#but please do me and so many others the god damn decency to allow us to curate our social media experiences

[hexiewrites]

i am literally fucking begging people to do the bare fucking minimum and TAG YOUR POSTS that could be potentially upsetting to people

yes, that includes post about what is happening in the middle east

i don't want to hear your weak fucking excuses - NEWS FLASH, there are people on tumblr who live in parts of the world where this is their daily experience, and maybe they are here (like the fucking rest of us) following FANDOM BLOGS to get a literal FUCKING BREAK from the actual and legitimate fucking HORRORS of the world

so tag. your. SHIT. PLEASE.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 294: A Half-Assed Escape

Previously on BnHA: Mirio was all “SURPRISE I’M BACK THANKS TO OUR RESIDENT SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO RECENTLY EARNED HER BACHELOR’S OF BEING A TOTAL BADASS.” Kacchan was all, “you know what, Dabi’s been trending long enough, time to remind the fandom what a real G looks like,” and he blasted his little bleeding body back into the fray and was all “FROM HERE ON OUT CALL ME DYNAMIGHT!!” Mirio was all, “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... oh, you’re serious,” and Kacchan was all “!!”, and so that’s the story of how my son got murdered twice in one day. Meanwhile in the Todoroki Drama Zone, Deku was all “STOP MURDERING MY FRIEND” and Dabi was all “THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” and fandom had a whole big debate about Whether Or Not Dabi Trying To Murder Deku’s Friends And Mentors Is Any Of Deku’s Business, which went exactly how you think it went. Anyway, so then Deku yelled at Dabi, and Endeavor was all moved by his manly words and randomly went to go uppercut Machia in the chin. And, seeing as how the Momoserum finally chose that exact moment to kick in, Machia is now down for the count.

Today on BnHA: The Miriosquad handles the Nearly High End Noumus, freeing up Jeanist to jasphyxiate (okay that one doesn’t really work so well) the rest of the League. Compress is all “TIME FOR THIS MILD-MANNERED SIDE CHARACTER VILLAIN TO SHINE”, except that by “shine” what he actually means is “use his quirk to punch a literal hole right through his own ass to free himself.” The rest of the chapter is basically just a back and forth between him and Jeanist, with Jeanist trying to recapture him, and Compress repeatedly thwarting him by chopping more holes out of himself because HE’S FRESH OUT OF FUCKS, AND THE ONES AT THE STORE ARE ALL SOLD OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS. Anyway, so with Compress basically dying and all, Horikoshi is all “you know what that means”, and delivers a freshly-baked villain flashback revealing that Compress is a descendant of Harima Ouji, a.k.a. the Peerless Thief, a.k.a. some famous guy whom Gentle mentioned this one time for like two seconds back in the day. The chapter ends with Compress finally demasking himself and dumping Tomura back onto the ground, a.k.a. The Worst Possible Place For Tomura To Be. ( •﹏•)

WHY IS CRUST HERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD

-- OH WAIT, SHIT. OH

AIZAWAAAA you’re alive and receiving medical help thank GOD. HOW MANY EYES DO YOU HAVE. AND MIRKO!! HOW MANY LIMBS DO YOU HAVE, OMG

so is this Aizawa dreaming about Crust’s final moments, then?? jesus. with All Due Respect to Crust’s memory, does Aizawa not already have enough misplaced guilt on his conscience as it is?? “nope, we’re gonna keep piling it on. that’s all he is now. three limbs, an indeterminate number of eyes, sexy hair, and Guilt” well shit

motherfucker y’all really out here placing an oxygen mask on Gran Torino’s corpse. fucking shounen characters. each one comes with a lifetime warranty

DAMN YOU HORIKOSHI WHY DO YOU KEEP SHOWING THESE CLOSE-UPS OF HAWKS’S UNCONSCIOUS FACE ALL WHUMPED OUT AND EXHAUSTED. HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS ARE WE GOING TO GET. ARE YOU PLANNING ON KILLING ME WITH THE UPCOMING CONVALESCENCE ARC, BECAUSE IF SO, AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO TELL ME AHEAD OF TIME SO I CAN MAKE A WILL

for a moment I considered going back and checking my previous recaps to count how many times I’ve already made a joke about Dabi’s fire incinerating Hawks’s wings but not touching so much as a hair on his five o’clock shadow, so that I could calculate whether or not I could possibly get away with making that same joke one more time. but then I realized I could just do it in this kind of roundabout way I’m doing right now instead. so there you have it

FFFFFFFMT LADY AND MIDNIGHT NOOOOO

PLEASE BE ALIVE. PLEASE RESPECT THE SIGN ON THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING. THE ONE THAT SAYS “NO LADY CHARACTERS ALLOWED TO DIE”, WITH THE FINE PRINT AT THE BOTTOM “AT LEAST NOT UNTIL HORIKOSHI GIVES US LIKE TWENTY-SIX MORE OF THEM FIRST IF THAT’S THE WAY HE WANTS TO PLAY IT.” IT’S A GOOD SIGN, PLEASE RESPECT ITS WISHES!!

so anyway though, Jeanist is giving a speech about how god knows how many people all worked together to bring Machia down. and now RHA is getting in on those fabric puns too, I see. “A SINGLE STRAND MAY BE THIN BUT TOGETHER THEY FORM A STRONG ROPE” oh so you think you guys are funny eh? I’m a frayed knot

MEANWHILE EXCUSE ME BUT WHY ARE YOU FUCKING CRYING BLOOD, HOLY SHIT

fffffff. so much for him taking over as the Number One once all this is over. so let’s just recap real quick, because Horikoshi has long since made it clear that one of his plot goals for this arc is to wipe out every single member of the Billboard Top Ten. so how we doin?

Endeavor - was just figuratively eviscerated in front of the entire nation by his homicidal zombiepunk son. also burnt half to death and possibly down a lung. will almost certainly be forced to retire after this one way or the other

Hawks - lying prettily in a medical tent. wings status: gone. hair status: still perfect

Jeanist - WELL I THOUGHT HE WAS FINE BUT APPARENTLY HE’S OUT HERE DYING, JESUS CHRIST

Edgeshot - MIA, last seen fighting Re-Destro. I really want him to have kicked RD’s ass because fuck that guy, but realistically they probably fought to a draw at best

Mirko - alive but in critical condition and missing something like 1.5 limbs

Crust - dead, currently haunting Aizawa’s traumatized dreams. now he’s gonna be triggered the rest of his life by people giving him the thumbs up, THANKS A LOT

Kamui Woods - was set on fire which is His Weakness. thoughts and prayers

Wash - last seen floating hospital patients to safety as Tomura’s wave of decay descended towards him. probably dead ffff

Old Man Samurai - haven’t seen this fucker in a hot minute, who even knows where he’s wandered off to

Ryuukyuu - currently being treated for her wounds, looked pretty bad off. but it’s hard to tell how hurt she is since most of the injuries were acquired in her transformed state. SHE BETTER GET WELL SOON

anyways, so yeah. so much for the top ten. guess that’s another reason Horikoshi brought Mirio back now, huh

so there’s a big panel of everyone fighting the Noumu while Machia lies there all “blurgh.” good riddance my dude. it took like twenty chapters and a hundred people to stop this guy so I really fucking hope he stays down. you’ve had your fun

anyway so Jeanist is sending another steel thread towards Dabi! and he’s all “just a bit more!!” fklklj this is gonna go real well isn’t it

meanwhile Mirio’s fighting a Nearly High End with all of these weird rock formations jutting out of its skin. go on and kick his ass then, Mirio

“each of these guys is probably just as strong as the Noumu from Kyuushuu” hold on I thought Ujiko or Tomura or someone said that wasn’t the case? not that Mirio would know I suppose. anyways let’s just hope he’s wrong cuz if not these kids are probably screwed

kLSDKFHLSKHGLKLK OH MY GODDDD

IIDA FUCKING TENYA YOU’RE A PEACH. THINKS THE NAME IS OUTRAGEOUS, CHECK. USES IT ANYWAY, CHECK. “JUST BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T BE SUPPORTIVE.” WHAT A CLASS ACT

AND KACCHAN IS RESPONDING WITH AS MUCH DIGNITY AS HE CAN MUSTER

WOW, SON. IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, OR SOMETHING!! although listen up, real talk, the fact that Kacchan of all people can’t muster the energy to yell at someone questioning his ability to kick ass is HIGHKEY troubling and we may be in need of an intervention here soon :/

now Jeanist is finally turning his attention to the League! was... was it not already on the League. omg

ACTUAL SCREAMING AHHHHHH FUCK FUCKLK LK AHHLKHKFFFF

hey so um. what the actual fucked up hell. my soul left my body. imagine if you saw the reflection of this panel on your bedroom window. you would never sleep again

OKAY RHA TRANSLATORS ARE YOU HAVING YOURSELF A LAUGH AGAIN

THIS CANNOT BE WHAT HE’S ACTUALLY SAYING RIGHT. BUT IT’S RIGHT IN THAT UNCANNY VALLEY OF NOT BEING QUITE SURE, THOUGH... (　ﾟдﾟ)

(ETA: just a next-day clarification here, apparently my sleep-deprived ADHD word-skipping brain completely skipped right over the “a” in that last panel, so what I read was, “and Shigaraki’s limp noodle.” so yeah, the moral of this story is always read the speech bubble carefully before you start making running jokes throughout the rest of your post, folks.)

oh wow he’s really freaking out lmao

to be fair though, I’d argue that Dabi has gotten pre-tty close at this point :’) thrilled for him, really I am

but anyway, well then figure something out you big dramatic robot-armed fiend. didn’t you just say you could touch your own ass? can you not just Compress yourself to break free?? does it not work on you? or would you be stuck afterwards lol

(ETA: I was picturing him compressing his entire body at once, not just chunks of it. ghhhlkh.)

um

holy shit Jeanist. are you stupidly trying to cut off their air, or are you going for more of a sleeper hold (jleeper hold??) thing instead. the latter would be way smarter and faster and probably safer as well just saying

but unless Spinner is just being super dramatic, it sure looks like he’s fucking strangling them djslkjlk. this will certainly cement his popularity among the villain stans. good thing you’re not running for office any time soon bud

anyway so I have no idea what these guys are trying to do now. what is this

do you even have till the count of 5 at this rate. I mean

OH MY GOODNESS

HE’S REALLY FUCKING DOING IT!! HE’S COMPRESSING HIS BUTT!! OMFG. TOMURA HIDE YOUR NOODLE!!!

WHAT THE FUCK

DID YOU COMPRESS A PIECE OF YOUR OWN ASS. FUCKING WHAT. PUT THIS MAN’S PICTURE IN THE DICTIONARY NEXT TO THE WORD “LOYALTY”, HOLY CRAP

HOLY SHIT COMPRESS

“HOLY SHIT DID THAT GUY JUST PUNCH A HOLE THROUGH HIS OWN ASS IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS VILLAIN PALS. FUCK IT, HE DESERVES TO ESCAPE”

jeez, talk about... A HALF-ASSED ESCAPE ATTEMPT :D :D :D hahaha. but real talk though, Horikoshi has clearly never tried to leap twelve feet straight up in the air multiple times in succession with only half his glutes though. everyone, I regret to inform you that this panel right here on the left may be slightly unrealistic

also where the hell is he going to go?? did you pack a jetpack away in one of those little marbles sir. and what about Dabi?? and Skeptic too, I guess, but we don’t really care about Skeptic

(ETA: at this point I had to stop reading for about two hours because I had to go out and take care of something; that’s also why this is being posted later than usual lol. anyways so where were we.)

oh my lord

the existence of a translator’s note here implies that the earlier line about Compress being able to reach Tomura’s junk was not, in fact, ad-libbed. hmm. hmmmmmmmm

anyway so now he’s grabbing Compress again because OF COURSE HE IS, so now we’re right back to square one! except now Tomura and Spinner are secured inside of little marbles, and presumably Compress is the only one who can release them

oh nevermind he’s just maiming himself again instead, SHEESH

Skeptic a man is dying please have some goddamn respect

so, uh. is he gonna die, though??

I really can’t tell wtf is going on here, this is the most confusing the art has been in a while. Horikoshi put all of his spoons into that creepyass close-up panel earlier, that bastard

OMG WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS

DON’T FUCKING TELL ME THE “COMPRESS IS RELATED TO THIS THIEF GUY FROM OLDEN TIMES” THEORY IS ACTUALLY TRUE WHAAAAAAT. OH SHIT

so apparently Harima was a Robin Hood type guy who stole from... heroes?? wtf. are heroes the 1% in this scenario. y’all didn’t have any Fortune 500 CEOs to steal from?

THAT’S THE BLOOD THAT FLOWS THROUGH YOU, OH SHIT. and in a related oh shit, the fact that we are getting a Compress flashback now of all times doesn’t bode super well for him. ffff

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKIS ARE STILL TODOROKI-ING

listen here boy if you touch one freaking hair on Shouto’s candy cane head I swear to god --

WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY!!!

SHOUTO NOOOOOO. WTF YOU’RE LITERALLY THE ONE GUY WHOSE WEAKNESS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FIRE. DABI YOU SHIT, YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF!! I’M PRINTING OUT A COPY OF THAT COMPRESS PANEL!!! KEEP AN EYE OUT ON THAT BEDROOM WINDOW YOU PUNK!!!

SO NOW POOR SHOUTO IS UNCONSCIOUS AND FALLING!! SOMEONE SAVE HIM!! WHO CATCHES THE CATCHER

COMPRESS LITERALLY HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE RIGHT NOW, WHAT IS HAPPENING

PLEASE DON’T CALL TOMURA LEADER OF THE “PLF” YOU KNOW I CAN’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU DO THAT. ARE YOU DYING. ARE YOU JUST A FUCKING HEAD NOW WTF

(ETA: “masks are removable, makeste” you know what it’s been a long day okay lmao. or I suppose Compress is really the one who is lmao.)

GASPPPPPP

okay. okay. looooool okay then

WHY WERE YOU COVERING THIS SEXY MOP OF HAIR UNDER THAT HOOD YOU TOOL. IT WOULD HAVE LOOKED SO GOOD WITH THE TOP HAT. I’M SO MAD AT YOU RIGHT NOW

as if it wasn’t enough for him to demask himself, he also had to get all shirtless and then do this weird attempt at a sexypose too huh

hard to say exactly how much of his torso is currently missing, but safe to say that’s proooooooobably not good. :///// fuck

on the other hand, Kacchan also has a torso hole and he’s still flying around like he just drank a dozen red bulls, so

this man lost his ass and he’s still out here monologuing like it’s the last two minutes of The Prestige. one might say he is monologuing his ass off

so he let Spinner and Tomura free, but is Dabi still trapped in his marble?? wasn’t he all on fire and stuff?? hopefully he can still turn off his quirk in there because if not that’s a pretty fucked up way to die. somewhere out there Snatch’s ghost is all “YEAH I’LL SAY.” oh how the turntables

last but not least, sooooooo. Tomura. back on the ground. that’s. um. ...shiiiiiiiit

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Drowning 6 pretttttry please. Your writing is amazing, honest to god. Wish I had your talent. Keep writing!!!!

Thank you for the ask and lovely message ❤

Drowning Part 6

Masterlist

This one is a tad different that the other parts, some segments are in from Supervillain's POV which are very vague because they are meant have an altered state feel to them. You also learn a lot about Villain and Hero's past in this one.

@shydragonrider @asrasmysoulmate

Warnings: unreality, wheelchair, schizophrenia, elecric shocking, hallucinations, hate towards another, possessiveness, restraints, drugged whumpee, sick whumpee

~

Supervillain emerged from whatever fluid contraption held him in place. His body went numb, pins and needles filling every limb, every muscle like wildfire.

But, nearly as quick as he broke the surface, he fell back in...

Falling...

Falling...

Falling...

His body seized up, a ringing in his ears... then he hit solid ground, his body going slack. Nearly immediately, he felt conscious of the tubes and moniters embellishing him like ornaments and garland on a Christmas tree.

His lead-filled mouth yanked open on its own free will, trying to force a scream out, but his tongue only managed a hoarse whimper.

He jerked his head about, finding it laid nearly on a pillow, but another trap locked his head in. He clenched his hands, but his body was already falling back into the sea- all feeling washed away by the waves.

Sand. He felt sand in his body, dehydrating and numbing, as consciousness was snatched away from him once again. The tubes faded, as did the traps- leaving Supervillain with an empty void.

He had a sense, but couldn't remember what happened in brief moments of waking like this. He hardly recognized the difference between unconsciousness and consciousness and if he did, it wouldn't matter. He never could escape. Never could escape the agonizing water in and around his body.

All he could do was fall.

Fall back into the water.

《~~》

"Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them," a voice spoke. Hero had given up on trying to tell apart the various differences between the countless heroes and doctors that spoke to her on a daily basis. Trying to just intoxicated her mind with a weird feeling of displeasure and annoyance that couldn't be placed. It was right in between her eyebrows, where she would have a unibrow if she didn't wax it all the time in highschool.

"Do you know who wrote that quote, Hero? Hmm?"

Hero didn't respond. Why would she? It gave her no clearance, no escape, no epic prison break that one may expect from such a person of stengths and wits. She just sat there, limbs tied to the ground by unrelenting steel, her head angled to watch the suffering man on the bed slowly fade away with persistent illness and everyday drugs.

"Bruce Lee," the speaker answered the question after quickly realizing that Hero wasn't going to.

Hero tuned out of the conversation, leaving it as background noise as she studied the scene in front of her. Supervillain was hooked up so many moniters, it was as if he was in a coma. Hero twitched her jaw. Maybe he was. The ventilation and feeding tube stuck all the way down his nose and mouth, opening it forcibly, definitely made that thought come alive.

Hero did this a lot, zoning out whenever someone tried to talk to her. Her once vibrant personality and optimism was dampered, replaced by a dull depression. Even Villain, who watched Hero daily, was getting nervous of this rapid decline in attitude- not that Hero knew of her betrayer's thoughts and emotions. To her, in this foggy hole of misery, Villain was an outcasted shadow, adding depth to the painting, but never a main topic. Heck, if she didn't concentrate, she didn't even see the light shade on the white surface.

There was only Supervillain.

But even that has changed, and not just in the extra moniters and tubes, but her whole aspect of him. He was the cause of her pain, he was the cause of the insufferable cloud that ascended over her.

There was no fondness in the way she viewed him anymore, just resentment. The deepest kind of resentment that could also be described as despising.

But even that was an understatement.

One day, a movement drew Hero out of her hate-filled thoughts and back into reality. It was Villain, playing with something by her wrist.

"Back off," she snarled, her voice sounding unnaturally deep and cracky.

"And so she speaks." The glint in his eyes revealed the sarcasm that his monotonous voice hid. "How are you Hero?"

Hero snarled, raising her lips in an animalistic manner, but didn't reply. Once her wrist was let go, the unused muscles allowed it to flop aimlessly against her equally thining thigh. She was fed yes, a vile piece of bland, moist garbage that gave her body its much needed vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, but lack of use degraded the once hefty muscle.

Villain worked on each of the restraints. Each arm fell limp as her legs splayed out, thankful for the break from the locked position they were kept in. When her head was let free, it flopped, her neck unable to keep it up.

Villain steadied her, putting his hand unceremoniously against the base of her neck. Hero squirmed, aware of her vulnerability.

"The door with the exit sign is unlocked," he whispered, so close to her ear that Hero cringed.

At first, her brain using its old habit, began to block out his words, but suddenly stopped and rewinded, shoving them back to the front of her mind.

Unlocked...

She could get out.

Villain helped her into a nearby wheelchair and was about to wheel her away when a strand of her empathetic nature fought against the newfound distant demeanor.

"What 'bout Supervillain?" She asked, her voice a weak whisper.

"This is for you," Villain replied casually grinning down at Hero, happy that she was back to somewhat normal.

Hero sunk into the plushy cushioning of the seat and looked at Supervillain's still figure and snarled. Ha, he didn't get to leave. She did. She got to escape the inhumane confines that kept her bound up like a trapped goat.

He didn't. He could now pay for his crimes.

Yet, as stubborn as this thoughts of retribution sounded, they weren't. That sympathizing portion of her protested against the new arrangement. And, being the stronger of the two opposites, it left her tongue in forms of coherent words.

"I won't leave him," she said, her heart bursting. Whether the internal explosion was due to anticipation or exaltation, it don't matter. It felt natural, like herself.

"You really don't have a choice."

"Why do you want me free?" Hero asked.

"This place is the definition of boring."

Hero was silent and contemplated Villain's statement. He really didn't care about her levels of bore and joy, never did. Any interaction or any relationship that the two once cherished was borne of platonic care of the other's well-being. Nothing too deep, and barely held any real intent. Are you alive? Are you dead? Were the only two questions that brought along any vowels of conversing.

It was weird, abnormal. Hero might've even went as far as to say suspicious.

But it was also promising. Very, very promising. It held the possibility of freedom that the chair did not.

But he was Villain. He did not have one ounce of good will or honesty in his cold veins. He was a liar, a cheat, and as much as she would've loved to call them friends, it was close to impossible. They couldn't build a relationship off of trickery as much as the two once wanted to.

This was a scheme, a lie, to get to Hero and make her mess up. Mess up and then she gets hurt.

Or worse, Supervillain does.

That thought stood out from the rush of others in her brain for it held an interesting style to it. As close as she was to the old Hero and away from the shadow that "choosing who gets hurt" made her into, she wasn't it yet.

Not yet.

"Boring, but I am alive," Hero retorted, rolling her eyes as well as the stiff rectus muscles in her eyes allowed.

"That is otherwise obvious." Villain placed a hand on the barred door that only purpose served as an aesthetic.

"Yeah, in a way I suppose, but Supervillain isn't."

"He's breathing."

"He sleeps all day and when he does manage to wake, he passes out almost immediately. I need to stay with him!"

"You do nothing but glare daggers at him. You are released dear."

"No, you are not helping me escape from this damn place!"

Villain was silent, paused in the motion of pushing the door open.

"Amidst your utter hate for him, you still have the decency to protect him; Hero there is nothing to protect. With one simple flick of a switch, he is dead," Villain pointed out, turning to Hero with tears in his icy blue eyes that Hero once found gloriously gorgeous. Ones that she used to gaze into as they fought, unable to tear herself away. She lost many fights that way by being too distracted to actually land a punch.

But the innocence of that gaze was really just hiding the fact that Villain was a scandalous bastard- only giving half-truths and fake emotions about everything.

"Then why do you give him the serum. You guys know that I won't hurt those civilians," Hero pointed out with a shrug.

Villaim remained silent and wheeled Hero out of the room.

《~~》

Supervillain seemed to always arouse when the nurses swarmed him to administer the vile liquid that plagued his veins with nauseating adrenaline. He felt the hot- not warm, but scorching hot- drug enter his veins.

But it wasn't the beginning, the actual pain of the procedure, that caused Supervillain his horrifying misery. It was afterwards and he wasn't thinking of the dizzying fatigue that usually pushed him into another deep sleep, but the memories it brought.

Some were nostalgic, others taut with grief. Others held regret while some even had remnants of agonizing torture he once endured.

Or gave.

But they were never happy, nor comforting to any degree.

So, when a reverie of kind touch swarmed Supervillain's sensations, his lethargic heart started to pump in rocket speed, motorizing the boat to accelerate...

"Go to sleep."

Hero's voice. One that brought him so much comfort. Hands scratched at his scalp and he felt his heavy eyelids drop.

"I'll be hear when you wake up," Hero lulled, humming softly as the sweet scent of vanilla hit Supervillain's scent receptors. He smiled, the tiniest of grins and nuzzled his nose into her warm, fleece sweater.

But, even delirous as he was, in the back of his head, Supervillain knew this was a vision. A hallucination. The model of schizophrenia that the drug brought upon his mind.

But it was just so real.

So he gave in, purposely allowing himself to be washed away by the unreality of the dream.

Because he loved it. He loved the touch as if it was actually real.

A warm figure slid next to his body wrapping its- her- arms around his shivering body. Phony yes, it gave stability as the fatigue pushed itself to its maximum.

As consciousness dripped away, Supervillain hummed slightly, happy with the feeling.

《~~》

Hero's hand buzzed over the door, considering the possibilities of opening it, but in the end, she blatantly refused.

"No," she said, her old self returning. "I am not going to leave Supervillain."

Villain's eyes widened, chin shaking.

"You care for him?" He asked, voice slightly elevated like a flute's pitch. Such a change from the droning audibles that usually slugged off his tongue. "Like actually."

Hero's brows crunched together as she read Villain's new face expressions. Blond hair draped down to his pointed eyebrows where it slightly curled. Tears seemed to well in his azure eyes.

"Are you crying?" Hero asked, scoffing, but in reality, she cared.

Cared a whole bunch.

"It's just," Villain stepped forward, leaning down and resting his hand on Hero's shoulder. His other hand balanced delicately against the holster of whatever weapon he carried.

Suddenly, without warning, his hand shot up and an bolt of electricity flashed through her body. Hero fell forward, screaming and withering on the floor.

Villain leaned forward, breath warm against her sweaty cheek. "You are mine Hero. I won't ever let you hold, or care for Supervillain again," he growled, bringing thr taser back to Hero's neck. "Goodnight, my love."

The electric shock came again, and the world descended into blackness.

[vi-writes-stuff]

All I've Ever Known (Ethan x f!MC)

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Audrey Lee)

Word Count: 3.5k

Rating: 18+ (NSFW content)

Premise: A spontaneous date night leaves Audrey questioning the future of their relationship. Set between Book 2 and 3.

Author's Note: It's been a year since I joined Choices, so I thought I'd try my hand at posting a fic. Title from Hadestown. Big thanks to @queencarb and @imaneditorthankyouverymuch for betareading!

I was alone so long

I didn't even know that I was lonely

Out in the cold so long

I didn't even know that I was cold

Turned my collar to the wind

This is how it's always been

All I've ever known is how to hold my own

__________________________________

Doctor Audrey Lee was not used to the sluggishness that once again occupied most of her days. It was not the caffeine-fueled crash she experienced after a long 16 hour shift, nor was it the unpredictable episodes of insomnia that occasionally plagued her.

Leland Bloom had opened up Edenbrook for a few weeks, before shutting it down to finish the major renovations.

As the sun hit her eyes, she felt the warm body pressed against her back tighten its grasp around her waist. For a brief moment, she relished in the warmth surrounding her. She even allowed herself to believe that she could get used to the feeling of waking up in Ethan's arms.

‘If there even is a future for us…’ Doubt whispers into her ear, poisoning the comfort she found in his embrace.

In the weeks before Edenbrook’s inevitable closing, Audrey, like many of her fellow residents, was looking for somewhere to finish her residency. She had been considering a position back home in New York. When she brought it up with Ethan, he acknowledged her response, but there was no following discussion about what that would have meant for their relationship.

Pushing the thoughts away, she settled back into his embrace. She let herself relax as the muffled sounds of the city below filled the quiet space of the bedroom.

The peace lasted all of five minutes before she began feeling restless again. Uneasiness washed over her as the image of her ripping Bloom's billion dollar check flashed in her mind. In the moment, watching the little shreds of paper sprinkling across the expensive hardwood floor of his mansion had been satisfying. Despite that, she couldn't help but wonder if it was the right move.

If she had accepted the check and handed it to Naveen, Leland would have been convinced that she was on his side. In reality, Audrey trusted him as far as she could throw the old man. Her preference was that he landed into the depths of the icy Atlantic Ocean.

Ripping the check was the right move, but it left her in the dark when it came to Leland's intentions.

Sighing to herself, she turned around in Ethan's arms and buried her face into his neck. She felt the reverberations of his pleased hum. There was no use in overthinking things now. They would deal with the repercussions soon enough.

Pressing a gentle kiss against Ethan's neck, she smiled as his eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning," she whispered.

"It is when I wake up beside you," he mumbled back, his voice heavy with sleep.

"Careful, that sounds awfully sentimental. Wouldn't want my favourite grumpy old man going soft."

Opening his eyes, he sent Audrey a half-hearted glare. The sight of Ethan Ramsey bathed in soft sunlight and his hair mussed up by her hands made her melt.

God, she could look into his eyes forever.

"I contain multitudes," he replied. "Speaking of which, this sentimental and grumpy old man wants to ask if you had plans today."

"No plans." A smirk curled across Audrey's lips as she swept some loose hairs from his face. "But if you had plans that involve us spending more time together in bed, I wouldn’t object."

"You're insatiable."

"Are you complaining?"

He grinned at her. "Not at all."

Leaning in to kiss her, Audrey's hands slid up from his shoulders into his hair. Giving the strands a short and sharp tug, Ethan groaned and bit her lower lip. Leaving a trail of kisses down the column of her neck, he lightly nibbled the skin, eliciting a soft moan from her.

He pulled the sheets away from her body and continued his path downwards. Audrey bit back another moan. Almost immediately, Ethan stopped around her navel and lifted his gaze to look into her eyes.

"I want to hear you, Rookie. Don't hold back."

As a warm hand cupped one of her breasts, his tongue lathered the other bringing her nipples to stiff peaks. This time, Audrey let the moan escape her mouth as she felt herself growing wetter. Lifting his head to lavish her other breast, he shot her a coy smile.

"Much better," he panted. Pinning her wrists against the mattress with a single hand, he slowly made his way down her body as his other hand caressed her soft skin. Swiping a finger across her folds, he groaned. "God, you're so wet for me."

The lust that filled his eyes as his face rested by the apex of her thighs made her shiver.

"Ethan, please," she whined.

When his tongue finally met her soaking cunt, Audrey let out a shaky gasp and an incoherent mumble that sounded vaguely like his name. Her hands threaded into his hair again as he let go of her wrists. Using a hand, Ethan lifted a leg over his shoulder, allowing his tongue to delve deeper. As he sucked her clit, Audrey felt herself tense up as an orgasm rippled through her body.

Once Audrey's breathing slowed, Ethan gently lowered her leg. Through her hazy vision, she noticed his lips and beard glistened in the morning light.

"Please," Audrey begged. "I need you inside of me."

"Gladly."

Pressing a deep kiss against her, she tasted herself on his lips and confirmed her earlier observation. Thankfully, his boxers had been removed last night and he hadn't bothered with putting them back on. The wetness of her first orgasm allowed the blunt head of his cock to easily slip into her throbbing cunt. Gripping onto his shoulders, Audrey panted as Ethan set a steady rhythm, his cock rubbing against her already sensitive clit. As his pace quickened, his thrusts became rougher and he bottomed out causing Audrey to gasp.

She trembled as another wave of pleasure coursed through her body. Ethan followed moments later and groaned into Audrey's neck, the reverberations of the sound causing a delicious tingle across her skin. The couple lounged in bed a little longer as they caught their breaths. Pressing a gentle kiss across her temple, Ethan cupped her face with his hands.

"I wanted to say something before we got sidetracked..." His gaze was impossibly soft as his thumb swept across her swollen bottom lip. "I'd like to take you out on a date. A proper one."

Audrey couldn't help the smile that blossomed across her face. "Really?"

He nodded. "I want the world to know the gorgeous woman beside me is taken. So, what do you say?"

"Yes," she answered. "I'd love to go on a date with you."

__________________________________

Several hours later, Audrey was back in the apartment she shared with her friends. Ethan had dropped her off in the early afternoon with a promise to pick her up at six for their date.

She was looking through her closet, searching for a particular dress she had in mind. Ethan had been tight-lipped about his plans. He had only stated it would be a black-tie event.

"Ah ha! Finally found you." She pulled the shimmering gold dress from her closet. Looking into the mirror in her room, she held the dress up to her body and smiled.

With an hour until six, Audrey jumped into the shower to freshen up. Once she finished styling her hair and applying some make-up, she slipped into the dress. Arranging the slit over her leg, she slipped into a matching pair of heels, a black shawl and grabbed the purse holding her phone.

She entered the living room to see her friends sitting on the couch arguing about what movie to watch. Sienna came from the kitchen carrying a plate of her homemade cookies and smiled at the sight of her friend dressed up.

"Audrey, you look amazing! Isn't that the dress you wore when we did our Boston bucket list?"

She grinned at the memory of what was supposed to be their last hurrah in the city. "It is, but I thought it'd be nice to wear it again for my date tonight."

"Ramsey asked you out on a date? Tonight?" Jackie asked from her spot on the couch.

Various groans filled the room as Audrey nodded.

"Finally!" Jackie exclaimed. "Everyone, pay up. You each owe me a twenty. "

Bryce sighed, pulling out his wallet from his pocket. "God damn it, Lee. Why couldn't he have waited just one more week before he asked you out?"

"Quit complaining," Aurora said, tossing a kernel of popcorn from the bowl in her lap at Bryce's head. "At least you were close, my guess was way off."

Rafael shook his head as Elijah and Aurora both handed a twenty dollar bill over to Jackie. "How did you get it down to the day?"

Jackie smiled. "I'm a psychic, obviously."

"Hold up... Just how long has this bet about Ethan and I been going on?"

"Since everyone saw you kiss at The Hopeful Hearts Gala," Elijah replied.

"And thanks to you, I'm a hundred dollars richer." Jackie pocketed the small wad of cash and leaned back against the couch.

“Thank you, Sienna,” Audrey sighed as she wrapped the black shawl around her shoulders. “My only true friend for having the decency to not partake in this bet.”

Sienna smiled sheepishly as she placed her plate of cookies on the coffee table. Before sitting down on the couch, she pulled a folded twenty dollar bill from her pocket and handed it over to Jackie.

“I’m sorry, Audrey. Raf was the only one who didn’t bet,” Sienna said. “ Dr. Ramsey and I had an interesting talk on the car ride to…” Sienna’s voice wavered slightly and she trailed off before falling silent.

On the car ride to interrogate Travis Perry about the mystery substance he had released in the hospital.

Audrey immediately crossed the room to hug Sienna. It had been months since the incident had happened, but her best friend was still grieving the loss of Danny. Sienna wrapped her arms around Audrey before she pulled back and hastily rubbed at her eyes.

“I’m okay,” Sienna reassured. “Go and enjoy your date.”

Audrey squeezed her friend’s hand in her own before she let go. “Sienna is forgiven,” Audrey declared to the others. “Thank you, Raf. My true ride-or-die.”

Rafael, who was seated beside Bryce, spoke up. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions about your personal life.”

With the most dramatic stare she could muster, she glared and pointed at the others. “The rest of you. Thin ice.”

Several knocks at the door cut off any reply that followed. Opening the door, she found Ethan standing in the doorway, dressed in his suit. His eyes lit up as he looked up at Audrey.

“You look radiant,” Ethan said.

Audrey felt herself grin. “You’re looking pretty good yourself,” she replied.

“Ready?”

“Definitely.”

“Yo, Lee!” Bryce called from the couch before she could step forward. “Just a heads up, I’m crashing on your bed tonight once movie night runs late since you won’t be using yours.”

“OKAY! We are leaving before I strangle Bryce,” Audrey announced, taking the arm Ethan offered.

Bryce laughed as she shut the door behind them. “Anyone wanna bet if she’s coming home tonight?”

__________________________________

Twenty minutes later, the pair were seated inside an elegant Italian restaurant by the waterfront. Looking out the window, Audrey watched the bright lights of the city refract against the dark surface of the water.

“I’m a city girl, but I don’t think I could live anywhere that isn’t close to the water.”

Ethan raised a brow. “Why is that?”

Audrey glanced at the gentle waves before she turned to face him. “I find it calming. It reminds me that the world is big. Bigger than any problem I might be facing. Whenever I felt stressed, I would take the subway to Manhattan and just sit in Battery Park for hours to watch the boats in the harbour or watch the people pass by.”

“I believe you called it ‘people-watching’?”

Audrey was surprised. “You still remember that conversation at Derry Roasters?”

He nodded. “I do,” he said. He reached across the table and instinctively, she placed a hand in his palm. “You said I was lost. You didn’t even know about Naveen’s condition at the time, but somehow you knew something wasn’t right.”

Unable to resist teasing him, Audrey smirked. “If I remember correctly, you said I was only half-right.”

“I stand by that assessment.” His thumb traced the ridge of her knuckles. “What baffled me was how this infuriatingly stubborn intern with the potential to be an excellent doctor kept on surprising me.”

“Speaking of surprises…” she said. “Why a date? Why now?”

The thoughts about the uncertainty of their relationship that morning came crawling to the forefront of her mind again, but she held them back. The night had only begun and as much as their undefined status worried her, she was determined to start the night on the right foot. If there truly was no future for them, she at least wanted to enjoy the time they spent together.

“Well…”

His response was cut off as a waiter came to stop at their table. “Good evening. Can I start you two off with something to drink?”

“We’re catching a show after, would you like a drink?”

“We are? I guess I’ll just have some water.”

“Two waters, please,” Ethan ordered.

The waiter nodded and laid two menus on the table. “I’ll be back in a moment to take your orders then.”

“A show?” Audrey asked. “I thought we were just getting dinner.”

The genuine enthusiasm on Audrey’s face made Ethan grin. “I promised you a proper date. That entails dinner and a show. And if you’re not too tired, perhaps a walk along the esplanade?”

“I could be persuaded. What’s the show we’re seeing?”

He shrugged. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

Audrey pouted before an idea struck her. Slowly taking the black shawl off her shoulders which revealed the plunging neckline of the dress, she traced a finger down her neck to her collarbone. “Are you sure there’s no way I could convince you to tell me?” As her finger passed her collarbone, she slowed as she began to trail her finger down the exposed skin.

She felt him squeeze the hand that was still wrapped in his. “You are trying to kill me,” he replied as his gaze followed the path she traced. Gently, he lifted the hand in his and pressed a kiss to it. “As tempting as that offer is, I do believe you will appreciate the surprise.”

Sighing, she dropped the hand he wasn’t holding into her lap. “You win this time, Ramsey.”

__________________________________

As they got closer, Audrey could see the bright white marquee of the Opera House in the distance: L’Orfeo.

“The darkness of night,” Ethan translates for her. “It’s also the Italian and Spanish form of the name Orpheus.”

“As in Orpheus and Eurydice?” Audrey asked, immediately delighted.

“The very same.”

“When I had my Roman Mythology phase as a kid, I used to check out the same big book filled with various myths for months on end.” She had spent countless hours admiring the detailed illustrations and committing the words that filled the pages to her memory, carefully tracing every swooping letter with a finger. “It actually starts somewhat similarly to the first show we saw together.”

“Then tonight, I’ll rely on your expertise.” Entering the theatre, the pair made their way to his private box. They were seated for ten minutes before the house lights around them slowly dimmed and the curtain opened. On the stage, a woman dressed in red held a lyre.

“That’s the Spirit of Music. She’s saying through the power of music, she can calm any troubled heart. She introduces Orpheus of Thrace, who has the same ability as well. He’s the son of Apollo, the god of sunlight and music, and the muse Calliope, ” Audrey whispered to Ethan, their hands interlaced. As the opera progressed, Audrey explained the events of the story unfolding before them. The marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice and the tragic death of the young bride by snake bite that shortly followed. Orpheus, driven by his grief, embarking on a treacherous journey to the Underworld to bring back his lost love.

“Moved by his singing, Prosperina asks her husband, Pluto, to let Eurydice return to the living world with Orpheus. He agrees upon the condition that Orpheus has to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld, but he cannot look back to see if she is following. Orpheus begins the journey, confident that he will be reunited with Eurydice the moment they leave the Underworld, but…”

Audrey swallowed past the lump that suddenly formed in her throat.

“But then doubt comes in. He thinks Pluto is envious of his love. Maybe Pluto is tricking him.” As a sudden noise sounds from off-stage, the actor playing Orpheus turned around to face his Eurydice. His face morphed from happiness to regret in a flash as Eurydice smiled back at him sadly. “Orpheus sees Eurydice. She was behind him the whole time. She begins to fade away and Orpheus is forced out of the Underworld alone.

“This final act deviates from the myth. Apollo comes from the heavens and tells him not to fall victim to his anger and grief. He invites Orpheus to join him. Eurydice won’t be there, but beauty like hers can be found in the stars. Orpheus accepts.”

As the chorus gathered on the stage for the finale, Audrey looked away. Staring into the dark sea of audience members, she took a moment to collect her thoughts.

Building up her courage, she turned to the man beside her, but before she could say a word Ethan’s hand slipped out of her grasp. Audrey jumped slightly in her seat as the audience around them started clapping for the performance.

By the time the house lights turned on, she had lost her nerve.

__________________________________

Although autumn was right around the corner, the weather had been lovely for the past week. Despite the lack of chilly weather, Audrey held the black shawl tightly around herself as she and Ethan walked along the Charles River Esplanade.

Her eyes were drawn to the shining lights of a boat further in the distance. Audrey didn’t even notice that her steps had slowed to a stop as Ethan paused to look at her.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You haven’t said a word since we left the theatre.”

Shaking herself out of a trance, Audrey nodded and laughed, but even she could hear that it was far too hollow sounding. “I’m fine. I must be more tired than I thought.”

“I can drive you back to your apartment, but that doesn’t explain why you’ve been staring at the river for so long.”

She sighed, a wry grin twisting her lips. “I shouldn’t have told you what my tell was.”

Stepping in front of her, Ethan tilted her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I-it’s just…” Audrey had to close her eyes for a moment. One breath in, one breath out. The same blue eyes she had seen that morning— the ones she thought she could spend an eternity staring into—suddenly felt like a tsunami that threatened to swallow her. “Ethan, what are we doing?”

The moment she saw Ethan’s eyebrows furrow and the hurt look cross his face, Audrey groaned internally. Barely a second in and she had already stuck her foot in her own mouth. “I phrased that horribly,” she said. Placing a hand by his clenched jaw, her thumb grazed his cheek until she felt the tension he held there ease. “What I meant was, what are we? These last few weeks have been amazing. I can’t describe the happiness I feel when I wake up in your arms, but I also love those moments we just spend together whether we’re making dinner or just having a quiet night in. I don’t think I need to explain how much I enjoy the physical aspects of our relationship…”

She swallowed a shaky breath. “But if that’s all this relationship is-”

“You know it isn’t.” he immediately replied, placing his warm hand on top of hers.

Audrey shook her head. “Do I?”

“I meant every word I said. I don’t want to hide and I’m done pretending.”

“When I was considering a residency in New York, you didn’t say a word.”

“I didn’t want to influence you. I wanted you to make the best decision for your career.”

“And what would we have done? A long-distance whatever-we-are? You're Ethan Ramsey. You’re a world renowned diagnostician for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t have any trouble finding another position in Boston,” she huffed.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “It’s simple. I would have gone with you.”

She froze. She was certain she had misheard him. “What?”

“As much as I despise idolatry among physicians,” he said. “I wouldn’t be above using my reputation to get a position in the same city.”

“But your whole life is here in Boston.”

“But you wouldn’t have been here.” Ethan cupped her face in his hands, pressing a gentle kiss against her temple and then to a tear-stained cheek. “I need you, Audrey. I know I’m not the most articulate when it comes to my emotions, but know that you’re important to me.”

The sincerity of his voice caused the tears she had been holding back to fall. Wrapped in his embrace, she let the last of her doubts drift away from the recesses of her heart.

__________________________________

All I've ever known is how to hold my own

But now I wanna hold you, too.

__________________________________

Author's Note: Originally this fic was called "Good as Gold" (also based on song lyrics) and was gonna have more smut content, but I might write that and make it a sequel to this instead. 😏

[narutos-fat-meat]

**Just Know I Mean It...**

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TAGS: cheating, ANGST, sexual content implied

*LET ME KNOW IF I FORGOT TO TAG ANYTHING*

******

Stupid isn't a word people typically use to describe you. You've never been stupid, forgetful? Often. Air headed? Sometimes. It was part of your charm. But Stupid? Never. So why is it that when it comes to Ushijima Wakatoshi, you feel just that, stupid.

It's the lingering smell of perfume that clung to his clothes. You could never pinpoint exactly what it smelled like because it changed so often. One day it was ylang-ylang, the next jasmine, and the next citrus. Then it was the varying shades of smudged lipstick on his collar, carmine, maroon, crimson. The light pink lines down his back that never seemed to fade. The late-night "training" sessions. His refusal to touch you. The way his eyes dulled when you walked into a room he was in. You're not stupid, so why does he think you are?

You tell yourself that you're not sure exactly when Ushijima's attitude towards you changed. Except that's a lie, and you know it is. It started when he first joined the Schwelden Alders. You expected distance, and you expected the cold shoulder; after all, he'd never been one to tell you what he was feeling; he always trusted you to know what he was thinking. For the most part, you could tell with little to no struggle. After all, he wasn't hard to understand; all you had to do was pay attention, and by god, did you pay attention.

His first few months on the team, he'd come home exhausted, press a kiss to your temple, and trudge to your shared bedroom, where you'd join him later in the evening, and he'd pull you close to his chest, drinking in the feeling of holding you in his arms.

You loved that.

At first, He had the decency to make excuses for himself. Blaming his withdrawn attitude on the grueling practices he had to endure. Blamed the late nights and failures to come home on going out for drinks and crashing at Tobio's place. He had the decency to come home, ashamed with a bouquet of flowers. The decency to feel guilty, apologize.

You used to force yourself to believe him.

You miss that.

Maybe if he'd been more careful, cared more about sparing your feelings, you'd still be in a blissful bubble of feigned ignorance.

You see the way his team looks at you when you're around them. Like you're some sort of kicked puppy. You know that they know, and you can't help but hate them. Hate their existence. Hate their misguided loyalty. How could they stand back and watch you make a damn fool of yourself?

You recall how His team had welcomed you with open arms and claimed you as part of their pack. How they'd Assured you that if Ushijima ever did anything to hurt you, he'd have to deal with them.

The memory does nothing but sour your mood and break your heart now.

Ushijima has never been the easiest person to love. He's naturally quiet, withdrawn, and often comes off as cold, but you know him better than that.

Or at least you thought you did.

He used to hold your hand tight and not want to let go. Used to hug you from behind and press kisses to the crown of your head. Make slow sweet passionate love to you. The kind where no words need to be spoken to convey what each person is feeling.

He used to say, "I love you" and mean it.

You look at the clock as it reads 3:33 am counting the seconds in your head 56,57,58,59...3:44. How long does he think he can keep this going? It's been months, months of silent resentment. Months of your desperate attempts at staying together. How dare he take you for granted like this. The door creaks open slowly; it's his mediocre attempt at not waking you.

You haven't slept a wink yet; you close your eyes and feign sleep. You feel his eyes on you, but you can't bring yourself to open your eyes to confront him. You know he's gotten good at lying to your face, he'll say he went out for a drink. Say he lost track of time. Say that you're overreacting. He'll make it seem like it's your fault. And you'll let him. He's done it enough times after all.

Another day, how many more?

Your 5-year anniversary is steadily approaching, and you can't help but feel disgusted. You recall the day he asked you to be his how he'd promised to love you for the rest of his days—promised to hold you tight and never let go. Vowed never to hurt you. You laugh at the memory, bile rising up your throat, threatening to spill past your lips.

What a load of bullshit.

"Be home for dinner. I think we should talk" the text is simple, and yet, there's a million meanings and emotions behind it.

You wait at the dining room table expecting to be stood up like you usually were but to your surprise, he walks through the door 7 pm sharp. His hair is damp from an after-practice shower, and he smells of generic brand soap. You smile to yourself and recall how you used to tease him about it back when you first started dating—such a simple time.

Now you can't help to wonder if it's an after-sex shower as well. You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of those thoughts.

You can't lose focus.

You hear the front door click shut and hear his heavy footsteps approach the room you're in. He sits down in the chair across from you, wearing an infuriating blank stare on his face. How you wish you could reach across the table and-no, it isn't about that right now.

"Y/n you wanted to talk," he says, voice monotone as always. You laugh broken and rough around the edges. Ushijima's eyes widen slightly as he realizes that your laugh isn't as he remembers it. Your laugh is angelic, airy, and it makes him go breathless.

This isn't your laugh.

"You really think I'm stupid, don't you," you say as your laugh dies down. He's taken aback "wh-" he tries, but you push on courage coursing through your veins " don't Ushijima" your use of his last name is a stab to his chest, and panic begins to pool in his stomach, "I know you've been sleeping with other women." Your eyes are wide and glassy now, brimming with unshed tears.

"I want you to know that I'm done. This is it."

His eyes shift down to where you're taking off your promise ring. The one he gave you during your last year of college. He shoots straight up out of his seat, almost as if to stop you.

It's a beautiful thing, really. A stunning sterling silver band designed to look like it was branching out. Your initials and his engraved on the inside.

Shame how it meant absolutely nothing, not to him, at least.

"Y/n what are you doing," he asks. There's panic lacing his tone, and you almost smile. Hoping this hurts him even a fraction of how he's hurt you.

"Isn't it obvious?" you say as you drop the ring on the table; it's so silent the sound almost echoes.

It's as if an eternity has passed before either of you move.

You push away from the table, your chair making an awful scraping noise against the linoleum.

Ushijima rushes to your side quickly, reaching out to hold you. "I'm..." he starts, but his words fail him.

"You're what? Sorry?" You say as you take several steps back to put distance between the two of you.

"Y/n, please let me explain," he pleads. You laugh a feeble little thing, and his heart aches.

"I did this to her," he thinks, "I hurt the woman I love."

Slowly tears that you desperately tried to keep at bay begin to stream down your face.

"EXPLAIN WHAT, EXPLAIN HOW I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING MY HEART, MY BODY, MY LIFE AND YOU THREW IT AWAY FOR WHAT FOR A CHEAP FUCK?"

You're furious.

How could he?

How dare he?

Your frame wracks with the force of your sobs, and you feel Ushijima take you into his strong arms. One arm sits snugly in your waist while the other cradles your head into his chest, letting your tears soak his shirt.  

His arms used to make you feel at home, but now you feel trapped.

"Let go," you beg, squirming uselessly, his brute strength keeping your soft body flush against his solid one. You struggle for several minutes until finally, you go pliant in his firm hold.

Soon after your sobs have died down, he lets you pull your face away from his chest, and you stare up at him, eyes red-rimmed and face stained with tears.

He looks down at you with indescribable emotion in his eyes and places a soft kiss against your trembling lips.

No. No. No.

You shove at his chest. "Please," he pleads, hands beginning to roam your body. He finally allows you to break the kiss, and you're prepared to slap, hit, kick, anything to get away from him. But his eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and his face is red and blotchy.

He's crying.

Never once had you seen him cry. Shout, yell, be violent sure. But cry? Never.

So, like you always did when it came to Ushijima, you gave in.

His lips are on yours again in an instant. He's soft and careful, cradling you as if you were glass.

The rest of the night is a blur of slow sweet passionate sex. The kind where no words need to be spoken to convey what each person is feeling. Except it's different this time. While you know that Ushijima is saying I love you.

You're saying goodbye.

He wakes the next morning to an empty spot on your side of the bed. His brain almost doesn't register for a second what's happening until he recalls the previous night, and his stomach drops.

He races downstairs, frantically calling your name. His voice desperate and pleading.

He looks everywhere in your shared home until he comes to an abrupt stop at the dining room table.

A single sheet of paper lays upon it with what he knows if your handwriting on it.

Deep down, he knows what's coming, but he still can't believe that this is actually happening.

With trembling hands, he picks up the note and reads.

"When I said I was done, I meant it.”

********

part 2!! : part 3!!

A/N: HIYA I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS FIC:) Let me know what ya’ll think I ALWAYS appreciate feedback so don’t be shy, and drop on down to my ask box and talk to me about it:)

I have both parts 2 and 3 of this written out as well so let me know if ya’ll would be interested in reading those as well:)

Request a fic or your own....maybe?

Likes and Reblogs are greatly appreciated:)

VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO @astrablossom AND @kzumeknma FOR PROOFREADING 

pspspspspsps @roronoa-imagines fry baby come get your food:)

[earlysunsetsoverambrose]

Operation Sweet Surprise (2/3)

Lester Sinclair x f!Reader (Romantic or Platonic)

Warnings: Cursing 

Inside the store, you began hunting down the items you needed with Lester in tow. He offered to hold the basket for you so you could focus on making sure you got exactly what you were after.

“Okay, Lester. We need: milk, pie crust, vanilla extract, cinnamon, brown sugar, baking powder, and eight apples. So, if you see anything and I don’t just toss it in the basket!” you told him as your eyes started scanning the shelves.

“Yes, ma’am!” Lester said with a playful salute. 

One by one, you found each ingredient, checking them off your mental list as you went. Throughout your expedition, you couldn’t help but notice other shoppers keeping their distance from you two. Of course, you knew exactly why they were acting this way. The smell of roadkill lingering on Lester’s raggedy exterior offended their delicate senses. The way some made a show of holding their breath or how their side eyes were more like dead on stares was not lost on you. It certainly wasn’t lost on Lester. With every murmur and scoff, he would offer an apologetic smile and a wave, but you could see his head sink lower and lower each time. This sort of thing didn’t always bother him, but sometimes it was hard to ignore. People always assumed he was oblivious to how his presence affected them, but he was more than aware. Frankly, he wished they would quit reminding him. Though every part of you wanted to snap at each shopper that passed you by, you elected to focus on lifting Lester’s spirits to distract him,

“Alright, all that’s left is to pick out some apples! C’mon and help me out!” you said with the biggest smile you could muster. You’d rather be glaring daggers, but you knew the other shoppers were hardly worth it. You took Lester’s hand and pulled him toward the small produce section “Which kind of apples do you think Bo would like best?”

“Not sure…” Lester said looking back and forth, checking to make sure no one was staring again, “Maybe I oughta wait in the truck. Don’t wanna bother no one else from their shopping.”

“No, don’t go! I need you!” you begged, “Besides, who cares what they think?”

“Well, I’m used to it. Just don’t want ‘em thinkin’ bad of ya, is all.” He said shyly

“Oh, please, don’t worry about that. I like spending time with you, Lester. I don’t give a shit about any of them. Who needs them?” You said, waving off his concern with a laugh “Now, help me pick out some apples.” The smile reached Lester’s eyes this time as he helped you pick out the best apples out of the bunch.

Once you had your apples picked, something caught your glance over Lester’s shoulder. It was an elderly woman, reaching for a box of cereal that was clearly too high on the shelf for her to get. Lester followed your eyes and immediately handed the basket over to you. He quickly made his way over to the lady. You followed close behind, catching the interaction,

“I can get that for ya, if ya like.” Lester offered sweetly with his signature grin. The woman staggered back, affronted at his proximity. She put a hand over her nose and mouth, her sour expression still apparent. Though she scowled at him, Lester kept smiling back at her. When she remained silent, he pointed to the box he thought she wanted, “This one? Good choice! Ya know, I hear this one’s good for the heart. Supposed to keep ya young and spry.” She didn’t reply, tapping her foot impatiently. He pulled the box down from the shelf and held it out to her, “There ya go. Need help with anythin’ else?”  

“No.” she said shortly, as she ripped the box from his hands and turned away.

“Alright…have a nice day, I guess.” Lester said, frustration showing through, “Just tryin’ to help ya.”

“Excuse me!” You piped in, “My friend just helped you, and I think you’re being incredibly rude to him.”

“Y/N, it’s alright-”

“No, it isn’t. You helped her and she treated you like garbage.” You said angrily. You were tired of watching people walk all over him. He might’ve been good enough to let it go, but you weren’t, “Who raised you? Didn’t anyone teach you anything about kindness?”

“How dare you speak to me like that? You should learn to respect your elders, young lady.” the old woman finally responded, “In my day, helping older folks was expected. Our generation didn’t need a pat on the back every time we did the bare minimum. What do you want? A reward?”

“Well, I grew up at least saying a ‘thank you’ when someone helped me. I don’t think that’s asking a lot. Just want you to treat my friend with a bit of decency.” You snapped, your knuckles turning white as you tightened your grip on your basket.

“Decency? I’ve shown plenty of decency by not demanding you both be thrown out of the store. I don’t usually tolerate uncivilized spoiled brats, like you two.” The woman stuck up her nose and pinched it, “You reek of squalor, so it seems to me you were the ones who are lacking an upbringing.”

“Uncivilized? Lady, you’re the one who doesn’t have any god damn manners! If anyone’s acting uncivilized here, it’s you!” you hissed venomously, taking a step toward the woman. Lester stopped you in your tracks, allowing the woman to turn and shamble away cursing you under her breath, both offended and threatened by you.

“Hey, hey, don’t pay any attention to her. She ain’t worth it.” Lester said, patting your shoulder.

“She shouldn’t be allowed to treat you like that.” You said still a bit heated.  

“It’s like ya said, ‘Who needs ‘em?’” Lester said surprisingly relaxed about the whole situation, “But let’s get goin’ ‘fore she gets us kicked out like she said.”

You started toward the register and got in line. There were quite a few people ahead of you as everyone was out getting their groceries for the week, no doubt. Lester took the basket back as you waited together. You were about to ask him about cleaning animal bones to lighten the mood before he chimed in first,

“Thanks, Y/N.”

“For what?” you asked with a tilt of your head.

“Stickin’ up for me ‘n all. It sure was somethin’.” He said with a hint of a blush dusting his cheeks, “I know I don’t smell too great, so bein’ with me ain’t always fun. But ya never treat me any worse for it, and it means a lot.”

“Aw, Lester, you don’t have to thank me for that. I enjoy spending time with you, it’s hardly a chore.” You said as you rubbed his shoulder reassuringly.

“Still…I know I yammer on and I don’t know when to shut up. Most people can’t stand me, it ain’t a secret. Didn’t make too many friends growin’ up ‘cuz of it and it didn’t get any easier once I started workin’…” Lester explained, “I tried to keep the smell off, but it’s harder than it looks, ya know. And after a while, I figured if people don’t want anythin’ to do with me anyway, I might as well just leave it be.”

“Lester…” you said sympathetically, trying not to knock the basket out of his hands and wrap him up in a hug and protect him from the world.

“’Sides, I love my job. I really do. And if I smell, I can make like that’s the reason people don’t like me.” He added with a half-hearted laugh to take the edge off the truth of it all “Anyway, just wanted to thank ya for bein’ nice to me.”

Before you could respond, it was your turn to check out. Lester instantly starting chatting away with the cashier, going on about knives and the small items for sale at the register. You smiled to yourself, watching him. Even if others continued to put him down, Lester always got right back to it. You had no idea how he kept going sometimes. You attention was drawn away from him as the total came up on the screen.

“Shit.” You cursed quietly to yourself. You counted your money back, hoping maybe you had more than you thought, to no avail. You were five dollars short. You looked over your items trying decide what you could part with. All of them were necessary to the recipe so you not only could you not decide, you were embarrassed that you had underestimated how much you’d need to spend.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” Lester whispered as he leaned in, also looking at the groceries, “Missin’ somethin’?”

“I don’t have enough…” you trailed off, trying to work through a solution in the next two minutes, trying not to keep others waiting whilst also not drawing attention to your crisis

“Apples?” Lester suggested, “I’ll run on back and get some more, if ya need!”

“Money…I don’t have enough for everything.” You said, unable to stop your voice from shaking from the sudden tears that brimmed in your eyes. Lester snapped to attention at the tremble in your voice.

“Aw, please don’t cry! How much do ya need?” he asked as he scrambled to comfort you. He rubbed awkward circles into your back, moving you back and forth with his clumsy motions. Even in distress, you found his gesture to be sweet.

“Five dollars.” You confessed as your face went hot with anxiety.

“That ain’t so bad! I got it!” Lester said happily, reaching into his pocket and fishing out a crumpled bill. He might have said it like wasn’t a big deal, but you knew money was always tight for the Sinclairs. While Lester did make the most steady income out of all of them, he didn’t have a whole lot of money to throw around, “See, don’t need to panic!”

“You don’t have to do this! You work hard for your money, I can ditch something, I think. Don’t waste it on me.” You said in a panic. You’d already asked so much of him already; you couldn’t let him do this too.

“Well, I do work hard. So, I suppose that means I can spend my money how I want.” Lester said cheekily. He gathered up your money with his and handed it over, “And I wanna give it to ya. ‘Sides, I oughta pitch somethin’ in. It’s for my brothers after all.”

“Thank you, Lester…I really owe you.” you said as your apprehension drained from your posture and voice. You almost cried from his generosity, rather than humiliation.

“Ain’t nothin’ to worry ‘bout.” Lester said sweetly, nudging your shoulder to help you shake off the sadness that had almost overtaken you. He carried your groceries toward the door and back to the truck, “C’mon we gotta lotta bakin’ to do!”  

You were a bit distracted on the ride back. Lester was chattering on about skulls again, but your mind wandered back to what he said while you waited in line. You wouldn’t say you’d done anything extraordinary for him. All you did was talk to him and treat him like any human should be treated. Still, that was more than he’d ever received from anyone. You couldn’t help but stare at him. Beside you was a man who has always been treated like he wasn’t worth the time. No one cared about what he had to say or how he felt, and they told him so to his face. Despite all that, he still turned out to be incredibly generous, kind, helpful, and by far the most warmhearted person you knew.

And it wasn’t because the insults and the neglect went over his head. You knew he felt the sting of it all. It was because he kept moving along. You had no idea how he was able to let it all roll off his back, but you simply attributed it to Lester being remarkable. Sure, he got disappointed when others didn’t want to talk to him, but he never got too hung up on it for long. He was always able to find joy in other parts of his life. Not only that, he was capable of sharing that joy with others; at least, he was always willing. Lester had a heart of gold and it left a bitter taste knowing that if life had been fairer – or society more kind – he’d might have become something truly special. Not that you didn’t like him just as he was; you thought he was wonderful. It was just such a shame that he had so many wonderful things to offer and you were the only one who could see that. All because his chances were spoiled before he ever really got to living.

“Do you ever get mad, Lester?” you asked, accidentally cutting him off from his rant about knives.

“Sure, I do. Sometimes.” Lester said with a goofy grin still pulling as his face. His smile turned into curiosity and a bit of confusion as he thought over your question a second time, “Wait, mad ‘bout what?”

“I don’t know. Do you ever wish things were different?”

“Different how?”

“Like, do you ever think about what it might’ve been like if you were born somewhere else or into a different life entirely? Like all the what ifs and maybes? Just for fun?” you added

“Hmmm…” Lester thought out loud, “Nope.”

“Really? Never?” you asked in disbelief.

“Naw, I like what I got.” He said smiling once again, never more content, “And ‘sides, I got you now. Wouldn’t know ya if I was born someplace else. Don’t wanna go riskin’ that, do I?” you felt your heart skip a beat and blood rush to your cheeks.

“And they say Bo’s the one with all the charm.” You mumbled to yourself, catching a glimpse of Lester, oblivious and carefree as ever. He really had no clue how incredible he was.

[filthysweetie]

james bond drabble (dear diary pt II)

Prompt: “You’re getting crumbs all over my bed.”

Day 15!? this is a continuation of this fic that i am now calling Dear Diary. As with the other, oblique references to torture. I hope folks enjoy :)

———

Q, as a general rule, didn’t spend much time at home—contrary to what Dr. Yen seemed to think, this was a habit born of extended schooling and a rather ridged childhood and had little to no reflection on his most recent misadventure with capture. He may or may not be sleeping in his office a bit more, but his people have the decency to not mention it, instead leaving him little crumpets or new teas for him to try. It would be annoying, if the offerings weren’t exactly to his tastes. 

But he did still go home—he had two cats to look after and he was nothing if not an attentive cat parent. Q kept his earphones in but kept the sound off, giving the look of distracted, common commuter will keeping himself as aware as he can of the space and people around him. He’s agreed with himself early on after getting out of medical, before he could even fully walk right, that he would keep taking the train. They weren’t allowed to take that from him. He wouldn’t be made to change himself because of what they did. 

This didn’t feel like winning though. Q’s whole body was taught, and as the stops continued and more people came into the train car Q felt like the air was getting too hot, too stifling. 

It’s fine. Too many people to do anything anyway. They couldn’t take him with this many witnesses. 

Q tried to remember how busy the train had been 43 days ago; had it been this full? Less? More?

Q pushed out of the train car spilling out into the platform, pushing past others maybe a bit more aggressively then warranted. Someone might have said something rude to him, but despite having no music flowing through the wires of his headphones he couldn’t hear them—couldn’t hear anything but for the rush of blood in his ears. His hands were cold and clammy. His feet hurt.

He’s at the exit now—somehow. He taps the Oyster card and steps out of the underground. Only a few blocks from his apartment. He’s walked this stretch thousands of times before. He did it yesterday, even (Why can’t he remember doing it yesterday?). He doesn’t run, but he’s breathing like he is. His coat is too hot, but his hands are still so cold. His feet hurt. 

Q gets into the building, but the tension stays, holding him upright. He’s already past where it happened—why does he still feel under threat? It’s aggravating. Q unlocks the door, shuts and locks it behind himself firmly, willfully ignoring how that does nothing to help him feel any more at ease than getting int his building did, which is to say, not at all. 

He sets his computer bag in the front hall, taking out his sticker covered book, feeling something as his fingers unthinkingly trace the raised edges of the different stickers. Today he got a Spock sticker. 

Montgomery—Monty—runs over from somewhere in the apartment to great him, meowing loudly and demanding pats. Spoon doesn’t come over; hopefully she didn’t get into the dry food. Monty follows him past the entryway. Spoon isn’t in the kitchen, which is something, but it buzzes something in the back of his brain and Q holds his diary up like it might be some kind of defense. 

The light is on in his room. He didn’t leave it on—hasn’t been in there besides getting clean clothes since the incident. Q grabs his pen—the one that has pepper spray and a taser secreted away in it. He sets it to taser. 

Spoon meows and Q hears something rustle. He can’t stop himself from being an idiot and walking right into the doorway, pen at the ready.

“Oh.” Q gets out in a dumbfounded kind of whisper. James is there, on his bed, eating through a packet of digestives and giving small bits to Spoon who is happily curled in his lap. He’s in his standard suit, ruining the lines of it by sitting crosslegged and getting cat hair that will never truly be gone on it. “You’re getting crumbs all over my bed.” 

Bond looks up, ignoring when Spoon paws at his hand for more, “Q.” He says, simply enough. A casual greeting for an encounter that is anything but. 

Hearing James speak does it—all the tension just up and releases and Q finds himself sitting on the floor. God his feet hurt so much, they’re throbbing. Monty buts her head against Q’s knee.

“Q!” Bond doesn’t yell, but he speaks urgently enough, and moves enough that Spoon leaves his lap—he’s kneeling half next to, half over Q in a matter of moments. 

“Tell me how you got in.” Q gets out, throat dry. It’s a dichotomy that is pulling him apart; James makes him feel safe, James is a threat but never to him, James, for all his cavalier attitude and penchant for collecting collateral damage tries so damn hard and can be so gentle it hurts. But James got in, he got into Q’s apartment without tripping any of the silent alarms and the knowledge that it can be done is burning in his mind. 

Bond connects some of that himself, or just doesn’t feel like keeping his methods a secret; he curses quietly and says “The kitchen window, over the sink.”

Q nods and stands on shaking legs, ignoring Bond’s offered hand. James may make him feel—a lot of things, but he’s already felt too weak for his British upbringing to call decent. He gets his tools and goes over to the window; James, Monty, and Spoon following behind, silent as cats. Q wires the window, hiding them skillfully behind the molding. He does the same to the two other kitchen windows. He hadn’t done that when he first secured the place—those windows didn’t have any accessible ledges or hand holds. Or so he’d thought. 

Q finishes the work, not even aware of how much time has passed, but very much aware that James is still there behind him. Q gets the electric kettle and fills it enough for two.

“Don’t do that again, please.” Q speaks to the sink, washing his hands.

“Of course.” The answer comes without hesitation and Q thanks all that is out there that James doesn’t try to apologize, doesn’t try to talk about it. 

Q pours their tea and while it steeps checks the cat food and water, keeping himself occupied. He feels too relaxed after being taught for so long, it’s left him trying to fill it with…anything. 

“I’ll order takeaway then?” James asks and Q finally looks at him. 

He opens his mouth then closes it. Bond raises an eyebrow. Q fights embarrassment coming from nothing, “Indian—there’s a takeaway menu in the left hand drawer.”

Bond nods and pulls it out, typing the number into his mobile, “anything in particular?”

Q shrugs, placing Bond’s tea near his elbow, then holding his own in both hands, leaning on the counter behind him. He alternates what foot he puts his weight on, feeling the pull of new skin. 

James orders a variety of things, too many dishes for two to eat. Q doesn’t stop him. He hangs up and the room becomes too quiet. 

“I have nightmares, somethings.” Bond says and Q’s whole heart squeezes tight. James is extending his very self, offering it out, and Q can’t take it because he can’t do the same. 

“Please don’t.” Q whispers into his tea. 

Bond nods like he knew Q would say that and that just makes Q’s heart hurt more. 

“I noticed a few other spots that could use some work,” he says instead.

Q sets his tea down, “Show me.” ——— James look at his watch out of the corner of his eye as Q tightens a screw. It doesn’t escape Q’s notice that the watch is one of his—one that James ‘lost’ half a year ago.

“I have to go.” 

Q hates how he can feel himself tighten, “right.”

“The food will be ready by now,” James says, an explanation that Q hates that he needs, “I’ll be back in fifteen.”

“Right.” Q gets out, his voice doing something he can’t pinpoint. He dusts his hands against his pants as if there was anything on them and walks Bond to the door. 

James steps through and turns back to Q, “I’ll be right back.”

Q nods, wordless. James gives that little smirk and walks away. Q closes the door and locks it. It doesn’t feel safe, but it doesn’t feel as threatening as it did before. ——— Dear Diary,

{Q pauses for a long moment, staring at the page, blank but for the date written neatly in the top right corner and his customary greeting}

I’ve upgraded my home security system, which seems a bit of a waste of time when that wasn’t even where I was taken—bodies in transit are always easier to take. I’ve planned enough missions on that premise alone to know that. 

{Spoon, the attention seeker she is, jumps into Q’s lap, curling up and immediately starting to purr like an engine. Monty sets herself the task of chewing at the string of Bond’s teabag}

But I take the underground and find it pleasant enough. No reason to stop taking it, at least. Although rush hour is always much too full. 

I don’t think about the events really at all anymore. {Q notices his leg is bouncing, he stills it.} Friday I {there’s a knock at the door—Q jumps and Spoon jumps from his lap. He slams the book closed.} ——— Bond is standing on the other side of the door, waiting like the respectable man he isn’t, a heavy looking takeaway bag in his hand. 

Q didn’t realize he didn’t think Bond would come back until he sees him, back. Q opens the door and James walks in, moving straight through to the kitchen after taking off his shoes. He’s already got it half unpacked by the time Q’s locked the door and shuffled back over. 

It smells warm and inviting. Q is suddenly very hungry. 

They eat, talking idly about the food, about other foods (James likes basil ice cream. Q didn’t know that was even a thing), and Q has to berate James for trying to sneak food to Monty and Spoon at least three times each. 

It’s very mundane and they touch on nothing of weight and Q hasn’t felt this relaxed since—before. As they place leftovers into the fridge, Q feels waves of tiredness crash over him and he looks at his watch. It’s too late to take the train back to work, he usually doesn’t stay home for this long. 

James is watching him, “Mind if I watch the game on the telly?” Bond asks, “I don’t have cable.”

Q makes a face, what game is on at this time of night? “Very well, just don’t be too loud, I’m going to bed.”

“Of course.” ——— Q finishes washing his face feeling odd in pajamas he hasn’t worn in too long. There’s a faint light and sound coming from the room that masquerades as a living room. If he peers out around the doorframe, he can see Bond’s shadow, backlit. 

He gets into bed—Monty and Spoon are immediately on him and Q tries not to feel bad for being away so much. 

Sleep finds him easily. 

“See you tomorrow, Q” he hears through his dreamless slumber. ——— When he wakes up, maybe a minute, maybe hours later after hearing the goodbye (or maybe no one said that at all), it’s to Monty meowing in his face. 

He walks out and the tv is dark, James no longer in his space. The blanket he keeps on the back of the couch has been refolded. Q actively does not think about what that means. 

Q wanders into the kitchen. His diary is right there where he left it, untouched. Q opens it gently, carefully flicking through the pages, distantly noting the gap from the pages he tore out ages ago (though the words still feel like they’re there, imprinted in his mind), until he gets to a blank page. 

He takes a deep breath, uncapping the pen, staring at the page. 

He scribbles—a graceless, meaningless tangle of lines and curves, covering the page. After a solid minute of mindless lines he stops, taking the pen tip from the paper. It’s a mess. 

Symbolic, maybe; a jumbled mess that can’t be undone, closing itself off from the world. 

Q’s eyes unthinkingly find the end of the line and start to trace it back to it’s origin. Maybe not so hard to untangle after all.

[bi-nick-carraway]

Maybe things can be okay

Author's note: This was a requested prompt from @loafdaloaf "it was three in the morning." I wrote this between math homework and reading The Shining so if it's bad I'm so sorry. If anyone else has requests, drop them in my ask box and I hope y'all have a lovely day.

    It was three in the morning. Nick had been drinking after he had a long, terrible nightmare about the night Myrtle Wilson died. It was the first time Nick had seen that much blood, especially on someone who, despite all her faults, did not deserve to die. Of course, that event had been three or four months ago (Nick lost count, although he did keep count for what felt to him like a very long time). At the present moment, Nick smelled of nearly the entire scotch supply in his cabinet, but it wasn’t enough to keep the dark thoughts away. It was never enough.

(Why wasn’t I in the car with them?)

(Could I have prevented it?)

(She didn’t deserve it, did she

(What if Jay had… what if he actually died…? What would I do?)

(What if I hadn’t ever come here?)

(What if I hadn't ruin Jay’s life?)

(What if I could’ve stopped all this from happening?)

    Some part of Nick recognized that these thoughts were not true, and if any inch of his mind was wober, he would have also recognized that these thoughts were useless and it did not do any good to ponder them. But he did; he pondered them and allowed them to plague his brain and his heart. This was not the first time this happened. On many other occasions, Nick had fished around for his razor in the bathroom cabinet and stared at the blade until he lost his nerve and put it away before he returned to bed and fell into a fitful sleep. This time, though, Nick could not bring himself to even think about harming himself, for there was no room for it in his mind. The one thought that filled his mind leaving no space for anything else was:

(What if Jay had gotten hurt? What if… what if…. )

    It was too much. It was too much for Nick have those thoughts alone in his bedroom. So he set the bottle of scotch on the shelf, threw on his coat over his night clothes, put on his shoes without bothering with socks, and walked out of the house as briskly as he could.

    The mansion next door was almost foreboding with its dark windows. The grass was slightly overgrown; Gatsby did not worry much over appearance in those days. There had not been a party since before the incident. A strange nostalgic feeling came over Nick when the memory of the parties arose in his hazy, alcohol-tinged mind. He missed those parties more in that moment more than he had in weeks. He missed seeing the great Jay Gatsby in his finely pressed suits and a glittering smile always on his tan face. Some nights, the light caught Jay’s dark blue eyes just right and made them sparkle like the night sky. Yes, Nick certainly missed those parties, and he missed Jay Gatsby. Nick missed him terribly.

It was no surprise to him when he ended up standing in front of Gatsby’s door despite the fact that Nick was not paying any attention to where his feet were taking him. And there he was, standing in front of his neighbor’s house at an unreasonable hour. The alcohol was a good enough excuse, Nick supposed. In reality, Nick would have done the exact same thing had he not touched a single drop. He simply could not help himself.

After taking several deep breaths, Nick knocked loudly on the door, willing his anxiety to go away. A few moments later, the door creaked open, and Nick braced himself for the scrutinizing glare of a butler awoken from slumber, but instead, Nick was met by a warm, tired smile that made his stomach do backflips.

“Old sport,” Jay said softly, and Nick could tell he was holding back a yawn. “What brings you here this early?  Is everything all right?”

For a moment or two (or three for that matter), Nick couldn’t think of what to say. The way Gatsby was leaning one shoulder against the door frame with his loose cotton shirt completely unbuttoned was causing Nick’s heart to jump into his throat. He looked so damn beautiful standing there in the moonlight. It wasn’t until those lovely laugh-lines appeared at the corners of Gatbsy’s eyes that Nick realized he said that out loud.

“Thank you for the compliment, my friend.” Then the laugh-lines faded, and a more concerned look appeared on Gatsby’s tired face. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you some coffee.”

“No, no…” came Nick’s hesitant reply. “I’m… I’m sorry for waking you. I just had a bad dream, that’s all. I’m fine, really. I’ll let you go back to bed-”

“Nick,” Gatsby interrupted, not harshly. “Please, come inside. I doubt I could go back to sleep at this point, and I would be grateful for the company.”

    It took some convincing, but Jay eventually was able to practically drag Nick inside because he wasn’t going to let Nick spend a drunk night alone. Gatsby hated alcohol despite being surrounded by it constantly, but he also knew that it was often used to lessen negative emotions. No matter how late at night or early in the morning it was was going to stop him from taking care of someone important to him.

    Nick found himself sitting at a small table in the mansion’s giant kitchen as Gatsby busied himself making coffee for them both. Jay had the unfortunate decency to button up his shirt, and yet that made him no less beautiful. Nick may have said that out loud again, but Jay had not reacted to it if he did except for a hint of red on his ears. It felt wonderfully, and somehow also horribly, domestic. If Nick was not feeling ashamed and humiliated for his current state, the situation would have made him feel as giddy as a teen-aged girl. When Jay joined him at the table, he poured him a cup of coffee and one for himself. Clearly, Gatsby was not going to let himself fall asleep when his friend was troubled. Gatsby stared at Nick until Nick reluctantly took a sip of the bitter liquid. His face scrunched up against his will at the taste. He had a sweet tooth he would never admit to.

    “I would offer you sugar, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t help the headache you’re going to have tomorrow,” Gatsby said, as if reading Nick’s mind. Nick just made a face in response, causing Gatsby to laugh a low, tired laugh. It was childish, Nick knew, but he couldn’t help himself, especially when it made Jay laugh like that.

    “Now, old sport,” Gatsby continued a little more seriously, “would you please tell me what’s wrong?”

    “Was just a bad dream, I told you,” Nick said and averted his eyes. “Was just a bad dream is all.”

    “Nick, please…” The desperation in his voice caught Nick off guard, and his eyes were so pleading and worried.

    “I suppose it’s just that…” Nick started carefully, trying to organize his thoughts for the hundredth time that night, “It was a bad dream. About that night.” Nick did not need to specify what night he was talking about. “And I guess I can’t help but think… God, Jay, I can’t help but think how you could’ve been hurt.” His voice started to waver. “You could’ve died. Wilson was there, right there with a gun, and I wasn’t there to… I wasn’t there to do anything. If anything happened… If you got hurt, that would have been my fault. Christ, I can’t even go a week without seeing you. If you had… I think I would have thrown myself off a damn bridge by now if you didn’t make it out of that alive.” That last statement hung heavy in the air, and Nick couldn’t force himself to say any more.

    “Nick, that…” Gatsby started, a perplexed expression on his face, “that was months ago.”

    “And yet I think of it every day. I care for you much more deeply thank you could imagine, James Gatz.” Suddenly, Gatsby’s serious expression was shot through with ten different shades of pink and several layers of astonishment.

    “Are you at all sober?”

    “Not at all,” Nick’s answer was short as he studied his coffee to avoid any eye contact, “but I don’t need to be sober to know how I’ve felt about you since the day we first met.”

    It happened in an instant. Jay slid the table out of the way, it made a terrible screeching noise and the coffee that had gone cold sloshed out of the cups, and he grabbed Nick’s collar and kissed him hard on the mouth. A surge of emotions passed between them, and Nick would be lying if he said he didn’t shed a few tears. The kiss slowly became more gentle until it was soft and kind and loving. Neither of them knew how long it was when they parted, both breathing heavily.

    “I hope you know I’m not going to take advantage of you when you’re drunk,” Jay mumbled with his head on Nick’s shoulder, and Nick laughed.

    “I don’t have work tomorrow,” he whispered in Jay’s ear. “You’ll have all day to take advantage of me.” He laughed again when Jay just buried his head further into Nick in embarrassment.

    It was three in the morning. Yet another dream woke Nick from his sleep, with shallow breathing and perspiration gathering on his forehead. Then a warm body stirred next to him and rolled over to face him.

    “Nick?

    “Yes?”

    “Another bad dream?”

    “...Yes.”

    “I’m right here.” Then strong arms wrapped around Nick, keeping him anchored to reality. “Go back to sleep, my love.”

    “Jay?”

    “Yes, darling?”

    “I love you.”

    “I love you, too. Now please go to sleep.” A soft laugh came out of Nick before he settled himself into his lover’s arms, and, for the first time in months, he went back to sleep without any dark thoughts fighting to keep him awake.

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 6570 Chapter: 8/9 Rated: T+ Summary: When his brother disappears coming home from town Madara goes looking for him only for both to end up taken prisoner in a castle hidden by magic generations ago. The candelabras talk, the furniture sleeps, and a great white beast hides himself away in the eastern wing. As he uncovers the story behind this place and gets to know the last small group of ‘survivors’ Madara gradually makes a new home here in the least likely of places.

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Chapter 8

If you had asked him even yesterday Madara would probably have said that he never expected to find out what a sleepy tessen fan looked like. Sure he knew that even as inanimate objects his fellow residents here at the castle did need to sleep but they did so in the royal apartments, one of the few areas he still had yet to go back in to. And besides that the only living tessen fan he knew was Mito and she was a woman who clung to her poise at every minute of every hour. Seeing her sleepy, in his mind at least, would be like seeing Tobirama sit in the middle of the floor to start crying.

Yet there she was floating in to the room with her painted eyes half-lidded and her thin lips opened for a yawn while Hashirama flustered along the ground beneath her. Behind them Tobirama slinked in as best he could with cloven hooves in place of feet.

“Why does Hashirama look so panicked?” Madara asked him quietly. He was fairly sure he already knew the answer and though he hoped it wasn’t true those hopes were dashed by the sad red eyes turning away from him.

“He fears for his wife. She is…not well.”

“You mean she’s sick?” It said a lot that his tone was almost hopeful but again he was disappointed.

“No, she is not ill. She is tired. It has come as a shock to both of us.” Tobirama fell in to stillness and closed his eyes, visibly attempting to rein in his emotions, and Madara couldn’t blame him. He hated that his guess was right. This was the last thing he wanted for any of the friends he’d made here.

Keeping a weather eye on her floating form as she took over the cooking, he allowed himself to be shooed away to go sit on Tobirama’s other side. “She’ll be okay though, right? I see her every day and she’s never shown any sort of…tiredness.”

It took his companion a while to answer. In that time Madara watched as Mito sent her husband apologetic yet muted smiles to which he responded by attempting to wring his hands together. Even the way she drifted through the air seemed almost listless, weaving side to side rather than her usual straight lines, movements sluggish where normally she zipped from place to place with an effortless decorum. How a fan managed to affect decorum he couldn’t say but it was one word that always came to mind whenever he watched her working.

“Her pain was kept well hidden from us all until today,” Tobirama murmured eventually. He couldn’t seem to look at anything but the floor, each word a low rumble so as not to drift across the room. “She is tired, as are we all, but I did not realize she had given up on hope after all this time. Of us all she has always seemed the strongest. Now she feels that with you and your brother here she need not worry for her husband and she has lost the strength to keep herself awake. It won’t be long.”

“Until?”

“She will fall asleep,” was the simple, heartbreaking answer.

Madara didn’t need more than that to understand. She would fall asleep as so many others had and become nothing more than another object in the cavernous halls to sit still and collect dust. Just thinking about how devastated Hashirama would be by her loss made him shudder and push the image from his mind, snagging Tobirama by one wrist and turning to pull him from the room without warning.

“You are not responsible for this,” he hissed the moment they were alone in the hallway. When Tobirama flinched he knew he had hit the mark.

“It is I that keeps them all trapped in this–”

“No, it’s that crazy witch lady who trapped you all here. Maybe they don’t quite agree with how you feel but not one of them blames you for it.” He nearly growled with frustration to see the other wrinkle his brow with disagreement.

Still not lifting his eyes from the floor, Tobirama ran a hand through his wild hair, stopping when his fingers ran in to one of the horns growing out the top of his head. He paused to trace the ridges with disgust shadowing his face. “If I were a stronger man I would have freed them from this hell decades ago. If I were still a man at all.”

Disgust turned to shock when Madara punched him square in the chest. With the sheer size of his current form the blow did very little but it was enough to break him from his thoughts and force his gaze up to see that Madara was angry. Not truly angry in the sense that he was offended in any way but there was certainly a good heavy irritation building up inside him after going over the same words again and again with no progress. Utterly done with having to repeat himself, Madara reached up and snagged a fistful of the man’s collar to pull him down so their faces were of a level, staunchly ignoring the fact that he only succeeded because Tobirama followed the motion probably out of pure disbelief.

“I’m gonna say this again and you’re gonna clean the shit out of your ears and listen this time,” he growled. “You are a man. And a damn good one. You can have all the pity parties and magic tricks you like and that won’t change anything. You’re a human with human feelings and just because they hurt doesn’t mean you get to run away from them!”

“Madara…”

“No! Shut up! You think I didn’t feel like a monster when I figured out our parents abandoned us? You think I didn’t feel like an unwanted burden not good enough even for the people who made me? Well I got over it! And you’re just going to have to get over this!”

“It is not as easy as–”

With a snarl Madara cut him off again. “You might not think so but it really is! You have had a hundred damned years to wallow in your little pity party but it needs to stop! You think you did a terrible inhumane thing. Fine. So make up for it! Atone! It if makes you feel better you can abdicate the throne and run away to live the harrowing life of a peasant. I know a stable you can help me muck out. But for the love of all the gods just- would a monster feel the guilt that you do!?”

Tobirama had no answer. He seemed a little too busy gaping with his jaw hanging loose and from this close Madara couldn’t help but note that it was a startlingly adorable expression on him. Actually there were several things he had the chance to notice now. With the height different between them he’d never seen Tobirama’s face in such detail but from merely an inch or so away he could see the exact garnet red shade of his eyes, the soft almost peachy pink of his lips and the frown lines around them. Twisted his features might have been but there were enough hints towards the handsomeness his true self would wear that Madara very nearly blushed.

Since he was still more angry than anything else he did no such thing. He did let go of the clothing in his grasp, awkwardly smoothing it out in apology when Tobirama failed to straighten right away.

“You’re so caught up in what you see in the mirror,” he continued, “that you can’t see what’s actually on the inside. If you looked at yourself like I do you wouldn’t see a monster.”

“Peace,” Tobirama breathed, holding up both hands in surrender.

“Oh believe me, I’m feeling mighty peaceful right now.”

His companion let out a single humorless puff of laughter. “Indeed. Madara…the way you speak of me is…I am glad you came in to our lives. I’m glad to have known you. The things you say mean more than I can express and I don’t think I could ever repay you for the kindness you have shown me.”

“It’s not kindness, its basic human decency.” Madara sniffed haughtily.

“There are many who would not offer even that. I…”

Seeing Tobirama hesitate was odd, enough so that Madara felt almost obligated to put him out of his misery. The man needed to hear these things but every time he tried to bring them up he found himself incredibly weak to the flash of vulnerability that followed his words. Confident that Tobirama would think on what he said, he awkwardly patted one massive arm and cleared his throat.

“It’s fine. I’m sorry I yelled, you’re obviously already stressed about the situation.”

“No need to apologize, you were in the right to stop me from spiraling in to a darkness that would help no one. That is not what I had intended to address however. I wished to tell you, ah, how I feel.”

“God, please, no.” Madara retracted his hand to slap it over both eyes. “Don’t get touchy feely on me, I’ll break out in to hives.”

“Oh.”

When he peeked Tobirama looked so downcast it sent a wave of guilt burning through his gut and Madara hurried to balm the wound he’d just made. “We’re friends and I know you appreciate me, I swear I do. I just, ugh. You don’t need to compose sonnets or anything about it okay? I’d burn up from embarrassment.”

“Friends, yes.”

“Right.”

After staring at him for a long time with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher Tobirama took a deep breath and let it out slowly before indicating the door back in to the kitchen. “Shall we rejoin the others?”

“Are you alright to go back in?”

“Yes, I should attend to my brother and his wife. It is only proper that I offer what comforts I can.” His words were stiff with what Madara could only assume to be some embarrassment of his own. That was understandable. Madara himself didn’t deal very well with the shameful disaster that was expressing himself so he could hardly blame anyone else for the same struggle.

The kitchen, when they entered, was filled with silent tension that even Kagami seemed unwilling to break. Madara would be tempted to check the boy’s temperature if he thought wooden soldiers could have a temperature. Did their animated chattel bodies have any physiological human characteristics? Something to ask about. At the moment he kept his focus on the way Hashirama had settled himself on the edge of the kitchen counter with the stubborn expression of a watchdog. If he still possessed muscles and feet Madara could only imagine they could have been spread to set himself in an unmovable stance much like young village lads playing tackle ball games in the fields.

It was easy to understand his concern but it was also quite easy to see the tightness of Mito’s illustrated lips. She looked much more alert now, thankfully, and did not seem to appreciate her husband’s stubborn hovering. Knowing that increasing the tension would not do anyone any good Madara stumped over and unceremoniously scooped a protesting Hashirama up, carrying him along to find a seat where he usually did.

“Madara, my good man, I must insist you return me to my station!”

“Your station is off to one side admiring her ‘pretty folds’ and completely missing the dirty implications of your own words.” He gave his friend an unimpressed look and poked him until he fell down on his backside. On the other side of the table Tobirama held one hand up to cover a weak smile.

“I would never make lewd observations in public!”

“That you know about,” Madara grunted.

He accepted the smile Mito gifted him when she brought his salvaged breakfast as the gratitude it was meant to be and said nothing further, listening with only one ear as Hashirama went off on some rant about respecting the fairer sex and maintaining decorum. Anyone who skidded around corners so fast they crashed in to walls on a weekly basis had no room for lecturing about decorum.

Breakfast was delicious, though for once he neglected to say so. No way was he admitting that Mito’s cooking really was that much better than his own. Izuna, on the other hand, had no qualms about loudly declaring how glad he was to avoid eating his big brother’s cooking again after so long without. The comparisons he made were less than flattering despite years of his compliments for the chef. Madara made sure to give him a hefty swat on the back of his head on the way to wash his dishes in the sink. No matter how many times they assured him that none of the dishware they used had ever been a reanimated human he simply couldn’t bring himself to leave them dirty.

Just in case.

The possibility of Mito’s declining mental state seemed like a family matter so Madara was well prepared to drag his brother away once they had both taken care of their dishes and probably lock themselves away for some quality time of their own. He was more than a little startled to have Hashirama invite them to join the castle residents for the day, spending time together as one big happy group. A rarity and an honor. Madara accepted the invitation easily and, with Izuna trailing along behind curiously, he walked next to Tobirama in companionable silence as they all made their way up a floor to gather in a lovely sunroom he’d never seen before, darker now as the afternoon faded but the fire Hashirama lit gave off enough light to admire rich furniture and tasteful décor.  

Since half of their little gathering didn’t exactly take up much space the three of them without any bulk all settled on a low table centered in the middle of the seating area, Izuna carefully draping himself over a massive armchair while Madara settled next to Tobirama on a small couch. Considering how much furniture there was about they didn’t really have to sit together but it felt ridiculous to have all three of them with bodies spread out when it would be much easier to converse if they were all closer. And if he happened to enjoy the rather pleasant scent of sandalwood coming off of his friend then that was for him to know and hopefully no one else to find out. It was his own business if he made sure to angle his body to lean a bit more towards the opposite side of the couch where every shift and movement of Tobirama’s body sent another waft of pleasant aromas through the air. His friend must have bathed before dinner as well.

For the most part conversation stayed light as everyone tried to keep their mind off of the way Mito wasn’t quite as interactive as she might normally have been. While she could never be described as exuberant neither was she the type to withhold her opinion if she had one but today she offered very little, resting quietly on the tabletop and looking as though she would dearly have loved to fold up her ribs and rest.

Hating the guilt that shadowed Tobirama’s face every time he so much as glanced in her direction, Madara did what he could to keep the conversation going between them even when the rest of the group branched off on to other topics. Distraction was not allowed. If he had to be the center of Tobirama’s focus for the rest of the day he would even if he didn’t see himself as all that interesting. Luckily for him it was never very hard to keep the other’s attention.

“You never ride them?” Tobirama asked after listening with a muddled frown to a description of how Madara spent most of his days back home.

“No, they’re not mine.”

“But you are caring for them, do you not take them out for exercise in a yard or field?”

Madara lifted one eyebrow. “It’s an inn tavern, you sheltered noble. I just watch them while their owners get drunk and then I have to let them go again to carry the sodden asses back home.”

“Well that strikes me as incredibly dangerous. One should never travel whilst inebriated.”

“Have you ever been inebriated?”

“Such things are unseemly,” Tobirama sniffed. When his eyes opened again it was to peek and make sure his brother wasn’t listening. “However I must admit that, yes, I have experienced it and did not understand the attraction. The devils of drink were always more Hashirama's vice, not mine.”

“Weak stomach?” Madara nodded sagely.

He delighted in the bitchy look that earned him. For a king Tobirama had some excellent bitch faces.

“I will have you know that my constitution is far above average.”

“Oh so you’re an expensive drunk then. I can get that. Didn’t want to waste the money it takes to get you plastered?”

Tobirama’s face pinched even tighter. “For your information I was indeed in charge of the royal coffers and not once was it ever a concern whether or not I was spending too much on such frivolities as alcohol! I have some decorum!” He paused to visibly compose himself, then added in a flippant tone, “Unlike some others here.”

It took effort to clamp his teeth down on the gleeful snicker that wanted to escape.

“You trying to say something?” Madara demanded instead, valiantly holding in his laughter.

“Why, I would never raise such implications against your person – unless you deserved it of course. Should I direct my inquiries to your sibling?” Tobirama cast his gaze across the room to where Izuna had kicked his feet over one arm of the chair and tossed his head back against the other arm with raucous laughter. He smirked openly when Madara scrambled to wave both hands forbiddingly without drawing too much attention to them.

“Don’t you dare!” he hissed.

Tobirama hummed and settled back in to his seat a little more firmly, a silent declaration that he would have mercy this time.  “Perhaps it is best I determine my answers from the source, as it were. I don’t suppose you would care to join me for a nightcap?”

“Eh?” Spinning his head around to check the window, Madara frowned. “It’s not really night yet.” When he looked back Tobirama was giving him a look that said he had definitely missed something, though he had no guesses what that something might be. A nightcap was supposed to be a drink at the end of the night as far as he knew. Something to end your day with. He was pretty sure. It was one of those words that no one down at his end of the social totem pole ever used.

“You interpret the word too literally. I meant only to invite you to my room for a drink.”

“What, trying to get me drunk? Is that your way of throwing a challenge?”

“Ah, if you choose to see it as one.” Tobirama shook his head as if disagreeing with himself but before Madara could question it he affected a smile and added, “Any time with you is time well spent. Even if you do insist on hearing only the spaces between whatever meaning I am attempting to convey.”

Madara gave him a funny look, to which Tobirama lifted one eyebrow, a challenge asking him to refute such claims. He really wished he could but as much as he always enjoyed a good argument he really wasn’t clear on what he was arguing against. It felt like lately he was always missing something whenever he spoke with Tobirama – which was pretty much every day. The more time they spent together the closer they became and the cycle could only wind inwards infinitely. But if sharing a drink at the end of the day was what he wanted then Madara certainly wasn’t going to say no. It wasn’t often he got to enjoy a mug or two, not usually able to afford it, and when he did it was almost always the swill at the end of the barrel after the innkeeper finished serving his ‘more important’ guests.

Plan in mind and determined not to make a drunken fool of himself too easily, Madara gave his companion a friendly shove before lifting his head to respond when Izuna called him from across the seating area. He was easily drawn in to a debate over whether the cloth produced by a spinning jenny could really be the same quality as one produced by a team of workers spinning by hand. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how far behind the times these folks were and how little they knew of the world’s latest technologies.

The silly debate ended with Hashirama demanding that Izuna craft a spinning jenny for him to try for himself, to which Izuna responded by nearly falling off his chair with laughter and holding out both soft-palmed hands.

“You think I’m the worker of the household? I’m an invalid, your highness, I haven’t done much more than simple house chores since I was a boy.” He seemed quite pleased with his excuse too. Madara grumbled just loud enough to get his point across the room but his brother ignored him. “Even if I was I wouldn’t know how to make one for myself.”

“Oh. I rather thought…hm.” Hashirama didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, a little consternated, a little confused.

“Thought what?”

“It was my thought that if one understood how to use it then surely one must understand how to construct it.”

Madara relaxed from where he’d been about to burst in to laughter in case Hashirama made some dumbass comment about the entire working class sharing skills. That was just the sort of empty-headed assumptions he was used to hearing from nobles but he should have known to expect better of his friend. Not that the assumption he did end up making was all that much smarter.

“The improvements he has made continue to impress me,” Tobirama said quietly and Madara didn’t have to follow his gaze to know he was watching Izuna.

“No kidding. Thank you again. For helping.”

“You need not thank me.”

“I do need to. You can’t know…well I guess you can know what it’s like to lose a brother. We already had to bury the rest of our siblings but I don’t have to bury him and that’s thanks to you. I owe you everything.” His cheeks were burning by the time he’d finished saying his piece and Madara considered giving Tobirama another shove to bring the mood of their conversation back out of the seriousness he’d just dove down in to.

Thankfully Tobirama seemed to recognize what he needed. “If you absolutely must pay recompense then I shall consider your acceptance of my offer for a nightcap as such. Mayhap I truly will get you – ah, what was the term you used? – plastered.”

Madara roared with mirth to hear such a colloquial term from the fanciest idiot he’d ever met. His laughter caught the attention of Hashirama, who he then had to explain to what it meant to get plastered. The conversation turned then to include the entire group as they all traded embarrassing stories about each other under the influence of alcohol or other accidentally ingested substances. Most of the latter were stories about Tobirama stumbling out of his laboratory to report on unknown reactions with new chemicals. Madara liked those ones, although he didn’t appreciate Izuna’s lurid descriptions of the few times he had stumbled home from the inn after being allowed the dregs of his so-called betters. The one story about Mito and her bloomers, on the other hand, he found particularly amusing.

Even more amusing was seeing the stars in little Kagami’s eyes and watching Hashirama awkwardly try to talk him out of the idea that he too wanted a good drinking story when he was finally able to grow old enough. High moral values were difficult to impart with Izuna egging the poor boy on from the sidelines.

Such antics eventually led to the end of their evening all together, Mito shaking the stupor away long enough to scold her husband for encouraging Kagami towards such raunchy behaviors and refusing to hear anything about him being the only one trying to protect the child. When she expressed her fatigue Hashirama's face fell in response. In an instant he was up and fussing around, encouraging her to bed and bidding the rest of them a good night. After watching them go Izuna’s mood seemed to have dimmed as well. Before long he was scooping up Kagami and trotting off with the toy soldier in tow, murmuring together like co-conspirators on their way out. Madara wondered if his brother planned to let the boy sleep in his bed for the night and what might happen if Izuna rolled over in his dreams. He would need to stay alert for screaming.

“It seems we have been abandoned,” Tobirama observed to the otherwise empty room.

“Time for that drinking contest you were calling for?”

“Have a bit of class, I pray.” Sticking his nose in the air, his friend affected the snootiest expression he’d ever seen, clearly exaggerated for comic effect. “To waste such fine sake on something as crude as a contest to see which of us may imbibe more! Heavens forbid.”

“Oh quit being such a ponce!” Madara told him.

Watching Tobirama preen to have amused him with a good joke was hilarious, though he opted not to say anything. Embarrassing the man could only end in having any offers of alcohol revoked and Madara found that he was quite in the mood for a few drinks. Magnanimously choosing to be merciful, he instead waved for his friend to lead the way and followed with giddy anticipation, curious to finally have his first proper look around the royal apartments. He knew someone of Tobirama’s station probably had an entire set of rooms to himself so they were most likely just moving to a different type of sitting room but he could guess that it was still quite an honor.

As they shut the door of the sunroom and set off down the hall he turned to his friend with a curious expression. “Wait, we’re drinking sake? That’s supposed to be rice wine right?”

“Indeed it is. Have you never had the pleasure?”

“No. Usually all I have is whatever beer gets leftover in people’s mugs at the end of the night. Already paid for, you know? The innkeeper would never give me anything for free and I don’t usually have the money to spare for being choosy.” He shrugged because that was the way of things in his life and there was little point in getting all riled up about it.

Turning a corner brought them past a window, light from the rising moon flickering across the deep creases between Tobirama’s brows where he had pulled them in to a frown. “How very uncharitable of him. You deserve much better than the leftovers of men who could never hope to be your equal.”

“Damn, back at it with the flattery.” Madara tossed his hair over one shoulder. He noted the way Tobirama’s gaze followed the motion though he didn’t think much of it since the man was probably just wondering what it would be like to have so much hair thick and heavy on his own head. A lot of people asked questions about his hair. Not many of them were very happy with the honest answer that he had grown it out mostly by accident at first and then because he was stubborn in the face of so many people telling him to cut it. Apparently he needed to have some kind of important motivation or something to make it understandable.

“Would you have me be unflattering?” A few beats too late Tobirama finally replied.

“Can you be?” he asked skeptically. “You’re not too much of a prissy royal to mince words with a commoner like me?” The grin he threw was more of a challenge than if he’d tossed a gauntlet on the floor between them and words could not express how thrilled he was when the other took that challenge.

Drawing himself up even as he drew the tapestry out of their way to invite Madara in to the royal apartments, Tobirama affected a mocking glare. “You look death’s head upon a mop stick you foppish, cow-handed gasser. Do you think me uneducated in the lower speech?”

The only response Madara had to that was to throw his head back and wheeze for air, shamelessly holding on to the other’s arm to keep himself upright. Never in his life had he heard something so nonsensical yet delivered with such unadulterated bitchiness. Something told him that none of those insults were in any way related to each other but relevancy was hard to focus on when he could barely think passed how utterly ridiculous it all sounded. Old timey insults were hilarious. Hearing them out of Tobirama’s mouth only made them so much better.

It wasn’t much farther to where they were going but they spent the rest of their walk trading insults that only grew more and more absurd as they went. By the time they stumbled in to a lavish sitting room they were ready to fall over in a dual fit of the giggles, although Tobirama somehow managed to retain a small bit of decorum even in this. Madara was starting to think he would have to challenge the idiot to a mud wrestling competition or something just to see him act entirely like a normal person.

“Right!” he declared as soon as he’d caught enough breath back to form words. “Where’s this sake you were talking about? I’d love to wake up tomorrow and whine about a hangover.”

“If you disrespect my vintage so I may be tempted to defenestrate you.” Tobirama lifted one eyebrow warningly.

While Madara tried to work his way through whatever ‘defenestrate’ was supposed to mean Tobirama stepped over to a side table and removed a small set very similar to something the innkeeper had brought out only once when a military captain happened to pass through their small village and demanded the finest services the poor could offer. Madara hadn’t liked him much but he could remember being very curious of whatever clear booze had been poured for him.

The set of dishes laid out before him was a hundred times fancier than the one at the inn, he could tell that at a single glance. Black lacquered porcelain with fine gold filigree forming what he could only assume was a house crest on each, a matching decanter and a tray with gold trim to carry it all, it probably cost more than the collective entirety of Madara's possessions both here and in the village. He kept his hands carefully by his sides at he leaned closer to admire the craftsmanship of each piece. But when he sat back and looked up he noticed Tobirama watching him expectantly.

“In this weather there is little need for the sake to be chilled elsewhere, as luck would have it.” His tone was casual, if a little impatient. Madara nodded slowly.

“Didn’t know it needed to be cold.”

“Some are served chilled, others served hot. This here is perhaps my favorite. I’m glad of the opportunity to share it with you.”

More curious than ever, all Madara could do was nod again. “Cool. Share as you like.”

A long pause stretched out for what felt like forever in which neither of them moved and he tried to figure out why Tobirama had offered the sake but wasn’t actually moving to serve it. It took a couple minutes before finally the man rolled his eyes with all the drama his brother usually managed and carefully stepped over to fiddle at the delicate ceramic with his thick clawed hands.

“What?” Madara demanded. “You’re looking at me like I’ve done something wrong. I’m just sitting here!”

“Precisely. When sharing a drink one is expected to pour for one’s betters.”

“Ooh, you saying you’re better than me?”

“I never said such a thing.” The serene tone of his voice was a dead giveaway but Madara refused to laugh just yet, clinging to his pretended offense.

With arms crossed he stuck his nose in the air and declared, “You inferred it!”

“One implies. It is up to the recipient to infer, though what inferences you make are surely beyond my control. Heavens forbid I ever claim to understand how a mind such as yours might work.” Tobirama, unfortunately, was much better at playing snooty. No doubt a lifetime of practice was no blame.

“I want to say you just implied that I have a crazy mind but I can’t quite parse it out because you always talk so damn fancy!”

That finally broke his friend. A smile cracked Tobirama’s stern expression and Madara pumped both fists in the air with triumph, eliciting a low chuckle. “Pour the drink, you hooligan, before I am lowered to doing so myself.”

“Now that’s something for the heavens to forbid or whatever.”

Since he had already won Madara figured it wasn’t losing in any way to let himself smile as well as he snatched up the chilly decanter and poured them each a dish of the clear liquid he had only seen once before. Being made of rice he would have thought their little farming village could make this stuff in abundance but for the fact that all of their rice went to paying taxes and supporting the lord of the closest town since technically he owned their land.

Actually, he realized, even more technically Tobirama probably owned the land, though likely no one remembered that.

Clinking their glasses together was a much more delicate affair with such small dishes than he usually witnessed in the rowdy tavern and despite his care Tobirama still rolled those pretty red eyes like he’d done something country bumpkin again. Madara ignored him, tossing back the drink in one mouthful. His abilities had been questioned and he was determined to make a good showing of himself.

Of course, because that was just his luck, he was spluttering and coughing in the next instant as the rice wine burned his throat and his eyes began to water, one fist coming up to pound his chest as though he could beat the sensation back out of himself.

“That stuff has a kick!” he wheezed, much to Tobirama’s obvious amusement.

“It would not have affected you half so much if you were not such a boor as to pour it down your gullet like goat’s milk. Fine sake is meant to be appreciated, not guzzled.”

“A little warning would have been nice!”

“Had I given you warning,” Tobirama murmured, “that would not have been so funny.”

Madara opened his mouth to retort and cut himself off with another coughing fit. He wanted to be annoyed but he also had to admit that he would have done the exact same thing if their positions were reversed. In light of that he grunted and pounded his sternum a few more times without saying anything. He could almost breathe again by the time Tobirama settled next to him on the couch with delicate movements, ever so careful not to spill a drop of his own drink.

A quick look around told him that they didn’t necessarily need to sit right next to each other. Just like the sunroom, there was plenty of furniture here and they would have able to hear each other just fine from different seats. Madara neglected to say anything. Sitting together like this gave the room a much more casual and intimate air so it felt less like dining with the king and more like drinking with a friend. He wondered if that was Tobirama’s intention but didn’t ask, content with the mystery. Instead he reached to pour himself another cup and listened to his friend go off on a lecture about how it was polite to offer one’s companions a refill when one wanted some for themselves.

Several cups later he had convinced Tobirama to give up on the idea of proper manners but he had also somehow managed to lay sideways on the couch with his legs tossed over the arm and his head pillowed against one of his friend’s thighs. Every time Tobirama looked down he began mumbling about propriety again, which for some reason struck Madara as the funniest thing. He kept imagining some highborn lady walking in on them and fainting to see them being so familiar with each other. A few times he imagined Hashirama doing it and that was even better.

“I don’t think I can get up,” he confessed after struggling to reach for the sake yet again and failing to even reach the table. “Might have to just pass out right here.”

“Scandalous,” Tobirama murmured, though it really didn’t sound like an objection.

“You look like you’re gonna pass out too,” Madara noted. He giggled under the squinting eyes that tried to glare him down yet only managed to focus somewhat to the right of where his head actually lay.

“I will have you know that I am per-fen-ec-tally fine.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment while Madara tried to work his way through that.

“What?”

“I’ll not be repeating myself. I am not sure that I could, in fact, as memory seems to have abandoned me. What were we talking about?” Tobirama raised his head again only to drop it back against the couch where one could only assume he was watching the ceiling spin in circles. At least, that’s what Madara was doing.

Wriggling a bit until he’d found a more comfortable position, Madara closed his eyes to block out the world. “I think we were going to sleep.”

“No. No! I had something I wished to discuss with you! Something of utmost importance!”

“Can it wait until we’ve slept?”

“I…yes, alright.” The sheer defeat in Tobirama’s voice in addition to the bone-melting exhaustion of both their bodies was enough to have Madara giggling again, albeit very weakly. Now that he’d said he was tired it was like sleep had grown claws and sunk them in deep, pulling, pulling him down when he was too weak to resist.

Humming pleasantly, turning his face to burrow against the warmth pillowing his head, Madara gave a few sleepy mumbles that might have been translated in some languages as a sort of goodnight. Tobirama mumbled something back but sleep must have gotten its claws in to him too and they were both fading fast. Whatever he said was lost to the ceiling and the uncaring shadows that cradled them deeper in to the night.

A moment later the room was silent but for the even breaths of two men prepared to regret their choice of pastimes come morning.

[awake-not-today]

SUBMITTED BY SPARKLE HEART ANON FOR KOOKIE ANON 💖

Kinks/warnings; size difference, cum eating, cock worship, breeding, noona, blow jobs, bondage, thigh riding, switch!kook, switch!reader, unrealistic sex in the form of cervix penetration, unprotected sex, probably inhuman amounts of cum???, swearing, male and female oral, muscle worship, creampie, forced orgasms, multiple orgasms, fingering, edging, pussy slapping, pining, corruption kink in you squint, praising, mind break, lots of dirty talk, fluffy ending, stomach bulge, cock ring, degradation, overstimulation

tortoise and the hare

If you told the you from a year ago that to mark your first year in Korea you’d currently be under the boy you had, until your first orgasm of the night anyway, previously only seen as a little brother she’d probably call you crazy. And yet here you were desperately clinging to the ridiculously toned biceps of one mister Jeon Jungkook, aka the best friend and roommate of your former friends with benefits Namjoon, and begging him to fuck you harder as he grinned down at you.

Fucked silly.

That’s how you were going to describe tonight to your friends over lunch the next day. This impossibly cocky boy was fucking you silly and to be completely honest with your Catholic guilt you’d have it no other way. Soft kisses were placed along your jaw and neck before being turned into hickies you knew you’d be carrying for a week. All you could do was moan and wrap your legs as tight as possible around his stupidly tiny waist while he pounded into your tight heat and your brain turned to mush at the onslaught of pleasure.

A little over a year ago you’d been pen paling your new friend Nari when she’d invited you to her wedding. You had come two weeks before the ceremony to help with any last minute things and to explore a new country. It was during your two weeks that Nari managed to convince you to instead stay for a few more years. Agreeing you went about filing more paperwork than you ever have in your life before getting your five year visa. You were lucky that your job had a branch in Seoul and allowed the transfer. You adore your job in historical conservation and were proud of how far you’ve gotten in your career at only twenty-four.

It was how you met your second friend Namjoon. A student teacher from the art department at a nearby school he was wandering the galleries when you both turned the corner at the same time quite literally falling for each other. The first thing you noticed were his dimples and how smooth his voice was as he apologized over and over. You assured him that it was fine and no harm done. The second things you noticed were how tall he was compared to your 5’2” frame and just how good his english was.

After buying you a coffee to again apologize it didn’t take long before the two of you became friends and eventually leading to friends with benefits. You’d be lying if you said that man didn’t know how to behave in bed. This is also when you first met Joon’s roommate and friend Jungkook. Slightly younger than you by three years he was a student athlete on the basketball team at the same school Joon taught at and was studying physical therapy. Joon had signed up to mentor freshmen and been partnered with Kook. They’d be inseparable ever since. Student teacher and student relations be damned.

Your first meeting was less than ideal. You’d just left Joon’s room after waking up from sleeping over after sex when you came face to face with his roommate. His very shirtless and sweaty and drop dead delectable roommate. You had stared at his chest for far longer than appropriate before his embarrassed cough brought you back to your senses. Hastily apologizing you introduce yourself before making a quick exit cheeks burning. You avoid their place for the next week claiming busy schedule.

The second time you meet you’re out on Friday for girls night and drunk off your ass when you bump into Joon, Kook, and their friends. It wasn’t long before your entire groups were mingling while you ended up in Kooks lap. Giving him a kiss on the cheek when leaving. The next morning he sympathetically handed you Advil after Advil while you threw up. After that the embarrassment of the first meeting was gone and replaced by your drunken kiss the pair of you settled into an easy friendship.

Kook remembers your first meetings very differently. The first time he saw you he was convinced you were an angel. Messy hair and wrinkled dress be damned you looked amazing. As soon as your eyes met bells went off in his head and he knew for sure that you were the one. He was pretty smug about how you couldn’t take your eyes off his body, but unfortunately you had left embarrassed and he didn’t get to introduce himself properly until a few weeks later. He dropped coffee off at your work one day and properly said hello easing the embarrassment of the first two meetings.

You came around their apartment a lot after that since it was closer to your work than your place and he got used to having nearly zero boundaries between you two. You had no qualms about sitting on his lap, using his height to reach things, playing with his hair while cuddle up, and even dropping kisses on his head sometimes. He figured out pretty quickly you thought he was too young for you and he accepted that. Hated it but accepted it. You two fell into an easy friendship and he wouldn’t have traded it for the world. He’d just have to wait patiently for you to see him in a different light.

That moment wouldn’t come until your first year in Korea had passed. You all went out to celebrate at Nari’s insistence and while Joon left early on to follow some brunette Kook stuck by your side the entire night. He’d had a few hookups and brief girlfriends over the year to scratch the itch but he wanted you and he was determined to finally have you. He held you up around the waist as he helped you into your own apartment where you tiredly kicked off your high heels. You weren’t drunk, but you were dead tired. Turning your back to him you asked sweetly if he’d get your zipper for you.

Shivering at the strong hands covering your back you felt him slowly unto your little black dress and turned to give him a huge grin in thanks before walking down the hall to your room. You reappeared a moment later with clothes for him to change into. Eventually you came out and flopped onto the couch next to him curling into his side in your sleep shorts and tank top.

“Have fun tonight?” he asked thanking the gods that you weren’t wearing a bra and trying not to be obvious about it.

Sleepily you nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for coming out tonight.”

He gave a low chuckle and flipped through netflix. “Anytime.”

It was quiet for a few moments before he spoke with forced casualness. Tonight he was going to use your perceived innocence of him against you. “Hey noona?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I practice eating you out?”

You sat up abruptly to look at him not thinking you heard him correctly. “Excuse you?!”

He shrugged, not even having the decency to look ashamed. “There’s this girl I like and I want to make sure I make a good first impression.”

Not technically a lie. He did like a girl, you, and he did want to make a good impression, just on you. He looked at you and stuck out his lower lip slightly. You spoiled him and let him get away with so many things he was fairly certain you’d say yes.

Ah there it was. That moment you hesitated.

“Please noona?” he whined. He dramatically flopped into your lap looking up at you with practiced innocence ad puppy eyes. “Don’t you want me to be happy?”

You snorted at that and rolled your eyes. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

He sighed and looked at you. “Noona.” he looked disappointed. “If this doesn’t end well, I'll never be able to show my face on campus, be forced to drop out due to bad grades, then spend the rest of my life bouncing between you and joon-hyung.”

Playing with his hair you again rolled your eyes. “Maybe you should have been a drama major.” you teased.

He huffed at you while you thought. It had been a while since your last hook up and if you were being truthful you had in fact thought about kook more than once late at night. But he just seemed so young and uninterest in you those feelings never went anywhere. Besides one lesson wouldn’t hurt, would it? Gently pushing him off you agreed. Letting out a small scream at suddenly being hoisted in the air over his shoulder you missed Kook smirking the entire way down the hall to your bedroom like he’d won the universe.

He gently tossed you onto the middle of the bed before stripping himself of his shirt and while you were distracted he managed to get your shirt off. Moving down to your shorts he quickly rid you of them delighted that you hadn’t worn panties. “Noona.” he teased. “Expecting something?”

Blushing you slapped his shoulder and was about to snark at him after finally tearing your eyes from his very well defined ab muscles when his mouth was on yours and all thought went out the window. Briefly you wondered just how inexpieranced was he actually was because fuck did he know how to kiss. Lost in the feeling of his soft lips moving against yours you could only look at him with a dazed expression as he pulled back to stare at your body. Fuck he had dreamed of this moment for months and now here you were all ready and willing for him. He could feel his cock start to harden in his sweats while he pushed you gently down and placed small kisses down your chest until latching onto your right nipple.

Groaning you threaded your hands in his hair eyes slipping closed as he bit and played with the moon shaped piercing. Once it was all pebbled and sensitive he switched to your left and played with the star piercing. Glancing up he moaned at the sight of your blissed out face.

“I t-thought you only gon-na eat m-me out.” you gasped.

He shrugged and shot you a sweet smile. “Just want to make sure i do this properly.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and were about to say something until he bit down on the nipple in his mouth and you let out a loud moan arching your back. Fuck that was hot, he thought eyes transfixed on your face. Releasing your nipple he continued on his way down your stomach leaving small bites before reaching his prize. Gently he used his fingers to spread you apart smirking when he saw how excited you were. Practically dripping like a flood.

“Look at me.” he commanded you voice slipping an octave.

Startled at the change you did and with no warning he licked a stripe from the bottom to your clit. Hands immediately went to his hair encouraging him to keep doing that as your moaned above him.

“Please.” you whispered already sounding fucked out.

He loved that.

Continuing his task he dived back in and began eating you out like a man starved. Never in your wildest dreams had he thought his plan would work out so well and now that he had you naked and writhing under him wanting more he wasn’t about to let you down.

After all he did have only one chance to make a good first impression on you.

Whimpering above him your mind was going a mile a minute. You thought that you’d have to coach him through this, but now he was making you evaluate everything you thought you once knew. Did he even need the practice? A well timed harsh suck to your clit assured you that no he didn’t. So what was his angle? Lost in pleasure you idly wondered if maybe he did have feelings for you, but you shut that thinking down before it could bloom. If any point Kook was interested in you then surely you would have noticed. The boy wore his heart on his sleeve after all. Groaning you could feel your orgasm fast approaching.

“Kook.” you begged. “Please i’m so close.”

He glanced at you face shiny with your juices looking unfairly innocent through all of this you thought. He lightly traced a finger at your entrance glancing at you. You nodded quickly your permission but he only smirked at you and pulled away making you whine.

“No noona you’ll have to use your words.” he lightly pressed against your entrance then went back to thumbing your clit.

That cocky bastard.

Shifting your hips in search of more friction you gave in. “Please Kook i need your fingers in me.”

Looking at your fucked out state and how hard your chest was heaving as you breathed he couldn’t help but feel a little proud. “Okay noona. Since you asked so nicely.”

His mouth latched back onto your clit and ever so slowly he stretched you open. First one finger, then two, then three leaving you moaning even louder your hands in his hair begging him to not stop. “Kookie please i’m so close.” you babbled. “Dear god faster.” hips bucking up as you moaned.

He drove into you harder until he felt you tense as your first orgasm of the night rashed over you. You arched your back pressing your mound further into his face desperately trying to ride it. He continued to finger you through the aftershocks as you breathed heavily looking down at him tiredly. “I-I think you’re g-gonna be fine kookie.” you praised, panting.

Crawling up your body again he smiled and claimed your mouth once again for a few minutes letting you come down from your high as you tasted yourself on his lips. He loved the feeling of your chests together feeling right at home hovering above you and settled nicely between your legs. Eventually he moved back down again and started back up his ministrations. You whined and tried to move away but with no warning he brought his hand down on your pussy right on your clit.

You yelped and looked at him wide eyed instinctively trying to close your legs, but he landed another hit and another until you left your legs open and your head was swimming in the pleasure-pain mix. Distinctly you could hear him chuckle and hover over you again his mouth leaving hickies all over your neck and collar bones.

“Did you really think the night was over so quickly noona?” he questioned sweetly. “I’ve wanted to have you like this for so long.” He confessed against your neck. His eyes met your shocked ones. You opened your mouth several times to speak but he beat you to it.

“I’m not a kid.” he said lowly making you shiver right down to your core. “I am a grown man noona and I’d like to show you just how grown.”

He kissed his way back down to your pussy without another word and kept your hands placed firmly at your sides while he returned to eating you out. All you could do was pant his name while your head swam with pleasure and confusion shifting your hips up into his mouth.

“So needy noona.” he teased. “I’ve imagined what this would be like for so long but it’d far exceeded my expectations.”

Your head was going a mile a minute but you managed to sit up and bring his mouth back to yours. You could be deceptively strong too. “I’ve been thinking about you like this too.” You confessed. “I just always thought that I’d be too old for you.”

“Noona.” he laughed breaking away. “You’re barely three years older than me. You’re not a grandma you know.”

You shrugged feeling a little silly and just a little aroused at being called noona during sex before moving down his jaw and sucking hickies along his neck. “God you’re gonna look so good for noona all marked up.” You said lowly and were rewarded with a low whine from him before he was pushing you back onto your back and diving back down. He kept your hands and hips pressed firmly down so you were unable to move away from his teasing tongue.

It wasn’t long before you were fast approaching your second orgasm. Just as you were about to reach your peak he pulled back grinning at you deviously. “You’ve been teasing me for far too long noona. Naughty girls deserved to be punished don’t you think?”

He waited until you calmed down before starting back up again and yet again pulling away right before you came. He did this for nearly thirty more minutes leisurely edging your poor clit until you were a soaking mess begging him to finally fuck you. He looked up loving the way you were on the verge of tears his name the only word on your swollen lips.

“Kookers please.” you begged. “I need you to fuck me and I need you to fuck me now.”

How could he possibly resist?

Rising to his knees he slid off the bed and stripped himself of his grey sweat letting his erection free. It slapped against his stomach and for a solid minute you couldn’t breathe. Standing a proud seven and a half inches with nearly three inch girth and a nice curve you were fairly certain he’d break you. Smug at your reaction he crawled back onto the bed, letting his cock rest against your stomach as he brought his crotch flush against yours groaning at the feeling.

“You won’t fit.” you blurted out eyes wide.

He leaned down to kiss you gently. “Trust me beloved it will. Condom?”

You barely heard the question way to focused on the monster that was about to be in you. “You’re clean right?” you asked. He nodded. “So am I and I’m on the pill.” He looked at you blankly head cocked to the side.

“I want you to fuck me raw kookie. I want to feel you bare.” you were blushing furiously at the words having never said them before.

Above you kook groaned. “Beloved you’re going to kill me.”

Grabbing the lube from where you directed him to it he dumped a libral amount onto his fingers before sliding all three of them into you at once. You groaned at the burn but it felt so good. He added another finger and continued to finger you until you were shaking and looking for more. He withdrew and grabbed his cock hissing at the pressure. God he wasn’t sure how long he’d last once he was finally in you. And raw at that. This was more than he could have ever hoped for.

Grabbing your hips he slid in half way sighing at how you immediately clenched around him moaning. He waited a minute to let you get used to the feeling before he resumed sliding into you inch by inch until his cock bumped against a barrier that prevented him from pushing the last inch and a half into your core. Below him you panted and shifted your hips causing the head of his cock to rub against the barrier again.

“Cervix.” you gasped out barely able to form a full sentence finally understanding. “I-I think you’re hitting my cervix.”

Secretly he thought it was kinda hot that he filled you so completely that he could reach your womb. Briefly he had a fantasy of you not on the pill and how easy it would be to flood your fertile womb with his seed but he bit back those thoughts before he came too early. Unknownst to him you also thought it was kinda hot at how deep he was, but you weren’t thinking of getting pregnant right now. Gently he eased out until the head remained and made eye contact before he thrusting into you quickly setting a rapid pace.

The air left your lungs as you let out your loudest moan yet. You knew your neighbor would be complaining in the moaning but the only sensation you could think of was how fucking good it felt to have him pounding into you reaching sensative spots you didn’t even know you had. It was all you could do to wrap your legs around his waist and hang on for dear life begging him to go even harder.

“Geeze noona who knew you’d be so insatiable?”

Glaring at him you bit back, “if you don’t pick up the pace and fuck me so hard that i forget my name I’m kicking your ass out.”

It was an empty threat and you both knew it. There was no way in hell you were going to give this up after you finally got it. Annoyingly he only laughed and slid his hands under your ass to help lift your hips up until your legs were spread obscenely wide as your lower half was supported by his thighs and he was hovering over you sucking more hickies along your neck.

“As you wish princess.”

Not holding back kook let himself really pound into you and it wasn’t long until all you could do was moan eyes unfocused looking up at the ceiling drowning in the sensation of kook having his way with your pliant body. To be honest he could ask you to rob a bank and you’d probably say yes.

After all that teasing and edging your orgasm was fast approaching. “Gon-gonna come.” you moaned out.

That only encouraged him to try even harder rubbing up against your cervix as his cock had no other place to go. “Go ahead baby.” he panted into your neck. “Come on my cock like a good little whore.”

You whined making him grin.

“Yeah? Like being called a whore?” he asked rhetorically. “Does baby girl like it when I remind her of how desperate she was to have my cock inside her? Begging me repeatedly to cum in her pretty pussy. Such a sloppy girl.”

You were going to explode at his words you were sure. Damn near screaming out your orgasm you tightened around him lost in the white hot pleasure. That was without a doubt the best release you’d ever had before. You felt kook slowing down to give you time to rest but you shook your head.

“No. Want you to keep pounding me until you come in me. I want you to force me to come on your cock over and over until you’re satisfied.” you panted out avoiding his eyes suddenly shy. God what had gotten into you. You were never like this for the first time.

Kook stared down at you in amazement before kissing you deeply and sending up a quick prayer to any deity that was listening thanking you for coming to korea. He wasted no time resuming fucking you and this time it took only a few more times before he was burrying himself as deep as he could go and releasing into you. You both groaned at the sensation and laid there tangled up until he started to move once more still hard.

“Fuck I can feel your pussy quivering around me.” he groaned out. “It’s like it can’t get enough of my cum. Trying to swallow up as much of me into you as possible, yeah? Just wanna be filled with my cum all day?”

He filled that thought away for the future while you tried to say yes but all you could do was tighten up around his cock in response.

Shivering you could feel the cum slide out of you and down your ass. It felt almost nice in a weird slimy way. As he started up again your mind went blank unable to focus on anything but the pleasure he was giving you. Mouth open panting you were distantly aware of kook talking in your ear. You clenched again at being called a good girl and he smirked.

“Yeah baby girl? Like when i call you good? You’ve been so good for me that you deserve a reward.” his hand slipped between your bodies until he was rubbing your clit and abusing it until you came once more, but this time he didn’t let up until you came again after the last one in quick succession. Your mind was so drunk on pleasure and your body so pliant and willing to be fucked you almost missed it. It wasn’t until kook stopped suddenly and you whined at the loss of movement that he helped you sit up slightly and that’s when you saw it.

He had completely bottomed out in you.

That last one and a half inches that wouldn’t enter you had finally done it. You both lay there panting staring at this new development not really comprehending what had happened until kook tried to slide out but he got caught on something inside you and you knew what it was.

“You fucked open my cervix.” you gasped out stunned.

He looked a little worried. “Should we call the emergency room or?”

“I dunno this had never happened before.”

Kook would be lying if he said that statement didn’t fill him with a tiny amount of pride at being so big. You both laid there silently for a few minutes.

“Nothing hurts so I think you’re fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” you wiggled your hips and moaned eyes fluttering shut. “Yeah no we’re definitely good. Please kookie bury your cock in me.” you whined.

Giving you a cocky grin he did just that. Pulling out and moaning as he was finally able to bottom out in you. He looked down marveling at the bulge his cock made against the outline of your skin. In all honesty it was really fucking hot.

“You know what this means?”

You shake your head as he picks up speed again and you’re drifting off into a world of nothing but pleasure.

“It means your body is becoming the perfect sleeve for my cock.”

You groaned feeling yourself get wetter at his words. Dirty talk, especially degradation, was a huge yes for you, but not many guys would go as far as you wanted them too. They always backed out not wanting to get really harsh with you, but kook wasn’t like that at all. He had no problem letting you know what a good slut you were and you loved it. Loved the feeling of being nothing but a toy for the man above you.

“Yeah, beloved? You like this don’t you slut?” his voice teased you. “You like it when I point out how well your slutty little body is molding itself to match the shape of my cock, huh?”

“Yes!” you nearly shouted out frantically nodding. God you wished you’d been brave enough to pursue him earlier. “Want to be your good little cock sleeve. Use me please.” you babbled. Above you kook swore, lowly growling.

He was in absolute heaven. Here you were the girl of his dreams, his crush, begging him to use you as basically a human fleshlight while he watched his cock sink into you with no resistance. For a year now he had pined after you thinking you’d never see him as anything but a little brother and now he was balls deep, calling you names that drove you crazy, going as rough as he could, and you still asked for more.

And damn was he going to give it to you.

Moaning into your ear he came in you for the second time triggering your orgasm as well. With a jolt he remembered that there was no barrier to your womb. He had directly come in your womb and fuck if that didn’t make him rut a little harder into you drunk on the feeling.

Unable to focus on anything you felt on the verge of passing out. You were so overwhelmed by everything you were feeling it was hard to recognize what was happening before your eyes rolled back in your head and you fainted. Looking down at you with a smile kook gently pulled out letting his spent cock flop down on your stomach and softly kissed the tip of your nose.

“Sleep well princess.”

He gave himself a few more pumps to land a couple lines of cum on your stomach satisfied at his marking of you before he got off the bed and on unsteady legs he headed to the bathroom. Taking a quick shower and brought back a wet washcloth and cleaned up all the cum on your body. Frowning at the large wet patch on your bed he gently picked you up and took you to your roommates room. She was gone for the week on a business trip so it wasn’t like she’d mind. He went back to the bathroom and came back to wipe down your body of all sweat and grime.

When he was happy with the results he took the dirty sheets from your bed and put them in the wash along with the mattress cover. Idly he wondered if he made you squirt and that’s why it was so wet. He made a note to explore that route at a later date before heading back and slipping into bed with you aftering taking a quick showers to clean himself up. You were so tired you didn’t even stir. Spooning you from behind he played with your soft tresses and placed a kiss on your cheek before snuggling into you and falling asleep.

The first thing you noticed when you awoke was a glass of water and two advil next to it. Time seeming to crawl like molasses around you. Trying to sit up you noticed two more things. One your lower body hurt like a fucking bitch and two there was a heavy arm around your waist. Swallowing down the meds and water you look down to see kook sleeping peacefully besides you.

Slow on the uptake you belatedly realized that you were both naked and then all the memories came flooding back. Blushing furiously at how kinky you’d gotten you groaned unable to face kook after this. What would he think of you? Going slowly you slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom. You looked even worse than you felt.

There were hickies all over your neck and collar bones. They were going to be nearly impossible to hide for work you sighed to yourself. Going through your morning routine you returned back to kook still sleeping. Smiling to yourself you were fairly certain he could sleep through world war three. Staring at his sleeping figure you got an idea on how to pay him back for last night. Going to your room you got out a length of soft silk rope from its hiding place and a small black ring.

Taking both back to the sleeping kook you carefully and slowly climbed the bed and took his wrists in your hands. You always had liked how big his hands were and made a note to explore other possibilities with them later. Gently tying his wrists to the bed posts you made your way back down the bed and slid under the sheets until you had settled between his legs cock right in front of your face.

You hadn’t gotten a proper chance to look at it last night and damn if you weren’t going to take that time right now. Careful of your still sore lower body you settled down and took his soft cock in your mouth. Even soft he was still a hell of a mouthful. Bobbing your head and letting your spit slide down to help lubricate your way down you could hear him moaning above you coming awake.

“y/n?”

God you loved how deep his voice got first thing in the morning. Taking the ring you’d brought earlier you slipped it onto his cock near the base and smirked. Oh yeah you were gonna have fun this morning. Giving his cock one last suck as the blood came south you sat up onto your knees revealing yourself between his legs. In an instant his gaze darkened with lust at seeing you and you smiled innocently throwing the covers off and resettling yourself down on your stomach continuing to lick and suck at his cock like it was a sucker and glancing up at him.

“Good morning.” you greeted sweetly.

“y/n what are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” you asked playing dumb. “I didn’t get a chance to show you my appreciation of what happened last night.”

You blew on the tip gently causing him to groan at the cool air and tug at the rope holding him still and at your mercy. Ignoring his noises you went about licking all up his fully hard shaft completely focused on acquainting yourself with every inch of it. Rubbing it all over your face loving the feeling, licking, sucking, and maintaining eye contact for finale you dove down until your nose was pressed against his stomach and hummed. The vibrations and hot warmth of your mouth proved to be too much and sent him into his first dry orgasm of the day. Panting he looked at you questionly.

“Cock ring.” you informed him. “It keeps you hard while preventing you from cumming.” You grin at him. “Which means I can play with your pretty cock for hours until you’re the one begging me to come.”

He groaned at that as you resumed your worshiping. “Besides,” you say casually running your tongue piercing right along the vein on his shaft causing another helpless moan. “I might have a slight oral fixation and honestly kook you have the best cock i’ve ever had the pleasure of servicing.”

You delighted at how red his cheeks turned at your words the blush even going so far down to cover his chest. It was cute how he was all commanding last night but now he was putty in your hands. You watched him amused as he struggled to compose himself as you happily deepthroated him. This went on for nearly fourty minutes of you mouthing and sucking at him until he was the one going crazy just like you’d said.

“Please baby girl have mercy.” he moaned out. “Just want to come down that mouth of yours.” his hips tried to buck up, but you kept them firmly pinned down to the mattress. He tugged uselessly at his restraints. You watched fascinated at how his muscles moved under his skin. God he really was built like some Greek hero.

Finally taking pity on him you released his cock from the ring and without warning deepthroated once more also sucking hard earning both a moan to rival your own from last night and his cum. You waited until he was done before pulling off slowly and leaning over him to show him the cum in your mouth before swallowing. His pupils were blown wide as his eyes never left your lips. You moved back down to his cock and took him in the mouth once more enjoy the moans above you. You cleaned any remaining come before letting him fall from your mouth and sitting up stretching out your tired muscles.

“Alright beloved you’ve had your fun, but now it’s time to untie me.” he tried once again to get loose, but your knots were too good.

“No.”

His head snapped up and he glared at you. “Oh?”

“You had fun with my body last night and now I get to have fun with yours.” you explained shrugging and you seated yourself on his thigh. You sighed at the pressure on your puffy lips. Kook couldn’t draw his eyes away from your wet pussy currently sliding along his thigh. His breath hitched as you moaned and began playing with your nipples.

He really loved those piercings of yours by the way.

You relished in the undivided attention his lust filled eyes were giving you. With no warning kook bent the leg you were currently on slightly drawing his leg up so his foot was planted firmly on the bed so you could grind easier on the angle and in thanks you leaned forward to kiss him. He sighed into his mouth and let you take the lead exploring his mouth as your pace all while the feeling of your wet pussy drove him crazy.

“Hey.” he started off as you broke apart for a breather. “There’s a game tonight. Wanna come and after we can, i don’t know, see a movie or something? Like a date?” he asked tentatively.

“Wouldn’t you rather celebrate the win with the team?”

He scoffed though secretly flattered that you already thought they’d win. “Believe me I’d much rather spend the time with you. y/n I’ve liked you since the very first moment we met.” he confessed.

You sat there stunned for a moment before kissing him again.

“Yeah.” you said grinning at him. “I’d love to go on a date with you after the game. And i’ve also been ummm thinking of well you too.”

It was his turn to grin at you revealing those adorable bunny esque teeth. God you loved this man so much. Leaning forward you met him in another kiss as you sped up your pace on his thigh and bringing your hand to your clit. You came with a loud cry before nearly collapsing onto him in your post orgasm haze. How you still managed to come after last night you don’t know. Speaking of last night.

“Sorry about all the dirty talk and stuff. I'm not usually like that.” you say a little embarrassed as you move to untie him having had your fun.

He snickered and flipped you over effortlessly once he was free. You stared up at him confused. “Trust me. Hearing you beg for my cock and agree that your body-” he trailed his hand down the valley of your breasts and down to your clit “-was made to fit said cock was the hottest thing I have ever heard.”

Your cheeks could rival the sun you were fairly certain. “Good. Because I loved every minute of last night.”

The grin on his face slipped as you once again used your deceptive strength to flip the pair of you yet again so that you were settled right above his cock tracing the abs below your fingers. Rubbing his hands along your ass and thighs he sat back and let you trace his chest and abs and arms to your hearts content. He loved the way you looked and admired his body.

He had been taking working out seriously in the last year to impress you after all.

Lulled into a false sense of security of your hands just trailing all over that he jolted at the feeling of the cock ring slide down his shaft again effectively keeping him hard. Startled he looked at you only to see you grin deviously as you slipped your wet and open pussy down on his cock. He had no idea as to when you’d opened yourself up, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

“Now.” you said with an edge he hadn’t heard before, but it sent more blood going south. “Since you were so good for noona-” he shivered at the word the sensations going right to his cock, “-this morning I figured that you deserve a reward.”

You looked amazing as you rode his cock, he thought dazed. Pausing you glanced at him head cocked to the side all innocence. “Are you going to be good for noona kookie?”

He nearly broke his neck trying to nod fast enough and sighed with relief bucking up his hips as you started moving again.

“Good boy.”

[ineffably-effable]

Come up and see me (make me smile)

Mesopotamia, 3004 BC

Summary:  Mesopotamia, 3004 BC.

1690 words

AN: Couldn’t get this scene out of my head, it continues the role-reversal au started in Come up and see me (make me smile)

Thanks again to @mia-ugly for being being an amazing beta reader.

(read on ao3)

Crowley was in a horrible mood. He had spent the better part of the week arguing with his superiors, and all he had to show for it was a splitting headache and a reputation as a bleeding-heart humanitarian. 

So, instead of wasting his breath, Crowley had chosen to channel his rage into protecting the eight measly lives he was permitted to save. This was the reason he was standing in the hot sun, in the midst of the crowd that had turned out to watch wild animals being wrangled by three absurdly unqualified men. A few feet from Crowley, he overheard a woman sniping to her husband, “It’s a miracle those idiots haven’t been mauled to death", and was sorely tempted to tell her just how right she was. 

It was only a short while later, right when he was contemplating the morality of letting Shem get kicked by a giraffe, that Crowley felt a tap on his shoulder and turned (the wrong way first, sneaky bastard ) to see a familiar salt-and-pepper haired demon grinning cheerfully at his side. 

“Crowley! I thought it was you! Those flaming locks of yours are quite distinctive,” he babbled excitedly, charming in a way that softened Crowley’s bad mood considerably. 

“Hello, Aziraphale.” he said, trying very hard not to smile. 

“I don’t suppose you know what all this is about?” Aziraphale asked. “Did upstairs request some sort of nautical menagerie?” 

Crowley smirked.  

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.” 

“Please. I could sense the divine energy holding that thing together from a mile away.”

“I’d hardly be a decent angel if I went around divulging divine plans to my occult foe,” Crowley teased.

“Oh, don’t be so… prejudiced.”

“Prejudiced?”

“It means narrow-minded, discriminatory.” Azirphale informed him, smugly.

“I know what it m-”

“So what’s going on?” Aziraphale interrupted. “Why would you build it so far inland? Are you expecting a flood?”

“A flood?” (Crowley, who was painfully aware of how high his voice had just pitched, determinedly ignored Aziraphale’s raised eyebrow and sidelong glance.) “Of course not-  why would you- I mean- that would be an awful lot of rain- and the area is in a drought so- you know what- don’t you dare laugh at me!”  

“ My dear, you’re very fetching when you’re flustered.” 

(Fetching.)

Crowley had a horrible suspicion his face had turned as red as his hair.

(He thinks you’re f-)

“For the love of- demon, please go pester someone else.” 

“Where would be the fun in that?” he replied cheekily, glancing from the boat to the surrounding crowds. His expression sobered.

“I hope you’ll forgive me asking, but that doesn’t seem like a very large boat,” he pursed his lips, “especially not with all those animals.” He turned to look at Crowley. “How many humans are you planning to squeeze in there?”

Crowley could feel his bad mood returning with a vengeance.

“All in all? Eight.” Crowley tried to keep his voice level. 

“Eight? ”  Aziraphale repeated, in the dry tone of someone who had heard perfectly well the first time, but would prefer a different answer.

“Eight.” Crowley confirmed.

“ She’s going to drown everybody else ?” 

“The other continents will be excluded, and most of this one, it’s really just the space enclosed by the two great rivers,” Crowley said flatly, repeating almost verbatim the answer he’d received from Gabriel. Aziraphale had gone pale.

“That’s- hundreds of settlements, thousands of people…” he trailed off as a group of children ran past them, giggling. He stared at Crowley with a horrified expression on his face. 

Crowley nodded miserably. 

“Oh Crowley.”  The unexpected sympathy in the demon’s voice felt like a gut-punch. Aziraphale reached out - perhaps to squeeze Crowley’s shoulder - but retracted his hand guiltily, when the angel flinched away from the offered comfort.

“It’s not like they asked me for my opinion. They didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person.” Crowley grit his teeth. “Gabriel sent a memo .” 

“Crowley…”

“Oh, and get this, after it’s done, She’s going to promise not to do it again by refracting light through the leftover water in the atmosphere. Isn’t that nice? ” His tone was scathing now, he felt hot tears pooling in his eyes but he didn’t care. He was about to continue, really lay into some of the idiotic notions Gabriel had used to explain the affair, when he felt a tentative hand resting on his arm.

“I think,” Aziraphale said slowly - as if he were talking Crowley down from a cliff’s edge - “that you’re upset, and you need to choose your words very carefully.” 

Crowley waved off the demon’s concern.

“We’re allowed to have doubts, as long as we’re good soldiers and follow orders. It’s only questioning Her outright that leads to trouble.” 

“Is that so?” Aziraphale said, face blank. Crowley couldn’t look at him.

Instead they both watched the chaos together, silently observing as one of the unicorns escaped the containment area and made a break for it. 

Crowley wondered if the ineffable plan anticipated the extinction of that species, or if it was just dumb luck.

“What if there were another boat?” Aziraphale asked out of nowhere.

Crowley scoffed. 

“We’re in the middle of the desert. Who else would be building another boat?”

Aziraphale, who had been staring at Crowley expectantly, stayed silent. 

Crowley frowned.

“You can’t.” 

“Can’t miracle anything too big, no,” the demon mused. “Won’t be enough space for everyone obviously, but might do for a score of children, maybe even some adults.” He had a distant expression on his face, as though he were doing the arithmetic right then and there. 

“Aziraphale. It’s out of the question.” 

“Your opinion has been duly noted.” 

“What if you get caught ?” Crowley asked, voice strained.

Aziraphale laughed bitterly, “I don’t see your lot down here getting their hands dirty,“ he said snidely. “A storm seems like an exceptionally passive aggresive method of genocide.” 

Crowley would have agreed with that point, if he weren’t trying to talk the demon out of getting himself smote or worse.

“What about your lot? You think they’ll look favourably on an act of compassion?!” 

“Compassion? I’m a demon, dear boy, thwarting the will of heaven is literally in the job description.” He smiled reassuringly at Crowley. “If they’re truly sinners we’ll get them in the end, and if they’re not, well at least we’ll have a chance at tempting them.” He shrugged. “Hell, I can even bring some teenagers on board, stock the boat with some fermented juice,  that’ll guarantee some licentiousness.” 

Crowley could feel a headache coming on.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“I thought it might make you feel better?” he said, sounding very much like he thought it was obvious. “Surely you can’t want children to die?”

“I- that’s- not the point. God’s plans are ineff- oh, don’t smirk at me - so what am I supposed to do, just look the other way?”

“When the time comes you’ll be on the ark,” the demon said, matter-of-factly, “It gives you plausible deniability - even an angel can’t be everywhere at once.” 

“You’ve really thought this through.” It could work, Crowley was shocked to find himself thinking.

“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Aziraphale replied, insulted.

Crowley laughed.

“To be fair, this is a bit of a leap from accidentally abetting original sin. I need a second to adjust.”

“You’re awfully snippy for an angel, dear.” 

“Oh, shut up.”

“That reminds me, how did giving away your sword work out for you?“ 

Crowley bit his lip.

(When he’d been asked outright by the Almighty - Where is the sword I gave you, Crowliel - he’d caved immediately. Shame-faced he’d admitted what he’d done to protect the humans and, in lieu of punishment, he received the ethereal equivalent of having his hair ruffled. He had been sent on his way with the warm feeling of being hugged, and the sound of her gentle laughter warm in his chest.)

“Crowley?” 

“Oh… I got the feeling She was amused by it,” he said, embarrassed.

“She must have a soft spot for you,” Aziraphale said, in a tone that was difficult to read. He looked away. “How long is the flood meant to last anyway?”

“Once the storm starts? Forty days and forty nights.” 

“Hmm. Heaven does like their nice tidy numbers don’t they.” Crowley wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Aziraphale gave him an apologetic smile. “I should probably get going. Heavenly plans to thwart, no rest for the wicked and so on.” 

“Ah, yes,” Crowley responded, dumbly. A little surprised (but definitely not hurt) by the abrupt transition. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to delay the demon’s departure, but when Aziraphale turned to leave, Crowley found himself speaking up.

“Maybe I’ll see you around afterwards then?” he asked.

Aziraphale’s yellow eyes lit up. Suddenly nervous, Crowley back-pedaled, “I’ll have to er- try and salvage all those souls you’ve damned.” 

Aziraphale studied his face, giving Crowley a scrutinizing look that slowly morphed into a bemused expression. 

“You’re welcome to give it your best shot, angel,” he replied with a grin. 

Before Crowley could snark back the demon had vanished.

It was funny, Crowley thought, that the demon had been the one to come up with a way to save people. That he could even be bothered to try.

(“Be funny if we both got it wrong eh? If I did the bad thing and you did the good one?” )

Above him the sky was growing dark with approaching storm clouds. The first drops of rain had started to fall and a sharp, loud, crack of thunder rang out.  

Crowley cringed.

On second thought, it wasn’t very funny at all.

[ofthemuses]

True Detective Sentence Meme: Season One (another of my favorites, well, the first season at least.)

WARNING: Triggering content, NSFW content, religion/death/violence/sex/drugs/suicide mentioned. Lots of foul language 

Regular Quotes

I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist...

Oh, just a regular type dude... with a big ass dick.

People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon.

It's all one ghetto man.

Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional.

So what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

I tell myself I bear witness, but the real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.

Let's make the car a place of silent reflection from now on.

Can I ask you something? You're a Christian, yeah?

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Can you get pills pretty easy?

Listen, when you're at my house, I want you to chill the fuck out.

There's nothing I can do about it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but... I'm gonna have a drink.

Given how long its taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account.

Hmm. That sounds God-fucking-awful.

Isn't that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child?

Trouble with dying later is you've already grown up. The damage is done. It's too late.

I can be hard to live with. I don't mean to, but I can be... critical.

Sometimes I think I'm just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. 

Such holy bullshit from you. It's a woman's body, ain't it? A woman's choice.

Girls walk this Earth all the time screwin' for free. Why is it you add business to the mix and boys like you can't stand the thought? I'll tell you. It's cause suddenly you don't own it the way you thought you did.

Is shitting on any moment of decency part of your job description?

Nothing man, sorry, forget it.

You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over.

What's your deal?

I don't have "a deal".

You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous.

Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.

Now what do you mean exactly... these visions you mentioned.

Shiiiiit, just what have you two heard about me?

What the hell good is cake if you can't eat it?

You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die, and the world keeps spinnin'.

What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales.

I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom.

You see that. Your fucking attitude. 

 Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room beating off to murder manuals.

Yeah, well if the common good's gotta make up fairy tales, then it's not good for anybody.

Well, I don't use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot.

I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Bullshit. It'd be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.

Well, I guess your judgment is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise.

You figure it's all a scam, huh? All them folks? They just wrong?

People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.

Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

But I think I'm all fucked up.

You don't have to fall in love at first sight, you know.

Every time I think you've hit a ceiling, you, you keep raising the bar. You're like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.

Fuuuck! Hell of a bedside manner you've got.

Ahh, you know, being stupid is different than going in sick, and this is a bar, not a fuckin' bedside.

All the dick swagger you roll, you can't spot crazy pussy?

So, enough with the self-improvement-penance-hand-wringing shit. Let's go to work.

Oh God damn it, I am so done talking to you like a man.

What the fuck you think I want with you, huh?

I'm sorry. What are you suggesting, exactly?

I will skull-fuck you, you bitch!

This is none of my business... I don't want to hear it.

Do you know the good years when you're in them, or do you just wait for them until you get ass cancer?

What always happens between men and women? Reality.

Someone once told me time is a flat circle.

The newspapers are gonna be tough on you.

No, buddy, without me... there is no you.

Yeah. Fuck this. Fuck this world.

You know, people that give me advice, I reckon they're talking to themselves.

A man's game charges a man's price. Take that away from this, if nothing else.

I'm the person least in the need of counseling in this entire fucking state.

Thought maybe we should talk.

If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.

Hey, man, look. Why don't you just get out of here, please? I don't want to get arrested. Just - just get... before I do something to you.

I slept with someone... And you know him/her... You're close.

Oh... Now, what-what are you saying?... What - what are you - what the fuck are you saying to me?

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fuckin' barbell.

Why would I ever help you?

Hey. You better get those jumper cables ready, the motherfucker is lying.

Get on out of here, you're classin' the place up.

My family's been here a long, long time.

He ain't gonna talk with you.

I got a car battery and two jumper cables argue different.

A man remembers his debts.

Fuck, I don't like this place... Nothing grows in the right direction.

What happened in my head is not something that gets better.

Well you know what, I just got here; I was gonna leave, but then you woke up - Jesus, what's your fuckin' problem?

Not a care in the world.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Yeah... well, I'll come back by tomorrow, buddy.

Don't ever change, man.

Agh. Ah, fuck. Ah, he got me pretty good...

Do I strike you as a talker or a doer?

You'll rip out your fucking stitches. Stop it.

This is the place.

Everybody's got a choice, ____... Shit, I sure blamed you.

There you go... Everybody's got a choice.

It's hard to find something in a man who rejects people as much as you do, you know that?

Come die with me, little priest.

The DEEP SHIT™

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

There can be a burden in authority, in vigilance, like a father's burden.

I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. 

This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading.

I contemplate the moment in the garden; the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.

I don't sleep, I just dream. 

You got kids? I think of the hubris it must take, to yank a sole out of nonexistence into this meat; a force of life into this thresher.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Yeah, back then, the visions, yeah most of the time I was convinced... Shit... I'd lost it. But there were other times... I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.

I mean, it's like somethin's got your name on it, like a bullet or a nail in the road...

People... so goddamn frail they'd rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.

This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility.

They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go.

All your life--you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain--it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person.

And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

You see, we all got what I call a life trap - a gene deep certainty that things will be different...

Nothing's ever fulfilled, not until the very end. And closure - nothing is ever over.

I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So Death created time to grow the things that it would kill.

And you are reborn, but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation? Well, who knows?

When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped by that nightmare you keep waking up into.

I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. 

Sometimes... this feeling like life has slipped through your fingers... like the future is behind you, like it's always been behind you.

There's a shadow on you, son.

I saw you in my dream. You're in Carcosa now with me... He sees you... You'll do this again... Time is a flat circle.

There's no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories.

All my life I wanted to be nearer to God. But the only nearness - silence.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

You see, sometimes people... mistake a child as an answer for something, you know, like a way to change their story.

Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments: everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that... You're livin' wrong.

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.

[purple-helmet-studios]

Social Mob-Rules Media

Regarding the “viral” video of the Covington Catholic High School teens that Hollywood & the media unfairly turned into pariahs because they hate red #MAGA hats,...

I like how a bunch of #Hollywood chuckleheads were really quick to condemn these kids, because - you know,...actors have all the answers and are apparently allowed to pass judgement on Twitter.

None of them condemned the so called “Black Hebrew Israelites” however, who shouted racist hatred, threats, and homophobic insults. If the BHI protestors where WHITE, they’d be sitting in jail with charges of hate crimes,...but we aren’t allowed to talk like that. The truth is too sensitive of a topic now, so let’s live in denial. What a great plan! That’ll unite us!

This post isn’t about those dickheads.

Or Nathan Phillips, the Native American who apparently also gets a free pass because he’s Native American. He’s allowed to be confrontational because saying otherwise, by a white guy, is racist. Why discuss any of that? The media dropped that story angle like a hot potato.

Anyway,...

Your pal and mine Kathy Griffin, the spokesmodel for rational thought & respectful debate tweeted that she wanted the KIDS names and numbers. Kids FFS! Yes, KIDS! Nothing like putting children at actual risk and potential harm ( or worse ) because ya HATE Trump! I’m sure her fan base isn’t radical or unstable at all. No way they are capable of hurting children. I wish I could write this post with a sarcastic font.

Then insufferable know it all and all around humanitarian/voice of reason Alyssa Milano called the red MAGA hats “the new KKK hood.” Well gosh, that’s not inflammatory or offensive on many levels - to many people - at all. Nothing like uniting people.

Chris Evans was quick to rush to the side of Native Americans while being “disgusted” by American kids. Funny how he doesn’t seem to be disgusted by BHI or the fact that he was duped by the main stream media who purposely manipulated him and other actors with a warped & twisted untrue news story.

And Patton Oswalt said something half assed & stupid but really,...who cares what Patton Oswalt has to say?

As of when I wrote this, Jamie Lee Curtis was, the only celebrity who first condemned the viral video but then publicly APOLOGIZED!

At least there was ONE!

All of these sentinels of diversity, these actors who embrace social equality, these defenders of illegal immigrant children took to Twitter to publicly slam,...American children!

NICE!

But big surprise,...since their WRONG stance and tweets most of them offered anything resembling an apology. The rest just deleted their mistake. I guess to them that qualifies as an apology?

I get it, some of you are liberals and I DO respect that- I vote liberal and conservative depending. Some of you may even look up to these actors. You may even find them inspirational. Appreciate their charity work or their advocacy.

That’s all well and good, but these “wonderful people” are ALL sopping wet and dripping with the foul stench of HYPOCRISY after seeing their reaction and tweets. This gives them ZERO credibility. Zilch. Nada!

These socially aware, compassionate, humanitarians jumped right in to slam these kids based solely on a red hat.

A red god damn hat.

So deep is their hatred of Trump that to them, it was justifiable to ATTACK high school kids on social media. To threaten them with physical harm. Others made death threats. This all is completely inexcusable. As if their station in society, their cause, their concern for America out weighed simple decorum, decency and good old common sense.

Basically, if you voted for Trump, own a red MAGA hat, or like me ( don’t really care for Trump as a person and don’t own a MAGA hat but can’t argue with the numbers, he’s getting shit done ) or if you just aren’t “Liberal enough”,...then you are a racist!

You are a misogynist.

You have white privilege.

And you DESERVE to be treated as a disgusting human being.

Isn’t that GREAT?

If I’m off the mark on that PLEASE explain to me why you think I’m off the mark and how, because that’s how I see it.

These actors are quick to run and assist, lend their voice and notoriety, publicly speak and advocate for EVERYONE EQUALLY! ...as long as you don’t say or do anything they disagree with. Then you’ll get shredded! As long as you HATE Trump they’ll be there for you. United in hatred. That’s not a recipe for social disaster at all! Oh, PLEASE imagine if at any point the shoe was on the other foot and this was conservative roasting a kid,...better yet a gay black kid. Yes, that question is inflammatory,...if you don’t like an honest question and already know the answer and want to get petty and defensive. Don’t answer it, we all know the answer. And THAT is part of the hypocrisy that annoys me. It should annoy you too, if you have a shred of rational thought in your brain.

Are you seeing the hypocrisy in Hollywood & with the media yet?

Once again Liberals are setting a tone that’s offensive. They are making it more & more difficult for ME to be moderate that’s for sure!

I am sure I am not the only moderate who keeps getting turned off by Hollywood & the media’s rhetoric and flat out BULLSHIT!

If you noticed, the liberal media is working hard to bury this story. They know they screwed up. These actors, who won’t apologize, want this incident to go away. Quickly!

DON’T LET THAT HAPPEN! SHARE THIS POST! Keep the story alive BEFORE it happens again,....because it will. People are desperate to bring shame to conservatives. We just witnessed it play out.

The media and these celebrities NEED to be held accountable and they NEED to own the divisiveness they created and continue to create. They also need to be made aware that their tactics are driving moderate voters away. If your creating excuses for the media and celebrities by saying “Trump divides us all the time!” I ask “So your solution is to be equally divisive because that will solve what now?”

I’ve said it before, if you don’t care who you hurt while fighting for what you believe in, good cause or not, you lessen your credibility as well as weaken your cause.

Who ever these actors “endorse” for political office, what makes them think I’m going to jump on board knowing that a group of people with so much blatant hatred, so insulting to anyone NOT liberal, so careless - who attack kids without all the facts-if they endorse or support someone, I’m voting in the opposite direction!

While these allegedly understanding, accept all people, love one another, kumbaya singing lunatics call me a racist, misogynistic, and a hate-monger. Because I don’t agree with how they handled this situation? What great role models.

If that’s all they got, hiding behind the race card, or playing the insult game, or just flat out insulting me and those like me because they’re judging me based of their own deeply psychotic hatreds-then THANKS!

It completely validates my point. Liberal Hollywood is bat shit crazy!

When they describe Trump and his supporters as ignorant racists, what are they? Socially aware ignorant racists? They insult half of America, lecture them, push the liberal agenda on them. Force them to accept new social norms and if they don’t accept any of it call them racists or anything derogatory until what,...they “come around?”

How’s that working out?

I don’t need these self serving, self appointed defenders of social justice “shaming” me, even “bullying” me because I still value my individuality and I am fully capable of thinking for myself. I don’t care if my beliefs fall in line with either the Liberal or Conservative agenda.

If you’re annoyed by how this story of the Covington Kids unfolded and think the media & Hollywood owe these kids AT LEAST an apology. If you think things went too far, and believe the media & Hollywood need to be called out on this one.

TELL THESE CELEBRITIES! TELL THE MEDIA! Share this post!

Its not to get into a pissing contest, but to get the message out,...you don’t get a FREE PASS to spread hatred of any kind.

It is desperate.

It is hypocritical.

And it will backfire!

It is offensive.

By the way, there is NOTHING wrong with making America GREAT!

[dovakhiindrabbles]

93 with revyn sadri?? please??;;;

Of course I’d be more than happy to write the request for you darling !!

93. “Are you cold?”

———————————————————————————————————–

Revyn’s head tipped up at the sound of his shop door opening, his attention snatched from his thoughts to peer up at the visitor.

You.

He wouldn’t even bother to deny the smile that lifted at the corners of his mouth.

But he would never admit the butterflies that ruffled in his stomach.

“H-Hi!” You mustered, a shiver in your voice as you tangled your hands in your hair, drawing out the sprinkles of snow. “H-How are you?”

He could see through your wide grin like glass, the trembling alone enough to alarm anyone.

“Are you… alright?”

You hurriedly nodded, wrinkling your nose before you covered your face to sneeze. Revyn almost mistaking it for a squeak.

He sighed, arching his brows while he came to learn forward against his desk.

“Are you cold?”

You paused, nearly hesitant before you relented, your shoulders dropping in defeat. “I uh… I guess I’m not really one for W-Windhelm weather.”

“Most aren’t,” He simpered, gesturing to you. “Come on, I’ll set a fire.”

“Oh, I uh – you don’t have to,” You replied quickly. “I’d hate to be a bother.”

“You? Impossible.” He snorted at the very idea, thinking of all the times you had gone out of your way to lend him a hand. Not even asking for a single thing in return. “I’d be more than happy to.”

“A-Are you sure?” You couldn’t help but ask, hints of guilt hanging in your voice.

“By the gods, yes I’m sure!” He mused, lightening his tone with his laughter. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

You nodded sheepishly, allowing him to lead you on to his own home hidden away from the shop you’d come to know.

It wasn’t much different than the other Dunmer homes in Windhelm. Put together through careless old planks of wood haphazardly plastered together while Nords on the other side of the Hold sat in comfortable luxury.

His fireplace was made of old craggy stone, the light dull against the surface even as he brought the flames to life.

“Here, I know it’s not much but I hope it helps.” He did his best to ignore his own thumping heartbeat, setting a few blankets over you while you both settled before the newfound heat.

You let out a comfortable sigh as warmth trickled against your bare skin. “Thank you…” You mumbled, the glimmer in your eyes now soft and content. “I just don’t think I’ll ever get used to the cold here.”

“It’s not like Windhelm is an amazing place anyways,” Revyn remarked, frowning. “It’d suit me just fine if we got rid of the damned place sometimes.”

“Or the person leading it.” You chimed, rubbing your fingers along your knuckles, sheltering the heat that wafted onto them.

Revyn didn’t answer for a moment until he humorously relented, shrugging. “That’d be a welcomed change.”

“You deserve better than this,” You hummed, a sincerity in your words that he hadn’t heard from anyone in ages. “You all do.”

“You’re very kind.”

“It’s basic decency!” You huffed, your cheeks puffing out indignantly. “You know one of these days you ought to just come with me!”

“I’m not much of the fighting type. If that wasn’t too obvious.”

You hadn’t even bothered to think before you spoke, reddening like wine the very second the phrase left your lips.

“But you’re wonderful company!”

He gawked at you, jaw nearly dropped despite his inability to come up with a single thing to say.

“I ah – I mean you’ve just been so kind and so many people here are so rude i-it’s just so refreshing to finally have someone I can talk to!”

You groaned, about to continue your apologetic ramblings when he beat you to it.

“I feel exactly the same,” He confessed, smiling gently. “I hadn’t… I hadn’t quite expected to meet someone like you.”

You glanced at him and warily leaned to your side, your head coming to rest ever so gently upon his shoulder.

“It was a good kind of surprise,” You conceded, your pulse racing as he melted at the touch. “Don’t you think?”

“No,” he retorted, never having felt quite so warm as he did then in that frigid murky place beside you. “It was the best kind.”

[joongie-smiles]

The Phone Never Rings

This is not a one-shot, just a little something inspired by the lines “I wait by the phone but the phone never rings” from “Campfire song” from the Lightning Theif Musical, which is absolutely amazing. 

Warnings: Angst, cursing, character death, neglect

Masterlist

Request

Tag

A little boy with fair hair kicked his feet up and down as he swung from the swing. The park he was in was practically deserted save for a couple walking a dog with their son, and the woman in front of him. She was beaming at him and her eyes held only kindness and love. She was wearing a big yellow hat that looked obnoxious against her purple dress, but he had insisted on her wearing his favorite hat, and she  had complied. It was his birthday, after all.

"Okay, I think we've been here long enough, don't you, Sweetie?" his mom asked. "Why don't we go get some ice cream?"

Normally, he would have said yes, but he was waiting for something. He had refrained from asking, but he was getting impatient. He shook his head sheepishly. "Can I . . . can I call him?"

She hesitated. She knew this question would come, it always did. He had been asking for 5 years without fail. She had tried to get him to forget this time with a trip to the park, presents, and ice cream, but it was useless. Even at 5 he was stubborn. "I don't know, Luke, maybe later-"

"Please," he whispered. "Just once then we can go."

She nodded and smiled softly, but the smile didn't reach her eyes like they usually do. "Okay." She gently stopped the swing and pulled her phone out. After looking through her contacts, she passed the phone over to Luke, who waited patiently for the ringing to end.

Eventually the ringing did stop, but instead of a voice answering on the other end -he wasn't sure what it would sound like but it would definitely be loving- he was meet with the all too familiar robotic voice of a woman telling him to leave a message after the beep. Luke forced his own smile and left his message. "Hey, Daddy, it's me, Luke. Um, I know you're really busy with work and . . . stuff, but, um, I just wanted to say that today's my birthday and I'm wishing for something special this year. Mommy says I can't tell anyone or it won't come true, but I'll give you a clue, it has to do with you. Mommy got me a cool plane and I'll tell you all about it if you call back. Bye, I love you, Daddy."

He hung up the phone and gave it back to his mom.

"Ready to go?" his mom asked.

Luke nodded silently, took her hand, and followed her back to the car. He looked out the window at the family with the dog and couldn't help but sigh. He tried to keep his disappointment from showing, he really did, but it was hard. It wasn't fair that some little boys got a dad or even two dads, but he couldn't even have one. He loved his mom more than anything in the world, but he missed his dad. But, like his mom always told him, no matter how far away his dad may be, he stilled loved Luke.

Luke just wished he'd show it a little more.

--

"Happy Birthday to Lu-uke! Happy birthday to you!" the crowd around the dining room table sang.

Luke, who sat at the head of the table, smiled and, when prompted to, blew out the candles. The crowd cheered and prompted him to stay still for pictures. His mom came around the table to stand at his side and started cutting the cake after taking the candles shaped in the number 1 and 0. He got the first and biggest piece and happily ate it while everyone else was given a piece. The rest of the night was spent with more congratulations and presents. Eventually, everyone left and Luke and his mom were left to clean up. Not many people had gone, so the cleaning was pretty quick. Luke was in his pajamas and in bed by 10:30 pm.

His mom stood above him and smiled down at him. "Another successful birthday?"

Luke grinned. "Another successful birthday," he confirmed.

"Sorry about Grandpa not making it, I know he promised to take you fishing," she said apologetically. She ruffled his fair hair lovingly.

Luke shrugged. "It's okay, I'm kind of used to someone missing my birthdays." He tried to say it nonchalantly, but it came out more bitter than he wanted it to.

She sighed. "Luke-"

"I know, I know," Luke interrupted. "He loves me, and he's a busy man, but can't he love me and show up? At least on my birthdays?"

"I'm sorry, Honey, I know that it's . . . not ideal, but," she stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. It was then that Luke remembered that it hurt her just as much as it hurt him. She took a shaky breath and continued. "But this is what we have, and we have to make the best of it."

Luke sighed and nodded. She was right. Their family situation might not be ideal, but they could work with it. He loved his mom and would allow her to be mother and father for him.

This would be enough. For now.

--

"It was him!" a large boy yelled. He pointed a finger at a scrawny 13 year Luke Castellan. "He's the one who stole my phone!"

"No I didn't," Luke scowled. "It's not my fault you can't take care of your things."

"Well, you steal everything else, how do I know you didn't take this too?" Behind the bully, Steven Bake, was a group of students who had formed a crowd, ready for the fight that might start between the 7th and 8th grader.

"You have no proof," Luke pointed out. "Apparently even that isn't obvious enough for you."

Steve's face started getting redder by the minute. He bared his yellow teeth at Luke and stood taller to look more intimidating, but Luke wasn't scared. He had dealt with bullies before. He was prepared to dodge the fists.

But he wasn't prepared to dodge the words.

"You're a no good thief, just like your deadbeat Dad," Steve spat. "No wonder he hit the road and never looked back."

Luke blinked in shock. Yeah, it was common knowledge that his Dad wasn't around, but nobody had really brought it up before, especially not at school.

"You probably never even talked to him before," Steve laughed harshly.

The shock was quickly replaced with anger. "Yes, I have!" Luke shouted. "I talk to him all the time." It might have been a lie, but it's not like they would ever find out. Anyway, his anger was clouding his reasoning.

"Oh, yeah? Then prove it." Steve fished his phone that had been allegedly missing and held it out. "Call him," he said.

This was the 2nd time today Steven had surprised him. Luke knew he was a jerk but even this was low. "He's-he's probably busy with something or-"

"Or you're a thief and a liar," Steve said smugly.

Luke surrendered and took the phone from his hand. It was half his fault for lying about it, now he had no choice but to follow through. He dialed the phone number he had memorized a long time ago. Upon Steve's harsh insistence, he put it on speaker and waited.

If there's anyone up there please, please, please let him answer. Dad if there was ever a time for you to answer the phone it's now. I've never stopped believing in you. Just, please, do this for me.

He waited and waited until the ringing stopped. Luke held his breath as the pause went on longer than it usually would for a message. Maybe it had happened. Maybe by some miracle, his dad would finally answer.

But, unfortunately, miracles weren't ever in Luke's favor. The dreaded robotic voice told him to leave a message after the beep.

Luke didn't wait for the standard message to end before dropping the phone and running from the laughing crowd

--

Luke stared at the phone on the table and willed it to ring. This room, unlike the rest of the rooms in the Big House, was mostly empty except for the desk, phone, and chair in front of them. Since it held the only available phone in Camp, the room was rarely used except for emergencies. Not only was it a direct connection to the mortal world, it was also a direct connection to Olympus. Usually someone here would be calling the gods, but this time Luke was waiting for a certain messenger god to call.

Luke had been at Camp Half-blood for a couple days now. The journey had been tough and he had lost a good friends, but now he finally had the chance to get some answers. Why didn't you come for me? Why didn't you claim me sooner? Why did you leave us to fend for ourselves?

Why did you do that to Mom?

That was the million dollar question. Why did Hermes, who apparently loved his mom enough to tell her that he was a god, make his mom crazy? One morning she was helping him pick his classes for the next school year, and the next she was locking them in the house and insisting Luke never leave the house because monsters were out to get him. Luke had been terrified of this new person who definitely wasn't his mom, so he left. And now he wanted answers from the man who did that.

Not man, god. A god who was his dad and apparently didn't see the need to fix what he had done.

A deadbeat god who couldn't even have the decency to apologize for what he did.

A coward who couldn't even pick up the damn phone and call Luke for a simple 'hi'.

Luke got up abruptly from his chair and glared at the phone with watery eyes. "Screw you too, Dad," he spat. He left the room with his head held high and his resolve set.

He would make him regret neglecting him.

--

"Group 1 goes to the east end, group 2 to the west end, and you, make sure the archers are in place," Luke said, pointing to the teams as he called them. "Got that?"

"Yes, sir!" his makeshift army confirmed.

"Then go." Once his troops were gone, Luke double-checked the maps around him of Manhattan. The final battle had begun and everything was going according to plan. All accept one thing.

The damned phone.

A simple phone like the one that had been at Camp sat at the front steps of the Olympian thrones. He had expected the opposing demigods to try to contact him, that seemed like something Chiron would do, but it appeared to not have been put there by the half-bloods. That only left the gods.

Now would be a good time for the gods to try to reason with him or plead with him to not destroy them. But that wasn't their style. Zeus would rather give up his lightning bolts than admit that he was wrong and a rebellious teen half-blood was right. He wouldn't give Luke that satisfaction.

Still, he waited. He waited for Zeus' apology or even a phone call from his Dad. Funny how you can't get any attention from your parents till you're destroying their parthenon.

But Luke had very low hopes, so when the phone never rang, he wasn't that surprised, but he was still disappointed. Deadbeat dad till the end, huh. He left the throne room and forgot about the phone.

It wasn't till he was back in the throne room fighting Percy that he even remembered the phone. When he was stabbed, he crumpled close to the phone and thought bitterly I started by the phone and it's only fitting I end by the phone. While he bled out in his friends' arms, a sound cleared his fuzzy mind for a moment.

The unmistakable sound of a ringing phone.

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

The Treasures At Our Fingertips

Hi! I hope you are happy and healthy. What’s new where you are? Life in the big city of Kathmandu rolls on. This place has many wonderful qualities. Air quality is not among them. Smoking cigarettes here is redundant. Within a month or so, I will be moving to where there are more trees, more quiet, a lake, and less pollution.

I’ll miss the many wonderful people that I have met here in Kathmandu.

The following are two very, very short pieces. Some folks tell me that both are a little abstract. Considering that the whole world seems to be painted in a bizarre shade of paisley these days, I don’t suppose that a bit of abstract will hurt anything. The two pieces are in the spirit of a couple of guys that taught many people what the phrase “walk your talk” means. The first is about overcoming obstacles that prevent us from being who we want to be. It comes from the book, Reincarnation Through Common Sense and was inspired by Archan Den. He was the head monk of the forest temple in Kok Ta Hom,Thailand that took in a very troubled man from Brooklyn, New York and allowed him an unconditional half year of living among saints. Archan never asked me to, nor did I while there, study Buddhism. The one job he gave me was “Make your self comfortable.” That half year turned me back into a human. The second section is from the book Fearless Puppy on American Road. It was mostly inspired by Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche. He is the Tibetan Lama and mystic that I have seen more often than any other. He has been dead for a decade or so. I still see him sometimes. I have met many other very wonderful Lamas before and since, but Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche was just the right one for me to meet at just the right time.

In spite of the fact that both pieces were written by a nearly 70 year old juvenile delinquent, I hope you will enjoy them. Thanks very much for reading, and for the backlink clicks.

Please be happy, Tenzin

“All talking will become sheer nonsense, if one cannot elucidate the Truth.” Milarepa

p.s. If you find the reading at all enjoyable, please — it literally takes only seconds — click one or more or all of the highlighted backlinks following this paragraph. This simple process is completely without risk, cost, or difficulty. All it does is bring you to the site that is highlighted. Each click is a big help in pushing Fearless Puppy up in the Google rankings. Whether you browse the sites or close the windows immediately, your help has been delivered when you click. Thank you!

FEARLESS PUPPY WEBSITE BLOG

FEARLESS PUPPY ON AMERICAN ROAD/AMAZON PAGE

REINCARNATION THROUGH COMMON SENSE/AMAZON PAGE

FEARLESS WEBSITE

Would You Rather Be a Finger or Part of a Hand?

Waiting for God or Congress to fix things won’t work. The Collective Human Attitude cannot change until the attitudes of the individuals composing it do. This has been proven many times.

Great Masters have come and gone. We immortalize their words and images. But the actual purpose of their teachings was to inspire us toward functional applications of those words in real life situations. Unfortunately, much of humanity seems to mislay those functional applications as consistently as a teardrop in the rain.

Why?

It may be true that some people are just too damn lazy to change their minds. The bigger problem is that many of us are too stressed out, distracted, and preoccupied to concentrate on the process of making this a truly better life for our selves, and a better world for everyone. Inhumane stress levels numb us into surviving under comfortably fossilized lies instead of living with truths that might be disturbing in the very short run, but will save us in the long run.

The inhumane stress levels that modern people suffer are largely fueled by two pieces of drastic misinformation. Nearly all of us have been brutally misled regarding the qualities defining our most critical human directions — the purpose of life and the meaning of success.

A more functional definition and a consistent practice of these terms are necessary in order for us to maintain peace and decency on an individual level. Only after plenty of that has been accomplished can peace and decency arrive, survive, and thrive at the community, national, and planetary levels.

The bigger masterpiece can only be painted by combining the brush strokes of all our little self-portraits.

All the great teachers, religions, and spiritual traditions seem to be nearly unanimous in their on-paper notions of the terms “purpose of life” and “success.” Their notions — unlike the general public’s questionable and constantly wavering standards for doing Earthly business — usually nail it.

The purpose of life is to not only achieve health, love, and happiness but also to assist whatever else is alive to do the same. Personal success is defined as developing the individual decency and courage to promote that universal well being, and building the skillful means to turn that brilliant motivation into actions that are realistically helpful to self and others.

Great ideas! Of course, the big problem is the “on-paper” part. Installing these notions from the on-paper version into actual practice seems to be a rare happening among humans.

No One can save humanity now. Salvation has been circling the planet for a long time. It has no place to land! We can provide that landing pad by personally moving toward what we are asking for, by actually becoming dynamic peace and cooperation, and by leaving a lot of old bullshit behind.

It can be difficult for a person to independently redirect his or her focus. Millennia of outdated conditioning and our present-day hypnosis by modern media only scratch the surface of what needs to be overcome. But we have to start somewhere.

The best place to start may be to simply make ourselves comfortable with our selves.

It is a sad fact that the pressures of life in our modern world make being uncomfortable in one’s own skin a very taken-for-granted condition — a condition that often seems like it is an insurmountable obstacle to so many people.

There are very few insurmountable obstacles in life. What may seem like insurmountable obstacles at first are more often just challenges. We can victoriously rise above almost any challenge by just making a consistent, stable, relaxed, focused, determined effort to do so. This is true whether that challenge comes from the darkest corners of the world — or the darkest corners of our own minds.

“There are no problems. Only solutions.” John Lennon

The Ties That Bind/The Treasure That Heals

Iam not a qualified teacher of anything except English as a Second Language — and am not very good at that. I have always been a haphazard and rebellious student. In high school, I threw pencils at the backs of teachers and attended more drug parties than classes. I’m not going to try to tell you things that I have no spiritual or intellectual authority to tell you — except for this one thing. Here’s the reason.

Years after high school, I fell in love with a teacher. Not in the romantic sense, of course. He might more likely and more accurately say that I fell in love with what was coming through him. As a result, I might have paid attention to what he was saying in a different way than most folks pay attention in class. I may have picked up some of his unspoken thoughts well enough to fashion words around them. (There might also be some residual LSD notions of my own that have survived from long gone decades and are mixed in here.) So here goes.

We are all connected. There is a singular fabric of life that contains everything that is living. This bigger picture is more real than our little individual ones. We are each a part of one big unit as surely as, and more profoundly than, we exist as independent individual humans.

Choose any of the well-known cloth metaphors: cut from the same cloth, threads running between us, woven into the fabric of… They all have truth to them.

There’s a thread that ties you to your mother. There’s a lesser one that ties you to the grocery clerk. You and I have a strand that connects us. There are other threads — and they may be a lot less visible but believe me, there are other threads — that tie you to every other living creature on Earth. You have never met most of these people or other living creatures in the flesh. You never will get to meet most of them. There is still a connection so true that your wireless provider would kill to figure out its technology.

There is also a connection between every person (including you!), and some powerful esoteric energies. We may not be aware of these connections and energies. They exist nonetheless.

One of my stronger threads ties me to an energy represented by a mythical bird that can rebuild its life from the ashes of its own destruction. This energy teaches how to transmute poisonous experiences into success and benefit. Relative to this, there seems to also be a thread running between my self and some very wise people who can translate, even to a relatively dense human being like me, exactly what that mystical bird symbolizes. These wise folk can make a complex concept more easily understandable.

Millions of people everywhere are consciously enjoying these types of connections. Folks of every conceivable nationality, occupation, and spiritual tradition receive transmissions of energy and information from who or whatever their teachers may be.

These teachers offer this information openly. They send it out like the sun sends out its warmth and light — but have no control over whether folks choose to receive that warmth and light or shiver in the shadows. The quality of attention paid by the student is at least as important as who the teacher is.

Teachings may come through exemplars such as Jesus and Buddha, or through a pony’s ass or an alfalfa sprout. The lesson to be learned is within the student. Anything or anyone is potentially a catalyst, a vehicle, that opens up a deep mental circuit for us.

The frames of reference, language, and nuance that all these catalysts are carried on can vary greatly according to the needs of the individual student. They consider the unique receptive abilities and disabilities, the habituations of cultural programming, and the reflective tendencies of the student. The presentations may all be different, but the root nature of the non-verbal information and energy being transmitted are the same.

The common denominator among the people I know to have received these sorts of transmissions seems to be a simple but active motivation. If you have a deep inclination to transmute harm into help and be of benefit to others — whether they live next door, on the other side of the world, or in the Twilight Zone — you will eventually be connected with the sources of energy and information that will assist your effort. If your motivation is less altruistic, you may be in for a bumpier ride. Contact with these sources seems to be a matter of continuously asking for it through action as much as word, then persevering (maintaining direction, strength of conviction, and determination) until assistance arrives.

Another thing seems apparent. Teachers aren’t only teachers. They were, and usually continue to be, students themselves. In Lincoln, Vermont, I saw evidence of a very strong thread running between a modern-era Lama/mystic and a legendary teacher of a thousand years ago. Almost everyone with any knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism is familiar with the famous teacher of a thousand years ago. The modern-era teacher is nowhere near as well known.

My text book research of this modern teacher says that Lama Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche is considered to be a “treasure revealer.” I have to disagree with my own research. All personal experience tells me that the man, himself, is a treasure.

p.s. There may also be a connection running between what we commonly know as time-and-space, and a pathway to detour them — but that’s another story.

About the Author

Doug “Ten” Rose may be the biggest smartass as well as one of the most entertaining survivors of the hitchhiking adventurers that used to cover America’s highways. He is the author of the books Fearless Puppy on American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense, has survived heroin addiction and death, and is a graduate of over a hundred thousand miles of travel without ever driving a car, owning a phone, or having a bank account.

Ten Rose and his work are a vibrant part of the present and future as well as an essential remnant of a vanishing breed.

Follow him on Facebook, Doug Ten Rose

Travel Adventure Books can be an excellent gift to your friends and family, buy from Amazon.com

#traveladventurebooks #keepreading #kindlebooks

Many thanks to our wonderful friends at Pema Boutique Hotel for their help and support.

The books Fearless Puppy On American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense by this same author are also available through Amazon or the Fearless Puppy website, where there are sample chapters from those books. Entertaining TV/radio interviews with and newspaper articles about the author are also available there. There is no charge for anything but the complete books! All author profits from book sales will be donated to help sponsor an increase in the number of wisdom professionals on Earth, beginning with but certainly not limited to Buddhist monks and nuns.

If you missed the Introduction to the new book that will be titled Temple Dog Soldier, or would like to see several chapters of it that are available for free online, go to the Puppy website Blog section. This is a book in progress. You will be reading it as it is being created! Just like you, I don’t know what the next chapter is going to be about until it is written. As the Intro will tell you, this is a totally true story — and probably the only book ever written by and about a corpse journeying completely around the world!