#doing the absolute bare minimum of rendering this time around

[redhotarsenic]

Updated reference sheets for valantinez and cephelios

[invvuu]

LIPS TO EYES AND VICE VERSA — SIM JAEYUN

SUMMARY : sim jake sucks at being your tutor but he makes up for it by being your boyfriend. PAIRING : boyfriend!jake x gn!reader GENRE : established relationship, fluff / 1.6k words WARNINGS : jake is flirty, reader loses their mind because of jake ( there is a theme here if you couldn’t tell ) not proofread

﹙ 📑 ﹚ AUTHOR’S NOTE — why is writing author notes harder than the actual fics themselves,,, but anyways i guess i can just mention that i started writing this last night and then finished it while i was in online class as some sort of tmi (no cus why did i edit this draft five times already just to change the author’s note)

“MY EYES ARE UP HERE,” you say blankly — or rather, in an attempt to appear blankly as you look at Jake, your boyfriend and current tutor for the time being.

He had his chin sitting on top of his palm, fingers resting and occasionally tapping against the skin of his cheek. Jake had a couple rings adorning his fingers, all in silver except for the matching ring he bought for the both of you as a gift to ensure his commitment.

His hair was slicked back partly, slightly giving way for you to see his forehead. It also gave you a much clearer view of his eyes, hiding behind the clear lenses of the glasses he usually wears when reading or studying.

His eyes were a common sight considering the fact that he was your boyfriend and you see him almost everyday, however the only reason why you were bothered by them was because they didn’t focus on your eyes, but rather on your lips as you talked.

This was one of his flirty antics at work, the kind of antics you’ve gotten used to a long time ago but can’t help but still be affected by it.

“I know,” Jake responds back, attitude completely the same as it was in the beginning of your rant. Shortly after you notice the corners of his lips curving upwards into smirk, appearing to showcase that he knew exactly what he was doing.

And you were not surprised.

A sigh escapes your lips, “Jake, you’re supposed to be helping me with the lesson.” You spew out while raising an eyebrow at him, crossing both arms together in a direct manner. “Are you going to help me study or are you just going to keep messing around?”

He chuckles amusingly, grin not faltering.

“Messing around? I’m just admiring you, babe. You do know that you’re beautiful, right?”

Jake’s gaze starts to slowly trail from your lips towards your eyes, seeing the expression displayed on your facial features. “Besides, you were going off topic by ranting about Professor Kim and the Math exam.” He tilts his head, still appearing to be flirting with you.

“Well — yeah, and you’re supposed to be helping me pass the exam right now because I don’t want to fail,” you insist, attempting to get Jake back on track in acting as your tutor.

You then see him switch his focus onto the semi messy written notes, opened and sprawled across the table in front of you. “Huh,” he lets out, “You seem alright doing it by yourself though.”

Crap, he was getting to you. The way he spoke to you in a soft yet attractive tone rendered you flustered, and the way he looked like currently was definitely not helping your mental state at all.

With further inspection of his overall appearance, you can see he had his sleeves rolled up until it reached right below his elbow. This simple insight made you admire how evident his veins were on his hand, clearly seen due to his dress shirt’s sleeves not covering them.

He was, without a doubt, making you short circuit. And you absolutely hated that he was doing nothing but only the bare minimum.

“I still need your help either way.” Your tongue moves on its own immediately, mind trying to keep your thoughts at bay about him. You lay your hand on top of the written notes, sliding them towards Jake so he could read them properly.

“Oh, I was supposed to be your tutor or something?” He asks nonchalantly, brows raising up as he fixes his posture on his seat.

In response you roll your eyes and scoff, expression becoming a bit more irritated than it was in the beginning.

“So you just agreed to do this without even listening to me properly when I asked you earlier?” You inquire back, voice surprisingly sounding harsher as you continue looking at him.

Another set of chuckles blew out of Jake’s mouth. “No need to be so angry,” He then leans forward again, tilting his head another time, “I really am sorry though, but I was only doing my job as your boyfriend.”

His words sent shivers down your spine one after the other. It was annoying really, how much his voice had this much of an impact on you. His sultry and deep tone that he always used when speaking to you added another factor of why you were attracted to him in the first place.

From how he apologized, you could easily surmise that he wasn’t truly sorry. But the part where he mentioned that he was just being your boyfriend immediately gave you all of the reasons to forgive him.

You sigh, giving the attempt in ignoring your heart from fluttering another chance. Sim Jaeyun, Sim Jake, Jaeyun, Jake, Jakey — or whatever name he goes by, he truly knew his way to get to you no matter the occasion or if he had changed his persona.

At this point you were already losing your calm demeanor the more you interacted with Jake. Honestly, if it was him who drew the other half of your heart, you’d keep it against your chest without a single question.

He made you want to do impulsive actions, he made you want to embarrass yourself, and he made you want to become a fool. These thoughts were things that you wouldn’t dare to say out loud, mainly because you knew how stupid you would look like in doing so. You couldn’t help but wonder pitifully in your mind.

What was this man doing to you? You’re both dating now, so why does it feel like you were back to hopelessly crushing on him like before?

After all of these questions, you were sure that your mind was going to go haywire if he ever decided to graze his hand against yours.

“Babe,” Jake calls out, catching your attention as he waves a hand in front of your face, “Am I really that much of an eye candy to you?” He asks teasingly, eyes still looking into yours as he watches you flinch slightly at the sudden movement.

You then feel a tap on the tip of your nose, seeing a soft smile adorning your boyfriend’s features, “You’re making it harder for me to help you study if you keep acting this cute.”

As your heartbeat intensifies from his words, you quickly realize what had happened: you were staring at Jake and you weren’t aware of it.

In this point of the current situation, there was no mistake that you were an actual fool in disguise as a human. “Oh — uh, what were you saying?” You ask in a rather flustered manner as you place a hand at the nape of your neck, rubbing it gently the moment it touches it.

Jake grabs the pen from the table’s surface into his hand and clicks it a few times before answering, “I was admiring the view and it seems like you enjoyed yours too.” He cheekily prompts while giving out a small wink towards your direction.

Embarrassment quickly shoots through your mind at full speed, making you receive the desire to hide yourself from him further. “I was looking behind you,” you mutter, trying to create a valid excuse as your fingers begin fiddling with the edges of the papers sprawled across the table.

“You were looking at books about Shakespearean plays?” He stifles, turning his body to glance at the bookshelf to confirm his question. “Last time you told me that Shakespeare sucked, didn’t know you had a change of heart,” Jake shrugs sarcastically, the corners of his lips tugging themselves into a small smirk.

You frown slightly, letting go of the papers and allowing your hand to rest on the table. “I didn’t say he sucked, I said that reading and analyzing his works sucked,” you explain exasperatedly.

Jake can’t help but supply laughter at your words — the way you quickly tried to cover up what you were actually doing made him find you cuter than usual. With the intent of making the situation seem more entertaining, he points the pen at your face, “Then what about the books made you stop talking?”

“I just remembered about my assignment for History.”

“Really? History?”

You nod eagerly — a bit too eagerly for the matter. You tried your best to remedy the situation at hand but the seeping thought of Jake already knowing the truth was pretty much turning into reality.

“Yeah, I have to — um, read a chapter from Midsummer’s Night Dream and analyze it.”

“But I thought you were supposed to be reading Macbeth?”

The amount of counter statements your boyfriend kept saying were only making you more embarrassed. Embarrassed because at this point, you were sure that he knew exactly what you were doing a few moments ago.

“Just tell me the truth,” Jake prompts, “You were looking at me, it was very obvious.”

This was beyond what you were expecting for this tutoring session — actually, was this even a tutoring session in the first place? It was more like a stupid moment of you going feral over a man that you have been dating for almost a year now.

Sim Jaeyun was definitely a bad choice to have as your tutor.

“I have a challenge for you.” He puts his hands together on the table, as well as leaning back away from you to straighten his posture, “I’ll kiss you every time I catch you gawking at me.”

Hearing his idea makes you click your tongue subconsciously, because you knew that it would’ve make your life so much easier if this entire session didn’t happen, nor if you asked Jake to be your tutor in the first place.

© INVVUU 2024

[wingedtyger]

How to Buy a Computer for Cheaper

Buy refurbished. And I'm going to show you how, and, in general, how to buy a better computer than you currently have. I'm fairly tech-knowledgeable, but not an expert. But this is how I've bought my last three computers for personal use and business (graphics). I'm writing this for people who barely know computers. If you have a techie friend or family member, having them help can do a lot for the stress of buying a new computer.

There are three numbers you want to know from your current computer: hard drive size, RAM, and processor speed (slightly less important, unless you're doing gaming or 3d rendering or something else like that)

We're going to assume you use Windows, because if you use Apple I can't help, sorry.

First is hard drive. This is how much space you have to put files. This is in bytes. These days all hard drives are in gigabytes or terabytes (1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte). To get your hard drive size, open Windows Explorer, go to This PC (or My Computer if you have a really old OS).

To get more details, you can right-click on the drive. and open Properties. But now you know your hard drive size, 237 GB in this case. (this is rather small, but that's okay for this laptop). If you're planning on storing a lot of videos, big photos, have a lot of applications, etc, you want MINIMUM 500 GB. You can always have external drives as well.

While you've got this open, right-click on This PC (or My Computer). This'll give you a lot of information that can be useful if you're trying to get tech support.

I've underlined in red the two key things. Processor: it can help to know the whole bit (or at least the Intel i# bit) just so you don't buy one that's a bunch older, but processor models are confusing and beyond me. The absolutely important bit is the speed, in gigahertz (GHz). Bigger is faster. The processor speed is how fast your computer can run. In this case the processor is 2.60 GHz, which is just fine for most things.

The other bit is RAM. This is "random-access memory" aka memory, which is easy to confuse for, like how much space you have. No. RAM is basically how fast your computer can open stuff. This laptop has 16 GB RAM. Make sure you note that this is the RAM, because it and the hard drive use the same units.

If you're mostly writing, use spreadsheets, watching streaming, or doing light graphics work 16 GB is fine. If you have a lot of things open at a time or gaming or doing 3d modeling or digital art, get at least 32 GB or it's gonna lag a lot.

In general, if you find your current laptop slow, you want a new one with more RAM and a processor that's at least slightly faster. If you're getting a new computer to use new software, look at the system requirements and exceed them.

I'll show you an example of that. Let's say I wanted to start doing digital art on this computer, using ClipStudio Paint. Generally the easiest way to find the requirements is to search for 'program name system' in your search engine of choice. You can click around their website if you want, but just searching is a lot faster.

That gives me this page

(Clip Studio does not have very heavy requirements).

Under Computer Specs it tells you the processor types and your RAM requirements. You're basically going to be good for the processor, no matter what. That 2 GB minimum of memory is, again, the RAM.

Storage space is how much space on your hard drive it needs.

Actually for comparison, let's look at the current Photoshop requirements.

Photoshop wants LOTS of speed and space, greedy bastard that it is. (The Graphics card bit is somewhat beyond my expertise, sorry)

But now you have your three numbers: hard drive space, RAM (memory) and processor (CPU). Now we're going to find a computer that's better and cheaper than buying new!

We're going to buy ~refurbished~

A refurbished computer is one that was used and then returned and fixed up to sell again. It may have wear on the keyboard or case, but everything inside (aside from the battery) should be like new. (The battery may hold less charge.) A good dealer will note condition. And refurbished means any flaws in the hardware will be fixed. They have gone through individual quality control that new products don't usually.

I've bought four computers refurbished and only had one dud (Windows kept crashing during set-up). The dud has been returned and we're waiting for the new one.

You can buy refurbished computers from the manufacturers (Lenovo, Dell, Apple, etc) or from online computer stores (Best Buy and my favorite Newegg). You want to buy from a reputable store because they'll have warranties offered and a good return policy.

I'm going to show you how to find a refurbished computer on Newegg.

You're going to go to Newegg.com, you're gonna go to computer systems in their menu, and you're gonna find refurbished

Then, down the side there's a ton of checkboxes where you can select your specifications. If there's a brand you prefer, select that (I like Lenovos A LOT - they last a long time and have very few problems, in my experience. Yes, this is a recommendation).

Put in your memory (RAM), put in your hard drive, put in your CPU speed (processor), and any other preferences like monitor size or which version of Windows you want (I don't want Windows 11 any time soon). I generally just do RAM and hard drive and manually check the CPU, but that's a personal preference. Then hit apply and it'll filter down.

I'm going to say right now, if you are getting a laptop and you can afford to get a SSD, do it. SSD is a solid-state drive, vs a normal hard drive (HDD, hard disk-drive). They're less prone to breaking down and they're faster. But they're also more expensive.

Anyway, we have our filtered list of possible laptops. Now what?

Well, now comes the annoying part. Every model of computer can be different - it can have a better or worse display, it can have a crappy keyboard, or whatever. So you find a computer that looks okay, and you then look for reviews.

Here's our first row of results

Let's take a look at the Lenovo, because I like Lenovos and I loathe Dells (they're... fine...). That Thinkpad T460S is the part to Google (search for 'Lenovo Thinkpad T460s reviews'). Good websites that I trust include PCMag, LaptopMag.com, and Notebookcheck.com (which is VERY techie about displays). But every reviewer will probably be getting one with different specs than the thing you're looking at.

Here are key things that will be the same across all of them: keyboard (is it comfortable, etc), battery life, how good is the trackpad/nub mouse (nub mice are immensely superior to trackpads imho), weight, how many and what kind of ports does it have (for USB, an external monitor, etc). Monitors can vary depending on the specs, so you'll have to compare those. Mostly you're making sure it doesn't completely suck.

Let's go back to Newegg and look at the specs of that Lenovo. Newegg makes it easy, with tabs for whatever the seller wants to say, the specs, reviews, and Q&A (which is usually empty).

This is the start of the specs. This is actually a lesser model than the laptop we were getting the specs for. It's okay. What I don't like is that the seller gives very little other info, for example on condition. Here's a Dell with much better information - condition and warranty info.

One thing you'll want to do on Newegg is check the seller's reviews. Like on eBay or Etsy, you have to use some judgement. If you worry about that, going to the manufacturer's online outlet in a safer bet, but you won't quite get as good of deals. But they're still pretty damn good as this random computer on Lenovo's outlet shows.

Okay, so I think I've covered everything. I do recommend having a techie friend either help or double check things if you're not especially techie. But this can save you hundreds of dollars or allow you to get a better computer than you were thinking.

[last-sprout]

Last Sprout Dev Diary - Jan 10, 2025

Hello, and welcome to the new year! After the break, I'm here for another dev diary - this one being a bit more about something conceptual. If you want to read the last dev diary from December, you can do so here.

If this is the first one you're reading, I'm @oneominousvalbatross, and I'm the tech side of the sprout team! This week I mostly worked on status effects, but I want to take some time to talk about a broader, more conceptual topic, and save the full breakdown for next week.

My poor boy, who has every disease.

Something I don't think I've really specified before in these dev diaries is my background in game dev, or, rather, my lack of background. I started seriously learning how to code a bit over a year ago, and entered my first game jam in February of 2024.

(The game was barely functional, but it did exist so like, there's something.)

My academic background is in philosophy (simultaneously the best and worst thing tbh), and apart from being pretty good with computers in a broad sense I didn't really have much to go on for this project. I'm bringing this up because I'm going to be talking about something that I had to figure out for myself, but that might be like, compsci 105 or something if you went through school for it. That said though, if you have always kind of wanted to make games, you can absolutely make games! I didn't think I was a math person, or a coding person, until I started doing it.

Game Development is Hard

I'm going to assume that software development in general is hard, but I haven't really done that, so I'm talking about game dev. I spent around two weeks not touching the game, and when I came back, the first thing I noticed was just how hard it was to get my head back around something with this many systems! This was also something I ran headlong into when working on that game jam, I reached a point in like, a week where I couldn't touch any system without potentially breaking every other system.

The solution I use, and the reason why I could come back to this without completely losing my mind, is to reduce the number of access points into a system to the absolute bare minimum. For example, we can look at the animation system. It's really complicated! It needs to be able to swap the sprites out on a variety of different renderers, it needs to be able to adjust animation speeds, control shader parameters, and it needs to be able to queue up multiple animations in sequence, plus it needs to send out events on animation end so that I can use them to time up other game actions.

If I was to condense all of this into a few sentences: A system can be as complicated as it needs to be, but try to envision it in its own little box, with precisely one entrance/exit. If you need to spawn a projectile, you should really just be able to go, like, SpawnProjectile(projectile), with as little external work as possible. This means if you need to completely rewrite how spawning projectiles works, you can do that, and all the other classes that spawn projectiles can still just do their thing.

A helpful diagram

The way I would've done this originally would have been to have, like, a SpriteAnimator class with a 'speed' field. I'd set it to one by default, and then whenever I need that speed to be different, I'd have whatever object needs to change the speed go in and set the speed to whatever. If you've done a lot of programming, you probably immediately realized the tons of problems this could cause - problems into which I ran headlong.

What do you do when you want one animation to play at a certain speed, then go back to the previous speed when it's done? If you do, do you assume that the speed was set to 1 before, and just reset it, or do you have one of the two objects involved store the previous speed to go back to it? If you do, what happens if, halfway through an animation, another object butts in to adjust the speed again? Say you're playing an animation at half speed, and then a speed buff gets applied that's supposed to last for a minute. Your speed buff goes in, sets the faster speed, the animation suddenly starts playing faster, then when the animation is finished, the object that was waiting to reset the speed goes back in and sets the speed to 1, leaving the animation playing at the default speed when it's supposed to be faster.

These kinds of problems will always be a risk, but in my specific case I split the speed at which an animation plays out into three places. First of all, an animation has a frame rate, which is meant to never change. We do most of our animating at 12 fps (on twos, I think is what you call it in the traditional animation world? idk, not a 2d animator), and each animation object keeps track of its frame delta (1 / frame rate) so that the controller can progress through the frames at the right speed.

However, we don't submit the animation to the controller in its unaltered form. Instead, we have a data structure called a PlayableAnimation. This contains the animation itself, but it also has the speed at which the animation should be played, as well as some other useful info that might change between two instances of the same animation. A controller maintains a stack of playable animations and can look at the individual speed of each one as it progresses through.

On top of that, there's a final speed modifier that can be submitted along with the playable animation, without changing its values. This way, if I want to play an animation at double speed for whatever reason, I don't necessarily have to set the value for the entire controller, I can just say this animation should be faster, and nothing else. Some animations have different frame rates, or are re-used with different speeds for different purposes, and I can do all that configuration without having to put all that weight on one field.

All of this sounds wildly complicated, and it kind of is, but importantly, if you're playing an animation from any other system, all you do is type in "Controller.PlayAnimation(animation)". You can also go like, "Controller.PlayAnimation(animation, speed: 1.5)" if you want it to play faster, but all of that stuff is handled completely without additional input. This is what lets me come back to the game and keep working on it when it's been months since I've touched a part of it.

Why This is Relevant Right Now

Status effects seem simple, but they kind of need to touch every other system at least a little bit, which is why I spent all that time talking about making systems. A status effect needs to be able to do things like apply damage, but it also needs to be able to play animations or sounds, and it doesn't always want to play those things on the source of the effect.

Some demos for the animations different status effects will use.

Plus, this is a roguelite, so we need to be able to add and modify status effect stuff within the upgrade system, which might mean modifying the magnitude of the effect, changing colors on animations, or tying other things into the effect when it goes off! As long as each of those systems has the cleanest possible entry/exit points, this is doable, but it's been a long battle making sure the game can keep moving forward and not get mired in constant bugfixing and complexity management.

I have a lot of cool game design thoughts on the effects themselves, but I think I'll leave that for a later week. As per usual, thanks for reading, feel free to send any questions or thoughts here or to @oneominousvalbatross, and I'll see you next week!

[aalt-ctrl-del]

A long time ago I insisted that doctors and OBGYNs NEED TO CHANGE the terminology and approach to planned pregnancy.

A lot of focus is placed on the women carrying the child, which indeed should be the top tier focus of these dilemma. But paramount to the arguments for abortion rights and planned parentage, there must be a narrative for the fetus' rights to a dignified end of life - SPECIALLY IN TERMINAL instances where mother and fetus will suffer significantly, may approach death, or WORSE circumstances.

And there will always be circumstances worse that death, termination, and end of life process.

In medicine when I discuss with young doctors their role in the field, I fervently remind them the job is not to save all of the lives that they can. That is the bare minimum given. But the optimal performance is the care, treatment measures, and therapy. The quality of life, the agency of matters concerning death, and dignity in the process.

Strict laws concerning abortion restrictions always come for good mothers, people who WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING to be the parent, to raise the baby and nurture their child. These laws mean nothing to people who do not want children, and frankly, our landfills are filled with more baby skulls than all the cemeteries in the world combined. Because if someone really does not want that child and they give no fucks about the process of shoving out a baby, they have means to disposing of the body. And they do so while the thousands of pro-lifers a frothing at the mouth, are eager and ready to punish the women that suffered a devastating miscarriage.

In cases where a mother is involved with the prenatal care of their baby and doing all in the power available to insure this pregnancy is nurtured and cared for, sometimes that means to make the most difficult decision a struggling mother must make when she is faced with non-viable pregnancy. Termination of a damaged or dying fetus.

Our current legislations on rights to abortions are hinged around "keep alive baby", but does never account for the quality of life. Pro-lifers will shriek, "Abortion is murder!" while they gleefully proclaim saving a fetus that may be in pain or is already suffering, but incapable of dying due to receiving life supporting functions from the mother. The state of georgia still has Adriana alive in order for her body to grow a fetus, and she is only 'alive' in the sense machines are keeping her flesh airyated and her blood filtered of waste. It is possible her body will begin to necrotize and begin decaying if internal infection are missed, if sections of her body begin to fail due to her brain death.

The same can happen to a compromised fetus if it dies in the womb, but the body is incapable of the miscarriage. In some cases, the body cannot be absorbed by the uterus and that remaining corpse becomes what is referred to as the 'stone baby'. The body must calcified this 'foreign' object that, to protect the internal integrity of the body. The remains must be removed via surgical c-section. If not, the mother cannot conceiver another child. The following incident may render her incapable of future procreation.

Show pro-lifers images of failed pregnancies, calcified babies, mutilated babies formed improperly in the womb. All life is precious, even if it is suffering and dying and not understanding why there is hurt and pain. Pro-lifers will always proclaim some hogwash like, "This life had meaning to someone."

WHO?!? You absolute muppet. This dying fetus was meant to serve a higher calling. To justify your moral damning justice for life. Children and adults are meant to suffer when there is life to be lived for. But no infant or baby should be forced to be birthed to serve a grotesque agenda, to say there was meaning in parading a suffering baby around to spike your pathetic life. Infants and babies are not props for a piss narrative, and they are not meant to prescribe meaning to your deranged moral codes. They have every right to a dignified and painless as possible end of life, if they are in terminal stages of death or suffering. And it is an unsteady thread to tamper on the argument of what an fetus might "suffer" in the womb, but abortions are meant to be carried out at the soonest possible need - regardless circumstances. Because of factors of humanity and painless delivery, specially in instances when the fetus is not viable or possibly suffering. AND THESE CIRCUMSTANCES must come down to the doctor, the parent and their support, and whoever else holds weight in that persons life (all decisions that this person must make with doctor counselling). Impartial and guided by the medical documentation.

But right now we have a lot of babies being born to suffer and day for the meaning someone else to derive from their brief presence. And that is all magical levels of fucked up. "I am sorry child, you are suffering and wheezing and no one born with your condition lives longer than two days. We're gonna jab you with all these needles, shove a pipe in your rib cage, put you in a medical coma, stick a drain in your skull, and hook you up to this master computer. And from that, we will show the "murder baby people" how beautiful life is, and you will be important to all of us. We want you to sit in this fish tank so we can gander at the mystery of science, and pray to god how gratified we are that we can have you for this brief time...." and in that time the baby's kidney turned into a rock and melted through their cervix.

Majestic.

But if you are person who wants to put a baby through this whole Frankenstein horror show and hold out hope and offer your infant every opportunity - that ain't any of my business. But it wholly remains up to the parent, their support, and anyone else they need involved. Because that is THEIR PEROGATIVE AND CHOICE. If some parent does not want to endure this pain, watch their kid suffer, or any other reasoning private to them. By all means let them take this matter up with their OBGYN and the doctors specialized for this prenatal care.

"Oh, but someone will want that baby if you don't." WHO THE FUCK?! You don't even want that baby. You can't even handle an autistic child. If you're not spending one week of your miserable life at the hospital holding nicu infants, you have no voice on the matters of 'pro' or 'life'. You just want to talk and brag and make noise while other people have to cry and suffer and fear for their life and the lives of their children. You take the matters of control and autonomy away from people who are told the worst news in the world. You complicate the concepts of starting a family and the changes that demands, by shoving your hands down everyone's trousers.

If you're not out here reading about infant necrosis and still birth, you are playing fantasy pretend. You're not involved with people fighting for their lives or their families, your holding a sign and trampling over good parents who want nothing more to give their child every opportunity for survival.

Pro-lifers are out here criminalizing people who want to partake in the journey of parenthood because they have some sick need to maim the most vulnerable portion of our population.

[salazarslytherin]

sex on fire (s.b x y/n)

summary: an encounter with sirius in the kitchen

🃛 masterlist

cw/tw: smut, pussy slapping, fingering, dumbification, praise kink, like exhibitionism if you squint, age difference (reader is of age!)

word count: 2.14k

a/n: Inspired. SO HEAVILY by @thotbutpurple’s dilf!marauders headcanons, specifically this post for this imagine. also heavily inspired by @acosmis-t's fic peanut. honestly this is just, self-indulgent. might do a dilf!series, I'm not sure reblog to boost please xxx

tag list at the bottom ☯︎ join tag list here

Some people would think that it’s weird to like someone almost twenty years your senior. And if we’re being honest, you thought the same too.

That was until Sirius fucking Black walked into your life.

One of your dad’s best friends from high school, Sirius appeared in your life when you were sixteen, riding back into town on a Bugatti motorcycle and a battered leather jacket. A photographer who’d travelled the world, he came back to your small town to spend time with his younger brother and his old friends from high school.

That spelt weekend barbecues at your house, watching the absolute hunk of a man walk around your house shirtless, or in the thinnest fucking white tank you’ve ever seen in your life. Whether Sirius owned clothes that weren’t band tees, white tanks, and ripped jeans, you didn’t know.

But secretly, you hoped he didn’t.

⚔︎.

Now it’s been three years since Sirius had returned, and yet another one of your dad’s friends’ barbecues was being held at your house. The men were out back barbecuing – they called themselves the Marauders, the name never not making you laugh. Unfortunately, this week you were unable to join them, holed up in your room to study for your finals.

With the weather heating up as it neared the beginning of the summer, you could feel each individual bead of sweat run down your spine. Unable to focus on anything with the immense heat and the overwhelming stress you were feeling, you took out your earphones and got up off your chair, deciding to go downstairs to get something cold to drink.

Opening your bedroom door, you could hear the music playing from the backyard, the booming laughter of the various men standing around the barbecue grill. Walking down the stairs, you recited the formulas you were revising earlier, not at all paying attention to anything around you. Stepping into the kitchen, you kept staring at the flashcards you held, opening the fridge door to grab the carton of juice you knew was in there.

“That focused, are we?”

The deep voice scared you, making the flashcards from your grasp fall all over the tiled flooring. You whipped around to see Sirius leaning against the kitchen sink, smirking as he watched you. You watched him in return, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he downed a gulp from his beer bottle.

Shaking yourself off, you turned back to the fridge and grabbed the carton, before placing it on the counter and closing the door. You bent over to pick up the flashcards that you had dropped earlier, only to hear a splutter of a cough behind you.

You turned around as you placed the cards next to the carton, seeing Sirius cough into his forearm, his abs flexing beneath the thin tank top he wore.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay, Sirius?”

The man waved his hand at you, placing the beer bottle between his lips as his eyes scanned up and down your body, smirking around the bottle.

“S’nothing, Y/N.”

Your eyes followed Sirius’s gaze, looking down to realise just exactly why he had his little impromptu coughing fit. Given the heat, you’d forgotten you were only wearing a thin tank top and booty shorts that day, meaning that when you bent over, you’d given Sirius quite the show. You felt yourself turn red as you realised, spinning around promptly to grab a glass from the upper cabinets.

Unfortunately for you, but quite a fortunate happenstance for Sirius, all the glasses on the bottom shelf had been taken outside for “public consumption”, and only those on the top shelf remained.

Conscious of your every move in front of the hottest man you had ever known in your damned life, you stood up onto your tippy toes, reaching for the glasses on the top shelf. You could feel your shorts riding up as you reached up as high as you possibly could, honestly just contemplating climbing on top of the counters to reach the glasses.

All you wanted was some damned juice.

As you struggled, you heard a chuckle sound behind you, then footsteps. Warmth emanating from behind you, and then a hard body pressed up against you. Your body tensed up as you felt Sirius’s body behind you, swallowing audibly. You saw a hand reach up above yours, the large appendage wrapping around the blue glass before receding as the warmth moved away from you.

“Here you go, pumpkin.”

The nickname made your mouth run dry as you turned around to take the glass from the man, smiling slightly at him. You felt a shiver run down your spine as your fingertips grazed his, having to grip the glass unreasonably tight as you felt your hands weaken at his warmth.

“Thanks.”

Your voice croaked at the word, Sirius’s smirk growing on his face yet again. You took the carton and poured yourself a glass, sipping on it as you leaned against the counter, mirroring Sirius who was back to sipping at his beer bottle.

You could feel your exam stress building up again as your hand reached for the flashcards again, flipping through them as you mouthed the different formulas and definitions written on them.

“Stressed, Y/N?”

You hummed in agreement as you focused on the cards in your hands, the glass having been returned to the counter as you sunk back into revision mode, barely registering the clink of the beer bottle being placed in the kitchen sink as the man made his way towards you.

“Want some help, destressing, hmm?”

You looked up at the man only to find him right in front of you, your body straightening up as you watched his teasing expression, lips curled and eyebrows raised.

You knew Sirius knew the way you felt about him. The way you sucked in a breath the first time you’d seen him, the way you licked your lips subconsciously at the sight of him, the way you thought about him when you touched yourself…

He wasn’t exactly subtle with hiding the innuendos.

You shook yourself free of those thoughts as Sirius watched you, almost as if he knew what you were thinking.

“More juice, maybe?”

The smirk only grew bigger as the man shook the carton slightly, uncapping it and tilting his head backwards, drinking straight from the carton itself. You watched with your mouth hanging open slightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing entrancingly with every gulp.

“Oops, I might've finished it all. Though, I think there’s still a little more in here…”

Sirius watched you almost mockingly, mouth dropping open to show the bare minimum of juice left in his mouth.

The man knew you wanted him, and felt the exact same way towards you. He couldn’t help it.

The moment you stepped into the kitchen, he was a goner. The tank top clinging to your breasts, showing just the right amount of cleavage, the shortest fucking shorts he’d ever seen you in barely covering your ass, the man was holding himself together by a thread at this point.

“Hmm? You want it?”

Sirius’s eyes scanned your every move, eyebrows raising as you pushed off the counter slowly.

“Come get it.”

⚔︎.

You didn’t know who moved towards who in that split second, only that a moment later your world was turned upside down. Sirius’s lips were soft and sweet – the entrancing taste of Sirius overwhelming you, beer and orange juice mixing together in the kiss. As promised, Sirius’s tongue pushed a dribble of juice into your mouth, making you moan into his lips as your arms wrapped around his neck, flashcards scattering across the tiled flooring yet again, his hands coming up to grip your waist. The man’s calloused hands fingered the hem of your top, pushing the edges up, his thumb drawing circles on your hip bone.

You gasped at the feeling of his fingers on your skin, feeling Sirius chuckle against your lips at your surprise. Your own hands moved from his neck to his shoulders, sliding down to his arms. You could feel Sirius’s arms tensing at the feeling, the veins on his muscled forearms like braille under your fingertips.

Grunting into your lips, the man stepped forward, pushing you up against the counter, the edge right against the small of your back.

“Can I?”

Sirius asked breathlessly, lips bright red from what felt like minutes, but also hours, of yours against his. He ghosted the elastic of your shorts, eyes flicking between yours as he awaited your approval or disapproval.

You nodded, unable to speak as you held your breath.

Was this actually happening, or were you having some sort of heat stroke-induced delusion?

“Turn around and bend over for me then, doll.”

Your breath hitched in your throat as you nodded again, rendered dumb by your disbelief at the situation. You bent over the counter, leaning on your forearms as you looked over your shoulder, watching Sirius crouched down, hooking his fingers into your shorts, pulling your panties down as well in one move.

The man sucked in a breath at the sight of you bottomless, making your face turn red.

“Such a pretty pussy…”

The blush spread throughout your body as you noticed how close Sirius was to you, his breath ghosting your clit as he did nothing. Simply staring at your cunt. His hands moved up from your ankles, where he’d brought your shorts down to, and spread you open, fingers dipping inside you unintentionally, but it was likely to have been intentional. You squeaked at the feeling, walls clenching around thin air.

This is so fucking embarrassing. But your body seemed to disagree, feeling yourself become wetter at the feeling of Sirius’s eyes on you.

Moving in to take a closer look, the older man sent you one of his signature panty-dropping smiles.

Literally, in this case.

“I’m going to fucking ruin it.”

You threw your head forward as Sirius ran his forefinger up and down your slit, the brief contact with your clit making you let out a loud moan of surprise. Your eyes squeezed shut as you hid your head in your forearms, Sirius’s finger stretching you out as you moaned into your arms.

“Don’t be so loud, doll. Do you want everyone to hear you?”

You shook your head, biting your lip as Sirius moved his finger in and out of you, growing wetter at the thought of anyone catching you here. In the kitchen.

With your dad’s best friend.

All coherent thought was interrupted as Sirius’s other hand landed on your clit, rolling the nub between his thumb and forefinger. The movement made your brain short-circuit, letting out a loud gasping moan as he pushed a second finger inside you as well.

“S-Sirius. Fuck.”

The man tutted from behind you but didn’t even falter in his movements, seemingly spurred by your pleasure to pump his fingers in and out of you even faster. You were so immersed in the pleasure that your eyes shot open in surprise as a sharp slap landed on your clit.

“What the fuck?”

Your head whipped back to look at the older man, who merely lifted a brow at your outburst, his fingers still thrusting into you, the sinful sounds echoing around the kitchen.

“Told you to shut up, doll. Or are you too dumb to understand simple instruction, hmm?”

As he said that, Sirius curled his fingers inside of you, making you choke on your breath as he hit something inside of you.

“S-Sirius. I-”

Another slap landed on your cunt, but the pain mixed in with the insane amounts of pleasure you were feeling, your eyes squeezing shut once more to see nothing but stars in the midst of your pleasure.

“I told you to be silent, didn’t I? How’ve I fucked you dumb already.”

You whined silently, wiggling your hips slightly as your walls clenched around him, feeling your pleasure mount inside you, climbing towards its precipice.

“Your pussy’s so tight around my fingers. You wanna cum, love?”

You bit down on your forearm, moaning out into it as you nodded, your orgasm threatening to erupt on his fingers.

Sirius curled his fingers inside you, the movement pushing you over the edge as you nearly screamed, thanking the heavens that someone, probably Sirius, had come up with the idea of blasting AC/DC in the backyard. Convulsing around the older man’s fingers, your chest fell onto the countertop, your fluids running down your thigh as Sirius pulled his fingers out of you slowly. The feeling of being empty made you whine, hand searching blindly behind you to find Sirius.

“Want more.”

A chuckle sounded behind you, Sirius’s hand finding its way to your hair, threading his long fingers through it.

“You didn’t think I was done, did you, pumpkin?”

taglist: @marvelslut16, @siriusbarnesslut, @marimorena06, @weasleysbitch2, @reg-arcturus-black, @themoonwithprophets, @moonys-gf, @quindolyn, @lilypad-55449, @kermiemoon, @jamespotterslover, @remoony1, @siriusblackwifeeey, @iamnibbsi, @azura-mist, @accio-remus-lupin, @tomriddle_whore, @greenlyblue, @lillsthoughts, @jeannelupinblack, @i-love-scott-mccall, @justadreamyhufflepuff, @shit-thats-true, @dorcasmeadowesx, @sunflowersandpansies, @elenapatricia99, @90sgoldentrio, @itsmentalillness, @sprucewoodlover, @kiaslily

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[emcscared-whumps]

@whump-captain and I got put onto electrocution whump and we talked about cattle prods specifically-- and I felt the need to yeet the post version of this convo into the t-shaped void :)

Source for water electrocution info below the cut

CONTENT and WARNINGS: Drowning mentions, suffocation mentions

Whumpee, writhing and convulsing on the floor after a dramatic collapse, back arching, eyes wide, mouth hanging open in shock (ehehe)

Getting shocked again and again by Whumper that prowls in circles, like a shark closing in on its victim, prodding them from different directions every time. There is no way to tell from which direction the next shock will come

Whumpee is on the ground, they don't even know which way to flinch anymore

Bonus points for flinching back onto the cattle prod when Whumper wasn't even intending to zap them; but they go your fav flavour of "oh, nice :)" anyway

Whumpee barely being able to comprehend anything; it's a huge difference from the defiant way they used to hold themselves. Now they're splayed out on the ground, eyes wide and darting around but not quite focusing, shaking and twitching, and panting hard. They're dazed and confused and in oh so much pain :)

OC Whump time!! Because this is me, ofc it's time to hurt the bbies (but also ty Cap' for bringing the mer whump potential to the table because I somehow had not brained it)

Electrocution is Cole's weakness UwU enhanced strength means absolutely nothing when you can't control your muscles. Also, he can't focus on using his abilities to dampen the pain >:) Reducing him to a twitching pile of pain is my favourite thing to do to him

Electrocution, but in water-- Whumpee swimming and suddenly being unable to move, tingling, muscle cramps. An invisible force holds them in place and they get scared. Especially since they need air.

Depending on your mer whumpee, they should be able to take a little more of this because they probably won't drown >:) Being unable to move like that, renders them extremely vulnerable

Careful tho, if you paralyze them too much they could just suffocate

Whumper accidentally dropping the cattleprod into the water like "oh fu-" and then going "oh >:)" when their mer stops moving and gets this terrified look, despite any (possible) previous defiance. Gotta be careful with a mer like Pete tho, who uses his mouth to push water through his gills, and is already existing off the bare minimum. And then there are the porpoise ones that still need air ehehehehe

[aclevername8]

Chief (Alice) Wells of the Lost Time AU

Chief of the Lombax City Guard, Wells doesn’t take kindly to anyone who threatens to stand in her way of her duty–not even her own men. And especially not little punks from other dimensions who have little regard for the law.

After the Lombaxes moved to another dimension, the Lombax Praetorian Guard quadrupled their training and effort so that they’d be an unstoppable force, ensuring that nothing like Tachyon’s genocide could ever happen again. However, because they were so effective at keeping the planet of Fastoon safe, it meant that there was practically no crime at the local levels of the city, rendering the policing force of the Lombax City Guard largely unneeded.

Years of not having to deal with any real threats outside of the usual jaywalker, graffiti artist, or joyrider had bred complacency, and they’ve gained a reputation at being an ineffective force with nearly all of their officers simply doing the bare minimum. For all intents and purposes, they were a laughing stock.

But when Chief Wells got promoted, she was determined to turn this reputation around, having become sick and tired of the City Guard being filled with incompetent and out of shape officers who couldn’t catch a perp to save their life, leading to her having a very prickly disposition and an absolute zero-tolerance policy of bullshit in her department. This has led to many firings, creative punishments, and a number of officers being tazed by her own hand. 

And when Ratchet first showed up to the Lombax dimension, the very first thing he did was get into a city-wide chase after no one believed he was from another dimension, making a complete mockery out of the City Guard as he was only caught because he let himself get caught. And in their first meeting together, Wells came very close to outright strangling him with how much of a cocky smartass he was, her not believing his lies about ‘being an intergalactic hero who killed Tachyon’. 

However, once Kaden came into the picture and cleared things up, it didn’t do anything to stifle the now-present feud between her and Ratchet, AKA ‘the Punk’. And while they both think of the other as an 'annoying little bastard' or 'stuck-up hardass' from their conflicting personalities, they both deep down respect each other, with her accepting that this pain in the ass actually managed to avenge their people, and him accepting that this uptight bitch was actually a good leader who was (perhaps too) passionate about her job about protecting the people of her city from various menaces. 

But soon enough, even if it was through all of Ratchet's bullshit having to lead to constant interactions between the two, Wells and Kaden would eventually start to warm up to each other, beginning a new friendship, and soon enough, a romantic relationship--much to Ratchet's dismay, however.

Even though Wells and Ratchet have a bit of a prickly relationship--being more keen on the idea of shooting themselves than to EVER refer to themselves as 'stepmom/stepson'--as time went by, they would both eventually warm up to that very idea, even if either of them would be hard-pressed to openly admit that they actually care deeply about each other.

And when Rivet came into the picture (AKA Missy, according to Wells) she constantly advised that she and the punk wear condoms to, quote, ‘keep from breeding more little shits like you two into my city’--even when they weren’t even dating yet. 

But then, to everyone’s surprise, when Ratchet and Rivet eventually gave birth to Mallet-Marie (AKA Mallarie), Wells instantly fell in love with her new granddaughter, loving her (and eventually Miter) like they were her own children--even despite her constant lamenting about having a Punk Jr. running around throughout the pregnancy and Ratchet/Rivet's relationship. It wouldn’t be too far to say that even though she wasn’t blood related to their family at all, she loves being a grandparent to them just as much as Kaden does, with Mallarie and Miter being one of the few people that she truly lets her inner secret softie side out for.

None of the art is by me, for I lack the actual talent needed for that lmao, so here are the artists in their respective order:

@danscarf

@littlelombaxart

@wolfcha1k (for the next two)

Naiacreations on Twitter

This is based off of my AU of Lost Time, the first story of which you can read here!

[takoyaaki]

[toji fushiguro] n/sfw headcanons.

toji fushiguro x gn reader; not sfw. warnings for descriptions of brief violence, rough intercourse, toji's (obvious) corruption kink, and offhand remarks about virginity. please avoid men like this irl save yourself ok reupload bc original wasn't appearing in tags :v

he's always been more of a taker than a giver, and bodies are no exception.

takes include (but aren't limited to) virginity and money. gives? not even head. toji is unashamedly selfish like that, and it's not a characteristic he'll amend any time soon.

if he's not spending money on gambling, then he'll devote it to strip clubs, especially at the end of a work day – fixating on motions that are easier on the eyes than blood and bruised limbs.

speaking of bruised limbs . . .

restraint isn't a concept he familiarizes himself with. toji takes his partners rough, hardly ever compromising. marks from sex, specifically bite marks and bruises from fingers, look the best when they're on someone crushed underneath him.

he's not a tease, barely indulging in foreplay. toji undertakes the bare minimum to prepare, you, his partner for the ordeal, with calloused fingers that breach without forewarning and don't relent until he believes you feel just right for him to fit into.

there's some unprincipled, wicked part of him that enjoys the squirming, anyways. when his victim bends over the violent plunge of his fingers ("s-slow down, fushiguro – !"), and when you allow him to witness the sharp, sudden registering of his size between your legs; the brief hint of vulnerability that flits in your irises, when your grip on his forearms falters just as he pushes the head of his cock into your unprepared body.

that's the best part. whether it be to inflate his ego, the pride he feels within himself at rendering another person an absolute, incoherent mess and the power trip, or maybe the satisfaction stems from the default to what he's always done: take. he takes your time, with no regard for anything else. you've been so cooperative in giving it to him, anyways

he's not one for words, and soothing you while you (vainly) adjust to his size isn't on his agenda. crude verbiage is all he knows, and admittedly, it works in its steed.

"c'mon, you've got this." he carves shallow reassurances into the flesh of your collarbone, yet it doesn't hide the sinister grin that makes a home out of his lips. "open up for me, sweetheart. don't make me do it for you."

missionary is the default, and one that he finds doesn't leave you winded as quickly compared to when he takes you from behind. he prefers you conscious for him, after all. there isn't any thrill in fucking a partner who's exhausted right off the bat.

that doesn't mean he's above flipping you onto your stomach and slamming himself into you until your ass is red. it's his time too, yeah? his fingers around your hips are secure, fastened like a vice, and he can maneuver your body into angles that feel the best. you're incoherent, after all. all he knows is that you feel him, what he can do to you and how your body adapts for him.

it's cute, how you still call him by his surname even though he's buried halfway inside you. granted, it's not like he told you his first name anyways . . .

"toji," he supplies, large palms smoothing down the outside of your thighs as your body jerks up the mattress. he leisurely counts the myriad of teeth marks – his marks – that crawl from the small of your back to the bruised nape of your neck. "don't wear it out while you're screaming."

he finishes inside with drawn-out, indulgent drags of his hips. revels in the tremble of your thighs, the weak clutch of your grasp on the sheets, even the slight tears that dot the corners of your eyes. you, as you are underneath him, are his doing, and his to undo.

toji rinses himself off in the shower, wiping off the sweat from his abdomen and the strings of your essence that still cling to his length. he's not sure if you've passed out on the bed, or garnered whatever energy you had left and bolted from the apartment. but, damn – he should have taken a moment to admire a fresh catch a bit longer . . .

he's pleasantly surprised when he comes back and finds you still on his bed, chest rising in time with your breaths, legs parted, with his load seeping from the juncture of your thighs.

toji whistles, nudging your resting body to the other side of the bed as he settles down for the night. "staying was probably the worst thing you could've done."

[divinerulerluvr]

Let Me Violate You

Summary - in 1985 after taking some funny coke at a recording studio, she finds herself at the Cortez and meets Mr. James Patrick March only to meet her fate, as well

Warnings - smut (duh), bondage, coercion, murder, bondage, drugs, power kink, james is a dom per ush, idk its very dark dare i say

Words - 2.7k

Inspired by the song Closer by Nine Inch Nails ;)

- - -

The world was blurry as i stumbled into a random hotel in Downtown LA. I had been recording a new song at the studio just a few minutes away and the idiots i work with gave me some fucked up coke and now here i am, barely lucid and tripping out of my mind.

Leaning against the receptionist counter for support, i look up to the woman who reads a book. She peers at me over it, a certain look of disappointment in her eyes as she sets it down. “I-I would like a room,” i ask, blinking quickly.

“Fifteen dollars for the night,” she says flatly. I give her a twenty, too high to care about change. She smiles at me before standing up and grabbing a key from the wall and handing it to me. The key had a ‘64’ chain on it.

“Room sixty-four. Sixth floor,”

I nod before stumbling to the elevator, getting to the sixth floor, and walking through the halls until i got to room 64. Unlocking the door, i push it open and walk into the large suite. Going straight to the bed, i lay back on it with an exasperated sigh.

I am too high for this.

Staring at the ceiling that looks like it was twirling and twisting, i feel eyes on me. Sitting up, my eyes glance around the room. My eyes land on a man who stands at the end of the bed, a cigarette in his hand.

I jump, trying to confirm whether he was real or not with the state i was in. “W-Who are you?” i stutter nervously, my eyes wide with fear. The man smiles, drawing at his cigarette to build some sort of anticipation.

“I should be asking who are you? This is my suite,” he says in return, his voice coated with a thick 20’s accent. He was an attractive man. His dark hair was styled perfectly and in the dark of the room i could make out his sharp jawline and piercing eyes.

“I paid for this room,” i argue, confused to who this strange man is.

He grins a predatory and evil grin that made my stomach twist. “Would you like a drink?” he offers, ignoring the previous conflict. “I’d like you to get out of my room,” i bite back. He turns his back to me, pouring something into a glass.

Turning back to face me, he extends a glass of the drink to me. “No need to be so rude, darling,” he advises, his head tilted patronizingly. He takes a slow step towards me, his eyes dead on mine. Swallowing thickly, i accept the drink.

Suspiciously, i drink from the glass. The alcohol burned down my throat and the drugs already in me didn’t help. Finding it wasn’t poisoned, i chugged the rest of it down.

He sips from his own glass, his eyes never leaving mine. “Who are you?” i ask yet again. “James March,” he replies simply. I just nod, finding that i had this strange fuzzy feeling in my mouth.

I had already finished the drink he’d offered and it was too late to go back. I had jinxed the fact that it was drugged. Because i know what being drugged feels like.

Before i could do anything, i was out like a fucking light.

-

I woke up after god knows how long. I felt rope rubbing my wrists raw and rope that kept my feet tied to the bed. Panic fills me as i look around the room frantically. It was that James guy who fucking drugged me and fuck knows what he’s going to do to me.

I breathe out quietly, trying to calm myself as i pull at the ropes that keep my arms tied apart to either post of the bedframe. I was in a starfish position, rendering me completely helpless.

“You really should never take a drink from a stranger, my sweet Y/n,” i hear James’ voice say from beside me, startling me at his sudden appearance. “Fuck off. Let me go,” i complain, glaring up at him.

He chuckles, reaching his hand down and petting my hair. I recoil from his touch, my heart beating quicker than if i was on acid. He notices my reaction to his touch, a look of anger crossing his face right before he slaps me.

Not a playful smack, either. A real smack. It stung my cheek, a groan leaving my lips. He exhales sharply, his ominously black eyes glaring at me with disgust. “I think you forget who’s the one tied up and the one who did the tying,” he says, walking away from me.

I still fight against the ropes, my wrists burning like hell. I was lucky i was still clothed. But with this man, i wasn’t sure what he wanted from me.

“Why are you doing this?” i ask him, watching as he takes off his belt. My heart jumps, my thighs instinctually trying to push together but failing due to my position. He glances up at me as he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

“You were just so beautiful, dear. I had to have you for myself,” he says with a charismatic smile. His white button-down sits loosely on his shoulders, exposing his toned chest and abs to me. “That’s fucking creepy,” i scoff, watching his every move with precision.

He shrugs. “I think it’s romantic. When i’m done, you’ll never leave the confines of this hotel again,” he counters.

“Yeah right,” i mumble to myself, moving around on the bed still trying to free myself from the bonds keeping me at his mercy. He glares at me. “You have a horrible habit of talking back,” he points out, running his hand up my bare leg and playing with the hem of my skirt.

I swallow thickly, a dull heartbeat growing between my legs as his soft touch trails further up my leg and under my skirt. His hand cold but his touch was warm. Bunching up my skirt, his eyes fall onto my black panties.

“Maybe i should do something about it, hm?”

Keeping quiet, my cheeks burn in embarrassment as his eyes rake over my bare legs. He walks away from me, retrieving something from a drawer and coming back to me with it in hand. He presents a ball gag and i feel my breathing pick up.

Placing the pink plastic ball of the gag in my mouth, James buckles the strap around my head and i could feel myself lose every last ounce of power i had.

He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a hand knife and placing it to the waistband of my skirt. In one fluid motion, he cuts it into two pieces and tears it off of me. He does the same to the top i wore, shredding it and discarding it carelessly.

His eyes fall on my now bare chest. I never wore bras. Softly, he runs his fingers over my breasts, enjoying how my skin breaks out into goosebumps at his feather-light touch. He runs his hand down my stomach, feeling how i pant with anticipation.

Cutting off my panties, i was completely exposed to him. He sees how wet i am, a proud smirk spreading on his lips. “I’ve barely even touched your pretty body yet, doll. And yet look at this,” he taunts, running his finger through my slick folds.

I whimper, my hips bucking back at the sensation of his touching me. He uses his free hand to hold down my hips, keeping me flat on the bed. “I thought you didn’t want this,” he teases, his eyes admiring my naked body.

Unable to speak, i just furrow my brows pathetically. He smiles, enjoying how mindless i look. He rubs slow and teasing circles over my clit, his touch gentle as he stimulates me.

Weak moans leave my lips but are ultimately silenced by the gag in my mouth. My legs tremble slightly as i occasionally jolt with pleasure. He was giving me the bare minimum but it felt so fucking good.

Spit falls from the corner of my mouth, my eyes watering with the pain of him only touching me lightly. I could see the bulge in his pants and i knew i was in for quite the night. Men like him didn’t like vanilla sex. I would know. I’m in a goddamn rock band and it’s the eighties.

His hand leaves between my legs and instead uses his already wet fingers to wipe the spit that had left my mouth. His dark eyes meet mine as he returns his hand to my pussy, this time pushing his middle finger into me.

I arch my back, my head pressed into the pillow i lay on as i feel his finger curl inside of me. Not caring, he pushes a second finger into me and starts an even rhythm of finger fucking me

My whimpers sound pathetic and tears fill my eyes. I beg internally for more pleasure. But i was unable to actually ask for it which i knew was his entire point. I was wetter than i’ve ever been before. His fingers were like heaven inside of me.

His palm every once in a while grazes my clit, making my body shudder from the brief stimulation. “Look at you. How pitiful you are,” he degrades, his eyes taking in the way my eyes water and how a squirm on the bed.

“Little girls like you need to be taught a lesson,” he clicks his tongue, his fingers slowing down from their rhythm before he pulls them out. I groan at the loss, my eyes locked on his. “They need to be put to good use, for once,”

I watch with doe eyes as he throws off his shirt and takes off his pants. He gets on top of me, staring at me like i was prey and he was a starving predator. “You look positively beautiful tied to my bed," he compliments, caressing my hot cheek.

���To be fair, it is also very beautiful to watch you squirm with pleasure, my pet,” he says with a grin, repositioning so he was kneeling between my legs. He runs his hand up my stomach, reaching my breasts and massaging them. Giving special attention to my sensitive nipples.

His clothed boner rubs against my sensitive pussy, making me want him even more. My hands pull against their restraints, causing the red marks on my wrist to hurt more. He sees this, noticing how raw my skin was. “You know better than that,” he tsks, trailing his hand down my body and running it along my leg.

I didn’t know how to convey to him that i wanted him to absolutely destroy me, so instead, i just push myself against him, grinding my hips against his clothed dick.

He smirks, pushing my hips flat against the bed to stop me. “Patience, my pet,” he warns, feeling every inch of my naked body with a tender and almost caring touch. My eyes fall shut in irritation, trying to just enjoy his teasing touches that continue to lead me on.

His hand runs up my thigh, following the curve of my body and stopping at my neck where he lightly wraps his hand around it. I whimper, knowing full well he could feel my pulse against his hand.

“Do you think you’ve earned the privilege of pleasure?” he questions, his eyes dark with lust. I nod rapidly, my pussy practically hurting due to the lack of stimulation. He smiles, tightening his grip on my neck so he’s squeezing the sides.

His hand leaves my neck and i watch as he pulls off his boxers. Getting excited, i let him pull me down to meet him, the ropes pulled tautly and rubbing on my ligature marks even more. The sting was damn near unbearable but the pain would soon be forgiven.

Without mercy, he pushes himself into me. I cry out, my pitiful cries muted by the gag. It hurt. Of course it did. I may have been wet, but his dick was too big to just pull that shit. My nails dig into my palms as he bottoms out in me, his tip pressed into my g-spot deliciously.

The tears in my eyes fall down my cheeks, causing black streaks to trace down my face in the trail of the tears. I pull my hips back a little, his dick hitting unmarked territory inside me. He places his hands on my hips, pulling them down even closer to him as a way to punish me.

The ropes were now extremely painful. He pulls his hips back and starts fucking me rough without warning and especially without care. The pain quickly blossomed into pleasure. His hands dig into the flesh of my hips as he holds me steady so he can use and abuse me.

His hair had fallen out of its pristine style. A curl falling in front of his face as his eyes took in my body as he destroyed it. Soft grunts and groans would leave his lips, his thrusting pace harsh and deep.

If there wasn’t a gag in my mouth, i’d be so fucking loud right now.

He uses one of his hands and slithers it up my body, dragging some of the spit on my face down my chin and neck. His eyes lock on mine, a sort of animalistic starvation in them. He felt so good that i thought i would cum right now.

I wanted to touch him. To run my hands down his back and pull his hair. But then again, i couldn’t. Because i was tied up. Powerless. I knew his game and i knew it well. But i also fucking love the game.

My walls contract around him and i can already predict his reaction. He clicks his tongue, slowing his hips just a bit as to pull me back from the edge of an orgasm. I groan, my eyes falling shut and my head laying back.

He reaches and grabs my neck, startling my eyes open. “I want you to watch me use you, darling,” he instructs. I have no choice but to obey. My eyes trail down his toned torso to where he fucks me roughly.

It was so hot. Watching him go in and out of me. My wetness coating my pussy and even his dick. How you could see how deep he was hitting inside me due to the way my stomach pushes out in sync with each snap of his hips.

My eyes water even more, making it hard to keep them open to watch the scene before me. “Be a good girl for me and listen to my instructions,” he comments, noticing how my blinks got longer with each close of my eyes.

I try my best, my eyes flicking up to meet his. His hand that was around my neck moves to my pussy, rubbing circles on my clit with his thumb. I shudder, my entire body writhing at the new sensation.

The pleasure got to the point where i couldn’t take it anymore.

I attempt to pull my hips back, my body overwhelmed with pleasure to the point where it is borderline painful. “Uh uh,” he hums, reaching his hand up and smacking my cheek hard enough to make the previous mark sting even more.

With a dull cry, i stop trying to resist and give up every last ounce of power i had left to him, letting my body go limp so he could have his way with me.

He uses this to his advantage, fucking me harder than before. My breasts bounce with each merciless thrust, my eyes rolled into the back of my head as the mix between his touch on my clit and how he fucks me brings me to an orgasm.

Surprisingly, he lets me have my orgasm. My ears ring and i can feel every single drop of blood that runs through my veins. All my senses were heightened as he fucks me through my orgasm. With my eyes closed, i feel a sharp pain in my chest.

I open my eyes to see he had stabbed me, a proud look on his face. I begin to bleed as he removes the knife from my chest. “Now you’ll be with me forever. Like i said,” he comments as i feel his cum fill me up.

He collapses on top of me, my blood coating his pale skin as i take my last breath.

And i was dead.

[agentrouka-blog]

Do you think there will be a time jump in twow or ados?

Not a significant jump, no.

The biggest time jumps in the books are actually in the first book, before the POV's add up. That's when it was still possible.

Between the Prologue and Bran I, Gared makes it all the way from 9 days away from Castle Black to south of the Wall near Winterfell, which is over a month at the absolute most efficient minimum travel time but could be significantly longer considering he does not pass the Wall at any of the Watch castles as far as we know. It could have been half a year or even more. Yohn Royce was at Winterfell two years before the Hand's Tourney, while Waymar was a member of the Watch for only half a year when he died.

Between Bran I/Catelyn I and Eddard I, the direwolf pups go from blind and tiny to comfortably chowing down on meat and obeying simple commands, in the span of time it takes Robert to slooooowly roll up the kingsroad toward Winterfell. Most of the first half of the year between Joffrey's two birthdays happens off-page and the actual events all squish together in the second half between leaving Winterfell and Robb's coronation.

After that, GRRM comfortably skips weeks between some POV chapters, when the opportunity arises, but he definitely moved more toward letting time pass on the page, like the various travellogues (Arya, Brienne, Arianne, Tyrion, Asha, Victarion...) or within the training montages (Arya, Bran) and sometimes barely any time passes at all (parallel POVs for the same events).

I think GRRM will try to keep stretching time in this way, rather than introducing a significant time skip, which would be immensely difficult to sync up with all the various POV's. Which was, if I recall correctly, the reason he had dropped the five year gap in the first place.

Time-stretching opportunities would be any time someone travels (usually a matter of several weeks), or is rendered stationary by injury or imprisonment or weather, or has a project to attend (build or organize something) and so on. GRRM squeezed only about a year into action-packed ACOK and ASOS, but he's been trying to repent for that.

Joffrey dies on New Year but we see the election of a new triarch in Volantis in ADWD, which is also supposed to happen around the new year.

Jaime also references the passage of the year in his ADWD chapter, when discussing Bracken hostages.

"It is a great honor to wait upon the queen," Jaime reminded his lordship. "You might want to impress that on her. We'll look for the girl before the year is out." (ADWD, Jaime I)

This is long before Cersei's Walk of Shame and Aegon's arrival.

Unless Volantis uses a wholly different calendar, the parallel books AFFC/ADWD span roughly a year together, which I would assume to be the rate GRRM will try to go for in TWOW and ADOS each.

[mygodyouredivine]

The Hell In Your Eyes - 3

Summary: Loki doesn't meet her until two weeks after his initial imprisonment, but he knows he hates her. He has to hate her. Because the way she talks to him and helps him and saves him meals can't mean anything. She is too soft to deal with Loki, who is hardened with pain, pain, and more pain. And Loki hates soft things.

Have you ever seen the hell in someone’s eyes and loved it anyway?

Characters: Loki Laufeyson/(f)Reader

Warnings: brief mentions of violence

Word Count: 4836

Previous Chapter

Loki is annoyed.  

Loki has sat through thousands of years of political dinners, exchanging thinly veiled insults under a layer of diplomacy, all while smiling through his teeth. Loki has spewed sensical nonsense, charming naive, innocent maids and sweeping young stable boys off their feet. Loki has endured Odin’s wrath — in all its horrible glory — countless times, and never once had he shed a tear, nor had a single cry escaped his lips.  

The whole of Asgard had coined him the Dark Prince — and who was Loki to disappoint? 

He had long since learned people saw what they expected to see. 

And so as the entire realm rejoiced in his demise, as Laufey left him to die, as Odin condemned him for eternity, as Thor abandoned him, as Frigga had sided with her husband again and again and again, Loki maintained his carefully constructed front.  

Yet one encounter with a mortal, and he had unraveled at her feet.  

If physically kneeling before the wretched creature wasn’t enough, he knew she had seen past his mask. By the time he had regained his composure, he was sure she had seen him.  

It won’t happen again.  

Loki is a god, and gods do not crack. Gods maintain their image, regardless of circumstance. Gods do not show weakness, do not show vulnerability.  

This is a lesson Loki knows well, a lesson etched into his skin countless times by Odin’s hand.  

And yet for each time Odin reinforced this lesson, the very same lesson was burned away by Thanos a thousand more. 

Loki tried, he truly did. Loki maintained his godly facade for an impressive amount of time, resisting as his body was taken apart over and over and over again. Perhaps it wasn’t as long as he thought. Loki feels as if his entire life was spent doused in agony, spent with his flesh melting off and his bones withering away. 

Ultimately, a god is no match for a Titan.  

But a mortal is no match for a god.  

And yet, Loki has found himself at her feet — at her mercy — twice. 

Even after, Loki couldn’t bring himself to summon his cruel exterior. Perhaps it had to do with the way she had waltzed into his space, all soft and defenseless, carrying that deplorable drink as if it was the elixir of eternal life (unfortunately, it tasted just as divine). Perhaps it was his body, still sated and full for the first time in months, reminding him of the food — the debt — he owes. Perhaps it was the way she held out her arm towards him, even though he could see it shaking.  

Whether it was any of these things or none at all, Loki’s cool mask of indifference was rendered utterly useless at her delicate, mortal hands.  

Loki hates her.  

His hatred fills every fiber of his being. It’s a scalding, fiery hatred, much unlike the frozen excuse of Loki’s heart. His frost giant heritage seems to reject her very being.  

Loki hates her voice, hates her hands, hates her. He hates how she makes him falter when there is no place for mistakes.  

Loki’s thoughts are interrupted by Thor, who enters Loki’s quarters without an ounce of hesitation — ever the righteous, confident, arrogant bastard. 

Ah, but Loki almost forgot. Thor is not the bastard — Loki is. How despicable; for really, Loki can not even call himself a bastard. Yet, ‘the Bastard Son of Odin’ has a certain charm to it. Perhaps another false title for his collection.  

“Loki!” Thor booms, “Here are your clothes that Lady Angel washed. You should be grateful brother, for she offered of her own volition — ” 

Is it so surprising someone would offer to help Loki without external influence?  

“ — to see and visit you! You are doing well. I am happy to see you are finally making an effort to get to know all of our friends — ” 

Thor is happy? For Loki, or for himself? Why must Loki, even now, strive to prove himself to Thor? Why is Loki’s worth solely dependent on Thor’s judgement?  

“ — and Lady Angel is absolutely wonderful. I am delighted to see you two getting along so well! I can’t believe you finally made a friend— ” 

At this, Loki’s composure cracks for the second time that day.  

“What am I? A pathetic child wandering aimlessly through a school corridor? A helpless hatchling at the mercy of others — groveling for the bare minimum? Who are you to congratulate me for ‘making a friend?’ She is not a friend ,” Loki spits out. He can feel his teeth grinding against each other, his fingernails once again digging into his palms. “She is nothing more than another worthless mortal, unworthy of even breathing the same air as I, and yet you suggest I be grateful?” 

Thor advances on Loki, his eyes hardening. The atmosphere is tense; unlike the typical bickering between the brothers, Loki identifies something distinctly different in the way the air vibrates. The space between the two gods crackles. “Watch yourself brother —” 

Brother. The word grates upon Loki’s nerves. How can Thor so carelessly throw the word around, even knowing of its false implications — implications and lies Loki foolishly believed.  

Sometimes Loki wonders if Thor does it on purpose.  

“Do you hear yourself Thor? Bending yourself over backwards to defend this wasted excuse of consciousness — you are the King of Asgard. What is she? She is nothing.” 

And now Loki is no longer staring at his brother, but the ceiling of his prison. His back is slammed against Stark’s hardwood floors and there is sharp ringing in his ears, likely the result of the crack in the floor right behind where his head is currently embedded.  

Loki almost laughs. 

Truly, it is comical — comical that even now, Thor’s first instinct is to physically threaten Loki. As if Loki doesn’t almost enjoy it. 

But Loki’s laugh catches in his throat, prevented from escaping by the large hand tightening around his airway.  

Thor’s hand is around Loki’s neck — a mirror of His. 

A thousand years Loki has known Thor. A thousand years of childish brawls, foolhardy battles, pointless arguments. How many times has Loki betrayed Thor? Thor betrayed Loki? And yet, Loki believed he knew his brother’s character.  

A thousand years Loki has known Thor, but never once has he thought Thor to be cruel.  

Oh how wrong he is.  

Thor’s hands are gripping Loki’s neck and for the life of him Loki can’t breathe. He tries to draw air into his lungs — lungs that are screaming with a familiar ache — and fails. Phantom pains flicker across his entire body and somehow, in the second before his vision goes black, Loki manages to croak out a strangled wheeze of a laugh.  

Loki is once again strapped upon a bed of coals, once again stabbed with blades of flame, once again torched with fire so hot he freezes. Loki remembers the only other time he begged — begged and pleaded for the sweet mercy of death, all while knowing death was a pleasure he was never to be granted.  

Loki is once again kneeling — boneless — at the feet of a Titan, looking up into a face promising endless pain, a face painted with the patience of a thousand moons and splattered with the ruined blood of a Frost Giant. 

Loki did not know that a Frost Giant’s blood could boil. 

Ah, but the Mad Titan knew, and he ensured Loki would never forget.  

Loki recalls the moment he let go — an eerie echo of his fall from grace, his fall from the Bifrost. And he remembers the horribly invasive power of the scepter, along with the blessed relief and utter disregard for self preservation that followed. 

And it is this — the relief — that plagues Loki. He does not fool himself; Loki may be the God of Lies, but he has no reason to lie to himself . It is not the destruction of New York nor the deaths at his hand that weigh upon his shattered mind. No, it is the fact that Loki found solace in his actions.  

Make no mistake — Loki does not rejoice in his crime, but nor could he say he regrets it. 

For if Loki were given the choice, he could not — would not — choose to spare Midgard at the cost of his own sanity. 

(But Loki was never given a choice.) 

Alas, Loki is already insane. 

The Mad Titan has taken so much from Loki.  

Physically, Loki has long since disregarded his own body. He remembers the beginning of his torture, when he still held the title of 'Prince of Asgard,' when he spoke with arrogance and oozed of indignantion. Oh how naive he had been. When the first whips had landed across his skin, Loki's thoughts could never have anticipated what the coming months would entail. Loki did not once stop to consider how he would escape the clutches of his captor — oh the confidence he held! — but instead lamented the scars he would surely have to bear. Dimly, Loki recalls worrying over his marred skin, irritated at the blemishes he would surely have to cover when taking future lovers.  

Loki scoffs.  

Loki does not recognize the man who spent time thinking of lovers. Or of his physical appearance. Or of his interests. Or of any other insignificant pleasure that ultimately contributes to the annihilation of a soul. 

(Even now, Loki carries with him an irrational fear of physical touch — a seed planted by the Mad Titan that Loki cannot gouge out, not even if he tore open his very being.) 

In fact, Loki wondered if his corporeal form had even existed anymore. But most of all, more than the ruination of his physical form, Loki mourns the damnation of his mind. 

Ultimately, the Mad Titan did triumph over Loki. For no matter how many times Loki escapes, fakes his death, runs away, he can never evade the visions that haunt his mind, the voices that infect his thoughts, the termites eating away at what remains of Loki’s sanity. 

(If Loki were given a choice, he would have chosen death again and again and again.) 

Alas, Loki was not — is not — given a choice, for suddenly he is not lying on a bed of coals, but on his apartment floor again. Thor has since removed his hand from Loki’s neck and Loki half wishes Thor just kept it there. Just kept on squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until Loki died on that bed of coals.  

Loki wonders, if he were to die at Thor’s hand, would his brother feel remorse? Or perhaps, more realistically, relief?  

Unfortunately, Loki is not dead, and Thor is gazing at him, concern evident in his gaze. As if Thor wasn’t the one who put Loki in this condition — wasn’t the one who greedily snatched all of Odin’s affection, wasn’t the one who pushed Loki out of favor, wasn’t the one who led his brainless minions in a brash suicide mission, as if Thor wasn’t the one who stared Loki in the eye as Loki let go into the abyss.  

As if Thor wasn’t the first domino in a long ripple effect that eventually drowned Loki in his sins.  

Thor was the smooth pebble that young children skipped over lakes, just barely skimming the surface of a tempting downfall — nevertheless gracefully leaping unscathed across the reflective waters. Yet Loki was the jagged, unskippable rock, destined to fall through the air and fall through the water with no hesitation. Loki has long since come to terms with this simple fact.  

No longer does Loki resent his brother, for he understands: light can only shine in the presence of darkness. And if Loki is condemned to darkness — so be it.  

Loki does not resent his brother, but oftentimes Loki despises his lightness . What some might say is endearing — the inability for Thor to give up — is just a burden. Even now, Thor still thinks he can change Loki, can fix him. Thor still thinks that by vouching for Loki and providing Loki a place to live and surrounding Loki with Thor’s friends that he can mend Loki’s broken soul and bring back the brother he once had. Thor is still in denial — he refuses to grasp the very simple concept that Thor’s brother — the Second Prince of Asgard, God of Lighthearted Mischief — is long dead. And so Thor continues to try. But light yelling into the darkness does not change it.  

And even now, with Thor looming above Loki, Loki does not resent his brother.  

But Loki resents Thor’s very being — the core of who Thor is. Thor is a duality; one of naivety and compassion, yet tainted — or perhaps embellished — with a smidge of cruelty and arrogance.  

And as Thor is speaking to Loki, mouth forming words Loki is too tired to hear, Loki simply lies on the floor, limbs relaxed around him, throat sore, and does the only thing he can do when feeling so utterly empty.  

Loki laughs.  

______________________________

Midgard is rather charming in some regards.  

Loki will eventually have to investigate the laundry process, for he has just now made the curious discovery that freshly dried clothes are warm . He suspects they were warmer right after they were dried, but he can still feel the presence of the heat, lingering within the very fabric of his garments. He wonders just how much they were heated up to — would it have burnt his frozen hands at the peak of its fiery glory? 

No, Loki’s hands are too well accustomed to fire now. 

But he doubts that her hands are. He envisions Angel pulling his clothes out of the dryer, her hands touching the same clothes that he has worn, that he will wear, that he is currently touching.  

Yet is it entirely possible Loki is standing around, imagining a scene that never played out, for it was not Angel who brought Loki’s laundry back to him, but his dearest brother. Looking at his pile of clothes again, Loki takes in the telltale signs of Thor. The messily folded shirts stare back at Loki, mocking him.  

He wonders if she ever even did any part of his laundry. Perhaps she only offered it as a way to ease the uncomfortable tension that had arisen earlier. Or rather, (and his stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought) she lugged his laundry basket downstairs and dumped it straight into Thor’s arms. 

Why else would she refuse his help to accompany her?  

A twinge of something rises up within Loki as he realizes she accepted Thor’s offer to bring his clothes back. Or, much more likely, she had pushed the task onto Thor in a desperate attempt to avoid encountering him again.  

Not that Loki could blame her. 

And yet the uncomfortable sensation within Loki only grows, and he realizes that he feels something akin to disappointment. Loki cannot allow himself to feel disappointment. He had long since learned not to expect anything from anyone — or perhaps, much more cynically, to only depend on — to trust — himself.  

Trust, Loki knows, is a fickle concept the naive embrace. Trust itself is ill fated, the certainty of an inevitable betrayal the same as the certainty that one day everyone living on this cursed realm will perish.  

Loki hates Angel. He hates how she pretends to care for him, hates how she imitates Thor, hates how she always finds a way to break him, and Loki hates how Angel makes him feel.  

Loki's silent anger boils inside of him — like the steady countdown of a ticking bomb — manifesting itself out of him as the laundry basket is violently launched across the room. 

He hates how he feels absolutely no satisfaction at the way the freshly clean clothes scatter across the floor, hates how he lost control, and hates how the damned mortal forces him to feel emotions he does not want to feel . 

Sometimes all Loki can do is hate. 

______________________________

The heat from the clothes have long since seeped into the floor. 

The sun is just now setting, dousing Loki’s room in a fiery glow. Warm light spills across Loki’s bookshelves, his impeccably made bed, the clothes strewn around his floor. Loki sits on the ground, bare of his illusions, allowing himself to just be .  

Staring across the room, he notices tendrils of light carefully curling around the air, miniscule particles of dust dancing in the golden glow. This is a gold Loki enjoys. Unlike the brash, loud character of Thor’s gold — of Asgard’s gold, this is a much softer, gentle color. The comforting hue reminds Loki of his mother, and against his will, he feels a wall of despair beginning to build within his chest.  

For a second, Loki loses himself as the wall crashes over him. He drops his head, allowing his hair to dangle in front of his face, obscuring his view of the floating particles. He feels like a child — wants nothing more in this moment than to run to Frigga, for her floral scent to fill his senses as she envelopes him in her arms. What Loki wouldn’t give to have Frigga’s delicate fingers comb through his hair just once more, for her soft lips against his forehead, murmuring words of comfort.  

But he can’t have that. Instead, here he is, sitting on the floor of a glorified prison in the midst of a community of people who hate him, with nothing but Thor to act as his buffer. 

Looking up, Loki gazes at the honeyed light as it glides over a particular heap of clothing. He watches, mesmerized, as the light gently moves, unhurriedly bathing each corner of the fabric in its rich glow.  

If he were still on Asgard, Loki would most likely have been reading, thoroughly immersed in some story or another. The sun would have showered his pages in its quiet glow, lighting the words aflame. He would have taken a stroll in his mother’s gardens, breathing in the sweet scent of her flowers as he sat in his favorite hidden alcove. He would have taken out his book and continued to read, read until the golden hue of the sun was replaced by the tender shine of the moon. Only then would Loki return, serenely walking back to his chambers, stopping only to retrieve a cup of tea, and resume his reading on his balcony.  

Loki wants that. 

Loki wants an afternoon to himself, with no worries plaguing his mind. 

Loki wants to be able to read, and to do so in an environment which permits him to let his guard down. 

Loki wants to sit outside, surrounded by flowers, and watch as the sun transitions into the moon. 

Loki wants to indulge in a hot cup of tea as he watches the moonlight spills across the pages of his book. 

Loki wants so many things — and he can’t have any of them. 

Standing up, Loki decides he has spent enough time reminiscing over what he cannot have today. He feels sticky and hot and cold and hungry and all he wants right now , is a long shower.  

And so Loki walks over to the same pile of clothes, now dull and abandoned by the sun, gazing disapprovingly downwards. Thor is truly an imbecile, for he has not even managed to separate their clothes correctly. Loki is currently staring at a dark green sweatshirt, one he knows for a fact he has never seen before. Tiredly, he tosses it upon his bed and scoops up a clean change of clothes, then turns around and trodds slowly into the bathroom.  

______________________________

Water droplets rain all around Loki, swiftly sliding down his body. 

He doesn’t particularly enjoy showering — it reminds him too much of another substance: denser, stickier, and much more red, trickling down his skin. Loki much prefers baths. Baths, however, render their subject very much vulnerable, and Loki does not fancy risking any more vulnerability than strictly necessary.  

So Loki is standing in the shower, unabashedly soaking up the shallow warmth the water provides. Surely if Thor could see him, his brother would lecture Loki on wasting Midgard’s precious resources. But, Loki reasons, if Stark truly possesses the excess of wealth he boasts of, Loki’s water usage will not be of much concern to the man. And so this is a luxury Loki will grant himself.  

The shower is one place where Loki feels the safest, where he allows his thoughts to wander and drift into otherwise forbidden territories. Today especially has been challenging, and even his muscles seem to ache, the fibers pulling away from each other, trying to rip Loki apart from the inside out. His mind is exhausted, filled with swirling thoughts of Frigga and Angel and Thor, with the occasional Odin and Titan intruding whenever a particular body part cries out.  

And as Loki gazes down at his body, the disfigured canvas of scars stare back at him and he attempts to soothe away the countless aches. No matter how much time has passed and how much magic Loki pours into himself, the pains never seem to retreat. Rationally, Loki knows it doesn’t make sense. He knows his magic is fully capable of healing himself, knows that by all accounts he is healed.  

But Loki also knows he does not imagine the sharp pains coursing through his veins.  

He is fighting himself — the part of himself that does not want the pain to stop. Because all Loki knows is pain, and he fears the absence of pain almost as much as he dreads its glorious presence.  

Loki raises his head, allowing for the stream of water to bruise his face. And if Loki’s closed eyes leak the occasional tear, no one would know.  

______________________________

Loki’s self destructive spiraling is abruptly cut short by three succinct knocks from his bedroom door. Still soaking in the shower, Loki debates whether or not to answer; after all, he truly has no desire to see his brother again today. Or preferably, ever again. Unfortunately, Loki is all too aware that if he does not answer the door to let Thor in, Thor will simply let himself in. And if there’s anything worse than seeing Thor, it will be seeing a displeased Thor while Loki stands nude and wet.  

Reluctantly, Loki turns off his shower, changes into his freshly washed ‘sweatpants’, and leisurely walks towards the door. He is honestly surprised Thor hasn’t invited himself in yet. He is more surprised when he finally opens the door and is promptly met with — not Thor’s brutish face, but the goddamned mortal.  

She stands there, in front of his door, barely out of arm's reach. Loki can’t help but drink her in. He notices her hair, laying loosely around her face, framing her profile. She’s sporting a sweater, much too warm for the present weather. Its collar is stretched out over years of use, teasing his eyes with a fraction of her collarbones peaking through. Her legs are barely covered by absurdly short shorts, and Loki feels the back of his ears heating up. Hurriedly, he averts his eyes, falling down to her feet, once again hugged by soft looking socks — mismatched.  

His scrutinization is interrupted by her voice; so soft.  

“Hey! Sorry if I interrupted you. I heard you were in the shower but I was going around taking everyone’s dinner orders. We’re getting Chinese.” She tilts her head to the side, lifting her chin ever-so-slightly, distractedly exposing the tantalizing skin of her neck. She swallows, and Loki’s eyes discreetly follow the bob of her throat. “I was just wondering if you wanted anything?” 

It takes a moment for Loki to register her question and another for him to process it. She is going to order dinner? For him? And she is asking him for his preference? Loki has not had the privilege of preferring anything in a long, long time. Damn this mortal. 

“I am not familiar with this particular cuisine, nor Midgard’s in particular.” 

She meets his eyes then, and only after does it occur to him that her eyes had been previously glued to his abdomen. His abdomen, he realizes which has been bare this entire interaction. “That doesn’t answer my question.” 

He forces himself to roll his eyes, running a hand through his still dripping hair to hide the scarlet his ears have surely become. “I am saying that I do not have a preference, woman.” 

She lifts her shoulders briefly in a gesture Loki has come to associate with Midgard’s daftness and promptly moves closer to him. Instinctively, Loki takes a step back, then curses himself for doing so. He truly must be losing it, backing away from a defenseless mortal. But she doesn’t push further, instead tilting her head at that angle again, asking him another question.  

“Can I come in?” 

Loki hesitates. He doesn’t understand her motives, doesn’t know if this is a trick the Avengers have set up or perhaps a test designed by his brother. All he knows is that Angel is staring at him with her eyes wide and innocent and completely devoid of deceit.  

Angel must carry magic or Loki must be possessed by the Mind Stone again, for against his will, Loki steps to the side, allowing her to brush past him. The sleeve of her sweater comes into contact with Loki’s stomach, and he jerks away.  

Awkwardly, Loki closes his door and turns to face the mortal, noting how hilariously out of place she looks, standing in the midst of Loki’s domain. With a wave of his hand, the previously scattered articles of clothing fly onto his bed, meticulously folding themselves. Angel’s surprised, quiet gasp does not escape his notice. She walks towards his bed, small hand landing on Thor’s sweatshirt.  

“Take that when you leave.” Loki internally bristles at his own tone, noticing how Angel’s shoulders locked up when he spoke and did not relax when he stopped. “Please,” he adds. 

To his surprise (again), Angel approaches him, sweater in hand. “Why?” 

At this, Loki is caught off guard. Without warning, he is overwhelmed by distaste. His patience has been tested over and over again, and he does not have even a drop more to deal with this mortal’s incompetence. His hatred for her rushes back, multiplied a thousandfold. Who does she think she is and why will she not leave Loki alone? Why must she cut short his relaxation, intrude upon his personal space, inquire after him when he knows — he knows — she does so unwillingly? Why is she holding up Thor’s goddamned sweater, pretending not to know why Loki hates it so? As if she doesn’t know it belongs to Thor. 

In fact, Loki is positive she is intimately aware of whom it belongs to, undoubtedly so. He hates Angel, hates her for reluctantly offering her help, hates her for her smoothies, hates her for asking him about his preferences. Briefly, he envisions snapping her neck. Effortlessly. But the image makes him recoil, bringing about not satisfaction, but horror.  

His fists clench, his broken fingernails once again digging into bruised skin. It costs Loki an immeasurable amount of self control not to simply throw her out, hurl her from his quarters. Instead, he snaps at her. 

“Girl, do not test my patience. I am warning you, it has been a very long day and if you do not exit extremely promptly, it will not end well for one of us.” 

Loki hates the way her shoulders tense up again, hates the way she physically flinches away at his dismissal.  

Loki hates how though he can sense her increasing heartbeat, her nervousness, Angel still looks him in the eye and informs him, in a terrified voice coated with forced calm, “I’m sorry to hear that Loki. I added this sweater into your laundry after it was done, but I should have known it would not have been welcome.” 

Loki hates how she then drops her eyes, staring intently at her mismatched socks.  

“I’ll just leave your dinner outside.” 

Loki hates how she leaves, her hands gripping Thor’s — his — sweatshirt tightly, footsteps moving at a much brisker pace.  

Loki hates how Angel closed off, how he closed her off.  

Loki hates how Angel clearly did do his laundry. 

Loki hates how Angel thought of him, giving him an extra sweatshirt, offering him a choice for dinner. 

Loki hates Angel more than he hates Thor, more than he hates Odin. 

Loki hates Angel more than he hates the Mad Titan.  

The only person Loki hates more than Angel is himself. 

Fuck. 

______________________________ 

We don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.  

- Charles Bukowski 

______________________________

Previous Chapter

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Taglist: @spacedaddydinn @doct0rstrange

[sweetestlamb]

Mostrami Amore.

Summary: Cha-young tries to move on from a certain mafia boss. 

Author’s Note: Thank for to everyone who sent in prompts for Chayenzo, it resulted in this mess. I don’t have much to say, I considered making this into a multi- chaptered story but honestly I don’t have time for another ongoing story so if this seems rushed it was a little, I wrote it in one go today. Hope you enjoy this, I stuck in some of my favorite crack ship because I am weak and obsessed. Happy reading! 

p.s takes place after final episode but han seo lives because this is my world and I get to play God. 

Another postcard.

Their delivery becomes sporadic and she’s embarrassed at the giddiness that washes over her each time a new square is sent miles across a wide stretch of ocean, the view on the card most likely lackluster in comparison to the true rendering of Malta. She has spent many hours on her laptop searching for images of the small paradisiac island, yearning to see what he sees and feel just a tad bit closer to him. Most of her life has been spent in solitude with only her work acquaintances filling the void at times, so she expected herself to be more equipped to deal with his disappearance and subsequent absence. But nothing prepares her for those moments at the coffee shop, when she finds herself smiling across a table only to realize there is no miniature espresso cup in the hand of a very dangerous Italian Korean mafia member grinning back at her. 

The smile melts off her face and she swallows the bitter cool sludge in her cup, the beverage tasting exactly as he had described it without him there. 

Nights are the hardest, loneliness coils around her like a snake. 

There was never any other fate for them, she knew that when Vincenzo murdered all their enemies this was their only real outcome. He would always be a fugitive on the run and she an accomplice if he were captured and questioned, it was in both of their best interests if he vanished from the face of the planet. But knowing that does nothing to qualm the ever present feeling of isolation that clings to her skin as she sits alone on her couch, downing makgeolli at a vicious pace. Trying to wash his taste from her mouth, that kiss on loop in her mind and the phantom grip of his hand on her neck. 

It’s those treacherous nights without the plaza members that have become a second family to her and Han Seo following her like the lost puppy he is calling her “Noona” so freely and frequently until she forgets her own name, that she allows herself to feel exactly what she’s feelings. 

Heartbroken. 

Desperate. 

Lonely. 

Rage. 

The last one she hides like a dirty secret in the closet of her heart, she knew what she was signing up for. She has no legitimate reason to be angry, or so she tries to reason with herself. But. This was the same man who had bypassed the security of one of the richest men in Korea and ultimately killed him without leaving a trace. She had watched him do despicable things, blackmailing, threatening, seducing, and murdering others as he saw fit and yet, he hadn’t used any of those dastardly ways to see her. That chance meeting at the art gallery had been the last she had seen of him, Then a few weeks later another postcard with the same message she had boldly uttered at the airport, it feels insufficient after having him in her arms again. She knew in that moment that they would never be enough again. She hadn’t even argued when Mr. Nam claimed he would leave this one on his table instead, she merely nodded and walked away to peruse the new sexual assault case she has taken recently. 

It gets harder and harder to hear Han Seo regaling the wonders of his “hyung”,  her anger boiling deep below the surface like magma waiting to explode and transform into something tangible and destructive. 

“He told me that he has a room for me too. I wonder when he’ll let us visit.” 

She nods absently, staring out the window at the sunlight twinkling in through the blinds but then his words register and the gears in her head churn before running the sentence back through to carefully process them. 

“He---what? You spoke to Vincenzo?” 

The human puppy pouts his lips before tilting his head and dealing a hard blow to her ego and her heart, “Yeah, he sends me letters. I got so scared the first time! He said the letter would self-destruct after I read it and I really thought that was true and I dived across the room to escape but I bumped my head on the table and then...” 

He sent Han Seo letters.  

She had received the same fucking postcard for months on end with the same message she had said to him, and he had time to write Han Seo letters. He hadn’t sent her even one in the time he had been gone. 

“That fucking bastard!”  She explodes interrupting Han Seo’s recount of his near death experience and he looks wide- eyed and taken back by her outburst, she almost soothes him before another wave of anger rushes through her veins. She had accepted the bare minimum because she thought this was all he could give her but it seemed she was being too naïve. He was Vincenzo Cassano after all, he could make anything happen. She had seen it with her own two eyes. If he wasn’t reaching out to her maybe that was a message and she was too blind to see it. 

“Noona? Are you okay?” Han Seo looks absolutely terrified, eyes huge and quivering. She doesn’t bother answering, grabbing her cup of lukewarm coffee and stomping out of the office ignoring Mr. Nam’s calls behind her. She’s tired of being an idiot. 

She throws herself into forgetting him, the same way he seems to have forgotten her despite his words to her that fateful night on the stairs. 

I thought about you everyday. 

Actions speak louder than words and she is done accepting his crumbs. She has never needed anyone, had even accepted when her own father wanted nothing to do with her; she has basically been prepping for this moment her entire life. 

So she goes shopping with Miri, buying gadgets that she has no idea how to use but that the other girl makes sound like things that she definitely needs such as a new home security system, her break in still fresh in her mind. She grins at the pretty smile on the other girl’s round face as she explains the specification of the machines around them and she can see why Han Seo has such a huge crush on the girl, the pretty blush that blossoms on the other girl’s cheek after stating the fact out loud is adorable and she pinches said cheek much to her chagrin. 

“You should worry about your own love life.” Miri teases but the words sting like acid on her skin and she turns away to hide the grimace on her face, but she’s not fast enough and the other girl catches her wrist halting her movement. 

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Mr. Cassano?” Miri whispers the last part, looking around to make sure that nobody overhears them. 

She forces herself to stifle her emotions, trapping them in the back of her mind refusing to let him have this kind of affect on her. 

“I wouldn’t know.” She tries for a emotionless tone but even she can hear the bitterness in her own voice and Miri’s eyes fill with pity and it makes her sick to her stomach, “Don’t. I am going to be fine. Let’s just go.” 

They don’t utter single word in the car ride home. 

After that it becomes painfully obvious that everyone in the plaza thinks something is wrong with her and are teaming up to make her feel better. It’s the packed lunches that keep showing up on her desk without fail, her clothes being steamed and pressed for free, the way that they won’t allow her to be alone and there are countless spontaneous family game nights all ending with her drunk and being carried home. 

Tonight Mr. Tak is the unlucky volunteer, dragging her limp body in her father’s house and she thinks of all the times that they drank here together and a certain person was the one hauling her body to bed complaining and grumbling but that distractingly fond smile on his face that he only ever seemed to shoot her way. Her heart thumped loudly as he loomed over her and leaned in close, getting her hopes up only to brush her hair behind her ears and softly tell her, “Go to sleep now,” and she had never been obedient all her teachers could testify to that but when he looked at her like that she was powerless to do anything else but listen. 

“I miss him.” The traitorous words fall from her lips and vanish into the inky darkness of the night. 

A deep sigh from the left of her, “We know.” 

She feels vulnerable, the worst thing about having a weakness is other’s noticing too. She hates how weak she feels. 

“I am going to forget him.” 

The body supporting most of her weight tenses under her arm and she waits for his response, they all love Vincenzo- he had become their unexpected hero and leader in many ways. They would always take his side, she knows that. 

“If that’s what you need to do to be happy. Then, do it. Loving a man like Vincenzo isn’t easy.” 

She turns to look at him in genuine shock. 

“What? You thought I would tell you to keep waiting with no end in sight? You should know by now, you mean a lot to us too. Your happiness is important to us too, we’re a family.” 

“But we’re the Cassano family,” she challenges unable to accept that they could love her without Vincenzo attached, but Mr. Tak shrugs at the clarification, “We can be the Hong Family too.”

She feels her eyes swimming. 

“I should go inside.” 

She feels sober and more awake than ever, she stays up all night twirling the long strands of her hair in between her fingers. 

Thinking. 

Variety is the spice of life. 

She doesn’t know where she’s heard that but it’s those sage words that are the catalyst for her spontaneous decision. 

“Same as always? Silky with some body?” Her stylist peers into her eyes through the wide mirror and she hears herself say, “No I want a cut and some color.” Yu-jin raises one pretty tweezed brow but nods after a moment’s pause, “Okay. How short are you thinking?” 

And that’s how she starts her day with long thick hair that grazes her lower back and ends it with a short bob that tickles her neck. It feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulder, metaphorically and literally and she loves the face that she sees in the mirror, her eyes looking brighter than they have in months. She feels more alive, like a snake shedding its skin and becoming a newer and fresher version of itself. 

“Your hair?” That becomes the running theme for her day, shocked gaping mouths and hands reaching out for the hair that was once there.  She merely smirks at their palpable surprise, especially Seol-jin who doesn’t recognize her from behind. 

“I haven’t seen a pretty lady like you aro--Oh Ms. Hong! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you, I am so sorry please excuse me!” The interpretative dancer bolts away leaving her to watch him bemused, she skips to Jipuragi with a pep in her step laughing loudly when Mr. Nam drops his coffee upon seeing her and the brown liquid goes flying and douses him in a sticky hot mess. 

It’s an entertaining day to say the least. 

Moments later when he’s finished cleaning himself up and changing into the cheetah print track suit that he insisted to keeping in the office, he mentions that a new postcard has arrived. She nods at the information, looking at her laptop and it’s only seconds later that she finally looks up and sees that he’s waiting for her response. She doesn’t have one. 

Forcing a tight smile on her face she replies, “Oh that’s great. Just put it with the others.” 

He does. 

But she can feel his eyes on her, his concern heavy and tangible in the air. 

She pretends not to notice and keeps clicking away on her laptop, only glancing over at the card once or twice. But it’s only out of habit. 

Nothing more. 

She starts going on dates with random men. Men she meets in coffee shops, on the streets, in bars, hell one time even the bookstore. She never meets the same man twice and they never get what they want but it does make her feel desirable and that’s all she’s looking for. 

“Where are you going?” Han Seo asks her curiously, Miri by his side as she struts out the plaza new perfume on her skin. 

“On a date. I’ll see you both later.” They both gape at her and can only watch with wide eyes as she sashays away, heels clicking with every step. 

Word spreads like wildfire and no one takes it harder than Mr. An, who calls her a “jezebel” and cries at the front of the law firm for hours, she has to step over him to go get lunch shaking him off when he latches on to her ankles. 

The others just look at her with sad eyes, filled with both understanding and disappointment. 

Much to her surprise the lunch boxes keep coming and her clothes are still pressed and starched to perfection though. 

She also starts taking self defense classes, Korea is much more dangerous than she had first suspected and she has to be able to protect herself because nobody is coming to save her.  Not anymore. 

It becomes a great outlet for her built up anger and her instructor praises her for being a fast learner. She grins and nods before flipping him and twisting his arm around his own neck in a modified sleeper hold. When he taps on her arm she squeezes tighter instead of letting go and he goes limp for a moment before she comes back to herself and releases him hastily with a quick apology, “Sorry!”

He rubs his neck, panting for air and she feels guilty, there's a tinge of that but most of all she feels powerful, more so than she has for a long time. 

It’s crazy but she finds herself asking him for drinks after class and even crazier is that he agrees even with her marks still there on his skin, the area bruised and red. He looks at her like she’s challenge that he wants to conquer, she lets him believe that’s possible. It’s only a bit of fun anyway, she has no plans for anything serious. 

Drinks turn into a drunken cab ride home with his hand on her thigh, hot through the thin material of her tights and they don’t feel right- too small and not rough enough but she’s moving on and she has no time to reminisce. 

There hasn’t even been a postcard lately. Message, loud and clear. 

When she shoves the keys into her door, he’s glued to her body leaving wet kisses on the long column of her neck and she tries to suppress the nausea that swims in her stomach, everything feels wrong and she hates herself for feeling that way. Why shouldn’t she fuck whoever she wants? He is probably doing the same thing, everyday on his beautiful private island. Kissing women that aren’t her and whispering dirty Italian words into their ears as he rocks back and forth, nary a thought of that Korean woman he knew once upon a time. 

Fuck him. 

She rocks back into the purposeful grind of the hips behind her, feeling the hardness that digs into the soft flesh of her ass and finally the door opens and they both tumble in haphazardly and he thrusts a hand under her loose shirt fingering at her breasts before a dark figure moves far too quickly in her peripheral and she hears her date cry out in pain. 

She almost faints at the familiar sight of the one person she never expected to see, the hard glint of his cold eyes as he twists the same hand that had just been fondling her chest. The grip looks painful, the wrist contorted in an unnatural manner. 

“What the fuck? You have a boyfriend?!” Her instructor cries out, voice high pitched falling to his knees as Vincenzo kicks his feet out from under him. 

She rolls her eyes, of course he would come now when she is trying (and failing) to get over him. 

Vindictively she answers the question, ‘No.” 

But that makes Vincenzo twist the wrist in his grip even tighter and she can see the bones breaking so she takes pity on the poor man, he didn’t sign up for a murderous mafia leader after all. 

“Just let him go. You have no right to do any of this.” 

He doesn’t listen right away and absently she wonders if she’ll need to test out her new moves on him, it would be satisfying to deck him square in the face. She dreams of that as often as she dreams of their reunion. Her feelings are...complicated to say the least. 

Then with a grunt, he throws the other man away like he’s trash and growls out, “Get out of here before I kill you.” 

She tries not be get turned on by that. But it’s a hard sell, her body already getting revved up. He’s telling the truth. 

The man wastes no time, jumping to his feet and bolting out the door without one backwards glance. Asshole, he was really just leaving her with a clearly unstable and dangerous man. 

“We need to talk.” Vincenzo squeezes out between clenched teeth, and her blood runs cold but she stares him dead in the eyes tired of this game they’ve been playing, if he’s here to end things she wants to know. 

“Okay. Then talk.” 

She looks insanely beautiful, with her hair cropped so short bringing his eyes to the tantalizing length of her neck. His eyes close in on a spot of moisture on her neck, he feels his blood boiling imagining that bastard touching any part of her.  She’s glaring right back at him, her chest rising and falling and he can’t help but check her out, it’s been months since he saw her in person the photo of her doing aerial yoga above his bed couldn’t compare to the tempest that is Cha-young in real life. 

The flat plane of her belly is on display under the white crop top loosely stretched across her chest which leads down to her slim hips and legs wrapped in white spandex, leaving very little to the imagination not that he hasn’t imagined her in far less many, many times. Too many times to count. Spilling across the silk adorning his king sized bed with only her name on his lips. 

She looks fucking hot. 

That makes it even more frustrating because he can still clearly see that bastard wrapped around her like a snake and his hands going up her shirt---he has to take a deep breath before he breaks something. Or chases that asshole to break his face. 

There’s so much he wants to say to her, so much he owes her. 

I missed you. 

I love you. 

Come with me. 

“Who the hell was that?” He says this instead then watches her eyes glint over into nothing but pure murderous rage. Wrong move. But he couldn’t help it, green eyed raged taking away his decision making abilities. 

“That’s all you have to say? Get out.” 

He wasn’t expecting rose petals and trumpets when he returned but he definitely wasn’t expecting this, her cold glare or another man in his spot. He thought she would wait for him, just as he had done for her. 

“Are you serious right now?” He counters, flabbergasted. 

“Deadly. Get out.” 

He clenches his fist, and then stomps out. Turning back but only to watch the door slam in his face. 

What the hell. 

It had only taken a letter from Han Seo to get him on boat that would take him to an open field and hours later he was soaring through the skies on a hot air balloon, on his way back to Korea. It was insane and he barely had time to explain to his family but Luca nodded at him like this was the only choice and told him that he would take care of everything, and he trusted those words more than he had ever trusted anything in his life.

“Vai a prendere la tua donna( go get your woman).” 

He had nodded, gruffly patting the other man on his shoulder before hopping over into the waiting boat. 

But he wasn’t so certain anymore that Cha-young was his. 

She seems different. Colder almost, she leaves whenever I mention your name and she goes on dates now. I think she’s moving on hyung, what are you going to do? 

Those words had been the scariest thing he had never seen. Scarier than every gun that had ever been pointed at his head. He thought what they had was something special, something that could stand the test of time and distance. He stared at the huge pile of letters on his bedside, all addressed to her. He had written one everyday since they had been separated, but each time he was too much of a coward to send it. In those letters he could say things that he could never say to her face, things like how much he ached without her by his side and how her smile was the only thing that kept him going. In those letters he could regal the ways he loved her, and how deeply she had been branded into his soul, every atom of his body belonged to her and her alone.  He would kill for her, die for her, anything she needed or merely wanted he would provide it, all she needed to do was ask. 

He could only share those feelings in the letters. 

He walks for hours, until he ends up at his old apartment the familiar door greeting him and he sticks his hand in his pocket before he remembers that he gave the key away, with a sigh he starts to walk away before the door creaks open and he hears a voice he hasn’t heard in months. 

“Hyung!” 

A warmth spreads across his back as a solid weight almost knocks him off his feet. He reaches one arm around his body, awkwardly slapping the face that is pressing into his collar. 

“You really chose to stay here.” 

He feels the nod on his shoulder, “Of course. It made me feel closer to you hyung, I missed you.” 

He grunts in response, before turning around and tugging the younger man into a real hug. He had missed the annoying little leech too, he had missed everyone. 

They are still in each other’s embrace for a moment before Han Seo pulls away, sympathy etched deep on his face. 

“She wasn’t happy to see you.” 

“There was someone else there.” He hates the words even as they leave his mouth and Han Seo winces, looking pained for him before tugging him into the small apartment. Everything is just like he left it.  He looks around in awe. 

“I’m sorry hyung. What are you going to do?”

That’s the golden question, he pondered it all the way here and he’s no closer to knowing the answer to that. Usually she is the one that makes the move, she has always been the brave one between them. He back steps and says things he doesn’t mean and she sees through him and smashes down all his walls. That’s how this has always worked. 

“I don’t know. Maybe I should just leave her alone. Let her be happy.” 

A loud scoff reaches his ears, “Sure. Is that why you sailed across sharked infested waters and trusted a hot air balloon company run my former thugs?”

He smarts at the sarcastic reply and glares before flicking the cheeky brat on his nose, "I liked you better when you were stupid you know. Now you're a little smart ass."

The younger man looks even more youthful as he grins back at him, rubbing at his nose before shrugging.  "I learned from the best."

He has no rebuttal for that so he tries to flick him again, giving chase when he darts off.

It feels good to be home.

He warns Han Seo not to tell anyone that he's here least they give away his location.

So he's not surprised the next day to find the cavalry at his doorstep hands filled to the brim with containers of food. There are tears, mostly from Mr. Nam who won't stop screaming his name and pinching his cheeks to see if he's real and Mr. An who wraps around him like a koala despite his very detailed threats. It's all chaos and so familiar that his heart aches but her absence is like a hole in his chest. Nobody mentions her but they all keep looking at the door, so it's obvious that she was invited but chose not to come.

Because she didn't want to see him.

"You're here to win her back right?" He doesn't know who even utters the words but when he glances up they are all looking at him expectantly.

He didn't know that was what he was indeed here for thought that she would happily welcome him back and they could pick up where they left off but she's made it clear that this won't be the case. This will be the most important fight of his life.

"Yes. I'm here for Cha-young."

He gets enthusiastic thumbs up and a loud giggle from the Yeon-Jin  and Cheol-Wook’s adorable baby, her little hands too uncoordinated to do a thumbs up but she waves excitedly  feeding off the energy around her.

He wonders how Cha-young would look with a baby in her arms, their baby it's a dangerous thought. But one that he can't get out of his mind once he thinks it.

They stay until midnight, forcing him to eat and drink too much soju until he passes out to dreams filled with a round Cha-young, belly swollen and protruding from her body. 

It doesn't take much to learn her schedule(Mr. Nam hands him a laminated copy) and he has to put on a disguise but he enters the shop seconds after her, hearing her order that god awful sewer water she's so fond of.

"An espresso for me." He leans in too close, almost brushing her shoulder and she jolts at the sound of his voice, turning to stare at him as if she's a mirage.

"You're still here?" She whispers and then shakes her head and looks away as if she's hadn't meant to say the words aloud.

It hurts him that she thought he would leave without telling her but he can't blame her, he has been anything but consistent. Instead of answering, he leans forward to hand his credit card to the cashier who glances between them suspiciously before accepting the card.

Their orders are ready in seconds and he follows her as she walks to their table, butterflies in his stomach at the familiar sight.

She turns to him with a glare, "It's just the only available table."

He moves to pull out her chair and she starts at him tight lipped before sitting down. She's in a tight black suit today, two long slits on the side of her pants going all the way up to her thighs. He gulps down his drink to get rid of the drool pooling in his mouth.

"You're upset with me."

She stares at him like he's the biggest idiot on the planet, it's not a look he receives often but she's always the outlier in his otherwise organized life.

"Astute observation." She quips back, sucking loudly at her coffee.

"Why?"

He considered how to go about breeching this subject and in the end had decided on going straight to the source, he had been under the impression that this was working for them.

Her face morphs into a person he hasn't seen for a long time, the Cha-young that would berate him and make him angry enough to curse in Italian.

"Do you think this little of me?"

He's completely lost, "What do you mean? What did I do that was so wrong? Wrong enough for you to cheat on me!" He's panting now, his voice has gotten loud enough to catch people's attention he can feel them watching their table, nosy and invested.

"Cheat on you?"

Cold as ice, her voice is. It almost makes him shiver.

"How could I possibly cheat on you? We're not together. You send me the same postcard with the same message every few months. I have no idea what you're doing in Malta, who you're with. You can't even be bothered to send me a letter, do you think this is a relationship? You think it's enough to pop up like this every once in a blue moon? You've told me nothing about how you feel about me but I'm supposed to be satisfied with whatever you throw my way?"

If he wasn't sitting down his legs would have already given out he's certain about that. Her voice is deadly quiet each word landing and chipping away at his confidence.

"I'm doing the best I can! You knew it would be like this after everything was over, why are you blaming me now? How about you, I don't know how you feel either!"

"I love you! Anyone with eyes can see that, I told you that at the airport too. And again when I took a bullet for you, you didn't think that meant I loved you? I was willing to die for you."

Shit.

It's not at all how he expected them to confess their love for each other, it's hard to believe the words that are coming out of her mouth as she bares her teeth at him.

"So why are you doing this? Why are there other men?"

Why aren't I enough? He wants to say but he's scared of her answer, terrified that she'll say that she can't do this anymore. That he just isn’t enough anymore. 

She stares at him long and hard.

Waiting for something. But he doesn't know what.

"You haven't changed at all. You're still a coward, I'm not interested in guessing anymore. I’m done playing this game.” 

She stands up and walks away, leaving her unfinished coffee on the table.

Unwanted just like him.

She doesn't see him for days and she accepts that her words had done their damage, she had cried until she fell asleep that night. Waking up with swollen red eyes that no amount of concealer would save but thankfully no one commented on her state.

She goes through her day on autopilot and before she knows it she's back home, ready to face her night alone  again. She pushes the door open, half praying he'll be waiting for her but her hopes shattered when she turns on the lights and finds no one.

"It's better this way." She lies to herself, pouring herself an obscene glass of soju. She's going to need plenty of alcohol to get through this pain.

Her head is woozy and heavy when she hears a sound, suddenly alert she stills in her chair before rushing over to get a frying pan walking on the tips of her toes she prowls closer to the clicking sound, finding herself at the window peering at a long lost friend. Placing the frying pan on her window sill she pry opens the window, screeching when the audacious bird flies inside landing on her table as if he belongs there.

"Hey Inzaghi! Get your dirty bird feet off my table!"

He looks at her nonchalantly, making himself comfortable on said table and she sighs before shutting the window and drunkenly swaying over to him.

"What are you even doing there? Do you want to be my bird now, I won't be a very good owner. I won't remember to feed you. I barely remember to feed myself."

Despite being a bird he finds a way to roll his eyes at her before standing up and only then does she notice something on his leg. She looks at him cautiously before moving closer and untying the paper on his leg, the pigeon barely reacts before flying over to her couch. She sighs in annoyance, she's going to have to clean everything after this bird leaves.

She unwinds the string holding the paper together, unrolling the paper scroll. There is a message written inside: the rooftop. 9 pm.

Glancing at her clock the time shines at her.

7:34pm.

"This could be a trap."

It very much could be, she has enemies now. It was a small price to pay for taking down Babel but she's always looking over her shoulders now, so this note could easily be someone luring her to hurt her or get back at Vincenzo.

Inzaghi coos loudly at her as if he can hear her thoughts. This time he finds a way to look exasperated.

She stumbles off to her room.

She needs time to think.

"So she told you that she loved you and you didn't say it back?"

"I was shocked. She was growling at me and looked ready to kill me at the same time." He reasons back, trying to show his hyung his point of view. The younger man doesn't look even a little bit convinced by his logic.

"Okay and? That sounds perfectly normal for you too. You should have shot someone and wrote it back in their blood on the table."

He recoils in disgust at the suggestion, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually insane, why the fuck would I do that?"

Han Seo stares deadpan in return.

He puts up a hand trying to stop whatever response he has, "Don't say it."

It doesn't work.

"Pig's blood. Don't forget I saw it all, I've never seen Ms. Hong look so excited before. You're both crazy."

Well, that had been different. It was an old tradition, she simply had an appreciation for the classics.

"And I bet you're defending her right now in your mind. Noona is just like you, that's why you're made for each other. She's the gasoline to your fire."

"You know that would just make an even larger fire right?"

"Yes. I'm smart now remember? I know what I said."

He sighs falling into the comfortable familiarity of the couch, a spring digging into his thigh.

"Why didn't you say it back?" His stills at the barely whispered question, his chest constricting as he recalls the passionate confession. He had frozen, like he'd always known she was the brave one between them. Always doing the unexpected and the time was no different, her words had knocked him off his feet.

"Because I was scared."

Han Seo huffs at his honesty. He doesn't know where the words are coming from but he's tired of keeping it all in.

"Because if anything happens to her it'll break me, I thought it would be better if I kept her at a distance. I thought this was enough. I thought this would be easier. When I think about her I want to drop everything and just be with her and that...was too dangerous. I had to keep my distance."

There's a pregnant pause, just the sound of their breathing filling the void.

"Was it?"

"What?"

"Easier. Is this better? Enough?"

He thinks about Cha-young getting married to a faceless man, exchanging vows and sealing it with a kiss, happy and in love on their honeymoon wanton moans and screams from their room, learning that they're having a baby and her round and glowing with someone else's child smiling brightly as she rubs her belly and it's too much. He wants to smash it all into little pieces.

"No. It's not enough. I need her, without her nothing is enough."

"That's what you should have said to her. Don't glare at me I'm right, but I have an idea. I saw it in an American cartoon."

And that's how he lets his younger brother convince him to send a note to Cha-young using Inzaghi, the pigeon had shown up one night and he'd been so happy he almost kissed the bird.

"How will he know where Cha Young lives?" He asks skeptical even as he ties the note to the birds leg.

"I showed him a picture of her house. According to the cartoon, birds just know.” 

He stares at the younger man, wondering why he's listening to this ridiculous plan.

"This is stupid. I should just text her, Inzaghi is never going to deliver this. He's just a regular pigeon." 

"This is more romantic." He answers matter of fact.

"How is a pigeon delivering a message in anyway romantic?" He challenges already knowing from the shit eating grin he won’t like the response. 

"The same way pig blood was." The brat counters and he doesn't get a chance to respond before Han Seo picks Inzaghi up and throws him out the window, "In the name of love!" He only barely stops himself from bashing his head into the wall, the younger man has to wrestle him to the ground.

It's stupid. They did all of this for nothing the cool breeze makes him pull his coat tighter around his body, exposed to the weather on the open space of the rooftop.

He checks his watch, 9:48.

She's not coming and the worst part is that he doesn't know if it's because that damn bird never delivered his message or if it's because she really doesn't want anything to do with him. The burden of not knowing hurts more than anything.

Expelling the air in his lungs he walks back to the single door that leads off the roof, twisting the doorknob in his hand and pulling it open.

Meeting the shocked face of one Cha-young.

They both just stare at each other before he speaks, "You came."

He can't believe it. Inzaghi had actually delivered the note, somehow the pigeon had found her house and she was here. He almost pinches himself to see if he'd passed out on the roof and this was just a dream.

"I didn't know Inzaghi was a carrier pigeon." She futilely tries to change the subject and he takes a step back, gathering the tattered pieces of his courage. The same courage that had propelled him to kiss her all those months ago on the stairs.

"I'm so happy you're here. I waited for you."

She stares at him like he has two heads before blushing, and avoiding his eyes.

"Come with me." He extends his hands and tries not to be too hurt when she bypasses it and steps around him instead.

At least she was here.

With a quick swipe of his hand he sends the message to his accomplices.

Now.

The lights come on, fairy lights decorating the roof top in a heavenly glow. She spins around in wonder, eyes nearly as bright she's so beautiful it's almost painful to look at her.

Then the music starts.

The soft notes filling the space.

When I walk down a road I don't know well....

She looks around in wonder, staring back at him she can’t believe what’s happening. 

Then the letters start falling from the sky, all the letters he had written to her alone and missing her thousands of miles away. His plaza family smiles down at him, throwing letters from a higher building.

Cha-young stares up at the sky in surprise, hundreds of letters landing all around her.

It had taken a few days for Luca to send them all over and then another day to get the guts to do this, there was no turning back now. He had never willingly made himself vulnerable to anyone else, but according to Han Seo it was the only way he was going to win her back. 

“She just wants to know that you love her too. Show her.” 

He watches anxiously as she picks up a letter, stroking lightly at her own name on the front looking at him with stunned wet eyes. 

“You wrote me a letter.” Her voice is revere and awe that he doesn’t deserve, not after everything he has put her through in the sake of protecting himself but he’s too elated to see her looking at him like that again, like he’s someone important to her. 

“182. For each day we were apart. I told you I thought about you everyday, and every time I did I wrote you a letter.” 

She stares at the letter in her hand, gently ripping it open and devouring the words on the page. Nerves shoot up and down his body as he watches her read his most private thoughts about her, her expressive face for once empty of emotions as she silently reads the letter. 

He waits. 

Breathless and terrified. 

“Why didn’t you ever send them? They were mine so why did you keep them?” He hears an edge in her voice that makes him wonder if she’s only talking about the letters. 

“Cha-young, I don’t think you understand.” 

She breathes out loudly, stomping over to him until they are inches apart and he has no choice but to look into the deep pool of her eyes. 

“I don’t! I don’t understand anything, I thought you had found someone else in Malta and the postcards were just your way of being nice. I thought you didn’t feel the same way I did, you were sending Han Seo letters but you wouldn’t do the same for me. What was I supposed to think? Why didn’t you try to help me understand, you were gone for six months!” 

There’s so much wrong with everything she said, how could he find anyone else when his heart beats for her? How could he forget her when everything he did reminded him of her, he saw her every night in his dreams. But he doesn’t make the same mistake this time, he says what’s important. 

“I feel the same way. I love you Cha-young. I thought this was better for you, that this could be enough. But I was wrong, I missed you every minute of every--” 

“Come home with me.” 

He stops, stares, gapes and then stares some more. 

“What? I wasn’t finished confessing though.” Actually offended that she interrupted his planned speech. He was about to recite one of his favorite Italian love poems for her and then ask her to dance. 

She rolls her eyes dragging him towards the door, “Don’t you think we’ve wasted enough time? It’s been six months and you have been here for too long, you have to go soon.” 

She’s right, he has a flight in two days for an identity he borrowed for his escape. 

“Listen to her, just go back to her place and have a good night!” That sounds like Cheol-Wook and then they all erupt into applause and start cheering and hollering, chanting their names and then to his embarrassment they start chanting, “Go have sex! Go have sex!” complete with the monks banging on their drums and he doesn’t think he will ever live down this moment, especially when he sees Miri capturing it on the new video camera he had gifted her. 

He flips them off as an eager Cha-young pulls him away their laughter following them all the way. 

The car ride is too long on the way over and she wonders how quickly she can undress them both as soon as they reach, there is simply no time to waste. 

But once they get to the doorstep he suddenly freezes, tugging her backwards into his chest. 

“This looks familiar doesn’t it?” His voice is dark and smoky and she immediately knows what he’s referring to, and she refuses to give him any reaction. 

“Are you seriously doing this right now?” 

“You let someone else touch you. Here.” He runs a hand up her neck, briefly squeezing, “And here,” she gasps at his hands suddenly on her breast, squeezing harshly at the tender flesh. 

“So what are you going to do about it?” She knows that she’s playing with fire, but that is their foundation. She has never aimed to cool him off or tone him down, she sees the dark side inside of him and loves it, encourages it and feeds on it herself allowing it to bring her darkness out too. 

He kicks the door open, shoving her side and she delights at the rough treatment. She hopes that she is filled with his bruises tomorrow. 

She doesn’t wait for his next move, pulling her shirt up and over her head before tugging off her skirt leaving herself in a barely there lace panties and a matching lace bra that is translucent, her nipples peeking through the sheer material. He stares at her transfixed, his hunger evident in his eyes and in the tent forming in his tight dress pants. 

“Take those off.” She commands and he smirks before obeying, peeling the pants off his thighs standing in his button down shirt and tight boxer briefs that leave nothing to her imagination, every delicious inch of him visible. She steps forward bringing their bodies in contact, before thrusting her hand inside the opening of his briefs. He feels hard and smooth, liquid pooling at the tip and she twists her hand collecting it to ease her slow strokes up and down. His voice hitches as she fingers his balls and without warning she tugs his boxers off, leaving him bare to her eyes. 

Mesmerized by the unencumbered sight of him, she drops to her knees using her hand to guide him to her eagerly waiting mouth. 

His flavor explodes on her tongue and she swallows more, grabbing his hips to drag him deeper into her mouth until she can feel him in her throat, but even after her eyes start to burn and she feels herself choking she doesn’t stop, bobbing up and down hungrily, sloppy wet sounds filling the room in a filthy symphony. At first he lets her control the movement, pliant in her hands but as she increases her speed and suction he starts groaning and huffing loudly and then she feels his hand on the back of her hand, keeping her in place and when she looks up at him he looks wrecked. Eyes dazed and his face red and flushed, she ingrains that image in her mind, for when he’s gone and all she has are her toys. 

She stares back defiantly before he draws himself out of her mouth, a single line of spit connecting them and then he thrusts back into her mouth roughly and she opens her mouth wider to accept the abuse, loving every second of it even as a her throat aches. He sets a frantic pace, his balls slamming against her chin and she doesn’t realize at first that his grunts have transformed into words, too much blood rushing to her head. 

“Mine. Mine, nobody can---ah fuck! Nobody can see you like this. Only me. You’re mine.” 

He fucks her mouth like it’s his to use and do what he pleases, and she’s wetter than she’s ever been listening to him claim her verbally and with the wet push of his dick in her mouth. 

She starts grinding on the floor like a cat in heat and without preamble he grabs her under her armpits and lifts her like she weighs nothing, his dick sliding free from her hot mouth, “I want to make you scream.” He says this like a declaration of love and she throws herself at him, kissing the words off his lips. His tongue swirls in her mouth and she wonders if he can taste himself in her. It makes her hotter and she grinds her barely covered pussy onto his naked length, groaning at the friction even though the thin layer separating them. 

He tosses her onto the bed and she doesn’t even remember them walking, his tongue and his wondering fingers had completely distracted her. 

She lays sprawled across the bed as he stares at her, like she’s feast he can’t wait to devour. 

“Nobody has been in here.” She doesn’t know if he’s asking a question or making a statement, but she feels that his jealousy is real. Seeing her with someone else had done something to him, guilt washes over her. If she had seen him with someone else she would have lost her mind too. 

“Nobody. I never brought anyone home before, that guy was a mistake. I was just hurt and missing you. I’m sorry.” 

He had abandoned her for six months and she didn’t owe him anything but his pain is her pain and they are stronger now, everything has been said. 

“Good.” 

Then he rips her panties away and buries his face between her legs, prying her wide open with his hands and lapping at her with his searing hot tongue. Immediately he has his wish and she screams, loud enough to fill the entire room. 

“Already screaming amore? It’s going to be a long night, I want to make you hoarse.”  

She doesn’t get a moment to respond before he’s back to licking and sucking at her most sacred part, fingers deep inside her as he thrusts and strokes alongside his tongue, his fingers and tongue moving in tandem and she tries to stifle the scream but a particularly deep fuck makes the sound erupt from her throat and her head feels dizzy from the overwhelming sensation. 

He has boundless energy it seems, as time drags by and she feels her body tightening up as he systemically destroys her, he never takes a break or pauses, slurping up all the liquid that drips from her and the sounds of him swallowing are beyond erotic. When a hand runs up her stomach and squeezes at a bouncing breast she can’t contain her moans of pleasure, crying out as his fingers pinching the tight bud of her nipple. 

“Please.” 

He coos in her, “So pretty when you beg.” Then he sticks his tongue as far as it can go and she hears the rush of blood in her head as her body shakes apart and her release gushes from her body, twitching when he laps it all up her oversensitive body recoiling from the overstimulation. 

She has never come like that before, most men have never put in the work necessary to make her come and she wasn’t one to fake it so her experiences with sex with someone else were few and far in between. 

This feels like nirvana. 

“You still with me amore?” The bastard looks so smug, looming above her naked arms on the side of her head, and she had no idea when he took his shirt off. 

“I can’t feel like my legs.” 

He chuckles loudly at the statement, grinning growing wider. 

“Well I can assure you that they’re still there and they will look great wrapped around my waist.” 

Raising to his challenge, although her body is still buzzing she wraps her legs around his waist, they feel like jelly but she finds the strength to follow through with her movement. 

“I was right they do look great.” 

“Well this would look great in me.” She counters, grabbing at his thick ruddy red dick jutting from his body and he rocks into her hand before knocking her hand away and taking himself in his hand. 

“Do we need a condom?” He asks her, looking like he is ready to stop at nay minute if she tells him that they do. 

“No.” 

She has been on birth control since she was a teen and there’s been no one for her since she met him, and she trusts that it’s been the same for him. 

“Thank goodness, I want to feel everything.” He barely finishes his sentence before he’s easing into her, slow and steady. She lets him continue for a moment before she tightens her legs around his waist and pulls him in roughly, as deep as she can get him in this position. “Fuck, you’re so impatient.” 

“Shut up and fuck me already.” 

He grumbles at her calling her bossy, but she sighs when he draws out and slams back in with a quick snap of his hips. 

“Yes just like that!” 

He takes direction very well, repeating the motion until the bed starts to creak from their movements, he pistons in and out of her gone all semblance of gentle or slow, they have teetered into a speed that can only be defined as “break neck” and she feels her body sliding up the mattress as he pounds into her over and over again, she latches onto his neck eager to leave a branding mark on him and he groans at the suction, grinding harder into her and gripping her ass to force her to meet his vicious thrusts. 

Absently she feels him peeling her bra from her body, the only remaining item of clothing that has survived their coupling and she knows exactly when he sees the scar. The grotesque knitting of skin that had left a permanent scar on her shoulder, she almost covers it up but when she peels her eyes open he is staring at her mesmerized. 

“Don’t look.” 

He leans down to kiss it, the softest more precious kiss she has ever received in her life. 

He peppers more kisses all over, then strokes at it with a single finger. 

“I should have realized, this was your confession. I was an idiot. I will never be that stupid again, I love you so much. I would do anything for you. Anything.” 

He puts her legs on her shoulder, nearly bending her in half before resuming his thrusts but they are less frenzied now, it feels like lovemaking. Her eyes prickle when he kisses her scar with every downward thrust, whispering, “Beautiful, so beautiful. Every inch of you.” 

She cries out. 

With every thrust he kisses her scar, making her feel lightheaded and naked. 

When he moves them into a new position, her back to his front giving him better access to her scar, she loses herself as he whispers sweet nothings into her ears and litters the spot with warm kisses. 

She falls off the edge with his lips on her scar and him deep inside her, warm bursts filling her up before leaking out onto the bed sheets. 

“Today’s our last day.” 

Waking up next to him is torture, she tries not to ingrain that in her mind but it’s too late it’s already there. He blinks away the sleep in his eyes at her words and then nods solemnly in agreement. 

“Yes for this visit. But I’ll always come back for you.” 

She smiles brightly, “Don’t keep me waiting for too long.” 

They don’t leave the bed except to get breakfast and that ends with her laid across the kitchen table getting taken from behind after teasing him. He can’t seem to keep his hands off her new hair, twisting the short strands in his hands and yanking on them. She catches him looking at her heatedly more than once. 

Then they wind up in the shower, trying to clean up and getting dirtier instead, his hands tight in her hair and around her waist as he hoists her up to pound her into the wall. Making up for lost time. 

They get messages from their entire family, Vincenzo showing her a message from Han Seo asking if he’s going to be an uncle soon. She promises to embarrass him in front of Miri very, very soon. 

Both pretend they don’t feel the day fading away, bringing them closer to their goodbye. 

Tomorrow he will be gone again, but there’s no guessing now. She knows what she means to him now and that’s more than enough. 

She wakes up to an empty bed and a ticket to Malta, the ball is in her court. 

[samedmunds]

My litany thoughts on 1999 cult classic strategy video game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is a game of the early Civilization variety from the EA golden age and ranks very highly in my top ten. While you probably heard of it if you were playing video games around the turn of the century, I've found members of my age cohort to be tragically unfamiliar with this masterpiece.

Alpha Centauri is an unofficial sequel to Civilization II, a game where the only way to way to win is either completely eliminate all competitors to the last city or, rather more easily, send a spaceship loaded with colonists to the title star system. Shortly after leaving home, the ship loses contact with Earth, which would make sense to a player of Civilization II where the bonuses to science and trade from democracies evaporate when technology ends, upon which point all the AIs revolt and become militant fundamentalist theocracies and climate change rapidly destroys the planet, leaving the player with an endgame that is literally 1984. Either way, when the already strained ship arrives at the Alpha Centauri system an unknown partisan assassinates the captain of the UNS Unity and the population fractures into seven opposing factions before firing the colony pods and exploring an inconveniently hostile planet.

The player starts here, in typical Civ fashion: a scout, settler, and absolutely no technology to speak of. That isn't to say you are a bunch of primitives, all your units start out with some approximation to modern guns and judging by the amazing quotes and wonder videos your society is well beyond the 21st century--more on the story later. The gameplay is incredibly well-balanced in spite of its age and quirks (with the exception of the freight-train progression of Yang). Rapid early expansion as the bountiful Peacekeepers may leave you at serious risk to the relentlessly martial Spartans, who are in turn threatened by the uber-specialized technocratic University--but be careful to underestimate the backwards Lord's Believers, their probe teams will just as quickly rob you of your gains. The Morganites can afford to sparsely defend their home if they're willing to pay off their aggressors, but they'll struggle expand over great swaths of territory without irking civil unrest drone riots from corruption. Meanwhile the Gaian Acolytes can harness the permanently-dangerous mindworms to great effect from the beginning of the game. Yang just... builds. And keeps building, and next thing you know he's conquered the Peacekeepers and turned Miriam into nothing more than a puppet and where are all these cruise missiles are coming from?

In short, the strategic design of this game is nothing less than a work of art, but that isn't to say it doesn't have its anachronisms. The User Interface has taken its inspiration from early versions of Microsoft Word and it rapidly pays off to know the hotkeys. The wonder videos are resolution locked and can sometimes cause problems depending on your display configuration. The unit creation system is simultaneously wonderful and horrendous. It allows me to create special long-range nerve gas bombers that eradicate cities shortly before orbitally-dropping specially-trained garrisons to quash all resistance. On the other hand, if you do not accept the cumbersome slew of computer-generated options, keeping your new weapons systems up to date with your latest technology (especially when playing as Zakharov) rapidly becomes a chore.

That said, there are a variety of features in the game that I think deserve to make a reappearance in the Civ Games. The pick-your-government system is incredibly balanced and fun to roleplay. You can't get away with crimes against humanity when solar storms hit in Civilization VI, nor can you weaponise climate change to flood your rivals cities, or strategically terraform to alter weather patterns and deny your neighbors arable land. At the bare minimum, we should be given the option to nerve staple rebelling cities when our control runs out!

All that said, there is also the story to contend with. One is at first tempted to think that a 4x strategy game with a marked emphasis on replayability would necessarily have a tacked-on story, if one at all. After all, the point is for the player to create it through their actions, not have it spoonfed to them. The majority of what you learn about your world that isn't printed in numbers and small pictures on the mapscreen is through blurbs that accompany each discovered technology or new building. The aforementioned wonders even have their adorable early-CG renderings, sometimes mixed in with some experimental film footage. There are occasional interludes that describe the mindworms and machinations of Planet, but the bulk of the wordage comes from epigrams of the faction leaders and the occasional bit of Nietzsche or Plato. It's so good that I can't help but stop and listen to CEO Nbwadibuke Morgan ramble on about supply chain economics or Sister Miriam's apocalyptic warnings every single time. Take some examples.

Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand, and never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death!

--Col. Corazon Santiago, "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

Or perhaps, a more on the nose one:

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!

--Fedor Petrov, Vice Provost for University Affairs Accompanies the Retroviral Engineering technology

The game often doesn't directly tell you what Retroviral engineering is, nor does it labor to explain just what having someone nerve stapled means, or the precise function of the Recycling Tanks, but through its quotation it beautifully circumlocutes the world you are shaping--and being shaped by. It really never pulls any of its punches, even if its just on Organic Superlube--great stuff--and I still catch muself quoting it regularly.

Ursula LeGuin once wrote

"Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. 'If this goes on, this is what will happen.' [...] This may explain why many people who read science fiction describe it as 'escapist,' but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because 'it's so depressing.'"

Alpha Centauri is absolutely extrapolative fiction and very firmly rooted in the 1990s and I love it. It was released in the Aaron Sorkin TV, pre-9/11 days where the word Internet was more often than not followed by the words, "is like an information superhighway" and it absolutely no efforts are made to cover it up. The main factions are a cross-section of the New Millenium's hopes and anxieties. A New Russia that went a very different path before Putin took over, a cheerful clan of ruthless Western capitalists hellbent on putting Morganvision on every network set, a group of vaguely Scottish free-love peaceniks hellbent on defending the most-of-the-time incredibly hostile environment. There's the Second-Amendment preaching Spartans or the optimistically-influential UN which, judging by its naming scheme for its bases, seems to dedicate entire cities to bureaucratic agencies. The All-American Christian fundamentalists don't entirely butt heads with the frighteningly powerful Human-Hive (if your country calls their cities names like "Huddling of the People" and "Paradise Swarming" you might not be the good guys). The expansion also brings in more dynamic characters like the Information Wants to be Free! data angels Brian Reynolds very clearly came up with after watching Swordfish and Hackers back to back or the Nautilus Pirates who have no right to be as fun as they are.

The visions of the future are at once both anachronistic and prophetic; while elements may come off as cheese, I see it as a sort of window to the past, a way to examine what was once (and sometimes still is) on our mind. All in all, I give Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4 out of 5 stars and a definite all-time favorite, warts and all. You can pick it and its expansion up for $6 on Gog.com and play it through a built-in emulator that works for most systems. If you're willing to brave a dated interface and an older-fashioned gameplay style, I would definitely recommend it.

[mousieta]

Review: Bossam

Year: 2021 Country: Korea Platform: Viki I absolutely adore a solid sageuk. When they go wrong, they can really fall flat but when done right - they are sweeping and epic in scale just because of the subject matter which makes them really soar. Bossam, however, did so much right (though I did have a small quibble but it was very small).

Jung Il Woo is one of my favorite actors of the flock that were all ‘in’ back when he first gained popularity. I find him thoughtful and passionate in his roles, and very much not afraid of uglifying and sometimes being downright unattractive. He was on thin ice with me, however after the fiasco that was Sweet Munchies so I really really wanted him to be good in this, and he so was. This, quite possibly, is one of my favorite performances of his.

The story’s initial conceit centers around the old practice of ‘kidnapping’ a widow so that they could remarry (though sometimes the kidnapee was not in on the deal). Jung Il Woo portrays Ba Woo, a destitute single father trying to make ends meet any way he can, lines of legality be damned. So when he’s hired to do a little Bossam, he figures why not - except he winds up setting off a chain of events that leads to governmental crisis after he kidnaps Soo Kyung, the King’s daughter. Oops…

Ba Woo is so incredibly broken, life held together by his need to exist for his son but it is the bare minimum of existence. This is mirrored by Soo Kyung (Kwon Yu Ri) who’s life was over before it could even really start, widowed before she was ever even actually married. Their story of pushing each other to find their own reasons for living, of slowly falling in love as they try to make it through abject poverty, is one of my all time favorites. They both, in many ways, are starting from absolute zero. They both fall victim to making poor decisions and they both learn to hope for more.

The third point of their triangle (because yes there is a triangle but I was largely on board with this one) is Shin Hyun Soo as Dae Yeop. I loved the triangle because it was balanced on a knife edge along every side, fraught with the tension of longing and suspicion. I love the pregnant promise of each relationship between the three of them, as Dae Yeop has his own journey that is painfully rendered. (And if I eventually write a fic that satisfyingly ties up this story in blissful polyamory, thats between me and AO3. I did write a little Bossam ficlet though, I was that inspired.)

My quip is that we, ultimately, have to return to palace politics. Though I love Sageuks, they are rife with it and sometimes I just long for a period piece about common people trying to live their lives. We get that for the first half of this drama, and it was satisfying enough.

The cinematography was excellent, and I have a tag full of screen shots I couldn’t help myself from taking. The visual story telling was so rich, throughout. The framing of scenes, the space between characters, their positioning, conveying so much about their characters and dynamics. It was a visual feast.

Maybe this deserves to be a little higher in the rankings. I’m not sure. I know I fell deeply in love with it and was sad to see it go. I feel like it fell into tropes with its final narrative arc and especially with its ending that kept it from really raising itself up to its fullest potential. That’s ok, though, because it did what it needed to do beautifully.

[rhetoricalrogue]

Five More Minutes

Inspired by all the talk about various detectives turning and knowing that Astrid needs to be Dramatic™️ at times, here she is, giving her boyfriend (and mother, and honorary mother figure, and best friends, and...) grief post-turning. This most likely would take place a couple of years into a relationship with Adam, and she’s had a while to decide that this is the path she wants to take for the rest of her (hopefully long) life.

As always, Fiona belongs to @asaucyginger. I borrow her from time to time for shenanigans and to antagonize Adam. Astrid also has Chris Hemsworth giving out complements as her alarm clock on her phone, but only has that alarm on when Adam’s not around since while she may appreciate waking up to the sound of her celebrity crush, she knows the feeling is most definitely not mutual for Adam.

She slept for a solid week after making the transition from human to vampire. It’s wasn’t even a typical for her type of slumber - eyes twitching behind closed eyelids, breath soft and limbs relaxed - she slept as if she were literally dead, stiff, no movement whatsoever. If it weren’t for the sluggish single beat of her heart every ten seconds (Adam knew, every count of ten had been absolute torture until he heard it beat again,) Agency doctors would have deemed the procedure a failure.

One of the few positives for her being unresponsive after her change - a change that had been fairly uneventful, boring even, blessedly peaceful in it’s own way with a minimum of pain - was that she hadn’t been awake to witness the doctors perform surgery on her leg to extract the various screws and plates that she had lived with since she had been nineteen. Adam wondered how their absence would change the way she fought, seeing that she and Fiona had worked to design a swordfighting style to accommodate for a weaker knee and to protect her ankle.

The scar would remain, the doctors told them both, fairy and vampire momentarily setting aside their differences for the person they both loved as they had both paced the waiting room in worry. There was a slight tone of apology to that announcement, but both of them had breathed a sigh of relief.

One of the things Astrid had worried about was losing her scars, voicing a fear that everything her body had gone through in her short thirty-three years of existence would be wiped clean and rendered meaningless. Adam hoped she would be pleased when she discovered it hadn’t, even though the last traces of the scar Murphy had inflicted upon her had vanished, her new nature taking care of what Agency magic and medicine had started. He wondered if she would be relieved to have it gone, seeing as its presence had always bothered her and she took pains to hide it, even though it hadn’t been that visible to the ordinary eye.

Since she’d still been unresponsive after the first hour, her first feeding, and every other feeding since, had been done intravenously. Adam watched through the security cameras as Elidor had carefully set her up for the transfusion. No one had voiced it out loud, but everyone knew about how she had bitten Murphy in a similar situation. If she had bitten off a piece of his face as a human, there was no telling what she could do as a vampire if she suddenly woke up and had a negative flashback response. To his credit, Elidor had been unafraid, patting her limp hand and holding a cheerful, one-sided conversation with her the entire time.

A day passed and visitors arrived at the observation room. Markus and Tony became fixtures, both refusing to leave even after Tony almost got into a fight with security about not being allowed into Astrid’s room. She was too unstable, they said. There was no way to know how she would react if she woke up: she might be fine, she might decide to make a snack out of one of her oldest and dearest friends. It took both Fiona and Markus to talk him down and lead him back down the hall before he got kicked out of the facility.

Adam and the rest of Unit Bravo learned a lot of goofy stories about Astrid from the other three. Markus tended to stick with anecdotes from battle re-enactments and drunken post-fighting party hijinks while Tony went on tangents about their many annual Fancy New Year’s Eve parties in the City. Fiona’s voice grew soft as she recounted Astrid’s childhood and what it had been like to be a caretaker turned honorary mother figure to her since Astrid was two. Rebecca, who hadn’t budged from looking at her daughter through the monitor, thanked her for being there for Astrid when she couldn’t.

On the sixth day, the doctors allowed Cashew in, thinking that a familiar pet would bring her out of her catatonic state. Cashew, Adam was relieved to see, was unfazed by his mistress’s transformation. He merely gave her chin a few headbutts while honking plaintively before curling up at her side, his head resting in her elbow and his feet fitting into the palm of her hand. After an hour of no response, Cashew was put back into his crate and taken back to Adam’s room in the Facility. Adam knew that he wouldn’t stray far from the place until Astrid could go home, so prior to her turning, the two of them made sure Cashew would be comfortable there. Aside from a few honks to let them know he would have rather preferred his own home instead of the temporary setup, the cat had seemed fine.

Adam broke rank on the seventh day. He didn’t know if it was his fear that the woman he loved would never wake, agony at being so close yet so incredibly far from her for an entire week, the fact that he desperately needed to sleep - Nate had begged him to rest, promising that he would wake him at the slightest hint of change. Adam had refused; how could he sleep with Astrid in this state? - or a combination of the three, but in the early hours of the morning, he silently made his way out of the observation room, moving past everyone dozing in chairs and cots that had been set up for them, and walking purposely down the hall. The lone security guard only made the barest of attempts to stop him before standing down, most likely because the look on Adam’s face had stopped them in their tracks.

Astrid’s room held a faint antiseptic scent to it, most likely from the wipes used on her arm for her daily transfusions. The monitor she was hooked up to beeped in time with the slow beating of her heart and now that he was there with her in person, he could see the shallow, barely there rise and fall of her chest as she drew breath. Adam sat at the edge of the bed and counted: ten beats for her heart, twenty for her breath.

“Must you be so dramatic?” he asked, his hand reaching out to bring hers up, his lips pressed against her knuckles before turning her hand over and leaving a lingering kiss to her palm. “This has gone on long enough, don’t you think?”

The video in the observation room, no matter how crisp, had failed to capture the almost luminous quality of her skin correctly. She’d always had a healthy glow to her pale skin, but now it was highlighted even more. The freckles that dusted the tops of her cheeks and across her nose were still there as well, but they were subdued, like constellations obscured by a cloudy sky. Adam winced at the thought, knowing Nate could come up with a better metaphor.

He pressed a second kiss to her palm, then another to her wrist. Aside from the barest of changes to her complexion and a brighter, healthier sheen to her copper hair, Astrid had not changed. It wouldn’t have mattered to him one way or another: Astrid was Astrid no matter what she looked like and he would love her in any form she took, but he knew it would matter to her. Adjusting to whatever new preternatural abilities she gained would be an ordeal in itself, adjusting while feeling like a stranger in her own body would have added a level of difficulty to the process.

“I know you hate to wake on time, but please.” Adam reached out with his other hand and tenderly cupped her cheek. “Wake up. For me.”

Moments passed. Three heartbeats, two exhales. Adam hunched down and pressed his face against her chest, silently hoping to feel her fingers comb through his hair. “You’re forcing my hand,” he told her, gathering her close. Moving until his mouth brushed against the shell of her ear, he closed his eyes and grimaced. “The things I do for you.”

“Hey you. Yes, yes, yes you. Today is your day. You’ve got this. You’re absolutely crushing it at everything you do.” He leaned back when the familiar sound of her heart sounded at eight seconds, then another at seven. “You’re more than capable of taking on the world, the whole world, by storm.”

It was faint, but he swore he saw her eyelid twitch. “Speaking of the world, did you know that it’s a better place with you in it?” He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “You’re strong, you’re confident. You’re intelligent, you’re charismatic. On a scale of one to ten, you are an eleven.” He held his breath, desperately trying to find a change as he continued to recite words from a video she’d set as her usual alarm clock. The heart rate monitor next to the bed gave one beep, then two, the long, flat line on the screen making more regular jumps.

It would figure your blasted favorite actor would cause a reaction, he thought, pressing his forehead to hers. “You make me want to be a better man. Astrid, please. Open your eyes.”

One heartbeat, then two, then more until Astrid’s heart gained a cadence that was oh so familiar to him. Her breathing patterns reminded him of lazy Sunday mornings, of her asleep in his arms and half-mumbling about five more minutes. You’ve had longer than five minutes, he thought, hand tilting her face up. He didn’t have long, even if people woke to cause a diversion, until Agency doctors burst in with protests about how unsafe it was to be in such close proximity to a newly made vampire, no matter how well-fed they ensured her to be.

Astrid would never intentionally harm him, he knew that fact down to his bones. His faith in her was the reason he held no fear as he kissed her, hoping that the wishes he held back for her safe return to him would take root.

There was a twitch, the barest feeling of being kissed back that had Adam slowly sitting up straight so he could better look at her face. Ever so slowly, Astrid’s eyelashes fluttered until she blinked up at him.

“Hi.”

Adam let out a relieved laugh, heart soaring at the sound of her voice, cracked and groggy from sleep as it was. “Hello.”

She took a deep breath and blinked again, looking as if she were taking a mental inventory of her surroundings and wincing at every sound. “It worked?”

He nodded. “It did.” Reaching over, he turned off the monitor so it wouldn’t continue to irritate Astrid’s sharper hearing. “How do you feel?”

She peeled off the sticky sensor from her chest and made a move to sit up, Adam standing and offering his hands to assist. “I feel…” she looked around, her hands squeezing his. “Different, but sort of the same? I can’t describe it. I’m me, but…”

“Take your time.”

She grinned as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, eyes instantly locking onto her leg and shoulders sagging in relief at the sight of a familiar scar. “Sort of have all the time in the world now, don’t we?”

Adam pulled her to her feet and held her close, fingers sinking into her hair. “That we do.”

“So, how long was I out? Did we miss that special on the History Channel we were going to watch while sipping on blood bags and eating a cheese board?”

He held her closer, the side of his face buried against hers. “Astrid, you’ve been asleep for a week. We most certainly missed the show, but I recorded it for you to watch when you’re ready.”

She jerked up, the top of her head banging against his chin. “What?” her voice was louder than normal and she winced at the sound. “A whole week?”

“Trust me, it was troubling for us all too.”

Her eyes widened. “Cashew! Who’s been taking care of my cat?”

Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, Adam settled for raising an eyebrow instead. “Our cat. Don’t worry, I made sure he didn’t starve.”

She froze, head cocking to the side. “There’s someone coming down the hall.” Her nose crinkled a bit. “This is so weird, how the hell do I know that’s Tony by smell alone?” She sniffed again. “And why does he smell like the cotton candy from that boardwalk we always go to on his birthday?”

“You’ll get used to it. I don’t think you’ll have a lack of vampires ready to help you answer any questions you may have.”

Astrid’s arms tightened around his waist and he felt the barest of trembles. Knowing her as he did, he knew she was trying to put on a strong front as she attempted to center herself in her new reality, acute senses and all. “I do have one question,” she stated, head against his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“Would it be possible to get a few minutes to myself? Markus is coming down the hall with like five other people and…” She looked up at him, the barest hint of fangs peeking out from behind her lips. It was maddeningly endearing. “I love them all, but it’s a little much?”

He nodded, kissing the crown of her head as he did so. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He had his hand on the doorknob when she called back to him. “Once you stall them, will you come back? I don’t really want to be alone-alone, and you…”

He understood the look she gave him, the unspoken sentiment that hovered between them. There would be time later to express it - and how light he felt, knowing they had today and tomorrow and a million other tomorrows after together! - but he knew what she meant. The noise and the presence of others may be a bit much, but just being around her was a balm to his senses, the sound of her voice soothing, the feel of her hand in his right, clicking into place as if he had been made to be at her side.

She was his home, and it still astounded him (and most likely would forever astound him) that she regarded him as hers.

Adam nodded, his mouth curving into a smile that matched the one Astrid gave him. “Always.”