#i like to think those are the only mark on his otherwise clean record

[cantuscorvi]

( patting Raum's head ) This bad boy can fit so many traffic violations in it.

[writerblue275]

Heartsteel Ezreal NSFW Alphabet (18+)

Inspiration: Listen...it's feral hours. Used the NSFW Alphabet template from @the-coldest-goodbye for this!

Champion: Heartsteel Ezreal

Genre: Headcanon

Type: NSFW AS FUCK. 18+ ONLY MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Gender: Gender Neutral Reader!

TW: As I said. Smut as hell. Also cursing because I curse. Mention of various kinks. Very small mention of weapons in general.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Clingy but in a sweet way. Definitely very cuddly. If Ezreal’s not exhausted, he’ll go get water and a snack for both of you. Otherwise you’ll probably be leading most aftercare activities.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

On him: A curveball, but his neck/throat. It’s extremely sensitive and so when you mark him there or nibble/nip, he really feels amazing.

On you: Your hands. Ez loves lacing his fingers with yours. He also loves feeling them tug on his hair and cover his mouth to keep him quiet.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Ezreal might be a little embarrassed to admit it, but he loves it when you make him finish on himself, like on his stomach. He adores how you kiss him and sweetly tease him about how much of a mess he made before you go get something to help clean him up.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Ez has recorded himself while jacking off and listened back to it a few times. Mostly out of curiosity.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

(Oooooh I’m going surprisingly back and forth on this)

Do I think Ezreal is the most experienced in Heartsteel? Absolutely not. But considering he’s in the early prime of his life, I’d imagine he has at least some experience. He definitely knows enough to know what he’s doing.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Oooh. Absolutely any position with you on top. Those positions drive Ezreal wild in the very best possible way. Especially if it’s a position where he can look up and watch you. He loves watching you take your pleasure.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

It really depends on the context of the situation. Ez can certainly make you giggle and smile if the general vibe is on the playful or light-hearted side. Though he’s also incredibly earnest and sincere in his goal to pleasure you, and that can sometimes make him surprisingly serious if the vibe is more romantic.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Considering Ez’s hair is GREEN…no the carpet does not match the damn drapes 😂. He’s blonde down there and he keeps things very tidy.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Ezreal can be romantic as fuck. Like if that’s what the mood calls for, he’s saying the most romantic things to you because he wants to really make sure you know how much he is head over heels for you. He’s lacing his hands with yours. He’s keeping eye contact because your expressions are the most attractive thing in the world to him. He’s saying “I love you” a LOT. Like he can make a moment really really intimate.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

If you can’t be there, like he’s on tour or something and he can’t call you, then yeah Ez will get things done himself. But it’s definitely not his preference. Not when you love him so well.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Hehe here we go: PRAISE. KINK. (Ezreal’s receiving love language is words of affirmation so it tracks.) Loves being tied up or blindfolded. Like a lot. Sensory play in general (like using ice cubes or candle wax). Can also see him being a fan of semi-public sex. Like dressing room before/after a show or something like that. So that could be classified as very very slight exhibitionism

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Generally Ez’s favorite location is at your place because then he can be louder and doesn’t have to hold back his reactions as much. But see above, he’s not opposed to semi-public places either.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

To be totally honest it doesn’t take much to get Ezreal going. Seeing you in a nice outfit or if he’s in close proximity to you are some things. And he definitely has a Pavlovian-esque response to any signature scent you wear (especially if it’s the same scent you wore the first time the two of you were intimate together).

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything involving weapons. He’d be too nervous he’d accidentally hurt you. And I can’t really see Ez using degrading language with you.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Of course Ez loves to receive head from you, but this man lives to give you oral. He loves feeling your fingers tangle in and tug on his long hair. He loves listening to you praise him (because he’s very very talented with that mouth ot his). He loves being able to pleasure you in this way.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Again it really depends on the situation. If it’s a quickie backstage then the adrenaline is pumping and things are pretty fast and frantic. A super romantic date night? Definitely on the slow and sensual side. “Normal” day-to-day experiences are somewhere in the middle.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Big fan. The adrenaline rush from a quickie is something Ezreal enjoys. BUT he definitely also appreciates the moments where you two can take your time together and be thorough.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Ez is definitely down to try new things. Like obviously he has hard boundaries (such as no weapons) but anything that is within his hard boundaries he’s game to try.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Mmmmmm 2 rounds is the max like 95% of the time. Occasionally 3 if he’s really worked up. If it’s not a quickie then usually Ez lasts somewhere in the ballpark of 15 minutes per round, though usually that time gets shorter the more rounds he goes.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Oh ABSOLUTELY. Ez absolutely has toys and will use them on himself, though even more so, he appreciates when you use them on him. He is also happy to let you use whatever he has and will absolutely use them on you, especially in the rare moments he takes the lead.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

While I think in general Ezreal is extremely teasing, when it comes to the bedroom, he likes to be the one being teased, not the other way around. Go for it. Tease him. He might whimper or let out a soft noise of complaint at how unfair you’re being, but he actually really enjoys it. You have the evidence right in front of you. 😉

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

If you want/need him to be quiet, you’ll have to gag him with something. Ez is generally loud and it’s almost like he can’t help it. Moans, whimpers, whines, he does it all.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Ezreal is a big fan of phone/facetime sex. He loves hearing you guide him and he loves guiding you and visualizing/seeing what you’re doing. The fact he can still make you feel good even when he’s not physically with you is something he really likes.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

5.5-6”-ish inches. Absolutely nothing to scoff at. Decently thick. What Ez has he definitely uses to both his advantage and yours (he’s got those dancer hips y’all…. 😏).

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Fairly high. As previously said, it really doesn’t take much to get Ezreal going.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Depends on how many rounds. One round? Ezreal will be up for a little bit afterwards and he’s cuddling you and being very sweet. More than one? Oh he’s basically out like a fucking light switch.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! This was very fun to do. Should I do these for the other Heartsteel members? I think I might need to. 😏💙

[phantom-dc]

Dad Hood - part 14

Bruce was getting a weird feeling. He thought that with Jason coming clean about having a kid and with he misunderstanding about Jason being cloned cleared up that things would go back to normal. But the way his sons were acting told him that there was still something he didn’t know. It likely had something to do with Danny, but he wasn’t sure what. Danny was a sweet kid, always eager to help others and make new friends. Bruce had still no clue what Dick, Tim and Jason were hiding from him and it nagged at him. He was suspicious that it was something big, otherwise one of them would’ve ratted the others out by now. If not to him then to Duke, Steph or Cass. Even Alfred didn’t know what was going on, and there were times Bruce suspected him of being an all-knowing being only pretending to be human. Bruce decided to keep an close eye. It’s not like he could investigate the Joker case any further before J’ohn came back from Mars anyway.

‘Grandpa Bruce, is daddy’s doll dry yet?’

Bruce looked down. Danny was looking at him with big eyes, waiting for the paint on their self-made Red Hood action figure to dry. Checking it with his finger, Bruce found it had dried and was ready.

‘It seems he is, champ. Here you go, you can play all you want with him. Be careful not to break him, ok?’

After Bruce handed Danny the action figure, Danny got really excited. He immediately ran back to his other toys so he could play out the stories his uncle’s told him about. Though they were made child-friendly, of course. Danny immediately gathered the Batman, Nightwing and Red Robin toys. He even had a Mr. Freeze and Riddler toy. Mr. Freeze had no problem with his visage being used as long as a portion of the money went to his wife’s cure. Riddler had seen it as a contest with Batman, so his toy even came with pre-recorded riddles! Seeing Danny play with them, Bruce turned to the other people in the room.

‘Dang, Bruce. You’re really playing into the grandpa role, aren’t you?’

Jason smirked at Bruce. It was a good thing that there wasn’t much happening in Gotham. With things calm in the city, he could stay a bit longer and the family could bond. Jason couldn’t remember the last time things were like this. He started to wonder if he should tell everyone how Danny took care of his Lazarus problem… Nah, they would just ask more questions and he really didn’t want to put his Soul on display again. Never again.

‘You’re not going anywhere, Red Hood! We’ll skin you alive and turn you into a coffee table!’ Danny said, holding the Mr. Freeze toy.

Dick, Jason, Tim and Bruce looked at Danny. Where had he picked up that language? Sure, Jason wasn’t always able to watch what he said around Danny, but he never threatened to turn someone into furniture? Maybe he should try it though. He bet he could make it work, with his reputation and all.

‘You are going down! The Red Hood never loses! Pew pew!’ Danny was pretending the Red Hood toy could shoot lasers from his hands.

Dick thought it was adorable. Did Danny think Jason had laser guns? Did he see those in cartoons? Maybe Danny liked those sci fi cartoons that were popular nowadays. With all the glow-in-the-dark stars Danny put up in his room it was obvious that Danny loved space. He wonders if Danny had those stars in his old house.

‘I am the Question Mark, and you will question why you ever thought you could win!’ Danny was holding the Riddler toy, and for some reason putting up a mad-scientist voice.

Bruce was worried. What had Danny been through that he knew about stuff like this? The threats and the obvious mad-scientist. Did the person Danny was copying the voice off the same one as the person that tried to clone him? It made him think. After Jason had told him that Danny had adoptive parents out there, he had avoided the issue. He’d been too happy to have a new family member. But now? Would it be safe for Danny? He should investigate these ‘parents’, so he could decide if it would be safer for Danny to stay here. If he was going to stay, Bruce knew that he would be fine. Everyone loved Danny, and Jason was being a very good father-figure to him. Bruce could tell that Jason loved his son very much, and would do anything for him. Somewhere, deep down, Bruce wished he could say the same thing.

‘You’re defeated, Question-Mark-man! No evil people will harm the innocents while the Red Hood is here!’ Danny put the Red Hood toy’s foot on the Riddler toy, in a triumphant pose.

Jason smiled. It was nice to be his kids hero. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Bruce looked at him with a very proud look in his eyes.

‘Jason, I must say, I’m proud of you. You’re a good father.’

And then Danny phased the Riddler toy into the floor.

Bruce, Jason and Dick were looking at Danny. Danny, who had just phased a toy into the floor. Seeing the gears turning in Bruce’s head, Tim quickly scooped up the kid and left the room. As Bruce slowly turned to look at Jason and Dick, Jason decided to make the first move:

‘IT WAS DICK’S FAULT!’

Dick was shocked by that. They immediately started arguing. Dick accused Jason of throwing him under the bus. Jason accused Dick of leaving Danny alone in public. Dick threw back that Jason didn’t warn him about Danny being so much to handle. Jason asked why on Earth he told his 5-year old child that he puts people in the ground, this never would’ve-

‘ENOUGH!’

Bruce’s voice boomed through the room, silencing the 2 brothers. He was furious. His grandson was the reason the Joker was dead, and his own children tried to hide it from him! Bruce took a deep breath. Dick and Jason were looking guilty. Bruce was reminder of how they looked when they got into trouble as kids, but this was serious. The fight the two had did reveal a few things to Bruce.

‘So, Danny is a meta? And you, Dick, told him that bad people are to be buried alive?’

Dick didn’t look him in the eyes:

‘He wanted to know what Jason did for work, and I was overwhelmed and it just came out? I knew I messed up as soon as I said it, but Dany didn’t seem to care. I never thought he would-’

Bruce cut him off. He needed more information, not excuses.

‘Does Danny realize he killed someone?’

Jason said Danny didn’t, at least Jason thinks he didn’t. Danny never showed signs of that, but with all the things that Danny does do it might have slipped through. Jason still isn’t sure what things Danny tells him are real and what is a child’s interpretations. Bruce sighed. That was good, at least they didn’t have another trauma to deal with.

‘Ok, we can deal with this. But I do need to know what Danny can do before we can make plans for him. Is phase-shifting his only power?’

Jason looked at Dick with a strange look, that promised nothing good. He pulled out a tiny black notebook, scribbled something in it, claiming to be updating the list and handed it to Bruce.

Invisibility

Cryokinesis

Flight

Soul-pulling-out-powers???

Destructive scream

Super strength

(Flying) Superspeed

Photokineses

Shields

Doesn't need to breath (as often)?

Color changing (Camouflage? Different form?)

Phase-shifting

Bruce read it over. He looked at Jason.

‘Jason. This is like half the Justice League’s powers.’

Jason just nods. Dick tells him this is only what they’ve seen Danny do. They have no clue what else he can do. Danny’s memory is iffy, and couldn’t give them a list himself.

‘We need to figure out where Danny came from. We put this off long enough, but this amount of powers is concerning. I’m guessing you were hiding more form me, so the both of you need to come clean about everything.’

Jason sighed. He knew this was coming. He told Bruce everything. How Danny just showed up, to the Lazarus blood, to being cloned, to being younger than he should be and everything. By the end, Bruce had turned slightly pale. The three decided to use the Bat-computer to find out more.

When they got there, Tim was already working on Danny’s case. He managed to track Danny from the orphanage in Europe that Talia had left him at. There Danny had been adopted by a family called ‘the Fenton’s’, but he had lost sight of them after they moved to the US. No matter how hard Tim tried, he couldn’t find anything. It was almost like there was some sort off wall blocking all information. As much as he hated to admit it, Tim didn’t think that technology would help them much further. Bruce thought for a bit. If technology couldn’t help…

‘Good thing Constantine still owes me a favor, then.’

First - Previous - Next - AO3

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Soul Mates: Part Two

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Summary: A man is accused of rape and kidnapping in another state, so he moved across the country to get away from those allegations. Now, the same thing is happening but this time, it might very well be true.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

On the way back to the station, you informed your team there of the news that there is a partner. Spencer immediately goes to work on trying to decode the messages on Will's computer. He's using two different colored markers to determine who said what, but to everyone else, it looks like gibberish.

"Spencer, tell me you found something on his partner," you ask when you walk back into the station.

"It's all so cryptic. They wrote a cluster of others right after the first victim, Kim Groves, was killed."

"We need to figure out how they met. There's gotta be something in all this about their courtship," Derek says.

"It all seemed so hopeless, but I finally learned to rise above it," Spencer reads. "It sounds like William confessed he was feeling incomplete."

"He was. He didn't start killing until he met his soulmate."

"Faith should never be broken." That's another line from the journals. "The longer they got away with it, the stronger their relationship got. Sounds like these two aren't just obsessed with rape and murder. They're addicted to one another."

Jeff and Hotch return back from the crime scene you were at. You were eager to get things moving along which is why you got here before they did.

"We could have saved her," Jeff sighs.

"There were no signs of his having a partner until now."

"I guess that's why he's so cocky."

"Well, his arrogance is typical of a dominant personality. He's found a submissive who's willing to kill for him. We found bite marks on Missy. Will didn't do it, the partner did, and he's white."

"They never did that before," Derek says.

"Well, with William out of the picture, he's changed his behavior. Maybe the partner went back to something that's comfortable, something he's done before. I've got Garcia checking dental records against other cases."

Rossi and Derek walk back to the interrogation room, and you quickly follow them to observe their talk with Will.

"The D. A. was ready to charge him when Missy was still alive. How the hell are we supposed to keep him now?"

"I'm surprised you're writing all this stuff to a fella," Rossi says when they walk inside the room. "It sounds like you have a real special thing going on."

"I mean, I'm thinking if the two of you had just got it on, maybe these women would still be alive," Derek shrugs. "So, where'd you meet him? Chat room? Porn sites? Gay bar? Whoever this guy is, he's looking out for you and cleaning up for you. Missy Dewald is dead."

"Has he called yet? Lee Jarvis, the D.A., I mean. I saw his name on the warrant. He's got the best conviction rate in Florida. Do you know why?"

"I wanna know why your pen pal killed her when he could have let her rot," Rossi glares.

"Jarvis doesn't like to lose. He's not gonna ruin his record over this."

Will refuses to talk about his potential partner thinking the D.A. is going to get him out of this one. However, your team is going to do everything they can to lock this bitch up.

"Wow, this friend of yours wants to please you badly, doesn't he? He's protecting you, doing whatever he's gotta do to make sure that you're innocent. He killed Missy so you could be together again. It's only been a few hours, but he misses you."

"And you've gotten what exactly from all this?" Will asks in a bored tone.

"Proof that someone out there is just as sick as you."

Penelope works her magic and gets results from the bite marks left on Missy. The dental records don't match Will but they do match a reported rape in Manatee County earlier this year. The teeth marks belong to the same person, but they've never been arrested so she can't cross-reference. Connie Mayers is the victim of that rape, so if you're going to have any hope in figuring out who this is, then you have to talk to her.

Emily and Hotch went over to her job as soon as they got that information, but she wasn't too happy about it. No one else knew about what happened to her, but your coworkers did their best to keep it discreet. She works at a flower shop, so Emily bought some flowers as she asks her questions.

Connie's attacker knew what he wanted like he was confident in what he was doing. Connie thought he was a control freak. He wore a mask but she could tell he was shite, proving what you saw using Missy's energy. The partner choked her which took a long time for the bruises to go away. It's not as bad as the bite marks which are just scars now.

"Connie described an anger-excitation rapist just like William," Emily says when she and Hotch return. "We're looking at two dominant personalities."

"It makes sense. They have a similar discourse. They're equally well-written," Spencer says. "It's rare in criminal partnerships. If their personalities are the same, their lives probably mirror one another's as well."

"Harris goes to church, he's on the board of the PTA, he coaches his daughter's soccer team, and he rarely drinks."

"He sounds like a saint," Jordan says.

"With a dark side," Hotch adds. "That's what he connected to in his partner. Prentiss and I will go talk to the family and see if they know who it might be."

Emily and Hotch leave but you stay behind to help Spencer.

"Two alpha males won't be easy to break," Derek says. "The partner is definitely following the investigation."

"Let's do the talking for them," Rossi suggests, holding up a newspaper.

"I think a chatroom might be better. It sounds like they do most of their talking on the computer, but I like where your head's at," you say. "Plus, it's quicker."

"Why would he read it? He knows William won't be writing," Jeff says.

"These men are addicted to each other. Right now, he needs a fix, and the words they've shared are all he has to cling to. His partner wrote 'Faith should never be broken'. A betrayal could devastate him."

"All we have to say is that William's cooperating and then hopes he takes the bait."

Derek and Rossi give you and Spencer some time to come up with something you hope will catch the partner's attention. It's not easy, but you have the journal entries they've already sent to each other. All you have to do is work with the words and language they've already used.

"What have we got so far?" Derek asks after an hour of working.

"We were surprised that you injected yourself into the investigation. You risked a lot in order to help William," you read what you have. "Killing Missy tells us how close you really are. It must be devastating to learn that William is here with us."

Spencer doesn't like what you've come up with in fear the partner will retaliate.

"He's not gonna like that. It sounds like William's cooperating."

"That's exactly what we want him to believe so he'll doubt their alliance."

Derek and Rossi use this information on Will, and you follow them so you can pay close attention to Will. You can talk to Derek and Rossi through the comms just in case you notice something off about Will. After they tell him what they've done, Will just smirks in thought.

"What's that smirk for?

"Sharon is posting bail. I'm thinking about where to go for dinner. Maybe we'll go to Salvatore's."

"Rossi, play it off as if the partner is the alpha male. It might set him off," you say.

"You know, maybe we got it wrong. Maybe they're not both alpha males. The partner made the first move. He's the one with the balls."

"Yeah, and it was pretty risky, too. Think about it. What if you did turn in here? Or at least your partner thought you turned in here, hmm? Then he'd have no choice but to turn himself in. Your lives would be ruined," Derek adds. "That's the reason it works. You both have everything to lose."

"He's only cleaning up because he can't afford to get caught either. Am I right?" William doesn't answer. "How is gonna react to the entry we wrote? He knows we're reading your little love letters, so we decided to send one ourselves and let him know you're in here helping us out."

"He's probably feeling pretty betrayed right about now. If he is, what do you think he's doing about it?"

"William, you wrote, 'Thanks for the perfect place to play'. What were you talking about?"

"Golfing."

"Right. What was it like?"

"Perfect," he smirks.

Will is so confident he isn't going to get caught that he's radiating energy that you can feel from outside the room. The energy is allowing you to see images of Will and his partner with a girl they've kidnapped. The girl is one of the girls who was reported missing and found dead. One of the girls was dead before you even arrived in Florida.

"Rossi, I see him and his partner with one of the three girls who were found dead. Keep him talking. The more he thinks he's getting away with it, the more I can use his energy to see more."

Derek sets out pictures of the three dead women since he heard everything you've said to Rossi. All of the women are happy and smiling as if nothing bad could ever happen to them.

"You probably don't recognize them like this, do you, William? Happy and smiling. All these gifts. All these girls."

"This is someone's child. You know, Missy Dewald was supposed to meet her parents for dinner. She was eighteen years old, an only child, and you just took her away."

"I feel sorry for those parents. I really do," Will says without emotion.

"Do you hear yourself? Not an ounce of sincerity. You just proved you were incapable of empathy just like your partner. William, you never would have done any of this without him, but you just weren't complete, right?"

Spencer walks into the room and hands you some papers. The pages are about the love between William and his partner.

"Rossi, we have something."

Rossi leaves the room while Derek stays inside, and you hand him the papers Spencer gave you.

"It's been so long, my heart aches. I need to see that face again soon," Rossi reads the papers when he walks back inside. "I mean, it's pretty obvious there's an emotional connection between you two, huh? You can't deny that, but this doesn't really sound like two buddies to me. Sounds more like two men in love with each other."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

This strikes a nerve in Will, and this is what you need to get more information from him.

"You're right. I have absolutely no idea what it's like to be in love with another man."

"You know, everyone who goes into law enforcement has this air of moral superiority. For you, it seeps out of every single pore. Black cop in the FBI. You got a big chip on your shoulder with a lot to prove."

"Now who's the one who has no idea what he's talking about?"

"Derek, don't let him rile you up. This is just what he wants," you warn your friend.

"We're not so different, you and I. We choose the games we play because they make us feel powerful. So, what do you have, special agent Morgan? Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I have broken the law, but don't you sit there with that smug look on your face and judge me, boy."

This pisses Derek off.

"First of all, I am not your boy, and this look on my face is a look of contempt because you disgust me. You and I are nothing alike. When we do find this friend of yours, there isn't a jury out there who won't find you guilty."

Derek leaves the room, allowing Rossi to be alone with him.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[maaarine]

What Are Dreams For? (Amanda Gefter, The New Yorker, Aug 31 2023)

"The videos attest to the apparent universality of twitching: not only do many animals twitch in REM but they start before they’re born.

After finding that sleep twitches in early development aren’t caused by activity in the cortex, Blumberg increasingly wondered whether it might be the other way around—perhaps the twitches were sending signals to the brain.

Hardly anyone had considered this possibility, because it was assumed that the blockade would keep sensations out.

It took Blumberg and his team years to build equipment capable of getting clean brain recordings from tiny, wriggling pups, but eventually, they were able to implant electrodes into rat pups’ brains, recording their neural activity while high-speed cameras captured their twitching. (…)

An electrode readout made the order of events clear: first the pup moved, then the brain responded.

Bursts of activity in the sensorimotor cortex, which coördinates movement and sensation, followed the twitches.

The body and brain weren’t disconnected. The brain was listening to the body.

In a series of papers, Blumberg articulated his theory that the brain uses REM sleep to “learn” the body.

You wouldn’t think that the body is something a brain needs to learn, but we aren’t born with maps of our bodies; we can’t be, because our bodies change by the day, and because the body a fetus ends up becoming might differ from the one encoded in its genome.

“Infants must learn about the body they have,” Blumberg told me. “Not the body they were supposed to have.”

As a human fetus, the thinking goes, you have nine months in a dark womb to figure out your body.

If you can identify which motor neurons control which muscles, which body parts connect, and what it feels like to move them in different combinations, you’ll later be able to use your body as a yardstick against which to measure the sensations you encounter outside.

It’s easier to sense food in your mouth if you know the feeling of a freely moving tongue; it’s easier to detect a wall in front of you if you know what your extended arm feels like unimpeded.

In waking life, we don’t tend to move only a single muscle; even the simple act of swallowing employs some thirty pairs of nerves and muscles working together.

Our sleep twitches, by contrast, are exacting and precise; they engage muscles one at a time.

Twitches “don’t look anything like waking movements,” Blumberg told me.

“They allow you to form discrete connections that otherwise would be impossible.”

While he spoke, I stared, mesmerized, at the rat pup’s twitching paw. Blumberg suspects that it was twitching “to build its sense of self.” (…)

Twitches could add to the confusion in another way.

In waking life, our brain easily identifies sensations created by our own movements because it sees those movements coming.

But, when we dream, we stop anticipating, and we have no way to figure out what’s coming from where.

Perhaps we don’t want to anticipate those sensations because, according to Blumberg, the whole point of twitching is to learn what those sensations are, so that we can find out what it feels like to move our own bodies.

A dreamer is in a situation akin to someone suffering from schizophrenia—an illness often marked by a profound difficulty in distinguishing between self and other.

Healthy people can’t typically tickle themselves, but people with schizophrenia can; yet researchers have found that, if healthy people woken from REM sleep tickle themselves, they often respond to their own touch as if it’s someone else’s.

We seem to be confusing self with other. “That’s at the core of dream experience,” Windt said. (…)

A stuck robot might be better off not moving—and yet it can’t get out of danger until it figures out what’s happened to it.

The roboticists came up with a clever solution: twitches.

When it’s stuck, their four-legged robot, nicknamed the Evil Starfish, moves the mechanical equivalent of one muscle at a time.

Input from the twitches is used by its software to create different interpretations of what is happening; the software then orders new twitches that might help disambiguate the scenarios.

If the robot finds that it’s suddenly tilting thirty degrees to the left, it might entertain two interpretations: it’s either standing on the side of a crater, or missing its left leg.

A slight twitch of the left leg is enough to tell the difference.

In work published in Science, in 2006, the team showed that their Evil Starfish robot could essentially learn to walk from scratch by systematically twitching to map the shape and function of its body.

When the team injured it by pulling off its leg, it stopped, twitched, remapped its body, and figured out how to limp.

Watching the robot twitch, a fellow-researcher commented that it looked like it was dreaming.

The team laughed and thought nothing of it until the fall of 2013, when Bongard met Blumberg when he gave a talk on adaptive robots.

Suddenly, the idea of a dreaming robot didn’t seem so far-fetched. “Dreaming is a safe space, a time to try things out and retune or debug your body,” Bongard told me.

Are the robots really dreaming? If to dream is to make sense of ambiguous bodily signals, then the answer is yes.

But, for us, dreams are a deeper kind of synthesis. As she sleeps, it’s as if a person, her brain, and her body converse imperfectly; their delirious miscommunication is the dream."

[thesinglesjukebox]

CAMILA CABELLO FT. PLAYBOY CARTI - "I LUV IT"

Per our controversy score, it's more iluvit ihateit iluvit ihateit iluvit ihateit iluvit...

[6.47]

Katherine St. Asaph: wtf (complimentary) [7]

Hannah Jocelyn: “I Luv It" is a perfect example of once avant-garde sounds being absorbed into the mainstream -- which is why people hate it -- but the way all involved fail makes it much better than it otherwise would be. Everyone involved doesn’t know how to work outside the lines of pure pop, and it shows. We have a IV-I-V-ii chord progression, normally too melancholic for upbeat electronica outside of “Off-World”, and we have a classic AABB chorus, only the AAs are iluvitiluvitiluvitiluvit and the BBs are Gucci Mane samples. Cabello is much more fun in this mode than crooning nicotine-Halloween-morphine “Never Be The Same” mode, and if she still comes across as try-hard, that adds to the song’s bizarre alchemy. Carti’s dispassionate mumbling nearly kills it, but listen to the beautiful synth arpeggio he’s up against. “I Luv It” is too structured to be incoherent, too clean to be overwhelming, and all those contradictions make the song legitimately captivating, far from the trainwreck intended. [8]

Isabel Cole: I almost admire this track’s staunch refusal to be an actual song; between its near-total disinterest in conventions like “melody” and “structure” and the fact that its hooks sound like they were recorded by a pull-string doll running out of batteries, you could almost call it avant-garde. Unfortunately, none of its repetitive noodling sounds interesting or good, hence “almost.” Carti’s verse (counterintuitively?) comes closest to achieving one of those things (song, interesting, good), although I’m not sure which one, and despite the fact that he is so inscrutable it’s like listening to a rap verse by the Swedish Chef. [3]

Alfred Soto: I like it, but it took getting used to Cabello's voice squeaking ILUVITILUVITILUVIT against a synth arpeggio. Because Cabello's always sounded like a synth anyway, the track's an exercise in harmony. [6]

Mark Sinker: Obviously I should stop trusting the mondegreen as insight generator -- but “I was on the train with the MEKONS!” Enter Greil Marcus to solve the case, in deerstalker like the Inspector in the Pink Panther cartoons, his enormous magnifying glass from our direction enlarging only his own eye (affectionate). Down these so-pretty streets a man must go who is not himself pop, who is neither tarnished nor afraid! He is the hero; he is Playboi Carti, mumblier perhaps than anyone in muttering history… [squeaks: ah!] [10]

Alex Clifton: Am I supposed to understand any of the words in this song? [3]

Taylor Alatorre: "Doctorin' the Tardis" with less self-awareness yet somehow even greater contempt for its target audience, which in this case is Millennial-Zoomer cuspers who assign mystical significance to Project X and Spring Breakers because they first saw those films before being old enough to drive. I'm opposed to it in principle -- but principle hasn't stopped me from listening to it 83 times in the past month. Mainly that's because of how the brute-force Gucci Mane sample tries to hack my brain into thinking it's actually hearing "Lemonade" for those 12 to 24 seconds. No chopping or screwing, no tenuous lyrical tie-ins, just unadulterated 2010 high school cafeteria bliss. It's such a childishly brazen tactic, like a couple of teenagers trying to sneak their vodka-filled water bottles into an all-ages show, that I can't help but nod respectfully toward it. Given all this, Playboi Carti might not seem to be the correct punchline to this joke, and if Camila had been able to wrangle a Riff Raff or Trinidad James onto here, the unified kitsch factor alone would've earned the song's full acquittal. But it's in the parts where he isn't aiming for gibberish-fueled virality that Carti justifies his presence here. "Oh you on a roll now?" feels like a playful negging of all the cheap XCX cosplay we've just had to sit through, and "she says I'm way too young" is such a teasing last-second aside, turning the very act of Guwop-sampling into a vague metaphor for shooting one's shot cross-generationally... or something. What exactly is one supposed to do with that, other than try to unlock some other secret meaning on the 84th listen? [6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: You luv it, but she got it.  [6]

Leah Isobel: The Charli XCX Twinks are hyperprotective of their right to feel alternative and unique, so Camila ripping off the cadence and delivery of "I Got It" (not to mention the Hereditary-biting promotional video) would of course send that particular portion of the internet into overdrive. But it's the prerogative of the actual, charting popstar to execute stylistic hairpins, particularly if she's navigated the label system well enough to actually release something as chart-poisonous as "I Luv It," extra-particularly if she's already played around in this sandbox, and extra-super-particularly if the song represents the first time she's found a convincing vehicle for her unbelievably annoying energy. Honestly, I couldn't tell you why I like this so much -- maybe it's the memory of liking the similarly fried-out Lazerproof, or the maturity to recognize that to be cringe is to be human -- but I do. Sorry! If the song slaps, I can't make it not slap!  [9]

Nortey Dowuona: "You two have been saying one bar is lame and the other one is awesome ALL NIGHT, and it's the same BAR?!!!" -- Troy from Community and me after four listens. [2]

Andrew Karpan: Every micro-generation gets the “I Love It” that it deserves. I love it. [10]

Ian Mathers: Look, it's not my fault that the degree of difficulty you've set yourself is "will this make the listener not want to just go listen to the classic Icona Pop/Charli XCX song 'I Love It' instead?" Credit to the post chorus and Carti's digitally slurred moan of a verse for making it a bit of a fight, but... [7]

Michael Hong: The most captivating word here is that sighed "tomorrow" right before the first chorus. Everything seems to go quiet as she breathes into it, the catharsis of having what you want in your reach, the high of forever in your sight. Cabello never sounds like she'll get there -- "I Luv It" is just one big, provocative, braindead pursuit for your attention, for you to see her as a captivating pop star -- but as her tongue darts across her lips and echoes the titular phrase over and over, there's the thrill she's been looking for. [7]

Kayla Beardslee: This is not a song, this is engagement bait. I cannot be bought this easily! Stream La Buena Vida! [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: It's odd that everyone is treating this as some kind of oddity; this is a Camila Cabello song, for God's sake! It's the same format as her big hit and the middling replicant (who cares about "Senorita"), just adapted for the current moment rather than the long 2010s; glitchy pop sounds are not some shocking play when it's been two presidential terms since "Vroom Vroom." Even the "Lemonade" sample feels correctly positioned – it's millennial dad rap, the exact kind of respectable pophead interpolation-fodder that Cabello, Carti, and producer Jasper Harris all probably loved as teenagers. "I Luv It" is a perfect showcase for Cabello's admittedly limited skillset; she sounds appropriately wan on the verses and cheerleader-ish on the chorus, comfortable with just being another element in Harris & El Guincho's anachronistic Pop 2 revival. Yet "I Luv It" reaches the mountaintop only upon Carti's arrival – the track pauses for a second before he starts his verse as if it's hard reloading; he then proceeds to duet with a synth solo, do his best Dirty Sprite 2-era Future impression, and go so incomprehensible that I'm not even sure if anyone else on the track knows what he's saying. Glorious. [9]

Dave Moore: I'm confident that everything that everyone who has scored this song a [4] or below says about it is accurate. But a clusterfuck contains multitudes.  [8]

Will Adams: Above all else, it's WEIRD. Strip away the stan chatter and "I Luv It" becomes an appealingly bizarre pivot in which Cabello is enraptured by a frenetic hook, woozy synths and a potentially asymmetric meter. When Playboi Carti's smeared verse arrives, you start to feel delirious. [6]

Julian Axelrod: An unrecognizable Camila Cabello, sounding like she's trying to will herself back to 2012 and secure the Spring Breakers audition she rightfully deserves. An uninterpretable Playboi Carti, facing his biggest moment in the spotlight with a burp and a shrug. An unexplainable "Lemonade" sample, as if producer El Guincho just heard The State vs Radric Davis that morning and decided he was put on this earth to get Gucci Mane a publishing check. None of it gels, none of it makes sense in the same song, none of it even makes sense in the same breath. I can only assume Camila and Co. created this incredible, idiotic Diet Coke and Mentos monstrosity to give guys like me something to be annoying about all summer. [8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Was kind of thrilling when it dropped but enough time has passed where this doesn't really hold up. I can only be so amused by Camila sort of just being there (she's not doing anything particularly well, nor is she flailing in any notably outrageous manner). Carti arrives with a decent verse, and then it's over. Music to be momentarily amused by and not much else. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[modx-reborn]

The first prefromance

Something I spoke of in a discord I'm in.

So here have Simpbur and CamGirl/Camboy reader doing a show with them after working his way into their close circle.

(Yes this plays off of the two cam asks I have gotten recently)

Also please know that real cam girls/boys aren't actually going to do this, this is purely fictional in its makeup.

SMUT UNDERCUT! MINOR DNI!

"That's it j-just like that, all the way like you should be taking me. S-shouldn't be here fucking my hand w-when I could be fucking you, such a pretty thing so good for me, but such a slut t-to let others watch you like this..."

That was the last thing he had said to you on your last private call, since then he had wormed his way further and further into your shows and even into a bit of your personal life, or well your on-screen personal life, as he had the phone number you kept aside for work, from your days as a more in-person performer.

And boy did he ever make use of the number, sending you little messages and photos whenever the thought struck him, peppering you in small doses of affection and savouring the way you called him sometimes when you skipped a stream, offering him to listen to you get off instead letting him hear when you spoke about the toy he had sent you. Sometimes even getting him to call and ask for you to listen to him, getting you to mutter things to him and work him that little bit closer to his end.

But now what you're calling for may just break your dear simp, having had all the fun you could with the silicon imitation he had made for you, that now your mind was thinking about how he would feel rather than the toy. 'S-shouldn't be here fucking my hand w-when I could be fucking you' his own words playing on repeat in your head after you close down your last stream, sending little thank yous to the top donators before moving to the call ping that was coming through.

It was him. Perfect.

"Ahh, there he is, my pretty top boy Simpbur!"

"That was quite the s-show, but what did you mean by you're w-working on something big with someone else?"

"Well, that's good that you asked my dear. You are always so good for me, sending those little messages and all those donations, I was thinking you may want to help me with the next stream..."

"Y-you want me to-"

"Mmhmm, didn't you say yourself that it should be you fucking me, or was it that you should be here in me rather than fucking your hand?"

It's easy to finish your sentence with a tilt of your head, tapping one of your fingers against your bottom lip as if you were actually trying to remember when truly you were just teasing the curly-haired boy staring at you wide-eyed through your screen.

"I. Yes. I-I mean I would love to if you want me to..."

With his agreement the rest of the call was spent hashing out the rough details and leaving him open to suggest what he wanted to do for the show, leaving him with a wink and a reminder to 'Keep it simple' before you logged out and started to pack up and clean down the space you had been working in.

There would be a few weeks between your last show and the next one, having all the platforms you used teasing the next stream with images of the silicone toy being front and centre in all the images, a tease for all your viewers but a reminder for your dear simpbur that he would be more real in your world in a few days. Even when he made up his mind on what he wanted it was still so very hard for him to not scroll back through the recorded calls and streams, take himself in hand and work through the building need.

But he managed to keep his hands off, having worked himself up even before the actual day of the stream.

When you call him, he picks up on the first ring as always chipper and shaky in the same breath as he says your stage name.

"There's my good boy! You ready for tomorrow? Your first time in the red light after all, just want to make sure you're still down and want to do this."

"I-I am. I'm good and... and ready for tomorrow."

With a laugh and a quick goodbye, you hang up, heading off to the regular place you booked for longer shows needing to set up lights and the cams now, otherwise you would likely not have time when your co-star finally made his way to you. And how right you were, the moment the time for the stream rolled around he was there at your door, hands fiddling with the bottom of his button-up, mask and beanie on as if you hadn't seen his face a million times before.

Welcoming him in is easy, but getting him to calm down just enough to have him read back what the two of you had planned took slightly longer. You had him keep his mask and beanie on, using them as a way to keep him from having his real-world life ruined from doing this one little show with you, the suggestion also seems to put some of his nerves to rest.

When the cameras do start rolling, the stream on a start-up timer for switching on to a live stage, your chat on a large screen hanging over your laptop that was actually hosting the show, messages flying past as people are lured in at the promise of a different kind of show and the tagline mentioning a guest star. When the cam starts showing the room you're seated on Simpburs lap, thighs spread wide over his with his hands holding you close while you do your intro, his masked face pressed into your shoulder as he mutters something under his breath.

Your form rocking back into him once you're were done, slipping a hand under his beanie and tangling in his curls, making him groan just loud enough that one of the many mics would be able to hear him, laughing and cooing at him as you reach down with your free hand to wrap around his cock, slowly running your fingers across the heated flesh.

"You'll be good for me won't you? So pretty and brave being here on cam with me, getting a treat that so many would die for..."

His voice falters when you shift your grip, tugging on his hair just as you start to actually move your hand to jerk him off, slipping your hand out of his hair you reach for a little remote, making the camera zoom in as you close your thighs around him, burying his cock between your thighs. Cooing at him once again as his hands are braced on your hips, using this to bounce you on him, head tilted back and panting as he fucks your thighs.

The exposed skin of his neck calling for you to leave a few marks across, a little gift for him to remember this day by, or well more than the stream recording of course, pink and purple marks blooming across his neck as he changes the pace moving you more and more until you can feel him throbbing between your thighs.

"Oh, sweet thing you're cumming already? Are my thighs that good? Can't even hold on for the main performance, or are you that eager for more that you would cum now and still keep going? Hmm, what is it, pretty boy?"

The only answer you receive is a deep groan and the warm feeling of his cum seeping from between your thighs, spreading your legs to show off the mess to your cam, letting everyone who was watching see the mess that he had made. Reading your chat gave you a wonderful idea, they wanted more and you wanted to see just how far you could push your dear simp till he broke and lived up to his wants to actually fuck you.

Flicking across the remote once again the camera angle changes, showing a side view of the bed perfect for what you were planning to do, the angle giving your audience the best show as you move off his lap and kneel on the floor. Holding his cock with one hand as you lean forward to lick a stripe up his shaft, cleaning his mess off with your mouth, taking him fully once most of him was clean looking up at him through your lashes once you have taken him into your throat.

Watching how his eyes go wide, hands shaking when they reach for your head, his eyes flicking up to the chat screen reading over some of the words telling him to fuck your face, to make you cry and drool all over him, and other wanting to be where he was, whining over text that they should have been the one there with you. The majority calling for him to do something, building a need to move in him, slowly he is moving his hips, still sensitive after having cum not moments before but the feeling of your mouth wrapped around him was spurring him on.

Before long his hips are moving properly, holding your head steady as he fucks your mouth watching how you look up at him every time he pushes into your throat, tears building and falling with how harsh some of his thrusts are, but the image just makes him groan. Throwing his head back once again as he works himself back up, trying to hold out and enjoy this feeling for a little while longer, only you had other plans pulling away panting as you take in the way he looks.

Flicking your hands cross the remote once again to switch cameras for the final time settling on one that would let your audience watch how good your dear simp was for you, let them watch how full he makes you feel and how pretty he looks when he cums, when he finally gets what he wanted.

"You ready pretty boy, ready to finally get what you want? What you told me about on all your calls? Take you all the way like I should be taking you?"

"P-please, fuck just please le-let me fuck you..."

In his rush to reach for you, his beanie had come off, brown curls falling out in a mess that you tried to cover again only to have your hands smacked away in favour of him pulling you up onto the bed with him. Throwing your thighs over his own reaching for the bottle of lube you had left waiting to be used, coating his fingers before pressing them into you working you open with one hand as the other is pressed to your shoulder keeping you from moving away from his probing fingers.

"G-God look at you, do-don't even need to work my way up to two fingers, already so r-ready for them... Ready for me."

To quick are his fingers gone replaced by the head of his cock, easing his way in as he moans, hands grabbing your hips to steady himself as he finally gets to feel what it's like to be buried in you just like his toy replica had been so many times before. There is little time between him being fully hilted in you and him starting to move, his hands moving from your hips to under your thighs ignoring the sticky cum still staining them, pushing them back and using the new angle to fuck into you as hard as he liked.

Wanting to have you drooling into the mattress and calling his name, making you remember him and him alone so that if you ever did another show like this, it would be his number you called. That if he did this good enough, fucked you good enough that it wouldn't be on camera the next time he got to fuck you, it would be at your home in your bed, him calling your real name not this stage name you work under.

He comes back from his thoughts when your voice cuts through them, high pitched and whining for him to let you cum, for him to keep going to let you have what you had given him earlier, to feel him cum in you this time.

"F-fuck you w-want me to cum in you? P-paint your inside with me..."

The chat if either of you could see it was still it was running a mile a minute, calling for him to do it, to cum and let them see how it will drip out of you. Others call for him to deny you, keep you begging for your release while he took his own, but neither of you could see those words and so your ends draw near.

"T-that's it, god feels so. So good around me, j-just like I thought you would..."

The rough pace he set becomes almost brutal when he cums, there will be bruises in the shape of his hands come the next few days but that thought paired with the sight of your dear simp losing himself in you was what tipped you over.

The end of the stream was much like the beginning, albeit with a mess of brown curls keeping the camera from seeing how the mask had been pulled down and soft kisses were being placed along your shoulders, the moment you had given the final thanks and turned off all the gear the hands that were wrapped around your waist were pulling you back onto the bed, keeping you as close as possible.

After all the pressure of performing for people falls away, it's easy to give comfort to the man curled around you, wanting him to be comfortable with what you had just done. Once again tangling your hands in his hair only this time to give comfort rather than tease, cooing soft praise until the grip around you eases slightly.

"You did so well, such a good boy for me..."

[thebibliosphere]

ADHD reward system? Please tell me your secret!

My therapist has been helping me find a reward system that works for me, and as it turns out, gold star stickers are really helpful for making me feel like a tangible goal was met, and helps give me that sweet, sweet dopamine release that comes with completing a task, something which us ADHD’ers really struggle to achieve and are already coming at from a disadvantage with our brains regularly not producing enough “happy” hormones as it is.

It was supposed to be “a sticker for every time you finish a chapter”, but after some revision, my therapist said that was too tall of a goal, and that I should pick something smaller. So instead I now get a star every time I finish a 500-word milestone, placing the sticker in my writing calendar/journal thing that I use to keep track of my writing, and ironically, I have started to produce more work than when I was stiving for one chapter a day.

To give you an idea of how staggeringly effective this has been for me, I’ve written over 30k of original fiction in the last week. (75k total if you include my social media and blog stuff, which I currently do not but likely should.)

So this is what it looked like when I was attempting to do a chapter of edits and revisions a day during the month of December 2019 (note: I was supposed to start this in Nov, so you can see how well that worked out for me lol):

ID: A calendar showing days of the month with a shiny star sticker showing a completed task.

And this is what my writing journal looks like now that I’m doing a star for every 500 words:

ID: an image of a handwritten journal with the dates mapped out, followed by a shiny star sticker for every completed 500-word milestone. There are 65 stars in total for the month of January 2020. It’s also tinged by a green light cause I’m doing a chronic pain experiment, so far with positive results!

So as of today, January 8th, with ever star = 500 words, then 65*500 = 32500 words totalled in 7 days. This does not include, like I said, my social media output where I am far more productive, this is just my fiction and some editing work for friends.

(Which side note: this is not to flex, or to say that others should be able to achieve this level of output. I am a professional writer, this is my main job and only source of income. And also, I was forged in the fires of understaffed editing hell where we would be expected to churn out 100k+ a week in edits and revisions to keep on track. I have the time and a learned skillset I have spent years amassing to be able to do this and am working towards a rigid deadline. I simply have not been healthy enough in a long time to manage it, and am finally working my way back up to speed after years of illness. Don’t look at this and think, “I’m not achieving enough”, every victory no matter how small is worth celebrating. And I say that with the utmost sincerity, as someone who spent most of the last 2-3 years unable to get out of bed.)

I’ve also started using it to help keep track of bills and chores around the home. So every time something gets done/done on time, whoever completed the task gets a star on the calendar. This includes Oppy the Not-A-Roomba, who does a very good job of taking care of the house on a daily basis:

ID: an image of a chore calendar denoting various tasks that have been marked off with a holographic silver star sticker, including our robot vacuum who does an excellent job and deserves all the stars. (Our names got blurred out cause ETD doesn’t want his real name out there in the world, so that’s what is blurry.)

This system is useful for several reasons, the primary one being a sense of achievement and continued motivation, and the second, to allow you to review each month to see where you are doing well, and where you might otherwise be struggling.

For example, if I have a bad day for writing or decide to take a day off, I write that down in the calendar rather than leaving it blank, so that I have a record of what went wrong (or right, if I am electing to self care that day and take a day off) and how my overall progress is doing.

In terms of house stuff, this has been especially useful for ETD and myself, as it shows us where we are managing to do a good job with the house, and where our executive dysnfunction issues really trip us up and where we need to make improvements. And I don’t just mean in an “I should try harder way”, I mean you have to actively sit down and be like “hey! What is preventing me from completing this thing” and trying to figure out effective ways to either get around it or resolve a larger issue at hand.

So for us, the biggest thing we tend to miss is doing dishes after dinner, meaning we get left with a pile-up of dishes to deal with first thing in the morning, and my ADHD can’t handle that. It won’t let me eat until I’ve cleared all the mess, but I usually don’t have the energy to clean up if I haven’t eaten, so it’s this awful cycle of ineptitude. We’re doing better with the star reward system, cause it’s showing us our progress loud and clear on the fridge door, but we are both usually so fatigued and exhausted by the end of dinner that doing dishes is just one thing too many for our mutual disorders. So, the solution for this would, of course, be a dishwasher, cause if we had one of those, we could load stuff in, turn it on, and let those dishes get done while we go to bed then put them away in the morning. We can’t afford to do that right now, and we have other appliances we need to buy/replace before we can do that (still don’t have a tumble dryer, or a washer I can access, rip) but it does give us a tangible goal to work toward, and also, the motivation to keep on top of things because it goes from “an endless task with no end in sight” to “there’s a solution for this, we can manage a while longer.”

Now you could be saying, but Joy, I’m an adult! Surely I shouldn’t expect rewards for completing every day tasks that I should be able to do?!

To which I say, neurotypical people get rewards all the time and get an unconscious dose of dopamine/serotonin from their brains every time they complete a task. They’re playing the game of life on easy mode, the gold star is your achievement for completing it daily on Nintendo 99 hard mode. IF THE STICKER WORKS, TAKE THE STICKER

YOU’VE EARNED IT.

[koishua]

♪ 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. ♪

pairings: sim jaeyoon x fem!reader.

genre: pure angst, songfic.

word count: 1.1k.

warnings: themes of falling out of love, implied major character deaths and suicide (and its overall just a puzzle of a trippy story kinda?? nothing related to gore or violence though!!)

notes from vie: guys. don't let this flop besties. it's my new hymn for the missing hahaha i love it as much as that old kun fic. anyways, idk why this got buried in my drafts for so long, so here you go.

i love hearing your thoughts about my fics, be it in your reblogs or in the replies, so do leave feedback if you're up for it <3 otherwise, hope you enjoy!

listen to 'one more night' by demian for the full experience please!!

taglist: @junityy @igyus @intokook @leavethemonsteralive @iuwon @envirae @fairyjunn @rutosruru-world @daystiny @luvholicz @imdamconfused @renjunvrse @honeyseungz @dweio @rae-blogging @ikigyus @enhyseob @jitaros @jdyunvrs @yunntext @yourlocalhotgf @strwberrydinosaur @mark-lees-world @beomgyuv @chileangring4 @99swinwin @jakeycore @99outros @heejojo @thekinkpopstandsforkrackheads @strqyverse @tyongishs @jiminisyourangel @yutaalove @yangianwon @icywhatim @sunshine-skz @hwallswrld @twntycm @sooblvr @injanggarden @whoe-dis @thegracerammy @k2oi (click here to be added)

There is something eerily peaceful about a night without stars splattered in the far and wide distance to decorate the blanket of darkness, lit only by the moon drowning behind the wisps of ashy clouds. It doesn’t bother you much, though.

He’s with you, that man. He’s right here on the seat next to you, the steering wheel in his hands, heart in yours. He’s here, stripped of his labels and titles, laid bare and clean in front of you, wholly himself and not an image of what everyone else thinks he is when he wears his mask and shield of defiance and authority.

He’s here alone, together with you and so heartbreakingly broken in his essence. He sits on the leather seat, the back of his head resting against the cushion.

One more night, for all our lies.

“I love you.” It’s a beautiful sort of deception, one for the both of you who desperately cling onto any remains of what once had been. It’s there to fill the growing silence, to attempt to close the distance of where you stand, so far away from him and out of his reach.

“I love you too.” He stays numb even when he says those four words, defeat crawling up his skin, biting into it like the cold that creeped up on the edge of the cliff you are perched on top on, the crashing of the waves heard loud and clear. He says it so quietly, words engraved with a dreaded acceptance.

One more say, to close our days.

“I love you.” He blurts it out first this time, just barely holding onto the quiver in his voice, begging his vocal chords not to fail him this night. It’s not the easiest of tasks, though he manages to get those three flowery words out again like a broken recorder.

“I love you too.” You gulp the burning guilt down your throat, feeling parched and drowning at the same time. You feel as though you are drenched in all of the vile things in the world, acid dripping out of your lips like it’s nothing. You wonder if he is hurting more than you are. He probably is in an agony much deeper than yours, you come to realize with a heavy heart.

If I’d be ‘him and you’d be ‘her.

“You’re my moon.” It’s your turn to say something, if only to feel something again. His eyes are trained on the glow that filters through the dreary and hopeless night sky with an ironic smile on his lips. He supposes this isn’t the worst it could have been.

“You’re my sun.” He follows your lead, delivering a sting far more effective than a slap on your face could have ever been. You take your time to digest it, a breathless and humourless laugh escaping your throat without your own consent. It hurts more, because you are aware that your pain is nothing compared to his.

It won’t be hard, the last.

He is your moon, only there when you need his comfort and feel the drape of his peace in times when you are aching. He is just a moon, a fragment of the galaxy that would forever remain insignificant. You are his sun, a raging fire that burns him the closer he gets.

You paint him red and black with your heat and grey as he dissolves into ashes, flames engulfing his being when he dares take a step closer to you, to love you more. You are the sun and yet all he feels is the chilling burn on his skin anytime he wraps his arms around your frame.

One more day for all our times.

“I need you.” He whispers one more time, palm cupping the side of your face and angling his body to face yours. His heart quivers when he feels you nuzzling into his hold, still oh-so madly infatuated by your expressive eyes that look at him, mirroring the tear in his soul. You’re hurting just as much as he is. Why?

“I don’t.” And it crushes you to say those words at him, not that it ever could ever match his rueful gaze, heart far too battered to shed any more tears. He leans in, closer towards the sun and willing to let his wings melt off as if he is Icarus himself, closer to graze his chapped lips on your softer ones. He doesn’t know if he’s freezing or burning, oddly enough.

Why aren’t you pulling away?

I know we’re gone, but ‘gones’ are priceless.

“I miss you.” He reaches his hand to caress your hair gently. You look away, “I’m still here.”

He deflects, “No, you are not. I miss you.”

Ah, there it is, another crack on the glass. He misses you, the one that is gone with the wind. He misses the you that is no more, yet loves the you that remains just as much. He is puzzling and yet, as open to read as your favorite book. “I miss us.”

Be brightly sad, leave this mess.

He smiles and so do you, his light far too contagious not to mimic despite the roar of the engine you note hearing as you get lost in his eyes. He has pretty ones, you know, but the spark isn’t there to twinkle at you anymore. “Let’s be happy again.”

You stare at his hands on the wheel, thinking back on the life you had led so far. It’s not hard to accept, nothing ever has been. And so you nod, reassuring him as his foot presses on the pedal, shifting gears, “Okay.”

Warm my name, the last.

“Let’s try again.” You breathe in, looking at the moon that was finally uncovered for one final time, listening to the crashes of the waves beneath the cliff that seem to be getting closer and closer.

“Let’s be happy again, Jake.” He smiles, pure, lips stretching into a wide grin as the edge comes closer and closer the more he presses on the pedal, speeding. It’s there, the edge, he notices.

He looks into your eyes one last time and then you’re soaring far above the merciless waves for a few peaceful seconds that feel like an eternity. One more night, for the last time in this broken and shattered world.

for eternity in your next.

[xseaxwitchxkpop]

NSFW Alphabet: Sub!Seonghwa Edition

A/N: idk anyone in Ateez who pushes the catboy agenda more than hwa and this precious soul just makes me have cute aggression. Lemme just remind everyone that stage presence ≠ bedroom preference, so he might be a demon on stage but I personally think he's very far from dominant in the bedroom. Also this is framed for a femme!presenting reader.

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

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

A very clingy baby! Even though he's the sub, he would want to hold you instead of the other way around; when you're cleaning up, give him a plushie to snuggle because he just feels very happy holding something. He would also have the most sparkly eyes ever, looking at you with pure love and adoration. He'll also be very hungry, so always have some food on hand and be prepared to be fed by him because "you need it, too, I don't care if you're my domme, lemme feed you and show you my love!"

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He's fave part on himself is probably his eyes because he knows how expressive they are for him and how transparent they are -- his eyes always betray his true emotions and considering he's a more private person, he likes this. His fave part on you would be your breasts, but not in a sexual way; whether you're part of the itty bitty titty committee or big titty gang, he likes them as a comfort thing, groping them or sucking on your nipples, it's very calming and relaxing for him!

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

He loves his face to be covered in either pussy juices/"cum" (since, ya know, pussies don't ejaculate lmao anyway) or use fake cum (or real cum if you have an actual dick) to cover his face and/or inner thighs, it'll get him going like nothing else. He also loves seeing his midsection painted with his own cum and also eating his own cum.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Every once in a while, he likes to fuck his plushies. No one would suspect this because he takes much care in cleaning them immediately afterward, so they keep their softness and hugability. He's recorded himself doing it a few times but always either deletes the videos or keeps them in a separate, unsuspecting folder in his phone; he's thought about sending them to you but never could bring himself to do so.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

He's had a few hook ups but most of them have been pretty vanilla as many hook ups tend to be, he knows what he's doing especially with that tongue of his.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Probably missionary, with you on your back and him fucking you. He can easily kiss you, suck on your neck or nipples, and you can easily grab his hair roughly, pull him in closer, scratch his back with your nails, and you two can make intense eye contact. Yeah, that's his favorite position.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

He's more passionate about it than anything. He likes it rough but not necessarily fast, and he likes it soft but not necessarily gentle. It's a very delicate balance that he prefers most of the time and can be difficult to pin down when the mood has to be forced from either of you -- when that happens, he rather not have sex at all.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Trimmed, doesn't bother to shave and he doesn't care what you do; bush, no bush, trimmed, shaved, waxed, whatever. However, he likes it when you shave for him down there as a sweet bonding experience, nothing kinky or sexual.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

He's very sincere and very intense during sex, especially with someone he's romantically involved with because he's not the most open person and, like Yeosang, takes some prying open emotionally so when he shares that emotional part of himself and trusts that other person, that translates directly to the bedroom. He can be a little goofy if he's particularly happy that day, like giggly kisses n' shit, but otherwise very sincere, very intense.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

If he jacks off, you know about it because he sends you audios of himself getting himself off, complete with moans, whimpers, groans, muffling himself, and him cumming in the end of it. He never sends videos, though, because his ass has a voice kink. He masturbates semi regularly just because he has a high sex drive and you're not always available so he temporarily satisfies himself.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

So, this man, has some kinks that get me thinking. He has an oral fixation for sure, so anything involving his tongue; he definitely has a breeding kink like hard-core "let me breed you, mommy/daddy, I wanna give you babies" breeding kink, more so than San; temperature play; pegging/anal play; cock rings; nail scratching; biting/marking; kitten play; shibari; restraints; voice kink; ASMR kink.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Hmmmm, maybe the bedroom? He doesn't really have a favorite place to do anything because each place brings a different kind of thrill for him, so anywhere he can look at and easily imagine you commanding him to take you or you taking him is his favorite place. His least favorite place is the shower because the water washes away the lube and is just generally an annoying interruption.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Doing a sexy, feminine dance for you. Sexy girl group concepts? He learns the choreo and dances it just for you; turns him on because he enjoys you intently watching him while being just out of reach. Rubbing your hand up and down his thigh, no matter how innocent, will also turn him on greatly. Also if you cook for him -- it can be as simple as ramen but as soon as he sees that you cooked for him, he's ready to pounce you and be at your every command.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

I don't think he would be into piss play or scat play (absolutely no hate to people who are into this lol) but I think he wouldn't like them just because he's a bit of a clean freak and all he would see is a mess to clean up and that would definitely ruin the mood for him. Another definite turn off of his is extreme pain; he likes a little bit here and there, like slapping his ass and thighs, nail scratches wherever you scratch him, but flogging and riding crops are a no go for him.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

He LIVES for giving oral and that's directly from his oral fixation. It keeps his mouth busy plus he gets to please his partner. Again, he also loves his face covered in cum and/or pussy juices, so oral is definitely such fun for him!

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Moderate. He likes it a little faster than slower, but not exactly fast, if you get what I'm saying. He likes to feel you and you to feel him, so he wants it on the slower side of things but a slightly fast pace will be suitable for the most part. Only every once in a blue moon would he want you to fuck his brains out or to fuck yours out.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Quickies involving penetration? Nah, not a fan. Quickies involving oral? Sign him the fuck up. He wants to see how fast he can get you to orgasm with just his tongue and since you derive such pleasure from it as well, you let him take on this challenge.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

As long as extreme pain is not involved, he's game for a lot of things. He's always wanted to try semi public sex, voyeurism, and submissive cuckolding, but he would only try this with one of his members since he trusts them quite a lot.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

I think he could probably go two, three rounds, maybe four if he has a crapton of energy for God only knows what reason. He has experience, jacks off sort of regularly, so he can last a good while in bed while being pounded into or pounding into you.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He's got dildos of varying sizes because he, like San, is also a size queen. He has a couple of buttons plugs and some vibrators, along with handcuffs and bondage rope. He has a couple pairs of kitten ears and a matching choker and butt plug.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He likes to tease, but not in a bratty way. It's a very sweet way, like poking your cheek and rubbing it like a cat as he strokes your inner thigh and ghosts your genitals, teases you with food like "hey if I make this dish, maybe you can fuck my ass tonight" and he'd act all cutesy about it, he'll make suggestive comments while making direct eye contact, and wiggle his butt sometimes.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He's a happy medium between San and Yeosang. Hwa makes noise - groans, whimpers, moans, mewling - but he isn't loud with them per say, they're very throaty noises and he uses his chest to make them so they're low in volume but frequent.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He quite prefers the natural noises of sex between you two rather than having a playlist or any other background noise going. He's sensitive to noise in the first place and the background noise could overwhelm him in a bad way.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

He's average. Nothing too long, nothing too girthy, but boy does he know how to use his average dick regardless.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

He has a bit of a high sex drive. Think like smack in the middle of average horny and extremely horny and that's Hwa. He can go like three days without sex with no complaints but coming up on a fourth day may be a little bit hard for him.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He becomes quite sleepy afterward, wanting to snuggle you to fall asleep while you rub his back up and down and he holds you and squeezes you like his personal plushie. It takes a while for him to actually fall asleep, but that's because it takes him a while to calm down enough to lull into a peaceful state of rest before succumbing to sleep.

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO CONTINUE THE DROWNED SERIES, IT'S SO DAMN GOOD

Thank you for the ask, it makes me excited to see that people are still interested.

Drowning Part 10

@shydragonrider @asrasmysoulmate @sunflower1000

This one is kind of short, and probably makes no sense, but it starts to explain the story line a bit more and what my goal is with Supervillain (and perhaps the reason I am not having him rescued... yet 👀). Anyway, not edited.

Ask games for this series are here and here.

Masterlist

Warnings: referring to person as "it", altered state of reality, dehumanization, muzzled, talk of surgery, weaponizing a human, fear

~

"Okay thank you for your cooperation," the director said as he stopped the recording. He looked up, smiled, and began to pack away his things- an array of various instruments to enable both Villain and Hero's voices to be clearly heard all the way at the Hero Facility.

"Yeah well, I expect my pay within the next two days," Villain crossed his arms and swung his leg over top of the other one.

"That may not be-"

"Director. I am doing this for you guys. I have my record cleared, Hero in my custody, and a billionaire. I don't need to this for you guys."

"But you are in love with the cash," Hero chimed in, rolling her forestry green eyes. Not with attitude or snarky annoyance, but out of pure loathing.

Villain shot her a glare the second she closed her mouth and stood up, pacing. "I want my pay, fifty-thousand for a mere conversation isn't something you come by everyday," he said, rubbing his hands through his blonde mane.

"Yes but-"

"The only reason it was fifty-thousand," Hero interrupted the director. "Is because you pushed it that far." She didn't exactly understand her exasperation. After all, she agreed to do this with him- not that she had a choice. She was, in fact, thankful for him for breaking her out of the facility, even to the point of restoring friendship.

"Well they consented..." Villain's voice trailed off as he stopped his aimless walking. He sneered, a mischievous look dawning on his face. "I could, just for the record, break Supervillain out of his cell easily. Actually, I bet a novice could."

The director stiffened, fingers tapping the screen on his phone, prepare to call the authorities. Hero smiled slightly. After her aided escape, the heroes didn't bother to recapture her or Villain. And it was all because her rescuer threatened the Hero Facility if they tried to reclaim her. It was like he controlled the heroes- and maybe in a way, he did.

"Okay you will get the money! Write him a check or cash him over some. I don't care, just give it to him."

Villain snickered at the director's desperation and fear.

Hero watched as a young girl scribbled a check and handed it to Villain. Then, after than transaction, the whole team wrapped up and left without another word.

"Hmm," Villain said, eyeing the check he possessed.

"What do you want for dinner?" Hero asked, repeating the lines her current maid position required of her- not that she had to, Villain was not strict enough to enforce rules, but cleaning and cooking seemed to put his explosiveness at ease.

"Nothing. I have a date."

A date?!

"You have a girlfriend?" Hero chuckled. "Who is the unlucky damsel?"

"That's besides the point, but she is quite pretty."

"How long have you been dating?"

"This is our third date within the course of two months."

Two months... that was duration of time since she and Supervillain were kidnapped.

"Not that consistent then," Hero commented instead of voicing her curiosity.

"She works as a nurse, so she is quite busy," Villain replied, folding the check and placing it in his jean's pockets.

"I see," Hero replied. "Where is your date? Please tell me you are not taking her to McDonald's."

"That coffee date in the park sounded great," Villain replied. "Then I was thinking Taco Bell."

"No, no, no!" Hero scolded, pushing herself to her feet. "You are not taking this poor girl on a date to a fast food restaurant. You are a billionaire, Villain. Take her to one of those places where they serve an ounce of food for thirty dollars and spoil her."

Villain blushed, pulling at his fingers nervously. "You know a couple months ago I thought I would be taking you on a date."

"Me too," Hero sighed, placing her hands on her hips.

"I guess life took a turn, didn't it?"

"Yes," Hero replied, extending her arms and wrapping Villain in an embrace. Before she let go, she whispered:

"Torture was in that turn to, wasn't it?"

Villain's muscles tensed, he coughed and pulled away. "See you tonight," he said and ran up the stairs to go get changed.

《~~》

All at once, a piece of light, a string of consciousness sprouted through the dark unconsciousness of the patient's mind. It swirled, bombarding lidded eyes with intolerable brightness. They strained, trying to shut, but it was as if the motor lost control- or gained control, depending on which side of the metaphor you are one.

Then the light formed into various shapes, some holding objects of humanoid form whereas others were cubical, rectangular and circular- making the world around the patient pixelated and blurry. Colors rounded to the basis of their hue- cyan swirling into blue, pale yellow whisking itself into an off-white- until the world was a pallette of bland coloring.

The noise, lolling in a sense, but also increasingly obnoxious. Beeps and rings, rumbles and grumbles, but all the vowels and consonants equaled a series of off-tune words, some faded, others marked with clarity.

Not safe, were the only cognitive thoughts. Not safe not safe not safe. He tried to thrash, anything to get away from the looming danger, though his protruding limbs were too weak, will devoid of any resolve.

More sounds rumbled and purred around him as equally slow restraints grappled at his arms and legs- or were they fast paced? The man didn't know. The perception between reality and unreality was dim, as was his ability to process sleed and direction. Heck, he didn't even know his own name, just the anticipated danger.

He coughed, or tried to, some form of blockade in his mouth inhibited any sound, cough or otherwise, to escape. Tears pricked at his eyes, later streaming down his cheeks- he wanted to go home. Home to that dank apartment that couldn't seem to leave his very intellect. He wanted home, needed home...

The shapes around him once again began to evaporate, but this time instead of mixing into like shades and tones of color, they all shifted to one mass of brown-colored mud before it all vanished into blackness again.

《~~》

"Vitals?"

The doctor's voice ran throughout the room as nurses scrambled to check Supervillain over. The room soon sung with a chorus of "Good".

"Then everyone is dismissed other than Doctor and Medic," a new voice, equally as authoritive yet significantly much more of a feminine type.

All the nurses practically galloped out of the room as a hoard, not daring to look at the woman who just stepped in.

"Leader," the doctor greeted the woman. "What brings you here?"

"I've come to look at the project. I heard it just underwent surgery?" The lady spoke, walking up to the bed where the unconscious patient rested.

"Yes, knee replacement surgery," the doctor replied, joining Leader by the bed. Medic appeared across from them, tenderly rubbing her fingers over the supervillain's hand.

"Fifteen hours on the table," Leader continued to speak, observing Supervillain with contempt in her gaze. "Why?"

"We had to replace the entire knee cap with a newly engineered material made from cells of donors and a type of substance formed from titanium to enhance strength and durability. Then we had to connect the nerves and ligaments to the knee so he can control it like normal."

"Also known as a high-tech prosthetic? Why, may I ask, did my project have to get one?"

"Broken knee..."

"Shattered, Doctor," gray eyes darted around to meet the doctor's humble brown ones. "Not broken, but completely shattered. It needs to be fully operational by the end of the month."

"Ma'am, the recovery is going to be rough-" the doctor tried to protest.

"We have serums for that," Leader groaned, throwing her head into the air.

"It is not safe to drug him with much. His cells and blood need to adapt."

"I don't care. I put a lot of time and effort and money into this project. The enemy is going to launch an attack soon, our spies have gathered enough data to anticipate it by the end of the month. You have been soft Doctor, in his training."

"It's been working," the doctor reasoned.

"It's submission, not training. Ever hear of conditioning?"

"I have done some research into it and I believe that we need to take a more-"

"Yes you are right," Leader smiled. "I don't want a bodyguard. I want a weapon with one, single purpose. Eliminate Hero."

"I don't get that," Medic spoke up, her voice soft, yet filled with courage. "Why get rid of Hero when she is not the enemy?"

Leader chuckled, eyes thinkling. "What an ignorant little girl, so cute though. Did you do your make-up today? Hmm." The baby talk rapidly switched to a more serious tone, "She is a threat, even bigger than this newfound enemy. The moment she joins sides, which we know she will, the odds will be... let's say any attempt to stop them will be suicide."

"We contained her once before..."

"She will be mad, you'll see," Leader acquired a distant look in her dreary gray eyes. "Start weaponizing it. Immediately."

《~~》

Run.

Duck.

Jump.

"I love you."

"Love you more."

Punch.

Supervillain was panting for breath by the time he collapsed on the ground, exhausted to the highest extent. Sweat beaded around his hairline- recently trimmed in a convenient, yet flashy style, with a lightning bolt shaved into the side.

"I love you."

"Love you more."

Supervillain groaned, rubbing shaking hands over his face. Turn it off turn it off turn if off...

Everyday started with a morning workout in the gym. The gym had a track running around the whole thing with obstacles for him to duck under and jump over. The center only had a punching bag and a benchpress, but equally sweaty and daunting.

Suddenly, the loudspeaker rang, signaling that Supervillain could leave.

Once, of course, training was done.

Workouts weren't training, they were extra credit designed to get him further, to get him a higher GPA.

The doctor entered the room, so Supervillain stood up- respect, expected and therefore delivered.

"How many laps?"

"Twenty-five, sir."

The doctor took note of that on his clipboard, frowning before asking his speed.

"5 miles per hour, sir."

This time, the doctor smiled. "Good," he praised, then looked at the benchpress.

"Three hundred pounds," the doctor tapped the dumbbell with his pen, still grinning widely. "Nice work, but yesterday you did three-fiftey."

Supervillain whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. He failed he failed he failed he failed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, proceeding to walk towards the nearby intern to receive the needed correction.

The intern raised her hands, holding a contraption of metal and leather, and slipped it into Supervillain's mouth. He whimpered upon feeling the cold metal slid onto his tongue. A leather strap held it in place, tightly buckled in the back of his head. From that extended more leather that went over his nose. A chain was linked through the nasal strap, more cold metal on warm skin.

Abruptly, he was pulled forward. The metal pinched that nerve- the one that always ached from the commonly given treatment.

The intern pulled him into yet another white room.

Yet this one contained the most dreaded torture implement.

[junicai]

painting.

| summary | Aria moves into the 127 dorms, and does a little bit of bonding with her new leader. 

| word count | 1.5k

| warnings | none

| era | circa. 2016

13. “The paint’s supposed to go where?”

Aria groaned in exhaustion as she bent forwards, various objects falling from the precarious stack she had carried in her arms previously. They bounced and rolled across the floor, one canister of hairspray coming to meet the tip of a man’s shoe from where he was leaning against the open doorway. 

Taeyong coughed out a chuckle at Aria’s folded form, pushing himself off the doorframe to make his way over to her. “Need a hand?”

Aria waved him off with a forced air of nonchalance, still panting heavily despite her best efforts to get her rapid breathing under control, “No, no I’m good. The stairs just tried to kill me that’s all.” 

Taeyong snuck a glance at the closed doors of the elevator, blocked off by a single piece of red signage reading “Out of Order” in bold font. The lift had coughed and spluttered it’s way through the last two months, and had finally given out on its last stand yesterday evening, almost leaving Jaehyun and Winwin trapped inside if they hadn’t decided to take the stairs down.

How unfortunate it was, that the following morning was the day that Aria was due to move in. 

In hindsight, Taeyong probably should have gotten some of the other boys in to help them carry the boxes that Aria had shoved her things into; the sweat was beading at his forehead by the time they had dragged the cardboard through into the living room, and Aria had pulled off her sweater to allow herself to cool down. 

She leant against the wall, breathing through her nose as she chalked up the distance between the living room and her new bedroom to be too far to continue for the time being. 

“Oppa?” the word still felt unfamiliar on her tongue, unused to the honorific. It had been at Taeyong’s request that she used it in the first place, him wanting her to feel comfortable around him; but Aria was still finding her ways around the Korean honorific system, and found herself stumbling over her words more often than not. 

The first time she had tried to use honorifics had ended in Aria having extremely red cheeks, flushed with embarrassment, and Mark trying to explain to her that hyung was the name he used for the older members, and oppa was the one she was to use. 

It had gone a little like this. 

“Ari- Ari, you gotta, like, you gotta use oppa not hyung, ya’know? Because hyung is like, an older brother to a brother, but oppa is an older brother to you? Because you - you’re a girl? An’, and then you’d use unnie for the make-up nooans but I’d use noona, like I just did. So to you, they’re the make-up unnies, and to me they’re the makeup noonas. Johnny hyung, Johnny oppa. Does that make sense?”

Aria had looked at him with the most bewildered face, eyes widened and lips parted slightly. 

From across the room, Taeil had bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, before swooping in to offer an out for poor Mark, who was beginning to delve into another convoluted explanation.

“Yeah, Aria?” Taeyong’s voice came from across the room.

Aria looked up, searching for the taller man and her eyes found him shuffling around in the kitchen, two glasses of water on the counter top. 

“There you go,” he pointed towards one of the glasses. “If one of the others aren’t back soon to help, we might have to drag the boxes in ourselves,” he smiled ruefully. “I knew we shouldn’t have let Jaehyun go out today.” 

Aria thanked him, before picking up the glass with her two hands and turned to the side to drink. 

The silence was buffering, and ate away at whatever comforting atmosphere Taeyong had tried to create. 

It wasn’t that Aria was uncomfortable around him - no not at all. It was just the fact that she knew the boys were being more than accommodating for her, she knew that Yuta was sharing a room with Winwin now because they insisted on her having her own space, she knew that she was toe-ing a barely there line between intruding and just being downright entitled. 

Having voiced these thoughts during the early hours of the night to Donghyuck almost a week ago, Aria knew exactly what kind of spiel she’d be on the receiving end of should she protest the room changes - but that didn’t stop the little pool of guilt from settling in the bottom of her stomach when she snuck a glance around and saw the empty bedroom’s door partially opened, all of Sicheng’s things having been moved out two nights ago. 

“Oppa,” Aria tried the honorific out again, finding that it still felt fumbled out, but from Taeyong’s affirming hum she must have sounded less stilted than the last time, “Do you think you could help me move the box of paints into my room? I can carry the rest, but that box is really heavy, and I don’t want to drop it.”

Taeyong turned around to her, “Yeah no problem, Aria. Which one is it?” 

Aria pointed to the singular plastic box among the cardboard ones; spattered with white and yellow and various other colors. The pair of them made their way over, hands curling around the lip of the box.

“On three?” Taeyong nodded. 

He counted them through before Aria was heaving up her side of the box and Taeyong was slipping his arm underneath it to hold some of the weight steady. They paused momentarily once they had the box in the air, finding a good balance and ensuring nothing inside had tipped over, before Aria began her shuffle backwards. 

“Mind behind you,” Taeyong warned, and Aria lifted her feet over the box that would have tripped her otherwise. 

The small steps they took to bring the paint box into her room felt never ending, and by the time they passed the threshold, both Aria and Taeyong’s arms were shaking lightly. 

“The paint’s supposed to go where?” Taeyong’s voice was breathless, anticipating the moment when he could give his arms a rest.

“Maybe - just in the corner? Over there, out of the way.” Aria jerked her head towards the far corner, on the opposite side of the room of the bed and empty desk. 

The box was placed down with a thud, and Taeyong straightened up - shaking out his arms. Aria sat down harshly on the bed free of coverings, legs beginning to burn from the numerous flights of stairs she had climbed earlier on in the day. Taeyong joined her after a moment, sitting down beside her. 

“You need a hand taking in the rest of your things?” he questioned, turning to look at her.

“Nah,” Aria shook her head. “I might wait a while and get Hyuck to drag them in for me.” 

Taeyong snorted slightly. “You know, I think you’re the only person who can get that boy to do something he doesn’t already want to do.” 

“Jokes on him, I just convince him that it was his idea.” 

The silence settled again, less acidic this time. 

It was broken after a second by Taeyong. “I didn’t know you could paint?” 

Aria cast her gaze over to the stained box in the corner. A dry paintbrush was sticking out the top of it, the bristles clean but the wooden handle covered in splashes of colourful paint - intermittent with streaks of white and black and a mixture of the two. 

“Yeah,” Aria hummed. “I don’t know when I started, I just. Always have, I think.” 

“Did someone teach you? Your parents?” 

Aria coughed to hide the laugh that threatened to break from her chest. “Oh no, no. Youtube taught me most of what I know, I won’t lie. And I’m not, very good - it’s just, therapeutic? Like poetry, but you don’t have to concentrate on finding the right words.” 

Taeyong nodded knowingly. 

Aria supposed he would understand the sentiment; given the hours he spends doing what it is he does in the practice rooms or the recording studios for hours after their ‘official’ days end. She supposed that there has to be hundreds of wordless messages hidden in forty second tracks on the USB stick he keeps on his keychain. 

“You know, Ten is really artistic,” Taeyong begins again. “I never really understood it much - the colours and the images you pull out of nothing - but he seems to. A lot more than I ever could. He gets it a little bit more, I guess. The whole, unspoken words thing. I’d love to know how he did it.”

His eyes had shifted into something sincere now, and he was gazing down at Aria. She got the sense that they weren’t just talking about painting anymore. 

“I’m just saying that, if you ever need someone to talk to - about painting - then I’ll always have an open ear.”

 Aria supposed Taeyong didn’t quite understand what those words meant to her just yet. 

[staysaneathome]

That Day (Afternoon)

(I made another part of that Entity swap WIP, this time with 90% more Melanie King and 30% more Basira Hussain, enjoy) Jon initially had no inkling that this day was going to be substantially different from any other.

Admittedly, there were some differences from his usual day-to-day roamings, but none that hadn’t been true of other days. He was a whole year older, as the Watcher informed him three weeks after his twelfth birthday, but that was ages ago now and he really didn’t feel any different between twelve and eleven.

The Collection was back in town, but he’d managed to avoid them so far, sometimes by the skin of his teeth. Somehow he continued to escape The Man’s prying gaze and the searchers who roamed the streets, some cognizant, some…not. He wondered if the Watcher allowed him to roam free because his status as The Recorder meant it liked him more than the Man, somehow.

Martin hadn’t been at the park for the past fortnight or so, though he’s promised to visit again as soon as he could the last time he was there.  So he could be forgiven of thinking that this day would be no more significant than the last.

And then he spots an eight-year-old girl toddling after one of the searchers.

She’s tall in the way that suggests she’ll be small later in life, with sparkly hair bobbles and the kind of clothes that come from Marks & Spencer or John Lewis or the other too big, too clean stores where the shop people glare at Jon as he goes past.

She’s asking questions of the searcher (who used to be known as Diana, but has lost what made a lot of her her in the flux and flow of information that The Man commands her to find). Questions like, “what do you know about the ghosts I saw on my holiday” and “why is everything so annoying now” and “why are you holding my hand so tight, it hurts” and “are you sure my daddy won’t mind, because he said he was only going to be gone for five minutes” and “hey, are you even listeningto me, you said you’d listen to me?!”

She’s only little, and she hasn’t lived that long, hasn’t got as many stories in her yet. But she’s had an Encounter with one of the Fourteen, and that called the searcher to her like moths to a flame.  Now the searcher’s taking the little girl back to The Collection, where The Man will Ask her about it.  And that will be the End of her.

Jon should turn around and walk away.  It’s sad, but this has happened millions of times, to millions of other people other than this one girl Jon had the misfortune of seeing. He’s so very incredibly lucky he hasn’t been found and dragged back yet, it’d be stupid to give it all up now. He can’t compromise his own safety for someone he doesn’t even know. He needs to turn around and walk away, see if Martin’s waiting at the park for him.

He’s going to turn around. Right now. Right now. Right. Now. Now. Now.

Now!

Jon has never been the largest child. Even when living with his grandmother and getting three square meals a day plus snacks, he’s always remained small and birdlike and bony. He’s not like Martin, who looks like he’d be soft and huggable, or Tommy, who was solid and square when he pushed Jon and stole his books.

But somehow he manages to barrel into the searcher’s arm and rip the little girl up and away with all the strength in his small body.

Of course, that’s when the girl begins trying to claw his eyes out.

“LET ME GO!!” She screams, wriggling so hard Jon almost drops her as he’s trying to run back across the busy road, car horns blaring around them. “WHO ARE—WHAT ARE—PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I'LL BITE YOUR NOSE OFF, I SWEAR, I SWEAR I WILL!!”

”Stop MOVING!” He yells back at her once he’s safely hit pavement. “The searcher’s going to catch us both otherwise! I’m saving your life!!”

“I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO, YOU STUPID UGLY HEAD!!” The little girl shrieks back.

Jon considers dropping her and booking it himself for a single moment.

But the searcher’s coming for them, and now she’s seen him too, her pace quickening as the knowledge of how much the Man wants his prized Recorder back resonating in her skull until it overrides even basic instincts of pain and survival.

So Jon grits his teeth as the little girl in his arms tears into his shoulder with her sharp little nails and hauls her with him down the street as fast as he can go.

The Watcher tells him the bus pulling up to the station in front of them has a camera that’s faulty on the second level. There are two family groups that are going from sniping at each other to outright exchanging verbal blows over who deserves to get on first, the parents going red in the face with spittle flying from their mouths and the children pulling faces and calling names as the overworked and underpaid bus driver tries to keep order.

It’s easy for Jon to duck through them and drag the girl up the bus stairs with him, as the conflict below devolves into an outright brawl that masks the eight-year-old’s protests.  The bus doors slam shut, and the bus pulls away amidst the yelling and fighting outside.

Jon sags down in the seat on the relatively empty second level. The only other person seems to be a teenager slumped down across the very back seats far away from them, eyes shut and white headphone wires trailing out from under their hijab.

He stares out of the window at the searcher, whose figure is quickly vanishing as the bus picks up speed and merges into the London traffic.

”Okay.” He exhales, loosening his grip on the little girl’s collar. “I think we’re safe.”

The little girl whirls around.  Her teeth snap shut an inch away from his nose.

Jon presses himself against the window. “What is wrong wi—hey! Stop it!!”

“No!” The girl yells back. “That lady was gonna tell me why everything is being so annoying, all the time now and how to make it stop, so I can be happy again, and you, you went and ruined it!!” She’s still flailing, still trying furiously to claw him open, but there’s a frustrated edge to her voice and tears brimming in her eyes.

”I did not!” Jon protests vehemently, trying to keep a grip on her so she doesn’t give him anymore scratches like the one trickling blood down his arm. “She didn’t want to help you! She just wanted to take you back and make you tell your story so the Collection could eat up your life!”

”Liar! How would you know?!” The girl accuses, one of her sparkly hair-bobbles coming undone.

”Because that’s what they tried to do to me.” Jon hisses. “But they didn’t eat all of me, just…just made me into something like them. A monster that eats stories.”

The girl actually pauses for a moment to digest this.

“Are you going to try to eat me, then?” She asks, warily, arms tensing again. “If you’re a monster like that lady.”

”Of course not!” Jon scoffs, then adds, “Eating someone yucky like you would make me sick.”

The little girl goes bug-eyed and she tears her arms out of his grip to cross them over her chest ”I would not! You take that back!”

”No.” Jon says gleefully, then immediately regrets it when the little girl kicks him in the shin. “Ow! Stop that!”

”You started it.” The girl replies moodily, shifting to sit down in the seat properly and swing her legs.

Jon finally turns away to inspect the damage he’s sustained, pulling his shirt away from his arm and hissing as it makes his shoulder burn with pain. The Watcher tells him he needs to disinfect the cuts and maybe have a few stitches if he wants it to not get worse, but he can’t exactly get those easily where he is right now.

”If you’re a monster, why do you bleed like a normal person?” The girl pipes up behind him. Her eyebrows are furrowed.

”Why do you care?” He mutters, shooting her a dirty look.

The girl puffs out her chest, which looks a little odd, given that she’s now sitting on her hands. “I’m gonna be a ghost hunter when I’m grown up. Like in that one movie, but I’ll be even cooler and have a magic sword instead of a weird gun, and I’ll beat up all the ghosts and monsters on my own, except the nice ones, because they’ll be my friends. I’m Melanie, by the way. What’s your name? Do monsters have names?”

”Yes.” Jon replies. He enjoys the silence for a moment.

Melanie’s cheeks puff out like a pufferfish as she glares at him. “Okaay, so what’s your name?”

”Jon.” Jon says curtly.

”That’s not a very good name for a monster.” Melanie informs him.

”I wasn’t always a monster.” Jon tells her sourly. “Just like you.” The little girl doesn’t ask him many more questions for a long time after that.

”What are you looking at?” Melanie says suddenly as the bus is slowing to its fourth stop since they got on.

Jon twists away from the window. “I’m just trying to see if the searcher’s followed us—”

”Not you.” Melanie replies impatiently. “You. What are you looking at?”

The back of Jon’s neck goes cold. He twists around slowly.

The teenager in the hijab isn’t slumped across the seats. She’s half-way to standing, and staring right at them. Her eyes are cold and intent.

They stay like that, frozen for a moment.

”Melanie, run!!” He screams.

Melanie throws herself towards the stairs as the teenager explodes into motion behind them. Jon can feel her fingers try to snag on the back of his shirt as he thunders down the stairs, only narrowly missing him as he half-falls the rest of the way down and pelts out the bus doors to the sound of the driver yelling indignantly.

One of Melanie’s sparkly bobbles has fallen out and her hair is drooping down as she turns to grab onto Jon’s hand while they run.

”Stop!” The teenager yells. “Hey!” She’s gaining on them.

Jon tries to Know where they can go to lose her, how they can escape, but the Watcher just gives him useless tidbits instead; that man with the skateboard there has undiagnosed intermittent explosive disorder, this lady jogging over up ahead served two tours as a nurse in her youth to pay for her medical degree, that young person with the pins on their bag here is coordinating a flash mob on his phone to protest—

“Go away already!” Melanie complains on a furious exhale, and kicks a discarded can in her path hard.

It rockets away from her, bounces off a rubbish bin, and somehow jams in between the wheels of the man’s skateboard. He yelps as he falls, but roars when the teenager chasing them runs directly into him without slowing down, rising to block her path. The lady jogging furrows her brow with alarm, and races forwards to put herself between what she sees as a hostile and a young civilian in need of her protection, inadvertently preventing the teenager from advancing in her attempts to diffuse the situation and keep the man from lashing out at her physically. The person on their phone looks up and sets their jaw, switching it to video record the conflict and grabbing the teenager back even further, acting as a shield and spit inflammatory accusations that do more to raise tempers and attract attention than to resolve anything.

Jon watches all this with rapt eyes, drinking it in until his hand is jerked hard and he almost falls over.

”C’mon!” Melanie yells, irritated and scared and guilty and angry, the mark of the Slaughter almost an audible note to her voice, her footsteps. “We need to get away from those creepy ladies, find somewhere to hide, where do we go?!”

To hide.  Jon tightens his grip on Melanie’s hand and changes their course slightly, heading towards a place he frequents regularly.

”Follow me,” He gasps, trying to ignore the stitch in his side. “I have a friend.”

[hermannsthumb]

If you’re still doing summer prompts, could you do graduation for newmann?

15. Graduation

from (the very old) summer prompts meme here

enjoy some awkward pre-canon jaeger academy ~ROOMMATES~!! also I am pretty sure this message/prompt is from at least a year ago (if not TWO) but it was only today that I really thought about what I wanted to write for it and wrote in like a FRENZY. content warning for alcohol (no like intoxication tho)

--------

It was hardly to be expected that Newton would be mature over the whole thing, but Hermann finds himself in a perpetual state of agitation the final weeks of their enrollment at the Jaeger Academy anyway. Newton was very young, Hermann knows, when he graduated from university (at least he was young the first time he graduated), and he can only assume the man took it rather hard that he didn’t get to have the proper send-off he thought he deserved—all-night parties with kegerators and beer pong, one-dollar shots at dive bars, trips to the seaside with classmates. One wasn’t likely to invite someone who’d barely breached his teens and still had braces to those sorts of things, after all. It’s the only reason Hermann can think of as to why Newton has spent the month—the whole month—popping open champagne at all hours and organizing spin-the-bottle in the base rec room and generally being a great bloody nuisance to everyone they have the misfortune of sharing their graduating class with. Over-compensation is what it is.

Having Newton as his bunkmate adds a special level of unbearableness to it all. At least—and Hermann does thank the stars above for this—tomorrow marks the end of a very miserable month. A very miserable two years.

“Everyone is going to be there,” Newton says. He’s wearing an oversized pair of neon sunglasses over his regular glasses, for some reason, those abhorrently dated kind with the slatted lenses, and dangling from his left hand are two bottles of pink champagne. A bag of plastic cups dangles in the other. “Everyone. Not even just the k-scientists—the techs, the ranger trainees, the—”

“That all sounds very thrilling,” Hermann says, hefting a stack of button-ups into a cardboard box he’s labeled Clothing – Gottlieb. “You’re aware, I assume, that we’re meant to be moving out tomorrow, and you’ve not touched anything on your side of the room?”

“Dude, I have sooo much time,” Newton says. Hermann realizes now the seal on one of the champagne bottles is broken—which might explain some of Newton’s suspiciously carefree mood. “Besides, I barely even have that much shit here.”

This is patently untrue. Newton’s clothing is overflowing from his dresser; manga and monster action figures and vinyl records clutter up every inch of its top surface; there’s laundry under his bed, on his bed, his guitar picks on Hermann’s bedside table, dirty mugs on his own, half-finished reports and articles scattered over his desk… “Fine,” Hermann says. “But I haven’t finished, at any rate, so I won’t be joining you.”

Newton flops down next to him on his bed; the stopper on the opened champagne bottle wobbles dangerously, and Hermann moves quickly to push it in more firmly so he doesn’t have to add a load of bed linens to his To-Do list. “I think you need to unwind, roomie,” Newton says, grinning up at him. Both pairs of his glasses have slipped off his nose and onto Hermann’s bedspread. “We’ll have all day tomorrow after the dumb ceremony to pack, and you haven’t taken a break in, like, seven years. You’ve earned one.”

Hermann doesn’t want to take a break, or at least not in the way Newton is suggesting. Hermann wants to finish packing up his half of the room, then his designated workspace in the large k-science laboratory, and then take a shower to wash himself of the experience of being Newton Geiszler’s roommate and labmate for two years too many. Noticing his reticence, Newton adds, pleadingly, “Come for one hour? Just to do two shots with me? One shot?” He blinks, half-blind without his glasses, as if trying to discern whether or not Hermann looks likely to give in. “No shots? C’mon, Hermann, you owe me.”

“Owe you?” Hermann says, frowning.

Newton nudges him with the stack of plastic cups. “Y’know—for the sake of your ol’ penpal,” he says.

The reference to their letter-writing days jars Hermann, and despite his best efforts not to show it to Newton, his hand trembles as he deposits an unopened pack of white socks into his laundry box. He thinks it may be the first time either of them have brought it up in the entirety of their time at the Academy. It’s certainly the first time either of them have admitted to even the slightest notion of a shared history since—a week into their first year here, at an ice-breaking event for their kaiju-science peers—Newton had rolled his eyes exaggeratedly when someone attempted to introduce him to Hermann and said “Yeah, Dr. Gottlieb and I go wayyyy back.” Hermann did not admit so at the time, but the use of the honorific in place of his first name had been unexpectedly wounding—ridiculous of him, considering he made a point of referring to Newton in precisely the same way. Perhaps that little slip of the tongue had been why they were assigned as roommates scarcely a week later. An assumed friendship.

Hermann picks up Newton’s thick eyeglasses and carefully slips them back onto Newton’s upside-down face. Newton wrinkles his nose when Hermann’s thumb accidentally brushes against its tip. “I just don’t like parties very much, Newton,” he says. He’s not sure when Dr. Geiszler became Newton to him, or rather, became Newton to him again.

“Then we can do something together here,” Newton says.

He sits up and pushes the sealed champagne bottle at Hermann’s chest. “This is for you, anyway. Graduation present. Bury the hatchet, you know—odds are pretty fucking high we’re never gonna see each other again, so there’s no use hating each other forever.”

In spite of his better judgement, Hermann takes the champagne bottle. One drink won’t hurt him. And anyway, it might be a little relaxing—so long as it’s one drink only, because he still has an entire two years’ worth of research to pack away in his laboratory desk. “Do you know where you’re being assigned already, then?” he says. He was under the impression they wouldn’t find out until after the ceremony tomorrow—bit last minute, he supposes, but it’s not as if they’re making their own travel arrangements, and nearly all of their colleagues have already brought their families along with them to the Academy base.

“Nah,” Newton says, “but I wrote down a lot on my request form.” He motions for Hermann to hand him back the bottle, and he begins unscrewing the wire holding down the cork. “Tokyo—Peru—" He moves the bottle away from the bed as he pops it open with a grunt of effort, and a small bit of foam spills to the cement floor. Hermann grits his teeth and tries not to worry about cleaning it up later. “—Los Angeles. I worked on one of my PhDs in California, you know, a few weeks one July. Sea sponges. I learned how to scuba dive, I loved it—I think that’s one of the first things I’m gonna do if—once this is all over.”

He looks strangely maudlin as Hermann pours himself some champagne into one of the plastic cups and suffers through a sip. Too sweet. Hermann’s never liked sweet wines—bloody awful hangovers the next day, if one isn’t careful.

“Their entire ecosystem would be destroyed now, I guess,” Newton says. “Kaiju blue poisoning.”

“Whose?” Hermann says.

“The sea sponges’,” Newton says.

Hermann sips more of the champagne so he won’t have to respond. “I requested Anchorage,” he offers. Among plenty others, but he knows Newton will get a kick out of ribbing him for the dreary Alaskan climate. It seems to work—Newton lights up at once with a loud snort.

“Of course you did, ya weirdo,” he says. “Have fun freezing your ass off.” He takes a sip right from his bottle, then holds it out to Hermann. “Well, Hermann—you were an annoying lab partner, an even more annoying roommate, but a decent penpal, and I’m—well, I’m not gonna miss you, but I guess I can’t say I hate everything about you. Good luck with the jaegers. Good luck to whoever gets stuck with you next, actually, yikes, don’t envy them! Here’s to never seeing each other again.”

Hermann rolls his eyes, but knocks his plastic cup against Newton’s bottle. “Best of luck to you, as well,” he says. “And here’s to—well, surviving.”

“That’s cheerful,” Newton says.

They drink to their toast. Down the hall, someone puts on loud music to a chorus of equally loud cheers. Hermann reckons that’ll be Newton’s party. “You ought to head over there,” he says, turning briefly to glance at their door, which Newton has left cracked open. “Otherwise, they’ll miss—”

Newton kisses him.

Hermann doesn’t necessarily kiss back, but he doesn’t push Newton away, either. He’s more bewildered than anything. He might’ve expected this sort of thing to happen years ago—years, and years ago, before that dreadful first meeting in some dingy little Berlin coffee shop, back when a new letter from Dr. Geiszler slipped through his mail slot could make his heart thud like nothing else—but they’ve hardly been anything to each other but colleagues these past two years. Not even quite colleagues—that implies a civility they don’t possess. Professional academic rivals. He was under the impression that the man hated him, that the data when they underwent standard tests for drift compatibility was merely a fluke.

His empty cup falls from his hand and clatters to the floor. Newton slides a hand up Hermann’s jaw and keeps kissing him; he makes a small, needy noise into Hermann’s mouth.

“Newton,” Hermann finally mumbles. “What are you doing?”

Newton pulls back. A brilliant red flush is creeping steadily across his face, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before anything comes out. “Oh, shit,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”

He stumbles to his feet. “Shit, dude, I’m sorry, I like—”

“Newton?” Hermann repeats. He feels about as dazed as Newton looks; he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to say. His lips are tingling from the kiss. “I—?”

“I’m gonna go to the party,” Newton stammers. “Sorry, dude, I—misread signals? I guess? Um—” He steps on Hermann’s forgotten cup and skids slightly, catching and righting himself on one of Hermann’s bed posts. The movement knocks Hermann’s cane (hooked there) to the floor, and Newton must bend down twice before he succeeds in picking it up. “Just—um—okay, bye.”

Hermann stares at the door for a long time after Newton leaves. Tomorrow marks the end of their two years cohabitating and working together—as Newton said, odds are high their paths will never cross again. Hermann had been counting down the days to their graduation in a little calendar he keeps pinned neatly to his wall, daydreaming endlessly of the first thing he would do once he was free from the suffocating cloud of Newton Geiszler’s presence—daydreaming of the like-minded non-Geiszlerian colleagues he would meet at his Shatterdome assignment, of a neat and orderly laboratory devoid of kaiju residue over every communal surface, of his own living quarters. He should be excited. He should be ecstatic.

Hermann touches his mouth and feels nothing but strange sort of hollowness in his chest—a black hole enveloping all else.

---

He doesn’t see Newton until their graduation ceremony the next day, an affair made all the more awkward by the seating chart’s alphabetical arrangement ensuring Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb will be knocking elbows for the full two hours. Newton is late by nearly twenty minutes, and rushes in with badly unkempt hair and a backwards tie: Hermann has a feeling he’d been lurking outside their quarters and waiting for Hermann to leave before he dared dart in to get himself ready. He wonders where Newton spent the night. He wonders why he even cares. Likely passed out on the rec room floor after the party, judging from the confetti stuck to his left cheek—or perhaps he’d finally made a move on the fellow kaiju-biologist Hermann recalls him extolling the physicality of on more than one occasion, and spent the night with him—or perhaps he did neither, and merely wandered the base for hours, sleep evading him as it’d so entirely evaded Hermann. They don’t acknowledge each other for the whole of the ceremony.

Hermann is summoned to the office of the jaeger science program head (a severe woman with short hair) later that evening, shortly after he finishes taping up his very last box of papers in the vacant laboratory. He’s handed a small manila folder containing the details of his Shatterdome assignment: Hong Kong, as it turns out. One of his requests. “Since you and Dr. Newton Geiszler have displayed a strong work ethic when partnered together,” the woman begins, “as well as a very high level of drift compatibility—���

Hermann’s eyes snap up from his folder to her face.

“—we’ll be assigning him to Hong Kong’s kaiju science division along with you, under the assumption that together you will only continue to produce positive results.”

“Pardon?” Hermann says, weakly.

Newton has finished boxing up a majority of his belongings when Hermann drags himself through the door to their quarters an hour later. He glances at Hermann briefly, embarrassedly, and says, in a small voice, “Hey, Hermann.”

“Newton,” Hermann says.

He walks over and sits down heavily atop the pile of sheets on his stripped bed. Something pokes at his thigh, and he sets aside his cane to fumble through the sheet bundle to discover what: Newton’s forgotten neon shuttered shades. The sight of them sends his stomach twisting up in knots. “Oh, hey,” Newton says, as he wraps a Godzilla action figure with bubble wrap. He nods at the manila envelope clenched between Hermann’s fingers. “Where are they shipping you off to? I’m going to Hong Kong—should be cool. I’ve never been before.” He places the little Godzilla in a carboard box. Newt - Junk! the side says in purple Sharpie. “My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon—you’re right, I definitely should’ve started packing earlier, I have no idea how I’m gonna get this all done by then.”

Hermann stares at Newton in poorly-concealed amazement as he continues to ramble on about how to pack up his instruments and whether or not they’ll let him bring his first-ever kaiju sample with him (he’s attached to it, even though he knows it’s technically the academy’s property, but maybe he can find a way to smuggle it out in his checked bags or something). Does he not know? Did they not tell him? How could they let this fall on Hermann? “Newton,” he says, slowly. “I’ve been assigned to Hong Kong, too.”

Newton freezes. “No fucking way,” he says.

[fanfic-me-up]

Caught In The Crossfire || Todoroki Shouto

Synopsis: You’re caught in the crossfire of one of Todoroki Shouto’s pranks against Endeavor. It’s either play along or risk getting expelled. What’s it gonna be?

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto x fem!reader

Word Count: 4k+

Rating: 17+

Warnings: suggestive humor, suggestive sexual themes (nothing explicit), characters aged up to last year of school (18+)

A/N: This is for @bnhabookclub bingo event! Bingo slot: faking an injury

Big thank you to @unbreakableeiji and @prismaroyal for beta reading! They really helped me stay on track with this one lol

You’re always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like that one guy in the movie Holes that gets sent to juvie for shoes he didn’t even steal. You’re on your last strike, and though the consequences are not as bad as juvie, getting kicked out of the internship course three days before grades go out is just downright cruel. 

You’ve been on edge this whole week, going to class everyday, dedicating at least three hours everyday to studying, and making sure to do everything expected of you at your internship.

Only one more day until finals are over which means one more day until the semester is over and you can get your internship credit. 

And, trust, you are not blaming the universe for putting you in this position for no reason. It really wasn’t your fault. The first strike had been because of that one guy with the electric quirk you now know as Kaminari. The second strike had been because of Count Explodo and his inability to keep his cool for more than three seconds. Ugh. The students in the hero course can be so dramatic sometimes. 

Recovery Girl didn’t want to give you the previous two strikes, in fact, she told you in confidence that you were her best intern, but she had to abide by school policy.

You don’t want to get into exactly what happened, but things were fried and exploded, and let’s just say school property was damaged. And because you were on watch as the intern, you of course, faced the consequences while they got off scot-free because they were “heroes.” 

They’re not even real heroes dammit! They’re heroes in training! Of course that last part is always an afterthought, and people like you in the general course get pushed to the back and forced to clean up the messes of the up and coming “heroes.”

You carefully organize all the documents that Recovery Girl, your supervisor, needs copied, but you barely make it out the door when you bump into a firm chest- your nose colliding with a very hard, very sculpted shoulder. 

“Ouch!” 

The force alone brings you to the ground; the papers you took twenty minutes organizing, raining down on you. You bring your hand up to your nose to check for blood, but thankfully, there’s none.

“Are you okay?” 

You look up at the two-toned boy in front of you who bends down to help you. Your eyes are having trouble deciding where to look. The stark contrast of glacial white and blazing red, and of stormy gray and vibrant turquoise is a lot, but somehow works together in his case. 

You shake your head, gathering your papers quickly so you can get the copies back to Recovery Girl. Of course you’d bump into someone in the hero course. Typical. 

“Let me help you,” he says.

Hands, much bigger than yours, join in the fray of picking up papers. 

You scoff, “Haven’t you helped enough?” 

He freezes, clearly taken aback by your abrasive attitude. You rolls your eyes, collecting the rest of your papers. Because of him, you have to reorganize the papers, and great, there’s a scuff mark on one of them. 

“I didn’t mean to cause any-” 

Half-n-Half doesn’t get the rest out when a deep rumble fills the empty hallway. (Count Explodo came up with that nickname and you can’t help but applaud him for it.)

“SHOUTOOOOO”

Todoroki’s eyes widen, and you see him glance at the door behind you. You scramble to get up and block the door. “Oh no, you don’t, I don’t know what you’ve heard from your little hero group, but you are not getting through this door and dragging me into whatever shenanigans you’ve gotten yourself into this time.” You plaster your body to the door, even though in reality, Todoroki can get in one way or another if he truly wants to.

He looks to the right where the voice came from. The only sign of stress on his otherwise stoic face is the slight arch of his brow, even when the same booming voice shouts his name again. In fact, Todoroki looks like he thrives on the chaos he’s caused for the man who’s scouring the halls in search of him. 

Todoroki takes a step toward you with a hint of a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips. You squint up at him, having no idea what he’s up to, but you already know it’s going to put a damper on what was supposed to be an easy day. 

In a flash, he throws himself to the ground like a freaking drama queen, lying on his back with all of his limbs spread out. “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” 

You gape. 

Did this boy really just life alert you? 

He looks up at you and you want, more than anything, to make a serious dent in that stupidly handsome face. Ugh. 

“You either help me hide from my old man or Recovery Girl finds you turned away a hurt student. Your choice,” He raises his eyebrow in a challenge, knowing full well that as an intern for Recovery Girl, you’re obligated to report any injuries students claim. You’re pretty much on probation so it will be your word against one of the top students in the hero course. 

The next “SHOUTOOO” is a lot closer this time, meaning you have a couple seconds before Endeavor rounds the corner to find you rejecting his “perfect son” who looks to be in serious pain on the ground. Forget worrying about a measly strike, you’d probably get expelled from this school right on the spot. 

You groan in defeat, stepping away to open the door, “I hate you. Now, get in.”

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” he brushes past your shoulder. Wow. He’s seriously the worst. 

You close the door and both of you freeze at the heavy footsteps getting closer. You both breathe a sigh of relief when they carry on down the hallway. Todoroki leans against the counter, hands in the pockets of his pants.

“I’ll be right back. I have to make these copies that are now five minutes late, I wonder why that is...” you sarcastically trail off. All you get is a noncommittal shrug, so you continue with your spiel. “Lie down over there and please, for the love of god, if anyone comes in- and I mean anyone, it could be the freaking League of Villains for all I care, you better act like you’re actually injured. I can’t have another strike on my record.” 

“Strike?” 

You stutter, “N-nevermind. It’s none of your business. Just act like you’re hurt and we won’t have a problem. Or is that too much to ask of a future pro-hero?” You ask in an overly snotty fashion to take attention away from your slip-up. It obviously doesn’t work on someone as intelligent as Todoroki Shouto, but you appreciate how he nods and allows the subject change. 

“Good. I’ll be back in a few,” you head for the door, but turn around for a final warning, “And don’t touch anything or use your quirk.”

“Really?” He crosses his arms, offended that you’re talking down to him like a child.

“You’d be surprised,” you shake your head, thinking back to how you got the previous strikes.

You open the door and jump three feet in the air, papers flying to the ground once more (who knows if you’ll ever get those copies to Recovery Girl at this point.) In front of you stands the No. 1 Hero, and he does not look happy. 

You gulp, papers long forgotten. “Endeavor! Wh-what can I h-help you with… sir?” You make sure to keep the door only halfway open so he doesn’t see Todoroki hiding in the corner.

“I’m looking for my son, Shouto, is he in here?” He tries to step inside, but you close the door further.

“Nope. Not in here, sir, have you tried the admin office yet? He might be in there.”

You can’t help the slight wobble in your voice and you only pray he won’t catch it, but he’s a hero, trained to read his opponent, so what do you expect? His eyes narrow, and you shrink under his intimidating stare, hand sweating against the doorknob.

You really just lied to the No. 1 Hero, and he knows you’re lying. 

“I’ve checked the administrative office, young lady, four times. Now, if you don’t let me in to see my son, I will talk to your superior and have you expelled from this school for insubordination.”

You chance a glance at Todoroki and you understand what he’s trying to say from a simple nod.

“Go ahead and tell him. I shouldn’t have put you in this position.”

You make eye contact with Endeavor who’s flame grows every time his nostrils flare. He takes a deep breath in and you know he’s about to shout Todoroki’s first name which will inevitably alert Recovery Girl. Forget worrying about your internship credit now, you might get expelled at this rate. You’re in too deep, and you pray you’ll make it out still a student of U.A. after this. You say the first thing that comes to mind.

“He’s NAKED!”

Endeavor’s shout gets stuck in his throat and you take the opportunity to keep going.

“Yeah! Totally, just full on... naked… like you can see… e-v-ery-thing.” You wave your hands around your body to drive your point across though your poor gestures only make the situation worse. 

Complete silence takes over, to the point that you can hear Recovery Girl’s typing through the closed door. You side-eye Todoroki who looks at you with a half-smirk, his eyes bright and clearly enjoying this trainwreck of a show from the sidelines. Yep, out of all the lies you’ve told from the previous strikes you’ve earned, this one has got to be the worst by far.

Endeavor growls, “What kinda recovery room are you runnin’? I want to speak to your superior right now.”

Any louder and Recovery Girl will for sure come out to check what’s going on. If she comes out, she will see Todoroki and the jig is up. Your heart skips a beat at the thought.

“Uhh…” 

Since when did it get so hot in here? Oh yeah. Duh. You’re literally a foot away from a guy engulfed in his own flames. You sigh and reluctantly open the door to let Endeavor in, and just when you’re about to call Recovery Girl-

“Dad?” 

A hoarse voice speaks up. 

“Shouto?” 

“Don’t come any closer,” Todoroki croaks.

Endeavor actually listens. 

“I’m…”

Your heart pounds in anticipation for what Todoroki will say next. You hope it’s enough for Endeavor to take his leave. Your head unintentionally moves to catch his whisper and Endeavor does the same.

“I’m…”

It’s like when someone’s on their deathbed and you’re struggling to catch their final words.

“Butt naked.”

You shoot Todoroki a quick glare as he’s struggling not to laugh. These are not the words of a dying man, but an asshole getting a kick out of screwing with his father. 

“Son, put some pants on, it’s not that hard.” You cringe at the awkward eye contact you exchange with the No. 1 Hero. 

“It is.”

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Is he going where you think he’s going? 

You give a curt smile in which Endeavor grants you one of his own before straightening his belt and clearing his throat to respond. 

“I will not stand for another one of your pranks, Shouto, come out now or else-”

“The body’s a mysterious thing.”

Oh my god. Why are you talking? Shut up! 

“It can surprise you in ways you don’t… expect.” You’re not really sure where you’re going with this, but you have already disrespected the No. 1 Hero more times than you can count today so might as well just roll with it. Both Todorokis are looking at you expectantly from their respective places.

“Today, during training, he overused his left side causing his body to.. uhm… overheat. I guess you can say.” You glance at Todoroki who’s looking at you with wide eyes, but you keep pushing through, digging yourself in deeper. You need Endeavor to buy it, else you’re out of an internship or, worse, out of this school for good.

“Quirk side-effects manifest in different ways so it isn’t rare for you to hear about this for the first time, especially since your son isn’t fully acquainted with the left half of his quirk just yet.”

You give yourself a pat on the back because, damn, that was good if you do say so yourself. Endeavor seems to have bought it, too, because a proud smirk graces his usually harsh features. However, the happy go lucky wave you’re currently riding crashes from under you as Todoroki is shooting you the same piercing stare his father was giving you just a moment ago. Damn. The Todoroki’s really know how to make a person feel insignificant with just one look.

“Is that true, son?” 

“...yes”

Endeavor gives a hearty laugh, and you’re so worked up with everything that’s happened in the past five minutes that you can’t help but laugh awkwardly alongside him. 

“You could’ve started with that, young lady, no shame in the bodily functions of a strong, growing man. Those are the famous Todoroki genes at work,” he winks at you.

You force a smile, “Ha ha ha yep…” 

What do you even say to that?

“I’ll come back for you once you’ve handled your problem. Take care, son.” 

Endeavor gives you a polite nod, in which you bow, before he takes his leave. Once the door shuts, you slump against it and take in a few deep breaths to try to stop your racing heart.

You make eye contact with Todoroki from the corner he’s still hiding in, a shadow falling over the right half of his face. All you can see is a fierce combination of red and turquoise. He looks like a carbon copy of the man that was just here. Todoroki steps out of the shadow, and gets close enough for you to see every hurdling ridge of that perfectly imperfect scar.

“You shouldn’t have said that.” 

The heat Endeavor took with him is replaced with a new heat. A different heat. One unique to the boy standing in front of you. You feel it bubbling, rising to the surface of a wicked cauldron that you need to quickly put a lid on before it spills over and you get burned. You fall short of spitting a sarcastic retort. Instead, you find yourself licking your lips and Todoroki tracing the movement with fire in his eyes.

“You know,” he starts, “My mind didn’t go there until yours did.”

“It didn’t?”

Your cheeks burn, embarrassed that your mind was in the gutter when Todoroki’s wasn’t.

He shakes his head.

“But good to know you think about me overheating.” 

Oh no. Maybe you are in too deep. But not in the way you thought. You’re about to screw it and jump his bones right then and there when Recovery Girl’s door opens.

“Y/N, dear, did you make those copies?” Recovery Girl calls out, stopping in her tracks when she sees Todoroki next to you. “What brings you here, Todoroki, are you hurt?”

She races as quickly as her age can take her, going into full healer mode as she inspects Todoroki for injuries. You respond on instinct so you won’t get in trouble.

“Yes! He is very hurt! That’s why he’s here!” 

You nod at Todoroki who takes the cue and immediately clutches his side, giving a convincing groan like he’s in pain. You gotta hand it to him. If he weren’t trying for a career as a pro-hero, you’d suggest he take up acting.

“His body overheated during training, and some not so pleasant side-effects have taken place.” 

“So… hot…” He plays along, a mischievous glint in his eyes directed towards you. He makes sure to raise his temperature when Recovery Girl places her hand on his forehead.

“You’re definitely heating up, but that’s not out of the norm for someone with a quirk like yours. What side effects are you referring to, Y/N?”

You and Todoroki look at each other. You flush as you’re forced to give the same reason you gave Endeavor for continuity’s sake, but this time in explicit detail.

Once Recovery Girl is in the loop, she sends Todoroki to lie down and assigns you to take care of him. You get washcloths and soak them in water like you’re cooling a fever down. Todoroki is not “butt naked,” though he is shirtless. You place the cold compress on his bare chest. Hopefully he doesn’t notice how you squirm in your seat, working the cloth over his skin. His abs glisten as he continues to raise his temperature to keep up the appearance. Your eyes are trained on the task at hand, not daring to look up because you know he’s watching your every move. You can feel his gaze burning into you, branding your flesh with a mark of his own, as heat begins to simmer inside you.

You shake your head. What are you thinking? You’re not… he’s not… there’s nothing going on between you and Todoroki! You refuse to become another one of his fangirls, lining up for the chance to be with him. He’s handsome, sure you’ll give him that, but…you look up and instead of the smug smirk you imagined, there’s a softness to his usually stoic stare, and the heat you once felt melts into a fondness you can’t quite explain. 

Once you finish “cooling him off,” you grab a clipboard and a pen to fill out the forms when you accept patients. 

You stare at each other blankly. Clearing your throat you say, “I think it’s safe to say it’ll be a no for all of them.” He nods, putting his shirt back on as you get up from your seat, about to take your leave.

“Thank you.”

You freeze. From his words, not his quirk. (thank god) 

“It was wrong of me to put you in such a precarious position. I understand your hostility… towards me. Though maybe if you’d allow me to explain myself, I might be able to change your mind.”

You raise an eyebrow. Since when did anyone in the hero course ever care about students in the general course? They’re always in their own little bubble, uncaring if they step on the toes of other students, like yourself, who worked just as hard to get into U.A. So why does Todoroki Shouto, one of the top students in the hero course, care about changing your mind?

You’re weary, but you nod anyway, curious as to what he has to say. 

“My old man is a fucking dick.”

Your eyes widen.

Isn’t bad mouthing your dad, the current No. 1 Hero, bad publicity or something? Why would Todoroki tell you, of all people? You don’t have any more time to think on this as Todoroki continues.

“This morning, he told me we’re taking a trip next weekend to meet the person he plans to set me up with, some American girl. He said it’s good publicity for the family. I’m not stupid. I know when he says, the family, he means himself.” His face twists into a dark grimace and you can tell there’s some deep unresolved issues between him and his father.

“Why are you telling me this?” 

You feel like you overstepped, heard too much about the famous Todoroki family, despite Todoroki, himself, telling you this. 

He stands up from his bed, walking towards you until the tips of his shoes meet yours, and he’s as close as he can get without touching you. He raises his arm to lightly graze his fingertips along your arm, and you curse the goosebumps that immediately rise like a chain reaction. He drags his hand up, reaching the sensitive spot at the curve of your neck, and you let out a soft gasp at the sensation. A shiver runs through you from the cool touch, despite the heat coiling in your stomach, begging to be satiated. A softness pillows his piercing features as he brushes his thumb lightly along the apple of your cheek.

“I want to convince you I’m not the jerk you think I am.”

The scent of freshly cut mint and burning cedar is clouding your ability to think straight. His hair looks deliciously soft, begging to have fingers run through it, and you wish to pull him down and kiss him in the middle of the recovery room. For him to slam you against the wall, and...

You take a step back, pulling away from his caress, before you do something you’ll regret. You have questions that need answers before anything else happens.

“Why are you so hellbent on changing my mind? I’m clearly not in the hero course.”

“Why would that matter?” 

“Because you’re all the same! You’re caught up in your own little world, the spotlight shining on you so bright that you’re blinded to the people around you. If it wasn’t for the students in the general and support courses, you wouldn’t be in the position you are now.”

You hope you didn’t raise your voice loud enough for Recovery Girl to notice. It was already a close call getting this far and you really can’t afford a slip up because you couldn’t put a lid on your emotions. 

You’d have no one to blame, but yourself.

“This is about your strike,” Todoroki states.

The breath rushes out of you.

“What? No, it-” 

You stop mid-sentence. A realization comes to mind causing you to straighten up and look Todoroki in the eye. “You know what? Yes, yes it is about my strike. Two strikes actually.”

Your newfound confidence marches you straight over to Todoroki, poking at his chest in an attempt to intimidate him. (yeah, you’re about as intimidating as a baby squirrel to Todoroki, but A for effort) 

“And who’s fault was it?” your voice rises, “Dunceface and Count Explodo, that’s who! And if your little prank went sour today, it would’ve been my ass on the line!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Your breath catches. He’s just throwing you curveballs left and right, leaving an unsettling feeling in your stomach, because he keeps acting like he actually cares and you’re questioning if maybe he actually does.

“Let me make it up to you,” he says.

You raise an eyebrow, “And how are you going to do that?”

A faint flush adorns his pale cheeks, only noticeable because you’re standing so close. This is the first time you’ve seen Todoroki blush and you’re taken aback at his sudden change in demeanor. 

“I was thinking… we could go to the restaurant you mentioned? Uhm…” he runs a nervous hand through his hair, “In your slam poem last year? You said you always passed by and hope to one day dip a strawberry in the chocolate fountain.”

You’re speechless at the fact that he saw your performance, much less remembered the details. You performed at an open mic event U.A. held at the end of every semester for extra credit. You did a slam poem about childhood hopes and dreams (it was pretty cringe and now that you know Todoroki saw it just makes you cringe even more) but despite the cringiness, all of the details were true. Bella Bistro was a cafe you passed by everyday in elementary school and you remember jumping up and down in excitement when you saw the huge chocolate fountain whooshing gloriously in the middle of the restaurant. 

You look down at the ground to hide your burning cheeks.

“It’s expensive, you don’t… have to,” you mutter.

“I want to.”

Your heart stutters at the earnest look he gives you. A ray of hope sparkling his eyes, so unlike the brooding aura he usually carries.

But you’re still not convinced.

“You’re not asking me out to piss off your dad, are you?”

“You’re just looking for every reason to hate me, aren’t you? Trust me, there are plenty of other ways to piss him off.” His face is stoic, but behind that you can see the mischief brewing, only visible to the people who take the time to read his minute expressions.

Ten minutes ago, you thought the entire hero course was a bunch of narcissistic assholes, but now that you’ve taken the time to get to know one of them, you’re starting to realize that maybe you were wrong. 

Anyone with eyes can see Todoroki Shouto is devastatingly good looking, not to mention, he’s willing to take you to one of the most expensive restaurants in the city? The worst that can happen is it doesn’t work out.

Though you’re secretly hoping it does.

Before you can give your answer, Recovery Girl calls out from her office.

“Are you feeling better, dear?” 

Your eyes widen as you push Todoroki back into the recovery room.

“Quick! Take off your shirt and get on the bed!”

Todoroki raises an eyebrow, “Let me buy you dinner first.”

You don’t have time to be embarrassed. “Just do it!”

Thankfully he obliges, getting on the bed just in time for Recovery Girl to pop in and see you wiping down his chest.

“Much better, thank you,” Todoroki responds to her. She inspects his “injuries” and once she deems him ready to go back to class, she takes her leave to go make the copies herself. You let her know that you’re more than capable of doing it yourself, but she gives you a knowing look.

“Oh, I know hun, but seems like you have unfinished business to take care of,” she winks and walks off.

You gape, your whole body buzzing as you realize she heard your entire conversation and probably gathered that Todoroki isn’t really injured. 

She exits and the silence is deafening in the recovery room. Technically, it should be silent, but for some reason you can’t help but feel out of your own element when you’re met with the intense stare of Todoroki. You can’t even use the excuse of trying to let other people sleep because there’s no one else in here. You glance around the room, playing with the stethoscope around your neck, but each time you chance a look at Todoroki, you’re hit with that same burning look.

“Welp… the jig is up, I guess. You’re free to go, goodbye,” you shoot an awkward laugh, but Todoroki doesn’t indulge you. 

“Your answer?” 

You’re well aware of the fact that he’s still shirtless and it’s doing little in suppressing the uncontrollable urge to kiss him senseless.

Fuck it.

You reach for his hair (yes it is as soft as it looks) and you pull him down as you finally allow yourself to give in and kiss him. His breath hitches in surprise, but he soon relaxes into the kiss. His arms lay awkwardly at his side, like he’s unsure where to put them, so you guide them to your waist. With his bare chest pressed against you, you can feel every hardened ridge rubbing against the thin fabric of your shirt, and you do a horrible job of suppressing a whimper when his tongue flicks hesitantly against yours. You pull away, so you both can catch your breath, keeping your arms wrapped around his neck.

“Is that a good enough answer, Half-n-Half?” You say with a teasing lilt in your breathless voice. 

“Call me Shouto.” 

You shiver at the cool lips ghosting the burning shell of your ear.

He leans away, much too soon for your liking. Throwing his shirt back on, he walks out the door, but not before turning his head to throw one last comment over his shoulder.

“I’ll pick you up at 8 o’clock sharp.”

Sharp? Who the hell does he think he is? Psh. You’ll be ready when you wanna be ready! But you can’t even convince yourself to be mad when you realized you just scored a date with U.A’s most handsome up and coming hero.

You smile at the sudden turn of events today. Sure, it could’ve gone way worse if Shouto’s prank backfired, but it was totally worth getting caught in the crossfire.

[peachy-inserts]

general nsfw for daichi

request: Ms peachyinserts mod, can i please get some of your spicy Daichi headcanons?

warnings: nsfw; kinky as fuck

a/n: ask and you shall receive >:) reposting because i think something messed up the tags and it didnt reach as many people as our posts usually do? thank you for all the nice comments those who saw the original left! you guys really encourage us to keep writing <3

Ok first things first, Daichi tops. No questions, no debates, no. He thrives being the dominant one in bed and even when he lets you ride him establishes himself over you, sometimes not even on purpose; he’s really just a true leader type

He has a very defined v-line and a happy trail that runs down to his cock, well groomed but still a fair amount of hair. He’s slightly above average and girthy; not huge, but certainly big, more thick than he is long though. I’d give him at least 7 inches, enough to be considerably large but not monstrous and feeds into his size kink

He definitely has a thing for names, whether it’s daddy, sir, captain, master, officer - literally any authoritative name will make him twitch and turn him on, and he expects you to be using it for the entirety of the night with punishments if you do so otherwise

You need a safe word with him

Loves stuffing you full while you squirm and cringe at the stretch, coaxing you down and praising you for taking him so well, for being so obedient and letting him rip you apart with patience like a good girl

Is all about marking you. He will go down on your neck and chest and leave as many sweet little bites and bruises as he can before you get needy for him elsewhere and pull him away. He just loves to look down at them when he’s fucking you senseless, it fills him with a sense of pride and makes him damn near feral knowing he’s the only one that gets to see you like this

God, especially on the thighs. I really can’t decide if he’s more of a thighs or tits man, but he loves them both dearly. He always has a hand gripping your thigh while he rams into you and runs his thumb reassuringly over the dark spots he’d left earlier, his other hand leaving new bruises on your hips

Goes absolutely nuts when he’s thrusting into you so hard your whole body is jerked forward and your chest bounces to the rhythm of his cock pumping in and out of you at an impressively fast pace, and it’s his favorite spot to finish on

After long and tiring days of work he’s not above fucking you while wearing his uniform, so long as you agree to call him officer. He’ll finger you with his gloves and degrade you for getting them wet, making you suck the fabric clean before leaning you over his knee to spank you

Handcuffs you to the bed; sometimes it’s just your hands, sometimes just your feet, and sometimes it’ll be both; it’s a gamble

On days when you both have some time to kill he’ll tease you just to cuff you down and leave you helpless with a vibrator while he fills out paperwork, only to come in a half hour or so later after you’ve came several times and finally give you the relief you need

Who knows, maybe he’ll even go gentle if you’ve worn yourself out too much; kinkiness aside, he’s still a very considerate and sweet guy

Loves to see you jerk your hips up towards him while you’re bound and then not touch you, just loves to see you so needy for him and completely helpless, and your every move up to him and him alone

Eats you out while your hands and feet are cuffed/tied and laughs to himself as you struggle against him, unable to close your legs as he overstimulates your clit with his tongue and has you cumming again and again, tears running down your face in the pure bliss and euphoria of it all while begging him to give you a moment to breathe before he’s already slipping another finger back into your abused hole for another round

Another personal favorite of his is to sit you on his lap while he works on case reports and finger you with his free hand, and depending on his mood and just how horny either of you are either praises you or calls you a desperate whore

A fan of thigh riding. Especially loves it when you’re unclothed, seeing just how much of a mess you make on him without him even doing anything. Not to mention feeling you grind against the muscles in his legs is a huge turn on for him, and has his cock twitching only inches away

Y’all make Kuroo out to be the sex god but it’s our man Daichi here no cap he will try literally anything at least once and has an insane sex drive; he can go for several rounds too, always dragging out orgasm after orgasm from you until you’re completely and utterly exhausted

He loves to throw a leg over his shoulder and grip your ass all while getting to penetrate you from a deeper angle, rutting his hips into every little spot within you that has you seeing stars and gushing all over his fat cock in a matter of minutes, crying out whatever name he’s chosen from himself that night and eyes fluttering shut in pleasure

Amazing at fingering. He’s got some thick fingers and although they may not be particularly long they fill you up very nicely and goddamn he knows how to use them. Not a fan of public sex but has fucked you in the back of his cruiser a few times

Records videos of you when he’s hitting it from the back, your knees about to collapse onto the bed and his hand gripping your hair to pull your head back so your fucked out face is just barely visible, mouth open in a fast paced pant and moans slipping past your lips without second thought to which he praises you for; also takes photos of you sprawled out on the rustled sheets once he’s finally done with you, your sweating form glimmering under the dim lights and your body battered and bruised, cum leaking from you and trailing down your thighs. He keeps these for himself and every once in a while when he’s away will send you a video just to rile you up

Not to mention mirrors; he really gets off on seeing himself wreck you, it’s such a huge ego booster for him and just has him pounding into you even faster and if you’re not careful can go as far as to tear your cervix if not just leave it incredibly sore

He really tries the very best he can in aftercare, and whatever horny switch that was flipped inside his head is set back to Normal Daichi and he’s back to your regular caring boyfriend. Always has pain killers handy, lotion for your abused skin, and is always willing to offer you a nice massage after holding you in the same position for nearly an hour. He knows he goes exceptionally rough at times and is always going to make it up to you, making you breakfast when you can hardly walk in the morning without a searing pain ripping through your insides and will draw you a warm bath if need be

Once you’re taken care of though he’s out like a light, only slipping on a clean pair of boxers before pulling you into his chest and passing straight out (probably snoring loudly, he seems like the type)