#because i refused it because it doesn’t work on me anyway) and then my gum was bleeding so much they were like ‘we can’t fill this’

[fingertipsmp3]

2024 if you fuck me up I will never forgive you

[catscidr]

// taking care of your dogboy (hsr edition!) //

i. note — sry i havent been posting yall i got a job + ive been working on three cosplays at the same time bc my local con is coming up lmao (´ཀ`」 ∠) however the brainrot never stops. it only takes a break. a little break of approximatively. a month. ish. ......... anyways dog hybrid hsr boys brainrot !!! lmk if we want more of this with more boys •ᴗ• comments and asks are appreciated hehe ii. includes — blade, gepard, boothill and gn!reader iii. cw — slice of life stuff turning into smut, possessive behaviour, overstim, slight dom/sub dynamics, real messy stuff, manhandling. use of the word "hole" to keep reader gender neutral iv. wc — 1,9k

blade is a mutt riddled in scars and dirty bandages from living on the streets and fighting to survive.

you think he might be some german shepherd mix, but he refuses to let you swab his teeth n gums for a dna test (last time you tried you narrowly avoided a punch to the face. he apologized in his own way afterwards), so whenever people ask, just say he’s a rescue to avoid revealing that you actually just… don’t really know what breed he is. they usually drop the subject and simply go on their merry way, seeing as he wasn’t the type of pup to appreciate affection from strangers anyways– it’s rare for you to leave the house in the first place, though.

you had to switch to a remote job because blade is just so persistent when it comes to you. although possessive is a much better descriptor, because he doesn’t let anyone near you. whenever you leave to get groceries he ends up practically breathing down your neck from how close he gets— acting as if he were your literal shadow— glaring at everyone that gets too close to you. you’ve made it a habit to always go to self-checkout lane so blade doesn’t scare off the cashiers.

the second you get home he’s all over you, determined to rid you of that outside stench and replace it with his own. you started packing your grocery bags in a way that nothing will break if (read: when) you suddenly drop them on the floor, all because you’re so familiar with blade’s impatience.

he holds you still by engulfing your body with his, knees caging your hips as he grinds into you, shallow and deep. blade’s growls and huffs fill your ears just as much as his cock fills your hole, his knot kissing your tightness from the outside.

“do you like this? like how i have to fuck you every time you decide to go outside again when you could stay here,” with me blade omits, his tail swishing back and forth on the bedsheets behind him, the sound just barely grounding you to reality.

your grocery bags were long forgotten on the foor (as they usually are), your mind too foggy to function. clawing at the sheets, you try to crawl away from blade’s grip— to no avail.

he tuts, craning his head to bite down onto the skin where your shoulder meets your neck. “i might just need to mark you for extra precaution,” he bucks into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. you hear squelching, the constant plap! plap! plap! from his thighs smacking against your ass and whine, broken babbles leaving your kiss-bruised lips.

“b-blade, y’can’t- ah,” he shushes you by plugging you full of his lengthy cock, his knot almost threatening to press inside of you. you whimper, feeling lightheaded from a mix of both nervousness and arousal.

he soothes the hickey he left on your neck, licking it languidly as he stills to bask into the way your hole throbs around him. warm and tight and oh so tempting.

“shit, wanna fill you. wanna… have everyone know they can’t have you. you’re mine, mine to love ‘n mine to fuck,” you’re not lucid enough to process his thinly veiled confession, too busy writhing your ass back against him in a feeble attempt to get him to continue moving.

you might want to invest into some good concealer or into those skin coloured tattoo patches to cover the bruises and bite marks blade’ll leave on you if you want to continue being a functioning member of society. you can’t really be walking around in public as if a dog had just mauled you right before you left the house, can you?

gepard is a golden retriever because of COURSE he is. similarly to blade, he likes to invade your personal space a lot— not because he’s possessive, but because he’s extremely protective of you.

the random bruises you used to randomly notice on your body faded as soon as he came into your life. gepard’s soft, lingering touches healed them; gently placing a hand on your hip before you bump into sharp furniture so it doesn’t hit you, redirecting your head to his shoulder as you nod-off in the train before you bang your head, and so on.

it’s a full-time job and he’s working 24/7, always on the lookout for anything that could possibly hurt you as you saunter off… wherever, without a care in the world— because he took care of everything!

he would clean the apartment for you, cook (though you usually insist you do the cooking; a human doesn’t have the same taste in food as a hybrid), and even act as your own personal alarm clock. gone were the days of being woken up by loud, blaring beeping. gepard woke you up with forehead kisses instead, making your mornings much more pleasant.

but poor geppie, he’s always taking care of you; so take care of him, won’t you?

every so often you’ll sit in his lap to help him get rid of whatever stress he held in his body. your hands will knead at the muscles in his broad shoulders, all while you simultaneously kiss away the strain in his face. his brows are furrowed as you do your best to soothe his muscles; you never forget to smooch his cheek, nose and the corner of his lips.

though the attention and gentle acts of affection always ends with your hands lower than they should be.

“ah ah, no touching, remember?” you murmur in his ear playfully. you had been at it for what felt like hours; gepard’s cock and abdomen was smeared with the remnants of his cum, skin tacky from his previous loads. your hand shows no sign of stopping, not even when he begged oh so sweetly.

“c-come onn. just… jus’ wanna kiss…” and who were you to deny your sweet boy? your lips find his in a heartbeat, his tongue swiping over your own sloppily as he breathes you in like a depraved man.

the only condition you had when you did this was for him to keep his hands to himself— at least until you both decide to move on to something else. until then, his fists clench the sheets beneath the both of you, and his ears stay flat on his fluffy head.

“i’m… i’m close again, g- aah, please, please…!” he begs, cock weeping precum as you continuously jerk him off. you smile, absentmindedly rocking your hips to the rhythm you held him prisoner to— gepard was too engulfed in the warmth of your hand to notice, anyways. “cum whenever you want sweet boy,” you purr, and he keens as he buries his face in your neck, his hips lifting off the bed ever so slightly as they meet your hand and he thrusts, riding the high of his orgasm.

sticky cum coats your hand for the nth time; you relent your grip on his cock for his sake, instead choosing to shower him with chaste kisses all over his face. gepard whines, taking ahold of your waist weakly as he breathes into the crook of your neck.

“geppie, your han-“ he cuts you off, swiftly switching positions so you’re now laying on your back as he hovers over you, chest rising and falling quickly, catching his breath from the intensity of his orgasm. gepard’s tail wags slowly behind him as his hands creep up from your waist to your chest just as slowly- you feel his cock harden against your pelvis, precum spilling from his pinky tip.

“‘ts my turn now,” he huffs, leaning down to nip at your neck.

boothill is the most obnoxious dalmatian hybrid you’ve ever seen (not that you’ve seen many, or at all). but he’s made your life so fun so you can’t be too mad at him

he’s always dragging you out of bed to go do something— could be going to the park nearby or sit in the living room playing video games on your dusty console, it doesn’t matter because he’ll MAKE you step out of your cozy nest!!

you’re glad he’s friendly, because you’re not sure how you would handle such an excited hybrid when you left the house. people come up to the both of you to chat and he indulges their questions, essentially leading the conversation (while you stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to say).

boothill is also great with kids, unexpectedly. 9 times out of 10 when you go to the park he ends up playing with someone’s child, bright smile on his face as he messes up their hair with a rough hand. they’ll throw a frisbee for him to go catch and he’ll do it happily, or he’ll even… teach them how to beat people up.

(you stare mortified as he teaches a little girl how to throw a proper punch only for her to then punch her parent when she leaves boothill’s side. you go up to them and apologize profusely, forcing boothill to bow with you.)

he also loves to help you out, even though he’s not the greatest at household chores— but he definitely tries! though he is a stellar cook, which never fails to surprise you whenever he’s on dinner duty. he just… really sucks at everything else.

it’s… mostly because he just has so much energy. he sweeps the floor? nope, he’s picking off the pieces of the broom off of the floor because he accidentally broke it. he’s fixing your bed? nuh uh, you’re throwing out the ruined bedsheets because he accidentally tore them to shreds somehow.

so, with all of these accidents happening because he’s just brimming with energy 24/7, you started purposely exhausting him. or, rather, gave him the green light to exhaust you until he tires himself out.

“booth-aah, w-wait, you’re being too…!” you fall over on top of his hard chest, keening at the new angle his cock reached inside of you. he repeated his assault on the spot that made you see stars as your jaw gaped, broken moans leaving your lips.

“don’t tell me y’re tapping out.. haa, already!” boothill grunts, his grip on your hips tightening. he throws his head back with a loud moan, abs tensing as he nears yet another climax— the 5th one of the night. maybe, maybe not. you lost count after the third one.

you bury your face into the crook of his neck, focusing on the feeling of his cock plugging you full instead of the soreness, the burn in your muscles that came from your knees holding you up on his lap.

watching you riding him will always be his favourite thing in the world, even if he always ends up fucking up into you and taking back control at the end of the night.

“gonna cu-uum…” you whine, clenching around his length almost painfully tightly, hearing his breathing hitch as an orgasm is ripped out of him in consequence to yours. boothill’s fingers dig into your ass, his hips lifting off the bed as he cums deep inside of your sloppy hole again, sticky fluid building up beneath the sheets.

you collapse on top of him fully, chest heaving against his own as you come back to your senses, slowly but surely. boothill’s ears perk up, hearing how your breathing had evening out.

“so… got another round in ya?”

[tranakin-skywalker]

instead of working on the next chapter of Star-Birth, my hell brain is insisting I go back and write more in chapter one, because it is unreasonable and refuses to do what I want.

But it does mean I get to write stuff like this

The hovel that Watto lets them live in is small, as all slave houses are, but it is theirs and theirs alone, and for that Anakin loves it. It is better than being wedged in tight with a dozen other hot bodies, the stink of sweat and blood and sick heavy in the air. It is alien at first, to live alone in a house with only his mother. Anakin has spent all the life that he can remember in Gardulla’s palace. He finds their new home too quiet, too empty. Lying beside his mother on the floor pallet, it is quiet enough that sometimes he thinks he can hear the soft beeping of the chip in his body relaying with the transmission tower.  Sometimes, he thinks it’s enough for him to find the chip and cut it out of him. There are a few times he tries, when Watto is in a mood and beats him or his mother hard enough to bruise. He’ll take the knife his mother keeps in a hidden hole in the wall and begin to cut into his belly, right over where he thinks his chip must be. He never makes it very far before his nerve leaves him, a long red cut over his stomach and shaking hands to show for it. The cuts always heal over by the time his mother is awake the next morning, like they were never there at all. Anakin knows that healing that quickly isn’t normal. There’s a lot of things about him that aren’t normal. He remembers being younger, back when they still belonged to Gardulla, and looking at a bounty hunter who has visiting the palace and seeing time stretch out before him, remembers seeing the bloody bits that the bounty hunter’s body would be, the hole blown out of his chest, chunky red meat and the white glimmer of a ribcage. A dead man walking, his body just hadn’t caught up to the fact yet. Anakin hadn’t thought before blurting out, “you’re gonna die tomorrow.” The bounty hunter had thought it was a threat, or an insult, or maybe he was just pissed that a little slave boy had spoken to him. He’d backhanded Anakin hard enough that a couple of tiny baby teeth had been ripped right out of his mouth, torn lip staining what teeth remained red. His smile had been bright and bloody as he lay on the ground, grinning up at the bounty hunter. It hadn’t been a nice smile. The bounty hunter died the next day, just as Anakin knew he would. His lip had been healed by that point, the open gaps where his teeth had been already starting to show white enamel poking through his gums, but the taste of blood didn’t leave his mouth even after it had been washed away. He tries not to tell people about the things he sees in their futures, but sometimes the words come slipping out anyway. When his mother brings him with her to help on of their neighbors, he looks at the large swell of Niani’s pregnant stomach and blurts out, “it’s gonna be a girl you know.” Niani smiles at him and tells him “maybe. There’s no real way to know.” “It is,” he insists. “I can feel it. She’s going to grow up really pretty, but you’re not going to be alive to see it.” He regrets the words as soon as he says them. Niani goes white and afraid and beside him, his mother gets very very still. Mom has never, ever once hit him, but then and there, Anakin thinks this is the closest she has ever gotten to it. After they leave, Mom takes him by the shoulders and holds on a little too tight, her brittle nails cutting into his skin but he doesn’t make a sound of complaint. “Anakin, never, ever do anything like that again. Promise me, promise me you will never say things like that to anyone but me.” “I promise,” he croaks out, frightened and not sure why. “No one can know what you can do. No one, not even people you trust. And especially not the master. If they find out,” she chokes a moment, her anger dissolving beneath the power of her terror, “they cannot find out.” He promises. Over and over and over he promises her. Two months later, Niani gives birth to a healthy baby girl. Two weeks after that, they bury Niani in the desert, the birth gone bad. Infection. Anakin can smell it even if he never sees the body. Very few women on Tatooine survive their first child.

[saeyoungchoismaid]

The brother’s reaction to having a shy s/o who is inexperienced

Genre: fluff Warnings: none

Lucifer: 

he was really subtle about liking you at first

until he found out that you like him back 

then, all bets were off 

he acted so cockily and confident 

well, more than usual, that is

he was all about flirting and being touchy 

teasing you constantly 

when you two actually started dating, he was surprisingly pretty slow about going about things 

you guessed it was because he hasn’t been serious about anyone in a while 

a fiery blush came to your cheeks when you first held hands and he thought it was the cutest thing ever to see you so flustered 

when he finally decided to kiss you, he notices you dodge his attempts

the first time it happened, he got the message and didn’t try again for a long while 

he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, after all 

when he tries again though and you still refuse him, he decides to talk to you about it 

he’s absolutely 100% okay with waiting but he just wants to know why

does he scare you or make you nervous? Are you not as attracted to him as you thought? 

when you confess that you’re nervous to be affectionate with him in fear of messing up, he’s confused 

“Darling, I don’t care how good or bad you are. That’s what I’m here for. I’ll teach you all that you need to know,” he purrs suggestively into your ear 

when you finally do kiss, he can tell you’re inexperienced but the kiss alone was enjoyable because it was done with you 

Mammon:

it took him all of two seconds to try to first kiss you when you started dating

when you dodged it though, he felt his heart break a little

you’re his human now, right? So why can’t he show you how much he likes you?

true to Mammon manner, he throws a fit without really thinking about it 

“Why won’t ya let me kiss ya? ‘U’re my partner, aren’t ya? I should be allowed to kiss ya!” he whines

as much as he wanted to kiss you, he was okay with waiting if that’s what you wanted 

he’s just dramatic 

when you teared up at his words though, his mind instantly shuts off and he doesn’t know what to do 

“Yeah, ‘u’re right. I’m not being a good partner. I’m sorry,” you apologize, tears starting to fall down your face

he gapes at this, his heart beating faster when he realizes that he’s the cause of your tears

“What? No! You’re perfect! Stop crying! If ya don’t wanna kiss me yet, ya don’t have to!” he shouts

you sniffle and wipe at your cheeks, still not making eye contact with him 

“Really?” you ask unsurely, thinking he’s just saying that to make you stop crying 

you see his feet come into your view and then feel his hands on your cheeks, fear shooting through you when you think he’s going to try to kiss you anyway 

“(Y/n), ya know how much I...like ya. I don’t want to make ya do something that ya don’t wanna do...”

you sniffle again, a smile slowly coming to your face as you look up at him 

“Thank you, Mammon. This means a lot to me,” you thank softly

he huffs and shoves you into his chest, your arms coming around him for a tight hug

“Yeah, whatever, human,” he grumbles, failing to hide his blush from you

Levi:

he’s just as nervous as you are 

yeah, he’s been around hundreds and hundreds of years but that doesn’t mean he’s all that experienced 

he prefers hiding in his room to play video games and watch anime rather than going out and actually talking to all the normies 

you make him want to leave his room though 

he wasn’t exactly subtle about having feelings for you 

then again, you weren’t the best at hiding it either 

all of the brothers constantly tease you both 

so, when you finally do get together, neither of you make a move to even hold hands

the most you do for a while is hug, to be honest 

as time went by and you two got more comfortable around each other, he finally worked up the nerve to hold your hand 

both of you had blushes the entire time though 

it took him even longer to try to kiss you for the first time 

when you avoided it though, he freaked out 

“Sorry! Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have tried that! I really am sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

he stops when you tighten your grip on his hand, his throat seizing up a bit at the extra pressure

are you going to dump him? 

“I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m just so afraid of messing this up...” you confess 

cue confused Levi™️

“What? Why would you think that?” he asks as he turns to face you more now that he knows you’re not revolted by him 

after you explain everything to him, he smiles softly at you and turns you to face him 

“Hey, I don’t care about that. You’re talking to me, after all. There are plenty of things I haven’t done and I’m nervous to try. I want to try them with you though. For you,” he says softly, his free hand lightly cupping your cheek

you smile brightly at him now as you give him a hug

“Thank you, Levi.”

Satan: 

he was really calm about the entire thing 

well, other than when you would do something beyond cute and he’d just get so flustered

when he realized he liked you, he didn’t hesitate to ask you out once he ‘confirmed’ that you liked him back 

when you said yes, he was beyond ecstatic 

he practically dragged you to your first date right away 

he held your hand easily, not noticing how you tensed up at the gesture before slowly relaxing into it 

when he tried to kiss you after your first date though, you retreated from his face 

he visibly deflates at the denial but he doesn’t push it 

you two did just start dating, after all. Maybe you’re just not ready yet 

and he’s okay with that

“Goodnight, (Y/n),” he whispers before kissing the back of your hand and leaving you at your door 

he doesn’t try again until much later 

when you do the same thing again though, he looks crestfallen 

“(Y/n)...why won’t you let me kiss you?” he asks quietly, starting to become afraid that you didn’t actually like him anymore or that you’re scared of him 

after hearing you explain that you’re afraid of messing up or that you’re not good enough for him, he looks heartbroken 

“My love, don’t think so negatively about yourself. I want all of you, your faults and your downfalls included. I like you for who you are,” he says gently, cupping your hands with his 

when he sees you smile, he pulls you into a hug 

“Now that I know, I’ll wait as long as you want me to.” 

Asmo:

we all know how affectionate this demon is 

you two weren’t even dating yet before he tried making a move 

when you shot him down or shied away from him, he just brushed it off

when he actually started liking you though, all of that stopped 

he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable or nervous around him 

he hated the thought of it 

you, and everyone for that matter, noticed his change in behavior 

he didn’t really bring anyone home anymore, he didn’t even really flirt with anyone that wasn’t you 

it was freaking everyone out, honestly 

well, everyone but you 

it made you realize how serious his feelings for you are 

so, when you two start dating, he’s ready to get things on the road 

when he tries to kiss you though, you avoid it with a nervous gaze

this makes him just as nervous 

does he still make you uncomfortable or anxious? are you worried about him cheating on you? 

he let it go the first time, wanting to give you time to adjust to your new relationship with him 

when he tried again though and you still avoided him, he just got more upset 

“Why won’t you let me kiss you? Do I make you that uncomfortable?” he snaps without thinking about it 

in his eyes, he’s been nothing but a loving, caring, and loyal boyfriend and you’ll barely cuddle him 

everything comes to a stop when your eyes start watering though 

“You’re right. I know. I’m such a bad partner. You can kiss me. Go ahead,” you concede, body shaking as you move closer to him 

kissing you is what he’s been wanting but not like this

you clearly don’t want it 

“What? No! Look at you! You’re shaking at even thinking about kissing me! I’m not going to force you to do it!” he shouts as he moves away from you 

his yelling and denying you just makes you more nervous. You just keep messing up 

“I’m sorry. I understand if you want to break up with me. I know you’re the avatar of lust. I’m such a bad partner. I can’t even kiss you,” you sob, your body shaking even more

he frowns at this, a pit forming in his stomach as he tries to figure out what to do 

he sighs and moves to you, wrapping you in a hug and letting you sob into his chest 

“Babe,” he calls out to you, getting no response. “Darling,” he tries again. “Sugar. Love bug. My honey bunches of oats,” he keeps going, the pet names getting more sickeningly sweet as he goes on 

you start giggling at the fourth one, pulling away to look up at him 

he smiles softly at you, his hands cupping your face and petting your hair as he speaks 

“(Y/n), it doesn’t matter that I’m the avatar of lust. I want to be with you and if that means you don’t want to kiss me yet, then that’s okay. I’m sorry for shouting. I just thought you were still uncomfortable around me from how I used to act...” he confesses 

your smile slips into a frown, your head starting to shake 

“That’s not it at all. I just don’t want to mess this up. I really like you...” you confess 

he smirks and kisses your cheek before saying, “Good because I like you even more.”

Beel: 

my pure honey bunch sugar plum pumpyumpyumpkin sweetie pie cuppy cake gum drop schnookums schnookums baby cakes 

I love this man so much I-

when he figures out he likes you, this demon can barely look at you without getting butterflies and a pink blush 

when he finds out you like him too?

those butterflies turn into full-on birds and he swears he’s going to be sick 

he gets so nervous around you after that 

suddenly, things he used to do without thinking, he now overthinks about

you look so nice today. Should he tell you or will you be creeped out? He’s trying out this new recipe. Can he ask you to try it or is he pestering you? He needs help with his homework. Can he ask you or will you think he’s dumb or annoying?

MY POOR SWEET BABY 

when you two get together, it helps him relax a lot 

you wouldn’t be dating him if you didn’t like him, right?

takes him like three months to even hold your hand

after he first does it though, he ALWAYS holds your hand after that 

he likes the feeling of your small hand in his 

it takes him 47420959584 years to try to kiss you 

he’s honestly so excited but also very nervous 

he is constantly looking at your lips and imagining them against his

when he tries and you deny him, he thinks he might puke 

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” you say softly

he swallows down his nerves and nods his head, moving away from you to give you space 

“No, it’s okay. I understand.”

“But you don’t...” you mumble

what doesn’t he understand? 

“Okay, then explain it to me?” he replies, it coming out more as a question that a statement

you sigh before explaining the situation 

he smiles at your words though, thinking it’s kind of silly 

“(Y/n), you don’t ever have to be worried when it comes to me. I care for you in ways that I can’t explain. If you aren’t ready to kiss me yet, then that’s completely fine. I want to kiss you only when you’re ready,” he reassures before giving your forehead a kiss 

Belphie: 

you two were cuddling in bed before he even realized he liked you 

once he did realize though, he became nervous around you 

he didn’t show it though 

he just started acting indifferent towards you 

he wasn’t fooling anyone though 

it was the little things that showed everyone that he cared for you

giving you his leftovers instead of Beel, pulling a blanket over you if you fall asleep on the couch, pulling a piece of fuzz from your hair with the utmost care, the list goes on 

when you two started dating, nothing really changed at first

Belphie is bad at expressing himself, so cuddling with you was already a big step for him 

when you two move up to hugging and hand-holding though, he slowly starts to open up more 

one day, he finally goes to kiss you only for you to avoid it 

he’s confused but it doesn’t really bother him all that much because he knows what it’s like to received unwanted affection 

but wait 

why would his affection be unwanted? He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?

he softly asks you about it, letting you know that he’s not upset in any way. He’s just confused

once you explain that you’re afraid of messing up, he chuckles a little as he pulls you into a hug 

“Now why would you ever be afraid of something like that? You know that I like you. Both of us will make plenty of mistakes but we are a couple so we will work on them and improve together,” he coos at you

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[zannadu]

Now nobody asked for this but I’m going to do it anyway.

Includes: Katsuki Bakugou, Eijiro Kirishima, Denki Kaminari, Hanta Sero, and Mina Ashido

Warnings: fluff, mentions of sex, mentions of oral sex, kissing, and just dumb funny shit

MHA as Stoners

Katsuki Bakugou

It varies how fast he gets high, but his favorite way to smoke is with a simple joint

Okay this man will refuse to do any at first

But eventually will give in after the rest of the Bakusquad convinces him

(Though he will say “whatever I’ll do it”)

After the first smoke sesh with the squad he began to enjoy it more so he now does it more often.

If you are with him, he will either have a hard time being around her or will want to be next to you the whole time.

If you hold him he will act nonchalant but inside he will be exploding (no pun intended)

He will do his best to cuddle without making you uncomfortable.

He will get the munchies bad and insist you come with him to get more snacks every thirty minutes

He is much more open with his feelings and willing to talk more without yelling

He calms down a lot

He will show much more affection to you around people than he normally does.

Cuddling, kissing, squeezing, biting the whole PDA shabang.

He will not give two shits what everyone else thinks.

And when he finally has you alone, that’s when it gets a little hot and heavy. 👀

And he doesn’t even mean to.

Not that you’re complaining. ✌️

—————————————

Katsuki’s hands snaked their way around your waist and his face found a home in the crook of your neck.

“You know, if you want to cuddle, you could just say so,” you stated, resting your hand on his locked arms. He let out a soft groan against your skin. His breathing was slow and his eyes foggy. He squeezed you tighter and moved his hands to intertwine them with yours. His heavy eyes looked up and around the room meeting with everyone else’s eyes.

“You're touchy tonight,” Sero snickered, taking another hit off the joint that currently sat, squished in between his fingers.

Katsuki did nothing but roll his eyes and squeezed your fingers. He placed his mouth closer to your ear, his breath just tickling your ear lobe. Suddenly his teeth began to nibble on your ear, sending shivers down your arms, evident with the goosebumps now arise on your delicate skin.

“What do you say that we go to my room, I want you, ” his voice was low and husky. His fingers released from yours and fiddled the hem of your clothing and caressed your soft skin. His teeth began to but harder, causing you to gasp. He then continued to nibble slowly moving to your neck. How could you say no?

Eijiro Kirishima

It doesn't take very much to get him high so his favorite way to smoke is with a dab pen

Now usually this baby boy is sweet and manly

But when he's been smoking he gets VERY hungry

Like he will eat the entire kitchen.

He will space out a lot but will still listen to you if you're trying to talk to him

(or he will try to)

“Wait, what did you say?”

He isn't afraid of PDA either however he will wait till he's in private with you.

(as he should, he's respectful)

You might need to help him to his room

And try not to let him hug you until you're in bed because he will NOT let go until morning.

He is very sentimental and will give the BEST advice

“Babe, will you come to get food with me please🥺?”

“Kiri, you have a whole pint of ice cream, three bags of chips, AND meat buns. You don't need anything else😂”

He would pout omg.

He would fall asleep if you play with his hair in an instant

—————————————

Kirishima laid in your lap, and you picked up each piece of his hair and gently let it fall. He had showered and decided on no gel, therefore his hair is silky soft.

“Babe, why did you let me eat so much?” he groaned looking up at you. All you could do was laugh, being high just made everything funnier. He began to pout which ceased your laughter.

“I tried to stop you, but you wouldn't listen, ” you almost began to laugh again. He groaned and held his stomach.

“Next time, don't let me eat so much, ” he squeezed his eyes so much. You continued playing with his hair and smiled at the tired boy.

His eyes began to close and he looked up at you and soon he was out cold.

Denki Kaminari

His favorite way to smoke it with a pipe. Just makes him feel cool and the glass is trippy

Denki is usually very goofy and doesn't take things seriously, but when he's high he gets very philosophical

Like this man will talk about how space is so big and how a fish finds its way home.

Anything that will make you question your existence

He won't even realize what he's talking about until he looks at the rest of the group who is just starting wide-eyed and thinking about their whole existence on earth.

For some reason, he seems smarter than he lets people believe.

If he's with you he will be resting his head in your lap

He will have deep conversations sigh you

He will unknowingly rub small circles on your thighs while he's lost in thought💕

Continues to pick on Bakugou and how he's much different stoned

Usually wants alone time with you afterward, he feels safer when you sleep with him

He likes to be the little spoon

—————————————

Denki sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. His eyes studied the ceiling, his mouth slightly agape in a soft smile as he got even more lost in his thoughts. His eyes were almost entirely closed. The hushed murders from the other teens seemed to entirely disappear. The soft music that was also playing just took his mind further into the abyss.

“Hey do you guys think it's crazy that one muscle in your body is the reason you are alive, and if it just decides to quit one day you will just topple over and die?” Denki continued to stare up at the ceiling. The entire room went silent, the only noise was the light music.

“Dude what the fuck, ” sero looked at home from down on the floor. Denki shifted his head to look at the rest of the gang who were all just staring at him.

“What, I'm just saying, ” he shrugged his shoulders. You just looked at him and laughed. That was the most random thing to say and he probably would do it again soon.

“C’mon baby let's get you to bed, ” you grabbed his hand and went out of the room making sure to say goodnight to everyone. One thing was for sure, Denki could not WAIT to be cuddled.

Sero Hanta

This man's the og stoner and will hit a bong over everything else.

When Sero is stoned he makes sure everyone else is having fun

He makes sure everyone is comfortable with what they are doing

If someone doesn't know how to do something, like hit a bong, he will gladly show them

He is a weed mom

The best kind of mom honestly

If someone is paranoid or worried about an adult finding out or getting in trouble, he will try his darn hardest to calm them down

Has the necessities

Carries gum, eye drops, perfume or cologne on him at all times.

Has a pipe on him always

Provides the goods 🌿

Now let me tell you, this man gets HELLA horny when he's stoned

If everyone is settled in and comfortable he will turn his attention to you.

He doesn't even hide it.

“Mi amor, you look beautiful right now”

He will make you so flustered you will have to leave the room.

—————————————

“Sero, what are you doing?” you ask as me scoots over to you across the floor. You can't help but laugh. The cheesy grin on his face was everything at the moment. It seemed like you were the only two in the room.

“Just coming over to check on you, mi amor, ”he purred as he placed his finger under your chin to make you look into his eyes. His eyelids were heavy, the red tint covered by a foggy gloss, just made him that much hotter. He blinked slowly and began to inch closer to your lips.

“Sero, ” you breathed out right before gently placed his lips on yours, moving to pull your body impossibly closer to his. His lips worked over yours as you found your rhythm. He pulled away looking up at your eyes from your lips.

He leaned forward again, this time next to your ear so no one else could hear but you.

“I can't wait till everyone leaves so I can finally find out how good you taste.”

Mina Ashido

This girl's favorite way to smoke is a simple joint

She is great at rolling

(cuz she's good with her fingers if you know what I mean)

She is definitely in charge of the music and the vibes it puts off

But will also try and get everyone to go out and do stuff like getting food or to annoy Aizawa.

She also is the person laughing the most

She will laugh at literally anything

Kirishima making jokes about food or how hungry he is, Denki just acting dumb, or getting a rise outta Bakugou, whatever it is she will be laughing

This girl is part of the alphabet mafia and you can't change my mind🏳️‍🌈

Now she's is a cutie when it comes to relationships

She won't act inappropriately in front of everyone else out of respect for you

However, when she gets you alone that's a whole other story

—————————————

“C’mon y/n, let's go to my room. I have something to show you, ” Mina smirked at you and squeezed your hand in hers. You had no other choice to follow her as you were already headed out of Sero’s room and straight to her room. You didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to everyone.

You finally made it to her room and she closed the door behind you.

“What did you want to show me?” you asked sitting on her bed. You look around the very pink room and back to her standing in front of you. Mina looked you up and down and reached out to grab your cheeks gently with her hands. She leaned down and kissed you gently, working for her hands down to the hem of your shirt, eager to get it off. Her eyes glazed over and watched your every movement as you striped your clothes. Her fingers grazed over the sides of your arms and you went back in for a kiss. She pushed you farther back onto the bed, straddling her legs around your waist.

“This is going to be fun, ” she said breathlessly and pulled you in yet again for another lustful kiss.

Asks are open!!! This is my first official post on here, advice would be fantastic, or if you have any ideas that would be awesome! Thank you for reading😁❤️

[heartofsnark]

Honey, I Laugh When It Sinks In. (Johnny/Fem!V) NSFW

Note: So, ya girl’s having whore hours. And I wrote Johnny getting his butthole reamed by my fem!V’s strap. 

Warnings: peggings, assplay, sex toys, oral sex, cum fixation, dumb jokes

Summary:  Johnny's got his body back, that's nice. Both him and V are super alive, doing great things. Those great things do mostly involved fucking each other and denying the fact they love each other; because they're dumbasses. But more importantly, now that Johnny can interact with real life object, V has a chance to fuck him with a strap-on. And doesn't that just sound like a fun time.

The fact that Johnny to some degree likes his ass played with is a secret to absolutely no one. But especially not to V, she’s not sure the two could have secrets from each other after their time being brain roommates. Dreams of his memories haunted her for months and the guy did a lot of fucking. It wasn’t uncommon to fall asleep and find herself in Johnny’s skin being reamed by Rogue’s strap-on or getting fucked after letting Kerry top for a change.  

There’s not a lot of mystery left between V and Johnny, to say the least.

But, for some reason, Johnny’s ass has remained uncharted territory for the merc. Well, maybe not for no reason at all. Most of their sex life has been while he’s a digital ghost rattling around in her skull and unable to interact with real life objects. And she never quite had the courage to see if that limitation included strap-ons and butt plugs, though she has a sneaking suspicion it probably did, she doubts Arasaka included a butthole exploit in their tech.

However, the two are no longer dependent on Arasaka’s ass related limits. He’s real, now, out of her skull and back in the flesh. His original flesh even, after they found it in the depths of Arasaka’s bullshit amongst the other bodies the corp had gotten their hands on over the years.

It was a whole thing; but he’s here now and they’re fucking again. Because that’s apparently just what they do. Probably because she’s hopelessly… infatuated with him and knows casual sex is probably all she’ll ever get. Because he clearly still loves Rogue and could never want her beyond sex-

V promptly smacks herself in the head, groaning as her thoughts begin to spiral. She twists in her bed, crushing a pillow to her chest. Trying to hype herself up into asking for a chance to peg Johnny turned into wallowing about her stupid fucking feelings. Because every thought about him turns into wallowing about her stupid fucking feelings.

She hears the shower turn off, having nagged Johnny into taking one as soon as they got home. Which means it’s almost time to ask and she wonders why this is making butterflies swim in her stomach, why she’s so nervous? The merc is no stranger to pegging or taking control in the bedroom.

Maybe because she does lean towards the submissive side of things and Johnny leans towards the dominant, the rockerboy having taken charge in most of their bedroom interactions. Maybe because it’s Johnny and the idea that he may not feel comfortable doing this with her, the idea that there’s a part of him he’d give others but not her, makes a pit form in her gut.

She drops the pillow and lightly smacks herself in the head again; for fucks sake she’s asking to peg the man, not asking for his hand in marriage. Not that she would ever ask for that… That would be weird. Her face is bright red at that thought, feeling like a school girl fantasizing about being Mrs. Silverhand someday. Mrs. Linder?

Both of those sound awful, actually.

There’s the padding of footsteps across her apartment as Johnny leaves the bathroom. The merc moving to sit at the edge of the bed as he comes walking closer. Her favorite geriatric rockerboy, condolences to Kerry, is absolutely shameless and as much as she chides him, she certainly doesn’t mind the show.

Johnny is completely naked, save for a towel casually on his shoulders as he ruffles it through his overgrown dark hair. Damn near every inch of skin and chrome on display to the merc. Her mouth dries as she watches a bead of water run down his stomach, past the inked skin of his ribs. V’s eyes then shift to get a look at his ass, her fixation of the night. He’s on the flatter side, to say the least, broad shoulders and narrow trim hips. But it belongs to him and thats all that matters, pancake ass or otherwise.

“You’re tracking water everywhere,” she scolds him, comfortably using her voice around him. Maybe due to left over remnants of his own brain in hers or just because it’s Johnny.

“Eh,  Nibbles will clean it up.”

“What part of  ‘don’t let him drink shower water’ do you not understand?”

“The part where you tell me what to do.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know that?”

“Am I?”

He’s suddenly in her face, hands pressed to the mattress on each side of her hips, as he leans into her space. A smirk on his lips, damp hair falling into his eyes, and forehead nearly knocking into her own. She can feel the heat coming off his body, the droplets of water rolling off his skin and onto hers. And before another word can be said they’re kissing, drawn to each other in a way neither can explain, coming together like this as natural as breathing.

It feels like a tingle of electricity under her skin wherever her touches, every cell in her body begging for his tongue. The pure relief of feeling his tongue push into her mouth, to feel the scratch of his beard on her skin. It feels right, every time, as if this is just how they’re meant to be. Like a part of her soul is finally slotting back into place.

She wraps her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his wet hair as he kisses her, deep and heavy. The taste of cigarette smoke and mint gum still clinging to his tongue, the latter meant to help suppress the cravings for the former. Different from how his kisses tasted as an engram, but still so distinctly him.

V breaks the lip locks when his hands start to push under her shirt, a soft whimper on her lips, as badly as she wants him anyway she can get him, she can’t lose her nerve in asking for what she wants most tonight. His mouth is on her neck in a second, licking and biting at her pulse point, beard scratching the tender skin as she gasps.

“Johnny, I.. fuck,” she whines as he bites at the skin, “can, uh, fuck, can I… peg you?”

His mouth stops moving on her neck and that pit in her gut comes back, terrified she ruined something. Wanting to tell him to forget it, pretend she never asked, as he pulls away from her pulse point and she misses his touch, only a second apart and she’s starved for his affection. But then he pulls away enough for her to see his face, the grin on his lips, and it's a rush of relief.

“That what got you acting like a basket case all day?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Fuckin’ knew something was up; acted like you were a second away from humping my leg all day, then send me off to shower all by myself.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You seriously spent all day thinking about fuckin’ my ass, didn’t you?”

“Not all day.”

“Jesus christ,” he lets out something between a laugh and a breath, she can’t help but giggle too, “well, then, show me what you got, princess.”

And she surges forward, clumsily wrenching  her fingers into his hair as she kisses him, teeth nearly clacking together in her messy excitement. Deep but quick, not wanting to spend much longer in this awkward position, she pulls away with a bite to his lower lip.

“Lay down on the bed, for me?” She asks softly when she breaks away, looking up at him with big eyes and a bat of her eyelashes. And she can see for a moment, the mischievous light in his eyes, the impulse to refuse, to be a brat. But he rolls his eyes and does what she asks, behaving for now.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know that?” he mimics her words from earlier as plops back with his hair against the pillows and she giggles, scrambling to straddle him. To have him naked beneath her.

And what a sight that makes. Johnny is unfairly gorgeous, something she’s thought for far longer than she’d care to admit. Long dark hair wetting her pillows, deep brown eyes looking up at her with lust, the messy scruff of his beard, the scar over his lip, and the burn scars that trace up the side of his neck.  Beyond the visual, as she settles over him, she can feel his hard cock smearing precum across her skin. Good to know he’s excited.

His hands squeeze her hips, the warmth of flesh and the chill of silver sending sparks up her spine. He squeezes tightly and the hint of a smirk that teases at his lips tells her he’s about to say something stupid.

“Hate to break your heart, V, but, this isn’t exactly what pegging means.”

“I’m not about to just ram a strap-on up your ass dry, Johnny, it’s a process.”

“Oh, I get prep work, damn, didn’t know I was that special.”

“Kiss me before I kill you,” she taunts, leaning over him to capture his lips. She pushes her tongue deep into his mouth, devours that distinct taste of him, getting another fill of it before she forces herself away.

It’s her turn now to latch onto Johnny’s neck, finding a spot to leave a mark not unlike the one he no doubt left her. The taste of his skin beneath her tongue, the heavy sigh of pleasure from his mouth as she sucks, bites and licks. Only when she’s certain, she’s marred his skin, does she pull away with a wet sound. Bruised skin looking back at her. She smiles at her bit of handiwork but can’t admire it for long, wanting to taste him again just as soon as she’s stopped.

V peppers kisses, licks, and bites across his skin. From his shoulder to his jaw, leaving faint little bruises wherever her teeth get involved. He groans and sighs under the touch, just soaking it in, as starved for it as she is. V can feel his cock stiff and leaking against her thigh as she nips his jawline, kisses down and across his throat, to run her tongue along the other side of his neck now. His hands grope and squeeze at her ass as she works him over, feeling the roughness of his scarred skin under her tongue. She gives the same treatment, sucking and biting every inch of flesh she can.

“Fuck,” he curses, rocking his head back further into the pillows, instinctively trying to give her more access.

V shifts her lower body, giving herself room to reach between them and touch him. She wants to make him cum before she even gets the strap in, maybe more than once, overwhelm him with pleasure and get him relaxed before she slides inside fully. The merc wraps her hand around him, feeling the heat and weight of his cock, wet with water and precum. He groans at the touch, a rumble she can feel in his throat as she kisses it.

“Might need an anatomy lesson, sweetheart, that’s not quite my ass,” he taunts, earning him a harsh bite to his neck and a tighter grip on his dick.

“Can you be patient for a fuckin’ minute? I’ll get there when I get there.”

“And will that be some time this year or next? Oh fuck, fuck,” he chokes on his words as she begins stroking him in earnest, using his precum to keep him slick as she works.

The merc has plenty of lube in the little drawer area under her bed, along with all her toys, but for now she wants to stick to the basics. It's just the first round for him and barely a precursor of what's to come. She bites and sucks his neck as she strokes him, first slow and languidly, just feeling every inch of him. Feeling the way he twitches in her hand, the way each stroke brings more precum, how he groans a little louder each time she gets to the head of his cock, flushed red and more sensitive than the rest of him.

Then she starts to get quicker, shorter, almost rougher strokes of her hand, working harder and faster to feel him cum beneath her. His breathing getting quicker, more curses beneath his breath, rumbles of them in his throat. He’s getting close, fingers sinking into her hip tighter and tighter, the other gripping the sheets as she builds his pleasure as high as she can with just her hand.

“Fuck!”

Johnny’s body draws tight, a flush across his skin, as he twitches once more in her hand and cums. White shooting quickly across his stomach and chest, cum sticking to his skin and her’s. It’s nothing compared to how much he’s left inside her before, no floodgates broke open, just enough to make a mess. She shamelessly licks and sucks off what he left on her hand, hearing him groan at the sight, the bitter salty taste of it heavy on her tongue. And she knows it should be gross to her, the taste of it, but she loves it.

Once her hand is licked clean, she moves over him to lave her tongue over his chest, catching the cum that landed over his skin. A rumble of a chuckle in his chest as she works her way down; lapping sweat, water, and cum off of him.

“Swear,  could bust into a cup and you’d down it like water, wouldn’t ya?”

“Fuck off,” she curses against his skin, already having licked the cum off of his rib tattoo, already chasing down drop of it that’s dripped down his stomach.

“Such a little cum whore.” He lazily rubs his hand through her hair, taunting her as she licks his stomach and hips clean of any cum, her face feeling like it’s on fire.

She pulls away from his skin, once she’s convinced she’s gotten most of the cum off his skin and the head of his cock starts to bump her chin.

“Spread,” she demands, trying to maintain some mask of domme-ness as she taps his thigh. Johnny bends his knee, spreading his legs slightly and hands grabbing at the pillow over his head; a painfully beautiful sight to the merc.

“Fuckin’ finally, about time,” he responds, because he’s still an asshole.

“Again, not going in dry, you’re not getting the strap quite yet.”

“Ugh….”

She pinches his thigh and he just grins, finding her annoyance just oh so entertaining. V takes a moment to peel off her shirt, feeling a bit of relief from the fever on her skin, open air hitting her sweaty flesh. And she can feel his eyes on her when she does so, brown eyes staring at her small breasts, following her pierced stiff nipples. As much as he’s bitched about her being a member of the itty bitty titty committee, he seems to always gawk at them when he has a chance.  She likes to think that… means something , but it probably just means he’s a slut.

V considers taking off her panties too, slick and sweat making them stick to her neglected cunt, but that would require far too much maneuvering to make it worth the effort. Especially when tonight isn’t about that. She’s able to balance on her knees to lean over the edge of the bed, rolling out the underneath compartment to get what she needs. And she can feel that stare now hoving on her bent over ass, not that he can even get a decent look at it from where he’s laying. But that won’t stop him from ogling apparently.

“So, when do I get to fuck your ass?” He asks as she’s grabbing lube and a butt plug from her sex toy stash.

“You’ve played with my ass before,” she says, kind of surprised, memories of his fingers and tongue in that specific hole.

“Haven’t fucked it yet, which just seems like a crime, quite frankly.”

“Oh no,” she rolls her eyes, “not a crime, we’ve never done one of those before.”

“Would you let me fuck your ass?”

In a heartbeat, she thinks immediately and is so happy he no longer lives in her skull.

“Hmm, maybe, but it's your ass on the chopping block tonight, I’m ‘fraid.”

“Yours is so much nicer though.”

“Yeah… that’s not saying much, gonna be like fucking a hole in a wooden plank.”

“Or you could just give me a titty fuck, oh wait.”

She grabs the strap-on she intends to use, a big cyan blue one that she’s been waiting entirely too long to try out. And she shakes it in front of him.

“I’m either gonna fuck you or beat you to death with it, I swear to god, Johnny.”

He grins and laughs, she’s laughing too. Unable to help it, their back and forth always bringing a lightness to her chest. It just feels like them, as they should be. Two dumbasses making fun of each other.

V has what she needs except for one other thing, she stretches to reach the night stand and grab her phone, having to lean over Johnny to do so. And she can feel Johnny looking at her funny, brows furrowed for a moment, as he watches her pull up the app she needs.

“Are you checking your fuckin’ email, what is this?”

She laughs, unable to resist a chance to tease;  “Oh yeah, just checking my texts, me and River are supposed to do something after this.”

“Haha, that’s so funny,” he says dryly, a bite to his words, as he suddenly grabs her hair and looks into her eyes, “mention the pig’s name in bed again and I’ll fuck you in front of him.”

His tone is on the harsh side, but his pull in her hair is barely rough enough to feel it. The threat and movement only serving to make her face scarlet and her cunt slicker. Johnny has always had some… jealous, possessive tendencies, especially in the bedroom when she pushes him just a bit. And she knew exactly what she was doing by mentioning River’s name specifically, the former cop always an oddly shaped sore spot for Johnny.

She kisses him, soft and quick, before pulling away. His grip not even hard enough to control her movements.

“It's an app that vibrates the butt plug, Johnny,” she explains, smiling as she quells his worries, though something in her still has to wonder why he has them.

And its faint, but she can see a hint of red come across his cheeks, pink behind the scruff on his cheeks.

“Oh, well, carry on then,” he says, letting go of her hair and running his hand down her back.

“All my attention is on you, promise.”

“Fuckin’ better be,” he grumbles under his breath as he falls back against the pillow, she doesn’t see embarassed Johnny often, his lack of shame truly astounding. But, when she can manage to get him flushed, it's adorable.

“You’re such a gonk.”

“Shouldn’t there be a way to sync it with your neuroware or something, I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“I’m not installing buttplug tech in my brain, Johnny, that’s a malware nightmare waiting to happen.”

“Didn’t have to mention that asshole.”

“Stop pouting, only asshole I’m worried about right now is yours,” she jokes, getting back to where she can comfortable play with him, starting to cover her fingers in a healthy dose of lube.

“Ugh,” he groans, “that was so stupid, its a miracle I’m still hard.”

“Being a slut isn’t a miracle, Johnny.”

“Is the way I do it- fuck,”  he gasps and curses as she slides a lubed up finger inside of him, “you could fuckin’ warn a guy.”

“You said you wanted me to hurry up, you don’t get to bitch about it now.”

He lets out a quiet groan as she works one finger inside of him, feeling the heat of him around the digit. V has small fingers, one of many drawbacks to her petite stature. One finger doesn’t even stretch him, more so just getting lube into him, so everything that comes next has an easier time sliding in. She leaves him empty for just a moment as she coats a second finger in lube and begins to work both digits inside of him.

Tighter with a second finger added, stretching him a bit more as she shifts and scissors them inside of him. He groans a bit at the added pleasure, but his sounds are still soft, her fingers not thick or long enough to give him exactly what he needs. More lube and she adds a third finger, which makes him curses, cock twitching as she does her best to prepare him.

With her other hand she starts to stroke his dick, earning a deep throaty sound, the combined pleasure making him nosier. V works faster, wanting to wring more of those sounds from him, As she works her fingers inside of him quicker, fucking them into him as deeply and fast as she can, a soft squelching noise starts to ring out combining with the wet slide of her hand on his cock.  His hips squirm and writhe, bringing himself down further on her fingers, just to thrust up into her hand.

“Fuck,” he’s reaching up and gripping the pillows again, expression tight as she toys with him, “fuck, fuck, V!”

His cock twitches in her hand she moves to wrap her lips around the head of it, swirling her tongue over his heated skin just as he cums, something between a curse and a growl as he paints the inside of her mouth white. That same salty bitter taste coating her tongue, more of it this time, that she swallows down without shame. She pulls her mouth off of him with a wet pop, her fingers leaving him with another squelching sound.

“Needed it straight from the tap this time?” He tries to sass her, but his voice is a breathy rasp.

“Gon-gonna make you cum one more time before I use the strap, alright?”

Something between a whine and groan leaves his lips, but he spreads his thighs a little wider, pushes his head a bit further back against the pillows. She rolls her eyes, just thankful his stamina is good enough to withstand all the overstimulation. V covers the butt plug in lube, a black silicone one with a flared base, tech inside to make it vibrate. Once it’s covered, slick as it can be, she gently pushes Johnny’s thigh a little big further out and slides it inside, Johnny cussing at the wider stretch of the toy compared to her fingers. There’s not much resistance to the stretch of it inside of him, every fiber of her dying to tease him for being a slut. But she stays nice, instead grabbing her phone with the app open.

Johnny honestly, probably doesn’t need as much prep work as she’s doing, Though, she is mostly doing it because watching him cum his brains out is a fun time. But he clearly is ready for the main attraction of the evening, her strap. So, she won’t drag this one out too long, she decides looking over the vibration settings and hitting the highest.

“Jesus fuck!” He yells out, not expecting the intense vibrations of the plug. His hips grinding and thrusting, squirming from the pleasure of it buzzing against his prostate. The whirr of the toy audible even through his groans and moans.

And she can feel her mouth watering at the sight of him trying not to whimper against the buzz of the toy, hips moving on instinct as it works it’s magic, hard flushed cock twitching with pleasure. V grabs his narrow hips and pins them down against the bed, feeling him squirm under her touch. And she takes his cock back into her mouth, but this time she doesn’t hesitate to swallow him down as deeply as she can, feeling the slide of it on her tongue, the head pressing into her throat.

“God damn it,” he curses and both his hands grab at the back of her head, pressing her down further, “you need more fuckin’ cum?”

She gags a little as he starts fucking her face, no longer able to keep his hips pinned, as he keeps her head in place. V relaxes her throat as best she can, just letting him use it as a fleshlight while the plug vibrates inside of him.  His pace is brutal, trying to match the intensity of the vibration as he fucks her throat.

“Such a fuckin’ whore for my cum, two loads not enough, huh, princess? Needed to feel me cum down your fuckin’ throat too?”

She’s unable to respond, too busy being choked on Johnny’s cock, mouth a drooling mess as he fucks her face. But each word, little comment and taunt makes her clit throb, makes her that much wetter. And the thought of reaching down and fingering herself is so tempting, but Johnny isn’t going to last long. Between her throat around his cock and the toy in his ass, if she bothers to touch herself, she’ll only work herself up more.

Sure enough, just a few more messy thrusts, then his cock is throbbing against her tongue and he’s cumming down her throat just like he promised. That familiar taste coating her mouth as she swallows every last drop, even when she catches herself nearly coughing on it.

He pulls his hands from her hair, still whining as the toy vibrates, V having to take a minute to come up for air and catch her breath. Once the lightheaded feeling passes away she grabs her phone and turns off the vibrating, Johnny’s body relaxing as he gets a break from stimulation, though not for long. She gives him a moment to adjust before softly pulling the plug out of him, earning a sound suspiciously close to a whimper. V puts the plug aside and grabs the strap, Johnny catching his breath, still hard and leaking by some miracle,  as she secures it over her underwear.

A bright vivid blue strap, thick and long. She slathers it in lube, no such thing as too wet, as she empties the rest of the tube over the toy. The blue silicone shining with the slick gel. Johnny watches her as she lubes it up, she can nearly feel the impatience radiating off of him.

“Any position you prefer for this?” She asks, wanting to make sure he’s as comfortable as possible. Johnny responds by rolling over onto his knees, ass up in the air with his face in the pillow.

“Should be easier like this,” he murmurs into the pillow and then chooses to wiggle his ass at her, like the weirdo he is.

“Don’t exactly have much worth shaking, Johnny,” she taunts, giving him a small sharp smack to the ass.

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to fuck it so bad.”

She rolls her eyes and prepares to finally peg Johnny. She’s on her knees behind him and would like to line up her toy with his asshole, but… there seems to be a newly discovered logistical issue. She tries to raise herself up higher, but her hips can’t quite align with his ass. She’s well aware that Johnny is over a foot taller than her, but it only becomes a problem at the weirdest of times. She kind of assumed since he can fuck her from behind, she’d have no trouble returning the favor, but… alas.

“Can you get your butt any lower?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No… “

“This is what I get for fuckin’ a hobbit, I swear.”

“Just lower your ass, please.”

Johnny does his best to bring his ass down as low as he can and with a little finagling and the knowledge that she’ll probably have awful leg cramps for it, she’s able to get the head of the strap aligned with his hole.

She grips his hips and brings him back onto it as she slowly slides it inside as deeply as she can. A long low groan leaves Johnny’s throat, something that sounds like the word ‘finally’ With a bit of effort, she’s able to start slowly thrusting into him, watching it slide in and out of him. Hearing each grunt and curse as she fills him, the squelching of the strap sliding inside his slick hole. Slow direct long pushes into him, her thigh muscles already burning from the effort.

V runs her hand down the expanse of his back, the freckled skin of his shoulders, and she wants to kiss it. To kiss his  back and shoulders while she fucks him. And when she does her best to lay further over his back, she can barely kiss his shoulders with entirely too much effort, she must look ridiculous. This is ridiculous, she finds herself giggling, stomach hurting as she laughs.

“Are you- are you laughing?” Johnny asks, voice incredulous and she feels bad to beg him for a chance to do this, but in this position it’s just not working well.

“I’m sorry, I just, I feel like a Chihuahua trying to hump a Doberman, Johnny.” She says through laughter as she pulls the strap-on out of him. And he’s laughing too, chuckling as he rolls back over, staring at her.

And she’s sure she looks ridiculous, red faced and giggling with a blue lubed strap-on around her hips. She buries her face in her hands, unable to stop laughing at how fucking ridiculous it is, she’s too short to peg that way. Then his hands are wrapping around her wrists and he’s pulling them down, back in her space. And there’s a soft smile on his lips, that forms soft wrinkles around his eyes, a gentleness in his gaze. He’s so pretty and she can’t even fuck him right, the world is cruel. Johnny kisses her through her laugher, a soft press of their lips, before he pulls away. He lays back against the pillows, like he was before the not so bright idea of trying doggy style.

“Here,” he spreads his legs, smile still on his lips, “let’s try it like this.”

“Thank you,” she says through a giggle, moving to try this again.

It’s much easier with him laying down on his back, able to raise his hips easily to meet the strap-on. And she can look at his face now, which she definitely considers a plus. She can stay in a comfortable kneeling position as she lines it up perfectly and sinks into him again. His teeth sink into his bottom lip, head shifting back as she fills him again. Comfortably so this time and able to see his cock leaking precum onto his stomach as she fucks him.

Her nails dig into his hips as she begins thrusting into him, listening to the wet sound of it pushing inside of him. She keeps her motions slow and smooth, not wanting to fuck him senseless quite yet, watching for ever sharp intake of air from him. Staring at the flush across his skin, the sheen of sweat across his flesh. The groans, the sighs, and curses he lets out with every thrust of the toy into him.

“Faster, V, fuck, I ain’t gonna break.”

“Know what I’m doing,” she says,  just barely speeds up, wanting to tease him, to drag it out.

“That remains to be seen, fuck, c’mon, harder,” he tries to demand, writing his hips to meet each thrust of the strap, trying to change the pace.

“Nothing wrong with me taking my time, patience won’t kill you,” she teases, getting just a little harsher with the thrusts, just enough to hear the slap of her thighs hitting his, the soft pap of skin hitting skin. And he groans, eyes closed for a minute before opening again, a look in them that she’s seen too many times before.

“Nah, fuck this,” he says, then she’s being pushed back, metal and flesh hand shoving her against the bed as the world shifts around her.

“Hey!” She yells out as she’s suddenly on her back, looking up at Johnny who’s now straddling her hips. But she doesn’t have it in her to be mad, not when he’s naked on top of her, with hair falling into his eyes.

The shift in position made the strap-on slide out of him again, but Johnny wastes no time, bringing his ass down onto it, filling himself with the dildo. And she realizes he’s going to ride it cowgirl… cowboy style. He leans puts his hands back on the bed behind him, for leverage as he begins to do just that, bouncing on the silicone cock, hard and fast.

“Won’t fuck me right, gotta do it my goddamn self.”

“Swear to fuck,” she squeezes his hips, watching the way his cock bounces as he fucks himself on her strap, “next time I’m tying you down and gagging you.”

“Look forward to it,” he says, a wicked grin telling her how powerful her threat really is.

Johnny sets a brutal pace, as he’s one to do, his weight coming down on his hips heavy and powerful with every bounce. He barely pulls himself off of it with every movement, lifting himself just an inch off the slick toy before he’s bringing his weight back down. Its desperate, frenetic movements, just fucking himself on the toy. Each movement brings the slap of flesh clapping together, the squelch of the toy pushing into him, and the soft grind of the strap’s harness into her clit through her underwear. Not enough to get her off, but enough to make her whine.

And she tries to meet his pace, to thrust up into him, but Johnny doesn’t give her a chance, every time his weight comes down on her, it pins her hips in place, leaves her to lay there and let him have his fun. Just to watch as he rides it, as it slides in and out of him, barely out as he’s just desperate to grind the toy into the deepest parts of him. Let her mouth water as she watches his flushed red cock drip with precum and bounce along with his body.

“Fuck, you look so good like this, Johnny,” she tells him, just staring and Johnny groans, grinding himself down onto the dildo.

“Yeah,” his voice is breathy, panting through the words, “like watching me ride your cock?”

“Mmhmm, so fuckin’ beautiful…”

Her words trail off vaguely, squeezing his hips, just staring at him. Sweaty tanned skin, the ink that marks his ribs and arm, the rough flesh of his scars, freckles she could map out with her tongue if he let her. Broad shoulders, muscled bicep on one side and solid chrome on the other. Long dark hair with those deep brown eyes. The thick trail of hair that goes down his stomach. The trim narrow hips grinding him down onto the blue toy, his thick cock that really does deserve all the hype he gives it.

“Christ V,” he curses, voice rough and she can see the flush across his cheeks again, “stop fuckin’ looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” She asks, watching him rub a hand over his face, why is he embarrassed? Does he not expect her to look at him when he’s fucking himself on her silicone dick?

“Like, like, fuck!”

V gasps as his body goes tight, cock twitching as cum splashes across chest and chin, hot on her skin. A stray drop hitting her lip, only there for a moment before she licks it off, Johnny goes slack on top of her. Body relaxed and loose as his orgasms works its way through him, cock throbbing as a few more dribbles of cum drip onto her stomach. After a moment, Johnny curses again, blinking as he comes back to earth. Another moment and he starts to pull himself off of the strap.

“Can’t say that went exactly how I planned, but-eep!”

V squeals as he starts ripping off the strap-on harness, throwing it aside without any care before he’s yanking her underwear off, air hitting her slick cunt. He throws her panties across the apartment without another thought.

“Johnny, what are you do- oh fuck!”

Before she can finish the sentence he’s between her thighs, legs thrown over his shoulder as he buries his tongue inside of her. She grabs onto his hair on instinct as he begins to lick up every drop of slick inside of her, painfully wet after all she’d done to him with no relief for herself. Johnny eats pussy like a man starved, making groans and grunts of pleasure against her core as laps at her insides. Like he could really lick away every drop of slick, even as each swipe of his tongue makes her whine and as she just gets wetter.

Then his mouth is at her swollen clit and she’s seeing stars as focuses in on the most sensitive part of her. Never knowing when he’s going to lick patterns against the bundle of nerves or suck on it, his actions are quick and unpredictable, but everything makes her cry out. Her hips squirm and grind against his face, hands unintentionally pushing her into her center at the same time. Johnny’s arms wrap around hips and pin them to the mattress.

“Fuck, I-I’m close, Johnny, I-”

A harsh suck on her clit, the scratch of his beard against her core, and she’s gone. Toes curling and fingers tight in his hair, a keening moan on her tongue as the world goes blank. Pleasure hitting its peak and overcoming every cell in her body, a mess of her wet coating Johnny’s tongue and chin, that he licks up without hesitation.

After another moment he comes up for air, leaving her boneless and panting as she tries to get her bearings back. She didn’t expect for Johnny to touch her like the, meaning for the night to be completely about the pegging, but she really should have known. V’s sure the rockerboy would take it as personal offense if she didn’t cum at least once during sex with him.

The merc is pulled up to the pillows and against Johnny’s chest, the two settling in as they catch their breath. She’s sure the apartment is a wreck right now, things thrown haphazardly, there’s lube in her bedsheets, but can’t find the energy to truly care. V buries her head into his chest, listening to his heartbeat, smelling the musk of his skin, at peace just laying here against him.

“Can’t sleep with your hearing aids in, you know that, V,” Johnny says, skimming his fingers over the shell of her ears, just barely touching the little devices.

“I can sometimes…” She whines, wanting to fully hear his heartbeat and snoring while she sleeps. .

“And you’ll wake up with your ears rubbed raw.”

She glares up at him, pouting as he takes her hearing aids out for her, putting them on the side table. He looks back down at her, then brings his hands as high as he can so she can see them.

“Good night, princess,” he signs and she can’t be upset anymore, the sight of his admittedly sloppy sign language always making her heart melt. A flush of red crawling up her cheeks as she nuzzles her face into his chest, unable to hear his heartbeat, but still feeling the rise and fall of his chest with every breath. Mururing a good night against his skin as she drifts off.

[docholligay]

Divided by Four: Thirty-Six

 I AM DONE WITH THIS YOU ARE FREE OF HAVING TO SEE IT

Lena Oxton would never have another birthday, and this was an odd thing to think about. 

It was one thing, for Tracer, to know that she was dying--she had known that for what seemed like an age now--but quite another for her to know that there were some things she would never do again. The early ones, she hadn’t known, really. The last time she would get on her motorcycle. When she would last trust herself to fly. That final walk down the hall without help from anyone or anything. These lasts had come without announcing themselves, and so Tracer had not gotten the chance to savor them appropriately. It was a mistake she was trying not to repeat, as she felt the sand slip through the hourglass now. 

So it was comforting, in a way, to know that this would be her last birthday, even if it felt strange to admit. Tracer had resolved to drink in every instant of it. 

She’d told everyone that it was silly and a little wasteful to bring her gifts, given the reality of the situation, and really all she wanted was to be around her people and drink a beer or two, have a few laughs, and for no one to get too misty-eyed. There were a number of things about dying that Tracer didn’t particularly care for, but one topping the list was the way people mourned her before she was gone, when all she wanted to do was enjoy whatever she had left without sadness. There was no point, so she thought, in being so sad over the last bits of something lovely that you ruined it for yourself. It was rather like a child whimpering while eating the last squares of a chocolate bar. So the only gift she had asked for, was for no one to cry in her view, and on that they had delivered. 

But also, people had brought gifts. Nothing fancy, really, mostly soft pajamas and blankets, a nice lotion, a particularly plush backrest pillow she was already making use of, things that spoke to both the reality of the situation and the inability of the people who loved her to let it pass by without making the most of it. Her uncle had made her a coconut strawberry cream cake, and she’d even managed to eat some of it. Pharah had made sure to tell her she had better live long enough to use the thick flannel pajamas she’d bought, as she’d had her father send them from Canada. 

“Or you’ll do what, exactly?” Tracer had grinned as she said it, “Piss on me grave? Well, I’m being cremated, so even that’ll feel a bit ‘ollow, now won’t it?” 

Everyone had laughed, even Winston, who seemed to taking the whole thing rather hard, however much Tracer joked that he’d been taking care of her for the last ten years and really should enjoy his retirement. But mostly, it had been a good day for her, and if she was feeling a little misty herself, it was nothing but the idea that she was so deeply loved, and that not everyone got to experience that in their lives.

She was born under a lucky star, and the last year or so was only a bump in that road near the end of it, a bit like the jar before you leave the pavement. And even that was only her health, wasn’t it? 

Moira could take her life--and as happy as she was knowing Moira died never knowing how badly she had hurt Tracer, it did sting a bit to know that was how it would go down in the books--but Moira had never managed to take anything more dear to her. Her family. Her friends. The general sense that she was loved and cared for. Even her mind was sharp and busy as ever, which admittedly made her body’s disobedience a bit more annoying, but she was grateful to have her wits. People would remember her as herself. That was important. 

If anything, the relative frustration and pain of the last few months had made her feel all the more loved. Had showed that it must be true.

So nothing was all bad, really. 

Night had fallen over London, and as tired as she was, Tracer still could not bring herself to go to bed. Winston had asked gently if she was ready, and she had just shook her head and told him she wanted to stay up awhile. It was nice, this deck she and Winston had put together on the roof of the place. He’d doubted her, when she’d suggested the project, and wondered how he would ever possibly use it, and told her there was no need to put the work in. Sometimes Winston had to be talked into having nice things for himself. He probably would have approved the project so much earlier if he’d known how much time Tracer would spend up here. 

The smell of London filled her lungs. She should be more afraid of death, she supposed, but she could never quite let go of the idea that even when she was gone, she wouldn’t be. Not that she believed in an afterlife, really, but she also didn’t not believe in an afterlife, and she’d seen London built on its own ashes so many times, that she had to imagine that even when she was gone, the bombed out wall of what was left of her would be built around, become part of a Pret or a pub or even just a ruin where the pigeons nested. 

What was tough was knowing when the building needed to come down, which she hadn’t yet quite figured out for herself. It was one thing to be gone in an instant, a bomb dropped, a moment and then just the rubble. It was another to sway into disrepair, to try and pinpoint the day you had to tell those who had lived in your heart that there were homes elsewhere, and it was time to seek them. When the little joys of being were outweighed by the reality of decay. 

“Lena?” 

The lightness she felt at hearing her name in that soft brogue was enough to tell her that day had not yet come, and she would keep on for awhile yet. Tracer thought she might live one hundred years, and never tire of hearing Emily’s voice. It was impossible. 

“It’s grown late. You’ll tire yourself.” A kiss on the top of her head, and then Emily sat down on the edge of the daybed where Tracer found herself spending much of her time lately. 

Tracer chuckled. “Too late. Doesn’t take much anymore, it’s just,” she shook her head, “a bit aggravating, right? There’s so much I’d like to do in a day, not that I can do much of it anyway, but I’d like to at least imagine it. I get frustrated so--” 

Emily nodded kindly as she rubbed Tracer’s shoulder, tight with the constancy of spasms that ran through it, but as Tracer’s eyes flicked upwards, she saw the tears on the edge of Emily’s eyes. Not the time to talk about it. Never seemed to be.

Emily would miss her, and there was no real getting around that, no matter how she tried. Tracer had already spent plenty of time writing and rewriting a letter to be published when she was gone, Pharah sitting alongside her on her small laptop, to try and let Emily know in the most public way that she’d like her to move on, and wasn’t only saying it, that she meant it, nagging over the words until Pharah had offered to remove the burden of waiting for death from her. 

Pharah joked like that, more than most, because Pharah was kind, in her way, and knew Tracer needed someone to be able to joke with. It was a favor to her. When Tracer had told her, she had asked to be treated the same as ever, and to Pharah’s eternal credit, she came very close. 

“Never mind me.” she grinned “Tired and rambling, right? It was a wonderful birthday, Em. Marvelous, really. Been thinking back on me birthdays---I’ve been so lucky. I am so lucky. Thank you, for everything you’ve done, for it.” 

She was tired, and her body jerked and shook, but she was still, in this moment, the master of a failing plane, and managed to but her hand on Emily’s leg. Emily curled up next to her and rested her head on Tracer’s shoulder, letting out a little sniffle as she drew her arm around her.

“It’s not fair for you.” 

“Me?” Tracer kissed her forehead “Oh, none of that now. Not for me. What’s fair, any’ow? Should ‘ave been killed a thousand times over, love, but I wasn’t, Was I? Plenty were,” she muttered, half to herself, “And I noone in whole of me life ‘as ever wanted to ‘ear it but I’ve ‘ad the sense for years that I wasn’t precisely meant to get me pension. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you like but I--really, who it isn’t fair to is you. Life’s been more than fair to me.” 

Emily said nothing, but wiped her eyes and took Tracer’s hand in hers. 

“I mean really, think about it. Not a bad life at all, on balance. Pilot. Top Flight Instructor. Commander. Bloody ‘ero of London. I lived more in thirty-six years than most people would if they ‘ad twice the time. So it’s all right. I made it all count. Course I want more, but, I do tend to rush through things, don’t I? Just me way, don’t stop to admire the view much. Some people are like that, like fireworks, or, oh I don’t know, a stick of gum. And,and at the fag end of it all, I get to be in London, taken care of instead of sent away, when by rights I should have been shot down, or shot through, or lost forever. To be sitting on a London roof in a pile of pillows? Not precisely the gulag, love, and I won’t be greedy. Em, look at me, please.” 

Emily sat up and looked at her, and Tracer squeezed her hand. 

“I lived long enough to find you, and to love you.That’s all that matters. I ‘ave led a bloody charmed life. I ‘ave. Truly. I could not possibly ask for more.” she grinned, “That’s a lie actually,  would ‘ave loved to get all the way through to the King so as I could watch his bloody face when I refused the knighthood publicly, but,” she chuckled, “We can’t ‘ave everything.” 

Emily gave a little chuckle and shook her head. “You’re awful, Lena. Happy Birthday. My prince charming.” 

“And it really was, Em. It is! What do you say,” she winced as she tried to sit up a little, her body jerking her back against the back of the daybed, until Emily balanced her, “What do you say, we ‘ave Win come up with that last bottle of champagne? Toast to ourselves till midnight? Just the three of us?” 

Emily nodded, the teeth poking thought on her smile. 

“That’s what I’d like to see, tonight. Thank you love. Just us three, and your smile.” 

The clouds and fog and too much light of London parted for a moment, just a few stars peeking through the grey and haze. They sparkled down on Tracer, who sparkled back a bit, the diamonds of the natural world. Bright against the night. 

Bit of light in everything.

[theladyofdeath]

The Joker {Nessian}

31 Days of Halloween: Day 17.

All installments co-written with @snelbz​

Based on a prompt sent in by anon : “Well, one of us has to change and it’s not going to be me.”

Warning: language, alcohol.

Autumn/Halloween 2020 {Collection}

Nesta looked in the mirror at her ripped fishnets, her shorts, her shirt that read Daddy’s Little Monster, and her red and blue pig tails. At first, she always thought that Harley Quinn was overly done on Halloween, but this year, she was feeling sexy in her costume. 

Her sisters would be there soon to pick her up, and although Nesta didn’t typically do the whole Halloween party thing, she was grateful for the break this year. 

Her work schedule had been grueling, every day leaving her exhausted, and she was grateful to finally have a day off. 

A night to drink, when she didn’t have to be up early the next day.

After one final look in the mirror, Nesta made sure her small, crossbody purse was appropriately packed for the night, with her mints, her lipstick, cash, ID, and one condom….just in case. After tossing her apartment keys inside of the bag, too, she was waiting, patiently, for the knock on the door to come. 

And when it did, Nesta was completely thrown off guard, because when she opened the door, she was met with the Joker. 

Cassian dressed as the Joker, to be more specific.

Nesta said nothing when she threw open the door and found Cassian’s shaggy hair dyed green, and his red suit, and yellow vest. His face was painted, and his grin was rimmed in red face paint.

Nesta blinked. “Where the hell are my sisters?”

“At the club,” he said, shrugging. “I told them I’d pick you up since your apartment is on the way.”

Nesta’s mouth opened, but was quickly snapped shut, before it opened, once again. “You have to change.”

He arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“You have to change,” he said, again, gesturing to her costume. “I’m Harley Quinn. You have to change.”

He chuckled. “And why is that?” 

She gestured again at her costume, and when he shrugged, she said, exasperated, “We’re a couples costume, and we’re not a couple! You have to change.”

Cassian snorted. “I’m not changing.”

“Well, one of us has to change and it’s not going to be me,” Nesta said, crossing her arms.

Cassian sighed. “Well, considering we’re at your house, and you insist that one of us must change, it has to be you.” 

Nesta’s lips formed a straight line. “I’m not changing, Cassian.”

“Well, neither am I,” he said, shrugging. “Now, we can go to this party, or you can stay here all alone, pissed off that we match. So. You ready?” 

Nesta scoffed. “You really know how to talk to a lady, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Cassian grinned. “Come on. Everyone’s waiting. The party has started. Let’s go.”

Nesta hesitated. “No.”

Cassian looked at her for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”

Nesta was taken aback, offended. “What?”

“You’re stubborn,” he repeated. “You’re stubborn, and it gets in the way of you having a good time.”

“I am not stubborn,” Nesta fought.

Cassian rolled his eyes. “You’re literally the most stubborn person that I know.”

“You’re so full of shit!” Nesta said, her offense growing. 

Cassian laughed as his head fell back, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Just come to the party, Nesta. I promise to keep my distance from you, if that’s what you wish. No one will even know that we’re together.”

“We’re not together,” she said, deadpan. 

Cassian blew out a breath. “Just come on, will ya? The truck is on, the heat is on, your sisters are waiting-”

“Cassian-.”

“Please?” he begged, and when she said nothing more, he took that as a good sign. “If you don’t show up, Elain will-.”

“Alright, alright,” Nesta sighed. “Back up.” 

Cassian took a step back and Nesta stepped into the hall, locking the door behind her. Without a word, she followed Cassian down the flight of stairs and to his truck, where she helped herself inside.

The ride was quiet, aside from the soft music playing in the background. It was so low that there were moments it got lost in the sound of the heater, blowing out toasty air.

Nesta picked up on the tension just a few minutes before they arrived, and once she did, she wasn’t sure how she had missed it. In the few glances she snuck at him, she could see how tight his grip on the wheel was, how tightly his jaw was clenched. His teeth must have been singing as they locked together.

But the most telling sign, the way she knew something was off, was the way he refused to look at her.

She wasn’t inclined to ask what it was.

When they arrived at the club, the line was around the building and Nesta nearly groaned, until she remembered who her younger sister was. Elain had bought VIP tickets the day they’d gone on sale, allowing them to bypass the line and enter exclusive areas that Rita only allowed a select few.

Hopping out of the truck, Nesta didn’t bother to wait for Cassian as she made her way towards the front of the line, popping a pink wad of chewing gum into her mouth. She’d wanted to go all out with the baseball bat, but knew it would get lost somewhere halfway through the night. Better to save her money for booze.

She retrieved the lanyard attached to the VIP pass from her clutch and held it up to the bouncer. Wordlessly, he let her through.

Nesta didn’t wait to see if Cassian was behind her. 

Maybe she should have, or maybe she should have at least thanked him for the ride that saved her from public transportation, but she didn’t. Even as the thought crossed her mind, her feet just kept moving into the club. 

She spotted her sisters and their boyfriends, along with Mor and Amren and their dates, in a booth along the far wall, close to the bar. They all cheered as Nesta approached.

“Where’s Cass?” Elain asked, beaming, after complimenting her sister’s costume. 

“Yeah, thanks for sending the ride, by the way,” Nesta muttered. “I hate the bus and I nearly almost took it anyway. Why’d you send him, anyway? Didn’t he have better things to do? Like, I don’t know, pick up his girlfriend?” 

Elain’s smile faltered. “You don’t know?”

Nesta arched a brow. “I don’t know, what?”

“They broke up,” Feyre said, shrugging. “A couple days ago, I’m surprised that you hadn't heard. Or, at least, saw it on Facebook.” 

“I’m taking a break from Facebook, it just pisses me off,” Nesta mumbled. 

She stared down at her hands, which were folded on the table. Cassian was single for the first time in years.

No wonder he had been so tense in the car.

The man himself appeared, a crooked grin that matched the gruesome one painted on his face, sliding into the booth, next to Rhys. Nesta looked at him for the first time, really looked at him, beneath the costume.

Those hazel eyes that she knew all too well, they were...hollow and empty. And she didn’t like it.

“Nice of you two to finally join us,” Amren said, shooting them both an impatient glare.

Nesta just raised an eyebrow at her friend, but Cassian said, “My apologies, ma’am. First round is on me.”

No one was arguing with that.

Drinks were ordered and as Nesta sipped on a tropical beverage, she kept glancing at the disheveled Joker across the booth. 

“Come on, Rhys, let’s dance!” Rhysand was dragged onto the dance floor, leaving Nesta and Cassian alone as the other couples followed, enjoying their time together.

Nesta cleared her throat, but Cassian continued to stare at his half-full glass of whiskey. 

She cleared her throat again.

Cassian’s eyes shot up and met hers. He blinked a few times as if he had completely forgotten she was there. “Sorry, what?”

Nesta hesitated. She really hadn’t thought of what to say, only that she hated seeing him so miserable. “Your costume looks good,” she said, deciding small talk was safe. “I’m glad you went with this version of the Joker.”

“I thought I needed to change.” His words were meant to bite, she could tell. But they didn’t. They were empty.

She didn’t like that. 

She’d never liked Cassian’s girlfriend. She was a haughty bitch, who constantly judged people and-.

Nesta stopped her thoughts before she let them follow that particular rabbit hole. But she had to admit she wasn’t upset at the news that Cassian wasn’t with her anymore.

Cassian definitely seemed upset, though. 

“I changed my mind,” she said, at last. “Who’s Harley Quinn without the Joker?” 

Cassian chuckled, even though the light didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re known to say that Harley is much better without the Joker.”

She had walked right into that one. But, for the sake of making him feel better, she’d push her personal beliefs of DC villains aside. 

“Just because you dressed up like Joaquin Phoenix instead of Heath Ledger, who was clearly the best Joker to date, doesn’t mean that I think your effort is a total waste,” Nesta went on.

He rolled his eyes, the first thing she’d seen that was anything similar to his normal self. “Please. Ledger’s interpretation may have been iconic, but it only blew up as big as it did because of his untimely death right after,” he said, bringing the glass to his lips and taking a drink. “But you’re not ready to talk about that.”

“It was a tragedy that added to the element of chaos that were his final years,” she defended, sipping down the rest of her drink.

Cassian raised a hand, looking over his shoulder at the bartender, who had two new drinks heading their way shortly after. They discussed the aesthetic differences in the different adaptations of characters, from the Joker and Harley, to Batman and even over to Marvel, getting into a heated debate over who was the superior Spiderman.

Cassian narrowed his eyes at Nesta, who had somehow ended up next to him in the booth - or did he end up next to her? - and said, a slight slur to his words, “Look, just admit it, you like Heath Ledger better because he’s prettier.”

Nesta snorted, something she thought was decidedly unladylike, but she didn’t care. “I mean, yeah, that’s obvious, but that’s not the only reason. It is the reason you should have been him though.”

“Because I’m pretty?” Cassian asked, with a crooked grin.

“I walked right into that one,” Nesta mumbled, downing her drink before setting it down on the table with a clunk. 

“So you do think I’m pretty,” Cassian said, his grin remaining. 

“Everyone thinks you’re pretty,” Nesta argued, snatching a full glass and not hesitating to take a drink. 

Cassian’s grin widened, and with the Joker makeup, Nesta was caught between thinking it was cute or terrifying. “Even you?”

Nesta didn’t answer. Her lips pressed together in a straight line. “Let’s dance, Nazari.”

She was already up on her feet when Cassian stared at her, dumbfounded. “What?”

She shrugged. “Let’s dance.” 

Cassian looked at her for a moment before saying, “I’m not really in the mood to dance, Nesta.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because you were dumped?”

Cassian’s shoulders tensed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nesta shook her head, rubbing her temples. “It’s Halloween, Cass. You deserve to have a good night, and I’m going to make sure you have a good night.” 

Cassian took a deep breath as he looked up at Nesta, through his dark lashes. “Why do you care so much?”

Nesta wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “We’re friends, right?”

Cassian snorted. “We are?”

Nesta rolled her eyes. “Come on, Cass. Let’s dance.” 

Once again, Cassian stared at her for a long moment. “If I dance with you, will you admit that Joaquin is a better Joker?” 

Nesta slowly shook her head as she crossed her arms. “Never.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “Can we at least agree that Jared Leto was the worst?”

Nesta grinned. “Oh, absolutely.”

“I’ll take it.” Cassian stood, and took Nesta’s hand. She led him onto the dance floor and wasted no time trying to take his mind off his breakup.

They had come together, after all. Even though they weren’t a couple.

Not yet, anyways.

[itsclydebitches]

YYH Recaps: Episode 4 “Requirements for Lovers”

Hello, everyone! It's been quite a while, huh? Ah, the endless cycle of wanting to write and yet, astoundingly, not writing. I know it well.

Good ol' writer's block has skedaddled for a time though, so let's make good use of that and dive into Episode Four: "Requirements for Lovers." 

Ohhh, YYH getting spicy with its titles 😏

Actually wait, I shouldn't be making dumb jokes just yet. First I want to acknowledge a slight change to future recaps: YYH, RWBY, and anything else I might try my hand at. Namely, a lack of pictures moving forward. A few weeks ago — months? I honestly can't keep track — tumblr implemented a new limitation where no post can have more than ten images in it. It's a move that, while I'm sure has its justifications, makes sharing analyses of visually-based media all the more difficult. I'll be doing my best moving forward to describe scenes as needed, as well as combining connected images together to stretch out my limit, but I'm not going to pretend that it'll be the same as getting the visual play-by-play we’re used to. 

Tumblr certainly is a website, huh?  

Anyway, we open on Yusuke once again lamenting the difficulty of hatching a spirit beast that doesn't immediately devour him from the head down. On the one hand this is an admittedly easy way to reset the story over the course of this arc — the storytelling equivalent of waking your character up each morning — yet I cannot deny that if I were undergoing a resurrection test, it would consume my every thought too. Can't really blame Yusuke for endlessly bringing the conflict up when the conflict is this deadly.

Well, deadly for a ghost, anyway.

Specifically, he's worried about how embarrassing it would be to get eaten by something that came out of an egg this tiny. I'm torn between reminding a fictional character that things grow — a pissed off chicken could kick my ass and it started out in an egg too — and just shaking my head over the absurdity of worrying about embarrassment when, you know, you would cease to exist. It's not even a matter of, "What if I die and then I'm embarrassed about it in the afterlife :( " Yusuke is already IN the afterlife. He's got nowhere to go but oblivion!

Luckily, Botan takes a more practical approach to these worries, pointing out that he'll be just fine provided he does some good deeds. Yusuke starts a rant about how do-gooders are only ever out for themselves.

Yusuke, you dumb-dumb, you're a do-gooder now. What was all that help for Kuwabara, hmm? As said, these early episodes exist in a semi-reset loop, where Yusuke needs to stew in his main character flaws for a while before any real growth starts to stick. Those flaws being, primarily, "I'm a pessimist" and "also I hate myself."

Case in point, Botan accuses him of always seeing the glass as half empty. Which, while true enough (outside of his confidence in fighting, anyway), by now we've got a pretty good sense of where Yusuke developed this attitude. He affirms this by talking about how Koenma's got him by the balls, "just another idiot abusing his power!" With an alcoholic mother and those teachers from last episode, it's no wonder Yusuke thinks this way. Mr. Takenaka's interest and Keiko's care aren't enough to combat the rest of Yusuke's experience, not when Takenaka is an outlier and Keiko is Yusuke's peer. Her desire to keep him on the right track reads only as an inevitability at best (the downside of having a perfect childhood friend), or a legitimate annoyance at worst. Or, as we'll continue to see in this episode, a way for them to flirt.

Is it any wonder Yusuke would sneer at Koenma's offer then, expecting the worst? The fact that Yusuke is still undergoing the challenge at all, no matter what he says, speaks volumes to me.

However, Botan is less than comfortable with his criticisms. She panics a bit at Yusuke insulting the (junior) ruler of the underworld so blithely. That, and the fact that he's carelessly tossing his egg around.

(Yes we’re using precious picture space for memes are you SURPRISED?) 

Anyway, Botan isn't just concerned for the sake of concern. She cautions Yusuke against speaking too freely because there may be investigators checking in on his progress. No sooner does he ask what those investigators look like than one appears.

Thunder! Lighting! An energy so intense that Yusuke is briefly blinded! It is, as he says, quite the entrance. What kind of being could possibly be at the heart of such an astounding show?

Why, this teeny-tiny cutie, of course.

Remember, few appearances in YYH coincide with the character's true self. Would you ever assume this is the all-powerful investigator who holds Yusuke's future in her hands? Of course not. That's the point.

The investigator introduces herself as Sayaka and immediately demonstrates that she has no more patience for Yusuke's attitude than Botan does. "These damn kids," he mutters and my brain briefly blue screens because Yusuke. You're fourteen.

Plus, Sayaka and Botan clearly have some sort of eternal youth situation going on, so there's that too.

Sayaka is, in a word, fantastic. She pulls no punches with Yusuke, teleporting away from him with what can only be described as a shit-eating smile, all while refusing to tell him what exactly she's investigating. “I’m sorry, but that’s a secret!” However, Keiko is clearly at the forefront of her interest. She refers to her as Yusuke's "girlfriend."

Botan is more than happy to point Keiko out — because of course they're still following her around! — and pulls a Et tu, Brute? on Yususke, leading Sayaka right to her. Like most of the Underworld, Sayaka is rather shocked that the pretty, popular, scholarly girl is supposedly into the delinquent. It's the power of childhood friendship, you fools! Specifically, Sayaka references the "positive markings" that Keiko has accumulated, but the audience already knows by now that such markings are suspect at best. Yusuke himself is proof of that. So if his terrible marks don't preclude him from being a young kid's savior, should we really view Keiko's as proof of superiority?

I mean, Keiko is fantastic, but that's not really the point here.

Starting her own investigation into Yusuke's life, Sayaka begins with one hell of a bombshell: "There's no point in doing [the resurrection] if the people closest to you don't care." WOW. Not only is that a harsh assessment, it's one I don't think I can personally get behind. The offer to restore Yusuke to life is built on the acknowledgment that their system is flawed (even if there's no work to change or dismantle that system): they thought he was worthless, his sacrificial death seems to have proven them wrong, and now they want further evidence, in the form of this trial, that Yusuke is a good person at heart. The whole point of this challenge is to give him a second chance, with testimonies like Mr. Takenaka's emphasizing that Yusuke has always been capable of more, so long as he applies himself. This, as we'll see throughout the series, applies to relationships too. The Yusuke with one friend he play-fights with, a distant mother, and a school worth of kids who are terrified of his very name is not the future Yusuke they expect him to become, so... why base his resurrection on what he's already (not) accomplished? Granted, the show is very unclear about what, if anything, Sayaka will do if she decides that Yusuke doesn't have a life worth going back to (even if I have my own theory discussed at the end), but the fact that this is suddenly a factor at all seems grossly unfair, not entirely unlike Kuwabara's rigged promise. We as the audience know that people love Yusuke. Yusuke himself is beginning to acknowledge that. But if this fourteen year old delinquent truly had no one that wanted him back from the dead... isn't that all the more reason to allow a resurrection and give him the chance to build a life where he would be missed? 

This stupid shonen got me thinking too much istg. 

Yusuke, ever the self-deprecating pessimist, bypasses all of the above thoughts and jumps straight to, "It's clear if [Keiko] had any sense she'd want me gone." I'd find that attitude incredibly sad if I wasn't distracted by how cute Botan and Sayaka are, sitting on the oar together. The spirit girls who fly together, thrive together! 

Botan starts teasing Yusuke about having a crush, which just feeds his temper and Sayaka's confusion. Deciding that she needs to gather more info, they follow along for an average day of school because these earlier episodes are, apparently, ghost-stalk Keiko hours. 

We see her reading aloud in class from Heart of Darkness (not the easiest book for some middle schoolers), scoring a point during volleyball practice, refusing to let one girl cheat off her homework, but happily helping another who runs up with a question. So she's pretty, athletic, and academically successful, the trifecta for any good love interest. Sayaka is impressed not just with her "nearly perfect" scores, but also the maturity that Keiko demonstrates, such as maintaining her morals about cheating while remaining compassionate. 

Actually, I really love the contrast this provides for us, the viewer. Meaning, Keiko is shown to be at her least mature when in Yusuke's presence. Not that her responses aren't justified, but watching her dramatically snatch gum from his mouth, slap him across the face, or pull crazed expressions as she yells at him is a far cry from this calm, poised, soft-spoken Keiko. It's a way to visually show us that she's comfortable in his presence, despite the suspect humor attached. Not that the Keiko we see at school is faking or anything — she is legitimately that kind and articulate — but we see that being with Yusuke allows her to relax in a way she doesn't with others. School!Keiko is, as Sayaka says, pretty much perfect, 24/7. Yusuke's Keiko is a little rougher around the edges, in a way that implies a multifaceted personality shining through. 

However, the only conclusion our trio draws is that, given Keiko's accomplishments, any attraction must be one-sided.

Poor Yusuke lol. 

In a plot move that is so ridiculously contrived, just as Yusuke is grappling with the accusation that Keiko couldn't possibly like him back, a "handsome boy" arrives to ask Keiko out. He says that he couldn't bear it when she stopped reading Heart of Darkness because he's fallen in love with her voice. "Will you be my girlfriend?" 

Please excuse me while I lose my shit over how ridiculous this is. I legitimately straight up cackled when I watched this scene. 

Luckily for Mr. Absurd, Keiko takes him seriously — and lets him down easy. She says she can't be his girlfriend and when he presses the "Why?", asking if she already likes someone else, Keiko confirms that she does. This is done through a shot of her feet. Not a POV shot given the angle, but close enough that it feels like we're stepping into Keiko's shoes (haha), shyly staring down at the floor in embarrassment and regret. 

Rejection complete? The guy screams. 

I mean he screams. 

I mean this nobody we're never gonna see again unhinges his jaw and lets out an unholy shriek the likes of which makes me shriek in utter GLEE. 

It's insane. It's wonderful. I'm going to use one of my coveted image spots to show you his face: 

Look at that and tell me this show isn't amazing. 

Okay, I'm focusing again. As Keiko runs off Botan and Sayaka start dragging Yusuke, teasing him about how Keiko chose him over that "charming handsome boy." 

...Please scroll up and look at that image again. I find YYH's definition of "charming" and "handsome" to be hilariously wrong. 

Yusuke, as per usual, throws himself into damage control, claiming that Keiko didn't say who she liked, so really it could be anyone. They're not buying it. “'I like Keiko' is written all over your face!” Botan crows. Meanwhile, Sayaka is scribbling in her little investigator's journal that feelings on both side are severely misunderstood. "Suggest serious counseling." 

Fantastic idea, Sayaka. I'd personally suggest counseling for the whole dying/best friend getting resurrected thing... but relationship woes work too! 

We cut to later when school is out and Keiko has gone over to Yusuke's. To say that Atsuko has done a poor job of keeping the house clean lately would be a serious understatement. 

Keiko points out the old food and broken glass specifically, cluing us in that this isn't just a messy environment, but a dangerous one as well. This is proven when she accidentally knocks a stack of books over and a used bowl falls onto Yusuke's face. What's interesting is that Keiko says that things are "back to normal" now, though I'm not sure if that's in reference to the state of the house, or just the note Atsuko left behind, asking Keiko to take care of Yusuke while she's out. I'm inclined towards thinking it's just the note, partly because of Keiko's shock when she first arrives, because the house wasn't shown to be in this state prior to Yusuke's death (first image above), and because the note is accompanied by a great voiceover that makes Atsuko sound quite sloshed when she left. That's what's normal, the drinking and carefree attitude, not the state of her home. If we buy that reading, it allows for another fantastic look into Atsuko's mental state. If she's already an alcoholic, the trauma of her son's death and the following revelation that he's coming back might make her struggle in other ways. Like finding cleaning to be an impossible task. 

She's depressed. It doesn't excuse the state she's left Yusuke in and, as previously acknowledged, YYH is definitely not a show interested in this nuance, but I still find it fun to take what little we've gotten and run with it. 

However, Keiko is firmly on team "WTF Atsuko." She hurries to make sure Yusuke wasn't hurt by the falling bowl, bemoans him being "covered in garbage," and says that leaving him in this state should be considered a felony. Knowing it's far beyond her power to fix Atsuko's failings, Keiko swears to come here after school every day until Yusuke regains his body. It's as she's cleaning him of the dust that's gathered that Keiko becomes entranced with Yusuke’s features. Particularly his lips. The soft lighting returns, their theme song swells, and Keiko gets thiiiis close to kissing Yusuke for the first time. 

Which is a little weird, right? I mean, we know why Yusuke is freaking out. Beyond the embarrassment of a middle schooler receiving his first kiss while two ghost girls eagerly watch on, he's made a hobby of denouncing his interest in Keiko to anyone who will listen. But for the average viewer — for Keiko herself — don't we care the he's, you know, dead? Or if not technically dead, very unconscious? Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the appeal of this situation in a generalized, cultural sense (with the side disclaimer that I'm reading a Japanese product through an American lens). Sleeping Beauty exists for a reason and there's definitely an element of that here: a gender-reversed setup where Keiko’s kills may break the "curse" of Yusuke's untimely death. Even his in-between state of being mirrors the "death like sleep" of the fairy tale. But when you strip away those Disney-esque thoughts, we're left with a girl about to kiss an unresponsive body, not as a common gesture of care (the parent who kisses their child while they sleep), but as a first time, romantic milestone. 

It's a little weird lol. 

But embrace the romance! As well as its inevitable interruption. Just as Keiko is about to land a peck, the neighborhood watch committee announces a heat and fire warning, startling Keiko out of her thoughts about Yusuke's "beautiful face." (There's another gender reversal for ya.) She gasps at her almost-action, conveniently remembers that her mom wanted her to do some shopping, and hightails it out of there before embarrassment can really kill them both. 

So she runs off for food... in a sweater? The outfit is cute and all, but I wonder what the animators were thinking, putting Keiko in a puffy pullover during an episode all about a heat wave. 

It's about at this point that the plot goes from cute romance to absolutely buck wild. The fires the neighborhood watch committee mentioned are not, in fact, due to the overwhelming heat, but an arsonist that's going around tossing molotov cocktails through open windows. Why is he doing such a thing? I don't know. Arsonists be doing arson, I guess. The important bit is that Yusuke's place is his next target, considering that Atsuko forgot to lock the windows when she went out. Within seconds all that garbage is set ablaze, quite obviously putting Yusuke's resurrection chances at an all time low. 

"Wake up, stupid!" he shouts at his unconscious body. Mood, Yusuke. That's me every morning. 

So this is a full scale emergency now and everyone is scrambling trying to think of something to do. Yusuke comes up with the idea to possess himself like he did Kuwabara — nice attempt at a loophole there — but since it would technically count as his resurrection, no dice. Botan decides to go get Kuwabara himself, even though he's too far away to do anything. It's still worth a shot. Sayaka, meanwhile, watches all this unfold with a somewhat clinical detachment. She's not quite indifferent and she's definitely not cruel... she’s just not as emotionally invested in this as the other two. Which not only re-emphasizes her purpose here, as an observer judging Yusuke, but also highlights the bond Botan is forming with him. As mentioned before in regards to her hanging out with Yusuke rather than ferrying souls, Botan is well past someone assisting Yusuke simply because it's a part of her job. He's her friend. 

We get some shots of the growing fire which includes a hazy texture to the animation I quite like and then we cut to Keiko several blocks away, shopping bag in hand. Word of the new fire spreads, with one bystander mentioning that it's the twelfth today. 

"This is eerie.” 

“Yeah, I can’t help feeling we’re under attack.”

That's because you are! Someone stop that man! 

Sadly, I don't think the arsonist is mentioned again, let alone captured. We'll just have to relegate that to my incredibly niche fic wishlist. 

Keiko also overhears that the latest fire is on fourth avenue, which of course is where Yusuke lives. Recognizing that he might be in trouble, she takes off at a run. 

Meanwhile, Botan finds Kuwabara practicing his kicks against a Yusuke dummy. Amazing resemblance, right? 

Watching for the purpose of recapping, I'm picking up on a lot of details in the animation I quite enjoy. I don't think anyone would claim that YYH, at this point in time, has the most impressive or flashy animation (the fight scenes later are another matter entirely), but there's a clear love for the product that shines through. The scared expression on Kuwabara's dummy. His unexpectedly dainty kick, complete with pointed toes. Botan's more translucent coloring to emphasize her supernatural status compared to Kuwabara. There are a lot of nice touches despite the overall simplicity. 

Plus, you can't forget the lovely irony of Kuwabara fighting a defenseless "Yusuke" while the real guy actually lies defenseless amidst a fire. We already know that despite his tough talk, Kuwabara would be horrified to learn that his friend rival had died (again) in such a manner. 

Capitalizing on that transparency, Botan runs a hand through Kuwabara's back to catch his attention. He gets his "tickle feeling" and instinctively looks around towards Yusuke's house, seeing the smoke. "Something tells me I should go that way." Gotta love a guy who drops everything to chase a vague, supernaturally induced hunch. 

As Kuwabara leaves we cut back to Keiko arriving at the house, staring in horror at the blaze. We get an audio flashback to her talk with Yusuke where she promised to take care of his body until he got back. So she tries to run in, only for a couple of the onlookers to snag her, quite correctly keeping her from undergoing a suicide mission. We learn later that Keiko absolutely would have died without Yusuke's sacrifice, so her "You cowards!" is born more of emotion than justified accusations. It's not cowardly to look at the raging inferno in a small apartment and realize that recklessly running in will only result in two dead teens, not one. 

I mean, the flames are already right there, licking the door. Even if Keiko somehow managed to avoid burns, the smoke alone would do her in. Still, Keiko tries to mitigate the damage by dumping a bucket of water over her head. As a kid I remember thinking this was the smartest thing ever. Utterly inspired. Keep that in the back of your mind, kid Clyde, for future reference. As an adult... I have no idea whether this would actually help or not lol. Any firefighters doubling as YYH fans? 

Recklessness and iffy precautions aside, I can't express how much I appreciate the story giving Keiko things to do. Yusuke recognizes that she's the only one with the maturity and open-mindedness to believe in his resurrection. She's the one picking up Atsuko's slack regarding his day-to-day needs. She never hesitates for a moment, heroically throwing herself into this blaze for Yusuke's benefit. Yeah, a lot of that still falls into the emotional/domestic sphere — what we expect of the love interest in a 90s anime — but too often action stories don't have a clue what to do with their non-action characters, not even when it comes to just supporting the fighters. They're simply... there. Keiko, however, isn't window dressing. Whether it's helping Botan survive an upcoming, supernatural plague, or cheering the team on at the Dark Tournament, Keiko is an important part of the story, despite lacking the fighting prowess of the rest of the cast. 

Just as important, this episode establishes a core equality between her and Yusuke. We just watched Keiko reject a (presumably) accomplished guy for him, telling the audience that these surface differences — academics, power levels, popularity, looks — don't matter to them. Yusuke is not Keiko's lesser just because he doesn't have the same scores in Sayaka's book and Keiko won't become Yusuke's lesser just because she doesn't have spiritual power like he does. The only important thing here is that they love each other and they're both willing to sacrifice everything for the other. In the span of about ten minutes, Keiko nearly gives up her life for Yusuke and, in turn, Yusuke gives up his resurrection for her. The level of care they show towards one another is balanced, despite those differences. 

They’re a good ship, y'all. Even if this recapping's got me noticing Yusuke/Kuwabara potential lol. 

To get back to the plot, a drenched Keiko charges into the fire, yelling Yusuke's name for the drama of it because we all know he can't respond. Despite the audience (hopefully) recognizing Keiko and Yusuke's equality, that memo hasn't reached Yusuke yet. "You're a lot more important to this world than I am!" he yells, hammering home that despite everything — knowing he instinctively saved a child, watching his loved ones grieve for him, helping Kuwabara just because he can — Yusuke still, deep down, believes that he doesn't deserve to come back; that he doesn't measure up to those around him. The self-sacrificial nature this insecurity produces shocks Sayaka. She points out that if Keiko doesn't save his body, he's not coming back. "What's the point of being alive if Keiko has to get killed for it?" 

Keiko means more to Yusuke than the rest of his living existence. Jot that down in your notebook, Sayaka! 

Kuwabara arrives and runs into one of his friends who informs him that Keiko just went inside. “Yusuke’s girl? The one we saved from those thugs?”

BOY does that tell us a lot about their rivalry! I mean yeah, we've already established several times over that Kuwabara — just like Yusuke himself — is not the cruel street thug he'd like to present himself as. If these characters actually wanted to hurt each other outside of a martial arts challenge, don't you think Kuwabara would capitalize on the "Yusuke's girl" bit? Everyone seems to know that they have feelings for each other, but Kuwabara never once wields that as ammunition against Yusuke. There are no taunts about him not being good enough. Or rather, I should clarify there are no serious taunts — Kuwabara is well known for his teasing. There's also no attempt to steal Keiko out from under him, the common treatment of the love interest as a "prize" that many stories fall into. Indeed, later this episode YYH will deconstruct this a bit. Yusuke sees Kuwabara grab Keiko's hand and yells that he better not be getting "fresh" with her. But it's purely Yusuke's worries shining through. The audience gets a crystal clear picture of the situation and knows, categorically, that Kuwabara has only the most innocent of intentions in holding Keiko's hand. 

(Well, running from the police isn't innocent, but...) 

I keep getting sidetracked. Plot! Keiko makes it to Yusuke's room and finds that he is already on fire. She then proceeds to try and put it out by patting it with her hands. I take back what I said about Keiko's smarts in this scene. Now we know where that supposed recklessness comes from though. Apparently they're both immune to fire! Nothing to worry about here, folks. 

JK she's actually in danger, despite the animation choices. By this point everyone, including Keiko, realizes that there's no way out: the fire has blocked the door. Sayaka then reveals that there is one way to save her. If Yusuke throws his egg into the fire, the energy of the spirit beast will release and guide her to safety. The catch? Hatch the egg early and it won't complete its intended function of guiding him back to his body. This beast is gonna guide one person and that is it. 

Cue Yusuke's near immediate decision to sacrifice his life for Keiko's. Granted, it's not precisely one life for another. Yusuke's resurrection was always contingent upon the beast not devouring him whole — something Koenma claims would have happened at the end of the episode — meaning that it's not technically a fair trade. Yusuke might have sacrificed Keiko's life for his own... only to fail to get that life back anyway. (There's a tragedy for ya.) To say nothing of how Yusuke is currently dead and has been for at least a couple of days, whereas Keiko very much is not. There's some sort of philosophical discussion there about potential being pit against current reality. 

BUT that's not the point! The emotional point is that he sacrificed his life for hers — the potential of his resurrection, the potential of that life he might have led — all technicalities aside. And I, for one, think that's very neat of him. 

A blue light shines as the egg's energy is released, providing a lovely contrast to the fire surrounding them. A path forms to the door and Keiko, recognizing Yusuke's presence, follows it. "We'll make it, Yusuke," Keiko says, which is one hell of a sucker-punch now that we know she's just carrying a corpse. Unbeknownst to Keiko, Yusuke is very much not making it. That's the only reason why she is. 

Kuwabara appears to help them the rest of the way which is also a pretty awesome thing considering that, from everyone else's perspective, the fire is still raging and blocking the door. Despite his spiritual awareness, Kuwabara gives no indication that he noticed this strange light, or Yusuke's hand in the rescue. Which basically means he lunged into a bunch of deadly fire for Keiko and doesn't question how in the world he isn't burned. 

Keiko's hands are fine, Kuwabara's whole body is fine... fire immunity must run in the friend group! 

Yusuke has another rare moment of vulnerability — "They're both okay" — and I cackle happily at the "both" because see. You love Kuwabara too, Yusuke! All this bluster about hating him and finding him annoying. The second he rushed into that fire you were crawling up the walls. 

Except then that happiness gives way to something that sounds a little more shocked. Devastated. "Well, I sure am... relieved..." Kudos to Cook's voice acting. You can hear the exact moment Yusuke realizes what he's done. Not that he regrets it, but the consequences are finally sinking in. He's relieved that they're safe, yes, but now he's never going to be able to rejoin them. 

As Yusuke has an(other) existential crisis, Kuwabara peels back the blanket Keiko had wrapped Yusuke in, revealing his face. “What are you doing with Yusuke’s body?! Are you some type of sick grave robber?” he shouts. God I love when a story actually keeps track of who knows what. Kuwabara, for all his recent involvement in the plot, doesn't actually know what's going on. From his perspective Yusuke died, he made a scene at the wake, he saved "his girl" from a bunch of thugs, lost a huge chunk of time only to wake up with her randomly hugging him (then slapping him), participated in a bet with his awful teacher and had a couple weird, Yusuke related dreams while studying, and has felt the presence of ghosts perhaps a little more frequently than usual. Now he's trying to help save Keiko from a fire only for her to reveal she risked her own life for Yusuke's body. Of course he's freaking out! What's she doing with that? 

What's utterly fantastic though is that Kuwabara takes all of five seconds to process this and then enters immediate Ride or Die mode for Keiko. She's been hoarding Yusuke's body for undetermined reasons? Well, who is he to judge? The important thing here is that people are arrested for keeping bodies, so they've gotta skedaddle before the firefighters show up. 

Hence, hand-holding and avoiding arrest. 

As Yusuke starts threatening Kuwabara not to get "fresh" with her, Botan sadly reminds him that he no longer has a say in who Keiko does or does not fall in love with. The switch in tone is jarring. Whereas before Botan would have teased him mercilessly for the crush, now she knows that nothing can come of that — and it would be cruel not to remind Yusuke of that too. 

"Oh no. I didn't think..." Yusuke whispers, further establishing that he knew the risks of using his egg, but hadn't allowed them to sink in yet. Now they have. 

He gives a fake little laugh with, "Just when it was getting good" and I cry at the development in the span of just four episodes. Despite what I said at the beginning about the show resetting each week, there has been a lot of change thus far. Yusuke wants to live now! He wants to be there for Keiko! He looks down on his tiny family and screams at the unfairness of it all! They're talking about how they can't wait for him to come back and now that's never gonna happen!!

It hurts, friends. It hurts a whole lot. 

During this conversation between Keiko, Atsuko, and Kuwabara, we see that a couple of hours have passed (it's nighttime now, the fire is out) and Atsuko is apologizing for putting them all in danger like that. And by that I mean yes, she does technically apologize with an "I'm sorry" and everything, but it's also a one sentence apology pit against... well, near death for the three people standing (and sitting) before her. Atsuko seems just as concerned by Keiko losing her hair as she does Keiko nearly burning to death and she kneels by Yusuke's wheelchair, baby-talking to him about how he forgives her, right? I love Atsuko, she's great, but objectively speaking she is not a good mother. Not right now, anyway. 

Oh yeah, and just to reiterate that: Keiko's hands are fine after patting down Yusuke's on-fire body, but her hair, which I'm pretty sure never catches, has to be cut short. Ah, anime logic. Funny thing is, YYH isn't the only story to take the love interest and give her a cool, short cut thanks to a traumatic event. Anyone read Ranma 1/2? 

During this conversation we also learn that, sometime between the fire and now, Keiko filled Kuwabara in on everything that's happening with Yusuke. Makes sense. He kneels beside the wheelchair, joining the others in telling Yusuke that they'll wait patiently for his return. Yusuke, above them, continues yelling about how they're waiting on a dead man. 

“It can’t be helped. He made this decision on his own." 

Except it can, in fact, be helped!

Just as all hope is truly lost, Koenma appears and announces that Yusuke will be returned to life. Why? Because sacrificing his egg for Keiko is a better indicator of his worth than the egg itself could have been. Despite feeding on his negative outlook and heading towards biting Yusuke's head off — something the animation backs up by showing us teeth during the fire

— Yusuke's act demonstrates a tendency towards being a "decent human being" that is "so rare." Wow. That's depressing. Still, yay that Yusuke has those qualities! And this, to my mind, helps explain Sayaka's presence. Koenma recognized that judging Yusuke couldn't be left to the egg alone and indeed, Sayaka took note of his worth before he ever threw the egg into the fire. First it was questioning why someone as amazing as Keiko would go for him, then it was solidified through the shock of Yusuke announcing that coming back to life was meaningless if she wasn't in it. Even if Keiko had somehow, miraculously escaped the fire before Yusuke's sacrifice, I bet Sayaka's report would have tipped him in resurrection's favor anyway. 

Everyone is, of course, overjoyed and my heart swells at the intense gratitude Yusuke displays. My favorite part though is when Koenma cryptically says that “Your added experience with death could make you very useful" (a nod towards future events that goes right over Yusuke's head) and his response to this is a yelled, "YOU THINK I'M USEFUL?" This poor kid. The God of everything ever is chucking out revelations left and right, about resurrections and spirit beasts, but the only thing that really penetrates is the realization that someone thinks he's useful. Talk about relatable. 

You know, I've been thinking about why this moment works so well. I mean, there are a lot of other stories where undermining the consequences our hero faces — either with humor, or by erasing them completely — can feel like the audience was cheated. I think YYH dodged that with a couple of crucial factors. First, Yusuke's consequence isn't something new that he's now avoided, it's just a permanent extension of something he was already dealing with. We did get to watch him inhabit the space between life and death, grappling with whether he'd ever be able to return. The story didn't deny us that growth, it just confirmed something we all instinctively knew: this tale won't end here with Yusuke permanently going to some afterlife. Second, the Deus ex Machina fix doesn't happen too soon. Yeah, it's only a couple of minutes in a single episode, but we (and Yusuke) still get to sit with that outcome for a while, soaking it in before its removal. Finally, there's no doubt that Yusuke earned this reprieve. Koenma's timing might be sudden and (if you're not genre savvy) unexpected, but looking back at the series as a whole thus far, we're able to agree absolutely that Yusuke deserves this. Far from feeling like we were cheated, this solution invites just as much celebration as we're seeing on screen, for the simple reason that we can buy into Koenma's reasoning. We know now that Yusuke is a good person. We saw him selflessly sacrifice his future for Keiko. We agree that he deserves a second chance. 

Thus, the episode ends with Yusuke flying up to fill the screen in his joy, a far better, final shot than Harry Potter and The Prison of Azkaban managed 😰

And that's it for Episode 4, folks! See you later for Episode 5 💕

[trashbunnywrites]

Little magician in training

Just realized I never posted it here so here it is

Reminder requests are still open.

Had help from the amazing @amazing-fandoms thank you queen.

It was a slow night. The many empty seats , low murmurs , and few faces weren't the usual. Your circus while it wasn't the best, it was quite popular. Everyone worked hard and practiced new tricks and moves.

When you got on stage and looked at the people , you noticed how there's 20 at most in the empty seats. Doesn't this town crave any entertainment ? Most you've been through ended up with a large crown in the week you've stayed there. Guess you all will have to move on to the next one faster this time.

You're a magician and a pretty good one at that. Teaching yourself the tricks and following the footsteps of the previous magician made you this way. As a child, you admired your teacher a lot and wanted to learn even more. Making you even better than him as you always seeked more knowledge.

Your eyes met with a yellow curious childish ones. He was watching you intensely probably trying to figure out your tricks. The boy looks pretty poor because of his ripped dirty clothes and messy look. You felt him tense up as you watched him prepare to flee. So he sneaked his way in ? That wasn't exactly easy and done by a child ? That's impressive.

Smiling to the child as you pointed to him.

"Would you like to volunteer for my next trick ?"

His eyes lit up as he nodded and approached you. You showed him a deck of cards and asked him to pick one. This was always an audience pleaser even though it had such a simple trick to it. Guessing the card wasn't hard at all as you knew what card was right above it even if you shuffled the deck.

He looked impressed as the small audience clapped for you. You loved card tricks because they were simple yet many find very fascinating. They didn't need fancy equipment like most of your other tricks but hey , that's what nen is for right ?

Your flame breather colleague was next as you left to your trailer. Still feeling incredibly disappointed at the small number of people who showed up. Was this town that poor ? Or your circus wasn't interesting enough ?

Feeling a presence behind you , you immediately prepared your card as you turned around. The melted golden eyes met yours. What a sneaky child.

"So you're not satisfied with sneaking into the show , you had to sneak into my room ?"

His eyes shone at your words "why didn't you say anything when you knew I snuck into the show ?"

Giggling at his bravery instead of apologizing and running off scared "because I used to do that when I was your age"

He approached somewhat gaining confidence "how did you do it ?"

"A magician never reveals his tricks. Where are your parents anyway ? Aren't they worried you're out ?"

"I don't have any , what do I have to do for you to teach me ?"

He asked extremely seriously as he brushed off being an orphan in a nonchalant manner. Who is this kid ? Sighing you got up and grabbed something from your drawer.

"Gum ?"

You asked, extending your hand. You always chewed gum when thinking as it helped you clear your mind. He looked at it then grabbed one satisfied to see you chewing on it.

"If I talked to the chief for you to be my apprentice , you have to follow my orders, do you understand me ?"

"I can't make any promises ~"

He said in a cheeky tone as you laughed. This kid reminds you too much of your old self , how could you say no to him ?

_____

Taking hisoka - the boy's name - as your apprentice angered the other performers. While he was in fact a fast learner , he learned everyone tricks from merely watching.

Everyone who used to practice together stopped and started doing it in secret. For him to be cut off like that angered you. He's just a kid. Why is everyone acting like he's going to steal their jobs ?

While he tended to prank everyone and somehow never get caught even though you all knew it was him , you started teaching him everything slowly. It probably what caused him to act out as he learned fast he got bored.

Refusing to teach him everything at once , he performs as your assistance. Having an adorable sidekick made people cheer more for your performance.

Leaving with hisoka in hand as you both chewed your favorite gum , you heard a loud groan of pain. Looking back , the juggler slipped on his way to the stage out of nowhere as he held his foot and yelled.

"you little monster ! How dare you put oil on the stage before my turn !"

You heard hisoka giggling under you as you went to his side "it can't be him , we walked out together just now ! Show me your leg"

His hand roughly pushed you away as he started cussing you for taking that demon child side while the others gathered around. He can't juggle with a twisted ankle but the people are waiting for one.

"I know most of his routine so I can fill for him ~"

The sudden incredibly sweet voice of hisoka interrupted the discussion going on over how they'll handle this. Feeling everyone venomous stares at him you stood in front of him. The director however smiled brightly agreeing over the idea. People are getting restless and changing the routine out of nowhere would anger them.

Hisoka smiled smugly looking at the people glaring at him as he headed to do his first performance.

_____

The juggler left the circus soon after , there was shards of glass on his coffee that he swore hisoka put in , but you and hisoka were out training in the town over. He got hurt badly and left the circus.

Everyone was cautious of hisoka but the fact that he wasn't even around made them not kick him out for it. No one knows how the glass got to the coffee cup till this day.

Hisoka took over the juggler as he seemed so happy of the news it creeped everyone out - including you -. You're the person who spent the most time with him so you wanted to see his good side. You really did.

Teaching him the last trick you know , you saw his face fall when you told there's nothing more to learn.

"Sorry buddy , this is everything I know. I'm working on new tricks but those will be for me alone."

He looked at you frowning "I guess I'll have to come up with my own tricks then."

He said as he calmly walked outside "I'm not coming back. if that juggler ever comes back , tell him talking to a lady and pushing her down like that is what put the glass in his coffee ~"

Your eyes widened as you watched his small frame leaving. Was he the one who did this ?

"Also , I will learn how to control the aura around me like you do one day and I'll be a better magician than you. That's a promise ~"

[leonawriter]

My Personal Takes on Stormbringer:

Without a full and accurate translation to go through in one sitting, it’s still hard to get a handle on things properly. That said, thank you to everyone who’s working on it. 

Now.

(please note all quotes are my memory of translations I have read, and are not verbatim.)

-Asagiri, please, you do not need to make so many coding analogies with regards to Chuuya and Verlaine. They don’t work.

-It often feels - not just in this book but also in 55 Minutes, where there are tight restrictions on a time travel ability - that Asagiri limits abilities based on how scientifically accurate they are. However, this doesn’t make sense! why should it! Literature should be an expression of freedom. There should be rules - the same way the Page has rules - but in the sense of Magic A is Magic A. You make up the rules and then you don’t break them in future. Why have Kunikida able to create something with a mass heavier than a piece of paper out of a page of his notebook, but then say you can’t do [x/y/z] because it’s scientifically unviable?

-I have no issue with how skk treat each other. they are chaos teens. let them be. like... this is the beginning of their actual trust. they’re also in the mafia, and in a dark time in their lives. it’s fine. (it isn’t, but at the same time, it kinda is.)

-I feel like Chuuya taking things from other people and making that thing “his” fits him as a character? he had nothing before, so when you have nothing, all you have is what people give you. If someone gives him a bike, then that bike is his now. He has to learn to look after it, love it, and respect it, and he’ll remember that friend by it. Same goes for pretty much anything else. Also, it’s a show of how well Chuuya adapts to things, and what things he chooses to pick up.

-The hat. I do not like how the hat was treated. Making it into the key that helps Chuuya be able to activate Corruption cheapens the meaning and weight of having been given the hat as a memento of the first person who told him to live as a human being. Why not have the hat be a reminder of his humanity in a purely sentimental way? I’m going to ignore anything canon about this and just say it’s sentimental. Which, like, it could have been a safety blanket type thing, not pseudo-science.

-The coding in Chuuya’s body is a bit... of a reach? How do you put that in there? I don’t get it. Just say that there’s a possibility he might die if he uses Corruption, or that he’ll never become “Chuuya” again. That he’d lose himself utterly. The log history can be either on a chip (insert Dazai making “lost dog, if found return to the mafia” jokes here) or on something else that could easily be destroyed during the course of the story (or not).

-Dazai living in the shipping container reads to me like an extreme version of “I do not want to be found I do not want to be helped I am worthless trash and what’s the point in having an actual home if I plan on dying any day anyway.” Verlaine asks what drove him there, and Dazai says “you” and tbh that offers up so many questions (like, was the shipping container thing recent, was it temporary, or what). There’s the possibility that Dazai doesn’t always live there, because otherwise he’d suffer from hypothermia and get pneumonia in the winter! But above all, Mori had nothing to do with this. He was probably terrified to go too close in case he got killed. Stop saying Dazai lives here because “poor baby was abused :(” that sure was not it.

-Dazai goes all this way - plotting for ages, since before the beginning of the book, having been number one on Verlaine’s hit list, just to get the truth about Chuuya’s humanity and to preserve it - because “I want to see Chuuya suffer as a human being” is him saying he doesn’t want to see Chuuya become like him, or inhuman, because that’s not Chuuya. (dude, there ain’t a straight explanation for this...)

-following on from the previous, Dazai refusing to just let things be the moment he realises that it’d mean double suiciding with Chuuya. I personally see that as a shippy moment because Dazai had already given up on Chuuya being alive (if I read the translation right) and in that case, dying would just be letting go. But Mori says “yeah but I don’t think he’s dead yet?” and that, along with the “double suicide” thing, makes Dazai go “absolutely NOT.”

OK a related thing - as far as I remember, when IRL Dazai attempted double suicide, right up until his actual death it would result in either a failure or... his partner dying and him surviving. The cold potential of this happening in BSD if Dazai had just given up reminded me of that.

-Regardless of my thoughts on how it was handled, Stormbringer reinforced my previous ideas about how Chuuya basically IS Arahabaki. It also suggests that Arahabaki was more of a sentient ability than a true “god” but... that’s fine. For me, all I cared about was that all those “Arahabaki is an evil being that is constantly trying to take over Chuuya and Corruption is Arahabaki being let out” takes are not true. It’s... basically Chuuya taking the lid off his power. I joked at one point that Corruption is Chuuya going “I’m so pissed off I’m gonna kick the door open and throw away the key” and Dazai going “go for it babe, I got your key.”

-Rimbaud and Verlaine are... very complicated characters? They’re not easy to get a handle on. I sometimes find myself liking them and sometimes find myself disliking them, and that’s something that’ll be easier when I have a full translation available - and one of Fifteen. Rimbaud was held back by seeing Chuuya, at first, as nothing more than an empty vessel to Arahabaki’s power, while Verlaine was so taken over by grief without understanding how to handle that, that he became a monster up until the end of the story. Neither of them were good people. That said, their relationship to each other? It’s very complicated and reminds me of their IRL selves to a point but without the skeevy nature and without it going so far, so kudos to that.

-Adam. Knowing his creator was a ten year old girl makes so much sense when you look at the things he says and does. He doesn’t get so much. He’s very logical, but doesn’t understand that a game of billiards isn't as much of an icebreaker as he thinks it should be. Surprised by bubble gum. Games like “strange things humans do” are very much like the word games kids play in the car. 

-Verlaine being the fifth executive was something I did not predict at all, whatsoever, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Like... how did he get to that point. Only so much can be said in a few paragraphs (it seems) of “this is [x] number of years in the future where Chuuya’s an executive now.” 

The last we see of him, he’s overcome by grief, hatless, and he seems to have only just realised how much he wished he could return what Rimbaud gave to him. (Ironically, by being able to grieve like that, it shows that he is capable of what he thinks he can’t do - same as Dazai.)

But how does he become an executive? Do they come to him slowly at first, and they gradually build up trust? Does he stay in contact with Chuuya? Do they see each other properly as brothers now, or not? I can’t help but feel that as it’s a long time - six years, in fact - between Stormbringer and canon, some bond of trust must have been built. The mafia protects Verlaine from the authorities and from the outside world just the same as Kouyou says that she wants to do for Kyouka, and the same as they’re there for Chuuya, too. So. A Verlaine who trains the mafia’s best assassins not because he’s forced into it, but because he feels the same loneliness as Chuuya, and finds that it helps? A Verlaine who learns slowly that he can care about more people than just Rimbaud and Chuuya? Holy shit yes please. A Verlaine who is loyal and protective and who you should be glad is in a (probably) gilded prison of the mafia’s basement, because otherwise he would actually do so many things to those who would harm his family.

Let’s just say - if I think of Arahabaki as a guardian or protector god who is just plain destructive because it can’t help that, then Chuuya and Verlaine looking and acting in similar ways because they share that same “parent” in a sense, makes sense. They are no longer just Arahabaki, they’re “Chuuya” and “Verlaine” - but they also share traits such as “Papa Wolf” and “lonely” and “violent,” among others.

-At least twice, pre-Soukoku Dazai and Chuuya refer to how they’re constantly thinking of each other. No, they don’t mean in positive ways, but they’re chaos teens and it’s still strong emotion. Chuuya mentions how he’s thought of at least 190 ways to punish Dazai for the things that he does (which also implies how their relationship is equal, and Dazai doesn’t call all the shots, and doesn’t get away with everything scot-free), and Dazai says that Verlaine can’t possibly win against him, because Dazai “spends all of his time, waking and sleeping, thinking of ways to annoy and harass Chuuya,” (quote not perfect.) 

We also have Chuuya having Dazai appear to him first in his hallucinations, which I see as Chuuya’s inner Dazai-voice saying all the worst things, and ironically not actually saying or meaning things that would get across what real Dazai would want him to feel; in other words, that’s Chuuya’s view of him, or his mind searching for the one person he’d believe it to realistically come from.

As well, Dazai saying “there’s no way Chuuya could be an artificially constructed personality, because no one could create a personality that I [hate/that annoys me] so much.” Which, like... sure... you tell yourself that, kid...

Basically, they’re all the kinds of things that teenagers who don’t really get how strong feelings like these work yet, who are still figuring themselves (and their orientations, probably) out, would say if they don’t even like that other person that much, but they’re still attracted to them. A strong “why does it have to be THEM?” haha. And yet, as others have pointed out, Chuuya seems more on the oblivious side than Dazai, since as said, Dazai goes to all this effort and seems fond (but only when Chuuya’s not looking, dumbass) but Chuuya just... doesn’t get it.

A shorter summary of my thoughts and feelings?

Chuuya suffers, but is ultimately happier for it no matter whether he’s one of the clones or whether he’s the original (it’s arguable either way, and I don’t mind either way) as he’s still Chuuya. His bond with the mafia is also stronger than so many people think it is. They’re literally his adopted family. Even if he chose to leave, he’d still see them as family. I can’t see him leaving. He’s just... they’re family... don’t tear them apart...

The skk is strong, no matter what people say, because this is the start and it’s the end of their first year in the mafia and it’s not supposed to be a healthy time, for fuck’s sake. They’re both all sorts of messed up. They’re allowed to be. This is a time when that’s kinda the point of the book. But yeah, the trust and the bond is real.

Verlaine. I am now fascinated by Verlaine. I was so sure before the spoilers and translations came out that I’d hate him. I no longer do. He confuses me but I NEED TO KNOW MORE. 

[frozensriracha]

What are your Proxy hcs?

(these are just hcs for the classic proxy trio. if you want any of the others on my list, don’t hesitate to send another ask!)

Hoodie

the strong, silent type

comes off as stoic and sometimes unfeeling, but he’s a sweetheart!

he’s a really chill guy and patient with the others

but don’t piss him off

he’d never hurt anyone physically without being attacked first, but he will rain clapbacks and sarcastic remarks galore upon them like fire and brimstone

but it’s really, really, really hard to get him to that point

especially if you’re a pasta because he is highkey overprotective of the other cpps

although he’s the best of the proxies at medical care (having been a nursing student and all), he doesn’t often get to use his skills because opponents usually go after him first, since he’s the tallest of the proxy trio (6’3)

he does, however, help out ej in his office whenever he can, and they sometimes get together after work to have a drink or play cards or sometimes just talk

he and masky are decent cooks, and sometimes slender lets them make dinner for a night

even though his major was nursing, he’s a pretty decent writer too!

so, in my headcanons, the proxies have a separate cabin that slender gave them so the pastas don’t distract them, however, they only really use it to hide from the other pastas when they get too annoying

hoodie is the only one who cleans this cabin. he’s tried to get masky and toby to do some cleaning too but they obstinately refuse (toby more so than masky) so he just kinda,,, gave up

he really loves spooning! he’s usually the big spoon, but he doesn’t mind being the little spoon

he’s such a cat person, he discovered a colony of feral cats outside, and he’s been feeding (and snuggling!!) them ever since then

his music taste is a little unusual to say the least. his playlist consists of a combination of lo-fi hip hop and 90’s punk rock (a bit like what @lovestruck-lasagna said he listens to, please check them out btw, they’re amazing!)

you guys,,, hoodie has the deepest, hottest voice ever. so it’s no surprise that his singing voice is phenomenal

he chews mint gum a lot

he has a tooth gap, change my mind

god he’s so gorgeous; i love him

Masky

the dad friend of the group

listens to old 60s-70s bands and criticizes any music made after that time

even if he wasn’t dragged into the woods by slender, he’d probably still live there anyway! he’d get like a little ranch by a lake and go on walks every day, maybe hike and fish on the weekends

the one who owns the slender proxy cabin and pays the bills and puts his feet up on the coffee table

has tried to charge other proxies rent with varying degrees of success until slender stepped in

steals traffic signs

surprisingly good at first aid!

if hoodie or toby gets knocked down during a mission he’ll do as much as he can for them before hauling them off to ej

ej appreciates it since it’s less work for him

ok,,, hear me out,,, he has a southern accent

he’d never admit it but he’s a total country boi

wants to be a dog dad, he really wants a couple of german shepherds

he’s trying to convince slender to get a couple by saying he’ll train them as proxy attack dogs, but let’s be real, they’d be his babies

gives really great hugs

they feel like eating warm cookies fresh from the oven or waking up thinking you’ve got five minutes until your alarm rings only to see that you’ve got three more hours

he’s very selective who he gives them to, so if you receive one, it’s like receiving an amazing person award

he gets exasperated and annoyed with everypasta very easily, but he’d take a bullet for them (and his friends and s/o too ofc!) any day

he knows he’s a bit short-tempered, and hoodie’s been helping him work through that

to destress, he grows a garden behind the proxy cabin! toby has given all the plants increasingly ridiculous names, like “bertram,” “ebeneezer,” and “sebastian squire senator.” masky thinks it’s kind of funny

please love him, he needs more of it

Toby

an odd mix of good boi and crackhead

sees hoodie and masky as his better replacement fathers (which makes them so happy)

gives names to any living thing he finds

likes cats and dogs both! he loves feeding and snuggling with hoodie’s colony but also joins masky in begging slender for dogs

cracks a lot of bad jokes, some of them pretty dark

hot take: toby boi has braces and freckles

he really likes pop music and sings in the shower a lot! he’s not great at it, but he’s putting himself out there!

he stims!! he usually plays with his hair, pets a random animal he met, or chews on stuff. he recently got some chewy necklaces so he doesn’t chew on his flesh

speaks almost exclusively in gen-z slang

he loves,,, not like horror movies, but halloween movies like the nightmare before christmas, hocus pocus, etc.

loves spending his holidays with the other pastas, he just wants a family so badly-

will cuddle with ANYONE who’s available and will let him

on my blog, he and clockwork are not a couple, but they are very good friends

usually, when one gets dragged back to the mansion by a pissed off slender for stealing a walmart shopping cart to ride down a hill or snorting ramen or some shit, the other is too

similar to doby, he’s a people-pleaser, but luckily, brian, tim, cody, and clockwork are here to help him be assertive

toby is basically a disney princess

something about him just seems to attract animals, and who is he to discourage them?

hoodie and masky are okay with it on most occasions, but when he starts bringing rats, pigeons, and the occasional possum into the house, they draw the line

that and toby can and will rock a dress and get his dads to slaughter anyone who’s a dick about it

that being said, he can be a dumbass sometimes and is not above doing,,, pretty much anything,,, and relaying the whole tale that led up to his decision during the subsequent visit to ej’s office

he’s trying his best you guys

please appreciate him

[hawaiian-has-moved]

you aren’t cannon. beetlebabes is more cannon than you. at least that shit was in the musical and movie and cartoon.

Need I remind you idiots, since I have already said I'm no longer being nice to you anymore.

That I do not give a damn what you think it looked like to you in that fucked up brain of yours, it's still p*dophilia. Man it's almost sad I live this rent free in your head for existing. I just exist and your blood boils. It's cute.

Anyway, Lydia is a minor in every version.

And if you think the wedding in the movie was romantic. Man every gross man I've cringed at for being a creepo must have been true love.

But see, that's the thing you people don't get huh? Consent. Consent does not exist to you. If it did you wouldn't fight when people say that Lydia is a minor and therefore cannot consent. It doesn't click because you found something hot about shipping this developing teen with this old as fuck perv.

But oh? Is that not enough for you, you cry, begging to justify your vile ship. Allow me to humor you and go through the other versions.

In fact! I'll analyze a whole song just for you.

Also please look at yet another picture of Lydia obviously not having it.

Way back when I was just ten

Simple and sweet

Everywhere, fellas would stare

Out on the street

And I felt used

Kinda confused

I would refuse to look in their eyes

But now I really love creepy old guys

This is kinda obvious, she's been preyed on before by men. So basic p*do trying to gr**m a kid scenario. But the satire to the song of course is that "it's all fine now" Which it's obviously not, she's just using this to trick him so they can send him back as an end goal.

We all do!

Gum disease

Skin like grilled cheese

Saggy old asses

(Saggy old asses)

Cute and vile

Hey baby, smile

To each girl that passes

They make me blush

(Can't get enough)

Now one of 'em loves me, wants to be mine

(That's right)

Marrying my own creepy old guy!

(I'm a creepy old guy)

This is just more playing out the satire of pretending it's okay, but with Beej chiming in because he already lacks the knowledge that this is grooming and it's not okay. Tricking him into thinking this is fine to end up killing him is a breeze.

My creepy old guy, my creepy old guy

I'm so happy I could cry

Girls may seem disgusted, but we're actually just shy

It's not uncommon that I've heard about or heard someone get told that they're just shy when a gross ass old man or someone is trying to gr**m a kid. It's gaslighting and manipulation in most cases. So for them to say that it's because they're actually just shy as part of the satire is the point.

My creepy old groom (creepy old groom)

Play that wedding tune

Hey folks, step aside

(I am older, but I'm glad I waited)

And if you've watched a bootleg, you would recall Barbara right here smiling and then turning away with eyes wide, like "this is not fucking okay" Kind of look on her face. But yeah this is another one of those phrases that you hear too often in these gross situations.

'Cause here comes the bride

I am marrying my creepy old guy

(Creepy old guy, creepy old guy, creepy old guy)

He's my creepy old guy

(Creepy old guy, creepy old guy, creepy old guy!)

Fix his hair

Get him prepared

For Armageddon

Again if you have seen a bootleg, here Lydia puts a finger to her lips and goes shhhh. Because Armageddon is Beejs death.

Sure, the groom

Crawled out of a tomb

But hey, hey, it's a wedding!

He's really fucking old guys. There is a huge age gap and this is p*dophilia.

So dim the lights

Pick up some rice

Say something nice

It's my day to shine

I'm getting hitched to my creepy old guy

(It's showtime)

Creepy old guy, creepy old guy

She's marrying a creepy old guy

Have you guys seen "Lolita"?

This is just like that, but fine

I have not seen Lolita, but I have been told it's similar to this who marriage scenario and is mega bad. Now if it were Lolita fashion, that is made to ward off men, so I assume it's a movie from what info I have.

Creepy old dude, creepy old dude

Our faith has been renewed

Now love is alive!

Wave your baby girl goodbye

I am walking down the aisle

I wanna see a tear in every eye as I pass by

I know that on the outside he's disgusting

And even on the inside, he's disgusting

This whole scenario is fucking vile. He's vile.

But I know that this time, I'm makin' it right

(Making it right, making it right!)

With my family by my side

O.M.G.

Dressed to a "T"

Fancy and formal

I found me a wife

L'chaim to life

This is so normal!

I was ignored

But now, I'm adored!

'Cause I extorted, tortured, and lied

Give it up for my underage bride!

They've done it, they have successfully tricked him into thinking this is okay with no funny business. But he's about to get stabbed. L'chaim to life is a nod at him being Jewish, also he had a Kippah in the DC version which backed this joke, but it fell off a lot ig so he doesn't have it now. Traditionally there was a lot of marrying women off to much older men for property and stuff, as most religions do/did tho. I was in a production of Fiddler on the roof for example and that was the whole premise.

Here comes the bride

Here comes the bride

God be glorified

I can't believe some cultures think this kind of thing's alright

My creepy old guy

My creepy old guy

Doesn't he deserve a chance at life?

Oh yeah, that's right

Yeah, that's right

So let's make him alive!

I am marrying my creepy old guy!

Guy, guy, guy, creepy old guy

Guy, guy, creepy old guy

Guy, guy

(I have chills)

Yeah!

And then they stab him and the till death do we part sign over the stage all makes sense now because the wedding vows are undone and since he's recently deceased he almost returns to the netherworld.

Etcetera etcetera... But of course you guys go tome deaf at that one when it plays if I remember right.

Oh right, the cartoon, of course, I knew just what you were thinking don't worry. You're thinking "oh well what about the comics, and the valentine cards! And and the animators who drew lewd stuff of Lydia!" Well.... Haha! Still p*dophilia! And also I have seen the infamous Lydia drawing and it's got her head shape, nose, lips, but it's not fully her. Even if it was again my first point, still p*dophilia. And yeah just because the people who worked on it drew it, doesn't make it suddenly okay. Ffs...

I couldn't even find a cartoon wedding that wasn't fan drawn to match this one. Because that doesn't exist! But I do have my favorite point to make.

Beetlejuice's look into Lydia's future in Pest O' the West.

Now why you b*bes were busy being p*dos and gr**ming kids on the internet into thinking this shit is okay, I was mastering the art of common fucking sense.

Beej makes a joking remark that he cannot see into the future while hiding from Bully the Crud, but when he does as per usual, his puns and phrases make his magic go to work. So a crystal ball appears in front of him showing the future in the images I've provided.

Lydia, doing a heaping pile of dishes as a ghost for bully and all of their kids, very unhappy and driven insane. Because imagine what being married to someone it's obviously wrong to be with would do to her mind. He hates seeing her like this, so he rushes to save her. Which he successfully does.

Toon is actually the one with canon evidence of this shit being not okay to him.

Also before anyone tries to say it, no the movie and cartoon aren't connected, she doesn't even live in Winter River in the cartoon that should have made it obvious. Besides she's like 14-16 in the movie. So I don't think she de-aged.

Lastly, two things that are off topic. I believe it's spelled canon, and before anyone goes saying fiction doesn't effect reality, I would like you to explain to me how being a Jedi is a official religion if that is so true.

See anon! I gave you my special, condescending talk that too two hours to type on my phone! You stalked me endlessly and I picked you as the special anon that, I didn't deletes ask for being a gross piece of shit in a minors ask box! Wow. That searching my name clicking on my asks, and typing out all that so I could live rent free in your head really.... Didn't work lol. I may have took two hours to type this, but I assure you I will forget about you in 2 days max. Because unlike you, I have better things to do than ship a minor with an ancient demon. Bye bye now, be sure to rant about me with pure rage to your house p*do friends so that my existence may spread further into other people's minds! Woo... Being famous is so tough. 😉

[herohotline]

omg can you please do a hawks x pro hero! reader where they get partnered up for something and she's just cold and finds him extremely annoying,, one day they're just patrolling or something and he makes a joke and she SLIGHTLY smiles and hawks sees this and his heart just goes 📈📈📈,, maybe it ends with her patting his wings "oh? theyre soft" and hawks just nosebleeds lmao,, please and thank you 💞

A/N: weak for him... also wanted to write for someone other than aizawa lmao my inbox is full of him. I also made the reader tall in this fic because I thought it fit, so the reader is about 6′0 in height. small readers, just pretend ur tall, u already do it anyway. 

Also, tbh, this prompt kind of strayed. I still hope you like it! ---

It’s The Chicken Wings For Me (Hawks x GN!Reader)

---

Keigo Takami- otherwise known as Hawks to the general public and basically everyone else he knew. The man didn’t give his name out to just anybody besides a select few- the only reason you knew his name is because you frequently worked with the guy since you were both hired by the Public Safety Commission. 

Just because you happened to know his name and work with him doesn’t mean you like him, though. 

He was cocky, purposefully arrogant (because you knew how smart he actually was), and way too comfortable, in your opinion. Each time the Commission teamed you up with him, you had a habit of making a stink. You’d think that the Commission would be annoyed by your complaints and make them stop by just Not Pairing You Together like you wanted, but no. The two of you, unfortunately, make a good team, despite your lack of chemistry. 

So you just have to put up with him and his aggravating attitude. 

---

Keigo knows that you hate him. 

Hate- that’s a strong word. You don’t really hate him, you just hate putting up with him. To be fair, Keigo doesn’t make it very easy for you. He acts like a little brat, honestly- he pokes and prods you that much more because he knows you don’t like it. He thrives off your clipped comments and agitated glares. 

He doesn’t really know why he likes to bother you. It’s like the kid who pulls on the pigtails of the girl he likes- something like that. 

Today, the two of you are simply out for patrols together. He usually takes off during patrols, cruising in the air to have a broader view of the streets below- but because he’s paired with you, he keeps his feet on the ground, walking by your side as he chats your ear off. 

The two of you almost look goofy together. You’re several inches taller than he is, he has to look up at you to talk to you properly- but with the way you are, you barely even give him the time of day as you refuse to look down at him. The fact you can ignore him so easily because he falls out of your line of vision really makes Keigo work that much harder to earn your attention and frustration.

“But- ah- I’ve really told you a lot about me, haven’t I?” Keigo says suddenly, and he grins up at you as he puts his hands in his pockets. “You should tell me more about you!” 

You scoff and purse your lips, finally offering him a glance as you look down at him. Always so cocky... “I disagree,” you tell him simply. “Sure, you talk a lot, but you don’t even tell me anything about yourself when you do. It’s just a bunch of stories that you happened to be a part of or witnessed, none of it says a thing about you. So, thanks for the invitation, but I’ll pass.” You look back to the road in front of you. “Besides, you should be keeping an eye on our work more than talking.”

His face falls as he sighs, putting his hands in his pockets. “You’re such a downer, ___, and you always see right through me, too!” He throws his head back as he stares up at the sky, his wings twitching just barely. He could fly off, do his job like you said, but... Keigo simply doesn’t want to. “So cold... cold as ice.” 

“Mhmm,” 

“Even colder than Endeavor’s kid! You know, the half and half one.” Keigo holds his chin as he thinks. “So I guess he’s not actually that cold.” 

“Doesn’t one of his other kids have an ice quirk? And his wife?” 

“Oh, you’re right. I forgot.” 

You snort in amusement. “You’re a big fan of his but forgot about his other kids, huh?” 

“I was distracted!”

“By what?”

“You! And your coldness!” 

You actually laugh then, shaking your head and smiling, god forbid. Has Keigo ever seen you smile before? He watches you with wide eyes, his wings once again twitching as he takes you in. “Right,” you roll your eyes at him, your amused smile doing things to him that you don’t even notice, “my coldness. You ever take a guess on why I’m like that around you?”

Keigo grins. “Because I’m insufferable.” 

“Exactly. You should do something about that- hmm?” You’re cut off by something brushing your arm. You had rolled up the sleeves of your suit earlier because of the heat, and when you look down, you see Keigo’s feathers lightly brushing your bare skin. Keigo follows your line of vision and when he realizes, his wing quickly folds back. 

“Oops! My bad.” He laughs casually. You stroke the area where his wing had touched you and hum, lips pursing together. 

“You keep doing that, you know,” you tell him as you look at his wings. “They keep spreading out like that because you aren’t stretching them. Go fly off and tell me if you find anything.” 

“Giving me orders?” He quirks his brow at you. 

“Yes.”

“...” His shoulders sink and he sighs again. “Fine! Fine,” his tone is defeated as he takes a few quick steps away from you, and then his wings spread out as he gives you a cocky smile. “Impressed?” 

“I think it stops looking cool once you get to know the person behind the wings. And after you’ve seen it hundreds of times,” you deadpan. 

“But you admit that it was cool at least once.”

“Sure, fine. Go ahead and try that hard to fish for my compliments.”

“I will, thank you!” Keigo laughs and gives you a salute, and then he takes off into the air. “Don’t miss me too much!”

Your head lifts to watch him, “believe me, I won’t,” you assure him. Keigo just laughs again, and within a second, he’s suddenly gone, only leaving a burst of wind that sends chills down your naked arms behind him. You scoff. 

He totally did that on purpose.

---

By the time your patrol shift is over, you’re officially bored out of your mind. It’s a good thing because it means that no villains had attacked the area and everything was peaceful and safe. You had helped an old lady with her bags and then a few other pedestrians with directions around the city, but other than that, you didn’t really do much besides walk around a lot. You at least treasured the time you had to yourself when Keigo had finally taken off to patrol the city from above. 

You really don’t know why he insists on bugging you. 

Eventually, he comes back when he was bored enough, so the two of you ended your shift together. He asked you where you were headed now that you were clocked off, and you kindly told him to mind his own business. 

“I don’t think that concerns you, chicken boy,” is a very kind way to tell someone to bug off. You could have been worse. 

“Chicken boy, that’s a new one,” he replied, and for once, he actually looked fed up with you. “What about me is like a chicken, anyway? Be honest.” 

You had almost laughed at the opportunity. Instead, you reach out and put a hand on his feathers, lightly petting and putting one between your fingers as you hum. “I don’t know,” you tease, “kinda looks like a chicken to me.” 

Keigo’s nose scrunches in a way you had never seen before as he pulls his wings away from you. “Chickens are white,” he told you. 

“True enough,” you put your hand back at your side. “Chickens can’t fly, either... Their wings aren’t as soft as yours. So with all of that taken into account, it really doesn’t make sense that whenever I look at you, I still just see a scraggly old chicken. Wonder why that is.” 

You had really just been teasing him, trying to get on his nerves like he had so frequently got on yours. His face turned pink, and you thought- yes, finally. I’ve finally done it. 

But then he just smiled, wide, ear to ear. “Just admit it and say you think I’m cute.”

Of course. 

Your face falls as you just stare at him blankly, and his shit-eating grin never leaves. “Where on Earth did you get that from what I said.” 

“Chickens are cute! You don’t think so? I think you do.” 

The bickering never ended, and you didn’t even notice that he continued to follow you until you arrived at the food cart you were planning to eat at. And then the two of you continued to bicker and peck at each other, just like a couple of hens, really- as you ate dinner together. It was truly amazing how stubborn Keigo was to bother you- it almost looked like you were friends to passerby's. But you were definitely not friends, nowhere close. 

He was just a piece of gum on your shoe. Really. 

[jamespotterthefirst]

Don’t Let Me Down

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 1,500 Warning: Two curse words Author’s Note: That premium scene from Book 1, Chapter 1 where MC helps Ethan pick something from the vending machine but from his POV 

___________

Not for the first time that day, his patience stretches out dangerously thin as he inspects the options of the vending machine. What a day it was turning out to be and he was only half way through his shift. It was not uncommon for new interns to grate on his nerves; after all, everyone at Edenbrook carefully threaded around him on the first week of new recruits. However, there was something about this group that pushed him even further over the edge. Either they were particularly boisterous, or Ethan was just getting old. 

Fleetingly, he thinks of the thoracotomy intern from that morning. His mind particularly recalls the unabashed and almost taunting smirk that illuminated her face after he criticized her technique, leaving him momentarily puzzled. Anyone else would have wilted under his wrath, he had seen it hundreds of times before. With a wicked glint in her eyes, she had had the nerve to flirt with him. 

God help him if that was what he would have to put up with all year. 

“Um. Hi, Dr. Ramsey,” a small voice says from behind him. 

Distracted, he briefly glances at the speaker, only to freeze immediately after.

 It was the intern from that morning, standing there as though he had summoned her with thought alone, her cheeks flushed, a book clutched to her chest, and a look of pure determination set on her face. 

“... Rookie.” 

The feeble acknowledgement is all the greeting he offers her as he returns his attention to the vending selections. 

“I was hoping you might sign my book,” she says when it becomes clear he is done speaking. 

That surprises him, though years of experience with schooling his expression into an indifferent one help him conceal this. “Autographs? Don't you have other work to be doing? Or at least other attendings to irritate?” 

Ethan catches sight of her reflection on the glass of the machine. That smile is back, tilting one corner of her mouth into a peculiar smirk, a knowing one. 

“No, just you,” she quips. 

Ethan stares at her reflection, completely shocked at his urge to smile at that. 

“I should have guessed,” he returns dryly, pleased that his voice sounds as collected and indifferent as he prefers it. There is a small pause in which he sees her open her mouth as if to say something. She closes it just as quickly.  “Well, if you have something else to say, then say it.”

Dr. Allende hesitates briefly. Ethan can practically see the gears of her mind working, much like he observed that morning during the emergency. A small crease forms in between her brows as she collects her thoughts and he feels impatience and something else starting to swell his temper once more. He only begins to realize that the unknown emotion is eagerness, when she finally speaks. 

“I won't let you down again.” 

Whatever Ethan is expecting, it is not that. There is something about the young doctor before him that enables his innate need to be a pain in the ass because he returns, “You can see the future? If so, you'll make a remarkable physician.”

“I just meant—” 

He knows what she meant. The automatic response to a genuine promise to do better surprises even him. Ethan had always held a reputation of being brutally honest, if at times excessively harsh and sarcastic. Seconds after he says the words, however, even he admits the statement is just downright cruel. 

You unmeasured asshole, he thinks. 

He tries again. “You will let me down again, Rookie.” Vaguely, he notes that although he is very aware of her name, he prefers the nickname. “What's more, you'll let yourself down. Over and over.”

Tired of speaking to her through a reflection on a vending machine, he turns to face her. Standing this close, and with no suffocating patient between them, he is hit with how unquestionably pretty she is. Ethan tries to dismiss that thought at once, but the flush he had initially noticed is still present on her cheeks, redirecting his attention to the constellation of faint freckles dusting her nose. 

Dr. Allende, meanwhile,  is watching him with a sudden seriousness, lips slightly parted and head tilted to one side, perhaps struggling to determine if there is more bitter sarcasm coming her way. A myriad of silent thoughts flit across her face and once again he feels a keenness to know more. 

“But what matters,” he continues instead, “is that you get back on your feet each and every time, and push yourself to be better.”

She silently takes in the words, giving no indication of her thoughts. Infuriatingly, she changes the subject, choosing to tell him about her favorite snack. 

Frustrated, Ethan begins to dismiss this when she assertively informs him, “I know you’re not getting something for yourself.” Her eyes are on the vending machine. “You’re trying to pick something to cheer up Barbara in there, right?”

Startled, Ethan privately commends her observation.

“How’d you figure that?” he asks instead, genuinely curious. 

“Just paying attention.” The answer is delivered with one of her winsome smiles. “You know, I bet I could pick out just the thing.”

He stares at said smile a beat too long. 

“I doubt it. Barbara's even more stubborn than you.” Dr. Allende's eyebrows rise at this, evidently intrigued. Before they can dwell on any other observations he has made about her character, Ethan plows on. “She’s refused to take her pills for two days.” 

His curiosity is an entity of its own by now, palpably gnawing at him. “But be my guest. It’s a hopeless endeavor.”

As she moves closer to the machine, the challenge is clear on her face, embellishing that charming simper of hers. Ethan studies her closely, looking for any clues that might give him an insight to her mind. The only thing Dr. Allende betrays, however, as she studiously looks at the selections, is a small graze of her teeth against her lush bottom lip. 

Ethan almost misses her selection, the sound of a pack of gum hitting the tray bringing him back to himself. 

“What the hell is that?”

“You’ve never had Chuckles Gum? They write jokes in the wrapper.” An almost childish grin spreads across her face as she opens a stick of gum to show him. “See? This one’s even a doctor joke.”

But Ethan is not paying the wrapper any mind because at that precise moment, she glances at the joke before reading it out loud. Her teeth catch her lower lip again as she suppresses her amusement, the sight entirely too distracting. 

“‘What type of blood did the author have?’”

He doesn't even hear the joke. 

“Type-O,” she answers when Ethan doesn't respond. “Like a typo?”

Ethan clears his throat quietly. “Oh, I got it,” he lies. “It’s just not funny.”

This makes her laugh, doing nothing to help his efforts to be present in the conversation. “Tough crowd. Look, just give them to her, okay? Trust me.”

Grateful for an aversion, he takes the pack of gum into Barb's room. The older woman reads one of the jokes to herself, guffaws, and miraculously agrees to take her medication. By the time Ethan returns to the hallway, he is speechless. 

He only finds his voice to demand how she knew that would work. There was no denying the searing curiosity burning through his rationality. 

Dr. Allende winks so swiftly, he could have missed it. “A girl’s gotta have some secrets.”

This time, he fails to fight back a smile. “You’re really going to hold out on me?”

“I’m going for an air of mystery. Is it working?”

That damn smile again. 

“Mildly,” he lies. 

Dr. Allende's attention returns to the machine, which announces a fifty cent credit from his dollar. Without a single word, she makes a selection, retrieving a chocolate bar from the tray. 

“And who is that for?” he asks, unable to stop himself. 

Smoothly, she throws it at him. He easily catches it despite being completely agog. 

“You.”

For the first time in a long time, the surprise must be evident in his expression because she explains, “Saw you kept staring at it earlier. You know, it’s okay to treat yourself sometimes.”

Ethan allows the words to skin in, his fingers clasping the candy. Quietly, he wonders what he looks like to the staff passing by as he takes in that ever present, beguiling smile of hers. 

“...I’ll keep that in mind.”

Seemingly satisfied, she turns to leave. Before he can stop himself, he calls out, “Wait.” 

Dr. Allende turns, watching him curiously. 

Already feeling outrageously out of his comfort zone, Ethan nods toward the book she still holds against her chest. “Give it here.”

He knows what he will inscribe before she eagerly hands him the copy of his own book. With a flourish, he writes, “Don't let me down.”

“Now get back to work, Allende.”

She pauses. 

“You remembered my name?”

Fuck. He had gotten careless and let that slip.

“...Just paying attention,” he returns noncommittally, mirroring her words from earlier. 

Dr. Allende opens her mouth to respond, but before she can say anything, Ethan practically forces himself to walk away. When he is certain he has put enough distance between them, he turns back to watch her retreating form. Against his better judgment, he allows a smile. 

_____________

Catch up here.

____________

Author’s Note: Imagine how pissed Ramsey will be when he finds out she gave that to Landry.

Ah, writing this was an experience. Getting the dialogue was a journey. Maybe I’ll write the bar scene next. Let me know what you think. 

Anyway, this is one of my favorite scenes from book 1. Hope I did it some justice. 

_____________

Tags:  @openheart12​ | @ethandaddyramsey​ | @noboundariesplease​ | @silverlitskies​ | @infinitiestones | @flyawayboo​ | @paulfwesley​ | @hatescapsicum​ | @myusualnerdyself​ | @thatysn​ | @choicesyouplayandmore​ | @chasingrobbie​ | @trappedinfandoms​ | @togetherwearerapture​ | @nooruleman​ | @caseyvalentineramsey​ | @axwalker​ | @parkerattano​ | @i-bloody-love-drake-walker​ | @kaavyaethanramsey​ | @edith-eggs1​ | @choices-lurker​ | @jens-diamondchoices​ | @tefigranger​ | @ethanrcmsey​ | @coffeebeandragon​ | @senator-adrian-raines-wifey​ | @aestheticartwriting​ | @longneckramsey | @binny1985​ | @mvalentine​ | @sanchita012​ | @drethanramslay​ | @ramseysno1rookie​ | @takeharryandgo​​ | @aworldoffandoms​ | @desmaranj​ | @ josieplayschoices | @magicalshepherdtreeprofessor​ | @oofchoices | @ethxnrxmsey​ | @octobereighth​ | @colossalpainintheass​ | @kopenheart12​ | @lilyvalentine​ | @dulceghernandez |  @lion-ess24 | @emotionalswift2 | @the-soot-sprite |

[chironshorseass]

29 and 30 fluff for perachel or percabeth? Hehe I like both ships don’t @ me. Love your writing btw!

I kinda managed to do both...kinda lol. This was fun to do :) Sorry in advance for the bad puns.

writing prompts

“Detention? Again?”

“Look, I can explain.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes and sat back on her bed, too tired to stand up and listen to what Percy had to say, most likely.

“Sure you can.”

They’d been Iris Messaging for a few minutes now. Percy, exhausted from a day of school and homework, had taken the first chance off to fish out a drachma from his drawer and call one of the people he’d missed most since the summer.

It had slipped his mind that New York and San Francisco had different time zones. But luckily, Annabeth was still awake. He’d found her in her bedroom, curls pulled into a messy bun and eyebrows scrunched up in concentration as she read some textbook, still studying for the exam she’d talked about a week ago.

Despite her initial complaints about Percy interrupting her, he knew that she didn’t mind.

“So?” she asked, bringing him back to the present.

She pulled her legs under her and stared at him expectantly.

He blinked. “Huh?”

She raised an eyebrow, and Percy thought—in the back of his mind—that she looked unfairly pretty. At night, with the fairy lights illuminating her hair and her face, like an angel.

“Why’d you get detention?”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes, Seaweed Brain. That.”

“Uhm…” Percy scratched the back of his neck. “It’s kind of a funny story, I um…”

“Spit it out.”

Now that he thought about it, maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. Maybe he should’ve thought this through, to avoid any arguments. Or confrontations. Or another cold shoulder. They weren’t as awkward now that the school year had started, but the mention of her always put Annabeth on edge, anyway.

“You see, I was with, uh...Rachel.”

He paused, noticing the way she gripped her textbook tighter, slightly wrinkling the pages.

Why did I think this was a good idea? Stupid.

“I was with Rachel, and she sort of, um...” he laughed nervously, already cringing. “Made a bet?”

Technically, he’d made the bet. But that wasn’t important for Annabeth to know.

/

Chemistry, in Percy’s opinion, was the most boring class Goode had to offer. Useless. Irrelevant.

Confusing, most of all.

At least he was partners with Rachel. It was one of the few classes they had together. They sat at the very back, so they were rarely noticed anyway, mostly spending the forty five minutes of lectures about chemical equations doing little drawing games on their notebooks and playing hangman. Percy lost most of the time.

The teacher wasn’t that great, either. Most of the school knew her as Mrs. Jones. She was a short lady in her late sixties with thin, badly dyed hair who had a concerning addiction to gum—so to Percy and Rachel—she was known as Mrs. Gum-Gum. She turned to the board for some explanation that Percy had completely lost interest on since the first five minutes of class. Rachel let out a low moan, hands on her forehead.

“Kill me now,” she muttered.

“Sorry, I can’t. My sword doesn’t work on you.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah,” he grinned, leaning backwards and tilting his chair. “I know.”

She hit him in the shin. “You’re going to fall one of these days, and the class will never let you forget it.”

“Eh,” Percy shrugged. “At least they’d get a laugh and you wouldn’t be so bored.”

Her green eyes twinkled with humor like she’d just remembered something. She snorted. “Okay. So this one time, a girl was doing the same thing as you, leaning back and all—and she like, fell. It was hilarious, because she just lay there, with her feet in the air.”

“Rachel Dare,” Gum-Gum called, narrowed eyes cast on them. She kind of sounded like a wounded hyena, in his humble opinion. “I sure hope you and Mr. Jackson are discussing the worksheet that I gave out.”

Rachel nodded and threw her a thumbs up, while Percy held a fist to his mouth to stop the smile forming on his face. Gum-Gum left her alone and went back to her lecture.

The class kept its monotone routine of worksheets and notes, so as a distraction, Rachel grabbed his arm and popped the lids off her sharpies, drawing little figurines. She was on his second tattoo when an idea came to him.

“Hey, Rach?” he whispered, making sure the teacher was facing the board.

“Hmm.”

“We should play truth or dare.”

She grabbed the green marker and spread the ink from side to side across his skin. “Mmm...No.”

“Come on,” he whined. “I’m bored.”

“Yeah, but we’ve done truth or dare so many times now. It’s gotten old. Besides, you’re such a pussy.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are. Remember that time I dared you to eat the gum from under the seat?”

Percy made a face. “That was so fucking gross. Nobody in their right mind would’ve done that. Maybe Mrs. Gum-Gum, but I am not on her level.”

“I figured, after you blatantly refused. And then there’s the time when I dared you to kiss Mary Andrews. On the cheek. And you couldn’t do it.”

“Oh my gods, I can’t just kiss girls. That’s leading them on.”

She exhaled, long and deep and stared at him as if he were a lost cause. “Okay. Whatever.”

She went back to drawing on his arm.

“If anyone’s the pussy right now,” he whispered. “It’s you.”

“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. You just wish you were as marginally cool as me.”

“Um...Then why won’t you play truth or dare?”

“Like I said: bo-ring.” She leaned closer to his arm, creating tiny details with the thinner side of the sharpie. “And don’t tell me I don’t do the dares, ‘cause I do. My last name’s Dare, after all. It would be a complete dishonor.”

“How long have you waited to say that?”

“Oh, you don’t wanna know. Now hold still. You’d look good with tattoos, by the way.”

He sighed. Okay, fine. She had a point, he wasn’t that great at doing “cool” stuff, likely because he was traumatized by the getting-kicked-out-of-schools thing he had going for him. You know, maybe it was that.

As Percy watched her work with her sharpies, he realized: maybe there was a way to prove to her that he could do daring stuff. A once in a lifetime thing. And in the process, he could make her smile.

“Fine,” he said. “If you don’t wanna do something, then let’s make a bet.”

“Depends on what you want to bet on, but go on.”

“How much money would you give me to flip this table, right here, right now, in the middle of class?”

The read-head stopped creating the swirly lines of the little wave she’d been working on, making his skin tingle from the loss of the pointy marker. She lifted her freckled face, watching him with raised eyebrows.

“Nah, you don’t have the guts.”

“Psh. ‘Course I do. I’m Percy Jackson.”

“Ohhh! Percy Jackson. I’m Rachel Dare, nice to meet you.” She lifted her hand like she wanted Percy to shake it.

He slapped it away. “Shut up. I can totally do it.”

“Do you not care about getting in trouble with dear ol’ Gum-Gum?”

“I’ll make it seem like an accident.”

“Nothing you do seems like an accident to teachers.”

“Good point. Still be worth it, though.” He lowered his voice even further. “Besides, I gotta prove to you that I can do cool stuff.”

Rachel snorted. “Now I could literally ask you to do drugs and you’d do it, apparently. Peer pressure is a dangerous thing, my dude.”

He grinned. “And I want your money. You’re like, rich, Dare.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Jackson.”

“No problem.”

Gum-Gum shot them an admonishing look, and they pretended to do their work.

“So,” she said after a few seconds passed. “How much money?”

“I knew you could work with me.”

“Ugh, I’m getting second thoughts from your dramatism.”

“You love it.”

They held gazes, green on green. Rachel narrowed hers and sighed. 

“Again, how much money?”

Percy shrugged. “You decide.”

“Fine.” She flipped some of her fiery curls over her shoulder. “I’m betting on a hundred bucks.”

He whistled under his breath. “Damn. You want me to do it that badly?”

“I do want to see everyone’s reaction to Percy Jackson losing his shit.” He shoved her, but she continued. “Especially Gum-Gum’s. But I know we’re getting in trouble, so we might as well go all out. What? It’s true! But at least you’d get your money.”

Percy shook his head. He’d probably regret this later.

Then he thought, what would Annabeth think?

But he couldn't dwell too much on that. At least it would be funny.

“We need to clear the desk, though.”

“Duh.”

So they worked, as quietly and discreetly as they could. When they’d finished, Percy turned to Rachel and nodded. She put a hand against her mouth to muffle her laughter.

On the third count, he flipped the desk. The table crashed with a resonating bang.

Rachel leaned backwards and let out a sound of surprise, probably because she’d half speculated that he wouldn’t pull through with it in the first place.

Immediately, everyone craned their heads to the back of the room. Some jumped at the sound. Others gasped or snickered, especially at the sight of Mrs. Gum-Gum. She yelped and dropped her marker, slapping a hand to her chest and retreating a few steps as if she were about to go into cardiac arrest.

“Percy Jackson!”

He winced a bit, but all in all, he thought he was keeping a straight face. But then he caught onto Rachel’s expression, arms crossed. He doubted they’d get off freely, just as she’d said.

/

As they shouldered their backpacks, heading for room 1345—detention—Rachel slipped her hand in the pocket of her paint-splattered uniform skirt.

“I didn’t know I had the money with me, but it seems as though he fates are in your favor, Jackson,” she said, taking the dollar bills from her pocket and handing them to him. They both knew all too well that she didn’t care for it. Daddy issues, he recalled.

Percy raised his eyebrow. “Thanks, Rach. Now, I can finally buy a new skateboard.”

“Nice to know that this was worth it.”

“Especially since now you have to do something...daring.”

She tapped her index finger to her temple mockingly. “Oh, I see. That’s why you wanted to do that bet. So then we could be on even ground.”

“Do you agree, Dare?”

“My gods, you’re so corny. But sure. Though let's not get ourselves a detention pass the next time, hmm? I feel bad for you. How many have you gotten this semester?” She clicked her tongue. “What will your mom say?”

1343, 1344 ... 1345. This was the place. Through the window, he could see many of the students already settling in, giving the teacher the strip of paper that he and Rachel had in their pockets.

He exhaled. “I don’t want to think about Mom just yet. But honestly, I don’t mind detention. And I don’t think she would, either. Better than getting kicked out.”

“Mmhmm. And I don’t really mind spending some more quality time with you. Even if we get in trouble, I kinda think you’re nice to be around, Jackson.” She smiled and held her arm out for him to pass. For some reason, that comment made his chest feel warm and fuzzy. “Gentlemen first.”

“Isn’t it ladies first?”

“Chivalry is dead. Now go on.” She nodded towards the door. “I like being fashionably late.”

“And you say I’m the dramatic one,” he grumbled.