#getting vulnerable at the gig | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spatialwave · 4 months

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"𝓲𝓽'𝓼 𝓸𝓷𝓵𝔂 𝓯𝓪𝓲𝓻"

pairing: pre-war cooper howard x fem!reader word count: 3k summary: you hadn’t expected to see a celebrity at your nephews birthday party, let alone america’s most recognizable cowboy star. luck seemed to be on your side when cooper howard’s attention landed right on you. warnings: mdni! smut, age difference, cooper eats you out!

you and your older sister had a sour relationship, you hadn’t quite agreed with her husband’s fixation with capitalizing on a nuclear fallout. he worked at vault-tech, some entry-level position with a promise of greater things. after a few dinners of listening to him ramble about the vaults and trying to convince you to buy your place in one, you decided to distance yourself.

but your six-year old nephew had stolen your heart since he was a newborn. you would do anything for him, even if it meant sucking up your pride and going to visit your sister for his birthday.

knowing that he was a little aspiring cowboy, you showed up dressed to impress—meaning denim jeans, cowboy boots, a button down blouse and cowboy hat. you had expected enthusiasm from the other adults, but you were greeted with them all in their sunday’s best.

this was going to be a long saturday afternoon.

you were sitting inside your sister’s house, having kept yourself away from the partygoers as you picked at the hot dog on your paper plate. a birthday delicacy.

just as you were about to call it a day and make haste for the door, you heard the sound of kids yelling excitedly outside where the party had migrated. you hadn’t been told that there was entertainment and curiosity bubbled inside you. a little peak would hurt.

just as you reached the backyard, standing up on the white-painted porch, your eyes landed on the man sitting atop a horse with a lasso spinning effortlessly around his body. of course your sister managed to hire an actual cowboy.

with a smirk on your lips, you watched with a tiny smile—eyes growing wide when you recognized the face hidden behind the hat.

that was fucking cooper howard.

you felt your heart skip a beat as you stepped toward the staircase, looking over the sea of parents and children as the movie star put on a beautiful display of his talents. you had heard the news stories from women gossiping in your workplace, how cooper howard was going through a tough divorce with his wife… who worked for vault-tech.

it then made sense how your brother-in-law scored this gig.

speculating wasn’t going to do you any good, and you likely weren’t going to get any answers, so you pushed thoughts of cooper’s personal life out of your head and instead admired him. who cared why he was there? you were happy to be within the same vicinity as the handsome man. he was just as beautiful in-person as he was on the television screen, big pearly whites shining as he smiled.

then, his brown eyes met yours, even over the crowd of people that he could let his gaze linger on. you felt your body shiver as you both shared a long stare, feeling vulnerable under his eyes and missing it when he instead looked down at a young boy that was cheering for him.

with red cheeks and a giddy smile on your lips, you kept watching, unable to look away. even after he’d gotten off the horse and helped a few children sit atop and take them for a short little walk around the backyard.

cooper was good with the children, you found yourself unable to look away and making little mental notes of what kind of man he was. so far, he was kind, gentle and humble.

before you could indulge any further, your sister sprung up in your line of sight and left you huffy.

“would you be a darling and go into bruce’s car to get donny’s present?” she asked so sweetly, “he wanted to keep it as hidden as possible.”

“i was enjoying the show,” you grumbled, watching as cooper had started to wrap up after taking a few photos with your nephew and a handful of the other kids.

“oh, hush. here.” your sister shoved the vehicle keys into your hand, “just leave the present inside, we’ll be there in a few minutes once the entertainment is gone.”

you hadn’t even gotten the energy to call your sister out for labelling cooper as just ‘entertainment’. you just let out a sigh and followed her orders, grabbing the present out from the convertible and placing it neatly on the large stack of presents on the kitchen island.

your small gift bag was starting to look shameful compared to some of the large, wrapped boxes.

“christ,” you muttered to yourself as you let out a defeated breath.

you made way for the front door, digging in the pockets of your jeans and retrieving a cigarette as you stepped foot onto the front porch. just as you lit it and moved down the short stairs, you glanced ahead and were greeted by none other than cooper howard walking across the large driveway.

“miss,” he smiled at you out of courtesy, giving a nod of acknowledgement as he continued to lead his horse past you and toward the trailer hooked up behind his vehicle.

“hello,” you murmured, exhaling smoke from your lungs as you watched him with wide eyes—starstruck. after a few moments of watching him you mustered up the courage to follow behind him, though doing your best not to disturb the horse and get a prompt kick in the head, “mr. howard?”

the older man looked over his shoulder, hands busy guiding his horse as he stopped just outside the trailer.

“hm?” he hummed, turning slowly to face you, that charismatic smile on his lips, “please, just call me cooper,” his voice drawled with a thick southern accent, “what can i do for a pretty cowgirl, such as yourself?”

you felt your cheeks warm up at his words, wondering if he was flirting or just being overly kind. you hadn’t met a ton of celebrities in your day, so you hadn’t the slightest clue.

“oh, i’m not a cowgirl,” you laughed softly, looking down at your outfit and then back up to cooper, “it’s my nephew’s birthday and i suppose i took the dress nice requirement the wrong way.” you managed to make cooper chuckle, a grin forming along his lips as he tied off his horse to the trailer and able to give you much of his attention.

“well, if i got to choose, you’re definitely the best dressed today. you had me convinced that you’d be coming for my job,” he poked fun at you.

cooper howard had always been a faithful man, but barb’s betrayal was something he’d never be able to forgive. he was also a man with needs, so when a young woman approached him with a naive look in her eyes, he couldn’t help but pounce at the opportunity for some flirting. it helped with his ego, at least, having slowly deflated after needing to take on these entertainment gigs just to pay alimony to his ex-wife.

it wasn’t fair that she’d manage to take most of his assets, the money, the home—full custody of janey with very little visitation. it was brutal, but he was making it work. he’d be having the weekend with his daughter soon enough.

he could be content with you right now, in fact, he desperately needed the distraction.

“if it makes you feel better i can’t even ride a horse,” you said through a giggle, “i won’t be coming for your job anytime soon.”

a breathy laugh came from cooper as he settled a hand on his hip, “that’s reassuring,” he smiled with thinned lips, “you’d certainly take away attention from me.”

there it was again, was he flirting with you? was cooper howard actually flirting with you?

“i don’t know about that,” you spoke quietly, flicking off the build up of ash on the cigarette you hadn’t been smoking, “sorry, i’ll let you get all packed up. i’m sure you’re a busy man. i just wanted to let you know that i’m a big fan of your movies,” you tried so hard to keep a calm and cool composure, “you’re, uh… a great actor.”

“why, that’s very kind of you, miss,” cooper kept a smile on his lips as he looked over you, brushing his hands off on his brown corduroy pants and clearing his throat, “would you happen to have an extra cigarette i may be able to take off your hands? i seem to have left mine at home.”

you nodded, reaching for the pack in your pocket so you could pull one out and pass it to the older man, a smile breaking on your lips when his fingers brushed against yours.

“thank you,” he said smoothly, eyes flickering to follow your hands as you pulled out a lighter for him. he leaned forward with the cigarette between his lips, meeting your gaze as the flame lit it nicely and smoke bellowed from his lips, “you are a lifesaver, darlin’, i’m usually more prepared than this.”

“it’s no worries at all, my pleasure. really.” you took a step back from him, cheeks burning hot as you shoved the lighter back into your pocket and butted out the cigarette you had completely neglected.

“how about i treat you for a drink sometime,” he spoke, tilting his head curiously, “it’s only fair, don’t you think?”

cooper was more than satisfied to see the way you had looked so surprised, your eyes widening and lips curving into a small smile. somewhere deep inside, he knew this was wrong. you were a young thing, not much older than a university graduate, if that. cooper? well, he was at least twenty years your senior.

then, he remembered, it’s not like he had anyone but himself to please. his ex-wife had managed to get his reputation buried so deep that he couldn’t book anymore gigs, hell, not even a lousy commercial. his agent would be letting him go soon, too, he knew it.

there was nothing to lose here.

“a drink?” you questioned, “like a date?”

you were so damn endearing.

honestly, you were convinced that something had happened at your nephew’s birthday. maybe you had walked too close to the horse, and it did end up giving you a swift kick to the head. everything happening was just your wildest dreams as you lay in a hospital in the deepest of comas. it was easier to than believing you were actually sitting with cooper howard in a darkened bar, a place much too expensive for you, but you supposed these were the perks of being famous.

you sat in a velvet covered seat right at the long bar, one leg crossed over the other in an attempt to make yourself feel like you were fancy enough to belong here. you were just thankful that you had a friend who was a seamstress, able to turn a long, frumpy black dress into something that hugged your curves.

it wasn’t every day a movie star asked you out.

“what do you do for work?” cooper leaned his elbow against the bar top, a cigarette in his left hand and glass of whiskey in the other, “other than being a professional cowgirl, of course.”

“i’m just finishing up the last bit of my schooling,” you replied, pulling the martini glass from your lips where a layer of red lipstick marked the glass—your second drink, “going to be a nurse.”

“now, that’s a very commendable line of work,” cooper straightened up, setting down his now empty glass full of half-melted ice, “i’m certain you’ll get a lot of joy out of savin’ peoples lives.”

“i hope so,” you smiled, quite proud of your career choices, “i mean, it’s no movie star, though.”

cooper let out a low laugh, dropping his gaze for a moment as he put out his cigarette in an ashtray, “let me just tell you that being a movie star isn’t all it’s made out to be,” he spoke through a breathy chuckle.

you furrowed your brows slightly, chewing on your bottom lips as you watched him. well, at least he was a modest man. “why aren’t you in movies anymore?” you bit the bullet with your question, “i haven’t seen you in anything new since you started doing the ads for vault-tech.”

a heavy breath escaped cooper’s nostrils as he met your eyes, his smile gone, “you see, that’s a can of worms we oughta’ keep shut, if you don’t mind.”

“i’m sorry,” you were filled with immense regret, seeing the discomfort on coopers face, “i’ve been told i’m too nosy for my own good.”

“no, don’t apologize, darlin’. how were you supposed to know without asking?” cooper reassured you, reaching forward to place his hand on your bare knee, peaking out from the provocative slit that went up the length of your dress, “maybe someday i’ll share.”

you felt your heart skip a beat when his calloused hand rested over the smooth skin of your leg, sending shivers up your spine and making you wonder just where this night would lead. a sheepish laugh escaped your lips as you toyed with the toothpick in your martini, punctured through an olive, “someday? i wasn’t expecting a second date.”

“you weren’t?” cooper grinned, god, you loved his smile, “i thought this was goin’ well.”

“maybe if i have a third drink in me i’ll be more inclined to go on that second date with you,” you teased, thankful for the courage the drinks were giving you.

“why don’t i make you that third at my place? i can mix you up a better martini than here,” he squeezed your knee, his thumb brushing along your skin and all you could do was nod.

the third drink never came, but that was okay. with your lips parted and hands in cooper’s hair, you could care less about a dirty martini when his face was buried between your thighs and your dress pushed up to your hips. you’d always been a lucky girl, but nothing would ever top this.

“oh,” you whimpered, fingers tightening in his hair as his tongue lapped against your folds, the tip flicking against your swollen, sensitive clit, “just like that,” you cooed, your head falling back against the cushion as you closed your eyes and focused on nothing except the pleasure flowing through you.

cooper had long forgotten the worries that tried to rot his mind because for once in months he felt something, a warmth in his stomach—hope. even as war loomed overhead and life seemed dire, you had walked into his life. someone fun, a pretty girl who could keep his troubles away for a night.

his hands gripped at your outer thighs, fingers digging into your skin as he ate you out with the expertise he’d gained throughout the years. quickly learning what made you moan and squirm under his touch.

“fuck,” you cried out, whimpering as your thighs pressed against the sides of his head as you neared climax, “i’m going to cum.”

“no one’s stopping you, angel,” he breathed warmly against your cunt, one hand pulling from your thigh so he could press a digit inside you and coax out sweet sounds from your lips. he pulled back as a second finger joined in, his mouth and chin glistening from your juices, “show me those pretty eyes of yours.”

you were quick to listen, using your strength to lift your head up and look down at cooper. he looked glorious with tousled hair and pink cheeks, fingers fucking you with a practiced touch.

you locked your eyes on him as you breathed heavily through pouted lips. “cooper,” you whined loudly when his thumb made quick circles over your clit and bringing you closer to the edge, fingers tugging on his hair as your back arched and the coil inside your stomach released.

your voice cracked as you said his name, a cry of pleasure coming deep from your throat as you came. you pulsed and contracted around his fingers, hips vibrating as he didn’t let up, not in the slightest. he wanted to see how your face twisted with pleasure when you became overstimulated, grinning as you grabbed at his hands in an attempt to slow his movements.

he listened, his fingers coming to a stop and soon pulling out from you as his lips pressed chaste kisses to your inner thighs while you fell back into the sofa and let out a shaky sigh.

“i have to be dreaming,” you breathed out, hardly able to keep your eyes open as you felt cooper shift so he could sit up and crawl over your body.

“too good to be true?” cooper questioned with a teasing tone, holding himself above you as you pressed your hands to his cheeks.

“very much so,” you smiled, your breath evening out, “cooper, i think you should rest back and let me do some work now,” you hummed as you pressed a hand to his chest and began to push him until he was resting against the arm of the sofa.

cooper showed a toothy, lopsided grin as he watched with intrigue glimmering in his eyes, happily looking you up and down as you moved from your spot on the couch until you were kneeling on the carpeted floor in front of him, “you really don’t need to,” he said, though, he was only being polite. he wouldn’t say no to this.

“aw, come on, cooper,” you whispered, your hands on his clothed thighs, slowly moving up until they could tackle his belt buckle, “it’s only fair.”

“shit,” cooper hissed, eyes fluttering shut as he felt your hands free his erection from the confines of his suit pants.

he certainly hoped for a second date.

#cooper howard #cooper howard x reader #cooper howard fic #the ghoul x reader #the ghoul fic #fallout fic #fallout tv #wordsbyspatial

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doyoulikethissong-poll · 7 months

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The Offspring - Gone Away 1997

"Gone Away" is a song by American rockband the Offspring. Written by the band's singer, Dexter Holland, it was released as the second single from the band's fourth studio album, Ixnay on the Hombre (1997). "Gone Away" was the most successful single off of Ixnay on the Hombre, making it to #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and #4 on the Modern Rock Tracks.

This song has helped many Offspring fans cope with loss. Holland told Kerrang!: "I get some letters from people saying how much 'Gone Away' - which is about losing someone - means to them, from parents who have written to me to say that it helped them get over the loss of their son who died from leukemia. It rips your heart out."

Holland started doing this song during the Offspring's gigs solo on the piano. "A rock show can feel like bam bam bam, and we wanted to take a minute in the middle of the set to let everyone breathe. Sit down for a minute, stop screaming." Holland noticed his acoustic rendition was connecting live. As he was also getting numerous supportive messages on social media, he decided to record a piano and strings version for their 2021 album Let The Bad Times Roll. "It makes it feel different in a way I think is cool. It was weird recording it; I'm so used to weird, loud, messy guitars that cover up all your imperfections, and it felt pretty vulnerable, quite frankly."

"Gone Away" received a total of 76,3% yes votes!

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#finished #high votes #high yes #90s #the offspring

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aquaquadrant · 7 months

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Philophobia

Word Count: 5,271 Warnings: Shipping, inappropriate/crude humor, paranormal activity, suspense/mild horror, descriptive kissing, mild language Summary: For architecture major and paranormal skeptic Grian, his friends’ after-hours ghost hunting group was just an excuse to spend time with his crush, Scar, without having to actually ask him out. But one fateful night, he finds there just might be things in this world that are scarier than emotional vulnerability… even if only by a very slim margin.

A/N: Did someone ask for a Phasmophobia-inspired Scarian au? Oh yeah, my friend @lunarcrown did! Inspired by the art she made here.

So this is kind of a modern-day college au (not set within the fictional universe of Minecraft), howEVER there are some fantasy aspects in that non-human species (like mob hybrids/monsters) still exist cuz they’re fun and I’m not giving anyone a normal modern name cuz that’s too weird. This is only Phasmophobia-inspired in that GIGS have a ghost-hunting group that functions the same way, but rarely find any conclusive evidence, and don’t have unlimited lives cuz they aren’t playing a game. With that out of the way, hope y’all enjoy, please reblog/comment if u do! - Aqua

~*~

Philophobia

~*~

“I think this is gonna be the one, guys,” Impulse says, turning their van into the driveway.

The suspension creaks as they roll over gravel, rattling the frame in a way that hums through Grian’s hollow bones. His arm is cold where it presses against the window; it’s almost sunset and Impulse has yet to get the van’s heater fixed despite his promises. Stupid demon blood keeping him warm while Grian shivers in the stupid custom pleather jumpsuit that Scar insisted they had made, for their stupid ‘brand’ as a stupid ghost-hunting group. Great, his stupid zipper’s come down again- he stubbornly zips it back up because unlike Scar, he doesn’t like constantly having his bare chest out on display.

Of course, he hasn’t got as much to show off as Scar, who must be getting up at 3 am every morning to work out in order to maintain all that muscle. No wonder Scar prefers to keep his zipper down to his belly button, and doesn’t seem to have ever met a shirt that fits him properly.

… Not that Grian’s ever paid much attention to that sort of thing.

Grian gives an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been saying that about every case we’ve had for three years!”

“No, no, I really mean it!” Impulse insists. “I feel it in my bones.”

“Yeah,” Scar agrees, leaning forward so his shoulder brushes against Grian’s, “you know Impulse bones good!”

The earnest nature of his statement- and the unexpected physical contact- makes Grian flush. “Scar!” he shrieks, swatting Scar’s shoulder.

“What?” Scar defends. “What, he- he’s got big and strong bones, wonderful bones…”

He acts as if he’s got no idea he said something that could be taken the wrong way. And if it weren’t for the upturned corners of his mouth and the barely-restrained laugh in his voice, Grian might actually believe him.

“Dude,” Skizz chuckles from the front seat, “shut up, that’s awesome.”

Impulse sighs. “Anyway,” he says pointedly, “the place recently had a change in ownership. Previous owner passed away-”

“From murder?” Scar gasps.

Another sigh. “No, from liver failure.”

Grian snorts. “From all the drinking he did to forget about the ghostly hauntings?” he presses, exchanging a cheeky grin with Scar.

“No,” Impulse says, with the patience of a saint, “just normal old-age organ failure. The guy was ancient, and some kinda recluse. House had been in his family since it was built, but uh, he had no living relatives, no will when he died. So the bank took ownership and it’s been sitting off-market for like, fifteen years, til some hot-shot investor thought he could flip it-”

“Ughh,” Grian groans, tipping his head back against the seat. “Investors are the worst-”

“I know, I know,” Impulse soothes, “but um, he’d barely begun when things started happening. Contractors reported it day one, then the owner experienced an event himself and called us. So it’s basically still untouched.”

They haven’t even reached the end of the driveway yet, passing by seemingly endless rows of tall, gnarled pines. Admittedly, Grian’s curiosity is piqued. When he agreed to join this stupid ghost hunting group three years ago, he didn’t do so in the hopes of actually discovering any real paranormal activity. The whole idea is laughable. Ghost hunting is a pseudoscience, at best. Just a bunch of idiots scaring themselves silly in an empty house- and now they’re the idiots! Even their name is stupid: Ghost Investigation Group Services, or GIGS, embroidered on their ill-fitting pleather jumpsuits.

But despite his outright skepticism and dislike for pulling late nights in his already extremely limited free time, Grian’s got one very good reason for agreeing to join.

And his name is Scar.

Grian spent half a semester pining away at the fellow architecture major from across the lecture halls of their many shared classes. Charismatic and easy on the eyes, it was inevitable that Grian would develop a bit of a crush. But as they spent more time together during class projects and conversations in the hallway, he found out just how kind-hearted and passionate Scar was, and how easy he was to talk to, and how strong his arms looked in long-sleeved shirts…

… Yeah, ‘crush’ perhaps isn’t the right word.

So when Impulse- the engineering major who Grian was partnered with for physics lab- got the brilliant idea to start a ghost-hunting group with his best friend and roommate Skizz, and Scar expressed interest in joining, Grian made a split-second decision in a moment of weakness. He maintained his skepticism, claiming that he wanted to tag along just to prove how silly the whole idea was. Impulse was fine with it, while Scar said Grian had to wear the same uniform as them, and the rest was history.

(To be fair, that was before Grian knew it’d be a pleather jumpsuit.)

So here they are now nearly three years later, rumbling down a long gravel road in the dark and cold, up late on a Saturday night even though he still isn’t finished with his condominium model that’s due at 8 am on Monday and he’s fresh out of popsicle sticks. Moments like these almost make Grian wish he could just ask a guy out like a normal person, so they could spend time together without chasing pretend ghosts around dusty houses all night.

But that’d require him to talk about his feelings. Ugh, he’d rather let the ghosts get him.

“Alright.” Impulse slows the van to a halt. The doors unlock with a heavy clunk. “What do you guys think?”

Grian isn’t expecting much when he glances out the window. But the sight that greets him immediately prompts a hasty exit from the vehicle, scarcely noticing the sudden chill, his jaw dropping open in awe.

It’s a Victorian. Not a house that someone has mistakenly called ‘Victorian’ just because it looks old. A genuine, honest-to-goodness, Queen Anne’s style two-story Victorian manor with an asymmetrical facade and a rounded corner tower and a generous wrap-around porch, silhouetted against the fading light of the evening sky.

Grian reaches for his flashlight. Sweeping over the exterior, his breath catches. Knots of ivy creep up the walls, and there are a few places where the intricate wood trim has been lost to previous repairs and weather damage. A couple of the windows are bricked up. Most of the paint is faded and peeling. But overall? It’s beautiful.

“Oh man,” Grian murmurs, pushing his glasses back up, “look at the shape of it... look at the dormers!”

A second beam of light joins in; Scar’s emerged from the van. “Lots of character,” he says, sounding similarly entranced. “And still in great condition! Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s enough to make a man cry.”

Impulse hops out of the driver’s seat, chuckling. “I knew you two would like it. It’s an ‘85.”

Grian gives an appreciative whistle. “Look, I still don’t think we’re gonna find anythin’,” he says with a sideways look at Scar, “but I gotta tell ya… if- if I were a ghost… I think I’d haunt a proper house like this. Not those builder-grade boxes in the suburbs.”

“Right?” Impulse says, his forked tail flicking through the air. “That’s what I’m sayin’... I uh, I think this place has real potential.”

Skizz, who’s come around the van to stand with them, nods thoughtfully. “Definitely somethin’ special ‘bout it, that’s for true,” he says, exchanging a look with Impulse. Then he claps his hands together. “Alright gentlemen, let’s get movin’!”

Impulse and Skizz turn towards the van, heading to open the back.

Grian stares after them, squinting suspiciously. That wasn’t just any look. That was a Look. A Look that he knows all too well. They had that same Look on their faces at last year’s frat mixer, when they rigged the speakers at the Heta Kappa house to play ‘Margaritaville’ every time someone flushed a toilet.

It means that they’re Up To Something.

… Grian’s sure he’ll find out sooner or later.

“Well, Grian,” Scar says, hands on his hips as he surveys the property, “if it’s any connotation, at least we’ll get to study some real architecture tonight.”

Grian gives him a bemused look. “Consolation?”

Scar blinks. “Cono- what, what’d I say? Con- coronation?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, ey,” Grian chuckles, patting him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

~*~

“Check it out, dude,” Skizz calls excitedly, “temp’s dropping in here! Five degrees colder than the rest of the house!”

Grian makes a noncommittal noise. “It’s an east-facing room and the sun’s only just set, of course it’s colder than the rest of the house,” he says, idly passing his UV glow stick over an armchair. No prints, of course. “I doubt they’ve updated the insulation anytime within the last two decades.”

“And hey, look,” Impulse chimes in from the corner, “I’ve got EMF 1.3!”

Grian doesn’t even look up. “There’s an exposed outlet in here and I’ll bet the wiring’s older than I am. And in any case, it’s still below the recommended threshold.” Ew, okay, now that’s a suspicious UV stain on the floor, but not of the supernatural kind…

“Oh, it’s definitely not up to code,” Impulse agrees. He waves his EMF reader around a bit, making the pitch warble. “But I dunno, I think this must be the ghost’s favorite room. Might not be here right now, but I’m getting some real vibes…”

Grian rolls his eyes. “Sure…”

Twenty minutes in, and despite the house’s hauntingly elegant construction, it’s been the same old story. The house is empty and quiet, as abandoned houses tend to be. Quite sparse, as most of the furnishings probably went to auction. The furniture that’s left is covered with tarps and every surface is coated with a fine layer of dust. He can smell mold somewhere in the floorboards and there’s apparent water damage in the ceiling.

The only renovation attempted thus far was the removal of some cheap linoleum tiles that were laid in the kitchen at some point- a renovation Grian can heartily agree with, there’s some absolutely gorgeous hardwood underneath- but they didn’t get far. The removed tiles are still sitting about in a haphazard pile, hammer and chisel abandoned on the floor beside them. Frantic footsteps smeared in the dust and powder paint the scene of a terrified contractor fleeing for their life from the reported ‘ghostly hauntings’.

In any case, they haven’t heard any activity from the spirit box, nothing unusual has stood out on UV, and the salt Impulse laid out is still undisturbed. Surprise, surprise. Grian’s spent most of his time admiring the elaborate wooden trims lining every wall, scuffed as they are. What he wouldn’t give to properly restore this place…

“Hey, Dipple Dop?” Skizz calls suddenly. “Your radio working okay?”

Impulse gives him a curious look. “Huh? What, is there-” He pauses, glancing down at his radio. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, mine’s on the fritz, must be overdue a battery change.”

“Oh?” Grian tilts his head innocently. “You don’t think it’s a ghoooost?”

Impulse purses his lips. “I don’t think everything is a ghost,” he says mildly. He clips the radio onto his belt, turning to the door. “I’ve got extras in the van, hang on…”

“I’ll go, too,” Skizz says quickly, slinging an arm and his wing around Impulse’s shoulders. “Buddy system! You know what, I- I’m tellin’ you, you never split up when hunting ghosts. That’s how they get you, dude.”

Oh. Oh, no.

Grian gives them a warning Look.

They give him a cheeky Look back.

“Yup, yeah, that’s true,” Impulse says with obvious feigned sincerity, steering Skizz out of the room. “So uh, you two keep at it, okay, and we’ll be right back…”

“Oh, okay!” Scar says cheerfully, busy setting up the tripod over in the corner and completely oblivious to their scheme. “Have a great time not getting murdered!”

Grian opens his mouth to protest, but Impulse and Skizz are already gone out the front door. Leaving him and Scar completely alone. Totally by coincidence, surely. Oh, he knew his drunken confession to Impulse at the school’s annual bar crawl fundraiser night would come back to bite him eventually.

It’s almost insulting, in a way. Like they think the only reason Grian hasn’t made a move is because he hasn’t had ample alone time with Scar. Like he needed them to give him an opportunity. But if he’d wanted to confess to Scar, he already would have. He’d have had it well done by now. They could give him a little credit.

See, the thing is, he’s thought about it. Plenty of times, in fact. But the issue he keeps coming back to is that if he tells Scar about his crush on him, then Scar will know about it. There’ll be no going back at that point. And if Scar doesn’t feel the same way- well, Grian can kiss their friendship goodbye. So yeah, no, he doesn’t think he’ll be making any dramatic love confessions tonight, strangely enough.

The risk of an awkward silence developing is astronomical, so Grian clears his throat. “Man… isn’t this place somethin’,” he says, then immediately fights the urge to cringe.

Scar, luckily, gives an emphatic nod. “It is, it truly is amazing.” He straightens up, dusting his hands off as he turns to Grian. “You know who’d really love this place, is Gem?”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Grian agrees. He busies himself with the UV, so he’s not just standing around. “We should take some pictures for her.”

“Oh, good idea!” Giving the tripod a final once-over, Scar wanders over to Grian. “So, any fingering goin’ on, yet?”

Grian nearly drops his glow stick. “Sorry- any what?!” he screeches, whirling around on Scar.

“You know, ghost fingers!” Scar says, perfectly innocent. He holds his hands up, wiggling his fingers in demonstration. “On the- on the glowy light?”

Grian takes a deep breath, face burning. “Oh Scar, buddy, you gotta think through your words better before you say them, alright?”

“Whaaat?” Scar pretends like he doesn’t know. “What, I’m just- you’ve got the stick, you know, little glow stick for when the ghost touches, uh-”

“Nevermind,” Grian groans. “Anyways, no, I haven’t found any ghostly handprints and I never will, because ghosts aren’t real.”

Scar folds his arms. “Well, hey, maybe the ghost is just polite! You know, he- maybe he’s just minding his business, not touching anything or- or anyone. Just because we don’t get anything on UV doesn’t mean ghosts aren’t real, I’ll have you know.”

Grian sees the challenge for what it is. “Alright…” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his spirit box. Holding the transponder to his lips, he belts out, “Where ahhre yewww?” in his best imitation of an over-exaggerated pop-punk accent. If Impulse and Skizz are eavesdropping through their radios, he hopes he gave them a start.

Scar laughs. “Oh man, been a while since I heard that one! You-”

I’m close.

Grian jumps so badly he nearly drops the box, his wings puffing out involuntarily. “What?! Wha- who said that?” he demands, spinning around.

Scar blinks at him. “What? Did you hear something through the box?”

“I- I dunno?” Grian says uncertainly. The box seems to be working as normal; when he holds the receiver down, there’s a faint hiss of static, and the bulb remains white. No further noises come from the speaker.

After a couple seconds of tense listening, Grian feels silly. Way to play it cool. He switches the box off with an exasperated sigh. “No, of course I didn’t hear anything through the box. Like I said, ghosts aren’t real.”

Scar hums noncommittally. “Oh, Grian... you know, there are some things in the world that can’t be explained.”

Grian snorts. “Oh, yeah? Well, I- I got a few explanations for ya.” He counts on his fingers. “It could’ve been this old house creaking in the wind, or an electrical surge causing feedback through the transponder, or- or, not to mention, Impulse and Skizz pranking us through the radio?”

Scar snickers. “That does sound like something they’d do, I’ll give you that.”

“Yeah.” Grian slips the box back into his pocket. “And y’know, being in a creepy abandoned house, after dark, out in the middle’a nowhere... it’s easy to think you’re hearin’ things.”

Scar rolls his eyes, but his expression is fond. “I know, I know, so you’ve told me. But one of these days, mister, you’re gonna eat your words.”

“Right,” Grian drawls. “I’m so scared…”

The front door slams shut.

That makes Grian pause. They always leave the front door open while out on a job. It saves time when they have to go back and forth from the van, and saves battery life on their radios when they can just shout to each other through the open doorway. Obviously this job is a little different, because Impulse and Skizz have clearly got it in their heads to try and get him and Scar together, but he wouldn’t think they’d go so far as to-

The lights suddenly flicker and go out. But in the split-second before they do, Grian sees a shadowy figure silhouetted against the door.

Pure instinct takes over. Grian spins on his heel, grabs Scar by the arm, and absolutely flies down the stairs to the basement. He knows they’ve disturbed one or two piles of salt but right now, he can’t bring himself to care. His wings are bumping against the walls and he’s certainly never tried carrying someone as big as Scar before but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even process the ache of it rattling through his body. He bursts into the basement, feathers flying, and careens towards the back of the room, around a tall shelving unit, and into the corner.

There’s a heap of boxes stacked up in this corner; Grian unceremoniously shoves Scar over top of them, dropping him in the narrow space between the boxes and the wall. He’s wedged in as far as he can himself, laying across the boxes, his double pair of wings preventing him from squeezing in beside Scar. He’s still got the UV light clenched in his fist, he realizes belatedly- he braces his forearms against the wall to try and cover it, fanning his wings out behind him to block it out from the rest of the room. Glancing back over his shoulder, he tries to gauge how much light is getting through when a noise makes him freeze.

Footsteps.

They’re soft and light- certainly not the heavy boots of Impulse or Skizz. No, they sound almost barefoot. And as they gently tap down the stairs, the sound of giggling fills the air. It’s a feminine voice. Young, like a child. Like a little ghostie girl is prancing down the stairs to murder them.

Grian thinks he might pass out. Can ghosts actually kill people? How would they do it if they’re incorporeal? He’s never considered the question before, he never thought he’d have to because it’s ridiculous, ghosts aren’t real, of course they can’t kill people-

The footsteps stop.

Grian isn’t sure if he’s still breathing. He doesn’t dare move. A chill runs up his spine, making every single feather stand on end. He can almost hear the high-pitched violins that would be playing right now if this were a horror movie; the cheesy, overdrawn kind of horror movies that are always playing at the drive-in that the four of them watch while piled into the back of the van in a tangle of limbs and spilled popcorn and oh god he’s spiraling now because he’s about to be killed by a ghost-

Bye-bye!

The chill recedes. Somewhere in his peripheral vision, he sees the faint glow of light from upstairs return.

It’s over.

Grian’s mind is spinning. What was that? What was that? It seems impossible, it doesn’t even feel real to be in this situation right now but he is, there was a ghost, there was a ghost. It feels insane to even think it. But the residual adrenaline coursing through his body reminds him it was very real, he just encountered a ghost.

A ghost! Oh, after three years of very loudly decrying the entire concept as rubbish. He can’t believe it. He really can’t believe it, this is the absolute last thing he expected to happen tonight. Ghosts are real. Ghosts are really, really, real. He doesn’t know what to do, who would ever believe him? Is this how the others have been feeling this whole time? God, he can’t believe this-

“G...?” Scar’s voice pipes up hesitantly. “What... what are we doing?”

Oh, right. Grian glances down at Scar- and his heart jolts. He’d been so focused on getting away from the ghost, he’d acted without thinking, so only now does he realize the... predicament he’s put them in.

Scar’s slumped against the floor beneath him, head tucked just below Grian’s arms. His long legs are still draped over the box that Grian’s laying across, resting on either side of his waist. And due to the odd posture Grian’s in, his chest has been thrust rather close to Scar’s face, lit by the soft purple glow of the UV.

This is probably the closest Grian has ever been to sitting in Scar’s lap.

Grian’s not proud of the yelp that escapes him. “Sorry, sorry!” His wings flail as he struggles to push himself off of the wall, stumbling back onto his feet. It’s clumsy and uncoordinated and he nearly falls backwards, his heart pounding.

Scar manages a laugh, easing himself up off the floor. “No, no, it’s okay, I- I just... what- why’d you bring us down here?” he asks, dusting off his jumpsuit.

Grian catches his breath. “Wait, you... didn’t hear the creepy ghost on its way to kill us?” he asks, frowning.

Scar‘s eyes widen. “What? There was a ghost?”

No way.

“Are you-!” Grian throws his arms up. “Honestly, I- I know avians have better hearing than most but that’s insane. She was laughing! Laughing and skipping down the blumin’ steps! And you didn’t hear any of it?”

“No…?” Scar shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry, okay! I- I don’t know, I was- a lot was happening, you- you’re grabbin’ me, pulling me down the stairs and into this little corner, I didn’t know what was going on! I didn’t know, I- I was all disconbodulated- disco- bobo, bobumated? I was a little distracted, okay. Jeeze, give a man a break…”

“Distracted?” Grian repeats incredulously. “You’re the one who actually believes in ghosts, here, how could you get distracted? What do you…”

He trails off. Scar is very clearly fighting to avoid looking at Grian, but for the briefest moment, his eyes dart down to Grian’s chest. Suddenly confused, Grian follows his gaze, and-

Oh, for goodness sakes. At some point during his frantic flight, the stupid zipper on his stupid jumpsuit came down again, exposing a frankly scandalous amount of skin. Not Scar-level of scandalous, but pretty close.

Grian immediately feels himself turn red. “Oh. Uh- right,” he hastily pulls the zipper back up, “sorry ‘bout that…”

Wait. Wait just a second.

Scar was distracted from a literal ghost hunt going on... because Grian’s bare chest was showing? Does that... does that mean he liked it?

Scar’s avoiding his gaze again. His cheeks are tinted pink.

“Scar...?” Grian ventures carefully. “Were you... lookin’ at my chest?”

Scar’s cheeks darken. “Ah, I- I- don’t- I mean, why would you- I didn’t mean to, it’s just...” He fumbles for the words. “What- what am I- hey, your pecs were basically in my face! I wasn’t trying to look, I- I just-”

“Scar,” Grian says, keeping his voice light and teasing, “did ya… did you like what you saw?”

Scar splutters for a moment. “Well, sure, Grian,” he tries to laugh it off, “I mean, anyone- anyone with eyes can see you’re uh, you know, you’re- you’re pretty attractive. I- I’m secure enough to say it, I don’t care, it’s- sure, of course, you’re very muscular! You’re a- you’re a muscular man, it’s just not always obvious with the sweaters you wear. Or- sorry, you call them jumpers in Britain land, right, they’re jumpers-”

“You been checkin’ me out, Scar?” Grian asks, caught somewhere between playfulness and utter disbelief.

“Uh...” Scar rubs the back of his neck. He exhales slowly, clearly debating with himself. “I... maybe? What... what would you say... if that were the case?”

Grian swallows. His heart is absolutely racing now, and he’s broken into a cold sweat that’s definitely not supernatural in origin. The air between them feels fragile; he’s acutely aware that a single word from him could swiftly plunge them back into the realm of safe familiarity, of casual light-hearted teasing between friends. Scar’s always said things that bordered on the flirtatious, and Grian can hide behind the plausible deniability of teasing. This entire interaction doesn’t have to mean anything. It can be easily moved past and forgotten.

And yet, strangely enough… Grian doesn’t want it to. Maybe it’s the post-haunting adrenaline or the fact that he could’ve died tonight, but all of a sudden, he feels like taking a chance. Like he could finally say what he’s wanted to say for the last three years. He managed to hold his own against a blumin’ ghost, for goodness sakes- he should be able to face his own feelings head on.

He takes a breath. “I’d say that’s a relief… ‘cause I’ve been checkin’ you out since day one of first year.”

Scar stares at him for a long moment. His expression is utterly unreadable. The silence draws on long enough that Grian feels a spike of panic, worried that maybe he’s mishandled the situation-

“... oh my god,” Scar says finally. “Really?”

It sounds like the good kind of surprise. Grian offers a shy smile. “Yeah, yeah,” he admits. “I- Scar, I know I’m real good at playin’ these things close to the vest, but uh, I- I’ve had a massive crush on you since... basically since the day we met.”

“Huh.” Scar blinks. “You’re serious. You- you’re not pranking me right now?”

That startles a laugh out of Grian. “No! Scar, I don’t- we just survived being hunted by a ghost, I’m not pranking you!”

“Well, that’s- that’s amazing!” A grin spreads across Scar’s face- and man, oh man, does he have just the most wonderful smile. “Oh my gosh, G, I don’t- you don’t even know how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

The relief is almost overwhelming. “Yeah, me too!” Grian laughs, half-dazed and half-giddy, running a hand through his hair. “I- I even- look, the whole reason I even joined this group was as an excuse to hang out with you!”

Scar’s mouth falls open. “No way! That’s- that’s the whole reason I joined in the first place, too!”

Now it’s Grian’s turn to gawk. “Are you joking?”

“I’m not!” Scar insists, “I swear, I’m not- Impulse said he wanted to start the group and maybe we’d all join and get to hang out and I thought ‘hey, ghosts are cool and Grian is cool’ so I just-”

“Oh, I can’t believe this…” Grian groans, hiding his burning face in his hands. “We really are idiots, we’ve wasted nearly three years…”

Scar’s hands close around Grian’s wrists, lightly pulling them down from his face. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time,” he says smoothly, leaning in.

Corny, but Grian will allow it. He closes the gap, tilting his head up to meet Scar’s lips.

In that moment, everything else fades away. All the nervousness, all the second-guessing, even the bombshell discovery of the existence of ghosts- there could be one standing in front of them right now and Grian wouldn’t care. The way Scar gathers Grian in his arms, hands gently roving through his feathers- it’s bliss. It’s perfect.

Scar kisses him strong and purposefully, with no trace of carelessness or haste. He doesn’t rush. There’s intent written into every single movement, jaw working to deepen the kiss. Grian curls against him, hands splayed across Scar’s chest. He can feel Scar’s heart pounding through his flushed skin, and it’s wildly exciting- to think Scar is just as breathless as he is.

Growing bold, Grian dares to slip his tongue into Scar’s mouth, and the noise he makes- part surprise, part delight- sends pure electricity fizzling up his spine. His mind is starting to drift away from him, lost in the sensation of weightlessness, of floating, that almost makes him feel like he’s gone completely incorporeal- like his own spirit has become untethered from the mortal coil.

Then Skizz’s voice comes down the stairs.

“G-Sharp! Scarface! You down here? We just saw a freaking ghost on the cams, and- oh my god!”

Grian breaks away from Scar, but not quick enough. He turns to see Skizz and Impulse standing at the bottom of the stairs, expressions shocked. And then, as if they’d rehearsed it, they both break into massive shit-eating grins and spin around to high-five each other.

“Woo!” Impulse cheers. “We got ‘em! Ladies and gentlemen, we finally got them.”

“Yeah, baby!” Skizz pumps his fist in the air. “Oh, I love it!”

“Oh, would you two stop it?” Grian huffs, but he’s not really cross. Hard to be cross when he’s on cloud nine. “The ghost did most of the work, alright?”

“That’s right,” Scar sniffs, winding an arm around Grian’s waist. “You know, I- I’m startin’ to think you all were in cahoots! Cahoots, I say!”

“Dude, if only,” Skizz laughs, walking over to clap them on the shoulders. “Could not have planned it better, that’s amazing. Well done, gentlemen!”

“Yeah, it’s about time!” Impulse adds, crossing his arms. “I was starting to think we’d graduate before either of you fessed up, I- I had to take drastic measures…”

“Impulse,” Grian says warningly, “if you’re about to tell me you started this whole paranormal investigation group just as a way to push me and Scar into confronting our feelings, I swear-”

“No, no,” Impulse assures him, chuckling. “I really do like the ghost-hunting deal, don’t worry. But uh, we did deliberately ditch you guys in the hopes that something would happen.”

Scar waggles his eyebrows. “Oh, things happened, alright.”

“Scar!” Grian swats at him, but he’s laughing and it feels good. It feels right. After all this time spent worrying about worst-case scenarios, about denying his feelings for the sake of maintaining the comfortable mundanity of his comfortable life, it turns out the scariest part was the fear itself.

The irony doesn’t escape his notice. A bit on the nose, if he’s honest.

“But in even bigger news,” Impulse graciously continues, “you saw the ghost? And you believed it? You, Mr. Non-Believer in all things ghostly?”

Grian sighs. “Yeah, yeah, I know…”

“This is incredible!” Skizz claps his hands together. “Okay, okay, we gotta go cleanse the area and I wanna hear everything, got it? Don’t leave a single detail out!”

Grian slips his hand into Scar’s as they follow Impulse and Skizz back up the stairs. “Yeah, alright,” he relents. He supposes he’s due for a lot of ‘I told you so’s’. But really, it’s a small price to pay for the life-altering knowledge that ghosts are real… and for finally finding the courage to believe in something extraordinary.

Scar hums. “Wait, details about the ghost or about the kissing?”

“Scar!”

~*~

#hermitcraft #hermitshipping #scarian #my writing #listen i am only a casual phasmo enjoyer and idk anything about architecture school pls don't come for me abt any inaccuracies #just here for a good gay spooky time #wanted to see if i'd be any good at writing commissions (ie. solely based off someone else's idea) and i had FUN #but it's always easy to be inspired by mel <3

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another-lost-mc · 1 year

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When MC Feels Burnout/Emotionally Numb THE DEMON BROTHERS 4.1k words | SFW | gn!Reader | Emotional Hurt/Comfort | Fluff & Angst A/N: The relationships between MC and the brothers can be read as romantic or platonic. The twins' sections are combined. ♫ [ MC's POV: Song Rec ]

─── LUCIFER:

Lucifer is concerned when you come to the dining room table for breakfast looking worse for wear; there's dark circles under your eyes like you haven't slept. You pour yourself a cup of tea and wrap your hands around the warm porcelain, but you don't drink it. Your breakfast plate remains untouched, and eventually you shuffle out of the room without a word.

He keeps an eye on you at RAD, but you're unusually withdrawn. You follow his brothers from class to class, eyes downturned and silent despite the lively conversations going on around you. Everyone walks home together that afternoon, but when he glances back to see how you are, he notices you’re lagging behind the rest of the group. He slows his pace to match yours, but you barely seem to notice; the walk home is silent.

When dinner time comes and goes without any change in your behaviour, he decides he needs to do something to snap you out of this little funk you're in. Later that evening, he invites you to keep him company in his study while he finishes his work. You accept in a monotone voice; it could be misconstrued as boredom, but he knows better.

Sometimes you read and listen to cursed records while he works at his desk, but tonight the random book you plucked off the shelf lays unopened in your lap. You stare unseeing into the fireplace, and your body is tense like you can’t relax.

He picks up something he was supposed to finish tonight—a folder full of documents to review and sign— but you barely notice when he sits beside you. He gives up all pretense of working when he places the folder and your unread book on the floor by his feet. He tucks you under his arm and pulls you against his side. You lean against him, a little reluctantly at first, until you start to relax. Your cheek is pressed against his chest and his heartbeat thumps gently beneath your ear.

He’s not sure how much time passes when you finally drift off to sleep. There’s something vulnerable about the way your body melts against his, and he wonders where he went wrong that led you to be in such a state to begin with.

He considers waking you so you can go back to your room to sleep. He contemplates carrying you somewhere more comfortable so he doesn't have to wake you—his room is closer, and maybe you won’t mind sharing a bed with him if it’s only for one night. Light and shadow from the fireplace dance along your skin, and you’re so warm in his arms; moving now seems like an impossibility.

A sore back in the morning seems like a fair price to pay when he decides to keep you exactly where you are. He maneuvers so carefully while he leans back against the armrest and holds you to his chest. He pulls the blanket off the back of the sofa and makes sure you’re covered before he closes his eyes. He doesn’t even notice that he syncs his breathing with yours, and he falls asleep not long after.

─── MAMMON:

Mammon eagerly tells you about his day—the things he bought, his wins at the casino, how his part-time gig is going—and he’s used to getting some sort of reaction from you (good or bad).

Today, you look at him blankly and tell him that’s nice in a quiet, emotionless voice that worries him. Having you scold him for being financially irresponsible (while you bite the inside of your cheek to resist the urge to smile) would be better than this. He’s stunned by your lack of a reaction, and you turn away from him when you’ve decided you don’t need to focus on paying attention to him anymore.

After dinner, he goes to your room and finds you laying in bed, staring at your ceiling and drumming the mattress idly with your fingertips.

"Whatcha doin’?" he asks, even though he knows what you're going to say next.

“Nothing,” your quiet, flat tone replies.

“Good. Come on,” he says in a much chipper voice than yours as he grabs both your hands and practically pulls you out of bed. He leads you outside the front door where his car is parked, thrumming gently while the engine runs. He flips on the seat warmer for you and glances at you occasionally from the corner of his eye; he hopes you’ll melt into the warm leather soon.

“We're just goin’ for a little drive,” he explains, even though you don't bother asking where he's taking you in the middle of the night. The radio is streaming music from his phone, and he keeps the volume low. He nods towards his D.D.D. on the dash. “You can change it if you want,” he offers, and he’s not surprised when you decline.

He drives away from the bustling streets of the Devildom. The road is empty and the skies are clearer here, but he knows brief moments of tranquility aren’t enough to alleviate whatever it is that’s bothering you.

He’s never been good with words, but he rests his hand palm-up over the gear shift. He’s not sure you even notice since you’ve been staring out the window most of the drive. After a few moments, you surprise him and put your hand in his. He squeezes your hand gently before lacing your fingers together; it feels like a victory when you don’t pull away.

Every once in a while he squeezes your fingers between his, and he smiles at the dark, open road when you do the same.

─── LEVIATHAN:

Leviathan knows what it’s like to feel numb. Sometimes he feels that way when his self-imposed isolation wears him down. Talking to Henry and surrounding himself with his games and manga and toys isn't always enough to fill the black void of jealousy that makes his tone sharp and his fangs even sharper.

He gets that way when he thinks about all things he wants but doesn’t have—he notices you become this way from doing too much for everyone else until you lose yourself in the process.

Between the two of you, you should be able to find some sort of balance. He feels like you should both know better, but here you are, drowning in your own black void while he watches helplessly. He can barely help himself; how can he possibly help you?

For lack of better ideas, he invites you to his room to play games. Usually you’re so animated when you play together; you jeer at him when he spins out due to a perfectly-timed banana, or you toss your controller aside and tickle him when his shell knocks you out of first place.

That level of enthusiasm is gone today; you tap the controller pad in total silence. You don’t care when you come in last place, and you don’t care when Levi throws the match so you can win. He turns off the TV and shuffles on the floor so he’s facing you. You glance at him occasionally but go back to staring at your lap.

Levi hates it when you cry, but he hates this dead-eyed stare of yours even more. He grunts in frustration when he gets up suddenly and grabs a small tin off his desk.

“Come here for a sec, I could use your help,” he says, and he shakes the tin in your direction until you get up from the sofa and shuffle to his side. He leads you to the aquarium where Henry bobs peacefully in the crystal-blue water. Levi hands you the tin and unfolds a step ladder he keeps tucked away. He climbs the ladder carefully so he can open the window at the top of the tank.

You open the can of fish flakes when he asks you to, and he sprinkles a generous helping across the top of the water. You’re transfixed by the sight of Henry dashing through the water for his supper, and Levi can’t stop staring at you.

“Sometimes he’s good to talk to,” Levi mentions off-handedly. “Henry is a good listener.”

(Both his Henry’s are good listeners, Levi thinks.)

“What do you talk about?” you ask him quietly, still watching the fish eat the tiny flakes.

“All sorts of stuff. Anything you want—he doesn’t judge.”

(You have that in common, too.)

Levi sputters a little, embarrassed by all the things he’s telling you, his little self-care rituals he normally keeps to himself. He thinks that even in your worst moments, like the way you are now, you’re still not nearly as pathetic as he is. You don’t deserve to feel like this, ever.

You glance away from the aquarium and meet Levi’s eyes just as tears begin to collect on his lash line. He clears his throat and takes the tin from you before putting it back on his desk. He pretends to organize things so he has an excuse not to turn around.

“Maybe you can come by tomorrow night and help me feed him again,” he manages to choke out.

A pause, and then you whisper, “I’d like that.”

Levi bites his lip to muffle his sobs.

─── SATAN:

Satan watches you during class and realizes you’re not acting like yourself. You tap your pen idly on the desk and stare at nothing. This is your favourite class but you’re not even listening.

Sometimes you come to his room after dinner and read, but not today. After school, you brush past everyone else and head to your room. He’s worried about you, and he’s not going to let you blow him off tonight. He knocks on your door, and your lifeless voice asks why he cares so much. He gets tongue-tied deciding how to respond:

I like spending time with you. You like reading nearly as much as I do and I don’t want that to ever change. It kills me to see you like this.

“It’s important to me,” is all he manages to say, and you must sense his desperation because you finally agree to follow him back to his room.

You sit on the bed while he picks the book off the shelf for you. You make a quiet noise of surprise when he places a pillow in your lap and lays down. Normally he reads to you, but his eyes are gentle when he holds the book out to you instead.

“Can you read a bit tonight?” he asks quietly. You frown and look like you want to argue, but he pushes just a little more—”for only a few chapters, okay?”

You take the book from him and pull out the bookmark when you find the right chapter. You glance down at him and when he smiles encouragingly, you start to read.

Your tone is quiet and dull at first, and your speech is slurred; Satan has trouble understanding you sometimes. He wonders if this was a stupid idea after all, but then you huff in amusement when you read a funny passage. He peers up at you and the little smile still tugs at the corners of your mouth as you finish the chapter.

You read another whole chapter after that, and Satan nearly melts in your lap when your free hand lazily combs through his hair as you read. Your eyes are a bit brighter when you finally stop reading and close the book.

“I can read a bit more if you’d like,” he asks you when he sits up. He almost expects you to refuse and shuffle away, but you nod and lay down when he sets the pillow in his lap for you to rest on.

He reads another chapter, quieter and slower than usual, and he stops reading when you fall asleep. He sets the book aside and moves you gently off his lap so he can settle into the space behind you. He drapes an arm loosely over your waist and contemplates other ways he can help you feel better.

─── ASMODEUS:

It breaks Asmo’s heart to see you like this. Your lovely complexion betrays the long days and poor sleep you’ve had. Your warm, shining gaze is dull. Your brow is creased with little lines and your mouth is downturned—he misses your easy smiles the most.

Sometimes Asmo feels like a ghost when he smiles at you but it feels like you see through him, not really acknowledging him or anything else around you.

He switches apps on his D.D.D. when he sees your message ping the group chat. You say that you’re not cooking dinner tonight (no explanation given) and that Lucifer should use part of your allowance this week to order food for everyone instead.

Asmo doesn’t blame you for not wanting to cook for seven hungry demons, but he has a suspicion that you plan on locking yourself in your room all night and skipping dinner for the third night in a row.

(You might’ve been at the dinner table every night this week, but he noticed that you just moved the food around in your plate without eating anything.)

No, he won’t let you do this to yourself. He understands wanting space and having lazy days, but that isn’t what this is. This is isolation and sadness and exhaustion, and if he feels this upset seeing how affected you are, he can’t imagine what you feel—or don’t feel—inside.

Asmo sends a quick message to Lucifer and asks him not to order anything for dinner just yet. Worst case scenario, Asmo will cave and order dinner for everyone later—but for now, Asmo marches to your room with a plan instead.

You’re buried under the covers when he lets himself into your room. He doesn’t bother turning on the lights; he can see you perfectly without them. He sits down slowly on the edge of the bed and rests his hand on your hip.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” he asks quietly, and normally you laugh away his pet names for you, but today you shrug under the comforter instead.

“M’fine,” you mumble into your pillow.

“I could use your help with something,” he says, leaning down closer to your ear. He presses lightly against the side of your body like a poor imitation of an embrace. “How about you get up and keep me company, hmm?”

You’re quiet and don’t say anything, and Asmo’s hopeful smile starts to drop when he thinks you’re ignoring him. After an awkward minute of silence, you sigh and turn your head slightly towards him. “Help you with what?”

He’s not going to give you the chance to change your mind, and he stands up and reaches for your hand. “I’ll show you in the kitchen.”

Asmo steers you towards a barstool in the corner of the kitchen so you can relax while he makes dinner. He has an assortment of ingredients spread out across the counter. The family recipe book is opened to one of your own additions added to the back pages.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” he grins and winks over his shoulder at you. “I’ll cook tonight, and if I get stuck, who better to help than you?” He taps his chin thoughtfully and takes his D.D.D. out of his pocket and hands it to you for safekeeping.

Asmo might not be the most skilled cook among his siblings, but he’s confident enough that he follows your recipe correctly—for the most part. If you didn’t know him better, you would think he was exaggerating his movements and adding commentary to each step to be silly. But you do know Asmo, and you recognize this as his natural playfulness when he does something he enjoys.

Nearly twenty minutes later, there’s splatters of sauce on the front of his apron and he adds more salt and pepper to the pot with a flourish. When he turns his head to check on you, his mouth purses in surprise when the flash on his phone camera lights up the room. He blinks rapidly when he realizes you took a picture.

He jabs the stirring spoon in your direction with a playful glare. “I hope you got my best side,” he jokes. He’s self-conscious about the spices he knows that got in his hair somehow, and there’s something sticky on his cheek.

You slip the phone into your pocket and slide off the stool so you can reach for a clean cloth. You run it under the lukewarm tap for a moment, and your lips twitch into a smile when you wipe away the smear of sauce near his mouth.

“You’re doing great,” you murmur quietly, glancing at the pot simmering on the stove.

“Does it smell good enough to eat?” he asks nervously, and he beams when you nod.

He wraps his arms around you and laughs as he hugs you as tight as he can. He knows the apron is making a mess on your clothes, but he doesn’t care. Neither do you, apparently—you wrap your arms around him after a few moments and hug him back.

─── BEELZEBUB & BELPHEGOR:

Beel walks to his room dejectedly, and not even the bags of treats from Madam Scream's hanging off his arms makes him feel any better.

He invited you to go with him to the pastry shop after school today. He knows you're not eating properly, but that combined with your bleak mood and dull expressions convinces him that there's something wrong beyond not being hungry.

He watched you during meal times every day this week: you shuffled your food around on the plate and didn't eat anything, or you took little nibbles out of something then dropped your fork on the plate with a sigh and left the rest uneaten.

He went to the bakery after school today, alone. Even though he invited you, you said you weren't in the mood and walked home without him. He bought a few boxes of his favourites, and some for his brothers to share, and he bought a half-dozen Blood Velvet cupcakes especially for you.

He knocked on your bedroom door when he got home and told you he had a surprise, but he was met with silence. He heard the faint creak of mattress springs, but you didn't come to the door and you didn't respond. He frowned, but he explained in the cheeriest voice he could muster that he brought you some cupcakes.

“Thanks, you can have 'em, though,” your muffled voice replied through the door.

It’s an understatement to say that Beel is extremely concerned about you.

He walks to the room he shares with his twin. Usually Belphie naps in the attic after school (more often than not, he convinces you to nap with him). It’s a surprise when Beel finds Belphie sitting cross-legged on his bed with his pillow in his lap, and his eyes snap to his brother’s as soon as the door closes.

“They're not eating enough,” Beel tells his twin. He sets aside the boxes of pastries he bought, his appetite and mood completely soured.

“They're not sleeping enough either,” Belphie replies. He doesn't tell Beel about your sleepless nights, but his brothers would have to be blind not to notice your haggard appearance and the dark circles blooming under your eyes. You haven't napped with Belphie in over a week either, and he misses you—but he keeps that complaint to himself.

"What can we do?" Beel asks as he drops heavily on the edge of his bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and runs a hand through his hair.

Belphie is quiet for a moment, and he glances at the boxes of abandoned pastries Beel brought home. "What’s the plan for dinner tonight?"

Beel looks up and scratches the back of his head. "Some of the others are busy so Lucifer said it was a free-for-all night."

(That usually means everyone orders takeout while Beel eats whatever is left in the house himself.)

Belphie stands up and tucks his pillow under one arm while he wanders over to the stack of bakery boxes near the door. He rifles through the bags until he finds the one he's looking for, and he gestures for Beel to follow him. "I have an idea. Come help me in the kitchen."

It’s peaceful in the deepest corner of the House of Lamentation gardens. Even if the others were home, there’s enough distance from the house to offer peace and privacy—it's nice out there.

Belphie thinks a picnic might be relaxing enough for you to enjoy; the hard part is convincing you to join them. The twins are determined and they both go to your room and insist you have dinner with them.

“You have to eat something,” Beel says in a pleading voice, eyes sorrowful with worry for you. It wasn’t quite enough to convince you to get out of bed, but you swallowed around the lump in your throat as your eyes burned with emotion.

Belphie crawled onto the bed next to you, dangling over the edge precariously while he reached for your hand and laced his fingers with yours. “Please,” he whispered, eyes just as sad as his twin’s, “it feels like I haven’t seen you all week. I miss you.”

You can’t possibly say no to both of them, not when Belphie’s face is so close to yours and his lower lip trembles with too much emotion. You know he can be manipulative, but even in your bleary-eyed daze, you realize he’s being unusually honest now.

You wipe away the stray tears that pool in the corner of your eyes and nod your head. Belphie slides off the mattress so Beel can help you up, and they both hug you before they lead you outside. By the time they take you to the garden, you’re all sniffling quietly, but the twins are smiling a bit now, too.

The blanket Belphie lays across the ground keeps you from getting too cold, and you all share portions of the improvised picnic the twins packed: sandwiches, a thermos of warm soup, a container of diced cheese and poison apple slices. You don’t eat as much as the twins do, but they look content that you finished eating everything on the small plate you made for yourself.

Beel offers you one of your cupcakes next. He brought the whole box—optimistic, Belphie said earlier, raising his eyebrows before shrugging and putting the box into the basket.

You sort of remember Beel knocking on your door earlier and asking you if you wanted one, and you know that you refused. You accept one now because you can’t bear to say no to him twice.

When the food is eaten and the dishes cleared away, Belphie lays back on the blanket and gently nudges you to lay beside him. He rolls onto his side and lays his head on your shoulder, and you can see him looking at you from the corner of your eye.

“Have I told you the story about that star?” he asks quietly, pointing towards the sky.

He probably has, considering how much time you both spend in the planetarium together, but you lean your cheek against his brow. “You can tell me again if you want to.”

He tells you the story about that star, and the other stars near it, and when your eyes start to droop heavily with sleep, he smiles and keeps going. He whispers more stories until your breathing slows and you start snoring gently in his ear; he hopes the stories follow you into your dreams.

Beel sits nearby on the large blanket, watching over both of you with a keen eye and soft smile; his belly is warm and full from a pleasant meal and your company. Belphie carefully maneuvers himself to his knees without waking you, and he stands up and stretches out the kink in his neck. Beel stands and lifts you so gently into his arms, and he cradles you to his chest while Belphie hurriedly packs up the picnic basket and blanket.

The house is dark and quiet when they slip back inside, and Belphie leads Beel to your room. They both tuck you in—Belphie pulls back the covers and Beel lays you down and slips off your shoes. Beel squeezes your hand and waits for his twin by your door; Belphie murmurs a final goodnight as he brushes his lips across your forehead.

The twins head back to their room, and all three of you have the best night's sleep you've had in days.

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hyewka · 7 months

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Like, u got Soobin to use those vibrators on his pants before and during his performance, you're backstage while watching him live, turning on the vibrator at different levels in different times, maybe low level when he's talking with his fans, medium when he starts dancing and the highest level whenever it's his time to sing while he tries his best to concentrate and sing stable while trying not to get a boner or cum during the performance, while noticing the little details of how startled he gets whenever the vibrations starts again and waiting for his performance to end just to drag him to an empty room and finally fuck good

cw. sub leaning switch!soobin, creampie, premature orgasm, f!reader

note. happy valentines everyone ^^

“Don’t cum.” is the last thing you whisper to his ear before you push him out to his fans with a smile, the roaring cheers really showing how big the turn out was tonight. You can tell with the way he turns back to you he’s asking for mercy, begging for it. You just opt to give him a thumbs up before shooing him away, at least to ease those nerves up. You wouldn’t want him to cum simply from thinking about the toy around his cock.

Long story short—you don’t give him mercy. What fun is that?

You watch the way he gets visibly comfortable the more the show progresses and its definitely because he noticed you’ve been keeping the setting on low. It has you snort. He’s such an open book, it’s the cutest thing about him. But it’s also his most vulnerable point.

Experimentally, you turn it up two, curious of how he’d react.

There’s other staff monitoring with you, so you put in the effort to pretend you have nothing to do with the small hiccup that occurs, scrolling through your phone as if you were busy.

Soobin’s voice cracks.

It’s not a big deal, just something that happens that you don’t think even the fans paid much attention to. You notice a lot more than that though when you look up from your screen.

For one, the tips of his ears are red. Really red. You know better, it’s not only because he’s embarrassed. If the fact that you can tell he’s letting his eyes glaze over a little with his mouth hung open when he’s no longer in the center was any indication.

You play with him like that a little more before you decide you might just be the greediest girlfriend ever. You turn it up to its highest setting, just to relish a little more in his little gasps heard in the mic— and god, the immediate reaction you get out of him is the most satisfying thing you’ve seen all week.

Soobin’s eyes shoot wide open almost like hes shell shocked, his breathing’s even heavier, his cheeks are so brightly colored that it could no longer be excused as the bit of blush applied to his face half an hour ago…and he definitely looks like hes checked out. Thats when the comments from the people around you started to pick up.

“What’s wrong with Soobin today?”

“Is he sick?”

“Should we cut the ments short?”

“He looks like he’s about to piss his pants…” — That one had you giggle.

While some were picking at their cubicles, wondering if this might’ve not been the smooth sail they were predicting this gig to be, you let that little small smile break seeing the very obvious boner outlined in his leather pants, leaving the crowd no room for imagination. Oops.

You can only shrug when you’re asked if you know what was up with your boyfriend. “Who knows, maybe its a bad day?”

##########

He’s everywhere—his lips kiss along your jaw then to your neck, sucking and kneading your bare tits at the same time. He’s absolutely delirious tonight.

“You’re so sweaty, gross” you giggle, jokingly pushing him away but hes not having it, caging you until your bodies were flush agsainst each other to the point your breathing cut off momentarily, your head getting light headed.

“Someone’s excited.” you say breathily, attempting to be cheeky but it doesn’t work as your resolve breaks almost immedietley when he sucks particularily rough on your flesh. You’ll have to spend some time covering it up when he’s done with you.

“It hurts,” he whines in your ear, feverishly grinding his hard on like an absolute freak, still leaving wet spit on your vacant flesh. “You were so mean to me, y’know?”

“Was I? Thought I went a little easy on you out there.” you take it upon yourself to put your hand between your bodies and palm him over his pants, releasing a little bit of tension from his poor body. “Maybe you’re just weak. Can’t stay focused on your job because all you’re thinking about is having your dick in my cunt instead, bad boy.”

He nods pitifully—clearly absentminded, eyes teary and clouded as you thumb his tip over his pants, so shamelessly a wet spot spreads and grows under it.

“Please. Let me fuck—y-you.” his breathing staggers, trembles, you feel it against your face with how close he is…and it’s the hottest thing ever. For someone so usually composed, the leader of a band he’s a part of, well spoken and articulate, building tougher skin as time goes by—seeing him being weak in the knees so often, like this, dirty and desperate, never fails to have you drench your panties. He always manages to do it for you every time.

“But baby…there’s staff right outside this room.” you tease with a whine of your own, looking up at him with big eyes, toying with his shirt— you know how the innocent look gets him.

“I don’t care.”

That’s the snap, his voice uncharacteristically low and hoarse. You can’t even get a word in before he has your teeth clash with how fast he props you up around his waist, your back slamming against the door, breathing heavily with his lips on yours, sloppy, fast, quick as he pulls out his cock. It’s still intimidating how big it is, but you don’t even get to think for any longer before he has your panties bunched to the side and the tip of his dick’s protruding your hole.

He doesn’t wait like he usually does, he doesn’t even wait to catch his own breath, biting down on your bottom, languidly bottoming out in one go. You squirm at how full you feel despite how easy it went in, oxygen feeling like a second priority now. “God, fuck, you’re made for me.” he breathes out in awe staring at where you connect, “You take me so well now, look at your pussy baby” he babbles against your lips.

You can’t. You can’t. Your eyes burn with tears, you have no clue whats gotten into you, you could only think of the pleasure and pain of the stretch as he finally moves, thrusting up, his speed getting erratically faster by the second, until you have him buried in your tits, licking and kissing all over them like a dumb dog. Then you hear his muffled groan, and know.

“Binnie…?” you chuckle hoarsely.

“Sorry…” he whines, hiding in your boobs. “You teased me too much up there.” Jesus christ why do you still find him so adorable despite him cumming embarrassingly fast today. Its okay, you’ll have your way with him when you actually get back home later.

#🌷. rana thoughts #txt smut #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #soobin smut #sub!idol #✶ ━━ rana ; answered

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Prison-tech is a scam - and a harbinger of your future

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Here's how the shitty technology adoption curve works: when you want to roll out a new, abusive technology, look for a group of vulnerable people whose complaints are roundly ignored and subject them to your bad idea. Sand the rough edges off on their bodies and lives. Normalize the technological abuse you seek to inflict.

Next: work your way up the privilege gradient. Maybe you start with prisoners, then work your way up to asylum seekers, parolees and mental patients. Then try it on kids and gig workers. Now, college students and blue collar workers. Climb that curve, bit by bit, until you've reached its apex and everyone is living with your shitty technology:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

Prisoners, asylum seekers, drug addicts and other marginalized people are the involuntary early adopters of every form of disciplinary technology. They are the leading indicators of the ways that technology will be ruining your life in the future. They are the harbingers of all our technological doom.

Which brings me to Minnesota.

Minnesota is one of the first states make prison phone-calls free. This is a big deal, because prison phone-calls are a big business. Prisoners are literally a captive audience, and the telecommunications sector is populated by sociopaths, bred and trained to spot and exploit abusive monopoly opportunities. As states across America locked up more and more people for longer and longer terms, the cost of operating prisons skyrocketed, even as states slashed taxes on the rich and turned a blind eye to tax evasion.

This presented telco predators with an unbeatable opportunity: they approached state prison operators and offered them a bargain: "Let us take over the telephone service to your carceral facility and we will levy eye-watering per-minute charges on the most desperate people in the world. Their families – struggling with one breadwinner behind bars – will find the money to pay this ransom, and we'll split the profits with you, the cash-strapped, incarceration-happy state government."

This was the opening salvo, and it turned into a fantastic little money-spinner. Prison telco companies and state prison operators were the public-private partnership from hell. Prison-tech companies openly funneled money to state coffers in the form of kickbacks, even as they secretly bribed prison officials to let them gouge their inmates and inmates' families:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/mississippi-corrections-corruption-bribery-private-prison-hustle/

As digital technology got cheaper and prison-tech companies got greedier, the low end of the shitty tech adoption curve got a lot more crowded. Prison-tech companies started handing out "free" cheap Android tablets to prisoners, laying the groundwork for the next phase of the scam. Once prisoners had tablets, prisons could get rid of phones altogether and charge prisoners – and their families – even higher rates to place calls right to the prisoner's cell.

Then, prisons could end in-person visits and replace them with sub-skype, postage-stamp-sized videoconferencing, at rates even higher than the voice-call rates. Combine that with a ban on mailing letters to and from prisoners – replaced with a service that charged even higher rates to scan mail sent to prisoners, and then charged prisoners to download the scans – and prison-tech companies could claim to be at the vanguard of prison safety, ending the smuggling of dope-impregnated letters and other contraband into the prison system.

Prison-tech invented some wild shit, like the "digital stamp," a mainstay of industry giant Jpay, which requires prisoners to pay for "stamps" to send or receive a "page" of email. If you're keeping score, you've realized that this is a system where prisoners and their families have to pay for calls, "in-person" visits, handwritten letters, and email.

It goes on: prisons shuttered their libraries and replaced them with ebook stores that charged 2-4 times the prices you'd pay for books on the outside. Prisoners were sold digital music at 200-300% markups relative to, say, iTunes.

Remember, these are prisoners: locked up for years or decades, decades during which their families scraped by with a breadwinner behind bars. Prisoners can earn money, sure – as much as $0.89/hour, doing forced labor for companies that contract with prisons for their workforce:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/

Of course, there's the odd chance for prisoners to make really big bucks – $2-5/day. All they have to do is "volunteer" to fight raging wildfires:

https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-wildfire-california-incarcerated-firefighters-face-dangerous-work-low-pay-and-covid19/

So those $3 digital music tracks are being bought by people earning as little as $0.10/hour. Which makes it especially galling when prisons change prison-tech suppliers, whereupon all that digital music is deleted, wiping prisoners' media collection out – forever (literally, for prisoners serving life terms):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/captive-audience-how-floridas-prisons-and-drm-made-113m-worth-prisoners-music

Let's recap: America goes on a prison rampage, locking up ever-larger numbers of people for ever-longer sentences. Once inside, prisoners had their access to friends and family rationed, along with access to books, music, education and communities outside. This is very bad for prisoners – strong ties to people outside is closely tied to successful reentry – but it's great for state budgets, and for wardens, thanks to kickbacks:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/12/21/family_contact/

Back to Minnesota: when Minnesota became the fourth state in the USA where the state, not prisoners, would pay for prison calls, it seemed like they were finally breaking the vicious cycle in which every dollar ripped off of prisoners' family paid 40 cents to the state treasury:

https://www.kaaltv.com/news/no-cost-phone-calls-for-those-incarcerated-in-minnesota/

But – as Katya Schwenk writes for The Lever – what happened next is "a case study in how prison communication companies and their private equity owners have managed to preserve their symbiotic relationship with state corrections agencies despite reforms — at the major expense of incarcerated people and their families":

https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/

Immediately after the state ended the ransoming of prisoners' phone calls, the private-equity backed prison-tech companies that had dug their mouth-parts into the state's prison jacked up the price of all their other digital services. For example, the price of a digital song in a Minnesota prison just jumped from $1.99 to $2.36 (for prisoners earning as little as $0.25/hour).

As Paul Wright from the Human Rights Defense Center told Schwenk, "The ideal world for the private equity owners of these companies is every prisoner has one of their tablets, and every one of those tablets is hooked up to the bank account of someone outside of prison that they can just drain."

The state's new prison-tech supplier promises to double the amount of kickbacks it pays the state each year, thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, money transfers, and other "services." The perverse incentive isn't hard to spot: the more these prison-tech companies charge, the more kickbacks they pay to the prisons.

The primary prison-tech company for Minnesota's prisons is Viapath (nee Global Tel Link), which pioneered price-gouging on in-prison phone calls. Viapath has spent the past two decades being bought and sold by different private equity firms: Goldman Sachs, Veritas Capital, and now the $46b/year American Securities.

Viapath competes with another private equity-backed prison-tech giant: Aventiv (Securus, Jpay), owned by Platinum Equity. Together, Viapath and Aventiv control 90% of the prison-tech market. These companies have a rap-sheet as long as your arm: bribing wardens, stealing from prisoners and their families, and recording prisoner-attorney calls. But these are the kinds of crimes the state punishes with fines and settlements – not by terminating its contracts with these predators.

These companies continue to flout the law. Minnesota's new free-calls system bans prison-tech companies from paying kickbacks to prisons and prison-officials for telcoms services, so the prison-tech companies have rebranded ebooks, music, and money-transfers as non-communications products, and the kickbacks are bigger than ever.

This is the bottom end of the shitty technology adoption curve. Long before Ubisoft started deleting games that you'd bought a "perpetual license" for, prisoners were having their media ganked by an uncaring corporation that knew it was untouchable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

Revoking your media, charging by the byte for messaging, confiscating things in the name of security and then selling them back to you – these are all tactics that were developed in the prison system, refined, normalized, and then worked up the privilege gradient. Prisoners are living in your technology future. It's just not evenly distributed – yet.

As it happens, prison-tech is at the heart of my next novel, The Bezzle, which comes out on Feb 20. This is a followup to last year's bestselling Red Team Blues, which introduced the world to Marty Hench, a two-fisted, hard-bitten, high-tech forensic accountant who's spent 40 years busting Silicon Valley finance scams:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

In The Bezzle, we travel with Marty back to the mid 2000s (Hench is a kind of tech-scam Zelig and every book is a standalone tale of high-tech ripoffs from a different time and place). Marty's trying to help his old pal Scott Warms, a once-high-flying founder who's fallen prey to California's three-strikes law and is now facing decades in a state pen. As bad as things are, they get worse when the prison starts handing out "free" tablet and closing down the visitation room, the library, and the payphones.

This is an entry to the thing I love most about the Hench novels: the opportunity to turn all this dry, financial skullduggery into high-intensity, high-stakes technothriller plot. For me, Marty Hench is a tool for flensing the scam economy of all its layers of respectability bullshit and exposing the rot at the core.

It's not a coincidence that I've got a book coming out in a week that's about something that's in the news right now. I didn't "predict" this current turn – I observed it. The world comes at you fast and technology news flutters past before you can register it. Luckily, I have a method for capturing this stuff as it happens:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Writing about tech issues that are long-simmering but still in the periphery is a technique I call "predicting the present." It's the technique I used when I wrote Little Brother, about out-of-control state surveillance of the internet. When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA spying in 2013, people acted as though I'd "predicted" the Snowden revelations:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/

But Little Brother and Snowden's own heroic decision have a common origin: the brave whistleblower Mark Klein, who walked into EFF's offices in 2006 and revealed that he'd been ordered by his boss at AT&T to install a beam-splitter into the main fiber trunk so that the NSA could illegally wiretap the entire internet:

https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declaration

Mark Klein inspired me to write Little Brother – but despite national press attention, the Klein revelations didn't put a stop to NSA spying. The NSA was still conducting its lawless surveillance campaign in 2013, when Snowden, disgusted with NSA leadership for lying to Congress under oath, decided to blow the whistle again:

https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73e3d854ad

The assumption that let the NSA get away with mass surveillance was that it would only be weaponized against the people at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve: brown people, mostly in other countries. The Snowden revelations made it clear that these were just the beginning, and sure enough, more than a decade later, we have data-brokers sucking up billions in cop kickbacks to enable warrantless surveillance, while virtually following people to abortion clinics, churches, and protests. Mass surveillance is chugging its way up the shitty tech adoption curve with no sign of stopping.

Like Little Brother, The Bezzle is intended as a kind of virtual flythrough of what life is like further down on that curve – a way for readers who have too much agency to be in the crosshairs of a company like Viapath or Avently right now to wake up before that kind of technology comes for them, and to inspire them to take up the cause of the people further down the curve who are mired in it.

The Bezzle is an intense book, but it's also a very fun story – just like Little Brother. It's a book that lays bare the internal technical workings of so many scams, from multi-level marketing to real-estate investment trusts, from music royalty theft to prison-tech, in the course of an ice-cold revenge plot that keeps twisting to the very last page.

It'll drop in six days. I hope you'll check it out:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

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shurisneakers · 8 months

Text

unsolved (ii)

Summary: Bucky doesn't even believe in the paranormal. So who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick him in a series about everything haunted for the internet's amusement? With his loose-canon of a teammate who has no concept of subtlety or shits left to give, to make things even worse. (Buzzfeed unsolved AU)

Warnings: swearing, frustrated bucky at his little shit supreme, obnoxious reader, mentions of hauntings and the things that come with (body harm, priests, etc). images all have alt texts.

A/N: if you're familiar with the format of BuzzFeed unsolved videos, the pictures in this chapter make more sense. anyway we're starting small to warm up but i assure u there's like actual paranormal shit from next chapter onward <3 thank u for the chaotic response to chapter 1 ily guys sm ! as usual, please send me things you'd like to see in the series! it always make me so happy

Previous part || Series masterlist

Bucky loves the compound. The sentiment carries a lot, considering he’s made it a non-negotiable part of his personal brand to hate everything.

The lush landscape is quiet, spacious enough that he isn’t forced to run into anyone he’s actively avoiding, and has state-of-the art security that lets him sleep soundly, assured that no one will be able to get to his floor in an assassination attempt.

All of his deep love and fond admiration disappears when it’s the crackass of dawn and his oakwood door receives the beat down of a lifetime.

He snaps awake instantly, unsure of whether there was someone actually trying to kick the shit out of his door or it was just another nightmare that often blurred lines with reality.

But after the third deafeningly loud knock confirms it, he scrambles for a pair of pants just so that he isn’t caught entirely vulnerable.

The thrashing doesn’t cease, and by the time he makes his way to the door and yanks it open–

There’s no one on the other side.

Except a coffee cup on the ground and a note scribbled haphazardly on the side.

Shoot day. See you at the studio!

He stares wordlessly at the cup, unable to differentiate whether the feeling coursing through the very fibres of his being currently is pure blinding rage, or confusion that you apparently knew his coffee order.

The studio is fucking empty. If Bucky wasn’t still reeling from the effects of being startled awake by a fake intrusion at 5am, he’d have been over the damn moon.

He does his part as a man of honour and righteousness– calls out a very quiet ‘Hello?’ and then doesn’t bother feeling guilt when his heart explodes in joy at the lack of response.

He spins on his heel to march out, only to come to an abrupt stop when he almost runs into you. He didn’t even fucking hear you come in.

“Oh, hey.” You look at him, hand on a bagel. “You actually showed.”

Bucky’s smile falters, and he returns to his default Grinchian state.

“You made sure I fuckin’ did,” he grumbles. “How’d you get on my floor?”

“I have my ways.”

Bucky’s glare presses hard into you almost like a palpable entity.

“I did a gig as an escape artist for a while. Paid super well,” you dismiss.

He doesn’t blink once, trying to decipher whether you’re telling him the truth or not.

You offer him a bite from your bagel in return, seemingly having moved on from the conversation already.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asks, turning away from you.

“Maya didn’t actually think you’d show up on time so she told everyone to come an hour later.” You speak through a mostly full mouth. “I figured you could use the company.”

Bucky immediately feels defensive, as if that wasn’t exactly what he tried to do.

He grumbled all through the morning when he saw fifteen text reminders sent to him through the night telling him he had to shoot a video that day. He grumbled when he couldn’t use traffic as an excuse to not show up because the studio is two streets away from the compound. He grumbled when the toaster actually works for once. Everything is right in the world. This was, of course, devastating to him.

He finally shuts up when Sam gives him a piece of gum. Then he just glowers, but his jaw is otherwise occupied.

“She set you on me this morning?” Bucky questions, tone on the verge of being ticked.

You shake your head, swallowing before taking another bite. “No, that was social service.”

Bucky’s eye twitches.

“I’ll come back in an hour,” he mumbles, arms crossed over his chest.

You give him a look that lets him know you’re entirely unconvinced. “Will you?”

Well. No.

“I’m gonna look around the studio. You’re welcome to join,” you say instead, looking past him. “We’ll need to know where we’re working for the next few months.”

Few months? No no– few hours at max, if this were to go exactly his way.

“Video’s not gonna do numbers,” he reminds you in a dull utterance.

“With an enthusiasm like that, it’s hard to see why you’re not universally beloved, Barnes,” you comment seriously, before clapping his shoulder. “Come on. You ever look at yourself in a mirror? You’re gonna be a star, baby.��

Bucky, in his current chosen avatar, looks less 'man of the world' and more 'reject of the jungle’.

But the sentiment is appreciated.

The studio is moderately big.

You find joy in messing around with set pieces of the other Avengers video series that were being shot there. Bucky finds joy in locating every possible escape route within a three foot vicinity.

He’s admittedly surprised by learning how much actually goes into making a simple video. He just figured they’d stick a camera in his face and teleprompt him and get it over it.

You chat animatedly about the use of gimbals and different camera gear, lighting setups and sound quality.

“You into this stuff?” He raises an eyebrow.

“No, I just did a stunt as a wedding videographer once,” you wave off, “It was great. You could always tell which couples were gonna get divorced within a year.”

Something unrecognisable flashes in his eyes.

“Escape artist and wedding videographer,” he repeats.

You stop talking to look at him.

“Yes,” you say simply and go on to provide no further explanation.

If the morning’s antics weren’t enough, now he’s convinced you’re fucking with him.

“Anyway, they’ll probably stick us in makeup before we go on camera because it–”

“Makeup?”

“Well– yeah. For the video.” Your eyes dart toward him, sizing him up in a quick glance. “If you look any paler, you’d basically be translucent.”

Bucky can’t even debate it. His skin looks like it hasn't felt the gentle touch of a sunray in millennia.

“Just say it’s part of the theme.”

You snort. “The first ghost I hunt cannot be one who sits beside me.”

So Bucky gets his makeup done.

By the time the studio fills in, he’s already drunk two cups of the shitty breakroom coffee and found fifteen innocuous things to fashion into weaponry if things were to go awry.

The large bright lights force him to keep wiping beads of sweat away from his forehead. Everything exists in a contrarian state of frenzy, and coordinated down to the second as if it were a damn rocket launch. He’s already had three staff members dart about him cross checking if he’s hydrated and if he’s signed the right forms.

“Oh, you actually showed,” he hears for the second time from Maya, who doesn’t even make an attempt to hide the earnest surprise from her voice.

Bucky wants to scream.

“The team’s picked a really simple case since it’s the first video. You just need to read it out,” she explains breezily, switching from you to him, “and you need to react.”

You flash her a thumbs up. Bucky doesn’t move an inch. He’s convinced it’ll trigger another round of people meddling with his hair until it looks ‘sufficiently casual but not artificial’.

Maya hurriedly leaves after wishing you good luck, probably to fix the walking PR disaster that was Clint, who unceremoniously went live on his Instagram the night before after consuming something he procured from some guy in an alleyway, who described it as ‘carbonated milk’. Bucky watched it for a few seconds and immediately shut down the app when Clint offered to take one article of clothing off for every million people that tuned in.

“I asked for there to be as few people in the room as possible,” you whisper to him.

“Still a lot,” he replies under his breath, watching them buzz around him, still brushing up his face and dabbing at his hairline with a napkin.

Someone hands you a folder full of papers. “We lose any more and we’re filming this video ourselves.”

“All ready!” The camera guy, Shane, announces.

“Copy that,” you call back, before leaning forward in your chair, grinning. “Chill. I’m gonna do the talking. All you gotta do is say a few words and look pretty.”

That sounds…doable.

“Make it fast,” Bucky mutters, crossing his arms over his chest.

Whether he was talking about the video or his death is still up for debate.

“Recording in three…two…one–”

The whole studio waits with bated breath, but Bucky stares right ahead.

“When I said a ‘few words’, I did mean one or two, possibly more,” you talk through your smile.

Bucky continues looking into the camera like it stole his ancestral property.

You exhale, soldiering on, lips still upturned.

You look at Bucky, hopeful that he will at least answer a question. He doesn’t offer the same kindness, and now you understand why Maya reached out to you for this.

So you do what needs to be done, as a person with a responsibility to all these fine and tired souls gathered here on a weekend.

You kick him under the table.

The crew waits for Bucky to say more. He very pointedly doesn’t.

At least one sound has been procured from him, which is more than what they can say for some other videos.

You continue, “Our story takes place in 1954, in the quaint, rural town of Ravenswood. Irene–”

Bucky scoffs. “You made that up.”

Would now be a good time for him to bring up your previous job experiences you had dropped so casually or was this enough to let you know he was onto you?

Your eyebrows pull together, scanning over the sentence. “I haven't even said anything yet.”

“A horror story. Taking place in Raven’s Woods,” Bucky emphasises. “Really.”

Bitch.

“First of all, it’s Ravenswood, not Raven’s Woods,” you shoot back. “And it exists.”

“Where?” He raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t know– fuckin’ West Virginia?” You shuffle through the papers. “Does it matter? You wanna move there?”

Bucky doesn’t add anything further.

You observe him for a moment before deciding to continue.

“In the quiet town of Ravenswood,” you side eye him but he doesn’t look affected. “Irene Wendelin, a 35-year-old woman moved into a house on the outskirts to save up money. She lived alone, had no immediate relatives and worked as a secretary at the local press.”

Bucky continues chewing his gum. You’re not even sure he’s listening, but everyone got paid by the hour regardless of whether he did, so who gives a shit.

“Within a few weeks of moving in, strange incidents started to take place. Irene’s friend Thelma, who also worked as a secretary at the press, recalled how Irene developed a persistent cough, was constantly fatigued, and had issues sleeping due to her skin itching. Thelma suggested solutions from ointments to medication, but not one remedy that she provided seemed to work. As time went by, Irene’s symptoms escalated into severe respiratory problems, leaving her breathless just from climbing up a flight of stairs. She even reportedly started having hallucinations of people crawling around in her house in the dark, but she was never able to catch them in their entirety.”

“How long did this take?” Bucky questions out of the blue, arms still crossed over his chest.

“I think within a couple of weeks of moving in.” You try not to look too surprised. “Further, Thelma recalls Irene saying she heard strange sounds at night which kept her up. The only time the woman felt normal was when she left her house to stay with her cousins for a month.”

Bucky’s head snaps to you, eyes narrowing.

“What?” you challenge.

“Nothin’,” he says instead. “Go on.”

You cast a look at the crew, who look just as confused as you, but you continue regardless.

“Things escalated when one day, Irene showed up to work in complete disarray. Thelma says that upon a closer look, Irene had bite marks over her hands and legs. Thelma, a devout Christian, insisted on getting the place checked out by the church since all else had failed. Father Gabriel, a local priest, agreed to visit the house, but upon setting foot inside, claimed it was haunted by ‘forces of evil whose reality existed beyond mortal comprehension’. This was the last straw for Thelma, who had Irene move into her house until she found a new place to stay. Within a few weeks, Irene was back to normal, and the house is still considered one of the most haunted places in the country to this place, with no one allowed to enter.”

Bucky looks at his arms, jaw tightening.

Your eyebrow twitches.

You could see Maya shaking her head from across the room, entirely fucking defeated.

You wait a few seconds but receive no response. Bucky’s gaze doesn’t shift from the table top.

You start gathering the folder with the story in it, getting ready to read out your conclusion.

You stare at him, but he doesn’t look up at you.

Collectively, every spine in the room straightens.

“Asbestos?” you echo.

“Or mold. Could be either.” Bucky shrugs, chewing on the same stupid piece of gum that had lost its flavour hours ago.

You look at him in bewilderment, partly because you weren’t expecting him to say anything at all, much less this.

“Had an aunt once who thought she was possessed. Turns out her walls were full of mold.”

You stare at him. “You’re lying.”

He finally turns to you, no traces of humour on his face. “She got remarried and moved out. Good as new.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s asbestos.”

“Had the same symptoms an’ everything. Itchy skin, breathing problems, fatigue.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Stress. Being poisoned twenty-four hours a day’ll do a number on anyone.”

“And the bite marks?”

“You never had an itch so bad you just bit it?”

“On her legs?” you ask incredulously. “She bit her legs? Is that what you’re saying?”

Bucky shrugs.

You look like you’re going to lose your mind.

You clear your throat. “What about the priest?

Bucky snorts. “What ‘bout him?”

“'Forces of evil whose reality existed beyond mortal comprehension’?”

“Maybe it was her,” he fires back. “Maybe that's just how she was, how would you know?”

“You’re saying the forces of evil are just… her bad vibes?” you say it slowly, as if that would make it better.

“Maybe.” Bucky’s shoulders rise and drop again. “My aunt was a real stick in the mud too. I coulda called her a force’a evil when she didn’t let me fire a bottle rocket into the tree.”

You narrow your eyes at him. Bucky looks back innocently.

“You’re bullshitting.”

“About my aunt?” he scoffs. “I would never. Rest her soul. Made some damn good cranberry pie.”

You roll your eyes. “It’s not asbestos.”

“Then why was she fine every time she moved out?”

“Because the house was haunted.”

“By mold.”

Maya clears her throat, pointing to her watch.

You look back at her and clear your throat as well, shuffling around your papers.

“Right. So that’s it for this episode.”

The camera guy yells “Cut!’ and you turn to look at Bucky.

But he’s already gone.

The video goes up that weekend.

It takes a considerable amount of time to edit, considering they had to bleep out the steady stream of expletives that you didn’t even know Bucky was muttering under his breath, but got picked up by the mic anyway.

To Barnes (Work):

are you ready for your influencer era

He leaves you on seen. You think you’ll send him more memes of his stupid face.

To Barnes (Work):

influenza

Five hours since the video has gone up, and your phone starts buzzing more than usual. Nat’s already sent you a clearly AI generated article titled ‘Everything We Know About the Latest Avenger’, full of incorrect information and straight up lies.

The first reviews are promising. Sort of. The newest generation of kids on Twitter are saying shit and using terms that are beyond you, but it looks good. You think.

And then somewhere close to midnight, your phone chimes with a text from a number you hadn’t yet saved.

From unknown

Hey. Steve Rogers here. Great job on the video.

Your eyebrows shoot up, discarding your refreshing of the Subreddit that has popped up in your name.

From unknown

Just letting you know though– he was lying.

From unknown

He doesn’t have an aunt.

Motherfucker.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing!

to keep up with updates for this fic and others, please follow @shurisneakersupdates and turn on post notifications!

Next part

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #unsolved fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

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sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog · 1 year

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It is a very strange experience to have tens of millions of people like your work and then later have tens of millions of people hate your work. I cannot fully recommend the experience--although as miseries go, it is certainly a minor one--but for me, personally, it was hard. I often handled it poorly, and I feel a lot of regret about that, but I also think it’s a hard thing to navigate.

For a long time, I thought I wouldn’t write again. Writing leaves you so vulnerable, like a patient etherized upon the table, as Eliot put it. And being vulnerable sucked. But then it turns out that not being vulnerable--shielding yourself behind endless layers of ironic detachment and feigned coolness--also sucks. It removes you from the reality of others’ suffering, and makes you think that only certain kinds of problems are really real and worthy of attention, and maybe even that only certain kinds of people are really real and worthy of attention.

So in the end I decided to go back to writing with much MORE vulnerability instead of less. In Turtles All the Way Down, I wrote as close to the bone of my own mental illness as I could get. And in The Anthropocene Reviewed, I wrote about myself for the first time, my way of looking at the world and the people I love in it.

I don’t know if my work has gotten better or worse as a result of the weird trip I went on, but the big lesson from those strange days for me is that if I must choose between being cold to the reality of feeling and being cringe, I always want to be cringe. I want and need to write because it is my way of understanding myself, because, just as with reading stories, writing them is an “axe to break up the frozen see within us,” to borrow a very good line from Kafka.

I am so grateful to have been read so generously by so many people. The hard things that come with that gig took over my life for a while, but these days I’m able merely to be grateful, and overwhelmed, and astonished. So anyway if you’ve ever read one of my books, thanks. I don’t say that enough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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aimedis · 2 months

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STILL MAD AT ME, SWEETHEART? - MILO GREER/SWEETHEART

i said i'd write a fanfic from @stupd000 's post milo “you still mad at me?” greer sooo here it is. this is more of a drabble though 😭

(this one's for you @annahxredaxted 🫵)

cw - aftermath of an argument, snippet of the argument as well, tooth-rotting fluff, milo being milo

wc - 0.5k

Sweetheart rouses back to the waking world to the feeling of a hand cupping their cheek. Their eyes squeeze together before they flutter open slightly to see Milo standing in front of them.

"Sweetheart... hey," He whispers, an ever-present smile on his face.

They hum, closing their eyes again, "Good morning.."

Milo grins even wider, "Good morning. Sleep well?"

Sweetheart makes a noncommittal noise and they shift away from the edge of the bed, patting the pillow Milo would've been sleeping on had he not been on an overnight security gig.

Milo doesn't hesitate to slide into bed with his mate, having already changed into pyjamas. He doesn't move to hold onto them as he usually would, trying to tread carefully after last night's argument.

Milo sighs into the phone, "Listen to me, Sweetheart, it's literally not that big of a deal."

Sweetheart's voice comes in frustrated, "Yes it is, asshole. You always do this."

Milo scoffs, "No, it's not and I do not."

Sweetheart groans, "Yes it is. And you always say you don't."

"I do not!"

"You do! You don't have to cover for everyone all the time."

"Damn hypocrite. Seriously, do you hear yourself speak sometimes?"

They huff, "This isn't fucking about me, Milo. I'm just asking you to relax. This is the fifth time."

He raises an eyebrow, "And when I tell you to do the same thing, I'm in the wrong?"

"That's different-"

Milo laughs humorlessly, "It's fucking not, Sweetheart, and you know it. Stop acting high and mighty and go to sleep already," He raises his voice slightly against his better judgement, "You're being so difficult."

Sweetheart goes quiet for a moment on the other line.

Asher gives Milo a worried look, going to open his mouth when Milo waves him off.

"You're so damn annoying, Milo, you know that?" Sweetheart grumbles.

Milo sighs again, "Yeah, I know, you too. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

They breathe a hollow laugh, "I know. I don't wanna fight on the phone. Come home safely, okay?"

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you too."

However, Sweetheart reaches over to wrap their arms around him, their eyes still closed.

"You're so damn far.." They pout.

Milo hums, a smile still playing on his lips as he wraps his arms around their waist, "My bad, baby. You still mad at me?"

Sweetheart opens their eyes to look at their mate.

He looks beautiful, as he always does. The sun that filters through the curtains settles on his face and reflects off his eyes, making him look angelic. And his hair is messy from how he continuously runs his hands through it when he doesn't sleep enough. Even with the subtle bags under his eyes, he looks gorgeous. As much as Milo loves getting dressed up to the nines, Sweetheart has a special appreciation for a less put-together Milo. A Milo that's a little more comfortable breaking down and being vulnerable. A Milo that only they get to see.

"Furious..." they whisper even as they get lost in his eyes.

Still, Milo laughs, leaning forward to kiss their forehead, "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Just keep your ass in bed," Sweetheart says as they snuggle closer to him, pressing their face into his chest.

"Ohhh yeah?" He smirks, "What are we gonna do in bed, huh-?"

"Go to sleep, Greer."

━━━━━━━━━━━━

blah blah milo sweetheart asher mention eyeroll eyeroll kiss innuendo sweetheart baby milo werewolf cuddles greer mwah mwah i love you sleep and post

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redactedverse #redacted milo #redacted sweetheart #redacted fluff #redacted fic #redacted asmr fic #drabble #fanfic #kae's fics

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mountainficss · 3 months

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hi! who in svt would be more likely to be a camboy as a side gig/job? i feel like maybe seungkwan cause we all know he feels comfortable in front of the camera and is great at knowing what the public wants, or mingyu cause he loves showing himself off🤭 i initially thought about wonwoo cause he does gaming streams but he’s wayyyy to shy i feel like he would rather keep his intimate time private.

what do YOU think tho?

!! mentions of: exhibitionism, masturbation, nipple play, edging

hi there, my love! thank you so much for sending an ask :) that’s a great question! i honestly thought of wonwoo too (he’d be the most delicious camboy i swear), but i totally agree he’s way too shy.

i can absolutely envision seungkwan though! seungkwan is a literal charmer. that boy knows exactly what to say to bend people to his will and i love that about him. he seems to really enjoy being in front of people and showing off on camera too. just an exhibitionist overall. precious baby :) he’d love to set up his favorite camera when he’s home alone, adjusting it to the perfect angle so his viewers can see every inch of him. i think his favorite part of the entire camboy experience would be interacting with his viewers. he absolutely adores all the attention he gets from them, and reading through all the comments would make his cock throb even harder. would probably ask them questions just to read their reactions. “do you want me to go faster? would you like it if i edged myself? should i cum for you?” any time he speaks would send his viewers into a frenzy, and he’d eat up the attention in a heartbeat.

mingyu is also someone i can envision as a camboy! gosh have you seen that man? he’s literally the nation’s pretty boy. god body with a gorgeous face and beautiful smile. he’s just too perfect. and he knows he’s handsome too! he’s such a little show off. that’s why i think he’d be the perfect camboy <3 i can see him getting off on knowing people are admiring his body and face. he’d tease his viewers, stripping ever so slowly and showing off little inches of skin at a time. he’d like to keep his viewers on edge and wanting him. i think he’d adore that feeling of knowing he’s wanted, knowing that there are people drooling over him as they watch him from behind their screens. he’d be the absolute best at keeping people on their toes. wouldn’t have too fancy of a setup, would just prop his phone up somewhere and let the people flood in. during the entire session he’d have a little smirk on his face, head lolling and eyes rolling back in pleasure.

i feel like i have to add jeonghan to this list as well. you know how jeonghan is ugh. he’s such a little brat </3 always has that smug look on his face. i feel like jeonghan would be the type to be turned on if he knows he’s being watched. i think he’d like the excitement that comes from letting everyone see him in such a vulnerable state. he’d feel so exposed, but oh he’d love it. knowing that anyone and everyone that watches his videos can see him all horny and desperate would make him cum every time. just the thought of turning on his camera would give him a raging boner. and because people are watching him, that pretty boy would put on a show. moaning a little louder, dragging his fingers over his nipples to make his body jerk more often, edging himself close to tears. would also really like to roll his hips up into his fist with slow languid thrusts, showing his viewers how good he makes himself feel. would chuckle lightly at the needy comments, but never responds just to be a little meanie <3

and finally, i think jun would be a great camboy too! i’m not so sure what it is about jun, but i genuinely think he’d love being a camboy. he’s not as outgoing as other members, and he’s a bit quiet at times, but that wouldn’t stop him from putting on a show <3 i think he’d be a bit shy when he first starts out, maybe showing only up to his neck or mouth when he films. but once he gets into it? oh that boy is a menace. i think he’d really like to either film himself with his phone while he’s in bed, or turn on his webcam when his sits at his desk. some mornings he’d wake up throbbing and hard, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use that opportunity to reach for his phone and start recording. he’d love the lazy morning masturbation sessions, letting out gentle moans and whimpers as he stares at the screen with hooded eyes. looking through all of his dirty comments and good morning messages would bring him to his climax so quick, and that would be his favorite way to start his day.

taglist: @jeonghanpill , @bangantokchy , @caratboy , @bewoyewo , @luvseungcheol , @wonvsmile , @haolovre , @aaniag , @writingbarnes , @dokyeomkyeom , @allieyaaa

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antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-thx · 11 months

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Yeah, this is seriously concerning. I think you guys should block and be aware of someone with this amount of Tumblr reach saying this shit.

This b0gl33ch guy fully intends (and has done already, as you can see) to falsely slander queer abuse survivors (a particularly vulnerable demographic, especially to this type of accusation in the current climate) as pedophiles because of coping/vent fic. He's wished death on us multiple times and stood by it, only to deny it when pushed. Multiple times. Despite the evidence otherwise being right there. He's refusing to listen and moving the goalposts back and forth. When he himself has shared "underage NSFW art" for shits and gigs. Hey, bud, if it's harmful, you "joking" about it doesn't lessen that harm.

Again, he denies his behaviour, despite proof being right there.

I also had someone tell me in private that one of the people collaborating on a project with him has sexually harassed others multiple times in the past, so I worry that he's so convinced the predators must be here that he's oblivious to the ones right next to him.

Every time we point out to him our being queer survivors is relevant to a conversation about a) art censorship and b) coping mechanisms, he just rants that we're saying that to escape being pedophiles. To the point where he's actively erased our identities. So I'm very concerned about how this pedojacketing behaviour is likely not going to stop, even with the demographic he's aiming it at in mind.

Oh, and here:

Same guy who's just SO concerned with the harmful effects of minors potentially seeing "problematic NSFW content" online, to the point he wants to censor survivors (and supported getting one blacklisted from an entire industry, btw. That survivor is now destitute and dying from a medical condition they cannot afford to treat). Apparently he was totally fine with NSFW Velma (from Scooby Doo) art, too, and she's canonically a minor.

#psa #block and report #pro ship #pro shipping

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munsonkitten · 5 months

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Sub Eddie Week day 2: Cockwarming [Explicit] @subeddieweek

Steve looks forward to this part of the night. When Eddie is soft and pliant, eyes drooping shut in content sleepiness. A baseball game plays on the TV — Cubs at Pittsburgh — and it’s going into extra innings. Tied 8-8.

Which means extra time with Eddie’s lips around his cock, his hot, wet mouth keeping him warm while Steve watches his game.

Eddie looks forward to this too. He hates watching baseball, hates the slow way everything moves, hates trying to learn all the rules. He finds it impossible to sit still and just watch when it comes to baseball.

He wants to spend time with Steve, though, and Steve wants to watch his baseball games. Eddie owes him that after all the band practices, gigs and Hellfire meetings Steve has sat through.

It helps when he has a cock in his mouth, he’ll admit that. It’s the only way Steve can get Eddie to shut up and sit still while the game is on, and Eddie doesn’t mind it one bit.

“Almost done, baby,” Steve says. “Top of the tenth inning.”

Eddie still doesn’t know if that means the first or the second half, but the little tug in his hair means it’s time for a break. He comes up for air, spit sliding down his chin, Steve’s cockhead glistening with it. He swallows a few times, uses his wrist to wipe at his mouth.

“Doing okay?” Steve asks.

Eddie nods and rests his cheek on Steve’s thigh, glancing up at his boyfriend as he takes another sip of his beer. Eddie got him that one between the sixth and seventh inning, he thinks. Seventh inning stretch, Steve had said, tugging Eddie up and telling him to go to the kitchen for a beer and a water, which he’s offering to Eddie now.

“Have some water, sweet boy,” Steve whispers, cupping Eddie’s cheek with his free hand, the bottle of water tipping toward his lips.

So Eddie does. He takes slow, measured sips, just enough to get him through the rest of the game, just enough to satisfy Steve’s need to take care of him.

His knees are starting to ache, even with the pillow down on the floor beneath them, but he likes it. He likes the dull throb and the bit of stiffness that comes with it, when he gets up after and gets to crawl into Steve’s lap.

He loves it, loves pulling put down on his knees, told to be good.

Steve’s cock gets fed back into his mouth when he’s done drinking his water. He sighs under the weight of it on his tongue, the stretch of his lips around it.

His own dick is hard and leaking between his legs, but he doesn’t pay it any attention. It’s all secondary to the way the rest of it makes him feel. Like he’s just floating somewhere and his only tether to earth is Steve’s fingers curled in his hair and his knees aching on the pillow beneath him.

And, honestly, before Steve, he never thought he’d be okay with this. Never thought he’d be okay with being told to get on his knees and be a good boy for the hours a baseball game plays on the TV. Never thought he’d be okay in this vulnerable position — naked with just a plug nestled in his ass and a cock in his mouth.

He’s more than okay with it all.

Time slips away when he’s like this, the voice of the announcer is like white noise in his ears, and all he has to do is sit and keep Steve warm in his mouth. It’s the easiest part of his week. His favorite part of his week. They don’t do this every time a game’s on, but they do it once in a while, and Eddie knows the season is ending soon. He doesn’t know what comes next, or if he’s going to still get this because he doesn’t know if Steve even watches other sports.

He whines around Steve’s cock, eyes slipping shut. He’s jostled, Steve’s cock falling out of his mouth as Steve jumps up in a cheer. Cubs must have scored, Eddie thinks. He just rests his head against Steve’s knee until he sits back down on the couch and guides his dick back into Eddie’s mouth.

“Sorry, baby,” Steve murmurs, bending down and folding himself in half to press a kiss to Eddie’s head.

Eddie doesn’t care. He loves this.

Cubs win in the end, and as soon as the game is called, Steve pulls Eddie off his cock and guides him up into his lap. He toys with the plug in Eddie’s ass, pressing against the base of it to make Eddie whine, to make his dick leak all over Steve’s shirt.

Lube gets fished out of the couch cushion and the plug gets pulled out, leaving Eddie empty and squirming in Steve’s lap. He looks forward to this part, too. To Steve taking care of him and making him feel good after.

Steve loves seeing Eddie like this. His eyes are so big, so wet and glossy, his hair’s a mess, and he’s shaking. Shaking as he sinks down on Steve’s cock, the strain in his aching legs making it so hard for him. But it’s okay because Eddie doesn’t have to do any work, he just has to rest his body against Steve’s, and take it.

He just has to sit there and moan all pretty while Steve rolls up into him, finally giving Eddie what he’s wanted all night, what he deserves for being so good and sitting so sweetly through the whole game.

#steddie #my fics #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steve/eddie #steddie fic #stranger things #subeddieweek

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astroa3h · 7 months

Text

where you'll meet your soulmate

I know this is fairly vague when it comes to astrology and how intricate of an art it can be, especially when it comes to the placement of Juno. But I find this to be pretty spot on when it comes to the dreamy meet cute you have with your destined one.

Juno in the 1st House: Picture this - you're shining bright, maybe you're on stage, or it's your birthday bash. There’s laughter, music, and bam! Your eyes lock with theirs across the room. It's electric, like a scene from a movie. Love at first sight? Heck yeah. This isn't a slow burn; it's fireworks from the get-go. Imagine meeting the one person who sees you, the real you, in a crowd of faces. That’s your moment.

Juno in the 2nd House: Imagine casually browsing through a bookstore or maybe hustling at a side gig, and there they are. Maybe they're helping you pick out the perfect gift, or you’re laughing over a bizarre find at a flea market. This connection is built on the simple things in life, like sharing a passion or working on something that matters to both of you. It’s the shared smiles and the teamwork that makes the dream work.

Juno in the 3rd House: Ever met someone and felt like you’ve known them forever? That’s Juno in the 3rd for you. It could be a friend of a friend, someone from the neighborhood, or that person you keep bumping into online because you laugh at the same memes. This could also be a childhood friend. It's the comfort of familiarity, the ease of a conversation that never ends. It’s like finding a missing piece you weren’t even aware you were looking for.

Juno in the 4th House: This is all about home, heart, and heritage. Imagine finding your soulmate at a family gathering or through a connection so deeply rooted in your past, it feels fated. It could be a cozy dinner, a traditional celebration, or through the meddling of your mom playing cupid. This soulmate brings a sense of belonging, a feeling of coming home, no matter where you are.

Juno in the 5th House: Think laughter, creativity, and a dash of spontaneity. Meeting your soulmate while you’re living your best life, maybe at a concert, an art exhibit, or while coaching little league. It’s those moments of pure joy and abandon, where you meet someone who makes your heart race faster than a rollercoaster ride. It’s about finding love in the midst of living passionately.

Juno in the 6th House: Here, love finds you in the midst of your daily grind. It could be that new colleague, someone you meet at a fitness class, or even a fellow volunteer. This is about finding someone who fits into your life like the perfect puzzle piece, making every day brighter and every routine special. It’s the beauty in the ordinary, the love that grows in shared routines and little acts of care.

Juno in the 7th House: Picture meeting your soulmate at a wedding, It's where you least expect it, in the midst of celebrating love, you find your own. It could be a plus-one that was meant to be your plus-one forever. This is about partnerships, the undeniable pull towards someone who complements you perfectly, in ways you hadn’t even dared to dream of. I sometimes find you may even find your soulmate through an ex partner with this placement.

Juno in the 8th House: This is deep, the kind of connection that happens in the quiet, unexpected moments. Maybe it’s someone you meet in a place where you both show your vulnerabilities, or perhaps during a time of transformation. You could be intoxicated or under the influence when you meet. It’s a soul-stirring, intense connection that feels predestined, a love that’s as profound as the ocean and just as mysterious.

Juno in the 9th House: Imagine crossing paths with your soulmate in a setting that screams adventure and growth. It could be a study abroad program, a spiritual journey, or just a random seminar that you both decided to attend on a whim. This is about finding someone who shares your thirst for knowledge, adventure, and the quest for meaning in life. It’s about expanding your horizons, together.

Juno in the 10th House: Here’s where your ambitions and your heart align. Meeting your soulmate in a context that’s all about achieving your life’s purpose, maybe at a conference, through a mentor, or while making your mark on the world. It’s about finding someone who not only shares your dreams but is ready to build an empire with you. This love story is about legacy, ambition, and a shared vision for the future.

Juno in the 11th House: This is the meet-cute you didn’t see coming. A friend’s party, a community event, or that random encounter at a party. It’s about connection, friendship, and shared ideals. Finding your soul mate here means finding someone who gets you on a level that's almost telepathic. It’s about shared laughs, mutual friends becoming mutual admirers, and feeling like you’ve found your tribe with this person by your side.

Juno in the 12th House: This is where souls connect on a celestial level. Imagine a tranquil setting, a spiritual retreat, or a place where you're seeking peace, and there they are. This connection is ethereal, almost like recognizing a soul from a past life. It’s a love that transcends time and space, wrapping you in a sense of calm and belonging that’s hard to put into words.

xox astro ash ✨ Get your own Juno Soulmate Reading @ astroash.net TikTok - astroa3h

#astrology #astrology readings #astrology aspects #natal chart #astrologer #astro observations #astro notes #astro community #astrology blog #daily astrology #astrology houses #horoscopes #zodiac #astro placements #birth chart #juno #soulmate

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whimsicalpolitical · 1 month

Text

Empty gold - Matty Healy

fwb x matty

continuation of this

warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, p in v, alcohol, vomit, handjob, smoking,

The hum of the hotel air conditioner drones in the background, a constant reminder of the sterile luxury surrounding you. Matty Healy lounges on the king-sized bed, intently focused on his Nintendo Switch. The soft glow from the screen illuminates his features, casting shadows that dance across his face with every flick of his fingers.

You lie beside him, propped up on one elbow, watching him play. Your thoughts are miles away, oscillating between the upcoming gig and the knot of unease in your stomach. The ticking clock on the nightstand tells you that you have just under two hours before you need to leave.

"Matty," you begin, your voice hesitant. He doesn't look up, but you know he's listening. "What will the other boys think if I always come to the gigs?"

He pauses the game and turns to face you, an eyebrow arched in amusement. "You think they don’t already know we’re shagging?"

You bite your lip, feeling a blush creep up your neck. "I mean, we’ve been pretty discreet..."

"Discreet? Love, they’re not daft. They’ve known from the start."

Your heart skips a beat. You always assumed you had kept things under wraps. But of course, they would know. They are like family, and families have a way of sensing things.

"And they don’t mind?" you ask, your voice softer now, vulnerability peeking through.

Matty shifts closer, his hand reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. "Love. Why would they mind? We’ve all been friends before and just because we’re havin‘ a bit of fun doesn’t mean they don’t like you anymore.“

He continues, “they really could not care less. And I’m sure they’ve got their own girl problems to deal with.”

You nod, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders. His reassurance, the warmth in his eyes, makes you believe it. The boys have always been important to you and you sure as hell don’t want to fuck it up.

"So," he says, a mischievous glint in his eye, “you excited for the gig, then?"

“Yeah of course, but it’s not my first, remember.”

At his first gig you came to be there for him, being Matty’s best friend for years you wanted to support him and the boys.

"I remember," he says, picking up his Switch again, but not before pressing a quick kiss to your cheek. “Now let me finish this level and then we can get into anything you would like to do.”

“Oh?” You ask with a grin, obviously not having pure thoughts.

“Can’t you multitask?” You ask, resting your hand on his lower leg which is sliding upwards but in a torturously slow pace.

“I have to get this level, babe, have to win against George.” You roll your eyes, your hand on his upper thigh rubbing circles against his jeans.

“So you better concentrate and don’t get distracted.”

Matty laughs and glances at you quickly before his eyes drop to the little screen. “And your what? Gonna jerk me off?”

You giggle and nod before moving your hand to his crotch. “Yeah, you want that?”

“Fuck f’course.”

You’re shoving one hand down the front of Matty’s jeans. “Jesus. Doesn’t take much to get you going, does it?” You tease and begin to move more deliberately.

Matty sucks in a quick breath and exhales, “don’t act like you’re not drenching your underwear right now.”

“Fuck off.”

You observe Matty, a smile tugging on his lips but his breathing going a bit faster than a couple of minutes ago.

“Lift your hips.” You demand and he obliges.

“Good boy.” You tease, laughing when Matty stares at you like he’s going to kill you. You don’t fail to notice the blush creeping up his neck though.

“Piss off with that.”

You pull his jeans and boxers off, sliding the fabric down his legs but not completely off. You continue by settling down onto his thigh.

He’s not fully hard yet but when your fingers wrap around the base of his cock, pumping your fist a few times, he’s letting out the groan that had settled in his throat.

"Shit." his voice quivering, "keep goin.”

You tut, “be nice, matty.”

“Sorry, love.” he groans, “please keep going.”

You hum and of course you do as he says, loving his breaths and groans too much to just wait. Your fingers move to his tip trying to collect as much pre-cum as possible to get him wetter.

When you’ve spread his cum around you start to move your fist again, up and down his shaft. Too slow. Matty bucks his hips to gain more but you hold his hips down.

“Why so impatient?”

“Babe, you’re joking,” his breath is jagged, on the edge of exploding and splattering all over your fist. “Fuck, just go faster.”

“Are you winning?”

“What?”

“Your game, Matty. Are you winning?”

Your fist starts to move faster and he looks so divine that the pressure of his thigh is starting to get you soaked.

“S-second place.”

You lean forward against his ear, “keep going then, don’t lose now.”

Your lips trace against his neck, lingering against the skin. He can’t keep the device straight, he won’t win like this and you both know it. Not that it matters. Not while you're touching him.

"Is this good?" you ask, breath tickling against his ear.

Matty nods rapidly, "good.. so good," fingers twisting around the switch as his eyes flutter closed. "fuck," he gasps, the switch slipping from his hand onto the bed when your thumb circles the tip of his dick again. An otherworldly feeling he feels just with you.

"Yeah?" you grit, continuing to stroke him.

One hand of Matty holds onto your while the other finds your cheek, lazily trying to connect your lips. Your knee slides between his legs, spreading them just enough for your other hand to creep between and grab his balls.

"Oh- christ ," matty wails, kissing at your bottom lip, sucking at the skin.

Your expert fingers fondle his balls while the other fists his dick, pre-cum making your fingers glisten and move with ease.

His throat squeaks, the most pitiful noise a grown man could've made, his bottom lip still latched onto yours.

Matty’s going crazy for the sweet taste of your lips and the friction of your palm rubbing against his cock.

"i'm gonna cum," he babbles, stomach flipping, waves of pleasure crashing through his tingling limbs.

You don't respond to his whining, your nose brushes over his as his breaths become shallow and staggered. An iron clad grip on your shirt as he teeters over the edge, hips stuttering into your palm.

"Fuckin’ hell," Matty mewls, bursting all over your hand,

"Shit, darling," your eyes darken, gazing down at your hand still wrapped around him, somewhat proud of what you've achieved.

You smile and lower your head to his wet chest and thighs. You begin to lick his skin, changing from soft licks to soft bites as matty squirms over you.

“Taste good?” He asks and you nod, cleaning him up completely.

You kiss him again when you’re done, slipping him your tongue to show him how he tastes and he groans. The both of you grin into the kiss.

“M’ so glad I’ve brought you with me.” His hand finds your ass to playfully hit it one time. “Was fuckin’ worth losing against George.”

“I would hope so.”

“Course, babe.” He smiles, “let’s get dressed then.”

The hallway is dimly lit, a quiet hum of activity vibrating through the walls as the crowd outside buzzes with anticipation. You lean against the cool, textured surface, trying to catch your breath. The distant thrum of bass seeps through the floor, a steady reminder that Matty’s concert is about to start.

But then he's there, a flash of dark curls and an easy smirk as he strides down the hall. He spots you immediately, his eyes lighting up with something between mischief and desire. Without a word, he grabs your hand, pulling you toward him with that familiar urgency.

Your back hits the wall as his lips crash onto yours, and suddenly, nothing else matters. His hands are everywhere—one tangling in your hair, the other pressing into the small of your back, drawing you closer. You respond in kind, gripping the front of his shirt, pulling him as close as you can. The kiss is hungry, heated, a collision of need and want that you've both been holding back since this morning.

His breath is hot against your skin as he breaks away, just enough to murmur your name, low and rough, before capturing your lips again. The world narrows down to just this—the taste of him, the way he moves against you, the faint tremble in his touch that tells you he’s as affected as you are.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know the show will start soon, that someone could walk by any second. But right now, with Matty’s hands on your waist and his mouth devouring yours, the thought seems distant, almost irrelevant.

He pulls back, just slightly, his forehead resting against yours as he catches his breath. His eyes search yours, dark and intense, as if he’s trying to memorize this moment before it slips away. You can feel his heartbeat against your chest, mirroring the frantic pace of your own.

“When are you on?” you start, but he cuts you off with another kiss, softer this time, but no less demanding. When he pulls away again, his thumb brushes across your cheek, and he gives you that lopsided grin that always makes your heart skip.

“We have 15 minutes,” he murmurs. His gaze lingers on you for just a second longer before he steps back, leaving you breathless and wanting more.

“Don’t wanna wait,” you admit, “just fuck me.”

“Romantic.” He jokes.

“Like we should be,” you hiss, “we’re fuck buddies.”

It’s not like you don’t want to change that. It feels like you’ve been falling down like autumn leaves but you want to beg him to not let winter come and let your hearts freeze.

“Right.” Something shifted in him, he sounds hurt. But this can’t be.

His tongue swipes along your bottom lip and you drop your jaw, allowing your tongues to lazily reunite. One of his hands delicately traces your spine while the other cups your cheek, cradling it harder then usual. You lean your face into the palm of his hand, letting him hold you close.

His hand leave their place to go under your skirt and pull your panties just down your thighs. Then he grips your hand and pulls it to your dripping center.

“Do it yourself then,” he orders, “c’mon, get yourself drenched for me.”

You of course obey and start to slowly rub circles onto your clit.

He opens his belt and pulls his pants and boxers down to his knees only to end up fisting his hard cock.

Ironically he pulls a condom out of your cleavage and rips it open with his teeth.

You’re lost in your own pleasure, already thrusting a finger into yourself, you betrayed yourself by letting out a too loud moan.

“Didn’t say you could do that,” Matty shakes his head, “bad girl.”

He’s angling his cock so it lines up with your entrance and slowly, oh so slowly, he pushes inside. You watch through heavy lidded eyes as his face goes slack and his brow furrow.

"Yeah, fuck, that's it," he growls when you start to lift your hips as well. He lets his head fall back and groans but tries to pull himself together to watch as the evidence of your arousal smear between you both with each rock of your hips. His hands hold onto your legs.

His mouth reaches your breasts. He starts licking and biting the hardening bud and making you whine. He grins against it, changing the breast to the other one, achieving the same reaction.

"Feel so good," you practically slurr, your mind growing numb as your pleasure builds. He releases your breast with a smack to his lips and his eyes look black when he meets your gaze.

He clenches his jaw before he mutters lowly, "fuckin' take it. C'mon, let me see you work for it."

You take a deep breath and stabilize your palms against his chest before tilting your hips up and dropping them down quickly, over and over in a steady, fast rhythm that had your skin slapping together obscenely in the dingy hallway.

"Yeah, that's it. Fuck, what a good girl," he murmurs. You can see the shift in his face now and it fucking thrills you. Gone are the sweet, loving looks and chaste, gentle kisses. Now that his own pleasure is mounting low in his stomach, his cock throbbing and begging for release deep within you, he is growing impatient. He bares his teeth while you keep up your fast, tight pace, eyes flashing up at you hungrily, heat flushing his chest and neck.

"Keep fuckin' yourself on my cock, love," he grits out.

"You think anyone else can ever make you feel like this? Fucks sake," he adds, his voice dropping to a whisper with his last words. It has you tipping your head with a deep moan, your gaze locking onto the ceiling while you continue to ride him as best you can with trembling legs, ignoring the ache everywhere else in your body.

“Matty,” you moan.

And he can feel it. He can feel your legs shake, he can hear your breath stutter and he knows you are growing weak but fuck if you don’t try to push through it just to please him. The mere thought practically short circuits his brain, his senses dulling at the idea of someone as perfect as you. But you’re just fuck buddies as you said.

Everything hurts now and it gets harder to move.

So he decides to help. His hands find their place on your hips, thumbs pressing into the crease of your thighs, and he bucks up into you, each movement paired with a deep grunt that has your eyes rolling to the back of your head and your fingernails digging into his chest.

You drop one leg, relieve washing over you, the discomfort washing off immediately.

When your body shuddered and your jaw hangs open, a sharp gasp the only sound to leave your lips, he smirked because he knew what would happen next.

Your perfect fucking pussy clenches around him so deliciously, squeezing and relaxing over and over again while each wave of your orgasm rips through you. The sight and feel is unlike anything else, the experience simply incomparable.

He groans loudly and falls forward as he spills inside the condom.

“Christ,” he gasps pulling out of you.

He’s nice and pulls your panties on, kissing your cheek, “have to go on stage now, we’ll see each other later, yeah?”

“Sure.”

He leans down one more time to capture your lips in a kiss before he’s off to fulfill his duties as a rockstar.

The whole show you had to watch matty get drunk as fuck, smoke one joint after another, touching his dick on stage and kissing a fan during robbers. Proper kissing. Gripping her hips, pulling her closer and licking her lips as if he didn’t just fuck you an hour ago.

You’re pissed and you don’t even know if you have the right to be.

You thought about your ‘relationship’ a lot these past months and maybe it’s for the better to end it. As fast as possible.

So you wait for him to walk backstage but it’s not walking, he stumbles backstage, holding on to the walls.

“Jesus Matty,” you roll your eyes and grips his arms.

“Hi, darling, don’t you look pretty.”

“Stop. We have to talk, okay?”

“Hmm, talk dirty?”

He tries to touch your waist and pull you on top of him but you push his hands away and walk to the door a few steps away from him.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?”

“Us. Just sex, we have to stop.”

He looks baffled and he stands up almost falling over in the process, “shit,” he mumbles. “If this is about the girl, love, it’s part of our show and-“

“It’s not about the girl, Matty. It was a huge mistake. All of it.”

“But-“ matty tumbles forward and takes your face into his hands, “we were so good. Admit it.”

“Matty-“

“Admit it.”

“Obviously but that doesn’t mean it feels right anymore.”

“Course,” he huffs, “you’re sick of me?”

His hands fall down and he turns his back on you facing the abandoned black couch.

“Fuck,” he half screams making you jump a little.

Matty searches around for something, you don’t know what but it gets clear when he half runs towards a bin. He crouches down and throws up inside, falling to his knees.

“For fucks sake, Matty. How old are you?”

You sit down next to him, your hand instinctively reaching out to rub his back. Matty’s breathing is ragged, and he groans softly between each heave, his face pale and twisted with discomfort. For a moment, you’re unsure of what to say, so you just keep rubbing his back in small circles, hoping it brings him some comfort.

“You’re fine, Matty. Just breathe, okay? You’ll be fine,” you murmur softly, trying to keep your voice steady despite how furious you are.

He retches again, and your hand pauses for a brief moment before resuming its soothing rhythm. Matty’s body shakes with the effort, and then finally, it seems like it’s over. He leans back against the wall, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes are glassy, and he looks at you with a mixture of regret and shame.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mumbles, his voice hoarse and broken.

You shake your head quickly, cutting him off before he can spiral further. “It’s fine.”

You can see the guilt weighing on him, though, and it tugs at your heart. For all his bravado, for all the times he’s seemed invincible, moments like this remind you how human he really is, how fragile.

“You shouldn’t… shouldn’t have to deal with this,” he mutters, slurring slightly.

You let out a small sigh and shake your head again. “Stop that. We’ve been friends for too long, Matty. Just let me help you.”

He closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall, as if trying to escape the reality of the situation. But you don’t let him withdraw completely. You reach out, gently turning his face toward you. He resists at first, but eventually, his eyes meet yours.

“I’m taking you home,” you say firmly.

Matty looks at you for a long moment, his expression conflicted, but then he nods weakly. He’s too tired, too drained to argue. You help him up, and he stumbles a bit, leaning heavily on you for support.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” you say softly, guiding him towards the door.

The drive is quiet. Matty’s head lolls against the window, and every now and then, you glance over to check on him. He’s half-asleep, his breathing slow and even, but his hand occasionally twitches as if reaching for something just out of reach. You keep one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the console, close enough to his hand that he could grab it if he wanted to.

When you finally reach his place, you park the car and gently shake him awake. He groans, opening his eyes blearily.

“We’re here,” you say softly. “Can you make it inside?”

He nods but doesn’t move at first. You watch him struggle to find the energy, and after a few seconds, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step out of the car. You walk over to his side and open the door, offering your hand. He takes it, and you help him out, steadying him as he stumbles slightly.

The walk to his door feels longer than it actually is, but eventually, you’re inside. Matty collapses onto the couch, his body sinking into the cushions as if he’s finally allowing himself to let go.

You kneel beside him, pulling off his shoes and tossing them to the side. Then, you grab a blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over him.

“Do you need to throw up again?”

“Nah, don’t think so.”

Matty’s eyes flutter open, and he looks at you with a vulnerability that you’re not used to seeing. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice barely audible.

You give him thumbs up, “now sleep, we can talk when you’re sober.”

You turn around to leave but he grips your wrist.

“Please don’t leave me.”

You’re met with a boy whose eyes are tearing up, his lip wobbling.

“What?”

“I’m sorry- fuck,” he groans, one hand rubbing his forehead, “I didn’t want to kiss her. It felt wrong and it wasn’t you and I was mad because you said we’re fuck buddies and we are but I want more.”

“Matty don’t-“

“No, I don’t even know why I didn’t ask you out properly, yeah. I just thought that if I could shag you I already have you. M’ so sorry.”

He takes your hand and leads it to his lips to press his lips to your skin. “Please don’t leave me. Let’s do this right. I’ve always-“

“Don’t, okay?“

Your heart aches at the sight of him like this, so vulnerable, so raw. You’ve seen him put on so many faces—confident, aloof, charming—but this is different. This is Matty stripped down to his core, no defenses, no games. And yet, the doubt still lingers in the back of your mind. What if this is just a drunken confession, something he’ll regret in the morning?

“Matty…” you whisper, your voice trembling. “I want to believe you, I really do. But… what if this isn’t real? What if you don’t feel the same way when you wake up?”

He looks up at you, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “It’s real. I swear to you, it’s real. I’ve always felt this way, I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”

You want to believe him, but the pain of uncertainty gnaws at you. You’ve been through so much together, and the thought of losing him completely if things go wrong terrifies you.

He sits up, his hand still holding yours as he leans in closer, his eyes searching yours with a desperation that breaks your heart.

“I know I’ve messed up. I know I don’t deserve you, but please… just give me a chance to prove it to you. I’ll do anything.”

“Matty, you’re drunk. I need you to understand that this isn’t something we can just brush off if you change your mind.“

He shakes his head frantically. “I won’t change my mind. I can’t… I’ve been running from this for so long, and I’m done. I need you to know how much you mean to me.”

He leans up and you’re so close to breathing each other’s air but you pull away. “I can’t, not now.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “Alright, then let’s talk in the morning, darling. But please don’t leave me?”

You reach out, brushing a tear from his cheek, and give him a small, sad smile. “I won’t.”

He closes his eyes, leaning into your touch, and for a moment, you both just sit there in the silence, the weight of what’s unspoken hanging heavy between you. Finally, you settle down next to him and rest your head on his chest. It’s not like you haben cuddled Million times.

“Get some sleep,” you murmur. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

#matty healy #matty healy smut #matty healy fluff #matty healy angst #matty healy imagine #matty healy blurb #matty healy x you #matty healy x reader #matty healy oneshot #the 1975 #ross macdonald #george daniel #adam hann #the 1975 fic

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