#crash racket

[kindheart525]

Mobid question here, how do Killer!Iolite's victims die?

Ngl I’m not a very morbid person (hence why I had to do so much research on horror tropes to write this AU because I had no knowledge of my own) but I still thought this was a fascinating question so I had @frostcorpsclub help me come up with the deaths!

I know more characters die than what’s listed here, but I decided to go with the major ones.

Trigger warning for mentions of gore, hanging, choking, eye trauma, decapitation, and generally torturous and horrific deaths

Obsidian: In a chase, her signature pink hair bow is unraveled/caught on something and Iolite uses shadow magic to hang her with it. It looks like an accident until looked into further.

Polished Antique: Iolite pushes him into his own family’s vault where he's crushed by tons of bits (a la Scrooge McDuck)

Brackish: Gets trapped and submerged in a pit of grain*, a fate that’s incredibly dry for somepony who devoted his life to being a swimmer and making mares w-

Saltwater Taffy: Iolite kills her with a curse; every time she says a bad word against another creature, her throat fills up with crystal. She’s killed as she tears into Iolite for killing her family members, choking on crystal shards and her own blood.

Erudite Spell: Having died alongside Taffy, he is afflicted with a similar curse, which also causes fatal crystal growths. It affects his hooves so he can't run for help, and his horn upon which the crystals grow down and slowly blind him, stabbing his eyes and penetrating his brain.

Rainier: Iolite captures him and keeps him around in a secret place (like Summer) because he actually gives good emotional advice and there's a tiny, tiny, tiny glimmer of her true self inside him. She curses him with a fate akin to bamboo torture*, except instead of bamboo it’s an apple tree that’s growing inside of and slowly hilling him. It’s the slowest and most agonizing death of all of them. It also parallels the trees that his grandparents once planted to symbolize their love, but with an extremely horrific and dark twist.

Crash Racket: Iolite decapitated him and put his head on a pike, which she showed to Summer to torture her. “Is this the type of head that was worth breaking my heart over, Summy?”

Summer Beauty: I’ve described it before but I felt it would be fitting to put the description here too. Iolite put a curse on her so that the instant she is killed, Summer will “self-destruct” and turn into a lifeless crystal statue, much like the famed Crystal Empress Amore. Through this, Iolite has ensured that Summer cannot live without her.

Iolite: She tears her wings in a hoof-to-hoof battle with Yngvlid before falling into a crystal pit where her heart is pulled straight from her body.

BONUS Crystal Family: They all die in a very Romanov-like fashion where they’re locked in a basement together and Iolite and (mind-controlled) Aurora fire shots at them. Yes, including the little filly.

*The links are to Wikipedia articles; no videos or graphic photographs.

[anasanthology]

I love tags! 🩷💘

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[evilminji]

I woke up to this thought? And it made me smile~

Wrong way Au?

It's EASY to fly from point A to point B. Linear. Just on long, no traffic, straight line. And if you get lost? Go higher! There you are! But "normal" reporter families with Totally Human genetics can't exactly DO that.

Plus? It's part of the whole Americana thing!

Childhood.

Gotta do a road trip, see weird road side attractions, camp and hike a bit. Go somewhere other then the farm for once. Soooo~ everyone into the car! Yes, you too, Kon.

And don't look at Lois, kids. She hates this idea as much as you do. But it's for Dad. So we're doing it. Get in the car. Some times loving people means "suuuure, honey! I TOTALLY want to sit in an uncomfortable car for hours for your nostalgic dream trip!", so get comfy.

Problem is? He either can't navigate for SHIT (unlikely) or this patch of nowhere? Possibly haunted? Cursed? Fuckey. Very, very Reality Fuckey. Far more likely, honestly. They THINK that was the a same barn the passed four times now... but it looks... wrong? Off. Worse each time, in ways that are hard to place.

Where the FUCK are they Clark?

According to the GPS?

Here.

(You are Here. You are Here. You are He-)

Oh, THAT'S not cursed! She fucking KNEW they shouldn't have left the city. FUCK the countryside. She likes ONE(1) small town and it's where her in-laws live, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! If they die, she swear to GOD-!!!

Then Jon points to colorful tents up the road. A mix of the kind you buy at big box stores and Ren fairs. Balloons. What the fuuuuuck? "Fenton Family Reunion"?

Was... was that THERE a second ago?

Clark's very deliberate Not Too Tight Grip Of Panic ™ on the steering wheel? Confirms that No Honey, it was not. Kon points out? That eventually they ARE going to run out of gas. They should stop.

Words can not express how little the Kents want to do that. They have KIDS to protect. This feels "magical fuckery" to them. AKA? One of the few things Kryptonians very much CAN NOT handle.

And luck getting ahold of anybody back there kids? No? Emergency lines too?

Fuck ™.

Okay! Guess we're stopping! Stay behind us.

They park.

There are campers and trucks, modified tanks and trackers. A few horses grazing side by side with an honest to God moose and two mules. A Llama. Someone's anchored a dirigible. A boat with spindly chicken footed legs, like it's the house of baba yaga's sea faring love child. The name Fenton is slapped on everything. Peoples faces.

Grinning.

Everything grinning.

As they get closer, the racket gets louder. Crashes and smashes. Roaring laughter. Explosions. The screech of metal failing and the whine of energy overclocked. Fatty meats cooking. Spices from around the globe. Radios and instruments, at least one of which violently cuts off in a smash.

They pass an almost violently balloon choked arch, into chaos.

Grinning giants, everywhere. Every color, every shade, every race imaginable. The spectrum of humanity laid bare. Made large. Grinning, Grinning, Grinning. Crashing into each other, against, through. Smashing and laughing, as everything breaks around them. Titans.

Darting underfoot, children. Fast with wild eyes. Mad grins and fae laughs. Wives and husband's, partners and friends, dancing in and out of the chaos. Just as destructive. Perhaps MORE so. Grabbing meals from grills, laughing and joking, tossing children into the fray, all as they effortless hold conversations of their own.

Like a Dionysian revelry, all madness and joy.

Then they are noticed.

"Cousin!"

One of them booms. Locking eyes on Clark. He doesn't even have time to move, doesn't realize until too late, in all the chaos, that the man meant HIM. A running start is followed by a brutal, full body, flying tackle. Clark is taken skidding to the ground and into a headlock.

"LETS WRASTLE~!!"

He watches in helpless confusion as, with high-pitched war cries, a pair of twins jump Jon. They are wearing war paint. Krypto already taken out by a glowing green dog, now confused and wrestling off to the side. Lois has whipped out her tazer. Kon between her and who ever comes next.

By the time he wrestle his "cousin" off of him, he's lost sight of them both.

Dives into the fray.

Magic be damned, that's his FAMILY!

It... It's the most fun he's had in years. That any of them have. He finds Lois in a breathless, screaming, debate/fistfight with her new best friend. Samantha "call me Sam Or ELSE" Manson-Fouley-Fenton. Kon is in the mud pit, wrestling other teenagers in some sort of battle Royale. Jon? Has become king of the ferals. The other parents are impressed.

His years of Damian wrangling finally paying dividends, apparently.

By the time Clark FINALLY tracks down Krypto, there is already crowd and it apparently six heel turns deep into the WWE Grand Saga of the Fenton Pet's League. Krypto, what the hell. No. No you may NOT "form one last alliance against my sworn wrestling enemy, to prove the true meaning of Christmas!" It's the middle of SUMMER!

Clark... Clark is so tired.

He's also a Fenton now. Yes, he KNOWS that's not how anything works. YOU try explaining that! He's on the call list and card list. It's like the Addams family out here! They just... just DECIDED him and his family were related! They've apparently DONE THAT BEFORE!

They leave with directions, fudge, more leftovers then anyone could possibly eat, and a massive new extended family. One that honestly? The Justice League SHOULD have known about. The sheer destructive chaos they get up too? EVERYONE should be aware of them. It seems impossible NOT to be! But? According to THEM, it's a "family thing". Reality tries to ignore them for "it's own sanity"? What???

So yeah.... no more road trips.

How was YOUR weekend?

@hdgnj @legitimatesatanspawn @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter @lolottes @babbling-babull @dcxdpdabbles @hypewinter @mutable-manifestation

[think-like-a-poet]

What sbout max softlaunching his gf (reader) in the summer break, with help from her of course because he doesnt know what it is. No one knew, expect his family, yours snd maybe daniel -🍸

Thanks in advance💕💕

What is a soft launch?

Max verstappen x reader

▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

@ Maxverstappen1

Liked by Alexalbon, danielricciardo and 1.379.382 others

Maxverstappen1: Back home with my darlings.

-

Redbullracing: New line up?

-User: i don't know if they can reach the padels.

-user: yuki can, they can

-user: not the yuki slander

Alexalbon: This is the kind of content that I like

User: what a cutie ( i am not talking bout the cats)

-user: well the cats are cute too, but not the point

User: who took the photos maxy

-user: probably family or friend

-user; maybe he has a gf

-user; it was me guys

user; sometimes a baby girl is a 26 year old men.

-user: amen

danielriccardo: I have some new toys for them

-maxverstappen: they have so many

-Danielricciardo: that is not what they said. They like it

-maxverstappen1: of course they do. I are cats

@ Maxverstappen1

Liked by Charlesleclerc, redbullracing and 1.379.302 others

Maxverstappen1: Padel session

-

User: Mr Verstappen, is this a soft launch?

User: Never thought i live to the day Max does a soft launch

user: THAT SHOULD BE ME

User: what you mean soft launch, this is basicly a hard launch if you ask me

Charlesleclerc: how did you blame the racket this time

-Maxverstappen1: Ha ha ha, so funny . . . . . . . . .

-user; lestappen content

-user: not much, but i take it

User: please forgive me for the words i am about to say

user: can you hit me with you racket,

user: TELL US THE NAME

-user: please

-

@ Maxverstappen1

Liked by DanielRicciardo, Christianhorner and 1.690.303 others

Maxverstappen1: Holiday with my favourite people. @ VictoriaVerstappen, @ SopieKumpen @ Yourusername

user; we have a name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

user: Victoria, she is so beautiful

user: she is so pretty

-user: you cant see her face

-user: stalked her account

-user: god, i wish i looked like that

user: we lost him

user: noo, my boyfriend

.

@ Yourusername

Liked by 862.792 people

Yourusername: Date night with my darling, @ Maxverstappen1

comments disabled.

-

@ Daniel Ricciardo

Liked by, Yourusername, maxverstappen1, landonorris and 1.580.937 others

Danielricciardo: As they finally told everyone. Here are some pictures I took of the lovely couple @ Maxverstappen1 and @ Yourusername. Thank you of making me feel like a third wheel.

Youruser: These are so pretty. Thanks danny

-danierriccardo: Tnks, mostly your doing.

-maxverstappen1: don't flirt with my girlfriend man

-danielriccardo: not flirting, just appreciating beauty

-maxverstappen1: i crash you of the track

-visacashapp: please don't

user: she is so pretty

user: god had favourites

Maxverstappen1: no problem, get a gf and you can be fourth wheel

user: if you look close you see me jumping of a clif.

user: she is beautifull

user: we need more pictures

-landonorris: say no more

-user: whaattaa

.

@ Lando Norris jpg

Liked by RacerBia, yourusername and 599.573 others

Landonorrisjpg: Cleaning up the gallery. @ Youruername @ Maxverstappen1

Youruser: How did i never noticed you made these

-Landonorris"cause you kept staring at him

Maxverstappen1: maybe you are good for something

-user: hahahahaha, Pleaseee max

-landonorris: no more pictured

user: fuck romeo and juliet, i want what these bitches have

-user: same

-user same2

-user: same3

-user: same13937

user: all i need is a tall blue eyes boyfriend who looks at me like that.

-user: is it to much to ask

user: tell us your secrect yn

-yourusername: i catched him with kebab

-user; i will try, let you know how it goed

-yourusername: 👍 good luck honey.

[artslovergirl]

casual by chappell roan – but make it 2007

art donaldson x reader

notes: okay so, originally this was just a part of a larger fic based around the entire song but um,, i have adhd. so. you get it. but i really liked this part that i actually got done so i didnt want it to collect cobwebs in my google docs lol. but i might think about finishing the whole thing! maybe!

wordcount: 1.7k

Your body was buzzing and tingling in a pleasant and almost numb way. Like the feeling of calm waves lapping at your ankles after having a tidal wave crashed over you. Everything felt warm, most likely due to the late June air and Arts warm arms wrapped around your already flushed body. You probably liked these moments the most. The afterglow. In these moments you could wholly bask in your connection to Art without the thought of you two being just 'casual' dragging after.

It wasn't like you hadn't known what you were getting into. Casual hook-ups and maybe the odd date here and there with a super hot tennis player from your art history course (you made the pun as soon as he introduced himself. He was nice enough to give you a fake laugh.) sounded like a great deal. And it sounded like one of those college-y things your roommate had urged you to do.

You just really hadn't been prepared for how easy it would be to fall in love with him.

Suddenly the warmth that his soft yet firm body was radiating against yours– that was so pleasing a moment ago– felt like an unbearable sauna. You gently untangled yourself from his embrace. He let out a small hum but let you go. Everything still felt warm.

Like routine by this point, you walk over to his dresser, not even bothering to pick up your sweaty discarded clothes from earlier decided on stealing a shirt and boxers from him like always.

You pulled open the drawer and felt your breath catch at what stared back at you. There was a small corner packed with clothes that werent there before.

Your clothes. Which wasnt surprising since you often just forgot your stuff after a late night. But what was surprising is that Art had made a small space for you in his drawer which was now occupied by your originally left behind but now freshly washed and folded shirts, underwear, some pajama bottoms and your favorite lacy bra (which was coincidentally Art’s favorite too).

A familiar shiver swept over your skin causing goosebumps– which you would really like to attribute to your severe lack of clothing but you couldn't lie to yourself anymore than you already had. This relationship had exceeded far past casual. Unfortunately –unlike the other times you had realized this and then vehemently shook away the thought– you couldn't ignore it this time.

Because it was staring you right in the face in the form of your favorite bra hanging out of Art Donaldson's dresser.

You had to face it: you were basically his fucking girlfriend. You were in a relationship without the labels nor the commitment. That's great. That's what everyone wanted, right? All the emotional involvement, none of the promise of loyalty or reciprocated feelings and a 100% chance of getting your heart broken.

…But he had to feel it too, right? Guys don't make space in their dresser for a girl they have no feelings for, do they? So maybe… Maybe this could have a happy ending? Maybe this could serve as the catalyst for you both to be honest about your feelings and realize that you're basically already dating and just make it official. It's not like Art had commitment issues, necessarily. It was more the opposite. He was too committed. To Tashi.

Either way you really just needed to figure out where you fit into his life. Because right now you were squeezed in between his sock drawer and the place where he kept his old tennis rackets.

“Are you okay?” Art’s voice snapped you out of your stupor. You mumble something that sounds like, “Huh..what?” and look over your shoulder to see Art giving you a confused stare from his bed.

His blonde curls were still all messed up from you running your hands through and tugging at them earlier. He was bathed in the warm glow of his desk lamp, softening his already adoring features all the more.

His face was smushed against his pillow as he was laying on his side, and he was giving you his best puppy dog eyes. Although, to be fair, he kind of always had puppy dog eyes. The upper part of his well-defined chest was visible, his pale skin still tinted with redness from you running your hands and nails all over it.

The sight made your heart stutter even though you saw him in a much more promiscuous position a mere half an hour ago.

He looked too good to be true. Sometimes he reminded you of those statues that had lipstick marks all over their marble lips because they were sculpted in such an enchantingly beautiful way that people couldn't help but kiss them. The name Art made a lot of sense, you thought.

Wow. You were whipped to an almost embarrassing level.

That thought made you feel like someone had poured a glass of ice water down your back, “Um..” You tried to regain your focus. “I hadn't noticed that you…kept a space in your dresser for me.” Your gaze swept back over to the drawer.

Mainly because you were sure that if you looked at Art any longer, your feelings would become irrevocable.

”Oh, yeah.” he said it so nonchalantly, in complete contrast to how you were feeling right now. He sat up with his blanket pooling over his thighs, exposing his Adonis belt and blond happy trail that led down to- You quickly flit your eyes back to the dresser in front of you.

Jesus Christ, get a grip, you mentally scolded yourself. There was a short silence that fell over the room. His gaze was still on you, trying to gauge what you were trying to communicate to him. He leaned back against the headboard and without him even realizing, he began running the pads of his fingers over his lips like he always did when he got nervous or felt awkward.

“Well.. I just thought since you stay over sometimes.. You know.” he explained, clearing his throat a little. You dug out your panties and one of your (used to be Art’s) Stanford shirts. If you were going to confront this, you definitely couldn't do it naked.

You didn't miss how Art's gaze never left you once while you were pulling on the soft cotton shirt and panties.

Once you were clothed again, you padded back over to his bed in silence. The mattress dipped as you let your weight fall onto the edge of it. You started shuffling your feet against the carpeted floor, trying to release some of the nerves washing through your body.

You could feel his bed squeak a little as he leaned forward towards you, letting his arms rest on his knees. The intensity of his attentive stare on you didn't exactly help the nauseating swirl of anxiety stirring in your stomach. You chewed on your bottom lip while scrunching up your nose, thinking on how to best approach this.

Tugging and pulling at the carefully crafted bracelet on your wrist, you started, “So..isn't it a little..much to keep space in a drawer for someone you're just hooking up with?”

You immediately worried your wording was making you come across too harsh so you almost stumbled over your words trying to follow up with, “Not that- I just mean…Um..I don't know like..what the..code?..on that is..” Yeah, nailed it. Real smooth.

Vaguely you could see Art’s face scrunch up in confusion from your peripheral, but you were too mortified by your clunky approach to face him fully. He began fidgeting, flicking his thumb under his ring finger. “..Um,” a nervous chuckle followed, “What–uh, what do you mean?”

You began pinching and pulling at the hem of your (his) shirt. “I just…” you sighed and it almost sounded annoyed– maybe the repressed anger at his refusal to acknowledge your deepening relationship was finally bubbling up–

“Isn't that something a guy would do like..for his girlfriend?” You turned your head to the side, finally facing him. He began staring at his bedsheets as if they were suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, fingers still fidgeting.

“I dont know..” he mumbled, “Not necessarily. It's just more convenient, right?” he added with a small shrug. You could hear the uncertainty wavering in his voice.

The sight of him all nervous and sitting curled up in on himself like a hedgehog trying to protect its soft underbelly almost made you regret saying anything at all. Seeing Art in any unease at all always sent a small pang through your chest. He just looked so…almost pitiful. You weren't going to back down, though.

“Art.” you tried your hardest to make your voice sound firm and stable. “Mh,” He raised his head finally meeting your gaze. His blond curls fell just slightly above his eye– he needed a haircut again soon.

Without really thinking about it, almost like it was an instinct, you had reached out and carefully brushed some of them out of his line of sight. It felt so intimate that it made you want to hurl so you quickly retracted your hand like his forehead had burned you.

You laid your hands down in your lap and stared at them.

“I think..things between us are..more than just a casual fling now. At least to me.” You really had tried to sound confident in your words but instead you almost whispered them. Like it was a secret you were ashamed to admit.

The few seconds between you speaking and Art responding felt like torture. You just kept staring at your hands, swallowing down the growing lump in your throat. The sound of him shifting on the bed felt almost deafening to you in the silence.

“I…” He awkwardly cleared his throat again, “I think I...like what we have right now.” That wasn't the response you expected. Or wanted. Was it even really a response? A metallic taste flooded your mouth. That's when you realized you'd been mindlessly chewing your bottom lip and were apparently too lost in thought to realize you had dug your teeth in far too deep. You didn't care about that right now. Your head felt like it was buzzing, completely overwhelmed with different thoughts and reactions to Art's response and what you should do next. “Okay.” is all you could manage. “Yeah, okay.” you exhaled softly, shifting your gaze back to him and nodding slightly. He nodded back, his expression indiscernible.

Despite what you said, you still let yourself drift off to sleep in his arms. And despite what he said, he still pressed a tender kiss to your forehead as your eyes fluttered shut.

[moonstruckme]

It is I, person who asked about the bad car crash one. I have read the one you said! And while yes I think the car crash you described is bad I was wondering if you could do one that's... Worse-? Idk 😅 if not I totally understand lmao.

No I think I get you, thanks for requesting and hope you like it!

cw: car accident, concussion, mention of blood, I already know this is not very accurate, but I did not have it in me to do all the research when I wrote this. Sorry and hope it doesn’t hinder your reading experience </3

emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.2k words

Your own breaths are the loudest sound, which can’t be right. Surely there should be alarms, or screaming, or something. Up until a second ago, the screeching of tires and metal was loud enough to deafen you. 

Your car door squeaks brokenly, a sad echo of the racket from before. The air around you shifts as it comes open, and a moment later there are cold fingers pressing into your jaw. 

You make a low whining sound. “Hey,” you complain. Your lips move oddly, murmuring where you mean to speak. 

“Hi,” a voice behind you replies smoothly. “I’m Sirius, I’m with NHS. Is your neck or back hurting at all, gorgeous?” 

“No. You’re cold.” 

“Lovely. This is my friend Remus, he’s going to push on your hands.” 

A head appears in front of you, upside down and shooting an exasperated look towards the disembodied voice. You don’t understand how these people are moving around so quickly, without you noticing them coming. 

“Hello.” The other man’s—Remus’—gaze softens as he meets your eyes. “Can you tell me if you feel this?” He prods at your hand. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. Your heart is starting to move in your chest, thudding against your ribs like it wants to hurt you. 

“Alright. Can you try pushing up on my hands, please?”

You do. He nods approvingly, giving you a little smile. 

“Good girl. We’re good, Sirius.” 

The cold hands release your face, and you breathe a sigh of relief. It makes your chest ache dully. 

“Beautiful. We ready to move?” 

“Yup.” That’s a third voice, distinct from the others and somewhere you can’t see it. “We’re all set.” 

“Let me just—” Remus’ hands come up around your waist and back, his grip firm, near to bruising. “Okay, I’ve got her. We’re going to unbuckle you and lift you out, okay? Just stay nice and still for us.” 

You’re confused as to what he means, but apparently your silence is consent enough. You feel the buckle of your seatbelt click, and then you’re falling up, Remus’ hold tightening further as he stops your ascent to lift you sideways. 

It’s not until you’re out of the car that you realize you were upside down. Your head feels better, though not by much, and the sun glares at you like it’s punishing you for a wrong you don’t remember having committed. Your arm, suddenly and to your horrified surprise, is in agony. 

A pitchy scraping sound tears from your throat, what would have been a scream if you had the air for one. 

“Here we go, just—yeah—” the third voice speaks as something comes up under your back. “There we are. It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re fine.” 

“We’ll get you on pain meds in just a second, doll,” Sirius promises. Someone adjusts your legs so they’re both on the cot, careful of your searing arm, and then you’re moving, the sky shifting above you until you’re looking up at a gray ceiling instead. Time is an odd, fluid thing, marked only by actions and various pains. 

“When did you get here?” you mutter, to no one in particular. 

The third voice is the one to answer you. It’s accompanied by a thick pair of glasses and a sweet face, eyes flickering between you and some equipment he’s messing with. “Just a few minutes ago.” 

“I don’t…I didn’t hear the sirens.” 

He smiles like you’re funny. “Yeah, I think you might’ve been unconscious for that part.” 

You wrack your brain. You don’t remember falling asleep. Only the screeching on the road and then being in your car. Then again, you feel half as though you could be dreaming right now. 

Something sharp bites into your hand. You whimper, the pain small but only adding to every other hurt that’s already far over your threshold. 

“I know,” Sirius shushes you, sticking something to your hand. “I know, babe, but this is going to help soon. You’ll see.” 

“So far I’ve got a concussion, open fracture of the wrist, several lacerations to the face and chest, and bruising around the knees.” Remus’ voice is an odd combination of soft and businesslike. You have a creeping sensation he’s talking about you. “Am I missing anything?” 

“Possible bruising around the chest,” Sirius says. “She was breathing funny earlier.” 

“Right. Hey, love,” Remus voice gentles as he addresses you, “I’m going to move your shirt down to see if your chest is hurt, alright? I’ll be careful, it won’t take long.” 

“Okay,” you manage weakly. 

“Thank you.” He uses both hands to stretch the collar of your shirt, tutting quietly to himself at whatever he sees. He lifts a stethoscope from around his neck, rubbing the metal on his hand for a moment before setting it to your chest. 

You don’t know what he’s listening for, but you’re distracted when the third paramedic—the one with the glasses—starts running what feels like a wet wipe over your forehead. 

“Just cleaning you up a bit,” he says brightly. “Figure we ought to have you looking your best for whoever ends up stitching you up, yeah?” 

“James.” Sirius’ tone is somewhere between chiding and joking and fond, an entanglement of meanings you quite can’t wrap your pounding head around. “Don’t talk like she’s not already stunning. You can hardly improve upon perfection.” 

“Too true,” the other boy agrees readily. 

“Take a breath in for me, please,” says Remus, seemingly ignoring the other two and seemingly also used to doing so. “Just as deep as you can.” 

You try. You do your best, and as your lungs expand the dull ache worsens and worsens until a sharp pain pierces your middle. The air whooshes out of you in a dry sob. 

The stethoscope leaves your skin, and Remus fixes your shirt collar, putting it back in place. Your chest radiates a terrible, throbbing hurt. 

“It’s okay,” James says. His finger brushes your cheek, swiping at wetness you didn’t realize was there. “Oh, honey, it’s okay.” 

“At least a couple of broken ribs,” you hear Remus mutter to the others. Somehow, impossibly, it makes the pain worsen. 

“What’s happening?” you choke out. 

“You’re in an ambulance,” James tells you kindly. “You were in a car accident, and I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but we’re here to take care of you. We’re going to make sure you’re okay, and then get you to the hospital so they can finish fixing you up. You’ll be alright.” 

The explanation takes you a while to process, but even then your tears don’t seem to want to slow. Your chest pangs with each hitch in your breathing. Eventually Sirius starts talking you through taking slower breaths, trying to calm you down. 

Someone wipes at your face with a small square. It stings, and it comes away light red with your blood and tears. 

“I know it’s scary,” Remus murmurs, “but you’ve already done so, so well. We only have to splint your arm so it doesn’t move and clean some of your bigger cuts, and then we can go to the hospital. Can you let us do that, please? Will you be okay?” 

You take in a ragged breath. “Yeah,” you reply. 

“There we are.” James takes your head between his hands. Something about his grip reassures you. He touches his lips to your forehead, like it’s natural, like it’s nothing. “You’ve got this, sweetheart. Just need you to be brave for us a little while longer.”

[idoodlestuffsometimes]

Story Post 15 (Part 1)

AU MASTER POST

BEGINNING | PREVIOUS | NEXT (tbd)

[Image ID under the cut]

[IMAGE ID: Two pages of a black and white comic. PAGE ONE PANEL ONE: Luz stares up in fear, caught in the relic room of the castle. "Why if it isn't Eda's human pet!" PANEL TWO: Lilith looms over her. "How perfect." PANEL THREE: A distant view of one of the castle's towers. PANEL FOUR: Caleb is throwing a pot on his potter's wheel. He's wearing an apron and his reading glasses, his hair tied up in a bun. He's sticking his tongue out, calm and concentrated as he works. PANEL FIVE: CRASH! Caleb jerks comically in surprise, splattering his pottery everywhere. PANEL SIX: BAM BAM BAM! Caleb takes off his glasses, turning towards the noise coming from the nearby window.

PAGE TWO PANEL ONE: The racket continues, overwhelming the panel. An overhead view as Caleb stands up on his crutches and moves towards the noise. "What in the Titan's name is going on??" he wonders. PANEL TWO: Caleb looks out the window. "I can't see anything from here," he thinks. PANEL THREE: The noise breaks off into a screech, followed by silence. A close up of Caleb looking through the bars of his window, eyebrows raised in bemusement. PANEL FOUR: His expression changes to uncertainty. "It stopped..." he thinks. PANEL FIVE: Hunter throws the door open with a BANG, Belos following behind him. "DAD!" he yells happily. Caleb jolts, startled. PANEL SIX: "You'll never guess what just happened!" says Hunter excitedly. Caleb turns to him, wiping the clay off his hands with a towel. "Violence and destruction of property?" "Well, yes," answers Hunter, "but--." PANEL SEVEN: Belos stands at Hunter's side and rests his hand on his shoulder. Hunter puts his hands on his hips and smiles at Caleb proudly. "Lilith Clawthorne has finally captured the Owl Lady," says Belos. PANEL EIGHT: Caleb clutches his shirt as he looks at them, horrified. The panel around them is black except for the barred window behind him. "She captured her own sister?" he asks. /End ID]

[yeyinde]

I’m begging for your opinions on regency era nasty Simon😭😭

i promised myself this wasn't going to become an anthology but here i am. anthologising.

he's from the absolute bottom of the social circle. his dad was the town drunk, and Simon made a lot of enemies. Price's shady dealings put him and Simon together. i want him to have gone to jail—possibly for murder—and it really shaped who he was as a person. made worse, naturally, when his whole family is killed as soon as he gets out. Simon is blamed, but there's no evidence. rumours start about how a rival gang tried to bury him alive when he was in jail, but he dug his way out. they say he died. he's a monster. a pariah.

he's probably a butcher by day but takes care of Price's dirty work by night. helps run the racket. is an enforcer. just a mean, broken man. spent his formative years in jail surrounded by horrible men.

and you!!! ahhh, Mrs Price's NOSY niece. she goes missing and you come down, sniffing around because this isn't right. why would your aunt run off when she's been raised properly? this isn't like her. it all seems so suspicious. and Price's accusations have tarnished your family's reputation - saying that she ran away with a lowly barkeep in the middle of the night. a decades-long affair, stole money from him. all sorts of nasty business that ruin your family. so, you come to stick your nose into things and ask the questions no one else will.

Price doesn't want you anywhere near his almost wife/servant girl, so he sics the biggest, meanest dog he has on you. only. instead of killing you, Simon takes a disgusting interest in the prim socialite who somehow manages to talk down to him even as he towers over you. it breeds an obsession. unravels all these awful thoughts he's had about the upper class. and his boss giving him the go-ahead to ruin this pretty little bird that always seemed so untouchable? well. sure.

he's keenly aware of how your circle works, and uses that tongue advantage. mocks you when you snap at him to keep his filthy hands off of you, and tells you that you should have stayed in your ivory cage, little bird. gets a sick, twisted pleasure dragging you down the social ladder just by lying his dirty fingers on you. from gold cuffs to a pair of rusting, iron shackles. he loves ruining you. gets off when you call him all sorts of nasty names, trying to act all prim and haughty still, even with his cum drying on your face.

you call him a monster and he pinches your face between his thumb and forefinger, cruelly asking you if he's a monster, then what does that make you? the little fool carrying his monstrous brood. who in your little circle is gonna want you now? knowing that a beast like him put his hands all over you and his babe inside of you? probs whistles to himself as he gets to work on "disappearing" your aunt for good while your whole world crashes down around you lmao

Price is miffed that you're not just as missing as your aunt, but. whatever. Simon's content. you're taken care of. and he gets to pretend to be a good man with his pretty little servant girl tucked into his side. everyone wins.

[kindheart525]

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus Underneath the mistletoe last night She didn't see me creep Down the stairs to have a peep She thought that I was tucked up In my bedroom, fast asleep Then I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus Underneath his beard so snowy white Oh, what a laugh it would have been If Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night

Merry Christmas everyone!🎄❤️

[brisquad-unit-4402]

luxiem and noisy sex

hey guys sorry i was mia for a while you see it was because i was [DEAFENING EXPLOSION AND AFTERSHOCK FOLLOWED BY COLLAPSING DEBRIS, THUNDER CRASH, BICYCLE HORN SOUND EFFECTS]

tags: established relationship, gender neutral reader, smut, bottom/top or sub/dom not specified

⚠️ blow job mention in shu's entry

⚠️ mature content under read more. content under read more is not intended for minors

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

🖋 Ike Eveland

relatively quiet. ike doesn't make a racket often— it's more likely that he'll either tease you with dirty talk and come-ons

but once his brain gets too fucked out to stay coy, he's all shaky breaths and little whines

you can hear him quivering under his breath, as if getting caught would be a problem

which it very much isn't

invite him to get a little louder if you want an adorably flustered, adorably hard novelist. he'll feel so dirty if you do, but at the same time, he feels like making noise proves how much he trusts you

if you're noisy:

even though he doesn't make much noise, sex with you isn't complete without coaxing such sweet squeaks out of you

he takes it as a challenge, trying to figure out which part of your body is most sensitive by how loud you react

it makes him feel so sexy, and desirable, and powerful no matter what position he's in

prefers when you can't form words anymore, only helpless cries. oh, and if you actually do cry? god, he'll remember that forever

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

🦁 Luca Kaneshiro

brings a whole new definition to "loud in bed". like seriously, even if you've had noisy partners before, luca puts them all to shame without even trying

he reacts to almost everything, and it doesn't take him a lot to get there. sometimes you wonder if he's faking it, but no, he's just that aware of everything he feels

he starts out with exclamations, and somehow forms words all the way until the end of the night. the sentences stop making sense halfway through, and by the time he climaxes it's a miracle if he can even get through his words without tripping up

if you're noisy:

is he the luckiest guy in the universe or what? it feels great to have someone that gets what it's like to be loud

doesn't even care what you say or do as long as he can hear it. just being able to hear those noises has his engine revving

then again, when you're lips are pressed up to him and he can still hear the muffled sounds and your vibrating throat, he just wants to fuck until you both white out in the afterglow

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

👟 Shu Yamino

shu doesn't take sex too seriously and just wants to have fun above all else, and you have to wonder if it's because he always laughs at least once when you sleep together

he's actually quite ticklish, and his moans sometimes end in giggles. they sound so sweet even though what you do under the covers is anything but

this is one of the few things he's actually insecure about. he's so worried that it might kill the mood or make his partner feel self conscious

don't take it personally. he whimpers plenty when he's not giggling, and the last thing he wants is a misunderstanding just because of how his body expresses pleasure

if you're noisy:

sometimes he wishes he could commit every one of your noises to memory. they're easily his favorite part of going down on you

he fantasizes about your voice getting excited often. if you're ever apart, he'd love to listen to you masturbate and call his name over the phone

hell, even hearing his name from your trembling lips has his cock throbbing, ready to fill that pretty mouth and give you something to really choke on

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

👹 Vox Akuma

tends to make more guttural sounds. growls, hums, and purrs galore. vox doesn't even try to make them sound sultry, they're just so low and irresistible, as expected of the voice demon himself

but if you catch him off guard you might just make him squeak in surprise and satisfaction. he even stutters and trips over his words

which is something he gets embarrassed over, especially since all his other noises are still on the low end of the spectrum, but calling attention to it gets him even more aroused

great sex usually ends with high-pitched whimpers and gasps, and the best ones have him screaming as he orgasms

if you're noisy:

your noises make him so unbelievably horny, you have no idea. the second he realizes you're loud, he wants nothing more than to hear you all night

it's a huge ego boost and fuels him to keep pushing his limits. anything to keep you crying out for him

he'll goad you into responding to his dirty talk just so he can hear you whimper in-between your words

whether you want to be praised or degraded, he tries to mention your voice and noises as much as he can since it's all he can think about

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

✧. ┊ masterpost ✧. ┊ kofi

[thesightstoshowyou]

Makin’ Friends

Cooper Howard (The Ghoul) x F Reader (NSFW)

Summary: A truck stop bathroom is about to see more action than it has in years.

Warnings: Nonconsensual touching, brat taming, use of “Daddy,” slapping, excessive dirty talk, descriptions of blood and gore, descriptions of drug effects, dubious consent, degradation, biting, facial

Fat drops of crimson drip and splatter onto broken tile and dingy, cracked porcelain. Trembling fingers rifle through supplies, bottle caps and ammo clacking as they are shoved aside. Gritted teeth grip hold of gauze wrapping and tear.

Smashing the dressing over your oozing gut forces a grunt up and out of your throat. The bullet in your belly burns where it sits nestled between innards. Your leg burns too—a graze—but it will have to wait. Vitals first.

You spit out a curse and frantically upend your bag. Provisions and supplies tumble into the sink and crash to the ground, but your concern is elsewhere. Against your palm, the dressing grows warm and sticky faster than you can replace it. If you don’t find this fucking Stimpak soon you’re gonna pass out. You can almost hear the Radroaches excitedly clicking their disgusting mandibles in anticipation of their next meal.

A pane of glass from the broken bathroom mirror smashes onto the worn countertop and you jolt, your frayed nerves making you skittish as a cottontail. Your gaze momentarily raises to your haggard reflection. Sweat beads along your brow and sticks your hair to your skin. Chapped lips press into a thin, anxious line when you see how much color has drained out of your face, the effects of blood loss startlingly visible.

Where in the fuck is that god damned—

Movement in the mirror, behind you. Breath sticking in your throat, you whirl around, boots slipping in the gore that has pooled at your feet. Your free hand grips the countertop to keep you upright as your eyes meet the gnarled, grinning face of the last thing you want to see in your current state.

Where’s your gun—your eyes flick to the right—shit, you set it on the back of that busted toilet—

“The fuck are you doing here, ghoul?” Your question drips with condescension, bravado your only available weapon.

The Ghoul shoulders the doorframe as one gloves hand comes to rest against the bandolier across his chest. “Shoulda known it was you making all that racket back in town. Did ya’ bite off a bit more than ya’ could chew, darlin’?”

You’d roll your eyes if you weren’t so lightheaded. “Bounty had some unexpected friends,” you comment. It would be nonchalant if not for the white-knuckled grip you have on the countertop.

A wry chuckle, then, “Friends, huh? Now that’s somethin’ you’re painfully short on, ain’t it?” The toe of his boot playfully taps at some debris on the floor. “Think it’s cuz of that winnin’ personality a’ yours?”

Your knees shake, your shoulder aching from keeping you upright. “You’re one to talk. I don’t see your entourage anywh—

Your words die on your tongue when you finally focus on what the Ghoul rolls under the heel of his boot. What you thought was a chunk of tile is actually the thing for which you’ve been searching so feverishly: The fucking Stimpak.

The Ghoul’s brows raise in feigned surprise when he spots you staring at the floor. “Oh, this what ya’ been lookin’ for?” Keeping his gaze on yours, he leisurely crouches and retrieves the coveted little vial before standing to his full height once more.

Your stomach plummets. You can’t stop the way your chest heaves, your body desperate to pump oxygen into your slowly dwindling blood supply. Agony pulses in nauseating waves through your belly, your jaw clenching to keep your weakness hidden. But who are you kidding?

You’re not stupid. You know this Ghoul has no qualms about splattering your brains all over the broken mirror behind you. If he wanted you dead, he would have done it already. No, he must be here for something else.

“What do you want?” you mutter, the words shaking as they leave your lips. Yellow teeth peek from between tattered lips as the Ghoul smirks. He pushes away from the door and steps toward you, boots crunching on shattered tile and glass and refuse with each unhurried step.

You stumble back, his advance pressuring you against the counter behind you, but he doesn’t stop until he’s mere inches away, until the scents of ozone and gunpowder and worn leather sting your nose. Instinct takes over and you lash out, fingers intent on his eyes, but he catches your weak jab with embarrassing ease. The Ghoul snatches your other limb for good measure and gathers up both of your wrists in one, gloved hand.

Your lips pull back over your teeth in a snarl, but it’s useless. You’re caught, caged in by his body and the sink digging into your ass. And now, with no pressure over the wound in your gut, blood freely leaks down your front to soak the both of you.

The Ghoul hums thoughtfully. “Kitty’s been declawed.”

“Fuck you,” you grit out, but it sounds more like a whine than an insult. Darkness pulls at the edges of your vision. You’re about to black out—

“Ah, now, is that how you ask nice for somethin’?” He brings the Stimpak into your line of site and dangles it there, taunting you. You give him the nastiest glare you can muster, but your anger seeps out of you with your blood. Animal panic takes its place.

He must see the desperation in your eyes because he leans down, his face so close to yours you feel the heat of his breath as he murmurs, “Go on now. What’s the magic word?”

Tremulous breaths spill from your nose as you clamp your mouth shut. Pride is going to be the death of you. Would you really rather die than give him whatever the hell it is he wants?

Thickly, you swallow and whisper, “…please.”

The Ghoul tilts his head, “What was that, sweetheart? Couldn’t make it out—

“PLEASE-“ you bite your tongue, suck in a breath, “Please, I…help me.” A low chortle greets your words, then stabbing pain as a needle plunges into your abdomen. You grunt and hiss as the drugs burn their way through tissue to jumpstart the healing process. Pain killers douse the anguish like water over a fire and you slump in relief, forehead dropping to a sturdy shoulder.

The empty syringe clatters when it’s tossed onto the counter. Gloved fingers find your hair and grip hard to tip your head back. You wince and blink in an effort to come back to yourself, opiates and stimulants and steroids and whatever else was in that vial at war with your consciousness as they repair your shredded guts.

“There now. All better. I believe a ‘Thank you,’ is in order,” the Ghoul drawls. You’re still so weak, desperately in need of rest and hydration, but the drugs have rekindled the embers of rage.

“I’m not telling you a god damned—

WHAP

Blinding pain collides with your cheek and suddenly you’re staring at the torn ad for Cram plastered to the wall: Now with 50% more Cram! Wetness, thick and tangy like iron, drips into your mouth. Your nose…it’s bleeding. Your cheek throbs in time with your pounding heart.

He’d fucking backhanded you….

Your head is yanked back by the hand in your hair until your face is inches from the Ghoul’s once again. “If you’re gonna be an ungrateful little shit, I can just put another hole in your belly and be on my way.”

You clench your eyes shut as your teeth grind together in barely contained ire. Curses that would make a sailor blush sit at the back of your throat like bile. It’s so tempting to just spit in his face and suffer the consequences. You’re not gonna fucking saying it, you can’t….

“…thank you.”

“That’s a good girl. I knew there were some manners in there somewhere.” Pressure between your legs makes your eyes fly open, a startled yelp slipping from your mouth.

Gloved fingers rub gentle circles at the apex of your thighs. Pleasure blooms in their wake, little pulses that arc through your core and zing up your spine. You open your mouth to hurl outraged insults, but, to your horror, a little mewl escapes instead.

Your cheeks burn and you splutter, “W-What-what are you—

“Looks like them drugs are workin’, huh?” The deep purr of the Ghoul’s voice rumbles against your chest and you squeak, goosebumps raising across your flesh. Fruitlessly, you tug against his iron grip on your wrists, but even just that consistent pressure makes you shiver.

You have got to be kidding….

The fingers massaging your cunt through your pants push right where you want them most and your lips part in a sharp gasp. It’s like your hips have a mind of your own as they tilt to increase the friction. The muscles of your thighs quiver in an effort to keep you from completely humping his hand.

Angry tears—anger? Is that what you’re feeling?—prick at the corners of your eyes as you look up into the Ghoul’s face. He smirks down at you, his eyes alight with mirth and hunger. Just that simple look he gives you makes your throat go dry.

“Feels good, huh?” You suck in an irritated breath through your teeth when he pulls his hand away. Yellowing teeth catch a fingertip of his glove, his bare fingers sliding free. “Good girls get to feel good. Simple as that. Now open up.”

Digits press insistently at your lips. Against your ribs, your heart pounds, the needy pulse between your legs matching its rhythm. It’s infuriating how badly you want him to touch you again….

A defeated groan sounds in the back of your throat when your mouth pops open. Fingertips tease your front teeth as the Ghoul murmurs, his words dark and deliberate, “I think ya’ know what’ll happen if ya’ bite me.”

You shoot him a withering look that says, ‘You must think I’m an idiot.’ He raises a brow in response. ‘I ain’t taking any chances with you.’ You let your tongue unfurl from your mouth for good measure.

Two fingers slide past your teeth and plunge deep into your mouth to test your gag reflex. “Suck,” the Ghoul orders. You only hesitate a moment before you close your lips around his digits and hollow out your cheeks. Still, that disobedient part of you can’t help but tease your teeth against his nails when he pulls the wetted fingers from your mouth.

“Seems like you’re wantin’ another slap,” he grumbles before shoving his hand down the front of your pants. Whatever clever quip you had prepared morphs into garbled nonsense when he locates your aching clit and strokes it with calloused fingertips.

You don’t realize the extent of your desire until he dips into the remarkable slickness of your folds. “Appears we didn’t need your mouth,” the Ghoul jokes. You would respond with something scathing if you could think of anything to say, but the mind-numbing shocks of pleasure rippling through your belly are making it difficult to speak.

“Turned ya’ into Daddy’s little brain dead whore in no time, didn’t I?” Your cheeks blaze and you choke on an indignant sound.

“I-I-you can’t just—fuck—

“S’alright. You can say it. Ain’t nobody else here to see you debasing yourself.” You whimper and shake your head, but your traitorous body rolls your hips into his stupid hand despite yourself.

Hot breath ghosts across your ear. “Say it and I’ll fuck that wet little hole. Just four simple words is all: ‘Please fuck me, Daddy.’”

“N-Not, I’m not—

“You know as well as I do that needy cunt’s beggin’ to be filled.” As he speaks, fingers circle your entrance for emphasis. You feel your resolve crumbling away beneath your curled toes.

But—christ—a ghoul? And a mean sonofabitch ghoul with the filthiest fucking mouth at that…. A ghoul that has you leaking like a broken pipe….

“…p-please—god dammit—please fuck me…Daddy.” Your face has to be on fire.

No sooner do the words leave your lips than you are twirled around. The room whirls like a top, your palms slipping in the blood still dripping off the countertop when you try to steady yourself. Only the hand in your hair keeps you from smashing your chin on ancient porcelain.

The Ghoul ruts against your ass while his free hand works his pants open. Your mouth snaps shut, your teeth clacking together to stop the groan when you feel his hard length dragging against your clothed flesh. Your skin tingles, your cunt soaking through your underwear in anticipation.

Dizzy from the drugs surging through your thin blood and the maddening want, you watch in the broken mirror as the Ghoul grasps the waistband of your pants to shove them down to your knees. Hot, gnarled skin slides along your slit, teasing, until you whine and wiggle your hips.

He meets your hazy gaze in the mirror, a smug sneer tugging at the corners of his lips. You huff and open your mouth to lash out, but the thick head of his cock breeches your entrance and turns the retort into a slurred, “Ffffuck!”

Hips surge forward to bury all that rough girth into slippery muscles that haven’t been used in god knows how long. Your eyes grow wide as saucers, your jaw locked in a silent scream, the air forced from of your lungs by the intrusion. Your walls spasm and clench in an effort to accommodate the stretch.

Behind you, a strained groan, long and low. “Tighter than I thought you’d be.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’d say it if you could figure out how to do anything other than moan.

The Ghoul’s scarred fingers dig into your locks, adjusting his grip so he can pull you back into his sharp thrust. The wanton noise you make has you wishing you’d bled out, but it’s not long before complex thought is wiped from your brain to be replaced with a mantra of ‘more, more, more.’

Wet slapping, the jingling of a belt buckle, rustling of a shredded duster, harsh grunts, and high, girlish cries fill the dilapidated bathroom as the Ghoul pummels you into the countertop. Your guts now ache for a different reason, assaulted from pleasure so taut and intense it borders on agony. You feel each frenzied stroke in the top of your skull all the way to the tips of your toes.

Warmth envelops your back as the Ghoul leans over you, the pistoning of his hips never faltering. Again, his lips find your ear, that voice like smooth bourbon filling your fuzzy head when he asks, “Is that pretty pussy about to cum on my cock?”

Resistance leaves you in a breathy keen. All the fight has been fucked out of you. Submission comes as an eager nod and a tiny, pathetic, “Please, Daddy.”

He gives a low growl in response, one you feel vibrating against your back. Fingers hook in the collar of your shirt and wrench it to the side. Bared teeth find the place where your neck meets your shoulder and sink into smooth flesh so hard you’re sure they’ll come away red.

You cum with a strangled scream, that pressurized ball of need rapidly unraveling in your belly. Slick walls squeeze, clinging tight to the girth battering them. Your eyes roll back, your shriek of euphoria reverberating off the low ceiling. Against your shoulder is a muffled rumble, then the absence of heat at your back.

Your head spins when you’re flipped around and shoved to the floor. A pained cry leaves your lips when your knees crack on filthy tile. Your head is jerked back, neck tendons popping with the force, while Ghoul’s other hand furiously pumps his drenched cock.

Your brain catches up with the situation just as he utters a pinched, “Fuck!” Eyelids snap shut a second before sticky warmth splatters across your face. The dose of radiation you’ll receive if any of that drips into your mouth…. You clench your jaw, lips pressed tight together.

Panting, trembling, skin buzzing like a thousand bees, you hastily wipe your face on your sleeve. Timidly, you peek up at the Ghoul looming over you. One hand still holds your hair, the other already readjusting his belt.

“That’s a good look for you, sweetheart.” All you can manage is an irritated nose scrunch. You’re too exhausted to bite, weariness settling deep in sore muscles. Rest and water are now your priority; that, and getting rid of the fingers still digging into your scalp.

Your stomach flips when he chuckles. “That’s cute.”

“What now?” you snap, the harshness of your tone lessened when your voice cracks.

“You think you’re done, dontcha?” Your breath catches in your dry throat. He can’t be serious.

“Hey, no, c’mon—

Your hands fly to his wrist when the Ghoul tugs you to your feet by your hair. You curse and stagger like you’ve forgotten how to walk, your knees seconds away from buckling.

“Up and at ‘em, baby. Night’s still young.”

[luveline]

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

you start to second guess your relationship when eddie doesn't waylay you with his usual abundance of kisses after work. meanwhile, eddie tries to work out what's upsetting you, how to fix it, and most urgently, how to ask you a super important question. fem!reader, 5k

cw: eddie skipping meals at work, suggestive flirting

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

Eddie's borrowed headphones slip down your head as you dance. Nothing dramatic, a shoulder wiggle as you do the dishes. You can't hear the racket you're making, plates crashing into one another on the drying rack, the hot water pounding the basin, the clip of your sock-clad foot against wooden slats as you tap it. 

Your hands burn at the high temperature. Your fingertips are pruned, palms chapped as you finish washing Eddie's mountain of dishes. His whole apartment was in similar disarray before you arrived, laundry to the eyes and one of his haphazard book towers collapsed in the bedroom. The dishes had been scraped and rinsed but not washed, the laundry designated to one corner of the bathroom; Eddie's not unclean, necessarily, but unfocused. 

You had time. You don't mind coming over to help him out. 

Though if he knew you were here doing this he'd blow a gasket. I don't want you wasting your time doing shit I should've done a week ago, he'd say. 

It isn't time that matters to you. You'd take a couple of days out if it helped him, if it meant he could enjoy the place he lives to the fullest extent. Plus, you spend time here too. And you get to borrow his Walkman the whole time. Eddie has the best tapes. 

You hum along to the finishing line of the song and set the last clean cup upside down on the draining board. Satisfied at a job well done, you wipe the sink basin clean, drain suds from the sponge, and turn off the water. Cool air floats in through the open window, kissing your lightly perspiring skin hello. 

You dry your hands on a cloth and push Eddie's headphones carefully down to your neck, more than careful with his things. He works hard for everything he has, days and nights and any shift they want him to take. Most of it goes into his savings account. His spare change gets dropped into a washed out pasta sauce jar on the sill for a forthcoming rainy day. Ridiculous amounts of it get spent on you, and if you asked Eddie he'd say it was perfectly reasonable, sweetheart. 

You're not asking him. You don't think new clothes and sweet treats nearly every time you see him counts as reasonable, but you'd be a liar if you said you didn't appreciate it. 

Hence your unsanctioned use of his spare key. You buy him treats too, but money can't buy the satisfaction of a clean home. (Well, it could. Hiring a day maid might've been quicker and cleaner in the end, but would a day maid have put their heart and soul into dusting his figurines with a makeup brush for fifteen minutes?)

You turn around with Eddie on your mind, feeling grateful and tired at once. Your thoughts stutter at the warm body standing casually in the doorway, his shoulder pressed to the jam, a rucksack and a carabiner of keys hanging from his curled fingers. 

"Hey," Eddie says. 

You flinch like he's coming at you, startled by his sudden appearance. 

His laugh is apologetic, at least. "Woah! I thought you heard me, where's your head?" 

You slap a hand to your racing heart and huff out a breath that fans up your face. Eddie straightens from his cool guy slouch, dropping his keys on the counter and sliding his bag beside them. 

"It's around here somewhere," you say through a smile, trying and failing to glare at him as he puts his hands on your waist. "You scared me bad." 

"It was accidental." 

He pulls your hips to his and leans back. A close pressure without being particularly sexual. It's obvious that he's looking you over, like you might've miraculously run into harm in the sixteen hours you've been apart. 

"I didn't think you'd be back yet, sorry," you say breathlessly, still recuperating from your scare. 

"I'm the sorry one." 

He brings a hand to your face. If there's one thing you can count on with your boyfriend, it's that he's going to find an excuse to touch your face at least once a day, whether it be with the back of a ring-heavy finger trailing down your cheek lightly, or a flat, hot palm, calluses scratching ever so slightly as he squeezes it into whatever shape he feels like. Never cruel, but melding. 

He's in a mood. 

Not salacious. Teasing at most, he pulls a rough line down from the corner of your eye to your lips. 

"Why are you doing my dishes?" he asks. 

His hands smell like citrus scrub and white vinegar. They must've had him cleaning in the kitchen at work again. 

"So you wouldn't have to. I know you don't mean to let them pile up." 

"I'll find my laundry in the dryer, I'm guessing." 

"Nope. Folded in your dresser, more like."

He pulls your chest to his, the heat of his breath kissing your nose. It smells like the spearmint gum he chews obsessively during his morning shifts. Eddie has a theory that eating in the mornings is breaking a seal —you'll be much hungrier for the rest of the day than you would've been otherwise. Better to wait for lunch. 

You hate his theory (three meals a day plus as many snacks as he needs would be perfect,  if he could find the time) and his gum for what it represents. It reminds you that he likely hasn't eaten today, and you're quick to start brainstorming ideas for dinner from the ingredients you'd seen while cleaning. He has ground beef, enough eggs to make pasta, and a tupperware of frozen soup from last Wednesday. The world's your oyster. 

"What are you thinking about?" he asks. You don't have time to answer. "I wish you didn't do all the laundry, babe. Those stairs are a fucking killer." 

He leans that last inch. A kiss is coming any second now, your pulse capering between your ears. A hundred kisses shared between you and you wait for the next with the same calibre of excitement as you did for the first. 

"I owe you a deep tissue massage, right?" he murmurs. 

You beam at him, pushing the heel of your palm against his chest to widen the distance between you into something a little less heart-pounding. "You haven't eaten today, have you?" 

"I'm pretty hungry," he says, his voice smooth as angora silk. 

He looks, again, like he might kiss you. His eyes dip to your lips, a molten brown shining in the kitchen light. You wait, and you wait, but he doesn't close the gap. 

You push your smile to one side, your eyelashes twined in the corners from the force of it. Your smile isn't entirely genuine. It's cool if he doesn't wanna kiss you… sort of. He can do whatever he likes, of course, you'd never force him to kiss you just to keep you happy or for any other reason, but you're a little down at the idea that he doesn't want to. You love how they feel. You're used to them as both hello and goodbye. 

Eddie might not want to kiss you, but he isn't putting on a show, his amorous smirking a reality you battle with (read: give in to, enjoy, daydream about) on the regular. Perhaps he isn't eager to ravish you after a full day bussing tables. That's more than okay. 

However he might be feeling, you aren't going to let him go hungry a minute longer. "Dinner?" you ask. 

"I was thinking sloppy Joes," he says, his hand running down your arm. He turns for the fridge. You follow. "Brioche buns?" 

You step in front of him, the fridge door a cacophony of glass rattling as you tug it open. "I'm making them." 

Eddie wraps his arms around you, moving you bodily to the side. It's too quick for you to dig your heels in. 

"You used to be a gentleman," you complain. 

"No, I didn't." He taps your ankle with the rubber toe of his converse. 

You make dinner together, to each other's chagrin. Eddie steals spatulas and frying pan handles from your grip. You bump his hip away from the stove grill to toast buns. When you sit down together on the couch, it's at war, elbows digging into soft spots and cups placed out of reach on the coffee table. 

"Dick," you say. 

Eddie takes a bite, says, "You're the dick, dick," and starts shovelling fries onto your plate. "Giving me more fries is ridiculous. We should eat the same portions, we're the same age." 

"But one of us had breakfast and lunch, and one of us didn't," you say, using your fork to give his gifted fries straight back. 

And here's where you get the first inkling that something's making him not want to kiss you, emphasis on you. 

Eddie loves kissing you when he feels loved. For obvious starters, whenever you tell him you love him he makes sure to kiss your lips. When you make him laugh, when you wash his hair in the shower, when you draw stars into his palms, all those things garner a fond peck to the temple. He kisses the space just under your ear so often you're sure there's a contusion in the shape of his mouth there, permanent and purpling, his go-to whenever he's laying on top of you or hugging you from behind. 

You can count on a mildly greasy kiss no matter the meal. Eddie loves eating dinner together. He waits for you to get home, sometimes for hours, to share a plate with you. You've never not indulged him with a kiss. Tonight, he doesn't ask. 

It would be here. Name-calling dripping in affection, you elbow glancing off of his as you cut into your sloppy Joe, and the TV failing to cover the sound of a quick kiss before he digs in. You're gutted at the lack and surprised to have noticed it, but you don't go so far as to mourn the loss: Eddie's likely too hungry to think about kissing, that's all. Right?

Despite attempts to convince you otherwise, he's hungry. He finishes his plate in what feels like five big bites, hair tucked behind his ears, an innocent but far off look about him as he wipes his fingers in a piece of kitchen towel and leans back into the couch cushions with a small groan. 

"We should stop eating on the couch," he says. 

"You told me you wanted to sit here." You're confused. 

"It's like, testing fate. I'm a mess. I'll ruin it and have to get a new one I can't afford." 

You chew on a fry. "I mean," —you put your hand over your mouth, pleased when he turns to you with a ready-made smile, like the act of just looking at you is one he enjoys— "even if you drop something on it, we can Didi Seven it. Or get one of those fancy water vacuum things." 

"It's my couch," he says. "You wouldn't have to clean it." 

"You're my boyfriend," you respond, "so I wouldn't mind." 

"I'm your boyfriend," he says, his head tilted ever so slightly to one side. 

His lips close, his eyes tracking up and along the lines of your features with an unnameable emotion in his gaze. You'd like to say that it's love, but you're starting to think it's something else. 

"Don't say it like that. You sound too unsure," you say.

Amusement dances across his face. "Are you finished?" he asks, opening his hand for your tray. 

"No," you say, faux-stroppy. You take another fry. 

Eddie grabs his tray. He skirts around your legs and stops at your side. In his more dopey moods, he'd take your face into his hand again and hold your head still as he kisses your crown. 

He squeezes your shoulder. "I'm not unsure about anything," he says warmly. "I'll get you a drink, yeah? Ice?" 

A chuck under the chin with his forefinger and he's gone, leaving you sitting there wondering what's wrong with him. Home an hour now and not one single kiss? Is this the end of the honeymoon phase? How do people survive this shit, you think. It's agonising.

Your chewing turns morose. 

You and Eddie go through phases, waxing and waning, as most people do. There's always love there, but sometimes there's so much of it you don't know what to do with yourself besides lavish in it. Only yesterday morning he'd been in your bed, shirtless (as you often wish he'd be), dark ink like bruises in the low light where it climbed the lengths of his arms and his bare chest. You were lax under his touch, his nose and lips pressing to your skin as he kissed you from rib to soft tummy. Slow, kissing you as though he had nowhere else to be but there. As though his next shift wasn't thirty minutes around the corner. 

You were mortified when he blew a raspberry. Now you're thinking you might peel out of your shirt and ask him to do it again if it means he'll kiss you in any definition. 

"What are you thinking about?" he asks as he returns, his hand sliding along from your shoulder to the other while he steps over your legs. 

"What are you thinking about?" you ask. 

"Feeling very repetitive today, are we?" he teases, no consideration for your dinner tray as he collapses into the seat beside you. 

You're expecting his cheek on your shoulder, his hair tickling your upper arm. It doesn't come. Worried he's discouraged by your tray, you place it on the coffee table and sit back. You really want him to kiss you. 

Kissing someone isn't something you thought you'd want to do before you met Eddie. To be kissed, sure. To give a chaste peck, absolutely. But to have someone put their weight on you, to press at the seam of your lips with their own and to wade in like a steady wave, one breath at a time, until you're unsure where the boundary of your mouth begins and his ends, that was all new. Eddie kisses like he loves, loud and brash, rough and eager. Gentle when he needs to be but arduous. 

He makes you feel wanted in a thousand ways and the first is his greedy penchant for stealing a kiss or three at every opportunity. It's weird that he hasn't kissed you yet. He's acting weird. 

"You're being super weird," you say. You feel like a pressure cooker with steam pouring from the release valve. 

Eddie smirks at you. "That so? Any explanation attached to that, or are we name-calling? I have some names for you, if we are." 

"Oh, I have to know." 

"Figured you would." He throws his leg over your thigh. The firm muscle of it tenses as he wiggles his foot. 

"What were you gonna call me?" you prompt impatiently.   

"Sweetheart. Angel." He turns his cheek into the back of the couch, bringing his pinky to your face and drawing a line from the smoothest skin under your eye outward. "Pretty. Very pretty." 

"Says you," you murmur. If he thinks you're so pretty, why won't he kiss you? "I can't work out your angle today." 

"Am I acting differently?" he asks, seemingly unperturbed. 

No. He just hasn't kissed you. There might have been a moment when he first came home where you thought he was hesitating to kiss you, but since then he's acted exactly as he usually does (minus kissing, therefore making it unusual). 

You sigh, half serious and half wanton sadness. "No." His nose twitches. You startle. "What?" 

"Nothing." 

"What, do I have bad breath?" you ask, bringing a hurried palm to your mouth to try and test it. 

Eddie pulls your hand down, admonishing through a laugh, "You obviously don't. You know I'd tell you, babe." 

"Oh." 

"I got gum though, if you want it." 

You bat his chest. "I bet you do… I don't know what it is, then. I give up." 

"What's what?" he asks. He takes a curl of his hair around a painted fingernail. It coils on his finger, where he pinches the end, bringing it up to your chin and drawing a smile under your lips with the tip. 

"I… do I have something in my teeth? A zit? What's the issue?" you ask, lost. 

"There's no issue!" He laughs, and he curves his hand gently around your neck. "Why do you think there's an issue?" he asks. A thread of his voice wavers. Impossible to notice if you didn't know everything about him, down to the stray hair. 

"No, because," —your voice shrinks— "you're being off with me." You won't cry, but it's impossible to stop the doubt that seeps into your voice. "You're not…" 

Eddie strokes your neck with his thumb, growing serious. "I'm not what?" 

"You haven't kissed me." You avoid his eyes. "Not since you saw me." 

"I'm sorry," he says, immediately dipping forward. 

You pull back. "Wait–" 

Eddie waits. "What?" he asks. 

"I don't want you to kiss me just 'cus I asked you to." 

Eddie pushes his hand upward, his index finger shaped to your jawline. He rubs a quarter circle from your chin to your jaw tentatively with his thumb, an awful sorry look in his eyes that he gets whenever you're upset. "Well, I always want to kiss you," he confesses. His eyebrows furrow. "You know that, right?" 

"But you haven't, today." 

Is that pathetic? you panic. Noticing, caring, it feels so, so silly all of a sudden, you can't believe you spilled it that easily. You may as well have written clingy loser across your forehead in glaring pen. 

Eddie sees it. He doesn't cringe at you like you fear he will. 

"Ah," he says, almost humming, his lips barely parted, "that's just not okay, is it? My girl waiting on a kiss." 

He leans in. You shy away, wanting his kiss but wanting the run up more. Eddie follows your lead, keeping space between you, rubbing a diligent and affectionate circle into your cheek. His touch is soft enough to tickle. 

"I'm not trying to act desperate, I just figured– I thought there was a reason you hadn't," you say. 

Eddie asks you in his softest, most genial tones if he can kiss you. 

You don't say yes so much as you lift your chin and close your eyes. Your relief is sharp as he closes the fizzing space between you, as he guides your face to his and holds it there like a treasured pearl cupped in two palms. He makes a sound at the back of his throat that kills any doubts of his affection stone cold dead. Your lips part a millimetre if that, and Eddie slots into the gap, his hands growing less and less careful by the second, the pressure of his touch amping up. He moves back only long enough to turn his head, your noses bumping, another breathy sound slipping past his lips. You smother it gracelessly with a rougher reciprocation. 

It's not your longest kiss, but it works. It's the reassurement you needed. Eddie pulls away to suck in a harsh breath, the feeling foreign against your tingling lips. His face dips, his eyes out of view. His hands move in twin down the slope of your neck, languish, feel along the thin layer of your t-shirt as though he's looking for some secret answer. 

"I'm not trying to act weird around you, I'm just nervous," he says.

You feel your back aching, stiff as a rod. "Nervous?" you ask quietly. 

Eddie rests his forehead on your chin. He whispers a cuss, and then he sits up very tall and looks you in the eye. 

It takes him five seconds to tell you what it is that's making him anxious. In that time, you come up with a handful of things. I lost my job. I don't want to be with you anymore. There's someone else. There's no one else, but you did something that pissed me off/made me uncomfortable/disgusted me. I'm sick. None of your guesses are good, and none prepare you for what he asks next. 

"Would you wanna move in with me?" 

His hand meanders along your thigh. An awkward smile catches his lip like a fish hook, tugging it up on one side. 

"I… what?" 

"I think it's a good idea. I was trying to ask you yesterday, and now today it didn't feel right. I don't want you thinking I'm asking because you did my laundry." His hand warms your thigh, a pervasive heat. Your face is similarly hot. "We could split rent, and you could keep saving. You wouldn't have to deal with your shitty neighbours. You'd be closer to your job, and– and to me. It's a good idea," he repeats. "There's a ton of reasons it would be good for you, but I'm asking 'cus I missed you so bad last night I couldn't sleep. I wanna be with you whenever we can be." 

"You'd really want me to?" you ask. 

"You'd never have to wait for a kiss again," he says hopefully. "I know it's a big move. I get it if you're not ready." 

"I'm ready," you say. You don't know it's true until you've said it aloud. 

Delight sparks and catches like sun-dried tinder. Elation lights his eyes. "Holy shit, yeah? You want to?" 

"Yeah," you say, nodding emphatically, trying not to yell. "Yes, I want to. I'd love to! That would be–" 

"A dream," he finishes, snatching your waist into his grasp, basically yanking you into his arms.

"Amazing," you say, your arms forced over his shoulders. 

You wrap your arms around the back of his head, curls that smell of almond oil and a generous dollop of hair mousse crushed to your face. Your eyes slip closed. You suck in an inconspicuous breath, though your self-indulgent action is interrupted by a groan, Eddie squeezing you hard enough to make the bones in your back click three at a time. 

"I can't believe you, sweetheart. I don't kiss you for an hour and you think there's something wrong?" He laughs.

"I'm spoiled," you say sheepishly. To draw his attention, you add, "I can't believe you, afraid to ask me that! Why would I say no? I love you." 

"I love you, too," he says, pulling the small of your back tighter still so he can dig his nose into the side of your head. 

He kisses you all over the side of your face until you're painted in little warm patches from overexposure. A loved up mess, and dizzy with relief.

Relief and excitement. "How soon do you want me in here?" you ask, sitting back. 

"How soon do you want another kiss?" he asks. 

"Will we be stealing each other's questions all day?" you ask. 

"For the rest of time, if I get my way." 

"That's so corny," you whisper, ecstatic. 

Eddie pushes you down onto the couch cushions. You know before he so much as pulls up a knee that he's going to climb on top of you. You make room for him, your heart feeling like it could breach through your ribs one bone at a time. 

"What are you doing?" you whisper with a smile. 

"Making up for lost kisses."

—

Two Weeks Later

Eddie wakes to a kiss. 

Your arm thrown over his waist, your hand feeling greedily at the trim curve atop his hip, you've well and truly wrapped yourself around him. Like an octopus. He imagines the popping sound of your suckers if he tried to detach you (not that he'd want to). 

You're dotting shy, soft kisses down the column of his throat. "I love you," you say softly between them, a melody that turns him to jelly. "I love you. Love you, love you, love you." 

Your kisses are a compromise —after the general holy fucking shit-ism of your conversation a fortnight ago, Eddie put his foot down. He was out of his mind knowing his apartment was about to become yours, but he was also incredibly unhappy about the faces you'd made before he asked. He remembers your voice, your apprehension as you mumbled, "No, because, you're being off with me."  

Eddie had been totally off trying to figure out how to ask what was potentially the second most important question he could ever ask you; he was distracted enough by it that he totally forgot about kissing you senseless. And your worrying asked a totally new question he hadn't thought of before. Why does Eddie always kiss you first? And why had the lack of a kiss been seen as a bar, and not an invitation? 

Hence Project Kiss Me, Stupid. Or Project Kiss Me Stupid if he's feeling particularly in love (because you aren't stupid at all, but you may have made an unintelligent assumption (Eddie not kissing you for a few hours did not mean even slightly that he isn't gross in love). 

The project was more like a proposal. Eddie decided you should be making the first move more often, so you weren't ever left feeling like something was wrong between you for lack of a kiss again. "If you ever think I'm mad at you, plant one on me. I promise I won't be mad much longer," he told you.

You're passing with flying colours, as far as he's concerned. Eddie thinks your moving in was gift enough, but fuck, all these kisses? He's been a walking vestibule of love, and lust, and sickening fondness for two weeks now. Project Kiss Me Stupid is the best thing that's ever happened to him. He's a genius.

"Good morning," you say into his neck, a hint of teeth scratching him with the greeting. Eddie cups the back of your head with a weak, tired groan as your lips close over his pulse.

"Morning," he says. His voice is thick with the grit of sleep. 

"This is okay?" you ask, pausing in your kiss. 

Eddie tips his head back heavily into plush pillows, your pillows, fresh with new bedding to match the nightstands you'd decided on together. "Please," he says. His arm slides behind your back to belt you in. "I'm gonna think you don't like me anymore if you take any longer." 

"Very funny," you murmur. 

He knows he's forgiven for teasing when your face dives back into the crook of his neck. His eyes shutter closed, blissed, thinking, God, I could get used to this, when you nip him. 

"You didn't like my joke, I take it?" 

"It was funny," you say, giving him a scratching kiss.

"That's counter-intuitive," he warns. "I like it rough." 

You fall away from him to cover your face with both hands. He knows he's rubbing off on you at the sight, your head shaking a theatrical side to side that fails to hide real embarrassment beneath it. You look especially tortured. 

Eddie knows exactly how to fix it. 

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

thanks so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed!

[watercolorfreckles]

Could you do a story where a guard of a Supermax prison befriends a supervillain, because he treats him like a genuine human being instead of an animal; and later, all the power-dampeners suddenly fail; and all these villains just revolt against the guards; but supervillain makes sure he’s safe since he was always kind to him?

I understand if you don’t want to!!❤️

Hello! This has been sittin in my inbox for many months during my huge writing rut, sorry about that! I know you also gave this prompt to @the-modern-typewriter and she's been making an incredible series with it on patreon! I changed some things around because I don't want to in any way attempt some sad copy of her interpretation, but I was still inspired by the prompt itself, so I've taken some fairly big liberties to avoid any significant similarities! Hope that's okay! Also, please manage your expectations, I do not compare to the magic that is TMT's writing 😆

TW: Brief depictions of body horror. Violence.

The power blew out in sections. The lights dissolved sector by sector with a sickening whine and click–one by one–in approach.

The commotion ripped Eloise from the fictional world she was lost in, aged page corners still pinched beneath her thumb. Her spirited storytelling abruptly died behind her teeth.

Somewhere in the distance, one person shouted. Two.

Her gaze flicked behind them to the door isolating herself and the bound supervillain from the other sectors of the Maximum Security Prison for Powered Individuals or, as everyone called it, The Max. Seeing nothing but black beyond the bullet-proof glass, her attention snapped forward again to the supervillain imprisoned across from her. 

Was this the start of some elaborate escape plan on his part? Why did it have to happen on a day that she was stuck fulfilling her community service hours instead of being something she could safely gawk at in the newspaper from a distance in a few days? Her stomach did a nauseated flip. 

“What are you doing?” she blurted, voice quivering only a little. Her fingers tightened around her book.

The villain made a show of looking pointedly at his restraints. Wrists strung taut and chained to either wall, he shrugged an innocent shoulder at her as if to say “clearly, nothing.” He was perched on the edge of his bed like a bird, tilting his head with a matching sort of probing curiosity. 

For all the chaos outside of the room, Artisan had not a hair out of place. He appeared perfectly unconcerned, though as thoroughly trapped as ever: ankles shackled, arms stretched uselessly apart from each other. The power-dampening collar wrapped around his neck still blipped a faint red light, indicating it was active. 

The prisoners were rioting. Surely they couldn’t get too far? Containing the most dangerous of powered individuals was, after all, the express purpose of the facility…

The lights above them flickered, dipping the room in and out of inky darkness before settling into a dimly lit haze. Eloise’s breath stalled. The imposing dark felt like a threat, as if the lights could keep the monsters at bay. It only made a little sense, in the way that a child feels safe from the monsters under their bed as long as their nightlight is plugged in.

Except that these monsters were real. The most dangerous in the country. And she was currently feet away from the monster that made even other monsters run.

He hadn’t seemed so bad in the time that she’d known him. Quiet, impassive, yet twisting her gut with pity any time she eyed his barbaric restraints. The least she could do–while crossing off her hours–was to read the supervillain a story every few days. She couldn’t change his fate. Couldn’t make him more comfortable. What she could do was rattle off, sheepishly, about fictional worlds and impactful characters in literature and the way that a well-crafted story could transport you somewhere better.

A crash, gunshots, a scream. Tension racketed through Eloise’s shoulders. More shouts chased thundering footsteps.

Things were going very, very, wrong. And she was very much out of her depth.

Eloise jolted as something struck the door, her special-edition copy of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein falling to the ground and skidding away.

Finally, the lights cut out. With it, every noticeable piece of tech died. All of the energy felt sucked out of the room as if vacuumed. The camera’s blinking light disappeared. Alarms that should have been wailing cut silent. Speakers, keypads, and security systems, all dead. The secondary generator hadn’t sprung to life yet. That meant that this was more than a simple power outage. This was a calculated revolt.

 Eloise’s mind raced through a list of everything else that must have been failing. Coms. Sedative gas. Shock collars. Layers and layers of security locks…

Power dampeners.

Panic clamped vice-like and suffocating around her throat. Artisan’s collar was no longer blinking. 

She froze in the eerie silence of the cell, afraid of shattering the fragile calm. Her heart thumped, rabid, against her ribs.

Chains rattled and clinked to the floor.

Eloise bolted blindly for the door, smacking her palm against the DNA scanner while frantically swiping her “Volunteer Staff” badge through the card reader. When neither miraculously came to life, she resorted to banging on the door.

“Let me out, let me out! Guard!”

The door could only be opened by one person inside the cell and one outside simultaneously unlocking the security checkpoints. Even if the power were on, if the guard on the other side was gone…

The emergency floodlights kicked on, bathing the building in startling fluorescence. Eloise flinched, briefly stunned.

Hands grabbed her firmly from behind, yanking her backward.

Eloise yelped. “No, please–!”

The spot that she had been standing in exploded, steel door and concrete chunks collapsing into the room in a barrage of shrapnel. Something–no, someone–landed, bones crunching, at her feet. The guard who had last been standing on the opposite side of the door lay motionless. His blood puddled the floor, staining the soles of her Converse sneakers.

A horrified sound choked in Eloise’s throat.

Another supervillain strode in, eyes alight with hatred and something more–power. His lip curled, waving a mocking hand–engulfed in green energy–at the guard’s corpse. “God. I’ve wanted to do that for far too long. That one always got on my nerves.”

Artisan looked unimpressed. “You’re making a mess in my cell.”

Eloise’s breath caught. Hearing the supervillain’s voice was jarring. Artisan rarely spoke. Not that any of the other staff had ever actually attempted conversation with him… But even in news clips and YouTube videos, he carried himself with the kind of self-assured quiet of someone who had absolutely nothing to prove. His lethal efficiency did more for his reputation than any words could.

The other man was a villain named William Frenzy, a telekinetic with a gleeful taste for violence.

Faced with Artisan’s startling calm, Frenzy… paused. Faltering on a tight rope he had moments before been strolling across. 

“Yes, well. It won’t have to be your cell much longer, will it? They can’t stop all of us.” He smirked at the dead body on the floor. “Some of them can’t even stop one of us.”

Eloise shrank back toward the corner nearest the door, agonizingly slow, willing the ugly shadows from the artificial lighting to swallow her up while the supers focused on each other. She was the kind of person that people tended not to notice; a background character in the perimeter of a story that the protagonist would meet once and never spare a thought again. She wished, then, that invisibility really was her superpower.

Artisan said nothing, his steely gaze fixed upon Frenzy.

Frenzy floundered beneath the scrutiny. The smugness buffered on his face. Finally, he huffed, crossing his arms. “I made you a nice and easy door out. You’re welcome.” He flicked a hand toward the gaping hole in the wall.

Eloise inched further toward it.

Artisan tutted, and while it wasn’t aimed at her, it shot a cold thrill up her spine. She froze, briefly, before continuing her tantalizing escape. She listened to Artisan speak again. 

“I did not need anything from you. I’ll be getting out regardless. You on the other hand…” 

Eloise stared as Frenzy’s skin shrank taut against his bones, the frame of him creaking and groaning like an old tree in the wind. The air choked out of him, fingers grabbing at his jaw as it stretched open too wide. The corners of his lips tore, slitting his mouth into a gaping maw.

The faintest of smiles graced Artisan's lips as he continued, soft as ever. “Say sorry.”

Eloise didn’t wait to see the carnage through, slipping out into the hall and running.

The other sectors were washed in the same sterile glow as Artisan’s cell was, blue-tinged and horrible, like the lights in a dentist's office. She kept to the edge of things as best she could, clinging to the walls and dark corners.

There was brawling in every sector—guards with weapons drawn mowed to the ground by the creatures they had wardened for so long. A villain fell as shots rang out. Another grabbed the guard from behind, cracking his skull against their knee. 

The smell of blood stung Eloise’s nostrils. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe.

She turned to flee down another hall, but two fighting inmates crashed into the doorway in front of her.

Eloise squealed, jerking backward into the belly of the room's chaos.

Don't notice me, don't notice me, don't notice me.

Everyone was so occupied by their chosen prey, maybe she could fade into the background. Maybe she could–

Her heel caught on something and she tumbled, gracelessly, to the floor. It took her several moments to register the lake of blood seeping warm and sticky into her clothing. 

Terror blurred her brain in a white flash bang.

Disappear, disappear, disappear…

“Mm. What do we have here?”

Eloise couldn’t bring herself to lift her head. She clamped her eyes shut, another child’s illusion of protection. 

The villain opposite her chuckled. He ripped her volunteer badge off of its clip against her chest. Her eyes snapped open again. She recognized him as a ringleader among superpowered thieves. They called him Volt.

“Volunteer, eh? A pretty thing like you should know better than to willingly set foot in a prison full of men with nothing left to lose. It’s been a long sentence, darling. I could make excellent use of your volunteer services. Get up.”

Numbly, ears full of static, Eloise shook her head.

Volt frowned, electricity jumping to life in his palms. “No?” He reached for her, hand nearing her throat.

“Keep your hands to yourself or I will remove them.” 

Artisan’s voice was calm. His eyes were not.

The room quieted.

Spatters of red decorated Artisan’s prison uniform. A few drops dotted his face and he brushed them away with his knuckles, smearing the crimson across his cheek. Almost lazily, he popped his neck and stretched his shoulders, no doubt sore from the strain his restraints kept him in.

The villain across from Eloise paused, sparks still dancing across his fingertips. He regarded Artisan with the same wary caution as Frenzy had.

Before he'd been… Before Artisan had…

Eloise swallowed back the nausea climbing her throat.

Finally, Volt’s hand lowered. “She's yours?”

“She's hers. Step away.”

The man hesitated a moment too long. Artisan didn't offer a second warning. 

As if puppeted, the man's fingers raised to gauge at his own eyes. He screamed, the faint evidence of Artisan’s power shimmering over him. He clawed, next, at the skin on his face, peeling it back like wet wallpaper. 

As promised, his wrists crunched and bent, wrenching all on their own at impossible angles.

Eloise covered her ears, unable to bear the screaming. She felt sick.

“Stop,” she whispered finally. “Please.”

It did. The man collapsed into a sobbing, bloodied heap.

When Eloise managed to look at Artisan, she startled to find his attention fixed on her.

They stared at each other for a stretch of silence that itched. She imagined being forced to choke on her own lungs, or her skull constricting in on itself until it squashed her brain into pulp. For being so bold as to run, he might snap her legs and reaffix them the wrong direction, or splinter her bones to poke, grotesque, out of her skin. They always did say that his victims were his personal works of art, bodies twisted into shells of monsters.

He crooked a finger, beckoning her.

The edges of her vision swooped fuzzy and vertiginous. She rose onto wobbly knees and pushed herself to her feet. When she swayed, Artisan caught her elbow, slipping an arm around her waist to lead her forward.

He did not look back at the others, with complete confidence that no one would challenge him.

No one did.

Eloise was barely aware of taking one step after another. When they arrived back in the villain’s cell, the bodies of Frenzy and the dead guard, thankfully, were gone, though the floor was streaked with the drag lines of their blood.

She wrenched her gaze away.

Artisan’s hand moved further down her arm to her wrist, gesturing that she sit on his bed. When she shifted to do so, his grip tightened, tugging her to a stop. She frozen and tried to read his face. 

His dark brows were furrowed, suspicious eyes flicking from hers down to her hand.

He pulled down her sleeve and held her wrist up between them, revealing the power-blocking cuff clamped around it. His head cocked. He waited.

Eloise swallowed. “I’m not a super. I mean- not a super-super. Just a…..no one.”

“A no-one who volunteers at The Max? With a power-dampener?”

“They’re terms of my probation,” she blurted. “A thousand hours of community service here and a power-inhibitor for a year. I think they put me here to threaten me with where I could end up if I continue on like… Um…”

“Me.”

“A villain,” she clarified, as if that was better. 

Her gaze flitted from the fingers wrapped around her wrist and up to the villain’s face again. The harsh lighting haloed him, dimly silhouetting his face. He looked haunting. He looked lovely. A beautiful house, old and creaking, wrapped in ghosts like a bride’s veil and left to rot. 

“What did you do?”

“I…” Eloise felt very small. “I lied about being powered on my documents. So that they wouldn’t put me on the registry. When they found me out, I tried to run away.”

Artisan’s scrutiny burned her cheeks. He let go of her wrist.

“...What can you do?”

“Nothing special,” she said, cradling her wrist–wholly uninjured as it was–in her other hand. “It doesn’t even work most of the time. My power is sort of…blending in. Going unnoticed. When it’s working, I could stand in a the White House and people’s attention would glide over me as if I belonged there. Not quite invisible, but… It just tricks your brain into not thinking twice.”

Artisan’s eyes narrowed.

Eloise flinched back a step, stumbling back over her fallen book onto the bed. She stared at him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Some of the tension eased from her shoulders, but she still waited for the catch. “Why aren’t you out there with the rest of them? Trying to escape?”

The villain considered her for a long moment. He sat down beside her, and the hard cot creaked beneath his weight. “Mm. That’s just it. No one inside the prison could have blown the power-dampeners. They require someone with powers to turn them off or on, and the security is impenetrable. My team has tried. Besides, if this was a simple power outage, the inhibitors would still be on. But they’re not. This was premeditated–and no one imprisoned here could have done it. No one on the outside could have done it. So. Process of elimination. Who’s left?”

That was the most Eloise had ever heard Artisan speak, and she could only sit and listen intently–As he had when she’d read him stories. Her brain whirred in a jumbled jigsaw of puzzle pieces. 

“It… It could only be an inside job.” She wet her lips. “The heroes- The higher-ups- They want the prisoners to break out so that they can kill them. A clean massacre. Justified under the law. The world’s most dangerous criminals could never be allowed to escape…”

Artisan smiled and it swirled something in her insides. “A convenient way to get rid of all of the pesky criminals clogging up the system. I’d bet anything that there are 50 snipers surrounding the building, waiting to slaughter anyone who steps foot outside.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Artisan agreed, his smile easing into something softer; something with less feral teeth.

“Thank you for helping me,” Eloise whispered. “What do we do now?”

Artisan hummed. He bent down and swept up her book, dropping it into her lap. He laid back against his pillow and crossed his arms behind his head. The bloodspots on his skin and clothes glittered in the lowlight. 

“Keep reading. I want to know how it ends.”

Part 2

[dont-touch-the-phlebotinum]

The first time Eddie calls Wayne 'Dad' he's three years old. He's been staying at Wayne's for a few days now; dropped off by his parents without warning and with the vague promise that they'd be back for him soon, already screaming at each other before they're back in the car and speeding off out of sight. Wayne doesn't even have a change of clothes for him, doesn't have any toys or books or much of an idea how to take care of a toddler. Luckily the kid seems happy enough getting into every nook and cranny of the trailer, and toddling around watching Wayne clean up in Eddie's wake like a particularly rambunctious shadow.

Right now he's sat on the kitchen floor, one of Wayne's baseball caps hanging off his tiny head, bashing happily at the array of pots and pans he's dragged out of the cupboards. It's one hell of a racket, but after three days of this either Wayne's headache can't get any worse or he's starting to get used to Hurricane Eddie. Besides, it's good to see the boy having fun, unbothered by whatever chaos has been going on at home.

The crashing comes to a sudden stop, silence ringing through the trailer, and Wayne looks over to see Eddie swaying in place, blinking like he's having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The boy's like a puppy, Wayne's learning. Either he's bouncing off the walls or he's asleep, not a whole lot of in-between.

"You tired, kid?"

"No," says Eddie, even as his head droops and a yawn near bigger than he is shakes its way through him.

"Uh-huh. Come on, Charlie Watts; let's get you to bed."

Eddie lets Wayne scoop him up into his arms with only a half-hearted whinge in response. He doesn't even have the energy to fight off Wayne's attempts to brush his teeth and scrub away the grime Eddie somehow manages to accumulate over the course of a day, already drifting off against Wayne's shoulder as he carries Eddie down the hall and tucks him into bed.

"Night, Eddie."

"Goodnight, Dad," Eddie murmurs as Wayne's about to turn off the light.

He freezes in place. The hell's he supposed to say to that? Your dad's not here, kid; God only knows when he's coming back? There's no need to upset the boy. But there'll be hell to pay if Wayne's brother comes back for Eddie only to find out he's taken to calling Wayne 'Dad' instead.

Luckily for Wayne, Eddie's fast asleep before he can figure out what to say for the best.

He presses a kiss to Eddie's mop of curls, and closes the door behind him.

.

Eddie's nine years old now. He's still short, still so skinny he looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in his life, close to bald 'cause the kid can't go two weeks without catching lice, but he seems happier these days than he has in a good long while. That's all that matters to Wayne.

It's his first birthday since Wayne officially became Eddie's guardian – probably the first birthday anyone's ever given a shit, considering the way Eddie's eyes turn to saucers when Wayne hands him his gift.

"Holy shit!" Eddie says as he opens the case and pulls the acoustic guitar from inside. It's not much, just a beaten up old thing Wayne bought off one of the guys at work, but Eddie clutches it reverently, pulls it into his lap like he's amazed he's being allowed to touch it.

"Watch your language," scolds Wayne. He doesn't have the heart to be stern, though. Not when Eddie's staring down at the guitar as if it's the greatest thing he's ever seen.

He watches with a smile as Eddie plucks tentatively at the strings. Maybe he'll come to regret giving Eddie a way to make even more noise than usual, but it might at least manage to hold his focus, maybe even keep him still for more than five minutes at a time.

And God knows, after the past couple years the kid deserves something special.

"You like it?"

"Yeah! Thanks, Dad." Eddie's head snaps up, and his grin falters as he looks over at Wayne sat beside him. "Uncle Wayne, I mean," he says quickly. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." He gives Eddie a gentle pat on the back. It's enough for the kid to brighten up again, his attention already back to his guitar, the moment forgotten. "Now how 'bout you take that to your room and start practicing while I fix us some breakfast?"

"Birthday pancakes?" says Eddie as he follows Wayne into the kitchen with a hopeful grin, still clutching the guitar against his chest.

"I don't remember promising birthday pancakes."

"I remember, old man."

"Who're you calling old, you little punk?" Wayne says, and shoos Eddie back out of the kitchen. "Go on, get out of here."

He watches Eddie bound down the hall to his bedroom, and after a moment the first clumsy notes fill the trailer.

 .

When Eddie's fourteen Wayne gets a call from the sheriff's office, and he arrives at the station to find Eddie cuffed to one of the desks, sullen and stubborn and looking too much like Wayne's brother for comfort. It's not the first time Eddie's landed himself in trouble, but it is the first time the cops have been involved.

He just prays it'll be the last. Wayne's seen this story play out enough times to know how it usually ends.

When he catches sight of Wayne waiting for him, Eddie just rolls his eyes.

"I 'spose you're about to tell me it was all Jeff's idea," says Wayne once they've piled back into the truck and put the police station firmly in the rear-view. He's not expecting an answer, doesn't expect Eddie to grunt more than a few words at a time to him lately, but the awkward silence is still too alien for him to let it sit.

"It was my idea."

"So you're stealing cars now, huh?" He keeps his tone light, as if they're just talking about Eddie's latest obsession, like always. As if his newfound hobby isn't breaking into cars over in Loch Nora.

"I wasn't gonna steal–" Eddie starts, before he's clamping his mouth shut like don't talk to cops extends to Wayne as well now. He glares back out of the window.

"You know next time it happens the sheriff ain't gonna be so lenient."

"Thanks for the lecture, Dad." Eddie lets out a bitter laugh that can't quite mask the hurt behind it. "Oh, wait a sec…"

Wayne sighs. The subject of Eddie's dad has come up enough times these past few months they're gonna have to have a good long talk about him sooner or later. "That what this is about?"

"No."

"But he's been on your mind, right?"

He glances over at Eddie. He's slumped even lower in his seat, arms folded tight across his skinny chest, and determinedly not making eye contact.

"Trust me, kid, he ain't anything worth looking up to."

"Yeah, well what if I'm a screw up just like he is?"

"You're not."

Eddie scoffs. Wayne watches him until the light up ahead turns green.

"The way I see it," he says, "your life's 'bout to fork in two different directions. You keep on down this road, you end up either dead or in a cell right next to your old man's."

Eddie's quiet beside him, but Wayne can tell he's listening, can see the little furrow to his brow as he turns the words over in his mind.

"Or, you take all that pain and anger you got inside you, and you turn it into something worthwhile."

Finally, Eddie looks back at him. "Like what?"

"Don't have to be big. Don't have to be important. All that matters is it means something to you."

They slip back into silence for the rest of the drive, but it's a more comfortable kind this time, a thoughtful kind of silence. Wayne kills the engine and they climb out onto the dirt in front of the trailer.

"Uncle Wayne?" says Eddie, his voice small. He's still lingering by the truck when Wayne peers back at him.

"Yeah?"

"Sorry," he says. "For being an asshole."

"You're not an asshole, Ed. And you ain't about to turn into one. Not on my watch."

Eddie's mouth twitches. It's not a smile, but it isn't far off. "Promise?"

"Yeah, kid. I promise," says Wayne with a smile of his own, and he curls an arm around Eddie's shoulders, hugging him tight as he steers them inside.

 .

At nineteen, Eddie's lying in a hospital bed.

Wayne's been sat at his bedside for God only knows how long at this point – the days have blurred into a steady stream of doctors and beeping machines, hours and minutes fallen to the wayside. The only time he leaves Eddie's side is when Eddie's friends come by to keep their own vigil.

They're all still waiting for him to wake up.

One hand clasping Eddie's, Wayne reads the paper to him to pass the time. He knows Eddie doesn't much care about what's happening out in the real world, and nor does Wayne right now, but any books of Eddie's are lost in whatever mess the quake left of their trailer, and Wayne needs something to keep his eyes from the angry red bruises circling Eddie's neck.

He looks like he's been strung up. The way the town has been baying for Eddie's blood, it wouldn't be much surprise. The rest of his injuries, though – well, no-one seems to have any explanation for those.

Maybe one day Eddie will be able to provide one himself.

There's a tiny noise above him, and Wayne's head snaps up to Eddie's face. He's watched every flutter of Eddie's eyelids, every twitch of his fingers, heart in his throat until the moment passes and Eddie sleeps on. But this time, Eddie stirs.

"Eddie?"

"Dad?"

He frowns with the effort of cracking his eyes open, struggling under the weight of his own body.

"It's all right," Wayne says. He brushes his thumb over Eddie's cheek, careful to avoid the stitches, and squeezes the hand tucked in his tighter. Eddie grips him back. "I'm right here."

Eddie's bleary eyes focus on Wayne, crinkling at the corners with the smile that spreads across his face. "Dad," he rasps again as tears spill down his cheeks.

Wayne's face is wet with his own as he presses a kiss to Eddie's forehead. "Welcome back, son."

[shorlinesorrows]

my jean & neil qpr agenda (part 1?)

after Neil orders the hit and Greyson becomes another Former Raven statistic for the media to go wild with, Jean ends up texting Neil. It's definitely not a thank you, but both of them know it kinda is (prob something like "you're an insufferable disease" lol)

They don't have contact for a while, but one day Neil reaches out by sending Jean the most atrocious multilingual French meme with "Kevin doesn't appreciate me or my humor, this is a hate crime"

It's sporadic from there, and maybe at one point they meet up while Neil and Andrew are on their summer road trip. Neil and Andrew end up in Colorado, and Jeremy, Cat, and Laila practically drag Jean there to see them (he'll deny that he had a good time, but he really did)

Andrew and Jean have a bizarre and interesting dynamic where they don't speak to each other often, but they eventually grow a mutual respect and shoot each other Looks about their "I'm Fine" partners. They don't mind just sitting in the same room and sharing space while they do their separate things.

When Jean and Jeremy start their pottery class, Jean takes to it like a fish to water.

He ends up majoring in Ceramics & Multimedia Art. Something about using his hands to create, rather than destroy.

He makes Neil a little exy racket charm for his keychain.

At one point, Jeremy makes a gc with Jean, Neil, Kevin, and Andrew on impulse. Jean "hates" it but doesn't leave the group chat. Andrew only stays in it because he can mute it, and it's useful for when they plan to meet up sometimes. It also makes Neil happy and it's not something he really minds

Jean also takes LOTS of pictures. With his phone, his friends' phones, a polaroid camera he gets as a gift from Cat, anything he can get his hands on. He hangs them up on his half of the room with Jeremy.

Eventually Jeremy and Jean do get separate rooms. They usually still sleep in the same room, but it's an important milestone for Jean and his recovery. Being able to have his own space, and know he's allowed to control who comes in it.

He decorates that room so much it's chaotic and beautiful and there's probably little pencil doodles on the wall next to his bed from when he can't sleep. He tends to draw daffodils :]

It becomes a bit of a tradition to meet Neil and Andrew every summer.

When they go pro, Jean and Neil end up on teams only a few hours' drive from each other. Neil and Andrew start on the same team, but the whole Minyard-Josten Rivalry is still a Thing because they're always shooting heated Russian at each other while "glaring" and no one else seems to realize it's their equivalent of flirting.

Jean thinks it's hilarious. He harasses Neil about it constantly.

Him and Kevin eventually mend their friendship, and they care about each other a lot.

Neil probably made the three of them matching "I survived Castle Evermore" shirts just to be a menace, and then Jean and Kevin have to make him swear that he'll never wear it in public.

Neil has a habit of just. Showing up at Jean's house and crashing sometimes.

Jeremy at one point jokes that he'll have to fight Neil for Jean's time in the future, but he's not really worried. They're happier when they spend time together. Jeremy and Andrew are chill with it.

When they meet up for the first time after a game between their pro teams, none of their teammates have any clue what's going on. Jean and Neil insult each other ferociously, but also can't seem to resist hip-checks and shoulder bumps and almost affectionate shoves.

Neil constantly sidles up to Jean and pretends like he doesn't know what he's doing. Jean usually responds by absently grabbing his hand so he knows where he is.

They are literally a cat and dog. Neil will deny that he's being caring or affectionate towards Jean all day long while actively attempting to be in Jean's space, and Jean practically perks up when Neil enters a room.

When their teams play against each other, they talk in French sometimes. Their checks are always a bit brutal (they know very well how far the other can be pushed before they break) but they help each other up at the end of quarters.

Jean is constantly antagonizing Neil by smiling and complimenting his striker skills while blocking him, and Neil is constantly taunting him with words that are plenty sharp, but never actually aimed for vital spots

Jean gets a service dog and Jeremy decides to name her Mr. Barkbark Flufferpants, following Andrew & Neil's naming scheme for their cats. They usually just call her "Mr."

When they make Court, the two of them practically live in each other's pockets.

Jeremy and Andrew watch both exasperatedly and amusedly (though Andrew just calls it annoyance when asked) as the two of them dance around their Big Queer Platonic Feelings

When they finally manage to actually communicate about it, it goes something like "Idk what's happening, I'm kinda obsessed with you but it is Not Romantic and I don't know what to do with that." And then "Oh thank hell, me too, I thought I was even weirder than I already am. Wanna go harrass the fbi together?" "No."

They become even more attached at the hip after that, can practically finish each other's sentences. It's like they freaking mind melded tbh.

At first Kevin gets worried that they're slipping into old habits from the Nest, especially Jean, but when he brings it up to Andrew and Jeremy, Andrew just goes "No, they're idiots." and Jeremy nods and says "I think they're in a honeymoon phase. If we see them slipping, we'll pull them out."

Kevin decides to wait and watch, and thankfully their relationship ends up being as healthy as Neil and Jean can be. There might be a little codependence going on, but they have other people and other grounding forces to help intervene if it seems to be unbalancing.

They both put each other on their emergency contacts list.

It's a common sight to find the two of them twisted into impossible positions together just doing their own things, Jean drawing, Neil watching reruns of Exy matches, whatever.

Their dynamic just becomes Jean, who genuinely grows up to be a pretty chill dude, and Neil, who's an absolute gremlin. Except they kinda absorb each other's personalities, so they're both little shits together. They fit.

There is definitely all sorts of weird conversations that they have at 2AM in little sleepovers they do together (sometimes with Kevin, Jeremy, or Andrew) because they never got that as kids.

I bet Neil mercilessly teases Jean for being allosexual, especially when he gets flustered (all in good fun, of course)

Jean just snarks back with a "shut up, I literally saw you look at Andrew like a besotted elderly man with his partner of fifty years like five minutes ago." Neil sticks out his tongue at him.

Jean actually can sometimes read the ways that Neil and Andrew show affection for each other because of how much time he spends around them, which leads to him occasionally getting confused when other people don't automatically Get It

Neil takes a while to warm up to Jeremy because he seems Too Nice, but once he does he helps Jeremy plan to absolutely torment Jean with silly little romantic gestures that make him flush all the way down to his neck

At one point Neil tries to get Jean to explain what it feels like to be sexually attracted to someone without knowing them really closely, and it leads to a really surprisingly deep conversation about attraction before it turns into neil making dick jokes.

Cat and Laila still keep in close contact with Jean, as well as Renee. They make sure to meet up as often as they can. Cat and Jean always go for a bike ride together and they all cook dinner as a group.

They're both cuddle monsters when in the right mood. They also have the convenient ability to fall asleep Anywhere when they feel safe. So finding them curled up together in weird places at home is pretty commonplace.

They're forever partners, not in the way that the world and the Nest tried to make them be, but in a way that they created themselves.

It doesn't have to be romantic to be special, and if anyone ever suggested that they should be in a romantic relationship, they would both look at that person with absolute judgement and disgust. This person interrupted their conversation. They were talking shit about someone. Neil is lounging in Jean's lap. Andrew is saying he hates them both, and Jeremy is cackling at it all while taking a low-res picture for Cat and Laila.

idk i have a Lot of thoughts and could keep going. (i might write a fic if anyone wants to read it, and I'll definitely write little snippets for myself if I get the time. )