#i love this story so much you have no idea

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

The final part for The House of Glass! Everyone has a lot to figure out, but progress takes time. Follows from this. This was my first ever complete comic from start to finish, I hope you guys enjoyed the journey!

If you've enjoyed this comic, please consider donating to Aya Yasser, a 19 year old university student from the University of Palestine. She had to pause her studies due to attacks on Gaza. Her 55 year old father is ill and she is trying to evacuate him and her brothers.

You can find her blog @samaagaza

It's like two in the morning right now so I might be a bit incoherent, cw for discussions of racism, homophobia, biphobia, sinophobia and classism

I've really wanted to write Chang as someone who's made to be a perpetual outsider. As a Chinese person born in the UK I've always been made to feel like a foreigner no matter where I go - obviously I am a foreigner abroad but I'm also treated as such in the very country I was born and raised in. I think a lot of east Asian people can relate to being treated as a strange exotic foreigner first and a person second.

As a working class orphan he would probably have been treated as disposable by society at large too. As soon as he's rescued by Tintin in the Blue Lotus he immediately asks why Tintin bothered saving him, and in his letter to Tintin in Tintin in Tibet he writes that he's unworthy of his uncle's hopsitality. We don't get much from Chang as he doesn't make many appearances but it seems he's internalised strong feelings of a lack of self worth. Tintin may have been the first person to recognise his humanity since Chang's birth family passed.

Being queer is also very isolating at first. You're not born into a culture you can reference or make sense of your experiences initially, it's something you have to seek out. I wanted to explore learning to love yourself through others. We're all weird to some degree, we're all in this together!

I genuinely have no clue how I'd follow this up, I have ideas for future stories but I'm not sure what would follow directly from here!

[lemonlover1110]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬

Satoru Gojo

[Chapter 30] Graduation

← Previous Chapter - Story Masterlist

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x f!Reader

Warnings: MDNI, Smut, Fluff

*THIS IS IT thank you all so much for reading, this truly has been a journey and I couldn't have done it without your support. love you all so much🫂❤️

**Too lazy to put all the smut warnings, it's nothing too extreme just some face sitting and whatnot :p

Discord +18 - Twitter - Ko-Fi

“Are you ready to go?” Satoru asks, walking into your room to find you sitting in front of the vanity. You’re finishing up your makeup, putting the lash touch on your lips. His heart skips a beat, and he could faint right at this moment. He’s the luckiest man alive. He still has to rush you, “You can’t be late to your own graduation.”

“Is Anzu ready?” You question, and Satoru hums in response. He walks over to the bed and takes a seat to watch you.

“What? Do you not think I’m responsible enough? I can handle a baby.” Satoru says, as if you didn’t find your daughter nearly chewing an extension cord yesterday because he took his eyes off her for a second. You’re taking an awfully long time to answer the question which makes Satoru scoff, “She’s ready and with your mom.”

“Good.” You answer, turning your attention back to yourself yet again. Which type of earrings will be best? Satoru got you some beautiful diamond earrings for this occasion but you’re not sure you want to wear them– You don’t want to show off to everybody that your fiancé is filthy rich.

“Why don’t you put on the ones I got you?” Satoru sees that you’re struggling to pick the earrings you’ll wear for the night, so he’ll make a suggestion. You ignore him though, and he can’t help but laugh. He stands up, “I’ll go check on Ren while you finish up then.”

“Yeah, make sure he showered.” You tell him, and Satoru hums in response. He walks out of the room, getting ready to deal with the nine-year-old even though the child only seems to listen to you. The man feels like neither of his kids really listen to him, but he guesses he deserves it.

You smile back at yourself in the mirror, elated with how things go. Accepting Satoru’s breakfast offer as a date made your life change– You’d argue for the better, though some people didn’t want you and Satoru to get back together. It took you a while to officially start dating, since Satoru was married; even though you knew his marriage wasn’t authentic, you didn’t want to interfere with any of the mess that was going on.

Satoru began the divorce process with Sayo not too long after asking you out. It was a mutual decision that they kept hidden for as long as they possibly could. Even after their divorce was finalized, they refused to share the news with Sayo’s parents. You understood completely, knowing that it was a bigger issue than what it seemed. You had Satoru all to yourself either way, you didn’t really care what a random pair of old people thought. 

The truth came to light eventually, when you got pregnant with your baby girl. It ended Sayo’s relationship with her parents, but time has passed and she’s much happier without them. It was around two years ago, when Ren kept begging for a baby brother, and Satoru convinced you that it would be a great idea. You wanted another baby so there wasn’t the need for too much convincing either way. Unluckily for Ren, Anzu ended up being a baby girl. 

If you were given the chance to go back in time and change something, you’d keep everything the same. Maybe you would’ve kicked Satoru’s groin once or twice, but you’d do it all again. For Ren, for Anzu. For Satoru as well, though you wouldn’t admit it outloud.

“Ren isn’t ready!” Satoru yells, and you can’t help but chuckle as you roll your eyes. Your sweet baby boy is slowly becoming disobedient, and it’s a bit frustrating. You knew it was going to happen eventually, it’s just hard to believe that your baby boy is slowly setting off on his own adventure.

“Ren! Come here!” You yell, and within a matter of seconds your son comes running into your room. He doesn’t listen to Satoru, but you? He’ll listen to almost everything you have to say.

“What’s up?” He asks, and you look him over. You shake your head disappointedly, seeing that he’s still wearing pajamas.

“Do you want to stay home? Mrs. Gojo is more than happy to babysit.” Even when the woman is about to become your mother-in-law, you refuse to call her anything other than Mrs. Gojo. She’s the grandmother of your two kids, but you refuse to acknowledge her in any other way.

You barely have a relationship with her, for many reasons. Main one is that Satoru doesn’t really want to associate himself with her, not after everything that went down with Ren. Frankly, the only reason he even speaks to her is because Ren adores her– Though you believe that his opinion about his grandma is slowly changing because Ren quickly shakes his head.

“We’re going to her home later anyway, you can stand behind.” You assure him, but he shakes his head before darting out of the room. You almost laugh before yelling, “Make sure you don’t stink!”

“There she is!” You hear Satoru yell, and you turn around to find him with your little family. Your one-year-old squeals at the sight of her mother, while Ren glares at the baby for stealing his spotlight. You walk over to them, taking your baby Anzu into your arms before leaning down to kiss Ren’s forehead. 

“Did you have fun there, Ren?” You ask him, and he shakes his head. He’s not going to have much fun watching a bunch of people that he doesn’t know walk across a stage. Satoru didn’t even give the child his phone. 

“Ignore him, he’s been whining all day long. Where’s my kiss?” Satoru quickly changes the topic and you roll your eyes before pecking his lips. He tries to hug you without squashing the baby, saying, “Congratulations, baby. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, Satoru.” You respond, pecking his lips once again. You notice a couple of missing people from your group, and you question, “Where’s my mom? And Sayo and Shoko? Their little guy?”

“Bathroom.” Ren answers, and you raise your brows. All of them? You can’t exactly blame them, the ceremony was a long one.

“How about we–” You begin but you notice that your little guy is pouty. You know the reason immediately, so you hand Satoru your baby girl and crouch down to bring the child into a hug. “Am I not getting congratulations from the person that I care about the most?”

“Anzu can’t talk yet.” He answers, which almost makes you laugh. Almost. He’s so jealous of his baby sister, which is kind of ironic considering he begged you to have a baby. His attitude certainly changed when he realized that the baby requires a lot of time and attention.

“Ren, you’re the apple of my eye.” You tell him, though the child refuses to listen. Cuddles are less frequent lately since you have a crying baby that needs you, and you barely play with him anymore. “Can mommy at least get a congratulations?”

“Congratulations, mom.” Ren responds, and you feel your heart melt. Even when he’s mad at you, he’s your cute little guy. You’re rubbing your cheek with his, being as affectionate as you can be with the little guy. Though he ends up pushing you away, telling you, “You’re doing too much.” 

“Jeez, what is it with you? One moment you’re all jealous and the next you’re saying I’m doing too much.” You chuckle, standing up. You take the baby from your fiancé, knowing that she still has a long way before she can tell you that you’re doing too much. 

“Can we leave before we bump into any traffic?” Satoru asks, reading the time on his watch. Not that he’s thrilled to go to his mother’s house, but he’d prefer to be there than sitting in traffic for hours on end. He sees your eyes wandering around for the rest of your group but before you get any ideas he reminds you, “You don’t want to sit in a car with a screaming one-year-old, do you?”

“Yeah… I guess we’ll just meet them at your mom’s place.” You answer, knowing that once your baby girl begins to cry, it’s hard to get her to stop. Good thing for you, she’s usually all smiles and giggles.

“She’s drooling.” Ren points at his sister, who’s making a mess on your gown. Ren then turns his attention to his dad, asking, “I wasn’t a messy baby like her, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Satoru mutters, and you glare at him.

“Let’s get going.”

The graduation party is for you, a way for Mrs. Gojo to congratulate you on finally finishing your bachelor’s. In reality, it’s a way for her to see her grandchildren. A way for her to spoil Ren and dote on Anzu. 

Things between the two of you go back to the way they were: she barely notices you and you don’t acknowledge her. You’re no longer relying on her in any way, and apart from asking about your kids, the woman won’t bother to contact you. She’s fine with the change of you becoming Satoru’s fiancée– And even if she was opposed to it, Satoru won’t listen to her. As a matter of fact, Satoru never calls her first.

You’re in the kitchen, preparing yourself a plate of food, watching as Mrs. Gojo holds your baby. It’s odd to watch her be so… Soft with someone. Sure, she enables Ren and is willing to do anything he wants, but Ren sets the tone. You’ve never watched her with a baby before.

“Who’s my pretty girl?” The woman is putting a baby voice for fuck’s sake, something she never did for her own son. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s just grandma now, she doesn’t have to worry about anything but her grandchildren. Anzu is giggling, so Mrs. Gojo is doing something right.

“I can’t believe that’s my mother.” Satoru approaches you, a little disgusted to watch his mother like this. He should be happy, but it’s a little weird to watch such a cold woman put on a baby voice and entertain a baby. “That is my mother, right? They didn’t change her after her facelift?”

“I’m right here, Satoru. Just because I’m holding a baby doesn’t mean that my ears have disappeared.” She quickly scolds her son, and you can’t help but laugh. “I didn’t get a facelift either.”

“Right, you just spent two months in South Korea touring.” Satoru retorts, grabbing a plate for himself. They begin to bicker, and as entertaining as it is to watch them, you leave them alone to sort out their own issues.

You walk to the living room to find Ren playing with Shoko and Sayo’s baby– Something that he won’t do with his own baby sister. You’re not sure if it’s because she’s not the baby brother that Ren wanted or if it’s because he’s not getting the same amount of attention as before. Sayo keeps a close eye on the child, not because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s an overprotective mother. You sit beside him, excited to watch him play and be sweet with a baby, even if it isn’t your baby girl.

“He’s so sweet. Is he like this with Anzu?” Sayo asks, ruffling Ren’s hair as he plays peek-a-boo with the ten-month-old baby. You scoff, as if. Your reaction is the best answer that she needs, and she chuckles. She’s not sure if that’s normal behavior between siblings since she’s an only child.

“What do you mean you aren’t the sweetest older brother to Anzu? You were so excited to be a big brother.” Shoko points out, and Ren’s brows come together. He knows he can’t be mean to his auntie Shoko… So he simply glares at her.

“I don’t want to play with your baby anymore.” He responds. It’s his way of punishing Shoko for the question.

“Damn, can’t take any sort of criticism. You really don’t need a DNA test, that’s one hundred percent Satoru’s kid.” Shoko says, which earns a laugh from you.

“Babe…” Sayo says through gritted teeth, which makes Shoko roll her eyes. God forbid she points out one thing.

“He’s just a little jealous, but he loves his baby sister.” You tease him, pinching your baby boy’s cheek, and he puffs out a breath. Maybe he does like her a bit. Ren doesn’t defend himself, deciding that he’s just going to grab some food from your plate as a punishment. Though it isn’t exactly a punishment for you, you’re always happy to watch your baby eat. “Do you want me to make you a plate, honey?”

“I’m not hungry.” He mutters, crossing his arms. He stands up from his seat, and walks to the stairs, planning to go to the room that his grandma has for him. He might not have his parents undivided attention anymore, but at the very least he still has a room that’s full of games that’s just for him (as if he didn’t have one in your home either). 

“He really is Satoru’s kid…” Shoko comments when Ren is out of sight, and Sayo scolds her again.

“He is, he looks just like me.” Satoru pops into the living room unannounced, which catches Shoko off guard. He wasn’t supposed to hear that, since it’s a critique of his character but she doesn’t find a care to give. He comes back holding Anzu after nearly having to fight his mother to get her. He sits down next to you, reaching for some of the food on your plate. “But I’m guessing it wasn’t a compliment since it’s coming from you.”

“I can be nice, you know.” Shoko responds, and Satoru laughs as if a joke had just come from her lips. Nice… He’ll believe it when he sees it though. Satoru takes a bite of the food that he’s taken from your plate, and he grimaces.

“Did my mom cook or what? This is disgusting.” Satoru can’t even chew the food. Unluckily for him, he doesn’t have anywhere where he can spit the food so he’s forced to swallow. Anzu is screaming, little hand trying to reach for the food. Satoru covers her eyes, “Don’t even look there, my love. There’s no way I’m letting you eat that.”

“It’s not that bad.” You tell him, tasting the food yourself. 

“Well what is it? Am I getting a plate for myself or not?” Shoko asks, reaching over to grab some food from your plate as well. Suddenly your plate has become everyone’s plate; you’re used to it at home with Satoru and Ren, but now Shoko is on the list.

“I wouldn’t trust her with food, she’s always claiming she wants to eat the baby’s cheeks.” Satoru argues, and you click your tongue knowing damn well that he says the same thing.

“Anzu has the cutest, chubbiest cheeks, I understand.” Sayo chimes in before looking at her own baby and kissing his cheeks. Shoko takes a bite, keeping her face neutral as she chews the food. 

“It’s not that bad, Satoru. You’re just dramatic.” Shoko responds, and Satoru pouts. He brings some of the food to the baby’s lips– Even though he claimed he wasn’t going to let her taste, he needs someone to prove him right and that someone will be his one-year-old daughter that spits everything back up.

“Taste this, love.” Satoru says as Anzu bites into the food. Within moments it dribbles down her chin, and back into Satoru’s hand. He’s grossed out, but at least his point has been proven. “Anzu doesn’t like it so…”

“Are you trying to prove your point by using a baby that just stopped breastfeeding?” Shoko questions, and Satoru glares at her. She can’t help but chuckle, “Man, your son is just like you.”

“I’m going to talk to him since he appreciates me.” Satoru stands up, and begins to walk to the stairs, but your voice stops him. You call out his name, and he expects some sort of apology from you but instead you ask,

“Have you seen my mom?”

“She popped into the kitchen to talk to my mom.” He answers before leaving. You’re unphased by the response. The women that don’t get along in any other circumstance, sit together to talk about their grandchildren. They can be cordial with each other once every six months.

Though Satoru doesn’t pay much attention to them, his focus right now is on his baby boy that sits alone in the game room. Ren sits down on the floor, reading to himself. Satoru doesn’t want to interrupt the healthy habit, but at the same time he doesn’t want Ren to sit by himself during the party. He takes a moment to wash his hands before joining Ren.

“Why are you here, honey? We’re celebrating your mom downstairs.” Satoru sits down beside Ren on the floor, and he feels ten years older as he hears his bones crack. Ren barely looks up from his book, side-eyeing his sister, which makes Satoru want to roll his eyes. Isn’t he a little too old to be jealous of a baby? Matter of fact, he begged to be a big brother. “What is your issue with her? What has she done to you?”

“Nothin’.” Ren claims, his eyes landing on his book again. Satoru sighs, letting the baby on the floor so she can walk around and do as she pleases. She chooses to stay nearby, walking over to her brother to take the book that he has in his hands. “See.”

“Anzu, go over there. Chew on the power cords.” Satoru redirects her elsewhere, and the baby whines because she wants something else. “So she takes all your stuff, is that why you don’t like her? You have a lot, Ren.”

“Not just my stuff. Everyone likes her better. You, mom, granny, grammy, the nanny. I used to be everyone’s favorite but then the cute baby came along.” Ren confesses, and Satoru fights back the urge of pointing out that he called Anzu cute. It’s not about the baby right now, Satoru reminds himself.

“You’re still everyone’s favorite, Ren.” Satoru tells a little white lie– There are no favorites in the family, he loves both of his kids equally. But the baby can’t understand him, it’s why he told her to chew on a power cord. “Everyone is just excited about the new baby, it’s not that you’re not the favorite anymore.”

“Why does she get away with everything then?” Ren asks as if he didn’t know any better. He’ll act dumb simply because he’s jealous. He doesn’t ask why Sayo and Shoko’s baby gets away with everything, because Ren knows that it’s just a baby… He just doesn’t have the same feelings about Anzu.

“Well for one thing she goes potty in her pants so… She isn’t really conscious about her actions.” Satoru answers, and Ren puffs out a breath. Satoru got him there. “Anzu just needs a lot of attention because she’s–”

“Don’t do that!” Ren cuts off his father when he realizes that Anzu is doing what Satoru told her to do earlier. Ren takes the cord out of her hand, and she lets out a cry. He’s going to complain about her, but he loves her.

“She’ll grow on you.” Satoru says, standing up to grab his walking baby and get out of Ren’s hair. Ren doesn’t like the baby but he certainly loves her. “But come downstairs, Ren. We’re celebrating your mommy’s achievement. She was talking about hanging up her diploma next to your kindergarten diploma.”

“Can you tell them I don’t want to talk about Anzu?” Ren asks, and Satoru hums in response. Satoru extends his hand for Ren to take, and the child takes it without an issue before both head back downstairs to spend time with you.

“What are you doing here?” Satoru approaches you as you sit on the ground outside, in his mother’s garden. You’re hiding from everyone. After hours of talking to people inside, you need a break from the small group.

“Need a minute.” You answer, and Satoru decides to sit down next to you. The kids are fine with their grandmothers, he can take a moment alone with you and properly congratulate you. He throws his arm over your shoulder and brings you close to him. “We should’ve just gone out to eat at a restaurant and called it a day. I don’t have the energy to be so social.”

“I got you a trip to Bora Bora. You just have to power through these last couple of hours… We can get Anzu to throw a fit and make it a few minutes.” He responds and you chuckle. You rest your head on his shoulder and shut your eyes for a moment. Being social shouldn’t be so draining.

“Can we leave the kids with granny?” You ask him, and he hums in response. He had no plans on taking them; he loves them, but they sure know how to ruin a vacation. 

Your gaze falls on his face, looking into the blue eyes you fell in love with so long ago. Even though it was an eternity ago, he still makes your heart skip a beat. He doesn’t let you stare for too long before he steals a kiss from you.

“If you stare for too long you might find me ugly.” Satoru tells you and you roll your eyes. If you don’t find him ugly first thing in the morning then you’re definitely not finding him ugly now.

“Are you saying that because–” You begin but the man cuts you off before you can finish your question. He knows you, he knows that you’ll start a petty fight with a dumb question.

“Because I love you so much, and I think I’m not good enough for you– I know I’m not good enough for you, you’re perfect.” Satoru responds, making you grin from ear to ear. He isn’t exactly wrong, he’s lucky that you considered getting back together with him at all.

“I love you too even though you’re…” You bite your tongue before you insult him. He raises a brow and before he can question anything, your lips land on his. His cheeks begin to turn pink when you peck his lips over and over again, feeling like a teenager all over again.

You stare into his eyes when you stop, watching the sparkle in them as he looks back at you. He’s utterly in love with you, and the feeling only gets more intense as time passes. He caresses your face with the back of his hand ever so lovingly. You get lost in his loving eyes until your eyes shift to the flowers behind him.

“Oh my–” You gasp, your eyes widening as you realize. “This is where you used to pick flowers for me?”

“Oh, yeah.” Satoru laughs, turning to pick a lily for you. It’s been years since he’s been in this place. Maybe he should come here more often. “A flower for my flower.”

“Cheesy.” You take it from his hands, wanting to roll your eyes because of his comment– But your face is getting hot. Even when he’s cheesy your heart threatens to beat out of your chest.

“Yeah, cheesy is what got me two kids.” He retorts. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Gojo?”

“Calling me Mrs. Gojo is going to make you single.” You warn him, and he fights back on laughing. “Don’t make me divorce you before getting married.”

“What? Are you going to Suguru for a rebound again?” Satoru questions, making you glare at him. Maybe he should just listen and agree, not everything needs a response from him. “I’m just joking, baby. He has a girlfriend now and whatnot.”

“You better stick to your day job, you have no future as a comedian.” You say, standing up from the ground to go back inside, and of course, Satoru follows like a lost puppy. He’s simply lost without you.

You love spending time with your kids, you love them more than anything– But you’re not going to pass up on the opportunity of a sleepover. Having them off your hands for the night is a blessing sometimes. You simply want to celebrate with your fiancé in a way that your kids make difficult.

“I’ll run you a bath.” Satoru tells you, running to go upstairs to get to the bathroom before you. Running you a bath that he’ll end up joining, that’s not too bad. It’s a nice way to end the night, that you know for sure.

You give him a moment to set everything up, pulling out your phone to answer a couple of messages of people congratulating you for finishing your degree. What’s next? You’re not too sure. But whatever you decide it’s fine. You have Satoru and your kids by your side no matter what. The money also helps.

Right now, you know you want to relax in a bathtub full of bubbles. Maybe have Satoru right next to you. You’ve been looking into the future for the past ten years, for once you just want to sit back and appreciate the moment. 

“Are you coming?!” You hear Satoru as you walk up the stairs. He’s so impatient, he can’t even wait a minute. You won’t hurry up to please him, as a matter of fact, you walk slower. Satoru is tapping his foot on the floor when you finally get to the bedroom.

“Finally.” He says, walking over to you to zip down the zipper that holds your dress together. He’s desperate to get you naked. You’re chuckling, reminding him,

“No need for you to be in a rush, we have all night.” But it goes in one ear and out the other. Before you know it, he turns you around, his lips landing on yours. His kiss is full of desire, needing to feel your every touch on his skin. He’s burning up to feel you.

“Fuck, I want you so fucking bad.” He pulls away from the kiss as the dress drops to the ground. He picks you up from the floor and puts you down on the bed, smirking at the black lingerie that will soon be removed. “So perfect for me, love.”

“Fuck me, Satoru.” You tell him, voice seductive that can get him to drop to his knees in an instant. The bath that’s filled up and with bubbles is long forgotten by both of you. He takes off his shirt and pants, leaving his briefs. Your eyes stare at the tent that makes him ever so uncomfortable. You sit up on the bed, your fingers going directly to the erection.

Your index finger goes underneath the band of his underwear, eyes looking up at him as you pull his briefs down. Your eyes quickly avert to his cock, wrapping around the base of it. You slowly move your hand from base to tip as pre-cum leaks from the tip. Your tongue licks it up, circling around it as the man bites down on his lip.

Your mouth wraps around all it can take, bobbing your head slowly. You take what your mouth can handle. He can’t complain because it’s just perfect. Everything you do in Satoru’s eyes is perfect. The pace is slow, but it gradually gets faster. 

You look up at him to find him biting his lip, his eyes shut. You take his cock out of your mouth, and begin to run your hand up and down his shaft, your saliva serving as a lubricant. He finally opens his eyes to look down at you, but his teeth remain on his bottom lip.

“I want to hear you.” You say, a rather demanding tone in your voice. He stops biting down on his lip, and your hand continues to jerk him off for a couple of seconds before your mouth wraps around his cock again.

He’s groaning at your every move, which is like music to your ears. You look up at him to find him looking back down at you. He knows you’re more than satisfied with him, with how he sounds. It’s nice to be as loud as he wants to be, without worrying about someone barging in.

You try to take his whole length in your mouth, making you gag. Tears quickly form in your eyes as you remove your mouth from his cock, and try again. He throws his head back, breathy moans escaping his lips at your every move. 

You take your mouth off his cock and begin to jerk him off. Your mouth goes to his balls and you begin to suck on them. Satoru got louder and louder by the second, his release approaching. 

Your mouth goes back to his cock while your hands begin to play with his balls. It doesn’t take too long for his cum to hit the back of your throat. Your mouth remains on his cock for a couple of seconds before pulling away. You make sure to swallow all the cum, sticking your tongue out for him to see and proudly admire.

“My good girl.” He praises you. He reaches behind to unhook your bra and slide it off you. Once it’s off, he desperately tries to take off your panties. It’s unexpected when he gets on the bed and lays down. You crawl to where he is, positioning yourself on top of him. You get ready to ride him, but it takes you by surprise when your fiancé says, “Sit on my face.”

“Are you sure?” You ask, though it’s not unusual from Satoru.

“Just come here and sit.” He responds. You do what he wants, but you are hesitant to fully sit down. He’s the one who pushes you down onto him. His tongue is quick to wander around your cunt.

His tongue begins to flick your clit over and over again, making low moans leave your lips. His arms go over your thighs, pushing you down further. You’d be worried about him breathing, if you weren’t too focused on how his tongue moves around your pussy.

“Toru!” You moan. Your moans serve as encouragement, and are a sweet reward for the man, moving his tongue faster. His tongue stops flicking your clit, and moves down to your hole. He teases you, threatening to enter but never really doing it. 

“Baby please.” You beg. His tongue finally enters your cunt. You shut your eyes, getting lost in the feeling. But out of the two of you, Satoru is enjoying it more. He finally takes his tongue out and goes back to your clit. 

He begins to suck on your clit, and you swear you see stars as your orgasm builds up. Your hips raise a bit, but he pushes you back down. You get louder and louder. “I’m gonna- fuck- gonna cum-”

You moan loudly as you reach your climax, his tongue still working wonders. A minute later he stops, and you get off him, sitting down on his torso. He raises himself a bit, not completely to sit up but enough to wrap his hand around your throat and pull you into a lewd kiss.

“Should we continue in the bath?” Satoru asks when he pulls away and you can’t nod your head more frantically. You get off the bed and practically run to the bath. Satoru gets in the bathtub first, and you follow behind.

“You’re so lucky.” You point out as your back presses against his chest. He’s never doubted it. He peppers your neck with kisses, while you align his cock with your entrance. You lower yourself on his cock.

“How about another baby?” Satoru asks, making you click your tongue while you begin to move.

“Leave me alone” You reply, and he wants to chuckle but he’s biting down his lip as he feels your pussy wrap around him. He loves your mouth but it can’t compare to this. 

He’s kissing your back, showing you how much he loves you in every possible way as you move up and down his cock. His hand moves down to play with your clit, making you shut your eyes. Every little touch is enough to make you insane lately and Satoru loves to touch you.

“You’re so perfect around me, baby.” Satoru whispers into your ear before nibbling on your earlobe. 

You’re softly moaning his name, your walls tightening around him. You’re so close to finishing. You’ve been so touch deprived lately since your schedules make spending time with each other impossible– Maybe now you’ll have more time to spend with each other.

“Fuck–” You curse as you finish on his cock. You hold to the edge of the bathtub as Satoru continues to move in and out of you. 

He’s not going to last long. It’s too hard for him to contain himself when he’s inside of you. He comes to a complete stop when he finally reaches his release, finishing inside of you. He remains buried inside of you as you pant to catch your breaths, but after a minute you lift yourself and take his cock out of you.

“What do you want to do tomorrow?” Satoru asks, hands caressing your arms as your head goes to his chest.

“Just sleep.” You answer as Satoru kisses the top of your head. He squeezes your hand before bringing it up to his lips to press a subtle kiss on it. “I need to get some rest.”

“Sleep sounds nice.” Satoru responds. You’re getting comfortable in the bathtub as your eyes begin to get heavy. You’re tired. Satoru notices and he splashes you, “Don’t fall asleep in the bathtub, love.”

“Just carry me to the bed.” You reply, making him roll his eyes playfully. He can, but if you don’t drag him out he’ll stay in the water and get all pruny. He’s warm by your side, too comfortable to leave. This is the reality he wanted ten years ago, and he finally has it. He’s not leaving this comfort no matter what gets in the way.

You’ll be the one to get up first and drag him out, that’s how it usually is in the morning. But you’re falling asleep. He doesn’t want to disturb you either. So he’ll just stay in the bathtub. 

“Don’t let me get all pruny, Satoru. Carry me out.” You warn him, and he hums in response. He’ll have to eventually because you’ll end up killing him if you wake up in ten hours, and you’re still in the bathroom.

“You know Ren is going to call later to say goodnight?” He points out, but you don’t care to talk about it. You’re sleepy. He kisses the top of your head when he’s met with silence. He mutters softly to not disturb your peace, 

“I love you. Goodnight, baby.”

[requiemforthepoets]

Would you be interested in writing something for Oscar? I feel like he would be the perfect guy to have your firsts with, so understanding and cute like imagine having your first kiss with him. He would be so understanding and would kiss you with so much care and ugh I need me a man like him☹️ would you be down to write something like that?

in a world full of wrong, you’re the only thing that’s right 𖦹 OP81

PAIRINGS: oscar piastri x female!reader

SUMMARY: the idea of falling in love scares you, but at the same time, you long for it. wanting to experience how it feels like having someone by your side.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: thank you for your request! i’m sorry that this one took days, i had already finished the original version of this one, but i was not happy with it so i scraped it off and decided to write a new one. i had also took some creative liberty if it’s alright with you. i hope that this one is up to your expectations. enjoy! :)

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WORD COUNT: 2.7k

WARNINGS: not proofread, typos, no use of y/n, traditional upbringing, reader is an only daughter, overthinking, anxiety, fear of falling in love, and some fluff

You had never been in a relationship before Oscar. In fact, you had no idea what being in love was even supposed to feel like at all. So when your friends came to you, venting about their partners or asking for some advice, you would just sit there, nodding along, and pretending to understand everything that they were saying. But the truth was that you were clueless. You had never experienced the ups and down that they spoke of. No fights over silly things, no making up with heartfelt apologies, no lingering fear of being left behind. Part of you had always wondered what it would feel like to have someone special, someone to lean on, but another part of you was terrified–utterly terrified of the vulnerability, terrified of the idea that maybe one day, that person you end up with could hurt you.

You had been raised in a traditional household, the kind where dating wasn’t just for fun, but that is meant to last with the intention of marriage. Your parents always told you to be very careful, that relationships were serious and sacred. It doesn’t help that you are an only child as well, so your parents can be really overprotective of you. So, when you found yourself daydreaming about having a boyfriend, the thought would always come with a sense of guilt. You’d see your friends with their partners and wish, even just for a second, that you could have that too. But then again, these fears would creep in–what if he cheated? What if he wasn’t who you thought he was? What if you weren’t enough? The doubts swirled around in your head constantly. But then, everything changed when you met Oscar.

You met him in a way that you never expected you would. It was during a vacation in Monaco with some friends. The week had been loud and chaotic–late night dinners, laughter, and a bit of madness here and there. Needing some peace and quiet, you decided to stroll around by yourself. The streets of Monaco were breathtaking, and you let yourself get lost in the gorgeous scenery, with your thoughts floating somewhere far away. So far that you didn’t even notice the guy speeding towards you on his bike. Before you knew it, he swerved, narrowly avoiding a collision, but you lost your balance and tumbled to the ground.

“Shit! Are you okay?” The voice was concerned but soft, and when you looked up, you saw a pair of worried eyes staring down at you. He had already jumped off his bike and was holding out his hand to help you up. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Oscar said, pulling you to your feet gently. His touch was warm and cautious, as if he was afraid you’d break.

“No, no, I should have been paying attention,” you quickly brushed it off, though your heart was racing for more reasons than just the fall. Up close, he was…well, you weren’t sure if it was the adrenaline or something else, but he was strikingly handsome. You didn’t know if it was love at first sight or from the shock of falling, but something inside you shifted in that moment.

“You sure you’re okay? I feel terrible about this.” He frowned slightly, scanning you for any sign of injury. “Let me take you to a hospital, just in case.”

You laughed nervously. “I’m fine, really. There’s no need for that.”

He didn’t seem convinced at all, but after some insistence, Oscar backed off. “Alright, if you’re sure. At least let me make it up to you. How about some coffee? My treat.”

Well, that’s pretty much how it all began. One coffee turned into another, then into long conversations about everything and nothing. You couldn’t quite believe how easy it was to talk to him. Usually you’d find yourself nervous around guys, but he was kind, thoughtful, and never made you feel uncomfortable and pressured. Slowly, those coffee dates turned into something more, and before you know it, Oscar had asked you to be his girlfriend. Though you couldn’t help but cringe when you thought back to the moment you said yes to him. You had never been so flustered, unsure of how to respond, that instead of a kiss like a normal person, you just gave him a hug. A damn hug. You had felt his arms wrap around you tightly, his laughter vibrating in his chest.

“So I take it that it’s a yes, then?” he had asked, his voice teasing but soft.

You had nodded into his shoulder, very embarrassed beyond belief. But Oscar being Oscar, he didn't care. He hadn’t even brought it up afterwards, as if he’d expect nothing more than that simple embrace–and that’s what you loved about him. Oscar never pushed you, never made you feel like you always had to rush into anything. He was patient and understanding in a way that felt comforting. Sometimes, late at night, you would lie next to him, just staring at the ceiling, wondering how you got so lucky. The fears you once had, the doubts that plagued your mind–none of them seemed to matter anymore every time you are with him.

One evening, after spending the day together exploring the city, you found yourselves sitting on a park bench, watching the sunset. It was quiet, the kind of comfortable silence that you loved and felt like home.

“Do you ever wonder if this is all real?” you asked him, your voice barely above a whisper. Oscar turned to look at you, his expression gentle. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know…sometimes I just can’t believe this is happening. I never thought I’d be in a relationship like this. Felt overwhelming and surreal sometimes.” he smiled, reaching out to take your hand in his. “I get it. I never thought I’d meet someone like you either.”

You blushed at his words, feeling the warmth of his hand in yours. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do,” he said, squeezing your hand lightly. “You don’t have to worry, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

At that moment, you knew. You knew very well that all the fears you once had, all the time you had spent overthinking and countless anxiety–they didn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. With Oscar, you felt safe, loved, and secured in a way you had never imagined. He wasn’t just your first boyfriend, he was your first in everything–the first person to show you what love really felt like.

Six months into your relationship with Oscar, you had managed to avoid what most people would consider a natural part of being a couple–kissing him on the lips. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to, hell you definitely do want to kiss him so badly, to the point you had daydreamed about it plenty of times, thinking about how his lips might feel against yours. But every time you thought about it, your mind would spin, and your nerves would take over. You’d never kissed anyone before, and the idea of messing up, of completely not knowing what to do, terrified the shit out of you. Sure, you had kissed him on the cheeks, hugged him endlessly, but never once had your lips touched his. You couldn’t help but wonder how Oscar was so patient with you, how he never complained or pushed for more, he was very understanding in a way that made you feel safe. Sometimes, you even questioned how he could be satisfied or survived with just a few cheek kisses.

Yes, you had been raised in such a traditional household, but Oscar was special–so incredibly special–that the pressure you put on yourself to make the moment perfect felt overwhelming. Still, you knew that at some point, you’d have to gather the courage to just do it. But every time you tried to psych yourself up, you’d just freeze, thinking about it drove you crazy. There would be times where you’d hear people joke about you being a prude, or wonder aloud how anyone could go long without kissing their partner on the lips, but the truth was, you were just terrified.

Then came Baku. It was Oscar’s second win at the Baku Grand Prix, and you had traveled to the race with his family to cheer him on. The excitement in the air was evident as you stood by the barricades at the Parc Fermé, anxiously waiting for him to climb out of his car. Your heart raced as you watched him pull into the P1 space, his car coming to a stop, and pulled himself out of the cockpit.

Your heart nearly stopped when he stumbled slightly as he got on the top of his car, and you had to suppress the urge to vault over the barrier to make sure he was okay. But Oscar quickly steadied himself, he then pulled off his helmet and balaclava in one smooth motion, his hair a sweaty mess, but his eyes bright with victory. Oscar spotted you instantly, a wide grin breaking out across his face as he ran quickly towards you, and before you knew it, you were wrapped up in his arms. You held him tightly, feeling the energy and adrenaline coursing through him as he hugged you back.

“I’m so proud of you,” you whispered against his shoulder, the words almost lost in the noise of the crowd. “You were incredible.”

Oscar pulled back just enough to look at you, his hands finding their place gently on your cheeks. His thumb brushed your skin softly, and for a brief moment, the noise of the world around you seemed to fade away. He gazed at you with so much love in his eyes, the kind that made your heart flutter. Oscar had always been patient, understanding, never once pressuring you into anything you weren’t ready for. He knew about your fears, about how you hadn’t had your first kiss yet, but you had never told him why. Even without knowing the full reason, he had always respected your space and waited for you to feel comfortable.

But something was different today. The way he looked at you was different, and you felt it too–a shift inside you, a calmness you hadn’t expected. You weren’t scared at this moment, not with him. Somehow, Oscar seemed to sense that change too. He smiled softly, his hands still cradling your face as he leaned in just slightly.

“Is this okay?” he asked quietly, giving you the chance to back out if you needed to.

Your heart raced in your chest, feeling like it was gonna leap out from your chest, but for the first time in months, it wasn’t out of fear. It was out of love, out of excitement, out of knowing that this was the moment. You smiled up at him, nodding gently. That was all he needed.

Oscar’s touch remained as gentle as ever, his hands caressing your face as he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. It was familiar, comforting, something he’d done a thousand times before. Then, he kissed the tip of your nose, making you giggle softly, your nerves starting to melt away. Then finally, he leaned down and kissed you on the lips.

The world seemed to stop as his lips met yours, soft and warm, and everything you had feared about this moment vanished. It wasn’t awkward or overwhelming like you had imagined–it was simple, perfect. Oscar kissed you gently, not rushing, not pushing for more than you were ready for. It was the kind of kiss that made you feel safe, like he was letting you know that this was just the beginning, and there was no need to rush. When he pulled back slightly, his forehead rested against yours, both of you smiling softly, sharing a private moment amidst the chaos of the race celebrations around you.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Oscar teased you lightly, his voice warm and full of affection. You laughed softly, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. “I guess not,” you whispered, hands still resting against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips.

Oscar smiled, kissing your forehead again, and you knew in that moment that no matter how scared you had been before, being with him made everything feel right.

Later that evening, after all the chaos of the podium celebrations, press interviews, and flood of congratulatory messages, you found yourself in a much quieter setting with Oscar and his family. The energy from the race still buzzed in the air, but there was a sense of calm now, a comfortable warmth that filled the room as you all gathered around for a private celebration. You felt so at home with his family, like you were part of the family, and in moments like these, you couldn’t help but think of how lucky you were to have Oscar and this incredible group of people who treated you with so much love.

Dinner was simple but perfect, the conversation flowing easily between stories of the race and light-hearted teasing. You were sitting beside Oscar, with your hand resting comfortably under the table, something that felt so natural now, like an unspoken connection between the two of you. He would glance over at you every now and then, giving you that boyish smile that made your heart skip a beat every time. The moment you shared earlier at the track still lingered in your mind–your first kiss. It felt surreal, but in the best way possible.

After the dinner, Oscar had asked if he can spend the remainder of the night with you alone, to have some private moment. His family agreed and a few teasing had been made as well, but you and Oscar just laughed. By then, you decided to return to the hotel, to have some private and alone time with each other. Oscar sat beside you on the couch, his arms draped casually around your shoulders, pulling you close. His fingers played lightly with a strand of your hair as you leaned into him, your head resting on his chest. The bustling noise of the city seemed to fade into the background as you focused on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath you.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that kiss all night,” Oscar whispered suddenly, his voice low so only you could hear him. Your cheeks flushed, and you turned slightly to look up at him, your lips curling into a shy smile. “Yeah? What about our kiss?”

He grinned, eyes twinkling with amusement. “It was worth the wait. I’ve been waiting for that moment since the day I met you. Being it during my win made it more special.”

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes playfully, though the butterflies in your stomach refused to settle. “You’re just saying that.” Oscar chuckled softly, his thumb brushing gently over your shoulder. “I’m serious. I’m not sure you realize how patient I’ve had to be. But you’re worth every second.”

You felt your heart was about to combust at his words, and you felt yourself melt a little more into his side. There was something about the way Oscar always knew how to make you feel special, how he could say the simplest things and make you feel like the most important person in the world.

You smiled up at him, your voice soft as you said, “I’m really glad it was you. I’ve always been scared of what it would be like, but you made it…perfect.”

Oscar’s expression softened, his eyes full of that warmth and affection you had come to adore. “That’s all I wanted. For it to feel right for you.” Leaning up slightly, you placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, feeling a surge of affection as you did so. “Thank you for waiting.”

“I’d wait a lifetime for you if I had to.” he smiled, resting his forehead against yours for a moment before pressing a soft kiss to your temple.

For the first time, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

[astrocafecoffee]

•Venus in Groom persona chart •

• FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, ENJOY •

✨ MASTERLIST

(I totally forgot about this series 🙂, so here I am with Venus in Groom persona chart)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~✨✨~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Venus in 1st house:

Prince charming, tall , handsome and attractive spouse. Has beautiful eyes that Captivate your attention. Appreciates luxury, comfort and sensual pleasures. Could be a romantic at heart with a deep appreciation for love stories. May have talents in music , art or any creative pursuits. People wants to be with them , could be some sort of influencer. Also, maybe a natural people pleaser. May have a secret talent for improvisational comedy or witty banter.

Venus in 2nd house:

Sturdy build or have athletic physique. A hard worker, who values financial security. Very loyal spouse. Acts or service and gift giving could be their love language. Could have a strong connection to family traditions or cultural heritage. They could have a thing for collecting unique items. May have a secret talent for cooking and baking. Loves nature and gardening. Excels in banking or in family business.

Venus in 3rd house:

Possibly has youthful appearance (even if they are older than you). Enjoys mental stimulation. Has talents for writing or public speaking. Also can be a good singer too. May have secret love for leaning new languages. Likes brain teasers or puzzles. Some sort of content creator? May have strong connection with their siblings and friends. Possibly has a fascination with technology or gadgets.

Venus in 4th house:

Possibly has soft, rounded features. They values hone life and very protective and Caring towards their loved one.may have strong connection to their family traditions. Enjoys cooking, decorating or other domestic pursuits. Very intuitive spouse. Possibly has a fascination with antiques or vintage items. Has ability to transform emotional pain into something beautiful and meaningful . Spending time with their loved ones is their love language.

Venus in 5th house:

Has youthful and radiant appearance. Possibly has a playful and mischievous glint in their eye , has a talent for fashion and design. Enjoys risks and trying new things. Loves music , drama, art and any other creative pursuits. May have a strong connection to their inner child. Loves to shine and be the centre of the attention. Some kind of content creator maybe. Hopeless romantic at heart. May have a talent for writing or reading fantasy stories to create elaborate imaginary worlds.

Venus in 6th house:

May have slender or athletic build. Passion or interest in health and wellness / service oriented activities. Values long term commitment, very loyal spouse. May have a talent for energetic healing or reiki. Possess talents for finding creative solutions to everyday problems. They will listen to your every word very closely. Maintains a good body and health. Suprise gifts and heartfelt letters are the love languages. possibly has talent in writing or in journalism.

Venus in 7th house:

Possibly has a strong sense of style and enjoys dressing up. They will love you the most. May have strong magnetic attraction to your beauty. A excellent listener and have a strong ability to understand their partner's needs. Collaboration is the main theme in this relationship ( collaboration in artistic pursuits or any business). They believe in idea of soulmates or twinflmaes . Others admires their beauty so much.

Venus in 8th house:

May have a powerful, intense and dark gaze. They will be attracted to the beauty of your body and sensual expression.also may possess magnetic presence that attracts others to them(Obsessive energy is present too). You can openly share your secrets with them , they will never tell a soul. Could be very spiritual and has knowledge about esoteric things ( tarot, astrology). May have a dark romantic streak or a fascination with unknown.

Venus in 9th house:

Probably big and tall build. May Have interests in foreign cultures/ may have attraction to foreign peoples or people very different to them. May have radiant or philosophical gaze. They are drawn to higher education where they can expand their knowledge. Very spiritual. Their knowledge and words inspire others. Maybe interested in mystical arts and practices such as meditation, yoga or energy healing.

Venus in 10th house:

May have a strong build. May posses a leadership position in the society. Possibly drawn to careers in arts, design or media, also humanitarian field and possess charismatic and charming public persona. Very responsible spouse. Also may have interest in fashion, beauty or any creative industries. May posses some kind of media presence. Possibly may recieve awards or recognition for their work. May have knack for forming successful collaborations or partnerships.

Venus in 11th house:

Possibly has tall or lanky build. Quirky or unconventional appearance. May have a strong desire to help others. They thinks outside the box. Maybe passionate about technology, innovation or progressive ideas. Passionate about science and engineering and mathematics. Involved in social justice and human rights. Possibly has a talent for finding innovative solution to complex problems. Their work inspire others.

Venus in 12th house:

May have dreamy or ethereal quality to their appearance. Has slender or delicate build. Possibly has a talent for art, music or any other creative expression. Passionate about spirituality , and other metaphysical subjects. May have interest in esoteric studies(tarot, astrology). May have intuitive relationships or sense their partners emotions. Possibly some sort of content creator. possibly engages in selfless service or volunteer work.

Thanks for reading ✨

- PIKO 💙

[pomefioredove]

Imagine the overbloat gang as fathers or like proud/panicking that their s/o is having a child and they don't know what to do

Imagine the gang trying to give their kids a goid life and getting baby fever like who wouldn't because the kid is literally a mixed of him and you and they gush about how much they love their s/o and children like ???????

Overbload gang as fathers and i will start violently sob

I do have a weakness for familial headcanons :) future au time??

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ as fathers

type of post: headcanons characters: riddle, leona, azul, jamil, vil, idia, malleus additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral (no mentions of the child's origins), reader is not specified to be yuu, obviously takes place in the future

I think Riddle is one of the most reluctant to have children

for years he was strictly against them. his excuses were always that children are messy, unruly, his career, his relationship with you... but he was mostly just afraid of turning into his mother

as he gets older and forms his own identity, though, he realizes that it takes a lot of intentional effort to fuck up a child like his mom did, and he changes his mind

I can see him with... maybe two kids

he would never want an only child. after all, the bonds he made with his peers are what kept him going

he is a pretty good parent overall. maybe a little to focused on bedtimes and table manners, but the kids don't seem to mind

Trey and Che'nya babysit often (and it's always disastrous)

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

talking Leona into the idea of fatherhood is like diffusing a bomb with a blindfold on. the guy won't even JOKE about it

if you do end up with a kid, it's unplanned, whether that be pregnancy or baby left on the doorstep

but he makes a surprisingly(?) good father. defo a girl dad, he would spoil a daughter rotten. lets her beat the daylights out of Neji because that's his little princess :)

parenting is really not as scary as he thought it was going to be

he has "I'm just resting my eyes" *falls asleep for 8 hours on the reclining chair in the living room* dad energy

the hardest part?

pretending to like vegetables in front of the kid to set a good example

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Azul would actually be an awesome dad idc. IDC!

he has a good relationship with his mom and stepdad (who definitely babysit all the time; they insist on it), so he has good role models

he's not even worried about how it'll affect his career! Azul has a "do it all" personality: businessman, entrepreneur, father, aspiring millionaire...

and he is so overprotective

he'd cover that kid in bubble wrap if you'd let him

but he's really more concerned about their feelings. sending them to school is much harder than closing a business deal

he's a little sensitive, but he knows he'll have to trust them eventually

P.S. the tweels are NOT allowed to babysit. bad influences

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Jamil. ohhh Jamil :(

kids were never on the table for him, even after he met you and fell in love, he just... couldn't imagine it

regardless of whether or not he and his family are in a better place. (for the sake of this story, let's pretend they are. I want him to be happy) he just has so much generational trauma that he knows the child will end up with some, anyway

when, if, he's ready, it will still be a tough process. but worth it

he's such a supportive dad. bragging about his child at any chance, definitely the kind of dad to show everyone the baby pictures without being asked

it gets embarrassing for them as they grow, but he doesn't care

he thinks they're the greatest thing ever, and people should know that!

he is so proud

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Vil had always wanted to play a father on screen, but once he hits that age, he starts thinking about real life, too

he's gotten where he wants to be, after all: he's still young, he's in love, and his career, as successful as it is, is starting to wind down. so, why not?

he is the most supportive partner you could ask for. despite his schedule, he's involved in everything (yes, even the messy stuff)

he's got a customized baby bjorn and everything

I can see him with... one. just one is enough for him. he also has girl dad energy. he's already looking forward to playing princesses and letting her do his makeup (terribly, of course)

he knows his child will grow to have their own wants and thoughts and personality, and he's supportive. besides, if he has another Epel on his hands, he'll know how to handle them

just... gentler, this time

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

for you, anon, I will enterain the idea that Idia may someday reproduce. but there's still a 50% chance that kid is a robot

joking (kind of)

I don't think he'd even really want kids. considering his own unhappy childhood and the whole curse of his bloodline thing. but, like the others, he can be convinced!

I think he'd make a pretty good father, tbh. neurotic, sure, but he's not too clingy, nor too distant

whatever kids he has will be smart, and he trusts them. he likes teaching them nerdy stuff, too (finally, someone he can infodump to!!!)

he probably ends up with more than he'd think. 2 or 3

as long as you never bring up how cringe he was in college, he's rather mature and prepared for anything

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

out of the whole lineup, Malleus is the the only one to have thought your future children while at NRC. daydreamed, really

I know, not surprising. look at the guy. he's practically kicking his legs back and forth while coming up with baby names in game

it was just a fantasy at first, then you became closer, graduated, got older, and...

Lilia began teasing him about getting grandkids, and Malleus took him quite seriously

he knows he's still young (though, at his age, Lilia was already general), but he doesn't want to wait forever. you both have many long talks on the matter

and end up with... as many children as you can handle, basically

Malleus is somewhat of an awkward father (having been raised by Lilia will do that to you)

but he cares. and he tries! very hard. plus, there's always Lilia, Silver, and Sebek around to lend a hand

[neo-kosmos]

hi all, shelby here! sorry for the total lack of activity on this blog for the past few years. we have been working diligently behind the scenes on our discord server as we wrote the drafts of the novels

if you haven’t heard, danny broke up with me and brian. we are getting neokosmos in the divorce as it has always been my baby and brainchild and brian has done virtually all of the prose writing since 2020. danny has wanted to step away for quite some time, and we are super proud of him for following his own path in life. the two of us will always be best friends but our time as partners and creative partners has come to an end.

we will be changing the name of neokosmos because danny is no longer working on and it is just not the same project that it was back in 2015. its a lot more adult, its a novel, the story and world is so much more developed and honestly we need a fresh start. as soon as we can we will be relaunching everything with the new name and posting the first five chapters for free for everyone to read to see if you wanna join us and make it happen. both brian and i are too disabled to work normal jobs so we need to make writing and selling artwork as our main gigs or we will be kind of fucked.

thank you to everyone who has believed in us over the years and especially our loyal patrons. its been hundreds of thousands of words and concept art and prep over the last 9 years and im so stoked to finally share what we have been cooking with more people. i started this project as a 23 year old recent grad with no idea what i was doing in life, and now at 32 i finally feel confident enough that what i am making is ACTUALLY GOOD????

so yeah, stay tuned, the whole project is about to enter Phase 3. love y’all

-shelby

[honeydewandcake]

TW — Asylum/Hospital setting, mental disorders, medical malpractice

Inspired by Fran Bow, Sparklecare, Pure Trance, and other such things; I had an idea for a Dandy’s World AU that centers around a hospital setting

I feel like a lot of people don’t like asylum or hospital AUs because they are full of exaggerated or misinformed ideas of what mental illness is. I tried not to do that, though I’m not a professional so I still might be wrong about some things. I don’t want to take this idea too far in fear that it might be distasteful, but I do want to share this idea to see if others like it too.

Dandy’s Care is a separate world where, instead of a museum, Dandy and his friends were meant to be for a children’s hospital to treat the sick and ill. They were meant to be comfort characters to patients and were meant to support them during their stay. Like in Dandy’s World, the hospital shut down due to unspecified sanitation issues. Dandy, also known as Dr. Dandicus Dancifer, slowly became more and more starved for activity. He started targeting his friends, making the hospital into an asylum for them. He changed their characters, changing his friends into patients. The toons have no memory of their former self, only knowing their diseased and ill present self.

The staff is made up of the main toons. All of them are nurses and Dandy is the main doctor. They all act like their former selves, though they have no memory. I didn’t want to draw all of them so just imagine Astro and Vee in these uniforms.

Read more to see other toons (not all of them drawn or thought of yet, don’t attack me ;-;) ↓

Razzle and Dazzle, the only ones that I thought of completely because I already drew them before. They’re the reason why I made this entire thing anyway.

They are just experiments by Dandy, who wanted to see if the two could live together if they were attached. They used to love each other, now they don’t. Razzle is no longer looking for comedy, Dazzle is no longer looking for hope. Both are only set on the idea of revenge against Dandy for making them this way.

Life is hard when you can only feel the sensations on one half on your body, they can barely walk and can only stand or sit. They take many painkillers as their wounds take a long time to health properly. They wish they could escape this place and just die already, but they’re stuck and forced to live for as long as Dandy wants.

Razzle is a lot more violent now. He is prone to biting and scratching the staff. He hates doing all the lab tests and medical procedures, he hates being near Dazzle, he hates being stuck in this living hell. Razzle is the reason why they’re not allowed near sharp or blunt objects.

Dazzle became paranoid, scared of any noise that happens. He’s terrified of Razzle because of how violent he can get, he hates him too. Dazzle cries a lot, he cries until he can’t everyday. Dazzle wishes he could just die already, he thinks everything is scary and out to get him.

Shrimpo is thought to be a patient that had anger issues and aggressive tendencies. According to Dandy, he was admitted for being violent in public, although this is only part of the fake story that Dandy gave him. Shrimpo was forced to get a lobotomy, unethical but who cares. Dandy sure didn’t.

He’s still in the recovery phase, so he might be a bit loopy. Once those bandages are off, he’ll be as right as rain. Shrimpo is a wanderer around the hospital as he’s no longer a threat. He’s allowed to leave his room and go out in the play yard but only if a nurse is with him.

Shrimpo doesn’t really have much going for him. His thoughts are scrambled and he only cares for things in front of him. Although the lobotomy made him more passive, it doesn’t mean he’s any better in terms of motivation. Shrimpo certainly has no drive for anything anymore, he doesn’t mind but it gets in the way of his health as well. The staff needs to remind him to go to the dining room to eat or to go take a shower, because otherwise he’ll forget.

Boxten was made to believe that he has had problems with insomnia ever since he was little, of course it’s not true. He takes sleeping pills and melatonin, but it only seems to worsen his nightmares. This makes him skip his doses to avoid sleeping, repeating the cycle over and over.

Boxten is afraid of imaginary things that might get him. He thinks they’ve already in his head, eating away at his brain and giving him nightmares. Of course the only thing the nurses can see is his music box. Boxten has lost all trust in the staff since they couldn’t see or feel the things he can.

In my original notes, it said that Boxten might have psychosis.

Well that’s all the once I’ve drawn, I don’t really have the motivation to make every single toon. I have a couple of ideas though

— Goob somehow survived a terrible accident, but both his arms needed to be amputated making him armless. He suffers from brain damage and internal bleeding. He doesn’t seem to have any change in his personality, still as joyful as ever. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism

— Tisha has severe OCD which damages her mental health. She’s constantly worried about everything that happens around her, making her super aware of her surroundings. She could be a danger to herself and others as she sometimes has very aggressive thoughts but can’t control her actions. She unintentionally hurts herself because of her OCD, such as washing her hands so many times that they start to bleed.

Not for a toon, but I did have an idea for an added addition to the hospital. Maybe there’s a twisted reform center where the staff try and heal twisteds back to their normal self. They would clean the ichor from them but since the ichor is also inside of them their personalities don’t change as much. Twisteds such as Finn and R&D might be too far gone though, they would have to be disabled for life. I might draw this idea because I think it’s kind of cool, I definitely will if people also think this is interesting.

[thankskenpenders]

Sonic x ...DC Comics?!

We have our reveal of what our new Sonic comic crossover will be, and it's... not what I expected! We're getting a five-issue comic series mashing up Sonic with the DC Comics universe written by Ian Flynn, plus a slew of merch to go with it.

To be honest, I don't know how to feel about this? I don't feel the hype.

Okay, for one, cards on the table: I have more attachment to Marvel's cast of characters than DC's. Sue me. But it's not like I don't also like DC's heroes! I grew up watching the Batman movies and the Justice League cartoons and Adam West's Batman and whatnot. I loved Teen Titans so much as a kid that I was Robin one year for Halloween. DC's cool! People have been comparing Sonic to the Flash for years! So... why does this collab make me feel nothing?

Well, for one, it might be that I would prefer a series like this to be about Sonic and friends meeting the Justice League, as opposed to them being the Justice League. To me, personally, that just seems a little more interesting. Seeing how those characters play off of each other. People have been asking "who would win in a race, Sonic or the Flash?" for years, so that was kinda the thing I was latching onto as the impetus for this crossover. And yes, in the interview they tease the possibility of the actual characters meeting, but they're marketing it primarily via these mashup characters with Sonic and co. cosplaying as the Justice League, so I have to assume that's the main focus of the story.

But I'm also just sitting here like... why DC? Why is this the highest priority crossover to do with Sonic? It seems so arbitrary. Just mashing two random popular franchises together. It doesn't feel like something that resonates so heavily with Sonic that we just NEED this crossover to exist. The DC universe isn't something that has much of a thematic connection with Sonic. Like, you look at the TMNT x Naruto crossover, and THAT feels inspired. That's something you never would've thought would happen, but the second it's announced it seems so obvious, and the sick cover art sells the idea that it's gonna be something fun. (Hell, speaking of TMNT, that feels like a crossover that would've made way more sense to me. No, the single panel of the Archie comics they appeared in doesn't count.)

When the Sonic X DC thing is announced with a series of stock vectors of the Sonic cast cosplaying as the Justice League and the news that there will be a ton of merch for this, well. It just makes it seem like this is first and foremost a collab designed to generate new Funko Pops.

I don't know. I'm sure that whatever the actual story looks like, Ian will do his damnedest to make the comic fun. It'll probably be pretty decent. He's the perfect writer for this assignment. It's just not the crossover I would've requested. Maybe I'm just being a hater here. I know a lot of people are excited, with speculation about what other Sonic characters could take the roles of DC characters. Maybe showing something from the actual comic would've been a better sell. But, well, that's how I feel about it based on the announcement!

[kaybreezy3000]

(F-Reader, smut w/story, soft Five + our usual cocky Five, S4 fix-it)

Broken but breathing. Longing for something that always felt just out of his reach, Five was not okay.

With fates forever intertwined, a train, and a smile he would never forget, once again, the impossible became his reality, but like always, not without tragedy.

In the end, all that mattered are the people Five loved. For them, he would do anything.

Note ~I originally started this pre-s4 release as anon request for another headcanon like my last one, but after watching the show I decided this needed to more than that because Five deserved it. This is a full story, with each letter representing a chapter with something that relates back to Five, only with a new twist, you (female reader insert). For those concerned about the Five and Lila narrative, fear not, this story is not going that route.

~mature content so if not your thing, please stay away. TY.

Warnings and Tags: Rated R for sexually explicit content, Hurt Number Five, Alternate S4, Whump, Mental Break Down, Self-Doubt, Angst-humor-love, Uncle Five, The Deli Fives, Starts with Five in a very dark place, Not the end the show gave us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amor Fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate." It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.

It's an idea that everything recurs infinitely over an infinite period of time.

A-Aim

Whether Five was setting his sights on saving his family, or when he was focusing all his attention on the crosshairs of his scope, his focus was always impressive. 

From a very young age he took on every challenge with a ruthless level of determination, but that unfortunately made him come off disturbingly detached, and now, even though Five no longer needed to be that feral creature, his behaviors from the past were alienating him from his family, and the rest of the world.

It's not that Five didn’t have a very good reason for letting himself become so removed, but now, gone were the days when he had glorious purpose.

Sitting alone in a powerless world that Reginald had dumped them in while biding his time at the end of a bar with his face curtained by the dark fringe of his shaggy hair, Five was feeling exceptionally defeated.

He hypnotically swirled the amber liquid in his fingerprint smudged glass.

Over and over, he repeated your name in his head.

He liked the sound of it, but he liked the way you smiled at him even more.

Five saw you nearly every day on his way to work, but as much as he may have wanted to, he never said a word to you. When you’d look his way, and catch him staring, your eyes would come alive as your lips perked up just a little, as if daring him to crack.

He didn’t.

He couldn’t. 

That was the way Five thought it had to be.

But then, something happened.

He could still feel that...

That...

He didn't know what it was.

Shutting his eyes, Five raked a hand through his snarls while disappointedly shaking his head. He knew he shouldn’t let himself do this but he couldn’t help it.

It was just another day, mundane as all the rest. All the seats had been taken by the time you entered the train. You were stuck in the middle, standing in front of him with nothing to hold on to. Less than thirty seconds into the ride, the air between you filled with static.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

The train unexpectedly shifted.

You started to fall, and the next thing Five knew, he had you in his arms so fast it was as if he had his powers to blink again.

With the warmth of your butt pressed against him and your hair catching in the light stubble shadowing his chin, Five inhaled deeply, trying to ignore how oddly alive he felt as he discreetly as possible savored how good you smelled.

Before he could put together why he felt so amazing, or before you could tell him off for being too handsy, the train shifted again, only sharper this time, forcing him to hold onto you even tighter or you would have tumbled into the man in front of you.

“Oh, my god! I am sorry,” you’d gasped as you clung to him, your fingernails digging into the thick wool suit coat covering his forearms.

Realizing you weren’t mad, Five let his hands slide a little further around your midsection, firming his grip.

“Thank you,” you embarrassingly gasped as the train continued to aggressively rock your body against his.

“It’s my pleasure,” Five breathily chuckled into the fluff of your hair.

A second later, the train switched tracks, and everyone was flung forward again and your computer bag swung backwards, violently jabbing him in the dick.

Still at the mercy of the wild train, with Five doing his best to widen his stance to gain more balance so you both didn’t fall, you sheepishly cocked your head back at him.

“Are you ahh -"

“I-I am good,” he coughed, cutting you off.

Then, to your surprise and his, though still visibly in pain, he started laughing.

By the time everyone stopped getting thrown around, you were laughing too. As you turned to face him, Five reluctantly let his hands slip from the narrowest point of your waist, his fingers gliding along the fabric of your shirt a little slower than necessary.

Face flushed, you quickly introduced yourself, but he said nothing as he smiled at you with a dreamy look in his eyes.

“I am pretty sure we just took a detour to the moon back there, but I still can’t believe I just did that,” you joked.

At a loss for words, other than things he knew he shouldn’t say, Five’s amused smile began to fade.

“Thank you for saving me from a nosedive. Let me at least buy you a coffee or something… It’s the least I can do after stomping on your foot and nailing you in the-” 

You looked down.

“Shit… That big scuff wasn’t there before, was it?” you asked, anxiously referring to the mark on Five’s shoe, not something notable going on in the dick region of his expensive looking dress pants.

When the handsome stranger staring at you still said nothing, you began to worry your bottom lip, sucking it in on one side.

Feeling so many things he’d never let himself feel, Five wanted nothing more than run his thumb over the alluring pink flesh and tell you that getting his dick assaulted and having his shoes ruined was well worth it because of the way you were looking at him with your face more beautifully flustered than he’d ever seen anyone’s.

He wanted to say that, but he didn’t.

The train slowed to a stop.

The doors opened, and without another word, Five took off. Stepping into the crowd of commuters that were rushing out the doors as they elbowed their way through the busy subway station, he'd never felt more spineless.

That morning, when it came to his unbreakable determination and legendary aim, he didn’t even shoot for it with you, so he could hardly call it a missed target. Still, he felt awful. Almost as soon as he’d hit the street above and he was inundated with the less than savory smells of the city, he knew he’d missed something huge.

Racing back down the stairs, heart racing, the rush of air blew past him as the train with you on it pulled away.

B-Boners (AKA Mistakes)

At this point in his life, as much as Five hated it, he still had boner issues. Your overactive dick in your pants kind of boner issues, and the other kind, such as when committing social blunders, like rudely blowing you off when you were simply trying to be polite.

Being young again, with hormones what they were, the first boner problem was an unavoidable way of life, and speaking of which, his thoughts about you once again drifted back to how good it felt when your body melted into his, your ass perfectly molding against the crotch of his pants as he held you steady.

Feeling things he shouldn’t be while perched on a barstool at a bar filled with other people, Five subtly shifted his legs apart. Willing his over eager cock to calm down, he looked up at the mirrored wall behind the bottles of liquor displayed along the back wall.

The young man looking back at him frowned, but his body remained aroused despite his sorrowful reflection.

Unable to hold his own hateful glare, Five looked back down at his almost empty glass.

Hopelessly horny, and far past slightly buzzed, he muttered a slurred sounding, “ Grrrrrr- ate . ”

With an irritated huff of air blowing his hair out of his face, Five yanked his tie even looser and tipped back his head, swallowing the rest of his drink. Feeling like he could breathe a little easier, he threw down an overly generous tip, assuring that even though he technically wasn't 21 yet, his ID said he was, and combined, he’d be served again.

Ready to go, his hot palms gliding down his tensed thighs, Five’s eyes fluttered closed for just a second.

His head spun, but not with the sickness of too much drink.

In his whirl of thoughts, he was back on the train with you.

He could practically feel your ass in his hands, his fingers groping greedily as he shamelessly ground his shaft between your legs from behind.

Sadly, at this point, Five still had never been with anyone real. Yet, the disconnect of not knowing what this would really feel like, or how he should be going about doing it, was doing nothing to ruin his bizarrely timed fantasy of animalistically fucking his rock-hard erection into the warmth of your curvy body in any way he could.

God, he wanted to touch his dick!

Opening his eyes, the room spun even more and not in a good way, but still Five refrained from doing that and instead clung to the pleasant visions in his head.

Over the years, with little to give him the feeling of satisfaction he so desperately longed for, Five had unwittingly become addicted to self-stimulation, and it was not just the thrill of that chase that tormented him. Five craved anything that gave him that all-consuming high, though when it came to bloodshed, he refused to admit how great it felt being so good at his job back when he was the Commission’s most celebrated assassin.

Feet hitting the sticky floor, Five’s thoughts blurred with an endless reel of bad ideas, only one of them being the idea of hunting you down so he could re-start your conversation from the train, this time pushing past his reservations for why getting to know you wasn’t an option. 

Screw that!

This time Five was going to charm you, wine and dine you, and take you home so he could do all sorts of naughty things to you- if you’d let him, of course . He was a monster, but not that kind of monster .

A few seconds later, hand pushing the bar’s grungy advertisement-covered door open, the cool night air hit Five’s overheated face, but it did nothing to get his head on straight or make him realize he had no idea how to treat a real woman who could talk back or think on her own.

Yes, in this body and one that was much younger, Number Five Hargreeves hit on strippers and waitresses to get a rise out of them, but having an actual two-way conversation with them, followed by any form of true intimacy, no.

No, he’d never done that, but today, with you, he wanted to, so damn badly.

No matter how drunk he was, Five knew that letting himself think like this about you wasn’t right or helping the tent in his pants get any less prominent and he hated himself for it. With his bloodshot eyes struggling to focus, he dizzily turned towards the staggering reflection in the store window next to him, taking in the sad face looking back.

“Pathetic,” he grumbled, before trudging away with his chin lowered to his chest.

C-Cycle of Loneliness

Stumbling along the sidewalks while on his way home, Five felt trapped. He was finally free of all the death and endless killing, but that didn’t mean he felt like he could live, or that he even knew how to.

With his past what it was, he was unable to let anyone other than his family know who he really was and like before ending up powerless in Reginald’s new world, they were failing to see that he wasn’t as okay as he was pretending to be.

Like always, despite what Five felt about this, in most situations, he managed to keep his composure. He acted like he was fine. Putting on a stoic face of impassivity, he attended most family functions when asked. He’d gotten his PHD in record time and handled his work within the CIA professionally, but at the end of the day, he was merely existing and the reasons for it were becoming harder and harder for him to justify.

D- Distance and Diffidence-the opposite of confidence

When it came to shyness and a lack of confidence, most of the time Five Hargreeves would be the last person you would think of, but self-doubt had always plagued him. Growing up with a father that never thought he was good enough was the trigger that inflamed his insecurities, but even worse, after the trials of his youth and his lifetime alone in the apocalypse, he believed that if he’d never left and messed up the way he did, his family never would have died.

Never a day passed that Five didn’t tell himself, If I hadn’t lost it and jumped to the future and got myself stuck, none of this would have happened.

Knowing that none of his siblings were exactly thrilled with how things had gone for them over the last five years, nearly every time Five was around them, he couldn’t help but feel like that was all his fault too.  

Ironically and tragically, long ago, Five was the one that initially distanced himself from his family, but in typical Five Hargreeves fashion, now he’d been overcompensating for his feelings of inferiority by lashing out on those he loved, only further complicating his problems.

Only twenty minutes from the suburbs where Allison and his niece Claire lived with Klaus, who was dealing with the aftermath of his sobriety in their bubble wrapped basement, since they’d been there, Five had only been to their house once.

Looking up at the four-story brownstone looming over him, no less drunk after walking the twelve blocks it took to get home, Five realized that not one of his family members even knew where he lived, and he was surer than ever that they didn’t care to.

They didn’t need him anymore.

E-Egotistical

Five knew he could become preoccupied with his own affairs, often showing others contempt by rolling his eyes at them in annoyance and boredom, or both, but his smug behavior wasn’t as simple as him having an exaggerated perception of his own worth.

Five never meant to become so estranged from his family. They were everything to him, and in addition to that, he never meant to treat you as coldly as he did by running off when you were merely trying to treat him like any other normal person would treat someone else.

No one would have believed it, but the truth was, Five was scared of rejection more than anything. All along he had been trying to protect himself with a mask of indifference as his mighty shield.

F-Fumbling, Fuck It

Fumbling with his keys, Five was confused by his own behavior, and even more bothered by his inappropriate thoughts about you when he didn’t even know you. He was hardly what anyone would call a brainless idiot, but the title seemed to fit as he tripped over his own feet while talking to himself like a total nutcase.

“Hi. Sure… No problem, it’s all good. My shoe and my dick are fine, really. Oh, and what a lovely name. My name is Five. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a fucking number,” he sardonically laughed, then dropped his keys when after several tries, he couldn’t get them to align with the keyhole.

Swooping down to get them, he tipped over, his head banging into the door, swinging the flimsy panel of wood wide with the force of his skull until it slammed into the wall inside his apartment.

“It wasn’t even locked, you dipshit!” he cursed himself as glass skittered across his shoes from the picture frame that just smashed to the floor, the one with a picture of him holding his newborn niece, Grace.

“Fucking, FUCK!” he cried, picking up the picture. 

He started brushing off the tiny shards of glass sticking to it.

When a white line tore right over the bundle in his arms, ruining her little face that was staring up at him as if he were worthy of her look of wonderment, instead of angrily throwing a fist into his already crumbling plaster, Dolores’s familiar voice started to filter into Five’s mind, proving he was doing particularly awful that evening.

As his once beloved mannequin, the one who wasn’t even there, encouraged him to move towards this kitchen and set down the photograph before his bloodied fingers damaged it even more, the suggestiveness he’d created in her calming words had Five’s lips turning up in a drunken smirk of craziness.

You need to sober up, Five… You can’t keep doing this to yourself. Come to bed with me…’

Dripping blood in his cast-iron sink basin, thoughts of a totally different kind of self-absorption filled Five’s head, and with them, a renewed rush of blood went places that had hardly let him forget they were dying for his attention.

Acting in an alcohol induced form of autopilot, obeying Dolores, Five poured himself a glass of water from the tap, drank it, then clumsily navigated the darkness of his one room flat, heading towards his bed, where he fell like a ton of bricks into the rumpled bedding, still fully clothed.

With his knees digging into the bed, lifting him, hands racing to unfasten the buttons on his waist coat and shirt, this was one of Five’s many, many fuck it moments, not that he had much of a choice in how he landed with his head smashed into his pillows.

But…

As he rolled onto his back, his dick twitching from the mere pressure of being pressed into the bed, his hand slipped over his pants, and that was another matter at hand that was all him.

The dips and valley of Five’s abs flexed as he lay there, his youthful body bleached and pale in the slivers of light streaming in from between his blinds. As he let his hands wander and he began to stroke his cock through the layers covering him, the languid motion of his hand was weak in contrast to the sharp angles of pleasure contorting his face.

With the cool air in his room hitting his exposed chest, Five shivered. His eyes narrowed, locking in on the long shadow of his erection that was making a mockery of his pants.

It felt so fucking good to touch himself. He whimpered, as he dug his hand into himself harder, then let up again.

He didn’t mean to, but he lived for this.

In the apocalypse this was all he had. 

Now, going at it at his desk, having spent a long day at work, the papers in front of him hardly stimulating enough to hold his interest, jerking off was just another part of his daily routine.

Lying in bed, in the shower, or even sometimes in the bathroom at work if he found himself unable to reign in his body’s needs, Five would stroke his dick, hard and fast, and before he knew it, he would be biting back guttural moans, head leaned up against a bathroom stall, coming all over a wad of toilet paper, or at his desk, dispensing his load in an already used shirt or anything else that he could reach that was expendable.

It was juvenile, and perverted as all hell, and he knew it, but just thinking about it, the wrongness, and about you, Five was getting harder, his balls filling with that delicious ache that made him feel alive.

“You can touch it, sweetheart” he whispered as he began to unzip his pants, trying to concentrate on the illusion that Dolores was there with him.

He teased himself, brushing his fingers lightly over the cotton still covering his cock.

As if watching it from outside himself, the resin covered peachiness of his beloved’s hand merged with the fleshiness of your real hand.

Palming himself with growing need, the face Five had been seeing looking down at him suddenly smiled the way you smiled at him as the visions in his head became a muddling array of unquenchable desire.

“Fuck, I want you,” Five groaned as his fingers snuck inside the fly of his underwear for just a second before pulling out again.

Acting out your part, he tightened his grip on his girth, making pre-cum begin to leak through his underwear, forming a darkened spot where the head of his cock was begging to be let free.

“Yeah, just like that. Go slow,” he moaned, his fingers wrapping around his length, moving over the stretched fabric as he began to pump, still gently as he possibly could.

Pictures flashed through his mind. His lips on your jaw, your eyelids heavy and expressive as his lips slightly parted, his hair flowing away from his face, tickling your silky skin as he held you from behind like a trusted lover.

At the phantom like sounds of your little laughs filling his ears, Five’s dick pulsed in his hand, blood flowing full and fast.

Unable to take it, he reached inside his underwear, giving in to touching himself more directly.

Five twirled his finger around the end of his cock.

Lowering your head, the heat of your mouth began to slip over the thickness of his leaking tip, tonguing the pool of stickiness gathered there. 

“I knew the second you looked at me, you wanted me,” he arrogantly huffed as you went down on him.

Though Dolores had heard it all before, glaring at him on the sidelines of his mind, she suddenly looked appalled.

You can’t say things like that! she chastised him.

Determined to shake her, Five put all his attention on the feel of his cock entering your throat.

Snuffing out any remaining thoughts of Dolores out of his head, Five quickened his pace, drowning out the sound of her panicky warnings that were trying to make him see that this kind of fantasy was even worse than his others with her.

Five! You are only hurting yourself with this!

“I don’t care!” he growled.

He bit down on his lip and closed his eyes, only to be greeted by the memory of your hair falling over your shoulders as it brushed against his face when you were both back on the train.

He breathed in and he could smell you.

Then his brain trying to piece together what really happened, he saw your look of shock as he rushed away from you like you were the plague or worse. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he heard you angrily yell, even though you had said nothing when he did that.

“Please don’t stop. I’m sorry,” he panted, mad at himself for hurting you, and even more panicked by his own madness.

Fighting back, he kept his pace, and just like that, you just as quickly forgave him, taking him to the hilt, your nose hitting his pubic bone.

Dark hair in his eyes as he watched his entire cock repeatedly drive down your throat, Five hissed, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes-"

Dolores’s voice cried out. Five! You’re losing it again!

‘Go away!’ Five’s mind screamed at itself, proving she wasn’t wrong-he was losing it .

For the next few minutes, the sounds of Five sadistically berating himself as he violently masturbated were absorbed in the quiet of his dark, empty room.

Shame filling him, his stomach twisted.

He was so fucking close. 

His shoulder blades flushed as small beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck. The muscles in his back and arms tensed harder and harder as he quickly moved his hand.

Angling his face to the ceiling, his eyes scrunched shut and his right arm dropped lazily to the side.

His butt cheeks clenched over and over as his bed springs creaked, his thrusts enough to make his headboard bang into the wall as he frantically pumped his body upwards into his hand.

“You-ff-fu-ah-cking lov-vvve my cock-fuck-you’re amazing,” he grunted and writhed, his sweat covered legs burning under the wool of his rumpled pants that were trapped around his ankles as he bent his knees up and his heels dug into the bed.

Already putting on an impressive one-man show of insanity, wanting more of your mouth’s wet heaven, Five let go of his dick, spitting in his hand. Returning to the length of flesh waiting for him, he thrusted up into his fist with louder and louder noises of slicked ecstasy.

Panting and moaning your name, sweat dripped down the curves of Five’s back. Through sharp propulsions of his hips, he cursed. Throwing his other hand back, he clutched and pulled at his own hair.

He held his breath as his mind screamed and his come poured over his fingers.

Lost in what he was pretending was the feel of your mouth accepting him, yet still wanting to spare his sheets, Five aimed his dick inwards, letting his seed pour out over the fine trail of hair leading up his abdomen, the white beads flinging across his otherwise unmarked skin.

Pulses of pleasure took him as he watched the eroticism of defiling himself.

His broken gasps got quieter and quieter. “FFFUUCC-ffff fff-mmmff."

His balls tightening as hips jerked more and more erratically, Five felt the betraying warmth of his tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he rode out wave upon wave of the orgasm he’d longed more than anything for you to be part of, the defeated voice of his own creation ruminating in his head so loud he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

She doesn’t even know you.

“I know,” he whimpered back with the hand not on his cock, coming up, covering his red face.

G-Grief

Most of Five’s life was filled with intense mourning. He’d witnessed the death of everyone he’d ever loved, more than once. His anguish over having to bury his family left him in a state of ruin, not unlike the burning world he’d found himself in at the ripe age of thirteen.

Hours after he’d drunkenly cleaned up the mess that he’d made of himself, sucking in, mind adrift, Five suddenly couldn’t breathe.

There was too much ash.

So thirsty he could barely swallow, he ran his tongue over his cracked lips, only getting more of the bitter taste of powered cinders and the tang of his own blood.

The smell of burning flesh made him gag into the suffocating white of his pillowcase.

His stomach turned even as it growled with hunger.

Five was asleep, but the horrors he couldn’t outrun were creeping in like the maggots on the thousands of corpses he could see laying all around him, the sickness of it all wiggling into his periphery as he kicked out his legs and tangled himself in his blankets.

I'm going to die here!

It’s too hot!

I can’t get out.

He was being crushed.

Fingers clenching, hands shaking as his chest became tighter and tighter, it was as if he was the one that was dying even though it was the lifeless faces of his siblings flashing in front of his terror filled eyes that were darting around his dark bedroom, seeing nothing but the endless nightmare of his past.

H-Happiness

In another timeline, while not having a nightmare of the panic attack inducing kind, along a sunny roadside, Five had a very revealing conversation with the woman that had plucked him out of hell, only to throw him into a new one.

Ice cream truck stuck motionless, a bullet seconds away from rearranging Luther’s brain, Five stood there in his schoolboy shorts, his pistol pointed at The Handler as he said, “I'm not looking for happy.”

Like so many times, he watched her perfectly painted lips curl with a certain brand of mischievous cruelty that was all her own. “We're all looking for happy, Five,” she coolly corrected.

Looking away, Five tried in vain to hide his panic.

He did want happiness! That was the problem, only he’d given up on it for himself long ago and the Handler knew that pointing out his lie was the perfect way to break him all over again.

Not about to let her win, Five ground his teeth together and defiantly looked back up at her, not bothering to show is venomous disdain as she towered over him in her shiny red heels.

The world never cared what he wanted, but he’d be damned if he’d give up fighting to save it, but now, as he rushed from his bed to his bathroom sink, helplessly sobbing as he filled his hands with scoop after scoop of cold water, trying in vain to bring himself back to reality, who was going to save him?

I-Ignored

It was the day of his niece’s birthday.

Leaving work, after another day of reporting back to his superiors about The Keepers’s activity and them not giving a shit how far he’d gotten infiltrating their cult like secret society, Five looked down at the colorful invitation in his hand, then the package he’d wrapped the best he could in the other.

The shiny paper was lopsided, revealing an electronic toy puppy’s face peeking out from inside.

The last time Five ran into Diego and his family while out at the same store, his goddaughter had told him how much she wanted a very specific chunk of robotic plastic that was over in the nearby toy section.

“I know its the next Tickle Me Elmo or some shit, but we don’t have the money for that. You know that, Grace! Why do you always have to push and push this stuff,” Diego said, scowling at her.

Lila rolled her eyes at that, then unfazed by her look of disapproval, Diego kept moving, throwing more important items in their cart.

The twins, covered in groceries, fussed and cried in their car seats as their parents moved on, not saying anything else to Five other than a flippant, ‘see you later.’  

Like always, they weren’t happy to see him and the little girl looking up at him shared his same look of disappointment.

Hating how let down she looked, Five smiled. “What do you think his name is?” Five asked, pointing to the barking box just down the aisle that said, ‘Makes chocolate poopies you can eat!’ in bold letters.

“I don’t know, Uncle Five,” Grace said, shyly looking down at her shoes. “What do you think he wants to be called?”

Turning back, looking even more irritated as she put back a box of sugar filled kids cereal that Diego was trying to sneak into the cart, Lila yelled, “Grace! Come on!”

The little girl ran off, but Five answered her question after purchasing the toy puppy, programming it to wag its tail as his voice came out through its recorder, saying, “I’m Mr. Pennycrumb and you are my best friend. You should listen to me even though I am a toy dog. Your parents are idiots, but I am still smarter than them.”

A few hours later, after his daughter excitedly tore open her favorite gift of the day, and he heard Five’s special message and Grace’s squeals of delight over it, as he envisioned karate kicking Mr. Pennycrumb into the rafters, Diego’s eyes damn near bugged out of his head as he yelled,  “Really, Five!”

“What,” he said, shrugging.

Clearly Diego and Lila weren't happy with him, but it wasn't like it mattered. They were never happy with him.

Even while in the presence of his family, as Five leaned back against the rainbow ball pit’s netting, it felt like he might as well still be rotting away in the apocalypses still. While at the birthday party with Luther bashing the shit out of the pinata, their bickering and problems with each other never seemed to end. He tried his best, talking to Ben and the others, but once the small talk was done, it was as if he wasn’t even there unless he said something shitty.

Five was just a figure on the sideline, someone who his own family didn’t want to know.

All he wanted his entire life was to get back to them, but when he did, they had moved on. They didn’t understand him, and he couldn’t blame them for that, he didn’t even like who he was, but at least he was owning that. Jerks act like jerks.

If not for the sound of Gracie calling out to him as he was about to leave, Five would have ended up at a bar again, alone and miserable.

“Thank you so much for coming. I love you, Uncle Five,” she said after she ran over to him.

“I love you too,” he quietly replied, trying not to let her hear the crack in his voice as she put her arms up, silently asking him to come down to her level so she could hug him.

That little hug was all it took, and not much after that, Five found himself out in the parking lot with the rest of them, meeting a very strange man named Sy Grossman.

J-Judgement

Most of Five’s life was defined by punishment. He often mused that all the bad things had been inflicted on him as retribution for his many wrongdoings. As for which of his crimes he was paying for now, after finding Viktor, then having a night out at dinner with his family that went all sorts of wrong, the world was set to end again in twenty-four hours, so it didn’t really matter.

No matter how remorseful Five was, or how much he’d already suffered, or how he tried to make things right and move on without hurting anyone else but himself, it seemed that the sentence of this endless destruction would always be his penance.

K-Keepers

Five should have seen it. Both that Ben had tricked them with his sake toast, and long before that obvious con.

Sitting there dressed like an idiot, his fake mustache thicker than it had ever been when he’d been 19 years old the first time around, he had chatted it up in the therapeutic round circle of crazy people, going on and on about how he was walking around in a body not his own.

He was a 65-year-old man for Christ’s sake! This shouldn’t be where he was!

He told those weirdos that he’d lived through things people couldn’t even begin to imagine!

He lived off all kinds of nasty creepy crawlies, his teeth breaking through the crusts of their exoskeletons, the ooze of their insides almost impossible to swallow, but he did it anyway.

He’d brought on so much suffering to others as he traveled through time, briefcase in hand, murdering anyone he was ordered to eliminate.

Some days Five would look in the mirror and get so confused that he’d forget where or who he was. He didn’t know what was real or not anymore.

He didn’t have to pretend that he was nuts, that was why The Keepers let him get closer. That was why he had run into Lila out skipping book club, trying to feel the danger and excitement she’d once lived for before becoming a tired mother who felt like she was drowning in the monotony of her marriage.

Looking away as Diego fumed about catching his wife with her creepy little Greek boyfriend, Five angled his face towards the window.

His mind reeled. Diego was asking for his help! Him of all people!

Everything was falling apart.

After a van ride covered in puke, listening to Baby Shark on repeat, they were all being shot at.

Heart racing, he blinked, just as a shotgun shell was going to split his skull in two.

Only just then realizing he had his powers back, Five landed in a subway station that had not been under the street he was standing on when they got there.

L-Love

Narrowly fleeing from the set-up in psycho Christmas Town, The Hargreeves had escaped unscathed once more, only they didn’t. The marigold in their bodies proved they weren’t who they were before, and the mangled bodies lying all around at the farm they’d come to while looking for Ben verified that once again, they were way in over their heads.

Reginald couldn’t or wouldn’t help them anymore than he already did, and they couldn’t help themselves. Ben was going to die all over again and his love for Jennifer was a curse not meant to be broken.

Watching his brother doing his best cop impersonation, all Five could think about was they were never going to win; they weren’t meant to, even if that was what they were brought up to believe.

The Keepers and their purpose proved Five’s life new life was a shame. He failed to see that his direct report was one of them. He failed to listen to the things inside him that were telling him none of this was real.

No matter how much Five loved his family, it was never going to be enough to fix this.

Later, as Diego tore open filing cabinets in the abandoned office of Dr. Jean and Gene Thibedeau, Lila pursed her lips at Five for about the hundredth time that day, signaling again that she wasn’t happy with him. Hitting his arm, she quietly said, “I say we go off on our own and try to figure out what is going on with this new power of yours. Pull your big girl panties up and stop being a baby.”

Ignoring her, Five watched as Diego entered the next room, then feeling as if he was having an outer body experience he looked down at his hands. They tingled with energy.

He slowly walked to the window, looking down at the street below.

It felt like his heart stopped and he’d been sucked into a vacuum. 

Everything went quiet.

There you were, walking down the street, the sun lighting up your face like a spotlight just for him. Stopping to tie your shoe, you stepped aside, excusing yourself to the person behind you.

You smiled apologetically. 

Something inside Five broke.

It was the same smile you’d given him.

It meant nothing.

The feeling of something special happening when he’d touched you was as fake as the rest of this!

Of all the people he would see in a time like this, it was you! The one person he’d been dying to see since he’d first laid eyes on you.

It was like some cruel fate, same as the one always chasing him, nipping at his heels with imminent death. Everything was just another reminder that no matter how much he wanted things to be different, he had nothing, and he never would.

He wanted to know what it was like to be loved by anyone even a little, but good things weren’t meant for him.

“Five!” Lila loudly whispered, getting even more upset. “We need to try something other than digging around in garbage cans, like that idiot in there! Give me your damn hand and let’s do this already!”

She began to come his way, hand outstretched.

Lila’s voice cracked with emotion when he looked down at it. “Five, I need you…your family needs you.”

Knowing full well that they had no idea what they were going to do about the impending Cleanse, Five’s brows pulled together, and he shook his head, no.

In a daze, still looking at Lila’s hand, the sight of it filled him with memories from the night before, all of them laced with the same sickness and regret he couldn’t escape. 

After a chance run in at the secret Keepers meeting, when a woman wearing a name tag saying Nancy, ran those same reaching fingers across a man named Jerome’s upper lip, tenderly wiping off the powdered sugar from his pastry, Five had thought of you and the one small chance he’d let go to have even a few hours of happiness by your side, just getting to know you.

Eyes moving to his brother, pain in his chest, in a flash of violet hued light, Five was gone, seconds before Lila could reach him.

M-Martyr

Five’s entire life was an example of sacrifice. So many times, he could have given up, or put himself first, but he didn’t.

Thinking of his family and their kids, stuck feeling like he had no other option, he stumbled out of his portal, his eyes scanning the musty subway platform and the train waiting for him.

N-Naïve

Five missed out on so many things that anyone should have the chance to experience during a life as long as his, and because of that, he struggled when navigating the nuances of anything normal.

There was no doubt that Five was full of wisdom, and he didn’t hesitate to pass that on or place judgment on others he saw as beneath him, but there was also an unmistakable childlike innocence behind his eyes, and an explosive immaturity in his outbursts and in his thinking that he could do this alone.

"How long do I have to suffer!" he screamed, his voice echoing down the subway tunnel, then out into the sky above as the light from the day and another apocalyptic world shone down on the filth covered subway steps in front of him.

Rubbing his grimy hands down the front of his tattered waist coat, he pulled out his journal.

It had been seven years, and he had been traveling the labyrinth of tracks, shooting from one timeline to another, each time trying to jump back to before Ben had been killed the first time.

He’d thought if he could just prevent that, it would finally fix everything.

Five knew his power didn’t work the same as before, but he thought it wouldn’t matter.

It did. It mattered big time, and he’d fucked up big time.

Most of the time, he couldn’t even jump backwards. Most of the time he’d climb the stairs, pull his hands together, trying to draw in the strength to do it, and he’d end up right back at the bottom of the steps, staring up at a world that was no more.

Some days, he’d prove he wasn’t a completely impotent imbecile. He’d reach out at the hands of time, yanking them backwards and he’d be thrown into the unimaginable ether that had always been his domain.

He’d find himself standing in a world with living breathing people again!

Racing to the academy, grabbing anything he could steal and stuff in his pockets or his mouth along the way, he’d feel a flicker of hope.

That never lasted long.

Never finding their real timeline, Five had been attacked, over and over once inside what had been his home, but clearly wasn’t anymore. Sometimes he wouldn’t even get that far, having found himself in a place that was at first glance not where he had meant to be based on floating cars or other bizarre things dotting the skyline.

Out of his mind with hunger and more mentally ruined than he’d ever been, he noted the marks on the floor, a long skid mark from something dragging and that there were three light bulbs out overhead. Fairly certain he hadn’t been there before, looking like a scraggly haired bum that was wearing some guy’s trashed business suit, Five jammed the notebook back in his pocket. Reaching in the other, he pulled out his pistol. Started talking to himself again, his feet stomped up the tiled stairs to the street.

“If I see that little fucker again, and he shoots at me, I swear this time I am going to go over there and choke the shit out of him,” he growled, referring to the fun of being shot at by another version of himself so many times before this that he couldn’t even remember how many times it had happened to him anymore.

His voice was cracked and hoarse, only adding to the pained sound in it as he cursed himself out. He was beginning to feel lightheaded again from lack of food and from how much his lungs were struggling to match up to the blood that rushed around his body from the mere effort of carrying himself out of the darkness.

When the first piercing sound of the other him’s rifle reverberated across the barren landscape, Five flinched, the full metal jacket projectile missing him by only a fraction of an inch as it blasted apart an already crumbling piece of concrete next to him instead.

Stepping forward, arm shaking as he held up his gun, Five screamed, "Just kill me, for fuck's sake, you asshole! I don't want to live like this anymore!"

Eye narrowed on his scope, the other Five, trying to survive, just like he had done when it was him, with no one but Dolores by his side to keep him sane, pulled the trigger like all the other Fives he'd come across did, for some reason, not even thinking twice about killing the first living person he’d seen in twelve years.

O-Oh, Shit!

“OH, Shit!” Five’s voice shrilly rang out as the solid copper tipped point of the projectile ripped through his left arm, tearing the muscle in his bicep clean through as it flew out behind him, zipping down the stairwell.

Refreshed clarity of the life and death kind hitting him hard and fast as the warmth of his blood drenched the inside of his sleeve, Five got down as far as he could, spinning towards the safety of the subway entrance. 

“At least I fucking hesitated when I saw the Handler!” he breathed, just as another bullet ripped through him, this time nicking bone in his right thigh.

He dropped to his knees.

“Fuck you, you crazy fucker!” he screamed.

He’d asked for it.

It was dumb, but he did.

He knew that he was also a crazy fucker in this situation but that did nothing to make him want to kill the other him any less.

Bleeding out in two different places, Five’s fingers clawed at the ground, and he growled in anger, forcing his body to get back up.

Half falling, half running down the steps, the soft tissue in his upper left shoulder suddenly felt like he’d been stabbed with a zillion fiery needles as the spinning force of the next bullet went straight through his back and out his chest.

Lunging for the doors of the train, Five fell into the closest seat, his eyes wide as he looked down at the crimson bloom spreading across his dress shirt.

P-Pain

As a murky curtain of darkness moved into Five’s narrowing field of vision, he clung to the metal support rail attached to his seat. He knew that feeling the rocking motion of the train as it raced to the next station was a good thing because it meant his powers hadn’t failed him yet, but it wasn’t much to hold onto. Each tiny shift in the track felt like it might kill him.

It hurt to breathe.

Even if he made it to the next stop, there was no way he’d be able to jump back to a time when there may have been a hospital and someone living and breathing to get him there. 

This was it, the end.

 ~~~

As you were disappointingly tossing another aluminum can with a broken seal, this one that had at one time held the syrupy sweetness of what you determined might have been peaches, the pile of rubble you were sorting through started to shift, the smaller chunks of debris skittering down the slope of junk.

“What the-”

Even more odd, you started to feel the ground vibrating under your feet, followed by the sound of a train screeching down the subway tunnel located in the subterranean level of your search area.

Your bag slipped off your arm, scattering your finds on the ground as you turned toward the subway entrance a few yards away.

This made no sense, so naturally you tried to rationalize what you were feeling and hearing.

There was no train.

There was no electricity.

There was no anyone, or anything anymore.

All around you, there was nothing but the remains of long ago destroyed buildings and the sun-bleached bones of the dead.

You lived in a world with no voices but your own, no horns honking, no smells of food carts wafting past.

“Impossible…” you breathed.

By the time you made it down the subway station’s cobweb infested stairs, the doors on the train that shouldn’t be there were opening. Hesitantly coming closer to what you were sure was evidence that you’d lost your mind, the humming of the train’s powerful engine slowed.

There was a feeling of static that shouldn’t be there in the dank air.

The hair on your arms prickled in warning.

Still, you came forward, your boots kicking up thick layers of dust. The fluorescent lights hanging above illuminated the tiny particles slowly swirling in front of you, making everything seem even more surreal than it already was.

The lights inside the train flickered as you came towards it.

You could see a pool of red liquid on the long fiberglass bench just inside the threshold. Even more ominous, there was an array of bloody handprints leading to the motionless blood covered body on the floor.

Creeping around to get a better look at the young man lying there, you kept your guard up, but other than him, the train looked empty. 

Looking down at him again, your breath hitched. 

He whispered your name just as his eyes fluttered closed.

You gasped his name back, then the lights went out.

Q-Quiet

“Oh, my God! Five!” you repeated, not believing your eyes as you dropped to the floor next to him.

He was conscious, but you could hardly see his eyes under his slitted lids, and his words came out so weak you almost didn’t hear them as he said, “You’re not supposed to know me.”

“What are you talking about!” you frantically cried.

His reply to that came as the quietest whimper.

“Five?”

He said nothing.

You lowered your ear to his slightly parted lips.

Thankfully, you heard the softest breaths coming out of him even though he was breathing so shallowly his chest didn’t appear to be moving at all.

Terrified, you did what you could to tighten the necktie that was already pinching the blood flow to his arm, and then you checked the belt he’d already tried to secure to his leg to stem the worst of that bleeding. Rolling him so you could lift the back side of his jacket, you saw the blood-soaked exit wound in his upper left shoulder blade. Having nothing but the scarf you had on to use as a bandage, you pressed it over the hole, wrapping it around him tight, then tucking the ends under his shirt and vest to add pressure. 

Five remained unconscious as you readied him, and he stayed that way as you began hauling him up the stairs, then outside where you loaded him on your cart.

With his legs dangling and his feet nearly touching the ground, it wasn’t the ideal form of transport, but he wasn’t going to make it if you stayed there, or if you left him and then came back with something bigger.

“Stay with me,” you begged, checking one more time to see if he was still with you, then you shoved forward, pulling him along as you thought about what he just said.

Of course, you knew Five. It all started after the war that ended it all.

Dressed in his Umbrella Academy uniform, Five had been wandering for the third day straight, looking for anything he could use to help him survive the apocalyptic hell he’d found himself in. Exhausted, he was about to give up and go back to his blanketed shelter, but then he spotted what he thought was another person sitting over in the toppled mess that was left of one of the city’s shopping centers.

The person was waving at him with the only arm they had left, but as Five came closer, disappointment filling him as he looked down at the lifeless face of a female mannequin, he heard something.

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tapppppp-Tappppp-Tappppp. Tap! Tap! Tap!

The air around him swirled, ruffling his hair as it covered his young face in cinders. 

He stopped and listened, but as everything became still again the eerie quiet of mass death was all he heard.

He started to walk away.

Tap, tap, tap. Tapppppp-Tappppp-Tappppp. Tap, tap, tap.

“Shit,” he breathed, stopping short as his mind processed the pattern. That wasn’t the sound of some random piece of metal flapping in the smoky wind.

Racing towards where he’d thought he heard the repetition of morse code, trapped in the darkness, under layers and layers of broken concrete, you started your distress call again, rhythmically moving a chuck of rock against one of the building's mangled trusses.

You were sure that you were going to die down there, just like everyone else that survived the initial blast only to find themselves buried, but then you hear something break through the quiet.

Someone was calling down to you through the cracks left in the massive pile of building material. You cried back, but it felt way too muffled for it to matter, but it did.

He kept calling out, telling you to look for anywhere you might see light, asking you all sorts of questions that at the time made no sense, like if there was room behind you or in front of you and how much, if you were pinned down, or if you could determine which way was up.

Then, one second you were alone in the darkness, dehydrated to the point of dangerously low blood pressure, your legs hardly having more than a few feet to move, and the next, you were blinded by a burst of light, something solid and warm was behind you and then you were weightless.

When your feet hit the ground back on level ground, your legs felt like jelly and your stomach flipped. 

Dizzily trying to adjust as you looked at the boy holding onto you upright, your eyes slowly moved from his, to the famous Umbrella Academy crest embroidered on his blazer. 

It couldn’t be…

The superpowered boy the world had known as Number Five Hargreeves had been missing your entire life, but there he was, looking about the same age as you even though that was way younger than he should have been.

R-Rain

Looking back at this older Five, his limp body rocking with each rotation of your cart’s wheels, your eyes blurred as tears streaked down your cold cheeks.

As if you didn’t know you had to hurry, the clouds in the west were moving in fast, meaning another storm was coming.

With the strap at your waist digging in hard enough that you could feel your skin rubbing raw, you forced your body to move faster. “Come on!” you roared, gritting your teeth with the effort of moving the weighted down cart over another deep washout in the road.

Years ago, Five had taken you down that same road. 

You could still see it that morning, Five running back to your campsite, his straight white teeth flashing in the sun as he smiled with boyish excitement that made your cheeks feel warm.

Talking about a mile a minute, he told you that he’d found a structure that wasn’t completely ruined, and by some miracle, attached to it, there was even a greenhouse that still had most of the glass hanging in its windows. Even better, inside it there were all kinds of bags filled with unspoiled seed.

After years of fighting the elements and starvation together, you had found your first break from the burdens of the apocalyptic world you were stranded in. 

If you could just get him back there now, it would be okay. 

It had to be.

Your breaths were becoming more and more labored as you went, only becoming worse as you thought about the last day you were with Five. 

That was over five years ago.

It was midsummer. You had been with him at the home with the greenhouse attached to it for several years at that point.

That night, like he always did, Five was sitting at the kitchen table, running over his numbers. He was getting close; he was sure of it. You were both going back very soon, and he was going to stop this all from ever happening. 

Scratching his face as he concentrated, Five unknowingly smeared a smudge of black ink from his fingers down the narrow bridge of his nose.

“Fucking, fuck, mother fucker,” he mumbled as he angrily scratched out nearly half a page of his equations.

Even though you knew he was mad, you couldn’t help it, your breath started coming out of you in little puffs of amusement.

With the heel of his palm dug into his forehead, Five looked up at you through the fringe of dark hair hanging in his eyes.

“A genius with your captivating use of the word fuck, along with you being the savior of the world is sure to drop some panties when we get back,” you’d teased. “I hope you don’t forget me when you have all those other people to glare at.” 

Not waiting for him to verbally retaliate, you turned and raised up on your tippy toes to put your dinner dishes up where the mice wouldn't walk all over them.

Within seconds, you felt the comforting currents of energy building in the air around you as Five blinked. The warmth of his mouth pressed against the back of your neck. 

Brushing your hair aside with his face, his arms wrapped around your midsection, possessively locking you in his high voltage embrace.

“Forget you? Not a chance,” he said, letting his lips tickle the shell of your ear. 

You wriggled and laughed as his fingers started crawling under your shirt. Hot palms claiming your breasts, he began a soothing circular motion, threading his fingers over your nipples until they were hard, and of course it all felt so good being taken over by him that soon he had you moaning his name.

“That’s right. I am all yours,” Five smugly hummed as he continued to pluck and pinch.

Your head dropped back against this shoulder as he kissed along your neck. Moving his awakening manhood against your butt, his fingers slid around your hip, going right between your legs.

“When it comes to panty dropping, your delicious cunt is the only one I’ll ever be interested in devouring, sweetheart,” he promised as his fingers moved faster. “I just need to get us back and then I am going to really destroy you with this thing.” 

To punctuate which thing he was referring to, Five he rammed his cock into your ass.

Mind going bananas over the dirty things Five was saying and doing, your body clenched around his fingers and your legs starting to tremble. 

So much had changed over the years.

You were no longer just two people walking the Earth, fighting to survive.

In that place together, you became each other’s everything.

The sun’s setting rays coming in from the window above the sink reflected Five’s beautiful face next to yours as he burrowed his face into your neck.

“As long as you’ll have me, I’ll never let you go,” he lovingly whispered.

And he didn’t let you go, not until hours later, when a rush of cool air coming in from the window replaced where he’d had his body warmly snuggled up behind you.

Rolling over, in the dim light of the bedroom, you could see Five bouncing around as he tugged on his discarded underwear. 

Hard droplets of rain started pelting the floor next to the bed, but before you could move to do something about it, Five blinked over, shutting the window. Just then, something outside loudly crashed into the side of the house.

When he quickly started to head out the room, your eyes widened with worry. “Where are you going?” you asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” he chuckled. “I need to crank the windows closed in the greenhouse before it gets too windy. I just fixed the levers on the upper awnings, and I don’t want to have to go back to watering everything by hand out there when normally the lighter rains do such a nice job of it for me.”

You could hardly argue with that, or with what Five said next.

“Since you finally decided to let me hump the sweet fuck out of you, I have way better things to do with my free time then lugging around tiny watering cans,” he added, while shamelessly taking in the sight of you laying there naked, except for the thin blanket you’d started to modestly to tug in front of you. 

Already getting to you by being ridiculously sexy, standing there with his hair sticking up everywhere, Five gave you a cocky grin that would make the devil blush. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” he taunted. 

Still wiping the sleep from your eyes, you dreamily replied, “I won’t.”

Looking as wild and handsome as ever, hardly dressed, Five disappeared through the bedroom door, heading out through the townhouse’s back kitchen.

Suddenly, lightning flashed, and the entire room shook so hard you were sure the roof over the less habitable parts of the house might collapse.

You sprung out of bed to the sound of glass smashing.

Running after him, at first, all you could see were darkened plants carpeting the raised garden beds. 

Coming around the small table in the center of the greenhouse, fragments from the broken window above embedded in the soles of your feet, but you didn’t even feel it because Five was lying there on the cement floor, the rain drops dancing in the puddles of red all around him. 

The long shard of glass that had sliced his neck clean open was still laying in the palm of his hand as his empty eyes looked up, staring off at nothing.

Nearly falling down as your foot got stuck in a rut in the road, you knew you needed to keep your mind in the present, but you couldn’t. 

There was blood everywhere! 

That was just like this Five! With him dying as he lay there on the floor of that train!

A cry that was part anger, part anguish crawled out of your throat as you turned, looking back at him on your cart.

“Please say something,” you begged, not sure if he was dead or not because he hadn’t moved or made a noise. “Five!” you screamed, when he didn’t respond. 

The first icy drops of rain began to hit your face.

Then, just as you were going to run back there, Five quietly moaned your name as he slowly lifted his arm, pointing a finger at the sky. “You and the moon in the same timeline, makes sense…both always just out of reach for guys like me,” he said, choking on what sounded like a laugh.

On the verge of full hysterics, trying not to think about the horrors of what happened before, or what that moon and timeline stuff was all about, you dug the toes of your boots in, pushing off the broken blacktop as the deep purples of twilight disappeared in the blanket of angry clouds.

It was raining hard by the time you got back. By then you were both soaked, and Five’s complexion was cast in a deathly gray that made your stomach sink with bottomless dread.

S-Stitches

Other than that odd comment, Five remained mostly out of it as the cart bumped and bounced along on the debris-filled road, but as you lugged him inside almost an hour later, he woke up, full alert.

“FFFFUUCK!” he growled as you pulled him upright with his right shoulder under yours, lifting him.

Dragging his bad leg, you both staggered the few feet it took to get to the front door.

“I am sorry,” you breathed as you lugged him inside, kicking the door behind you to a continuous chorus of his breathy ‘fucks.’

A few seconds later, moving across what at one time had been the home's parlor but now served as the bedroom as well, collapsing on the bed, Five’s wet hair fanned out on the pillows.

Rushing over to place a fresh pile of wood on top of the dying embers in the hearth, Five’s face rolled to the side, watching you as he listlessly took in his shadowy surroundings.

Turning towards the adjacent kitchen area to get the medical supplies you needed, his eyes followed you again.

“Dolores?” he croaked. 

Not done washing your hands yet, you turned. As you figured, he was looking at the mannequin sitting at the kitchen table, but for some reason Five looked oddly confused by the sight of her.

“I am sorry, Dolores,” he said, his voice quivering. “I tried. I really did, but it had been so long, and before that, it was- You know I was try- I was so fucked up. And I- I just couldn’t move on and I- They needed me and I-"

“It’s okay, everything is going to be okay,” you said, trying to calm him as you rushed back, setting your supplies on the bedside table. 

Not stopping, your hands quickly moved over him, undoing the necktie on his left bicep so you could work his jacket off and remove his soiled dress shirt and vest. 

Replacing his makeshift tourniquet, you lifted his right hand, placing a wad of gauze in it before pushing it down over the bullet hole just below his left clavicle. “Try to keep pressure on that if you can. You lucked out. That one missed your lung, but I need to pull these down to see what’s going on with your leg,” you said, having already unzipped his fly, your hands on his hips waiting for his consent.

Five nodded, so you undid the belt cinched around his upper thigh.

Carefully pulling down his blood-soaked pants, not far down you gasped, and not because he wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“Who did this to you?!” you asked, slipping the leather strap back around his leg to pinch off the blood flow again.

“An even more fucked up version of me did it back in the wrong timeline I landed in before this one.” 

Something in your already tense expression must have changed to something much worse because Five’s dazed looking eyes moved away, looking at Dolores again.

“I’m my own worst enemy,” he said, deliriously trying to laugh about it before he continued to ramble things that made no sense. “That day you fell into me on the train, you were being so nice. I felt… I was- I don’t know… I wish I had at least had the courage to accept your offer to buy me a coffee. I wanted to, but I didn’t think I should. All I ever wanted was to have something like that in my life. Someone to talk to, someone to be even just my friend.”

His eyes misted over.

“I blew it, but it didn’t matter anyway. Everything went to shit. My powers don’t work right! I have been trying to get back for seven fucking years and I can’t, and that timeline is ending in a few hours anyway. Everyone was counting on me, and I failed them again.”

Before he said all that, you knew in any normal circumstance it would have been impossible for the Five laying on your bed to be the same one that was buried out in the yard, but your heart wanted to believe differently so badly. 

He looked exactly like him.

He’d known your name. 

He knew the mannequin neither of you were willing to leave behind, because if not for her, he’d have spent a life alone and you would have died.

But he wasn’t your Five. 

Looking even more upset than you were getting about all this, he kept on trying to explain things, telling you about this other world he had been in, and something called ‘The Cleanse.’ 

Wiping the mess of blood off his cold skin, you smeared antiseptic around the jagged edge of the hole in his thigh. Not knowing what else to do to prepare him, you soothingly shushed him. “It’s okay, everything is going to be okay, Five. We will figure it out.”

You wanted to believe that, but you didn’t even know if he’d make it through the night.

Popping some long-ago expired pain pills in his mouth, then lifting a glass to his lips, Five swallowed your offering with no question, half the water going in, and the other half running down his chin.

As you pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, his fingers brushed against the side of your leg. "How do you know me?” he quietly asked. “I never told you my name and you aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Bite down,” you ordered, ignoring that question as you placed a rolled towel in front of his mouth. 

Again, he listened, biting down. 

“You are lucky the bullets that hit your arm and chest went right through you and didn’t hit anything important, but the one in your leg is still in there. I need to get it out before I stitch this one closed, and if you think it hurt when that other you filled you with lead, get ready, because something tells me this is going to be much, much worse.”

Lifting your sanitized surgical tweezer, you lowered the long-pointed ends to the seeping wound in his leg.

Not even close to the casing you needed to reach, Five was forcing air through his nose at a panicked pace and his legs were starting to shake.

Pressing down on his knees, you held him as still as possible as you dug deeper.

As the tweezers sunk into his flayed skin, kicking out, Five howled through the cloth in his mouth, “Ffff-rrrrrrrr-ffffuuuuCCCCCKKK!” 

“Almost there,” you breathed as you felt the end of your tweezers tapping against something hard. 

A few painful seconds later, after pulling the lump of metal back through Five’s torn muscle tissue, you dropped the bloody chunk of metal in the bowl on the table, then went for the needle and thread you’d already prepped. 

“This is the worst one. The others won’t be as bad,” you assured, moving along gently as possible, with the point of your needle pulling through the mangled edge of his broken skin.

After the third stitch, as you began to pull Five’s skin together, his entire body started to quake so hard you had to move over, sitting yourself on top of his knees to keep his legs down.

“Just a few more,” you said, determinedly biting down on your lower lip as he brought both arms up, grasping the rungs on the headboard with a white knuckled grip. 

Two more stitches, and one more pull, and Five’s sweat covered chest was heaving. The faintest sound, like the squeak of a small animal crept out from between his clenched teeth. One more pull and his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went completely limp.

T-Touch

Fevered nights turned into long worry filled days and you never left Five’s side unless you had to. Cleaning his wounds, and then his entire body, no modesty allowed in the state he was in.

Five was entirely at your mercy just like once, long ago, you were at his. 

As he lay there with no shirt, and no pants on, covered in a mound of heavy blankets that smelled cleaner than anything he’d slept on in seven years, unable to avoid it any longer, you explained why you knew him. 

You didn’t even come close to telling him all of it, but still, you could see that what you did say didn’t settle well.

Brining another spoon of thin soup to his lips, stopping you short, Five shook his head. “I don’t deserve this,” he quietly whispered as the shutters rattled against the windowpanes in the cold wind that blew outside.

Moving closer, you set the bowl down. Gently as possible, you pressed a cool cloth to Five’s sweat covered brow. He leaned his face into your hand, whimpering.

Five may not have been starving from hunger like he was the last time he’d found himself stuck in the apocalypse, but the things he’d told you happened to him proved that for his entire life, he’d been starved of almost any kind of touch from someone other than people who wanted to hurt him.

After he’d laid it all out there, you realized helping him wasn’t going to be as easy as closing his wounds. His life started the same as the Five’s you had known, only his took many different turns, all of them bad, leaving him a broken man in the body of a boy again. Then, him saying that he'd lived nearly a lifetime alone with no one there for him but Dolores wasn’t even the worst of it.

That wasn’t what killed his spirit.

In his own words, even before that, he had all but given up, and he regretted that part of his life more than anything. He’d mistakenly pushed his family away. He said that there wasn’t a day as he rode his time travel train to nowhere that he didn’t think of them, and you, all the while wishing so badly he was able to go back and do everything differently. 

Laying down next to him, curling your body around his as much as you could without hurting him more, Five’s body trembled, trying to heat itself as the infection gnawing at him raged.

“None of this was your fault, Five,” you whispered as you watched his face twist with pain.

The fire crackled, the only sound filling the room as you felt for his hand, your fingers slowly running across his torso until you found it at his side. 

You threaded your fingers around his. “Just keep fighting, okay?”  

Shivering, he squeezed your hand back.

U-Unexpected

It was the start of summer, and the sun was shining in from above as Five sat at one of the chairs pulled up to the table in the greenhouse. Breathing in, his lungs filled with the sweet smell of hundreds of ripening strawberries.

It had been months since those first pain-filled nights, and as the days passed it was becoming harder and harder for him not to lose himself to the growing contentment he was feeling.

It was entirely unexpected, but then again, so were you.

Like the twist of fate that made you stumble into him that day on the train, like something out of a dream, there he was listening to you obnoxiously singing along to the CD boombox sitting in the next room. 

‘Y o, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want-’

The selection laying around was slim when it came to CDs that weren’t too warped to play, but watching you shake your booty as you danced around the kitchen made Five totally forget that he didn’t like pop songs.

‘If only I could keep finding batteries that fit the radio… ’ he silently mused while fighting the urge to start belting out the girl empowered lyrics with you. 

Five had an endless supply of scenarios running around in his head of how this morning could go, only one of them was him coming in there, sweeping you off your feet while he sang the blaring lines about making it last forever as he also slammed his body down and wound it all around on yours.

‘You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta!’ you sang, waving at him as you reached for another handful of green beans to snap.

Thinking about how just a smile from you made him feel hot, and how much he wanted to be your lover, and how he sounded nothing like you or the Spice Girls when he sang, Five stretched his bad leg under the drape of the tablecloth. His muscles still complained but the dull ache was nowhere near what it had been, and even better, he could walk without needing you to help him, or without needing a cane.

Looking over at Dolores who was sitting across from him, Five’s smile soured. “I hated that cane,” he quietly grumbled. “All I needed was a monocle to go with it and I’d have looked like some younger alternate universe jackass version of that monster.”

‘Reginald was many things, an alien included, but in the end, he did try to help you, and you in no way looked anything like him with your cane,’ Dolores reminded him.

Averting his eyes from hers, Five decided it was not worth arguing with her. If he kept it up, you were for sure going to hear it and he didn’t need that happening again. You’d been very understanding when he’d feverishly admitted way too many things about his relationship with Dolores, but…

Yeah. 

Sipping the herbal concoction you’d so sweetly brewed him that morning, Five looked down at the old notebook sitting there. It was filled with equations that were very close to getting the math right for getting back, only he was not the one that had done them.

No. He was not that Five, and at the age of 20, like that Five had been when he almost figured it out, he himself at that same age was nowhere near it. At that age, he almost died of dysentery. 

Five looked down at his own journal filled with scribbled notes about stains on floors, broken vending machines and burnt-out light bulbs. 

Spreading his fingers, palms warming in the sun, just the thought of blinking filled him with that familiar buzz of energy he used to live for. But no matter how many times he tried to blink himself even a short distance across the room, he’d still find that it didn’t work that way anymore, and then he’d be flung out of his purple-colored portal into the subway tunnel where you’d found him.

Five pulled his hands back in his lap and slipped the strap back around the leather journal, closing it as he tucked it away.

He couldn’t get back on that train. 

“The only thing I can promise you if we get on there, is that we will be lost,” he’d told you when trying to explain it. He could do that to himself again, but he couldn’t do that to you.

He felt horrible about it, but you never pushed him on it. You never blamed him. You always said it was okay.

He didn’t get it.

Then, after coming back to the house a week ago from another failed jump, something happened. Hearing him kicking stones along the road as he cursed like a maniac, you dropped your garden trowel, ran over, and hugged him.

Smiling up at him, you said, “Five, you need to stop this. You are breaking my heart all over again by looking so pouty all the time.”

Five knew you cared about him. He knew you cared about the other him, but past your caring about either of them in a way that was more than survival based and simply supportive and platonic in nature, that he couldn't figure out. 

You’d told him so many things about the years you were with the other him, but when it came to the details, he could tell you were holding back.

Not sure what to do about it, but knowing exactly how he felt about you, that afternoon in the yard, not more than a few feet away from his own grave, Five had hesitantly let his hand move up your back, hugging you back. He’d never done that before.

He figured, even if you didn’t feel the same way, it wasn’t like you weren’t already intimately familiar.

You’d held him before…

You’d seen him at his worst, fully exposed, laying there in a bloody mess of tears.

He’d told himself that desperately clinging to the person that meant everything to him, even if he’d fallen hopelessly in love with them was normal. Right?

Fuck, he knew it wasn’t… and neither was having to roll himself out of bed almost every night, taking off like a creeper in the night under the pretense that he needed to take a piss, when really he needed to take care of other personal business involving him grasping his dick.

Worried about him, you’d come outside to check on him more than once, and you’d come very close to busting him beating his meat, but Five wasn’t about to stop sleeping by you if you were willing to keep letting him, even if that meant he was constantly waking up hard with his hands on parts of your body that they shouldn’t be touching.

Trying not to think about that, and if you noticed him accidentally doing that or not, instead, as the sunny sky shown down on you holding him like he was a big man baby, Five tried to focus on the feel of your head resting on his chest and how you were soothingly playing with the hair dangling at the nape of his neck. 

Of course that wasn’t really helping, and because of that, he totally missed that you were up to something more than indulging him like you usually did.

Seemingly totally unaware of what you were doing to him, other than that you were turning him into a worthless puddle of goo, sneakily reaching up, you aggressively started ruffling his hair into a chocolatey nest of fuzzy tangles and unruly waves.

Shocked by the unprovoked attack, as you pivoted away from him, looking about as tickled as you could be over how easy it was to get him, Five’s mouth opened, but nothing came out, and that got you really laughing.  

“Oh my God, Five, I love you!” you breathlessly teased.

“Whhh-ahh…?” 

Taken by either his inarticulate reply, or at how ridiculous he looked, Five wasn’t sure, you came back to him, looking up at him sympathetically. “Five, beating yourself up over this isn’t going to change anything.” You gently brushed a piece of hair out of his eyes. “Maybe let it go for a while and just try to live a little. You deserve that.”

With that, you leaned in, your lips feather soft as they pressed against his cheek, then you walked away, leaving him dying to kiss you back.

V-Voracious, a wanting, devouring, feeling emotions to an intense degree

After that day, and the many others that came after your spicy Spice Girls kitchen bean snapping show of cuteness, Five did let himself live a little more, and you teased him even more, oftentimes tickling him into submission, and to him, it seemed like you might be doing it for nothing other than the joy of watching him squirm. But maybe not.

As you smiled at him from the other room, Five felt what had become his normal feeling of butterflies in his stomach and that pitiful aching in his chest. Doing the daily domestic things, like watching you change the bedding as he busied himself in the greenhouse, he could almost forget about all the bad things that had happened.

His family were out there, yet not. They were frozen in time as far as the space time continuum and his fucked subway time travel loop were concerned. It had been almost eight years since he’d left them, only hours from facing their demise, but to them, if he could get back, they wouldn't even know that he wasn't there to begin with.

In many ways, they were gone, not him, and it had been that way for so long.

If Five could have gotten back, it would start all over. He’d have hours to figure all this out, but he had nothing figured out in the way of helping them. That should have tormented him incessantly like it had before, but now, feeling like he had no other choice but to accept this fate, the last thing on his mind when he looked at you was the Cleanse, or other timelines that were about to be destroyed.

Even more crazy, he didn’t hate himself the way he used to and that was because you didn’t hate him for any of it.

Also, crazy, if he didn’t think you might knee him in the nards, he had half a mind to come over there and toss you on that mattress and show you that you weren’t the only one who knew how to play dirty.

He may not have been able to do anything to help his family or the rest of the world, but fuck did he want to show you he still had some fight left in him by putting those old bed springs to the test, rocking his hips into you to the beat pumping out of the tiny speakers sitting on the table behind him.

Watching you bend over to pick up your growing pile of linens, Five’s smile grew. When you disappeared from view, he called out your name. “Hey, why don’t we leave this work for later? Come out here and join me. I’ll let you beat me at a game of chess, and you can even use the unicorn charm as your queen this time.”

Coming around the corner, you dropped the laundry on the floor and shook your head at him. “I’m the one that lets you win, and we both know you are the magical unicorn around here,” you said, pelting him in the chest with a large berry you just picked from one of the bushier plants near the door.

“Sure,” he mockingly drawled, as he began to water the plants again. “You know I love magically fooling around with this cute little watering can all day because I aim to please the lady of the house.” 

Five grinned. 

“You know…with me being pretty much worthless otherwise," he added, not even looking as he pegged you in the boob with a berry.

The song playing ended and another 80’s song about rains in Africa started. Using the music to cover your footsteps, from the corner of his eye, Five still saw you coming. Just as you were about to come up behind him to rumble up his hair until he looked like an asshole, he turned, tipping the watering can over your head.

The dribbles he let escape ran down the length of your hair, a few of them raining down on your perfectly stunned face.

“Oops,” he said, grinning even wider. 

“Was that necessarily?” you asked, trying to scowl at him, but clearly having trouble doing it.

“Yes,” he smugly replied as he casually set the watering can down.

“Why?” you challenged, your eyes following his every move.

“Because,” He reached out, slowly running a finger across your wet cheek as he leaned in, whispering in your ear. “Maybe I just wanted to see if I could get you wet.”

You no longer looked like you were about to burst out laughing.

Five knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to know.

He glanced up at the boarded-up window above, then his eyes met yours again as he quietly said, “I’ll never stop being sorry that I am not him, but-”

“Five-” you started to argue, no doubt planning to tell him it wasn’t his fault that he died and that now he couldn’t get you out of there.

“Shhhh,” he uninterrupted, pressing a finger to your lips to silence you. “I’m not done.” His smirk softened. “I know he loved you, and that’s because I love you. The question is, do you love me too? Like this?” he clarified, lowering his chin, the tip of his nose brushing against yours.

“Five,” your voice cracked with emotion. 

Your lips pressed against his. 

The softest sound crawled out of his throat, moving up through his nose as Five kissed you back, innocent, and beautiful in his not knowing exactly how to do it but doing it anyway. His hand moved behind your head as he parted his lips, letting his mouth move against yours, his tongue just starting to play along your teeth, pushing for more.

From there, with your hands reactively moving up into his hair, pulling him to you even more, his kiss grew deeper and more desperate.

Coming up for air several minutes later, you breathlessly whimpered, “I love you so much, Five. I always will. I just didn’t know if you wanted this with me. You kept saying things that made me think maybe, but then you-”

Hearing that, he frantically started pressing kisses down your neck, then down to your shoulder. “Fuck yeah, I wanted this,” he said as he took your breath away. His trembling hands played at the hem of your shirt before he suddenly stopped and broke away, peering at you.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his hands tentatively sliding up over the cotton covering your back as his excited smile exposed more of his charmingly boyish dimple.

Your reply came with you suddenly lifting the material in his way all the way up over your head. 

Speechless, Five’s intense gaze fell over your naked upper body.

“Holy shit, I was not expecting that,” he breathed. Recapturing your lips a few seconds later, he kissed you two more times, then, still trying to kiss you, he mumbled, "I have imagined doing this for so long, just ask the flowers by the front door that have been watching me jerking off every night. They know just how badly I wanted to see these perky tits.”

You started to giggle over that new piece of information, but that quickly turned into you moaning into Five’s mouth from the feeling of him sliding his fingers over your nipples. Encouraged by that, he continued with his ministrations, slowly and softly caressing you until you moaned even more.

When he released your lips, you let out a small whine at the loss, but you were quickly placated as Five moved his kisses along your jawline, stopping for just a moment to nibble on your ear.

“Gah- ahhh,” you gasped, it felt so good, and to that, Five bit down on your lobe, his teeth stinging your flesh as he pinched your nipples at the same time.

You squeaked, your legs clenching together even tighter.

Five let out a breathy laugh as his lips moved over your ear, seductively whispering, "Was that good?"

“You really are still the same cocky little shit you always were, aren’t you?” you shot back.

Nodding his head yes, Five leveled his lopsided grin at you. “Probably worse,” he admitted

“Take your shirt off, “ you demanded, hardly able to believe how silly and hot he was being.

Happily obeying, Five tore off his emerald green sweater that matched his eyes, tossing it over with your shirt on the floor.

“Better?” he questioned.

“Much,” you replied as your fingers began to graze his skin, exploring the hard expanse of his toned chest, down his stomach, delighting in the lean ‘V’ of muscle leading towards his hips.

As your fingers played along the dark, almost jet black trail of hair leading into his pants, dipping below his waistband, then coming back up so you could rub your hand over his crotch, Five shuddered under your touch, so you increased the pressure. 

“So sensitive,” you teased.

Ignoring that taunt, his left hand quickly found your breast again and his other clamped onto your ass, giving it a hard smack before he suddenly yanked your skirt up.

“You have really been enjoying fucking with me,” he laughed, then said, “and what the fuck is this song talking about!”

With his hand under your skirt, his fingers moved slowly, massaging his burning handprint, and he didn’t stop punishing you there. Five’s fingers stopped just shy of the heat between your legs. There, he rubbed the elastic panty line lying along your groin as he smiled like a fucking jerk.

“This song is talking about a man and his love for a girl, but he’s torn between her and the continent he loves, and please, Five! Please don’t stop!” you begged.

“There we go!” he laughed. “Just what I needed to hear. Keep it coming, honey.”

With that, memories of another Five being ridiculously obsessed with you getting you to cry out his name, blended with this one and his equally interesting quirks and many miss understandings about things that to you seemed obvious. 

Before you could come up with an appropriate comeback, your brain gave out on you because Five’s fingers slid under the thin panty barrier he’d been toying with, moving between your folds, determinedly pressing into your clit.

“Fuck, you are wet. I guess watering you worked,” Five mockingly groaned as he gently kissed the side of your neck, letting the smallest scrap of his light facial hair tickle you. 

Giggling and squirming even more, he gave your neck a little nip. 

“Hold still, damn it, I am trying to finger fuck you to this stupid song,” he laughed.

Hand still jammed in your underwear, Five drew you back with him, the backs of his legs bumping one of the chairs next to the small garden table.

Taking your hand off the hard bulge in his pants, you moved it with your other, shoving him down in the chair with enough momentum to make the legs cry out in complaint as they slid across the concrete. Not stopping, you crawled over him, wrapping your legs around his waist.

“I missed you acting all adorable like this,” you said as cheekily as possible, while laughing at his lustful expression of bewilderment.

Not about to be out done, guiding you up against him even tighter, Five wrapped your lips in a warm kiss that quickly escalated into a heady, deep kiss. It didn’t take long just doing that, and you were both breathing much harder than normal again.

Seductively pulling at your lower lip with his upper teeth, Five looked up at you with his mossy eyes softer than you’d ever seen them. 

“From that first day I was with you on the train, you were all I wanted. I didn’t even know what I’d missed until then. I thought I did, but not really,” he said. “I don’t know why or how this is happening to us over and over, but I know one thing for sure and that’s I am never letting you go again.” 

That was almost exactly what Five said to you the night he died. 

Jolting you from the moment, a near paralyzing fear hit you like another slap in the ass, but then, just like so many times when Five touched you, the next time he brought his lips to yours, your entire body tingled with a whole different kind of all-encompassing feeling.

The air felt alive. 

As you eased your body back into his hand that was tracing lines up and down your spine, Five’s lips closed around one of your taut nipples and his hand lowered between your legs, moving again.

“Yesssss,” you moaned, rocking your hips against his, driving your bottom down against his erection.

Pinned under your weight, Five whimpered and his cock throbbed with so much need he felt like he might come in his pants. Not wanting that, his fingers moved faster, slipping up and down in the cramped space of your panties, and that got you to let up on him, which was both a good and bad thing.

You arched your back as he flicked one of your tits with his tongue. Scraping his teeth along your peeked flesh, he sucked it back inside the heat of his mouth and you ground down on him harder than before. 

Unable to take it, Five’s mouth popped off. “Fuck. Keep. Doing. That!” he groaned as he started with your neck and earlobes again, trailing sloppy kisses down to your collarbone.

Flipping your skirt completely out of the way with a whip of his wrists, Five slid your panties to the side with a quick tug, then the tip of his index finger gently started pushing into your hole.

“Mmmm fff, Five,” you whined, as he moved deeper inside you.

“So…fah-king tight,” he breathed, equally taken by the feel of your body fighting him. He looked up at you with adoring eyes, his worry coming out in his soft words. “You okay?”

“Yes,” you said, your body opening for him more and more each second a part of him was becoming a part of you.

Once he was past knuckle deep, you started to work your body over the hard length of his trapped cock again, totally destroying his pants as his finger started to fuck into you, in and out, hooking and pulling, doing anything and everything he could to get you moving faster.

“Oh, ffff,” you cried as Five, with no warning, added a second finger and then started to dip in and out at the same punishing rate as his thumb circling around your clit.

You pushed yourself against his hand, biting your lip as your body quickly coiled and tightened around him. “Fff-vvvv!” you cried. 

When your orgasm hit a moment or two later, your wet gasps filling the greenhouse, he couldn’t believe it.

Your forehead fell against his. You slowly unclenched your fingers, your fingernails leaving half-moon marks all over his shoulders.

“Did I do it?” Five excitedly asked.

Still hardly able to open your eyes, you nodded, panting, “Fuck yes you did. Fuck, Five…”

With his cock about to rip through his pants, Five pulled his fingers from your quivering cunt, bringing them to his mouth. Smiling as he tasted you, slowly licking a few more times for effect, he said, “I can confidently say that I have never done anything as amazing as that, and you taste so delicious I might never eat anything else ever again.”

Laughing at the absurdity of that considering you knew just how much Five liked to eat actual food, and he could in fact do the unimaginable by traveling through time, even if he couldn't do it the way he wanted to anymore, on doe like legs, you climbed off of him, letting your panties slip to the floor.

“Your turn,” you said, straddling your magical unicorn, your hands already starting to unzip his pants to the sight of his approving gaze of god-like sexiness staring back at you.

Carefully pulling him from the confines of his pants, you’d only given Five’s cock a few gentle tugs and his smug expression was gone. 

“Thank you for this, fuck, thank you,” he quietly repeated, his eyes about rolling back in his head as you lazily pumped him, making him leak even more glistening fluid from the tip of his cock.

Lost in what you were doing to him, Five fingers dug into the seat on the wooden chair.

“That feels so fucking good,” he groaned as you twirled your finger over him, spreading his precum to make your hand move faster as it dropped down over the long veins feeding his impressive length.

When you moved forward, guiding the thick head of his cock through the swollen valley between your legs, Five couldn’t take it anymore. Frantically pushing his heels into the floor, he reactively tried to thrust upwards, but it did him little good because he wasn’t inside of you like his mind was telling him he was.

“Ah-ah-ah,” you warned. “Slow down, old man. I’ll get you there, I promise. I want your first time to be special,” you lovingly cooed.

“This is pretty fucking special. I have waited over 70 years for this,” he growled, trying to hump up into you again but clearly only doing it that time to watch your tits bounce.

Shaking your head at the craziness of it all because Five looked nothing like his real age despite him being that old, with one hand on the back of his neck, your feet fell flat on the floor, allowing you the leverage you needed to ride him. With his drizzling tip pushing all the way up to the height of your belly button, you lined him up, then started frotting, pressing the hot length of his cock against your swollen clit in a sinful game of slip and slide.

“That’s right, baby. Let me fuck you,” you praised, already feeling that lustfully addicting pleasure rising in you again. Yanking his hair to further the fun, Five moaned, but he didn��t fight it, and that only turned you on even more, because you knew how badly he wanted to.

Five Looked like a broken angel fallen from heaven. His beautiful eyes were cutely drowsy as he watched you fucking him, the sweet feel of your sex, your body rocking in his lap, all of it felt like nothing he had ever felt before.

The fall sun was shining down.

The heat building.

The strangest choice for a fuck song was playing on the CD player, the band Todo singing their topical ballad as your bodies worked together to the inspiring rhythm of the drums.

♫  I bless the rains down in Affff-ri-cAAA! 

Five shut his eyes.

The pure love and acceptance he was feeling made the shadow of doubt hanging over him from his own death and from his horrible past feel like it couldn’t touch him.

“Five, look at me,” you ordered.

He did.

One look at you as you rode, unable to fight it, he let out a guttural groan of unrestrained pleasure. Unclasping his fingers from the chair, he ran his hands down, under your ass, lifting and pulling with you, making you move your hips and hand pinning his cock down even faster as you fucked him against you.

He was trapped and so were you, but Five felt anything but trapped as your thighs quivered and the tension built more and more with each pass of his cock thrusting up through your pussy lips.

“Kiss me. Please. I need you to kiss me,” you begged, your words breathless as you worked hard to give him the ride of his life while he sat there like the king of the world, watching you buck and pant.

The second Five’s lips touched yours, you locked your fingers on him tighter, pulling him as close as possible. 

Your nails scratched along his scalp making him fuck up into you harder. 

The chair groaned in protest.

You brokenly whimpered into his kiss, and again, Five felt that strangely familiar burst of energy in the air. 

Your head flung back. You’d reached the edge and tumbled over it again; this time he knew it and he’d never felt closer to you.

He cursed a breathy gasp, his lips parted against your chest as he pushed his pelvis up and down at the same faltering pace as yours. Pulses of his release, a creamy white heat of pent-up pain and love started to spread against the silky expanse of your body as Five moved his cheek next to yours. 

Mouth against your moistened skin, he groaned and hissed. “Ahhhffuuuuucccccckkkkk-ffffff-”

A sticky mess between you as his balls twitched under him, still out of breath, Five peered up at, grinning like a fool.

Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly deserve more, you brought your hands to his face, running your fingers over his flushed cheeks as you tilted his chin up. “I love you, Five. It will always be you.”

You placed the softest kiss along his jaw, then down his sweaty neck. Five’s entire body trembled, as much from the gentle sensation of you showing how much you loved him with the touch of your lips, as in what it meant to him hearing you say that.

You said it again. “I love you, Five.”

Tiny shivers danced up his spine as a low moan resonated deep in his throat. Your mouth continued to move over him. 

“I love you too.” He exhaled your name slowly as you moved your way back up to his lips, your fingers soothingly playing with his hair. 

Right then, no matter how many times you let him have this with you, Five knew he’d never get enough of it. 

As he told you, you were all he wanted.

Now, nothing else mattered. 

W-Why

Autumn days of sunlit leaves floating down from above passed by, and with them, Five’s mind and heart were at peace for the first time in his life. 

Nights with you in bed, hot breaths against each other’s skin as you explored new ways to love each other were everything to him. 

Laying on a blanket, under the stars as the white plumes of your breath made clouds of heat above you, Five was in heaven even if he was in a world of crumbling foundations.

He even had the moon this time.

It was perfect.

You had the greenhouse and a roof over your heads, but you still needed to scout for other food options. Just like the last time he was in the apocalypse, Five spent hours on end each day, searching for anything he could use to help get through the harder times. But now, as he wandered down the stairway into the old subway station he hadn’t been to in months, the pressure of getting back felt almost non-existent. 

Maybe he could trap something alive down there, he’d thought. Rats were awful but you weren’t picky, and neither was he, and rabbits had been hard to come by lately with the colder turn in the weather.

Just thinking about bringing a rodent in the house and acting like he slayed a dragon for you made him smile. 

You loved when he acted stupid, and he loved doing it for you.

Feet quietly moving across the debris filled landing, just then, when it felt like nothing was more important than finding new ways to make you smile, of course that was when fate decided to prove he was wrong.

Noticing a strange mark on the floor at the edge of the subway platform, one he’d never noticed before because the light down there was so bad, Five pointed his flashlight down. 

There was something scratched into the tile, and it was done so poorly he could hardly see it, but it was there, and it was no accident.

Bending down, he slowly traced the intricate circles and paralleling lines done in an interlocking pattern that suggested a mathematical projection of infinite sums, or better put, infinite outcomes. 

His heart sank as his finger cleared the grim from the interdimensional map, or that was what he’d suspected it was the first time he’d seen it tattooed on the chest of the ancient version of him that was dying in the paradox proof chamber back in the Sparrow’s timeline.

Looking around, he saw nothing else. Jumping down to the tracks, Five ducked his head below the small lip where the electrical lines were hung. There was a box that some of the larger lines fed into, and it was directly underneath where the sigil was placed. 

Reaching his hand up, blinding feeling around in the cobwebs and dead bugs, he felt something. 

“No,” he breathed, looking down at the leather-bound journal, his eyes rapidly moving over the pages. 

All of them were filled in, unlike the one he had back at the house. And even more shocking, this one showed the way to get back.

“Five?” you called out, coming down the stairs. 

“Yeah, down here,” he replied, quickly shoving the book inside his shoulder bag.

~~~

Stretching his toes under the sheets as his body came down from the feel of having his dick pushing down your throat, Five dreamily looked down at you nestled between his legs

“I love your hair, honey, but I like it best when it’s like that,” he teased as you looked back at him, stretching your jaw, your hair a total ball of fuzz ball from you romping around under the blankets.

You smiled. “Fuck you, Five.” 

“Fuck me, you say… Sure.  I am game to do that again, only it has to be roles reversed until I can get it up again.”

You rolled out of bed, escaping before he could pounce on you and throw his face between your legs. 

“Aww, come on. It won’t take long,” he whined, watching you trot away.

“I know,” you called back, blanket dragging as you tiptoed the cold floor out to the kitchen to get a glass of water from the cooled boiling pot on the wood stove. 

Coming back, you passed by the fireplace, tossing a few logs Five had brought in the night before. Moving on, you stopped at the bookshelf, eyeing up the selection that had grown substantially since Five had gotten there. 

Still lazily lying in bed, he smiled, knowing you were going to pick something and ask him to read it to you while you snuggled on him in bed until mid-day. He loved the bitter temperatures that had settled in because it meant time outside was limited and there was more time for this.

While crossing his arms over his head, looking around the little home that he shared with you, Five started to smile again. The shelves in the kitchen were covered with canning jars filled with the evidence of how hard you had both worked to prepare for the winter. While he was thinking about how the massive amount of work involved in living this way did nothing to diminish how happy he was, something over by you hit the floor with a thump.

Five hadn’t noticed you stepping up on a chair to reach the highest shelf, but you had. Now you were getting down, looking at what had fallen.

His heart was suddenly beating so hard it felt like it might rip out of his chest. Too late, he threw himself out of bed, snatching his pajama pants off the floor as he rushed over, one leg in, and one out of the cold flannel.

“What is this?” you questioned, rapidly turning the pages in your hands. “Five?” you said again, waving the notes you’d just found wedged behind the other books.

“It’s my journal,” Five said, still pulling up his pants as the worried line between his brows grew deeper.

“I know it is, but it’s not that one,” you said, pointing to the other on the table beside the bed. “This one is…It looks like you figured it out…. The key to the subway map is all filled in.” 

You quickly turned to the pages that Five already knew were there, the colorful triangles and circles and squares and numbers that had made no sense were all noted with his handwriting, explaining what they meant and how to navigate them. Trying to make help sense of it, you’d looked at it so many times, but like him, you’d gotten nowhere.

Five reached for the book, and as if you’d lost all your strength, the journal fell into his hands. Your voice tremored. “Where did this come from?”

“I found it under the edge of the subway platform, next to the tracks.”

“When?”

“Months ago,” Five flatly replied, his voice coming out steady, even if he wasn’t.

Your eyes glossed over. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

As he looked into your hurt filled eyes, he felt like he was dying as he said, “You know why.”

“Five,” we can’t stay here pretending there isn’t something we can do,” you said, saying exactly what he knew you’d say.

“What can I do!” Five all but screamed, making you jump back, and that only made him look even more upset.

Ashamed that he’d just done that, his entire body shaking, Five’s hands came up, covering his face, the journal falling to the floor as he started to ramble, “I can’t lose you! I can't help them! I-” 

He breathed your name, much quieter before starting again. 

“If we go, there’s no telling what we’ll find back there. My family and I didn’t know what to do before I left, and I don’t know what to do now. Having you with me is the last thing I want if I go back to that place. Don’t you get it!” he cried, losing it again. “That timeline is just another like this one that will be destroyed, only this time, nobody is going to survive!”

“So this is it?” you quietly asked.

Five looked up and only then did he see the tears rolling down your cheeks. 

“Isn’t this enough?” he asked, his voice cracking.

You came closer. “Five, you will always be enough for me, but-”

When you didn’t finish the ‘but’ and instead chose to wrap your arms around him, Five sucked in a panicked breath, his entire body shuttering. 

Feeling worse, but slowly getting a handle on himself and what this meant, eventually Five forced himself away from the safety of your embrace. His voice lacked any signs of weakness from his melt down when he looked at you and said, “We are going back.”

X- X-factor, as in an exceptional quality or talent that sets someone or something apart. Not so much what the gang is displaying here.

Escorting you along the snow-covered sidewalk leading up to Diego and Lila’s house, trying to be optimistic, Five said, “Maybe they figured it out after all. Everything looks normal.”

Opening the door, Diego’s eyes widened as they moved from you to his brother. “What do you know? Five finally decided to join us and he’s not alone!” he called out just as Klaus came to join him in the entryway, shoving a handful of trail mix in his mouth.

“And who’s this,” he questioned, wiggling an eyebrow at you.

Five was still trying to introduce you when Lila came over interrupting. “Awwww,” she said, scowling at Five. “It looks like hell really did freeze over because you brought a real live, non-plastic date. You’ve clearly been busy, though not surprisingly busy doing nothing to help us figure this stuff out with Ben.”

“We don’t know where Viktor is, or Benny and his Jenny,” Klaus chimed in, “but that doesn’t mean this Cleanse stuff is happening. Dad lies all the time.” Looking puzzled, he looked down at the floor. “Actually, I don’t know what’s going on. Allison and Claire Bear just dug me up from a pet cemetery. I’m still feeling a little shaky about all that and for other reasons too, so I haven’t really been much help either.” 

He glanced at Claire, and she smiled. “It’s okay Uncle Klaus. One step at a time We’ve got your back.”

Coming your way, dressed in a track suit that way too small for him, Luther said, “Hi, I am Luther. Not sure if Five told you about me.”

“Five, told me all about you. It’s so nice to finally meet all of you,” you said, smiling at Luther, then Five, who was already looking like his head might explode.

Luther turned his goofy grin at Five, giving him a not at all discrete thumbs up as he whispered, but not quite enough that everyone else didn’t hear it. “Nice job!” Suddenly looking confused, he added, “Are you together, like together-together? Not that it matters, it’s just Lila is right. You don’t date, and we’ve never seen you with anyone other than Dolor-”

“Woopsie,” Allison said, walking past, smacking Luther on the back of the head.

Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Five angrily spat, “She already knows about me and Dolores! And not that any of you give a shit about my life, but yes, we are together! I am madly in love with her and for some reason, she loves me back!”

“Ohhhh. I love this… When did all this happen?” Klaus excitedly asked, totally engrossed in the drama unfolding as he sat down on the couch with his bowl of trail mix on his lap.

“Recently.” Five heatedly replied. “And that wasn’t all I was doing, Lila!”

Five raised his voice as he glared at his sister-in-law but that only made her challenging smile even brighter.

“I have been gone for almost eight years,” Five raged at her. “I tried to use my powers to go back in time to save Ben but instead got myself trapped in the apocalypse again where I topped off that series of epic mistakes by getting shot by another me. I would have died if not for her being trapped in one of the apocalypses I ended up in, and believe it or not, that one was on me too! So go ahead, start lying into me about how this is all my fault! Sloane! Your discontent in marriages and your fucked up lives! The Cleanse! Everything! Let me have it. I have heard it all before!”

“I told you that you needed my help,” Lila irritatedly huffed, as she pulled a sticky chunk of red licorice off the front of her shirt.

As Five moved his bitter gaze to Luther, the big guy frowned. “I never meant to blame Sloane on you,” he said very sheepishly. He looked at the others for help but wasn’t getting any. “I am sorry… I was so… And I didn’t mean to-”

“Wait. Hold up…” Claire interjected from the sidelines where she’d been quietly watching the showdown. “You tried to save us, all by yourself?” She looked from her angry Uncle to her mom, clearly confused. 

Allison smiled at her daughter. “Believe it or not, you Uncle Five is the most selfless jerk you’ll ever meet, and he’s right. We have been pretty awful about things since he’s been back, and that’s because like him, we are jerks whose lives are a mess, but that is not his fault.” Turning to Five, she said, “We love you, Five, and I couldn’t be happier that you finally found someone, even if it was in a place you never should have been to begin with. Funny how that shit works. I can tell you all about it and Ray would too if he were still around, but…he’s NOT.” 

She raised her drink, pounding all of it as she flopped down on the couch next to Luther.

“I am sorry, buddy. I didn’t even know you were gone. We love you; you know that right?” Klaus said, coming in for a hug. 

Just then, totally taken off guard because he was looking at you grinning at him with that, I told you so look he knew was because you’d told him time and time again that his family love him, Five was ambushed by his ghost whispering brother’s smothering affections, double cheek kisses and all.

“I am so glad your apocalyptic badass woman saved you, little guy,” Klaus gushed as you started to giggle over what Klaus had just called you, and at Five trying to get away from Klaus’s impressively strong clutches.

Ducking out of his grip, just then, Grace came running in. “Uncle Five! You have to see what Mr. Pennycrumb can do! He can blink just like you.”

“Hey, kid,” Five breathed, coming down to her level to watch as she excitedly flew her electronic dog around extra fast, hiding him behind the Christmas tree before popping him back out again.

As soon as his daughter was done showing off, looking serious, Diego pulled Five to the side. Just as fast, you were surrounded by the rest of his siblings, having gotten pulled down between Luther and Allsion on the couch, with Klaus on the floor at your feet, all of them firing questions at you about your time with their brother.

Scrunching his lips in a way that made his dad mustache look extra dorky, Diego said, “That sounded bad, minus the badass chick saving you part. You okay?”

“Perfect,” Five shot back, trying to smooth the rumbles out of his suit. Giving up, he muttered a few curses, then hearing something about if you were married or not, he looked over at you, tensely flattening his lips as the muscles in his jaw tensed. 

He was about to angrily spout off on all of them again, but looking flushed by amused, you shook your head, warning him not to do it. 

About to lose his mind and not sure what to say about the marriage thing anyway, Five’s mouth snapped shut.

“Oh, my God!” Lila cackled. “I think I love her already,” she laughed, nudging Five in the shoulder before coming over to you, asking, “Do you have superpowers too, because the way you shut down that little ankle biter without saying a word was bloody brilliant. You have to teach me that trick!”

“Ahhh. No powers here,” you laughed. “I think Five and I just have a good understanding of each other.” You looked at Five, widening your eyes comically at him because you could totally see why he maintained that his family were a hard pill to swallow.

“So... I did the CIA thing,” Diego said, moving right along.

“And how did that go?” Five breathed, overwhelmed, but trying to dial it back for the kid’s sake and yours.

“It didn’t. Turns out, it’s not for me. Lila and I had a talk, and we are doing better. My life with them means everything, I just needed a reminder. Thanks for giving it to me,” he said, looking down at his oldest, who was sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Slapping Five on the back a second later, he asked, “So, are you still the oldest virgin alive, or did you guys S-K-R-E-W?” 

“That is not how you spell screw, dad,” Grace corrected as Diego pulled a condom package out of his wallet, then pulled open Five’s back pant pocket, stuffing it in.

“Just in case you need it, man,” he clarified as if Five didn’t get it. “Kids are great, but not sure you're ready for all that complicated stuff yet with you being a scrawny teenager still.”

“I am not a teenager!” Five raged, “I’m 26 for the 2nd fucking time, so that makes me 71! I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, or you not getting that, but I am! And that means for a room full of people given powers not typically seen in any other humans, all any of us can claim is that we’ve excelled at being extraordinarily stupid! There is nothing exceptional about any of us! The world could still be ending in a few hours and Luther is over there shoving whole popcorn balls in his mouth!”

“Thaaairr-rrealleeegoo,” he mumbly defended

Unfazed by her dad being stupid or her favorite Uncle flipping out on everyone, Grace pointed at the TV screen, asking, “Is that Uncle Viktor hanging out with all those weirdos surrounding the mall?”

~~~

Hours later, blinking out of the way of the gigantic blob monster Ben-Jen thing, portal violently crackling, Five reappeared in the subway station, his back slamming back down on the cement as you landed on top of him, knocking the air out of him.

Heart racing as he choked on the air fighting to get back inside his lungs, with his useless gun still in his free hand, Five rolled over, pulling you up.

“I’m sorry,” you needlessly apologized, hardly able to walk as you clung to him. 

Your head was spinning from the jump, and from getting thrown out over the second-floor mezzanine by Luther just before an arm like appendage of the Ben-Jen Cleanse blob latched on to Five, who had just wrapped his arm around you to blink you out of there.

Not stopping, Five helped you inside the waiting train, the doors closing as he sat you down, and then he joined you, staring at the ground as he gently ran his hand up and down your back.

“I am not abandoning them,” he said, almost a whole minute later, finally looking up. 

“I know.” Feeling less green, you moved closer, lowering your head to his shoulder. 

“I can’t save them in any other way but by leaving. I need to buy us some time,” he explained even though he didn’t need to, you were there. You saw it all.

Viktor tried to pull the marigold from Ben, but it was too late. They all had fought back, but they were losing badly. Like Five had told you in the first days he was with you, they were never meant to win.

His head dropped back against the side of the train as it swayed, aimlessly moving through the tunnels.

Five couldn’t even begin to pay attention to the stops as they came and went, another gloomy station of nothingness, and then another, and then another. 

With no clue what to do, he sat in silence with your hand in his.

At some point, your mental exhaustion got the best of you. Slumping against him, you drifted off to the feel of his shallow breaths against your temple.

Y-You

“Five, what is this place?” you asked as your sleep filled eyes followed his towards the glowing sign that said, “Max’s Delicatessen.”

“I have no idea,” he breathed, cautiously stepping out of the train. 

At the unexpected sound of someone saying your name, Five pivoted, protectively throwing you behind him.

The dark-haired young man you hadn’t noticed was sitting on one of the benches near the tracks laughed, then he said, “Don’t worry. I mean neither of you harm, and to answer your question since he can’t. This is the place all of us end up at some point when our time is up. That’s if we make it this far. Most don’t.” 

Getting up, the suit-wearing stranger who was a mirror image of Five, folded his newspaper under his arm and strode your way, extending his hand. 

“Hello again.” He gave you a charming grin, his eyes mischievously sparkling. “It’s been a long time, but I see that your pretty smile hasn’t changed.”

You hadn’t been smiling, but now you were, and that only made the Five at your side look even more hostile.

Unbothered by that, the other Five turned on the heel of his shiny dress shoe, casually waving you along as he said, “Come inside. We need to have a chat.”

A second later the steel bell hanging above the door rang and at least a dozen more Fives inside the deli looked your way, all of them eyeing you with open interest.

The Five you were following sat down in one of the open booths in the middle, gesturing for you to join him. Still shocked into a silence that was making you all the more nervous, Five moved into the opposite seat, pulling you in next to him on the inside of the booth.

The Five that had greeted you flagged over a waiter version of himself as he rushed by, and he swiftly leaned in, filling the cups in front of everyone.

No sooner was it poured, than next to you, Five picked up his white porcelain cup, tipping the entire contents back in one long slug. 

“It’s been a long time since you’ve had coffee this marvelously shitty, I take it?” The Five across from you chuckled as the still hovering waiter came back around. As he refilled your Five’s cup, his fingers brushed past yours on the handle of your mug.

“Need some sugar or some cream in that, sweetheart?” he asked, as the dimple in his cheek deepened.

Your Five turned his glare at the Waiter Five. “She can get her own cream, so fuck off, and yes…” he hissed at the Greeter, “It’s been a while since I had coffee.” 

Five was looking at the Waiter like he might kill him, so you squeezed his leg from under the table. After that, he took a much more civilized sip of his drink, but the warning in his eyes remained as they darted around the diner, meeting the curious eyes of all the other Fives.

“I am betting the lack of caffeine wasn’t nearly as awful this time around when you had such a lovely companion there with you in the apocalypse. She was with you, I presume…? That’s if your story parallels that of some of these other lost boys in here.”

To that, your exceedingly twitchy Five glanced at a very young looking Five wearing his Umbrella Academy uniform. He was sitting next to the door with Dolores. Staring back at the kid version of him’s baby face, Five’s own features pinched with confusion.

Seeing that they weren’t going to get any juicy details on his relationship with you, the Greeter said, “Okay, cutting to the chase then…?”

“Please,” Five cooly replied.

Obliging, the Greeter said, “Every one of us here tried to fix this mess and couldn’t. Now we are here doing anything we can to help the other Fives who still have skin in the game. Which are the lucky bastards like you. So, how can we help?”

Flipping his hair out of his eyes, Five asked, “Will going back to our first timeline and then jumping back to prevent Ben’s death change any of this?”

“No,” the Greeter Five replied.

“Would stopping the original Reginald from releasing the marigold in the first place be enough to fix this?”

“It would be, but we can’t do that. He didn't release the marigold on Earth. He did it on his home planet and then it got here many years later. We don’t have the ability to jump from one plant to another, and Reginald’s ticket here was one way. Doing that also means we will never be born. So again. No.”

With his foot agitatedly tapping under the table, Five shook his head. “What else is there that we can work with?”

The Greeter laughed. “Us. We are the problem.”

“Explain,” Five shot back.

Tiling his head to the side, the Greeter grinned at you then looked back at your Five and sighed. “The marigold that caused our births was the catalyst, and we were the by-product that never should have been. We set it all in motion by existing. Our births are what caused a ripple effect that split the timelines. They never should have happened, and because of that, we get an endless cycle of nature trying to correct itself.”

Five��s hand tightened around yours. “The apocalypse and the Cleanse.”

The Greeter nodded. “Exactly. Every one of them, and on and on it goes. We are at one million five hundred thousand, eighty-two tries to stop it at this point and we haven’t, but we are still going strong.” 

He laughed at that, his eyes moving to the Five in the corner booth who was tipping back a bottle of whiskey with about half of it running down his chin. 

“Well, most of us are still trying. Drunk Five, not so much,” the Greeter cynically added.

Not happy about that, the Drunk Five, sloshing his bottle all over his table started in. “You are missing shit as usual! There are things bigger in this world than new elements that can spontaneously create superpowered assholes and then later devour them for no good fucking reason other than an arrogant alien asshole named Reginald had zero foresight!” he shouted.

“It was Abigail who created it,” one of the Fives playing cards flatly corrected, while dealing another hand to the Five across from him. 

“Whatever! Still an asshole!” Drunk Five insisted, getting even more worked up. “Real power has nothing to do with what they gave us! It’s in here, only all you self absorbed morons have no idea what it means to feel it!” he declared while trying to point a finger at his heart, but when he almost dropped his bottle, he ended up dumping booze on his crotch instead.

Looking like he was about to cry, the very drunk Five looked over at you. “I- I’m,” 

He said your name, proving the Greeter Five wasn’t the only one who knew your name.

“I tried to save you. I tried to save all of them, but I didn’t see the right way to do it until it was too late,” he sobbed. He set his bottle down, ringing his hand through his hair as he looked down at the table. “I would have done it. I would have sacri-”

A Five wearing an apron stepped out of the kitchen, slapping a hand over his drunk doppelganger’s mouth as he said, “Zip it before you fuck this up royal, nob shine.” 

Looking at you with a gleam in his eye, the kitchen Five bent down, whispering something in his captive’s ear, then having quieted the Drunk Five, that Five came over, placing his elbows on the back of your seat, joining the party, and again you were greeted with a smile and excited green eyes.

Reaching over to playfully twirl a piece of your hair around one of his fingers, the Five from kitchen looked to the Greeter Five then to your Five, saying, “Perhaps while you boys continue this conversation, it would be best if I take the lady in back to show her how I tenderize my meat?”

“Not a fucking chance,” your Five snapped back as you let out a small but very hysterical sounding laugh.

“Actually, that might not be a bad idea,” the Greeter agreed.

“She isn’t going anywhere with any of you!” Five fumed, standing up to get in the face of the kitchen Five that was invading the booth.

Someone in the kitchen who sounded like Five laughed, yelling something about soup and sore his meatballs, and just then, the bell above the door chimed.

A much older, white-haired gentleman with a mustache came in, throwing his hat on the coat rack as he took in the scene. “Jesus fucking Christ, why does it always have to be a freak show in here,” he grumbled.

The very young Five at the booth with Dolores tipped his margarita at him in agreement as your Five opened his mouth, starting to flip out again, but right then, the Waiter Five appeared from the kitchen, plate in hand, swinging by your table to drop a thick sandwich stacked with pastrami in front of the Greeter. “Here you go, extra sauerkraut, as you requested.” 

The Waiter looked over at you, his wicked grin grew. 

“Why do you always have to fuck shit up, Briket Five?” the Greeter snapped at the Five still playing with your hair. “Nobody wants to eat this shit covered in fermented slop but you!” 

“Shut up and just eat it,” he replied while giving you a naughty looking wink.

“Brisket Five?” you asked.

The Five in question nodded. “Yes, but you can call me whatever you want, love.” 

He got up and walked towards the kitchen, after your Five swatted his hand away, but getting him off of you made Five look no less pissed by the exchange. “We need to get you out of here,” he said as he started to slip out of the booth, but coming past your table, the old mustached Five nearly plowed down the Waiter, who then rammed into your Five blocking his path.

As he looked at the commotion going on at your table and all the Five’s sizing each other up, the older Five gruffly said, “Not sure what these morons have been telling you, but I am so sick of their shit that I am about ready to shove that mop up someone’s ass. Nobody is going to enjoy that other than Janitor Five, so I’ll give you some straightforward advice that might help us all out of this mess instead. Don’t try to save the world this time.”

The Five with the mop laughed. “True on both accounts! I’m down with an anal mop fucking as long as you go gentle on me, and when it comes to fucked up shit I haven’t tried, not saving our asses is the only thing I haven’t done, so I say yes to that too,” he shouted, then went back to moping the mess under Drunk Five’s table.

Mentally on overload, next to you, in his head, ignoring what the weird mop fucking stuff was all about with the Janitor Five, your Five repeated the words that had been haunting him since the first time he’d heard them coming from another much older permutation of himself who was dying in a paradox proof bunker.

Don’t try to save the world…

As if that wasn’t enough to shake him, still reeling with deja vu, the Drunk Five called over, “We need to destroy the marigold!”

“Please shut him up before he really scares her even more than h already has!” Greeter Five shouted.

With all the other Five’s too busy glaring at each other, the Drunk Five went on even louder, this time declaring his love for you, and because of it, you looked even more rattled by the chaos of all the versions of Five scattered around you, mostly all of them losing their shit or making lovey dovey eyes at you.

Coming out of the kitchen with a frying pan in hand, Brisket Five said, “Holy shit, someone should have thrown him outside hours ago.” A second later, he pulled back to swing, and a second after that, DONG! Drunk Five was lying face down, drooling on his placemat.

“To that, we agree,” the Greeter said, looking at you worriedly.

As if Brisket Five hadn’t just potentially concussed or killed the inebriated version of himself, the Waiter Five shimmied back into the mob around your table, refilling all the coffee cups, acting like all this was all totally normal.

Next to you, Five looked like he was about to blow a gasket. Unable to get out of the booth, he was about to vault the back of your seat and start stabbing out the eyeballs of the other Fives with his sugar spoon.

Coming over, Brisket Five said, “As you’ve noticed some of these lesser evolved douche bags in here aren’t that well-mannered, and Old Five is not much of a socialite, but he’s not wrong, and neither is Drunk Five over there. They are onto something, but our gracious Greeter here, and some of the others like to think there still has to be another way that doesn’t involve our way of thinking.”

“It makes sense that statistically, there is!” the Greeter Five growled, to the dickish brush off wave of the frying pan that Brisket Five just gave him.

After threatening the Greeter, Brisket Five, looking at you in a way that made you feel all sorts of warm, he said, “Did you know that there is a quantum entanglement thing going on between us?”  

“There is nothing going on between you two,” your Five snarled.

“Sure, there is,” he reaffirmed, giving the Greeter a pointed look that made your Five and the Greeter suddenly look much less sure of themselves. 

Coming too, looking even more upset now that he just got his head bashed in, looking at you, Drunk Five started rambling. “We have something that binds people through time in ways that no one will ever understand. It’s why we ran into each other in the first place, and it was why you were there to save me, and I was there to save you! It’s an inevitability… It’s as simple as that! We just need to believe in that this time and maybe-”

“It’s wishful thinking and we need more than that,” the Greeter interrupted.

Looking very annoyed, Brisket Five said, “There are some of us that like to pretend it’s horse shit based on fairy tales and lovesick delusional nonsense, but the concept of a love-based entanglement is very real.” He looked at you again. “No matter how far or how we get pulled apart in the mess of time, we will always remain connected. It’s like that with a love as strong as ours.”

“You don’t know her and you don’t love her! I do!!” your Five snapped

Brisket Five looked at the Greeter, both of them smiling knowingly, no longer looking like they might kill each other.

“Five, what is he talking about?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” he shot back, clearly so upset that he didn’t know what to say anymore.

“Sure, you do,” Brisket Five confidently replied. "Let me ask you this…have you ever felt things you can’t explain?”

Five nodded, yes.

Brisket Five reached across the table, placing his hand over yours as he smugly smiled at your Five while asking, “Have you felt it with her?” 

Heat flooded your face.

Your Five said nothing, but he didn’t need to, the other him’s smile turned into a full-on smirk. “Has she told you that she feels it too?”

Five glanced at you, and the other Five’s all trying their best to charm you with their bullshit smiles that made him want to punch himself.

“Ahhhh-haaa,” Brisket Five laughed. “I suppose she might not have told you she has felt that invisible tether that pulls at her heart when you're there and even when you’re not, but Drunk Five’s stories can’t all be bullshit, and I can attest to it because I feel it right now. Something tells me that she’s the special one here, not us, and it has nothing to do with marigold.”

Pulling his lips to the side, looking upset, Greeter Five said your name, pulling your attention his way again. “Hey, why don’t we let them talk about all this crap alone? I am sick of the fighting, and I bet you are hungry for something that is actually edible.” 

Getting up, he offered you a hand. When you got nothing from your Five other than silence, the warmth of the Greeter’s fingers curled around yours, sliding you out of the booth to join him. 

Directing you towards the display case filled with pies, Greeter Five said, “It really is a lucky day. There’s one more piece of strawberry fluff with your name on it.”

Behind you, Brisket Five leaned into your Five’s ear, talking extra quietly. “Look, you’re the first to ever come in together, and I think that means it’s time to end this the only way we can. Our family doesn’t have to make it to the end to get what you want, just the people we love do. We are linked to them, and them to us by something none of us can explain but it is real. Maybe that matters, and maybe it won’t, but at least they will live, and this will stop,” he said, eyeing you as the other Five’s intentionally dominated your attention so you didn’t hear that part. 

Your Five’s eyes widened as he realized what the other him meant.

“All your numbers and asshole logic aren’t getting you anywhere but here again, buddy. You need to let go,” Brisket Five added, trying to smile again but the sadness in his eyes and the pain he felt about it was impossible to hide.

Getting up, he left your Five alone at the booth.

“Just do as that old dipshit said to do this time,” the Five with Dolores yelled out, loudly slurping his margarita to the bottom of the glass.

“Why don’t you give me Dolores and you got stick your dick the pickle jar again and fuck it,” a particularly grumbly looking Five interjected before going back to scowling at his crossword puzzle.

“Five, what do they mean, don’t try to save the world this time?” you said, breaking away from Greeter Five as you came rushing back.

Just then, Drunk Five started in again, this time getting up from his booth, heading your way, cutting you off. “Don’t worry. We can help. We will come with you this time. Then-” 

He almost fell, his hand swinging out to catch him on the divider between booths.

Dizzily looking at all the others, then you again, he said, “We will keep the Cleanse busy, distracting it, and we will get Ben and Jennifer out of it.” He looked at your Five, a silent understanding happening between him as he lied. “You get everyone back to the academy. Viktor will have time to pull this shit out of you, dump it, and then you get the hell out of there. If you win, we all do.”

Reaching down, instead of vomiting, which he looked like he might do, Drunk Five pulled up two heavy double barrel shotguns that you had no idea were sitting next to the mostly quiet CrossWord Five who was now also suddenly getting up, pulling two guns from his shoulder straps.

“I’m in,” the Waiter Five said, dropping his coffee carafe in favor of the potato peeler he just pulled out of the bin full of dirty dishes sitting on the next table.

Greeter Five walked over to the fire box, smashing open the case, pulling out the ax. “Fine, Let’s fuck that blob up,” he said while giving you an extra cute grin that left you even more speechless over how quickly they’d all came together.

Almost all the Fives were suddenly packing, Brisket Five included, grinning at you from over by the check-in desk as he twirled a large butcher knife around, pointing it at his head, trying to get you to laugh over how crazy they all were.

Drunk Five swooped in, wobblily kneeling at your feet, his puppy dog eyes imploring you to believe him. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.” Feeling drawn to him, as you shakily wiped a tear from his cheek, he said, “I won’t let you down this time.” Letting your fingers gently run across his temple, Drunk Five’s eyes fluttered closed, his long lashes fanning his cheeks. “I still feel it,” he whispered as that spark of something lit up inside you, his eyes opening to meet yours, his focus entirely on you, unwavering as he was in his heart. “We’ve got this, sweetheart, we always did. Just hold on to me, okay? In here. Don’t forget how much I love you and we will always be together.”

He reached up, placing his hand over yours so he could pull it over his heart.

As your Five slowly, almost hypnotically moved in, looking down at the other him with a heartsick look in his eyes, Drunk Five handed the much older, very resolute looking Five who’d also came over his other shotgun. 

“Enough fucking around! Time to end this, boys!” the white-haired patriarch said. 

~~~

“See you on the other side,” Brisket Five said, while giving you both a look that was nothing like his haughty expressions he’d been maintaining for most of the conversation inside the deli. To you, his small smile seemed to be saying something by saying nothing at all, then he ducked into the other train car that the other Five’s had chosen to ride in.

Stepping in the doors you had come out of when you got there, you watched them a car over from yours, all the different versions of the man you loved as they found their places to either sit or stand, none of them saying a word. 

They looked like they meant business, like the violent ax swinging, hell bent on retribution kind of business, and it was a stark contrast to how out of control they’d been acting inside the deli.

“I promise, we can do this,” Five said, his eyes not leaving yours even though he was aware he had an audience in the next train over.

His heart was beating so hard. He felt like he could jump out of his skin but there was no way he was going to tell you that.

He knew all of the Fives felt it. It was in the air all around them, permeating every fiber of their being. It was the accumulation of all of it. The weight of their endless devotion to the people they loved, the pain of enduring so much for so long, and it was the bitter taste of so much loss and the loss that had yet to come.

You let your fingers trail down the gully between Five’s ab muscles until they touched his waist. “Five, I am so scared.”

He wasn’t anymore.

He looked over at the other car, then back at you, shaking his head. “We have about five minutes, give or take. What should we do with it?”

You said nothing, and tears started to run down your cheeks.

Five kissed you.

His eyes met yours right as you grabbed at his leather belt, pulling his hips against you.

“I need you,” he said, his voice breaking.

The smallest noise escaped his mouth as you snaked your body against his. The warmth of your body flooded his senses, tingling from his toes all the way back to his groin.

The rapid rise and fall of your chest matched his as you kissed him with equal desperation, shaking him to the core.

With a suppressed moan, Five took you by the shoulders, pushing you down on the seat. Coming down to his knees in front of you, making is where some of the others couldn’t see you, he settled his body between your legs. 

He pushed your knees apart even more, then locked his mouth on yours again, his tongue thrusting inside urgently.

Clutching his shirt, you slid closer to him, until your hips met his.

Reaching for his pocket, Five closed his eyes and swallowed.

He pulled out the condom Diego gave him. Realizing what he was about to do, you snatched it and chucked it over his head, then immediately started unlatching his belt, sliding his zipper down to gather him in your palm.

“There is nothing that can ever come between us,” you said, nearly repeating what all the other Five’s had been saying but saying it meaning so much more than that. 

Five’s body involuntarily fell forward as you stroked him.

“I love you,” he breathed. It came out unsteady, a streak of hot liquid slipping from his eye no matter how much he willed it not to.

You fisted the back of his pants, drawing him closer, the deed earning you a low mewl emanating from deep within his throat.

You kissed him and brought your legs up around his waist.

His pants, already undone, slipped down his thighs, catching in a bunch of material above his knees as his cock bobbed between your bodies, fully erect.

Five moved his forehead against yours. He lifted the bottom of your dress up as you swept a finger over his leaking slit, spreading the liquid gathering down his shaft.

He hissed with pleasure.

Unable to stop himself even though he saw Brisket Five peeking over his shoulder for a second, Five took his cock in hand, and getting ready, your hands moved down behind you on the seat to keep you from slipping backwards. You arched your back, letting out a broken whimper the first time Five’s cock slid up against you.

“Holy shit,” Five breathed in on shaky air as he rubbed his tip across your clit a few times, then he positioned his cock lower, his slicked thickness gently pushing and prodding as he worked it over your hole like he’d never allowed himself to do before.

“Fuck,” he cursed, because that was exactly what it felt like as he tried to sink into your warmth but the tightness starting to surround him instantly fought back.

Gripping his length with more determination, his hand trembling, Five pushed harder. Sweat breaking out all over his body, he felt the pressure surrounding the sensitive bulb of his swollen flesh as your body started to let him inside. He felt your body clenching repeatedly around him as it adjusted and even that was almost enough to do him in.

“Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he anxiously breathed.

Biting your lip as you tried to relax, looking up at him staring back through the dark strands of hair dangling over his eyes, you nodded, encouraging him along with one of your hands winding around his neck and your other sliding around his hip, gently but firmly pushing him to take more.

Five’s lower lip quivered as he did, his hand gripping his base moved out of the way as he opened you, moving so cautiously, as he forced your body to take him.

You sucked in a breath as his hips jerked forward just a little, then back again.

“Oh, fuck, that felt- Fuck,” he groaned.

He drove in, kissing you for just a moment before breathlessly breaking away again.

“We stay together until the end,” you frantically said, “You and me. If you go, I go.”

Five knew why you were saying this. He knew your heart was breaking, just like his. They were all trying to hide the truth, but you saw right through him. 

You always did.

There was only a fraction of space between your faces. With your breathy words on his lips, Five whispered back, “You and me, always, love.”

He slipped out and then back in, bottoming out in one swift motion.

You gasped and he pulled back, then completely stilled until you quickly moved your hands down his back, pulling at his waistcoat so he was forced to dig himself inside you again.

“Don’t stop,” you begged.

One more small thrust in and out and again he buried himself full deep, jolting your body as his fingers dug into your ass, locking you to him as much as he could.

Like he needed air to breathe, Five needed to be a part of you in every way he could in the minutes he had left. Audience of horny Fives be damned. Your heart and your soul was his.

He had to bury his face in your neck to stem the flow of his breathy curses over what his body was feeling as it took yours, claiming it completely.

“You feel amazing,” he puffed against your skin. It took him a few seconds to regain himself, but when he did, you brought your hand up to his hair, slowly carding it through your fingers as you drew his lip to yours. Your kiss was soft and soothing. After a moment, his body reactively started moving again, and your kiss deepened, letting him know he should keep going.

Five pulled his hips back, withdrawing halfway before pushing back into your perfect warmth as slowly as he could manage. But as you started to lift your hips to meet his, his pace got faster, and more confident, and again it felt so fucking good that he had to pull back from your lips to breathe. He went for the skin at your neck instead, tasting it, licking you as he nipped and sucked and wildly drove himself into you with his hips rocking and his thighs thrusting forward, the tips of his dress shoes digging into the floor as he wildly plowed you.

Fighting the urge to let himself come, Five growled, “Fuck this world, and fuck all of them, you are mine!”

The cheers of the other Five’s hearing that, all of them unable not to notice the show he was putting on, only made your Five get louder, increasing the madness of it all.

“You are mine!” he said again, getting angrier, but also not, because his diabolically cute grin said something else entirely.

“Five!” you cried out as he fucked into you harder and harder, shaking your brains loose.

Out of his mind, but somehow still in control enough to bite back the pressure building, Five suddenly started to move in slow, deep thrusts that were sweet and intense, and at first, very calculated. That abrupt change got you moaning like he was slowly killing you, your fingers clawing at his ass as he undulated his cock in and out, deliberately dragging his tip back and forth where it made you cry out his name the loudest.

Despite Five’s valiant efforts to control himself and prolong the thing you’d both been denied for so long, he could no longer hold back when your heels dug into his back.

When he dipped forward, laying over you as much as he could while fucking you on edge of the bench, you kissed the hollow of his throat, your hot tongue slick against his skin.

Just like he finally knew what he needed to do, Five knew that no matter what, he would always have this, even if you didn’t remember it. 

A weight lifting that he’d been crushed by for so long, wrapping his arms around your waist, Five lifted you forward with animal-like passion, bucking into you.

Like free falling, the heat of your release caressed his length as he continued to swiftly move in and out. You were lost, eyes closed, your mouth wide against his shoulder, silently crying out as your walls trembled around him, the feeling of ecstasy not letting up because he wasn’t.

Not until his rhythm began to break and Five could no longer hold back the rising tide did he tell you to look at him.

He locked eyes with you, his hips shunting forward in a stutter of broken motion he could no longer control. “You are the best part of me,” he panted as he started spilling deep inside you.

The whisper of his name on your lips served to move his hips once more, then as you cried his name, another spasm came to close his eyes as his body weakened and his face dropped to the side of your neck.

For almost a minute, Five stayed in that spot, waiting for his heart to slow. But all too quickly he had to withdraw.

As you were both righting your clothes, one of the Fives banged on the glass between the cars. “Button it up! Time to go!”

The train was slowing.

Placing your hand on his cheek as you fought back the start of more tears, you gave Five that beautiful smile that would forever touch his soul. 

~~~

Before setting out of the train, Brisket Five put a hand on Drunk Five’s back as he said, “It’s been an honor watching you slowly trying to drown yourself.”

Pulling his eyes from the floor, Drunk Five looked at the other him who was holding the butcher knife and smiled. “It’s been awful eating that shit you call food.”

Swinging his ax to his shoulder, Greeter Five kicked the Five with Dolores on his lap in the ankle. “You watched the whole thing, didn’t you? Just look at your pants,” he said pointing to his crotch and the boner that he was trying to use their beloved mannequin to hide.

“What,” he questioned innocently while turning Dolores towards him, looking for support. “Can’t blame a guy for being curious… If you fuckers wouldn’t have gotten jealous and started beating off like a bunch of pervs over it, Dolores was game to join in the fun. Weren’t you, honey?”

Smirking as he pushed his back off the side of the train, one of the Card playing Fives let out a little laugh. “He’s got a point.”

“I am not going to miss you fuckers,” Old Five said, smirking at he rolled his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Big Damnit here guys...

Okay so readers, I am so sorry, but Tumblr cut me off here and won't let me post more, and all we have left is Z!!!! It's so frustrating because it almost all fit on here. The end is worth it I promise, so please read it, it's not that long. I am not doing a separate post on here to end it because those get lost in the ether. So, please forgive me and head over to A03 to this link (Chapter 26, Z-Zion) to go directly to the final part of this story.

Long live the Umbrella Academy and its awesome fans. ❤️

Share your thoughts if you like but just know one way or another, thank you for reading this. It means so much to me.

Link to my MasterList

Link to all my Tumblr story and art Posts

Link to visit me on A03

[descendant-of-truth]

That said, I do think that Shadow Generations being such a more carefully cultivated exploration of Shadow's past compared to what the original Generations was for Sonic is... not doing Sonic himself any favors

General audiences are already kind of under the impression that Sonic as a character is fundamentally not that deep or interesting, and Generations was written during a time that really, really wanted to prove that notion right. Sonic "being deep" was what, seemingly, caused so much critical backlash, so to counteract that, they gave us the blandest cutscenes Sonic has ever had the displeasure of being in.

But that's not really what Sega is trying to push for, now. Frontiers wanted to be more serious, with a mature, down-to-earth Sonic. The movies gave him an origin story that inherently makes him a lot more complicated than usual. Prime put the focus on his emotions and gave him a character arc that lasted the whole show. The IDW comics can get extremely serious, and we're treated to Sonic's inner monologue as he wrestles with difficult choices. They clearly want Sonic as a character to be interesting to people, not just a vehicle for action and quips.

But putting the old Sonic Generations in the same package as the new Shadow Generations is inherently portraying them as equivalent experiences. When Sonic explores his past, it's no big deal - just another day on the hero job! Absolutely nothing worth exploring on his end when it comes to meeting his past self and revisiting his memories! Nope! No need to use time travel as a way to explore his core values as a person who prefers to live in the moment and not be bound by his past, no siree!

Oh, but Shadow? Now that's the actually interesting character! Revisiting Shadow's past is such an exciting event that it requires the whole year to hype up, and Sonic's just so boring in comparison, isn't he? Who really cares about Sonic beyond his surface-level characteristics anyway, right? The Sonic Generations remaster is more of an accessory to what's essentially Shadow the Hedgehog 2 at this point, and that bothers me.

Sure, Sonic doesn't have "a backstory" like Shadow does. But the past that we explore in Sonic Generations isn't his literal origins, but all the adventures we went on with him. Imagine how much depth you could wring out of him if you just took those events as being legitimate parts of his life that he has feelings on! Feelings we could explore!

But because it's a remaster instead of a full-blown remake, all of this effort they're putting into Shadow's campaign is nowhere to be seen in Sonic's. Can you imagine how good of a package deal this would be if Sonic's character was given this much care and respect, too? Like, we have two Sonics, but Shadow is getting more than double the favoritism.

And the fact that this is only going to continue to push the idea that Sonic is just. incapable of being interesting, or even really affected by what happens around him is really frustrating. We already have the movies and Prime drastically changing his demeanor and core traits for the sake of making him "able" to have character development, and as much as I love those versions as characters, it's really doing a disservice to who Sonic is supposed to be.

The last thing we need is for Generations to come out again and make the Sonic from the games seem like the least interesting version of him. Bringing Shadow up should not involve dragging Sonic down - they're supposed to be equals. But this game doesn't seem to be showcasing that very well, on account of essentially being two games written by different people haphazardly mashed together.

People being introduced to the series through this game are going to have such a skewed perception of what Sonic is like as a person, as well as what he's like compared to Shadow, and that just. makes me kinda upset not gonna lie

[03jyh23]

🚆⌇bandit(?)!┆jung wooyoung

badboy(?) wooyoung x fem!reader

│synopsis: the one where you miss your train and meet a charming... bandit?

│genre: romance

│trigger warnings: none?

│words: 4.5 k

│reminder: what you’re about to read is purely fiction, so let’s keep it separate from reality.

!minors do not interact!

— hi there, my lovely people! honestly, i have no idea what this is 😭. i got inspired by a song from one of the rappers in my country and just went with it. and now i'm just wondering if i should do something more with this story or just leave it be?

love, mon ♡

A cold evening breeze tousled your hair, plastering strands to your face. A heavy bag hung from your shoulder, filled with items that couldn't fit into the large suitcase standing beside you, your hand gripping its handle tightly. The thing was, you didn't make it to your transfer train. Despite your friends' warnings, you insisted you could grab a much-needed iced coffee in the 10 minutes before your train left. You were wrong.

The platform was dark, with only two solitary lamps casting a dim light. You cursed yourself under your breath, but there wasn't much you could do now. You'd already waited for an hour; you could've managed another before the next train arrived. You glanced at your phone, sighing heavily—it was running out of battery. It was frustrating. You'd have to wait two hours just to take a train for a little over forty minutes to reach your hometown. But you were the only one to blame. Well, at least you had your coffee and a blueberry muffin. But it wasn’t worth it, not at all. You shivered, pulling your jacket tighter around you. You glanced at the large clock hanging from the information board, hoping the minutes would pass more quickly. Of course, they didn't.

After an frustratingly long time you finally heard the train approaching, its rumble growing louder as it neared the station. You felt a mix of relief and anticipation wash over you. Finally, you'd be on your way. As the train's headlights pierced through the darkness, illuminating the platform, you gathered your belongings and prepared to board, eager to put this frustrating delay behind you.

The car you boarded was empty, so you sat down at the very end, near the window. You placed your luggage in the designated area and quickly plugged in your phone to charge as much as possible for the remaining journey.

As the train pulled into the next station, the platform gradually came into view, bathed in the harsh glow of fluorescent lights that cast long shadows across the concrete. The stark illumination revealed an almost deserted space, save for a group of eight young men clustered near the far end. Their presence immediately caught your attention, starkly contrasting the emptiness surrounding them. Each member of the group was clad entirely in black, their dark attire blending into the night behind them. As your eyes adjusted to the scene, you noticed intricate tattoos adorning their bodies and faces - some subtle, others bold and striking. Three of them were casually smoking cigarettes, the wisps of smoke curling upwards into the night air. As you observed them, one of the smokers suddenly locked eyes with you. His gaze was intense and unwavering, causing a shiver to run down your spine. Without breaking eye contact, he deliberately tossed his half-finished cigarette into a nearby bin. The action, while seemingly casual, felt loaded with meaning. Your heart plummeted, a mix of anxiety and unease settling in your stomach. The weight of his stare was palpable, even from this distance. Instinctively, you turned your head away, breaking the uncomfortable connection. Your mind raced with possibilities, none of them comforting. As the train doors hissed open, you found yourself fervently hoping that none of the group would decide to board. The thought of sharing this confined space with them filled you with a sense of apprehension that you couldn't quite shake off.

"Wooyoung-ah, just get there and get it done with, yeah?" the unexpected gentleness in the voice you’ve just heard had caught you off guard. You grabbed your phone to busy yourself with, fingers trembling slightly as you unlocked it, trying to appear nonchalant.

As you glanced up from your phone, you saw one of the young men from the group stepping onto the train. His movements were fluid and graceful, belying his intimidating appearance. The tattoos on his face seemed to dance in the flickering light of the train car. "I'll be fine, Joong. See y'all next week, yeah?" the boy called out, waving to his companions just before the train doors closed with a loud beep. Your heart rate quickened as you realized he must be Wooyoung, the one addressed earlier. His hair was black, neck-length, with a fringe styled neatly—only a few strands falling onto his forehead. You noticed a bandage right above his eyebrow, the skin around it purple with bruises. He wasn't tall, but the chunky boots and large leather jacket made him appear more imposing. The tattoos adorning his face seemed to shift and dance in the dim light of the train, adding an air of mystery to his already intimidating presence. His dark eyes scanned the train car, eventually settling on you. For a moment, your gazes locked, and you felt a mix of fear and inexplicable curiosity wash over you.

Wooyoung chose a seat a few rows ahead of you, close enough that you could observe him without being too obvious. As he settled in, you couldn't help but notice the way his shoulders relaxed slightly, as if he was shedding some of the intensity he had displayed on the platform. The train lurched forward, and you found yourself stealing glances at him, trying to reconcile the intimidating figure you'd seen on the platform with the young man now sitting quietly a few rows ahead. His presence seemed to fill the car, even in silence. Your eyes were drawn to the intricate tattoos adorning his face. The one beneath his left eye caught your attention - at first glance, it looked like the number 26, but as you studied it more closely, you realized it might be something else entirely. Your gaze drifted to his temple, where a small, delicate butterfly tattoo rested, a surprising contrast to his otherwise intimidating appearance. You tried to read the lettering above his eyebrow when he caught your eyes again. You raised your eyebrows and looked away, feeling a shudder run through your body. The intensity of his gaze was unsettling, a mix of curiosity and something you couldn't quite place. Your heart raced as you pretended to be engrossed in your phone, all too aware of his presence just a few rows ahead.

The train's rhythmic movement did little to calm your nerves as you found yourself stealing quick glances at Wooyoung again, hoping he wouldn't notice. The tattoo above his eyebrow remained a mystery, its meaning just out of reach.

Suddenly, his voice broke the silence, startling you out of your thoughts. "You know, it's not polite to stare," he said, his tone filled with amusement. His eyes met yours again, this time with a hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

You felt your face flush with embarrassment, caught red-handed in your observation. "I... I'm sorry," you stammered, unsure of how to respond to his unexpected address.

Wooyoung shifted in his seat, turning to face you more directly. "Curious about the ink?" he asked, gesturing to the tattoos on his face. "Most people are. They either can't look away or can't bear to look at all." His words carried a weight that suggested he was used to both reactions. You felt your words frozen in your throat, unable to form a coherent response. The intensity of Wooyoung's gaze and the unexpected interaction left you speechless. You simply averted your eyes, focusing intently on your hands clasped tightly in your lap. You heard him chuckling softly, a sound that was both melodious and slightly unnerving. "Not much of a talker, huh?" he mused, his eyes still fixed on you. You dared to look up again, the warmth in his expression caught you off guard, softening his intimidating appearance. It was a stark contrast to the intense gaze you had encountered earlier. For a moment, you found yourself relaxing slightly, the tension in your shoulders easing just a fraction. "Are you afraid of me?" Wooyoung asked, sensing your hesitation. His voice was softer than you expected. The question hung in the air between you, heavy with implications.

You hesitated, weighing your words carefully. The initial fear you felt was still there, but it had been tempered by curiosity and the unexpected warmth in his smile. "I... I'm not sure," you admitted honestly, your voice barely above a whisper.

Wooyoung leaned forward, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "That's fair," he said, his voice sultry. "But I promise, I'm much more... fun than I look." He winked, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. "Want to find out just how deceiving appearances can be?" His gaze locked with yours, intense and inviting, daring you to look beyond his intimidating exterior.

You blinked continuously, taken aback by his bold proposition. "E-excuse me?" you managed to stammer, your voice barely above a whisper. The sudden shift in the conversation left you flustered, unsure of how to respond to unexpected flirtation.

Wooyoung rose from his seat, his movements fluid and deliberate. As he approached, you found yourself captivated by his presence. He stood before you, and for the first time, you truly noticed the intricate details of his face. His nose and lip piercings glinted in the dim light of the train car, adding to his allure. You were struck by how handsome he was up close, his features a perfect blend of sharp angles and soft curves. Looking up at him, you felt a mix of nervousness and anticipation.

Wooyoung's eyes met yours, a hint of amusement dancing in their depths. "May I?" he asked, his voice low and smooth as he gestured towards the seat next to you. The question hung in the air, loaded with possibilities. Your heart raced as you considered your options. The intensity of Wooyoung's gaze made you feel both thrilled and uneasy. After a moment's hesitation, you nodded slightly, your curiosity overcoming your apprehension. As he settled into the seat beside you, his presence both intimidating and oddly comforting, you couldn't help but wonder what you were getting yourself into.

"My name's Wooyoung," he says, his eyes roaming your features. "And I'd hate to scare off such a beautiful girl, so answer me... are you really afraid of me? Or is it just my killer looks that's got your tongue?" You felt a rush of heat creep up your neck as Wooyoung's words washed over you. His proximity was intoxicating, the scent of leather and something distinctly masculine filling your senses. You struggled to find your voice, caught between the intimidating aura he exuded and the undeniable attraction you felt.

"I... I'm not afraid," you finally managed to say, your voice barely above a whisper. "Just... surprised." You met his gaze, finding yourself drawn into the depth of his dark eyes.

Wooyoung's pierced lips curved into a smirk, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Surprised? By what? My charming personality or my devilishly good looks?" He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a low, intimate tone that sent shivers down your spine.

You couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh, some of the tension dissipating. "Maybe a bit of both," you admitted, surprising yourself with your boldness.

His smirk widened into a genuine smile, transforming his face. "I like your honesty," he said, his eyes never leaving yours. "So, beautiful, since we've established you're not afraid of me, how about we make this train ride a little more... interesting?" You crossed your arms and leaned back against the window, trying to put some distance between yourself and Wooyoung. His sudden closeness and bold proposition had caught you off guard, and you needed a moment to gather your thoughts.

"Are you going to shout 'A bandit! Help!' and run away now?" he joked, but you couldn't quite shake off the feeling he'd been in this situation before. Despite his joking tone, there was an undercurrent of familiarity in his words. Gathering your courage, you decided to address the elephant in the room.

"Do people usually call you a bandit?" you asked, your voice a mix of curiosity and caution.

Wooyoung's expression shifted slightly, a flicker of something—perhaps surprise or appreciation—crossing his features. He leaned back, creating a bit more space between you, and let out a soft chuckle. "Ah, straight to the point, aren't you?" he said, his tone a blend of amusement and something more serious. "Let's just say I've heard it enough times to make jokes about it. But appearances can be deceiving, you know?" His eyes met yours, and for a moment, you saw a vulnerability there that contradicted his tough exterior. "What do you think? Am I living up to the 'thug' stereotype?" he asked, his voice carrying a hint of challenge.

Finally, you took a deep breath and met his eyes directly. The intensity of his gaze made you feel both nervous and intrigued. "Honestly?" you asked with hesitation, weighing your next words carefully.

"No, please lie to me!" Wooyoung joked, his eyes twinkling with amusement. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a pack of chewing gum. With a swift motion, he popped one into his mouth, the minty scent wafting between you. You couldn't help but smile at his playful response, feeling some of the tension dissipate. The casual act of chewing gum somehow made him seem more approachable, and less intimidating than before.

Taking another deep breath, you decided to answer honestly. "At first glance, maybe. The tattoos, the piercings, the whole vibe... it's intimidating," you admitted, watching his reaction carefully. "But talking to you now? You seem more... complex than that. There's more to you than meets the eye, isn't there?" You surprised yourself with your boldness, but something about Wooyoung made you want to dig deeper, to understand the person behind the intimidating facade.

Wooyoung smirked, raising one of his eyebrows as he popped a bubble with the gum. "Are you a psychiatrist in the making?" he teased. You wanted to brush off his little comment, but he didn't give you time to answer. "'I'm no bandit, first I've heard of it,'" he said, putting his hands up as if he were surrendering. "You'd be shocked at how many times I've had to say that." His words carried a hint of frustration beneath the playful tone, and you found yourself wondering about the experiences that led him to make such a statement. Wooyoung leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You know," he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "the ladies think I kill, but at home, I walk in pink slippers." He paused, letting the image sink in before continuing, "And all the grannies yell when I step out on the street." His gaze locked with yours, a mix of amusement and challenge in his expression. You couldn't help but laugh at the contrast he painted. The image of this intimidating figure in pink slippers was both absurd and oddly endearing.

"What else do you do at home?" you tease, finally relaxing into your seat, smiling warmly at the boy.

"Isn't that a very personal question?" he replies, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

You raised an eyebrow, mirroring his playful expression. "Well, you did invite me to make this train ride more interesting," you countered, your confidence growing with each exchange. "Besides, I'm curious about the man behind the tattoos and pink slippers." Your eyes met his, a silent challenge in your gaze, daring him to reveal more about himself.

"As for the tattoos, I just fucking like them, that's all," Wooyoung said with a shrug. His nonchalant attitude towards his tattoos made you wonder about the stories behind each one.

You found yourself drawn to the intricate designs adorning his skin, each one likely holding a unique significance. "Do any of them have special meanings?" you asked, your curiosity piqued. Wooyoung's eyes lit up at your question, a mix of surprise and appreciation crossing his features.

"I'll save the answer to that for a second date," Wooyoung said with a wink. He nonchalantly popped another gum balloon before spitting it into the small trash bin.

You laughed softly, feeling a mix of intrigue and amusement at his flirtatious response. "A second date? Aren't we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?" you teased back, your eyes meeting his with a playful challenge. The easy banter between you two was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

Wooyoung leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, sultry tone. "Well, I consider this our first date, ever since you agreed for me to sit here," he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. The boldness of his statement caught you off guard, sending a flutter through your stomach.

You felt a blush creep up your cheeks, but you couldn't help the smile that tugged at your lips. "Oh really?" you replied, trying to match his confidence. "And here I thought first dates usually involved dinner or a movie, not a chance encounter on a train."

Wooyoung's grin widened, "Who says we can't be unconventional?" he countered, his gaze never leaving yours. "But if you want all of that," he continued, his voice taking on a playful, almost challenging tone, "then it's my pleasure to take you on such a... boring date without anything extraordinary to it." His eyes sparkled with mischief as he leaned in slightly closer. "Though I have to warn you, even my idea of 'ordinary' might surprise you."

You raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on your lips. "Who says I'd even agree to go out with you in the first place?" you challenged, your tone playful but with a hint of seriousness. "You're making quite a few assumptions there, Wooyoung."

Wooyoung's eyes widened slightly, clearly not expecting your response. He leaned back, a mix of surprise and admiration crossing his features. After a moment, he let out a low chuckle. "Touché," he said, his voice tinged with respect. "I guess I got a bit ahead of myself there. My apologies." He paused, his gaze softening. "But can you blame a guy for trying? You're not exactly easy to resist."

You felt a flutter in your stomach at his words, but you maintained your composure. "Flattery will get you nowhere," you said, though you couldn't help the small smile that tugged at your lips. "But I appreciate the apology. Maybe we should start with getting to know each other a bit better before planning any dates, hmm?"

Wooyoung's eyes lit up with amusement at your suggestion. "Why waste time if we can get to know each other on the date?" he countered, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. "After all, isn't that what dates are for?"

You couldn't help but laugh at his persistence. "You don't even know my name," you pointed out, shaking your head in amusement at his bold flirtation.

Wooyoung's grin widened, his eyes twinkling with mischief. He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a low, intimate tone. "I don't need that to know you're the most beautiful woman I've seen," he said, his gaze never leaving yours. You felt a rush of heat creep up your neck at his words, caught between flattery and disbelief at his audacity. Despite yourself, you couldn't help but be charmed by his confidence and smooth talking.

You decided to play along with his flirtatious banter, feeling a mix of amusement and excitement. With a coy smile, you leaned in slightly and said, "I hope my beauty isn't too distracting. We wouldn't want you to miss your stop, would we?"

Wooyoung's eyes widened for a moment, clearly taken aback by your sudden boldness. Then, a slow, appreciative grin spread across his face. "Oh, darling," he drawled, his voice low and rich, "I'd gladly miss a hundred stops if it meant spending more time with you."

You couldn't help but giggle, turning your face away in embarrassment, not able to continue with the banter. You felt a warmth spreading through your chest, a mix of embarrassment and excitement at the intensity of Wooyoung's flirtation. As you turned back to face him, you caught a glimpse of something softer in his eyes, a vulnerability that seemed at odds with his bold exterior. For a moment, you allowed yourself to be caught in his gaze, feeling a strange mix of excitement and uncertainty. As the silence stretched between you, you noticed how Wooyoung started playing with his lip ring, his fingers absently toying with the small metal hoop. His eyes, which had been locked with yours, briefly dropped to your lips before meeting your gaze again. The gesture was subtle, but unmistakable, sending a small thrill through you. You found yourself wondering how that lip ring would feel against your own lips, the thought was both thrilling and intimidating. It sent a shiver down your spine, a mix of excitement and nervousness coursing through you. You couldn't deny the attraction you felt towards Wooyoung, his bold confidence and mysterious aura drawing you in. Your eyes flickered to his lips, lingering on the silver ring that adorned them. You found yourself wondering what it would be like to kiss him, to feel the cool metal against your skin. Catching yourself, you quickly averted your gaze, feeling a blush creep up your cheeks. But the image remained, tantalizing and forbidden, at the edges of your mind. You tried to push the thought away, but it persisted, a silent acknowledgment of your growing desire.

Wooyoung's whispered words sent a shiver down your spine. "If there's something you want to do, you should act upon it," he murmured, leaning in closer. His head tilted slightly, his eyes never leaving yours. The intensity of his gaze made your breath catch in your throat. You felt a magnetic pull towards him, your heart racing as the space between you diminished. The air seemed to crackle with tension, and you found yourself drawn to his lips, that tantalizing lip ring catching the dim light of the train. Time seemed to slow as you hovered on the precipice of decision. Should you give in to the desire that had been building since this chance encounter began? Or was this moving too fast, too soon?

Wooyoung smiled lightly, his face so close you could feel his breath on your skin. The proximity made the lump in your throat grow, your heart racing with anticipation. His voice dropped to a low, intimate whisper as he asked, "Is it alright for me to touch you?" The question hung in the air between you, charged with tension and unspoken desire. You found yourself at a crossroads, torn between the thrill of the moment and the rational part of your mind reminding you that you'd just met. Your body seemed to lean towards him of its own accord, drawn by an inexplicable magnetism. You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest. But it wasn't enough for Wooyoung. His eyes, dark and intense, bore into yours as he whispered, "I need to hear you actually say it." His voice was low, almost husky, sending a shiver down your spine. The anticipation hung thick in the air between you, every second stretching out like an eternity.

You swallowed hard, finding your voice. "Yes," you breathed, barely audible even in the quiet of the train car. "You can touch me." The words left your lips, a mix of nervousness and excitement coloring your tone. Wooyoung's eyes lit up, a slow smile spreading across his face as he leaned in even closer. Wooyoung's hand moved to your jaw, his touch gentle yet electrifying. His fingers caressed your cheek, the warmth of his skin sending shivers down your spine. Slowly, deliberately, he ran his thumb over your lower lip, the sensation causing you to tremble involuntarily. Your breath hitched, caught between anticipation and nervousness as you felt the intensity of his touch and gaze.

You closed your eyes, leaning in to close the distance between you. Your heart raced as you whispered, "You can kiss me now." The words hung in the air, charged with anticipation. You waited, breath held, for him to make his move. Wooyoung's breath hitched audibly, a soft exhale that you felt against your skin. There was a moment of stillness, the world seeming to pause around you. Then, with agonizing slowness, you felt him lean in. His lips brushed against yours, feather-light at first, testing. The cool metal of his lip ring sent a jolt through you, contrasting with the warmth of his mouth.

As if emboldened by your response, Wooyoung deepened the kiss. His hand cupped your face more firmly, fingers tangling in your hair. The kiss was a perfect blend of gentle and passionate, leaving you breathless. You could taste the hint of his earlier gum, with a hint of cigarettes. Time seemed to stand still as you lost yourself in the moment, all thoughts of the train and your surroundings fading away.

Suddenly, a jolt from the train brought you both back to reality. You pulled away slightly, your cheeks flushed and your breath coming in short gasps. Wooyoung's eyes were dark with desire as he gazed at you, a small smile playing on his lips. The moment hung between you, charged with the thrill of newfound connection.

You looked out the window, suddenly realizing with a jolt that you recognized the station passing by. "It's my stop!" you shouted, jumping to your feet in a panic. You quickly unplugged your phone, then grabbed your suitcase and bag, heart racing as you rushed towards the doors.

Wooyoung's eyes widened in surprise, caught off guard by your sudden movement. "Wait—" he started to say, but you were already halfway down the aisle.

As you reached the doors, you turned back briefly, catching a glimpse of Wooyoung's bewildered expression. A mix of regret and excitement coursed through you as the train began to slow. The doors opened with a hiss, and you stepped out onto the platform, your mind reeling from the whirlwind encounter you'd just experienced. You stood there, catching your breath as the train doors closed behind you. Your heart was still racing, not just from the rush to exit, but from the intense encounter you'd just experienced. As you watched the train pull away, you couldn't help but wonder if you'd ever see Wooyoung again, or if this magical moment would remain just that—a fleeting connection in the night.

♡│if you enjoy my writing please consider supporting me by tagging and reblogging│

[jolapeno]

✨ jolapeno turns three today 🥹

(or undercoverpena, mvtthewmurdvck - however you've come to know me)

no matter when i stumbled into your dash, whether through my bucky barnes stage, daredevil, the umbrella academy, daredevil again, call of duty, daredevil again again, narcos, triple frontier, the last of us, the mentalist, the mandalorian and likely back to daredevil again, thank you. not just for the laughs, or the notes; the kudos or the asks, but for being here when it's been cloudy and stormy. thank you for reading the things my brain comes up with and urging it to continue.

i started as a person who didn't know if she could tell stories and I'm now a person who loves to tell stories. even with the lows, this has still been a place I've felt super happy to be a part of, and I'm so grateful that so many of you have stuck around (or allowed me to forcibly drag you from fandom to fandom).

i wish i could go back and tell three-years-ago-jo that in two years she'll have friends she couldn't go a day without speaking to. i wish i could see the look on her face when i told her that she'll have written not one story, but countless romance stories after never thinking she'd be able to do it again. so thank you, for being here, for reading and supporting, for cheering me on and also being my friend. i love you all lots. (sorry not sorry for being a mush)

some special thank you's to just some people who inspired great things in me, who have seen my work when it hasn't been as polished as when it's posted and not judged me for my random misspellings or crazy dyslexia.

even when i didn't think i could do it, you all did. so thank you. to my friend aish, who held my hand through late night texts (which allowed me to find my tuesday sister @goodwithcheese without who i cannot humanly go a day without now). without @eupheme we'd never had had din going around the universe, without you telling me i could do it. and if not for @tonysopranosrobe we'd never had me writing outbreak joel who just can't keep his hands to himself and even more joel's since then. to the wonderful @secretelephanttattoo who inspired and cheered me on for do me yourself (it wouldn't have existed without you) i am amazed by you all the time. and to @luxurychristmaspudding for fancying the pants of frankie and blue so much we're still not sure who we're choosing, for helping me cull the ideas and holding my extra 'S' with all the love in the world. and @toomanytookas for being a sounding board when i change plot three times and not judging me.

and last but no means least, my panda, the girl i have trekked on a train for even if i hate trains, @thetriumphantpanda you don't just inspire great things in me, but make me do great things. your honesty and care with my heart and work is never taken for granted and if you're not crying as you read this, what the living fuck hahaha.

[zepskies]

Podcast Interview With Idling in the Impala: "Y/N and Let Y/N…"

Here we go! Sandra and Kasey, the lovely hosts of @idlingintheimpalapodcast — the podcast for all things SPN and fanfiction — invited me on the pod for an interview…

We chatted about Dean Winchester and Jensen Ackles’ early roles, the best and worst seasons of SPN, the joys and pains of writing Soldier Boy, and much, much more.

That’s right, there be some hot takes coming in this convo, and I had an absolute blast with these two! (And like I said in Sunday's announcement, I’m also putting my name and my voice out there for the first time! 😆)

So if any of that sounds interesting, feel free to dive in!

(**Important Note: Just to preface, we recorded this back in June, so it was before I posted certain stories or even started developing Lost on You. It was also when Tumblr activity/engagement was going through a spring/summer slowdown lol.

Links to all the fics and podfics we mentioned are at the end of this post.)

Have a listen: ⤵️

Interview Timestamps –

(Plus fic recs, SPN writer shoutouts, and more!)

1:44 – Who’s your guy: Sam or Dean?

3:35 – Getting into Supernatural for the first time (and seeing “Deanisms” in Jensen’s early roles).

10:15 – We debate the best and worst seasons of SPN: talking Mary Winchester, the British MOL, MOC Dean vs. Demon Dean, Chuck/God villainy, “jump the shark” moments, and that ending.

30:29 – Favorite SPN characters besides Sam and Dean.

32:34 – Writing fanfiction, joining Tumblr, and writing reader inserts vs. OCs.

38:05 – To “Y/N” or not “Y/N,” and the power of 2nd person. (**Disclaimer: Despite my hot take on this, I’ve loved a lot of stories by authors who use Y/N in reader insert stories.

Also, if I’m remembering the book You and its characters incorrectly forgive me, it’s been like 5 years since I read it lol.) 

51:00 – Favorite fanfic tropes in romance, the joys and challenges of writing Soldier Boy (AKA: the Original Asshole), and attempting to humanize Ben in Break Me Down.

Shoutout to @deans-spinster-witch always for giving me the inspiration to write BMD. 💚

Why We Love The Boys – A review of Supes Ain’t Always Heroes

1:07:57 – Engaging with readers, tips on increasing engagement, optimizing your Tumblr blog, writing schedules and processes, and incorporating reader feedback into stories.

1:26:38 – Sandra graciously narrated Midnight Espresso (Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader). We chat about what sparked the idea for the ME-verse, self-representation in fanfic, feeding Dean, loving Dean, and writing about culture and ethnicity in the fandom space.

1:38:26 – Chatting about the inspirations behind Smoke Eater, a firefighter!Dean AU; law enforcement procedurals, House MD, and researching for stories.

1:44:30 – Which Jackles character is the easiest or most fun to write?

1:47:39 – The challenges of writing Sam vs. Dean.

1:53:15 – Shoutouts! To some of my favorite SPN authors. I could only remember a few people off the top of my head (stupid me), but I love all of you!!

@waynes-multiverse @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior @luci-in-trenchcoats @rizlowwritessortof @waywardxwords

@deanwinchesterswitch @deanbrainrotwritings @deanwritings @spnbabe67 @thatonewriter15

@justagirlinafandomworld @kaleldobrev @artyandink @princessmisery666 @wayward-dreamer (– and many more.)

2:00:40 – How I came up with my username.

2:05:04 – Kasey’s Secret Question…

2:07:38 – Advice to fanfic writers and creatives for inspiration and/or wisdom.

2:16:35 – Sandra and Kasey’s lovely outro: self-representation in fandom, escapism, diverse voices, and more. (“Reach out a hand. Touch somebody. …Not like that.”)

📖 Fics Mentioned:

Sandra: @talltalesandbedtimestories -

Some Sunny Day Series – Dean Winchester x OFC - (I'm in the process of reading this entire series and it's been a joy to read! 💜)

Past Due – Dean Winchester x Reader

The Iceman Cometh – Dean Winchester x Reader

Cowboy Canter (Original Fiction) – Inspired by cowboyish Dean/Jensen.

Kasey: @sam-is-my-safe-word -

English Cottage-verse – Sam Winchester x Reader (I've read it and it's fantastic! 💜)

(K)not for sale – Soldier Boy x Dean Winchester

Alex (Zep/Me) -

Break Me Down – Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Reader

Midnight Espresso (& the Series Masterlist) – Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader

Dream With Me – Dean Winchester x Plus-sized Latina!Reader

Smoke Eater – Firefighter!Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Every Second Counts – Russell Shaw x F. Reader

🎙️ Stories/Podfics Sandra has narrated for me:

Podfic Playlist

And please remember to check out all the other awesome interviews, narrated podfics, and fun topics covered by Sandra and Kasey on the Idling in the Impala Podcast!

[miukki960]

I'm gonna make this post before I go in the tag and see ANY God or Diew slander, because for me the conflict this episode not only made sense, but was necessary for their relationship to move forward.

The seed was planted long ago when God first found the picture of Diew and Dr. Asshole, and at first God handled it rationally (as expected of our Green Flag King). But the longer the situation went unresolved, the more doubt and insecurity began to creep in until it all came to a head in this episode, because all God needed was honesty and openness from Diew, but Diew has learned from past conditioning to lock those parts of himself away and only show a surface level of his personality and self.

I found that God's argument with Diew, while definitely escalated by emotion and insecurity, was justified at its core. We've learned throughout this story that God's main love language is Quality Time, and that most often is fulfilled by God genuinely enjoying doing anything and everything with the people he loves, so long as they are having a good time. But his conversation with Dr. Asshole put the idea in his mind that Diew has simply been going with the flow and doing whatever God suggested in order to make him feel good, that he hasn't actually enjoyed their time together. And while we as an audience know that's false, the idea is one of God's worst fears and most devastating nightmares.

But he loves Diew and doesn't want to believe it's true, so he gives him multiple chances to prove him wrong. And when Diew continues to reply with lies and deflection, it unfortunately proves him right. Because while the context is a bit off and there is definitely a misunderstanding at play, at the end of the day Diew isn't being honest and isn't trusting God enough to open up and show him the deeper, more emotional parts of himself. So God comes to the only conclusion he can see, that even if Diew is no longer in love with Dr. Asshole, their love was deeper and more meaningful than what he has with God now.

But don't get me wrong! Even though Diew was choosing the wrong dialog options during his argument with God, he was also justified in choosing to keep his secrets and emotions hidden. What God doesn't know is that Diew HAS opened up before, bared his heart and soul to someone he thought he loved and trusted, and what was he rewarded with? Disinterest, deflection, shame. As someone with major anxieties related to human interaction, you only have to burn him once to teach him to never play with fire again. And Dr. Asshole burned him deeply on multiple occasions.

No amount of kindness and sweetness and love from God was gonna convince him to play with fire again. In fact, it was reaffirming. Much like what we have been seeing with Wan towards Beer, I'm sure Diew sees how good and wonderful God is and is absolutely terrified to fuck it up. But just like Wan, his defense became his biggest downfall.

At the end of the day, rather than focusing on what happened, we should instead focus on why it happened and how the characters are going to grow from it. And we can see that how through the characters actions during the last few minutes of the episode. We see Diew, who's defense is to isolate, actively reaching out to God multiple times in multiple ways, ready to explain and open up and heal. And we see God going through the more nasty, volatile parts of his emotions alone, so he doesn't hurt Diew while he's in the wrong headspace, but also doesn't bottle the bad things to explode later.

I think what gets me the most is that in their very last conversation before the end of the episode, Diew was asking for togetherness and God was asking for space, and they were both upset on many levels, but they were still speaking to each other with love in their tone and words.

[ghouldtime]

Neighbor! König Part 2

Follow up to this:

After you expressed interest in his miniature collection, he actually actively OFFICIALLY invited you over one evening (and inside!)

It may not sound like much to most to be invited into someone's house but for him, it's the ultimate trust. His house is his private space, his sanctuary, where he goes to be without other people

He doesn't ever invite anyone inside unless necessary or they've truly gained his trust and being invited INTO his house, and actually into a shared space of one of the hobbies that matter the most to him?? Yeah, that's how he says he likes you

He's been working on his models and dioramas for so so long he's incredibly proud and can't help but to want to actually show them off to someone who wants to see

Usually most people don't care :( or think it's weird

But you've embraced it! You're so excited and he's over the moon, he's having the best day ever, if you do research and bring him gifts or show him some new ideas

He has exquisite attention to detail and INSISTS on everything being exactly the way he envisions it. And you notice! You actually notice. Which means you care about his hobbies, the work he puts in, and therefore him

It might be a bit early to say the L word but he's feeling certain ways

He may be a big dude but that doesn't mean he lacks fine motor skills. He's laying those tiny pieces of moss onto the cobble stones like a PRO

Miniatures allow him control over the environment, even if it's on a smaller scale, and offer a way to keep his hands and mind busy so he often throws himself into it

It also helps him relive happier memories. He's afraid of forgetting them and when he's stressing, it's his happy place because he can look at them and simply remember the things in life that matter

He'll ask you about a story you like or a favorite show or book or movie. That's his next miniature planned (in secret. Can't ruin the surprise, he needs to have it all perfect. He will either read the book, watch the movie, will study EVERY detail)

He will start to invite you over when he's having a painting night or is working on them. You don't have to follow his rules or do what he wants! He's just happy you're there and appreciating it

He will always have your favorite snacks and drinks in stock too. Need to make it fun and can't have you going hungry

If you want, he'll put on background noise! He's happy to make it immersive and to light a candle or put something in a diffuser to really set the scene you're going for. But he's perfectly happy to hangout with you as is

You'll finally get to hear him laugh and hear his really, really bad jokes. He has a dry sense of humor and most of what he says isn't even close to funny, he's awkward like that

But if you laugh? That's it, he's sold.

Time flies so fast when you're over, you don't even realize it's 3am

You don't need to go home! I know it's right across the street but he has a guest room and it saves you the trip in the morning. You have a whole nother round of characters to paint :)

Okay maybe it was an excuse so you could see the curtains he'd made and the pillows and he decorated the guest room with! Like actually tried decorating. They're made with love, that's what counts right?

Did he spray the pillows with his cologne before you came over? Maybe, but he won't ever admit to it

You can't complain. Not when he insists it's no trouble at all, you should stay over, and he does everything he can to make you comfortable.

And you're certainly not complaining when you wake up to breakfast in bed

He's so happy to finally have someone to share his life with, even if it's nothing official. He might not say it because words are hard, but he'll always show it in every way that he can 💚

If you look closely at the replica he made of his childhood home, you'll notice two figures in the kitchen who just so happen to look like you and him

Proud believer of König being just a guy! A guy with hobbies! A guy with a calm domestic life! Just because he's a private military contractor doesn't mean he's a constantly violent dude or a guy who lacks an immense amount of respect for boundaries. Sure, he gets really into his job when he does it, but that's his realm! That's his zone. That's why he's confident and having fun, he knows he's good

Outside of work, he's just a guy with a troubled childhood making the best of life and trying to find his own sense of belonging, happiness, and peace

Justice for König, he's not an insane perv or some freakytron or some stalker :(

[strawberriesandstories]

Touch <3

Summary: James has always been touchy until oneday…he’s not

w/c: 1.3k

warnings: nothing much! Just fluff xx

(THIS IS NOT PROOF READ SO BEWARE)

a/n: this is my first story! It’s pretty shit and I wrote it while half asleep in a plane but oh well!

James had always been touchy. Y/n was used to it, though when they first became friends in year one, it took her off guard. She wasn't accustomed to this type of physical affection. Her family weren't really huggers… they weren't really anything, to be honest.

James had always been touchy which is why on the first day of sixth year, y/n was utterly confused. They had met up at the platform as usual, but James made no move to hug her or even say hello.

what?

he looked at her for a second, there was something in his eyes, something that hadn’t been there before…it was almost like a silent plea for something…something y/n didn’t have.

“Hey Jamie…?” Y/n said akwardly, scratching her head not quite knowing what to do.

He was always the first one to say anything

He was always the first one who made the move

He was always the first one to do anything really.

“Hey” he murmured back making no effort to keep the conversation going. Anxiety bubbled in her chest as she tried to think what had possibly gone south between them. When fifth year ended everything was fine, but the more y/n thought about it the more she remembered the little things.

Like how he hadn’t invited her over to his house that summer like normal…or how when they said goodbye he had squeezed her a little less tighter than normal. Maybe she was just overthinking it, maybe everything was fine.

“You look different”

Finally

“Oh-I uh changed my hair”

It was true though she had gotten into a fight with her mother and decided the best act of revenge was bangs and washed out cherry red hair dye. 

“Cool…it suits you” something twitched at the corner of his mouth and he gave her a saddish sort of grin

He took a step close before stopping and sighing again

“Do you remember my thing for Lily-“ 

“Bloody hell mate we’re gonna miss the train” 

a loud voice broke through interrupting whatever he was trying to say as Sirius sauntered over to them with Remus close behind.

“What are you lot doing? I thought we told you to meet up on the train?” Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius’s badgering and stepped away from him.

“Well we’re all here now so let’s just get on” 

and with that they boarded the train and found their regular cabin.

Remus and Sirius sat together as always and James took his dedicated seat next to her. They sat together in silence and listened to Sirius have a one sided argument with Remus over ABBA and QUEEN.

“Hey…uh wanna talk?” James leaned in and whispered in her ear, his breath was hot, the feeling sent a shudder down her spine as she nodded. He gave her a small smile and left the room.

Remus looked at her with an eyebrow raised before turning to Sirius, a wordless conversation seemed to flow between them before Remus spoke up.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” He paused before going on.

“I don’t think you’ll like the conversation”

“Oh shut up moony she’ll be fine, just let her go” Sirius barked slapping Remus on the shoulder.

She furrowed her eyebrows confused, why was everyone being so cynical today?

“Huh? What do you mean…uh you know what never mind” she huffed and left to follow James.

“Hey love” he was leaning against one of the empty cabin doors in the quieter section of the train. Everything about him screamed aloof or non-chalant (BAKA) it was so un-James like.

“Your acting kinda weird is everything okay?”

y/n asked worriedly and mused with her hair

Maybe she was overthinking it, maybe everything fines and she’s just being silly

“Oh uh” he laughed awkwardly and re-adjusted himself so he stood upright in front of y/n shuffling his feet slightly.

“I-uh…you didn’t come to the manor this holidays”

She stiffened

“You didn’t invite me”

“…oh right-uh I didn’t think I needed…to”

His ran a finger through his dark curls and sighed

“This is hard-why is this so hard? I mean it was so easy with Lily” 

“What about lily? James whats actually going on?”

“God-I” he sighed and took a step closer to the girl semi-trapping her against the compartment door.

“Remember when I liked lily?” 

Y/n rolled her eyes who could forget? It was all day everyday, all he would ever do was talk and talk about her…she loved lily they were close friends but everytime he mentioned her she felt this silent ache in her chest. Y/n just assumed it was unease with the fact lily didn’t like him back, she was obviated just worried about James’s unrequited  feelings…probably. 

When she didn’t answer he went on.

“It was easier back then…I liked her a lot but it’s-it’s different now I guess, I mean my dramatic gestures never seemed to work and now…now I don’t know what to do”

So this was why he was acting weird? He was worried about Lily? God and here she thought it was about her.

“If your worried lily doesn’t like you why don’t you talk to Mary for advice? They share a bunk in our dorm” 

He paused his eyes softening, he reached up a hand and tucked a strand of loose hair behind y/n’s ear. 

“No-Lily and I…well im over her, I talked to her about it late last term and she-mentioned how my dramatic gestures and clingy-ness was off putting”

No it wasn’t,  it was cute . Y/n had always had a soft spot for stuff like that she never really understood why Lily didn’t like it.

“So who is it then? Who’s the lucky girl” he paused again, he cupped her face with his hands before quickly dropping them and taking a step back.

“Do you think I’m too clingy?” It was a genuine question, he was being serious. Why was he acting so strange?

“No-but everyone girls different, James you dodged the question, who?”

…

“James-“

“You-of course it’s you! I mean we’ve been friends for years so I never really saw you like that but then-god I don’t know something changed…and I” he stopped before looking down and taking a step back

“I talked to lily y’know-it was stupid but I wanted advice and she told me I was always to ‘expressive’ and blunt-I didn’t wanna mess it up with you…I don’t wanna ruin anything we could have, I didn’t want to be clingy-like normal I guess so-…” 

He trailed off and let out a defeated sounding breath.

“Sirius and Remus know…they think it’s a bad idea purely based on the fact that it could ruin our group”

Oh so that explains it

“I dont…think it’s that bad of an idea-maybe” y/n’s cheeks flushed and she all of a sudden felt very hot.

“And I don’t think I’ve ever really felt that your too…clingy”

God this was embarrassing 

“Oh-well now I look kinda stupid..don’t I” he smiled-a real one this time not a smirk or fake grin and let out a loud laugh.

“Maybe” she grinned and took a step towards him, his eyes twinkled as he slung an arm around her positively delighted.

“So-does that mean I can make embarrassing gestures of my love for the world to see?”

“Nope-“

“But I thought you liked my dramatic-ness!” He let out a mock cry and pouted.

 “No-I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that” she giggled 

“Oh-Why must you wound me?”