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stllmnstr · 4 months ago

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something old, something new

hello have a 2.3k drabble about Heeseung still having feelings for his ex heavily inspired by the above behind the scenes no doubt mv pics and based on this anon prompt sent to me:

this was supposed to be short but I got carried away and ended up writing 2.3k on my PHONE in an hour so please excuse any typos 😭

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Lee Heeseung loves weddings.

When he admits this to people, which is in and of itself a fairly rare occasion, they assume it’s for all of the usual reasons.

The open bar, the well curated playlist, the free food... After all, those are the typical things men in their mid twenties tend to enjoy. And Heeseung always nods along. Forces a laugh whenever his conversation partner cracks another age old joke about getting a little too tipsy on the dance floor.

Besides, it’s not like he’s immune to baser pleasures. At twenty-five, Heeseung does genuinely enjoy eating well and getting drunk on someone else’s dime.

But if he digs a little deeper, is a little more honest with himself, the real reason he loves weddings so much is the romance of it all.

A white dress thats been agonized over and alternated to perfection. A cake thats been taste-tested and intentionally designed with the lucky couple in mind. A venue that likely cost an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it, because it’s the place where two people get to display the love they have for each other in front of everyone that’s important in their lives.

And Jay, he thinks, has outdone them all. The ballroom Heeseung steps into with perfectly shined shoes is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Crystal chandeliers bathe the high ceilinged room in soft, warm light that almost glows like candles at dusk.

The aisle separates two generously sized sections of seating from one another. Each table is laid with a crease less cream colored tablecloth and a bouquet of flowers that Heeseung doesn’t want to guess the price of. It’s stunning. It’s perfect.

And Jay, Heeseung’s best friend of thirteen years, deserves nothing less.

Jake seems to agree. Coming to stand next to Heeseung, he jerks his chin towards the door that leads to the neighboring room. “I just heard from a very trustworthy source that the open bar starts at 1 pm sharp,” he grins.

Heeseung has a sneaking suspicious that this trustworthy source is Sunghoon, which means it’s likely to be incorrect. Besides, booze isn’t what he’s here for.

“Hopefully not,” Heeseung nudges Jake’s shoulder, “since no one wants to watch you stumble down the aisle.”

“At least I’m just a groomsman.” Jake shrugs. “You, on the other hand, Mr. Best Man, have to be on your best behavior. Besides, I can handle my alcohol.”

Heeseung’s lips flatten. “I have several videos that prove otherwise.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake waves his palm. “I’ll be good. I promise. No shots until after the ceremony.”

Heeseung just rolls his eyes. His younger friend might be a little more lax when it comes to conducting himself in public, but Heeseung isn’t actually worried. This is Jay’s wedding, after all. And no matter how much Jake and Sunghoon enjoy a good party, they also know how to take things seriously when it matters.

For a moment, Jake just looks around the room, taking it in like Heeseung had a few minutes prior. Similar actions, different conclusions. Jake doesn’t comment on the lighting or the tablecloths or even the romance. Instead, he says, “I can’t believe Jay’s actually getting married.”

“Yeah,” Heeseung breathes. Jay is the first in their friend group to officially leave bachelor-hood, and it does feel a bit strange to bear witness to. “Me neither.”

Jake is still shaking his head. “And he’s the first one out of all of us. That’s almost weirder. You know, we always thought it would be –”

Remembering himself, Jake lets the sentiment die on his lips.

It doesn’t matter, though. Heeseung already knows what he was going to say.

We always thought it would be you.

Four long years ago, at twenty-one, Heeseung had felt far too young for marriage. But that didn’t stop him from imagining what you’d look like in a white dress. What flavor of wedding cake the two of you would select from the box of samples. What overpriced venue you would decide to officially intertwine your lives in.

It didn’t stop him from tucking away a small, velvet box in the back of his drawer for safekeeping. From fantasizing about kneeling in front of you and finally sliding a gorgeous, sparking ring right where he wanted it to belong.

It didn’t stop him from making promises and plans. Adjustments to his life just to make sure there was always space for you.

But one year later, the box and the ring inside were still tucked away. And the love Heeseung kept safe suddenly had no place to go.

He told his friends it was mutual, that you’d made the decision together. But Heeseung never wanted to let go. Even if a job opportunity meant you had to move across the country. Even if it made no logical sense for him to follow when he was still finishing his degree.

It was circumstances, he explained to his friends, to his family. Not anything either of you did wrong.

But alone, surrounded by the four walls of his bedroom and the overwhelming clamor of his own thoughts, Heeseung just cried. Sobbed. The kind of tears that left him gasping for air and with a throb behind his temple.

Because he knew that he never would have done that to you. He would have turned down the job, would have found a way to make long distance work, would have transferred to another university to be close to you even if it wasn’t logical.

He would have done it, the big romantic gesture that gives the rom-com a happy ending and signals to the production team that it’s time to roll the credits.

But you didn’t. When he suggested long distance, you just sighed. And there were tears in your eyes too, but there was no fight.

So Heeseung, despite every bone in his body screaming at him not to, let you go.

And now, three years later, he’s about to watch his best friend get married and pretend it doesn’t sting. He’s happy for Jay. He is. But the selfish parts of him will always wish he was the one waiting at the end of the aisle instead. For you.

The universe has never made a habit of bending to his desires, though, and he fulfills his role as best man well. The ceremony goes off without a hitch, and Jake is appropriately steady-footed in his role as a groomsman.

The white dress is gorgeous. The cake is delicious. The venue is perfect. Whatever romance is, Jay and his fiancée — no, his wife — have captured it well.

Despite his earlier words, Heeseung makes a home for himself at the aforementioned open bar the second the ceremony is over. Knocking back another swig of whiskey, he appreciates the slight burn. At least it’s in his throat this time, instead of his heart. And at least it’s induced by alcohol instead of misplaced jealousy.

But he must have had one too many drinks, because for a fleeting moment, he swears that the late arrival that makes a hesitant entrance into the reception room is—

No.

There’s no way.

You only knew Jay because you knew Heeseung, and those flowers withered three long years ago. You have no reason to be here now.

But then he hears it, and oh the lurch in his heart hurts just as bad as it did the first time. Because despite the improbability of it all, that’s your voice that floats above the music and exchanged pleasantries with another guest. Even after all the time that’s passed, Heeseung would know it anywhere. Could pick it out of any crowd.

He turns to you slowly, as if he can delay the inevitable just a little longer. As soon as his eyes land on you, he realizes his mistake. He shouldn’t have looked at you at all, should have just slid off the bar stool and ran in the other direction because it still hurts.

You’re three years older, and the time has been good to you. The evening dress you wear hangs from your body in a way that only reminds him of what you look like beneath it, of the way running his hands and his lips and his love over the skin you conceal used to feel like second nature. The way you used to play with his hair with his head in your lap, trading small moments of intimacy after a long day.

It hurts. It aches and it stings and it burns.

He has to get out of here. He has to leave. Now.

Not caring if he’s making a scene, Heeseung stands from the barstool. The only reason he tries to be somewhat discreet is to avoid the heat of your gaze.

All the way to the door on the opposite side of the room, he doesn’t turn back. Not once. On the other side of the door, he lets his body go limp against the solid surface beneath his spine, just for a moment. He exhales a long held breath.

But the air is still stifling, even as he loosens the tie at his neck. Straightening back to his full height, he turns down a short hallway until he arrives at the small outdoor balcony he noticed earlier.

The air outside is cold, at least. Fresh.

On the horizon, the sun spends its last few moments of the day painting the sky in gorgeous, golden hues. Heeseung squints, but he doesn’t look away. Hands wrapped around the bannister that lines the balcony, he sags into himself.

Shoulders hunched, he forces a long inhale into his lungs. And then he releases it. His breath is a pattern he can cling to, something steady that tethers him back to reality. Something to focus on that isn’t the war in his mind.

But peacetime is only an illusion. After a handful of quiet minutes, he hears the door open behind him.

“Oh,” you startle. He knows it’s you, even from just one syllable. “Sorry, I didn’t realize someone was out here already. I’ll just…” Your words trail off into silence, but Heeseung doesn’t hear retreating footsteps, doesn’t hear the door close again. After another stilted moment, what he hears is, “Heeseung?”

Your voice is small. As if you can apologize just by being gentle. As if he’s a wounded animal you don’t want to startle.

And Heeseung, despite himself, does feel a bit like a kitten left out in the rain when he finds it in himself to turn and face you.

The only word he says is your name. His tone is steady, even. More so than he thought he was capable of. But he’s looking at you now too, and his eyes have never been good at hiding secrets.

“I…” You trail off again. You’re at a loss too. “How are you?”

“Don’t do that,” Heeseung shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” you retreat immediately. But Heeseung remembers when you used to argue, when you used to fight back. When you valued the strength of your relationship over his wounded pride.

“Don’t be,” Heeseung shakes his head again. “You made your choice, so stick to it. You don’t get to…” He screws his eyes shut for a moment, fist clenching at his side. Opening his eyes again, he matches your gaze. “You don’t get to leave me and then apologize for it.”

Your breath hitches, but you don’t miss a beat. “I meant for intruding,” you tell him. “I was apologizing for disturbing you.”

But you remember how he used to love making space for you in his life. How his plans were your plans and his time alone on a balcony would only be made better if you were there, too.

And you still remember the day you were inspired by a strong bout of spring fever, how you dedicated an entire afternoon to deep cleaning.

You still remember the small, velvet box you found.

You didn’t open it, but you didn’t have to. The small, nondescript container scared you enough. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to marry Heeseung. You already had Pinterest boards full of white dresses and three-tier cakes and stunning venues. Suits that you thought would bring out his best features.

But you’d also just gotten the news of your promotion. Across the country. You didn’t know how to tell him, and you had less of an idea how to leave him.

But you knew you had to. He would follow you, if you let him. You were sure of it. But he was enrolled in the best university for his program, and you watched him fight tooth and nail to earn his spot there.

Heeseung was a bright light, a beacon of good things, and if you were honest with yourself, you felt like his commitment to you was something that only weighed him down.

He was an adult, too. A young one, yes, but a full, grown person all the same. Perfectly capable of making his own decisions, but you took that from him anyway.

And now, three years later, you can still read him like an open book. There’s hurt in his gaze, pain that lingers even now. There’s resentment, too, and you can’t blame him for it.

I still love you, you want to tell him. Because it’s true. Because you do. Because you can see it in his eyes, too.

But you’ve always been better at holding your tongue than him.

Instead, you turn on your heel, planning to exit the way you came.

Fingers around the door handle, the sound of your name stops you.

It sounds like he’s begging, like he’s pleading, and you can’t bear to turn and see the results of your devastation as surely as you hear them.

Instead, you remain motionless. You squeeze your eyes shut as tightly as you can.

And then, so faintly it’s almost lost to the wind, he says, “Stay. Please.”

.....

thanks for reading! send me a drabble prompt here if you'd like!

#heeseung fanfic #heeseung fanfiction #heeseung x you #heeseung x reader #enhypen fanfic #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen x you #enhypen x reader #heeseung drabble #enhypen drabble #heeseung angst #enhypen angst

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captain-bubble-wrap · 3 months ago

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Can you do smth w Quinn and like reader in Med school

I really hope I didn't butcher this! I spent some time pouring over some anatomy test keys and student fears, so I hope it tracks well! 🩷

"Baby, can you help me with something?"

You were laying on the floor of Quinn's living room when you yelled for him. You needed to study for an upcoming exam, but the lack of willpower was keeping you from doing anything. You weren't sure he had heard you, but eventually he appeared overhead, smiling at you being so over-dramatic.

"Have you fallen and you can't get up?" He teased, obviously proud of his stupid joke.

"That's not funny! And no, I'm perfectly content where I am, thank you!" You'd stick your tongue out at him before telling him why exactly you had hollered, "Can you quiz me? I've that big anatomy test Friday and I'm stressing about it."

Quinn quickly fell back into his professional way of being, "Oh, of course, sorry. Yeah, I'll help you."

Your arm shot upwards into the air, with a fistful of papers full of potential questions for him to throw at you. It wasn't that you weren't confident that you knew the information, but it never hurt to see just how much -or how little- you knew. For your sake, you hoped you knew as much as you thought you did or waiting till the last minute to crunch was going to be a problem.

"Alright, where do you want me to start?" He asked, shocked by the amount of pages he had to flip through. You had highlighted the correct answers already, so all he had to do was read.

"Doesn't matter, they're all out of order anyway."

Flopping down on the sofa, Quinn shuffled them a few more times for good measure, before getting started. "Am I going to be able to pronounce half of this stuff?"

His question made you laugh, "Hopefully, but I should be able to discern what you mean if I know the answer...that is -- if I know the answer."

"You'll be fine. Okay, what describes the role of a tendon?"

"They attach muscles to bones," you answered confidently. You were thankful he had started off easy enough, though it did little for your confidence, but it was a start nonetheless.

"Correct. Um, name the three subdivisions of human anatomy."

This one was easy, too, but you knew good as any, that the easy ones could still trip you up; over-confidence was a killer. "Gross, microscopic, and developmental."

"Good job, babe. Okay, let me see if I can find something harder."

You let your eyes fall closed as he rummaged through the two dozen or so pages until he found something he thought might give you some trouble.

"Red blood cell production is know as what?"

"Erythropoiesis?"

He chuckled, "I'm glad you had to say that instead of me! But yeah, good job. I'm guessing that wasn't hard, was it?"

"Not really, no, but it's okay. It just feels good to go over them."

For the next fifteen minutes, Quinn rambled off questions and you had been able to answer them all correctly. He hadn't understood why you seemed so unconfident in yourself, but when asked if you wanted him to read more off, you said yes, so as long as he had the time.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," he joked. "Specific damage to the arcuate fas-cic-ulus would cause this kind of aphasia?"

"Hey, you got it just fine! I thought 'arcuate' would have tripped you up more than 'fasciculus', but um, I think it's conduction aphasia?"

Quinn giggled, "Ding, ding, ding! I think I've found the pages with the stuff I can't pronounce. Well, maybe not this one: this protein of the thin filament blocks myosin binding sites when the muscle is at rest?"

"Um...hm," you pondered. There were two options that came to mind, and you were leading slightly more to one than the other. "Is it tropomyosin?"

He smiled, "It is, good job! I thought I had you there for a second. Alright, name the disorder in which antibodies cause a decrease in the number of active --ah dammit-- ace-tyl-choline receptors at the neuromuscular junction?"

"I think it's myasthenia gravis," you laughed. He was trying his best, and you couldn't blame him for stumbling over those words. He read a lot, but it wasn't medical journals. "One more good one and you can quit."

"Hmmm, alright, what is 'humoral stimulus'?"

"Humoral stimulus is the secretion of hormones in response to changing blood levels of ions."

"That's wild, but yes, you're right. You did great, babe."

There was a sigh from your place on the floor. You back was starting to hurt, but you didn't have the strength to get up. "That wasn't even the tip of the iceberg of the stuff that's going to be on the test, though."

Quinn, sensing your disappointment, even though you didn't get a single question wrong, left his place on the sofa to lay beside you on the floor. "Is there something else that's bothering you? I've never seen you so worried about a test before."

His fingers danced through your hair slowly, propped up on his elbow beside you. Quinn was always so attentive and gentle, something you admired about him in this fast-paced and harsh world.

"I'm just...scared," you finally confessed.

He frowned, "About what?"

"About failing out, not being able to keep up. I don't know if I can keep up with all of the hours. My clinicals have been killing me. And above all else, I'm-- I'm scared of losing you." You'd turn to look at him, tears welling in your eyes having confessed a deep fear that had been gnawing at you since getting your acceptance letter.

"Aw, baby, don't worry about me. I'm not going anywhere."

"You say that, but it feels like I've seen you twice in a month. I lose a lot of time wondering if you're going to meet someone else; someone who's always around when you're free."

Quinn didn't reply immediately. He could tell what you had told him meant a great deal, and that it hadn't been easy to say. He wanted to make sure his reply didn't make light of a very real fear of yours. "You mean the absolute world to me, baby. What you're studying to do is incredible, and more than I could ever imagine of accomplishing. I just play hockey; you're studying to be a doctor! That means so much more! I know your schedule and mine haven't been linking up, but I look forward to the times that we get to spend together, even if that's me stumbling over some crazy medical terms to make sure you're ready for a test. I'll do everything I possibly can --make as much time available for you-- to see that you succeed. And I mean that: all of it, okay?"

"Yeah," you mumbled. "I'm sorry, Quinn. I'm just not-- feeling worth the time."

Quinn's lips found you temple. "I love you, so, so much, Y|N. Even if I can only talk to you for ten minutes, I promise it's the best ten minutes of my day."

"You're just being nice," you confessed.

"I'm telling the truth. I'm not going to let you go because you're working on your career. That would be like you leaving me because we missed the playoffs."

You managed a smile at his silly analogy. He did have a point and you were thankful he was so mature for his age. "Thank you, Quinn, really. And, I love you. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Well, I know one thing: you wouldn't be laughing at my inability to pronounce 'fasciculus'!"

#💌maven's love notes #quinn hughes #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes x y/n #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes fanfiction

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luveline · 1 year ago

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Jade omg i love coworker james so much!! I was hoping i could request them taking the elevator up to their office together and it breaking down and them being stuck together!! Super cliche but i think it could be really cute and fun and that you’d write it so well!

You decide today is the day you stop pretending to forget something in your car. James has been nice lately. He does still hide your mug everyday, and he acts like an idiot at your desks. Just yesterday he made a parachute for one of his little figurines and made it land in your lunch. But he keeps saving you when you’re in trouble, and he might think he has to do it but it’s not true.

If something goes wrong, James is the one who helps you out. Maybe it’s proximity, but maybe he’s just not the jerk you pegged him to be.

So you’re being brave. You get out of your car, to James’ surprise, and you give him a teeny tiny smile. “Morning,” you say, making your way to the office steps, and following closely behind him.

“Morning,” he says, looking back. He holds open the door for you without further comment.

You walk in through the building’s lobby and past the main receptionist to the twin elevators. There’s a downstairs to the building, the lab, where the company conducts their water safety testing, and an upstairs where you and James and your colleagues work. He hits the elevator button on the right, you both wait for it to come down.

“Did you see about that movie?” you ask.

“I did!” He laughs at himself generously. “You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid.”

“Crazy, if you gave me like, two more seconds before you interrupted, I would’ve specified.” You catch yourself scowling and soften your expression. “You know, the movie you told me about with the aliens that can hear you from ten miles away.”

“Oh. What was I supposed to see about it?”

You should’ve waited in the car. The elevator descends and the doors open. James waits for you to go in first before he follows, and you let him click your floor number as you lean against the mirror.

You elect to wait in silence as the elevator chugs up, and up, and.

It stops short with a horrible sharp sound you’ve never heard it make.

James looks at you, then the control panel. The doors don’t open. “That’s fucked,” he says hotly.

“We stopped too early, right?”

“No, no way.” He clicks the open door button, waiting approximately half a second before he starts to spam it.

“Wait, what if you mess it up?”

“Mess it up? It’s stuck.”

You glare at him. “It’s not stuck.”

“It’s stuck.” James slams his hand into the emergency button and waits with a frown for it to ring. “Hello?” he asks.

“James, it’s still ringing.”

“I’m glad this is funny to you,” he says.

You hide your smile. You’d been unnerved by the sound, sure, but the elevator isn’t creaking or whining, it’s just stopped. There’s an inkling of worry growing in your chest. You’re perhaps a smidge too tired to panic. It’s barely 8AM.

And James’ reaction is wildly comical. He glares at the control panel and rings the emergency button again, and again. Nobody answers. After a few long seconds of this, the control panel goes dark, backlit numbers fading.

The overhead light blinks out.

It’s quite dark without it.

“What the fuck?” James asks. Surprisingly, he sounds less panicked than before. “The electrics gone. A power cut?”

“It’s really dark,” you say unhelpfully.

“If only I had one of my darling Smiskis to light up the lift.” James takes his phone from his pocket and turns on the torch, your eyes aching but then thankful for the added illumination. You can see his face again, the tug of a brow too handsome to be meant for grumpiness, and the confused pout of his lips. He has a lovely face, with sweet eyes, dark brown hair framing it, and the aura around him when he’s smiling is lovely too. He’s a little less lovely when he frowns, but not by much. “I’m gonna shout,” he warns you.

You and James spend that first half an hour believing the lift to be a short problem. Then another half an hour on the phone to Remus and then your boss, who assures you both that the maintenance team will fix it within the hour. “Within the hour?” James says to you where you’ve sat cross-legged on the floor. “Within the hour? How long do they think we’ve been in here?”

“Maybe we can call the fire brigade to come and save us?” you suggest quietly. You and James are in very close quarters. His shouting has hurt your head.

“They might have to. Why does nobody know what’s wrong with the lift? Are they really that complicated?”

James sits down beside you dejectedly. The lift is snug, but there’s room for him to sit further away that he doesn’t use.

“You okay?” you ask.

“Fine.”

You open your bag in your lap and unveil your thermos. It comes with a cup as the lip. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

James tips his head back against the wall. “Yes,” he says, “okay. You never finished telling me about the alien movie anyways. What’s the news?”

You smother a smile. “I’m not telling you. You should’ve listened to me the first time.”

For some reason, you don’t argue once in the two hours you spend stuck. Not after the initial bickering. You drink your hot chocolate and you end up sitting together watching the trailer for the movie on your phone, and neither of you move away after. That is, until the elevator flicks back on and the doors are being pried open —you spring apart, caught red handed enjoying each other's company.

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x fem!reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter fic #james potter fluff #james potter blurb #james potter drabble #james potter imagine #james potter fanfic #james potter fanfiction #james potter scenario #james potter oneshot #the marauders #marauders era #marauders

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259kmvn · 3 months ago

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experiment

albedo conducts a test on his partner | albedo x f!reader smut (oral)

knock, knock, knock.

"come in."

you stand outside albedo's door, pressing the cold handle as you push it open. "hi, bedo!" you greet, sticking your head into his work-room. it's messy inside; papers line the walls and pepper the floor while vials of various natural elements are scattered around different surfaces. it's smaller than his actual workshop- tighter with less space to navigate. but this will do for as long as he'd like to live with you.

"how much longer do you think you need?"

"i'm almost done. i just need to compare my observations, then i'll join you." his smooth voice compliments his movements as he opens a nearby drawer to pull out a piece of paper.

the way his teal eyes glisten and eyebrows furrow as he scans it makes your tummy frizzle; he's hot when he's focused. and that shirt he has on... phew. it shapes his already nicely shaped body in just the right places. you just wish you could-

"...dear?"

ah. when did his gaze shift to you? "hmm? oh- nothing! yeah.. sorry... what did you say?" there was no hiding the guilty, sheepish tone in your voice.

"i asked if you required anything from me, dear." by this time a small smile is on his lips. amused eyes connected directly to yours.

"right," you bite your smile, "nothing. just- you, i suppose."

albedo raises an eyebrow. neither of you speak, and the gentle awkwardness makes you start tapping your fingers on the door. "i'll.. i'll just wait for you in the living room. sorry for disturbing!" you start to pull your head from his room.

this awkward tension isn't new. in fact, it was way worse when you first started dating him. many of your advances met with silence, and you've come to learn that that's just him assessing his options. unsurprisingly, your first intimate time did not go so well. he was methodological- too methodological. it felt like making love with a robot. but as time went on, and both he and you figure out what clicks, well... let's just say he brings you to another universe.

"wait. dear," he calls out just as you're about to pull the door shut, "i've got an experiment that i've been wanting to perform. perhaps you could help me with it." hope glistens within your heart and you smile.

"sure!" you entered his work-room with a new enthusiasm. "how can i help?"

you go to stand next to him, looking at the papers in his hand and the numerous circular diagrams on them. "look here," he starts, "i'm currently curious about the cyclical nature of life. cycles pervade every aspect of our known universe- do you follow?" you nod and scan the diagrams.

"ah! i see what you mean!" you lean closer to him, "and you drew all the different cycles you could find so far?" the fabrics of your clothes graze upon each other.

"that's right. smart girl." if there was a frizzle in your stomach, it's turned to a flutter. "but there is one more cycle that i'd like to explore that only you can help me achieve." you hold your breath. "i think you already know what it is."

you try to hide the smile that's creeping up your lips, but your rising cheekbones would not lie for you. "really, bedo? here?" your voice is but a whisper.

he nods, then gestures towards an empty chair- the only one in this room. "have a seat, dear. ah, clothes off first." so you take your clothes off and sit on the chair. its flat surface is cold against your bare soft cheeks. albedo leans over you, hands placed on both armrests by your sides. "good. this experiment is about you, so don't worry about me, is that clear?"

you nod, but he tuts. in a lower voice, he says, "use your words, dear. it is crucial in an experiment that you communicate your every experience. when i ask 'is that clear', what do you say?"

"yes," you whisper.

"good girl." he leans down and kisses your cheek. loose strands of his hair tickle your skin as he continues up to your ear. "mmm.." he hums, sending vibrations across your skin. "stage one of cycle one: pre-engagement." a tongue swipes up your earlobe. you gasp.

he continues his ministrations of licks and kisses on your ear, not neglecting the other by massaging it with his hand. every breath you take hitches and shakes. it tickles. it feels good. you can feel a tingling sensation poking at your core already, and the thought of it makes you whimper.

"your words," he sneaks a reminder amidst his kissing, "use them."

"it feels good," you manage through your sharp breaths. he hums in approval, and the vibrations shoot straight down. "i.. i want mo-re," vowels are especially difficult, because your jaw wishes to betray you for a less subtle moan. he hums again, this time in obedience.

albedo pulls back. looks at your naked figure on his well-used work-room chair. the sight turns him on. not once had he thought of being intimate with you in his workspace; the contexts had always been separate to him. but perhaps that doesn't have to be the case. having everything he loves in the same room sounds like an obvious ideal now.

you shift under his pondering gaze, and he notices. ah.. it must be because he's clothed and you're not. "shall i take my clothes off too, dear?"

you look up at him. to be honest, you like the way this particular shirt looks on him. even more is the way you feel being naked when he's not; vulnerable, powerless, like you're being experimented on. as he starts to unbutton his shirt, you interrupt. "bedo... can i say no?" he pauses in confusion. "i like it like this, it's- um, it really feels like you're experimenting on me." his eyes shut for a few seconds. a sign that he's recollecting his thoughts.

"understood, dear. this variable won't change." you can't help but notice how his shirt is still partly unbuttoned as he leans down to kiss your neck. he trails down your chest, leaving a constellation of kisses that you recognise as princeps cretaceus. you shiver. he's leaving his mark on you.

the hands he has on your legs gently push them apart- thumbs caressing your inner thighs. he crouches down completely and lifts your left leg, resting it on his shoulder. the added distance opens you up more, and albedo observes your glistening slit. his eyes are hooded, breaths getting heavier. you squirm at the sight of your aroused lover. "commencing stage two of cycle one: engagement."

albedo's licks are controlled and strategic. that is not to say that he's slow- rather, he's deliberate in choosing which speeds to eat you out with and where. his tongue is slow in sliding up and down your opening. fast when tasting your clit.

his eyebrows furrow as he's tongue-deep inside you, teal eyes alert to your every response. every buck of your hip makes him moan into your pulsing heat.

your whimpers run loose. there's so much you're feeling; the cold hard chair pressing against your back- the hand that's gently rubbing your left leg. his head between your legs, wisps of hair tickling your sensitive skin. his nose prodding at your clit as his tongue thrusts into your slit. "bedo- ah," you feel your core tighten. he does too. "i'm- i'm gonna cum-"

he hums in approval. "go ahead," his voice is muffled by your flesh, "cum for me." he presses his free hand on your lower tummy firmly. adding pressure to the already built up tension in your core.

"bedo, please, ah! mm-" your voice only gets higher and his tongue faster. at this point you're grinding on his face, chasing your high, and he keeps going. "please, please, please, hah-!"

you cum.

albedo lets you ride out your high on his tongue before putting your leg down and standing up. he wipes his mouth with his sleeve, juices and saliva smearing the shirt you love so much. every breath a heave for both you and him. your consciousness slowly restores and you realise you're in an unflattering slouch. you sit up, though your body still shivers and your sweaty skin sticks to the surfaces of the chair. you look up at albedo, who is silently catching his breath.

"i.. thank you," you don't know what to say. "is this.. enough for your experiment?" something tells you it's not. and that something is an obvious bulge in your lover's pants. you smile cheekily. somewhat proud of the effects you have on him. "..maybe not," you say in your cheekiness and stand up.

you meet his eyes and approach him, hands reaching down to play with his pants buckle. "you seem to be accurate, dear," he says as his hand cups your cheek, "i am unsatisfied with the experiment thus far." there's a restrained jerk in his hips when you teasingly glide over his bulge, "ah- i'd like to begin a new set of- mmph!"

you interrupt his line of thought with a kiss. his lips are soft and his eyes wide in shock. you pull back, and say amidst your shared air, "it's my turn to study you, dear. leave the thinking to me, hmm?"

his breaths stagger, and he nods hesitantly. "use your words, dear," you tease, tugging at his pants. he gulps.

"understood."

#genshin fluff #genshin smut #genshin x reader #albedo fluff #albedo smut #albedo x reader

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vxnuslogy · 10 months ago

Text

– love’s thesis.

pairing: alhaitham x gn!reader

premise: the most logical thing to do when you find out your pretend lover is actually your soulmate? conduct a research and fall in love in the process.

– warnings: inaccurate/unrealistic depictions of college, modern au.

– author's note: i write one long fic for alhaitham and suddenly that old project i have for him back in april is suddenly back. | ~5.9k words.

to say that alhaitham was royally fucked would be an understatement. he was behind three lectures, had a major paper he’s yet to touch, and now, with the sudden appearance of his soulmate mark, he wasn’t sure what to tackle first.

alhaitham let out a long exasperated sigh, hand coming to drag down his already tired face as he irritatedly tapped on his table. the white screen of his laptop blinded him as the clock ticked, a constant reminder that he was losing time if he didn’t type out at least a sentence to his professor–or to you. a low grumble left his lips when he closed his device and left his room to get another cup of coffee. mind swimming with how he was going to approach you, or if he was even going to say the implications of having your name written on his forearm.

when he reached the living space of his apartment, there you were, in the same position and predicament as him. you looked up from your books and gave him a weary and crooked smile. eyes sunken and hair a mess but all alhaitham could see was how the lamp light on the coffee table illuminated your features. the pounding of his heart was back and all he could offer you was nod before going to the kitchen. this was stupid, he reminded himself. how could the person he’s been fake dating for sheer convenience be his actual soulmate. you, who dreams of fairytales and happily ever after, his soulmate? alhaitham scoffed in disbelief as he waited for the coffee machine to finish his drink.

his mind was torn; alhaitham’s rationality screaming at him to just be honest and tell you now but the more curious side of him wanted to test out this soulmate thing. from the corner of his eye, he sees you stretch your arms over your head and let out a tired sigh. books and papers and devices scattered on his floor as you push your hair out of your face. up until a few hours ago, you were nothing more than a footnote in his life, but now as his eyes took another glimpse over the inking of your name, alhaitham begins to wonder if offering to be your fake boyfriend was also part of fate’s plans.

just then, when the coffee machine finished his drink, an idea popped into his mind. something that would quench his curiosity over the idea of soulmates and finish this thesis he’s yet to even start on. and it would only take 4 steps.

STEP 1: THE PROPOSAL

this was abnormal behavior for alhaitham. he has never felt so nervous and antsy in his life until now. alhaitham never felt his palms sweat when the panelists grilled him during his presentations or when he nearly fucked up a speech because he had 2 hours of sleep prior. he concluded that it must be the left over adrenaline from stealing kaveh’s concealer to hide your name on his forearm.

he wasn’t ashamed to have you as his soulmate, it was quite opposite now that he thinks about it. you were a proud scholar like him. the only difference was you were in vahamuna and him in harvatat. but that didn’t deter you from engaging in academic banter and debates with him. alhaitham just felt a bit unsure how to approach the topic of soulmates with you, especially when he was the first one to lay down the boundary that everything is purely for convenience and that no feelings should be involved.

“i’m very confused,” your voice cuts through his inner dilemma as you skim over his proposal paper. “is it really okay for me to assist you in this research? wouldn’t faruzan or maybe someone in harvatat be of more help?”

“my topic delves into relationships. seeing as though you are my lover,” alhaitham pauses and he didn’t fail to pick up on the blood rushing to your cheeks when he called you his lover. “you’re my best option.”

there was an amused glint in your eyes when you shook your head. you slowly packed your things and handed his proposal back to him. “this is giving me major deja vu.” the grin on your lips and playful tone also took him to memory lane when he first proposed to this fake date situation.

“i’m assuming this is a yes?” he raised a curious brow at you. the two of you falling into each other’s pace as you left the library.

“it’s a yes.”

STEP 1: COMPLETED.

STEP 2: RESEARCH AND ON FIELD EXPERIMENTS.

once his paper was given the green light, he offered to start when you reached his apartment. having nothing to do, until your groupmates replied to you at least, you entered his space and sat yourself on the floor. opening your laptop while alhaitham went to the kitchen to get you something to drink and munch on, you can’t help but feel so at home. alhaitham notices this every time so he makes a mental note of your behavior for later use.

hours passed and after many coffee drinks, wingstop takeouts, 10 minute power naps, an unintended pillow fight, and blasting random songs to keep you both awake and sanity intact, you and alhaitham decided on a few experiments to conduct on his research.

STEP 2: COMPLETED.

STEP 2.1: EMOTIONAL SYNCHRONY UNDER EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES.

“alhaitham, where did you get that…?”

the gray haired man looked up from his tablet and nodded towards your direction. his eyes glancing over to the heart monitors that were now present in his living room. “the local hospital.”

“you really are full of surprises,” you let out an amused chuckle. dropping your stuff beside the coffee table and sitting next to him, he hands you the many wires of the heart monitor. “how did you even get these to your apartment.”

he got up from his seat and crouched to the level of his tv, not answering your question. sorting through the many movie discs he had rented out for the both of you to watch and test the level of emotional synchrony. “what would you like to watch first?”

alhaitham had never whipped his head back faster in his life when he caught you raising your shirt. showing off your midriff as you attach the wires to your chest. he felt his temperature rise as you answered a simple anything to his question. this was ridiculous, his mind echoed, he’s seen you in a bathing suit when you and his friends went to the beach. alhaitham didn’t understand why he felt so flustered. shoving a random cd into the cd player and taking the remote, he sat back down on the couch. he just prayed that you don’t question the sudden flush on his cheeks.

one horror movie, three romcoms, one tragedy, and one thriller later, you both decided to take a break.

“any progress so far?” you ask with a tilt of your head.

he hummed in response. “remarkable to say the least.”

alhaitham hands over the tablet to you while he detaches himself from the heart monitor. he made his way to the kitchen and took out two cups from his cupboard. “the study we found last time stated that close companions tend to copy the other’s emotional response under emotional stress.”

“and?” you take the cup he offered gingerly and took a sip. it was coffee, made just how you like it. “how did we do?”

he took a sip of his own and took the tablet back.

“almost perfectly in sync. fascinating isn’t it?”

he tried his best to not show any signs of whatever he was feeling. as remarkable this was, it was a bit scary. and alhaitham didn’t know what to make out of it. he knows that not all soulmates end up together, in fact, a study that was conducted five years ago proved that only a small margin of soulmates live long enough to meet their other half. and an even smaller margin of soulmates actually worked out. it was only the first experiment, the first trial, but alhaitham could feel the arms of inevitability and uncertainty wrap around his ribs and start breaking each bone one by one.

just by this one experiment alone, when he offered you a tissue to wipe your tears or when you leaned on him for support because of your laughter, alhaitham felt the inevitable pull towards you.

STEP 2.1: COMPLETED.

STEP 2.2: COMMUNICATION AND INTIMACY EXPERIMENT.

it was a busy day at lambad’s cafe. the establishment was housing many students who were all running on little to no sleep and coffee pumping in their veins. project month was proving to be hell on earth for the students. final research defenses and projects were usually held in this time and sometimes the following week would be their finals. it’s a brutal battle against time and insanity, those who don’t have proper time management are almost guaranteed to repeat the year if they receive a single mark that’s below the passing grade.

“geez, busy as always.” you said, scrolling through your phone.

“i’d be more surprised if no one was busy,” he replied. “kaveh is practically living in his lecture hall.”

you let out a laugh as you put down your phone on the table, face down, as you take a bite off of your snack. “okay, my turn to ask a question.”

“shoot.”

this was today’s experiment. communication and intimacy by using the famous “36 questions to fall in love” as your starting point. in every relationship, not just soulmates, communication needs to be present or else it’ll fall apart sooner or later. conversation let’s people see parts of another they tend to hide. alhaitham wanted to scratch this experiment from the process, but after the last one, he wanted to try if there were any unpredicted outcomes.

many studies have already been conducted on this, alhaitham shouldn’t have a problem finding a supporting article for his thesis. but after just a few questions, he began to think of this experiment as an excuse to get to know you more. he’s not sure if it’s the soulmate thing playing at his mind to get to know you but he suddenly had the urge to absorb every information about you like a sponge. a painful want to know you inside and out; a need to be able to completely explain you to someone else.

“question 27: if you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.”

alhaitham mulled over the question before giving his answer.

“my indifference and wanting to keep most things private does not equate to me not caring about them.” he let his tongue roll over his lips, suddenly feeling parched with the way you were staring at him. “i have high walls, but that doesn’t mean they’re there to ward everyone off. i’m very particular with who i let in, so if they truly want to be my friend, i’d advise them to try until i welcome them in.”

a smile tugged at your lips and alhaitham felt he could finally breathe. “your turn.”

“question 33: if you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? why haven’t you told them yet?”

you let out a hum and leaned back in your seat. “never telling the people i care about that i love them.”

“why haven’t you told them yet?” he asks, crossing both his arms over the table and slightly leaning forward.

“i don’t know…” you say honestly. a foggy look in your eyes as you stare at the ceiling. “maybe i’m scared it won't sound genuine enough.”

alhaitham wanted to argue that everyone you care about knew that you love them dearly. he was one of those people after all. whatever label you have now was certainly fake, but the vulnerability and care you had for each other wasn’t, and he would die on that hill.

“well you shouldn’t,” his voice cut through the quiet atmosphere. he hoped that it didn’t sound too harsh. “if they cared about you, they would know whether you're being genuine or not.”

if someone told alhaitham’s younger self that the walls he’d built up would crumble in just 36 questions, he wouldn’t have believed it. he still finds it hard to believe when you both exit the cafe and go your separate ways. but all he can do is accept it. through those questions, he learned more about you–your dreams, values, cherished memories, and vulnerabilities you shared with him first.

ahaitham concluded that this experiment was worth keeping. he felt more connected to you than ever.

STEP 2.2: COMPLETED.

STEP 2.3: RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM.

admittedly, this wasn’t in the original list of experiments you and alhaitham had planned but decided to go along with it. the akademiya regularly held a research symposium and had one or two students present preliminary research to batches of students. this year, he was asked to do it and he dragged you to be his partner because who else would he ask. certainly not kaveh.

“do your best! i’ll be backstage if you need anything.” he simply nods at your support and walks to the stage. before beginning, he takes one last glance at you. he didn’t know what urged him to do it, but after seeing you flash him a thumbs up and an encouraging grin, he let a small smile loose before looking towards the batch of students that won’t give a single shit about what he’s saying.

roughly 45 minutes later, alhaitham stepped down the podium and bowed. applause echoed throughout the hall as he made his way backstage to find you. the next batch would be listening to you after all. he stopped in his tracks when he saw you happily chatting with a student he didn't recognize.

“you’re presentation is next, do your best!” he excitedly said. alhaitham narrowed his eyes when the unfamiliar boy rubbed the back of his nape, a flushed tint reaching his cheeks. “maybe after the day’s over we can go get some coffee?”

how strange it was. ever since your name appeared on his forearm he’d started feeling so many new emotions that he normally wouldn’t imagine feeling. it was an ugly feeling, he concluded. alhaitham didn’t like how relieved he felt when you declined the boy’s invitation and when you caught sight of him, he felt his heart beat rapidly in his ears when you skipped over to him. he already knew why he felt a sudden surge of pride take over him when you drag him further back stage to review your presentation, completely ignoring the other boy.

it was for research, so why did his arm wrap loosely around your waist like second nature?

STEP 2.3: COMPLETED.

STEP 2.4: CREATIVE AND ARTISTIC COLLABORATION.

you were the one who coined this idea after a quick chat with kaveh. for once, the blonde man had an insightful opinion and offered to schedule you and alhaitham to a quick session of painting on your next day offs. now here were the three of you, inside a painting studio with other students in the art department of the akademiya, seated in front of a white canvas and a tray of colors.

from the corner of his eyes, alhaitham took notice of how you and kaveh animatedly chatted. the same ugly feeling he felt that day backstage came back in full throttle. clicking his tongue, he shifted his focus back on the instructor’s voice and followed his instructions. every once in a while, he would take a peek at you and feel something bloom inside his chest when caught a glimpse of that determined look on your face. by the time he looked back at his canvas, he felt the wind inside his lungs be stolen away when he realized he used your colors to paint.

different shades and strokes of your favorite colors invaded his senses. his own mind playing tricks on him because he could’ve sworn you were peering over his shoulders, hands wrapped around his waist and your chin comfortably set on one of his shoulders. alhaitham felt the ghosts of your warmth and couldn’t help but crave it.

he snapped out of his daydreams when the instructor’s assistant approached him. she was the same age as you and with just one look, alhaitham concluded that she was interested in him. it took all of his will power to not roll his eyes when she complimented his work and not subtly ask for his number. thankfully, she was called back to the instructor’s side. he felt a shiver run down his spine when the girl looked over her shoulders and winked at him. he was most definitely not coming back here ever again.

when the class finished, alhaitham had successfully painted 3 canvases, all with your favorite colors and things that reminded him of you. a successful experiment if he does say so himself.

meeting up with kaveh near the exit they both engaged in small chatter. the blonde architect complaining about how he’s burning through his concealer faster than he expected because of the lack of sleep. alhaitham made sure to just hum and nod here and there to not give himself away that he was the reason why kaveh’s makeup was running out.

“i swear! this school wants its students six feet under before they graduate.”

he tunes out the complaints of his senior and mindlessly scrolls through his phone. tapping his foot impatiently when the assistant from earlier started making her way over to him. scoffing in annoyance he was about to drag kaveh out the door and wait for you outside but an arm tangled with his and started tugging him.

“good job today!” you grin at alhaitham with both your arms interlaced with the other.

taking a peek over his shoulder, alhaitham caught sight of the assistant girl scoffing and rolling her eyes. he shifted his focus back on you, eyes meeting anyone and anything but his. an amused smirk was present on his face when he felt your hand tighten its hold around his bicep.

“jealous?” he teases.

you roll your eyes and grip his arm tighter. “maybe.”

STEP 2.4: COMPLETE.

STEP 2.5: COOKING.

the constant ticking of the clock and the tic tac of keyboards was all alhaitham could hear. it was almost midnight and the two of you had decided to pull another all nighter together. at this point, the two of you had been working on his thesis for almost a month now, and alhaitham is still yet to come to a conclusion.

he definitely feels something for you. but there was an uncertain part of him that wonders if his feelings are truly genuine or if the idea of being soulmates was hindering his unbiased thinking. you look up from your laptop when you hear him stop typing and softly ask him if he’s alright. alhaitham wanted to answer no, he was not in the slightest bit alright. but he needn’t open his mouth to reply because you already stood up and invited him to the kitchen.

“let’s cook something to eat. we’ve been ordering too much takeout lately.” there was a sheepish grin on your lips as you opened his fridge and took out some ingredients. “what do you say?”

alhaitham didn’t really have a choice when you’re already started preparing. and even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to say no. when it came to you, he always found it hard to decline your invitations and advances. so now here he was, helping you cook buttered noodles at 11:57 p.m. with your playlist softly playing in the background.

he’s read a study about how cooking tends to deepen relationships between people. alhaitham wonders if this will also happen with what you and him have now. he didn’t really have think too much of it because once he hears you hiss from accidentally touching the pot with boiling water, he’s already by your side. a gentle hand guiding yours under the faucet running with cold water as he lectures you about being careful. you only laugh and say he’s worrying too much. patting him on the arm, a silent message to release your hand, alhaitham lets you continue your duty of cooking the pasta as he grates the cheese and prepares plates.

something about this fragile moment has alhaitham’s mind swimming with possibilities for the future. all he could think about is how nice it would to come home to you after a long day of work (he already does this, he just won’t admit it). crashing into your arms without care as he prattles about his day, his head on your chest while your hand gently strokes over his hair. listening intently to whatever he had to say because you loved listening to his voice.

“haitham can you help me drain the water?” before you could even turn around to face him, he's already behind you. his larger hands held your smaller ones and helped you guide the pot to the sink. alhaitham doesn’t miss the burning of your ears and he’s overcome with the urge to tease.

“why so quiet?” he asks with a playful lilt to his voice. “are you that tired?”

he hears you scoff and grumble. that fuzzy feeling swimming inside his chest again as you duck under his arms and sit yourself on his dining table. he raises a brow at you but you only raise the hand that touched the boiling pot.

“my hand is hurting again?”

“are you serious?”

“deadly serious.”

alhaitham knew you were horsing around but he only chuckled with a shake of his head. in the end, by the time it reached 12:12, the two of you were eating happily. no small talk or conversation was present but neither of you minded. all you cared about was being in his presence and alhaitham would give it to you even if you hadn’t asked for it. he looks up from his plate when he hears you chuckle and sees you tiredly swirling the food on your fork.

“we’re not getting any sleep tonight aren’t we?” there was something dreamy about the way you looked right now. evidently tired, hair a mess and flying in any and every direction, and your eyes were droopy. you looked so at home -at peace- and alhaitham wonders if it’s because you two were spending time together.

“you ask that as if it’s the first time we’ve done this.” you laugh at his reply and look at him. a certain emotion in them that he can only recognize as fondness.

alhaitham concludes from this unscripted experiment that he wouldn’t mind cooking with you every night.

STEP 2.5: COMPLETED.

STEP 2.6: VULNERABILITY AND TRUST.

today marked the last week and final experiment of alhaitham’s thesis. the both of you decided to leave the “scariest” experiment for last so you wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable. after all, being blindfolded and led to some unknown place wasn’t something normal couples would do on a daily basis. yet here you were, trusting him completely with your safety as he holds your hand leading you somewhere.

“you doing okay there, haitham?”

this was dangerous. alhaitham shouldn’t be walking backwards. but he couldn’t snuff out his desire of seeing you under the setting sun. he could bump into something and fall, compromising this experiment, but just this once, alhaitham let himself cheat. disobey his own rules. he’s already broken multiple ones so what’s one more?

“i should be asking you that,” he pauses when he hears you chuckle. “i’m not the one blindfolded here.”

“aww don’t worry haitham. i trust you won’t kill me.”

“you don’t know that.”

“do you even know how to hide a body?” alhaitham was about to reply when you cut him off. “nevermind you probably do.”

alhaitham didn’t bother to stifle a laugh at your sudden confession. and you laugh with him. when his back bumps into a metal pole, he takes it as a sign to finally turn around and walk the correct way. it hasn’t been a minute yet he’s already missing the sight of your smiling face.

“tell me a secret, haitham.”

“why?”

“this is a vulnerability and trust experiment. tell me something you haven’t told anyone.”

he takes a minute to reply. after much contemplation, alhaitham thinks it’s time to tell you.

“i’m scared of my soulmate.”

“why are you scared?” your voice turned quiet. it sounded more like an inaudible murmur.

“you already know i’m not one for relationships,” he hears you hum. “but recently their name appeared on my forearm. it was unexpected, in fact, i didn’t even think it was possible.”

“why would you think that?” you sound almost hurt. alhaitham didn’t like it.

“soulmates are too unreliable. you’ve certainly seen the multiple studies on them right? most soulmates don’t even get the chance to meet their other half.”

“and yet here we are,” he chuckled and intertwined your fingers. “doing a study on soulmates and testing the potential emotional synergy they might have.”

“i have a strict framework for my life. i built it with facts and logic. soulmates simply don’t fit into that framework. the idea of someone having such a profound impact on my life, someone i didn’t choose– it feels like i’m losing a battle against fate.”

“you can’t fight fate, haitham.”

“and who said i was fighting it?”

alhaitham sighs, running a hand through his hair. “i’m scared that they’ll grow tired of this logical thinking of mine. what if they no longer want to understand me? what if we mix like oil and water?”

“you’ll never know unless you try,” you squeeze his hand in reassurance. “sometimes, you need a little unpredictability in your life. so what if they don’t understand you immediately, most soulmates don’t even get together when they first meet. relationships take time and effort.”

alhaitham turns to look at you again, studying your expression. there’s softness in his eyes, he can just tell. “what about you? what are you afraid of?”

you stop walking entirely but not once did your hand slip away from his. “i’ve been afraid of soulmates too. what if my soulmate isn’t a good person? what would happen to my dreams of getting married and that happily ever after?”

alhaitham feels his heart beating inside his ears when you tug off the blindfold. when you meet his eyes with such a lovesick expression, he feels weak in the knees and throat drying up faster than the sands in the desert.

“but what if your soulmate is better than you imagined?” there was a smirk on his lips when he takes a step forward. “what if he’s standing right in front of you as we speak, telling you that he’s willing to give the happily ever after you’ve always wanted? all you needed to do was wait a bit longer.”

you let out a laugh and tug him closer. chest to chest, hand still holding each other. “do you think so?”

“i know so.”

“will he finally tell me what he’s planning with these experiments?” you lean forward and alhaitham feels his heart lurch forward.

he presses your foreheads together. closing his eyes to stop himself from laughing at the sight of you on your toes to reach him. “i can’t say. it’s hard to put into words.”

you pout and hit him on the chest. “and why not?”

“i’ve never felt such deep affection for someone until you.”

STEP 2.6: COMPLETED.

STEP 3: WRITING.

it took a shit ton of self control to stay away from you after his confession. he locked himself in his apartment, leaving you and kaveh to sleepover at tighnari’s since he wouldn’t the door for anyone (this is a lie, he always opens the door for you when you bring him food).

now he’s around 75% done with his paper, and it’s taking longer than expected. his idea of locking his phone in the closet on do not disturb was going well.

the days continued to drag on and alhaitham scowled at himself for feeling so much yearning for a person he’s going to see tonight or in the following week. he missed the sound of your laughter and comforting presence as you both chased deadlines. but he was determined to finish this thesis tonight or tomorrow afternoon if he accidentally fell asleep.

as he expected, there was a knock on his front door. he frowned at how quickly he stood up. with a sigh, he went to the door and leaned on one of the walls with both his hands crossed over his chest.

“haitham, i know you’re in there!” you shout, voice muffled by the door. “you can’t keep hiding there forever! that’s kaveh’s job.”

alhaitham let out a snort as his hand hovered over the doorknob. “i’m working.”

“then work with me. i bought us takeout,” you said, tone teasing. “and i’m not leaving until you open the door.”

with a sigh he relented. knowing deep down that you were deadly serious and he didn’t want to be the cause for a potential cold. when he unlocked the door there you were, your tote bag hanging on your shoulder while your arms held plastic bags of food. the mere sight of you has his mood brightening but he tried his best to keep it neutral.

“it’s late.” he said, trying to sound stern but failing miserably when you wrap a single arm on his waist.

“and yet here i am,” you didn’t even wait for him to tell you to come in. you’re already dropping your things on his couch and sitting down on the floor. “you’re place is a mess.”

he rolls his eyes and sat next to you. “thank you, i’m trying to copy kaveh’s workspace.”

a laugh rippled through the space as you handed him his portion. “don’t be mean to him! he’s trying his best.”

you let alhaitham take a few bites before you leaned your head on his shoulder. eyes soft when you smile at him. “i missed you.”

“i missed you too,” he admits, wrapping one arm around your waist and pulling you impossibly closer. “but i need to finish the paper.”

“oh fuck you!”

you scowl at him and let out an annoyed huff as you take a bite of your own food. you don’t get to savor it when a firm hand takes hold of your chin and pulls your face to alhaitham’s. your lips meet briefly before he’s nestling back on his seat. a cheeky grin on his face when you feel your cheeks burning.

“forgive me?”

STEP 3: (KINDA) COMPLETED.

STEP 4: CONCLUSION.

alhaitham let out a sigh of relief as he left the presentation room, loosening his too-tight tie. the sun was high, indicating that it was around afternoon now. the defense took longer than expected due to the panelists’ questions, and the knowing looks of headmaster nahida and rukkhadevata. he shivered when he recalled how he barely escaped miss nahida’s clutches.

he speedwalked down the corridors of the akademiya, keeping a firm grip of the extra copy of his thesis. those countless hours spent trying to perfect it was finally over and it proved to be worth all the effort. he had no doubts in his mind that he got a good mark. but now, he had one final thing he needed to do.

a warm breeze greeted him when he stepped outside. he closed his eyes for a moment, letting the warm afternoon sun ease his nerves already knowing where to go next. he needed to find you.

and find you he did. the moment he opened lambad’s cafe doors, his eyes by habit, searched for you in your usual seat by the window. half of your face hidden by your laptop screen and a coffee cup in your hand. the sight brought a smile to his lips, and for a moment, he didn’t move and let the scene in front of him be printed into his mind.

taking a deep breath, he walked over to you. “mind if i join you?”

you looked up, not surprised but still happy to see him. “how did it go?”

“well,” he said, sitting down across from you. “a lot more intense than i thought, but i did alright.”

“alright seems like an understatement,” you say in amusement, closing your laptop as your eyes flicked over to the papers he held.

alhaitham was struck with the feeling of deja vu. this scene in front of him mirrored the time where he first proposed the idea of partnering up for his thesis. now, here you both were, sitting across from each other with his finished thesis.

you raised a knowing brow at him. “what’s this?”

“the final version of my thesis,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “i wanted you to have look.”

“i’m honored.” you say with a big smile.

he nodded and took a deep breath. “there’s something i’ve been meaning to tell you.”

you hum to signal him to continue as you flip through the papers and skim over his hard work.

“during my presentation, i talked a lot about the impact of relationships. how it affects someone’s behavior, both consciously and subconsciously. i talked about you.”

you suddenly look up, eyes wide. “what did you say?”

“that emotional synergy doesn’t only apply to soulmates. it’s for everyone. even before your name appeared on my forearm, you and i already shared a connection that felt deeper than most soulmates had. from pretend to the profound truth; you’re my soulmate.”

you blinked at him, trying to process everything he’s said. “you really talked me?”

alhaitham nods, a small smile on his lips when he leans over and flips you to where his experiments come into play. “i did. i talked about our relationship, even when it started as pretend and for convenience, had impacted my life significantly. how i always seem more relaxed and focused when you’re by my side. i couldn’t imagine my life without having you in it the more time we spent together.”

he paused, taking another deep breath. “when i first saw your name on my forearm, i couldn’t believe it. it complicated things severely. but the truth is, you’ve always been my soulmate, even before the mark appeared.”

you take his hand in your and intertwine your fingers. and alhaitham couldn’t help but feel his heart quicken when he sees his name written on your wrist. “you scared me for a while, you know?”

he leaned forward, cupping your face in his free hand. “you don’t have to feel scared anymore. it’s real, even without the marks, it’s always been real. i want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

you let out a shaky breath and smile. “i love you.”

“i love you too,” he murmured, thumbs brushing against your tears to wipe away the stray tears that fell. “more than words can express. i have never known anything else but loving you.”

STEP 4: COMPLETED.

BONUS:

#—stellaronhvnters.#・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact headcanons #genshin imagines #genshin impact x you #genshin impact alhaitham #alhaitham headcanons #alhaitham x you #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham imagines #( 🂡 ) – royal flush of stories .ᐟ

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daydreams-after-dark · 1 year ago

Text

Scientist Chan part 3 of ∞

SMUT WARNING // MDNI ⚠️ scientist!Chan (Chris) x test subject fem!reader (with special guest Prof. Lee Minho)

↳ Scientist Chan Masterlist ↳ tag list : open

Scientist Christopher is conducting sex experiments on you. Join him as he tests your limits, bringing in his colleagues along the way, holding presentations and demonstrations. This is unhinged and wild, and will contain a lot of adult only content. Please check content warnings on each instalment.

In part 1, Chris introduced sexual intercourse into the experiment, which was a success.

In part 2, he explored your reaction to various sexual positions, and introduced anal penetration while on a video call with Professor Lee Minho

Unhinged level 🤡🤡🤡🤡

Part 3 Summary: Professor Lee Minho visits to assist with the experiment of double penetration.

A/n: I’m back with another scientist experiment. Although I’m starting to think it might not be a legit experiment 😵‍💫 I hope you enjoy this instalment… I’m nervous 🫣

CW: where do I start? 😵‍💫 cum eating, vaginal and anal penetration (dildos and penises), forced orgasms, cream pie, rough sex, scientific (not really) situation, videotaping sexual acts, double pen, squirting, oral sex (m and f rec), restraints (strapping down onto bed, ball gag), stretch kink, size kink, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything.

———

"You wanted to see me, Chris?" you say as you enter his office-slash-experiment room.

He looks up from his notes and gives you a tired smile. "Yes," he taps the couch beside him, gesturing you to take a seat.

Wordlessly, you sit down beside him.

"Now, tomorrow Professor Lee will be visiting." he begins. You shift in the seat. You're nervous, but excited about what is going to happen.

"I wanted to reassure you that all the regular rules will still be in place. You have your safeword and gestures, and we will ensure we don't push you too far before you're ready." he looks you in the eye. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You know that, yes?"

You nod. "Yes, Chris. I know. I understand. But... how are you feeling about this? Sharing your experiment with someone? Letting another researcher touch your test subject?"

Chris looks up at the ceiling and sighs. "I've been really looking forward to it. But to be completely honest with you I'm also nervous. So far it's just been you and me." he reaches out to hold your hand. "I'm not sure how I am going to go with sharing. But at the same time, we need other's to know about our experiments."

You nod in agreement. "So," you slide onto your knees on the floor in front of him. "Tell me what I should expect of tomorrow's activities." you purr, reaching for his belt. This isn't experiment time, so you're free to do whatever you feel like. Right now, you want to ease Chris's tension.

"Well," he says shakily, watching you slowly unclasp his belt and then pop the button on his trousers. "We'll set up the cameras. All angles this time. Professor Lee will...ngh...fuck...arrive." You free his semi hard cock from the confines of his trousers. "He'll be bringing some devices...god...your mouth...so warm...He wants you restrained while he inspects you and prepares you for his cock...yeah, like that...good girl..."

You take him into your mouth as far as you can, while stroking the remainder of his length with your hand.

"The goal...ngh...for you to take two cocks...fuck... so good..."

You take your time pleasuring Chris, making him feel good. You love the sounds he makes when you give him head. You love when he surrenders to you, letting you do whatever you want to him.

You take him even deeper into your mouth. You know he loves the feeling of being lodged in your throat.

“Ngh��I’m fucking close, Babygirl. Gonna..”

You sit back on your knees and open your mouth wide as he stands and strokes himself, painting your tongue in his thick white cum. He reaches down and closes your mouth.

"Swallow." he says softly. You do, then open your mouth to show him you’ve swallowed everything he’s given you.

"Good girl."

---------------

"Good afternoon, Chris. Good to see you." Professor Lee is handsome, and you relax slightly when you see him. He’s young, like Chris, with almond shaped eyes and dark brown hair.

"This must be your lovely test subject. Pleased to meet you young lady." He shakes your hand. "It's nice to finally put a face to the pussy." he smirks. "Shall we set everything up?" he turns to Chris.

The two men waste no time setting up the lighting and the cameras around the examination bed. They fashion an overhead camera to capture everything from a birds-eye view, another camera that will capture your facial expressions, a few that will film everything going on below the waist, and a hand held camera for close ups.

"Put this around your neck." Chris slid a microphone around your neck. The only thing you were wearing.

You catch a glimpse of Professor Lee unpacking his devices and see him retrieve two large dildos. One was extremely long and clear, with the entire length covered in ridges. The other was extra thick and also very long.

You glance at Chris to see an unhinged expression on his face, and it makes you want to be a good little test subject for them.

"Okay, lay down. Professor Lee needs to do his own inspections and tests before we begin." Chris pats the bed.

You do as instructed, laying down flat on the bed, while Chris explains to Lee that the end section of the examination table can be detached and removed for ease of access.

"Okay, open your legs for me and hold them up." Professor Lee instructs, and he removes the end of the bed. He sits himself on the swivel stool that Chris often uses, and takes in the sight before him.

He sucks in a breath between his teeth. "It's the most beautiful pussy I've ever seen." he swallows hard. He pushes down on the underside of your thighs with the palms of his hands, and uses his thumbs to spread your labia. You try not to moan.

He runs a thumb up your slit and lifts the hood of your clitoris. "Everything is perfect." he mumbles.

He grabs his camera to take a few photos of your pussy, then sets it down.

He turns to Chris. "I need to try something. Pass me one of your vibrators." he stretches out his hand impatiently, and Chris hands it to him.

He turns it in to the highest setting but he doesn't touch you with it. Instead, he just spreads your lips open and waits.

"Chris. You need to be filming this. If what you say you've noticed is correct we should be seeing...Yes...Yes, there it is. See the arousal oozing out of her!" he says excitedly.

You know what they're talking about. As soon as the vibrator had been turned on, your cunt was clenching. Your breath had quickened, and you desperately felt the need to be filled.

"She's aroused by just the sound. Let's see if she'll climax."

Both men watch you intently as you feel an orgasm building. Your mind can’t help but imagine them fucking you with the vibrator. Better yet, one of them fucking you with their cock while pressing the vibrator to your clit.

"She's close." Chris states as you start to writhe on the bed and grind your hips against nothing.

"Please...need to come." you whimper.

"Come for us. Nobody's stopping you." Lee says.

"C-can't...need more..." you cry.

"Come for us or else we'll abandon the experiment." he growls.

"Oh...fuck...ngh..." Your back arches off the bed as you sob through the most frustrating orgasm of your life.

"Yes... good girl." Lee praises, and releases his hands. "Did you take note of the timing etc?"

Chris nods. "Yes. Now for the restraints. Y/n, this next experiment is to monitor your body's reaction to being stimulated whilst under a captive situation. We'll be strapping you down to the bed." He explains as the two scientists fix a strap across your chest and abdomen, with your arms tucked into your sides, so that you can't lift off the bed.

Your legs are tied up into the standard stirrups you have used before, so you're spread open wide.

Finally, a ball gag is secured in your mouth, then another, small strap secures your head to the bed. You're not sure why you need a microphone at this point, but figure they want to capture any sound you make, whether it's muffled or not.

You can't move or speak, but a little buzzer is placed in your hand if you want to stop anything that is happening to you.

The scientists work silently. You're not sure what they are doing until finally you feel something press against your ass. You assume its a dildo covered in cold lube, and you silently gasp when you feel it breach your rim. A thumb rubs your clit gently as the dildo pushes in a tiny bit further. They don't rush, taking their time to insert the dildo bit by bit. From what you can tell, it's the ribbed dildo, and your eyes roll into the back of your head just imagining it penetrating you.

Deeper and deeper you feel the dildo filling you, and tears prickle your eyes. How much more are they going to push inside? You moan and try to move against the restraints.

"You have your buzzer if you need." Chris reassures you. "You're doing so well. This is the deepest you've ever taken anything. It's longer than my cock."

"Just a little more." Lee states as he gives the dildo one last push. "There we go."

It's so deep you're not sure if this is even safe anymore, but your worry turns to pleasure as soon as you feel a warm, wet mouth on your pussy. A tongue swirls around your vaginal opening and then licks at your clit. You're sure its Professor Lee, and when he growls against you know for sure.

As he laps at your pussy hungrily, his tongue reaching for the depths of your cunt, you start to sob. This is going to be too much. You're not going to survive this experiment. You're already reduced to a quivering mess and they've barely started.

Lee tugs on the dildo, allowing it to slip out part way, then pushes it back inside you. Once, twice, and you're fucking coming all over his face. Who is this man?

Lee laps up your arousal, mumbling at the taste and how hard it's making him, then his mouth is gone.

It's so hard to breath with your mouth gagged like this, trying to get as much oxygen through your nose as possible. You've barely recovered from your orgasm when you feel another device, this time at your vagina. The thick dildo.

"She's so tight from her orgasms it's hard to push in." Lee comments.

"That happens, you just need to put some force behind it." Chris advises.

"hmmmmm!" You push against the restraints again, as you're stretched open with the dildo.

"Shh... Babygirl. We wouldn't have pushed so hard if we didn't think you could take it." soothes Chris, stroking your thigh.

You relax slightly at his touch and Lee is able to push the dildo in a little further.

He gives you some time for your body to adjust, and then starts to fuck you gently with both dildos.

You're so full, so stretched. The dildos are so deep inside you. But as Lee fucks you with them slowly and relentlessly, you feel the pleasure building once more.

"Get right in with the camera, Chris. We need to document this in as much detail as possible. Note her quivering legs. She'll almost at her limit. Do you think you've prepared her well enough for both our cocks?"

A moment’s silence passes.

"She's ready." Chris announces.

-------------

Chris is lying on his back on the examination bed. He’s fully naked, so nothing can obstruct the view of what is about to unfold. "You need to straddle me." he gestures for you to climb on top. "We're just going to start with one cock, that's it, slide down on it...yes..." he says with a strained voice.

Professor Lee stands at the foot of the bed, stroking his cock as he watches you ride Chris. "She swallows you up perfectly." he states as he grabs your hips and guides you up and down Chan's cock.

"Her cunt's moulded to the shape of my cock, that's why." he puffs.

"Hmm, well when I'm done, her ass will be moulded to the shape of mine." he presses the tip of his lubricated cock to your ass.

The ball gag has been removed now and you're free to make all the noise you want. You're already whimpering from the anticipation of being fucked by two men at once.

You're held still as Lee presses himself into you. "Good girl. Good girl. Relax for me. That's it. You're opening up. Mmm...tight little ass, stretching so well." he hisses.

You nestle your head in the crook Chris's neck. His strong arms hold you close against him.

You’re an absolute puddle of a mess. Your body is weak and pliable, and you’re mumbling incoherently between sobs. All you can think about is how aroused you are, and how incredible it feels to be experimented on like this.

You grip Chris’s arms as Lee very slowly inches his way into your ass.

“We’ve got you.” Chris reassures you. “So good taking two of us. Tell us, how does it feel?”

“It…it’s so much. I’m so full. You’re gonna split me in two…please…” you whimper.

“Please what? Talk to us.” He strokes your hair affectionately.

“Please…fuck me…love the…stretch…don’t stop fucking me.” you try to push back against the cocks, making Lee growl enthusiastically.

He grips your hips, and does his best to move faster and thrust deeper. It’s not as vigourous as it would be if it was just his cock, and you wonder what it might feel like if he wasn’t restricted by Chan inside you. Then you wonder what it might feel like if they both fucked the same hole.

“Harder… make me come!” You can’t help yourself. You want to be completely wrecked by the end of this.

“She likes it rough, perhaps?” Ponders Lee. “Maybe we should do a separate experiment exploring her pain tolerance. Kim Seungmin’s specialty.”

The two scientist’s do their best to fuck you hard, but they are slowed down by how tight the fit is. Nevertheless, all three of you are on the verge of climaxing, and it doesn’t take long for Chris to empty himself inside you with a long deep growl.

With a flick of a button, Lee lowers the bed, adjusting the height, as he guides you off Chris’s cock so you’re kneeling on the bed. You think your legs are going to give way, but the professor is strong, holding you up with ease.

“You want it harder, hmm? Well brace yourself, kitten.” He slams into your ass, over and over.

“I’ll get a specimen jar ready, she might squirt.” Chris says excitedly as he slips out from under you.

He holds a jar nearby as Lee continues to fuck your brains out. The slapping sound of skin on skin is nothing short of brutal, and you’re practically screaming from the impact.

“Fuck! Fuck! Coming!!!!” You sob as your orgasm hits, and as predicted, you squirt all over the bed.

“Got some.” States Chris.

But the thrusting hasn’t ceased. If anything, Professor Lee has lost his mind chasing his own orgasm, relentlessly pounding into you.

“Fuck!” He moans and comes deep inside your ass, emptying every last drop inside your warmth.

————-

You’re cleaned up and allowed to dress, as the scientists furiously jot down notes of their observations while it’s still fresh.

Then you’re sat down for a debrief and to report your experience of the experiment. The men take down everything you say, as well as record your responses on camera.

After much discussion between Chris and Professor Lee, they decide you are ready for two new experiments.

“We believe you’re ready for double vaginal penetration.” Chris advises.

“And also to explore pain and degradation with Dr Seungmin.”

“How do you feel about that, Babygirl?”

@channieandhisgoonsquad @noellllslut @itsseohannbin @weareapackofstrays @kangnina @3rachasdomesticbanana @palindrome969 @xxkissesforchanniexx @chuuchuu1224 @fun-fanfics @wolfennracha @rhonnie23 @jisunglyricist @strayywayy @lurking-coconut @bethanysnow @bubblebisk @openthevale @rylea08 @doyunkang @jabmastersupriseee @stephanieeeyang @comicnerd557 @stellasays45 @shltsnglggles @grandma143 @armystay89 @stays-mya @frozenpeasworld @still-a-stray

#skz smut #chan smut #lee know smut #bang chan x reader #lee minho x reader

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c1qfxugcgy0 · 11 months ago

Text

adventures in aerospace

So I recently started working at Large Aircraft Manufacturer. (LAM) The plant I work at employs 30,000 people. The company as a whole employs 170,000. Usually you only hear about LAM when something goes wrong. But no matter how bumbling it seems from the outside, it's way worse on the inside.

Three months after my first day, I have been "graduated" from "training." In reality, I'm still completely worthless on the floor: the training center has given me a paltry subset of the production certificates I need to actually to do my assigned job. A commonly cited statistic at LAM is that a hundred men a day are retiring, each one representing decades of experience, walking out the door, forever. The training center is in the unenviable position of managing a generational replacement, and have resorted to shoveling heaps of zoomers through as fast as possible. (As one of the few people with a visible hairline and who is not wearing a Roblox graphic tee; I am frequently mistaken for an instructor, and asked where the bathroom is, what time the next class starts, etc)

In theory, the training center knows what shop I'm assigned to, and can simply assign me all the required classes. In practice, they do the absolute minimum amount of training in a desperate attempt to relive the crowding in their handful of computer labs and tell graduates to pick up their certs later.

Of course, the irresistible force of the schedule meets the immovable object of the FAA. If you don't have the required production certificate to perform a particular job, you don't touch the airplane. Full stop, end of story.

And so the curtain opens on the stage. It reveals a single senior mechanic, supervising a mechanic who finally received all the certs and is being qualified on this particular job, surrounded by another three trainees. Trainees are less than nothing, absolute scum. At best we can fetch and carry. Mostly we are expected to stay out of the way. And the senior mechanic is only senior in title. He is one of six assembler-installers who is certified to actually work on the plane, out of twenty people on the crew, and spends every day with a permanent audience. He is 23 years old.

("Mechanic"? If you think the jargon at your job is bad, try joining a company that's a century old. Assembler-installers are universally referred to as "mechanics", despite doing work that's nothing like what a car mechanic does, and who are generally paid far worse than FAA certified A&P mechanics. Mechanics are the 11 bravos of LAM, grunts, the single largest category of worker. The tip of the spear. Hooah!)

Large Aircraft Manufacturer is in a dilly of a pickle. All of its existing airframe designs are hilariously antiquated. It tried designing a brand new plane from a clean sheet, and lost billions of dollars to a decade-long integration hell. After that, to save money, it tried just tacking bigger engines on an older design without changing anything else, and the stupid things plowed into the ground in an excruciatingly public manner.

LAM is now trying a middle road. It is upgrading one of its designs that is merely middle aged, rather than ancient, and with proven, de-risked components built in-house, rather than scattering them to subcontractors across the world. And it's still blowing past deadlines and burning billions of dollars LAM really doesn't have to spare.

This is the program I've been assigned to.

Advanced Midbody - Carbon Wing has taken the bold step of just tacking on carbon fiber wings to a conventional aluminum fuselage. Shockingly, AMCW is now stuck in lightning strike testing, due to that troublesome join between conductive aluminum and conductive...ish carbon fiber. But LAM, confident as ever, or perhaps driven by complaints of its customers, has announced that full rate production will begin just next year. Thus the tide of newhires. According to the schedule, we're supposed to jerk from one wingset a month to one wingset a week. That's not going to happen, but, oh well, orders from above move down at the speed of thought, while reality only slowly trickles upwards.

"120 inch pounds? Really?"

I startle upright. I have observed one hundred pi bracket installs, and I will observe a hundred more before I can touch aircraft structure. This is the first disagreement I've witnessed. A more advanced trainee is questioning the torque spec on a fastener. It is not an entirely foolish question-- most sleeve bolts we use are in the 40 in-pounds range. Doubling it that is unusual. I cough the dust off my unused vocal cords and venture an opinion.

"Well hey I could look it up? I guess"

The lead mechanic glances at me, surprised that I'm still awake, then looks away. Excuse enough for me!

I unfold myself from the stool I've been sitting on for the last four hours then hobble over to the nearest Shared Production Workstation.

We do not get Ikea-style step by step instructions on how to put together the airplane. Like any company that's been around for long enough, LAM is a tangled wad of scar tissue, ancient responses to forgotten trauma. If you state a dimension twice, in two different places, then it is possible for an update to only change one of those dimensions, thereby making the engineering drawing ambiguous. Something real bad must have happened in the past as a result of that, so now an ironclad rule is that critical information is only stated once, in one place, a single source of truth.

As a result, the installation plan can be a little... vague. Step 040 might be something like "DRILL HOLE TO SIZE AND TORQUE FASTENERS TO SPEC". What hole size? What torque spec?

Well, they tell you. Eventually.

(Image from public Google search)

You are given an engineering drawing, and are expected to figure out how things go together yourself. (Or, more realistically, are told how it's done by coworkers) Step by step instructions aren't done because then dozens of illustrations would have to be updated with every change instead of just one, and drawings are updated surprisingly frequently.

Fasteners are denoted by a big plus sign, with a three letter fastener code on the left and the diameter on the right, like so: "XNJ + 8"

To get the actual part number, we go to the fastener callout table:

(Note the use of a trade name in the table above. There is nothing a mechanic loves more than a good trademark. Permanent straight shank fasteners are always called HI-LOKs™. It's not a cable tie, it's a Panduit™. It's not a wedgelock, it's a Cleco™. Hey man, pass me that offset drill. What, you mean a Zephyr™? Where'd the LAMlube™ go? This also means you have to learn the names of everything twice, one name on the installation plan, and one name it's referred to in conversation.)

We find XNJ on that table, and fill in the diameter: BACB30FM8A. Now we look up the spec table for that fastener:

The eagle eyed among you might note that there is no "diameter: 8" on that table. As a LAM mechanic, you are expected to simply know that "diameter" is measured in 32nds of an inch, which simplifies down to 1/4.

(LAM preserves many old-school skills like fraction reduction and memorizing decimal equivalents like this, like flies caught in amber. Not least is the universal use of Imperial units. Many American manufacturers have been browbeaten into adding parenthetical conversions. Not LAM! Any risk at all of a mechanic seeing a second number and using it by accident is too great, and anyway, it violates SSOT. Lengths are in inches and feet, weights are in pounds, volume is in gallons and if you don't like it then you can go eat shit!)

After 10 minutes of following references, I arrive at that table, print it off, highlight the correct row, and hand it off to my senior mechanic.

"Great, thanks."

Gratified that I have enhanced shareholder value, I sit back down, and immediately fall asleep. Another day living the dream.

(next post in this series)

#avgeek #large aircraft manufacturer

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castillon02 · 6 months ago

Text

When Jason starts to prioritize cooperation as well as vengeance, Tim suspects Jason's self-control still isn't that great. Since he's Tim, well...

He conducts some tests.

Hood is about to murder someone that they need information from when Tim calls out, "Hey, Hood, has anyone ever told you that you're a Decepticon wannabe who probably fucks himself to the sound of his own robot voice?"

Hood stills.

The drug dealer who sold tenth-grader Benny Garcia fentanyl gapes in a way that shows off his recently-missing teeth.

Hood drops the dealer in a heap and turns his shitkicker combat boots in Tim's direction.

Tim bolts. Batman will swoop in to continue the dealer's interrogation; he and Hood have figured out a good-cop-bad-cop thing, though Batman still seems bemused about the chance to be 'good cop.'

Hood races after him.

---

Tim makes it to a safe house off of Robinson Park. He probably lost Hood about half an hour ago, but it never hurts to be careful. Especially when---oh, shit.

"This place is filthy," Jason says, sitting on the kitchen counter that Tim never uses and looking with disdain at Tim's collection of empty energy drink cans, takeout boxes, and crime yarn. Jason's not wearing his helmet or domino, and he taps his boot heels softly against the cabinet door like a little kid. Not exactly danger signals.

But for a moment, all Tim can look at is the boots. It's stupid; the knife at his neck was closer to fatal. But the kicking had hurt the worst.

"Since you apparently have time to run your mouth," Jason says, "and since someone stole my target, it seems like we both have time to clean up in here. I went out and got trash bags." He nudges a box on the counter next to him. The trash bags are the sturdy kind, not the flimsy cheap kind or the extra-strength hide-the-body-parts kind.

Tim has been meaning to get trash bags for this place for three weeks. It's just that he doesn't visit often, and when he does it's usually when he's injured or tired, and he could get things delivered but that's a paper trail he could avoid if he just made time to visit the bodega down the street... "You're a trash bag," he says, even though it doesn't make sense.

Jason rolls his eyes. "Just for that, we're mopping the floor too. Luckily, I came prepared." He hops down from the counter and opens the little mystery closet next to the fridge. Inside: a broom, a Swiffer, a bucket, a pack of scrub brushes still in their plastic, and a jug of bleach.

Ohhh, that's why the closet is so narrow. It's supposed to hold cleaning supplies. Right. Tim definitely knew that. Tim definitely doesn't just have a roll of paper towels...somewhere...that he sometimes puts dish soap on.

He squints at Jason. Still no green danger-eyes. "Darcy and Elizabeth would never let you be part of a throuple with them," he tries.

Jason pulls out a trash bag. "They've got issues anyway."

"Helen Keller would make up new words so she could sign how ugly your face is."

"She was a socialist," Jason says. He holds the bag and gestures at Tim's kitchen table. "So we'd probably just talk about organizing the working class. I don't think looks would come into it. Also, way to be a dick."

"You're so pathetic that Jane Eyre would give up on you like she didn't give up on Rochester," Tim says, figuring he did the research for this attack, so he might as well use it.

Jason actually laughs a little bit. "First of all, there's a lot of power exchange going on in that decision, so jot that down," he says. "Second of all." He looks Tim in the face. "If I start to lose my temper, I'll leave, okay? Or you can just ask me to."

"Even if I asked right now?" Tim asks.

"Even if you asked right now," Jason confirms, though he eyeballs Tim's mess.

Jason's still holding the trash bag. Hands out, open body language, seemingly not homicidal.

Tim had planned for a lot of things with this encounter, including a body bag. Trash bags weren't one of his considered variables. He starts picking up empty cans. "This one can be for recycling," he says, dumping the cans into Jason's bag. New things from old materials. Jason likes that symbolism shit, right?

(Though...new things. Old materials. If there's anyone who ought to be good at that, it's someone who got raised from the dead.

Tim smirks and keeps the thought to himself. Operation: Limitless has been a startling success; he doesn't need to verbalize all his inside thoughts now.)

("Kid, I can tell you're thinking about a zombie joke," Jason says anyway. "You can only tell me after we've brought this shit-heap back to life.")

#jason todd #tim drake #red hood #red robin #castillon writes #this definitely isn't EXACTLY what jason did when he first came to the manor or anything.#with alfred and bruce supplying the cleaning stuff and the company #nope. no repeated patterns here.#definitely no feelings about causing the same fear of familial and or street violence that Jason himself experienced as a kid #and certainly no feelings about his own child self who spent the first month at the manor either swearing a blue streak or meekly complying

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pen-and-umbra · 1 year ago

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The second episode of the Remake, FF7 Rebirth, has proven to be a terrific experience thus far. SE obviously made a few big decisions here and there.

It is seemingly implied now that Jenova wasn't "brain-dead", and it is hinted that Sephiroth was addled during his breakdown.

It all begins with a strategically placed cut, when Sephiroth touches the door bearing the name Jenova and instructs "Cloud" to close the valve. The scene is merely functional for new fans, yet leaves a vacant space that Crisis Core players will quickly fill in with the inferred arrival of Genesis. Smart move that, leaving the interpretation to the player. Whether Genesis exists inside the Remake's continuity or not, the moment reads differently to each fan. Quite frankly, I was half-expecting “Cloud” to come across a banora apple, rolling on the floor, but I suppose that would be telling.

What's remarkable is that they give Sephiroth almost identical symptoms to those that Cloud has in the remake. Glitches and odd headaches superimpose themselves nicely over the original Crisis Core scene. And, as much as I loathe Tyler Hoechlin's acting in the game, he lends a tangible sense of rage to Sephiroth's disparaging remarks about Hojo and his experiments. You can hear the hatred, a touch of pity, and disgust directed at Hojo's work and the creatures he tortured. In Crisis Core, he refers to the test subjects as “abominations” with the same touch of bitterness.

Back to the point: glitches, pupil dilations, and headaches are visual cues for Jenovaroth's influence or proximity, as shown in the first part of the Remake. However, at this point, Sephiroth is still sane — cracking, but still himself — so the only agent who can exert influence on him is, well, Jenova.

Now, a widely established fan hypothesis maintained that Jenova was brain-dead or comatose. Bodily functions sustained, but brain activity plateaued. Rebirth, however, strangely suggests otherwise.

When "Cloud" returns to Sephiroth in the manor's basement for the second time, Sephiroth recites an excerpt from a journal purportedly written by Professor Gast:

“The specimen, found in a strata dating back two thousand years, smiled with what could only be described as 'ethereal grace'… Though the truth eluded me at first, I later determined that she was an Ancient - or a 'steward of the planet', as they are referred to in legend”.

Remembering the battles with Jenova Dreamweaver and Jenova Emergent, the creature is far from "graceful" or "ethereal". There is nothing graceful about her figure in the tube either, and she is not smiling. The game goes out of its way to lampshade the glaring contradiction by showing the flashes of Jenova’s fanged skull and grotesque body as Sephiroth quotes the passage. So how could Gast perceive her as such?.. The answer is most likely found in Jenova Dreamweaver's description given in Ultimania: the entity has the ability to induce hallucinations in individuals who come into proximity with it, which is further corroborated by Jenova Emergent description.

An ancient lifeform that Shinra Company has kept under strict confidentiality. Those who come into contact can have their conscience interfered as well as see illusions. Professor Hojo has dedicated half of his life to researching Jenova, and within the Shinra Company building's top floors lies a secret research center called the "Dome," where Jenova's cells are injected into lifeforms or machinery to conduct experiments. (Ultimania)

Gast even writes that “the truth eluded him at first”, but LATER he determines the specimen belonged to the race of Ancients, as if that answer was suggested. The implication is chilling: Jenova may have purposefully misled Gast in order to present itself as an Ancient. As Sephiroth later explains in the FF7Rb, Jenova is capable of seeing deep into one's soul and impersonating individuals you fear, love, or hate.

If ShinRA and Gast were determined to unravel the mysteries of Ancients and their Promised Land, it would make sense for Jenova to "scan" Gast and determine the best course of action: disguise itself as an Ancient in order to escape captivity in geological strata jail.

The scene in which Sephiroth reads Gast's notes is possibly the final time he is more or less himself, before Jenova's image intermingles with his for a brief moment. Again, I appreciate Tyler's voice acting in this particular section and the real rage he brought to it. Admittedly, I was concerned that with next-gen visuals, they would take a more gruesome approach, displaying Sephiroth conducting the Nibelheim carnage with sadistic pleasure, but they took a different route. Slow, zombie-like movements, and a glassy expression.

He speared the militiamen as casually as if he were spearing bugs, which is far more frightening from a narrative point. What jumped out was how they emphasized the possessed-like behavior: from snarling and flailing the book like a suffering person to an empty countenance and automaton-like strides, as if he was being beckoned. Which is what "Mother is waiting" implies.

The final segment of the Nibelheim flashback is likely the most essential as well. According to previous developer claims, Sephiroth's will took precedence over Jenova's, and he was in control — whether Jenova was brain-dead or simply of lesser willpower. However, the Rebirth appears to suggest something different right off the bat. First, "Cloud" shouts, "I believed in you… No… Not you — whoever the hell you are!", highlighting the significant personality change and the resulting lack of recognition. But then "Cloud" sees Jenova's image superimposed over that of Sephiroth in a rapid, glitch-like succession.

In other words, he sees Jenova inhabiting Sephiroth's body as a vehicle to once again escape the confinements. Whatever that means, whether it suggests that Jenova is in control from the start, or whether Sephiroth is literally the greatest functional agglomeration of her cells, and therefore literally “becomes” Jenova.

If Jenova's original body was severely damaged — either as a result of eons of incarceration or Hojo's tinkering — it stands to reason that, if she wished to carry out her plan, she would need a new body, one capable of moving at the very least. Perhaps Sephiroth, an able-bodied skilled Mako-infused fighter of considerable might, served as a better "vessel" than her original damaged one.

But the crux of the matter lies elsewhere. The possibility of Jenova being conscious and influencing Gast is very terrifying. With the potential to affect others in close vicinity, she may have influenced the minds of the whole science team behind the Jenova Project, particularly those who had long-term contact with her tissue — Gast and Hojo. It could turn out that the whole idea to revive an “Ancient” was planted by Jenova in order to grow itself a powerful host. In fact, if it could "peer into one's soul," i.e. read minds and memories, it might have easily identified a pressure point to indoctrinate people who could forward her objective. It's one thing to inject tissue samples into an adult body; it's quite another to devise a plan to inject cells into a developing human fetus. Who knows. Perhaps Hojo is such an obsessed Jenova nutcase in large part because he fell under its spell; feelings of inadequacy and being overshadowed by his colleague may have offered a crack in his defenses.

One that Jenova easily took advantage of. After all, as Dirge of Cerberus implies, Hojo ended up implanting himself with alien organic material.

Again, Jenova's power to extract information from an individual when in proximity supports a bleak reading of the events leading up to Nibelheim's ransacking. A person who kept on carrying a photograph of his supposedly late mother and badgered others about his background, as suggested by Ever Crisis episodes, was literally wearing his weakness on a sleeve.

Perhaps the 30-something years of the Jenova Project were supposed to bring Sephiroth there.

Perhaps the chain of events had been nudged in that direction, starting from the very discovery of a derelict non-human lifeform. Nudged by an intelligence both cunning and incomprehensible. And that makes Jenova a much, much scarier presence in the remake than it was ever suggested in OG.

#ffvii@luv fandoms #ffvii rebirth #ff7 #ffvii #ff7 rebirth #jenova #sephiroth #hojo #gast

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toujoursrab · 9 months ago

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Prompt: Under (@into-the-jeggyverse) | Pairing: Jegulus | Word Count: 536

“Prongsie, I’m telling you, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” Sirius declared, his eyes watching the toaster as he waited for his breakfast to pop up. Sirius didn’t like toast that much, but he was oddly fascinated by the muggle appliance Remus swore by.

Regulus peered over at James from the top of his teacup, sending him a quizzical glare. James seemed to have read his mind, shrugging and swallowing the food in his mouth before asking the question they both wanted an answer to. “What are you talking about, Pads?”

“Gid. You’ve been a mess over him since the breakup.” Sirius looked over at his brothers, who were occupying the breakfast nook, just in time to see Regulus roll his eyes at the mention of James’ ex before sipping his tea.

James leaned back in his chair, a mischievous look taking over his features. “I have? I think I’ve been doing just fine. Better than fine, really.”

Despite his brother questioning his very secret and newly claimed boyfriend, Regulus found amusement in this situation. “Didn’t you break up four months ago?” he feigned ignorance.

“They did, and James has been in ruins since. He’s been withdrawing, canceling plans, I showed up to his flat the other night and he wouldn’t let me in because he was crying and said I couldn’t see him like this. Me! His best friend! Couldn’t see him crying! I’ve seen his cock for fucks sake. I know about the mole underneath his bal—”

“I told you my plant died and I was conducting a funeral!” James cut Sirius off before he could go into more details about his mole placements. Those were for Regulus to find on his own, thank you very much. Regulus was doing his best to stifle his laughter, only to let a few chuckles slip when James nudged his shin underneath the table with his sock clad feet.

“You didn’t let me pay my respects.”

“It was a private ceremony.”

“I’m your best friend!” His tone went up two octaves before lowering. “How do you have a funeral for a plant, anyway? Isn’t it already buried?” Sirius soon found himself looking away from the table as the toaster popped, signaling his food was finished. He grabbed the toast with his hands, hissing when he burnt the tips of his fingers.

Regulus set his cup of earl grey on the table. “You’re getting off topic. Potter, it’s alright to be sad over a failed relationship. But I think Sirius might be on to something; the best way to get over someone is to get underneath someone else.”

James tilted his head curiously, a small smile forming on his lips. “Oh yeah? Gonna help me test that theory, Reg?” he challenged, now leaning forward in his chair.

“I just might.” Regulus murmured, glancing over at his brother to see his back turned to them. He looked back at James, the both of them leaning in until their lips met in a chaste kiss. At the same time, Sirius turned away from the counter to face them, the piece of toast in his hand dropping to the floor as he shrieked.

#jegulus #starchaser #james x regulus #marauders era #microfiction #jeggyverse microfic #mixed feelings about this one but i have a headache so its fine

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purplekissinger · 23 days ago

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Of arrows and targets

Tom and Y/N have something in common: they are both crazy about the Dark Arts. They create the first Horcrux together. Instead of settling in a diary, a fragment of Tom's soul lodges itself in Y/N.

Tom and Y/N create their first modified spell in their third year. Based on the Warding and Summoning Charms, it has, in fact, a very complex design. It could become a non-trivial task even for a skillful wizard. The daring idea belongs to Y/N, for she wanted to invent a charm that would distract the enemies during a fight. She also has the honor of testing it on herself. Tom feels vaguely uneasy about this.

One early Sunday morning, Y/N and Tom sneak out to the clearing just behind the Quidditch pitch, which the older students sometimes use as a dueling ground. It is the end of April, a windy and sunny day. Y/N laughs and jokes all the whole way there as Tom looks around anxiously and asks her to be quieter to no avail.

Her robe was unbuckled, with a red and yellow scarf sticking out from underneath. Tom looks at the scarf, at Y/N's beaming smile, and his stomach sinks.

***

"I am the disgrace of the Gryffindor House," you said in a devastated tone.

That late evening, you had been sitting on the floor by the fireplace in the Slytherin common room for about an hour. Tom, who had been diligently pretending to read notes from the classes he had missed, casted a disapproving glance at you, then turned and looked at you for real. Intently. The reflections of the flame illuminated his face.

"What do you mean, may I ask?" he asked. "In my opinion, you are the only one of the entire house who somehow justifies its existence."

"You are giving me a pass for my past achievements," you said. Then you paused and added: "And so do I."

"An example?" Tom raised an eyebrow. He still looked exhausted, although he was probably feeling better now. At least he seemed pretty much okay for a person who was lying flat out in the Hospital Wing the day before. You could tell. You spent the night by his bed, after all.

“If I were a real Gryffindor with a spine of one, I would have told Dippet on you,” you muttered.

But you didn’t. Yes, you yelled at Tom, you challenged him to a duel (which you lost), burst into tears and said you didn’t want to know him anymore, begged him to go to the Headmaster and tell the truth, begged him to Obliviate you. You didn’t talk to Tom for six months, raised the entire Gryffindor House from first to last year to rebel and fought more desperately than anyone for Hagrid and defended him. And still you didn’t tell Dippet on Tom.

He covered his eyes with his hand. Such a tired, human gesture.

“I think”, he finally said, ”I think that's your most Gryffindor trait. You don't seem to betray your friends”.

“Who told you I was your friend?”

“You did”, his smile was faint.

“You passed out!” you suddenly gasped and turned as red as your tie (good thing it wasn't visible in the dark). “You weren't even thinking straight, you couldn't hear me, you idiot - what else did I say?!”

Little by little the storm died down. Hagrid stayed at school, the picture of Myrtle laughing took its place on the wall in the Great Hall. You, however, could not forget. For several months you pretended not to see Tom, but you thought of him every second. For six months he didn't give you any reason to belive that he wanted to reconnect, greeting you as politely and indifferently as anyone else when you ran into each other in the hallway (you didn't bother to answer). If anything, he seemed to have easily gotten over losing you. It was physically painful to think about it.

When the pain dulled a little, Tom suddenly sent you a simple note: "Tonight. Astronomy Tower. 8 p.m. Tell no one." You arrived there fuming, only intending to spit in his face, only to find Tom as calm as ever. He told you that he was going to conduct another experiment, the riskiest yet. You could help him - or not, but in the second case, he wanted to apologize to you once again, for he was not sure if he would survive.

"You said that I am your best friend," Tom chuckled. "And that I should not dare to die. And that you love me”.

You jumped upright. Then sat back down. You swung your arm, as if you wanted to slap him, but then quickly turned away.

"I missed you, Y/N," you heard through the noise in your ears. How, oh how could he say such things so dryly?! "I really did. These have officially been the worst six months of my life. The most boring, useless, unbearable six months without you. Stop covering your ears, I'm not going torepeat myself. Wait, are you crying?”

"Go to hell," you whispered with hatred in your voice. Your voice was shaking with tears.

That night you had a dream.

Nothing terrible was happening in that dream, and yet it was the scariest you ever had. You were wandering through the empty dark corridors of some building, looking desperately for someone, not being able to find them. The floor was laid with gray tiles, the ceiling was low, sometimes a dusty window revealed a washed-out gray void, and there were doors, doors, doors again... Hundreds and hundreds of them. It was getting more and more stuffy, you were already running through the endless labyrinth, yanking the doors towards you, knocking on them, stumbling and falling. You remembered a cramped room behind one of them. Two steps wide, a very high ceiling, a window into a brick wall.

"So it was a success? Or a failure? Your experiment?" you asked gloomily the next day. Your head was splitting from a heavy sleep.

Rain pattered outside. The broom classes were canceled. You and Tom were sitting in the corner of the library, like you had done before, not knowing how to overcome the icy barrier that had grown between you over the past six months. Tom was leafing through the little black book you had already seen once.

“I don’t know,” he said irritably. He exhaled heavily and put the book down. “Not yet, maybe”.

“What was that supposed to do anyway?”

Tom glanced sideways at you. There was something new and unpleasant in that look. Something sharp.

“What do you think it was supposed to do?”

You bit your lip.

The truth was, that one experiment was unlike anything else. The memories of that evening were strangely clear, but somehow devoid of any meaning and so unnatural that they seemed unreal. Each action of the ritual was not individually vile, nor scary, nor dangerous, but altogether they formed some monstrous algorithm, the monstrosity of which eluded description. It was simply impossible to describe. There are things that make you scream, not speak.

“You never really explained it to me,” you finally said. “Well, I held this thing, the book, above you. When you told me to close my eyes, I did so. I couldn’t see anything else.”

You would have closed them either way. You wouldn’t have been able to look any further.

“The book,” Tom repeated. “Exactly. The book. Not a book, though, the diary.”

“Big deal,” you winced, “Then I realized that I couldn’t hear anything. I opened my eyes, saw… Saw you, and then there was the Hospital Wing”.

Memory flash: you drag Tom's limp body across the night field to the lights of the castle in the distance with your last strength. Your hands are numb, your throat is burning, your heart is jumping out of your chest. The lights seem unreachable, and then everything blurs into golden spots when you finally start to sob.

You left the library together - no hand-holding, no exchanged glances, but together nonetheless. It seemed to you that Tom was smiling with the side of his mouth that you did not see.

The next night the dream continued when you burst, exhausted, into a closet with a brick window and saw a boy on a rust-streaked iron bed. The boy looked at you with an inky, burning gaze and said in a raspy voice:

‘Tell that loser that he fucked up his experiment’.

Then he got up from the bed and became three times taller than you. The room was as dark as night, but you saw his face too well. You woke up with a sinking heart and for a long time couldn't figure out where you were. It was four in the morning, the window was just starting to turn gray, yet you didn't dare go back to sleep and trudged to the bathroom instead.

"You look tired," Tom said calmly at breakfast. You couldn't remember letting him sit next to you again. Apparently he decided to take advantage of the lack of a direct ban.

"And you look like a person who lost five gallons of blood three days ago," you snapped. An annoying pain throbbed in your temple.

"A human usually has no more than one gallon of blood," Tom said. Without looking at you, he asked: "Y/N, what happened?"

If you knew him a little less, you would think that there was nothing hidden behind this indifferent tone.

”Answers for answers. I'll tell you if you tell me what this ritual was first”.

“This is not a fair trade”.

“I saved your life, remember?!”

“I will never forget this, thank you very much”.

“Write that down just in case, then. In this little book of yours, maybe. Why do you carry it around everywhere, anyway?”.

What began as a sweet conversation dissolved in angry whispering, swallowed by the Great Hall’s ever-present roar. The Gryffindors and Slytherins stared at you two with immodest curiosity: had Riddle and L/N finally made peace? Tom, not at all embarrassed, silently pushed a plate of pancakes towards you, as if you forgot why you came here, and then he sat next to you in Potions, as if that was how it should be. He was reclaiming the lost ground as quickly as possible, until you came to your senses.

On the third night, you went to bed, carefully placing your head on the pillow, as if it were the mouth of a lion (or a huge snake?). No precautions helped, and all night you ran away from the boy with the inky gaze, who chased you along the dark tiled corridors, sometimes climbing onto the ceiling.

‘You both failed me’, the boy said in a colorless, dry voice, ‘but you are already mine, and I will get him too. Come here, Y/N, don't be scared. You can't run away, you can't run away, you can't run away’.

During the break the next day, you tracked Tom down and literally shoved him into the broom closet by force. Even in the darkness, you could see the malicious smugness glowing in his eyes. He didn't even bother to wipe the victorious grin.

“Is this your idea of passion?” he asked.

“What, in Mordred, did you call into this world with this ritual?” you hissed.

Literally hissed.

The smile slowly faded from his face, and now Tom simply looked at you as if he had never seen you before. For a long minute, you stared at each other in silence, while the sophomores, who had started a fight, were making noise in the hallway outside the door. There was an explosion, and someone screamed in triumph.

Tom was the first to control himself.

“Do you understand me?” he asked quietly. You had heard him speak this language to snakes before, once was that evening when he showed you how to open the passage to the Chamber of Secrets. Now, every sound took on meaning and significance, as if a noisy radio broadcast suddenly sounded crystal clear.

“I wish I didn't,” you said.

Then you told him about the nightmares. You were still speaking Parseltongue for the first half of the story, because you hadn't figured out how to switch back to human language. Turned out that Parseltongue was very easy to speak when you were angry.

"We've got a problem, Tom," you said. "Come on, spill it."

And he did. Right there in the closet, twenty minutes before Transfiguration, where you were supposed to have a test.

"Lumos," he said. His face was deathly pale in the wandlight. "See this diary?"

"I've been seeing it for three days now, you've been carrying this around all the time."

"I guess I can throw it away now. The experiment went wrong, there's nothing in it. It's empty."

"What was supposed to be in there?"

Tom covered his face with his hands and shook his head. You'd never seen him like that before. Even while bleeding out there in the clearing, he had kept a calm and reasonable expression on his face. In front of you stood a terrified boy who had broken something that couldn't be glued back together and he didn't even know how to ask for forgiveness.

"I don't know where to start," he said dully. "What do you know about how the soul works?"

"What does that have to do with it? Tom, what were you trying to do? Who is this spider boy, how does he know you, what the hell is going on?!"

"I cut off a piece of my soul and tried to put it in this diary, that's what going on," Tom said sharply. You knew that tone, too. Behind it he was hiding his horror. "But it's not in the diary. That night… Well, during the ritual it chose another vessel”.

You burst into nervous laughter. Merlin, who does he think he is?! The new Adalbert Waffling?!.

"And where is it now, then? Has it chosen, I don’t know, a rock for a new home?!"

Instead of answering, Tom leaned in and kissed you on the lips. Slowly. Pleadingly. Tenderly. Then, before you realized what he was doing, his cool fingers quickly cupped your chin, and the kiss turned into a snake bite. Sarp, demanding, lethal.

“I’m sorry,” he said barely audibly when you got your breath back. “I didn’t think it would turn out like this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Y/N.”

…The next night you dreamed of a small room in which you were sitting on an iron bed, clutching the bars with a death grip. The gray light from the window illuminated the opposite brick wall, when a boy with a pale face and black holes instead of eyes crawled out of it, came up to the bed and laid his head on your lap. He closed his hollow eyes and looked almost like an ordinary child, a very sad one.

“I liked you right away,” he said. “You’re so much better than that stupid diary. You’re warm inside and you love me. You’ll treat me well, right? Better than he did? You won’t leave me? You won’t leave me, right? You won’t? Never ever?”

You patted his head with trembling fingers.

“I won’t leave you, Tommy. I won’t.”

***

Spreading her arms as if for a hug, Y/N laughs playfully:

“Tom! Are you napping over there? Let’s go—show me that spell works!”

The wind flutters the red and yellow scarf on her chest. Red stripe, yellow stripe, red stripe. A target. Tom raises his wand.

His hand is trembling.

#harry potter x reader #harry potter #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle x reader #tom marvolo riddle #voldemort x reader #voldemort x y/n

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auspicioustidings · 8 months ago

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Kinktober Day 0

This is the set-up for Kinktober which I'm doing as a linear narrative.

To be clear, there may be 3 or 4 chapters that don't actually have any kink and are just lil bits of fluff and we all agree to be chill about that.

Each chapter before the cut will have all info required on characters and kinks involved. If there is any non-con this will be in bright red but the instances of this will be few and brief as we are operating on a safe-word system and will have safety measures for if characters ignore safe-wording.

This must be what Will Smith’s character felt like at the start of Men In Black. What the hell were you doing here? There were a mix of genders in the room, but the one thing everyone seemed to have in common was confidence coming off of them in waves and that they didn’t look like you. They didn’t look like each other either, but they all looked more likely to have walked off of a modelling set than out of a military base.

You weren’t trained in psyops, but this seemed like it might be something in that department. Why else did so many of these candidates ooze beauty and authority? You shouldn’t bloody be here. The application had been secretive, a form slid over a desk from your superior officer who got it from his who got it from his in a chain with no obvious end. Someone had picked you out for this, and you were starting to think that wasn’t a good thing.

Were the people here higher up the chain than you or at the same level? You try to summon confidence, you’re not exactly some green private at their first training exercise. You’re special fucking forces. Yeah the monsters in the SAS or the SBS are out there slaughtering the bad guys, but they wouldn’t be doing shit without the Signal Regiment. You had to go through 25 weeks of hell to make it in. Just because you’re comms, doesn’t mean you didn’t have to prove conduct after capture or jump out of a damn aeroplane to pass training. And you had already served a year in infantry beforehand.

So you get over yourself and wait for further instructions. You have just as much right to be here as any of them.

The first tests go ahead. Fitness (you don’t fall last in the pack for performance, but you’re lower than the middle), gun handling (solidly middle of the pack), comms (you come first). It’s all suspiciously standard stuff. And then you are all put into an actual scenario.

You go into a room. It reeks of blood and sex and there are 3 people, one unconscious. The woman on the floor has a thick collar around her neck and is in scant lingerie that has very clearly been torn for access. There are bruises littering her body, rope marks embedded into her skin. The two conscious people are a man and a woman. She is screaming at the group to shoot him.

He’s told to get on his knees as the bulk of the group assess him as the bigger threat. You ignore them and go to gently check on the woman on the floor along with another candidate, trusting that the rest will subdue both current threats.

“These marks are pretty consistent with BSDM, not prolonged abuse. And the collar has an emergency quick release they’d be able to operate themselves if they had to” the other candidate says.

You immediately get your own gun trained to the other woman when you glance up and see her totally free from any restraint and in close range to one of the other candidates, a protest coming from one of the men who has went to comfort her.

“Put your gun down, you’re scaring her” he hisses.

“Until we have further information on what is happening here, all suspects should be treated as hostile and questioned.”

You don’t know if you got it right, but it seems wildly irresponsible to just decide that the big man must be the bad guy but she is definitely innocent. Mostly it’s just a strange scenario you’ve been put in, but in the field there can’t be trust for strangers. It’s not a courthouse, everyone is assumed hostile until there is proof to the contrary.

It isn’t resolved, you are all just told the exercise is over. One by one candidates are called into an office until it’s only you left. You’re absently wondering if you want to make ramen for dinner tonight when you are called in. The sinking feeling that you are in over your head hits you full force. You know one of the two people in this room.

Captain John Price, SAS. You’ve spoken with him before (well you’ve rattled off intel to him through a radio before) and you are well aware he is not to be fucked with.

“What did you think of the exercise then?” he asks, both him and the woman sitting behind the desk openly staring at you like predators with their eyes on a tasty morsel.

“I’m not sure what was being tested sir. I reacted as my training encouraged sir.”

“At ease, soldier. A real answer” the woman says and you squash back a reaction to the American accent.

Your shoulders loosen off. It’s not like you applied for whatever this is, so it isn’t any great loss if they’re about to kick you out. You’ve got ramen to get to, another quiet night at home alone to either enjoy or feel bitterly lonely about. It’s a toss up these days which mood will strike when the lack of warmth starts to bite.

“Most of your candidates need to be sent back to basic. They worked on baseless assumptions rather than taking control of the scene and figuring out what had happened once any danger was subdued. That woman could have killed two of them and taken a third hostage in seconds.”

“I agree” the woman says with a smug little smile, “British forces aren’t what they used to be.”

Price laughs.

“Your yanks would have done far worse. You made the right call. The woman on the floor was in a consensual relationship with the man, the marks were received willingly. But since there’d be no way of knowing, both of the threats needed to be removed. Questioning would have sorted out the truth.”

It was a weird fucking exercise to use. What were they testing with that kind of scenario? Implicit gender bias? But then why the kinky angle when they could have removed the casualty entirely and it served the same purpose? The whole thing was starting to make your skin itch as a folder was put on the table in front of you. You caught a nod from the woman and opened it, feeling like you were about to throw up.

“What is this?”

“Insurance. You break NDA and it’s not a court that’s going to crucify you” Price said, almost cheerily as you looked at photos of yourself.

One of them was taken of you sleeping in bed. The next the camera turned to have you in the background in bed while Price took a selfie barely inches from you, smiling for the camera as if he had any right to be there. More photos. Most of you, but some of loved ones. There is a flash of an image in your head, your last moment being the panic of waking up with a wire around your neck. You wouldn’t have broken NDA, but the overkill makes you unbearably curious. How bad is what they are recruiting for if they have to kill anyone who leaks it?

“I understand sir.”

The woman tilted her head as if you had said something interesting. Did the others react badly you wonder? The thing about being special forces signal regiment was that the lengths that the military would go to didn’t surprise you anymore. They created monsters to fight monsters and hid them away in the dark while they paraded out their nice, proper soldiers for the public. Good family men in uniform, advocates for mental health, veterans who were revered as heroes. The special forces were not those men. Captain John Price was certainly not one of those men.

Did you sometimes find it hard to sleep at night? Of course, you helped those monsters even when the line between good and evil was so thoroughly crossed that you wanted to scream at the world and never stop. But without them? Without them everybody would know exactly how cruel people could be because there would be nothing stopping them.

“This is the Kennel” the woman said as a screen behind her came to life.

The schematics were insane the more you drank them in. Underground bunker, recreational facilities and what seemed to be apartments. You would think it would be some rich person’s doomsday bunker if not for the layers of security. The apartments were locked down tight, there were guard posts and an ungodly amount of surveillance. Nobody was getting out of there if these people didn’t want them to.

You had seen plenty of prisons from high end to metal cages in caves. It was your job to get intel, to guide people through rescue missions or escapes. But this was something else.

“You want to build a luxury secure facility?” you asked, feeling the furrow in your brow and the incessant itching of your skin.

The woman clicked a button and the screen changed. Holy shit, they didn’t want to build it because it had already been built. Where the fuck was this? This was big and it must have costs billions, how on earth had you never heard of it? It wasn’t exactly some dingy black site.

“We need them, but this job twists people. Some of them can still keep it under control at home, some just need to stay immediately after a deployment to calm down. There are 6 full time residents right now. Got 5 part timers and 5 who visit when they need. Not all on our side of things.”

“There are tangos in there?”

“Officially nobody is in there, the Kennel doesn’t exist. Unofficially? It’s Switzerland. A rabid dog will bite whoever you point it to.”

You wanted to be outraged, but was this really so different from all the other foul things you knew happened in the background? A luxury blacksite holding the “good” guys and the “bad” guys alike who couldn’t be trusted out in public but who were needed to unleash upon the enemy. This was so fucked up but you imagined that the military did 5 equally as fucked up things before breakfast.

“What is this job exactly?”

Price crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels, staring you down and making you feel tiny in that chair.

“Sometimes the best place you can be to keep the world safe is on your back.”

“Excuse me?”

He was not implying what you thought he was surely. It was just unfortunate phrasing.

“Just an expression, I imagine only a few of them would want you on your back. Think at least half would enjoy you on your knees.”

You held his stare, determined to wait him out. He was fucking with you. This was some bizarre test and you had no idea how you were supposed to respond.

“He’s asking you to play bitch for his dogs soldier. They get out of hand when they can’t rut” the woman said as if that cleared things up.

“I didn’t figure out anything about the whole BDSM thing or whatever it was during that exercise. It was the other guy. I don’t do any of that stuff.”

They ignored you.

“It’s a month-long contract to see if it improves their behaviour. After that you are free to do whatever you want with a shiny promotion and enough money that you can retire to Hawaii with a glowing record and military honours if you’d prefer” the woman started.

“All you have to do is take whatever they want to give you. No safewords, you can’t stop it once you start” Price finished.

“No.”

“Not even going to consider the offer?” Price asked, almost eager.

“I’m not considering an offer that actively puts me in an unsafe situation with no way to get out.”

“Told you Kate.”

You wanted to be out of this fucking office already. You thought about what previous attempts might have looked like. Sex workers who were thrown in with monsters and torn to shreds. Maybe ones who begged to leave but got assassinated the moment they got home and started talking. Because this wasn’t sex work, it was a military operation. A civilian was never going to survive that situation, not with the kind of monsters you imagined the Kennel held.

“You know why the soldier who knew all about BDSM failed?” Price asked, closer than you remembered him being. “He said yes. Agreed to the terms. I’ve got no time for someone who can’t take care of themselves and is going to get eaten alive within the first 24 hours because they were too eager to please to say no. They try break you? You safeword and I come in and break them.”

There was something in the back of your mind somewhere that found the offer grotesquely appealing. You thought it unlikely they would take you once you told them you were a virgin. It just sort of happened, you didn’t know how to meet people and you were now at an age where the pressure felt insurmountable. Did you tell that to someone on a first date? Did you not tell them and they go too hard and hurt you? What if you couldn’t even do it properly?

This would be work. This would be a military operation that allowed assets to be used rather than put down if it was successful. You’d be getting used, but maybe you wouldn’t be lonely.

It was the negotiations that did you in. The warm hand of Price on your shoulder while he explained aftercare procedure. Some of them would do it themselves, but some they’d probably need to drag off of you and then Price himself would take over. If he wasn’t available for any reason, Kate would.

They framed it like it was a heroic pursuit. These people were broken, they needed someone to start patching up the cracks. Your virginity it transpired was an asset given that they knew just the person who would look after you for your first session. Someone in the Kennel had a sizable virginity kink and you were assured it was one of the part-timers who wasn’t prone to extreme violence the way the residents were. You’d get an info pack with details the day before.

The final nail in the coffin that had you signing the dotted line was Price (deliberately you realised quickly once you got a moment to breathe) mentioning Soap. You knew him. Not in person, but you had talked him through diffusing a bomb before. He had flirted up a storm and his warmth over that radio even when he was seconds from dying at any given point had stuck with you for weeks. It was only a month. You just had to do this for a month.

October 1st you would lose your virginity in a bunker that didn’t exist to a soldier you didn’t know, one who needed you to stop them from fully becoming a monster. Fuck.

#mhairiwrites #mhairi'skinktober

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delimeful · 4 months ago

Text

not always what they seem (6)

warnings: poor decision-making, graphic panic attacks, lack of communication, guilt, fear, angst

—

With a sinking feeling, Logan watched the most easily-agitated of their guests continue on into the next testing area alone.

It was a breach of conduct to hope for certain results while performing an experiment, primarily because objectivity was vital if one wanted to produce genuine analytic results, but in this case, he found he couldn’t help the urge to wish that either of the others had ventured forward first.

The test itself was a relatively simple one: the chambers in this area were a series of identical rooms, as in the last, with sensitive motion trackers embedded in the flooring. In the previous area, the rooms had been temperature-controlled, so they could see which room their guests would seek out as ideal. There had been more mixed results than expected, but in a case like this, any data was good data.

In this area, each room had a different level of lighting, a spectrum ranging from bright enough that some exclusively-nocturnal species would struggle to see, to dark enough that most diurnal species wouldn’t be able to make anything out.

It was one of the simpler tests, with little to actively fear. Virgil had already begun investigating it with far more initiative than they’d shown in the maze before, their ever present hunched shoulders even beginning to slowly ease down as they went. Clearly, the presence of the other two beings and the harmless precedent set by the previous areas was helping settle their persistent wariness.

(A fact which only made Logan feel worse about what they would have to do next.)

Virgil headed directly for the lighter side of the area at first, frequently casting glances back toward the more shadowed areas, a mannerism that made Logan wonder if they had a surplus of natural predators on their native planet. They spotted the only item of note in the first room immediately, providing substantial evidence to support Patton’s proposal that their guests had strong visual abilities, and approached it slowly.

Seeing as they had refused to do even that much in Logan’s maze, this was heartening progress.

A flat dish segmented into two halves sat on a small stool in the corner of the room, and on top of that dish rested a simple nutrient tab and an orb made up of colorful pieces.

Virgil didn’t spare the nutrient tab much more than a glance, but after a prolonged moment of direct staring, they dared to reached out and swipe the puzzle sphere off the dish, immediately skipping back a few steps and craning their neck to look up at the semi-transparent ceiling.

(The opaque coating on the material was one-sided, so they could watch the results directly without perturbing the subjects by looming over them. In theory, anyhow. Virgil’s vision must have indeed been strong, or at least highly cued to motion, for them to have already noticed the muted shadows of Logan and his research partners through the roof.)

Virgil seemed to be waiting for some sort of severe repercussion for touching the puzzle sphere, as though they expected one of them to swoop down and grab the item from their hands— or even grab Virgil themself. None of them had so much as twitched, aware that even the simplest movements had been known to startle their most skittish guest.

After an exceedingly long pause, Virgil’s tense posture dropped away, and they spent a few moments inspecting the puzzle sphere with enough intensity that they even forgot to check over their shoulder for the duration. Despite being a few levels more complex than the treat ball Logan used in his maze— these were sapient beings, after all— it didn’t take Virgil long to align the pieces properly and thus solve the puzzle, allowing the sphere to pop open and reveal their prize: a dark shining stone.

They had all agreed on shiny prizes, seeing how glinting items had often subtly caught the attention of the tiny aliens. Patton had been concerned about the likelihood of them mistaking something inedible for food, so they had switched from polished mineral marbles to valt stones with a reflective sucrose coating applied to them. Valt stones dissolved in medium heat, so even if Virgil did manage to eat one, the stone would gradually crumble away based on the temperature readings Roman had taken.

It seemed maybe they’d been overly-proactive; Virgil flipped the stone in their hands a few times, drew it close to inspect it, but didn’t so much as smell it, let alone put it in their mouth. After a moment of this, they dropped the stone into the pocket of their leg garment.

They all shared an excited glance: positive engagement!

Virgil perked up further when they ventured into the next room and saw the same set up, only slightly altered: the stool and dish were set in a different corner, and the puzzle was a different shape. They didn’t seem nearly as wary this time, and settled into a routine of locating the dish and walking up to it, picking up the puzzle, and using deft fingers to fiddle with it until they got to the small prize inside.

The only sign that the brightest room gave them any trouble was the slight squint they took on, though the light evidently wasn’t perturbing enough to make them take the puzzle into a different room. That was a good sign; it meant that the odds of causing damage to their guests’ eyes with ray-based scans were low, and many of those scans were invaluable for determining physical makeup.

When it came to the dark rooms, Virgil moved slower, and took slightly longer to scout out the location of the dish each time. In the last three rooms, they took the puzzles to one of the lighter rooms to solve it, helpfully confirming Logan’s theory that they were focusing on the color-matching element of the puzzles rather than matching the tactile symbols on the pieces. In the last room, it was extremely likely that they couldn’t see anything at all, as they moved extremely slowly and searched the room through touch, making a circuit around to each corner and then walking back and forth until they gently bumped into the stool.

These results seemed to indicate that their guests could operate in a wide range of different lighting, but had a considerably easier time navigating in the rooms set to daytime-lighting. They also indicated that Virgil, at least, could see a fairly large scope of color, as it was only on the two most color-complex puzzles that they resorted to using the other available senses to solve them.

The test also indicated that they had no choice but to use the next chamber.

After all those rooms, Virgil still hadn’t touched a single nutrient tab, just as none of the three had done more than disinterestedly inspect the nutrient tabs Patton had left on the table with them in the past two cycles.

This wouldn’t have been unusual or particularly concerning if these had been normal specimens. Many fauna didn’t engage with the nutrient tabs, since they were tailored to be non-toxic to all lifeforms in this quadrant, and thus were admittedly rather bland and uninteresting. In that case, they would usually move on to performing more physical tests to discern what variety of foods were safe and tempting to the creature in question, and then provide those instead.

Things were obviously quite different when working with sapient aliens, especially ones who had refused all physical tests more intensive than touching a thermometer. They couldn’t effectively communicate with their guests yet, and they didn’t have time to dismantle that language barrier. It had already been a concerning amount of time since they’d been taken from the stasis of the specimen sects, and they had no idea how to identify or treat starvation.

It was probable that providing items more easily recognized as edible would solve the issue of their guests not eating, but without that testing, they didn’t know what would be poisonous to the small aliens. If they simply offered an array of foods, as they had the textiles, the chances of their guests having a bad or even fatal reaction to something were far too high. That was an unacceptable risk.

Logan had been the one to insist, in the end. No matter how ill-advised it was to ignore the boundaries of their guests, no matter how much he dreaded the idea of being responsible for the reappearance of that upset and frightened body language, he wasn’t willing to allow them to die through his inaction or lack of care.

He had already made a mistake with the three of them previously, letting panic drive him and ignoring their objections in favor of picking up Remus. If one of them had to become untrustworthy in their eyes, better that it was him.

Logan ignored the concerned glances of his research partners, watching grimly as Virgil pushed through the door to the next testing area.

—

Virgil was having a surprisingly okay time, considering the circumstances.

At first sight of the structure, he’d anticipated some kind of horrible alien death maze, full of sawblades and pit traps and possibly even a car-sized boulder that would squash them all flat.

Instead, it had been full of various rooms, not winding or confusing or particularly maze-like in any way, with items or environments for them to react to. He’d gotten a bit concerned about the puzzles, but really, there weren’t any real signs that pointed to this being a bizarre trial-by-fire or even a remotely competitive scenario, even by his paranoid standards.

There were doors between each distinct chamber, but none separating the rooms themselves, and all the chamber doors had remained open even after they’d split the party like idiots in a horror movie.

He tossed the last weird rock he’d earned in his palm, rubbing his thumb over the dull angles of it. Even knowing they were part of some weird alien plot, it had been surprisingly soothing to focus on those puzzles, probably because he could burn some of his nervous energy by fidgeting with them. Not that he’d say as much aloud; that sounded a little too ‘enthusiastic lab rat’ for him. No thank you.

There was probably plenty of data they were getting from each chamber, no matter how simple they seemed, but Virgil wasn’t really in the mood to try and puzzle it out. Dee was probably right about the aliens trying to squeeze as much relevant information from them as possible, but he couldn’t help but feel sort of apathetic on the matter. Sure, they could be using it to learn more about humanity for presumably nefarious purposes, but if they wanted more humans, couldn’t they just grab more humans? They certainly didn’t seem to have a problem nabbing the three of them.

Maybe he was just being stupid, too busy freaking out about their own lives to really think about the big picture or whatever, but it didn’t seem to add up. Like, if he’d found an anthill and wanted to get rid of it, he wouldn’t need to run experiments on the ants to learn more about them first. He’d only have to kick over the anthill.

If all the aliens wanted to do was get rid of them, why bother with all the tests? It had to be obvious by now that they didn’t have any sort of natural defenses that could stand against giant aliens, and their technological capabilities obviously outstripped humanity’s by far.

He wasn’t suggesting they were trustworthy or anything— there was a wide range of options between metaphorical ants and potential friends, after all. Even if their status was closer to ‘interesting lab specimens’ than ‘pests to annihilate’, they still weren’t guaranteed any sort of safety. It was just… something useful to think about whenever the overwhelming panic started to boil up in him.

It was a theory that Virgil immediately lost all faith in when the doors to the next chamber sealed behind him.

He whipped around, a jolt of ice spiking through his veins as he confirmed that yeah, that sliding noise absolutely had been the doors closing, he’d jinxed himself so hard, he was going to fucking die—

“Hey!” he snapped, the word coming out a little strangled on his first try. “Hey! No, no no no, open those back up! Dee! Remus!”

The doors weren’t entirely opaque; he could see through them well enough to tell that the doorways beyond remained clear of any silhouettes. One beat passed, and then another. The fear crept in quicker now, his breathing coming faster. “Guys! I’m serious, something’s happening! Dee!”

Still, nothing.

They wouldn’t just ignore him. Even if they were actually total assholes who didn’t care what happened to him like his brain was screaming, he’d spent enough time around them to know that Dee was nosy beyond belief, and Remus sought out danger like a moth flying into an oven. If they’d heard, they would have responded, one way or another.

So, they couldn’t hear him. That meant this was planned. The aliens wanted something with them— no, with him. They’d separated them, singled him out to get it.

Virgil stumbled hurriedly into a corner, bracing his back against it as he scanned the room, his gaze periodically flickering up to the gray ceiling above where he was sure he’d spotted a shadow of movement earlier.

The chamber itself was empty, with no visible doors other than the two on either side that had firmly locked him in. It was a single blank room, nothing on the floor or the walls, the only notable difference being the fact that it was apparently soundproofed.

It was quiet for long enough that he managed to wrangle his breathing back under control, the tension in him only ramping up as the uncertain moment stretched on and on and on.

And then, a click, and the ceiling was pulled away.

Virgil sank down into a crouch on sheer instinct, as though he could avoid whatever was coming simply by shying away from it. He’d thought the enclosed room was bad, but the sudden feeling of being completely exposed was somehow worse.

The panther alien— Logan— leaned into sight, uncanny eyes locking on him immediately, and Virgil hunkered down a little further.

“No,” he tried, not even sure what he was objecting to, other than everything about the situation. “Do you h-hear me? No.”

Logan’s ears flicked and angled backwards, eyes narrowing slightly, and an audible rumbling started up. Wow! Virgil hated everything about that, actually.

When the alien moved, reaching into the enclosure with one of those inhuman hands, the gesture was almost painstakingly slow. If it was an attempt to not frighten Virgil any further, it failed miserably; it only gave him more time to work himself into a proper panic.

He tried to duck away the moment that hand got close, obviously, but it only took a few tries before Logan seemed to lose their patience. The next grab was too quick to dodge, and Virgil couldn’t help the small shriek that burst from him the moment he was caught, primal terror overriding all rational thought. Logan jolted at the sound, but didn’t loosen their grip nearly enough for him to wiggle free.

“No!” he shouted desperately, but there was no point. Logan may have understood the word, but understanding didn’t mean listening. Virgil didn’t have the same dauntless charisma as Dee, the confidence to negotiate with giants that could choose to do anything they wanted.

His stomach dropped as he was lifted up, the restraining hand wrapped around him never faltering even as he cried out and tried to thrash free. The panic felt nearly blinding, and he barely registered the blur of the much larger room passing by as Logan carried him over to some new surface, presumably for some other strange test.

The moment there was a solid surface under his feet again, he instantly tried to push off of it and scramble free, but even now Logan didn’t release him. He only had a moment to feel oddly betrayed– had some part of him really thought this wouldn’t actually end horrifically?– before he was being repositioned and gently but firmly pressed against the surface, like a butterfly being spread over a pinboard.

Or a corpse set out for dissection.

“Fuckshit fuck, fuck you fuck you fuck you,” Virgil spat as viciously as he could, twisting his limbs ineffectively and frantically pushing against that impossible hold. “Let me go, don’t you fucking dare–!”

The rumbling grew louder, the slightest shake tangible in the hand pressing him down, and the alien shifted their hand slightly, enough for Virgil to see past it.

With their other hand, Logan was holding a narrow silver instrument in the air above him, its purpose indiscernible but its mere presence enough to make Virgil’s voice cut off sharply. His furious struggling died down to involuntary twitches, his wide eyes locked on the tool.

The alien was as unreadable as always, the tip of the tool drifting closer, and Virgil felt his mind go entirely blank with terror.

A high, thin whine split the air, like an animal caught in a trap. It took Virgil a long moment to realize the sound was coming from him.

“Please,” he tried hopelessly, the words barely taking shape. “No. Please no.”

—

This wasn’t working.

Even from an animal, this sort of mindless, terrified whimpering would have been reason enough to stop this procedure and look for alternative, less stressful methods. Knowing they were coming from a sapient being? Knowing that, translatable or not, Virgil had likely been reduced to begging for their life because of his actions?

Logan couldn’t do this.

—

The pressure on him abruptly vanished.

Virgil’s body reacted far quicker than his mind, a fresh surge of adrenaline tearing through him as he hauled himself upright and bolted. It didn’t matter which direction he picked, so long as he was getting away from the threat looming over him.

There were thin semi-transparent barriers set up on each side of the table, preventing him from getting too far and also from doing anything rash in his panic. He twisted to look behind him the moment he reached the furthest corner, half-expecting a massive hand to be hovering over him already, only waiting for him to pause so it could come swooping down–

The alien hadn’t reached forward at all. In fact, Logan looked further away, as though they’d taken a step or two back.

It took a few tense moments for Virgil to pay attention to anything beyond that distance, most of his focus going to keeping his heavy, gasping breaths from turning to outright hyperventilation. His gaze locked onto every small motion Logan was making, but it took several repetitions before he registered the meaning behind the gesture.

It was the same movement as the other one– Roman– had done after trying to separate him from Remus by grabbing him. Dee had hypothesized it was some kind of… apology.

“You should fucking be sorry,” Virgil muttered, still wheezing a little with every inhale. “Serve you right if I– if I keeled over just from– fuck.”

His voice died out as soon as Logan moved, his body flattening further against the barrier behind him as though he could somehow merge through it, but Logan was moving away, reaching towards something to the side.

After a few seconds of rifling, they returned with a thick disc-shaped object in hand. Virgil stared blankly, suspicious and bewildered in equal measure.

Logan seemed to glance over to check that he was watching, and then carefully lifted the disc to their mouth and emphatically sank their teeth into it like they were an excited kid taking a bite out of a cookie. Their lip curled up as they did so, giving Virgil a better look at those fangs than he’d ever particularly wanted, and then, after a long stretch of holding that position, they opened their mouth back up without actually tearing a chunk free from the disc.

Virgil frowned, almost too confused to be frightened, as Logan tilted the disc to show Virgil the clean imprint of teeth left in it. The alien set the disc aside, and then picked the silver tool back up, which set his heart racing anew.

Instead of reaching forward with it, however, Logan simply lowered the tool to the surface where Virgil had been pinned down minutes before, and set a small item down before retreating. Now that he was looking at it from a distance, the tool wasn’t sharp-edged at all, only having two narrow prongs at the end.

… Had he seriously had a panic attack over the outer space equivalent of tweezers?

The embarrassment was powerful enough that he managed to force himself to slowly edge forward, squinting at the item Logan had placed before him.

It looked just like the disc Logan had just bitten, only in miniature.

Oh. Oh.

Virgil was no genius, but even he could put the pieces together on this one.

With a few wary glances at Logan’s towering form, he slid closer and picked the disc up. There was a hard outer shell along the sides of it for him to grip, but the rest of it seemed to be made up of a thick, clay-like material. Not the sort of thing he’d usually put anywhere near his mouth, but… he looked up at Logan again, considering.

There was nothing stopping them from doing this against his will, earlier. Nothing but Virgil’s own protests, desperate enough that Logan had decided to try a different way. Maybe Dee had been onto something, when it came to compromising with these creatures.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was actually eating the stuff. Just… biting it. Eugh.

Pushing past his deep reluctance, Virgil bit down into the disc, jolting a little when he realized there was a flat pane of plastic-y material in the middle that kept him from biting through the whole thing. Really, it felt oddly similar to those mouthguards dentists made him wear while getting an x-ray of his teeth. Except squishier.

He forced himself to hold the weird disc thing in his mouth for what he thought was probably the same amount of time Logan had while demonstrating, and then unhooked his teeth from it with a grunt. Peering closely at the disc, he could see that the holes left behind were perfectly matched to the shape of his teeth.

It had to be some kind of plaster-mold-cast thing, but Virgil had never been all that into ceramics, and so he didn’t have the foggiest idea of what exactly Logan intended to do with a mold of his teeth. At this point, he didn’t even care.

The energy crash was beginning to hit, and so he barely even jumped when Logan reached down at him, only taking a few stumbling steps back and then holding the disc out as far from his body as he could manage.

To the alien’s credit, their touch was gentle enough that he barely registered it as they plucked the disc out of his grasp, the palm-sized disc looking comically tiny between those massive fingers. The rumbling had started back up again. Maybe it wasn’t a displeased sound, after all. Cats purred soothingly, didn’t they?

Logan immediately moved away, presumably to do mysterious alien scientist things to the disc. Virgil spat a few times, trying to get the faint aftertaste out of his mouth, and sat down heavily. His whole body was still shaking like a leaf in the wind, but this sort of wrung-out jittering was vastly preferable to the frantic, burning terror of before.

He’d managed some kind of communication, for what it was worth. He hadn’t died, despite all expectations to the contrary. It had been a horrible experience, but at least he’d managed to figure out what was going on in time to prevent any actual heart attacks.

One thing was for certain: the minute he reunited with the others, he was putting a permanent ban on splitting up in weird mystery mazes. This little excursion had been more than enough for him.

#space au #sanders sides fic #ts virgil #ts logan #nawts #not always what they seem #my writing #writing #i promised myself i would get at least one chapter published this month despite it all #hope everyone enjoys ;;

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