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blueywrites · 2 days

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baby can we smoke?

eddie munson x ditsy!fem!reader you're the last person eddie expects to leave a note in his locker, but he won't regret meeting you out by the picnic table.

2.8k

cw: 18+. innocent reader (not minor-coded), corruption kink, weed usage, allusions to smut while high, no y/n, no physical descriptions.

Another 'naughty nights' ask that got a bit lengthy (check out the original ask here). I had fun writing from this perspective! Should I continue this with a part two? 👀 Let me know what you think.

enjoy xx

Eddie finds the note in his locker right before lunch. It's written on a quarter of a math worksheet, ripped carefully at the folds and decorated with little doodles of hearts and clouds and shooting stars drawn in sparkly purple pen. That's not the only note in there, but it’s the only one that has him curious, ‘cause it’s from you.

He stops by your lunch table just before the final bell, letting his eyes rove over you while you aren’t paying attention. You’re wearing your typical attire: a fuzzy, pastel-colored sweater, baggy and soft-looking like cotton candy, paired with a little pleated skirt and that heart locket he always sees hanging from your neck in the class you share. He hadn’t pegged you as the type of girl to smoke, and it isn’t just because of the way you look since his clientele is diverse, dips into almost every pocket of the high school social ecosystem. It’s more the way you carry yourself— you seem to kind of float through life, let it bob you about without any resistance or, like, awareness, even? Like, you hum to yourself while you take notes; you don’t talk a ton, but when you do, you’ll talk to literally anybody who’s in proximity to you, including the teachers; and you’re always either giggling or smiling or, sometimes, wearing a look of vague confusion where your glossed lips will hang open, parted in a little ‘o’ like with all your concentration focused on trying to understand something, you have nothing left over to control your face.

Eddie doesn’t wanna call you dumb because that’d make him feel like an asshole, but you just seem so… innocent to be asking him to teach you how to smoke weed. It briefly crosses his mind that someone might just be trying to fuck with him and you hadn’t actually written the note, but when you finally notice him nearby, your wispy-lashed eyes widen eagerly like you’d been expecting him.

“Yeah, so,” you say, as if continuing a conversation you’d already been having with him, “I really wanna get high, and Susie said you’re the one who sells weed, but I just don’t know how to smoke. I’ve never done it before, not even, like, cigarettes or anything.”

You seem oblivious to the way several heads at the tables around yours swing around to stare, easily overhearing since you’re not making any effort to lower your voice. Eddie merely quirks a brow at them, and when they make eye contact with him, they turn back around. “So,” you go on, “I’d just need you to help me, show me how to smoke and stuff. Would that be okay?”

Eddie debates it for just a moment before relenting with a nod. He tells you to meet him after school at the picnic table behind the athletic fields and you agree right away, smiling up at him with an expression of such utter awe and glee that he has to stop himself from snorting in amusement. It’s funny, but it’s also kind of cute, too— Eddie doesn’t remember the last time someone was so excited at the idea of receiving his help, and your enthusiasm is endearing.

It’s simply endearing all the way up until he has you sitting facing him on the picnic bench, kicking your little feet idly while you straddle it, staring at him with that little ‘o’ face of concentration as he deftly grinds the bud. You plant your hands between your spread legs, leaning forward and watching with rapt fascination as he begins to pack the green into the paper. Your bare knees press against the inside of his, soft and warm through the rips in his jeans; his eyes flick to the hem of your skirt, the way it’s barely long enough to poke out from the pooling of sweater fabric at your lap, and he adds a bonus pinch or two to the joint. It’s fat when he finishes rolling, pinching it between two callused fingers as he tilts to the side and tugs his zippo from his pocket. The lighter draws your gaze like a fluttering moth, your attention snared by the flickering flame, and Eddie finds himself staring at you for a moment before he blinks his fascination away.

“Okay.” Eddie speaks once the paper catches, and your eyes dart from the smoldering tip to his face, expectant and waiting. You’re close enough that he can see where your mascara has flaked a little onto your lids, and from this distance, your helplessness— how dependent you are on him, how sweet and open and utterly trusting you look— elicits a pang low in his belly. He swallows. “So, you’re gonna wanna keep the smoke in your mouth first, and then inhale. Not too deep though, or else you’ll cough it all out and waste it. Here, I’ll show you.”

Eddie watches you watch him as his lips wrap around the end of the joint and he pulls from it, fairly shallowly compared to what he’d usually do. He drops his hand so you can see, lets his cheeks puff out so you won’t miss the way he’s collecting the smoke.

And that look on your face is so entranced, Eddie feels suddenly powerful. His chest expands on the inhale, and he smirks at you, closed-mouthed and crooked as your eyes widen at how long he holds it before he lets it billow from his nose like a dragon. That delights you, and the rest of the smoke escapes Eddie’s mouth on a raspy chuckle at how simple it is to please you.

“It’s that easy?” you ask as he waves the lingering smoke away, clearing the space between you.

“‘S that easy, sweetheart,” Eddie confirms. And he finds it curious when you bite your lip, dragging your teeth along the gloss there in such a way that it has him wondering how sticky it must feel. “You ready to give it a try?”

You nod, head bouncing like a dashboard bobblehead, but when Eddie maneuvers the joint in his fingers and holds out the end for you to take, you hesitate, fidgeting and pulling at your sweater sleeves so they cover your fingers.

“You want me to hold it for you?” Eddie guesses, and you nod again, meeting his gaze with a sweet little grateful smile that has his belly panging again, stirring with the barest amount of low, liquid heat. He reaches out, letting his hand hover at the side of your face, hesitating as he looks to you. “Can I—?”

“Yeah,” you say, your voice small and wispy in a way that isn’t helping with those stirrings he’s feeling. And your cheek is so smooth when he cups it in his hand, using the light grip to guide your face up and hold you steady for him as he brings the joint to your pouty lips. They brush Eddie’s thumb when they part for him to place the joint between them, sticking your flesh to his as you hesitantly pull the smoke into your mouth.

“That’s it,” he rasps, merely wanting to encourage you, but you just won’t stop staring at him like that as he feeds you the hit. Like, shit, can you really blame him when the stirring creeps lower, down from his belly into his groin? Your cheeks puff up with smoke, and he can almost feel what it’d be like to see the outline of his dickhead poking out of one— all soft and slick inside, plush skin stretched tight around his—

Your hands are flapping in the air between you like you’re trying not to grab onto him, and when Eddie notices the distressed pinch between your brows, he pulls the joint hastily from between your lips. You look like a fucking chipmunk, your cheeks are so full, and Eddie realizes that as he’d zoned out thinking about his cock in your mouth, you just kept sucking and sucking ‘til you literally couldn’t anymore.

Quickly, Eddie clutches the joint in his teeth to free his hands, gently cupping your full cheeks; sympathetic, patronizing, he says through it, “You didn’t have to— s’too much, honey, just blow a little out, okay?”

Smoke eeks out from your pursed lips in a steady stream until he pats your face with his fingertips. “Okay, that’s enough,” he says hurriedly, lest you release the entire hit. Obedient to a fault, you are, and damn him for where his mind wanders with that information. “Now, slowly—” he tips his chin, widening his eyes for emphasis, “slowly breathe it in. Take it nice and easy.”

You do as he says, and his shoulders nearly sag with relief when you do it successfully. “Okay, hold it for a few,” he coaxes, dropping his hands and absentmindedly plucking the joint from between his teeth, watching you closely for any signs of difficulty. When you remain placid, a proud grin spreads over his face, and as the seconds tick on, you grow mutually excited, your lips pressed tight and your eyes all lit up as you look back at him. Pretty, he thinks, and then again when you finally let the breath go and smile radiantly.

“I did it!” you exclaim, drumming your sleeved hands on your thighs excitedly as you giggle.

“You did,” Eddie replies, warm and fond at the sight of your happiness and the part he played in it. He takes another hit of his own— quicker but deeper than his first— and inclines his head once he’s released it, flashing his brows encouragingly at you. “You wanna try it again?”

“Definitely,” you say, tipping your face up and leaning in expectantly. Your scent washes over him, something fruity maybe, and Eddie has to try hard not to lean further forward and drag his tongue across your lips, to pry them open and see if the inside of your mouth tastes as sweet as you smell.

For a good while, you and Eddie trade hits back and forth, one for you for every two of his until the whites of your eyes go pink and your body loosens, unraveling upon the picnic table. You end up in a deep lean against the tabletop, your head propped in your hand, your breast squished against the wooden edge in such a way that even in that fuzzy near-shapeless sweater, the sight tantalizes him. Eddie’s feeling as high as you look, mirroring your posture with his knees spread wide, engulfing your shorter thighs in a dark frame of denim. He’s high enough that he doesn’t have that typical discomfort pinching in his chest at the silence between you, doesn’t feel the need to fill it by talking about whatever shit pops into his head. He’s consumed instead with sensation— the breeze ruffling his frizzy curls, tickling him with broken strands along his hairline; the dull crunch of old, nearly-rotted leaves under his sneakers; the hollow thrum of his pulse in his ears and the flow of living blood through his veins, cycling with each slow, rhythmic throb of his heart. And as he looks across at you— sweet, soft, sensual you — Eddie finds that since the high has his nerves all alight, he wants to touch your skin again, see how it feels now under his sensitized fingers.

The weed-haze brings with it a certain fond, almost nostalgic influence. It’s one that breaks down barriers, creates closeness where there wasn’t any, or magnifies it where there was. Your bodies are certainly closer now, sagging inward toward one another as you laze in mutual drug-induced comfort. Eddie’s used to feeling that influence, but you’re not, so when he reaches out and runs his finger down the back of your hand, you let out a small gasp at the contact. Startled, he jerks his dipping chin upright, bloodshot eyes darting to your face. But he finds no upset there, only surprise and shy pleasure painted across your features. So he plucks your hand from your lap, tugging it gently over to him and letting it rest on his thigh so he can satisfy his fascination with the texture of your skin. Your fingers twitch a little as he laces them with his, slowly dragging his fingertips through the gaps and then down your palm to your wrist. When his thumb comes back up to trace the outside of yours, you nudge into his touch, relaxing into the sensation with a languid sigh.

“Does it feel nice? The high,” he clarifies when you blink at him, droopy-lidded and wearing your little ‘o’ face. He keeps tracing along the valley of your thumb, dipping down and then back up along your index finger, enjoying the tickle of your skin against his calluses.

“Mm-hmm.” You smile, your eyes dropping to your joined hands. “Feels really nice. Kinda floaty, like my head’s not as heavy anymore.”

Eddie crooks a smile, humming his agreement. Lax and pliant, you let him continue to play with your fingers, and he’s suddenly hit with a potent impulsive urge to bring your limp hand to his mouth and nibble your fingertips, lick the smooth polish of your painted nails, suck your pinkie into his mouth and tease your skin with his tongue to see what sound you’d make. He doesn’t do that. But he does let his fingers snake under the sleeve of your fuzzy sweater, let them creep along your forearm up to the crease of your inner elbow. He drags his thumb in slow circles there, crawling around and around until he finds what he’s looking for: a sign that you feel the same stirring in your belly that he feels, revealed by the slightest whisper of a moan his touch pulls from your lips.

Encouraged, Eddie’s hands travel then— tugging out of your sleeve to smooth up your arm and over the dip of your shoulder; palming your neck, dragging up to your ear to cup around the base of your skull; ghosting across your ribcage and down to your hip; then sneaking just beneath the pleats of your tiny skirt, flexing against the hidden skin there. All the while, that liquid heat sloshes around in his belly, spreading low between his hips, dripping down to tighten in his balls and fill out his stiffening cock.

He doesn’t know exactly how it happens, but eventually, you end up laid out on the rough wood bench, your legs dangling to either side of his head as he kneels before you, nosing at the tender skin of your inner thigh. Your sigh is a shuddery, eager thing when his teeth graze the lacy edge of your cotton panties, which to his delight are swallowed up a little by the plump of your pussy lips. “Can I take these off?” Eddie asks, forcedly casual and only slightly gritty as he tries to bite back his own rabid eagerness lest he scare you off with it. But you’re quick to say yes, so quick that it tells him you want this just as much as he does, and maybe even more, though he can scarcely believe that.

The thought makes him cocky. He eases your panties down, deliberately slow to see if you’ll get impatient. Sure enough, you wiggle your hips, whining quietly to try to hurry him; the power your neediness gives him surges with his arousal as he feels just how damp the fabric is when he balls it in his fist. Hastily, he tucks your panties into his back pocket, his eyes locked on that sweet, swollen place between your legs.

"Aw, look’it her,” he croons, splaying his long fingers against your inner thighs to spread you more open for him. “Can't believe you been hiding her all this time under these little skirts you wear.”

If you’re cute, your pussy is adorable— plump like a peach, wet and ripe and glistening as he presses into your slit with his thumbs and pulls your lips apart to see more of her. She yields easily for him, splitting with a sticky click to reveal your quivering hole and your fat clit already peeking coyly from its hood. “Oh, she's so pretty, baby,” Eddie praises, his mouth watering and his cock jerking in his tight jeans, stiffening further against his zipper. “And she’s so wet already. Bet I can make 'er spit for me."

You coo, and he lifts his head to see you biting your lip through an eager grin. "Yeah? You excited for me to touch you?" Eddie chuckles, equally fond and condescending. "Aren’t you just a sweet little thing."

“R’you gonna eat my pussy, Eddie?” you ask, and the question is so dirty but your voice sounds so goddamn innocent that he can’t help but chuckle again, this time in disbelief.

“Yeah, baby,” he rasps, palming himself quickly over his jeans to try to bring relief because his dick is suddenly so fucking hard it aches. “I’m gonna eat your pussy.”

#blueywrites #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson smut #eddie munson imagine

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unhingedhiro · 3 days

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clingy!cheol 2

words count -> >500. i think. it’s a rough estimate that doesn’t seem wrong

tags -> insomniac!reader, this is a projection zone around here, clingy!cheol as always, mentions of fainting from exhaustion, questionable grammar and proofreading as always, fluff, cheol might not fully know but he’s got the spirit, sleepy!cheol

tryna fight the insomnia because i actually have something to do tmrw and the insomnia is winning 🙏🙏 brought to you by a hiro who would give their left foot to have a cheol lull them to sleep by hugs

thinking cheol who knows his partner is a consistent insomniac, occasionally being jolted awake at three am in the morning from unexpected movements from you as you struggle to find the perfect comfy position, or from you typing away on your laptop either adding to the work you’d done earlier that day or trying out a new form of journaling. usually, he won’t mind it, watching with nothing but amusement and affection in his eyes as his sleep addled brain lulls him back to slumber once he has you in his arms again.

but sometimes, it’s different. sometimes, it’s endless hours of tossing and turning and cheol is often more than privy to the amount of frustration it causes you. he’ll awaken from whatever sleep he’s managed to provide himself to you leaving the bed, a sleepy whine just about escaping him.

“love, where’re you going?”

it takes a moment for you to realise he’s woken up, unsurprisingly from having had the warmth in his arms suddenly disappear.

“just gonna grab a glass of water, cheol.”

fatigue is evident in your voice, and he can tell that something’s not quite right.

“can’t sleep?”

it’s silence for a moment, until he sees your shoulders sag and a small sigh escapes you.

“yeah.”

with this, cheol is slowly shifting, forcing whatever energy he’s scraped together from his two hours of sleep to sit up, clearly intending to follow you to the kitchen. it elicits nothing but protests from you.

“hey, hey, cheol no, please go back to sleep, you’ve had such a tiring day today, i’ll be asleep soon i just need some time to clear my thoughts-“

“but i can’t.”

with this, you cock your head and cheol almost sheepishly explains before your expression can truly morph to that of a confused one.

“can’t sleep without you at my side anymore.”

oh.

bless this sweet man and his sweeter heart, you think, backtracking your way to his side of the bed to gently caress the strands of orange on his head, clearly fading from the vibrant red it was two weeks ago when he’d burst home, a proud grin on his face, awaiting your reaction to his new hair.

he leans into your touch, eyes closed, exhaustion evident on his face. eventually, he reaches up, gently pulling you onto his lap and into his arms.

“thoughts keeping you awake again?”

“mn.”, you hum, pressing your face into his chest. it’s soft, bringing forward a sense of comfort you never quite knew you needed as badly as you did right then.

cheol had always been privy to your insomnia - it had been there since the day he’d first fallen asleep by your side, had been there when it pushed you to fainting in the middle of work, and he’s now here, caressing your hair and pressing gentle kisses to your forehead.

cheol’s affections don’t particularly soothe you to sleep completely, but it brings you some sense of calm and comfort to be wrapped in his arms, nothing but soft touches and small, tired murmurs of “love you” falling from cheol’s lips.

you look up to his face, small smile dancing across your lips when you notice his eyes are closed once more, ghost of a smile on his face as he remains wrapped around you like a teddy bear. eventually, he’ll slump into the bed, taking you with him. eventually, you too feel exhaustion begin to get the better of you, the need for water and a walk beginning to escape you. perhaps next time, it would help to keep a water bottle beside your table.

and again, it’s not much, but it comforts the both of you to know you’re not waking yourself up further by walking around for a glass of water, and you’re getting your much needed pre-sleep hydration. once you’re ready to attempt to fall asleep again, cheol is ready to welcome you with open arms, a tired but satisfied look on his face as you fall into his embrace. it takes a while to fall asleep, as always, but it’s always less isolating and lonesome with cheol by your side, clinging onto you like you’ll crumble into dust when he lets go.

#hiro brainrots #scoups fluff #seungcheol fluff #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #svt fluff #cheol missing hours #average clingy!cheol enjoyer suffering from insomnia #just need a hug from cheol fr :((#it would fix my life #it would fix Me

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apocalypticdemon · 4 months

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okay okay okay so i just finished the terror and i think i'm insane

#okay alright so here's the thing #i've never really seen a tragedy through to its endpoint. that is what this is.#however. ohhh my god i need to do another rewatch Right Now so i can listen to the music #i noticed something right at the beginning but i think there might be something to analyze in how western tonality breaks down throughout i #so like. it's set in the mid 1800s. we've got some pretty solid era of western tonality happening. and i can't help but wonder #if the show descends into the brutality of the arctic. does the music foreshadow or parallel this #bc there's some jaunty tune in ep 1 and music like that just Vanishes pretty immediately thereafter.#and the last shot has the most haunting sustained pitches with really really dissonant overtones.#and ends unresolved. in a way that pieces from the 1800s standard canon don't.... really do. and i just. augh. hm. how does the music work #i must know and i must know Now #the terror #so sorry y'all i'm just stuck like this you're in for the long haul

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deerlisteners · 9 months

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can we talk abt how many times felix like checks in on dimitri abt eating. can we talk about that

#deertalking #feposting #dmlxposting #HE DOES IT. SO MANY TIMES #or well maybe like three times across both games. but i think that’s the most times of anybody isn’t it #the devs were like how many times can we reuse felix asking mitri ‘why aren’t u eating are u ok’ before the players get tired of it #(the answer is unlimited times)#mby i should compile them actually #im torn btwn him knowing abt the taste thing and him having no idea but picking up on it in these scenes #like probably he would’ve noticed Something in the two years post-tragedy & pre-rebellion right #then again i have nooo idea what that era looked like & glenn had just died so he might not have noticed.#but then again AGAIN he’s felix and probably would notice. right. like he would #man idk im just like……….#fr abt to make a masterpost of every time someone mentions it #it’s wild how much more significant that dialogue becomes after literally one support convo #this post was prompted by me once again thinking abt felix & his whole lone wolf persona thing but his own actions betray him over & over #like the beginning of hopes if u ask who the boar is & he goes ‘he’s not ur problem’……….#and ‘i’m not immune to emotion yk’#LIKE YKWIM #anyway i cant start talking abt felix again here or I won’t stop goodbye

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osaemu · 4 months

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GOJO SATORU: ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW

✩ ‧ ˚. synopsis: you and satoru, your fake boyfriend, have awards to accept and places to be. so how'd you two end up fucking in a bathroom? NSFW

contents: fem!reader. semi-public sex, p –> v, blowjob, unprotected sex, creampie, praise, you two get walked in on at the end (kinda). references hungry for more. not proofread, ignore any minor mistakes. 3.5K words.

“you two are so cute together,” the interviewer sighs, looking at you and satoru in turn. “please, tell us more about your relationship!”

satoru laughs, resting his hand on your back and pulling you into his side. you put on a smile and instinctually put a hand on his chest, pretending not to notice the way he stiffens up at the contact. “where do i even begin?” satoru asks dryly, turning and looking down at you affectionately, and he’s almost a good enough actor for you to believe there’s any real emotion behind those cold blue eyes.

two weeks ago, satoru’s media team came to you with a request for you two to start dating as a way of gaining more attention from your fans. naturally, you declined—it’s not like you’d gain anything from the deal but the burden of being paraded around on the arm of the man you hated—satoru gojo, the cocky son of some famous actor in the 90’s. but after multiple increases in the amount of money satoru’s team was willing to throw at you, you finally agreed under the condition that this arrangement would end the second you wanted it to.

“i’m sure you’ve seen our latest movie on netflix,” satoru starts, looking back up at the interviewer, whose eyes have practically turned into hearts. “the one with the serial killer, yeah? well, it started from there and just grew into more.”

“i guess you could say the attraction on the screen wasn’t all acting,” you add with a knowing smile. good thing you were a decent enough actor to pretend as if you weren’t just lying through your teeth, otherwise the millions of dollars in your bank account would all be gone.

the interviewer laughs and turns to the camera, saying something about how the chemistry between you and satoru was what really made the movie a hit—in fact, it might even be the reason you’re both getting nominated for best actor and actress.

“well, if you’d excuse us, i think we should get back to the party,” satoru jumps in, nodding his head at the interviewer in thanks. he removes his hand from your back as you follow him to the main area, weaving through crowds of fans and interviewers on his way there. you walk at his side, heels clacking against the freshly polished floor. satoru dips his head and whispers, “hold my hand.”

you scrunch up your nose and shake your head. “no thanks, it’s not like anyone’s watching right now. it’s way too crowded.”

“just do it,” satoru mutters, grabbing your hand anyways. when you start to pull away, he fixes you with a stern look and adds, “they’ll think something’s wrong if you don’t.”

“ugh, fine.”

two hours pass, filled with other actors’ remarks on how good you and satoru make as a couple. suguru geto, one of satoru’s close friends who had played a cult leader in a recent documentary even said that you might be the girl who could fix satoru. yeah, right.

“so, when do awards start?” you ask satoru, swirling your drink and relishing the sound of the ice clacking against the side of the glass. he shrugs and takes a swig from his own cup, which looks suspiciously like apple cider disguised as champagne. “really? you’re nominated for like, four awards, and you don’t even know when you’re getting them?”

satoru laughs carelessly and looks you up and down, eyes lingering on the short cut of your dress. “at this point, i’ve got so many awards that it doesn’t even matter anymore. and by the way, you look really good in that dress. oh, wait, didn’t i buy it for you?”

“you’re not smooth.”

“then why am i nominated for best actor, huh?”

“because the system’s absolute shit, obviously. otherwise toji would win every time.”

satoru groans and drinks the last couple sips of his drink, rolling his eyes. “don’t even mention that piece of shit.” you shrug in response, hiding your smile behind your glass. a couple years back, satoru had lost a role to toji and to his despair, the movie did really well, despite what he’d promised to the producers who had turned him down. and it looks like he’s still bitter over that, and all of a sudden, the perfect plan to piss satoru off appears in your head.

“look, it’s toji right there!” you gasp, setting down your drink and hopping off your seat, walking over to toji while ignoring satoru’s warnings. “oh, hi, i’m a big fan,” you say to the tall, well-built man, smiling bashfully. toji turns and looks down at you, raising an eyebrow and smiling.

“hey, pretty, you’re the girl in that movie with the serial killer, yeah?” he asks, crossing his arms. you nod and internally marvel at how tall he is—especially compared to satoru, who, by any standards, is pretty damn tall. toji looks you up and down, taking his sweet time drinking in the way your dress hugs your figure. “that scene in the alley was really fuckin’ good,” toji adds conversationally. “you’re definitely winnin’ best actress for that.”

anyone who’s watched the movie knows that the scene he’s referring to is the one where you get fucked by satoru against a dark alley wall—and you’ve seen enough edits of the scene to know exactly why it’s getting all the hype.

“aw, thanks,” you say coyly, resting a hand on your hip and tilting your head. “y’know, i’ve always wanted to star in a movie with you,” you continue, hearing satoru come up behind you in the background. you ignore the sickeningly obvious way he clears his throat and flutter your eyelashes at toji, who’s eying you with interest.

“i’d like that. i can probably pull some strings,” toji replies with a smirk. his dark eyes flicker from you to satoru and his smile turns almost patronizing. “and who’s this?”

“her boyfriend. and i really hate to interrupt this friendly chat, but she’s not up for grabs,” satoru snaps, wrapping an arm around your waist and dragging you back to your spot at the bar. you shoot satoru an indignant glare, but receive no reply besides his tightening jaw. toji laughs and waves you off, mouthing “call me” at you when you turn back apologetically.

satoru drags you by the hand to one of the bathrooms, shoving open the door with the side of his arm and pulling you inside. there’s a long, shiny counter, which you become very familiar with once your fake boyfriend hoists you up and sits you on it. “the fuck was that?” satoru hisses, narrowing his eyes accusingly.

“what, we were just talki—”

“i don’t like the way he was looking at you,” satoru interrupts, crossing his arms tensely. he fixes you with a cold stare and you fidget uncomfortably with the hem of your dress, which you now realize is rather short.

“okay, and?” you reply irritably, starting to get annoyed by the way satoru keeps patronizing you. “it’s not like we’re even dating, gojo,” you snap, emphasizing the use of his last name.

“yeah? well, i don’t need my ‘girlfriend’ slutting herself out to the guy everyone knows i hate,” satoru fires back, taking a step forward. his palms rest on the counter on either side of your exposed legs, and you suddenly notice how red satoru’s face is. the flush in his cheeks wasn’t as noticeable underneath the bar’s dim lights, but here, it’s rather obvious.

“are you jealous?” you ask incredulously, unable to suppress the cheeky smile that finds itself on your face. satoru’s jaw slackens and his eyes widen, and that’s enough of a sign for you to confirm it—satoru gojo, your fake boyfriend, is jealous. he doesn’t reply immediately, so you laugh, throwing back your head and giggling at the way satoru’s petty rivalry seems to be only one of the reasons he was so eager to get you away from toji. “aw, that’s so cute, but we aren’t even dating, sweetheart,” you coo, reaching out and caressing the side of satoru’s face.

he instantly swats your hand away, rolling his eyes at your laughter. “well, we still have to act like it, you idiot,” he mutters, leaning over you and eying the low neckline of your dress. you instinctively cross your arms and glare at him, and satoru only cocks an eyebrow in return. “so, if we were actually dating, do y’know what i’d be doing right now?”

“what?” you decide to humor him.

satoru’s demeanor completely changes at your question, going from pissed and flushed red to almost playful.

“this.”

and just like that, satoru slips his slender fingers underneath the bottom of your dress and pulls it up, exposing your black, lacy panties.

“gojo, what the—”

“shh, it’s all for the show,” he whispers teasingly, brushing one finger against the warm skin of your thigh. you involuntarily shiver from his touch, and against all rational impulse, find yourself wanting more.

in the acting community, satoru was well-known for being a stuck-up brat, and when you two had first announced your relationship, plenty of actors doubted it. after all, how could you, the classy it-girl of the movie industry, date an asshole like satoru? but even you were surprised at how easily people started to believe it when you two interacted in front of them. you’ve been told that you two had a rather unexpected burst of chemistry together, and that your relationship might actually make it.

what a shame.

satoru hooks his fingers underneath the waistband of your panties and tugs them down, raising an eyebrow when you don’t protest. he maintains eye contact with you as he slides your panties down your thighs, exposing your embarrassingly-wet cunt. satoru looks almost as surprised as you do at how soaked you are, even as he runs two fingers over your slit before sliding them in. you hate how good it feels—it’s been a while since you got a chance to sleep with another man, especially since you’ve been stuck with satoru for the past two weeks.

“shit, you’re so fuckin’ wet,” satoru murmurs, scoffing in mild disbelief as he meets your eyes and smiles. he curls his fingers upwards, causing your thighs to reflexively close before satoru reopens them. “so, wanna explain, sweetheart?” he tsks, tapping your thigh with his other hand.

you make a face and look away, cheeks heating up the longer satoru waits for a response. “it’s probably from toji,” you snap back after a moment. satoru laughs sarcastically, shaking his head almost condescendingly and pulling out his fingers.

“nice try, hon,” he says sweetly, lifting his fingers to his mouth and licking off your slick in one smooth motion. satoru exhales heavily and swallows, taking his time in doing so. “want me to go grab toji to join us?” satoru asks, forcing a smile on his lips. “i’m sure he’d love to watch you beg—”

“shut it, gojo,” you interrupt, swatting away his hand, which somehow found its way back in between your thighs. “we have an award show to get to, there’s not enough time for this bullshi—”

that was a mistake. satoru instantly lifts you off the counter and, ignoring the rather wide range of curse words you throw at him, sets you on the ground and starts unzipping his pants. “shh, we got all the time in the world. they can’t give an award to someone who isn’t there, right?” satoru cooes, threading one of his hands through your hair and pulling you closer to him. his other hand finishes unzipping his pants, freeing his already-hard dick.

you look up at satoru, forcing yourself to act unimpressed—even though you know damn well he can see through your half-hearted attempt at hiding your real feelings. “s’ that all?” you ask, hating yourself for the crack in your voice when satoru laughs at you.

“ah, i think it’ll be more than enough for your pretty face to handle. now c’mon, open nice n’ wide for me,” satoru instructs you, reaching down and tilting up your chin as he guides his dick into your mouth. against all rational impulse, you let him, all while glaring daggers at him from below.

you run your tongue over his flushed red tip, and satoru sucks in a harsh breath, chest tensing as you continue kitten-licking him. his hand moves from your chin to the top of your head, and he pushes your mouth farther onto his dick, jaw tightening the more your tongue laps at him.

sure, maybe you shouldn’t be sucking off your fake boyfriend in a bathroom where anyone could walk in at any time, but it’s the first time you’ve felt this way in too long, and you weren’t ready to let this feeling go just yet. so you humor satoru and moan, smiling when you feel the way his whole body loosen up at the soft vibration. “f-fuck, didn’t think you’d actually know how to give a man a good time,” satoru mutters through gritted teeth.

“really?” you ask, pulling away from his dick for a moment to catch a breath. “we fucked for that movie, though, and you seemed pretty damn satisfied then, didn’t you?” you say in-between heaving breaths. satoru scoffs and shakes his head, pushing your mouth back onto his dick.

“yeah, but that was for a movie. this isn’t,” he clarifies, eyes fixed on the mix of spit and pre-cum dribbling down your chin as you continue sucking him off. “fuck, why are you good at this?” he hisses, almost incredulously—it’s as if he was hoping you wouldn’t be this good for him for some reason, but now’s not the time to reason through it or wonder what’s going on in his mind.

satoru shudders around you, and you feel the hair threaded through your hair tighten. it’s not enough to be painful, but his grip still makes you whine from the increased pressure. his breathing becomes more shallow as you run your tongue over his length, and his foot starts to bounce on the floor as he gets closer to cumming down your throat. “shit, baby, m’ close,” satoru confirms a moment later, tilting his chin back and glaring at the ceiling.

“fuckin’ hell, i—” he cuts himself off with a loud, lengthy groan, pushing your head even farther on his dick and tensing as the full force of satoru’s orgasm hits him. he lets loose a flurry of curse words as he cums in your mouth, filling you up to the point where it starts dripping down the side of your face. it’s hot and salty, two sensations that you normally wouldn’t put together, but in this moment it’s all you can think about as you slide one hand downwards towards your throbbing pussy.

still reeling from his surprisingly quick orgasm, satoru leans back onto the counter and pants for air. as for you, you’re starting to want some of his pleasure for yourself—so you slip two fingers inside your cunt and pulse them back and forth, needy moans slipping out of your lips at every thrust. “gojo,” you call, looking up at him and licking his cum off your lips. the sight of you kneeling in front of him, cum dripping down your lips and fingers knuckle-deep in your cunt is enough for satoru to cum again, but he forces himself to maintain some level of control.

“jus’ call me satoru,” he murmurs, reaching down and tugging you up to your feet. it’s hard to stand while your legs are trembling, but thankfully, satoru does most of the work for you by positioning you against the wall, back facing him as he aligns his still-hard dick in front of your dripping pussy. “say it,” satoru mutters in your ear, resting one hand on your waist and the other on the wall just above your shoulder. “say my name f’me, sweetheart.”

“s-satoru,” you breathe, and a moment later, your fake boyfriend—who doesn’t feel so fake anymore—shoves himself inside of your welcoming cunt. you’re already wet enough to the point where he doesn’t really need to prep you at all, but you’re still just tight enough so that every thrust feels like he’s breaking you down in the best way possible.

“y’feel so good,” satoru groans, resting his chin on your shoulder and snapping his hips back and forth, setting a steady yet harsh pace. you stutter out satoru’s name again and again as your vision goes blurry, with your only thoughts revolving around the dick shoved up inside you and the man praising you in your ear.

satoru curses when he feels your walls clench around him, breaths growing shallower with every thrust. “arch your back for me, princess,” he mutters, eyes fluttering rapidly as he squeezes your waist. “yeah, jus’ like that,” satoru praises, breath brushing against the side of your face as he continues thrusting into you. “how’re you feeling, pretty? s’ this all right with you?”

you nod shakily in response, swollen lips hanging wide open as you gasp for air. satoru clicks his tongue and slows his pace, dipping his chin and studying your face. “gonna need you to use your words, angel.”

“m' good, i wanna cum,” you mumble, a loud moan slipping through your lips when satoru laughs and resumes fucking you a millisecond after you answer.

“i’m gonna fill you up, baby, i promise,” satoru whispers, and his words are barely audible over the lewd, sticky sounds coming from everywhere. all your senses are directed at satoru—the man you really shouldn’t be fucking right now, but all your inhibitions fade away as you feel your stomach start to tighten as you approach your orgasm.

“fuck, satoru, m’ close,” you whimper, arching your back even more and clenching your teeth shut. satoru sucks in a sharp breath as he confirms that he’s also about to cum, and his thrusts grow sloppier the closer he gets. “don’t stop, please, i—”

from there on, your words mix themselves together, with the only understandable word being satoru’s name. your fake boyfriend spills into you first, cum leaking from his tip and mixing with yours as you both chase your releases. and it hits you hard—if it wasn’t for satoru, you would’ve crumbled to the ground from the sheer force of your orgasm. all you can see is white as satoru finishes emptying his load inside of you, and the sticky, viscous liquid trails down the warm skin of your thighs as it overflows from your abused hole.

“shit,” satoru mutters, stumbling backwards and eyeing his now-soiled clothes. “this was a couple thousand dollars, damn it.”

you exhale a breathy laugh and turn around, leaning against the wall and meeting his half-lidded eyes. “you kidding? my dress was way more than that, and there’s no way i can wear that out now.”

satoru grins, running a hand through his ruffled hair and walking back towards you, touching your waist and sliding a finger over your dripping cunt. “you were so good f’me, baby. what were we arguing about again?”

“i have no idea,” you mumble, watching satoru lick his finger clean. he’s shameless—even as clarity returns to both of your minds, he still insists on dragging the moment on. not that you mind—that was the best sex you’d had in a while, even if it was too fast and in a bathroom.

“we should get back to the ceremony,” you say distractedly, pulling down your dress and frowning at the new wrinkles. “can i wear your suitjacket? i don’t want people to see this.”

satoru sticks out his bottom lip and pouts, looking you up and down. ��but i like it. you look like you just got fucked by a really hot guy. oh, wait, that’s me!”

“you’re an asshole.”

before satoru can reply, the bathroom door opens, and you both jump out of your skins. thankfully, satoru had time to pull his pants on, otherwise it would’ve been significantly more embarrassing. suguru pokes his head in the bathroom and rolls his eyes when he sees you and satoru, and an exasperated sigh slips out of his lips when he sees your fucked-out states.

“are you two seriously fucking during the awards?” suguru snaps, amber eyes glittering with dry amusement. you look away bashfully, tugging down your dress even farther out of embarrassment. satoru shrugs nonchalantly and walks over to suguru, offering his hand in search of a fistbump.

suguru eyes him dubiously and crosses his arms. “did you wash your hands?”

“heh, no, not yet.”

ignoring satoru’s smug grin, suguru swats his arm away with the back of his hand, disgust evident all over his face. “gross, fuck off.” he turns to you and arches an eyebrow, looking you up and down disapprovingly. “you two should clean up before coming outside, otherwise they’ll probably take away your awards,” suguru adds, wrinkling his nose. “i’ll tell them you’re on your way.”

“okay, thanks,” you mutter, face warmer than ever. suguru nods in response and leaves, and when you and satoru finally return to the awards ceremony, there’s plenty of whispers about you two, and most of them aren’t very family-friendly.

well, at the very least, nobody’s gonna doubt that you two were a couple now!

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sttoru · 5 months

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‘no matter how much time the king of curses spends with you, he doesn’t think he will ever understand you or your affectionate behaviour towards him.’

☀︎｜tags. true form sukuna x female reader. heian era sukuna. fluff. bits of mentions of blood & murder. big size difference. cold-big-monster-having-a-small-soft-spot-for-a-single-human trope. reader gets called ‘little one, brat’. not proof read! let me know if you like my characterisation or not; it’s my first sukuna fic.

a kiss on the cheek is one of the most innocent - yet apparently also the most difficult - things to do. it’s a small form of intimacy; not that hard to do. it’s really as simple as planting your lips on your beloved’s cheek. then all you do is retreat — maybe get a kiss on the cheek back from him. or on the lips.

“get moving. i’m not waiting all day for you.” sukuna grumbles. you had suddenly stopped in your tracks and the king of curses was confused as to what the reason might have been. the two of you had been walking through the courtyard for a few minutes now — well, you basically had to drag him out to take a little stroll together.

and now the same you was quiet. it bothered sukuna; you were always so chatty around him when it was just the two of you. he might have called you an ‘annoying brat’ for it, but he secretly enjoyed your company and voice.

“c-coming.” you reply in a quiet mumble, eyes glancing over at the monstrous frame that stood a few steps away. his dull yet sharp gaze was focused on you — like he was sizing you up. or rather: trying to figure out what’s wrong with the change in behaviour you showed.

sukuna watches you as you hurry over to his side again. he resumes walking, hands folded over each other under the material of his kimono.

though, he couldn’t yet let go of the fact that you were acting different around him. the king of curses’ suspicion only grew once he noticed how your fingers fiddled with your obi. you were anxious about something.

sukuna shakes his head slightly. some humans sure are difficult to understand, he thinks to himself. your happy yet reserved personality when you usually interacted with him had disappeared and made place for a nervous wreck. trying to figure out why made sukuna’s head hurt.

were you finally scared of him? like all other humans and curses were?

he doesn’t know why, but it felt like he would hate for such thing to happen. sukuna usually wouldn’t care if someone resents, fears or somehow even admires him. only you could make him think and care about such difficult and maybe even trivial things.

“uhm,” you break off his train of thoughts and his eyes are instantly on yours again, “may i do something really quickly?”

sukuna’s face doesn’t show any change in expression, but a small nod tells you everything you need to know. you clear your throat, “can you please lower your head towards me?”

lowering his head? oh, you got some guts. if anyone else had said that to him, sukuna would have obliterated them; there wouldn’t have been anything but red bloody dust left of their body.

but then again: it’s you. all exceptions the king of curses makes are for you.

sukuna slightly lowers his head to your level so you could do whatever you needed to. he’d be lying if he said that his curiosity wasn’t piqued. it always was when he was around you.

you gulp. it was time to do what you’ve longed to do ever since the beginning of your stroll: give the ryomen sukuna a kiss on the cheek. you don’t think he’d be mad—at least he never seriously gets mad at you. only to get a reaction out of you since your responses are always ‘intensely amusing’—as he says.

“go on.” sukuna’s breath hits your cheeks. he was so close—too close that it made you even more nervous in a way. as if you hadn’t even had your first kiss yet.

you swallow your fears and just go for it. your lips attach to his cheek in the fraction of a second—the speed of light—before they leave. it was right under his right set of eyes.

you take a step back and clear your throat. you try to escape the embarrassment of sukuna’s possible reaction by continuing your stroll, though were stopped by a strong hand firmly grabbing your forearm.

“where’d you think you’re going?”

sukuna’s deep voice echoes through your ears. you were surprised to hear the tone of it; almost soft. a tone sukuna uses on rare occasions: in your presence.

you turn your head around and smile sheepishly at the king of curses before you. he doesn’t return the same (not that you expected him to), however he does unexpectedly ruffle your hair for a split second. or at least he attempts to.

his large and warm palm lands on top of your head and he gives it a little and subtle shake. sukuna had seen you do a similar action to someone else before, thus he concluded that he could do it to you. maybe as a form of endearment or. . whatever you used it as.

he did find the way you tried to scurry away after giving him a kiss very adorable. even if he wouldn’t say so out loud.

“now, come along. we don’t have all day.” sukuna nonchalantly mutters after retracting his hand. it left as fast as it came, though you were still stunned at the slight show of affection the king of curses returned.

you instantly catch up to sukuna again—walking next to him as fast as your legs could take you. you were a bit more at ease after you got a positive reaction to your little kiss. it was a pity that he didn’t smirk or laugh at you—maybe mocked you like he usually would. but that head pat made up for it.

even if it did leave your hair a little disheveled.

you couldn’t properly see sukuna’s face, but the faint smirk tugging at his lips was undeniably there. even if it was for just a split second.

“how very interesting.” sukuna mutters under his breath so you wouldn’t catch on. he sighs and shakes his head, unable to keep out that memory of you looking so cute—standing on the tip of your toes to plant a kiss on his cheek with your comically small hand on his jaw line. he doesn’t know why he found that to be so thrilling.

you flutter your eyelashes. you were curious about what he might have commented on, “may i ask what you had just said? i didn’t quite hear it.”

a short second of silence hangs before sukuna tilts his head to the right to look down at you again; his face expressionless, but still having a hint of a grin on his lips.

“i said you better hurry before i gobble you up right this instant.” he replies, (playfully) intimidating you with his sharp red eyes that glinted with a form of danger.

you shiver (though knew the threat was an empty one) and instantly pick up your pace. you even get ahead of him, walking as fast as your legs could. you answer with a curt ‘my apologies’ and walk like you actually have somewhere to be.

sukuna’s grin only grows as he sees you get ahead of him. if you had turned around, maybe you could have caught onto that light flicker of affection in his expression.

“i’m coming for you, little one.” sukuna adds just to ignite some more fear into you and you react as expected, “you’re not escaping me today.”

it was a funny sight; your reactions always make him enjoy his time with you even more than he already (secretly) was.

the way his body reacts in mysterious ways when you’re around, is still very much an unsolved riddle to the king of curses. and the reasons as to why you aren’t scared of him and can easily give him all your ‘love’ are also still yet to be discovered.

until then, sukuna will continue to enjoy teasing you.

#sttoru writes.#jjk x reader #sukuna x reader #jjk x y/n #sukuna x you #jjk fluff #jjk fic #sukuna ryoumen x reader

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ariaste · 9 months

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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2

(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)

***

Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off.

Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse?

Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended

In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--

Proem

A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it.

You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.

But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand.

I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.

The Facts As We Know Them

Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)

Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2:

1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.

2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.

3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.

With me so far? Great.

The Elephant In The Room

Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.

I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:

“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?” “What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.” “What is going on with the music situation?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL” “zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to” “What is going on LOL” “Incredibly what is going on here” “NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!” “Literally what is happening” “Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons” “just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--” “mmmmmmm neil what u doin”

All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.

I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece.

You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!

Yes, of course I will explain myself.

Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this:

Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too.

As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good.

On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.

What does that tell us?

Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.

Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.

(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)

If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??

It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?

See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)

So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)

This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.

The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?

The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence

There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige.

First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary. Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish. Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.

To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”

You have to bring it back.

When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:

You set up the audience’s expectations. (Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.) You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.

Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.

Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:

The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?

Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”

When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine. (The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)

#good omens #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman

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actual-changeling · 6 months

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we do not talk enough about the moment right before crowley puts his sunglasses back on. the "nothing lasts forever" is devastating and if you're like me your eyes were so full of tears you couldn't see the screen the first time you watched it (just like crowley, look at us all twinning in sadness!).

there is a shift that happens in his eyes and i think it is absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time.

we begin with crowley averting his gaze from aziraphale's face and staring off into the distance instead, and you can see his spirit break. that crowley just lost the one thing in the world he cannot live without and we can see it written across his face like a neon sign.

then, as you'd expect, he gives into the need to cover up his pain, to try and make himself less vulnerable, and even before he lifts his glasses he looks down so aziraphale can no longer see his eyes.

now, the next part is what would not let me out of its grasp all day. we know it happens because of his demeanour afterwards and up until the kiss, but you can actually watch as crowley makes himself numb to the world.

i am intimately familiar with dissociation as a trauma and stress response, and while you can never fully control it, you do eventually find the switch in your mind that makes you snap back into the haze. crowley has had six thousand years to get really, really good at leaving reality behind when he needs and/or wants to.

that's exactly what he does.

he still looks sad, and yet there's just something distinctly distant in his eyes, the shift from openly heartbroken to "i don't want to feel any of this let me leave".

glasses? on

emotions? off

hotel? trivago

i have stared at those four frames more than any person probably should and i don't know if it's the light, if i am going insane, or if there is a single tear sliding out of his right (our left) eye. i'm probably insane and the light is a bitch so if anyone has some high resolution shots or anything that could answer that question without a doubt PLEASE do add it.

by now you are probably ready to threaten me with a knife in a dark alley but before you do that or drive your car off a cliff, let me tell you the best part:

aziraphale notices.

they might be communicating on two different frequencies but aziraphale knows crowley. he knows and loves him, and, most importantly, over the last few years he has gotten used to seeing crowley without his glasses. aziraphale could probably write a book on the expressions in his eyes alone and watches that shift happen and is devastated.

look.

he tries to make himself hope the same second, tries to convince himself crowley is putting on his glasses so they can leave together, but he knows.

aziraphale sees the light leave crowley's eyes, sees crowley leave, knowing that he is quite literally running away from him. you and me against the world, angel, but in that moment crowley firmly pushes him back to "the world" (or tries to, anyway).

the entire season we see crowley take off his glasses whenever he enters the bookshop to the point where he's running around without them on in broad daylight with jimbriel right there.

can you imagine how hurt and confused aziraphale must be?

because what crowley is telling him, if we really, really break it down, is that aziraphale is no longer a safe person for him. and repairing that trust is going to take time and work, no matter how much crowley loves him, how badly they love and need each other.

anyway to seal this off and really rub in the pain - how it started vs. how it ended. <3

oh one last thing: now crowley no longer has a single person he can be himself around, no one that knows him, no one he trusts. no one in whose presence he can take his glasses off.

and outside of the bentley and his own flat, he no longer has a place to do so either. the bookshop was theirs. with aziraphale gone, is it really a safe place anymore? is it somewhere he can just let himself be knowing he will be looked after and protected?

easy answer: no.

alright, off i go. see y'all on the next angst post or in the tags.

#alex talks good omens #good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable divorce #the final fifteen #good omens meta

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soaps-mohawk · 8 days

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Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 18: Don't Let Me Go

Summary: Things have gone wrong in your pack's absence. Can they make it back in time before irreparable damage is done? Can they fix the damage that's already been dealt?

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 10,232...oops

Warnings: ANGST, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, ANGST, anxiety, fear, panic attacks, very descriptive scenes of panic and anxiety, very heavy emotionally in the beginning, major invasions of privacy, hurt/sort of comfort, very brief mention of violence and death, and most importantly: fluff

A/N: Yeah, so this one kind of got away from me. It's definitely one of my favorite chapters now, and it's definitely the longest so far. It's pretty heavy, so plan something fun afterwards because it will hurt. I tried to catch all the possible triggers, but of course, if I miss one let me know. I promise things will begin to take a turn for the happier after this, at least for a bit. Picks up pretty much right where chapter 17 left off.

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You’re shaking. Your breaths are coming in gasps as you stare at your open door. There’s no scent in the air, nothing that would give you a hint of who invaded your space, or if they’re still in there. You should leave, barricade yourself somewhere and call Dr. Keller, or even Kate.

What could they do, though? Your pack won’t be home until tomorrow at the earliest.

No one can help you.

You slowly push your door open, ready to run in case someone is hiding inside. You stand in the doorway, scanning the small space, but there’s no sign of anyone. There’s still no scent either, just your own mingled with the slight chemical burn of scent blockers. Your eyes scan the room, looking for anything that might be new, anything that might be missing, anything that might be slightly out of place.

The clothes on the floor are slightly rumpled, but you’re not sure if you did that in your haste to pull on shoes before you left, or if they’ve been that way since the knock sounded on your door. You lift your gaze to the ceiling, scanning it and that’s when you notice it. The cover over the vent is slightly out of place. You likely wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been paying attention, if you hadn’t looked.

The thought sends a chill running down your spine.

You keep your eyes on the vent as you grab your desk chair, kicking clothes out of the way as you move it under the vent. You stand on the chair, reaching for the vent, but it’s not quite enough. You shove the chair to the side, taking everything off your desk before you pull it under the vent. You climb up on shaky legs, your heart thudding in your chest as you remove the vent cover.

Nausea twists at your stomach as your breath leaves you in a sharp gasp. There, strategically placed between two of the gaps in the vent cover, is a camera. It’s small, and would have been invisible just staring at the vent from below. You feel like you might be sick as you pull it free from the vent cover, staring down into the tiny lens.

How long has it been up there?

You drop the camera onto your desk, your fingers shaking and trembling as you feel along the edges of the vent, checking for anything else that might be hiding up there. You replace the cover after you find nothing, a sense of dread filling you.

Had the guys put it up so they could watch you, make sure that you’re safe? Had they put it up there before you arrived? You think about all the times you’ve changed in your room, your heat.

You climb down from the desk, tugging it further towards the center of the room before you climb back up, unscrewing the cover off the light. You check the bulb, looking for any cameras or recording devices. You screw the cover of the light back on after finding none, a quiet sob leaving your lips as you look around your room.

You close the door and lock it before you begin your search, checking every corner and piece of furniture for cameras or recording devices. You empty the dresser and closet, checking every drawer and corner for anything suspicious.

You pull recording devices from under your desk and the back of your nightstand, the adhesive still fresh enough they pop right off. A cold sweat has overtaken you as you find another recording device and another camera, adding them to the growing pile on your desk.

A quiet sob of fear leaves your lips as you check the bathroom, tearing your room apart to check every inch. You search up a tutorial on YouTube, using your phone to check for more possible cameras that you might have missed.

You stare down at the pile of cameras and recording devices on your desk. Someone entered your room and planted them while you were with General Shepherd. It had all been deliberate. Get you away from your room and distracted so they could enter and set up the devices. You wonder if it’s all part of some sick plan, some way to ensure things are going well with your pack. General Shepherd had been very interested in your mark, invading your space without a moment of hesitation to see it firsthand. You would have shown him, had he asked to see it. Instead he’d just done it himself, as if it was nothing.

Your hands are shaking as you find a ziploc bag in the mess you’ve made of your room, putting the cameras and recording devices into it. You drop it onto the floor before stepping on it, listening to the crack of metal and plastic and glass under your shoe. Tears slip down your cheeks as you pick up the bag of broken pieces, taking it to the bathroom. You hide it far in the back of the cupboard beneath the sink, piling things around it and on top of it to keep it hidden.

You stand in the doorway of the bathroom, your skin crawling as you stare at the mess. You don’t feel safe anymore, not even in your own space. The thought of someone breaching the sacred space, entering your room without a second thought to put up cameras makes your stomach churn.

Where will you go? You can’t just leave, find somewhere else to feel safe. What if they did the same to the guys’ rooms? There could have been an entire team of people that came in and put cameras up all over the barracks. A sob leaves your lips as you rush to the door, double checking it’s locked before you shove the dresser against it. You flip your desk up to cover the window as much as it can, just in case anyone tries to climb in.

You sink to the floor in the middle of the disaster that has become your room, sobbing quietly. You want your pack home, you want to feel safe again. You glance at your phone where it’s sitting on a pile of shirts, afraid to even touch it. That woman could have done anything to it while you were with General Shepherd. What if they’re trying to call you and they can’t reach you?

You should try to reach Dr. Keller, tell her what happened, get her to check if there’s anyone lurking around the barracks that shouldn’t be. What if they try to attack her, though? Can she defend herself? You don’t know if she can fight or not. What if she gets hurt because of you? She could ask someone else on base to look, but what if they were involved in it? What if it was someone already on base that had done it? The thought nearly makes you sick.

You’re scared to leave again. What if they’ve noticed you found the cameras and come back while you’re gone? What if they come back while you’re here?

The tears flow freely as you sob, too afraid to even move. You can feel it, the panic starting to bubble up again, the fear welling inside you. Your muscles begin to tense, shoulders pulling up near your ears as you try to defend yourself from this invisible threat. It’s an easy slope from fear to distress, and there’s no one to help you if you start distressing. You press your palms into your eyes, holding your breath to try and shock your body into something other than panic.

You bite back a startled scream as a knock sounds at the door, your heart rate spiking again.

“It’s just me,” Dr. Keller’s voice sounds through the door. “Ready for dinner?”

You take a deep breath, staring at the dresser blocking your door. You’ll have to move it to get out, which she’ll likely notice. You could lie, you could lie easily, but you’re not sure you could keep it up right now. She’ll notice the tears, the obvious signs of panic and distress. She’ll want to know, and you can’t trust yourself not to spill everything.

You should tell her about what had happened, but you know she’ll be disappointed. She’ll think you were stupid for leaving, for not even sending her a text. She’ll tell John when he returns, too. He should know about it, but there’s no way a high ranking General could arrive on base without them knowing, especially one that’s their commander. Maybe it had all been a test. Maybe they do know about General Shepherd and just forgot to tell you this was going to happen.

Maybe Dr. Keller even knew about it, and didn’t say anything because she thought you knew too.

“I-I’m not hungry.” You say, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

There’s a pause outside the door for a moment, a beat of silence that’s too loud.

“Is everything alright?” She finally asks.

“Y-Yeah.” You say, clearing your throat. “Just...not really hungry right now.”

It’s silent again for a beat, making you hold your breath anxiously.

“Are you sure? I can come back later, or bring you dinner.” She says.

“I’m sure.” You swallow the tears welling in your eyes again. “I’ll grab a snack if I get hungry later.”

“Okay...” She says, and you can almost see the frown on her face. “Text or call if you need anything, alright?”

“Yeah.” You say, your voice cracking a bit.

You regret it almost instantly, the urge to shove the dresser out of the way and fling the door open strong as you hear her receding steps down the hallway. You don’t want to be alone, but Dr. Keller can’t give you what you need. The tears start falling again, sliding down your cheeks as you flop onto your back, ignoring the way the edge of a book digs into your spine.

You just want your pack back. You want John to scoop you up into his arms and wrap you in his warmth and soothing scent. You want Kyle and Johnny to squish you between them, sandwich you so tightly you’re scared you might burst. You want Ghost to wrap himself around you and offer you a blanket of protection against anyone who would even dare cast a glance in your direction.

You just want to feel at home again.

You want to be safe again.

***

The emotional and physical exhaustion pushes you into the state between consciousness and sleep. You’ve moved to your bed, tucked under the covers and stuck between the wall and your giant bear, as if it could offer you some form of protection as you float between awareness and somewhere in the realm of sleep for a few hours.

You’re not sure what time it is, when the disruption comes. It takes you a moment to register why you’re awake. Some deep part of your brain is prickling, sending out warning signals to your body. Something’s happening, something’s wrong, something’s posing a threat.

You hold your breath in the silence of the barracks, listening to the slow, quiet footsteps making their way down the hall. For a moment you think you might be imagining them, that you’re still asleep and dreaming. Your fingers pinch at your skin, nails digging in to confirm that you are, in fact, awake. This is really happening.

Your heartbeat picks up, the bitter stench of fear that’s coated your room intensifying as the footsteps pause outside your door. You let out a quiet, shaky breath as you lay there, thinking up every time you checked the door in the last few hours to ensure it was locked and the dresser was still pushed in front of it.

You cover your mouth as the door handle wiggles, catching on the lock. The whimper of fear threatening to rise catches in your throat as you hold your breath, your body trembling under your blankets. You should reach for your phone, send a text to Kate, call Dr. Keller, do something. Yet, you’re frozen in fear as the handle continues to wiggle before stopping.

You don’t release a breath until the footsteps fade, a quiet whimper slipping from your lips. Someone just tried to get into your room.

You’re panicking, breaths coming in short, sharp gasps as you burrow under your covers, barricading yourself between the wall and your bear, hoping you’ll be invisible in case they come back, in case they force their way in. You can’t fight, not after the day you’ve had. The best you can hope for is that your scent is rank enough in the room it’ll deter whoever is trying to get in.

You need tomorrow to come, and fast.

***

Daylight doesn't bring any sense of comfort.

All it does is shed more light on the disaster your room has become, the physical representation of your internal thoughts and feelings. Your face feels puffy from crying, and there’s a bad taste in your mouth. You haven’t brushed your teeth since yesterday, nor have you showered, too scared to put yourself in such a vulnerable position.

You glance at your phone, checking for missed calls, but there’s none. Dr. Keller will be by soon to get you for breakfast, but you’re not sure you can stand going to the mess. The idea of leaving your room, leaving it empty so anyone could just walk in and bug it or touch your things or hide out so they can take revenge on you for finding and destroying their cameras and recording devices has you paralyzed.

That must have been what whoever entered the barracks last night had come to do. Maybe they thought you’d spend the night in one of the other rooms and they’d come to replace them. Or, maybe they wanted you to be in your room. Maybe that was the plan all along.

The thought sends a chill running down your spine.

You burrow back under your blankets, curling up against your giant teddy bear. You wish it was Price, that his arm would wrap around you and hold you close, keep you safe and protected in his arms. You’d take any of them right now, even Ghost. At least you know he’d protect you, especially if someone tried to enter the barracks without permission.

You’re still lying there when Dr. Keller arrives. You stare at the dresser still pushed against the door, keeping you from opening it. Not that you really want to. You can’t stop the anxiety from taking over, bringing forward the image of Dr. Keller held at gunpoint on the other side of the door, trying to trick you into opening it so whoever tried to get in last night can finally do what they came to do.

You know it’s a ridiculous thought. No one would be that stupid in broad daylight, and you doubt Dr. Keller would let something like that happen to her. She’d put up a fight, or at least you hope so.

You can’t move the dresser without her knowing you’d pushed it against the door, which will only prompt questions. Questions you don’t want to answer.

She calls your name through the door, concern lacing her voice. “Everything alright?”

No. You want to scream it, tears gathering in your eyes again. You want to push the dresser out of the way, throw open the door and confess everything that’s happened in the last few hours to her. You want to bring her into your space, keep her there until your pack returns so you can feel even just an ounce of safety.

But what if she gets mad?

Leaving yesterday was stupid. Going off with some unknown beta without telling anyone was the dumbest thing you’ve done since your arrival on base. She’ll be disappointed and she’ll tell your pack and they’ll be disappointed that you didn’t say anything to her about it. Even if they knew it happened, they’d still be disappointed that you didn’t think to even question it, that you didn’t think to let Dr. Keller know what was going on.

You made a stupid decision, and you won’t be able to take their disappointment and anger. Not after everything.

“Yeah.” You call out, your voice shaking. “I-I’m alright.”

You can tell she doesn’t believe you, even though you can’t see her. She probably has that look on her face she gets when she knows you’re not telling the whole truth. You take a deep breath, trying to calm the racing of your heart. You’re afraid it might give out after the stress of the last few days.

“Are you ready for breakfast?” She finally asks, likely giving up on trying to get any more details from you.

You’re not hungry, and you know going to the mess will not end well. The risk of distressing is high, and the thought that any one in the mess might have been the intruder last night nearly sends you over the edge. One wrong glance in your direction might cause you to do something reckless. “I’m not hungry.” You finally say, pulling the blankets tighter around you.

“Are you sure?” She asks. “Did you eat something last night?”

“Yeah.” You lie, trying to keep your voice from breaking. “I had some snacks.”

Her feet shuffle outside the door for a moment, and you can almost hear her sigh. “If you’re sure?”

“I-I’m sure.” You reply.

There’s a moment of silence before you get a response, your breath catching in your throat from the nerves. “Alright.” She finally says. “I got word that your pack will be landing in a couple of hours and we have permission to go out to the airfield and greet them. I’ll come back to get you when it’s time. If you need anything, call me.”

You listen to her footsteps recede down the hallway, tears burning your eyes. You hate lying. You feel bad for keeping the truth from her, but the shame of revealing what you did is too strong.

You hastily wipe your eyes, staring at the mess on your floor. You need to get your room back to at least its somewhat normal state, and you need to put yourself back to your normal state as well. If anyone gets any hint that something is wrong, you might crack, and you’re not sure you could handle the repercussions.

You start with the desk, flipping it back the way it’s supposed to be and positioning it as close to where it was as you can get. You collect the books and other little things that go on it, trying to arrange it as close to how it normally is. You know they’ll notice if any little thing is out of place, if anything looks suspicious. You can blame some of it on cleaning, if they ask. You did some deep cleaning while they were away. That’s one way of putting it.

You push the dresser back into place next, putting the drawers back in before starting on the clothes, putting everything back where it belongs. You make your bed last, the urge to nest gone completely. You’re shaking with exhaustion by the time you finish, tempted to crawl back into bed, but you know you can’t. Your pack is coming back, and you need everything to look like it’s fine still.

They’ll notice. They’ll see it, and they’ll ask, and you’ll have to spill everything and face the shame and anger from being so stupid.

Tears burn your eyes as you slip your desk chair under the door handle, making sure it’s secure before heading to the shower to get ready for your pack’s imminent return. You shower with the door open, getting done quickly to avoid being vulnerable for long. You try to make yourself look as decent as possible, ignoring the fact that there’s broken cameras and recording devices hidden under the sink. Eventually you’ll forget. Eventually it’ll fade from your mind and become nothing more than a forgotten nightmare.

One of many.

You toss your pajamas on the floor haphazardly, just to make things look more normal. You know if it’s too clean, that might raise some suspicions as well. You don’t want to give away that something happened, you don’t want to raise any suspicions. You just want things to go back to normal. You want your pack back, and you want to feel safe again.

At least, until they have to leave again.

You sink to the floor, leaning up against your bed as you wait for Dr. Keller to take you to greet your pack when they return.

***

Every minute seems to drag on infinitely as you stare across the tarmac. They’ll be landing any minute. Any minute now the nightmare will be over and you’ll get to see your pack again after days of being apart. Finally, maybe, you can begin to feel safe again.

You watch the plane as it comes in to land, your hands already trembling in anticipation. There’s a twisting in your stomach, you’re not sure if it’s worry or fear or excitement. They’re so close, so close you can almost smell them. Your omega is scratching at the back of your brain, your muscles twitching as the ramp begins to lower on the plane. You need to see them, you need to smell them, you need to ensure they’re alright.

You can’t stop yourself. As soon as their boots hit the tarmac, you’re running. You don’t care if you’re breaking rules, you don’t care if the other soldiers get worried, or see you as a possible threat, you need to be in your alpha’s arms again.

John grunts from the force of you hitting him, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You throw your arms around him, clinging to him as tight as you can. You’re whimpering, the quiet sounds dragging from your lips but you don’t care. You press your face into his chest, breathing him in. He smells like sweat and musk, the sharp metallic tang of gunpowder burning your nose. Yet, underneath it all, you can make out the earthy scent, the petrichor going straight to your brain.

His arms wrap tight around you, squishing you up against his chest. His vest digs into your skin, but you don’t care. You can’t feel much of anything but relief. His breath fans your forehead as he leans down, his hand cupping the back of your head. He shushes you gently, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Tears fill your eyes as you cling to him, fingers gripping his shirt tightly like you’re afraid he might disappear again. If it wasn’t for the pain in your chest, you might have thought this was all a dream, that they might disappear suddenly and you’ll wake up alone again.

“Easy.” John rumbles, gently stroking the back of your head.

You cling to him tighter as his hand gets close to your neck, the thought of General Shepherd’s hand being so close to your neck where he could scruff you so easily making your insides squirm.

He’s gone. He’s gone and your pack is here.

“You’re alright.” John tries to reassure you, squeezing his arms around your trembling form. “I’ve got you.”

You keep your face pressed against his chest, breathing him in, trying to get his scent to calm the raging storm within you. Your omega is still scratching at the back of your mind, a deep need to claw your way under John’s skin and into his body pushing at the front of your mind. You won’t be safe until you’ve been utterly consumed by him, until you’re safely tucked where no one can hurt you without going through him first.

“Alpha,” You whine quietly, nuzzling your face against his chest. His clothes are in the way, a barrier against what you need. To feel him, to smell him fully again.

“Easy.” He says, grabbing your hands as they shift towards the velcro straps of his tactical vest. “Let’s get back to the barracks first before we start that, sweetheart.”

You don’t want to go back to the barracks. It’s not safe anymore. What if there’s someone waiting there for you to return? What if they get hurt because you don’t tell them what happened? What if you get hurt and cause them pain?

“You’re alright.” John says, stroking the back of your head as he begins to ease your grip on him. “There’s a couple of muppets here who I think would like to greet you too.”

Right. You’re so caught up in your alpha, you forgot the rest of your pack. You slowly allow yourself to be peeled away from John, Kyle right there to let you cling to him.

And so you do.

Your grip around him is just as tight, ignoring the uncomfortable ridges of his own vest. He holds you just as tightly, projecting his scent just a bit to try and calm you. Someone presses against your back, arms wrapping around both you and Kyle. The scent of citrus lined with beta invades your nose, Johnny squishing you into a sandwich between them. Your eyes squeeze shut as citrus and salty sea air blend together, the beta’s scents reaching deep into your brain to try and ease some of the tension in your body.

They’re back. They’re safe. You’re safe.

Now you just have to convince yourself of that fact.

***

“How was she?” John asks as he approaches Dr. Keller.

“Held it together longer than I thought she would.” She says. “Things took a turn yesterday afternoon. Shut herself in her room and wouldn’t come out. I don��t think she’s eaten anything since lunch yesterday either.”

“We’ll get some food in her.” John says. “Thank you, for looking after her for us.”

“Well, it is partly my job.” Dr. Keller shrugs. “Always happy to do it.”

“Things will get easier, won’t they?” He asks.

“Eventually. She’ll learn what coping mechanisms help and she’ll adapt.”

“Hopefully at least one of us will be able to stay moving forward. I don’t like leaving her here alone.” He grimaces.

“Separation is hard no matter what, especially with limited contact, on all parties involved.” She gives him a look. “I think the best thing you can do right now is just be together as a pack. Let those bonds heal and let her do what she needs.”

“Thank you, doctor.” John says, shaking her hand.

“Call me, if you need anything, as usual.” Dr. Keller says, watching his retreating back before getting into her car to make the short drive back to the medical center.

John gets into the car waiting to take them back to the barracks, sitting next to Kyle who’s holding you straddling his lap, your face pressed into his neck. “That looks safe.” He remarks, even though they wouldn’t be going very fast, or very far.

“Couldn’t get her to let go.” Kyle says, tightening his hold around you as the car begins moving.

“You’re alright, sweetheart.” John says, rubbing your back gently.

You turn your face to look at him, your eyes red from the numerous tears you’ve already shed, and the ones still trailing down your face. The guilt nearly makes him sick as he stares at you, feeling the slight tremble still from where his hand rests against your back.

He’d never say it out loud, but he hates the fact they had to leave you, all four of them at once too. He’d fought, argued. He and Simon could have handled it on their own, even him and the two Sergeants would have been sufficient. Anything not to leave you by yourself during their first deployment.

Despite his attempts, General Shepherd had been insistent that all four of them were necessary for this particular task.

So, he had been forced to leave you behind on your own. It’s gone about as well as he expected, from the looks of it. He knew the separation would get to you eventually. The stress would grow to be too much. Every day he anticipated the news to come from Kate that you had distressed and your omega had taken over because he wasn’t there to help you.

Every day he waited for the news that they’d lost you because the brass that put this initiative into place couldn’t understand why taking them all at once was a bad idea.

Or maybe that was their plan all along.

He couldn’t stop the conspiratorial thoughts running through his head as their mission dragged on. What if they were doing this on purpose? It wouldn’t be that strange to push the boundaries of what could be tolerated for the purpose of testing just how effective the initiative really could be. But pushing it like that so soon? Sure, he could rationalize it was possible. War could break out at any moment, which would require most military members to leave, to be separated from their packs for months or even years. His own team could be called out at any time for months working to eliminate a target and stop war from breaking out.

Yet, he can’t help but feel there was something more, something deeper going on. What if they had called away for more nefarious reasons? What if getting you alone had been the reason behind General Shepherd’s insistence that all four of them were necessary for this particular task? He had refused to entertain those dark thoughts for too long, the fear of leaving you alone already itching in the back of his mind from the moment they boarded the plane to leave.

He hadn’t been able to hide his relief at hearing your voice on the phone. Though you had sounded upset, and rightfully so, his worries had been lessened in knowing you were alright. You would tell them if something had happened. He knows you wouldn’t keep something that serious a secret. If someone had hurt you, or had tried to hurt you, you would tell one of them.

Even though he trusts you, he does plan to speak to Dr. Keller more in depth later to ensure everything went as fine as she seemed to imply it did. Obviously their absence has been hard on you, but he needs to make sure you really will be alright, that you will be able to come back from the obvious distress this has caused you.

***

You finally release your constricting hold on Kyle as the car pulls up outside the barracks. Even with them back, it still doesn't feel like home anymore, not after such sacred space was invaded so easily, so nonchalantly. Kyle climbs out of the car, setting you on your feet on the ground. You look between him and John, realizing Ghost and Johnny are still in the car. Your stomach falls as you realize what they're about to say, tears gathering in your eyes again.

“We still have some things we need to do.” John says, reaching towards you.

You have the momentary urge to flinch from his touch, but you let his hand cup your cheek. “You're leaving me again.” You say, your voice breaking.

John almost looks guilty. He almost looks upset by your visible turmoil. His hand drops from your cheek to your back, turning you towards the barracks. Your stomach twists as he guides you inside, the fear of someone being inside spiking. You know you're safe with John, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but you'd have to play dumb if they did catch someone inside. You’d have to act like you didn’t know someone had entered before, like you had been unaware of anything going on. That might almost be worse than telling them the truth.

You inhale as he stops in front of your door, still closed from when you'd left with Dr. Keller. There's no chemical burn of scent blockers, just your scent in the air, and John's scent coming off him as he stands next to you.

“We won't be long. Maybe an hour at most, and we'll only be across base. We'll come back and we can get lunch before our afternoon meeting. Then we'll just have reports to do, and you can sit in my office while I work on those, okay?” He says.

Your brows pinch as you try to hold in your tears. You want to tell him, you want to reveal what happened, beg him not to leave you alone here again, but you can't. You can't face that shame, the disappointment you know he'll show on his face at the knowledge that you let that happen. You willingly left with a stranger without telling anyone. You let someone invade your pack's space so easily. They were gone for a week and you screwed everything up.

“Tomorrow we'll spend the day together. All of us. I promise.” He says wiping the tear that slides down your cheek.

Even though they're back, you still don't have them.

You inhale shakily before nodding. “Yeah. Fine.”

John's thumb brushes your cheek for a moment before he leans down, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

You watch his back retreat as he leaves the barracks, leaving you alone again. You think back to when they’d left you, watching his back as he boarded the plane to be taken from you. You stare at the door as the cars drive off, a cold chill running down your spine. What if General Shepherd is still here? What if they're going to meet with him? What if he tells them he met with you while they were gone and they had no idea?

Maybe you should have been honest with them from the start.

You stare at your closed door, your hands shaking. What if there's someone inside? What if someone is waiting to take their revenge for you destroying the cameras. What if they put new ones up?

You should have opened the door while Price was here so you could have at least screamed when someone would hear you. You back away from your door slowly, deciding to wait in the rec room. At least there you might have a chance. You could break a window and run, or at least have a higher chance of making it to a door.

Would anyone help you? Would anyone come if you screamed? What if they’re all in on it?

You're shaking as you sink onto the couch, sitting so you can see into the hallway. You want to see them coming so you can prepare yourself, or at least give yourself a chance to make an escape before it’s too late.

You run through all the things Ghost has taught you in your head as you sit and wait, the minutes dragging by painfully slow. You can feel every second, though that may just be the anxiety and fear pulsing within you. You wish you could sleep, you wish you could relax, you wish you could do anything to make the time go by faster, but yet you remain hypervigilant, staring so hard you flinch at every little shadow your brain convinces you is moving.

You’re not sure how long you sit there, tense and coiled, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. It can’t be more than an hour as John promised, yet it feels like a lifetime before you hear movement.

You hold your breath as the barracks door opens, boots thudding with every footstep coming down the hall. You nearly whimper when a figure rounds the corner, before you let out a sigh of relief.

“Ready for lunch, kitten?” Johnny asks, standing in the doorway of the rec room.

You swallow the lump in your throat, your hands still clenched into fists. You're breathing hard, your entire body tense. You know you're reaching dangerous territory. Any more panic, you may start distressing. What a welcome home for them, coming back to a distressed omega. They're probably exhausted, and here you are making a scene.

Hands close around yours. Warm, calloused hands apply gentle pressure, slowly uncurling your fingers. Your hands are shaking, trembling just slightly.

“Ye alright, kitten?” Johnny asks, kneeling in front of you. When he moved, you're not sure.

“I-I'm not...” You start, your voice shaking.

“Ye need tae eat.” He counters, as if he had read your mind, expected the answer.

He's right. You're beginning to feel it gnawing in your stomach, something deeper than the anxiety. With all the stressing you've been doing, you know you need to eat something. Being hungry is not helping that any, either.

“I don't want to go to the mess.” You say quickly, the words almost mushing together incoherently. “Too much.”

Johnny sits back, staring at you for a moment before nodding in understanding. “Alright. That's fair. I'll let the lads know.”

He stands up, leaving you alone in the rec room again. You listen to his footsteps fade, the door opening and closing for a moment. You hold your breath, practically on the edge of your seat. There's no reason they would make you go to the mess. You've eaten in the barracks many times before.

You blame your worry on your hunger. You know omegas don't do well when hungry. Omegas don't do well being uncomfortable in general.

Saying these last few days have been uncomfortable for you is a bit of an oversimplification.

Footsteps echo down the hallway, a familiar hulking figure approaching the rec room. You never thought there would come a time when you would feel relief upon seeing Ghost. Yet here you are, the tension easing from your shoulders as he steps into the rec room.

“They're grabbing us food.” He says, moving to sit in his usual spot in the chair facing the door. He sighs as he sinks into the cushions, and you can only imagine how tired he must be.

And here you are making things worse.

“You're stressed.” He says, staring at you. His eyes are still painted black beneath his mask, adding to the eerie vibe coming off of him. You're beginning to understand why they call him Ghost. “Stinking up the barracks.” He says, pulling out his phone.

“Oh.” You say quietly, sinking in on yourself as you sit there. “Sorry.”

You pick nervously at your sweatshirt as you wait for the others to return, letting out a quiet sigh of relief as they enter the rec room, food in hand.

Johnny sits you on his lap as you eat, making sure you get your fill, likely aware that you haven't eaten yet today thanks to Dr. Keller telling on you. It's quiet in the room as everyone eats, even the TV off. They all look tired and tense, and you can only imagine what happened during their time away. The things they did, the things they saw. You wonder how much blood is on their hands now, hands that have touched you, hands that are holding you.

They can just go off and kill people and come back and act like nothing has happened.

You could almost laugh at how psychotic it all sounds.

This is your life now. This is your new normal.

“We have a quick meeting. Shouldn't take too long.” John says as they stand, Johnny placing you gently on your feet.

You tug at your sweatshirt, avoiding his gaze. They're leaving you again. They won't be far this time, but still. You just want to curl up in bed with them and lay there until you feel safe again.

Tomorrow, John had said. Tomorrow they will be yours.

It might have been easier if you hadn't been told they were coming home until tomorrow.

***

You tense under the blanket as the door closes, quiet footsteps approaching your position on the couch. There's a quiet sigh as a figure drops to a knee in front of you, their figure visible as a shadow beneath the blanket.

“Can you breathe under there?”

You slowly lower the blanket just enough to peek over the top of it. John is kneeling next to the couch, his brows furrowed in a frown. You're in his office, having shut yourself in there while they went into the meeting. John had made you swear not to go snooping as he’d let you inside. You had promised, as you still feel no desire to dig through the likely classified files that were locked in the cabinets and on his computer. Instead you had parked yourself on his couch, burrowing under a blanket that smelled faintly of petrichor and tobacco smoke.

“There she is.” He says as you peek above the blanket, gently running a hand over the top of your head. “How are you holding up, sweetheart?”

“You left me.” You say quietly, trying not to burst into tears and confess everything.

“I know.” He says, wiping the tear that slides down your cheek. “But we came back, just like we promised.”

He is right in that regard, yet you can’t help the tears as they slide down your cheeks. The ache in your chest that had started to build over the last few days is still present despite their return. Everything is wrong. They feel too far away, too distant. Nothing is safe anymore, nothing is sacred, and they’re just acting like everything is back to normal.

“Would you like to kneel for me?” He asks, his thumb stroking your cheek.

You’re tempted to say no. For the first time you feel wary of your alpha. What kinds of things would you admit in your dazed state? If he questioned you, would you give him enough to put together that something had happened and you’ve been trying to hide it from him? Maybe it would help, though. It would at least ease some of the tension that’s built up. Maybe it could pull you back from the edge of distress you’ve been dangling over for almost two days. Maybe he’ll accidentally scruff you and you can forget the whole thing happened.

The dark thought sends a chill down your spine.

“Okay.” You say, pushing yourself up to sit.

John offers you a hand, helping you up off the couch. You don't want to let go of his hand, you don't want to be parted from him. The omega in the back of your mind is screaming at you to get close to him and stay there for the rest of time. If he leaves you again...you're not sure you can handle it.

He settles in his desk chair, getting everything he needs ready. He'll work on his reports while you kneel, a familiar position, a familiar situation. You've done this before several times. You're not sure why you're suddenly nervous.

You set the pillow down, dropping to your knees beside him. The chair creaks as he shifts slightly, his hand coming to rest on the back of your head. You fight the urge to flinch, to move away as he gently strokes his hand over your hair. You've done this before, he's done this before. You're not sure why your heart is thudding in your chest.

His hand slowly moves lower, slipping closer and closer to your neck. You can't help it as your shoulders come up, preventing him from gripping the back of your neck. He moves his hand away as you get defensive, his chair turning slightly as he leans down.

“It's alright, sweetheart. It's just me.” He soothes you, his hand returning to the top of your head. “I know it's been a while, but I promise I remember what to do.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You gasp out, trying to relax. “I don't...I don't know...”

You do know. Your brain keeps flashing back to General Shepherd, his hand tugging down your collar, so close to your neck. How easily he could have scruffed you, if he'd wanted to. You would have known if he had, but he could have done anything to you during the time he had control.

“You're stressed, all worked up.” John says, still stroking the top of your head, trying to soothe you. “It's been a long week for all of us. It was a risk, sending all four of us at once. A stupid risk that shouldn't have been taken.”

You're pulled from your emotional state at the slight hint of anger in his voice. It hadn't taken you long to figure out they likely were all sent in order to get you alone. It would have been impossible to get you out of the barracks and put cameras up with even one of them here. Did he know about Shepherd's visit? Had he put two and two together and figured out they sent all four of them on purpose? You figured he'd be angrier if he knew about what you did, about what they did to you. He would be blazing a path straight to General Shepherd if your alpha knew he got so close to you, put you in that kind of situation.

At least, you hope he would. There’s still that fear in the back of your mind, that worry that it was all a test and you’ve failed. Would they send you back to the institute? Would they break the bonds and send you to a different pack? Would they send you out on your own, leaving you to fend for yourself until some other alpha crossed your path and decided you were worth it? Does he know you’re lying to him, hiding the truth of what happened while he was away? Is he waiting for you to confess, biding his time to see how long you try to hide it?

You want to tell him. You really do, but you can't bring yourself to get the words out. You can't bring yourself to confess here on your knees before your alpha. You feel guilty, like a sinner, yet the shame keeps the words trapped inside.

He continues to soothe you, sliding his hand further down until he reaches your neck. You force yourself to relax, knowing you need this. You need your alpha to take control. You need him to ease the heavy weight on your shoulders, even if he doesn't know what he's lifting.

You close your eyes as his fingers press into your neck, your brain quieting to a hum as you begin to slip into the back of your mind. You feel the rush of endorphins as your brain begins to calm itself, quieting the storm that's been raging for almost a week. You begin to go numb, relaxing into John's hold as he eases you into a quiet, meditative state. He begins to work on his reports as he holds you, your mind floating off somewhere else, somewhere safer where no one can break in and hurt you, somewhere where the barracks are still secure and safe and your pack never left.

Somewhere where there's no initiative, and your pack picked you because they wanted you, because you were a good omega who did as she was told and didn't make stupid mistakes that put everyone in danger.

The last of the tension leaves your body, your mind distant from the present moment. You're safe with your alpha. He'd never let anything happen to you. None of your pack would let anything happen to you.

The thought continues to repeat in your head like a mantra as you relax, held up by the strong pillar that is your alpha.

***

“Report's done, Captain.” Kyle says, placing the stack of papers on John's desk.

“Thanks.” John sighs, grabbing them.

Kyle turns to look at you, fast asleep on the couch. “You want me to take her?” He asks, the formality easing between them as they settle into being a pack and not a task force on duty anymore.

John stares at you, curled up on his lumpy old couch. It’s getting late, or at least it feels that way. You’ve been out, sleeping peacefully on his couch since he eased you out of your kneeling position. You’d clung to him tightly, and for a moment he’d considered holding you, letting you sit with him as you dozed, but he knows he can’t risk you seeing something you shouldn’t. So he’d eased you onto the couch, having to peel your hands away from his shirt. He’d nearly given up and let you keep hold of his shirt before you finally relaxed and released him.

“Would probably be more comfortable.” He rubs his eyes, feeling the call of sleep himself. He wonders how much you managed to sleep while they were gone. You look tired, though you’ve been looking tired since your heat ended. He needs to rest himself, but he wants to get these reports done so he can keep his promise for tomorrow. “I'll be in there soon.”

“Don't work too hard.” Kyle says, moving to lift you off the couch.

“No promises.”

Kyle shakes his head before scooping you up off the couch, blanket and all. You’re still sound asleep as he carries you, pausing in the hallway for a moment. He had just been instinctually going to his room, but would you be more comfortable in your own room? You probably have spent the last week shut inside your space. It might be nice to spend some time somewhere else.

He takes you into his room, laying you on the bed, making sure you’re comfortable. He needs to shower and throw his clothes in the wash, but he doesn’t want to leave you and risk you waking up without someone there. You’re sleeping deeply, though, not even stirring as he tucks the blanket up higher around you. He doesn't want to crawl into bed smelling like gunpowder and sweat. That might throw you off too.

He takes the risk, knowing he can do both tasks quickly. No more than twenty minutes to get himself clean and his dirty clothes in the wash, as he prays you stay asleep and won't start panicking if you wake in a strange place. He had sensed how close you had been to distress, how tense you had been when he held you in the car. It’s been a hard week for you, even harder than it had been for them.

He breathes out a quiet sigh of relief as he finds you still asleep when he returns to his room. You haven't moved at all, still tucked under the blanket from John's office. He gets himself changed and moisturized, rubbing some cream on the bruises that dot his skin. He's going to be sore tomorrow, they all will be, but he knows they won't be doing much. John had already told them tomorrow will be dedicated to spending time with you and helping you recover from the stress of them being gone. He’s silently glad for the break, knowing it could only be a few days before they get called out again.

John had also told him he’d be pushing harder for one of them to stay whenever he can. He’s not taking this risk again, not if it can be avoided.

Kyle’s pulling on his sweatpants when you inhale sharply. You're sitting up straight on his bed, eyes wide as you look around in fear. They’re hazy, confusion settling into your mind after going from John’s office to Kyle’s room after kneeling.

“Hey, hey. It's alright.” Kyle says, moving over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge so he’s in your line of sight. “You're just in my room.”

“Kyle?” You whisper, clarity returning to your gaze as you stare at him.

“I'm here.” He says. “Just went to take a shower and clean up.”

“Where's John?” You ask, tears gathering in your eyes.

“Still working on things.” He says, cupping your face. “He'll be in eventually.”

The tears fall from your eyes, sliding down your cheeks. They wet his thumbs as he strokes your skin, your body trembling slightly as you sniffle.

Something’s wrong. He's known it since you latched onto him on the tarmac. The way you'd held onto him like he might disappear, how you looked almost angry when John told you they still had things to do, the way your scent had filled the barracks, bitter with fear and stress.

Something’s up, something you're not letting them in on. But, to be fair, they had just left you for a week, up and abandoned you to go play heroes. He wouldn't blame you for not telling them anything. The bonds have weakened. He can feel it, beyond just his natural beta senses.

“What can I do?” He asks quietly, trying to project his scent a bit to help calm you. He doesn't want you distressing, not after holding it together for so long.

“I...I need...” You inhale shakily, still trembling in his hold. “I don't know.” You whine, the tears falling faster now.

He pulls you against his chest, holding you as you cry. He feels the tugging in his chest, sympathy for you and what you must be feeling, along with the guilt of knowing they caused this. They did this just with their absence.

An idea begins to form in his mind as he holds you, something his family used to do when he was younger.

He pulls away from you, standing up. “Come on. I have an idea.”

He strips the blankets from his bed before pulling the mattress off the frame. He drags it to the door and out into the hallway before heading down to John's room. You follow behind him, watching him as he opens the door to John’s room, dragging the mattress in and dropping it on the floor.

“Stay here.” He tells you, heading back out into the hallway.

“What're ye doin’?” Johnny asks, sticking his head out of his door.

“Grab your mattress and Simon and meet me in Price's room.” Kyle says as he heads down the hallway, ignoring Johnny's further questioning as he makes for John’s office.

He doesn't bother knocking, walking right in. John blinks at him from behind the desk, and for a moment Kyle wonders if he'd fallen asleep sitting up. It wouldn't be the first time.

“Come on.” Kyle says, moving to stand in front of his desk. “Finish those tomorrow.”

“They're important, I have to get them done asap.” John counters.

“Yeah, well I have something more important.” He leans forward at John's questioning stare. “Your omega needs you.”

John stares at his beta for a moment, and Kyle can see the gears turning in his head, the debate happening, the conflict in his mind. He so rarely sees his alpha, his captain so indecisive for so long. He's usually so quick to act, analyzing a situation and making a decision in mere seconds.

If only you knew the things you've done by simply existing in their lives.

John closes the file on his desk, slipping it into the drawer before locking it. Kyle fights the triumphant grin threatening to form on his face as John stands from his chair after shutting his computer off. Kyle makes his way back down the hallway, John following behind after locking his office door. Kyle stops at his room, grabbing his comforter before heading for John’s room.

Johnny had obviously gotten the idea of what Kyle had in mind, his mattress and John's laid out side by side so the three make one giant bed for them on the floor. He’s already laid out his own comforter and Simon’s, as well as John’s on the mattresses. They probably wouldn’t need blankets for long with their body heat, but the blend of scents will hopefully begin to ease the tempest raging in your mind.

You’ve parked yourself in the corner, watching it all happen. You seem so small, so lost, so out of place. It's not all that different from when you'd arrived in their lives. Has being gone for a week really reverted things so drastically for you? Has your stress broken the bonds so much that you feel like a stranger amongst them again?

Kyle steps over the mattresses, approaching you slowly. You look up from where you had been staring off into space, blinking up at him. Your eyes are still red and watery from crying, your arms clutching one of your stuffed bears against your chest. It’s the one John had scented for you, back when they were trying to get you to nest. He wonders if you’ve nested since they left, if that urge is still there, or if that too has faded.

Kyle doesn’t often feel angry at his job. Not anymore. He doesn’t often question it. It’s what he signed up for, and he does it because someone has to. He chose this life, so he does his best to be a good soldier, to follow orders. Yet, as he stares down at you, he can’t help but feel anger bristling in the back of his mind. He tries to blame it on his instincts, on the fact that a member of his pack is so upset, so distressed at something that’s happened, and he doesn't know what to do to help.

Yet he knows they were the cause of it, even if it wasn’t their choice directly. Something happened because of them. He tries to rationalize it. This is an experiment, a test to see how well packs will do with omegas, if it has any effect on how well they can do their jobs, if it makes them stronger, or if it weakens them. Those in charge had obviously put little regard in for how it would affect the omegas. They couldn’t have known how you would react, how badly all of them leaving would affect you. Or maybe they did know, and they simply didn’t care.. Perhaps you weren’t the focus of their study, but you were still a variable, you were still an important piece of this puzzle.

How can they be more effective if their omega is struggling because of their absence? How can they be expected to function like a team now knowing leaving behind their omega will only cause distress for all of them?

Kyle takes a deep breath, pushing back the anger and the emotions whirling in his own mind. He needs to focus on you right now, focus on helping you relax, helping you get back to where you were before they left you. He’s doing the best he can do right now for you, giving you what you need, even if you don’t realize it’s what you need yet.

He holds out his hand to you, staying still as you stare at it. It takes you a moment before you slowly begin to move, slipping one of your hands into his. He guides you to the mattress in the middle, Johnny’s mattress, easing you down to sit on it. You glance around as Johnny and John toss pillows onto the mattresses haphazardly, making sure everything is perfect. It’s not a pretty nest, he’d hardly call it a nest at all, but he knows nesting is not necessarily all about looks. It’s about feeling, and right now, he knows you need to feel safe and secure.

John quickly changes into more comfortable clothes as Kyle stretches out on the mattress, opening his arms to you. You curl up against his side, resting your cheek against his chest. You press your face into his skin, inhaling for a moment before you settle, slowly beginning to relax in his hold.

Simon enters the room as John settles on Kyle’s other side, closing the door behind him and locking it, securing the five of you inside. Johnny settles on the other side of you, pressing up close against your back. He pulls one of the comforters up around the three of you before he tosses an arm around you, resting his hand on Kyle’s stomach, sandwiching you between the two betas again.

Simon stands over the makeshift nest, staring down at the four of you. He’s obviously the most uncomfortable with the situation, and still a bit miffed from your lack of greeting on the tarmac. It was his own fault for being so closed off with you for so long. You had instinctively sought out the members of the pack you felt the most connected to, the most comfortable with in your time of such great stress.

“Aw come on, ye big bastard, get in the bed.” Soap says, snapping Simon out of his reverie.

Simon shuts the light off, bathing them in near darkness. You tense for a moment as the lights go off before you slowly relax again. Kyle listens to your breaths even out as Simon gets comfortable on the mattress behind Johnny, the four of them settling in around you.

It's already warm in the room but none of them would even think of complaining. They’re too focused on surrounding you with their scent and their protection, the very thing you need the most.

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#call of duty #call of duty fic #task force 141 x reader #poly task force 141 #john price x reader #captain price x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #gaz x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #x reader #alpha/beta/omega #a/b/o #omegaverse

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mammonsrockstargf · 26 days

Text

It starts small. You honestly don't think much of it. Crows begin leaving you gifts in your window frame. It's pretty rocks. It's a small screw. It's coins and grimm, it's a button from a shirt, it's shiny beads.

You bring it up to Mammon randomly one day. He stares at you wide-eyed. "What, you mean crowns leave ya gifts? Sound ridiculous," he says and you shrug.

"I mean, I've heard about crows leaving gifts for humans before. It's not that unusual, but usually, the humans give something to the crows in return," you say, thinking aloud. "That's the part that confuses me. I haven't given anything to the crows, so why do they like me so much?" Mammon's cheeks are bright red by now, the blush going all the way down his neck. Your brows furrow with concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" you ask and he nods quickly. "Yeah, 'm fine, gotta-go-see-ya! " he stutters and quickly leaves you, practically running away. You look after him in confusion. Weren't you both just supposed to be headed home?

The gifts continue. You get a single earring. At one point you get a small bone and at another time you get a tooth which leaves you a bit unsettled but also intrigued. You treasure every single gift, keeping it in a small box by your desk. You begin to leave the crows gifts in return. You find that they like peanuts and berries. One time you experimentally leave a big piece of watermelon, only to find it devoured within minutes.

The next day there's a pretty locket with what looks like a flower engraved in it. You gape at the locket and instantly put it on, proudly wearing it around your neck. You make sure to leave the crows a feast that day.

Satan is the first brother to notice it when it slips out from the collar of your uniform one day. "Is that new?" he asks. "Oh yeah, I've befriended a bunch of crows." Satan stops in his tracks and stares at you.

"You've befriended crows?" He repeats and you nod. "Yes. Why is everyone so weird about this?" A knowing smile creeps onto his face and he shakes his head.

"Why do you think the crows like you so much?" he asks. You hum, considering it for a second. Eventually, you have to draw a blank and look at Satan in defeat. His smile only grows wider.

"Ask Mammon. He might know."

You find Mammon in his room, lying in his bed. He smiles when he sees you and pats the bed, motioning you to come over. "Come here," he says and you do, lying down next to him. He huffs and pulls at you so you're lying on his chest. You can feel his heart beating and you look up at him through your lashes.

"Hey, Mamms," you say and he runs his hand down your back, rubbing circles into it. "Hey, treasure," he says and grins.

"Satan says you might know the cause of my new friendships." His cheeks turn crimson in an instant and he lets out something akin to a nervous laugh. "Oh, the crows, you mean?" you huff and playfully roll your eyes. "Come on, big guy, spill the beans," you say and Mammon sighs.

"So, the crows like you, because, well, I told them about you," he says and a grin spreads across your face. "Go on," you say.

"Okay, I have crow familiars, you know what a familiar is, right?" he says and looks at you expectantly. You rake your brain, remembering briefly having about it in one of your classes. "Yeah, it's like witches with black cats, right?" you say and Mammon hums.

"Yeah, kind of, but anyone can have a familiar and it can be any animal. The whole black cat thing is just something the catholic church made up." You nod in understanding while Mammon continues to rub patterns into your back. The beating of his heart seems to have become louder underneath you. "So what you're saying is you can't shut up about how awesome I am and now a bunch of crows are obsessed with me?" you say and Mammon hides his face in his hands. You giggle and pry his hands away, smiling at him adoringly.

"Please don't make fun of me," he huffs and you pout at his antics. "I could never tease my lovely little bird boy," you coo and Mammon groans while pushing you off him. He turns his back to you and you laugh manically. "Come on, Mamms, It's cute," you say and press soft kisses to the nape of his neck. "you're cute," you say and throw an arm and a leg over him, attempting to spoon him. You feel him instantly melting to your touch, completely unable to keep his resolve. It's almost too easy when he turns around again to face you. You smile at his pink face.

"I really like the gifts the crows gave me," you reassure him because you genuinely do. It's become something you look forward to when you open your window.

"You do?"

"Yeah, absolutely," you affirm and he smiles sheepishly. "I once tried to train them to steal money for me, but it didn't work."

a/n: thanks for reading! find my other stuff here <3

#bird boy go brrr #i love bullying men #they make it too easy #obey me mammon #obey me #obey me mammon fluff #perse fics #obey me x you #obey me x reader #obey me x mc #mammon #mammon x mc #mammon x reader #obey me shall we date #obey me fluff #obey me fic #om! mammon #obey me headcanon #perse fluff

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tojipie · 7 months

Note

mma fighter toji? (im so happy tk see that you’re back btw ❤️)

i really do think this is the best ask i’ve ever gotten pls feel proud of ur brain before u go to bed tonight bc ily. wrote this on the verge of falling asleep if u see any spelling error no u did not.

mma fighter!toji x reader | 1k words

content: violence, injury, blood, reader objectified by stranger

────────────────────────

“you got it, you got—don’t fucking look at her, look at me fushiguro!” your boyfriend’s manager yells, holding a bucket to the younger man’s heaving chest with a sigh.

toji nods at the command, taking a swig of water and spitting into the vessel before wiping his mouth with an ungloved hand. fighters never drank in the ring, it’d only settle heavy in your stomach. make you easier to catch.

blood and saliva drip down his chin and onto the floor of the ring, bright red patters against black mesh.

you watch the veins in toji’s neck pulse underneath sweaty skin, decorated with swirls of black and grey ink. his tattoos extend down his chest and back, working to cover the mess of purple and blue bruises across his body.

on his rib lies a scrawl of your name, etched into his skin for millions to see every time he stepped into the ring.

the raven haired man says something unintelligible to his team before smacking his temple with his glove, almost as if he was trying to knock something back into place.

you cringe at the thought of a brain injury so early into his career. you’d heard stories before, world class fighters reduced to shells of themselves. shot memories, seizures, even paralysis. you try not to think too deeply about it.

the TV screens in front of you pan to across the ring to his opponent. ryomen sukuna, 2 years into his career with every title under the sun.

everything except heavyweight champion. the name belonging to the winner of this very match.

sukuna was terrifying, completely unfazed by the rivets of blood pouring from his temple and left nostril. you’d quite literally watched him pop his nose back into place during the first break after your boyfriend had dealt a serious blow to it. to say this man scared you was an understatement.

toji notices your anxiety, leaning against the mesh wall of the ring to look down at you in the front row.

“you watchin’?” he yells with a grin, barely coherent over the mixed sounds of cheers and boos.

you smile, though your boyfriend scowls at the onslaught of paparazzi trying to capture the tender moment. he spits at the see-through wall of the ring to serve as an unspoken “fuck you.” cheers ring out from the sidelines as the screens capture the interaction.

toji turns to you and pushes off of the mesh wall, throwing his hands out with a “tsk” and a shake of his head.

“you worried about me baby?” he teases, fully aware that the cameras are still on him. “you don’t gotta worry about me, right?.”

you laugh, motioning for security to shoo any onlookers off. the mix of adrenaline and attention was clearly getting to him, though you loved when he got cocky like this. he always fucked you hardest after a big win.

the two men settle back into the middle of the ring, the referee separating them with an stern arm. sukuna looks down at you with an unreadable expression, pinning you to your seat with just a glance. toji’s pink-haired opponent turns back to him with a sinister grin, taking out his mouthguard to speak clearly. you only manage to make out the end of his insult, blood running cold as his words register.

“..and after they give me that title? i might fuck that little girlfriend of yours, fushiguro.”

toji says nothing, expression blank. you begin to wonder if he even heard the other man, but the buzz signifying round 3 pulls you out of your thoughts. you brace for whatever may come next.

sukuna is a brick wall, but toji’s light on his feet, weaving in and out of punches with his gloves guarding his face.

he’s faster than usual, spurred on by adrenaline and anger.

he lands a kick to sukuna’s ribs, the sickening crunch reaching the front row right on impact. definitely two, maybe even three broke ribs you hear a fan spectate.

his opponent curses, landing two punches to his chest before knocking toji to the ground, just barely missing the raven haired man with a solid blow right as he springs upwards.

“you gonna fuck her?” toji scoffs, landing another kick to sukuna’s injured ribs. you can barely make out their conversation even with a front row seat, you doubt anyone in the stands has been able to understand them this whole time.

the pink-haired man winces on impact, his first show of weakness since the beginning of the match.

“huh? tell me.” your boyfriend muses, dodging a kick and throwing sukuna to the floor. cheers ring out in the stadium at the direct show of brutality, you cover your mouth in anticipation.

toji settles his body weight on the man below him, twisting his arm as far as it will go while keeping his face to the floor. his legs wrap around and under the second man, squeezing his injured ribs like a vice with his thighs.

sukuna lands a blow with his free arm, then another, then another. toji does nothing, holding his opponent down with a smile almost too wide, too sinister.

“fuck.. fuck!” sukuna yells, struggling under the weight of the man above him.

the crowd is in hysterics, the announcers are out of their seats. “an unprecedented burst of energy,” you hear them call it. nothing like they’d ever seen before during any of toji’s matches.

you have to fight off the ego boost it gives you, knowing he’s only fighting this hard for you. because another man dared to speak on your name in his presence.

toji takes a couple more punches with that same smile, finally grabbing his opponent’s free arm to render the other man motionless.

you stagger out of your seat, running into the isle to get a better view of the ring.

the referee crouches by the two men, waiting to call the match. sukuna shares a look with third man, groaning before tapping toji’s wrist three times.

the crowd is animalistic. screams, wails, jeers, all of it meshes together within seconds.

toji’s security forms a circle around you, leading you towards the ring as fans flood the isles in celebration.

that was it, he’d won the title. Fushiguro Toji, heavyweight champion.

sukuna is led out of the ring by his team, choosing to forego any post-match interviews. he doesn’t dare look at you as he passes you on the steps, humiliated beyond belief.

calls of your name echo out from the center of the ring, your boyfriend pushing past paparazzi to scoop you into his arms.

the heat from his torso melts into yours as he clutches you to his body. he’s sweaty, practically bleeding from every direction too. but he’s smiling.

it’s not the smile he puts on for press, a quick flash of perfect teeth to keep the morale light, keep his sponsors happy. not the sinister smile he flaunts during matches either, fueled by bloodlust and pure adrenaline.

not even the cocky smile he puts on for the crowd when the match gets tough, the one that gets his opponents mad, gets the crowd hit and bothered.

this smile is soft, private. a small show of love in a sea of flashing cameras and prying eyes. this smile says “i love you, I do this for you.”

you reach for his face, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. toji wipes the blood—his— from your lips with a calloused thumb, pulling your head to his chest with a soft murmur.

“i love you.”

#adah’s asks #i love this ask so much #fushiguro toji #toji x reader #jujutsu kaisen #toji drabbles #toji fluff #jujutsu kaisen toji #toji hcs #toji headcanons #mma fighter toji #mma fighter!toji #mma fighter! toji fushiguro #toji angst #toji x reader fluff #toji x reader angst

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rileyslibrary · 24 days

Text

The elderly lady who owns the convenience store in Simon’s neighbourhood needs help with a faulty fridge. You tag along with Simon and discover more about him than you ever expected.

A/N: Fluff. Cosy read.

———————————————————————

“It’s right there,” Simon says, pointing down the street. “Just need to take care of something quickly.”

You follow his outstretched arm to a convenience store nestled on the corner. Furrowing your brows, you glance back at the street you had just walked down, spotting Simon’s house. It’s very close, you think to yourself. Maybe a three-minute walk away.

That’s weird. You’ve taken that same road to and from Simon’s house many times, yet this is the first time you’ve noticed the store.

Turning your attention back, you look closer at your destination. No wonder you never paid much attention to it. The store seems old and rather inconspicuous, blending into its surroundings seamlessly. Everything is understated, from the building to its decor—if you could even call it that. To the left of the entrance, there’s a stand of old magazines, and on the right, a table with two chairs catches your eye. You glance up at the sign above the entrance.

“Mary Mart,” you read aloud.

“That’s right,” Simon confirms, opening the door and triggering a bell to jingle. “Mary should be inside.”

He holds the door open for you, yet his gaze remains fixed on something inside the store. You step in and follow his line of sight to a lady holding a newspaper up to her face. That must be Mary, you presume.

“You alright, Mary?” Simon asks softly.

Yup, that’s definitely her. The newspaper covers most of Mary’s petite frame as she sits behind the counter. She seems so absorbed by her reading that she didn’t hear you come in.

Simon sighs and shakes his head. He gently taps the back of the newspaper to get her attention. Mary lowers the paper to her nose, and her face lights up immediately at the sight of Simon.

“Didn’t see you there!” Mary shouts, lowering the newspaper to the counter. “You alright, my dear?”

“Yes, Mary,” he murmurs, “neither did you see nor hear us.”

“What?” Mary asks, letting go of the newspaper and cupping her ear.

Simon taps his own ear, indicating that Mary needs to adjust her earpiece. Mary’s eyes widen, and she quickly follows Simon’s lead, turning her earpiece on. She gives him a nod.

“Better now?” Simon asks.

“Much, much better,” Mary confirms, then turns to you with a broader smile. “And who do we have here?”

You politely nod, introducing yourself to Mary, but Simon interjects before you say much.

“So tell me, Mary,” He says, glancing towards the back of the store where the fridges are, “which one’s acting up?”

“Oh, I can’t remember, dear, but it’s hard to miss it,” Mary replies, sighing. “It’s the one with the towels underneath. Keeps dripping water.”

Simon nods, his gaze still focused on the fridges. He begins heading towards the back of the store, and you instinctively follow behind him.

“How lovely of you, Simon,” Mary’s voice sounds from behind you. “Bringing me some company while you take care of that fridge.”

You stop in your tracks, and Simon does, too. Point taken, Mary. You glance towards Simon, and he gives you a nod.

“She’s harmless,” he whispers, brushing your hair back. “And a pretty nice lady.”

“Don’t be long.” You whisper back. “We still need to go get some breakfast.”

Simon nods and continues to the back of the store. With a sigh, you return to the counter where Mary is and settle into a nearby chair.

“Anything newsworthy?” You ask.

“Nothing much, dear,” Mary replies, adjusting her newspaper. “The weather’s terrible, the economy’s getting worse, and people won’t stop killing each other.”

“Oh...” you murmur, “yeah, that’s bad.”

“Well, at least Boots has 20% off on all moisturizers,” she announces, slightly more enthusiastically than one might expect for moisturizers. She picks a pair of scissors from under the counter and starts snipping the voucher.

With Mary on a mission to get that 20% off of that newspaper, you take the opportunity to peek at Simon. He’s kneeling in front of the fridge at the back of the store, focused on the appliance. Occasionally, his brow slightly furrows as he inspects the faulty machine. Then he pauses, nods, and grabs tools or shifts his position to get a better look at it. You, on the other hand, have no idea what he’s doing, nor do you care. You are hungry and caffeine-deprived. You’re pretty sure Simon feels the same way.

Meanwhile, Mary has finished cutting through the voucher and returned to her reading. She often flips through the pages and snaps the newspaper to straighten it and remove wrinkles. Sometimes, she hums, acknowledging her current read. Other times, she clicks her tongue disapprovingly at whatever news she comes across.

And you? Well, you’re bored out of your mind, so you begin scanning the shelves and displays, taking in the assortment of merchandise neatly arranged throughout the store. Your eyes briefly pause on various items—a stack of magazines, a display of snacks, a row of household essentials—before finally settling on an old photograph hanging behind Mary.

In the photograph, a young man wearing a military uniform stands confidently. He appears to be in his late twenties and sports a well-kept moustache. Rather than looking straight ahead, his gaze seems to be directed right behind you. He looks confident. Strong. He feels present, even if he’s not here.

“Handsome, huh?” Mary asks, peering over her glasses before turning towards the picture behind her. “That’s my Walter right there.”

You clear your throat and nod. “Very handsome indeed,” you confirm. “Is he your husband?”

“Was,” Mary corrects with a wistful smile, her eyes drifting back to you. “My very first and last one.”

“Which war?” you ask, gesturing towards his uniform.

“You mean which war he served in or which war he died in?”

“Both,” you shrug.

“Served in too many,” she says proudly, lowering her gaze to her newspaper. “But the war my Walter lost had no guns or weapons.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Mary looks up from her newspaper, meeting your eyes with a tilt of her head and a warm smile.

“Coffee?” she offers but doesn’t let you respond. She has already turned her back to you, brewing a fresh pot.

“No, thank you,” you reply. “We intend to grab some on our way to breakf-”

“I don’t think Simon will finish anytime soon, dear,” she interjects.

“Then yes, please,” you reply, then mouth a silent ‘shit’ to yourself so that Mary doesn’t hear you. You peek once more at the back of the store where Simon is.

“He’s handsome as well, isn’t he?” Mary states, with her back still turned towards you.

You blush at Mary’s observation and look down at the gum assortment in front of the counter. “Yes,” you agree, nodding with a smile. “Yes, he is.”

“Met at the base?” She asks, pouring you a cup of coffee.

“You know where we work?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

“It takes one to know one, dear,” she says, turning towards you and handing you a cup of coffee. “Milk? Sugar?”

“No, thanks,” you reply. “So you also served in the military?”

Mary’s expression shifts, her face lighting up as she lifts her index finger.

“Serve!” she exclaims, “Silly me; I forgot to serve the biscuits!”

She retrieves a plate covered with tin foil from below the counter and uncovers it, pushing the platter towards you. You politely decline, thanking her for the offer. But Mary insists.

“I made them myself,” she tells you warmly.

“And I’m sure they taste lovely, but-”

“Take the biscuit,” Mary commands sternly, yet still smiling.

You look up at her, and without looking back at the plate, you take a biscuit. You don’t know which one you picked, what flavour it is, or if there are any allergens in it. Mary’s assertiveness is enough to make you pop it right into your mouth.

Her smile widens. “Good?” she asks.

The biscuit is indeed good. Very good. But even if it weren’t, you wouldn’t dare say otherwise—not only out of respect for Mary’s age but also because something tells you she might have more experience than the convenience store owner she portrays herself to be.

“They are amazing, Mary,” you reply and swallow.

“Simon likes those too,” she states proudly. “I often bring some over when I bake them.”

“So you live nearby?” You ask, swallowing another bite of the biscuit.

“I’m his landlord,” Mary reveals, nudging the plate of biscuits closer to you, “help yourself to another.”

You oblige and take another biscuit, and Mary continues once you take a bite.

“So,” she begins, blowing the steam off her coffee, “I’ve seen you plenty of times in my neighbourhood.”

“I, um,” you lift one shoulder and idly pick up a pack of chewing gum from the assortment in front of you. “I do come by often.”

“I know,” she replies, sipping her coffee. “You’ve been passing by my store a lot lately.”

You subtly turn your head towards Simon’s direction, letting your hair fall to the side of your face to conceal your blushing cheeks from Mary’s view. Yet she doesn’t seem to let go.

“He’s a good lad,” Mary states. Always there when neighbours need him, ready to lend a hand.”

“Indeed, he’s very good with his hands.” You reply.

“You know best, my dear,” Mary remarks, smirking.

“I meant with fixing things!” You say, widening your eyes. “He’s good with his hands when it comes to fixing things!”

Mary chuckles knowingly. “He’s also quite popular with the ladies—both the single and the taken ones,” she continues.

“Oh, is he now?” You respond in a high-pitched voice, narrowing your eyes. You turn your body towards Mary, placing the chewing gum package back in its original position.

“Yes,” she confirms, leaning over the counter. “Simon never rejects the attention, being such a good-looking lad, but at the same time, he never reciprocates.”

“How do you know he doesn’t reciprocate?”

“Oh, you’d be impressed what people say in front of an old lady who, allegedly, forgets to switch her earpiece on.” She says, winking at you.

“So, women flirt with him, huh?”

Mary throws her head back and chuckles, flicking her wrist at you. “Oh please, my dear,” she says in between chuckles, “I would have practically done the same if I was fifty years younger and Walter wasn’t around.”

“And he doesn’t flirt back?” You ask.

“No, not really, but he used to be friendly with them.” She explains, tilting her head toward you. “And then something changed.”

You shift in your seat and lean forward. “What?” You ask, intrigued. “What changed?”

Mary leans closer, sliding the biscuit platter toward you.

“Mary, I should probably lay off the biscuits,” you say. “We’re supposed to be heading out for breakfast, remember?”

“Make it a brunch, dear, or whatever you young people call it nowadays,” she replies. “Simon won’t be fixing the fridge anytime soon.”

“How do you know?” you ask. “You just said he’s great at fixing things.”

“Not when there’s nothing wrong with the fridge in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” You ask, furrowing your brows.

“I detached the defrost drain to simulate water leakage,” she explains. “It’s an easy fix, but you can oversee it quite easily, especially when the fridge is as old as I am.”

“You tinkered with the fridge on purpose?” you ask, eyes wide with surprise. “Why?”

“Oh please,” she sighs, rolling her eyes, “I had to bring you both here somehow.”

You glance at the cookie platter. Understanding that you won’t get any more information from Mary unless you indulge, you grab another cookie and pop it into your mouth. Mary, the ‘insert-biscuit-here-to-continue’ lady, takes the cue and continues.

“And then, as I was saying, you began to visit more often,” she explains, glancing over at Simon. “And his reaction to all the attention shifted.”

“You need to elaborate a little bit more, Mary,” you press. “How exactly did it change?”

“Girlfriend!” she exclaims in a hushed tone, widening her eyes at you. “He says he has a girlfriend!”

You widen your eyes, just like her, and point at yourself. She nods and points back at you.

“And then there’s the toothbrush,” she continues. “He bought two! A green one and a pink one.”

“He gave me a pink toothbrush when I stayed over for the first time!” you whisper. “Said he’d bought it ages ago and forgotten about it!”

“He bought a pink toothbrush as a spare for himself?” She asks, and her eyes narrow. “Nonsense! It wasn’t too long ago, and I have the receipts.”

“You keep receipts for these things, Mary?”

“No, silly,” she shakes her head. “It’s for tax purposes.”

“Right, so, I’m the girlfriend apparently,” you murmur, massaging your temples. “But why are you telling me all this?”

“Simon isn’t much of a talker, dear,” Mary explains, her tone softening. “Not to mention the horrors he’s been through. Sometimes, you might even misunderstand him because of it. But I’ve known him for a long time. He’s like family to me. Sometimes, when words fail him, I feel the need to speak on his behalf.”

“So you’re looking out for him,” you conclude, slowly nodding.

“Like the child I never had,” Mary confirms with a warm smile, pouring another cup of coffee. “And I can see how much he cares about you. But he’s not always good at expressing it. That’s why I thought I’d give you a little hint.”

“Thank you, Mary,” you say. “I appreciate you looking out for us.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she says, handing you the extra coffee. “Now, how about you go over there and tell Simon to take a break? You can use the chairs outside while I go and reattach the defrost drain to the fridge.”

“Sure thing,” you reply and grab the coffee. “I just have one more question.”

“Go ahead,” she says.

“If Simon asks me what we’ve been talking about, what should I tell him?”

“Tell him I was rambling about the weather, the economy, and the 20% voucher from Boots,” she suggests, winking. “You’re a smart girl; that’s why he picked you. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

———————————————————————

#simon ghost riley x f!reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley x female reader #simon ghost riley x y/n #simon ghost riley fic #simon ghost riley fluff #simon ghost riley imagine #simon ghost riley fanfiction #simon ghost riley #simon riley x female reader #simon riley x f!reader #simon riley fluff #simon riley x y/n #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley #call of duty #cod ghost

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sserasin · 1 month

Text

ruination

cw nsfw under cut, noncon, dead dove do not eat, female reader, degradation, car sex, use of degrading names (fucktoy, slut, cumdump), choking, overstimulation, heeseung cums inside.

“what did you fuckin’ expect?” heeseung grunts, your hair wrapped around his fist as he pulls your body up against his, breath hitting your ear. your eyes are squeezed shut, small whimpers escaping your mouth the harder heeseung slams into you. “going around and wearing shit like that? wanna go show off your ass and tits to a bunch of horny fuckers, might as well give you what you wanted.”

“hee—heeseu—” a loud cry leaves your lips when he gives a swift but just as hard smack to your ass, barely even able to feel the sting from the millionth time he’s done this.

“shut the fuck up,” he pushes your head back down into the backseat, “fucktoys don’t talk.”

squeezing your eyes shut tighter didn’t do anything for your tears, just pushing them out even quicker. if you could think of something happier… but the feeling of him stuffing you full was overwhelming, making you lose grasp of reality.

“you can’t fool me,” heeseung hisses your name through gritted teeth, as if he’s even disgusted to say your name, “saying you’re a virgin… no virgin would be easily sucking me in like this.”

your head turns to the side, revealing your teary eyes with tears rushing down your cheeks, “heeseung, p-please, stop. i-it hurts!”

“‘cause you like it like that,” he huffs, hips snapping into yours at a brutal pace. “like all dirty sluts do. you like to be put in your place, you like the pain. i know you do.”

you gasp out in a mix of mortification and pleasure as the head of his cock kisses your cervix. heeseung notices, chuckling as he pulls out without warning and flips you over, quick to push himself back in your wet, puffy cunt. you whimper at the intrusion, blinking back tears as you keep your eyes on the necklace that swings from his neck in your face.

“see, i knew you liked it,” he whispers, leaning down to press his lips to yours only for you to turn your head to the side so his mouth was against your cheek. his brow raises, slowly thrusting in and out of you but with enough force to make your entire body move. “i suggest you let me kiss you.”

with tears streaming down your cheeks, you turn and keep still as he moves his lips against yours, not all caring that you weren’t responding to the kiss. he was right. you were a dirty slut, weren’t you? you had to be— how else could you be this wet?

heeseung pulls back, glee in his eyes, “i’ve always wanted to do that.” his eyes then darken, “but you never gave me the time of day, did you?” you didn’t notice his hand had moved to your collarbone, slowly increasing your anxiety as his hand finally rests on your neck. his rings are cold around your burning hot neck. he doesn’t squeeze, not yet. “stupid slut was always busy fucking around with her friends’ boyfriends and giving fuck me eyes to all the wrong guys.”

your eyes widen, “no, no,” you attempt to shake your head, but his hand tightens around your neck. your eyes dart to his necklace again, trying to copy the calm swing and repeat it with your breathing. up, in. down, out. but it’s your mistake— heeseung’s grip keeps getting tighter and tighter.

“i told you, you can’t fool me,” heeseung says, eyes burning a hole straight through you. you’re letting out choked gasps, but it only has his cocking twitching inside you.

dots begin to blur your vision, chest tightening with the squeeze on your neck. your walls tighten around his cock in retaliation, making him groan before letting go of your neck and lifting your leg up over his shoulder. there’s a burning in your thigh, but it doesn’t matter when your vision isn’t just colors anymore and all you see is a blurred heeseung over you.

“i’m going to ruin you and that perfect fucking image of yours,” he snaps his hips up, immediately slamming into your g-spot. your hands clutch at the top of the car seat, squeezing your eyes shut and biting down on your lip. think of something else. not his cock hammering repeatedly into you, not the tightening in your stomach or your legs trembling. you wish you could focus on the necklace again.

you cream around his cock, a weak whimper finally leaving your mouth. but heeseung continues to fuck you, his thick cock dragging against your walls. the pleasure soon turned into pain again, grunts coming from his lips as your hand weakly tries to push him away, “ah, ah, heeseu— stop! ‘t’s too fast, please—“ you weakly sob out, but not a tear leaves your eyes. you wonder if you’ve cried all your tears out.

“shut up,” he groans, hips snapping up to hit the soft spongy spot with each word, “and lay there and fucking take it.” his hand comes to grip your jaw, pulling you into a kiss as his thrusts become weak and sloppy. “f—fuck, i’m go—going to fill you up with my cum,” he grunts making your eyes widen.

“wh—what?” you stammer, fists trying to punch him away again. “heeseung, don’t—”

“ruin y—you for all oth—other guys,” he continues like you’re not even talking, writhing under him for him to get off. “no guy wants a fucking cumdump as their girlfriend,” he grits out, bottoming out in you with a low groan and releases inside of you with three quick squirts. his head is thrown back, ecstasy shown on his face as he pants above you.

you watch him through lidded eyes, hoping this was it. he was done with you. you could go get plan b, and forget this day ever happened.

heeseung’s head lowers, dark eyes settling on you and dread begins to fill your chest again. you can feel his cock hardening in you again, a squeak leaving your lips as it stretches out your abused walls.

“i’m not done with you yet,” he whispers in your ear, pressing a soft kiss under your jaw. it feels misleading. “i told you i was going to ruin you.”

#cw noncon #tw noncon #heeseung.txt #enha.txt #writing.txt #1k #heeseung smut #enhypen smut #dead dove do not eat #dead dove fic #kpop smut #enhypen hard thoughts #enhypen hard hours

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microclown · 4 months

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I was rewatching s1e3 and something finally clicked for me..

Please forgive me if this seems obvious to you. It helps me to type out my thoughts, but I'm sure I'm just an idiot and no one else needs this explained to them, lol. That said - I was always slightly confused by the emotional weight of the holy water arc during the flashback sequence. Particularly I was confused by how angry Crowley got when Aziraphale referred to their relationship as fraternizing in the 1862 fight. I mean, "to associate or form a friendship with someone, especially when one is not supposed to" is exactly what they are doing, right? So why the 80 year breakup?

Crowley says he wants the holy water for if "it" all goes pear shaped. The phrasing is necessarily vague, and could mean lots of things. Since I know what he eventually uses it for, I was thinking about it in the context of Armageddon, or maybe more generally and vaguely about Crowley not always choosing to go along with Hell, and associating with Aziraphale. But there was not much reason for Crowley to already be thinking about Armageddon back then.

As we know from the full diary entry Neil posted, the timeline of the Edinburgh entry, and the cut bookshop opening scene, it seems like Crowley and Aziraphale were spending A LOT of time together by the 1800's. When Crowley is pulled back down to Hell in 1827, he learns that Hell is paying more attention to him than he'd previously thought. Crowley realizes at this point that spending so much time with Aziraphale is actively putting him in real danger. He recognizes that, and instead of breaking things off, or seeing Aziraphale less, he doubles down. If this relationship is dangerous, then he wants the tools to fight for it.

That's what I think I didn't get about the holy water request. It's not just general insurance, it's specifically insurance for if Hell finds out about him and Aziraphale. It's also a super vulnerable request because in making it, Crowley is openly acknowledging how important their relationship is to him. Aziraphale casually brings up the arrangement at the beginning of the conversation, and that's part of it, right? Because the whole basis of their relationship is the arrangement. It continues to be the pretense under which they meet, despite the relationship clearly having developed beyond that. And the arrangement, as Crowley proposed it in 537, is born out of convenience, and the assumption that Heaven and Hell would never notice anyway.

Crowley's request for insurance breaks that facade. He's acknowledging that it's not convenient, or safe, but he wants to do it anyway, despite the risk.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is not ready for the screen to be taken away so abruptly. To make it worse, he assumes Crowley wants the holy water as an escape, rather than a weapon. Suddenly he is confronted with both the danger their association poses, and the idea that Crowley might choose to take his own life. He can't imagine the guilt of being directly responsible for the latter.

I also think the strength of his own emotional response to the thought of losing Crowley catches Aziraphale off guard. He hasn't admitted to himself how much he actually cares, and it scares him. Worrying about Heaven is more comfortable and familiar, so he falls back on that and switches to "If they knew I'd been... fraternizing!"

But bringing up the threat of Heaven reads to Crowley as Aziraphale saying "You may be willing to put yourself at risk for the sake of our relationship, but I am not." The word choice of "fraternizing" comes off as a dismissive and demeaning way to describe a relationship that Crowley just admitted he would risk his life for.

It's an unintentionally deep cut when Crowley is already at his most vulnerable, and so he lashes out. As far as we've seen, this is possibly the first time Crowley has truly lashed out at Aziraphale. So yeah, 80 year breakup makes sense!

And what makes this so much worse is what happens next. Crowley reaches out again in 1941 with a dramatic gesture (rescuing Aziraphale from the Nazis, saving his books). It's clear they've missed each other. They don't discuss the fight, but it's there subtextually. Aziraphale, tentatively and thrillingly, refers to them as friends, for the first time ever. He tells Crowley that he trusts him.

And then, that very same night their worst fears are confirmed. Just when they've finally reconciled a fight over the dangers of their relationship, and just when Aziraphale has finally admitted that it is not a relationship of convenience, but genuine friendship, they are exposed. Crowley is going to face punishment from Hell, explicitly for being Aziraphale's "trusted confident", and he doesn't have insurance. If Aziraphale's trick hadn't succeeded, Crowley would have had no way to protect himself.

idk it just makes me feel things ok

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow

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hyukalyptus · 7 months

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something nice — sub!fem!reader x dom!yeonjun x servicetop!kai

cw. reader is in an established (open) relationship with yeonjun, cucking? (kai eats reader's pussy while yj watches lol), cunnilingus ofc, nipple play, orgasm denial, edging, pet names (baby, jjun), begging, mention of "punishment" but nothing's ever done, yeonjun and kai talk about reader and what they're gonna do to her (without her understanding—everything is consensual in the beginning, but read note below), let me know if there's anything else. notes. IMPORTANT: ok so the tea with this one. the idea here is that the reader doesn't speak korean well and kai and yj are speaking korean to kinda talk about the reader and what they're gonna do to her so she doesn't understand. nothing aggressive, just describing what to do to her body so she's kinda surprised? SO!! anything in italics is in korean. thats important!! also idk how i feel about this???? smut under cut. wc. 1.5K

“Did she give you a reason or did she just break up with you?” You’re eavesdropping on Yeonjun and Kai—not that they’re being very secretive. They’re talking about a woman Kai’s been seeing while you play video games and attempt to translate in your head, but you're not being too successful, catching a few words here and there.

“She did say one thing,” Kai says hesitantly. “But it’s kinda embarrassing.”

“What is it?”

“Well,” he starts, scooting closer to Yeonjun to awkwardly whisper something to him, twiddling his thumbs, running his fingers through his hair.

“Oh,” Yeonjun chuckles. “That’s…man, if you get really good at that, you could date anyone.”

“What are you talking about?” You finally pause your game, curiosity getting the best of you. Looking up, Kai looks like you caught him stealing cookies from a cookie jar while Yeonjun tries to hold back a chuckle. The three of you exchange looks until Yeonjun rolls his eyes to bluntly say—

“Eating women out.”

“Yeonjun—!” Kai says, shoving his arm.

“What?” He chuckles, returning the shove. “I eat her out all the time. She knows what it is. She knows you eat pussy too.”

“But that’s why that woman broke up with you?” You ask. “Because you…you're bad at eating pussy?” He blushes, averting his attention to the floor while he clasps his hands together, nodding shyly.

“Be honest, babe—am I good at eating you out?”

Looking between the two of them, you sit up and say, “Yeah, you’re probably the best I’ve had, but we’re super compatible, you know? We’re, like, super in love. That makes a big difference sometimes.”

Holding back a cocky smile, he asks, “But, objectively, I’m pretty good, right?” You shrug and nod—really, he probably is the best you’ve ever had, but that’s another story.

“What makes it good?” Kai asks.

Humming, you think before saying, “First, he doesn’t go straight for it.” Turning red and ears getting warm, you gush and— “Oh god, Kai, don’t look at me when I tell you this.”

“Ah, this is ridiculous,” Yeonjun exasperates. “Do you just wanna practice on her?” You both whip your heads in his direction. “If you’re comfortable with it, of course,” he says to you. “Just thought it might be helpful.”

Oh, how did you end up here? Laying in Yeonjun's bed, clenching your thighs together out of nervousness. “Remember, this is kinda specific to her. Pay attention to what whoever you’re with wants.” Kai nods, kneeling at the foot of the bed.

“She already said this—” Yeonjun says. “I don’t go straight for it. I kiss her first, then make my way down there.”

“You want him to kiss me?”

He shrugs and says, “If you’re alright with that.”

“If you are,” you say, looking Kai in the eyes. Both of them can’t help but notice the confidence you seem to be exuding, especially compared to Kai. Trembling fingers reaching for your cheek, he looks at you for permission one final time. Finally leaning in, his lips press to yours.

You’d forgotten what it was like to have a first kiss with someone. Kai’s kisses are different from Yeonjun’s. Kai’s are much more cautious, more careful—not necessarily shy, but careful. It quickly turns hot and heavy. But you remember Yeonjun is watching you, suddenly overtaken with bashfulness, you break the kiss to glance over at him.

Him and that sinister smile.

Turning back to Kai, you crash into his lips again, humming into his mouth and smirking to rub how much you're enjoying this in Yeonjun's face.

“Touch her,” Yeonjun says. “Kinda slowly, but then a little more intense.” Kai does as he’s told, his hand dragging up your hip to squeeze your tits. “Under her shirt.”

His hand on the outside of your bra feels new and exciting. Reaching around your back to unhook it, you break the kiss to take your shirt off, pulling at the hem of his.

“Slow down for a second,” Yeonjun chuckles and Kai listens, placing gentle kisses to your collarbone. “Lick her nipples.” Swirling his tongue around your nipple, you gasp, reaching for his hair. “Pay attention to which one she likes better.”

Kai tests both, slyly licking between the two. After testing the waters, he picks correctly. You chuckle thinking about Yeonjun sitting on a chair across the room, smirking in approval. You could look for yourself, but you can’t bring yourself to open your eyes.

“Keep licking her until her hips roll.” This is a bit crazy, isn’t it? The guy you love telling another man how to fuck you the way you like. “Not yet.” Yeonjun switches to Korean, making you roll your eyes. If you didn’t have the energy to translate in your head earlier, you definitely can’t focus enough to translate now.

Lips trailing down your body, he tugs at your shorts, but keeps your cute pink panties on. Yeonjun talks him through every move—to lick his thumb and rub your nipple, to press his nose to the outside of your panties, to skate his lips across your inner thighs.

Your hips roll uncontrollably, practically begging him to taste you.

“Kai—” You whisper, your body instantly burning at the sound of the both of them chuckling. Pulling your panties down and off your legs, he throws them to Yeonjun who happily wads them up to sniff them and smell how delicious you are.

Licking his thumb again, he keeps rubbing circles over your nipple as he finally licks your clit, your back arching as soon as he touches it.

“Fuck—” You say breathlessly, looking down at him as his eyes sparkle up at you, your head dropping to your pillow with a thud. “Who the fuck is this bitch that says you’re bad at this?” He shakes his head, digging deeper into your pussy.

Smiling cockily, you look over at Yeonjun, trying to control his breathing. He can’t help it—the two of you are just too hot together. He's never been able to enjoy this kind of view before. Seeing how every part of your body reacts to being touched—it's an incredible view.

“Please tell me he’s allowed to make me cum, baby,” You beg.

“Of course,” he chuckles smugly. “If he can.” Kai’s eating you out like he’s absolutely starving. And it’s true—he can’t help it. You taste too fucking good.

Your eyes squeeze shut as you start squeaking, throwing your head back.

“Okay, that sound means she’s gonna cum soon. Try to bring her as close to the edge as possible and then stop.”

“Fuck, Kai,” you breathe. “Right there—yes.” You can’t believe how good he is at this, especially given the reason you're under his tongue right now. He’s supposed to be bad at this, right?

You’re so fucking close and he can feel it. “Don’t stop—” he brings you right there. And then he does it. He stops. “Agh, fuck you,” you groan. Looking down at him, his smirking at you, eyes flashing between you and Yeonjun.

He doesn’t waste too much time before getting back to your pussy, flicking his tongue over your clit.

“Take it away from her for a bit. Lick her nipples again.” He does just that. You’re aching, bucking your hips over and over, desperately trying to relieve some kind of tension. But his tongue does feel amazing on your tits. Threading your fingers through his hair, you tug at it hard. He groans, his mouth dropping open like you just unlocked a new kink of his.

Now he can’t take it anymore. Hips jutting forward, you feel the roughness of his sweatpants drag against your center, relieving some of that tension. You gasp, resorting to begging him to get back to licking you.

“No, don’t,” Yeonjun says sternly.

“But I want to,” Kai whines back, looking at your pussy hungrily, sticking the tip of his tongue out, giving his best begging eyes. But Yeonjun just shakes his head, satisfied with watching you uncontrollably rolling your hips up toward Kai’s mouth. Kai compromises, wrapping his hands around the backs of your thighs to yank you closer to him and presses his lips to the skin right around your clit, teasing you even more.

“Babe—” you breathe, begging Yeonjun with your eyes to let him continue licking you.

“I know, baby, I know…” he responds, his voice low and rough. He finally lets him lick you again. But he doesn’t show much mercy. He repeats the same tactic over and over—having him bring you right to the edge, even to the point of tears, then he stops right in his tracks.

"I'm gonna tell you to stop, but I want you to keep going, okay?" Kai nods, agreeing to his instructions. Bringing you to the edge again, you're begging for mercy, begging to cum. "Don't let her cum, Kai," he says, making tears form in your eyes. "Stop—"

And he does.

"I told you to let her cum that time."

"Sorry," he smiles up at him, licking his lips. "It's so fun to see her beg like that though." Tilting his head toward you, he says, "Look at her...she's got tears in her eyes. Isn't that the hottest fucking thing you've ever seen?"

"It's okay, baby," he says, fingers flowing through your hair while Kai's mouth finds your clit again. You're moaning, gasping for air, swearing, screaming, anything to try to find a release. "Not yet. Don't let her fucking cum, Kai." You don't think you can handle this much longer. Edging is nice, yes, but this? This is bordering torture.

"Please, please, please, Jjun..." you trail off. "Just please let me cum. I can't take it anymore."

"I know you can take it, baby. Fucking taking it so well..."

It's building again. That knot in your stomach that gets tighter and tighter with every second. That white hot fire in the pit of your stomach waiting to explode.

"Don't stop, Kai," you blurt. "I'm gonna cum—" Slamming your palm over your mouth—you shouldn't have said that. He's gonna make you regret saying that.

"Don't let her cum," he orders.

But his grip gets tighter. His tongue licks furiouser. His face digs deeper. You're so fucking close. Closer than you've ever been tonight.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, Kai..." your orgasms crashes over you like a bolt of lightning. "Yes, fuck yes, that feels so fucking good." You feel like you're having an out of body experience. It's one of the best fucking orgasms of your life. "Don't stop, right there." You chest heaves with heavy breaths.

Coming down from one of the best orgasms of your life, your vision clears up and all you keep thinking is how much Yeonjun's gonna make you pay for this. You came without his permission—what's he gonna do now? Everything flashes across your mind: not letting you cum for a week, spanking you until your ass had his hand print on it, tying you up for hours, you're not sure.

But he doesn't do any of that. His hand caresses your cheek as he smiles down at you, "Did that feel good, baby?"

Confused, you nod, "Mhmm." You're still nervous, looking around at everyone's reactions. Kai's smirking while he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Bad at eating pussy my ass," you say, shoving his shoulder with your foot.

"Ah, I knew you a had a little crush on him...I've seen how you look at him." Your face turns beet red. He's noticed that? Oh god... "I just wanted to do something nice for my baby."

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