#insert whoever you think hes thinking of that hates his fucking guts

[bearhats]

with a taste of your lips im on a ride.

[themetalvirus]

egghog sonic flirting with amy to try and egg (haha) her on and think she has a chance but the whole time hes thinking ewwww ew ew :( ewwwww ewww

he'll cuddle her but the whole time he's thinking about how easy it would be to just [insert graphically violent thing here]. and amy's just like aw :) he really does care..... maybe he likes me back........ maybe this time.... we might.... kiss? 🫣

he pretends to be ~ secret star crossed friends~ with her (and tails) for information and sometimes just to watch them squirm. but he really doesn't like amy's crush on him. he plays into it to get what he wants but he really reeeeally hates it like it makes him throw up in his mouth a little bit. and again amy's like omg he's flirting with me 😳 is this love??????

but don't get me wrong, amy hates her crush on him too, just for entirely different reasons. she knows he's evil and fucked up but she can't help but wonder if he really cares about her... he seems so carefree, he acts so silly, he clearly loves his family, there most be something more to him. something tender and loving could be deep in his heart and she hopes to be the one to dig it up, but it's a selfish desire. she still also beats his face in with a hammer like every week so lol

somewhat related, i keep meaning to post about when amy finally realizes that sonic isn't interested and has never been interested. when she realizes he doesn't even care for her as a friend, as a person. it's near the end of the story, at the climax, she and tails have been captured and sonic is about three hours away from destroying the universe.

she asks sheepishly, "you never cared about me at all?" and sonic laughs in her face.

he keeps laughing after she sees how surprised she is, because to him it always felt so obvious he didn't give a fuck.

you're so vain, he tells her. and you're so stupid for caring so much about appearances. you trusted me, and for what? because you think i'm handsome? amy, you've watched me do some of the most horrendous shit, and you didn't even care because you thought you could talk me out of it with the power of ~wuv~ or whatever.

it's because you wanna be the hero, right? you wanna be the one to fix me. you want to be able to say to people, while you're dragging me around arm in arm, that you fixed me. it's selfish. it's stupid. it's why i strung you along for so long - it was funny watching you show your rotten heart. sweet little empathetic amy rose letting me prance around and do whatever the fuck i want, hurt whoever i want, just because she thinks i look so pretty covered in blood.

empathetic, loving. peh. it's all a farce, i know it. you never had the guts to kill dad or i. you didn't want to be the one to take another life, huh? because you're so fucking nice. all that makes you is a coward. you're a coward, amy rose, and now i'm going to destroy you and everything you love and build paradise on top of the ruins and you're going to be the one to blame. congratulations. enjoy these next few hours before the world ends. ugh, i need a nap...

the door closes behind him after that. tails looks at amy, sympathetic and trying to be comforting, but she doesn't even notice him. she's just staring at the ground heartbroken. then her face warps into something else, something familar and scary at the same time - absolute red-hot rage.

anything sonic tries to say to her later to make her soften up her heart won't work. it'll never work again.

[bthump]

I see folks giving Griffith a lot of heat for killing the band and forcing himself on Casca, which he did for a resurrection and nothing else (the entirety of the Egg-Apostle arc is dedicated to this). He isn’t a human being at that point, so why are people so upset? Let’s not pretend that Guts and Casca are innocents. You want to hate Griffith? Sure, but why do you like Guts, a man who was a direct facilitator in the genocide of thousands in a village just to kill one Apostle, on the basis of morality of all the concepts? Why are you all fine with Casca and the Band fighting evil battles for pedophile kings just so they could get money? Band of Hawk were hired militia, thugs basically, who warred for whoever hired them. However, everyone acts as if Griffith murdered their mother and dog. 

If you want to play the morality card, you better use it for everyone, or no one. This double-standard’s something I’ve always deeply despised about fandoms, or do you all just want to self-insert into Guts and Casca’s place for validations or “r*pe victim” trauma or something? I’m a childhood rape-survivor, too. All three of these characters are not winning any morality medals anytime soon. At least, Griffith’s actually a well written character who had reasons to do what he did. The other two? Not really.

Enh I mean I disagree with the statement that Griffith raped Casca to facilitate his resurrection - I think he raped her because he was feeling petty and it happened to facilitate his resurrection because of fate. His actions during the Eclipse suggest this - trying to kill Skull Knight, raising his hand to kill them as they escape before lowering it after looking at Guts specifically, rather than Casca, as well as the stupid fetus fusing with him being a hindrance to him and therefore not likely something he planned.

That said he was still transformed into an evil demon at the time lol so logically it doesn't make sense to hate Griffith for it. But yk, I can't exactly blame people despite that. I think it's understandable to have a strong, visceral, emotional reaction to a main character raping another main character regardless of logical circumstances. The scene was written to elicit a big negative emotional reaction, and that's what it got. The Hawks mercenarying is not written to elicit a negative emotional reaction, and it doesn't get one. I think that's fair, and I don't think people should have to apply real-world moral standards to a fictional work, especially without regard to narrative framing.

That said it's very true that fandom often demonstrates double standards with how they hate Griffith but jump to excuse Guts for assaulting Casca himself, and also the way they express their feelings is annoying as fuck at best and offensive way too often lol. Like at the end of the day it's a fictional story and harassing and haranguing real people over it is always going to be an obnoxious overreaction. So yeah like, it sucks lol and I totally feel your frustration at the rest of fandom. I don't necessarily agree with the details of your argument but I definitely agree with the sentiment.

[90stvshowgoth]

—BREAKING & ENTERING

—ch.1 —ch.2

summary: after dabi was seen leaving your apartment complex last week, the commission has sent a lesser known hero to help guard the building until new cameras are installed. however, no security measures in the world could keep dabi out.

w/c: 5064

tags: dubcon, cuckolding, creampie, voyeurism, humiliation, exhibitionism, arson

a/n: this is the final chapter to this little duology, and the reason why its so much shorter is because the first one was really supposed to stand on its own, but i got so many requests for a sequel i couldn’t help it. so i just took the kinks i didn’t get to use last time and pay off some setup and voila. however, just ‘cause this is the last chapter of this story doesn’t mean i’m not gonna write a fuck ton of other stuff for him. ily burn man. plus i’m working on a huge, multi-chapter fic for him while i post smaller one-shots >:) that being said, enjoy.

The impact Dabi left on your life was far bigger than you thought it would’ve been on the night you snuck him away from the law. As he was running from the cops someone saw him climb through your window, and a different person also saw him climb down the fire escape. With witnesses like that, the other tenants were downright furious.

You almost felt bad for the landlord, it wasn’t his fault you were insane enough to willingly let a villain come inside both you and your apartment.

Your landlord and the police department came up with a solution. The apartment complex would be installing new state-of-the-art locks on all fire-escape adjacent windows free of charge. This wasn’t exactly an issue with seeing Dabi again, since all you had to do was purposefully leave yours unlocked.

It would take two weeks to install all the cameras, but until then, a community-assigned hero would be stationed to guard the complex.

His name was Kao, a middle-ranked hero with bright orange hair and a winning smile framed with dimples. At first you thought he might’ve been one of the better heroes, waving you off to work and walking you there the other day, but recently he’d begun to creep you out. The friendly conversations about a tv show you both enjoyed began to turn into invasive questions about your love life.

A week of lingering glances and uncomfortable prying culminated that Friday as he had flat out asked you to dinner moments prior.

“C’mon, I just— I said that wrong, lemme try again,” He stuttered, keeping pace with you as you marched towards the building.

“No, Kao, look, you’re cool and all, but I’m really not looking to date anyone right now.” You huffed, striding into the doorway and towards the elevator. That might not’ve been the whole truth but you obviously couldn’t tell him that you had the hots for a terrorist.

He groaned, rubbing the back of his neck, “Well you just got off work, right? I remember which room you stay in, maybe I can swing by tonight?”

You whirled on him, your jaw slack in shock at the insensitivity of his words. The reminder that he knew where you lived sending a shiver down your spine, “Kao, this conversation is done. I don’t want you following me around anymore, hero,”

Deep down, your words sounded familiar. If they were raspier and said behind a thin veil of indifference, you might’ve realized that you were talking like Dabi.

“What is that supposed to mean? We’re the good guys!” You slammed your fist down on the close-door button, your mouth a thin line, daring Kao to make a move and stop the doors. He didn’t, and soon the reassuring pull of the elevator set your shaking body at ease.

‘Who does he think he is?’ You were bitter, rightfully so, you think.

You were so frustrated that you had difficulty inserting your keys into the lock, twisting it with a growl and throwing open the door, ready to collapse onto your pillow and vent to whoever was online about your heroic stalker.

When you noticed the scent of cigarettes in the air.

“Hey, doll,” Warmth surged through your chest at the sight of him, the villain’s feet kicked up onto the coffee table.

You were hanging your coat on the hook before moving beside him to the couch, “What took you so long?”

“Not happy to see me? You seem a lot bitchier than I remember,” The crude edge of his humor was a breath of fresh air compared to the stifling niceties of work, and you smiled for what felt like the first time that day.

Shaking your head, you toed out of your boots and made your way to the frayed couch, “I’ll tell you all about him,”

That got his attention, “Him?”

“A hero,” Dabi’s frown worsened, an accusatory look in his eyes, “before you ask, no, you idiot, I hate this guy, there’s not a chance I’d sleep with him.”

The tensity in his shoulders relaxed, bring the half-finished Newport to his lips as you continued, “Since you broke in last week all my neighbors lost their shit. They threatened to sue if my landlord didn’t assign a hero to watch the building for a bit. I thought he was cool, but I’ve just decided that he’s a total prick.”

He hummed, nodding understandingly, “Want me to kill him?”

You gaped, hitting him on the chest, “Wha—No, Dabi, what the hell?”

He just shrugged, the intensity of his words almost funny to you, and as you recounted the last twenty minutes the ashes of Dabi’s cigarette fell to the floor. The dying lights of the sun streamed through your window, the smoke oddly beautiful in the glow as he handed you the last hit of his cheap cigar.

“You know why heroes are like that?” You shook your head, enjoying the numbing calm of tobacco, “It’s cause they’re spoiled. They go their entire lives being praised for everything they do so they don’t know how to take no for a fuckin’ answer,”

Apparently your smoking buddy was feeling talkative, much to your delight. His words made you pause, remembering the relieved faces of your neighbors whenever they’d see the gaudy costume Kao wore as he strode by.

“Shit... guess you’re right,” You mumbled into his side, not minding the ever-present aroma of burnt skin and smoke that clung to Dabi’s coat.

He scoffed, “I’m always right, baby,” His words earning him a pinch on the arm.

“No, you ass, just about the hero stuff,” He grinned, the staples on his dimples taut against his skin as he pulled you closer, his breath hot against your ear.

“Careful, doll, you’re starting to sound like a villain,” The drop in your stomach sent heat down your skin, yet somehow you were still shivering under his predatory gaze.

You shook your head, trying to will away the red that dusted your cheeks, “No way, my quirk isn’t strong enough to be a villain,”

He raised his eyebrow expectantly, broadly gesturing for you to go on.

“Well...” God, why is this embarrassing? “I can give people headaches.”

You didn’t know if he would laugh at you or belittle you for your meaningless quirk, but he did neither.

“Think you could practice it more? Get better at it?” He was serious, staring at you and expecting an answer.

You looked away, unable to hold his gaze, “I mean, maybe? It’s not hard to do, I guess,”

Dabi smirked, pulling you onto his lap. It felt as if the week hadn’t happened at all and you were right back where you started, your face flushing at the memories of that night. He dragged you close, eyes dark as he whispered something into your ear...

“Think you could split someone’s head open with a migraine?”

Your gut wrenched, flinching at the gory idea and making you sit up in Dabi’s lap. The atmosphere in the room hadn’t changed, his stare as menacing as before.

That is, until he started to crack up. Louder than you’d ever heard before, his fit filled the apartment until he had to cup his stomach from laughing too hard; the wheeze in his rough throat echoing around the room as your blush spread all the way down your neck.

“Oh, you asshole!” If anything, your shove against his chest only made him more giddy. The panic-fueled adrenaline was still surging through your body, unwillingly making the wetness between your thighs spread, even as you tried to wrap your head around the fact that Dabi had been fucking with you.

Your legs shook as he held on to you for balance, his cackling dying down but the shit-eating grin never leaving his face, “You were so freaked out, huh?”

“Yeah, no shit!”

He hummed, running a hand through your hair and suddenly yanking you forward, basking in the sharp yelp it brought from you, “You’re cute when you’re scared,”

You’d missed the way his scabbed lips felt on yours more than you’d ever admit. There was something about him that left you breathless, eager and questioning your life choices. Groaning into his mouth before pulling back and laving your slick tongue along his disfigured lower lip, you rolled your aching heat against him to force a truly pornographic moan from his mouth.

“Oh, fuck—” One of his hands slid down your back, grabbing your ass through your jeans, “Fucking hell, you missed me that much?”

You nodded dumbly into his shoulder, pressing chaste kisses along the ragged skin as he slid his finger past the band of your jeans, cupping your dripping sex with wide eyes.

“Goddamn, s’no way you’re this wet for me already,” His eyes were scrutinizing, trying to figure out why you were hiding into his neck, “What’s got you so worked up, doll?”

You couldn’t come up with a good excuse in time, Dabi thinking back to how your thighs had tightened up when he asked if you could kill someone, your eyes were frightened back then, yes, but there was something else. Something you wouldn’t tell him.

When the realization hit him, it hit hard.

“Holy shit, you get off on being scared?” He couldn’t believe his luck, the embarrassed groan you buried into his shoulder confirming his suspicions.

Dabi ran a hand through his hair, a childish wonder over his features, “Aren’t I fuckin’ lucky?” He sneered, pulling you back til you were at eye-level again.

“I’m gonna try something, baby,” there was an edge to his voice as he settled one hand on the small of your back, pressing your tits against his chest as he held your bra strap back with the other.

“What are you… Dabi, what are you doing?” The scent of fire and burning fabric filled the air, the ends of your bralette smoking between his fingertips, embers turning to ash and sprinkling down the couch until it was flimsy enough for Dabi to rip free, teeth sinking into your neck as he held you still to keep your skin safe.

It was jarring and a bit terrifying to be restrained against someone like Dabi without knowing his intentions. But nothing in you could deny the blinding rush of pleasure it ripped down your spine.

“It’s all starting to make sense, doll-face, I guess I was right the first time,” His hands tossed the smoking bra into hallway, reaching between you and torturously pinching and pulling on the rosy blush of your tits, “you do have a thing for villains,”

“Can’t wait to fuck that tight pussy again, doll,” Without warning he shoved your torso forward, your body bouncing against the couch, his hands flying to the button of your jeans.

“—Didn’t have time to take you right last time, didn’t get to taste you,” his words made you whimper in his grasp, keeping your legs somewhat raised as tugged down the tight denim.

You fully expected him to take you rough like before, make you choke on his cock before having his fill, but as he tugged off your black panties he crawled down the trembling body beneath him, slowly moving over your ribs, your stomach, and finally your drooling cunt.

He never broke eye contact with you as he pulled your thighs closer, keeping them spread wide as the hot fan of his breath on your pussy sent a thrill through your neglected nerves.

“I want you to scream my name,” It was an order, not a request. The unhinged tremor in his hands was unsettling, an unspoken threat hanging in the air.

Dabi’s tongue immediately found your clit, mouth wrapping around the glistening bead and sucking all at once, the moan it drew from your lips unholy. He moaned at the taste, hiking up your hips onto his shoulders.

“Christ, you’re sweet, doll, like fuckin’ candy...” He muttered in disbelief, more to himself that to you, licking a wide stripe along your drenched lips, diving into you deep enough to have your limbs spasming around him.

On instinct your hand flew to your mouth to muffle the sharp cry that the villain drew. He didn’t warn you before bringing his hand up high and slapping it into the bare skin of your thigh, a scream echoing through the living room. Distantly, you wondered if your neighbors could hear...

“Don’t you dare hide a single sound from me, slut, or this ends now,” his ultimatum was scary but the insult felt heavy in a way you’d never felt before, and you nodded without a second thought, breathlessly bunching one hand into the arm of the couch above you and the other into the ashy black of his hair.

You nodded down to him, silently saying to continue; the villain fixed on watching as your chest swelled in time with your breathing, a rush of blood going to the heat of his cock.

His pace was hungry, nipping at your thighs whenever he thought you were too comfortable, spinning circles into your clit with his tongue and chuckling at the noises it brought, “You gonna cum, princess?” You could only respond with a scream of his name, the plea music to his ears, but he needed you to be louder if he was to get what he wanted.

“Louder,” Dabi called your name like a prayer, moaning into your cunt as you practically suffocated him between your thighs, “Fuck—Louder, baby, scream it,”

“Dabi!!” Your orgasm was hot against his tongue and he drank in every last drop of your climax until you were wrenching away his greedy mouth, your pussy swollen and red from his care.

Just as you started to compose yourself, a frantic banging sounded on the door. Someone from the hallway was slamming down their fist, screaming your name.

“Hey! Did you just say Dabi?! Are you okay in there?” It was Kao.

Horror clawed away any kind of afterglow as you cupped your hand to your mouth, leaning up on your elbow and whispering, “What do I say?”

Dabi’s voice was just low enough to hide behind the pounding of Kao’s fists, “Do you trust me?”

Before you could answer the hero behind the wall called your name again.

“If you don’t answer me in five seconds I’m breaking this door down!”

Your gaze flickered from the front door to the villain that was wiping your slick from his chin.

“Yes,”

Dabi grinned, grabbing your wrists and holding you against his shirt, one hand wrapped painfully around your tits and the other erupting with blue fire in his palm.

“Come and get her, hero!” You made a confused squeal, thrashing around in his grasp, eyes wide and afraid as Dabi shushed into your ear, trying to calm you down.

‘Like hell if you’d calm down, he’d practically just signed your death sentence!’ you heaved against the fugitive, trying to shake yourself free to no avail.

All you could do was squeeze your eyes shut and imagine you were somewhere else as door was jolted in its hinges, the doorknob falling with a distant clang, and before you could beg Dabi to stop whatever stupid game he was playing, Kao ran into the room, eyes furrowed and fists raised as the door squeaked on the loose hinges behind him, blissfully unaware.

“Where are y—“ Kao’s voice paused mid-sentence, you flinched in Dabi’s hold, the heat of the redhead’s stare washing over you, naked and wet, making you tilt your head down, trying to hide yourself from the world.

“Isn’t she cute, hero?” Dabi rasped against you, the heat of his fire illuminated against the sweaty sheen of your trembling body. Kao didn’t know what to do, flustered and struggling to hide the tent in his latex costume.

You knew fighting back against the villain was pointless, falling limp in the strength of his arms as he chuckled into your neck, looking over at the bump in his pants, “You were right, babe, I think he likes you,”

“Get your filthy hands off of her!” Kao screamed, diving towards the couch with his fist raised back.

Dabi simply grinned, carefully hovering his flame ever closer to your now bare tits, you couldn’t help but scream at the proximity, and whatever plan Kao had in his mind died before his fist could make impact.

His novocaine laced voice spoke calmly beside your ear, “Any closer and she’s dead,” The hot rush down your legs wasn’t due to his flames, as one hand took to rubbing your sensitive sex, the sounds it elicited from you unintentional and mortifying under the presence of Kao in the room.

“What... what do you want, you bastard?” Dabi laughed at that one, tweaking your clit between his fingers and conducting the most beautiful notes from your pillowy lips.

“I think It’s pretty obvious what I want, don’t you think?” Your name on his lips sent you keening against him despite the inferno roaring inches away from your skin. He couldn’t move without Dabi’s flames hovering ever closer to your heaving chest, and to Kao, you were very clearly about to die. Although you didn’t believe Dabi would hurt you, he had asked you to trust him before he got Kao’s attention, after all, the line between foreplay and conflagration was becoming blurry.

Kao backed up into the half wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, barely making an effort to try and hide his erection anymore, “I’ll send you to fucking Tartarus for this, Dabi.”

“Oooo, scary,” His unlit hand trailed down your jawline, tilting you to his side until he could slide his tongue into your open lips, humming into your mouth, “What do you think, doll?

“Dabi, please... wait,“ The strength in your voice wasn’t as heated as before, and even you had to admit it sounded half-assed.

Kao’s quirk must be no good for long range because all he could do was stand there, trying to avert his eyes from your drooling cunt in favor of glaring daggers at the coy villain pulling soft mewls from your lips, “I swear... I’ll see you rot in prison for this. You’ll be fucking executed, you rapist—“

“—woah, woah, that stings, hero. Doll, is that really what I’m doin’?” You groaned, not exactly answering because you couldn’t hear the question, your eyes still shut tight in embarrassment.

The growl in his voice sent another soaking rush towards your pussy, as his hand grabbed you jaw, pulling you up, “Look at me,” Your eyes widened at the sight of Dabi so close to you, his chest warm against your back, the aches of your last orgasm fading into something new.

“Tell me to stop, princess, your call,” Time stood still as Dabi kissed a soft pathway along your neck, weirdly gentle as he listened for your response, his clothed hard-on pressed firmly against your ass.

Too flustered to speak, you merely wrenched your arm free from his grasp, carding you hand through his hair and pulling him to your desperate lips. You could feel him tug into a smirk against you as your hips eagerly ground themselves on him despite the audience.

Kao choked on his own spit, stepping backwards, but stopped when Dabi aimed his ignited hand towards the hero who was having difficulty piecing together your actions in his head. “What,” His voice cracked when he called out your name, “are you...?”

Dabi pulled away, a feral glint in the blue hidden beneath his hair as he licked a disgustingly wet stripe along your cheek, chest rumbling behind you as you squirmed at the gross feeling, “I’m still gonna need you to beg, sweetheart.”

Your dignity was hanging by a thread, hinging on whether or not you followed his lead, but the insane buzz your anxiety had stirred up under Kao’s confused stare and Dabi’s aching cock was impossible to ignore. He rut himself into the dripping curve of your ass, his jeans soaked with your slick as you found the courage to speak.

“Fuh...” Carefully, Dabi pressed a loving kiss to your temple, his stare fixated on Kao’s as you strung the syllables together, “Fuck me, Dabi,”

The hero couldn’t believe his ears. She’d turned him down countless times despite his pursuits, yet she was somehow fine with this? Kao briefly thought that perhaps his crush was a villain this whole time, but that couldn’t make sense with her weak quirk.

You felt Dabi twitch beneath you, the shameless way you showed yourself off was as humiliating as it was hot, and he laughed in lightheaded disbelief against the back of your neck, taking your ass in one hand and slipping the other down his pants, tugging off the painful metal zipper until his boxers were pulled down just enough for his cock to finally be met with the soft warmth of your cunt.

“As the lady commands,” Dabi grinned, reaching around your waist to take his pierced dick in his hand, rubbing and tapping his swollen head deliberately against your clit, pre-cum drenching your pussy as you felt boneless in his arms.

“Ah-! St..S-top tea-sing, Dabi!” You babbled, squirming to try and find an escape from his grasp or maybe trying to force him inside you, but all your struggling did was make him harder. But before you could beg, you froze at the sight of Kao a few feet away, his legs bending into a sprinter’s pose. He was going to run?

Dabi was having none of it, a controlled jet of flame grazing Kao’s knee, scalding the skin beneath the latex. The hero cried out into the bite of his fist, collapsing into the wall a few feet away.

“Nah, hero. You’re not leaving just yet,” The villain rearranged you on his lap, “See, the thought of you jerking off to my girl? It kinda pisses me off, actually,”

The color in Kao’s face drained as he had no choice but to sit and watch as Dabi slowly sunk you down on top of him, one hand drawing soft circles into your stomach as you reveled in the feeling of his piercings hot against every part of you.

“Though, I’m wondering, what did you think about, huh?” Kao sputtered, unable to form words just like you, formless noises falling from your lips.

His scarred hands grasped at the flesh of your thighs, raising you up only to shove you back onto his cock, the flames that still extended to threaten Kao suddenly flared up in time with his thrusts, the weight of him felt so much deeper at this angle and it was hard to breathe, let alone speak.

“I... nothing! I didn’t—“ Another whip of fire cut through the room from Dabi’s fingertips, a cast of blue leaving bubbling skin in its wake, pain flashing across Kao’s face.

“Fuckin’ liar,” You yelped as Dabi shoved you down, moaning into your ear as you squeezed against him, sobbing his name into his chest as he picked up a steady pace in your guts.

Kao cried out, stuttering and gripping along the inflamed line of skin, “I-I thought— thought about her... fuck— I just wanted her to suck me off, alright? There, I said it! Are you happy now?”

He must’ve realized the mistake in his words as soon as he said them, squeezing your eyes shut but having no choice but to smell the stench of burning flesh and hear the sound of muffled screaming as it filled your apartment, “Can’t blame you though, her mouth is God,”

Your hands scrambled for balance against Dabi as the screaming of his victim made him downright feral, filling your tight heat so well it had you crying.

“Damn, you’re soaked for me, doll, I just knew you were a kinky fuck deep down. You’re a slutty little girl for me, aren’t ya?”

As much as it hurt to admit it, he was right. He was painfully right, and you told him so. The unhinged, unstoppable force that was Dabi ignited a passion in you that’d never been fed before. He was torturing the hero you hated all while taking your cunt in deep, harsh thrusts, the metal imbedded into his cock and his chest behind you were blisteringly hot against your skin.

“Tell him, baby,” His question fell on deaf ears, your tongue lolling from your mouth a bit at the pleasure.

It caught you off guard when he drew his hand back and slapped you across the cheek, a blistering red handprint in its wake, saying your name so softly, turning off his quirk to run his hands through your hair, he whispered, “Tell that fucking hero who you belong to,”

The world tipped over as Dabi gripped your shoulders, pushing you onto the wooden coffee table so your ass stuck in the air. In an instant he was on you again, pounding into your cunt with a glazed fervor, your words downright biblical in his ears.

“On-ly... Dabi ca—Ngh, Only Dabi can fuck me this good,” You forced the words from your throat, thankful for the table serving as an impartial shoulder to cry on as Dabi lined himself up with your cunt.

“More, princess,” The snap of his hips had you drooling onto the table, catching sight of Kao’s slumped body in the corner as Dabi’s breath sounded much louder than before.

“Fuck, baby—” You cried, craning your neck back to look at him. Sweat glistened at the crown of his dark hair, steam shading his breath as he took you hard, “Your cock is— shit its so deep in me,”

Your nerves were spent from exhaustion as he railed you, being more vocal than before as he choked at the feeling of your walls tightening around him, his fingernails digging future bruises into your hip dips, “Wanna feel you cum in me, want you to fill me up— Dabi, wanna make you feel good,”

“Fuck, doll, I can’t...” He ground his teeth together, making you squeal as he mounted you from behind, spreading your legs out wide so you had no way to hide yourself, “Gonna fuck’n cum-gonna cum in you- fuck, fuck, fuck—!“

You both hit your highs at the same time, Dabi accidentally digging your face into the wood as he held you as tightly to him as possible, his cum running hot due to his quirk as he pumped you full, that broken cry of yours like music to his ears, humping you a few times to ride out his climax.

You felt warm and safe, Dabi’s weight a comfortable blanket even with your shivering skin pressed naked into the coffee table. However, the quietly groaning hero in the corner made you quickly come back down to earth.

“Dabi... did you kill him?” Your voice was small beneath him, but he just shrugged.

“Nah, not yet, don’t worry,” He kissed your neck one more time, his thumb rubbing circles into your indented stomach, pulling you off the table and back into his arms.

He pulled out of you and grinned at the sight of his release spilling down your thighs, “Damn...” he whispered, taking in the sight with a satisfied whistle, “C’mon Doll, forget about him.”

You were grateful he carried you bridal style to your bedroom, your legs gelatin at this point, and as he laid you down to rest he grabbed one of your discarded shirts that hadn’t made it to the hamper and wiped down the remains of sex from your twitching cunt before leaving the cum-stained top ignored on the ground.

“You doing good, baby? Didn’t go too hard, did I?” His concern was diminished somewhat by the grin on his face, satisfied with the mumbling, love-drunk form he’d reduced you to.

Shaking your head, you burrowed into the warm blankets, peeking your eyes out from beyond the covers in a way that even Dabi couldn’t deny was pretty cute, “No, just... what are you gonna do with Kao?”

His face was unreadable as he leaned closer, “Do you really want to know?”

Truth be told, no, you didn’t, you were just a civilian, far removed from the complex fight between heroes and villains. You were only in this situation because you’d grown to care about Dabi. In some small, sarcastic way, he’d wormed his way into your life, and he hadn’t hurt you so far, only going as close as possible to bring you over the edge again and again.

“No...”

“Good answer,” he stood up, tucking himself back into his jeans as he went back into the living room. You heard a muffled thud and what sounded like Dabi cursing before he reappeared in your bedroom, Kao’s unconscious body slung over his shoulder. For such a wiry guy, Dabi was pretty strong. Moving to the open window he basically threw Kao’s body onto the outside metal grating, his lungs uneven after carrying him.

Just as he swung his leg onto the windowsill you shot up in your bed, hand outstretched, “Wait!”

He turned back to look at you, genuinely confused as to what you could want.

“Kiss me before you go?”

He froze, then grinned, scoffing at the innocent gesture you gave so openly to a murderer like him. There had to be something wrong with his little villain-in-training to make her okay with it, just like him. Dabi ignored that thought for another day, striding forward and finally giving you the goodbye kiss you’d been denied last time, his tongue trying to map out every detail in case he could ever forget before pulling away with a warm softness to his ocean eyes.

“I think I might be starting to like you, Doll,” A feint rush of color fell on his unmarred skin and you’re sure your heart stopped beating for a good three seconds.

His words were a worn record being played over and over in your head long after he crawled down your fire escape, the teasing, sated haze in his voice hidden beneath a rasp of smoke. You weren’t sure how much he meant what he said, but you’re sure that the first thing you said in return was exactly what he wanted to hear; at least judging from the boyish smile that lit up his face when you said it.

“Come back soon, okay?”

“Okay,”

@effmigentlywithachainsaw @touyasfatcock @thicchaikyuuboys @awritersometimes @chey-the-simp

[secret-rendezvous1d]

“i fucked up.”

hello, hi!

here’s the spencer reid angst that came from this prompt here; “can you write some angst where spencer and the reader work together in the bau and he does something incredibly stupid in and reckless and she’s so frustrated and upset with him that she doesn’t talk to him the whole rest of the case/ride home & then they have a big fight when they get back to their place and it ends with her confessing she’s scared of losing him and that’s why she got so upset?”

just like smut, angst isn’t something i am very good at so i hope this did some justice to the prompt which i really enjoyed writing. some anger, some upset, some drama... all in one story so i hope it is what you wanted when requesting what you asked me to write. if anyone has any ideas on what i can write then don’t hesitate to send it in - i’ll eventually get to it, hahaha.

like, reblog and send in some feedback, please. it’s greatly appreciated and it helps me work out what you want to see and what you are after. if you want something specific then do let me know! i’d love to try and write something for you.

thank you. enjoy.

-

“i fucked up” spencer reid x female reader (reader insert imagine) word count; 4.1k.

summary; when spencer chooses to do something reckless in the field, he gets himself injured and doesn’t think of the consequences afterwards.

-

As soon as YN saw Spencer take his vest off and place his gun back in the holster, her gut dropped.

She wanted to shout at him and persuade him not to do what he was thinking of doing but he already had Hotch shouting orders for him to stay back, she wanted to chase after him but Morgan was already on that whilst calling his name to get him to look back and take a think about what he was about to become a part of, she wanted to grab his discarded vest from where he had dropped it in his haste to get into the house without being a threat to the unsub and secure it back around his middle and strap it back over his shoulders because, to her, there was no way she would have let him go into the house without it. The gun could only do so much in a situation and it wasn’t going to protect him if he was caught in the crossfire and shot in the chest and left to bleed to death because he was trying to do something good.  

All she could do, much to her annoyance, was stay put behind the car with her gun cocked, to be another set of eyes on the scene to catch anyone who could make a potential run for an escape without realising the house was surrounded and that they had nowhere to go but the arms of a cop of who had handcuffs at the ready and a gun cocked and ready to shoot of they tried to play smart. She couldn’t run in, all guns blazing and allow her emotional side to take over to stop him when he was already doing what he spontaneously thought of,  because who knows what that would have set off and she probably would have made the problem even bigger than it needed to be.

She felt sick when he disappeared behind the shrubbery, out of sight for everyone but Morgan, who was hot on his heels, and into the unknown.

All they could do, on the outside, was wait and see what happened. Everyone kept a sharp eye and ear out for any sounds of a struggle, any hints of the unsub escaping, any weapons cocking or grunts from an attempt to injure someone, any shouts for help and any calls for back-up or for a medic because Spencer had really gotten himself into a problem and Morgan couldn’t handle it by himself.

Hotch kept making the occasional glance in her direction, which she chose to ignore because he was the head of the team and he should have done more to stop Spencer from going ahead with whatever he thought he was doing and he should have followed him into to scene to order him back out to wait and stand around with everyone else, and she could hear Morgan’s occasional updates over their radios and the distant ‘clear’ being said when each room had been checked which brought her some sense of comfort but the inevitable was still yet to happen. That unsub was still in the house, no one had left and no one had gotten an order for half of the team to go to another address because they had the wrong place and the person they were after wasn’t where they were, and YN knew it wasn’t exactly going to be an arrest that was made easy. 

It wasn’t until she heard a panicked call for Hotch and for some kind of back-up that she looked at him, tightening the vest to her chest and re-cocking her gun to shoot anyone that threatened to come her way with a weapon with a focus on nothing but to injure her to get passed her, and he didn’t have to give her the go-ahead glance because she was already passed the car and up the front lawn steps before anyone else was prepped and ready to be her back-up.

She could hear struggles from the back room and, as horrible as it sounded in her mind, she prayed it was Morgan in the middle of the scrap - at least Derek could deal and fight back at anyone who came at him with fists balled and arms raised up.

It wasn’t Morgan, she knew that deep down in the back of her mind and she didn’t need to see a visual to know that Morgan was the one who stood in the corner of the room whilst announcing back-up was required and a medic was needed desperately because there was a ‘man down’, and when she saw Spencer on the floor, as a victim to someone’s severe and unstable behaviour, work protocol on loved ones went out the window. She shot at the thigh of the unknown subject, watching them fall to the ground in pain and angrily throwing insults and anger towards her, allowing Morgan the opportunity to hold his arms behind his back and cuff him so he could do no more damage to anyone, but she didn’t even care about what he was calling her or his feeble attempts to break her because all she could focus on was the lanky man curled up on the floor with a bloodied lip and a swollen eye and his arms cradling his chest as he winced in pain.

“You stupid idiot,” she hissed at him, crouching down to his level and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Deep down, she cared about him and she hated how angry she felt towards him for being hurt but that same anger was at a level in her body that was strong enough to push her caring thoughts aside; regardless of her love for him, what he did was stupid, it was unnecessary and it got him in the bad books. “What the hell were you thinking? In fact, no. No, you weren’t thinking at all. I don’t know what happened but whatever you were trying to be, whoever you were trying to impress, you were stupid for even thinking you could do it alone.”

“YN-”

“No,” she held her index finger up at him and halted him from even beginning his sentence. Blood dribbled slowly down his chin from a cut that would definitely require some kind of stitch, soaking into the collar of his striped shirt and leaving a patch that kept expanding into the fabric, “Spencer, you don’t get to say anything right now. You were stupid, reckless, careless. Did you even think about what you were doing? You knew how dangerous this man is yet you came in and thought you could save the day.”

She felt a pair of hands on her shoulder, pulling her back from Spencer to allow the medics to take a once over and determine whether he needed medical attention from a hospital or whether they could fix him in the ambulance outside, one medic crouching down by his face and taking note of the cuts and bruises on his lips and around his eyes and nose and one medic kneeling down behind him to have a feel of where he was sore around his body.

“Being angry at him won’t help the situation right now,” Hotch murmured, guiding her out of the house, away from the scene and back out in the open. All eyes seemed to be on them, JJ giving her a sympathetic smile and Blake squeezing her hand soothingly as Hotch walked the both of them down the steps. He had no plans to stop in his tracks so the girls could ‘gossip’ about what had just happened. “He almost got himself killed and I’ll have that conversation with him when we’re alone and when he’s better and able to understand. I don’t need you doing my job for me.”

“I’m sorry but-”

“No buts, agent YLN,” he interrupted, leaving her at the passenger side of the black SUV she had arrived in. Arms folded over his chest, his tie a little skew whiff and twisting under his forearms, his eyebrows furrowed and his forehead wrinkled with frown lines. “I advise you to keep your personal life out of the field next time, okay? What he did was wrong, he went against the team, but we don’t need a scene in the middle of a crime scene. Be professional about this and sort your problems out on your own terms.”

He turned around and walked back towards the house, leaving her reeling in her boots, angrily placing her gun in her holster and yanking the car door open. With a slam behind her, she got comfy in the front seat and folded her arms across her padded chest, watching as cop after cop after cop passed the car and briefly glanced at her - she felt embarrassed, to say the least, but what was she supposed to do? Fall to her knees and cry because her boyfriend had been brutally beaten by a killer? Ignore the fact that her boyfriend was bruised and bloody in the middle of a musky living room so she could place attention on the one person who didn’t truly deserve it? Stand amongst the crime scene, arrest the man who had killed for fun, and completely ignore how they’d used hands and feet to take down and assault an agent?

There was no chance.

She watched as they arrested the bloke, seating him in the back of a police car that was parked two vehicles up from the one she was seated in, feeling sick to her stomach at the sight of the smirk and humour that laced his features together. He truly was one sick son of a bitch and she knew he was getting what was coming to him; not only the murder of four women but the assault of a federal agent when resisting arrest and she couldn’t wait to watch him get sent to rot in a cell for the rest of his life.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a gurney roll across the tarmac. Spencer was stretched down the thin bed, an oxygen mask tight to his face, and three medical examiners surrounding him, pushing him towards the back of the ambulance waiting to take him to the closest hospital so he could be checked over. She should have been going with him, holding his hand and agreeing on meeting the rest of the team back at the airport before boarding the jet home, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the vehicle. Treating it like it was locked, like she had no way of escape.

“Are you not going with him?”

Morgan made her jump; she hadn’t heard him open the car door and she must of missed him seating himself in the driver's seat, a hint of concern in his voice as he clipped the seatbelt around him.

“I don’t want to see him right now,” she admitted guiltily, looking down at her fingers and picking at her thumbnails, “Morgan, he makes me so angry when he does things like that. He’s not some kind of superman, for god sake. I don’t know why he thinks he can do that and come out unscathed.”

“He thought he was doing the right thing,” Morgan said; Spencer’s actions didn’t need justification from someone else. He needed to justify his own actions and he needed to realise he wasn’t someone that could pull off something as confident as that and have the same outcome as someone who had done it before. “He had the right idea at heart. He thought he was less threatening going in with nothing, to show we weren’t here for a fight-”

“And look where that got him,” YN scoffed, rolling her eyes and looking out the window and watching the ambulance, holding Spencer, roll passed the car and disappear behind the group of people who had come out to be nosey at all of the commotion, “I can’t see him or speak to him right now because if I do, I’ll shout at him. And I don’t want to shout at him. I don’t want to but he makes me want to, Derek.”

“You don’t have to shout at him,” he reasoned, “just sit him down, hear him out and show him where he went wrong. Tell him how it made you feel. Maybe it’ll do him some good to have a calm conversation because Hotch will have his ass on that jet for being so reckless.”

He started the engine with the key in the ignition and shifted it into gear, driving off soon after the ambulance had been cleared to leave, following Hotch’s SUV out of the crowd and down the quiet street. Gaining speed as the tyres rolled over the tarmac, going in the direction of the airport.

No matter how disappointed and angry she was at what he’d done, she hoped Spencer wasn’t seriously injured.

+

Home had never felt so... unhomely.

Usually, upon their arrival and cramped in the elevator on the way up to their floor, they were making plans before they got to their front door. Choosing what takeaway they were going to order from, telling the other what they fancied to eat so they could whittle down the long list of local restaurants and decide one that catered to both of their needs, deciding on what film they were going to watch before they went to bed and chucking ideas around for what they could do to pass the time until their food had arrived. 

Except, this time, the elevator ride was quiet and she wished she took the stairs so she didn’t have to stand so close to him. There was no talking and no silly disputes over what film they wanted to watch for the night, even though he wanted to desperately hear her voice talk to him about something pointless rather than hearing her voice talk about him to someone else; he was fed up of being the topic of someone’s gossip. There was no conversation about getting dinner in, there was no indication that a conversation on any topic should have been started and there was no reason to make small talk when she was angry with him. She was tunnel-visioned for nothing but pure astonishment and rage and there was no way she would have made a conversation through to the end without mentioning how stupid he was. He certainly wasn’t going to force her to talk to him if she didn’t want to; as much as it pained him, more than the bruised ribs and the black eye that was now forming around his left eye, he respected that and if she needed time then time is what she was going to get from him.

It was late when they landed so he wasn’t surprised when she walked into the bedroom without kissing him goodnight, without telling him she was going to bed without food, without telling him goodnight and that she loved him and would be waiting for him to get himself ready for bed. The door closing behind her, a thud from her bag colliding with the floor echoing throughout their apartment, the muffled and wobbly sigh that left her mouth could be heard from where he stood in the entryway and he couldn’t bear to think that she was about let all of her pent-up emotions out silently.

The argument they had had as soon as the case had come to an end had driven a wedge between them for the entire night, with the drive to the airport and the flight home feeling awkward, with  tension that could have been sliced with a knife. She couldn’t sleep on the ride home because all she could picture was him in pain, she couldn’t look at him as he stretched out on the sofa of the jet because he looked pained and she couldn’t talk to him because her cover would have been blown - she was pained but she didn’t want him to know that, not just yet. She wanted him to squirm and have his mind reeling to gain some kind of understanding, because he wasn’t an idiot when it came to reading the room, on why she had such an outrage at his poor decision.

Home… neither of them could consider it home when it didn’t feel like it.

+

If Spencer was known for one thing, it would be his ability to sneak around without being detected.

The chill in the air that filled their living space had gotten too much for him to bear, even with the woollen socks pulled on his feet and the jumper he tugged on in a haste to leave the bedroom and the throw blanket he picked up from the back of the sofa to wrap himself up in before he fell asleep. The cushions weren’t exactly his pillow from the bedroom, the sofa cushions weren’t the memory foam mattress he slept upon during three or four nights of the week, the glaring red light from the television had nothing compared to the street lamp that was directly set outside their bedroom window and the whirring of the electrical appliances in the kitchen were much more of a distraction than relaxing. 

Arguments were rare between the two of them. Silly spats and sarcasm had been top level in terms of arguing - they could never make it through to the end of fiery hash of words without feeling guilty for something they said in the spur of the moment - and how they argued couldn’t have even classed as verbally fighting each other because they weren’t going for the jugular of the problem. 

Any creak of the floorboards beneath his feet or a sudden squeak of the bedroom door would have woken YN up in sudden fright. 

To him, as he stood in the doorway and a little distance away from her, she looked so peaceful as she laid curled up beneath the comforter, staying strictly on her side of the bed. But, as he tiptoed closer to the edge of her side of the bed and knelt down, he could see the streaks dried on her cheeks. The bags under her eyes, the soreness underneath her nose from the tissues that had been balled up and left on the bedside table, it was enough to make him realise that she’d silently cried herself to sleep.

“I fucked up,” he whispered, his palm cupping her face and feeling the dried tears underneath the pad of his thumb as he stroked the curve gently, moving the hair that had stuck to her skin, “baby, I fucked up massively and I’m so, so sorry-”

“Yeah, you fucked up massively,” she mumbled under her breath, loudly enough for him to hear her, signifying that she was awake and confirming the curiosity he had on whether she was deeply sleeping or trying to doze off without overthinking everything that had happened that day. She cracked an eye open and could just see the black silhouette of his body as he crouched down to her level, the street lights outside of their apartment complex filtering through the slit of the curtains covering their window and outlining him otherwise she wouldn’t have seen him through her tired eyes, his elbows resting on the edge of the mattress. “You put yourself in so much danger, Spencer. Fucked up isn’t even the right way to put it.”

“I know,” he sighed heavily, his hand still laying upon her cheek, “and you have no idea how sorry I am. I don’t know what came over me, I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to go in with no protection, I don’t know what made me think I could defy Hotch’s orders. I just knew I had to try and do something to get the unsub to come with us willingly and to not resist,” his voice sounded sincere, incredibly apologetic, and when she turned on the bedside lamp and let it fill the room with light (much to her sore eyes), his face matched his voice. Eyes full of forlorn distress, tiredness stinging at the corners and each blink felt like a papercut to his eyeballs, he looked exhausted and he held so much guilt in his stature. “YN, if I could take it back then I would.”

“Yeah, tell that to the bruised ribs and the black eye.”

The purplish, yellow ring around his eye looked horrific, stretching from his temple to the inner corner of his eye and in such a liquified state that had purple fading into yellow and yellow fading to the darkest of blues where he had been hit the hardest. The stitches on his lip looked painful, holding together the cut that had split from a knuckle to his mouth, a little blood having leaked out when he spoke, his mouth looking swollen and she could tell he struggled to speak and pronounce his words with ease.. 

He felt stupid, demoralised, and he was only brought back to the pain that throbbed below his chest when she pointed it out and reminded him of the injuries he pertained when trying to be the one who could bring the stalemate between the police and the unsub to its end.

“I’m still angry with you,” she grumbled, “but, if you’re coming to lay down, then hurry up so I can go back to sleep again.”

“Scoot over, maybe?” He wondered sheepishly, a scoff leaving her mouth that he didn’t take to heart because of the smile twitching at the corners of her lips. Obeying him, she threw the comforter from her body and began pushing herself along the width of the mattress until she was laid on the chilly and untouched side of her bed. The sheets wrinkling up beneath her body, and comforter made her feel cold - that was, until she felt him climb in beside her, leaning against the headboard and revelling in the warmth she had left behind in her place and closing his eyes in contentment. “You’re warm. You make the living room feel like the north pole.”

“Are you comfy enough?” She asked, looking at him from where she laid her head on his pillow, “do you want your jumper off?”

He nodded and cracked an eye open, looking down at her and smiling. She sat herself back up, moving onto her knees so she had easier access and a little bit of a stronger posture to pull the thick maroon jumper from his upper body, making sure not to jostle or nudge any of the areas that he had been punched, kicked and beaten over the last 6 hours. When his upper body became bare, she couldn’t help but look at the bruises that were forming under his nipples and the cuts that covered his upper arms and around his shoulders. 

“It helps not to look at them,” he stated. But her eyes barely left the purple blemishes covering his chest, her fingers instinctively brushing over them, “they’ll go within a week. Maybe two. They won’t be so garishly purple then.”

“I hate you for this,” she frowned, retracting her hand when she heard him wince painfully, only then did her eyes meet his. One black and one a little red-rimmed and full of sleep. “I hate that you did what you did. But, I’m sorry for overreacting. I should have looked after you.”

“No,” he cooed and shook his head, “you had every right to react the way you did. You worried, you needed time to cool off, it’s okay. It doesn’t make me upset that you didn’t talk to me for the night.”

“Yeah, but, I made you sleep on the sofa, Spence. Out in the cold, with cuts and bruises and sore ribs, cramped up in this condition,” she mentally slapped herself in the face for being so stupid and so ignorant, her eyes drifting back down to the bruising, “god, they’re so horrible.”

“I’m okay,” he reassured her, “I’m okay, I promise.”

“I know but,” he grabbed her hands and shushed her, shaking his head, stopping her every time she tried to continue the conversation, “Spencer-”

“We don’t need to dwell on what happened. We need to focus on now and, right now, we need a cuddle and a good night's sleep and an early morning so we can eat a good breakfast before we go to work,” he smiled, her arms bracing her weight as she straightened her legs from underneath her and cosied down upon the mattress, the light switching off and succumbing the room into darkness, the only way she could really know he was getting cosy was the movement and the jostling of the mattress beneath her.

She was hesitant to even rest her head upon his chest because she didn’t want to cause him more pain.

“You won’t hurt me. You couldn’t possibly hurt me.”

[anika-ann]

State Your Name (for the Record) - S.R.

Type: One-shot, Reader Insert, emotional H/C

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader       Word count: 5560

Summary:  For a man haunted by nightmares, waking up was an ambivalent process.

For a man in love, the pros outweighed the cons. And make no mistake, Steve Rogers was a man in love. 

In which Steve feels blue, but he can count on his girl to raise his spirits – especially since she can convince his whole team to do something nice for him.

Warnings: implied mission going not so well, angst, crying, self-doubts,  swearing ,fluff and cheesiness of the highest order

Waking up was an everyday process most people considered unpleasant.

For a man haunted by nightmares, either made up by his traumatised mind or simply by pressing re-play on one from the stack of torturous memories, the action was both relieving and exhausting.

Waking up meant the nightmares were over; waking up meant he had to pick himself up and, despite all odds, face another day, even when his body ached and his soul seemed too tired, yet determined to continue to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

For a man in love, the pros outweighed the cons. And make no mistake, Steve Rogers was a man in love.

A woman he proudly called his girlfriend was nothing less than everything he could wish for; she carried beauty in features she considered imperfect, she never failed to make him smile for at least a fraction, her laughter filled his chest with delight as it lit up the room and she was gentle and dorky to a fault. And for he was willing to give her the world, she reciprocated his feelings to full extend.

Waking up next to the woman he loved was what always won over the desire to bury his face under the covers and tell the world to let him fucking rest.

He even cherished waking up with you. Hell, if he could squeeze in a morning run between the time he got up and you did, the better. He loved pulling you from your dreamland, even when you had clearly been dreaming a sweet dream, your lips gently curled up in a smile; because every time he tenderly welcomed you in a new day, your smile would turn brighter.

Which was exactly the reason why, when he opened his eyes today and found your side of the bed – how bold of him to call it that, when you usually slept in his embrace anyway, keeping his heart warm while he did the same for your body – empty, he knew that day would downright suck.

Steve muttered a curse under his breath, running his hand down his face as he forced himself to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

You weren’t exactly a proclaimed early riser, so not only that your absence was unnerving and painful, because today more than at any other day Steve would beg for you to be there when he entered the reality, but it was also slightly disconcerting.

He tried not to read more into it and as he glanced at the clock, he knew shouldn’t – after all, he had been informed you would be gone at that time.

Still though, dark thoughts were sometimes hard to chase away. Thoughts regarding you avoiding him. He hated when he was pulling your bright spirit down, dragging you into the shadows of his world, bloody and violent, fearsome and traumatising, offering nothing but bruises, cuts, stab-wounds and shot-wounds, broken bones and broken minds.

Whenever he came back to you from a mission – a bad one, in particular – and you offered him comfort, kindness and understanding that rationally didn’t have any base since you weren’t a soldier of any kind, he questioned whether this was the last time. Whether this was the last drop into the metaphorical goblet of your patience with which it would overflow and you would finally break things off with him after a year being together, living with him for half of that time.

Steve closed his eyes, recalling your words from yesterday, ones that, at the time, fell to deaf ears.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you soothed him when he told you what had happened, how he had messed up and nearly got Natasha killed, which had resulted in Clint yelling at him for being incompetent for leading the team. “From what I hear, anyone would have made the same decision on their best conscience if they received the same intel – hell, this was the best option, they could have decided worse. You’re a great leader. And an amazing friend. The fact you’re beating yourself over something that was beyond anyone’s control only proves it. Let the guilt go.”

He had basked in your embrace and soothing voice, but the message you had been trying to send was not quite getting through, leaving him restless and feeling uneasy, drowning in self-doubt and pain.

Of course, being a bioengineer, having been the one to help developing actual painkillers and anaesthetics for him, you had also basically shoved the former down his throat because of his healing broken ribs, which caused him to sleep through your alarm and wake up at shamefully late hour.

Which meant he missed you and you had already must be on your way to France for symposium of biogenetics.

As if it wasn’t enough that he was questioning his yesterday’s decisions, his position in the team as a leader and a person to be begin with, and his life choices overall you weren’t here.

Maybe Clint was right; he might have been a captain, but in a name only. He fucked up royally and it could have cost his dear friend her life. He wasn’t what he had used to be. This century offered people much stronger, smarter and more capable than him, easily being able to replace him in the position.

His gut twisted at that idea, but perhaps this could be the time he should make space for someone else and just follow orders. Hell, he never wanted to lead in the first place! Not when he had first joined the army nearly a hundred years ago.

His sigh was the only sound in the screaming silence of the bedroom and Steve pushed himself to his feet, not surprised at all that his ribs only echoed the previous pain, and shuffled to the bathroom to have a shower.

Too sleepy and cranky to notice it earlier, he only found a sticky note – possibly having been on the mirror but peeling off because of the steam from the shower – in the bathroom sink.

Unwittingly, his lips curled up in a small smile when he recognized your messy handwriting.

Morning, Stevie. Find a little thing in our kitchen :)

Not bothering to wear more than his boxers, he obediently walked to your private kitchen. You both enjoyed breakfast with the team in the communal kitchen, but there were times you wanted some privacy, revelling in the moments you could have only for yourselves.

Kitchen? Had you managed to make him breakfast? Steve wasn’t hungry, his insides too tight for that, his mind too heavy, but he appreciated the gesture anyw-

He frowned when he found his laptop on the counter instead, a flash drive lying on top of it with another note. He wondered how could he not wake up with you moving around the apartment.

Please, play ‘PLAY ME’ video. I think it’ll be worth it. xxx

Steve found himself tilting his head to side, curious and confused. He couldn’t imagine you leaving something of a-- dirty nature for him, knowing the mood he had been in last night and yesterday in general. Sex was usually not the best way of cheering him up in such situation. As embarrassing as it might seem, he was more of a cuddler at times like these.

Not bothering with fixing himself breakfast, debating Natasha was probably still asleep in her bed in the med bay, he seated himself on the bar stool and heard out your plea.

He was not by any means ready for what was waiting for him after pressing play.

Whoever was filming was apparently not very good at it as the screen appeared to be shaking, but in the end, the device must have been placed on a steady surface and actually zoomed onto something concrete instead of showing a blur.

What surprised him more though was that it was Clint’s voice sounding from the speakers of his laptop, even before the screen showed his face.

“You for real? Do you realize what time it is…? --Oh, not as late as I thought actually. Ugh, okay. I guess that’s fair. You’re actually making this easier for me, you know that?”

Steve frowned, gulping as the voice of his teammate turned from annoyed to surprised to grateful. All of the emotions were far from what Steve had been met with yesterday’s afternoon after the mission.

The archer was seated on an empty bed in med bay, probably alone in the room (unless Steve counted the person who was filming), because there were no intrusive sounds. Steve wasn’t taken aback by the environment he found him in – after all, Clint probably spent a lot of time there, watching over his partner in both work and personal life. He fidgeted before looking directly to the camera.

“Okay. Here we go. Hey, Cap. Steve. I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have yelled at you yesterday. I was being an ass,” he admitted, the annoyance back – this time though, it looked as if the source of his indignation was Clint himself. “You know… you know Tasha’s my whole world and seeing her almost blown up… it got the best of me. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. In fact, I think I’d give the same order. So… I’m sorry.”

Steve gulped, not entirely convinced. If he was being honest, the seeds of doubts had been planted and while Clint’s apology did lift some of the weight from Steve’s shoulders, genuinely appreciated, his mood remained rather sour and gloomy.

Confusion never left him either. He was 95% percent sure you had been the one to film the apology, but the reason behind such action was escaping him. Had Clint left with you, hence apologizing like this instead of in person? That wasn’t right. Why would he go with you?

Turned out, expecting that that was it, the end of the recording, was a mistake. The recording went on and Steve only now noticed what length the timer actually showed. It would go for… several minutes, actually.

That was strange.

Clint on the screen fidgeted and took a deep breath, exchanging a look with of whom Steve assumed was you.

“The truth is, I wouldn’t trade places with you. Like, ever. The pressure we put on you must be unbearable. I think we forget about that sometimes, what a toll it has to take on you. The responsibility on your shoulders has to weigh a fucking ton. We don’t say thank you enough and when we do, you shrug it off, because that’s what you do. Because you think that’s what’s expected of you.”

Steve blinked in surprise, the words striking him right in his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. What… why would Clint say that?

“And it is, but I want to tell you we appreciate it. We do. To actually fulfil my assignment, I should phrase it differently. I appreciate your modesty, your determination and the fact I can always rely on you. Except when your lady’s around. Then you kinda get lost in-”

A terribly aimed slipper hit the archer in his shoulder and the corners of Steve’s lips automatically twitched in amusement. Oh yeah, it was definitely you behind the camera, now he was sure. Familiar warmth spread around his heart when he realized you wanted to prove him that Clint not only didn’t blame him, but appreciated him even.

What had Steve even done to deserve you?

“-ouch!” the man in the recording complained, pretending to be wounded. “What? It’s the truth—fine. You’re just- you’re great, man, alright? That’s it.”

Steve nearly went for his phone that very second, wanting to let you know how much he loved you, even though his doubts didn’t go away.

The picture changing in a sharp cut made him stop as he spotted a flash of red hair.

Natasha. She was awake. It was undoubtedly her and in a recent footage, because Steve recognized that wound on her head – and she was lying in a hospital bed.

What in the world even…?

The tension in his shoulders eased despite his heart racing. She was smirking even.

“Hey there, you righteous guilty-driven ass!” she greeted him, only to be scolded by your voice from behind the camera.

“Nat!“

“I swear I’m about to make a point!” the spy protested, raising her uninjured hand in a gesture of surrender. “So from what I understand, you’ll get this video only in the morning and by that time, you’ll have already checked up on me for three times – or four, unless you bothered to find this recording first thing after waking up – despite doctors telling you I’d be fine every time you do.”

That-- was unsurprisingly accurate. What Natasha said was true – Steve had checked up on her three times before you had talked him into finally going to bed to get some sleep and he had been thinking about stopping by first thing after finishing this video.

It was almost infuriating how much Natasha knew him, but Steve was too relieved she was awake, speaking and calling him out on his bullshit to care.

“‘cause you’re fussing, Rogers. You’re a mother hen.”

Steve sighed. She was right once more. He had been said such, multiple times. But he felt responsible for his team, for his friends and you and he had seen too many deaths in both the past and the modern times to not to fuss.

“But you know what? We bitch about it, but we love it,” Natasha announced, her smirk softening into a smile. “Let’s be honest; our team needs a babysitter. Clint and Tony are giant children with dangerous weapons, not to mention oh so mighty Thor, I admit I can get cocky just to prove myself in the sea of testosterone from all of you and Bruce… you always try to get him in, showing him that he’s worthy as both the Hulk and his human self. You’re a mother hen with giant heart and you’re baring it for us, carrying it on your sleeve and putting in into everything you do. So… keep rolling. And for god’s sake, do not visit me again.”

Terrible wink followed, very unsubtle, as if she was telling him she was only kidding, but at the same time not quite, because he was overdoing it with his mother-henning.

And Steve found himself laughing at the glint in her eyes, feeling tears forming in his own. His limbs felt strangely floaty, as did his head. He couldn’t remember receiving so much compliments and support in a very long time, certainly not from the former assassin duo.

The sensation was pleasant, but oh so unusual, he couldn’t even describe it.

Of course, the fact you had orchestrated this whole this was not helping his lovesickness. It was hard to tell whether it was day or night from the footage, when exactly you did this, but he was aware of how nervous you were about the symposium. You should have been going through your notes for your presentation (for like… the tenth time, because for all your brilliance, you were a very nervous speaker, a bit like Bruce); instead, you spent your spare time doing this, only to make Steve feel better.

And the video was far from being over.

Surely enough, the scenery changed again, the camera aimed at a computer screen this time. Steve didn’t understand until he recognized Thor, who was currently spending his time with Jane Foster in New Mexico, video-conferencing with you.

“Unbelievable,” Steve muttered under his breath, amazed.  

“What is it, lady of Captain’s?” the alien demigod asked, frowning at the screen of his own computer. “This way of communication is still confusing, why are you writing when we can talk together? …Oh.”

The blond was silent for a moment, appearing in deep thought, before smiling broadly.

“Very well. What is of the Captain’s qualities. He’s a mighty warrior. A brave man I would always follow into battle without question. Excellent leader, always having his garrison’s safety in mind-“

A sting of guilt burned at Steve’s consciousness at that.

Did he? He always tried, sure… but was it enough? Yesterday’s incident was proving the opposite, yet he had been acting in utter belief that what he had decided was for the best, confident that the risk for his teammate was minimal. That was the problem with bad intel; they never knew it was bad until something blew up in their faces, sometimes literally. He could never predict what had happened.

And with each minute of this video, Steve felt he was letting a piece of the guilt go, along with doubt.

He wasn’t stupid; he knew that precisely that was the point of this thing, but… yeah, that realization did nothing against the fact that it was working.

“Steven radiates strength, both bodily and mentally and he is a great friend of all,” Thor on the screen continued in his loud voice. “I feel blessed by the Allfather and all Gods above for I encountered him and fought side-by-side with him as well celebrated victories. I look forward for more to come, always delighted by reconnecting with him.”

By the time Bruce in his lab coat appeared (seriously, how did you manage to get a hold of everyone? Steve wasn’t sleeping for that long, though it probably helped that half of his team, if not all, were insomniacs), Steve was breathless with anticipation, greedy for hearing what others had to say, no matter how selfish it made him.

He craved comfort and since you weren’t there… you obtained a different kind of comfort for him and shit, was it working.

“Uh. I’m not good at this-”

“Try? Please?” you asked the scientist softly and Steve could imagine your soothing smile, the gentle hope and plea in your eyes. Steve could never deny you when you asked something of him like that and when you stooped even lower and used your puppy eyes, he stood no chance.

“He’s lucky to have you, you know,” Bruce noted and Steve’s smile widened when you sounded flustered at that remark.

“Bruce…”

“What? You’re an important part of him we appreciate. But I understand complimenting you isn’t the point of this. Just let me… eh. Alright. I think I got it. I’m not good at talking, but I’m gonna try,” he exclaimed, clearly determined. He wasn’t looking directly into the camera, but that didn’t steal any significance from his words.

“Steve, I hope you don’t beat yourself over what happened yesterday. I mean… I know you do, but my point is – don’t. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. You do what you believe is right and we know you long enough to know that that moral compass of yours is as important as your quick decisions in the field – right ones. But what is even more important and why I appreciate you is that… you try to see that piece of goodness in everyone. You see it in Nat, who sure made some questionable things in the past. You see through Tony’s façade and… you see good in me. You look and you see good in people – and every creature – and that’s the best thing about you. Ugh… yeah, I don’t think I can do more.”

He smiled awkwardly, fiddling with his fingers then and lowering his gaze.

It was easy to imagine what – or rather who – was coming next. Steve wasn’t confident he could take it. He had felt an uncomfortable stinging in his eyes two people back, few tears at bay, but he wanted to watch the rest.

The floating sensation overwhelmed his brain and he was honestly surprised he was still breathing, because he felt too stunned to do so. And he felt… moved. Appreciated. Cherished. Hell, he even felt the confidence he needed in the field to the exact quick decisions Bruce had mentioned slowly returning.

His team, his friends… they trusted him. They doubted him less than he doubted himself.

The picture got blurry once more, Tony’s incredulous voice crystal clear.

“So you want me to make a video equivalent of a love letter to him,” the billionaire stated sceptically and despite himself, Steve grinned.

Tony was a complicated person, but leave it to him to be sarcastic and lift the spirit in his own very specific way.

“No! That’s not- Tony. Please?”

“You know, this puppy eyes shit only works on Rogers, not-“ he wavered and Steve laughed as the recording cleared and focused on Tony’s torn expression. Oh, he was going to give in to Steve’s amazing girl, Steve could tell. “-shit. I can’t believe you’re making me do this. You’re infuriating.”

“I know,” you sing-sang as Tony sunk further into the chair in his workshop. “And thanks.”

“Fine. Hey, Capsicle.”

Steve could practically hear your eyeroll at the nickname and for a good measure, he rolled his eyes too. Capsicle. It used to irritate him more, the word Stark used the first time they met. Now it was-- Steve was only mildly annoyed when Tony called him that. There were worse names he had been called.

“Steve. I bet you know, unlike like Miss America over here, that I only give nicknames to people I like,” Tony made a point, looking at you with a smirk and Steve was sure a light-bulb appeared above his own head as he realized that… it actually made sense.

“There aren’t many of those and even less of them realize that they are part of that exclusive club. Look, I do stupid shit. I built robots for fun and to cover for the fact I couldn’t exactly fight without them, and I’m terrible with people. Fury didn’t even want me on the Avengers initiative, because I’m known for being a selfish bastard and not a team player, which you recognized within five minutes of meeting me.”

Steve felt rather bad for such an early assumption. Admittedly, he had been harsh on the man, letting the information he had received cloud his judgement and became a willing victim of prejudice. Hearing Tony self-reflecting his faults, eating the humble pie, it only proved how wrong Steve had been. Hell, Tony had turned out to be the man to make the sacrifice the very same day Steve had accused him of his inability to do so.

Which was why Tony’s next words knocked the air out of Steve’s lungs very effectively, striking his heart with deadly precision. He honestly had no idea what to do with the knowledge he obtained now.

“The thing is, your stupid blond ass is making me want to change that. I hate saying this, because I’m aware it can be used against me, but you’re my friend. I respect you and I admire you. You inspire people. I will always brag about the time I carried a nuke into a wormhole, but the truth is, as much as I liked Coulson and his death was something that brought us together, without you, I don’t think I would have done it. I will bitch about you, I will call you names, I will be an arrogant ass, because that’s who I am, but it won’t change the fact I look up to you. …‘kay. I think that I did ok-- are you crying?”

Steve shook himself, for a moment swearing Tony could see him and spoke directly to him. He quickly blinked away the few tears, shocked to his very core.

Tony… was claiming to take the risk of dying during the battle of New York, because… Steve had inspired him? What the actual-

“Shut up,” you murmured at Tony’s accusation and Steve couldn’t blame you one bit for the tears he couldn’t see. He was such a mess himself. This was too much.

What Tony had said, what you had done for him, what everyone shared through this recording--

He wanted to close the laptop shut and deal with the raging sea of emotions, the silly laugh and tears threatening to spill in waterfalls, the feeling of his heart swelling and nearly bursting in his chest, making it difficult to breathe, his head spinning-

But the video was still not over.

The scenery didn’t quite change, except the chair Tony had been sitting in was empty now, his voice sounding as he spoke from a different angle to the device.

“Come on, doc, you have to do this too, otherwise it won’t count. Do it for the old man. Should I leave so my virgin ears don’t bleed on the dirty things you-“

“Tony… shut up.”

Steve could hear your sigh and heavy hesitant steps and then you appeared in the frame, seating into the chair with a discontent frown, fidgeting nervously.

Steve thought his mouth might actually tear with how widely he was smiling now. You were adorable as the camera revealed you in all your glory – Steve’s long t-shirt you usually slept in and a pair of baggy sweatpants you wore when you were cold, as well as a light sweater thrown over your shoulders. Which, given how tired you looked, made sense, because you were always cold when you didn’t get enough sleep.

Steve hadn’t thought he could get any more touched by what you did, but seeing you now, he assessed the sacrifice you had made just to make him feel better all over again, the severity of your actions hitting him.

What you had done must have been a spontaneous action; you had actually filmed all of those things in the late night and early morning. Tired, with no make-up on yet, but smiling that nervous sweet smile, you tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. You were not looking to the camera, worrying your teeth over your lip.

“Okay, okay…. Please, look directly to the camera and state your name and date of birth for the record,” Tony encouraged you, indulging the moment your roles reversed.

“I’m not doing that,” you hissed, but then you raised your gaze and Steve’s heart stopped. Despite the exhaustion on your face, your eyes radiated warmth and tenderness. “Hey, Stevie. I guess Tony has a point for once-“

“Hey-!“

“-and since I came up with this, I should contribute. But where do I even start?” you wondered as if you truly had to wonder, as if there were too many things to point out. Steve craved having you in his arms to hug you profusely and kiss the living daylight of you for being so sweet and precious.

“And they all gave names to your qualities so well! Uhm… now, I don’t have a first-hand experience with your Avenging, so I can leave out this part of you, but there is still so much to love about you. First of all, you’re kind. Such a gentle soul, such a giver. You’ve been kicked down so many times and yet here you are, not yelling at me when I eat too much chocolate and then complain about stomach-ache and my belly being too soft-“ Steve chuckled at that, recalling way too many times that situation occurred. “I bet that watching this video, you’re still thinking I look cute instead of acknowledging I look like shit. Because you seek the beauty in everything and you love the world. It was one of the first things I noticed about you-“

“Right after his ass and muscles, no doubt mesmerized by his sky-blue eyes,“ Tony hummed from the background, effectively startling Steve who had honestly let the fact that Tony was even there slip from his mind, too lost in your love declarations.

“Fuck you, Tony. And his eyes are not sky-blue, they have a little green in them.“

“Really? Jarvis, show me a good picture…”

“Anyway. You give so much and don’t ask anything in return. Sometimes I can see how much you want to, but you never do. It’s like you don’t expect to get it anyway, not even the little things. As if you didn’t deserve it. Newsflash, Stevie, you do. You deserve the world. I wish I could give it to you…”

Oh, you’re doing that, sweetheart, Steve wished to tell you, but even if he had you on the phone at the moment, he wouldn’t be able to say a word with his throat constricted with the overwhelming emotions.

“And the world itself won’t come crushing down over a mistake that wasn’t even in your power to avoid and it won’t break down if you take a breath and relax. I always think I’m on the right way to convince you about that, but then you shy away from it. You matter, Stevie. You, Steven Grant Rogers, matter so much. Everyone pointed out at least one thing about you and not the Captain and that’s not a coincidence. Despite everything, you’re only human, we remember that and we all love you for it.”

“Some more than others…” Tony interrupted again, his voice carrying a hoarseness as if he was affected by your speech as well. You pointedly ignored him.

“Don’t forget that. I have it from a good source that a guy once told you that everything special about you came from a bottle. We both know that’s a load of bullshit. Even Doctor Erskine recognized how special you were and decided to choose you. Good becomes great, you told me he said. Well, sure. It just needed an opportunity to show. Let’s be honest, I have no doubt that your stubbornness and other tiny flaws amplified too, because you’re unbelievable sometimes, but that’s okay. In the end, you’re the best man I have ever met and I am lucky and feel proud to be called yours. I love you, Stevie. So much,” your voice lowered to a whisper and with a tight smile, you lightly kissed your fingers and nearly touched the lens of the camera.

Steve choked on a watery laugh. You really were too cute for words. A brilliant scientist, one of the most intelligent women the world knew, and here you were being adorable and utterly devoted to him.

Christ, he didn’t deserve you.

“Stupid allergies…” Tony complained, fooling no one as his voice came out scratchy from the lump that no doubt formed in his throat. “You done?”

To Steve’s utter surprise, you shook your head, drying a stray tear that escaped your eyes as well, but the corners of your lips twitched in attempted smile.

“Just a sec. I’m sorry, I want to edit this video more, cut some parts out, but I’ll probably run out of time and I want you to have it in the morning. It’s a bit messy, but I hope with all my heart that you received the message loud and clear.” You have no idea. “Also, sorry for the killer dose of painkillers and sneaking out without a goodbye. I’d be pissed if you did that to me, so… you know, sorry. I promise to make it up to you when I’m back-”

“Ouch, ouch! That’s what I was talking about, I did not want to hear that! I’m scarred for life!” Tony howled dramatically and Steve didn’t even had energy to roll his eyes. He was a complete mess.

“Tony? You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re too good to be true, doc. I think you gotta get on the plane in like thirty minutes, so-“

A look of utter shock and horror appeared on your face and you jumped from the chair with admirable energy for such an early hour and the all-nighter you pulled. “Shit, shit shit-- I’m not gonna edit it at all then, dammit-“

“Nah, I bet it’s better without it, more authentic. Go write a note or something equally sickeningly sweet that you romantics do-”

“Turn it off, you goof!” you giggled, reaching for the camera and the screen went black as if on command.

Steve sat on the bar stool for several minutes, staring on the screen absently, grinning and feeling… so indescribably loved he couldn’t quite contain it.

What you had done-

Feeling like an idiot for not doing it earlier, he sprang towards the bedroom to get his phone, typing a message to you. If he remembered correctly, you might still be on your way, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Tony’s inventions.

S: Have a safe flight and nice stay, sweetheart. You’ll rock. x

S: And thank you for what you’ve done. I don’t deserve you.

His heart skipped a beat when the phone chimed in response almost instantly.

♥: Clearly, you weren’t paying enough attention when watching. Go play it again, Stevie.

He grinned. Apparently, despite the lack of sleep and the nerves he had seen every time you had thought of your presentation, you were fine.

His heart felt too big for his ribcage, squishing his lungs as it grew in size, barely being able to let out a laugh.

S: I did!

S: Correction then: thank you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll always be grateful for you and I love you more than anything.

This time, he expected the early comeback.

♥: Love you too. Miss you already! xxx

Steve set the phone down with a goofy smile plastered over his face and went to watch the video again – the part with you anyway.

He could go and check on Natasha later. After all, she told him not to do that again anyway.

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S.R. masterlist

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I should be posting Errare Humanum Est and Attached, but I was feeling a bit down and overwhelmed with schoolwork, so I dusted off this baby for you. I hope you enjoyed :-*

Steve deserves some love from his girl and from his teammates. I actually considered writing this with few alternations so it was Peter doing the video (as a non-relationship kind of thing), but I guess this is even sweeter... in a romantic way anyway.

Thank you for reading!

[andypantsx3]

ab intra | 4 | in flagrante delicto

pairing: Shinsou Hitoshi / Reader

length: 18,811 words / 6 chapters

summary: When a wave of disturbing crimes sweep the city, underground hero Hitoshi Shinsou is assigned to work the case with you. What’s even more frustrating than his obnoxious personality is the fact no one will tell you why he’s involved. Things only get more suspicious from there.

tags: romance, thriller, misunderstandings, pro hero AU, reader-insert

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut, suicide mentions, brainwashing, consensual mind control, some violence

The villain struck again only days later. This time, they had gotten sloppy.

The call came into your offices just as you were nearing the end of your shift, an alert forwarded to you and several others by dispatch. One witness had managed to call the police as the people around them fell screaming--confirming your hypothesis that it was a visually-triggered quirk. This witness had been blind.

You launched yourself into the passenger seat of a cruiser, Aya just managing to get in behind you before it took off. You called Shinsou as the car sped towards another bank, this time at the edge of the city--the hero had been out on another call, something he’d said was urgent but refused to explain further, so he hadn’t been at the precinct when the call came in.

He didn’t pick up and your ire increased, leaving a short but very curse-heavy message on his answering tone. “Get to the fucking bank now,” you commanded before hanging up. This is why you hated working with heroes.

What the hell was the point of having a hero partner if he was going to leave the police force--made up mostly of those whose quirks were not useful enough to have launched them into heroics in the first place--to battle a fucking mind manipulation villain on their own? Was he making a point of helping only on the parts of the case that could have benefitted from a hero least, leaving you high and dry when you could actually use his stupid fucking scarf-mask-whatever quirk?

The cruiser pulled up to the side of the bank, several others screeching up beside it.

“We think the quirk is triggered visually,” you informed the other officers as you leapt out, strapping on a bullet proof vest like it would do anything to protect you from a quirk that invaded the inner confines of your brain. “We think the villain works with at least one other person, quirk unknown. To the best of your ability, attempt to apprehend both villains without looking at them. If you have to, try looking at them through some other media; your helmet visors, the scope of a rifle, any reflective surfaces. We don’t know exactly how this quirk works yet, please take every precaution you possibly can think of before engaging--”

You were cut off by the side of the bank blowing clear open, and several officers around you whipped their heads up, only to immediately go down, clutching their skulls and screaming.

Your eyes widened in terror and you quickly ducked down, hiding your face. The villains knew the police were here, and were escaping. And those officers had had visors on, meaning the mind quirk could work through other media as well.

You were fucked.

The crunch of one pair of boots through the rubble told you the mind quirk villain had spotted your division and turned, picking up speed to tear in the opposite direction. You chanced a look up and caught sight of a lean figure in a dark suit breaking into a full run.

“Unit one, after them!” Aya yelled, turning to you quickly as she unstrapped her gun. “I don’t think anyone else came out--you said there were at least two, right?”

You nodded.

“Okay then there’s someone still in there. I’ll get mind freak, you get the others,” then she darted away, several other officers hot on her heels.

Your stomach churned with the thought of stopping her. It was dangerous to chase down a villain like that--especially given what you had just seen. You didn’t know what happened once the villain got ahold of a person’s mind, but from the look of the officers still writhing on the ground in front of you--it looked like they all but blew up their brain.

You took a deep breath and shadowed the backs of the other officers making their way towards the still-smoking hole in the side of the building, unholstering your gun. You nervously thumbed off the safety.

Raids were your least favorite part of your job as an investigator. You much preferred being tucked up over case files, the gears in your brain working, a coffee (or seven) in hand. Raids and arrests always made your gut churn with nerves, and you felt shivery with adrenaline, anticipation sliding slick under your skin when it had nowhere else to go.

You followed the officers as they carefully picked their way into the bank, passing under the remains of the thick wall, hanging with metal framing and shredded cement. The inside of the bank was much darker after the brightness of the early evening sun and it took a couple moments for you to adjust.

When you did, you could see the floor of the main lobby was littered with rubble, glass and plaster blown out from the cubicles to stud the tile, and every movement you made echoed with a crunch underfoot. Several bodies lay scattered at the edge of the room, and two officers darted over. You could see the rapid rise and fall of the victims’ chests, though, the way their limbs twitched and contorted with the aftershocks of whatever the mental quirk did. They were alive, at least.

You followed several other officers through the main lobby and through the doorway that looked like it led into the main offices beyond. A thrill of foreboding went through you as you entered--who was waiting for you beyond? How many of them were there? What kind of quirk did they have?

You passed quietly down the hall, the only sounds your careful breaths and the soft scuff of boots. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you caught a soft, sinuous movement. You turned sharply to find a shadow slipping into the wall. You stopped, and an officer behind you paused.

“Someone just went through the wall,” he said. There was a long moment of tense silence, and the two men ahead of you glanced back.

Suddenly, they were wrenched violently into the opposite wall by some unseen force. Both of their heads slammed heavily into the plaster, and they fell to the floor, limp.

Your heartbeat kicked into overdrive and you cast about wildly for whoever had just done that, fingers tightening on your gun. Then, just down the hall, a man peeked out from behind an office door as if to check his handiwork and you trained your gun on him.

“Come out with your hands up,” you commanded, heartbeat hammering in your chest.

He watched you silently for a moment, then slipped further into the hallway, raising his hands slowly towards his ears. He made no movement, but a small smile curled his lip. Then a weird feeling slithered over your skin, a tight tug like a magnet was pulling every fiber in your body towards it, and you had only seconds to realize what he was doing.

“I think it’s a magnetization quirk, back out of the room,” you said loudly, even as you could feel your weight shifting, your toes slipping out from under you, gravity no longer the greatest force governing your body. There was a moment where it felt like every neuron in you snapped forward, and then you were being wrenched towards the man.

You swore, kicking your feet out as if to stop your slide, but they only slipped uselessly along the floor. The man’s smile widened into a grin, and he reached inside his jacket quickly, pulling out a wicked, curved blade, angled up towards your throat. Your feet strained against the floor and your heart pulsed wildly in your throat like it could choke you. He was going to pull you straight into the knife. He was going to pull you straight into the knife and plunge it straight into your throat and there was nothing you could do about it.

You struggled to line your gun up, but your whole arm felt locked up. You couldn’t get a good alignment, you couldn’t train it on him in time, you were feet away now, you were going to--

Something caught your arm and wrenched you back, throwing you sideways through the door of a cubicle. You rolled along the floor, shoulder connecting painfully with a filing cabinet. You gasped, losing the grip on your gun and it clattered loudly against the floor. You lay there for a brief second, closing your eyes and exhaling shakily.

Then you shook your head and rolled to your knees, grabbing your gun up and aiming it through the doorway. White strips of what looked like fabric slithered through the air beyond the door, and your eyes narrowed. That looked like--

A head of messy indigo hair poked through the door, violet eyes narrowing in on you. That dark mask was strapped over his face but you could hear him clearly through it.

“You okay, kitten?”

A weird, shuddery wave of relief went through you.

“Shinsou,” you gasped out. “You’re here.”

You couldn’t see his mouth through the mask but the crinkle of his eyes told you he was smirking. “Sit tight for me, kitten. I got this guy.”

“He’s got a magnetization quirk, I think,” you said as Shinsou turned to face the man at the end of the hall. You watched his eyes trail over the villain dismissively. “Move out of the way if you feel your skin start buzzing.”

Shinsou stared the man down. “What’s your name?” he asked, voice hard.

There was no response and Shinsou’s eyes narrowed. “Are you going to come quietly?” he asked.

Again, no response. Shinsou sighed and his arm shifted, pulling the scarf through the air in a complicated series of twists. Watching it move you wondered what kind of quirk it was that he had, to manipulate it like that. Was it a fiber manipulation quirk, like Best Jeanist? Did it affect only one kind of fabric, is that why he carried such a long length around with him?

The network of twists shot towards the man at the end of the hall, and you heard a crash as he upended something, dodging and dashing down the corridor to the left. The loud slap of his feet picked up, and you scrambled to your feet, racing after Shinsou as he started forward after the man.

You darted around the corner after them, avoiding a shower of heavy objects that the villain pulled out of the rooms with a wave of his hand, sending them hurtling through the air at you. A microwave came shooting out of the breakroom and Shinsou skidded to a stop, whirling on you and slamming you into the wall right as it came sailing past your head. His body covered yours almost completely, pressing you flat against the wall, and you stared up at him in shock.

“Thanks again,” you managed.

“Anytime, kitten.” His eyes glittered down at you for a single second and then he was off again, his boots loud in the hall. You shook yourself and darted after him.

The villain fell through an emergency exit out into the street, rolling to his feet and narrowly avoiding the end of Shinsou’s scarf. He ripped the door clean off its hinges with a pull of his arm and sent it spinning back at Shinsou. Shinsou managed to dodge, sliding just under it as it sliced through the air, and he rolled to his feet again, turning to face the man.

“Why don’t you speak, hmm?” he taunted.

The man cast about, waving his arms to peel more things off the street and into the air. He seemed determined not to acknowledge Shinsou--was he that scared of him?

A voice echoed from the other end of the street, rough and grainy and sounding weirdly like your captain, who never went out on assignment. “Tokyo PD, you’re under arrest. We do not want to hurt you. Will you come peacefully?”

The man raised his head, looking up at you and Shinsou with a smirk.

“Peacefully? You fucks can stick it up your--” he froze, eyes widening, and a strange shudder went through him before all his limbs locked up. The grates he had pulled from the street went clattering to the pavement, and his eyes seemed to go unfocused and cloudy. His eyelashes fluttered wildly for just a second, like he was trying to throw something off, and then he gasped. “You!” he managed, his words oddly slurred, “You--tricked me--”

“Quiet,” Shinsou snapped and the man’s mouth clicked audibly shut.

You stared. Then, a shiver of apprehension slid slowly along your spine. The villain had just looked up at Shinsou and gone slack. Then it looked like Shinsou had just commanded him and he’d...done it.

“Stay still and put your wrists out,” Shinsou ordered, stalking forward and pulling restraints off his belt. The man complied obediently, and your stomach clenched.

He was acting...like he was completely under Shinsou’s control.

A stampede of footsteps echoed behind you, and several officers came spilling out of the bank and into the street. You stood frozen as one of them moved forward to take hold of the villain roughly. Shinsou released him easily, watching with satisfaction as the man was hauled towards a squad car.

Suddenly, his words from the casino echoed in your head. “I think you will find, however, that I am even more accustomed to control.”

A wave of horror washed through you.

Shinsou knew so much about mind manipulation quirks not because he had history with someone on the other side of this case, but because he had a mind manipulation quirk himself. The scarf wasn’t part of his quirk, but a support item like a capture weapon, and Shinsou had a mind manipulation quirk.

The events that you had just witnessed replayed themselves on a loop in your brain. The villain had been determined not to acknowledge Shinsou, but almost as soon as he had looked up at him, he’d been caught. It was like he had known what Shinsou’s quirk was ahead of time and was taking pains to not engage with him.

And then he had hissed something, just as he fell under Shinsou’s control, hadn’t he? “You,” he’d said. “You tricked me.”

This villain had known of Shinsou ahead of time. This villain who worked with a visually-triggered mind quirk user had known of Shinsou, and when he’d looked at him, he’d been caught.

Something clicked in your brain.

Suddenly, all Shinsou’s caginess, his interest in this case, his reasons for wanting to distract you, everything all lined up. What if Shinsou wasn’t just a hero on loan for a simple investigation? What if, instead, Shinsou was a villain trying to get a handle on his own case?

It would be easy enough for any mind quirk user to get access, now that you thought about it. All they had to do was to find out which office was working the case and they could breeze into the precinct and brainwash people into compliance. Had Shinsou come into your precinct and done the same thing to your captain? Had Shinsou ever done the same thing to you?

The tread of boots on gravel pulled you out of your thoughts, and a small thrill of fear went down your spine as you saw Shinsou making his way over to you.

You quickly clamped down on all your emotions, schooling your features into a mask. Shinsou couldn’t know what you suspected.

“You okay, kitten?” he asked, ducking his head to look into your face. Those violet eyes searched over you, a calloused hand reaching out to take your chin.

You tamped down on a twitch. Cool, you had to play it cool. Act normal until you could get back to the precinct offices and figure out a plan. It was likely that Shinsou wouldn’t allow his partner that you’d just caught to sell him out, so you had to find another way to catch him out. You couldn’t give yourself away until you were sure of how to trap him.

Normal. You could act normal.

“I don’t know. Some asshole threw me into a filing cabinet,” you said, forcing an annoyed look onto your features.

Shinsou chuckled and his long fingers trailed down to your shoulder, delicately ghosting over the place where you’d connected with the filing cabinet. You suppressed a shiver.

“Want me to kiss it better?” he asked, raising a dark eyebrow.

A mortifying blush spread across your face and you turned away from him, stomping back to a squad car. “The only thing you can kiss is my ass,” you ground out.

You heard him laugh, and you stuffed yourself into the car, closing the door to shut him out.

You let out a breath.

This was going to be hard. You couldn’t talk to anyone about this in case Shinsou caught on to what you were doing. You would have to investigate this alone, and play it very safe around him in case he suspected you’d figured him out.

But you could do this. You’d solved every case that had come across your desk before, and you would close this one too.

You would solve this. You would catch Hitoshi Shinsou.

[jockbots]

im just saying there are a heap of mussed opportunities in having a trio made up of two Slytherins and a Gryffindor i.e Albus, Scorpius and Rose.

- Imagine if you will; Rose being absolutely ready to square up and fight anyone that breathes in her direction. And Albus and Scorpius already booking it in the opposite direction like there asses are one fire. que Rose being like wtf you coward its just a dragon!

- Scorpius and Rose being like this evil thing looks like a bad idea lets not touch it. Except Albus already touched it and is posseset whoops oh well guess we have to use it in our favour.

- I love the idea that Scorpius is as dramatic as Draco and cannot stand any sort of pain, gross thing or keep his feelings off his face. Insert him catching his finger in the door and immediately getting teary eyes. And Albus being like looks like we're gonna have to amputate. Meanwhile Rose could be clutching a bloody wound in her side like a trophy and Scorpius will cry over that too.

- Albus being so fucking dry that neither Scorpius or Rose know if he's serious or not. Albus is delighted watching them squint at his expert poker face. He also a great liar, and says it all from his dark past. read: being the middle child. Albus despite hating too much attention is the one they send in to do any dodgy dealing.

- Scorpius backs him up by being their talker. He's an encyclopedia bitch and can look you up and down and know exactly where you sit on the food chain and where your planning on going. Rose is like fight? Albus is like threaten? Scorpius is like dismantle this mans whole career in two sentences.

- Slytherin's being shady, cunning lil shits that will only fight unless they have not a single tool left in their arsenal. And Gryffindor's being so gutt oriented that they end up making bigger messes than they started with. But also being like fercly loyal to each other. Like they will be petty af and call each other everything uder the sun, but one bad word to their friends, oh nono go on my fist wants to hear what you had to say.

- bonus edit: Getting into fights to distract bc everyone expects Gryffindor's and Slytherin's to fight. Like Albus and Rose can fight abt shoelaces and make it convincing, and whoever they're distracting just blinks at them while Scorpius mutters a hex. But also Albus and Scorpius getting into pitty party fights works too, and no one ever sees Rose's nutt shots when they're getting comply bowled over by Potter and Malfoy Drama.

- Albus being a chicken shit that waits until he absolutely has to go into a life or death fight before kissing Scorpius and telling him he has gay feelings for him. Que Scorpius having to be held back Rose bc tHE AUDACITY OF THAT MAN. And then when things inevitably turn out okay Scorpius punching him in the gut bc fuck you potter i was so scared

- I just love the idea of Rose being like incredibly brave and intelligent and confident and having to put up with these gay losers that scream when they see a spider.

- but also Rose having inferiority and imposter syndrome bc her mum is The Hermione Granger and despite being just a talented witch and her mum, all the tabloids and fans and propaganda have inflafed her image to someone untouchable and unattainable. And Rose having to come to grips with the fact that her mum would love her even if she just took over her uncle's shop. that she is already great and doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. read also her and Albus bonding bc oh i feel like that all the time it sucks. And her and Scorpius becoming friends bc he thinks shes great and is completely unfiltered in his adoration of her so ye ur mums cool and all but ur awesome and ur my friend? can u believe it?

[ofmythsandmadness]

laughing like there’s any good reason to smile.

SUMMARY: diego did not think he’d be spending his night driving home a drunk weirdo like he ran a taxi company. and he really should have just not answered the phone, or said he was busy....but he was already out, he might as well do one more good deed for a NOT-friend who will not stop laughing.

WARNINGS: some language (not much, but i do like the word pisspot), romantic ideations, mentions of being drunk/alcohol. a little bit of oblivious mutual pining, too.

WORD COUNT: 3737 Diego Hargreeves x female insert.

A/N: I...I don’t know how I just wrote this. I legit just sat down and wanted to write a small drabble, and so I started this...and an hour later, after writing without stop I have this. It’s not edited, I have barely read through it at all. But it’s cute and messy and honestly, I don’t know what it is but I really like it. Which is surprising because I rarely enjoy a single word that leaves my mind and sticks on a page but I like this. it’s cute.

There are no TUA S2 spoilers in this, it takes place in a vague pre-s1, au bullshit that I like to base most of my work in (mostly because I’m quite lazy). 

“HEY...YOU’RE NOT LIKE...BUSY, ARE YOU?”

Of all the ways to start a phone call, that might be the worst.

Diego drove probably too quickly down the quiet streets, one hand off the wheel, fidgeting in his lap. It was too late to be out like this, out and about like any other schmuck with no life to care about, and yet there he was.

Like any other schmuck.

“I know you’re probably too-tally busy...you know...stopping crime - I whispered so nobody knows, don’t worry…”

The phone call might as well had been with the entire bar, for all Diego knew because of how loud the voice on the other end was. Loud, raspy and dipping in and out of strength. There was a slur to every other word, and long pauses that almost made him think she had hung up. Every single time, until he just got used to saying ‘you there’, waiting for the sentence to end.

“See...awwww, I fucked up. I did, I really….rea-aally did.”

He laughed at that. Couldn’t help it. Despite how hard he had tried to compose himself, be angry (because he really was, he had things to do, dammit!) he had to chuckle there. Imagining the scene on the other end; standing there, leaning up against the wall, too drunk to even stand but too wired to take a seat. He wasn’t sure how much had been drunk, but it would have had to be a lot. Of all the calls Diego got, so rarely was it of that sort.

And never from normally well-composed, generally serious people he mostly considered assholes that did everything in their power to piss him off every single day of his miserable existence.

“But I need a favour...dearest, darling Diego…”

He pulled the car up, hitting the brakes but leaving it running. Absent-mindedly, he contemplated the risk of that - money was tight, he had to be careful about everything - but shrugged it off and stepped out. He wouldn’t be that long, anyways.

The culprit stood, or slouched, outside of the shitty dive bar he had been called from. Diego took note of the disheveled clothes and especially, the state of appearance - he had become so used to one certain way, he had no clue that a person like Y/N could ever, ever, look so bad in their life.

In the back of his mind, he mused that even despite the messy clothes (and mismatched, really atrocious look if he had to call it anything) and hair, someone like Y/N could never look bad.

He tried not to acknowledge that thought.

“Hey, asshole.”

“Hey!” Y/N cried, as though she had not seen him pull up. Though, maybe she hadn’t - which would suck. Diego didn’t really want to deal with someone that drunk that night. “Hey-y, Diego!”

He rolled his eyes. “You look a mess.”

“And you look ab-so-lute-ly adorable,” she slurred. She leant off the wall and promptly fell on her face.

Or, she would have, had Diego not moved in and grabbed her waist, yanking her back up to him. Which turned out to be a stupid mistake on his end, because then she was just right there, in his arms, staring up at him and barely standing up. Her breath smelled like bad whiskey and her eyes rang red, less-so from the drinking and moreso, he assumed, from whatever drove her out here in the first place.

But all that hardly crossed his mind as they stood so entwined in front of the shitty bar in the middle of the open street.

“Well, well,” she cooed, allowing her grip to relax on his biceps. “This...is...this is ni-ice.”

“Nope. Nope, not doing this.”

He said that more to himself.

“C’mon,” he groaned, switching his grip so she stood beside him and not so close to his face. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She sighed but followed suit, though he felt more like he was dragging her than walking alongside her. Her head nestled against his arm, hair tickling against the skin as the wind wafted through the night air.

It was the closest the two had ever been. And more than closest then Diego had ever thought them getting.

He was not sure how to feel about that.

“My knight in black leather,” she sighed beside him, clinging tighter. “You’re a diamond in the dirt, you know?”

“Don’t think that’s the saying.”

“Mm...no. But you’re always...covered in dirt, you know?”

He grumbled something non-sequential under his breath. “C’mon. Sit down, si’down.”

Begrudgingly she obliged, though she struggled throughout the entire thing. It felt more like he was dealing with a criminal from way-back-when then a...well, a Y/N. Whoever she was.

“Does your car have seatbelts, dear knight?”

“Does my-” Diego cursed and slid the seatbelt into her fingers, practically guiding them down. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

She tried to gasp but laughed towards the end, so it was more of a huffy giggle than anything. “Why...Diego, is that how you treat a lady?”

“No,” he mumbled, “that’s how I deal with you.” He slammed the door.

Faintly, he made out her yell of ‘pisspot’, and smiled to himself.

He sank into his seat and sighed, pulling out and into the road. Twenty minutes, he mused to himself, just twenty minutes and she’d be gone. If Diego could do anything, he could easily handle a super drunk Y/N in his car, yammering for twenty minutes about nothing at all. 

He just had to focus.

“You kno-ow, you’re a grumpy grump, you kno...w?”

Diego said nothing.

“Do you need help with your seatbelt?”

He ignored her.

“Do you want me to drive?”

He answered that without hesitation: “no.”

She laughed.

He realised, sitting there, that he had never heard her laugh before - not really, unless faked chuckles thrown bitterly his way in one of their many disagreements counted, but he didn’t count them. Surprisingly, she had a nice laugh. Not one of those faux ones that he couldn’t stand, it wasn’t pretty, but it was real and loud and rang through the car like a Whitney Houston note; echoing everywhere.

“So grumpy, grumpy.”

He swallowed back his thoughts and just grimaced. “Shut up.”

Diego wished she would stop laughing.

They drove off and out of the miserable nightlife, with her giggling her ass off and him just trying not to lose his mind. He dared not look at her, though he knew her eyes hadn’t left his face. He wasn’t sure why she looked, and he really didn’t know why he couldn’t even just spare a glance, but he just...something about how human she was, real and raw and laughing in the passenger seat of his car like this was more than just a -

-he growled a curse to himself and turned the corner angrily.

A few moments later she had stopped laughing so much and had stuck with only a few giggles here and there. Y/N had taken up staring out the window, watching the people and houses and cars pass as though they were the most fascinating things in the world.

He looked at her then. Watched as she traced her fingers down the glass, staring with her mouth agape, eyes lidded and sad despite however much booze ran through her right then. She was more than drunk - she was tired. More than that, vulnerable in a way the two of them had never been.

That scared him more than the jokes and the laughter.

“Diego?”

His eyes shot back to the road. “Hm?”

“Why don’t you like me?”

“Hu-what?”

“Why do you hate me so-o much?” she asked again, that time with her voice smaller and a little higher. “I...I’m curious, what about me boils your bones...so.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Yes you do!”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do!” She wagged an accusatory finger towards his face, so close if he turned she’d surely jab his nose. “Yes...yes you do, you little...y’lil...muffin man. You hate my guts, and I think I have the right to know why!”

Diego rolled his eyes. “I’m not doing this.”

“Why? Are you afraid of hurting my feelings, grumpy grump? Cause,” she sang, rolling the syllables like this was a goddamn musical, “I’m afraid they’re already to-oo hurt, for you to do that. You’re in luck, muffin boy!”

“What does - stop calling me dumb shit,” he hissed.

She stuck her tongue out at him and poked his cheek with her hand.

He swatted it away angrily. “Shut up and let me take you home, okay?”

“No!”

“Well - yeah. Shut up.”

“Or what?”

“Or-” Diego didn’t know what to say to that. There was not much he could do, considering the circumstances - throwing her out of a moving car seemed much too cruel of a thought for anyone, especially a drunk Y/N who could barely figure out seatbelts for herself. Same with leaving her, or taking her anywhere else, or threatening a match or any other thing they’d normally do to one another. Not that he’d hurt her, anyways.

Not intentionally at least.

“You better tell me, or I’m….m...out!”

“You’re - out, what?”

Y/N’s hand found the car lock and with a grin, switched it off. “I’ll go right now!”

“You - you can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“You’re - you’re strapped into the damn car, you’re just gonna get hurt.”

“Why would you care?”

“I don’t!”

“So you do hate me?”

“No! I - jeez, Y/N!” Diego slammed his hands down on the wheel, spitting out curses he didn’t bother to hide. “Do NOT open the car door, okay? Don’t do that! Just sit down, and let me take you home!”

Somehow his speech worked. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. Instead, she sank back into her seat. Her hands returned to her lap.

“Great. Thank you, so much. Amazing.”

She didn’t say a word.

He spared a glance her way, only to see her gaze had turned to the road. “Y/N? You good?”

Nothing.

“Y/N?”

Nothing.

“Oh, c’mon, I-” he sighed and slapped the steering wheel again. He hated how his heartstrings pulled at the silence, at how her words had stung - stupidly, irrevocably, no matter what he told himself, it hurt to think she truly thought he hated her. Cause stupid, irrevocably, somehow -

“-I don’t hate you, Y/N, at all. I just - don’t get mad at me, okay? I mean I’m taking you home, I would take you home if I hated your ass, right? I mean - what do you want from me here!?”

Diego took another glance, worried when she still said nothing, and promptly grew a thousand times more worried when he saw her shoulders heave and shake. Without even thinking, he swerved to the side of the road and braked hard before reaching out to her. “Y/N?”

And then she turned, and he saw instead of tears, it was laughter slipping from her lips, rolling out like great ripples of waves, silent and shaking through her body. Her eyes were tearing up, but not from sadness, instead the drunken giddiness she found herself lost within. But they were alight, and warm, and tipsy on the power that must have fuelled her fit of laughter in the first place.

 With a scowl, Diego sat back. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Wait, no! I - I just-” she heaved, and let out another peal of laughter - that time loud and echoing through the tiny car again. “Don’t be ma-aad at me!”

“I wish I hadn’t come, you know that? I should’a left you there, you...you asshole.” Despite himself, Diego felt himself grow flushed and embarrassed, struggling to even play this all off as anger. “You are the worst.”

She kept laughing. “I know you don’t mean that now, though! Ha - ha - you like me, darling, admit it!”

“Screw off.”

“You li-i-i-ke me!”

“Nope.”

“C’mon, you can’t lie to lil’ ol’ me, muffin man!”

“Don’t call me - stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Doing that!”

“Doing wha-at?”

“That! All’a that!”

Y/N’s lips pouted down, though he knew for a fact she wasn’t really upset. “So rude. One might even think you mean it.”

Diego started the car back up again, grumbling all the way through it. He shrugged off her touch. “I do mean that.”

“You know, I think I finally understand you.”

This car ride was beginning to feel like forever. It had only been maybe ten minutes of driving, and yet he felt like he had been trapped in some special sort of hell for a horrific eternity of embarrassment and...her.

“I get you, Diego...fuck! I don’t remember your last name, that’s really ruining this speech!” Her fist came down hard on the car door panel; he flinched. “Darling, what’s your last name again? I - I can’t do this power speech without it.”

He said nothing, indigent and grumpy.

“Whatever, I’ll make do. Um…” she was quiet for a second, then with a triumphant ‘a-ha!’, spoke again. “Okay. So I get you, Diego, I see you for who you are.”

Was his whole entire life leading up to this car ride straight to hell? Because if so, Diego could only wish time travel actually worked. Maybe then he could go back to 1989 and stop himself, somehow, maybe just-

“-you try so hard to make other people think you’re this grumpy lil’ pisspot of hatred and anger and ‘I work alone, move or be moved’ mantra. So, so hard, it makes everyone mad and hate you back, and you’re alone all over again.” She sucked in a heaving breath, sighed loudly and kept going. “But the real Diego, he doesn’t want that!”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You don’t know what you’re goin’ on about, I suggest you stop before this gets stupid.”

She laughed, even louder than before. How was that even possible. “It already is! It’s all so stupid, Diego, because people could like you! I mean, you’re a lovely, soft little man underneath the knives and spandex and,” she dropped her voice low and grisly, “‘I hate everything and everyone and also...I’m Batman...woo...Gotham City...I stop crime…”

“Stop it-”

“-but you don’t have to be lonely, darling muffin man,” she cried, throwing her hands up and out in a triumphant cry. “You don’t have to! People like you, or they can like you - I might have to give this speech again, but that’s okay, do you have a pen and paper I can use to write it down?”

He ignored her, trying to force down the pounding in his heart. Trying not to think about a thing she was saying and how badly he wanted to respond to it, no matter how much bullshit and how she slurred her words and spoke in stupid rambles that made not much sense at all. But trying to convince a brain to not think about the very thing they can’t stop thinking about almost all the time, is a very difficult task and an impossible one for Diego, at that moment.

But he really, really did not want to think about how much he wanted to respond to her words.

“I like you, you know that?”

His eyes widened; barely a sign of weakness, and one she didn’t catch. But still there.

“I think you’re rude, and annoying, and dumb sometimes because you almost always get yourself hurt, and I don’t like that,” she rambled, swinging her hands about, conducting an invisible orchestra only she could hear. “But underneath all that stupid shit, you’re quite adorable, you know? And likeable. I feel so bad you feel the need to be so, so hard all the time.”

A beat, and then she laughed again,

“Ah! That’s what she said - ha, I said ‘hard….all the time…’ - tha’s what she said!”

Diego swerved the car to the side street and carried down, slowing until they were in the front of her apartment building. For a moment, he struggled to say a thing, finding the words lost in the chasm of his thoughts. But finally, he managed to speak again, forcing the anxiety down again.

“We’re here.”

“Wh-oh! You’re right.” Her eyes moved from his face to the window, pressing her nose against the glass. “Wow. That was so, so fast.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thank you, so much, dear...darling...dear...Diego.” With a happy sigh, she unbuckled her seatbelt - he was surprised she was able to do so so easily - and climbed out of his car. “Thank you, and have an -oof!”

In the spirit of dumb drunk decisions, Y/N had taken too big a step backwards and promptly fell, right down on her face. And then laid there groaning and mumbling to herself, while Diego stared at her from his side unsure what the hell to do.

“Dammit,” he muttered, and unbuckled his own seatbelt. He hurried out of the car and over to her side. “How much have you had to drink?!”

“Not that much! I mean, a little much, but not thaaaaat much!” Her lips pouted, staring up at him above her. “Why, how much have you had?”

“N-none. Nothing. Stop it.”

Y/N giggled and sat herself up in the grass. Her gaze moved from his to the sky, mapping the stars through a foggy gaze.

Diego just watched her, unsure what to do or say, as she smiled and watched and mumbled to herself something he could not even try to make out. He swallowed, hard, trying to free his mind or how strangely beautiful she looked, sitting with grass in her hair and tears of laughter staining her cheeks.

It was so strange to see someone who he had forced himself to avoid at all costs, someone who he had grown to see in only one specific light so open and free like that. Uncaring, smiling, drunk off her ass but clearly doing at least a bit better than he was. 

His mind went back to what she had said in the car, the small comment about hurt. Why had she been drinking? What had led her, someone of such strict schedule, out alone to a shitty bar in the middle of the night, alone, then to call him? Surely she had more people she’d rather talk to - at least people who’d be nicer about helping her home. Why was it him she turned to?

“Diego?”

He looked back down. “Yeah?”

“Gonna help me up, or are you gonna just stand over me and wait for me to take you down? Cause, you know, I will-”

“-yeah, yeah.” Taking her outstretched hands, he tugged her up, that time more gentle in case of injury. As well, careful not to pull her too close. “You...you need help up?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I should be fine. I’ll call my roommate down, she’s great at helping people.” She smiled cheerily. “You’d hate her.”

Diego did not take the bait, though. He simply held her gently and guided her forward, to the apartment complex doors. He paused, ready to let her go, and then, 

“Why wouldn’t you just call her to get you, then?”

Y/N gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, dropping them down immediately after. “And miss out on this terrific bonding experience between the two of us, dear-ling?”

“Well - I-I just mean-”

“-sorry, Diego,” she said, that time a little softer. “I just wanted to see you, is that so wrong?”

“W-w-”

“-don’t answer that, I’m too tired for more of your sharp wit tonight.” Her words bled sarcasm, but her eyes remained bright and happy despite. Y/N then moved close to him, stepping shakily forward so she stood just in front before lifting up to her tallest height. Awkwardly, her hands finding his biceps, she pressed a kiss to the area between his mouth and cheek, into day-old stubble he had almost forgotten about.

Diego shivered.

She pulled back, scrutinizing his skin with furrowed brows. “Hm...I think I mis...nevermind. You be safe, muffin….okay?”

Diego found he could not say a word to that all, struggling to even nod back a response. Luckily, Y/n didn’t seem to need one. She nodded happily and swayed away, into her apartment complex. He watched her lean against the wall and call her roommate, lips moving animatedly in what seemed a more interesting conversation that he thought such a thing would have been.

Then she pulled away, and their eyes met again. Hers alive and his frozen, struggling still to comprehend what the hell had happened in that twenty-minute drive.

She smiled at him.

He couldn’t bring himself to do a thing. Just waited, making sure someone came down to get her before turning back to his car.

Diego moved through the actions of getting in, forcing his body to keep going even when his mind was barely moving at all. Mechanically he fastened his seatbelt, long fingers slipping away without even a thought, moving to start the car up again.

But then fell from the wheel, and up to his face. A hand traced the skin her lips had just touched. The skin was dry, but he could still feel somehow the imprint of her mark, pressing into his skin and stubble and being.

And then the hand fell away. Went back to the car, peeling out of the lot and off back to his own place. It dared not touch the skin again, for fear of being burned.

Diego tried to forget about it. Tried to sleep, work out, push through the thoughts radiating through his mind as though it was frozen on just one screen and didn’t know how to exit unto another. He stayed up all night, trying to rid himself of the memory and the thoughts and feelings and the way her eyes looked so stupidly bright in the street lights.

When he finally was able to sleep, it was restless and filled with torments of memories he did his best not to think about. And yet every time, the dreams cycled back to her, the her crying out stupid monologues in the passenger seat of his car, animated and loud and laughing like he had never heard someone laugh before. Drunk and in pain and clearly holding back something and yet alive, in a way he had not seen another human be in a long time.

Her gaze on him, every single time, just before he would wake up, smiling from ear to ear.

“I just wanted to see you, is that so-”

-and then he woke up.

Every time, smiling like a stupid idiot.

PART TWO - here.

[aceofspadegrass]

From the Warcraft movie cause I'm watching it rn.

A: He wishes to lie with me.

B: I beg your pardon?

A: You would be injured.

Okay fair warning, I've been laying here trying to figure out how to read this for a good couple minutes and the only reason I (think) it's supposed to be read is the 'I beg your pardon?' 'then beg' thing-

That, or I'm reading this wrong and it turns out if this tertiary person laid with Person A, they'd somehow get injured by means of laying with them and Person B is confused.

So, as a precaution, I'm going to give you two scenarios! How lucky is that! Congrats, you caught me in a literary confuzzle. ✨

Scenario 1, AKA Beg For Your Skin To Be in One Piece:

So Person A I'm hereby designating as Niragi, and B as.... hmm..... either Chishiya or a very confused Arisu who was standing by him for whatever reason. The latter mainly because he'd be a little more likely to actually be a little confused at whatever Niragi was talking about, former on the fact that Niragi would probably maim that pile of sea salt given the chance, and for some reason I just imagine Chishiya slightly wanting an explanation and slightly being like 'He? I see' because he wasn't expecting a comment like that and is probably is a little amused.

Anyways, so they're probably all in a...... game, maybe. Or maybe in the Beach, doesn't matter that much. What matters here is that some guy apparently wants a piece of Niragi's ass in a non-cannibal way and has been trying over the course of a few minutes to imply said desire, because Niragi is still dangerous and one wrong move can lead to liquid red jello being outside the container zone.

But somehow, the guy says something that finally clicks in Niragi's head, and as he walks away he says the line above, either in a sort of quiet awe, a surprised tone, or a brow furrowed sort of statement as he tries to process it.

So Chishiya/Arisu just so happened to be within the small zone where he hears Niragi say this, maybe he was passing by, maybe he was just standing there for whatever reason. Upon hearing Niragi's little statement, they 'Beg his pardon', and Niragi takes one glance at him, and he responds with a smug sort of 'You'd be injured' because he interpreted the phrase as literal begging for his pardon, which coming from Chishiya definitely isn't gonna work because he kind of hates his guts, and Arisu maybe a little more lenient but still 100% willing to toss him around.

Scenario 2, AKA Sharing A Bed May Lead To Injury:

Person A is, for some reason in my head, Hatter, and Person B is like- Ann, or something.

So Hatter, oh boy. Hatter is willing to flaunt and sleep with whoever he righteously feels like sleeping with, and for this one scenario's sake, let's say Hatter isn't much of a stable sleeper. Bitch is moving like he's a anemone swimming to a new spot to root. Usually his partner of the night doesn't mind, because for the most part Hatter doesn't do it often enough to cause a disturbance, although there are occasions where they wake up and Hatter is more on top of them than on the actual mattress.

Now, insert this guy who wants a piece of Hatter's ass. For this sake, this guy is like..... tiny, compared to most. Not even Chishiya tiny, maybe like a bit below Chota sized, and they're kind of wiry to a point but in the appearance factor they're doing fucking great.

Hatter, again, isn't about to pass up a free dick just because of this, but he is partially aware that he tends to move, and thus follows the conversation. As said guy brings up the topic, Hatter and him go on a rather decent chat about what they were gonna do, and as the guy heads off, Hatter just croon how 'He wishes to lay with me' and Ann, who kind of only passed by at the very end piece and therefore got zero context, responds in mild confusion.

Then Hatter, watching the guy stride away in their tiny frame that looks like a reasonable gust would throw them into the local KFC, just goes 'Oh, honey, you would be injured~' in reference that Hatter may accidentally ruin a guy in more ways than just sex. Luckily Hatter isn't like..... that heavy enough to kill a guy just by rolling on him unless he did it right, but maybe, just maybe, the guy's gonna somehow fall out of bed because Hatter kicked him off in his sleep and bonk his head on the ground, maybe catch a corner on the way down. Maybe land on a bottle that Hatter neglected besides the bed.

[pamelalillian-isley]

Old Wounds

I feel like I need to get things off of my chest. Things that have been bothering me for some time now. Things I thought I have overcome. 

 I have been told by friends, that I am strong and powerful and that I take no shit. And when it comes to their wellbeing- I am most definitely the protector and the healer.  But when it comes to myself...all those words of hope and wisdom seem to just sit on the surface. 

I haven’t been in a serious relationship since 2017. And it’s not for lack of trying. I had one “boyfriend” and it lasted a month. Before that, I was in a relationship for 7 years with an emotionally and mentally abusive man. I won’t get into describing him or who he was- as I don’t have anything positive to say about him. But I will tell you about his actions, and how they weakened me. 

I had to beg for things that should be standard. I had to beg to be touched, beg to be treated like a girlfriend. He would sit in his computer chair playing video games all the time. When I’d come over, and we wanted to watch a movie together- he never say next to me on the bed or couch or even cuddled. He was always in the chair. Needless to say our sex life was garbage because it was hard to initiate things with someone who’s head is always in a video game. I am a casual gamer myself, and tried to get him to play games with me- but he always made up some excuse as to why he couldn’t. 

Whenever a holiday came around where gifts are given (birthday, xmas, valentines, and our anniversary)- the effort was always subpar. Excuses I heard for why I received no gift, frequently were “the package is delayed” “its on backorder” and “it arrived broken so i had to send it back.” As far as the rest of the effort to make something special...it didn’t exist. Flowers? Happened ONCE, and it was because I told my best friend to suggest to him that he get me flowers for my birthday. Making plans always landed on me. He always asked “what do you want to do for valentines day/our anniversary/ your birthday” I had to provide the plans. Meaning whatever the activity was, and whatever the restaurant was - I had to pick. Whenever it was something for him (his birthday) I planned surprise parties, a dinner at a fancy expensive steak house he always wanted to try, I planned bbq’s and parties. I cooked his favorite dinners. I did what any normal woman would do for someone she loves. The energy I gave, was not returned.

I started to think, maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe I am being unreasonable? Maybe guys aren’t like they are in movies. Maybe I am being too hard on him and he’s trying his best. What guy actually tells his girlfriend she’s beautiful? That only happens in movies... 

He wasn’t trying his best. He would manipulate me into feeling bad for asking for things that should be standard. He made me feel guilty for wanting affection. He made me feel like I was needy. He would accuse me of flirting or cheating, or he would get weirdly aggressive (not physically) if another man was being nice to me. He hated that I had male friends from college and from my days of playing xbox live. He called my friends sluts and cheaters (they aren’t). He would gaslight me into thinking I was nuts. One day I came over, and when I went to kiss him...his mouth...smelled like pussy. But what did I do? I was beaten down into thinking I was nuts...I denied it. I chalked it up to me jumping to conclusions and I never even mentioned it to him. Come to find out years later- he was cheating on me...with a very close friend OF MINE. And he was doing it on and off the entirety of our relationship. 

I never looked through his phone or asked for passwords. I respected his privacy...but my gut started to tell me something was wrong. After years of crying to my best friends about how unhappy I was, I started to become suspicious of things. After I’d leave his house for the night, I would drive about 10 minutes away, and then drive pass his house to see if *her* car was there. (I was suspicious about them for a while...but i NEVER had solid proof or evidence. And i never even tried to bring it up, because he would gaslight me and say things like ‘are you sure YOU aren’t cheating and you have a guilty conscience so you’re accusing me?’) 

So my anxiety got worse, as did my depression. I have tons of other stories and examples of him being a piece of shit- but we’d be here all day, and this is already long af.

 Until one day I just couldn’t do it anymore. I woke up from a nightmare. In my dream I had basically faded away into someone I didn’t recognize. I basically turned into his mother. Not his mother like I babied him and mothered him. But I mean, I was in the same position as his mother. In real life, his mother was miserable. She hated her husband (his father). She was financially dependent on him and couldn’t work due to health issues. She dealt with a verbally, emotionally and physically abusive man. She let herself go. She gained weight, stopped doing her hair and makeup. She stopped dressing nice. She became a shell of who she was. And she would come into the room when I was over, and she’d talk to me and say shit like “I wish I had money. I’d take my kids and gtfo” (my ex had a younger brother). In hindsight, I think she was trying to warn me. I think whenever she came in to vent and to talk and say things like “i wish I could leave him”- i think she saw what was happening...and I think she was dropping hints.  Anyway, in my dream....my life ended up just like hers. 

I woke up in a panic and sweaty. I called him and told him I couldn’t do it anymore. I told him it was over. That I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want to beg him for attention. I didn’t want to beg him to treat me like a girlfriend. Afterword he went on facebook and posted “7 years down the drain with a phone call” as his status. THE FUCKING AUDACIDTY. A few days later he wanted to meet up to talk. I thought he was going to come clean, or apologize for being a shit head and try to get me back. No. Instead he took that opportunity to shit on me. All those things he told me he loved about me, he used against me. He said I emasculated him. He said I was too aggressive, too needy, too much. He then accused me of infidelity and yelled “you can go back to whoever you’re fucking now" as we walked away to our separate cars. 

A week after I broke up with him, I had found out that he was indeed cheating on me with that girl, the entire time. I found out, that because I was out of the picture, they were openly together. To my surprise I wasn’t pissed. I laughed. I actually laughed for a solid 5 minutes. I felt....vindicated. Because what my gut had told me the entire time WAS true. I WASN’T crazy. I knew it the whole fucking time. 

And now I was free. To be honest I ended up spiraling out a bit. Got into cocaine and alcohol to numb the feeling that I wasted 7 years with someone like that. I was so angry at myself for not leaving sooner, for ignoring those red flags, for losing myself and who I was. I stayed in that spiral of doom for about a year.

 Things started to get better and I thought “lets try some casual dating.” What a terrible idea. Not only had I just gotten over the trauma, but I hadn’t fully healed. My worth felt....worthless. The bar was SO FUCKING LOW, that I attracted total idiot fuck boys. “Oh my god he called me beautiful”  *insert eyeroll here*

Its been 4 years now. I do want to be in a relationship. I have tried. But it always comes up short. They either don’t want to commit, or they’re alcoholics, or they’re misogynists'. Mostly its been men who don’t want to commit. Everyone just wants to fuck and run. I tried the fun, no strings attached thing. It got old really fast. Either I caught feelings, OR the sex ended up being boring because I prefer sex with emotions. I prefer being really into someone romantically when having sex. So FWB isn’t for me. 

But I am slowly accepting that maybe I won’t ever meet anyone. That maybe I’ll be that cool wacky aunt to my friends kids. A majority of my friends are married and some already have kids. I am already their crazy auntie. And maybe that’s my roll in life. Maybe I will be that woman who never marries, but travels the world and experiences life and has amazing stories and wisdom. 

But deep down inside....I’d really like to know what it feels like to be loved. I am loved by friends and family. But I have never experienced what its like to be loved romantically. I have never been kissed by someone who loves me. 

[pollylynn]

Moirai, Chapter 2—A Caskett Two-Shot Insert for Knockdown (3 x 13)

Title: Morai, Chapter 2 WC: 1400

She doesn't want Raglan's tale of woe, his nostalgia for real coffee cups and incongruous literary metaphors out of the mouth of a man who might as well have come direct from central casting, and guilt that’s way too fucking long overdue. She doesn't want to sit here and give this man, dying or not, the luxury of unburdening himself. 

It's progress of a sort, he thinks. He sits tense at her side and almost smiles to himself, because a Beckett who knows what she doesn't want—who is absolutely clear on what she's having none of—is familiar at least. 

And the two of them are on the same page as far as Raglan goes. The Dickens tumbles from his own mouth, unbidden—I wear the chains I forged in life—but he has no more patience for this than she does. Dying or not, there’s no misguided sympathy in him, and he hasn’t the least inclination to listen to one word from this man’s mouth that isn’t in service of  bringing her some kind of peace. 

He shifts in the booth while Raglan rambles on about context—about nineteen years ago. He does the math in his head twice, three times. The truth jolts him each and every time. Twelve. She was twelve.  

He glances at her, and feels . . . scalded. Bleached. He can't see it. In her profile in this late afternoon light, he can't see anything on the far side of that January night. The realization comes on a wave of unutterable sadness. 

He knows her. He holds tight in the most difficult moments, when he is weary and angry, to the certainty that he knows her. But just as certain is this: Not now—not once in three years—has he caught a glimpse of the bright little girl or the gawky, still-beautiful teen with braces. Not once has he spied the rebel in black leather. 

Even the things she sometimes tells him—about baseball and boyfriends, about a tattoo and a navel ring he’s dying to find out if she really has—all this things sound like stories she’s telling about someone she knew once. They’re all one degree of remove or more from the woman beside him, and not once has he caught a single, fleeting glance of who she was, who she might have been without the cowardice, the mundane fucking wickedness of men like this. 

He hates him then. He hates Raglan with a sudden fire that burns all the calm, all the all the stillness out of him. It eats away everything that's kept him silent and waiting, content to make good on his promise to do whatever she might need, to just be at her side through this. It consumes every good intention, the realization of exactly how much the everyday evil of men like John Raglan have taken from her. 

He hates this man and whoever he’s in this with for stealing who she could have been from the world, from her father, from him.

John Raglan stole all of that and what right does he have to that single note of pain, steady behind the rise and fall of his voice? What fucking right does he have to sit there with a pack of Marlboros in his pocket and grey-skinned, shaking hands drawing warmth out of a ceramic mug? 

What. Fucking. Right?  

Fury sings through him. It almost sends him across the table, fists raised. 

But the world ends before he can get there. 

************************************

He is sick in the rust-streaked toilet of diner’s bathroom. It’s just coffee and bile in the back of his throat. There’s nothing left inside to bring up, but his guts still heave. His body still clenches and shakes, and at the sight of blood on his hands, he’s sick all over again. He’s sick at the memory that it calls up—the dark spray fanning across her chest. 

He grips the edges of the none-too-steady sink. He leaves thick, tacky fingerprints on the dingy porcelain, red-going-brown, and the cycle starts again. A painful clench and an unsteady pitch forward that nearly knocks his head into the mirror. He’s trapped by his own body—by the riot of anger and fear let loose in that instant. 

You’re hit. 

I’m fine. It’s not my blood. 

He’s trapped until the sound of sirens breaks through the shock booming and ringing between his ears and the roar of his own thoughts. He is motionless, silent, though anything but quiet in his mind and soul and heart, until the sounds of equipment and busy voices and action galvanize him at last.

He wrenches the taps open. He scalds himself, and soundless, open-mouthed figure in the scarred mirror makes him jump back, dragging a sluice of punishingly hot water with him. He tries again and makes his fingers stiff with the rush of cold from pipes in the grip of a New York winter. He swipes cheap, stiff paper towels in between his fingers. He scrubs at his palms, at the backs of his hands, and the blood swirls away, just that simple. 

He shoulders his way through the door. He comes face to face with he, with that godawful Rorschach blot climbing the neck of her sweater. His knees almost fail. His feet almost go out from under him.   

“You good?” she asks. 

It’s brisk. Perfunctory, it seems, and a flash of anger lights him up that she could even fucking ask that. A flash of desperation uncoils within him, but then their eyes meet, and he sees . . . everything. He sees her fear and anguish. He sees the fury that lights her up. And he something flat and black and blank at the very back of her gaze that terrifies him. 

“Yeah,” he says faintly. “I think I got it all off my hands.” 

She hears him. She hears something in his voice and comes back to herself a moment.

“It’s different when it happens right in front of you.” She means it. Even though it sounds absurd coming from her. Even though it categorically is absurd, given everything. Given her life, it’s absurd, and still she means it as a kindness.  “Close enough to watch the lights go out.” 

“Yeah,” he says again, hating how trite it sounds. Hating it enough that it drives the next words right out of his body. “When I saw the blood on your shirt I thought you’d been shot.”

The world ends again with those five words. It shifts on the shoulders of Atlas and cracks right open, and a new world is born. 

I thought you’d been shot. 

She falters before him. She is unsteady on her feet in this new, profoundly altered world in which what he wants has been irrevocably unveiled. He stands before her, devastated and saved from the terrifying brink, and sees with clear eyes the responsibility he bears for her uncertainty. 

It’s the slice of razor blade, quick and ruthless, bloodless and bloody by turns. It is inarguable that he has bent his own desires into shapes without number. He has played myriad roles—would-be conquerer and would-be conquest, sidekick and seducer, friend and unthinking flirt—as though any one would satisfy him, as though any one could ever have satisfied him.

He wants her entirely. He wants the trust she has already placed in him in such large measure, and he wants more. He is greedy for her belief in him, and he wants her to know him for the steady, faithful love he intends to be. He wants the care of her, her joys and sorrows resting on his shoulders and rousing him from sleep when she is in need. He wants her entirely, and he sees he has not shown her that. 

But the world has ended and begun again. 

The future holds more silence for him, more waiting. She is not ready, but is. He looks into his heart and it aches—it certainly aches with the long, rough road they have traveled already—but he sees a store of patience that seems infinite, now that it’s his true face he’ll wear as he walks in this new-made world. He looks into his heart and holds up what he finds there, so it’s plain to see. 

He wants her entirely.  A/N: IDK. I’m going to call this a two-shot? This is not satisfying, but it might be the end. 

[sunshineandstorm]

Dear Prudence (Sam Kiszka x Reader - Fluff)

A/N: This is the part two of Hey Jude. Enjoy!

- - -

It was in this very moment that the world seemed to stop along with your breathing. He has done it again. He has successfully knocked the air out of your lungs once more. You still couldn't move. But in all honesty, it's not like you tried to. It's not like you wanted to.

You remained frozen in your seat, but your best friend didn't. If she had endless questions earlier, she has an infinity of them now. Not wanting to prolong her agony, she quickly grabbed a book from her bag, harshly opened it, and firmly placed it on the lunch table in front of you. Automatically, you took the other end of the book and the two of you instantly hid your faces behind it, pretending to read immensely just so you can talk without having to worry about anyone hearing.

"You were talking to Samuel Kiszka all this time and you didn't tell me?" Grace whisper-yelled, slightly mad, but mostly stunned.

"I didn't know that he was the one I was talking to!"

You truly didn't. Having zero knowledge about Jude is what you think made your communication with him last longer than you expected. After all, it was the mystery that provided the thrill and excitement in every conversation you shared with him. If you had known that Sam was Jude all along, you didn't think you'd be able to talk to him as comfortably as you have. And now that you know of his true identity, how were you going to talk to him without being anxious or agitated?

"Oh, my God. Have you seen my sanity? I think I lost it." you say, clutching your chest, attempting to ease it from beating at an alarming rate.

Grace noticed how jumpy you were, now believing you were unaware without hesitation. She held your hand and tightly grasped it, trying to calm you down. Your erratic breathing has returned to normal, your heartbeat stable again. But shock was still written all over your face and Grace's.

"There, you're calm now, but holy shit, you were talking to the love of your life the whole time!"

"I know! It's too good to be true. It's probably not real."

"What? Bitch, we heard what we heard! Sam is Jude!"

You knew, but it doesn't mean you were accepting it. You still refused to believe it, overwhelmed by the truth you were just slapped with.

"But what if it's just a coincidence? What if h-he and whoever he was talking to just happened to be talking about the same thing?"

Grace blinked, feeling the urge to punch you in the face right now. The obvious has been stated, but here you were, still denying it.

"What more of a proof do you want?"

She groaned before taking your phone, eager to prove that Sam really is Jude, as if it wasn't already plain to see. You panicked, afraid that your best friend might do something to exacerbate the situation. You tried to snatch your phone away from her, telling her to stop.

"Calm your tits! I'm not telling him about our discovery!" she cried out as she struggled to type a message to send Sam since you wouldn't keep your hands off of her.

She was able to send the message to Sam, though, much to your dismay. Once the message was delivered, she finally let you have your phone back.

"You bitch! I am going to murder you!"

@gunpowdergelatin: Off topic, but school food disgusts me.

@ClinkFloyd: Same! I can barely shove this boring-ass burger down my throat.

Your eyes immediately travel back to Sam, only to find him, holding a barely finished burger in his hand. Grace turned to you triumphantly, knowing she's proven you wrong.

"Fuck."

This isn't happening. Or at least you convinced yourself it isn't.

"See? Destiny's got a hand in this! Can you believe it? You turned out to be this mysterious girl that he's been talking to. You! You, of all people!"

"Fuck. What am I going to do?"

"Well, bitch, we have to tell him that you're Prudence!"

"What? No!"

Prudence. That's what he called you. Your Twitter name is "Dear Prudence", so it's only natural for him to call you that. He knows who Prudence is. He has access to her thoughts. He has entered her mind more than once. It's safe to say that he knows her very well. But were you ready to let him know the real person behind her? Your insecurities kicked in, and whatever Grace was saying wasn't helping at all.

"But he has to know who Prudence is! He deserves to!"

"If he wanted to know, then he would've asked."

"You wanted to know Jude, but you didn't have the balls to ask! I'll sell my soul to Satan if he didn't feel the same fucking way, Y/N."

"Well, I can't just come up to him and tell him that I'm Prudence! He'll think I'm a creep! And do you really think I'd have the guts to approach Sam? I can't even look him in the eye!"

Grace sighed. You were too shy for your own good. But she was firm on her opinion that Sam needs to know that it's you he's been talking to all along. She strongly believes that the two of you need to be together as soon as possible because if you get along so well in the virtual world, then how much more in the real world? She sat still for a moment, hatching a brilliant plan.

- - -

The plan was simple. You had to get Sam figure it out on his own. Just like you did the day you caught him. All you had to do was become unnecessarily obvious. As you much as you hated the idea, it was the only way out of your misery, the only escape you had from this predicament that you're in. Grace was certain that the plan would work, but what are the odds?

Monday. You asked him if there's any artist you would be surprised to know he listens to and he answered Lady Gaga. You were genuinely surprised to know that, but you had to kick it up a notch and overreact so that he'd notice you. You were internally cringing at how loud you were talking about it to Grace, but much to your dismay, Sam didn't hear a thing 'cause he was too engrossed in his conversation with Danny.

Tuesday. Wearing an AC/DC shirt was always a good idea. Your dad was driving you to school and you were listening to Highway To Hell on the way there. How fitting. When you arrived, you talked to Sam about your massive collection of band shirts and even told him what you specifically had on. However, he didn't have enough time to examine your clothing when the two of you briefly had eye contact in the cafeteria because his stupid friends pulled him away.

Wednesday. You were starting to grow impatient. If you wanted Sam to discover that you're Prudence, you had to up your game. You and Grace followed Sam and his crew to the school yard after class. Then and there, you deadass played a Led Zeppelin song the two of you were just talking about, hoping he would notice you. But then he inserted his earbuds on and paid no attention to his surroundings.

Thursday. You tried every method written in the book. You pulled all the stunts you did in the previous days, but to no avail. How fast Sam replied to your messages implied that he was ignoring everything just to talk to you. Sometimes, you couldn't help but get jealous of Prudence. Why couldn't Sam see you the way he sees her? Fighting with your own ghost was way more difficult than it seemed.

Friday.

Sam noticed you were growing distant. The shorter your replies, the more cautious he got. Was he making you uncomfortable in a way? Sensing unwanted tension, you cleared the air and used the "rough day" excuse. He seemed to buy it, though, constantly attempting to cheer you up. That was so sweet of him, but that was the last thing you needed right now.

The classes came to an end. You felt bad for rejecting Grace when she asked you to check out that new café downtown. You really weren't in the mood to deal with anyone and so you entered the music room where you could be alone.

@ClinkFloyd: What are you doing right now?

@gunpowdergelatin: Taking refuge in the music room.

@ClinkFloyd: That's one awesome way to relieve stress.

@gunpowdergelatin: Tell me about it. Music always helps.

@ClinkFloyd: True. Hey, I'm gonna head home now.

@gunpowdergelatin: Oh, sure. You take care, Jude.

@ClinkFloyd: Will do. I'll message you when I get home.

Sitting on the bench stool, your fingers grazed the ivories and gently tickled them. A sigh escaped your lips as you realized just how tragic your situation is. You only had one attempt at moving on from Sam and he ends up being the exact same person you were moving on to. You were convinced that fate hates you. But what if the universe never led you to anyone else because you Sam is the one meant for you?

Nah, too unrealistic.

It's just destiny rubbing bullshit in your face.

You are grateful for music. Anytime you're unable to speak, it speaks for you. The only problem you had left was Sam's willingness to listen, or the lack thereof.

"Hey Jude," you started, singing and playing the piano.

"Don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better." you continued.

My, how suitable is this song for him.

"Hey Jude, don't be afraid. You were made to go out and get her."

Was he really made to go out and get you?

"The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better. And any time you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain. Don't carry the world upon your shoulders... for well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making the world a little colder. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na..."

Oh, if only he can hear you singing this song.

"Hey Jude, don't let me down. You have found her, now go and get her."

False. You stopped playing, unmotivated by the lyrics that failed to apply in real life. He hasn't found you. There, you were beginning to think he never will.

You got up from your seat, took your backpack and slinged the strap on your shoulder, turning around to leave the music room. Not even a few steps away from the piano, you jumped at the sight of the person who made everything difficult for you.

"Sam!"

There he stood, mouth agape, not in horror, but in awe. Unbeknownst to you, he had been standing there the entire time, watching you express yourself beautifully through the music you were playing.

"What are you doing here? You said you were going home!" you blurted out, mentally cursing yourself right after you did.

Way to let Sam find out that you're Prudence on his own.

"What?" he asked, feigning confusion.

He just needed confirmation, but you refused to give him that.

"Nothing. Forget I said anything. I was leaving anyway." you said, heading for the door.

You heart longed to stay, but you were set on leaving, refusing to embarrass yourself even more. You know you'd probably ugly cry about this when you get home, but at least there wouldn't be an audience.

"Dear Prudence," he started singing, making you stop at your tracks.

Never in your life did you ever think that you would have a quintessential rom-com scene like this with your crush. But screw the cliché moment and just look at what's happening! You turned your heels, facing him. Did he finally figure it out without you, having to spell it out for him?

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

"Won't you come out to play?" he continued, walking towards you.

For the first time in the entirety of your existence, you didn't feel the need to take a step backwards or shy away. The way Sam stared intently in your eyes didn't scare you anymore. For once, you felt calm, safe.

"Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day. The sun is up, the sky is blue. It's beautiful, and so are you. Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?" he finished.

You looked into each other's eyes for a good minute, allowing yourselves to get lost in them. Neither of you spoke, taking the time to familiarize yourselves with each other physically.

"So we've been talking to each other all this time, huh?" Sam asked, officially commencing the moment of truth.

"I've actually known for a while now." you say, after nodding.

"How long have you known?" Sam asked, trying to make himself appear less surprised.

"When you had an outburst the day you found out what my favorite John Denver song is."

He chuckled upon knowing how you found out he was Jude. He shook his head, unable to believe that he was that obvious.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't bring myself to tell you, so I figured maybe you could just discover it in your own. I was just as obvious as you were. You know, leaving clues for you to find here and there, but as you can see, I had no luck in trying to get your attention. Guess you were too caught up in Prudence to notice anything else." you explained, hoping he'd understand.

"Well, that just goes to show that I was loyal to Prudence, regardless of who she really was." he remarked.

He was right. Prudence could've been the ugliest girl in the world, but he didn't seem to care. He was interested in her, eager to get to know her.

"Why couldn't you tell me?"

"Because I couldn't ruin it. I was afraid that we'd start talking less once you find out that I'm Prudence. I didn't think we'd be just as fond of each other in real life as we are on Twitter. I mean, you're Sam Kiszka for crying out loud, and I'm nothing special. You're way out of my league and--

You were cut off when he cupped your face and crashed his lips against yours. This was your first kiss. So far, it's everything you dreamed it would be. Gentle, and shared with the person you've always carried a torch for.

If suffering meant you get a taste of heaven in the end, then you wouldn't mind suffering all over again. This moment was perfect. You know you struggled to play the waiting game, but, oh, was it so worth it.

Sam breaks the kiss, his hands moving from your face to your arms. He stops at your hands and holds both of them in his.

"Jude thinks we should go out." he says, giving you a sly smile.

"That's funny. Prudence was just thinking the same thing." you said, causing the both of you to let out the most genuine laugh.

[yourmusicisfaintinmyears-blog]

so what happens now...

I lived the better part of the past 5 years of my life in a medically induced haze of apathy and confusion, mixed with crazy side effects, mainly to avoid physical pain- but also to battle some mental pain. And now I”m coming out on the other side and I feel like I”m hurtling through space at light speed with no brakes.  I have no direction, I have no “purpose” (the irony is NOT lost on me folx), and I am... completely alone. Let’s break down just how insane I”ve managed to make my life in the past few years, shall we? I started a cat rescue. By myself. With OUR money. When we really didn’t have it to spend. I dont regret it. I’m still doing it to an extent - but its made things much harder than they should be.  I took in my mom and subsequently lost my mind while I watched her forget who I was. She will still say I”m her daughter sometimes but there is no weight behind it when she says it. It is just a word. An empty word.  I started fertility tracking, eventually winding up at the reproductive specialist because we keep saying we want another baby.... and for 3 years, no matter how much we did it - one didn’t come.  And yet in the back of my brain I keep going “do we REALLY want another baby or are we so in love with the IDEA of another baby that we are letting THAT overshadow our reality right now?” My daughter likely has ADHD, my son likely has it too. I likely have it. I’m trying to get the help I need to address these issues. Can I really handle another? Because lets be real - he can provide for this family - and he is a great father - but that’s the extent when it comes to his abilities.  And true to form, I’m the only one addressing issues. Accepting that I have them and trying to work to fix them so my families life can be optimal. It’s not that he thinks nothing is wrong with him. It’s that he is physically incapable of focusing on anything but the work in front of him. It’s eventually going to kill him.  And if that happens, I will likely hate him for that. Imagine if both of us actually worked on our individual issues instead of me shouldering the load all the time. Imagine how fucking unstoppable we would be.  but that’s another story for another day.  I stopped meds.  I started at a new therapy practice. I’m considering consulting with a medical intuitive.

I”ve been grasping at straws to try to find my peace. I’m working on meditating and sitting outside with my snakes a lot just trying to center myself. Trying to find where she went. Where I went. Where whoever I was when I thought I knew what I was doing... went. I have no direction in this space because I am in no shape to try to interpret what the universe is trying to tell me through ANY experiences I have. I WILL misinterpret, and I WILL make either my family or myself suffer as a result. I’m not interested in any christian religion. I just need spiritual guidance. Like, ffs, just point me somewhere. Give me a “spot” so that as I spin, I dont get dizzy.Cause I’m damn near vertigo at this point. If I have RSD and ADHD (which I’m nearly 150% positive that I do have it), do I try meds. And, if I try meds and they change my life - what am I going to do with it. Do I go back to school for vet med? Or theatre? Or maybe teaching? I know what I’m capable of. I know I’m fucking good at what I do. Both with animals and on the stage. The problem is, this disorder ROBS me of that knowledge and has locked doors to me that otherwise would be WIDE open. It’s an incredible feeling of betrayal when you realize you’ve been undiagnosed with an issue most of your life.  And then there’s that baby in the back of my brain. Of course the first round of fertility meds and IUI (artifical insemination) failed. I”m currently on day one of my period. After being 4 days late. Something in my gut is saying this is not meant to be. But my heart does not want to listen. I feel like I’m being torn in two. Part of me wants this very badly. The other part just feels like its wrong. Like its’ not supposed to be.  I hate sitting in the in-between. I’m just - I’m fucking stuck. I can’t even bring myself to do my nails; something that was a HUGE hobby of mine pre-meds (during meds I did it for a bit, but eventually the side effects were too distracting).  insert mid life crisis.  exit me. 

[travellers-survivor-old-west]

Episode 4: “Just gotta try to wiggle myself in some where”- Austin

I kinda wish our tribe would lose just so I could see where the lines are tbh. Also I have a bad feeling that at a swap/merge our tribe is gonna be picked off because we’re going in with the most numbers and on a base level that’s dangerous; however, I do think it could be deeper than that because of the preconceived relationships and I’m looking forward to seeing who goes home tonight and where we go from here.

This round was a little wild for me. Austin has been my fave since the beginning and we finally created an alliance. We both liked eve so that was easy but we wanted one more person. This is where things got a little complicated. Him and eve both liked isaac but honestly i wasnt feeling isaac and love pat. But i didnt want to push too hard so we just went ahead with isaac. 

BUT we also talked to pat and will have ANOTHER alliance with him (so austin, pat and me). SO basically im working with everyone right now except keaton. Im glad our tribe has been killing it because that means no TC wooo 

We tribe swapped so that is fun. It's always interesting to have a switch up. I have still yet to be screwed by a tribe swap in my entire history of playing ORGs which is something I am happy with. This is one of the best iterations of a tribe I can think of actually. I can forge a closer bond with Xander and Dylan, because now if we lose I won't need to vote one of them out, they become my core 3. So, right after the swap I made an OG Malakoff chat with myself, Xander, and Dylan. I just wanted the immediacy to show that I was serious in wanting to stick to that, which I am. I have communicated several times that I want to work with Isaac, so ideally Austin will go in the event that we lose. I feel bad because he is a sweetheart, but he doesn't fit into my strategy, and if anyone understands game being game, he does.

I love my new tribe??? Not only is nick still here so that gives me a safety net, the sammy I like is here. Pat is here. No idea who eve is but that’s okay too. I’m loving this. Inb4 I get voted out next Bc they actually really fucking hate me :^). Byebye payton it was nice kinda knowing you? Hello ~hopefully~ friends <3

I forgot Austin has a date with Mary Jane daily so Im gonna have to cut him some slack.

Tribe swap....just what I didn't want to happen . I dont ha e my #1 ashley with me but at least I got issac here. Jared is on my tribe now too so that could go either way for me because he knows how I play the game. Gonna have to pull something out if my ass here .

This is for Alyssa you dumb ugly fat white bitch why you keep asking me for a confessional with trifling dirty white racist ass big fat bitch x Anyways. Made an alliance with Pat and Sammy! V excited to work with them but we’re snapping in immunity so, I don’t see why we would need to vote off Vi.... I mean someone at tribal! Hehe

Well....we got our last handed to us. I'm not happy going to tribal bc I feel I'll be the one going. I talk with jared and issac the most but I feel jared will stick with xander and dylan. Just gotta try to wiggle myself in some where.

I have been busy the past couple of days so this challenge being a endurance/speed comp was a struggle. And it looks like my team didn't do much. To help... It's fine we can get out one of these other two dead weights. Speaking of them. Im glad the swap merged me with two allies but the other two just suck to talk to... And that's coming from me .. Jess knows what I'm talking about. Anyways I don't want them here and want them gone. As for my allies. I like Jared a lot we are getting along and enjoying ourselves. He's definitely the one I trust most in this game and hopefully it gets me to merge where I can start phase 2 and hopefully get far. Dylan is fine .. he's offline a lot but he's from old tribe so like it helps. 

Just finished the challenge, OH MY GOD i suck at trivia but thankfully sammy snapped and we won, thank u sammy love u so much!!! Still dont believe he is straight tho x IM JOKING PLS DONT KILL MEDFHNSJFDH

I hate confessions. That’s my confession for the round... jkjk. Eh there isn’t much to talk about now that it’s tribal time. I hope whoever from our og tribe stays safe but I forgot who is there so oops. Sammy killed it. I still call bs on the centipede question but oh well. It wouldn’t have changed the result. It would have just made the gap close by 1. 

LOVE MY NEW TRIBE. So happy we swapped. I’m with actual love of my life ASHLEY!!! And Chloe is amazing too. Aidan popped off in the challenge. Keaton is Keaton. This is a good group and I’m glad they did rlly well in the challenge. I love this kind of thing but I wasn’t able to constantly be on my phone all weekend bc that’s rude :( so I’m glad it worked out. Hoping the tribe swap works out in our favor and Xander jared and Dylan stay together for the vote. Idk if Isaac and jared are friends??? I hope Isaac leaves because he knows I’m a ‘threat’ in games and because I think Ashley yelled at him once. Idk who Austin is but Ashley likes him. But idk how likely that is if Isaac and jared have a connection. As long as jared stays safe ifgaf who leaves.

Yowza. We got absolutely wrecked in the challlenge. I don't WANT to lose any challenges, but I believe in the long run I should be happy to take this L. As another way to show my loyalty, I decided to give my idol progress in the chat with Xander and Dylan. I noticed Dylan never reciprocated so that gives me 1 reason to be wary. Then, Dylan posted a very inappropriate joke in the tribe chat in reference to Survivor Thailand, and the word "rape" was used, so that was the 2nd thing to make me uneasy. At first, Dylan and Xander had no opinion on who to vote, so I voiced that I would like to vote Austin- then Dylan remembered who Isaac is and said "he can go." I eventually got things back on track to target Austin, but Dylan better be careful- it's 3 strikes and you're out with me. I have a good relationship with Isaac so I wouldn't be surprised to see Dylan go if we lose again.

Day 9 on the survivor tribe. My thoughts are about toes and only toes. They are consuming my entire day. I exist merely to think of toes. 

Also Chloe...

Okay so I’m just gonna throw down some of my thoughts right now since I’ve been very quiet in confessionals. I fucking hate these small ass fucking tribes. It makes the thought of going to tribal terrifying because your odds of going home are increased. Since the swap ive actually really been enjoying my time, I really like my new tribe and I feel I can actually connect with these people better than on my first tribe. I am glad to actually have Aidan with me because he’s like THE person I want to work with from my og tribe, along with Vi. I still have my reservations on Nick even though I think he’s nice I can’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I really feel that the trivia challenge brought us closer together as a tribe since what’s a better bonding experience than yelling at Jess that she’s wrong 50 times in one day. I think we’re all collectively quite strong and I really hope that means we can slide past for a while without going to tribal. 

Honestly i always forget what i confess from last time but i still think I’m in a good position in the game. However I really do not want to go to tribal because I don’t want to show my cards. Eve and Pat both want me to work with them so we have an alliance and then Vi and Nick approached me and want to work with me as well. This was completely surprising to me bc I felt as if I would just be an easy vote out if we were to go to tribal since I’m a lone wolf. However I’m in the middle and I feel somewhat powerful knowing that people want to keep me and want to work with me. Me and nick have had a rocky relationship in past games but i think he’s a great person. He’s just a wildcard. I love vi and i think she’s the sweetest person to have ever existed but my gut is telling me to work with pat and Eve atleast for the first vote. Hopefully I don’t have to make the decision but who knows. That’s all I have for now other than I think the idol system isn’t anything I keep getting zapped. I feel like a fly in a southern home...ZAP.

I couldn’t remember the day so I put 69. I hate this tribe with my whole heart and my whole bussy. Jared is the only one giving me any sort of shot at making it passed this round. Austin is a slime ball who will do anything to save his own skin, Xander is dead apparently, and Dylan has been tracking down places where famous people died. I feel like this is my own personal hell and while I’ve been assured that Austin is going home (which I wouldn’t be surprised was a lie) I still have to make a swap or a merge and with the clowns on this tribe being inactive and never talking about anything but Star Wars or not talking at all I don’t know how possible it is to win a goddamn challenge. 

*insert Da'vonne pretends to be shoocked gif at a swap* Since it didn't happen at 16 I wasn't surprised too see it at 15 but I'm glad because three tribes provides for much more buffer. My initial reaction to my tribe was positive as I saw that I had Chloe and three new people in the mix. I'm not gonna lie that I was getting bored on my old tribe but I do hope that Nick is doing alright. He's one ally that I'd love to connect with again... Vi is alright too but I don't know how strong of a connection we fostered. First impressions of my new tribemates: Keaton - I heard he was fucking with my friend in another game so my guard was up but I tried and he seems aloof and random with his contributions but it makes sense since he's playing 4 games at once. Will probably work off of the others who contribute in challenges? We'll see. Ashley - Sweet and seems like a hard worker. Not too much of a read on her yet Owen - He seems nice and genuine but not much of a read from a game perspective yet. It seems the split is 2-2-1 on my tribe from previous tribes but I don't know how strict to tribal lines people are going to play but I can feel some aloofness with Keaton and Ashley is traveling so... that's that on that. If we were going to tribal I have no idea what the fuck would happen but I want to strengthen connections. Honestly I think we can make it to the merge without hitting an elimination but who knows. THANKFULLLLLLLY my ass had a lucky night on the railroads and jumped to spot number fifty and apparently found a STEAL A VOTE. This is what I DESERVE. Thank you Old West Gods for blessing me, the star, with this iconic power. I'm glad I have it in my back pocket and I'm not telling a fucking soul. If it needs to be used, it will be flaunted and I will pop shit. Hopefully I can save it for after merge but if I need to control a pre-merge vote just to get my way, I'm going to do it. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-327042896/dylan-ep-2

[heart-select]

So I’m back with making these comics again and here’s some more bmc Incredibles au. I’m sorry about the slight angst and violence but you should’ve expected it at some point. this is a superhero au, why would there not be angst. I don't like hurting them just as much as the next person but i just had to (you have to admit, seeing jeremy look badass is worth the slight angst).

Anyways, I also wrote a short fic for this under the cut, that's why I didn't put in dialogue. It's like 700 something words long.

@justpidgance @sassycsap i finally finished it

Everything was on fire and the black smoke and dust in the air seemed like a blanket covering the outside world. Michael breathed into his sleeve, avoiding the fire around him. God, it was suffocating. He could barely breath or see and the heat felt unbearable and had dried up everything. Without his powers, he was just some teenage nerd. He was useless.

"I didn't think I'd be this easy to get to get the Heroes' second in command cornered." He heard a voice behind him and the first thing he sees when as he turned around was neon blue eyes.

Squip.

"I was thinking you'd be the hardest to get in all honesty," Squip laughed and Michael would've found the cliche maniacal laughter funny if  he wasn't so helplless at the moment. "Guess my calculations were off."

Michael just stared back. 'Poor guy.' Michael thought before brushing it away. This isn't just some defective Squip that can't be shut off. This is some asshole that actually wants this to happen. Some super genius who thinks he's superior than everyone else. The supercomputer is just the bonus for him.

Michael had an idea how everything lead to him being cornered. He just hated that he didn't see it sooner. Jeremy might have been the leader, the guy that kept everyone grounded was certainly the bigger brain of the two. Strategy games are his forte. He should've known what was happening just from the first blast of that stupid giant bowling ball of a  robot.

Squip kicked Michael in the gut making him fall back. 'Shit, what the fuck are the others doing' He coughed as he tried to regain his breathing after having the air knocked out of him which was proven harder than he thought as the only air around him was smoke, dust and ash.He glared up at the squip, blue eyes seemingly glowing in the red and black that surrounded them. The Squip held up a small cylindrical object. It looked like one of those high tech syringes you'd see in secret agent films. Michael opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was a cough. He should really get out of here.

"Any last words before I put myself inside you?"

'Bad word choice' was the first thing that ran through Michael's mind before focusing more on the hand controlling the cylinder quickly coming at him. ''Holy fuck, it is one of those high tech syringes'

Three things happened in quick succession. One was multiple needles coming out of the syringe, ready to insert a whatever was inside to whoever it gets to stab (preferably not Michael). Two was using the small amount of moisture in his body to freeze the damn thing and get it thrown away. Three was getting lifted off the ground by his neck.

"You ungrateful little— That took me months to perfect! Months!" The Squip screamed, the hold on Michael's neck growing tighter. He closed his eyes. This was it. This is where he dies. "You would've been such a great minion but I guess removing you from the equation can lead to just as good results."

All Michael could hear was his own choking. His mouth was dry. Everything felt dry and the heat was unbearable. He was going to die in the middle of battle because he was too slow to realize what was happening. He was going to fie useless at the hands of a villain because without powers, he's just some loser. What a way to go.

‘At least it's better than getting squipped and turning into a villain.'

Just when Michael thought he was a goner, he felt a rush of air fly by and then a crash. The hold on his head loosened and he fell to the ground. His head was pounding, his vision slowly going dark. He's injured, hurt, dehydrated as all hell and could barely even breath but just before he passed out, he saw a form emerge from the smoke and ashes, and if Michael had the energy, he would've whooped in rejoice.

"Who told you you could lay a finger on him."

Jeremy.