#i saved hours if my life by not actually watching them and i think its more fun to hear it from someone who loves it

[definitelynotshouting]

context: ik most of my asks are pretty disorganized, stream of consciousness type of thing but GEEZ this got out of hand. you know that thing cats do when they bring you a dead mouse and *they're* super proud of it and you're just like dude.. why /lh

i usually put whatever my immediate thoughts are after reading the chapter and this time i thought it might be fun to write it out before. can you tell im running on five hours of sleep?? lmk if this made any coherent sense because even i dont understand it!!

so last chapter ripped my heartt out and stomped on it. i am LIVING for the way this whole thing was written, gorgeous prose as always <3. i was very curious as to wether Mumbo would question Grian but i think him NOT doing that was SO in character, and i adore it. I feel like w/ some fics (my own writing included) Scar is the ONLY one Grian relies on for support (in ANY area), and whenever Mumbo is even in the picture, he's just kinda "there", he doesn't check up on Grian or broach the topic of whatever is currently plaguing our little bird guy (basically, he's not involved in Grian's life despite being "his best friend"). And the way you characterized him was just So Real?? I would wager a guess (correct me if im wrong ofc) that part of it is that he just DOESNT know, (because Grian is oh so good at telling half truths and privately justifying his self sabotage) but a part of it is also him being lowkey willfully ignorant. he doesnt WANT Grian to be sick (mentally or otherwise) but definetly knows that SOMETHING is up. he really WANTS to help fix whatever is going on (evident by the gold farm) but he doesnt know what Grian needs or how to help him.

i have been OBSESSING over how Grian saying goodnight to Mumbo was ACTUALLY his goodbye to him but Mumbo DOESNT KNOW AND ITS EATING ME ALIVE. (also thought it was super interesting how Grian sort of took Mumbo leaving to sleep as "permission" to do the deed)

side ish note: how tf does Grian even plan to do that?? ik he's got the spider eyes and i *think* he's planning to turn the healing potions into weakness potions but like?? how is he going to do that??? i would assume that the gang would be watching the potions AS they were brewing, and even if they weren't, healing potions and weakness potions are.... vastly different colors. (unless im mixing them up with something else). also aren't they going to walk in on him prepping or already being in the middle of it and just save him like last time? the team as a whole has done a pretty good job on keeping an eye on Grian (from just a "this person can't walk" standpoint) so far. is he waiting for a chance when everyone is busy or does he plan to use MORE weakness potions to make it stronger or quicker?? im interested to see if he's even going to follow The Plan, because up until this point he's been pretty careful with trying to make plans and sneak around EXCEPT for the spider eyes basement adventure, which makes me wonder is he'll get more frantic/desperate as the appointed time draws closer.

Real talk though, Mumbo (and everyone else) is going to be beating himself up over not noticing when stuff goes down (which i would assume would be next chapter, but idk). Also, the fact that Grian asked him to stay means A LOT. To me (and idk if this is what you meant to convey) that signals that a part of him WANTS to stay. theres a part of him that wants to continue to experience the comfort and joy he gets from his friends, but he feels like he's only going to continue to hurt them, so to him this is the ONLY option to keep them safe. also the majority of his existence is just misery and pain so thats probably not helping. (PLUS the whole slew of mental health issues, this is not purely self sacrificial).

anyway, i LOVED this chapter as always, it was like chicken noodle soup for my overworked little soul and i savored every bit of it!! (also, no need to apologize for not having enough spoons!! i dont have any chronic illnesses but i know that shit sucks. this is a particularly long ask for me so dont feel compelled to answer everything in it, or answer right away. hope ur doing well <3)

-🐛

BUG ANONNNN THIS COMMENT IS SO SWEET AND I LOVED READING IT OMGGGG

you hit the nail exactly on the head for where im going with mumbo's characterization-- there is 100% a level of willful ignorance there. Ive always felt like mumbo is the kind of guy who has a thing about avoidance-- he feels very much like a character who will absolutely do his best to ignore things that hes decided arent his business (right up until he stops LMFAO) and part of that in hunger au is him being so anxious for grian to get better that he stops looking at the red flags grian is aggressively waving around. It'll work out!! He's sure of it!! Grian even directly said he's trying to get better!! And i think if he looked at that for longer than it takes for him to flinch away from the entire subject, he would see how much of a bald lie that is.

But he doesnt, because thats a LOT to deal with, and hes never really??? Seen this side of Grian before??? Not the way Pearl and Scar have. Theres a lot of intricacy there that i feel im skimming over but like Mumbo is very much keeping his own sanity in mind here too and thats another painful factor to the whole situation. Idk i have lots of thoughts about it and about the choice here to depict Mumbo giving in to that willful ignorance, and how its going to affect his and Grian's relationship in the future of the fic

(Quick tw for frank discussions of suicide below)

You've also completely nailed the subtext i was getting at with Grian asking Mumbo to stay-- smth ive always felt is a bit underrepresented in narratives like these are how at its most base core, suicide and suicidal ideation are often about needing something to fundamentally change in your life. It takes a LOT of both hopelessness and sheer willpower to actively try and overcome your body's instinctive will to survive. That instinct is baked into our very cells; when someone commits, it means their hopelessness for meaningful change to happen in their lives was so strong it overpowered everything else. And that is something deeply, deeply tragic, and also something i really wanted to respectfully highlight in this portrayal-- how bad things are when you spiral that far. Grian is starving to death. He wasnt lying about maybe having a week to live-- the intermittent feeding has kept him alive longer than anticipated, but its like trying to wall off an avalanche; theres only so much you can do in the face of all that :( and that hopelessness, in combination with how guilty he feels for what he did to his friends, has manifested in him feeling like his only recourse is to kill himself... but at the same time, that instinct to survive and KEEP SURVIVING is still blaring in his veins, and that manifests as him asking Mumbo to stay. Its a bit paradoxical, but its meant to really show how bad his mental state is, that he is willfully ignoring all the frantic signals his body is screaming at him to try and stay alive rn 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Also, with the potions-- without revealing too much about how this is going to happen, Grian is planning on making fermented spider eyes and using them to turn the healing potions into harming potions, which he'll then drink in the in-between to make sure he dies immediately. Now.. i know how this is gonna go, and i know the exact mechanics around how this is gonna shake out, but smth to keep in mind is hes not thinking logically anymore, he has FULLY capitulated to his own storm of emotional wreckage. So yes there are DEFINITELY some questions to be asked about how hes gonna try and get this done, but in all honesty they mostly boil down to "sheer opportunity" which you'll see a bit more of in the next chapter >:] but yeah its meant to be a bit illogical skdbwkdjskd since he just isnt thinking coherently anymore at this point :(

Bug anon thank u for my entire life this comment was so sweet and so wonderful to receive, i really love it when my writing is analyzed like this and seen and understood!!! Its amazing its such a wonderful feeling to have your work be seen like this and its something i very much do not take for granted :]]]❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ tysm for the ask i am seriously treasuring it SO MUCH rn (and also thank you for the well-wishes!! Im doing my best to stay silly out here HEHE)❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Why watch a show when you can instead find someone who's passionate about a show and ask them to explain it

[hearts4chriss]

𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐬𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝.

𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄'𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

Brothers bestfriend! Chris + needy! Nate’s lil sis

prompt: Nate ( ur older brother ) wants to go out for a bit with some of his other friends and he doesn’t trust you enough to stay home by urself without mom and dad since they won’t be there either. So he asks one of his best friend Chris to stay over and watch you, Matt and nick know ur crush on Chris so they pretend they can’t come.

Part 01

contains: masturbation ( no actual sex ), use of y/n ( sorry I have to ) dirty fantasies ( pet names, rough! Chris, dirty talk, degrading, forced head etc just beyond FILTHLY imagination ), use of vibrator on reader, caught by Chris, FORESHADOWING, fantasy will be like this

Nate are you serious I’m not 12! I whine when said he was gonna find a baby sitter for me knowing how much it pisses me off

I’m Nate doe’s little sister I’m 18, we’ve Been close to his bestfriends the sturniolo triplets. So obviously him being my brother naturally I got to know them.

Nick

I clicked with him superrr fast, I love his energy and when I found out he was gay that just made it all the better because I’ve always wanted a gay bestfriend, and we always have sleepovers :)

Matt

Matt’s absolutely adorable I love him he always helps me calm down whenever I’m about to or am having a panic attack, I remember one time during a test I forgot everything and almost had one and he slid me the answers. Love that kid

now there’s a reason I saved Chris for last,

Chris

chris and I know each other just as well if not even more then I do his other two brothers, we haven’t done anything unfortunately. I’ve had a crush on him since middle school.

First I just wanted to kiss him and hold his hand.

Then go to his house and do some more.

Then now, as an 18 year old I wanted him to fuck my Brains out.

I’m around him all the time since we all live in LA and always hanging out, I always see him shirtless and fucking hell it turns me on, I always get lucky since nick and matt found of my attraction to his brother they always snap me or text me pictures of him.

What sucks is I cant have him. It would take my life 1000 times over for me to be able to fuck chris sturniolo, and it sucks because my brother nate does not play that shit.

He strictly said "your not allowed to date any of them" obviously referring to matt and Chris.

Which also doesn't help because my wants and desires a hormonal teenage-adult girl only grow more whenever he comes around, chris is always there.

Now today, nate had to run some errands and nick matt and chris used to watch me when I was younger if my parents couldn't

Buttt, nick and matt "could not come due to personal issues" so. Your guess is right, im gonna be alone with chris for hours.

That thought alone made me soak in my p-

“Y/n! are you listening to me kid?” My older brother chuckles leaning against my doorway of my room as im on my bed watching "The Vampire Diaries".

“Huh? oh yeah im listening matt and nick cant come so chris is because im fucking 11.” I roll my eyes hiding my excitement from him watching me.

“Don't think of any weird shit alright? He's just watching you so don't-“

“Ugh is he here yet? You're annoying me already.” I groan shifting in my sheets and taking a sip from my celsius hearin our door open, they have a key.

“Welp thats chris.” Nate says tilting his head for me to get up.

I get up from the sheets wearing some pink sleep shorts and a white t-shirt and he raises an eyebrow.

“Your wearing THAT? around chris?” Nate chuckles and I flip him off.

“Hey! I heard that!.” Chris yells coming up the stairs sounding offended.

He's now at the top of the steps. oh my fuck he looks so good.

Its around 6ish in LA right now and hes wearing a black tank top and grey fresh love sweats, slight stubble and his hair was a bit messy which I always liked and my eyes immediately drifted to his natural bulge in his pants as him and Nate were talking.

“Just make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble.” Nate puts his arm around me giving me a hug and Chris chuckles.

“Don’t worry bro she’s safe with me.” He says before dapping him up as Nate leaves the house. yeah safer if you were balls deep inside

Oh god Chris sh-shit so-d-deep inside me

Yeah? You feel me deep inside you baby?

bro she’s like zoning out today. Nate chuckled and I snap out of it

Whatever no I wasn’t! Just go!

Soon after it was just me and Chris so we made our way down to the living room

“Where are ur other two clones?” I chuckle getting situated on the couch before turning on a movie saltburn

“they have “personal issues”.” He said rolling his eyes causing a small laugh to fall from my lips.

“So it’s just you and me little one.” A smirk curving on his lips, just enough for my panties to be soaked.

Shut up Chris I’m 18.I mutter trying to watch the movie in peace and he chuckles

the movie went on and it was now, the bathtub scene where jacob elordi ( Felix ) is jerking off.

I peer over to Chris whose eyes are clearly fixated on the screen as my squeeze my thighs together under the blanket feeling all my hormonal thoughts leaking through my panties.

This had nothing to do with the movie, it’s the thought for Chris doing that to himself that had turned me on most. The tension so thick a knife couldn’t even cut through.

“Uhm I-i gotta go to the bathroom”. I nearly choke and I fix my shorts placing the blanket down where I was sitting.

“Don’t take to long I’ll miss you.” He chuckles and that didn’t help.

I go to my room and close the door squeezing my eyes shut.

I had maybe 5 minutes to relieve myself.

I quickly reach into my drawer grabbing my vibrating dildo and the remote for it.

I pull down my shorts and panties and spread my legs letting the tip of the toy get coated in my wetness and I bite my lip slightly feeling the thickness of it.

I turned it on letting out a soft moan slowly inserting it, wishing this was Chris’s dick instead.

I began thrusting the toy in and out of my pussy letting the squelching sounds of arousal grow letting it drip down curling my toes throwing my head on the pillows allowing my mind to drift

I was in Chris’s/my room my head smushed in the pillows as his cock rammed inside me whilst I was on my stomach. His hips slamming against my ass and his hand wrapped around my lower stomach as I cried out his name

Fuck fuckk so d-deep- I whimper into the pillows as he was bringing me to my 4th orgasm, we had switched numerous positions and my legs were quivering in front of him as he laid a hard snack to my ass chucking behind me.

such a fucking slut letting me fuck you like this, imagine if ur brother found out his little sister was getting her pussy pounded by his bestfriend. He laid another harsh smack to my ass and I jolted forward.

stretched this pussy out so good- he groans rubbing my clit to chase both our orgasms.

ngh- o-oh shit- fuck- I gripped the sheets tightly curses of Chris’s name flew out my mouth feeling my eyes water from the angle of his hips thrusting allowing his thick cock to hit every single spot inside me

come on sweetheart cum for me, you have another one in you yeah? He grunted lowly in my ear kissing me sloppily as a string of Saliva parts from our lips each time we kiss moaning into each others mouths.

“Oh fuck Chris I-“ I curl my toes and yell loudly as I’m about to release on the toy before I look up and see Chris. Was. Watching me.

“Were you playing with yourself?” Chris leans on the doorway of my room his eyes darting to between ny legs as I was thrusting the toy in and out of me and I quickly covered up my cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“Uhm…maybe. Sorry I-I’ll be down in a second-“

Maybe I can help. Chris says closing the door to my room approaching my bed

@mattsleftnipple03 @bernardsleftbootycheek @sturniolopowers @gdsvhtwa @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @worldlxvlys @chrisslut25 @princessbetsy123-blog @mattslolita @guccifrog @blahbel668 @mattsneezing @trickywritters @hearts4chris

@nonamegirlxsturniolo @luvmxtt @theyluv-meee @mattsnymphette @hoesformatt @luv4kozume @kikisturnioloo @pepsiimaxx @babyddolly @iiheartstef @junnniiieee07 @ast3ro1dzz @sturniolowhore @st7rnioioss @emma4eva @braindead4l @ihearttsyouu @blondiesjailer @kqyslyho3 @sturnsfav @sunsetsturniolos @sturniololoverr @stqrnstars @dlyansworld @soimightlikeoldmen69 @abbie13sworld @lacysturniolo @sturniol0s @chrissgirlsstuff @leah-loves-lilies @luhsexcbihh @nicksmainbitch

[martyrlamb]

✶ when the clock strikes / leon kennedy

pairing: leon kennedy x gn!reader

summary: you’re starting to think a certain agent might be faking his injuries to see you.

tags: sfw, pure fluff, a bit of angst as a treat, love at first sight basically, silly workplace love story, nurse!reader, 1 year post re4r!leon, no use of y/n, extremely mildly passively suggestive, leon takes his shirt off twice (woohoo!), kissing, swearing, leon is awkward as hell, you are too though so it’s okay, description of bruises, cuts and a muscle knot (not detailed), medical talk, slight mention of gore and blood, reader has a backstory, reader has a mother.

note: i blinked and suddenly there were 8k words in my doc idek how that happened. im actually so nervous to post because this is my first one shot ever!! my cherry has been popped… but also apologies if things are kind of all over the place bc im still trying to get the swing of it all. trying to write in the present tense was like being beat over the head repeatedly so im sure theres many grammatical mistakes in that department

word count: 8.5k (got possessed sorry)

Everyone thought you were crazy when you accepted the offer. 

It is crazy—but you aren’t stupid. You knew what you were getting into a long time ago as a nurse; people get hurt, and then you save them. Clockwork.

Years ago, you started studying to be a nurse in some middle of nowhere midwestern school. You remembered the rolling hills and the ungodly heavy blankets of snow that fell during the winter months, the fallen leaves that the snow covered. It was all so peaceful for a while… until the outbreak.

You never saw it coming, no one did, really. At least, you hope no one predicted the atrocities that were about to be witnessed by thousands of innocents without warning.

Gnashing teeth and hands with dried blood that streaked down arms like veins plagued the memory of that point in your life. It was surreal to believe that you got up that morning and made your breakfast like any other day, you slid your shoes on and grabbed your keys, and then your foot hit the front porch and the trajectory of your life changed permanently. 

The virus started as a woman with red-ringed eyes and pallid skin that reflected off of the blinding overhead lights—she looked visibly ill. That’s all that mattered at the time. You were actually the one who situated her and her husband in their room, he smiled at you and thanked you for your time and you scribbled down notes before hanging the clipboard and leaving the room for the doctor. The screeching horror music plays when you get to this part of the memory.

A type of calm before the storm. You hold your breath every time.

A few hours later people started screaming, and someone—something ran out of that room and wrenched its grip on the first person it saw. Blue scrubs dyed a nasty crimson, like crushed raspberries on cloth. The next part is a blur of running, watching your coworkers die, and using your medical expertise to help anyone who needed it. People were hurt. You saved them.

Like you said, clockwork. You try not to think about it too hard.

By the time help came, you had cramped a large handful of survivors—albeit, injured survivors—into a small house that was a mile or two from the hospital. Your quick thinking protected many people that day, and your skills were recognized.

A week prior, you were a simple nursing student who was lucky enough to be placed in a hospital, and by the next Sunday, you were being offered a position as a medic with the Anti-Umbrella Pursuit and Investigation Team. You finished your schooling, you got your specialized training, and now you’re on your way to your first assignment out of the country.

So, granted, maybe you are a little crazy for accepting such a prestigious and dangerous position after your humble beginnings. Your mother never ceases to remind you of this, with what little information you were allowed to tell her.

Iceland? she said, pulling her lips into a line. Are you crazy?

You begin to think that you are now that you stand in front of the base, arms tucked around yourself and teeth chattering as a sergeant points you around like one of his troops. Between the hustle and bustle of agents hurrying around and the amount of civilians sitting beneath the large, brown medical tent, you understand why they needed all the help they could get.

Things in Iceland were bad apparently; Umbrella thought the remote location would protect what little was left of them, and their research, from being exposed. Unfortunately for them, (and fortunately for everyone else) the AUPIT caught wind of what was happening and vowed to put a stop to it. You, freshly out of training, were sent to help with the sudden influx of displaced non-combatants and wounded agents.

Within the hour of the helicopter landing, you settle in and pull your cold weather scrubs on. 

There aren’t many other nurses—only two—and neither of them seem to be very fond of you. The head nurse is older and straight-laced, following procedure, not mingling with you unless she has to. You don’t think you’re ever going to be put on a shift with the other nurse, but they spare you a few ireful glances. It’s  like they could smell the fresh blood, and the scent made them turn their noses.

Nonetheless, you weren’t there to socialize, so you rolled up your sleeves and did your job, trying to ignore the passive aggressive looks being thrown at you from left and right. This kind of mutual ignorance worked for about three days, until you were placed on the night shift… every single night. 

Before you came along, it was determined that the night shift could be manned by one person, as injured civilians were sent to the safehouses by nightfall and nearly all of the agents were either out on work or taking a much needed rest. There was no reason for both nurses to be awake when one could conserve their energy and rest while the other worked. So, most nights you spent alone, sitting by the fire in the back of the tent as you waited for the sun to come up.

One of those nights crept up on you again. You bounce your foot against the ground until your ankle aches, sitting in a lawn chair next to the fire with a wool blanket draped over your shoulders. Nothing chirps in the distance like the environment you’re used to, the only noises that float through the air are the wind rustling bare-armed bushes and your own breathing. There was a rip in the tent whistling, too, but you’d be damned if you let the incessant noise drive you insane. You were scared of the eerie silence for the first few days, but that quickly became replaced by the complete boredom that followed it.

You blow a raspberry as you spin a pen in your ungloved hand, fingers numb and stretched stiff with cold. I’ve ought to ask someone for a book, you thought to yourself, or a new job. You immediately push the second contemplation out of your head like it was something dirty and sat up a little straighter; your annoyance made sense, but this is what you wanted to do with your life. You want to help people in need.

Not that there were many people around.

In the distance, like divine intervention, you hear the crackle of wheels against snow, and a black mini-van rolls to a stop in front of the tent. A scuffle inside ensues for a moment, then the doors open and a man comes hobbling into the shelter with his arm over another man’s shoulder. 

You nearly fall out of your seat with how fast you stand up and stride over to the men, assisting the injured one onto a cot. 

“What happened?” you ask, pushing a cart of equipment to his bedside.

The uninjured one remarks from beside you, “Some snow gave way and he went down this hill with some pretty nasty bushes at the bottom.” His voice is quick and clicky. He looks young.

Clearly, they’re two agents, judging by the leather holsters strapped around their waists and shoulders. You purse your lips and place a lantern on the cart, gently inspecting the injured agent. There’s thorns lodged along the entirety of his left side, looking a bit like a child’s crude attempt at art with toothpicks and styrofoam.

He grunts when you gently lift his arm to check underneath, and you mutter an apology before you turn to the other agent. “I can take this from here.”

The agent nods and spins on his heel, disappearing into the darkness once he stepped out into the open air. 

You turn your attention towards the man in front of you and pull on a pair of gloves, the latex makes a sharp snapping noise when you let go. His intense gaze follows your movements with great intrigue—or suspicion… you couldn’t really tell. You pick up a pair of tweezers and set them on the cart. You also finally got a good look at the wounded agent.

Blue eyes that strike down what little defenses you have and brows that spend their time permanently creased, almost erasing the space between them while he inspects you. His ability to make you feel thoroughly grilled with a simple fixated stare would have made you squirm years prior, but now you merely stare back with your eyebrows lifted. The blonde—possibly light brown haired, the darkness didn’t give much way in the form of colour—man averts his eyes first, as if he is caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

You’d be lying if you said he wasn’t attractive, but that’s not your focus right now.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, flicking on a flashlight to check his pupils. Healthy, good. He squints at you through the beam.

“Like I fell into a thorn bush.”

Looks like someone feels funny. You deadpan at him, unamused with the sarcasm while you try to help. Your expression beckons a better answer and he backpedals.

The man’s head bobs subtly, like a scale in his mind is weighing his thoughts on either side, and then he says, “I’m just fine.”

“Are you dizzy? Nauseous?”

“Fine.”

“Okay,” you reply, blowing out a not-so-inconspicuous huff of annoyed air that swirls above you in the cold. The agent raises his brow at your reaction but doesn’t seem too keen on speaking on it. “I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, but it’s going to be a lot of poking and prodding.”

He lets out another grunt that could have possibly been an Mhm… but you aren’t sure. You hold the tweezers between your fingers and begin to pluck them out, placing them on the metal pan on your cart. Clink, clink, clink. They fall from the tweezers with tiny noises.

To your surprise, he doesn’t writhe or make much noise, only occasional grunts and sighs and Shit’s under his breath when you pull at particularly deep thorns lodged in his arm. 

Even for an agent, his arms are an impressive size, which means a lot more surface area to extract from. Not that you really mind, as you would have helped him either way, but surely you would feel differently if you were in his shoes.

However, the silence is… awkward; sitting there with your face inches from his huge arms—he could definitely feel your breath fan across the surface with how his skin dances with warmth and goosebumps and you do not want the attractive agent to focus on that. So, you break it with a question.

“You weren’t wearing a jacket?” A valid query, all things considered.

He blinks at you like it was obvious. “It came off.”

“Oh,” is all you say until you extract the last thorn from his arm and begin to slide the leather shoulder holster off of him. “I just need to take this off.”

He frowns slightly, and you realize his brows had been furrowed this whole time because that was all his face seemed to know how to do. When his expression changes, you stop.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Taking it off so I can look under your sleeve.”

“Why?”

“You could’ve pulled something and I need to bandage you,” you pause. “Is that okay?”

Maybe you wrongly assumed that he had done this a million times. Don’t get you wrong, you know how resilient agents had to be and how good they were at their jobs, so it isn’t like you thought he got hurt often… But with a short glance into his eyes, you could tell he’s a hardened delegate with years of experience under his belt. Wasn’t he bound to need help occasionally?

The man gives you a slight nod and shrugs off the holster; it falls to the bed with a soft thud from the weight of the knife tucked into the leather. 

His muscles tense under your fingers when you roll the black sleeve over his shoulder. The feathered, pale edge of a bullet scar peeks out from beneath the dark clothing and it makes you wonder how he managed to get it. A mission? Probably. It looks old. You’ve seen scars of all kinds at that point, and each of them held a story that ended in pierced flesh. 

They remind you that they will never not be where they came from—your own scars will never not be where they came from. You shake the thought out like a stubborn rock in your shoe.

“Lucky you, it doesn’t look like you pulled anything in your shoulder,” you comment under your breath.

“If this is luck, I’d like to see what happens when I get unlucky.” For the first time, there’s humor in his tone—so faint you nearly miss it, but it makes you chuckle. When he isn’t huffing out responses, his voice almost sounds kind.

You rotate his shoulder slowly and inspect the length of his side, finding fewer thorns than the amount anchored in his arm. Still, your lips press into a line, pitying the fact that his bare skin will be exposed to the frigid, below-freezing air so you could remove them.

“Well, you should’ve knocked on wood,” you reply, “I’ll need you to take your shirt off so I can get the rest of the thorns out and check your ribs.”

Silently, the man hikes his shirt up and over his ribs for you, snaking his arm out of his sleeve and then laying on his side. 

As he comes down, stretching, he groans. You see his muscles tense under his skin when he inhales, the dips and divots of his torso flex involuntarily when the squall of air nips at his newly exposed skin. The surface holds blossoms of red and deep purple that litter themselves across his ribs like splotches of messy watercolor dripped onto paper. Scarlet scratches bleed pebbles that drip onto the fabric of the cot. 

You suck in through your teeth as you inspect the area. Even without the damage from the thorns, it doesn’t look good.

“Not good?” the agent questions as if he could read your mind. From over his shoulder, he turna his head to look at you.

“Not good. You bruised your ribs, I’d be surprised if one of them wasn’t broken.”

“I didn’t hear a crack.”

“It should be monitored for a day or two, at the very least.”

“I have to get back to work.”

“Look, I understand—“

“I’ll be fine.”

You sigh softly and remove one of your gloves to rub your face in exasperation. Unfortunately, this wasn’t your first rodeo with stubborn patients, so you slide on another glove and begin to pluck at the thorns in his torso. “You won’t be doing much work if you permanently damage them.”

He twists his head away from you again and grunts softly, muttering a short, “Okay.”

How articulate. You guess he doesn’t get paid to talk to people.

“Okay? As in…?”

“As in, fine,” he replies, then pauses for a moment as if to prove a point. “But I’m sure you have better things to do.”

You laugh at this, then stifle it into your elbow so he didn’t think you were laughing at him. He still rolls over a little to look at you, confusion laces his eyes that dart around as they go from your face to the rows of empty cots behind you. Busy? You begin to laugh again.

He can’t be serious, you think as you fan your face. You let your laughter dissipate like it was being dissolved into water. “Sorry… no, you’re right,” you snort, “I was drowning in work before you arrived, agent.”

“I’m sure,” he chirps back, the ghost of a smile haunts his lips.

“I think I can squeeze you in, though. Might have to clear some of my schedule, but… I’ll make it work.”

The pleased look that graces your face is involuntary. You find it endearing how worried he is about becoming too much extra work for you and the other nurses, despite the fact that there isn’t any reason to gather that he would and—believe it or not—it’s your job. 

The agent lets out an amused breath through his nose. “Should I be flattered?”

“Oh, of course.”

You place the last of the thorns onto the metal pan and tend to his wounds with gauze and bandages and nimble fingers that have done this hundreds of times before. Sometime along the way his body relaxed—just a little—and you think he fell asleep until he sits up like a puppet that had his strings yanked and puts his shirt on properly.

The sudden movement makes you blink, and he stares at you for a long pause filled with dead air and an expectant look in his eyes. That damn rip in the tent whistles. 

Finally, his eyes flicker down to your badge, then back to your face. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“I started here not too long ago,” you inform him honestly, a little embarrassed to admit your newbie title to a seasoned employee of the organization.

He doesn’t say anything else, so you take the reins.

“Well, I think we’re set,” you say, rolling the latex gloves off of your hands. “Let me know if you need anything, Agent…”

You never asked him his name?

“Leon Kennedy,” the agent, now with the name Leon Kennedy pinned to his face, finishes for you. 

His name twirls around your head and makes you dizzy to think about. I should have known, you think to yourself once he bids you farewell to report to his superiors. 

From what little time you spent at the base prior to meeting Leon, you had heard whispers during dinner drift from mouth to ear of the elusive agent. That he was a man of few words (immense understatement, you consider it more socially awkward, but true); that he had half of the base swooning every time he walked by (you don’t want to comment on this); and that he was immensely attractive (that is also true). You have to admit… you see why he had such an air of intrigue around him. To be so quiet after such successes he’s accomplished—people were on the edge of their seats trying to figure him out.

You also had to admit that you weren’t immune to it either. 

During your meals and breaks you found yourself playing Where’s Waldo? with Leon, attempting to catch glimpses of him in his natural state to confirm or deny these claims. Which was impressively difficult for absolutely no reason other than that he did it for his own benefit… the motive for this was lost, and still is, on you.

The few times you did spot him, he had the same clenched jaw and furrowed eyebrows. He never stayed in the same place for very long and frequently you only spotted him—or rather, his broad shoulders and white-knuckled fists as they turned corners and disappeared to do whatever he did all day. Important agent things.

Regarding your coworkers… it hadn’t improved much, either. The head nurse, who you later learned was named Winona, loosened up on you a bit—which was practically nothing when both she and the other nurse had been so cold to begin with. However, your determination to help those around you seemed to impress her… most days.

(Peeks of Leon’s ashy blonde hair stolen from cracks in the tent. His fur-lined coat hangs off of his sizable frame, enveloping his arms in the thick fabric—it makes them look even bigger. Not that you care, per say, but—

“You aren’t getting paid to stalk agents,” Winona jeers, jolting you back to Earth from your subject of stolen attention. You swear she smiles at you wryly. “Should’ve tried for one of their jobs if you wanted to do that.”

She turns on her heel and goes over to a trio of injured civilians with her cart, the knot of hair tied taut at the base of her neck stares you in the face. You’re left hot faced and embarrassed for the entirety of the next check-up with your patient.)

The endless night shifts never seem to cease rolling in and you’re afraid it’s begun to catch up on you. By the end of breakfast, when you could finally drag your corpse-like body to your quarters and into your bed, your head drooped comically into your bowl of oatmeal and some of the newer agents had a blast laughing at you. Whatever, assholes.

(You were deeply embarrassed.)

So, you opted for allowing a short nap in here and there during your shift—ten minutes at most—whenever your eyelids began to feel itchy and weighted and you couldn’t help but close them. You really couldn’t. Being sat by the fire with a hot drink made you so warm and the sounds of blowing wind lulled you to sleep in the darkness under the moon.

Truly, a terrible work performance from you, but no one was around to see and surely you’d be awoken by even a hint of an emergency. 

Tonight, you count sheep with your wool blanket tucked up to your chin and your head lolls against your shoulder like it’s about to fall off its hinges. One, two, three. They mock you as they hop into their pasture and curl up into white, fluffy spheres, falling asleep within the warmth of their home. 

From a distance, your ears almost register the sound of footsteps that approach the tent, crushing the crunchy top layer of snow under their feet as they stop in the entrance. It isn’t enough to completely wake you until they clear their throat and say, “Hello?”

Your eyes snap open and you turn your head so fast you think it might go flying across the room. Really smooth of you, considering Leon is the one to get your attention. By the smug look on his face and slight chuckle that wracks his frame, you know he isn’t fooled with your act awake performance.

He stands there, towering and rigid, unlike the night you first met him, with his palm outstretched flat like he’s trying to show the world something. 

“Oh, hey, what do you need?” you reply quickly, standing from your chair as you let your blanket fall off of you.

Leon glances at his hand and then at you. “I, uh, got a papercut.”

“A paper cut,” you repeat, just to make sure you heard him right.

“Yeah.”

You stare at him for a moment, mouth agape as his words register as something he was actually saying to you.

“Well, get comfortable, then. I’ll patch you up.”

In reality, you’re terribly confused about a special forces agent needing first aid for a paper cut, but how could you complain? He needs help and you’re there to offer it. 

The blonde sits on a cot near the fire—not before picking up your blanket from the ground and placing it back on the chair, though—and you situate yourself on a stool facing him. 

You take Leon’s hand in yours gently and inspect the wound. It’s fairly shallow, but placed in the center of the webbed skin between his index finger and thumb. Tough spot. When your digits graze his rough knuckles he inhales sharply and you glance at him due to the sudden motion.

He doesn’t expect a reaction from you because he pauses for a second then asks, “You think I’ll live?”

“I dunno,” you answer, sucking your teeth. “Could be a close call.”

“Yeesh.”

“I know. My condolences.”

“For myself?”

“Uh-huh.” You turn his hand over so his palm faced the sky. “This’ll sting.”

When you disinfect the injury, Leon’s face twitches into itself but he keeps quiet, opting to focus his gaze on your face while you patch him up. You try not to shift under the intensity.

“What made you want to do this?” he queries, his voice cuts through the silence and startles you a bit. Leon looks pleased with himself and you roll your eyes.

“You’ll laugh.”

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s corny.”

Admittedly, it was—the original story as to why you wanted to be a nurse. You’ve had people laugh at it before and you mostly don’t want to repeat history with someone you find rather charming, but something in Leon’s face softens and he shakes his head briefly. 

“Try me,” he challenges.

“Oh, fine.” Like there was a fight put up when you relent, smoothing a bandaid over his cut. “You know those things you’d fill out as a kid? Where it’s like, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Leon nods.

“Every single time, I would write superhero,” you laugh sourly because you got used to other people laughing when you said this, but he listens as if you’re the only sound he’s ever heard. “I’d draw myself with a little cape and all that. Then at a certain age the teachers start telling you, pick a real job, pick something that exists. And, I dunno, I thought: there are real superheroes. They save people every day because they want to.”

“I mean, I always knew I didn’t have all the right assets to be the one rescuing people from burning buildings and punching the bad guys. I wanted to help people when they couldn’t help themselves, you know? I can't carry the weight of the situation—it’s just not in my nature—but I can carry them. That’s why I started doing this, I guess.”

The look he gives you when you finish speaking is indescribable. He gazes deeply into your face like he’s trying to find a new feature he missed the first time. Something akin to pulling apart your mind with his eyes as if it’s clay made for the shaping and a load of a melancholy that’s too heavy for him; like he’s asking you, how do I carry it? Tell me how to carry something like that. 

Your hand still lingers in his, over the bandaid you placed on him; you slide yours so the curves of your thumbs interlock and you grip the hilt of his palm. A hidden embrace.

Leon’s eyes dart toward your hands and he makes no effort to remove you from his grasp, his fingers relax against your wrist. He feels your heartbeat. You feel his. When he looks up again, all he sees are your eyes. 

You don’t know why you went on that anecdote in the first place, not really. Only that you were finished patching him up and wanted—needed—him to linger for a bit longer.

“What about you?” you ask, voice hushed close to nothing.

“I wanted to help people, too.” He sounds uncharacteristic—sheepish? “That’s it… I can’t follow up with something as articulate as you.”

“It matters just as much even if you can’t express it,” you assure him, your head tilts. 

Leon clears his throat and nods, slipping his hand from yours and looking anywhere that isn’t you. You created a shadow in front of his face, back facing the fire, but you can see the subtle dark tinge of his cheeks when he avoids your eyes. He chooses to look at his feet. There he goes, being endearing again, you think.

The harsh edges of his face are lit up with an orange glow, darkness shoots somewhere in between in a soft gradient, and he looks positively ethereal. If you reached out and cupped his face, you know it would be warm to the touch like laundry right out of the dryer. It makes him look all the more delicate and this feels more natural than the pointed looks and pinched expressions he usually wears.

You look back down at his hands. You’re trying to memorize the way they felt against yours (coarse and hot to the touch) and you get the picture of how hopeless you are—even an idiot could see you have a crush on him. 

That doesn’t stop you from protecting your pride and you keep it to yourself. You stand up to put the disinfectant supplies and box of bandaids away without a word. 

Leon stares at his hand like it’s missing a piece.

You have your head buried too deep into the cabinet to think much about that. Screaming at yourself was an understatement for what you’re doing in your head… a better description would be begging the floor to swallow you entirely with one gulp.

Surely, Leon has someone at home. He’s an attractive, intelligent man with an arguably stable job that pays him oodles more than he would ever need; not to mention how well-built he is, but again, for what seems like the millionth time you push this thought to the back of your mind. You could not focus on that.

“Are you okay?” his voice carries from the cot.

You take a moment’s breather and shut the cabinet door. “I’m good. How are your ribs?”

“They’re good.” Leon pauses, then adds. “Thanks.”

The shake of your head comes faster than your words; muscle memory. “It’s what I’m here for.”

“You do a good job.”

“I’m just a medic.”

“A good one.”

As you utter your gratitude for his comment, you hope he couldn’t feel the heat radiating off of your face from so far away. You weren’t one to get shy from such simple words, but you find your eyes glued to your boots because of his gentle bonniness. Damn you, you curse at him in your head—it held no weight.

The blonde stands from the cot and walks over to you. He bends slightly to catch your eyes in his. “I have to go now, but... yeah. Thank you.”

“Of course, Agent Kennedy.”

“Don’t start using formalities now,” he half-laughs, half-breathes. His face contorts when he stretches back, and his hand came up to massage his right shoulder—you even go to comment on this movement, being a medic and all, but he beats you to it with a smirk. “Stick with Leon.”

And then, in a few strides, he’s gone as fast as he came. 

Your entire body deflates when you let out a guttural sigh. How come every time you watched his back, you were left reeling?

Unfortunately for you, that blasted man had ingrained himself into your head, sitting pretty in your thoughts as snug as a bug in a rug while you tried to do your job, or attempted to focus on anything other than your feelings for him. On the contrary, he returned to clearing out Umbrella facilities for the time being, which meant he was out of the base for days, or even weeks, considering he was one of, if not, the best agent they had. This saved you from the embarrassment of being caught trying to catch glances of him from inside the tent or during meals. 

This, however, did not stop you from daydreaming when work got slow. 

You wondered how someone like Leon behaved domestically, if he was completely different outside of the AUPIT, or if he was still just the sweet, reserved man who needed your aid often. Did he have any pets? What music did he listen to? You guess you’d have to ask him later, but you imagined that the pieces would fall into place and suit him. They’d be so perfectly Leon that when he told you, you would think to yourself, huh, why didn’t I think of that?

The amount of daydreaming you did was not lost on Winona, and occasionally she snapped her fingers in front of your face and grumbled under her breath, “I’ll kill that boy.” With no real threat to her tone. 

Please, you can’t help it. He has arms with the muscle definition of a god and he told you-you were a good medic; you were a goner before you even realized it.

On the other hand, your family never let up with their pleas for you to return home, despite the fact that it simply wasn’t possible unless you had a very good reason for it. Which you didn’t, and you didn’t want to—people just didn’t get it through their heads that, yes, your job was difficult, and yes, patients got on your nerves sometimes, but no, you wouldn’t trade it for the world. This meant more to you than anything else you could fathom. You knew the fear these people felt first-hand, and you knew they needed a saving grace; just like you had.

(“Just come home,” your mother coos into the phone, her voice static-y and chopped from the poor signal. You could imagine her face right now, all worried and exhausted like you’re a child balancing on a wet playground. “There’s a hospital not too far from here… I’m sure they’d take you.

You promptly spend the next hour explaining to her that it isn’t that simple, even if you wanted to, and you remind her every few minutes that you aren’t going to leave, either. You’re happy, all things considered; which is why you make the executive decision to leave out all of the bad parts of your work so far.)

As for the efforts against Umbrella, you hear whispers of successes during dinners and fewer agents appeared at the medical tent’s door in need of assistance than when you arrived. So, you think things are going rather well for your organization. Less tired eyes and solemn faces; the fight wasn’t over, but everyone could rest a little easier with every night that passed. 

And yet, those damned night shifts. You swear Winona and that other medic were scheming against you for no reason other than pure spite, on the basis of simply because they didn’t feel like doing it. It has to be funny to them by now, seeing you half-asleep at breakfast and looking all mussed at dinner because you woke up ten minutes prior. You let them laugh all they wanted because frankly, you began to enjoy the night shifts. The world went to sleep, and you enjoyed some peace and quiet.

You kick your feet up onto a stool and drape a blanket over your legs, book in hand. The soft sounds of Icelandic pop music crackles out of the radio and floats throughout the tent. You mouth the noises of the songs, unsure of the lyrics, but you’ve heard it so often by now, you could recognize the tune from the first few beats. You scat a few of the instruments, tapping your foot along. You don't notice the figure that stopped in the doorframe. 

“Enjoying yourself?” Leon. You shut your book and turn to look at him, embarrassed. “I always feel like I’m coming at a bad time.”

“Never,” you reply with a haste that humbles you further. Worried about his sudden appearance in the medical tent after being gone on agent duties for nearly two weeks, you ask, “Are you okay?”

The corners of his mouth upturn and you barely see a flash of uneven teeth between the slit it creates, cute. This distracts you from how smug his face is. “I think I have a fever.”

“A fever this time?”

“Yep.”

“Make yourself comfortable, Leon.” 

A paper cut, then a fever. You begin to think of his inability to soothe his minor maladies as an excuse to visit the tent. Your stomach flutters at the thought, but you have to make sure… just in case he’d fallen ill out there in the cold. 

You find the thermometer and placed it in his mouth gingerly. It hangs crooked from the corner and he watches you with a certain keenness that makes you smile. After a few minutes, you check his temperature: 98.7. An amused hum escapes your lips without meaning to.

“Dying?” 

“I don’t think you have a fever,” you answer, using the back of your hand to press against his forehead and cheeks. The first cheek is cold, then the left cheek warms under your skin—Leon’s expression falls bashful. “But if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were looking for reasons to come see me.”

It’s his turn to hum in thought. “Maybe.”

“You could just come talk to me.”

“You’re on the clock,” the blonde reminds you, grunting. In a swift movement, his hand presses into the curve of his neck and he rotates his right shoulder, face straining.

You see an opening. “That I am. What was that?”

“What?”

“Your shoulder.”

“I was stretching.”

“Does it hurt?”

Leon grumbles a response under his breath, unimpressed that you might have found something you could actually treat him for. You raise your brows. “I’ll take that as a yes. Let me see.”

“It’s fine.”

“Agent Kennedy.”

He pretends not to hear you.

“Leon.”

“Fine,” he gripes like a child being forced to get a shot and maneuvers to lay his stomach flat on the cot, his back faces toward the ceiling. He takes off his brown, fur-lined jacket and discards it onto the next cot over. You get a whiff of musk and cinnamon from the breeze it makes.

The shirt that clings to him left nothing to the imagination—a tight, black compression shirt stretches snugly over his muscles. You spread your fingers like fans to warm them up, then begin to run them over his shoulder and along the meat of his back. 

You tsk, full of knots. This man needs a masseuse. You make a mental note to refer him to a good one you knew. 

With the issue at hand, though, you find an impressive knot in his shoulder, which is likely the cause of his discomfort. 

You huff, your work cut out for you. “There’s a big knot in your shoulder, Leon. How are you living like this?”

“I wake up and roll out of bed.”

“I need to get this out.”

Leon turns his head, his cheek presses to the cot. He gives you a look that says nothing short of, are you serious?  You smile as sweetly as you can at him, an attempt to coax him. To your surprise, he averts his gaze fast and relents. The blonde agent sits up and shrugs his shirt off. It’s tossed next to his jacket.

Under the fire light and the dim glow of lanterns that hang in a line down the center of the tent, strings attached to the ceiling, you see the way chills prickle over the surface of his skin. Goosebumps, like rolled carpets being kicked open, unfurl down his arms rapidly and he lays down on his stomach once again. 

Your face burns in the dark—you’d be surprised if you aren’t glowing like one of those lanterns from the amount of heat it exudes.

You use a dollop of skin cream to keep the area relaxed and pliable as you work out the knot with your fingers. You push it in the right direction until you got it in a better spot, then you knead it firmly. It crackles within his body.

“Fuck…” he groans in relief, nestling his head into the fabric of the cot as he sighs. “They teach you massages in nursing school?”

“That might be just a learned from life thing,” you state in total honesty. You wipe the excess lotion from your hands on a rag. 

Curiously, he peers at you from the corner of his eye. “You have someone back home you do that to?”

A laugh falls from your lips, though your face feels even hotter than before (if that is even possible). “No—not at all.”

Leon lets out a pleasant hum and sit up from the cot. Good, he says without saying it. 

He snatches his shirt and tugs it over his head; you pretend to make yourself busy so you have somewhere other to look than at him. You hear him sigh with great reprieve as he rolls his shoulder back and forth, it must’ve felt like a freshly oiled hinge.

He comes up behind you, his shoulder skims the back of your neck when he peers down at what you were doing on the counter. Which is a whole lot of nothing; moving cotton swabs from one container to the other, counting how many rolls of gauze you had left for the hundredth time. Mindless hand ministrations to distract you from the heart that pounds in your chest.

“Is this what you do all night?” he questions, mildly amused.

“Sometimes.”

“Must be glad I showed up.”

“Something like that,” you tease, glancing up at him with a coy smile.

You watch his withstraint break a little inside of him. He inhales sharply, losing the words you said somewhere between your eyes and your lips—he couldn’t focus with your faces so close to each other and neither could you. Leon reaches for the hand that rested on the other side of you and drags you in between him and the counter, twirling you to face him. Then he pauses and appears lost, like he doesn’t know which way is left and right.

Maybe he doesn’t know what to do, you think. You don’t really know either, so you go on about what you do know.

“You should probably use kinesiology tape on your shoulder,” you comment, suddenly becoming hyper-aware of all of your limbs. His eyes don’t leave your lips. You’d be a liar if you say yours left his.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

The man’s body heat radiates off of him and it’s magnetic, pulling you closer, away from the bitter cold. Your breath hitches. His hand hovers over the curve of your neck, then it decides to rest on the side of your jaw, thumb pressed against your flushed cheek. You remember the texture of his warm palm, coarse and calloused from years of wear.

You try to memorize every fine line and crease that scuffs your face as he beckons you to close the gap with the slight tilt of his head. I’d make a terrible agent, my resilience is slim to none, you theorize when your body moves before your mind does. His mouth hovers over yours, his breath traces your cupid’s bow. You close the distance enough that your lips graze each other until someone clears their throat from a few feet away.

Winona stands like a judgmental statue, thin brows raise expectantly. You, and Leon, jump away from each other. It rocks the counter with a loud clatter that echoes. 

“Agent Kennedy,” she acknowledges him first as a sign of respect. He nods back awkwardly. “You two look like you’re  enjoying yourselves.”

Neither of you talk for a moment and you find  yourself desperate to create any word that could explain what that was. Leon’s eyes dart around the room.

Finally, something solid comes to your tongue. “I’m sorry.”

And then she laughs in both of your faces. Her hand waves like it’s fanning your words away from getting inhaled. You and Leon glance at each other, brows knit in honest confusion.

“Kids,” she exhales. “Stop distracting my medic, Kennedy.”

Then he speaks, but it sounds more like a nervous cough. “Yes, ma’am.”

Winona shoos him with a gesture of her wrinkled hand and he musters a sheepish, apologetic smile for you as he hurries away from the tent. You don’t make much of an effort to move as you prepare your ego for the chew out it’s about to receive.

“And you. Try to keep the fraternization out of the tent.” With that, she continues past you to search through some files, snickering to herself and shaking her head.

You aren’t about to push your luck. You get to keep your job and ego intact, and that’s enough for you. So, you whisper a quiet, “Yes, ma’am.” And go on with your day.

The encounter with Leon left you feverish and all tingly in every limb whenever it crossed your mind over the following days. You saw him out and about around the base, and during meals he offered you frail waves that faded in a breath. 

Truth was, you’re too afraid of rejection to ask him about that night—go figure. Maybe you’re a cliche. Maybe you’re both cliches. Who cares? Well, you do, and you thought the ruffled, pink-tinted expressions on Leon’s face whenever you crossed paths meant that he did, too, but neither of you made a move to approach the other. You questioned if you would rather be told that his only plans for you was a short work fling with no strings attached, or if he felt the connection that you did. A terrible predicament, really, and soon your desire for a straight answer outweighed the fear of hearing something you didn’t like. 

When you went to find him in the meal tent, sitting alone in one of the back corners, he wasn’t there. Okay. You waited, then decided to check the nooks and crannies of the base where you knew he hung around, and nothing. Leon vanished into thin air the moment you gathered enough courage to speak to him. Somehow you thought he read your mind and planned for this to happen, just to be able to tease you without being present. But that was simply ridiculous. He had to go to work, just like you had to do yours.

A week went by, then two; no sign of Leon’s reappearance cropped up and you began to worry you wouldn’t get the chance to speak to him at all. The only reminder that soothed you was the fact that you knew the organization was on the home stretch for completely wiping Umbrella’s power in Iceland. This reassured you for many reasons. Mainly, that you’d be able to sleep in your bed again at a proper time that didn’t leave you exhausted; but you also found comfort in the idea of finally getting a word with the blonde agent that clung to your brain like a disease once everything was over. 

Of course, you had fleeting thoughts that he died and you’d forever be left wondering about what could have been. But, that was just ridiculous—he’s Leon Kennedy, the agent that saved the president’s daughter from certain death. So, you chalked it up to your anxiety being built up as doubt about the succession of the mission began to be put to an end. That yes, you would all return home soon, and no nothing terrible and tragic would happen just as you were about to win.

Eventually, you all received the verdict of the mission. Success. The sun shone through the clouds brighter that day, in ribbons of gold that elevated all of your senses to something dreamlike. Another catastrophe prevented. More people saved—clockwork. To say you were pleased with the conclusion of your first ever out of country operation would be an understatement; you were ecstatic. 

Still, you find yourself fretting over that thing with Leon as you help pack up the equipment in the medical tent.

Winona, who has grown increasingly engrossed in your love life, gives you a knowing look when your lips tug downward and you send a pointed glance toward the entrance of the tent for the tenth time in the last hour. She tsks and shakes her head. It gains your attention. 

“Just talk to him,” she insists, shoving a couple boxes of bandaids into the case. She’s unimpressed with your antics and just wants you to get a move on. 

You sigh and preen your hair like he’ll walk in at any moment. “I haven’t seen him.”

“Hopeless,” she grumbles in response. “Hopeless. If you won’t do something about it, stop looking at the door like a kicked dog and help me.” Winona retreats further into the tent and you succumb enough to follow her.

You must glower the whole time because she won’t stop sending you dirty looks while she tapes the cardboard boxes with a tape gun. Her movements are threatening. You try to fix your expression when the line of spokes reflects off of the bright horizon outside the tent as it slices the tape.

After the innards of the tent are packed into a dozen or so boxes, you’re the person left to pick them up one by one and drop them off with the rest of the cargo that needs to be shipped. Your back is sore from the sorry excuses of beds you have and your arms ache from hours of cramming things. Kicking snow with each shuffled step, you heave out a lengthy sigh and pause to breathe. There’s a reason I’m not an agent.

“Need a hand?” Leon asks from behind you. You’re wondering how he’s always sneaking up on you.

Still, you nod and can’t help but be relieved. “Please.”

Like it’s filled with air, he takes the box from your hands and cocks a barely-there grin at your awed expression. Smug and content, he marches ahead with you in tow. You don’t really know what to say to him, if anything at all. 

You walk alongside him for the first time in the daylight, and you take in his features now that they aren’t muddled in the darkened firelight or blurred by distance. He’s chiseled, sunken cheeks and high cheekbones with that intense look on in his eyes—but there’s something else—boyish, is what you think. Soft jaw. Moles and freckles litter themselves across his face. 

Leon is beautiful and you would like to kiss him right now.

He stops at the drop off point, places the box next to the others and turns to you. Suddenly, he looks nervous and you feel some resolve escape your mind. He’s about to ask you something. He opens his mouth, rosy lips parting and you break—you pull him behind a tall stack of boxes and kiss him.

The collar of his jacket is clutched between your fingers in a moment and your lips are on his; the fur tickles your skin. His lips are chapped and cold but you create warmth within him, you could be a summer’s day in this frigid air. His hands come to your waist, then your hips and his fingertips make indents when he holds you tight like this was always supposed to happen. When you part, you’re both breathless.

He searches for his words again, the question he was going to ask. “Would you—dinner? On me.”

You hum in faux thought and peck him on the lips again, then again, and a third time for good measure. He smiles into the last one.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t start that by saying you stubbed your toe and needed my help.”

Leon chuckles. “I thought about it.”

He pulls you in again, tongue grazing your bottom lip. You lean in further, desperate for connection until you both go slipping like baby deer. The thin layer of snow on the ground left everything icy. He tumbles into some supplies and you land on top of him. You’re both laughing into each other’s mouths. You’re both happy.

You chime together, like clockwork.

[lovekt]

⋆ ｡˚ ⋆｡ SLEEPY NIGHTS IN NOVEMBER ⋆ ｡˚ ⋆｡

pairing; lando norris x girlfriend!fem!reader

word count; 1.5k

blurb; where practice goes on for a little longer than expected, and you’re extremely jetlagged. (based off of the las vegas gp fp2)

author’s note; this is my first completed fic ahhh! cant believe i actually finished something for once in my life this is a miracle

<< the library , ln4 masterist >>

LAS VEGAS WAS A BRIGHT CITY. So bright, and yet you were still battling with all-consuming darkness.

You’d arrived more than twelve hours ago. Cameras flashed, questions asked, your mind had been buzzing with excitement for the ever-anticipated Grand Prix at the new track. Hundreds of people; reporters, fans, drivers, bustled about. Drones and tripods followed your every move, microphones bursting your personal bubble, screaming people begging for their caps, shirts and babies to be signed. It crossed your mind more than once that you weren’t a driver, yet the cheers of sheer joy echoed when you walked by.

It was exhilarating, truly. You’d never imagined your life would turn out this way, your face being plastered onto live television, a banner across the bottom presenting you as Lando Norris’ girlfriend.

You’d arrived just in time for Free Practice 2, not getting a chance to find the man in orange before he was off and onto the track for the second time two hours later than scheduled. However, you were soon supplied with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a chair to get comfortable with.

It was colder than usual. Your eyes were permanently fixated on the screen above you. No matter how many times you’d watched your boyfriend race, in person or in the comfort of your shared home, it was never any less terrifying. The noises of pure acceleration, the sparks that would occasionally burst from the back of the car, the knowledge of what could happen and what’s already happened several times before. All of it was enough to keep you on your toes, wide awake, and alert every time.

Every single time, except this one.

The low hum of the engine through your headphones did nothing to help you stay focused, time finally beginning to creep its way back up to you. Your boyfriend’s voice calmly updating his engineers, the muffled chatter of the garage, all of it caused your mind to numb and breathing to begin evening out. It was so late. So, so late, and cold.

Your head suddenly lulled to the side causing your eyes to snap open, saving yourself before you slipped off the plastic foldable chair. God, you hoped the live broadcasting cameras were not allowing thousands of eyes to see you right now.

There were some eyes, though, that had seen you. The engineers dressed in orange pottering around were chuckling, they themselves trying to stay awake by toying with tools and fidgeting with other mechanical things that you didn’t understand. Most of them you were quite friendly with by now as you were a frequent member of the McLaren garage, and they all knew you were the one to go to whenever Lando needed a break. They were grateful to have you. An angry Lando is never a fun time.

Which is exactly why they decided to make an executive decision to save you from the concrete floor below. It was only a matter of time before you ended up hurting yourself.

The screen above you began blurring once more, eyes drooping against your will when a hand placed itself onto your shoulder. One of the engineers that Lando was particularly close with was smiling down at you, softly nudging you forward and guiding you to stand up. You looked at him, eyes glossy and brows furrowed, confused.

He sighed amusedly, “I think it’s time for bed.”

Slight slurred protests began to slip out of your lips but were stopped when you wobbled and had to grip onto the top of the chair for balance. The engineer’s hold on your arm tightened and your exhaustion was too heavy to resist as he began leading you towards the driver’s rooms.

You glanced back at the screen showing your boyfriend’s perspective of the car, not wanting to leave but knowing that it’s probably for the best. There wasn’t any action going on, every driver was tired, nobody was pulling any dangerous moves. It was safe enough to walk away, just for a little bit, just this once.

The door to Lando’s driver’s room was opened and you settled onto the small sofa in the corner, wrapping yourself in a papaya-coloured blanket. Darkness enveloped the room as the engineer flipped the switch, shutting the door quietly behind him and leaving you to your thoughts for all of two seconds before a soft voice filled your ears. You’d forgotten to take the headphones off.

Lando spoke to his team, his voice calm and soothing, almost as if he knew you were falling into the depths of unconsciousness in that moment. He was safe. You felt safe.

The second he’d hauled himself out of the car, helmet removed, and interviews finished up, he was on the search for you. Often, you would wander off as soon as the car had been parked, for a bathroom break or to have a quick snack, refusing to do it during the race.

He walked back to his room as fast as possible, weaving between hundreds of people who he didn’t bother giving the time of day. Usually, he would’ve stopped and had a little chat, but it was so, so late and his whole body felt like it was about to crumble. All he wanted was to find you, get changed and make the small trek back to your shared hotel room.

The door was unlocked when he arrived, a sure sign that you were inside and waiting. But when he opened the door ready to be greeted with a sweet kiss, all he was met with was complete darkness. Weird.

His hand reached for the switch and light flooded the room. Sure enough, there you were, cuddled up in his bright orange blanket and sound asleep. Your face was half covered and smushed into the arm rest, knees curled into yourself and a set of headphones askew on top of your mussed hair.

The smile that had etched itself onto his face grew when he noticed the headphones. You’d fallen asleep whilst listening to him talk, even when he wasn’t with you. Even when you were jetlagged, cold, and exhausted, you still made sure he was okay. His chest warmed at the thought.

Lando placed the bottle of water he was holding down onto the table beside him, trying his best to be as quiet as possible as he changed from his suit to a hoodie. You didn’t move a muscle, only light breaths filling the silent space.

You looked so peaceful, lashes fluttering every so often. The urge to try and squeeze himself onto the sofa with you was strong, but the more logical side of him told him that it was finally time to head back to the hotel, and if you stayed in that position much longer then your neck would be unbearably stiff by tomorrow morning. He loved you more than anything in the world, so he knew you well enough to know that you would be moaning to him about it once you’d woken up, and not the moaning that he enjoyed hearing.

 Carefully, he brushed the tips of his fingers across your cheek, moving a few stray strands of hair. Your cheeks were warm, a contrast to Lando’s cool touch that caused you to pull your face away and tuck it further into the safety of his blanket. His lips twitched slightly. You would hate him for this now, but thank him later, he thought, as he swiftly curled his fingers around the edge of the blanket and pulled it down.

Your skin, exposed to the night air, broke out into goosebumps as you wrapped your arms tighter around yourself. Lando slowly rubbed his palm up and down your arm, bringing his lips to your forehead and kissing you softly.

Your eyelids fluttered open, pupils narrowing to the bright light of the room as an almost silent groan escaped you.

Your eyes darted around for a moment before landing on your boyfriend, crouched down beside you with his hand stroking your hair. He was smiling at you lovingly, eyes squinted and laced with a tinge of mischief. “G’morning, baby.”

You didn’t reply, instead choosing to open your mouth in a yawn directed straight at his face. He chuckled quietly.

“I think it’s time we get you to bed, hm?”

You rested your head back against the armrest, closing your eyes once more, “I’m already in bed.”

“I’m sure you are.” He said, before rising back up to his full height and slipping one hand underneath your neck, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, and the other around the back of your knees. Your hand instinctively curled around his bicep as you were lifted into the air, taking note in the back of your mind at how effortlessly he seemed to manoeuvre you.

As Lando began to carefully place you onto your feet, a wave of adoration filled you to the core. He’d just been working for hours straight, and yet here he was taking care of you. The love you had for this boy was absolutely unmatched.

And what better way to show him this than by using the little energy you had restored during your nap to rise onto your tiptoes and press a sweet kiss against his awaiting lips.

@lovekt

[yeahspider]

10:36 🫀

Ve’s note - soft felix fluff drabble . trying to get out of a writers block so plz send requests to my inbox ! enjoy this lil piece until i finish other works <3 (slightly proofread don’t jump me i’m sorry)

oh you had definitely fucked up . you took the relationship between felix and yourself and threw it in a blender . made a relationship smoothie . laying in his bed you couldn’t tell what was worse the pain in your chest or the silence in the air . it was never supposed to happen . you both agreed those words would never leave your mouth . and so far you had kept up that bargain . until you found yourself under him for the nth time .

you didn’t know if it was the way the early morning sunlight shined on his skin , the freckles on his back moving up and down with every breath , or the teeth sneaking out of his smile as he wished you a good morning but the words left your lips before you could reel them back in . before you could take it back . say you were just joking .

i love you

your world stopped spinning , tilted off its axis when he didn’t say it back . you watched as a frown made it’s way on to its face and you’ve never wanted to be anywhere else in your life . you basically jumped out of bed , scrambling to find your clothes which were scattered across his dorm floor . mumbling out apologies about how you had class in an hour so you had to leave . saying anything to save yourself from this situation .

when you slipped your sweats ,which were actually felix’s, on to your body you heard him call out to you .

“wait ! fuck - i’m sorry don’t leave .” your body froze at his words . you heard him shuffle out of bed and suddenly his presence was behind you . hands on your waist to keep you from leaving .

“i love you too . i’m sorry i didn’t respond immediately i was just in shock i didn’t think you’re like ever say that to me you know with out arrangement .” felix said with a shy smile . the warmth that blossomed threw you was unstoppable as you scanned his face for any signs of a lie . but his eyes told you all the truth you needed to know .

“come back to bed please let me show you how much i love you .”

[xxresi-rotxx]

Harsher ending- pt 2

I did not get a chance to proof read this as I realized the weekend is ending in one hour 😭 I wanted to write the whole thing in one go but had a rough day and this was all I could muster posting ❤️

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

Ever since Leon's little outburst, you were barely keeping it together. There were so many emotions swirling around your head it was hard to make sense of them. However, the most recent emotion was anger and it lingered with you longer than the rest.

Who the fuck made Leon Kennedy so high and mighty?

You were sure you were giving Leon the ugliest of looks everytime we glanced back at you & Luis.

Him and Ashley were walking about 10 feet ahead of you and Luis, and he kept glancing back at you every five minutes.

Was he truly that convinced you couldn't handle yourself?

It wasn't until Luis said your name for a second time that you realized you had zoned out again.

"He really got under your skin, eh Señorita?"

You finally tore your eyes away from Leon long enough to glance at the man next you, who was grinning like the Chesire cat.

"I just don't understand-"

"What gives him the right. I know, I know mi amor we've been over this." Luis finished for you.

You felt kind of bad, realizing you had been bothering Luis with it for the past hour. You turned your attention on your feet now; watching them as they trudged through the mud.

"I think he's just concerned for you mi amor." Luis nudged his shoulder into yours, easing the tension.

"Yeah, well he has a funny way of showing it if that's the case."

Luis had been calling you 'Mi Amor' ever since you saved his life, and honestly? You didn't mind it.

"The way I see it," Luis began, "he's kind of like a calabaza."

You just stared at Luis, waiting for him to continue.

"I don't remember my high school Spanish Luis." You teased when you realized he wasn't going to elaborate.

"A calabaza is a pumpkin mi amor."

A pumpkin?

"You lost me Luis."

Luis rolled his eyes at you, scoffing a little to emphasize what a hassle it was for to him to explain it to you.

"Hard skin, soft inside."

You let out a harsh laugh but quickly covered your mouth. You were sure Luis was trying to make a point, but it sounded ridiculous to you.

"Kind of nasty Luis." You nudged him with your shoulder this time.

"You get the point Señorita."

Was Leon genuinely concerned for you? Ever the optimist, you wanted so badly to believe Luis, but you just...didn't.

You'd been gripping the pistol Leon shoved at you so hard your knuckles were turning white. Almost as if you were trying to take your anger out on the gun.

Meanwhile, Leon hadn't stopped dwelling on the interaction ever since it happened. Replaying it over and over in his mind. He couldn't help but keep glancing back at you.

You hadn't said a single word to him in almost a day, avoiding him at all costs; and that bothered him.

The sooner he was out of his hellscape, the sooner he could actually speak to you without fear of your impending death, the better.

Every now and then he would hear Luis call you his love and it irritated the hell out of him. It irritated him just as much that you went along with it.

"MI AMOR," Luis's shouts had Leon turning on a dime, "WAIT!"

He turned just in time to see Luis run off the muddy path and straight towards your sprinting figure.

"Ashley." Leon said locking eyes with the blonde.

She understood immediately, moving to hide out of sight as Leon took off.

Why the fuck would you run away?

Leon caught up to Luis in a matter of minutes. You, however, were no where in sight.

"What the fuck happened Luis?!" Leon bit out, unstrapping his knife from its sheath.

"Are you infected?" Luis asked you, panic in his voice.

"No." Leon answered, the gears already turning in his head. "Y/n?" he asked.

"I saw the veins." Luis responded, out of breath. "My old lab could remove the parasite from her though, she didn't have to run."

"Go back and watch over Ashley, I'll find Y/n."

The tone of Leon's voice told Luis there would be no arguing this, so he did as he was told.

Leon wasn't sure whether he was more concerned for your health right now or pissed that you thought running was the best option.

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

Smut in part 3😘

[uriekukistan]

alright i've been seeing so much megumi hate recently, and especially after the new chapter (not on here, mostly twitter youtube and tiktok), so as president of the megumi defense squad, here is my dissertation defending him against the bum allegations.

i've seen a lot of people comparing megumi's situation to yuuji in shibuya, and saying that megumi should be able to "just get up and keep fighting," so i'm going to tell you why this is not a fair comparison, and give some context on yuuji's "recovery" from shibuya that i feel people are missing when they say this. this is quite lengthy, sorry in advance

i. fundamental differences in the ways in which yuuji & megumi view saving people

yuuji wants to save everyone. he wants to save as many people as he can because of what his grandfather said to him on his deathbed. this is what kickstarted the events of jjk. if yuuji hadn't felt this way, he never would have eaten that finger to say some guy he met an hour ago, which is another point. yuuji cares for people easily. he threw his life on the line to save megumi immediately after meeting him. he mourned junpei, who he spent all of a few hours with in total like he had known him for years.

this is very different from megumi, who both does not get attached to people easily, and does not care to save everyone. he only cares to save people he deems worthy, and as far as we know, this list consists of only tsumiki and yuuji. its even unclear if he feels this way about nobara or gojo, despite them also being relatively important in his life. as you can see, when he thinks about saving people by his conscience, the only two characters shown are tsumiki and yuuji.

this is why he sometimes gets some criticism for not doing a half-assed job as a sorcerer, but i think its important to remember that he does not actually want to be a sorcerer, only doing it out of necessity to keep tsumiki from the zen'in clan. the times where we do see him taking things seriously are when yuuji and/or tsumiki's lives are what's at stake.

so in shibuya, after watching his own hands slaughter innocent people, and watching nanami and nobara die, yuuji is able to keep going because there are still more people who need to be saved, and he wants to save everyone. in contrast, megumi has watched his own hands kill one of the two people that he cares about saving, and severely maim the other one, so what is there to keep fighting for, given the way he views the world?

and i think it's also important to note that megumi has not been aware of his surroundings since sukuna v yorozu, so saying that he should get up now to save yuuji is not reasonable because he doesn't even know yuuji is there.

ii. the environment yuuji was in in shibuya vs the environment megumi is in right now

now none of that is to say that yuuji did not also break down and want to give up in shibuya, because he absolutely did (actually, im not sure if this is canon or just my theory, but the reason he did not switch back with sukuna at the detention center was because he wanted to give up), but the circumstances were way different

within minutes of watching nanami and nobara die, todo & nitta were there to encourage him and get him back on his feet (most of that was due to todo, but nitta was also telling yuuji not to lose hope).

meanwhile, megumi has been alone for over a month now, save the few seconds in 251 where i'm pretty sure he didn't even know yuuji was there, with nothing but his own misery to keep him company. sukuna took over his body and killed tsumiki with megumi's technique on november 16th. the shinjuku showdown takes place on december 24th. that's over a month stewing in guilt and mourning with no one to support him at all. that makes it a lot more difficult to bounce back quickly like that.

iii. more context on yuuji

even after todo's little pep talk that gave him the strength to get up and finish mahito off, yuuji didn't just "bounce back" and stand up to keep fighting in the way people think he did. in the days following the shibuya incident, he was really directionless, probably a bit reckless, because he genuinely didn't know what to do with himself, and didn't know if he even deserved to be alive. in my personal interpretation of yuuji immediately post-shibuya, if it weren't for choso, he would have likely lost his life, as he just showed a lack of self-regard in those days following. just one example:

it's not until megumi shows up again that yuuji finds a direction to go, and even then, he's operating with the mindset that once everything is over, megumi and tsumiki are safe, and gojo is unsealed, he will die and stop causing trouble for everyone.

so again, i think the megumi/yuuji comparison as a way to hate on megumi is not fair, both because there are important differences in the way they think and their situations, and because yuuji's reaction post shibuya isn't quite as resolved and strong as people make it out to be. this is not to say that yuuji is not strong! he absolutely is, just to point out that he, like megumi, was/is also lacking the will to live, and there's nothing wrong with that! wanting to give up is a completely reasonable reaction to being in this situation as an ADULT, let alone at 15 years old.

if you've made it this far, thank you for listening to me ramble 🙏 pls let me know any of your thoughts as well, i'd love to chat about this!

[sciencebecameouraddiction]

my lucifer headcanons

note: these are just my own head canons. things i’ve noticed, how i write lucifer, what plays into why i write luce the way i do… etc. purely my own opinion.

- i think michael was very fond of his brother

- when the time came though to listen to dad and fulfill his duty or be a brother to lucifer michael chose duty

- the betrayal is still a sore spot for lucifer

- during lucifer’s “youth” he was curious, always dreaming up incredible creations… it was why he was dads favorite.

- he made the star fish, “because the sea deserves its own stars!” and he also made the duck. the ducks first iteration was quite a bit larger… lucifer and god compromised on a smaller duck. (more like god bribed lucifer.)

- he watched adam be made…. so he was always fond of him and lilith… until he fell in love with lilith…

- he didn’t realize it was love

- but michael knew and michael was scared. so he would draw lucifer away from the garden every chance he got

- lucifer was very naive when he was cast down to hell. he knew so much, he had been alive for so long, but there was so much life experience he didn’t have.

- the first few years in hell were horrible…

- he had hope at first

- maybe it all wouldn’t be so bad

- it was really bad. like really bad. the people who came down to hell were unspeakable devils

- (this is based off a fic i read and i can’t find it, if this rings any bells pls let me know the fic name) but lucifer is continuously appalled and distraught by the atrocities committed in his name.

- it’s one of the reasons he so powerful. he has the angelic power but also the power from those who worship him and make sacrifices for him

he really hates it. a lot. makes him feel no better than the worse overlord (cough alastor cough)

- charlie has no idea and she’ll never know if he can help it

- lucifer smells like apples and vanilla musk, a hint of cinnamon and something floral or citrusy.

- the floral or citrus changes depending on his mood

- he has a huge library. he actually pops up to earth with Asmodeous sometimes and takes books.

- he saved the whole Library of Alexandria’s books before it burned down

- he’s great friends with all the sins

- arguably closest with Beelzebub and Asmodeous

- he loves claw machines. the lights, the sounds, the prize winning???? he’s so fucking happy

- he actually wears glasses to read. he doesn’t need them but he says they make him look smarter.

- is actually a pretty good leader, is not nearly as forgiving as charlie is, but he’s not inherently cruel

- his third favorite color is pink

- his first and second are yellow and red, obviously

- he has expensive ass, maximalist taste.

- he doesn’t use tech because he knows what vox does to said tech.

- he’s always wanted a dog

- he’s very touchy. shows love physically. is only this way if he likes you though

- he has nightmares almost every night

- coffee addict

- because after not sleeping he wakes up looking like death warmed over

- and that’s if he didn’t forget to eat the past few days except for random snacks and didn’t do a 48 hour blitz of staying up working on ducks or the bit of kingdom shit he does.

- he has a handful of servants who he trusts and they are the only one in the house. there’s no team. nothing like that. he keeps it very close

- this was after someone who was a servant tried to throw an angelic dagger at his head because really they wanted to kill him and thought working for him would get them close enough.

- he homeschooled charlie. he knows a lot of stuff and even knew the guy who created calculus!

[daenysx]

my first daryl shot and i really wanna know what you think, please share your opinions with me!! this takes place in the CDC. hope you like it, requests are open!!

my masterlist

blame the alcohol

daryl dixon tries not to fall for you but you are there to wreck his plans with an empty wine glass in your hand.

he wants to save the image in front of him and stare at it for hours.

you are standing there, unaware of his presence. you are only wearing a shirt which is extra big for you and a pair of socks reaching your knees. your slightly wet hair frames your pretty face and you are holding a book in your hand, there is a wine glass on the table next to you.

daryl dixon loves watching you.

he is standing by the doorframe with a bottle in his hand. he is supposed to be resting but it feels impossible. there are things that keep his mind alive and the alcohol he consumes is not enough to shut it off.

here you are, looking clean and relaxed. you use the same shampoo and soaps with everyone, your little survival team that finally makes it to CDC, but he thinks you smell different. your scent is different and he is not dreaming about it, right? he wants to take a deep breath to fill his senses with you and it's perfectly real.

you are reading a book, he doesn't know if you like it. he is sure even if you don't like the context you like the act of reading. you told him that in his tent, the days feel like ages now but truly it wasn't that long ago. you have a passion for reading. you'd read anything you find, that he's sure about.

your wine glass is empty. he should approach you and offer you more wine, right? that's what he wants but he isn't sure if you want his company. actually there isn't a reason for him to think otherwise, he knows you enjoy spending time with him but he can't help his thoughts. this life isn't made for love stories and a man like daryl dixon can't afford to let himself fall for you.

then you turn to his side, finally noticing him as if you've felt his desperation. there is that smile again. your eyes sparkle and he can see it perfectly clear on your clean face. he doesn't even want to admit it to himself but he loves seeing you smile. it's like watching the sunrise, shiny and mesmerising.

"why are you standing there, dixon? come closer."

why does his last name sound so beautiful when it comes out of your lips? he comes closer to you with slow steps.

"are you drunk already? unbelievable, you surprise me."

he smiles. "nah, i ain't drunk."

you leave the book back to its place, take your empty glass and go to the couch across the wall. you point the bottle in his hand, "can i have some of that?"

he nods quickly, fills your glass, and sits next to you on the couch. you two share a few minutes of silence, sipping your drinks and staring at the wall. he wants to hear your voice, anything you tell him even if you think they are stupid, he wants to hear it. there are little moments between you and him. when it gets too much in his head, he finds a release with them.

"c'mon, tell me somethin'."

you raise an eyebrow. "like what?"

he shrugs, takes a sip of wine. "anythin'."

you curve your lips slightly, think of an answer. it feels like the right time for a deep conversation with the opportunity to blame it on alcohol if you say something you regret later. not to deep but you feel like you need to be the brave one.

"this apocalypse...sometimes i feel like-like i'm happy it happened you know? not happy, happy is not the right word to say but- just glad. for one reason."

he has a look on his face, questioning and curious. you have to explain what you mean. you have to start somewhere.

"we'd never know each other if it weren't for the apocalypse."

he doesn't know what to say. after he lost merle, he planned to be alone and alive in this new life and now you are here, wrecking all his plans with your sweet confessions and smiles. he shouldn't get attached for his own sake but then you look at him with big, teary eyes and he is gone.

"you ain't gonna cry for this sunshine."

you try to smile. "i'm not crying but- the possibility of never knowing you is terrible and- i feel like an awful person for saying that i'm grateful for the zombies somehow."

he chuckles softly. then he puts the bottle on the ground and brings his hand to your face. his movements aren't the most confident ones, he is hesitant but that doesn't stop him from brushing that one teardrop away from your face.

"ya can't ever be an awful person. i know what ya mean, okay? you're right. ya shouldn't ever cry for- fucks sake ya shouldn't cry for anythin'. you're too pretty for that."

he never fails to put a smile on your face. he smiles too, when he sees the little wrinkles on the corners of your mouth. he doesn't regret saying too much, if it's necessary to talk too much to make you smile for him, daryl dixon would turn into a fucking chatterbox.

"thank you, daryl. for everything. i know i'm not really suited for this kind of life but i'm trying...i really do."

his eyes are about to turn into little hearts with sparkles. fuck it. you can't possibly be that sweet, he thinks. he can't even believe himself for using the word sweet for someone but there you are, his sweet girl.

"you're a fast learner. you're fine and 'm with you."

you press a soft kiss to his cheek and put your head on his shoulder. he wishes to keep that promise until the end of everything. he doesn't even know if he'll be alive tomorrow but he can blame the alcohol for the bravery and your beautiful face for the romantic feelings, right? right.

[sanjisboyfie]

one piece smau: vacation edition

— strawhats being a cute friend group once again

— male reader, everyone having the tiniest crush on him too but thats only if u swuint (im a very selfindulgent writer sorry)

— also i imagine robin, franky and brook to be older than the rest of hte crew, but not like crazy older. its probably not really relevant, but like mid twenties insead of their thirties and forties LMFAOA the rest of the crew is young twenties

liked by ._.[name], princesanji, and 10k others

dni_nami: pre-7hr flight question, how long until we all start killing each other? everyone place your bets

tagged: ._.[name], freeluffy, and princesanji

uso_pp: we barely made it through the airport without losing luffy, so i'm placing my bet on one hour.

[liked by ._.[name], roro.zoro, and 20 others]

-> dr.law: i'm surprised you even made it through airport security....

-> freeluffy: TOORRAOO YOU SHOULD'VE COME IT WOULDVE BEEN SO FUNNNN!!!

-> dr.law: hard pass. good luck everyone else.

._.[name]: i think it's gonna be fine !!! what's the worst that can happen tbh

-> dni_nami: i could list 100 reasons why this is gonna go bad and all of them involve luffy.

-> robinkills: [name]'s right, i think this trip is going to be very fun !

liked by roro.zoro, robinkills, and 11k others

freeluffy: [name] rented bikes for us, but he won't let me drive :/

tagged: ._.[name]

SUPERCOLA: good job [name] for saving his life, much appreciated

dni_nami: i'm begging you two to not crash and make the expenses of our trip go up even more

-> princesanji: always thinking logically, nami, this is why i love you so much <333333333333333

roro.zoro: pick up some sake otw back

-> ._.[name]: yesyesyes we all know thats the only reason why you came anyway, i'll pick some up

-> roro.zoro: what. no way. i definitely wanted to be sat on a hours long flight next to luffy and be living in a small apartment with all of my friends who dont know how to speak quietly and wont let me sleep even when its already early morning. what. i am so excited to be here.

-> uso_pp: alright we get it please stop

liked by princesanji, SUPERCOLA, and 8k others

robinkills: thank you [name] for winning me the prizes :)

tagged: ._.[name]

._.[name]: anything for you robin <3 aka the person thats keeping all of us sane right now <3

princesanji: HOW DARE THIS BAFFOON STEAL YOU AWAY ROBIN PLEASE LET ME TAKE CARE OF HIM, I WILL MAKE SURE HE NEVER BOTHERS YOU AGAIN

-> uso_pp: when is sanji going to accept the fact that [name] is actually apart of this friend group and that he is also more favored by the women we interact with

-> ._.[name]: dw usopp he only puts on a hard front, he ltr begged me to room with him so he could cuddle w me at night. he's just being shy rn

[liked by dni_nami, roro.zoro, and 40 others]

freeluffy: [NAME] [NAME] DID YOU GET ME THEONE I WANTED TOO??!?!?! REMEMBER I SHOWED YOU

-> ._.[name]: yes luffy :) we are otw back and i have the one you asked for as well.

-> SUPERCOLA: [name] the absolute goat in dealing with luffy and his absurd requests so the rest of us dont have to

liked by freeluffy, roro.zoro, ._.[name], and 9k others

uso_pp: morning debrief where we all share embarrassing stories, like how [name] almost stripped completely naked drunk last night because an ice spice song was playing on the karaoke.

._.[name]: alright genuinely why the fuck did that have to be the caption you put on the internet for the whole world to see

-> roro.zoro: no dont be embarassed [name] it was funny watching you try and copy her signature pose

[liked by dni_nami, robinkills, and 90 others]

-> dni_nami: don't think about even crossing me in the future, i have a video of the whole thing bby

-> ._.[name]: GOD FORBID A GUY HAS FUN

skullnsoul: i found [name]'s dancing and singing quite endearing

-> ._.[name]: thank you brook :') you're so sweet

-> skullnsoul: yes, although i feel like you're much too old to be wearing underwear with hearts as the print, [name]. i suggest buying new pairs of boxers :)

-> ._.[name]: what the actual fuck

liked by princesanji, uso_pp, and 11k others

dni_nami: i really wish you could hear sanji cursing [name] outin this photo

tagged: princesanji and ._.[name]

._.[name]: me when im literally following the instructions that hes telling me and i somehow still get yelled at

-> princesanji: do you even understand hwo cooking meat works? everyone would have gotten salmonella and food poisoning if i didn't teach you how

->._.[name]: yelling is never the answer sanji

-> freeluffy: I THINK [NAME]'S COOKING TASTED REALLY GOOD

uso_pp: they acc cookeedddd tho like our food was so tastyyy

[liked by princesanji, ._.[name], and 9 others]

robinklills: sanji almost shoved [name]'s head into the griller, it was funny

-> ._.[name]: HE WHAT ??!?!?! I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THAT HE TRIED DOING THA TWHAT THE FUCK

liked by princesanji, ._.[name], and 12k others

roro.zoro: [name] told me to post this photo he took.

tagged: princesanji and ._.[name]

dni_nami: awww look all the boys finally getting along

[liked by robinkills, uso_pp, vivi, and 50 others]

-> princesanji: i would have much rather been in your presence my queen, i love you so much

-> ._.[name]: sanjii give up the bit for fucks sake

uso_pp: where was me and luffy's inv ??? ig its like that now ....

-> roro.zoro: you guys were playing mermaids in the pool at the apartment and explicitly told us to not interfere with your serious business

-> princesanji: and then you started getting mad at us for invitig you again right before we left

._.[name]: damn zoro u lookin mad fine in this photo shiiiitttt #smash

-> roro.zoro: i need you to make sure your door is locked later tn or else i cant promise you will wake up the next day

liked by dni_nami, vivi, roro.zoro, and 12k others

._.[name]: thank u nami for the photos

tagged: dni_nami

._.[name]: btw nami made me post this w that caption so it could "scare away the hoes"

-> dni_nami: im doing them a favor, they just dont know it yet cuz ur fucking insane

-> uso_pp: LMFAOAO

purrrona: can i bite it?

-> ._.[name]: BITE WHAT?????

-> purrrona: so is that a yes or a no?

-> uso_pp: professional dick rider alert !!!!

roro.zoro: why is your thirst trap the first thing i have to see when i open this app

-> ._.[name]: why are you acting like you weren't the first person to like this post???

[liked by dni_nami, robinkills, and 57 others]

portgasace: WHY THE FUCK WAS I NOT INVITED ON THIS TRIP?????

dr.law: id also like to thank nami for the photos

[shhh-secret-time]

is me again hiiiii:•)

you don't have to do it right away, but the sp writing fandom is pretty busy with irl stuff from what i can see and i'm literally dying of withdrawals from no lovesick-idiot mccormick like its such a vital need for me to be alive. suave kenny is great, but STUPIDLY red-faced kenny fumbling a corny pickup line? [SLAMMING THE TABLE]

if you have a crumb of anything at all with kenny being a dummy when it comes to his lover, spare please if you want actually i'm not forcing give it now it's ok 🤲

ALSO HOPE UR DOING OK!!! :•D

- 🪼

Well hi you! I'm glad to see you back! I hope you guys don't mind that I combo'd yours together again! I'm so glad more of you are asking for Kenny! I couldn't resist the "Can't take a compliment to save his life" Kenny. Because same.

Warning: NSFW, Strong Language, Bad Flirting, Praise Kink

Pairing: Kenny x GN!Reader

The way his hair lays across your lap makes it look like little strands of golden thread. Such a peaceful look on his face would make any man jealous. That little thought tickled the front of his brain, how lucky of man he was.

Kenny opens his eyes just a bit, heavy lids beckoning him to close them again. It takes all his willpower not to listen to the sleepy siren song. But how could he even consider that when you look so beautiful.

He takes in every little detail he can. Watching your eyes move across your phone, it's hypnotic. You're not paying attention to him and sometimes he likes it that way. Getting to admire you in peace like this, without you trying to hide the things he loves so much about you.

But sure enough, when you feel his loving eyes on you, you stop and raise a brow down at him. He can't stop the lazy smirk that tugs at his lips. It makes you smile in return and Kenny feels his heart pounding in his chest.

"How's the most beautiful person in South Park feeling?" Kenny purrs up at you.

His flirting makes you chuckle and run your fingers through his hair. It only encourages him, you know that. Just a bit of attention from you and he becomes an addict wanting more and more. All you did was smile and laugh, and he's already pushing for more of that sweet sound.

"I don't know, how is he feeling?" You hum softly as you push the shaggy bangs out of his face.

You have to stifle back another laugh when you see his eyes widen. Even more so when a small blush begins creeping up his neck. He'd be lying to himself and any God that was listening if he thought you were going to shoot back like that. His heart wasn't ready, not by the way it slammed against his chest.

"You're a big flirt Angel. C'mon now, don't upstage me at my own art." He says trying to recover from the little counterattack.

"But Kenneth," Oh the way you say his full name. Even in that playful tone, it would make him stand at attention. "You're the real piece of art here."

And oh, the way your fingers trace down his jawline, like you're trying to memorize all his features on touch alone. Kenny's breath hitches in his throat, hoping that you don't feel the way his face heats up under your touch.

"S-Sweetheart. You're laying in on a little thick."

"Am I? I don’t think I tell you enough."

How can you sit there and tell him something like that so easily? The shade of your eyes holding such a deep passion. You look at him as if he's the most precious thing in the world, like the most devoted would their God.

"I don't think you hear it enough. I love you, Kenny. I love you so very much." You pause for only a moment, "From the way you smile at me with that earnest smile. I know you're trying so hard…even when you're tired, you're smiling and it's so beautiful."

Fuck.

"Oh, and the way you take care of those around you. I could go on for hours about how I adore you for that. You always make sure other people are happy before yourself. That heart of yours is gorgeous."

Fucking shit.

"And the way your eyes light up when you get excited. Oh, it's so cute! Pretty lavender eyes, I get envious when they're not on me. How could I not admire you as art?"

But they are! Always! He wants to tell you that, but the way you speak so softly. The way your voice drops to a whisper, tracing his lips as you speak. He can do nothing but open his mouth in awe. The blush on his face deepens and crawls up to the tip of his ears.

Just as he throws his arm over his eyes, burying his flustered face into the crook of his elbow, you let out a laugh. The sound rings out like a bell, a sound he wants to remember for the rest of his life.

"Kenny, don't hide from me baby~. Please." You know his weakness, a whisper against the shell of his ear in that pleading tone.

Kenny groans and slowly moves his arm away. He's barley able to look you in the eye. The way he tugs his bottom lip in between his teeth tells you everything you need. His face is such a deep red you think his skin is going to be permanently stained by that cherry color. In between nibbling on his bottom lip, the soft pink flesh quivers into a wavy line. From the way his fingers tap against his knuckles you know he wants to pull his hood up and pull the strings to hide his face.

So, you take them in yours and bring them up to your lips, pressing a kiss onto his bruised looking knuckles. You trail your kisses from his knuckles to the palm of his hand where you nuzzle into the warmth.

"And how could I forget these hands. These hands that protect people… these hands that hold me when I need it. The way you touch me with them makes me feel so loved." You hide the little smirk in his palm, watching the way he tries to hide into the side of your thighs.

"I-…I do love you. I love you so much." You think you hear him moan but it's hard to tell from the way his muffled voice barely reaches your ears.

If it was there’s no way you were going to let him hide them from you. You let his hands face go and cup the side of his face. Just like before you bend over and guide his face back towards yours. Your lips brush against his not quite kissing them yet, you want to see if his mind is still working.

Luckily, it still is. Once he registers that you've got your beautiful soft lips on his, he presses into them with a shaky breath. It feels like he can't catch his breath the way the kiss pulls the air out of his lungs. The rhythmic pounding of his heart picking up speed made its way up into his ears. Every time you pulled away traces of mint would make his mind hazy, only for your lips to anchor him right back in.

Kenny's kissed you before, plenty of times he'd ambush you and pepper your faces with an assault of his love. He’s snuck up behind you and dipped you in his arms, placing a passionate kiss before you could even register what was going on. A few times it earned him a smack on the shoulder or a punch but every time it was worth it.

Kenny's kissed you with want and need behind every little press of his lips. Everyone who knew him knew he was a physical lover, expressing admiration in touch. What better way to tell you how badly he craves you than with a long-drawn-out kiss?

Kenny kisses you with a toothache, how sweet you taste moving your lips across his.

He reaches up. His fingers through the locks of your hair, intertwining fingers through them so carefully one would think you were made of glass. His faded lifeline brushes against your chin and settles right on your jaw line.

His lifeline.

You.

"I love you." Kenny repeats himself.

"I love you too." So do you. Sneaking in the affection, weaving it between the kisses that just won't stop.

You can't stop, not when you can feel all the love, he's giving you. Normally it's his tongue that sings your praises. Kenny McCormick gave you all he had and more. He was a well of devotion and how you wanted to just keep pulling from him.

But sometimes you needed to remind him to take his fill. He could take from you more than he does, that it was alright to be a greedy man. That he didn't need to give so much without getting a little in return.

"No other man makes me feel like you do. When my time comes, I'll always remember you Kenny and all that you do." You whisper with that beautiful smile coming across that gorgeous face.

God if you only knew what you were saying to him. If you knew how heavy your words sat in his heart. You'd remember him? Through everything you'd remember him.

Your words echoed in his mind, your voice sounds like you are worshiping him. It should be the other way around. It's always been the other way around. He was put on this earth to serve, and when the universe gave him you, he was rewarded. Every time he felt the cold embrace of death, he'd wake up the next morning with his head in your lap.

Warm and safe. Home.

Does a man like him deserve more? Does he deserve to have his heart beating so deeply from your praise. Did he deserve to feel the way your lids lower, staring at him like he was the low lamp light of heaven?

"Can I tell you something Ken?" You start to say, snapping him out of the spell you've put him under. "I think I'd love you no matter what universe we were in."

Did you know just how much he'd do for you? The things he'd do to get back home to you. That there wasn't a god or death in the universe that would keep you from him. What he would do to anything that tried to get in between the two of you?

That was it. This is what was going to take him out, but if it was you maybe he wouldn't care.

Luckily it doesn't, not this time anyway. Kenny pulls away from your touch, sitting up with his back facing you only for only a moment. He knows he hasn't said anything in a while, but his silence doesn't scare you. You know him better than that. You know him better than any person has even bothered to.

He twists his body until he's facing you with either leg resting by your hip. His knees propped up to cage your body with his. Hands find home on your waist, pulling you into their lap. Kenny tilts his head like he's going in for another kiss.

"I know we would. I'd find you and give you my heart every time." Confession never sounded so saintly, not by the way Kenny says it.

The blond doesn't even seem to mind that his face is still a deep crimson, that he's all but shaking while holding you. The man's a lovesick fool.

"And I'd give you mine. My Kenny."

"My Angel."

Lips connect again ending the praise and sweet names. Hands begin exploring bodies, mapping every inch of skin. Calloused fingers push up against your soft skin and Kenny can't help but damn himself for how rough they feel against you.

But you seem to love it. You seem to love everything he does. When the pads of his fingers trace up and down your spine it makes your arch your back, chest pushed into him. The barrier of clothes has never really been a problem for Kenny, but tonight they were the source of his frustration. He needed to feel you against him, to touch you and feel that warmth that makes his skin buzz.

When your shirt is peeled off you expect him to dive straight towards your flesh like he had done so many nights like this. Instead, his hand comes up to the back of your neck and he presses his forehead against yours. He calls you an angel again, reminding you that you’re his, before his eyes trail down your form.

Why couldn't he just put into words how you made him feel? Put it in a way that wasn't a stupid pick-up line or some filthy comment. Kenny wishes he could just tell you, tell you how you're the only thing that makes him feel like this. He wants to tell you all the things you're so quick to tell him. But he can't. He can't form love on his tongue like you. He forms love on his tongue the only way he knows how.

His head dips down right where your shoulder connects with your neck, pressing a kiss into tender pulse of your heartbeat. Hoping it'll carry down your body landing right where it needs to. The pleased sigh it pulls from you tells him that's exactly where it went. Kenny speaks to you through chapped lips on skin trailing down your neck. Where he'd normally leave red splotches, tonight he leaves promises.

I love you. - a kiss on your collarbone, he lays you on your back against the bed.

You mean everything to me. - he bites your flesh and swirls his tongue, tasting you.

Don't forget this, don't forget me. Please. - he begs with a shaky sigh as he comes up for air only to dive right back to the other side of your neck.

Your hands slip into the folds of his orange jacket to push it down his arms. He tears himself away from you just long enough to grant your silent request. Sitting on his knees, he tosses the jacket to the side where it disappears somewhere in your room. Next is his worn-out tank top that leaves him bare to the cool air.

"You're so pretty Ken." Your voice and hand beckon him back down as you trail fingers up his chest.

He groans into the crook of your neck followed by a soft moan. He can feel himself slipping each time you compliment him. The feeling fuels him further, tugging your bottoms off. You feel him fumble for a moment until his thumbs hook into the waistband of your underwear, there he smooths out the flesh under them with the pads of his thumb. Rolling your hips up against him, you can feel just how pretty he thinks you are.

"M'gonna make you feel so good baby." He promises as he finally removes the clothing separating you.

He finishes removing your underwear and starts working on the rest of his clothes. Pants with a silver chain on the side and boxers that only served to keep him away from you. His silver necklace dangles off his neck between the both of you as he crawls back over you. Somewhere along the way he hooks his arm under your leg, pushing it up towards your head. His other hand follows by skimming up your thigh and gathering it up into his palm. They guide your legs apart, opening you up for him.

"I know you will." You laugh. Not at him. But in a way that's so carefree, "You always do, you're so good to me."

Kenny's hips buck forward in response pulling another sweet moan from you. Another one of many he hopes. He bites his lip when you take his member into your hands, gently guiding it into your warmth. It's slow the way he nudges the tip against you, opening you further to him. He wants you- needs you to memorize every inch of him so he takes it slower. Sinking further into you until he bottoms out.

Moans mix in the silence of your room. Until you lull your head to the side with that same pleased smile. "That's it. You feel so good Kenny. Come on love, have me like only you can do."

He almost feels bad when he squeezed your thigh, so sure that you'll complain about the bruise later, but you know what you're doing. You know praising him lead to this point, even if that wasn't your intention. To pull a gasp from him was just a little treat, one you were happy to have again and again.

When he drags his cock out of you, you mewl and squirm under his grasp. Your back arches again trying to encourage him to take more of you. Every long drag brush against your walls, every move feels calculated. He knows your body, knows where to push and grind to pull every sweet sound out of you.

Every time you call out his name, he feels his control lose and any other time it wouldn't be a problem. Right now, he hates it, he wants to take this slow and show you what you mean to him. But he can't, not when you press a kiss onto his throat whispering praise after praise into his pale flesh.

Kenny's hips snap forward, long slow thrusts have turned to sharp quick ones. "Say it again." He pants in-between each slam, "tell me you want me."

"I want you! God, please!" You cry out just as you wrap your arms around his neck.

"Again!"

"I want you, Kenny!"

"Fuck!"

He can feel it, he's at the end of his rope. That fire at the pit of his stomach is raging, consuming too much, but he can't finish yet. Not when you haven't. He inhales trying to focus on making you feel good. Making you feel like the way you should, but it's so hard when you're clenching around him and saying all the things that make him weak.

That's when he hears it, the way your tone pitches up an octave. You're not moaning anymore, they're silent cries of pleasure. Your nails dig into his back, and he hisses, you're close. So close.

"Ken- I'm gonna…I'm gonna cum!"

He doesn't even register when you do, not when you pull his own release from him. Kenny's moan is muffled by the way he turns his head and captures your lips again just as he spills himself into you. His cock twitches and throbs inside you, where he stays locked and connected for a few more beating moments.

A breath.

Shame washes over him, this was supposed to be about you. He was supposed to take his time.

A heartbeat.

Show you just how much he loves you because this was all he was good at. All he was ever going to be good at. Using his body to-

A laugh. Yours.

You're giggling and peppering kisses across his face. Gentle hands cup his face and hold it there. That smile that wakes him from the internal battle he put himself through.

"Kenny! You're crushing me baby!" The way you say it makes him think you don't really mind. The way you kiss his nose makes him think you're just happy he's in your arms. The way you hold him makes him think. Why'd he ever wants to be anywhere else. He smiles and presses his lips into your cheek blowing a kiss, lips make your skin vibrate.

Kenny’s just happy to have a home.

[blasphemous-lies-and-deceit]

sneaking away to a hidden corner to share a secretive kiss

"This is such bullshit."

"I know," Michael answered, his pleasant smile never budging. Gerry shifted restlessly at his side, glad that he had Michael's arm tucked in his. Otherwise he would have hauled ass hours ago.

It was fine that the person he loved the most in the world was tied to the Archives and the Eye, and he himself was deep in debt to an evil old bitch and thus also roped into the whole mess. He had accepted all of that. The day to day was decent, especially once he and Michael left at the end of the day to spend the night together, which he could easily call the greatest moments of his life. He could handle the field work involving dangerous books or people- he could handle himself, and had a reason to make it back safely. Even the occasional Institute drama that made its way into the Archives, he could deal with it.

But he could not stand being forced into a suit to stand around and please the Institute investors at some stupid fundraiser dinner.

There were so many people in fancy suits and dresses, crowded into the ritzy hotel ballroom Elias had rented for the evening. It was hot, and crowded, and Gerry could feel judging eyes on him, like he was holding a flashing sign saying "I Don't Belong Here". His shoes hurt his feet and his jacket was too tight in the shoulders and the food still hadn't been served. The night was dragging in the worst way, and he hated all of it.

The only relief he had was Michael, somehow looking perfectly at ease in the uncomfortable situation. And gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. Unlike Gerry, he fit so well into his dark blue suit, eyes bright and sparkling, hair pulled back so his curls spilled down his back. Gerry wanted to plaster himself to him, press him up against a wall and ravish him, take that sweet bland smile off his face and replace it with wide-eyed pleasure. And the knowledge that he couldn't, not for several hours, was unbearable.

"Ah, here he is." Gerry tensed when Elias pushed through the crowd, approaching them with a horribly delighted smile. A small stuffy-looking man followed him. "Gerard, it's my pleasure to introduce you to a former associate of your mother."

'Fuck you,' Gerry thought as hard and viciously as he could, and caught a slight wince from the Head of the Institute. It seemed that Gertrude's suspicions about her boss were correct, but he didn't have time to think about that. The other man, who's name he didn't bother to catch, was stepping forward with his hand outstretched, and he reluctantly took it, woodenly smiling at his enthusiasm.

"I'm so glad to make your acquaintance," he gushed, hand clammy as he vigorously shook Gerry's. "Your mother's passing left such a hole in the rare book collecting community. Elias tells me you've inherited her stock. Will you be continuing her work?"

"Not...really?" Gerry mumbled, feeling horribly awkward and deeply uncomfortable by the mention of his mum. He knew just from the way Elias was smiling that he'd done this on purpose, setting up this situation just to watch him squirm. Fucking bastard. "Not really interested in collecting them, exactly."

"We've actually discussed liquidating Mary's collection," Michael spoke up smoothly, tugging Gerry closer to his side and out of the grasp of Mary's enthusiastic former client. "If that's something you're interested in, we can certainly discuss the sale at another time."

God fucking bless Michael, Gerry thought in relief, slumping against his side. He was taking control of the conversation, saving Gerry's ass with his confidence, and that was so unspeakably reassuring.

"Oh." The stranger's face fell dramatically. "That's such a shame, Mary worked so hard to compile all those books."

"I'm sure they will be far better off in the hands of someone else," Michael said placatingly with a surreptitious squeeze to Gerry's arm. "Someone who is more suited to care for them than we are."

"Well, in that case..." A nearly lustful look slid onto their conversation partner's face, sending a chill down Gerry's spine. "I'd be more than happy to-"

"Um, Elias?" Rosie appeared at Elias' elbow, distracting him from their conversation he'd been watching like an engrossing tv show. "Gertrude has Peter Lukas cornered again, I think you should intervene."

"Oh, damn," Elias sighed as he turned away to focus on the problem. Gerry felt a hard yank on his arm, and let himself be pulled back by Michael, who dragged him away from the conversation before anyone could notice. Michael towed him to a corner next to the window, where the long curtains shielded them from the rest of the room.

"Come here," Michael whispered urgently, pulling Gerry close and cupping his face. Gerry eagerly shifted up onto his toes to accept his kiss, full of warmth and comfort. "Are you okay?"

"I am," Gerry assured him, sighing against his lips. "I am. Because of you. Thank you for dealing with that asshole, I never know what to say to guys like that."

Michael sighed as well, his breath gusting across Gerry's face as he touched their foreheads together. "I wasn't sure...I know we talked about it, about what to do with your mom's stuff, but-"

"You were perfect," Gerry assured him, stepping closer to wrap his arms around his middle. "I don't want it to go to him-"

"Absolutely not," Michael agreed with a smile, tucking Gerry close in their private little corner. "We're a good team, aren't we?"

"The greatest." Gerry buried his face in Michael's chest, rubbing his cheek against his smooth tie. All of his nerves had melted away, leaving him happy and warm in Michael's embrace. "I think I'll keep you right here for the rest of the night."

Michael laughed. "But we'd miss Gertrude tormenting Elias and Peter Lukas," he protested, even as he leaned down to kiss Gerry again. "She might need us as backup."

"She's fine," Gerry dismissed immediately, sinking his fingers into Michael's hair and pulling him into a deep and very-wanted kiss. He could keep Michael there for the rest of the night, just the two of them, their own private oasis all to themselves, to kiss and bask in each other's presence. That was all that he wanted, and he would take it for as long as he could.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Wibta if I told my friend, upfront, I do not want his toxic partners in my campaign party without specifying why?

Everyone in this is 22+

So I (22NB) have been working on a campaign for at least 3 years now. I used dnd as a base and built off it to make my own world, races, mechanics, massive maps, religions, languages etc. This will be a massive campaign with highlights on religion and dealing with gods as a mortal etc and I've put so many hours into it it isn't even funny. I mean shit, I picked music for different areas depending on if it's day or night.

I made a discord server to house most of the basic info my players would need from table rules to the races and beyond. I mainly had the idea that the party would consist of my dmnpc guide (he doesn't fight or break the game, his only action during fighting is the help action and guide the party. Im not an asshole dm who makes my guide the protagonist. If its important, death doesn't really exist in my campaign due to demi-god race stuff, the party just gets sent back to its last save point with my grumpy man guide saying I told you so.), my partner's character (24f)(she dosent get preferential treatment. We've been together for 8 yrs) and my best bud's character (22tm. Been friends for 8 yrs). I never said I specifically only wanted my partner and friend to be party members but it was implied due to the fact I never invited my friends partners to the discord. I just don't really have many friends and this is the first time I've ever dm-ed period, let alone dming my own homebrew. We're all pretty novice newbie players and I think it'll be fun for us to stumble through the game together in a much less complicated form of DND without seasoned players "um actually-"ing us the whole time.

My partner is excited to try and my friend is ecstatic and about 2 years into development (last November) he asked if I could let his partners join the campaign. There're a few issues with this beyond me not really knowing them and not wanting to run a large party (it's hard for seasoned dms to run a 4+ party, let alone I, a fresh infant of a dm). My friend has 3 partners of his (he has 4 total) he wants to introduce to my campaign, this includes (fake names): Mel(24nb), Sandy (mid 20s f) and Rue (23 tw). I have issues with each individual present and it all stems from me sitting in on a different campaign for a single session. See, my friend has his own campaign (much smaller, follows one story in one town on an island instead of my entire continent) and he tried to run it by those three partners (and 2 friends. Names and genders unnecessary, they were our age) while I quietly sat in the session (it was over a discord call, were all in differnet states except for me and my partner) and watched it run just to see how my friend dmed and how the groups chemistry was. They had a 3 hour session.

It was the most socially awkward, intense and passive aggressive 3 hours of my life. Mel barely paid attention and as a result, had to have things explained to them when they weren't listening. They would then would talk over the person explaining things, pick apart their language and get irritated to the point of telling them (mostly rue) to shut up. Mel was quite litterally looking for a fight constantly. Sandy was relatively quiet but also not paying attention and talking over other players actions. She also would come up with random "icks " and one minute was telling everyone to keep all sexual jokes and comments to themselves because it made her uncomfortable then the next said her character was literally blowing a guy in the back of tavern.(btw this is not a fetish campaign or anything, it was out of left field for everyone and my friend shut it down because of that) Rue was the "uhm actually" type who pointed out inaccuracies, broken rules and lack of realism (it's a pirate fantasy magic campaign. There isn't much to focus on realism). Rue was clearly the most seasoned player but the nicest all things considered. She was mostly just condescending and treated my friend like he was stupid for not having every single detail mapped out. The party also had 2 of his friends but they were just as quiet as me and also either not paying attention or listening to the shit show. The session litterally ended with Sandy and Mel having the tiniest argument, mel pulling a crying running away anime protagonist "I'm sorry for being just a fucking terrible person! Ill leave so you all can have fun!!" Then hanging up all dramatically. Safe to say, their party was literally every red flag I was warned about by dm guide content.

My friend then came to me and said they broke up with Sandy that night but were still friends and I was still in shock from the sheer toxicity. Did I mention I had only met Sandy and the two other friends that night? And had only spoken over the phone to Mel once in a group call and met rue in person 2 times? Safe to say, I do not want litterally any of his partners in my party for various reasons and I feel as if just one of them at my table would make my patience end on sight. I consider myself to be very flexible and want to do my very best to be a fair but strong dm who doesn't get their story absolutely trampled by players intentionally trying to ruin my story and watch me scramble (mel and sandy openly did that). These players would disrespect my table rules for fun. Even my friend said they never respect him and his story as a DM and he won't run a game with them again and he thinks they'll respect my rule? As a baby dm? Nah fam.

He wants to bring rue and Mel into my campaign and I haven't answered him yet. I've mostly dodged the question with "I'm not sure how big of a party I feel comfortable dming for, I'll know later down the line." And he's asked again, still curious. I don't wanna judge my friends relationships because he and Mel have been together for 5 years and rue has been with him for 2 (they were together previously before rue came out and rue tried to control and physically abuse him. Thats another reason I don't want her in my campaign. Fuck abusers) but the toxicity they would bring would probably poison me. If I bring these things up, idk how my friend would react and he can be a bit... Extreme when he gets defensive. Cutting people off permanently at a moments notice then coming back crying or confused. He has BPD which explains it but I don't obviously wanna say " your partners are low-key toxic and abit abusive and I don't want them at my table or in my life for the most part and although I love you bro(/platonic) I do not want living blowfish at my table that you might not even speak to tomorrow.".

Obviously I wouldn't word it like that but mainly I just plan on saying "Ive never dmed before and I'm nervous about the functionality of my campaign so I want to keep my party nice, small and intimate and only between you, me and my partner for now. Maybe we can incorporate them later." Without mentioning all the... Other stuff and side stepping if he's like "but what if just mel/rue?". Me, my partner and him have been friends awhile so it's not like he'll feel like he's third wheeling or anything and I get he wants his partners to take in his interest, I just do not want them at my table and I wanna know if I'm a dick if I dont specify why and avoid the question. I dont wanna rock the boat and hurt my friends feelings but I'm not gonna ruin the first full run of my pet project so a passive aggressive asshole and a know it all almost abuser can participate. He deserves to know why his partners can't join and I'm not technically lieing, even if they were cool, I don't know if I'd want them there. But they definitely aren't cool and that just seals the coffin for me.

(obviously I'm wording this in a comedic way but everything here actually happened and I mostly just wanna focus on supporting my friend despite his choices. I do not have to like his partners to tolerate them but it's my table and my years of work, if i dont want them there, they dont get to be there. I'm just wondering if I'm a dick for kinda lieing kinda not if I don't give the actual reasons for why I don't want them at my table and never plan on allowing them there. I would happily accommodate 1 or 2 more people at my table in this case if they were close to me like my sister or older brother but I dont know his partners well at all and even though they are passive to me, I dont feel safe around people like that. Wibta?)

What are these acronyms?

[fictionadventurer]

The main character George Bailey runs a bank that is about to be driven into the ground while his competitor relishes this opportunity. He tries to commit suicide, but God sends a guardian angel to distract George from suicide. Confiding with the guardian angel that he wishes he was never born, the guardian angel shows him what the world would be like without him: 

His competitor gouged the money out of the town, leaving it poor and crime-ridden

His wife remains unmarried

George isn't there to save his brother from drowning, which means his brother isn't there to save an American troop transport from a Kamikaze attack

A pharmacist goes to jail for manslaughter because George isn't there to prevent an accidental contamination of a prescription

I'm the sort of person who remains unfazed even from watching graphic war footage on Reddit and horror movies like Event Horizon. But It's a Wonderful Life sends a chill down my spine - because its message does not apply to me and most other people. Its message that "you'd leave a large hole in the world if you were gone" only applies to people like that of the main character George Bailey, namely someone who:

Saves lives

Takes corporate social responsibility seriously

Can avoid being corrupted by greed

Is a good spouse and parent

I am none of those things. I've never had the guts to try saving another person's life, I've never been in the position to use a business for corporate social responsibility, and I don't have a wife and kids (and frankly, that might be for the best because I might become abusive). Would I leave behind a large hole if I were gone? No. I've thought this movie through after the first time I've watched it and have come to the conclusion that my friends would probably find some other friend, and my family would probably be richer, had I not existed.

How is anyone not supposed to have existential dread after watching this movie? Sure, George Bailey is an ideal to strive for, but most of us will fail to achieve one of the above criteria, if not all 4 of them. It sure is comforting to think of ourselves as leaving behind a huge hole if we were gone, but in practice, this does not actually hold true for most of us if we think about it. Most of us are too insignificant, too cowardly, too incompetent, and too corruptible to have a positive impact as significant as George did in the movie.

At best, It's a Wonderful Life is a wake-up call. The movie hammers in a painful but necessary message that the world will be worse off without heroic people like George Bailey, but most of us are not heroic. We can all strive to make positive changes in our lives, but even if we do, it's no guarantee that we'd become indispensable pillars of our communities like George was in the movie.

The thing is, you know that nice, neat little list you laid out? Showing all the heroic things that George Bailey had done with his life?

George Bailey couldn't see it.

We could see it because we got the highlight reel of all the most impactful moments of George Bailey's life--forty-some years condensed into an hour and a half. George Bailey had to live that life minute by agonizing minute, where most of the time was taken up by the mundane tasks of daily living.

From his perspective, he was nobody. He was nothing. He had given up all his dreams of travel and success to work a boring office job in a rinky-dink town. His life was nothing but going to work in the office all day and then coming home to a drafty house full of kids that, for all his hard work, he could barely make enough money to support. He got some satisfaction out of helping people, but they were all little people. He didn't have power like Potter, or wealth like Sam Wainwright. He had built no big bridges or skyscrapers; he wasn't a hero like his brother. He hadn't even gone to college. He was just a little guy in a little town who might as well not have existed for how insignificant his life was. Going with Clarence to the other reality lets him step outside the crushing grind of daily life to see the big picture. Then he understands that he really did make a difference, through dozens of little choices scattered throughout his entire life--but he couldn't have seen it without heaven's help.

George did have opportunities to do good that most of us don't have--but we have opportunities that he didn't have. Those things George did, while good and impactful, aren't the only heroic things that someone can do. There are lots of different ways to do good in the world, and no guarantee that we'll even recognize when we do them. The point of George's story is that no one can say that they didn't make a difference in the world--because none of us can truly see the full effect of our actions.

Sure, our good impact might be smaller and less dramatic than George's. If we didn't exist, perhaps other people would step into the gap that we left. But it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be a perfect fit. The world would still lose something from not having our unique, one-of-a-kind personality going through the world and taking action and making choices and building relationships. Our friends and family and community would still lose out from not knowing us. We might not do everything right--but neither did George; that man had some major missteps and personality flaws that didn't erase the good effect he had. There's no reason to think that our mistakes make our life not worth living.

George Bailey can certainly be a wake-up call to move through life more intentionally. He can be an inspiration that reminds us that the difficult choice to do good--to act out of love rather than selfishness--can be worth all the suffering that it puts us through. But he's not supposed to be an unattainable goal. Good is good no matter when in life we do it. Little actions can make a big difference. Ordinary people can have an impact far beyond what they expected. We don't have to be a pillar of the community to have a life that was worth living.

George's triumph in the end is a validation of the hard choices he made to support the community--but it's also a triumph of all the little people who live ordinary lives and have no idea just how important we are. George Bailey's gift was that he got to see how big of an impact he made--but he never would have expected it beforehand. If you think you don't matter, that your lack of existence wouldn't make a hole in the world, you're already like George Bailey. So don't be so quick to think that your life doesn't make a difference--one day you may just get the chance to learn how wrong you are.

[comradekatara]

with another atla revival on its way (I hate Netflix) I’m starting to see “shipping wars” again and I’m hating/fighting for my life with all these z*tara shippers. I guess, for me, people who ship them together fundamentally don’t understand or even like Katara and yet they will hail themselves as the only people who get her (in what universe…) and claim that Zuko would have treated her infinitely better than Aang (I can’t with people). I’ve had a look on your page and FAQ and I think we share the same thoughts on the ship with the whole coloniser x colonised aspect (this is not to say I don’t like Zuko, but still). I guess what I’m asking is do you think these people get her as a character? ALSO finding out that the comic book writer shipped them and broke up Mai and Zuko made me feel some type of way.

i like how you said “on its way” only 22 hours ago (as of 2/29) despite the fact that natla fully came out a week ago. that said, i still haven’t seen it, so in my mind it also doesn’t exist (at least until i do actually watch it tomorrow). also, for what it’s worth, i do think that breaking up zuko and mai is the right call, it’s just that the execution was fucking awful, because gene yang cannot write for shit and doesn’t understand these characters. but it’s also really funny that he apparently ships zvtara (like, that tracks) but also their only prominent one-on-one interaction in the comics is when he physically restrains her…. lol. lmfao even.

as for the way zvtara shippers talk about katara and aang it truly is bonkers insane the lengths they’ll go and the reaches they’ll make to justify why their personal preference is, in fact, morally correct. i mean, intellectually correct is one thing, because i believe in making a persuasive argument and citing your sources, but morally correct??? they’ll act like aang is some awful toxic misogynist (yes, i know) and that zuko is in fact a paragon of support and respect for women. when we’ve all seen firsthand how he behaves as mai’s boyfriend (sidenote: the fact that they’ll claim that MAI is the one who is “abusive” to ZUKO is crazy. people hate women so fucking much it’s unreal).

in terms of how they discuss katara, it’s not so much the fact that the ship is literally colonizer/colonized (although it is), but the way that shippers deliberately play into these colonial biases and dynamics when portraying them. i actually think had zvtara shippers not been egregiously racist about it for so long, i wouldn’t really mind the ship itself. like, they are very obvious narrative foils who parallel each other in many ways and their arcs are inextricably bound up in each other and incredibly meaningful to both of them. i can understand why people read katara touching his scar in the catacombs or zuko jumping in front of lightning to save her as romantic. not my personal cup of tea, but like. it’s not NOT there. i don’t even object to people calling them soulmates tbh, because like. yeah. they are???

however. the complete lack of understanding as to what colonialism is or how it functions (ive literally seen ppl say that zuko isn’t a colonizer bc he never personally occupies territory, as if he didn’t BURN DOWN SUKI’S VILLAGE, and that the swt was colonized by the fn because they don’t explicitly occupy land like they do in the ek) really pervades the (romantic) interpretation of this dynamic as i’ve observed it over the years. a lot of katara in fire nation reds, as “fire lady,” abandoning her culture for zuko’s sake (despite this apparently being egregiously problematic when katara does this for aang’s sake). one time i came across a literal pocahontas au?!?!?? like. it’s SO dire.

and beyond the very obvious racism, the way they paint shipping zvtara as feminist and progressive is insane because, as you say, they do hate katara. i don’t know how to explain to these people that sanding down all her flaws and turning her into this angelic maternal endless well of compassion and emotional labor means you don’t actually like her character as it is presented in canon. acting as if katara lacks flaws (she is, in fact, deeply flawed) or so much more mature than the rest of her friends and must suffer that burden every day (hint: she’s not and she doesn’t) until the noble zuko comes along and is so gracious towards her and her alone (he’s literally the most immature of the lot, screams and whines at her, and at everyone) is just. a really impressive amount of editorializing. and they turn aang and sokka into these whiny, idiotic babies to justify that decision, as if aang and sokka are not highly intelligent, wise, capable, and responsible in their own right.

katara and zuko are in fact flawed in similar ways. they’re both impulsive, self-righteous, stubborn, myopic, callous, and filled with an unquenchable, blinding rage. it’s clear that when they are aligned in that rage, their dysfunction feeds into each other and they block the rest of the world out to satisfy their impulses. katara is able to pull back at the last moment in “the southern raiders” in a beautiful culmination of her internal character arc, but the entire build-up to this moment sort of showcases the ways in which they might not be great for each other as a couple. but people will do some incredible mental gymnastics to explain why they are nonetheless always right about everything, and why aang and sokka are always wrong and don’t understand katara at all. also, fwiw, reducing “the southern raiders” to who is right vs who is wrong when it’s actually about how various characters approach and process their grief in a deliberately subjective way is just. god. exhausting. i’m exhausted.

the thing about atla is that it is a well-written show, especially as far as its main characters are concerned. katara is so dear and special to me specifically because she is allowed to be so flawed and three dimensional and realistically human. and ignoring zuko’s myriad flaws means ignoring the depth that apparently makes him the most interesting character to 90% of atla fans. there really isn’t a need to editorialize and reduce canon to fit a neat little narrative, when the narrative that already exists is just. already really solid. and the thing is, i don’t even think you should have to change canon all that much to justify this ship, because it’s one of the central dynamics of the entire show. and yet, people still do. they really do. so i think that’s telling, don’t you?