#as well as Spanish. which i actually could hold a conversation in at one point

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Why are the Romance languages so much more fun to yell at people with? By comparison Norwegian and English are so clunky Spanish just flows. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I get better at the other two (I phrased this awkwardly. I meant Spanish and Norwegian when I said “other two” because Spanish is my, admittedly not fluent anymore, Second language and Norwegian is my, also not fluent yet but I have more of an excuse with that one, language) but in my experience so far one definitely feels more bulky, if that makes any sense?

[queentala]

Random small headcanons for my fav SJM men

Those are totally random thoughts I had and just kept collecting, also I'll be adding new ones when I'll come up with something. Feel free to reblog and add yours <3

I think Gavriel can draw really well, especially with pencil. Like, you know, he's a really precise and detailed guy, plus thanks to his soldier skills he has really stable hands, and it just sits right with me

Azriel loves when you paint his nails black. Also once you made him wear eyeliner and he actually really liked the results, so now from time to time he lets you do it

Aedion has his ears pierced but doesn't wear any earrings (it was probably a dare, even more likely he was drunk then)

Ruhn likes to have a small, faint lamp put on when he sleeps. It looks like a white sparkle and doesn't cast much light but having it next to his bed makes him feel somehow more safe and comfy

Also, he loves being held while sleeping. When you let him snuggle to your chest and hold him tight... It's his paradise, he can stay like this for eternity

Cassian is very ticklish (especially on feet). It's actually his secret because, come on, he's the Lord of Bloodshed, how can he be ticklish? And of course you fully respect that, not wanting his reputation to suffer, however, when it's just the two of you... Let's say Cass has to be pretty alert most times as you love to take advantage of that

Fenrys always brings you a plushie from his travels to foreign countries. Actually, he brings you many different things like jewellery, dresses, combs, mirrors, gems... everything. But a plushie, is a must. You have a whole collection of small cute stuffed animals (mostly wolves) from different parts of the world. Every one of them has a name, personality and a back story which you and Fenrys always come up with

Aedion is a horse girl. He rides so well and just loved being around those animals since he was a little boy. Often he takes you on all day long trips around Terrasen. Also he has few of his favorite horses and he spoils them so much, they're just his babies.

He also probably has like six dogs and wants to adopt every one he sees on the street

Lorcan most of the times either doesn't cuddle or is the big spoon. However, after really hard day he loves to fall asleep with his face in your breasts and his hair stroked

Sometimes when Rowan is engrossed in his work, he hums songs mindlessly

Fenrys talks in his sleep, and this goes to the point where you can literally argue with him or have a whole conversation as he's asleep

Aedion swears a lot. Gavriel doesn't swear almost ever and his face when Aedion starts throwing curses he could never imagine is just priceless

However, Gavriel knows many langues. So, whenever he's angry and finally hit his breaking point, he starts shit talking and insulting everyone in a foreign langue no one knows (just imagine him aggressively talking to himself in Spanish while walking around and throwing hands in the air lol)

Cassian always sleeps naked and refuses (will literally get offended) to do otherwise, even if there are different people sleeping in the room (read: Azriel)

Dorian baby talks to his dogs. Sometimes when he does this he forgets that he is a king and then have the whole castle talking about it for the next week (people find it adorable though. some of them at least.)

Rowan always has some blades with him. Always. Dude could be standing in the room only in his boxers and still proceed to pull out a knife from gods know where

Also, he will never admit it but he has some of his favorite blades that he had named. But if you'd ever done this he would laugh at you

Once you've gotten Ruhn a bracelet for his birthday that was a guitar pick of his favorite guitarist on a black string and from then he doesn't take it off. Ever.

We know Ruhn has this very rare and useful ability to speak in people's minds, however his favorite way to use those abilities is to make the dumbest jokes in your head in the most random moments and watch you burst out laughing around all those strangers that have no idea what is going on

GAVRIEL HAS DIMPLES

AND SO FUCKING DOES AEDION

(he also got the big d genes from him but it's the topic for other post)

So, Fenrys is a master at coming up with the weirdest nicknames for his loved one, however, no one compares to Cassian in this matter. His creativity sometimes is more than flesh and blood can bear

Lorcan is actually the biggest girl dad

Let's be honest, Dorian has better skin care than any lady in the whole sjm universe

Cassian loves being called your pretty princess

Azriel loves puzzles. And Legos! There's no better way to spend your day off than building castles and forts, and then having an actual battle between your kingdoms

Bat boys are not really fond of thunder... I think they have bad experiences with flying during storm and it haunts them to this day. They always want to be the little spoons and be cuddled when there's a storm outside

Azriel has bat slippers and Fenrys has wolf or bunny slippers

Dorian loves wearing sygnets. He has so many and you're simply obsessed with them. He's a king, he has to look decent, you know, but Dorian loves wearing them even if it's just the two of you snuggling or sitting in the library reading. Or when he fucks you and you can feel them dig into your skin when he grabs your ass..

Lorcan enjoys having his hair combed. He just melts when you do it. And if you do a little braid somewhere on his head he will keep it and wear it for the next few days

Gavriel is the best dancer you will ever meet. On the balls he can easily make everyone's attention turn to the two of you. But he also likes to dance with you in your house or chambers, where there are no people or music, and to be honest both of you like those moments much better

To be continued....

[bitchin-beskar]

hi 👋

may I request a reader that is a pack rat but with useful things? like they’re always ready with something in their bag to help tf141 with their needs. wether its a snack, an extra shirt, or whatever. they’re just dora with their backpack lol

and the men are always in awe bc ‘how are they always ready for any situation’?? it can be platonic or romantic but would surely love some fluff with it. please and thank you! 🥰

hello love!!! you can indeed request that!!! this is such a cute idea!!!

you suggested dora with the backpack, which is very valid, but my brain also jumps to daphne blake from scooby doo bc that girl carries a tiny ass purse and has everything under the sun and can make shit on the fly like nothing (there was one episode where she made a hydroelectric battery to power the mystery machine like it was nothing lol)

so taking both of those vibes and jumping headfirst in!!! here's a tidbit from how I think a fic with that might go!! (also I kept reader gender neutral in this one, bc you didn't specify any pronouns!)

It's finally happened, Soap is sure of it. The 141 has finally run into a situation that BP isn't gonna have the supplies for.

BP is the callsign of the team medic, which is why you could be forgiven for thinking their name is short for 'blood pressure.'

It's not.

It's short for 'backpack.'

Soap had chuckled when he first heard it, but those little chuckles quickly died when he realised his superiors were serious. All they'd say was that you were uniquely skilled at anticipating the needs of your teammates on any given mission, as well as a well-qualified and well-trained field medic and surgeon.

That first mission, everything had gone FUBAR, including the exfil being shot down, leaving the team stranded in enemy territory with their only possible transport being new black-market Humvees with remote locking systems that were thus far unbreakable. Price and Ghost had been conversing over a plan of attack when you'd simply opened up your ever present backpack and pulled out a small handheld remote. Flipping a switch, you pointed it at the nearest Humvee, and an audible click! indicated it was now unlocked.

They'd all stared for a solid minute before you coughed and said "Uh, about that exfil?" and the team jerked into action and dove for the doors of their new escape vehicle. When asked what the fuck kind of wizard tech you had, you simply shrugged and said it was a universal remote.

Soap had figured it for a one-off. He'd never been more wrong.

Ghost's balaclava gets irreparably damaged and covered in gross bodily fluids? You've got a brand new one in the exact size he needs, made from water resistant fabric.

Price's cigars get lost in (yet another) heli crash? You've got a brand new box of Maduro cigars in that backpack, the only explanation being that you'd "found them while out shopping."

Gaz loses his ball cap, and you whip out a spare without even a second glance, shoving it onto his head without a care in the world, even as he's sputtering because "how the hell do you have the same damn cap? I bought that old one years ago!"

Alejandro's iPod gets destroyed after the team has to flee through a river and all their gear gets waterlogged, and out of a Ziploc, you pull a brand new one with the headphones he likes, and he's shocked to see it's downloaded with all his favorite songs, and the default setting is currently on Spanish.

Rudy's a diabetic, and his insulin pump gets damaged in a knife fight, and not only do you have insulin for him, you have a brand new pump as well, and specific snacks that will help him hold out till he can replace the pump. It's originally brushed off that you have this because of being the team's doctor, until Rudy points out that you don't actually have access to his medical records, with him being Mexican Special Forces and you being SAS.

And Soap? Soap ran out of room in his journal one day, in the middle of trying to sketch and he hadn't realized how close he was to the end, so he hadn't brought a spare. Before he even has the chance to feel disappointed, you're slipping a brand new journal with the exact right type of paper he prefers into his hands.

It's not just personal stuff either. Any tool, gadget, gizmo, whirlygig, or thingamabob they could think of, you just... had it. Wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, lockpicks, extra mags, oil, cleaning rags, padlocks, bolt cutters, bandaids, needles, suture thread, ice packs, heat packs, gauze, hair ties, bobby pins, the list goes on and on and on.

Never, not once had there been a situation where the team had needed something that you couldn't pull from the dark, yawning pit that you called a backpack.

Except, Soap is confident that this time, you don't have what they need. You couldn't possibly have predicted this outcome.

The mission had been a comedy of errors, the team racing across the globe, bouncing between countries, hopping from continent to continent tracking the HVT Laswell had sent the lot of you after. Through a completely random turn of events, you'd ended up in the United States of all places, in the wooded areas of Washington state. It wasn't a state park, per se, but close enough. Supposedly, there was a cache here that the HVT frequented, and might have valuable intel.

Unfortunately, your way had been blocked by some State Park Rangers, who demanded that you either provide proof of registration that allowed you to be there, or the team had to leave.

Of course, being members of the SAS and Fuerzas Especiales, who operated out of Europe and Mexico respectively, the likelihood of any of them having the right paperwork was infinitesimal.

"Hold on!"

Soap whirled around at the sound of your voice. There you were, rummaging through your backpack.

"No fuckin' way," Gaz whispered, the rest of the team going deathly still.

There was absolutely, positively, no possible way on God's green Earth that you were gonna–

"Found it!"

You let out a whoop of excitement, pulling a small rectangular piece of plastic from your bag, a hole through the top indicating that it might go in a car, hanging from the rearview mirror.

"Here's our permit for the Washington State Parks and Forestry. Just renewed it, too."

The Rangers took it sceptically, but their faces cleared as they looked it over.

"Everything seems to be in order then, ma'am. Sorry for the delay and confusion."

"No problem!" You chirped, ignorant of the dumbfounded stares at your back. "Have a good day, gentlemen!"

Soap felt dizzy. He felt weak. He might actually collapse here on the spot from pure confusion alone. He could faintly hear Gaz muttering behind him, and in his peripheral vision, Alejandro was shaking with silent laughter, and Rudy looked like he'd just been handed the answers to the universe's greatest mysteries.

This had to be a dream. Soap refused to accept reality otherwise.

The Rangers left, and there was a heavy, oppressive silence that settled over the team. BP turned to look at everyone with a smile on their face, only for it to fall when they saw the stunned, blank looks their teammates wore.

"What's wrong?"

Bless 'em, they sounded so confused, but Soap really had no way to express just what he or any of the others were feeling in this moment.

As BP's face fell further, Price surged forward and scooped their medic and resident pack rat into a hug. They let out a small eep! at the sudden constricting pressure around their ribs. It was difficult to hug with tac vests on, but Price was determined.

"C-Captain? Are you alright?"

"Never change, soldier," Price said gruffly, and Soap could hear the disbelieving grin in his CO's voice. "Never fuckin' change."

[kidflashimpulse]

Hi! So, as someone who loves the relationship between Bart and Edu, and Bart in general, I wanna ask; do you have any headcanons regarding Bart’s Spanish level? Like, does he only know a couple of words? Does he know enough to hold an easy conversation, even if slowly and with a strong accent? Does he unabashedly flirt in Spanish with Edu and call him “mi sol” (my sun) right in front of Dr. Dorado!? Like, I have so many ideas. Please and thank you

yes !! I actually do thank you for asking <33

Personally I feel like Bart would broadly be fluent in terms of understanding Spanish. Lesser so in speaking it because of lack of practice rather than lack of trying. It’s not intentional it’s just that I believe it’s what makes sense for the way he probably learned it i.e largely from exposure of his surrounding of what he hears from both Ed (and Jaimes especially in the early years) home surrounding and consuming spanish speaking media as well. He’s probably incredibly bored in spanish class (which HC yes he takes) which whilst it helps him improve his understanding of the syntax of the language, probably doesn’t do much in terms of his capabilities like vocabulary where he benefitted mainly from exposure (one of the best ways to learn a language). He hasn’t had much reason to consistently practice it to the point of being fluent verbally, because the spanish speakers mostly speak english most of the time he’s there.

i think he definitely knows enough to hold a simple conversation, and he tries his best with pronunciation (unless he’s purposefully trying to be annoying) and of course as with all things, his speed and perception of time probably helps him linguistically too.

and of course he’d like to impress edu so yes to the sweet names and all.

in terms of flirting, lmfao honestly i feel like any “public” flirting bart does with ed is more with humorous intentions and any genuinely bold flirting he does is more private between them. He’d be shy to do that publicly. I feel like Ed is more capable for bold flirting publicly (he can get embarrassed too ofc but it doesn’t stop him 😂). Honestly probably overanalysing things lol but with how Ed is in the show, generally very outspoken and bold, frequently talks to masses of people in the MHYC, very social etc, i just feel like he would be more bold that way too. Bart is bold, social and outspoken as well but he’s generally sneakier from what weve seen so that just makes me feel like he’s more inclined to be a little shyer with some things. Pet names i don’t consider too bold though so I’m sure Bart could sweetly refers to Edu as his Sun (so sweet omg) infront of his dad who probably finds it cute 😭.

i imagine though because of the differences in dialects Bart is probably exposed to there’s room for confusion too.

ALSO this post is the only other alternative answer /j

i’d be very interested to hear ur thoughts too! thank u for ur ask <33

[dylanndr]

What value does Izzy provide to Edward that not only elevates him to First Mate status, but makes him difficult to replace? As in, something he does that other people who might vie for that position can't or won't do?

We know Edward doesn't think of Izzy as a friend per se, even though he does turn to Izzy for some types of intimate conversation. I find it highly unlikely they were ever lovers, and they definitely aren't by the time we meet them in S1. Izzy has no people management skills, which isn't great for someone whose job is to manage a crew. Ed delegates the more lethal kinds of stabby jobs to Izzy, and for sure Izzy is a skilled fighter with no apparent qualms about killing. But any number of pirates could take on the job of go-to murder guy (Fang, for one), so that's not what makes Izzy indispensable.

I think the answer lies in the exchange between Izzy and Edward at the end of episode 4. Izzy is in the process of packing up to leave, and apologizes to Ed for having previously called him an insane, unpleasant shell of a man who is merely posing as Blackbeard, and a twat. Ed responds with, "You were right, man. About all of it."

And for what it's worth, Edward probably does feel like he's guilty on all charges: his mental health has not been great (neither has Izzy's, but that's a separate discussion). He's been grumpy (snapping at Izzy for trying to get him to focus on a plan for survival, or for not magically divining what the whole clouds thing was about). And he's been shuffling through his existence as Blackbeard, bored out of his skull and feeling like a ghost.

So perhaps the biggest value Izzy provides is his willingness to tell Edward off. The rest of the world sees Blackbeard's flag and flees or surrenders in terror, whether or not Blackbeard is actually on the boat. Finding someone who will get in his face and call out his bullshit probably IS a difficult, nigh impossible, proposition. Even Fang is scared of direct confrontation with Blackbeard ("the boss is back? oh, shit!").

Izzy isn't gentle about his callouts, but a huge swath of people, especially folks who have been stewing in a violent tox masc culture, don't respond to being called out nicely. You HAVE to yell at them to get them to listen. Edward dismisses Izzy's quieter nagging about coming up with a plan, and only starts to act concerned when Izzy goes full "fuck off."

Once Izzy is off the ship, Lucius is the one who takes up the mantle, berating Edward for being a dick about the treasure hunt in episode 7. Edward initially responds to the callout with a threatening tone, but when Lucius holds the line and continues angrily ranting at him? Edward shuts up and listens, and takes the rant to heart. [Side note: in episode 4, when Blackbeard divulges his brilliant plan to escape the Spanish, while the rest of the crew is praising him unequivocally, it's Izzy and Lucius who tag team to point out he got the date wrong.]

This dynamic also explains why Edward internalizes Izzy's episode 10 tirade so quickly. Even though Izzy is WAY out of line in that case, speaking from bitter jealousy instead of genuine concern, it's a familiar pattern for Edward. His instinct is to take these kinds of confrontations seriously. In this case it wasn't deserved, but he's already feeling abandoned by Stede and is now afraid of losing Izzy as well. Since Lucius was the one who talked him into pursuing Stede in the first place (heartbreak ahoy!), and Izzy tried to stop him (could have avoided heartbreak maybe!), he decides Izzy is going to keep the job of telling him off ... after they have a little discussion about Izzy's tone, of course.

[starberry-cupcake]

For the fairy tale ask, 3 & 13, I'll bring popcorn

Hi!! Thank you for sending some! 

3. What is one of your favourite non-romantic fairy tales?

Actually, my favorite fairy tale in general is non-romantic: The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.

Andersen had, I think, a very good handle of relationship dynamics that weren't plain or just archetypal, for the genre and the time in which he published. Maybe because he was writing in a place of self fulfillment and poetic intent rather than educational, moral or linguistic pursuit, maybe because he wasn't hetero or allosexual, maybe because he was born at a time in which he could and wanted to deconstruct what he didn't agree with in other stories (especially classism), his relationships don't tend to ever be simple or clear cut, and sometimes are not even endgame.

Not only the main motivator for the story is Gerda trying to save her friend Kai, Gerda also finds friends along the way, like the tough but sensitive Little Robber Girl who turns to care for her very dearly, or the Princess who is in search for a Prince who'd be, more than anything, a good companion for conversation and shared interests.

There is a lot of strength in love without romance in The Snow Queen. Which is probably why it always confused me that people at large thought that Frozen was somewhat doing something revolutionary.

13. Do you have a folklore rant you're holding in? (Let It Out)

I've mentioned this before but it still bothers me greatly: it angers me when people think that, in order to strive for diversity and representation in fairy tales and folklore, they have to slap Eurocentric stories into non European cultures. That's colonialism.

Taking a European story like Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood and stamping on some other culture into it for more diversity is to shoehorn a lot of folkloric remnants of culture, beliefs, religion, social categories of a time and place to people who not only don't hold them but who also have our own stories to share.

To name just one example of the culture I'm most familiar with because it's my own, Berta Elena Vidal de Battini, in the early to mid 20th Century, compiled 3152 texts throughout the territory of Argentina, annotated, cataloged and accompanied by a study of the diverse language changes of all territories and the cultural influences that combined in day to day life of the territory, both the native peoples foundations and the immigration influences.

3152 texts. Stories, fairy tales, fables, rhymes, cryptid encounters, poems, native peoples narrative, popular characters, etc.

Differently from the Grimms, Laura Gonzenbach and other compilers that set to do a similar job, Vidal de Battini preserved, as much as she was able, the linguistic variety of the story tellers, bending Spanish (from Spain) grammar to adapt to the regional vernacular and pointing out why some of these cases occurred and what influence did these things have linguistically.

And that's just one example. There's so much richness in folklore and stories of every culture, because every culture has stories.

I think that what Disney is trying to do lately, of creating new fairy tales that are conceptualized on more diverse cultural foundations, is a step forward, especially since most often there are, as of late, at least partially own voices in the crew. Disney became, whether we like it or not, the biggest platform for fairy tale distribution in the world. When people think of Cinderella, most people think of a light blue dress and a blonde updo. Still, they are a US based company with a capitalist nature and a majority of white folks in positions of power, and that ends up constructing filters and problematic situations, as well as it creates a landscape in which your story needs to pass through those filters in order to be listened to, which implies, it being a US based company, that the story becomes a monetized intellectual property.

I think it's just time to pass the microphone. If you want more diversity in stories, let those people you want to know more about tell their stories. If you are from a culture that doesn't get represented often and are more familiar with Hansel and Gretel than you are with your own folklore, or your first instinct is to re-write a European story to fit you, look around and search, because I assure you there's a lot of stuff there for you to discover and it's more wonderful than what you expect.

Thank you for sending some questions @demigodinmybed ♥ 

[mytruthandbeauty]

17 April 2023

I haven’t mentioned my time in Panama City, Panama, because I was only there for four days so I didn’t actually live there. However, my host was a very nice woman who may have been around my age she didn’t speak much English and my Spanish was still barely basic. I found myself relying on Google translate a lot, still we got along well. I could tell that she was very proud of her city and embarrassed by some of the rougher areas. She took me around to some of the touristy areas in her car and she was always urging me to go out with her. Honestly, I am rather contemptuous of what I call “ordinary” people that is cisgender people with a few exceptions, so my desire to hang out with them is nonexistent. Since I left she has contacted me via text checking up on me and it makes me wonder if she ever realized that she had a transgender woman living in her home or how she would feel about me if she knew I was trans.

The one thing I want to say about travel that has been consistent for me is men are the same everywhere. I’m not going to bash all men here, although it would be pretty easy to do, what I will say is that for me as a mature black transgender woman you get very little respect from men and that’s putting it mildly. I have spent a lot of time dating online, because frankly it’s safer and you can screen out the losers without losing a lot in return. But this whole process brings to mind something else that highlights the inequities in our world.

Earlier today I received a text on a dating site for transgender women from a young man who I normally would not have engaged because he was far to young for me, but in his profile he stated he was just looking for a friendly person. I sometimes forget that with men they equate being friendly with being sexual, but initially the conversation went well enough. We talked about travel and his experience with trans women and how at such a young age could he afford to travel as much and as far as he had. He told me his wages afforded him this opportunity and that he was basically a skilled machine operator yet he was paid initially $50K US to now $80K US. I told him I was jealous and that it obviously is very nice to start life with advantages of being cisgender white and male, that the world is practically handed to you on a silver platter. He couldn’t help but agree. He was born in Scandinavia which also helped. I’m only mentioning this here to point out that if you weren’t born in a privileged place like this man, if you’re still of working age and if you can manage it perhaps you might want to consider relocating to a part of the world that won’t hold you back simply for being trans. It’s too late for me as I’m well into my retirement years and I can’t afford to live in Scandinavia anyway, but maybe it’s something you young people should consider. Never limit your imagination as it will fuel your dreams and eventually bring them to life.

Near the Panama Canal.

[mypoisonedvine]

𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖈𝖊 I || professor!helmut zemo x reader

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞 : history is so much more interesting when he’s teaching it.  you’d better be careful before the two of you end up with a history of your own.

𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 : 6k

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 : smut (incl. semi-public sex in an office and oral f receiving), significant age gap (reader is 20, zemo is 39; it isn’t actually mentioned though but it comes up in the next part), the slightest bit of angst?, nearly pwp at this point lol

                                    You wouldn’t know it by the way you were enraptured with his lecture, but you weren’t even a history major.  

Quite far from it, really, well outside of the college of liberal arts, and yet here you were in the front row, watching him gesture over a large map of Western Europe while he explained the sociocultural impacts of the Treaty of Versailles.

It was probably pretty obvious why you took such interest in all this, though.  After all, you were the only one who dressed as well as he did, your blazers and skirts and loafers standing out amongst a sea of hoodies and sweats and flip-flops; and, you were the only one who paid close attention and yet never seemed to be taking any notes…

Why would you, after all?  Looking away to write in your notebook would mean missing out on all the fun, and unfortunately you had found that when you copied down the words he spoke, his accent was not retained in writing.

Some kid in the back of the class had asked about his accent the first day; you thought it was kind of a rude question, if you were being honest, but he didn’t seem to mind too much (if perhaps a bit surprised that anyone cared).  He explained he was from a small country called Sokovia, but that his accent was a bit unique since he spoke Russian, German, Spanish, and Italian as well.

Because of course he did.  Like he was specifically designed to target all your weaknesses.

“Well, I could talk about that for the rest of the evening but I’ll spare you all and let you out a bit early today, how does that sound?” Professor Zemo offered.  The other students weakly cheered, a few claps here and there as you heard binders shutting and backpacks being zipped, but you were disappointed.  You didn’t want to go back to your dorm, all you were going to do there was think about him anyways.

Damn, I’ve really got it bad, you thought to yourself, shaking your head as you stood up and gathering your things, slinging your bag over your shoulder.  You glanced up at the podium where another student was chatting with Professor Zemo, and either he said something really funny or she was trying way too hard to flirt with him.  You rolled your eyes, irritated by the display and yet envious of her audacity to just go up there and talk to him.  Imagine having a crush and actually being able to look them in the eye and hold a conversation; you could barely do that with people you didn’t happen to find attractive.

Just as you were about to make it out the door, you heard your name and spun around.  You were shocked to realize it was the Professor trying to get your attention.  If only you’d thought to pretend you hadn’t heard him.

“Could I speak with you for a moment?” he requested, motioning you over with two curled fingers.  With a swallow and a nod, you stepped out of the flow of students exiting into the hallway and approached the desk at the front of the room.

“What is it?” you asked.

“I just wanted to discuss your most recent paper, if you have some time,” he explained, and your heart sunk.  Of course it was garbage, you’d written the whole thing last minute during a near-all-nighter.  “I still have the copy you turned in here in my bag.”

“Right, of course— sure,” you nodded.  By now the classroom was empty spare for the two of you, your words echoing slightly; presumably that was intentional, since these places were built for acoustics, but it made you worry you’d have to hear whatever criticism he had for you multiple times.

He pulled out the slightly-wrinkled paper and took his glasses off of his vest to wear (fuck, did he have to wear the glasses, just to personally attack you?) as he glanced over the top page before folding it over the staple.

“This essay,” he continued, “it’s—”

Ridiculous.  Idiotic.  A blight on humanity and a waste of printer ink.

“Fascinating,” he finished, surprising you.  “After I read it, I searched your student profile on my office computer—”

You gulped, trying not to take that as a compliment.

“I’m looking at your information and I’m seeing you aren’t even a history major— is this a mistake, when it says your major is computer science?”

“No, that’s my major,” you nodded.

“Well, that’s a shame,” he decided, “because you have some really interesting ideas in here, clearly you must have studied history before.”

“I mean, not really,” you shrugged.  “I didn’t even care that much about history until, you know, you...r class,” you finished quickly, realizing it sounded too odd otherwise.

And that smile, the way he looked down at the floor suddenly, was he blushing?  “Thank you.  I’m always… glad to inspire.”

If only you knew everything you’d inspired in me, Professor.

“If you didn’t care about history, what would motivate you to register for an honors history seminar?” he asked suddenly.  

“Well…” you trailed off, reaching up to scratch the back of your neck as you dodged his gaze.

“It couldn’t possibly be because I’m teaching it,” he realized.

“I came to your talk last year, the one you did about the Sokovian civil war,” you finally admitted, letting out a lungful of air as you said it and looking up at him sheepishly.

“Ah,” he nodded, “yes, that might make a bit more sense.  But we still haven’t found the real reason, have we?”  His eyebrow raised slightly and you felt like he was toying with you— but you liked it, the shiver that ran up your spine made that obvious.  “Because the question remains of what would possess a computer science student to take time out of her busy schedule on a Friday night— if I recall the night correctly— to listen to some stuffy visiting scholar talk about a bloody war in a country she may not have even heard of before.”

“My friend brought me,” you defended.

“Under what guise?” he pressed.

“She… may have mentioned something about… a cute professor with a sexy accent…” you stammered, cringing slightly as you spared a glance back up at him.  He was staring back at you with the most bewildering expression.  His eyes said ‘you thought I was cute?’, and yet his smile said ‘I knew it.’

“You must’ve been horribly disappointed when I took the stage,” he finally replied, voice a bit lower, softer, not echoing around the room anymore.  

“Not at all,” you returned, almost below your breath now, and suddenly you became very aware that you were standing too close to him, but you couldn’t move away, you couldn’t even look away anymore.  “I’m here, aren’t I?  Taking your class?”

“And you make it nearly impossible to focus, did you know that?  I swear your eyes never leave me, I can feel them on me.  It’s quite unfair, because I can’t stare back at you no matter how much I want to.”

Just as you looked down at his lips and back up to his eyes, which seemed to be following a similar pattern on your own face, just when you thought this might be it and you were about to do something you really shouldn’t (but really wanted to), you heard the door open behind you and you spun around so fast you nearly hurt your neck.

“Oh,” the man in the doorway mumbled, apparently surprised to see you enough to nearly drop the papers tucked under his arm.  “I’m teaching the next class in here— Honors History of Islam?”

“Professor Waters, yes, my apologies,” Zemo nodded, “we were just… our discussion ran a bit long, we’ll get out of your way.”

You and Zemo awkwardly gathered your things and made a dash for the door as the older professor took his place at the podium.  Once the two of you were out in the hall, you let out a sigh and gave each other a glance, like you were each waiting for the other to either acknowledge or ignore what had just (almost) happened.

“I have my next class across campus in a half hour,” he remembered suddenly, lifting his arm and pulling back the brown sleeve of his coat to look at his watch.  

“Right, you should… get to that,” you nodded.

“Walk with me?” he proposed, and you hoped your smile wasn’t as beaming as it felt.  

“I’d love to.”

So maybe you ended up skipping your evening class to sit in the back of his History of England course.  And, perhaps, he ended that one early, too, this time to buy you coffee at the student center; and your discussion ended up going on so long that the coffee shop closed and you had to go to his office to finish the conversation.

But, in a certain sense, it could be argued that you never really got a chance to finish that conversation after all… because a few moments after he shut the door to his office, you, for lack of a better term, jumped his bones.

“Fuck,” he mumbled against your lips as you pulled him closer by his jacket, “we can’t do this.”

You nodded, reaching up to wrap your arms around his neck.  “Mhm, yeah, you’re right,” you agreed breathlessly.

His hands took their place at your waist as you both stepped back, the back of your legs bumping into his desk which you jumped up slightly to sit on.

“I mean, we really can’t do this,” he continued, kissing your neck instead now while your legs wrapped around his hips, your skirt riding up slightly, your fingers fumbling with the buttons on his collar.  “I want to, overwhelmingly so, but we can’t.”

“I know,” you sighed; your head fell back when his teeth grazed over your pulse, and his hand was right there to catch it and hold it up, gripping the back of your neck.

“This absolutely cannot happen,” he groaned when your legs pulled him closer, something hard and hot pressing up against your thigh through his trousers and you were really hoping it wasn’t just his cell phone.

Then he rocked his hips, just barely, and you felt the outline of the ridge of his head and it was definitely not his phone unless he had the most suggestively-shaped phone case of all time.  You gasped and grabbed his face to kiss him again, shamelessly desperate now, weaving your fingers into the hair just above the back of his neck.

By now you had managed to get a few of his buttons open so when you slid your fingers down from time to time, they ran over his chest and the patch of dark blonde hair there.  Funny enough, you couldn’t remember having any strong opinions on chest hair before this afternoon, but now you felt your walls fluttering around nothing.  

He helped you shed your blazer just before tossing his own coat aside, never breaking the kiss, holding your face gently while he pushed you down to lay on his desk— he reached behind you to clear a few stray papers out of the way first.  

Your back hit the glossy wood and his weight pinned you down, rough hands sliding up your legs and under your skirt as you tried to push your hips up for more friction where you needed him most.

He pushed your hips back down, not too roughly but definitely enough to get your attention, before sliding his hands up your skirt again where he toyed with the hem of your panties.

You wanted to say something, more specifically you wanted to beg him to touch you, but you had this fear that if you spoke now it would all become real and he would stop because, as he had so poignantly noted, this can’t happen.  And both of you knew that… so maybe it would be easier to let it happen if neither of you really acknowledged it.

Luckily, he didn’t tease you too long, reaching under the fabric and swiping the rough pads of his fingers over your slickened folds.  You choked on your gasp, accidentally digging your nails into his shoulders when he drew delicate circles around your clit.  All at once, he suddenly pushed those fingers right inside you and your back arched; you needed so much more than just his fingers but the way they twisted and curled against your walls was nearly perfect as well.  

They didn’t stay long, quickly pulling back as you watched him quickly open his trousers just before you felt the head of him pushing up to your entrance.

His eyes met yours, dark with need, yet somehow clearly asking you for permission, making sure this was what you wanted: and fuck, you wanted it more than anything.  The moment that you nodded, he began to push forward— slow and deliberate, but unyielding.  

Perhaps as a perfect healthy college student in a male-dominated major, you had no real excuse for it to have been so long since you’d had sex.  As you liked to put it: dating as a woman in computer science means the odds are good but the goods are odd.  Truth be told, you weren’t sure at this point if having had sex any time in the past year would’ve prepared you for him anyway.  It felt like he was forging a new path inside you— certainly a wider one than anyone else ever had since he was so thick.  

With his hips fully seated against yours, the tip of his cock just reached the end of you, just barely brushed over those sensitive spots you didn’t even know you had before.

It stung a bit to be filled this thoroughly, so it was no wonder you were biting down on your lip hard enough to bruise it, your fingers clutching at his shirt tightly.

“Am I hurting you?” he whispered, finally breaking the silence, voice strained like he was struggling just as much as you were (though in an entirely different way).

“A little,” you admitted.  “Please don’t stop.”

He groaned a few curses as he started to move back, and forth, and so slow you could hardly stand it.  

“Fuck,” you breathed, “oh my god, harder, please…”

A little smile crossed his face, a sharp exhale almost like a laugh, and it made your cheeks burn even hotter than they already were.  But, he obeyed, regardless, more aggressive in his movements yet not any faster as he held your hips to keep you from sliding across the desk’s glossy wood surface.

Your moans were starting to echo around the office’s beige walls at this point, and he snarled as he bit down on your neck.  “You need to stay quiet,” he hissed in your ear.  “Can you do that for me?  Can you stay quiet even when I’m making you feel so good?”

“I-I’m trying,” you whimpered, “your cock is… so deep…”

“Oh, I know,” he cooed, voice heavy with faux pity, “poor thing, you can’t take it?”

“No!” you yelped.  “I can take it!  Please, please don’t stop.”

“I won’t have to if you stay quiet, darling, we can’t have somebody hearing you now can we?” he chuckled, licking and sucking at your pulse point as your eyes rolled back in your head.  “We can’t have somebody hearing you cry for me, and coming in here, and seeing you laying on my desk getting fucked by your professor, right?”

What the hell was wrong with you that that idea actually turned you on?  Why did it actually make you want to moan louder until everyone could hear you?

And when his cock speared right against that spongy spot inside you, you did exactly that and he had to suddenly clamp his hand down over your mouth.

“Fuck,” he growled, “you’re going to get us both in trouble.”

Your attempts at apologies were totally incomprehensible with his hand over your mouth, not that they were likely to have made much sense either way.

Blinking your eyes shut, your legs began to quiver slightly as he rutted into you, your toes curling inside your loafers.  You felt so full you could hardly stand it, stretched so wide that you were forced to feel every detail of his cock as it filled you.  Already your walls were bearing down on him; you couldn’t help it, it was like your body was just his instrument now and instinct had taken control of your movements.  

His accent was definitely stronger now as he whispered in your ear, praising you gruffly.  You knew from the beginning that you loved high marks and encouragement from your teachers, but this… this was different, and you hadn't known how much it would affect you.

"Good girl," he breathed, "you're taking me so well, draga, you feel so perfect around me."

You whined from behind his hand and he chuckled at your obvious neediness.

"You like making me feel good, darling?" he presumed, his smile pressing against your neck between nipping kisses to your pulse point.  "You like knowing that I can barely take this tight cunt gripping me so well, that I'm already addicted to your precious body and want to fill it with my seed?"

With your eyes rolling back in your head you nodded feverishly, heavy in your state of total delirium as he pumped his cock deep into you over and over.

You reached up to try to pull his hand away from your mouth, and he met your gaze with fire in his eyes.

“If I take my hand away, will you be good?” he challenged, and you nodded feverishly.  He was a bit hesitant but slowly moved his hand down, and though you did have to keep biting your lip, you managed to restrain yourself.

Every drag of the ridge of his head inside you was somehow more intense than the last, somehow hitting right at your spot and it was like each rough thrust knocked his name out of your mind and onto your lips until you were chanting it like a prayer, or a plea.

And each time you said it, he fucked you harder, snarling and whispering your name back to you a few times, in between little praises; "Beautiful," he mumbled, "such a sweet little girl… such a perfect cunt."

“I— fuck, I’m gonna—” you stammered your warning.  

“Will you come for me?” he finished for you, and you nodded quickly.

“Fuck, I’m so close,” you hissed.

It was obvious just by the build-up that you were going to come hard, pleasure tightening in your core until you were sure that it would spill over but it just kept going, making you wonder if it would ever reach the breaking point.

And oh boy did it, it slammed into you in fact, and your legs quivered as you struggled for air.  He growled in your ear, fucking you harder through it all, stroking every place that had only become even more sensitive.  The moment you could form words again, you were wasting the ability on a string of swears and promises you couldn’t keep.

“Yours, fuck, it’s yours,” you sobbed.  He chuckled a little, pulling back to examine your face which must have given away how fucked-out and cockdrunk you were already.

“Say it again,” he demanded darkly, holding you tighter, fucking you a bit more deliberately though not any less aggressively.

“Yours,” you gasped, cut off by a rough and dominating kiss.  Your moans were lost to his tongue but he didn’t need them to know you were coming, the way your body gripped him tighter than ever was sign enough.

“So good,” he whispered against your lips, “you’re doing so good for me…”

His words washed over your skin and soothed you like a salve, bringing some relief from the overwhelming feelings his body was assaulting yours with.

All things considered, he was still moving rather slowly, each of his thrusts measured and patient, and never really changing speed even as you were coming around him.  Weak little cries fell from your throat each time his hips met yours and the tip of his cock kissed the deepest parts of you.

Your body went limp in his arms and you hadn't noticed before how good it felt for him to hold you, for his strong hands to support you like it was nothing.  His thumb gently stroked your back through your shirt and you mewled weakly into his shoulder.

"So good, draga, so fucking good," he mumbled, holding you closer.

"Please… faster," you whimpered, "I want you to come."

"Is that what you want?" he taunted, ignoring the way you nodded immediately.  "You want to make me come, darling?"

"Yes, please, want it so much," you gasped.

He finally sped up, though it was still nothing like the lightning-speed jackhammering you were used to from guys your age: it was better, certainly, especially when he lifted your leg onto his shoulder and pushed so deep you saw stars.

The second one seemed to hit you all at once, almost out of nowhere, and you heard yourself mumble, “Professor, I’m coming.”  It sounded a bit pitiful, the way you said it, but he apparently didn’t mind as you felt him nod encouragingly in the crook of your neck.

You felt totally drained by now, exhausted even though all you’d been doing was lying there and taking it, but you knew he wasn’t done with you yet.  But, if the way his thrusts were becoming more desperate and erratic were anything to go by, he might be done with you soon.

"I'm going to come inside you," he groaned against your ear.  You were, like, 99.9% sure that if you told him not to, he would pull out, but the way that he phrased it, like a demand, like you didn't have a choice and he would do it either way… it had an effect on you, one he noticed when your channel tightened around him instantly.  "Oh, you like that idea, hm?  You want to be full of my come?  Your sweet little cunt is already trying to milk every drop from me."

"Yes," you breathed, "fuck, I want your come in me, please!"

He sped up quite a bit then, each slam of his hips into yours making you choke on a whine, your arms weakly clinging onto him for dear life.

You could feel his cock swelling, flexing, pushing your body to its limits as he moaned lowly through his teeth, streams of come making you feel warm and full.

He didn't stop until every drop was in you, thrusting in time with each pump of his release until he slowed to a stop.

Strands of hair fell into his face as he hung his head, panting hard and fast.  You melted back onto the desk, realizing this might be the first time in a solid half hour your back wasn’t arched.

It was a bit of a struggle to keep your eyes open against the heavy fog of afterglow that filled your mind; you couldn’t remember the last time you felt so… satiated.  As a college student, you were always thinking about the next assignment, mentally re-evaluating your calendar, or preparing for something— and usually all on less than six hours of sleep.

But now your mind was as close to a blank slate as it had been in at least a decade.  Even though you probably should’ve been, you weren’t even thinking about the potential consequences of this, the implications, the risks.  No, you were just staring up at him, thinking about kissing him again.

He would have to lean down for that, though; there was no way you were going to sit up now.

You hadn't even noticed that you had closed your eyes, almost falling asleep right there on his desk, until you felt his hand cradle your face softly, a calloused thumb rubbing over your cheek.

In unison, the both of you sighed deeply.

As much as it felt like a real effort, you blinked open your eyes and looked up at him, watching him comb his fingers through his hair.  It only messed up the style even further yet he looked better than ever.

He slowly moved his hips back, leaving you annoyingly empty, and readjusted himself until he almost looked put together again… but his collar was still uneven and his lips still looked bitten and there was still that precious pinkish hue on his cheeks.  If anyone else saw him in this state, they’d either know what happened between you two or think he’d just run across campus or something.

If anyone else saw him in this state, you’d be a little jealous, to be totally honest.

You got back to work trying to right your appearance as well, though you knew the best you could hope for was only mildly presentable; he looked at you like you’d never looked better, though.

“Well, this was fun,” you chuckled breathlessly, “but it’s getting pretty late and I have an eight a.m. tomorrow…”

“Yeah, so do I,” he nodded, glancing away.  

You picked up your bag from where you’d dropped it by the door, lifting the strap over your shoulder and starting to turn to leave.

"I… I should walk you back to your dorm," he announced, making you smile.

"That's sweet, but save your chivalry.  I can take care of myself just fine."

"But—"

"I think it's safer if we're not seen together walking together by my dorm," you interjected, "especially when I'm walking a little funny…"

"I hope I didn't hurt you," he winced sympathetically.

"No, trust me, that was… exactly what I needed," you breathed.  He smiled a little, looking down at the floor.

"Then I'll see you in class," he nodded, watching you closely as you stepped back and picked up your bag, starting to leave his office with one last small wave goodbye.  “Wait, wait!” he whispered harshly just before you could let go of his door, and you giggled as he leaned out into the hall and glanced around to make sure no one was nearby.  

When he confirmed the coast was clear, he smiled and grabbed your face with one hand, pulling you into a sudden kiss.  And you smiled too— you couldn’t help it— as you kissed him back, almost ready for him to drag you back into that office and start this all over again.  He did let you go, though, with one more whispered ‘goodnight’ and a look that made your heart do little somersaults.

As you finally did make your way back to your dorm, you tried to figure out if that was a goodbye kiss or a ‘see you soon’ kiss.  Or maybe a ‘thanks for the one-time office quickie’ kiss?  But you didn’t know enough about this sort of thing to know if that was even an option.

All you did know was that you really hoped it wasn’t the last kiss you’d have with him.

Can I speak to you in my office today after class?  Thank you.

-Z

You may ask yourself: can one simple email, in only thirteen words, strike fear into the hearts of those who read it?  And the answer is yes, assuming that email is from Professor Helmut Zemo and read by the lovestruck student who slept with him two days ago and hasn't stopped thinking about it since.

Only one of a few things could happen in his office after class, and there was a massive gap between the best and worst case scenarios.  You dressed for the best but prepared yourself psychologically for the worst.

You caught him staring as you walked past the teaching podium to your seat in the front; you just hoped nobody else caught him.  And if you'd thought paying attention in class was tough before, boy oh boy was it a challenge now.  The nerves of what he wanted to discuss with you were bad enough alone, but that combined with memories from two days earlier randomly assaulting your psyche was just overwhelming.

When he pointed at the map with two fingers, you could remember exactly how those fingers had felt inside you, twisting and curling and getting you ready for his cock.

When he spoke, you could hear the difference in his voice compared to how he groaned out his praises while he was fucking you within a damn inch of your life.

And every once in a while, when he couldn’t help but glance at you for a moment, his gaze burned right through you; you were helpless to those brown eyes, completely paralyzed by them, and it must’ve been hours of that before class finally ended.

For the first time, you were the first person out the door when he released the class.  As much as it was going to be a little bit weird to beat him to his office, it was certainly better than any of your other options.  There was a chair in the hall beside the door, and you took a seat and pretended to read a book just to look busy (there was no way you could actually turn symbols on a page into readable language right now, not when you knew he’d be here any minute to talk about… something).

Your peripheral caught him coming down the hall, but you pretended to be deeply immersed in your book until he was right beside you, unlocking his door and opening it for you and himself.  Tucking your book away and following him inside, you found him already staring at you, expression completely unreadable.  Your gut sank in anticipation of whatever conversation this was going to become, and a moment passed in heavy silence.

"Hi," you greeted plainly, letting out a quick breath.

"Hi," he returned.  "Close the door behind you."

You nodded and did as you were told, quietly pushing the wood back until the door latched before approaching where he had come to stand beside his desk.  Though you didn't originally intend to, you found yourself standing a bit too close.

"I'm not quite sure where to start," he admitted, chuckling breathlessly as he reached up to rub the back of his neck.  He looked cute flustered, which was a shame because his tone seemed to imply you needed to not be thinking about how cute he was.  “Listen, you should know that what happened before… it was a mistake,” he sighed.  “It can’t happen again.”

“Do you regret it?” you asked point-blank.

“It can’t happen again,” he repeated in lieu of a real answer, and you looked closely at his face; you didn’t find as much confidence there as you were looking for, it wasn’t the face of a man who knew he was making the right choice.  You certainly didn’t think he was making the right choice.

“Why did you want to have this conversation alone in your office, then?” you challenged.

He cleared his throat slightly.  “So no one would hear us.”

“Hear us talk?” you pressed.  “Is that all?”

“That’s… definitely the plan,” he nodded, swallowing dryly.  "Like I said, it was a mistake— my fault, not yours.  And I just hope we can put it behind us respectfully."

“All the best mistakes are made at least twice,” you whispered, reaching up to trail your finger down his lapel.  “Don’t you think?”

“Don’t do that,” he requested tensely.

"Do what?"

"That," he hissed.  "Stop being… irresistible," he clarified, eyes darting from your lips to your finger to your eyes and back again.  "A man can only take so much.  I'm trying to do right by you."

"You already did when you fucked me that good," you smirked.  "Nothing else could be as right as that."

Your fingers were just barely brushing over his belt when he grabbed you by the wrist.  Jaw tight and eyes solemn, he shook his head.

You wrenched out of his grasp with a nod.  It was worth a shot, but you didn't want to be that person who couldn't take no for an answer— so, you gave him a little smile and readjusted the strap of your bag.  “Well, if it was just the once, then you should know that I’m still glad it happened.  Even if it shouldn’t have.”

He nodded, strategically not speaking— but you knew he would agree, if he could.

“And if it’s any consolation to you now, you were the best I ever had.”

You reached for the doorknob, just starting to turn it and open your way out when he suddenly slammed it shut with a hand right above your head, making you gasp and spin around to look up at his dark gaze.

“Professor…” you whispered.

“The best you ever had?” he repeated, grinning proudly when you nodded.  “Oh, sweetheart, I wasn’t even trying.”  He leaned down to brush his lips against your ear as he whispered to you: “You don’t even know yet how good I can make you feel.”

A shiver ran up your spine; your tongue darted out to lick your lips.  “Are you going to get on with it and show me?”

He didn’t even let you step away from the door, dropping to his knees right there and pushing up your skirt to kiss and bite your thighs.  “Only if you ask very nicely,” he taunted with a brow raised in challenge.

“Please,” you breathed, “fuck, please, want you to taste me.”

His hands slid up your legs, grabbing the hem of your panties before sliding back down.

It wasn’t like you’d never been eaten out before, but this still felt like a first considering your skirt was pushed up to your waist, your panties were pulled down to your ankles, and even just one slow lick over your folds made it obvious he knew exactly what he was doing.

“F-fuck,” you choked, reaching down to weave your fingers into his hair.  He grinned against your skin and kept going, exploring you carefully before finally sucking on your swollen clit.  Your knees threatened to buckle, your head fell back against the door so hard it almost hurt, but all you could really feel was his mouth on you, moving like he knew your body better than you did.

So it was no wonder, then, that you already began to spiral towards your release, legs shaking around his head as he devoured you mercilessly.

"Oh my god, I—" you tried to warn him, but he already knew, and he pulled back to wipe his mouth with his sleeve and stand up.  He grabbed your jaw and kissed you roughly, stopping to whisper to you so close that his lips brushed against yours.

"I'm sorry, draga, but you've spoiled me… now that I've felt you come around my cock, I can't imagine making you come any other way.  I need to feel your cunt grip me so fucking tight… it's all I've been thinking about since I last saw you," he admitted.

"I thought about it, too," you sighed.  "I was up all night trying to make myself come as good as you did but I couldn't… your come was still leaking out of me."

He growled and leaned in to nip at your ear.  "Oh, poor thing… I can imagine it so easily, you laying in your bed with your legs spread, fingers getting exhausted from playing with your little pussy too much, these perfect lips whining for me because you need me to take care of you."

"H-Helmut, please," you whimpered.  

"Yeah, something like that," he smirked.

"I can't wait any more, just fuck me.  Need you inside me," you breathed.

"Then bend over my desk."

{part 2}

[worminstuff]

dreamsmp mcmh

dreamsmp members as teachers au: blrub edition!

mcmh = Minecraft middle and high school

no warnings:)

wordcount: 3.9k

I will also definitely take requests from now on with this teacher au! Weather it be reader x teacher bla bla or whichever teacher and whatever prompt you think of! Just plop em in my inbox and I’ll check em out! I may not get to all of them or even see them all but I’ll try!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Mr.Wastaken - math

“The quadratic equation isn't useless, you just don't understand it. Here,” the students glared at the diss from their teacher. Dream turned his back to them as he attempted to draw another diagram on the board.

He took a quick glance behind him at all the kids, he was only met with empty stares.

“Oh come on- guys! Really?” he laughed slightly, a wheeze crawling up his throat. They looked angry at him. “You all look like kicked puppies.”

One of the boys in the back kicked his friend. “Jared!” said friend threw his pencil at him.

“Okay well obviously we seem to be done with math today..” Dream sighed and shook his head slightly as everyone watched the fiasco in the back. He’ll step in. In a minute.

“If you throw the pencil by holding it by one end not in the middle, it'll spin more.” he called to the boys in the back. 

Mr.Blade - english

“Did anyone have any trouble or anything with the paired text writing last night?” his arms were folded on his chest, not in an angry or off putting way, his hands were just cold.

“Yeah actually I-” one student started,

“The rubric is the link under the one for the document template.” he  prematurely answered, a soft grin gracing his features.

“How did you?..” the student tilted their head in confusion. 

“You ask the same question every time.” Mr.Blade shrugged and everyone laughed softly.

Techno loved the little community that was his class, he's had them for about 3 months now so he's gotten to know them really well. This little bunch was incredibly creative and he really enjoys reading their assignments. 

Mr.Blade sat down on the edge of his desk and slid his still cold hands into his pocket, scanning the small group of kids in front of him.

“Is anyone having any trouble?” He tried to seem nice as he asked because he didn't want to come off as pushy. There was a chorus of yes’ and techno grinned.

“Well as you all know, as Sun Tzu once said-”

Before he could finish his sentence he was cut off by a series of groans and sighs as everyone rolled their eyes.

Techno smiled to himself. He really did love his job.

Mr.Jacobs - history

“Amy!” Karl excitedly grinned and dapped up a small girl walking into his class, “Was that extra credit assignment i sent pretty easy or was it too hard? I can switch it up if you don't like it.”

Amy told him it was fairly easy and she would be done with it very soon.

“No rush ames!” he said as he craned his neck a bit to look at her as she sat in her chair.

He was just about to step into his classroom as the bell rang, but a certain hand tugged on his forearm.

“Hey!- oh hi nick.” Karl's smile grew. Sapnap smiled but shook his head softly, “I've got a class this period but I wanted to come say hi first.”

Karl giggled, “simp!” he whispered before turning to quickly walk into his class.

Everyone was excitedly sitting in their chairs, talking about due assignments and anything else they could think of.

“Good morning everyone! Hello, hello, hello i hope your other teachers have treated you well this morning and if they haven't then that's okay cause you're here now.” he pointed finger guns at the bunch of them and then grabbed the remote to turn on the smart board.

Mr.Quack/Mr.Q - Spanish 

“Hola mi niños!” Quackity smiled widely at the bunch of  kids sitting in front of him, there was a chorus of answers from the excited kids. Many of them were in the “wrong seats” as to sit with friends because today, today was kahoot day.

Every Friday was kahoot day where they always do some type of kahoot whether it be related to the lesson or not and everyone was always excited.

Especially kids who have PE before this class, the coach's competitiveness really sticks.

No one hypes these kids up more than Mr.Quack, which causes for the occasional noise complaint.

“Aye! Mr español! Keep it down here you spanish gremlins.” Mr.Dude pressed his head through the doorway scolding the class, the students erupted into a large fit of laughter only causing their volume to rise.

“You can’t put a volume warning on learning Sam! We're popping off!” Quackity yelled over the laughter of his students.

Mrs.Nihachu - art

“Oh my goodness! This is beautiful!” Mrs.Nihachu flashed a sweet smile to the student in front of her. She was handed a small doodle of a flower and she was already pinning it on the board beside her desk.

Her class was currently working on their test grade assignments, some making sculptures with cardboard or paper mache, some making clay creations, others painting. It was a big jumble of chaotic creativeness and nikki was enjoying it thoroughly.

Her class was often chaotic in this way, but during lunch time it was much calmer. There was a small group of students that would eat in her room to escape the crazy chaos of the lunchroom, and she enjoyed it as much as them.

She loved to listen in on the current drama and give advice where she could, they were her little buddies and she adored them.

Coach Sapnap & Coach Punz - PE

The sound of a whistle was no stranger to this classroom, or rather, this gymnasium. There was only one whistle, and two teachers. Both coaches made it ritual that whoever got there first would get it for the day.

Today, Coach Sapnap happened to get the whistle first.

“Okay kiddos-” coach Punz was cut off by the blaring sound of the whistle beside him.

“Airtight Kiddos!” Coach Sapnap clapped happily as all the students turned their attention towards the two Coaches. “It's kickball day,” he grinned deviously as the students cheered.

Both of them directed the class to one end of the gym to split them into teams.

“Okay so we’ll pick two team captains, and then they'll go back and forth picking their team and then once everyone's picked, the team captains can rock paper scissors to pick which one of us you want on your team.” Punz explained and everyone nodded.

sapnap picked one of the smaller girls in the class as one captain, and another kid standing near her as the other. Both of the kids picked through the class until it was separated into two groups.

“Okay! Ready?” they both nodded. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” the girl had picked rock, and the other kid picked scissors. Immediately the victor pointed to Punz with a small smile.

Punz’s arms shot up in the air “Aye! That's right! Gimme five!” he high fived her small hand.

sapnap smiled and shook his head, “no this works out perfect because i know you guys were hoping for me on your team, right?” sapnap joked to his team, one boy jokingly piped up,

“well..Coach punz is ideal but, you're okay too.” the whole class erupted into laughter until Sapnap blew his whistle ushering them to start the game already.

Mr.Notfound - engineering 

“Mr.Notfound where are the extension cords for the soddering table?” George currently had his freshman period and they were working on a lightboard project. Today's task was soldering the leds to the correct wires and such on the back of the projects.

“Em..they should be there..are they just not? Or are they on top of it and you just didn't look?” he quirked a brow at the freshman.

“No, it's just not there..” they shrugged. 

George nodded, “alright, do you want to go ask Mr.Wastaken if he's got a spare or would you rather me go instead?” George asked with a small smile. He was quite stonic before so he was afraid the kid thought he was mad at them. The freshman said they would and scurried off.

George decided he wanted to walk around the class and see how everyone was faring with their projects and if there was anything else they couldn't find. 

He walked around all the desks and lab tables and stopped at a small group of friends all working separately but sitting together.

“How's it going over here?” He held a very small smile. The group replied positively and each showed their projects to which he praised. They were all really really cool already, and he couldn't wait to show Dream some of his favorites after they were turned in to be graded.

Mr.Fundy - biology

“Mr.Fundy, your coat is very...bright.” A student named Owen, was referring to his very colorful lab coat. He sounded as if he was trying to compliment him, but he really couldn’t just LIE to his teacher.

Fundy narrowed his eyes at Owen. Owens desk was directly in front of the lab table that was his desk, in the front of the room. Fundy was stood behind it.

Fundy placed his hands on the table and leaned forward, “are you making fun of me?”

“He SO is.” The girl next to Owen said with a grin.

“Hey! I wasn’t! It’s just very...different.” Owen defended.

Fundy pointed an accusing finger, “there’s that backhanded tone again!” He ended it with a giddy laugh.

The rest of the class joined in until, “alright alright! I get it! It’s not super pretty but! It’s a great Segway into today’s lab,”

The rest of the class groaned loudly, smiles showing through.

Fundy snorted a laugh and shook his head, pulling some beakers from the drawers in the table.

Electives:

Teacher Eret - sociology

“So she told you you weren’t invited? After all that?!” Eret was currently chit chatting with his very small third period clas that consisted of a small group of kids that happened to be friends.

“Right teacher eret! I was like, woah, that’s so honked up! So we all decided we’re not going.” A girl named Jane said.

“Well that’s very sweet of you, I would’ve done the same.” Eret patted the first girls head endearingly as he walked back to his desk to sit in his desk chair. The girls continued their small conversation, including teacher eret when they wanted input.

Eret was heavily fond of classes like this where they were all very close already and he found it easy to bond with them. It just happened that these girls did there work on time so they had plenty of time to chat with him and eachother. 

His favorite thing was when they’d give him fashion advice, because he always took them up on it. It paid off too, he’s a very dashing dude because of it!

Mr. Dude - comp science

Sam was sat at his desk typing away as the class was doing a quiet activity. They were playing around with coding websites that are essentially games. The class was fairly small, so he’d grown quite a bond with his little dudes over the past couple months.

“How are all you guys other classes going?” He asked, turning his chair to face them.

“Mr.Notfound is honestly about to give me a headache.” One of the girls sat towards the window said, her friend beside her laughed and nodded.

Sam laughed softly, “how come?”

“His room is always a mess! I can never find the correct pieces for anything. You have to look where you wouldn’t think it would ever be and then that’s where it always is!”

A few other kids laughed and agreed as they had him aswell.

“Not to mention he gets grouchy sometimes when we ask him to much.” One boy poked in.

“He does? That’s not to nice. I’ll poke him about it.” Sam said to his kiddos with a soft smile, “how we feeling about a snack break?”

All the kids quickly agreed and he pulled a box out from under his desk with various snacks and drinks and placed it on the floor in the front of the room.

“Have at it!” He made his way back to his desk as there were various wrapper sounds and “thanks Mr.Dude”’s

Mr.Soot - drama

“Okay let me get this straight- you did the script assignment but you didn’t study the lines?” Mr.Soots eyes were narrowed.

“Well no i used the script to help but I didn’t memorize it.” The girl in front of him said, her name is gene.

“Hm. Alright, you can just read off it then I suppose, it better not render your performance though, geney!” He smiled as he nudged her towards the stage. 

The students were doing this group project where they made their own story’s and scrips and they got to perform them for fun, not for a grade. They had a free day so they decided it would be fun to do it today, and Wilbur was the most exciting out of all of them.

He watched each one, giving copious amounts of praise and encouragement and he really enjoyed it. The bell rang faster than they’d all expected since they were having so much fun, and he waved them off as they went on to their next class.

Wilbur sighed to himself, a content smile on his face as he sat in the front row of the auditorium. 

“What’s with the sigh?” A voice started him slightly as it broke the silence of the large room.

“Jesus phil, a bit of a warning, yeah?” He pressed a hand to his chest.

“Sorry, should’ve announced myself. My bad, mate.” Phil walked up the small steps of the stage and sat on the top few, facing wilbur.

“You looked awfully content, a good class?” Phil asked.

“Oh definitely. Love that bunch to bits. They’re so smart and they’ve got so much passion for theater but they’re so carefree and they have so much fun. I just love to be a part of it. Makes my job a whole lot more fun.” Wilbur spoke with a proud grin. It was true, he really did adore his students and he was beyond proud of them.

“I’m glad!” Phil stood, “keep up the good work, kid.” He clapped him on the shoulder as Wilbur nodded.

Mr.Schlatt - political science

“No you said it was before the time you had it, therefore your argument is invalid cause how can you claim you had it during that time if the entire argument is based around you not having it?”

Schlatt stared at the student in front of him. He was a tad speechless, which was impressive in itself.

They were talking about a stupid debate thing shlatt had made up, but he made it with a loophole, wondering if they’d actually catch it. He was very surprised one of the students actually did.

“You’re correct actually. Good job, ren.” His brows were raised as he tried to hide his proud grin. He didn’t want them to know how genuinely excited he was that they figured it out.

“That’s stupid.” Ren said, with a blank stare.

“Aye!-“ Schlatt was about to go off a tad when the door opened and Mr.Q stood in the doorway.

“Am I interrupting a yelling session?” He asked

“Yes.” Both Ren and Schlatt answered at the same time.

Mr.Halo - self defense

Mr.Halos class was one of the chilliest, like Erets and Sams, there wasn’t a whole lot of work getting done during class since they would just talk about various things and have snacks.

Today Bad taught them about various hotlines they may need to know about for different situations they’d find themselves in.

“Do they just make hotlines for everything these days Mr.Halo?” One kid asked.

“Well sometimes. Not for everything though, but definitely for a lot of things.” He responded.

He was currently sat cris cross on the rug in the front of his room, munching on a orange as the rest of the class was also having snacks. 

He loved classes like this because these were times when his job didn’t feel like work, he loved that he was helping make sure these kids could be educated enough to protect themselves when he couldn’t. He worried about them, but he felt happy when he could see them safe and sound, and not hungry, like they were at the moment. He cherished these simple moments the most.

Even more than the times he’s watched them scrimmage some defense tactics and evidently fall on their butts in some instances. 

Mr.Skeppy - money management

“Mr Skeppy, I'm bored.” 

“Okay.” Skeppy replied as he stared at his computer screen, his head rested in his hand.

The student scowled slightly, others giggled to themselves.

“Mr.Skeppyyyy” the kid groaned, the kids around him laughing. 

“Fine, if i put up a kahoot will you all leave me alone?” He smiled softly, sending the kid a side eye.

The class agreed loudly and he pulled up a kahoot about vines.

“Whoever gets first place gets 6 bucks.” Skeppy said with a grin as he leaned back in his chair.

“Isn’t that counter productive to the lesson we’re learning about waisting money on stupid things?” One girl said.

“Why six?!” Another student suddenly said, the rest of the class flowing into laughter.

Mr.H - hospitality

“Wait so your other teachers didn’t give you guys valentines?” Mr.H asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the kids in front of him.

They all shook their heads, “Mr.Jacobs and Mrs.Nihachu did. But that’s it.” One boy said as he shrugged.

“Mr.Wastaken didn’t even know it was valentines until we mentioned it, poor Mr.Notfound.” One girl said back, her eyes trailing of to the floor as she raised her brows. 

Mr.H laughed loudly, he loved how his kiddos were so comfortable in his class to diss their own teachers.

“Well not here! Today you all have a valentine and that valentine is me.” He said as he placed little bags full of different candies on each of their desks. He put them together all by himself with little hand written letters. It was adorable.

They all excitedly opened the little presents and read the notes together, all of them giving Mr.H a hug. 

It was a very adorable day in the H classroom.

Mr.Frost - horticulture

“Mr.Frost! Can we go outside for class today?” The students were filing in for class since the bell just rang.

“Sure! How about..how about we go bug hunting?” He replied.

The students all agreed very excitedly. Once the bell rang for the start of the period they began doing their begging of class rituals which included watering a bunch of different plants and taking care of the compost bin. Then once that was all done everyone got some jars and set out to go outside and see what they could find.

Everyone ran around trying to find different things and yelling out when they did find things.

“Mr.Frost! I found a caterpillar!” A boy named Lennon ran up to Ant.

“Really?! Show!” Ant watched happily as the boy showed his new caterpillar friend.

They discussed what type of caterpillar it may be before Lennon ran back off to his friends. 

Ant loved classes like this where he got to be outside in the sun and watch all his students learn hands on in a super fun (and adorable) way. It was one of his all time favorite things.

Staff:

Mr.Minecraft - principal

“but it’s so annoying! Why can’t I just leave when I gotta go, why should I ask to take a piss!” 

Phil stared at the boy in front of him, a blond one by the name of Tommy. This kid frequented his office way to often.

“I don’t know Mr.Innit but you’ve got to listen to your teachers, it'll get you out of my office and I think that’s something we both want.” Mr.Minecraft glared slightly.

“Oh come on! You don’t like hanging with me Mr.Minecraft?!” Tommy said with a grin.

“No, Tommy we’re not ‘hanging out’ you’re in trouble.”

“Well when you put it that way it seems bad-“ Phil cut tommy off,

“It is bad Tommy!” He scoffed, holding in a laugh.

Mrs.Puffy - councilor 

Mrs.Puffy was a hugger, a very big hugger. So whenever kids came in crying over just anything, hugs were a must. Often students would visit when they only needed a hug! Sometimes that was her favorite thing.

“He said there was no-“ the small girl heaved for air a tad before continuing, “l-late credit, but but I didn’t have time and I- I need to get the grade and I just-“

“Hey, hey, it’s alright! Mr.Blade seems scary but I bet if he knew you were this stressed he would be very happy to help you out! He’s a very nice man.” Mrs puffy wad currently trying to calm this girl out of a the panic attack she was seemingly having.  

“R-really?” She asked Mrs.Puffy

“Of course! I actually think he’s got a free period right now, would you like to talk to him now? I can have him come here so I’ll be here to and it’ll be easy peasey lemon squeezey!” Puffy said with a big smile.

The girls nodded softly with a sniffle and puffy brought her in for a hug.

She would always have the kids backs, no matter what. Even if that meant talking to the big scary Mr.Blade, who was more likely afraid of her really.

Teacher Callahan - substitute

“Callahan!” Mr.Wastaken yelled, he was laughing but he was getting slightly frustrated.

Callahan apparently didn’t have a class this period, so he went to Mr.Wastakens class as he usually does to annoy him.

Callahan has been taking the pens for the whiteboard dream was trying to use and passing it around to students to pass to each other . It was very funny.

Callahan didn’t always pick this class because of Dream, he also picked it because there was a fellow mute in this period. Her name was alise, and she used ASL alot, which made Callahan actually learn a bit so he could talk to her! 

Dream actually thought it was really cute, so he tried to get Callahan to teach him some as well, so he could talk to alise the way she communicated. This backfired terribly after dream learned that thank you, and fuck you, we’re actually very similar signs. Callahan had taught him the latter. Alise never corrected him, she only made a silly face and huffed out a small laugh. Dream apologized a lot once he learned. Callahan thought it was hilarious though, so often him and alise sign said sign to dream just to tease him.

Another thing Callahan did often was stand behind dream, and mock him. Dream would walk farther from the board as he would go on and on talking with his hands and such. Callahan would make his way behind him and pretend to sit on the edge of his desk.

So every time dream would turn around wondering why all the kids were laughing at him, he would see a normal looking Callahan who would only shrug. This always made the kids laugh even more. No one would rat him out though, it was teacher Callahan!

[celepeace]

A monster-taming game recommendation list for fans of Pokemon

Whether you're a pokemon fanatic obsessed with all things pokemon past and present, or a veteran fan disillusioned with GameFreak's recent adoption of monetary philosophies and strategies reminiscent of other major game publishers, or looking for a monster-taming fix as you await new Pokemon content...

I'm compiling here a post of little-known games in the genre that Pokemon fans are likely to enjoy!

Under readmore cause long, but some of these games really don’t get the attention they deserve, so if you have the time, please read!

(I am also likely to keep updating and editing this post)

First up is Temtem!

Temtem is a game made by and for Pokemon fans, from the spanish indie developer Crema. Temtem is currently in early access on Steam and PS5, and is likely to remain in early access until sometime late next year. Full launch will include a Nintendo Switch release, too. Despite this, it has plenty of content to explore before full release. The developers are active, release new content on a semi-regular basis, and are responsive to the community as a whole and individuals if you happen to come across a bug you want to report.

Temtem boasts a wide variety of monsters to collect and train. It takes place in the Airborne Archipelago, a system of floating islands that orbit their star, the Pansun. The monsters inhabiting the archipelago are called Temtem, or tem(s), for short.

As far as game mechanics go, it has many similarities to Pokemon, but also many important distinctions. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that the element of chance has been removed from battle entirely. Moves cannot miss, have the same power constantly, and status afflictions have an obviously displayed countdown to when they will wear off (for instance, sleep lasts as long as it says it will last. Not 2-4 turns). PP does not exist, either. Your tems can battle for as long as their HP holds out. In place of PP, a new system called Stamina exists. Stamina is an individual stat, like HP and Attack. Each move costs a certain amount of stamina. If you go over the amount of stamina your tem has, the deficit is detracted from your health instead, and that tem cannot move next turn. Stamina passively regenerates a certain amount each turn, and items and moves exist that can heal stamina. All battles are also double-battles, you and your opponent will typically have two tems on the field at a time. This is just a few of the differences Temtem has from Pokemon, but they're some of the biggest ones.

Temtem is also a massively multiplayer game. You complete the storyline independently (or with a friend through co-op!), but in the overworld you can see other, real players moving around and interacting with the world. There is also public and area-specific chat you can talk to other players through. Despite this, all multiplayer functions are (currently) completely optional. You do not need to interact with others to complete the game.

Overall, Temtem is suitable for the Pokemon fan who is looking for a more challenging experience. Temtem is not a walk in the park you can blaze through with a single super-strong monster. For one, individual tem strength is more well-balanced than it is in Pokemon. There are very few (if any!) completely useless tems. Even some unevolved tems have their niche in the competitive scene! Aside from that, enemy tamers are scaled quite high, and you typically cannot beat them just from the exp you get from other enemy tamers. You have to do some wild-encounter grinding if you want to progress.

Temtem is a very fun game and I've already gotten over 100 hours out of it, despite only 3/5-ish of the planned content being released!

However, I do feel obligated to warn any prospective players of one thing: the current endgame is quite inaccessible. After you complete what is currently implemented of the main storyline, there is still quite a lot left to explore and do, but much of it is locked behind putting a lot of hours into the game. You kind of have to get perfect temtem to do the current PVE (and this is also somewhat true for the PVP too). By perfect I mean you have to breed a good tem and then train it to get the preferable EVs (called TVs in temtem). This takes... well, for a whole team... tens of hours. Of boring grinding. Some people enjoy it! But I don't. Regardless, the game was still worth buying because the non-endgame content is expansive and fun.

So overall, pros & cons:

Pros

Battle system is more friendly towards a competitive scene

Cute monsters

Lots of gay characters, also you can choose pronouns (including they/them) independently from body type and voice

Less difference between the objectively bad tems and good tems than there is in Pokemon

Lots of stuff to do even in early access

Most conversations with dialog choices have the option to be a complete ass for no reason other than it’s fun

Having less type variety in your team is less punishing than in Pokemon due to the synergy system and types overall having less weaknesses and resistances

At least one major character is nonbinary

Cons

Falls prey to the issue of MMOs having in-game economies that are only accessible to diehard no-life players

Related to the above point, cosmetics are prohibitively expensive

Endgame CURRENTLY is inaccessible to most players unless you buy good monsters from other players or spend tens of hours making your own. However I must add that the grind is great if you like that kind of thing and is quite easy and painless to do while watching a show or something.

Here is their Steam page and here is their official website.

Next is Monster Hunter: Stories!

This is a spinoff game of the Monster Hunter franchise released for the 3DS in 2018. If you're anything like me, and you've played the core Monster Hunter games, you've often thought "Man, I wish I could befriend and ride these cool dragon creatures instead of killing or maiming them!"

Well now you can! In Stories, as I will be calling it, you play as a rider rather than a hunter. Riders steal monster eggs from wild nests to raise them among humans as companions and guardians. And yes, egg stealing is a whole mechanic in of itself in this game.

This game works pretty differently from most monster-collecting games. You do battle (usually) against one or two wild monsters using your own, except you fight alongside your monsters too. With swords and stuff. There's armor and weapons you can smelt to make yourself stronger. Type match-ups also kind of don't exist in this game? Except they do? But not in a way you'd expect?

The vast majority of attacking moves you and your monster use fall into categories reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors. Moves can be categorized as power, speed, or technical. Speed beats power, technical beats speed, and power beats technical. The matchup of your move vs your opponent's determines how a turn will go down. If one move beats the other in matchup, then the winner's move will get to go and the loser doesn't get to do anything. If you tie, you both get hit, but for reduced damage. There's also abilities and basic attacks, with abilities basically being the same as pokemon moves, and basic attacks just being "I hit you for normal damage within this category". Also, you don't control what your monster does all the time in battle. You can tell it to use abilities, but what kind basic attacks it carries out is determined by its species' preference. Velicidrome, for instance, prefers speed attacks, but Yian Garuga prefers technical. Stamina also exists in this game in a very similar manner to Temtem.

Overall this game carries over a lot of mechanics Monster Hunter fans will find familiar (how items and statuses work for instance). You don't have to have played a core Monster Hunter game to enjoy Stories though! It's fine and is easy to understand as a stand-alone.

The story has some likable characters and is rather long (it was actually adapted into an anime!), for those of you who enjoy a good story.

I'd really recommend this one especially. If it sounds fun to you and you can drop $30, just do it. I bought it on a whim and I got a few weeks' worth of playing almost nonstop out of it, and I didn't even get to do everything! (I got distracted by Hades, oops)

Stories is also getting a sequel later next year on the nintendo switch! How exciting!

And yes, you do ride the monsters.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Large variety of cool monsters to befriend and raise

Pretty lengthy story

Every tamable monster is also rideable

Deceptively simple combat mechanics, easy to be okay at, hard to master

Incorporates some mechanics from early turn-based party rpgs like Final Fantasy for a nice twist on the monster collecting genre

Cons

Many monsters are objectively outclassed by other ones, making what can be in an actually good team more limited than you’d expect

3DS graphics inherently means the game looks like it was made 7 years before its time

Here is the Monster Hunter Stories official 3DS product page.

And here is Monster Sanctuary!

Monster sanctuary is a game that just had its 1.0 launch- meaning it was in early access and no longer is! Although the devs say they still plan to implement a few more things into the game in future updates. It is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Monster sanctuary is a metroidvania twist on the typical monster collecting game, meaning it is also a sidescrolling platformer in which you use abilities you gain throughout the game to explore the world around you. The abilities in this case are the monsters you get! Every monster has an ability that helps you traverse the sanctuary.

Speaking of the sanctuary, the game is set in one. The monster sanctuary is a magically shielded area, cut off from the rest of the world, created by an order of monster keepers, people who befriend and protect the mystical monsters inhabiting the world. Humankind encroached too far on the natural habitat of monsters and were hostile to the native wildlife, so the keepers created an area of varied environments to safely protect and preserve the remaining monsters of the world.

Unlike many other monster collecting games, this game only has 5 types: fire, water, earth, air, and neutral. However, the types themselves do not possess resistances and weaknesses. Instead, each monster has its own assigned weaknesses and resistances. And yes, this can include things like debuffs, physical vs special attacks, and the typical elemental types.

All battles are also 3 vs 3! And unlike in pokemon, where you can only hit the enemies nearest, all monsters have the ability to hit any opponent they want. Turns also work a little differently in that speed doesn't exist, you just use 1 move per monster in your turn and then it goes to your opponent's turn. Your monsters hit in whatever order you want them to.

There is also a quite important combo system in this game, where every hit builds a damage multiplier for the next. Moves often hit multiple times per turn. Healing and buffing actions also build this combo counter. So what monsters you have move in what order really counts!

But the main mechanical difference between this and other games in the genre is how it handles levels and skills. Instead of learning a set move at a certain level, this game incorporates a skill tree, and you get to allocate points into different skills as you grow stronger. And jeez, these skill trees are really extensive. Monster sanctuary is a theorycrafter's dream. Each monster has a unique, specially tailored skill tree, making every monster truly able to have its own niche. You can make use of whatever monster you want if you just put thought into it!

And like Temtem, this game is not made to be beatable by children. I'm sure a child could beat it, but it's not made to be inherently child-friendly like pokemon. It's honestly quite difficult.

On top of that, you are actively encouraged to not just be scraping by each battle. Your performance in battle is rated by an automated system that scores your usage of various mechanics like buffs and debuffs applied, type matchups, and effective usage of combos. The rating system directly influences the rewards you get from each battle, including your likelihood of obtaining an egg from one of the wild monsters you battled (no, you don't catch wild monsters in this game, you get eggs and hatch them). If you're not paying attention to how the game works and making good, effective use of your monsters, you'll have a hard time expanding your team!

The music is also really good, it's made by nature to be able to play over and over and not get old as you explore each area, and the composer(s) really did a good job with this. Some area songs, namely the beach one, I especially enjoy, so much so I've actually played it in the background while I do work.

This is a game I would really recommend. If I made it sound intimidating, it is by no means unbeatable, you're just gonna have to put some thought into how you play. At no point did I actually feel frustrated or like something was impossible. When I hit a wall, I was able to recognize what I did wrong and how I could improve, or I could at least realize something wasn't working and experiment until I found a solution. It's challenging in a genuinely fun, rewarding way.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Extremely in-depth combat system

I genuinely don’t know if there’s an objectively bad monster in this game

Evolution exists but is completely optional, as even un-evolved monsters can be great

Entire soundtrack is full of bangers

Large and diverse variety of monsters to tame

Cons

Story is a little lackluster, but passable

That’s the only con I can think of

Here’s a link to their Steam page and the game’s website.

A kind of unorthodox recommendation is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series!

Likelihood is that everyone reading this has heard of this series already, but just in case anyone hasn't, I thought I'd include it! I would categorize this as a hybrid between the mystery dungeon genre and the monster collecting genre, because you recruit pokemon as you play and can use those pokemon on your team!

If you're unaware, the mystery dungeon genre is a small subset of dungeon crawler games where you progress through randomly generated levels called mystery dungeons. Throughout the dungeons, there will be enemies to fight and items to collect. The challenge of these games is mostly due to the stamina aspect of them, in that you have to manage your resources as you progress through the level. If you go all out in each fight, you will inevitably lose quite quickly. You have to learn to win against enemies while balancing your use of items and PP, so you have enough for the next fight, and the fight after that.

Pokemon mystery dungeon in particular is famous for its stories, the likes of which isn't seen often in Pokemon games. They are hugely story-driven games and are notable for the emotional depth they possess. It's pretty normal for the average player to cry at least once in the span of the game. There's lots of memes about that specifically.

This entry in my list is also unique for being a series. So, which one should you play first? It actually doesn't matter! Each storyline is entirely self-contained and requires no knowledge of prior entries. The quality of each entry varies and is a point of contention among fans. I say you should play all of them, because they all have their merits (though some more than others.... coughgatestoinfinitycough). They're mostly distinct for the generation of Pokemon they take place in. Rescue team is gen 3, Explorers is gen 4, Gates to Infinity is gen 5, Super Mystery Dungeon is gen 6, and Rescue Team DX is a remake of a gen 3 game but has the mechanics and moves of a gen 8 game.

My only real caution is that you play Explorers of Sky, not Darkness or Time. Sky is basically a combination of the two games with added items and content. It's an objective upgrade over its predecessors, and I honestly wouldn't waste money on the other two. 

I’m not going to include a pros and cons list for the PMD series because I’m incredibly biased and it wouldn’t be an honest review.

Next is Monster Crown!

Monster Crown is a monster collecting game that seems to take heavy inspiration from early-gen Pokemon games in particular. It is currently in early access on Steam and is not expensive. I learned about it through the developers of Monster Sanctuary, when they recommended it on their official Discord.

The game has lots of charm and interesting creature designs, and an entirely new take on monster typings as well. Instead of monster types being based off of natural elements like fire, water, electricity, etc. Monster Crown uses typings that seem to be influenced by the personalities of the monsters. For instance, Brutal, Relentless, and Will are all monster types!

It also captures a lot of the charm many of us look fondly upon in early GameBoy-era games. The music is mostly chiptune, with some more modern backing instruments at times, and the visuals are very reminiscent of games like Pokemon Crystal in particular. Monster Crown is definitely the monster collecting game for fans of the 8-bit era!

The thing that stands out the most to me about this game is the breeding system. Instead of one parent monster passing down its species to its offspring, you can create true hybrids in this game.

However, it is very early access. I would consider the current build as an alpha, not even a beta yet! So temper your expectations here. I have not encountered any major bugs, but visual glitches here and there are quite common. The game also could definitely use some polish and streamlining, and is quite limited in content currently. But the dev(s) seem quite active, so I fully expect these kinks to be worked out in time!

The reviews are rather positive, especially for being in early access. I'm all for expanding the monster collecting genre, so if you're looking to expand your horizons in that sense, I would recommend you at least give this one a look! I personally had quite a bit of fun playing Monster Crown and am going to keep an eye out for updates.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Charming artstyle, appealing monster designs

Faithful callback to a bygone era of gaming

Controls are fairly simple and easy to get the hang of (and are completely customizable!)

Cool breeding and hybridization mechanics

There's a starter for each monster type!

You can choose your pronouns, including they/them!

Cons

Inherent nature of being very early access means can be clunky and unpolished at times

Also not much content as of right now, see above

User interface could use some redesign in places

Here’s their Steam page and the official website!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie, Azure Dreams!

This is one I actually haven’t played, mostly because it’s really old and therefore only practically accessible if you play it on an emulator, unless you're one of those old game collectors. Azure Dreams was developed by Konami and released for the PS1 in 1997. My impression of it was that it either didn’t sell well or only took off in Japan, because it’s actually really hard to find any comprehensive information about it on the internet.

Azure Dreams is a monster collecting - dating sim hybrid. You can build relationships with various characters and can pursue some of them romantically, although that isn’t the main draw of the game. There is also a stripped-down version that exists for the GameBoy Color, which forgoes the dating portion of the game entirely.

Azure Dreams is kind of like a mystery dungeon game in that you progress through a randomly generated, ever-changing tower using the help of the familiars you have accrued throughout your adventure. Similarly to Monster Hunter: Stories, you yourself also take part in the fighting alongside your monsters. Each time you enter the tower, your character’s level is lowered to 1, but your familiars keep their experience. Thus, progression is made through strengthening your monsters. To obtain monsters, you collect their eggs, just like in Monster Sanctuary (which, turns out, was at least partially inspired by this game!)

Due to this game being very old and on the PS1, the visuals leave a lot to be desired... but if you can get past that, Azure Dreams has lots of replayability and customization to how you play the game. To this day, it appears it has a somewhat active speedrunning community!

If you don’t mind the effort of using an emulator, and like old games, Azure Dreams just might be that timesink you were looking for in quarantine.

Honorable mentions:

Pokemon Insurgence (or any Pokemon fangame/ROMhack, really!) is a Pokemon fangame that introduces Delta Pokemon, which are really cool type-swapped versions of existing Pokemon. It’s sufficiently challenging and has a lot of variety in what you can catch in the wild, so you can pretty much add whatever you want to your team! The story is quite good, and the main campaign is multiple times longer than a typical Pokemon game’s campaign. Download it here!

ARK: Survival Evolved is NOT a monster collecting game BUT you do get to tame and fight alongside a lot of really cool extinct species, including but not limited to the dinosaurs we all know and love. This game is genuinely fun as hell, especially with friends, but I must warn you: never play on official servers. I highly recommend singleplayer, playing on a casual private server, or making your own server. Here’s the Steam page.

[jj-babebank]

Room 107 // chapter I // JJ Maybank (smut)

I have started my first JJ story, which will consist of several chapters that I will constantly be updating. The story picks up where season 2 leaves us. TW: Contains mentions of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex and violence. 

Chapter 1 can be found below.  Oh, and - please feel free to submit requests, I tend to write a lot ;) 

Enjoy xx

Chapter 1 - La Guardiana

Days had passed since the Pogues had last seen civilisation, maybe even weeks. The sun was hotter than ever, with close to no wind to mask the warmth. JJ was taking this particularly badly. 

“I’m so done with eating bananas, man,” he moaned, kicking a pebble as he trotted a little behind the rest of his friends, “Can’t we just stumble across an oasis or something and end up in, like, an actual city?”

As if on command, his friends stopped in their tracks, the girls awing and the guys smiling happily. 

“We just might, JJ,” said John B, looking at the city unfolding itself in front of them in the distance, “We just might.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m actually starving,” laughed Sarah, nudging John B’s arm, “Don’t tease!” “Hey, so am I,” he cooed, “First joint we find, we’re going in for food.” Kiara rolled her eyes, “As much as I would love to accept that offer, let me remind you that we have no money.” Sarah nodded, “Mhm, nothing at all.” “Nada,” John B looked at the two girls sternly, “And when has that ever stopped us exactly?” Kiara rolled her eyes once again, smirking at her friend, “Alright, I suppose a good meal would give me the energy I’d need to run a marathon after getting caught not paying.”

The group continued walking down a not too busy street, studying the buildings, looking for a restaurant, cafe, diner - anything, really. They hadn’t had a proper meal in God knows how long and they were famished. They couldn’t help but notice how all the buildings on the street were of the same height - no more than four storeys each, all painted in different colours. If they hadn’t known any better, they’d have thought that they had left the United States of America altogether, although one thing was certain - they were definitely not in the Outer Banks anymore. 

The street wasn’t crowded at all, there were hardly any cars or people lurking about. JJ concluded that this was probably an unpopular area of whichever city they were in. This would also explain the lack of supermarkets and restaurants. He really wanted to ask his friends to stop for a little break - his throat was so dry and his legs could barely hold him up anymore, but he knew better. The longer they walk, the faster they’ll find what they are looking for. Having no indicator of the time on them wasn’t helping either, hell, they could have been walking for 12 hours for all he knew, and with no result. 

“Maybe we should just ask someone,” Pope suggested, “Neither of us is a wanted criminal anymore, I’d say we have nothing to worry about.” John B smirked at his friend’s remark, but ultimately agreed to ask the first person they ran into where the nearest food joint was. Turns out, they were standing right in front of it. 

“La Cubanita Hotel and Restaurant” it spelled out in bold, red letters. The building was narrow and a light shade of blue, totally contrasting the obnoxiously coloured sign planted in front of it. Much like the rest of the buildings on the street, it had no more than four floors, each consisting of a row of Spanish windows with brightly coloured frames. The Pogues looked at each other with a hint of uncertainty before John B lead the way into the building. 

On the inside it looked like a typical diner - tiled floor, red and blue booths, a long bar accompanied by bar stools and, cheesily enough, a boombox. JJ guessed that the way to the hotel was through the back, but he didn’t put too much thought into it. The place seemed dead, with only one of the booths being busy. It was either an off-peak hour or this city was actually a ghost town. 

The group sat at one of the booths on the other side of where the other people were and JJ took a second to observe them. A group of bikers, all wearing stereotypical biker outfits from leather jackets down to bandanas. They were in their mid 50s and were all smoking indoors, drinking what looked like whiskeys, despite of the blazing sun still very much being out. JJ had to give it to them though, they did look pretty darn cool if he did say so himself, and those cigarettes looked eerily appetising to him at this given moment. Oh, what he’d give to have a sip of whatever they were having and a long, much needed drag of one of their cigarettes. He was so lost in his daydream, he barely realised Kiara poking him in the arm. 

“JJ,” she urged, “Waitress is here!” In this moment JJ turned his attention to the new subject in question, their waitress. She was standing at the foot of their booth, wearing her uniform, black and red, holding a pen and a notepad, chewing a piece of gum, waiting for his order. Could this place get any more stereotypical? JJ thought to himself. “So what’s it gonna be, handsome?” She said, not even bothering to look in his direction. “Uh…” JJ fumbled with the menu, “I’ll just have whatever they’re having.” He said, pointing at the bikers in the booth across from theirs. The woman rolled her eyes, popping her bubblegum. She took the rest of the Pogues’ orders before disappearing somewhere behind the bar. JJ followed her with his eyes, blocking out the conversation his friends were currently having. The waitress came back out of what he assumed to be the kitchen and handed the paper with their orders to another girl behind the bar. JJ guessed she was the barmaid, and boy was she a bit of him. 

She was wearing the same uniform as her colleague, although JJ had to admit - it looked a whole lot better on her, at least from what he could see from above the bar. Her hair was long and brown, half of it tied up effortlessly, and slightly messily, although JJ didn’t mind one bit. He watched her as she took the paper from her colleague and went to fetch the drinks written on it. He couldn’t make out what exactly colour her eyes were, and quite frankly - he didn’t really care, she was gorgeous regardless of what her eyes looked like, and she looked around his age. Had the sun and heat gotten to his head, or was it just the fact that he hadn’t touched a female in so long, he didn’t know, but if there was one thing JJ Maybank was notorious for, it was his ability to pull any girl his heart desired effortlessly. This is why he excused himself from the table and, albeit his friends’ confused looks and comments, he made his way towards the bar, sliding into one of the stools directly across from the girl. 

She looked up at him, “Can I help you?” “Brown…” JJ mumbled to himself. “Excuse me?” She said, this time sounding slightly annoyed. Her eyes were brown, JJ thought, brown and sexy. He coughed, trying to compose himself and gave her his signature Maybank stare. It worked wonders back home, surely it would work wonders now again. “Name’s JJ,” he said suavely, “I’m not from around here-“ “Clearly,” she muttered, picking up a bottle of whiskey. JJ assumed it was for him, “Aren’t you a little young to be drinking, JJ?”

JJ smirked, “What can I say, I have the face of a boy but the body and mind of a man.” The girl snickered under her nose, “Sure. Well since you’re here, make yourself useful and bring your drinks over to your friends,” she gave him a fake smile, placing a tray with their orders on it in front of him, after which she turned her back to him and walked towards the back of the bar. JJ was too busy observing her behind to notice the other waitress standing next to him, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Should I take that or will you?” She said, waking JJ up from his everlasting daydream. “Oh, uh, don’t sweat it…” he said, picking up the tray and carrying it over to his friends’ booth. “So much for customer service,” Sarah laughed. “And to think my dad says I’m hostile to our customers,” Kiara muttered out. JJ took his seat next to her, his eyes never leaving the bar. “La Guardiana,” Pope read out loud, “This place is called La Guardiana, and apparently we’re somewhere in Florida.” “Florida?” John B said, confusion dripping through his words. Pope nodded, pointing at some text on the bottom of the menu. 

La Cubanita Hotel & Restaurant **, 97 Diego’s Crescent, La Guardiana, FL 

“Holy shit, we’re in Florida!” John B whisper yelled. Sarah laughed at his reaction, “Calm down now, Sancho, let’s not draw any attention to us,” “Yeah, you might wanna tell Casanova here that,” teased Pope, nodding his head in JJ’s direction, “Was it really worth it to potentially blow our cover just to talk to that girl?” JJ snapped at Pope, “Hey, man, just ‘cuz you don’t have the nuts to go over there and talk to her yourself,” “Yeah, I really want to attract the staff’s attention, you know, even more than we already are, seeing as we’re the only other busy table at this place.” “Your food,” the waitress from earlier was back with some of the Pogues’ orders. They waited for her to be out of earshot and JJ spoke up, “Relax, P, I bet you I can charm the pants off that girl and we won’t even need to sneak out without paying!” Pope gave JJ a fake smile, “Mhm, I’m sure she’s gonna be so deep under your spell she won’t even notice us leaving without paying a cent." JJ rolled his eyes, picking up a toothpick from the table and placing it between his teeth. “Might even offer us a place to crash, you know, because she’ll be so captivated by you.” Pope continued to tease. “Yeah, chicks totally dig this whole I’m homeless and I haven’t properly showered in like 15 days look you're going for,” Sarah joined in on the teasing. Kiara laughed and added, “Yeah, and the bit that’s gonna fully seal the deal for her is that you have literally nothing to offer her, like 0 dollars.” Everyone was laughing while JJ just crossed his arms in front of his chest and turned to look out the window, “Talk all you want, guys, but once we get that gold back, you’ll see who’ll dig what.” “The rest of your order,” he recognised the girl’s voice. It was her bringing their food over this time. She placed John B’s plate in front of him and then made her way around the table, next to where JJ was sat. She handed him his plate and bent down slightly, so that her lips were on the same level as JJ’s ear, “Next time you decide to share your criminal plans, you might wanna talk a bit more quietly.” She whispered, setting his cutlery down for him, “Oh, and, you might be charming wherever you come from, but your friend’s right. That shit doesn’t work around here.” She said, patting him on the shoulder before walking away. JJ didn’t waste time sitting around to listen to his friends pass comments about what had just happened, he downed his whiskey and practically chased after the girl. “I’m guessing you’ll want another one?” She said, not even turning around. JJ wondered how she knew that he was there. When she turned to face him, the bottle of whiskey was in her hand. “Let’s see… Do I pour you another one and close my eyes about you planning to leave without paying, or do I do what anyone else in my position would do and call the police on you? Hmm…” she pretended to think, her eyes never leaving JJ’s now panicking ones. “Please don’t call the cops,” he blurted out, the whiskey hitting his brain and making him stress out more than he wanted to admit to, “Look, we - we were in a boat accident, we don’t even know how we got here, hell - we didn’t even know where we were up until 10 minutes ago! And we - we don’t have  any documents on us, we don’t have any sort of identification, what would you -“ “Relax, kid,” the girl smirked, picking up two glasses and pouring a generous amount of whiskey in both of them, “I won’t rat you out.” She said, handing JJ one of the glasses and raising hers for a toast. JJ clinked his glass with hers, a large smile growing on his face, his dimples becoming very prominent, “Thank you, really… That means a lot.” The girl took a moment to observe JJ, then to look at his friends having a heated conversation at their booth, all of them practically stuffing their faces with food in an almost animalistic sort of way. Could this boy really be telling the truth? Could these kids have been lost at sea with no place to go? She looked back at JJ who was also looking at her. Despite the smile plastered on his face, she could clearly see that he was extremely nervous still. “Hey,” she said, “I told you to relax, didn’t I. I won’t charge you for your food, in fact… I might even have a place for you to sleep and clean up tonight.” JJ’s eyes grew wider at her words, “You what?” She leaned in closer to him over the bar and lowered her voice so that he would be the only one to hear, “Hotel upstairs, my aunt owns it. She’s currently out of town with my cousin. Should be back next Thursday. I think I can fit you and your friends in. You just have to promise to be on your best behaviour.” She said, pulling away and taking another sip from her drink. JJ couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was too good to be true. She was hot and she was willing to help? This must have been his lucky day. Sarah could suck it, and so could the others. Clearly this girl was into him. Why else would she be offering to help? “So, uh, what’s in it for me?” He asked, a hint of mischief in his voice. The girl opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the other waitress groaned from behind her. “Samara, how many times do I have to tell you?” Her croaky voice rang. The girl, who JJ had just learned was called Samara, rolled her eyes and repeated with her colleague, “No drinking on the job, yeah yeah, I know. But Heather’s gone and so is Conner, so who can tell me what to do, really?” She said, finishing what was left of her whiskey, “Besides, Georgia, as far as I’m concerned, since they’re both gone, that leaves me in charge, no? Now get back to work,” she said, making her colleague roll her eyes at her. Samara turned around to face JJ again, giving him a wink, before disappearing into the kitchen. JJ couldn’t believe his luck. He swung his arm over the bar and picked up the bottle of whiskey to pour himself one more drink before returning to his friends. “Guys-“ JJ tried getting their attention. “So what are we supposed to do now? We’re totally screwed!” “They’re gonna call the police on us, hell, they probably already have! The cops could be on their way!” “Guys!” JJ yelled, catching even the bikers’ attention. His friends looked up at him, worry filling all of their eyes. “You’ll never believe what I’m about to tell you, oh, and Sarah? You can eat your words.” He smirked before telling them what had just happened. “Hold on,” said Kiara, her face revealing her confusion, “So this random girl in this random place just randomly said that we can crash here until when?” “Next Thursday, or was it Tuesday? What day is it today?” JJ scratched his head. “JJ!” Kiara slapped his arm, “What if this is a trap? It sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Like, what’s in it for her? We don’t even know her! What if she’s a murderer or something?” “She’s right, you know,” Cleo chimed in. “She is,” said John B, “But we have nothing to lose, literally.” Pope nodded, “I’d usually agree with Kie, but John B’s right. We have nothing to lose. And what if she calls the police? What could even happen then? We get put in jail for agreeing to sleep in a hotel for free? Come on, guys, I’m sure we can all agree that a bar of soap and a normal bathroom would do us good. I mean, we stink.” Everyone laughed at Pope’s remark before Kiara turned to JJ again, “So what’s the plan?” Realisation just struck JJ that he didn’t in fact know what the plan was. Samara had told him virtually nothing about how any of this would go down. Where were they supposed to meet? Was she going to take them to their rooms? Would they all be sharing one room? He was so busy thinking about how all of this would go down, he barely noticed Samara herself passing him a note. It was taken out of her colleague, who JJ now knew to be Georgia’s notepad. The note read in messy handwriting:

Bring your friends to the lobby. Straight down the hallway by the bathrooms. 

JJ turned the piece of paper towards his friends and they all got up, rushing towards the hallway by the bathrooms.

[obwjam]

“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.” With Scott Lang please :)

“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes A THOUSAND TIMES YES

from this post

———————————————————————

Times were tough at the Lang residence. Scott wasn’t allowed to leave the house, his daughter was only allowed to visit on weekends, and worst of all, he worried about his future. How could an ex-con like him find work again? How could he possibly put behind everything he had been through in Germany? Often times, he sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, TV off, staring blankly at the wall.

Other times, he danced.

He wasn’t very good at it, but hey, who was watching? Scott would rev up his ever-growing 80s playlist, crank his speakers up to ten and let his arms flail and his legs go wild. For an hour and forty-six minutes, he would dance and sing and act out fight scenes he had choreographed in his head until he was just about ready to pass out.

Today was an especially stressful day. Cassie was sick and didn’t want to come, so for the first Saturday afternoon in a while, Scott was alone. There really wasn’t anything good on TV, and he had a nightmare the night before. If the good vibes wouldn’t come to him, he would make them himself.

He was maybe an hour into the playlist when he closed his eyes, spun around on one socked foot, struck a pose, and opened his eyes to the most confusing sight he had ever seen.

You were, in a word, fascinated with this human. For whatever reason, he never left the house anymore, which made borrowing close to impossible, but he was boisterous and goofy and just the right amount of weird. Eating cereal and crying at black and white Spanish movies at 10 p.m. was not normal human behavior, but it was normal for this one.

The dancing was especially entertaining. It was like a free show every day. The music was catchy and you had learned the words. Sometimes, you even danced with him. You discovered this crack in the old wood that allowed you to sit in its threshold and observe the human.

You were so caught up in the music that when Scott’s eyes landed on you, it took you a few seconds to realize what was going on.

Though Scott was staring right at you, he still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A tiny person? In his house? He squinted — no, it wasn’t Hank or Hope. They didn’t appear to be wearing a suit, either. Just some makeshift clothing. Was this a new Avenger with shrinking powers, sent to spy on him? Was it the government?

For some reason, you weren’t very scared. Years of watching the human from afar told you that he was a very relaxed person. He wasn’t overly excitable and didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in his body. You certainly didn’t mean to be seen, but it also didn’t seem like the worst possible thing that could have happened. It almost felt inevitable.

Scott stared at you, mouth agape and a thousand thoughts swirling around his mind like a hurricane. He realized he was still stuck in a ridiculous pose, so he put his arms back to his side and straightened himself. He should have figured there were real-life tiny people. Why else would Hank want to build shrinking technology?

You were staring back, mouth also agape and equally fascinated by what was in front of you. But Scott didn’t think you’d break the ice, so it was up to him.

“Um... hi,” Scott said, awkwardly giving a small wave. “What are you doing in my house?”

You tilted your head. For a human, he didn’t seem to be very surprised at what he was seeing. You lifted your arm and grabbed onto the wood for support as you spoke up. “Uh... I live here.”

“You live here? Last time I checked, I live here. Oh, no, they didn’t take my house away, did they?”

“What?” you blurted. “Who’s they?”

“Woo didn’t send you here, did he?”

“Woo? Woo who?”

“Jeez, you don’t need to act so excited about it.”

“Hold up!” you yelled, throwing your hands up. Scott pressed his lips together. “What... what are you talking about?”

“You’re government, aren’t you? Here to keep tabs on me, make sure I’m not breaking the Accords?”

“Government?” You blinked in disbelief. “You think I work for the government?”

“Well...” Scott started to attempt an explanation, but couldn’t really find one. “Why else would you be here?”

“I told you. I live here.”

“...so you’re not government.”

“Oh brother,” you mumbled to yourself, taking an exasperated seat. “Um. No?”

“...You wouldn’t happen to be an Avenger, would you?”

“An Avenger? Am I missing something here?”

“Well excuse me for trying to come up with an explanation as to why there’s someone sitting on my wall who’s two inches tall!”

“Hey, I’m four inches, thank you very much,” you scoffed.

Scott ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t going very well at all. You sighed and took a breath. You could understand why he’d be so flustered.

“No, I’m not government. Or an Avenger. I’m just... a regular borrower.”

Scott stared at you blankly, trying to piece together what a borrower could be, before it dawned on him and his eyes went wide. “Oh wow. You’re really just that small!”

“I didn’t think that was even in question.”

“Gosh, sorry, that’s really embarrassing of me.” He let out a laugh. “An Avenger. What was I thinking?”

His laugh made you laugh. “I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things in my life. Being put in a maximum security prison’s definitely up there. I’m used to small jails, you know?”

You gave him a quizzical stare.

“This ankle monitor is pretty bad, too, though I— wait a second. Did you say you’ve been watching me for years? ”

You gulped. You thought he either didn’t hear that part or didn’t care.

“I—um, I mean, I was just — I was speaking metaphorically—”

Scott’s expression immediately softened. “Woah, hey, I’m not mad!” He realized he was gazing down at you, and he lowered himself ever so slightly to be at your eye level. Now, he could see the way you gripped the wall protectively. “I’m just... confused. What do you mean you’ve watched me from the walls?”

“It means I live in your walls!” you cried, not realizing how shaky your voice had gotten. You steadied your breathing before continuing. “That’s what borrowers do. We live in the walls of houses.”

“Like mice?”

You sniffed a laugh. “Yes, like mice. Which I help keep away from here, mind you. When was the last time you saw a mouse around here?”

“Oh, gosh, I can’t even remember. Years ago.” You smirked and raised your eyebrow, and once it clicked, Scott’s eyes lit up.

“That’s so cool!” Scott smiled. You knew he was a quirky human, but even you were a bit surprised at how nonchalant he was being. “Do you use those little toothpicks that look like a sword?”

“There are toothpicks that look like swords?”

“Oh yeah!” Scott grinned. “They’d be perfectly your size, actually.”

“Huh. Y’know, that might actually be helpful to shoo away beetles and spiders.”

Scott grimaced. He had gotten used to ants, but spiders is where he drew the line. “Oh, gross.”

“It’s just a part of the job,” you shrugged. There was an awkward pause before you spoke again. “I, um. I’m sorry for startling you.”

“No, no,” Scott shook his head, “I’m sorry for making you listen to the same music all the time!”

“No, it’s fine, I... I actually kinda like it,” you blushed. “Usually, borrowers keep themselves hidden. Most humans aren’t as... entertaining as you.”

Scott smiled, not even realizing that maybe that wasn’t a compliment. It felt exhilarating just to have a face-to-face conversation with someone who wasn’t his family or was legally obligated to talk to him.

“You wanna come to the living room?” he asked suddenly. You furrowed your brow. “It’ll be more comfortable than sitting on that ledge.”

“Well, I can’t exactly sit on the couch,” you said slowly, meekly gesturing at yourself with your head.

“You can sit on the table, it’s fine! I’ve got snacks.”

“Snacks...” you repeated. Even though this went against every single borrower code you knew of, it felt stupid to pass up this offer. If the human wasn’t going to hurt you, then why not make him your ally?

“Sure, why not,” you said finally, standing up. Scott couldn’t help but stare at you in awe.

“Here,” he said, standing back up to his full height and sticking his hand out in front of you. “I can carry you there!”

“Oh...” you said, staring at the hand hesitantly. “I can just walk, you know—”

“Psh! That’ll take too long. Trust me.” You didn’t know why he would know anything about that, but frankly, his weird choice of words was the last thing on your mind. Scott took notice. “Oh, you’re... sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. It’s just right across the hall, we don’t have to go far at all. It’ll be fine.”

You gave him a skeptical look, but at this point, you didn’t have much of a choice. This is what you wanted, anyway.

“I guess this is the one drawback,” you muttered, keeping a firm grip on the wall as you lowered yourself onto his palm. “Humans can’t take no for an answer.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, uh, I—I said. Quite the view from up here.”

“Hah, yeah, I know!”

There it is again, you thought. That weird choice of words.

The trip to the living room was, as promised, short. You were only in his hand for about 15 seconds before you hopped off onto the familiar sight of the coffee table. The bowl of peanuts and candy was filled to the brim, as usual, but you supposed you should act like you’ve never been here before.

“So,” Scott said, reaching into the bowl and popping some M&M’s into his mouth before flopping onto the couch. “What’s your name? I bet you already know mine.”

“I’m (Y/n),” you said, eyeing the bowl. “Can I...”

“Oh, go ahead!” Scott smiled. He watched in delight as you grabbed a peanut that was larger than a football. You bit into it like an apple, and Scott could hardly suppress his grin.

“This is amusing for you?” you asked with a smirk. Scott immediately shook his head, but the smile was still present. “Yeah, I guess I probably look hilariously small to you.”

“Well... only a little.” Scott leaned back into the couch cushion. “So you’ve really been inside my walls this whole time and I had no idea?”

“Yup,” you said with a mouthful of peanut. “Been here for a long time.”

“How do you even live? Eat? Bathe?!”

You turned your gaze to the table. “You won’t like the answer.”

Scott thought about it for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” you blushed. “But it’s either take crumbs off your counter or starve, so. I choose not to starve.”

“Well, you’re welcome to have dinner with me from now on. I cook just for myself anyway, it’ll be nice to have some company.”

“About that... why are you here all the time? You used to only be here at night.”

Scott sighed deeply. “It’s a long story.”

He seemed uncharacteristically upset about that, so you cleared your throat and pivoted back to what he was saying before. “You’d really let me eat with you?”

“Sure, why not?” Scott seemed genuinely surprised that you would even ask.

“I mean, this has gotta seem a little... weird to you, does it not? In fact, I — well, there are a lot of stories about humans discovering borrowers, and they’re not often pleasant. You... you don’t really seem to care.”

Scott pursed his lips. “That’s another long story.”

“Oh.” Jeez, what is up with this guy?

“I mean, if you’ve really been... in my walls all this time...” He shuddered before continuing. “Then you know how lonely it’s been around here. Heck, it probably gets really lonely all by yourself in the walls, too.”

You nodded.

“Well, I’ve got a lot of questions for you, and I know you’ve got a lot for me... I won’t force you to stay if you don’t want to, but I think — it might be nice to get to know each other, right?”

You gave Scott an almost incredulous look. Maybe all those human tales were just old folk stories of days past, meant to scare children into staying close to home. You were hardly nervous that Scott had any malicious intent. You just almost couldn’t believe this was happening.

“What about your daughter? Isn’t she supposed to be coming this weekend? I’d rather her, uh, not see me.”

Scott sat up a bit. “You know about Cassie?”

“Um. Lived here for years, remember?”

“Right, right. Uh, n-no, no, she’s sick, she’s not coming. Huh.” Scott shook his head. “Wow. You must know, like, everything about me, then.”

Your face flushed red. “I mean, yes and no. I don’t just sit and stare at you to pass the time. It’s-it’s actually pretty strange for me too. We’re not supposed to talk to humans. It’s kind of the big number one rule.”

“What normally happens?”

“Well.” You paused, looking up at Scott’s expectant face. It was hard to hold eye contact, and your gaze flickered back to the table. “It’s a long story.”

Scott huffed a laugh. “I get it. Looks like we both have our own baggage.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Look, if you wanna... go back into that hole in the wall, you can. I told you, I won’t make you stay. But the offer is always there. I’m probably just gonna order a pizza tonight. You ever had pizza?”

You pursed your lips. Should you really be telling him all the things you’ve stolen from right under his nose?

Scott sighed. Maybe this wasn’t the weirdest thing for him, but he knew he couldn’t say the same for you. Your sideways glances had grown increasingly nervous ever since he brought you to the living room. You carried yourself well, but it was clear you were uneasy about all of this.

Wordlessly, Scott placed his hand down in front of you. He frowned when you winced at it.

“It’s quicker if I just bring you back,” he said sheepishly.

You picked your half-eaten peanut off the table and cleared your throat. “I-I’m sorry. I think I underestimated how odd this would feel. You... you’re just, really different than the human I lived with growing up. In a good way.”

Scott smiled weakly. “Just wait ‘til you get to know me.”

You laughed as you climbed onto his hand. You sat down for balance as he stood up, unable to take his eyes off you. You stared straight ahead as he took the short journey back, and in a few moments, you were right back where you started.

Staring at each other.

“Well (Y/n), it was nice—”

“You know,” you said, raising your voice to cut him off. “I have had pizza before. But I’ve never tried ice cream.”

Scott gasped. “Never had ice cream?! Lucky for you, I’ve got some chocolate in the freezer— oh. Oh! You... you want to have some dessert later?”

You smiled amusingly. “You catch on quick.”

“Yeah, it’s a specialty of mine,” Scott said, stretching his arms in the air. “Gosh, it’s already 7:30. How about ice cream at 9?”

“I, uh, don’t have a clock with me,” you admitted. “Why don’t you just... knock when you’re ready?”

Scott chuckled. “Knocking on the walls to my own house? People’ll start to think I’m crazy.”

You blinked at Scott, Scott blinked at you, and you both burst out laughing. For a moment, you forgot that Scott was a hundred feet tall and he forgot you could fit in his palm. It shouldn’t have been that funny, but it was. It all was.

Scott wiped a tear from his eye and sighed. “Oh, man. Okay. I should order before they close. See you soon?”

You smiled. In between the bad jokes, the awkward silences and the fits of laugher, you decided all this weirdness was worth it.

“Yeah. See you soon, Scott.”

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

mix up

Summary: A mix up with the buildings laundry was all it took to get what you always secretly wanted.

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC (can be read as reader insert)

Wordcount: 4k+

Warnings: lots of cursing, smut (Oral; female receiving; sex), sex toys, also fluff, bad flirting as ususal

A/N: In my mind, this was a drabble. Apparently my brain had other ideas. The biggest thank you to @f0rever15elf​ for being my beta on this <3

Masterlist

Taglist in reblog

Pushing the laundry bin with your dirty laundry out of your apartment, you checked if you had  everything before you locked the door of your apartment behind you. It was laundry day. Thankfully the apartment in Bogata came with a laundry service. Not that you were not able to do your own laundry, you simply didn’t have time for it. The last thing on your mind while chasing down Escobar was doing your laundry. The job took every single second of your life, even in the few times you were off from work, even in your sleep. Walking down the long hallway, the last door you passed was Javier’s. You heard him curse something in spanish before the door opened and a similar laundry bin was placed in front of his door. You tilted your head as you looked at him, crossing your arms in front of your chest, a little grin on your lips.

“What?” He asked looking down at himself. 

“Nothing.” You hummed. “I love that color on you.” You winked before you walked out.

“Fuck you too.” He chuckled as he followed you.

“What? I do love it. As a matter of fact I own some pink stuff I wear occasionally.” You unlocked the car and he jumped into the passenger's seat.

Javier and you were co-workers. He had joined you in the hunt for Escobar only shortly after you arrived here from DC. You would say you even became friends. As possible as it was to become friends with him. There were only a handful of people who knew the lengths you had to go through at this job. Of course, he had tried to get into your pants first but the both of you decided it would be for the better to keep this strictly non physical. At least that’s what you told yourself. 

Though secretly you felt yourself wishing it was you on the receiving end of his “affection” as you lay in bed alone at night, while he was fucking some prostitute on the other side of the building.

“I’ve never seen you wearing anything pink, Guapa.” He pushed his yellow aviators up as he reached for the pack of cigarettes. You started the engine and looked at him.

“Oh Javier… There are many things you haven’t seen me wear.” You winked. You could see when the penny dropped and he shook his head, with a small grin. 

“Fuck. I didn’t even have my coffee yet and you put pictures of you in underwear inside my head?”

“I never said it was my underwear. But… That’s payback for making me listen to the moaning from your apartment last night.” You finally got the car on the road.

“Jealous?” He asked, holding his cigarette by the window. You mentioned once that you weren’t a big fan of smoke but didn’t mind it. He had made the effort to turn himself away from you from that day on when he smoked.

“More curious.” You said honestly.

“How so?” You stopped at a red light, turning your head to look at him. 

“We both know you are paying most of those women, so how real is their… valuation with you if you know what I mean?” You were genuinely curious. You had two relationships before and both of them didn’t really care for your pleasure. You had been responsible for your own orgasms all your life and you were wondering…

“Oh they aren’t acting Guapa. I know what I’m doing.” He winked at you and threw his cigarette out.

“Every man says that.” You shrugged, rolling your eyes.

“Well… You’ll have to trust my word. The only way you could be sure was if I showed you, and we both agreed that nothing will ever happen between us, right?” He asked. You nodded and looked away from him, starting the car again, when the light switched to green. You didn’t notice him looking at you as you continued to drive.

“If we wouldn’t be working together, would you?” He asked as you parked the car in front of the embassy and killed the engine. The car ride had been silent since the red light.

“Would I what?” You asked pulling your purse out from the backseat.

“Let me show you that I definitely know what I’m doing?” He asked, his voice deeper as he looked into your eyes. You looked back into his and wondered if anyone had ever noticed the small caramel like spot in this right eye.

“I guess that’s another thing you will never find out, Peña.” You had a small smile on your lips, hoping to cover up your nervousness. He looked at you knowingly before he let his tongue dart out to wet his lips. You swallowed, your eyes flying to his lips before you looked up and he bit his lip.

“Shame,” he whispered before he opened the car door and got out of the car. You closed your eyes, ignoring the throbbing between your legs as you watched him go into the building.

“Fucking hell,” you muttered, shaking your head to follow him inside.

Weeks went by without either of you mentioning the conversation between you. At some point, you thought you imagined the whole thing. You continued to work together. You both took care of Steve when Connie left to go back to the states unannounced. You couldn’t blame her. You’ve been wondering yourself if what you were doing would end in catching Escobar in the end. 

Javi and you were a pretty damn good team at work. He always had your back which was a gift you truly cherished. When you had first met him and Steve, you would have bet a lot of money that they would be just like the other assholes you had worked with before. But they weren’t. Of course Javier continued to flirt with you. That’s just who he was. But he also did acknowledge your intelligence and knew when he had to shut up and actually listen. You grew so comfortable with each other that just one look from the other would tell if it was a good day, or a bad day. 

Today had been a bad day for you. 

Not only was the lead you had chased the day before a dead end, but you just felt exhausted. Like the last weeks of working constantly came crashing down at you all at once. So you called in sick. For the first time… ever. You ignored that one of the reasons you felt so shitty was the fact that Steve and Javier had been gone for 3 days now. 

A knock on your door made you groan but you made your way to open up anyway, thanking the lady with your clean laundry with a smile before you closed the door and brought it into your bedroom. Deciding to put the clothes away right now instead of letting them stay on your bed as you usually did, you frowned when you saw a very pink shirt on the bottom. You let your fingers run over the fabric. It was Javi’s shirt. The one you teased him about.

Biting your lip, you looked down at it. You should give it back to him. You knew that. But he would be gone for at least another two days and you felt lonely. You opened the buttons, pulling the shirt you were wearing off and got his shirt on. You looked at yourself in the mirror. You had never worn a shirt of a man before, and when you pictured it before you weren’t thinking about a pink shirt, or Javi’s, but somehow you liked the way it looked on you. Smiling to yourself you pulled the fabric closer and you could swear you smelled his aftershave even though it was freshly cleaned. You did spend more time than you would ever admit to anyone thinking about him. The way he walked. The way he ran his hands through his hair when he was frustrated. How you could see his chest hair when he was wearing his poorly buttoned shirts. Closing your eyes you shook your head.

Coworker. He was your Coworker. 

Your very attractive Coworker who you caught undressing you with his own eyes more than once. In the quiet of your apartment you often dreamed what it would be like. Him touching you. You knew he could have anyone, yet he chose to pay for sex. He didn’t seem like he was looking to have any relationship, and you couldn’t blame him. But what if he chose you? What if he wasn’t your Coworker? What if he was just Javi? Your neighbor. What if you weren’t in Colombia chasing down drug lords? 

You pictured him coming home to you and taking you on the kitchen table. Would he go down on you? You bet he would. He seemed like he enjoyed pleasuring his woman. His woman. You wanted to be his woman. Even though you knew he wasn’t looking for someone. He told you before on a very drunken night out that he sucked at relationships. He just needed someone to make him forget, someone…

A knock on your door interrupted your thoughts again. Looking at yourself you considered answering whoever was at the door dressed in this shirt but decided against it and put on your bathrobe. There was another knock at your door.

“One second!” You called pulling the bathrobe closer around your body as you unlocked your door.

“Javi?” You asked, surprised. “I thought you’d be back on Saturday.” You pulled the bathrobe around you closer, suddenly feeling too naked to be standing in front of him, even though your whole body was covered.

“You’re okay. Thank.. Fuck. You’re okay.” He sighed relieved looking at you.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” You frowned, a little confused. 

“I went to the embassy and no one knew where you were and…” He closed his eyes.

“I called in sick. I’m okay. I promise.” You said quietly. He ran his hand over his mouth, his other hand on his hip as he looked at you, his eyes tired.

“Are you okay Javier?” You asked a little confused at him just showing up like that. “Why are you back already?”

“Dead end. Didn’t see the point of staying there.” He shrugged.

“Okay. Then you should go to..”

“What are you wearing there?” he asked and nodded towards you.

“Uhm…” You looked down at yourself and tried to hide your surprise at seeing a bit of the pink shirt out. You looked up at him again, and you could see his grin.

“Is that pink I see?” His grin got wider. You sucked your bottom lip in.

“I told you I wear pink. Occasionally.” You shrugged. He nodded and continued to look at you before he stepped a little closer. You could see in his eyes that he was trying to work out what was going on and you noticed the moment he made the connection. His eyes darkened and you cursed yourself for not changing out of his shirt before you answered the door. 

“Is that… my shirt?” He whispered deeply. A shudder ran over your body. His hand came up, reaching for the collar that you apparently hadn’t tucked in as well as you thought you had. His finger brushed over your throat as his other hand slowly opened your bathrobe. One of your hands held your shirt together that you didn’t bother to button up. You shouldn’t have put it on in the first place. 

“Fuck, you’re wearing my shirt,” he cursed. You looked up at him, breathing deeply. You weren’t wearing anything but some panties beneath it. He looked down your body before he looked up at you again, his hand running up your neck to the back of your head.

You should take a step back, turn around and get away from him. Cause the way he was looking at you made your knees weak. 

“Javi, I can explain…” You mumbled, but he only shook his head slowly. The look he gave you made your poor explanation die on your lips.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered as he stepped even closer. You felt the coldness of his leather jacket as he pushed your bathrobe from your shoulders and you shivered.

“Close the door, Javier,” you whispered. He looked at you, taking you in before he turned around and closed and locked the door. Pulling off his leather jacket he let it fall to the floor as he stalked towards you.

“I will never be able to get this picture out of my head.” He said as he walked you backwards until your back hit a wall behind you.

“You… You don’t have to get this picture out of your head.” You whispered.

“No?” He asked. One of his hands coming down on your hip as his other hand brushed some of your hair away that had fallen in your face. You shook your head at him.

“If you want to see me in your shirts, make sure to leave them with me after…” You bit your lip.

“After?” He leaned down and you felt his breath on your face.

“After you’ve fucked me.” You whispered and sighed when his lips crashed down on yours. You grabbed onto his back, pulling him closer as he licked into your mouth. Parting your lips without resistance you moaned when you felt one of his hands slip down your back.

“Been dreaming about this for years.” He groaned against your lips as he kissed down your neck, pushing the shirt you were still wearing open and you saw his little smile when he saw your boobs.

“Me too.” You whimpered as his teeth scratched over your neck. 

“Tell me.” He whispered, softly sucking on your pulse point on your neck before he kissed down your collarbone.

“Wanted you to feel against me. Wanted to… Ahh..” You cried out when his lips closed around one of your nipples.

“Tell me.” He groaned and looked up at you, not releasing the bud and sucked. You wouldn’t be able to continue to stand on your own feet if he kept that up.

“Wanted to taste you. Wanted you to taste me. Wanted you to…”

“Fuck you?” He asked, releasing your nipple with an obscene sound. You just nodded.

“Been wondering if you taste as good as you smell.” He whispered and kissed down your stomach.

“May I?” He knelt in front of you, his dark eyes wild as he looked up at you. You hesitated.

“I… No one ever….” You sucked your bottom lip in, shy all of the sudden. He seemed to understand immediately, cursing under his breath.

“You should be worshipped. Fucking losers. All of them.” He shook his head and got up from the ground.

“Will you let me?” He asked softly. There was nothing but affection in his eyes and you felt yourself nodding. You shrieked when he picked you up in his arms, moaning when he kissed you as he carried you to your bedroom. Carefully he set you down and you looked up at him. You wondered what this would change between you. Because you wouldn’t be able to go back to being just friends after this. 

“You’re not just a fuck, hermosa.” He seemed to answer your thoughts. 

“Let me feel you.” You said as you got up to stand in front of him. He didn’t stop you as you pulled his shirt out of his jeans and began to unbutton it, kissing his chest before you pulled it off. He groaned as you teased his nipple.

“Lay down on your back and let me take care of you.” He kissed you quickly and you complied, wanting to take the pink shirt off when he stopped you.

“No. Keep that on.” He smirked and you giggled.

“Whatever you want,” you hummed.

“Be careful what you wish for.” He said quietly as he looked down at you. A shiver ran over your body at the look he gave you and you could feel just how wet you were.

“What if I like playing with danger?” you asked. He furrowed his eyebrows before his hands opened the fly of his jeans. You swallowed, your eyes not leaving his as he pushed his jeans down. It was like he was challenging you to look and when you did you released a breath you couldn’t remember holding in. Of course he wasn’t wearing anything beneath his tight jeans.

When he was standing completely naked in front of you, he leaned down to slowly peel your embarrassingly damp panties down. He kissed up your leg, his mustache rubbing over the skin and you giggled when he kissed the skin behind your knees.

“Someone’s ticklish.” He mumbled against your skin.

“Maybe.” You smiled. He kissed up your inner thigh and unintentionally you wanted to close your legs but he didn’t let you.

“Let me look at you hermosa,” he whispered, looking up at you. You were only able to nod slowly. 

“If this is how I die I won't complain.” He murmured before his tongue darted out to taste you. You wanted to look at him but the way he nibbled, licked, and sucked made you throw your head back, moaning loudly. You grabbed the bedsheets, trying to ground yourself as he sucked at you clit.

“So fucking good,” he groaned against you and you cried out. 

“Fuck, keep going…,” you moaned. One of his hands on your stomach held you down while his other hand grabbed one of your boobs, kneading them, pulling at your nipple.

“Cum for me baby.” He whispered, his tongue dipping inside of you.

“Fuck….” You arched your back, heat rushing through your body as you almost blacked out when your orgasm washed over you.

This was unlike anything you ever felt before. You were so out of it you didn’t notice Javi stopped until his mouth was on your neck before he made you look at him. You felt his cock between your legs and you shakily breathed out, a blissful smile on your face as he leaned down to kiss you softly. You didn’t know nor did you care how long he kissed you, you just knew you never wanted to stop.

“You did enjoy that, right?” He asked and you punched against his chest, making him laugh.

“You’re awfully full of yourself, Agent Peña.” You shook your head and he cocked an eyebrow. 

“What if I want you to be awfully full of myself?” He smirked.

“You did not just say that.” You snorted, shaking with  laughter beneath him.

“Sorry,” he laughed with you, looking down at you.

“No you’re not.” You grinned and he chuckled. 

“Do you though?” He asked, quieter now as his laughter subsided. You arched your eyebrow in question. “Want me to fuck you?” He kissed down your jaw, as he rolled his hips against yours.

“Is me naked beneath you not clue enough? I thought you knew that you were a good Agent and knew what you’re doing...” You teased, your hands wandering down his back, pulling him against you. He bit into your shoulder and you moaned.

“Oh I’m gonna show you that I know exactly…” He kissed you. You groaned as you felt the tip of his cock at your entrance. “How to make you cum.”

“Condoms... “ You gestured to your bedside drawer. He nodded, disappearing from your point of view before he was back, a dirty grin on his face.

“This is gonna be fun.” He whispered, holding a condom and your vibrator up. You blushed looking away from him.

“No need to be shy, hermosa.” He ripped the condom package open and pulled it over his hard cock. You felt his hand between your legs and you looked up at him, before two of his fingers entered you, his eyes never leaving yours.

“So If nobody ever made you cum by going down at you…” He kept fingering you slowly, adding another finger and you moaned quietly, feeling so full already.

“Did anyone ever make you cum?” He asked, his thumb slowly circling your clit and you were about to cum again when he stopped. You pouted.

“Huh?” He asked. 

“Yes Javi. I made myself cum.” You groaned and he shook his head.

“Not anymore.” He hummed before you slowly felt himself push into you. You stopped breathing, looking up at him, embracing the delicious burn you felt as he split you in half. The sounds he was making would haunt you in the best way possible.

“So fucking tight,” he groaned and you released a breath when he was fully inside of you. He stilled, probably wanting you to get used to the stretch but all you wanted was..

“Move. Javi.” You pleaded and that was all he needed to hear.

“Feels better than I imagined.” He pressed, slowly fucking into you. He put your legs around his waist as he leaned down to kiss you. Holding him close, you let him fuck you, rolling your hips to meet his thrusts. Never in your life did you feel that full. He kissed every piece of skin his lips came in contact with and you grabbed onto his back, surely leaving marks as he moved faster. 

“Please…,” you moaned.

“Please what Hermosa?” he rasped, sucking on your shoulder.

“Harder.” You whimpered.

“You want it harder my needy girl?” he asked. You were only able to nod as he pushed away from you, pulling your legs over his shoulders. He held on to your legs before he began to ram into you.

“You want it harder. You get it harder. You get everything you fucking want.” He groaned.

“Fuck yes.” You moaned, holding onto the mattress beneath you. Closing your eyes you just let him do whatever the fuck he wanted. Never in your life had you been fucked like that. The familiar buzzing of your toy let you snap your attention back to the man curently fucking the life out of you and you almost jumped when the vibe made contact with your clit.

“Shit…,” you cried out, surprised when your orgasm washed over you within seconds.

“Fuck fuck….” Javie groaned, fucking you through your orgasm, throwing the vibe away.

“Can you give me one more?” He asked. You shook your head, still trying to breath properly, when he pulled out of you and turned you so you were straddling him.

“Ride me baby.” He smiled up at you. You leaned down, kissing him longingly before you carefully sat down on his cock.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said in awe, looking up at you as you slowly rolled your hips, still oversensensetive from your orgasm. Both of his hands sneaked under his shirt you were still wearing, massaging your boobs.

“You gonna give me one more, hermosa?” He moaned quietly, pushing himself up, his arms coming around you, his chest against you as he moved his hips against yours.

“Javi…” You whimpered, holding on to his shoulders.

“Tell me what you need…” 

“Kiss me,” you whispered. His lips were on you in the next moment and you shook as you felt your third orgasm approaching.

“Cum for me, Javi,” you whispered, clenching your walls, one of your hands pulling at his hair. He moaned against your chest as you felt him swell before he twitched and that was all it took for you to cum again. 

Out of breath you held on to each other, your head on top of his, his lips still attached to your boob.

“We should have done this sooner,” he chuckled and you smiled as you looked at him.

“We should have,” you agreed. You felt him soften inside of you but not you nor him were ready to let go of one another. You kissed him softly.

“We could do this again, you know?” You said carefully. You knew you wouldn’t be able to share him with anyone, he had to know. He looked at you.“But I’m not sharing what’s mine,” you added. 

“Yours, huh?” He asked, a little smile on his face. You nodded.

“I like the sound of that.” He said before he kissed you deeply. 

[ridiculousn3sswrites]

Lost in Translation

*Lafayette x Reader

*Request: “ @thefluffypancake asked: ‘Hey could you do a Lafayette x reader where she’s learning French and she try’s to ask him out on a date but accidentally asks something else. If not, it’s okay! Have a great day! 💞💞’”

*Warnings: Language, my own personal issues with French as a language. Let me know if I missed anything!

*A/N: This request is so old and I’m so sorry for that. Also I kinda changed the request a bit to reader saying she wants to kiss Laf because that word-for-word translation is off and you’ll see in the fic.

Tip Jar

**********

French was definitely a made up, ridiculous language. While - as your friends always felt the need to point out - every language was made up, French was even more made up than anything else. And yet here you were, trying to learn French on your own just so you could ask out the Frenchie in your friend group. It was a stupid idea in hindsight, but you thought it’d be cute to just surprise him by talking to him and then asking him out in French. Turns out it was a lot harder than you thought it would be. When your initial plan didn’t work out, you could always count on your friends to fuck up in a way that would make things somewhat better. 

Apparently, John never got the memo to not tell Alexander you’d asked him for help with French, and Alexander never got the memo that you learning French was supposed to be a secret. He definitely didn’t get the memo to never bring it up in front of Laf (even though you were pretty sure you’d told John you were trying to learn to impress Laf), so he did exactly that when all of you were hanging out. You had just got back to the table, coffee in hand when Alexander opened his stupid mouth. “Hey, how’s learning French going?”

“I mean, that’s one way to greet me I guess,” you said, trying to ignore the heat rushing to your face. Nope, the best course of action would just be to avoid the conversation. “Like, I haven’t even sat down yet.”

“Wait, you’re trying to learn French?” Laf asked, looking at you in excitement. You could already feel your resolve weakening.

“I mean, I’m trying but it’s not working out so great. Turns out that Duolingo owl only cares about Spanish,” you tried joking, taking the empty seat next to him.

“Dude, you asked me for help,” John spoke up, like that would make the situation any better. It wasn’t your fault that French was an utterly ridiculous language. What language even needs that many vowels? 

“Not my fault you’re a shit teacher,” you shot back, deadpan but completely joking. Even though John looked offended, you knew he wouldn’t hold it against you. After all, you were his ride back home. It took John a second to bounce back.

“Nah, you’re just a shit student.”

“I mean, my grades aren’t gonna argue with you there,” you laughed, the tension finally easing up some. You were still gonna strangle Alexander later, but for now things were fine. For all of five seconds.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” Laf asked, stealing your coffee and taking a sip. You were quick to take it back from him, trying to think of an excuse that wouldn’t give away your true intentions. However, now that you thought about it, just asking him to help you learn French probably would’ve been the easiest course of action. Have lessons with him a couple times a week for a few weeks, ask him how you ask someone out in French, and then bam! hit him with the question. Why do I always make things more difficult than they need to be?

“I… actually, I don’t know. Do you think you could help me out?” You tried to ignore the impressed look John was giving you. Sometimes you hated the fact he was your best friend.

“Yeah, of course! I’m offended you went to him first,” Lafayette said, stealing another drink of your coffee.

“Dude, buy your own!”

“But yours tastes so much better,” he teased.

“Gross, can you guys get a room or something?” Hercules spoke up. “Actually, don’t. I forgot I share a room with Laf for a second.”

“And you just made it worse than it had to be,” Angelica muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Anyways, when are you free? It’ll be fun helping you learn,” Laf said, turning his attention back to you. “Just send me your schedule and we can set it up!”

“Yeah, sure thing,” you agreed after a second, trying not to seem too eager. You and Laf rarely hung out on your own, normally having at least one of your other friends there with you. You couldn’t remember the last time the two of you had been alone, let alone you not being awkward when it was just the two of you. You texted him a screenshot of your schedule, your heart already racing at the thought of getting closer to him. You could handle hanging out with him with other people, but alone was a whole different story.

“Great! This’ll be fun!” His bright smile was enough to take your breath away, easing your worries somewhat.

“Yeah, I can’t wait.”

“Okay, so back to me,” John redirected the conversation, making a face at the look you were giving Laf. You couldn’t help but laugh at his obvious attempt, gladly letting him talk about whatever project he was working on now. No, you needed to figure out how you were going to handle this.

**********

Considering it was the middle of the semester, it was difficult to find a time to meet up with Laf that worked for the both of you. You both had papers, midterms, and group projects to work on, but you were finally able to find some time to have a little French session. The first few sessions were accidental, happening when Laf happened to find you in one of the 24-hour libraries, way too late for anything to actually stick in your mind. You found yourself only focusing on the way he spoke French, which was way too attractive to be fair.

After you had a few more impromptu sessions, you were finally able to actually set something up with Lafayette. For once, the both of you had a Friday afternoon free, so you’d be able to see him when you didn’t look absolutely destroyed by assignments and projects. It was still early on into your changed plan, but you figured now was as good a time as any to make your move. You managed to convince John to leave the apartment for a few hours at least, not that he made it easy on you. With his incessant teasing, sometimes you wondered why you chose him to be your best friend and roommate. 

Once John was finally out of the apartment, all you had to do was set things up. You set out some snacks, not really knowing how to host other than offering people food, had some study materials set out because the two of you were going to work on some other assignments before you started with the French lessons. Things didn’t have to be perfect, but you were determined to make it as close as possible. You had a note on your phone for what you wanted to ‘ask’ Laf about, and you were ready. The only thing you needed was for Laf to show up.

As you waited for Laf to make his appearance, you decided to get some reading done for class. Well, you tried to. You couldn’t help you constant fidgeting, switching between tabs as though there would be a different internet on each one, checking your phone and scrolling through Twitter - you really had no idea how you were supposed to pretend that you were going to study when he got here. You knew it would be super obvious that your mind wasn’t 100% on your work. Before you could think about it any longer, there was a knock on your door. Holding yourself back, you waited a minute before getting up to answer it.

“Hey,” you said with a smile, acting like you hadn’t just been fretting over how you were going to get through this.

“Hey! You ready to study?” Laf asked, tugging on his backpack strap as if to prove he brought his work with him.

“Yeah! I’m set up at the table if you wanna just head over there.” You silently cursed how non-human that sounded. As soon as the two of you sat down, though, things got easier. Even as the two of you worked, you kept a small conversation going, making jokes about things you’d just read or were working on, telling stories about class. For the first time in a while, things were going just like they were when the two of you hung out with the group. Lafayette made it really easy for you to like him.

After a couple hours of the two of you working on your own things, Lafayette closed his laptop, getting your full attention. Laf leaned forward like he was about to let you in on some giant secret. “Are you ready to learn some French now?”

“Yeah, I wanna know what you, Alex, and John are saying whenever you go into French,” you teased.

“Non, that’s a secret,” Lafayette laughed, looking away. “Alright, let’s start.”

The session started out much like your impromptu sessions: Lafayette would say a common word or phrase in French, he’d ask you what you thought it meant, he’d tell you what it actually meant, and then you’d repeat it to him. He’d fix any mispronunciations, and you’d keep going until you got it right. This would go on for as many phrases or whatever until one of you decided to take a break. It was a nice little process and was definitely helping things stick in your mind more than when you tried learning on your own or with John.

You were the first one to call for a break, your heart pounding as you tried to figure out how you were going to do this. You wanted to ask him out soon, not willing to let yourself chicken out at the last second, especially since you knew John would talk so much shit if he found out you kicked him out and didn’t even ask Laf out. As you were in the kitchen, filling up your water bottle as an excuse, you tried to calm yourself. The worst that could happen would be things getting weird between the two of you, the best was the two of you would get together, so that meant reality would be somewhere in the middle. You took a deep breath before making your way back to the table.

“Ready to start again?” Laf asked, looking up from his phone.

“Yeah, I actually had something I wanted to ask you.” You took your seat next to him, grabbing your phone to double check what you had translated earlier.

“Go ahead.”

“So, uh,” you paused for a second, gathering the last bit of courage you needed. “Right, uh, what does je veux te baiser mean? Because, uh, je veux te baiser.”

Immediately, Lafayette looked away, drinking his water so he didn’t have to answer you. You could just tell something was wrong and felt your face heat up as you just looked down at your hands. When Lafayette finally spoke, you felt your heart drop. “I… I don’t think you know what you just said.”

You looked up, eyes wide. You knew French was tricky, but there was no way you messed up something that simple, right? You tried not to appear too flustered, but you knew it was a losing battle. “Wait, what did I say then?”

“I think I know what you were trying to say, but you didn’t say it.”

“So what did I say?”

“Okay, so direct translation was that, but what you said was, uh, you uh wanttofuckme,” he rushed out the last part, and it took you a second to process what he said. If you thought your face couldn’t get any hotter, you were wrong. 

“Jesus Christ, I am so sorry. I mean I really like you but I didn’t mean to say that and I’m so sorry, that probably made you really uncomfortable and I understand if you want to leave and-” You were cut off by his lips on yours. You quickly melted into the kiss, even though you still weren’t exactly sure what was going on.

“Je veux t’embrasser,” Lafayette said as he broke the kiss.

“What?”

“Je veux t’embrasser. That’s how you say I want to kiss you,” he explained.

“Je veux t’embrasser,” you repeated with a small smile.

“Good.” You were rewarded with another soft kiss. Maybe French wasn’t so ridiculous…

No, it definitely was. 

**********

Permanent Tag List: @treatallwithkindness, @laic2299, @delaber

[lillian-nator]

tommy and tubo think it would be funny if they just make a cult with purpled as a god, and for some reason it catches on in the rest of the group, so now sometimes they’ll just assault purpled with praise or gifts and when teachers ask what they’re doing the just say they’re pleasing god, and so now the student body and faculty have to determine whether or not this is a joke, or if this group is actually a cult. - shark

Yes that 100% actually happened. 

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

It all derived from one Spanish Class. 

None of the 3 boys are great at Spanish. They can speak basic conversational Spanish, but they hate their teacher, and goof off too much in the class to really learn the material. Luckily for them, Quackity is fluent in Spanish, so he is just a text away for a test answer, if they really need it. 

Case in point - there is no way that the three of them combined should win the end of the year Spanish Kahoot. Especially since Purpled was the best at Spanish out of the three of them, and he had been texting Ponk all class. 

Without looking up once, Purpled had guessed every single correct Kahoot answer. 

Tommy stood on their lunch table, telling the story to the intrigued Seniors. “HE HADN’T EVEN LOOKED AT THE ANSWERS GEORGE! HE JUST GUESSED THE COLORS!” 

The only answer for Purpled’s luck that Tommy and Tubbo could come up with was the fact that he must either be a gift from a god, or a fucking god himself.

And having spent almost every day with Purpled since 5th grade, Tommy and Tubbo knew that Purpled was no where near a gift from god. The kid ate one too many questionable food combinations. 

“HE MUST BE A GOD GOGY! ITS THE ONLY REASONABLE EXPLANATION!” Tommy laughed after SapNap pulled him down from the tabletop. 

“It makes sense!” Karl defends Tommy. “Purpled showed us mortals his godly powers.” 

Dream who had just came from the lunch line sat down next to Tommy, pushing Tommy’s own tray of Pizza out of the way, and putting an arm around George. “Wait - what?” 

“WAP - Worship and Prayer.” Tommy repeated, crossing his hand over his chest. 

It was right then and there when Quackity kneeled before Purpled - who still on his phone, but probably on twitter now, really just wanting to get out of school - and started recting his prayers in Spanish, that the entire table burst out laughing, some of them crying from how hard they were wheezing. 

The whole cafeteria was used to the large table being loud - nobody really cared, besides George was like the most popular guy in school, who was gonna tell him off? 

Some girls at a nearby table were listening to the conversation, but if Tommy cared he wouldn’t have yelled. Tommy was used to people listening. The whole football team sat at a table near them, and it would be a miracle if they weren’t eavesdropping on the 3 star players (SapNap, Dream, and Punz). 

George, Karl, Ponk, Tommy, Purpled, and Tubbo were apart of the soccer team, the schools second-best preforming sport (right after football), so they were up-there in popularity, as well. Not to mention half of the school simps for Gogy. 

It was safe to say that a quarter of the school heard about “Purpled’s godly powers” first hand, and by the next morning, the entire school had heard about the conversation at the lunch table.

There were definitely some stares when Tommy raced up to the blonde in the purple-sweatshirt the next morning. 

“An offering to the gods.” Tommy stated, kneeling on the ground next to Puprled’s locker, holding up a La Croix - a drink that Tommy couldn’t understand how Purpled liked, but Wilbur had left one in the fridge - to give to him. 

Purpled looks down, feeling much less tired and out of it than he had yesterday, and with a deadpan expression and monotone voice, said “The gods accept your offer.” 

In which Tommy actually folds in on himself and lays on the floor, wheezing so hard that he can barely breath. 

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

Every so often, when Purpled will get a good score on a test, or just when the group feels like being absolute idiots, they will shower Purpled with praises and offerings to the gods. 

Once Purpled had scored the winning goal at the soccer team’s state championship, to which, the 5 others there, had held Purpled in the air, shouting prayers in his direction. 

Tommy had promptly shouted “WAP”

In which the others followed with a monotone: “Worship and Prayer!” 

Leaving the coach, and their other teammates speechless. 

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

The faculty was confused to say the least. 

A group of boys who don’t really seem like they should fit together, all getting on their knees in front of a freshman. 

I mean, it’s quite an assortment of boys, and the teachers had never seen a group quite like this before. They had also never seen a Senior bow down to a Freshman before. 

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

So heaven knows what Mr. Evans, Tommy’s English Teacher, is supposed to do when Dream, George, and SapNap barge into his English class - along with Tommy who was running late that morning - and each gave Purpled a doughnut, said their thanks, and promptly fled the room. Leaving a gaping Mr. Evans behind. 

Tommy sat down calmly holding two coffees and looking way too tired to have entered class the way he did. He handed Purpled one of the coffees, mumbling “To the gods” before he immediately put his head down in his arms, where Mr. Evans assumed that he slept for the rest of class. 

Once the bell rang, Purpled shook Tommy awake, who grabbed his coffee on the desk - his backpack still on his back from when he entered - and got up to leave. 

Mr. Evans pulled the two teens aside, watching as the other students left the classroom. “What the hell was that, Mr. Analine?” (tommy’s last name - shortened version). 

Tommy looked more ticked-off than anything. “I was pleasing the gods, sir.” 

To which, he handed Mr. Evans a tardy slip, and left with Purpled trailing behind him, leaving the teacher with his mouth agape, wondering “What the does that mean?” 

It now becomes a running question throughout the facility, 

1. Are they a cult? Or is this some sort of sick joke?  2. How the hell did a Freshman convince multiple upperclassmen that they were a god?  And:  3. Can they stop it? 

[motherjoel]

hot cocoa (spencer reid x reader)

summary: spencer accidentally spills some of penelopes famous hot cocoa onto a beautiful stranger in the airport (who just so happens to be sitting next to him on the plane)

a/n: this one takes place during the holidays but its not all about xmas! also i tried to make this gender neutral and i think it is but if i missed something let me know

wc: 2.2k

warnings/includes: reader curses a lot & has flight anxiety, spencer is awkward and sweet

-

Spencer was rarely late- even when he had food poisoning from some bad chinese food, he made it into work with time to spare. Sure, he might have turned green at the sight of the evidence board, but he even made it to the trash can in time. His punctuality had come into question today, however, as he booked it to the boarding area. I shouldn’t have let Garcia distract me, he thought back to the holiday party at the office. Well, surprise party- they had all returned from a case sore and exhausted, but of course Penelope had baked an entire array of cookies and decorated the office to the brim. He stayed for one cup of hot cocoa, which turned into three, and before he knew it, his flight was an hour away. With his travel mug filled with cocoa in hand, he awkwardly ran through the airport to catch his flight home to Vegas.

Spencer never considered himself a coordinated person- sure, he had to have a certain level of finesse to be an FBI agent, but if he wasn’t a genius he never would have passed the physical. So when he found himself tripping over his own feet in the middle of an airport, he wasn’t as much surprised as he was perturbed. That annoyance soon shifted into pure embarrassment when he looked up to see you- the ethereal being he had just spilled Penelope’s famous hot cocoa onto. The beautiful person whose “I <3 DC” sweatshirt was now stained an unattractive shade of brown. His mind went completely blank in that moment, the apology he had wished to conjure up lying dead on his tongue. As he began to stammer in shock he stopped in his tracks- you were laughing. A noise Spencer swears could find world peace and end world hunger. A voice that finally encouraged Spencer to find his own.

“I am so sorry,” he apologized, hands frantically flying to his personal pack of tissues he kept in his bag. You continued to laugh, doubled over as you accepted the wad of tissues.

“Oh, it's okay,” you said, taking a deep breath. “God, I definitely seem insane. Sorry, I’ve just been having one hell of a shitty day,” you began to explain, confusing Spencer even more. “So my boyfriend breaks up with me the morning of my flight across the country, which I’m running a bit late for,” you continued, glancing at your watch. “But I have to go home for the holidays of course so I pack my shit and head out anyway, but I forget a sweatshirt! I’m freezing cold so I buy this overpriced ugly thing,” you gestured to your now-stained sweatshirt. “Only for you to spill your…” you sniffed the mess, “hot cocoa?” you questioned, Spencer nodded frantically, “all over it. I guess that's one way of warming up,” you huffed. 

“Wow, I- um, I don’t really know what to say. I’m really sorry about your day being bad. And for spilling my drink on you, of course, um,” he reached into his suitcase and pulled out his backup cardigan. “Here, take this,” he said, almost shoving the knitwear into your hands. “Please, it’s the least I can do,” he said, unintentionally flashing what Prentiss called his “puppy dog eyes.” He exhaled in relief as you grabbed the sweater from him, sliding off your stained hoodie and replacing it with his soft and coffee-scented cardigan. 

“Thanks. And I’m sorry for dumping my days' trauma on you, but I really do have a flight to catch, so,” you gestured towards the boarding area (which just so happened to be his designated boarding area). You rushed off to board the plane after giving him a tight-lipped smile and a soft wave, leaving him in a dazed state. Breaking out of his trance, he grabbed his suitcase and continued his beeline towards the plane. 

There was something about you that stuck with Spencer- although it may not have been your proudest moment, he was incredibly intrigued by you and the way you reacted to disaster. Spencer had seen his fair share of terrible coping mechanisms, but the way you laughed in the face of tragedy was something he admired- envied, almost. Envy wasn’t the right word for it, there were no negative connotations he associated with the way he felt about you. Perhaps it was too soon to tell.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped onto the plane, the anxiety of missing his flight finally lifted. Said anxiety was soon replaced by a new feeling that was ruled by a flutter in his chest, one that he had only experienced a few times in his life. This fluttery feeling was the result of seeing you planted in the seat directly next to the one written on his plane ticket. His breath caught in his throat as you looked up from the book in your hand, giving him a small wave. His eyes widened as he looked around, wondering if you were actually waving at him. You laughed and looked back down at your book, a soft smile rested on your lips. As Spencer got closer to his seat he could feel his heart rate picking up. You looked up from your book as he struggled slightly to lift his carryon into the overhead compartment. His cheeks heated up in embarrassment over the struggle, but he eventually managed to secure his carryon, taking a seat in 32 B. 

“So we meet again,” you smiled at the disheveled man next to you.

“So we do,” Spencer smiled and grabbed his copy of Les Miserables from his backpack- he lost track of how many times he had read it, but it was an easy plane read for him.

“I’m Y/N, by the way. Sorry, I probably should’ve introduced myself earlier after telling you my life story. I just didn’t expect to be sitting next to you,” you said with amusement.

“I’m Spencer, and no problem. Hows, um, the sweater?” he asked, trying to continue the conversation. Normally he’d be a quarter through his book by now, but you were a rare something that was more interesting to him than Victor Hugo. 

“It’s great! Cozier than my ‘I heart DC’ hoodie for sure,” you laughed and Spencer swore he heard angels singing.

“I’m glad, I felt really bad. Hot chocolate is actually a really difficult stain to remove because it has fat, sugar, tannins, and protein. It would take a lot of work to remove that stain, especially with the chocolate to milk ratio Penelope uses,” Spencer rambled, the embarrassment setting in the second he closed his mouth.

“Penelope?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, she's my coworker. She’s known for her hot chocolate and her cookies. Oh!” Spencer remembered the plastic bag of cookies Garcia had sent him home with. “Want one? They’re chocolate chip,” he said, grabbing the bag of cookies and holding it out to you.

“Sure,” you laughed, taking a bite of the surprisingly delicious cookie. “Oh. My. God. That is incredible! This Penelope person has a gift,” you laughed, finishing the cookie surprisingly fast.

“I’ll be sure to let her know,” Spencer smiled, taking a cookie for himself. A comfortable silence ensued as the two of you munched on your cookies, the plane almost done boarding.

“So, what brings you to Vegas?” you asked. Spencer was a little confused as to why you wanted to talk to him, but he decided not to question the anomaly.

“Oh, I’m visiting my mother for the holidays. I work at Quantico in Virginia so I don’t get to see her too often,” he shared, surprised at his willingness to be open.

“That’s nice! I’m kinda doing the same, except I am not returning to DC,” you sighed. Spencer felt his heart drop as he internally begged for you to elaborate, and as if reading his mind, you continued. “That boyfriend I mentioned earlier was kinda my only reason for moving here, and now that he's a cheating jackass- sorry, oversharing again, um, now that we broke up, I’ll probably just stay in Vegas,” you explained, opening the book in front of you and mindlessly flipping through the pages. He focused on the chipped nail polish painted on your bitten nails as you turned the pages, eyes moving to the title of the book.

“Le Petit Prince?” he asked, pointing at your book.

“Oh, yeah. I’m trying to teach myself some french so I’m reading this to get a little better,” you smiled before your eyes drifted down to the thick book in his lap. “You’re reading Les Mis?” you asked, slightly shocked at the french writing on the cover.

“Yeah, well it's my.... fourth, I think, time reading it. Well, in the original french,” he said, oblivious to his accidental brag.

“Damn, are you a genius or something?” you laughed, noticing the blank stare on Spencer’s face. “Wait. You are,” you pointed at him, your shock turning into joy.

“Well, technically, I am I guess,” he smiled awkwardly, trying not to flaunt his intelligence.

“That’s so cool! God, maybe if I was a genius I could get past the first chapter of this book,” you huffed, looking defeatedly at your book once again.

“May I ask, why are you learning French? It’s the fourth most important language behind Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and German. That’s just my opinion, of course,” he said, slightly flustered by the look on your face.

“Yeah, I guess it's not the most practical. But there's something so romantic about France, you know?” you asked and he nodded, blushing lightly. “I’ve always wanted to visit Paris, hell, maybe even live there. It’s stupid,” you laughed, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear.

“No, it’s not. It’s called the city of love for a reason,” he said with a tight-lipped smile. You were both silent for a moment before the flight attendants began their safety announcements and prepared for takeoff. Spencer noticed you stiffen as the engine started to rumble and the plane got faster. “Are you okay?” he asked as you shut your eyes tightly together.

“Yeah, yes, um. I just have really bad flight anxiety,” you confessed, eyes remaining closed. The plane lifted off the ground and you sucked in a deep breath, instinctively reaching over to grab Spencer's hand. All thoughts of germs and disease had completely left his mind at your touch- facts and logic meant nothing at this point if it meant you wouldn’t let go. “Could you just um, distract me?” you asked, peeking at him from the corner of your eye, hand still clutching his.

“Oh, yeah of course,” he said, thinking quickly for a distraction before grabbing the book from your lap and opening it to the first page. In perfect french, he began to read. “Lorsque j’avais six ans j��ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image…” he read for almost an hour before he felt your head relax on his shoulder, eyes closed. He continued to read for a bit longer before the lull of sleep pulled him under as well, your touch comforting him and providing safety.

Spencer woke a few hours later with a start to the seatbelt light beeping on. Gathering his bearings he looked to his left to see you already awake, looking at him with a smile.

“You’re cute when you sleep. Snore a bit, though,” you laughed and yawned, looking out the window. Spencer's heart rate picked up at your mussed hair and dazed expression. “Thank you for reading to me. I’m completely chill now,” you reassured him.

“Oh, no problem. Also, I’m not the only one who snores,” he quipped, a soft smirk on his lips.

“Hey, gimme a break! That was the most I’ve slept in days,” you defended.

“Believe it or not, me too,” Spencer realized, surprised that he slept more on an airplane than in his own bed. Maybe that difference was you.

“Looks like we’re almost landing,” you noticed, causing a pang in Spencer’s chest.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so,” he acknowledged with a slight tone of disappointment.

“Hey. So this might sound crazy, but what if I gave you my number? And while you’re still in Vegas, maybe we can hang out? Sorry if this is too forward,” you cringed in embarrassment.

“No!” he started, eyes wide.

“Oh, okay. I shouldn’t have asked,” you immediately took back your statement.

“No! I mean, it's not too forward. I, uh would love to… hang out with you,” Spencer said, the words seeming unfamiliar on his tongue. The smile you gave him seemed to stop the earth for a few seconds (although Spencer knew this was scientifically impossible, something about you defied laws of science). 

The plane soon landed and numbers were exchanged, and one unexpected (but lovely) goodbye hug was given, and Spencer was floating. He couldn’t wait to tell his mom.

-

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