#choosing cloud storage

[techtoio]

Cloud Storage Solutions: Which One is Right for You?

Introduction

Reliable cloud storage is a must in today’s digital era. Whether you’re a business owner, a student, or someone who loves taking photos, choosing the right cloud storage solution can make a huge difference. It can be difficult to determine which option is best for you given the vast array of choices. In this article, we’ll break down some of the top cloud storage solutions to help you make an informed decision.

[marble-anime]

Really, love, it’s fine

Pairing: Sanemi Shinazugawa x Reader, Giyuu Tomioka x Reader

Summary: Sanemi becomes jealous of your developing friendship with Giyuu. Not wanting to have to choose between them, you suggest that they 'kiss and make up'.

Disclaimer: Minors DNI, Unedited

Warnings: smut, angst, feelings, mentions of violence, jealous Sanemi, threesome, blowjob, unprotected sex, creampie

Word Count: 6.9k

Sanemi fastened his belt as he stepped out of the storage closet with you stumbling after him, adjusting your clothes so you didn’t look like a disheveled mess. The scent of sex trailed after the two of you, as per usual. You followed him outside to the training grounds. Vast land that stretched out further that you could see with healthy green grass and strong trees. The faraway mountains were covered with fluffy clouds as the warm sun caked the scenery in an orange hue.

The Hashira had all taken the day to train together. Using their own breathing styles and picking up different tips and tricks from the others. Adapting their fighting techniques and improving their swordsmanship. This was your first time seeing Sanemi again after you’d both come back from different missions. So naturally, you two snuck off for a moment to yourselves, just as you’d done many times before at the Hashira meetings.

But now it was time to get back to training. With most of the other Pillars already having sparring partners, you looped your arms around Sanemi’s. “Let’s train together ‘Nemi.”

He watched you latch onto him with a smug smile. “What, are you completely hopeless without me?” His words were laced with arousal, the feeling of you needing him turned him on like nothing else. “Is that what it is?”

“You wish,” you said, not thinking much of the joke until you spotted Obanai and Mitsuri making their way over to you. You tightened your grip on Sanemi’s arm, the action only furthering to stroke his ego.

“Clingy, clingy,” he sang.

“I am not,” you blushed, embarrassed to be having this conversation in front of your friends.

“You sure?” Obanai asked, of course siding with his best friend, “You always attach yourself to him. Following him around like a puppy.”

Like you’re one to talk, you thought, always fawning over Mitsuri. You fought the urge to correct him and tell him that half the time it was Sanemi who was dragging you away for a moment of bliss. If you were needy then so was he. You stared straight ahead of you, looking at nothing in particular, because you knew that if you looked up at Sanemi you’d want to slap that stupid smirk off his face.

“Iguro, don’t tease her,” Mitsuri whined.

At least someone was on your side.

“It’s adorable how much she likes him!”

You could’ve died from embarrassment but you couldn’t be mad. You knew she meant well. She’d always indulged you, letting you gush over the guy you liked while she shared what she found attractive about him. Almost everyone in the demon slayer corps was terrified of the Wind Pillar, it felt nice to have a friend who didn’t judge you for sleeping with him. Mitsuri was the only one who really understood how you felt about him.

Sanemi barked a laugh at her words and let go of his arm, taking a step back to address both him and Obanai.

“Alright, you know what, you two?” The two boys said nothing, their tantalizing stares daring her to do something. They clearly weren’t taking her seriously. “I’m gonna go hang out with Giyuu instead of you assholes.”

Sanemi snorted as you turned your back to them, his eyes hungerly taking in your figure as you walked away.

“Good luck,” Obanai teased.

Mitsuri clapped her hands, thinking that her snake of a crush was being genuine, and also called out to you, wishing you good luck while you approached the Water Hashira. He was in a one-sided conversation with Shinobu, she was chastising and teasing him as usual while he responded in one word answers. You tapped the Butterfly Pillars shoulder and asked if you could steal Giyuu away for a training session.

She didn’t reply right away, truthfully you’d caught both of them off guard. Although you were pretty friendly, they were shocked that you’d want to spend your time with Giyuu of all people. After all, most of your time was occupied by Sanemi who hated his guts. “Sure,” she smiled. Maybe this would be good for him. “Maybe you’ll finally make a new friend, Tomioka.”

“I have friends,” he insisted, but she had already left.

“Hi, Giyuu,” you greeted him politely.

“Hi,” was all he said, his expression blank.

Oh god, your face heated up, this was already embarrassing. Maybe you should’ve just left him alone. Even some of the nicer Pillars had trouble befriending him as he didn’t put much effort into socializing. You mentally sighed trying to think of a conversation starter. “I like your haori.”

“Thanks.”

He wasn’t making this easy but you were determined. “Do the mismatched patterns have a meaning or is it just a style choice?”

He stared at you for a moment and you feared that you’d offended him in some way until he spoke, “The red half is for my sister and the other is for a close friend.”

“Cool, are they demon slayers too?” you asked, relieved that this conversation was going somewhere even though it was still a little awkward. But when he broke eye contact, hanging his head low, your relief was drowned by sadness for him.

“Oh.” It wasn’t hard to tell what had become of them, there wasn't a member in the demon slayer corps who hadn’t at least lost someone. For most it was used as a motivator to rid the world of demons and keep others from suffering the way they did, but that didn’t make it any less painful. Honestly, it was a pretty heavy topic to start off a friendship with but you supposed a lot of demon slayers had built relationships through trauma bonds. You tried to offer him some type of comfort, “I think it’s kind that you want to honor them. I’m sure they were lovely people.”

“They were.” A soft smile graced his features, hearing someone speak of his loved ones so kindly filled him with warmth as he reminisced on the good times he had with them.

His reaction encouraged you to keep the conversation going, with a smile of your own you suggested, “Maybe you could tell me about them while we train?”

Sanemi had been watching from afar with an amused gaze as you struggled to interact with the Hashira’s most antisocial Pillar. Your face was flushed and you sheepishly fiddled with your hands while he was giving you absolutely nothing. Had he not found the whole situation amusing he probably would’ve picked a fight with the guy for making you feel uncomfortable. You really couldn’t do anything with him, could you?

His enjoyment died down, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach at the rare sight of the Water Pillars smile. He was smiling because of you. You were probably the friendliest of all the pillars, he figured, if anyone could get through to him it would be you. He was trying to talk some sense to himself so he could shake this unpleasant feeling.

It wasn’t long before you both got into a fighting stance, ready to begin training. This calmed him down. He didn’t know why he was getting so worked up, it was only a training session nothing more. Plus, it was one interaction, after today you two would probably go back to barely speaking. He focused on Obanai who stood across from him on the defensive, distracting himself as he prepared for some training of his own. Had he known of the connection that would stem from your conversation with Giyuu, he would’ve marched over there and ended it before it had begun.

When he’d been called to the next Hashira meeting, anxiety flared up in the pit of the Wind Pillars stomach. He kicked rocks as he made his way to the Ubuyashiki Estate, trying to ignore the stirring in his gut. He dug his fingernails into his palms to keep them from shaking as the Mansion came into view. He rounded the corner and you were in front of him in an instant. You greeted him and asked how he’d been since the last Pillar meeting. 

His emotions settled. Of course everything would be the same, why wouldn’t it? He wrapped an arm around you, his possessive grip nearly had you in a chokehold. You didn't mind, nuzzling your head into his chest, you relished in the affection. His hand trailed down your body to give your ass a rough squeeze as he whispered in your ear, “We’ve still got about twenty minutes before the meeting starts. I think I could make you feel good and have you back here in fifteen, whaddaya say?”

You ended up sneaking away so Sanemi could have a snack between your thighs. He was right, you two made it back to the others before the meeting could begin and all was well. Until you slipped from his grasp so you could talk to Giyuu. But your conversation was cut short when Sanemi’s arms snaked around you like a cage as he practically dragged you away.

Ever since then the Hashira meetings had been hell for Sanemi. For a while, he’d been able to keep you away from Tomioka. But then you made time to hang out with him until Sanemi showed up. And after that when he made it a point to show up to the estate before the both of you, you’d always find a way to slip out of his hold so you could socialize with Giyuu. What really grinded his gears was how you and your new ‘friend’ would know things about each other that you hadn’t disguised in previous meetings, which meant that you two had to be sending each other letters.

Sanemi hated every second of it. He was fine with you being friends with the other Pillars, sure. But the chemistry you seemed to have with the Water Pillar left a sour taste in his mouth. He felt like he was going crazy. What could that loser possibly give you that he couldn’t? Technically you two weren’t officially a couple, but you were close enough weren’t you? Sanemi hadn’t entertained anyone but you. Maybe none of this would be happening if he would’ve just trained with you that day.

The final nail in the coffin was when the Kamado siblings had been detained and brought to the Ubuyashiki Estate. Rage bubbled up inside him at the thought of one of the demon slayer corp’s very own stabbing them in the back to protect a monster. To Sanemi, the Kamado boy may as well have spit in the face of all the souls who’d been unfortunate enough to lose someone to a demon. His anger boiled over the top when he saw you with that pathetic water hashira once again.

You begged and pleaded for him to stop but you’d only worsened his mood. He hated the way you looked at him like he was the monster for simply carrying out his duty as a demon slayer. He stared down at Nezuko as blood gushed from her shoulder where he’d stabbed her. Her eyes bore into his with a fury that mirrored his own. She was nothing more than a man eating beast hidden behind the appearance of a little girl, why couldn’t you see that? Even with the ringing in his ears he could hear your voice as clear as day, begging Giyuu to do something, to stop him. The sound of your panicked voice seeking the comfort of another man ate away at him.

Her mouth watered, drool dripping down her chin as the scents of Sanemi’s marechi blood flooded her senses. The hunger would consume her and she would attack him, he was sure of it and he’d prove it to the other hashira, to master Ubuyashiki, to you. He did everything he could to provoke her and yet she still refused to harm him.

When Ubuyashiki finally put a stop to his cruel behavior, allowing Tanjiro to keep his position in the Demon Slayer Corps as well as continue protecting his sister, he’d also reprimanded Sanemi for tormenting the two. He internally cringed at his master's words but he obeyed nonetheless. Not once did he pick his head up as he kneeled to show his respect, too afraid of seeing whatever emotion your face displayed. He could guess that it was something along the lines of disgust, disappointment, anger, if he was unfortunate enough, maybe even regret.

He was able to avoid the disdain filled gaze that he was sure he’d see if his eyes met yours, only raising his head once the meeting was over and the Pillars were dismissed. When he finally gathered the courage to look up, you were already gone, having been one of the first Hashira to make your departure from the Estate. He wasn’t sure if he should consider himself lucky for not having to face your confrontation or unfortunate for not being able to explain himself. However, he’d get his answer before he even stepped foot out of the Ubuyashiki property, whether he liked it or not.

The thought of you and the possible damage he’d just done to your relationship plagued his mind as he walked along the gravel trail that led to the Estate’s entrance gate, the Manor slowly fading in the distance behind him. He froze in his tracks when he saw you, he thought you were long gone by now, but no, you were still here on the Estate’s grounds with him.

Seeing you with Tomioka lit an envious fire inside him, the hand that was placed on your arm as a means to comfort you only fueling the green flames. If Sanemi had been thinking right then maybe he would’ve realized that the scene in front of him was nothing like he thought. After all, Giyuu was the one who spared the Kamado siblings so of course you’d ask him questions to be able to grasp what exactly had happened at the meeting. That was all it was, no romance involved. But right now Sanemi was beyond reason, assuming the worst.

“What the hell is going on here?” He growled, effectively ceasing your conversation and gaining your attention. All it took was one look at him, his wide eyes and clenched fist, for you to know that he was fuming. Although you didn’t know what caused this reaction and had been blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil he’s had for months, you figured it would be best to end the fighting before it had begun. You pulled your arm from Giyuu’s hold and cautiously approached your lover, “Sanemi-”

He pushed past you and grabbed the Water Pillar by his haori, “Who the hell do you think you are?!”

Giyuu said nothing, allowing Sanemi to thrash him around while you tightly wrapped your arms around his bicep, trying to pull him away from your friend without getting in between the two men. His lack of a response only angered Sanemi who began to yell threats in his face, you’d hoped that master Ubuyashiki was too far away to hear his harsh words. His aggression towards the stone-faced hashira finally dwindled when he heard your voice break. As his head snapped towards you he saw the tears brimming along the rims of your eyes.

Taking advantage of his stunned state, Giyuu pulled himself from Sanemi’s grasp and turned away from you two to continue walking down the path. You tried to stop him from leaving, wanting to resolve whatever was going on between them so that there wouldn’t be any tension between your two closest friends. Sanemi watched your interaction with a twinge of guilt, he hadn’t meant to upset you. Was this his fault? Was he scaring you away? Was this why you liked Tomioka so much? Because he was calm and collected unlike Sanemi who had a tendency to fly off the handle at the smallest things? Doubts flooded his mind as Giyuu’s hands gently squeezed your own in reassurance. His heart ached hearing you beg him to stay. The Water Pillar was the most composed out of the three of you, insisting that whatever conversation you and Sanemi needed to have would only be made worse with his presence.

With that he took his leave, giving the two of you space to talk. Neither of you said anything at first, the only sounds that could be heard were your sniffing and the chirping of birds. The tension in the air was thick, the sun beaming down on you while leaves fluttered down to the ground. Ironically, it was an awfully nice day for such a sad scene. Sanemi was the first to break the silence, “Do you love him?”

“What?” You asked in disbelief, your bloodshot eyes widening as you stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was serious or if this was just some sick joke. “It’s not like that with him.” While he stayed silent, you went over everything in your mind. You thought about the animosity Sanemi had always held for the other man, to the point where Sanemi’s mind had conjured up a one sided rivalry between the two, which had only worsened with the growth of your friendship with him. For the first time since you’d asked Giyuu to train with you, you realized that he was jealous. You couldn’t understand why though, he never minded your friendships with the other Pillars. Nonetheless, you tried to quell his insecurities by adding, “We’ve never done anything together, if that’s what you're worried about.”

“That's not what I asked.” He let out an exasperated sigh and clenched his jaw, trying to prepare himself for whatever your answer would be. He held your face in his hands as he asked in a calm, gentle, tone that contradicted the whirlwind of emotions inside him, “Do you have feelings for him, even if it’s just a little?”

Your lips parted, there was so much you wanted to say but the words just wouldn’t leave your throat. You couldn’t blame him for being skeptical, looking at it from his perspective, your friendship with Giyuu kinda came out of the blue and grew rapidly. You wanted to give him the context behind it all, that the two of you bonded over him. You wanted to tell him about the letters you two exchanged which consisted of you giving Giyuu advice on what kinds of things Sanemi liked and his retelling of every attempt he made to connect with the other man ending in failure and a fuming Sanemi Shinazugawa. The truth was that the Water Pillar simply wanted to be his friend but wasn’t sure how to engage with him. Explaining all of this might’ve eased your lover’s mind and may have even embarrassed him a tiny bit. But what had stunned you into silence was the last part of his sentence, even if it’s just a little.

You couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when the contents of your letters shifted from the subject of Sanemi to yourselves. You both shared what you liked and disliked, your favorite foods, your hobbies, your dreams and fears. The two of you got to know the ins and outs of each other and blossomed a deep respect and admiration for one another. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t giddy each time you received a letter from him. Maybe Sanemi’s fears were correct, maybe you did harbor some feelings for the other man.

At your lack of a response, he ripped himself away as if you had burned him. He brought his hands to his face, his fingers harshly rubbing his eyelids and pinching the bridge of his nose as he processed that his worst nightmare was coming to life. All he could think was, why? Why was this happening? Why did you have to catch feelings for that stupid Water Hashira? Was there anything he could’ve done to prevent it? The tips of his fingers pulled at his skin as he slowly slid his hands down his face, he felt like he was losing his mind. He tried to contain his anger, he didn’t want to yell at you and potentially drive you further into that bastard's arms but he could help the aggression that seeped into his voice as he asked, “More than me?”

“No,” you denied immediately, whatever you may have felt for Giyuu paled in comparison to your love for Sanemi, “Of course not.”

“I-,” He didn’t even know what to say to that. He thought he’d be relieved that your feelings were stronger for him than they ever would be for that parasite but knowing that he shared your heart with another, even if it was only 0.01%, filled him with rage and jealousy. As his calm facade began to crack, he determined that it would be best to end the conversation now. He needed to clear his head. “I’m gonna go.”

“Sanemi-,” you took a step toward him but froze when he held up a hand, urging you to stay back.

“I need to think,” he was already walking away from you as he added, “We’ll talk later.”

You watched him disappear from your sight before you made your way down the path, headed for your own estate. It was for the best, you convinced yourself, you needed time to think things over as well. Of course if given the choice between the two men, you’d choose Sanemi without a doubt. And you were sure Giyuu felt similarly, he wouldn’t want to give the Wind Pillar another reason to hate him. If your friendship truly had to be severed for the sake of your relationship with Sanemi then so be it.

But you didn’t want it to come to that if there was another way to fix this mess. Giyuu had become one of your closest confidants, someone who you could rely on, someone who understood and didn’t judge you. Cutting ties with him would be your last resort if all else failed. You wondered how you could close the rift between them, if you could at all.

A week later, your crow was sent to the Wind Estate requesting for Sanemi’s presence. He contemplated ignoring it but he knew he couldn’t run away from his problems forever. Your words played over and over again in his head like a broken record. He’d talked himself into thinking that in your mind he came before the Water Hashira, that you’d choose him over that loser any day. But now as he made his way to your estate, he wasn’t so sure of himself. He worried that this meeting would end the same way the last confrontation did, with you confirming his biggest fears.

As he walked through the entrance gate, he saw you standing in the doorway of your manor waiting for him. His shoes dragged along the gravel trail as he slowly made his way toward you, clearly stalling. When he finally stopped in front of you, you politely greeted him. He just stood there for a moment, taking in your appearance. Your hair was pulled back, showing off your flushed face, the sunset casted a pink glow over you and enhanced your blush as you stared up at him with those stupid lovesick eyes that always made him weak in the knees.

Fuck it. His rough hands slid under your shirt, grabbing the soft skin along your waist and pulled you into him. Before either of you knew it, his lips were on yours in a heated kiss. He’d folded instantly, he knew he shouldn't have but it felt as if he was having withdrawals. You two had spent far longer than just a week apart when you were both sent on missions. But all of the anxiety he had over losing you made the week feel like a year with each hour passing by painfully slow. If his resolve wasn’t already snapped in half, it was absolutely destroyed when your sweet voice spoke four words, “Come to the bedroom.”

As you led him to your room, the two of you had passed by multiple servants and trainees. None of them so much as batted an eye at the Wind Pillar as they were all accustomed to his nightly visits. This gave him a feeling of superiority, knowing that he was such a familiar presence in your life that others were used to seeing you two together. Had Giyuu been the one you were taking to bed instead of him, he was sure they’d all look at you like you had two heads. Tonight he’d worship you, prove to you that he was the better man and he’d make sure that you screamed his name loud enough so that everyone else would know that you belonged to him.

You stopped outside of your bedroom door, turning your head to look down each end of the hall to make sure no one was coming and grabbed Sanemi by his collar, pulling him down to meet your lips once again. Without breaking the kiss, you slid the door open and backed into the room, dragging your lover with you as he shut the door behind him. His hands roamed up and down your body, groping you in all your soft spots as his mouth devoured your own.

Something's off, his conscious whispered. He tried to ignore it and focus on you, thinking about what he was going to do to give you the best night of your life. But his thoughts kept getting derailed as he became increasingly more aware of his surroundings. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, it almost felt as if there was another presence in the room. Although he knew that he was probably being paranoid, his eyes fluttered open. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw a figure behind you.

His back hit the door as he ripped himself from your grasp. His momentary fear was replaced by anger as he saw the source of his misery sitting quietly at the end of your bed. Sanemi’s eye twitched, that freak had just sat there and watched you two touch each other like a pervert.

Just as he was about to tell that damn Water Pillar off, you took his face between your hands and directed his attention back to you. “Just hear me out, okay?”

Realizing that you’d orchestrated, whatever the hell this was, brought back that sinking feeling in his stomach, like you were slipping through his fingers and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Through gritted teeth he asked, “What the hell is he doing here?”

You took a deep breath, you anticipated this kind of reaction but it didn’t make you feel any less nervous. “Here's the deal,” you began, “If you want him to leave then he’ll go. And I’ll stay away from him if that’s what you want.” You paused, not sure how he’d take what you were about to say next. “But I wanna try to fix this if I can. I care a lot about both of you.”

You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his expression hadn’t changed and he didn’t say anything. You rested your head on his chest, your hands trailed down his arm to hold his hand. “It’s up to you though. Our relationship is my first priority so we won't do anything you're uncomfortable with.”

His breath hitched at your next words, “I love you.”

The tips of his ears heated up and his heart thumped rapidly, it was the first time you’d ever said that to him. He looked at Giyuu, his idiotic face held no emotion as always. Regardless he found himself wishing that the other man was dying on the inside knowing that your declaration of love wasn’t directed at him.

“Say it again,” he demanded.

All three of you knew what he was doing, trying to rub salt into the wound. It was cruel but you were determined to show him that he was the one you cared most about. You’d give up just about anything if it meant you got to keep him. So you repeated it once more, “I love you, Sanemi.”

He held eye contact with Giyuu as you spoke. If what you said had upset the Water Pillar, he was doing a good job of hiding it. Resentment flared inside Sanemi at his lack of a reaction, was this all a joke to him? His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists. He’d show that bastard, he thought, he’d show him who you cried out for, who you craved, who you loved.

He looked back to you, giving your ass a rough squeeze as he ordered, “Get your clothes off and get on the bed.”

You eagerly followed his command with excitement rushing through your veins as Sanemi shrugged off his own clothes before he noticed Giyuu still sitting on the bed watching you two underess. “That means you too, idiot!”

You were sandwiched between the two boys as they kissed and sucked each side of your neck. Precum leaked through Giyuu’s boxers, his clothed cock rubbing against the curve of your ass. Meanwhile, Sanemi’s erection stood proudly between your stomachs, twitching at the friction your embrace provided.

The left side of your neck and collarbone were littered in an absurd amount of purple hickeys. The artist behind the work was none other than Sanemi himself who was determined to prove himself more worthy of your love than the leech behind you. Your right side had considerably less love bites and, in contrast to the intense mares on your left, they were a soft shade of red. You figured Giyuu might’ve been inexperienced by the way he tried to copy whatever Sanemi did, occasionally causing their hands to bump into each other to which Sanemi would slap the other man's hand away and continue to grasp your plush skin.

You gasped as your lover’s teeth dug into your shoulder, earning you a much gentler bite on your other shoulder. Your fingers gripped his jaw, carefully prying his mouth from your flesh. He was captivated by you, the blush adorning your face spread from ear to ear, your lips parted as you let out pleasured pants that caused your bare chest to heave. He was hypnotized by your lidded eyes, the trance you had him under only breaking when you tilted your head to the side. Over your shoulder he saw that you held Giyuu’s jaw in your other hand. With both of their faces in your grasp, you guided them toward each other.

Sanemi’s hand shot out to grab your wrist, stopping your movement but not forcing you to let go entirely. “What are you doing?”

You shrugged, your voice a mix between sultry and breathy as you playfully teased, “I just thought you guys should kiss and makeup.”

You felt his grip on your arm tighten as he processed your joke. Just as you were about to assure him that he didn’t have to do it if he didn’t want to, Giyuu’s voice cut you off, “It’s just one kiss, for her.” That was the first thing since Sanemi had arrived. His eyes, an endless sea of blue, stared into his comrade’s as he tried to provoke him. “That should be simple enough for you. It’s child’s play.”

A vein popped in Sanemi’s forehead, that dumbass was trying to get back at him for flaunting your love in his face. Sanemi was partially satisfied that he had managed to bruise the other man’s ego but he didn’t appreciate the push back. “Fuck it.” Not willing to back down from Giyuu’s challenge, Sanemi grabbed the back of his neck so hard that it was sure to leave bruises and yanked him into a rough kiss.

As you slid out from between them to get a better view of the harsh display, your lover slapped a hand on Giyuu’s shoulder to make sure that he didn’t try to close the distance that separated their bodies. Your pussy pulsed and clenched around nothing as you watched the two most attractive men you knew come together, even if it was in such a mean spirited way, with clashing teeth and aggressive growls.

You ran your hands up and down your body, thoroughly enjoying the show. Honestly, Sanemi had held the kiss longer than you though he would. You wondered if he had surprised himself with how long he’d allowed this to go on. Your cunt throbbed, a fire building in the pit of your stomach at the idea that maybe he secretly liked it. Of course, even if he did, he’d probably never admit it. Your eyes traveled down his body, his cock was still painfully hard. Although the chances were slim, you wondered if you could ever convince Sanemi to let Giyuu help you pleasure him with your mouths.

As you reached out to grasp his cock, he shoved Giyuu away. His voice was laced with disdain as he insulted, “That was disgusting.” He was tempted to spit to prove his point but decided against it since you would probably tear him a new one if he went spitting on your bedroom floor.

Giyuu’s eyes shifted down to his scars, biting back, “I’m sure you’ve been through worse.”

Before Sanemi could shoot back a nasty comment, you stroked his cock to distract him while you pleaded, “Don’t fight you two.” You pressed a sweet kiss to your lover’s lips, capturing his full attention. “Thank you for doing that. It was very sweet.”

His face heated up at your praise, he tried to downplay it by saying, “Whatever, as long as you enjoyed it.”

You nuzzled your face into his chest. “I did.”

Embarrassed by the mushy feelings you were giving him, all while your hand was still slowly moving up and down his cock, he changed the subject, “How are we doing this.”

“However you feel comfortable doing it,” you answered.

He pondered it for a moment, the whole reason he’d agreed to this in the first place was because he wanted to show off how well he knew your body. To prove that he was the better man, that he was the only man who could fill your every desire, that you were made for him and him alone. Regardless of all that, he wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of Giyuu fucking you. His gaze alternated between the two of you before he decided, “He can have your mouth, I want your pussy.”

“Okay.” You sent him a soft smile in encouragement before turning your attention to Giyuu. “Why don’t you lay down.” He did as you told him to, spreading his legs to make room for you. You crawled in between his legs, propping yourself up on your forearms and sticking your ass in the air. You glanced behind you at Sanemi who was getting comfortable behind you. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah.” After getting the confirmation from Sanemi, you looked back to Giyuu who nodded to let you know that he was ready. Sanemi ran a finger between your folds, shocked to see how wet you’d gotten from his little ‘performance’, you barely needed any prep. He was slightly annoyed that seeing him kiss that idiot was what got you so soaked. “Tch.”

You leaned forward, grasping the band of Giyuu’s boxers between your teeth and slowly tugging them down until his cock sprang free, nearly hitting you in the face as it slapped against his stomach. You flinched, letting out a yelp when all of a sudden Sanemi’s hand came down on your ass. “Why don’t you ever do that for me?”

You fought the urge to roll your eyes at the question. Probably because you’re always in such a rush to fuck me that you rip off our clothes before I have the chance. You decided against answering him for the sake of keeping the peace. With your ass still stinging from Sanemi’s harsh slap, you wrapped a hand around Giyuu’s cock, bringing it to meet your mouth. Just as your lips brushed against the tip, you were yanked back by two large hands on your waist. Sanemi lined his cock up to your entrance, pretending like he hadn't done anything. You knew that he was fully aware of what he just did but if you brought it up he’d probably just deny it. With Giyuu now out of your reach, thanks to Sanemi, you suggested, “How about you fuck my face instead, Giyuu.”

Giyuu pulled his boxers off and got on his knees in front of you. This time he was the one directing his cock toward your mouth. You wrapped your lips around the tip, trying to tease him a little before taking the whole thing. Of course, it didn’t work out that way, yet again thanks to Sanemi who’d shoved his whole girth into you without warning, forcing your face further down Giyuu’s cock.

A thumb softly stroked your jaw causing you to look up at the man above you with your face still stuffed full of his cock. It was unusual to see him with such a caring expression since he was always so emotionless. “Are you okay?”

“Shut the hell up,” Sanemi groaned, the intimate tone Giyuu had used toward you was getting on his last nerve, “You're gonna make me go soft.”

Sanemi’s hips vigorously slapped against your ass, his fat cock stroking your insides at a harsh, rapid, pace. You tried to be gentle with Giyuu but the momentum of your body made you pleasure him the same way Sanemi was pleasuring you, rough and sloppy. Each snap of his hips pushed your face along Giyuu’s cock, making you fit even more in your mouth than you already were. You moaned around his cock each time Sanemi’s balls hit your clit, giving you short bursts of electric pleasure.

Sanemi ignored Giyuu’s grunts of pleasure and focused on the noises you were making. The cock in your mouth and the sound of you gagging made whatever you were saying unintelligible but he could tell that it was three syllables long. He let out a laugh. “That’s right. Sa-ne-mi.” Each syllable was followed by a harsh thrust. Even when you were face first into another man's dick you were still moaning his name.

Giyuu’s torso tensed, trying to hold in a moan as your sounds sent vibrations through his cock. His fingers tangled themselves in your hair as he buried himself to the hilt, which proved to be slightly difficult with Sanemi’s swift movement. You almost choked as he spilt his seed down your throat. You swallowed his salty cum and pulled off his softening cock with a wet ‘pop’.

Sanemi took the opportunity to steal you away from Giyuu. He pulled you to the other side of the bed and threw you on your back, wasting no time climbing on top of you and easing his cock back into your tight cunt. Now that your mouth wasn’t occupied, both of the boys could hear you loud and clear as your moans of Sanemi’s name bounced off the walls.

This is what he’d wanted all along. He wanted Giyuu to see the passion and love you two held for each other. You stared into each others eyes as he fucked into you, your souls colliding. You held him close, calling out for him and only him. He wanted Giyuu to know that he wasn’t stealing his place in your heart. No way in hell. You were his until the end of time.

“Sanemi!” Even as your eyes clouded over from the overwhelming sense of pleasure that only he could give you, you didn’t break eye contact, keeping the doorway between your souls open until Sanemi would reach his own Nirvana. Even as your body was shaking from the overstimulation, tears brimming in your eyes, you still held him close. You were soulmates and Giyuu would never replace him.

You were His.

His.

His.

His.

“Mine,” he moaned as he reached his peak, releasing inside you and staking his claim. He brushed a few stray hairs from your face, his knuckles affectionately grazing your cheekbone. “Did I make you feel good?”

“It was amazing,” you assured him, combing your fingers through his hair. He stayed on top for you for a moment, drinking in your appearance. Despite all the teasing he put you through, he truly did love you more than anything. “You are so beautiful.”

You smiled up at him, relishing in his affection. Unfortunately, your lover's embrace didn’t last long. Sanemi tensed when he felt warm liquid ropes hit his back. He slowly turned his head to look at the man responsible. His soft features morphing into his usual terrifying expression of anger.

“Sanemi-,” you tried to stop him but it was too late, he tackled the Water Hashira off the bed and was now trying to rip his head off. Too tired to break them up, you pulled the covers over your body, falling asleep to the sound of your lover and best friend trying to kill each other.

[leveragehunters]

Downloading fanfic from AO3

I've been downloading a lot of fanfic lately for personal archival purposes, and I figured I'd share how I do it in case it's useful to anyone else (and so I have it written down in case I forget!).

There are lots of different ways to save fic, including the file download built into AO3, but I find that this gives me the nicest ebooks in the most efficient way.

(Under a cut cause long.)

Download Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/ or (clickable link).

Calibre is about the best ebook management and control program around and it's free. You can get it for windows, mac, and linux or download and run it from a portable storage device (I'm using a windows PC).

Install it and run it. It's gonna ask you where you want to put your library. Dealer's choice on this one. I recommend your internal drive (and then back up to external/cloud), but YMMV.

If you want to keep fanfic separate from the rest of your ebooks, you can create multiple libraries. I do, and my libraries are creatively named 'Books' and 'Fic'.

Customise Calibre

Now you're gonna install some plugins. Go to Preferences on the menu bar (far right), click its little side arrow, then choose 'Get plugins to enhance Calibre'.

At the top right of the box that pops up is 'Filter by name'. The plugins you want to get are:

EpubMerge

FanFicFare

Install them one at a time. It will ask you where you want them. I recommend 'the main bar' and 'the main bar when device is attached' (should be selected by default). When you're done, close and reopen Calibre.

The plugins you just installed should appear on the far right of the toolbar, but if you can't see one or both of them, fear not! Just click Preferences (the button, not the side arrow), then Toolbars and Menus (in the 'Interface' section) then choose the main toolbar from the drop down menu. That will let you add and remove things - I suggest getting rid of Donate, Connect Share, and News. That'll leave you room to add your new plugins to the menu bar.

(Do donate, though, if you can afford it. This is a hell of a program.)

Now you're ready to start saving your fave fanfic!

Saving fanfic

I'll go through both methods I use, but pick whatever makes you happy (and/or works best for what you're downloading).

ETA: if the fics are locked you can't easily use FanFicFare. Skip down to the next section. (It does ask for a username/password if you try and get a locked fic, but it's never worked for me - I had to edit the personal.ini in the configuration options, and even then it skips locked fics in a series.)

Calibre and FanFicFare

You can work from entirely within Calibre using the FanFicFare plugin. Just click its side arrow and pick from the menu. The three main options I use are download from URL, make anthology from a webpage, and update story/anthology.

Download from URL: pick Download from URL (or just click the FanFicFare button) and paste the fic's URL into the box (if you've copied it to your clipboard, it will be there automatically). You can do more than one fic at a time - just paste the URLs in one after the other (each on a new line). When you're done, make sure you have the output format you want and then go.

Make Anthology Epub From Web Page: if you want a whole series as a single ebook, pick Anthology Options, then Make Anthology Epub From Webpage. Paste the series URL into the box (if you've copied it to your clipboard, it will be there automatically), click okay when it displays the story URLs, check your output format and go.

Update series/anthology: if you downloaded an unfinished fic or series and the author updates, you can automatically add the update to your ebook. Just click on the ebook in Calibre, open the FanFicFare menu using its side arrow, and select either Update Existing FanFic Books or Anthology Options, Update Anthology epub. Okay the URLs and/or the output format, then go.

Any fic downloaded using FanFicFare will be given an automatically generated Calibre cover. You can change the cover and the metadata by right clicking on the title and picking edit metadata. You can do it individually, to change the cover or anything else specific to that ebook, or in bulk, which is great for adding a tag or series name to multiple fics. Make sure you generate a new cover if you change the metadata.

Browser plugins, Calibre, and EpubMerge

You can also use a browser addon/plugin to download from AO3. I use FicLab (Firefox/Chrome), but I believe there's others. FicLab: https://www.ficlab.com/ (clickable link).

FicLab puts a 'Save' button next to fic when you're looking at a list of fics, eg search results, series page, author's work list etc. Just click the 'Save' button, adjust the settings, and download the fic. You can also use it from within the fic by clicking the toolbar icon and running it.

FicLab is great if you're reading and come across a fic you want to save. It also generates a much nicer (IMO) cover than Calibre.

You can add the downloaded fic to Calibre (just drag and drop) or save it wherever. The advantage to dropping it into Calibre is that all your fic stays nicely organised, you can adjust the metadata, and you can easily combine fics.

Combining fics

You can combine multiple fics into an anthology using EpubMerge. This is great if you want a single ebook of an author's short fics, or their AUs, or their fics in a specific ship that aren't part of a series. (It only works on epubs, so if you've saved as some other format, you'll need to convert using Calibre's Convert books button.)

Select the ones you want to combine, click EpubMerge, adjust the order if necessary, and go.

The cover of the merged epubs will be the cover of the first fic in the merge list. You can add a new cover by editing the metadata and generating a new cover.

Combing with FanFicFare

You can also combine nonseries fics using FanFicFare's Make Anthology ePub from URLs option by pasting the individual fic URLs into the box.

Where there's more than a few fics, I find it easier to download them with FicLab and combine them with EpubMerge, and I prefer keeping both the combined and the individual versions of fic, but again YMMV.

Reconverting and Converting

Once I'm done fussing, I reconvert the ebook to the same format, to ensure everything is embedded in the file. Is this necessary? YMMV, but it's a quick and easy step that does zero harm.

If you don't want your final ebook to be an epub, just convert it to whatever format you like.

Disclaimers

Save fanfic for your own personal enjoyment/offline reading/safeguarding against the future. If it's not your fic, don't distribute it, or upload it to other sites, or otherwise be a dick. Especially if the author deletes it. Respect their wishes and their rights.

This may work on other fanfic sites, eg FFN, but I've never tried so I don't know.

If you download a fic, do leave the author a kudo or a comment; you'll make them so happy.

This is how I save fic. I'm not pretending it's the only way, or even the best way! This is just the way that works for me.

[yoredoesmore]

can I request soshiro x reader where the reader gets jealous of the new recruit because she's getting to handy with soshiro?

this is my first time requesting something please don't mind my english :`)

a/n: i feel so honored writing your first request :0! thank you so much for choosing me :> and no need to apologize!!

pairing: Hoshina x Jealous!Reader

genre: jealousy/ tiny bit of angst/romance/ fluff

[wc: 1,8k ]

enjoy!

Hands Off! | Hoshina Soshiro

You and Hoshina have been dating for some time now. This was the very first relationship you have ever been in, despite your age, therefore every experience with him felt vibrant and new.

The first time you kissed, for example, was a magical moment you would never forget. A long day of battle and work was about to come to its end and you were beyond exhausted. The only thing you wished for was to rest in your bed and Soshiro was more than happy to fulfill your wish.

He had brought you home, helped you get ready for bed and stayed until you were tugged in. A sweet atmosphere lingered in the air, one that had your mind floating like a cloud. The next thing you knew, you pulled your boyfriend by the wrist, begging him to stay with you for just a little longer. Your eyes met and the tension increased in volume, pushing the both of you further together until your lips connected. It was a tender kiss, full of love and affection. The way his hands wrapped themselves around your face, holding you close in the moment of intimacy and the feeling of his moist lips on yours– it was a heavenly sensation.

That night you fully comprehended the fact that Soshiro was your man. He belonged to you and nobody else and vice versa.

After that day, every little interaction felt like a dream. Be it a simple pat on your head or holding your hands while walking through the countless isle of the grocery store– the bond between the both of you grew with every moment. Even when at work, a place where romantic relationship were prohibited from meeting the public's eye, Soshiro still managed to create beautiful moments with you.

“Soshiro..what if we get caught.” You giggled, arms wrapped around the man's shoulders. The both of you stood in the storage room, one of the only places without any cameras.

“Then they will see just how crazy you make me.” He replied and placed another kiss onto your forehead.

The Vice Captain was known for being a tease and unserious during important moments but when he was with you, Soshiro was slightly different– or better said, he showed a side which was only meant for you to see.

That is why it stung much more than it should, when you saw him interact with a new recruit.

The first time you passed him by, things seemed to be normal. He was talking to this young woman who you believed had a question for him. You were delivering an important document to Okonogi, therefore you had no time to join the conversation but once you were done with your task you immediately returned to see your boyfriend– only to be met with this horrifying view.

The woman was laughing, or at least she was pretending to. One hand was placed in front of her mouth, hiding away half of her face, while the other rested on Soshiro's shoulder. It was a seemingly harmless hand placement but as her laughing progressed, she continued to touch all over his upper arm, as if she was petting him.

And as if that wasn't weird enough, Soshiro did nothing to remove her hand from his body. He just stood there, most likely enjoying the spike in ego her attention gave him. Yet you did not blame him. Your boyfriend enjoyed a good laugh and therefore accepted anyone who was willing to laugh with him into his presence. He was simply relishing in the joy of the moment but he was so lost in the feeling that he let his guard down.

Something in your head told you to rush over there and break up whatever situation they were having but then a second thought occurred to you. This could have easily been a misunderstanding.

You joined in the middle of an interaction with no knowledge of what happened prior to this moment. The woman could have been an old friend of his or maybe she was just mesmerized by his playful attitude. Convinced that you should wait before charging head first into their conversation, you decided to lay low for now. You were standing right next to the entrance of the ceremony hall, with a great view on both individuals. Upon taking a closer look, you saw just how close the woman stood to Soshiro, yet you decided to ignore that detail. But the more you watched them, the greater the feelings of unease and jealousy grew in you.

“No, because I totally thought that you were our Captain! I mean, the way you moved in today's training, that was so impressive.”

“Ya think so? Well, thank you but I must disappoint ya. Nobody is taking Captain's Ashiro's spot, especially not someone who can't use the big weapons.”

A slight frown pulled on your lips. Soshiro sometimes undermined his own talent because he was a blade wielder. It was something that you have noticed ever since you met him but he was of course so much more than that. Could this be the reason why she was so jolly with him? Maybe the woman was giving him words of encouragement?

I knew it wasn't like that! You thought and smiled.

“Oh please! You are so strong and talented, you could take her spot with a snap of your fingers.” She playfully nudged Soshiro's shoulder as she laughed. If her playful demeanor wasn't alarming enough before, Hoshina's reaction to him being touched again was gold clear. His brows furrowed and his gaze followed the spot the cadet had touched. It was merely a slight change in expression, as Vice Captain he could not allow himself to let his emotions get the best of him after all, but to you it was evident that he was just as fed up as you.

“I'd make you Captain immediately if I could.” One of her hands suddenly moved down to his wrist.

“No matter the position, I would follow you and come wherever you want me to, Vice Captain.”

Huh!? The voice in your brain was screaming in incomprehensible volumes. That sentence on its own was already suspicious enough, the multiple layers of meaning were enough to set your brain off. But the way she reached out for his hands, catching even your boyfriend off guard, it sealed the deal.

Hoshina of course immediately pulled his hands away, confusion and a slight bit of disgust written all over his face. But before he could even say anything you were already storming over there, ready to set the woman on fire.

“Take your filthy hands off him!” Both Soshiro and the woman turned their gazes in surprise upon hearing your voice.

“And who am I lookin at now?”

Is she giving me an attitude??

“None of your goddamn business.” You positioned yourself right between your boyfriend and the new recruit, no longer allowing her to move closer to Soshiro's body. The woman eyed you up and down, unimpressed by your appearance.

“Well, I don't see much anyway.”

“Excuse you..” If a Kaiju would have seen the look in your eyes, it would have turned to stone immediately.

You were not the type of person who directed her anger towards people. When stressed or upset, you made sure to store those emotions and release them all on the battlefield. That is how most of the people who worked at the base knew you– as this quiet and collected individual. Even Soshiro mostly witnessed you in your calm state.

But that was about to change.

“The Vice Captain is cute so I don't blame you for this poor attempt of flirting. But if you ever pull this shit again, this little touchy nonsense, you better believe I'm gonna take one of his blades and– ”

“Y/n.” Your boyfriend's voice no longer reached your ears. All your attention was focused on the woman who was now showing slight signs of irritation and how you could get rid of her.

“Ha! You think I'm scared of you, old lady? Don't get your blood pressure up, I was simply talking to my Vice Captain.”

The way she said those words, combined with that disrespectful tone of hers– that woman was itching for a fight. Instead of backing off and apologizing for hitting on a taken man, she stood her ground and was now arguing with you. This kind of behavior set you off more than any of her insults.

“Cadet.” Soshiro suddenly spoke up, silencing even the tension. Both his hands suddenly wrapped around your waist from behind, pulling you closer. You did not have to turn around to see the look on his eyes.

“Watch your tone around my girlfriend.”

“I-i.. girlfriend??”

“I already made a mental note to report ya behavior to the Captain. When addressing yar Superiors ya show them some respect and keep ya distance, or did ta forget? On top of that, you talked to another Superior in such disrespectful tone, a Superior who happened to be my woman– I might have ya transfer bases for this disgusting behavior.”

Your face burned with embarrassment as Soshiro demonstrated his power. He seemed more upset about the situation than you were, it was truly intimidating.

“Fucking scramble already and don't let this happen again, cadet.”

The woman's face went dry hearing his words, apologies immediately spilling from her lips. Hoshina simply dismissed her, not wanting to look into her face any longer. He has been trying to get rid of her ever since you first passed them by but she stayed persistent during all his attempts. If it hadn't been for your interruption, his only solution would have been to make a dash for it.

“Y/n, are you alright–” Soshiro looked down at you only to be met with the most adorable face he has ever seen a human make. Your eyes were slightly tearing up, but only a little, and your lips were pulled down into a frown.

“I totally let my emotions get the best of me!” you groaned as you hid your face in Soshiro's chest. The man, who was slightly surprised by the sudden change in behavior, moved his arms up to your back and pulled you closer into his embrace. His touch felt warm and gentle, as always, it calmed you right down.

“You are cute when you're jealous.” Soshiro joked, earning a long groan from your lips.

“But I feel so stupid. I know you wouldn't care about another woman, especially not some chick like her. Yet I still got upset when she touched you.”

“Which is a valid reaction, Y/n”

A soft kiss was placed on your forehead.

“I wouldn't want anyone touching you either. Heck, if I ever see someone even try getting close to you, I might have to neutralize them.”

“That's not very Vice Captain of you.” You looked up at the man and smiled. All feelings of irritation and annoyance were forgotten in the blink of an eye. Being in each other's presence had an effect on the both of you which couldn't be described by mere words. You truly belonged together, and nobody could ever make you doubt that.

“Once you get home make sure to scrub your arm thoroughly.” You joked as you exited the space.

“Was planning to, my love.” Hoshina chuckled and reached out for your hands to hold them.

[thesoftgirlguide]

A Soft Girl's Guide to Home Organization ˚˖𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚.🎀༘⋆

Decluttering and creating a peaceful sanctuary in your home.

I’ve had such a stressful, depressing week and one of the things that made me feel better everyday was coming back to a neat, decluttered room. As a soft girl, you must value comfort, elegance, and serenity in all aspects of your life, including your home. A cluttered and disorganized space can be overwhelming and draining, making it challenging to relax and unwind. In today’s guide, we'll explore gentle and effective home organization and decluttering methods, tailored specifically for a girl like you.

╰┈➤ The Soft Girl’s Approach to Decluttering

🌸 It all starts with a mindful mindset. Acknowledge that decluttering is a process, and it's okay to take it one step at a time.

🌸 Focus on gentle decluttering. Prioritize items that bring joy or serve a purpose, rather than strict minimalism.

🌸 Create a soothing atmosphere: Play calming music, light candles, or diffuse essential oils to make the process enjoyable.

╰┈➤ Define Your Organization Goals

Before you begin decluttering, set clear intentions. Ask yourself:

🌸 Why do I want to organize my home? Is it for relaxation, creativity, or efficiency?

🌸 What do I like about my home’s current layout? Identify what works and what needs changing.

🌸 What are my pain points? Recognize areas that stress you out.

╰┈➤ Crafting a Master Plan

🌸 Take Inventory: List spaces that need organization (closets, kitchen, living room, etc.).

🌸 Arrange tasks based on your life—room by room or category by category.

🌸 If you can’t do it all in a day, allocate time in your schedule for dedicated organization sessions.

╰┈➤ Decluttering Room by Room

🌸 Begin with small areas: If you’re cleaning out just your room always start with your bed. Once you take care of your bed, everything else looks “wrong.” You can move on to drawer, shelf, or closet to build momentum and confidence.

🌸 Sort items into categories: Group similar items together (e.g., books, clothes, kitchen utensils).

🌸 Use the "touch once" rule: Handle each item only once to avoid repetitive decision-making.

╰┈➤ Organizing Strategies

🌸 Utilize storage containers: Choose decorative bins, baskets, and boxes that complement your home's aesthetic.

🌸 Implement the "one in, one out" policy: Maintain a balanced amount of possessions to prevent clutter buildup.

🌸 Designate a "launching pad": Create a designated spot near the entrance for keys, bags, and other essentials.

╰┈➤ Tackling Paper Clutter

🌸 Create a paper sorting station: Designate a spot for sorting mail, bills, and documents.

🌸 Digitize important documents: Scan and store papers electronically, shredding or recycling the originals. If you can’t do that, find a place a store them.

🌸 Organize digital files: Use cloud storage and clear file names to access documents effortlessly.

╰┈➤ How to Maintain Your Sanctuary

Now that you’ve cleaned out your space, you have to maintain it. To do this:

🌸 Schedule regular decluttering sessions: Set aside time each month to maintain your space.

🌸 Practice mindful consumption: Be intentional about purchases, considering whether they align with your values and needs.

🌸 Embrace the "home for everything" rule: Assign a designated spot for each item to prevent clutter accumulation.

Transforming your home into a personal sanctuary requires patience, self-care, and willingness. Remember, organization and decluttering are ongoing processes – be kind to yourself, and enjoy the journey.

[bowieandqueen11]

Kissing Roman Roy Would Include...

Request: oh my god! your kendall roy kissing headcanons were adorable! would it be possible to get some for roman as well? i just know that man is touch starved and definitely had an awkward time kissing the reader early on in their relationship. obviously, you can choose to ignore but thank you!

Awww yes of course you can get some my love this man is 100% touch starved you’re so right <3

LADS OKAY I’M COMING BACK TO SAY THIS IS NEARLY 7K AND MY LONGEST FIC BY FAR LMAOO BABYGIRL CODED anyway comments are much appreciated because I am so tired lol ty ty ily all! :)

Warning: mentions of injuries/ blood, childhood abuse, and some swearing! Also MAJOR spoilers for Season 4!!

(I do not own Succession or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @xihatiancai.)

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

We all really took one look at Roman Roy and went wet pathetic disgusting meow meow man I love you, and I really love and appreciate that for all of us. Because like... if not babygirl, why babygirl coded?

The first time you guys ‘kissed’, you were both around seven years old: on the tennis court, Shiv had sent a ball flying at Roman that had bent his hand backwards, and left quite a nasty gash of blood running down his arm. Instead of comforting the brother she had just bruised for the umpteenth time, the set of Roman crawling down to sit on the grass while cradling his arm just made her furious, and she went storming off towards the kitchen for some chocolate milk to cool down. You had been watching from the doubles side line, dropping your own racket as soon as Roman began to snivel, squeezing his skin back together and wincing as warm blood gushed out onto the grass. You run over to kneel in front of him, the harsh rays of light blushing across your head like a halo as you grab onto his elbow. You press the back of your shirt against it, hoping it will do until a nurse or one of the waiters comes running out with a first aid kit; as you glance up, the furious face of his father comes pacing past the balcony doors, and so you turn Roman’s head to look at you instead, praying that he won’t spot him. It will only make him whine more. It surprises you when he curses curtly instead at the feel of your fingers pressing down hard against his wound, but when you mumble an apology he finally stops scowling down at the ground and looks up: it’s as if he’s seeing you properly for the first time. His eyes light up as you gently lean down and press a kiss against the bloodstains; just the slightest hint of pressure, and tingling warmth of your your lips is enough to send a flourish through his body and make Roman Roy feel nourished. No longer withered, no longer left to rot. Roman gazes up at you: past the dappled sunlight, past the dotted clouds, past the earth and skies and heavens, and past it all he sees you. 

You’re the first and last person he’s ever wanted to kiss. Like craving poison, he knows it will pass through and destroy him if he allows himself to indulge. But by god, if it wouldn’t taste so sweet as it pours down his throat and overwhelms every dilapidated part of his body.

The first time he works up the nerves to kiss you back, is in one of the pool storage huts just past the outer boundaries of his father’s estate. Shiv had finally convinced her father to allow her out into the city to go shopping for some new suits, and Ken had been chained into a business meeting to take notes for Logan, so Roman had been left all alone to wander around the ostentatious shadows and lonely halls of the house he hated to call home. Feeling trapped, like he couldn’t breathe, he wanders towards the ‘safe space’ the two of you had created a couple of years ago: a small nook you and Roman had spent the day nestling out (and nearly breaking his arm shoving unused surfboards and pool cleaning chemical boxes) in the dim, and slightly damp room. Finally feeling at home as he stepped into the mildew-steeped scent cloud that enveloped the square box stuffed full of things his father had wanted out of his sight, his heart is allieved to spot you already there. You don’t even have to look up from your book as he comes dawdling towards you like a puppy afraid it’s about to be kicked. When you open your arm up to him willingly, the true him comes leaping forth: like a darting hummingbird, he comes flying  into your side, nestling his chin on the hard part of your shoulder so he can scan the words lazily past your head. After about half an hour of him gripping onto your shirt, as sweet and softly as infant spring, he glances up towards your face and an overwhelming urge overtakes him. Before he can stop himself, before he can make sense of his decision, before he can chide himself for his weakness, he lifts his head up and presses his lips firmly, if a little harshly, against the side of your cheek. Your book crashes to the floor with a thunderous slap, lifting a small cloud of dust as you raise your fingers to the wet spot in surprise. He immediately shuffles backwards at the noise, before making an awkward, fumbling excuse and running out the door.

He never brings it up again, but whenever you’re round at the Roy residence after that you can feel the intensity of his eyes land on you far more often. He blinks away and scratches the back of his neck nonchalantly whenever you catch him, or sometimes scrunches his nose up and starts biting the edges of his fingernails if he’s really nervous. But the love is there. He just can’t say it yet.

Once, when you were the only person in the house besides Connor and Logan, you were asked by the second-born eldest son to help him find Romie. With a concerned sigh, Connor wanders off to check behind the bathroom door off the living room, his lips forming a tight line as he disappears off down the corridor. Turns out, Logan had found out that Roman had been the one to spill his ice cream cone in the car on the way back from his fencing lesson, and Roman had run off cursing and crying when he heard the roar reverberate out from his father’s office at the news. You know where he is, instinctively. Of course you do: you don’t even need to think as your feet guide you towards his bedroom, and your body shrinks down to scoot under the bed and lie on the pristinely clean floorboards. He’s hiding behind the tendril weeds of his fear, making himself as small a target as possible as he balls himself up, trembling like heavy branches when lanced with frost. From behind his raised elbows that protect his face, he’s sniffling, his feet leaving the ground every few seconds from how harshly they shake. You lie down carefully on your side beside him, so hyperaware of any part of yourself brushing against him, in case the wounded creature decides to bolt. Thankfully, he comes sliding towards you, only stopping when your chest does the job for him; being as physically close as he can get to you, he huddles into your embrace while you stroke back the few curls by his ear. Once you’ve finally managed to choke back your own tears, your lips latch onto the spot of skin by the lobe of his ear, eyes closing and ticking his skin. He warbles against you, shivering, and the kiss just makes him whine more harrowingly against your chest.

Romie’s always around you. Always. He finds it difficult to actually be physically intimate, so it says quite plainly (even if you can’t understand it yet) that you’re the love of his life when he comes barrelling down the front stairs of the veranda and straight into your hug whenever your first foot falls onto the estate. It also means that during family dinners, when he’s finally mastering the skill of slouching back in his wishbone chair and tuning out all the horrible and spiteful things wrapped up in faux sincerity his family are saying about each other, he turns instead to kick your feet under the table. The brush of his ankle against your shoe is soon followed by the heavy pressure of his fingers reaching over onto your lap and entangling with your own. When the two of you are finally excused, you decide not to go back inside straight away. Instead, the two of you go for a dander around some of the verdant fields around the edges of the property: a few green patches here there that are filled with the scent of honeysuckle and freshly blooming rainbows splattered amongst the dirt. You decide to stop and sit for a while on the edge of a cobbled stone wall, laughing as Roman nearly falls off the uneven patch as he settles down beside you. He shrugs you off with a wave of his hand, but he’s smiling as you pluck a daisy from between the blades and tuck it behind his ear. For a while, the two of you just exist: watching the sunset brew violet and lilac gleams across your eyeline, talking shite and poking fun at each other, until Roman shyly takes a break from his rapid talking to blink slowly. He leans his torso forward, and after a bashful burn flickers over his cheeks, he squeezes his eyes shut and plants a wet kiss against your cheek, just like he had done all those years before.

He climbs into your room later that night, and you nearly hit him with a baseball bat when you come strolling out of your bathroom to see a teenager laying splayed out in a heap on your rug, a few pages of your homework flying over your desk from where he had banged his knee and tripped. With a lopsided grin, he decides to just stay lying there (once you had convinced him that you weren’t going to actually hit him). Sometimes Roman just likes to watch what you’re doing: to observe as an outsider what normality, what contentment should and could feel like. As you sit by your lamp and finish off your english essay for the next morning, you notice with furrowed eyebrows that Roman is moochier than normal tonight: he keeps squirming, rolling about and whining as if he’s debating something in his mind. That’s why when he’s gripping onto the ivy and finally climbing back down into the darkness later that night, you grab onto the collar of his sherpa jacket and heave him up through the air like a flustered bird towards you. After his initial surprise at the feeling of you pounding your lips against his own, he melts into you: clumsily, messily, desperately, but with one hand gripping so hard onto your window frame that he splinters the wood. His top lip refuses to let you go: capturing onto your bottom lip over and over and over again, the sweet taste of cherry flooding your senses as you bite down on the lip forcing its way into your mouth. When he pulls away, he looks so uncharacteristically serious for a moment as he hovers a few inches away from your face. His eyes never break from your lips, as if he he looks away the miracle he’s been graced with might fly away and he’ll be left with the hellish nightmare of his normal reality. But it doesn’t, and so you let him go.

He burns a crimson red and starts muttering incoherently as his feet work their way back down the garden lattice, but he’s got this giddy smile and a spring in his swishing walk the whole way home.

I mean, like, of course Connor invited you on the camping trip. And man, I mean the tension that had been expanding between you and Roman over the last few years was becoming more and more obvious to his brothers, and it pierced Roman’s heart with a stroke of fear when he realised it was to him as well. Connor’s little fishing expedition by the river turned out a little differently than he expected: instead of a placid moment between family, learning and teaching new skills together and bonding over one activity they could all share in, it was more of a ‘watch little gremlin Roman flirt obnoxiously with Y/n and, once again, ignore everyone else’ fest. Kendall sat on the shore, itchy against the reeds of grass and sighing every time he looked down at his watch. Connor was still having fun, though, from where he was wading his brand new, and never worn again wellies into the shallow end of the creek. It was just that every now and then he would have to trip over his fishing line and scoot to the right to avoid large splashes of weedy water landing on him; Roman had decided a much better use of his time was to try and pull up handful of mud and chase you around the river side with it. Your squeals, as you ran around the tamarack trees and peered around the sides like a meerkat, could be heard from the campsite. So, too, could Roman’s hyena laugh as he went laughing around the bend after you, and Connor had to spend half the night ignoring your shared snickers as he apologies to camper after camper. 

I don’t even know how, but somehow the two of you managed to convince Connor that it was a great idea for you and Roman to share a tent. Thanks to Kendall’s pointed warning for the two of you to behave and ‘not embarrass the family name anymore’, you were both surprisingly well behaved during the night. Mainly due to the fact that before you fell asleep, you leant over and left a chaste kiss against Roman’s cold forehead, before turning onto your side facing him and wishing him a goodnight. He wiggled down into his sleeping bag like a little worm as the electricity from your touch spread down like firebolts through his body. That man did not sleep one wink that night. Not one. Instead he rolled onto his left side, and chose to spend his time contemplating you: taking you in. The milky buzz of twilight flooded through the loose zip, the chirp of bouncing crickets on the darkened rocks outside match the intense thudding of his heart. Fumbling his fingers up so they rested underneath the side of his jaw, he made himself comfortable as he observed the way your chest rose and fall: the way your nose crinkled up in disgust when you were in the throes of a weird dream, the way your mouth mushed as you turned more into the stony ground. How much he loved you. How happy he could be if he could just summon the bravery to tell you. How fucked he was. How, if he did, his father would immediately utilise it, weaponize his love against him.

Roman wasn’t stupid, but he was. He didn’t know if he could find a way to escape this cage. Deep in his heart, he knew there was no key to this dog kennel, to this bird cage, to this leash. But he lay there, still, dreaming of freedom.

You get invited along on their family holidays a lot, mainly because Logan spends his whole time on phone calls and not mentally being present so he doesn’t really notice you’re there. If you and Roman aren’t spending the afternoons sitting together on a sun lounger, reading aloud softly to him by the pool side, it’s spent actually in the pool. A freshly seventeen year old Roman had seemed nervous, besides the usual annoyance at having to wear nothing but swimming shorts: shaken all day; when you touch his pinkie finger and grip onto it, silently asking him with your stern expression if you were okay, only the most miniscule of grins could cross his face in response. He still seemed unsettled in the water, besides the fact that Shiv’s foot nearly thwacked him up the face as she and Kendall wrestled each other under the water, both unrelenting in their accusation that the other had lost their splashing match. While you watched on in horrified curiosity, you nearly jumped when you felt Roman softly touch your elbow and lead you away from the affray. You think he’s trying to guide you towards the Jacuzzis as you bob across the water, or perhaps back to his room to escape the antics of his family. Instead, Roman leads you further into the deep end for a moment; after a sharp turn right, you’re surrounded by a small well, a shallow area just out of sight of the main swimming area. The imposing walls loom over your head as you take a perched seat on the brick bench that runs around the semi-circle, and Roman’s breath trembles as he follows suit, sitting maddingly close to you. You open your mouth to ask him what’s going on, but before you can get a squeak out he’s lunged at you, fervently enough to make you nearly bite your tongue. It’s not super romantic, and it’s incredibly clumsy as an inexperienced Roman Roy mashes his lips against your bottom one until he can feel his teeth clash against yours. You can taste a touch of pineapple from the inside of his mouth as he sloppily raises his cupid’s bow, and soon after the tang of chlorine as he falls too far forward and sends you both tumbling backwards into the water. But when you come back up for air, heaving him up by his underarms and staring dumbstruck at him as he pants heavily and tries to look anywhere else, you burst out giggling. Roman’s smile grows brightly enough to blight the sun as he looks incredulously at you, the laughter only stopping short on his lips when he catches the squinting look of his sister watching the two of you from the boundary edge.

It’s the first and last time Roman Roy kisses you for a while, terrified that one of his siblings will go squealing to daddy and he’ll take you away from him. And then, suddenly, the two of you have grown up. Roman’s still stuck to you like glue, but the repression festers away in his stomach until he feels as if some kind of scaly tooth monster is gnawing away at his insides. He feels the leather tighten around his neck whenever he’s standing like an affronted ostrich in that office with his father, his master, his demise, his ghost, him. 

So, Roman starts to try and avoid you whenever he’s at Waystar, worried that the grief that never seems to leave his mind will strangle you if he lets you in. Terrified that his father will die, but also that his father will never die. That this is just another cage. Eventually, after weeks of him turning on his heels with a manic jolt and running out of every board room he spots you in: after months of the child dressed up as a man putting his phone to his ear and having nonsensical phone calls every time he passes you in the corridors, you manage to nab him when he’s walking out of the break room. Even though a stuttering cousin Greg thinks you’re trying to kidnap him when you grab Roman by the collar and start dragging him to the elevator, you refuse to let go until Greg’s waving hand is firmly shut behind the metal sheets. You let go, and he fumbles backwards onto the hand-rail that runs around the small rectangle with a bemused ‘what the actual fuck’, but you just cross your arms and stare at him, refusing to talk first. 

Your austere façade quickly drops, and you’re quick to slam your first into the emergency button on the panel, gripping onto Roman’s sleeve as the elevator lurches to a stop between the twenty-second and twenty-third floors. A kind of acceptance has washed over Roman, some kind of known and familiar claustrophobia from having spent his whole life locked up, his whole life thrown about sets in. He picks at his fingernails as his eyes dart about, wild and brutal and crushing as he looks around for an escape route. It’s only when you put a hand on his shoulder and draw him in for a hug that he breaks down; he squats down so the two of you are resting a few inches off the floor, his face buried just atop of your heart as he shakes and he cries and he allows himself the security to just crumble. To melt down. To kick his feet and hope his father feels the wring of the shackles against his own ankles. He hopes for the first time in his life, as you stroke the back of his head and shush him comfortingly, that they hurt him. 

Something changes between the two of you that day. You’re kinder to each other, and slowly to yourselves. It’s not outspoken, or rushed, or ravenous, but it begins to grow and grow and grow until it’s not only confusion and anguish that lies at the pit of Roman’s rotting core.

It starts with him becoming more comfortable showing affection to you around his family. Like you sitting on Roman’s lap at Shiv’s wedding reception, not listening to the speeches but trying to hide your giggles in Roman’s palms as he’s busy trying to take roses out of the centre piece and pin them through your hair. Or his full weight against you during the professional photos out on the balcony, and not even Shiv flicking her brother or Tom waving his hand at Roman to try and get him to behave could stop him from leaning backwards and planting a kiss underneath your jawline once the man said he was taking the final photograph. The two of you go out into the gardens later that night, trying to escape the ear-hammering loud beats of the D.J., and to try and make an early escape from the growing fight that seemed to be coming between Tom and Shiv’s old work acquaintance. With two beers and slightly tipsy heads, you sit down and talk on the dew-ridden grass, shoulders swaying against the other’s in time with the falling pine leaves. You felt like children again, and against the smouldering clash of fireworks that brandished the sky in bursts of red and gold, you both felt undying as well. He kisses you then, his hand reaching up to brush against the side of your cheek, his bottom lip teasingly tugging at your bottom lip and making you swat him away with a laugh. As you take his hand in your own and press a promise filled kiss against his middle knuckle, he hopes that one day he’ll be able to kiss you at your own wedding.

When you know he’s having a rough day at work, you like to try and sneak into his office and wrap your arm around his stomach, peppering kisses up and down his spine. Although he tries to shake you off like a startled starling at first, when he realises that you also managed to close the blinds on your way in without him noticing, he quickly relinquishes himself onto your barrage of adoration. He becomes all whiny, and soft, and needy, and all the things he’ll never allow himself to be outside of the security blanket of this closed off room. Although he still isn’t comfortable with anything too sexual, you won’t find him complaining as he wrestles you to the sofa. Once you’ve had the wind knocked out of your lungs, and Roman’s satisfied with how fully you’re splayed out on your back before him, he’ll go scuttling over to the end of the sofa and kneel down beside it. With a mischievous glimmer in his eye, he’ll swish his hips from side to side and come crawling up the sides of his body like a wolf slinking towards its dinner. Then he attacks: his tongue heavy and slick as he draws a hickey out just under the pulse point on your neck, pressing him firmly against you if you try to squirm away, chiding you with a warning. When it becomes too much, he lets you grip him up by his tie and walk him backwards until his thighs hit his desk. He jumps up to perch on it, and you stand between his legs as they tighten around you. You’re slow and careful as you loosen the material between your fingers, opening the first button of his shirt, and only the first so he doesn’t become too uncomfortable, with a satisfying loud pop. He whimpers as you lean over to scrape your teeth against the exposed skin, working your way up until your lips are tantalisingly hovering over the stubble on his jaw. He can feel your breath, hot and unsteady as it pants against him, but he still can’t stop the shiver that racks through him as he takes your hand and guides them under his shirt. With your hands firmly planted against his abdomen, you look at him quizzically, worried, but he just keeps his fingers on top of your own and answers you by sweetly pressing his top lip over his own. Just once, he wanted to feel safe, to feel okay with the love of his life touching his body.

The two of you have this game where you try to steal kisses from each other during the most inappropriate and annoying times possible. Oh, Shiv’s trying to talk to you in her kitchen about how her trip to England went? Roman barges in between the two of you, nearly making Shiv chop her thumb off, just so he can interrupt his sister by smirking against your mouth. Kendall wants to run through a presentation the two of them have to give the next morning? You’re grabbing onto Roman’s head as you run through the office, nearly giving him a heart attack as he scrambles backwards and allows you to drop his head back onto the cushion. With a full plant landing on his already pliant lips, Kendall’s left with a fed-up ‘hey’, yet unsurprised look of disappointment on his face as you run off back to your own desk.

When his father called Romie a moron in Prague, the look of desolation that crossed through his teary eyes was enough to make an angel weep. But it broke you even more when he pattered out of the dining area, walking shoulder to shoulder with you, but not saying anything. He was just staring down at his hands as if they were blotted: stained with specks of blood, and he would have to spend another sleepless night scrubbing them out of his skin. It wasn’t the first time he heard it, but it was the first time you were there to hear it too, and you weren’t going to let him get comfortable wallowing in that fearful acceptance. You grip onto his shoulder and steer him away from the milling crowd of sheep, stuffing him into a bathroom stall of the east wing of the hotel. Crowded together, Roman’s hamstring bumps against the porcelain as the two of you scoot about until you’re standing facing each other as best as you could. He looks at you, bleary eyed, and you look at him, bleary eyed. He breaks. Choking, gasping, breathless sobs, drowning in his misery. He grabs onto your shirt, clawing into the meat of your shoulders as if he’ll sink if he lets go. He keeps babbling through bubbles of spit about how he just wants to make his father proud, how he wants to be just like him, how he wants to prove that he can rule all this too. How he can never replace him. But he can. He wants it all to burn, but he wants to stand on the ruins and be the one to plant the foundations again. To make a better world, in honour of his father: in honour of the god of war that rages within his head. You press quick kisses on his sweaty forehead whenever you can, doing your best to dodge the quick turns of his head and wiping away the trails of tears with your thumb. All you can do in that moment, as you press your lips against the side of his ear and whisper it to the most intimate, lost parts of himself, is to let him know that you’re proud of him, no matter what happens next. You always have been, and even the ghost of Logan that possess Roman can’t stop that.

The sloppy kisses he gives you the next morning omg. When the two of you are sitting on your bedroom steps, and you’re biting your bottom lip in concentration as you try to do up the buttons of his dress shirt and make him look presentable in front of his family. Like a feral dog, he uses all of his leftover energy trying to nip and bite your fingertips, catching them on his tongue and pursing them against the roof of his mouth whenever he can.

You cannot convince me that Roman isn’t a jealous bitch. Like at Kendall’s fortieth birthday party, when he finally gives up trying to get up into his special little secret treehouse club, and Shiv has left him to go ham on the dance floor instead. You finally manage to convince him into relaxing for a fricking minute, making him join you at the bar. If someone tries to grab your waist, though, or butt into your conversation while the two of you are hyena giggling and seeing who can spurt more beer into the other’s face, Roman will full on goad them into fighting him. I mean, chest puffed out, crazed look in his face, hands up by his side until they send a weak shove in their general direction. It only ends when Roman either: near topples you to press a bracing kiss against your lips, or you dragging him off and having to hold him through the brackets of his arms. In the corner of the room, over by the sheets of warbling fire that seems to be coming from a central room, you stand behind his feet and wrap your arms up his chest. You can feel the fury roll off him, allowing him a moment to blow off the steam, until his head finally falls like putty and begins to synchronise his breathing to yours again after you hold your lips against the nape of his neck.

The kisses when he comes back after being held hostage (I am doing this so out of order apologies) omg??? He clambers sombrely to sit beside you on the deck of the boat, looking so out of place and serious as he leans back against the cushions. His siblings make fun of him, and tease him, and although he realises it’s harmless and he’ll see it as a key bonding moment a couple of years down the line, in the inside the typical Roy storm is brewing. He can’t say anything: just hides behind the jokes and snide comments so the words don’t choke him. You just feel his weight fall against yours little by little, until his hand reaches out and takes your own so tightly you know it’s going to bruise. The muscle in his jaw tightens and he squeezes his eye shut in an enduring pain at the sight of his father’s helicopter coming in to land. So, for that kind second before his life comes crashing back down around him again and he has to revert back, to hide behind the brick wall again, you take him over to the railings. It’s just the two of you, the warm sea salt stinging against your grimacing faces, and the ungodly sight of a near-naked Cousin Greg lying stretched out beside the slide below you. After a few goes, you manage to unlatch his claws from the white metal and replace them with your soothing palm, rubbing semi-circles against the back of his hand. You’re here. You’re here, with him. You’re not going to let him go it alone again, if he wants.

And he does. He could cry, he so desperately does. Some of the tension falls from his shoulders as he raises your joint hands to his lips and kisses them, gracing over every inch of skin his mouth can latch onto. 

You both know, in that moment, that it’s enough. It’s a promise. You’ll stick together, no matter what. You’ll love each other through everything, no matter what. You’ll stay around, no matter what or who he becomes.

Which brings me to... kissing him when you find out about the passing of his father. Standing on that boat, on the most joyous of occasions, feeling as if the whole world is shattering around you. Feeling miserable at the knowledge that deep down, some part of you is overjoyed by the news. Feeling even more downtrodden to realise, as the streaky eyes and thousand-stare faces of the Roy siblings flash back and forth in your line of sight as they pass the phone to each other, that Logan will never really be gone. They’re talking to his lifeless, empty shell through the speakers, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s here in this room. He’s staring through their eyes. Talking in their quivering, harsh voices. Pounding through their feet. Tearing them apart as they try to cling onto each other. In their accusations that burst through their mouths innately. In the ordered instructions hurled out to keep business running smoothly. Hidden between the cracks of their voices as they sharpen their words and seethe them out between clenched teeth when the slightest chance of Logan even being dead is raised. He’s here, right now, as you let go of the death grip Kendall and Shiv have on both of your hands and catch sight of Roman rocking backwards and forth on the floor.

Giving a final squeeze of apology to Connor’s arm, you take Roman out of the room before he combusts. The whole air seems to be chilled: still, like something’s lurking unspoken between the threads of air. Like you’re leading Roman through the cold remains of a morgue. He wanders around for a minute, not even hearing the click of the door as you close it behind you. Not even crying. Not even speaking. For the first time in his life, he looks so much like his father. Too much. It scares you. Until eventually he just closes his eyes and trods over to the wall, thumping his forehead down on the cool metal until it burns. He holds his hand out to you, cufflinks gleaming like the edge of a knife past the ceiling lights, as if he’s offering a contract out to you. Apprehensively, your tentative hand creeps out and places itself gingerly on top of his own. He takes it, his dry lips latching onto you until the bridge of his nose is resting now upon your hand. The deal is done.

When you get back to your apartment though, and Romie finds out that Matsson wants him to fly out and meet him in Norway... that’s when Roman gets weird. Devastated. Freaks out. Grieves. You come out from your shower, wearing one of his suit shirts as your pyjama top, and he doesn’t even give a whistle of appreciation. Instead he’s crumpled on the floor by the canopy of your bed, cradling his knees to his chest, swearing into his kneecaps furiously. But you - you, oh god, you’re the only thing that can stop him from being swallowed up by Logan’s fury. You tilt his chin up during a tangled rush of expletives I don’t dare to copy down here, a scowl setting itself into his face like stone. It begins to soften when he realises you’re touching him, when he can feel the scrape of your nail around his jugular. You do your best to warble an unconvincing smile as you turn his head to the side, so you can better wipe your bottom lip against the edge of his throbbing mouth. You mould yourself to him, working at his pace as he winces at first, before slowly falling more and more easily into your grip. His hands loosen from his arms and fall onto your triceps as he deliriously tries to come back to himself through searching through the velvety warmness of your mouth: by swiping against your tongue and choking back his grievances as you pant into his open, waiting mouth.

You wake him up the next day with a fond kiss against the tip of his nose, and for the first time in a long while he smiles before he wakes fully up. The morning light cradles his bleary face as he sleepily runs a few fingers over the edge of your cheek, before cradling himself into your side again. He feels safe, weary, anguished, loved enough to fall asleep again, after pressing a few gentle licks behind your earlobes to try and hear you laugh again. Even through it all, his main concern is you. 

You trace his features while he restlessly dreams, although he squirms from time to time and alludes you to the fact that he’s secretly awake. A kiss here, between the junctions of wrinkles on his furrowed forehead. A kiss there, on the patchy stubble just underneath his left ear. A few there on the dark circles underneath his eyes, until you’re balancing over him and holding yourself up by the hands splayed over his pillow. He just needs to be reminded he’s beautiful from time to time. That he’s perfect. That he doesn’t need to try and be someone else. To encapsulate his father. 

But also like, Roman fucking hates Matsson. The way he looks at you during the whole field trip, like a hunter about to swallow its prey whole. Although the continuous comments about his family, and the two new Co-Ceo’s, and the legacy of his father make him burn down to the pit of his stomach with a white hot fury, he can deal with them if he would just leave you the fuck alone. He doesn’t take kindly to anyone but him looking at his soulmate with such adoration and lust in their eyes, so if that overgrown yeti gives you the up and down check out one more time he might actually just deck him in the middle of the retreat. He bites down on his tongue so harshly that his taste buds begin to bubble and prickle with blood, deciding it best to storm off and collect his thoughts before he lashes out and does something he can’t take back. You finally manage to track him down a little way off the beaten track, winding your way over some cobbled steps to find a branched alcove with nothing but a bench and a breath taking view of the gushing river down below. He’s hunched over with his fingers knotted over his knees, his lips so tightly drawn together that at first you don’t even spot the droplets of blood until he turns with a raised eye to look at you.

He knows it’s not your fault, so there’s no convincing or apologies when you join him. Just Roman finally getting all of that pent up sorrow and distress out. After an awkward moment of bouncing your foot up and down, you decide your best course of action is to just open your arm up to him again, like you used to do when you were children. At first he raises a confused eyebrow, before the realisation dawns over his face, and his features crumble. His lips purse, his throat bobbing as he heaves the tears back down, but he can’t stop his lips from trembling as he falls into your side. That kiss was the sweetest, as he leans his chin familiarly against your shoulder and bumps noses with your own. He frowns, sobbing at the knowledge that he can kiss you, finally, in the way he’s been yearning for all his life, and yet it all feels so wrong. So upside down. So far away from what he had dreaming. The freedom feels like a tether, and yet he juts his chin out and latches placidly onto your bottom lip anyway, the tears trickling down and falling between your mouths. 

It’s an act of defiance. A key sliding into the lock. He still can’t say it, but he won’t allow himself to smother the feeling anymore. The first sip of poison gliding down his throat, and Roman prays as he presses his forehead tearfully against your own, that it would kill the Logan part of him first.

[bodymachine]

i think part of the reason that machines and obsolete pieces of technology are so viscerally interesting to us is because they remind us of our own bodies. things with buttons and levers and wires not only invite physical interaction (which is something beautiful and potentially radical in and of itself!!) but are easily anthropomorphized in that their heft and clunkiness elicit a sort of empathy in us. we realize that our bodies are not so different from machines, and it’s not because our bodies are sterile and cold and unfeeling, but because we all have these tangled insides and a desire to touch and to take up space in the world. we have such complicated relationships to our own bodies and we like tech that shows us how it can be touched and how it was assembled and how it can work and how it can fail. it is kind of body horror. it’s grotesque and erotic. we also realize that analog devices are being replaced and phased out of existence, and so there’s even more of an impulse to connect with them.

newer designs tend to emphasize sleekness and thinness and quiet and invisible parts and instantaneous results. i’ve heard of macbooks and iphones being described as sexy. they are not. a real sexy machine evokes the heat and weight and grittiness and entangledness of sex. so the condensing of functions into one tiny digital device and the storage of information in some invisible cloud and the forced reliance on a few entities that control the ‘progress’ of all that—as freeing as all of that can be in many ways that are worth considering, the implications for the future of our own bodily autonomy can definitely be frightening. i think that’s why it’s important to be intentional and interested in our physical interactions with any kind of object, but especially the old and the ordinary ones. to insist that they not become obsolete to us, and to insist on our ability to choose how they fit into our lives. that can be a sort of resistance to capitalism i think, that can start on the smallest level. that’s mostly what it boils down to, to me.

[heennnngggggarae]

Sunny side up

a/n : This is long, and by long I meant few hundreds word more than my usual drabble. also minor notes it might seem like this is totally out of character for Minghao, VERY VERY SORRY ABOUT THAT!!

ANYWAY please like and/or reblog to ket me know if you guys like it or not!!

Painting or anything art related is not a particularly strong suit of yours, so when Minghao asked you to accompany him on one of his painting sessions you didn’t think much of it. That is until he gave you a 6x6 sized canvas and a set of paint tubs and brushes.

“Why are you giving me this? I thought I was supposed to be staring at you while you paint and getting bored in the process,” You said after grabbing the equipment and putting it on the floor next to you, eyeing it uneasily. The sound of a sigh was heard before you tilt your head towards him and seeing his expression. Eyebrows furrowed and lips tight. You feel kinda guilty for saying that but it’s true wasn’t it? You prefer to watch Minghao paint rather than get into that mess of colors. 

“That’s exactly the reason why I’m giving you this,” he gestures to the discarded tools beside you before sitting in front of it and giving it to you again. “You look bored, yes. But I also saw how your eyes sparkle when you see me paint small details, so that’s why I bought you this,” 

You look at the brushes and the paints before looking at Minghao again. “At least try it once, hm? For me?” he smiled at you, silently trying to make you waver, which he won, darn that cute face. 

Sighing, you finally nod before saying yes to him. He clapped his hands together before standing up. “Great! I’ll set the easel on the table,” he said as he moved to the storage. 

“You bought an easel? For this mini sized canvas?”

“Of course, I had a feeling you’ll like painting sooner or after, so I just bought it in an impulse,”

“What if I still don’t like it?”

“Oh you’ll like it, beside I can use it even if you don’t”

Always thinking ahead with this one. “Alright then,” you shrug before grabbing the easel from Minghao and placing it on a nearby table.

What should you paint? Minghao? too hard for a first timer. The apartment? nah, too much stuff inside of it, a field with flowers? definitely. just blue sky and green grass, with patches of color for the flowers.

Grabbing the blue paint tube you splatter it on the canvas before spreading it as a base, making the sky. The blue unnerves you, shouldn’t it be more saturated? The sky on Minghaos painting aren’t this… boring. 

‘Whatever, I’m still a beginner at this stuff,’ You look towards the other tubs of paints beside the easel. ‘Maybe I should add a cloud? Wait, what flowers should I paint?’ 

Too focused on your painting, you didn’t notice Minghao looking at you with a small smile on his face. He barely even started on his painting when he decides to abandon it, choosing to sit in the chair behind you. Staring at your movement, placing the palette a little too rough, fidgeting with the paints, before grabbing one and placing it again, and scratching your head, made Minghao chuckle.

Turning back you’re surprised that Minghao wasn’t standing a few feet besides you, focusing on his own canvas.

“What are you doing there?” You asked him before placing your palette again and walking towards him.

“I can’t sit here and stare at my lovely partner?” he tilted his head to the side and looked up to you from where he’s sitting. You stuttered before sighing and turning back towards your painting.

Smiling at your back, Minghao decided to stand up before wrapping his arm around your waist, peeking at your painting. Though his smile falters when he actually sees it.

“Why is there an egg between the grass?” He ask tilting his head towards the painting.

“What are you talking about?” You asked him back before focusing back and paint more flowers between the grass.

“You’re painting an egg between the grass again,” He said pointing to the flower you just made. 

You look back towards him with a questioning gaze. “Minghao, that is a daisy,” 

He stayed silent before looking at the flower you just painted and back to you.

“That doesn’t look like a daisy” 

“IT DOES! look it got yellow and white, a daisy,” you said exasperatedly 

“It looks more like a sunny side up,” He said as he picked up the canvas, observing it carefully

You pouted at his words before placing the palette on the table and sat at the chair, crossing your arm. “This is why I don’t want to paint, I rather sit back and observe you”

Minghao cooed at your pouting face before putting the canvas back at the easel, and walked towards you. He hugged your body before apologizing to you.

“Sorry for forcing you paint, and saying your daisy looked like a sunny side up”

You sighed at his words before hugging him back. 

“Apology accepted”

Hearing that Minghao smiled before pulling back a bit. “You looked like you enjoyed it a lot though”

“I did, actually, and I now realized that my daisy does look like a sunny side up” 

“So this means I’m right?”

“Shut up”

[f3mme-f4tale]

☾ bound by bloodshed ☾

part four

⇠ part three word count: 3.7k potential warnings: explicit language, mean!ellie, mild sexual content, fluff at the end?? pairing: seattle!ellie x female reader ☾ mood board authors note: this is more of a filler chapter than anything else, so i apologize. theres been a lot of changes in my life over the past few months -- so i've been trying to deal with that. regardless, i have a lot more free time now that ive graduated form college & moved (yay!), so hopefully (fingers crossed), i'll be more active on here :)

FREE FREE PALESTINE!

You kick at the dirt with the rubber sole of your shoe, feeling the grit shift beneath your feet, a tiny cloud of dust puffing up like a sigh too weary to lift off the ground. It’s the same sigh that escapes your mouth, the sound barely more than a breath of resignation. Ellie pretends not to notice – or maybe she does and just chooses to ignore it – her determined stride carrying her further ahead, her silhouette hunched slightly under the weight of the days and miles. It’s infuriating how stubborn she could be, how she can walk right past you, eyes set on the distance, as if the tension between you doesn’t hang in the air, thick and unyielding.

It’s been two days since you’ve tasted each other, two days since that frenzied collision of lips and limbs. Two days, and Ellie is still reeling in the aftermath, the memory of your shared warmth now a cold space between you. The military base should only be a few more days out, but every mile feels like it’s dragging the earth with it, the ground itself conspiring to keep you from reaching any sense of normalcy.

“Up there,” she mutters, digging around in her bag as she gestures up ahead to the remnants of an storefront – Walsh’s General written in faded ochre lettering above the door. Ellie goes to mess with the front door only to be met with an unmoving lock. 

“Hold up,” you say, lightly pushing past her to kneel in front of the latch. A disordered piece of discolored metal slips from your front pocket, your fingers pushing the shiv into the lock with practiced ease. The familiar click of the tumblers falling into place is a small victory, a sound that seems to echo in the stillness of the abandoned street. You push the door open, and it creaks in protest, the wood swollen and warped from years of neglect.

Ellie steps in first, bravado always hindering, eyes scanning the dim interior. The air inside is thick and stale, filled with the scent of old dust and decaying wood. Shelves stand half-empty, their contents long since looted or ruined. A few cans of food, some faded clothing, and a scattering of other forgotten items are all that remain.

"Let's see what we can find," Ellie says, her voice low but determined. She moves deeper into the store, her movements careful and deliberate. Despite the tension between you, there's a sense of unspoken understanding; you both know what needs to be done.

You follow her lead, moving to the back of the store where a set of stairs leads to what was once an office or storage room. The floorboards groan under your weight, and you have to tread lightly to avoid falling through. Ellie remains on the ground floor, rifling through the shelves, while you ascend the creaky staircase.

At the top, you find a small room, its walls lined with dusty boxes and old papers. A single window lets in a thin beam of light, illuminating the dust particles that dance in the air. You approach the window, peering out at the deserted town beyond. Outside, the world is a tableau of decay, the buildings slumping like weary travelers, their facades peeling away in layers. A deer cautiously steps out from behind a crumbling wall, its sleek body almost ghostly in the fading light. For a moment, you watch it, captivated.

The deer suddenly freezes, its ears twitching as if it senses something you can’t see. Then, in a blur of movement, it darts back into the shadows, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. The stillness that follows is almost suffocating, and that uneasy feeling in your gut tightens once again. You turn away from the window, pushing the momentary distraction out of your mind. There's nothing to gain from dwelling on what you can't change. Instead, you focus on the task at hand; the room offers little in the way of comfort or safety, but there’s a chance it might hold something of value. 

Your eyes land on a particularly large, dust-covered box in the corner. It’s sealed with old packing tape, its once vibrant logo now faded and peeling. Curiosity, or perhaps the need for something to distract you from the growing tension, drives you to your knees, your fingers carefully peeling back the brittle packing tape that holds the box closed. The box gives way with a soft crackle, revealing a jumble of items inside.

You sift through its contents, finding old rags, a few yellowed notebooks, and a tarnished ring. Nothing of immediate value, but then your fingers brush against something cool and metallic. You pull it out, revealing a small, rusted tin canister. The label is barely legible, but you recognize the symbol – it's an old military supply canister, the kind that usually held emergency rations or medical supplies.

Excitement flickers in your chest as you twist the lid open. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, is a small stash of medical supplies – a roll of bandages, a few vials of antiseptic, and a couple of syringes. It’s not much, but in your world, it’s a treasure.

“Ellie’s going to be thrilled,” you whisper to yourself, carefully tucking the canister into your bag. A crumpled up piece of paper drops from the canister – a curious predicament.

You unfold the paper, its edges fragile, and find not just a note, but a letter that seems to have been written in a rush. The handwriting is small and neat, though the ink is slightly smudged, as if the writer’s hand had trembled. Nestled within the folds of the letter is a small, faded photograph of a man and a woman, standing close, their expressions solemn but tender. They aren’t smiling, but there’s a quiet intimacy in the way they lean into each other, a shared understanding.

Annabell, I’ve fought against everything that’s kept me from you. I tried, Annabell, I really did. But trying wasn’t enough, and that will haunt me. Of all the choices I've made, the one that keeps me awake at night is not being by your side. We were always more than just two people – more like threads spun together, impossible to separate without unraveling completely. This letter isn’t a goodbye, though I fear it feels like one. We were never ones for dramatic gestures or tearful farewells, were we? So I’ll spare you that. If you find yourself heading north, there’s a place that might offer some safety. Look for the old oak in the front – the one with the hollow trunk where we used to hide our notes when we were kids. I left something there for you. I hope you find it. I hope you make it. And if you don’t… well, if you don’t, then at least know this: Every decision I made was to try and make the world a little less cruel for you. For us. Maybe I failed, but it was never for lack of trying. If someone else finds this letter, I hope you carry it forward. Maybe it’ll mean something to someone. Maybe it won’t.  I'm sorry Annabelle. Matthew. 

The letter hits you with a quiet intensity, the words measured and grounded, stripped of any romanticized finality. You gently pick up the photo, studying the faces of the couple. Their faces are looking at one another, a knowing look passing between them like a punch to the gut, raw and real in a way that makes the dusty room around you seem even more desolate. 

When you make your way back downstairs, Ellie looks up, her gaze curious but wary. You pull out the letter and the photograph, handing them over without a word. She doesn’t react much at first, just taking in the words and the faded image. After a moment, she hands it back, her expression a little more thoughtful than before.

“Did he make it?” she finally asks, her voice subdued.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” you reply quietly. Ellie shifts slightly, moving her weight from one foot to the other. She doesn’t meet your gaze, her eyes instead fixed on some distant point in the room, as if looking directly at you might break the fragile peace that’s settled over this moment. The tension between you has been a constant companion, a silent third party in your journey, but now it feels different, heavier, more present.

“They were holding on to something,” she says, her voice quieter than usual, almost as if she’s speaking to herself rather than to you. There’s a sadness in her tone, a kind of weariness that you recognize all too well – the exhaustion that comes not just from the miles you’ve walked or the battles you’ve fought, but from carrying the weight of memories. 

“Seems like it,” you reply, slipping the letter back into your pocket. The silence stretches, but it’s not uncomfortable. Ellie’s gaze lingers on you for a second longer than usual, her eyes searching yours for something – understanding, perhaps, or maybe reassurance that the words you’ve just exchanged mean more than they seem. But before you can offer anything, before you can even think of what to say, she looks away, the moment passing like a brief pause in the rhythm of your steps. It’s a fleeting connection, a moment of vulnerability that’s here and then gone, lost in the vast expanse of everything else that remains unsaid between you.

You both know the score, the unspoken agreement that binds you – survival first, everything else second. But something has shifted in the dynamic between you, even if neither of you is quite ready to acknowledge it yet.

Then, without another word, you both move on, the creaking floorboards underfoot the only sound that accompanies you as you head toward the exit. But as the door closes behind you with a soft thud, the mood shifts, subtle at first. You can sense it before she even speaks; Ellie’s demeanor changes, her shoulders tense as her steps grow more deliberate, more forceful. 

“Was that all you found?” she asks, her voice sharp and laced with impatience. The softness from just moments ago is gone, replaced by a hard edge that catches you off guard

You’re taken aback by the sudden change in tone, but you quickly shake off the surprise and respond with a controlled voice. “I mean, there were just some old rags and useless company papers up there, if that’s what you mean.”

Ellie’s eyes narrow, the frustration in her gaze intensifying. “So you didn’t actually find anything useful, then? Great. Just great.” Her tone is dismissive, almost accusatory, and it stings more than you’d care to admit. The way she says it, the implication that you’ve somehow let her down, it’s like a slap in the face after everything you’ve been through together.

You raise an eyebrow, your irritation growing. “I didn’t see you finding anything of value. Maybe you should’ve gone up there yourself if you thought it was so easy.” The sharpness in your voice reflects your own mounting frustration.

Ellie’s face flushes with a mix of embarrassment and anger. Her hands ball into fists at her sides, her posture rigid. “It’s not about the supplies,” she snaps. “It’s about you acting like you’re doing everyone a favor by finding something we already knew was probably useless.”

You throw your hands up in exasperation, your frustration boiling over. “I’m not acting like I’m doing anyone a favor. I’m just trying to make sure we’re prepared for whatever comes next. But if you’d rather sit around and wait for something to magically appear, that’s fine too.”

Ellie shakes her head vigorously, her voice rising with each word. “You know what? Maybe I would if you didn’t keep making everything so complicated. You’re always trying to prove something, and it just makes everything worse.”

“Prove something? What are you talking about?” You shoot back, your patience wearing thin. “I’m just trying to survive, same as you. If you stopped making everything a competition, we’d actually get somewhere.”

Ellie’s laugh is bitter, her frustration palpable. “God, you love to pat yourself on the back. But I guess that’s just your thing – acting like you’re the hero when you’re really just making a mess.”

You’re silent for a beat, fully taking in her jab. Is that what she really thinks of me? Sure, you had exasperated your fair share of insults; but that seemed over the line. It’s one thing to clash over strategies or tasks, but her comment feels like a personal attack.

At this point, you can feel the argument spiraling into pointless bickering, the tension in the air thick. “Fine! If it means that much to you, I’ll let you handle it. I’ll let you handle everything. I’m done trying to help. ”

Ellie scoffs, the exasperation clear in her voice. “I never asked you to.” 

⭒⭒⭒⭒

Ellie and you sit on opposite sides of the campfire, the darkness amplifying the unspoken frustration that lingers between you. The day’s patrol had been grueling, and the tension between you two is nearly unbearable. Ellie glances at you from across the fire, the glow from the flames dancing eerily on her freckled face.

You chance a glance at Ellie, her lips tightly pursed, and her knuckles white as she grips the edge of the rock she's sitting on. She seems lost in her own thoughts, and it's clear that she's just as uncomfortable with the situation as you are. Ellie breaks the silence first, her voice harsh and cutting. “You know, you really have a talent for pretending everything’s fine. How do you manage it? Acting like you don’t care about anything except what’s right in front of you?”

You shoot her a sharp look, the accusation hitting hard. “Oh, don’t even start. It’s not like you’re any better. You’ve been walking around with this chip on your shoulder, acting like I’m the cause of all your problems!”

Ellie's eyes widen slightly, her grip on the rock tightening even more. Her jaw clenches as if she's holding back a flood of retorts. "Excuse me? Me? I'm the one with the chip on my shoulder? That's rich coming from you." Her voice is laced with both anger and hurt. She leans forward, the fire casting shadows across her face. "Ever since we got paired up, it's like you've been counting the days until we're done. Like I'm nothing more than a nuisance."

“And you’re just so perfect, right?” you snap back, standing up, your frustration boiling over. “You act like you’re handling it all, but you’re the one pushing everyone away because you’re scared of actually dealing with it!”

Ellie stands as well, her voice rising. “Scared? Scared of what? Dealing with your endless stream of excuses and half-assed attempts at being a decent partner? Newsflash: I’m not here to babysit your emotions!”

“You know what? Fuck you,” you shoot back, stepping closer, your anger palpable. “You’re so sick of me? Tomorrow I’ll be gone.” The argument is raw and unrelenting, every word a dagger. The emotional weight of the day, combined with the unresolved tension, erupts between you. Ellie’s frustration and your own anger collide in a chaotic, volatile mixture.

And in a moment of impulsive recklessness, Ellie grabs your collar, yanking you closer. It’s not a gentle kiss, but a clash of emotions and raw need, driven by the tension that’s been simmering for so long. You respond with equal fervor, your hands finding their way to her face, pulling her closer.

The kiss is a desperate release, a tangled knot of emotions unraveling in a moment of primal need. It’s messy, rough around the edges, but it’s also real and unfiltered. You push her back against a nearby tree, the rough bark pressing against her back as the kiss deepens. The pain blends with the heat of the moment, and despite her internal conflict, you find yourself returning the kiss. Her hands rest on your waist, unable to decide whether to push you away or pull you closer.

“You’re so fucking annoying,” you manage to utter, fingers running through auburn locks. The other girl scoffs against your mouth.

"And you're just as annoying," Ellie snaps back between kisses, her fingers digging into your hips. “Insufferable... Aggravating... Impossible..." She mutters, the words lost in a clash of kisses and tongue.

“Say you need me,” you demand, holding her face. Ellie pauses, the words caught in her throat. She hesitates, her eyes locked on yours. The admission hangs in the air, caught between desire and pride. But slowly, reluctantly, she concedes. Her breath shivers slightly as she speaks. 

"I need you.”

She unfastens the buttons on your shirt, one by one, her movements deliberate and filled with barely contained need. Hesitantly, you capture a stray piece of hair between your knuckles and brush it behind her ear. Ellie's attention flickers to the touch, leaning into your hand and expression softening for a moment. You swear she could feel the fast pace beat of your heart against her chest, breath hitching in your throat. You pathetically whimper as she palms your stomach, wanting nothing more in that moment for her to do inappropriate things to you in the middle of the fucking forest. 

A hushed moan left Ellie as she traced patterns onto your lower abdomen, the other woman getting off on your body’s reaction. In turn, your skin felt on fire, Ellie’s touch igniting a blaze within you; as if she was the match and you were burning. Her kisses move from your mouth to your jaw, then down your neck, each one like a scorching brand against your skin.

"Ellie... you're maddening," you pant, a needy edge to your voice. "I want to strangle you... and kiss you senseless."

She drags her lips back up to yours, capturing them in a kiss that’s as much a challenge as it is a surrender. It’s rough and needy, like she’s trying to prove something, trying to make you understand just how deep you’re both in. You clutch at her shirt, desperate for something to hold onto, feeling like you might fall apart if you don’t.

But beneath the rawness, there’s a tenderness that neither of you can deny. It’s there in the way her hand trembles slightly as it trails up your side, in the way she hesitates just for a fraction of a second before deepening the kiss, as if she’s afraid of breaking something fragile between you.

There’s a softness in her eyes that wasn’t there before, a vulnerability that takes your breath away. “Don’t leave,” she says quietly, almost like a plea.

Within minutes, Ellie was on her knees. 

⭒⭒⭒⭒

Ellie’s face is soft in the dim light, her features relaxed in a way that you rarely see anymore, the hard edges of survival temporarily softened by the quiet peace of the early morning. There’s a hint of a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, a subtle curve that you catch out of the corner of your eye, and you turn to her, curious. 

“Hey,” she begins, her voice low, almost hesitant, as if she’s not quite sure she wants to break the spell of silence that has settled over you. “Remember that time we tried to make a treehouse out of scrap? We thought we’d live in it and everything.” Her words are light, almost playful, a stark contrast to the usual tension that accompanies your conversations, and you can’t help the smile that tugs at your own lips in response.

The memory she’s conjured is vivid, a flash of color and sound that washes over you in an instant, transporting you back to a time when things were simpler, when the weight of the world hadn’t yet settled on your shoulders. You can see it clearly in your mind’s eye – the two of you, younger, more carefree, standing in a sun-dappled clearing back in Jackson, surrounded by the scattered remains of what was supposed to be your masterpiece. The air had been thick with the scent of pine and freshly cut wood, the sound of your laughter echoing through the trees as you hammered and sawed, your hands sticky with sap and dirt.

You laugh now, shaking your head at the memory, the sound of your voice startling in the stillness of the morning. “Yeah, and we ended up with a pile of broken wood and a lot of splinters. Didn’t exactly turn out like we planned.” The words are tinged with nostalgia, a warmth that spreads through your chest as you recall the look of determination on Ellie’s face, the way her brow had furrowed in concentration as she tried to fit the mismatched pieces of wood together, her tongue poking out slightly in that way it does when she’s really focused.

Ellie’s laughter joins yours, a light, genuine sound that fills the space between you, breaking through the tension that has lingered there for so long. It’s a rare moment of levity, a brief respite from the seriousness that has come to define your lives, and you find yourself savoring it, the sound of her laughter like a balm to your weary soul.

“Yeah,” she agrees, her grin widening, her eyes bright with the memory. “But it was fun. And it was ours.” There’s a note of pride in her voice, a quiet satisfaction that comes not from the end result, but from the effort itself, from the shared experience of creating something together, no matter how imperfect.

You look at Ellie, really look at her, and in the soft light of the approaching dawn, she looks younger somehow.. There’s a lightness in her gaze, a vulnerability that she rarely allows herself to show, and it makes your heart skip a beat, a quick, fluttering sensation that catches you off guard. It’s not just the memories that have stirred something within you, not just the shared experiences that have brought you closer over the years – it’s the way she looks at you now, the way she allows herself to be open, to be seen, if only for a moment.

“Yeah,” you say softly, the word barely more than a breath. “It was.”

fic taglist: @seraphicsentences @onlinelesbo @yumimak @elliewilliamsblunt @bready101

[grimbanes]

I Was Using You. Kaz Brekker x GN! Reader.

Summary: “You’re right.” You muttered, dropping into a squat against the wall and cradling the sides of your head, then rubbed your eyes with the palms of your hands, “I want my time back. I want all those hours I spent worrying about you back. I want all the information I passed to you back. I want my heart back, Kaz. Most of all I want you to give my love back.” OR kaz had you both practice being around each other and acting as a couple would to prepare you both for a heist but you ended up falling for him for real. Part 1 of a twoshot. WC: 2.9k GENRE: ANGST, minor humor. tw: blood, guns, violence, the usual six of crows warnings. A/N: i had a lot of fun writing this one but part 2 will definitely be more angsty <3

“The truth of the matter is that I was using you,” Kaz’s words felt as chilled as the water running through the canals throughout Ketterdam’s cursed streets. You stared at him with your brass knuckles loose around your fingers, unable to hold your fists and you felt yourself lean back against the wall behind you, disbelief clouding your judgement. Nina’s words echoed in your mind: “Kaz is a good actor, just as good as me and I’m military trained and yet… I couldn’t even pretend to be in love like that. I think he really does feel for you.” 

“You’re a thief,” You breathed with dawning dread, brushing the back of your hand against your cheek and wiping blood and dust across your sweat soaked skin. The job had been perfect, gone smoother than anything and now you just awaited the signal from Wylan that it was clear to make a swift exit. You had played your role for months for this job and you hadn’t even realised you were a puppet on a string. All those nights in Kaz’s office, the coffees you brought him, the little notes he left around for you. It was all preparing you to play the role for that heist and selfishly, Kaz knew how to make you fall for him for real, reality winding you in the middle of a dingy storage room in a warehouse on some island off of the coast of Ketterdam. 

“We all had a job to do and you’re the least reliable. I did what needed to be done,” Kaz’s icey gaze didn’t waver with uncertainty but there was a rigidness in his frame, all straight lines deadly still rather than flowing like waves licking at algae-slick rocks. In his impossibly dark suit, jacquard waistcoat and bronze pocket watch, he stood towering, tall and domineering and with just a single sentence, he turned from your favourite person to walk on the cobbled streets to the Devil himself. 

“Give it back,” You heard yourself mutter out, your eyes wide and hand clutching at the front of your shirt. Your heart was breaking over and over the more you stared at him. The more you studied his gloves, reminiscing of the bare hands that had tucked your hair behind your ear. The soft smiles he often threw your way from across the Crow Club’s floor, just the hint of a curve that only you or Jesper could identify. The way he would work himself late into the night and silently ask for a drink with that twinkle in his eyes, relying on you for something he could easily do himself because he wanted you around him.

You wanted to march across the room and kick his cane from his grasp and sock him in the jaw. You wanted to march across the room and grab the front of his stupid coat and tell him that it's okay to feel for you. You wanted to do so much but most of all, you didn’t want to be the person to make that decision for him. You need Kaz to choose you for himself, not coax him into wanting you. Not in the way he had done to you and then ripped your heart from your chest with the proficiency of a heartrender. Dirtyhands, indeed. 

“I don’t know what you’re asking me to return,” Kaz spoke up with his raspy timbre, absentmindedly tapping his cane against the rickety floorboards but other than that, the only movement in his tall frame as the tensing of his jaw, a subtle flex of muscle beneath alabaster skin. 

“You’re right.” You muttered, dropping into a squat against the wall and cradling the sides of your head, then rubbed your eyes with the palms of your hands, “I want my time back. I want all those hours I spent worrying about you back. I want all the information I passed to you back. I want my heart back, Kaz. Most of all I want you to give my love back.”

It was a weighted statement. Did you mean for him to give it back and love you in return or did you mean to give it back because he didn’t deserve to have it? You didn’t know that much, you just knew it to be your truth. It was a confession of your feelings, one that Kaz Brekker was certainly not used to despite his intelligence and observational skills. 

“I didn’t promise you anything,” Kaz’s stupid voice brought you from your rapture and you silently agreed. He hadn’t promised anything and that was your mistake. Kaz never went back on his word if you managed to get him to give it to you first. There may not be any honour in thieves, but there was honour in being Kaz Brekker. 

You brought yourself to your feet and steeled yourself, quashing those feelings that wanted to burst from your chest and bloom hydrangeas, rescinding all the words that dared wish to roll from your tongue. You would not waste your breath because the young man in front of you was not someone who bothered with such niceties. You would not give him the chance to see you beg. You would not beg for love you knew you deserved so instead, you would play your role and dance to the tune the piper played.

“It’s better this way, anyway. I should be thanking you,” You eyed the door, adjusting the bandages you tied to your wrist to support your punches and then you grabbed the little knife you stored in your boot, brass knuckles tight around your fingers. A loud explosion echoed in the far distance and you cast him a glance. You both had a job to finish.

Kaz didn’t reply, just lowered to a squat that mirrored yours prior and flirted with the lock of the door they hadn’t entered through, deft fingers caressing sweetly and crooning a symphony to each little motion until the lock was bursting open to embrace him, only to be discarded and pushed open to reveal the hallway in front of them. You stepped past his hunched frame, leaving himself to get up on his own because he was more than capable. You approached the narrow wall that turned down a corner and peered over, gesturing your hand that it was clear and then began to push forward. The plan was to slip through a window and down onto the next floor, make a run for it as Jesper and Nina created a distraction. It was simple and you could both do it with your eyes closed.

The uneven steps behind you was enough for you to know that Kaz wasn’t using his cane to walk, no doubt feeling that ache in his shin and thigh that you would offer to get a chair for him to prop his leg up, telling him of little remedies your grandmother had told you about before her passing. It left a bitter taste on your tongue because you could have had that. You both could have had that but Kaz didn’t care for anything unless it came with a price tag or a promise of vengeance. A comforting lie. Kaz did care. He cared deeply, in his own way. He cared by lying for you. He cared by spinning little webs with his vile tongue and smoothing each little mistruth with enough certainty that it became absolute reality. Kaz cared by giving you your loved one’s share of money when they lost their lives. Kaz cared by thinking of you as family and having loyalty to you even if he didn’t mean for it. He cared by lowering his hat when you lost your life. His care was as cruel as he was, but it was still enough to regard. 

You both approached the window but rather than let Kaz unlock it you slashed the lock with your knife and hoisted it up, throwing one leg over until you were straddling it and turning your gaze to Kaz.

“Do you want a hand?” You asked, offering him your hand with your palm turned up but he stared at you, jaw taut but his eyes held somewhat amusement.

“I would prefer a leg,” He retorted, stepping closer and gesturing for you to hurry out of the window with an impatient wave of his hand, thrusting his cane into your grasp. 

He held it up and open with one glove covered hand, eyes cast behind them and then back to you, repeating the glances over and over as you gripped the window sill and let your body hang, throwing it into a swing and through the window below, slipping through the next window that Kaz had conveniently left open previously. Then you leaned out the window, over the sill and held your hands out whilst Kaz lowered himself through, your fingers locking around the bottom of his ridiculously fancy shoe attached to his bad leg and you helped him through the window with ease. Little things like letting you help him had you wishing to punch him in the gut and confess your undying love all at once. Ridiculous. You handed back his cane.

You both set off in perfect, uneven steps towards the flight of stairs, light on your feet and near impossible to detect. Everything remained silent and it caused you both to cast each other a glance, uncertainty clear. By now, gunfire should be heard, anything that would cause a distraction. Perhaps the two troublemakers had seduced the entire building into silence. That would be the day. You felt a small smile pull at your lips, peeking down over the railing of the stairs-

You heard it before you registered the blooming agony curling rose stems along your right shoulder, thorns digging into each nerve. BANG. Gritting your teeth, you felt your entire body recoil backwards, knife dropping to the floor with a noisy clatter and your hand caught your shoulder, palm pressed just below your collarbone, back colliding into a firm chest. You tried to stifle any noises of pain, an expert at manoeuvring through it. Months of torture tended to make someone good at that. You exhaled heavily through your nose, more annoyed with the inconvenience of your right hand now useless at your side. You cast a glance to Kaz from over your shoulder, his eyes already on your wound and his throat bobbing with a heavy swallow, his hands floating uselessly either side of your arms. Now was not the time for concern. 

Throwing yourself away from his tall frame, you proceeded down the corridor rather than down the spiralling staircase, feet still light on the burgundy carpet and you pushed into a side room, Kaz following and shutting the door quietly. Saints, it fucking hurt. There was no doubt that they would begin pushing up to the next floor, fortunate that the carpet below was red. Luck or careful planning, you absentmindedly considered, eying the thief with his side against the door, ear pressed to the wood. 

“Son of a bitch,”  You grunted, ripping at your shirt and beginning to fasten it around your shoulder, mind rushing a million miles an hour. The staircase was a no go, now you needed to rely on Kaz’s assortment of plans and hope that he had one that didn’t involve you dying. 

“You need help.”

“Astute observation as always, Kazzy,” You sighed, sweat beading at your temple. It should stop you bleeding out, for now. You hoped. Hope is dangerous, you laughed to yourself. 

“Y/N-”

“You did a wonderful job convincing other people that you loved me, you know. I almost believed it myself. How insane is that? I nearly believed you. Me! I don’t trust the hinges on that door to open properly, let alone be foolish enough to believe that you loved me and for months too,” You felt dizzy, laughing into the back of your hand as you swayed to your feet, bracing the wall as you stood in front of him, entire body aching. 

“People often avoid the truth because they are afraid that it will destroy the illusion.” Kaz replied with haste, pulling the door open and then stepping out, “We’ll take the next window. Are you coming?”

But the only response Kaz got was you falling unceremoniously onto the floor with an echoing, inelegant thump. 

____________________________________________________________

When you came to the first thing you registered was the brain splitting headache bruising one side of your head. You pushed yourself up and clumsily reached for the whiskey glass filled with water and you threw it back, not caring how noisily you chugged the liquid because it was the most beautiful thing you had experienced. Maybe you would kill for another glass.

The second thing you registered was raised voices echoing through the Slat, each yelled murmur enveloped with unfamiliar silence. It had you curious because the Slat was never silent, always busy and bustling with success or singing, misery or pain. The third was that it was undoubtedly Kaz Brekker raising his voice. No wonder the entire building shook with echoing trepidation. With shaky legs, you carried yourself from the comfort of the bed towards your door and you stepped onto the landing of the second floor, only to meet eyes with Inej. She gestured you forward and you followed until she was pushing a bucket aside, peering straight into what used to be Per Haskell’s office, and now it was Kaz’s.

“What’s going on?” Your voice felt like sandpaper and sounded like nails on a chalkboard but Inej hushed you with a finger to her lips, shifting aside to give you room to listen in. Did she do this often?

“Where were you? Jesper? Nina?” Kaz’s familiar tone chimed out, rough and impatient and you observed the way he raked his hand through his dishevelled hair. He looked worse for wear, purple bruising beneath his raging irises and lashes long, blue marks littered across his jaw and neck but his clothes remained as put together as they always did. 

“There were more than we expected, boss. Our information was a little off, we did what we could,” Jesper scratched the back of his head with his other hand laying on his revolver, no doubt seeking comfort from the pearl handled guns. 

“No, you didn’t. You could have taken a bullet, Jes. Why does it have to be Y/N picking up the slack all the time? That was your job,” Kaz’s lips turned downwards into a frown and his limped pacing ceased, his tired form dropping into the chair at the desk, linking his fingers and elbows on the desk, mouth pressed against the hands in thought, unblinkingly and studying the two in front of him. You’re the least reliable. The two statements were very conflicting.

“Kaz- I’m sorry, okay? I have a home to get back to, I was thinking of Wylan,” Jesper sighed, shifting his weight from foot to foot and Nina beside him picked at her dress, lips pressed and eyes cast down.

“That’s exactly the problem, Jesper. If you died, your cut of the money would go to Wylan. If Y/N died, who would get the cut? There isn’t anybody left for them,” Kaz sighed out, explaining it to them with ease in his tone. At least he understood Jesper’s perspective. 

“You would. Besides, since when did you care about any of these lowlives and their family?” Nina spoke up, finding her voice and she crossed her arms across her chest. Those first two words had your breath caught in your lungs, gripping the edges of your night clothes and seeking reassurance from Inej beside you. She nodded with a smile, gesturing her chin to the conversation happening below them. 

“Why would I?” Kaz shot back quickly, eyebrows furrowed and hands now resting on the desk, his entire leaning forward with threatening interest towards the subject at hand.

“When I lost Matthias, you gave me his cut. That’s a lot of money for one person, even if I lost more than everyone else. You gave it to me because of how much I sacrificed for the job and because I loved him. You love Y/N, whether you admit it or not. You’re deflecting your worry into anger when you should be with them right now, not yelling at us,” Nina punctuated every sentence with a point of her finger, being met with Jesper stifling a laugh and Kaz’s silent uncomfortability. 

“How long, boss?” Jesper asked with sincere concern, stepping closer to the desk and knocking against it with a knuckle.

“What?” Kaz asked, confusion written across every scar, every wrinkle, every bruise and every pore of his face. 

“How long have you loved Y/N? It stopped being practice for you and you sabotaged it because it was clouding your judgement and making you inefficient on jobs. That’s why you stopped asking for them on jobs, and that’s why you would get their cut, Brekker,” Nina explained, locking arms with Jesper and holding her pretty head high.

The possibility of Kaz Brekker returning your feelings and sabotaging himself sounded utterly absurd. Surely somebody like Kaz would embrace love, would burn the world down if it so much as harmed the person he loved. Kaz was fearless, he would never be afraid of being seen with the person he loved, surely. Right? Inej placed a ghosting hand on your back, her beautiful bronze skin cast in a warm glow and you stared at her, seeking counsel in her impossibly dark irises. 

“What do I do?” You whispered to Suli girl.

[oftenwantedafton]

begin again | springtrap x female reader

words | 2.6k

cw | mature rating, body horror

ao3 link

You enter the barn with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

The owner of the property you’re invited to leads you through the clouds of dust stirred up as you enter the building, the disturbed particles flickering like chips of mica in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun filtering through the doorway of the rotting structure. The entire farm has the same feeling of neglect, of demands that can no longer be met, as wilted as the elderly man that lumbers along in an arthritic kind of manner, joints undoubtedly aching as badly as the support beams of the building you’re now standing inside. He’s weathered, his body clearly failing, but his eyes are sharp and his voice is still strong and resonant as he gestures to something large covered with a tarp just ahead of you. To a casual onlooker their guess might have been an automobile or a piece of farm equipment tucked beneath that material, but you’re no casual onlooker. You know exactly what you’re looking for, and you think maybe, just maybe, this man has somehow stumbled upon it through some random happenstance, some chance encounter.

“It’s there. Go on, have a look, missy.”

You stiffen at this term of address but choose to ignore it, stepping forward and letting your fingers grasp the edge of the blue covering. It’s as battered and filthy as everything else around here, and you wonder if the item it’s shielding can really be in much better condition.

You hold your breath and pull. Pull and pull and pull, because there is a lot to expose, thrusting the tarp aside and finally exhaling when you catch sight of the seven foot long object. Yes, it is what you’ve been seeking and yes, it is in terrible condition. But it can be fixed. You know how.

“Uglier than sin, that,” the man mutters, pacing around a little to ease up his stiffening joints. “Grandson was proud as anything lugging that here. Tried to tell him it wasn’t worth—” He abruptly clamps his mouth shut. He’s not about to admit what he has in storage has little monetary value.

“It’s an original. One of the actual originals,” you murmur appreciatively, taking in the sight of it from all angles. A lot of damage on the left side. It will take months to repair. Your favorite type of project.

“‘Told ya. Came from that accursed restaurant, just like I said on the phone.”

You finish surveying the object and turn to face the farmer. “How much are you asking?”

The elderly man’s bushy white eyebrows lower as his eyes narrow shrewdly, trying to estimate how much he can price gouge. His gaze flicks down to your shoes, then over to your handbag. Designer originals, or knockoffs? He’s looking into your eyes now, sucking in a whistling rasp of air. “It’s going to cost a bit, missy. Being so rare and all. An original, like you said.”

Perhaps you should have omitted voicing that information out loud. Too late now, though, isn’t it? You’re about to find out just how much that slip up will cost you. “How much?” You repeat again.

“Ten grand.”

You bark a laugh. “Extortion. No deal.”

“Eight,” he counters.

“Seven and a half. Cash. Final offer.”

The man scowls but nods.

“How did you get it in here, anyway?”

“Grandson and his buddies used the tractor.”

“I’ll tip them an extra five hundred if they help load it onto the truck. I can call for help, but it will save me some time.”

“I’m sure he’ll oblige. He’s up at the house.” The man begins to turn away, then pauses, glancing back at you. “I went to that place, you know. The pizzeria. Years ago, back when it was open. Met the owner. Had that same look in his eye as you. That raw hunger. He didn’t come to a good end, as I understand. You might want to take caution before you end up the same as him.”

“Noted,” you say, digging a paper envelope out of your purse and counting out the bills. There are still plenty leftover. $10k wouldn’t have been a bad amount to pay in all honesty. But why not barter? The repairs will be costly.

The man scowls and then turns away again, beginning the painful journey back to the farmhouse.

You think you’ve gotten the better end of the deal.

***

Thirty years have passed.

He doesn’t know this number, precisely, because that stretch of years has altered his composition. He is neither dead nor alive, neither human nor machine. There is no name for what he has evolved into because nothing like him has ever existed before. He is new, yet old. Eternal.

Over time the joints have become locked in place, rusted and frozen. The stagnant air of the abandoned pizzeria permeates the holes in the ripped costume, but cannot inflate the withered lungs within. Back when he had been closer to human, there had still been a sense of taste, a bitter metallic mixture of his own blood and the internal components of the suit combining where they had pierced his jaw. He cannot speak; has not made a sound for a long time. Punctured airways, slipping past his trachea and dipping between ribs, have made this feat impossible. His imprisoned body has been folded in on itself in the most unnatural of ways, shoved inside a vent, trapping him in what could be considered part of the building’s circulatory system, if such a thing could exist, not unlike a clot trapped inside a blood vessel, comprised not of clotting particles and protein threads but steel and plastic, wiring and circuitry, fur and felt and the unsavory desicated corpse of the establishment’s owner deep within, entombed, mummy-like.

This is how he is when he is found, pored over like an old, broken toy rediscovered, temporarily reigniting a sense of wonder that had once existed. For a moment, the yellow rabbit has meaning again. He is extracted and shipped to a barn, then covered with a tarpaulin, waiting for the highest bidder, for someone to make use of him again.

Waiting, perhaps, for you.

The giant rabbit has no way of knowing that he’s been purchased by someone who is expert on animatronic engineering, someone intent on keeping him, allowing him to narrowly avoid the fate of being put on display in a gruesome sort of museum commemorating not the memories of a place meant to bring happiness, but the secret terror that has instead endured. That place will still undoubtedly become a reality but he will never be a part of it, thanks to your intervention.

He does not feel the first sets of hands that manipulate him, roughly dragging him from his confinement; has no conscious awareness he has even shifted locations immediately. It is not until weeks later when he begins to return to himself, slowly drip feeding alertness into whatever this new creature he has become is. These hands on him now—your hands—are gentle and careful. They card carefully though the rotting fur and dance softly over the gaping holes, cautious about touching the exposed alloys and electronics within.

His restoration begins with a passive range of motion performed on his still locked up joints not so unlike the farmer who had sold him. You test each extremity, deciding what can be salvaged and what rusted parts must be replaced. You have apparently decided to work from the bottom up, beginning with the overly large, almost comical feet before reaching his legs.

You speak to him as you perform each task, your voice soothing like water moving over pebbles in a brook, a gentle murmuring sort of sound. He finds himself missing that noise when you are not present, forced to wait on the work table until you return each day.

Once you’ve finished with his lower extremities, your path diverts from his torso to manage his arms, repeating the same process as before. He is curious who you are; how you come to be so intimately acquainted with the workings of an animatronic suit. Grudgingly impressed with how brave you are when encountering the bits of decayed flesh plastered on bone during the excavation process, leaving these parts as intact and unscathed as possible, carefully continuing to focus on the synthetic pieces of the mascot.

Now that all four of his limbs are accounted for, it is time to shift attention to the large chest piece. This process alone takes a great deal of time. The bulk of the suit, and the failed springlocks that had doomed the human within, lie in this cavity. It is a tricky business to move those unrelenting claws that resemble human ribs, extracting damaged components and replacing them with new technology. The safety devices that should have protected his comparatively fragile body had not kept it from injury, but instead done quite the opposite, the dangerous internal workings of the mascot lodging in and merging with their victim.

When this job is finally completed, days or weeks or months later—he still cannot accurately say, his sense of time still distorted in this odd sort of half reality he occupies now—it is time for the work on the headpiece to begin.

His own eyes have been destroyed, but the animatronic’s have not, and it is on these you devote yourself to next. It is a startling thing for you both when they flare to life again, a dull silver glow that becomes brighter and brighter, like the headlights of an oncoming vehicle approaching on a lonely stretch of road at night. He can see your face, peering at him as you lean over, pupils following the surprised flutter of lashes as if they are a penlight being shown during a physical exam in a physician’s office. He tracks your movements and they become smoother beats, the delays imperceptible now. You smile and he feels something in that gesture. He’s pleased you, the science project you’ve been working on proving to be a success.

A memory stirs. His eldest with a school project for the science fair. Seventh or eighth grade. Struggling for a topic. He’s inherited none of his father’s penchance for engineering. Harbors no passion for the sciences. Perhaps this has evolved from his father’s growing lack of time and interest invested in his own family, his attention increasingly focused on the business he manages, the mechanical creations taking precedent over his own flesh and blood ones. It would have, perhaps, been a chance for him to bond more with the boy, but instead he’d been ignored, the rift between them widening further still. It would be much, much worse later, when he’d inadvertently caused the death of his baby brother.

But that was all in the past now. All of his children are gone, and he is gone, too, but not quite in the same manner. He shuts the memories away again, sliding the drawer of that mental filing cabinet closed and locking it tight.

***

You do not return the next day, or the one after that. You are gone for a long while, and it is alarming. He is still immobile, still unable to move at will, save for his eyes, which cannot see much more than the ceiling tiles above him. He rages internally against his body, but it is futile. He has no control, until he is given it; until you restore it to him. There is renewed anger, an emotion he’d felt so often as a human.

There are new visitors to the room he dwells in, and they are not kind like you.

They do not handle him with care like you do. There is no reverence, no respect. He is manipulated to the point of being broken, both the remains of his human body and the recently repaired animatronic one. There is pain, when limbs are twisted backwards and he’s heaved onto the floor, and this sensation, while unpleasant, means that he is, in some manner, becoming more alive. He holds onto that feeling, mentally envisioning gritting teeth, fingers tightening. He will not let go.

You finally return, discovering him like this, a crumpled, broken mess on the floor. Your delicate surgeries undone, your progress trampled. You do not speak, remaining silent, like he is. You have to find others to help you move him back into position, lying supine on the work surface. He hears mutters about time wasted, mockery over your dedication, comparing you to Frankenstein with his freakish creation. The anger flares anew and he is glad when they are gone.

Tears begin dropping between the rabbit’s teeth, sliding past his own. It is likely only his imagination that he can taste that salted liquid, but he savors that moisture, the first he’s known in so long. Finally you speak, asking forgiveness for being away. He has never been one to forgive or forget, but he finds it in himself to grant you mercy.

You begin again.

You work long hours. So long that eventually one evening you fall asleep right there beside him, head pillowed on one arm, the circuit board you’d finished soldering waiting to be placed resting on his torso. He listens to the sound of your breathing, the steady in and out, and he wonders if you are dreaming.

***

Your attention is now directed to his throat, to the severed vocal chords and collapsed cartilage. Even after the voice box is installed, there is still the matter of his jaw to be addressed. This is where the man trapped within is most visible, through the gaps of the teeth in the headpiece, to the human set fixed inside, gaping in some silent eternal torment.

“How do I…” you wonder aloud, and indeed, how do you solve this problem? You cannot remove the headpiece because of the way it is attached, mascot welded to skeleton. Yet you cannot access the interior through such a narrow gap in the character’s mouth. Elsewhere you had been able to work around such fusions. But here, you have no such space. Your fingers rest along the rabbit’s jaw. So close. You’re so close to completing the restoration process.

***

You have no way of knowing how it feels, to have your fingers rake across the new golden fur you’ve gifted. He shouldn’t be able to feel that, and yet he is, and it shocks him how vibrantly pleasurable it is. As adoring as a lover’s caress. Pride in what you’ve achieved, affection for what you’ve salvaged. He’s baffled by it, unable to fathom why you would ever find something as wretched as himself deserving of such feelings, and yet here you are, lavishing it upon him. He feels your hand resting somewhere above where his human heart resides, cold, unfeeling thing though it had been, and he wills that dried husk of an organ to beat once again. When you rest your face against it, he imagines his lungs inflating once more, lifting your head gently. He longs to settle one steel encased hand in your hair, but he still cannot move of his own free will. There is something lacking. Some final, missing piece of the puzzle that eludes you both.

“I tried. I’m sorry. I don’t know how,” you whisper. Your nose touches his. Your breath creeps in through the rabbit’s mouth, easing past the trapped man’s stretched maw. There is no blue fairy to make the artificial creature come to life. There is just you, this woman, working so diligently, so desperately.

Who are you? The yellow rabbit wonders, again, and again.

Your lips brush the corner of the mascot’s mouth before you straighten. A spark of heat. The sluggish flutter of dried valves. The creature gasps and a fresh burst of air fills it. A series of taps as the fingers of one hand move against the metal work surface. Your eyes, wide and full of wonder, as he reaches for you.

[allonsybadwolf]

undefined

!!SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON ONE FINALE OF SEVERANCE IN THIS VIDEO!! No spoilers below:

VIDEO: Severance Outie Cut, Season 1 Episode 9

Okay ya’ll, I believe I have done everything I need to do to make the Innie and Outie Supercuts that I made of Severance available. I looked into a lot of different free storage options out there and unfortunately none of them had enough space (the cuts together are ~35GB), so I landed on creating a torrent file to share it, which just means I’m sending it directly from my computer to your computer without the middleman of cloud storage

This is the first time I’ve ever created a torrent to share, so I had to follow a tutorial. I believe everything worked correctly. Please let me know if there’s any problems (or if you know more about torrents than I do and see any immediate glaring issues.)

Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. Download a bittorrent client (I recommend qbittorrent.) 2. Grab the .torrent file from the google drive I created: here 3. Side note, I created the file in qbittorrent but I believe you can use it in any client. Someone correct me if that’s wrong. 4. In your bittorrent client, look for an option that says something like “add torrent file” and use that to select the file 5. Choose where to download the file and click “okay” 6. You’re done! Wait for it to download and you’re good to go!

You don’t need to go to any sketchy torrent sites, you can check the file contents in the bittorrent client when you add it to make sure it is what I say it is (it will contain two video files, and two image files for those of you who use something like plex and want title cards), and yeah I think that’s it

Please let me know what you think of it if/when you watch it! I put a lot of hours into it and I really enjoyed watching it, so I hope you guys do as well.

OH ALSO. If you know anyone who is willing to sacrifice their first Severance watch through and watch these cuts first as an experiment, I am extremely curious to hear about how the experience differs when you watch it as intended vs. watching it from each perspective individually.

I have it ordered as Outie Cut first, then Innie Cut second. You’re welcome to watch in whatever order you like, though, obviously.

My thought process here is that the Outie perspective is more interesting as a mystery where you don’t know what is happening at Lumon. You’re discovering things along with oMark, you don’t have any more information than he does.

And I think the Innie perspective could be interesting either way, but I think most of the interest just comes from discovering the world of Lumon here. It definitely could be interesting to see the Innie perspective with no knowledge of the outside world, though. Let me know what you think about the watch order!

[akadoxalis]

to bring gun to a knifefight they said (?)

It compels me The builder can choose any range weapon at this Duel Scene....

when i read some post on reddit about this scene it reminds me of this old sketch. so ive found it on my old cloud storage ayyy.

everytime this scene showed in my playthrough i had to pause and breath.

also there is no spoiler hide feature soo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mudora]

A few days ago, I re blogged a post describing the intense backlash Adobe is getting for certain policies involving permissions with their cloud services, and posted an article citing these agreements lack of changes until recently - and upon thinking on it for a few days, I AM noticing the apparent lack of transparency, especially since they updated those terms. But the lack of trust for Adobe remains true regardless, and further updates on this matter are far more alarming then the initial read. So, definitely try to find other programs then Adobe's products. I'll likely need to search for something myself. Sadly, I am mostly comfortable with photoshop's features, and clip studio does not work in the way that I like or prefer. I'm a user who likely does not spend as much yearly on a sub, since (and I'm not joking) my uncle does indeed work for Adobe as a programmer, and unfortunately has no clout to stop this higher level lunacy from happening. Though I might pay a smaller price tag, it doesn't change the fact that the price for their programs is astronomical. I'll likely keep using it and other software as I don't have many other options that work the way I'd like them to for my process. However some other options are always nice to look up on. Keep in mind, I am an advanced user, and simple photo manip tools are not going to cut it for painting/drawing/and visual development. I am keeping my eye on a few promising options. Thankfully for Photo manipulation and editing, there is plenty of good and free software to use. Some recs for those who can't just get off the burning Adobe Train - use your firewall to protect you from potential spying from their programs. On Windows, you can change these settings directly within your firewall settings. "No problem.

And for those wondering, on Windows both 10 & 11, go to Control Panel > Windows Defender > Advances Options > Manage Outgoing Connections > Add new rule.

From here you'll enter a wizard menu where you can pick and choose programs to block access to."

(credit to @kevinreijnders.bsky.social for this tip). I also suggest not to use the cloud for your file storage, and I rec getting a different storage device for your art files anyway, as you can take it with you anywhere you go with either an external hard drive, or usb memory stick.

[mariacallous]

When Microsoft named its new Windows feature Recall, the company intended the word to refer to a kind of perfect, AI-enabled memory for your device. Today, the other, unintended definition of “recall”—a company's admission that a product is too dangerous or defective to be left on the market in its current form—seems more appropriate.

On Friday, Microsoft announced that it would be making multiple dramatic changes to its rollout of its Recall feature, making it an opt-in feature in the Copilot+ compatible versions of Windows where it had previously been turned on by default, and introducing new security measures designed to better keep data encrypted and require authentication to access Recall's stored data.

“We are updating the set-up experience of Copilot+ PCs to give people a clearer choice to opt-in to saving snapshots using Recall,” reads a blog post from Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Windows and devices. “If you don’t proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default.”

The changes come amid a mounting barrage of criticism from the security and privacy community, which has described Recall—which silently stores a screenshot of the user's activity every five seconds as fodder for AI analysis—as a gift to hackers: essentially unrequested, preinstalled spyware built into new Windows computers.

In the preview versions of Recall, that screenshot data, complete with the user's every bank login, password, and porn site visit would have been indefinitely collected on the user's machine by default. And though that highly sensitive data is stored locally on the user's machine and not uploaded to the cloud, cybersecurity experts have warned that it all remains accessible to any hacker who so much as gains a temporary foothold on a user's Recall-enabled device, giving them a long-term panopticon view of the victim's digital life.

"It makes your security very fragile,” as Dave Aitel, a former NSA hacker and founder of security firm Immunity, described it—more charitably than some others—to WIRED earlier this week. “Anyone who penetrates your computer for even a second can get your whole history. Which is not something people want.”

In addition to making Recall an opt-in feature, Microsoft’s Davuluri also writes that the company will make changes to better safeguard the data Recall collects and more closely police who can turn it on, requiring that users prove their identity via its Microsoft Hello authentication function any time they either enable Recall or access its data, which can require a PIN or biometric check of the user’s face or thumbprint. Davuluri says Recall’s data will remain encrypted in storage until the user authenticates.

All of that is a “great improvement,” says Jake Williams, another former NSA hacker who now serves as VP of R&D at the cybersecurity consultancy Hunter Strategy, where he says he's been asked by some of the firm's clients to test Recall's security before they add Microsoft devices that use it to their networks. But Williams still sees serious risks in Recall, even in its latest form.

Many users will turn on Recall, he points out, partly due to Microsoft’s high-profile marketing of the feature. And when they do, they’ll still face plenty of unresolved privacy problems, from domestic abusers that often demand partners give up their PINs to subpoenas or lawsuits that compel them to turn over their historical data. “Satya Nadella has been out there talking about how this is a game changer and the solution to all problems,” Williams says, referring to Microsoft's CEO. “If customers turn it on, there’s still a huge threat of legal discovery. I can’t imagine a corporate legal team that’s ready to accept the risk of all of a user’s actions being turned over in discovery.”

For Microsoft, the Recall rollback comes in the midst of an embarrassing string of cybersecurity incidents and breaches—including a leak of terabytes of its customers' data and a shocking penetration of government email accounts enabled by a cascading series of Microsoft security slipups—that have grown so problematic as to become a sticking point given its uniquely close relationship with the US government.

Those scandals have escalated to the degree that Microsoft's Nadella issued a memo just last month declaring that Microsoft would make security its first priority in any business decision. “If you’re faced with the trade-off between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” Nadella's memo read (emphasis his). “In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems.”

By all appearances, Microsoft's rollout of Recall—even after today's announcement—displays the opposite approach, and one that seems more in line with business as usual in Redmond: Announce a feature, get pummeled for its glaring security failures, then belatedly scramble to control the damage.

[lachimolala22019]

Heart full of love

Chapter 1

After losing a beloved person to a war of greed and money.

She never thought a business trip to a small village would lead her to her fate.

She never thought the heart that was once empty will be filled with so much love and adoration for these seven men who she would do anything for.

For first time after the incident her heart was full of love.

They were her family and she will burn anyone who dares to harm them.

Pairing: Hybrid!BTS X Hybrid!reader

Genre: poly, hybrid, mates

Warning: mistreatment.

Masterlist

The loud sound of a metal pipe hitting the iron door made me wake up with a jolt. With my ears pressed to my head, and dilated eyes I look at the door of my room in fright.

I came back to my senses after hearing Marine yelling for us to wake up. It was already seven in the morning, but there was no sunlight coming from the cracked windows. The sky was still covered in thick clouds.

I got up from the cold floor rubbing my eyes to start my daily schedule.

Luckily there was no water on the floor near me through the dripping roof. I would have had to work with damp clothes if my clothes got wet.

The walls however were soaked in water and the mold had gotten worse. There was a strange smell all over the room.

I decided to ignore it as I was already used to it and went out to wash up before I had to get to work. There were around 20 hybrids in the faculty the work was divided between them. I and 6 other hybrids were in charge of cleaning the building.

Walking towards the bathrooms there was a queue of hybrids, I spotted Nate in the line and went toward her.

Nate was a rabbit hybrid who was in charge of cleaning the building with me. Nate came into the faculty a year before me but she was the same age as me.

She was the closest thing to a friend I ever had.

When I came, Nate was the person that was assigned to me to tell me about my work in the faculty. Unlike others, she didn't look at me as if I was her enemy.

Standing behind her, I smiled at her as she faced me. She had a sad pout on her face almost as if she was about to cry.

"What happened Nate?" I asked holding her cold hand in mine.

"The building is a mess because of the rain and thunderstorm, it is going to take us so much time to clean today."

I finally noticed the floors which had a few small tree branches, leaf and mud lying on it. If this was the condition of the bathroom I couldn't imagine what the hallways and canteen look like as they were fully opened.

The fact that the building was near a forest didn't help us at all.

"If we can't clean the building before lunchtime we won't be able to eat," Nate says as she moves forward in line.

"I know, but we can't do anything other than hope that we finish cleaning on time. There are still 6 hours before lunch.", I tell her as we move forward since it was now our turn to use the bathrooms.

There were 4 bathroom in total 2 were used by the girls and the other two by the boys.

After cleaning up and wearing our clothes again we went to the storage room where the cleaning supplies were kept. The other 5 hybrids already picked up their cleaning supplies and went to work.

Nate and I were in charge of the 2nd floor along with James an otter hybrid.

He never talked to us choosing to ignore us and doing his part of the cleaning silently. I didn't know how old he was but seeing his height I could tell he was at least a few years older than us.

Without wasting any further time we quickly picked up our supplies and went to the second floor with the help of stairs.

James was already there picking up the broken branches and shards of a broken glass window.

We spent the whole morning cleaning the 2nd floor. James had already left as soon as the cleaning was done. There was no call for lunch, so we knew we still had some time before we had to go.

I went toward the open window and looked at the small garden, there were some wild plants and weeds with overgrown grass. A small gust of wind blew making my hair blow back, as I closed my eyes to feel the cool air. The scent of wet soil was calming my mind.

I looked back as I felt someone tap my back.

"Y/n it's time for lunch, let's go." Nate said with a tired smile feeling hungry after all the cleaning.

I just nod and followed her, there was a strange ache in my chest and my head felt a bit heavy.

We went to the canteen to have our fill and sat at our usual table. The food was bland the bread was stale, but it was good enough to eat. We also didn't care enough about it as long as we were getting something to fill our stomachs and keep us alive.

Nate and I spent some of our time talking about the adventure we had done when we were roaming the streets, and playing some games I once saw the children in the playground playing.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful I went back to my room as the headache was getting worse and worse. Laying down on the room floor I closed my eyes from exhaustion.

I woke up with a sour throat and pounding in my head. I had no idea what time it was but looking at the dark room and silent hallway it must be nighttime.

My throat was hurting badly I wanted water. I got up from the floor and went to get water from the water jug that was placed at the front desk.

The sound of strong wind was the only thing to be heard in the building.

"It looks like it's going to rain again," I said moving forward in the pitch-black hallway. If it was not for my hybrid eyes I would have tripped on something.

As I reached the front desk I picked up the jug of water and drank some before putting it down.

The sleep had already left me so I decided to go to the garden to take my mind off my throbbing head. I went to a silent corner in the garden and sat on the damp grass which hasn't dried fully yet.

Looking at the sky covered in dark clouds I thought of nothing and decided to close my eyes and fall back on the ground below me trying to relax.

Next

Taglist

@fluffy-canada-pancakes @mageprincess7 @queen-in-the-shadows @ddaeng-angmoh @missseoulite @sugarrush-blush @demarie04 @singukieee