perform. It was easier having a tiny dick and being a quickshot when that was all that was expected from you. It was harder when deviant girls like Coral actually wanted to have normal sex! “Damn, why’s this bitch gotta compare me to a whiteboi?” complained Jaylon. “It’s okay baby,” calmed Jenny, “My big sister is just a fucking weirdo.” She stuck her tongue out. “Oh, boo hoo. I’m in college, I’m supposed to experiment and have fun. Is anyone really gonna complain about having sex whenever I want with whoever I want? It’s not like I’m treating whitebois as equals,” she snorted. She then pulled out a vape pen after putting her drink down and took a long drag. Your mom looks mortified. “Coral! I told you not to do that inside!” she insists. Coral sighs and puts away her vape. Mom calms down. “I better not see you do that again, young lady,” she glares, “and you also shouldn’t talk about those kinda things in the house either, especially not in front of your little sisters,” she looks over the table, “or your little brother!” Coral chuckles, “Why not? Lil bro’s already a total pervert, might as well let him accept it.” Mom gets flustered again, “Uh, I do? Of course I do, but that’s not the point, Coral honey. The point is,” she growls a little and grabs Corals arm with her sharp long nails, “We do not talk about them in this household. Right girls?” Everyone nods along with mom. You do too. She probably counted you along with the ‘girls’. “Ow,” says Coral, pulling her arm away. “You don’t hear me mouthing off about your father’s abysmal attempts at sex over breakfast, do you?” “Ugh. No mom, I don’t.” “So apologize!” “Sorry.” “To your siblings. And for what?” Coral looks over at all of you. “I’m sorry for talking about such perverted things at the breakfast table. Can I go now?” Your mom sighs. As scary and mean as she could be, you felt bad for her. Even though Coral was the only white girl to ever really look your way, even if it was a really pervy thing, you wished she was a better daughter. Just to make your mom happy. “Anyways,” she says, looking at you as Coral gets up, puts her plate in the sink, and leaves. “Son, you know what’s coming up for us?” she asks. “Um….” you think carefully, trying to remember. Dammit, you knew this day was special, right? So what was it? Damn your stupid, cum-addled whiteboi brain! Um…. “The party….” your mom hinted. “Right, right!” you say as you remember, “We’re hosting the Neighborhood Blacked Moms Association End-of-Summer party again this year, right?” “Exactly sweetie. Now, I already sent invites out, but, well, I’m a little good at my job,” she turns to Damarcus and smiles, “so not everyone can RSVP by mail. Do you remember your job?” You nod, finally happy to be pleasing mommy, “I have to go around the neighborhood to see who can go or not, right?” “Exactly!” She says, “Good boi. Now come clean my plate up, and you can go.” You nod and stand up. Who cares if your plate is unfinished. You have a job to do, and whitebois are made to serve. A/N, if you wanna create a family that you can meet in the next part of this story, just say so in the comments! Names, dynamics, ideas, anything's accepted! Thank you all!

Chapter 10 - Heading out for the Day

After you wash the dishes for mommy (with a few nice spanks on your bare white boi ass from both your sisters and their bulls) you thank her and get ready to go. In the office, which was next to the kitchen and right under your room, you finally got the stupid printer to work. Out came 2 sheets of paper with over a dozen names on them. All the white girls and women in the neighborhood were written on that sheet. There were 9 houses you had to visit in the next few hours. A busy day today, for sure. You put on your shoes and get the papers in your backpack, and some shorts, just to keep your tiny dickletted self modest. Even though, of course, anyone who saw you could understand that you had a micropenis just by glancing at your skin color. You walked out the hall into the living room. Behind the TV stand, there was a lot of noise. Your weak knees shook as you walked forward in your kid-like clothes to see what was going on. What you see is exactly what you expected. In the few minutes you’d been gone, all the girls and bulls had gotten naked and were having their first orgy of the day right in the middle of the house. Anyone who opened the front door, or even just looked through the windows on either side of it, could see what was happening. Nobody would judge though. Multiple orgies a day was commonplace in the BNWO, especially for suburban white women. And it made your depleted balls tremble and tiny peepee grow. The coffee table was pushed over to the side. In its place was the center four-way of it all. Damarcus lying on his back with his huge arms around your mom’s neck and head, which was itself pushed between his huge pecs. His belly made her back arch as she lied on top of him. Damarcus’ 18 inch, 55 year old cock was absolutely destroying your mom’s anus. Both her butthole and her beloved bull’s cock were shining with what must’ve been lube, but it didn’t look like enough. When you weren’t feeling amazed about how black bulls could fuck for hours, you were amazed with how much a white girl could stretch just to take a BBC. While Mom was being assfucked by Damarcus below her, Julius was fucking her pussy and playing with her tits. Julius had a good 16 inches, not as lengthy or girthy as Damarcus, but he was fucking your mom but good. He made up for that too in youthful strength, because the fourth part of the 4-way was Abby, whose thick thighs and plump rump were held out by Julius’ massive arms. He was eating out his girlfriend, and in turn she had a steady flow of orgasmic juices pour onto mom’s belly from between her legs. Mom moaned loudly and squirted all over Julius’ thick black pubes. Her first orgasm of many for this orgy. Your worm was at maximum hardness. All of two inches. Behind them on the couch, there was another 3 of them sitting down, which it took a while to notice, since your transfixtion was totally on the center. On the far left is Max, who it seemed had permission from his wife to jerk off while she got eaten out in a foursome with you two’s mom and their bulls. Max’s little less than two inches (you’re very proud you’re bigger than your sister’s husband!) was jerked so hard it looked like his balls would slap against it. But of course, his scrotum was too tight and tiny for that. “Fuck ahhhhh,” moaned Abby. Her muscular ass quaked in Julius’ massive hands. They both looked like they were in total bliss. “I’m gonna fucking cum I’m gonnnnnnna nnnnnnnnng!” She yelled. Her legs stuck out totally straight, almost kicking you in the face, and, with her bull’s head still between her thighs, she came. Julius didn’t let her down after though. Her eyelids fluttered and lips shook. He just kept eating her out, without giving her a second to recover. And you knew your sister. She loved it. “H-hey, babe,” she rolled her head towards the couch to look at her hubby, who was still jerking his little dick on the couch, “Y-you don’t have you be a-ashamed. My family isn’t gonna mind if you touch yourself the way you love, cuckie d-darling.” Max whimpered. How pathetic, but you weren’t one to talk. “T-thank you babe,” he said. He scooted down in the chair. “J-julius b-babe, can you please tell m-my fucking loser brother to stop staring t-too?” she moaned as she drooled. Julius shot you a death glare. “S-sorry!” You insisted, jumping back. Plenty of bulls of your mom’s or big sisters’ have disciplined you in the past. It almost always involved a painful slap, or worse, punching your poor little balls, as if they weren’t already impotent enough. You look back over to the couch. There, Max had spread his legs and began to not only tug his tiny dick with two fingers, but also to rub his pink, smooth butthole with one finger. Abby giggled at that. Is that what her husband like? Playing with his whiteboi ass while his wife fucked bulls? T-that seemed so…. Gay! And you kinda wanted to do it too. Max closed his eyes and moaned as he fingered his butt and played with his clit. He was in his own fantasy world. As you stepped out of Mom’s, Damarcus’, Julius’, and Abby’s ways, you got to see who was on the couch besides Max. Right next to him was Jenny, who looked exhausted. Her smooth pussy was creampied again, and she was breathing heavily. Next to her was Jaylon, who looked tired and sweaty, but still pretty happy. That was probably because, between his spread, medium-brown legs, with their mouths on his big, smooth, uncut cock, were Katie and Lily, your two little sisters. His dick was wet and sticky, with a bit of cum still at the tip. Katie licked that up to show Lily how it was done. Lily smiled with wide, eager eyes. Then Katie spat it out onto your youngest sister’s mouth and they snowballed it. “Get fucked good?” you asked your twin, who was obviously uncomfortable with Max masturbating away next to her. “Yeah,” she said, “Right after breakfast. Mom was teasing us so he was all like ‘fuck it, I’ll show you,” she looked over at her boyfriend and held his hand. She looked at him, but he didn’t look back. She took her hand away. “Anyway.... Best fucking I’ve ever had. Made me cum 3 times in about 5 minutes.” “Wow,” you said. It felt good just to have a normal conversation with her. Even if it was about how she got fucked by that black dick, and it made you think of how you’ll never satisfy a girl with that tiny shrimp dick, or even fill her up with your few watery drops of cum. At least she wasn’t explicitly humiliating you. “C’mon, sit down.” she said. You stepped over her legs to sit inbetween her and Jaylon, but then she grabbed your wrist. “Nuh-uh, you’re sitting between me and him.” she said assertively. You sighed. You were really hoping not to have to sit next to Max rubbing his little whiteboi butthole, but no such luck. You just hoped nobody would ask about it. You sat down next to Jenny. In the corner, by the chairs by the TV stand closest to the stairs, Ellie was on her back getting fucked by Andre. Coral, ever the perverted one, was sitting on Ellie’s face, getting her pussy licked. You wondered how much Ellie resisted to that before she finally accepted a faceful of her big sister’s cunt. Meanwhile, Mary was eating Andre’s ass, and shyly fingered her pussy with two fingers. “Wow,” you breathed, “Can’t believe I missed this.” “Ah please bro,” she said to you with a cocksure smile, “Nothing you haven’t seen before, right?” You shrug. It isn’t took common to see Mary out. Especially rimming a guy. “Hey,” Jenny asked, “Why aren’t you jerking off?” You shrug again. “Tired I guess. My balls are kinda sore… I’ve already nutted eight times today.” Jenny’s eyes moved over to Jaylon, who blasted a fat, potent rope right on top of Katie’s silky-haired head. She looked a little sad, but then turned back to you. “Heh, little whiteboy can’t get it up huh?” She ruffled your hair. It pushed your head down. You felt so weak. “H-hey,” you protest. “Aww, you’re so damn cute!” “Hey baby,” asked Andre, “Want some of this?” You looked up and saw Andre turn around and get his massive black cock in Mary’s face, obviously offering it to her. Mary’s eyes were insanely wide. “N-no…” she whispered. “NO! I-it’s fine t-thanks. B-besides, I was just eating your ass..” At that pathetic passing up of some easy black dick, both Andre and Ellie laughed at the later’s poor twin sister. “W-whatever guys,” sniffled Mary. She got up and ran up to her room, still naked with her small tits bouncing. You felt bad, but knew if you tried to comfort her she would take it out on you crueler than even Ellie. “Anyways,” you said, breaking the tension. “I- uh- have some RSVPs to get.” You pulled out the paper and waved it around as you stood up and stepped over Mom and Damarcus’ legs. You left your twin sister in the dust too. But you were a weak whiteboy who couldn’t even stand up for himself after all. How could you get her to stand up for herself? Nobody looked any different as you made your departure known. You walked out to the door, got your shoes on your tiny little feet, and walked out.

[hermannsthumb]

If your'e still taking prompts the one from the halloween list: "we’re secret friends with benefits and you accidentally wore my shirt to to the party so you’re pretending you came as me and it turns out your impression of me is on point and you know me better than you know myself are you sure you’re not in love with me??" seems like such a good newmann one. love your writing :)

from list of halloween prompts here

this one is literally so fucking good for them. god. GOD. theres like the tiniest bit alluded to not sfw in the beginning (after the making out) but after that its fair game

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

“Ngh,” Newt says. “Keep doing that.”

“Hmm?” Hermann says. He drags his mouth up from Newt’s collarbone, eyes dark, pupils wide, mouth curled into a lazy smile. Almost coquettish.

Newt blinks down at him blearily. And with a little poorly-concealed irritation. “I said keep doing that,” he says. “Not stop doing that.” He gives Hermann’s head a nudge. A tiny gentle one. He’s eager, he can’t help it; Hermann always gets him all eager and hot and bothered. He doesn’t think he’ll mind. “C’mon, baby, c’mon--”

It’s a mistake. Hermann minds: his demeanor changes in an instant, like Newt flipped a light switch that was clearly labeled with a do not touch! in masking tape and Sharpie. (Shit, Newt thinks.) “Don’t,” Hermann snaps, and swats at Newt. “You know I can’t stand it when you pull--”

“I’m not pulling your hair!” Newt says. He drops his hand away and holds it high above his own head just to make his point. “I swear. I was just trying--”

Hermann rolls off of him and onto his back, huffing, arms folding across his bare chest. Lacking any better ideas, Newt follows him. “Aw, Hermann,” he says, “don’t be like that.” He presses kisses to Hermann’s jaw, his chin, the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to--”

“Unhand me at once,” Hermann mumbles. Newt kisses his cheeks, his mouth. Hermann kisses back. His hand slides up to cup the back of Newt’s neck. “Wretched little man,” he continues to mumble. “Ah.”

“There we go, Hermann,” Newt says, grinning against his lips, and adds, sarcastically (because it always makes Hermann laugh), with a little nip of teeth, “There’s my Hermy-wermy.”

Hermann makes a face. “You know I can’t stand that either.”

“Really?” Newt murmurs. He tiptoes his hand down Hermann’s chest, down to the waistband of his ugly slacks, the open zipper; his grin spreads wider. “Because I think,” he starts to tug Hermann’s slacks down, “your hermy-wermy would say otherw--”

There’s a knock at the door.

Mood ruined, and all of Newt’s hard work getting Hermann game to go again ruined, too, Newt slides his hand back to safe territory and lets out a colorful stream of profanity. Hermann wrinkles his nose beneath him. Whatever, he curses just as much as Newt. “Fuck,” Newt finishes. “Who the hell is that?”

Hermann pushes him off and sits up with a grunt. “We’ve probably got a damned laboratory meeting we forgot about,” he says, “because someone couldn’t keep it in his Hot Topic skinny jeans long enough to wait until we clocked out for the night.”

“They’re not from Hot Topic,” Newt says. He pauses. “How do you even know what Hot Topic is, anyway?”

“I’ve seen the label on them,” Hermann says. There’s another knock. Hermann sighs, and makes to slip out of bed. “If you won’t get it, Newton, I will.”

Newt drags him back down quickly. “What are you doing?” he hisses. “Get back here! You are not answering my door looking like--” He plucks at the elastic of Hermann’s tighty-whiteys peeking out, pokes at the hickey purpling on his neck. “--this. Or at all, actually, how suspicious would that look? This is my bedroom.”

“We’re colleagues,” Hermann says with a sniff. “It’s perfectly natural for us to--er--consort. Outside of work. For all they know we’re talking about work.”

“In our underwear?” Newt says, and points out, “It’s not really natural for colleagues to screw each other as much as we do.”

Hermann flushes. “No one would be able to tell--”

To be completely honest, Newt really, really doesn’t care whether or not people know he and Hermann are--uh--rivals with benefits, but Hermann is always so weird about privacy, and Newt supposes it’s a little bit of a cliche to sleep with a co-worker, so he takes one for the team. “Jesus, Hermann, I’ll get the door,” he says. He swings his legs to the floor and does his jeans back up, then grabs the first shirt he can find and pulls that on too. “Just sit there and look pretty.”

Newt learns two things in the course of squeezing his head out the door and talking to a mildly intoxicated LOCCENT worker: one, that the guy was sent by Tendo to remind them about the super awesome spectacular Halloween party going on down the hallway right his second, and two, that Newt and Hermann were invited to this Halloween party, apparently agreed enthusiastically to coming to it a week ago, and if Newt doesn’t find Hermann and show up with him in ten minutes, Tendo is totally never speaking to them or inviting them to another awesome party ever again. Newt learns a third thing once he and Hermann toss on the rest of their clothing, smooth out their hair a little, and hurry down the hallway to where the party is being held within those allotted ten minutes: he’s accidentally put on Hermann’s shirt. A fourth: Hermann’s accidentally put on his.

Before Hermann can waltz in through the door and raise questions (because his buttons are straining obviously under his low-cut button-up sweatervest, kaiju blood stains a spot just under the lapel, and Newt’s swimming in Hermann’s sleeves and has got a fucking pocket protector in), Newt drags him off to the side and shoves him against a deserted wall to explain their predicament.

“We have to change,” Hermann declares immediately. “We can’t be seen--”

“No, look,” Newt says. He’s quickly formulating a plan. They won’t be able to swap pants, obviously, but-- “Take off your blazer and sweater.”

Hermann frowns. He tucks his blazer tighter around himself. “No,” he says. 

“Take them off, jackass!” Newt orders, ripping his own tie off from around his head and starting to kick off his boots. “And your shoes. Look, it’s a Halloween party, right? People dress up for Halloween parties. Let’s just say we’re going as each other, everyone will get a huge kick out of it, no one finds out we’re, you know.” He adjusts his left index finger and thumb into a small circle, and pokes his right index finger through it a few times with bonus sound effects. “Rendezvousing. Platonically. Your public image is saved.” 

“No,” Hermann repeats, though he flushes. “I am not wearing your disgusting boots.”

Patience running very, very thin, Newt corners him closer against the wall. Not very successfully: Hermann does, after all, have several inches on him. Newt has to glare up at him. “So help me God, Hermann,” he says through gritted teeth, “if you don’t give me your blazer right now, you can find some other horny bozo to--”

“Fine!” Hermann says quickly. He yanks the skinny tie from Newt’s hands. “If you spill anything on--”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

After a hurried exchange of accessories which leaves Newt looking like an exceptionally short and baggy Hermann, and Hermann like Newt if he wore contacts and enjoyed attacking his hair with scissors, they waltz into the party together. Newt’s actually pretty pleased with how their costumes turned out, all things considered--Hermann even consented to having Newt draw shitty approximations of his tattoos on Hermann’s arms with a marker they found in Hermann’s pocket.

Everyone at the party gets a total kick out of it, too, which is the best part--especially when Newt decides to toss in some quality Hermann Impressions. 

“Newton,” he grumbles, poshly, hands on his hips, "quiet down right this instant.” That gets a few laughs. “You know I can’t stand it when you have fun.”

More laughs; Hermann, nursing a drink, looks only the vaguest bit amused. “Very funny,” he says. “My turn, now.” He shrinks in on himself in a way that makes him look just a bit shorter, and clears his throat: the voice that comes out next is so high-pitched, so scratchy, so fast, so--uncomfortably Newt that Newt nearly drops his own drink in shock. Especially once Hermann tosses in equally uncomfortably Newt hand gestures. “I’m going to do something ill-advised and dangerous to prove I’m right and give Hermann a stroke,” he declares. “Don’t you just love kaiju? They’re so cool.”

“I’ve never said I loved kaiju,” Newt says, but he’s grinning. 

“They’re so cool,” Hermann repeats. “Do you like my tattoos? You know I have a Doctor Who one on my--?”

“Dude!” Newt hisses. He was eighteen, okay? Anyway, that’s not the kind of private, personal information that Hermann should be sharing if he wants to even remotely pretend they don’t get up to hijinks in the lab after hours. 

“Dude!” Hermann echoes, perfectly.

The little crowd of their co-workers laugh. (Louder laughs than any of Newt’s impressions got.) Newt laughs, too, despite his embarrassment. And despite something beyond embarrassment, something he can’t quite put his finger on--it’s making his heart race, his palms sweat. Hermann sure must, well, know him to get him down like that, obvious comical exaggeration aside. (Or maybe it’s just because Newt talks a lot.)

“Ha, ha,” Newt says. “Okay, you win.”

“Thanks, dude,” Hermann squeaks in his Newt-voice. He winks. 

Newt corners him at the snack table crammed into the far back of the room later, while Hermann is--innocently--scooping some bat-shaped pretzels onto a plate with a large plastic spoon. Newt makes his presence known by stealing a handful and swallowing down half of them. “Gotta say, dude,” he teases, “I’m a good look on you.”

“Of course you’d think that, you narcissist,” Hermann says, but he’s smiling. He swipes a few pretzels back. “Get your own. The bowl is right there.”

Newt steals another from Hermann’s plate. “It’s a crying shame you didn’t borrow my jeans, too,” he says. “I bet you could rock ‘em.”

“Mm, I highly doubt that.”

“You absolutely could,” Newt says. He glances around to make sure no one’s looking, and quickly darts his hand out to pinch Hermann’s ass. Hermann drops the spoon back into the pretzel bowl in surprise. “Though I guess there’s not much to fill them out--”

“You’re a wretched little man,” Hermann says, for the second time that day. The guy really needs some new insults.

“Your voice was really fucking good, by the way,” Newt says, casually, as they lurk in a different corner (lit up with a blacklight) a few minutes later. He’s finally gotten his own plate of food, though he keeps stealing from Hermann’s anyway. “Your Newt voice, I mean. And the--” He waves his hands around. “Do you practice it a lot?”

This pulls a snort from Hermann. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“How’s it so good, then?” Newt pushes, and Hermann shifts, clearly uncomfortable.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “I suppose I just--pay attention to you.”

Newt cracks a grin, and bumps his elbow against Hermann’s side. “I would kinda hope so.”

“Not like--” Hermann sighs; Newt shuts up fast. (Hermann’s moments of emotional candidness are very, very rare: the most he’s ever done after a fun romp in the sack, beyond leaving immediately, is pat Newt’s hand and say thank you, Newton.) “What I mean to say is that I am...fond of you. Fonder than I am of anyone else. And I watch you, occasionally, because I am fond of you, and notice small things about you--your speech patterns, how you carry yourself...”

That’s, well--it’s certainly candid, and unexpected, and good, of course, to know that Hermann like-likes him, but it’s also a little-- “That’s kinda creepy, Hermann,” Newt says. “You watch me?”

“That’s not--” Hermann stammers, and it turns into a quiet groan. “Oh, I’ve fouled this up. Newton--”

Newt saves him by stretching up on his tiptoes and planting a firm kiss on his mouth. Completely chaste. Devoid of any dirty intentions, like all of their previous kisses have been, like what they’re used to. Just a simple little kiss. It takes Hermann aback: Newt can feel him freeze up before he returns it tentatively.

It’s over in seconds. Newt pulls back and pats Hermann’s cheek. “I know what you mean,” he says. “I feel exactly the same way.” Then his grin returns. “I mean, I don’t watch you like a creep or anything--”

“Shut up,” Hermann says, pink-faced and very pleased.

[buttercupsfrocks]

Hey, Tumblr, did you know that there’s an Interior Design Police as well as a Fashion Police?! Strangely neither did I until I stumbled upon a listicle entitled 75 Things No Woman Over 50 Should Own on the delusionarily titled bestlifeonline.com. There, along with the usual arbitrary selections of sartorial crimes against humanity, (tracky bottoms, skinny scarves, bolero jackets), were the following:-

Tapestries. (What, even if one designed and made them oneself, comme ça?)

Neon signs.

A piggy bank.

Novelty salt and pepper shakers, (Oops!)

A vinyl tablecloth. 

Novelty pillows. (Dang!)

A rolodex.

Indoor wicker furniture.

A lava lamp. (Who doesn’t love a lava lamp? Not this fully paid up B52s fan, I can assure you).

A dish of seashells.  (D’oh! Missed the memo again).

Framed autographs (yep, got one of those too).

Talk about random. And there’s more; much more. It appears I should have jettisoned my giant pin boards at least twenty years ago, along with my magnifying mirror, stuffed animals, coloured pens, fairy lights, frameless posters, cheap mismatched silverware, decorations based on cartoon characters, mismatched towels, striped wallpaper, tassels, and elaborate keychains. (They’d have a blue fit if they knew that one of my keychains has both a twiddly fake key and a tassel on it). In fact the entire website is little more than an endless litany of stuff you should feel ashamed about owning, wearing, and in some cases, even saying. Like I totes can’t say “totes” – me, a writer, who loves slang so much she has at least a bookshelf-and-a-half dedicated to it. I also can’t say: “OMG”,  “humblebrag”, “talk to the hand”, “fauxpology”, “sorry not sorry”, “I can’t even”, “as if”, “sus”, (a term in common UK parlance among people of all age groups for the duration of my lifetime), “ship”, (fuck you; Spuffy forever), and…wait for it…”adulting”, even though I plainly know a good deal more about doing it than the embarrassingly embarassable twelve year old ninny who probably wrote the article.

And still on the subjects of lists that give me the right royal pip, there’s thelist.com. 

“If you are familiar with Dr Martens, you are too old to wear them.” 

I’m sorry, what now?! 

“We know those Crocs and orthopaedic shoes are super comfy, but they're not doing you any favours. There's something to be said for smart, sensible footwear, but you don't have to sacrifice your style and give away your age just to save yourself a few blisters”.

Unless of course you suffer with any kind of condition that dictates you  have to wear fugly orthopaedic footwear, as numerous older people do. And blisters are the least of my problems, bub. Believe me the bunting and party hats come out when I can persuade anything approaching normal-looking footwear to accommodate my orthotics. Doc Martens are one of the precious few options available to me. I am, incidentally, feeling especially “salty” (another word my age precludes me from using), about this right now as, having discovered I can sometimes wear sandals with a moulded orthotic-like sole, these Office sandals... 

...which I genuinely love and desperately wanted to rock this summer, damn near crippled me when I tried them on. 

For all the blather about older women being able to cast off the shackles of convention and wear what we please, (or whatever the expert du jour thinks is within reason), the same unspoken assumptions that prevail in mainstream ladymedia are present in spades on these websites. Nobody reading could possibly be fat, or if they are they’re assumed to be fighting their poor beleaguered bodies unto death. The only chub ever alluded to, (albeit soto voce), is “middle aged spread”, but only the vestigial kind that can be miraculously rendered  invisible by the belting of an “unflattering” oversized garment in the middle. 

“Show off your curves by adding a cute belt to that dress or coat. It will accentuate your shape and let you still wear those comfortable items in your wardrobe without looking like you're wearing a muumuu.”

Never mind that I quite like wearing a muumuu, far from showing off my curves, belting any of my coats would make me look like the Albert Hall, which while undoubtably a Look, is not one I’m after.  

“Balance is important when it comes to crafting a stylish look. Wearing oversized clothing disrupts that delicate equilibrium and unintentionally ages you.”  

What. Ever. 

The hectoring never lets up. 

“There really is no such thing as grown up glitter when it comes to apparel, so it's best to accept that fact and avoid glittery tops, bottoms, and everything else!” 

“Dressing like the '80s or '90s can be fun for a party, but being attached to a trend from your youth can look tired and disconnected and therefore can make one age themselves.” 

“Large prints, especially on a tight clothing item like leggings, are an avoid-at-all-costs look. They are just too loud and aren't a piece that helps you look your best”

Among the ten items everyday.health.com bans me from wearing on account of my encroaching dotage are “too trendy denim”. Apparently I’m “not in my element” with it so my hard work was all for nought. Also verboten are oversized, overly decorated hobo bags, cheap unflattering underwear; (fat chance of finding cheap underwear in plus-sizes anyway though apparently I should do like the Sainted Gwyneth and wear Spanx under everything. Because she totally needs to and I so enjoy colic); and…wait for it…wait for it...  

...“loud accessories”. This includes, horror of horrors, plastic earrings, which apparently I forfeited the right to wear at 35. (Do they count vintage phenolic, bakelite, and lucite as plastic I wonder? Because if enough rich older women get dissuaded from wearing it I might actually be able to afford some instead of faking it). Instead I’m exhorted to make a... 

“Stunning Substitute: think quality and quantity. Limit yourself to one funky accessory per outfit – as long as it’s well-made. Think a leopard-print scarf, thin silver bangles or a gold clutch to dress up nice jeans and a simple top”. 

Yeah, no. And, by the way here’s a picture of Helen Mirren in quite the loudest plastic necklace I’ve ever seen which, as you can plainly see, ages her terribly. 

*snort*

Which brings me neatly to the subject of role models. Dame Helen comes up a lot. Here’s Harper’s Bazaar with some more:

“Pay close attention to the way women like Robin Wright, Julianne Moore, and Kristin Scott Thomas dress. And revel in the moment when you can justify shopping for labels like Céline, Calvin Klein, Jil Sander, and the Row — because not all sweaters are created equal. The Perfect Length (not too long, not Rihanna short), with the just-tantalizing-enough neckline, is more than worth the extra zeros”.  

Wow. So much nope to pick apart in just three sentences! 

Firstly, while I’m sure they’re all perfectly charming, I look nothing at all like any of these women, so why would I aspire to their style? Secondly, they have allllllll the extra zeros in their bank accounts while I have zero zeros. Thirdly, even if I could afford any of those labels, (a sweater from The Row costs well over a thousand quid by the way), why the love of little fluffy kittens would anyone think I want to dress like this?

I mean I know I like an oversized garment but I’m good with Monki, thanks. If that lot doesn’t say, “this was the only shit I could find to fit me”, I don’t know what does. And quite what the tiny, terminally haggard looking Olsen twins, who dreamed up the wretched label, would look like in any of this eye-bleedingly expensive folderol I shudder to think. You’d probably need to send in the fire brigade to find them in all that fabric, poor loves.

At its root shaming-as-entertainment is a tool for capitalism, both simple and complex. Feel mortified for owning something age inappropriate? Buy something new and more grown up, preferably at enormous expense. Or, if pay day’s too far off, invest in some garbage gossip rag and bitch about the state of those richer and more famous than you are. It’ll make you feel great for all of five minutes, then you can fill the emptiness that follows in its wake with some cheap fast fashion or cake. Even though cake is naughty and unclean and fast fashion is killing the environment; but hey that’s what diet books (kerching!) and gym memberships (kerching!) and ethical fashion, (with a cut-off size of 16), are for, right? 

Ironically, in yet another catalogue of grievous mistakes to make once you’re over forty, bestlifemyarse.com includes “neglecting your mental health” and “basing yourself-worth on what other people think”. But how the hell are women expected to do that under a constant barrage of opprobrium, not least since also included in the aforementioned list is “avoiding the scale”?

Tumblr, I put it to you that people are just as likely to buy stuff if they’re feeling good about themselves than if they’re feeling shite. I fucking love stuff but there has to be an alternative way to sell it that’s less damaging to our sanity and self esteem. That’s in part why fat women created their own media. But, the more it edges into the mainstream, the more it it puts the wind up advertisers and those who rely on their sponsorship. So now our message – the one about self acceptance and being able to live unrepentantly in the bodies we have – has been appropriated, de-fanged, and rebranded as “Body Positivity”, an ersatz movement intended to reassure average-sized women fretful they might be a little bit fat, with the added proviso, “as long as you’re healthy”, (i.e not fat). And while the net abounds with token examples of older lady bloggers granted the status of fashion maven, they’re all slender as reeds, and most of them are ex-models. Big fucking whoop. Meanwhile anyone of any age who is objectively fat is “promoting obesity” simply by expressing our personal style in public.

My collection of shells incidentally, includes some my mum brought me back from the Channel Islands when I was a child; a conch a friend dove for  in the Virgin Islands and presented me for my 19th birthday; several beauties that held pride of place in a late family friend’s study for decades; an abalone shell from New Zealand plucked from the beach by my Kiwi pal Di; a sand dollar from Ocean Beach in San Francisco given to me by my dear friend Jude who died of secondary breast cancer a few months before Jane did; some pebbles gathered with my friend Lesley in literal sub-zero temperatures on a completely deserted beach one not-so-flaming June up north, both of us in hysterics over the utter bleakness of it all, and a load more shells from the Pembrokeshire coast contributed by my friend Steve’s departed mum back in the 1980s. Even the bowl itself was given to me by Karen, whose parents found it in the attic of their new house and thought I might like it. It’s a veritable a lifetime in shells; a celebration of love and friendship spanning decades. In short it has meaning, which is a damned sight more than you can say for any of these wretched lists.

Rise above the buzzkill, Tumblr.

[melchishake]

since it’s the last day of women’s history month i thought id suggest a few of my favorite musicals with strong women leads (feel free to add if you have any!)

starting this off with hairspray!

first of all: tracy turnblad? queen of diminishing racism and fat shaming! honestly I thought this musical was just about a fat girl who made it far but it is WAY more than that! also I Love how it doesn’t go around the basic “oh... I am fat... and need to lose weight and a man to finally love myself...!” hell no- she loves herself and pushes everyone towards loving EVERYONE and sees beauty in all shapes and colors and sizes! like rlly? becoming an essential part of a tv show and assisting a protest in order to diminish racism? you go queen! and yeah sure, she DID get a man but it wasn’t even that big of a focus. she deadass was just an amazing ally and helped out her fellow people recognize equality and I stan her so much. really the strong overweight ally role model that we all need honestly.

second off: miss saigon!

first things first, lea salonga? absolute LEGEND!eva noblezada? also an absolute legend!!! this musical is set around the vietnam war and the lead, kim, resorts to prostitution in order to survive. slight spoilers but she does end up falling in love with a man and concieving a child, but she does EVERYTHING in her power to ensure that her child has a better life than she had.

9 to 5!

I’ve only seen a high school production of this but it was AMAZING. it’s about three extremelydifferent women working for a company with a pretty awful misogynistic boss. Despite their differences, they work together and overcome sexism in their work place. my favorite part of this musical is the three leads: violet, judy, and doralee. violet is a strong working woman but because she’s constantly stepped over because she’s a woman and her boss even takes advantage of this and steals her ideas. judy is recently broken up with her husband (or boyfriend? I don’t remember exactly) and is constantly stepped over by him (and in general.) and finally: doralee! I can’t really choose a favorite honestly but she’s probably the closest to a favorite that I have. she’s a “sexy” southern gal with a bunch of sex appeal. to her misfortune, since she has a ton of sex appeal, people tend to overlook her and just reduce to her to her tits and ass and label her as a “slut” even though she’s happily married and an EXTREMELY loyal wife. seeing these three women thrive through out the musical just puts a smile to my face.

Allegiance

okay so this is kind of .... cheating because she’s more of a supporting character/second lead but I Really Feel that this one is worth mentioning. Allegiance is about the events that transpired during WW2 from the perspective of the people that resides in the Japanese internment camps. during WW2 the Japanese men were drafted for war to “prove their allegiance to the United States” when they were pretty much just being sent on suicide missions. this musical shows different perspectives: the men who willingly drafted in the war, the men who rebelled against the drafts, and the women in the camps. Though of course the male part of of this musical Is the biggest part of the musical, I really feel that the women’s part is worth mentioning for women’s history month.

and last but definitely not least: Legally blonde!

Okay so I’m a liiiiittle biased because my school is doing legally blonde rn and i am OBSESSED with this musical right now but I Geniunely love this musical and the message it sends. if you don’t know what legally blonde is, it’s about a privileged, perfect, skinny, white, “dumb blonde” girl named elle woodes who decides to go to Harvard to pursue her ex boyfriend. though she does start off as a “dumb blonde,” her character development is AMAZING and I love her So Much and I want to do well for her!!!!! like really she’s AMAZING and I can’t get over how much I love her!!!!!! she really said fuck warner rights and become the true top self sufficient icon she is!! I can’t even like ... properly put to words to describe this musical I just Love Her So So Much u got no clue please watch this musical for her

[amorremanet]

In celebration of @blackpaladinweek — some Twinganes (i.e., Shiro and his twin brother Ryou) headcanons from the punk band/university/modern setting hot mess AU of But boys spring infernal (as of now: Mature, ~300k, 17 of 21 chapters; main ship is Keith/Shiro, with several past ships & side-ships; this AU’s previous Ryou + Twinganes post) (also dedicated to Saki @bishiro ​):

Q: Which one of the Shirogane twins loves Legally Blonde more? / A: Trick question, they love Legally Blonde more or less equally

That said, Ryou doesn’t love Mean Girls as much as Shiro does. Or very much at all, really

It’s not that Ryou minds the movie? But he’s tired of it, and too many Mean Girls references at once will make Ryou want to scream

Shiro may never let Ryou live down his t(w)eenage celebrity crush on Christina Aguilera, but to be fair, Ryou isn’t going to let Kashi live down his still very much alive celebrity crush on Sir Ian McKellan, either

Unlike Ryou, who took some time to arrive at his Bi Awakening, Shiro has known that he’s gay since they were about eight and he got a kiddie-crush on a boy in his class.

Their Mom heard about this when she asked if they had any special Valentines in mind in their class, and while Ryou just said the name of the first girl in class who he thought of as a friend but was mostly non-committal about it, Shiro was very into Cameron Levesque.

Mom and Dad Shirogane talked to Shiro about this first, basically explaining that they love him no matter what and there is nothing wrong with him being gay, but that he needs to be careful because there are, unfortunately, several people in the world who disagree and could try to hurt him

Ryou’s nine-year-old opinion on this was, “Well, if Kashi is gay, then duh, obviously there’s nothing wrong with anybody being gay. How could there be? My brother is the best and anyone who says otherwise is probably just jealous, I will fight them if they try to say that he’s wrong for wanting to kiss other boys”

Excluding snowball fights, Ryou has been in five physical fights in his entire life. Four somehow involved the desire to stand up for his brother. The fifth one, on the other hand, involved Ryou standing up to said brother, and it ended in him and Shiro hugging each other while crying.

From the age of eleven until they were almost 24, Ryou and Shiro had an ongoing debate about which fictional aliens would be the most fun to get abducted by. After Shiro’s time “living with” (read: being effectively held hostage by) Sendak and Haxus, though, that whole discussion stopped being one that he could find any humor in.

Like, if Earth made first contact with the Vulcans tomorrow and Shiro was offered passage back to their home-world, he’d have a hard time saying, “No”? But he’s really lost his taste for, “abducted by aliens” fantasies

One of the biggest disappointments of their childhood was that their Mom and Dad never let them get a cat, but in fairness? Tiny Ryou could be kind of a space cadet sometimes (in that he gets absorbed in things very easily and sometimes needs to be reminded that the rest of the world exists), while Tiny Kashi was either trying way too hard to be Perfect or a mischievous, rambunctious handful who fancied himself a prankster, with very little middle-ground between those two options

—so any cats they adopted likely would’ve been loved by the twins but cared for by their parents or grandparents, instead of functioning as a Lesson in Responsibility That Is Shaped Like A Pet for the twins

One of Ryou’s current disappointments is that he is a financially stable adult who could totally adopt a cat…… but he isn’t sure how Slav and a cat would get along with each other, and as troublesome as Slav can be, Ryou does love his friend/roommate, and he wants a cat? But not enough to risk a situation that could be Not Good for Slav

Ryou is responsible for turning Shiro on to Steven Universe, and Hunk is responsible for introducing the show to Ryou.

The character Ryou most identifies with is Connie (and Shiro can see it but would also peg Ryou as having a lot in common with Sadie).

The characters Shiro most identifies with are Pearl and Lapis Lazuli — and Ryou agrees kinda but he doesn’t like it, especially because:

1. he knows that the episode “Lost At Sea” is a big reason why Shiro loves Lapis as much as he does, and considering that episode really isn’t subtle in portraying Lapis’s fusion with Jasper as an abusive relationship, Ryou’s Protective Brother Instincts get pricked up hardcore;

and 2. Ryou can’t help but be suspicious and concerned about how Pearl and Lapis have character designs that emphasize thinness and physical delicacy, given that Shiro has an eating disorder and body image issues

(which okay, Shiro understands where Ryou’s coming from here, but this is sort of a sticking point because Shiro isn’t sure how he can put Ryou’s mind at ease without risk of accidentally sounding like he’s devaluing his problems

—also, he knows from experience that, apparently, “Duly noted, but I never wanted to be that kind of skinny and that isn’t the real problem with me anyway” is not the right answer)

Neither twin will argue that Hunk is the resident Steven Quartz Universe, like…… They don’t see a case to the contrary, really. And Hunk is totally cool with that.

When they were sixteen, Shiro passed his driver’s test on the first time out while Ryou failed it twice before finally getting it right. These days, though, Ryou is the twin who actually has a car and ever drives it. If you ask Shiro why he’s so averse to driving, he will tell you, “Trying to drive a car in Chicago after barely having my license for six months” and leave it at that.

Anyone who tries to tell you that either Shiro or Ryou is the, “calm, level-headed twin” while the other is the, “temperamental, reckless twin”? ……Yeah, either they’ve only just met the twins or they are lying to you.

Like, it’s fair(-ish) to join Shiro in saying that he is the, “genius twin” while Ryou is, “the twin with common sense” — in D&D stats terms: Shiro has more Intelligence than Wisdom, while Ryou is about even on both but isn’t as off-the-charts in Intelligence as Shiro is

—but… ahaha, no, both of them can be either the, “calm, level-headed twin” or the, “temperamental, reckless twin” at different points and in different ways. Both of them are easily outraged by abuses of power and/or on behalf of other people, but even that, they do differently.

A lot (though not all) of Shiro’s outrage could be summed up as, “People who have power don’t use it responsibly and it hurts the people who have less power, or who rely on them, or similar, and Shiro has no idea why he has to explain that you should care about other people, but he is angry and offended that some people think this is optional, what the Hell, how do you just not care about other people”

However: for all Shiro will (usually) let himself be openly angry about other people’s abuse, pain, suffering, etc., he usually tries to deny, repress, or ignore the anger he feels about things that hurt him. He’s getting better while working on all this with Ulaz, but he has a history of letting that anger build up until he snaps, or only come out in his music and/or when he’s angry on someone else’s behalf.

His typical interactions with Slav aren’t even an exception that prove the rule here. It’s an easy mistake to make, given how short Shiro’s temper is with Slav… but fact is, he simply hits his breaking point with Slav faster than he does with most people.

In the opinions of several people, Shiro’s pronounced bleeding-heart tendencies might very easily be the death of him someday if he doesn’t learn to get better at managing them. Like, most people agree that his compassion, his level of concern for other people, and his desire to help people are at least some degree of admirable — but Shiro has a problem of giving too much of himself to other people.

He also has a problem of getting angry about things that he can’t really do anything about (sometimes genuinely and sometimes because he doesn’t really want to deal with any of the things he can affect any meaningful change over because they’re messy and tangled and being Complicated at him, especially when they’re emotionally complicated)

On top of those problems, Shiro also has the problem where he has trouble with insisting on some of his boundaries and asking people to respect them — and he can sometimes be really, really bad at remembering where his boundaries are when he’s faced with people who need help, or issues that he cares about (though Shiro fixates more on the people affected by those issues than on the issues themselves), or the pain and suffering of other people in general

—Because Shiro wants to help. Shiro wants to make people’s lives better. Shiro is the sort of person who endures horrible pain and trauma and comes out the other end of it, wanting to be the sort of person who would’ve helped his past-self when he was in deep shit (and one of his biggest motivations as an artist/songwriter is wanting to make music that really reaches people and affects them somehow, even if it’s “just” reminding them that they aren’t alone). Which is all great?

……But when it comes to helping people, Shiro has all the chill of a broken freezer (which is to say, “none whatsoever”), and he often shoves his own problems down or to the side in the name of trying to help other people instead, despite how this has gotten him into trouble so many times before

The list of people who have expressed concern about these tendencies of Shiro at one point or another includes but is not limited to:

Ryou

Keith

Lance

Pidge

Hunk kinda sorta, he waffles about it

Matt

Ulaz sometimes

Iverson despite the fact that he also admires Shiro’s capacity for hope and compassion

Shiro’s old roommate Mark and their friend Trevor

Shiro’s old friend Laura (whom he fake-dated when they were in high school so her parents wouldn’t find out that she’s a lesbian)

Acxa (including one incident where she was like, “Look, Lotor is my best friend and has been since we were nine — but he’s a disaster, you two are not working out together, and I know that you want to help him…… but you are probably going to kill yourself if you keep trying so hard to help him”)

Ezor

Zethrid

Narti (through the conduit of Ezor because she didn’t feel like talking to Shiro for herself)

Shiro and Ryou’s Mom

Shiro and Ryou’s Dad

Grandfather Shirogane

Grandmother Shirogane

Sendak (but he meant this less out of real concern and more as a way of going, “Why don’t you give in and just come revel in being a monster with me”)

Slav (but he expressed the sentiment to Ryou because he felt like Shiro wasn’t listening to him, which was accurate)

Shiro’s A.A./N.A. sponsor Robin

David And Miranda From Group

and Lotor, even though he has directly benefited from Shiro’s bleeding-heart tendencies more than pretty much anyone else in Shiro’s life except for maybe Sendak

—Allura only hasn’t expressed concerns like this yet because she only just met Shiro recently

So……… yeah. This is a Thing. People become aware of it pretty quickly, when dealing with Shiro.

Ryou, on the other hand, has some trouble admitting that he’s angry on his own behalf but nowhere near as much as Shiro. In general, he’s far more likely than Shiro to acknowledge that he is angry and then either try to push it aside because “there is something more important to deal with right now,” or start giving people the cold shoulder

(—this happens even if he isn’t angry with them or anyone in particular: Ryou is very much a person who feels a need to tinker with or work on something when he gets angry. He also tends to want space from other people, and unless someone is comfortable enough with him to know better, his cranky tinkering tends to look like he’s shutting people out)

When Ryou gets outraged for other people, it tends to be in a way that’s focused on their boundaries or sense of agency, or things that were taken from them. While Shiro’s outrage tends to be more centered on the pain and suffering and wanting to find some way to alleviate it (usually by doing something and finding some kind of silver lining or a purpose to dedicate oneself to), Ryou’s outrage is about the specifics of what was done unto other people and how it tried to take away their sense of power in their own lives, and then what to do about moving forward (with an occasional side of vengeance and a serious vindictive streak once roused)

He’s also much more likely to get angry about people whom or issues that he cares about personally, rather than emotionally bleeding over everything he doesn’t really enjoy about the world — like, yes, he can get upset about injustices that he has no personal relation to or stake in, and it bothers him that many people in positions of power are manipulative assholes who care more about themselves and their own security than about the people beneath them on the different hierarchical ladders?

But unlike Shiro, Ryou looks at those things and goes, “I don’t like them, but there largely doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to directly change them, and as much as they upset me, I have other issues and troubles that I need to focus on because I actually can do something about them. I’m only human, I only have so much energy and so many resources, and I care about those things? But I have no idea how to affect any meaningful change, so I’m going to go put more energy into something that I can actually do anything about”

Basically, just…… Ryou and Shiro can both be temperamental and they can both be reckless. They can also both be totally calm and level-headed. It depends on the context, since they can get upset about different things, and

True, there are other factors in play as well, but Shiro’s mental health is the biggest reason why Ryou has a longer list of times when he’s gone, “Kashi, NO” than Shiro’s list of incidents requiring a, “Ryou, NO.”

Specifically, Ryou has had to go, “Kashi, NO” more often than Shiro’s done the opposite…… because Shiro has a history of disregarding his own well-being or outright not caring about it, whether this meant, “trying to climb a precarious-looking tree to save his friend Laura’s cat when they were all about ten” or, “mixing up a ‘cocktail’ that is equal parts tequila and cherry-flavored liquid Vicodin, then chugging six of them on an empty stomach”

(disclaimer: please, for the love of god, DO NOT DO THIS. it is a miracle that Shiro lived through doing that to himself, so please, please, please do not do this thing.)

Shiro doesn’t get what Ryou’s deal is about Sven. None of them gets why people think Sven looks so similar to the twins, but Shiro’s bigger sticking point is, “Seriously, why do you act like Sven is such a life-ruiner? He’s a decent guy, just kind of a goofball, and apparently he sounds like the Swedish Chef in bed? Which is a mental image you can thank Lance for, but??? Come on, are you really that jealous of Slav having another friend”

(to answer Shiro’s question: ……well, yes, Ryou is jealous? But it’s more that he thinks that Slav may have oversold this friendship and that Sven thinks of him as a work friend only and doesn’t really care about his problems… but in fairness, Ryou gets to that conclusion by conveniently ignoring certain pieces of evidence about Sven and Slav’s relationship that he doesn’t want to acknowledge because he is jealous of Sven, so……… yup.)

At this point, whenever the twins show off any old childhood photos, they make the jokes comparing themselves to the Sprouse miscreants before anyone else can. They’ve heard it so many times, and it’s always some kind of variant on the same thing — “Wow, you guys looked practically the same until you were about twelve, then Ryou started getting fat and Shiro didn’t” — and they’re fricking tired of it

While the brothers enjoy both Star Trek and Star Wars, there are some party lines here. Ryou infinitely prefers Star Wars (and he will fight people over both the validity of the prequels and whether or not the different Expanded Universe stories are still canon in light of the new trilogy)

Shiro meanwhile thinks that Star Trek is the superior sci-fi franchise (and he will fight people who think he should’ve dressed up as Kirk or Picard or anyone but Uhura for his past Trek-themed Halloween costumes. Because…… what. He wanted to wear TOS!Uhura’s red mini-dress and Mirrorverse!Uhura’s outfit, so he did, what is your point)

That said, there are some photos of the Mirror!Uhura outfit that Shiro would rather not be reminded of. They’re old selfies from around Halloween 2012, he was dangerously unhealthy, and and he sent them to Ryou and Laura for opinions without even thinking about the possibility that their reactions might focus less on how he looked in the costume and more on the fact that: 1. Shiro had amended the costume in certain suspicious ways; and 2. he looked like he was going to pass out at any minute

“Certain suspicious ways” here means: Shiro tried to cite the fact that it was a chilly October as a reason for putting a long-sleeved black t-shirt under the red-and-gold-trimmed bra part…… except Ryou and Laura both called bullshit, because Shiro had worn the proper costume in colder weather before without caring, and they had reason to suspect that he was trying to hide something

Ryou zeroed in on the possibility that Shiro might’ve been trying to hide injuries from Sendak. Laura focused, instead, on the fact that Shiro looked particularly thin and thought that he might’ve been trying to throw people off from noticing this. Both of them were right.

Two weeks after those selfies, Shiro had a fainting spell at work — which would eventually become a huge sticking point for Keith, because he thought said fainting spell made Shiro take his well-being more seriously and made him give more of a fuck about how much his self-abuse and relationship with Sendak were wrecking him…… but Keith was other than right.

I mean, the fainting spell scared Shiro, and it briefly made him take things more seriously…… but that didn’t last

Aside from Ryou and Laura, the only people who’ve seen those selfies are: Sendak (poking through Shiro’s phone without his consent); Ulaz (specifically asked to see them for therapeutic reasons); Lotor (didn’t believe that Shiro had ever worn said outfit for any reason and unfortunately, Shiro realized too late that the first pics he’d found were those ones); and Lance (walked in on Shiro low-key moping and obsessing over those selfies after he’d shown them to Lotor and endured the ensuing awkward conversation*)

*: said conversation was largely awkward because Lotor was concerned and did want to help, but unfortunately, he has very little idea what to do with genuine emotions, which out of a lot of things in his life

—but the biggest cause is the fact that Lotor was raised by a frigid, cruel, emotionally abusive, high-functioning alcoholic chemistry professor and her ill-tempered, bigoted enabler, who is every bit as emotionally abusive as his wife (who is the only person in the universe who he loves, including their son), constantly acts like a character from a Greek tragedy, and high-key hates the fact that certain major social and political events of the twentieth century stripped his family of their ruling position in the territory formerly known as Daibazaal, which means he will never be the King or Emperor of anything

Shiro feels like he would also show the pictures to Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Matt, and maybe Allura, but only if he knew that they were in emotionally okay enough places and if he felt stable enough to deal with how they might react

If Ryou ever challenges you to a snowball fight, you probably shouldn’t accept. He plays to win and he plays dirty. Shiro pretty much only goes along with this because he doesn’t mind when Ryou plays dirty; he thinks it’s adorable and endearing.

“For the love of God, Kashi, just tell him that you like being the little spoon and let him cuddle you. It’s literally that simple. You will feel so much better if you let yourself have this bit of comfort already” — Ancient Ryou Shirogane Proverb.

A lot of Shiro’s inability to keep his cool around Slav has to do with the fact that Shiro is a very compassionate person and tries so hard to understand Slav’s perspective, only for Slav to (generally) refuse any and all attempts at compromise.

A lot it has to do with how Slav has a tendency to treat Shiro’s known stressors and triggers as buttons he can push just to see what happens.

(The usual answer to this is some variation on, “Shiro realizes what Slav is doing, grumpily calls him out on it, and then gets upset because Ryou has asked Slav not to do shit like this and Shiro has opened up to Slav in ways that made him feel deeply uncomfortable, all in the hopes that helping Slav to understand some of Shiro’s problems and struggles might get him to stop pulling stunts like this

“—and yet, Slav continues to do these things and ignore simple requests like, ‘Can you please not kick Shiro in his eating disorder just to see what happens and/or make some kind of point to him, no matter how important you think that point might be”)

And still more of Shiro’s dislike of Slav has to do with how Slav reminds Shiro of himself in ways that Shiro does not particularly enjoy (especially because both of them have some pretty huge and difficult to manage issues with control).

All up, it’s probably a miracle (or possibly a testament to how much he loves Ryou) that Shiro hasn’t given in to his petty impulse to call Slav by his full, given name because well hey, Slav insistently calls Shiro, “Takashi” when he wasn’t given permission to do so (and the only reason he doesn’t use any of the overly familiar abbreviations like, “Taka” or, “Kashi” is that he thinks they sound silly)

—so, if he’s going to do that, then in Shiro’s humble (albeit very biased) opinion, it’s only fair that he gets to call Ryou’s best friend, “Miroslav” even though he knows damn well that Slav hates being addressed by that name and only hasn’t done away with it legally because the paperwork sounds very tedious and Slav doesn’t feel like it

Ryou desperately wishes that his brother and his best friend could get along, but he also understands why they don’t and since Shiro has made an effort while Slav doesn’t get how nothing he’s done constitutes, “making an effort,” well…… Ryou’s solution is to just do what he can to minimize the amount of time Slav and Shiro have to spend around each other

This is going to make Christmas 2017 mildly complicated because Ryou is bringing Slav with him to the Shirogane family Christmas out in California (because he visited Slav’s family last year, and…… uh, no, Ryou is not sending his best friend back to deal with that, especially not alone, and Slav can’t go to Norway with Sven due to a recent failure to renew his damn passport)

But, uh…… at least Slav will have more targets than Shiro?

Also, he will be more tolerable after dropping acid, but that just raises the question of why he thought it was a good idea to bring LSD to Christmas (and Slav’s answer is pretty much, “……Well, I wanted to do it, so I did”)

Another thing that Shiro will not let Ryou live down, ever: the time when they were kids and went to Disneyland with their parents and cousins, and Ryou asked where Anastasia was and come on why had he seen every princess but her.

Shiro is still kind of Not Over the fact that Ryou is a Pottermore-Sorted Slytherin, because Shiro was totally expecting both of them to end up put into Ravenclaw (in fairness, it was close for Ryou. Not so much for Shiro, but Ryou was a Ravenclaw/Slytherin hat-stall).

On the other hand, Ryou is still kind of Not Over the fact that, when he made Kashi get a Pottermore account, Shiro didn’t see his own Sorting into Hufflepuff coming from a mile off (—and okay, Ryou will totally admit that he likes Harry Potter more than Shiro does, but still, Kashi. Come on. How did you think you would ever be Sorted into Ravenclaw).

As much as Ryou means that question rhetorically, he does suspect that there is an actual answer to it and frankly, he doesn’t like it Mostly because he suspects that the answer involves Shiro defining himself as a list of academic and/or creative accomplishments instead of working harder on applying that pesky little, “You need to have a more holistic view of yourself and appreciate who you are as a complete person instead of zeroing in on tiny pieces of yourself as if they alone define you” idea to himself

In fairness to Shiro here: most people do not think, “Slytherin” when they think of Ryou. He’s most often misidentified as a Ravenclaw (whether they get thrown off by the fact that Ryou is an obvious nerd who has a Physics PhD, went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergrad, and always did well in school, or by the fact that Ryou genuinely loves learning), or maybe as a Hufflepuff like his brother (Lance is one of the people who thought so).

The list of people who have correctly guessed that Ryou is a Slytherin is: Hunk (but he’d been thinking Hufflepuff until Ryou heard about a then-recent disagreement Hunk had had with Shiro and went, “Ugh, don’t listen to Kashi, go get Pidge and slash the tires on Lotor’s Maserati, I’ll keep my stupid genius brother distracted and you can go give his pet asshole exactly what’s coming to him”)

Ezor (Ryou’s ex-girlfriend, herself a Slytherin, who most loved the moments when Ryou joined her in being all kinds of petty, judgmental, vindictive, spiteful, grudge-holding, snarky at the expense of people they disliked, and openly frustrated with the things that exasperate them — but who was also like, “But why are you objecting to some of my behaviors so? I don’t think it’s mean to tell this other local band that I think their music sounds like a funeral dirge sung by a chorus of sick cats aspirating on their own vomit. Their music does sound like that. If anything, those pathetic idiot hipsters should be thanking me for messing with their equipment before their set. I made them sound better”)

Slav (who actually doesn’t really care about Harry Potter and only picked Slytherin for Ryou because he knows that Ryou’s favorite color is green)

and Pidge (literally the only member of Galaxy Garrison who guessed Slytherin within a few minutes of meeting Ryou)

Neither of the twins cusses that much, largely as a result of their parents and grandparents raising them not to. Shiro does so more than Ryou, but it’s still not a very common occurrence and more often than not, Shiro is either quoting someone else or using some variant of, “fuck” as a way to differentiate between different approaches to sexual intercourse

That said: Ryou is more comfortable talking about sex than Shiro. To be fair, Shiro can discuss sex perfectly fine when he has some kind of emotional distance with it (like when it was casual sex that didn’t mean that much to him or when he’s giving Lotor recommendations on which weird niche-interest erotica to get Zethrid for her birthday)…… but he gets flustered very easily as soon as he’s emotionally invested in the sex

Ryou, on the other hand? Just doesn’t?? see??? the point???? of that kind of attitude????? Like, if you ask him, sex is best when people are on the same page, and it’s easier to get there if you don’t waste any time on shame and tell people what you like, what you don’t, what you want, and so on

Shiro would like to point out that it’s not an issue of shame, to him?? It’s an issue of, “Feelings are complicated and difficult and often messy, and when sex with someone is important to Shiro or happening in the context of a relationship that is important to Shiro, he puts a lot of pressure on himself not to screw it up”

Sexual shame largely enters the picture whenever Shiro talks about Sendak, but those discussions are messy for reasons that include but also go beyond the sex, and Shiro’s sense of shame there doesn’t really from the sex itself or from the role that BDSM played in his and Sendak’s relationship. It comes more from things like, “Sendak was abusive, and Shiro knows this, but part of him still loves Sendak and he hates this and he feels like he never should’ve loved Sendak to begin with, so yeah, the fact that part of him still loves his abuser is something Shiro is very deeply ashamed of”

This is another of the points where Ryou and Ezor worked really well together, to the surprise of… pretty much everyone but Shiro, Acxa, Zethrid, and Narti. Because neither of them has that much of a sense of shame about sex, both of them were comfortable just telling each other what they wanted or didn’t, and neither of them got embarrassed over things like accidentally knocking something over or awkward about laughing at each other during sex

Lotor was left off of that list for a reason. He really didn’t get what Ezor saw in Ryou at all, much in the same way that Ryou didn’t see what Shiro saw in Lotor. For the most part, Ezor was fine with letting Lotor fail to get it and then periodically vent his feelings about things by being some degree of petty and obnoxious about Ryou

—until the time when Lotor was coming off an argument with his Mother and went, “Honestly, I know that incompatible orientations are an issue for you and Shiro, but how can you even stand dating the objectively less attractive twin? Never mind the boring twin since that is a subjective matter, but why would you settle for the twin who is clearly nowhere near as good-looking as his brother? I don’t get it, does he give you the best cunnilingus that you’ve ever had in your life???”

Yeeeeah, that incident ended with Lotor being held in a very painful headlock until he apologized and promised to back the Hell off and just let Ezor be happy

He was very displeased that Shiro and Zethrid ignored his cries for help, but Shiro was just like, “I’ve told you that I’m done bailing you out when you insult my brother and Ezor has asked you to stop. You earned this”

while Zethrid’s opinion was, “*shrug* She told you to stop. You didn’t. You dug your way in so you can dig your own way out. Plus, watching you struggle was funny :)”

The last conversation that Shiro had with his Grandfather Namesake was before he left for school on the day Grandfather Shirogane died of an unexpected stroke. Grandfather Shirogane’s central point boiled down to, “I know that I have not always made it as clear as I should have, but I do love you, I am proud of you, and it kills me to see you pretending to be someone you are not so that you will earn the approval of your ignorant so-called friends. Your brother, his girlfriend, Laura, and Keith are the only peers of yours I have seen treat you as friends are meant to treat each other. Always remember who you are, and remember who truly matters in your life.”

The last conversation that Ryou had with Grandfather Shirogane was shortly after Shiro’s. Their Grandfather stopped Ryou on his way out the door and the gist of what he had to say was, “Yes, the older brother is usually supposed to look out for the younger one, but… Keep looking out for Kashi. If that boy doesn’t slow down and take stock of his priorities, he is going to destroy himself over the opinions of people who do not matter.”

Neither of the twins particularly enjoys reminiscing about their last conversations with their Grandfather. They have some mixed-but-loving-even-though-they-also-criticize-him feelings about the man in general, but those last chats with Grandfather Shirogane have stuck with them.

It’s been almost 12 years since he passed, and his grandsons still periodically think about those conversations, sometimes rather off-handedly and sometimes in ways that are fairly emotionally intense because maybe they’ve grieved for Grandfather Shirogane more or less healthily, but they haven’t completely made their respective peaces with those last Talks, especially because their Grandfather Shirogane’s points have become recurring themes in their lives

Another thing that Ryou is never going to let Shiro live down: when they were kids and their Dad first introduced them to Star Wars on VHS? ……Yeah, Shiro thought that Han/Leia was just a middle-of-the-story distraction romance before Leia eventually got with Luke, then got his little five-year-old mind completely blown when they got to Return of the Jedi and George Lucas dropped the, “FYI, they are twins” reveal on everybody. Shiro refused to acknowledge ROTJ for three years because he didn’t want Luke and Leia to be twins, he wanted them to get married

Ryou has (half-jokingly) threatened to include this story in his best man speech whenever Shiro finally finds his Prince Charming and gets hitched

About four weeks before Shiro finally got away from Sendak (August 2013), Shiro attempted suicide by taking too much Vicodin with tequila. He survived because Sendak happened to come home early and Haxus, being a doctor, had taught him how to administer naloxone in the event of Sendak’s sweet boy ever overdosing (since Shiro’s drugs of choice were alcohol and opiates, and naloxone would counteract the opiates at least).

Before Shiro swallowed the pills, he called Ryou, hoping that Ryou would have something to say and could talk him out of it. When Ryou missed the call, Shiro took it as a sign and left Ryou what was essentially a suicide note in the form of a voicemail.

Before that incident, Ryou was already worried, but that message scared him more than anything else he’d ever encountered. The next little while of calling and texting Shiro without a reply — the only other time in Ryou’s life that comes close to being a horrible as that was hearing that his parents were dead. He held it together remarkably well while waiting to hear from his Kashi, then cried in relief when Shiro called him back again

—and then the relief turned into more fear and frustration and pain because Sendak was breathing down the back of Shiro’s neck while he called Ryou, and between how Shiro forced himself to keep his voice controlled (and still sounded like he was about to shatter into a million pieces) and the way that Shiro was talking about what happened, Ryou could tell, but it felt like there was nothing he could do to help his brother, the person who Ryou loves most in this world

Ryou hasn’t told Shiro so, but he still has the voicemail. He has saved it despite upgrading his phone a few times since then; any time he gets a new phone, he makes sure to never lose that one. There’s a lot of other stuff on his phone that he doesn’t want to lose, but Ryou’s biggest priority is saving that voicemail

If anyone asked him why, he wouldn’t even be able to tell them. He just feels like that voicemail might be important for reasons other than, “reminding him to keep looking out for his brother.” Ryou isn’t sure when or how or why it’s going to prove to be important, but he is completely certain that someday, he is going to need to have that voicemail

Even though Shiro is in a much better place now than he has been and even though most of the unknown numbers that call Ryou end up being spam, Ryou still freezes a bit whenever he sees one come up on his phone because he’s terrified that someone’s calling him to tell him that something terrible happened to his Kashi

Iverson is a member of the physics faculty at Kaltenecker University, and he so did not intend to become a father figure to a set of loser nerd twins…… and yet, here he is, usually seeing Shiro at least once a week (at their Tuesday night A.A. meetings) and seeing Ryou pretty regularly, despite the fact that Ryou finished and defended his dissertation already, isn’t Iverson’s student anymore, and isn’t working on any projects that fall into Iverson’s area of expertise.

Ryou isn’t yet used to the fact that he has Iverson’s permission to call him, “Mitch” now, despite how he’s had said permission for a little over a year. It still makes him get a bit giddy and giggly, like a twelve-year-old looking up cuss words in the dictionary, because alsjskshsk, this feels so special and borderline taboo.

Shiro, on the other hand, constantly forgets that most of the other characters who know Iverson do not call him, “Mitch” because they don’t use surnames at A.A., so Shiro has literally never called Iverson anything but, “Mitch.” Shiro didn’t even think that his Mitch could be the same guy as Ryou’s, “Dr. Iverson” until Ryou wanted to introduce them and the twins went, “Wait, you already know the cool older guy I respect and admire?”

Iverson, for his part, just kind of sighed and facepalmed and has himself some coffee while the twins got their head around this, because he figured out that the new “Shiro” guy at meetings was the same as Ryou’s troubled but beloved brother Takashi…… the very first time that Shiro came to one of the Tuesday night meetings at the LGBTQ community center.

Shiro and Ryou agree that there is something about Iverson that reminds them of their Grandfather Shirogane (the one after whom Shiro was personal-named), but they have different opinions on what, exactly, that something is.

Ryou, personally, thinks it’s the way that Iverson is blunt and to-the-point but it generally comes from a well-meaning place (if not always a place of concern).

Shiro, on the other hand, can never quite pin down what his answer is because it ends up changing pretty regularly, but either way, he thinks it’s more important for him to remember that Mitch is his own person, not Grandfather Shirogane 2.0

Generally speaking, Ryou feels like he has a pretty good sense of humor, and he isn’t wrong. But he gets pretty sensitive to the “jokes” that his Kashi sometimes makes about death and dying, or that even remotely sound like Shiro devaluing himself, or that feel “too morbid.” Considering Shiro’s struggles with mental health, Ryou is far from the only person who takes some degree of issue with these “jokes,” but he’s one of the people who’s had the most success in going, “This makes me uncomfortable, I know that it’s one of your coping mechanisms, but it’s frankly a pretty concerning one, whether you mean for it to be or not”

At this point, Ryou is the only one of the Shiro-Ryou-Sven triad who Lance has never done anything physical with. Lance has platonically made out with Shiro and has had sex with Sven, and although realizing how in love with Hunk he is has largely helped Lance on from his desire to do something with all three of them, “For Science,” Lance is still kind of annoyed that Ryou never made out with him, “for science.”

Which is totally fine with Ryou, Lance. You can be as annoyed as you damn well please, because Ryou is annoyed that you ignored him telling you, “No” and kept asking until Shiro told you to back off and let it go.

The fight where Shiro and Ryou actually got physical with each other happened in early October 2015. Shiro had stayed clean for six months that time, and getting there had been an Ordeal for him — and then Lotor’s parents wanted to meet their son’s boyfriend. It had taken enough time to get Lotor to listen and accept that, “I am an addict and an alcoholic, for the love of god, my sobriety is important to me”

—and then Zarkon and Honerva offered Shiro a crash course on where Lotor had learned most of his incorrect attitudes about substance about and addiction. They did not listen when Lotor tried to go, “Please stop offering my boyfriend nunvil, I know that it is a cultural thing with Mother’s side of the family but he is an alcoholic” or when Shiro said similarly. Zarkon intimidated and terrified Shiro until he accepted two glasses of the stuff, and Shiro thought that he could have that one forced slip and then keep things under control afterward

Except that things did not shake out that way. He held it together for about a day-and-a-half before he got overtaken by the feelings like, “What does it even matter, I already slipped up, everything’s easier and it hurts so much less when I’m drunk anyway, who even cares” and so on. He ran down his phone’s battery on purpose, playing Candy Crush while out at a bar — which is where Lotor found him

Despite the mutual distaste between Lotor and most of the other people in Shiro’s life, they collaborated on trying to find him. Lotor, Lance, Acxa, Zethrid, and Matt went out searching, Hunk, Ezor, and Ryou were waiting at the Shiro-Hunk-Lance apartment, Narti was waiting at the Lotor + Gal Pals’ house in case Shiro went there, and Pidge was checking her phone for updates all through that week’s meeting of the Neurodiverse Student Union

So, when Lotor got Shiro back to his, Hunk, and Lance’s place, he, Hunk, and Ezor got asked to please clear out so Ryou could Have A Talk with his brother (—which they mostly did, but “mostly” means that they awkwardly waited in the hallway outside of the apartment, in case the “Talk” started sounding like it might need intervention)

Yes, Shiro was drunk, but he wasn’t completely off his own head just yet, and he assumed that this Talk was going to be Ryou being Disappointed in him for slipping up, which made him preemptively frustrated, and he started projecting his own feelings onto Ryou as if they were actually what Ryou was feeling and what he wanted to discuss

—but Shiro was so completely off-base that he might as well have been playing a different game entirely

See, Ryou didn’t like that Shiro had slipped up, but what he really wanted to call his brother out about that night was, “Where the Hell do you get off letting your phone die like that? You always have a charger in your bag. You have one of those spare battery jackets for it. Your phone’s battery doesn’t die like that unless you let it get that low on purpose, so what in the Hell were you thinking, Kashi”

—which Shiro really didn’t want to talk about, so he threw out a mostly bullshit answer about how he genuinely just didn’t notice now excuse him, he’s going to go shower until he quits feeling like such a failure or drowns himself, whichever happens first

Ryou only meant to hold onto him to keep Shiro from going… but he yanked too hard and Shiro took it the wrong way… Being drunk is the biggest reason why he shoved at Ryou but didn’t actually hit back… The physical part didn’t really last that long, given that Shiro was drunk and Ryou was trying to restrain him rather than hurt him

—but both of them wound up on the floor and managed to land a few hits on each other before Ryou successfully pinned Shiro’s wrists and shouted at him that they were talking about this NOW, Kashi, so tell Ryou what the Hell you were even thinking

Voice cracking and eyes tearing up, Shiro snapped back, “What does it matter, what d’you even care, you have a class to teach in the morning, go do that—”

“No! I am doing this, you’re more important than Iverson’s bunch of undergrads—”

“No, I’m not! That’s your life, Ryou, quit throwing it out and over nothing—”

“Says you! How can you of all people right now tell me anything about throwing your own life out!”

“Yours is worth something—”

“So is YOURS!”

“Stop lying!”

“Why would I lie about that, Kashi!”

“You’d be better off without me, Ryou, we both know it! Your life’d be perfect if you didn’t have to take care of your hopeless, fuck-up big brother—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you idiot! My life would be miserable without you! I have no idea what I’d do without my brother, no matter what you’re dealing with—”

“……Let me go, Ryou.”

“No! I’m not letting you up until you understand that I love you and I care what happens to you! Even if you don’t give half-a-damn what happens to you, I do! You’re my brother, Kashi. My only brother. I will pin you to this floor until the others pull us apart, I will fight them off to pin you down again, I will keep us here until you get it through your stupid, genius head that I. am not. letting you. fall. the Hell. apart!”

“But why, why keep putting yourself through this when you could have it so much better, and don’t say we don’t both know that—”

“None of that so-called better can replace you, Kashi! Do you get me yet!”

—which was where things very quickly devolved into crying (which turned into ugly crying almost as soon as it started) and incredibly clingy hugging, and Shiro lost most of his capacity to do anything with words for a while. Once he got it back, it was mostly in the form of choking out apologies while sobbing on Ryou’s shoulder

—after Shiro accepted some water and went to take a shower, Ryou called Iverson (for both of them, since Ryou’s idea was to call in sick for the next day and although Iverson isn’t actually Shiro’s sponsor, he is one of the strongest relationships that Shiro has forged with anybody else at meetings).

Once Shiro got out of the shower, he flopped on the kitchen table and talked to Iverson about what had happened while Ryou put the kettle on. Then, Ryou slept over (and swallowed his Sven-related pride to ask him to please go make sure Slav was okay and not trying to burn anything down)

—and that’s the story of the one real physical fight that Shiro and Ryou ever had

One of the many ways that Shiro might have reconnected with Keith a lot sooner than they do in the fic itself: If Ryou had been the TA for Keith’s section of Iverson’s intro physics lecture, then he would’ve recognized Keith and gone, “Kashi, what is your Keith’s last name” (which Ryou has never remembered without prodding; sorry, Keith), and then debated how much he wanted to tell Shiro that his One Who Got Away is the freshman who’s being an unholy terror for Ryou and Iverson both.

Additionally, Keith would have recognized Ryou’s name — because he only knows one Ryou Shirogane, and he’s pretty sure that it’s not the most common name to find in Massachusetts — and tried to corner him after class to go, “What happened to your brother, is he okay, what’s going on, where is he”

Instead, Iverson didn’t have Ryou manning any classes during Keith’s freshman year, so Ryou only heard horror stories from his fellow TAs, about the nightmarish prodigy who doesn’t actually give a fuck about physics (despite being in the intro lecture for STEM majors, not the intro lecture for humanities and social sciences majors) and has apparently developed a personal vendetta against Dr. Iverson

That worked out okay at the time, because it meant Ryou didn’t have to miss a week-and-a-half of teaching at the start of a new semester while he went out to Minnesota to meet Shiro and his old roommate from Chicago, helped talk Shiro into going to an inpatient rehab clinic for a while, and then went with him for the admission because he (correctly) suspected that Shiro might be something of a little shit while checking in

(—and because Shiro wasn’t saying, “Having you there with me would make that process easier,” but mostly because he already felt like a burden. He was definitely feeling that loudly, and getting him to admit that he needed help was enough of a big deal that Ryou was fine with not pushing his brother on the, “Admit to your feelings and admit that you want me to be there with you” point)

……But at the same time, it’s probably better that Shiro and Keith haven’t made this connection yet? Because they already know of enough points where they missed each other instead of reconnecting again, and obsessing over that is really, really not good for either of them

Also, as far as Sendak is concerned, Ryou was teaching freshmen at that time, rather than periodically offering advice when some of them asked for it but mostly handling things like photocopies, mail, proofreading proposals and drafts (which Ryou took to mean, “also please offer constructive criticism,” which Iverson hadn’t meant but was willing to put up with, since Ryou usually asked questions and made points that were actually helpful), and talking to people who Iverson didn’t want to deal with himself

Not that this necessarily matters, because at present, Sendak is out of the picture. But Shiro and Ryou collaborated on a bit of truth-stretching in the bit of time leading up to Shiro getting out of Sendak and Haxus’s place, and according to the not-quite-lies they spun, Ryou was teaching freshmen

Said truth-stretching was necessitated (if you asked the twins) by the fact that Sendak would read Shiro’s texts and emails over breakfast most mornings, and listen to new voicemails if he had any.

The twins figured that if they switched to only talking over calls (and only when Shiro wasn’t in the house, because he was terrified of Sendak potentially putting bugs or monitors around the house), then there were two likeliest outcomes: 1. Sendak looks at the call-log and wonders why Shiro is talking to Ryou only during certain times, and possibly concludes that Shiro is Up To Something;

or 2. Sendak doesn’t look at Shiro’s call-log and it seems like the twins have stopped talking altogether — which would’ve definitely seemed like a sign that something was up, whether he took it to mean that the brothers had had a falling-out or a fight (which Sendak would’ve had mixed feelings about), or that Shiro is very possibly Up To Something and he might well have gotten his brother in on it (which could’ve meant that Ryou had ideas about Sendak and Haxus that could’ve gotten the two of them into the trouble they deserved to be in)

—either way, it would’ve been suspicious for Shiro and Ryou to seemingly stop texting each other. But they also couldn’t text about anything that might’ve tipped Sendak off to the fact that they were definitely Up To Something (namely, planning the eventual escape with their Aunt Satomi and Mark, Shiro’s old roommate)

……so, one of the things that they fake-texted about was the freshmen that Ryou was allegedly teaching

Still another thing that Shiro isn’t going to let Ryou live down: when they were nine, he spent six weeks convinced that John Mellencamp and John Cougar Mellencamp were completely different people

Another HP thing that Ryou has made Shiro consider: the shape that a Boggart would take when facing him. Both of them go back and forth a bit on their answers, but there are some recurring themes.

Shiro’s different hypothetical boggarts generally involve any of the people he love (especially Ryou, their Mom, and Keith) denouncing him as a broken, irreparable monster, someone who’s even worse than Sendak because he tricks people into thinking that he’s a good person when he isn’t, utterly incapable of doing anything good for anybody else ever in his life, and undeserving of love or community or companionship — and well, everyone would be so much better off without you, Shiro

Ryou’s hypothetical boggarts, on the other hand, tend to be more based on things that he’s actually seen or heard: Shiro, looking the way he did right before he checked into rehab, all sick and painfully thinned out and physically wrecked; Shiro, looking how he did the night that they had their full-on fight; Shiro, drunk and soaked through and ugly-crying, like the night when he first slipped off the wagon after rehab; Shiro, looking like he does now but then he opens his mouth to speak and Ryou has to hear the suicide note voicemail that Shiro left him all over again — and then, because this isn’t enough, there’s at least a tacit accusation that this happened to Shiro because Ryou somehow failed him

Yet another thing that Ryou isn’t going to let Shiro live down literally ever: after they first saw the Peter Jackson movie adaptation of The Two Towers when they were twelve-going-on-thirteen, Shiro’s teenage crush on Elijah Wood really kicked into high-gear, and he spent six weeks making a collage out of all the ElWood pictures Laura would let him have from the teenage girl-aimed magazines she was done reading

[anewalternia]

it knows its seasons. the waiting. the sudden.

Word Count: 6706 Rating: M/hard R/moderate nsfw. Warnings: loss of bodily autonomy, street sex work, offscreen blackrom gone wrong (physical abuse), slavery, mass murder, undiagnosed PTSD, substance use, and other Alternia-typical shit. Characters: psiioniic, a fantroll (arccos thaeta/whatever she’s calling herself this sweep), a few more fantrolls alluded to. Pairings: psii/fantroll(s), fantrolls/fantrolls Summary: Your name is Alcyon Tensor and you are a bounty hunter. You are rather surprised when you bump into Mituna in District 10, the pleasure district, especially since last Arcsin told you, Mituna was running around with that would-be group of revolutionaries. But that’s just as well. He can help you fulfill your objective. You promise to give him half your bounty if he does. But neither you nor he can anticpate what will happen next.

@psychopyro813 stop encouraging my bad ideas

“This is a perfect fluid, having no age nor hours, surviving scarless, unaltered, loving rest, willing to run forever to find its peace in equal seas in currents of still glass.” - Muriel Rukeyser, The Book of The Dead

Your name is Alcyon Tensor. Or it is, now, at least.

You’re known to most as The Sanguine, anyway.

You get out of your recuperacoon - the slime has been cut down by a third with some kind of shitty, cheaper substitute - and consequently, you haven’t been sleeping as well as you could have been. You devour two energy grubs and contemplate what you must do today.

Another fucking assignment, this one in District 10: the pleasure district.

You wish you were going there to get your bulge serviced, but nope. Not today.

You dress somewhat hemoanonymously - black leggings, black top with the bronze sign of a dead troll on the breast, a slate gray overcoat that covers the sign, and a scarf tied so high around your neck that it conceals your ears. Thankfully.

The only thing that might hint at your hemospectral caste, aside from the sign on your shirt, are your worn, dependable brown boots, which come up to mid-calf. The soles and heel are thin enough that you can operate with a certain degree of stealth.

And then there’s your brown irises, the deadest giveaway. But those are from contact lenses. Ten thousand caegar contact lenses.

You’re still paying for them, much to your chagrin. Fucking interest. Fuck interest with a massive bulge. Only thing you’re interested in at the moment is maybe culling the troll who made the loan in the first place, then you might not have to pay them back.

You make your way to a food vendor in this lowblood district to get your first meal of the night. Tonight it’s some kind of overly salty fish, stewed with tomatoes, rice, some vegetables cut too fine for you to identify, and probably grubloaf. There’s always grubloaf. 

Grubloaf is a universal constant, sort of like death, and the Condesce. And just about as palatable as either.

“That’ll be three caegars, Tensor,” the rustblood, Tiaang, says.

You give him five, and once you finish your first portion, he ladles a second into the bowl.

“It’s good to see a troll that eats,” he says. “So many are too skinny.”

He then proceeds to press a sweet into your hand. 

There’re no quadrant overtones in it; he’s just looking out for you because you look quite a few sweeps younger than you are. You’re seventeen, but you look a little less than half that. This is exceedingly annoying.

Were it a peppermint, you might have thrown up. But no, it’s just a chocolate truffle, wrapped in paper. 

Not exactly your style. 

You briefly think of Pinyix, who would have inhaled it in a second. You wonder how they’re doing. If they’re steadier on their feet now.

No matter. Your assignment waits for no one and nothing. You review what you know about the troll at the center of your objective: Terbel Rukbat, known to most as the the Unstable Thespian. 

He performs for highbloods, and on his off-hours, he enjoys violent one-off black flings with lowblood prostitutes. Now you’re not here to judge how a troll gets their bulges wet, or their freak on, but this troll owes your leader money, and the price on his head is about the same as the price he owes.

Your assignment is simple. Either get the money off Terbel, or cull him.

Either way, his debt will be satisfied. 

You wonder whether you should use the garrote or the daggers. The garrote will kill him faster, but the daggers will spill more blood, and amuse you to a greater degree.

Maybe both.

You have both.

Both is fine.

You get on a communal mass transit vehicle, and really hope none of the trolls on it decide to make any advances on you. Yes, you’re small. Yes, you are obviously female. Yes, most of the people in this vehicle are headed to fucking bucketland. 

That does not mean they need to touch you. Or leer at you.

Would zapping one of them not be a dead giveaway that you are a runaway psion, that is exactly what you would do.

You’re quick to run into a familiar face after you get off the mass transit vehicle, one you haven’t seen in two sweeps. 

He stands outside of one of those disreputable buildings, dressed like... you’d expect a concupiscent hooker to dress, his makeup done to the to the nines, wearing a giant pair of round sunglasses, and clad in a long coat that covers whatever the fuck he’s wearing, assuming he’s even wearing anything under it.

“Mituna?” you ask.

He quirks an eyebrow, but his eyes are alight with recognition. He takes one step back.

“You must be mistaken. I am the Luminary.”

Yeah, okay. You’d recognize those stupid horns, that stupid hair, and that even stupid lisp anywhere. But you’re not the only one who needs to maintain your cover. You won’t slip and call him by his hatchling name again.

“Yeah, whatever, Luminary. Come with me,” you reply. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Whatever you say,” he says, with an affected seductive tone. “Whatever you want.”

What you want to do is punch him. That’s not the point.

You drag him to a fried oinkbeast skin on a stick vendor, all while he protests that you’re losing him customers. He needs calories. You sit Mituna down next to you on the curb, and trolls eye the pair of you curiously, but say nothing.

He won’t confess to being Mituna, but he sits with you willingly.

“Sure you want me to hang out with you? You might be mistaken for one of my clients," not-Mituna says, his pupils blown with soporifics.

"I have better taste in trolls than that."

"You suck, you know that?"

"Not as much as you do, apparently," you deadpan. 

When he gets the joke, he cackles until he nearly chokes on his food. This fool. Has not changed a bit since you last saw him in the flesh. Once he’s finished eating, he decides to play twenty questions.

“So what brings you to the scenic pleasure district?" he wants to know. “Paying someone to stick it in you?”

“Totally, Luminary.” You take a quick look around, to make sure nobody’s listening, and you continue to do that as you explain. “In no way did I get paid a thousand caegars to cull a troll who frequents these parts.” 

Mituna shrugs. 

“What does he look like? Maybe I can help you out.”

You’d ask him why he’d even want to help you out, until you remember that unlike you, Mituna is kind.

You take a bite of your food, chew, and swallow, before you say, “He’s an indigoblood. Tall but not muscular. They call him the Unstable Thespian. Think you’ve seen him before?"

The way Mituna’s eyes go round as water crackers informs you that he has.

"I think that's one of my usual customers. Kind of a dipshit."

He gets up to order more fried oinkbeast skin on a stick. You give him the remainder of yours. You need the information he has as quickly as possible.

"Real specific, Tuna. That's all highbloods.” 

He rolls his eyes. “Apologies, Ar--”

You interrupt him.

“Call me Vector.”

“Whatever.”

You resist the urge to zap him for being a jackass.

“And while you’re at it, describe this regular of yours, so I can figure out if this is the right troll,” you say.

“Yeah, okay, fuck you,” 

Still, he does, in minute detail, giving you his symbol, the width of his horns, their shape, his physique, and his approximate height down to the centimeter. 

You weigh this against what you know, and realize that either this is your guy, or he has an identical twin. Sort of like Arcsin and Arctan. And you, before you developed rumblespheres.

Mituna then adds that your target is a taintchafing fuck. And that the only reason why he pails him on the regular is because he does not want to see another troll subjected to his utter fucking nonsense with respect to kismesissitude, and because said target in question has a tiny ass bulge that has never done, and never will do a thing to stimulate anyone.

You stare at Mituna and laugh so hard that your sides hurt.

You thought Mituna might have grown out of being a vulgar fuck, the way Arcsin did, but apparently that isn’t the case. However, thinking of Arcsin makes you recall something he told you the last time you saw him.

“You know, ‘Sin said you'd run off with a bunch of weirdos who go around preaching hemoequality,” you say, as if you haven’t seen these weirdos in action a few times. “What happened with that? You got bored?"

Mituna’s ability to get bored at the drop of a hat knows no bounds, so...

"Nah, i'm still running around with them. Thing is, revolutions cost money. Food costs money. Lodgings cost money. Disguises cost money. So I told my weirdos that I'd be gone for three days and when I came back, I'd have at least twelve hundred caegars," he explains. “Didn’t tell ‘em how I was gonna get it, and they didn’t ask. Pretty sure they think I’m stealing shit and reselling it. But this thing pays a lot faster.”

Well, then. 

He sounds like quite he’s become quite the expert at it.

You think for a bit, before deciding to make him an offer.

"You help me potentially cull this troll, just occupy him until I can get into position, and I'll give you half my bounty."

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Mituna nods, takes a flask out of his trenchcoat, has a long drink, and returns it to its proper place. You do not even want to know what is in that flask.

“Can I help you after he pays me, so I get his money and your money?" he asks, grinning.

"Deal, Luminary,” you say, extending your hand. You two shake on it. Since he put his flask away, his trenchcoat has become partially open, to expose some of the getup he has on under it. 

Dear Mother. What the fuck? 

“Where on Alternia did you get that yellow eyesore of an outfit?" you want to know.

Mituna chuckles.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Thing about ‘Tuna and his shenanigans is, you probably wouldn’t.

Once your objective has been fulfilled, you make sure to sever the highblood’s horns, to present as an indication that you have culled the requisite troll, and therefore qualify for your bounty.

Mituna watches you on the respite platform in this motel in the pleasure district, still covered in bruises and cuts, and looking faintly sick about the whole ordeal.

“Is this how he usually pails you?” you ask the goldblood,

Mituna, you have to remind yourself. His name is Mituna Captor. 

The moment you start thinking of him in terms of his hemocaste, and not in terms of his hatchling name, you are no better than the highbloods.

“Well, yes, but he also pays quite well for the whole thing,” Tuna replies. “Or, uh, paid.”

Not enough, you think, watching Mituna’s wary eyes take in the scene of carnage before you. Not nearly enough.

You drag him back to your hive with you, a communal hivestem you share with several dozen bronzebloods. The few who linger in the hallway on the first level stare when they notice Mituna’s condition. You drag him up the steps to the fourth level.

And Auriga, a troll with whom you’ve had a on and off pale dalliance with for the last three sweeps, is particularly curious about Mituna.

“What happened to that guy?” he wants to know.

Your eyes flick over to Auriga, who leans against the door leading into his hive, smoking one of his foul-smelling cigarettes. You know your bronze contact lenses haven’t fallen out, but still, you feel oddly seen by him. Maybe because Mituna is with you.

“The situation in question will bother him no more,” you assure Auriga, letting him catch a glimpse of the Unstable Thespian’s horns in the duffle bag slung around your shoulder.

Auriga raises his eyebrows and gives you a small grin of commiseration.

“So that’s where you been last nineteen hours? And why you needed to borrow a hundred caegars and a bone saw from me last time I saw you?”

“I am allowed to come and go as I please, ‘Riga. I am a grown ass adult,” you answer. You remove your coinpurse from your jacket, and count out the sum of money you owe him, along with the cost of the bone saw. “As for your money, here you go.”

“But--”

“Riga, just drink a tall glass of fuck off, for now, alright?” you ask. “And gimme two of your cigs.”

He snorts.

“That’ll be a caegar, Tensor.”

You flick it at him in the practiced way only a psion would, letting it hang in mid-air for a moment before it sails into his hand.

Mituna looks shocked that you would display your power like that, but Auriga’s the only troll awake on this floor, and he already knows about who you used to be, once upon a time. No need for pretenses with him. He can keep his mouth shut where it counts.

“I’m sending you on a quest, Auriga,” you tell him, once you’ve got a cigarette in your mouth, having used your latent pyrokinesis to light it.

“Yeah, Ten? What’s in it for me?”

You give him a twenty caegar coin.

“Two calabashes of pepperpot from the vendor, and you can keep the change afterwards. Tell Tiaang it’s for Alcyon Tensor, he might give you a discount.”

“I live to serve,” he says, taking an exaggerated bow, and then muttering, “I serve to live, Sanguine.”

“Thanks, ‘Riga. Just leave the bowls at the door and knock later.”

“You’re welcome, Ten.” He makes a diamond shape with his pointer fingers and thumbs. “I want to hear this story later.”

“And so you shall,” you answer, before you turn away from him, and chivvy Mituna up to the front door of your hive.

“Who was that?” Tuna asks.

“A friend, of sorts, Luminary,” you answer, still using the title he’s carved out for himself when he ventures into District 10.

You’ll give a more comprehensive explanation once you’re inside your personal space.

You unlock the door with one hand, while you smoke with the other. It’s always strange having trolls you knew from Sigma Block over at your studio hive.

Arctan said you needed to clean the small place that apparently reeked of sweat, cigarettes, and soporifics. He even started cleaning until you stated that you’d have none of that. You quite liked your things where they were, thank you very much.

You make sure to disinfect the clothing and tools you regularly utilize in the makeshift autoclave and portable garment cleaner that Pleaid - a troll who lives below you - happens to own. She asks very few questions about why you need these services so frequently.

Arcsin said your hive looked awesome, definitely less square feet than your respiteblock at Sigma, but then again, you weren’t sharing it with four other trolls. Pinyix surreptitiously availed themself of all the sweets in your nutritionblock, idly using their telekinesis to retrieve them.

You were shocked when you heard that they tested under the cutoff for conscription, but then again, that whole fiasco with Elder Irvaan and corporal punishment had weakened them to the point where most of their psionics were limited to approximating sensation in the lower half of their body, walking like a troll without disability, defensive tactics, and parlor tricks like opening your cabinets and devouring your chocolate.

Velyor didn’t comment on your place except to say that it made a nice place to hide out. Always practical, that troll. During his last visit, you’d sent him to the vendor for a bowl of fish stew, providing two calabashes of your own. When the vendor recognized him as a psion, and figured he was one of your old friends, he gave two bowls of food to him gratis.

Still, Velyor paid the man, and complimented him on his cooking once he tasted it.

You maintain that Tiaang could make even grubloaf palatable. Whatever talent he works in his small kitchen is nothing short of alchemy.

Your ever quiet food vendor, Tiaang, you think to yourself, who even pointed you in the direction of a troll who could provide you with brown contact lenses and remove your psion compound tags when you first reached District 23.

Your ever faithful surrogate ‘rail, Auriga, you think to yourself. The only ‘rail you’ll probably know anymore, given Arctan’s situation.

They know what you are, and choose not to turn you in to subsequently collect the sizable bounty on your head. You’re not sure why.

You will never be sure as to why. Particularly in Tiaang’s case, where, were he to turn you in, he’d have enough caegars to retire on. Never have to sell a bowl of anything ever again.

You’re a runaway from Imperial forces.

Your boss informed you of this when you started working for him, as if you were unaware, stating that you’d have to accomplish a great deal of culling to keep him from reporting you.

So far, as a bounty hunter, you have.

You’re not even a bounty hunter anymore. You’re an assassin, stuck in service to this oliveblood fucker. Highly proficient not only in telekinesis, but in wielding a garrote, and daggers twofold.

Your daggers even have names. The one you use to make your first strike is called Arctan, and the one you use to make the killing strikes is called Arcsin.

You told both trolls about this once, before Arctan left Alternia bedecked in biowires. Arcsin was amused, Arctan concerned.

As for Auriga, well, you know he’s pale for you - you don’t have the energy for a full time moiraillegiance, not after Arctan - and since ‘Riga also specializes in your line of work, he respects your ability.

You take the more difficult cases so he doesn’t have to, because you can use your psionics to stun trolls before you make your kill, and he cannot.

Fuck, given all the highbloods the two of you have eliminated, most of whom were involved with illegal shit, you both deserve Juris Docterrorist designations from the Imperial Academy of Law. Not that you’d ever ask, den of highblood scum that the Academy is.

You prefer to think of yourself as a reverse subjugglator, all things being equal. You terrorize highbloods and hold them in check, keep them afraid that if they step a toe out of line, they may have to reckon with the troll known as either Vector, or the Sanguine.

You wouldn’t let your second name, alias that it might be, touch your line of work. You’ve grown comfortable in that hatchling name.

Alcyon Tensor: a night laborer when she feels like subjecting herself to such indignity, and perhaps something slightly less legal when she actually wants to make more than a double digit of caegars a day.

So, things being what they are, Auriga wouldn’t dare turn you in, unless you’ve either under or overestimated him. Still, even if he did, he’d implicate himself, and you’d ensure that he went down with you in a second.

You’d never drag Tiaang into anything even if you got caught. 

He felt sorry for your ten-sweeps old self, and got you started in a profession that would turn you a profit. You will never forget his loyalty, so long as you live, whether it be five more sweeps, or fifty.

However, as you indulge your odd habit for introspection, Mituna seats himself on your couch. You sigh, and make your way over to him.

“I can patch you up,” you tell him. “As for the injuries Terbel inflicted that cannot be healed easily, I know an auxiliatrix. She’s on our side.”

Mituna rolls his eyes.

“If her name is Porrim Maryam, I have no need for her services.”

Yeah. Sure. As if.

“Not the auxiliatrix you and the mutant have been traveling with,” you go on. “This one works in a medical center as an assistant mediculler. Xhezet Arvien. Ring a bell?”

The look on Mituna’s face informs you that it has. The troll who tended all of you wigglers after the pestilence. The only one who lived. How could any of you misremember that troll after everything?

“I don’t need her help.”

You tap your cigarette ashes out in a nearby glass dish and shrug.

“Whatever, Mituna. Still. If you want the assistance, I can contact her.”

Mituna seems to contemplate this for a while.

“And what do you mean, she’s on our side?” he wants to know.

Just great. You hate explaining things, much less to trolls who should be intelligent enough to know what you’re implying.

“You think your signless mutant is the first troll to advocate for reform or abolishment of the hemospectrum?” you ask. “Think again. Xhezet knows the damage the ‘spec can do. So she’s on the side of any troll seeking to even the score, in small ways, or large.”

“Evening the score,” Mituna repeats, with a small laugh. “That’s hardly what Kankri advocates for.”

You’re aware.

And, oh, so the young mutant fuck has a name.

“I know. Much to his detriment. He’d have many more lowbloods on his side if he did.”

“You think so?” Mituna asks.

And even though Tuna’s still clearly injured from his encounter with the Unstable Thespian - an indigoblood who doesn’t deserve the intimacy of a hatchling name - he finds it within his ability to argue with you.

If it’s an argument Tuna wants while you graciously offer him hiveroom and try to bandage his caliginous wounds, it’s an argument he shall receive.

You scowl, remembering the two or three speeches of the signless mutant that you deigned to hear.

"You know him. What does he mean we could all be equal, that there was a world where we were nearly equal?” you ask, unspooling the gauze. “Hoofbeastshit. He's never had moobeast tags put through his earlobes. He's never been forcibly separated from his lusus. He's never seen his friends get executed by firing squad. He's never faced the distinct possibility of having to be mounted in a helmsblock. So what exactly does this signless mutant know about suffering that you follow him like a servile barkbeast, that you debase yourself in his name to earn caegars for his cause with your blackrom escapades?"

Mituna, having ditched the sunglasses of old, rolls his two-toned eyes at you.

"It’s not like he even knows how I bring in money, he’s too young for that. Like I said, none of them know. I’m not telling them,” he says. “And what would you have him advocate for to have you believe in his cause?"

Oh, you could have him advocate for a great many things. You start with the one that makes you the happiest to imagine.

"Revenge. Revenge on all of the highbloods. Reparations made in blood. Cull them arbitrarily and see how they like it."

That would be a start.

Mituna shakes his head, even as you tend to the wounds that you can treat. You demand that he sit still, and he does. But his mouth still works, unfortunately.

"You'd start a cycle of bloodshed that would leave no troll unscathed."

Yeah, and? If everyone, jadeblood and lower, were to wage class war on the highbloods, you’d have psions and auxiliatrices on your side, seemingly cowed as they might be. They’re just waiting for the right moment to free themselves, and once they’re liberated, your side will win.

You know this to be fact. But Mituna? Unlike yours, his mind has been polluted from being away from Sigma Block for so long.

You haven’t forgotten dead Xhifei, dead Polvui, dead Fianye, dead Alzirr, all of whom recovered from the pestilence, all of whom could have gone without being culled, but who were shot at point blank range.

Just to make matters “neat and clean”.

The list of dead goes ever on, between Chi Block, Phi Block, and Psi Block, and now, Sigma Block. Mituna has tucked this truth away.

"So the highbloods should just get away with their crimes? Is that what you and your signless are suggesting?" you ask, your rage naked and unbounded.

"I'm not saying that. I'm saying that at some point we just have to... wipe the slate of offenses. And let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise we’ll inadvertently cull everyone, even ourselves."

You think this over for a while, contempt surging through your veins like your gold blood that damned you the second you were hatched. Hemoequality, the signless mutant speaks. Not hemoliberation. You elect to hit Mituna where it might hurt most.

"You know, ‘Tuna. Alzirr was a troll of great principles, remember?” you ask. “Sometimes I wonder what she'd have to say about all this. And unfortunately I'm nearly sure she'd agree with this signless troll of yours."

Mituna nods, a small smile on his face.

"Me too. Alzirr was... merciful,” he finally pronounces. “Always unfailingly kind. Levelheaded. Kind to wigglers. Kind to everyone."

And as ‘Tuna says this, he nearly starts to cry.

You hate the message he and his would-be revolutionaries have been espousing, but nevertheless you find it in you to offer him a handkerchief before you continue.

"But i'll never know for certain, ‘Tuna. No one will know for certain, obviously. Because she got culled before she could even turn six.” The dish in which you were tapping out your ashes shatters, a casualty of your fury. “You ask me why I want revenge? That's one reason, and Alzirr wasn't even from Chi Block."

Mituna shakes his head even more emphatically.

"Vector. Alcyon. Tensor. Whatever they call you now,” he murmurs. “You know revenge isn't the answer."

Hoofbeastshit.

"You used to think it was, Luminary,” you say, using the title he’s adopted. That’s all he deserves from you now. “You jumped on the nutrition platform the night before Alhena left and shouted that we were more powerful than our jailers, that we could fight back. Have you forgotten?”

Mituna’s expression is even more resolute for your question.

"Yes, that we could fight for our freedom. Our freedom and nothing else!"

You know seven sweeps old Mituna would have just as well seen all highbloods die en-masse. But he has forgotten. He has forgotten. He has forgotten. His matesprit, your moirail, has been conscripted as a helmsman and somehow he has forgotten everything his fellow psions have endured.

You no longer know the troll sitting before you, and yet you dress his wounds as if he is a friend.

What hoofbeastshit, you think.

The Sanguine needs no friends like this. You decide to forcibly show him the writing on the wall.

"But if we'd escaped and left those highbloods unscathed, they'd just find new psions to conscript. Which is why we have to cull them when the opportunity arises,” you say. “Once they've suffered losses the way we have, or even an approximation of our losses... then I'll call it even. Then we can start talking hemoequality. Then we can wipe the slate."

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” he says.

No doubt a maxim from the mutant. You disinfect the last of his wounds, bandage them, and turn away.

“That’s what the establishment wants you to think. That’s what they want you to think so we never realize our true strength,” you insist. “I’ve seen your signless mutant. He has vestigial gills. What’s to say he’s not an Imperial spy, a seadweller brought into the lowblood liberation movement to destablize it by making his own voice the loudest?”

Mituna scoffs at you, and you want to punch him so hard that it’ll knock out several of his fangs.

“If you think that’s what he is, I have no way to stop you,” he says. “But he’s the real deal. Candy red blood. And he called me by my hatchling name before I could give it to him.”

“Information he could easily gain if he were an Imperial spy.”

Mituna nods.

“You might be right about that. But why would an auxiliatrix follow him, then? Why a self-exiled oliveblood? You know they hold no love for the Empress.”

You consider this.

“Maybe the auxiliatrix was in trouble, and this was her way of squaring away her debt. Raise this spy. Then posit him as the leader of a movement that precedes him by a hundred sweeps, the focus no longer on eliminating highbloods, but making peace with them.”

You have no idea why the mutant’s other advocates take to his message with such zeal, Xhezet Arvien included. 

Besides the fact that they’re all deluded as to this troll’s true nature. But you will have them see. Oh, you will have them see, but watch it be too late by the time you do.

“You met Porrim when she needed a recuperacoon for Kankri’s first molt. Did she strike you as being a spy or under Empire influence then?”

She did not, but a good spy covers their tracks. 

You put your hands over your ears before you can rethink the gesture.

You’re not sure what to think anymore. You really are not.

“You really believe your signless mutant is legit?” you ask.

“He’s seen a new Alternia,” Mituna replies. “So beautiful that it isn’t called Alternia anymore. Even Pinyix thought so. That’s part of the reason I left Sigma.”

Pinyix Idcaye, the Foreseer of the future, endorsing this mutant? Really? With and despite all they know of what will come to pass?

You really don’t know what to think, should Mituna’s words on that front bear any truth.

“You can’t make me abandon everything I believe in favor of the words of a nine sweeps old upstart in a cloak, Mituna.”

Mituna nods, his expression solemn.

“I can’t make you do anything,” he says. “But I can ask, can’t I? Make a request while I’m here with you? You know Arctan wouldn’t want you to go on any culling spree crusades in his name.”

“Don’t presume to tell me what my moirail would desire,” you grind out.

“You’re right. That’s not within my purview,” he agrees. “But it’s within it to tell you what my matesprit might think of all this. Alcyon, you could be so much more than an instrument of death.”

You light yet another cigarette, finding a new glass dish to tap out the ashes in. 

You cannot put the old one back together.

That’s always been your problem. You can rend things to shreds, but never fix them afterwards. You never could.

That was Arctan’s thing. He could make a dying seedling come back to life, in a show of power that transcended his telekinesis.

Mituna draws close to you. “Please, Alcyon. If you can’t find it within yourself to believe in Kankri, could you at least believe in me?”

“Fuck you,” you spit, flipping him off, and shoving him away.

And then he kisses you full on, without sparing you the needles of his fangs. 

Oh, the blackrom hooker wants yet another black fling? You can give him that and more.

You shove him up against the wall of your recuperacoon, minding his bandages, and return the gesture.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck…” you murmur, as you tug down the garment covering his lower half, along with yours. His bulges twine around yours and you nearly weep.

“Fuck you!” you shout.

“Arccos,” he says. As if he has any right to remind you of that, of that name. “Arccos, I swear with all that I believe…”

Your bulges find his nook, and he exhales sharply, letting out a high trill of exhilaration. Mituna the masochist. It fucking figures.

“You swear what?”

“I swear that the mutant with the candy red blood is no enemy of yours, or a traitor to the cause,” he replies. “And neither am I, Arccos. I am your friend.”

You let out a sob that you muffle in his clavicle.

“How do you know?”

“I just do, Arccos.”

Each time he calls you by your hatchling name, he breaks your bloodpusher all over again.

Why are you one triplet in a set of three? Why can’t you be your own individual troll without feeling shattered? Why can’t you escape that?

Arcsin. 

Arctan. 

You three took your first breaths at nearly the same time, you the oldest by mere seconds. You navigated the caverns with them.

Where are they when you need guidance? Where are they when you are a jagged third in search of your missing pieces, pieces that have been scattered to the winds?

In this moment, you are sure of one thing alone.

“I hate you, Mituna.”

He just had to rip away the one thing you had left. Your certainty in your way forward. He had to peel it from you like the skin on a fruit.

He had to leave you vulnerable and trembling, as you sink your bulge into his nook, and he takes every centimeter, willing and laughing, as if this is Sigma Block once more.

“I don’t think you do,” he says, and then, as if he has his own special form of seeing forward, tells you, “But you will, though.”

You bite him hard, right above where the golden post in his earlobe is, where his left tag used to be. Did he get that piece of jewelry from the auxiliatrix known as Porrim?

“Don’t tell me you’re a prescient, too.”

He snorts.

“An unwilling and erratic one, at best. But you’ll see, Arccos.”

You snarl and something else in your hive shatters. Another makeshift ashtray?

“Stop calling me that! I am not that troll anymore!”

You haven’t been Arccos Thaeta in more than five sweeps.

His tone bathed in contempt, he murmurs, “My apologies, Alcyon Tensor, the Sanguine.”

You want to fucking cull him with nothing but claws and teeth - weapons be damned -  but you won’t. You won’t.

You couldn’t. Angry as you are, you really couldn’t.

You never would.

Instead, you just stand there and cry, cry the way you haven’t since you were a wiggler, since the highbloods culled most of the trolls in Chi block, and Arctan had to shoosh you, even while he himself was terrified.

Your slurry hits the hardwood floor, your bulge retracts, and you continue to bawl, gasping for air. 

Mituna wraps one arm around your shoulders.

“Arccos,” he murmurs.

You ignore him.

“Arccos.”

More forcefully now.

You gaze at Mituna, with your eyes running, snot dribbling down the lower half of your face, and no hope of Arctan or even Arcsin to dab it away.

“Why are you here, Mituna?”

“You invited me. You pretty much insisted that I follow you after that shit with Terbel.”

You shake your head.

“Why are you really here?” you want to know, starting to think that running into him was no accident. “Do you want me to join your suicidal little group? Forget what I’ve believed for as long as I knew how to believe?”

He holds you even more tightly.

“I didn’t intend to see you, but I’m glad that I did,” he says. “I’m not asking you to forget anything. I’m asking you, if it were in your power to help trolls who believe in liberation, whatever the shape of that liberation, would you assist them? Would you assist us?”

You wipe your nose.

“That goes without saying, Tuna. Of course I would. I would never turn a lowblood into these inhospitable streets.”

Mituna nods, then.

“That means we’re on the same side, Tensor.”

“Arccos,” you whisper. “You can call me Arccos if you want.”

That name may serve you any longer, but it does not mean you need to entirely forsake it.

“Right, Arccos. I’ll hold you to that promise.”

You don’t even know if you deserve that name anymore. So you continue crying while he holds you close. 

Then, he focuses his the red-blue glow from his psionics to play a light show for you. 

Mituna Captor, he really is luminary. So luminary that it hurts.

You recognize the outlines of trolls he conjures from flickering luminescence, by their horns, by the unique way they have of gesturing.

Xhifei. Polvui. Fianye. Alzirr. Jishui. Alhena. Vasluk. Zhiozo. Arnhue. Culria. Praime. Dienre. Khifos. Hiongo. And more besides.

And Arctan.

Arctan.

You watch the blurry insubstantial outlines dance, move fluidly, and seem to watch you. Fake-Arctan reaches with an intangible hand for your fingertips, as tears course down Mituna’s face.

“I never forgot them, even if you think I did. Not a single one,” he says, voice thick. “I never have.”

You resist the urge to push him from the frame of your recuperacoon, and, moreover, out of your hive.

“Why do you show me this?” you ask.

Mituna gives you a sad smile.

“Porrim says the auxiliatrices used to grieve when one of their own passed on into the arms of the First Mother,” he says. “I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, or in the Mother. But I believe that…”

He stops talking for a few moments, trying to calm himself down.

“I believe. I believe. I think we were cheated,” he says.

“Finally, you see things from my point of view,” you tell him.

“I think we were cheated out of the right to grieve for all of our friends,” he goes on. “I know Jishui, Arctan, Khifos, Hiongo, and probably Alhena are alive somewhere, but… existence in the helmsblock is no way to live, is it?”

You shake your head.

“Never was. Never will be.”

You recall your ten sweeps old self asking him to cull you with his power, the day you qualified for helmsblock conscription and got your gold and black jumpsuit. How he hid you away in an alcove in the psion compound, and swore to cull you if he couldn’t find another solution, if there was no way that you could escape.

But he found a solution in the end. He did. And you ran with and for it.

“We’ll remember them all,” he says. “We’ll remember. We don’t let the Empire sweep them under the rug. They were trolls. They are trolls. Right?”

Red-blue Hiongo turns his face to you, also a vision conjured by the Luminary. You touch his nonexistent hand, and watch it dematerialize. Khifos stands and seems to rolls her eyes at him, satisfied to wave at you.

Alzirr, Alzirr looking older than six, picks something out of a small piece of conjured wrapping and sticks it into her equally conjured mouth. Forty caegars says it’s a peppermint. Fucking Alzirr. 

She inclines her head toward you and seems to smile. 

She disintegrates before you can reach her.

“So this is what you have to bend me to your side, Mituna?” you ask. “A bunch of false visions?”

“I thought we’ve agreed that we were on the same side. And this is what I have of them when I miss them,” he says. “This is all I have, some days. I thought you might like to see. If not, I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

Fine. If that’s how he wants to play it? 

You can play, too.

Still, your yearning, your yearning bubbles forth from your mouth before you can swallow it back down.

“Show me Arctan again,” you say. “Please.”

Mituna obliges. 

Your bloodpusher hammers in your chest.

“I’m sorry, ‘Tan,” you tell the red-blue light with your moirail’s horns and every bit of his unspoken mannerisms. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you in the end.”

All the projected figures cease then, their existence blown in an instant. 

Mituna starts to cry in earnest, like an injured two sweeps old. 

This time, you’re the one who ends up holding him. And that’s how you stay for most of the day, until you finally suggest that the two of you squeeze into your recuperacoon.

You open your front door and pick up the calabashes of congealing pepperpot. You borrow some clothes from Auriga so Mituna has something to wear when he returns to his friends. Something aside from his instructor jumpsuit or his blackrom outfit, both of which paint a massive target sign on his back.

You squeeze next to Mituna in the recuperacoon, sighing.

Your name…

Your name is...

Your name is Alcyon Tensor. 

But for now, you’ll be Arccos Thaeta once more. 

If just for a little while.

[mndwontbeatme]

That's me, I'm still rowing.. I'm four year's into the adventure from hell.. Alot of hard life lessons rolled into a short 48 months.. This is a picture as I am right now.. Me as raw, as you will see me.. Apart from being a beautiful male specimen of the human race, with the best looking slug any prepubescent boy would envy.. I am in a bit of trouble.. Dingy canoe, up shite creek trouble.. Taking on water trouble.. Cracked hull trouble.. Broken oar trouble.. Sun has gone down trouble.. You get the picture. I get alot of positive comments on how I appear, (it's true.....) It's lovely.. In some regards you wouldn't know I have a terrible neurological disease, to the untrained eye, looks are deceiving.. My mind is still as sharp as it was before (correct me if I'm wrong but, 3×5 still equals 20....) I am the same man inside, peering from the same green eyes that I was prior to my diagnosis.. Although my eyes are clear and bright they are tired from this fight.. I am no different inside.. Mentally.. It's the candy coating that's slowly fading away.. This portrait tells you my story.... My hands.. Atrophy.. Weakness.. Cramps.. I am a Carpenter by trade.. I had a skills base background, able to hit a three inch nail into hardwood with a single blow.. Geez I looked good in my toolbelt.. I always loved creating and building with my hands.. I worked on the waterfront for years doing manual labour.. It was who I was.. A hard working man, a blue collar worker.. I enjoyed hard work.. Now.. My right hand is weak.. My left is going too.. They have become slow.. Very slow for 34 years old.. You can see where the muscles used to be.. Tendons and bone becoming more prominent with the muscle slowly melting away.. Like cotton candy in the rain.. Melting.. Starting to twist out of shape.. I can't hold a hammer.. I can't open a bottle.. Can't even zip up my fly.. It's my body wasting.. Clumsy.. Weak.. Frail.. My shoulders arn't as broad as they used to be, Atrophy has them too.. Though I have to carry a lot more now then before.. I try my best to carry the one's that are in the fight with me, my kids.. my wife.. my family.. my mates and even strangers.. Show them strength.. Provide answers when asked the tough questions.. Show them it's ok to laugh or cry.. Show them how to row.. I can't carry everyone though.. I have moved away from the one's who can't deal with it, I can no longer prop them up.. The one's that find it to hard to confront or how it's even a inconvenience to their life.. I've found they seem to see alot of the negatives and only the negatives.. I am in a situation that every living thing will face in their lifetime.. It puts me in a difficult position, trying to convince someone that's relatively healthy that they arn't dying and that I'm still infact here very much alive.. Fighting.. Far from the state they seem to think I'm in.. At times I feel I have to check my own pulse to make sure I'm not dead.. Yeah.. Nar.. oh wait.. Yeah.. I'm alright. I would hate to see anyone go through a day of what anyone fighting a terminal illness has to go through.. No holidays or breaks from it.. It's a 24/7 gig.. Sometimes to a very tough crowd.. My mind.. My braaaain.. Mental state? Yeah it's good.. It's pretty spot on.. Take the good and the bad days.. I have always found it better to front my troubles and worries then bury them.. If I did nothing when I started to have health issues, I would not of rowed this far.. My mental state would of suffered and in turn the body failed.. This is a huge lesson I learn't prior to MND.. Have a laugh at the absolute shite that your going through.. Life ain't perfect.. Laughter does help.. There is always a time and a place for it.. Face any issues/troubles front on.. I want my kids to be strong mentally.. I want them to share any pain they might be going through, with us and anyone they need too confide in.. I want them to learn from this.. Life is hard at times and it only gets harder if you let it.. Communication is a powerful tool.. I want everyone to learn from what we are going through.. My legs are weak, although you can't see them in this picture.. They are down there dangling.. As strong as apricot jelly.. The dog eyes them off as a tasty treat to bury.. Probably great with Schmackos.. Skinny pin looking things.. Once able to carry me from A, B and C never to the D though.. I now drag them around on my wheelchair.. They swell.. They hurt.. Everything always hurts.. Sitting all day hurts.. Hurting, hurts.. MND... Yeah..... It hurts... It is still worth living through though... Life is worth it.. I'd take more pain for more time.. Alot more.. There is always someone watching you fight.. Watching you row.. Be the reason they fight when their time comes.. No matter how tough you think your life/troubles/dramas are there is always someone doing it tougher then you.. Rowing harder.. Trying to get ashore.. It doesn't make your problems any less important or troublesome.. They are still very important.. It just means if you want to get out of that Shite Creek your in... YOU have to be the first to grab that oar and get rowing.. It's a dark hell at time's fighting MND, Sometimes I feel a burden... I'm always trying to look for positives, looking into the light from the depths of a dark murky mud hole of which MND tries to consumes you.. Peering face first into the light is all anyone fighting MND can do.. The light always shines upon a positive.. There is always a positive or a win there somewhere.. Just got to look in the right direction.. If not for myself, on this day, winning, then one of my MND brothers or sisters.. Anyone's win is our win.. Row together.. It's my Motor Neurone Disease (MND/ALS) anniversary.. Four years down.. Terminally ill.. I am a lucky one, mine seems to be slower then alot of others.. I do feel guilty at times, guilt often plays on my mind.. I wonder if I could do more.. I have no control over what this disease will do to me and what it has done to my body over the last four years.. The out come is still the same for me as everyone that finds themselves in the same dingy canoe as me, the only thing we can do is row.. Whether it be physically or emotionally, you have to keep rowing.. Row for the ones that will be thrown in the same dingy canoe as us tomorrow.. If we row together we can accomplish the impossible.. Motor Neurone Disease will never beat me.. I still have alot of rowing left to do...

[shotsoftruth]

Sticky Notes, a Luke Hemmings AU

Part 1 / Part 2

Part 3

Noa’s alarm blared incessantly and she rolled to the other side of her bed, feeling around for the snooze button. Turning onto her back, she stared at the ceiling for a few minutes to psych herself up to getting out of bed. Ashton had told her he had a meeting with Luke today, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to face him again.

Ready or not, here he comes. She decided, hauling herself out of bed and putting her glasses on, dragging her feet as she went into the bathroom for a shower. She was not a morning person. The warm water helped to loosen her muscles, still stiff from sleep, and she stepped out much more awake and ready to face the day. With one hand she ran her fingers through her soaked hair and with the other she pulled up a playlist on her phone, attaching it to her bathroom dock (Yes, she had a dock specifically for the bathroom.) and plugging in her hairdryer.

In fifteen minutes her hair was dry and she was teasing volume into it with a comb, deciding against putting it up and shaping it into big, loose curls instead. Before returning to her bedroom, she put in her contacts, grabbing her glasses on the way out of the bathroom.

Humming the last song that had been playing as she got ready, she looked through the options in her closet, eventually deciding on a black pencil skirt and blazer with a red collared shirt underneath and black skinny tie. Not exactly big business attire, but not unprofessional by any standards.

Do I dare? She asked herself, eyeing her precious black Christian Louboutin platforms. They had been her first splurge as Ashton’s head consultant, she’d put everything she had into helping Ashton start his company and worked hard to be able to treat herself to those shoes. Thus, she saved them for special occasions. However, they’d give her the boost of courage she needed to face her boss’ awful business partner, so she pulled them down and set them on the table by her door- god forbid she leave them on the floor where Duke, her leonberger, could reach them and chew them to bits.

She ventured into her kitchen and started a pot of coffee before returning to her bathroom to put on her face, sharp eyeliner and red lipstick to match her shirt and the bottom of her shoes. I look rather impeccable, if I do say so myself, she thought as she wandered back into the kitchen, as if she didn’t say the same thing to herself every other morning. Humming, she poured her coffee into her travel mug and added a shot of caramel syrup and milk into it, grabbing a muffin from the bowl on her counter and stuffing it into a sandwich bag. She made sure to refill Duke’s food and water before going back to her entryway, throwing her phone and breakfast into her purse and putting on her shoes before exiting the house and going to work.

--

“Good morning Noa!” Ashton greeted Noa as she walked past his office. “You look very nice today!” She gave him a smile and a wave before opening the glass door to her office and entering, firing up her computer as she ate her muffin. Luke would be in at 11 AM with his consulting team and his lawyers, as well as a very important contract. This gave her two hours to get some work done before the meeting she was dreading so.

Ashton’s lawyer, Jack, entered the building at 10, giving Noa a wave before beelining to Ashton’s office, probably to give him legal advice on the contract they would be presented within an hour.

As the hour wore on Noa grew more anxious, unable to focus on her work as the meeting approached. Ashton’s company was successful, but this merge was definitely the biggest thing to happen in its short history. She could feel the buzzing energy throughout the building, practically listening to the “Did you hear?”s and “Luke Hemmings merger,”s despite the thick glass door and office walls cutting off the sounds from the rest of the office. It was all anyone had been talking about for two days, but as the hour of reckoning grew near Noa found herself tapping her pen incessantly on the glass surface of her desk rather than tapping her fingertips on her keyboard.

She jumped, distracted from her thoughts when her office phone buzzed. She looked up and into Ashton’s office, him nodding at her and picking up his laptop as well as some files. She gathered her own things and met him and Jack outside his office, the three of them walking to the boardroom, which was on its own floor and only accessible by the board members and consultants of the company. Ashton liked being in the open to all his employees, but there was far too much legal hassle for the boardroom the be walled and doored in glass like the rest of the office.

Ashton took his seat at the circular table and Noa took hers to his left while Jack started up the projector. Apparently the contract had been sent to Ashton hours ago and it was decided everyone in the meeting would be able to watch changes being made to the contract rather than dealing with writing in notes on a hard copy and retyping it.

Noa shot the consultant team group chat a text at 11:45 telling them to meet them and they were there within 30 seconds. Noa wasn’t the most conventional of people, much preferring to text her team rather than e-mail them for the small things.

“Nervous?” Amanda asked, taking her seat next to Noa.

“A bit.” Noa replied.

“We all are.” Ashton butted in. “Does the entire office not have anything else to talk about? All I’ve heard for two days is ‘Luke Hemmings-’ then silence once everyone’s realized I’m in the room. Definitely doesn’t help anyone’s nerves.”

“It’s nothing personal, Mr. Irwin.” Another consultant, Harris, replied. “It’s a small company so word travels fast, everyone’s just a bit excited about this recent development.”

“You should probably have a company-wide meeting about it when everything’s said and done. Or, at least send out an e-mail. A lot of employees feel left in the dark.” Amanda added.

“Alright. We’ll talk.” Ashton replied, standing from his seat. “If you’ll excuse me, I am going to wait in my office to greet our… esteemed guest.”

Noa let out a short laugh, as well as the rest of the consultants as they had heard of the bizarre power trip of a meeting between Luke and Noa. “Esteemed guest” didn’t even begin to cover what Luke thought of himself.

Everyone made small talk as they waited, most about weekend plans as it was Thursday and most of the office would be going out tomorrow. Noa watched as Luke stepped into the office with Ashton and four other people.

“Round table?” Luke questioned.

“Ashton hates sitting at the head. Something about everyone’s role in the company being equal.” Noa explained, closing the folder she’d been leafing through.

“Mr. Hemmings, you’ve met Noa Lexington already,” Ashton began and Luke focused on her, his baby blue eyes darkening to a sapphire with an otherwise unreadable expression. She gazed right back, giving him only a polite nod and quick, close-lipped smile. “This is my lawyer, Jack Richmond, and our consultants, Amanda Forest and Harris Lane.”

“Pleasure,” Luke replied. “I’m Luke Hemmings. These are my lawyers, Richard Smith and Charlotte Hugh, and my consultant, Olivia Tucker and her intern Evan Jones.”

Everyone took their seats, Ashton to the left of Richard and Luke to the right so they could watch the document be edited and printed directly from the computer to avoid any sabotaging. began going over the contract, the lawyers doing most of the talking unless one of the consultants caught something they did or didn’t agree with. Harris managed to crack a few jokes, easing the tension and earning a laugh from Ashton’s side of the table and even Luke’s lawyers, however Luke himself and Olivia remained deadpan and serious. However Noa could see a smile fighting its way onto Evan’s face, though he only sat and observed.

“Luke,” Ashton said eventually, well after the two CEOs determined they should be on a first name basis. “Lighten up mate, we want to get along with the people we work with, yeah?”

Luke looked taken aback, staring at Ashton for a short while before shrugging. “Different,” He said. “But alright.”

The work continued and Noa furrowed her brows as employees started to pop up in the text. “Wait,” She cut in. “All employees of Irwin Music Management previously at Hemmings Records are to transfer back to the record label?” She asked, reading the text

“Well, of course, seeing as the only reason you hired them was to get this contract.” Luke replied.

“No, absolutely not.” Noa said. “We value our employees, we did not hire yours because they are a pawn in trying to partner with you.”

“Mr. Irwin explicitly said in our meeting two days ago that he was stealing my employees specifically to grab my attention to partner with him. Now that he’s gotten what he wanted, I want my employees back in return.”

“Find new ones.” Noa replied sternly. “Mr. Irwin simply found employees he admired and wished to hire while trying to get in contact with your company. It also just happens to be the reason we’re on your radar, that’s not our fault. We keep the employees.”

Luke and Noa stared at each other for what seemed like forever, neither of them wanting to back down.

“Noa, this is negotiable-” Ashton started quietly.

“No,” She interrupted. “It’s not. They transfer, they lose their trust in both the companies. They’ll think we’re using them as pawns and Irwin Music Management is better than that. We hired them because we wanted them here.”

“Very well.” Luke said finally, after yet another drawn-out staring match, and Noa watched on the projector as Richard deleted that portion of the document.

Noa’s phone lit up on the table and she peered over at it.

Amanda: Is it just me, Harris, or could you have cut the sexual tension between Luke Hemmings and our lovely Noa with a knife just now?

Harris: With the staring they do? Absolutely.

This is highly unprofessional, Noa thought as she rolled her eyes at her phone.

Noa: Very funny. Shut up and listen to the lawyers.

Before long, the contract had been finished and both Ashton and Luke watched Richard print off two copies. Both were signed and the CEOs shook hands. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement, Mr. Hemmings.” Ashton said.

“Likewise,” Luke replied. “I expect great things from this partnership and your company, don’t let me down. Contract says I get your firstborn if you do.”

“Did you just attempt a joke, Mr. Hemmings?” Harris asked.

“Perhaps.”

“A for effort, it could use some work though.” Noa commented. “And stay away from Ella, you can have my firstborn if Ashton lets you down.”

Ashton cleared his throat to shut everyone up and turned his attention back to Luke. “Apologies, but is it alright if Jack shows you out? I need to meet briefly with my consultants.”

“Of course. Good luck, Mr. Irwin.” Luke said, grabbing his things, which included his copy of the contract.

“And to you, Mr. Hemmings.”

“Goodbye, Miss Lexington. It was great to see you again.” Luke added, his attention now turned to Noa.

“See you soon, Mr. Hemmings.” She replied.

The group exited and Ashton turned back to the consultants. “Alright, now that we’ve finished this,” He said, holding up his copy. “How do I tell the rest of the office?”

“I’ve got a sheetcake waiting in my mini fridge already, you just have to break the news.” Amanda said. “I had an intern pick it up this morning.”

“You are amazing.” Ashton said.

“Seriously.” Noa added, “I wish I’d thought of that.”

--

With the help of Noa and the rest of her team, Ashton had everyone in the small company occupating the large employee lounge area in no time.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors,” Ashton started when everyone had settled down. “And some of you must’ve noticed Luke Hemmings popping in and out of here over the last few days. This is not a company merger, as some have been speculating. We simply partnered with Hemmings Enterprises to better the opportunities for both companies. I can promise it’s an excellent move for Irwin Music Management and we will be seeing the benefits of it in almost no time at all. A partnership with a large and esteemed company such as Mr. Hemmings’ has been a long time coming, as Noa and I have been shooting for one like it since we started the company…”

--

“Good companies have good partners.” Noa said simply, rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes as she and Ashton went through yet another sleepless night of work at her shitty apartment as they didn’t have an office space yet.

“Partnerships like what?” Ashton asked, only half hearing the question.

“Like these.” Noa said, flipping her laptop around so Ashton could see.

“Companies like Hemmings Records?” Ashton asked.

“Probably not that one, but ones like it.” Noa said “Hemmings wouldn’t be my first choice, he’s living off of blood money and an inherited company. But if we were to partner with someone as big as that, it would do wonders.”

“One day we’re going to make a big partnership like that.” Ashton said. “We’re going to be so successful. You can pay off your student loans and get a better place, maybe even a big dog like you’ve always wanted. My wife won’t ever have to be the sole provider for me again, I can give her everything she wants. Even kids.” He continued. He’d been having an especially rough time at home lately, as he wanted nothing more than to give his wife kids like she wanted, but they just weren’t in a stable financial place to provide as parents.

“Yeah,” Noa said doubtfully. “One day.”

--

Clapping pulled Noa out of her thoughts and she realized Ashton had just finished speaking. He beamed at her and she gave a smile with equal enthusiasm back. Amanda cut into her sheetcake and passed it around while the office celebrated.

After about an hour, Ashton sent everybody back to work. Noa stepped in her own office and rolled her eyes when she saw a pink sticky note on her keyboard.

You look lovely today. Congratulations on the partnership.

-Jack

“What?” Noa asked, pulling off the sticky note in confusion. She thought it would’ve been from Luke again. Her computer lit and a message from Ashton appeared on the screen telling her there was something for her in his office.

“Your lawyer is flirting with me, Irwin.” Noa said when she entered Ashton’s office, dropping the note on his desk.

“Are you sure that isn’t meant for me?” He joked.

“Funny. What do you have for me in here?”

“I think one of Hemmings’ consultants or lawyers left this for you. It was left on the boardroom table. I don’t know, I didn’t look to see what it is.” He replied, handing her another sticky note. “Trade.”

“Ha, yeah, you can have Jack’s. I don’t want it.”

“He’s a pretty good looking guy, Noa.” Ashton said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“He’s so boring, Ash.” Noa said “Have you ever had an actual conversation with him? Outside of business? He’s like a robot.”

“Okay,” Ashton replied in a singsong voice, “If that’s what you really think.”

“Robot, Ashton.” Noa repeated as she exited his office.

The sticky note Ashton had given her were actually two sticky notes, she discovered when she sat at her desk once more.

Noa,

She peeled the two sticky notes apart, discarding the one that only said her name.

If looks could kill

(I am referring to both your ensemble and those glares you love to give me when I’m not giving you your way)

-Luke

She shook her head, amused, and shot Ashton a message on his computer.

Noa: Your business partner is flirting with me, too.

Ashton: Are you also sure that one is not meant for me?

Noa barked out a laugh, closing her messenger and getting back to work, the sticky note from Luke forgotten on her desk.

[incognition-writes]

Cross a Line

Michael waves his hand expansively. “You're crap, I’m crap. We’re crap together. It’ll be Crap Actually, the long-awaited Love Actually sequel, starring Gavin Free and Michael Jones.”

Or: What Happens When Their Consciences Rear Their Heads: Yet Another FAHC Vignette. 

Warning: Some short but potentially upsetting depictions of violence.

[AO3] (Leave a comment and I’ll love you!)

Sibling works:  [Undercurrent] [Icarus] [Roots]

It’s been a brutal day.  Michael wanders the dim shores of Los Santos aimlessly, trying to wind down, trying to tire himself out.  It’ll take weeks to shake this off, he thinks, kicking at the sand of maybe the sixth beach he’s crossed tonight.  Maybe months.  Maybe forever.  Right now, even going home seems unmanageable.  So he walks.  And walks, and walks.  

Sometime well into his third hour of meandering along sandy cliffs and empty beaches, and somewhere well outside the city, he runs into Gavin.  Or rather, he sees Gavin’s silhouette, perched out on a high, abandoned fishing pier overlooking the ocean.  Here, north of Los Santos, the city’s light pollution is drowned out by the black expanses of sky and ocean, and the long shadows of the cliffs.  It’s dark enough that Michael can barely make out Gavin’s skinny frame in the moonlight, folded up on the far end of the pier, his back to the shore.  But Michael does recognize him, even from the back and in the dark and from a distance-- something about the hunched curve of his spine, maybe, or the shape of his hair.  Or just the general, unsurprised notion that Gavin would be out here alone like this, on a night like this, after a day like this.

Michael hesitates.  Part of him isn’t sure if Gavin wants his company.  A larger part of him, though, selfishly doesn’t give a shit, so he makes his way towards the dike supporting the pier, scrambling up its side and and clambering onto the nearest end of the walkway.  He pauses at the top to catch his breath.  Up here, the damp, dark wood of the pier seems to absorb any light, stretching out like a black bridge to where Gavin sits on the far end, a small, slouched gray shadow suspended above the waves.

Michael makes his way along the pier, the rickety, rotting planks creaking under his feet.  Ahead, Gavin straightens at the noise, twists around so that he is squinting at Michael, watching him approach with one hand on his gun, until Michael is close enough that he relaxes in recognition.  By the time Michael is next to him, he’s staring out to sea again, pensive.  

A few seconds pass.  "You look like a scene from a shitty romance movie," Michael remarks, eventually.  

Gavin glances up, brow furrowed.  His eyes are a glassy gray in the dim light.  

“What? You do,” Michael insists, gesturing around them.  “You're sitting by the ocean in the middle of the night.  You look like a kicked puppy.  You just need, like, a love interest and some repressed feelings, and you could be starring in Love Actually.”

There’s a pause. “Love... Actually?” Gavin repeats.  His voice is hoarse, like he hasn't talked in awhile.  He clears his throat.

Michael sits down with a thump.  He’s not sure where the thought came from either, but he’ll go with it.  "Yeah.  Last romance movie I saw.  Like, a decade ago.  But you know, that movie’s timeless.  Singular, timeless crap.  You’d fit right in.”  He unbuckles his shoulder holster and dumps it to the side, gun and all.  

Gavin looks back out to sea, nonplussed.  “So... you’re telling me I’m… crap,” he says haltingly, clearly trying to puzzle out this surprise game of what-the-hell-is-Michael-on-about.

Michael shrugs.  “Yeah.”  He knows he’s just being shitty, as usual, but he’s determined to brazen it out now.  “I don’t know if I’ve told you enough times before, but you’re very good at being crap.  Maybe the best person at being crap, that I know.”   And there it is-- Gavin’s lips are twitching in a tiny, bemused smile.  Always good at rolling with Michael’s bullshit, Gavin is.  “You're also pretty unique, so there’s that, too,” Michael adds, figuring he shouldn’t get too abrasive.  “Singular, crappy, British… who knew that Gavin Free and Love Actually had so much in common?”

Gavin’s chuckling now.  Michael grins back, feeling something in his chest lighten.  Score one point for Michael’s stupid insults.  

“So if I’m the shitty lead in the movie, what are you?” Gavin asks, smiling.  

“Me?” Michael considers, surveying the dark ocean.  “I’m your straight-talkin’ American friend, trying to pull your head out of your ass.”

"Ah,” Gavin says.  “You’ve got confidence in your un-crap-ness, then.”

“Naaaah.  I’m crap too.  It’s all crap.” Michael waves his hand expansively.  “You're crap, I’m crap.  We’re crap together.  It’ll be Crap Actually, the long-awaited Love Actually sequel, starring Gavin Free and Michael Jones.”

Gavin giggles, nodding.  “Sounds top.”  They’re both companionably quiet for a moment.  Then, Gavin tilts his head to one side.  “So, Michael boi.”  

“Yeah.”

“Where in the script do you confess your secret crappy love for me?”  

Michael freezes.  His heart is suddenly going like a jackhammer.  He glances at Gavin,  but Gavin’s just looking back with an innocent, shit-eating little grin on his face.

Son of a bitch, Michael vaguely thinks.  Thank god his own fight-or-flight instinct tends squarely towards “fight,” because before his small seizure becomes too apparent, he manages a smirk.  "Hey, don’t worry," he hears himself saying.  "It might take me a while to work up the courage.  But I’ll get there.”  

Maybe it’s a bit of a strong response, but it’s worth it for the way the cheeky grin on Gavin’s face slips into stunned surprised.  Michael laughs, burying any deeper examinations of his feelings under a smug smile.  “Gotta be careful what you wish for, boi.  You just might get it.”  

Gavin stares out at the sea again, still looking a bit dumbfounded.  He mumbles something in reply, but it’s lost in the soft rushing of the tide.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Gavin says, louder.  Is Michael imagining the flush on his cheeks?  Probably.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the moon hover above the horizon like a little space-boat.  Michael’s composure returns, since Gavin (thankfully) isn’t pushing the topic.  But without that to distract him, Michael feels his forced levity vanishing, the past two days once again rearing their heads in his mind’s eye.  He looks over at Gavin, who’s slouching again, scrubbing his face with his hands tiredly.  Michael sighs.  He supposes they can’t avoid it.  

"So, why're you out here?" he tries.

Gavin doesn't reply.

“Still thinking about the school?" Michael asks more gently, after a moment.

Gavin pauses, then nods, eyes shut, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.  Michael grimaces.  He knows that’s why Gavin’s out here, of course.  It’s why Michael has been wandering beaches all night too, unable to sleep.  The past few minutes with Gavin was the closest he’s gotten to a respite.  

Yesterday, he and Gavin had found the school on the way home from a negotiation.  It had been bad.  Worse than bad.  The explosion had happened just before Michael and Gavin got there; adults and children alike were running around wildly, screaming in terror.  The cops hadn’t yet arrived.  And in the middle of the chaos, a pristine Fake AH flag stood planted.  The Fakes never left flags or other calling cards at the scenes of their crimes, of course; clearly, someone was trying to frame them.  But as Gavin and Michael picked their way towards the flag, they couldn’t help but see the charred bodies, some of them far too young.

Michael screws his eyes shut.  The images remain, though, seared into his eyelids.  "They're never going to do that shit again,"  he says, through grit teeth.  “We made sure of it.”  His words are barely louder than the waves, and he doesn’t sound convinced, but it’s true.  Yesterday, as Michael took down “their” flag from the ruins, Gavin retched for a while in the car.  They went to Michael’s, where Gavin began methodically, feverishly hunting down the pathetic, vile humans who had done it.  Michael called the rest of the crew over, and tonelessly described what they had seen.  He couldn’t recall the last time he had seen Geoff or Ryan look more grim.  When Gavin emerged with the intel on the culprits, they all clinically, efficiently divided up the targets, and split up to hunt them down.  By the early hours of the next morning, they had caught every single one and had brought them to a warehouse by the rail yard.  Ryan and Jack procured a confession out of each of them in turn, savagely torturing when necessary, no amusement in their eyes.  Everyone else watched the confessions in cold silence-- even Gavin, his eyes narrowed, jaw tight.  Lindsay recorded each one on video, looking as severe as Justice incarnate, and forwarded the videos to law enforcement.  After that, they shot each of the soulless child-murdering sons of bitches between the eyes.  

That had been this afternoon.  

Gavin is silent next to Michael, lost in thought.  Michael, equally silent, tries to pull his mind’s eye away from images of the school for maybe the thousandth time.  

"Are we any better than them?" Gavin finally asks, softly.  

That’s the million-dollar question, Michael thinks.  They all deal with chaos and bloodshed-- they’re agents of it; they're thieving, joyriding, destructive assholes-- so it’s an all-too-reasonable question.  A terrifyingly logical question.

And yet, Michael feels like he saw a line yesterday, one that he hasn’t crossed.  Surely, he has not.   Would not.  That egotistical destruction of pure, innocent life for nothing more than posturing between gangs , it grips Michael, sobers him as he sits here, suspended in a dark limbo.  He knows Gavin feels it too; he can see it in Gavin’s uncharacteristically hollow stare, the haunting images stabbing at them in a vicious reminder of how close to pure evil they live. That emptiness, that worthlessness-- that could so easily be them.

Maybe the fact that they can still feel this deep, gnawing turmoil counts for something in their favor.  

But Michael can’t answer Gavin’s question.  It would be an empty answer anyway, a hollow self-judgment.  So he just shrugs slowly, giving Gavin a sidelong glance.  “I don’t know,” he says, hating how his voice wavers a little.

Gavin’s moonlit-gray eyes refocus on him then, regarding him with unusual emotion.  “Probably the best answer you could give, right there,” he says.  

They both go back to staring into the murky waves.  The wind picks up, tossing the water into louder, rushing turmoil for a moment before dying down again.  

Ever so slowly, Gavin leans sideways, and rests his head on Michael's shoulder.  

Michael stiffens.  Just like that, his pulse is back to racing.  Gently, he tilts his head to try and catch Gavin’s expression, but Gavin's face is hidden by his shock of hair and the dimness of night.  Michael inhales slowly.  Exhales.  Now is not the time to be a goddamn teenager, he thinks.  The feathery tips of Gavin's hair tickle his neck.

They stay like that for a minute, Michael staring out into the moonlit sea and Gavin leaning against him, before Michael lifts his arm and drapes it around Gavin's shoulders.  Lightly at first, and then he lets the weight settle, pulling Gavin ever so slightly closer.

Gavin shifts minutely, relaxing.  "Thought you might shove me off into the water," he murmurs.

"I haven't ruled it out," Michael lies quietly.  Gavin’s warmth at his side is more comforting than he’ll say.

Gavin chuckles. "Fair."

“I’ll save it for the sequel to our crappy movie.”

Gavin nods, his hair brushing lightly against Michael's jaw.  "Wait till the others show up before you do it. ‘S good comedy."  

"It might be a while before they find us, though," Michael says, leaning his head against Gavin’s.

"I’m all right with that," Gavin replies.  His arm snakes around Michael's waist.

They sit there silently.  The moon quietly sinks into the sea.

[AO3] [Undercurrent] [Icarus] [Roots]

[madforhoran]

take the chance

Pairing: Narry (Niam, Zarry)

word count: 3096

“Could use a drink,” Niall mutters on Friday evening after suffering a particularly stressful week at work. Deadlines, month end, all that stuff he wishes he didn’t have to care about.

“Or a good fuck?” Harry muses and quirks his brow at him. He’s laying on the too-small-for-his-long-body couch, obviously home way earlier than Niall. Being a freelance photographer has its perks. Niall sometimes can’t help to feel a tad bit jealous of his friend.

“Too tired for that, mate,” Niall huffs and tussles his freshly cut hair. He got rid of the bleached blond finally, and his hair feels softer now. Easier to maintain.

“We’ll see,” Harry says, jumping off the couch like an enthusiastic monkey. “Let’s go down to the bar.”

Few drinks down his throat, but he isn’t interested in anything else besides the warm tinge of alcohol in his belly. He used to be a flirt, a good one. Suddenly, he realises peace is all he needs. His job has drained him of any drive to find someone. He’s become a monk over the last three years.

“C’mon, Ni,” Harry nudges him, a good-natured tipsy smile on his delicately shaped lips. “I can’t believe you’re not mingling in the crowd already. There’s a lot of fit birds and lads here.”

“I don’t know, H,” Niall shrugs. “Sorry, I’m no fun today, I guess.”

“Then let’s go home.”

“No, I don’t want to ruin your evening,” Niall protests, feeling guilty for being a downer. He just can’t help it.

“I won’t stay without you,” Harry winks, tosses money on the bar to pay for their drinks, and wraps his arm around Niall’s shoulders, dragging him outside.

It starts with a simple “I’ve been thinking...”

That night, Niall’s good ol’ friend Harry unzips Niall’s jeans and works on Niall’s cock until it starts fattening up in his hand. Niall’s mind is fuzzy; his body feels warm as Harry takes him in that beautiful mouth of his, and sucks. Sucks so expertly that Niall is orgasming a couple of minutes later, in an absolute state of craziness. It isn’t weird, right? There isn’t anything weird about a friend offering help by sucking your cock dry.  

Niall decides it isn’t.

He definitely doesn’t think there’s anything out of the ordinary when the next day Harry fingers him open and fucks him so hard that he’s not able to sit down properly.

Everything is absolutely and totally fine.

⌘

Niall can’t argue with the fact that having Harry as a flatmate is making his life more bearable especially under current circumstances. They’re not together together, but there’s a new level added to their friendship. The biggest bonus is that Harry’s always there. Niall doesn't have to call; he doesn't have to bother with date preparations, awkward silence, and disappointment. He doesn't have to impress.

Harry knows when Niall needs the relief as if he had an alarm or sensor tuned onto detecting Niall’s bad mood and stress. Most of the time, he takes the lead. However, Niall is eager to return the favour. Mainly because the glint in Harry’s eyes each time he takes the initiative is addictive. Equally as much as Harry’s cock.

Niall calms himself down with the dirty thoughts during the long day at the office. It’s twisted, he knows. He should be focusing on work. Instead, he thinks about Harry wrecking him in so many ways that he won’t be able to catch a breath. Whatever helps him get through the day, he’ll use.

A new colleague, Liam, approaches his desk with a shy smile, and he has to suppress a sigh. What now? He wants to ask. Liam has been here for three months already; he's diligent, a quick learner who never makes a mistake. Niall doesn't understand why he has to be the one checking after him when there’s nothing to check. It’s almost as if the lad took every opportunity to speak to him.

“Hey, Niall, sorry…,” he mumbles and clears his throat, “could you please look this over? I’m not sure if I’ve done everything properly.”

Niall nods and scoots his chair to make some space for Liam. He places his laptop on the desk and points the index finger on the screen with the company’s ordering system opened. “I corrected the pricing,” he says, “but it doesn't add up.”

Niall barely glances at the order. All the data is hundred percent. “It’s alright, Liam, you can have one cent difference. This isn't an approved price offering,” Niall explains, even though he's pretty sure Liam knows it already. He'd passed the newcomer test with flying colours.

“Oh, shite. Sorry, I forgot,” he apologises sheepishly. He's like a lost puppy or acting like one so to speak.

“No problem, that's what I'm here for,” Niall says and returns to filling in the annoying excel tables he has to send to the maintenance team.

“Uh, I was wondering—,” he hears Liam’s soft voice again, “—if you'd like to have a dinner with me after work?”

What?

Niall gawks at him. Obviously, Liam is a decent lad, but all Niall can think about right now is his friend’s dick. It wouldn't be fair to Liam, would it? You and Harry are not together, Niall's rattled brain reminds him, you can do whatever you want. But he doesn’t.

“It’s fine if you say no, Niall, I just thought that—” Liam begins rambling, and Niall feels bad. Really bad. “Maybe sometime, yeah?” he stops him, giving him a tiny sliver of hope. He feels like a total arse. He shouldn’t, though. He and Harry aren't in a relationship; they’re friends for god’s sake.

Still.

He can’t wait to get home, have a pint, and watch himself sink onto Harry’s stiff cock. There’s no way he's willing to admit this is becoming a problem. No, he's just trying to make up for all the years he hasn't been properly touched.

He leaves the office at seven (and carefully avoids Liam). The drive back home has never been longer, and he licks his lips several times, nervously glancing at his phone. Harry’s probably cooking one of his delicious healthy meals, naked, with only the apron covering his bits. It used to annoy Niall a lot, now look at him, swallowing the spit as his jeans tighten.

He certainly doesn't expect someone else to occupy his place on the couch eating Harry’s food, hell no. “Hey, Ni,” Harry greets him, waving with a spatula. He's dressed in his best clothes, and Niall's mood falls south immediately. It doesn't take an expert to figure out what’s happening. First of all, what the fuck? Second of all, he didn't even bother to warn him. Third of all, what the fuck?

“Come sit with us, I'm sure you're hungry,” he offers, as innocently as ever. The stranger on their couch nods at him, barely acknowledging his presence. Wow. Niall guesses gorgeous people with perfectly sculpted faces like his don't need decent social manners.

Niall quietly takes his plate, fork, and a napkin, and sits down on the chair that presumably Harry moved there for him. The bastard planned it; he had absolutely no intention to hide all this.

“This is Zayn,” Harry breaks off the awkward moment and touches the man’s shoulder gently, “he’s a model. We met on a photo shoot.”

“I’m Niall, Harry’s flatmate,” Niall extends his hand politely when Zayn doesn't budge. He's met with the weakest handshake in the history, and a mumbled ‘nice to meet ya.’ What in the fresh hell is his deal? Why has Harry invited him here (apart from the obvious reason that the lad is attractive, and Harry would like to shag him, preferably without Niall knowing he did so)? Nevertheless, this seems like Harry wants him to know, and maybe he even wants his approval. By the look in his eyes, Niall suspects it’s true. At this point, he's sure he isn't going to be the one to get his brains shagged out tonight, and he's more upset than he should be.

The next morning, he's afraid to leave his room (he doesn't want to see Zayn, thank you), but he needs a wee. The bathroom is thankfully empty, and he can't hear any voices coming from the joined kitchen-living room. It’s a relief to find only Harry fixing himself a bowl of oatmeal. No other plates (or Zayn) in sight.

“Hey,” Niall murmurs and walks up to his friend. There are quite a few questions he'd love to ask, but he isn't sure he wants to hear the answer.

“Mornin’,” Harry smiles, “here, I’ve made some for you.” He points at the second bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and raspberries on top.

“Thanks.”

Niall begins eating quietly, ignoring Harry’s stare. He shouldn't be the one explain, and he hopes Harry picks up the hint. And he does, eventually, after Niall's half done with his breakfast, crankier with each bite he takes.

“So…about last night,” he says, forces Niall to look up. “Nothing happened; he left after you went to bed. But he asked me out on a date. Which is why we should stop this—this thing—between us.”

“M’kay,” is Niall's somewhat collected reaction. There’s nothing else to say.

⌘

Niall goes out with Liam, and it’s peaceful, relaxed. It turns out the puppy-eyed lad has the softest lips Niall's ever tasted (not that he tasted that many, but that’s not the point), and a cock to die for. He isn't Harry, no, no one can substitute the devil that is Harry Styles. However, he manages to take Niall's mind of the Harry-Zayn situation at least for a little while as Zayn tends to roam around their flat too often for Niall's comfort. He’s even bought ear plugs because he can't handle the obnoxious noises the two of them are making. Too bad he can’t go temporarily blind so that he wouldn't have to look at that skinny twat at all. What Harry sees in him is beyond Niall's understanding.

Their bathroom stinks of Zayn’s shitty cologne and hairspray, his shoes somehow always end up in Niall's way, and he's almost broken his neck twice, tripping over them as the douchebag takes them off wherever he pleases, instead of putting them next to the front door on a mat. Twatface.

“You seeing someone?” Harry surprises him with a direct question one night when both of them are home. Harry’s jerk is on a family visit, and Liam took a sick day.

“Yup,” Niall replies nonchalantly, switching the tv to golf channel. “Why?”

“We could go on a double date,” Harry suggests, and Niall chokes on his spit. Isn't enough of torture to have Zayn regularly pestering the air, now he should go on a freaking double date?!

“I don't think it’s a good idea, H.”

“Why’s that? Are you ashamed of him, or her?” Harry teases, and Niall scrunches his nose at him dismissively. It’s Harry who shouldn't be so damn proud to call that model prick his boyfriend. But he doesn't say it out loud.

“I wanna meet the person, Ni. I didn't keep Zayn from you,” he argues. As if he did a god’s deed by introducing him to Niall. Please. Maybe Niall should agree on this, to show how a decent human like Liam behaves.

“Fine,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. “M’gonna have to check up on him, he hasn't been feeling well.”

“So, it’s a he?” Harry smirks.

“Liam, my colleague.”

Harry gapes at him with disbelief. “The Liam who's constantly asking for your help? The handsome, but annoying Liam? OK then.”

“He’s a good guy.” Unlike somebody else, Niall wants to add, but rather bites his tongue.

⌘

Liam’s mouth feels so warm wrapped around Niall's cock. The department meeting has ended, and Niall dragged Liam into the showers that for some unknown reason this building has even though there’s no gym. They are quite convenient in situations like this, though. Especially if he has to suggest Harry’s terrible idea to Liam.

The bearded lad hollows his cheeks, taking Niall deeper in his throat, and Niall starts thrusting his hips gently, enjoying the low murmurs Liam lets out. He's fascinating, to say at least. So innocent looking from the outside, so filthy when he gets his hands on Niall.

The orgasm hits him, making his knees buckle, and Liam steadies him, his strong arms holding Niall's body up like a prized possession. Niall is aware of the fact that he doesn't deserve him. Liam’s too pure for someone like him, someone who still feels bitter that his best friend chose a stranger over him.

“I’ve never done such a thing before,” Liam confesses and pecks the tip of Niall's nose. “You bring out the worst in me, babe.”

“Do I?” Niall chuckles, caressing the soft skin of Liam’s bicep. He brings out the worst in himself as well, damn it. Here it goes. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“So you didn't drag me here just for a quick blowie? That’s unfortunate,” Liam smirks and licks the corner of his lip, still wet from Niall's cum. Shit.

“Would you be interested in a double date? My flatmate and his boyfriend, you and I, drinks, bowling.”

Liam smiles, fixing Niall's ruffled shirt, his fingertips tenderly brushing Niall's sides. “Sounds good, babe. You could've asked right away, though.”

“And lose a chance to fuck your mouth? No way!”

Liam’s face twists in a fit of giggles. “OK, fair enough!”

Niall’s going to hell for all this. He really is.

⌘

“Nailed it, baby!” Liam hollers excitedly after (again) hitting and knocking down all ten pins. Niall has to admit that his enthusiasm is the only reason this double date isn't a complete train wreck. Otherwise, it would be, thanks to Zayn who’s paying more attention to his phone and immaculately styled hair than to Harry and their game.

Liam encircles Niall in a hug and twirls him so easily as if he was a rag doll. Just then Niall notices Harry is frowning. The truth is, he hasn't been his cheerful self from the moment all four of them got here. If he was the competitive type, Niall would think he's taking bad that he and Zayn are losing, but Harry isn't like that. Something else is wrong.

Eventually, Zayn bails on them, complaining he's tired and leaves.

“I guess I’m gonna call it a day, too,” Harry states, finishing the rest of his drink. Liam, the good puppy he is, immediately shakes his head. “Harry, mate, stay with us. We can go against each other.”

“Li, we stand no chance against you,” Niall chuckles. “Literally zero.”

Liam blushes and pulls Niall to his side, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Then let’s do something else. We can play darts; I suck at those, big time!”

Harry looks away, not keen to spend time with them as a third wheel—at least that’s what Niall assumes. “I’m knackered, so you would win,” Niall lies, “I’m with H, bed’s calling.”

“Alright, you coward,” Liam smirks. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow. It was nice meeting you, Harry.”

Harry manages a fake little smile and returns Liam’s handshake.    

“What’s up with you?” Niall asks once they are alone, walking back home.

“Nothing,” Harry mutters. They are quiet the rest of the way, and Niall realises he isn't used to such deafening silence from Harry’s side.

But something happens in the bathroom when he's brushing his teeth. A touch that makes his skin burn, and a kiss that causes his heart skip a beat. Harry knows those two sensitive spots on Niall's body. The left hip right above V line. The other one behind the right ear.

Niall goes to bed confused.

⌘

Harry startles Niall the next day the same way, and Niall jumps at the contact. He can’t do this to him right now when Niall's trying to be happy with somebody else. He turns to face those striking green eyes with determination, but it dissolves pretty quickly. He can’t even be mad at him.

“Haz, what are you doing?”

“I’m so dumb, so fucking dumb,” he mumbles, brushing away the strands of curly hair from his forehead. It’s his typical nervous twitch, all too familiar to Niall.

“Harry, what's wrong?”

Harry takes a deep breath and grabs Niall's hand, intertwining their fingers. He's standing so close it’s dizzying, but Niall is too stunned to step away from him.

“I thought I would be fine with it. And I'm not,” he confesses. “Liam, he is…he's cool, I guess, though maybe slightly boring—,”

“Hold up,” Niall interrupts him, escaping from his grasp, “the date was your idea in the first place. Then suddenly you decide you gonna touch me even though you have a boyfriend. And since you've started the ‘who’s worse’ game, let me tell you, Zayn is a major fucking douche.”

Harry huffs, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile. “That’s why I'm breaking up with him.”

“What?” Niall gasps.

“Seeing you with Liam last night, I realised I fucked up. I saw how he was with you, and just…I wanted, I want it to be me.”

Niall shakes his head. “You can't be serious. Why now, Haz?”

“Tell me you don't feel the same way and I’ll back off,” he says, closing the distance between them again. “Although, I think that you being mad at Zayn wasn't just because he's a dick. You’ve given a chance to Liam shortly after I started dating, while we both know you don't fancy him. No matter how fit and sweet he is.”

“Haz—,”

“I’m sorry I put you through this. I should've told you, but I thought you weren't interested in more than a casual stress relief shag, so I tried to move on.”

“No, I should've been the one to tell you,” Niall argues. “You never were a stress relief toy for me and I'm sorry if I made you feel that way. You're my best friend, pet.” Niall takes a deep breath, heart thudding in his chest so hard he can almost hear it. Maybe more than a friend.  

“I guess I'm not a good friend if all I can think about is kissing you and telling you I'm in love with you. That’s not what friends do, right?”

Most probably not, Niall thinks as he cups Harry’s cheek. He knows what he has to do.

⌘

Liam takes the break up with grace and says he isn't surprised. “I may look like an idiot, but I have two eyes and a heart. Go get your boy, Ni.”

And he does.

[tragicbooks]

5 bizarre features of American politics that shock people when they first hear about them.

...including one reason people are staying involved despite it all.

<br>

Tuning in to American politics for the first time in 2017 is a lot like drinking from a firehose while fighting a grizzly bear and trying to summarize the plot of "Inception" from memory.  

Photos by: Win McNamee/Getty Images (Paul Ryan), Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (Neil Gorsuch, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren), Zach Gibson/Getty Images (James Comey), Jim Lo Scalzo - Pool/Getty Images (Donald Trump), iStock (Supreme Court).

As breaking news and scandals continue to erupt at an Usain Bolt-ish pace, many Americans are experiencing the early days of the Trump administration as a crash course in what makes our government kind-of-but-honestly-not-exactly work, with emphasis on the "crash."

Granted, even for those of us who have been mainlining C-SPAN for years, the current political climate is more than a little strange. For those just wading into the pool, it's like the water is 150 degrees, there are knives in the water, and oh yeah, it's peanut butter instead of water.

I spoke to four political novices who are getting acquainted with our political system for the first time — a teacher in Boston, a corporate retail worker (also in Boston), a marketing executive in New York, and a former advertising project manager in Detroit. Here are just a few of the surprising things they were shocked to learn are real parts of American politics:

1. If one political party wins enough elections in a state, they can change the maps to make it harder for their opponents to beat them in the next election.

If you've been paying attention to politics for a while, you know this is called gerrymandering, and you know it happens all the time. When a state redraws its districts to shut your party out of power, sure, you might throw up a rage post or two on your old blog, but when your party does it, hey, all's fair in love and war! After all, it is, has been for a long time, and is, for the most part, perfectly legal.

Now... consider gerrymandering as if you were learning about it for the first time.

You'd grab the pointiest pitchfork in grabbing range.

Take Texas. Its state government is completely controlled by Republicans and has been since 2003, which means they get to draw the congressional districts however they damn well please.

As a result, you get districts like Texas' 35th. Note its dispassionately illogical shape:

Image via National Atlas/U.S. Department of the Interior.

Imagine believing that congressional districts should make at least vague geographical sense and that your vote is distributed, weighted, and counted the same as anyone's anywhere in America. Then imagine looking at that.

Then, imagine learning that the 35th owes its gunky bottle-brush shape to the fact that it's 63% Latino. Texas Latinos vote pretty heavily for Democrats. If you wanted to dilute the Latino vote, the best way to do that would be to pack them all into one comically skinny but technically geographically contiguous region, creating one safe Democratic seat and a bunch of safe Republican seats around it.

You'd be furious.

In the case of Texas' 35th, the gerrymandering was so blatantly racially motivated that it recently lost a court challenge. But usually, states can get away with if they claim they're doing it for partisan — rather than racial — reasons, which is a bit like saying, "Sure, I punched him in the face, but not because I hate the guy — just because my arm was swinging really fast in his direction and my hand happened to be clenched, so it's not assault."

Boxing isn't fighting! It's just aggressive stretching in close proximity. Photo by skeeze/Pixabay.

If you were new to politics, you might think the system would intervene more often to put a stop to such blatant inequity. After all, this is America and we have checks and balances! Right?

Not exactly. And by "not exactly," I mean right now, you're waking up to the bizarro reality that...

2. There are no "checks and balances" if the people we elect don't want to check or balance each other.

The notion that evil or bad policy is ipso facto checked by our fair and just system is comforting — but hilariously wrong, as nearly all of the political newbies I spoke to reported being horrified to learn.

Of all the supposedly holy features of our government, perhaps none is more vaunted then the tripartite separation of co-equal powers — executive, legislative, and judicial — that you learned about in civics class. They're among the foremost concerns of our Constitution, praised by politicians left and right alike. You watched "Schoolhouse Rock" animations about them in middle school, where they were discussed in weird circus metaphors sung to you in a soothing Joni Mitchell voice. And you were soothed.

You feel good and serene about the nice normal people making the laws that govern your every waking hour. Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

That song today, however, would probably feature singer James Hetfield, probably with bronchitis, and a gang of horny sea lions would be slapping at his throat.

We're all going to die. Photo by Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

When, as in 2017, one party controls the executive, legislative, and (probably soon) judiciary, that party can basically go hog-wild with its most ludicrously ideological, borderline unconstitutional ideas — and pretty much no one can stop them.

Several of the political newcomers I spoke to were particularly shocked at how far executive orders can go and how long they can stay in place, even when they're clearly illegal. Indeed, executive orders have become sort of like the Tom Brady Super Bowl Hail Mary of policymaking — presidents just give it a go and damn it to Wednesday if anyone tries to stop them. Republicans were livid when President Obama signed a series of executive orders protecting undocumented immigrants from deportation. And Democrats are furious now that President Trump has signed orders making it easier to kick them out and build a gigantic wall on the southern border. Congress can pass laws to overrule them. But if they don't want to, they won't, and right now, they clearly don't.

Sometimes, the old constitutional reflex kicks in, as with Trump's two travel bans, which were blocked in the courts. But even that might be a temporary victory. If Neil Gorsuch gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, reinstating its 5-4 conservative majority, things could easily change.

Aw shucks, this nice Colorado dad just thinks the law is the law, and if the law just so happens to line up completely 100% with the favored policy outcomes of Republican party political leaders in 2017, so be it! Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

True, the Constitution remains, technically speaking, the supreme law of the land. But a lot of bad stuff is constitutional, as many formerly carefree Americans are learning as they find themselves increasingly glued to the incoming stream of ludicrous news "Clockwork Orange"-style. The Supreme Court decision that led to the Japanese internment camps? Still hasn't been overturned! And even if an executive order or bad piece of legislation is unconstitutional, partisan forces are often enough to persuade enough legislative, executive, and judicial officials to pretend that it's all good, at least for a few weeks, years, or decades.  

Add that to ubiquitous gerrymandering, and you begin to realize with ever-increasing dread that:

3. For politicians, their parties are bae (before all else), including bcs (before common sense) and btbiotap (before the best interests of the American people).

These people are all thinking about biting each others' faces off. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

If you didn't know much about how lawmaking worked, you'd probably assume it went something like this: Members of the two parties argue for a while about some bill or another, then get together, have a few beers, compliment pictures of each others' grandkids, and come up with something that basically lands in the middle of what they want. You know, compromise. It wasn't so long ago that this was the case.

Imagine how political newbies feel when they find out the truth, Bruce-Willis-gripping-his-bloody-gut-at-the-end-of-"The-Sixth-Sense"-style.

Sure, some members will occasionally buck their party leaders for strategic reasons, but for the most part, politicians these days defend their parties to the death — logic, reason, and, uh, you know, what's good for the country and the world be damned. Think about learning that for the first time and realizing that if you prefer, say, progressive policy outcomes, you'd be better off voting for a ferret with a "D" next to their name than a reasonable, well-spoken, moderate Republican doctor-war-hero-astronaut. And vice-versa. It would barely compute. And it should barely compute!

Don't blame me! I voted for Mr. Longfloppy. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Since both parties are pretty well ferreted up at this point, you get a spectacle like James Comey's March 20 hearing, where the FBI director revealed that aides to the president of the United States and, perhaps, the president himself, are under investigation for potentially colluding with a foreign power to undermine an American election, and Republicans on the panel only wanted to grill him about who leaked this embarrassing revelation to the press. It's as if during the O.J. trial the prosecution had spent its time trying to slam Ron Goldman's parents for making such a big deal out of everything.

If this base-level skullduggery were news to you, you'd probably assume we, the people, could band together, decide on a few things we all agree on, agree to disagree on the rest, and vote these jokers out.

Except then you learn, in perhaps the most heinous twist of twists...

4. There are some politicians who actively make it as hard as possible for people to vote, and they're getting pretty good at it.

Wouldn't be surprised if this woman had to fight a few great whites to get here. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

This may be old news to some of us, but if you're one of the people just learning about voter ID laws for the first time, you'd probably feel like giving the nearest window a good bricking too.

Believe it or not, historically, voting isn't something Americans have been good at. Even in our presidential elections, only a little more than half of us do it. If you were newly engaged in politics, you'd probably assume that most politicians — grateful for the patriotic exercise of franchise that allowed them to serve their country — would want to make it easier.

Instead, you're learning that dozens of elected officials across America are actively trying to make voting harder. "Sure," the thinking apparently goes, "you technically can vote as long as you fill out forms A through Q in a timely fashion, bring the right laminated card, and survive the piranha-stocked moat we dug in front of this elementary school cafeteria."

The current weapon of choice for politicians getting off on taking away Americans' voting rights is the aforementioned voter ID law, which forces voters to bring identification to the voting booth. Many of these laws specifically ban types of IDs likely to be held by poorer, younger, browner folks (like student IDs) while permitting those likely to be held by older, whiter, more conservative folks (like gun licenses), which is obviously a huge coincidence that will be cleared up just as soon as hahahahahaha.

Felon disenfranchisement, which takes away the vote from convicted felons — who just so happen to be disproportionately black and brown — even after they've served their time, is another biggie.

This felon would definitely have her right to vote taken away just as soon as we figure out what she's guilty of. Photo by Rhona Wise/Getty Images.

And then there's the plain old refusal to streamline and improve the voting process that leads to random mishaps like being tripped up by a clerical error or having your registration lost and being forced to cast a provisional ballot, as one of the political newcomers I spoke to reported experiencing when she tried to vote for the first time in 2008.

Add it all up and you can see why someone just starting to engage with politics might be tempted to disengage right away. Yet many are choosing not to. They're choosing to stay involved and engaged, even when things are at their John-Malkovich-in-the-Malkovich-universe-iest.

And for some, that's because...

5. People power still exists, and it's pretty great to see up close.

Democracy, I am told, looks like this. Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images.

Even if you hadn't been paying much attention to the arcane inner workings of our government, a quick look out the window any time in the last few decades or so would probably lead you to believe that Americans were pretty content to let our elected officials do what they wanted without much taking-to-the-streets. You might even assume that sort of in-your-face activism was a relic of the '60s or earlier, the subject of grainy, black-and-white news footage and CNN baby boomer-bait documentaries, something that our couch-sitting, Arby's-inhaling, Kardashian-watching culture couldn't hope to live up to.

Instead, almost immediately following Donald Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, we got millions of women and allies marching for their rights in hundreds of cities large and small, thousands descending on airports across the country to show solidarity with refugees and immigrants, and groups organizing across the country to lobby their elected officials to protect their health care. It's like a Woody Guthrie deep cut that was just a little too commie-ish to make it onto your second-grade music class playlist, except it's really happening in 2017.

"The trees are green/And the canyons majestic/Seize the means of production/You have nothing to lose but your chains!" Photo by Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and the Sun.

A lot about the way our system works is messed up and has been for a long time. It needs to be reformed up the wazoo, and its wazoo probably won't get so much as a look from the current crop of swamp creatures we've elected. But as the countless Americans just waking up to the reality of our politics are discovering, there's a pretty seriously effective counterweight: us.

Even those of us who are jaded can admit — we're surprised.

Thanks to Abby Huntley, Hannah Eisenberg, Robert Fuhrer, and Mary Kay Gumbel for speaking with me for this piece.

<br>

[socialviralnews]

5 bizarre features of American politics that shock people when they first hear about them.

...including one reason people are staying involved despite it all.

<br>

Tuning in to American politics for the first time in 2017 is a lot like drinking from a firehose while fighting a grizzly bear and trying to summarize the plot of "Inception" from memory.  

Photos by: Win McNamee/Getty Images (Paul Ryan), Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (Neil Gorsuch, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren), Zach Gibson/Getty Images (James Comey), Jim Lo Scalzo - Pool/Getty Images (Donald Trump), iStock (Supreme Court).

As breaking news and scandals continue to erupt at an Usain Bolt-ish pace, many Americans are experiencing the early days of the Trump administration as a crash course in what makes our government kind-of-but-honestly-not-exactly work, with emphasis on the "crash."

Granted, even for those of us who have been mainlining C-SPAN for years, the current political climate is more than a little strange. For those just wading into the pool, it's like the water is 150 degrees, there are knives in the water, and oh yeah, it's peanut butter instead of water.

I spoke to four political novices who are getting acquainted with our political system for the first time — a teacher in Boston, a corporate retail worker (also in Boston), a marketing executive in New York, and a former advertising project manager in Detroit. Here are just a few of the surprising things they were shocked to learn are real parts of American politics:

1. If one political party wins enough elections in a state, they can change the maps to make it harder for their opponents to beat them in the next election.

If you've been paying attention to politics for a while, you know this is called gerrymandering, and you know it happens all the time. When a state redraws its districts to shut your party out of power, sure, you might throw up a rage post or two on your old blog, but when your party does it, hey, all's fair in love and war! After all, it is, has been for a long time, and is, for the most part, perfectly legal.

Now... consider gerrymandering as if you were learning about it for the first time.

You'd grab the pointiest pitchfork in grabbing range.

Take Texas. Its state government is completely controlled by Republicans and has been since 2003, which means they get to draw the congressional districts however they damn well please.

As a result, you get districts like Texas' 35th. Note its dispassionately illogical shape:

Image via National Atlas/U.S. Department of the Interior.

Imagine believing that congressional districts should make at least vague geographical sense and that your vote is distributed, weighted, and counted the same as anyone's anywhere in America. Then imagine looking at that.

Then, imagine learning that the 35th owes its gunky bottle-brush shape to the fact that it's 63% Latino. Texas Latinos vote pretty heavily for Democrats. If you wanted to dilute the Latino vote, the best way to do that would be to pack them all into one comically skinny but technically geographically contiguous region, creating one safe Democratic seat and a bunch of safe Republican seats around it.

You'd be furious.

In the case of Texas' 35th, the gerrymandering was so blatantly racially motivated that it recently lost a court challenge. But usually, states can get away with if they claim they're doing it for partisan — rather than racial — reasons, which is a bit like saying, "Sure, I punched him in the face, but not because I hate the guy — just because my arm was swinging really fast in his direction and my hand happened to be clenched, so it's not assault."

Boxing isn't fighting! It's just aggressive stretching in close proximity. Photo by skeeze/Pixabay.

If you were new to politics, you might think the system would intervene more often to put a stop to such blatant inequity. After all, this is America and we have checks and balances! Right?

Not exactly. And by "not exactly," I mean right now, you're waking up to the bizarro reality that...

2. There are no "checks and balances" if the people we elect don't want to check or balance each other.

The notion that evil or bad policy is ipso facto checked by our fair and just system is comforting — but hilariously wrong, as nearly all of the political newbies I spoke to reported being horrified to learn.

Of all the supposedly holy features of our government, perhaps none is more vaunted then the tripartite separation of co-equal powers — executive, legislative, and judicial — that you learned about in civics class. They're among the foremost concerns of our Constitution, praised by politicians left and right alike. You watched "Schoolhouse Rock" animations about them in middle school, where they were discussed in weird circus metaphors sung to you in a soothing Joni Mitchell voice. And you were soothed.

You feel good and serene about the nice normal people making the laws that govern your every waking hour. Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

That song today, however, would probably feature singer James Hetfield, probably with bronchitis, and a gang of horny sea lions would be slapping at his throat.

We're all going to die. Photo by Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

When, as in 2017, one party controls the executive, legislative, and (probably soon) judiciary, that party can basically go hog-wild with its most ludicrously ideological, borderline unconstitutional ideas — and pretty much no one can stop them.

Several of the political newcomers I spoke to were particularly shocked at how far executive orders can go and how long they can stay in place, even when they're clearly illegal. Indeed, executive orders have become sort of like the Tom Brady Super Bowl Hail Mary of policymaking — presidents just give it a go and damn it to Wednesday if anyone tries to stop them. Republicans were livid when President Obama signed a series of executive orders protecting undocumented immigrants from deportation. And Democrats are furious now that President Trump has signed orders making it easier to kick them out and build a gigantic wall on the southern border. Congress can pass laws to overrule them. But if they don't want to, they won't, and right now, they clearly don't.

Sometimes, the old constitutional reflex kicks in, as with Trump's two travel bans, which were blocked in the courts. But even that might be a temporary victory. If Neil Gorsuch gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, reinstating its 5-4 conservative majority, things could easily change.

Aw shucks, this nice Colorado dad just thinks the law is the law, and if the law just so happens to line up completely 100% with the favored policy outcomes of Republican party political leaders in 2017, so be it! Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

True, the Constitution remains, technically speaking, the supreme law of the land. But a lot of bad stuff is constitutional, as many formerly carefree Americans are learning as they find themselves increasingly glued to the incoming stream of ludicrous news "Clockwork Orange"-style. The Supreme Court decision that led to the Japanese internment camps? Still hasn't been overturned! And even if an executive order or bad piece of legislation is unconstitutional, partisan forces are often enough to persuade enough legislative, executive, and judicial officials to pretend that it's all good, at least for a few weeks, years, or decades.  

Add that to ubiquitous gerrymandering, and you begin to realize with ever-increasing dread that:

3. For politicians, their parties are bae (before all else), including bcs (before common sense) and btbiotap (before the best interests of the American people).

These people are all thinking about biting each others' faces off. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

If you didn't know much about how lawmaking worked, you'd probably assume it went something like this: Members of the two parties argue for a while about some bill or another, then get together, have a few beers, compliment pictures of each others' grandkids, and come up with something that basically lands in the middle of what they want. You know, compromise. It wasn't so long ago that this was the case.

Imagine how political newbies feel when they find out the truth, Bruce-Willis-gripping-his-bloody-gut-at-the-end-of-"The-Sixth-Sense"-style.

Sure, some members will occasionally buck their party leaders for strategic reasons, but for the most part, politicians these days defend their parties to the death — logic, reason, and, uh, you know, what's good for the country and the world be damned. Think about learning that for the first time and realizing that if you prefer, say, progressive policy outcomes, you'd be better off voting for a ferret with a "D" next to their name than a reasonable, well-spoken, moderate Republican doctor-war-hero-astronaut. And vice-versa. It would barely compute. And it should barely compute!

Don't blame me! I voted for Mr. Longfloppy. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Since both parties are pretty well ferreted up at this point, you get a spectacle like James Comey's March 20 hearing, where the FBI director revealed that aides to the president of the United States and, perhaps, the president himself, are under investigation for potentially colluding with a foreign power to undermine an American election, and Republicans on the panel only wanted to grill him about who leaked this embarrassing revelation to the press. It's as if during the O.J. trial the prosecution had spent its time trying to slam Ron Goldman's parents for making such a big deal out of everything.

If this base-level skullduggery were news to you, you'd probably assume we, the people, could band together, decide on a few things we all agree on, agree to disagree on the rest, and vote these jokers out.

Except then you learn, in perhaps the most heinous twist of twists...

4. There are some politicians who actively make it as hard as possible for people to vote, and they're getting pretty good at it.

Wouldn't be surprised if this woman had to fight a few great whites to get here. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

This may be old news to some of us, but if you're one of the people just learning about voter ID laws for the first time, you'd probably feel like giving the nearest window a good bricking too.

Believe it or not, historically, voting isn't something Americans have been good at. Even in our presidential elections, only a little more than half of us do it. If you were newly engaged in politics, you'd probably assume that most politicians — grateful for the patriotic exercise of franchise that allowed them to serve their country — would want to make it easier.

Instead, you're learning that dozens of elected officials across America are actively trying to make voting harder. "Sure," the thinking apparently goes, "you technically can vote as long as you fill out forms A through Q in a timely fashion, bring the right laminated card, and survive the piranha-stocked moat we dug in front of this elementary school cafeteria."

The current weapon of choice for politicians getting off on taking away Americans' voting rights is the aforementioned voter ID law, which forces voters to bring identification to the voting booth. Many of these laws specifically ban types of IDs likely to be held by poorer, younger, browner folks (like student IDs) while permitting those likely to be held by older, whiter, more conservative folks (like gun licenses), which is obviously a huge coincidence that will be cleared up just as soon as hahahahahaha.

Felon disenfranchisement, which takes away the vote from convicted felons — who just so happen to be disproportionately black and brown — even after they've served their time, is another biggie.

This felon would definitely have her right to vote taken away just as soon as we figure out what she's guilty of. Photo by Rhona Wise/Getty Images.

And then there's the plain old refusal to streamline and improve the voting process that leads to random mishaps like being tripped up by a clerical error or having your registration lost and being forced to cast a provisional ballot, as one of the political newcomers I spoke to reported experiencing when she tried to vote for the first time in 2008.

Add it all up and you can see why someone just starting to engage with politics might be tempted to disengage right away. Yet many are choosing not to. They're choosing to stay involved and engaged, even when things are at their John-Malkovich-in-the-Malkovich-universe-iest.

And for some, that's because...

5. People power still exists, and it's pretty great to see up close.

Democracy, I am told, looks like this. Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images.

Even if you hadn't been paying much attention to the arcane inner workings of our government, a quick look out the window any time in the last few decades or so would probably lead you to believe that Americans were pretty content to let our elected officials do what they wanted without much taking-to-the-streets. You might even assume that sort of in-your-face activism was a relic of the '60s or earlier, the subject of grainy, black-and-white news footage and CNN baby boomer-bait documentaries, something that our couch-sitting, Arby's-inhaling, Kardashian-watching culture couldn't hope to live up to.

Instead, almost immediately following Donald Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, we got millions of women and allies marching for their rights in hundreds of cities large and small, thousands descending on airports across the country to show solidarity with refugees and immigrants, and groups organizing across the country to lobby their elected officials to protect their health care. It's like a Woody Guthrie deep cut that was just a little too commie-ish to make it onto your second-grade music class playlist, except it's really happening in 2017.

"The trees are green/And the canyons majestic/Seize the means of production/You have nothing to lose but your chains!" Photo by Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and the Sun.

A lot about the way our system works is messed up and has been for a long time. It needs to be reformed up the wazoo, and its wazoo probably won't get so much as a look from the current crop of swamp creatures we've elected. But as the countless Americans just waking up to the reality of our politics are discovering, there's a pretty seriously effective counterweight: us.

Even those of us who are jaded can admit — we're surprised.

Thanks to Abby Huntley, Hannah Eisenberg, Robert Fuhrer, and Mary Kay Gumbel for speaking with me for this piece.

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