#anyway i meant to get stuff done tonight but instead this

[harryslittlefreakk]

girl crush

Summary: harry x bisexual bandmate y/n, based on girl crush!

Warnings: angst, smut, all the good stuff!!!

A/n: i literally cannot get this song out of my head so i had to write something!! I’ve been in such a bad rut so it’s absolutely NOT the best but i needed to post something 🥹

you can find my masterlist here and join my taglist here! enjoy and happy reading 🫶🏼

“Need the bathroom,” you slurred, slipping out of the booth to stumble in the general direction of the toilets. You’d made the mistake of breaking the seal too early, as you always did, so now you were slipping away to pee every 15 minutes. Only as soon as you stood up this time, you suddenly didn’t need to go anymore. There was a beautiful bad decision sitting alone at the bar, and your feet moved towards her before your brain had decided to. “A pornstar martini please,” you told the bartender, watching the stranger out the corner of your eye. She was insanely pretty, with dark bangs covering her eyes and red lips parted around the tiny cocktail straw she was nibbling on. She had tattoos littered all over her body - what you could see of it anyway - and a skimpy dress covering the places you wanted to see most.

You turned to face her as the bartender slid your drink in front of you, your drunken brain deciding that simply staring at her was the best way to make a move. She looked over to you, eyes dark under the dimmed lighting. “Haven’t seen you here before,” she told you, swilling the last of her drink around the glass. “I’m only here for a couple of nights.”

“And instead of seeing the city you’re here gawking at me?” she asked, rolling her lips into her mouth. “Sorry,” you giggled. “You’re beautiful.” She chuckled softly, a smirk playing on her lips.

You asked what she was drinking before turning back to the bartender and ordering another round for the two of you, your cocktail slipping down far too easily in the hopes of liquid courage. You weren’t used to making the first move, and if your ridiculous idea of staring at her was anything to go by, you’d have to work fairly hard to get anywhere tonight. Truthfully, you found girls far more intimidating than men. A tiny flick of your hair could get a man’s attention, a little swish of your hips enough to ensure you weren’t going home alone. But girls were far harder to impress, hence why you rarely managed to make it out of the bedroom with them. “I’m Daisy,” she said, eyelashes fluttering. “Y/n,” you told her, still staring through half-lidded eyes. Whether you were dazed from the alcohol or from her presence, the next thirty minutes or so passed in a blur. Suddenly you found yourself panting against her mouth, unable to pull away for even a second as she tugged you towards the bathroom. You only crashed back into reality when you heard a deep growl of your name.

“Here’s the boss man! Harry!” you called out, grinning at him as he stormed towards you. “Can we have a minute?” he asked, stepping in front of the door to keep you both from entering. Daisy sighed and walked away, not even giving you a second glance before leaving. “Get in, now.” Harry stepped back to let you into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind you. “What are you doing?” you slurred, leaning against the sink for balance. “What the fuck are you doing? Sneaking into bathrooms with girls when we’re out as a team?” Harry’s anger spiked as he growled through gritted teeth, jaw tight. “It’s not like no one’s done it before,” you shrugged, his fury quickly sobering you up.

“No one fucking does it when we have a performance the next day.” He was seething, a red hot ball of anger tight within his core, fists clenching and unclenching by his side to try and keep himself grounded. You’d never seen him like this, scolding you as if you’d done wrong by him. “Why is it such a problem?” you half-shouted, suddenly matching him in his anger. It was meant to be a nice night out, it was a nice night out before his sulking ruined everything. “It’s unprofessional, for fuck’s sake y/n.” He slammed a fist into the door as he spoke.

You could feel hot tears forming, turning away from him as he stared at you. “Just let me go, Harry,” you told him. “She’s probably moved on to someone else by now,” he smirked, holding open the door for you to leave. He stormed past the booth you’d all been sat around, heading straight outside to call a cab and go home. You were standing by the road, hands shaking as you tried to book a ride, eyes blurred with tears. Your always been an emotional drunk, everybody knew this, but these were real, vulnerable tears. “Just come with me,” he sighed, sauntering over to you. “Leave me alone,” you slurred, moving away from him as you finally managed to book a car. “Then I’m getting in with you,” he insisted, momentarily calmer in the presence of your hurt. “No, Harry. I don’t want you to.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Harry stewed the entire way home, shaking with the remains of his fury. He didn’t even know why he was so angry. Alcohol never did this to him, and he hadn’t cared at all when any of his band had met people in the bar before. It was unprofessional, he wasn’t wrong about that - but it never hurt him like this had. He was angry at himself more than anything, for shouting at you and for making you cry. And yet, even through his anger, all he could think about was the kiss you’d shared earlier in the night. You’d been staring at him from across the table, not at all focused on what he was saying yet focused on him. Your head was tilted to one side, nibbling on your fingernail as you stared. “Are you a good kisser?” you asked him, cutting his sentence short. He was flustered, laughing in place of a response. “No seriously, do you know how many girls probably think about kissing you? As if you’re some kind of sex god? And this whole time you might have been rubbish?”

“I’ve never had any complaints,” he shrugged, blowing a little kiss to you. “I’ll buy the rest of the night if you try it out,” Mitch offered as you grimaced at Harry.

“The rest of the night plus lunch tomorrow?” you added, fluttering your eyelashes at Mitch. He nodded, eyebrows raised slightly as he glanced between you and Harry. You patted the soft leather seat beside you, tilting your head to gesture for Harry to come over. He had his lips on yours in seconds, hand tangled in your hair, desperate to impress you. Harry knew he was a good kisser, and great in bed, and was somewhat irritated by the idea of you questioning that. You moaned against his mouth as he nibbled at your lower lip, momentarily forgetting where you both were. It was only when Sarah coughed that you pulled back, eyes wide and panties damp. “Fine, fine,” you giggled, holding your hands up in surrender. “You are a good kisser.”

Harry had thought you were beautiful from the day he met you, introduced by Mitch and Sarah. He needed a new pianist, and you needed a new job. So when Mitch had offered to have you to swing by the studios to see how you fit in, he jumped at the chance. You’d clicked with the band instantly, becoming part of Harry’s inner circle by your third time playing with them. You were radiant, always so light and relaxed, the breath of fresh air his debut album needed so desperately. You added layers of depth to the music that had been missing, and your talent resonated with Harry.

He was fucked, in every sense of the word. Well and truly fucked. The closer he’d gotten to you, the harder it was to deny how much he wanted you. He knew how messy it was when feelings got complicated within bands, and vowed that he’d never fall for a member of his team. Yet here he was, totally wrapped up in you. He hoped it was the drinks and the result of a weird night, that he’d wake up and laugh at the idea of ever being into you. Especially since he was sure you might not talk to him for a while.

—

He’d called you all in for an extra rehearsal, wanting to add 2 covers to the set list for your performance. Harry loved to take the opportunity to cover his favourite songs, always needing to sing through his feelings and use this time for some therapy. He walked around the room, slipping sheet music in front of everyone like a teacher handing out assignments. When he reached you, he leaned closer to whisper an apology.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t have to be, s’fine.”

“I was out of line.”

“Yep.”

“But we’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t the first time Harry had thrown a tantrum and it definitely wouldn’t be the last, but right now you were still feeling a little too hurt to give in to his puppy dog eyes. He was a perfectionist, and some of that translated into wanting his band to be perfect as a whole, while some of it translated into wanting each and every one of you to be perfect individuals. You’d told him before even joining the band that you weren’t easily governed, that you’d put aside a lot for your colleagues and career but you would never sacrifice yourself along the way. He knew this well, yet still scolded you for a tipsy kiss.

Girl crush and the chain. There was a connection there, but through the haze of a sore head and hurt, you couldn’t quite piece it together. They were two of Harry’s ‘sad’ songs for sure, but what he had to be sad about was totally unclear to you.

You could feel Sarah eyeing you as you started to play, only allowing your gaze to flit between the keyboard and the sheet music, purposely ignorant to all else around you. It wasn’t as if yours and Harry’s disappearance the night before went unnoticed, and coupled with the fact that you could barely look at each other, the air was heavy with tension.

As much as you wanted to confide in Sarah, you needed to get back on your game before the evening’s performance, a televised set hardly the place to show your current disdain for your boss. You were the last to join the band and could easily be the first one out. You knew how ruthless the music industry could be, so it wouldn’t be a total surprise to suddenly find yourself labelled a trouble maker and thrown out in your arse. And while Harry didn’t seem to be that kind of boss, before last night you wouldn’t have thought he’d be the kind of person to explode like he did.

—

Once you were dressed and ready, you felt infinitely more powerful and able. A good outfit could change your entire day, and today you needed all the confidence you could find. A tiny leather a-line skirt wrapped around your hips, a black satin cowl neck loose around your chest. You were the last to admit you looked good, but fuck did you look good tonight. After a long mental pep talk, you took a deep breath and began to lose yourself in the music, the notes carrying you away from the tension weighing on your mind. It was full of soul and emotion, and just listening to Harry sing made your heart light. As the first song drew to a close, you caught his eye and felt a jolt of electricity running through you. His stare was different, something heavy in his eyes as he looked you up and down.

—

“Just give me a second, I’ll catch up with you,” you called out, watching the rest of the band trail out of the door. The green room had felt far too small with everyone here, the walls closing in as you thought about the performance. Something had clicked in your brain as Harry’s eyes focused on you. Now with everybody gone, it felt far too big, far too empty. You couldn’t face him tonight, couldn’t think straight for long enough to enjoy a celebratory meal with your friends. You were burning up, warmth spreading through every inch of your body. It was as if you could feel Harry's eyes still lingering on you, jealousy darkening the whites of his eyes.

—

It wasn’t long after you got back to the hotel that you were startled by a knock at the door. You opened it to find Harry standing there, head hanging low. “You were jealous,” you burst out, looking at him. He looked sheepish, cheeks tinged pink from either the cold, the shame, or both. You stepped back to let him into the room, perching against the edge of the dresser as he sat on the corner of the bed, running a hand through his curls. He was silent, though you could practically hear the cogs turning in his mind, desperate for something to say to you. He knew it would be somewhat easier to come clean about his feelings for you, but the risks to your friendship and working relationship lingered over heavy over his head. It also wouldn’t change the fact that he was a dick to you. But lying to your face, trying to deny the very reason he’d even come here was sure to ruin any chance you had of continuing your friendship.

“I was jealous,” he sighed, finally pulling his head up to meet your eye. All you could do was blink at him, lost for words. There was so much more at stake here for you, and if he knew that, if he cared about that, he would never have sought you out tonight. Either you rejected him, jeopardising your chance of success in his band, closing the lid on your friendship, or you explored the buzzing in your core, jeopardising your chance of success in his band, closing the lid on your friendship. “I need air,” you murmured, grabbing a cigarette from your purse before flinging open the balcony door. Harry watched as you held the cigarette to your mouth, taking a deep puff before blowing the smoke out into the night. Over and over and over again, like a ritual. His heart ached as he watched you, feeling the weight of his confession heavy on his shoulders.

“Just hear me out,” he pleaded, walking over to join you, forearms rested against the metal railings. “I know I was an arse t’you, it was wrong to react like that. That will be the new thing I cringe about before falling asleep.” He laughed bitterly, his smile not quite reaching his eyes as he looked over at you. You hesitated for a moment, but then you turned to face him, meeting his gaze. You held out the cigarette to him wordlessly, and he plucked it from your grip, taking a long drag before exhaling slowly. “Y’shouldn’t smoke out here,” he told you, handing it back to you. “You shouldn’t either then,” you giggled. Standing close to him in the cool air, you couldn’t help but imagine a future with Harry. He was handsome, and he was caring, but he was also complicated. You knew that getting involved with him would be messy, but you couldn't deny the pull he had on you. Something had shifted between you when you kissed, no matter how playful it was, and while you didn’t notice it at the time, you could feel it now.

You could feel the tension crackling in the air, the unspoken words hanging between you. Harry’s gaze softened as he searched your eyes for something, anything, to hold onto. And before either of you could talk yourselves out of it, his lips were on yours. The warmth of his touch sent shivers down your spine, and you found yourself melting into his mouth, heart racing. His hand slipped around your waist, pulling you closer into him as the world faded away, leaving only the sensation of his lips against yours.

Your hand went limp at your side, cigarette burning itself out as a fire ignited in your core. The kiss felt like a promise of something more, something deeper, and you struggled to catch your breath as you pulled away. “We can’t, Harry,” you whispered, pressing a hand to his chest, your gaze fixed on his mouth. His eyes were filled with longing, voice barely audible as he pleaded, "but I want you.”

“I need to shower,” you told him, dropping the cigarette into your makeshift ashtray. A familiar smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as he watched you slip out of his grasp, tension still heavy in the air. You grabbed a pair of panties and an oversized t shirt from the dresser, leaving the bathroom door ajar as you turned on the shower. It was insane, you were possibly insane, but you hoped against hope that he’d read the signs right, read you right and follow you. You undressed quickly and stepped into the cubicle, letting the water wash over you as you listened out for his footsteps. And when they didn’t come, when he didn’t appear at the door, you let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand across your face. It was best he didn’t come, best you didn’t cross that line, but you suddenly so desperately wanted to. The hot water did little to ease the ache in your core, the ghost of his touch still lingering on your skin.

And then you felt it, so real and so warm as he snaked a hand around your waist, hot breath tickling the back of your neck. His lips grazed your ear as he whispered, "y’can't resist me, can you?” Harry pressed soft kisses into every inch of skin his mouth could reach, pausing to suckle at the curve of your neck. You whimpered as you turned to face him, heart racing, and pressed your lips against his in a fierce, needy kiss. Passion surged between you, igniting something that had lay dormant within you for far too long.

“Harry,” you moaned against his mouth, hands wrapping around his thick shoulders. He pulled away for a second, eyes trailing down your body. His hands smoothed up your sides as he stared, watching his palms dip into the curve of your waist, groping at your breast as he moved further up your body. His mouth found the sensitive skin around your areola, suckling until a little purple bruise formed. He nipped at the mark, smirking against you as you arched into his touch.

Your hand found his length as he kissed all over you, fingers wrapping around his tip. “Not yet, kitten,” Harry groaned, grabbing your hand and holding it tight behind your back. His free hand danced along your body, touch light as he trailed past your abdomen, down over your mound, before making contact with your clit. His thumb rubbed soft circles over your button, the gentle touch sending chills through your body. His grip on your wrist was hard, the tips of his fingers digging into your skin. The slight pain only made your core ache more, needing more of Harry. As if he could read your mind, he pushed two fingers into your opening, thumb still rubbing determined circles.

But it wasn’t enough, even as his fingers curled at your sweet spot, you needed more. Even with the burning spreading through your centre, you needed more. Your hips bucked into him, pushing his touch further into your entrance. Your fingers were aching to touch him, desperate for the feel of his thick shaft against your palm. You’d heard stories, heard all the jokes, yet you didn’t think he’d really be *that* big. You needed him in a way that would change everything, a way that would open new doors you could never close. The risk was more exciting to you now than scary, your desperation for his cock completely washing away any of your previous fears.

Just thinking about it had your legs shaking, core tight as your head dropped to his shoulder, orgasm washing over you. You moaned against his skin as you came, messy and heavy onto his palm.

Harry let go of your hand and kneaded the flesh of your ass as he rode you through your high, hard cock bumping your core as he pulled his fingers out of you, tongue licking your juices from his skin. He reached behind you to turn off the water, watching you step out of the shower on shaky legs before turning you around in front of the mirror. “Want you to watch,” he murmured in your ear as he stroked at his cock. You steadied yourself on the sink as he pushed your back down, eyes fixed on his reflection as he lined his head up with your entrance.

He thrust into you hard, his thick shaft stretching your walls as you cried out. You could feel him in your stomach, feel every twitch of his cock deep in your core. His hands were tight around your waist, sliding himself in and out of you as your ass slapped against his hips. Your knuckles were white as you gripped onto the sides of the sink, head lulling as he worked at your sweet spot. He stilled for a second, one hand moving to land a firm smack onto your ass, before wrapping it around your throat and pulling your back flush to his front. “Look at me,” he growled in your ear, hand tightening until you stared back into the mirror with darkened eyes. “Good girl,” Harry mewled, loosening his grip when your gaze met his. Your hand pressed over his, wordlessly begging him to keep the pressure around your throat. He smirked against your ear, splaying his free hand across your stomach as he thrust into you again, groaning as he felt your skin bulging where he pushed into you. He never lasted long after the rush of a performance, the nerves and excitement always transforming into a rock hard cock, a need to fuck his fist to come down from from the high. Watching your tits bounce as he rocked into you, he was close. His thrusts became sloppier as he throbbed inside of you, the sounds of skin on skin all he could focus on. His hand pulled you closer into him, bodies flush as he painted your walls with his come, hard and warm as he cried out your name.

—

You pulled him towards the bed, already needy for round two. Your naked bodies were pressed together as you stumbled blindly over discarded clothes and shoes, hands exploring every part of each other’s bodies. And then someone knocked on the door, pulling you out of the paradise you’d found in Harry. “Ignore it, they’ll go away,” he whispered, pulling your head back to face him. But as his lips found yours once again, the knocks came harder against the wood. Harry groaned as he pulled away from you, quickly yanking his boxers on as you hid out of view. He cracked open the door, mouth dropping open as he was met with Sarah. “Oh,” she said as she looked between him and the door number. “I thought this was y/n’s room, have you seen her?” He shook his head, uttering a quick apology before slamming the door shut before she heard you giggling behind him.

“That was close,” he murmured, a deep blush creeping up his cheeks as he joined you on the bed. It would already be complicated enough when you woke up in his arms, you’d already have enough to answer for when the band questioned your two early disappearances. But right now your bubble was protected, your joy still hovering over you in the form of Harry’s smile, and that was all you needed for now.

taglist: @sleutherclaw @slutforcoffein @harrysolaf @opheliaofficial07 @dragonslayersupremacy @nikkisimps @michellekstyles @im-an-overthinker @fangirl7060 @indierockgirrl @palmettogal508 @thereunion1d @sturnioloenthousiast @hannah9921 @harryshotpocket @daphnesutton @poojasdesk @averytermaat @tenaciousperfectionunknown @kkr102 @thegrapejuiceblues1982 @mema10 @annageeeezzzz @ppleasingg @cicicavill7 @drewsephrry @tswiftsgf @ashleighsss @bikestyles @he6rtshaker @prettygurl-2009

[russellsppttemplates]

HII can u write a fic or blurb about lando with a west asian girlfriend?? like him obsessing over her hair and features, learning about her culture and stuff, tysm ily!!

+ I think I typed down west Asian in my ask but I meant east 😭😭 if I said it correctly ignore this pls🙏🙏

Note: it's okay! No worries 🫶

"You're so beautiful, Y/N", Lando said as he brushed your hair behind your ear, smiling at the way it cascaded and smoothly guided down his finger.

"Stop it", you blushed, trying to hide your face on his naked chest, suddenly feeling shy as you heard his compliments despite what you had just done.

"But you are!", he argued, "your hair is so soft, your cheeks are one of my favourite places to kiss your face, but these lips are my favourite one", he kissed you, "and I love nuzzling my face on your neck because I get to kiss all the way from your jaw to your cheekbones", he did as he said, moving slightly to accommodate your bodies.

"You're handsome too", you smiled, kissing all over his face and tracing an invisible line to connect his freckles and moles.

"Not as beautiful as you, though", he tsked, smiling before kissing your lips.

.

"Baby, I have a surprise for you!", Lando said as he heard you come back home from work, "close your eyes!", he said as he stopped you in the hallway, not wanting you to go into the living room on your own.

"Oh, this sounds fancy!", you smiled, kissing his lips in a small greeting before closing your eyes, "lead the way and make sure I don't bump into anything, please", you giggled as he took your hands in his.

"So, you know how you broke the bowls last week? And the mug a couple of weeks ago", he began and he could see the blood rushing to your cheeks.

"I didn't do it on purpose, and I went to the shop to get new ones, but the lady said their next order is only arriving later this week!", you reasoned.

"I know you didn't, beautiful", he said softly, "anyway, I thought this week's date night could be at home instead and we could do Kintsugi", he sounded unsure of the pronunciation but he still went with it as you opened your eyes, seeing bags of broken ceramic on your dining table along with other supplies, "I saved the pieces that broke because I wanted to do this since I saw those kits in the shop we usually go to", he smiled.

"I thought you just didn't want me to get hurt", you squeezed his hands as you looked at the set up.

"Yes, that's partially true, but I've also wanted to save it because I thought we could do this - and I didn't feel like going out tonight because I wanted you all to myself and I think we have enough pieces to keep us busy - thanks to your butter fingers", he joked.

"Hey!", you pulled on his ear, "it's not like I wanted to drop them - those bowls are my favourites! Your mother got them for my birthday!", you added.

"Let's give them a new look then, shall we?", he said, "but you'll have to teach me how your grandmother taught you to do it because I'm only so good with craft work like this", he smiled, kissing the top of your head before you got ready for a hands on date night idea.

(Thank you for sending this in ✨️)

[shivvyscat]

Stay.

[summary: shiv lets you lounge on her bed after an afternoon together, watching her get ready for an event; lots of gay panic and reader being a simping mess]

[gxg, shiv x f!reader]

• • •

It took Siobhan at least a year of hooking up before she even entertained the idea of you staying at her place for even ten minutes after being done in bed. But you persisted, and you would’ve been fine with being kicked on your ass for another year if it meant getting the slightest bit closer to the redhead.

Your patience paid off though, and now each time you went to see her after an ‘I have the place to myself, come over’ text, you’d get your cuddles, your long talks, and sometimes, you’d get a glimpse of her life, that she would willingly show you. Tonight was one of those days, as you laid naked in Shiv’s bed, watching her sit in front of her vanity mirror, in her cute little satin robe.

“Could you not?” Her silky voice brought you out of your haze.

“I’m not even doing anything.” Shiv raised a brow, looking at you through the mirror with that smirk that made you want to get on your knees and kiss her from toe to head. But you kept your cool.

“You’re ogling. It’s annoying.” Her hands kept working on her face, your eyes still on her.

“Well, you’re the one ogling if it’s bothering you. Look at your own pretty face.” You tease and turn on your stomach, cuddling a blanket as your head is still turned to her direction.

“You little shit.” She laughs, and you grin, wanting to make her laugh again, and again, and then one more time. “Don’t you have anything else to do? I have to be sharp for this thing. Get in the right headspace to deal with those fuckers.” You revelled in the way her eyes lingered for one second longer on your half sheet-covered figure even as she said this.

“Not really.” You lied. The truth is that you had a bunch of stuff you could be doing instead of lounging in this woman’s bed. But you wanted to be here, for as long as she’d have you, you would be here.

“Yeah, well, I do, so quit it.”

“Why did you even invite me over if you knew you had this thing? I wouldn’t have come if I knew it was gonna be just a couple hours.” Before you even said it, you knew it was another lie. You would’ve come here if Siobhan wanted just a quick release. You would’ve come here if she wanted just a peck on the lips.

“You would’ve.” Shiv smirked. “Besides, I wanted you. Got a problem with that, Y/N?”

“Whatever. Like I said, I had the day free, anyway.”

“Oh yeah? No standing up your girlfriend for this?” She asked, a little teasingly, her movements as she fixes her hair as sharp as her tongue. You smile.

“Which one are you talking about?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Roman did say you fucked his girlfriend.” Shiv looks amused as she turns on her seat, grabbing a bottle of lotion from the vanity and leaning down to apply it on her legs. Now you’re really ogling.

“I fucked you. Are you my girlfriend?” This makes her laugh. And once again you bask in the pleasure of that sound being caused by you.

“Come here, smartass.” You raise your brows, eyes full of surprise and subtle excitement. “What? Are you scared? I want your opinion on something.”

“Oh, that’s a first.” You lean over the edge of the bed to grab your shirt from the floor, but she stops you.

“Uh uh. That won’t be necessary. Come here.” You stand up, completely bare as you walk up to her. Once again revelling in the way her eyes travel up and down your body, in that subtle way only she can pull off, and probably only you can notice. She pulls you closer by the waist. “Which of these go best with my eyeshadow and a black dress?” She holds up a few lipstick options.

“Hm… I don’t know. This one?” Shiv scoffs, with a grin.

“Please, that one screams whore.”

“Why do you even have it?”

“For situations where it’s acceptable. Like your birthday party.” She looks up at you with that teasing smile, it makes you smile as well, and your knees feel like they might buckle under you.

“Oh, fuck you, Siobhan.”

“What? Don’t you remember this lipstick all over your body after? I think it looked great. But not for tonight.” She puts the options down. “Come here.”

“What, you ass?” Shiv pulls you in again, making you settle on her lap, your thighs on each side of hers. You are so, so aware of the minuscule amount of barrier between you two.

“Put….” She holds your waist with one hand, and with the other she picks out a lighter option of red. “This one on me.”

“I’m sorry, are your hands not working?” You smile, grabbing the lipstick she handed you, once her hand is free she holds the other side of your waist, her touch firm and gentle at the same time.

“Well, I want you in my lap. You might as well do it for me, no?” You roll your eyes, unable to not smile at her words, her expression, her hands caressing from your hips to below your breasts.

“Pucker up, then.” You reach up for her lips, but before you touch them with makeup, you lean in and kiss her, just a soft contact. As you pull away, she puts her hand on the back of your neck and pulls you into a proper kiss.

It’s hard to keep it going, since you’re both smiling, you pull back with a chuckle. “Do you wanna get ready or not?”

“Yes. Don’t go overboard. Just one layer is fine.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Shut up.” She mutters, trying not to move her lips too much as you put on her lipstick, it’s clear to you that she wants to smile.

“All done.” You put the little tube back on the table and she turns to inspect your work, her hands not once leaving your body.

Shiv hums. “Good.” She moves your hair behind your shoulders. “I’m gonna get dressed….” She says in a lower voice, leaning into your neck, planting little teasing kisses on it. “And you’re gonna be right on that bed when I get back.”

You tilt your head a little to give her better access, sighing softly. “Yeah?”

“Hm mhm. I want you here. Stay.” Shiv says, and you nod. She lightly smacks your ass, making you stand up from her lap. “And don’t get dressed.”

Shiv voice says ‘demand’, but her eyes say ‘plead’. Either way, you’re going to oblige. You’re gonna be here when she gets back. You always are.

• • •

(my first tumblr post 😭 send me requests! I love writing for shiv. let me know your thoughts as well <3)

[milawritesstuff]

hiii please write some pedri angst with a happy ending like they have this big fight and the reader leaves but the next day at training while talking with gavi he realizes how much he needs her and goes to find her thank uu

A/N: I have so many ideas and sometimes I can’t get anything in writing so I just start to write and hope the story takes form. This is one of those stories. Hope you like it.

Warnings: none

•••

You sat At Pedri’s table going through your textbooks trying to suck up as much information as possible. You had been studying all day at his house while he played video games in the living room. You had taken a quick lunch break and then gone right back to your books.

As you turned the page you heard Pedri’s footsteps and then felt his arms go around your waist from behind. He gave you a kiss on your cheek and then rested his chin on your left shoulder.

“When are you going to be done? I’m bored” he said.

“Pedro, I told you I’m really nervous about this test. In fact I don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep tonight I am so stressed out.”

He began to leave small kisses on your neck and as much as you wanted to give in and close shut your textbooks you knew what your priority was. You let him leave a few more kisses as you reached for your phone, which had been sitting face down on Pedri’s table all afternoon, only to realize it was already 10pm. “Oh my god Pedri. I have to go home. It’s already so late and my test is early tomorrow morning.”

“Are you kidding me?” He growled as he let go of you and began to pace around the dinning room. “Im sorry, are you mad?” You asked as you packed up your stuff and sensed a bit of annoyance in his tone. “You spent all day just sitting here with those books Y/N. What was the point of you coming over? For that rushed lunch?”

“I’m sorry Pedro but I wouldn’t have been able to see you at all today if I hadn’t studied. This is a very important tests and I’m really nervous.”

“I know, you’ve said it a million times already.” He spat back. You stood there dumbfounded because Pedri had never talked to you that way. You decided to ignore him and started to walk towards the door. You had so much to deal with and you would deal with him another day.

At least that was your plan until Pedri couldn’t keep quiet. “Why do you even care anyway? We’re gonna get married and you won’t need to work. I’m going to take care of you.”

His words stopped you dead in your track “That’s your plan?” You asked him.

“It’s not yours?” He asked almost surprised.

“I’m not some gold digger, Pedro.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

He stood there in silence.

“I just don’t know why you spend all day studying. I can’t even see you sometimes when I have my days off because you’re at uni. I could have gone out with my friends today instead of being stuck inside just waiting for a second of your time.”

You wanted to walk out of his apartment and just go home but your pride got in the way, like always. You couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He knew how proud you were of your achievements and it really pissed you off that he seemed not to care at this moment.

“So I should just drop everything when Mr Pedro Gonzalez has some time for me?” You ask. “What about when you leave for days with the team. I’m just supposed to be sitting here waiting for you to come back home and kiss the floor you walk on?”

“I leave for work. My job is the team. My job is what’s going to pay our bills.” He explained.

You scoffed. “Your job isn’t more important than my school Pedro. And your career isn’t going to pay my bills, I am.”

You turned around and began to walk towards the door. When your hand made contact with the doorknob and you began to twist it you heard Pedri. “If you walk out right now, it���s over.”

His words crushed you. You didn’t dare turn around. You knew this wasn’t just from today. The two of you had been digging at each other for weeks. He had been gone for a few weeks with the national team and when he came back you had been consumed with your studying. When you finally got some free time his family had been in town and he hardly had any time for you. Everything had been so fast paced lately and you yearned for some quality time with your boyfriend but you had come to the realization that this would be your life if you stayed with him. His career was just starting and even if you two got married and had kids he would still be gone on trips frequently and his career would always have to come before yours.

You gulped as you felt a tear fall from your eye making its way down your cheek and towards your chin. “I thought I had made it clear we were over Pedro when I said your career wasn’t going to pay my bills.” You finished turning the knob of his front door and walked outside.

You half hoped he would come running behind you and pull you back in. Telling you he was sorry and didn’t mean anything. You also half hoped he would not do that. That he would let you walk out of his life like this and the two of you would never have to turn back. And as you took another step and didn’t hear his footsteps behind you, you knew which option Pedri had chosen. And it killed you.

The next morning Pedri was in a bad mood. He had a bad practice and as he and his teammates walked back to the locker room he looked at his phone. He had hoped to get a message from you but of course he hadn’t. And he knew it too because you weren’t one to say sorry first. He took out his clothes and closed his locker. He stood there and punched the door.

“Hey, hey what’s going on?” Said his friend Gavi who was now next to him.

“I think I fucked it up with Y/N.” He said.

“What happened?”

“We broke up last night.” He said.

“What? But didn’t we just go look at rings for her?” Asked Gavi surprised.

“Maybe I was wrong Pablo. Maybe she’s not the one.”

“But you’re clearly upset Pedro. If she wasn’t the one you wouldn’t be acting like this.” Gavi talked some sense into his friend. “Tell me what happened?”

Pedri went on to tell his friend what happened the night before. He thought Gavi would be on his side but he was wrong. “I can’t believe you told her that.” Said Gavi.

“Excuse me, aren’t you my friend? Why are you taking her side?”

“Because you’re a dumbass.” Said Gavi. “How could you say that to her?”

“I was annoyed. She has been paying more attention to uni than to me.”

“What if she had told you that your career didn’t matter?” Asked Gavi. “She can’t say that.” Spat Pedri back.

Gavi rolled his eyes. “You have a problem my friend. You either show her some respect or actually if you’re going to act like this just leave her alone.”

Pedri couldn’t go home that afternoon because he was just thinking about you. He ended up driving around the city until he reached the port. He parked his car and began to walk around thinking of a way to say sorry to you. Finally he sat on a bench and made the dreaded call.

Y: hello?

P: I’m sorry.

Y: Pedro, I don-

He interrupted you.

P: I’m sorry for being an asshole. I want you to know that I - I’ll take care of you if want to. If you don’t then I won’t. But I still want to be with you.

You laughed.

P: But I - I love you Y/N. Can we please forget about last night?

Y: Pedri, I’m also sorry. I just, I miss you so much and we have been fighting on and off and I’m stressed with my exams. Maybe I overreacted.

P: Can we just forget about last night?

Y: Please.

P: Can I come pick you up?

Y: Yes.

[mqverick]

Waking On Air || chapter 3

What was worse than the situation between you, Pete and Tom? The food they served at the lunch hall in Top Gun. Honestly, an abomination — and you hadn’t even thought to bring your own lunch, which meant you had to bare with the tasteless stuff they served as so called food. For some reason, Tom was enjoying it, almost done with his plate as he offered you his bread, which you accepted (but did not entirely eat), picking on crumbs and putting it on your disk as you stared blankly right through your boyfriend’s head. A few tables behind, you could make out Goose laughing his heart out and Maverick joining him as well, keeping a lower profile. An instant smile tugged at the corners of your own lips, eyes glowing at the sight of him seeming so happy and unbothered.

Your view was blocked by Tom cocking his head to the side, grinning lazily. “What’re you lookin at?”

Suddenly flustered, you avoided eye contact and tried to shrug off the fact that you’d been staring at the man your boyfriend disliked the most right in front of him without him having any idea.

“Nothing, just you,” you replied, hoping he’d buy it. Apparently, he was lovestruck enough to do so.

“Food not good?” he asked, noticing you hadn’t touched your plate. You nodded in agreement and excused yourself to go get a glass of water. As you walked through the crowd, you felt yourself accidentally bump on someone and you prayed it wouldn’t be who you thought it was, but then again, you’ve never been the lucky type of girl.

“We need to stop meeting like this,” you mumbled, dusting your chest off. Maverick smirked and moved his head in semi agreement, even though in his opinion, he wouldn’t mind a few more bumps if it meant he’d get to see you.

“Will I be seeing you tonight?” he asked and your cheeks flushed in a deep shade of crimson.

“Pete…” you started but trailed off, not knowing what the answer would be. Your brain was split in half; part of it wanted to turn him down, choose the safe option and kindly back out of a bunch of upcoming problems. Part of it.

“Please,” he begged and you swore you’d never heard a man pronounce this word as beautifully as it fell out of Maverick’s lips. “There’s no harm in two flying mates to meet up, anyway. I’ll be waiting for you even if you decide not to show up.”

“Show up where?”

Your entire body froze in terror the moment you heard your boyfriend’s voice repeat Pete’s last sentence. You wished it was all part of a nightmare, because — no, this was not happening — not now, not to you. As if you were a criminal caught in cold blood, you slowly turned your head around, face to face with a fuming Tom Kazansky. His hands were shaped into fists and you could tell that if you were not standing in front of him, he would’ve jumped on Maverick with fury.

“Tom, it’s not —”

“No, Roger, please,” he interrupted, voice raised, “I want to know if you plan on going around with Mitchell in the middle of the night while I think you’re sleeping next to me, like the fucking fool I am, is that right?”

God, you wanted to cry. This is exactly what you’d been trying to avoid the whole time, yet had failed miserably. You hesitantly took a few steps closer towards Tom, throwing Maverick a look as if to tell him to get his ass out of there as fast as he could. Tom backed away from you, opening his mouth to say something but never letting anything out. Instead, he stormed off outside.

You followed him, almost stumping from trying to catch up. “Ice!” you called, but nothing. “Tom!”

He turned around with force and you could make out tears starting to well up in his eyes. His whole face was red and he was trying the best he could to not break down — or at least that’s what it looked like. “I expected this kind of behavior from Maverick, hell, I’m pretty sure I’d be surprised if he didn’t hit on you, but from you?”

You scrunched up your face, trying to block back your own sniffles. There wasn’t anything you could say that would change what he’d heard, so you opted to remain silent, which he did not take as well as you hoped he would. Beginning to walk away from you again, you let out a big sigh you did not know you were holding. “Tom!” you shouted, voice echoing in the corridor. Your pace quickened along with his, breathing heavily through your mouth, seeing as your nose was getting stuffy. “I wouldn’t go with him!”

Tom quits walking so abruptly that you nearly fall on him. You can take a clearer look at his face now; seeing him like that making you devastated. His lips were pressed tightly together and his eyelids were getting puffy and red. Your mouth parted, but as your brain fought to send words up your throat, Tom scoffed, wiping non existent tears off his cheeks.

“Oh, you wouldn’t go with him!” he repeated, faking his way through the most ridiculous grin you’d seen. “Well, that makes everything so much easier and happier for me, then!” You hated the sarcasm in his voice, which was ironic, seeing as you barely had any right to hate him, especially during that moment.

“Just — please, listen to me.”

“No, I will not listen to you. I’m tired of listening to you; ‘No, Iceman, he’s not ogling me!’, ‘no, there’s nothing going on between us’ — clearly, you’ve been lying this entire time, straight into my face, but what gets to me the most is how you fucking love to deny any sign of interaction with him while making plans to — what? — meet up under the moonlight and the starry sky?”

Streaming tears were falling down your cheeks now, eyes red in all feelings of embarrassment, sadness and anger. How dare he accuse you of cheating? How dare he when all you’ve been trying to do is restrain your fucking self from Maverick so painfully hard? Your gaze drifts, because you have no remains of dignity left in your body, but suddenly, Tom jerks your chin back up, forcing your eyes to meet his. Everything around you feels hot and suffocating and you know it’s the same for him.

“Do you love him now, is that it? Have you slept together, did he cast spells around you or something?” You didn’t know how or when it happened, but your eyes catch sight of your hand flying right across his face. You gasped the moment the slapping sound rings through your ears, mind fading in a blurry haze. Iceman held his cheek where you’d hit him, mouth agape as he stared at you unfazed.

“I’d never fucking cheat on you, asshole! How do you even have the nerve to accuse me of something like that?!” you ask, voice coming out louder and angrier than expected. He let out a bitter chuckle as he released his cheek.

“I don’t know, ask your boyfriend.”

“Do you think we’re in fucking middle school?” you questioned, screaming at the top of your lungs as you watched him walk away from you for once more without giving you an answer. You felt too exhausted to follow him this time, simply collapsing onto the floor, hands coming around to hug your knees as you buried your face deep into them, biting hard at your lip to keep it from trembling. All you knew was that you’d hurt one of the people you cared for the most — or at least used to — and he’d hurt you back, which was deserved (as you’d convinced yourself to believe).

Your eyes were still sore as you dragged your legs all the way back to your place after having made stops at every bar in your way, just to get inside and look at people drink and dance happily together. It was getting late and you had no motivation whatsoever to keep the day going. Falling asleep would be hard — impossible even, especially after the way both of you and Tom had acted during your first major argument. You didn’t want to lie to yourself; it was high time the heated moment happened, honestly, you were surprised he hadn’t snapped earlier. Your house felt empty and cold and so did you, despite all the layers of clothing you were wearing. Your eyes heavily glanced over at the clock on your living room’s wall to see the time. Every muscle inside you screamed not to do it, not when it would risk losing Tom, losing yourself, but you’ve always been the stubborn type of person.

As promised, there he was, sitting on his motorcycle and staring down at the beach from the cliff tops. You cleared your throat and his head instantly shot up, a huge grin spreading across his features at the unexpected sight of you.

“You came,” he said softly in disbelief, which made your heart flutter. Had you not showed up, would he have stayed there waiting for you all night? The thought made you warm. Maverick got up from his bike, moving towards you as in to hug you, but stopped in his tracks, keeping his arms uncomfortably on his sides as he pursed his lips. A light wave of wind ghosted between the two of you and you suddenly felt a lot chillier than you recalled yourself feeling a few moments ago. Maverick noticed and shrugged his bomber off, placing it around your shoulders gently. The warmth of it embraced you along with the smell of his cologne and you snuggled eagerly into it, embarrassed at how needy he made you feel with so little.

“Ice and I had a fight,” you blubbered.

“I know. I think half of Miramar heard.”

You chuckled bitterly, kicking on the sandy ground. You didn’t know what to say or do, even though your mind had a few ideas of its own. Maverick patted the seat of his bike, helping you get up on it. The touch his hand held around your waist burned in the nicest way and you wanted to feel more of him on your body. When he positioned himself next to you, you realized how close he was, knees almost bumping into each other. Even though the sky was dark, his eyes were glistening uniquely under the moonlight, wind blowing his hair into every direction and making it all messy — he was so captivating that you had to hold your breath when you realized that he was giving you that look again.

“Don’t look at me like that, Pete,” you murmured under your breath, loud enough for him to hear.

“How are you feeling?” he asked with genuine concern. You signed, knowing damn well that you had absolutely zero idea of how you were actually feeling. Everything had happened so fast, that you barely had any time to process it.

“Scared,” was the word that came out of your mouth when you closed your eyes to think. “I’m scared of what’s coming up. I’ve never seen Tom like that before and it’s all my fault. He’s been nothing but amazing to me the entire time we’ve been together and I honestly like him so much, but I just…” you stopped yourself before you could say anything foolish.

“It’s not your fault,” Maverick assured you with a gentle squeeze on your knee. Your eyes traveled to where his hand was sitting and you blushed. You hated how obvious you were. “Sometimes, we can’t control how we feel for others.”

The sentence came out of his mouth as if he was hurting. As if he’d been stabbed with irony and misery and it was driving him insane. You drew in a sharp breath, fidgeting with your fingers as silence fell over you. Guilt washed your face; what were you doing? Meeting up with the one you’d sworn not to give false hope to, wearing his jacket, being so close to him and listening to him dropping hints about his feelings, while Tom Kazansky, your so called boyfriend, whose heart you’d broken, was probably rotting in his place.

Pete’s name fell off your lips like a breathy whisper and you felt his hand shift on your leg, almost as if to caress it, but regretted it midway through and retreated it back to his own side.

“I’m sorry,” you heard him murmur. “I never meant for this to happen. I’m not Iceman’s biggest fan, but it’s not like I dreaded to see both of you in this situation.”

With your brain shut off and your heart picking up waves of bravery, you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath, before reaching for Maverick’s hand. Your fingers were interlocked with his and it felt like his hand was made to hold yours, which shouldn’t have felt so right, not when Iceman was still in the picture. Iceman. Iceman. Iceman.

“Maverick,” you started, tears forming in the corners of your eyes. You hated yourself more than anything for being such a shitty girlfriend to the person who never deprived you of anything you asked. You felt Pete’s fingers hold yours tighter at the sound of his call sign coming out of your mouth, butterflies erupting in your stomach.

“You called me Maverick.”

Your eyes travelled upwards only to realize he was already looking at you with the same lovesick gaze Tom had earlier in the morning at the lunch hall. You couldn’t take any more of this — seeing Maverick so fragile and sweet, unlike the first day you spoke to him. It was sending your mind places and the smell of his intoxicating cologne wrapped around the atmosphere around you was killing you slowly — and god, you wanted to never let go of him and that moment, but you couldn’t.

“I need to go,” you breathed, shifting a little to help yourself get down from his bike. You shrugged his jacket off your shoulders, handing it to him and began walking away, holding back the urge to look behind, because you were very aware of the fact that it would take only one more look from Maverick to throw everything you’d built in the garbage. You missed the way his heart broke at your departure, a thousand words flooding his mind that he had yet to wait to speak aloud.

Chapter 4

[ash5monster01]

Perfect To Love Part 5

Pairing: Steve Harrington x FemReader!PlusSize

Warnings: fluff, mentions of bullying, body image issues, fat shaming, angst, trust issues.

Summary: Beth Walker was used to living in the shadows. She had only one friend and anyone else who paid her mind usually bullied her for her size. So she learned to keep her mouth shut, her head down, and her heart closed because she had to accept the fact that she would be nothing more than the fat girl to people. That is until Robin decides Beth needs more in life and that might just include a boy who she never would’ve thought could see her for who she truly was.

word count: 2,387

Part 4 ←→ Part 6

Masterlist

It wasn’t often Steve and Dustin ended up alone these days. After they had become friends and Dustin started bringing around the party it just made sense to always do things as a big group. Yet every once in a while they’d get lucky and have time just the two of them. Today was one of those days since Mike went home early to call El and Lucas was taking Max to the movies to distract her from having to move into the trailer park. That meant Dustin was the only one that needed to be picked up from school today. Which also left Dustin alone with Steve since Robin was working a solo shift at Family Video tonight. He could finally hound the boy in private about his recent observations. Observations he had to keep to himself all weekend in anticipation of getting alone time with the guy.

“So how long have you been crushing on Beth?” Dustin leisurely asked after Steve had gotten done telling him about his most recent shift at Family Video. It was so smooth Steve didn’t even realized what he was asking for a moment.

“Since the party she-… Wait. You tricked me” Steve turned and glared, in disbelief he had fallen so quickly into Dustin’s trap. Loosening him up so he wouldn’t notice when he asked. He knew he should’ve been concerned when he asked about his day.

“Look I felt like skipping over the whole denial part and getting to the good stuff” Dustin offered, arms crossing over his chest.

“How’d you even know?” Steve asked, annoyed he had to explain himself to a child about a girl he wasn’t even sure what to do with. He had never dated girls like her, and that wasn’t meant to be conceived as bigger. Most girls he dated were dumb, ditzy, and had fried brain cells from too much aqua net. All of them were like that except Nancy and he totally screwed that one up anyway. On top of that, what was even the correct thing to say to her? Most times he tried to convince her of her beauty she just denied him. He didn’t want to lie to her but he wanted her to know she was worth as much as those other girls despite being different. That kind of line could get blurry.

“When you brought her to the movies with us. You did that thing where your ears turn red because she touched your arm and complimented you. It was funny. She likes you too” Steve’s eyes widened as Dustin spit this information out at him. He wished the boy didn’t notice everything all the damn time.

“She does not like me. She would’ve agreed to get food with me instead of sit through that horrible horror movie” Steve said referring to the second Nightmare on Elm Street they watched. He hadn’t even seen the first one and the only good thing about it was Beth leaning closer to him when she got scared.

“She only wanted to watch the movie cause you freaked out when Mike suggested you were going on a date with her” Dustin told him because it was true. No girl in the world wants to see the guy they like panic over the thought of dating them. Especially a girl like Beth that has only ever been hurt by men.

“Shit, I obviously didn’t mean it like that” Steve said hitting the steering wheel lightly.

“Yeah but she took it like that. I wouldn’t want to go and talk to a guy for two hours either after he made it clear he doesn’t want to date me” Dustin told him and Steve sighed, parking in front of Dustin’s house.

“Damnit, I just don’t know what to do with her. She’s different, obviously not in a bad way. I just have no idea how to approach the situation, she doesn’t believe me when I flirt with her. I have no idea how to get her to understand I want to kiss the shit out of her” Dustin snickered lightly as Steve admitted to this, not bothering hiding how he feels about the girl anymore in front of the boy.

“Where did all these feelings come from, you just met her?” Dustin asked, confused how one night could change everything.

“That night we went to the party we had a lot of fun, I was so comfortable talking to her. Plus she looked so good, like an angel. Then I caught Colin saying mean things to her and next thing I know I was punching him and claiming her as my own. When I heard those vile things he was saying I realized I wanted to protect her forever” Dustin looked at him with wide eyes, the first time he was hearing about Steve actually punching the guy.

“You punched him, and won?” Steve rolled his eyes and shoved the boy lightly to which Dustin just laughed.

“We left and she just broke down. Cried in my arms in the middle of the street and all I could think about was how many times she had cried because of that asshole and never had anyone to hold her” Steve finished his spiel and Dustin nodded, taking in all the information he had finally gotten from him.

“Makes sense why I haven’t seen Colin call her a mean name in a while. Actually I don’t think he’s even gone near her. I just assumed he got the black eye from football” Dustin told him, knowing him and the Hellfire Club usually had a front row seat to Colin’s bullying in the lunchroom.

“Good, means that asshole listened to me when I said to never go near her again” Steve seethed, already getting worked up about the guy. Where did Colin think he was getting off treating a girl like that?

“Look, just ask her on a date. Make it clear it’s actually a date this time too. Just move slow about it. You would probably scare her off going full King Steve” Dustin told him now reaching for his backpack.

“Okay, let me talk to Robin. If you tell anyone about this I’ll kill you” Steve said pointing at him and Dustin rolled his eyes before pushing open his door.

“Whatever, you screw it up with Beth I’ll kill you” Dustin told him back, already feeling protective over the girl because he knew what it was like to be treated differently because of your looks. Steve shook his head as Dustin got out the vehicle and slammed the door back shut before heading inside.

Steve drove off, towards the direction of Family Video, prepared to talk off Robins ear in hopes of getting advice about the girl. That was the plan until he pulled up outside of Family Video just to see the blue corvette parked outside. It was freshly washed, glimmering in the soft light of the autumn sun. He realized pretty soon Beth would have to put the car away, go a winter without it in order to protect it from rust. His BMW had always been important to him, he took care of it to the best of his abilities, but even he knew he didnt love his car like Beth loved hers. She loved so fiercely he wondered if that was why she hadn't allowed herself to be loved by anyone else, because she knew she would always love them more. His curiosity got the best of him and he pulled around the building to park in the back where he normally would during a shift. This way he could sneak in through the breakroom without alerting the girls.

"He showed up at your house?" Robin questioned, clearly unaware of the boy who wasn't supposed to be here since he wasn't currently working. Beth hadn't had a chance to talk to Robin since the series of events unfolded. Sunday Beth was worried about bothering her by calling and in school they didn't have a chance just the two of them to talk about it.

"Yeah I was working on my car and he just appeared in my driveway" Beth told her, leaning over the counter. She never wanted to be a girl to gossip about boys but it wasn't until now she realized how confusing boys could be.

"Then he asked you to go with him to take the kids to a movie?" to Beth Robin just seemed like a friend asking questions about what had went down over the weekend but Robin was curious because her and Steve hadn't planned on that. She was aware of most moves he was to make with Beth because it was her idea. He never brought up bringing her with the kids.

“Not exactly, he wanted to do something while they watched the movie but I said we should watch with them” Beth explained, having regretted it since she learned it was a horror movie. She didn’t sleep the entire night that night.

“Why would you do that, he clearly wanted to spend time with you?” Robin curiously asked, shoving some returns to the side that still needed to be put away.

“Well that’s what I thought until Mike suggested we were going on a date and you should’ve seen him freak out Rob. It was like even suggesting it was torture enough for him” Beth sighed, her head falling into her hands. This answer made Robin almost instantly fall into a glare. Steve's job was to mae Beth feel good about herself, acting horrified about going on a date with her clearly wouldn't help that.

"Maybe you just took it wrong, sometimes Steve is an idiot. Trust me, I would know" Robin comforted, her hand falling on the girls shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

"I dont know, I just feel stupid. I used to hate all the pretty girls that went in and out of that BMW like clockwork and now here I am, one of them" Beth groaned, feeling silly for allowing any feelings for Steve to seep in at all because she still hadn't forgiven him for what he had done. All those simple conversations made it easy to pretend but at the end of the day you could never really take a way the kind of harm he had done.

"You're not one of them Beth, no girl gets invitied into the BMW more than once these days. He's the one that showed up at your house, invited you to tag along with him. He probably panicked because he didn't want the kids teasing you guys if you did go on a date" Robin explained because she had seen how Steve was with the kids. There was a time they did it around her, Steve panicking about them suggesting a relationship between the two. That was because they didn't know she was gay. Hell she wasn't even sure Beth really knew.

"I just shouldn't of let him get close Robin, I've been out of my safety bubble too long. If I let this go on any longer all thats gonna happen is getting hurt and being reminded fat girls don't deserve that kind of love. I have to take a step back" Steve's heart dropped as he heard this confession from the back room. That was when he realized he couldn't be shy about this crush he had on her. No waiting around for hints she likes him back. Beth deserved to be pursued and he was gonna pursue the hell out of her. So he rushed back out the back door, hopped in his car, and sped back to the front of the building.

The bells on the door were hit so hard from his entrance they barely jingled, just a loud chime clambering into the wall as Steve rushed in. The wind from his stride making the Phoebe Cates cutout flutter slightly. Both girls jumped, too deep in their serious conversaton to be prepaed for such entrance. After all no one was ever that in a hurry to rent a movie. Once Beth saw it was Steve her heart calmed but Robin knew he had been listening. The stupid dingus had been eavesdropping from the back room. This was the only answer especially since Steve never cared to move so fast ever, even when he was clocked in.

"Steve we were just talki-"

"Will you go on a date with me? Saturday night, 6pm sharp, at Enzo's. I'll pick you up" Beth stared at the boy, eyes wide by his abruptness. Robin rolled her eyes, his answer enough to confirm he was spying on the two.

"You want to go on a date with me?" Beth finally muttered out, her heart racing so fast she swore they both could hear it.

"Yes Beth, because you deserve to be pursued and I want to pursue you. So we're gonna go on a real date, away from the kids, away from Robin, away from highschool assholes like Colin Matterson, who couldn’t be decent enough to take whatever snotty cheerleader he's dating this week to Enzo's, and we're going to have a damn good time. So, will you go on a date with me?" his small spech had left both Beth and Robin shocked but finally after a beat Beth nodded.

"Yeah, okay" a large smile broke across the boys face as she agreed. This wasn't just for Beth anymore, this was for him because he really liked Beth. It may have been unexpected but he was going to do the best he could to get to know her for real. So much for not going full King Steve.

"Perfect, I can’t wait" he told her with a dopey grin before turning and walking back out of the building. The minute he was alone in his car he let out the breath he was holding out. That had been the first time since Nancy that he had been nervous to ask a girl out. Hopefully it wouldn’t end the way it did with her.

“Did that just happen?” Beth asked, unable to keep a smile off her face. Robin glanced at her nervously, unsure of Steves true intentions, praying this would go her way.

“I think it just did”

Taglist: @kindablackenedsuperhero @rinarecommends @starryeyedpoet17 @crustless-toast @loverofmarsss @alexa-33 @bethanysnow @middle-of-the-earth @princessadriana4-blog @mochminnie @legendaryhumandiplomatgoop

Comment if you want to be added to the tag list :))

a/n: sorry it’s been forever. I’m busy all of the time and I’ve been trying to keep my excitement going about this small fic. please show some love <3

[neptoons1998]

Stay with me Tonight

Summary: Margo needs a night to rest.

TW: Panic attack and Parents yelling at each other

A/N: Here's the first one. I might post the rest tomorrow.

Tag Gang: @mal-urameshi @somethingcleaverandwhitty @pantherheart

Margo couldn’t handle it. She was at her breaking point. Her parents were having another screaming match again. Normally she could tune it out whether that was playing her video games or helping lead the going home machine at the Spider Society.  She knew her home life wasn’t perfect. She would get sad looks from Jess, Gwen, and strangely enough Miguel. Even though his rough exterior he was soft and gooey to her. Especially when she lingers around the hive, praying that he wouldn’t ask why she doesn’t go home.   

But She couldn’t tonight. 

“THAT’S IT I’M DONE!” her mom screamed. Margo heard a vase breaking on the nearby wall.

“THE HELL YOU ARE!” her father’s voice boomed in the house. Margo could hear a shuffle between the pair. Margo’s chest tightens from the aggression between her parents. Margo felt dizzy as she reached for her watch. She needs to get out of here Margo thought as she pushed her button. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going 42 universe.

 Margo lay in a fetal position the sharp raindrops touched her cheeks as she tried to calm herself. Get a grip, Margo! She thought as her chest continued to tighten.  A couple of minutes pass and Margo could breathe again. She looked around at the buildings that surround her. Where was she?

“Why are you here?” Miles said. Normally she could handle his rough around the edges. Right now she was barely holding herself together. She could feel the tears slowly starting to form and wanting to spill over her cheeks. Margo wanted to refuse them, she couldn’t look like a crybaby to the guy she liked. 

“Nevermind, I’m going home,“ Margo said simply quickly turning away from him. Before she could get too far away from him. Miles wrapped his hand around her wrist Margo turn to look at him.

“T-that came out wrong,” Miles groan to himself, “What I meant was-arg Let me do your hair.”

“My hair?” Margo repeated letting Miles lead the pair off the roof. Margo looked around skyscrapers reminding her of her own whenever she venture out of her room. 

 Miles nodded, “Yea, you look stressed, Cielito.”

“Okay,” Margo said. If anything she would’ve agreed to it anyway. She didn’t want to go home, at least for right now. 

I have a girl in my room, Miles thought. The teen tried to look unfazed by Margo looking around his room. She stood nearby some of the collectible figures he bought when he went to Comic-Con with his dad, before everything his life changed.  Miles inwardly screamed to himself why was he such a nerd. 

“Nice stuff,” Margo stated as she pointed at the miniature Gundam figure that was placed on his bookshelf.  Miles pulled out his combs and gel, he was trying to use his extra energy to place his products on his desk.  

“Thanks,” Miles said stiffly as he patted on the chair. Margo sat down in the chair, Margo could feel Miles’ fingers undoing her two flat twists. Margo couldn’t help but lend into Miles’ hands as he gently massage her scalp. 

“Are you ready to tell me why are you here?” Miles whispered out to her. Margo felt the slight tug of the comb.

“Parents were fighting again,” Margo said sheepishly, “I wanted to be out. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going until now.”

“No wonder why you had a confused look on your face,” Miles commented as Margo felt the edge of the comb parting her hair. The pair were silent for a while as Miles was consumed with his work. Margo was enjoying that someone else was doing her hair instead of it herself. 

“I’m glad I came to your universe,” Margo commented as she felt a smile tugging on her lips. Miles looked at her, and before she could figure out his emotion he pushed a mirror in her face, “Here what do you think?”

Margo gave a surprised  gasped, “This is great. I love it.”

“Stop lying,” Miles said rolling his eyes. Margo pulled up from the mirror as she touched his arm; causing the teen to feel butterflies in his stomach.

“No really. I love it,” Margo said earnestly, “Thanks.”

 Miles had to quickly look away from her before he did something stupid, “Yea no problem, Cielito.”

“Hmm,” Margo said contently before she looked at her watch, “I think they finally calm down, so I should probably leave.”

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to,” Miles replies. Oh my god shut up, me!

“What?” Margo questioned as she lends a bit closer to Miles, “No they would notice that I’m gone for too long. Thanks though.”

With that, she tapped on the watch to make a portal for her to go home. Miles bit his lip before he let words tumble out of his mouth, “If becomes too much again, Margo... You’re safe here.”

Margo could feel tears starting to form again, God when did I become such a crybaby? Before she went to the portal she placed a kiss on Miles’ cheek, “Thanks, Miles.”

When the portal closed, Miles lay on his bed shocked at what had happened in the span of a couple of hours between them, “She kissed me…”

Butterflies in his stomach fluttered once more. 

[kingkennny10]

Mike Makowski x f!Reader

just a lil smut ive had in my memos for a good month, i changed some things to make it a f!reader as ik most people arent nb like me :/ mike is ooc asf i apologize also this is barely proof read so lmk if theres any mistakes, yall are past legal drinking age in this btw

THIS IS SMUT, 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI

cw: smutty smut smut, knifeplay, blood kink, pain is most definitely involved, jealous mike, established relationship lil bit of a size kink, p in v creampie, fingering

You and Mike arrived at your air bnb in the afternoon the day before your 2nd anniversary. You both wanted to quickly get to the beach but the long drive caught up with you guys and you decided to take a nap once everything was unloaded. Mike was the first awake and was unpacking both of your things for the week, you smiled at his thoughtfulness. "Mikey~ you should have woke me up to help you," You pouted as you propped yourself up on your elbows. You giggled when he physically jumped clutching at his chest dramatically.

"Holy shit baby, you scared the soul from my body!" His words caused you to giggle again and you crawled your way towards the foot of the bed where he sat on the floor with the suitcases. "Anyways, I wanted you to get as much sleep as possible before we go to the beach, plus I can handle putting our things away sweets." You huffed and rolled over on your back with a small pout on your lips.

“Wheres my bathing suit?” You asked noticing the sun was only just now setting.

“In the bathroom waiting for you.” Your lover said with a smile evident in his tone. He knew how badly you wanted to go enjoy the beach on the first day so he got your stuff ready for you. “I don’t have much left to put up so you better hurry sweetheart~” You rolled back over onto your stomach with a shocked expression.

“What about you?” You said teasing, when he stood up to put something into the closet and you rolled your eyes. He was already in his trunks and a old school Dracula tank top, ready to go. “You bastard!” You huffed and got up making your way to the bathroom leaving him to laugh at your faux insults. Your bathing suit was neatly placed next to the sink as well as the new cover up you got to match before the trip. Your bathing suit was all black while the cover up was a neon green to match his trunks.

“Almost ready sweets?” You heard Mike on the other side of the door. Instead of responding you walked out the door only to be immediately picked up and swung around. “You look so good angel!” He said muffled into your neck. He set you down and placed a soft kiss on your lips pressing your foreheads together. “From what I’ve seen outside there seems to be a party going on tonight. You excited?” He asked you punctuated with another kiss on the lips. You smiled brightly at him before answering. Mike didn’t like crowded spaces very much, but he would brave it for you if it meant you were happy.

“As long as I’m with you I’m the happiest person on earth.” His cheeks turned pink at your statement and he pulled you in for another tight squeeze. Once he was done hugging you he held your hand and guided you out of the house locking it up behind you two. Your air bnb was right on the beach and only a minutes walk to the outdoor bar where the party was happening. You could immediately see a handful of drunk people amongst others. A gentle squeeze to your hand brought your attention back to Mike.

“Looks like drinks are free due to the party. You ready baby?” He asked looking into your excited eyes. You rapidly nodded your head and pulled him along with you to the bar. You wasted no time ordering both your usual drinks of choice. The music was loud all around you and you barely noticed the bartender setting your drinks down. Both of you took a sip of your drinks as you began swaying in place to the music next to Mike. You nudged him all but two times while he took a few more sips of his drink. “I’m sorry sweets but I am not dancing tonight, especially not to this.” He shook his head making you pout. You understood how he felt though, being in a crowded area like this was already too much for him.

“Thats okay, are you gonna watch me though?” You asked hopefully, giving him the best puppy dog eyes you could muster. You finished off your drink setting the empty cup down.

“Of course my love!” He said sweetly turning to face the crowd continuing his drink. You giggled and stepped into a clear spot where you could still see each other. Slowly you began to feel the music and began swaying and dancing along all alone giving Mike a show to remember. The orange light of the sunset and the blue LED lights of the bar contrasting against your skin. To Mike you looked like heaven on earth and all he could do was smile to himself as he watched you enjoy the music. Soon enough his drink was catching up to him and he was going to have to use the bathroom soon. You were too entranced with the music to notice him trying to get your attention so he decided to just rush and use the bathroom and hopefully be back before you noticed his absence. Unfortunately for you both, it wouldn’t be this easy. As soon as Mike walked away from the bar there were hands on you. Thinking by chance it was your lover you turned around in their arms with a smile, which quickly faded when you seen the unfamiliar face accompanied by the strong smell of beer. A scowl stretched across your features as you looked the drunk man in the eyes. You attempted to pull yourself away from him which led his hold to tighten around you pulling your body flush with his.

“Let go of me.” You say through gritted teeth. Bracing your hands on his chest to keep space between you. He laughed dismissing you and swayed you to the music with him. You glanced over to the bar only to see Mike was gone.

“Don’t be that way sweetheart, you looked lonely dancing here by yourself!” He said cheerily continuing to sway you. You kept pressure on his chest to keep him away from you.

“Get away from me, let me go!” You barked out making the drunk man frown. Quickly his frown turned to a smile accompanied by one of his hands sliding down to your ass giving it a firm squeeze. In your head you were begging for Mike to come back and save you from this disgusting perv before you get a battery charge on your record. “GET OFF!” You shouted this time. The mans grip loosened on you but in a flash he was knocked to the ground from a swift punch delivered by your knight in shining armour Mike. He had one of the most angry expressions you’ve seen decorating his face and all you could do was blush.

“How about next time you LISTEN when your told to back off.” Mike said with venom looking down at the drunk fool. He snaked one arm around your waist and spat on the ground next to the guy, you couldn’t help the wetness beginning to leak from you at the sight of his anger along with his possessive touch. “If you ever touch her again you’ll be missing some teeth.” Mike was absolutely fuming as he left the bar walking you back to the house. The whole time your skin was burning hot from his display of anger, there was no way he didn’t feel the heat radiating off of your skin. Theres just something about him being so protective over you that has your stomach doing flips. Finally making it inside you flop face down onto the bed as Mike paces back and forth beside you. “Baby I’m sorry I left, I really had to use the bathroom. I wish people could just keep their hands to themselves.” He let out a frustrated groan and you just hummed in response, the cogs were turning in your head. When you finally reached your conclusion you sat up, your legs hanging off the bed. Mike stopped and looked at you to gauge your expression, he couldn’t place it.

“Come here.” You said, voice dripping in arousal at his earlier display. He approached you with no hesitation. You placed your hand on his neck and pulled him in for a deep kiss. “Did you bring your knife with you?” You asked looking into his eyes. For you and Mike, knifeplay is nothing new, you’ve done it plenty times before but it was obvious by his confused expression that he had no clue what you were getting at yet.

“Yeah, why?” He asked genuinely. You absentmindedly squeezed your thighs together at the thought of the blade on your skin. Your eyes darkened as you looked up at him, his appearance only added to your heated thoughts. His slightly toned arms out on display for you his green and black hair framing his handsome face.

“I want you to put your name on me.” You said with a devilish smirk playing across your lips. Mikes eyes widened in awe at your words, his own arousal fogging his brain. Your heated words flipped a switch in his brain. When he spoke next you could tell you both were on the same page, he couldn’t help but let his possessiveness take over.

“Have I ever told you that I love every idea you’ve ever had and that I worship the very ground you walk upon?” He said before he leaned back in for a more heated kiss. You gripped the front of his tank top and dragged him down onto the bed with you wrapping your legs around his waist. One of his hands pressed firmly into the mattress next to your shoulder while the other glided over your mostly exposed body and up to your neck applying pressure ever so slightly making you moan into the kiss. Mike smirked before letting his tongue explore your mouth. He pressed his hips into yours letting you feel his quickly hardening length through the thin fabric of his trunks leading you to let out a gasp of excitement. He pulled away from you to take off his tank top, you also took this time to toss away your cover up. When you looked up at him he could tell just how much you wanted this which only added to his own arousal and need for you. He reached over to the bedside drawer pulling his pocket knife out without breaking physical contact with you. You whined as he slowly opened his knife up without taking a glance at you. He watched the blade as he slid the knife flat against your skin from sternum to navel making you shiver from the cold touch of the steel. He smirked as you writhed underneath him, body begging for more.

“Mikey please. . .” You whined breathlessly as you watched his hand slowly drag the knife around teasing you. “Cut me. Put your name on me.” You moaned out pathetically. You needed it, you needed to watch his prideful expression as he sliced every letter into you. A dark chuckle passed his lips as he finally looked back into your eyes. He didn’t miss the fact that your hips rolled into him and your thighs weakly tightened around his waist.

“I will sweetheart, be patient with me. I need to see if i can fit my last name too.” A devilish smirk spread across his lips at his final sentence and all it did was leave you wanting for more. He took his index finger and glided it across the skin just below your bikini top leading goose bumps to form in their wake. “I think here would be perfect for my name, don’t you think?” He looked back up into your eyes. You bit your lip and nodded along, you were growing impatient now. His grin never faltered even as he moved his knife into position on your delicate skin. “And so it begins my angel.” He said before he applied pressure to the knife. The initial slice is truly the only one that hurts, at least in your experience. You wince in pain as he continues the first long slice, it’s never deep enough to gush blood but its enough for pretty little dots to pop up along the fresh red line. 3 more slow slices later and a very clear ‘M’ was marked on you. You hips rolled into his again, your need for him wasn’t slowing down any time soon and it only grew as he leaned down licking up the dots of blood littering your fresh wound. “3 more letters pretty girl.” He said against your skin as he left kisses along the cuts.

“Please, i need you mikey.” You begged as he readied to finish his name. His free hand moved over your hips and cupped your heat pressing his index and middle fingers between your folds through your thin bikini bottoms. Your hips rolled into his fingers, aching for any source of relief. He smiled and quickly sliced the knife forming an ‘I’ on your skin following it up with a glide from his hot tongue. He didn’t remove his hand from you, only applying pressure every now and then rubbing you slowly through your bottoms. As he began with the ‘K’ you couldn’t hold back the pure ecstasy you were feeling from the beautiful mix of pain and pleasure. As he finished the ‘K’ and ‘E’ he removed his hand from you and began untying your bikini top. He put the knife down on the night stand and untied the back of your bikini top fully releasing your breasts. He licked the blood from the final two letters and left a trail of kisses up to your lips where he pulled your chin down with a free hand as to let his blood covered tongue explore your waiting mouth. When he pulled away from the kiss the hand on your chin moved down to your throat giving it a teasing squeeze which led to you rolling your hips in pleasure. His other hand slid harshly over his name in your skin making your back arch with the painful pleasure.

“My little masochist, you look so beautiful like this.” He praised, voice low showcasing his lust for you. He removed his hands from you and pulled away from you making you whine. He placed his hands on your knees and slid them up your thighs until he reached the top of your bikini bottoms sliding them down your legs. He tossed them to the side and brought his hands back to you, one placed at your hip and the other sliding down to your dripping core. You mewled in response to his movements rolling your hips against his slender fingers. All he could do was smile knowing he was the man who could do this to you, he’s the one you wanted, he’s the one with his name carved into your skin. Finally he plunged his fingers into you, his ministrations were slow but he made sure he was hitting your sweet spot each time. The hand on your hip moved slowly up your stomach to where his name was and this time delicately slid his fingers across each letter, he felt your walls tighten as you moaned out his name. “I can’t wait to feel that on my cock angel.” He spoke with a groan. Your hands that laid above your head the whole time reached out to him as you grew closer to your orgasm. Your nails dug into his biceps slowly as you fucked yourself onto his fingers. Mike wore a proud smile on his face as you left your marks on him. He quickly removed his fingers from you and brought them to his lips, taking a small lick before he fully inserted them into his mouth to lick off all of your sweet wetness. You whined in protest to the emptiness but he quickly shushed you when he grabbed one of your hands bringing it down his chest to the waistband of his trunks. “Don’t you want me to fill you up princess?” He asked in a sweet tone. No words could form on your tongue, all you could do was whine out in agreement nodding your head. “On all fours angel.” He said softly, you obeyed him swiftly getting yourself into position. From behind you could hear the fabric of his trunks as he pulled them down letting his cock free. Your mouth watered as you brought your chest down to lay against the soft sheets of the bed. He chuckled when you wiggled your ass impatiently. You mewled out when you felt his tip slide up and down your wet slit. “You’re all mine isn’t that right sweet pea?” He asked as one of his hands gripped your ass firmly. You moaned out biting your lip. “Words angel, use them.” He said firmly as he pulled his cock away from you continuing to stroke himself slowly. Your eyes began to water as you need for him started to become too much.

“I’m all yours Mikey, I’m yours forever!” You moaned out spreading your legs more. Slowly your arousal was dripping onto the pristine sheets below you and all he could do was stare in amazement. He bit his lip as he lined himself up with your soaking cunt. “Fuuuuck~” you moaned as he stretched you out on his cock. Your knuckles turning white from your harsh grip on the sheets.

“So tight for me baby, god you feel so good wrapped around me.” He groaned out finally bottoming out in your plush walls. He bucked his hips into you all but twice before one of his hands reached forward gripping your hair. “I wanna hear what belongs to me, lemme hear you scream.” He said darkly as he began pounding into you, you couldn’t help but give him what he wanted. His name on your chest gliding against the sheets not letting you forget how fresh the cuts were, if you were to get up you’re sure you’d see faint blood smearing the white sheets.

“Fuck Mike! Harder!” You moaned out, and who was he to deny his little angel what she wants. He picked up his pace slamming deeper into you, the sounds of your skin slapping like music to his ears. You knew you wouldn’t last long with this pace, he was in the same boat. “Im close Mikey, please don’t stop.” You moaned out. All Mike could do was let out a pleasured groan. In a swift motion he leaned down wrapping an arm around your chest and pulled your back to his, his other hand still gripping your hair pulled your head to the side giving him access to your unmarked neck. He made quick work of leaving fresh marks along your neck while the hand on your chest slid down you roughly drag across his name in your skin. You cried out at the sensation beginning to see stars. Your pussy clenched around his cock leading him to bite down into your neck, it was sure to leave a big mark.

“You’re all mine, mine alone!” He spoke against your shoulder. His hand slid down from his name to where his tip would poke out at your lower abdomen. He pressed his hand firmly feeling his cock pounding through you. “You see how deep I’m gonna come in you baby? You ready?” You nodded frantically as one of your hands moved over top of his on your stomach your other gripped his hair behind you. You were right on the edge of your orgasm as he picked up his pace. Mike continued marking up your neck pressing into the skin of your stomach in random intervals.

“Gonna come Mikey.” You mewled, only a few seconds later did your walls spasm around him, your hand gripping onto his wrist as he rode you through it. He was very soon to follow. Three harsh thrusts later and he slowed as his seed spilled into you. You bit your lip at the euphoric sensation.

“My pretty angel, now everyone will know who you belong to huh?” He spoke lowly into your neck. Your legs shook before you collapsed onto the bed when he pulled out of you. He took a moment to watch his come leak from your used hole, his chest full of pride from the sight. “Let me get you cleaned up baby.” He said as he walked away towards the bathroom, his trunks fixed back to normal. You didn’t hear him, you were too focused on bringing your own heart beat back down taking deep breaths. You jumped at the feeling of the warm cloth against your thighs, he did quick work cleaning you up. He flipped you over taking another look at his name smiling before he placed a few more kisses on it. “I love you baby.” He said bringing his face to yours to leave kisses all over your cheeks.

“I love you too sweets.” You said before gettin in position to sleep, him soon following suit.

its done finally, im very proud of it actually! i havent seen anything like this on this app before so im excited to see what others think, maybe not everyone is into knifeplay like me but damn is this delicious 🤤 maybe ill put others onto mike makowski after this, i cant think of what to name it so i just titled it mike makowski x reader, someday ill get good at titles, after this theres more kenny x reader coming 😈

[stargazer-sims]

“Spies R Us”

Sofia: Sebastian, what are you doing?

Sebastian: Spying on Papa and Ginger.

Sofia: Why?

Sebastian: Because something’s up. I don’t know if you noticed, but they came back to the hotel super late last night. It was like, after midnight when they got to their rooms. I heard them in the hallway.

Sofia: What were you doing awake after midnight?

Sebastian: Hanging out in a group chat with Eden, Max and Luka. You know… Skater Boys. But that’s not the point here. Look. Something is definitely going on with them.

Sofia: It looks like he was waiting for her.

Sebastian: Yeah, he was there for a while before she showed up.

Sofia: Is she… flirting with him? I didn’t know she was into him. I mean, I knew he was totally into her, but…

Sebastian: Oh, she’s absolutely into him. She’s been trying to hide it, but I know her too well for her to get most stuff past me.

Sofia: And the other way around.

Sebastian: Yeah. By now, I know better than to try keeping anything from her. Anyway, this thing with her and Papa… At first I thought she was just playing hard to get, but it’s not that. She’s not just into him. I’m pretty sure she’s in love with him as much as he’s in love with her, but she was keeping quiet about it for some reason.

Sofia: Maybe she thought it wouldn’t be right to fall in love with the guy who signs her paycheques. Or maybe she was worried about us, about how we’d react.

Sebastian: She didn’t need to worry about that, at least not with me. Like, I’d be over the moon if Ginger became our stepmother. I’d call her Mom for sure.

Sofia: I don’t I know if I’d call her Mom, but I’d be glad for them if they got together. Papa deserves to be happy, and I think Ginger makes him happy.

Sebastian: I think so too. Now, let’s be quiet and see if we can hear anything they’re saying.

Sofia: Right.

Stephen: You’re looking beautiful this morning.

Ginger: Thank you. You’re looking handsome yourself, but then again, you always do.

Stephen: Did you sleep well?

Ginger: Yes. Why?

Stephen: I didn’t. There was too much on my mind after what happened last night.

Ginger: Are you having regrets?

Stephen: No! No, it’s nothing like that. I love you, and I’m not sorry for saying it. It’s just… This might sound silly, but I had a difficult time saying goodnight and watching you go into your room last night, because I didn't want to be apart from you. If I have any regret at all, it's that I didn't invite you into my room instead.

Ginger: *teasing* And what would we have done together in your room, Fujikawa-san?

Stephen: Whatever you might've wanted, but I would've been content just to fall asleep together and wake up with you beside me this morning.

Ginger: That sounds lovely, actually. Perhaps you could invite me to your room tonight?

Stephen: I will, and I'm going to be thinking about it all day.

Ginger: Not to the exclusion of everything else, I hope. We're meant to go on a sailing tour this morning, remember? And you promised to take Sofia shopping, to choose something for her birthday gift.

Stephen: What are you going to do while Sofia and I are shopping?

Ginger: Sebastian and I are going to a free tango class at the hotel, and then we might go to the hotel spa for a massage.

Stephen: Maybe later, you could teach me to tango.

Ginger: *amused* I'll bet you're a better than average dancer.

Stephen: I like to think I have skills.

Ginger: I'm sure you do. Now, how about some breakfast? I noticed they're serving food at the outside tables. Wouldn't you like to have a view of the sea while we eat?

Stephen: Why would I want to look at the sea when I can look at you?

Ginger: *blushing*

Sofia: Ooh! He kissed her! Sebastian, did you see— Hey... were you taking pictures?

Sebastian: Yup. We've got a little photographic evidence of that schoolboy kiss.

Sofia: Why would you do that? Spying on them is one thing, but taking a picture...?

Sebastian: I'm going to text it to Eden. This is news, Sofia.

Sofia: Gossip, more like it.

Sebastian: Come on! This is important. Eden's going to want to know about this.

Sofia: Ever since the two of you got over that weird irrational dislike for each other and decided to become friends, you're like two little old ladies, sticking your noses into everyone else's business.

Sebastian: Says the woman who was just spying on her father.

Sofia: Ugh! You're so annoying!

Sebastian: You keep saying that, and yet you're still my best friend.

Sofia: I'm your sister. I think it's mandatory.

Sebastian: Excuse me!?

Sofia: No, you are my best friend and I do love you. But, me loving you and you being a pain in the behind aren't mutually exclusive, you know.

Sebastian: Ugh... sisters!

Sofia: *laughing*

[teleiapotami]

NaLu Week Day 7

Prompt: New Adventures

The Grand Magic Games are over and Fairy Tail is back at home. In the aftermath of Future Lucy's death, Natsu is loathe to let his Lucy out of his sight. Cuddling can be platonic anyway, right?

@allaboutnalu @thenaluarchive

Lucy tilted her head out through the canvas of their covered wagon. The ride back to Magnolia was a long one, and even she was beginning to get tired of the constant rocking and jolting as their cart rumbled along the uneven path home. The sun on her upturned face brought a warmth to her that she hadn’t realized she’d been missing. Natsu let out another low moan, drawing her attention again. He was slumped over against Wendy who was pressing against Lucy’s side, trying to escape the jerks and twitches that kept wracking Natsu’s frame.

“Come on Wendy, I’ll trade you spots. You feel bad enough without having to deal with his sweaty mess up against you.” Lucy giggled at the badly concealed look of relief on Wendy’s face and stood up to switch spots. She leaned down to Natsu’s level and brushed her thumb over his cheek.

“Sit up a bit and I’ll let you lay on my lap Natsu,” she said softly. He let out a whine but shifted his arm under him to lift himself just enough so she could slide under his head. The moment she was beneath him he let himself flop back down onto her legs, making her yelp and glare at him with annoyance. Still, his misery pulled at her sympathy, and she let her fingers begin their usual dance along his scalp. 

The events following the games had been intense, and though peace had returned, Natsu wasn’t sure he would ever feel entirely at peace again. Certainly not until he managed to avert the future that led to Lucy’s death. He wanted to sleep, to escape the pains he was experiencing from the movement of the torturous vehicle he was trapped in, but every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the blood spraying from Lucy’s body as it was pierced by Rogue’s projectile. He saw her collapse into her own arms, and he watched her die over and over again in his dreams.

He buried his head into her lap, choosing to deal with the pain instead of the nightmares. At least while he was awake he could feel her warmth against his skin as life pulsed through her, and her scent surrounded him, untainted by the cold, metallic undernotes of death and blood.

Once Magnolia’s homecoming parade was over, the members of Fairy Tail went their separate ways to recover, rest, or return to work. Happy flew off with Carla and Lily, leaving Natsu and Lucy to walk toward her apartment together. Natsu was grinning with his hands behind his head as they walked along the canal.

Lucy smiled at him. “You certainly look like you feel better.” He just grinned at her brightly, making her heart skip a beat. “Well, good. After all, you achieved over the last two weeks, you deserve to be happy.”

“Pretty sure we both do, Luce. Cause there’s no way any of us would have survived if it wasn’t for you……er…her? Both of you.”

Lucy nodded solemnly. “Yeah….She was pretty amazing, huh? I’m not sure I could have done what she did….Losing the guild….Losing you…and still finding the strength to look for some way to fix it?” She wasn’t sure of her own strength, but she knew without a doubt that her Natsu would die for her, just like the other Lucy’s.

“Well, good thing I made sure to smash that gate to bits, so it’ll never happen. And I’m gonna keep on protecting your future, just like I promised.” He didn’t feel like he could tell anyone what else Future Rogue had warned him about. Not even Lucy. She smiled softly and wiped her eyes where tears were threatening to form.

“Thanks, Natsu. Hey, let’s grab some food and stuff and have a sleepover tonight. What do you say?” Natsu punched the air with a fiery fist and whooped. She giggled at his infectious enthusiasm. Natsu wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight yet anyway. A sleepover just meant he wouldn’t have to break in later. He held out his hand to her with a toothy grin. The moment she took it he took off with a cackle, dragging her along to the restaurant district.

“And that is why I think Cana should be the centerfold instead of Mira,” Natsu crowed triumphantly. He shoved another muffin into his mouth whole.

“Natsu…. Gildarts wouldn’t come to fight you just because Cana modeled. She’s been in Sorcerer Weekly before, remember? Besides, why would he fight you and not Cana or even the magazine people?” Lucy twisted a lock of her hair around her fingers, trying to figure out his logic.

Natsu sat back and stretched out. “Ah fon hink oo—” he swallowed hard and started again, “I don’t think you understand how much he loves those bikini girls. If Cana was the only girl in those things, Gildarts would come straight home to make her stop. And then Cana would tell him it was all my idea and BAM! Gildarts gets a beat down.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “You’d think after all those battles we just survived you would think about something other than more fighting.” When he didn’t respond she looked up from her hair twisting. He was staring at the wall with a faraway look that hurt her heart. “Natsu?”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m here…” Wherever he was, it was certainly not next to her on the couch Lucy knew. She scooted over and leaned against his side, nervously pushing a piece of cookie around her plate.

The sudden contact startled him, and he looked down finally. Finding her curled against him as though she was made to fit there made him happy somehow, and a contented hum resonated through his chest.

“Natsu…” Lucy spoke softly, “We’re just friends, right?”

“Uh, as far as I know…why?”

She giggled softly at his response, then continued, “D’you think you could….maybe come to bed with me tonight? You know, platonically.” The words tumbled from her mouth a bit faster than she intended.

“Er- What’s that mean again?” he asked with a grunt.

“Platonic means just as friends. Not romantically,” she clarified.

“Oh, sure. I don’t mind if you don’t. To be honest….I don’t want to be too far away from you right now…. you know…” he trailed off.

Lucy nodded and laid her head against his neck. “I get it, and I feel the same.” She let herself snuggle deeper into his warmth and tugged the blanket off the back of the couch over her legs. “Start the movie. Unless you have more to say about Cana in bikinis.”

He chuckled and did as she asked, settling into his role of warm pillow. Even though he had been the one to choose their movie lacrima for the evening, he found himself far more interested in the way the lights danced across Lucy’s face. Her expressions were more adorable than he’d ever realized. Especially the way she scrunched up her nose at certain moments. He was always the one in her lap and now that the roles were reversed, he wanted to enjoy it. With that goal in mind, he gently slid his fingers through her golden hair. It was like silk, slipping between his fingers easily. Lucy made a small sound of contentment that made him smile. Following an instinct he couldn’t explain, he tangled his fingers into the hair at the back of her head and gave it a gentle tug.

Lucy let out a gasp and a soft moan escaped her before she pressed her hand over her mouth and glared up at him angrily as she sat up. He smiled sheepishly, holding up his hands in surrender. “Sorry…I just wondered what would happen.”

She pouted at him warily. “Not nice, Natsu.”

“I dunno, the sound was pretty nice. I won’t do it again, promise.” He shrugged and chuckled at the blush that colored her cheeks. She tried to hide it from him by returning to her position against his chest. They finished the movie in comfortable silence. Natsu busied his hands drawing slow patterns lightly ­along the exposed skin of Lucy’s midriff. Another action that drew adorable shivers and squeals from her every so often, he noted.

Later in the evening, Lucy sat curled up in her bed reading a book. Natsu pushed out of the bathroom with her towel wrapped around his hips. He crossed the room to her dresser without a word. “What are you doing Natsu?” she watched him over the edge of her book.

He opened her underwear drawer and replied without looking up. “Grabbing my spare pants, obviously. Why has your panty collection gotten even bigger?? Who needs this many? Ooh, that’s a new color, I bet it looks great against your—”

“Natsu!! Get out of there! You don’t have any pants here!” She launched off the bed and tried to snatch the sapphire pair of lace panties off the finger he was dangling them from, but he held them above her.

“Shows what you know. I hid some here weeks ago for when I sneak—I mean when I stay over.” He continued digging through the drawer, letting her grab her undies out of his hand when he pulled a pair of black sleep pants out from under the mountain of her lace collection. “Haha! See?”

Lucy wasn’t paying any attention to him now, as she stuffed her clothing back into the drawer he had so rudely invaded. She turned around to scold him some more but was met with Natsu’s completely naked backside as he dropped the towel and pulled up his pants. She yelped and covered her burning face. “NATSU!”

“What now?” he whined.

“You could have done that in the bathroom!”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like we didn’t just spend ten minutes bouncing around Crocus in a bell together while you were naked. This just makes us even.” He laughed at the horrified expression on her face. “Don’t tell me you forgot about that!”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I was trying to. You are seriously making me reconsider having you stay over.” He laughed and pulled her against him for a hug.

“No, come on. Let’s go lay down and be…pantolic or whatever.” He flopped onto her bed and patted the spot beside him. Lucy snorted as she followed him. “It’s platonic, Natsu.”

He shook his head with a grin. “It’s cuddling Lucy.” He laid back against the pillow and stretched out his arm, giving her a pointed look. With a roll of her eyes and a stifled giggle, she crawled up the bed and settled into his side with her head on his bare chest.  

They lay quietly together for a while, the sound of Natsu’s heartbeat drowning out everything else around her. Then his chest rumbled, and he started telling her about dragons. Did she know his dad was known as the Fire Dragon King? She shook her head gently in response and he continued. Most of what he said she had heard before, either from him, Mira, or Erza, but she let him talk. As he did, she trailed her fingers over his skin, tracing the line of his collarbone and down the center of his chest. She paused at the beginning of his abs and looked up at him, but he was still talking, looking at the ceiling.

He was telling her about his uncle now, Atlas Flame, whom he’d apparently met during the dragon battle. Lucy listened with more interest this time but resumed her tracing of the lines along his muscled stomach. She sat up on her elbow to follow the line until it met his pants, then dragged her fingers along their edge to the pink skin of his newly healed wound from Rogue. His breathing hitched and he paused in his story to glance down at her fingers against him.

“Sorry,” she said hurriedly, and made to move her hand away from him, but he caught her wrist. He pressed her hand flat against his skin again. “Don’t stop. I like it when you touch me.” Her hand twitched under his as her cheeks warmed, but she didn’t pull away. When he released her and returned to describing the taste of his uncle’s fire she resumed her tracings. She followed the line of the scar down to trace along the lines of his exposed hip bones, then followed his pants back across his belly to begin the journey back up his body in reverse.

Natsu felt like her fingers were leaving trails of sparks dancing along his body. He felt every brush of her skin against his more intensely than he had ever felt any attack in all his life. He finished telling her about Atlas Flame and fell silent, closing his eyes to bask in the sensations her fingertips were leaving behind them. He jumped a little when she began to outline the features of his face, and when she reached his lips he licked her hand with a grin.

Lucy recoiled instantly and wiped her fingers on his chest with a disgusted sound. Natsu cackled gleefully. “That’s what you get for tickling me.”

She glared. “I wasn’t tickling you, and you said you liked it either way.”

“I did. Still tickled.” He mirrored her position, sitting up on his elbow and facing her. “Your turn. Lay back and tell me a story. We’ll see if you still think it wasn’t tickling,” he challenged. Lucy frowned a little, feeling distinctly baited, but she refused to back down from a chance to prove him wrong. She rolled onto her back and studied the ceiling. “Tell me how you ended up naked in that bell, I bet that’s a good story,” he teased, laughing at the pout she put on again.

“I’ll tell you, but you don’t get to interrupt to make fun of me.” After securing his promise, she relaxed a bit and settled into telling him what happened to her after they parted ways. Natsu settled in beside her as she had, and traced his finger around the shell of her ear, then down along her jaw. He followed the line of her throat down, then came back up her collarbone. He found himself mesmerized by her lips as he let the backs of his fingers trace down her arm.

Lucy shivered under his gaze but tried to stay focused on her story. He returned his focus to his hand and walked his fingers along the bottom edge of her cropped sleep shirt, smiling when her breathing hitched momentarily. Her skin was so smooth under his fingers that he worried his rough hands might irritate it, but she didn’t seem interested in stopping him, so he continued.

He followed the centerline of her stomach to the waistband of her shorts. Following the same path she did, he traced the edge to one hip, then back across to the other. She squirmed under his touch slightly and he grinned. He sat up and shifted to sit at the foot of the bed and pulled her legs up to rest in his lap.

“Natsu?” Lucy paused in her story to give him a curious look.

“Keep going.” He waited until she resumed her story before he dragged his fingers slowly up from her ankle to the gentle bend in her knee. He traced the lines of her kneecap before switching to the other and following the same path back to the ankle. He caressed the top of her feet, then returned slowly to her knees. Lucy trailed off as she finished sharing and watched him, her lips parted slightly.

He glanced up at her. “I can stop.”

She shook her head, blushing. “I like it…w-when you touch me.” He wet his lips and let his fingers continue their gentle exploration up Lucy’s outer thigh. Again, he followed the bottom of her shorts around to her inner thigh and trailed his fingers back down. He repeated the action on her other leg, smirking when she trembled against him.

“Told you it tickled,” he said as he shifted her legs back down and crawled over her to lay down beside her again.  Lucy couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Platonic or not, his fingers felt good against her skin, and she didn’t want them to stop. As though he could read her mind, Natsu murmured against her, “Sorry. I ran out of places to explore that aren’t under clothes.”

Lucy smiled and made to settle against his side again, but he rolled over and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer. Finding her face pressing against his throat, she turned her head slightly and nipped at his collarbone, making him grunt and loosen his grip just a little. She looked up at him just in time for him to press a soft kiss on her forehead and bury his nose into her hair.  She closed her eyes contentedly.

“God Luce, you smell so damn good. It drives my instincts haywire when you’re so close like this.” Lucy felt her pulse speed up a bit and she tucked her head under his chin again. With her ear against his body, she could hear his heart thudding almost as fast as hers.

“You could let me go then if it bothers you so much,” she said. His arms tightened again, and she giggled, pressing a kiss to the base of his throat. She was so comfortable curled into his embrace, his warmth chasing away the chill of the night air creeping into her window, that it wasn’t long before she felt herself begin to doze off.

Natsu felt her lips against his skin, he felt her body grow heavier as she relaxed, and he felt her breathing slow to the steady rhythm of sleep. Relaxing his grip, he rolled onto his back and looked down at her, studying her. Natsu, we’re just friends…. Her words echoed through his mind. It was a true statement, though they had never said it aloud before. Once it was out there, Natsu realized that it didn’t sit right with him anymore. Lucy was much more than his friend. But if he didn’t like the idea of them being just friends, then what did he want?

Lucy let out a soft moaning mumble in her sleep and he glanced down at her lips. He wanted to be more than friends…but what exactly did that mean? He began to study the relationships of those closest to them for some clue as to what he wanted. Levy and Gajeel were more than friends, but that seemed to be the same situation he was in now. Neither of those two had made any move to change their relationship one way or the other. His thoughts turned to Bisca and Alzack. They had always been awkward around each other, and everyone had known that they would be together eventually. Come to think of it, wasn’t that what he’d overheard said about him and Lucy anyway?

He thought about Biscan and Alzack’s relationship overall. They were married and had sweet Asuka, who brought more light and joy into the guild than Natsu had ever felt before. Was that the more than friends he wanted? Having kids was not something he was ready for yet, but spending his life with Lucy was something he liked the idea of. He rolled over to wrap her in his arms again and let sleep claim him at last.  

Several hours later Lucy jolted awake when something shook her sharply. She sat up quickly and looked around. Natsu was beside her, his legs tangling in the sheets. His face was twisted in a grimace of pain and anger, and his arm came up as though he were trying to grab something. All he managed to do was hit Lucy in the lip. With a hiss at the pain, Lucy tried to shake him awake but it didn’t help. Her shaking only seemed to upset him further and his legs began to kick.

Relying on her instincts, Lucy ducked under another swipe of his arm and swung her leg across his hips to pin him down. She caught hold of his face and shook him again. “Natsu! Wake up, please! Natsu!!”

He jolted under her and sat up suddenly. She yelped and grabbed his shoulders to keep from falling off the bed when his momentum threatened to dislodge her. He caught her by the hips and settled her back against him. “Luce?” he blinked up at her.

“You….you were having a nightmare,” she mumbled, running her thumb over his cheek gently. His eyes were still slightly unfocused, and she wasn’t sure if he was even seeing her properly. “Natsu, are you okay?”

His fingers tightened on her hips, and she felt his finger slip under the waistband of her shorts slightly. “Lucy…” he murmured, letting his head fall forward to rest on her shoulder. She could feel his pulse pounding against her where her arm was resting against his neck. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “I love you.”

She thought he was talking in his sleep until his arms slid up her back to pull her against his chest and his lips found the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. His tongue darted over the sensitive skin there before he kissed it gently, sending shivers up her spine. Her skin broke out in goosebumps under his hands. She licked her lips lightly and tried to swallow the trembles that his tongue was trying to draw out of her. When he bit into the soft flesh, she lost her concentration and moaned, dropping her head back.

He sucked gently there for a moment before moving his mouth up to kiss along her neck slowly. Lucy squirmed as his breath tickled against her but went still when she felt something hard beneath her. Natsu let out a low groan and his hips lifted against hers slightly. She whimpered when he bit into her neck again, sucking harder this time. “N-Natsu….”

In the span of a heartbeat, he rolled them over, pinning her beneath him. Her legs wrapped around his hips instinctively, and she rolled her hips up to meet his again with a gasp of his name. His tongue traced along her collarbone, and he nibbled at it the way she had at his just hours before. “Natsu…..t-this is all….starting to feel – ah!

His hands slid up her sides and under her shirt to rest against her ribcage. She didn’t know anymore whether she wanted him to stop or keep going. His teeth dragged along her neck until he bit her earlobe and tugged lightly at it. “This doesn’t feel…very platonic anymore….” she breathed.  He drew his nose along the shell of her ear before pulling back. He gazed down at her. “I already told you I don’t know what that means.”

He leaned down to meet her lips with his softly. She let out a breathless giggle and he pulled back to look at her. “I’m not sure I remember either anymore …” She pulled him down to kiss him again. There would be time to figure out their relationship tomorrow. If meeting Future Lucy had taught her anything, it was not to waste any of the time they had together.

A/N: And there you have it! I had such a great time working on my first NaLu Week, and I hope you all enjoyed reading!! <3<3

[joyfullyacat]

Mistakes and Miscommunication

haha woops happy belated valentines day (this got really wrong and its now officially the longest oneshot i've ever done!) legally beta'd, i think the formatting is alright? anyway, lots of stuff explored so a touch experimental glitch and design i describe belongs to @sleepykas (ty for letting me write for him ;;;)

CW: mild violence, slightly suggestive notes, a touch of angst but it ends fluffy and stupid (silly references and jokes ahead) word count: 8.3k on this bad boy -

There’ll always be a part of you that is ready for danger, a sliver of haywire paranoia that never quite rests when you enter the field of law enforcement. That sliver will grow and hairline cracks will form at will at the slightest wrong interactions and it’s… Problematic.

But it keeps you safe. Somewhat.

The itchy feeling in the back of your head you’ve learned to ignore causes you to learn a lesson time and time again it feels like - that lesson being you should always trust your gut instinct when it tells you something is off about a situation. Even if the paranoia is bad - your gut proves to be good.

If you did listen to it, you’d probably be in far better shape than you were currently.

It was supposed to be a simple patrol, a call about “suspicious activity” which you get  dime-a-dozen of day in and day out. Usually it’s a distinct bias against neighbors or particular groups of people, things that get settled with placating words and-or your thinning patience.

The setting sun meant you had to work fast and maybe that was where you began to slip up. Wanting to make it in time to clock out as you had been around the city and on your feet since before it even rose to greet the windows of your high rise apartment.

A show you had been watching recently was releasing its finale tonight - you had lots to look forward to! You were gonna order pizza and pig out, it was gonna be a good night.

However, the location given by the tip-off wasn’t the standard neighborhood or busy shopping district which meant you were in distinctly unfamiliar territory. Instead, you were at a relatively desolate port. An extensive strip of land that had towering stacks of cargo containers that seemed to form an endless maze in an array of colors and graffiti markings. 

Not to mention warehouses.

You parked a small distance away from the buildings and crates, noting the overall lack of traffic over in this area - how quiet it seemed silent for the soft natural ambience of the ocean nearby. With the distant echoing hustle and bustle of the city, it’s not like anything would really be noticed going on here.

The lack of people busying about should have been your first clue that things were not quite what they seemed here but, then again, you weren’t wholly sure how this business worked in the first place. 

Your shoes crunch against gravel before clicking against cement, you strain your ears to pick up on anything out of the ordinary.

The shadows casted by your surroundings are steadily growing and street lights are popping up, you fetch your flashlight from your belt and click it on, casually swinging it this way and that.

A developing sense of unease makes your stomach feel heavy, but you persist.

You shouldn’t be here for too long, there’s no reason to be here any longer than you need to be, yet there’s an invisible force that draws you to one of the warehouses.

Muffled voices steadily become audible, they’re rising at one another in a clear shouting match.

You stop at the wall, a small distance from the large overhead warehouse door that’s not fully closed and light peeps out from under it. This could either be some off-load workers getting riled up or it’s something far more nefarious going on.

Another moment is taken to scan the surroundings and your flashlight catches onto something shiny.

A very expensive looking car with silver accents and too dark windows peeks around the corner opposite from your own.

In another moment, in your peripheral, something gleams in the dying moments of sunlight in an elevated position. A keen whine forms in your ears as it feels like time slows in your fear.

Suddenly, you’re dropping to the ground and practically scuttle away, a bullet right where your head once was making a pretty, smoking hole with a startling clang as the metal is torn through like paper.

There’s a beat of silence, the arguing from inside coming to a halt.

Then the door starts to rise open and now you’re running to the crates, your car wouldn’t be safe, not with the sniper that’s thankfully a terrible shot and probably adjusting their sights with the early night darkness that’s settled.

With fumbling fingers in your adrenaline fueled fervor, you grasp at the radio clipped to your lapel, giving a hasty. “Send units, I’ve come across possible gang activity and have been, -” Shots ring out behind you and ding the crates that you round the corner of but you continue, in your pursuit of safety, you hear a confirmation buzz among the static of the radio.

You’re definitely outnumbered and now your only goal is to survive.

Maybe you should start to take a patrol partner no matter what, your usual wasn’t available - there was Glitch at the time but you were certain he hates you and you weren’t about to make a coworker suffer you.

Even if you think he looks quite nifty since his latest changes and would love to hear all about them. 

That was a matter for another time however.

Distantly you hear shouts of finding “the rat” and getting “the boss” out, there’s sharp clanging of chains and echoing barks of dogs and you internally cringe. Hoping they wouldn’t sic those on you.

“Bring them alive! I wanna know what dingbat has the balls to come here!” A hoarse voice barks out and his presumed underlings don't even have to give a word of acknowledgement, just immediately acting on the order as steps sound across the pavement.

“This night is turning out terrible.” You breathe out as softly as you can, trying to steel your nerves as you brace for what is to possibly come. The descending night air is soothing as a gentle breeze ghosts the nape of your neck, carrying the smell of the waters near.

Briefly, you consider praying to whatever god is watching this sudden turn of action movie-esque events that you wouldn’t end up in those waters against your will.

The weight of the pistol is distinct in your hands as you ready it, pulling back the slide until the familiar click rings out like a church bell, ringing for, ideally, not you.

You keep light on your feet as you weave around the cargo stacks, letting the aggressive stomps of your pursuers act as a muffle for your noises but it’s not long until you turn the corner and ram yourself right into someone’s back.

A note for next time, check around corners before taking them in a situation such as this.

They’re not a friend but neither you nor him have an opportunity to act as deafening too close shots ring out. An itchy trigger finger finally given reason to engage.

Bang!

The body you’re pressed up to jerks against you. 

Bang! Bang! 

In those next moments, you’re ramming the goon forward, shoving them into your shooter. Fruitlessly trying not to think of the terrible moral implications of the deed or the fact that they’re so desperate to get to you - that they’d kill their own to do so.

The situation suddenly becomes all the more real as you’re shooting over the shoulder of the fallen and splattering the crates around you in red before there’s two heavy thuds of bodies hitting the ground together.

At least they weren’t alone? That… Doesn’t make it better.

There’s a tremble that’s developed in your hands but you’re unsure if it’s from adrenaline or from fear. Have you ever done this before? No, the bits of blood that coat your hand and run down your face feels foreign and disgusting. 

Was this a you-or-them situation? You think so. Could you have simply disabled the shooter somehow? The two of them?

You don’t have much time to think that through as a flurry of racing feet begin to converge and get closer to your location, loud and steadfast, no doubt attracted to the rapidfire of shots and the only choice left is to run for it once again. Bob and weave through the environment, the location wasn’t that far from the station but traffic could hold support back from getting to you in a timely manner.

Granted, was anything timely when your life's on the line?

Distantly, you think you hear sirens. Maybe that’s just you being hopeful…

…Glitch was beside himself. Hands gripping tight on the wheel and making the leather creak as he sped along the road as legally as he could with his equally racing thoughts burning holes in his head in their loops. Every second felt like a minute and every minute felt like an hour and it all felt like you were rapidly running out of that very precious time.

You hadn’t updated the radio line since your initial call for help. 

The shots over the receiver set his inner workings on a frenzy, a distinctive rush of electricity that no doubt made his face appear unbecoming if the looks his coworkers gave him while heading out were any indication.

But it didn’t matter - none of it would if he - if they couldn’t get to you in time.

It was him with five other officers, three cars total, hopefully it’d be enough but if he had any say in the matter - he’d have taken more.

There was so much he would take and do for you and your safety and…

“Hey… Big guy?” His accompanying partner pipes up, snapping Glitch from his thoughts. Johnson was one of few coworkers that wasn’t naturally intimidated by his mannerisms, a somewhat grounding presence when ambitions went above capabilities. 

Except the animatronic wasn’t too sure if he could be leveled with at the moment. Just managing through his strain a deceptively polite hum of acknowledgement, head tilting towards the human in the passenger’s seat.

“...You’re bending the wheel.”

…

What? He’s what?

If he was capable of it, he would have started to break out in a cold sweat as yes, he was in fact contorting the steering wheel underneath his stress. The top half now held a noticeable curve inwards, towards himself that made his crushing grip clear.

Glitch made a vague sound, pretending to clear his throat as he relented his force almost entirely after that point. “I’m… Not quite sorry, but apologetic to worry you like that.”

All he gets in return is a disarming chuckle, “Not offended, if anything it’s cool, always wondered if those things could actually be damaged. They tend to survive wrecks outside of the air bags… Besides, I know why you’re worried. We’ll get to our fellow officer, it’s not much farther now.”

Not much farther now, that’s right.

It still feels like it’s been too long. 

Did you even have any more minutes to spare?...

…You’re not sure how much time has passed, it all feels like too long yet not long enough for what you’re waiting for. You’ve downed more goons than you’ve been struck and you’ll count every single one of your blessings if any are left after this.

But those sirens are feasible now, your pursuers have caught wind of them too.

You’re tucked in the midst of crates, trying your best to take in desperate heaves of air as quietly as you can. You were doing so well at surviving that you were cursing at how you pigeon-holed yourself now.

It felt like a rookie’s mistake.

There’s the repetitive clicking of a lighter before a deep, raspy woman’s voice sounds, “The fuckin’ leak got help, cops are closing in - what do we do?” A moment of silence, the individual breathing in a cigarette presumably before coughing some.

Well at least she wasn’t very fussed in finding you it seemed, a good sign.

“Seems we may have to cut losses ‘ere, we’ve lost quite a few as is - impressive but annoying.” The voice is cool, collected. Honeyed even, though it holds a drawl as if he watched just a few too many pirate cartoons and movies. This voice had been tailing you casually for a bit now, ever since the initial run in you had with some of his fellow gang members and left them in a heap in each other’s arms against your own volition. 

If him having a level head was supposed to be an intimidation tactic, well…

Consider yourself apprehensive, not a good sign. It seemed he always had a general idea where you were but didn’t want to clue the others in - maybe he liked the chase?

You didn’t like that thought remotely.

Distant shouts start up, orders being barked, there’s slams of car doors and people are clearly making their leave now. Your salvation must be real close, spotted on some not-so-distant horizon line.

“They’re calling a retreat, Tod.”

Todd?

You were being stalked by a guy named Todd?

“Mmm… So they are.” There’s a sigh that’s distinctly crackly, mechanical… This was an animatronic, “I’ll let y’go, I’ll be able to catch up - I wanna leave ‘em with a message.” His tone was firm, giving a resolute dark promise for your head to whoever they were prowling around with.

A choppy cackle breaks into a coughing fit, “Bring back a souvenir.” Another audible deep drag of a cigarette before pounding steps announced her leave.

A moment of silence.

A chuckle echoes out, warm and confident.“...Now s’just the two of us, lil’ pup.”

Oh that was a dubious nickname… You were unbelievably screwed if this Todd found you - but there was no moving from where you were, you couldn’t figure out how close the mafia member was. 

The back-up was so close now, you could practically see the flashing lights bounce around and reflect from various metal surroundings.

Screeeeech!

As well as soon smell the burning rubber of tires from vehicles stopping too harshly along the cement, car doors opening and shots echoing out across the way. Distinctly, there’s a loud crash that reverberates through the ground, someone knocked a vehicle into something it seemed.

“Hands up! You’ve no way to go!” A voice you vaguely recognize bellows out the familiar command. Help was right there…

They’d probably be occupied with stragglers for a bit.

You’re much too occupied with figuring out a way to run to your safe haven that you don’t realize the wandering steps of your would-be hunter had tapered off into very careful tip toes. How unbelievably quiet it had gotten in your immediate vicinity, the noise outside of this personal bubble that was your potential dead-end being an easy distraction.

A distraction that would be your downfall.

Click.

…Safety was just turned off. You look down.

It wasn’t your own, even if you had a gun in your hands aimed at your only way out as means of protection.

So you look over and up, craning your head back.

The towering figure above you has a gun aimed at your forehead. No doubt, he’d be quicker on the draw as he didn’t exactly have vitals for you to maim like his far fleshier counterparts.

The animatronic’s grin is outright predatory as he looks down at you, “There you are…” He all but purrs out, golden fang glinting in the low light of your surroundings. Piercing orange eyes practically sparkle at his discovery of you.

It’s then you realize that this was a fox.

Who’s name was not Todd but in fact Tod.

A male-presenting fox animatronic. Named Tod.

How wonderful.

You’d laugh if you weren’t staring death in the face at this point in time.

“Wonder who tipped y’off our way, did y’never consider it being a trap? Your sorts never wander around these parts.” Tod speaks casually, almost flippantly as he leans forward, pressing the barrel of his pistol to your temple with a little pressing nudge that had your hands going clammy. “You’ve cost us so much, it almost seems fitting we should return the favor to those friends y’called.”

Buy time.

You had to buy time - more time. How much debt were you in right now?

“Is your name actually Tod?” You blurt out without thinking, looking up at him with a wide-eyed blink.

Tod looks just as perplexed as you feel, the hold on his weapon falling slack just a bit. 

You could probably survive a shot to the jaw, right?

Belatedly, you recognize he has an eyepatch flipped-up at this moment, he really was a pirate wanna-be. “...I guess if the question is so burning…” He begins, unsure and still bewildered at your outburst, “It’s not Tod - I hold the name Foxy. We jus’ have aliases.”

“...Foxy the fox automaton.” You relay after a beat, helpless against the dopey grin that forms at the ridiculousness and very on-the-nose nature of his name.

This was even better than Tod and if you didn’t know any better, you’d outright giggle but you know just enough to just settle for your smile instead.

…Okay, a snort broke out. Ugly and undignified but could you be blamed?

Foxy just looks at you, positively floored at your sheer audacity… Or maybe it was your blatant stupidity - considering the current situation you were in with him. However you were frazzled, tired if you were honest. You were stained with blood that, while you sure wasn’t your own, couldn’t be too sure. You definitely had bruises if nothing else.

So you were going to find your entertainment where you could.

A few moments of silence pass.

Are those steps heading your way?

You’re not exactly sure what you or him are waiting for as the once tense air where your life was in peril subsides into something far more awkward.

It reminds you just a little too much of interactions you have with a certain other animatronic who works with you.

Finally, with an ear twitching in acknowledgement to outside noises, Foxy decides to cut through the silence with a sharp huff of amusement. “You’re something else y’know tha -” His words are suddenly cut off by a black blur moving past your hidey-hole and barreling into your captor. The gun held against you clatters to the ground, Foxy’s voice box breaks into something of an animalistic screech of static before an all out brawl starts between the two of them.

You stay right where you are. Getting in the middle of that is a good way to find yourself pummeled… 

…Glitch found you.

He finally found you.

He found you facing down the muzzle of a gun with a deer in the headlights look that you shared with your potential killer. He was already high-strung before.

It was safe to say that he saw red then and it wasn’t just the fur of the animatronic that he tore away from the fox at the base, exposing the endoskeleton and wires alike without care.

When the squad arrived, the criminals were scattering, getting into cars and tailing it out of there or trying to get away on foot. More enforcements were called in, cars were already noted and license plates were spread, the city wouldn’t be quiet tonight and probably not for some nights after.

Especially with the amount of members they were able to apprehend. Many new database entries would be added. New mugshots to be made fun of. The precinct would finally have things to do after what seemed like too long of crickets.

That wasn’t even going over the amount of members you had single-handedly felled. Even if every body he came across filled him with trepidation - there was unbelievable relief when they were turned over and it wasn’t your face. There was a growing sense of pride too.

Who knows how many operations you had interrupted with your actions this night.

It did unmentionable things for him that he’d have to unpack later but for now, all there was to focus on was you and you alone.

He - … They… No. He was so close to losing you just then and he would have been just… Seconds off the mark. Just mere seconds, a blink of the eye really. 

A moment of hesitation or if something else caught his attention, what could have happened to you?

…Very possibly, it’d be you in a bag with half a dozen others and that was a thought he couldn’t bear.

Even more shudder-inducing was the potential of you being captured and used.

All his worries, his frustrations - both with you and with himself, were unleashed in this one moment.

Metal groaned in protest as he forced limbs to snap and contort outside of their range, joints becoming useless at multiple points. Glitch was deaf to the cries of his fellow automaton - but he didn’t kill the bot. 

That’d be too good for them.

There was a final, keen creak of the fox’s arm before it came clean off with a shower of sparks, the very arm responsible for aiming a gun at you and it seemed his system forcibly shut down now to hide from further trauma as the beast-like animatronic fell slack beneath him. 

A pitiful play dead response.

“...Is he dead?” He hears you speak out brittley once it had all gone quiet, Glitch peers over his shoulder to look at you peeking over a crate and looking back at him with doe eyes.

You’d be cute if you weren’t painted with blood… But at least your vitals read normal.

This night was gonna haunt him for a bit it felt like. Rather - you’d be haunting him for a bit. That's more accurate.

“No, no he isn’t… Just out of commission. They’ll patch him up for interrogation.” He answers unsteadily, there’s definitely a drive - a wish to finish the job but he’s done enough damage and they need to find out all they could about what was transpiring here.

So he merely radios-in the stray before peeling himself from the fallen and heading over to you…

…You look up at the new too-tall figure, this time a friend that you finally recognized as your coworker, Glitch. 

Were all animatronics just built to be large? You didn’t think you were particularly short but you were beginning to see a pattern here. Though you were also on the ground currently.

He’s scratched up from his scrap and holds tears in his nice suit. Honestly it seems like he got more hurt than you did, if damages to his surface coloring counted.

“...Can you stand?” He asks after he lowers himself to a squat in front of you, probably trying to gauge your current state of being at a closer level… Or maybe he just didn’t wanna overwhelm you.

You were ready to be out of this terrible resting spot.

“I… Think I can?”

Though, at this moment, you’re not sure where to even start. You wanna put your gun away, you want to wipe your sweaty palms on your pants despite it being uncouth, you also still wanna get up and walk out and get back in your car and go home and -!

Hands carefully go over your own, plucking you from your adrenaline fueled spiraling thoughts. He navigates your fingers deftly with his own, nudging them to get the safety on and to unload the bullet in the chamber. Little clicks and rings being a very nice change of pace from all the chaotic noises you were surrounded by before.

Which, you realize morosely, that bit of ammo was your last one.

You truly were standing on your last leg just then.

The gun is guided back to its holster, Glitch leaning in and making you focus on nothing but him and all that was him in this moment. A hand settles at your hip and for a moment, you’re looking into eachothers eyes.

You don’t decipher the emotions dancing within them - you can barely figure out your own currently.

In a flash of bravery, you ask, “Could I bother you to pick me up?”

Golden eyes widen some - well, his left eye widens as much as it can. “...You could bother me for anything.” He replies with seeming breathiness without missing a beat this time, almost as if he was relieved you were back to your shenanigans with that request.

The hand at your hip suddenly grips you firm and is matched with another hand on the other side before you’re picked up like you weigh no more than a couple of grapes. You only have time to gasp as you’re not held like a ballerina waiting to be held overhead for long, instead carefully maneuvered to be in a bridal carry and held protectively to him.

This is the closest you’ve been to the bot and frankly, you’re unsure what to do with yourself.

Your hands seem to dance between wanting to rest against him on his chest - or resting against yourself in an awkward cradle to your own chest. A need to comfort your savior but also not wanting to overstep whatever was sat between you and him.

“...You’re tense.” You note after a small while, you hadn’t realized how far you went into the maze of crates in your digs for survival.

Glitch hums above you, “I am also made of metal, there’s not much of me that isn’t rigid.” His words are teasing but his tone doesn’t quite match up, it’s distant. Not all there. His thoughts have his attention more than you do.

“You know what I mean…” 

“I’m sure I do.” Without further word, he paws at something along your belt line and you squawk at the sudden prodding.

“What are you-!”

The familiar jingle of keys to your patrol car sounds and is tossed recklessly to another officer on the scene. 

Your hands finally know what to do with themselves then and that’s flail, all outstretched in front of you in a pathetic attempt to take your keys back, “I need those!”

The animatronic holding you pointedly ignores you, as do the rest of your fellow officers, too busy snickering and likely spreading gossip for the image Glitch and you offered them tonight.

“Take the patrol car left over on the gravel, officer…” The animatronic announces your name before holding you up like some prize and you feel your face burn in embarrassment at some of the snickers that ensue afterwards. “Here is unfit to drive in this current state.”

There are cheers at your safe recovery but of course the statement draws some concern.

The coworker who has your keys, Johnson, you think it is. Someone who commonly teams up with Glitch only gives a curt nod before gesturing to you. “Do they need medical attention?”

“I don’t think so. Not emergency at least.”

You squirm, “Do I get a say in this?”

“Not currently.” Replies Glitch without so much as a second thought. It’s amusing how adjusted the others seem to his antics.

Your current escort splits from the rest of the team present after that, you wanna laugh and coo at how he tries his absolute damndest to keep you in his arms. Like a toddler unwilling to let go of their favorite soft toy or blanket that needs to be washed. Going as far as leaning a bit too far forward at his height, just to be able to open the door before putting you in the front seat without so much as an inquiry to your state of being. 

There’s a part of you that wonders how much of this is for you and how much of it is for him.

You’ve just gotten your seatbelt clicked into place by the time he gets into his seat and it’s not long after that where the two of you are off, the soothing hum of being on the road allowing you to fully relax now.

“...Has that always been screwy?” You gesture to the bent wheel a few minutes into your return to the station with him.

“...Not quite.” He admits after a moment of hesitation, “I, ah… Got worried on the way here. Everyone heard the shots over the radio.”

Oh.

“Is that why you’ve been so…?” You gesture vaguely to him and barely spot the way his gaze flicks to you before going back to the road that stretches ahead.

Eyelights flick to you, “So-? I lied when I said I was able to get what you mean.” This time there was an actual teasing lilt to his words, a little curl to his teeth in a clear smarmy grin that has you huffing.

“...Touchy? Protective? …Comforting?” The last word is said with a moment’s worth of hesitation, unsure if that was quite the word to use. “...Maybe reassuring is the better word all together there.”

“Comforting?”

Before you can even note the small way he echoed one of your words - if you had blinked in that moment, you would have missed it. The screen of his face, for lack of a better word, glitched much like his namesake. Turning into a reflective black void of nothingness for a moment before flickering back on and being loudly silent.

Yeah. He had a way of making silence audible. Where no words needed to be said.

Impressive and intimidating. Just a touch annoying.

Then, like nothing happened at all, he bobs his head in a half nod. “So I have - is this… A problem?” He notes, clearly toeing the topic line of boundaries without outright asking.

With a snort, you’re unable to stop yourself from pointing out the obvious interaction you just had with him, “...I let you carry me, didn’t I?”

“So you did.” He confirms.

“And it was nice…” You say, genuine, but also as a test as you keep a close eye for his reaction.

Glitch doesn’t disappoint as he noticeably grips the wheel with a strength you’d know would crush your hand without so much as a batted eye, yet funnily enough he actually manages to straighten out some of the contortion he subjected it to earlier. Pushing it back into place a fair deal.

His strength was known around the station but still… Poor steering wheel.

It’s not long after that when you finally arrive with him at the station, tumbling out the car as soon as he’s parked safely and stretching obnoxiously with your hands over your head, a number of your joints popping with satisfaction… as well as pulling at some strains you gained over your terrible adventure.

Glitch snickers from the otherside of the car at your theatrics and you look back at him and his tattered state.

With a grin, you ask. “Could I bother you for something again?”

“You can bother me for anything.” He responds much like he did before, this time more like a quip and far more impish with a for-show roll of his eyes to boot.

You turn towards him, throwing your arms over the roof of the car and stretching your hands out for him to take with, what you hoped was taken as, an inviting wiggle of the fingers. “Let me help patch you up? You kinda got all… Scratched saving me, thank you by the way - I can’t say that enough, I can’t remember if I did or not already, but thank you.”

He meets you with a stare you can’t quite place. It’s heavy and questioning, unsure but accepting, like you’ve given him something he thinks is too good to be true yet wants so badly to trust in it.

“...Can I help get the blood off of you first.”

“Oh. Yeah, I should probably get myself cleaned up before handling anything…” You note the patches of dried red on your sleeves with a whine in the back of your throat. “It’s gonna be a pain getting all this cleaned up.”

The animatronic finally takes your hands into his own - only to push you off the car with his reach that surpasses yours. “Don’t you have spare clothes?”

“I did in the patrol car that was left in someone else’s care…” You sulk, looking at him beneath your lashes in a momentary pout as you're pushed away, “I typically keep them with me.”

You miss the way he falters at your look towards him, too busy being full of loathing at the days of cleaning and soaks for your apparel, maybe you’d have to pay extra this month for dry cleaning.

“...borrow one of mine?” Is all you catch as you’re brought back to the present when he’s standing in front of you, hand on hip and head tilted to the side some.

So, in all of your brilliance, you offer in reply a dumb, “What?”

He clears his throat despite the lack of need. “Would you… Like…” Glitch holds a hand over his mouth for a moment, looking away as if your distracted attention was the only reason he prompted this to begin with. “Would you like to borrow one of mine?” He finally gets out, looking at you briefly only to look to the side again and pretending to be far more occupied with the nearby road.

“...Borrow one of your shirts?”

“Yes.” 

Both you and him ignore how eagerly he replied to that inquiry.

“Sure.”

“Ah, it’s alri- wait what?” He shoots a look at you of shock, shoulders straightening with rigidity.

“I said sure, I’ll borrow one of your shirts. They’re probably nicer than mine anyway and you dress nice.” You point out casually, making a motion towards his nice leather belt.

“...Right. Yeah - thank you.” 

Both you and him also ignore how clearly flustered he was over the compliment and clear fact that he was, in fact, a dapper dresser.

With a toss of your chin, you gesture to the station. “Should we head inside now?”

“We should, yeah…”

He doesn’t move. He’s just looking at you with rounded eyes.

Neither do you. You’re looking back at him with growing curiosity.

You wonder if you’ve had him pinned all wrong as you take the initiative to move, the animatronic moving wordlessly and seamlessly out of your way to follow obediently in step with you. It was… Odd to see, coming from him.

Glitch opens the door for you and the moment you step a foot into the station, there is a sense of disappointment when nothing occurs, you’re not sure what you were expecting but at least some fanfare? A check-up?

It’s unbelievably quiet, you’re not even sure if anyone is available. Someone could be having a meeting or maybe there was an interrogation in progress but still.

At least the front desk worker pays you mind with a nod and a smile.

“Think most of them are now busy with catching runaways and the like…” The animatronic chimes in suddenly as if sensing your drop, just guiding you along with a hand by the small of your back to his office. “Cabinet in the back left corner, bottom drawer should have shirts.”

You look over and up at him, “Do you have spare everything?”

“It pays to be prepared.” Is all he says as he peers down at you with mischief before letting you into his office and nudging you inside, following through and closing the door behind himself.

It’s not that you didn’t realize, it’s just that you didn’t care as you begin to unbutton your top after removing it from its tuck, going from the bottom-up while taking yourself over to the cabinet.

And just as fast as you began to do that - the door abruptly opens and closes behind you, Glitch effectively showing himself out without a second word of input.

“...Sorry!” You half-heartedly bark over your shoulder, not knowing if things were soundproofed but you might as well be courteous as you shrug off one shirt and tug on a new one.

Of course, it’s large on you. You have to tastefully tuck it in where it’ll count and still have a fair amount of room left over, the sleeves also get rolled up to your elbows for sake of ease.

After a final tug to your collar to ensure everything is nice, you call to the closed door, “I’m decent now!” Your old shirt is in a haphazard ball in your hold and the automaton comes in with a plastic bag in hand that he passes to you shortly after.

He also holds a rag and a bottle of water which you look at, puzzled.

“For your face.” Glitch confirms, opening the bottle of water with one hand using his index and thumb. An act that enamours you far more than it should as the cap is dropped off on the desk, some of the water being poured into the hand towel before he begins to dab at your forehead and cheeks.

It’s not a long process but it’s an oddly pleasant one, just being fussed over like this. Occasionally he guides your head to move this way and that with his thumb at your chin.

You get to admire the subtle changes in his expressions. Especially when he finds an area he missed by your hairline and carefully brushes the locks away to get to it, you could practically see a tail wagging behind him in self-satisfaction.

If he notices your staring, he doesn’t comment on it.

By the end however, the sweetness is gone as he drives the cloth hard into your cheek as if getting a particularly stubborn spot before pulling away altogether. 

“You’re clear, you should properly make yourself squeaky clean later however.”

Poutily, you rub at your cheek with a withering, weak glare that has him chuckling but with the most pressing matter out of the way, one of them at least, you look around his office before looking back at him, “So how do we fix you up, hm?” 

“Well you can’t help with my clothes, for one.” He notes dryly, snickering at how you dramatically gasp in clear mock-offense.

“Why, I never! Just because I’m quick to dress myself down does not mean I don’t respect you enough to attempt to dress you down just as fast!” 

“But you wanna dress me down at all?” Glitch goads, peering down to you, evidently humored by your theatrics if the pleased glint in his eyes was any indicator.

Though at this rate, perhaps he should learn that you desperately need a filter as you reply without missing a beat, “I would actually love to see your model as a whole, yes.”

Silence.

His face did the thing again. Becoming blank and eerie just for a heartbeat before coming back to life in full force.

The stare he’s giving you now is… Intense, putting it kindly. “Are you joking?” 

“I’m not, plus you’re probably gonna have to remove your shirt anyway if nothing else because you’re covered in scratches. Do you have something for those? Anything?”

“...Top right drawer in my desk, little jar. There’s a brush in there too.” He moseys over to the chair at said desk, sitting himself down in it and beginning the process of getting his shirt off.

This feels oddly domestic as you fetch the items needed, looking at the name of the color with an obvious, obnoxious hum.

“What?”

You waggle the jar playfully from side to side at him, “Obsidian bulwark, really?” you jest before opening it up to reveal the glossy dark red, almost black paint within. 

“I can’t help what companies name their products.” His pout is so blatant it has you giggling.

“Mhm. Arms out now.” Glitch does as he’s told and so the long process of touching up all the imperfections commenced. Of course you couldn’t paint all of it, some of the metal was actually torn through, but you could at least make him presentable.

In that time, you spend a fair deal just… Admiring, that felt better to say than ogling, his make. The details of his chest, the two shiny gold buttons that stood out starkly compared to his dark body and you find them absolutely adorable. “I have to say this kinda feels like painting nails.”

“I suppose it’s not that different…” He’s been silent for the most part, just watching how each of his little marks are erased from sight, even ones you’re sure he didn’t get during his time at the harbor but instead sometime in the past that he just never saw. You’re thorough, minding the gradient on his forearm that goes from the almost-black of his body to a carnelian red towards his wrist. 

You lift his arms, you turn them this way and that, you get his palms and in-between his fingers.

When you get to his chest, there’s a desperate need to speak so you feel less like some handsy lecherous artist getting too personal with their latest muse.

“Glitch.” You begin, pulling the brush away for the possible outburst that could come from your new, seeming friend.

He looks at you quizzically, probably wondering why you’ve stopped his free pampering treatment of touch-ups. “Yes?”

“This is probably a bad time but I totally thought you hated me.” There’s an absolute one-eighty in his visible emotion, the unknown tension in the air dissipating in seconds when he levels you with a deadpan look that has you doubling over in laughter in record time. It was a good thing you pulled away as the little jar of paint clatters on his desk.

“You thought I hated you?” Glitch echoes your words with bewilderment, almost sounding offended by the sheer notion as he puts his hand to his chest, gesturing to himself. “Me? How?”

“Okay - hold on… I think - maybe this was a miscommunication.” You try to placate through your shoulder-shaking mirth, “But… You never - talked to me really. Not like this. We especially have never interacted like this.” 

That gets his attention. “We didn’t?”

“No, if I tried to talk to you - you’d get all like… Awkward and stiff? You’d act short with me. Kinda made it seem like you were looking for the soonest opportunity to stop talking with me.” 

Every example you begin to point out afterwards, his apparent inability to interact with you before, makes him visibly recoil more in on himself.

“I - Okay I… I get it.” Now he’s gesturing with his hands to have you stop, “I hope my actions today have shown you otherwise that I very much do not hate you.”

You nod, “Which is why I’ve been very confused for a better half of this whole time spent.”

“Suppose I should try to explain myself but…” He fidgets before ultimately going for the move to make himself comfortable, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. An act that is far too tempting considering his shirtless status. “Easiest way to put it, I could not figure out how to… Act around you, Wildfire.” 

“Wildfire?”

“Mhm. That is how I see you, a burning wildfire. Beautiful and necessary in nature, scary and destructive, going by its own whims or following the winds. You are capable of so much as showcased earlier with how you handled yourself, surrounded by enemies. You’re vibrant, brilliant,” He stops suddenly, slowly blinking at you before tilting his head quizzically, “Your heart rate is startlingly fast, are you alright?”

No. No you very much weren’t. There’s a heat behind your ears and you’ve never felt so flushed in your life before - save for when you were severely sick. Maybe he didn’t recognize it, the way his face steadily shifted the longer he spoke. Sickeningly sticky-sweet fondness and utter adoration in his eyes, his ever-sharp grin softening into a genuine smile.

All for you.

All for what he apparently saw you as.

He called you wildfire. Like you were his wildfire, to bask in its warmth and never fear its wrath.

When you don’t answer in a timely manner, he reaches out to gently brush your cheek with knuckles that hadn’t needed to be painted, the coolness of the metal surface bringing you back to the moment.

You try to get your thoughts in order with little success, “So… Earlier. When you said you were worried for me - so much so you bent the steering wheel…”

Glitch’s laugh is light and airy, a bit embarrassed at his actions being brought up again. “I was worried for you, yes. Not just as my coworker, my fellow law enforcement, but you as an individual, your person. I was worried that fire would be put out and I would be left cold for quite some time.”

This was the same man… Animatronic… Robot. Man. Who struggled to ask if you’d like to wear one of his shirts for a very clean and very honest reason.

You feel blindsided by this development.

“...When did this start?” That was probably the most burning question that needed an answer right now.

At least he has the decency to look thoughtful now, not giving you the “since we first met” spiel that you were expecting. You don’t think your heart would have been able to handle that. 

“Do you happen to remember the first times we were out on the road and so on together? When you first joined the force.”

Ah, your green days… You remember those well, you got one of your first and really one of your only major scars on duty back then. You’ve since learned your lesson of course but… Oh.

“You mean when I took on that madman with you?”

“Yes, when you took a wild stabbing for me - quite literally on that note. Despite your very fleshiness compared to my metal being.” He carefully prods your side where the scar sits, it was far nicer than what it used to be a few years ago. “You didn’t even look agonized over it - you smiled at me in reassurance despite you being the one injured. Most typically put me on the front lines for a reason.”

Damn it all. “...So basically when we first met?”

“It would seem so, yes.”

You deflate with a hiss through your teeth, hiding your face in your hands as you belatedly realize too late you still have the paint brush in your hand. Promptly smearing color across your forehead and into your hair. You could worry about that later. Maybe you’d just dye your hair with it.

You peer at him through a crack in your fingers. “...Are you also why we immediately stopped being paired together on duty no matter what after that?” You wanna cringe at the way you sound so pitched but your nerves are shot and you’re riding an unbelievable high despite how embarrassed you felt. 

To be so prized and valued? Right beneath your nose? For months? All because you wanted to respect a seeming unsung wish while he wanted to protect you?

This feels right out of a movie.

“Mhm, I couldn’t let you risk yourself for me in case of any more bad cases or calls. I know you are not fragile - but I am far more resistant to attacks than you are.” The corners of his eyes get sharper, that sweet smile he held turning back into the cheshire grin you know once again as he’s unbelievably smug about the reaction he’s pulling from you now.

It seems he finally understood why your heart was going a mile a minute.

“Are you satisfied over there?”

“Immensely.” He drawls. “Are you satisfied with your discoveries?”

You hum, “Two more questions?”

“Shoot.”

“Will the paint stain my skin?” You take your face away from your hands, noting the wet feeling across your forehead with a grimace as the brush falls away from you.

“Probably not, it should come off like any other paint. If it did stain, wearing clothes would be an issue for us.” 

Sound reasoning, that leaves you with your next question if he doesn’t pull the “but you already asked a question” thing which sounds right up his alley to do but… Well.

He’s looking at you patiently, kindly.

If a bit smugly.

“...What does this uh… Mean for us?” You point to yourself then to him, swapping it a few times before letting your hand fall limp at the wrist. 

Glitch reaches out to hold that hand in one of his own, the paint having now dried it seems, “I don’t believe it has to mean anything if you don’t want it to. I think we got over the obvious issues I… Seemed to have while interacting with you before.” His fingers find their place in-between yours, lacing the hands together seamlessly.

You can’t help it, the seemingly running joke between you and him now, “...Does it mean I get to bother you more often?”

He sighs and instead of giving you the reply that you expect by now, he draws your hand close and turns it towards him, pressing it to his teeth in a very clear note of affection.

“You will never and I do mean never be a bother to me. You will be yourself and I will admire you endlessly for it every time. Do not hold back on my account… Is this clear?”

The glare he gives you over your hand is plain as day. There’s some underlying threat there despite the tenderhearted words, that there’d be a consequence if you’d push yourself down again even jokingly.

You swallow thickly.

“Crystal… Crystal clear, Glitch.”

The animatronic pulls you in suddenly, pressing his face to your cheek in another kiss.

“Good. You look nice in my shirt by the way.”

“...It’s made out of boyfriend material so I’d hope it looks good.”

You’re unprepared for how he bonks his head to yours in admonishment.

Worth it.

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

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Today is unusually warm for early spring, so even though it's still Still Dirt (really wish they'd lay some grass seed already), I'm back at the cemetery today. It's windy AF. But that's actually kind of nice. All the wind chimes people hung in the trees are sounding. The Boy hates wind chimes but I've always liked them and I like that there are so many so close to you and that today's windy. It's like all the bells are ringing for you. The bells I left are still here. So is the stone I placed on your headstone last time, which is nice. I brought another stone this time. It's from when my family took the RV to the Painted Desert 2 summers ago. I'll bring a stone every time I come. A cool looking one. Maybe one from the places I go. Or just from the driveway at home. Something that isn't going to get thrown out or blown away. Something that won't die. I'm not gonna bring flowers anymore. Because the friendship won't ever die even though you did. It's a rock. ❤️💔😢

Anyway, I kinda hate that you're here right next to your mom. I mean I get it. But also...like I think your dad has been by here since the last time I was here, and there's nothing on your grave but the stuff I left. And the petal-less flower stems that are propped up in the hole in the top of your mom's headstone (can't believe there's no memorial vase on either of yours, but there's a HOLE where there's meant to be one) really seem to me like the ones I left here for you last time. Since the petals are gone, I'll never know. And maybe it wasn't your dad. Maybe it was some cemetery worker that assumed the flowers were supposed to be on a woman's grave. And that's the closest one to you. But there aren't any new barren stems on your grave, man. And there should be, goddammit. It pisses me off that it seems like I'm the only one coming here for you. I'll always come back. I promise.

Kentucky lost and all the villains are winning in tournament ball this year so we quit watching last weekend and we turned on a documentary on Dick Vitale instead. Damn thing made me cry. The end is how he swore to honor Jim Valvano every day since he died, because that was his best friend, and he's done that for 30 years. I will too. I'll do better than Dickie V even. But I'm not ever gonna scream, "You need a T.O. baby!!!"

At least the Reds looked good on Opening Day.

A motorcycle just rode by. Makes me want to get on the bike with J but we don't have time today and the weather is taking a turn tomorrow. But it does remind me that I'm going to buy you a guardian bell. I bought J one for his bikes. That's what they're really for, but it's a nice all weather bell. Once I can find one that doesn't have religious or weird redneck shit on it, I'll bring it with a new stone to leave for you.

Alright well I gotta go now. We have to pick the Boy up from a friend's so he can go practice driving more tonight before dinner. And the gates close here stupid early. But I'll be back again. And yeah I'm still crying but at least there wasn't any snot this time. I miss you. Love you, dude. I'll come back after spring break. ❤️

[folliesandfolderols]

Writing prompts days 51-55

From this prompt list. If you’ve read this far, I’m not sure you need any explanation, but the short version is I hadn’t written any fiction since 2019, I set a goal to write at least 150 words/day in 2024, and this list was my way to restart. Also I abruptly decided on day 2 I would write an entire Tim/Damian story connecting all the prompts, because I am Good at Judging My Limits. /sarcasm Anyway, I finished the rough draft a while ago and am now unlocking the old entries as I edit.

Read from the beginning here, or on ao3 here

Days 49-50 here

***

16. You drive me so insane, you don’t even know.”

39. "Tell me how you like/want/need it.”

46. “Wanna feel you against me.” (slightly modified for characterization purposes)

48. “Clothes on or clothes off?”

93. “Gonna make sure you don’t forget about tonight.”

110. "Do whatever you want with me."

118. “S-Stop leaving marks on my neck. I have a presentation first thing in the morning.” “Then I get to leave marks anywhere below the neck?”

***

Tim was busy over the next couple of days, because the surveillance he’d planted at Waters’s house proved to be a gold mine of information. He and Galloway were high up on the food chain with their respective creditors’ organizations. Waters had ties to the Irish mob, and Galloway was in deep with the Russians. Both had a history of leaving bills unpaid, so it was no surprise that some of the debts they’d incurred would leave them owing more than money. What was more surprising, in a way that didn’t leave Tim with much shock at all, was the fact that they didn’t seem to mind being at the beck and call of criminals as long as they got the benefits of the trafficking as well. And they did reap plenty of benefits: building permits issued with almost no wait, real estate deals that made no sense on paper, weapons collections that would have made a warlord proud, and of course a never-ending supply of humans to exploit and use as capital.

Tim watched the video footage of Waters fucking a model-beautiful woman on his desk in his study, and all he could see was the deadness in Luz’s eyes.

Damian texted him while he was on patrol three days after the Closet Incident (it had earned a title and upper-case letters, after being looped in Tim’s brain on repeat like a favorite movie). Tim, in the middle of watching over an underpass that had seen a few houseless people murdered during the past month, pulled out the phone and nearly dropped it onto the road below when he read the sender’s name.

Do you have anything new to report?

Tim snorted, imagining what Damian would do if he replied with his first impulse, which was “yes, your dick is now living rent-free in my thoughts at all times.” Instead: have u been watching the surveillance footage?? good stuff, disgusting stuff lots of info

I have not. Is there a reason why you refuse to use upper-case letters? I've wondered.

Tim grinned. Maybe it was a League-trained thing. 

convenience 

I suppose, but at some point you've done more to keep things lowercase than you would have if you'd just let autocorrect do what it likes.

jason's told me the same thing more than once

Be that as it may your point stands. We should consider next steps if you feel we have actionable intel.

do u and jason want to come over to my place again? it might be the best use of our time right now to coordinate our plans in person rather than via video call

Perhaps. My WE schedule is demanding at the moment. I'll see if we can align times.

ok lmk 

Tim put away his phone and concentrated on proving to himself through measured breathing that he was completely unaffected by the prospect of having Damian in his space again. It didn't matter. He'd had random hookups before with weird choices. The fact that he couldn't get Damian's voice, low and intimate, saying let me feel it, out of his head meant nothing. Neither did the forever pain in his chest and stomach. That was just how he lived now.

Well, at least Jason would be there. That would keep him from doing anything stupid. Probably.

Given the fact that they'd fully gotten each other off with Jason on the other end of a precariously deactivated comm, maybe not. Fuck. He was already starting to get hard just thinking about it.

An Audi parked a few hundred feet away from the encampment beneath the bridge and five men got out, voices loud and abrasive in a way that screamed "drunk frat boys" even if he couldn't have seen the Greek symbols on the bumper sticker. They ran toward an old man huddled in a cardboard box against the slanted concrete, and Tim leaped down to join them, grateful for the distraction.

*** 

Damian texted Tim and Jason together the next day while Tim was at work: I will be available this afternoon after 5:30. Will your schedules permit a meeting at 6?

Yeah, I can make that, Jason replied.

Tim swallowed and typed, i'll meet u both at my place then

Capitalization, Damian replied, at the same time Jason's message came through: Punctuation, dammit!

i am free as the wind and so is my text style u plebes just dont understand my aesthetique

Both of them left the conversation simultaneously, and Tim smiled in triumph. He wasn't sure what was so fun about making those two mad, but whatever it was definitely sparked joy.

Tim had contracted for R&D at WE for a couple of years now, ever since he'd finally gotten his degree, but it was mainly a front for funneling the research and products with the greatest potential for Bat-exploitation to the right places. He typically spent at least half his time on the clock doing casework, and the other half doing the same work that took most of the other people in his department twice as long. He almost never saw Damian, who tended to stay firmly in the finance department. Out of idle curiosity, he checked Damian's calendar on WEdrive. His entire day was packed with meetings from the moment he got in until he left, for the rest of the week. He didn't even have a lunch break today. Bruce was such a fucking slacker. Of course, Damian had probably demanded extra responsibilities as the "blood heir" or whatever. 

Tim opened his meal delivery app and put in an order for dinner. He didn't feel like cooking, i.e. pouring cereal, tonight.

Once he got home, he changed out of his suit into sweats and sat on the couch to wait, flipping through the video feeds in Waters' house. The devices he'd planted in the escorts' bags hadn't been much help as neither woman had done anything but take their purses back to where they lived. Luz’s conversations at home were boring mundanities, and Katerina’s device had been mysteriously deactivated, but at least he had their addresses now. And possibly those of clients if they attended anything else that required a fancy clutch.

Damian showed up first, this time, still in his work clothes. Tim immediately suffered an overpowering urge to unbutton his custom Italian suit and lick his neck, which was horrifying enough to kick his best acting instincts into gear. He decided to aim for nothing of note has happened between us, ever, and gave Damian a friendly smile as he closed the door. "Hey. How's it going?"

Damian rolled his eyes and kicked off his shoes. "Spare me the useless civilities, Drake. 'It' was a grinding bore today, filled with incompetent idiots who insisted on projecting their own lack of efficacy onto me, and then had the gall to be shocked when I proved to be far out of their league in both intellect and influence."

"So, everyday WE business meetings, then. Somebody's hangry."

Damian scowled, but before he could reply the door speaker buzzed. Tim glanced at the camera and saw the delivery guy holding up the restaurant bag. He pressed the speaker button. "Leave it at the door, thanks."

He ran downstairs while Damian was still grumbling about him daring to order food for himself, and by the time he returned Jason had come in by some entrance that Tim was going to have to eliminate in the near future.

He started putting containers on the table. "I got enough food for all of us if you guys are hungry. Plates are in the cabinet on the right of the fridge and forks are in the island drawer."

"Fuck yeah I'm hungry, I just got up." Jason ambled to the kitchen and got the plates and utensils while Damian looked down his nose at the containers.

"I suppose all the dishes contain meat." He couldn't entirely hide his interest as Tim popped lids open, leaning over to inspect contents.

"I mean, a couple do, but a lot are vegetarian." Tim pointed as he listed them. "Potato pakoras, haleem, fruit chaat, samosas, aaloo gobi, aaloo qeema, paneer tikka masala, vegetable biryani, and of course the raita."

Damian flushed the faintest bit. Jason set the plates down on the table. "Where'd you get this? I didn't know there was a Pakistani restaurant in town."

"Al Noor," Damian and Tim said simultaneously. Damian flushed a darker red and continued, avoiding Tim's eyes, "It is actually one of my favorites. It reminds me of home, a little."

Jason picked up one of the chapli kebabs and bit into it without waiting to put anything else on his plate. "Oh hell yes," he moaned around the mouthful. "Timmers, you got enough to feed the whole fam and the pets too, what's up with that?"

"I got enough to feed two normal appetites plus you," Tim retorted, putting a little bannu pulao on his plate. He wasn’t really hungry yet—on night job days he usually didn’t eat for the first time until noon, and his last meal was after his patrol.

"Fuck you, I've got muscle mass you can only dream of." Jason got some of everything and sat down at the table. “By the way, who gave you that bite on your neck? Conner doesn't usually leave marks so I'm guessing someone new. C’mon, your secret's safe with me and Damian.”

Tim reached for the bruise before he could stop himself. “None of your business.”

"Todd, your table manners are as abominable as your self-restraint," Damian interpolated, sneering at Jason's perfectly respectable use of knife and fork. After a long pause in which he visibly almost said about five different things and changed his mind each time, he added, "Thank you, Drake, for getting the food," still not looking directly at Tim.

Tim spun around to hide his burning face. His first thought was a nonsensical oh shit, Damian knows, to which he could only ask his brain, knows what, dumbass? He hustled to open the fridge and grab three bottles of water, as if he always turned that fast so he could run retrieve fluids. "No problem," he called from behind the door.

When he set the bottles on the table, Jason was looking from him to Damian and back again. Tim didn't like the assessing expression on his face, and he especially didn't like that Jason was allowing him to see it. This was the worst part of being surrounded by people who'd been trained by Bruce "The World Only Makes Sense If You Force It To" Wayne. You couldn't have a private emotion, ever, without someone feeling the overpowering need to track it down to its source.

Damian spoke before Tim could spill a container on Jason's lap and distract him. "Have you heard from Arsenal lately?"

That diversion successfully embarked Jason on a tangent for about fifteen minutes. Tim knew better than to glance at Damian to share a relieved look while Jason ranted about Roy's selfless tendencies and how they endangered his life. Still, a glow flared to life in his chest when he watched, out of the corner of his eye, Damian sitting next to him and eating food Tim had bought for him. Some of the constant pain receded in its warmth.

Once they were done eating, they each brought out their laptops and compared notes on the footage. Damian hadn't had a chance to view most of it, so Jason and Tim gave him the highlights. He had managed to dig further into the Galloway's and Waters's financials, so he gave them a list of the probable beneficiaries of the inconsistencies between income and expenditure.

Jason sighed as he scrolled through the names and companies. "Looks like I'm heading to Tulsa and Corpus Christi. Love it when I get to have fun with not one, but two mafias."

"I can go instead," Tim offered, looking through the same document as he twisted the top off his bottle.

"Nah, it's okay. I can't be in Gotham too many weeks in a row or I'll kill Bruce, and you know how he feels about murder. Fucker'll haunt my ass just so he can lecture me every time I pull a gun on some piece of shit dealer."

Tim, mid-drink, had a sudden vision of ectoplasmic Bruce floating from Jason's butt like an asshole-obsessed Casper and nearly choked when he started laughing involuntarily.

Jason stared, aghast, as he sprayed water all over their computers. "Holy shit, Tim, it wasn't that funny!"

Damian, ever helpful, smacked Tim's back a few times hard enough to leave bruises, expression bored. "Clearly he pictured Father literally selecting your buttocks as his postmortem residence, Todd. His brain's operations are incomprehensibly juvenile, but if you choose the most ridiculous option you can often divine what he was thinking."

"Sorry," Tim gasped, jumping up to get a seldom-used kitchen towel off its hanger. Some days his mind really had it out for him. He couldn't help it that when he was stressed it decided to interpret every idiom as a visual. "Sorry!"

Jason narrowed his eyes as he watched Tim carefully dab at their keyboards. WE laptops were all water resistant, but there was no sense in being foolhardy. "You've been off all evening. Something going on I need to know about?"

Tim ran through various possible responses in the time it took him to hand some paper towels to Damian to dry the floor. He decided to play it casual. "No, nothing. I just have my attention split in too many directions right now between this, work, and patrol. But this case is my real priority at the moment so don't worry. I wanna put all these guys away for life."

Jason nodded, but Tim had a feeling he wasn't satisfied with the explanation.

They made a few more plans for the immediate future of the investigation, and then Jason packed up to leave. Tim walked him to the door.

"How'd you get in, by the way?"

Jason smirked. "Bet you'd love to know."

Tim gave him an unimpressed look. "I'd love to know why you're such a pain in my ass, too, but I guess I'm not getting any of the answers I want tonight."

Jason leaned in close enough that Damian wouldn't be able to read his lips. Tim stiffened, wary. Jason said, sotto voce, "Timmers, I'm starting to think that's not the kind of pain in your ass you want. Don't think I missed the fact that the baby bat is hanging back until I've left you two alone again. Used to be, he couldn't wait to get away from you."

Tim stared, eyes wide with dismay, and couldn't say a thing.

Jason straightened, wicked grin firmly in place, and caroled, "Byeeeeee!" before slamming the door in Tim's face.

"What did he say?" Damian wanted to know, because of course it would've been too much to ask of the universe for him not to have noticed.

Tim was too discombobulated to say anything other than the truth. "He knows something's going on with us. I don't think he knows what, yet."

"Well, that makes two," Damian said.

Tim leaned his back against the door and looked at him, sitting cross-legged on the couch as if he couldn't be more at ease. "I don't know, either, so it's three."

Damian smiled, perfunctory and cutting. "Did you think I meant myself? I don't waste time speculating about inconsequentialities."

Tim surveyed him for another second in silence, then snorted with genuine amusement. "Oh, you are so completely full of shit right now. You think I'm going to believe that after what happened in Waters's closet?"

Damian shrugged and checked his phone with conspicuous boredom. "I barely remember 'what happened', personally. Perhaps I had too much to drink at the after party. If you've got a clearer recollection it must be because it mattered to you in a way it didn't to me."

A sudden blaze of fury burned away Tim's lightheartedness. He stalked to the couch, ripped the phone out of Damian's hand, and threw it to the loveseat opposite.

Damian didn't balk, but he did snap, "What the hell do you think you're—" His words cut off with a sharp inhale as Tim straddled him and yanked his head back by his hair.

"It's either kiss you or punch you at the moment, and frankly this hurts my knuckles a lot less," Tim hissed. “Maybe if you try really hard you can make it matter enough for both of us to remember this time.” He kissed him with a vicious edge of teeth.

Damian went stiff and unresponsive beneath him. For one awful moment, Tim thought he had read the situation entirely wrong, and horror slid down his spine like an ice floe. He jerked away, ready to babble apologies and then die in a corner of shame somewhere.

Before he could go anywhere, Damian's hands shot out and grabbed his upper arms. "Don't you dare." He pulled Tim back into his lap.

Rage faded in the relief of not having hurt him. Tim sat again, unresisting, hands braced against his chest. "Do you want—"

"Do whatever you want with me." Damian wrapped his arms around Tim and drew him close against his own shoulder, in the process conveniently hiding his expression from Tim's view.

Tim decided to let him get away with it and pressed his face to Damian's jaw. His fingers found their tentative way to play with the ends of his hair. He was still shaken, enough so that he felt the need to be explicit. "Tell me how you want it. Please. Clothes on or clothes off?"

Damian tugged on his t-shirt. "I want to feel you against me."

Tim let him pull the shirt over his head. He started working on the knot in Damian's tie while Damian untied the drawstrings of his pants. "You're wearing too many things." He couldn't seem to catch his breath.

Damian pulled Tim’s sweats down to his thighs. "Unfortunately, I can't dress for work with the sole priority of being instantly accessible to your touch."

Tim’s brain turned to white noise for a second, blindsided by the wave of sheer possessive yes that crashed through him at the notion. He freed the tie from Damian's collar with unsteady hands and stood up to kick off his pants entirely, along with his underwear. Damian sprawled below him, looking like a perfume ad with his disheveled hair, rumpled unbuttoned shirt, and clear bulge in his tailored pants. Not to mention the sulky mouth.

"Christ. You drive me so insane, you don’t even know." He gripped the top of Damian's shirt and used it to throw Damian down on his back on the couch, a maneuver that wouldn't have worked if Damian hadn't cooperated. Straddling his hips again, he hurriedly ripped the buttons out of their holes, exposing Damian's chest to his perusal. “Gonna make sure you don’t forget about tonight.”

Damian grabbed his hips and ground Tim's ass down, against his own erection. "What a promise. How do you intend to deliver?"

Tim ducked to suck on his neck with enough force to bruise. "I've got a few ideas and zero champagne, so we're already halfway there." Something about having Damian's skin between his teeth was unbearably satisfying.

Damian moved restlessly beneath him, hands clutching and releasing over and over again. “S-Stop leaving marks on my neck. I have a presentation first thing in the morning.”

Tim smiled into his collarbone. “Then I get to leave marks anywhere below the neck?”

Damian pulled his own head back so their gazes could meet. "Yes."

day 56 here

[jugemusequencer]

give me your gold and glitchy red hcs NNNEEEEOOOOOWWWWWWWWW

yall r particularly queer tonight huh . okay . here goes :

gold is constantly freezing. like he constantly feels hypothermic to the touch and gold himself is just always cold and complains about it . HOWEVER . boyfriends jacket .

^^^^ red will often wake up with his Iconic Jacket missing because gold finds it warmer than his usual hoodie . like not only is it big on him , but the fabric is insulated and Thick . red has gotten another jacket so he does not have to disturb his icecube of a partner

OH . red is also a gigantic heater . walking furnace . gold will literally cling to him at night just because his average body temperature is high . like yk how lizards sleep on warm rocks thatve been in the sun ??? red is the warm rock and gold is the lizard

just a general hc but both of them have autism which is why red is incredibly nonexpressive and why gold tends to carry stuff with his mouth instead of with his Brand New Prosthetics (being unable to feel whatever he's holding is just a general sensory issue) (he also doesnt like the feeling of the metal grinding on itself/feeling of the arms when they do move because they sort of vibrate)

gold repeats things that people say around him as a stim . red will do it back and they get into a loop of the same sentence for up to 6 or 7 minutes straight

gold generally likes darker themed music while red just does not care for whatever plays

reds hair is not naturally spiked up . he does that himself and when its down gold just braids it or chews on it (which red will smack him on the forehead for)

golds big on physical affection while red does it sparingly

^^^^ gold still gets many kisses constantly all the time though but it doesnt count.

bpd/pstd/general anxiety/psychotic depression gold . listen to me or die immediately

also ftm gold

actually both of them are ftm. t4t rosegold cope or die

anyways

gold gets super cuddly when he's tired so as soon as gold randomly gets clingy while they're at a party or something, red knows its time to go home

gold can still tear his head off from his neck but only for sparing moments at a time and it takes a bit to reheal . cool party trick though !

neither of them really talk but usually when they do its longer drawn out conversations and usually at some point gold will start using unowns because his voice goes out pretty quickly

gold cannot eat more than a few bites of food at a time as a repercussion of kind of being like . yk . dead and shit

its okay it just means red stocks up on his fav food and doesnt make much at a time so that gold doesnt feel like hes wasting anything

okay i think im done im super tired and the more i write the more i want to write abt them being gay and cuddling and kissing and shit.

i dont know if you inherently meant it to be shipping or not but thats what you got so youre just going to have to cope with it bc im tired and like my boys

[shinrakotls]

#SAKAMOTODAYS145leaks

"Frozen"

Pg.1

Editor's note: Mafuyu's childhood memories flood in while on the verge of death...!! Narration (young Mafuyu): Each passing day was boring. Narration (young Mafuyu): Dad said he was going to shape us into first-rate assassins. And he went hysterical about it every day. Narration (young Mafuyu): Training at the mountains was unpleasant and scary too. Narration (young Mafuyu): I don't want to be an assassin at all. Young Natsuki: Hey. I told ya not to wander around, Mafuyu. Young Mafuyu (thinking): You're late, stupid big bro...

Pg.2

Young Natsuki: You hurt your hand.. Young Mafuyu: If I hold a knife, I might get bacterial infection. I'm losing heart... {*losing heart here was an expression which mean demotivated} Young Natsuki: Here, put them on. Young Mafuyu: Heavy... What's this? Young Natsuki: Try pulling the heel's pins out.

Pg.3

Young Mafuyu (amazed): WHOAA! What is this?! Young Natsuki: For a clean freak like yourself who doesn't like to get your hands dirty, you can use this. Young Mafuyu: So cool!! Yay!! Young Mafuyu: When did you make this thing?! Young Natsuki: Well, whenever I get some free time, I'll work on it. Little by little. Young Mafuyu: Is there any other stuff?! Young Natsuki: Uh.... Mr Seba: Mafuyu! Natsuki! Another round of field training tonight! Go to the mountains! Young Mafuyu & Natsuki: We're off! Mr Seba: Huh? Oh, okay...

Pg.4

Young Mafuyu: So, big bro, what new stuff have you got today? Young Natsuki: Relax. This time around, I'm confident with this one... Young Natsuki: Ice bomb. It can instantly freeze any beasts at minus 250° Celsius. Young Mafuyu: COOL!! Narration (young Mafuyu): We pretended that we were training every night. But actually, we were trying out big bro's new weapons. Narration (young Mafuyu): The mountains that were supposed to be scary at night, instead became our playground. Narration (young Mafuyu): The weapons were very innovative and cool every time. I loved big bro's inventions. Young Mafuyu: What are you gonna make next? Young Natsuki: Hmm.. Probably a suit that can make someone become invisible.. Young Mafuyu: Suit?! That's not a weapon, though?

Pg.5

Young Natsuki: It can make me invisible. And then I can quickly leave this place... To become a professional weapons meister. Narration (young Mafuyu): I knew that big bro could definitely become one. But... Narration (young Mafuyu): At that time, I didn't have any ambitions or goals that I want to achieve. So I felt like I was being left behind. And that's when I got upset with him. Young Mafuyu: Hmm.. If that's what you want, then do it. Have it your way. Young Natsuki: ?

Pg.6

Young Mafuyu (thinking): It's fun enough the way things are right now... But big bro... Young Natsuki (flashback): And then I can quickly leave this place. Young Mafuyu (thinking): ..doesn't seem to care about me at all. Narration (young Mafuyu): Since then, we gradually stopped playing in the mountains. Narration (young Mafuyu): But then one day.... Mr Seba: I found these at the training grounds in the mountains... Do they belong to you two?!

Pg.7

Mr Seba: So all that training in the mountains were just lies and you two have been playing around instead? With all these rubbish?! Young Mafuyu (thinking): Rubbish...? Young Mafuyu: Dad, no– Young Natsuki: I made those and played with them on my own. Mr Seba (slapping Natsuki): You idiot!! Mr Seba: You're still thinking about that preposterous idea of becoming a weapon meister?! Mr Seba: Listen here! Weapons are meant to be used after all! And you guys should be the ones using them!! Mr Seba: Pathetic! Where did we go wrong in your upbringing..

Pg.8

Young Mafuyu: Gotta go to the toilet... Mr Seba: I'm done with Natsuki! He has talent but he's unmotivated, and he's a disgrace to the Seba family. Mr Seba: Anyway this is top secret. I heard there's this training facility for the ORDER, and it's run by the JAA. Young Mafuyu (overhearing his parents arguing): ! Mrs Seba: I know... To the public, the exterior is that of an orphanage... but according to rumors, that facility has some kind of scandal, right? Mr Seba: I'm sending Mafuyu there. Mrs Seba: Quit joking around, darling!! You know how many people died in there and yet they're all not reported.. Mr Seba: Shut up!

Pg.9

Mr Seba: I have to fire back at those guys who made fun of me back then. No matter what it takes, I'll make sure there's an ORDER member from our bloodline! Mrs Seba: Our children are not tools– Mrs Seba: ! Young Natsuki: Dad. Mr Seba: Natsuki.. Young Natsuki: Once I have graduated from the JCC, I'll go to that facility. Mrs Seba: Natsuki, you... Mr Seba: ... Mr Seba: Do you mean that? Young Natsuki: I'll prove it to you that I will get into the ORDER. So...

Pg.10

Young Natsuki: Please leave Mafuyu out of this. Young Mafuyu (monologue): Big brother is going... just so that he could save me... Young Mafuyu (monologue): Is this even alright...? Young Mafuyu (monologue): No, this can't be right.

Pg.11

Narration (young Mafuyu): Because big bro's dream... is to become a professional weapons meister. Young Mafuyu (thinking): He said he will be entering some kind of facility after he graduates from the JCC. But if I tell him that I'd wanna go instead, I'm sure he wouldn't listen. Young Mafuyu (small text): We're not on good terms right now too... Narration (young Mafuyu): Big bro will go to the JCC when he's 13 years old. And he will graduate... Narration (young Mafuyu): ...in about 8 years from now? So before that time comes.. Narration (young Mafuyu): If I'm able to get into the ORDER... then maybe I can free big bro from Dad's wishes.

Pg.12

Shin: Tch!! Shin: Don't die, Mafuyu!! Shin: HEY!! Mafuyu!!

Pg.13

-

Pg.14 & 15 (double spread)

Osaragi: !? Osaragi (thinking): It's cold... I'm frozen... Shin (thinking): This weapon... Mafuyu: .....As always, you're late... Stupid big bro... Editor's note: The big brother that protects his younger brother from danger!!

{Seems like only 15 pages this week.}

{Not sure if title is spot on as it sounds like a sound effect, whatever.}

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I got a really interesting reply to one of my posts the other day, and that reminded me that Last Week Tonight s09e10, from last May, is one of my favourite episodes of that show. Certainly my favourite of the last couple of seasons, and one of the best they’ve ever done, I think. I decided to re-watch it today, and write down some stuff about what I think makes it so good.

First of all, obviously the two issues discussed are important. I’m pretty sure that episode was meant to be just about the then-upcoming Philippines’ election, but the draft of the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was leaked that week, so they added a story about that as well. My guess is that they’d been working on the abortion story anyway, presumably knowing this was coming since Amy Coney Barrett got confirmed on the Supreme Court, but had it planned for a future episode and made a last-minute decision to add it to that one in light of the surprise leak.

The abortion story was huge, obviously. It’s one of the biggest historic moments in American politics in my lifetime. Much bigger than, say, the election of Donald Trump. Because this is the overturning of something that’s been this way for decades, and getting it back in place will take a lot more than four years. It’s also a really, really big deal. Abortion rights are tied to pretty much every other aspect of life in a prosperous society – education, employment, socioeconomic mobility, domestic violence, child and family poverty rates, obviously short- and long-term health care, obviously social and economic gender equality, and stability of life in general.

Americans who were very young when this was changed are going to grow up in a world where it’s normal for Roe v Wade to not exist, and that is going to create a fundamental shift in the culture with incredibly far-reaching and long-term consequences. It moves the Overton window, moves what rights people think they’re inherently owed. Even if states where it remains legal, it becomes up for debate instead of inalienable. It’s a reminder what at one time or in place is seen as a fundamental right that needs to be open to everyone, can, in a different time or a different place, be debatable or just not there at all.

Every time there’s a federal election in Canada, the news covers whether certain populations are being disenfranchised, including the prison population. They covers ways that prisoners’ constitutional right to vote, arguably (and it’s a strong argument, in my opinion) the most inalienable right we have in a democracy, is being functionally denied to them because Elections Canada is failing to cater to them. Yes, a prisoner could technically write a letter to request a mail-in ballot, get it, and send it in. But even then there are problems with prisons not treating that mail with the appropriate care, not postmarking it correctly, letting it get lost. And it only works if they prepare many weeks in advance; sometimes the process of getting and sending in a ballot from prison can take longer than the election campaign, which means the vote can’t be counted. Some prisons offer polling stations in there, but even then it often isn’t open for long enough for everyone to use it. Therefore, there are several organizations working to make sure every single prison has a polling station that’s available to every single prisoner.

CBC ran stories about this in the last two Canadian federal elections, and I always found it interesting because I have an uncle who lives in America and was in prison for a couple of years there, and he can’t vote at all. Not just couldn’t vote while he was in prison – he can’t even vote now that he’s been out for quite a few years. And not just that voting isn’t made accessible enough for him, that they put up barriers that makes it harder to vote on a practical level. He’s just not legally allowed to vote.

It’s so different – here, we’re arguing about how it’s not fair that it’s hard for them to access this inherent democratic right, which compromises the entire concept of democracy if it’s taken away. There, apparently some states are debating about whether to give them the right at all. Which is an interesting view for the country of “no taxation without representation” (and to avoid falsely claiming too much high ground, it’s also interesting that in Canada, a lot of the athletes I coach are immigrants, here completely legally but with some status besides citizenship, they and their families work and pay taxes but still can’t vote, and it’s almost like taxation’s ties to representation matter less when a statistical majority of the people affected are not white).

That’s something I thought of when Roe v Wade was overturned. How soon people will be used to this, and the debate in many American states will stop being about how to make abortion accessible on a practical level, it’ll become whether to allow it at all. For almost my whole lifetime, I’ve seen news stories in the States and in Canada (again, Canada can’t claim a lot of high ground on this one) about how it’s a problem that so many people who want to access their fundamental right to health care in this way are blocked due to everything from not enough clinics to high costs to mobs of threatening protesters who block the entrances. But soon, like with prisoners’ enfranchisement, it will just be the status quo in many American states that if the debate ever comes up at all, it’s about whether to allow it, not how to make it accessible.

Anyway, those are some rambling thoughts on why the first story in that Last Week Tonight episode was of monumental importance. The second story, about the election in the Philippines, was also incredibly important, though I’m not going to say so much about it just because I don’t want to be that Western person giving my views on a story about a country I know little about, where most of my knowledge comes from that 20-minute Last Week Tonight segment. I do have a little more than that, CBC covered the story at the time, but not enough for me to actually know what I’m talking about. Having said that, a small amount of knowledge around the world about this is better than none, so I think it’s very good that they did that story.

Both stories illustrate what Last Week Tonight does well, which is tell a story from something closer to the beginning than what we often hear. They back up and give context, not just recent context but historical context as well. Why is this happening and how did we get here? That’s something I find interesting to know about everything, and for small things that I like, digging up all the history is allowed to just be interesting. But for big issues with actual impact, understanding historical context is much more than just an interesting hobby - it’s vital. Forgetting historical context is a massive underlying cause of, not to overstate it (and I don’t think this is overstating it), pretty much every major problem in the entire world. Both the abortion story and the Philippines’ election story were stories about what happens when we ignore historical context, and this episode make an effort to cram a summary of as much history as possible into two twenty-minute segments to try to kick a small dent into the problem.

Okay. So that’s the important stuff in this episode. The important, globally impactful issues that the episode took on. But aside from that, I’ve realized that about 3/4 of a year later, a number of little bits from that one episode have stuck in my mind and my vocabulary, even if they didn’t take off for the rest of the world. I can think of three in particular, which ends up being quite a lot for one 40-minute episode of television.

First off, the beginning. I still remember when I started this episode – I was house sitting at the time, and sitting in the bedroom of that other person’s house with my laptop, not prepared for this. It had been a long week of getting angry about things, including about the American abortion draft leak, and I knew Last Week Tonight would spend some time validating my anger, and that would be a bit difficult in the moment but make it easier overall. However, it doesn’t start that way. It eases into that with some silly jokes about pop culture or whatever, so I sat down expecting that.

He came straight out with: “I’m John Oliver, thank you so much for joining us, look, it’s been a truly terrible week.” Writing that down now, I’m not even sure why it hit me so hard in the moment, but it did. Because he has done lots of shows after some fucking awful weeks, but still starts with some kind of joke. It marked this out as special, showed awareness of the gravity of the situation, right out of the gate. He then told us this week had been so bad they were going to make the unusual move of having two main stories, because they couldn’t leave one out. And then he jumped straight into the first one, without doing the usual opening pop culture jokes.

Then he reminds us of the episode they did, in an early Last Week Tonight season, about the erosion of access to abortion. In that episode, they had a running thing where he kept saying he knew it was depressing, but he had a video of sloths playing that he’d show us at the end, as a reward for us sitting through this harrowing story. The episode did end with some absolutely adorable sloths in a bucket, it was lovely.

In the May 2022 episode, he told us: “If you’re expecting something similar this time, I’ve got some bad news for you: Those sloths are dead now.” The original abortion episode aired in February 2016, and that line is just such a perfect encapsulation of how the world has changed since February 2016. In February 2016, the big threat to abortion was a rule that said it could not be carried out in a facility with hallways that were too narrow. People were fighting tooth and nail to avoid having that rule pass, because it would make it harder for people to access their constitutionally guaranteed right. Those sloths are dead now. On the 2012 American election campaign trail, Mitt Romney was accused of using coded language that could be interpreted as racist if you can decode the dog whistle, and this was seen as a big problem. Those sloths are dead now.

Personally, I think that should become an actual meme. I think “those sloths are dead now” should be understood to mean things have fallen so far that what seemed like a big deal years ago is completely gone and we’re in a different world.

It doesn’t have to be about politics, either. I almost used that in a post I made last week, about what comedy I got into in 2022. I said I listened to Daniel Kitson’s stand-up shows on from every year between 2004 and 2009, in chronological order. Throughout them, he built up this beautiful world that he lived in of fun and magic and community, and of course there was melancholy and frustration and uncertainty, but it had an underlying theme of being so sure that he’d surrounded himself with what he loved. Then, according to the Bandcamp catalogue, he just drops off for four years, and comes back in 2013, like: all those sloths are dead now. In that case, it didn’t mean the whole world had gone to shit. It meant his friends moved away and had kids and apparently this is just what life is like until you die. But when explaining how bleak it felt to go straight from 2004-2009 to 2013 in his shows, I almost said it was like when John Oliver re-visited the abortion issue six years after his original episode on it and just said “all those sloths are dead now.” I didn’t say that in my post, because that post was already way too long and I didn’t want to add an explanation of what this Last Week Tonight reference means. Therefore, I think that should take off as a meme so we can all use it and be understood without having to stop and explain it. If I say “all those sloths are dead now”, that’s what I mean. Glad we’re all on the same page.

Next, still near the beginning, John Oliver quotes something that says abortion is not entrenched in the United States’ history and traditions. I knew what his response would be before he even said it, because I know what the correct response to that is and I know John Oliver gets these things right. The correct response is 1) America does, in fact, have a long history of people getting abortions in one way or another so that statement is incorrect, and 2) that’s not the point, it wouldn’t matter if it were true, we should not base today’s rights on what’s rooted in tradition. John Oliver expressed that point as:

“Even if that were true, which by the way, fuck off, the framers probably left off the specific right to abortion because they couldn’t anticipate it being such a massive concern.”

Unlike with the sloth thing, this was far from the original version of that way of putting things, but it’s something I really like. Because I really hate the oversimplifications that occur in public discourse, so in the arguments that I’m having in my own head with everyone else in the world for every moment of every day (and sometimes out loud or in writing as well, but definitely always internally), I am constantly adding caveats and “okay, three things about that”, and “well in this case it would be this but in that case it would be another thing” and “even if that were true, it would still be like, but if it weren’t true then this, and also a secret third thing, does that cover all the bases?”

This is a very tiring way to go about life, so I really like it when comedians do that thing where they pretend they’re about to go into a complicated explanation of something, and then say “fuck off” instead. It’s not a bit that John Oliver invented, and it’s definitely not a bit that he invented in May 2022 (I’m fairly sure I’ve heard him do it as early as 2007), but it’s one he quite likes and I enjoy it every time. It’s just wonderfully cathartic to hear someone say, “Actually, I’m not going to waste my time engaging with your bad faith argument, I’m going to say fuck you and move on. So fuck you.”

Again, this is unlike “all those sloths are dead now” in that John Oliver did not invent it. Hari Kondabolu has a bit I like, where he says that sometimes people ask him why he doesn’t do an accent when quoting his parents during a stand-up routine, and pauses like he’s about to go into an nuanced explanation of how the way his parents speak is not inherently demeaning but in a culture that demeans Indian accents he doesn’t want to play into that, and then he just says, “And the reason I don’t do the accent is because fuck you, that’s why.”

It's also used nicely in this antidote to the Jordan Peterson fans’ cries of “But any argument against Peterson that doesn’t involve watching many many hours of his lectures so you know all of his talking points and can respond exactly to every single thing he’s ever said is just lacking nuance, you can’t just hear him say something misogynist or transphobic or racist and say that’s wrong, that means you don’t have a deep enough understanding, you’re just throwing surface-level insults at him because you don’t understand his depths!” Spoiler alert: Even if you do watch many many hours of his lectures so you can know exactly what you’re talking about and engage with all his points, they still won’t accept any criticism of him, I had a waste a lot of my own time to learn that and I highly recommend that no one else bother to do so. Listening to a band reply to those cries with “Call this our ad hominem and go the fuck away” is very satisfying, if you happen to have wasted too many hours thinking anyone would be swayed by genuine discussion.

Anyway, the point is that John Oliver saying that in that episode, and in that way, now comes into my mind every time I do that, saying “fuck off” instead of making a point that I cannot be bothered to make. So that’s another really small moment from this one episode that has endured for months with me. But there was one more thing like that, a bit from near the end of this episode that I liked so much I cut out and saved the clip at the time.

Personally, I believe this one should also be a meme. Later on when I was listening to the post-Oliver Bugle episodes, and heard a bit that seemed relevant, I cut that out and put them together. So you can click that link to see how the original video clip sounded, and the sort of thing I mean when I point out the versatility of that phrase as a meme. But I think all we really need to have that meme take off is this gif:

I think there are many contexts in which this is an appropriate reaction gif. So here you go, internet, that one’s yours to keep.

Finally, it’s somewhat common for people to make jokes about how Netflix will give a stand-up special to anyone who wants to talk shit about minorities for an hour, but I’d like to give some credit to Last Week Tonight for going as far as to mock up an image of what a fictional one of those would look like. It’s a very accurate parody:

All that in one slightly extended episode - this one was about 40 minutes instead of the usual 30-ish. And that is my thesis on why s09e10, in May 2022, is one of the best Last Week Tonight episodes of all time.