#i have been trying to upload this for over an hour but i think tumblr hates me today

[buckys-loverman]

Teacher’s Pet- Jeremiah Fisher

What would you do for a higher grade?

warnings: smut, finger banging, 18+ appropriate, slight degrading kink, vulgar language

pairing: fem!reader x jeremiah fisher

A/N: i am back baby!! sorry for taking forever to upload, was having issues with uploading on tumblr but im so happy to be back writing for you guys. i will be uploading a conrad story within the next couple days so stay tuned!

“Mr. Fisher please!” You trailed behind your physics TA, begging for his assistance on the upcoming exam.

“I told you to call me Jeremiah.” He sighed, pushing his hair back as he continued to pace down the hallway, leaving you to jog behind him in order to catch up.

You reached out to touch his arm, “Jeremiah then-” He turned around suddenly almost causing you to crash into his chest, “30 minutes is all I need with you to help me with the review.”

He looked around for other students as he lowered his voice, “This is the third time you’ve been late to office hours, and I can’t keep giving you special treatment for being tardy. Don’t do it again.”

Before you could respond, he turned back around in a quick motion and continued down the hallway, calling your name to follow him to the library.

A burst of excitement spiked through your body as you gladly followed behind him, not complaining as you got extra tutoring time with him.

Jeremiah wasn’t aware that you had been purposely late to office hours in order to get his undivided and uninterrupted attention. You always made the excuse that office hours “overlapped” with your other classes in order for him to feel some form of pity for you.

For who would turn down such a good student?

The study room in the corner of the library was always empty as it was the only one without a white board, but instead a window overlooking the campus. Because of that, Jeremiah was forced to always write down his practice problems in your notebook directly next to you.

You scribbled down your responses to the force & gravity unit questions in your textbook when you notice Jeremiah scanning your body over your answers. In a quick motion, you push back on your chair as you reach for your backpack on the ground, arching your back as you stretch forward with your back to him.

Jeremiah clears his throat as he shifts in his chair, moving his gaze away from you as he returns back to your textbook, seeing what you had previously written down.

“You’ve been doing great this past semester, it doesn’t seem like you need my help?” He states, leaning back into his chair as he scans between your eyes.

You slightly smile as you began to pull your hair back, “I do-” You respond with a naive tone, “I’ve been struggling with force.” Your button up shirt stretched tight against your chest as you put your hair in a ponytail, causing Jeremiah’s eyes to drop for a split second before quickly returning to your face.

You lean forward in your chair, slightly exposing the top of your white mesh bra as you stare with purposeful doe eyes, “I don’t think I’ve had enough examples.” You pout.

Jeremiah’s body tenses up for a second but quickly disappears as his eyes darken. He leans forward, placing a hand on your chair as he analyzes your face; “Are you playing dumb with me?”

A slight smirk tempted to slip from your mouth, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say Mr. Fisher-” you begin to say when a warm hand grips at the bottom of your face, a small gasp escaping from your mouth.

“I told you not to call me that.” His voice was lower than before as he stood tall above you, his eyes sweeping your body without shame. “What are you willing to do for a good grade?” Jeremiah taunts, his fingers trailing down to your neck.

“Anything.” You whisper, maintaining eye contact as his fingers slowly begin to wrap around your neck, mimicking the same firm hold he had on your face just moments before.

Jeremiah lifts your body up, shoving it against the table you were once working on. In a swift motion he grabs the back of your head as the two of your lips combine, rhythmically moving against each other with a newfound force.

Your fingers tangle in his curls, slightly tugging at the ends as a small moan escapes his mouth, giving him more motivation as he makes his way down your neck, leaving a trail of kisses behind.

“Students like you learn best through examples- ”His fingers unbutton your top, exposing the rest of your bra that you teased earlier, “So I’ll make sure to teach you a lesson you won’t forget.”

Jeremiah yanks at your wrist as he pulls you towards the window, slamming your chest to the glass. Your nipples hardened against the cool glass, a sense of panic overwhelmed your body as you see an array of students down below, walking to class or talking amongst their peers.

“What if someone sees?” You question as your mouth felt dry and your head felt dizzy as his fingers trail from the strap of your bra, down to curve of your stomach up until his fingers move their way below your skirt.

“Then everyone will know what a dirty little slut you are for the TA.” Jeremiah whispers in your ear, as his fingers begin to rub slow and sensual circles on top of your clit, the fabric of your underwear beginning to feel suffocating.

The shame you once felt before washed away as moans left your mouth, your head tossing back onto his shoulder as his warm body pressed into yours from behind. The cold from the glass and the heat from his fingers was the perfect combination, your body felt electric between the two.

His fingers moved slowly down your underwear, “God you’re so fucking wet-” Another moan escaped from your mouth as he slowly and painfully moved along your clit, “And here I thought you were a good girl.” You could hear the cockiness drip from his tongue.

“I am.” You whined, your back arching in an attempt to get more friction, only to be met with the feeling of his erection, and did it feel big.

You felt a slap on your clit as you yelped, “Don’t speak out of turn. You got that, princess?” His harsh tone sent butterflies through your stomach as you simply nodded, letting him return his attention back to you.

Jeremiah moved your underwear to the side as he slid one finger inside of you. Another loud moan escaped your mouth as you felt just how long his finger really is, and how well he knew how to use it.

The finger began twisting inside of you, pumping in and out as sloppy sounds echoed throughout the room, your body beginning to overheat as you spread your legs wider.

“Good girl.” He purred, placing a second finger inside of you. The new found sensation overtaking your balance as you pushed yourself deeper into the glass, your nipples peaking through the mesh bra and on display for anybody who simply looked up.

Everything seemed to begin to blur, the pleasure spreading throughout your body as you begin approaching your high. Jeremiah yanks your hair back as his lips meet your ear; beginning to lick and suck as he finds all your sweet spots.

He’s consistent, both of his fingers continue to pump in and out of you in a fast motion, his thumb reaching to draw circles on your clit, “Jere.” Is all you can manage to say as his teeth tug at the bottom of ear.

“Cum for me, darling.”

His words work as a command as your body cannot handle anymore of the pleasure, your legs start to shake beyond control as the heat in your stomach burns stronger than before, causing your eyes to roll to the back of your head as you experience the strongest high of your life.

Your vision blurs as the sensation overtakes your body, causing you to cum hard on his fingers, giving him the satisfaction he knew he would get from you.

As you begin to adjust back to normal you turn around to see Jeremiah leaning against the table, your textbook untouched behind him, as he intensely licks his fingers where your cum visibly stained.

“Wether you pass the exam or not, I expect to see you back here next week.” He smirks, “For I still have much to teach you.”

—————————————————————————

YALL jere is a slut and no one can tell me otherwise!! this last episode got me giggling & kicking my feet now that i have inspiration for some new stories… ;)

[ahgasegotarmy116]

Feral | JJK One Shot

Summary: Jungkook comes back from his Global Citizen Festival and tells you something funny that happened to him. Pairing: Jungkook x f!Reader | Established Relationship, idol!au Word Count: 2.5k~ Warnings: Explicit language and mature themes, mentions of bdsm, sub space and pet play A/N: Hey guys this is my first One Shot that I've uploaded to Tumblr and I'm scared but excited to see what you think. My asks and DMs are open if you have any feedback or just wanna say hi! A big thank you to @trina864 for helping me and encouraging me to start posting on here. Hopefully I'll be coming back with more fics very soon! P.s. Horribly edited so please excuse any errors

"Did you get to watch my performance tonight?" Jungkook asks, bright eyed and bushy tailed walking into our hotel room. I look at him with a pained expression "I'm sorry baby I really wanted to but I had an early morning meeting to talk about this big case we've been working on" I explain apologetically. "Oh" he deflates, sad that I wasn't watching. "That's okay, I know how hard you've been working lately, I understand" he says nodding his head, coming over to the bed to sit next to me and see what I'm working on. He acknowledges all the sleepless nights I've been having, and no matter how much he tries to get me to come to bed, I never listen. Most early mornings he finds me sleeping on my desk having passed out from exhaustion and he picks me up and brings me to bed to get at least a few comfortable hours of rest. 

"You wanna know something funny that happened today?" he says with a toothy grin. I hum in acknowledgement and close my laptop taking a break to give him my full undivided attention. "After one of my songs today I took my inner ear out because I could hear Army chanting something and I wanted to try to understand but I couldn't. So I asked them to do it a bit louder and I guess they were barking at me. Like 'woof woof woof woof'. It happened to me before when I was on Good Morning America and I wasn't really sure what it meant but it looked like they were having fun so I think that would mean it's a good thing right?" he says with an amused expression. "Yes Jungkook it's a good thing" I say giggling at his confusion. "So what does that mean when they bark at me?" he says looking at me and tilting his head at me just like Bam does to him. 

I take a few seconds to think about it but for the life of me I can't really seem to put it into words without making it even more confusing for myself. "Um, well I guess the basic thing that it means if they think you're really hot, like beyond hot" I start. "So sexy?" he says encouraging me to continue. "Yeah pretty much and have you ever really heard the expression of 'going wild' over something?" I ask. "Yeah?" he says dragging it out starting to understand the action a little bit more but still showing some confusion. "Well it's pretty much based on that among other things. Another thing people say is 'going feral' with is like beyond going crazy like when dogs are like foaming at the mouth" I say brining up an extreme example trying to help him get the picture. "You mean like when they have rabies?" he says now thoroughly amused. "I mean kinda but not really" I say tilting my head from from side to side a few times.

"One more thing I could think to link it to would be something a little on... well a little on the explicit side" I say cringing at having to explain this one. "Explicit? Army? Noooo!" he says laughing knowing damn well he has been showing a more explicit side of himself lately, amused that Army is following suit. "You're familiar with some basic concepts of bdsm right?" I say feeling a bit awkward bringing it up. "Well... yeah we've kind dabbled in it a little bit right?" he says with a smirk and poking my side" I flinch a bit at it and laugh nervously "Yeah but anyways, have you heard about pet play?" I ask hoping that I won't have to explain it too much. He tilts his his head up towards the ceiling in thought trying to remember if he's heard anything about it but comes up empty handed. "Mmm can't say that I have" he says and waits expectantly for my continued explanation. 

"Basically it kind of links to a degradation kink, you know when a person gets aroused by getting humiliated. You know, stuff like that" he nods his head showing me he's trying to follow. "So they are saying, well not all of them but I'm sure some of them are thinking this. But they are saying that they want you to degrade them and put a leash on them and treat them like they’re your pet and you can do as you please with them" I say cringing at the fact that I have to have to have this sort of conversation to begin with. "Uh huh" he says feeling slightly uncomfortable but still rather amused. "I mean you're hot so I'm not surprised that people are ready to submit to you like that. "Like you do" he says now dropping his voice an octave, making me shudder. "We're not talking about me right now" I say laughing it off, getting off the bed and putting some distance between us. Jungkook swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stares at me with a hunger in his eyes that had not been there moments ago. 

"Well why not? We're already on the subject, why not continue?" he says leaning his arms back on the bed and spreading his legs. "Because we're talking about your fans, you know Army?" I say continuing to back away from him until I hit a wall. "I don't want to talk about Army anymore, I spent some time with them today so now I want to spend some time with you" he says purposely toying with me, pushing all the right buttons. I let out a slight whimper not knowing how else to respond. "It's been a while since we tried something new hasn't it?" he says sitting up a bit. "Would you like to be my pet? Let me do whatever I want with you? I already know you like it when I call you names. What has been your favorite one recently? Slut? Whore? Bitch?" I whimper again while squeezing my thighs together. "Ah that's right, how fitting, would you like it if I put a leash on you, and let everyone see what a dirty little bitch you are for me? Make you crawl to me? I might even make you drink out of a bowl like the pretty little bitch you are. But wait that might be something you would enjoy. Would you like that pup?" he says waiting for my answer. 

I start to respond but he holds his hand up cutting me off. "Aww look at that, my dumb pup forgot that dogs don't talk. Now try again love, bark once for yes and twice for no" I squirm in place not sure exactly how to respond since the thought of it does intrigue me and I can't lie when I say that I can feel myself getting wet. He raises his brow at me waiting for me to respond and I finally decide to let out one little bark under my breath while hanging my head in shame. "I'm sorry pup what was that? I couldn't quite hear you?" I let out another bark in response now feeling my cheeks starting to heat up. "One more time for me, just a little bit louder. Do you want to be my dumb little pup? My bitch? Poor baby has made up her mind but is too embarrassed to bark. Come on, just a little louder. "Woof" I finally respond loud and clear this time, hoping he won't make me do it again. 

"Aw there we go. Looks like you aren't the dumb little bitch I thought you were. Puppy was just too shy to admit she wants me to play with her". I breathe out hoping he'll stop there but he decides to continue. "On all fours, now" he orders. This I can do, and I've done it multiple times without question when he has me in this sub space that I've been tipped over in. "Good girl" he says with a tone of voice he reserves for when he talks to Bam. For not knowing what this is he seems like quite the natural. "Baby come" he says ordering me to come to his side. I wince at the thought of me crawling over to him and he notices my hesitance, "Aw looks like my dumb little bitch still needs training. Puppy come here" he says in a more playful tone. I decide to surrender this time and crawl over to him and see his eyes rake over my body with a expression that I have never seen before but it makes me feel nervous but sexy. Once I sit in front of him I see him play with his lip rings and then rest on biting his lip for a second just gazing down on me. 

"You did so well love" he says cupping my face in his hand and rubbing his thumb over the apple of my cheek praising me for all that I've done. "You can come out if you want to" he says gently, coaxing me out of my sub space. I blink a few times and reach up to place my hand on top of his and he gives me soft smile, "There she is" he says and he looks down at me lovingly, "Looks like you really enjoyed that" he says helping me stand up. "You're one to talk" I say rubbing my aching knees that I only now just noticed. "Speaking of which you seemed like you're quite a natural for someone who isn't familiar with pet play" I say suspiciously. "Yeah about that..." he says trailing off. "Jeon Jungkook did you lie to me?" I say feeling utterly betrayed. "I'm sorry but you just looked super shy I just had to watch you explain it to me" he says pulling me onto his lap. I burry my face in the crook of his neck to hide my reddening face. 

"You're so mean"I mumble, "Aw come on you know I love you, plus look at you, you're my adorable little pup who listened so well" he says rubbing my back. I sit up and look at him, "But I thought I was your bitch" I say with a roll of my eyes. "That too, but you're my cute puppy first and foremost" he says ruffling my hair. "Hey! Don't do that!" I whine fixing it, "We're not playing like that anymore". "Alright alright, I'll stop. We can pick this up later" he says giving me a quick kiss on my cheek and placing me on the bed walking over to his bag on the floor. "Huh" I scoff, "What makes you think I wanna do that again?" I say crossing my arms over my chest. "Do I really need to see how much of a mess you've made down there right now?" my eyes widen at his words and I cross my legs in response. "Exactly" he laughs pulling out his laptop and his phone, walking over to the small couch in the corner. 

"What are you doing?" I ask curiously watching him prop up his phone. "I'm gonna go on live for a bit to check up on Army to see their reaction, especially since I dropped the teaser for 3D" he says with a smile. "You dropped it at the festival? Wow I can imagine the screams, especially after seeing their reaction to the proof teaser at your last concert in the US" I say shaking my head and smiling at the thought. "Yeah I'm even more excited to release it now!" he says feeling proud of himself. "You and Jack worked really hard on it so I'm sure they're gonna love it. Let's be real, if you just recoded a whole three minutes worth of you just breathing everyone would go crazy over it. That's basically what Hobi did in Jack in the Box right?" I finish laughing. He let's out a chuckle in response, "Yeah you're right, I'm sure it's gonna be great! Are you gonna go shower?" He asks watching me grab some stuff out of my bag. "Yeah I definitely need one, my back is killing me after having to sit in front of my computer all night. 

"Okay wait for me and I'll join you in a bit yeah?" he says with a sly smile. "You better hurry up then mister, I'm not taking a three hour shower because you're still on live" I say remembering the nights he would stay up talking to and spending time with Army. "Okay just give me like 15 minutes" he begs. I laugh and start to walk over to the bathroom but he calls out to me. "Wait!" I turn around at the sound of him, "Can I have a kiss?" he says with a pout, to which I can't help but agree to. I give him a kiss and he deepens it and he promises between kisses that he'll give me a massage to entice me into really waiting for him. I nod my head and roll my eyes and turn to walk to bathroom to which he responds with a loud slap on my ass. "Hey!" I yell back scolding him, but he puts up his finger to his lips as he presses the button to go live telling me to stay quiet. I huff silently and close the door behind me and start the shower and hear him make excuses for the noise.

"Oh I think it's just the sound of someone taking a shower next door. Yeah it's loud huh? I guess the walls are pretty thin here. Oh! Jin! Jin Hyung!" I hear him continue, sounding excited at what I could only think is the sight of Jin commenting on the live. Smiling I get into the shower and let the warm water wash away all the stress from the day until I hear a slight jiggle of the door nob. "Ya! Woman open the door!" I laugh at his pleading and leave him there complaining for a while before letting him in. "Oops" I say "I guess I forgot" I finish, feigning innocence. "Uh huh, you forgot" he says rolling his eyes at me and giving me another slap on the ass. "Just get back in the shower" he says and I give him a kiss before doing just that. 'Tonight is gonna be a long night' I think to myself as I bite my lip standing under the stream of water, waiting for him to join me.

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[ablobwhowrites]

Can u write a Yandere!Fnaf 1 x Reader fanfiction? It can be like 20 to 30 chapters or maybe less if that makes you comfortable.

so I don't think I could run a series that long on tumblr but I can probably try but for now, here's some shit post and a small bit of headcanons with m/n and gn y/n

*glamrock Freddy trying to drive*

Gregory: "what happens if you press the breaks and gas at the same time?"

Minimum wage m/n: "the car takes a screenshot"

Glamrock Freddy on the verge of crying: "your making me nervous!"

Y/n's live reaction to seeing Monty running straight at them

Sundrop: "your my favorite friend m/n, I don't imagine what I would do without you!"

M/n: "I would be home, unconscious on my floor after this hell of a shift, I know that for truth"

Employeer: "come on, working in our underground pizzeria isn't so bad"

Minimum wage y/n: "balloras little gremlins of fucking side animatronics tried to drag me into there area the moment my shift was over"

Y/n: "so Vanessa, heard we got a some dj animatronic, hope it's one bolted to the floor at lea-" *sees dj music man that's currently not operating yet* "...i wish I could quit that job but this is the only thing that gives me free food"

Vanessa: "don't you steal the food?"

Y/n: "not everyone has the time to buy food after work Vanessa"

moon: "m/n I see those bags under your eyes, you haven't been sleeping have you?"

M/n: "I'm fine, I'm running in 18 hours of red bull, monster and something I found in my car before I walked into work....i can't feel my body"

M/n to the mapbots the first time he saw them.

Some supermarket worker: "Mr/mx y/n (or) m/n, can you please come to the front? A special guest is waiting for you"

Monty: "I got lost..."

Y/n (or) m/n: "I didn't even bring you here!"

Hey guys so I know I've been gone off a bit but shit dude, it's like the AO3 writers curse with me, a lot of stuff is going on and well all I wanted to say is that I'm extremely grateful for everyone of my followers and mutuals for being with me on my journey from new to old follower, I hope that everyone of you have a wonderful Christmas or any culture you celebrate on this day or tomorrow and I'll try to be more frequent with my uploads but for now, I love each and everyone of you guys who's been with me through my Tumblr journey and I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful christmas.

[thatdesklamp]

Hello, and (for the moment) ‘see you in a while’ from old desklamp.

(Quick edit now I’ve written this all out: Oh, lordie—I’ve just realised that this sounds like I’m announcing I’m giving up on IW. I’m not! I promise. This is all about how I’m trying to facilitate my writing process. IW is not being dropped: let’s get that out of the way first, lmao.)

Hello all! I’ve been doing some self-reflecting, and I’ve come up with this: I’ve struggled with writing ‘Intrinsic Warmth’ for a long time now.

Alll too often I’ve been sat with my laptop for hours having only managed to squeeze out one or two paragraphs that I don’t even like all that much anyway. I haven’t felt satisfied by writing for a long time, and so I just haven’t written anything. It’s been months since I’ve written something worth reading for IW, and I’ve been having a think as to why.

I think it comes down to two things; I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure in writing IW, and I’ve become too fixated on the instant gratification of feedback from you guys.

First: the pressure. IW has gotten bigger than I ever considered it would be, especially recently (as in, in the jjk season 2 era). The support and feedback continues to blow me away, and I’m staggered every time I stop to actually consider the magnitude of the response that IW has gotten. It’s genuinely crazy.

All that is to say: I wasn’t prepared for this!! I don’t mean that in any resentful way at all, I want to be clear. Moreso that it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. I know that, relative to other huge ao3 fics, IW isn’t even that huge. But I also recognise that in the ‘Gojo x reader scene’, it’s pretty up there, even if we’re just looking through a ‘filter by most kudos’-ed fic angle. There’s a been big response, and I’m just one person, lmao. But come on, I absolutely love it, and I’m so grateful that people have enjoyed the stuff I’m writing—but as more and more people have been picking it up I’ve felt a definite pressure put upon me. It’s a pressure to write well, and to write more, and to write good things more often. This isn’t to do with anything anyone’s said, don’t worry, but more as an expected consequence of IW picking up traction.

I feel more and more like a ‘popular author’, and feel like I’m doing you guys a disservice with my infrequent updates. I truly do appreciate the reassurance of ‘you can update whenever you want!’, genuinely, but I’m also an ao3 reader myself! I empathise with and understand the frustration that must be felt when I go months between updates. Writing has never come at the expense of my personal, academic or social life (hence why I’ve never tried to tie myself down with an update schedule: I’d never be able to keep to it), and I’d never want it to. I want to keep writing as it’s always been: one of my hobbies. But as IW increases in popularity, it feels like it almost *should* take priority over other things, and this has left me feeling pretty overwhelmed.

My second reason: I’ve also become a tad too dependent on feedback. When IW was in its fledgling stages, I didn’t show it to anyone at all, and was ‘writing for myself’ in the barest sense of the phrase. Only one of my irl friends has read any of it, and when I was first uploading it, when I had about 5ish comments per chapter, any feedback I was getting would always be secondary to my own. I was writing for myself, because I enjoyed writing and I enjoyed what I was writing about, and it just so happened that there were a few people who felt the same as me.

It’s very different now! And I much prefer it now—it’s every writer’s dream to have had such an overwhelmingly positive response to their writing. And now it gets to the point where I can check my emails, or look at my tumblr notifications, and there’ll always be new for me. And whilst I absolutely love this, it’s pretty addictive, checking again and again, seeing what people are saying. This positive response from others is more instantly gratifying than the slow, steady, personal enjoyment I get from writing.

It sounds silly, I know, but I’ve been writing this hunger games fic (completely spontaneous, likely never to be published), and no-one’s read it but me, and it’s reminded me how much I really do like writing. I’ve loved the process of writing it, because the only person whose opinion I’m listening to is my own.

I don’t want to discourage people from reaching out to me, leaving comments, even talking about IW, anything like that. That’s not what I mean. But this is me recognising that I should probably take a step back from the non-writing side of writing: being active on tumblr, constantly checking asks, making posts, etc. Know that whilst I may not immediately respond to you, once I get back in the swing of things over here, I will do. I just need to sort out my personal priorities a bit, I think.

Saying this, I know I haven’t been all that active recently (this has honestly been intentional: I’ve been trying to wean myself off it, lmao) but for the immediate future, I’m making that more definite: I’m going to try to revert my focus to writing. I’m going to stay off tumblr for a bit, until I’ve gotten back into the swing of writing and don’t find myself so focused on the feedback side of it all. Hopefully this’ll spark up some more genuine passion in me! Please know that if you’ve written an ao3 comment, I have read it. I don’t know when I will respond to them, but I definitely will, I just want to keep my focus on the personal side of writing for the moment.

Thank you to everyone! Again, this is just me going off the grid for a while: not a big fuckoff goodbye or anything. If this is unreasonably theatrical, blame my drama GCSE. Going off to do some writing now. See you guys!

[danrifics]

omg bethanie i think i just had a nightmare IM SHAKINGG

it all started with Dan uploading to his main channel (unrealistic i know but stay with me) he looked very pissed off and said that he was leaving youtube forever and deleting his channel without any explanation. then about an hour later, Phil uploaded saying he was deleting his channel too - except unlike Dan, he wasn’t leaving youtube, he was joining smosh instead. he looked so happy and excited about it and urged everyone to go watch his debut try not to laugh video on the smosh pit channel. in a mix of panic and confusion, i rushed over to the channel and clicked on the video. it was a pretty standard tntl smosh video…at least it was at first. as the video went on i noticed Phil and Ian Hecox were acting super coupley and flirting, even holding hands at one point. so i rushed to tumblr and everyone was talking about it like it was normal??? i went to your blog and you had already changed into a smosh fanpage and made gif sets of Phil and Ian looking at each other. it was literally like Dan never even existed but if there was an off chance you would talk about Dan, you would censor his name like it was a slur. i couldn’t fathom what was happening so i sent you very desperate ask and you basically told me that *I* was the crazy one and Ian and Phil have clearly been in love this whole time and all D*n did was get in the way and that Ian has a bigger hecock than Dan did

so in short Phil left Dan to join smosh so he could be with Ian Hecox so Dan deleted his channel.

HELP THIS IS TERRIFYING 😩 if i ever become a smosh account assume ive been kidnapped or murdered pls 💕

[tomhollandisabae]

arcadia - simon "ghost" riley x f!reader

masterlist

fandom; call of duty

summary; maybe helping emotinally ghost isn't the best idea. harsh words are being said, feelings are hurt and after an eventfull night your lives make an 180 turn

warnings; angst, mature language, mature themes, mentions of trauma, heavy smut [18+/ MINORS D.N.I.] / unedited

words; 4.1k

a/n; it's actually friends to enemies... i uploaded again because for some reason tumblr is messing w the hastags... and my nerves!!!

enjoy❤️

Since the first day you joined task force 141, you had been obsessed with Ghost.

Behind his scary mask, you imagined a man that was hurting. You could read his eyes like an open book, understanding when he was in pain –physically and mentally- when he was sad, angry and many other emotions.

It wasn’t like you were sorry for him, but sad by everything he had been through. Of course you weren’t aware about his childhood trauma, but everyone had experienced something bad in their lives that made them join the army, well... most of them. Apart from you...

You were coming from a wealthy background, being raised as a princess, having the world at your feet, a happy family and a happy life. And that was why Ghost didn’t like you.

Not one bit.

He was thinking very low of you, believing that a person like you would never understand everything that he had been through. He basically loathed you because you were happy, the people you loved most were all alive and you didn’t have to keep a blank face while hiding behind a mask, feeling like a coward.

As a matter of fact that you were a medic and didn’t have to be on the field, you were only seeing Ghost while he was in base.

You were always smiling warmly at him, trying to cheer him up –maybe even make him crack a smile too –yet you never succeeded. He was being grumpy all the time, ignoring you all the time. When you would sit next to him at lunch, he would silently eat his food not even paying attention to what you were saying and then get up and leave. When you would join him in training, he would pretend that you weren’t even there. When you would approach him for a small talk in the hallway, he would pass you by. When he would get hurt and you would have to treat him, he would keep his face straight, never look at you and leave as soon you were done, not even saying a small thank you.

But you wouldn’t let that get to you. You would try every day, every hour and every second. You wanted to make that man see the happiness in life, that no matter what happened to him in the past, he would be able to start over.

It was no lie that with time passing by, you fell for the big scary grumpy man that would never spare you a single glance. But you kept trying, until one day...

Everyone had returned from a mission and some of the men were at the med bay getting treated. However, you never saw Ghost coming in... you felt relieved knowing that he didn’t get hurt, but you still wanted to see him for you missed him.

“y/n, will you go check on Ghost in his room. Some said that he got hurt, but never came in” a nurse informed you and you felt you heart dropping.

As you made your way towards his room, many thoughts surrounded your head. How badly hurt was he? Why wouldn’t he come at the med bay? Was he so weak that he couldn’t walk anymore? Your heartbeat picked up at these thoughts and you found yourself sprinting to his room.

When you finally reached your destination, you knocked at his door, hoping for an answer, yet nothing, so you knocked again and again and again until you heard him groan from the other side, finally opening his door.

“are you okay?” was the first thing that you said while scanning his body for any injuries.

“i’m good. I took care of everything” he replied with a cold voice.

“why didn’t you come to me?” you tilted your head in question.

“i’m fine” he avoided your question and tried to close the door, but you blocked it with your hand.

“no you’re not ghost! What is wrong with you? do you ever think about you and the risk you’re putting yourself through?” you pointed your finger at him.

“even if i did, that's none of your business. So stop being so fucking annoying and leave me the hell alone.” he raised his voice and you gasped by that.

“sim--” you tried to say but he cut you off.

“don’t you fucking say my name. You're nothing but a filthy rich little girl that is used on having everything she fucking wants and now that she can’t have that anymore she’s being a pain in the arse.” his words took you aback, breaking your heart.

“you don’t mean that...” you let out a weak voice.

“believe what you want” and with that he closed the door loudly.

Tears started running down your face and you ran towards your room, avoiding everyone in your way. When you entered the place that you could found some kind of comfort you fall onto your bed and cried your heart out.

You never believed that he would ever treat you like that. You thought that would manage to get on his good side as the time was passing by, but obviously that never happened and never will.

His words resulted in you not leaving your room for the next week, until one day after a successful mission when everyone had decided to go out for drinks.

You made a huge effort to get ready and follow the others at the bar.

When you reached there you isolated yourself at the far end of the room, away from everyone’s eyes, while you started getting yourself drunk.

You were on your fifth –or something –beer, when someone caught your hand, preventing you from attaching your lips on the cold bottle, but when you turned your face to see whoever was that that was holding your wrist, you came face to face with those sweet, but also cold eyes that you had fallen for. Ghost...

“you’ve drunk enough” he exclaimed.

“hmm how’d you know? Have you been watching me big guy?” you smiled lazily at him, feeling a weird confidence overtaking you.

“i’m taking you to base” he said.

“nooooo I wanna drink more” you let out a whine.

he didn’t say anything back, just tighten the grip on your wrist while he literally dragged you out of the bar.

On your way back to base, you kept singing and singing while following Ghost carefully.

“my body is a map of L.A and my heart is like paper, I hate ya...” you swung from side to side as your eyes were travelling all around the street.

“i’m not from the land of the palms, so I know I can’t stay here” you wiggled your hand out of his grip and he turned to look at you stand.

“i’m not native, but my curves, san gabriel all day” you grabbed his hands, intertwining your fingers.

“my lips like the fire licks the bay, if you think that you know yourself, you can come over” he tensed.

“lay your hands on me like you’re a land rover” you rested your head on his shoulder.

“in arcadia...” he took in a sharp breath.

“arcadia...” you placed your other hand on his forearm softly.

“all roads that lead to you as integral to me as arteries” he felt as if he couldn’t breathe anymore.

“that get the blood flowin’ straight to the heart of me...” you hummed as you stroked softly his hand.

You felt a warm feeling overflowing within you as you were so close to him, so close to the man that you so very much loved with your whole heart.

The man that had broken your heart...

You unfocused for the rest of the walk, letting him guide to through the dark of the night.

At last you reached your room, without you even realising. You only felt Ghost placing you down on your soft mattress as he took of your shoes and stand back up.

You raised your head looking him straight in the eyes with tears falling down on your cheeks.

“stay...” you let out a low whimper while holding his hand.

He stood like a statue, not knowing how to react.

“i can’t--” you cut him off.

“why do you hate me?” you sobbed.

Again, he didn’t say anything.

“i won’t apologise for the life I had for I wasn’t the one that chose it, but with all my happiness and wiliness I wanted to make you feel better, I wanted to make you see that there’s still life out there for you, because... I care about you.” you sniffled.

“i never meant to annoy you, never meant to make you feel bad, I just wanted to brighten your day.” you got up, still holding his hand.

“i’m sorry if i made you feel bad about yourself, I'm sorry for everyth--” he placed his other hand on your mouth.

“no one cares about me” his voice was barely heard.

You couldn’t reply though, as his hand was preventing you from talking.

However, what he did next made your eyes widen as he lifted his mask so that his soft pink lips were revealed. The hand on your mouth travelled south, placing itself softly on your waist, while his other hand intertwined with yours. He leaned down, lips hovering above yours, his breath falling soundly against your mouth.

You squished his hand in reassurance and finally his lips connected with yours. His lips were warm and soft almost silken, and pillowy against your own. Your lips parted slightly, allowing his tongue to slip inside. Now, he had brought both hands on your waist, pulling you closer resulting in your bodies to be pressed together heatedly, breathing heavily as your lips pressed against each other. You could taste your shared breath, while feeling the thud of your combined heartbeat.

Warmth blossomed in your chest, sparks igniting as he lowered his head, disconnected his lips from yours, guiding them towards your jaw, peppering kisses across it and the lower on you neck placing a light kiss on your pulse point as he took in your sweet aroma. The smell of his own perfume, of the soft scent, was dizzying, butterflies dancing in your stomach.

“Ghost...” you whimper, tears now dried.

He lifted his head looking at you. Once again, he brought his lips again on yours, this time in a more demanding kiss. His hands started fumbling to take off your clothes, starting with your shirt as you lifted your hands up to help pull it off of you, while your other clothes followed suit, as you stood now completely naked in front of him.

The room was dark, so you both couldn’t see much. Ghost finally, picks you up and throws you on the bed as he eyed you for a long moment, searching and looking at your body, before the tension left his own. He tried to take in as much as he could with the help of the moonlight that was making its way through the curtains. He took in your unscarred body, the way your chest was moving up and down as you tried to regain your breath, your beautiful breasts with your erected nipples that were awaiting for him to feel his tender touch, his gentle fingers, his warm lips around them. Then his eyes darted onto your waist and he couldn’t help but imagine his hands grabbing on the soft flesh, squishing your skin, while pleasing you the best he could. Then he moved on your hips and the area he craved more as he felt his feet giving up from under him as he kneeled down, placing his big hands on both your thighs parting them without taking his eyes from your pussy, noticing the way it was glistening with your wetness. He looked up at you, your soft eyes locking with his.

His hands travelled across your stomach, reaching your breasts, cropping them softly and then it was as something snapped in him. He stood up taking of his shirt and climbed on top of you, bringing you in the middle of your bed as your legs rested on either side of him. His breath hitting against your lips, one hand lowering itself on your soft body, while the other stayed on the side of your head, supporting himself.

“Ghost...” you cried out.

Now his hand was only inches away from the warm core, caressing it with a finger –or was it two fingers? -two, perhaps even three, were now travelling down the gulley and any moment, any millisecond, you would have to plead –this was what you had wanted him to want to do since the day you first met him –and you were caught between excitement and panic, and it –the tongue –you felt as if you were swallowing it and you didn’t mind it anymore, because he had begun to moan softly –he couldn’t very well say anything with his tongue in your mouth –streak the hand had leaded back up to the rib cage, no longer on the side but going up the front, inland. Slither went the tongue, but the entire terrain of your torso to explore and not just the sides –oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest –no, the hand was cupping your entire right –Now! You must plead, not able to take any more of his teasing, and talk to him like a dog –and oh God, what were you supposed to do now –inasmuch as it, his hand, was at this instant passing over your entire right breast and you could feel the pressure –light pressure, but pressure –Now! The ‘please, Ghost –but it was as if the cord between your will and your central nervous system had been cut.

“y/n, do you want me?” he finally spoke as he pulled away from yours lips, but you still couldn’t matter a word, his touch was too much.

He took notice of this, the hand that was in your core swirled around your wetness.

“you do want me” he answered himself.

He smiled, a smile of genuine delight, never seen in the last months, made the moment even more precious. Tears gathered in the corners of your eyes.

“oh God, yes, I do want you” you cried out, something awakening in you as you kissed his sleek muscular chest, then sliding your hand downward outside his trousers encountered a leaning tower of pressure “and I could say the same ‘bout you” you whispered in his ear.

His head fell limp in the crook of your neck, your hands finally finding their home around his neck.

He pulled away abruptly, trembling, breathing like a drowning man, and his hands went to unclasp her hands from his neck.

“i can’t” he said in a anguished tone.

You were deaf to all reason, your small face blind with aroused need, the slender naked body on flames.

“i love you” you cried, fingers touching where his hair is hidden by his black mask, and it was not the first time that you had known, but the first time you had said it, and all miracle of your understanding it was in your shivering voice.

Ghost didn’t say anything, just made a wild, smothered sound, staring down into your face as you raised your limp head to meet his hard mouth, your lips filled with a sensuality which turned you both to fire.

You wanted to tell him that you understood him, in a way that you'd never understood anyone before. Because you were with him, in this moment. It wasn’t even like being colleagues or work partners –even friends, it was much closer than that, much deeper. You'd torn down all the barriers and put your soul into his hands.

“i love you” you told him again.

his lips slightly brushed against your cheek before he stood up once again.

You broke into cold sweat thinking that he would leave you, that all this was too much for him, that you’d overstepped his space... his feelings, but he didn’t leave.

You watched him as he took of the rest of his clothes, joining you on the bed again, now him being completely naked too. You gasped at the feeling of his warm cock head against your swollen clit. He had worked you up so much that you were on the verge of a break down –but no, you couldn’t beg, plead for your realise –too scared that he would up and leave you for good.

But you’ve had enough... so you took matters into your own hands and you flipped him around, the look on his face not going unnoticed by you.

You placed your body between his legs, giving yourself access to what you needed and he exhaled harshly.

“y/n, what are y--”

Your lips flowed over the wide crown. He reached for the white mattress underneath him, his hands curling around them with white-knuckled force. You held him with both hands and mouthed the plush head, sucking gently. The softness of his skin and his uniquely appealing scent made you moana round him. You felt the vibration ripple through his entire body and heard a rough sound rumble in his chest.

“lick it” he touched your cheeks.

Aroused by the command, you fluttered your tongue across the underside and shivered with delight when he rewarded you with a hot burst of pre-cum. Fisting the root of him with one hand, you hollowed your cheeks and drew rhythmically, hoping for more.

You wanted to drive him crazy.

He made a sound filled with the sweetest agony;

“God, y/n... your mouth. Keep sucking. Like that... hard and deep.”

You were so turned on by his pleasure you squirmed. His hands pushed into your bound hair, pulling and tugging at the roots. You loved how he starred out with tenderness, then grew rougher as the lust he felt for you overwhelmed his control.

The soft bite of pain made you hungrier, greedier. your head bobbed as you pleasured him, jacking him with one hand while you sucked and stroked the crest with your mouth. Heavy veins coursed the length of his cock, and you slid the flat of your tongue along them, tilting your head to find and caress each one.

“stop” he let out a heavy voice after a while.

You pulled away from his cock, looking at him anxiously.

“come here” he instructed and you climbed on top of him.

He didn’t waste on second as he collided his lips with yours turning you both around as you were now underneath him. His mouth departed from your own, making its way along your neck, your collarbones, and he was cupping your breasts, kneading them with soft, rhythmic squeezes.

“ghost--” he cut you off.

“shh” he sucks on your lower lip, his fingers rolling and tugging your tender nipples.

His mouth surrounded the tip of your breast, the wash of heat bringing a mist of perspiration to your skin.

One of his hands pushed between your legs. They fell open shamelessly, your body so aroused you were flushed and almost feverish. His other hand continued to plump your breasts, making them heavy and unbearably sensitive.

“you’re so wet for me” he murmured, his gaze sliding down your body to where he was parting you with his fingers.

“you’re beautiful here too. Plush and pink. So soft.” he said and you whimpered.

He lowered his head between your parted legs, joining his hand. His tongue made contact with your heat drawing provocative laps against your flesh. Your hands fisted in the sheet, your chest heaving as he circled your clit with the tip of his tongue, he nudged the hypersensitive knot of nerves, as your hips were moving restlessly into the devious torment, your whole tightening with the clawing need to cum.

The light teasing flutters were driving you insane, giving you just enough to make you wtiyhe but not enough to get you off.

“ghost, please...” you finally cried out, pleading for your realise.

“not yet.”

He tortured you, coaxing your body to the brink of orgasm, and then letting you slide back down. Over and over. Until sweat misted your skin and your heart felt like it would burst. His tongue was tireless and diabolical, cleverly focusing on your clit until a single stroke would set you off, then moving lower to thrust into you. the soft, shallow plunges were maddening, the flickering against the nerve-laden tissues making you desperate enough to beg shamelessly.

“please Ghost... let me cum... I need to cum, please.” you begged.

“shh, angel... I'll take care of you.”

He finished you with a tenderness that made the orgasm roll through you like a crashing wave, building and swelling and spreading through you in a warm rush of pleasure.

He threaded his fingers with yours when he came over you again, restraining your arms. The head of his cock aligned with the slick entrance of your body and he pushed inexorably into you. You moaned, shifting to accommodate the heavy surge if his penis.

Ghost's breath gusted hard and humid against your throat, his big frame trembling as he slid carefully inside you.

“you're so soft and warm. Fuck.” he breathed out.

You wrapped your legs around his hips, welcoming him deeper. Then his thumb was on your clit, rubbing in circles that had your hips churning.

“yes!” you moaned, raking your nails down his back. He wasn’t icy anymore. He was on fire.

“fuck me, Ghost. Fuck me hard.” you moaned.

Y/n...” his mouth covered yours. He fisted your hair, holding you still as he lunged again and again, pounding hard and deep.

“fucking hell...” he groaned into your neck.

The rhythmic slap of his heavy balls against the curve of your buttocks and the harshness of his possessive litany drove you insane with lust. You felt yourself quickening with every twinge of pain, felt your sex tightening with your growing arousal.

With a long, guttural groan he started coming, his flexing body quaking as he emptied himself inside you.

You held him as he climaxed, stroking his back, pressing kisses along his shoulder.

“hold on.” he said roughly, pushing his hands beneath you and flattening your breasts against him.

Ghost pulled you up, the sat down with you straddling his hip. You were slick from his orgasm, making it easy for him to push back inside you.

His hands brushed the hair away from your face, then wiped your tears of relief.

“i’m always hard for you, always hot for you. I'm always half-crazy with wanting you. If anything could change that, I would’ve done it before we got this far. Understand?” he confessed.

“yes.” your hands wrapped around his wrists.

“now, show me that you still want me after that.” his face was flushed and damp, his eyes dark and turbulent “i need to know that losing control doesn’t mean I've lost you.”

You pulled his palms from your face and urged them down on your breasts. When he cupped them, you splayed your hands on his shoulders and started riding him. You kept lifting up your body and then falling back down over and over again while he kept on squeezing your breasts.

“ghost...”

“simon.” your eyes locked with his “call me simon.” he breathed out, lips parted, breathing heavily as he started pistoning his hips against yours making throw your head backwards.

“fuck, simon...” you cried out as you felt your silk walls flattering around him.

“come on, angel, cum for me. Show me how good I'm making you feel.” that did it for you as you through yourself backwards, hands clasping on his hips as you tried closing your legs due to the extent pleasure, but he made sure to keep them open, as he came inside you once again.

“fuck...” you exhaled as you slumped against his torso, legs still trembling.

He wrapped his arms around you, keeping you close, stroking your back softly, as he tried to show you with his actions what he couldn’t express with words... I love you.

[mittensmorgul]

2023 in Mittens Fic

It's once again time for the annual accounting of things I have written! I think this year's total fic count, at 4, is my lowest ever, but I still managed more words than my two lowest years (peak pandemic, i loathe you still).

For reference, past year end summaries can be found here:

2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | the closest thing I have to a 2015 wrap up post is the lil bit of text at the bottom of 2016′s post… even though my two most popular fics were from 2015 lololol

So I guess my main writing goal for 2024, since I know I will never surpass my 2015 totals, is to just do better than I did in 2023. Here's to more fic!

I managed a Pinefest fic, a fic I started for DCBB but didn't finish by the draft deadline and posted on my own, an annual destielversary fic, and an annual holiday fic. I think that's the bare minimum of what I try to aim for in a year, so even if I'm personally disappointed I didn't get anything else written in addition to that bare minimum, I'm glad I was at least able to hit that goal. Across this year's four posted fics, there's a total of 110,875 words.

Also, again slightly cheating, but since I've mentioned it for the past two years, I'm still making the @spngeorg podcast! In case the millions of words of meta I've written over the years aren't enough, and you want to hear me yell out loud about the show, you can start from the beginning on Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts! Or if that sounds daunting, since I just uploaded Episode 138, 7.12 Time After Time, which makes the backlog a lot to catch up on honestly, you're also welcome to just jump in now. Everyone please come yell with me! I swear, if you do start from the beginning, that I get dramatically better at this whole thing as we go on... at least, I think I have. If nothing else, episodes are far more manageably shorter now that I've developed a system. Only took 2 1/2 years, but here we are... :'D

With that business out of the way, let's break down those numbers! Presented in the order they posted:

Dear Western Red Cedar #2409 (63,433 words rated M) Written for @deancaspinefest with gorgeous art by @alexiescherryslurpy, and inspired by this tumblr post that had been plaguing my imagination for several years. It's a two person love triangle with Forest Ranger and secret bestselling author Dean and small town librarian Cas. Heck I want to go reread it just thinking about it now... this is a happy place fic for me.

one working part (40,051 words, rated E) I started this for DCBB, but failed to make the draft deadline, then finished it before posting began anyway... another canon finale fix-it fic, but this one is heavily It's A Wonderful Life flavored and based on a conversation I had with @greywrenn last year. This story picks up at the beginning of 15.19, and then slowly veers more and more from canon, running alongside canon and making rude hand gestures at canon along the way, because they all deserved to have nicer things than canon gave them.

all the time in the world (1,289 words, rated T) This is my annual Destielversary story, short and sweet. It's set immediately after the events of One Working Part, but you don't have to have read that to enjoy this one. Just know Cas is back with Dean, and they've got the rest of their lives stretched out in front of them.

Christmas, Present (6,102 words, rated T) My annual holiday fluff fic, this time set in an AU, since most of my past holiday fic has been canon universe. A Dean/Cas college AU, with Matchmaker Charlie who just wants her friends to be happy already!

And that's my year in fic (unless I manage to post something else in the next 33 hours or so, and lol no that ain't happening...)! As per usual, I've already written more than half of this year's word total for the 2024 Pinefest, which will post in March... or april... heck when is my posting date even... it's coming soon anyway! But it's all written! :'D

Once again, I've still got so many more stories I want to write. Even the To Be Written list has grown again. My idea list long ago surpassed SABLE status, and yet now there's even more on it...

It's five pages, and two thousand words longer than it was last year. this just gets worse every year :'D

But that means I'll never run out of things to write, and that's always something to celebrate!

Thanks again to everyone who’s read, kudos’ed, commented, reblogged, liked, rec’ed, and enjoyed anything I’ve written in the last year. I love you all. <3 See you in 2024!

[ohtobearandomftblog]

guess what more headcanons but this time lacrimas and i dont think its long enough for a read more

lacrima are used for everything.

hearing aid lacrimas.

phone lacrimas.

internet lacrimas.

inhaler lacrimas.

music lacrimas.

sound-proof lacrimas.

your wheelchair has fuckin lacrimas in it.

as mentioned before most lacrimas do have electricity in em so yes if your hearing is good/if your brain doesnt tone it out you will hear them buzzing

again. internet lacrimas. theres youtube and twitch and twitter and tumblr (bc it is so difficult trying to explain how someone knows of a meme when there isnt). theyre not called tumblr etc but theyre somethin similar

laxus is Big on tumblr. he makes sure no one fucking knows it with few exceptions.

will quote “it fukin wimdy” and cana constantly chokes on her drink. she knows he knows where thats from. she fucking follows him. she KNOWS its him. she does this shit right back and he continues it.

will mutter “and now: the weather” whenever he hears music a moment before any normal mage would. this gets mirajane and she is Terrified about how he knows that. she never asks

the few times he was at the guild hall early in the day were for the tumblrsexyman polls on twitter then on tumblr. was one of the top blogs that did #cecilsweep, which made cana ask him what the fuck that was. she was quickly educated. mira did not hear but now cana also quotes wtnv and mira is, again, Terrified

most of the lamia scale/sabertooth/blue pegasus/fairy tail/etc guilds have a big twitter and most of the members have their own separate ones

non-mages treat the guild twitters like brands. it annoys most of the non-mages to no end and the mages themselves Will Block the dumbasses

teen laxus once took over the fairy tail twitter. makarov found out quickly and the damage was minimal.

teen mira then took over the fairy tail twitter and makarov Didnt find out quickly. the damages were astronomical.

the guild twitters follow all of the member twitters and sometimes retweets the more “consumer friendly” tweets. except for fairy tail. what the fuck are they gonna retweet like “just watched my friend’s exfriend kill their mutual friend who i just met on a giant lacrima that the magic council JUST shot etherion at.he wasnt very obdurate lemme tell ya” like NO

you could get lacrima implants. like a phone lacrima implanted behind your ear so long as you dont mind a big ass lump. its just a phone and like a music player unless you implant a screen lacrima between your eyes. barely anyone does this because it sounds like a scam and Why would  you do that are you really That addicted

after lucy joined fairy tail but after eisenwald she started a youtube series called “a day in the life of a new mage”. its how jude knew she joined fairy tail. she uploaded the entirety of the phantom bullshit and not only did it help soften (by maybe 20% at MOST) the magic council interrogations of fairy tail but it made jude’s business start going downhill.

people would randomly stream and upload fights natsu and gajeel were in. its how sting and rogue became their fans.

the raijinshu have their own twitch and sometimes start streaming whenever laxus starts talking about something weird. like the random noise only he hears and hes losing his mind. or when he gets really into talking music. or when he starts talking in chinese and doesnt realize it to bickslow who’s slowly turning more and more pale and starts sweating because What Is He Saying

all of the thunder legion have started streams when laxus was speaking not english to another member. currently evergreen’s started stream 14 times more than the others and freed’s been streamed 9 times more than the others. their followers keep count. freed gets so embarrassed when its mentioned again.

there was a time where someone (coughbickslowcough) accidentally started streaming and just left it on. for like four hours. it was in makarov’s living room where they were all hanging out for a bit. when the legion left laxus turned on his own music and started cleaning. chat was Shocked that there was actually barely any R&R on his playlist. he deleted the vod when he realized it was on.

laxus’s entire playlist has actually been leaked this way. chat does not know how to handle laxus listening to natewantstobattle and fucking luhan.

laxus got back at the legion for that. many times. like when he “accidentally” starts talking in another language and sees someone inching towards the shared lacrima.

all of natsu’s social media (twitter insta and twitch) are unnecessarily popular. he barely posts on the first two and has never even talked in anyones chat on twitch. he doesnt even know how people found it but whenever he tunes into cana’s drinking tournament streams he gets gifted a sub by a different person every damn time. hes a bit concerned.

gray’s is also popular but it does make sense this time because he posts a Lot. whenever he posts a picture/uploads/streams he always realizes After it uploaded/started up that oh hes shirtless when the FUCK did that happen. juvia now makes sure his shirt is on at All Times. sometimes they forget he strips his pants. thankfully no ass has been shown yet (sadly for his followers (juvia is a follower))

[satanicsanity]

I'm going to try and not get too personal, but.. Im going through a bit of a rough patch right now, hense the break I had to take the other day! Over the past two days I've gotten requests that have honestly made me.. Very uncomfortable, people not reading up on my boundaries which.. Im unfortunately starting to get used to, and I've been feeling pretty sad (home issues mostly)

So if I slow down on requests again, or take a break, or just.. Anything like that... Im sorry!- I'm just goin' through it I think, haha! I know I keep coming around and apologizing for not staying 100% ontop of everything, but.... Yeah i have no excuse, I just get anxious and feel I need to apologize- thank you guys for being understanding though! Much love!

(FYI there is an 50% chance there'll be some like.. Random upload at some point during the time I'm asleep because tumblr said an hour ago that it's "processing still" or.. Something.... So that might happen- just letting yall know!)

[lycocarpum]

I got so overwhelmed by stress and hunger and exhaustion today that I nearly broke down crying in an overly lit Walmart, so I'm going to use this account as what god and tumblr intended it to be, and start blogging the process of this turtle project.

It occured to me that I'm trying to do a very unnatural thing by having something decompose subtly and without causing offence.

Death has a way of making itself very known. The odour of putrefaction tends to creep out of whatever you've designed to contain it, short of burying it 6ft down in the earth (a thing with i don't have the time or the strength to do). It's bad enough when the process is spread out over days-- condensing it down to a few hours makes the smell that much worse.

But I'm not even there, yet. Not really. I have to deflesh the damn thing first, and that's causing its own problems, because the references for how to do that with a turtle are scant to none, save for every pet memorial site telling me to "let the beetles have it for a few months". I have no beetles, and I have even fewer months to figure this out. Only two things are working in my favour: the fact that this is not a large specimen, and that turtle soup is eaten with enough regularity that I can find dubious guides on YouTube for how to prepare it.

I'm also kind of hoping that my inevitable turtle soup boil will not actually smell that bad... But I have my doubts.

Anyway. The defleshing has to be done soon, it really needed to be done last week but with the memorial services it just seemed a bit gauche to ask about the specimen carcasses. I'm several days behind on our proposed schedule, and I'm just hoping to have a clean enough shell by the 6th to show at open house. The rest of the articulation can take as long as I need it to, so long as that's done. I think I'll do that peroxide & simmer method I was reading about, but even then it'll take about 6 hours.

Which leads me back to where I am now. I think I'm going to try waking up at 3 am and starting work on this before class. I need to be alive enough to not cut myself with the scalpel, but it'll be late enough that most people will still be asleep, and I can clean up before anyone notices what I've been up to. That's the plan, but even while writing this I KNOW I'm going to oversleep.

I have organic chemistry tomorrow and I just got an alert that my professor uploaded the slides I need to read before 5 tomorrow. Maybe I can review while I'm doing this.

[taomyou]

The Romance of Reimbursements - Chapter 2

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader Status: COMPLETED Summary: There’s a guy you see every Friday on bus 143, and you think he’s pretty hot. It wouldn't hurt to tell your best friend about him, would it? or, you and Levi take the same bus home from work every Friday, and you fall in love slowly, clumsily, and with all the time in the world to fold as many paper stars as your heart desires. Word Count: 6.3k Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, modern au, office au, fluff, romance, meet-cute, matchmaking

(A/N: this fic is already completed and entirely available on ao3 here if you would like to read it. i am currently in the process of crossposting everything to tumblr, so please be patient!)

Chapter Navigation Accompanying Playlist

next time

That Friday, you do end up finishing those cookies for Hange.

After they were finished going off about the dinner they were dragging you to "no matter what," the two of you moved back over to the kitchen to roll out dough balls, cover them in cinnamon sugar, and shove them in the oven.

You both eased back into conversation about anything and everything, bar the guy from the bus, and things were smooth sailing for the rest of the day Hange spent at your place. After you were finished with business in the kitchen, Hange went back to their apartment to quickly grab some of last night's leftovers for the two of you to share as dinner, and you both decided to lay on the couch again to eat and watch random Shark Tank episodes on some probably illegal streaming site Hange found.

You swore they were uploaded to an official website somewhere, but they insisted that those episodes were probably really boring if they were free to watch. No matter, it was a great deal of fun even if neither of you really understood any of the entrepreneurial jargon they used on the show.

After you and Hange got tired of complaining for the hundredth time that none of the contestants would choose Lori as their investor, you sent Hange off with a smile, a hug, and a tupperware container of the snickerdoodle cookies. You had brought up teaching them the recipe so they could make it without you, but just like with every other recipe you tried teaching them, Hange insisted that coming over to your kitchen to bake with you was far more fun than doing it alone.

On the way out the door, Hange told you they'd text you the time and other important details once they got home, and, just like that, you were alone to stew in your thoughts again.

You dragged yourself to your bathroom, not having had a moment to change into your home clothes yet, and stripped yourself down to hop in the shower. The joyful expression that was on your face when you hugged Hange goodbye fell from your face and became replaced with a tight-lipped smile. You leaned down to turn the faucet on, tugged on the pullup knob, and let the water rain down on you.

Somehow, you missed the name Hange said belonged to him. Well, not somehow. You knew you weren't listening when they were rambling earlier, but you wished you had asked Hange at some point to put a name to a face. They had to have known you weren't listening, and you're sure they wouldn't have been offended if you did ask, but you didn't want to bring him up again for fear of them veering the conversation back to him.

Squeezing some shampoo into your hands, you rub them together to lather it up and bring them up to massage into your hair.

Oh well. No use really worrying about it now. You just needed to get through one dinner: how hard could it be?

✰

Okay, maybe you should've worried about this earlier.

Currently, you're standing in front of two outfits laid out on your bed. On the left is a nice black dress and a white coat, and on the right is a turtleneck, dress pants, and brown overcoat combo. You have another hour before you have to go, but here you are, trying to figure out what to wear to a dinner with who you thought to be the most beautiful man to set foot on this Earth.

You've been stood in front of your bed for a good 20 minutes already.

What were you even doing? Fussing over a man was one thing, but now you're acting like you're trying to dress yourself for a second grade class field trip to the zoo.

Actually, you wouldn't be wearing anything nearly as fancy to the zoo, but you get the point.

You're a grown, twenty-seven year old woman. You're an attorney, goddammit. You should be fine handling a measly dinner arrangement with someone you just happened to find absolutely gorgeous.

It's not like it'd be just the two of you either. Hange explained over text on Saturday that the "we" in "we're having dinner on Sunday" consisted of some of the people in their friend group, one of whom was your mystery bus stranger. They never really described any of their friends before in great detail, just assigning them nicknames so they could tell you stories about them from time to time.

You especially liked the ones about Shorty, a grumpy man Hange described as having a "perpetual stick up his ass."

He seemed like someone you'd want to be friends with, despite the obvious contrast his personality seemed to have to yours. Hange would talk sometimes about how much of a pain it was to hang out with him because he'd always complain about their driving or how sweet the tea he'd ordered was. Other times, they'd retell you his stupid jokes and let you laugh into the palm of your hand at how painfully sarcastic he seemed to be.

The only time you were ever tempted to actually come along with Hange and their friends was when they invited you to his birthday party (which was apparently disguised as a Christmas party, for whatever reason) a few years ago, but you already had a vacation back to your hometown planned that year.

Hopefully, Shorty's there at dinner. Maybe his presence would give you something to focus on instead of the handsome stranger Hange apparently knew and was going to bring with them.

Shaking your head to get out of your thoughts and back to the task at hand, you grab your phone from your shorts pocket to text Hange to ask what to wear. You get your answer seconds later when they reply, telling you to wear a dress.

"Dress it is, I guess," you mumble to yourself, grabbing the dress from your bed to change into it, as well as a pair of fleece-lined tights and safety shorts from your cabinet to help fight against the cold. Thank goodness you did your makeup before figuring out your outfit so you wouldn't have to rush that on your way out the door.

After putting on the dress and other garments, you head over to the bathroom with a small box of your accessories to use your mirror to put them on. It was convenient to have worn the dress, you decide, since choosing your jewelry would be easier than it would be if you wore the other outfit. After taking a quick look at all the trinkets you have in the box, you decide on a nice necklace with a single pearl pendant, purple wisteria drop earrings, and a decently large satin bow for your hair.

You take a good step away from your mirror to see how everything looks all put together, and you decide that you look... pretty. You hadn't really had the chance to dress up recently, and it was a nice change to be able to style yourself how you wanted. Of course, you had to look good at work, but it's not like you actually liked wearing pantsuits and heels all the time. Come to think of it, the last time you remember feeling so pretty was that first Friday, months back, when you first saw that stranger.

After checking your phone to see you had another 30-ish minutes to get to the restaurant, you shove your phone, wallet, and keys into your purse. Slipping on a pair of black flats, you make your way out the door and put on your coat as you walk downstairs to your car. Hange already left their apartment earlier in the morning, so they weren't able to carpool with you over to the restaurant, but they promised they'd be there a bit earlier than the scheduled meet-up time to make sure you'd have company while you waited. Somehow, you doubt that.

And you were right to doubt Hange's early appearance. When you get inside the restaurant, you see no sign of them anywhere. You take a quick glance at your phone to see that there's 10 minutes before the scheduled time everyone's supposed to arrive. The waiting area is quite large, but everyone looks already occupied with their own group, so you can't guess who is or isn't a part of Hange's circle.

To your surprise, you hear a familiar voice say your name behind you, and you turn around to see... Erwin?

"Erwin? What're you doing here?"

He seems almost as confused as you are to see him, especially since the two of you have never bumped into each other outside of work before, but he still answers nonetheless. "I'm meeting for dinner with some friends. I wasn't sure if it was you, but thank goodness it is and I don't have to make a fool out of myself greeting a complete stranger."

You nod in understanding, feeling a bit awkward seeing your work superior outside of... well, work. He's dressed in the same clothes he wore to the office, more or less, though, so you'll get over the initial shock soon enough.

He clears his throat, bringing attention back onto himself. "What brings you here tonight, if you don't mind me asking?"

You nervously laugh at his question, bringing up a finger to tap your cheek in embarrassment. "My friend's introducing me to a couple of their friends, which is quite a long time coming since I've gotten away with not meeting them for as long as I have. One of them is apparently this guy I've seen on the bus before though, so that should be fun," you answer, and despite the blistering cold blowing into the waiting area from the constantly swinging entrance doors, you can feel your face start to heat up like it always does when you think of him.

Erwin quirks an eyebrow at your answer, but before he can say anything, you hear Hange plowing into the space.

In tow is... oh, it really is him.

A large part of you, prior to this exact moment, wanted Hange to be wrong about knowing the stranger you told them about.

Some other part of you wanted it to be true, though.

He looks just as good as he did 2 days ago when you last saw him, maybe even more so now that you're under the extravagant lighting of the restaurant.

His suit's grey, just like his eyes, and it seems like he did his hair differently—maybe it's slicked back now, you can't tell from where you are in the room. You just barely take note of his height, which you never noticed before since you were too nervous to really look at him walk off the bus, but you jest that making him short was the universe's way of trying to make him "unattractive." As if that would even be possible; the man looks like he's topped the list of TC Chandler's Top 100 Faces every year since birth.

Even with the distance, however, there's no denying that that's him. The guy you see every Friday on bus 143 is across the room from you, standing underneath the same chandeliers you are.

The two of you accidentally make eye contact, and you think you're about to faint. Let's hope the host can seat you at one of those comically long tables so nobody can see the blush blooming on your face once again.

Hange skips over to you, giving you a hug and breaking you out of your momentary trance. Once you realize what's going on, you hug them back in earnest and give them a bashful smile. They most definitely take notice of your red face after leaning back a bit to get a good look at your face and pinching your cheek playfully, but they don't make any comment about it.

"You, hey, you! You look so cute!" They coo, refusing to let go of you. You awkwardly laugh, seeing Erwin over Hange's shoulder. If you thought he looked confused earlier, he looks completely and utterly taken aback now.

Hange pulls away from you and stands proudly between you and Erwin, that same shit-eating grin from Friday bright on their face once again. They motion for the other raven-haired man to come over, which he does with a quiet frown on his face. Somehow, even that gets you just a bit more red in the face.

"Levi! Erwin! This is my friend, Astraea!"

You nervously wave at both Erwin and who you now know as Levi, though you're quick to bring your hand back down to hold your other one behind your back.

You were sure Erwin wasn't who Hange was calling Shorty in their stories, and as much as you wanted to deny the possibility, Levi was probably Shorty given his obviously short stature. Curse you for wanting to meet Shorty and not considering that him and the bus stranger could've been the same person.

"Wait, your name isn't Astraea," Erwin says, quizzically looking between you and Hange.

Before you can explain, Hange butts in. "No, you wait! How do you know that? Are you stalking me and my dear friend?" They proposition, pointing an accusatory finger at Erwin.

Levi scoffs at that, and for the first time, you hear his voice. "Please, Four Eyes, as if anybody has the time to try and follow you around," he quips.

How is it possible for someone to sound so good? Dear lord.

You have to keep your eye on a decorative plant at the corner of the room to avoid making eye contact with anyone for fear of them getting a full view of your face.

"Erwin's my work senior. You know, the one that made me give up my parking spot," you tell them, eyes still locked on the plant.

At that, Hange laughs fully and puts their hand over their chest. "Small world! Well, good to know we can skip that introduction!"

"That still doesn't explain the fact that her name apparently isn't Astraea," Levi speaks up, probably rolling his eyes at Hange.

You can feel everyone's gaze shift to you, so you awkwardly choose to face Erwin as you answer. "Uh," you start. "When I was a kid, my younger brother was obsessed with Greek mythology. Astraea was one of the first names he learned and he insisted that I was 'just like her,' whatever that meant, so he'd always call me that. I ended up using it for all my usernames because I was so paranoid about people online finding my personal information. Eventually, I got so used to it that I usually just ask people to use Astraea instead of my real name."

Hange smiles and drapes an arm over your shoulder, trying to apparently get you less tense. You melt a bit into the embrace, but you're still too nervous to even look in Levi's direction.

"And your brother was right! I took a Greek mythology course in university, and you fit Astraea to a T!"

Erwin looks like he still has questions, so you nod at him to prompt him to ask them.

"How come nobody at work calls you that, then? You're close with quite a few people in the office—surely you've exchanged information with them by now."

You politely smile at that and answer.

"I ask them not to use it at work since I don't want other people in the office to look me up on social media, but they use it if we're out together."

Erwin seems content enough with your answer and offers you a calm smile. You still can't bring yourself to look at Levi, and you don't want to even begin to think about any of the possible things going through his head.

Does he even recognize you from the bus? Sure, you two have never talked or even made eye contact before this official introduction, but the bus wasn't really crowded at all. He has to at least know your face, right?

Before you can dwell on the thought, you hear Hange invite Erwin with them to go to the reservation desk to let the waitstaff know that your party has arrived, leaving you alone with Levi.

Before you can reach into your purse to try and make yourself look busy on your phone, Levi clears his throat and starts to speak. "So, you didn't know Hange and Erwin knew each other?" He asks, trying to make some conversation to fill the silence now that the other two were away.

You make no move to look at him, opting to keep your eyes on Hange's animated conversation with Erwin at the reservation desk. "No, Hange and I don't really talk about our friends all that much with each other. Just stories here and there, you know?"

Levi gives a hum in response as a signal he heard you.

God, you can already feel your palms start to get sweaty. The red on your face could probably be written off as sensitivity to the cold winter air outside, but you're done for if someone notices you wiping your hands on your coat too many times.

"Did you come with Hange?" You ask, eyes still on Hange in the distance.

"Yes. I was supposed to come with someone else, but he had a work emergency and sent Hange instead. They're probably trying to see if our reservation is still fine now that we're a person short. If I knew that Hange was going to be the one driving me, I would've just walked over here myself."

Okay, well, now you know for sure he's Shorty.

You laugh a little at his reply before tucking your hands into your coat pockets.

"That's Hange's driving for you," you start. "Have they ever talked about me before?" You question, deciding to try and gauge his opinion of you from Hange's stories of you. You see him nod from the corner of your eye.

"If you're the neighbor who lets them run around wild with a sugar rush practically every other day, then yeah, they've talked about you plenty," he remarks.

You laugh awkwardly, eyes shifting to the floor. "Good to know."

Definitely not good to know, but you weren't gonna let anyone but you know that.

Before either of you can try and save the conversation, Hange waves their arms high up in the air to get the two of you to the desk where the host is waiting with menus tucked under his arm. You and Levi walk towards them, not much distance between you and him, and the four of you are seated at a fancy booth. Hange and you sit on the same side while Erwin and Levi are seated across from you, with Levi right across from you.

There goes any chance of avoiding eye contact with him.

To buy yourself some time away from his steely gaze, you open the menu to look at the options.

Alright, you weren't actually looking at the menu. You looked it up online when Hange texted you where you were going, and you already picked out what you wanted before today. It seems that Erwin also knows what he wants, not bothering to even pick up his menu.

"Is it alright if we call you Astraea, then, seeing as we're not at work?" He asks.

You look across the table at him, glad to see that Levi brought the menu up over his face so you couldn't see each other, and nod. "Yeah, that's fine."

Hange bumps your shoulder with theirs and asks you to help them choose between the two dishes they want, and once they choose one of them, Erwin flags over the waiter.

You think it's weird that he doesn't wait for Levi to tell him he's finished looking at the menu, but you don't want to question it.

After everyone informs the waiter of what they want, he takes your menus away and comes back seconds later with napkins, both cloth and paper ones, and silverware. Out of habit, you immediately start tearing at the paper napkin to form a long strip.

"You still make those?" Erwin asks. 

You absentmindedly nod, starting to tie the small loop at one end to start the star.

"She does it everywhere we go! I have a vase of them at my place, it's a really cute decorative piece to have," Hange praises, looking over at you with their face leaned into their hand.

"I have a jar of them on my work desk, and I've gotten quite a few compliments from clients about it over the years," Erwin adds, now also watching you form the small trinket.

You finish rolling up the strip, tucking it into itself, and pinching the corners before handing it to Hange, just as you always do when the two of you are out together. This time, however, instead of putting it into their coat pocket as they usually do, they hold it in their palm and stick their arm out across the table in front of Levi, who blankly looks between the star and Hange.

"Why are you giving it to me?" He questions.

Hange groans and gets up a bit from their seat to get closer to him. "I have more than enough at home already, and Erwin seems like he does too. Just take it!"

Levi rolls his eyes but goes to grab the star from them, placing it down on the table. You didn't think he'd take it at all, but you were even more sure that he would just leave it there after dinner was over.

Hange turns their attention back to you, eager to get a conversation going at the table. "So now that I know you work with Erwin and I don't need to introduce the two of you to each other, let me tell you about Levi!" They start. "I don't know if you remember, but Levi's the one I call 'Shorty!'"

You nod at that, having figured that out already. You look back over at Levi who seems to just be looking outside a window across the restaurant.

Seeing as Levi and Shorty were the same person, you suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to try and become acquainted with him.

Maybe becoming friends would help force your budding attraction to him down, and seeing him every week wouldn't be so stressful on your heart. The heat on your face has cooled down significantly now that you've had a moment to get settled into your environment, but there's probably still a light tint on your face that you'd probably never be able to get rid of with Levi around. If distance made the heart grow fonder, proximity should do the opposite, right?

"It's nice to meet you, Levi," you offer with a smile.

He lets his eyes trail back to you before scoffing and going back to looking outside the window. "Thanks, Four Eyes, for introducing me as a Shorty," he sarcastically says. There's a pause where nobody speaks before Levi opens his mouth again. "And is it really your first time meeting me if we see each other on the bus every week?"

You stop breathing momentarily, letting the question sink in. You awkwardly laugh for what feels like the hundredth time today.

So he does recognize you? Go figure.

"I guess not, but it's nice to finally know your name."

He nods and looks over at Erwin whose eyes were already on the raven-haired man.

"What are you looking at me like that for, fucker?"

Erwin chuckles at that, giving his friend a good-natured pat on his back. "C'mon, Levi. Be a bit nicer," he lightly scolds.

"Yeah, Levi! She's probably already terrified of you!" Hange adds.

Levi makes eye contact with you at that, seemingly trying to gauge your own opinion of him.

You raise your hands slightly up off the table in defense. "It's fine, guys! He's right, we do see each other every so often. And the client I had last week was far scarier than Levi, I think I can handle him," you joke, trying to lighten the mood.

Hange laughs at that, as does Erwin. Levi doesn't offer up any sign he thought your comment was funny, but you notice that his frown has been replaced with a neutral expression.

Until the food arrives, you and Erwin discuss some matters from work. You feel a bit guilty for having brought up that you had a bad experience with a client, since now Erwin is determined to get you to talk about it with upper management. You most definitely won't, but something tells you that he will, being who he is. Hange is listening along to your conversation, giving their own opinion or cracking a joke here and there while Levi remains quiet. Whether or not he's listening, you can't tell.

The food arrives just as you and Erwin finish talking about work. As the four of you eat, the conversation is shifted once again towards Levi.

"So, what do you do for work, Levi?" You ask cautiously, trying to find a way to include him.

His eyes don't come away from the plate of carbonara in front of him, which you're grateful for because it means you wouldn't be making eye contact again. "I'm a professor at the University downtown," he says monotonously.

"Levi, please! Give her something to work with! Astraea, he teaches architecture at Sina University on top of doing freelance work!" Hange praises.

Your eyebrows furrow as you try to put together the pieces of information you're receiving about the man.

You did your Juris Doctorate degree at Paradis Law School, but some of your professors held lecture at the Sina campus because it was further downtown and closer to their own law offices. You knew how hard it was to try and find parking at Sina, even with the parking pass you bought during your first term. You had to call the finance office several times to try and cancel it after realizing how useless it was.

He probably took the bus to and from Sina's main campus to avoid the hassle of parking.

After you were happy with the conclusion you came to, you stew a bit in the information again, this time thinking about how you would've loved to have a professor as gorgeous as Levi when you were a student. You were never one to skip class, even when you went through periods of extreme burnout, but you knew you never would've even considered ditching if lugging yourself to class meant you got to see him.

"It's really impressive that you're a professor. You probably take the bus because of how shit the parking is, right?"

At the mention of the parking conditions, Levi finally looks up from his food to scowl in your direction. You assume it's to show his disdain for the actual parking (because the other possibility is that he's annoyed at your question).

"The absolute fucking worst. I thought I was safe because I have a staff parking pass, but no. Those childish, good-for-nothing brats would even take the last parking spot right in front of my fucking eyes," he griefs. At the mental image of an unlucky student parking and running off to avoid the wrath of a random professor, you let a full, hearty laugh escape your mouth. You don't bother covering your mouth as you laugh, having already finished chewing before Levi even answered your question. Erwin and Hange join you in your jovial giggling, and they both chastise Levi for slandering the poor students.

You can't see whether Levi's smiling or not, seeing as he brought up his cloth napkin to cover the lower part of his face, but you're sure he's just doing that to hide his mouth while he chews his food.

The rest of the dinner went smoothly—much more smoothly than you anticipated.

Everyone contributed in some way or another to the steady conversation, and the anxious feeling Levi brought you over the course of the last couple of months dissipated the further into the night you got. You didn't get to learn much more about him, though. The conservation turned over to Hange, who mostly talked about work and their coworkers, but everyone at the table knew more than enough about their antics to be able to comment on the stories they were telling. Even Levi let a small smile slip onto his face every once in a while.

Hange suggests that the four of you let the waiter do a "credit card roulette" to end the night, and you assume that Erwin and Levi are used to this because they both reach into their wallets wordlessly to give their cards to Hange. Thankfully, they see your confusion and don't laugh at you for it.

"Whenever we hang out, we let the waiter blindly choose which card to pay the bill with. If you're not up for it, that's fine, but it's always a great deal of fun," Erwin says, explaining what the three of them are about to do.

"It's fun for you guys, I fucking hate doing this," Levi grumbles.

Hange laughs at that and hunches over, hand to their chest. "Good one, Levi! Astraea, don't listen to him! He's only salty because his card always gets chosen!"

You smile at Levi sympathetically and move to your purse to get your own card and hand it to Hange, deciding to join in on the "fun."

Hange cheers at your participation, and so Erwin again flags over the waiter to choose between your cards.

Hange probably coached the waiter into choosing the Chase Sapphire card when they left the table to go to the bathroom earlier, though, because it's Levi's card that gets chosen.

You see him sigh in frustration across from you, pinching the bridge of his nose, and Hange breaks out into yet another fit of laughter. You aren't really all that surprised that Levi's card gets chosen, but you join in on the moment and laugh with them, and Erwin soon also joins with a deep chuckle and some words of sympathy for Levi's bank account.

Before the receipt comes back and Levi is able to sign off on it, Hange suggests that the rest of you leave for the waiting area to avoid the guilt of seeing Levi cover such a large bill, but you decline and say you'll keep him company. Levi looks pretty confused, but he doesn't protest, and so Hange and Erwin scurry off to the front of the restaurant to wait while you and Levi sit in silence.

When the waiter comes back with the receipt and places it on the table, you grab it before Levi gets the chance to sign his name.

"What do you think you're doing?"

You hold out your pointer finger to him, effectively shushing him as you look at the total and dig into your purse to get your wallet. Your friends are usually quick to question you about why you even keep cash on you, but you always have it in case of situations such as this one. When you get enough money to cover just a little more than half the bill, you hold it out in front of Levi and give him a tight-lipped smile.

"I feel pretty bad about having you pay for my food when you don't really know me," you reason, still waiting for him to take the bills in your hand. He seems pretty caught off guard, but he makes no move to take it from you. "You and Erwin probably didn't know I was coming until a day or two ago anyway, so think of it as me apologizing for intruding on your plans."

He doesn't look offended, but he still doesn't do anything to indicate he's willing to take the money. Instead, he stands up and leans over to grab the receipt tray from you. Sitting back down, he signs his name and motions for a waiter to come over. The waiter looks a bit confused as to why you have so much money out when the bill was already paid, but he thanks you for dining with them and leaves.

Levi looks at you for what feels like an eternity before he speaks up. "There were no plans to intrude on. Hange texted us on Friday at damn near midnight to tell us we had to come to dinner with them and their friend on Sunday."

You blink slowly. And again. And again. You don't say anything, but as the silence grows, you're suddenly aware that he's been looking at you for a good while, and you can feel that all too familiar heat on your face again.

"My best guess is just as good as yours as to why they decided to introduce all of us so suddenly," he says, trying to ease your confusion.

Except he's wrong.

You know why Hange organized all this: it was to get you a chance to meet the handsome stranger you told them about just 2 days ago. 

You're finally able to gather the words you want to say after a good second, but not before you let yet another anxious laugh past your lips.

"Still, I feel pretty guilty that you're paying," you say softly, your cash still outstretched to the man in front of you. He sighs at your words.

"Don't feel bad about it, I don't mind," he starts. He sees that you're still unwavering in your resolve and continues. "But I appreciate the gesture. If you're so worried about it, let the waiter play roulette with your card again next time," and with that, he pushes your hand back towards you.

You're already too flustered for your face to get even more red than it already is, but his touch made it seem like it was possible. And what was it he said? Next time? Would you be meeting with him in this group again? Would you even be opposed to that?

No. No, you already thought to yourself it would be nice to befriend him, even before you knew who he was.

Desperate to get some air, you sheepishly shove your cash back into your purse, not bothering to put it back neatly into your wallet, and get up from the table.

"Alright, I'll do that then," you say.

He nods in return and starts getting up himself. Once he's up on his feet, you start heading over to where Hange and Erwin should be. You notice that Levi's eyes are lingering in the direction you just came from, so you tap his shoulder to get his attention.

"Did you forget something at the table?" You ask.

He hesitates a moment before nodding, saying a quick "go ahead" to you before walking back to where the lot of you just sat.

You, not wanting to be inconsiderate, stay put and wait for him to return. Soon enough, you see him come back with a hand in his pants pocket, and the two of you continue the trek over to your friends. You don't remember feeling like the walk was so far, but you could probably chalk that up to the fact you were completely stuck in a daze earlier. You still were, to some degree, but it was to a much lesser one now.

When you catch sight of each other, Hange gives you a huge smile just as they do every time they see you, and the four of you head out of the door, thanking the man holding it open. Everyone's car in different areas around the building, so you all have to exchange pleasantries before heading your separate ways.

You hug Hange goodbye first, and they thank you for coming along to dinner. You thank them for inviting you as well, and Hange immediately moves to say goodbye to Levi, leaving you to send off Erwin.

"I didn't expect you to be who Hange was bringing, but it was nice seeing you," he says, extending a hand out for you to shake.

You accept it firmly, and you smile up at him. "I didn't think I'd ever catch you outside of work either, but yeah. It was nice," you reply.

He returns the smile you give him, and Hange comes over to the two of you to nudge you over towards Levi and take your previous spot in front of Erwin.

You didn't think Levi seemed like the type to care for physical touch, despite the earlier exchange you had at the table, so you don't offer him a hand or hug. Instead, you bring your hand up to give him a wave. You get a nod in return, which you'll take as his own way of saying goodbye.

"You know Hange's gonna drag you around everywhere with us now, right?"

You chuckle at that and look up at the dark sky above you, your hands in your pockets. They're no longer as clammy as they were when you first made eye contact with Levi, thankfully, but the warm of your coat is still very much welcome.

"Yeah, but I think I'll manage."

Just barely out of your line of vision, Levi's expression gets just that tiny bit more peaceful, and he joins you in looking up at the sky. He mumbles something under his breath, but you don't quite catch it.

After one last goodbye to everyone, Erwin walks across the street, Hange and Levi head over to the valet area, and you walk over to your car parked a little bit down the road. As you sit down and position yourself to back out of your parking spot, you let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding.

There's a heat that creeps its way back to your ears and cheeks, just as it does every time you think of the handsome stranger from bus 143, but for the first time, you don't feel inclined to try and to get rid of it.

✰

Next Chapter

[gojoandtojisleftnut]

𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

Chapter 4: Babysitting

Pairings: Toji Fushiguro x female reader

Genre: slow burn

A/n and possible tw: not proofread. This took longer to upload, I was in Italy for a few days and generally I wasn’t in a good mood. Reminder Kaori is Tsumikis mama and Hikari mamaguro -> fem!reader, she/her pronouns that’s all for this chapter.

!Disclaimer!: after reader tells toji that it is indeed her phone number toji tell her to babysit for him on Saturday without giving her a choice and hangs up. That’s when she says “does he really want me to babysit his kids?” Tumblr won’t let me edit it and it doesn’t show up no matter how many times I write it.

Previous. Next.

“Toji? It’s late what are-” “Did I wake you up?” He didn’t. Actually you wished you had even got five minutes of sleep. “Um no actually I was awake. Is everything okay?” Worry laced with your words, your mind running laps.

“Everything is okay. Just wanted to, um- to see if I can still reach out you through this number it’s been a month since you gave it to me.” Well you see his words weren’t exactly lies. He couldn’t possibly say that he wanted to hear your sweet voice. “Um yeah well I am talking to you right now so I guess you got your answer.”

‘Does he really want me to babysit his kids? What?’ Your thoughts were cut off by the sound of your phone pinging.

‘Does he really want me to babysit his kids? What?’ Your thoughts were cut off by the sound of your phone pinging.

0467 felicita street. Be there at 7pm

Goodnight kiddo.

You’ve decided that the best way to vent and actually have someone hear you was to talk to Wilfred. So here you are scrubbing the juice maker until it’s squeaky clean telling him all about yesterday’s events. “So he just called you and asked to babysit? I don’t know Y/n.” “Wilfred I know trust me. Like the audacity of this man. He asks me to babysit his kids while he’s what? Out with his wife?” Your boss sighs and takes the rag out of your hand.“The thing is Y/n, do you want to go? You always say the opposite of what you do when it comes to your feelings.” It’s your turn to sigh, shoulders falling in defeat. “I don’t know. I feel like if I go I’ll look like an idiot. Like I’m easy. Like I’d do anything for his attention. For a man that probably wanted an easy fuck once and now he found the easy way to dump his kids somewhere. You know what I mean?”

Toji hadn’t really realized what he said last night over the phone. Honestly he thought it was a dream until he saw the messages. It’s Thursday evening, he has approximately 48 hours to make up an excuse and find a place to take his wife on a date. ‘Damn Hikari, you and your signs.’ Toji sat on his bed staring down at his legs trying to process what he’s done. Would you think he’s taking advantage of you? Leaving you home with his kids while he’s out with his wife. When in reality he just panicked like a teenage boy talking to his crush on the phone and made up the quickest lie and excuse to see you.

I’ll be there on Saturday.

“Damn I’m a fucking idiot” honestly you’re digging up your grave with the choices you make. But for some reason you can’t decline. And it’s pissing you off. Your free will has completely vanished because of this man. A man that is still basically a stranger to you. As soon as you sent that text you threw your phone on the bed and ran out of your room to do anything imaginable to distract yourself from the possibility of him answering you.

Toji felt his heart flutter at your message. He was thanking whatever God was above that you actually agreed. Kaori was in the kitchen cooking when he came down and wrapped his strong arms around her, closing his eyes imagining it’s you.

‘Snap out of it Toji’ he reminded himself clearing his throat. “How about we go out on Saturday? I’ve found a babysitter for the kids.” “Mm is that so?” She spins around looking at him smiling. “Mhm. So what do you think?” “It’s a date mister Fushiguro.” She kissed his lips. Oh if only they were yours.

____

“Wilfred I swear to God I’ll kill myself. I’m lost and you have to keep me company on the phone.” It’s 6:47pm and finding Toji’s house was more difficult than you thought. “Y/n I think you need more friends your age. Don’t get me wrong I love you with all my heart, but calling your boss on a Saturday evening to keep you company on the phone isn’t normal.” “Excuse you. I do have friends they just- they’re busy.”

A few minutes pass by and you finally found the house. It wasn’t much. Small white family house, nice trimmed lawn, a few palm trees decorating it. It would be easier to find if you hadn’t put the address wrong into your gps. You check the time. It’s 6:58. ‘Right on time Y/n. Well almost’

You knock on the door and the realization of what you’re actually doing hits you like a truck. You don’t get too much time to think about it as the door opens revealing an all black dressed Toji. Black shirt, black slacks. ‘Damn’

“Y/n.. you came.” Looking at his face you see his green eyes wide, eyebrows a bit furrowed and mouth slightly agape. “Well duh, I told you I was.” ‘That’s it Y/n keep the cool act and he’ll never suspect that you’re actually shitting your pants right now.’ You giggle at your own thoughts making him look at you weird “what?” “Um nothing I just remembered something.” “Great. Well Uhm come in and I’ll tell you anything you need to know. It’s only going to be a few hours.”

Toji sits you and the two kids around the kitchen table to explain everything you need to know. You learnt the the little girl’s name is Tsumiki and she’s allergic to nuts. Megumi can’t sleep without a storytime, that the tv is broken and that they both have to take their vitamin gummies before bed. ‘Great. Got this. How difficult can it be-’ “Toji sweetheart I’m ready.” A woman comes down the stairs, brown hair in a bun, red dress reaching her ankles and a pair of heels. She was beautiful. You catch Toji looking at her with wide eyes and you couldn’t deny the feeling of jealousy build up inside of you. ‘You’re so stupid Y/n, thinking you’ll ever have a chance.’

Toji glances back at you. “Yeah I’m ready.” Kaori walks up to the table looking at you and the two children. “I’m Kaori, Toji’s wife. Nice to meet you. I’m sure you’ll take great care of my kids.” She gives you her hand smirking when she mentions that they’re hers. “Nice to meet you, I’m Y/n.” ‘Bitch’ you think. Toji clears his throat and ushers his wife to the car after they say goodbye to Megumi and Tsumiki. Before he exits the door he looks back at you taking your cheek I’m his big palm gently “Thank you kiddo. You’re a lifesaver.”

You both stay there for a few seconds longer. Longer than you probably should. He looks into your eyes before walking towards his car. His wife waiting inside.

“Okay kids it’s time to party. But don’t tell your parents.” The little ones looking back at you, smiles creeping up their mouths.

—

Meanwhile in the car. “Is that the girl from Juicenet? The one you were talking to?” “Um yeah she had mention she babysits from time to time.” He didn’t know if his wife could sense his nervousness or spot his lie but he couldn’t give much thought to it. His mind always going back to you.

—

23:00pm. Honestly having kids must be really tiring. You had them for four hours and you’re about to quit life. The house was a mess but you managed to clean it and put everything back to place. Toji and Kaori were still not home and you were dozing off on the couch. “Y/n..?” a tiny little voice came from behind you. “Megumi? What’s wrong little one?” The little boy rubs his right eye other hand holding his frog plushie again. “I had a nightmare.” You beacon the boy to come closer to you on the couch “come ‘ere”. Megumi slowly walks towards you and you grab him to place him on the couch with you. You take the little boy into your arms and cuddle him closely. “You know I have a lot of nightmares too. It’s okay though cause they’re not real. Okay?” Meg nods his little head and reluctantly hurried his head even more into you.

Time goes by and midnight comes, with it Toji and Kaori. They slowly walk into the house the only light coming from the lamp in the living room. “Go upstairs I’ll check the living room.” Toji tells his wife and waits for her to go check the kids upstairs. Once she’s gone he walks towards the living room, breath hitching at the sight in front of him. You cuddled up with his son on the couch looking like mother and son. He tiptoes towards you guys and crouches in front of you.

He places his hand on your knee shaking you slightly. Slowly opening your eyes you hum once you make out his figure. “Tojii” you whine. The sound makes him twitch. “Wait here kid.” He takes Megumi from your arms and takes him upstairs tucking him in his bed and reassuring Kaori that he’s okay. He jogs downstairs where he sees you still sitting on the couch putting your shoes on. “Y/n” Your name comes out more shaky than he anticipated. He crouched once again in front of you to take a better look at you. “How was your date?” You can’t even look at him, the tone of jealousy evident in your voice. “It was good. How were the kids.?” “Angels” ‘damn if he only knew we almost burnt the house down.’ Silence falls between you the atmosphere getting more awkward. “I’m glad they didn’t give you a hard time. Let me pay you.”

Toji is about to get up but seems to lose his balance tripping on your shoe that’s on the floor, making him fall forward. Hands flying to the back of the couch, body between your legs, your faces inches apart. You look at each other, the same expressions on your faces. “Um- I- you, you don’t have to pay me”. None of you moving an inch from the position you’re in. For some reason his breath feels closer the more the second pass. Looking up at him one more time, black straight locks falling in front of his face. He licks the scar on the corner of his mouth and leans in your hand flying to his chest.

tag list: @ys2800 @ackerfem @megumimind

[gabseyoo]

we are a team

pairing: hitto kakucho x fem!reader | wc: 1,6k.

genre: fluff, maternity.

warnings: some spicy comments from kakucho, kissing, crying, breastfeeding, cursing etc.

summary: your husband understands very well that being a mother is hard.

a/n: hello everyone, this is the first fanfic i upload to tumblr, i'm kind of shy but i put a lot of work into this and took three deep breaths before the last click. well i don't know what else to say, so... i hope you like it :)

Being a first time mom was difficult, no doubt, all the preparation and advice you'd had in your antenatal classes with a doll really didn't come close to what it was like to actually hold a little child in your arms. You were grateful that your husband, Kakucho, was really trying to be a good dad and do “his part” the best he can, always saying that you were a team. 

But these days had been difficult, you had hardly slept at all because of taking care of your baby, who had been more active than usual, resisting his naps and crying most of the day. Your teammate, unfortunately, had not been around much due to work and that had fucked you up. His presence was a fundamental part of your functioning as a mother. 

You were pretty tired, no doubt about it. 

Right now, you were finally getting some sleep, relaxing your muscles and closing your eyes after a long day of caring for your newborn. You felt like you were in a deep sleep, until you heard the piercing sound of your baby crying from the crib on the other side of the room. You glance at the clock quickly, growling under your breath trying to hold back tears of frustration, seeing that it was 3:45 in the morning. You had only slept for about half an hour. Shit. 

“I got it.” Your husband whispers getting out of bed heavily. “You keep sleeping, love.” Kakucho approaches the crib to hold the baby in his arms, cooing to him a little in an attempt to calm the crying. But the little human wouldn't give in despite his father's attempts to put him back to sleep.

“I think he’s hungry.” You say, lifting your body wearily to sit up in bed and rubbing your eyes. 

“But this little demon just ate half an hour ago.” He jokes, pinching his son's cheek gently.

“That’s how babies work.” You get out of bed to sit on the sofa that Kakucho had bought so that you can breastfeed more comfortably in the room. “Give me the child, come on.” Kakucho grimaces, not that he can help much in that regard, so he walks over to the sofa to put the child in your arms. “You should go back to sleep, love. I can handle it.” 

“You’re crazy. We are a team.”  Kakucho watches as you settle the baby better in your arms with the support of a pillow, then lift your pajama top to free your breast and direct it to the child's mouth. You close your eyes for a moment in pain as the child begins to suck. “You okay?” He stands behind you, massaging your shoulders trying to relax you, you lean your head back against the backrest, looking up to meet his gaze.

“Yeah. I’m just tired. He’s draining all my energy.” You smile peacefully at him, still trying to hold your tears. But he knows you better than anyone else. He knows that all these days you have been more frustrated than usual, and he understood how you were feeling. The lack of sleep and having to take care of a newborn all day was exhausting, even though he wanted to be there as much as possible, his job didn't allow it. He wanted to do his part as a father properly, he took every moment there was to spend time with you and the baby; diapers, baths, changes of clothes; he also took care of him on his own so you could get some sleep. In the end, he was the only one you had since your family lived far away from Tokyo.

But these days work had been demanding, coming home late at night with blood all over his suit and with all the paperwork he had to finish. He felt bad about leaving you alone, and he could imagine how hard it must have been for you to do everything on your own. So yes, he understood perfectly if you wanted to break down in tears. 

And you tried, really tried, to manage on your own without falling apart. Even though your husband called you every spare moment he had to make sure you were okay, you didn't have the courage to tell him how tired you felt. And at times you hated your grandmother who had always told you that motherhood was the most beautiful thing there was, of course, it was. You loved your son with all your heart, but all your life you had been told how beautiful motherhood was, but not how difficult it really is.

It was truly a reality shock.

You remembered the words of lady of the birthing and parenting classes you and Kakucho took, “I am not going to lie to you, it’s hard. Not the rainbows and candies most people talk about. But, remember that every effort has its reward.” And fuck, she was right. 

You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn't notice the moment Kakucho stopped massaging your shoulders to sit next to you. He puts his arm around your shoulders and you rest your head on his. 

“Are you sure you’re okay, angel?” 

At that moment, hearing the sweet tone of his voice and the concern it emanated, you could no longer contain yourself. Letting out the tears you had been holding back. You felt a little embarrassed, so you hid your face on his shoulder. He didn't mind you wetting his pajamas, on the contrary, he wanted you to let all your feelings out. 

He let you cry for a few minutes, without saying anything, just listening to your sobs and caressing your arm with his fingertips. You were grateful that he remained silent in the middle of your little collapse, after all he understood you better than anyone else. 

When you calmed down a bit, he gently took your chin to look into your eyes. He gave you a gentle smile before kissing your forehead. 

“I’m sorry– I just– I don’t know.” You couldn’t formulate your words well. 

“It’s okay to cry. I know it’s tiring to take care of him by yourself all day while I’m working.” He caresses your cheek with his knuckles before continuing to speak. “And I’m really sorry I can’t be here with you all day and do my part properly. It’s hard to be a mom, but you’re doing an amazing job.” 

“You don’t have to–”

“I’m so proud of you. And I can’t imagine myself doing this with anyone else.” His words almost made you burst into tears again.

“Thank you.” You whisper.

“Thank you, for being an amazing mom.” He kisses your forehead. “An amazing wife.” Now he kisses your cheek. “And an amazing woman.” He finishes kissing your lips. 

“You sometimes get really corny, you know?” You laugh through your tears. “I love you so much.”

“I know, right?” He kisses your lips again. “I love you more.”

After the moment you had, you stay in silence for a while. Enjoying each other's presence. Listening to nothing but baby sounds and the sound of your breathing. Until Kakucho decides to lighten the mood with a comment of his own.

“Have I already told you how hot you look when you breastfeed?” You burst out laughing at the randomness of his comment. Kakucho smiles to himself after hearing his wife’s precious laugh. 

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious. Just look at these.” He cups your free breast under your shirt. “And here I thought you couldn’t get any sexier after how good you looked pregnant.”

“Let me feed our child in peace.” You push your husband lightly with your shoulder, making him laugh.

“Can I tell you something?”

“I swear if it’s something sexual again, you perv–”

“It’s not. It’s something nice, actually.” 

“Go ahead.”

“I just can’t believe we are doing this. You know, parenting. Even when it has been difficult, and I haven’t been around much these days. But I love it.” He kisses your head before continuing. “The moment I saw you in that stupid party I knew you were going to be the mother of my kids.”

“God, you remember? I miss being young.”

“You still young. I'm in my thirties in case you don’t remember. I'm practically a DILF now.” You laugh again at his words. “But yeah, I'm honest when I say I love doing this with you, it feels like a dream.”

“I wish it was a dream when this little demon starts crying.”

He looks at the boy, who has been staring at his father for a while now while sucking on your breast. Kakucho smiles at him. “What are you looking at, buddy? Is the scar? Or are you trying to make me jealous?” 

“Leave him alone.” You chuckle, looking at the scene. 

“See? You’re putting mommy against me. But listen, she’s been mine long before you.” He leans down until he is face to face with the baby and gives him a short kiss on his cheek. 

You and Kakucho watch as the baby slowly begins to close his eyes, falling completely asleep.

“What time is it?” You ask.

“Fuck, almost five in the morning.” He groans looking at the sealing. 

“You can go back to bed, I'll put him in the crib and join you in a moment.” You say as you get up, he looks at you in love, before doing the same and heading to bed, waiting for you before turning out the lights. When you lie down next to him, he hugs you around the waist pressing you to his chest, looking at you falling into sleep almost as soon as your face touches the mattress. 

He smiles at the sight and whispers against your forehead before closing his own eyes. “I love being a team with you.”

[notasapleasure]

The world turning at his pace

aka that time in the back of the van

Cassian Andor/Brasso (Andor TV series), Explicit, modern AU, friends with benefits, idiots in love, plot what plot/porn without plot. i.e. the same fic I write every time, Pinky. Title inspired by lyrics from Elbow - An Audience with the Pope. 6,988 words. *julia dreyfus haha what the fuck.gif* CW a smidge of setting typical homophobia, but don't worry there's also gratuitous insulting of Rupert Murdoch.

I was tired from van driving and demanding Brassian smut, or prompts for it, and @distressednoise obliged in the most ingenious way. THANK YOU FOR ENABLING ME, FRIEND.

Not on ao3 yet, this is a special treat(??) for my tumblr sickos until I can be bothered uploading it properly.

---

It should have been a simple job. Brasso picked up the van - full - and drove it to all the addresses on the list he was given until it was no longer full. Then, in the darkness, he turned back towards the depot, which lay a straightforward few hundred miles down the motorway, and anticipated being back in his own bed by dawn.

He was somewhere around Penrith when a ringtone interrupted the Shipping Forecast on the van radio. He'd forgotten his damned mobile phone was still charged; no matter how long he left it in the depths of his jacket pocket it never seemed to die. And when it rang, it was only ever one person calling - the same person who had set the ringtone to a tinny electronic version of Auld Lang Syne in honour of Brasso's rum-fuelled rendition last December.

With the phone beeping incessantly, Brasso cursing, and the ubiquitous Border rain lashing down on the windscreen, the van pulled into the hard shoulder of the M6 with its hazards flashing. For a moment, Brasso sighed at the percussive beat of the wipers and the indicators, then the ringtone started up again, grinding out its stately rendition of the Scottish ballad with the kind of patience - the kind of necessity - that didn't hang up early.

After a swift rummage in the hi-vis jacket lying on the passenger seat, Brasso raised the little device to his ear. "Yes? What's up?"

A lorry steamed past in the outside lane and Brasso felt his teeth rattle as the road shook beneath it.

On the other end of the line a familiar voice smirked directly into his ear: sweet, sharp and vicious as tequila with all the chasers. "Heard you were on a job up north?"

"How did you hear that?" Brasso shook his head, figuring Cassian would pick up the gesture well enough by his tone.

"Word travels," came the cryptic answer.

"What word? I only left this - yesterday morning."

"And you've been busy, lots to deliver, I know..."

"What is it you want, Cass...?"

"I thought if you were in the area..."

"What area?"

"If you were in the area I could really use a lift. I'm out of cash and I've got to get back to London..."

"What area, Cassian?"

The answer, sheepish, was mumbled so Brasso had to think hard to work it out.

"Stockton? On Tees? What the fuck, Cassian..."

"I mean, I'm near there. Trying to get a lift to - " as another lorry rumbled past Brasso's van he heard a horn honk down the line and Cassian unleashed a barrage of colourful curses in English and Spanish. "Yeah well fuck you too! I'm already in the ditch! Hello? Yeah, Brasso, I'm heading to Darlington. On the main road. How long will you be?"

Brasso mentally totted up the extra miles, the slow roads over the Pennines to the other side of the country. At least there'd be fewer rude freight vehicles that way, he supposed, as another one buzzed him with an indignant honk of its own.

"An hour and a half?"

"An hour?! I thought you were in the area!"

"Cass, 'the North' is a pretty big area. I'll come as quick as I can."

"Well do," Cassian pouted down the line. "It's wet, my socks are soaked already. You should break the speed limit or I might die of hypothermia."

Brasso let out a sigh. "If you get there first, wait at the petrol station on the bypass, ok?"

"If I'm not killed in a hit and run before then..."

"All right, Cass. See you soon."

"Yeah. Yeah, fine. Thanks..." there was warmth and genuine gratitude in that last word, at least.

Brasso flung the phone aside and rubbed his face. It never did to ask why with Cassian - it was best just to pick up the pieces and see what could be salvaged afterwards. He flicked the dial of the radio along until some sort of cheesy commercial station replaced the sober tones of the BBC. Penrith to Darlington, in a storm, as fast as he could go - this required power ballads.

Humming along to the closing bars of Total Eclipse of the Heart, he switched off the hazards and pulled out into the dark, momentarily quiet lane of the motorway. He cycled through the van's gears with ruthless efficiency until the engine sounded like a Formula One racer and the chassis began to rattle. Empty, the van sure could move, but the faster he went the more he expected to take off at the slightest bump.

Ten songs and one cursory news bulletin later, with the same handful of adverts repeated time and again between them, and Brasso was bringing the van in a loop around Darlington's centre, slipping beneath the sulphur-orange street lights as the fuel light glowed sadly up at him. He was running on fumes, but he'd said to meet at a garage, and his employers had given him a cash bonus to cover the cost of fuel.

There was no sign of Cassian there, however, and Brasso worried Cass had found a completely different place to wait. He checked the time again and filled the tank. He bought an assortment of foodstuffs and drinks from the kiosk when paying for the fuel and looked around as though all it would take to summon Cassian was a tube of Pringles, an energy drink, and a packet of gummy sweets.

Under normal circumstances, Brasso wasn't convinced it wouldn't have worked, but Cassian evidently hadn't reached the garage yet and remained stubbornly absent. Brasso got back in the van, peered into the drizzly night, and slowly continued onwards towards Stockton.

Trust Cassian to be walking along a duel carriageway on a night heavy with fog and rain. Would he be wearing hi-vis? Would he hell. Brasso switched the radio off and leaned over the steering wheel to stare at the edge of the road. He slowed to a speed that would really annoy his fellow road-users, only there were so few about at this hour of the morning.

He was starting to wonder if he'd missed Cass in all the spray and the spume when something caught his eye on the other side of the road - a bedraggled scarecrow loitering at a bin in a layby. Frowning, Brasso pulled into the inside lane to try to get a better look - and got undertaken by a furious white Audi for his troubles.

He took the next exit and followed the convoluted directions that would lead him back onto the road going in the other direction, and was soon approaching the layby.

Cassian fell upon the door to the passenger seat and was inside, dripping on all Brasso's stuff, before the van had even stopped.

"Jesus what took you so long?"

"What were you doing over here?!"

"What?"

"I was coming from the west, why were you on this side of the road?"

"I told you, I was trying to get a lift!"

"But you knew I was coming, and I'd be on the other side!"

Cassian was rummaging in the glove compartment and finally found what he'd been looking for: Brasso's tobacco, papers and filters. "Oh my god, I need this..."

The instant turbulence inside the cabin when Cass arrived meant Brasso hadn't noticed the van's grumpy beeping until they were up to 80, heading back towards the dull orange glow of Darlington and its corona of light pollution. "Cass - seat belt."

Cassian made a sound - acknowledgement, oral eye roll, impatient sigh all rolled up together - and fidgeted, speedily rolled fag hanging from his lips as he sought the end of the seat belt.

Brasso swore he could hear Cass's clothes squelch. That long trenchcoat hadn't been waterproof since before Cass inherited it from his foster-father. It was like Cass thought that even repairing or properly maintaining it would cause it to lose its connection with Clem.

He settled, though, and the windows started to mist with condensation as the van's heating warmed him up.

By the time they were back at the junction for the A1 some unfortunate HGV driver had aquaplaned themselves into a horizontal position across both lanes, which were closed until the lorry could be moved. Thwarted, Brasso tried to give a good-natured nod to the police officer redirecting them - as Cassian kept his head down and his collar up - and speculated on a new route through the countryside, meandering a way over to the A19.

It was gone 3am by the time they passed Thirsk; Cassian's teeth were chattering though the heating was all the way up and the van cabin smelled of burning dust and hot plastic. The air was tropical with the moisture still steaming off him, but the heat was making Brasso sleepy as hell, and between them he and Cassian had already finished the bag of gummies and the energy drinks. Cassian hadn't told Brasso what he'd been doing in the North East and Brasso hadn't asked.

"Back in London tonight?" Brasso stifled a yawn against the back of his hand as they drove past a picnic spot, thinking wistfully that he could pull over there and sleep in the cabin if he didn't have a soggy passenger in the other seat.

Cassian made an ambivalent noise. His arms were wrapped tight around his torso, his elbows gripped in his hands. "No...just before tomorrow." Noticing Brasso's incredulous look, he added "I mean, this afternoon? He won't be looking for me until then."

Best not to ask - always best not to ask. But Brasso gave Cassian another sideways look that said he was very much tempted to ask.

"Shall we stop?" Cass released an elbow so he could chew on the fingernails of the hand that had been holding it.

"What?"

"That's why you're asking, right? You've been driving for hours. We should probably stop."

Brasso had been trying very hard not to think about stopping or sleeping, lest the very idea of either be so tempting he'd just succumb then and there. "No B&B's gonna be open at this time of night, Cass."

"We can sleep in the back of the van!"

The suggestion was so immediate Brasso guessed Cassian had been considering it for some time already.

"Have you seen back there? It's filthy. Last job was a bunch of reclaimed garden gnomes, they came with half the bloody garden!"

"I guess the other option is you drive till you pass out and then we get beds in A&E," Cassian hissed as Brasso had to blink and swerve when someone in the other lane sped past without dimming their headlights.

With a curse, Brasso assented. He told Cassian to keep an eye out for laybys, though now they were back on the motorway he figured they'd just have to wait for a truck stop that wasn't already full. They were past Wetherby and had finished the Pringles too by the time they found one, and made a dash from the cabin to the rear of the van through rain that was thinner but no less persistent than it had been further north.

Cassian hopped into the back as Brasso was still hoisting himself up and trying not to hit his head on the roof. He wrinkled his nose and crouched to rummage through the crumpled pile of packing sheets, looking for something dry, clean and comfortable to lie on.

Nothing met all three criteria, but a combination of loosely folded sheets made a sort of pillow and a cover for the cold metal base of the van. Everything smelled of mud and oil and antifreeze, but that was soon disguised by the smoke of the cigarettes Brasso rolled for them while Cassian wriggled out of his wet trousers. In the dark of the van he didn't bother hiding the fact he was watching Cassian, and Cassian didn't pretend not to notice. An ember-lit outline of sharp limbs, his eyes glittering and fathomless, Cassian sat there in his boxers and t-shirt, smirking around his fag at Brasso as he waited on the simply arranged square of bedding, his knees drawn up and his arms draped loosely around them.

Taking his time, Brasso dragged his eyes away from Cass and unlaced his boots. He left his socks on, but in an unspoken concession to Cass's continued shivering, to the goose-bumps on his legs and the way his body hair stuck out from each one, he pulled off his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt.

The cold air made his own hair stand on end and his nipples harden, but the light of their cigarettes was almost as warm as the looks they each cast across the cramped space.

"Budge up then," Brasso muttered, stubbing out his fag end against the metal roof and chucking the butt aside.

Cassian stubbed his own cigarette out and plunged them into darkness as Brasso shuffled in close beside him. He pulled his hi-vis over the both of them, though it left his legs cold, and tucked himself around Cass's back - bare chest against the still-damp fabric of his t-shirt, knees to the back of Cass's knees, and Cass's round little arse perched neatly against Brasso's crotch. Brasso dutifully buried his cheek against Cass's neck and closed his eyes - though it was so dark inside that he couldn't tell the difference if he opened them again.

The rain outside continued its dance on the flat metal roof, not thunderingly heavy, but in loud, fat drops that always seemed to come and jolt Brasso's eyes open just as he thought he was finally relaxing into sleep.

Then again, he didn't feel tired anymore. The nictotine buzz was coursing through him, and Cassian had warmed up in his arms - mostly, though ice-cold toes sometimes curled round to prod at Brasso's shins. It was obvious by his breathing that he wasn't asleep either, and with a contrived cough to clear his throat he pushed back against Brasso in a way that compelled Brasso to bite his lip.

It was always going to come to this from the minute his phone rang, Brasso knew. It happened off and on, the way Cassian came and went in and out of the lives of those around him. It had been happening off and on for some years now, actually. If Cass needed a favour, Brasso obliged when no one else would be soft or daft enough to do so; Cassian, perpetually broke and perennially aware of the effect his big brown eyes had on people, paid Brasso back in love bites and nail marks. It would have made Brasso feel like just another of Cass's lovelorn, disposable conquests -only with him, Cass did one thing he never did with the others - he kept coming back when he needed Brasso. By now they had both become quite good at knowing the steps that would ensure things continued this way and Cass would keep on coming back as long as Brasso kept on releasing him so he'd return again. It was a simple sort of dance with very little discussion involved and a lot of implicit assumptions - it needed to be, given the darkness of the back of the van.

Once more, Cassian wriggled against Brasso until he forced a grunt of acknowledgement from Brasso's lips. Brasso fidgeted in turn, trying to make sure nothing essential was trapped under Cass's bodyweight.

Cass twisted his head around, his messy hair catching in Brasso's nose and mouth. "You still awake?"

"Yes I'm still awake, you won't stay still for five seconds!"

Inevitably, with the pressure of Cass's arse against him, Brasso had already felt the first stirrings of heat in his groin. When Cass detected it too, he shuffled back against Brasso's twitching cock, ensuring it would harden between his arse cheeks. Again, Brasso bit his bottom lip and turned his face towards Cassian's neck. His arm tightened around Cass's body and he breathed in the smell at the nape of his neck - sweat and rain and cheap laundromat detergent, cigarette smoke and ground spice and something astringent: counterfeit ink? Cleaning fluid? Machine oil? Probably a palimpsest of all three.

Cass gripped onto the arm round him with one hand and reached behind him with the other, fingers questing for Brasso's arse to give it a squeeze and pull him closer.

Finally, Brasso let himself open his mouth against the back of Cass's neck and scrape his teeth over clammy skin, placing a kiss on each protruding vertebra he could reach, nuzzling his way down the back of Cass's t-shirt until he felt the vibration of a whine in Cass's chest beneath his arm.

When Cass moved with the kind of urgency that followed no force on earth could hold him - he shuffled his hips round and his arms snaked across Brasso's side and under his neck as Cass pressed close to him in the dark, his nose bumping against Brasso's cheek and his lips seeking out Brasso's lips. Salty flavouring from the crisps they'd shared and a hint of sugar from the energy drink coated his tongue as he thrust it into Brasso's mouth, kissing him hard and hungrily.

Brasso let himself be turned half onto his back by the attention, Cass pushing aggressively down on him, his hands clamping Brasso's jaw to hold him just how he wanted, before one restless set of fingers trailed down the open front of his shirt, raking through chest hair, carelessly catching at the ticklish curls on his belly and then plunging into the waistband of Brasso's boxers.

Brasso's hips bucked into the touch, but he could feel a rivet on the floor of the van's uneven surface digging into his shoulder blade, and it wasn't quite the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain that did it for him.

Cass didn't understand that from the sound Brasso made in his mouth though and redoubled his efforts down Brasso's underwear, fingers crooking deep under his balls and palm rubbing down on his cock. For a moment it did actually balance the pain in his shoulder quite well, and then Brasso managed to break free of the kisses, a hand gripping the back of Cassian's hair like he was dragging an overenthusiastic dog away from last night's takeaway on the street floor.

Cass bared his teeth in a similar way to a dog, too - Brasso knew because they dragged on his lip as he pried Cass away and shoved him over onto his back with a grunt.

Cass released his cock and dug fingernails into Brasso's chest instead, tangling in the thick dark hairs there and tugging so Brasso's skin prickled with sore heat.

Swearing as he kissed the squirming, sharp-toothed thing beneath him, Brasso fumbled for Cass's face in the dark, raking his own fingers through Cass's beard and hair. He dropped his hips heavily against Cass's and was in no doubt that the noise Cass made was a sign of appreciation at the rough handling. Brasso moved his grip from Cass's face to his hips and ground his body down against Cass's, groaning at the friction between his boner and the two layers of thin cloth separating it from Cass's equally hard cock.

It made Cass release another sound, and he didn't bother disentangling his fingers from Brasso's chest hair before ripping one hand away to yank the back of Brasso's boxers down and land an open-palmed slap on the arse cheek he exposed.

"Fuck!" Brasso muttered in surprise as the stinging sensation lingered while Cass's restless hand worked at pulling his boxers further down.

It just gave Cass another opportunity to clamp down on his lower lip and suck until it felt bruised, so Brasso relented and freed a hand to assist in the removal of his underwear.

The boxers were barely off his arse cheeks when Cass started wriggling away anew, slipping down beneath him towards the doors at the back of the van.

"What're you - ? Cass, where are you going?" Brasso had to hold still and listen to the hollow banging of Cassian's shoulders and arse squirming against the floor of the van as he shuffled beneath him.

The first indication he had of where Cass had ended up was the hair tickling his navel, then a breathy giggle against his stomach, followed by lips, teeth, lips, and a hand between his legs as Cass tried to manoeuvre the two of them so he could get Brasso's cock in his mouth.

It wasn't easy to prop himself up how Cass wanted without hitting his head on the roof of the van in the dark, and Brasso was only partially successful in the endeavour, but he wasn't going to spend long contemplating the bruise on the back of his head when Cass was insistently whining "Come on Brasso, fuck my mouth, I'm right here!" between swallowing as much as he could of Brasso's cock and tugging on his arse, trying to get a rhythm going.

Scrabbling in the pitch black for a hand hold, Brasso eventually found one of the straps for securing cargo and got his weight on his knees so he could thrust down into the darkness and the invisible, wet warmth of Cass's mouth. Without being able to see what was happening he could only concentrate on the sensation of tongue and pressure, sucking and - more often than he meant to cause it - gagging. Cass's fingers would tighten on his arse and he'd try to hold Brasso close even as he spluttered and choked. Brasso could feel the back of Cass's throat pulse defensively against the pressure of his cock and always slowed down afterwards, tried more measured movements, but Cass would crane his neck and bear down on him until he could dictate the angle of Brasso's hips - with just the softest threat of teeth as he did. The third time Brasso had to listen to him retching in the dark he pulled back and sat down heavily on what turned out to be his hi-vis jacket.

"Where'd you go?" Cassian said sulkily, but Brasso was already rummaging by touch for the pockets of the jacket. He found the lube and condoms first, then his lighter.

"Here," he flicked his thumb over the spark wheel and held the plate down, squinting past the little blue flame to meet Cassian's eyes.

His cheeks were flushed deep red and his lips were shining with spit. His hair was a wreck and his beard was tousled against its natural growth, his t-shirt was half shucked up and his boxers were peaked like a circus tent.

Brasso stifled a sigh at the sight of him, but Cassian didn't hide the flash of lust in his own eyes at whatever the light had revealed of Brasso himself. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and moved like he was about to pounce.

"Wait! Wait wait wait!" Brasso held a hand up with a condom held between his fingers and offered Cass the lighter.

He pulled a face and took the condom instead, raising the corner of the foil to his mouth.

"Don't you fucking rip it," Brasso held the lighter steady and glared at him, eyebrows raised in warning.

Cassian's own eyes widened - as if! - and he daintily tore the corner before opening the packet with his fingers. "Can't believe you don't trust I'm clean," he muttered around a smirk as he leaned forwards to fit the condom on top of Brasso's prominent boner.

"Like I even want to know where you've been," he answered, feeling his throat tighten with longing as he watched Cassian's fingers move nimbly down his cock, rolling the sheath over it. "Besides, you never even ask where I might have been."

Cassian looked up at him quickly, sharply, his lips hidden by his moustache and his eyes cast into uncanny darkness by the side-lighting of the little flame. He seemed so alien to Brasso when he looked like that, like a creature from another world entirely. "I can only imagine," Cassian purred, lavishing Brasso's cock with a series of firm strokes.

He leaned over then and blew out the flame of the lighter, which Brasso didn't bother holding onto and chucked aside into some hollow corner of the van.

His eyes were confused by the afterglow of the flame, but he knew where Cassian's pants were anyway and dived for them with both hands, pulling them away as Cass flailed his legs to speed up the process. It didn't really achieve the desired effect, just earned Brasso a fat lip from the knee he took to the chin, but with a crack of stitches stretching the offending item of clothing was removed and Brasso fell upon Cass guided by smell alone, following salt and sweat and musky warmth. He pushed his tongue into the base of Cass's cock and worked it against his balls, sucking the loose skin on them and then running his mouth up the taut underside of his cock.

Cass whined and squirmed and grasped at Brasso's hair, his shoulder, his arm, seeking the hand with the lube in it so he could take the bottle and open it. He poured it - mostly - on Brasso's fingers, though some dropped onto the skin of his hip and he wriggled and flinched as it trickled a cold track over his body.

Brasso felt his way between Cass's arse cheeks as he mouthed Cass's cock, probing the darkness for the place that gave way to him, eager and accommodating to the first finger, tighter around the second.

Cassian made a desperate sound and bucked his hips up into Brasso's touches. "Come on, come on..." he complained, then sucked in a sharp breath as Brasso pushed the pair of fingers deep inside him. Cass moaned, and the sound made Brasso feel like he'd been kicked in the solar plexus by a velvet boot. He made his own grunt of pleasure against Cass's nutsack and lowered his hips to the van floor, his knees bent and feet kicking absurdly in the air because he was too close to the door to lie down flat. The van floor was cold and hard under his cock and he squirmed his hips again and pushed his fingers inside Cass to help prop himself up.

Cass's body clenched round him and Cass let out a hoarse cry - "Oh, fuck, do that again!"

Brasso tried, but the pressure wasn't as great now he was stable, so he pulled his fingers out and slapped his hand on Cass's hip. "Lube - where is it?"

"Oh, do you have to? Just fuck me..." Cass's knees knocked against his sides and he tried to draw him closer with legs tangling around his torso.

"I think some would be a good idea, Cass."

"There was some on your fingers already. I threw it over by the lighter. It's not worth going looking, just come here," he got his ankles crossed behind Brasso and tugged him forwards until their stiff cocks were trapped together between them and Brasso's tongue was somewhere halfway down Cass's throat again.

He made the most of it while he was there, rolling his hips and rubbing against Cass until the sounds Cass was making in his mouth grew desperate and high-pitched.

Abruptly, ruthlessly, Brasso pulled away from him and grasped for the inside of his thighs, squeezing soft, sparsely haired flesh aside and pushing forwards with his cock. He released one of Cass's legs so he could guide his head up to Cass's hole and test the resistance of his body.

He was tight, but still keen, insisting he wanted Brasso to fuck him hard even as Brasso began to ease inside him.

He shuffled forwards on his knees as best he could, realising there was no packing sheet beneath him, wherever they'd ended up. His head and shoulders were bowed so he didn't knock the roof with his head again, and he braced himself with one hand against the roof and the other on Cass's hip, holding him steady as he pushed deeper in a careful, slow way that brought guttural sounds of impatience from the darkness where Cassian lay.

Once he was all the way in he heard Cass release a shaky breath and felt him bring his hips up towards Brasso's carefully.

"You good?" Brasso moved his body in a small pulse against Cassian's just to make sure he got a genuine response, feeling him clench and force himself to relax.

Cass whimpered, but it was lust more than discomfort that made his voice shake when he replied "Yes, fucking come on!"

Brasso grunted acknowledgement, like it made no odds to him, but he thrust carefully, in measured movements that would feel hard to Cass but kept much of Brasso's power in reserve for now. He got in as close as he could, his knees splayed to either side of Cass's body and Cass's cock held gently but firmly in his hand as he bucked his hips against him.

Bit by bit, Brasso let his hips and hand speed up and put more power into the cycle of his thrusts, and he felt Cass's body rock and slide beneath him, his attempts at getting purchase somewhere on his surroundings failing as Brasso's body pounded solidly against his. Cass's legs floundered at Brasso's sides, his knees knocking against his ribcage, and he struggled to assert any control over the pace or rhythm from where he was, caught and held by the movement of Brasso's body.

He was getting louder with each moment too, helpless sounds and the back of his throat turning to hoarse, choked repetitions of "Ah!" that got louder the harder Brasso managed to thrust inside him, the more in time he could make the pumping of his hips and of his hand on Cass's cock.

Brasso's eyes fell shut in the darkness as he focussed on the rhythm and the feeling of Cassian's insides, hot and tight, yielding yet strong around him. Behind closed eyes, Brasso imagined what he couldn't see in the dark: Cass's open mouth and his eyelids falling heavily over a heated gaze; his chest rising and falling intermittently as he gasped for breath, but jerking with each coming together of their bodies; his nipples showing hard through the threadbare fabric of his t-shirt and the hair on his belly starting to gleam with sweat where it appeared at the hemline.

Brasso's eyes were still closed when Cass came hot and gushing, spilling over Brasso's hand and spattering his belly and navel. The feeling of it - a surprise in the dark, no matter how inevitable it had been - made Brasso himself come, heat digging deep in the pit of his body and rolling up like a riptide, dragging him away from himself, rushing him into some abyss where he forgot, for a moment, that the back of the van was dark, and thought he'd gone blind with ecstasy.

He let himself lie against Cass for a while afterwards, and Cass held him tight too, his legs tangled around Brasso's and his fingers holding the back of Brasso's head like, Brasso imagined, he'd hold a man beneath water until he drowned.

Sleepily, Brasso mouthed kisses along Cassian's neck, and Cass ran fingers over Brasso's skull. Brasso fidgeted and wrung out the last remnants of pleasure from his hips with little movements that didn't do much more than allow his soft cock to slip out of Cass's arse. Cass moved his head to nose and chin Brasso's face aside until he could be kissed, now with less use of teeth, with more sweat in Cass's moustache, with even more left unsaid than went unsaid during foreplay. Brasso imagined it was the kind of kiss the heroes of cheap romance novels got at the end of the story, and, like them, he prepared for the closing of this little fantasy they shared - until the next time Cass needed him. For now they'd sleep well, wrapped round each other like weeds, and when they woke they'd finish the drive, maybe get breakfast somewhere and bitch about the morning headlines like nothing had happened, and Brasso would drop Cassian off, and they wouldn't meet again for weeks or months, and then they'd do it all over as and when they needed to.

This had been a particularly good encounter though, Brasso admitted to himself as he pulled the condom off and knotted it before slinging it away into the darkness. Probably meant it would be a while before they did this again, each one nervous of what it meant that the most satisfying fuck they knew was someone they'd never publicly acknowledge as more than a well-worn old friend. Really, Brasso thought with a degree of relief as he nuzzled his face into Cass's shoulder, it was a good job they didn't talk about this. He'd only go and say something stupid, after all, like telling Cass he'd leave the rest of the world to rot and serve no one but him if the self-sabotaging little bastard ever cared to ask.

He didn't need to though - that was the point. He already knew - didn't he?

Too sleepy to worry overly about this, Brasso fumbled around for the hi-vis again and swept it over their shoulders, shuffling until they lay brow to brow, shoulder to shoulder, their lower legs twisted one on top of the other. Cass's breath tickled his face, and Cass's wrists sandwiched the arm Brasso lay on protectively between them.

He didn't remember lying awake or agonising about a thing - next he knew there was a cool, silvery dawn light in his eyes and a cold breeze on his feet. The van's doors were open and voices sparred tetchily outside.

Brasso sat up and cast about for his boxers, pulling them on as he tried to pick up the words being spoken outside. His back and shoulders ached from sleeping on the hard, uneven bed of the van, and he longed for coffee and a cigarette to clear the fog in his mind and his mouth.

"I said come over here, you little poof! I've got a sausage bap right here for you!"

Brasso sighed at the sound of a trucker yelling across the layby and quickened his work as he pulled his boot laces tight. Peace had been nice while it lasted.

He didn't catch Cassian's reply to the provocation, but he did step out of the van in time to see him turn, quick as a snake, and, with a little hop for extra height, smash his forehead into the taller man's nose.

The first thing Brasso noticed was how filthy the back of Cassian's t-shirt was where he'd been pressed against the van floor last night. Then he admired the shape of Cass's arse in his thigh-hugging boxers and the expanse of wiry, muscled leg leading down to his bare ankles and loosely pulled on Docs, muddied yellow laces trailing. Then, belatedly, he caught himself and sauntered over to pull Cass back from the trucker by a fistful of that grotty t-shirt.

The other man wasn't about to come for more though - if Cass's Glasgow kiss hadn't dissuaded him the sight of Brasso would have done. He cupped his bleeding nose and looked at the pair of them incredulously. "Pervs," he snarled, stepping back.

"What did you do?" Brasso couldn't help but ask as Cassian turned back towards the van, chewing on the cuticle of a finger with no nail left to gnaw on.

"I was just having a pee behind the bin! I asked where to get breakfast round here," he huffed, grabbing after Brasso's hi-vis and looting the pockets for baccy and papers.

"There'll be somewhere at the next services," Brasso told him, sweeping up the discarded fag ends, used condom and some of the other detritus from the van and taking it to the overflowing bin in his cupped hands.

On reviewing the state of the van and of Cassian, he saw they'd missed the messy pile of packing sheets entirely, and Cass's t-shirt had rubbed a section of the floor nearly clean. The streaky patch of grot made it look like they'd dragged a corpse out of the back, and Brasso wondered whether his employers would prefer to hear that excuse rather than learn their van had been repurposed as a '70s style shagmobile.

He retrieved his lighter and his lube and chucked the hi-vis at Cassian. "For your dignity."

Cassian pulled a face but nestled himself inside the large jacket. Inside the cabin he arranged his socks and trousers across the over-worked air vents so they'd have a better hope of drying and sat in the passenger seat - all fluorescent orange and bare legs - smoking his way through Brasso's tobacco.

They agreed to skip the first few service stations they passed - there was a chain of diners further south that Brasso knew would feed them well enough to compensate for the lack of sleep. They probably wouldn't even ask Cass to put his trousers on either.

As it turned out, his trousers were dry enough to pull on by the time they stopped to eat, and Brasso watched Cass fall upon an obscenely stacked breakfast burger from over his vat of coffee, wondering where Cassian was putting the mountains of hash browns and black pudding that he guzzled down. It was for the best that they were both reasonably decent as the morning crowd included holidaying families, but Cass didn't modify his language when he flipped through a copy of the Sun someone had left on the table.

"Mum, what's 'scrote-faced misery pornographer'?" a young girl asked in the next booth after a particularly forceful outburst, so Brasso kicked Cassian's shins under the table.

"Can it! No one here cares what you think of the editorial."

Cass rolled his eyes and pointed again to the story that was vexing him - increased police powers, a change the paper wholeheartedly supported - and launched into a defence of his outburst, as if Brasso needed convincing of the argument against giving the pigs a free rein to stop and search at taser-point. He was thinking instead of how accurate his prediction for the morning had been, and how this was simultaneously reassuring and a little unnerving. It was like he'd already cut himself off from this time with Cass, and was just counting down until their next run in, however many weeks or days in the future it would be.

"Want me to drive?" Cassian asked him as they walked back to the van, the wind whipping his unkempt hair across his face and his smirk half-hidden by his moustache.

"You're not insured," Brasso rolled his eyes. He hadn't recovered from the last time he'd been in a vehicle with Cass at the wheel - the van was not made for the kind of ruthless speed Cass specialised in.

In any case, ten minutes down the road Cass was asleep in the passenger seat, head back against the seat and snoring lightly in a way that raised a fond smile to Brasso's lips. When he noticed himself smiling he rubbed his face and gave his cheek a tap or two, telling himself to snap out of it.

He drove straight to Sal's - it had probably been someone at the yard who had told Cassian he was up north on deliveries anyway.

Brasso drank too-hot instant coffee from a polystyrene cup in Sal's office and listened to the next itinerary. Sal wasn't mad, or surprised, that Brasso had turned up late with an extra passenger - Cassian was now rummaging through Sal's wares while Bix kept a close eye on him, making sure nothing pocketable got pocketed.

When he had his new list of addresses and orders, Brasso went out to hand it over to Bix for loading. "You want a lift somewhere?" he asked Cassian.

"First delivery of the day," Bix raised an eyebrow.

"I like to get the awkward ones out of the way first."

Cassian gazed coolly at the two of them, waiting for them to finish. "Apparently the Swede isn't pleased with the last job I did for him."

"He did not sound happy this morning," Bix confirmed, folding her arms and glancing at the perspex windows of Sal's office. "We could hear him bawling at Sal all the way at the far end of the yard."

"Guess I could stay at Maarva's storage unit for a bit," Cassian tore another strip of cuticle off between his teeth.

"Why don't you take him with you?" Bix looked over at Brasso, mischief in her dark eyes. Like Cassian, she could smirk without moving her lips at all.

"So when this pissed off Swedish guy goes looking for him, I get found too?"

Bix shrugged. "How will he know Cass is with you? Besides, you'll have a navigator and a hand with unloading."

Brasso eyed Cass and Cass eyed Brasso. Brasso wondered if Cassian was thinking the same thing as him - what if the time apart was necessary to the functioning of their benefit-heavy friendship?

But Bix punctured the seriousness of Brasso's considerations with a casual addition: "Maybe the whole of Sal's van will be clean by the time it's safe to come back."

Brasso looked at her in surprise, Cass looked casually at the inside of the van, and Bix shrugged.

With that secret not, apparently, a secret, maybe it was best to skip town for a while, Brasso conceded.

[mak1lol]

This is a vent/rant post, tbh idk if anyone would care anyways

Sometimes i really just hate putting alot of effort on my drawings, as i feel like they dont get the love that my low effort post do.

Lets use this drawing as an example

This drawing took me 5 hours, how many notes do you think this post will have tho? Probably 30, 50, 40 etc.

8...8 notes. 5 hours, 8 notes..

Now look at this post, probably made 20 minutes and BOOMED 225 NOTES-

You can see the problem, i work so hard on my drawings only to get flopped by the internet. And then i make something shitty only to get viral.

I"ve been on tumblr for over a year now and i havent been growing lately. Its been incredibly tough too upload constantly without being scared of being floped.

And i never feel like im welcomed to any community, as my personal post (like my birthday post and vents) usualy get little reconition. Im still greatfull to my followers and friends i made here and im glad you all are here to comfort me when im at my lowest!! But....at this rate idk if i want to post on tumblr anymore

I get little asked and little followers (and took me a YEAR to get atleast 100 while some might take months) and its not fun for me anymore. And if im being honest, i really dont like ppl who put such low effort only to get hundreds of likes (unless if its memes or shitty post thats funny its fine for me)

Im a 12 year old artist, trying to improve and maybee get more popular. But my motivation for doing art here (and other platforms) is very low and i honestly want to make art JUST for myself and my friends...

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 16: Adalonige

Summary: Zenie blinks, stunned. A few feet behind her, the Dutch are smiling and kissing the Americans. Yet here, they’re humiliating some of their own.

A/N: Everyone say "thank you Tumblr" for finally letting me upload the moodboard 🙏🏼Chapter title is the Cherokee word for "orange"

Warnings: mentions of the boarding school era, war, death

Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @ithinkabouttzu @lieutenant-speirs @mrs-murder-daddy

Holland, 1944

The jump into Holland isn’t at all like the jump into France.

For veterans of Normandy, there’s no need to be nervous as they wait outside the planes. Those who are nervous do nothing for themselves but reveal their newness; they give themselves away as replacements, which is still a sore subject. Zenie’s already unworried mood soars when someone slaps her on the back and greets her with a friendly, “Howdy, Tommy!” If Popeye’s return lifts the spirits of Easy, then Sobel’s return humbles them once again. At least their old captain won’t be leading them into battle. 

The jump itself is almost casual. Been there, done that. Instead of the anxiety that so easily crept in with the darkness back on that fateful June night, the bright blue sky and sunny weather remind Zenie of the training jumps back at Camp Mackall. It’s like jumping into an ocean of the deepest blue – peaceful.

She lands easily in the Drop Zone with the rest of her company and platoon. And instead of being greeted by a hostile German soldier, she and the others find themselves being welcomed by a Dutch population who seem happy with their arrival. So happy, in fact, that grateful women grab them and kiss them as they try to weave through the crowd that is clogging the town.

Not the first time that she’s been kissed after making a jump. But instead of Shifty she finds herself being pulled in by a very enthusiastic woman with perfume that smells like flowers after a spring rain.

“Blonde!” Skinny smiles from nearby, using one hand to point to the woman who has taken immense interest in Zenie, and using his other to caress a tall woman with glossy hair.

For her part, Zenie offers the woman a kind smile and then nimbly removes herself from her embrace as politely as she can. The woman is beautiful, yes, but Zenie has had only one person on her mind since they left that pub after Lipton announced that they were moving out.

There was no chance to talk to Shifty before they jumped. As they maneuver through the crowd, she catches glimpses of him. He’s always just out of reach. Did he feel this way when Zenie was avoiding him?

“Sign, sign!” An older woman insists. She thrusts a small book and a pen into Luz’s hands.

“These people sure do like us,” he remarks as he scribbles Clark Gable into the lady’s book. “I think I like them a lot more than the French.”

“Well, they’ve been occupied for five years,” Bill reminds him. He uses his neat script to sign a fake name in the little book before he tosses it to Zenie.

She catches it, followed by the pen, then freezes with the tip hovering over the page, Tommy Driver ready to be written. Something stops her. Instead, she uses the signature that she hasn’t used in years, and Zena McGlamery appears on one of the pages in the book. Marilyn had spent hours teaching Zenie to make a good, neat, loopy signature when she was thirteen, her older sister determined that she should have a good signature despite Zenie’s left-handedness. She’s always thought that had too many loops and took up too much space, but now, seeing the neat loops take up a whole page, Zenie can’t help but smile. Marilyn would agree that her name has never looked better. She snaps the book shut and hands it back to the woman before anyone can see what she wrote.

“We have to keep moving!” The command has been yelled over the noise of the celebratory crowd over and over again. It’s the first time that Zenie hears it. She tries to follow her company, only for their progress to be slowed as enthusiastic Dutch people swarm forward to hug them and shake their hands.

“Keep moving! Go! Go! Go!”

The crowd gives way very suddenly to a small clearing, like she’s just sailed off the edge of the world. Zenie finds herself at the crowd’s edge and takes a deep breath as she reorients herself. On one side of her, the happy crowd continues celebrating among the cheerful swirls of orange banners. She’s standing in a sort of channel that angry looking Dutchmen occasionally cross, leading scared looking women roughly by the arm. She watches them, only to find that on her other side, a much smaller, more aggressive crowd has formed. Words that Zenie doesn’t understand are chanted over and over. What really grabs her attention, though, is that coming from the center of the crowd, there are loud wails.

She somehow ends up among the chanting Dutch. They part for her, allowing her into their midst so she can watch the display happening in the center of their circle.

It reminds her of illustrations that she’s seen in history textbooks of prisoners fighting in the Roman Colosseum. The loud wailing is coming from women who have been forced into the center. People tear their clothes and force them to their knees. The women cry as their fellow Dutchmen step forward with scissors and shears and begin roughly hacking away at their hair.

Zenie blinks, stunned. A few feet behind her, the Dutch are smiling and kissing the Americans. Yet here, they’re humiliating some of their own.

“They’re hurting them!” Zenie turns to a tall man standing next to her. “What are they doing to them?”

The man gives her a blank look. Someone taps her on her shoulder from the other side. A girl about her own age gestures toward the crying women.

“They slept with the Germans.” She says it matter-of-factly, like it explains everything.

“Why are they – “ There are so many things to ask. She settles on, “ – doing this to them?”

Once, and only once, Zenie remembers her mother telling her about arriving at boarding school as a child and how she and some of the younger children had cried when their hair had been cut. Maybe hair is also important to the Dutch. Maybe, like those children, this is about taking away their memories and their strength.

The girl offers her a simpler answer instead.

“To mark them. So that everyone knows what they did. They will be recognized in an instant for what they have done.”

One of the women in the middle of the circle cries out, her voice much louder than the other sobs. It distracts the girl beside her, who turns her attention back to the public shaming. Zenie has more questions, but the girl is engrossed in the scene. Before she can ask anything else, a hand grabs her shoulder.

Eugene keeps his eyes on Zenie when he jerks his head toward some of the other men from Easy who are standing behind him. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t protest when he leads her away from the crowd.

A lieutenant gets shot and it’s really all downhill from there.

Sergeant Randleman keeps everyone moving. Those who have known him since Toccoa are ready to follow his orders before he even finishes them. Shocked replacements have to be dragged along as they charge out of the ditches and into the town.

Zenie wasn’t at Brecourt Manor. Carentan had been bad, yes, but now, as she crouches behind the mazes of low walls and hedgerows, she wonders if this is what her friends felt like as they ran through the trenches, hunched over and high on the adrenaline of first-time combat.

Tiger tanks emerge from seemingly everywhere. Haystacks mobilize to fire at them from along the fields. Windmills sputter to life as bullets fly from the tops of them. A few Dutch families lean from their windows and shout. Whether they’re trying to help the Americans or banish them before more damage can be done to their neighborhoods is anyone’s guess.

What have the British dragged them into?

“I don’t think the Dutch are gonna like us very much after all this,” Bill says as they run from one house to another.

From the tops of buildings, artillery fire rains down on the walls that have provided some cover, destroying what few routes they could safely travel on. Zenie falls into a pattern of running between buildings when she thinks the coast is clear, then using the walls for cover as she tries to shoot at rooftops that she thinks the Germans are targeting them from. Then she runs to the next building before they can zero her in. Her rifle probably isn’t doing her any good at such a distance, but at least she’s doing something – unlike the small clump of replacements that she can feel trapsing behind her.

“Are you gonna help or not?!” She demands as she stops behind a small shed.

The little band of replacements gape at her.

Zenie jerks her head toward the shed, trying to indicate one of the large, stately houses that sits across a lawn from them. “That’s where they’re firing from. We gotta avoid letting them zero us in.”

Bang! Bang! She fires, then ducks and runs, the replacements hot on her heels. Wherever he is, she hopes that Babe isn’t blundering around like this. He seems like he has a good head on his shoulders. Hopefully he knows how to fend for himself in combat.

Just as she thinks of Babe, she hears a gruesome grunt behind her. One of the replacements falls to the ground, dead. The others stop to stare at him with open mouths. Right there, out in the open.

“Come on!” Zenie urges them. “We have to – “

“Fall back!” The order cuts her off. One that she never imagined being pleased to hear.

“Thank God,” she mutters as she tightens her grip on her rifle and runs.

A few feet ahead of her, Bill and some others are hauling Compton on a door to drag him out of combat. Other men file past them, dropping down into ditches for cover as they flee the destroyed buildings and the artillery fire behind them. Zenie drops down and then quickly slides out of the way as the replacements file in behind her.

“Van Klinken!” Someone exclaims. “He’s still back there. He’s alive!”

Eugene springs into action, running in a crouched position to go find the wounded man. A few others list of men who were lost. Most of them are names that Zenie doesn’t recognize; almost all are named by replacements. Instead, Zenie searches the faces of everyone else in the ditch, looking for those she does know.

She does the same when they load the trucks. Which is a challenge, as men hunch over on themselves, burying their heads in their hands with disappointment and grief. Still, Zenie catches sight of Babe’s bright hair, a somber looking George with his radio, and Joe all covered in sweat.

“I don’t know where The Bull is,” Bill says to Johnny Martin just as the trucks start to pull out.

Zenie looks around as they move, trying to find others. McClung has his head buried in his hands. She hears someone say Popeye’s name.

“Aye, sit down!” Bill reaches across several people and tugs on Zenie’s arm to lower her back into her seat when she stands, looking around at all the trucks, trying to find him.

Her words tumble out before she can stop them – before she even realizes what she’s saying. “But I can’t find him!”

“Who?”

“Shifty!”

“Shifty?” A few seats over, McClung lifts his head. His eyes look so sad that whatever he’s about to say can’t be good.

Zenie’s mouth goes dry. “Yes.”

McClung nods. “He loaded into the truck in front of us.” Then, like he knows what she’s thinking, “I saw him. Looked fine.”

They hold eye contact for a minute. Zenie searches Earl’s eyes for any sign that he might just be saying this to pacify her. He’s searching hers for God knows what. Whatever he’s looking for, he must find it, because he nods, satisfied.

Zenie mirrors his motion. She sits back, sighing as the wind whips her face.

All is not lost.