#forgetting how to speak is also a mood. just one year in quarantine and I lost the ability to look people in the eye and speak clearly

[keiksy-cake]

Japan's third page from the Hetalia Collezione

I've been unable to find the perfect way to translate "(名/迷)言" for these contexts, so I said eff it, and went with "wow" and "huh" lmao. I still might change it yet again but this time I'm pretty satisfied haha, I truly think it just might be the closest I could get, as ridiculous as it is

all collezione pages

[Please note, I’m an amateur in Japanese and have to use various resources and translation machines to help me. If you notice a possible mistake or want clarification, please bring it up to me *politely* and not aggressively or hostile.]

[ravennm84]

Doctor’s Note

We all know how Lila fakes having different diseases and medical problems, but what would happen if she actually got sick and her mother went to the school to drop off a doctor’s note and pick up Lila’s assignments? Want the answer? Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!

Greta Rossi could admit that she was a bit of a workaholic. Being the secretary to the assistant ambassador of Italy, in a city that was constantly under attack by a magical terrorist, was not the easiest job in the world either. It took a lot of early mornings, late nights, and even some weekends to make sure everything was prepared for her boss. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t drop everything for her one and only daughter when she needed her. 

Right now, for example, Lila was trapped in bed with a nasty case of strep throat. The poor girl had a fever, white pustules at the back of her throat, and could hardly stop coughing. It was only due to some very strong medicine that she was able to stop coughing long enough to pass out from exhaustion. 

She had contacted her work to let them know she would be taking the week off, and the ambassador had been very understanding. Stressing that he knew how dedicated she was to her work and that it was good for her to take time off for her family. It was only after Lila was sound asleep that she made the phone call to her school, she wanted to make sure they knew why Lila was staying home and that she would be in later that afternoon to pick up her daughter’s assignments for the next week.

The principal, M. Damocles was his name, seemed very happy to have spoken to her and said that he would have her assignments waiting when she came to pick them up. Also, if she could bring the doctors’ notes with her, that would be very much appreciated.

Checking again that Lila was sound asleep, she left a note on her daughter’s bedside table that she was running some errands, would be home soon, and to text her if she needed anything. 

Arriving at the school, she was surprised to see everything running so smoothly and that the reconstruction after the two month akuma attack had been gone so well. She was impressed that she couldn’t even tell the difference between the old and new parts of the building. But then, she wasn’t overly skilled with architecture or building construction, so that wasn’t a surprise to her. 

A few knocks on the door and she entered M. Damocles office. She had only met the man a couple times, but he had seemed like a decent person. It was a shame that he had been akumatized for so long and she was curious about what had happened to cause him to be akumatized, but she wasn’t sure if it was proper to ask him.

“Mme. Rossi, good to see you. I understand that Lila has fallen ill?” He asked, spinning around to grab a blue folder behind his desk.

“Yes, the poor dear has strep throat and has been coughing nonstop for days.” Greta told him as she pulled the doctor’s note from her purse. “Here’s the note you requested, do you have her homework packet?”

Damocles looked over the note for a moment before nodding and looking at her expectantly. “Thank you, do you have her other doctor’s notes?”

Greta tilted her head in confusion. “Does she need more than one? It’s just strep throat, she should be back to school after next week.”

“No madam, this is all I need for her current leave from school. I was referring to the doctor’s notes for her tinnitus, arthritis, sprained wrist, and her lying disease. That last one especially, and any information you can give me on accommodating that one so we do not have a repeat of the incident last month.”

Nothing in the world could have kept her jaw from dropping. What he had just told her? “M. Damocles, everything you just said is completely false. Lila has no such ailments, and I don’t think there is such a thing as a lying disease, unless you are referring to pathological lying.”

The man blinked back at her a few times before raising one hand to rub his brow. “Oh my, Mme. Rossi, I believe you and I must have a long discussion about the things your daughter has been saying and doing since she started school here.”

Her legs were stiff as she lowered herself into a chair, a sick feeling growing in her stomach as M. Damocles pulled a different folder out from his desk.

~oOo~

Over two hours later, many truths had finally come out. 

1) The school had never closed for months due to akumas. 

2) When M. Damocles had been akumatized, it had been at night and did no damage to the school. 

3) Greta was not the ambassador, but a secretary. 

4) Lila did not suffer from any diseases. 

5) They had been in Paris since Lila had started school, no globetrotting whatsoever. 

6) She and her husband were not estranged, he had simply wanted to stay at his dream  job in Venice and she would never force him to leave it for her temporary assignment here in Paris. 

7) Lila’s grandmother was alive and had never owned or given Lila a foxtail necklace. 

8) The phone number on file was Lila’s number, not Greta’s. And the email was supposed to be ‘.gov’ not ‘.com’.

Damocles had also called one of Lila’s classmates to his office, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. When the principal told Greta about the incident from the previous month, she was shocked. Then Marinette told them her side of the story; all the lies, the threats, and finally setting the poor girl up to be expelled. Greta had never been so angry with her daughter in her life. Sure, she had been a good little story teller and actress when she was little, but she never would have thought she could be so cruel.

By the end of her explanation, Marinette was practically in tears.

When she mentioned that Adrien Agreste also knew of Lila’s lies, he was called to the office as well. He was a little more reluctant to talk about what Lila had been saying, but Greta insisted that she wanted to know what her daughter had been doing since coming to school, so he told her. If she hadn’t been disgusted before, she definitely was now. Getting Adrien’s father’s employees in trouble, lying about being friends with Ladybug all while telling Greta that she was a useless hero, sexually harassing Adrien while the boy didn’t even realize that was what she was doing to him. She had become a Gabriel model without her permission, which meant that Lila had likely forged her signatures on the contracts, so she would need to contact M. Agreste to get that sorted out. One of the things that surprised her was hearing that Lila had been akumatized, not once or twice, but three times! 

Not long after that, M. Damocles dismissed the children so he and Greta could finish speaking. He told her that, due to falsifying contact records and two months of truancy, Lila was likely to be expelled. Greta accepted this, knowing that she would have done the same thing in that man’s position. In fact, she already had a plan forming on how to thoroughly punish her deceitful daughter. And since Lila had basically been quarantined for the next week and a half, she knew exactly what to do.

First, she began the paperwork to have Lila pulled out of Francois Dupont, effective immediately and asked to go speak to Lila’s classmates. After hearing what her daughter had put Marinette through, she wanted to make sure everyone knew the truth. Damocles allowed this, first pulling Mme. Bustier from the class to alert her as to what was happening. The woman was appalled to hear what had happened but insisted that she had been in contact with her for months via email, to which Greta informed her that it was not her email, but one that Lila had likely set up to keep the school from contacting her. This shocked the teacher to the point where she heavily leaned against the wall and M. Damocles had to support her to keep from collapsing.

When Greta was finally permitted to address the class and debunk the lies that her daughter had been spewing, there had been a lot of shock and questions to follow. But when a girl named Alya began furiously typing on her phone to blow up at Lila, Greta stopped her.

“I’m going to ask that none of you contact Lila from now on.” Alya and the other students looked at her in surprise, but she continued before anyone could interrupt. “I have already begun putting her punishment into motion and know for a fact that it will not be something she will forget anytime soon. So I ask that you do not call, text, or email her. If she attempts to contact you, tell her that you are busy and can’t talk. If she attempts to invite you over or make plans for the future, tell her that you are unavailable or that you already have plans. If she makes any threats or rude remarks to anyone, please forward those messages to me, I will leave my number for you to do so. Do this so that I may move forward with her punishment without her suspecting that I have discovered the truth.”

Having finally had the wool lifted from their eyes, the students realized just how much attention Lila seemed to demand on a daily basis. So, by acting like they were too busy for her or not in the mood to talk, that will drive her crazy and be a nice bit of revenge for lying to them. The class agreed.

After that, Greta headed home to find that Lila was still asleep but beginning to wake up, if the coughing was any indicator. While still having the chance, she called up her husband back in Venice.

“Pronto.”

“Mio amor, how are you? How are things at the school?”

“Ah, mia bella, the school is wonderful, though I must admit, my urge to see you and Lila grows by the minute. When will you come to visit me?”

“Very soon, actually. I’m afraid that you and I need to have a talk about our daughter.” About thirty minutes and a lot of cursing later, Ciro Rossi was now completely up to date on the actions of their daughter.

“I wish to say that I cannot believe Lila would do such things, but I can’t help remembering that boy, Roberto, from two years ago.”

Yes, Greta remembered him well. He had been a very popular boy at Lila’s school; handsome, rich, from a very well connected family, and from what she understood, completely dedicated to his boyfriend. She hadn’t paid him much attention until Lila came home crying that Roberto had attempted to sexually assault her. Greta and Ciro had refused to let such a thing go unchecked and went to the police to report him. During the weeks to follow, Roberto was put through hell; bullied at school, he was beaten up a few times, his boyfriend broke up with him, and his name slandered all over Venice. They had believed what happened to the boy to be justified… until proof was provided that he was nowhere near Lila when she claimed to have been assaulted. 

She suddenly recanted her story, saying that she must have been mistaken and someone that looked like Roberto assaulted her, but the damage had already been done. The boy and his family moved somewhere far away, and Greta and Ciro were forced to pay restitution to Roberto for ruining his name and reputation. Through her tears, Lila convinced them that it had been an honest mistake and that she hadn’t meant for any of that to happen. It wasn’t long after that, Greta received an offer to be the secretary for the assistant ambassador in Paris. Lila had begged her mother to go with her, claiming that her classmates were now bullying her for what happened to Roberto. Wanting to protect their daughter, they agreed.

Looking back on it now, and noticing the similarities between Roberto and Adrien, both Greta and Ciro were disappointed in themselves for not seeing the truth. Which likely was that Lila had tried to get close to Roberto for his money and connections, and when he turned her down, she lied about the assault to ruin his life, much like she had done to Marinette. And when it came out that she had lied about Roberto, her classmates had turned on her. So when she got the chance to start somewhere new, with people who didn’t know about her lies, she took it. Not caring if she harmed anyone at her new school while repeating old habits. But they were not about to let Lila do the same thing to Adrien or Marinette. Once Greta told her husband her plan, he was all for it and began preparing things on his end. By the time Lila was done being sick, her entire life would have turned upside down.

~oOo~

It took a lot more effort than Greta had expected to hide her intentions for the nine days it took for Lila to get over her case of strep throat, but she had been making good use of that time. 

She had contacted Gabriel Agreste’s secretary and asked about any contracts that may have been signed. When she told her she hadn’t signed any contract and that her daughter would no longer be modelling, the woman had no choice but to accept this and inform M. Agreste of this development. The woman also informed Greta that such a breach of contract would result in Lila being blacklisted from the fashion industry. She agreed and promised that she would inform her daughter of this once she was better.

Greta then looked into Lila’s savings and trust fund, of which she had control of since Lila was still a minor. She drained the accounts to pay restitutions to Marinette for bullying and slander, Adrien for sexual harassment; and then sent the rest of it to Roberto, along with a message that she was now completely aware of the type of person her daughter was and would be adequately punished very soon.

And to keep too much suspicion off of her, Greta began mentioning to Lila how her father desperately wanted to see her after she got better, so after the doctor gave her a clean bill of health, they would be going to Venice to see him. Now that she was watching, Greta saw the twinge of uncertainty at the mention of Venice, but quickly covered it with false excitement for going back to visit her father.

As the day grew closer that they would be heading to Italy, Greta also noticed Lila glaring at her phone with utter malice. She might not have known what was going on if Lila’s classmate, Alya, wasn’t keeping her up-to-date on what Lila was telling them. Her daughter was attempting to tell the class that she was going to be going on a trip with a famous singer after she was better, but her classmates were doing as Greta asked and treating the lies as if they meant nothing. When she accused Marinette of calling her a liar while she was sick and couldn’t defend herself, the class stopped responding. 

One message that was forwarded to Greta nearly had her abandoning her plan and confronting her daughter at that moment. It was a message that Lila had sent to Marinette, who had shared it with Alya, who then forwarded it to Greta. It read:

You fugly, no talent bitch! You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Those stupid sheep were eating up every single one of my lies before I got sick, and now they won’t even talk to me! Just you wait. When I get back to school, I’m going to ruin you in every way imaginable. No one will want to be your friend. By the time I’m done with you, I hope you kill yourself. Maybe I’ll convince someone that you tried to kill me and they’ll kill you for me. Either way, you’re dead. And even if you show someone these messages, no one will believe you over me. 

Greta forwarded the message to Ciro as well. He called her right away to discuss other accommodations that they would be making for Lila in the coming days. There was something seriously wrong with their daughter, and they refused to turn a blind eye to what was happening.

When the day finally came that Lila was better and they were heading to Venice, Greta instructed Lila not to pack her more expensive clothes as she would not want to lose them if their baggage got lost. What her daughter didn’t know was that Greta was planning on selling all of her designer clothes, jewelry, her electronics, and everything else to continue paying restitutions to Marinette, Adrien, and Roberto. And it wasn’t like she would need them soon, anyway.

The plane ride was a bit nerve racking for Greta, as she worried about giving something away and Lila figuring out her plan; but if she did, it didn’t show. When they landed at Venice Marco Polo Airport, she had to resist her sigh of relief. The plan was almost ready to be put in action. 

When she saw Ciro waiting for them in his dress whites, her heart sped a bit more. The man was, without a doubt, the most handsome man she’d ever met, and was the love of her life. Being away from him for so long was difficult, but what else could they do? Her husband was a Capitano di Vascello of the Italian Navy and had worked very hard to get where he was. Although he was semi-retired now and no longer served on a ship, he had followed his dream and became the Vice Principal for the premier naval academy in Venice, Francesco Morosini Naval Military School. 

He had gone to the school when he was younger and always claimed that it was the best experience he could have ever wished for. That being in that school saved his life. So when he continued into the navy to serve his country, he made it his goal to one day become the Principal of the school that saved him, so that he could do the same for other students. And now, they would be doing the same for Lila.

Greta and Ciro had thought of admitting Lila to Francesco Morosini when she came of age, but quickly realized that she was not the Navy type and did not want to force her into it. That choice was no longer Lila’s and she would be staying at the military school where it was Ciro’s job, not only as a father, but as an administrator of the school, to keep a close eye on any problem children.

Ciro embraced Greta and then Lila before taking their bags and walking them to his car. Lila was talking at length to her father about all her friends at school, all the happenings in Paris, and even mentioned her boyfriend, Adrien Agreste.

“You would like him, Papa. He’s a model, a gentleman, and his father is the designer, Gabriel Agreste. And he treats me like a princess!” Lila gushed as she showed her father a picture of Lila kissing the blonde boy’s cheek. Greta had seen that picture and had even asked Adrien about it while they had spoken in M. Damocles office. Lila had apparently kissed him without permission when she took that picture, and then sent it to every girl in Adrien’s contact list to make it seem like they were dating. 

Ciro played along, asking questions about her classes, Adrien, the akuma situation that he had heard about over the news, and other things to keep Lila from growing suspicious. Sure enough, she prattled on through the entire car and ferry ride to Venice. Only seeming to look around questioning when they arrived at the Naval school, rather than their apartment.

“What are we doing here?” She asked, looking at her father in confusion.

The two parents dropped the act and glared at their daughter in disappointment and anger. “I’m surprised at you, young lady,” Greta started. “Did you really think you could keep lying to us? We. Know. Everything.”

They watched as her olive skin quickly paled. “What do you mean? I didn’t lie, I sw-”

“We know the school never closed,” Ciro interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument or interruption. “We know about you lying to your classmates and teachers about having disabilities and diseases. We know about you changing our contact information on your school records. We know about you bullying and sexually harassing your classmates. We know about the threats you’ve made to that one girl. We know that you’ve been akumatized multiple times. We know the truth about what you really did to Roberto two years ago! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!”

With every word he said, Lila seemed to inch away from her irate parents and shrink into herself. At the same time, they saw the rage and contemplation in her eyes. She was angry at being caught and was already trying to think of a way out of trouble. Not that they would give her a chance to even try.

“But I didn’t li-”

“Lie number one, Ladybug is a useless superhero that let your school get damaged and spent months trying to deakumatize your principal, which is why you were out of school for two months.” Greta interrupted that time, pinning her daughter with a glare that she usually reserved for idiot interns who screwed up important paperwork at the embassy. “I personally spoke to your principal and looked into Ladybug. The school never closed. Ladybug and Chat Noir have always defeated the akumas and restored the damage thanks to their abilities. And you told the school that you and I were off globetrotting to places like Achu.”

Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. She was just beginning to stammer out an excuse when her father spoke over her.

“Lie number two, a girl named Marinette Dupain-Cheng has been bullying you because she is jealous of your relationship with your boyfriend, Adrien Agreste. We have seen the texts that you have sent that girl, the most recent saying,” Ciro pulled out his phone to read off of the text “‘...I’m going to ruin you in every way imaginable. No one will want to be your friend. By the time I’m done with you, I hope you kill yourself…’ Does that sound familiar to you?” 

“I also personally spoke to Adrien after I spoke to Marinette, and found out that not only are you not his girlfriend, but you have been sexually harassing him! You even showed us proof in that picture you took where you kissed him!”

“But that’s not sexual harassment!” Lila shot back at them as her panic grew.

“Any unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment. Your mother and I memorized that when you accused Roberto of assault, which is another thing you lied about! And let me guess, you wanted to use that boy’s popularity and family connections for a leg-up, but he turned down your advances since he was gay. You didn’t take that rejection well, so you told us he assaulted you. Is that what happened?”

“How did you-” Lila interrupted herself that time by slapping her hand over her mouth, quickly realizing that she had confirmed what her father had just said.

“Well, congratulations young lady. You have earned a complete overhaul on your life.” 

“What do you mean?” Lila didn’t want to know, but it seemed like she had no choice but to ask.

“Your modelling contract with Gabriel is done,” Greta told her, noticing her wince since they weren’t supposed to know about that either. “I spoke with his assistant and discovered that you forged my signatures on the contracts to let you model. They were kind enough not to pursue legal action against you, but they have asked that I inform you that you have been blacklisted from the fashion industry, so that career option is completely closed off to you.”

“Your mother educated your friends at school with the truth. They know about all your lies and have kept us apprised of what you have been saying, the rumors you have been attempting to spread about going on a trip with a random music star, and were kind enough to forward that threatening message you sent to that girl, Marinette. They are no longer interested in being your ‘sheep’.”

“Not that you will be returning to that school,” Greta continued. “Your truancy has made that impossible, even if we did want you to stay there to face the consequences of your actions. Which includes paying restitution to the people you’ve hurt.”

“Paying!” Ciro and Greta watched as Lila’s right eye began to twitch as she snapped at them.

“Yes, paying. I’ve already emptied out your savings and trust fund to pay back Marinette, Adrien, and Roberto for what you’ve done to them-”

“You can’t do that! That’s my money!” She screamed, stomping her foot at her mother like a five year old throwing a tantrum.

“Money that you earned illegally modelling after forging my signature. And you are a minor, I am well within my rights to take that money to pay for the damages you have incurred. I will also be selling your laptop, tablet, mobile phone, as well as the clothes and jewelry you left in Paris. Seeing as you won’t be needing them anymore.”

As she said this, Lila clutched her phone and hugged it against her chest. “How am I supposed to talk to anyone without my phone?”

“Pen and paper, and if you need to speak with your mother, there’s my office phone or the payphone in the barracks, where you will be staying.” 

The girl’s eyes grew impossibly wide as she looked at her parents in a panic. They couldn’t mean…

Ciro smiled the smile that he used to greet the families whose children were in need of discipline. “Welcome to Francesco Morosini Naval Military School, where we strive to give children an education that will help them for their future and the world that waits for them.”

~oOo~

There had been a lot of begging, crying, and screaming after that as Lila did everything she could to try and change her parents’ minds. This was a total nightmare for her. Forced to wear a uniform she hated. Surrounded by students, teachers, and her father; all of whom knew that she was a liar. No one gave her the type of attention she craved, but everyone was giving her the overly watchful attention she despised. She couldn’t even enjoy becoming an akuma anymore, as she was far out of Hawkmoth’s reach.

Greta and Ciro had gone out to dinner afterwards in an attempt to de-stress, only to get a call an hour later that Lila had tried to steal a boat and run away from the school. She was put on a 24/7 watch after that, now required to wear a tracking monitor wherever she went and was on bathroom and floor cleaning duty for the foreseeable future.

When Greta returned to Paris, she went about doing exactly as she promised. She sold Lila’s electronics, clothes, and jewelry; only keeping a pair of plastic stud earrings that her grandmother had given her. She met with M. Damocles again to let him know that everything had been taken care of. She contacted the Dupain-Cheng family to let them know that Lila wouldn’t be bothering their daughter again. That was probably the most pleasant thing she did, as they were a lovely family and sent her off with a box of assorted scones, so yummy! When she had them send a box of goodies to her husband in Venice, he called her a few days later and begged her to send more whenever she could.

Lila absolutely hated seeing her father enjoy pastries from the bakery of her rival’s family. That, along with being forced to talk to a psychiatrist three times a week to make her admit that she was a liar and to figure out why she feels the need to lie. All while wearing a horrible uniform and actually having to clean. She was in her own personal hell. How she wished that she had never gotten sick.

Taglist:

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[epic-sorcerer]

Merlin on the adhd spectrum!

(Annotations in future post, check reblogs. Also, I still have more info I couldn’t figure out how to fit in here)

Emotional dysregulation:

emotional to the point where even the people who know what he’s going through are exasperated.

Arthur uses a specific way of comforting that is mostly seen with Merlin because he’s very emotionaly frail and Arthur knows this. Arthur can’t be all rough with him or else merlin will just feel worse. We only see Arthur like this with anyone else one to each morgana and some women in the 4th season.

Poor self esteem and thinks his only worth is his magic.

Bubbily one minute, depressed the next.

Sensitivity to things most find normal. I. E. Being punched in the arm. Arthur ment it to be a friendly gesture, but Merlin took it literally and as an insult. He looked genuinely offended. (rejection sensitivity dysphoria).

Impulsivity:

saying rude things to people without thinking, gets into fights by accident

Generally blurting weird things out at any given time

Throws himself in risky situations without thinking

Tries to meddle with destiny and always finds he has bit off much more than he can chew

Merlin was once shown a eating a bowl with way too many berries. This can happen because we get too excited with food and fall to realize we can’t eat that much.

Inattentivness:

listening to Arthur talk? Nah, how about staring at his lips like they are the most distracting thing in the world.

being in the middle of a conversation and fucking booking it out the door bc he just thought of something.

Time blindness, he’s late to everything. Hence this joke

Speaking of time blindness, Merlin seams to feel like he’s in a more nebulous version of time. Think quarantine mood but no quarantine in the first place. You can see this in how weird the time system is in the show. It’s messy and nondescript.

Forgetfulness:

sticks to like 3 good spells and forgets some really useful ones that could be used in his adventures.

Forgets to do some of his chores.

Grieves weirdly because he seams to forget his loss even happened because the person is out of his life and only sometimes remembers them(Poor object prominence).

Hyperactivity:

stims in a way that poeple who only do neurotypical stims call it out or think it’s weird. Usually comes out when Merlin is experiencing a lot of emotions at once.

Main Stims seam to be pacing and drumming his fingers

You can see the best examples of this scene and the one in the lady of lake where Merlin is pacing and humming. (1)I couldn’t find a video or gif set or anything for that. If y’all have one let me know

Developmental delays:

Explicitly shows to be more sensitive to smells and tastes. wears high quality clothing—we can tell bc of the expensively bright colors. All of this despite him growing up in a poor village. Merlin even ARRIVED in Camelot with these clothes(sensory processing disorder)

We can especially see Merlin’s sensitivity to bad smells in a scene in Lancelot and Gwenevere(2)

his sensitivity to tastes is explicit in The Coming of Arthur. Arthur is said to eat really anything, even things merlin would never even try to. Merlin is a poor peasant, but Arthur is a prince in a rich kingdom. (3, need help finding this one)

Trouble socializing and reading the room(think; making bad puns at the worst time possible).

Makes either creepily strong eye contact or none at all.

Very clumsy

Shown to struggle with basic volume control in his voice, especially whispering. He cannot whisper at all.

Inflexibility:

Has some trouble understanding the big picture and others motivations sometimes. It may be too overwhelming for him

Merlin will learn something(mordred posibly killing arthur) and never let go. He grew to hate mordred even like 10 years later because Merlin was unwilling to budge.

Even after Arthur died, Merlin clung to him coming back for 1500+ years because he had become so used to serving him he could not move on. Merlin lived in the same place, waiting for the same person for a century and a half. He became inflexible to living any other way

[angstysebfan]

PR Stunt Gone Wrong - Chapter 6

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Summary: You are a fellow actress in the MCU, Bucky’s love interest. You met Seb during the CA: WS and you guys hit it off. Chemistry on and off the set, but never dated until after Infinity War. During filming of FATWS, the pandemic caused everything to shut down. Seb offered you to spend quarantine with him, but somewhere along the lines, things go wrong and Seb makes a PR decision.

A/N: I was going to to this in a Bucky story, but then I decided to keep it Seb. With everything going on with Seb over the last several months, I came up with this story in my head. Obviously a lot of this is made up, but it is using what we know Seb has been doing over the last several months.

The beginning of May began with no issues. Occasionally you and Seb would get on each others nerves about one thing or another, but that was usually settled quickly and make up sex became one of your favorites. Throughout the week you would facetime with your family, his mom, and a collection of friends. Right now you were in a group zoom with Sebs closest friends, who have accepted you to the clan throughout the years.

You’re sitting on Seb’s lap as you look at the computer screen that showed Will, Toby, Chase, and Chris Egan. You were all catching up on what’s been happening in your areas of the country or world. You were close with all of Seb’s friends, but the closest with Chase. You both had similar personalities and always called each other your best friends. Seb would laugh it off, but you think he got slightly jealous.

After your Zoom with Seb’s friends, you were on with your friends, who you haven’t spoken in awhile. Seb was in and out of the conversation, which annoyed you slightly, because you sat with him for his friends, but you continued on as normal. When you were finally finished, you turned to look at him as he gazed out the living room window. “Seriously Seb? You couldn’t at least sit here and pretend to be interested in the people in my life?” you ask annoyed. 

He turned to look at you, “They don’t want to talk to me, so why sit there?” he asks. Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline, “They would have spoken to you if you sat here next to me! You always do that when I am on with my friends, but I sit with you when you speak with yours,” you accuse. He crosses his arms, “Well my friends are more interesting, and you spend most of your time flirting with Chase that I assume you are fine,” he says. 

You stand up and clench your hands into fists, “Oh my god you jealous, jealous asshole! Are you kidding me? Chase and I are just joking! I don’t even speak to him unless you do, so there is nothing to be jealous of! Is this why you never talk to my friends, you are too busy brooding over me and Chase?” you ask exacerbated. He doesn’t look at you, keeping his eyes on the floor. You sigh in frustration.

“Ya know, I can’t--” you are cut off by your phone going off. You check the caller ID and see it’s your mom, so you pick up, “Hey Ma, hold on 1 second,” you say before pulling the phone away. You look at Seb, “Next time I Zoom with my friends, you will sit there with me and be nice. You need to get over this jealousy with Chase, because there is nothing to be jealous of!” you say before you run up the stairs to talk to your mom.

--

Seb sits in the living room thinking about what you said. He knows he was being rude with your friends, but he hates how you and Chase flirt and it always puts him in a mood. He realizes you have been quiet upstairs for awhile, so you must be pissed at him still. He feels his phone vibrate and sees he has a text from his PR agent.

He texts back and forth for awhile, while also texting a friend of his a little bit. After another 1/2 hour he decides to go up and find you. He walks to the bedroom and sees you sitting on the bed crying silently. He runs up and kneels in front of you. “Baby? What’s wrong?” he asks softly. You choke on a sob before throwing your arms around his neck and cry into his neck. He rubs your back to try and calm you down, wondering what could have upset you like this.

When you seem to calm slightly he pulls you back and wipes the tears from your eyes. “Tell me what’s got you so upset. If this is about the Zoom, I’ll make sure I’m not rude next time. I promise,” he says concerned. You shake your head, “No, it’s not that. That was just a stupid argument,” you say sniffing. He continues to look at you sadly, “Then what is it baby? You’re scaring me.”

You start to sob again but manage to say, “Grandma died!” Seb’s eyes widen before pulling you into his arms and allowing you to sob. He lifts you into his arms and carries you to the bed and sits against the headboard with you on his lap. He continues to feel his phone vibrate from his text conversations, but ignores them, as you need him more than them. He keeps whispering, “I’m so sorry. It’s going to be okay. I’m here.” You finally manage to relax in his arms, and fall asleep listening to the sound of his heartbeat.

--

You went home to your moms for the funeral. They were only allowing 10 people, so Seb decided to stay at the apartment. While you were gone he was so bored. He continued to go for runs, write, read, watch movies, but he was missing you. His favorite time of the day was when you would call him or facetime him. He couldn’t wait for you to come back, because being alone sucked. He was busy working on new deals with his agency, and some other things in the works, but he just wanted to be with you.

After 5 days, you walked back into the apartment and Seb wrapped you up in his arms and kissed the hell out of you. “Seb... I don’t want to touch you until I shower,” you say pulling away. Seb picked you up and wrapped your legs around him and walked up the stairs, continuing to kiss you. He walked right into the bathroom and refused to put you down as he turned on the shower before walking right in with your clothes on.

“Seb! My clothes! It’s cold!” you scream wiggling to get out of his arms, but he held you tighter and continued to kiss you making you forget the clothes and water temperature, which improved. It didn’t take long to strip you both of your wet clothes, though Seb refused to put you down. It was the hottest shower sex you both had. When you finished showering you wrapped yourself in a robe and laid next to Seb, your head on his chest.

“I missed you,” he said against the top of your head before placing a kiss. You smiled, “I noticed,” you say giggling, before turning your head to look at him. He kisses your forehead and brushes some hair back smirking at you. You peck his lips, “I missed you too. I wish you were there with me,” you say as your wrap your arm around his torso and nuzzle into his chest.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

--

Chapter 5 / Chapter 7

Jealousy.. always a problem. Poor reader, but Seb somewhat made up for his stupidness with being sweet about everything. Feedback is appreciated.

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[miki-snake]

The rest of Forever

A/N: It’s been a looong time wow. I really wish I could dedicate more time into writing but damn things just don’t work out sometimes. Nevertheless, this is for @rocorambles as a secret Santa gift! Happy belated Christmas but also Happy New Year! I hope you enjoy it and lots of love from me ♥!

wc: 2.1k

pairing: Kuroo x f!reader

It all felt so surreal, the year went by in a flash even though so much had happened. Times were hard with the virus keeping the people in lockdown. No going out to grab a bite or to stop by the gym, no visiting friends or families, just constantly locked in the same four walls for what felt like forever. Of course, you had chances throughout the year to you out to see your friends and family as the restrictions weren’t always that hard. 

Still, you couldn’t help the lingering sadness at the thought of not being able to go into the new year with your family. The risk was too high that your parents could be exposed to anything regarding the virus and you just didn’t want to provoke it. 2020 just put a great toll on you and many people in your surroundings. Mentally it was hard because you questioned a lot of decisions while sitting on your bed and staring at the wall. If someone would’ve told you at the beginning of the year that the world would basically live in quarantine, you would’ve called him crazy and went on with your day as normal. 

But things aren’t normal right now or maybe this is the new normal. You felt lucky that you had a little balcony in your apartment so you could get out into the fresh air without having to leave the house. Standing at the railing you looked out into the dark streets solely illuminated by some flickering street lamps. Normally at this time, the streets would’ve been filled with kids playing with little firecrackers and drunk teenagers who want to start the new year with an unforgettable night, only to forget it the next day because they were too drunk. Today though, nothing was going on in the streets, the area was filled with silence. 

Your body automatically tensed up at the feeling of two arms slowly wrapping around your body but you immediately relaxed as the scent of dark chocolate and coffee lulled you in. You leaned back into the broad chest of your boyfriend who let out a small chuckle at the sight of your closed eyes and content smile. A kiss on top of your head made you open your eyes and the sight in front of you warmed up your whole body. Kuroo’s face was looming over you, his eyes locking with yours and it felt like you could watch into his soul. The kindhearted, funny, and loving soul that he was and he was completely yours. You didn’t even realize that you were cold before he had wrapped you into his arms and as if he could read your mind his arms tightened around your body and his warmth seeped into your skin. 

“You wanna go inside to crack open some cheap wine and cuddle?” His deep voice vibrated through his chest, the feeling so familiar and it still managed to give you goosebumps every single time. His proposal caused you to grin even wider and you were sure you looked like an idiot by now. Yeah, an idiot in love. Without waiting for your reply he simply lifted you up as if you’d weight nothing, ripping a squeal from your lips. You had no time to protest as you suddenly found yourself falling onto the couch as Kuroo stumbled over the carpet, his body crushing you but all you two could do was laugh. 

It was him that helped you through the year. He was a constant in your life always keeping you steady when you felt like you were falling. The little things he does for you like always making a coffee for you in the morning, the goodnight text messages every night even though he was lying next to you, the “I love you’s” at the most random times and his stupid jokes, all of it never fails to make you smile and fall in love with him all over again. With him you can be a quiet as you want and the silence would sit comfortably between you two or you can be as silly as you want and he would always go along with it until you can’t anymore from all the laughter. You didn’t even realize that you were lost in your thoughts until you felt Kuroo’s hand stroke some strands of your hair from your face. 

“I love you.” He said and you knew that he meant it, at least as much as all the times before and maybe even more. Moving your hand up to cradle his face, your thumb drawing circles on his skin. “I love you too, idiot.” You responded and suddenly he sat back up, pulling your body with him until you two were sitting across each other. 

“I really meant it.” He was looking so serious and you weren’t sure what to say, the light mood from before was replaced with something that made your heart beat a hundred times harder than before. “I know that-“ You started with a nervous chuckle but you were cut off by his hands grabbing yours. “No, I mean that I meant what I said to you on the day we graduated high school.” You immediately knew what he was referring to. 

On the day of your graduation you and Kuroo met up after the ceremony, you and him were a couple for nearly two years then. A new chapter of your life was about to begin and you were both scared and excited. Who knew how things were going to go in the future, who you would meet and who would still be there. Kuroo and you met at the benches in front of the entrance of the gym. You and him had both plans set out for the future and you couldn’t wait to start and even though you knew you two were still going to be together, it wasn’t as if you knew. Tokyo was a big city but now that you’re out of high school the whole world was suddenly open and it scared you that Kuroo and you might lose sight of each other over time. Of course, things and people change with time but you were just so in love and happy with your relationship that you couldn’t even imagine going through life without him anymore. You arrived at first and so you sat down but you couldn’t help but fiddle with your hands while waiting. Kuroo wanted to talk to you and suggested meeting up at that place so you two could be away from the huge crowd of all the students with their families and teachers for a bit. “Sorry for making you wait, I had a hard time pushing the guys off of me.” You looked up at the voice of your boyfriend, a small smile playing on your lips at the thought of Yaku and him teasing each other or the crying Yamamoto who wasn’t ready to tell his upperclassmen goodbye. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t waiting for too long.” You assured him while he sat down and pulled you closer to his side. “So, what did you want to talk about?” You winced at the loud voice of yours, you didn’t want to come off as impatient and pushy but you just couldn’t help the urge to wanting to finally know what he had to tell you. Your stomach churned at all the negative thoughts that were floating around in your mind. 

“What’s with the dark face? You look like the world is about to end.” He joked around with the typical smirk on his face but you could see his eyes trying to analyze your face. “Well, it just sounded serious when you asked me to meet up with you, so I just hope nothing bad happened.” You tried to reason your behavior and it wasn’t a lie. You really hope nothing bad happened or was going to happen. Even though you felt like a heavy stone was weighing you down, Kuroo just started to laugh without a care. “I’m sorry for making you worry, kitten. There are no bad news I swear.” He told you after he stopped his laughter. His eyes found yours again and he took both of your hands into his before he took a deep breath. “Listen, even though it’s nothing bad it’s still something important. I asked you to come out here so I could tell you that this,” His gaze switched to his body and then back to yours. “This is nothing I’m going to leave behind as just a high school memory. You are a constant in my life, since the day I met you and I want it to stay this way. We are good for each other and I hope to continue to explore the world with you. I asked you to come out here to make sure that you know,” The glint in his eyes seem to shine even brighter, more intense as he gulped before he continued to speak. “That you know that you are not only my constant but a part of my future and one day you’re going to be my future.”

Your thoughts were running wild, all the fears you felt before turned into a thousand butterflies flying inside your body and threatening to explode out of your chest. He just told you that he had no intention of letting this, you, go and even more. You didn’t want him to see the silly smile on your face, so you just shoved yourself into his chest and you felt his heart beating wildly against your cheek. 

It was a beautiful memory and he really meant what he said because you were still part of his future and he was part of yours. Once he saw that you understood what he meant he continued. “I didn’t only mean the part where I told you that you’re going to be a part of my future but I also meant that you are going to be my future.” Before your mind registered what he said, one of his hands left your joined hands and pulled a little box out of his back pocket. You swear your heart skipped a beat and you forgot how to breathe for a second. The two of you have talked about this many times before, the possibility of a future together as wife and husband and maybe even kids. It’s something that was already discussed many times and you would lie when you said that you didn’t hope it was going to get to it soon but it was definitely something else once it actually happens. His voice ripped your gaze away from the little black box in his hands and if you looked closely you could’ve seen the slight tremble. “I want you, love, to be my future. I want to continue to laugh with you, grow old with you, and love you. This year was a hell of a mess and without you, it would’ve been a lot worse. You always kept me motivated and didn’t even give me the time to be too lazy. I love you with everything I have and I don’t only want to start the next year with you but the next chapter in our life, the next step into forever. So, Y/n, would you make me the happiest man on earth and become my wife?” His eyes heard so much love and adoration but they were also shining with hope. The hope for you to say yes, to get a chance to take you into forever with him. Your eyes were burning with unshed tears and you don’t know if you just wanted to bury your face in his chest and sob from all the happiness or if you want to run out onto your balcony and scream your love for this man in front of you into the world. You did neither of them but instead, you crawled up until you were sitting in his lap and placed your trembling hands around his face. You wanted to be as close as possible to him, his nose touches yours while you looked deeply into his soul. “There were many things I questioned in my life this year but one thing was always for sure. One thing I never had to doubt and that was you. You are the one thing that I could never leave out of my life or my future plans because you are my future and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.” Your voice was barely above a whisper but you knew that he heard you because instantly his lips found yours and it was filled with love, hope, and promises for so much more. The silence of the night was disrupted with the sound of fireworks going off but it was all in the background as you were too absorbed by the man who promised you the rest of forever and a new years kiss.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Hi! So, this is just smut, I’ve been in a mood. It’s not even the same POV, but I decided halfway through my fantasy about shaving Harry’s face so I could see the curl of his lips, it would fit in this universe. Or not, but I don’t think you all will mind, 😉!! Enjoy!

Day ?: The One With The Mustache

"Is there a reason you are wearing so many clothes?" He asked from the French doors separating our bathroom from the bedchamber.

It's not a ton of clothes, not really, a thigh high robe and some strategic silk rigging beneath. It is, however, way more coverage than every other greeting Harry has gotten from me since we moved in together if he's been away more than a night.

There is a plan though. I have an agenda to carry out this evening. Things have gotten out of hand. I love my boyfriend, even have an affection for the dirtbag college kid on a worldwide backpacking adventure thing he has going on. Some affection, but I miss the way his lips move when they are unobstructed, when he speaks and when they touch my body.

He's been scruffy off and on since we met. Quarantine has gone on a lot longer than we expected,honestly, and everything is overgrown. My hair is super long and my brows are a bit unkempt, I know, but Im going to need the facial scruff he grew out of laziness and kept out of relish, to go.  I kinda like the dimple peeking beneath the 70's porn stache sometimes. I can at least see the camp value and the era reference he revers, but I really miss his mouth.

The structure of his jaw and strength of his chin, the smooth, perfect skin under my hand. I have a plan to get him to shave it. A good one, I think?

"Would we call this a lot of clothing?" I pretend to be confused and run a finger beneath the lace and silk to pull it out so a shadow of full breast is on display.

Harry groans. The smile playing at the corners of my lips is suppressed, I gape my eyes and tilt my head in faux confusion.

"Not a lot, but way more than you usually favor me with when I've been away." His eyes have zeroed in on my cleavage.

"Ahh, well, maybe I want you to take it off me."

He's already moving. "I can do that!" His fingers are also at the top button of the peasant shirt he is wearing.

I'm laughing, "looks like you've got yourself taken care of!"

"Now you!" His hands are on my shoulders, trying to push the robe off.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" I chide.

"What, why?" He looks bewildered, and I suppose we always move at a hasty pace, except the first time, so slow down or wait aren't words he hears on my lips often.

"I have a plan for you, a surprise." His eyebrows raise and he's smirking.

"Yeah!" That expression solidifies my plan. I can't see the glory of it for his facial hair friend. I do need one more go with it though, for posterity's sake.

"Yeah! So, you keep doing what you were doing." His hands are already popping the button on his classic fit jeans. "Good boy."  I slither by him, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, and my breasts to his chest. I'm even more obvious when I bend down to the bath, and light the cinnamon candle he keeps there. I make sure he can see the bottom of my ass cheeks beneath my silk drawers. "Was the drive miserable?"

"The drive?" Ah, attention diverted. I smile over my shoulder and his eyes glance up to my face. "No, no, actually it was lovely. Just missing you."

"You look like you've had a long couple days. Hop in the tub,"

"Are you gently saying I look dirty?" He's joking, but spot on.

I sit at the back of the tub on the stool I've placed there, pulling up my robe so my knickers flash. "I'm going to wash you up." I give him the grin I know he loves. "Then i have another plan of how we can get dirty again."

His pants hit the floor and he's going right along with me. I chuckle when he splashes some water over the claw foot rim. "Ok!" He looks up at me.

"Get wet." I tell him.

"You too."

"Already taken care of." He groans and turns his whole body around to bury his head between my thighs. "Hold on!" I delay. "Let me pamper you."

"Then let me smell you." he looks up at me and it's like seeing his devastating eyes, squared. The water is just below his chin, so he has a handsome, wet haired twin. He looks so enticing, his eyes so magnetic I nearly forget my plan."

"I wanted to wash you up." I lean forward so he has a good view of my chest again.

Harry pushes me back and drifts his hand low. "Let me get dirtier first." He's edging my panties aside and leaning in. I can hear the audible inhale and I'm convinced. "Ill even leave your clothes on, play by the rules!" His nose glances up the gatherings of my clitoral hood and hits my center while he gives me a textured kiss on my opening.

I guess I'm having my mustache ride now. "Yeah." And my head gets soft on my neck. "Let me stand up, you'll hurt your back." He nods and comes to his knees at the edge of the tub. The stool clatters behind me as I step up to his mouth. I push back my robe and he pulls the scrap of silk bunched over one labia all the way to one side.

His grip on my ass cheek alone could still me in the moment, but the thumb he hooks inside me, with unerring accuracy on my spongy spot, anchors me to this act, this moment, his face. The bristles of his mustache prickle at my swelling lips and I sigh. He smiles and swipes his face over the angles where my hips meet my torso. He looks proud, and it does feel nice. I may as well enjoy it while It lasts.

It's past the stage where it scratched the tender pink skin of my pussy, it's softer and textured and smells of me when he kisses me after he's given me head.

Maybe I won't shave it?

Or, I can just let it grow back to enjoy all the stages again.

Like this one, where it tickles and smoothes over me top to tail when he gives me the long broad stroke of his tongue, just the way I like. It does blunt the pressure a bit, so that's another point for team shave. The gentle wet glide up and over me over and over has my hips going.

His thumb is providing pressure from the inside as I ride his tongue where his mouth has latched onto my clit. "Oh fuck, Harry!" My neck has gone completely soft, and when I see his other hand working over his thick cock, I'm not sure how my knees hold up.

I'm afraid to put so much pressure on his jaw, But then the electricity gathering in my veins snaps and the seize rolls up my spine and my muscles relax. The choice is out in my hands and all my weight comes down on him. His busy hand stops to wrap around my waist while he gentles his tongue over my leavings and nuzzles his mustache over my trimmed mound and caresses me softly from the inside out.

"Mmmmm." He nips my thigh and licks me once more. I push his head away and collapse backward nearly tripping over the stool.

"Damn." Is the only word I can find.

"Ready to take off the robe and get in with me?" His slim eyebrow is high and his dimple is dented deeply.

"No," I giggle in my boneless state and lean forward to kiss his messy mouth. The mustache captures more of my flavor and I can smell myself while I taste his tongue covered in my release. "You're really very dirty, still." We both chuckle. I stare in his eyes and take out the clip holding his curls back. They bounce over my forehead. "Let me wash your hair now you've taken such good care of me."

He pecks my lips, it tickles. "Alright baby." He settles into the water and dips below, the tan of his skin and black or his tattoos blurring around the edges. He looks like something out of a surrealist movie; I ache over it. I trace a bird as he surfaces before focusing on his hair. I run my hands through the lush whirls and make sure it's wet before putting a dollop of shampoo into my hand and onto his head. I rub it in and get a good lather before scratching his scalp and massaging behind his ears. He's moaning and his dick is back to full mast from the attention.

"Who knew your scalp was an errogeneous zone?" I whisper into his ear.

"You make my whole body alive." He says and kisses me before in playfully submerge him and work out the lather with my fingers.

The conditioner is slick through his tresses and I let it sit while I massage his shoulders.

"Are you going to do this every time I come home? Might make leaving worth it." He looks  back. "Almost."

"No," I lean in again. "I'm buttering you up."

"Whatever you want, it's yours." He moans over a tight knot in working out. "Consider me buttered."

"I want." I kiss his cheek. The corner of his mouth, slick my tongue quickly at the curl of his top lip I love so. He's turned into me and his breath pants over my mouth. "To shave you." He narrows his eyes before I complete the almost kiss we've been breathing.

"Shave what?" Oh, I forgot I shaved his balls that one time.  He palms his jewels. "I've been keeping that up."

"No, not there." I kiss him, and the mustache interferes with the lip bite I try for. So I chew it a little. I hope ha catches my drift as I confirm it has to go for myself.

"My mustache?" He pulls back to look. "You seemed to like it a moment ago.

"I do, and you could always grow it back. But, I miss your face, and the way your smooth jaw feels on my neck, my thighs. Your lips, I need unfettered access to them." I'm saying all this a hairsbreath from his mouth.

"I like it." He harrumphs.

"I like it too. But not as much as I like you clean shaven." I finally kiss him. "I'll reward you! Shave and a haircut for my bits?" I let my robe Hit the ground then.

"You want me to cut my hair?" He's smirking. He knows how I like his long hair. I confessed it was my favorite.

"No, but my deal wasn't as cute without it."

"Alright love, so long as I can grow it back."

"It's not gonna take you 26 years again. You can grow a mustache now Harry! Triumph completed." We are both laughing as I grab a towel and he's stepped out while I dry him from the bottom up. I move the stool and pull out the kit I readied.  "Have a seat."

"When does your top come off." He gives his cock a lazy pull and it's still chubbed. It's distracting; I'm impatient to get to that later.

"Well, since you're starting to look like you actually bathe," I roll my eyes. "I'll give you a little now."

"How does this work? One nip for half of my mustache? What do I get for the beard?"

I slide a bra strap down to the crook of my elbow and know my nipple presses up and out of it. I straddle a thigh too and grab the towel I soaked in hot, hot water and wrung out. "Close your eyes."

"Then I miss your nipple." He pulls the fabric down farther, and once again his mustache tickles over my body, his tongue on the peak of my breast and the hard suck make up for it.

"Good things come to those who wait."I remind him and buss his wet lips. I'll see more of their see pink color with out his facial hair as wel. "Lean your head back and close your eyes."

I wrap the towel around his tipped back face and he sighs. The bra is gone before the 30 seconds are over. His eyes naturally come open when I take off the towel, but before he can give some cheeky comment to accompany his widened eyes, I turn on the trimmer.

"That sound usually means something different?" I'd blush if he didn't like using my vibe on me so much.

"Does it?" I step closer and my thigh grazes his shaft.

"I guess not."

"Tighten your lip?" He makes a face but complies and shrugs as if to ask if he's got it.

"Perfect!" I kiss his forehead and trim his mustache down to stubble, continuing on to his cheeks. I sigh. "Hi handsome!"

"I've been here." He says.

"I just haven't been able to see your pretty face." I pucker his lips and kiss them and he raspberries a breath out.

"Alright, I get it, you don't like it!"

"Not really, but I like you!" I straddle his lap to spread the shaving cream.

"You didn't even like it between your thighs?" He cups my ass and his fingers linger at my entrance. I suck in a breath.

"This would be sexier if you didn't look like Harry Claus." I giggle.

"It would be sexier with my beard." He pouts. "You really didn't like it." I slowly smooth the razor over his cheek, he moves with me like a dance. We rock and he rolls just the way I need him to, flexing and tightening his jaw to make the skin taut so I don't nick him.

Once his face and chin are clean, I stand back and slide off my panties before stepping in and gesturing for him to tighten his lip. I wick one side free of hair, and wipe the area to kiss it. "I did like when you ate my pussy with it, especially today, before the stubble kinda scratched me sometimes. But the full mustache felt nice, if it didn't tickle." I take off the other side of his mustache as well, wipe his face and sit full across him with his weeping shaft between us. I languidly kiss him, the way he loves, and he may not have known the mustache impeded. "I don't like anything getting between me and this mouth!" My hand slides between us and I grip him tight. "Or this cock." And I slide my bare skin over him hoping he catches the other surprise I have for him.

I'm pressed back on the vanity top with my toes clutching the lip and my hair mussed against the mirror with my beautiful man between my thighs a moment later

"Nothing between us?" His tip is resting impatiently at my opening.

"IUD is in. Play through- ahhhh!" The words aren't over my lips before he's balls deep inside me.

It's rough, my head bounces on the mirror and the slaps of our skin fill the air.

It's perfect. The hour long foreplay means I'm dripping onto his neatly trimmed bush already, only an easy give at his considerable intrusion.

"Fuck, Harry!" I say after aso close already.

"You about to tap out?" He looks amused. "I'm just home."

"What can I say?" I moan over a deep stroke, and my fingers find my clit to help myself along. "I just needed some firm," my other hand sweeps over his jaw, "smooth," I wick my thumb over his upper lip. "Strokes!" And then My blood is fizzing through my veins and my hand loses its rhythm.

Harry fucks me through the denouement, and then I'm flipped onto my belly, my toes leaving the floor occasionally with his powerful thrusts.

Hours later, he's looking at himself in the mirror where he's shaved again. Against the grain, so no stubble troubles my thighs. "You really won't miss it, at all?"

"You can grow it back." I shrug, "At some point, I'm sure I'll miss my mustache rides."

[jlf23tumble]

Hi! I've seen you rec fics before and I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for Harry Styles fics that deal with gender. Like Harry being either nonbinary or that being the focus of the plot in some way. Thanks!

I have GOT YOU, my friend! I answered a similar ask a long time ago, so I’ll bring those recs over, plus add newer ones, just to keep us up to date. Same caveat as before, though--these fics delve a bit deeper into the genderfluid side of the fine line rather than just the “harry in panties” side because I think you’re more interested in the former, but if I’m wrong, let me know! Enjoy!

Us, Me, We, @homosociallyyours, 2.3 (Harry/Harry, Harry/Louis). Featuring Harry trippin’ balls and truly seeing “her” in the mirror.

you make me wanna (how deep is your love), orphan_account, 2.5k (harry/louis). As the notes say, “straight up porn,” featuring trans Harry.

Friendly Fire, @vondrostes, 2.6k (Harry/Ny). Look, you’ll see a lot of Terran here, I had to hold *back*, but he writes tons of pairings, so there’s something for everyone, and I rec it all! In this case, Harry learns an important lesson about why he shouldn’t date straight women.

No Control, thegirlwthekittentattoo, 2.6k (Harry/Louis). The dialogue here is EVERYTHING, it’s cute and hot and emotional yet still funny, like Harry’s bra being named Christi with an “i”, and I loveeee how much is packed in here.

Silent Night, @sulkingroom, 2.7k (Harry/Xander). I’m 99% sure this is Melissa, not orphan_account, but she’s another author who writes stunning fics that play with gender, this one featuring trans Harry at Christmas.

She, Myself, and I, @vondrostes, 3k (Harry/Nick). Angst city, with Harry telling Nick exactly who “she” is.

Every Drop of Rain, haemophilus, 3.3k (Harry/Taylor). Told through Taylor’s eyes, a fascinating look at Harry and his gender journey. (I highly rec this author’s work in other pairings for similar vibes!)

if they find out, will it all go wrong? blankiexrry, 3.4k (Harry/Louis). Gender exploration behind the scenes when the D played MSG, plus extra kink added!

The Assassination of Harry Styles’ Dignity, wishforwishes, 3.5k (Harry/Nick). This one was in the pubefest, and it’s gryles angst hours gorgeously done as Harry ponders shaving past and present (highly rec this author for gender exploration in other pairings, too).

She Feels So Good, Zedi, 4k, and its sequel, Turns Out She’s a Devil In-Between the Sheets, 3k (Harry/Louis). Mannnn, this universe is so good! Part one is behind the scenes of the Late Late Show after Kiwi, and part two is sexi times in Italy. I utterly adore how this Harry shifts right along with her pronouns.

Fertile Ground, Blake/ @newleafover, 4.4k (Harry/Louis). Jesus wept specifically at this story, CHRIST, so much dysphoria-related angst!! The sheer number of moments guaranteed to make you stare at the wall for one (1) hour, help!

into joy i’m sailing, @hereforlou, 4.6k (Harry/Louis). The tenderness LEAPS off the screen in this one, Harry forgets he’s wearing a dress when Louis comes over for dinner, and I peel my heart out of my throat every time.

weird honey, orphan_account, 5.4k (Harry/Louis). I’m a big lurker in fic comments, and these ones give me joy because big names from a time when this Harry drew even more hate than today are here, spreading love and support--who was this author? This story is so GOOD, I’d love to know what else they did! (In this case, a sex toy helps Harry deal with not having a vagina.)

violence of my own touch, 14hrflight/ @got2ghost, 5.2k (Harry/Louis). Chi is yet ANOTHER author to read for spot-fuckin’-on genderfluid characterization (here, it’s alpha/alpha with all kinds of bdsm, dysphoria, angst, and more).

it’s you i want to take apart, orphan_account, 5.9k (Harry/Louis). This author--in the year of our lorde 2012--watched the nail polish interview and created a work of art that went even deeper, their MIND!!! What else did they foretell??!!!!!

Love at Home, @vondrostes, 6.9k (Harry/Xander, Harry/Zayn/Xander). This fic is HYPER-current, like, mid-quarantine, and it features some Zarry history, some pregnancy-related dysphoria, and so much more, plus horses!! (The horses aren’t actually all that involved, I just love to see ‘em.)

Vinyl and Lace, objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain, 7.5k (Harry/Louis). This one kills me because it’s XF days, and you get the full-on sensation that this is meant to be kinky play funtime, but it’s going to end up being something much bigger on so many fronts, we love to see it!

Are You Gonna Be My Girl? LoadedGunn, 7.5k (Harry/Louis). EASILY my fave fic this author wrote, basically, Louis talks about his first time with a girl, Harry decides to be that girl, and the dirty talk hits different in the end!

call me anything you like, but my name is, wishforwishes, 9.9k (Harry/members of CHASM). [muffled internal screaming whenever I think of this fic] It starts with BSE Veronica/Zayn and ends with Harry Veronica/Zayn, and so much revelation happens in between, goddddd bless.

fallin’ and laughin’ at the drinks we spilled, enbyharry/ @non-binharry, 14k (Harry/Louis). Asia’s description in the notes kills me, but #vanlife Louis runs into proud Harry in some bar and shenanigans ensue is the upshot!

But She Doesn’t Know Who I Am series, jaerie, 15k (Harry/Louis). I love that one of the tags here is “louis asks inappropriate questions” because that’s honestly most of what happens!! 

o/o angst series, HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals, 17k (Harry/Louis). I miss Nina’s writing like a phantom limb, and I doubt they’ll return to this universe, but I swear, I will read (and rec) ANYTHING they produce when the muse visits them again! This one is as its title says, and it doesn’t disappoint, heavy sigh.

Grenadine Sunshine, objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain, 18k (Harry/Louis). This fic is a peach of a pearl written as a gift for one of this fandom’s best authors, and it perfectly captures the Mood of that author, with so much softness, makeup, gender, and tender.

Alpha Louis/Alpha Harry series, 14hrflight/ @got2ghost, 22k (Harry/Louis). SO MANY GENDER ISSUES EXPLORED HERE, WOW!! College roommates come to terms with their identity, and, mannnnn, do I love it when a/b/o gets unstraightened, if you will, chef’s kiss all around.

Nothing You Can Do (But You Can Learn How to Be You in Time), Teumessian, 28k (Harry/Louis). Also known as the pinterest fic, this one is just so soft and lovely, an identity story told through hair (among other things).

genderfluid!harry series, istajmaal, 33k (Harry/Louis). This entire series hits just as hard today as it did when it was written in 2013, a time when people were aggressively trying to make fetch frat boy Harry happen (some of ‘em still are, lmao). Anyway, this is another author I highly rec for all their other fic, but this one does an A+ job of describing Harry’s gender exploration mid-D madness. 

Amor Victorious, HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals, 38k (Harry/Louis). Another brilliant work from Nina, you feel like you’re on this journey with them, PLUS it dives deep into gender identity struggles, PLUS it throws a/b/o for a loop, all of which equals a big yes from me!

hush., wankerville, 41k (Harry/Louis). One of my all-time faves, this one tackles so many phobias, all while being set in a small-town America high school AU and managing to be the softest, most gorgeous, most hopeful thing in spite (because?) of that.

Time Passed, coffinofachimera/ @belialsmiracles, 66k (Harry/Louis). LISTEN, I WILL NEVER, EVER SHUT UP ABOUT THIS FIC, I can only hope the author will bless us with a timestamp or something else entirely, it’s so beautifully done, it makes you think of nothing else for days, it RUINS you for other fic (I highly rec the author’s other work, too). You’ll never look at Tokyo Harry the same way again (or listen to “She” or “Fine Line” without getting more than a little misty). GOLD STAR!

Made of Lightning, @vondrostes, 74k (Harry/Louis, Harry/Liam, Harry/Louis/Liam). Just...the tags on this don’t do full justice to the journey of it, to the imagination of this specific timeline! I adore how Terran writes trans Harry!

Second Spring, @vondrostes, 103k (Harry/Louis). Speaking of Terran writing trans Harry, this one covers all the ins and outs of her surgical transition, how she recovers, and how she and the people around her deal with puberty no. 2. 

[dra-aluxe-oldblog]

I'm moving to another blog, please follow me here:

Definitely, this year has been really messed up for everyone. Personally speaking, despite the quarantine, the first half of the year was okay? But after July, a lot of fucked up things happened to me and right now I'm in a low mood, almost done with everything. Sadly, one of those shitty things concerns this blog. 

Back in August, my laptop started to fail and it was impossible for me to work on it. I took it to the technician, and almost three months later, he hasn't found a solution, so we could say my laptop is technically dead… (and I don't have money for a new one hehehefuckingyear)

The problem is last year I activated the Two-factor authentication option (TFA) for this account. Tumblr sent me 10 security codes I saved in a note on my desktop and nowhere else. When my laptop started to fail, I saved all my documents in a hard drive for safety, but I was stupid enough to forget to save my desktop notes, including my tumblr's security codes 🙃 So when the technician had to format my laptop, the codes were erased too, and without them, I can't access my blog from another device but the app on my phone. I tried to generate more security codes and deactivate the TFA using the app, but it's impossible. You can only do that in a web browser (pc or phone). I also asked tumblr's staff for help, but they told me they can't deactivate the authentication feature for me or send more codes, only I can do it in my dashboard from a web browser. But, how the hell will I do that if I can't even log in??? 

In others words: I can't access this blog anymore.

Only through the app. But, what would happen if I buy a new phone?? Or if it breaks or someone steals it from me?? This is my only access to this blog right now 😥

As a result, the only solution left was to make a new blog.

For now, all my previous art will stay here but I'll stop using this blog from now on, I'll only reblog all the stuff I post in the new blog (don't expect new art soon tho. No laptop=No digital drawings, and I don't feel like drawing anything at all anyway). If I ever change or lose this phone, I'll post all my drawings and comics again in there, and this blog will probably be abandoned/erased forever. 

So, whether you follow me for my art, my X-Hand comic, my Coco drawings, or whatever reason, and you still wanna see more of my work,

Please follow me now on my new blog: Dr-Aluxe

(Yeah, the name is technically the same, I just translated it from spanish to english. It was really hard as you can see xd)

In addition, here's a little advice: if you activated the Two-Factor Authentication, take good care of your security codes and log in via browser on another device, so you could have a way to generate new authentication codes if you ever lose your computer. Sadly I'm not the only one with this problem and Tumblr doesn't have a solution yet (what a surprise 🙄). And in case you don't have TFA activated yet, think carefully about it or try another alternative. 

Or if you have a solution, please let me now. I will thank you forever 🙏

Anyway, this is sad, and I'm a little angry too, but hey! The year is almost over!! Let's hope 2021 be better for everyone :'D

All in all, follow my new blog, beware of the TFA, wear a mask, stay safe, keep going no matter how awful this year is and don't yell at eggs, cuz that's rude, but more importantly:

Thank you so much for your support!!

Bye ^u^/

[neo-shitty]

toffee!

hehe glad i could make you laugh, oooh that sounds awesome! yeah id love to be tagged it sounds great :)

YES the differences are so fucking weird. like, they do know they're the same age right? i feel like its just an exagguration of how much the persons role in the group matters, like we see chan being held up as such a mature, old leader while jungkook who is literally the same age, is still babied etc. like enha hyung line is basically the same age (if a bit younger) as chenle and jisung but somehow the rules are different?? as you point out, still legal but still bizarre. hehe yeah, i mean where else are we going to rant? quora lol. mmm, hopefully more people can just write less smut abt people who are barely adults

ah, no prob it didnt take long. yeah i think thats right (i keep forgetting you know my url lol) mmhmm :( i think if that happened irl there would be some major trauma going on. knock wood it never happens to you or me lol (/hj)

hehe same! oooh glad Redemption For Cheese was realised! yess we cant rllycomplain that theyve written/produced too much good music lol. yeah, ive dragged him into being a stay so *dusts hands off* mission accomplished. mmm yeah, they tend to have a certain vibe but tbh it couldve worked if they were any other group but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ahh ur one step ahead of me on the stages of listening to ssick i think, still not convinced but thats okay! hehe, it had to be said. yesss the itch in the back of my brain is very satisfied by sorry i love you, felixs vocals deserve to be appreciated! (side note i feel like hes trying to sing more like his speaking voice, sorta husky, but tbh i wouldnt be mad if he sang like in glow, his sweet honey vocals made my life lol. but i think ive heard him say he doesnt like singing like that cos it makes his normal voice less husky, so what can you do)

> YES SOMEONE SAID IT. seungmin rap KING, he sped thru that rap like it was nothing, he deserves more rap lines. i do like how they gave minho some melodic rap lines this comeback, my guy deserved to show off those skills that made him not be eliminated (flashbacks to stay collectively wanting to murder jyp) and we already know changbin can sing, my man murdered masked singer. hyunjin can obviously sing as can jisung and felix, and i want to hear chan rap more! i feel like he started as part of 3racha (as a rap unit not producing) and then just became a vocalist (which im fine with, but it could be nice to hear him flex his rapping skills) and was partially replaced by hyunjin. anywayyy

back to album talk. lmaooo sad music to twerk to PERFECTLY describes silent cry. yes secret secret is and will always be, a masterpiece. hehe glad i could make you laugh :) i just felt like they have similar vibes. putting off skz stuff bc of not having time to cry IS the kpop stan life summarised. oh my beloved track, red lights. ahh thats okay, we can have different opinions, but by god the lyrics are *chefs kiss*. *banging on table* TWISTED AU TWISTED AU TWISTED AU. yess id love to see ur take on it! sdfghjkl it would have been glorious

no no! not stupid, just able to predict my brainwaves. ooooh thats so cool! makes me want to go there (wherever there is lol) yeah the waves are pretty good here, but none of my familys a surfer, so we dont rlly enjoy the full potential lol. YES moving on to gone away, it is indeed a heartwrenching track, but the vocals and the bloody key change? makes me want to brave being sad just to listen to it. mmm yeah, good point :( i feel like ive just gotten used to overthinking so much so that it doesnt matter what mood im in, ill do it anyway, so might as well just do what i feel like doing anyway.

yeah i think ur right! it is quite comforting knowing that all the tracks will get the love they deserve. i feel like also people assume kpop is just one genre which is utter bs. there are so many different vibes and feels and songs, i couldnt get into kpop (of which i thought only the bright cheerful present day bts stuff existed smh) until i heard gods menu so... idk where i was going with this but yeah. :)

YES FUCK YG, theyre literally on the brink of being kicked out of the big three and they are holding their salvation hostage without letting them do ANYTHING. idek what thought process goes thru their minds but arghhh its so infuriating. yess lisa's cb will be awesome but ot4 is the gold standard here.

hehe, glad u could get to this point. no no! u dont sound like a cult member at all lol yeah, i loooove some of their songs but the whole 23 members thing is getting to me. thats prob a common problem with nctzens but what can i say? im a simple girl with a limit to how many korean boys i can give my money to. atm im just trying to get into ateez and finish memorising enhypen's faces. also kard is kinda sucking me into their fandom atm, as well as eric name lol. ah what can you do? ooh thats good!

hehe i love it too! its exactly like online penpals, that was rlly well put. aww ty! hmm im okay, recovering from a bad case of rsv so thats fun. im doing okay mentally, starting therapy soon (after having to convince my mother that its not just smth i can brush off). physically i wont go into, basically i should be doing stretches to help but they dont completely fix it so my lazy ass doesnt do them, plus i got told recently im going to be stuck with this condition for the rest of my life so thats fun! ah, before you type smth dw abt me ill be fine. the weather atm is cloudy but warm, its been raining on and off today which is good for the garden. uhh i just finished reading sunburnt veils and im in the middle of prom theory which is rlly good. ummm ive got a concert tonight? that i may or may not be able to sing in (bc of the whole rsv thingo) and uhhhh idk. my dog is cute? im drinking tea rn? ive got a school dance coming up?

wbu? hows ur day going, how are you? whats the weather like on ur end? done anything interesting lately? found smth that makes you rlly happy? just any random thing youve been dying to tell someone?

no no! dont apologise, i love these exchanges. i think im happy to continue them for a long time :) on the other hand, if you get tired of them, feel free to just not answer at any time. goodness gracious this was a long ask haha hope it isnt too annoying

<3 w.a. 🐺

sorry it took me a bit to reply, i was fixing my theme ;n;

yeah, i figured it was because of the roles too. my friends and i still get taken aback when 3rd gen idols are the same age as 4th gen ones. in my head it doesn't add up sometimes. PLS THE RANT AT QUORA SKJDK tbh tho it's just going to be normalized as the years pass? esp that the boys are growing older and the amount of explicit fics will just increase. i might have to start blocking tags.

i had to look up the previous ask to remember what we were talking about xd i hope the events in champagne problems never happens to anyone. realistically, it probably happens a lot. damn i really won't wish that pain on anyone. dragging your brother into being a stay i whEEZED JFKSA additional noeasy music enthusiast o.o and ALL I CAN SAY WITH YOU GUSHING ABT FELIX IS AHA WHIPPEEEED OML can't blame you tho, i also want to hear felix sing more in other shades (if that makes sense HAHA) i really hope they'll do the role exchange in the next comeback :( or like in the near future bc i know they can do it :( the day i hear seungmin rapping it i will respectfully pass away. minho was given more lines this comeback thank fUCK i could rmb my irl being vocal abt her frustration. i don't get why minho barely has center time/lines in title tracks??? like the line distribution in the past eras just made me ???? if seventeen can balance lines with 13 members why cant a group of 8 do the same? moving on. i haven't watched the stray kids show simply bc i don't want to cry HAJS but i've seen clips. imagine if skz debuted without minho and felix?!?!? i rmb another irl catching bias feels towards changbin bc of the masked singer only to find out that the man's a rapper. i love how skz's vocals were highlighted this comeback :c there were a lot of mellow tracks! i find it cute when chan sings/raps bc it gets kinda obvious that he's a foreigner? the accent (im not even sure if it's the accent) it just shows. "putting off skz stuff bc of not having time to cry IS the kpop stan life summarised." CORRECT.

abt the twisted au o.O i'll inquire my irl if she wants to write it or not. if she doesn't want to, i'll do it. i miss writing twisted aus <3___<3 and i also miss going to the beach with my friends :' ) but it's starting to get cold here and i don't think i'll be able to enjoy the beach as much as i would if i went beaching in the summer. so maybe next summer? gone away really has an sm-ballad vibe. the thing about skz being a self-producing group, their songs don't sound like typical jype songs? and i just appreciate that bc in all honesty im not a fan of jyp groups at all. PLS the overthinking. i wish i could mute overthinking.

anyone who assumes kpop is just one genre obv hasn't listened to a single track. if kpop was just one genre why do i like some tracks more than the others??? oh you've only recently become a kpop stan? tbh im not a fan of the bright songs of bts either. i liked their older ones *chefs kiss* really matched high school vibes. yg has good artists and they're just wasting the talent ~.~ that strategy they have will get tiring eventually. people will stop waiting on blackpink and move on to newer more active groups ://

HAHAHAH yeah the 23 members is pretty overwhelming! it was the reason i didn't bother stanning before quarantine started. i don't regret stanning tho, met my ult bias in that group <3___<3 i don't really purchase albums unless i like the tracks xd ohhh getting into ateez just in time for the comeback! let me know what you think about them! i was fond of them at some point but grew out of it. good luck with memorizing enhypen! it took me a while to distinguish to people there XD i haven't checked out kard yet but chan plays their songs during lives and they're sexc hype music me likey *u*

i had to look up rsv im sorry. i'm glad you're recovering! please rest more and don't stress yourself out. bro i wish i could go to therapy too bc i have weird issues i can't justify and i need a professional to tell me what's the reason behind it. stuck with what condition btw? what happened? i'm sorry in case i just forgot. yesterday was a bit rainy for me too :(( it's not the type of rainy that makes me anxious so B) oh concert! good luck and i hope you'll be able to sing but i also don't think it's best for you rn :c what's your dog's breed? and yes i just finished drinking tea too. AAAAA i miss school dances :(( the last one i was supposed to have was cancelled bc of covid.

i was less productive today and i'm teetering between being mentally stable and becoming a hermit again. i'm anxious with a lot of things atm so like : D not the best state. today it was a bit sunny but not hot hot which was nice. i changed my theme today bc i couldn't wait for sept. 1st. and no i haven't found anything that makes me happy HAHAHA shit like that's hard to identify. don't have anything to say too, i'm just thinking about why i'm procrastinating too much atm T_T and i'm listening to this rap song atm and one of the rappers sounded like han.

it isn't annoying! i enjoy the long exchanges but i do admit it takes me awhile to type down a reply. so if i get more busy, it'll prolly take a bit longer for me to reply.

[catchlalune]

Original artwork here

a/n: Hello starbursts! Happy Juneteenth and I hope everyone is staying safe and still quarantining! This fic is very different from my usual works so I need to preface this in my authors note that all of the characters in the story are pretty awful. If you find yourself in any of these situations PLEASE seek help. I wrote this to highlight these issues and you should think of it much like a modern day Romeo and Juliette story (and what I mean by that is that everyone in that story was incredibly dense and really could’ve solved a lot of their issues by talking and working through things together.) Thank you to @skzctnightnight​ and @pockpop​ for actually helping me maintain my motivation for finishing writing in an actual day. (also tagging @jejublr​ )

Word Count: 3.6k 

Pairings: Lucas x Reader

Genre: Angst, CEO! Au, Arranged Marriage 

Warnings: unhealthy relationships, smut, abusive relationship (this is not between the reader and Lucas), this again is to highlight how awful people can be this is an extremely toxic scenario so please don’t read if you will be triggered. Also not proofread yet but I plan on fixing it later

This is not in any way, shape, or form meant to say that I believe Lucas is like this in the slightest. I am using his likeness to portray a completely fictional character and that is all. 

The entirety of the two years she has spent with Lucas culminates to the two of them in this moment. The sinful sounds the two of them make as skin slaps on skin. The feel of him inside her. Everything is hot and wet and passionate. As passionate as the kisses they’ve always shared. As hot as the sun on their skin as they sit and laugh in the sun, Lucas’ parents included. As wet as the rain as it pours outside, slapping on the pavement in hard droplets. 

They say that if it rains on your wedding day it means the relationship is meant to last forever. But what does it mean when it happens on a day of goodbyes? Are you fated to never say hello again? 

Whatever it means does not matter much to the two of them. Lucas is too busy coaxing his cock in and out of her to think of much other than their combined pleasure. They draw this out for as long as they possibly can. They know what will happen when they finish. But still Lucas must bring her to the apex of her pleasure, circling her throbbing bud as he stoaks the fire inside her belly. Her toes tingle, eyes shut tight and breathing ragged. Her fingers pinch and rub at her nipples until she's shaking. 

She comes undone with a sweet groan, gripping him until he releases into the condom. 

They lay there in the darkness of the night, the only illumination being the red of the alarm clock on Lucas’ bedside table. Glaringly it tells them the time but they ignore it as it looks in on them. It judges silently as the time reaches hours close enough for the sun to claw its way above civilization. They grasp for each other in the post-coituous haze. It does not matter, no matter how tightly they cling.

“I want to stay like this forever.” His whispers sound like music to her ears, the song of a siren. 

She does not answer him, anything she wants to say is caught in her throat. The memories that flood her mind hurt her before his words even can. Distinctly she remembers his mother telling her about the arranged marriage proposal from before he was even a child. Lucas doesn’t even know, she hadn’t even known up until two weeks ago. Their two year relationship had suddenly been reduced to nothing by those words. And his mother had been so casual about it, telling her as they searched for Lucas’ birthday present as if it was nothing more than an afterthought. ‘And  by the way, you will never be able to have my son. Not completely.’ 

She doesn’t realize the sobs that wrack her until Lucas pulls her close. He coos at her about how she always gets so emotional after sex. He jokes, tries to lighten the mood but nothing will quiet her mind. Not really. She knows that their graduation tomorrow means the end of this, of them. She knows she should at least tell him why, but she can’t bring herself to say the words. 

Instead she lets him hum the both of them to sleep, Lucas feeling bad about not being able to cure her of whatever ails her. She speaks to him after a brief period of rest, words hardly above the sound of the rustling of sheets. 

“Maybe we could’ve been, in another world.”

By the time he wakes the sun is just rising over the horizon, alarm clock blaring, and the bed cold. He doesn’t have to wait long to find out she is no longer with him. Some part of him feels the dread, knows something must’ve been wrong but he tries to brush it off. He does a good job of it too until he realizes he can’t reach her. Her number automatically disconnects, her things are no longer at her dorm room, and he doesn’t even catch a glimpse of her at graduation. When it is time for her to walk the stage there is a pregnant pause and the name of the graduate. He can’t imagine what must have happened to make her miss her own college graduation but he can’t even find the time to worry. Not when his parents are there and tell him the truth. 

---

“If I have to listen to another man tell me about how to run my own business I just might shoot myself in the foot.” 

Already the span of time has reached six long years. Leaving him was a decision she did not pride herself on. Some nights ended with dreams, ghosts of memories too long passed. Echoes of a time she felt safe, felt confident. Now she stands in the lobby of a convention center trying to figure out which panel would aggravate her the least. Two more long days she would have to deal with the misogyny, usually her patience wouldn’t be so thin but she hasn’t been able to sleep very well recently. She wakes up with the feel and taste of him on her. She feels dirty.

“I agree, we can do it together.” The woman-- who she hadn’t noticed-- smiles at her so brightly it makes her a bit uncomfortable. She was very pretty, the image of most men’s dreams probably. Perfectly manicured nails, long pin-straight hair, skin a milky complexion, lips a shade of pink that was not too bold and not too flirty. The woman also wears a dress she vaguely remembers seeing in a high fashion magazine not too long ago whilst waiting at the doctor's office-- in another word: expensive. She feels a bit embarrassed to have said that so loud where others could obviously hear her. It was obvious she was being watched, she was a woman in a man's world she was always being watched. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry about it. Your secret is safe with me!” The woman takes a moment to wink at her, she shifts on her feet still feeling a bit awkward. “My name’s Jaeun, you’re the CEO of Xuxi’s Publishing Group, correct? I’ve been trying to find you all day.” 

Jaeun launches into a story about how she’d stumbled upon her company and relaxes her enough for the two of them to have a conversation about things other than business. It had been such a long time since she had a friend and talking to Jaeun was extremely easy. Maybe it was the way she seemed so bright and bubbly, or even the way she navigated conversations with a natural grace. Whatever it was, Jaeun quickly became a staple in her life for the next two days. 

And then it all comes crashing down on her, just like the rain on that night it rains the last day of the convention. It comes down so hard it resonates within the convention center. But that’s not what she’s focused on. Jaeun had offered for her to meet her husband and his parents excitedly yesterday after talking to her about the lack of business prospects. It was supposed to be relaxed and informal but she was on absolute high alert. 

The years were kind to him in a way that she considered unfair. He was even more beautiful than the night she left him. 

“There you are! This is my husband Lucas. I showed him your business proposal and he wants to have a meeting for a merger.” 

--

It’s no more than a few days after the convention that he shows up on her doorstep in business casual attire that puts hers to shame. She’s not even sure if it was actually smart for them to be left alone together but she swallows the lump in her throat and lets in him. She offers him a plate of food that she made for their lunch but he declines. He does the same to her offer for water and coffee as well. He’s been there all of five minutes and already her palms are sweating. She almost feels silly as he tells her that she can eat, always feeling like the one taking instead of giving. 

"Do you really like her as a friend?" A strange conversation for him to start, but he needed to vet her nonetheless. 

"Yes." There is no doubt in her words, they are hard and come out leaving no room for doubt.

"Do you love and cherish her?"

"Of course I do, it's been so long since finding a friend like her." She fiddles with her fork wondering why this was being asked to her and not the other way around. 

"You know I think she loves you too. I don't know about cherish, that's a good change word. It's just that her mom is so skeptical of everyone, it's better that she doesn't get too close." 

"I know, but it doesn't change my answer. "

There's a brief pause between them before he speaks again, a small smile on his face. 

"I almost wish I was in an arranged marriage with you. I think it would be easy to fall in love. Should I just end it with her? You know I could." He says it with such conviction it makes her heart flutter. 

"Don't say things like that. Jaeun really likes you, she really wants to make it work." It almost sickened her how easy it was for him to just say those words to her. Maybe it was easy for him, but what about her friend? She was groomed her whole life for him. The way he would easily throw her away for another makes her resolve to forget the butterflies in her stomach that much stronger. 

"Let's get down to business now shall we? You came here to talk about a merger." She looks at him with her eyes and jaw set and he knows. He knows he is going to fall into her head first and drown. He knows that she is so loyal to her morals and her friendship that she would willingly let any sparks for him fizzle out and die. He knows it, and yet the beating of his heart only gets faster. 

"Let's."

She is exactly how he remembers her. And the way he remembers her is very intimate. If he closes his eyes he can faintly feel the way her body would meld perfectly against him. Lips laying kisses across the expanse of his visage. The smell of her, fresh and sweet; the smell of citrus and a hint of honey with jasmine blooms. He can still feel the way their hearts beat at each others ribcage, trying to find a way out and meld together. But they never did, and they never will. 

It has already been two weeks since their meeting and business between them is going off without a hitch. But of course that's all that is going on between them, business. She is just as intelligent and bright as she always has been and it seems if only she had been dealt a luckier hand in life her business would've surpassed his years ago. He shouldn't be but she makes it so easy to remember their summer tryst. She makes it so easy to remember how he cares for her. 

Even at the company dinner she makes it easy, she glides through the room as if on air. Her pantsuit hugs her body in all the right places. He takes note of how it makes her stand out, of the power she exudes just by making a not so orthodox outfit choice. Of course some of the men would think she was a hardass because of it, but when she saunters away with a pretty brunette and stay in the bathroom longer than socially acceptable they begin to think other things. Of course even if these things are true it's none of their business and he tells them just that. Reminding them of the company rules against harassment and intimidation. 

This doesn't stop him from waiting for her though. After another ten minutes the brunette slipping out from the bathroom a satiated look on her face Lucas is waiting. He keeps his eyes trained on the bathroom door but when he feels it's been too long he doesn't wait anymore. It is a company wide policy that most bathrooms be gender neutral and luckily this was one such one. He makes his way quietly into the single toilet, he tells himself it's just to make sure that she's okay. But when he sees the way she looks he can't help but ask her. 

"Did you have fun?" It's an innocent enough question but the implications of it are anything but innocent. 

"Are you mad?" She doesn't even startle at his presence, as if she knew he would be looking for her. It takes him a second to really be able to answer her. He thinks about it long and hard.

"I can't be mad, because I was the one that let you slip away from me." He regards her with a soft wisftfulness that makes both their hearts ache. It hurts to look at her lipstick smudged and hair disheveled when he wasn't the one who's done it. He wonders if the woman she's just hooked up with knows. 

"If I had held you longer, maybe you wouldn't have slipped out of the bed that night. We could've woken up to each other we could've-" 

"You know that's not true. Don't even pretend for a second your parents would've given up your arranged marriage." 

"We don't know that, we could've been more persistent! We could've begged." His eyes are alight, wild with all of the things he might have done to stay with her had he known it would hurt him this much. 

"No, it wouldn't have changed anything. Just like every other rich person the only thing you and your whole family value is money and power. It doesn't matter how much they liked me." The words come out of her mouth as sharp as razor blades and they cut. They cut so deep and so hot it almost makes him dizzy. He knows she doesn't mean it, she's just upset because he'd almost caused her friendship to fall through. He deserves it but just because it was true about his parents doesn't mean it was for him. 

"You don't understand how much I love you." He steps forward, tears threatening to pour down his beautiful face. She will regret her next words for the rest of her life. But she must say them even if they aren't true, even if they hinder her from happiness. 

"I understand, but it's that my understanding does not matter. Jaeun loves you." Her words echo through different times and spaces it seems. They beat at the two of them brutally. They make it hard to breathe. 

"Do you love me?" He steps closer, words falling from his lips like water from a faucet. They begin to flood the room with their intensity, the water is at their shins. She steps back. 

"Jaeun loves you." A shake of her head and the room is flooded higher, the water at their hips now. He takes another step forward. 

"Do you love me?" The words are at their chests now and she shakes her head again, tears mirroring the ones steaming down his face. 

"Jaeun loves you." He stops when she is almost against the wall but doesn't proceed forward. 

"Do you love Jaeun?" 

"I do, with all that is in me. She's been my only friend through all of this. I can't betray her." The words are at their throats now, they choke her so that her speech is airy and labored. They press at her chest. He knew that he would drown in her, he just didn't realize he would never be saved. 

"But loving me, you already have." He steps away and she can already breathe better when her senses aren't so full of him. 

"I never said-" 

"You didn't have to." The smile he gives her is preposterously solemn for such a wide showcase of his teeth. 

"Jaeun loves you." She whispers back to him, head bowed and eyes looking at the shiny leather of his shoes. 

"I know, but I love you. " He turns away from her and begins his exit and subsequently his descent into madness. Every step he takes from her causes her to fall just a bit closer to the floor, by the time he is gone she is already on her knees gasping for air. 

Jaeun waits for him outside the room with an eerily stoic face. He knows she has heard everything but he doesn't care, he hopes she wants a divorce but to his surprise she offers him her usual smile. Normally he'd think it was full of charm but her words...her very words tell him she was simply a snake all along. 

"Let's go home, I'll help you forget about her." 

They were so caught up in the turmoil of their relationship they hadn't even seen the signs. The seeds that Jaeun had sowed. And now, they played right into her hand. But for her sake, he'd do everything to make sure she wouldn't find out.

"I don't need or want whatever it is you're offering me. What I want is for you to get the fuck away from me." His words come out scathing, he puts every bit of malice he can into each and every letter. But it just makes Jaeun laugh, she then fixes him with a look so sinister it almost makes him shiver. 

"Don't be silly. The second the two of you got together there was already a due date on your relationship. You were never meant to be forever, there was a deadline and it ended exactly when I decided it to. Really it's your fault for ever getting involved with her in the first place." She ends it with a sneer marring her pretty features and so loud he hushes her fearing that his lover might hear. 

"Is it really my fault?" The thought seems ludicrous to him but all Jaeun needs is that inch of doubt in his voice to take it a full mile. 

"Of course it is baby, you're just as awful as I am. But it's okay, I forgive you." He lets her pull him away after that, head so clouded with her words he can barely manage to walk correctly. It was true, he knew he was getting an arranged marriage and his parents knew but still he…

He would make sure that she'd be happy anyway he could even if it meant being in a relationship with Jaeun. 

The years spread between them like a desert, sands of time speeding up and slowing down in frequent intervals that they can't change though sometimes they wish they could. Lucas' marriage to Jaeun is nothing more than a facade and his deserves an Oscar for his performance every time she comes around. Sometimes he wonders why Jaeun keeps her if she doesn't really see her as a friend but then remembers that Jaeun is cruel and enjoys watching the two of them pine. Whenever he kisses Jaeun he feels her lips ghosting across his own. Whenever he touches Jaeun he feels her skin soft and supple. Whenever he fucks Jaeun he really wishes he could make love to her. And whenever he sees their daughter though he loves her to death, he wishes her mother was another woman. He especially wishes it when she comes around to babysit. 

Jaeun takes her cruelty to a whole new degree when she begins to ask her "friend" to babysit for her. 'She's just so tired and Lucas is always so busy.' And it isn't entirely a lie, but Lucas had long since been working from home just to be able to catch a glimpse of her in passing. He didn't think his heart could ache more but it does the moment he hears it. He watches from around the corner to the kitchen, peering in and spying like a shadow.

"Mommy can we have chicken for lunch?" His daughter had just begun to learn how to enunciate her words better. Four years old and Jaeun had hardly stepped in to care for the child, she wasn't a mother any more than she was a wife this much was evident from their daughters words. 

"I'm not your mommy darling, you can call me auntie though." She bends down to pat Jisoo on the head. Eyes tender with a longing she could not put into words. 

"But you act like a mommy, can't you be my mommy? Can we please have chicken?" The four year old pouts up at her, Lucas nearly swoons. Everyone knows that it's true, even the maid and butler agreed she was a much better fit for Jaeun at motherhood. But secrets should never be uttered aloud. 

"We can have chicken Jisoo, but you can't keep calling me that. At least not in front of everyone." Jisoo lights up at the prospect of some kind of compromise. 

"Does that mean I can still call you mommy?" She hushes the child and leans in close to her. Lucas has to strain to hear the words that come from her. 

"Yes, but only when we're alone and you have to be very quiet. It'll be our little secret, promise?" She holds out her pinky for Jisoo to wrap her smaller one around. 

Lucas returns to his office with a smile on his face, something he'd not worn in such a long time the staff gave him strange looks, whispers of rumors beginning. It made no difference to him, he'd just been so happy to keep their secret safe. A secret made for two. 

[green-eyed-weirdo]

Mornings aren’t that bad with Chloe.

To my dear friend @aca-awesomenerd ;

I haven’t written anything in a while, so this is a few weeks late. It was supposed to be posted for your birthday but as that’s already 3 weeks ago, I post it today as a present for moving day. Enjoy! 💛🖤

Read on AO3

Beca hates mornings. She hates them with a passion. As her mind is being dragged to consciousness, she refuses to open her eyes just yet. She tries to stretch a little but feels another warm body pressed against hers. She registers the arm around her and the skin contact on her cheek. Sneakily, she opens one eye and sees freckled skin and messy red hair. She feels a sleepy breath of air going through her own hair and can’t stop her brain while it takes off on a trip back to last night's events. “Last night. Oh shit, last night…”

Beca and Chloe were so bored after almost six weeks of quarantine in their tiny Brooklyn apartment. Amy had been visiting family in Australia when the pandemic started and she’d let them know she was staying there for the time being. Yesterday Chloe had been in a very un-Chloe mood. She’d been moody, sad and easily annoyed all day and Beca had been doing her absolute best to cheer her best friend up, but nothing seemed to be working. Chloe, who got her energy from seeing and speaking to other people, just needed human contact. Beca understanding this being a difficult time for the usually bubbly redhead, had been trying to think of some way to distract Chloe. When she took two beers out of the fridge some time after dinner, she hoped offering to spent the evening playing games would do the trick.

She feels Chloe stir a little beneath her, and quickly closes her eyes again. She doesn’t want her best friend to know she’s awake yet. Chloe’s hand starts to lazily run up and down her arm and she feels goosebumps following the motion.

Chloe’s happy self had come back more and more with each round of some weird card game Beca had never heard of before. Chloe had insisted this was a game she used to play in college all the time, but Beca was pretty certain Chloe was making up rules as they played, making Beca drink more than she intended to. Not that she minded of course. Anything to see Chloe smile.

Suddenly she distinctly remembers a particular moment; She was looking at Chloe, subtly admiring her beautiful face when Chloe had looked up, locking eyes with Beca. Her bright smile turned into a cheeky smirk as her eyes quickly looked down at Beca’s lips and back up again.

Beca, still desperately trying to keep her eyes closed, feels her lips start to tingle and her mouth going dry. “They’d kissed.” This is the moment Beca’s brain decides to have the trip down last night’s memory lane be accompanied by a spiralling freak-out.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck. They had kissed. She’d really made out with Chloe. Finally!! But also; Fuck! What does this mean? Did they do more then kissing? Did they have sex? Wait…” - Beca makes her brain focus - “No, she’s wearing her shorts. Okay, pfieuw, no sex yet. What? Yet? Bec, focus.”

She knows she breathing heavily by now and that Chloe would’ve probably noticed she’s awake. She hasn’t said anything yet though. “why hasn’t she said anything? She must know i’m awake. I'm not exactly having a subtle freak out here. Oh my god, what if she regrets it? She does. Chloe regrets what happened last night! She’s also pretending to be asleep just to not have to talk to me. This is going to be so awkward. I fucked everything up”

Beca’s emotions are trying to take over and she decides to do what she does best. She tries to move from Chloe’s embrace but feels strong arms tighten a little more around her. Chloe lets out a tired sigh, pulls her a bit closer and plants a soft kiss to her head. Beca tries to move from the embrace again, with a little more force this time, but Chloe still won’t let her go. “Bec… please don’t…”

It’s spoken so softly but Beca hears it loud and clear. She looks up and meets Chloe’s bright blue eyes shining back at her. She gives Chloe a questioning look and waits for her to speak again. “I know what you’re doing. Your brain is going a mile a minute to process the fact that we made out.” Beca lets the breath she’d been holding escape while she slowly nods. “It’s okay, Bec. Take your time, just… don’t run. Please.” They lock eyes again and she sees sincerity in Chloe’s eyes. And just like that, she calms down. It’s like it washes over her as Chloe’s arms tighten around her once more. Beca settles back into Chloe’s arms, her own arm around Chloe’s waste and their legs tangled together.

Beca has no idea how long they’ve been laying together like this, but she definitely feels more rested then when she first opened her eyes. She looks up and sees Chloe looking at her. “Good morning sleepy head” Chloe sounds like she’s probably been awake for a while. “Where you just watching me sleep, you weirdo?” Beca’s voice still a little sleepy. “Yes. You looked so cute” Beca frowns and pulls the blanket over her head. “I’m not cute. I’m badass” Chloe laughs, pulls the blanket back and kisses her cheek. “Of course you are.”

“About last night…” Chloe starts carefully, “it’s okay if you just want to forget it ever happened, Bec. I understand.” Beca doesn’t really know what to say. The internal dialogue starts immediately though: “No she doesn’t want to forget it happened. But, if that’s what Chloe wants… then yeah, of course. She can do that. She can shove her feelings down again. She’s been doing it for years. No big deal.”

Chloe sits up a bit more in the bed, and Beca looks up at her as she adjusts herself too. Chloe gives her a sad smile and Beca realizes she’s been quiet for a while. Her brain and mouth are definitely not in sync, because her mouth starts talking before her brain even thought about what to say. “No Chlo, that’s…” she needs a moment to gather up her courage “That’s not what I want. I can’t just forget this happened.” She sees Chloe’s smile relax a little, but also a mixture of anxiety and hope on her face. She knows she has to be more clear and tells herself to be the badass she always claims to be. “I can’t just forget about last night, because… ehm... I’m in love with you.”

She isn’t looking at Chloe the moment she speaks the words and she speaks them so softly, it’s almost a whisper. When Chloe stays quiet, she genuinely begins to wonder if Chloe even heard her at all. After another moment she dares to look at Chloe and is met with two watery eyes as Chloe lets out a sob. “Chlo, I’m sorry. Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m…” Beca’s ramble is interrupted by Chloe’s lips pressed against her own. She relaxes into the kiss and almost whines when Chloe stops it way to soon.

“What…” Beca starts but is interrupted yet again. “I’m in love with you too.” Beca has never seen Chloe look at her like that before. “yeah?” Beca asks while she wipes away the tears on Chloe’s cheeks. “yeah.”

Beca has to admit, mornings with Chloe aren’t that bad.

[lynnthevirgo]

Surprise - Han Jisung (Stray Kidz) M

Summary: Your boyfriend comes home with a birthday surprise for you. But it’s not the one you were expecting.

WC: 2.2k

Warnings: Cursing, smut, oppa/baby girl, noona reader, light choking, male and female oral, unprotected sex (Y’all, please use a condom. This is for my wife and she’s a hoe, don’t be like her.), fingering and degrading nickname (slut)

A/N: This is a very late birthday gift to my wife who needed to be wrecked by Han because she wrecked me just for the hell of it. Happy belated birthday cutie @yourguessisasgoodasminemate, love you to bits and I hope your birthday was still fun regardless of the current quarantine.

                                  ****************************************

You’d deliberately kept your birthday secret from him because you knew he’d go way over the top and you were not having it. Han spoiled you enough as it was; museum pieces that he knew fit your aesthetic, clothes that varied from your own personal tastes to things he wanted to see you in and so many dog toys for the fur babies you and he collected over the years. You didn’t mind that he spoiled the dogs, but to spend so much on you when you couldn’t return the favor was not something you enjoyed.

Han was a great boyfriend, soon to be fiancé if you were lucky enough. But throughout the few years you’d been together, you’d found out his one flaw is numbers. So birthdays, anniversaries and even his own comeback schedules were not his strong suite. Often you had to remind him of his own hair appointments because he’d forget to schedule reminders on his phone. He was so cute but so hopeless and it’s grown to be one of your favorite quirks of his.

However he’s gotten smarter of your antics to avoid getting presents from him and has since adapted to them. The year before last he took you and your friends out to a celebratory dinner every night until you caved and told him the exact date. Then last year he spent the entire week of your birthday buying you small but very expensive gifts to annoy you. It worked because he did end up giving you a gift on your birthday, you just made sure to tell him the day after so he couldn’t buy you more.

This year however, he couldn’t do any of that because he had been doing comeback promo with his brothers. It had just hit the midnight hour and you were another year older, it’s a shame too because it just reminds you of the already existing age gap between you. You didn’t know why you were cursed to like men younger than you, but it gave you Han so you’re not all that bitter about it. He’s tried to adapt to just calling you by your name, but those Korean honorifics kept popping out. You were noona for the longest time until he finally asked you out, then you became Jagiya. But the noona term still applies whenever he wants to be a shit and remind you of your age difference.

He was due to walk through your door any minute and you were in a mood. His plane landed around ten thirty and he’d been keeping you up to date on what he was doing, clearly just as excited to get home to you. But he’d also been sending you selfies and voice messages in between the updates. There was a very reoccurring theme throughout all of them, he was so. Fucking. Horny. You didn’t know whether to be excited or scared, because even though he looked cute and was a big goof…he was also ridiculously kinky.

The key to your home turned in the lock and the dogs started barking, immediately on alert. You weren’t sure if the flipping in your stomach was butterflies or anxiety, hell it could’ve been both. But you knew it wasn’t just Han walking through your door, it was oppa and he was expecting his baby girl to be ready to submit. The last time he touched you like this was before he left and you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t want him to absolutely ruin you.

He enters the house wordlessly, laughing to himself as he pets all four of your dogs and being bombarded with them jumping at him. Even behind the travel mask he wears you can see and hear the smile on his face, his eye smile failing to hide the emotion.

“A little help?” He asks, suppressing a laugh as he tries to stop the pitbull puppy you’d recently gotten from pulling at his skinny jeans. The older, larger dogs still trying to jump on his back in his attempts to calm her.

Together the two of you managed to collect all of them and let them outside in the fenced in yard to run off their excitement. The oldest finding his usual perching spot and lying down immediately. The minute the door is closed behind them, his hands find your hips. You can feel his breath against your neck and the soft kisses he leaves along the nape of it. Oh shit.

“I missed you.” He says in a whisper along your shoulder blade. His fingers sliding themselves under the jumper you wore and tracing shapes into your skin.

“Happy birthday, Jagiya.” He continues, biting ruthlessly into your shoulder and gripping you tighter. Mother fuck!

You can’t even ask how he knew, the minute you open your mouth to speak his tongue slides inside and massages itself against yours. His fingers moving down to pull at the sweatpants you were wearing, the other hand gripping onto your ass as he presses your face to the glass of the sliding door. He leaves your mouth and pulls the jumper over your head, leaving you in your bra and your underwear as you wordlessly ditch your sweatpants. You wanted to cum tonight and being a good girl was how to get that.

He smirks at your submissive expression, patiently awaiting him to touch you more, the glass is cold against your skin but you can barely feel it with the fire burning under your skin.

“Such a good birthday girl, how many are we going for tonight? Four? Five?” He laughs at the whimper you didn’t realize you did  until it was too late.

“Kneel, noona.” He orders, his eyebrow raising in that stupidly handsome way it does when he’s feeling himself. Fuck you were so wet already and he barely touched you.

You unzip his jeans, pull him out of his boxer briefs and watch him spring out. The groan he emits is so hot you fight the whine you want to release, already dying to have him inside you. Your tongue slides along his length and your lips close around his tip, sucking lightly to tease him for the noona remark. He growls and hit’s the door behind you in frustration, annoyed at the pace you’re going.

“Y/n, remember our rule; whatever you do to me I do to you worse.” He reminds. Instantly your pace quickens, your mouth sliding along him at your usual pace and the pressure increasing around his base, your hands jerking roughly. You knew how ruthless he could be and tonight was not the night you wanted to be edged for hours.

“Fuck, that‘s my good girl.” Han praises, his hands holding your hair ready to pull you off before he cums. You continue going, your pace quickening to show your appreciation and he pulls your hair to warn you. Your tongue brushes over the slit in his tip, licking up the precum spilling over and sliding down your chin. He pulls you off of him with a loud grunt and holds your head in place while he holds eye contact with you. You’re just dripping for him, wanting to feel him deep inside you.

“On the couch, just how I like you and if you touch yourself before I get to you, you‘re getting punished.” He warns, releasing your head and watching you scramble to the sofa. You grab the blanket thrown over the couch and bring it onto the floor behind you while you lean over the arm of the sofa. Frantically you toss the remainder of your clothes off you and spread your legs so he has easy access.

“Y/n, you‘re fucking dripping already. Have you missed me that much, jagiya?” Han asks, his fingers brushing against your lips and sliding your arousal around before settling at your core. You tried to be quiet, but you’re so worked up that when his mouth latched onto your clit you couldn’t help but cry out. His fingers slid into you with ease coated in your own arousal, reaching deep inside and coaxing your g spot.

You can hear his whimpers as he sucks on your clit, getting turned on by the moans you can’t hold back. His fingers pumping into you at an unforgiving pace while he laps his tongue along your clit. It’s been too long, you can’t take the vibrations of his whimpers and the stimulation of his fingers inside you. There’s no way, you’re cursing loudly as you grab hold of the cushion in front of you, the fire inside you boiling over and spilling out. You’re cumming, dripping all over his face and fingers and groaning as your legs shake around him.

“Fuck, noona.” He whispers against your back as he brushes his hands along your thighs, calming you down.

“I can‘t wait to hear you scream my name.” His voice says beside your ear as he thrusts inside you roughly. Your legs almost tumble out from under you from the sheer force of it and you’re whimpering already at his girth. You’d already forgotten how thick he was and even with all your arousal, you were so tight around him it was painful.

He rolled his hips into you slowly at first, hitting you deep and making you whine under him while his hand wrapped instinctively around your throat. You wrapped your hand around his arm for support as you arched your back to help push him toward the spot he was hitting earlier. Fuck, why did he feel so good? He brought his other hand up and pulled at your hair while he kissed along your neck, marking up your skin and groaning into it.

“Cum with me, y/n.” He orders, lifting himself and thrusting into you roughly as he reaches his high. You’re cursing again, screaming loudly as he hits you exactly where you need him to. His hand reaching down to rub against your clit as he holds your hip with the other.

“Who‘s my dirty fucking slut?” He asks, thrusting into you at an unforgiving speed.

“I am, oppa.” You respond, gripping the cushion tighter, trying to control yourself from cumming too soon. His hand grips into your side tighter, you’re whimpering as he digs into you. There’s no way you’re not waking up with bruises tomorrow.

“Who do you belong to?” He asks, quickening his pace against your clit. As you groan from the build up you cry out his name, trying to control your breathing.

“Is my slut ready to cum?” You can hear the smirk in his voice as your legs shake again. All you can do is nod, your orgasm control threatening to break at the smallest vibration.

You feel him lean forward as he pulls along your ear with his mouth, sliding his tongue along the curve before he whispers,

“Cum for me.” your body already responding. He holds you tightly against his chest as it ripples through you, you’re gasping for air as it flows through you hard, making your body twitch uncontrollably at the smallest touch. You can feel him filling you up, both your cum and his spilling out of you while you hold his arm to you for support. He bites along your shoulder blade, leaving more marks in his wake and grunting as he thrusts slow.

He lies you on the couch, kissing along your spine as he removes himself from inside of you. As you catch your breath you feel him help you back into your jumper, holding you close to him and kissing the side of your head as he fixes it to your form. When he leaves you again you’re a little annoyed because you want to curl up into him on the sofa. But then you hear the whining you didn’t notice earlier. You turn yourself around and curl your legs into yourself slowly. Behind you is Han, in his boxer briefs, holding a baby blue eyed husky with an adorable green bow tied onto it’s collar.

“Surprise?” He offers, smiling with his mouth closed and lips tight together.

You’re so vulnerable you can’t help but cry, pulling the chunky, floofy baby close to you and brushing your fingers through his fur.

“Han, she‘s so cute, how dare you!” You fake protest, trying to stop yourself from crying by being angry.

“You know I hate when you spoil me on my birthday!” You say with furrowed brows, hugging the puppy closer to you, trying to get it to stop wiggling.

“Oh, it‘s your birthday? That‘s great!” He says, a small smirk playing on his lips while he bites the inside of his chubby cheek. You watch his eyes dart to the ceiling to avoid eye contact while he brings a hand up to hold his neck.

“Are you telling me you actually didn‘t know? You‘ve just been bluffing this whole fucking time?” You ask, more annoyed with yourself than him since you let the cat out of the bag.

“You fucking shit head!” You shout, swatting him with real annoyance this time. He laughs at you, helping you wipe your face of the last of the tears.

“Happy birthday, y/n, thanks for putting up with me another year.” He says, reaching out and holding your thigh. You fight the urge to cry again as he kisses your forehead. Sometimes you really hated how sweet your boyfriend was.

“Yeah, yeah.” You pout, pushing him before lifting your head up and kissing him. You felt him press his fingers deeper into your inner thigh and moan into the kiss. Then you remembered, that was only two orgasms and he promised four or five. Your birthday present wasn’t over yet.

[cetaceans-pls]

Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne

What are two good men meant to do when faced with an epidemic within a pandemic?

Bruce and Dick take to the steppes and ride across Inner Mongolia, bringing justice, mare's milk, and help in their wake.

Or, how Bruce and Dick try to show mutual care and respect in spite of: terrible communication skills; a global health crisis; a regional health crisis; tetchy horses; eyebrow gel; and coal-mining, set in endless, glorious Inner Mongolia.

I have never not been a horse girl, and that’s the extent of my justification for writing this. Pls enjoy, and if you hit me up with a good prompt I might once again end up with 15 tabs wide open in my quest to figure out what a cool Mongolian lady might be named ;9

 Usually, Bruce is happy to delegate external work to external workers. He’s a one-man force for justice, full of vim and spite, but he’s also stuffed to the brim with barely-healed bones and a chronic shortage of sleep. Staking a claim to Gotham is so important exactly because it’s the only claim he can actually defend, and so he does it whole-heartedly. That’s the purpose of the Justice League, after all. It’s only by the grace of some god that he isn’t a meta-human, or he’d have the whole world under his sharp purview.

 Bruce has toppled his fair share of terrible dictators, and looking at them is a little like looking in a mirror sometimes, so if there is a God maybe she’s got the right of it.

 The thing with all the superpowers that make up the League is that while it’s brilliant in times of intergalactic or even international trouble, when a pandemic’s up and about, the Flash being able to run through every city on Earth in under a minute means that he’s potentially the world’s most super spreader, and Superman evacuating buildings needs to make damn sure he sanitises between rescues. Wonder Woman’s all lasso nowadays, because happily divine products are extremely anti-viral, but right now the things that make the strong strong also make them oddly, sharply weak.

 They’re living in interesting times, all right.

 So when a call comes through that there’s been a horrifying spike in pneumonia-like symptoms in children in Inner Mongolia, everyone's a little… stressed. Flyers are already up and about delivering things that need delivering, anyone with anything approaching healing powers have been dispatched to hotspots, and Bruce is pretty sure the last time he had a full night’s sleep was sometime in January. Here lies yet another problem with an uncertain cause, one that can’t be defeated with a punch or a meeting, and they’re already strung out to capacity.

 When needs must, Bruce tries to rise to the occasion. He’s had pneumonia dozens of times before, he speaks Mandarin and Mongolian, and he’s the only one who has and knows how to run a one-man research lab in the middle of a field mission. He’s been trialling a bunch of vaccines on himself too, and he’s still up and kicking, so obviously he’s the best choice.

 There’s the opposite of sound agreement during the League conference call.

 “You tried how many what-nows?” somebody’s shouting, but Bruce hopes they know him well enough by now to know that when they’re on the BatZoom he blocks all their videos.

 “Vaccines. Who else would I try them on? A sample size of one isn’t encouraging, but barring reinfection I do seem to have produced the antibodies, so obviously I am the best choice.”

 There’s more raucous shouting that he ignores, but he doesn’t hang up because he knows that everyone on this call also likely had their last full night’s sleep in January.

 “Hang on, B, we’re not letting you go into the wilds of Inner Mongolia to identify a new, potentially lethal disease by yourself.” That’s Clark, because he’s the only one who can be cajoling and gently condescending all at once. “I’ll admit the numbers are alarming, but the WHO are going to look into it-”

 “Superman, if any organisation could manage the current health crisis, you wouldn’t be up to your shoulders in parts assembling ventilators in Brazil. This is just a courtesy call, not a debate. I’ll be departing ASAP with my equipment once I finish collating the health data.”

 They all start arguing again, all at once, and they all make valid points. Bruce doesn’t actually know what he is and isn’t immune to at this point, and if it’s something new then that’s even more of an issue. By virtue of his relative uselessness, though, Bruce is the one in the best position to run recon for an extended period, as well as the one most likely to be able to self-quarantine without leaving thousands to die by his absence. Gotham’s in a good place, because the Bat coming after irresponsible citizens and lawmakers alike and Bruce Wayne coming after unfair labour practices are about 5000 times more effective than the federal government, so he can step up. He should step up.

 He will step up.

 So it’s a no-brainer.

 All the voices shut out all of a sudden, which means one of the administrators has put everyone on mute. He didn’t do it, and Clark would likely sooner eat a bright red Super boot than be that rude to people, which leaves them only with the worrisome woman.

 “All right, Batman, we’ll respect your wishes. I have informed Nightwing of your plans, as he’s requested that I share your more exotic missions with him. I’m sure he would love to discuss the situation with you.” Lord, her smug smile is excruciatingly evident in her tone.

 Bruce mutes his own mic to groan long and loud and hard, and tries to will away the near-Pavlovian headache that tends to manifest when he finds himself saddled with one of his children for an awful case.

 He unmutes his mic.

 “Noted. Thank you for your concern, Wonder Woman. Batman over and out.”

 If Dick has to travel up from Bludhaven, there’s a chance Bruce can be off and away before he gets here. That’s fine; a quick getaway is a skill he’s honed over a great many years. He just needs the time-lapse of the distribution of the illness to finish getting mapped against urban areas in the computer, and he can go-

 The lights suddenly dim, down to the faint yellow that indicates that the main power and generators 2 through to 5 have been cut off, with just 6 up to keep the computer and general equipment working.

 Generator 6 is not linked to the hangar doors, though, so there’s….that.

 The desire to scream is almost overwhelming. He knows Diana keeps in contact with more people than his soft human mind can even comprehend, but to even recruit Alfred to her devilish ways…

 Bruce groans again, and irritatedly starts packing the equipment he’ll need as he waits for the arrival of (one of) his prodigal son(s).

-

 The lights come back on to full just as Dick launches himself over the handrail and down a 30-foot drop, because dramatics, if not genes, run in this entire damn family. He’s not even dressed as Nightwing, just as a devastating young man. This many years on, Bruce’s heart still stutters in that instant before Dick hits the ground, because what if this is the time he doesn’t stick the landing?

 The Graysons’ terrible death sure did hit them both differently.

 “Hey, B,” and it’s just Dick whole and complete, smiling brightly.

 “Where’s your mask?” Bruce asks brusquely.

 Dick looks startled, before he looks down at his jeans and sweatshirt. “I was going for a more casual look?”

 Bruce rolls his eyes. “Not that mask.”

 The implication lands, and Dick rolls his eyes like a late echo. “Already off and away in Alfred’s washer, ‘course. Not like I took the crowded way over, anyways. Roads are empty as all hell, and rooftops even emptier. But Bruce, don’t try to irritate me to distraction.” Dick wags his finger at him.

 It’s a little sweet, because Dick clearly had been distracted before he’d pulled himself back into focus.

 “What’s this I hear from Wonder Woman that you’re running off to Mongolia to try and miracle-cure a mystery sickness?”

 Bruce is already hauling up the last rucksack he needs for the trip, though he doesn’t bother to pull up the cowl. “Likely exactly what Diana told you. She was wrong about my needing you or your support, though. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

 Bruce brushes by him and heads towards the fully-loaded BatWing, banking on being enough of an unpleasant son-of-a-bitch that Dick sighs and gives up on him and goes home where an at least marginally better known disease is running rampant. It’s a technique that’s worked before, enough to have Dick rage at him and storm off and avoid him, and it’s unpleasant every time, but needs just really must sometimes.

 The thing about Dick, though, specifically Dick more so than every other person Bruce has had the pleasure and displeasure to have ever met, is his unbelievable knack of having an endless capacity to forgive Bruce without taking any of his shit.

 So Dick will be upset and he might leave, but he always finds it within himself to come back, and when he does, he always lets Bruce know all the places where he failed, and inadvertently explains all the ways Bruce could be just a little bit better. He will forgive and it damn well seems like he even forgets all these little injustices, and it’s maddening.

 The concept of endangering one of the world’s best men on a dodgy medical mission out in the steppes? A goddamn laughable concept. Bruce would be delighted to bear a spot of wrath when he comes back instead.

 Sometimes, though, the full arc of Dick’s mood after being brushed off goes from anger to acceptance so quickly that Bruce doesn’t get enough time to go off and do the damn-fool thing he’s about to do. Sometimes, like tonight, Bruce sweeps past Dick dramatically, and gets pulled up short by Dick grabbing the back of his cape and tugging.

 He comes to a not-very-graceful halt, choked a little around the neck, and looks over his shoulder at Dick with tremendous affront. “Dick, what are you doing?”

 Dick just smiles sharply, clearly out through the other side of the angry cycle. “I’m ignoring you being a complete asshole out of some misguided sense of heroism, B, and I’m letting you know that I know you’re trying to get me so annoyed I just leave you. Alfred’s got me full-up with good cheer, and I’m in a good mood, so you’re just shit out of luck.” His voice softens, goes a little sad and round in the edges. “Let me help, Bruce. None of us want you out there alone. You would never let any of us take a case like this alone, so just give in. Okay?”

 Bruce knows there are ways out of this. Dick in his infinite trustingness would not expect a sedative dart to the neck, and Bruce could always fall back on his standard operating procedure from years long past and nuke this tentative moment by doubling down on how he doesn’t need anyone and how he doesn’t answer to Dick, who is still little more than a child. There’re a dozen ways Bruce could disentangle himself from this, and they both know this.

 Dick still chooses to trust and believe, the way he inevitably always does, and Bruce is short on 3 months’ worth of sleep. All he wants is to take care of the people he needs to take care of.

 Plus, vaccine trial #8 is giving him the sweats, and he feels uncharacteristically desperate to just… relent.

 “Get your stuff and get in the Wing. I’m not waiting.”

 Of course Dick takes so much longer than is reasonable to grab gear from his room, and of course Bruce sits in the Wing with the engine idling, like all beleaguered parents waiting in their vehicles worldwide.

 With a final hurrah from Alfred who appears with enough packed food to have them camping in luxury for a week, they are finally, finally off.

-

 Air traffic’s the quietest it’s been in decades. There’s something surreal about not needing to push the Wing to her upper height limits to stay invisible, instead cruising along like some, ah, passenger plane. They see geese, which is the highlight of their trip, before they finally go up and up and up to evade any hot nonsense Eastern Europe or Russia may be in the mood to throw at them.

 At least, that’s Dick’s explanation of their trajectory, after Bruce wakes up from a drugged-scone-induced nap (courtesy of the enormously traitorous Alfred) just in time for them to discuss where to land. Still groggy but decidedly better rested than he was 6 hours ago, Bruce licks the cottonmouth out and intrepidly takes a sip of what he’s hoping isn’t knock-out tea as he looks at the map Dick’s pulled up on the windscreen.

 Poison pastry or no, Bruce accepts that the reason why he’d actually stayed asleep is because his eldest is by far the best, most trustworthy driver in the family. It’s been so long since he’s been in a situation where Dick drove that he had forgotten that absolute fact.

 “The most cases registered of an unconfirmed respiratory illness is in the capital, but accounting for population density, the pandemic, and the usual rates of pneumonia, it’s not where we need to focus on.” Bruce pulls up a map of the region, and the capital of Inner Mongolia lights up in glowing orange, ‘Hohhot’ written in Papyrus because Tim cannot be trusted with software updates.

 At least it’s not Wing-dings.

 “We should split up,” Bruce continues after glaring a touch too long at the hideous writing. “You try to get a read on how things are in the hospitals in Hohhot, and I’ll head out into the steppes to touch base with the more rural communities.”

 He doesn’t sound excited with the plan, because he already knows he’s not getting away with it.

 Dick doesn’t even have the decency to pretend to agree and defer, laughing instead as he starts plotting the course for a landing on a patch of grassland exactly like any other patch of grassland a ways’ way away from the bright city lights. “Yep, B, I definitely broke 15 different traffic laws to get to the Manor in time to stop you from going solo, just to let you ride off into the desert like the lone ranger.” There’s a gentle beep to warn them of some military surveillance equipment in their vicinity, and Dick smoothly drops the Wing into a pretty banked turn that takes them away with a gentleness that wouldn’t have turned even the most hungover tummy. “I took a look at your maps while you were out, and I figure if this thing’s worse for kids and we don’t know where to start, we should just go be pretend doctors and make a circuit of all the little community schools.”

 “That’s a good idea.”

 That has Dick turning in the pilot’s seat to look at Bruce, clearly shocked. “Wait, what were you planning on doing?”

 “Break into the peoples’ homes at night and take samples from as many children I could get. If I get caught, I would be in costume, and therefore very likely to be mistaken as a nightmare, or potentially a demon.”

 There’s peace and quiet for a few moments, and then Dick’s laughing again. It’s an insulting delight.

 “Bruce!” Dick pleads, struggling for breath. ��� Please say psyche. You cannot have seriously been planning to give every kid in Inner Mongolia nightmares while you steal blood from them!”

 Time was short, and what Bruce had was the Batman costume and the general ability to be misconstrued as a demonic entity at first glance. “I would have needed more than just blood samples, to be thorough.”

 The ground spreads out endlessly below them, the sky endlessly above. The grass is blown gently out of the way as the Wing drops into a perfect vertical landing, which is amazing considering Dick is actively wheezing at this point. “Wait till Alfie hears that this was your great plan.” The landing gear hits ground, and they have now made contact with gorgeous, gorgeous Inner Mongolia. “Seems pretty, uhm, intense even for you, B.”

 Neither of them move to get up and get out; they’re both just slumped in the admittedly comfortable pilot seats of the Wing, looking out at the rolling hills and more stars than Gotham’s ever, ever seen.

 “It’s been an intense time.”

 Dick’s laughter softens, peters out as they just keep on sitting and looking out. The swaying grass and endless blank horizon is hugely different to the chaos and stale fear that’s blanketed Gotham and much of the world the past few months, and it’s such a helpless pleasure to not need to think about all of that, right now.

 Eventually, Dick gets up and squeezes Bruce’s shoulder. “We’re still hours away from sunrise, B. C’mon, let’s get some sleep, we can start fresh and early.”

 Bruce touches the hand on his shoulder, doesn’t dislodge it and doesn’t squeeze it. Just a touch on a touch. “You go first. I’ll be along in a minute.”

 Dick relents and wishes him a good night. Bruce just sits there and stares and stares and stares.

-

 Bruce is woken up by the smell of fresh coffee, and it’s a gentler wake-up call than an emergency klaxon or Alfred running down the steps shouting “Master Bruce!” on the 4 occasions they have prevented the apocalypse since February. It’s as disorientating as a slap to his face, and he blinks to a still starry sky as Dick comes up from behind him bearing gifts.

 The thermos breathes out steam like a caffeinated dragon, and Bruce is also bestowed with a breakfast sandwich. Double-egg, buttered English muffin, and it’s a touch of classic Alfred magic that it tastes and feels this good after 12 hours and a blitz in the Wing’s ‘microwave’ that’s really a radiation vent for the nuclear engine.

 He makes a happy little sound, and it’s echoed by Dick with his bowl of cereal and milk, matching mug of coffee wedged between folded calf and thigh. “Alfred packed like 8 types of cereal, and there’re like boxes and boxes of all sorts of food.” With his unencumbered leg, Dick prods Bruce’s arm with a socked foot. “Have you been up to no good again? This is classic stress cooking Alfred.”

 It really is. Bruce knows with the force of religious fervour that if he digs around, he will find white chocolate and raspberry cookies. “It’s been a busy time with the League.” And the world. “I told him he didn’t need to worry.”

 Dick snorts as he gulps down the disgusting dregs of cereal milk. “He worries when you worry and you’re always worrying so he’s always worried. It’s a cycle of whole-ass adults not knowing how to tell each other when you’re freaking out.” Dick prods his side again. “It’s sweet, but you also seriously need to keep him and us more updated, y’know.” The prodding escalates. “You can’t keep doing these things to yourself by yourself, B.”

 Bruce catches an ankle, squeezes it lightly, and puts it aside. “It’s my job.”

 Dick, when he snorts, can get awfully loud exclusively because when he decides to be undignified he goes extremely all out. Bruce’s ears might be ringing , and Dick doesn’t even look apologetic. “You don’t have a job, B, you’re a billionaire bachelor man. Everything you do in your life is an extracurricular activity. Batmanning, the Justice League, picking up orphans left and right, none of it’s your responsibility.” The long leg retracts, Dick now curled up like a half-measure spider, sipping his coffee like he hasn’t said anything insane at all. “So, y’know, just take it easy, let the rest of us carry our own weight.”

 It’s madness. Bruce has been shot and been less shocked. Bruce has been proposed to by aliens on intergalactic missions and been less taken aback. “Dick, what do you mean , it isn’t my responsibility?” It’s been nothing less than an absolute honour, a literal privilege, to have been able to raise Dick, to give his children a home. Can one’s reason for living really be called an extra-curricular activity?

 It’s the whole curricular, surely.

 An alert pings! on the dashboard, and Dick doesn’t bother with a response for a point he feels he’s made plenty clear. “That’s our queue, big guy. The school by here opens in 3 hours, and it serves the entire district so we need to get there early if we want to get our cover story straight.”

 “There’s a herdsman I made arrangements with already, 2 miles out form here. He’ll have horses ready for us.” Bruce polishes off the last of his breakfast and coffee, and neatly puts aside what Dick thinks he should and shouldn’t do for a more thorough look-over later. “How’s your Mongolian?”

 “Horrible, I’m sure no Damian,” Dick says cheerfully. “But my Mandarin’s not too bad. You wanna be the local guide and I can be the cool doctor from a big city?”

 It’s as good an idea as any; Bruce hadn’t exactly been worried about cover stories with his night terror plans. He gets to his feet, and tries to avoid brushing crumbs to the floor. “We’re going to need actual disguises.”

 In a terrifying show of skill and disdain for normal human conduct, Dick just vaults over the back of his chair, cereal bowl in one hand and empty mug in the crook of an elbow. “I’ve heard the stories, B. Time to whip out the beard-wig?”

 Walking like a much more reasonable person towards the kit he’d brought with him, Bruce rolls his eyes. “Beards prevent the correct application of a face mask, Dick.” He presses a button, and a 57-piece sfx makeup collection tailored for (literally) every occasion pops out of a locked chest. “And it’s culturally uncommon to have full beards here, so I’ll just make do.”

 Dick doesn’t need much of a disguise; he’s a little ambiguous-looking at the best of times, and the force of his personality is such that generally people’s impression of him are just soft floppy hair and a killer smile.

 Bruce, meanwhile, would need a full face of prosthetics just to stay under the radar. What he has is fake tan and eyebrow gel and dark brown contact lenses, but he’s done more with less, so.

 At least by the time they reach the herder’s campsite and are welcomed by a smiling man built so strong and compactly that even with his affected stoop Bruce towers over him, Dick’s gotten used enough to the patched-together look to stop bursting into laughter every time Bruce turns to look at him.

 Gantulga bullies them into his home for some tea when they arrive, provides a wonderful opportunity for Bruce to relearn the sounds he’s forgotten in his Mongolian, and cheerfully accepts that Bruce is an oddball guide originally from a nomadic tribe close to the Mongolian-Russian border, who found himself here of all places because he fell in love with a woman from Hohhot.

 “It’s the same for me,” the man had said, grinning widely when his wife lightly smacks his shoulder. “And the land here knows no borders. Thank you for coming to look after our children.”

 Dick is left out of the loop, because a shared language is a terribly powerful bond against present and conceptual oppressors, and Bruce tells Gantulga with as much seriousness as he can that, “It is my job to take care of you.”

 They leave just a little past dawn on two horses, with two more carrying their equipment, and Gantulga waves them off with well wishes for both them and his horses before he returns to his herd and his work and his family. As the testy gelding picks a gait that means the wooden saddle will eventually physically castrate him, Bruce sets their course for the little wooden school building set close to the blossom of summer tents of nomadic herders, and thinks about the duty of care he imposes on himself.

 In the fresh air, with his son whipping about on a stallion that has taken a liking to a kindred spirit, Bruce figures that for all his usual angst, protecting people that need protecting isn’t a burden that will ever get heavy enough to put down.

 They ride.

-

 Arriving at the school unannounced would ordinarily be a big problem, but these are unusual times. With some official-looking documents printed on the Wing and Dick’s ability to charm absolutely anything breathing, the stressed-out headmaster gives them his blessing to collect samples from all the children. The reach of a global pandemic has struggled to get out this far away from dense cities, but whatever’s in the air right now is doing a number on his kids and it’s clear the man needs a nap and a solution.

 They can’t exactly provide him with either right now, but part of the reason the horses’ saddles are so heavy is because Bruce has brought along all the equipment and medication that he thought even had a chance of helping. Dropping cutting-edge miniaturised air filters in Inner Mongolia is a big risk given a government that’s infamous for loathing external intervention, but the equipment is designed to look cheap as all hell and break down irretrievably if a remote kill switch is tripped, so Batman’s covered his bases as best he can.

 Even if he couldn’t, it wouldn’t exactly be the first or even the hundredth time he goes against the wishes of the authorities. If push came to shove and tomorrow he had to do a fly-by in a helicopter dropping nebulizers for 100,000 people, then that’s what he would do.

 He’s startled out of his thoughts by Dick gently tapping him on the back. “C’mon, B, let’s get the kit set up. Kids are gonna be coming in soon, you don’t want to scare ‘em with your brooding.”

 The little classroom doesn’t have an electrical outlet, and has no furniture that suits anybody over 5’5, but Dick still looks like he belongs in his neatly-pressed white coat and nitrile gloves. The plan is simple: get as many samples as possible. Dick’s already looking picture-perfect as a doctor literally anybody would trust, energetic and dependable.

 Bruce is prepping the ‘gift bags’ full of therapeutic medication, bits of tech, and hyper-nutritious candy, ready to be given out to every patient. “Even fully dressed up I have never managed to scare a child, so I’m not worried,” he says, drawing wonky teddy bears and butterflies on the plastic wrapping with a BatSharpie. Honestly, Dick’s plan is genius. When he had been determined to go in as nightmare fuel, he had just planned to leave the care boxes at the front door with some official-looking stamp from the government and hope that people wouldn’t throw it away. Instead all the children who come to them get to go away with chocolate ration bars that only barely can’t resuscitate the dead and air filtration systems that NASA would fight bears for.

 The testing equipment they left on the ship, because while it isn’t hard to look under-funded and hard-done-by when all you have on you is some cotton swabs and bits of tack, the PCR machine running on solar power would stand out significantly more. Dick’s disinfecting the ever-loving hell out of the chairs and tables when he hears Bruce’s response, and he’s quick to flash a smile. “It’s your BDE, I guess. It’s kinda amazing that it was switched on so strong even when I first saw you.”

 Unwilling to admit that he has no idea what in the hell a BDE is, Bruce does a furtive Google search while pretending to go through the school registration list. It’s a strange revelation.

 “What does the size of a dick have to do with anything?” He’s trying to sound normal while he wonders if he’d done anything inappropriate that night at the circus to deserve this.

 “Close, B, but not quite. I meant Big Dad Energy.” In the distance, the sound of horses’ hooves comes closer and closer, heralding the arrival of the children. It’s almost time to start, and Dick takes a seat by his stash of needles. “It’s weird to think ‘bout it now, but I know that when kids see Batman they see somebody who’ll take care of them no matter what.”

There’s a slam! as the front door to the little wooden schoolhouse swings open, and the excited chatter of children filters through. Dick, however, is not done dealing body blows to the state of Bruce’s head, even if he sounds absent-minded as he does it. “I think I saw it too, that first time, even out of uniform. Funny, huh?”

 The door to the classroom is pulled open by the harried headmaster while a gaggle of children stare curiously at them, and Bruce goes straight to one knee to address them at face level about what’ll be happening today. He doesn’t get to ask what’s so funny about Dick saying the single most inhumanly complimentary thing Bruce has ever heard, nor does he get to ask if Dick still sees the same thing now.

 It’s yet another thing to ponder over later; for now, he just tells the children that he is Bat-Erdene (of course), and that he will help the doctor help them.

 Getting stuck with a needle and losing a bit of blood is a novel experience for many of the kids, so Bruce lets them hold his hand while Dick does quick, neat work, and takes special care to wince or go ‘Ow!’ dramatically whenever a child squeezes him hard.

 It ends up with the children (and Dick) laughing at him, and telling him kindly that Bat(-Erdene) is not a strong man but that’s all right because he gives them treats.

 By the time they’re herded outside to have lunch along with the kids, they have 25 samples, and Dick has no less than 3 kids sitting on his lap as they draw horses and people in the dirt, babbling at each other in mutually-unintelligible languages through thin barriers of surgical masks.

 Going by just temperature, nobody here has a fever, but half the kids complained furtively to Bat-Erdene that they cough a lot a lot in the early mornings, and their parents worry because something unpleasant is spreading across the world and what if it has spread to them?

 It’s a lot to think about, but the absence of any signs of infection is… encouraging. Somewhat. There’s a lot that he can do if it’s an environmental hazard, after all.

 For example,

 “Doctor! That’s dangerous!”

 Dick has the gall to just wink at him as he walks around on his hands, a horde of children screaming and laughing as they hang on to his fluttering legs. In the near distance, the loud, tired sigh of the headmaster is a feeling that Bruce can very deeply relate to.

 The headmaster and five separate sets of parents offer them dinner and lodging for the night, and they beg off all of them with the excuse that they needed to ride hard to get to the next little school which is over a day’s riding away. They nevertheless are sent on their way with bottles and bottles of mare’s milk and a gentle lecture on how to brush down their horses properly, the whole school wishing them a safe journey as they disappear into the endless rolling hills that lie between them and their next destination.

 Once they’re far away enough that a quick scan reveals them to be sufficiently isolated in the twilight, Bruce and Dick abruptly drop the mannerisms and postures that marked the Doctor and Bat-Erdene, with Dick unbuttoning the high collar of his jacket and Bruce coming out of his slouch. Camp is another hour’s ride away, where the BatWing will be waiting and the horses can be settled down for the night. So far, so successful, and Bruce is willing to admit to himself if to no one else that having company for this mission has made it actually, genuinely pleasant.

 Dick breaks the silence first when he whistles at the moon rising from the open horizon, massive and solitary and quietly terrifying. “You don’t get a view like that in Gotham, do you?”

 It is, indeed, a hell of a sight. With grasslands stretching out every which way, there’s nothing for the human eye to use for scale and context. It’s just this giant glowing thing that could be a mile or an eternity away, rising like a lamp under the blanket of night.

 At the crest of a gentle hill they draw to a stop to let the sight sink in, two men and their four horses and this one mission. Dick looks over at Bruce, all aglow with a healthy tan developed after an afternoon’s worth of running after children while shouting in cheerful broken Mongolian, and he looks more like the embodiment of hope than any superhuman Bruce has ever met. “I’m glad you let me talk you into taking me along, B.”

 The words are the wrong way around! Bruce is the one who’s glad that on the worst day of Dick’s life, he looked at Bruce and saw someone worth believing in! That just yesterday he looked into the depths of Bruce’s obstinacy and still decided to help!

 Those words are old and awkward and heavy, though, so Bruce just slumps in his astonishingly uncomfortable saddle and tries not to smile too obviously. “There’s no one I’d rather have with me here, Dick,” he says quietly.

 And then, less quietly because this is urgent and an ever-present danger for every parent with more than one child, “Don’t tell the others.”

 Dick rolls his eyes, and nudges his horse into a quick trot. “I know, B, can’t let your favorite find out you just said that.”

 He’s off, rolling into a hard full-out gallop as the pack horses clatter and bang after him with their lighter saddle bags, a wild thing into the moonlight, leaving Bruce to ponder over yet another mystery: who the hell is meant to be his favourite, and though he fundamentally does not have one, why would Dick assume it wasn’t him?

 The mystery respiratory sickness had better be easier to uncover than whatever has Dick feeling like this, because Bruce is only one man and he’s not even a good one.

-

 By the fourth school they get to, tales of their exploits have spread ahead of them on the wings of traveling herdsmen. This school’s in a proper town, with half a dozen summer gers dotting the grasslands just past the little road that has a grocery store and the one post office. There’s even a bit of a welcoming committee, kids on horseback racing out to meet them the minute they come within view.

 Dick and their pack horses are pretty happy with the attention, breaking into little races, sprinting off this way and that while Bruce’s decidedly more stand-offish horse ignores all the cheer to keep stolidly plodding towards town. He spots yet more people on horseback, adults this time in bright dress, and rides up to meet them and introduce himself as the ‘local guide’.

 Some of the faces even look familiar, which means that even with them both going at maximum speed, a bunch of people casually outraced them to get here and apparently organised this warm, warm welcome.

There’s a fearsome woman who stands on the ground but somehow manages to look about three times as imposing as the men on their horses around her, and at first sight Bruce’s brain registers matriarch as loudly as a scream in the ear. He’s willing to put money on ‘headmistress’, given the look of awe and trepidation of the younger horsemen around her, and makes haste to greet her.

 Her name is Narantsetseg, tall and proud as the sunflower she’s named after, enduring like the fields and fields of the stuff that they’ve ridden through to get here, and she tells him that while he and the Doctor are greatly welcomed to their little town, they would need to do a little more than just test the children.

 Bruce doesn’t let the unease show on his face, but he does move back slightly to maintain a sightline on Dick, who’s glancing over with false casualness. Is she connected to the government in some way, and she knows that they’ve been falsifying their credentials? Luckily, looking gruff and unmoved is his specialty as far as expressions go, and he just asks her to explain.

 At an imperious wave of her hand the wall of horses part, and there is a line of red-cheeked young women in all their finery. As one, they all surreptitiously sneak a glance at Dick who is a juggling three water bottles while going at a fast trot, much to the delight of the children.

 “We have heard that the Doctor is single, and in need of a wife,” Narantsetseg tells him. “You won’t find better women anywhere else, and none harder working.”

 Somebody in the back pipes up, and his face is vaguely familiar to Bruce. “The Doctor doesn’t speak Mongolian, but he’s good with children! Askaa took a needle and he didn’t even cry afterwards!”

 There’s a lot of impressed murmuring, and Bruce is left to wonder how badly dear Askaa usually takes to getting jabs, and how his father got to this town so quickly.

 “I cannot speak for the Doctor,” he tells them, trying to barter for peace. “He’s from the city; I don’t know what he wants in his women. You know how these city-types are.”

 Askaa’s father will not be stopped, though, and Bruce wants to smack him. “He also helped fix the engine of my truck, along with you, Bat-Erdene. His doctor hands got dirty, and he didn’t even mind! And he’s strong .” The man is really hitting his stride, and sounds alarmingly starry-eyed. “He lifted two of my sheep without blinking.”

 The impressed murmuring gets louder, and while Bruce agrees with the sentiment (Dick is, indeed, a very good boy), he’s less fond of how much attention they’re getting. “I would be happy to translate for all of you, but he is on his doctoring mission and he can’t stay around for long-”

 He’s cut off by a sharp scream that has him spinning around and dropping into a ready crouch, just in time to see a girl get unseated when her horse startles at a rabbit leaping out of its burrow. It’s not a long way to the ground, and Bruce already sees her righting herself to take the fall well, but that’s not what happens.

 What happens is: Dick leaps off his stallion onto her horse in the blink of an eye, holding on to the bucking horse by thigh strength alone as he pivots in the saddle till he’s sticking out at a right angle, catching the girl by her waist in a brilliant show of skill and instinctive heroism.

 The timing is wild; the chatter amongst the adults is at a fever-pitch, with some outright cheering and applauding, and Bruce is pretty sure that any hope of keeping a low profile here is now extremely low.

 Narantsetseg steps towards Bruce, and a hush falls over the assembled adults. She touches him on the arm, expression serious and serene. “Bat-Erdene,” she calls him.

 “Yes?” he answers helplessly.

 “Let the Doctor know that I am a widow, and that I would be happy to welcome him into my home.”

 And that is that on that.

-

 The days progress in much the same chaotic, fond way; sometimes the distance they have to cross takes days by horse, and they can’t just use the Wing to zip around the whole time because the horses tend to spook if they had to fly for more than just a couple of hours. Fortunately, between the fresh air, ceaseless good company, and the frighteningly invigorating experience of being on a semi-wild horse that on a whim can and will try to kill you, time out in the steppes gives them plenty of opportunities to work out what they know so far.

 Over 200 samples taken from a huge transect stretching from just outside of Hohhot to the actual literal godforsaken Gobi desert, and the picture’s become somewhat clearer. Two weeks in and they find that the bulk of the worst cases are focused in the Ordos desert, over a hundred miles away from where they first touched down. By this point both Dick and Bruce have ridden the most they ever have in their lives, their thighs might well have been cast from steel, and the sensation of a non-aching groin is a distant, distant dream.

 Dick can literally snipe a rabbit from horseback with his stallion going at full gallop; he swears that he can do it while standing on the saddle, and for one crazed moment Bruce was extremely tempted to let Dick try. Common sense that sounds like Alfred stays his stupid tongue, but there’s plenty to be impressed with by the way Dick is on a horse and on a mission.

 It doesn’t really remind Bruce of days long gone when it was just him and Alfred and the first Robin, because Dick isn’t a child anymore, has just grown better and better with time and it drives home again and again that whatever Bruce’s doubts about everything he has ever done in his entire life, Dick did become a spectacular adult and Bruce got the pleasure of being there and seeing it happen.

 They’re riding towards the Wing now, with the last batch of another 15 samples from the last schoolhouse in Bruce’s saddlebag and another dozen bottles of mare’s milk clickety-clacketing on Black Thunder, their small pack horse who has never met a man he would not bite. His name is courtesy of the first time the small black horse had bitten Bruce’s knee, going for it so hard that Bruce’s pained cursing had thundered across the plains. Black Thunder is a blight on what would otherwise have been a very pleasant series of rides, and is the only one they have officially named because Bruce’s horse responds to ‘horse’, Dick’s responds to ‘baby’, and their other pack horse would sweetly come trotting up to them at ‘the nice one’.

 Bruce is maneuvering closer to Dick to share the latest update on the air composition breakdown from all 200 odd filters, but he has to hold the data pad high up in the air when Black Thunder comes by for fear of losing yet another piece of him to the cursed thing. Fortunately, instead of almost-murder the terrible beast appears to just want some head scratches from Dick this time.

 “B, if you keep scowling at him of course lil B’s gonna feel antagonised,” Dick tells him jovially as he leans down to pet the demon.

 If Bruce had tried a similar move he would have lost all his fingers and maybe even a few toes, but he’s got too much dignity to do more than be a bit huffy about it. “I know a crazed villain when I see one, Dick,” is all he will say on that , thank you very much. “As I was saying, the sickness is pretty constrained to just the Ordos. Your bacterial and viral cultures didn’t yield any results, so I cross-referenced the early instances of respiratory distress against any recent human activity in the area; a new supermassive coal mine opened up just before the first cases started cropping up, and it’s our most likely culprit.”

 Dick lets go of Black Thunder despite the sad little whinny, and pulls out a notepad from his breast pocket. His police training means that no amount of technology Bruce throws at him can stop Dick from writing down his thoughts, but fortunately Dick’s handwriting and concept of ‘helpful notes’ are literally illegible and indecipherable to anyone except for him, so it doesn’t leave much of a paper trail. The bigger question is how he manages to write at all while horseback-riding, but Bruce is a man who's learned how to accept miracles at face value.

 “This area’s rich as hell in coal, what makes you think this specific mine’s the problem?” The fwip-fwip-fwip of pages on a spiral-bound notebook match the pace of his horse’s trot. “The filters haven’t logged a dangerously high level of carbon monoxide or coal waste products, and there’s been no record of increased smog.” He winces. “And B, you know I’m not exactly a Tim-level lab tech. Maybe you can re-do the cultures to double-check.”

 “I would stake my life on the work you’ve done,” Bruce says sharply, as he’s found himself more and more wont to do every time Dick says anything that even slightly indicates that he regards himself as lacking in some wildly incorrect way. “Also, Oracle did some digging into this new company. It’s half a dozen shell companies away from Lex Corp, so it’s questionable that they’re actually mining coal, and even more questionable that they’re doing it with a care for the people living here.”

 Aerosolised mystery kryptonite is clogging the air, potentially, and Bruce is so thankful that his general predisposition for lone-working and paranoia meant that it isn’t Superman or Kara who came zooming by to help in the area. He already wants to slap a mask on Dick and tell him to breathe less, and Dick’s absolutely built to last through worse things. They would need to do more testing to know for sure, but the air filters they’ve been handing out like candy are designed to extract any particulate matter so there’s hope yet that the things will help.

 Pick up of the equipments' just become a lot more important though, if they have hundreds of traps out catching idle Kryptonite. Maybe this will be the perfect occasion for a ghoulish Bat to just burst into and out of gers, hmm.

 In the distance, the shielding rolls off of the Wing because they’ve breached her perimeter and been recognised as themselves, glinting in the sunset as night overtakes day with startling quickness out here in the desert. In what has become tradition by now, Dick takes the last couple hundred yards at a dead gallop, Baby becoming a blur of glossy brown, and Bruce compels Horse to run after him, because at this point in their adventure few things ring as fundamentally true in the head as the sheer exhilarating joy of being a man on a horse with all six legs off the ground.

 It’s a time for thoughts to rapidly arrange themselves, and by the time they come up to a halt right by the ship, Dick’s got his notebook tucked away and a look of sublime thoughtfulness on his face. “What’s the relationship like between Wayne Enterprise and the Chinese government, B?”

 Bruce dismounts as soon as Horse comes to a halt, because he’ll never stop feeling faintly apologetic for being so heavy a man on so small a beast, and he’s just left to look up at Dick with the moon at his back. “You know I’ve always had a problem with authoritarian figures,” Bruce says with a bitchy little grin. The steppes encourage a type of wildness in him that’s very different to the stoops and cornices of Gotham; he feels a lot more teeth than shadow here.

 Dick’s at home here in the grasslands the way he’s at home on the trapeze and at the Manor and at Bludhaven PD, along with the dozen little niches he’s sprouted roots in and made better. Dick’s always been all teeth, and it’s only usually a smile. “What do you say, up for a bit of breaking and entering, Mister Bat-Erdene?”

 Bruce is already heading for the open loading bay, excited to get the sand out of his hair and cold cream on his thighs and Batman on him. “Thought you’d never ask, Doctor.”

-

 The thigh guards barely fit now on Bruce, and the fabric stretching across Nightwing’s legs are pulled so taut over new muscle that it looks even more, ah, provocative than usual.

 Bruce tries to convince Dick to wear Bruce’s larger under armour instead, but Dick ignores him as he takes a dozen pictures of his new-and-improved legs to share on the family group chat.

 They leave the horses at their campsite, and over the duration of the flight to the facility, Bruce forcibly ignores no less than 15 pictures from both Jason and Damian doing squats with increasingly heavy weights in an effort to not be shown up.

 Everyone comes together and admits that Cass probably takes it, when there’s a short video of her having Alfred on one shoulder and Steph on the other going down and coming back up without breaking into even the littlest bit of sweat.

 It’s a weird but exceedingly pleasant reminder of the home to look forward to once they wrap up here, and it takes more will than it should’ve to not just send a bunch of missiles screaming into the accursed mine run by the accursed men. Instead, they land well before the perimeter alarms, and run over the plan.

 “We’re going to verify what it is they’re mining, and then reconvene and plan our next step.” This is exclusively a recon mission, despite his personal feelings. Bruce doesn’t have the jurisdiction to wreck merry hell here, and if there is some important mineral vein down there, even if they shut down this mine they would just have to deal with another one. He can’t even just buy up all the land, because losing land to foreign entities isn’t the Done thing in these parts, and Bruce just has to unfortunately admit that his hands are extremely tied here.

 Dick doesn’t seem so eager to go along with the plan. “If we just leave it as is, what’s going to stop them from ramping up production and taking out more kids, B? No, I say we just shut things down right here, right now.”

 All teeth.

 Bruce tries not to lose his stupid temper, but it’s hard going. “If we blow up the mine now, what stops them from coming back? What stops them from bringing in mercenaries and weapons and making the area a war zone to protect whatever it is they’re mining?” He scowls, but tries to keep his voice even. “Not doing anything means short-term losses and long-term gains. You need to listen to me, Nightwing.”

 It’s not a popular opinion. Dick has got a scowl that looks out of place on his face, a snarl to the edge of a lip. “No, B, you need to listen to me . With everything else that’s going on in the world right now, no one’s got any resources to spare to check this place out. The only thing capping production is going to be Luthor’s goodwill, and there’s nothing good about that.”

 They glare at each other, on the cusp of a fight, before Nightwing exhales and holds both hands up in a plea for some calm. “Look, I know I’m not exactly the genius strategist type or like, even in the top half of most-skilled-Bat-associates, but I’ve got a plan and can you just listen to it before you shoot me down and insult me?”

 The kryptonite’s gone to Dick’s brain, that’s the only explanation. “There’s no ‘top half’, Nightwing,” Bruce says, voice rougher than he means it to be but it’s been gnawing at the back of his brain for weeks and weeks now that Dick somehow thinks he’s lesser. “You’re not less smart, you’re not less capable, you’re not less skilled; you are the one I trust the most.” It’s just tonnes of trust in Dick for all things, ranging from driving the BatWing responsibly to being the final word on decisions that need making while Bruce is indisposed.

 Dick just smiles, but he doesn’t look particularly happy. “You say all these things to make a man feel good ‘bout himself, B, but if you trust me so much why the hell won’t you listen to what I have to say?”

 Ah.

 It comes with unpleasant clarity, squatting in a rock outcropping with the shadow of the mining facility looming in the distance, that if Dick has doubts in himself, how much of a hand did Bruce have in putting them there and letting the rot propagate?

 He swallows, and chokes back that sense of perpetual righteousness that comes part and parcel with the cowl. It's one thing to be a controlling asshole in the League when he's the only unpowered human in a room of well-meaning dumbasses who could destroy the world if they woke up in a Mood one morning.

 It’s another to be a controlling asshole to his son, who is twice the man he’ll ever be, whose primary character trait is a fundamental goodness that would put Superman to shame.

 Dick’s not perfect, but he is damn, damn good, and Bruce won’t lose out to just listen.

 He’s been doing a lot of that as Bat-Erdene and neither he nor the children of Inner Mongolia have been led astray, so out in the prairie maybe he can afford to put his money where his mouth is and more aggressively demonstrate how much he believes in Dick.

 So Bruce leans back a little, makes an effort to lower his hackles, and breathes deeply.

 “I’m sorry,” he says and he means it for many, many things. “I’m listening.”

-

 The plan is chaotic and flashy and buck-fucking-wild, which Bruce has come to realise is quite the done thing with a mission with Dick at the helm. Nightwing can go undercover with the best of them, but given an endless arsenal of makeshift weapons, Bruce would go for a needle, Jason would go for a hammer, and Dick would set fire to the barrel of firecrackers and laugh in the aftermath.

 This is that. Late on a mid-pandemic night, the mine is empty of all but the barest security team on the surface. Sneaking past them and down the shaft into where the green veins glow like a ghastly dream isn’t particularly difficult, nor is planting the special bomb charges they’ve cobbled together from BatWing parts. This deep underground his communicator struggles to keep a line to Dick who’s working in the main office, but an emergency would be accompanied by dramatic explosions so things are going to plan, probably.

 He sets up the 4th charge at the east side of the mineshaft, and starts making his way back up. He would feel a lot better about this if they had more charges, or just more resources in general, but on a shoestring budget Dick sure knows how to make a little plan look like a big one.

 They’ve taken out as much from the energy cell of the Wing that they can while still having enough juice to get them home, and when life only gives you four radioactive bombs, you make do. They’re lucky to have caught on Luthor so quick; the mine’s still new enough and small enough to make a two-man operation feasible, but if they hadn’t caught wind of this when they did…

 It doesn’t bear thinking about, so he puts it aside and scales the steep sides of the mine. With the black earth all around he’s more spectral than usual, so thoroughly a shadow that he even gets the drop on Dick when he climbs into the office, face smudged with dirt.

 “Jesus, B, you look 175% more wraith-like than usual,” Dick says, hands flying across the keyboard. Trying to leave a fake digital trail of corporate espionage and malpractice stretching over several months over the course of a night is a steep ask, but it’s the same with the bombs and Bruce’s darkened eyebrows and ambiguous twang.

 They only need the look of the thing to hold out just enough.

 “I’ve planted the charges. Ready when you are.”

 With a dramatic flourish Dick signs off on the final incriminating e-mail, and sends it off with a dramatic slam of the enter key. “All the guards have been sent off, and there's nobody here except for you and me. Give it to me straight, big guy; on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is this gonna work out for us?”

 Bruce pulls out the remote detonator he’d cobbled together using a spare burner phone and the gate key fob for the Manor, and hands it to Dick to do the honours. “Wherever we land on the scale, we can work with it.” It’s like the idea of a doctor-y masquerade; sometimes being out and loud is the best way to stay hidden, and it’s somehow a new lesson for this old Bat. “It’s a crazy plan, but it’s a good one.”

 Dick beams at him, and even in the full Nightwing get-out, it’s easy to tell he’s genuinely pleased. “Then let’s go go go before we let this place blow baby, blow!”

 Sometimes Dick opens his mouth and what comes out is a ghost of a leer, a popped collar, and gelled-back hair, a Cool Guy caricature who’s so earnest he goes from Cool to Uncool and then right back to Cool just by sheer force of personality.

 Bruce can’t help snorting in slight amusement; by a deep pit in the ground, who’ll judge him?

 They get back to the Wing, get the engines running nice and warm, and from a perch high up in the air, they watch things go ka-boom!

-

 An explosive(!) story spreads at a speed significantly greater than one plane, two men, and four horses, and by the time they’ve done their final round of checks and have arrived at Gantulga’s ger to return his horses, even the herdsman is keen to let them in on the news.

 At this point they’ve turned down dinner every single time they’ve been offered it, so when Gantulga insists that he wants to celebrate their safe return with some roast lamb and arkhi , the alcoholic version of thin, clear liquid cheese, they can't and don't want to say no. They sit around the fireplace, the air filter humming happily in the background as they all tuck into a spectacular dinner, while the man shares the news.

 “I’m sure you have already heard, but a big coal mine in Muu-us exploded a few days ago. Natural gas accumulation, apparently, but my friend who lives there said the new mine was built on land it shouldn’t have been built on, so…” Gantulga shrugs, as though the outcome is obvious. Maybe it is. Mongolian spirits couldn’t be fans of Luthor if he was pumping out particles that were killing their children, after all.

 Bruce nods politely, knocking back the liquor and telling himself that he enjoys the taste of powerful rancid yoghurt. “We were already heading back here, but we heard about it. Did anyone get hurt?”

 Gantulga shakes his head. “No, no locals were hurt. Apparently the company in charge of it was a big foreign one, and the government found radiation there so now there’s a big international fight because the foreigners were secretly mining for things they shouldn't have.” The man cackles as he grabs a piece of lamb, peruses it and finds it to be of above-average quality, and drops it in his wife’s plate. “Good riddance to them. We have enough problems without outsiders interfering, eh, Bat-Erdene?”

 “We certainly do have a lot of problems, but now at least there’s one less,” Bruce concedes diplomatically.

 Most of the way through the meal, little Idree coughs a little, and as one all four adults turn to look at the toddler in alarm. Gantulga’s wife gently rubs her back, frowning lightly. “She has been a lot better since you and the Doctor came to see her,” Zayaa says, then looks a little surprised when Dick asks for Idree in pretty good Mongolian.

 While Dick looks over the girl, listening to her breathing with the stethoscope that has had pride of place around his neck these past few weeks, Gantulga looks at Bruce with some surprise. “The Doctor speaks our language now?”

 Dick tells Zayaa in atrocious grammar but a passable accent that the girl appears to have just choked on a little chunk of vegetable, calming down the tiny toddler with hands that have looked after many a younger brother and Mongolian child.

 Gantulga grins at Bruce, smacks him heartily on the back. “Looks like the Doctor has learned the right words!”

 Bruce doesn’t get a chance to reply, because Dick has turned and is beaming a million-watt smile directly into Gantulga’s face. “Of course,” Dick says, looking as at home in this warm, warm ger in the plains as he does in his police officer's uniform, as he does in a tux at the Manor, as he does leaping off a building to apprehend a bad man. He reaches over, and smacks Bruce even harder on the back. “I had a good, good teacher.”

 And that, well beyond the alcohol and the company and the wellness of thousands of children and the thorn they’ve shoved right into Lex’s side, is what goes straight to Bruce’s head, and he goes bright bright red much to the absolute delight of absolutely everyone.

 Dick raises his glass of arkhi, a shit-eating grin on his face. “To good health and Bat-Erdene!”

 Bruce can’t have that, so he raises his glass and says with resolute calmness,

 “To good health and better children.”

 And that’s that on that, thank you very much.

--- 

T/N: I think a lot about what it’s like for Dick to grow up and gradually feel outclassed by increasingly outlandishly overpowered younger siblings and father figure, missing how the world runs less on existential angst and violence, and more on the willingness to be kind in the face of a lot of unkindness.

[causeiwanttoandican]

The media starts pointing out the obvious.

William, Harry, and coronavirus: A tale of two royal brothers and their reactions to a crisis

White the Sussexes head to LA, the Cambridges are bolstering under pressure staff during the coronavirus pandemic

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor27 March 2020 • 5:54pm

The moment could not have been more emblematic of the divide between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the rest of the Royal family.

As Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis were being filmed joining in a national round of applause for NHS heroes, Harry and Meghan were more than 5,000-miles away, posting clapping emoji on Instagram from their new base in California.

“Thank you for all that you continue to do,” read the message on the Sussex Royal Instagram story. “Applauding you from across the pond.”

While obviously well meaning, the digital communiqué appeared a little hollow compared to the heartwarming sight of the three Cambridge children, aged six, four and one, taking part in the #ClapForOurCarers initiative just a day after their own grandfather, Prince Charles, announced he too had tested positive for Covid-19.

Having boarded one of the last flights into the US from Canada, where they have been staying on Vancouver Island since splitting from the Firm, the exiled couple are now in their own form of self-imposed royal isolation in Los Angeles.

Friends say they are staying at a secluded compound in the Hollywood area of Meghan’s home town, where she has a support system including her mother Doria, who was spotted walking her dogs on Thursday.

One source told the US magazine, People: “Harry is looking straight ahead at his future with his family. They will be spending time in California… he’s not looking back.”

The move has not only left their nearest and dearest “stunned and horrified”, having thought they might return with their 10-month-old son Archie to be with their relatives during the global pandemic, Canadians are also up in arms, accusing them of using the Commonwealth country as a “smokescreen” for their long-planned assault on America.

Some are now starting to question whether they ever had any intention of supporting Queen and Commonwealth, or always had their sights firmly fixed on Hollywood.

Yet with coronavirus dominating the airwaves both in the UK and the US – where more people are now infected than the 81,000 in China – the couple’s Stateside relaunch, which once promised fireworks, now appears in danger of turning into more of a damp squib, as the March 31 deadline signalling their formal royal exit fast approaches.

They undeniably have an impregnable and enthusiastic fan base in Meghan’s native country, but is anyone going to take much notice while the US is clocking up the most cases of coronavirus in the world under Donald Trump’s increasingly questionable leadership, and with an election just months away?

If their latest efforts are anything to go by, they stand little chance of winning the battle of the headlines in the UK either, not least with William, 37, and Kate, 38, regarded as “playing a blinder” in their absence.

And whether the couples like it or not, comparisons are certainly being made (which perhaps explains why so many of the Sussexes’ online updates are still coinciding with their brother and sister-in-law’s royal activities).

As Harry announced the postponement of the Invictus Games, the Cambridges were being lauded for making a “real” difference by making a morale-boosting visit to a 111 call centre. Dressed in a pink trouser suit from Marks and Spencer, the future queen told hard-pressed staff: “It’s amazing. You’re doing such a great job bringing everyone together and providing that, the support system for the whole public.”

William, himself a former air ambulance pilot who has worked on the front line, later praised the health service as representing “the very best of our country and society”, as he thanked staff on behalf of the Royal family. Although the couple faced some criticism from those who felt their presence was a distraction, the general consensus was that they were right to do their bit.

Sources close to the couple say they will continue to offer support and are liaising with the Government and their charities in a bid to decide when and where they would be most “useful”. With the Queen self-isolating at Windsor Castle and the heir to the throne in quarantine at Birkhall on the Balmoral estate in Scotland, the Cambridges are now at the top of the royal roll call.

But observers cannot fail to have noticed how depleted the Royal family now looks without the Sussexes on side. As a former Army captain who revels in rolling up his sleeves in a crisis, the outbreak would have provided Harry with the perfect opportunity to do what he does best – geeing up the public in the face of adversity

Remember the flood relief efforts in 2014, when the royal brothers donned waterproofs and waders to help the Household Cavalry unload sandbags from military trucks?

Instead the 35-year-old royal, who twice fought for Queen and country in Afghanistan, has been reduced to sharing the World Health Organisation’s online advice and inviting fans to share their feelings via a rather trite: “Today I Feel…” Instagram post. They had hoped to create a “community” around coronavirus but instead appear to have sparked a controversy with what one critic described as meaningless “word salad”, rather than affirmative action.

Meanwhile, Meghan, 38, being signed up to narrate the new Disney documentary Elephant – after Harry touted her talents to executive chairman, Bob Iger – has only served to make their efforts to appear one of “us” rather than one of “them” seem even more cynical.

Summing up the mood among royal watchers, Joe Little, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, said: “From the time they said they were going to Canada, I always saw it as a stopgap for them hopping over the border – a softener because it was a Commonwealth country.

“While some are saying they’ve only gone to the US to escape coronavirus, it doesn’t make sense. Surely you would be much safer on Vancouver Island than in LA? This was always about Meghan being back on her patch and that master plan is now in place.”

Agreeing that Harry “would certainly have mucked in and done everything he could to help”, Little added: “But now he is in a different world. From Wednesday they will no longer be working members of the Royal family, so we have to start looking at them in a different way. They have got their own agenda, which is such a shame when you consider how useful they could have been to the British monarchy at this time of national emergency.”

“You have to give something back, you can’t just sit there,” Harry famously insisted in an echo of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales when speaking about his Army training. Having passed out of Sandhurst with flying colours, he appeared the epitome of the military academy’s motto: “Serve to lead.”

Yet as he and Meghan embark on a new life in America, fans will be hoping that the newly rebranded Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not forget the royal roots that helped Harry to become one of the most effective campaigners of his generation.

[lowkeyassgard]

DAY 10 OF LOKI VS. EARTH: CONCERTS

Day 10 of Loki vs. Earth series and today Loki is very pissed off by attending a country concert.

One shot summary: After bailing Loki out of some serious trouble, Thor asks Loki to attend a concert with him.

Quarantine series summary:It’s going to be a series of fun and light hearted one shots to help readers and other writers get through this hard time. I made a a03 collection and a tumblr tag. To join just write a fun, soft, and/or light hearted one shot and post it to the collection @Quarantine_Series or tag it on tumblr as #quarantine series.

Word count: 900 words

Loki didn’t care much for music, He never understood why Midgardians would spend their time blasting loud obnoxious noises into their ears. Also, didn’t understand how they enjoyed it. He didn’t like it but since permanently residing on Midgard his brother Thor had found a love for it. He blasted it through their home and would dance around like a psycho. Loki thought Thor a fool for it.

Thor had been pestering Loki to attend a concert for the last few months. Loki had repeatedly said no but knew he would no longer be able to decline the offer. Loki had recently run into some trouble leading Thor to bailing him out. Literally. Loki was arrested for assault. He did nothing of the sort, but the police officer insisted that Loki had come at it. What had actually happened was that one-day Loki was walking down the road flipping his favorite blue knife and a police officer had stopped to question him. Loki was not a fan of this man tone and pointed his knife at the officer. Loki wasn’t going to stab him, but the officer said that he had to jump back to avoid being plunged in the gut. What a liar. Upon Loki’s arrest they confiscated the knives on him and threw him in a dirty dark cell.

He spent two whole days in the jail because the police department had no clue who Loki was and how to contact someone to bail him out, Loki wasn’t from Earth, so he did not have a fingerprint on file or even a social security card. The entire police department was perplexed by his existence because to their computer system Loki simply did not exist. Yet he did and he like all others will have to serve the time for his crime. On the second night of his confinement Loki astray projected to New Asgard and pleaded with his brother to free him. Sure, thing the next morning there Thor was with a big wad of cash to free him and recover his prized knives.

With that situation in mind Loki knew the next time Thor asked he would have to go. He did in fact owe his brother and how horrible could a concert be.

The dreaded ask came two days later. Loki was in his bed reading a book over astronomy. It was a calm and bright day. He was in a pleasant mood. He was until Thor came waltzing into his singing one of those songs he was always blasting.

“Oh brother! Do you recall when I got you out of that sticky situation?

“How could I forget brother. It has only been a week.”

“Oh, how time flies when you are having fun. Speaking of fun how about you and me go to a concert tonight. There will be alcohol.” Thor emphasized the last part. Loki wasn’t fond of Midgardian alcohol, but something was better than nothing. Since Loki didn’t have any form of identification he could not lawfully buy alcohol even he was thousands of years past the required age. The people would just not believe it. So, the only time he received alcohol was when he stole it, much frowned about by Thor and Valkyrie, and when he went to an event that served it to all guests.

“Ah yes brother. I do owe you so just this time I will join you.”

“YES!” Thor practically jumped with joy. Loki knew that Thor loved hanging out with him, but they just didn’t like the same things. Loki liked raves and clubs meanwhile Thor loved campfires and concerts. They were like polar opposites and yet they still loved each other dearly. When Loki had no one, he had Thor. Thor was the only one that gave him chance after chance and saw the good in him. So even though he knew he would hate every minute of it if this concert would make his brother happy he would attend.

“Alright Loki. Be ready by six and where something that isn’t black.”

At a quarter to six Loki walked out of his bedroom in a olive green shirt and grey denim jeans. It was the only thing he owned that wasn’t black or Asgardian custom clothes. He felt like a teenager that was trying to be cool. He wasn’t going to impress anyone, so he swallowed his pride and put on a smile for his brother.

Thor on the other hand was absolutely ecstatic. He was in a plaid button up shirt blue denim jeans and boots. He was grinning ear to ear. The minute Loki came out Thor gave a big holler of excitement and practically dragged Loki out of their home to take a truck into the city.

They arrived at the concert venue within the next forty five minutes and immediately Loki wished he had said no. Just from the look of the people entering the venue he would be miserable. Everyone entering was dressed in cowboy hats and boot. The men and the women were plaid shirts and both were equally acting loud and obnoxious.

As Loki walked with Thor toward the entrance Loki groaned. The person taking the tickets was a blonde chick with a plaid shirt tied at her breast level. She was in cutoff denim shorts that showed the bottom of her undergarments. She was loud. Too loud. Loki wanted to throw his ticket at her and tell her to shut up before she found her mouth bound. Instead he calmly watched as Thor handed the tickets to her.

“HOWDY THERE BOYS. YALL READY FOR SOME FUN”

“No.” Loki simply said. Thor was beside him talking about how excited he was and had been looking forward to this all day.

Loki left his brother at the ticket stand to push his way into the venue. He thought maybe it would be better once inside, but it was not,

Thor had left out the part that this was a hillbilly concert. Loki wasn’t even trying to be offensive. A person that walked by him held a sign promptly stating that it was a hillbilly concert. The sign read “Hillbillies get down too.”

Everyone I mean everyone looked like they should be in the wild west. Loki didn’t usually complain about humans showing off a little skin but now he was. Their attire and the way they presented themselves repulsed Loki.

He pushed himself thought the crowd of sweaty exposed bodies to find the bar. Once there he was even more repulsed. They just had beer. Cheap piss. This was their suck ass excuse for alcohol. The whole reason why he was here. Loki remembering, he was doing for this Thor laid down a few bills and took one of the beers. He took one swig of the beer and spit it out on the ground.

“Real men drink beer.” A woman sitting at the bar scorned at him. He reached for his knives to realize he left them at home.

‘Real women know not to pester a man that could easily destroy them.” Loki spat at her. Pardon his language but fuck her. If he had his knives he would hold them at her throat until she cried out in mercy. He might not want to take over the world anymore, but he would not be disrespected.

Not being able to stand the taste of this piss he threw the half full can on the ground and removed the lighter from his pocket and set it on fire.

“Oh, brother there you are!” Thor said before realizing that Loki had set a can of beer on fire and had attracted a crowd.

“Please excuse my brother. Its not a concert without a little spilt beer am I right?” Thor said before grabbing Loki by the arm and dragging him to the other side of the room.

“Loki, what did I tell you about burning things?”

“Do not belittle me brother. That Midgardian piss made a fool out of me and I smite its existence as punishment.”

“Just stand here and have some fun. The concert is starting soon.” Thor said before taking a swig out of his own can of fermented piss.

The concert did start but Loki did not have fun.

The music was horrendous. It was loud. Obnoxious loud. The people let out yeehaws like they were farm animals. At one point the man beside Loki made the comment that he loved this music which Loki returned by screaming “THIS IS NOT MUSIC.”

Worse than the music was the dancing that followed. The dancing looked like an exorcism ritual. The people shook their bodies and bent them in ways that should mot be normal. They thrashed against each other and yet out shared simultaneous hollers. Loki felt as though he was watching a whole crowd of people possessed by a spirit and this country music was expelling them of their farm demon.

As the night went on the crowd got worse. Even his brother began to thrash around and swing his beer in the air. Later Loki would ask what happened and Thor would just say he was overcome by the music. Overcome by the music? The only thing Loki was overcome by was the urgent need to bleach his eyes and wipe his memories of this event.

When the crowd began to sway, Loki let out a groan. The people around him assumed he was joining them in their pleasure but he was not. Every time their shoulder pressed into his body he had to stop himself from grabbing them and snapping them in half.

At one point the stranger beside him bumped a little too hard into Loki taking him by surprise and knocking him to the concrete floor. That was loki last straw.

“I do not know what kind of hoe down throw down you people think this is hit if you so ever even think about touching my godly skin I will remove your bones from your body one by one.”

The people around him just stopped. They stopped dancing. The must stopped playing. The people all stopped to look at Loki.

“I am a god and I will not be disrespected and touched by you distasteful rowdy animals.”

Thor just watched in disbelief as his dear brother screamed at a venue of people.

“ I did my best to enjoy this time for the sake of my brother but you farm animals sad are just not worthy of my company.” With that Loki felt arms reach around him and he was picked up. A very large human carried him outside the venue and threw him on to the ground.

“Do you know who I am?” Loki screamed at the man.

“No and I do not care. Move another inch and I’m calling the cops.”

Loki was absolutely appalled that he was thrown out. He was even more appalled that Thor did not quickly come out to him. Instead loki spent the next 2 hours on the ground outside of the venue. When Thor finally came out he was completely hammered. . He was smiling and laughing to himself

“Brother. You are such a pain. Kicked out of a concert. If only mother and father could see this. They would laugh so hard they wept.”

Needless to say that Loki never attended a concert after that.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 142-143

July 31-Aug 1 

I didn't write anything yesterday because I was tired and today I am even more tired, so I may just do a quick thing here and backfill in coming days. It is a little strange and possibly even disingenuous to write a quarantine journal for a day when you hosted an actual party, but since my sister's wedding is perhaps the clearest example of how profoundly the novel coronavirus has changed the way we live, I'mma do it anyway. 

Yesterday was full-bore no holds barred wedding prep day. I sobered up enough on Thursday night to drink a ton of water before bed, so between that and my CPAP I managed to avoid a hangover. This was excellent because we were busy all day long. All the furniture arrived for the ceremony and the meal, which mostly consisted of rental chairs and folding tables we borrowed from everybody we knew. I am pretty sure we borrowed some tables from people who weren't even invited to the wedding, which would be a faux pas in normal times but right now everybody understood. I spent a good chunk of the day out running errands, picking up all the stuff we hadn't gotten before and I didn't want my mom or dad shopping for. I ended up going to Starbucks, Farm and Fleet (regional hardware store chain), Walmart and Walgreens all in a row and having to go inside everywhere except Starbucks. The Walmart was busy enough on a Friday that I actually had to wait in line outside for just a little bit before I could go in. 

We did not have a rehearsal or rehearsal dinner for the wedding because we didn't want to have any more people traveling overnight than necessary. We did stage the wedding area and painted spray paint Xs wher everyone was supposed to stand, after mapping it out using whoever was nearby. I believe the bridesmaids at one point included my aunt, my husband, the kiddo, my six year old nephew, my mother, me and my sister. 

(Yes, there were seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen, and since the bride and groom did not want to demote any attendants for the minimony, the bridal party itself made up more than 50% of the attendees if you include the officiant, the usher, the ringbearer and the flower girls.) The attendants only stood for about five minutes anyway; as soon as the giving away of the bride occurred we all went back to our carefully spaced seats. 

This morning was for decorating all over the structure we put together last night. Signs for every chair and table (there was a seating chart for the ceremony and the meal), decorations for every table, flowers for the arch, photos of older family weddings, and of course coolers full of drinks and bowls and platters full of prepackaged food. No buffet of catered food or picnic of potluck delicacies in these unprecedented times, but we did have a zillion fruit rollups and hundreds of mini bags of chips. We also didn't have cups for the drinks, so everybody drank from the cans or bottles all day. Two of my aunts and my mom's best friend came over first thing and spent hours putting everything together. 

My first morning task was to clean and disinfect the bathrooms, both the main bathroom and the emergency overflow (so to speak) bathroom. Back in the dark ages when I was in college, I worked for a summer cleaning office bathrooms for Servicemaster, so this is something I know how to do well. We had paper guest towels and many soaps and disinfectant wipes standing next to the sink in each bathroom. After bathroom cleaning, I ironed and folded the pocket square for my pending brother in law's suitcoat, and then it was my turn for beauty! The hairdresser I visited earlier in the week came to our house and did hair and makeup for my sisters, my mother, the mother of the groom and I, and he made us look amazing. My hair was curly and my eyes defined, it was very glamorous. I put on my dress and my shoes and borrowed some jewelry from my mom (I always forget to pack something on these trips!) and I was ready.  I waited until much later in the morning to get the kiddo ready. As the usher, his main job was to escort my mom to her seat and roll out the aisle runner. He got a very cute little monogrammed button down shirt, a bowtie, suspenders, and khaki shorts I managed to score on clearance at Walmart on Friday. I brought two pair of khaki shorts with us, but one had ragged hems from excessive play and one would no longer button.The new shorts worked fine though, and he looked great! Trying to get people to wear masks inside the house was kind of a losing endeavor, but we did our best to lead by example. My mask wound up wearing a fair amount of foundation and lipstick by the end of the day. 

Because this was the minimony and not the real main event wedding, my youngest sister altered my middle sister's wedding dress for today rather than wear her own wedding dress. It didn't take much, mostly just pretty lacy shoulder straps to keep everything in place, and the good news was that we already knew how to bustle it. She looked amazing! We helped her get ready and then went outside to line up, and the whole ceremony got going nearly on time. It was a little weird because half the audience seats were empty when the bridal party wasn't seated, and because the audience was so small to start with. This wedding was supposed to be in a performance hall at the University of Illinois with 350 guests and live musicians, but instead it was forty people total, in a backyard with my uncle who is in a band playing iPhone DJ. 

I think that dichotomy had a lot to do with the mood of the day. Don't get me wrong, it was a good day! The wedding went off just like it was supposed to, there were kisses and cheers, the food was good and nothing disastrous happened. People had fun, like a little backyard picnic where two people got married. But the whole day was full of the ghosts of what wasn't happening. There were people who should have been there but weren't. Longtime family friends, older and much-loved relatives, friends from school and church and work who were pared from the list out of necessity. Pretty much everyone who wasn't an attendant was a first-degree relation of somebody in the party. There was no receiving line, and very few hugs or kisses. There was no wedding cake or wedding-cake-feeding, just cupcakes. There was no dancing, so no first dances, father daughter dance, any of that stuff. My sister has been planning her father-daughter dance probably since she watched my dad and I dancing at my wedding sixteen years ago, and it did not happen today. It will happen next year at the maximony, but it's still a lost moment. In a lot of ways, it didn't feel nearly as much like a wedding as I'd thought it would. But it was still nice. 

Later on, once the new in-laws had left and the newlyweds taken off for their hotel, a handful of my parents' close friends came over. These were people who would've been at the center of the wedding planning and prep in normal times, part of the tight-knit group of multi-decade friendships that are the good part of living in a small town. They sat out on the patio around the fire table and drank wine and socialized until after us younger folks gave up and went to lay down. I sat with them for a little while before helping to drag inside the stuff that could be ruined by dew, then sitting down to write this slightly delayed journal. More later, but I'm tired now.