#breaking into my house and pulling out all the insulation

[batwynn]

Mission to befriend local crows status: success

[happy-beeeps]

Day 3: Gloves

Summary: Din offers the reader his gloves, and their first look at his skin.

Warnings: none, language, briefest mention of past abuse

WC: 1k!

It’s easy to forget how cold space is. In the past few months you’ve been on the Crest, between the baby and the roaring, industrial sized heater, it’s been toasty, almost warm. You’d almost forgotten it could be cold. Until, of course, the ancient industrial sized heater broke.

It wasn’t too bad at first. Mando was quick to find any spare blankets he had on the ship and pass them between you and the baby, hoping to create any semblance of warmth. Then the baby himself helped, as you attempted to rock him to sleep for hours, the green little guy getting fussy from the cold. Now, with the kid settled into his pram and the lack of body heat on your hands, you’ve done it. You’ve remembered how cold space is.

You’re doing ok. You’ve seated yourself on the co-pilot’s chair, knees pulled up to your chest and your hands wrapped underneath your clothes, tucked under your armpits. Your face is half obscured under the neck of your sweater, and you’re attempting to creative some kind of insulation by just continuously blowing your breath against your skin. You haven’t decided if you can die from carbon monoxide poison this way but, fuck it, you’re too cold to care.

Your hands, that’s the issue right now. You hesitate to say agony but—let’s be real, it’s agony. You’ve been frostbitten before, so now your fingers and joints of your hands are aching under the pain of the chill in the ship, and no matter how hard you press your hands to your skin, there’s no relief.

“What are you doing?”

It’s Mando’s—Din’s, as you’ve just recently learned, voice that breaks you from your disassociation, offering the briefest respite from the pain. He’s asking you in a tone that’s equal parts concern, confusion, and jest. Over the past few months you’ve learned it’s his feeble attempt at teasing.

“Trying to warm up, not all of us come with an insulation system,” you poke back, and he settles beside you in his chair, his helmet sending that searing gaze towards you. You shrink into yourself even more beneath it, somehow feeling both intimated and bewitched by it.

Ok, bewitched is just a better word for saying you’ve got a massive-fucking-crush on the guy, but that’s beside the point.

“What’s wrong with your hands?”

“Nothing, what gave you that impression?”

He cocks his head to the side in a way you’ve begub to translate as “really?”

“Just something from when I was younger, it’s nothing.”

He pauses for a moment, then extends his own hand in one of the rare few moments of touch he’s offered. “Let me see.”

You’re in hell. If there is a maker, they’re being cruel. Do you remove your hands from the tiny bit of warmth you have, or reject Din in a rare moment of vulnerability?

The choice is immediate, and you rip your hands from their confine and tentatively place them in his.

They don’t look bad, an angry red at the joints and the cold has made you curl them inwards, but they aren’t blackened or cracked like some of the frostbite you’ve seen. He must notice the difference, and moves to gently trace the joint of one of your fingers. His words are slow, deliberate, “How did this happen to you?”

You melt into his touch, “locked out of my house during a snowstorm a while back, he was an asshole.”

Din tenses at that, just barely noticeable, and pauses his trace. You worry you’ve offended him, and he removes his hands, only to slowly, carefully remove the leather gloves you’ve always seen on his hands. “Here, you take ‘em.”

“Din, please, I can’t, I’ll be fine.”

“I want you to wear them.”

It’s the only encouragement you need, and you pulll them on quickly. You try to conceal how rapidly your heart is beating as you peak at the newly exposed skin of his hands.

He’s tan, tanner than you’d thought, with skin that looks warm and inviting. Calluses dot the underside of his palms, and he brings his fingers together, wringing them slowly. It dawns on you that you’re not sure if anyone has ever even seen his hands.

“How are your hands not always sweating?”

Nice. Real smooth. He’s gonna love that.

“Maybe that’s why I always keep them on.”

“Are we doing humor now?”

“Depends, how am I doing at it?”

You laugh, and so does he, and you decide you’d quite like to hear that sound forever. You stretch your fingers, warming nicely in the suede of Din’s giant gloves.

“Thank you, for these, I needed it.”

“Don’t mention it.” He unwinds his hands, laying them on his knees as he turns his attention back to you.

You’re not sure if you’re high on knowing that you’re wearing Din’s clothes, or the ecstasy of finally having feeling in your fingers, but your hand is quickly going to poke at his, your fingers dotting the smooth contours of his own.

You half expect him to pull back, but he doesn’t, letting you play with his fingers and trace his skin. It seems easy with the barrier of fabric between you. You ignore the fact that your stomach is churning and your brain is going ohshitohshitohshit.

He’s got a scar along the inside of his wrist, you can only see a bit of it, white and gnarled. You reach out to trace it, careful not to go beyond the skin that’s already exposed.

“When I was just learning to use my flamethrower, things got a little…dicey.”

The image of a young Din accidentally torching himself makes you smile, but it’s quickly dimmed by the realization that the man beside is literally wearing clothes that kill people. You flex your hand in his glove and realize, I guess you are too.

“Do you feel better?”

You’re rocketed back to reality by his voice and you nod, “yes, thank you.”

He stands, but not before tapping the bottom of your chin with his thumb and pointer finger, the skin on skin contact rocketing through you. “Keep em’ till we land, they suit you mesh’la.”

He leaves quietly, leaving you sitting in the cold and silent space, thinking of foreign words with pretty sounds and warm suede around your fingers.

[whimsimille]

A PETAL FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Seo Moonjo x reader!

"Do you think these would be nice for her?" With fear in his gaze resonating off the ivory petals of the catchfly arrangement, Kim Nam Shik inquired while watching your deft fingers skillfully loop a satin ribbon around its right side. "You've always had such a knack for choosing just the right flowers."

A laugh fluttered out vacant and hollow as an abandoned mansion, bouncing off the walls as his fingers entertained themselves by drumming on a rusty iron handcuff dangling from his belt—ironically just a showpiece since all he patrolled were cloud-swathed streets of this labyrinth city and secret trysts with the mayor's wife and his compatriot in his district.

Unfaithfulness gnawed at him like a lurking creature in the dark, and you saw it right under his alluring mask. Nestled within Pocheon's slender streets filled with traditional Hanok houses, secrets were as fleeting as glimpses of dawn through the lingering mist. Whispers moved through the town like waves in the Soyang River, skimming over private conversations beneath the massive shadow of Gwanak Mountain. The whispers carried stories of temple bells chiming and daggers flying at Nam Shik, the picture-perfect husband and devoted police officer, who was now painted in two sobering hues.

Silent storytellers of treachery, white catchflies were charmingly cunning. An undebated tradition insulated meaning into ribbons – tie it on the left; confess someone's treachery; tie it to the right; concede to self-betrayal.

Apology replacing anger stirred within you as you observed Nam Shik wallow in unease, a stark contrast against his modest wife back home, who only saw his effusive smiles and confidence often splattered across local papers for saving the day.

"Officer Kim," you began, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room, "Have you thought about writing her a note?"

A puzzled look stamped itself across his features. "A note?"

"Exactly," you responded, reaching within your counter to pull out a charming, cream-colored piece of stationary. Your shop’s logo sat elegantly embossed on the top right - a subtle explosion of lily-of-the-valley blooms - something you doodled as a kid for your mom's old shop; she got her wings early and left the responsibilities to you. A memory turned into an emblem, now stamped onto every love letter that left your store.

"Maybe a sincere declaration," you proposed, offering him the card. "Something that conveys her significance to you. It could pair wonderfully with the flowers."

Accepting it, he nodded. "Sounds good, Y/N. I'll do that."

After all, why not let him expose his treachery to his wife while feigning his love with an offering of flowers, whose symbolism he was blissfully unaware of?

Like the hammer of a blacksmith shaping iron, your heart pounded against your ribs. A dark, twisted humor that had you on the edge, a gnawing cynicism that had you contemplating whether to equip him with a pen for his confession or a shovel for his own grave.

"Pardon my curiosity, Officer Kim," you began, brushing the petals of a nearby rose with your fingers. "But I've heard things. Things about the mayor's wife. She's a beautiful woman, isn't she? As beautiful as these roses, perhaps?"

Nam Shik's eyes flickered with surprise, and his grip tightened around the stationery. His jaw tightened and sweat beads formed on his forehead.

A moment of silence passed before he managed a response.

"Where did you hear that?"

You shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Oh, you know how it is in Pocheon. The wind carries whispers. Even the flowers here have stories to tell."

His lips pressed into a thin line, the confusion in his eyes replaced with a stormy unease. He reached into his pocket, his fingers curling around the familiar shape of a cigarette box. But before he could pull it out, your hand shot out to stop him. His eyes snapped towards you, wide with surprise.

"Officer Kim," you stated, pointing at the 'No Smoking Inside' sign hanging by the entrance. "My shop, my rules."

He stowed the box back into his pocket, an awkward chuckle escaping his lips. "Right, my apologies." He muttered, glancing nervously at the bouquet of catchflies.

Your smirk was fleeting, disappearing as soon as it appeared. Didn't he know? A flower shop was no place for burning bridges or harboring secrets.

The patter of rain against the roof rose to an imposing drone, while a perfume of fresh blossoms perfumed the room- subtle but omnipresent.

Just then, Nam Shik broke the silence. "I... I should get going. The rain is getting heavier, and the streets will turn muddy. I need to get home, put my baby daughter to sleep."

"Officer Kim," you interjected, halting his movements just as his hand was about to reach his worn-out wallet. "No need for payment; it's on the house."

"What? Why?"

You smiled, a soft chuckle escaping your lips. "Consider it a gift, a token of appreciation from your local florist. You've been one of my regulars for quite some time now."

Nam Shik seemed taken aback but didn't protest. He merely nodded, a faint smile of gratitude tugging at the corner of his lips.

"But," you added, tapping your fingers lightly on the counter, "there's a small condition attached."

Curiosity flickering in his eyes, he tilted his head like a mutt.

"I want to know how your wife reacts to the bouquet. Consider it... professional curiosity. I enjoy knowing that my flowers bring joy to people.”

Less aware of your stoicism, Nam Shik chuckled, nodding in agreement. "Sure, I can do that."

"Oh, and one more thing. Please ask Mrs. Ji-An to visit me after one of your patrols! I'd love to chat with her over a cup of tea. She has such interesting stories, doesn't she? Last time, she told me about her gardening adventures. I wonder if she's added any new plants to her collection!"

Visibly stiffened at your casual mention of Ji-An, his other affair, his eyes snapped up to meet yours. For a split second, you saw a flicker of surprise, fear, or guilt in them, but it disappeared just as quickly. Trying to gather himself, he cleared his throat.

"Ah, Mrs. Ji-An... Yes, I'll make sure to pass on your message," he stammered, avoiding your gaze. The confident, composed officer was nowhere in sight. In his place was a man caught in the headlights, his secrets laid bare.

With a deep breath, he stepped out into the rain. The chime of bells hanging by the entrance rang out, their melody mingling with the pitter-patter of raindrops on the pavement. He pulled up his collar to shield himself from the cold wind that whistled past him, heading towards his home nearby.

Quaint, winding streets of Pocheon, slick with the day's rain, lay deserted except for the occasional silhouette hurrying past under the shelter of large, colorful umbrellas or huddling in the welcoming warmth of doorways. Nam Shik, in his rain-slicked uniform, must have felt like a specter weaving through the shadows. Every step he took echoed like an admission of guilt, and every glance he cast around felt like an acknowledgement of being watched by unseen, knowing eyes.

Now, all that was left was to wait and see what he would do with the truth.

A faint smile tugs at your lips, thinking about how you bent the truth to expose him, using flowers as your weapon against him. It wasn't exactly honorable, but sometimes deception deserves to be called out in the open.

As you continue tidying up, you hum faintly under your breath, humming one of those old village songs about unfaithful husbands and cuckolded wives seeking revenge through poisoned desserts or cursed needles sewn into their lovers' clothes. A soft chuckle escapes your lips at the thought.

Glancing at the antique clock hanging on the wall, you noticed that the hands had swept past midnight. Despite the late hour, you still had a few more customers who would come in, their faces illuminated by the soft glow of the shop's lights, to buy flowers for their loved ones or just to brighten up their homes.

Your hands traced the petals of a pink peony, feeling their velvety softness under your fingers as you murmured reassuringly to them.

After a few minutes, the  door chimed again, its familiar metallic jingle echoing through the quiet of the shop.

"Good evening," you called out, not yet looking up from the flowers that occupied your attention. Your fingers danced over the petals, snipping away the dried leaves with a careful precision that only years of practice could offer.

It was only when the silence stretched on, unanswered, did you glance up to meet the newcomer's gaze. Framed by the dim street lights outside, a tall and lean man stood tall in the doorway.

Raindrops clung to his hair, dripping onto the floor with soft plinks against the tile. Wearing a black turtleneck shirt and neatly rimmed glasses, he looked even more out of place in the little flower shop. His hands were tucked behind his back, but even from where you stood, you could smell the sharp, unmistakable scent of iron in the air. Crimson stains dotted his cheek, a stark contrast against his pale skin.

It didn't take long for you to realize that he wasn't from around here. The way he looked around the shop, his gaze lingering on the neatly arranged flowers, the old paintings that adorned the walls, and the antique clock that ticked softly in the corner - it was as if he were a ghost, silently watching the world around him.

Your grip on the scissors tightened imperceptibly at the sight of him.

"Can I help you?"

There was a pause before he responded, his voice carrying an unfamiliar lilt that you recognized immediately - he was from Seoul. "I was just passing by. I saw the lights on and... well, I've always had a soft spot for flowers."

"Oh, I see. Well, make yourself at home. My store stays open till late because some customers work odd hours and want to surprise their loved ones. What brings you to Pocheon so late at night?"

Apparently unaffected by your nudging, he shrugged. "I am an artist," he said simply, his gaze shifting over to the stainless steel pen poking out of your apron pocket. "And I'm here in search of inspiration."

"Inspiration..." you echoed, narrowing your eyes slightly. Something felt off about this man and his words. But then again, you had seen stranger characters come into your shop before—people seeking solace in flowers for all sorts of reasons. You couldn't help but wonder what kind of thing he was after.

“Perhaps you'd like to purchase a bouquet? Flowers often serve as muses for artists. I could recommend some known for their symbolism in art.”

"Oh, no… Maybe something for... a masterpiece I left behind?" He asked softly, his voice rough and low. It was clear he hadn't spoken much recently, like an old wound that never quite healed.

“Of course! I can help with that," you offered enthusiastically, setting aside the steel scissors you were holding onto the counter. "What kind of flowers were you looking for? Something bold and fiery like red tulips or something more delicate and whimsical like baby's breath?" You spoke as you led him deeper into the shop, where more fragrant blossoms hung overhead from strings connecting them to the ceiling hooks. Serenity gently swayed downward as if dancing in silent waltzes under the music only you could hear.

"I don't know. I  haven't seen flowers like these in so long... They're beautiful.” He paused, a fleeting smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "They remind me of someone very special."

Intrigued by his words and the emotion behind them, you found yourself more curious. "May I ask," you began, your hands skillfully arranging an unfinished bouquet of vibrant sunflowers as you spoke, "what kind of art do you specialize in?"

Fastening the stems with a golden ribbon, you turned to him, awaiting his response.

“Oh… I break things. Dissect them, mold them into something new. I take the broken, the shattered, and make them whole again.

His words struck a chord, leaving you with a sense of unease that slowly crept up on you. But you pushed it away, shifting your focus back to his words.

"That's... an interesting way to describe art. A unique perspective indeed."

He chuckled. "Art is a reflection of the artist," he explained. "Art is about transformation. About taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary."

"That's true. Just like how a seed transforms into a beautiful flower?”

"Yes, exactly like that," he agreed, his eyes lighting up with a spark of understanding.

From then on, the conversation flowed naturally, your earlier anxiety dissipating as you talked about art, flowers, travel, and even his classical music love. What had at first made you uneasy seemed strangely reassuring in his presence. Your store felt brighter and cozier with him in it, even at this late hour.

Abruptly, the room reverberated with a tremendous crash.

Turning towards the sound, you saw a beautifully crafted vase, adorned with intricate carvings of peonies, that had been perilously perched on the edge of the counter, now lying shattered on the floor. Its pieces glistened like scattered jewels on the polished oak floor.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized quickly, looking genuinely mortified. "I didn't mean to ... "

"It's alright," you reassured him, already moving to clean up the mess with a small broom from under the counter. "Accidents happen. That's why they're called accidents.”

As you bent down to pick up the pieces, you suddenly felt a cold, metallic pressure against your throat, making you drop everything you were holding. You froze, the realization of what was happening washing over you like a wave of icy water.

"Art is also about destruction," he murmured, his voice devoid of the warmth it held just moments ago as he made your back meet his chest. Finally, you noticed how his nails were caked with dirt and blood, how he smelled of nicotine and something predatory, and most alarmingly, the warm liquid oozing out of his waist - he was bleeding. "About breaking something beautiful to create something even more beautiful.”

A chill ran down your spine at his words. You had always known that the beauty of flowers often hid thorns beneath, but you had never expected to find those thorns so close to home.

Looking around for anything that could be used as a weapon or defense, you noticed that the scissors were too far away, but there was a small knife on the counter for snipping off dry leaves. You prayed he couldn't make out the faint sheen of sweat on your forehead or the tremble in your hands as you tried to think of a way to reach it.

“Nah ah… Don't even think about it, pretty flower.”

You unconsciously swallowed as the cold metal pressed tighter against your throat. Your heart beat faster, and your breath hitched in your chest. You slowly raised your eyes to meet him, seeing the depths of deafness and satisfaction reflected in his gaze. What had seemed like a mysterious stranger moments before was suddenly a threat, possibly even a killer.

"Please..." you whispered, trying to plead with him. "You don't have to do this."

But he didn't listen. Instead, a deep hiss escaped from between his teeth as he pulled you closer to him, his fingers digging into your skin. You could feel the sharp edge of the blade that had somehow snuck into his hand; it was cold and unyielding. It cut through your flesh like a jagged knife, tearing through silk. The pain was immediate and intense, but you barely registered it.

Outside, the rumbling of thunder could be heard growing louder as the rain fell harder on the rooftop above you.

"Why are you doing this?" You managed to croak out before another bloody cough burst from your lips staining the front of your lavender apron.

Stars danced in front of your eyes as you struggled for air. As the sound of your own heartbeat pounded in your ears, the room appeared to spin around you, amplifying until it drowned out all other noises.

All around you, the flowers seemed to wilt under the sudden darkness - their petals curling in on themselves as if they too were wilting under the pressure of impending doom. How ironic it was; you had chosen flowers for their symbolism of life and new beginnings, yet here you were, dying in your own store that you had hoped would bring joy to people's lives.

Try as you might, fighting back was impossible—every movement you made just made things worse. It was like swimming against a powerful current.

Through the shop's window, you caught sight of a small man with an oversized, rain-soaked coat. He looked like a drug addict, his eyes darting around nervously as he held a gun in his shaking hands. Every feature on his face was masked by the dim streetlights, save for his eyes, which were wide with desperation. He was trudging down the streets, his boots splashing in the puddles as he seemed to search for something—or someone.

"Help! Please—" Your plea was cut short as the man landed a punch on your stomach, effectively silencing your screams.

"Quiet, darling," he warned in a dangerously low voice. "Believe it or not, I'm the safer option here."

Without another word, he began pulling you towards the back of the shop. His steps were measured and deliberate, carefully avoiding the shards of the shattered vase. Your heart thumped against your chest as he guided you towards the hidden room—a tiny space your mother had fashioned for you to rest during long shifts.

"Why are we going here?" You managed to ask, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to sound steady. "How did you know about this place?"

He didn’t answer right away, his gaze fixed on the antique doodle hanging by the door, the one that showcased you and your mother running from a big shadowy figure. “I need a place to hide," he finally said, his tone strangely matter-of-fact. "And you're going to help me."

A wave of memories washed over you as you stepped into the hidden room. This small space, tucked away from the rest of the world, was your sanctuary. It was where you and your mother would curl up together after a long day, whispering stories and sharing secrets. It was where you would retreat when your father came home too drunk, too lost in his own sorrows and inner demons.

The room was filled with remnants of your past—a tiny bed covered in faded floral sheets, a worn-out teddy bear sitting on a wooden chair, and the old radio that would softly play your mother's favorite songs. The walls, painted a soothing shade of lavender, were adorned with old photos and drawings. And in the corner, a small wooden chest filled with your mother's keepsakes—letters, trinkets, and an old locket that held a photo of you as a baby.

"Where is the key?" He demanded, his voice echoing off the four walls of the room.

"In the top drawer, under the counter.”

He retrieved the key and locked the door, the click of the lock echoing ominously in the room. The man then turned to you, his eyes scanning the room before landing on the small cot in the corner.

"Sit down," He ordered, pointing towards the cot with a bloody hand. The dim light from the solitary bulb hanging overhead casting an eerie glow on his pale skin, making the blood look black. “And don't even think about trying to be funny, honey. I have a gun here too.” He nodded towards a dark shape peeking out from his pocket. It was a small gun, but deadly in the wrong hands. “You're quite the beauty, and it would be a tragic waste to paint this room with your blood, but don't think that I will even blink. I could give your lips and those eyes a better purpose. A place in my art gallery.”

Your heart pounded in your chest like a wild drum, but you snarled back at him, teeth bared like a cornered animal. “You're no fucking artist, motherfucker. You're a monster.”

His laugh was a low, chilling sound that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. “Oh, no, no, darling! Of course I am. Don't you understand the beauty of my craft?” He kneeled in front of you, the knife in his hand glinting in the dim light as he traced patterns on the bare skin of your legs. You flinched at the cold touch, but refused to show any fear. “Do you want to know the best thing about masterpieces, jagiya? Sometimes, past creations turn into chasing specters, hungrily hunting back.”

Despite the blood he was losing, he seemed unfazed, a devil wreathed in human skin. His eyes gleamed with a perverse delight as he continued his torment. It appeared as though he was a deformed Dionysus, intoxicated by his own dark pleasure.

Gathering your strength for the inevitable fight, you forcefully swallowed. "This is not something you can get away with."

“Oh, jagi… I always do.”

Before you could react, he reached out, his hand cradling your face. His fingers were cold against your skin, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone in a chillingly tender caress.  “You are a beautiful flower, aren't you?”

With his eyes grazing your tear-streaked face, he drew slightly away. “Tears don't suit you, darling.” Raising his hand to remove them with the back of his hand, he spoke.

All of a sudden, he leaned in once more, gently kissing your cheek with his lips. Although the touch caused your skin to crawl, you held your breath to prevent him from getting a kick out of watching you writhe. His lips trailed down your cheek, stopping at the corner of your mouth. “Such a pretty mouth,” he murmured, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip in a mocking caress.

Then, without warning, he struck. The blunt end of his gun connected with the side of your head with a sickening thud, sending you sprawling onto the floor.

Knowing that you would be at his mercy if you blacked out at this point, you struggled to stay conscious even as your vision became blurry and pain erupted behind your eyes.

With his face just inches from yours, he knelt beside you. “Sleep tight, darling.” Before getting up and leaving you by yourself in the tiny room, he gave you one last kiss on the forehead.

[argisthebulwark]

Severed Ties Part Two: Why You Came Back

summary: Time heals all wounds and somehow, you will find your way back to each other. gn reader, no pronouns or y/n used. Part One: Why You Left feat: Brynjolf, Miraak, Erandur, Teldryn, Vilkas, Farkas, Rune, Arnbjorn warnings: none, bit longer than usual.

Between all your duties and missing Brynjolf, it took time to find a comfortable rhythm. There was no escaping each other even after you put an end to your romantic involvement, only breaks coming in the form of jobs halfway across Skyrim. Through everything you worked together to get the Guild back on its feet. You entrusted Brynjolf solely with its care when Nocturnal came calling, reminding you that the Skeleton Key’s rightful place was in her temple.  The Twilight Sepulcher drained your body and soul. Exhaustion sapped at your strength when you shuffled out, unsure how you were going to get back to the inn. Riften was another beast entirely. Chilly fingers shook at the prospect of your bed being so far away, ready to risk it all for a short nap in the forest.  Brynjolf was planted a few paces away, hood thrown back and worry in his eyes. Your heart stopped at the sight. You’d never seen him so far from Riften. He took one cautious step as if you were a wounded animal, like you'd bolt if he came too close.  Collapsing into his arms felt like home. Strong arms carried you when your muscles failed, tears springing into your eyes when he tucked you safely into his chest. You gulped back the words you hadn’t said in ages when he buried his nose in his hair, turning to carry you home. He'd left all duties behind to be there for you when you needed him most. “I promise, love. Nothing’s gettin’ in the way of you and I again. Sorry it took me so long.”

Tales of Miraak’s reign of terror over Solstheim slowed, the island calming and hesitantly returning to its normal life. It had been years since you’d left Apocrypha and you could only hope that he’d found the answers he’d wanted so badly or at least some form of peace. The last memory of him still pained you but you’d never forget it - robes wrinkled where he crouched over the ancient desk, eyes wild and fingers stained with dark ink.  Being back on Nirn was a blessing and a curse. You had settled quite easily into your life but there was a constant nagging need to hear every rumor about him, to keep up to date on what he was doing. Your home was comfortable but quiet, interrupted by a harsh knock on your door.  Seeing him again stopped your heart. His eyes were wide, blessedly free from the mania you’d come to know. The mask and gloves were gone, robes traded for simple armor. There he stood, the man who had forgotten you suddenly standing on your doorstep, that lovely voice saying words you’d craved to hear.  “I gave it all up. I gave up everything to stand here and ask you for another chance and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, My Dragon.” 

You didn’t recognize him in such normal, simple clothes. Erandur, who lived in robes befitting a priest and Mara’s regalia, took the empty seat across from you in the tavern. His fingers quivered when he offered you a hand, hope bright in his eyes when he introduced himself.  “I had to come over here, I couldn’t stop staring. You’re stunning.” His attempt to sound nonchalant sent a nervous giggle bubbling out of you. “Can we put the past behind us and start over?” “Start over?” You didn’t release his hand and he didn't pull away, heart swelling when you saw his smile. All else was forgotten when you felt Erandur’s tattooed fingers climbing up your wrist.  “I am just a man who very badly wants to kiss someone he saw across the crowded tavern. Nothing more.” 

A compromise. That’s what he’d proposed. Teldryn sat at your table, eyes sparkling when he took in the house you’d built. It was far from the bustling cities, trees insulating you from the noise of nearby farms. After parting from Teldryn it had become a safe haven from the rest of the world. You’d never admit that building it with your own hands was fueled mostly by spite.  He’d come with apologies and offers mingled together in a practiced speech. Some time at home, some on the road, all of it spent together. It was unsettling how easily you trusted him again after all the time spent apart. His helmet rested on the table when Teldryn met your eyes and for the first time he looked unsure of what to say. His mouth opened, closing again and you caught a glimpse of that annoyed furrow between his brows you’d missed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to settle down in one place, but I could get used to this slow life with you. For a while.”

Loving Vilkas was easy, you’d never truly stopped. Learning to be gentle with one another was difficult. You struggled to learn how to look past your relationship and see Vilkas as more than your partner, acknowledging his role in the Companions. He worked on seeing you as more than his Harbinger, viewing you as his partner once again. It was a slow process - taking breaks and setting boundaries, but he was worth it.  During the day you worked, creating healthier avenues for conversation. At night you were partners, nothing more. No work talk was allowed between dinner and breakfast. In those evenings you found one another again, softening and loving each other as you had so long ago.  “Remind me, Harbinger. Am I permitted to kiss you during working hours? Are we allowed to sit this close, or are you worried I’ll distract you?”

Breezehome had been yours before Farkas entered your life. It was your refuge during the evenings when you couldn’t bear Jorrvaskr’s halls or the memories they held. A cool breeze whipped through your hair when you walked home, masking his footsteps until he appeared at your side. Neither one of you said a word when he took your hand, falling in step with you and allowing you to guide him to your doorstep.  It didn’t happen all at once. Rather, it was small changes that slowly altered your life. It took work for Farkas to summon the confidence to live for himself, extracting his sense of self worth from the Companions. You reminded him that it was a balance, leaving wasn’t permanent. Dinners were often spent in Jorrvaskr before retreating to the peace of your home.  “I didn’t think I was anything more than a fighter. Didn’t think anyone would want me to be more.”

Each day felt like a new opportunity for growth. You watched Rune from a distance hoping that he would make peace with his past. You didn’t want him to give up but it was too painful to love someone who lived entirely in the mysteries of what could have been, as if you were only allowed to love part of him.  Luckily, Delvin and Vex had an endless catalogue of tasks that no one else wanted to complete. Jobs in other holds, jewelry to be stolen in Whiterun and planted on some poor sap in Solitude, the occasional trip to confer with the Dark Brotherhood. All the travel was good for your mind, allowing you time to think through everything far from him. Falling into your cot you stared up at the Cistern’s ceiling. Watery light from the early morning sun reminded you that you’d stayed up all night again. It had been difficult to sleep with Rune cramped into your tiny bed but without him the space felt too empty. His footsteps were silent when he knelt beside your bed, his warm hand on your shoulder the only warning that he was there.  “I’ll never give up, not entirely. But it isn’t worth losing you over. Just give me some time, please don’t forget about me.”

Arnbjorn consumed your every thought. Despite your best efforts to appear cool and indifferent you couldn’t take another moment. It was fairly easy to avoid him during the day, but every evening you struggled to not look at him through dinner. After all the others had left in search of bed or prepping for their assignment you found yourself alone with him, a few drinks deep and blood heating under the weight of his gaze. Too drunk to be embarrassed by the stumbling way you explained how badly you wanted to be loved by him again, how deeply you wanted him to love you. You didn’t want to be a replacement for the love he’d lost. Cheeks burning and tears spilling you gasped out the least graceful declaration of love and how much you missed him.  Your name on his lips had never sounded better. Soothing kisses and careful hands sufficed when words failed. You knew he wasn’t comfortable vocalizing softer emotions. Arnbjorn’s lips were on your forehead, fists balled into his armor when you dragged him closer.  “Just need you to trust me, okay? It’s only you. My past is my past, no changin’ it. I just need some time but I promise it’s only you.”

[adelaidedrubman]

What if the strap could prematurely ejaculate? (Or, Jestiny gets knocked down a peg.) read on ao3.

notes: if i ever accidentally posted something good enough to trick you into following this account, i truly apologize. anyways here’s part two of the john/jestiny failstrap series. set hl&s adjacent and spiritual sequel to mine’s bigger. also new year’s eve themed, i meant to get it posted then but ironically didn’t finish in time. wordcount: 3.8k warnings: explicit sexual content, toxic relationships, emotional manipulation. (neg ’em and peg ’em, the jestiny rook method.) i feel like secondhand embarrassment and cringe dialogue is something of an implicit blanket warning for all my stuff, but. i feel the need to explicitly flag it in this one. that should tell you something. (please also see ao3 end notes or post tags for disclaimers.)

As with all holidays, Jestiny would ideally prefer to spend her New Year’s Eve outdoors. 

She would gladly take her midnight kisses whilst guzzling craft beer and watching fish leap from the water over sipping champagne and watching pixelated footage of a ball dropping — if only the temperatures of December bleeding into January in Montana would agree with her preferences. 

And sure, a sharp chisel and thick jacket could guarantee she would still be taking home her share of trout from a frozen solid pond. A good set of crampons strapped to her favorite hiking boots was all she needed to scale the highest mountain peaks, even covered in ice. A durable tent and well-insulated sleeping bag meant she could still feel wind-nipped cheeks warmed by the flames of a real campfire no matter the season, instead of settling for the store-bought logs currently crackling in the hearth behind her.

But even a rugged outdoorswoman the likes of Jestiny had to admit the blistering, unforgiving cold of Big Sky Country winter required some activities be strictly indoor-only until the first wildflowers of spring poked up from the hard, frozen earth. 

And even with all the proper equipment packed, when it came to the activities that required removing clothing… 

“God, I’ve needed this so fucking bad,” John whined against her jaw, pulling her along by the arm as his other hand impatiently finished her work of centering her strap-on properly in its harness. “I want you to fuck me all night long, right into the New Year. I want you to fuck me in every room of this house, until I can’t look anywhere without thinking of you.” 

What Jessie didn’t have to admit — at least not out loud — was that the spacious yet cozy faux rustic interior of Seed Ranch, with its pervasive scent of leather, pine, and woodsmoke wafting from the fireplace; the vista of sprawling snow covered mountains offered up by its grand far-stretching windows; the lurking presence of hoards of taxidermy animals around every corner, made it the best substitute she could imagine for the thrill of fucking outdoors. 

Yes, it was all blatantly, dreadfully fake — but fake was better than nothing.

“I want you to take me right here on my dining room table,” John continued to lustfully monologue to himself as his thighs hit the edge of the table on his path backward with Jessie in tow, turning from their embrace just long enough to sweep an arm along its length and knock all the stray clutter atop it to the floor. “Don’t hold back. Be rough enough to break it. Just give it to me and don’t stop.” He hopped atop the table to sit, then wrapped legs around Jestiny’s waist to pull her into place. “Then I want you to lay me down in front of the fireplace. Hold me close and take your time with me, give it to me slow until I’m fucking begging. Then drag me upstairs and bend me over the railing. Pound me until I can’t stand, until I cry. Then I want you to carry me into the model plane room and…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she shushed as she pushed him back to his elbows, popping the top off of the bottle of lube clenched in her fist. “I’ll fuck you on every tacky ass piece of furniture in this ugly fucking house.” She forced an extra grumble of irritation to hide the tremor of desire threatening to slip into her words from the sight of him laid back for her with legs spread, brow slick with sweat and the dew of melting snowflakes still clinging to his eyelashes. “I assume you want me to lube it up first, though…”

“Let me,” he cooed, grabbing the bottle from her just as it had begun to drip onto sleek silicone. “I want to do it…”

She shrugged in disinterested agreement, placing her hands behind her head and jutting her hips forward as he poured along the length, palm cradling its underside and sliding along to catch the excess. 

“Fuck,” he cursed, biting down on his lip as he began to pump his hand faster along the attachment. “Already so fucking hard for me.”

She crinkled her nose and cocked her head to the side. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she questioned. “It’s a fucking dildo, John — it’s always hard.”

“It’s — It’s a turn of phrase,” he huffed, tightening his grip and jerking towards him so that she near-stumbled into him. “Are you not familiar with the concept of dirty talk? Not everything has to be so damn literal. Use some imagina —”

“And why the hell are you jerking it off?” she demanded, thrusting a hand against his collarbone. “You know I can’t feel that, right?”

“Well, I’ll try to be more realistic, then,” he snapped as he leaned forward and shoved a hand between her legs. 

Fingers spring-loaded with lingering fury moved to roughly pull her harness to the side, barely stilling or softening their touch before sliding inside her. His other hand remained stubbornly wrapped around silicone to pump it at a now comically harsh pace, as if to prove just how aware he was there was no delicate flesh and blood to be concerned with suffering beneath his vice grip — beginning the spectacle with a rough shove forward of its base to press against her with a pressure that did incidentally send a rewarding flicker of pleasure through hungry nerve endings. 

“Fuck,” he ground out in repetitive correction, his tone wilting midway from a sarcastic hiss to a reverent whimper as he curled his fingers. “Already so fucking wet for me.”

Well, it wasn’t her fault he looked so good flushed and panting, even through the ridiculous theatrics. 

“Like you got room to fuckin’ talk,” she scoffed as she reached to quickly coat her fingers with lube, sliding inside him and finding right where they needed to be with a practiced ease that made her cheeks warm with satisfied pride at her own expertise. Her thumb traced a line up his cock to find and leisurely smear the precum dewing at his tip. “Fuckin’ dripping the second I get my fingers in you.”

The surrender in his next whimper was complete, paired with a bucking of his hips to beg for more as he mirrored her steady pumping in the pace of his own fingers, thumb tucking itself beneath her harness to find and stroke her clit properly — all while still uselessly jerking off the dildo resting atop it, of course. 

Well. Maybe it was useless, but she had to admit — privately — his hands did look nice doing that. 

Even if the curve of his spine restyled itself into a distinctly unnatural, exaggerated arch as he regrettably regained the faculty for words. “God, yes, do you — ah, do you like how it feels inside me?” 

Another stupid question. Reaching past the contrived, polished exterior to find the depths at which he was all warm silk fluttering to the touch? Delving inside him to feel the promise of all the power to reduce him to a stuttering, pleading mess pulse beneath a single fingertip?

How could she not be positively intoxicated by it? How could the rush of adrenaline it stirred be contained to anything less than electricity prickling along every inch of skin until the air itself felt charged with the intensity of her desire? 

“It feels like an asshole, John,” she deadpanned, dragging her finger to tease shallowly. “Felt one, you’ve pretty much felt them all — and until science finds a way to implant a g-spot in the human finger, I’ll be getting just as little out of it every time.” 

She gave a swift upward thrust for one last prod of his prostate in punctuation before she slipped fingers out entirely in the same fluid motion of her shoulders shrugging. “I’m more interested in finally getting to fuck you so good you can’t even talk to ask dumbass questions like that.”

She used the hand sticky with lube to smear a last glob onto the head of her strap as the other cradled his face, smoothing a thumb over his pouting lip as she added, “Just as soon as you ask nice.”

His pout deepened. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb now, baby. You know the drill.” She pushed him to lay with back flat on the table. “Beg me for it.”

“No,” he said testily, lifting his chin to give her a look of pure defiance. “You beg me.”

Her breath caught, for a moment — as if his words sank to snag in her chest before her mind even processed them, lunging back up as sharp barks of laughter the moment it did. 

“Alright,” she sighed, breathless, as she dropped her head to rest against his collarbone and reached down to line up her attachment. “That was funny enough I’ll let you get by without the begging, this time.”

Her hips barely canted a single centimeter forward before they were stopped by a rough fist grabbing at the base of her dildo to hold her in place. 

“It wasn’t a joke,” John hissed, eyes icing cold with determination, like a pond freezing over. “You’re going to beg to fuck me, or you won’t fuck me at all.”

She allowed her confused blinks to pick up pace into a sarcastic batting of her eyelashes paired with a sweet, dimple framed smile. “John, darling. My most cherished love. Light of my life, fire of my silicone sporting loins. Could you, kindly —” she scrunched her face into a scowl, “tell me what the fuck it is you’re talking about?” 

“You’ve done nothing all night but mock and belittle me, and act as if you’re somehow begrudgingly doing me a favor,” he snapped. “Now you’re going to admit you want it as badly as I do,” he said, allowing his tone to melt and soften as he circled a finger around delicate, rosy skin. “If you want this, you have to beg for it.” 

Oh, he was serious. 

Heat flared in the pit of her stomach at how serious he was. 

All the better. She loved a challenge. 

“Now is not the fucking time to be a brat, John,” she growled, threading fingers in his hair and tugging in the way that pulled a needy moan to the surface to tremble in his adam’s apple. “Now is the time to be a good boy and spread your legs.”

“Oh, and I will,” he moaned, craning his neck so the pull of his hair was tautened — a dare, a meet and raise of a bet. “I’ll be so good for you, as soon as I hear that magic word.” 

This time, the hand around her strap stayed still as he reached down to wrap one around his own cock. 

“Say ‘please’ for me, Jessie,” John begged with wide eyes as he began to stroke himself. “I’m already so close — don’t make me cum from touching myself alone. I want you to fuck it from me. I need your strap.”

That bastard. But two could play that game. 

“Are you begging me to beg you?” she scoffed as she began rolling her hips in steady rhythm, the tip of her strap just barely bumping against him as she fucked the grip of his hand in a promise of what she could do. “Why would I beg for something I won’t even feel?”

“Because you want to take me, don’t you, Jessie? Don’t you want this ass to be yours?” Fuck, he did not play fair — spreading his legs wider and pushing forward to rub the head against slickened, puckered skin, make it look so easy to slide home and fuck the attitude out of him. The sight alone made the friction of grinding against a held still strap-on swell to an unexpected thrum of ecstasy trickling through her veins. “God, I want it. I want to feel the way you move inside me. I want to belong to you, every part of me. I want to cum for you, only for my Jessie.”

Christ, when did the cheesy, unnatural porn lines start working on her?

“Must not want it t-too bad,” she grunted with a particularly harsh snap of her hips. The electricity in the air had heavied, absolutely saturated it. It fizzled with that strange feeling of being up high during a thunderstorm, everything so strongly charged that hair stood on end. “Since you won’t just let me —”

“Oh, I will, Jessie,” he panted, training his eyes on her impotent thrusts as he stroked himself faster. “I’ll let you do anything you want, as soon as you’re ready to —”

“Just —” She glared, thrust harder as if she could break right through his grip and end the standoff, only managing to increase pressure. “Move your fucking hand, and I’ll —”

“You’ll what?” he teased, squeezing the thighs wrapped around her waist. “Please tell me, won’t you? At least talk me off the way I like, since you’re not going to —” 

“You’re not going to get off at all, until I —” Fuck, how was this happening? How could she feel every fiber of authority she possessed suddenly unraveling to slip from her fingers? “Say you’re fucking allowed —”

“I’m so close,” he gasped, tossing his head back and arching towards her — the tip of her strap just barely disappearing as he did. “But feel so empty. Oh, Jessie, won’t you —”

“Can you just —” Her cheeks were scalding as she fumbled to grab his hips and grumbled, “For the — the fucking love of god, could you please just —”

She found herself falling forward before she’d even realized the damned word had fallen from her lips, his hand pulling away the second it was spoken and his legs flexing to pull her in, sliding inside him as her knees smacked against the table. 

And every volt of electricity hanging overhead came suddenly crashing down with her as she buried to the hilt as the coaxing of his eager rocking hips — as if lightning finally crackled through the air to ripple down her spine and spread through her body. Spread so forcefully she could taste it in her mouth, feel it tingle along her tongue and shoot down her jaw as the current seemed to hone on the place the base of the strap pressed just right against her clit — suddenly overloading from the sensation, short-circuiting into blissful oblivion. 

And it felt as if she really had been struck by lightning — the way her flesh crawled with searing heat, the way her insides turned and convulsed, the way every muscle twitched and trembled in pure surrender to its force. 

“Did you, um —” he shifted beneath her, pausing and clearing his throat as if for once in his life he realized what a ridiculous thing he was about to say and managed to think twice before saying it, “did you finish?”

“Did I —” she coughed weakly against his collarbone, wishing it had come out closer to a scoff than it did. “I’m genuinely fuckin’ curious — do you even bother to try to make the shit that comes out of your mouth make sense? Or do you just start flapping your jaws and see what happens?”

She did not wait for an answer before summoning her remaining wisps of strength to wind her hips back, forcing wobbly legs pleading to collapse beneath her to instead power a proper thrust forward. 

She yelped, a jolt of pain shooting up through sensitive, overstimulated nerves as the base of the strap pressed against her clit at the full extension of her stroke. 

John craned his neck, eyes scanning far too knowingly along the flush of pink sprawling along her cheeks and chest. “We can stop, if it’s —”

“I’m fuckin’ fine!” she barked. “I just —” She coughed, reaching down to slip a thumb beneath rubber ring and wedge under the dildo to put space between its base and her sore clit. “Gotta adjust a bit — you put this thing in at the wrong fuckin’ angle, fucked everything up.” She wriggled her hips back with a final grumble of, “Why you should never trust a man to do a woman’s job.”

She began rocking forward with hand still in place to lighten pressure against nerves pleading for rest — she could do this, she just needed to fake it through a few minutes of recovery period. She just needed to — 

“Shit!” she cursed, jittery thumb pressing too hard against the base to push it free from the ring with a taunting pop, staying lodged stubbornly inside her lover as she reeled back. She lurched forward, hurrying to retake her place, looking down to gauge position and hopefully reattach herself before he noticed. “Goddamn…” 

“Seriously, are you alright?” John questioned as he pushed himself up to his elbows. “Would you like ten minutes and a glass of orange —”

He was interrupted by a thud as he rose to sit fully upright and meet her face to face, Jestiny’s eyes barely catching to follow the shiny black blur that shot from between his legs to land heavy at her feet. 

“Fuck.” 

Her clumsy rush (since when was she clumsy? first saying ‘please’ and now this?) to turn and reach for the fallen dildo (was her sleight of hand good enough to reattach it without him noticing? what skills did she still have?) resulted in her kicking it with the heft of her combat boot (was it not a good idea to wear them during sex? who even was she?) before she’d even managed to bend down. 

She whipped around, finding hardwood bare save for a slight glistening streak. When she lifted her head to follow the snail trail of lube, she found the strap-on had rolled itself across the greater length of floor — losing little momentum as wood broke into granite. 

The slight rise of the granite platform barely impeded it at all, in fact, as it rolled right past the wrought-iron guard that had been haphazardly left ajar by Jestiny as she built the fire, tenderly welcomed into the roaring inferno of the fireplace. 

“Wha — ! Aah,” A confused, devastated noise caught in the back of Jestiny’s throat, withering there to die at the first crackle of silicone as her prized strap-on went up in flames before her eyes. 

The world swirled around her, buffeting at her senses like the cruelest of snowstorms.

The dead lump of a scream in her throat seemed to creep down to spread its decay, making her insides shrivel into brittle rot. As the stench of burning plastic filled the air, her eyes began to water from the sting of chemical smoke. She wondered if she might actually cry for the first time in her adult life.

Past the whistle and crackle of flame devouring silicone and the whoosh of her own pulse in her ears, Jestiny heard the muffled garble of a television set she hadn’t realized was on blare suddenly loud from the recesses of the ranch, cheers of ‘Happy New Year!‘ over discordant symphony of paper horns blown in celebration conjuring images of ceremonial ball reaching the denouement of its annual journey to the base of its pole into her mind unbidden.

On cue, somewhere in the background, a grandfather clock solemnly chimed to announce the turn of the hour.  

And there stood teary-eyed, gaping mouthed Jestiny — some bizarre sex toy Cinderella whose impressive phallus turned back into a puddle of cheap plastic polymer at the stroke of midnight. 

“Well,” John’s bemused hum pierced through the cacophony rattling around inside Jessie’s brain as he peered past her to the spectacle of silicone bubbling down to black ooze in his fireplace. “I guess it isn’t always hard.”

“Fuck!” Her shout crumpled back into a weak whimper as plain splintered through her knuckles before she even realized she’d swung to strike the table. 

She kept fist loosely clenched and eyes glued to the grain of the table as John turned back towards her. 

She caught in her periphery the falling of his sly smile. His brow pinched inward as he looked back and forth between Jessie’s flushed, scrunched face and the empty rubber ring at the front of her crotch, his eyes softening with the most genuine look of sympathy she thought she’d ever seen him wear, a level of earnest compassion she would have thought him incapable of even faking properly.  

The kind of condescending pity that made her stomach curdle, made her blood boil hot as a melting strap-on. That she would normally lash out to reject, were she not already so thoroughly defeated and stripped of pride. 

“It’s alright,” John whispered softly, reaching over to give a few comforting pats to Jessie’s curled fist before bringing his hand up to cup her jaw and lift her chin, guiding her to look into gentle blue eyes. “It happens to everyone, sometimes.”

“That —” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder in gesture to the strap-on cremation still blazing strong behind her, drawing in a ragged breath, “has literally never happened to anyone before.”

“Well, it was... innovative,” John innovated the world’s first performatively horny purr that doubled as bland diplomacy to reply in, throwing his arms around her neck in embrace.

“We —” Her voice sounded so uncharacteristically small to her own ears as she stumbled over her words. “We can do other stuff. I can still finish you —”

“That’s alright. It was enough just to feel close to you,” John shushed, nuzzling against her neck. “All I want now is for you to carry me to the fireside and hold me.”

God, it was such obvious, manipulative fawning; such a poorly disguised consolation prize. She should storm out in offense. 

In no position to refuse consolation prizes, Jessie slid an arm beneath the bend of his knees, wrapping the other around his middle. She gave a slight grunt as she hoisted his weight, at this point truly just grateful she managed not to drop him on the short walk over to the bearskin rug she lowered him to sprawl atop. 

“You always look so beautiful, bathed in firelight,” John sighed, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. 

“You —” The impulse to counter with a comment that the firelight made him look much older from the shadows cast into the creases of his face extinguished itself as quickly as it sparked. “You would look even prettier by the light of a real campfire,” she muttered as she fell limp, allowing John to tangle their limbs as he saw fit. “That’s what we should do next New Year’s Eve. I hate being cooped up inside.”

“And do you envision our rugged adventures would begin with a first-class flight to the southern hemisphere?” he asked with a soft laugh, a hand smoothing along her sides. “I don’t have your outdoorsy expertise, of course, but I’d say it’s hardly pleasant camping weather around here.”

“It’s not so bad, actually,” she sighed pleasantly. “Pitching a tent in the dead of winter,” she continued, absentmindedly threading fingers through his hair. “So long as you —”

She coughed, clearing her throat and hiding her face and its burning cheeks against his chest as she finished the statement. “So long as you have the right equipment.”

She definitely should have just gone fishing.

[0perfectimperfections0]

Hi I just wanted to ask if you could do a part 2 on that one short story when lou had a shock collar? I found that one really interesting I really wanna read more of it ^^

I'm actually really invested in it, too, now XD

This is gonna be another long one, so I'll put a 'read more' break right about here.

<><><><><>

"He's waking up!"

"Just stay calm. We don't wanna get 'im worked up."

"His hands are still sparking…"

"Just let him breathe and calm down. He's under a lot of stress."

Face pinched. Mouth twisting into a frown. Blue eyes blinked open a few seconds later and he was met with the sight of all the dolls crowded around him. They looked worried for some reason—

Lou sat up quickly, pupils contracting in fear as he looked at his hands. Hands rested on his shoulders tightly as Mandy shouted out a few syllables to get his attention. "Woah, lay back down, alright?"

"Th-The collar—robots—wh-what happened—"

Blue sparks became more erratic around his hands. Whatever this was must have been tied to his emotions. “Breathe, breathe.” Mandy took him by the wrists, keeping a safe distance from his hands. “You have to calm down, okay? Everything is fine. We’re in my house. We didn’t want to carry you all the way to Ox’s.” 

The doll in front of her trembled, sparks not ceasing. The wind outside slammed against the windows and door as his breathing picked up speed. Wage pulled back the edge of the blinds to see storm clouds rolling in quickly. “Someone better calm ‘im down or knock ‘im out, 'cause he’s bringin’ in a storm.” 

“Lou, hey, look at me,” Mandy lifted his face. His pupils were contracted again. “Lou, you’ve gotta breathe.” 

“I-I-I can’t.”

Ox hopped up onto the sofa and sat behind Lou. “Wage, keep the blinds closed an’ make sure the door’s locked.” He wrapped both arms around the small frame in front of him, head pressed against Lou’s shoulder. “We’ll just ride it out, Bud, okay? It’s a panic attack.”

Electricity danced along Lou’s fingers and slowly traveled up his bare arms. Mandy quickly pulled the short sleeves of the t-shirt up to Lou’s shoulder so the sparks wouldn’t reach the fabric and start a fire. She paused on the right sleeve when a mark became visible. The number 3 in black ink. 

“What–” Moxy started before Ox cut her off.

“Let’s focus on one thing at a time.” He spoke shortly, eyeing the insignia. Lou was beginning to shake even worse and the house trembled on its foundation. The whole Institute was shaking. 

LuckyBat’s eyes lit with an idea and he disappeared upstairs toward Mandy’s room. She barely had time to ask him where he was going before he was gone. A few minutes passed of them trying to calm Lou down before the bat appeared again with a pair of black rubber gloves. Mandy forgot she had those when she took up gardening. “Here, rubber is an insulator for electricity. This should keep it from getting stronger.” She wasted no time in carefully sliding them onto his hands. They fit snugly, tightening around his wrists. The electrical sparks along his arms gradually faded and Lou watched them disappear beneath the black material. His breathing finally slowed down and the shaking ebbed away. 

The wind from outside grew silent and the shaking in the Institute stopped. 

The dolls looked around the house, listening to the wind ceased. 

“Good,” Mandy finally let herself breathe. “Good…th-that was good, Lou. Everything is okay now, see?” She took him by the hands, lacing their fingers together. “We fixed it.”

Blue eyes looked up at her with a mix of every emotion aside from rejoicing. They still glowed a bit. This close and in the dim lighting of the room, they could see the faintest outlines of a weird design in his cornea. Like streams of wires and tiny dots of brighter lights glowing behind his eyes. “Fixed?”

The misunderstanding wasn’t hitting home yet. “Yeah. It’s fixed now. Just keep the gloves on and–”

“Fixed,” Lou repeated with more conviction. “As in ‘was broken’.” 

Mandy finally caught on and she stumbled over her next words. “W-Well I—”

“I’m going to the recycle.” Lou pushed her away and stood on shaking legs. Ox fumbled forward and hurried to be there in case the doll fell. 

“Lou, sit down,” Ox ordered. 

“I’m not under your control anymore, Sir.” The word was spoken with so much venom. “I’m going to the recycle.”

Ox fisted his paws and stepped in front of Lou as he reached for the doorknob. “Lou, sit back down or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Lou hissed. His eyes glowed brighter and Ox couldn’t help the fact that he took a step back. Blue streams of light traveled like veins under Lou’s felt above the glove. Lou noticed. "This," he hissed, holding up a gloved hand, "is just more reason for me to be destroyed. Now I'm even more of a freak than I was before." 

Ox had to choose his words carefully. "Sit down and let's talk about this." 

“I’m sick and tired of being told what to do and when to do it!” Lou leaned down closer to Ox’s face, hands fisting at his sides. “For once—can everyone just let me do what I want! I want to go to the recycle and I want this to be over.” 

“I can’t let you do that,” Ox felt his own frustration piling up. “You know I can’t. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Another shock made Lou cry out, desperately trying to squirm out of the human hand that held him tightly. Russian blue eyes stared down at him placidly. “I told you not to break those rules, Louis. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

The bunny watched those pupils constrict again and the wind outside whistled. Lou’s chest moved in and out a bit faster. “You’re just like him. All of you.” Blue eyes skimmed across the room to the other dolls. “You’re just like my Creator. Keeping me alive just to see me suffer–”

A hand grabbed his wrist quickly and Lou was no sooner on his knees staring into Ox’s eye. “I’m keepin’ you alive ‘cause I love ya. I don’t care if ya listen to a word I say or not. I ain’t gonna punish you for it. But gosh darn it, Lou, I ain’t lettin’ ya kill yourself ‘cause I love ya too much t’ let ya go!” Ox kept Lou in front of him even as the blond tried to pull away. “You ain’t broken,” he spoke softer, catching Lou’s full attention. “This,” he held up the wrist he was holding, “this is what your Creator was scared of. I don’t understand it, but I know for a fact you ain’t his puppet anymore. You ain’t his pet. Now…instead of runnin’ from it, why don’t you control it and fight back.” 

Lou’s eyes widened when Ox ripped the glove off of his hand and laced their fingers together. Ox bit down on his tongue as the electricity nipped and bit on his felt. It stung and sent the fuzz on him on edge, making it stick up around his paw. Lou tried pulling away. He knew it was hurting the bunny. But Ox didn’t let go. “Ox stop!” Lou screamed, using his other hand to try and pry Ox’s off. The bunny took hold of Lou’s other wrist and held it back. The electricity grew more frantic and Ox tried his best not to breathe through his teeth as the pain increased. 

“Ox, let go,” Mandy warned.

“No. He can do it,” Ox grunted. 

The wind outside grew frantic again and the room dimmed as clouds rolled overhead. “O-Ox, please…I-I don’t wanna hurt you,” Lou begged, eyes screwed shut, trying to concentrate on the electricity to calm it down somehow. 

“Then I guess ya better learn to control it, cause I ain’t lettin’ go.” Lou felt Ox’s paw clench as the voltage grew stronger. More of the fuzz along the bunny’s arm started rising. The lights in the house started to flicker. One of the bulbs in the kitchen light busted and glass shattered across the floor. "Either get a handle on it or let it out," Ox closed his eye tightly, breathing labored. His heart felt tight and skipped too many beats at a time. 

Blue streams of light glowed in vein-like patterns along Lou's arms. He clenched his jaw and roughly pulled down the other hand that Ox was holding up. He ripped the glove off with his teeth and bolts of electricity shot out through his fingers as he screamed. The window next to them imploded from the heat and the dolls ducked their heads as glass flew across the floor. 

The wind still whipped angrily outside, blowing into the house now, but the intense voltage from the hand Ox was holding dissipated. He evened his breathing the best he could before opening his eye. Tears dripped down Lou’s face. “I-I can’t—”

“No, that was good,” Ox finally let go and wrapped his arms around Lou. “That was really good, Bud. Sometimes you gotta let it out instead of bottlin’ it up.” Something wet landed on Ox’s ears. It started raining lightly outside. “It’s okay,” he rubbed up and down Lou’s back, mouth pressed against Lou’s temple. “We’re gonna help you control it.”

<><><><><>

Something as untameable as electricity wasn’t the easiest thing to control. Lou had started off being really adamant about keeping the gloves on, but Mandy managed to get them off and hid them somewhere in her room. The wind had finally died down. The rain stopped. The sun started to peak out again and Wage and Babo were sweeping up the glass shards on the floor. Mandy was a little disappointed that her window was broken, but she tried to hide it as Lou looked awfully guilty about the whole ordeal. 

“Let’s try something simple,” she suggested. Moxy stood up on the sofa to be almost eye-level with Lou. Her hands were stretched out, waiting for Lou to put his hands in hers. Lou took a step back, but Mandy was behind him, hands on his shoulders as she gently eased him forward. “Just put your hands in hers.”

“B-But the shocks—”

“I’ll be fine,” Moxy smiled. “I can take it, honest. Don’t be scared.” Blue sparks were already beginning to dance and swirl around his fingertips. It looked beautiful and dangerous at the same time. 

“We need to figure out what increases your…voltage,” Mandy searched for the proper term. “Once we figure out what triggers it, then we can work to control it.” Lou’s hands were finally laid on top of Moxy’s. He swallowed, eyeing the sparks. “Good. Now, think about…,” her eyes searched the room, “Ox.” The bunny’s ears lifted at his name. 

Lou’s mouth quirked minutely, but the streams of electricity glowed at the mention of his name. Moxy felt just the tiniest sting. “I’d rate that a two, maybe.” Mandy nodded and LuckyBat wrote that down. 

“Alright, how about—”

“Pizza!” Uglydog suggested. 

“Why pizza?” Mandy deadpanned at him. 

“Why not?” Uglydog said defensively. 

Moxy didn’t feel anything. She grinned at the way Lou’s brow rose and he wrinkled his nose at the out-of-pocket suggestion. “Zero. Didn���t feel anything.” That was written down.

“M’kay,” Mandy bit her lip for a second and gave a nod of assurance to Moxy. The pink doll braced herself. Mandy stepped up closer behind Lou, hands on his shoulder blades as she watched his hands. They lit up a bit as she stepped closer. “Think about the Big World—”

“Ow!” Moxy yelped and flinched back from Lou’s hands. He startled at both the intense emotion that had coursed through him and the result of it, causing another bolt of electricity to go haywire and blow out the light fixture in the living room. “Six, that was a six,” she put her fingers to her mouth. 

“Sorry!” Lou backed up, only to remember Mandy was behind him. 

“No, it’s fine. That’s what we were looking for.” Mandy brought her arms around him to hold either of his arms up. The sparks jolted and began to climb up his arms toward her hands. “Any emotion seems to affect it. The stronger you feel, the more intense the voltage is.” 

“Does it depend on if it’s a good or bad emotion?” Ox wrung his paws together, recalling when his name was mentioned. Lou didn’t still feel anger toward him, did he?

“Not sure,” Mandy noted the electricity climbing up toward her. “Am I scaring you right now?”

“No,” Lou rose a brow, watching the sparks as well. 

“Do you feel angry?”

“I…don’t think so.”

“Well, your powers say otherwise. What are you feeling right now?” Mandy experimented by sliding her hands up his arms. The electricity flickered, brightening, and chased after her hands like it was a game. 

“I wouldn’t call them powers,” he mumbled. “I-I don’t know. I’m not mad or scared. I’m definitely not sad. What else is there?”

“Happy?” Moxy suggested. 

“Happy about what?” Lou gave her an incredulous look. The pink doll merely looked back at Mandy pointedly. He set his face to look stoic. “No, I’m not.” Moxy didn’t look convinced. The electricity that glowed along his arms at just the insinuation proved her right, regardless. 

"It's following you, Mands," Wage watched it curiously. 

She hummed and watched the sparks dance up his arms toward her hands. "I've got an idea." She turned Lou around so that he was facing her and put her hands on his shoulders. "New game: keep it from touching me."

"W-What?" Lou's eyes went wide. 

"You heard me. Keep it from touching me. That's your challenge." 

"I don't like this game," Lou stepped back from her. 

"What's the worse that can happen?" Mandy asked as if it wasn't obvious. 

"I don't wanna hurt you," Lou glared. 

Wage snorted. "Says the one that tried to recycle her." 

At that, Lou barely refrained from wincing. However, his new abilities gave way to what he felt. Guilt. The electricity along his hands and arms seemed to die out immediately. The glow in his eyes dimmed back to their normal blue. 

Wage seemed to perk at this improvement. "Well, whatever you felt then seemed to work. That made it go away." Lou turned his head away from her, staring at the ground. 

Mandy’s gaze softened and she took a small step toward him. He replaced the distance again, looking at her through his bangs. His face was serious. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The conviction behind his words had her pausing for a moment. “I know you don’t.” Wage scoffed. The other dolls, aside from Ox, had to say that they didn’t know if they believed it themselves. “But if we’re gonna control this, we have to be willing to take risks.” She held her hands out toward him. They were stared at. Lou’s face tensed at the thought of causing more damage than he already has. Not to mention all the damage he caused prior to getting these stupid abilities. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, either,” Mandy continued. He met her eyes. 

It was confinement and constraint that even brought him to this point. This breaking point. And while controlling the person who had the abilities sounded like a good plan…it also had the more probable result of making things worse. So, instead of having someone else control him, he’d have to do that himself. 

And it started with giving him the freedom to make a choice. 

“You can let us help you…or you can tell us to back off and we will.” Mandy took a step back herself to give him more space. “It’s up to you and what you want to do.” 

Lou glanced at the door. He could walk away from all of this. At the very least, he could finally get away and go to the recycling like he wanted in the first place. No more powers. No more Creator. No more emotions. No more being this freak of nature. This robot. Maybe he would come back as a normal doll and be able to do normal doll things. 

It sounded so enticing that it almost didn’t feel like a choice anymore. It felt like that’s what his Creator wanted. It felt like the option was so good that it would be the only way for him to get out of this mess. 

It felt like running.

Like being that submissive pet again. 

And what would even happen if he did come back as a normal doll? He would be like the rest of them. Following the rules of the factory. He would still be required to go through the same process of learning how to survive the Big World, finding a kid, and being a proper doll. He would be another oblivious doll that didn’t understand the power the factory had over them. 

Or he could gain control of his power…and take back what the factory stole from him: freedom.  

The dolls watched his eyes slowly illuminate and those sparks reignited on his fingers. He looked at Mandy, replacing the distance between them again and holding his forearms out. “I want help.” 

[abbatoirablaze]

Shameless, Chapter 4

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: violence, mentions of fighting, mentions of cheating/being married to someone while being with another, manipulation, faking a death.

“Uh, pretty sure you can’t bring a baby into a bar, ma’am!” Kevin said sarcastically as Fiona waltzed in with Liam.

“You can’t get married if you already are!”

A brow rose as your sister stalked right up to him, “Fi!”

“I know, I know,” Kevin said quickly before looking at you, “I told her last night!”

“You knew about this?” Fiona accused angrily, “why the hell does she know, and V doesn’t?”

“He told me when he got wasted at the bar because he told V’s mom he was going to propose!”

“In my defense I never said I was going to propose…it was just a misunderstanding!” he said quickly, ‘these girls wanted my number, and I said I was engaged…”

“Oh, yeah, because that’s how my conversations happen too!” Fiona growled.

“Hey…I know it’s messed up!” Kevin answered, “I’m afraid to tell her though!”

“KEV!”

“You know, you two saying my name in sync like that…kinda hot.  I know why people have a thing for twins now.”

“Disgusting!”

“Gross!”

“You need to tell her!”

“I don’t want to make her sad, Fi.  It’d break my heart to hurt her.”

“Just tell her the truth, Kev…if you don’t, I will!” Fiona said firmly.  Kevin looked up at her in shock as she put the sippy cup on the counter, “can you hit me with a milk refill?”

“That was cold!” you told your sister as Kevin walked away from the two of you and you got the container of milk from the fridge and filled it, “really cold, Fi.”

“Oh, look who’s talking to me again!” she remarked smartly, “you finally get over that whole thing with Tony?”

“Hardly,” you scoffed, “this doesn’t involve…us…it doesn’t count.”

“Saw you contributed to the squirrel fund still…you haven’t been home in a while…”

“What, you missing me and you sharing a bed like old times?” you growled, “Or you just miss having someone to shit all over when things ain’t going your way?”

“Hardly,” she repeated, copying your earlier sentiment, “but I do miss having you around the house…you and me…we keep it running.  We’re a team, Fi Fi…always have been…always will be.”

“I’m not over what you did, Fiona…I have real, genuine feelings for Tony…”

“I-I don’t expect you to be, Fi Fi…but you’re my twin sister…I can’t do this without you!” she whimpered as you passed the cup back, “say you’ll come home…help me plan what’s going to be a crazy as all hell fake wedding for Kev and V….”

You sighed as you looked at your sister, “We still have to talk about it…”

“What, this didn’t count?”

“No, Fi…it doesn’t count.”

“This doesn’t count either…”

“Well duh…I’m not sober enough to remember any of it.”

“You never are…”

“God, are you ever going to relax and let me just breathe?” she growled, pulling the covers over her own body, “I get it.  You’re mad about me having sex with Tony.  Debs, Ian, and Lip already let me have it because apparently you two idiots are in love with each other.  And yeah, I give ya a little more wiggle room with that shit because of your bipolar bullshit, but-”

“Leave my genetics out of it, Fiona…I’d rather be like Monica than Frank…”

She frowned at your insulation that she was more like Frank, “Fuck you, Fi Fi…”

“It’s whatever though.  Apparently I’m the only idiot,” you said, shaking your head, “if he really cared about me as much as you are claiming then he wouldn’t have slept with you the other week. ”

She rolled her eyes, and you shifted so that you weren’t facing her anymore.

You didn’t want to let her see you tearing up.

“Fi Fi…”

You didn’t reply as you felt the tears streaming down your cheeks, hitting your pillow.  You tried to stifle the sobs that threatened to wrack your body.  Her arms wrapped around your waist, and it was like the floodgates opened.  You couldn’t hold them back.

“Stop!” you begged as she nuzzled into your back.

“Fi Fi, I’m sorry, okay?” she asked, “don’t cry!  Look, Tony meant nothing to me…and yeah, he was great for the whole ten minutes it lasted before those brats blasted outta the church, he’s not my type.  I have Steve.  I-“

“Then why did you do it?” you snapped, flipping yourself over so that you were staring into her chocolate eyes that mirrored your own, “if you didn’t care about him and you knew that I did, why did you do it, Fi?  I’ve been in love with Tony since head start, and you just go and fuck him like it’s nothing!”

“He stuck his dick in me!”

“He’s an idiot!” you claimed, “he just wanted to get his dick wet!”

“What?” she scoffed, backing up, “you think I’m only good enough for him to fuck because he couldn’t get his grimy paws on your pussy?”

“Fi-“

“No, Fi Fi.  I’m not second best,” she growled, sitting up, “I may not be first born, but that doesn’t mean I’m not second best neither.  Tony didn’t fuck me simply because you weren’t around, and because we’re twins.  I’m ‘good enough.’  Tony fucked me because he wanted to.  And unlike him, I’m over here, trying to apologize to you, but all you care about is how I did it in the first place.  Are you even fucking mad at him for it?  Or is it because you’re too dick drunk on a virgin’s cock that you’re letting it slide?  Or is it the Monica in you that’s just making you mad at me, huh?”

“Fuck you, Fiona.”

“He already did!”

A scream tore through your body as you lunged at your twin sister.  Fists flying before you could figure out what you were even doing.  You felt her pulling on your hair, but you didn’t care as your fists slammed into her face and chest.

“I hate you!” you screamed, “I HATE YOU!  ALL YOU DO IS RUIN MY LIFE, AND TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME BECAUSE OF ALL THE BULLSHIT!”

“FUCK YOU!”

“FUCK YOU!”

You felt arms pulling you away, and another separating you and Fiona even further.  Lip and Ian were separating the two of you.

“STOP!”

“GET OFF ME LIP!”

“LET ME AT HER!”

“You two are fucking crazy, stop it!” Lip proclaimed, still holding a fighting Fiona on one side of the room, “SHIT STOP IT!”

“GET OUT!  I WANT YOU TO GET THE FUCK OUT, SOFIA!” Fiona screamed, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

Everyone froze at your sister’s words.

“What did you just say?”

“Get the fuck out of my house!”

“You can’t kick me out!”

“I’m the one that’s been running this place.  I don’t split my time between school and them,” she spat, “what I say goes.  And I say you’re fucking out, Fi Fi!”

“Fiona,” Lip said quickly, his grip loosening on her, “you can’t be serious.  Fi Fi is the reason why we’re still floating after you couldn’t get any big jobs the past two weeks…she paid most of the bills this month.”

“You can’t kick her out!” Ian said sadly, his own grip loosening as well as he came to the realization that Fiona wasn’t joking, “we-we’re family.  You can’t kick her out!  She’s the oldest.  And-”

“Any one that wants to go with her, can…but she’s fucking out!” she hissed, “pack your shit, Sofia.”

“Y-you can’t just kick me out.  I live here, Fi.  I-“

“Not anymore you don’t.  Get your shit, Sofia!”

“The electric is off…”

“Not my problem, Lip…” you said quickly, trying to ignore what your little brother was saying,  “Fiona kicked me out.  You know that.  You were there.”

“Yeah, and I was there when I packed a bag and came here!” you reminded him, gesturing around yourself to the spare room in the back of the Alibi Room, “Kate and Kev are letting me take the cot but only letting me take my tips.  No rate.  And I’m homeless the end of the week.”

“What about Milkovich?”

“Colin’s bail hearing is Thursday…hopefully they let him out and I can crash at the Milkovich house…but if they keep him locked up, I’ll be at the park, sleeping in the slide or turning tricks on the corner for a room.”

“Shit, Fi Fi…don’t you have anything saved up?”

“I put everything I had into the squirrel fund, Lip…I didn’t exactly expect Fiona to kick me out.  And I’m not going to rip that money out of the fund because Fiona’s a cunt.  That money keeps you and the littles afloat, not just her,” you reminded him, “and I let Ian take the phone, so I haven’t been able to get any calls for the odd jobs I usually do.  I only got a hundred and fifty, and that won’t hold me over long in a motel.  Not to mention the costs for the L to get to and from school.  I’m gonna go to see Eddie in a bit before my shift and pawn my laptop and shit…I can use the school’s computers for my online class…” 

“Fiona said she had money, but I don’t think she does…” he said offhandedly, “I think she’s just saying that, so we don’t freak out.”

“Again…not my problem.”

“What if Colin isn’t getting out?”

“I don’t know, Lip…I-I never had a contingency plan put in place in case Fi kicked me out,” you admitted, “I never thought I had a reason to.”

“So in the course of the two weeks that I’ve been gone, you managed to let the electricity get turned off, Carl almost got expelled, and Lip almost got killed by some killed on the football team?” you scoffed, looking into the eyes that mirrored your own, “you’re right Fi, you can handle it all on your own.  And you’re doing a bang-up job.”

“Hey, fuck you, Sofia!” she growled, “I didn’t wanna kick you out.  I had to.  You fucking assaulted me.”

“You were fine!” you growled back, “I wouldn’t have done any real damage.  And if I recall, you were hitting me too!”

“Steve sure as shit seemed to think you did enough.  V was laughin about how it looked like I got attacked by a mountain lion that had a baby with Mike Tyson!”

“So, what, you bled a little!”

“You’re fucking crazy, Sofia.”

“That isn’t anything new in the news.  But hey, so are you,” you reminded her, “we get it from Monica and Frank.”

She tried to bite back her laughter as she took a drag from her beer, “come back home, Fi Fi.”

“You ain’t gonna try and kick me out again?”

“I might,” she shrugged, “you gonna try and kick the shit out of me again?”

“I didn’t try…I did.”

“Yeah, yeah…come here you fucking bitch!” she called as she pulled you into a hug. 

“What the actual fuck is going on?” you asked, “and why is there a hearse outside?”

Debbie all but lit up as she saw you at the door, “SOFIA!”

“SOFIA!” Carl smiled, running up as he joined the group hug. 

“Glad you could make it to my funeral!”

“Frank, what the fuck?”

“Some killers are after daddy!” Debbie said from your side, “we have to pretend to throw a funeral for him, so they get off his back. 

You looked to V who was helping set shit up, “V?”

“Sorry, Sofia,” she shrugged, “had to make it happen quick.  These guys were gonna come after you guys if he didn’t pay up…and well, you know.  He can’t!”

“What do I have to do?”

“Help Debbie get changed and then you do the same,” she asked, “pick out something for Fi to wear when she gets back from picking Liam up.”

“Got it!” you sighed, looking to your younger sister, “come on Debs.”

She nodded and dragged you upstairs as Carl let go, and while she went to her room to get something together you went to your room that you shared with Fiona, and started digging through the drawers for two outfits that were all black. 

Finding something sufficient that would work a few minutes later, you had changed and went to Debbie’s room, “you okay in there, kid?”

“Yeah…I’m ready.  Did you pick out something for Fiona?”

“Yeah,” you agreed as she opened her door.  She was wearing a simple black shirt and a pleated skirt, “you look good.”

“Thanks!” she smiled, doing a little twirl.

“WHAT THE HELL?”

“Sounds like Fiona is home!” she frowned, offering out her hand, “come on.  Someone’s gonna have to explain what daddy did!”

“Oh, take this!” you said, putting a black lace head covering on her.  She gave you another smile and started down the steps. You followed her shortly after.  Fiona gave you a look when she saw you.

“Did you know about this?”

“Just found out about it when I came home!” you replied, “but I think we’re a little past being surprised when it comes to Frank, right?”

She nodded and sighed, knowing that what you were saying was true, “well…let’s get the show on the road then.”

“Go get changed!  We’ve got a loving, devoted father to bury!” you said with a smile.

Chapter 5

[gunsli-01]

Hey Gunsli, sorry to break in like this, but I’m out of insulation to munch on. If you had the chance to have a fourth trial for any particular Milgram prisoner, which would you want the most? I kind of want Fuuta because I like the pumped up feelings I get from his songs. But I also want Mikoto because I have so many questions.

And it’s a little late, but I hope you’re enjoying the wintry holidays!

I know this answer is probably a bit late and I hope you're able to see it! The winter season is going- So, that's definitely something! Winter is my favorite season so it's always pretty decent, but holidays can be hectic. Sadly, my dad and I both got colds of some sort which sucks because we barely leave the house, but it is good because neither of us want to do that anyhow and colds are a great excuse not to.

So, if this answer seems a bit disjointed that's why. I've kinda been wanting to see some of the Milgram characters interact with the Caligula Effect 2 ones lately. Since the game has managed to pick up my interest now.

If there was a fourth trial hm... That's difficult. I think a lot of prisoners are set up well within the three-trial system. Like they've all given pretty sufficient information within the two trials so far and I think even more will come out from the third. So, I'm very excited for all the rug pulling about to be done and hoping it doesn't disappoint.

Under the circumstances that fourth trial was about their response to their verdicts outside of Milgram i.e. if they'd go to offend again or change due to the experience very similar to what occurs within Caligula Effect ones ending... I'd want them all to have a fourth one but I think it'd be better if those results, we're shown through another Es song having us go full circle in a way.

If it's just based on songs. There's a certain amount of catharsis that I get from Mikoto, Amane, and Futa's songs. So I'd like for them to have more but I'd also enjoy them having the pairs do songs together at a point or them doing group songs. Out of left field though-

If only one of them absolutely only one could have a fourth trial in full. I'd want it to be Mu. Because I like her voice and her covers are always really good. Plus, she always says something interesting in her voice dramas. Like for all the faults I could find with her character she's very genuine in her communication and displays the pitfalls of anxiety with girls that contrasts well with Futa's display. I tend to like the fact that her songs have this immense presence with this understated feeling of fear that says stop looking at me but please keep watching at the same time.

So, I'd put her through one more trial. Though I doubt it would give much new context. Mikoto too if he or no one else gets pseudo hope syndrome. Hoping one of these fucking smokers gets it at this point so it can have new instrumental no one is thinking about Pseudo Hope Syndrome false I always am. Always. Reversible campaign was good though. Also damn no one has gotten Cinderella or Zombies yet here's hoping-

[cheerscoops]

tag game dump!

so my very favorite @quinnkeerys tagged me in a whole mess of tag games, and I'm going to put them under a read more here so as not to spam the dash. I know @iero and @corrodedcoffn also tagged me in a couple of these, so a big thank you to them as well <3

if anyone wants to do any of these, you can just say that I tagged you

#1

Last Song: Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus

Currently Watching: right this second, I'm watching nothing because I'm at work. but my lunch break tv show is currently Parks and Rec, and then I'm switching back and forth between Solar Opposites, Vanderpump Rules, and a Stranger Things rewatch when I'm at home. I'm also really obsessed with Claim to Fame right now

Currently Reading: rereading The Big Sad™️ as I try and write more of it, but I'm also reading Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

Current Obsession: not to copy RJ's answer, but have you seen my url?

#2

5 drinks to get to know me: hot coffee with a little sweet italian cream flavored creamer, hot chocolate spiked with whipped cream vodka and topped with mini marshmallows, ice cold water specifically out of my giant insulated purple water bottle, peanut butter and banana smoothie, a cocktail called a manhattan

#3

10 comfort movies: the princess bride, spree, enola holmes, little women (1994), beauty and the beast, edward scissorhands, the wedding singer, scream, cutthroat island, anastasia

#4

Name: Anna

Age: 31, to quote JCB "she's old, love"

Favorite season: Autumn because I am nothing if not a basic white girl

Movies or TV shows?: is it cool to say both? I love both forms of storytelling so much, but I will admit that I gravitate more towards tv shows. like, someone please explain to me why I won't be in the mood to focus on something for two hours to enjoy a movie, so I'll put on a tv show instead and the next thing I know I've watched an entire season in one sitting

Do you carry a bag/purse? What kind?: I am a mini backpack girlie. the current one is hellfire club patterned, and before I got that one, I was going back and forth between the loungefly that looked like steve's scoops ahoy uniform and a stranger things one that I found at target

What color is your water bottle?: lavender. I would put stickers on it, but I'm afraid that I'd ruin the stickers, so it's very plain

What color is your phone case?: teal, but it's super grody since I've been using it for so long. I should probably get a new one, but I'm due for a phone upgrade soon, so I don't want to spend money on a new case if I'm just going to have to get a new one when I get my new phone

Do you sleep in silence or do you need white noise/sounds/music?: I fall asleep to spree every single night. don't ask me why, but I find kurt kunkle drawing his life to be very soothing

Top sheets. Yes or no?: yes. when it's warm, the top sheet is the only blanket I use because all other blankets are too hot, and I can't sleep without a blanket of some sort

You're in the candy aisle at the corner store, what are you grabbing?: it depends on my mood. if I want fruity, I'm getting pull apart twizzlers or haribo happy cherry gummies, or the super cheap strawberry gummies from the dollar store. if I want chocolate, it's typically something with caramel. I gravitate towards milk duds, caramel m&ms, twix, and milky way midnights. also peanut butter m&ms

Preferred mode of travel (plane/train/car/bus/on foot/etc.): in my day to day life, my car is my lifeline. public transit isn't the best in my area (doesn't go anywhere near parents' house and idk if it goes anywhere near mine), so I've never really used it. when going on vacation, I prefer planes and trains though because I am not built to drive long distances

What's your phone background right now?: lockscreen is my photo op with joseph quinn from philly, home screen is a collage of eddie munson pics

Are you more of a miminalist or a maximalist?: the minimalist aesthetic is lovely, but it could never be me because I love little trinkets and art too much. maximalist all the way

It's time to paint your bedroom! What color are you choosing?: I have had the same pink and white striped wallpaper as nancy wheeler's bedroom in season one since I was seven years old, and I love it dearly. at my new place, my bedroom walls are this deep gray-ish purple, and I'm quite fond of that, so maybe I'd choose that color if it wasn't already what I already had. I'm also a big fan of blue, and that's supposed to be better for your sleep, so maybe a light blue

And finally, tell me something that brings you joy: stealing RJ's answer, but working on cheerscoops week graphics and stories (even The Big Sad™️) is what's keeping me going right now

[the-orange-tabby-cat]

ALBUM OF THE DAY: The Alvvays - Antisocialites (2017) (9/?)

WHICH PEDRO BOY IS BASED ON? Javi Gutiérrez

ALBUM VIBES (listen to it on Spotify)

With an easy-going vibe and general optimism sound, Antisocialites is the kind of album that pushes you up through the mix of the guitar, echoey vocals, and a synth that evokes the 60s Yé-Yé. The perfect album to match the impulsive and always sweet Javi G, who likes to understand the world around him and to be a resource for those he cares about. Oh, and we also have a song about being a fan of someone you are close with an LSD reference.

JAVI GUTIÉRREZ CODED LYRICS

“You find a wave and try to hold on for as long as you can, you made a mistake you'd like to erase and I understand” (In Undertow)

“Can't buy into astrology, and won't rely on the moon for anything” (In Undertow)

“What's left for you and me? You respond to my question metaphorically, don't read into psychology and won't rely on your mood for anything” (In Undertow)

“What's next for you and me? I'll take suggestions, we toss and turn in undertow, time to let go” (In Undertow)

“Now you're one of us It was magic hour” (Dreams Tonite)

“Live your life on a merry-go-round, who starts a fire just to let it go out?” (Dreams Tonite)

“If I saw you on the street would I have you in my dreams tonight?” (Dreams Tonite)

“Don't sit by the phone for me, wait at home for me, all alone for me” (Dreams Tonite)

“Writing oaths to me, is it so naïve to wonder?” (Dreams Tonite)

“When I chip through your candy coating you're stuffed with insulation” (Plimsoll Punks)

“Just strawberry ice cream floating with a sprinkle of indignation” (Plimsoll Punks)

“You're the seashell in my sandal that's slicing up my heel” (Plimsoll Punks)

“Your posture's blocking out any possible light, I can no longer see, this conversation spirals into a fight I can barely breath” (Plimsoll Punks)

“Ditch your friends on a whim, later, resurface in a fight, kill the buzz with your decrees and conspiracy theories” (Your Type)

“I die on the inside every time, you will never be alright I will never be your type” (Your Type)

“Let me state delicately, you’re an O and I’m AB” (Your Type)

“Close your eyes and then count to ten, you can tell your friends that I don’t make sense and I don’t care” (Not My Baby)

“The night is like a fading radio” (Not My Baby)

“Traded my rose-coloured shades for a wide lens. Used to make noise, now, I much prefer silence” (Not My Baby)

“Should we pull the parachute? (Don't think so) I will land on my feet but I probably won’t leave the house for awhile” (Hey)

“It feels like forever since you held me like I was a human being” (Hey)

“On your doorstep at 3 AM, fight and you run, and you run, and it’s likely over now” (Hey)

“Friday, we fell through the coffee table and that’s when I discovered that my heart exploded” (Lollipop (Ode to Jim)

“You're a lollipop In the form of a lightning bolt” (Lollipop (Ode to Jim)

“Am I ever gonna fit that mold? 'Cause I don't have the patience to wait in line for you” (Lollipop (Ode to Jim)

“You asked me if I was intrigued by LSD I sat next to you on the picnic bench and before I knew it, you were flying next to me” (Lollipop (Ode to Jim)

“A place to decompress, a vat of chlorine's close enough, I guess” (Already Gone)

“I arrived at the scene, you were perfectly surrounded by pylons when the crowd separated, the officer said you were already gone” (Already Gone)

“Middle of the night, drain the pool, the summer's over” (Already Gone)

“In the park, didn’t think you fell that hard, woke up again and you wanted a new start” (Saved by a Waif)

“Stay where you are and no one gets hurt” (Saved by a Waif)

“You climbed the stairs so high, you can’t come down from there, said you wanted to get it together but you don’t” (Saved by a Waif)

“Say something, waste something, change your life, take something, break something, make your flight, say something, anything” (Saved by a Waif)

“Mommy wants you to be a doctor so she can tell her friends you’re like your father and if it’s all for the sake of conversation, then maybe you should try a new vocation” (Saved by a Waif)

“When the phases of the moon, they don’t apply when accomplishing a simple task takes several tries” (Forget About Life)

“Did you want to forget about life with me tonight? Underneath this flickering light” (Forget About Life)

“When the failures of the past, they multiply and you trivialize the things that keep your hand from mine” (Forget About Life)

TRACKLIST (highlighted are the most Javi Gutiérrez coded songs)

1. In Undertow (03'17")

2. Dreams Tonite (03'16")

3. Plimsoll Punks (04'49")

4. Your Type (02'03")

5. Not My Baby (04'16")

6. Hey (02'48")

7. Lollipop (Ode To Jim) (03'17")

8. Already Gone (03'03")

9. Saved By A Waif (02'59")

10. Forget About Life (02'42")

[creations-by-chaosfay]

My to-do list is getting fuller, but I don't mind. Staying busy is vital to avoiding madness. Especially when that to-do list involves commissions.

Star Story - commission, begin handquilting

Mug rug - commission, bird theme, fabric and pattern pulled

Mini quilt - commission, fpp 18x18 inch crow, forest and wood theme, quilt top only

Four piece coaster set - commission, hobbitcore meets slavic grandma, old fashioned, whimsy, floral

Placemat sets - shop item, two sets of two placemats, purple celestial theme

Five piece dining set - giveaway prize, dessert and treats theme, four placemats and a table runner

Three piece dining set - gift, two placemats and insulated table runner, OSU Ducks theme

Single placemat - gift, unicorn theme

Lap quilt - gift, begin handquilting

I'll be going to the fabric store to pick up extra wide backing for Star Story, the mini quilt, and possibly the four piece coaster set. I have no idea what slavic grandma fashion is, so that will need a little research. Hobbitcore, to me, is lots of green, brown, and plants.

If anyone wishes to commission me, there are still slots available. Please snatch those up.

I'll have the placemats and mug rug done by the end of this week, and have all the pieces cut and prepped for the placemats. Those will likely be finished by the end of today, and mug rug tomorrow. Handquilting will begin tomorrow, and the morning will involve washing the dining room floor and basting the quilt. I tend to work up a sweat doing those things because it's a lot of hard work, and will likey leave me wiped out for a few hours. Basting takes me about one to three hours, depending on the size of the quilt.

The mini quilt and four piece coaster set will definitely be finished next week. The mini quilt is just the quilt top, nothing else, which definitely speeds things up. It's all foundation paper pieced as well. I will also begin the giveaway prize next week if I don't have any other commissions.

Then the week after that, complete the giveaway prize and work on the housewarming gift for a friend. He and his father are buying a house and moving in together, both are HUGE fans of the OSU Ducks (local team), and a two person dining set will be a fantastic gift. Especially since they plan on decorating the dining room with all things OSU Ducks.

If I have no other commissions after this, I'll just focus on my niece's birthday gift of a unicorn themed placemat. My sister and mom describe her as the girliest girl to ever girl, and she loves all things unicorns. I have unicorn fabric and a unicorn fpp piece. I will also work on finishing the handquilting for Star Story and build up inventory in my shop.

Star Story will likely be finished in mid-July. When I have the handquilting complete, and have no large commission to work on over the summer, I'll be handquilting a lap quilt gift for a friend. I made the top a couple years ago, but he made it abundantly clear he's fine waiting because paid projects come first. Handquilting will be done in the afternoon, seeing as mornings are so nice in my sewing room but it's too hot to be in there after about 10AM.

Ah, yes, my summer routine is sewing in the morning (I'm up at 5AM), handquilting in the afternoon, no working after 6PM (dinner), and in bed by 9PM.

Commissions will be closing June 1st, so you had best grab one of my slots now. Prices will increase when I open them again in September. I now have a very good idea of how long it takes to finish things, and have given myself a 10% pay raise from $25/hour to $27/hour. Now that I know handquilting twin size quilts is around 80-100 hours, and queen size 100-150 hours, the prices will reflect this. Queen size quilts will start at $4300 USD, twin size quilts at $3000 USD, etc. King size quilts will take between 300-500 hours, done over the course of 18 months to two years (to prevent burnout I'll take breaks to work on smaller things, as advised by other quilters), which is why prices for those will start at $11,300. I well and truly do not want to make a king size quilt, but that much money is extremely good incentive. As with all projects, if you cannot pay 100% immediately, I'll accept 50% upfront. For a king size, that's nearly $6k. Do I think anyone will commission me for something that large? Absolutely not, which is why I'm not concerned. I will, however, add it as an option when I reopen commissions later this year. If someone does commission me for it, I'm getting our plumbing replaced; the guy who owned the house prior to us buying it was a landlord, and he installed illegal plumbing that's causing problems. We were quoted nearly $12k last year, and have no means of paying for it. A king size quilt will take care of that.

Now I need to eat, convince my husband to get out of bed, go to the fabric store, and then get home and do some sewing.

[rametarin]

The Aggressive Nothing.

One day, I'll be free of this cunt.

One of the many unsavory things I hate about living with my psychotic mother, is when she thinks she's entitled to my time and attention, she'll trap me in a go-nowhere say-nothing conversation. It won't be an intense conversation, it'll just require a lot of listening and she'll use a tone that interrupts anything I'm trying to think about in the interim. Each word seems constructed specifically to seem like the one immediately after will get to the point, but she'll just drone on and on.

You can't predict where the conversation is going to lead, because you expect, or desire, it to have a point. So after a while, you try and see if she's taking 3-4 minutes to say a ten word sentence and anticipate her shitpost of a spiel, cut to the end and give her the information she wants to be satisfied with and get the conversation to terminate.

But silly boy, you're not having a conversation to exchange information and finish it, you're running a marathon because she feels entitled to your effort, attention and time.

So you answer normal volume, and she'll feign like she couldn't hear you and just ask you to repeat it so you have to put more effort into the response, and she can get double the effort out of you.

She'll ask your opinion on things that don't matter, at all, and then ignore that you gave an answer and tangentially jump to asking on something else. She'll ask you for a straight answer on questions that don't matter, dressing up the pretense of what you want for dinner and then just jump around to a bunch of different shit every time you answer like you just hit the "more dialogue" button, instead.

Any little trickedy trick to try and force you to do more than agree, say no, or shrug, over stuff that doesn't matter. And then get mad that you don't want to gleefully cough up all that time, attention and effort that exists purely to rob you of your day.

Then she'll let things settle for a minute, give you hope she's satisfied with whatever answer she got and will go on to bother someone else

before she lets the dust settle and comes back to take another bite out of your attention, a minute later. That void of time spent seeing if she'll fuck off officially just like a slice of bread capping off a time wasting sandwich.

You want to take her to task for this, to tell her to fucking stop, point out you're not stupid; you KNOW what she's doing and why, and to stop it. It's insulting to your intelligence, it's the behavior of someone that thinks they're the smartest person in the room and is effectively "sneakily" trying to milk you of your time, attention and effort, making it impossible for you to do anything else when they decide to get in your face and vomit their nonsense.

But you don't, because there's nothing you can do if they decide to pull the, "I own the house, I can call the police, tell them we're having a domestic dispute, that I feel threatened, and then you'll be out on your ass. I'll put you in a homeless shelter" spiel.

And every time she does, I want to break her neck and make her watch herself be brutralized from the floor as she passes from this mortal coil from pain shock. Because she gets off on my having to choose between being waterboarded with worthless forced interaction or eating dead rats in a ditch. She KNOWS exactly what she's doing, she's doing it on purpose, and still giggles about it like she's some sort of master manipulator or genius with psychic powers, not an insulated and protected cunt with a house and the ability to make me homeless. Like derailing everything I'm doing or trying to do is fucking hilarious or cute, instead of a form of abuse that a woman is socielally permitted to do because women feel entitled to act this way and get away with it. "Just mother things."

Because to some people, conversation is not a way to exchange information, it's a way to force you to look at them like they're the star and syphon away your time doing that. And if you won't voluntarily give them your time and attention, they'll fabricate ways to justify stealing it from you. Up to and including making messes for you to clean up, just to take you away from your agency and forcing you to do as they want.

If I had to work a 9/5 while tolerating this worthless bitch, I'd have ended her life by now. I really, really can't stand harpies that feel the need to be in your face for the sake of being able to choose when they're in your face and getting off on the fact pushing them away from you and telling them no is literally a crime, with the consequences of losing your living space and everything you could make from it.

After being tortured with this so long, I don't deserve to throw myself out of the frying pan into an even hotter fire, work a job for minimum wage and wind up at age 40 with a shitty, unfulfilling, work filled, not-even-making-ends-meet life. I never did. I put up with her abuse to not wind up poor, old and homeless without a pot to piss in and forced to climb up every hill and mountain from beneath Square 0.

But everything I try to put my efforts and attention to, this cunt interrupts and filibusts with her attention whoring. And she does it specifically to fill up those hard points of my life, so I can't develop anything of myself while living here. Adding so much resistance to anything I do, even doing it isn't worth it.

Try a medical transcription course? That fucking cunt destroyed the pipes of the kitchen sink and forced me to do dishes without running water for about a year. (This was 20 years ago.) Try and write a novel? Mysterious power outage fries the computer. The work is conveniently lost. She sabotages everything so I can't fucking get out of here with any money in the bank or dignity.

The only scenario where she'll allow me to work with only some harassment (and she'll still harass, knowing there's nothing I can do but tolerate the abuse) is the one where I work and agree to give her every dollar that the state doesn't take away from me. Thus, completely nullifying any incentive to work, because the way this disgusting fucking little PIG spends her own money, she just blows it out of her ass so there can't BE surplus. She uses her own poverty as a weapon to prevent progress, and will gladly throw ten thousand dollars down the drain to prevent anyone in the family from having any saved. Leaping from financial crisis to financial crisis, completely manufactured by her own refusal to spend her money sensibly, as a pretense to "need" all our money.

Words cannot describe how fucking angry I am at her, and every asshole that refused to help me escape from this. But I will not leave if it just means being stuck in the exact same god damned hopeless impoverished rut that would've waited for me if I just fucked off at 16 or 18, bottom of the barrel, no education, no savings, no transportation. Nothing.

[exlegendaryhero]

Mother, Earth Part 2/2

Why do you crave the embrace of a blanket? Why do you feel naked with no clothing? What is nakedness? Why do you feel so unwhole? Why does everything feel so empty? Surely our family makes us completely but why is there itch in the back of our minds that we just can't scratch? We miss our mother. I have hundreds of recorded events of miners hearing the same sounds and strange reverberations within the echos of the chambers they are carving from brazil to south america to hidden mines in the northern vietnam only few are privy to see. They all are aware of this and it is growing stronger... That bitch is trying to pull us into the womb again and it's getting louder. You might see it coming in a few decades where miners are phased out for more mining machinery like the "Boring Company" made by Musk. No this isn't some pat on the head for that sychophant this is real life scenario where they have to soundproof the entrace to any cave system and the national parks and recreation will have to close off mammoth cave because of the sheer volume it shoots out.

You will have people en~masse running eyes-glazed towards the caverns trying to dig into the earth. I have seen it. We had comitted to an expedition to a site believed to be somewhat close to "her belly" not the womb but close enough...As we began to dig we all had to wear silenced ear-proteciton with music cranked to max to the point I was nearly deaf and I watched a man take off his protective headphones and try by fingers and nails to dig into the soil like a madman ignoring the flesh peeling back from his fingers. We restrained him and dragged him to the surface where the winch pulled us up... But he kept trying to chew through his harness and yell about "RETURNING TO MOTHER". He tried breaking his own limbs and fingers to escape the cuffs and straps we placed him on and we managed to duct tape him further down and get him sent to pschiatric holding where he was deprogramed as best we could. We don't have a pure solution but enough videos of mankinds achievements and his childrens birthday recordings seemed to calm him. At least we thought that....He had us fooled and the moment he cleared he bolted out of the office with his keys driving straight through the gate of the site and flung himself into the straight hole we had bored to get to where we once stood...Only his body was never recovered. He is with mother now. Give it a hundred or two hundred years and even wells for well water will have to be insulated for sound proofing and thankfully water is a good dampener but the damndest thing is going to come in a way none of you will understand and it terrifies me...It goddamn terrifies me. Have you ever considered how big the fucking grand canyon is?

I know I have been affected. It might not even be something that is sound based it might be something like radiation? Hell maybe its something like radon gas? But we would have detected it...Unless she made it so we couldn't. How can we find materials she refuses to give us the necessary elements to find it? I keep catching myself calling this damned ball of rock "Mother". Hell I haven't even omitted myself writing it in this message because I needed to see how it was affecting me and how you can see how *okay I did omit this one* IT continues to try and change me but I refuse to go near those places anymore. I don't want to go to caves. I don't want to look at fucking rock samples anymore. I don't even want to touch jewlery and feel horrified just grabbing an aluminum can. It's too close to her. Glass seems to be ok but since then I have been sleeping in a house I had built with the remaining of my research funds in a large tree out in the californian redwoods. You might think it equally as foolish being so close to the fault line it's just as bad if not worse in the central US where cave systems align with the limestone below. At least here in my tree I am as far away from IT as I can be. And It's going to stay that way. I am not going back to mother.

[dainty-fingertips]

Okay I have a weird idea, tssm sinister six All fighting for the affection of y/n, who's there to fix their broken tech and be an in house engineer.

I AM A SUCKERRRRRRR FOR THE WHOLE WE-ALL-LIVE-TOGETHER TROPE (thanks to my creepypasta phase in middle school) SO THIS IS AMAZING THANK YOUUUU HEHEHE

||

(tumblr gif makers, y'all need to make some tssm sinister 6 gifs fr)

being a resident technician/engineer for the sinister six hcs

||

Shocker/Montana would be very... open about his "little" crush on you

"Alright, sugar. I know you're gettin' tired. Why not take a rest with me?" And a wink (bro come on PLEASE)

You laugh at most of his advances because you find them silly and charming, but Montana is internally sobbing

It's very funny to listen to him get interrupted by whoever is within earshot because they all wish they had his confidence but none of them want to be like him

Sandman/Flink Marko is most frequently the one to run in and yell at him

"Hey, cowboy! Leave da girl alone!" and he'd bonk him over the head

and then he would immediately start asking if he could help

he is only polite when it comes to you

"you uhhh... want me ta hold that for ya?"

"Oh, sure. Thanks, Flint!"

sobbing cryig PLEASE HE JUST WANTS TO HOLD YOUR HAND

along with doing suit upgrades and repairs, you also work around the base repairing electronics and other unspecified repairables

very often, Rhino/Alex O'Hirn will struggle with the smaller things like microwave settings and computer keyboards and cellphones and tv remotes an

he asks for help a lot exclusively from you (he is very obvious)

he probably breaks things just to go talk to you because he doesn't know how to properly strike up a convo with this person he has such a crush on

"..........Yn? I think da remote's gooked up again..........."

"[sigh] bring it here, Alex."

Electro/Max Dillon is where things get a little funny, though

he is a being of pure electricity, he has no real 'physical form'

(eighth grade me had a fat crush on tssm electro dhmu)

but wearing the insulator suit, he's able to actually participate in day-to-day activities

like dropping hints to his oblivious electrician

I like to think they spend a bit of time together because, yk,,, electro

and through all of these, he always admires her whenever she patches up something after he accidentally shorts it out

she's never upset with him, but she's firm enough to be respected

"I'll wear the gloves next time, I'm sorry. I'd rather have you on my hands, though. ;)"

"I won't always be here to help you make food! Why depend on me??"

"wait what"

he literally is completely and totally smitten I'm sorry but this man wants nothing more than to give you a kiss

it's very difficult to, however (for obvious reasons) and so he lives in constant torment

Vulture/Adrian Toomes would quickly come in and laugh at him for blowing up the microwave

"Now, dear, don't waste your time with this dolt. I require your help."

",,,,,,let me order a replacement and I'll be right there, doctor"

I think he began to have a crush on you when he realized you actually respected him

Otto is the only one that treats him like an actual retired doctor, but now this charming young lady does too?

You make him feel so young <:) your positivity is quick to spread to this grumpy old man

You often are asked to help Doc Ock/Otto Octavius with work on his actuators

You're no nuclear scientist, but he's always happy to explain to you anything you ask him about

You have been taught things by him that have never left the walls of MIT before (knowledge is power)

"Initially, these were created for the handling of radioactive materials from a safe distance. They've proven useful for many other things as well. Like felonies."

"Though I can't condone, I understand."

He LOOOOVES how respectful and kind you are

ong mans has been starved of that for like 20 years

you remind him of his humanity

He literally will just grab you with the actuators and pull you to his lab if you aren't working

no one else says a word he is the one lawmaker in his house

they all literally know the rest of them like you too but I'm getting like sitcom vibes from this and I am obsessed with it

[cryptidcasanova]

Behind the Curtain (5)

TASM!Dark!Andrew!Peter Parker

Peter Parker x F! Reader Series

Warnings: Dubious intent, Deception, Recreational Drugs, Adult themes. Future Smut, Sex Pollen, Violence, Yandere.

Summary: Peter was slow to admit it, but after Gwen’s death he stopped pulling his punches. He sought out vengeance at every turn and no robber, mobster, or off-brand ne’erdowell was left in peace.

He embraced, no, incited the violence. The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was a vigilante.

This is Peter Parker’s villain origin story.

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - 4k Words -

There was a shift in Peter.

He was spending less of his time fighting crime and more of it in his lab. He kept his old chemistry journals and flasks of experiments close by and was more than eager to make something beyond the merit of his web fluid.

He loved the science behind the curtain. He was passionate about it.

But first, he would have to break it down to the basics.

Peter knew that he could protect you as Spider-Man. He knew how to do that and was good at that. But he needed to keep you close and could use some help with that when Spider-Man couldn't always be around.

He needed something to keep you thinking about him - something to draw you to him. And in his studies, Peter found that certain spiders could attract other animals, mates, prey in a lucrative way.

Pheromones. Pheromones were a powerful tool. 

And he was betting that his pheromones were powerful too. The chemistry was there; he would just need to give it a little push. 

When the beaker he had been mixing shifted in color from a murky brown to an iridescent golden hue Peter knew it was the right call. His heart was hammering out of his chest. His eyes were dark, wild with excitement.

He could pull it off. He could have the life he deserved.

It was just chemistry, after all.

"Why don't you stay?" May offered one evening, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.  

You had dropped off a plate of cookies at her place, leaving your apartment just as the snow had started falling, but by the time you made it to her house you were chilled to the bone. You should have called for a cab. But May was a sweetheart, and she was more than eager to welcome you in.  

"Come inside. You can warm up. We made some coffee to go with the cookies."  

You contemplated it full-heartedly. You didn't want to overstep your professional relationship, but then again, what harm could it really do? May had never been anything but courteous. With a slow smile, you agreed and watched as her face lit up.  

It wouldn't cause any harm to stay.  

One by one the ladies arrived, catching up on the gossip from the week and applauding your talented bakes before diving into the book club.  

You wondered how they focused at all.  

Between giggles and storytelling, the old ladies were bouncing from one subject to another.  

"Oh, you know how Ben is. He's trying to keep himself busy." May shook her head. He had been trying to insulate the basement all on his own.  

"Well, that must be nice, May," One woman hummed thoughtfully. "Earl can hardly get his ass off the couch." There was a round of rumbles, mainly in agreement.  

"Oh, to be married."  

Snickers filled the room.

"What about you, honey?" The lady to your left, Sandra, jibbed loudly. She was on her third cookie and was practically sinking into the couch. "Surely you must be seeing someone."  

You indulged them in their revelry, leaning in with a toothy grin.  

"Me? Finding a fella in this neighborhood?" You feigned a scoff. "It's never gonna happen." 

There was a round of soft laughter.�� 

"Oh come on, you're such a beautiful thing."  

"I'm surprised no one has snatched you up yet."  

You smirked at their antics. They were just like a group of school girls.

"Now there's always that cute nephew of yours, May." Sandra looked down the bridge of her own glasses with a deceptively sweet wink.  

You watched as May's smile turned bashful, shaking her head excitedly.  

"Oh no, no. Don't you go putting ideas in my head!" She paused, a far-off look in her eye. "He's gone and buried his nose in his work. I don't even know the last time he talked to a girl."  

There was another round of uproar. You looked across the room to where May's cheeks had gone pink. She was clearly embarrassed to talk about it.  

"Who knows," You chimed in softly, breaking the attention away from May, "Maybe one of these days a dashing debonair will snatch me away. But I'm not waiting on anybody." 

But that wasn't entirely true. 

You were waiting for something, right? You fought off the frown creeping into your cheeks. 

The thought of Spider-Man made your belly uneasy. You didn't want to be waiting for him. That night he left your apartment he left you feeling so small, so insignificant, and it was like ice in your veins. It broke you out of whatever spell he had you under.

Weeks had passed. He left you alone.

No, you reassured yourself, you didn't need to be waiting on him.  

"Besides," You added as an afterthought, breaking you from your train of thought. "Who will take care of you ladies then? I can't leave you high and dry."  

"Certainly not." One of the other ladies agreed.  

The night went on just the same, with innocent jokes and jovial company. You actually enjoyed yourself, letting loose and enjoying the festivities.  

You took a cab home, and by the time it dropped you off at the front of your apartment you were blissfully dazed.  

The cold didn’t bother you. The snow didn’t bother you. It was beautiful. But when you lost your footing in the snow and tripped, it was with a nervous laugh that you let yourself fall back into the snow pile.  

But the impact never came. 

With a surprisingly strong tug, you were pulled up to your feet in a flurry, a steady grip around your waist. You opened your eyes to find Peter standing there, looking down at you with big eyes. He was holding you, suspending you above the cold ground. 

“Oh!” You were surprised, looking up to him with wide eyes. He caught you off guard. “Hey, Peter.”  

Your glossy expression and lazy smile made his shoulders relax, and you noticed the way his eyes shifted from being on alert to curious.  

“Hey,” He offered, biting back a shy grin. 

Peter’s honeyed eyes scanned your face, and you watched as his expression shifted again. His realization came out as a breathless laugh. You could see the cold puff of air dissolve up into the streetlights. 

“Are you stoned?” He asked lightly, but you could see the humor in his eyes.

Not trusting yourself to not sound ridiculous you smiled, bringing your index finger and thumb close together.

Just a little. 

You didn’t expect Peter to throw his head back with a breathless grin, but you were blindsided by the crinkle in his eyes and the way his chest rumbled with laughter. 

It was a pretty sound. A very pretty sound. 

Snow was sticking to his hair and his eyelashes and his jacket, and you appreciated it through the yellow glow of the streetlight. It was pretty. Peter was pretty. 

Maybe the ladies were right. Maybe you needed some dashing debonair to save you from the snow.

“You alright?” He asked, shaking you from your stupor. 

You looked up to him again, blinking gently, before giving him a little boop on the nose with your index finger.

“Never better.”

You steadied your feet underneath you and got your footing right before pulling away from Peter, spinning in a half-circle to look back at the snow piling up. You didn’t notice the way he reluctantly let go. You were too distracted by the scenery. 

It really was a beautiful night. You weren’t ready to go inside just yet. With a careful step, you crouched down, sitting on the stairsteps of the building.

With a grin on your lips, you watched the snowflakes fall. You were enamored by all of it. The snow fell gently, muting the noise of the city. 

“You’re going to catch a cold.” Peter mused, but you shook it off with a shake of your shoulders.

“You’re going to catch a cold.” You taunted lightly, leaning back against the steps. Half of you had a mind to invite him to sit next to you, but you noticed the backpack he wore. “Are you coming or going?” 

“Um, I’m,” Peter started, pausing as you caught his eye. He stuttered, but only slightly before patting the strap of his bag. “Work. I’ve got to work.”

You nodded on an exhale, watching your own puff of air dissolve up into the air.

“Well,” You drew out, giving him another lazy smile. “Have a nice night, Peter.”

He stayed for a moment longer, watching you with contemplation, before nodding his own goodbye. He walked away from the old apartments; the sounds of his steps were muffled by the snow.

He really was pretty, you mused, shaking your head at how ridiculous you were.

You stayed there for a little longer until the cold was starting to bite at your skin. You had your fun, but it was time to call it a night.

Playing in the snow was a mistake. 

The cold seeped through to the bone, and early the next morning you woke up with the chills. It blossomed into a fever, and a thunderous headache kept you in bed for most of the day. 

You should have listened to Peter. 

The snow clouds gave way to a sunny day, and the sun was starting to set by the time you felt enough energy to get out of bed and move around the house.

The next day you managed to make it down to the corner store for cold medicine. You didn’t know if it was the cold or any lingering effects of the edibles, but you couldn’t shake the groggy feeling. Perhaps it was the perfect mix of both.

You were so disoriented and just wanted to make it back up to your apartment uninterrupted, but it was just your luck that both Peter and Mr. Bruno were in the mailroom as you trudged back into the building. With an internal groan, you noticed how Peter waved in your direction. 

You let out a dry, sore laugh. You must have looked like a mess.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed myself the other night.” You told him, your voice scratchy. 

You didn’t have the energy to face him, looking down at your shoes with mild embarrassment. But you noticed Peter shaking his head out of the corner of your eye and you slowly looked his way.

“You didn’t, really.” He assured but paused, looking back at the landlord. 

If he wanted to say something else he bit his tongue, but you could have sworn you saw a shift in his eyes. 

“I hope you feel better.”

You offered him a nod and a tight smile before making it back upstairs.

The cold was more resilient than you thought, and you weren’t getting better as fast as you thought you would. You had to put your sales orders on hold, and unfortunately reschedule the immediate ones.

You just didn’t feel like baking. Your eyes were glossy and unfocused from the medicine, and you were convinced it wasn’t helping. You were pitiful. Sometimes you curled up on your couch until the chills were unbearable, and the rest of the time was spent sitting under the shower, wishing the steam would help. 

The next night you were curled up into a ball when you heard a knock on the door. With sluggish limbs, you brought the blanket you had with you, wrapped tight around your shoulders as you unlocked the deadbolt.

The fluorescents in the hallway were brighter than any of the lights in your apartment, and for a moment you had to readjust. There, looking down at you, Peter Parker was standing in the hallway with a gentle grin, holding a big bowl in his hands. 

“Soup helps.” He offered, holding out his hands. “I mean, at least I think it does. It used to help me.”

It wasn’t a takeout container - it was a beige ceramic bowl with brown flowers on it. It was old. Your parents used to have the same ones.

“You made this?” You whispered, reaching your arms out. 

“Family recipe.” He hummed out, his voice cutting off as your fingers brushed against his own as you grabbed the bowl. You noticed, your eyes drifting across his face with a mild concert. 

There was a cut on his cheek and a tired look in his eye. He must have been busy. He must have been tired. 

You probably didn’t look any better.

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

You took note of the way he shrugged it off like it was no big deal, you stopped him. You sure did appreciate it. There was a pause, and when you realized he wasn’t going to say anything you stood up straight. 

“It’ll be perfect. Thanks.” 

You couldn’t see the warmth in his cheeks from the way he shifted his weight, but he did shyly pull a hand through his hair. Peter wasn’t a man of many words.

He didn’t stay in the hallway for long, wishing you a better night with a gentle grin before slinking back into his apartment. But you lingered there, eyes wavering to his door before back down at the soup.

He was thoughtful. He was neighborly. But…you faltered. Was that all it was? 

You shook it off, too drowsy to think about it for too long.

On the fourth night, you were finally able to shake the fever. 

You thought about Peter, wanting to thank him because you thought the soup really did help, but when you went over to his place he wasn’t home. You could thank him another night, you resigned.

On the fifth night, you watched the news for the first time in a while. 

A part of you stayed away because you didn’t want to see any more stories of Spider-Man, but you wanted to know what was going on in the city. But somewhere in the back of your mind, you wanted to know he was okay, that he was still out there somewhere. 

It didn’t make any sense. You thought you were trying to get over him.

Instead, the Daily Bugle was raving about how other heroes were trying to bring justice to the vigilante in red. You paused, tightening your grip on the remote. There were more superheroes out there?

You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Peter knew better. 

He knew better than to take advantage of the situation you were in, to wait to roll out his plan until you felt better. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

He knew how to help you. He knew how to protect you.

And if a test batch of soup was his gateway into your life, so be it.

You had gotten a job offer that was big, too big to pass up. 

But deep down you knew it was a bad idea. It was a really bad idea, and not just because the mayor’s son asked if you could bake him a cake for his birthday.

He wanted you to drop it off at the Luxe, a seedy nightclub that his birthday party was going to be at. You should have said no, that it was too risky, but after your hiatus from being sick, the money he was willing to pay was too good to pass up.

The Luxe was not a place you wanted to be. You heard the rumors, of the gangs that frequented the club and the ladies that they kept, and the illicit activities that went on. 

For a fleeting moment, running into Spider-Man was the least of your worries. In fact, based on the news reports it sounded like he was laying low.

It was a late delivery on a Saturday night, and what you hoped was going to be a quick drop-off lingered on. The sleazy security guard made you uneasy, and the low lighting of the club only enhanced the feeling. 

You really didn’t want to be associated with anyone there. 

Once you were paid and dropped off the cake you made for the closest exit, a side exit of the building, before heading back home.

But you were still on edge. The transaction and the people and the stares made your stomach roll - it was too high profile, even for you. Maybe you should lay low for a little while.

"What's a little thing like you doing around here?" 

You froze to the spot, your head jerking up in the direction of the voice that pulled you from your thoughts. 

There were two men, both you recognized from the club. They were following you. 

“We haven’t seen you before.” One of the men garbled out. “What’s the rush? We could have some real fun.” 

“Yeah, where you goin’? Come here, doll,” The other man slurred, cooing at you with his index finger. 

The gesture made your body spike with adrenaline. Your head was spinning, thinking of which direction to run in. You weren’t trained for fight or flight situations. It was dark, and you were all alone.

Well, not entirely alone.

You couldn’t have known that Spider-Man was hiding in the shadows. But Peter couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe.

He watched as you froze up like a deer in the headlights, not fully aware of the men slinking in closer. On instinct alone, he acted, slinging a web to deflect one of the goons as he reached his arm out for you. 

“You don’t touch her. You don’t look at her. You stay the hell away from her.”

His words were fierce. His usual playfulness was gone. His words were a threat from the shadows.

You hardly had time to take note of it as Spider-Man swung down between you and the low life goons that were goading for your attention. He was creating a barrier. His shoulders were tense, and you noticed the way that he puffed up his chest. 

His body language was ferocious, dangerous even.

The men startled up at the attention they attracted, and while one of them backed off, the other man boiled with a fit of sudden anger.

“Why don’t you mind your own fuckin’ business for once, bug-boy?” The man asked, and before you knew it he was lunging at Spider-Man with a punch. But the hit never landed. It was deflected as Spider-Man kicked the legs out from under the goon. 

He made it look effortless.

Your shocked gasp pulled Spider-Man’s attention away from beating the goon to a pulp. And it was a good thing you did, because the other man doubled back, making it his intention to intervene between Spider-Man and his friend on the concrete. 

Spider-Man was going to have to make a tough decision - would he stay and fight? Or would he get you to safety? 

But the unbridled fear in your eyes made up his mind. He could stay and fight another day.

In a quick moment, you were pulled into Spider-Man’s embrace. He held you with one arm, the other swinging you both away from the safety of the ground and up into the air. 

The other man didn’t have time to strike, and you were long gone, holding onto Spider-Man for dear life.

“Hey, you still with me, MJ?” He asked as he frantically moved through the streets, tilting his head to check on you. 

But the nickname was lost to you as you held on tight, way too tight, as he swung past the buildings. You had to keep your eyes closed, your face buried in his shoulder. Spider-Man could feel the tension in your body.

“Hey, hey,” He calmly whispered, coming to a stop at last. “It’s okay, it’s over. They can’t get us up here.”

When you opened your, eyes he was right. 

You were on the rooftop of a building far away from the Luxe. Far from the riffraff below. 

"Oh my god," You finally let out the breath you had been holding, looking up at the mask with wide eyes. "You - oh my god.” 

Never in a million years could you imagine swinging through the city, running away from trouble with Spider-Man. You were overwhelmed. You were baffled.

“It’s okay,” he reassured quickly. “It’s going to be alright-”

“-That was amazing.” 

You cut him off, letting out a shaky breath.

"You scared the shit out of them, out of me.” You continued, putting a hand on your chest. “Did you see that guy's face? He fell flat like a pancake."

You were looking up with him with a baffled expression, trying to get your thoughts together. You were nervous but excited. Adrenaline was coursing through your veins.

It was only then that you realized that Spiderman was still holding you close, his arm still wrapped around your back. 

And he wasn’t letting go.

You were convinced that he could hear your heart hammering, but he looked as composed as ever. In fact, he was almost too calm. When he didn't move or say anything, you waved a hand in front of his face.

"Spider-Man?" You whispered, tugging on the material on his forearm. "Are you alright?"

But Peter didn't know if he was alright. 

Now that he knew you were safe, he was confronted with a darker fear. He was torn, still riding the wave of aggression.

He should have gone back and buried those club goons for even thinking of cornering you. And how quickly Peter came to that conclusion frightened him. 

He didn’t bat an eye at the violence of it. 

But then there was you. You were safe, and he had control of that. 

He snapped out of his rabbit hole as you tugged at his suit. It was grounding in a way, to know that you were close. 

You could feel the breath of his exhale through the mask, and he reluctantly nodded down at you.

"I'm alright." He reassured, and after a moment you could have sworn you heard him snicker. "That guy really did drop like a pancake, huh?"

You paused, noting his playful expression returning and letting his shoulders relax. You couldn’t help but smile up at him.

“I think the news is getting it wrong. I’m convinced you are more of a knight in shining armor than a hard-hitting vigilante.” You teased. Spider-Man’s hold was warm and strong, his hand slowly moving from your back to your hip.

“Well, maybe you just caught me on a good night.” He replied, and you could have sworn that he was grinning behind the mask. “Right place, right time, I suppose. Does that make you my damsel in distress?”

You bit the inside of your cheek thinking about it. The idea of it made you bite down a grin.

“You’re right. I suppose I am.” 

Spider-Man hummed out a gentle noise from the back of his throat. “My little MJ dealer in distress.”

For a moment it was quiet, the silence a welcome change of pace. When he gave your hip a light squeeze you looked back up to the mask.

“I’m not great at this,” Spider-Man admitted. His voice changed, lower now. He sounded far away, wrapped up in a tangled web of thoughts.

Spider-Man shifted, resting his other hand on your other hip. He leaned in, his mask inches away from your face. 

“Not great at what?” You dared to whisper. 

He tilted his head, reaching his hand up to cup your cheek.

Oh my god. Your turbulent feelings weren’t as one-sided as you thought. Your eyes drifted shut. You were leaning into the touch. You were -

“I should go.” He deflected. “I should back and teach those jerks a lesson. They have been trailing you since you left the club.”

Your initial adrenaline was swallowed up by a new, frightening, revelation. Spider-Man wasn’t there by coincidence. And as you opened your eyes you let out a shallow breath.

“How long have you been trailing me?"  

A/N: Hi sweetheart! It seems like everyone is feeling a little burnt out right now, and I’m right there too. 

If you’re feeling like you’re running on empty I hope today is kind to you. You so got this. Ily.

Taglist: @jemimah-b99 @thinkingth0ts @irrelevant-86 @irongoateedaddy @ponyboys-sunsets @jasontoddthezombie @dabi-s-whore @bloodred-writer @xprettyqueenx @anakins-angel @voidsunflower14 @babycollectionman @caramelcandescence @liz-allyn @bitchwhytho @rae-gar-targaryen  @priscillag8 @whatislifebutlemons​

[localcactushugger]

Does anyone else ever get sad thinking about the abuse Hawks went through as a kid? Because I keep making myself sad thinking about it.

It's so many different kinds of fucked up that just mixed together and created one huge toxic environment.

#1) The physical abuse.

Right off the bat, Chapter 299 starts with Keigo getting hit by his father for leaving the house. It doesn't actually show Keigo being smacked, instead it shows a panel of their "home". (although it's extremely small and looks more like a broken down shack in a field to me)

But the sound of the "smak" is very much punctuated in the panel, followed by Keigo hunched over with marks on his face:

The marks on his face are prevalent. Even in the smaller panel, Keigo still has a very obvious bruise under his eye and above his eyebrow.

THEN he gets kicked in the side/stomped on for "turning his back" on his father?? (Aka doing nothing. Literally what did he do?? Wtf?):

He's getting smacked and kicked around, but instead of crying or getting upset he just endures. Which brings me to:

#2) The Emotional and verbal abuse. (Strap in cause there's a lot of it.)

Keigo apologizes after his father kicks him for no reason, then he curls up into a ball, clings to his Endeavor plushy, and listens as his own father rants about how much he wishes that Keigo was never born.

^^^^^^^ LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID ASSHOLE. HE'S LITERALLY CLINGING TO HIS PLUSHY FOR COMFORT!! WHY ISN'T ANYONE HUGGING HIM??? CAN I HUG HIM??

Keigo says that he knew his parents were broken, so he endured because he wanted to avoid their fate.

Basically: "I know my parents are broken, but need to endure because I don't want to become broken too."

That's a horrible mindset for a child to have?? He's basically saying that he just needs to take the abuse and hope that he doesn't break because of it?

And I don't know how he wouldn't break from it with the way his parents talk to him, and all the horrible things they say:

The constant screaming/yelling. Like Shit.

"Don't do a damn thing!" " Who did you sell me out too?? You can't fool me!!" "Don't leave this house!" "Don't you dare lie to me!!" "Don't go talking to anyone!!" "You thought you'd get away with it didn't you??"

"How many times have I told you not to turn your back on me??"

"If only that punk was never born I'd be free."

"Why were you even born?" "Why do you even have those wings?"

He's gotten it from both parents. And every time it happens he just hugs his plushy a little tighter.

#3) The neglect.

In pretty much all panels of Keigo's home theres Trash everywhere. If you go back and look at the house there isn't a single panel without some kind of trash in the frame. I see beer bottles, wine bottles, wooden planks, trash bags, newspapers, dirty rags, dirty laundry hanging from the wall & hangers, floor boards coming up, leaks from the top of the walls.

The "house" is barely holding together as it is. It looks like it's about to collapse, and the inside makes you think a tornado ran through it. Nobody is bothering to clean up the mess. In fact the only person who seems to be patching up the house is Keigo. This seems to be a routine for him since he can be seen picking up a wooden plank to fix the wall. Too bad his father kicked him before he could repair the hole 🙃.

Seriously does the "house" even have running water? The windows are broken the walls are made of tin roofing tiles. Does it even have heating or insulation? It's obviously not suitable for a child. I'd be afraid that the roof was gonna fall on me while I was sleeping.

I understand they can't buy a proper home. But it wouldn't be so bad if someone acutely bothered to clean the inside a bit. At least maintain the house so your kid doesn't step on a nail, or glass from a beer bottle. IF A CHILD CAN PATCH UP A WALL SO CAN YOU. WHY IS KEIGO DOING ALL THE WORK?

You people are gonna get rats and bugs. (If you dont have them invading your "house" already)

And that's only the house.

What about Keigo? He doesn't even have shoes. His shirt is torn at the seams. And his parents didn't even notice when he left? Keigo's dad yelled at him for leaving the house and going outside, but was anyone even watching him in the first place? How does your child leave the house and make it halfway to the city before you notice? This little bird looks like he weighs 5 pounds! He's gonna get kidnapped!!

His mom is obviously unstable and she stares at the wall all day. And his dad hates him for existing. So I guess no one was watching him?

His mom also doesn't really seem to care when Keigo gets yelled at, hit, and kicked either. She just kinda stares at the wall. Then when her and Keigo become homeless and start living in a train station she guilt trips him into stealing for her. Like Really??

HE GOT INTO A CAR ACCIDENT TOO! You sent your child out to steal for you and he literally got into a car accident. He managed to save everyone involved but still, are trying to get your son hit by a truck? This is why I have so many mixed feelings about Tomie.

#4) Being held hostage in his own home.

This one is self explanatory. Keigo got hit in the face just for going outside. He was held hostage in his home for so long that he didn't even know heroes existed. And this is a society where heroes are everywhere. I'm sure it was a lonely childhood, kinda hard to make childhood friends when you get beaten just for leaving the house.

#5) Whatever the fuck "rough training" was.

I know we haven't seen Keigos "rough" training yet. Horikoshi only went into a little bit of detail about it when he mentioned that the commission taught Hawks negotiation skills as a kid. And then theres that one image in the Season 4 outro where Keigo has a blindfold on as a child during training.

But I still would like to know more.

Why would you put a child through "rough" training, strip him of his name, and tell him it's all because he's gonna become a "special hero" right after you've pulled him out of an extremely abusive situation. Like, you aren't gonna wait a bit? Preferably until he's a teenager? Not gonna give him therapy or something?

Isn't pulling a child out of an abusive situation and putting them through "rough training" kinda like transfering them from one abusive household to another?

LET THE BOY REST! LET THE KID BE A KID. YOU ONLY HAVE ONE CHILDHOOD AND HE'S ALREADY MISSED OUT ON MOST OF HIS!!

The training can wait.

If you want help him and support his family, do it out of the kindness of your heart and not because you think he'd be a useful hero.

I honestly don't know how this "training" went for Keigo, but considering that he doesn't currently have the best relationship with the HPCS . . . Well I don't know. All I know is that he never really seems too happy around people from the commission. He doesn't seem to agree with any of their ideologies either.

Honestly I just want him to find peace!

Based on what we've seen so far, (*cough* especially from the Todoroki family *cough*) you really shouldn't be training a child to become a hero in the first place. The training can start as a teenager if someone chooses to train.

Look at the way you massacred my boy! Give the kid a break for fucks sake!!

And these are just the early years. Don't get me started on everything else ✋🙄