#got sweeped midway

[the-crunchy-rock]

the two starters of our randomized Soulink Nuzlock (I was porygon z) two absolute maniacs, may they rest in Valhalla.

[rrrrinmaru]

calculated risk (but boy am i bad at math) (sylus x mc) (nsfw) pt 2

wc: 4.8k rating: E warnings: NSFW content, dirty talk, handjobs, pussy eating, vaginal fingering, thigh fucking (intercrural), orgasm denial, penis in vagina sex (just the tip), dom!sylus sub!mc, male-centric pleasure because mc is being denied brief: you lose a bet to sylus and you have to do whatever he wants for 24 hours // recommended to read part 1 here for context // part 3 finale here

Being unable to refuse Sylus for twenty-four hours is not one of your smarter decisions.

To be fair, you didn’t decide much of anything. You lost a bet—rigged, you would argue, if he would care to listen—and he chose his reward. 

You would put up more of a fight if he weren’t so intent on ruining you.

“Sylus,” you gasp, the sound weak and shaky. It’s more an exhale than a word at this point. Your lungs feel like they’re collapsing in on themselves and your knees are going to give out if he keeps trying to mouth wetly at your clit—

He kisses your pert clit, laughing at the way it makes you clench around nothing. “What an excellent view,” he murmurs, lips brushing teasingly along your cunt, the tip of his tongue darting out to slide along the slick wetness dripping down your thighs. You cry out, legs shaking as you rock forward on your toes. You’re not sure if you want to move away from his mouth or sit back down on his face to chase that clever tongue. “Hips up, sweetie.”

“I hate you,” you whine weakly. Your entire body is trembling from the effort of holding yourself up, thighs tensed as you try to prop yourself up higher. Your forearms are braced against the desk in his study, palms wet with sweat as you try to sweep away any stray papers. Sylus probably doesn’t care, but you don’t want to hear the smugness in his voice when he holds up a piece of paper with ink streaks all over the surface and accuses you of messing with his work. 

You tried to hold yourself up at first, propped up on your elbows enough to look back and see a head of silver hair. Fingers on your bare ass, skirt hiked up to your waist and pooling on the table—you could see the way his fingers dug into your skin, kneading the plush fat of your ass as he spread you the way he liked. Wide open and dripping, cunt hole twitching sporadically the longer you went without any stimulation.

If he wasn’t touching you, then he was looking at you. 

Then he put his mouth on your pussy, that hungry tongue digging into your cunt as if he truly wanted to eat you alive. The sucking sounds from your cunt were obscene and they made you drop your head to the silver surface of the table in an attempt to cool your flaming cheeks with the chilled metal. 

It didn’t work. Not when Sylus groaned after a while, fingers flexing against your ass to push you up higher so he can get a better angle to work at your pussy.

“Just let me cum,” you try pleading with him. Sylus hums, the vibrations going straight to your throbbing pussy and making the ache worse. 

“I don’t think you get to call the shots here.” There’s a thread of amusement in his voice—it’s a thread you want to grip between your fingers and snap. “Twenty-four hours, right?”

You’re not above setting your pride aside if it means you can cum. You’d be the first to fling it out the window when he’s got you on a high wire like this, so close to tripping over the edge you swear you can taste it. 

“Please, Sylus,” you moan, breath hitching when he latches back onto your clit midway through your words. You want to say something else, like I’m begging you, please just let me cum, I’m so fucking close, but he gives your swelling clit a particularly hard suck and your entire mind goes blank. It’s just straight pleasure, a fire rushing up your spine and making your eyes roll back on instinct. 

Your knees involuntarily go limp. You can’t hold yourself up, not when your upper body is balanced uselessly against the desk and your legs aren’t listening to you. In the split second where your toes slip against the floor, you’ve resigned yourself to tumbling to the ground and getting a bruise on your hip in the process.

But Sylus laughs, pulling back just enough to press an open-mouthed kiss to the hungry hole of your pussy, and slips his hands down to cup your ass. He pushes you up, forcing you to slide up on the desk—your hands flail weakly, scrabbling for some sort of purchase and finding none. You must hit something because there’s a brief snap of pain against your knuckles, and you think something tumbles to the ground. 

You don’t know what it is, though, because Sylus is suddenly hunched over your back, his chest pressed up tightly against you with both hands coming around to the front of your thighs to pull your legs further apart. 

“You’re so cute when you’re like this,” he pants into your ear. His voice is a low, rolling sound that goes straight to your clit. You try to close your legs to put some pressure on your pussy, and that makes him chuckle. He forces your thighs apart with ease. You’re not putting up much of a fight, not with how weak your muscles are and how the only thing you can focus on is that you’re this close to cumming.

“Please,” you beg, words escaping you. There isn’t anything else to say—your mind is a blur, clit and pussy twitching from the heat of Sylus’ hands just centimeters away. You want those hands on you, in you. You want him to bully your clit between his fingers, pinching and rolling your swollen clit while fucking two other fingers into you. Three fingers into you. Fuck, you’re wet enough that you think he could make four fit, just slide them in without any preamble and make you cry out from the stretch. 

Even the thought of it is enough to make you shiver. You moan, eyelashes fluttering as you weakly attempt to rock back into his hips. The line of his cock is hard against your skin, the metal zipper pressing into your ass. 

“Look at how desperate you are,” Sylus whispers. You can feel the shadow of his smile against the shell of your ear—his upturned lips rub against your heated skin, his breath burning a brand into the space where your ear meets your jaw. “Like a needy kitten in heat for a thick cock to fuck her stupid. Your clit is swollen, dollface.”

As if to prove a point, he presses against the underside of your clit with his thumb. It’s sensitive there, and he’s brought you to the edge and left you wanting so many times that this small movement is enough to make you jolt, a cry escaping your lips before you can even think to force it back. Your hips shudder, rutting against his thumb without any real thought or purpose, and he lets out an amused huff. 

“So twitchy. Is this pink pussy all for me?”

His other hand slips down, fingertips tracing the seam of your pussy. You’re so drenched you can hear the wet sounds of your pussy—the sticky sound when he dips one finger into your cunt and pulls it out, so quickly that you barely manage to clench around it for the slightest hint of pressure before it’s gone again. 

“Again, again—Sylus!”

A warm tongue runs along your neck. “Patience, sweetie. One finger isn’t enough for you?”

You are going to burst, and you swear you’ll take him with you. “More, please, I’m so fucking close—”

Two fingers fuck into you. They’re crooked at the knuckle, slamming up against the sensitive spot inside of you and you shriek, legs shaking so hard that Sylus has to lift you up again to press you against the table. 

“Please, please, please,” you babble mindlessly, vision blurry. “I’m—fuck, Sylus, nnngh—close, I’m—”

Your cunt tightens, clit twitching on Sylus’ thumb, and the heat enveloping you abruptly disappears. Your cunt is empty again, clinging onto nothing, and your clit is left with nothing to rub against, and there is nothing holding you up and you’re sliding off the desk. 

Strong arms come around your waist, scooping you up and onto a familiar lap. Sylus must have pulled his chair over, but you’re not concerned about that. You’re not concerned at all about the finer logistics of how he got you onto his lap. 

You’re concerned about how your pussy isn’t filled, how your thighs are still spasming from the brute force of an orgasm ripped away from your grasp like that.

You had it in your fingers. You were this close to cumming. One more slam of his fingers into your cunt and you would have tipped over and it would have been so good. 

“You can take it,” Sylus tells you, eyes gleaming. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you?”

You stare at him. Is there a knife in the vicinity? Hell, a gun?

“Look at that expression. Are you upset?” He asks with a gleeful, knowing look in his eyes. “It’s just one orgasm, sweetie. Be patient.”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out for a while. “Twenty-four hours?” You ask eventually, voice hoarse from crying out just seconds before, when you thought you were en route for cumming your mind out. 

Sylus shrugs, eyes closing briefly as he rolls his shoulders in that lazy manner of his. “You’ll cum soon enough.” His crimson gaze lands on you. Half-lidded and smug, like he’s pleased at how distraught you are from being denied an orgasm twice over. “If you can’t wait, I could tell you about how I plan to have you for the rest of my time. A little preview, if you’d like.”

“I don’t want a preview. I want this—” you reach down, fingers wrapping challengingly around Sylus’ stiff cock through the fabric of his pants. His breath catches, eyebrows rising as he looks down, admiring the way your fingers look against his outline of his cock, then he drags his gaze back up to you. 

His fingers thrum lightly against the sensitive skin at your waist. “And what will you do with it once you have it, dollface?”

You squeeze it, mollified by how it makes him tilt his head back and inhale sharply. It’s unfair how sexy he is, how good pleasure looks on him. He looks hedonistic like this, with his eyes closed as he lets the pleasure roll throughout his body, stemming from the hard cock beneath your fingers. You can feel the heat of it spilling through the fabric, and you’re tempted to pull his zipper down and sneak his cock out to sit on it. 

“Fuck myself on it,” you admit frankly. Your pussy clenches at the thought, and you dig your thumb into the head of his cock, hard enough for him to let out a pleased grunt. 

“Nngh, naughty girl. That wasn’t very nice of you,” he pants, opening one eye to look at you. But he doesn’t do anything to stop you. All he does is sit there, head lolling back far enough to expose his Adam’s Apple and the dip of his clavicle. As if waiting to see what you’ll do next.

You have half a mind to hop off his lap and leave him to settle it by himself. He deserves it, you think petulantly. If you can’t cum, then he shouldn’t get to soak in the syrupy pleasure of cumming either.

But you think about the heft of his cock. The way it feels in your palm, thick and heavy. The pearls of precum beading at the tip, the visceral proof of how aroused he can get at your touch. The way he flinches when you pull at his cock too tightly—the instinctive flinch, and then the gradual relaxation as he revels in the sensation. 

“Oh? Are you going to make it up to me?” He murmurs, feigned surprise in his voice as you pull the zipper down. He lifts his hips up helpfully, just enough for you to fish his cock out. 

You don’t bother replying to him. Instead, you steady his cock and suck on the insides of your mouth for a while. 

Then, you open your mouth, tongue out and resting on your lower lip as a trail of saliva drips from your mouth and onto Sylus’ cock. 

You see the way his cock jerks, precum spilling furiously from the tip. And when your saliva pools on Sylus cock, dripping into the slit and mixing with his precum—

“Fuck,” Sylus curses lowly. “Fuck, sweetie, you—”

You look up. Sylus’ pupils are blown wide open, dilated beyond belief as he stares at your mouth. His cock twitches, throbbing beneath your fingers and you slowly start to stroke, the slide made smooth by your saliva and his precum. You rub the pad of your thumb at his slit, playing with the sensitive head of his cock until he jerks, hips snapping up as he growls and tightens his grip on your waist. 

“You’re going to give a man ideas,” he groans, looking at you through half-lidded eyes. His gaze is hazy with arousal, and he looks at you with the confidence of a man who knows that you know he’s about to cum. His lips are crooked up in a taunting smile. 

You lick your lips. He looks good enough to eat. You had this cock in your mouth just hours ago, bruising the back of your throat, but you feel like sucking it again. You feel like running your tongue over the thick length of this cock. 

“I should edge you too.”

Sylus tilts his head. “You could,” he says agreeably. “Until I ordered you to make me cum. With your mouth. Your tits. Your fingers.”

His eyes drag down along the line of your body, pausing meaningfully at each location he mentions. “Your thighs,” he continues, looking straight at the sticky and damp patch between your thighs, tracking all the way up to your pussy. 

You shiver, clit pulsing at the thought of him rutting between your thighs. 

“Oh? You liked that, didn’t you?” He smirks, a pleased air settling on his shoulders as he looks you over. “Put your fingers to work, sweetie. I know you know how to use them.”

Some part of you really wants to resist on principle. But the horny part of you prevails, and you watch with satisfaction as you pull Sylus to the brink in a handful of minutes—he groans, a deep and hoarse sound as his muscles roll with the effort of keeping still so you’re balanced on his lap. His cock throbs heavily in your hand, betraying how he’s barely hanging on to his self-control, and you watch with bated breath as sticky cum spurts out in your palm.

You cup his swollen cockhead, catching the streaks of white cum on your fingers so it doesn’t stain his sweater. He makes a delicious sound when you rub the head of his cock against your palm while he’s still cumming—the overstimulation makes him twitch, fingers clenching at your waist over and over again as if to ground himself with the touch of your skin. 

“You made a mess,” you note idly, stroking him through the aftershocks. “Are you going to clean up after yourself?”

Sylus huffs, still breathing heavily with every pass of your hand, hips rutting up instinctively. “Decide where you want me to lick it off,” he grunts, free hand pulling your dress all the way up to your collar to expose your breasts. He licks his lips, giving you a pointed look as he blatantly stares at your tits, and you can feel the way your nipples harden under his gaze. 

“Go on,” he murmurs, breath catching when you rub at the underside of his cockhead. “Tits or cunt, sweetie? I’m feeling generous enough to let you choose.”

You want his mouth on your cunt again, but if he brings you to the brink one more time before ruining the orgasm, you might actually kill him. In these trying circumstances, having him lick the remnants of his cum off your breasts might be a better idea. 

Having come to a decision, you take your hands off his cock. Your palms are sticky with his cum, long strands of cum stretching between your fingers, and you reach up to cup your tits. 

Sylus watches intently, eyes glued to the way you pinch your nipples between your fingers. The way you spread his cum all over your tits, leaving white streaks on your skin as you go. His lips are slightly parted, tongue darting out occasionally to swipe across his lower lip as he watches, as if he can’t wait to put his mouth on you. 

His mouth on your chest, you think deliriously. Teeth worrying at your nipples, sucking at your skin until he leaves a ring of bruises across your skin. Tongue flicking those pretty buds until you’re begging for more, for fingers in your cunt—or his tongue flat, letting you rub your tits all over his mouth. 

You can’t decide which is better. So you press your arms together, pushing your cum covered tits up, and offer them to Sylus. 

“Clean them up,” you murmur, and Sylus chuckles.

“How demanding. Even when you have no power to order me around.” His tongue swipes against your left nipple, a fleeting sensation that sends sparks down your spine. “Lucky for you, I am feeling rather hungry.”

==

The torture continues. He corners you on the couch when you’re trying to watch something to get your mind off the hot arousal pooling in your gut for the past few hours. He puts you on his lap, back pressed up to your chest, feet up and planted on either side of his thighs on the sofa. Your hands under your knees just to hold yourself open for his taking as he plays idly with your cunt while watching the show you put on.

He keeps up a loose commentary about the show, laughing lightly when the male lead appears shirtless in the shower. “Is this what you watch in your free time?” Sylus asks, three fingers deep in your pussy while rubbing insistently at your clit. “Naked men in the shower?”

“Mmmph!” You moan, eyes rolling back at the electricity sparking in your veins. His fingers are thick and clever, pushing up against the bundle of nerves inside your pussy with such damning precision that your entire body is shaking from the effort of not cumming. And it’s like Sylus knows that, with how he shifts you easily in his lap, pulling you tighter against him and fucking rougher into you with his fingers. 

Like he’s trying to push you all the way to the brink. Like he takes pleasure in the way you deny yourself just to be obedient to him. 

“You’re missing the good parts,” Sylus continues, murmuring quietly in your ear. His voice isn’t loud, but your entire world seems to have shrunk to focus solely on him. His fingers, his heat, the puff of his breath against your ear. You’re looking straight ahead, eyes half-lidded, but you’re not seeing much of anything on the screen.

“Sylus,” you whine, pussy clenching tightly around his fingers. “Please, please, it’s been hours—”

He bites the shell of your ear, hard enough to sting, then runs his tongue wetly over the mark. “Patience,” he coaxes, even as his fingers pull at your clit hard enough to make you cry out, hips jerking forward uncontrollably. 

You’ve kind of had it with patience, but when Sylus lets go of you, third orgasm ruined, you take a deep breath and hold yourself back from strangling him. You do need his cock hard and alive to fuck yourself stupid on, when he’s stopped being so unhelpful. 

You go to bed early, nerves tense and temper high. If you punch the pillows around a bit before settling down and yanking the covers up to your chin, that’s between you and the bed. And Mephisto, who is likely reporting everything back to Sylus the moment you fall asleep. 

It takes ages, and a lot of tossing and turning in bed, but you must have fallen asleep at some point because you wake up to your legs in the air, held together by one hand wrapped around both ankles, and an unbearable heat between your thighs, pushing insistently against your clit.

You gasp, still dizzy from sleep and distracted by the wet slide of something against your pussy, hot and demanding. It drags along your slit, bumping the underside of your swollen pearl on every upstroke. It’s a slow, tenacious fire that builds in your gut, stoking the dying embers and coaxing the flames to roar up your spine once again. 

“Awake?” The voice is low, closer to a growl than anything else. “Go back to sleep, sweetie. All I need are your thighs and this sweet little cunt.”

His hips roll against yours, driving his cock further along your pussy. He fucks your thighs slowly, so fucking patient as he chases his orgasm—patience that you don’t have. You would try to coax him to fuck you harder if you weren’t still half-awake, vision bleary as you weakly clutch at the bedsheets. 

You’re not even sure what’s happening. All you know is that your pussy is aching, throbbing so badly for something, anything to be stuffed inside. His cock saws between your thighs, the slide made smooth by the copious amount of slick you’re dripping, and you moan when the head of his cock bumps against your clit. 

“More,” you gasp, the word rattling in your throat. “Sylus, please—”

“Shhh. Go back to sleep.”

You shake your head as best you can. Your back arches, trying to roll your hips up into his to get a better angle. To put more pressure on your clit. You’ve been denied for so long that you’re tiptoeing on the jagged knife’s edge—you just need a bit more, a little more of something, and you know you’ll cum.

But Sylus keeps up this devastatingly slow pace, like he’s taking his time, like he’s savoring the experience of you writhing beneath him. 

“Please,” you beg, eyes fluttering shut. There’s a moment where your voice breaks in two, and you think you might cry if he denies you again. It’s a steady build up, a long trek up a mountain with a payoff you can see, just barely out of reach. 

“Not yet,” Sylus replies softly. There is another hand on your hip, thumb rubbing gently over the skin there. It’s almost a reassurance, an attempt to cool the flames licking over your body, but then he moves your legs over one shoulder so his other hand can join your legs, squeezing your thighs together to create a tighter crevice for him to fuck into. “You can take it, sweetie.”

You’re not sure you can. The back of your thighs are pressed up against Sylus’ chest, the jut of his broad shoulder leaning into your calves. He holds you in place like you’re nothing more than a sex toy he’s using in the middle of the night to try and rub one off. He rocks his cock against your pussy, the full length of it scraping past your slit and peeking through your thighs at the end.

Your clit feels battered and bruised and far too sensitive for the consistent grinding of his cock. When he pulls back, far enough that the head of his cock is positioned right at the mouth of your pussy, you can hear the way you start to whine. 

You can feel it. The briefest touch of pressure, his cockhead nudging at your cunt, teasing your hungry pussy. Like he’s going to sink in and fill you up so full you can feel it in your throat, if you just ask nicely.

But he won’t. He teases your cunt just enough to make you shake, then he continues the slide to make the head of his cock kiss your clit. 

“You’re so mean,” you cry out, voice trembling as your pussy mouths hungrily at the touch of his cockhead. “Please, Sylus, I’m begging, please, please—”

Sylus grunts. His grip on your thighs gets tight, and you imagine you can see the veins in his forearm bulge. You imagine the way he’s frowning, brows taut as he grits his teeth and stares down at you like he wants to eat you alive. 

Restraint looks so ugly on him, you want to say, but the pressure against your pussy grows and your mouth drops open. It feels like some higher power is perched above the two of you, drawing the air from your lungs out, wisp by wisp, as your cunt opens up for the head of Sylus’ cock. 

“You don’t know how fucking good you look like this,” Sylus forces out, gripping you hard enough that it aches, that you know you’ll wake up with handprints on your outer thighs tomorrow. “Good enough to eat, sweetie. Just look at you.”

You open your eyes, hazily looking up. Sylus’ eye is glowing, glinting crimson through the dark, and there’s a ravenous look in his gaze. He looks down at you, searching your body, watching the bounce of your tits every time he fucks into you, the fat head of his cock slipping in just barely.

It’s not enough. There’s a gaping hole inside your pussy, so deep inside you that only Sylus’ full length can reach it to pummel it into submission. Even as you clench around the tip, your cunt mouthing hungrily at Sylus’ cockhead, it’s not enough.

“Just the tip,” Sylus groans, voice tight as he grinds the head of his cock into your pussy. “That’s all you’ll get for tonight.”

You arch your hips up, trying to force him to slip further into you. “More, I want more—”

He laughs breathlessly, hips stuttering when you tighten desperately around his cock. “Soon,” he promises, carefully fucking into you. Sylus keeps his word, feeding you just the tip and nothing else.

“You feel divine,” he murmurs, breathing heavily. The rhythm of his hips falter, a telltale sign that he’s losing control. He’s close, you think deliriously, and flex your pussy around his cock to pull him along at a faster rate. 

“Inside,” you moan, fingers blindly tracing down your body to find his hands, gripping his wrists. “Inside, inside, inside me,” you chant desperately.

“Want me to paint your pussy white?” Sylus coos, hips speeding up. The head of his cock pops in and out of your pussy, bullying its way past your throbbing hole to open you up just enough before he pulls back. It’s a horrible tease, and sometimes he moves too fast, too eager to sink his cockhead into the wet heat of your cunt and he misses. 

It makes him curse, eyes skimming down your body to fixate on your thighs. He watches you with the hungry intensity of a predator on a hunt—the shaking in your thighs, the way his slick cockhead peeks out from between your thighs, the way your chest squeezes tightly every time he grinds flatly along the swollen bump of your clit—

He slides back in your cunt, fucks in harshly, deeper than before, deep enough to make it feel like your breath’s been punched out of you.

Sylus’ cock throbs, pulses hotly inside you, and you can feel the spurts of cum against the walls of your cunt. 

The pooling heat of cum inside you is almost enough to make you tip over the edge. But your clit throbs insistently, demanding attention that Sylus refuses to give you. Your pussy clenches and unclenches tightly around Sylus’ cock, coaxing his orgasm out as he groans from the sensation. 

He holds himself tightly above you, refusing to fuck deeper or pull out. Sylus pants, the sound of his heavy breathing filling up the space around you as you try to catch your breath yourself, fingers still holding on to Sylus’ wrists. 

When he finally collects himself, his cock giving one last jerk inside your pussy, he leans down. Sylus’ face is right above yours, in painful clarity despite how dark the room is, and you look up at him with your heart thudding in your chest.

His gaze searches your face for a moment, then he smiles. 

“Good girl,” Sylus croons, and one of his hands leave your thighs. “Be obedient for a little bit more, and you’ll be rewarded at the end.”

“Twenty-four hours is way too lo—” your voice cracks, going high at the sudden touch of a thumb, wet with slickness, on your stiff clit. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, crimson gaze fixated on you. “Easy does it, sweetie. I’ll give you what you want.”

He brings you to the brink again, and again, and again, until you drift off to sleep from how worn out your body is.

==

© rrrrinmaru 2024 | no unauthorised publication or reproduction allowed

[moon1833]

PICKLED PLUMS - INUMAKI TOGE

“There’s something he wants to say to you, and you know it, but he can’t. Inumaki’s never hated being a cursed speech user more than this moment.”

Inumaki was more athletic than he let on, something that was hidden behind the baggy clothing he relied on.

He had been training for years before he ended up at Jujitsu High, and he was a bit unaware of his own strength himself.

Eventually, he figured the proper amount of force needed for whatever task, fitting in well with you and the other first years.

You, on the other hand, were a bit newer to fighting. Maki was ruthless with you, and while you appreciated it, she became focused on Yuuta, another student who joined midway through the school year, and suited Maki’s fighting style a bit better.

Inumaki, being the kind-hearted person he’s always been, became your new sparing partner, and you had to admit he was much gentler than Maki.

Now at your second year, you and Inumaki had become closer, parring up on missions and training together.

“Ready?” You asked, about five feet away from Inumkai, hands out in front of you in a defensive stance.

He nodded, charging at you first. Instead of dodging, you decided to try something slightly new, meeting him head on with a firm block.

He grabbed your wrist, attempting to sweep your feet under you simultaneously, but you slid out of his grip before he could, pushing him away to create more distance.

As usual, that pattern went on a few more times. The two of you matched fighting styles so perfectly it was difficult for either of you to land a blow or create an advantage.

As you fought, the first years as well as Maki and Panda were watching from the bleachers, unbeknownst to the two of you.

They were too far away for you to hear, and even if you did, you wouldn’t have noticed, too caught up in Inumkai.

You jutted your elbow out, trying to make contact with his cheek, but he read your movements, catching your shoulder and using your momentum to throw you to the ground.

Your arm, bent oddly, hit the ground wrong, causing your wrist to bend the opposite direction with a sharp snap. You had a high pain tolerance, but it caught you so off guard a small sound escaped your mouth, the small shriek of pain sounding so uncharacteristic from you it made Inumaki freeze.

Gently but quickly, he shifted in front of you, turning you over so you were facing him, his fingers finding either side of your face in panic.

“Mustard leaf?” His voice was slightly higher than usual.

“I’m.. okay.” You manage to grunt out, pain searing from your wrist. You try to hide it behind your back, but Inumaki notices instantly. He goes to take a look, but with your other arm, you throw your weight on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

“You’re dead.” You try to sound amused, but your voice is strained.

Inumaki looks up at you, worry still in his gaze but it’s over powered by disapproval, even though there’s a small smile tugging at his lips.

“What?” You laugh lightly. “You’re really going to stop a fight because you hurt the enemy a little too much?”

Before he can respond, he stands, keeping you in his arms. He tucks you into his chest, one hand under your knees while the other gently holds your shoulder.

“Toge!” You exclaim, a bit shocked by how effortlessly he carried your weight.

He doesn’t say anything until he successfully carries you to Shoko, laying you down on her examining table.

“You realize it was my wrist, right?” You almost laugh at Toge’s determination expression. “You didn’t have to carry me all this way.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket, typing into his notes app.

‘It was my fault you got hurt, it was the least I could do :(’

You shake your head at the message, opening your mouth to speak before Shoko returns, taking a look at your hand that was twisted at the wrong angle.

A few minutes go by, and you’re once again astounded by Shoko’s technique, because you’re freely moving your hand as if it was never broken. For good measure, she wrapped it with a bandage, instructing you to change it before bed for a week.

Before you could leave, Inumaki took your injured hand in his, examining it until he was satisfied. A spark of redness flew up your cheeks as he held your hand, but you tried to swallow it.

You had strong feelings for Inumaki, but you tried your best to bury them. You felt that expressing them would create a mess, and you didn’t think he returned your feelings, anyway.

That didn’t stop your heart from running whenever you replayed his hands cupping your face.

“Thank you.” You say softly as he walked you to your dorm. The hand you had injured had been your dominant one, and you were struggling to use the other as you missed the keyhole to your dorm.

Inumaki put a gentle hand on your shoulder, causing you to turn to him. He was closer to you than you thought, and your eyes flickered to his lips for a moment before you noticed his outstretched hand.

Placing your key in his hand, he opened the door for you, letting you slip inside. Before the door could close, you turned back to him.

“Do you want to come in for a little while?” You asked.

He nodded at you, a bit flushed behind the collar of his jacket. You didn’t notice, too preoccupied with how his hair swayed when he shook his head.

You stretched your hand a little as you sat down on your bed, patting the space next to you.

He obliged, a little too quickly, settling a small distance away from you.

Subconsciously, he outstretched his hand, his gaze stuck on the bandages tightly wrapped around your wrist.

“I’m okay, Toge.” You repeat. His first name off your tongue made his heart jump.

He nodded, but he didn’t take his eyes off of your injury. Sighing, you held his hands in yours, trying not to think about the softness and warmth they possessed.

“It was an accident.” You barely hear the words leave your mouth, stuck on how Inumaki stares at you. He darts around your face, as if trying to imprint the image of you so close to him.

He reaches to pull a stray hair away from your face, and his collar falls even more as he moves. You catch a glimpse of the marks on his face, ones that look so delicate on him you can’t help but let your gaze linger there.

Inumaki stops his movements when he takes notice of your stare, feeling rather insecure about it.

He goes to pull his jacket up, but you stop him, your thumb grazing his jaw. His lips part in surprise, shifting a bit closer to you.

There’s something he wants to say to you, and you know it, but he can’t. Inumaki’s never hated being a cursed speech user more than this moment.

“Umeboshi.” He mutters. It’s another onigiri ingredient, pickled plums to be exact. Coincidentally, it’s also your favorite kind of onigiri. But, as far as you knew, he’d never used that word before.

Your head tilts in confusion, and Inumaki grasps your hand, pulling it down onto his lap and squeezing it tightly. With his other hand, he reaches into his pocket and begins typing on his phone.

You use his undivided attention to appreciate his face, wanting to trace the curve of his mouth with yours. A moment later, he bashfully hands you his phone.

‘It means I like you, more than in a friend way. I have for a while’

The message is simple, short and utterly sweet. Upon further inspection, you notice that the note had been written over a month ago. It has heat rushing to your face, and you tear away your eyes to see Toge looking shy as ever, unable to meet your gaze as he fiddles with your bandage.

“Toge.” You say his name, and he turns to you, but his eyes don’t meet yours.

With newborn confidence, you hold his face in your hands, sitting up to scoot closer to him. His eyes widen, but you miss it when you close your own to kiss him gently on his lips, tracing a thumb over the marks on his face.

Right as you pull away, Toge chases after your mouth, his hands tucking themselves into your waist to pull you closer before sliding to the small of your back, kissing you deeper.

After a few moments, you pull away again, muttering a small “Umeboshi” back at him with a smile.

[ceilidho]

i know our country roads reader isn’t bold enough (?) but oh my god let’s imagine for a second. price has done enough feet-sweeping. it’s time to whimper “daddy” in his ear unprompted when he’s finally worked his dick all the way in :)

NOT BOLD ENOUGH??? but you’re probably right lmaooo I don’t want this fic to become a daddy kink fic and though I’m OBSESSED with this scene that you’ve just described, I feel like that would be suited to a fic where the established relationship dynamic is heading that way, and that’s not really the case with this fic.

Unfortunately sometimes u have to sacrifice a really hot moment in order to preserve the larger ethos and vibe of the story. My biggest pet peeve is when authors lose the plot midway through their story and do something wildly off topic because they likely got a bit bored in the writing process and something else interested them so they randomly inserted that in.

But by god, I will do a daddy kink price fic for you, I promise

[scary-grace]

Somewhere in the Crowd- a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Tomura tells himself he's content with singing backup in the band he founded, and most of the time he is. But when he takes a song request from you during the biggest concert the League of Villains has ever played, he realizes that there might be a few advantages to claiming the spotlight. 4.1k words, no quirks, band au. the League sounds like Lord Huron because I want them to and all songs referenced are from LH's discography.

this fic is for the lovely @scarlettcryptid's birthday! she offered me free rein to write a Shigaraki x reader fic, and true to form I have produced a band AU. happy birthday Scarlett! sorry it's a little late.

Even midway into his second tour with the band he started, Tomura still hasn’t fallen for the supposed romance of being onstage. It’s hot under the lights. The entire venue smells like sweat. And if it wasn’t for the earpiece jammed in one ear and the earplug jammed in the other, he wouldn’t even be able to hear what the rest of the band is doing. Not Twice on drums, not Toga on violin or musical saw or whatever weird instrument she dug up, not Dabi on piano or Spinner on guitar, and definitely not either Dabi or Spinner’s singing. Without the goddamn earpieces, the League of Villains would fall apart.

And at the same time, Tomura doesn’t hate it quite as much as he used to. Since the League got signed with Deika Records, they’ve been playing sold-out shows in increasingly larger venues. Tonight’s venue has three thousand people. Three thousand people paid money to get in, and some number of them paid more money to meet-and-greet with the band afterwards, and right now, all of them are focused on the stage.

They’re mainly focused on Spinner and Dabi, who are singing, or on Twice, who’s always doing something weird and destined to go viral, or on Toga, who’s better at playing to the crowd than anybody else in the band. Tomura, off to one side of the stage with his bass and a mic in front of him, might as well be an afterthought. And that’s fine with him. He’s the one who formed the band. He’s the one who writes the songs. His music is in the spotlight. That’s good enough.

They’ve just wrapped up a crowd favorite, one of the songs from the first album, and they’re officially in the back half of the set. Tomura glances down at the set list, sees the blank spot, and feels a wave of apathy sweep over him. It gets even worse when Spinner, his handpicked lead singer who’s all about keeping things fair, steps up to the mic and announces it to the crowd. “We’ve got space for one more request, so send it on over to Shigaraki! It’s his turn to pick.”

When it’s Dabi or Spinner picking the request, people rush the stage, and people rush it this time, too – so they can try to get the poster they made or the picture they want signed right up and personal with Spinner and Dabi. Tomura sidles awkwardly over to the edge of the stage, wondering if anyone will try to request something from him. Tonight there are two dozen or so, all with big posters asking for the band’s most famous songs. Someone wants a deep cut, one that Dabi sings solo, and Tomura’s feeling like an asshole, so he skips that one on purpose. And then he spots something else.

It’s not a poster or a photo for signing. It’s a piece of folded-up notebook paper, held up by someone who doesn’t look like the type to be right up front at a League of Villains concert. It’s hard to get a good look at your face with all the posters in the way, and somebody keeps bumping into you, almost knocking you over. You keep your arm up, your piece of notebook paper flapping, and Tomura reaches out to the absolute edge of his balance and snatches it from your hand.

“We have a winner,” Toga calls out, and a bunch of people cheer – because it’s Toga talking, not because Tomura grabbed a request. “What’s it gonna be, Tomura-kun?”

Tomura unfolds the piece of paper. Three words. Play your favorite.

He knew he grabbed the right one. “Lost in Time and Space,” he announces, to the tune of a collective “huh” from the audience. “Spinner. Move over.”

Spinner’s grinning as he steps away from the center mic. “We haven’t done this one in forever,” he says, too quietly for the crowd to here. He swaps his guitar for Tomura’s bass. “Whoever did the request must be a fan of yours.”

Tomura doesn’t think you are, really. He’s not even sure you’re a fan of the band. If you were, you’d have requested a specific song, not just requested that Tomura play his favorite song. Tomura feels a surge of nerves as he gets set at the center mic, then pushes them aside. Just because he hasn’t sung lead in a while doesn’t mean he’s forgotten how. Everyone might rather look at Spinner or Dabi, but for the next three and a half minutes, they’re going to have to put up with looking at him. Tomura cues the rest of the band, adjusts his grip on Spinner’s guitar, and plays.

It’s an old song, off the League’s first LP. That LP became their first album, with the weird character songs and story arcs the League is famous for, but neither Spinner nor Dabi wanted this song. Tomura doesn’t blame them. He was pretty depressed when he wrote it, and it’s a little too mopey for the LP and for what the League usually plays. But it’s his damn song. He hasn’t played it on tour at all. He’s going to enjoy it.

He does enjoy it. Not enough to make him miss singing lead or being the star of the show, but he enjoys getting to play a song that’s his, one he didn’t write to play to anybody else’s strengths. And at the end of the song, once he’s stepped away from the center mic and gone back where he belongs, he picks up the notebook paper off the stage and tucks it into his pocket. Whoever you are, he hopes you got what you were looking for out of the show. As he slogs through the rest of the set, Tomura wishes he’d gotten a good look at your face.

After three encores – a record – Tomura and the rest of the band get a break, hanging out in the green room before the meet-and-greet. Toga beelines for the fridge, but instead of opening it, she hauls out a can of air freshener from the floor next to it and starts spraying it everywhere. Twice gets a blast in the face and sneezes through his mask. “Hey, what the hell? That’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled and it sucks!”

“It smells like boy sweat in here,” Toga says. “I love you guys, but you stink. The girls at the meet and greet won’t like that.”

“Some of them are into it,” Dabi says, and smirks. Spinner grabs the air freshener from Toga and sprays both armpits. “Quit simping so hard for your fans, lead singer. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”

“They paid to come talk to us. We shouldn’t tear-gas them with our body odor.”

“So you’re going to tear-gas them with air freshener instead?”

“They’re his fans. He can do what he wants.” Tomura shakes his head when Spinner offers him the can. Deodorant exists, and it’s not like anybody’s going to want to talk to Tomura anyway. “That goes for everybody. Do what you want. But if you break Magne’s rules, you’re on your own.”

Magne’s been the tour manager since halfway through their first tour, and she’s strict as hell. In fairness to Magne, they earned it. Halfway through their first tour, one meet-and-greet turned into one party and turned into five separate scandals, one for each of them. Spinner’s was the smallest and Twice’s was pretty funny, but Dabi and Toga both spent a night in jail over theirs, and although it upped their cred with the fanbase, it also tanked a possible record deal. Kurogiri showed up to bail them out, and he brought Magne with him.

The door to the green room opens, and Magne steps in, like Tomura somehow summoned her by mentioning her name. “They’re all lined up,” she says. “I’m sneaking you in the back way. Does everybody remember the rules?”

Tomura mumbles agreement along with everybody else. Magne’s smile takes on a dangerous glint. “There are only three important ones,” she says. “First: The bus leaves when it leaves, regardless of who’s on it. I don’t care how hungover you are. Get your ass on the bus.”

When Tomura’s hungover, he usually sleeps on the bus, just to make sure it doesn’t leave without him. “Second,” Magne continues, “remember that whatever you do with a groupie is going to end up all over the internet. And don’t bring any groupies on the bus unless the rest of the band okays it.”

That’s happened exactly never. Tomura uses the bus trips for writing or for naps, and too much groupie bullshit makes it hard to do either. “And finally,” Magne says, “if I find out that any of you were hooking up with a groupie in a goddamn koi pond again, I’m taking you to the vet and having you neutered before you sober up.”

“That was one time!” Twice protests.

“Yeah, and we’re still getting therapy bills from the fish,” Tomura says. Toga cackles. “Can we get this over with?”

“Yep! Right this way.” Magne leads them out the door and down a hallway, then ushers them through the door into the venue’s VIP lounge. Tomura’s last in line, and she grabs his arm before he can go in. “I got a call from the big boss at Deika. He says to try not to look like you’re in pain the entire time.”

“Tell him to stop looking at me, then.” Tomura shrugs her off, steps through the door, and skulks over to the far corner of the room. “Nobody else is.”

Back before he made it in any capacity, Tomura used to daydream about meet-and-greets, getting all wound up over the idea that people would pay to talk to him about his music. A few years into his career, the reality’s set in: Meet-and-greets are for photos and autographs and fans throwing themselves at the artists, and nobody throws themselves at Tomura. Kurogiri thinks it’s his stage presence, or the fact that he doesn’t interact with fans on social media, or that he doesn’t look very approachable. Tomura’s pretty sure it’s about how he looks, period. With a face like his, approachable doesn’t matter.

The fans start filtering in, beelining for the others, and Tomura digs his notebook out of his pocket. He might as well write a bit.

Compress, who handles production and merchandising on the tour, swings by at one point to give Tomura the figures. They’re doing well, which is a surprise. “Even the new stuff?”

“The K-pop strategy is working,” Compress says. He lifts his mask to take a sip of water, then lowers it down again. “Everyone’s trying to collect them all – the photo cards, the different editions of the albums, the replica costume pieces. The fans on Twitter are competing to see who can get an autograph on every piece of merchandise first.”

The fans on Twitter are really stupid. “If it works, it works.”

“It’s working very well,” Compress says. He pauses. “Somebody did come by looking for something I didn’t have. They wanted a copy of Vide Noir. Not the album – the LP.”

“The LP? Why?”

“Because the album doesn’t have Lost in Time and Space on it,” Compress says. “I’m not kidding, Shigaraki. Those were her exact words.”

Tomura has a hard time believing that. He’s pretty sure Compress is saying it just to build him up, because they’re halfway through the meet-and-greet, and nobody, not even the autograph hunters, has come to talk to Tomura. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Tomura didn’t start writing music so people will talk to him. That’s what he’s been insisting on since he started the band. Midway through their second tour, it’s almost the truth.

Compress leaves, and Tomura keeps writing, scratching away at a verse that’s not coming together. He’s just starting to wonder how much longer this thing is supposed to go on for when a shadow falls across his notebook page. “Um,” a girl’s voice starts. “Hi. Are you Tomura?”

“Dabi’s over there.”

“Yeah, I saw,” the girl says. “Are you Tomura?”

“I’m Shigaraki.” Tomura doesn’t look up. “You want to talk to Spinner? He’s over there. He likes the shy ones.”

Tomura’s not sure if Spinner likes the shy ones or if he’s just less scared of them than he is of the others. For a lead singer, Spinner’s unusually spooked by his fans. “Is Spinner the one who writes the songs?” the girl asks. “I wanted to talk to the person who writes the songs. If the liner notes are anything to go by, that’s you.”

Tomura looks up at tonight’s misguided, irritating fan, and stops at chest height when notes the lack of a backstage pass around your neck. He notes your breasts, too, and the fact that you’re not showing them off. “Nice work on sneaking in here without paying. Dabi will be impressed.”

“I didn’t sneak in,” the fan says. “The woman at the door let me in when I showed her this.”

Tomura doesn’t look up, and the fan sticks a notebook into the middle of his eyeline. A notebook with lined paper and the remnants of a torn-out page still clinging to the binding. Tomura fumbles in his pocket for the request he took and unfolds it, lining it up to match the torn edge of the page. The request is a little crumpled, but when Tomura smooths it out, he can see that the edges match.

His heart skips an awkward beat, then another. He’s not talking to a random fan. You’re the one who gave him the request. He hands you back the notebook without the request sets his own notebook aside, and gets to his feet, so he can finally get a look at your face. You’re pretty, and you’re dressed like you came here straight from an office job, and you came to talk to him – and he’s been a dick. “Sorry,” he says, the word feeling awkward and unwieldy as it forces its way out of his mouth. “Thought you were here for somebody else.”

You shake your head. “I was hoping to talk to you,” you say. “Sorry about the first-name thing. That was – awkward.”

You used Tomura’s first name, and Tomura was a jackass to you. That makes it even, in his opinion.  “What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to thank you for taking my request,” you say earnestly. You remind Tomura of some of Spinner’s fans. “And I wanted to know why you picked the song you did.”

Now you sound more like one of Dabi’s fans. Dabi’s fans get kind of direct when they want something. “I’ll tell you that if you tell me why you gave me that request instead of a normal one.”

You look at Tomura, and Tomura looks back. “Can we sit down?” you ask. “I took an elbow to the knee trying to get through the mosh pit, and my leg’s still kind of numb.”

Something about that strikes Tomura as funny, but he doesn’t realize what it is until you’re both sitting down on the floor, leaned back against the wall. “Did you just make a Skyrim joke?”

“Don’t get too excited. I only know the one.” You glance sideways at Tomura. “Want to see the bruise?”

Usually when Dabi’s fans ask him if he wants to see something, they mean their tits. Or their ass. Tomura nods, and you hike up your pantleg. Tomura gets kind of fixated on your ankle, then your calf, but then you pull the fabric up over your knee, and Tomura winces in spite of himself. “Are you sure it was an elbow and not a hammer or something?”

“Maybe it was. Your fans are kind of crazy.”

“The band’s fans,” Tomura corrects. You let your pantleg fall back, covering up your calf and your ankle, and Tomura feels weirdly disappointed. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“Why I gave you that request?” You tilt your head back against the wall. “You write all the songs, but you never sing lead, and songs sound different when they’re sung by the person who wrote them. I thought if I asked for your favorite, you’d pick one you sing lead on.”

And you were right. Tomura feels weird about that. Weird enough to answer your question before you can ask it again. “I picked that one because it’s the only one I still sing lead on. I have favorites for the band. But I always pick those. I just thought it might be – fun.”

“I liked it,” you say. “When Dabi and Spinner sing, they’re telling a story. It’s a good story, and they’re telling it well, but – when you sang it, it sounded like it was about you. Do you feel like you’re writing about yourself when you write songs?”

“Do you usually get this personal with people you just met?”

“I don’t usually meet my favorite songwriter,” you say. “So no.”

Your favorite. “I’m not your favorite. Don’t lie.”

“I don’t lie about stuff like that,” you say. “I wouldn’t take an elbow to the knee for my second-favorite songwriter.”

Tomura snorts. “I didn’t know people had favorite songwriters.”

“I’m weird,” you say comfortably. Now you sound like a Toga fan. Or one of Twice’s. Their fans don’t take themselves too seriously. “And I’m a writer, so I know the good stuff when I see it.”

“You write?” Tomura asks. He wouldn’t have guessed looking at you. Then again, he wouldn’t have guessed that you’d be at a League concert, either. “Poems or something?”

“No, stories,” you say. Tomura’s a little bit relieved. “Stories have arcs and plots, just like your songs do – and the band’s albums – but you do it in a lot less space than I have to work with, so you’re much more efficient. You can define a character in two lines, and it’s compelling. People connect with it. They must, or they wouldn’t dress up in those outfits.”

Tomura tries not to pay attention to the outfits. Sometimes seeing what people took away from his songs is a little upsetting. Listening to you talk about what you like about his songwriting style is a different kind of upsetting, the kind where he wants to believe it and knows he shouldn’t. “What’s your favorite?”

“Meet Me in the Woods,” you say without missing a beat. “I was kind of sad you all didn’t play it.”

“We need a female vocalist,” Tomura says. “We rented one for recording it, but Toga doesn’t sing, and Magne wouldn’t do it even when Twice dared her to. And Dabi said his balls shrink every time he puts his falsetto up that high.”

You laugh at that. Tomura likes what it sounds like. “Spinner says the song gives him the creeps,” he adds. “I sang lead in the studio.”

“You should sing lead for that one,” you say. “And find a female vocalist.”

Tomura shrugs. “Job’s open if you want it.”

Your face flushes instantly. “I bet you know better jokes than that.”

“Can you sing?” Tomura asks. You look away in a hurry, the flush deepening. Now you look like a Spinner fan again, but you’re not saying no, either. Now Tomura’s interested. He gets to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Tomura holds out a hand to help you up, and after a long second, you take it. “Let’s go.”

Tomura doesn’t let go of your hand, and you don’t pull away. It’s not until Tomura leads you back out onto the stage in an auditorium that’s now lit only by a ghostlight that you put the brakes on. “No.”

“There’s nobody in here but me,” Tomura says. “You said it’s your favorite song. Try it.”

“Would you try it, if you were me?” Your hand is shaking a little bit. “Faceplanting in front of my favorite songwriter was not on my agenda for this evening.”

“I’ll sing, too,” Tomura says. “I could always faceplant in front of my biggest fan.”

Maybe that was a dumb thing to say. Maybe you don’t want to be Tomura’s biggest fan. He waits for you to protest. Instead, you take a deep breath. “Start singing, then.”

The first verse is Tomura’s, and his joke about faceplanting in front of you gets a little too real in a heartbeat. There’s something weird about singing in front of just one person, someone he can’t see even though you’re right next to him. It’s a relief when you join him on the tag at the end of the verse, even if you’re quiet. And Tomura was right – you can sing, at least enough to harmonize, and to match his tone so your voice doesn’t clash with his. The real test will be the chorus, if you can keep pace with Tomura there.

And you can. Tomura knew you could, but he’s surprised by how good it sounds. By the last line of the chorus, you’re confident enough to screw around a bit, putting a turn on the last three notes of the third line instead of hitting them straight. Tomura’s not projecting his voice all that hard, and neither are you, but the auditorium’s empty. There’s nothing for your voices to hit that will deaden the sound, and the acoustics bounce it back in an echo that sends chills down Tomura’s spine.

When the echo fades, it’s silent. Next to Tomura, you shiver. “Maybe this was a bad place to sing this song.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Tomura will admit the line about the endless night hit a little harder than it was supposed to. “Tomorrow night, try not to stare into the lights.”

“I told you not to joke.”

“I don’t joke about stuff like this,” Tomura says. Now you’re reminding him of Spinner, who took way too much convincing before he’d believe that Tomura not only wanted him in the band, but wanted him to sing lead. “I told you. The job’s yours if you want it. Do you want it?”

It’s quiet for a second. “Where’s your next show?”

“A couple hours from here. Are you worried about your job or something?”

“No,” you say slowly. “Tonight was the last night of a business trip. I’m remote most of the time.”

“So you can work anywhere as long as you have internet access,” Tomura says. He hears you make some kind of distressed noise. “It’s your favorite song. I’ll put it in the set list and I’ll sing lead. You just have to sing it with me. Are you in?”

“This isn’t why I came here,” you say. “I just wanted to meet you and talk about your songs. I wasn’t trying to, like – get on the bus or something.”

“That would be a hell of a long con,” Tomura says. “I don’t think you’d go for that. Too many moving parts.”

“Yeah.” You make that distressed noise again. It’s sort of cute. “Is there a reason we’re still holding hands?”

“Yeah. It’s dark in here and I didn’t want you to fall of the side of the stage.” Tomura starts back towards the wings, pulling you along with him and trying to get his stupid grin under control before he steps back into the light. “Look at it this way. Even if you faceplant tomorrow night, it’ll be something to write about.”

“Are you going to write about this?” you challenge. “You never told me if you feel like your songs are about you.”

Tomura doesn’t, usually. He writes about characters for a reason. Most of the things that happen to him aren’t worth writing about. You, though – you fought through the mosh pit to give him your request, and then you came to find him after the show, and you like him as a lead singer and you can sing and you sound damn good singing with him. And you’re still holding his hand. Most of the things that happen to Tomura aren’t worth writing about. He met you half an hour ago and you already are.

You don’t try to let go of his hand, and you don’t hit the brakes again until you’re just outside the meet-and-greet room. “I want to know,” you say. The shellshocked look you had on when you got back into the light has faded. Now you just look pretty and stressed, and like you’re not going to take no for an answer. Tomura likes that. “Are your songs about you?”

“This one will be,” Tomura says, and he pulls you into the room to meet the rest of the band.

[anki-of-beleriand]

Bad Liar ch. 17

Summary: Life is about lessons, and Wanda has been learning some harsh facts that had define her life and taken her to a place in which she was given a second chance. Then, all of a sudden, she meets you, and she realizes why it's easier to lie to yourself than to accpet what's right in front of her.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff/ Female!reader - America/Kate - Mentions of past Vision/Wanda - past Natasha/Reader - Some Female!Reader/Carol Danvers - Mentions of Natasha/Maria being married

Warnings: Slow burn - Enemies to friends to lovers - Mentions of abusive relationships - Toxic relationships - angst - drama - mentions of abuse - violence - mentios of abused and sexual assault - idiots in love - violence - suggestive themes - drama - angst - fluff - top!reader - dom!reader - bottom!Wanda - switch!Wanda

Author's note: Life is settling down after what happened, America is growing up and ready to face the consequences of what happened. Wanda is letting go of the past while Reader is just being her showing Wanda happiness and love it is possible.

So sorry for the late posting, guys. Life was a little harder this week that what I was used to, and something happened that really got me anxious and a little bit...I mean, I was not in a good place, but hopefully everything is better now and here is the new chapter! Just one chapter to go and this story would be over. I hope you like it because I made it with my heart!

Please rmemeber English is not my mother tongue so forgive my grammar, spelling and funny mistakes, hope you like this one.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17 - Chapter 18

Chapter 17

The promise of the future

You never thought that going back home would be so difficult for you or even America. The place had been tied up and changed after the incident, with different furniture and painting you had allowed America free reign on her imagination to make the necessary changes into the living room.

The world had not stopped turning around, the news was still rolling on the TV and people were enjoying the weekend of the new year. You stood by your sister's side with a hand on her shoulder, America tensed lowering her gaze furrowing her brows before turning to you.

“What do you want to do?” Her question came with a trembling voice, she sighed, shaking her head while looking away from you.

You turned to look at Wanda's place then back at yours.

“I was thinking about vacations.” You hugged America, winking at her, “we could ask Tony about the cottage he had in Italy.”

America offered a shaky smile, “Italy?”

“Yeah, we could get away from this place for a while and then…get a new house.”

America chuckled, stepping away from you. You waited, ever since the both of you left the hospital America had tried to evade the topic of what had happened while she was under the claws of Agatha and Vision. The young woman scratched the back of her neck, with her eyes sweeping around the front yard. Her teeth playing with her lower lip, her feet taking slow steps towards the front door only to stop midway before turning to you.

“You don’t have to.” She finally said frowning, “it was difficult but not the end of the world, I…Hope offered her help, and I acceded to see a friend of hers that could be of help.”

You nodded curtly taking a few steps closer to her, “you know that even though we grew here we are allowed to leave, right?”

America snorted hugging you tightly, she knew it. She knew you would do everything in your power to make sure she was comfortable and that whatever traumatic event she had gone through could be healed and forgotten. Selling the house and even offering a vacation was your way to make things easier for her, but America had already talked this through with Christine and Hope. She had been scared, but more than that, she had felt powerless to help Kate, to help the twins and even to help Wanda.

“I know that, and perhaps in the future when I go to college you can think about it.” She replied shrugging, “I know you’re dying to get that Villa near Tony’s place, because you had always wanted a huge house with a pool and a bigger playroom.”

Your eyes glistened over with your lips curling into a content smile at the mental image these words evoke in you. America rolled her eyes, but she too could imagine the same; it was something she wouldn’t say no to when the both of you were ready, not because a bad experience marked their lives and they were doing it because of that. She had felt powerless to help the people she loved, but America would be damned if she allowed that man and that freaking woman to govern her decisions from now on.

“I want you to be comfortable, and happy.”

“I know, Y/N, and I am.” America nodded towards the house before pointing a finger at you, “come we need to get everything ready before we pick Wanda and the twins up.”

You watched as your sister went inside the house with the same determination she did everything else. Hope had already told you of the conversation the both of them held while you were unconscious, America had been angered by the whole situation and it took her a while to understand that there was no one else to blame but Vision and Agatha.

Kate had been the one to convince America to go to therapy for a while, just to perhaps let go of the growing fear and darkness the situation itself had created in both of them. You were thankful that America had always surrounded of good friends, and that you had always had someone by your side as well. Everyone seemed understanding, and while the situation was still fresh in your minds, you knew you would be okay.

“Come on, slowpoke!!” America screamed from inside the house, you rolled your eyes and followed her thinking about what would happen once Wanda was out of the hospital.

_____________________________

Wanda glanced at her reflection with a critical eye.

She scowled openly to the bruises around her neck and face, the paleness of her skin and the tiredness behind her eyes. She had spent the first weekend of the year in the hospital, waiting for the doctors to clear her up and sent her home while you and America took care of the twins while coming every day to visit her.

It had been hard.

While you had offered her the best end of the year and had been keeping your word of being by her side. Wanda couldn’t help the nightmares at night, when she was alone with her thoughts and the shadows of the past trying to crawl back inside her heart and mind. She placed a hand on her chest, holding tightly the sudden oppression threatening to cut of the air from her lungs. She clenched her jaw refusing the tears in her eyes, or the thoughts of fear that had creeped out once more. She had tried to hold onto what Hope had been teaching her in the therapy sessions, while also holding onto the bright side of her life.

Billy. Tommy. You. America and her students.

Wanda let out a shaky sigh before turning around and leaving the bathroom, you straightened up offering a half smile while holding up the bag with Wanda’s clothes.

“I put everything away, ready to do laundry duty as soon as we get home.” You walked towards her giving her a once over wiggling your brows, “you look nice.”

Wanda rolled her eyes, her lips curling slightly.

“You’re such a sweet talker,” she leaned in kissing your cheek, “it will get you everywhere.”

You blushed with your mouth hanging opened at the cheeky wink Wanda sent your way stepping out of the room, you snorted running to catch up to her.

The ride home was filled with music; Wanda kept her eyes out of the window watching the world pass rapidly through the window while you drove down the highway before taking the long way home. You caught the small smile adorning Wanda’s lips when you made the right turn, she sighed leaning back against the seat letting her eyes drink into the trees and the forest surrounding the road while watching the blue sky right above her head.

Wanda knew she needed to get home, Billy and Tommy were waiting for her. And life had to keep going, but something inside her stirred with fear and memory. She tried to keep away the words Vision had said to her, the feeling of his breath and hand on her, everything that the man had imprinted on her. Wanda clenched her eyes closed trying to erase those memories while replacing them with the beautiful sight in front of her, and the songs playing on the radio.

You creased your brows noticing the sudden change in Wanda, your eyes glanced at the road lighting up when you caught side of the road sign you usually dismissed when driving down that highway. You looked through the mirror before turning left, Wanda frowned turning to you slightly confused.

“Where are we going?” She asked softly, you smiled at her driving just a little faster until there was only one single road taking you deeper into a forestry area.

“You will see.”

Wanda opened her mouth to reply, her heart almost leaving her chest when she realised you made a turn she was not familiar with. For a brief moment she thought how foolish she had been. As long as she was with you everything would be fine, but the memories were not so easy to dismiss and she decided that at the moment she needed the comfort your warm stare usually brought to her.

The driving didn’t take far too long, soon you were turning left then right and then another right until you drove into an open space leading to a great cliff. Wanda opened her eyes glancing at the open sky with growing clouds approaching the city, she leaned forward until she saw the sight of the big city down into the valley. You stopped the car turning off the engine while resting comfortably on the seat, your lips drawing a small smile.

“Is this the place you used to bring your girlfriends?” Wanda asked at your side, you couldn’t help but laugh shaking your head.

“No, I never brought anyone here.” You confessed shrugging, “this was my little secret, I used to come here to think from time to time. Just me, it was comforting. I thought you may appreciate it.”

There was something stirring with deep affection in Wanda’s heart, the young woman snuggled on the car seat this time around turning completely so she could face you while still have her eyes take into the amazing view spreading before them.

“I don't know how to continue,” she all but whispered to you, her eyes glistening with the deepest of her emotions flickering in her green eyes, “I keep on thinking of my mistakes, the secrets I kept…I should have told you the dangers he posed to me and you.”

Silence filled the car, your eyes never leaving the sky above your heads. You pressed your lips together, your hands resting on the wheel, playing a soft tapping with your mind working on what to say. Wanda closed her eyes, looking away from you the afternoon falling slowly with the tension building up around the both of you.

“One day at a time, Wands, there is nothing much we can do.” You shrugged, lowering your head, still looking everywhere but at Wanda, “I didn't expect you to tell me everything right away, but I suspected as much. This was not your fault, Wanda. And this doesn't mean I love you any less.”

The word love rolled out of your tongue with such an easiness, Wanda couldn’t help but gasp with her eyes opening wide and her lower lip trembling slightly. You snorted shaking your head while leaning in your face just a few centimetres away from hers.

“You’re not used to hearing such words, are you?”

“No.”

Wanda leaned closer, her eyes fluttering close for a moment before she allowed your eyes to lock with hers. You lifted a tentative hand to cup her face, tenderness was quite evident in your features and Wanda allowed the warmth of your body to bring a soothing calmness she was not familiar with.

“I love you, Wanda.” You whispered only for her to engrave those words in her heart, “perhaps it is too soon, but for some reason, I just love you. I feel in love with you, and I don’t think there is nothing I can do against my feelings for you but make sure you feel loved, the way you deserved to be loved.”

Wanda swallowed down her words and tears, she offered a tentative smile before closing the gap between the both of you her lips dancing shyly with yours. Her heart beating fast, almost escaping her ribcage while she melted under your hands; you didn’t need to say anything else for her to know you certainly did love her. And she knew soon she would be ready to say those same words to you.

“It will take time, but you will heal.” You winked at her, your fingertips brushing against her cheek and jawline until your brows creased finding the marks on her neck.

“Some marks take time to…fade away.” Wanda mumbled slightly mortified by her wounds, she tried to lean back and hide away from you until her breath caught on her throat with her eyes growing big and her body tensing completely.

She felt the contact of your forehead against hers, the gesture was comforting and it made her experience an emotion she was not completely familiar with. Wanda’s heart fluttered affectionately surrendering to your gaze. She opened her lips ready to speak, but her words got tangled in her throat leaving her unable to express what she really wanted. What she really felt.

It didn't matter, though.

You were still there offering the same reassuring smile, and the same comforting touch. Wanda had to wonder how you did it, how was it possible for you to offer so much without asking for anything in exchange.

“We never got to have the date I planned.” Wanda said all of a sudden, you leaned back with amusement gleaming in your eyes.

“That's right,” you cocked your head wiggling your eyebrows, “and I got curious about it, what did you have planned?”

Wanda dipped her head with her lips curling into a tender smile, she straightened up on the seat glancing outside the window. 

“It's a secret, I guess I just have to plan it all over again so we can go.” Wanda sighed, still looking away from you. “Of course, if you want to…I mean, if you still want to go out. With me.”

The last part was said in a broken whisper, Wanda shifted on the seat creasing her brows while making sure her eyes were glancing at the city. The light of the day was soon fading away, and the city was starting to light up the artificial lights. 

“I would love nothing more than to go out with you, Wanda.” You replied with a tender smile on your lips, Wanda shivered trying to smile at you but failing.

The old insecurities were still there and you knew the work Wanda had done in the last couple of months had been shaken but the recent events. You could see her self-doubt, her uncertainty and the lost stare she gained after leaving the hospital. The bruises were pretty much visible at the moment, the pain was still pulsating through her body and Wanda was just trying to hold onto her sanity and her own determination to not fall into desperation. 

You lifted a hand slowly, your eyes seeking out those green eyes of Wanda. After a moment of hesitation, Wanda finally lifted her face looking at you expectantly. Her eyes flickered to your hand, then to your face.

“I was thinking…” Wanda winced, her throat sore and dried bringing discomfort to her voice.

You let your arm lifted for a moment before dropping it to the side to grab the bottle of water you brought early in the day.

“Thank you.” She mumbled almost dropping the bottle of water when you tenderly brush the spot on her neck. 

Her breath caught on her throat, trembling lightly with a mixture of emotions tingling through her body. Her face heated up, following with your eyes the movements of your arms and your own expression while mapping out the dark bruises on her neck. 

“Y/N…” your name left her lips tenderly, with some uncertainty that called your attention.

You frowned, stopping any movement from your hand, your eyes flickering from the bruises to her face.

“I'm sorry, did it bother you? I just…”

“No, no it's just…”

You broke into an easy smile that Wanda returned without losing her blush. She bit her lower lip, without any doubt behind her gestures she grabbed your hand placing it on the left side of her neck. 

“You surprised me, that's all.” Wanda sighed looking away for a moment before continuing. “I'm not used to such tenderness.”

You tensed lightly, your eyes flashing with anger before they softened lightly. Wanda offered a crooked smile, this time around she let go of your hand embracing herself.

“With you, everything is…different and sometimes I just can't believe this is happening.”

“May I try something out?” You asked suddenly, Wanda narrowed her eyes at the sudden flush showing on our face. Your fingertips trembled, with your lips pressed together while your eyes travelled from her face to her neck then back again.

“What are you going to do?” Wanda couldn't help the tone of wariness and curiosity; she tilted her head and your eyes gleamed strangely falling on her neck.

“Just something to show you how you should be treated, how you should be cherished.”

It was the husky tone behind your words what made Wanda tremble, she swallowed down her trepidation with a tingling void taking home in her abdomen. 

You waited patiently, your fingertips never leaving the soft skin of Wanda's neck. For a moment, Wanda just thought of her possibilities, of what exactly you were planning. Then her eyes went to your own bruises, to the wound on your hand and arm and she softened lightly. If there was anyone she trusted more than herself, that was you.

“Okay, you…you can try it, would I…I mean, is it dangerous?” 

You snickered, shaking your head, this time around there was a glint of mischief in your eyes. Wanda felt her stomach do a flip, and soon she let out a gasp while her hands clenched into a fist with her eyes fluttering close to the sensations you were creating with your mouth.

She never imagined you would lean in to place your lips on her pulse point, nor that you would start leaving open-mouthed kisses that went to draw the marks left on her neck. Wanda was not sure what to do with her hands, her body went rigid but her lower stomach and her heart were tingling over with an emotion she was not familiar with. 

You let your lips mapped out her skin, brushing lightly while letting your free hand cup her face tenderly. You wished to let Wanda know she was loved that not all touches directed at her were meant to harm or to mark, that she deserved the tenderness you were trying to show. 

You didn’t know what got into you, the only thing you knew for certain was that Wanda needed love, she needed to understand how wonderful she was. How she deserved happiness, and that no number of wounds or injuries from her past should get in the way of her new life. And thus, without any thoughts in your mind you leaned in to kiss away her neck your lips dancing tentatively on the bruised skin.

Wanda trembled under your touch, she let her hands wrapped around your arms her lips parting slightly while her body ignited with a fire she was no familiar with. Just as you started you finished it, leaning back with your heart hammering against your chest, your cheeks flustered and a timid smile adorning your lips.

Wanda was not in a better state, she was trembling with her face completely red and her breathing erratic. She could not hide her lust, nor the complete affection those green eyes shot at you as soon as she opened them.

You opened your mouth to speak, but whatever you were going to say was cut short by Wanda kissing you harshly. You welcomed her in your arms, allowing the passion she was trying to contain while kissing her back with the same need she was showing.

The afternoon finally gave way to the night, and while you allowed Wanda the control of the kiss you could feel her tears wetting your face. Until she could not continue and allowed herself the relief of your arms, unable to say what she had been trying to tell you for a very long time.

I love you.

______________

Wanda held onto the blanket, her eyes dancing around her room while the silver light of the moon sneaked into the room. 

The nightmare was still fresh in her mind, the shadows of the past haunting her in her sleep. Wanda let out a sigh putting the blankets away before sitting up, she was no longer tired and sleep was not an option, her eyes fell on her mobile showing the hour.

4 a.m.

The silence of the early hours of the day was deafening to her ears, Wanda turned around and decided a trip to the kitchen was a good idea. She put on some sweatpants, a hoodie and left her room with the memory of her nightmare dancing around in her mind.

The morning came with light snowing, the new year had come and gone bringing with it a world of possibilities Wanda never thought possible before. She grabbed the mug tightly around her hands, her eyes watching the snowflakes fall on her backyard. 

Wanda blew some steam out of her mug, her mind soon bringing over the memories of the day before. Your words, your smile, your touches; last day she had experienced a deep affection and protectiveness she had never felt before. The passion you had ignited in her with your kisses and your tenderness had made her soul tremble with want, but she had not dared to move forward and confessed what you had done so freely.

I love you. I'm in love with you.

Wanda couldn't help the smile breaking at the memory, without a single doubt she felt the veracity of those words whenever she was close to you. Whenever you went with her, or helped her children, or you simply were yourself. 

The young woman wished she could say it back to you, that she wasn't so afraid to be open and confessed the love she was feeling for you. Wanda wished things were easier, but she was still afraid. She had failed not only once, but twice and now that she was freed of her past, she was afraid of messing up a third time.

“You couldn't sleep either?” America crossed her arms putting the heavy coat closer to her body, she glanced at Wanda from her yard not really sure if her presence would be welcomed by the older woman.

Wanda glanced at America with eyes wide open, she tilted her head shrugging lightly.

“Not really.” Wanda all but replied with an effort, she hesitated for a moment before adding, “I have a nightmare.”

America made a face nodding, “yeah, me too.”

Wanda could see the indecision in America's face, she lifted her mug before patting the spot beside her. America tilted her head and for that moment Wanda could see the same gesture you did when you were weighing your options. The young woman turned to her house before stepping closer and moving past the side door to Wanda's yard. 

The snow kept on falling, America sat down furrowing her brows while watching at the sky. She could feel the eyes of Wanda on her, and the memory of her harsh words resounded in her mind. Before going to you, America had made sure to share her thoughts with the redhead, she made sure to let Wanda know America was not happy with what had happened. 

“I'm sorry.” America finally said huffing while turning to the shocked woman. 

America shifted on the spot furrowing her brows.

“Back in the hospital I just…I was stressed out, and finding out about this man and my sister, I was…”

“I know, I understand.” Wanda replied, placing a tentative hand on top of America's one. “You don't have to apologise.”

America shook her head frowning deeply, “but I do! Look I was unfair, when I was trapped in my house and then when I got to the hospital, I was partially blaming you for everything.”

Wanda winced ready to speak but America was firm on her explanation. She put her hand on top of Wanda's making sure to be as open as she could with her expressions.

“Y/N is the only family I have left, and I love her dearly. She has sacrificed so much for me, I just couldn't bear the thought of her suffering or losing her in any way.” America huffed, shaking her head with her eyes taking in the visible wounds on the woman before her.

“I never thought how much you and Billy and Tommy suffered all this time.” America confessed; Wanda tensed not wanting to interrupt America in the middle of her rant. “And after I got to see him, and everything I heard afterwards. I was not fair to you, I'm sorry I screamed at you and…that I was mad for something you couldn't control.”

Wanda shook her head offering a tiny smile to the young woman sitting beside her.

“There is nothing to be sorry for, America, I understand why you did it and I never hold it against you.” Wanda huffed, turning to see the snow fall, “I'm also sorry you and Kate had to live that, I wish things had been different. That he…”

America nodded curtly, and Wanda just shrugged.

“I guess right now he is where he must be, and he won't be hurting me or my children or even you and your sister anytime soon.” Wanda took a long sip from her tea, she glanced at the clear beverage before offering some to America.

The young woman grabbed the mug in her hands, she placed her elbows on her knees shivering lightly while glancing at the frozen ground.

“You really make my sister happy; you know?” She whispered pursing her lips a little.

“She makes me happy, and sometimes I just think I don’t deserve it.” Wanda cleared her throat wincing lightly when the old pain came bothering her again, “I never got to take her out, you know?”

“I know, I bet she would have loved the date you planned out for her.”

“You think so?” Wanda inquired with a hint of doubt in her voice, America nodded enthusiastically her lips curling lightly.

“You guys should really try it this time around, I mean now that everything is back to…” America was about to say normal, but the truth was nothing was normal anymore. Things were different, but they didn’t feel normal.

Wanda leaned back with hint of determination gleaming in her green eyes, she smiled lightly nodding to herself.

“Then, you should help me out.” Wanda turned to America who had her brows raised and eyes slightly opened. “I mean, I will have to plan it all over again, but this time around I want it to be perfect for her, I want to…”

Wanda didn’t finish her thought, but for America there was no need to. America could see the affection there as well as the will to offer you a perfect date. Silence fell between the both of them, no more words were needed it and America could see how little by little her family had grown in such a small amount of time.

She wished upon the falling snow for everything to finally fall into place and happiness to be possible again.

This time around, she also wished for Wanda, Tommy and Billy to be part of that happiness and to allow you and her to be part of that family.

_______________________________

Time passed slowly with the recovery of the wounds and the unstoppable meetings with Hope.

Wanda realized the nightmares were back, and she had to face the ghost of her past and her present while finally speaking about what had happened during those hours in which Vision had come back to her life. Hope was always patient, telling the young woman that the progressed she had made was still there but that the current fear and uncertainty she was feeling was just natural and in a matter of time she would let go and move on.

Wanda wished it was easier, and faster.

As of late being closer to you had been easier yet allowing you a single touch was difficult to experience. A part of her, the one that sound eery familiar, told her she didn’t deserve your affection much less the tenderness behind your touch. Wanda was afraid that her insecurities would finally push you away and she would be like at the beginning, alone.

“You have to be patience as well, Wanda,” Hope tilted her head smiling softly at her, “Y/N would never get tired of showing you her affection, and she knows and understands what you and your children are going through. You have told me of the conversations you both held regarding this situation.”

“Yes, but I just…” Wanda passed a hand through her hair, she turned to the window watching as the cold sun of winter sneaked through the clouds, “I’m just afraid she will get tired eventually, that I won’t be able to change this.”

Here she pointed to her chest, clenching her fist while growling lowly. Hope observed the young woman for a very long time, this was not a new discussion and in the last two weeks had been the main topic around their sessions.

“How is going with the planning of the date? Have you gotten what you need?” Hope asked trying to divert the topic to something that would ignite the flames of hopefulness in Wanda.

Wanda stopped her frustration giving way to a tender smile, her eyes softened nodding lightly.

“Yes, actually this time around I got America and her friends helping me out with the planning,” Wanda chuckled taking a seat, “they really are good teens, and I just need to pay the last part and I will be able to finally get her to the date I promise.”

“She will love it, you know that, right?”

“You think so?” Wanda pursed her lips resting her chin on her hand, “America told me she really loved this, and I just…God, she had been so good to me and my children, and I just…”

Hope waited for Wanda to continue but the other woman merely trailed off shrugging. Wanda wanted to be perfect for you, she wanted to make sure that what she was doing for you was enough to let you see how much she loved you. Wanda wanted to make sure that she was the right person for you, that in this new adventure she was enough.

“You are enough.” Hope commented offhandedly, ignoring the stare coming from Wanda, “but you need to start believing it yourself and giving yourself the chance to experience this.”

“I know.” She mumbled letting her hand rubbed her neck, “I’m really trying, you know? I don’t want this to consume the time I could spend with my children, with Y/N and with my new friends.”

Hope shrugged offering a comforting smile, “we have seen your efforts, Wanda. Don’t sell yourself short because this is not moving at the speed you want it, be patient and persistent. That’s the secret.”

Wanda sighed breaking into an easy smile when her eyes fell on her mobile and a new message appeared on the screen. Hope chuckled recognizing the name, and her eyes went to the clock on the wall. Right on time.

“I guess this is it for today, isn’t it?” Hope said chuckling when Wanda nodded putting the mobile away.

“I don’t know how to thank you for your help.” Wanda stood up waiting until Hope got to her to wrap her into a comforting hug.

“Nonsense. At the end of the day, Wanda, you are my friend as well and the important thing is for you to be and to feel safe.” Hope winked at her nodding to the door. “Now go, I bet they are waiting for you.”

Wanda nodded turning around and leaving the practice. Hope shook her head making her way towards the window where she could see you were standing right on the sidewalk with Tommy and Billy by your side grinning widely holding some posters on their hands. Wanda put a hand on her mouth, laughing before hugging her children while leaning into your embrace as well. Hope smiled tenderly watching the scene with fondness, you really were pretty much in love with the woman and your every action was to ensure her happiness.

Time was all you and her needed. Of that, Hope was completely sure.

The cold of winter came crashing against Wanda, but whatever coldness she was experimenting was soon forgotten when the warm of your hug and the arms of her children engulfed her completely.  She couldn’t help but smile when you planted a single kiss on her lips, and her children snickered calling out to her with posters in their hands.

“What are you guys doing here?” Wanda took the first poster that Billy had made, it was a drawing of their home decorated with many toys and colours representing her, Tommy, America and even Y/N.

“Y/N thought you missed us, and we decided to come and invite you to some snacks.” Tommy said also presenting Wanda with his own drawing. “And, she said you need support.”

“And thus, they did this for you.” You continued grinning, “this is mine, but of course not as good as theirs.”

In your you had written a single declaration of beauty and love in Sokovian, Wanda softened at the words and the drawings not being able to take her smile off of her face. She breathed softly when your lips found hers, her laughter breaking the moment when she heard Tommy and Billy making gagging sounds.

“Ugh, no, mommy!” Billy grabbed Wanda by her hand shaking his head, “come on!! I’m hungry!”

“Me too!”

You chuckled wiggling your brows while winking at Wanda, “come, America is waiting for us and then, once we have them distracted I will kiss you again.”

Wanda flushed but she decided she wouldn’t wait, instead of letting you go she grabbed you by your hand and placed a singe kiss on your lips. You blinked away your shock, while the twins merely snickered covering their mouths.

“Now, where are you taking me guys?”

“We’re going to the park!” The twins screamed running towards the car, you smiled at Wanda who merely blinked confused at you.

“The amusement park.” You clarified scratching the back of your head, “they have this new carnival and I thought you guys would like it.”

Wanda let her eyes wandered to her children then back at you, her heart shrank under your stare and the innocent happiness behind her children. She nodded stretching her hand to grab your right hand in hers.

“We’ve never been to one, so I’m pretty sure we would love it.”

“Good, then let’s go!”

__________________

The park was located it in the southern part of the city.

Winter was the perfect time to bring forth the ice-skating rinks, the place was filled with families and friends enjoying the falling afternoon light and the bright lights from the different attractions. Wanda felt her heart jumped anxiously when she lost sight of Tommy and Billy only to see them talking animatedly with Kate and America.

It didn’t take too long for her to see the familiar faces of her students, and some of your friends walking around the place while sharing a good time. You intertwined your fingers with hers, smiling softly at her while leading her to the closest food stand. You glanced around seeing as America shook her head while negotiating with the twins, Wanda leaned closer to you offering the same tender smile she reserved for you.

“This is amazing.”

“You liked it?” You asked softly, Wanda nodded squeezing your hand reassuringly.

“I do.”

“Good, I was thinking of doing something different with you and the twins, I know as of late you have been stressing out and they haven’t slept well.” You lowered your gaze to the menu, sensing as Wanda tensed by your side.

“You knew?” She turned to America then back at you, your lips broke into a crooked smile shrugging.

“I suspect as much.” You sighed pointing at the combo for a hot dog and soda, “this one look fine, what do you say?”

“It has been difficult but, nothing we can’t deal with.” Her tone of voice had improved since new year, but sometimes you could catch the scratching of her throat and the fading wound Vision had left on her.

“You know I’m here for you and the twins, don’t you?” You faced the young woman, this time around forgetting all about the food and focusing your attention on Wanda.

Wanda shifted letting go of your hand, she felt the cold breeze of the afternoon sneaked inside her clothing. She shivered missing the warmness your hand was providing, though if she were to be honest with herself, it wasn’t your hand. It was you. All of you.

“I know.” Wanda lowered her gaze, her arms wrapping around herself. “Sometimes it’s just difficult for me to know…to actually realise I’m not alone. And that…”

She trailed off when a young man came from behind the counter asking for your order. Wanda observed with care just as you asked for her favourites, while also making sure to ask for Billy and Tommy’s favourites. You knew them so well, Wanda wondered why she had never noticed how attentive you were, how much you knew about them without any difficulties.

You need to let go, and give yourself a chance.

Wanda had already had this conversation before, and she had already fought over with herself against the uncertainty that these new emotions and this new relationship might bring to her life. With a softening heart she sneaked her arm around yours leaning closer to you, you lifted your brows surprised by the gesture but smiling smugly at her closeness.

“Which one is your favourite?” Wanda asked all of a sudden, you furrowed your brows pursing your lips before speaking.

“I like it spicy; you know? No pineapple because, yuck,” Wanda chuckled taking into your every word, “and I like all the sauces I can get my hands on.”

“So basically, a hot dog that may kill you in the near future or get you an upset tummy?” Wanda commented shaking her head, you rolled your eyes shrugging.

“Come on, is not that bad!!”

Wanda snorted but she could not say anything else for Billy and Tommy came right there, both of them were quite excited talking at the same time pointing to a different set of attractions they wanted to try over. You smiled fondly just as Wanda tried to negotiate with her children, America chuckled lifting her arms when both of them pointed to her while pouting. Soon the food was brought over, and you decided it was time for you to intervene.

“Okay, okay, I have a proposal!” Everyone turned to you, your good arm lifting above your head before pointing with your head the table filled with food. “We are going to eat first, then we will go to the Carousel, then we will move onto the bumper cars.”

Billy and Tommy cheered high fiving while hugging you with smiles on their faces, Wanda chewed on her lower lip glancing at those rides before turning to you. You winked at her leaning forward while lifting a single finger.

“Then, we will go to the Ferris Wheel to see the lights show from the park, okay?”

“Yes!” The twins then proceed to drag you to the table eager to start eating and go to the different attractions.

Wanda and America stayed behind grabbing napkins and helping with the beverages.

“They really are happy.” Wanda stated glancing at her children then back at America.

“They really are, are you?”

“I am.” Wanda shrugged smiling softly, Kate came right at that moment helping around while turning to Wanda.

“My mom just called me, she told me everything is ready and that if you confirmed her right now she would get everything ready for Friday.” Kate grinned when Wanda opened her eyes excitedly.

“You mean it?”

“Yep, I know Y/N would love her so…”

“You just have to say the word.” America pressed over smiling as well. Wanda turned to you where you were sitting with the twins helping them around while also allowing them to help you with the food.

Wanda felt her heart beat a tad bit faster, shrinking with pure emotion at the familiar scene she had gotten to witness in the last couple of weeks. She turned to the two teens nodding excitedly.

“Yes, tell her I take it.”

America squealed excitedly hugging Wanda before turning to an equally excited Kate.

“She is going to love it, you will see.”

Wanda surely hoped so, for the only thing in her mind was to make sure you also experience the love, affection and happiness she had felt with you from the moment the both of you met. From the moment, the both of you gave the friendship a chance to grow into something else.

Wanda Maximoff had never had such a wonderful time before.

She was dragged by you or America or even her children around the park to try the different attractions. She got to experience the adrenaline of the roller coaster, while also gave in the excitement of the bumper cars while laughing alongside you.

You were by her side at all times, without being overwhelming it was as if you knew what it was she needed and you were right there to make sure she got it. Wanda admired the easiness in which you and the twins soon found a common ground and they sought you out for comfort or confirmation of what to do next.

Whatever doubts that came after the incident, or whatever reluctance Wanda felt when around you were soon forgotten and she just gave in standing by your side with a beating heart and a tingling body whenever you brushed your hand against hers or your lips found hers when alone.

In the end, and after going through all the different stands holding games with prizes everyone ended up on the Ferry Wheel.

“Come on guys, you can go first.” You nodded to your sister and Kate, winking lightly while America just rolled her eyes.

“Let us take Billy and Tommy…” Kate started but you shook your head placing your right hand on her shoulder.

“No, this is for you guys, go and snog my sister when you get to the highest point,” you chuckled when Kate blushed looking away while America looked mortified, “you guys have been taken them with you most of the day, so it’s only fair. Go.”

Wanda was standing back with Billy and Tommy furrowing her brows when, after a moment of discussion America and Kate finally went inside one of the passenger cars. You stepped back joining Wanda who was trying to hold back the twins that were waving happily at America and Kate.

“I think we shouldn’t eat those candy apples,” Wanda snickered when the twins talked amongst themselves excitedly.

“Oh, come on, those are quite delicious, and I don’t mind them being this hyperactive.”

“You don’t?” Wanda blinked a couple of times stepping forward, waiting until the car stopped and the door was opened for you and the others to go in.

“No, I actually think it’s kinda cute.” You blinked at her before calling for Billy.

“Come here, little guy, you’re sitting with me, and Tommy is sitting with Wanda.” You pinned them with your eyes, your face transforming into a mask of pure seriousness. “I need you to be well-behaved because while this is fun, we need to make sure it is also safe, okay?”

“Yes, Y/N.” Both of them said at the same time, Wanda cocked her head lifting a single eyebrow impressed.

Soon the ride started with classical music playing through the speakers, you looked outside with Billy pointing out the different spots. You leaned forward answering his questions, while also telling him and Tommy about a past you had experienced with America and your parents. Wanda leaned back hearing the sound of your voice and the question of her children while taking in the scene.

“Woah, look mommy!! This is so pretty!” Tommy said pointing right outside the car where the lights show was being played near the skate rink.

“It is, it looks really pretty.” Wanda mumbled glancing at you and noticing you had your eyes on her.

“It is just beautiful.” You replied as well, smiling tenderly at her before turning your attention back to the outside world.

“This is the best day ever, Y/N, thank you.” Billy said softly turning to you and giving you a tight hug.

You returned the hug softening your features while feeling your heart skipped a beat under the display of affection from the little boy.

“I’m glad you like it, Billy.” Your voice was loud enough for him, Tommy and Wanda to hear you out, “I just want to make you enjoy the beautiful things in life, if you guys allow me to do so, I will be more than happy to show you the world.”

Wanda wrapped her arms around Tommy, shaking her head while her eyes filled with tears.

“How about you let us show you also the beautiful and fun things in life, and we share those experiences with one another?” Wanda replied glancing at you, the silent invitation there.

You chuckled nodding, “I would love that.”

Wanda nodded turning again to the world outside the passenger car, her heart leaping with happiness at the moment she was living with you and the twins. Suddenly, in the midst of such peaceful moment Wanda came to the realisation that everything she needed, whatever she had been looking for was just there, sitting right across her loving her children and her without asking nothing in return.

And for that, she loved you without any reservations.

For that, she promised herself to make sure you were happy, the way you were making her and her children happy.

____________________________

Final chapter: The date Wanda planned finally comes to be, there will be smut, and happily ever after.

[thelov3lybookworm]

lucien x reader jealousyyyy,, imagine reader makes a pact with azriel to help him get elain and azriel helps reader get lucien. They use eachother to make elain and lucien jealous and it works. reader and az shamelessly flirt with eachother around luc and elain. Lucien snaps on day when he sees reader and az kissing nc the mating bond snaps for him. 👀👀 a lotta smut plsss

For ever and ever.

Summary: Lucien gets a little... possessive.

•○●⛦●○•

A/n: i had so much fun writing this anon, and i love you so much for sending this in ♥ also, i feel like i got a lil poetic with this one lol 😂

anyways, enjoy!

•○🌑○•

Y/n peeked from around the door, wondering where the hell Lucien was and why he was taking so long to arrive. He was supposed to have arrived already.

She had told him to be present before the sun began setting so she could show him the new restaurant she had found. He had agreed, just like all the times before. She would ask him to meet her in a specific place, and he would meet her. No questions asked. They would then go on to explore Velaris and little picnics and what not.

Y/n knew Lucien loved to do these little outings with her. If he didn't, he would have told her ages ago.

But everytime Y/n thought he would do something to take their relationship further, become something, anything more than friends, he would turn away.

It was like taking one step forward, three steps back.

This had been going around for months now, this dance between the two of them. And he had seemed not at all interested in ending this dance.

So Y/n had to take her own steps forward before he could leave the dance midway.

And Azriel had seemed like the perfect musician to guide this dance between Y/n and Lucien to its happy end.

Of course, Y/n felt like she was using him, and her heart was happily opening the gates for guilt to come sweeping in, but she knew she had all the rights to banish the guilt from the sprawling manor of her consciousness.

Especially when he was a consenting adult in this ruse, one who had a good head on his shoulder- most of the time- and was getting something out of it.

The two of the would flirt like their lives depended on it around Lucien and Elain, and Y/n could see Lucien holding back a snarl, a roar, could see his frustration when she got a little too touchy with Azriel. Azriel, of course, went along with the act, at times even making Y/n question if he really was acting.

A door opened somewhere in the house, and then Azriel was whisper yelling for Y/n to hurry up.

And that meant it was either Lucien or Elain. Probably both.

She hurried over to him, and he wrapped his hands around her waist, lifting her onto the counter. and before she could have second thoughts about about this brilliant plan of hers, his mouth descended.

His lips were soft, and he was a good kisser, but Y/n imagined he was nowhere near Lucien-

There were soft voices coming from the hallway beyond the door, becoming louder and louder by the moment.

Azriel leaned into Y/n, deepening the kiss like that was his sole purpose in life until there was no sound except the blood roaring in Y/n's ears.

There was so much silence, for a moment Y/n wondered if she'd gone deaf.

Then suddenly, Y/n felt as if she'd been dropped into a pit of fire. The temperature became unbearable, and as quickly as Azriel had begun kissing her, he was ripped away, leaving Y/n gasping.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at the broad back that belonged to Lucien, his hair shining brighter than ever, the red rivaling that of the hottest of fires. He trembled with anger, and it was a miracle there was no steam coming out of his ears.

Y/n glanced around for a moment, trying to see if Azriel had gotten hurt. She found herself looking at a teary eyed Elain, who stared at something- someone- on the ground in front of Lucien, who still had his back turned to Y/n.

"What are you doing?" Azriel rasped, and Y/n finally got a glimpse of him. He was sitting on the ground, hid hands braced behind him to hold himself in an upright position, his mouth gaping.

Shit.

Lucien said nothing, standing still.

The situation was escalating too fast, and Y/n wondered if she'd taken it too far.

She put a hand on Lucien's shoulder, and that seemed to break him out of his trance. He whipped his head around to look at Y/n, fire in his eyes, his skin slightly aglow. It was not the glow of happiness.

It was the glow of murderous rage.

He slowly twisted his head back to look at Azriel as his hands came to rest on Y/n's hips. Despite the severity of the situation, the traitorous butterflies in Y/n's stomach took flight.

"Do not ever think about touching her. Keep your hands to yourself if you don't want to lose them."

Y/n simply stared at the autumn court male, her heart beating in her throat. Not because she was scared, but because she needed him to push her heart back into her chest with his tongue-

No. Not now. Not good timing for such thoughts. She chided herself.

Lucien turned then, sliding his arms around Y/n, and then simply winnowing away.

•○🌑○•

It shouldn't have been possible. Winnowing shouldn't have been possible due to the numerous spells put around the river house, but when Y/n opened her eyes, she knew that Lucien had somehow made it possible.

Because she was sitting on an entirely different counter, in an entirely different kitchen from the one she had just been in.

She stared at the fuming male in front of her, and he stared back.

Finally, after what felt like ages, Y/n found her voice. "How- how did you do that?"

That made his brows furrow. "Do what?"

"You winnowed us. You shouldn't have been able to."

"Oh." A smirk that bordered on cruel curled his mouth. "You forget I am the spell cleavers son."

Y/n blinked. "What... what do you mean?"

His smirk faded away. "You don't know?"

She shook her head, the new revelation leaving her reeling.

His face hardened. "So they didn't tell you as well, huh?"

Then he told her about how the inner circle had hidden from his his true lineage, how they had voted and then decided to leave him in the dark. How he had only recently found out through his mother after Beron's death, and how he had confronted the first member of inner circle he came face to face with.

It had been Elain, and she caved within moments of him beginning to question her. She claimed they would have told him eventually, but she didn't want to break the inner circle's trust by telling him the truth.

"I was pissed, and seeing you with him- kissing him, it only increased my fury."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Y/n couldn't help but feel glee.

"Why did you get angrier? Were you jealous, Lucien?"

He blushed, just a little. He made to move away, but Y/n's hand shot out, curling into his shirt. She grinned at him as she tugged him closer, and that made his eyes drop to her lips.

He looked back up into her eyes, searching for something.

She dipped her chin in a nod, and then there was no stopping Lucien.

His lips crashed into hers, and all air fled Y/n's lungs.

The air was kicked out because the space was needed for the golden string that made itself know in that moment.

She gasped, and he used the action to deepen the kiss, his hands holding onto her hips with bruising intensity. She was glad.

He didn't stop until it was practically impossible to go any longer without breathing. Truly unfortunate, and it had Y/n cursing her lungs because they couldn't hold in more air.

Lucien panted, staring at her as a feral grin crawled onto his face, his delight evident in his eyes.

"You are mine." The words were breathless, barely a whisper. They sounded like a question. Cocky, but there was a tone of uncertainty under all the arrogance.

Like he was trying to make sure she had no problem in being his.

"I am yours."

"For ever. You are mine for as long as we live."

She smiled gently, wrapping her arm around his neck and tugging his mouth back to hers.

"For ever and ever, I'm yours."

•○🌑○•

General taglist: @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @harrystylesfan2686

[aihoshiino]

chapter 160 thoughts

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 17

Aqua Hoshigan Status: Incomprehensible

144 held out strong for nearly 20 whole chapters but 160 comes in like a beast to take its crown as Oshi no Ko Chapter That Has Baffled And Confounded Me The Most. The way it talks about the characters and arcs it's trying to convey to the reader is just mind boggling - some of this stuff just feels completely disconnected from the character arcs it's supposedly commentating on. It almost feels like an Oshi no Ko chapter from an alternate universe version of the manga.

I kind of suspect this is actually the case, in spirit at least. Akasaka has previously stated that he's had at least an ending for OnK planned at least since midway through Tokyo Blade based on when this interview was given. You would think the amount of time between then and now would have given Aka the time to organically work towards this but I think the opposite is true here - because the story has organically drifted and grown in the telling, as is natural for a serialized work of this length, the story that Akasaka ended up telling does not naturally lead into the ending he wanted to give it. And rather than compromise he's just… going ahead with it without making any adjustments, which leads to this bizarre sense of whiplash that's come from the last handful of chapters.

It's definitely possible that some of the stuff in here will read better when we're not getting this stuff bit by bit across however many break weeks but… man. I ain't getting my hopes too high.

To my relief, we start off on a note of confirming that Nino and Ryosuke were, in fact, both freaks about Ai way before Kamiki ever got involved with them. Even so, the story's framing of how he influenced them is just… weird. Based on the little flashback panels we see of their supposed friendship I'm inclined to think Kamiki is being truthful here just because whenever we see on-panel flashbacks in this way, they tend to be more-or-less factual accounts of events. Aqua tries to say he's lying, that he definitely intended to do harm but this is really hard for me to swallow, given that this 'intent to do harm' ball would've had to have started rolling back when Kamiki was fourteen at the oldest and long before he and Ai broke up.

Not only that but I have to stress, again; Nino and Ryosuke were already freaks about Ai at this point!!! They tracked down one of her loved ones under false pretenses and entered his life presumably for the purposes of crowbarring info about Ai from him!!! Wil from the OnK Brainrot server pointed out that this comes off much more strongly like Ryosuke and Nino taking advantage of Kamiki's naivety to prey on Ai, which I agree with and think lines up way more straightforwardly with the Kamiki we saw leading up to 154 and its conclusion.

It almost feels like there's two Kamikis; the victim of circumstance Kamiki who embraces monstrousness as an act of reclamation, who knows he can never again be good so he will surrender to being bad and the flatly evil Light Yagami ass Kamiki who's bad because uhhh he just is ok? It probably goes without saying which of the two I find more compelling and overall more consistent with what the story has been building up so far, but the way the story keeps abruptly switching between the two makes it almost impossible to get a coherent read on him.

At the end of the day, I simply find it very hard to swallow the manga's attempt to almost sweep Nino and Ryosuke's culpability under the rug or to transfer the weight of their actions to Kamiki and hold him accountable for them because of this supposed manipulation. A healthy, well-adjusted person with no tendencies towards violent or antisocial behaviour does not suddenly get mindbroken into a misogynistic murderer overnight because they saw that the subject of their parasocial obsession keeps a toothbrush at her boyfriend's house. I can believe that Kamiki certainly didn't help but the idea that he is solely responsible for turning Nino and Ryosuke into violent murderers is a stretch.

I feel like I'm kind of talking in circles on this point a lot because I'm struggling to articulate why it bothers me so much so I'll end this section by paraphrasing a section of Higurashi YouTuber Bess's deep dive post-mortem on the GouSotsu anime duology. that I think sums up where I'm at.

In it, Bess quotes the original author in describing the actions of the overarching antagonist as "giving a gun to someone who is being bullied and getting emotional" and says that she agrees but points out that if the victim chooses to fire that gun, they are the ones who hold responsibility for their actions and that being the victim of manipulation does not suddenly rob them of accountability for their violence, whereas the framing of GouSotsu is that the overarching villain is the sole person who bears responsibility.

I feel like this is the dynamic at play here with Kamiki and Ryosuke/Nino too - except Kamiki, in this metaphor, didn't even fucking give anyone a gun because both Ryosuke and Nino were already armed to begin with. BUT I'LL MOVE ON NOW I SWEAR…

Aside from ^ ALL THAT ^ I also feel like this chapter's attempt to define the white/black hoshigan dichotomy is also just kind of a flop. It's so overly specific that it doesn't actually match with how the black OR white hoshigans have been portrayed symbolically before (was Aqua using his super special dark and evil star powers to dominate and manipulate others when he was eating potato chips and pumping up a pool floatie? come on, man) but it's also just so on the nose and overly dramatic that it comes off as kind of goofy and hard to take seriously.

It's also really funny and kind of frustration to see this dichotomy established seemingly for the purposes of just propping Ruby up some more. Aqua insisting that Ruby is ~just different~ from him and Hikaru REALLY flops because like… IS SHE REALLY THO???

Understand that I don't say this to shit on Ruby but like. Ruby literally had a whole arc about going black hoshigan and using her talent to manipulate and use people for her own benefit! She effectively utilized girl power to put the jobs of an entire TV show's worth of people at risk so she could clout chase a little more efficiently!!! Literally everything Kamiki tries to assert about him and Aqua are also perfect descriptions of how Ruby behaved during that leg of the manga until it flipped off like a switch and she faced literally zero consequences and learned nothing from it.

This is another indication to me that this conversation is an artifact of Akasaka's originally planned ending because this whole bit gassing up how Ruby is just ~so different~ from Kamiki and Aqua simply does not cohere with a story where Ruby had an entire arc of her just being Aqua 2.0 that was never really resolved and she never really learned anything from. If the framing here was just a LITTLE different, I think it could work - maybe instead of Aqua acting like Ruby is just intrinsically, arbitrarily Pure of Heart or whatever, a point could be made that Ruby is actively choosing to be a good and loving person even after all the shit she's been through and especially after an accidental taste of the dark side. But as it stands the accidental implication of the story ends up being that Ruby's BH era was Good, Actually and the actions she took during it were also good lol.

I continue to have all the same issues with the B-Komachi concert as I did in my previous chapter review so I won't repeat myself on that. I will, however, point out that the song Ruby namedrops in this chapter is a reference to Spica (where we translated it as 'When You Wish Upon Your Star'), in which this is a song written and performed by Ai as a message of support for her fans. That is to say, we are once again seeing Ruby, from a narrative perspective, not being allowed to stand on her own as her own idol but relying on the imagery and legacy of Ai's idolhood.

Not only that but… again, I must ask: why is Ruby the center and narrative focus of Kana's graduation concert? Like, obviously, given that Aqua and Kamiki are talking about her the framing is going to focus on Ruby but why is this conversation happening during a moment that had been massively built up to be about Kana? Why is Aqua talking about Ruby as an idol like the rest of B-Komachi just doesn't exist? Why is the narrative unironically indulging in all the same favoritism and coddling of Ruby that, in-universe, tore apart the first generation of B-Komachi?

I guess at the end of the day my problem is that I'm just kind of fed up with Ruby as a character and the way the story has been bending over backwards to coddle her so it's hard to me to get invested when the story goes YEAAAAHHH WOOOOOO RUBY!!!! Especially when, like it has been for a while now, this coddling comes not just at the expense of other characters but also at the expense of Ruby herself and the coherency and consistency of her character arc. It sucks for Ruby as a character and it sucks for me, as a reader, who used to rank Ruby as one of their top three faves but now just feels kind of exhausted with her.

LOOK OUT KAMIKI HE'S GOT A KNIFE

God this whole bit with Aqua getting double white hoshigans while he pulls a knife on Kamiki is just kind of too goofy to take seriously lol. I have some thoughts about how this potentially recontextualizes some of Aqua's actions through the Movie Arc and during the previous confrontation with Kamiki but. I just keep coming back to Aqua being like "white hoshigans means love r something which i'm going to prove by killing you in cold blood" and just shaking my head. It really feels like a moment written just to be a cliffhanger so, like I have with the last three damn chapters, I'll hold back any commentary on it until we get a continuation of this thread next week.

honestly the part of this chapter I enjoyed most was that creepypasta ass full page panel of Kamiki's fucked up smile. that genuinely really alarmed me when i first saw it and even now I don't like looking at it for too long or i get the willies lol. Genuinely fire horror imagery from Mengo as usual. Can she PLEEEEEEEEASE do a horror manga next i'm BEGGING to get spooked by mengo-sensei

no wait i lied. the best part was that cute panel of ai and her babies. <3

justice for memcho and kana, tho, for real

And I'm sure as none of you will be shocked to hear……….. break next week.

[tenabrye]

If ya didnt do this already, could i get some vash and knives domestic headcnons for when they live with their s/o? Do they cook, do they clean, how do they spend time together? Small things like that!

If you did, sorry for the double ask! If not, thank you!!!

Vash

Domestic life with him is such bliss. He's an early riser and will always bring you breakfast in bed if you prefer to sleep in. If you're also an early riser, then he would love nothing more than to make breakfast with you in the kitchen. He may not be able to cook most things, but anything with eggs and he's your man. Is also good at making pancakes/flapjacks and will make little faces on them out of fruit, chocolate chips, and whipped cream.

Will actually do all of the cleaning if you want, or even split up the chores if you prefer it that way. Cleaning always takes the longest with him because he will always stop midway to pull you into a kiss or dance with you. This especially occurs during sweeping and escape is futile. Will also barter with you, saying how he'll do certain chores in exchange for kisses.

When it comes to bathing, Vash prefers doing so together rather than alone. Uses the excuse of, "It saves water," which is true, yet the man can't seem to keep his hands to himself when washing up sometimes. He is the sweetest when it comes to baths. Will light candles and has the tub filled almost to the brim with bubbles that are just waiting to be soaked in. He'll sit behind you in the tub and gently scrub your back, or massage your achy shoulders before peppering kisses on your neck. This definitely leads to some fun times.

He enjoys doing couple activities with you, however, he's also content with doing his own thing while you simply sit in the same room and do your own thing. Vash enjoys your presence. He will get all giddy if you show any interest in any of his activities and will tell you about them with the cutest smile on his face. He's also equally interested in your activities, practically loving them all since it means he gets to spend time doing them with you or talking about them to you.

Likes to cuddle a lot more in the domestic life you now have together. In bed, on the couch, in the bathtub, sitting on a bench, etc. It may be due to the fact that he just likes having a hand on you or an arm around you, but he absolutely loves the closeness he gets with all this domesticity. He's not used to it all and he loves it and craves more of it.

Knives

Domestic life with him is peaceful. Even though he doesn't need to eat or sleep, he still does it for you. He's also an early riser, but doesn't do breakfast in bed as often as his twin might, but that doesn't mean he doesn't whip you up something. Or try to, at least. He really isn't the best at cooking, but if you want a bowl of cereal or something that's easy to make, he's got you covered. He leaves the cooking to you, however, he's open to learning and possibly having another outlet that brings him peace.

He's the type to just go ahead and do most of the cleaning and other chores. Knives doesn't mind you helping out, but his reasoning for why he does it is because he knows it'll get done. Might also be due to how he is possibly a little OCD and has to have things done a certain way. At least with cleaning. He's the type to love it all spotless and he works hard to keep it that way. Has a cleaning routine he sticks to 100%.

Likes to bathe with you when he's in a certain mood, and it's usually when he's feeling a little needy for his human. Not a word will be said, but the sound of the tub filling with water or the shower running, followed by a little look from the man, will let you know. He's needy in the sense that he just wants to be close to you without being sexual. The skin on skin contact when he rubs little circles on your back in the tub or how he washes your backside with the loofa brings a calmness to him that he craved the entire day.

Doesn't like to do couple activities a whole lot and prefers to simply do his own thing, however, he doesn't mind if you join him or do your own thing in his presence. He enjoys reading and playing the piano, finding both equally calming. Knives will actually teach you how to play the piano if you show any interest, or simply let you sit beside him and listen as he plays. He will also read to you if you would like him to, as he knows his voice is soothing to your ears. He won't admit it, but he loves it when you cuddle up to him when he reads to you, or if he's reading silently.

Knives never thought he would like the domestic life, but he does admit that it has its charms. At least with you, his little human. He's fond of this newfound life and what it offers with you at his side.

[mediocreshake08]

This was mostly made for @rabid-raccoontail but whoever wants to get into Mortal Kombat, this is your lucky day. So welcome everyone to the...

Also this is going to be my biggest post yet so if you like to read this is the place for you. If you can't picture the characters I name, look them up on google.

Also this contains heavy spoilers for the ENTIRE series.

So sorry for the wait, I hope you enjoy this

What is a Mortal Kombat?

To get a basic understanding of the series you got 3 canons to work with. You have the Midway games (Original Dev team), you have The NRS reboot (the canon most people are known with) and you got the The New Era ( the one that changed it all).

Classic games

The first game takes place on an Island owned by Shang Tsung, the final boss. The whole premise of why everyone is fighting on an island is because of the Mortal Kombat tournament, which happens every generation, and is a tournament mostly against Earthrealm and Outworld. Basically how it works, is if your realm wins 10 tournaments in a row, your realm gets fused with the winners (but also you can choose not to do that because fuck it). Outworld won 9 tournaments and with this one, one of the biggest villains of the franchise, Shao Kahn, fuses Earthrealm with Outworld and fucks up the entire human race. Our champions, Liu Kang a Shaolin monk, Johnny Cage the actor and Sonya Blade a Special Forces Commander, led by the thunder God Raiden won't let that shit slide. Oh also Kano is here and he's a proper Aussie, ye m8? Anyways, Liu Kang sweeps the floor with everyone, including a four armed hurdling mass of muscle named Goro, kicks Shang Tsungs ass and practically saves the Earth. Bonus fun fact, Scorpion kills Sub Zero because he thought he killed his family and clan and as revenge, he spit roasts him.

MK2 takes place some time after that with Shang looking a little sexier and asking the Earthrealmers to join a second MK tournament. If they don't oblige, they're gonna invade Earth (save that for a little later). Also Sub Zero is back, except not really the one who got killed by Scorpion was Bi-Han, and this is his younger brother, Kuai Liang. Getting back on topic we got some new characters like Jax, Sonya's partner from the Special Forces, Kuai Liang Sub Zero, Kung Lao who's the cooler Shaolin monk and also has a hat that's also a throwing weapon, Kitana, who is the main villains step daughter (sorta), Mileena, who's a test tube baby made by Shang Tsung for Shao Kahn, Reptile, who as you could guess is a lizard, and Barraka, who has Nosferatu's face (but also like, his species is tied to Mileena's creation because she's half Tarkatan. Anyways, some shit happens and Liu Kang beats the fuck out of Shao Kahn.

MK3, instead of being yet another tournament, Shao Kahn says FUCK IT and invades earth with the Outworld armies. Not only that, but the Lin Kuei (Sub Zero's clan) are being turned into cyborgs. All but one of them escaped, that one being Sub Zero. One cop survives New York, Johnny Cage gets killed by a centaur, there's a speedster with swords and fireballs coming out of his face, and boom, bang BING, we got some new characters. There's Stryker the Cop I talked about a few seconds ago, Kabal the speedster because the co-creator really wanted to make a psycho killer flash, Cyrax Sektor and Smoke who are the cyber Lin Kuei, Rain, who appears in like 5 games but only does something in 3 and isn't playable in one of the games he's in, Night Wolf who's a native American, Ermac who uses they/them and Sindel, the biggest bitch in the fucking seven seas. Oh also Bi-Han is back and he's edgy. He now goes by Noob Saibot, which if you read backwards is Tobias and Boon, the creators of Mortal Kombat. No time for that though because somehow Shao Kahn returned after being fisted, Johnny Cage gets brought back to life and Liu Kang kills Shao Kahn once more again, the end.

If that's not confusing enough, we aren't done yet because now we got

3D games

I'm not doing Mortal Kombat 4

Deadly Alliance starts with Shang Tsung and his boyfriend Quan Chi snapping Liu Kang's neck so he can't interrupt them in reawakening Onaga, the king of all scalies and one of the most powerful forces in the realms. And now Liu Kang is a zombie, Raiden kicks Shang and Quan's asses or at least tries. Also we're introduced to Kenshi Takahashi the blind swordsman with a magic sword, and sexy vampire pirate lady, Nitara, more on her later.

Deception takes place right after that, where Raiden is trying to fight the Deadly Alliance (who are literally just Shang and Quan), failing. Raiden dies, Quan Chi kills Shang Tsung which somehow awakens Onaga. Quan can't do piss and trying to fight him, somehow brings both Raiden and Shang Tsung back to life... Okay?? And then Raiden nukes himself and Onaga walks it off. Deceptions protagonist is a little shit called Shujinko, a student of Bo Rai Cho, the same man who trained Kung Lao and Liu Kang. He then gets encountered by Damashi, a glowy ball that tells him he has to help the Elder Gods by retrieving the Kamidogu (which are basically Jewelry that hold the fabric of the universe). And Shujinko, being the gullible idiot he is accepts. And from this point on, the game turns into you fixing everyone else's problems like finding Bo Rai Cho's sodding watch, getting water back from another realm, and beating the shit out of Wesley Snipes. Speaking of Blade we got other sick characters like Kira and Kobra, Black Dragon members and one of them is named after a martial art/movie, Havik who is a klerk of chaos, Hotaru the Policemun, Dairou who's an outlaw loose and runnin', and Li Mei, voiced by Kelly Hu in the latest game. After all that, you find all the Kamidogu, you defeat everyone + Scorpion is the final boss (don't ask me, I don't fuggin know why) and what's your reward? Realizing you've been deceived the whole game and not seeing a final battle between Onaga and Shujinko (even though Shujinko can definitely beat Onaga but fuck it).

Armageddon begins with this schmuck named Argus, an Edenian God who did it with a mortal woman Delia and they had two boys who had to be put in stalagmites because Argus knows the apocalypse is on its way. Thousands of years later, Daegon and Taven, the two brothers wake up. Daegon basically made the Red Dragon clan, named after Caro who's basically Taven's spirit animal and he helps bring about the apocalypse. Taven's character can be summed up to "Who are you? Who's that? Uuuuh..." But that's what I love about him. Anyways, Taven looks for his asshole brother, de-frosts a bad bitch and kicks everyone's ass. Which translates to what Armageddon really is. All the characters choose sides. We get one of the coolest fmv sequences in PS2 history and everyone dies trying to take Blaze's power. Blaze is a demigod-esque creation made by Argus to warn Taven and Daegon about the apocalypse, but also whoever kills him, gains his power and basically becomes the developer of the game. But because Taven is the main character, he has to kill everyone he encounters, a few of those people being one's he was proud to call friends. He climbs to the top, kills Daegon, destroys Blaze and saves the universe, the end.

Yeah I lied lol

Netherrealm Era

After Armageddon, Midway shut down, Warner Brothers bought Mortal Kombat and Netherrealm studios took over the franchise and this is where it all went downhill.

Mortal Kombat 9 starts with the end of the previous game. Except it doesn't, because Taven is somehow not here and Shao Kahn walked all the way back to kill him after being carried away by Onaga. Before Shao Kahn crushed him, Raiden sends a message to his past self saying only three things. "He Must Win.". We are now in the first Mortal Kombat except it's HD and Johnny is down bad for Sonya. Sonya is here just so she can find Jax who's lost on the island somewhere, Bi-Han is a bit of a prick and Shang Tsung is the only character in the game who has common sense. Liu Kang beats Shang Tsung, Jax gets his arms ripped off by Ermac, Johnny only gets to win if he has a suit and Mileena gets the most revieling outfit in fighting game history. Kitana and Liu Kang have an on and off thing, Reptile gets bullied (poor thang) and before Kuai Liang can kill Scorpion for killing his brother, he's taken away by the cyber Lin Kuei because Raiden saved Smoke from being cyberized and he says there's nothing he can do (that's bullshit but okay). Anyways, Kung Lao is doing pretty good in the tournament and then Shao Kahn snaps his neck. Feeling horrible by the death of his Shaolin brother, Liu Kang jumps in the arena and fists Shao Kahn. Sometime later, we learned that Shao Kahn survived because they put him in the Soul Chamber, a place in the Outworld arena that heals any and all wounds. He then gets the idea by Quan Chi to invade Earthrealm which completely goes against the laws of Mortal Kombat. And Shang Tsung knows and wants to stop them, but Shao Kahn doesn't fucking care and erased him from existance. they get guns from Kano, and they start blasting. Army can't do shit and somehow, a single cop (Stryker) is able to fight off A lizard man, a fire breathing cat and the only thing in Outworld that knows what pronouns are. Kabal was here too, but only for the first two fights. But he doesn't get his super speed here because he's just an average dude and maybe dating Stryker? I don't know. Anyways Kabal gets roasted by a big buff cat, taken to the Black Dragon and given a respiratory device by Kano that helps him breathe. He's basically Deadpool - the guns + super speed because the magic atmosphere of Outworld gave him that. Don't ask how anyone else got that after going to Outworld, idk🤷‍♀️. Anyways Quan Chi and Bitch-han bring back Sindel and mind control her to do their biding. Meanwhile, our heroes that consist of Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Jax Briggs, Night Wolf, Cyber Sub Zero, Smoke, Kitana, Stryker, Kabal, Kitana and Liu Kang sit and do nothing. The Bastard Sektor walks in and with his Cyber Lin Kuei to tire out the heroes until Sindel arrives, the worst scene in MK history plays because the purple bitch kills damn near everyone and kicks Smoke in the nads, and then Night Wolf, the most forgettable Mortal Kombat character kills Sindel by Hail Mary. Raiden looks for help of Quan Dale Dingle, but he instead of helping, brings everyone who died back as revenants, which are basically zombies but with memories of the ones who died and they are pretty strong. Raiden fights three at once, Kills Liu Kang because he fears Shao Kahn is going to kill him and with the power of the Elder Gods, Raiden goes super Saiyan and does a Kamehameha, killing Shao Kahn. Yeah all of that was one game.

Mortal Kombat X (or as dip shits would call it mk 10) starts with Johnny, Sonya and Kenshi fighting revenant Sub Zero (who's a human revenant because of MKX prequel comic nonsense don't worry about it), Smoke who isn't even playable, Sindel who's a bitch through and through and Jax, who in a minute turns back into a human because of unexplained reasons, but I guess by killing his revenant, Liu, Kitana and Lao who are some. it turns out they were going to the Jin Sei chamber (earthrealm's life force that is pure light) where Quan Chi and his boss, Shinnok exact their plan of taking over Earthrealm by putting Shinnok into the Jin Sei, corrupting it and turning him into a super Saiyan but he looks like a devil, so kind of like a ssj4 thing? Doesn't matter because Johnny learns he has God killing powers and uses them to punch Shinnok in the nuts. Raiden seals him and the rest of the game is now a 20 years time skip. And now we have the next gen of kombatants, called the Kombat Kids by the fans. You got Cassie Cage the mc, Jaqui Briggs, who's basically Jax 2.0, Kung Jin, Lao's cousing who fights with a bow and Takeda, who has whips, bombs and a fuckin lightsaber. Anyways other new characters you have are Kotal Kahn who took over the throne, Erron Black who is the Cowboy and D'vorah, a character that absolutely everyone hates because she kills Mileena, who had a civil war with Kotal for the throne. Also Scorpion, now Hanzo Hasashi kills Quan Chi after learning it was him who disguised himself as Bi-Han to kill the Shirai Ryu out of spite I guess? D'vorah betrays Kotal, Almost kills Johnny but does get wrecked by Cassie who does also have the same God killing powers as Johnny, and he uses them to punch Shinnok in the nuts. Raiden puts himself in the Jin Sei Chamber because Shinnok corrupted it. Raiden purifies the Jin Sei and everyone gets a happy ending. Except Shinnok, who gets decapitated by dark Raiden.

Mortal Kombat 11 is a flawed masterpiece, and that flaw is the multiverse bullshit. So basically, Shinnok's mom Kronika who's like the keeper of time, wants to kill the entire universe because it's not balanced (shut the fuck up, ya bitch). Anyways, we got Geras, who can never die because he's a fixed point in time but is mostly known for pounding ass in the next game, Kollector who is the IRS and I hate him, and Centrion who is Shinnok's sister. There's also he Frozen bad bitch from earlier and her name is Frost, who is like Sub Zero minus but she's cyberized like Sektor and Cyrax who are in this game but unplayable (WHY NETHERREALM!). Anyways while remaking the timeline, Kronika accidentally summoned past versions of Liu Kang, Kitana, Kung Lao, Jade (who was dead but I didn't give a shit to introduce her at the start) and also she has maybe done it with Kotal (LITTERALY oc x canon shit) ((Also Jade doesn't kill D'vorah when given the chance, the stupid bitch)), Jax and a past version of Erron Black, even though he's still alive??, and also Shao Kahn with the coolest design of all time. Also Barraka is back, because I forgot to mention the bug bitch killed him too. Anyways, now we're spending the game beating up but rarely killing beloved characters. The cyber Lin Kuei and Frost and old Jax invade their ship that they use to get to Kronika's keep. Young Liu Kang dies, but Raiden fuses with revenant Liu Kang and that turns Liu Kang into a fake Gogeta, aka Fire God Liu Kang (any of this starting to sound like fanfiction?). Anyways they make it to the island where Kronika's keep is and then, everyone but Liu Kang gets Thanos snapped. Liu kills all the leveled up revenants, Glasses Kronika and brings back Raiden to help him rewrite history.

JUST KIDDING RETCONNED FUCK YOOPUUUUU HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAJ FUNNEE

uuuuuuugh alright I got two more story modes to do, holy fuck it's okay I can do this shit

The MK11 expansion, Aftermath, brings back Sheeva, who is now queen of the Shokan, the same species as Goro and Kintaro (the fire breathing cat from MK9), Night Wolf, Fujin the wind God and brother of Raiden, and Shanga langa ding dong. Fujin, Night Wolf and Shang were all locked away in a place beyond time until just now somehow (just roll with it okay? Okay). The plot of this story expansion is basically, Liu Kang wants to reset the universe, but he can't because he doesn't have Kronika's crown, which is needed to do the universe reset. So our boy Liu takes the two idiots and Shang into the past. I just now realized, Raiden is the only smart person in this game, because he knows Shang Tsung is planning something devious. Liu maybe knows but plays it off. They go back to previous points in the game to get the crown, revive Sindel who says she was mind controlled but later she says she's evil from the start (holy fuck I want to kill her and then myself). They get a boatsman, Kahron, to take them to the keep. In the process, D'vorah kills the poster boy of the franchise (Dominic I will fucking end your bloodline). Sindel gets Shao Kahn, heals his eyes that were sliced out by Kitana, they kill Liu and Lao, Shang reveals that he wants to reset the timeline (Fujin you stupid) , he Soul sucks Sindel and Shao Kahn, kills Kronika, but before he can do anything with Kronika's Hourglass, Liu Kang breaks in, kicks Shang Tsungs ass and reboots the series one more fucking time, which brings us to...

MORTAL 1 KOMBAT (or Mortal Kombat 1

This game starts with Shang Tsung being a failing snake oil salesman because he can barely survive. Then someone who looks like Kronika comes in and he makes this face

Best game of all time.

Anyway, we're introduced to Kung Lao and baby boy Raiden, who are farmers but also train Martial arts under the belt of Madame Bo, this universes version of Bo Rai Cho and she runs a kitchen, what more could you want with a grandma. Later, the Lin Kuei invade and we get the return of my boy Smoke who now has a Karambit and is voiced by Spiderman. He's Joined by Kuai Liang who is now Scorpion, and Bi-Han Sub Zero, the worst he's ever been i hate him. It's like they took his personality from Mortal Kombat 11 and slapped it over a poor man's imitation. Kung Lao kicks all three of their asses but only because they were pulling their punches. They join Liu who is basically Raiden now, and look for Johnny Cage, who's having a one-sided argument with his wife, and then she leaves and doesn't come back. Then, Kenshi breaks in, wanting Sento, the sword of his family which now lays on displayed on Johnny's wall. They fight, and Johnny beats him effortlessly. Johnny ties him to a chair and interrogates him until Liu Kang, along with Scorpion and Sub Zero walk in, which leads to one of the most iconic moments in the franchise

They want to untie Kenshi, but Johnny doesn't want that and thinks this is a prank, so he tries to play along but ends up being tossed into a million dollar statue, which triggers him and Johnny starts beating the shit out of Bitch-Han. Liu intervenes before Johnny can do his second fatality on him.they all go to the Wu Shi monk academy, where they train for the Great Tournament between Earthrealm and the realm of Outworld (that's LITTERALY what they call it, I'm not joking). Raiden beats them all using the one move he has, advance Cartwheel kick. Winning, Raiden is chosen to represent Earthrealm. And for winning, Liu Kang gives him a lightning amulet, which gives him lightning powers so he can fairly combat the Outworld fighters. Entering Outworld through a portal created by Liu, they are introduced by Kitana, Mileena and the palace guard, so-called the Umgadi, featuring two returning characters, one of which does nothing and the other was just a barrier. The one's i speak of are Khameleon and Tanya, the first canon lesbian in Mortal Kombat who has a thing going on with Mileena. Li Mei is back and... She's voiced by Kelly Hu. No wonder I forget she's in this game all the time. but along Li Mei, we have Shao Kahn, who is now degraded to General Shao, and his second in command, Reiko. I forgot to mention that Sindel is in this game and for the first time in the series, I don't mind her. She's a sweet, caring mother who is actually a mother to both Kitana and Mileena. Shao is now jobbing more than ever, from losing to a farmer, to being wrecked by queen. After winning the tournament, Liu Kang sends Kung Lao, Johnny and Kenshi to look for Shang Tsung, as it's word that he's somewhere in Outworld. The tremendous trio find a colony of Tarkatans, Outworlders infected by a disease called Tarkat, which deforms and debilitates. Shang Tsung is there and plans to harvest their marrow for a cure for Mileena, who as we find out, she has Tarkat. After a few fights, Kenshi pushes Johnny out of the way, as Mileena has gone feral, took some sais of the table, and stabs Kenshi's eyes out. As this happens Shao and tiny ass Goro walk in and take them to Shang Tsung's true lab, the Flesh Pits where Reptile works for him because Shang says he has his family captive. But as it's revealed, this isn't the case, as Shang already killed them many moons ago. This makes Reptile (aka Syzoth) have anger. They toxic gas the place and we get a Test Your Might to survive. They escape, but as they walk through the Living Forrest, they encounter Ashrah, a demon from the Netherrealm killing demons and almost killing our heroes. Also she says Demons funny. Like... DEE-MUNZ!

Anyways, she joins the party and they search for Quan Chi, who used to be dead, but is now an escaped cole miner and also black. The way Ashrah knows where Quan Chi is because she has a magic sword called the Kriss, and she uses it to purge evil from her soul, by killing other demons. We then find Quan Chi and his jobber squad consisting of Havik who is horribly lame in comparison to his older version and design from Deception, Sareena, Ashrah's so-so sister, Darius, aka Wesley Snipes' Blade with a dash of A-Train from the boys on the side, and the absolute dog shit tier downgrade of all time, Nitara is back, and nothing that made her cool is here. She isn't cool, her design is mid at best, her head looks like an onion, and the one thing that everyone hates about Nitara in this game, is that she's voiced by Megan Fox. Megan, Goddamn, Fox. Her performance is so goddamn awful that people actually prefer Rhonda Rousey's Sonya Blade from MK11. Anyways enough bitching, because Ashrah, with the help of a Reptile kameo beats the jobber squad, but just too late to stop Quan Chi from making a tornado of souls, which he uses to create Ermac, and then does this "who's mans is this" lookin' pose as he says kill them.

In between this and Ashrah vs Quan Chi and Ermac, Johnny thanks Kenshi for saving his life, and gives him Sento, which he uses to assist Ashrah in the clobbering of Quan Chi. Now they return to the streets of Outworld's capital, Sun Do to look for a way back home. They disguise themselves, run into the Umgadi, get away and now it's Li Mei's turn to shine.

I forgot everything that happens in her chapter.

The Lin Kuei infiltrate a palace where Shang Tsung is, but while they are terrible at being stealthy, they aren't in beating Shang and Quan. But In the process, Bi-Han admits he let his and Kuai's father die, just so he can be the Lin Kuei's grandmaster. Smoke waits outside and does nothing till Kuai Liang escapes. And when Bi-Han comes out and leaves a scar on Kuai's face, even then, Smoke does literally nothing. All the characters who had their own parts in the storyline + Mileena (as it's her time to shine). They head to the Fortress where Ermac almost rips off Bi-Han's arms, fight Ermac, but it turns out the soul of Mileena and Kitana's father, Jerrod is inside Ermac...

That came out wrong... Or did it?

Anyways, they break in, Kitana almost fools General Shao and Shang Tsung right before Shang Bang puts on a crown, that awakens the Dragon Kings army and a a fake Sindel kills the queen, but Jerrod, who is still in control of Ermac, takes her soul before it leaves her body, storing Sindel as a part of Mac n' cheese. They head all come to discover that it wasn't Kronika at the intro, but instead was Shang Tsung from another timeline where he won in MK11,

HOW

DO

YOU

DO

FELLOW

KIDS???!!!

Anyways, 11 Shang, who we will now call Titan Shang, has a plan to rewrite Liu Kang's timeline (the one everything else I just talked about in this entry takes place) and bring absolute fucking chaos with his team of evil time lords. Liu Kang, being the reasonable person he is, summons an army of good time lords and they all fight on the same pyramid that Armageddon's ending took place. For the first time in the entire series, you get to pick your own character for the finale. And based on the character you pick, you get a different variants of characters, most commonly fusions of already existing characters. Finally, you beat Shang and Quan, you get a thanks from Liu, and sent to Madame Bo's, where the Earthrealm heroes enjoy food and tea.

*HEAVY BREATHS*

So, that's the entirety of Mortal Kombat. Any questions?

[delopsia]

Human | Rhett Abbott x Reader

Word Count: 1,300  Cross Posted on AO3 Warnings & Notes: AFAB! Reader, post-argument make-ups. Argument is never truly elaborated on, brief mention of alcohol. Slight hurt if you squint, but mostly comfort. This was a warmup I didn't intend to be posted, but Lewis added Human by Cody Johnson to his Rhett playlist, and well 🧍‍♂️ here's a snippet of the growing pains that come with Rhett learning to be more than just a cowboy 💕  

The moment your eyes close, music starts to play. 

Distant. Muffled. The barely there strummings of a guitar that you could have sworn was still sitting by the dresser. Reluctant, your eyes flicker open again, invisible flames licking at the corners of them as you look toward that old, hand-welded guitar stand. Already know what you'll find. Yet, surprised to find that confirmation.

Empty.

Just because there is music doesn't mean you need to face it. 

You can very well close your eyes again. Sleep off the exhaustion and deal with this in the morning when your mind is clear, and your heart is too sleepy to ache. But dealing with it in the morning means waiting and fitful sleep, brought on by the looming, empty space behind you. Lacking the warm, protective presence you've grown so accustomed to.

Your feet hit the cold floor at the same time that the guitar's player misses a note. This old hardwood has yet to creak as you walk across it, so familiar with the noisiest spots that you avoid them by instinct, and yet, the player seems to sense you coming. A once-perfect melody dissolving into a cluttered array of noises that hardly resembles what it once was.

The screen door squeals as you push it open, effectively silences the old guitar altogether.

It's dark; hard to see when you have nothing but the moonlight to go by, but you don't need it to know who's sitting on the old porch swing. Ankles crossed, the spurs on his boots glinting in the light. The ones you got him for his birthday last year because he kept glancing at them in the store. Never able to tear his eyes off the things he wants the most.

Like now. 

The full moon is just bright enough for you to see the way he tears his gaze off of you, only for it to flicker back as you cross the porch. Even now, he can't hide it. Your mouths remain sealed as you settle into the space next to him, the swing gently swaying as you do so. It's hard to talk when your throat is raw and your voice is weaker than the sleepy breeze that sweeps past.

On its own, your hand raises; he stiffens. Unable to move as your fingers curl around his jaw, your thumb rising to smooth over a bruised cheekbone. Some parting gift from a bull he rode last weekend. Those eyes glimmer a little more than they did before. Bottom lip quivering like a leaf in the Autumn breeze. 

That old guitar shakes as he sets it down, unable to keep it in his grip for the few seconds it takes him to do it. Eyelashes flutter, fighting back a flood that they're not strong enough to stop because a tear rolls down his cheek anyway. Caught midway by your thumb, only to be joined by another, and another, and another. 

"Rhett."

He breaks. 

Features scrunching. Collapsing into you so quickly that the swing sways with it, rocking back and forth. Your arms wrap around him, hardly able to cling to his shuddering frame. That usually cold nose of his is hot, burning against your neck as he buries his face into it. 

"I'm sorry," his voice breaks, interrupted by a hiccup. Can't quite get his voice out, and it's not because of your not-so-tame argument earlier. 

"It's okay," there's a soreness in your throat that makes it difficult to get around those syllables, overused and inflamed; you don't sound much better than he does, "You didn't mean to do it."

But Rhett's head shakes. A small, barely there motion that you doubt he notices he's doing. "No, it's not," his arms are tight around you, not letting go, even as he leans back to meet your eye, "I shouldn't have raised my voice at you in the first place."

You can argue with him on this; you're better with words than he is, know how to sell your point like a used car salesman during a recession. But you're not going to; too much of your evening has been spent bickering and pushing points that matter a whole lot less than they seem to. No, you're much happier with leaning in and pressing a kiss to his forehead, lingering there a moment too long.

"I don't know if 'm doin' this right," this close, you can catch the hint of whiskey on his breath; barely there, a whisper of what it could be. Doesn't assault your senses like it does when he's had enough to get himself drunk. You don't know how recently he's had it, but he's sober enough to notice you catch the scent. "Had half a glass, 's all."

Dramatic, your eyebrows raise. "Only half?" Raising your palm to feel his forehead, then his cheeks. "Are you feeling alright?"

The corners of his eyes turn upward, brought on by a watery smile, "was that sour apple shit my mom gave us."

"That bad, huh?" You really should address your argument, settle it while you're both too tired to get riled up again, but as he pushes your noses together, rubbing back and forth in that ticklish little kiss, it goes flying out the window. Not every argument needs to be solved right this second, but it's hard to ignore the wetness remaining on your shoulder. Tears, drying against your nightshirt.

Rhett's quiet again. 

Yet, somehow, that's all the answer you needed. 

It's easy settling into this rocking chair, bodies leaning into each other without care. One of his arms drapes around your shoulders, drawing you into his chest, while the swing rocks back and forth. A soothing dance that lulls your eyes shut, unable to keep them open any longer.

"Thank you." He murmurs, lips tickling your temple.

"For what?" 

The arm around you tightens, pulls you a smidge closer, erasing the last of the space between your bodies. One of those subconscious things he does when he's biding for more time to find what words he wants to use. "For not making me feel like something that needs to be fixed." Pausing again, interrupted by a stray hiccup. "I know I can...be a lot to deal with."

He says it as if you didn't know what you were getting into with him. Like you didn't already understand that cowboys like him all have the same burning issue. 

"You're learning," reaching for his hand as you speak, watching how yours practically disappears in his grasp, "I can't fault you for that."

Because everyone knows that Rhett Abbott was born and raised to be a cowboy. To spend his life working the family ranch, pick up for his brother's slack, and, if he still had the energy after all that, make his father proud by winning the county rodeo. A man worth bearing the Abbott family name. Something to brag about during family get-togethers. 

All those expectations, and they forgot one simple little thing.

They never raised him to be human. 

But he's getting there. 

His boots hit the floor, not so subtly telling you that he's about to get up but not quite going through with it yet. The wateriness in his eyes replaced by a childish sparkle fueled by whatever is brewing behind his growing smile.

"Y'wanna dance with me?" 

How did you know he was about to ask that? "You don't know how to dance." 

"Maybe," leaning closer, bumping your foreheads together, "But you always laugh when I trip and fall on my ass." 

He's barely held his hand out before you're taking it. Letting him pull you up from the swing, off to spin around in the grass until someone inevitably falls. Already giggling before you've even made it off the porch together.

Dancing in the middle of the night won't fix things, but maybe they don't need fixing. 

[cosmicpearlz]

breathe

summary: an accident causes you to have a bad spiral of emotions.

pairing: percy hynes white x reader

a/n: i think percy would be the type of boyfriend to be so sweet about a situation like this!

…………………………………………………………………………….

“hey babe, i’m going to the store to pick some stuff up. did you want to come with?” percy peeked his head in the room, leaning on the doorframe.

“no, i’ll stay here and tidy up the apartment while you’re out.”

“are you trying to say that i take too long in the store?” he playfully glares at you making you smile.

“baby, you literally get distracted almost every five minutes.”

“well you have a point there,” you rise from the bed to meet him in the hallway.

wrapping your arms around his waist, you looked up into his eyes, “it’s okay because i still love you and your cute antics.” he bent down to capture your lips with his. the kiss was a short one but it still left you feeling warm.

“i love you and your antics too. i’m gonna get going before it gets too late and i’ll pick something up for dinner.” percy places a kiss to your forehead and gathers his things to leave. you walked him to the door and kissed him once more.

“don’t miss me too much.”

“whatever loser, be safe. i need you to come back in one piece!”

“sure thing sweetheart,” he throws you a wink and you closed the door behind him.

there wasn’t much to do around the apartment, meaning you’d be finished in no time. you decided to put on your favorite album and got to work.

starting with the bedroom, you began to make the bed that you and percy had no desire to do earlier. that was usually your routine on the lazy days. spending time together but leaving all the chores until later in the day. the music playing through the speakers was distracting you while you cleaned around the room. you were more focused on lip syncing to the lyrics while putting things away.

as you finished up putting things away in your dresser, you stopped to look at the picture frame on top of the dresser. it was a photo of you and percy at a county fair taken by one of his friends. in the photo, you were holding a medium sized stuffed panda that he insisted on winning for you. percy was next to you looking down at your smiling face with his own smile. it was one of your favorite pictures of the two of you. 

-

finally being done in your shared bedroom, you grabbed the broom to start sweeping the floor in the living room. that was the exact moment your favorite song came blaring through the speakers. you used the broom as your microphone, dancing around the apartment.

you were midway into the singing the next batch of lyrics when your back crashed into the table making something tumble straight onto the floor. your body froze, slowing turning around, there on the ground was the bright orange vase with different colored swirls along with the flowers that sat in it.

“fuck. oh fuck.”

what were you supposed to do? what was percy going to say? it had been something that he added to the apartment and you just broke it. you dropped the broom and backed up towards the wall, sliding down to sit on the ground. forgetting all about the music, you felt like your chest was caging in on itself while you stared with watery eyes at the broken pieces.

-

“honey, i’m home!” you heard percy in the hallway shuffling with the bags from the store. you’re chest somehow felt even worse.

“y/n? are you okay? you usually answer me when i come in.” you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, too busy focusing on the broken pieces in front of you and the sound of his footsteps coming closer.

“y/n?” percy stopped in his tracks finding you sitting on the floor with the vase that sat broken a few feet away from you. he’s quick to ditch the bags on his arms to walk towards you, careful to not step on the broken pieces.

you’re body was instantly sent into a panic with your chest tightening as you dug your nails deeper into the palm of your hand. breathing was suddenly hard to do while you cried harder. percy had only ever seen you in this state once before when you were scared to meet his friends earlier in your relationship. since then, he knew just how to guide you back from the spiral of emotions.

“baby, it’s just me. i’m gonna rest my hands on you, is that okay?” he didn’t want to make the situation any worse, so talking you through was the only way. you managed to weakly give him a nod of consent and he bent down to your level, gently grabbing your hands into his.

“i need you to breathe with me.” he rubs small circles over your hands while you tried to focus on his voice. you couldn’t unfocus your attention from the vase. his vase. with noticing that you weren’t focusing on him but the broken vase, percy moves so that your eyes were now on his black hoodie.

“focus on me babe. just me.” you slowly looked up to meet his eyes with your teary ones. he gives you a reassuring smile, continuing to rub the back of your hands.

“good good. now, we’re gonna breathe together.” trying to match his breathing only made you cry more. your whimpers were the only sound in the room, the album had played it’s last song minutes ago before percy came home.

“i know it’s hard but i need you to try. it’s okay and you’re safe.” you gazed into his eyes and focused on matching his breath. his reassuring green eyes bringing a sense of calmness to you.

your breathing was finally back to its normal pace with your tears stopping shortly after, “you’re doing so good sweetheart. now, tell me what happened but take your time. we’re going to continue breathing slowly like this.”

“i- uh i was dancing and bumped my back on the table. th- the um- the vase fell,” you whispered, biting your lip to keep it from trembling more.

he silently nods his head, “are you hurt?”

“no, i don’t think so.”

“that’s good. let’s get you off the floor and clean this mess up, yeah?” percy slowly guided you to your feet. you were confused expecting him to have some kind of reaction but there wasn’t one in sight.

“you’re not mad?” you watched him grab the broom and dustpan to clean the pieces up. he turns his attention back to you and peers at you with furrowed brows.

“what? no, why would i be?”

“i broke your vase,” you gestured to the floor.

“it’s just a vase that i found at a thrift store. it’s no big deal,” he shrugged his shoulders and went back to cleaning it up. you watched him all the way until he was done, still not believing he wasn’t mad at you. percy senses that and walks back over to you, placing both his hands on your cheeks.

“baby it’s just a vase. you’re not hurt, so there’s no reason to keep dwelling on that. i promise i’m not mad at you, not even the slightest.”

“are you sure?” he stares at you for a moment before attacking your face with kisses making you laugh. percy placed kisses on your eyelids, forehead, cheeks, jaw and your nose because he knew it would send you into a laughing fit. it worked every time.

“okay okay! i surrender!”

“do you still feel down? i got more kisses to give out if you need them.”

“no, i feel better. i’m sorry again.”

“if you apologize again, i will have to move onto tickling you.”

“please don’t.”

“alright then. i told you it was something i seen in the thrift store and i got it because it was only two dollars. that vase meant nothing to me.” he pulls you closer to his body, “but you mean everything to me. i’m glad you didn’t get cut or anything like that.”

“you mean everything to me too,” you rested your head on his chest relaxing in the hug.

“i know. let’s put the groceries away and then i shall shower you in all my affection!”

“deal,” you replied with a chuckle moving to help him with the bags. your boyfriend never failed to make you feel better.



[mistycreativelilacs]

Thawing of A Heart Pt.3

Authors note: what’s this? Not me updating this fic three years later.

Whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯… Anyway here’s the (maybe) long awaited third part filled with tension and plot twists.

Content warning: Violence, gun use, references to castration, references to mental health, use of the word crazy, mild angst, mentions of character deaths, Peacemaker exists (rip to people who like him)

Pt.1 (x) Pt.2 (x)

You’re lost in the ever-changing branches of Rick’s timelines when Cleo nudges you. Your eyes sweep the plane, unable to stop the pang of longing for your old team. The pang turns to a dull ache in your chest as you attempt to block the visions of your friends' flickering timelines. If you were going to be any use to them, you’d need to re-adopt the Ice Queen persona you’d had when you started this job five years ago.

“So how does Bruce Wayne’s eldest charity case end up working with a bunch of second-rate criminals?” Bloodsport interrupts your pondering. He’d been watching you since the debrief, eyes trained on you like a puzzle he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to solve. You could imagine what Harl’s would have to say if she were here.

‘Ooooh, looks like someone’s got themselves a shiny new criminal admirer. Should I lick you to show him you’re already claimed?’ Said in the world’s worst stage whisper to garner Flags attentions. Subtlety and Harley were not synonymous, and no one cared more about the pseudo-relationship between yourself and Flag then your self proclaimed ‘BFF’. She’d expressed her feelings on the matter several times over the years. Your favourite instance being several months ago, during one of your last missions with the team. You and Flag had been arguing about sending you in to get information from the target when Harley sauntered over wicked grin on her face. ‘You twos should just relieve this obvious tension already. Seriously, here’s a broom closet. Go at it, for the good of the team.’ Manic smile still firmly on her face as she attempted to drag you into said closet.

“I believe the words you meant to say, Sergeant Dubois is ‘Bruce Wayne’s eldest child’. To which I’d have to say we have more of a sibling relationship. Not that it’s any of your business.” You hold his gaze. “As for joining the squad?” You shrug, “Wrong place at the right time.” He quirks his brow clearly unamused.

“I haven’t been a Sergeant in a long time.”

“And just what would you call your current roll here?” You gesture around the plane while he glares at you. The corner of your mouth twitches against your will.

“Waller evidently had been keeping tabs on me, due in part to certain rumours about my participation in corporate espionage. So, when I got picked up by GCPD for allegedly crashing Bruce’s new Ferrari into the lobby of LexCorps newest eyesore of a skyscraper in downtown Gotham, Waller swooped in.” Your little chat had garnished the attention of the plane's other occupants, their heads all turned towards you and Robert.

“You want us to believe that the daughter of Billionaire Bruce Wayne got hauled off to Belle Reve for crashing a car? And what could Waller want in a civilian like you anyway?” Peacemaker. You’d been attempting to avoid him since Waller introduced you at the debrief. If his persistent existence as the antagonist in your visions of Flag’s current timeline wasn’t enough to turn you off, the skin crawling sensation of his eyes constantly roaming over your body was enough to put him firmly in the creep category.

“Crashing a car didn’t get me sent to Belle Reve. As I said, I’d been the subject of corporate espionage rumours for years. Waller used my accident combined with those rumours to get me whisked to Belle Reve under the guise of my being a National Security risk. It took one phone call from Bruce to get the charges dropped, but by then I was already in the middle of Midway City on my first Task Force mission.”

“If the charges were dropped, why stick around?” Your eyes wonder back to Robert.

“Can’t a girl want to be part of something bigger than herself?” There’s a teasing lilt to your voice and somewhere in the back of your head a voice - that sounds suspiciously like Harley- reminds you that you’re here to save Flag, not flirt with attractive violent Englishmen. Even if they did fall perfectly into your type of the emotionally constipated older dilf. “No, much like all of you Waller has a small amount of blackmail to keep me compliant.” You cross one leg over the other, adopting the oh so familiar public persona of a Wayne. “Unlike all of you, I’m being paid to be here.”

“But why does she want you here?” Peacemaker leans forward in his seat.

“Originally, she believed me to be some sort of hacker savant or a meta with some sort of compulsion powers. I was neither of those, but I did prove to be quite useful in the field.” Your gaze moves to you lap as timelines tickle the back of your mind, begging to be seen. “I do dread the day she realizes just what kind of bird she’s caged.” An image of Rick in pain flashes through your mind. Gone before you can really grasp if it was a future timeline or your own imagination.

“Are you saying you’ve got some sort of bird powers?” You toy with checking the timelines to see just how fucked you’d be for killing Peacemaker here and now but ultimately decide it’d give Waller more ammunition against you.

“My powers lie more in the line of a… second sight than with birds, although…” You pretend to mull it over, “I’d probably get along better with you if my powers were more avian in nature.” You could see the ghost of a smirk flirt across Robert's face and a warmth flits through your chest.

You avert your gaze before the familiar itch of branching timelines can pull you under. Perhaps Flags icy demeanour of the last few months had affected you more than you thought. It’d been a long time since such minor attentions from a man had you near slipping into the branches of time.

“What the fucks that supposed to mean?” Peacemaker stood abruptly, moving towards you only to be halted by Robert’s hand on his chest.

“Alright tough guy, sit back down.”

“Was it my use of verbose vocabulary words that has you confused?” You stand, waltzing closer to where they stand, one strand of hair curled around your finger. Perhaps Harley had been rubbing off on you more than you cared to admit. “Let me put it in words you’d understand.” Your standing face to face with Peacemaker now, Roberts body only partially between the two of you. “You.” You jab your finger into Peacemaker's sternum, brushing against Robert's arm. “Dumb.” Another jab. “Like.” Peacemaker's eyes had drifted to your finger on his chest while Robert attempted to move himself more in front of you. “Bird.” With the final jab you run your finger up and flick him in his nose, a move reminiscent of your nephews. With that final flick all hell broke loose.

Peacemaker moved to advance on you, having shoved Robert aside. You were expecting this, having let slips of the timeline penetrate your consciousness, and turn your back to him at the last minute grabbing the arm he’d reached forward to attack with. You flip him over your shoulder and as he slams into the planes floor, you dig your foot into his neck pointing your gun at his face.

“As you can see Robert, those fears of me being dead weight can be put to rest. I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself. Even against dumb brutes like him.” Peacemaker moves to grab your leg, and you let off a shot beside his head. “Stay down or the next ones a castration shot.” You move the gun to point at Peacemakers crotch and you catch a glimpse of fear in his eyes.

“Bitch” he gasps out as you dig the ball of your foot a little deeper into his neck.

“A bitch with near immunity, not that anyone would care if I wounded trash like you. Now are you going to shut up and behave like a good little dog.” Theres a flash of defiance in his eyes and you twitch your trigger finger.

“What the hell are they teaching in those fancy prep schools?” Robert's face didn’t give much in the way of what he was feeling, much like Flag, however you’d noticed that unlike Flag, Roberts eyes displayed his every emotion, if you knew what to look for. God, a few hours with this man and you’d already believed you could discern his emotions from a single glance. The sooner you got out of this plane the better.

“Looks like Rickies got some competition…” There goes the phantom Harley once again. Maybe her crazy is rubbing off on you like Bruce feared.

“Dancing.” You spit out, holding Robert's gaze as you remove your foot from Peacemaker's throat. “They teach you how to dance.” You’re finding far too much enjoyment in this little rapport you’ve started with the mercenary, but even Harley didn’t put up with your idiosyncrasies for this long, unless she was in a mood. The last person who could, ended up on the wrong side of Jokers crowbar. Perhaps Waller was right when she claimed the only thing separating me from the rest of the Belle Reve residents was the Wayne family name.

“I highly doubt dance lessons taught you how to do that.” There’s a spark of amusement in his eyes.

“Dancing, fighting.” You shrug “They’re one in the same are they not?” You sit back down, aware that the rest of the plane has gained a new wariness of you. You feel more than see Robert give you a once over.

“You truly are something else Wayne.” Robert exhales as he sits back down, the hint of a chuckle shaking his bulky frame.

Alarm bells start going off in your head. The kind of alarms that sound like Bruce and scream ‘life altering, name ruining, PR nightmare, absolutely atrocious decision making incoming.’

“You don’t even know the half of it Sergeant.”

Tag-List: @paryl @nerdgrrlramblings @weallhaveadestiny @a-girl-who-loves-disney @boristhepineapple @girlnred @romanticgumchewer-reactivated @lacontroller1991

[lonelyroommp3]

i feel like i need to take back every time i’ve been a bitch about people dreaming up suspiciously coherent new tumblr trends bc among the several extremely vivid dreams i had in my 10 hour bonked my head sleep i had one where people were adding three new options to every single poll: strawberry, cherry, and lollipop. and not only this but they were always sweeping every fucking poll vanilla extract style. the whole dream was devoted to trying to find out what any of this shit meant and i got as far as somebody irl in some kind of creepy attic demonstrating a “lollipop answer” to me (it was functionally the same as a “yo mama” joke in format, though the person explaining this did not seem to make this connection and the joke they gave me as an example did not make very much sense). and then someone in my replies was like “oh well a strawberry is just cute and fun and a cherry is like, dead dove do not eat” and i was midway through FURIOUSLY typing “BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN CONTEXT. HOW DO YOU ANSWER ‘CHERRY’ TO A POLL ASKING IF YOU MAKE YOUR BED EVERY DAY” when my dream switched and suddenly i was watching a swimming race between all the red bull drivers and alex albon’s all new fictitious karting academy

[scenetocause]

For the director's cut thing: At the end of Climb up to your lips, you implied Max F and Logan might be A Thing, and I'd love to hear more about that if you want to share ❤️

idk if i'll ever actually finish the logan perspective thing i started writing midway through the main story bc actually when i looked back at it i was like these are really just my own background notes what do you think you are jrr tolk himself you don't have to publish stuff you wrote for your own reference. but hey if there ever was a medium for all your stupid lore and self-fanfic then it surely is a o three dot org (note to old men fantasy writers etc) so maybe i will.

basically the thesis is that logan, like oscar at the start, is lonely and can't get what he wants, which is a boyfriend. both him and oscar have resigned themselves to never being able to reconcile their ambitions in f1 with anything that fulfils them in that way and sort of let their friendship settle as a pseudo-standin where they can hang out and be each other's person to take to things, go to dinner with, whatever and just live in suspended animation until something (???) happens and they get disney prince rescued.

something does happen for girloscar which is that she isn't so much disney prince rescued as like, dragged into a bath by a wet cat. and she can't believe this is happening because she's fancied lando for ages, used to pine at him from the alpine pit wall so much she got caught by otmar once, who mistook it for trying to steal secrets off mclaren and she had to make something up about the front wing.

she's so excited to be teammates with him but also so, so mortified and trying really hard to be normal about it. logan's thrilled to be in f1 at all but also realising that deal he had for fucking about a little bit with some of the f2 guys was just fucking about for them when their girlfriends weren't on the travel budget and definitely won't survive being in different paddocks.

oscar gets lando and logan gets lonelier. at the same time, his season's falling apart and everyone's announcing his career dead before it feels like it's had a chance to start. he has to rely on benny and james and benny starts to, gently, put distance between them to keep it professional, manage logan's expectations. so he clings to james, at the same time as knowing this is probably the worst possible way to try and keep his seat and that it's going nowhere, the team principle not a viable fuckbuddy, let alone anything more.

enter jenson button. hot dad, sympathetic ear, special advisor to williams. whiskey supplier. a man who's there to help you celebrate your first f1 point and certainly isn't going to argue if that involves a bit of fucking your brains out. lovely, sweet, gentle, funny jenson who makes logan feel special and loved and sweeps him up from his flat in london in fancy cars to go to fancier restaurants as though he deserves the champagne.

and then goes home to his wife and kids.

somewhere along the way, hurting during the 2024 season, logan has to break it off. he wants what oscar and lando have, not this. it was glamorous and exciting and giving him the confidence he was part of this world he's fighting to stay in, for awhile but then it starts making him realise he'll only ever be the number two in that situation, forever out of contention for the real prize. it's all a bit on the nose.

so he stubbornly struggles through 2024, single as fuck and finding himself taking rather than giving advice to oscar about things to stick up your arse, which feels lonelier than ever before. in miami the combination of his and oscar's shit weekend and lando's good one leads to him coming out for a few drinks and ending up fucking one of the mclaren pr guys. he has a meltdown when he sees the papaya shirt on the floor the next morning.

pr guy's very discreet about it, although he keeps smiling at logan every time they cross paths and logan's about 85% sure there isn't actually a need for him to follow oscar so closely, actually. logan's shaky position makes someone being so into him about as comfortable on his skin as sweaty fireproofs but that doesn't stop him being desperate enough to fall into bed with the guy again once he has something to celebrate. once he realises he's charlie-from-marketing's jenson figure.

he's not an asshole so he does take the guy on a few dates, try and romance him a bit. maybe he, too, can find love with a mclaren twink, it worked for oscar after all. but it just doesn't click, the guy doesn't really understand him, too in awe of the fact he's getting screwed by an f1 driver to notice the bedsheets are ikea and one of the pillows is pretty badly tearstained. that logan's barely clinging to his ride, feels like he is what they're saying; one of the worst ever, not even brave enough with the car to crash as spectacularly as latifi.

logan doesn't exactly break it off but says he needs them to take a break while he's negotiating his contract, can't risk anything. it's not a huge surprise when a few week's later it's obvious the guy's moved on with ollie bearman. like his last relationship, it's all a bit on the nose.

2025 gives him time to work out what he really wants. f1 might not be it, life might be better somewhere else. he starts talking to formula e teams, wondering if a life in papaya might not be that bad after all provided he didn't have to see oscar and lando mooning over each other. and that's not even fair because oscar asks him to be her best man and he's stoked, especially because lando's is max and they've stayed in touch, still hang out. max is doing a few bits racing gts, initially as a quadrant thing but then it turned out he was more than good enough to be in demand as the pro to a gentleman driver who was so eager to get back in a race car he didn't really negotiate on price, even.

logan avoids asking him about it but max is fucking hype about how mint the 24 hours of spa is. fucking mental, mate. you're throwing it up eau rouge with a bunch of blokes who wear suits, like proper suits not race suits, all week in the pitch dark and it's shitting it down with rain and you think: i shouldn't be enjoying this, should i? should really be driving into the pits and saying no thanks, that's absolutely mad, can't be doing that sort of business. but then when it's happening you're like, properly into it, aren't you? got a podium in misano, mate, it was mad. blowie off one of the mechanics, that didn't happen in f3 did it haha mind you guess they would've been a bit of a nonce back then wouldn't they. you should come to a race i'll get you vip, they'll go mental for an f1 driver being there mate, they went mad when bob dropped into brands and he was only there five minutes.

logan doesn't say that he thinks he has a lot less star power than lando but they do give him vip anyway. he's never been to magny cours before, it feels weighted with that type of european history the classic race tracks do, like another thing that might find out who he is and reject him.

even if the circuit isn't embracing him, max does. complains about logan being so fucking tall, mate, it's annoying, i swear you were smaller than me once. he wasn't but max can pretend that, if it helps. max is jangling with nerves, rushing between trying to sort things out with the team - because it's not like, you know, f3 and that, you have to set the car up so the other bloke can drive it the best he can and then you just sort of have to cope with how it is. actually, that's quite like f3 innit? do you remember in fucking silversto- nah, let's not think about that right now.

it's nice. it's nothing to do with f1. even with the quadrant logos, that's max's thing, no weird haunting of lando around and it's not like logan dislikes the guy, at all, it's just that it's nice that this is all theirs. logan can breathe out, relax, laugh properly for what feels like the first time in ages because no one's scrutinising his every move and max gives him a headset and tells him to listen out for when he's boxing, put the fucking kettle on, yeah?

logan falls asleep on max's hotel bed, listening to him recount the whole story of a race he just watched. max tucks him in, rather than the trophy and if they wake up hugging that's no one's business but theirs. didn't used to do blowies in f3, either but when there's something to celebrate and max really is so small, so cute, so unselfconscious about everything because it's just them, yeah. doesn't have to be a massive fuss like bob and oscar, do you want a lift back to the uk? i've got space since bob moved his fucking golf clubs out the boot finally.

oscar and lando get married a week later and it's very oscar and lando. logan didn't have a date to bring, didn't even think about it before he saw george's girlfriend and kelly and the sharp stab of whoever lewis' guy is. logan knows there's no point being jealous on that scale; he couldn't be lewis, on any level but everyone wants, don't they?

max doesn't have a date either. probably doesn't need to hold logan's hand while they're waiting for lando and oscar to do their vows and max is crying and maybe logan's crying too. they have to stay behind to clear up the flower petals, getting tutted at in french while max rolls his eyes and says they should try being told off at Viry, fucking hell.

if they're later to the reception than is strictly necessary because as they were leaving max turned round and said "do you think, mate. you know, we could - one day" and logan decided to stop living on borrowed time and properly make out with him against the harbour wall. have to stop because they're getting dangerously close to third base and max is breathy and gasping and telling logan he can have this. they always were equals, each others' biggest rivals, maybe they're meant to be here, bright eyed and hair disarrayed and grinning at each other, not the places they've been struggling.

oscar's definitely onto them, makes some really crude comments about it being traditional for the best man and head bridesmaid to fuck, innit and logan has to tell her to fuck off and bother her husband. they are properly cute, though, aren't they? never thought bob would be able to hold a relationship together but she's properly straightened him out, who knew he just had to get pegged- fuck, pretend i didn't say that. oh, how did you know, too?

logan and max normally stay with lando and oscar when they're in monaco. but there's only one spare room and this doesn't feel the moment to drop that announcement, as well as they do not want to hear what those two pervs are doing to each other tonight. so they're in different hotels but everything in monte carlo's pretty much the same place, pick logan's on the basis it's nearer the casino and they can go for a late night, last drink once they've got oscar and lando's very drunk dads into a cab.

kissing when they're in fancy suits is hot. fucking when they're out of them is hotter. when logan slides home into max's body and sees him gasp, feels his hands curl on logan's shoulders as they both moan and if it's too much like lovemaking then, well. maybe that's what they're doing. creating something, between them. something that's all theirs and they can choose without anyone else's decisions or approval. no need to wait in limbo or have to guess what happens next, which is that they come on each other and then curl up together, max sprawled on logan's chest all happy and sated and real.

he doesn't wait for the f1 decision, to make plans. racing drivers aren't patient and he finally feels like one again, especially every time his boy brings home a trophy like it's theirs. logan starts adding to the collection, too. both of them get to push, at last. they've always been good at doing that for each other.

[byrdstrolls]

Crazy Ass Space Battle One Shot

(Exactly what it says on the tin)

It had long since come to a time in General Faeria Longse’s life, that when it came to actual work in the field, she could afford to be picky. Yes, the woman was technically- by stretches of the definition highbloods were awarded- still in active service. This took the form of an on planet alternian strategist she had employed to monitor urgent fleet situations and try to find ones for her that were “interesting” as Faeria tolerated no other kind of military encounter. She looked at battles teetering on the edge of win or lose as nothing other than logic puzzles it kept her mind sharp to solve. Her email would pile up with reports of distant fleet movements, most of which she would respond to with brief consultations, always beginning the same way. 

“Too easy, circle back to the asteroid belt and draw them into delta 63.”

“Too easy, pull back fighters into moon orbit for cover & capture & trojan local supply line.”

“Too easy, Sun Tzu 3.17” 

“Too easy, target 175.867 & 321.489”

“Too easy, external heat could burst the carbon canisters. Pull back tanks & have small fighters consolidate fire.” 

Very rarely, only when coming across something especially fanciful, would the general type a simple-

“OK. brt.” 

.

.

.

.

.

You always thought you would die young. At some point, for an amount of time you found difficult to determine, life had become a staircase that you fell down from hit to hit, that only involved brief moments of meaning and sobriety and clarity. Life had tested you, you got by by the skin of your teeth. You went all in gambling your life and constantly rolled those dice in endless pursuit of a bigger payoff. You have made your way out of a car trunk with a shiv fashioned from a binder clip. You had once stolen narcotics from a purpleblood by hacking and deleting the attempt limit on his touchpad and physically inputting every possible number from 000-4903. You once fashioned a pipe out of a hollowed out flashlight in a dark locked janitor's closet. Were you rational, reasonable, smart, in these moments? No. But you got the job done. 

Your name is Noreko Oculus, and 2 sweeps ago, you were picked off a street corner and forcibly enlisted as a low level fighter pilot in the alternian fleet. This new career path has very much conflicted with your previous life goals of having a good time not a long time. You are standing in a hallway near the tiny hanger bay of your minor vessel, with three other pilots waiting for a mission briefing. 

“You should stand up straighter” Says the man next to you, noting the relaxed way in which you were poised. You fix him with a long, exasperated stare before turning your head back forward. 

“Sergeant Asperc is gonna yell at you again” He warns. 

“Watch as my spine irons out the moment he enters the room in awe.” You retort. “Until then I’m not on the clock.” You say, glancing towards the leftmost door. 

“You know, standing up straight,” he continues. “It’s better for you.” 

And you frown, because coincidentally, those are your least favorite four words in the standard dictionary when arranged in that order. 

The door opens, and it is not your sergeant who exits it, but you straighten your back reflexively anyway, because it's a seadweller. She’s short, but in a uniform of incredibly high rank. She doesn’t look at any of you, but instead stops midway through the hallway, to look out the window at the tiny, pinpoint green dots of the enemy’s ship in the distance. You have a great view of the back of her head, and notice the strange stiff lines of discoloration and decay on her horns. What could cause something like that? You think momentarily of scars on your body from picked skin on bad trips. 

“Okay,” Says General Faeria Longse. “How do you destroy an enemy ship that has no structural integrity comprehensible to us?” She says. 

You pause, along with your fellow soldiers, wondering if this is a rhetorical question. You do not often get consulted in strategy, despite it being a mandatory academy class. You did not often receive more complicated instructions than ‘Bring Thing 1 to Place B’ or ‘Take Down That Ship’. The tiny, barely-room-to-turn-around-in fighters they give to mutants like you are frail and expendable. 

“Any guesses?” She says, finally, and the other soldiers look away nervously. 

“With four B6I Fighter Pods?” You guess, because someone has to say something. Faeria laughs, but it is an unsettling sound. 

“Yes. But also no.” She says. “The aliens have constructed a ship purely out of some kind of bacteria-filled slime. It absorbs and reforms around most physical firepower. Our lasers don’t pack enough heat to evaporate it because of its high boiling point. It’s just so slightly faster than the main ship, and if we lean even slightly below max speed we’ll lose it. It’s fifty miles away.” She lists. “Any guesses?” 

“We poison it?” Another girl tried timidly, having recognized Faeria and remembered her ancestor name. 

“If only,” The general sighs. “We know incredibly little about the aliens within it, side them being only about two inches tall. We have no captives or dead to autopsy to determine if they even have something close to a digestive system. Figuring out if they can be poisoned and how to poison them would take more time than we have. And we have close to no time. Because in a million lightyears, or three hours at this pace, they’ll be out of alternian territory. And within range of their allies, which they can immediately send a distress beacon for reinforcements. No more guesses.” She decides, abruptly. 

“You’re not smart enough to figure it out. If we can’t set fire to the ship itself. We’re gonna set fire to something else directly beneath it, where it can’t use its slime to absorb or put out missiles. Which one of you has lost the most fleet battles?” 

The other three trolls around you shuffle nervously, and accidentally, all three of them glance at you at once. Figures. The general watches this happen in the window's reflection, and finally, turns around to greet you. 

“Hello!” She says, leaning forward to read your name tag. Too close, you think. She smells bitterly of plastic and chemicals. More cleaning supply than troll. It’s unsettling. 

“Vice Assistant Extended Training Probation Lieutenant Noreko Oculus?” She says, and you salute. 

“I have a special job for you. We’re gonna get rid of one of your oxygen canisters and replace it with a bomb. You’re gonna fly out there in your B6I Fighter Pod, and you’re going to go under the alien ship and lock steady with it. The other three pods will fire upon you from three directions, and it will cause an explosion hot enough to boil the slime and evaporate it into gas, killing all the aliens.”

“M’am. You must be confused.” The soldier farthest from you stutters. “The B6I Fighter doesn’t have an ejection pod.” Which is true. It saves the fleet money to cut such corners. 

“Ejection pods are for officers who win fleet battles.” She says, gesturing to the hanger. 

“Couldn’t we have autopilot fly an empty ship there?” Another soldier tries. 

“Are you the fucking general?” She says, reprimanding him for speaking out. “And no. Not if the ship starts maneuvering complicatedly. We need troll eyes to get it there. Well? Everyone understand? We have three hours. Positions!” 

“You expect me to suicide bomb that shit?” You say. 

“Yes” The general says, patting your back in a way that would be reassuring were she not a strange, disgusting hollowed out vessel of a troll seemingly incapable of natural emotion. “Or I’ll activate the fleet tracker embedded in your arm and use it to kill you. And you need to stand up more straight.” She says, giving you a thumbs up as she walks backwards out of the bay. You have met a lot of evil, desperate and inconceivable people in your time in the army. But this takes the cake. 

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For much of your youth, you had simultaneously thought yourself vulnerable and invincible. You had an incredibly high tolerance for many things. Pain. Alcohol. Most drugs. But there has to be somewhere you draw the line, right? 

You aren’t… going to kill yourself. 

You are barely given time to think about it. The other pods are already taking off. You know you’re even more outnumbered in the hanger bay. So you follow them. You could try and run and hide but even if you got rid of the tracker somehow, you only had one canister of oxygen. You would run out in a few hours. There has to be a way out. Slowly, you lower one hand off the wheel, slightly to the left. The only spot in the pod that is not visible from its camera. You had perfectly obscured it, when you first hacked your pod's smoke detectors, so you could smoke cigarettes on duty without your superiors noticing. You flick open a pocket knife, glancing down at your arm. That tracker she described- you have to get it out and destroy it. Without alerting your boss watching you on camera. One handed. With a pocketknife. 

Oh well. You have had worse nights. You sneakily take a painkiller or two disguised in a sip of water. And start at it. There is some crying, but it wouldn't necessarily blow your cover. You are supposed to be flying to your death, you’ve earned it. About twenty minutes, and a lot of incorrect lacerations later, you have it. You crush it with the knife, over and over again. Until it's hopefully no longer working. Okay. What now? 

Come on. Think about this. Sure, you did not win a lot of battles. But only because you didn’t care. Sure, you did not have much of a life to return to or look forward to. Your tiny cot on the mainship is populated mostly with ship manuals and dirty magazines. But you are not unintelligent. In fact, when given a puzzle like a locked box of vicodin or a med bay computer system you became temporarily the smartest troll in the universe for incredibly short periods of time. Desperation is a hell of a chemical. If you can falsify records of fake injuries and disorders requiring prescriptions, if you can synthesize recreational substances from several mundane medications in a homemade chem lab in a ship storage bay, if you can survive this world this long when everything around you including your own body wants you dead, you can outthink that tiny bitch in the 20 minutes it takes to reach the aliens. Casually, you flip through schematics of the nearby systems. No way you could over power all three fighter pods. You could get out of range of the main ship, maybe, but they are smaller and faster. Not a lot of solid planets out here- mostly stars and asteroids. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a sun in the near distance, and enhance it with your ship's sensors. You look forward, at pods flying in tandem with you. And back at the screen, at tiny black dots dancing across the sun’s surface. Solar flares. You look back at the pocketknife in your bleeding hand, and in one quick motion, lodge the weapon forcefully into the lens of the ship camera, and swerve violently to the left. The other pods pause, and then follow you. They aren’t firing, and thank g-d, because you don’t want to fire back. They had the same amount of choice in this bullshit you did. 

“This is B6I 93 to B6I 52. What are you doing?” Flickers up on your coms, giving a paper thin benefit of the doubt. 

“What the fuck do you think?” You retort, pushing the throttle further forward, your hands shaking as you rapidly gain speed. 

“B61 52. This is upper command. Return to course. You’re too close to that sun. Any further disobedience and you’ll be neutralized with your chip.” 

You laugh, hollowly, as this piece of shit craft shudders around you, and glance back to make sure the other three pods are still following. Tricky situation for them, surely. They have to regain control of you without killing you. 

“B6I 52” Pleads another of the pods on the line. “Watch out for that solar flare.” They beg, as you continue to fly towards it at max speeds. 

“Are you insane!” Calls another voice, dropping the formalities. And the talk of the soldiers on the line becomes garbled and panicked as all three of them start yelling as you continue your top speed approach. But it doesn’t matter, because you can hardly hear anything but the hum of your shitty little engine stretching to its absolute limit. 

Not yet, 

You think, watching them get closer and closer on radar. 

Not yet, 

You think, blood dripping down onto your lap as your hands remain clutched tight to the wheel. 

Not yet, 

You think, as your ship's only systems start to blurt out proximity alarms and alerts and warnings about the flare in chorus. 

Not until the moment they’re literally on top of you, and the solar flare is seconds away, do you pull back sharply 90 degrees. Your body slamming back into the pilot seat and your ship wheezing in protest as you avoid the solar flare by one or two feet. 

But the other pods behind you are not so lucky, attempting to copy you and failing, they careen into the flare, their ship lights flickering and losing electrical power as the dancing lights of plasma dance between them. And the ships experience the effects of a carrington like event, imbursed in a solar storm. 

They’ll live, on mechanical reserve power & oxygen, but they won’t be following you. You switch off your coms. You swerve to look at the main ship and the aliens far off in the distance. The main ship will likely fire upon you for desertion and treason the moment they’re in range. No way you win that battle, no way in hell. Not with a loaded bomb in your ship's body. You need to get rid of the bomb.

You reach back for a space mask, turning off oxygen temporarily, holding your breath as your wire the only oxygen canister directly to your mask. You’ll have to do outer maintenance. You set your speed, putting the ship on autopilot as you pop open the pilot's pod, and climb onto the hull, switching your pocket knife to its other extensions. You try to remain calm, crying openly as you slowly and carefully dismantle the panel concealing the bomb, and the attachments securing it in place, on the back of a still flying spaceship. You pull it out of the ship gingerly, slowly trailing it out behind you on the last cable that anchors it to the ship. You roll out the cable as far as it possibly can go, and now you are just on a ship, trailing a bomb 30 feet behind you as you continue to speed forward. 

30 feet couldn’t honestly be considered a safe distance from the thing. You’ve only slightly raised your chances of living if it detonates. But you were out of cable. And as you were working, the beginnings of a desperate plan had started to form. You are faster than the main ship. Just maybe, maybe, you could outmaneuver them long enough to plant this sucker below the turrets, and blow them to hell. This was possibly better than no plan at all. But it involved you navigating an all out firefight with a fleet ship with a loaded bomb tied to your back. 

You aren’t certain what kind of g-d you might believe in. You had given your body as a vessel to a much more earthly, flesh and blood power. Now would be the moment to pray to something, someone. What would you have to offer a g-d, anyways? You hadn’t exactly lived a righteous nor pious life. Nothing deserving of being gifted miracles and wonders and rewards beyond measure. But to make it out on a chance like this, someone must be watching out for you. Slowly, your hands close around the throttle. 

You do not believe the universe loves you. Not even a little bit. But what wasn’t gifted to you, you knew how to take. You would have your miracle. You would claw your miracle out of the ribcage of fate with hands bloody and bent but clasped tighter than they had been your entire life. What do they call it? A dead man’s grip. 

You turn your ship and dive straight towards the fleet vessel, into its range. Warning alarms flare up as they begin opening fire. 

You dance like a cockroach through the empty vacuum of space, unkillable. They clip your wings, an explosion knocks into your cargo hold, but the ship's integrity doesn’t fail you yet. Every near miss is a victory. Five minutes pass. But the seconds feel shorter- longer. Both at the same time. Time loses its meaning at the night lights up around you. You barely process it when you finally make it underneath the vessel, but you catch yourself just in time, cutting the cable and letting the bomb float loose underneath the ship's turrets and control center. You zoom back out into the night, hoping the ship's own fire will ignite it somehow, but it bounces clumsily against the hull, out of their range. 

You must now survive the same unwinnable battle all over again, as you attempt to zoom away from them. But you hardly care anymore, having come this far. You would do it a million times. You want to live. Despite everything, you want to live. No matter how long the odds, you want to live. The empire had taken everything from you. Your safety. Your happiness. Your body. Your mind. 

But it would not have your fucking soul. 

You flip over vertically, and open fire on the distant pinprick of the bomb below the turret, igniting it. 

There is a beautiful crack of white light that explodes outward, burning your eyes as you watch the front side of the ship burst open, the guns and control base consumed by white fire. The whole ship doesn’t go down. The back half is fine- you hope any friends you had in the army were there when you hit it. But it can no longer shoot at you. The fleet ship slows to a stop, and out of the corner of your eyes, the green light in the distance flickers away as the aliens finally escape. Figures, you think darkly. A bunch of weird slime whatever the fuck would not lend you a hand for saving their ass. And can you blame them? You reach weakly for a first aid kit and attempt to treat your arm, but your hand is shaking, your blood lost and your oxygen thin. 

You watch the fleet ship turn and abandon you, probably thinking you dead in a few hours, and it’s difficult to argue with them. You were so close. You were so fucking close. But you hadn’t thought this far ahead. Slowly, fighting with every nerve in your body, you cease your attempted medical aid, because it feels better not to touch it. Staring out at the vast, dark majesty of space laid out in front of you. 

As far as last things to ever see, it’s not so bad. Your eyelids move downward at a snail's pace as your lungs wheeze. Until all you see is a tiny white sliver of light as a little horizon in front of you. Just before your eyes close completely, the light turns bright green. Your eyes crack open again suddenly, in a burst of adrenaline and confusion. The ship is lighting up emerald around you, from the other direction. Slowly, you pull the throttle, attempting to rotate just enough to see what's behind you, squinting through your blurred vision. 

You just barely make out the shape of the alien ship,

Having returned to rescue you, with reinforcements.