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[kyunzin]

𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞

✰ characters ✰ 𝐇. 𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢, 𝐅.𝐓𝐨𝐣𝐢, 𝐊. 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐮

✰ summary ✰ you miss them and ask for a video

✰tags/warnings✰ (most of this is only mentioned), nsfw, higuruma {breeding kink, degradation, blowjob, dumbification}, toji {public masturbation, degradation, breeding kink, riding}, shiu {cockwarming, praise, edging, cum stuffing, orgasm denial}

𝐇. 𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢

✰ doesn’t put much effort into it but gives you what you want anyway

“this what you wanted?”

the phone is angled up towards him as he languidly strokes his cock till its standing up with a little bit of pre coming out of the tip, looking down at the camera with a bored stare. he knew that you weren’t going to last long without him but he didn’t expect it this soon.

“I haven’t even been gone a few days and you already miss me or is it my cock that you miss?”

he continues with the same slow pace never looking away from the camera as pleasure builds up. he hast had to use his hands in a while due to you always being readily accessible. he’d become accustomed to being in your presence for too long forgetting what it’s like to not be able to fuck you.

“wish this was you instead of my hand. know you’d suck it like the good slut that you are right?”

the vision of you on your knees before him has his head dropping back as he lets out a low groan of frustration , knowing that heel have to wait a bit longer before he can feel you choking around his cock again.

“cant wait to get back home and fuck you stupid till you can only remember how to scream my name”

his volume soon picks up as he tightens his hold around his cock, letting a string curses leave his lips. it’s not long before he’s spilling into his hand painting his hand and stomach in his seed.

“what a waste, this should have been stuffed deep inside your sloppy cunt”

𝐅. 𝐓𝐨𝐣𝐢

✰ he slips inside a bathroom stall while he’s in public.

“look at what you have me doing, just to please you “

he stationed his phone on top of the toilet seat, giving you nearly a full view of his body, while he leans against the stall door. his pants are pooled around his ankles while his hard cock hangs above his briefs.

“know you’d fuck- ride me like a pro if I was sat on the seat”

he leans his head back against the door of the stall eyes closing, circling the tip of his dripping cock with his thumb as he most likely envisions the two of you in that position. he enjoyed letting you do most of the work and he found that that was the best way to hear it, letting you bounce on his cock relentlessly.

“bet you’d let me fuck you right here in this dirty stall like a cheap whore”

pulling up his tight shirt, letting his nipple piercings free as he uses his other free hand to tweak one like you would usually do. it also serves as a way to muffle his moans even though his heavy breathing would be enough to alert anyone who was paying close attention.

“really miss your tight little cunt wrapped around me”

the hand that was previously pinching his nipple now fondles his balls whilst he begins to furiously jerk his his cock letting the slick sounds resonate through the small space. he soon doubles over spilling his cum into his hand and letting some drop to the floor.

“look how much cum could have been kept inside you if only you’d been patient and waited until I got home”

𝐊. 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐮

✰ plans to punish you for being impatient

"cant even go a couple of days without me can you?"

all that's visible in the video is his face but from is laboured breaths and flushed cheeks you can tell what's going on behind the camera. even though he teases you for being desperate he feels unsatisfied without you, knowing that it would be better if you were there for him to fuck.

"these meetings are so boring. you should be here to keep me warm, kneeling under my desk, keeping me all the way down your throat. know would swallow it all like a good girl"

you can hear the slick noises of him jerking his cock in the background, the slick noises of is hand sliding up and down his thick cock that you used to struggle to take all the way, but after sitting on is cock for a long time it was if your pussy remembered the shape of his cock.

"you wanna see what you're missing out on baby?"

the camera flips and you can see is spit soaked cock, an angry shade of red at the tip nearly overflowing with pre cum. his whole and stokes up and down in slow fluid motions, in his tight grip you can see the thick veins running up the side.

"i've stopped myself from cumming so many times now. when i get back i'm gonna fuck you full and you're not allowed to cum, since all you need is my cum to be satisfied. right?"

his pace intensifies but is grip loosens as is groan starts to pick up in volume and you can hear a few curses leave his lips when he sporadically squeezes his cock. then he suddenly lets go watching as small beads of cum drip from the tip

"when i get home you better be ready for me to fill you with this, I've stored up so much for you baby"

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 - 𝐉𝐔𝐉𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐔 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐍

[txttletale]

My question about growth/the venture capitalist mindset is like … how have venture capitalists and the like not figured this out already? It’s been a decade, give or take a few years, since the internet started being monetized to hell and back, and if we all know they’re not really making a profit (bc no one clicks on ads, obviously) then why are the structures still in place?im looking at all this and I feel like a dunce bc I just don’t get how ppl can keep ofunelling money into something that we all know doesn’t work lol ! :0

there's a couple reasons for this, but the tldr of it is that if you're wile e. coyote and you're running in the air over the edge of a cliff, it's in your material interests not to look down

let's say you're a venture capitalist and you've put $10 million into hypnospace, the hot new social media site. when you invest into a company, you invest at a certain price--the company has an idea of how much it's worth, and that determines what price they'll sell their shares at. let's say you buy at $10 a share, so you have a million shares in hypnospace. that $10-a-share-valuation was based on hypnospace telling you (in, say, 2012, when this was still believable and even seemed self-evident) that becuse they were seeing huge growth in daily active users, they'd eventually become insanely profitable.

now usually even you, a venture capitalist, a lifeform mostly resembling a parasitic flatworm, might be a little cautious about this investment. will they really become profitable? it seems risky. however because it's 2012, the US federal reserve has been giving out loans at their ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) for four years in a response to the 2008 financial crisis. what that means is that it's incredibly cheap for banks to borrow money, which in turn means it's incredibly cheap for you, a venture capitalist, to borrow that money from banks. when money is cheap, risky investments make a lot of sense--when you can get an extremely low-interest-rate loan, throwing that money down the toilet is unfortunate but no longer catastrophic. so you put your $10 million into hypnospace because the risk is artificially lowered by the ZIRP, making it well worth the reward.

now it's five years later and it's 2017 and it's becoming increasingly clear that hypnospace.horse is probably not going to became the new facebook and that perhaps there will in fact only be one facebook. bummer. but you've still got a million shares in it. this means that you're directly invested--not in the company becoming profitable, but in the valuation of that company going up. if people can be convinced to buy hypnospace shares at $12-a-share, you can make off with a cool $2 million even though the website never did anything useful or made any money. on the other hand, if people start thinking 'hey, this website has never made any money and it's obviously never going to, why would we buy shares in it'--shares plummet to $1 a share, and you're out $9 million! worst case scenario!

so even if you, the venture capitalist, realize that the website's a boondoggle, it's in your best interest to convince everyone around you that no, it really will become profitable, and its shares (that you hold some of!) are really valuable and you should want to buy them. and this doesn't just mean lying to other venture capitalists (although they love doing this)--capitalists pay close attention to sales of stocks. if you realize that hypnospace is never going to make money and decide to cut your losses and abruptly offload all million shares, other capitalists will interpret that for what it means--that you've totally lost confidence in seeing return on your investment--and many of them will panic and also start selling their shares, while capitalists with no hypnospace shares will think 'boy, this hypnospace thing seems like a real wash, i don't want to buy shares in that'.

so what do you do? you keep putting money in. if the company's increasing in valuation the more it grows, then even if you're crystal-clear aware that growth has no path to profitability, you still gain wealth for every month that the business stays afloat by burning money, because the valuation goes up and your shares are worth more. the ideal outcome for a venture capitalist investing into a tech company is to make a big investment, let the company bleed money while it grows for several years, then sell--not all at once, not abruptly, and not while the price is in stagnation or decline. it's one big game of hot potato for when the gig is finally up. not every venture capitalist has to be a totally credulous dipshit--just the last one in the line.

[lululandd]

mutual;

pairing: simon ‘ghost’ riley x f!reader

word count: 1.3k+

warnings: stalking, drugging

note: i have nothing planned for the rest of the story so please bear with me and maybe go on this adventure together :3 (also on AO3)

summary: “it wasn’t supposed to make you sick, love.” he sighed as he knelt down, “just wanted to make you sleep.”

you woke up in annoyance that night, seeing that it was still dark outside when you opened your eyes. you had went so far as to order carb heavy food for dinner earlier, finishing it off with some medicine to hopefully, finally, at long last, get a good night’s sleep.

and yet here you are, eyes wide open in the dead of night. it had been a rough couple of weeks, your mind running circles and staying alert every night, leaving you irritable and unable to focus or function during the day.

getting some of your senses back as you lie flat on your back—staring at the ceiling contemplating all the good night’s sleep you had before all this happened—you shivered and realised something’s wrong with your body. you felt chilly, and when you touched your arm it felt damp. bile quickly came up the back of your throat when you tried to sit up, your eyes widening as a rush of adrenaline flows through you, giving you enough panic and energy to get out of bed.

making it only to the sink, you thank yourself for even being able to hold it back that long and not hurling everything out on the floor.

bracing yourself on the counter, you start to wonder what you ate that could possib—

click.

what was that?

you hunched lower towards the sink, expelling what looked like the rest of your dinner. the sound of your front door being opened and closed made your mind race and your nausea worse, coughing spit and phlegm into the sink. your hands shook as you turned the tap, all your energy spent on heaving and keeping yourself upright. large beads of sweat rolled down your temple as you watched the water swirl, shuddering as you feel the back of your shirt sticking to your skin.

mentally, you want to fight off the intruder. physically? you’re lucky to even be vertical right now. staring at the running water, you wish and hope it’s just a robber.

you wobbled towards the toilet—your legs felt like it would fold like a cheap umbrella if you stood any longer—and lifted the plastic seat before kneeling in front of it, bracing both sides of the bowl, the coldness from the tiles and the porcelain bringing some relief on your burning skin.

the bathroom door opened wider and something big stepped into the room with you.

“my bag is in the hallway. there’s—“ you dry heaved, “—cash in it. i haven't seen your face.”

“allright?” the man spoke. 

“pl—“ nausea took hold again before you could speak. you chose to just wave and look away. but his footsteps came closer and closer, forcing you to screw your eyes shut to avoid seeing him entirely.

“offended you thought i was here for money.” he drawled, his deep and gruff voice sounding oddly calm. “im worried.”

your whole body jolted, involuntarily opening your eyes and turning your face towards him. through your tear filled eyes you could see a hulking dark shape of a man with a skull printed balaclava for a face.

“please just take the money,” you begged and sniffled, limp hand pointing at the general direction of where your valuables would be on the other side of the wall.

“the food wasn’t supposed to make you sick, love.” he sighed as he knelt down next to you, “just wanted to make you sleep.”

he helped hold your hair up as you threw up pure acid this time, making you cough and sputter harder into the bowl. his other hand holds your forehead, steadying you as you swayed. it brought you a sense of troubled comfort, being helped by a stranger that broke into your home. 

seeing you no longer have anything in your system to force back out, he gently picked you up from the floor. you feebly try to push away from him—like a sickly wet spaghetti trying to push a concrete wall—as he makes his way to your room.

he had put you down on your bed and made his way towards your armoire when you realised something that made your body sit still.

your room was still dark. hell, the whole flat was practically dark. the only other source of true light other than the streetlamps shining through your curtains was from the opened bathroom door. there wasn't any hesitation in his steps when he brought you in. no glancing around or fumbling on his part.

you could only watch him in muted horror as he bent over your armoire, immediately opening the drawer that holds your home clothes. “you’ve been here before.” you half whispered.

“couple times, yeah.” he nonchalantly admitted as he rifled through your clothes, grabbing shirts and moving it closer to his face before putting them back and doing it again with another.

you wildly look around the room, wondering if you could outrun him. no, no, not through the door of course, he was closer to it than you are, but the window, yes, the window. that’s closer to you than it is to him. you eyed the window, prepping all the steps you would need to do before you could flung yourself out of it. if you’re fast enough, and quiet enough, you coul—

he straightened his back at that exact moment and turned towards you with one of your favourite shirts in his hands. you saw the peeling glitter font shimmered for a fraction of a second before he dropped it in your lap.

he then turned around and stepped away, giving you what little privacy he could while still keeping you close.

you changed at a sluggish pace, keeping your eye on his back the whole time with the perfectly rational fear that he’ll turn around, catching you mid change; as if you could do anything if he did.

thankfully he didn’t.

being dry felt nice. you’re still shivering a little and you felt like you’ve just swallowed an acorn after running a marathon, but at least you’re dry and no longer cold and sticky. you spent what little freedom you didn’t know you had left to watch his broad back instead of telling him you’re done. now that you have some space and a little energy to think, you wonder if you’ve seen him anywhere before; wracking your brain to try and remember if maybe you recognise his silhouette or imposing shape from somewhere. would paying more attention to your surroundings help? do you need to remember who you’ve seen and where you’ve seen them? where does the line for caution stop and paranoia begins? 

you didn’t even notice him turning around and walking towards you, you gaze empty as you keep thinking about all the little things you should’ve noticed, how big of a mistake it was to not pay attention to large men, how—

a soft touch on your forehead snapped you out of your thoughts, the back of his hand reaching out to feel your temperature. the gesture felt so loving and familiar that you involuntarily closed your eyes, his touch on your scorching skin made the discomfort and ache a little more bearable. 

but relief was cut short by a sharp prick on the side of your neck, your hand flying up towards the source of the pain to catch it but finding nothing.

something thin and shiny on his lowering hand caught your attention as your vision blurred and the edges darken. “wha—”

“don’t fight it.” he cuts you off as you try to speak, his voice commanding you from far away. you could only watch as the gleaming material disappeared into his clothes. 

for the first time that night you voluntarily looked up towards his face, but he pushed you down on the bed and covered your eyes before you could remember anything worthwhile.

it’s getting increasingly harder to stay awake, mumbling something to him you couldn’t even remember as your eyelids get heavier; lashes fluttering onto his palms everytime you blink.

you could feel his breath on the side of your face, but when he spoke to you it sounded faint, as if from even further away.

“sleep well.”

even in your barely conscious state you could hear the smile in his voice.

[ichorai]

i was just a kid ; marc spector.

track one of BROKEN MACHINE.

pairing ; marc spector x vigilante!gn!reader

synopsis ; khonshu wanted you dead. marc just wanted you.

words ; 6.6k

themes ; action, mild angst/fluff, vigilante au, thief au

warnings / includes ; blood/injury, cursing, mentions of human trafficking/sexual assault but not at all graphic, marc is basically chasing after reader for half the fic, we're traveling the world in this fic baby !!! khonshu being Annoying, reader doesn't know marc has DID and thinks he's crazy, a steven cameo !! and one (1) mention of spider-man and daredevil <3

main masterlist.

NEW DELHI, INDIA.

The street market was crowded, bustling with chatty tourists, loud salesmen, and traveling vendors. The air was heavy with the sweet, saccharine smell of fresh mangoes, intertwined with the faintest trace of turmeric, ginger and garam masala from other stalls you hurriedly passed by. You would’ve given anything to stop and try some of the food, if not for the terrifying white-suited fucker hunting you down.

The bleeding cut on your cheek he’d given you from when he threw his crescent-shaped boomerang in your direction throbbed. You’d barely been able to duck away in time. At least here, in the busy street, he couldn’t risk hurting anyone else by striking you long-range. 

At least, you hoped so. You weren’t entirely sure how far this bastard was willing to go to get you. Sure, you’d made a lot of enemies in the past, but, to your recollection, you’d never met any moon-caped supers keen on taking your life before.

You were quick to duck through the tight-knit throng, panic setting in when you realized the market was thinning away—you were near the end of the street, and you no longer had the advantage of cover on your side. 

With agile steps, you sprinted into an alleyway, glancing up the side of an apartment.

Then, you began to climb. You scaled the small grooves in the bricks, expertly balancing your weight just right so you wouldn’t fall. You’d done this a million times before, with much smoother surfaces to climb—after all, that was the bare minimum required of a thief. 

You hauled yourself onto the rooftop, laying low so he wouldn’t be able to spot you from ground level. 

Only—he wasn’t on ground level.

A shadow loomed over you just as you crouched by the rusted air conditioning unit, and you had but a millisecond to roll out of the way before his foot came crashing clean through the metal.

Well, fuck me, he can fly, you wryly thought. 

“Glide!” the man behind the mask gruffed as he grabbed your arm and shoved you against the crumpled AC unit, the searing hot metal digging painfully into your skin. “I glide, I don’t fly!”

“I said that out loud?” you panted with a hoarse chuckle, before quickly twisting and kicking his knee, brandishing a sharp dagger from the utility belt loosely secured around your hips. Up close, his suit appeared to be fashioned from a multitude of bandages, not unlike the cheap mummies from old nineties halloween movies. “Sorry, would it be weird for me to ask why a toilet paper cosplayer is trying to murder me?”

The man offered you no response, only diving forward and landing a good punch to one side of your jaw, which made your vision go blurry with disorientation for a moment. 

There was no way you could best him with strength—you needed to get away from him. 

With quick, nimble fingers, you pulled two smoke bombs from your belt and threw them onto the ground. Large plumes of ashen white immediately ate up the space between you, and he was left blinded for a couple of seconds. You tugged a grenade out a moment later, pulling out the pin with your teeth before tossing it in his general direction and throwing yourself off the opposite side of the building, where you’d spotted a plastic-woven tarp over one of the stalls by the edge of the market.

You’d crashed straight through their booth, fruits and drinks spilling all over the street’s asphalt. The vendors started cussing at you in a language that was foreign to your ears, but you knew they were saying foul things nonetheless. With a groan, you pushed yourself up, ignoring the searing pain that ran down your leg and began running back into the crowd. 

The explosion on the building had blown Marc back several meters, and he cursed beneath his breath as he pushed himself back up. Just as he was about to set back off to track you down, Khonshu’s bellowing voice made him halt in his motions.

“Let them go,” the God rumbled. There was an undertone of mild disappointment that laid stagnant beneath his voice, as if he’d just lost a game rather than a target. “We have more pressing matters at hand. Ammit’s followers are stealing more souls in Cuba.”

Marc’s brow furrowed. “Let them go? You want me to go to Cuba? That’s halfway across the world! I can finish the job, they can’t have gotten too far—”

“We have more pressing matters,” he repeated himself, this time with an edge to his voice. A headache pulsed angrily through Marc’s temple. 

“Why’d you want them dead so bad? This target—that person, were they a follower of Ammit? Huh?” 

Much to his frustration, Khonshu ignored him completely, merely brushing past his avatar. “Go to Havana,” the bird-skull rumbled over his shoulder. “I’ll meet you there.”

And with that, he disappeared.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN.

A final stream of smoke fell from Elena’s lips as she pulled the cigarette away, dropping it into the floor to stub with her boot. She fixed you with a neutral expression as you made your way to her, though the unmistakable affection in her molten brown eyes gave her away. 

“Took you long enough,” she said, glancing at the large black cloak you were wearing. Her demeanor gradually shifted into one of a more somber variety. “Verdict’s been decided. The court decided not to charge—all those police that beat my friends to death… they’re walking away free of consequence. The government’s gone to shit. Everything is more expensive now—riots are breaking out over fuel prices, which means more people are getting killed. Nobody is willing to help anymore.”

You nodded grimly. “What can I do?”

There was a dark glimmer to her eyes as she squared her jaw. “You’re going to help me burn down government buildings. I don’t know how many, but… as many as it takes for them to change.”

A hint of a grin graced your lips as you regarded your past-lover with a nostalgic kind of fondness. “It’s the first time I see you in years and you’re already throwing me headfirst into war.”

She offered you a shrug and a wry smile. “Don’t kid yourself. You live for this kind of shit.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” you hummed distantly. “Where do we start?”

It was pandemonium. 

Everybody was yelling—the protestors, the police, the civilians watching from the sides, the sparse firemen as they tried to put out the massive, roaring flames that were greedily swallowing the government building in its entirety. You had to admit, you were rather proud of your handiwork—absentmindedly wondering if Elena would be happy with it, as well.

Before you could dwell on it any longer, a foreign hand tightly seized around your wrist and began to drag you back away from the crowd. Your gaze wildly swiveled around in confusion to the man yanking you along, noting his heavy-set furrowed brows and his frustrated scowl. With as much strength as you could muster, you dug your heels into the ground and halted his motion, pulling against him with all your might. He didn’t relent, only staring you down with dark eyes that held the warbling reflections of the fire you set behind you. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” you barked, starting to get more frantic as you fruitlessly attempted to get him to let go of you. 

And when he spoke, it finally dawned on you.

Well, fuck me. It’s that bitch that chased me down in New Delhi. Wonder why he isn’t wearing his super suit… probably not to attract attention like last time. The news was all over him.

“You’re just getting more people killed,” he husked, clearly talking about the fire you’d caused, before brandishing a dark karambit knife, one that you swore gave you a cut just by looking at it. “No wonder he wants you dead.”

Fear wove down your spinal column when the blade poked your lower stomach in warning. “I’m sending a message,” you growled in reply, lips curled over your teeth in a snarl as you bristled. “And what about you? You’re gonna fix the problem by killing me? I don’t even know you! Some hero you are—those people protesting out there? They’re better than you will ever be.”

For a moment, his pupils darted back to the rioting crowd, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, and you used the short-lived distraction to your advantage. You expertly kicked the knife out of his hand and landed a quick blow square in the center of his face, feeling his nose break beneath your knuckles. 

Not wanting to push your luck—you remembered how fast he was during your last encounter—you gave him one final shove, sending him sprawling into a trash can with a groan and a muffled curse.

By the time he forced himself back onto his feet a second later, you’d already disappeared into the shadows.

Fuck. Khonshu was gonna kill him.

PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO.

Marc still wasn’t sure why Khonshu wanted you dead so badly. Then again, he wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Khonshu. 

But he knew one thing for certain—if Marc truly wanted you dead, then you would’ve been six feet under weeks ago. Which meant… he wasn’t actively trying to kill you because he didn’t actually want you dead. All the others that he’d killed for Khonshu felt like they’d deserved it—rapists, abusers, pedophiles… and though Marc didn’t know you very well, he knew you weren’t anything like the people he’d killed before.

Marc didn’t know what he was doing. 

Jaw clenched, he pulled the cap lower down his face, shoving his fists into the pockets of his jeans. He followed not too far behind you, silent as a wraith, watching as you merrily strode down the streets of Podgorica. 

Finally, when you stopped by a little coffee truck to order an iced latte, Marc stepped forward to stand beside you.

For the first minute, you idly tapped away on your phone, smiling down at the screen briefly before pocketing the device. You glanced at him, thinking nothing of the person beside you, assuming they were just another civilian—

Then you froze.

You knew that face.

After all, you’d broken that very same nose less than a week ago. Strange, it looked just fine now. 

Immediately, you hunkered down into a defensive position, backing away from him with quick steps. Then, you ran, sprinting away so quickly that Marc could’ve sworn a trail of dust kicked up beneath your feet.

The man in the coffee truck incredulously yelled out after you, followed by a string of what Marc could only assume was a creative litany of Montenegrin profanity. 

Dropping a few shillings onto the truck’s counter, Marc grabbed your coffee and ran after you, shocked at how far you’d managed to get in such a short amount of time. 

There was no denying that you were a fast runner—but as the old tale went, the quick hare would always get overly confident. You slowed down to a moderate jog when you glanced behind you, Marc nowhere in sight. With a relieved sigh, you turned the corner and slumped against a building, wiping the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. 

Damn, you’d kill for that iced coffee right about now.

As if on cue, Marc rounded the corner, catching you by surprise. You were just ready to turn tail and run away again, but his hand shot out and held onto your wrist, not unlike he did in Astana. 

You spewed out a myriad of curses, ranging from calling him an ‘insufferable cucumber-dicked motherfucker’ to ‘smooth-brained, butt-faced swine’, wildly trying to get him to let go of you. If you weren’t violently bucking against him with all the grace of a panicked mare, he would’ve laughed at the creativity of your insults. 

“Stop, I just want to talk!” exclaimed Marc, dodging when you pushed yourself forward to try and wrap your hands around his throat. 

“Last two times I saw you, you tried to kill me!” you breathlessly spat. “Sorry if I don’t quite trust you now!”

“I’m unarmed,” he gritted out, stepping back slightly to allow you to scan your gaze over him. Though you didn’t want to admit it, you knew that if Marc really wanted to kill you, you would’ve been dead long ago. “I just want to ask you a couple things. And look—I brought your coffee!”

A low hiss fell from your lips. “I’m not answering jack shit.”

With that, you lunged forward and shoved him hard—so hard that he stumbled into the jagged brick wall behind him with an oomf. The iced latte sloshed right out of its cup and spilled all over his chest. His head struck painfully against the stone and his vision went blurry for a moment, expression faltering. 

You stepped away, watching him with cautious, narrowed eyes. 

After a long, pregnant pause, the man blinked in a dazed fashion, seeming confused. 

“What? Where am I? What’s going on?” he said, accent suddenly… British. He fixed you with a genuinely miffed gaze, appearing slightly frightened at your withering glower. 

You didn’t stay to answer his question. 

As you were turning on your heel to run away, you faintly heard him mutter to himself, “Where the bloody hell am I?”

Crazy bastard.

VALENCIA, SPAIN.

Your knuckles were split. Blood dribbled down your fist, a mixture of yours and the man whose face you were caving in.

One of your hands was bunched into the collar of his shirt, holding him down as you rained punches on him. The sickening sound of his bones giving way with your strikes didn’t deter you, and you only snarled and hit him again as he blubbered out prayers in Spanish. Blood-flecked spittle dripped from his busted lips. 

“Who are you praying to?” you hissed, releasing his collar in favor of wrapping your hand over his throat, squeezing tight. The dull green of his eyes flashed with panic, legs flailing weakly. “The gods will not listen to the likes of you—I’ll make sure of it.”

A strangled wail erupted from him. 

And just as you were about to land another punch, you found yourself being shoved away from the man, and promptly lifted off the floor with the scruff of your shirt collar, shoving you against a wall. You began kicking and twisting blindly, cursing furiously when you saw the man you were beating up scurry onto his feet and haggardly sprint away.

Your struggling was of no avail, and you weren’t at all surprised to see the same person that’s been trying to track you down for months now. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, brows heavily furrowed and dark eyes stormy with anger. “You were about to kill that guy!”

“He deserves it,” you bit out, glaring back at him with just as much intensity. “The fucker’s been stalking a friend of mine and sexually assaulted her daughter.”

There was a beat of silence. Marc’s cross expression seemed to drain away, but he still bore a stern face as he slowly let you go. You slid down the wall and got back onto your feet with a wince. 

“Why have you been following me?” you huffed, dusting off your pants. “You think I don’t know that if you really wanted to kill me, I would be dead by now?”

Marc squared his jaw and leveled his gaze on you. “Someone… close to me wants you dead. I want to know why first—he won’t tell me.”

“Sounds like you shouldn't be all that close to him, then,” you snorted derisively. 

“Not for a lack of trying,” the man dryly replied. 

With a scoff, you stepped forward and wiped your bloody knuckles onto his shirt, leaving a damp trail of darkening crimson. “There’s way too many reasons a person would want me dead,” you whispered, one hand patting his chest. The other trailed down, down, down…

To the high-rise potted plant beside you. You grabbed a fistful of dirt.

“See, he’s not exactly what you’d call a person—”

Before Marc could finish his sentence, you chucked the dirt straight into his face. He inhaled some of the soil and doubled over, pounding on his chest as he coughed it out. With a growl, he frustratedly swiped the remaining flecks of dirt out of his eyes, blearily looking back up. And, to none of his surprise but much of his dismay, you were already gone.

OSLO, NORWAY.

“Why aren’t they dead yet, Marc?” grumbled Khonshu in that grating, gravely tone of his. Even though the God had no eyes, Marc could still feel his stare burning straight through him. 

With a frown, Marc was quick to respond, “Because you haven’t told me why yet.”

“You’ve never needed a reason before—always blindly following my orders,” the bird-skull crooned. “What makes them so different?”

There was a bitter taste to the back of Marc’s throat. What made you so different?

“Because I don’t know if they deserve it, alright?” he retorted, crossing his arms to glare up at the tall figure. “You can’t just expect me to kill everyone who mildly inconveniences you.”

Harrumphing, Khonshu snapped back, “They are naught but an inconvenience—they are a disruption to the very balance of nature. Y/N has taken justice into their own hands, and that is a very dangerous thing for a simple mortal to do.”

Marc cast his gaze away in frustration, pacing back and forth. “But that’s exactly what you make me do.”

“Yes, because you are my avatar,” deadpanned the God. “And Y/N is not. Though, they might as well be because you are being a fool.”

He could feel one of his eyes twitch. There wasn’t ever a conversation Marc could remember where Khonshu didn’t insult him. 

“They’re doing what they think is right,” defended Marc. “They’re not hurting people just for the sake of it.”

“That is not for them to decide!” bellowed the God, which made him step back just a bit. “They have done terrible, unimaginable things in the past—though mistakes some may be—and they will continue to make them. Take a look for yourself.” With that, Khonshu swept his arm out, gesturing to the large bank across the street, large windows giving him a clear view of what was going on inside.

His heart dropped down to his stomach when he saw you. 

You were wearing a mask that covered the entirety of your features, except for your eyes and your mouth. The rest of your body was shrouded with simple, dark clothing, suitable for running. 

And, most notably, you had a gun in your hand, pointing straight at the trembling woman working behind the counter. Your mouth was moving and you gestured with lax, calm movements, despite the explicit terror written across the woman’s face.

Marc’s brow furrowed. Damn it. 

He watched as you snatched the bag of money the woman slowly slid over, and hightailed out of the bank with the gun still gripped tightly in your hand. You ran the opposite way, before disappearing down another block. Glancing over at Khonshu, only to see that he was nowhere in sight, Marc huffed out a sigh and began sprinting after you.

One downside of Oslo was that their buildings weren’t exactly the easiest to climb—which meant that you had to stick to the ground and trust your speed. 

Marc wasn’t as fast as you without his suit, that was for certain. But with his suit—he could glide. 

And so that’s how the white-caped figure dropped straight down in front of you out of seemingly nowhere, which elicited a shriek of surprise from you, nearly dropping the bag out of shock. You had pulled your mask off long ago, shoving it into the knapsack shrugged over your shoulders, along with the gun. 

This clearly wasn’t your first time doing this.

“You,” was what you incredulously breathed out, eyes wide. “You must be obsessed with me or something.”

Not in the mood to play around, Marc growled out, “Why are you doing this? Give the money back. It’s not yours.”

“Who said it was for me?” you countered, upper lip curled in contempt. You tilted your head at him, eyeing his suit with interest, before returning back to your scathing disposition. “Not that it’s any of your business, but this money’s for the small orphanage a couple miles from here. They’re barely getting by with the money the government gives them. I have a kid there I know.”

With bated breath, Marc willed the suit away, leaving him in a dark sweatshirt and a pair of woolen pants. He eyed you suspiciously, still not too sure if he should trust you.

Sensing this, you rolled your eyes and unzipped your bag. “If you don’t believe me—check my gun. It’s blank.” You fished out the small weapon and handed it over to him with the end pointed towards you so he wouldn’t think you were going to shoot him. “No bullets.”

Marc didn’t need to check it—by now he knew you were telling the truth. But he looked into the chamber anyway, finding it void of any ammunition. 

“Can I go now? We both know you’re not going to kill me. The cops will be looking,” you said, voice a bit more gentle than before. He noticed that the anger on your face had melted away, leaving only urgency and another tumultuous emotion that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

When he offered you no response, finally relenting, you nodded once to him, a glimmer of gratitude behind your irises. And with that, you began running again, effortlessly disappearing into the shadows.

“Fool,” thundered a rumbling growl from somewhere above him. Marc looked up, but the bird-skulled God was nowhere to be found.

COLUMBUS, OHIO.

Damn. Nothing hit harder than classic, greasy, American cheeseburgers with a side of curly fries and a milkshake. You shifted eagerly on the sticky red leather of the booths, shooting the waitress who’d handed you your food a flirtatious smirk and a ten dollar bill, which she took with an equally salacious wink.

You grinned down at your food before taking the first bite into the burger, a muffled noise of content falling from your throat.

“Am I interrupting something?” said a frustratingly familiar voice, the man sliding into the seat across from you. “It sounds like you were just about to have the greatest sex of your life—with a cheeseburger.”

You pointedly glared at him, though it lacked any true heat. After about a dozen deliberately slow chews, you finally swallowed down the food. Marc looked like he wanted to say something else, but you merely held up a finger, slurping on the paper straw of your milkshake. He pursed his lips with a mildly aggrieved look.

Finally, you tilted your head at him. 

“Is there something you want from me?” you asked him casually, reaching to the end of the table to grab a napkin and wipe at the corner of your lips. “Because I’m not in the drug business anymore, if that’s what you’re looking for. Or is it something else, hm?”

It seemed that Marc hadn’t completely thought this through. Sure, he’d planned out what he roughly wanted to say to you, but now that you were right in front of him, he found his tongue running dry. He fumbled for words, fists clenching and unclenching by his knees. 

“I don’t want to kill you. Or hurt you at all, for that matter.”

You scoffed, remembering the instances in which he’d hurt you plenty.

“I just… I want to know your side of the story. I want to know why you do what you do,” he said, a bit quieter. 

For a moment, Marc thought you’d just tell him to piss off. But there was a gradual shift to your features, going from obvious irritation to gentle curiosity. 

“Alright. I’ll cut you a deal,” you said, popping a curly fry into your mouth. “I tell you about my tragic backstory, and you tell me all about this… thing that’s been wanting to kill me. And before I start—I’m gonna need your name. I can’t keep mentally cataloging you as the toilet paper man.”

And for the first time since you met him all those months ago—Marc laughed. It was deep and gratingly genuine, coming from the very bottom of his chest.

“Well, first of all, it’s not toilet paper. It’s the ceremonial armor of Khonshu’s temple. And second, it’s Marc. Marc Spector.”

“Ceremonial armor of whose what now?” you balked. 

A hint of a smile graced the corner of Marc’s lips. “Khonshu—Egyptian God of the moon. I’m his avatar. He’s the one that wanted me to kill you. He called you a disruption to nature—said that you were wrongfully taking justice into your own hands.” As he spoke, the smile began to wane away, and he regarded you in a more serious light. “I want to know why he thinks that.”

You stared down at your plate of fries, stunned. An Egyptian God wanted you dead? You knew you pissed people off, but Gods too?

“And if you don’t like what you hear?” you quietly asked, lifting your gaze to meet his. “Will you drag me out of the diner and strangle me to death?”

Though you could tell he didn’t like saying it, Marc’s face was set in stone when he leveled with you. “I’ll give you a head’s start.”

Another beat of silence. You picked up another fry and popped it into your mouth. The plate slid across the table as you nudged it towards him. 

“Alright, Marc. Settle in, have some fries, order a milkshake—it’s a long story.”

And you told him everything. You told him about your childhood—rumbling stomachs, nimble thieving hands, falling off of buildings when running away from cops. You told him about your teenage years—pulling off heists, brokering deals with gangs, breaking nearly every bone in your body being reckless. You told him about your early adult years—falling in love with Elena, getting more comfortable as a vigilante, as you liked to call yourself, meeting other superheroes and helping out on occasion. Marc seemed to recognize Spider-Man and Daredevil’s names when you mentioned them in passing, his eyebrows arching up closer to his hairline. 

You told him that you now spend your days traveling around the globe helping people. 

By the time you were done spilling your entire life story, your fries and burger were cleanly polished off. 

Marc was silent for a long time, as if unsure what to say. 

“I was in love once, too,” he said in a tentative manner, gaze trained on the table. “Her name was Layla.”

“Oh, yeah?” you curiously said, sipping on the last frothy remnants of your milkshake at the bottom of the glass. “And how’d that work out for you?”

There was a sad glint to his eyes. “Not so good. We’re divorced now.” He cleared his throat before you could press him about it. “What happened with you and Elena?”

It was now your turn to stare out the window in a despondent manner. “Same as you. Except we were never married. My lifestyle was… too much for her.”

Marc nodded in understanding. “Yeah, me too.”

The two of you stared at the glossy table in silence.

“You still in love with her?”

You lifted your gaze to meet his. “I love her, yeah—I always will. I’m just not in love with her anymore.”

The man across from you hummed. There was a newfound understanding between you two—unspoken, but the both of you could feel it. 

“Do you still love Layla?”

A ghost of a smile graced his features, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “Not in the same way I used to. But I do.”

With a final slurp of your straw, your drink glass was emptied. “Seems like we’re a lot more similar than first meets the eye, huh?” 

Marc fixed you with a loose, awkward smile. Without another word, he pulled the bill of his cap lower down his face, and slid out of the booth. It seemed that he wasn’t going to be strangling you tonight. 

You didn’t look back when he walked out of the diner, the bell hooked by the doortop tolling with his departure.

YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA.

The bird skull was saying something. His bony beak was moving. You could feel the vibrations of his thundering voice beneath your feet. And yet—you had no fucking clue what he was talking about.

You blinked up at the God with wide eyes. 

“Could you repeat that?” you winced out, having not picked up a single word Khonshu had said in the past three minutes. The God grumbled, and somehow glared at you despite having no eyes within his bony skull. Beside you, Marc let out a muffled snort.

“You insolent buffoon,” the bony figure snarled. “Have you not been listening?”

Despite the bristling God in front of you, you found the entire situation to be amusing. “Sorry, it’s just… your head’s really big. It’s kinda distracting. Just paraphrase yourself—I don’t need all the terms and conditions.”

Marc’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, but he immediately sobered up when Khonshu rounded his pointed beak to him, back straightening. 

“This is a gravely serious matter—!”

“You know what else is serious?” you snapped, pulling your thick woolen coat closer to your quivering body. “Catching hypothermia! Did you really have to pick Russia of all places? We couldn’t have met on a warm beach in the Caribbeans, or something?”

If Khonshu had eyelids, you were sure they would’ve been twitching with repressed agitation by now.

A deep baritone of a sigh fell from the lanky God. He leaned his weight against his crescent-tipped staff, as if willing his own patience to hold steadfast. 

“I said—” he started again, watching you cautiously, “—that I will be letting go of your past sins. But only because my avatar is so keen on you, and because you show a consistent effort to rid the world of evil. However, if you slip up so much as once, I will personally see that to an unkind descent into the afterlife. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal!” you harrumphed, tucking your frigid nose into the collar of your fur coat. “And I did those things to people who deserved it—which is exactly the same as what you do, you bony hypocrite! Can we go inside now?”

The God grumbled something unintelligible, though you suspected it had something to do with your impertinence, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“You’ll get used to him,” assured Marc, placing a hand on your back to lead you back inside. “He doesn’t get any better but—you’ll get used to it.”

“That’s reassuring,” you dryly responded, teeth beginning to chatter. As soon as the two of you started to walk back to the small little city hotel, you elbowed his side with a playful grin. “So… you’re keen on me, huh?”

Marc gave you an unimpressed look. Snowflakes danced with the wind and landed in his neatly-combed curls. “Khonshu had to believe that I liked you—the last thing he’d want is a sloppy, grieving avatar.”

“Mmh, I don’t know…” you said, tapping your finger against your chin in thought. “He’d probably like that, considering he’s one manipulative son of a bitch. Maybe he just secretly likes me and wants to keep me around.”

“Yeah,” snorted Marc. He halted in his tracks, forcing down a smile. “That, or I blackmailed him.”

Your eyes widened, frost clinging to your lashes and brows. “You blackmailed an Egyptian God?”

“Let’s just say that he’s had a sticky romance with the Egyptian Goddess of love—ironically, she’s one of the few beings that he’s genuinely terrified of. I threatened to get in contact with her avatar if he didn’t absolve you.”

You kicked at a small build-up of snow by the sidewalk, an excited gleam to your irises. “Crazy how even the Gods have petty dating drama to gossip about,” you commented, turning to him. His nose was tinted a faint shade of red from the cold, bits of white frost freckling his hair and his clothes. “Thanks for not killing me, by the way,” you added as an afterthought, fixing him with a warm smile. 

“Just keep out of trouble,” he gently reminded, mirroring your soft grin. The two of you were now standing in front of your dingy little motel—and Marc apparently had something to attend to halfway across the world in Cuba. 

So this was goodbye. 

For now, at least.

Without thinking, you leaned forward to press your cold lips against the warmth of his cheek, the tip of your nose grazing his cheekbone as you laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Thanks,” you whispered when you pulled away slightly, breath misting into an opaque fog. Marc was regarding you with an expression that bordered on fondness, which was certainly a new look that you found yourself craving for more. “I haven’t really properly talked to anybody in ages so… this was nice. Goodbye, Marc.”

With that, you turned on your heel and headed into the hotel, grateful for the blast of warmth from the overhead heater, though you could still feel Marc’s burning stare bore holes into your back, even as you turned the corner and disappeared from his sight.

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA.

Blood, everywhere.

Gunshots in the distance.

Snarling men rounding the corner—human traffickers.

Your dagger glinting beneath the hot Ethiopian sun.

A man screaming as you sliced his throat. 

Gurgling.

Red on your hands. On your clothes. On your shoes. 

Two successive punches—one to your stomach, and the other to your face.

Pain blooming beneath your skin.

A fist around your throat.

Squeezing. 

Choking.

Dark spots dancing about your vision.

Your nails clawing into their eyes. 

Air.

Gasping for breath. 

Wheezing.

You desperately parried away another assailant’s knife.

A song of steel against steel.

More gunshots flying every which way.

You dove behind large metal crates. 

Sand in your shoes.

Copper on your tongue.

Crashing. Yelling. Cursing.

Your fingers flexing around the hilt of your dagger.

Bated breath.

You looked around the crate.

Marc fucking Spector.

A ghost of a smile on your lips.

Your name being called out—surprise in his tone.

“Fancy seeing you here!” you shouted.

Marc’s fist curled into one of the traffickers’ collars.

“It’s been a while!” came his mildly amused reply.

A grunt. A punch. A groan of pain.

His white cape fluttered with the wind. 

“You down for a burger or something later?”

You spoke calmly, as if you weren’t currently strangling someone with a long power cord. 

The man fell limp in your hold. 

“Sure—I could go for a burger,” he called out, 

Blood trickled down your nose and grazed your lip. 

You wiped it away with the back of your hand.

The last of the traffickers was struck down with Marc’s crescent boomerang. 

A breath of relief. 

Drenched in blood (most of which was not yours), you made your way to Marc.

“You clean up nice,” he joked.

A roll of your eyes.

“Oh, shucks, Marc,” you simpered with a mischievous grin, dragging a bloody hand down his face once he retracted his mask. 

He grimaced in disgust, but didn’t push you away. 

A laugh fell from your throat, hoarse and echoing.

You looped your aching, bleeding arms with his. 

“Let’s go get that burger.”

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND.

“Ow—ugh, Marc, could you go any faster?” you barked through the dirty cloth wedged between your teeth, glaring up at him with watering eyes. You’d endured pain far worse than this, sure, but Marc was taking twice as long stitching you up than when you’d do it yourself. Though, admittedly, whenever you had to patch yourself up, it was a rather shoddy job and often left a much larger, gnarled scar than it would’ve, had you properly taken care of it. 

The man above you shook his head, dark curls hanging loosely over his forehead. “Stop moving and maybe it’ll hurt less,” he replied, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he worked on your stitches. “You know, just because we work together now and I heal quickly doesn’t mean you do, too.”

With a grimace, you tore the cloth from your mouth, chucking it somewhere across the small motel room to freely speak to him. “It was just a mistake,” you replied, nearly doubling over with a strained groan when he punctured the skin of your abdomen with a small needle, where the deep gash resided, one last time. “I timed myself wrong. Happens sometimes.”

Marc let his eyes roam over your exposed skin, brows divoting ever so slightly upon seeing the multiple other scars littering your body. They were memories of your past, and you weren’t ashamed of them. 

“Doesn’t look like it only happens sometimes,” he murmured, tying off his sutures and cleaning off the last bits of flaking, dried blood on your stomach before binding the open wound with thin bandages. 

“You worried about me?”

Marc didn’t spare you a response. He busied himself by putting away the medkit and tossing the discarded, bloodied clothes into the bathroom sink. When he came back to sit on the bed beside you, you had gingerly moved positions so that you were propped up against the creaking bed’s headboard. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” you whispered. “England fucking stinks.”

Marc chuckled, a small smile curling his lips upwards, though you noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

The two of you sat in silence for a while. 

“Thanks for stitching me up,” you told him.

“Thanks for not dying on me,” he replied. His hand sought yours and your fingers laced with his. “I know we’ve only been working together for a month by now, but I’m starting to really like you.”

With one last painful shift, you moved so that your faces were only inches away. You paused when your lips were just a hairsbreadth from his, giving him time to yank you away if need be. 

But he didn’t. 

His lips met yours with a tender sort of sadness, pouring months of frustration and anger into the embrace. A warm hand came up to cradle the back of your head, angling you closer, wary of your newly-stitched wound. 

Forehead resting against his, you gently pulled away, finding solace in the fact that he chased after your lips just a bit, before cracking his dark eyes open. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” he mumbled, gaze darting back down to your parted mouth. 

“Okay,” came your broken reply.

And despite it all, he threw all caution to the wind and kissed you again. Again, and again, and again—far into the night, until the two of you passed out on the stained sheets of the motel bed, limbs intertwined and your nose pressed against his throat, where you could hear the soft thrumming of his heartbeat. 

Unbeknownst to the two of you, Khonshu was hovering on the rooftop, finding himself rather glad that his avatar had finally found someone he could trust—even if that someone was the very bane of his existence. 

“I need a new avatar,” the God harrumphed to nobody but himself, knowing full and well that he wasn’t letting go of Marc Spector and his… counterparts any time soon. 

[justalildumpling]

⇢ bark but no bite

synopsis: when a little challenge was the thing haechan needed to make his move on you

pairing: haechan x reader genre: best friend to lovers, mutual pining, college au, fluff word count: 1.1k warnings: mentions of alcohol, the word ass was used once note: simultaneously simping for lee donghyuck, na jaemin and huang renjun rn pls send help😭😭 also this was written in like 10min of simpery and not proofread i apologise

Idiot. 

The words you described your best friend at every drunken gathering and especially the morning after as you watched his obvious sufferings.

This Friday morning was no exception, huffing along with a steaming hot thermo filled with ginger tea you had brewed just a few hours earlier as you stormed up to your group of friends at the bench.

Donghyuck sat slouched over the small wooden table, resting his head between his arms groaning about the pounding elephants in his head. You could tell by his low-effort attire and scruffy hairdo that the boy was heavily reconsidering his actions the evening before. 

Not that he was ever going to admit it, with his stubborn competitive ass and all.

You placed the metal bottle down on the table with a clunk, barely catching his dazed attention as you prepared to go on your way to class.

“Is that what I think it is?” You heard Donghyuck gasp from behind.

With a small snort, you turned around to face the boy once again however this time noticing a small light in his eyes, a hopeful smile sparkling at your presence. 

“If you’re thinking ginger tea then yes you little pudu, you’re right.” You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms against your chest.

The sound of his flip-flops slapping down on the pavement cut through the somewhat quiet campus grounds as Donghyuck made his way over to you. It was quite a painful(ly cute) slight to see, with a slight trip every couple of steps as he woefully clutched onto his stomach.

The faint scent of wine lingered on his figure as he engulfed you into a comfortable embrace, comedically sobbing at your kind gestures for his pathetic self.

“Y/N, I will kiss you on the mouth right now.” He bluntly stated, pulling away from your arms. 

You blinked at his shamelessness, shrugging away the sudden skip of your heart, “Pfft, are you really?” 

Haechan paused, his hands on the tops of your shoulders tightening as his gaze grew more intense.

You could feel your cheeks growing hotter by the minute with the small whispers and gasps from your friends contributing to your flustered state. 

But you weren’t going to let the devil incarnate called your best friend know that. No way in hell.

“See? You’re all bark but no bite Lee Donghyuck.”

As his eyes narrowed at your confident (not) state, it was then you remembered his competitive nature. 

Donghyuck rarely backed down on a fight, whether it be a stupid debate about dogs having four legs instead of hands or the title of the ‌drunkest at a party or defending you during a stupid rumour in high school, not caring whether it affected his reputation or not.

You remembered the late evenings on your bathroom floor, eyes bloodshot from the incessant crying from the events at school. Donghyuck merely sat on the cold tiles with you, hands soothingly caressing yours, occasionally whispering that everything would be okay, that he would always be on your side.

It was then you accepted your feelings for the boy, the boy who willingly sat for hours on the hard bathroom floors, caring for your pitiful self, eyes puffy, nose red from blowing on the cheap toilet paper whilst crouched into a foetal position. 

It was then you realised that there was no one else quite like Lee Donghyuck in the universe, no one cutting it even close. So there began the agonising cycle of your silence about your little secret, dodging both your friend’s prying little eyes and loud mouths and your best friend’s flirty remarks or as you liked to call it, the forbidden apple of the end of your friendship. Until now.

“You want me to bite?” He challenged, stepping closer to lean in, “Cause I can bite if you want me to.”

There remained only a few centimetres between your faces, his eyes occasionally flickering to your lips. Your mouth felt dry, with swallowing becoming more painful by the second.

You shouldn’t keep going, you knew you shouldn’t. Laugh it off as you usually do, flicking his forehead and sauntering off to class. Simple.

But then again, what harm could he do?

“Do it, you won’t.”

With what you expected for him to cackle and push you in the direction of your class, a small smirk laced his face before his hands latched to your waist and his lips met yours. 

At first, a burst of peppermint coated your tongue, most probably due to his excessive toothbrushing habits after a night out but after that was warmth. The warmth of his soft lips moulding oh so perfectly against yours, the warmth of his hands burning through the thin material of your T-shirt and the warmth of his smile caught as he pulled away.

“Now who’s the one left without a bark now?” He spoke softly, a smug look overriding his features.

You stood silently with your lips left ajar, barely clutching onto your tote bag as you were left processing his actions. 

“Y/N?” Donghyuck called, timidly reaching for your hands once again, “Was that too much?”

“Are you still drunk? You didn’t mean to do that right?” You asked, eyebrows furrowing as you examined his figure.

The hand that was once reaching for yours slammed against his forehead, letting a low groan, “God woman, do you think I’m that bad?”

“Not gonna lie to you, I do.”

Donghyuck whined, fingers moving to the sides of his head, tugging at the strands frustratedly, “Y/N, although I make a lot of… questionable decisions. I meant that.” 

Donghyuck paused, looking over your shoulder at your flabbergasted friend group before turning his attention back to you, “Look, this wasn’t how I wanted things to pan out but I like you Y/N, and I have for a while now.”

You could feel your heart roaring in your ears as the butterflies came rushing down your stomach. The forbidden apple was bitten, yet the pandora’s box remained unopened just like how you wanted things to be.

“You stupid idiot,” You smiled, reciprocating the touch of his hand.

“Well, that’s another way to say that you like me back,” He winked, pulling you by the waist and leaning towards your face, his gaze flickering from your lips to your eyes, “Do you want another kiss for clarity?”

“You know, for a supposedly hungover person, you sure have a lot of left over energy.”

Donghyuck only chuckled, leaning in to peck your lips, “I guess you were the hangover cure I always needed.”

You pushed his forehead with your index finger as you unravelled from his grip, “You’re so- ugh, I have to go to class stupid, I’ll see you later.”

As you sauntered away, you could hear his boisterous laughter from behind.

“See you later love!”

taglist: @polarisjisung @wooyoung-a @w3bqrl @ficrecnctskz @rv7hsua @n0hyuck @neosdaisy @baekhyunstruly @rum-gone-why @xxxx-23nct @maeumiluv @produmads @shwizhies @dearlyminhyung @barbkh8450t @cupid-yuno @mxnhoeuwu @liliansun

[herozdiary]

In the dead of night

Simon x reader

This diary entry contains…Late night baths,a tiny bit suggestive,mentions of poor mental health,Established relationship,pretty short.

Simon was…an interesting person to the normal eye.People knew of his depression and anxiety and looked at him differently.Some people would treat him like a baby who couldn’t do simple tasks and other picked at his insecurities because they didn’t understand what he was going though.

But that wasn’t you,You treated him like an actual human being.You didn’t baby him or water down any instructions or words for him.You gave him the best mental health advice you could give which kinda helped him.

The two of you became closer and closer and soon enough you became close enough to start a relationship.It was nothing too big.You guys didn’t act like a huge couple but you guys did make it known you were together by holding hands and exchanging small kisses when Simon would drop you off at your class.

He loved going over to your house.It was vibrant and full of color unlike his dull house.Your family loved him from how quiet he was.He was respectful and just kinda stood besides you.

He knew how to speak for himself which surprised some people as they thought he was mute,Stupid assumption but it was whatever.

Once the two of you turned 19,You decided to move in together.of course you got a cheap apartment near the college so you didn’t have to ride the train as much.You liked it because you and Simon clashed together perfectly in a way.

You two had grew closer and became more comfortable doing certain things around each other like bathing or changing clothes.Tonight was no different as you sat on the toilet seat,Legs crossed while scrolling on your phone.

Simon was sat in the tub,Soft bubbles surrounding him as he slightly played with them before letting out a soft huff.he turned to you before letting out an another much louder huff.

You looked at him before looking at him with a confused expression.”do you need something?”You asked while placing your phone on the counter.

“Can you join me,It’s so boring in here”Simon says while scooting back a little,making room for you to join.You think for a minute before shrugging.

You get out of your clothes before tossing them in the dirty clothes hamper.You climb into the tub before making yourself comfortable in between Simon.

You lay back on him before letting out a small hum.”so what happened earlier today?You seemed stressed”You asked while grabbing Simon’s hand.

“I just had a rough day at school…don’t worry”He replied while looking at the ceiling,The water slightly moving with him.

You hum before looking up at Simon slightly.”If you wanna go in to more detail I’m happy to listen”You say while looking back at the wall.

“It’s just that…I had this big exam right?I studied for hours,missing time to hang out with you just to put in extra study hours and I still failed”Simon says with a heavy sigh.

“What?You can’t retake it?”You ask,your face slightly scrunching up with confusion.Simon shook his head before twirling a piece of your hair around his finger.

“No,Honestly I wanted to beg my ass off for a chance to do a retake but I saw no point..I wouldn’t pass again even if I studied harder.”He said with a sad tone before tracing smalls shapes on your thigh.

“Well I’m sure that on your next test you’ll do amazing!I believe in you Simon”You say while smiling before reaching over and grabbing your washcloth and grabbing the soap.

After the both of you had washed up and dried off.The two of you just sat in your underwear as you were both too lazy to put on a pajamas.

As you sat in the cold bedroom,The only light coming from the moon and your cellphone as you played with Simon’s slightly damp hair.He was laid out against your chest as he watched you scroll on a random app.

“Do you think that maybe one day I’ll get better?”Simon asks.You thought for a second before nodding,Putting your phone on the charger and putting it on the dresser next to your bed.

“Of course,I believe as long as you put in enough effort to try and get better then you’re gonna get better”You say with a small smile.

“But it eats at me…like I’m happy one week and the next 2 weeks I’m a shit eating mess of sadness”Simon explains while gently tapping on your collarbone.

“…I don’t understand what you’re going through but just know I’m always here for you during those hard times of your life.”You say while moving some of his hair out of his face before placing a small kiss on his forehead.

“We should get some sleep.We have to go grocery shopping again and I need to drop off a paper”You say while pulling the plush soft covers over the both of you.The one thing Simon loved about living with you is that you made the house well taken care of.making sure the food stock was good,keeping it clean,Etc.

Simon helped out the best he could by making a grocery list,making up the bed,cleaning up the living room, the smallest things that made a difference or made him feel accomplished for the day.

Simon nodded as he slowly felt himself begin to fall asleep,Your fingers in his hair and you slightly humming to yourself.”good night Simon…”You slur out before closing your eyes.

“Good night…I love you”He mumbled out before feeling himself fall asleep.He felt safe in your arms.He knew nothing could bother him when he’s in your presence or near you.he knew he would wake up and you would be there waiting for him.

Just like always.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

𓅨 Walmart Superstore: An Endless' Nemesis

Walmart Superstore: An Endless' Nemesis: Morpheus decides to tag along with you to Walmart when you run errands.

Warnings: One Mopey Ass Endless.

To Note: Morpheus x Reader

Word Count: ~1.7k

You don’t know what’s more comical—the expressions flashing across Morpheus’ face as you walk toward the entrance of your local Walmart or the fact that a mighty Endless wants to go shopping with you. Especially one as regal and prideful as him. There’s no real need for him to come; you’re just running errands, picking up cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and a birthday present for your neighbor. Why had he insisted on accompanying you to the superstore when he undoubtedly had better things to do?

You steal another look at Morpheus while collecting a small basket to hold your items. He’s staring at the corral of blue shopping carts in confusion.

“They’re just shopping carts,” you point out, slipping the basket onto your arm. Morpheus blinks and looks at you inquisitively. “You know, to put the stuff you’re gonna buy in while you’re walking around? Makes it a lot easier than carrying everything.”

“Is it necessary for them to be so large?” He asks, his blue eyes dropping to the small basket hanging off your arm. “Your choice is far smaller and more reasonable.”

“Because I’m only getting a few things.” You shrug, moving toward the cleaning aisle. “I’m not getting an entire cart full of stuff today, so the basket will do just fine. Come on, stay close unless you want to encounter a Karen in the wild.” Morpheus doesn’t understand what you mean by that or what a Karen is—wasn’t Karen a mortal name? You spoke of it as if it were a creature instead. The thought dissipates as a large man trundles past, wearing a shirt three sizes too small, little ‘shorts,’ and bright pink flip-flops. Another fashion trend he’ll have to inquire about. The Endless loses interest and silently follows you.

The many items lining the shelves are odd to him and hold little interest. Mortals invent the most menial objects at times. You turn down an aisle and blatantly ignore a couple arguing over a box of cereal. Their thoughts are loud and obtrusive, echoing painfully in Morpheus’ mind. To you, the argument is just another trip to Walmart. You don’t bat an eye when one hits the other with a box and proceed past the aisle of human food to the next.

You eye the Endless silently trailing beside you. He’s in his usual silence, but you see his eyes taking in everything with curiosity. Or maybe disdain? Sometimes it’s a guessing game with Morpheus; he’s enchanted with some mortal inventions and curls his lip at others. Walmart is definitely not high on his list of interests. You’d better make this trip quick lest his broodiness starts having a physical effect on the shoppers.

Running through your mental checklist, you turn down the cleaning aisle and begin looking for disinfectant spray for your kitchen. It’s easy to find the brand you use, and you drop the bottle into your basket as Morpheus examines the plethora of choices.

“There are many options. How have you decided on that one?” he inquires, his eyes glossing over the many bottles before settling on your face.

“Dunno, I just go with what’s cheap and what I grew up with,” you answer. You’ve never put much thought into your choice; it’s just cleaner. You don’t need anything fancy, just something that works. Toilet paper is next. You’ve run out after the local elementary school roped you into helping mummify the principal. It was fun and hilarious but used up every last roll of toilet paper in the house. You wander to the tissue aisle and pick up what you need. By now, you’re on autopilot, forgetting that you have an Endless trailing behind you, perplexed by the myriad choices of the same item.

All you have left is to get your neighbor a birthday present. Susan, who has lived next to you in a cute little stone house for at least forty years, is renovating her place. Her kitchen is the latest project, and you know she’s been wanting a good coffee maker for the longest time but always uses an ancient one from the early 90s just because it still works.

It’s time for a new one.

You wander down the small appliance aisle, looking at the models and trying to figure out which one Susan would like best. She’s older, so she doesn’t need something fancy. Just something that works and is easy to set up. You’re stuck between two models, eyes flickering back and forth, when an announcement over the intercom makes your eyes go wide.

“Y/N Y/L/N, your beloved is at register 10.” What on earth? You’re confused, not understanding why such an announcement would be made. Then you realize something. Morpheus is no longer lingering behind you, silently judging everything. You spin in a half-circle, searching for the Endless but can’t find him!

Good God, the announcement is for you!

Leaving the small appliance aisle, you hurry toward the front of the store while your mind goes into overdrive. Beloved? That word is definitely part of Morpheus’ vocabulary, not one most mortals would use. So only one being could be considered your ‘beloved.’ But since when had that happened? You shake your head as you emerge from the depths of the superstore to see the line of registers all normal. One glance at register ten, however, and you nearly facepalm.

Morpheus is standing by it with the most despondent pout on his lips, in a desolate mope that seems to create a cloud of depression around him. You’re flabbergasted and wondering what upset him this time when you approach. The moment Morpheus sees you, the cloud of dreary darkness dissipates above his head. But not the pout or mope.

“You left me,” he accuses dramatically. “Why did you abandon me?”

You open your mouth to fire back that you simply wanted to get your shopping done and weren’t used to having someone with you, but the look in his eyes makes you falter. He really does look devastated.

“Okay, first off, I didn’t leave you on purpose,” you inform him, stopping in front of him. “I was just trying to get my shopping done as fast as possible.” He glowers at you, and you sigh, rolling your eyes. “You’re making it seem like I intentionally ditched you!”

“It feels as if you did,” he declares, his eyes glimmering pitifully as he looms over you. “Do you not care for me anymore? Is this you showing me that you no longer wish for my company? Are you finally casting me aside?”

“What? No!” you exclaim, facepalming. Where the hell is this coming from!? “Oh my God, Morpheus! I just forgot, okay? I am in no way telling you to leave!” That seems to abate the watery look in his eyes. You reach for his hand, determined to hold it until you’re done shopping and leaving. The last thing you need is for him to have a meltdown in Walmart. “Come on, I’ve just got to pick out a coffee maker for Susan.”

Pulling him along, you’re oblivious to the Endless now basking in the feeling of your grasping his hand. Your fingers are warm and comforting against his cold ones. Arriving back at the small appliance aisle, you retake your position between the coffee makers and give them one last look. The one on the left looks most Susan-friendly, so you decide on that one. Setting your basket down so you don’t have to break the handhold with Morpheus (because heaven forbid you do), you pick up one of the boxes and put it in your basket. Then you pick the basket up once more and look at Morpheus.

“Now I’m done, we just need to check out, and then we can leave,” you tell him, watching as he blinks at you. “Okay?”

“Very well,” Morpheus answers, maintaining his grasp on your hand. His brief moment of complete devastation and despondency is gone from his facial features like it never happened. Clearing your throat, you begin walking back toward the registers, noticing how tightly the Endless holds your hand. When you arrive up front, much to your dismay, the only register that’s available and not backed up is register 10. Oh well. It’s not like you tote an Endless man-child around with you every time you shop at Walmart. So you get in line and try to ignore the stares of several old ladies congregating around the magazines.

When it’s your turn to pay, you do so quickly, trying to get out of there as fast as possible. Just as you grab your bag and pull Morpheus away from the narrow lane, an elderly woman speaks up.

“Oh, don’t you two just look so cute together! Calling each other beloved! You don’t see a love like that every day.” Your face burns with heat blooming just beneath your skin, and you all but drag Morpheus to the exit.

“Only at Walmart. Only at Walmart,” you chant to yourself as you flee. You and Morpheus will definitely be having a conversation when you get home because there’s no way you can function properly without knowing what exactly the Endless being sees your relationship as. “Only at Walmart.”

Date Published: 6/29/23

Last Edit: 5/28/24

Dream of the Endless Masterlist

[oftenwantedafton]

Moody and Gray - William Afton x Female Reader

Chapter 2

Rating - Explicit

Warnings - none for this chapter

Also available on AO3

Team building exercises are something else about your job that you despise.

You can’t fathom why the company insists on these types of activities; it’s just a gig at a restaurant, not a career. You don’t want to get to know any of the other employees any better than you already do. You know exactly which creeps to avoid, who you can borrow a tampon from, and which bitch is going to rat you out if you take an extra five minutes for break.

It’s like the corny videos you had to watch during orientation. Why are we pretending that anyone here is having fun? It’s work. It’s not supposed to be fun.

You really can’t take much more of this ‘reciting positive statements together’ nonsense like you’re in a child’s classroom. Your eyes dart around, trying to think up an excuse to slip away and escape this torture. They’re about to start a scavenger hunt. That’s as good a reason to go get lost somewhere as any.

You slip between the Employees Only doors and heave a sigh of relief. Much better. The voices beyond the closed doors grow more muffled as you make your way down the hall. It’s cold back here. Probably not properly heated. Cheap bastard. Speaking of which. Where was Mr. Afton, anyway? You’d seen him at the very beginning of the gathering and then he’d disappeared. He was probably brooding in his office or something. Whatever.

Don’t think about the way his hands feel on you. Or that voice. Definitely not that.

You’re about to pass the staff restrooms when you pause. Well, fuck it, you might as well hit the John. You hate having to use the public ones for the customers. You cannot find a single reasonable explanation for why so many unsavory things end up in so many different places. The floor, okay, yeah, guys can’t aim for shit. But the walls? In the girls’ room? Gross. People were slobs.

You tug on the female restroom door and meet resistance. It’s locked? Well, okay. Men’s room it is.

There’s a single stall and a sink. It actually blessedly doesn’t smell like piss in here and the floor isn’t sticky.

You’re just about to pull the stall door open when you realize the room is already occupied.

“Sorry, man. I’ll wait outside.” You turn to leave and a familiar voice freezes you in your tracks.

“I’ll be out in just a moment.” Fuck. No fucking way was it Mr. Prim and Proper with his stupid purple vest and his gorgeous hands, why did his even look like that anyway, the fingers long and slender, elegant, deft in their movements and fuck you’re doing it again, don’t think about it…

The toilet flushes and the stall door opens and yes, it is indeed the owner and yes, he does have his stupid purple vest on that makes his shoulders look broad and his waist narrow and for fuck’s sake can you just have a session with your vibrator so you’re not this thirsty at God damn work of all places?

“I assume you’re aware this is the men’s room,” he says, pushing past you— the room was rather small, it was surely warranted—and begins lathering his hands at the sink. Those stupid fucking warm agile hands.

“The ladies’ room was locked.”

“Was it? Hmmm.” He begins rinsing his hands.

“Why aren’t you at that stup—the team building thing?”

You see his teeth flash as his eyes meet yours in the mirror. “Well, for one thing, I’m the owner and I can do whatever I want. For another…” He shuts off the faucet and tears a couple of paper towels from the dispenser, taking his time to dry each finger individually. You always end up leaving after a hasty pat with your hands still half soaked. “…Why aren’t you at the ‘stupid team building thing’ as you so eloquently phrased it?”

“I…I had to use the restroom.”

“Indeed. Which you’ve still neglected to do.”

“I mean, we’re in the middle of talking. It would be kind of rude.”

“What part are they up to?”

“Scavenger hunt.”

“Ah. Well, that one’s not quite so bad. What are you supposed to be searching for?”

“Tokens.”

“Well, that’s easily solved. I always carry some with me.” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a handful of bronze colored coins etched with the Freddy Fazbear logo. You hold out your hand, thinking he’ll just drop them there, but of course he doesn’t. Of course he presses them into your palm, and they’re warm from his body heat, where they’ve been tucked snugly against his thigh.

“Uh…thanks,” you mutter awkwardly, shoving them into your own pants pocket.

“That’s not the shirt I lent you the other day,” William murmurs.

“No,” you agree quietly.

“You haven’t worn it again since.”

“I…” How did he know? You’ve barely seen him since last week and only at a distance. “It was a little small.”

“I think it fit rather well, myself.” He grins at you. Predatory. Feral. The pale gray eyes go dark as his pupils dilate. He pushes past you again, this time letting his fingers drag across your bare arm as he leaves.

The door swings closed and you let out the breath you’ve been holding.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

***

You’ve never thought it fair that the employees who smoke get so much extra time to leave the floor. They weren’t supposed to get more than two trips per shift but you knew for a fact people abused the fuck out of that.

It kind of makes you want to take up the habit yourself just to use it as an excuse to get away from the kids and the puke and the bellowing prerecorded voices of the animatronics.

Tonight you decide fuck it, you’re going outside, winter or not. You need fresh air. You need to get the smell of undigested ice cream out of your nostrils.

You shrug into your coat, a second hand puffer that’s lost most of the puff and is more just a shell of nylon. A blast of cold air greets you as you emerge from the rear of the building.

You wrap your arms around yourself, watching your breath cloud the air in front of your face.

“I don’t suppose you have a lighter on you?”

Your head snaps in the direction of the sound. It’s Mr. Afton.

“No, sorry. I don’t smoke.”

“Hang on. Maybe I’ve got one in my…there’s a rip in one of the pockets…there it is.” He withdraws the lighter—purple, of course—from the depths of a long black wool dress coat and ignites the end of the cigarette, taking a deep drag and exhaling before dropping the lighter back into his pocket. “If you’re not a smoker, why are you in the designated employee smoking area?”

“I don’t know. I just…I needed some air. One of the kids puked in there.”

“Children do vomit often, yes.” Another inhale and exhale.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“When the mood strikes me. A way to relieve stress. You know how it is.” His head tips to regard you thoughtfully. “Maybe you should try it, Moody.”

“My name’s not…oh.” Your cheeks flush. He was teasing you now. Great. “It’s bad for you.”

He sighs impatiently. “Lots of things in this world are bad for you. If you live hard and fast by that rule you’re never going to enjoy life.” He flicks the end of the cigarette with his thumb, sending a cloud of spark lit ashes to the pavement. “Why do you work here?”

You shuffle your feet, trying to generate some warmth. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why…do…you…work…here?” With each word he steps closer to you, now standing in front of you.

You shrug. “It’s just a job. A way to make ends meet.”

“Exactly. So why not pick another one if you’re so miserable here?”

Your eyes shift from your employer’s tense gaze. There’s a piece of lint on his shoulder that’s driving you mad.

“There must be a reason.” Another drag. He sends the smoke to the side so he doesn’t douse you with it.

“I…I like someone,” you reply evasively.

The tall man barks a short laugh. “Seriously? That’s the reason you’re sticking around? Because you have a crush on one of the other staff members?”

You’re regretting your decision to come outside more and more with each passing second. “It’s not a crush,” you protest.

“Oh? What would you call it, then?” He looks positively smug.

“I could report you for harassment.” The words escape before you can rethink them. “For what happened last week, in your office.” You’re irritated. He has no right to mock you.

“Now why would you want to do that?” The amusement is gone from his lips. He stares hard at you, the lit end of his neglected cigarette burning more and more of the paper. “Since we both know it wasn’t harassment.” He drops the cigarette and grinds it underneath his heel before advancing even closer. You’re backed up against the wall behind you. There’s nowhere left to go. “Because it can’t very well be harassment when you beg for it, can it?” He rests a hand on the brick and mortar behind you. You can smell the ash on him, heavy on his breath and threaded in his coat and laced in his hair.

“I didn’t beg.”

“Not with words.” He chews his bottom lip. “Who’s your crush on?”

You shake your head, refusing to answer but maintaining your boss’ gaze.

“Who’s the reason you’re staying here?”

Relentless. He was never going to let this drop. You’ll still be pinned against the wall come summer at this rate. “You.”

You’re not sure what you’d expected for a response to that confession. A wry twist of lips or another laugh, maybe.

Certainly not his mouth crushing against yours, giving you your first taste of nicotine.

[warmaidensrevenge]

Dare or Dare

Pairings: Bestie!Eddie x Bestie!Plus size reader

A/N: Hi! Welcome back to my page. Here's a little something I came up with after seeing the old kiss your best friend trend recently. I'm keeping it PG-13 for this short one shot. As always feedback is greatly appreciated. Feel free to comment/reblog all you want. It's what keeps us creators going. Okay love ya byyyyyeeee.

I do not give permission for my work to be posted anywhere else. Please respect all creators. Also, the picture above was from a Google search. A credit to the original poster.

Word count: 1,136

Warnings: Alcohol use and a little bit of angst. Not proof read.

Summary: One kiss was all you needed to experience a new adventure with your best friend.

" Absolutely not! I can't you guys. He's…he's gonna freak."

Robin and Steve raised their brows at you.

" Guys really. Give me another dare. I'll do anything else."

"Alright L/n." Steve said as he stood up from the couch and sat in the armrest of your seat. " Since you don't want to kiss Eddie. I dare you to lick Grant's nipple."

You practically vomited in your mouth. " Ugh! I really hate you guys."

Steve grinned. " So the choice is up to you."

You looked at Robin and she was smiling away. Then you looked at your friend. 

You sighed and finished off your beer. " Okay…Alright… I'll kiss Eddie."

You stood up and worked your way towards him. Regretting agreeing to coming to Steve's stupid party. If Eddie hadn't used his impeccable charm to get you to go, you and he would be at his place playing video games or watching a scary movie. But no. You were here, now heading to your best friend since childhood. Preparing yourself to kiss him. 

You were almost to him and caught his eye. He then gave you your favorite smile. The smile that showed his teeth and made his face crinkle a little.

Has he always been that gorgeous? 

Honestly, you never looked at him like that before. He was your funny, crazy bud. Never in a million years did you think that he would be anything more.

But why were you nervous, yet excited? 

Must be the alcohol.

You finally made it to him and he put an arm around your shoulders.

" Having fun chica?"

" Mhmm. You?"

" Ehhh. Music's not terrible. And you know me. I can never say no to free beer."

You nervously laughed. " Right."

Eddie could tell something was up. He always knew when you were off. 15 + years of friendship would do that to a person. 

" What's up?" 

You shook your head. " N-nothing. Ummm I kinda just need a hug."

He scoffed a little and smiled. "Mmmm come here."

He put down his drink and wrapped his arms around your waist while you wrapped yours around his neck. 

You breathed him in. Loving his cheap cologne.

He loosened his grip on you and leaned back a little. "Better?"

You glanced over to your stupid friends and they were laughing and giving you a thumbs up. You looked back at him and nodded.

Right after, you cupped his face and lifted to your toes. While closing the distance he grabbed both of your wrist and jerked back.

" Uhhh what are you doing?"

You sucked in a sharp breath and nearly passed out from the embarrassment.

OH MY GOD!

He laughed. " Are you drunk?"

You took a couple steps back. " Uhh. Ha ha. Ummm I was just…I have to pee."

You immediately turned and scurried off to the bathroom. As soon as you locked yourself in you put both hands on your head.

" Stupid. Stupid!"

You sat on the toilet and felt the tears come.

" Great. Now you look like an idiot."

After a minute, you built up the courage to go back to the party. As soon as you did though you saw Eddie saying his goodbyes. Now you were wishing you drove yourself.

"Hey! I'm so sorry." 

You pressed your lips at Robin. She then gave you a hug.

" I really thought he was gonna let you do it."

While shaking your head you gave her a weak hug back. Flipping off Steve who was mouthing an I'm sorry.

" Hey Buckley. We're gonna head out."

You turned and Eddie was standing there with an upset look on his face.

" Uhhh Okay. I'll see ya on Monday." She said.

You gave her a weak smile and followed Eddie out.

…

Once at his place you guys sat in his van listening to the radio. You wanted to say something. But everything that came to mind sounded bad.

Eddie sighed. "So you gonna tell me what that was about?"

You cleared your throat. " Uhhh. Sorry. I-I…it was a dare."

He clicked his tongue. " Someone dared you to kiss me? Why?"

You shrugged.

" Hmph." He tuts. "You weren't drunk?"

You shook your head.

" Oh…so you didn't really want to kiss me?"

You scoffed a little. " Munson, could we please just drop this. I'm really sorry for doing that." 

He nodded and sat there quiet for a minute. " Do you still want to stay the night?"

You finally looked at him and he was grinning. You laughed when he stuck his tongue out.

" Yeah. Let's watch a movie."

Once the movie was on, you and him got comfy on the couch. You on one side and him on the other. 

You could feel his eyes on you. Making you feel nervous again. That's when you felt the seat next to you dent in. You looked over and Eddie put his arm behind you on the couch. You shift a little, moving closer to him. 

For the first time ever you wanted to be closer. You let out a small shuddered breath.

That's when he did it. He grabbed your chin and pulled your face towards him. 

Before he kissed you he whispered. " I don't need a dare to do this."

He took your breath away. The kiss was like fireworks.

When he pulled away he stared at you and licked his lips. He also chuckled to himself seeing that your eyes were still closed. Then he kissed you again. Only this time your hands went into his hair. Pushing your body so that it was touching his. After a solid two minutes you let his hair go and put a hand on his chest. You pushed him away a little and hung your head panting.

" You okay?"

You gulped and nodded.

"Cool. I uhh been wanting to do that for like ever."

You furrowed your brow and looked up.

He smiled and tucked your hair behind your ear. 

While staring at each other for a moment you guys laughed.

You bit your lip to get yourself back to the seriousness of the situation.

" So umm what do we do now?" You asked.

Eddie took a deep calming breath and tilted his head. " Well, we're gonna get ready for bed. And I'm gonna kiss you goodnight…tomorrow I'm gonna kiss you good morning and take you to breakfast. Then we can talk about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend situation."

You nervously laugh. " Y-you sure that's a good idea?"

He leaned in and gave you a kiss on the forehead. Resting his on it after.

" You're my best friend chica. You and I are destined to be together."

You giggled. " Is that right?"

He stood up and held out his hand for you. " Definitely. But we will get to the specifics tomorrow.

You pressed your lips together and took his hand. 

…

@salenorona23 @browneyes528

[lemonlyman-dotcom]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks for the tag @ladytessa74 💛💛

—

“So, what did you do last night?” Marjan asks as she sips her coffee.

“Oh, Carlos and I did date night,” he answers as he starts loading items from the sink into the dishwasher. He figures he should run it while he’s out today, so Carlos can come home to clean dishes. “We went to Costco and–”

“Costco? On a date?”

“Yeah, it’s one of our usual date night locations.”

“You guys are weird,” Marjan raises her eyebrows behind her coffee mug.

“I know, but I love it there and I think Carlos gets a kick out of watching me get weirdly excited about it,” he says. “I’d never been to a Costco before he took me a few years ago after we moved into the loft. Blew my mind.”

“How had you never been to Costco before then?”

“Well, Marj, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my parents were kind of bougie,” he pops up from where he’d been bent over the dishwasher and wags his eyebrows playfully. “And then I lived alone in tiny-ass New York apartments, what was I gonna do with 48 rolls of toilet paper and 2-gallons of olive oil?”

“You make a good point,” she laughs. “So did you find anything good?”

“I got a couple shirts and a pair of hiking shorts for Carlos, we grabbed a new spice rack and he bought some wild Atlantic salmon we’ll probably make when his mom and my dad come for dinner next week,” he says as he closes the dishwasher door. “Then I made him buy me dinner.”

“Oh, god, their hot dogs are so good, and they’re beef so I can actually eat them,” now she’s getting excited too.

“Yeah the food’s my favorite part, Carlos always says I’m a cheap date,” he laughs. He makes his way over to the couch and she follows, they sit down side by side with their feet up on the coffee table. “I ate way too much pizza and then I made Carlos buy me a soft serve and I made him get a churro because I wanted a bite. He bitched about how dry it was but he ate the whole thing.”

Carlos complained that these were nothing like Tía Carmela’s churros. He’d filibustered for a solid eight minutes on imperialistic condiments and the bastardization of traditional Mexican cuisines. TK didn't bother to remind him that the churro originated in Spain. “This abomination should not be called a churro,” he muttered as he munched away on the travesty. Eventually he looked over at TK, who was savoring the last few licks of his ice cream and said contritely, “I’m ruining date night.” TK winked at him and told him he wasn't ruining anything, that he liked it when Carlos got all worked up.

“But then I got a stomach ache,” TK continues.

Marjan makes a sympathetic face while TK pats his stomach.

“When we got home Carlos had to rub my belly for like 30 minutes, I passed out on the couch.”

“So, not a sexy night,” she says with a laugh.

“Oh, definitely not.”

—

Tagging @irispurpurea @liminalmemories21 @lightningboltreader @rmd-writes @alrightbuckaroo @chicgeekgirl89 & @carlos-in-glasses and you.

[baylz]

PAGE ONE : choyo's

steeeam by shelly

07/20/2018

“It’s so hot today!” Nobara slumped against her desk, a small fan in her hand keeping her cool from the blazing heat.

The summer temperature was seeping into the classroom as students talked about their summer plans, eyes occasionally peering toward the ticking clock above the teacher’s desk.

I abandoned my usual blue jacket and hung it on my chair, leaving only the white button-up with the sleeves rolled up exposing the pale skin that hides beneath. My eyes were laser-focused on the time as I counted the minutes left before we could leave.

tick! tock! tick! tock!

My eyes narrowed at the taunting sounds, unaware that Nobara had been talking to me for a minute now.

“Yo.” A winced left me as a smack landed at the back of my head. A glare was now directed to the brunette next to me. Though, it wasn’t sending the message I wanted it to because she just blankly stared at me. “Pay attention.” Her polished fingers snapped in my face.

“Guys!” Yuji burst into the classroom with high energy and a bright smile, tumbling into the seat next to me. “I have an idea. Since we’re third years next year, I thought we could do a summer bucket list!”

“…”

“…”

"Oh, come on, guys, this is our last summer as high schoolers. We should make the most of it." Nobara was the first to decline, “Sorry, but I can’t. I’m spending the summer in Tohoku.” Her fan slowed to a stop, and Nobara shrieked, slapping the device against her palm.

Yuji turned to me for an answer. Don’t get me wrong, it sounded like an interesting plan for the summer, but I already had plans to do what I do every year: stay home and do nothing. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend time with Yuji; it was the fact that he was unpredictable, and being friends with him for as long as I had, I knew it was something chaotic. He dug into his pocket, pulled out a crumbled napkin littered with ketchup stains and scribbles, and presented it to us.

YUJI’S GUIDE TO AN AWESOME SUMMER (｡+･`ω･´)*!

1. Summer festival

2. Aquarium

3. Camping

4. Go Fishing

5. Catching fireflies in a jar (and releasing them…)

6. Hiking

7. Stargazing

8. Road trip!!

9. Laser tag

10. Go to the beach

Nobara ditched the broken device and signaled toward the list. “What’s with the stains?”

“I was eating a burger when I got the idea.” The grease splotches were evidence enough of this. Yuji fully turned his body towards me, expectant and patient. Now, I’m not mean per popular belief; I just treasure the solitude that I have become used to before meeting the two loudmouths on either side of me. Analyzing the dirty linen placed in front of me, it looked harmless. I expected some reckless activity like breaking into someone’s pool or egging the elder's home.

Still, I didn’t answer immediately, and the silence was confirmation enough to Yuji because he didn’t press about it anymore. The scrutinizing tick of the clock had stopped at that moment, and the bell rang soon after. Students scrambled to collect their belongings and bolted out the door, and summer began.

After School - Choyo's

Yuji told me Choso had bought the ramen place below them after the owner retired. They were quite close to the old man because he knew their grandfather. I had seen him the couple times that I went over and Yuji suggested to eat there. “It’s cheap, delicious, and super close dude”, he said.

Choso spent weeks learning and perfecting the recipes. They had even asked the three of us to be their taste testers to see if there was anything missing. I couldn’t eat ramen for a while after that…

To present time, Choso didn’t change a thing about the place. Everything to the decor and furniture was the same except the name is different and the toilet is fixed. So, it doesn’t make that weird noise it makes whenever you flush.

We sat our usual in seat, which was a booth in the right corner near the big windows. Yuji took his place next to me while Nobara was across from us and inspected the menu. Yuji and I did the same as if we haven’t been there millions of times.

A glimpse of blonde hair entered my peripherals, and I immedately knew who it was before she even spoke. “Hey guys! What can I get ya?”

Yuki came in one a busy night after quitting her job on a whim and got drunk, cheeks flushed and eyes half-lidded. She stayed for a couple hours gulping down drink after drink and stuffing her face before eventually passing out, face smushed against the wooden table and sunny locks covering her line of vision.

“Um, miss?” Choso cautiously poked her like some roadkill on the side of the street. She stirred and he jumped from the sudden movement. “Miss, wake up.” He politely shook her and Yuki slowly lifted her head up to look at him.

“Miss?”

“Hire me.” She slurred and stood on wobbly feet and Choso stresfully kept his arms out to catch her, if anything. “Miss you should—”

“I see you busting your ass, and I need a job. I’ll take whatever pay you have I’ve already saved enough from my recent job.” Choso pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed at her tenaciousness, the muscles in his arm flexing. “Fine, you can come in tomorrow for an interview when you’re feeling—” Yuki cut him off again, but this time by puking on his shoes.

In the end, Yuki stayed in the guest room and secured the job the next day.

“I’m struggling.” Yuji fiddled with the menu and scooted closer to me, our shoulders brushing. “Megumi, should I get this?” His finger pointed at the pork cutlet bowl, before it moved to the somen. “Or that?”

I copied his movements and placed my index finger next to his. Yuji’s entire right side was warm. I couldn’t tell whether it was from the sun that was radiating heat from the window to where he sat or if it was generally him. Either way, I felt myself sweating.

“That.” Our fingers lingered longer than what was necessary. I was the first to retract.

“Megs.” Nobara called and I acknowledged her with a hum, and she causually slid her ice water towards me. I cage the condensed glass into my weirdly sweaty palms before mouthing a thank you, and took a sip before sliding it back to her.

We stayed there for a couple hours until it was closing time. We stepped out into the summer breeze of the night, the crickets singing a chorus while the moon loomed over us with its purloined light.

The three of us hesitated to move. Nobara more hesitant as she shifted on her feet and flickered her gaze between me and Yuji. Her usual poker face turned into a puzzled look and I knew what she was thinking.

"So" she started, "Not to be sappy or whatever but I really am gonna miss you guys. I'll see you when I get back." Nobara looped her arms around both of us and suddenly we were all in a group hug.

Realistically, I wouldn't have stayed for as long as I did. Gojo would attempt to comfort me with a hug, but I would shrink away from the contact because it felt embaressing and being vulnerable is a foreign thing for me. But with Nobara practically crying into my shoulder I couldn't find it within myself to pull away from her.

"You crying?" Yuji teased after a moment of silence. Despite her state, she still managed to land a smack at his head and mutter a "No, shut up."

After a few more minutes, we unlinked and went our seperate ways.

Toeing off my shoes at the doorway, I make my way down the long hallway before making a B line for the living room.

Gojo was lounging around in a loose tank and shorts, sitting comfortably on the couch with his legs crossed and arm hanging off the back. He peeled his eyes away from the television when I entered.

“Oh gumi, you’re back! Out with a girl?” His bangs were clipped back, with a few white strands falling forward. I ignored him and sat on the floor before the coffee table. “What are you watching?”

“Slotherhouse.”

“That stupid movie about the killer sloth?”

“Yup! It's been taken in by a sorority for popularity points.” He explained. I don’t understand how someone could even direct such an atrocity, and who would even be stupid enough to watch it?

Apparently, we were. “I thought the girl only adopted it because she was running for president and thought she could win.”

Gojo made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Same thing.”

The sound of the television filled the silence that followed after that. The house smelled of the dinner Gojo had prepared before I arrived home, and I knew it was some delicious soup. It was warm but cool simultaneously, as one of the sliding doors was opened with just a crack.

There was a familiar buzzing in my bones as it almost lulled me to sleep.

Key word: almost.

ping!

“Summer festival?” Gojo suddenly was peeking over my shoulder and I jolted from my spot, hand clutching my chest from the surprise.

“What the hell? Why are you looking at my messages?”

The prier completely disregarded my question and further pressed me about it. “Why aren’t you going?”

“Don’t want to.” I muttered, my attention returning back to the movie.

“Megumi.” He warned.

“No.”

“It’s the summer before you turn 18. You really wanna waste your last summer as a kid?” His eyes averted from the television to me. I didn’t have to look to know that he was practically shooting daggers at my head.

It’s moments like these where I was slightly scared of him.

Just slightly, though.

I sighed, completely ignored his nagging. “Yuji is more outgoing than I am. I’m sure he can find someone else to spend his time with.”

Gojo huffed and abruptly switched off the movie, fully positioning his body to face me, and I did the same.

“Listen, you do nothing every summer. I even remember when you were little I would try to get you to play with the neighborhood kids and you never would.” His eyes held an inmidating intensity that I had never seen before. He was sincere and I knew better than to dismiss him when he got like this.

I considered him for a moment, exhaling and pondering my next move. He continued, his voice low and considerate. “Plus, Yuji is your friend and he seems really excited about this.”

A huff and then, “Fine.”

He smugly smiled and leaned back in his original position, arm resting behind his head and feet propped on the table. “Ah! Take my camera when you go, I need pictures for my megumi scrapbook!” He yelled across the room.

“I told you to burn that!” I yelled back, leaving him by himself.

next chapter

masterlist

TAGLIST (OPEN) 2/50 : @nicememerino @rrinkyoo

@baylz please do not copy, translate, or repost any of my works onto other platforms!!

[mlmvoreconfessionals]

Heya, you think that we may be able to get something with Asg.ore or Asr.iel with gutcrush and dis.posal?

I’d love to!

A wet belch escapes A.sriel as his stomach sloshes around with live prey. He's a bit tipsy on cheap beer and the guys at the frat found that to be the perfect time to turn the goat into a bit of entertainment for everyone. He swallowed down a pizza guy, now the poor man stuck making a bulge in his gut, and the frat guys were excitedly chattering over it and what was next to come. A.sriel belches again, this time managing to cough up the guy's hat, which lands on his gut. Said gut is currently bubbling up a storm and the pizza guy does not sound happy with his predicament. A.sriel grumbles a bit and closes his eyes, straining a bit. His gut groans louder and then...it shrinks down in an instant. Snaps and crunches ring out, the unlucky pizza guy screaming for a couple seconds before he's totally mulched down, and then it just keeps shrinking. The frat guys get quiet as they watch the goat's stomach reduce in size in under a minute, going back to being totally flat. A.sriel drops down to a squat, still straining, as a thick log of dark brown shit begins to slide out of him. He didn't just digest the pizza guy in seconds, he got pumped all the way through, and now everyone is watching the goat lay down thick coils of shit on the floor with a bit of effort. It takes a couple minutes, but eventually, there's a large mound of crap steaming on the floor, bones and cur practically baked into it, with the pizza guy's skull sticking out of the top. A.sriel pants a bit now that he's done and the frat guys cheer. He's brought into the group pretty soon and given another beer to wash his meal down with. Ever since he showed the guys what his stomach can do, they always get excited to feed him more. It usually took a beer or two before A.sriel was comfortable being a toy garbage disposal for a bunch of frat guys, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a little fun. With a pizza guy down the hatch, he sips at his beer while more people are being invited over to the frat just so everyone can watch A.sriel mulch a few more men down like nothing.

With a wet slurp, A.sgore felt the last of the human drop into his stomach. Even since reaching the surface, the goat has been pleasantly surprised with how much the humans seemed to have warmed up to him. Mostly because, well, the big-bellied goat is a human mulcher and they seemed incredibly fascinated with it. For instance, the one he just slurped up is already gone. The second he dropped into A.sgore's stomach, it digested away, and the goat let out a meaty belch in response. The other humans standing around him just seemed fascinated with it. One of them got brave enough to push down on his stomach just to see how soft it is--and the man's hand sinks right in, nothing left of the human who'd just dropped in. Other than his smell on the goat's breath when he belches over the crowd again. The adorable way those humans looked at A.sgore made him so hungry...he couldn't help but grab another and slurp them up. And another...and another! Each human that drops into his gut is near instantly liquified, the white tank groaning and gurgling loudly as it processes the humans with little trouble. After he got his fifth down, though, he could feel his bowels groaning loudly. A.sgore looks around. The park he had been taking a stroll in when he got a craving for humans had a toilet, thankfully, and he went there quickly. The last few humans followed after him, though. They all disappear into the bathroom, and the sound of wet gulps and slurps can be heard echoing out of it soon enough. A.sgore fills the toilet under him fast, the first log already too much for it, and forcing him to stand up as he keeps dumping humans. At the same time, he's gulping more down, slurping up a pair of legs and then lowering another in feet first. Two humans left, then one, and then he's sent the last one down. By that point, he's buried the toilet in crap, and it takes a couple more minutes for him to finish squeezing out the last few logs. With a pleased sigh, A.sgore hikes his pants up again. The pile filled the stall up, at least ten sets of human bones sticking out of the brown mass from top to bottom. But the goat paid it no mind as he simply left, smiling happily to himself over all the delicious humans he got to snack on.

[familyabolisher]

[image description: nine tumblr users asking me to talk about triangle of sadness. /end]

SO glad you all asked, completely unprompted. anyway, triangle of sadness is about, in short, a luxury cruise ship sinking and leaving a handful of guests and staff stranded on an island. its principle driving force is this mostly-untapped, vague little handwave towards an ‘eat the rich’-type affect; a lot of its humour relies on moderately exaggerating and satirising (or, god, attempting to satirise) the behaviours of rich people—absurdity, hollowness, vacuity, whatever. you have a guest who insists on all the staff members going for a swim, and one who repeatedly complains that the sails are dirty (despite, as we later learn, the ship not having any sails). this sort of thing is very mid-tier satire. it’s not especially imaginative or cutting, and it doesn’t say very much besides, like, the idea that money makes you alienated and entitled. which … is not enough to carry a film on, lol.

the problem is that the film draws these incredibly broad, clumsy strokes around class politics, and never really puts in the effort to actually take them in a direction that says anything. the greatest heights it ever achieves are ones where it manages to say that some socialists are hypocrites and wealthy people are ridiculous. again—so what? there’s a scene where a russian millionaire and the wealthy marxist ship’s captain (“a russian capitalist and an american communist,” as the joke goes) try to talk about politics but just google quotes from their respective political heroes and repeat them back to one another, which says very little beyond the idea that wealth makes political ideology shallow and performative. this is worthless to me; this is not creative or original commentary. (this is, like … this was the ethos of knives out? cmon.) or like, there’s a wealthy british couple who inform us that they made their wealth ‘bringing democracy,’ which they then clarify to mean that they worked in weapons manufacturing—which was, honestly, insultingly heavyhanded. it’s not an especially clever joke; it’s patronising. (there were a lot of attempts at wit in this film. none of them landed.) in a similar vein, there’s a bit where the marxist captain talks over the intercom about the US’ invasion and installation of puppet dictators in latin american countries. this + the ‘we brought democracy [to the global south] through weapons development, har har har’ part didn’t at all feel like the kind of sharp commentary that the film wanted it to be; it just felt insulting to cast the spectre of imperialist violence in a film that had absolutely nothing to say about it. to use imperialist violence in the global south as a cheap conduit for irritating jokes or very poor efforts at ‘commentary’ on, idk, isn’t this wealthy captain a bad socialist (and isn’t this such a salient thing to say about communism) is just … gross. and betrays the film’s major failing: that it can’t take its own political imaginary seriously enough to give itself any meat at all.

(the weapons manufacturers later get blown up by one of their own weapons, btw. which, lol. it’s not bad but it would’ve been more satisfying if the film hadn’t been so transparently smug about how Great its politics were.)

[content warning for emetophobia, also just unsanitary in general] about halfway through, there’s a sequence that’s literally about twenty minutes long which just consists of the guests getting food poisoning and graphically vomiting and shitting themselves on-screen. this sequence includes, for example, footage of god knows how much diarrhoea spewing out of a septic tank, close-ups on guests vomiting, shots of people on the toilet, and so on, with the apparent aim of this scene being … you know, humiliate rich people by making them shit and vomit everywhere, i guess? it’s toilet humour. it invites the audience to laugh at the rich people, at least in part due to the way the film wants you to imagine them to have brought it on themselves—by fine dining, by the implication that the food poisoning was caused by food being left to spoil when the crew were made to go for a swim, whatever—but it’s, again, devoid of really mobilising anything. after spending twenty minutes watching rich people get ill (which is a cheap shot for humiliation anyway, btw—i do think jokes about incontinence are ableist, besides just being humour for seven year olds) and being expected to laugh at it, the film hasn’t so much as made a dent in unspooling some commentary on their wealth in the first place. it’s not intelligent or thoughtful satire. ‘what if rich people shat themselves onscreen’ is not an interesting thought. [end content warning]

the only truly compelling character the film has to offer is abigail, a cleaner whose survival skills after the shipwreck allow her to take command of the other survivors and demand that she be referred to as ‘captain.’ at the end, once they’ve found potential rescuers, one of the former guests (yaya, an ‘influencer,’ because influencers are lowball for Mocking Rich People—ohhh they’re so vapid and self-absorbed and obsessed with their phones etc etc. this is frankly about as salient and thoughtful as this film’s political commentary manages to get. lol) offers her a job as her assistant, and abigail is implied to kill her with a rock—in response to that request but also seemingly to prevent a return to the old order by which she was underclassed. unfortunately, abigail barely gets any fucking time to develop on the screen, largely due to the aforementioned twenty minute sequence. the pacing of the film is horrible, and the third act feels so rushed that anything actually compelling that could’ve been eked out of abigail’s character gets glossed over and collapsed. 

the film even had threads it could’ve picked up to say something of substance about capitalism, imperialism, whatever—abigail was filipina and a subordinate to paula, her white superior, but the racial element of her underclassing is never addressed and you don’t exactly get the sense that the film thinks about it. one of the other survivors is Black; again, no effort to think about how racialisation affects his relationship with the wealthy white clientele save for a stupid joke about him thinking that people are being racist towards him. one of the wealthy survivors is disabled—the film is very happy to align her with the other Rich People™ rather than taking the opportunity to interrogate how disability disadvantages her in maintaining her class position. it’s a film that wants to be interested in class, capitalism, maybe at a stretch even imperialism, but has no sense of how to say anything thoughtful and worthwhile about it, so has to fall back on boring fucking narratives of power as corruptive and (literal) toilet humour. it’s shallow. i felt patronised the whole way through.

i really just kept thinking—who is this for? what do we actually get out of making a spectacle of rich people for a bit? what’s been said? at the end of the day, what has this actually tried to push me to think about? and it’s: nothing! completely pneumatic spineless worthless film. <3

[nemobeatrice]

@diadopweek

DiaDop Week 2023 Day 4 Nature - Hiking in Mürren, Switerland

Ao3

Quotev

Wattpad

Diavolo stood outside a Chinese restaurant in Mürren, Switzerland, waiting for Doppio, who was in the bathroom. They were surprised such a restaurant was there, but the food was delicious and cheap. After waiting a few minutes, Doppio met with him.

“Sorry, boss,” he apologized with a smile. “I guess I ate a lot.”

“No need to apologize. We’ll burn it off on our hike.” Diavolo grabbed his hand, taking him to the mountains.

“Wait, we’re not going to sit down and relax?” Doppio panicked. “I think that’ll be too much activity for me! I might throw up!”

“If you want, we could get on the funicular. We’d still need to walk there.”

Doppio sighed. “Why couldn’t they make this place bigger for cars?”

“I think this place is better without cars.”

The two walked to the funicular, which headed to Allmendubel. A few people accompanied them while the ride took them there.

“So, boss, where are we going in Allmendubel?”

“I want us to head to the Sprutz Waterfall using the Northface Trail.”

Doppio got excited for a few seconds but then died down, recalling something from before they planned their trip to Switzerland. If he remembered correctly, the hike takes about two hours and 30 minutes. “Um, are we even prepared for a hike this long?”

Diavolo took out his small Gucci backpack, bringing out two bottles of water and sunscreen since it was a lovely day for a hike. “Relax, we are well prepared. Besides, you didn’t want to go up the mountain, correct? We’ll be descending the mountain.”

He doubted this would be enough to survive the trip. “When was the last time you were on a hike?” He didn’t know why he asked that because they always spent time together.

“I was about to ask you that.”

“Neither of us hiked before.”

Before they continued their conversation, the funicular reached its destination. Diavolo, Doppio, and the other passengers got out.

“Boss, are you sure you don’t want to return down? I’m feeling much better to ascend the mountain.”

A twinkle was in Diavolo’s eye, and he seemed fired up. “Nonsense! We’re already up here. Let us make our way down to Mürren on foot!”

A spring breeze brushed against their skin. It felt refreshing to Doppio, but then he checked Diavolo’s reaction and saw him shivering. “Boss?”

“Doppio, aren’t you cold?”

“No, quite the opposite. It was hot in that funicular, and the breeze is refreshing. Um, should we head back down and buy you a shirt? I also want to buy some better shoes. These aren’t made for hiking.”

“No, Doppio! We’re hiking this trail and looking fabulous while doing so! Come! We head downwards!”

-

The hike down the mountain was beautiful and scenic, and the scent of the meadows and pine trees was pleasant. Doppio had never seen grass this green nor such beautiful wildflowers. People walked past the couple, but animals, such as cows, accompanied them on their travel.

“Wow, look at these cows!” Doppio got close to one and petted its head. “So soft!”

“Ah!” Diavolo screamed while a cow chewed on his hair.

“Oh my gosh!” Doppio came to his rescue and tried to save each strand of hair. Unfortunately, slop covered his long luscious hair.

“I think I want to go home. Are we almost there yet?”

“Nope, but we’re almost to the waterfall.”

“Oh.” He got quiet for a few seconds. “I need to poop.”

“What?” Doppio turned to face him, but Diavolo wasn’t there. “Boss? Where are you?”

“Doppio! Oh, Doppio!” he yelled. “I made a grave mistake!”

His voice sounded far away. “Boss!”

“Over here! Don’t come close!”

Doppio followed the sound of his voice, heading into the pine forest. He could see him squatting behind a tree, smelled something unpleasant, and attempted to get close to him but stepped on a branch, causing Diavolo to make a panicked noise.

“Stop! Doppio, I forgot to bring toilet paper. I thought there would be a restroom on the hike, but there wasn’t. I need you to take off your shirt.”

“What? Uh, boss, I have the map, and the nearest restaurant is a few walks away.”

Diavolo was silent for a few seconds. “Could you hand me the map?”

-

The pink-haired coupled continued their hike, making it to the trail that led to the waterfall. 

“Finally, we are here!” Diavolo was in much higher spirits and rushed down the steep hill.

“Wait!” Doppio covered his mouth and watched as his boss tripped and rolled down. “Oh my gosh, boss!” He carefully went down the trail as quickly as he could. Diavolo made a groaning sound, and dirt covered his clothes. Doppio knelt next to him, checking for any cuts or scraps. “Are you going to be alright? I don’t see any blood.”

Diavolo slowly got up, brushed the dirt off, and sighed. “Doppio, I’m sorry about this little hiking trip. I didn’t plan fully ahead.”

Doppio got up, standing on his tippy toes, and tenderly kissed his lips. “No, it’s my fault, boss. I was the one who overate at the restaurant and whined about walking around too much.”

He embraced and held him closer. “My sweet Doppio, you know how to cheer me up. I want another kiss.”

The two kissed again. Thankfully, they were alone and continued kissing for a while.

“Ugh, my shoes are dirty,” Diavolo complained.

“My feet hurt,” Doppio whined.

“Let’s walk back. I can carry you back to the hotel if you want.”

He giggled. “You would need to carry me up the slope. Don’t worry. I’ll keep walking until I’m tired, but could we hold hands on the way?”

Diavolo held his hand. “Of course. Did you enjoy the hike?”

“Of course! It’s not that hot or cold out, and the view was wonderful. I was worried that you weren’t enjoying it.”

“I had fun too. Should we return to the Chinese restaurant for dinner, or do you want to try something different?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see once we get there.”

[stellarstarlightwritings]

Out Of This World (But Not Really)

Prompt Inspired (https://www.tumblr.com/writing-prompt-s/722478470727417856/you-soon-learn-why-the-aliens-have-asked-for-you)

June 16th, 2023 __________________________________________________

“If it weren’t for the past couple of years, I would have refused to believe this to be happening.” I grumbled in displeasure, before fixing my hardened gaze towards the supposed “aliens” before me. My stare was as stoic and unmovable as a rock.

One of the “aliens” seemed to be visibly uncomfortable, looking off to the side and with a tremble to his voice that was noticeable despite the voice modulator. Even though he was clearly anxious and feeling like a cornered deer in the woods, he still desperately tried to convince me.

“I assure you, Earthling,” He spoke with that same shaky waver, “We are- “

Before the idiot could finish speaking, I glare harshly at him with contempt and irritation. Despite my levels of patience being non-existent to begin with, these morons wore it down further. It was almost impressive, actually.

Still, they interrupted what was supposed to be a quiet day of playing video games at home for me today, and that was unforgivable. Didn’t they know I had a very important virtual farm to take care of, and a crystal eating purple haired girl to marry? I had my priorities straight, not my fault if they didn’t.

I just get straight to the point. “Cut the crap, Marcus.” I order with the authority of a military captain before glowering at the other two as well, “Tyler, Hayley, you two as well.”

Tyler, at least, was smart enough to throw in the towel. “Told you guys he’d see through it,” He admonished, swiftly removing his alien mask. I will admit, the masks were not too cheap or poorly made, and they were actually somewhat convincing. But looking closely at them easily revealed the leathery, latex type material used, revealing their artificial and fake nature in an instant. Of course, the masks also depicted a stereotypical green alien with tall, black beady eyes, and there was also the fact that I (unfortunately) knew my friends, or as I prefer to call them, nuisances, quite well.

Their voice modulators did not alter their voices that much, so they were still very recognizable to me, seeing as I have the displeasure of hearing their annoying voices almost every day. Their body language is not difficult to pick up on, as Marcus’s habit of looking away, avoiding eye contact, and speaking shakily and anxious was still very familiar and obvious.

These people are also the only reckless and braindead pranksters I’m close enough to, and they always love to try to get me involved in them, no matter how many times I express my disinterest and annoyance at such trivial wastes of time. Of course they’d ask for me specifically with some nonsense reasoning of me being “the chosen one” or whatever boloney they came up with this time to get me dragged into their mess.

This one though, this one took the cake. And not just a small cake either, but a massive one with tiers and tiers that, together, rivaled the Eiffel Tower in stature. Somehow, these three nincompoops convinced the actual government that they were literal aliens from Outer Space.

It was truly, truly baffling, but then again, human stupidity never ceases to amaze me. If people think the most important resource in the middle of an actual pandemic is toilet paper, or that lemon juice makes you invisible to cameras, then perhaps this wasn’t such a stretch.

But still, they couldn’t be this dumb, could they?

I already did not like how this situation was turning out, something very shady was definitely going on, and something was very clearly amiss.

Once again, it looked as though I may have to bail these fools out of danger. Is this how parents feel with young children? If that’s the case, then I’m absolutely never having kids.

But first things first. I take a deep breath before asking, both in exasperation and exhaustion, “What the hell did you do this time?”

All three of them shared a look with one another, as though they had psychic telepathy, before turning to look at me with a very sheepish gaze.

I could already sense that the irritation I’m feeling now is going to pale in comparison to what I’m going to feel when they’re done recapping this entire misadventure. __________________________________________________