#just finished the main story!! now I can fuck around for the next 5 years bc im gonna procrastinate fighting Ganon for as long as possible

[puppyeared]

Totk <3

[thinkwosolife23]

The Set-up, Leah Williamson

In Y/N's POV:

"You expect me to do what!"

Okay, let's rewind a bit.

I'm Y/N Steinfeld. Yes, it just so happens that my older sister is Hailee Steinfeld. And, it also just so happens that i'm a singer, just like her.

I never did the acting like Hailee has, my main focus has always been my music. I've always done really well with my music. So at the end of this year, I start my very first World Tour. After 5 number 1 singles and a number 1 album, it made sense for a World Tour to be my next step.

However, unbeknown to me, my agent had other plans.

And this is where it all begins.

Somehow, i've ended up on a plane, with my sister and agent, flying from America to England.

2 weeks ago:

The phone call:

Me and Hailee were currently sat in our shared studio; just messing around with different tracks, when my phone rang.

"Hello?" I said when I answered the phone.

"Hi Y/N, it'a Nick." My agent answers.

"Oh, is everything okay?"

"Yes. Well, sort of." He sounded hesitant, almost nervous.

Hailee glanced at me with a questioning look, to which I just shrugged my shoulders at. I was as confused as she was.

"Y/N, I need you to hear me fully out on this okay." He continued.

"I'm not gonna like this, am I?" I could feel myself getting more fustrated at his ominious answers.

"So, as you know, we need to get as much publicity around you as we can before your tour."

"Yeah? Can you just get to the point Nick!"

"Right. Yeah, sure. Me and another agent have been in contact over the past couple of weeks regarding your publicty and we've come up with a plan to heavily boost your publicity." Nick told me, still hesitant to finish.

"And what is this plan?" By this point, my patience running thin. Hailee always knew when I was getting fustrated at something, and gently took ahold of my hand, trying to calm me down.

"Long story short, we are basically planning to stage a relationship. However, it is required of you to be in England for this, so your going to have to fly out."

"You expect me to do what?"

"Y/N, your tour is in jepardy if your don't do this." His voice becoming firmer as he spoke.

"What! So your telling me, that if I don't do this stupid publicity stunt, that I won't be able to go on MY tour. Do you know how fucked up that is?" Anger and fustration now, completely getting the best of me.

"Your flight is booked for 2 weeks from today. You and Leah will be expected in a meeting the day after you land." He answered, not even acknowledging my arguement.

"Leah? Who's Leah?"

"Leah Williamson. She has just captained the England Women's Team to winning the European Championship. Obviously, winning the Euros has brought a lot of attention to her name. Hense, why she is the option we have goe with."

"Right, so, an arrogant, cocky footballer. How lovely."

To say that I was angry would be an understatement. My hands running through my hair in fustration as Hailee pulled my phone from my hold.

"Nick, it's Hailee. I think it's best if you finish this conversation another time. You've clearly upset her, so I would leave her alone for now."

I couldn't hear Nick's response to Hailee. But after a couple of minutes the phone call ended.

Hailee placed herself down, next to me, wrapping her arms around me. Tears now flooding down my face in fustration and realisation of having to leave my country, let alone home, for someone I don't even know.

"Sis, look at me. Whatever it is, we'll get through it." She told me, grabbing my chin to look at her.

"He's making me go to England for some stupid footballer."

"Wait, woah. Calm down, he's making you do what?"

"I've got to go to England. They want to stage a relationship between me and this Leah, to basically bring more attention to me for my tour. But he told me, that if I don't do it, my tour could be cancelled." I told her, through stuttered breaths.

"Right, okay. So, this Leah girl, she hot or no?"

"Hailee, you can't say that." I said, laughing slightly at her outburst.

"Why not? Only the best for my sister. And I made you smile."

Back to now.

Me and Hailee have just arrived, with Nick, for the meeting with Leah and her agent.

We were there before them, so we were already sat and waiting by the time they got there.

Oh Shit. That's Leah.

She fucking gorgeous.

Fuck Me.

Right Y/N, get yourself out of them thoughts. Your not actually supposed to fancy her.

"Hey, i'm Leah." She said, as she got to me, holding her hand out for me to shake.

"I'm Y/N." I took her hand in mine, giving it a squeeze before quickly smiling at her and gently letting her hand go.

Her hands. God, there so soft.

After all the introductions, and everyone meeting each other. All 5 of us sat back down at the table.

We had to listen to our agents bang on about how this plan was supposed to work and what me and Leah had to do to make it believable. They spoke for a good half an hour. I hope they don't expect me to remember all of that.

Leah was sat opposite me. She kept pulling faces and rolling her eyes when either one of the agents were talking. making sure only I saw her doing it, it made me smile back at her before putting my head down so I didn't laugh out loud.

"Right, I think that's everything. We'll leave you two to get to know each other." Nick said, which pulled me out of my thoughts.

Nick, Hailee and Leah's agent all left the table, heading towards another room, leaving me and Leah alone in ther room.

"So…" I said, kind of akwardly. Not really knowing what to say.

"I've followed you for ages, y'know." Leah told me, after another couple minutes of silence.

"You have?"

"Yeah, I love your music. My teammates do too, but they always complain that I play your songs a slight bit too much, before and after matches."

"Your making me feel bad now." I told her, feeling kind of guilty.

"Why? What did I do?"

"No, no. You didn't do anything. I just, when I got told about all of this and you, I didn't really know who you were. Football has never really been my thing."

"Well, at least you say football and not stupid soccer. And hold up, your telling me that you've never watched or been to a football match." Leah said shocked, jokingly clutching her chest.

"No."

"Well, that's definatly gonna have to change. You'll have to come and watch me play."

"You want me to come and watch one of your games."

"Yeah, course."

Her hand reached out for mine, across the table, mine going straight into hers as if it was normal. It felt comfortable, almost natural for us.

"You know, I don't want this whole thing to be all contract and serious. I want us to be comfortable with each other and for us to be able to have fun. The least I want is a friend by the time it's all over."

Maybe this won't be as bad as I thought it would be.

INSTAGRAM

y/n.steinfeld added to story

[kosmicdream]

The FATE of FEAST FOR A KING

.. and Nasty Red Dogs… 

And some other miscellaneous thoughts about comics, writing, and time.... AND ENDINGS...

============= 

As I’m approaching 10 years on FFAK and NRD is currently 5, I’ve been reflecting a lot on How far this journey with comics has taken me and how far I still have yet to go. For those unaware, my first webcomic was actually Eggshells, which started in 2011, but i only started posting pages publicly in 2013. It too is unfinished, but its planned for 7 chapters. (I’m currently working on chapter 5, which probably will come out early next year.) I have 9 ongoing comics I’m working on. NINE!! 3 of those are FFAK related. (FFAK, After Dinner Treat, and the prequel series “Help.”) It is so many comics though. And beyond that! I have two other stories I’ve been working on for the past few years in secret, one being Nice Blue Cats, which I might still draw as a comic someday.. As well as a series of “one shots” that is meant to be its own collection. Slugmom and “The Teacher & The Fairy” are part of these one shot collections. Which, uh, it was designed to help me practice writing short stories. Which TT&TF is now going to be three parts long, and roughly 300 pages. So I guess that’s short enough…? Ha.. laughs… Anyway, as I was saying.. Sometimes I’m sure, readers might wonder. “Do you ever feel overwhelmed, with so many projects Kosmic?” Yeah dude. I sure fucking do. I got 9 of them! That’s more than a full pokemon team of projects that are potentially a decade + of work. A couple of them already are a decade old/older at this point. (Praeymoon is actually one of my oldest-lasting projects, even tho its first chapter only finally released in 2023.. I first attempted to draw ch1 back in 2016, but was unable to finish it and scrapped the “full color” angle i was trying then. ) All my current ongoing comic projects are as follows: Feast for a King, Nasty Red Dogs, Eggshells, The Teacher & the Fairy, Replacer, The Eyes of Miasma, FFAK: After Dinner Treat, FFAK: Help, are all written. The only one which isnt fully written is Praeymoon, which I don’t mind because the way that story is organized is almost more of a sandbox-fantasy world of mini stories. I’ll be honest, if you havent heard of Replacer or The Eyes of Miasma, I don’t blame you- its not that i don’t like those stories. They just kind of are the “most neglected” comics yet I’m also kind of amazed they exist at all, like I DONT know how I found the time to draw over 100 pages for both of them. They also have fully written outlines and all things considered, are probably only going to be under 400-500 pages in length. But that’s still a decent amount of work there. Its been ten years since I more or less started making webcomics… and as I plan, and try to calculate all my projects for the next 10 years, my main priority at the moment is well.. Finishing all of these fucking stories one way or another. Its hard! I don’t know if I can as I put way too much on my plate. But at the same time like.. Whatever. I could easily drop most of them, if I felt inclined to - but I don’t. They are my library of work, and I’ve sort of made an artist oath to myself that I will see as many of them to the end as I can. I’m excited that three are very close to its end. (Nasty Red Dogs, The Teacher & the Fairy, and Eggshells.) After that well.. I’ll see what I can cross off my list next once I get there.. That’s still going to take years to get those done. But hopefully not too many. 

[Spoilers for potential LENGTHS of FFAK/NRD.. And other things.. I speak very transparently about writing and working on comics here AND including my thoughts on ENDINGS.. You’ve been warned]

I’m comfortable enough sharing that the fairy comic is 3 parts, Eggshells is 7 chapters, but when it comes to FFAK/NRD.. Its much harder to give an estimate, or if sharing those things will only be disappointing or annoying to hear about.. If you have ever been around me for more than 10 minutes, i am constantly talk about the “length left” on these projects a lot anyway. At night, i count them in my head. In the day, I write little lists as if I’ve forgotten the names of them.. They are MY LIST.

 But for those who do not know and wish to, NRD is likely going to end with 10 chapters. I have extended this in the past, so it could still change.. but it only really has gotten “longer” due to pacing of scenes rather than the actual content. And Honestly, it was paced out specifically to avoid this next chapter. Not that I didn’t want to draw it, its because i was Scared to do it.. Why? Because there’s cars I have to draw in it. And dogs. I have drawn those things before, at least once or twice. But I do not enjoy drawing cars or dogs. Dogs are okay now, but i hate that they have legs. Dont give me references, i have those. Its just how my brain is, with those fuckign legs and how there’s four of them. I know practice makes perfect. Or do-able. I have drawn amost 1000 pages of NRD, i dont remember how they bend and i’ve forgiven myself for knowing there’s just some things god cannot do, which is to give kosmic the ability to look at a dog leg and understand. Anyway. Because of this reason, somehow, finishing NRD with it only possibly being 4 more chapters, still feels harder than finishing ALL of FFAK - which (drumroll) might be .. only around 10 or 12 chapters left. Yes, you heard me- for the second AND third arc. 10 or 12 more. Will that also change? Probably!!!!!! Like, yes… its been 9 years and I’ve completed a lot more than just 10 chapters of comics in that time.. But wrapping up a story is way harder and I dont know what that’s like..yet! But i feel still confident that i will. I mean, i don’t really have any other choice than to experience it. I used to recoil and fall apart just emotionally contemplating finishing FFAK. my FUCKING baby. My joy. You mean that has to end?? NEVER. My attachment to it and the characters was incomparable to anything else I had done, and in my mind ever WILL make… (and that is still true.) But.. I’m okay with that now and I actually look forward to seeing how it could end up. Even if its bad! 

Its kind of weird to say, I just don’t really think it will be.. super good? Like.. it could be? I don’t know how readers will react. I dont even know how I feel about the whole thing.. I have felt so many feelings about this comic already, now I’m kind of.. Past it in a new stage. Zen like peace almost. There’s just.. so much that I wanted to PUT in FFAK and so much i could STILL put in. But I kind of just am okay with what i wrote, does that even make sense? The whole comic has felt like such a fluke to me, from the very start. And I managed to accidentally make so many great things in it I don’t actually understand sometimes. And my dreams for the comic has been nearly limitless. I couldn’t possibly contain all the feelings I’ve had over this story over the many years I have been making it, and all the incredible narrative outcomes I could see the characters going in.. the possibilities, the parallels.. The anime music videos..  I would NOT compare my writing style to GRRM, I haven’t read his books. but I can’t help but feel a bit like a weird baby version of him with the amount of cast members I have to push around and draw.. And I want to be clear. If FFAK was written as a book, it wouldn’t happen. I cannot write books. I do not think writing books is easier/faster than making comics, but sometimes it is hard to have to draw everyone. Point is, I understand the reality of a long-term comic project now, I have numbers and logs to prove it  and my range. And I’m fairly consistent, even in my low days. So.. in recent years my writing style has.. has changed to accommodate.. Those.. General Realities i’ve observed in myself. 

That’s why the second arc excites me. It has a lot of uhh, urgency that underlies it. You might have already noticed a change in the tone in chapter 16, which I’ve been working on for almost a year now. (I mean, I’ve been working on the written version for.. LOL.. much longer.) Maybe you haven’t! It could all just be from my own POV with how differently i feel that I delegate time to characters now. I did not start “writing” FFAK until chapter 10, and then i did not really start WRITING writing ffak until about.. Honestly, i want to say as late as 2019. It TOOK SO LONG you guys. I dont even know how many fucking thousands of pages of madness word documents I’ve got, with revision after revision and trying to list, contain, every possibly plotline… character backstory.. Blah blah blah.. Ive cut it down so much its impressive only to me. I don’t remember my lore anymore , and i love it. My readers probably know my lore better, and I don’t love it. Except when it benefits me. Then Its good. I would not describe myself as a RUTHLESS cut THROAT author, im actually too way sentimental to really let go of anyone. That’s why it took me so long to kill off Rock, but also because I wanted spoon to look really sexy and evil and that’s hard to do sometimes when I cant remember what half side he is. And when he was flipping around, I had to actually make a paper doll for him so i could TRY .. TRY to draw his arm on the correct side. Sometimes I didn’t. I just let it go if the drawing is good enough and i let it be a fun game for the readers to catch. But anyway, That’s why characters like Aeschylus are still around. Now that time has passed, I kind of regret it. Rome was right.. I dont need Aeschylus here and I’m mad he brought his friend Randall too. That being said, they’re some of my favorite characters in this arc even if they’re totally useless. In general, i have tried my best to not repeat all my writing sins and all my regrets of arc 1. I would not have been able to do this without the help of NRD to help get me to see that I can get attached and motivated to write new stories. When I hit my writing block in 2016/2017, it almost broke FFAK. FFAK still continued, but it also didn’t. But i was patient, and i worked through it.. And now I look forward to the ends of my comics, not because I want them to end but I’m very deeply excited for all the new opportunities my imagination to go to. I don’t know what that will be like. I don’t know how long it will still take me to get there, but I have it on [digital] paper and it does feel good to see that. Its affirming. I feel like i have a clear mission and I feel strong enough to really do it and commit to it. The second arc has barely started but in my heart I’ve made peace with the ending, whatever it might actually result as. 

Plus if I finish it and its so bad, I’m sure that will be inspiring in itself! People might actually write fanfics!! I think a lot of readers are NOT going to enjoy the ships, for one. The MEAN greedy part of me hopes they don’t. That’s the most ruthless part of my writing to me is the ship choices. Oh! My evil mind. I mean theres no possible way to please everyone, or even myself, but there is a possible way to displease a lot of people. Including myself. So that’s kind of the route I find myself drawn to. Why? Because it gets me out of the hole of like.. I dunno, being stuck. 

I used to write out a lot of big posts but over the years, I’ve kinda stopped. Mostly bc they were honestly really repetitive..or about lore that didn’t truly matter too much… That hasn’t really changed. This post is more or less “im still working on it, everyone! Just hang tight! Wow it’ll be a crazy wild ride” but it also is something I wanted to write to myself as words of encouragement. This has been a tough year. Like so tough that its hard to think about. But its very nice to feel like, i guess, my drive for my stories hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, i really feel like i’ve gone through the mourning and ego death of “not being able to write a thing how you want” and now I’ve made total peace with it. Its just gonna be what it is, and I like that actually. When my life is tough, my comics at the moment serve as a place of hope for me - and assurance that I can survive through tough years. That’s the message they have ultimately given me, finished or not. And… I honestly don’t think of FFAK or NRD as my masterpieces or anything, but i know they might very well be the only stories people will know of when they think of me. If they think of me! So I wanna do a complete job with those. Rest assured, it’ll get there. I cant make big promises about all the comics I work on… even the bonus comics for FFAK, but at least those main two are my main priorities. That has not changed. THE FIRE is still in me. Even if FFAK took a like.. Mental.. 5 year hiatus its back baby. 

I’m about 30 pages in to my 50 page script for chapter 16, so I guess it’ll be around 300-400 pages more before its done. Things are picking up speed! So it could be less. I am also preparing for the monster that is the 7th nasty red dogs chapter. I cannot stress ENOUGH that this next chapter, I have put off since chapter 4. Yes, I’ve actually buffed the story out to be longer than it intended, just to avoid drawing it. I even put a horse guy in there, I never draw horses because those ALSO have legs but they’re worse than dog legs. And, its not that i didn’t want to draw this part of the comic! But I didn’t think i could do it. It intimidated me. It still does, but, I’m gonna do it already. I know chapters 8-10 will be hard too but like…eh… I know in my heart its gonna really be about 7 for me. It always has been about 7 to me.. 2024 will be a big year for my comics for sure, just because of that alone I think. Not only will I have chapter 16 done, as the first step of the 2nd arc and a new adventure of my apocalyptic wormy drama, I’ll be facing my fears of the dog variety. Its TIME. 

I’m so happy people have stuck around for my work, or shared it with others, even if they’re a strange mess. Its interesting to see, who comes and goes. I still enjoy refreshing my comments every morning when I wake up, and right before I go to bed. Its comforting.

My closing thoughts on this. I don’t HATE the ending of FFAK. I… like it! Its an ending. But I LOVE the ending to NRD. i think that ones legit good, i hope. With FFAK, part of me kinda hopes that turning up the pressure on myself of proceeding anyway will help the story. I don’t really know, or expect the ending to change though LOL…. Maybe i’ll come up with something better, but it will be too late so I cant do it or something, and then we can ALL write fanfics together of something else. Then sometimes I think about GUNNM and how the first ending was retconned but then last order was like? Basically the first ending again? I dont know actually, its hard to remember. THATS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BTW. Also the ending is not everyone dies, even though that ending is fun and tempting. I didn’t do it, because end of evangelion already exists and its got a great song to go along with it too. YES it is also tempting to have someone go “WELL That was A FEAST.. For a KING” as the like final line, but I.. it wont wont. I prommy i take the ending seriously.

The reason I wanted to write all this, with webcomics, I think in general too people are so scared about writing their big comics that take 328523895235 years and the ending being bad. I see so many webcomics just, kinda die before the finale.. Which I totally understand, But I just.. Wanna show everyone that its much better and much more satisfying to just write the ending even if its a fucking disaster LOL. Because ultimately, its a webcomic. I don’t even know how to spell but people read mine! And so.. If theres anything I feel like i can promise and deliver to the world of the internet/my readers, is this big fucking disaster mess.. But it will end someday! And I’ll miss it. I hope readers will too, when that day comes (?) in probably another… 10 years…. idk.... BUT UNTIL THEN.. I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of chapter 16!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Kosmic Dream

[bakerstmel]

Fall Favorite Fic Festival, Entry 5

Remember, winter doesn't officially begin until December 21, she said pedantically.

I've delayed writing this entry because I was trying to define the reason (or reasons) why I love this fic so damn much. I read this fic at least twice a year, usually sometime in February and then again in the fall. It's a sports fic, and while I am not in general a sports person, I do love me some baseball. But the sport isn't the reason I love this fic, and I think I may have figured it out. Stick with me.

I started the link at Chapter 2, because Chapter 1 is a guide to baseball for the uninitiated. Some of it is out of date now, because MLB in its STUPIDITY has messed around with the rules this year because GOD FORBID people have to wait longer than a minute for anything to fucking happen on a sports field, and of course only HITS matter, but it is still fun to read. You don't need it to appreciate the fic, though.

Whilst I was processing this fic, I spent some time thinking about sports fics in general, and that led me to reread a couple of other favorites. One was A Study in Winning, by Jupiter_Ash. I really like that fic as well, even though I know next to nothing about tennis. I like the drama of the story, I like Sherlock faking his nationality just because, and I enjoy John being a petty little bitch to Moriarty there at the end. I feel like there for a while everyone had read or was reading that fic. Another one I went back to was Of Ice and Men, by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John, which is an OT3 set during the Winter Olympics. That one has John in the Paralympics, which gives the relationships an entirely new dimension. There are other good sports fics - throw your favorite in the comments, if you like. I'm mostly limiting my scope in these musings to Sherlock, as I've said before, but I'll read anything if it's good. Links to these two fics are below.

One of the ways in which sports fics have an advantage is that they have a built in structure. There's a match, or a tournament, or a season, and the relationship drama plays out against that backdrop. Writing classes always talk about the "ticking clock" approach to narrative tension, and almost every sport has some type of literal ticking clock. The Bang and the Clatter plays out over a full baseball season, including Spring Training and the postseason. That's basically a year minus the main American holidays, and EarlGreyTea does a really good job of letting the story play out at an appropriate pace. That's very impressive considering that she was posting this as a WIP over the course of an actual season.

(I need to take a minute to talk about my issues with EGT, and by "issues" I mean "soul churning jealousy." EGT is ridiculously prolific. If you go back into the fandom annals and look at the timing of some of her biggest fics, she was posting what became major reference points for the fandom in tandem, writing multiple fics at the same damn time, while, you know, teaching law or moving cross country. She is the best example I know of the importance of writing regularly. Of course, she's incredibly gifted, highly skilled at plotting, characterization, pacing, and just words. She has a fabulous imagination. Her dialogue rings true, and it's fun. But she can turn really good stuff out relatively quickly because she's limber AF. She writes. Anyone who comes to Word Sprints on Sundays or just hangs with me writing knows I'm not fast. I'm lucky to break 100 words in 15 minutes. Part of that is that I edit as I go, but it's also that I don't write as often as I would like to, so it takes me some time to warm up. I would like to be more like EGT, which probably sounds kind of creepy. I hope she doesn't see this. Anyway, she's written many of my top 20, and she actually finishes her stuff. So, yeah. Issues.)

So here is where I ended up: this is a good AU that takes advantage of the time crunch of the sport in which it is set, but that is not why I read it 2+ times per year. I read it because this is one of my favorite John and Sherlock relationships ever. It feels so in character for the way we see them in the show (at least through S2; this was written in 2013). We see them meet, we feel their attraction, we feel Sherlock's very authentic confusion. We feel their fear at being caught out, at first by each other and then by the world. They earn their angst. The way to my heart is good characterization, and this has that. Alongside the battery, the OCs (especially Sherlock and John's families) are complex and have issues of their own. Moriarty doesn't show up until the All Star Workout, which is halfway through the season for those of you who don't know, but it works because by that point, John and Sherlock have things to lose. Lestrade is the best effing choice for a beleaguered, exasperated baseball manager there ever was. Mycroft saves the day AND fucks it up, which I wish we'd seen more of in those days.

Also, John and Sherlock never get too far away from each other, and when they're separated, it's usually for narrative reasons. I like that in a fic, I've come to realize. I like to watch the characters' interplay. It's hard for Sherlock to keep secrets from John when they work together, commute together, and live together, and John is no fool. Their office isn't 221b Baker Street, it's a stadium in Austin, TX, where shit plays out in front of 30k people. John loves baseball. Sherlock loves John. They fight, they fall in love, they eat Chinese food, and they play baseball. And best of all, they are themselves together.

If you read the parts that EGT wrote after the big story, there's a mention of Sherlock pulling together a pick up game in London made of American ex-pats for John's sake, and I'll tell you what. That really pulls this fic together for me. This Sherlock would do that for this John, and we end up a little on the outside looking in, and it's just charming as fuck.

In conclusion, read this even if you don't know baseball, if you want great characterization, a chance to be reminded of how beautiful John and Sherlock were together back in the golden age. Pay attention to the ticking clocks in your favorite fics; intentional or not, there's almost always some time pressure ginning up the conflict. If you're a writer, the best way to get better is to write more. Feels like bullshit, but it's true. And finally, fuck MLB forever for going the completely wrong way on the DH. Pitchers in both leagues should have to/get to hit, and more to the point, DHs should have to fucking do something when their teams are out in the field. I will die on this mound.

(Also, if I'm being honest, Bull Durham is probably my favorite movie, so maybe I'm more of a baseball fan than I'm letting on. I do generally love baseball in popular media. But I still think it's the characterization.)

[mysteroads]

Chapter 5: A Bit of Mayhem

I really enjoyed this chapter, so I'm posting it here for people to enjoy! Family fun and mayhem for everyone! (You can click the link for a more reader-friendly format than dear ol' Tumblr.)

Summary: Lydia's plan goes into action.

Friday afternoon was HOT. 

Summer had dropkicked Spring all the way into next year, and now was hovering over Winter Pines, rubbing its hands together and laughing maniacally. Heat haze shimmered constantly, the black top had turned into a tar pit, what bits of shade that could be found were pale shadows of their former selves, and the telephone poles along main street had begun to wilt. It was so hot that even the jingle of the ice cream truck sounded like a cry for mercy.

“Kid,” Beetlejuice said, drooping as he followed Lydia home. “You have got to let me teleport you. I’m a corpse. I’m going to start rotting in this heat.”

Lydia held her nose. “You sure you haven’t already?”

Rolling his eyes, he stretched his arm out so he could flick her forehead. “Oh ha-ha. Just for that, I’m going to take over the garbage truck and unload it right into your bedroom window. Then you’ll know the truth about stench."

“You could take off your coat, maybe loosen your tie?” He clutched at his coat and she sighed. “Or not. You do realize I have no intention of stealing your stinky old coat, right? I don’t think the even most desperate homeless person out there would even consider it as an option. Heck, I wouldn’t let an undead cat have undead kittens on it!”

He frowned at her. “Okay. Hurtful.”

"Truthful. Your whole outfit could use a wash even more than you.”

Grumbling, he folded his arms and went into a sulk. Lydia matched his silence until they got to the house. Her gaze moved to the window. Yes, there it was. A bright blue crystal set on the sill. That was the signal that all was prepared. 

“I’m going to go change into something cooler,” she said, quickly dumping her bag and shoes and heading for the stairs. “Why don’t you raid the freezer?”

He brightened. “Popsicles?”

“Why not? It’s the day for it.” 

Humming happily, Beetlejuice drifted into the kitchen and started poking around in the freezer. Finding his prize, he pulled the wrapper off, ate that, then stuck the popsicle in his mouth. Even though he was alone for the moment, (where were Delia and the Maitlands anyway?) he amused himself by wrapping his long tongue around the popsicle in a suggestive manner, and then giggling as he imagined everyone’s reaction. 

Someone cleared their throat behind him and he forced himself not to tense. God/Satan he needed to get over this ‘not liking people behind me’ thing. Sure, he’d never felt comfortable with anyone behind him, but after the whole ‘bad art’ incident, it gave him knots in his stomach like he was going to puke— He should get over it. 

Taking a breath, he put a grin on his face and gave the popsicle an extra innuendo-inducing lick as he turned. “Adam… hey s— my man. How ya been?” 

Adam gave him what he could only describe as a sheepish smile. “Sorry about this. Have fun, okay?”

“Wha—?” Before he could finish his question, the backdoor flew open behind him and Adam gave him a ghost-powered shove. 

Beetlejuice was unprepared, which was the only reason he went flying. And being unprepared was the only reason he hit the grass on his back, plowing up a furrow of dirt, instead of landing on his feet or doing a backflip, as he definitely would’ve done under any other circumstance. That was his story, and he would stick to it.

Groaning, Beetlejuice started to sit up when a shadow fell over him. It was Charles, wearing a dingy t-shirt, those dad sandals that were one step short of flip-flops, and… green swim shorts? The fuck? He was also wearing a huge grin. That was unusual, but it wasn’t what set alarm bells ringing through Beetlejuice’s head. What got the alarm bells going was the absolutely enormous water gun pointed right at his chest.

Still smiling, Charles pulled the slide on the gun and said, “You have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?”

Beetlejuice had barely enough time to register that Charles was not only quoting Dirty Harry, but quoting it correctly, before he got blasted.

Swearing, he tried to get away, completely forgetting that he was a demon with powers stupid humans could only dream of. 

“BJ! Over here!” 

Delia’s voice got his attention and he looked to see her around the corner of the house. She was laughing! But she was also waving to him, urging him over, and all he wanted was to get away from the ungodly amount of water being sprayed on him, so he teleported. 

“Cheater!” Charles shouted as he reappeared next to Delia.

Still laughing, Delia used a towel to wipe his face, then pushed something into his hands. “I’m nicer than Charles. I’ll give you a ten second head start.”

“What?!” He looked down to find himself holding a super soaker (not as big as Charles’s, though). Another look showed that Delia was in a tie-dye bikini and a crochet cover-up, and was duel-wielding two water pistols. Normally, he would’ve made a comment, but he was kept from doing so by another stream of water. This one wasn’t aimed at him though, and Delia shrieked, dancing in place as Charles roared with laughter. She whirled on her fiancée, guns held sideways, gangster style.

“Oh, I’ll get you for that, Charles!”

Taking advantage of the distraction, Beetlejuice dashed off, still not knowing what in hellgates was going on. His confusion was compounded as he saw Lydia jumping out her window.  

He scrambled to catch her, only to realize that Barbara had beat him to it and was lowering the girl down. Both women saw him and started laughing. 

“I see the fight’s begun already!” Lydia shouted, and raised her own gun—which looked bigger than she was— and pointed it right at him as she floated. “Prepare for annihilation.”

“Not you too!” he wailed, back peddling and just barely avoiding the shot she took at him. The grass was already slippery, and the tread on his boots was so worn it was like running across a marble floor in socks. “What the fuck is going on?!”

“It’s hot, you doofus! We’re cooling off! Fight back!”

“What?!”

“Delia gave you your gun. Point and shoot, or surrender now.” Lydia landed, gave Barbara a thumbs up, then turned to Beetlejuice. Her smile frightened him and he found himself clutching his gun to himself like a shield and backing up. She must’ve seen his confused fear, because, more gently, she said, “This is supposed to be fun, BJ. Just a little bit of mayhem to beat the heat. A water fight.” She motioned to herself and the swimsuit she wore. “You have to have seen water fights before, right?”

Water fights?

He looked down at the gun, then back at her, and the smile she wore was suddenly less ominous. He knew what her fake smile looked like, he reminded himself. Lydia actually was a pretty terrible liar. She was smiling like she had when they were haunting the house, or singing during their revenge concert. Like she was… having fun. Not like she had when she’d come back from the Netherworld with a plan for murder.

Okay, so this was just playing? He heard Delia and Charles laughing behind him, and relaxed some more. They laughed like that while playing games, or cooking, or even cleaning the house sometimes.

This was playing.

He looked back down at his water gun again, smiled, and brought it to bear— and immediately got hit in the face. Sputtering, he swiped the water from his eyes and laughed, really laughed. “Oh you little nerk! It is on!”

“Bring it, bug boy!”

Beetlejuice had just managed to score a hit when both he and Lydia were ambushed by Charles and Delia, who had teamed up. The next few minutes were filled with chaos, which was right up his alley once he got used to the idea that he wasn’t the only cause. Didn’t mean he couldn’t be a major contributor though. 

Beetlejuice pulled off a fantastic slide through Charles’s legs, then shot him right in the butt. Charles yelped and did a most undignified dance, and Delia laughed so hard she fell down, which made her easy prey for Lydia. 

“You know what would make this even more awesome?” Beetlejuice asked, getting to his feet and holding his gun up like an action star. The three Deetz’s eyes widened in horror as Beetlejuice answered his own question: “MORE ME!”

The clones poofed into being, all of them holding some form of water gun. One next to Lydia tried to squirt her, only to find that his gun was empty. It glared at Beetlejuice and stamped its foot, gesturing toward the gun then at Lydia. Obviously, it felt cheated. She started to giggle, but kindly refrained from shooting the unarmed.

“I can’t make food or drink, remember? Go fill those up.” Beetlejuice pointed to the kiddie pool they’d been using for fast refills (and a dunking pond). There was a mass scramble in that direction. Delia tried to cut them off, only to get squirted by Beetlejuice. “Oh no you don’t! You people wanted some mayhem, so I’m going to make sure you get mayhem!”

“I’m on Beetlejuice’s side now!” Lydia shouted, defecting to the side with overwhelming numbers like the smart girl she was.

“Traitor,” Charles accused. “I buy you pizza and this is how you repay me?”

She brought her gun up. “Sorry Dad, but there is no loyalty in— Wait, you bought pizza?”

“Of course. We’re going to be hungry after this. Delivery should arrive in half an hour. Also, no betrayal take backs.” He soaked her from head to toe while she squealed and laughed. By that point, the clones had their guns ready to go and everything devolved into PVP.

Barbara watched Beetlejuice… playing, there was no other word for it, and could barely believe the difference. It was as if he’d shed some invisible, uncomfortable weight, and was now free to act like a… a person, not a demon. Soaked to the bone, hair and suit plastered to his skin, he laughed like a little kid as he scooped up a flailing Delia and dropped her in the kiddie pool, only to get pulled in after her. The splash as he hit the water was too big to be natural, because it managed to get both Charles and Lydia, who were standing a fair distance away. 

Delia and Beetlejuice both sat in the middle of the pool, leaning on each other, almost paralyzed by the cold water and their own laughter, but Beetlejuice didn’t hesitate at all when Charles offered him a hand up. He also didn’t hesitate to join Charles in hunting down Lydia after she sniped them both from behind some bushes.

Was this the Beetlejuice Lydia saw and loved so much? The one who had haunted their house with her, helped her play school-wide pranks, and practiced music and dancing with her? It must be. In that moment, Barbara understood why Lydia had chosen this particular method to bring the ‘family’ together. What better method to get a mischievous demon to let his guard down than to play a mischievous game?

She felt Adam put an arm around her waist and she leaned against him, both of them watching their family playing outside. Their job had been to keep the doors and windows shut so Beetlejuice couldn’t escape inside, but that didn’t look like it was going to be an issue anymore. He was having too much fun.

Beetlejuice summoned his clones and Adam kissed the top of her head, then chuckled. “Looks like it’s our turn.”

Lydia had wanted to make sure that the Maitlands were included in the fun and games today, and they had told her not to worry, that they’d be fine watching. What they hadn’t told her was that they had a scheme of their own. 

Giggling, Barbara took a leaf from a certain demon’s book and said, “It’s Showtime!” 

Beetlejuice, almost out of ‘ammo’ and on his way to get a refill, was the first to spot the garden hose uncoiling itself. It had been left in the kiddie pool, and none of them paid any attention to it except to make sure it was on enough to keep the pool full. 

Stunned, all he could do was stare, mouth agape, as the hose rose up like a particularly large and skinny snake. Then the tap turned and the hose hit him full blast. He tried to get away, slipped, and ate dirt.

“Holy shit! Retreat!” he shouted, or tried to shout. It came out more of a gurgle. Since he was facedown in muddy grass, he wasn’t witness to much, but he could hear the Deetz yelling and he felt his clones’ alarm as their weapons ran dry. Shaking his eyes clear of mud, he looked around and saw that they’d all been rounded up.

The sound of laughter directed his attention to the roof, and he was in for his third big shock that day, and probably the biggest of all. The freaking Maitlands were on the roof, Adam obviously directing the actions of the hose snake, but what was Barbara up to? His question was answered as she raised her arms and a veritable swarm of water balloons rose into the air.

“Blitz!” he hollered, just before the swarm descended.

As a fat, pink balloon splashed all over him, he discovered that these were no ordinary water balloons. They had bubbles in them. Was that even a thing? How was that possible? He sneezed and a bunch of bubbles flew away. It was so ridiculous he started laughing again, and used his magic to give the bubbles a boost so that when the next balloon hit Lydia, she resembled a snowman in an instant. 

This brought a whole new element to the game, and he couldn’t help but urge more bubbles into being, until the backyard was awash in them. The smallest of the clones and Lydia were actually able to army crawl under and through the mess, and they, along with Adam’s hose snake, became everyone else’s nemesis. 

Finally, actually tired for once, Beetlejuice sat down amidst the sea of bubbles, still chuckling as his clones vanished one by one with a flourish and a bow. 

Delia waded over to him, smiling broadly. “Tuckered out? Perfect timing. Pizza should be here soon, and we don’t want to give them a reason to take us off their delivery list again. Would you mind clearing this away, sweetie?”

Sweetie. Trying to ignore how being called by an actual pet name made him feel all fuzzy inside, he waved a hand at the frothy bubbles, sending the lot flying away in a strong breeze. Rule Three, after all. Clean up after yourself.

Charles had taken possession of the hose and was using it to rinse himself and Lydia free of bubbles. “Come over here, you two,” he called. Delia pulled Beetlejuice back to his feet and they obediently went over to get rinsed. 

“Did you have fun, Beej?” Lydia asked. 

Slicking his hair away from his face, he grinned at her. “Yeah actually. When did you come up with this, you little chaos gremlin?”

“Earlier this week. The news said a heatwave was going to hit today, and it had been a long time since I had a good water fight, so I figured it would be fun for everyone.” She looked up at the Maitlands, who were sitting on the edge of the roof, obviously pleased with themselves, and laughed. “They got me though. I wonder where they got all those water balloons from!”

He put a hand on his hip and followed her gaze, squinting up at the two ghosts. Then he smiled and waved for Charles to wait a minute with the hose. “You know, they should get the whole experience. Just to be fair.”

Barbara and Adam were watching the bubbles, still visible in the distance, and wondering how far they’d drift, when there was a pop! of displaced air in front of them. Beetlejuice appeared, floating and grinning ear to ear.

“Hey Adam, remember that Flashdance bit I did when we first met?” Reaching up, he pulled an invisible rope, and all the remaining water from the kiddie pool was dumped on top of them.

It had been more than a month since either Maitland had experienced the sensation of being wet, and a lot longer than that since they’d been soaked while fully dressed. It had also been a long time since they’d really experienced temperature. Having cold water dumped over them was a shock, to say the very least

Barbara managed a tiny shriek, while Adam just gasped and coughed. Once the flood had stopped, they shook water out of their eyes, looked at each other, then burst out laughing. 

“Oh my goodness!” Adam laughed, grinning broadly. He turned his smile on Beetlejuice, who seemed startled by this reaction. “How did you do that?”

“Uh, I dunno? I just do it.” Beetlejuice eyed them both warily. “You guys could do it too. It’s in the damn Handbook. Like, chapter seven. Re-uniting the state of immaterial with that of the material plane through the application of conviction and expectation."

“Thank you. And thanks for the tip,” Adam said encouragingly. 

“Yeah, sure.” Giving them a last confused look, he vanished, reappearing down with the rest of the family.

Adam turned to her, still smiling, and pushed hair away from her face. “That was refreshing. We should give those chapters another try tonight!”

“We’ll do that,” Barbara agreed. They sat, enjoying themselves, then a thought occurred to her. “Um, Adam? How are we going to dry off?”

Notes: Buy a water gun and soak someone you love today.

[with-love-from-hell]

5 Sides of Human

{Part Twenty-Five}

Genre: Mixed WC: ~3.5k CW: mentions of blood, swearing, Storm has a stutter but I am not depicting it with written word consistently, prolly lots of typos lol, spoilers for season 1&2, I'm skipping over/changing some things I didn't like in the main story so it will be a bit different from canon! Series Masterlist

"Whattaya mean, like someone cast a protection spell on us or somethin'? Couldn't they have at least made it so we didn't turn inta this?" Mammon huffed in frustration.

Solomon grinned, casting another sly glance toward Storm. "Well, I don't think it would have been that easy. Besides, I'm sure you'll figure out who the kind soul who decided your lives were worth protecting is soon enough."

"Regardless, we should keep the idle chit-chat to a minimum and continue going through the levels." Lucifer sighed, looking around the room for another message.

The others shrugged, breaking off into groups to search the room they now found themselves in. Beel, Lucifer, Mammon, and Storm began wandering off to where the room began to narrow, while the others remained in the larger open area. It was eerily quiet for a moment, before Asmo broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Solomon, tell us more about the reaper. I mean, living in a place like this and coming up with all these rules...The longer we stay here, the more curious I am!"

"Hmm..." Solomon shrugged, turning from the bookshelf he had been analyzing closely. "Well, In a nutshell, I'd say that my reaper friend is a little on the unusual side."

"Even more than these idiots?" Vivi tilted her head in a gesture toward where a few of the brothers searched under some furniture.

"Hahaha! Well, we've known each other for over a thousand years now, but there's still so many things about them that I don't know."

"Whoa whoa...wait a minute..." Heart snapped his attention toward the sorcerer. "Did you just say a thousand??"

"Yeah, how old are you, Solomon?" Sarah asked pointedly, eyeing him up and down.

"Easy now, haha! Long ago, there was a time when I devoted myself to researching new forms of magic, but one day I made a...small error, I suppose. And as a result, I can never grow old or die naturally." Solomon shrugged. "So, I've lived for thousands of years looking exactly as I do now."

"Hold up, so you're actually just some crusty old man!?" Fern scrunched up their face. "What the fuck, dude!"

"An old man?!" Solomon winced, insulted by their words. "I'd like to think I keep myself appearing very young..."

"Well all of this isn't news to us. I mean, me and Solomon have known each other for so long now, You should have realized that he wasn't just some ordinary human!" Asmo giggled, strolling over to Solomon and gripping his arm tightly. "But I guess it makes sense why y'all didn't know all this stuff. You just met him a few weeks ago."

"I would say Solomon is more than just an unusual human." Belphie shrugged. "He's much different than any of you guys, or Storm. And he has so many pacts that he's probably closer to a demon than a human at this point."

"Hey now." Solomon's eye twitched in what appeared to be annoyance. "I'm just as human as any of them. I'm just...unique."

"Will you all quit fooling around?" Lucifer's sudden harsh tone caused nearly everyone to jump.

"Yeah, we found the doorway to the next level, so if y'all're done gabbin' ya can come this way!" Mammon added, crossing hims arm's triumphantly.

"Alright, alright. We're coming." Heart rolled their eyes, taking Asmo's hands and following Mammon out of the room. Vivi knelt down briefly, noticing her shoes had been unlaced during the ruckus of the previous rooms. As she finished tightly tying the strings, she noticed Solomon also lagging behind the others. Quickly, he grabbed a book off of the shelf he had been hovering near and stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket.

"Hey, what did you just take?" Vivi stood, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Who, me?" Solomon smiled, shaking his head. "I didn't take anything. Maybe it just looked like I did from where you were standing."

Vivi sighed. "Whatever it was, it better not get us into any more trouble, or I'll be joining your 'friend' in beating your ass."

Solomon chuckled, walking straight past Vivi to catch up with the others. Vivi scoffed, following behind him to get though to the next room. She bumped into Fern as she walked through the door, already annoyed at the congested pileup at the entrance.

In large letters on the wall, scrawled out in blood, read "NO TALKING." The group looked amongst each other uncertainly, not knowing what the challenge of this room to try to get them to talk would be. The place they found themselves now appeared to be a long hallway, lined with suits of armor. Each figure held a long pole axe, as if in warning to those entering. Many doors lined the hall, and it would take hours to try to figure which lead out of this level and into the next.

Storm narrowed her eyes, assessing each of the doors in her field of vision. Each of them had a mark on them that almost looked like a scratch. Each was unique in color, size, and angle, but they all shared the same semi-straight formation. Well, all but one. Storm's eyes zeroed in on the distinguished door- one that had no markings at all near the end of the hall of doors. After a moment of pause, Storm turned to the puzzled group, gesturing with a tilt of her head to follow. The others hesitated for a moment, but followed after her to see what it was she was confidently chasing after.

"You know, I've been thinking..." Satan wondered aloud, glancing up to the cathedral-like ceiling above them. Before he could continue his statement, Levi wrapped his tail around Satan's pudgy head, muffling his words against the thick scales of his tail. Annoyed, Satan bit down, causing Levi to yelp loudly in pain.

"You realize the three of us have already been punished for breaking the rules, right? Even if we break another, we wont be penalized any more than we already have."

"So...that means we can talk?" Levi squeaked the words out, glancing around to the suits of armor nervously.

"I've already done it and nothing happened, so...yes."

"WOOOHOOO!" Mammon screeched loudly, barreling down the hallway past Storm.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. They seem to never shut up, even under consequences like this.

Mammon grinned as he began walking backwards, now facing Storm. "I bet your jealous, huh?"

Storm raised an eyebrow before shaking her head.

"I mean, I'd rather have the option to be quiet and stay looking like I did before than be a little D." Levi sighed, prancing up next to Storm's side. "So, are you thinking you know the way to the next level?"

Storm nodded with a smile, pointing to the unmarked door she was heading toward.

"Nah, that's clearly wrong." Mammon shook his head, bounding to a door just a few feet away from them. "Look at this one! The mark on it is big and yellow and more scraggly than the others! Clearly this is the right way to go!"

Before Storm could react, Mammon pushed the door open aggressively, revealing a ginormous boutique-looking room, covered wall-to-wall in clothing, bags, and accessories.

Satan's eyes widened. "Hey! Someone cover Asmo's mouth before he-"

"EEEEEEEEEEEE! Look at all these cute clothes!" Asmo squealed, stars in his eyes as he looked around the room.

"...Looks like I was too late."

"Oh my gosh, there's so much here that I like!!!" Asmo squawked, immediately shoving past Vivi to get to the clothing, sending her careening toward the ground.

"Asmo, You're gonna pay for that!!" Vivi roared, immediately rolling to her feet and bolting toward him. Before she could get to him, a bright light flashed from where both of them stood, blinding everyone else.

"Uh..oh..." Mammon gulped, backing out of the room slowly as the light dimmed and the figures that used to be Asmo and Vivi came into focus.

"Oh, this dress is so adorable!" The small pudgy demon gleefully smoothed the fabric between his spindly fingers. "It would look so cute on- AGUGh!"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip you limb from limb, you narcissistic bimbo!" the small beast- who they all assumed to be Vivi- screamed, now having Asmo pinned against them in a headlock. Unlike the brothers, Vivi hadn't turned into a small, pudgy demon. Instead, they turned into a tiny purple and black sheep of the same size. Curled horns peaked out from her spongey coat, and the small muscles in her arms twitched as she tightened her hold on Asmo's neck.

"L-let go! My precious skin will be ruined if you sq-squeeze too tight!" Asmo choked, trying to wriggle his way out of her grip.

Satan pressed his lips together to try to stifle a laugh, but couldnt help the snort that released through his mouth. Vivi snapped her attention toward him, dropping Asmo to the ground instantly. She ran towards him, sliding backwards on the ground. With a buck of her back legs, she kicked him full-force with her hooves. Satan's tiny body flew out of the room with the force of her kick, causing the others to duck out of the way to avoid being hit.

Beel frowned, picking at his fingers nervously. As if able to hear his thoughts, Belphie came up beside him and patted his back in an attempt to comfort him. Vivi huffed, storming out of the room to diffuse her anger.

Storm glanced uncertainly toward Solomon, who covered his mouth to keep from laughing. She made a mental note to ask later about the cure for these curses, but now returned her focus to opening the correct door. The others followed as Lucifer attempted to wrangle Vivi, who was kicking around suits of armor and yelling at Satan.

As Storm predicted, the door lead to the next level. They all stepped into a hall with hundreds of stools sitting tucked under long tables. Another large message lined the walls above tapped barrels, which Storm assumed to be some sort of alcohol. The message was even larger than the last, and seemed to be more haphazardly scrawled out than the other messages they've seen:

DO NOT EAT.

"If we make it through level 4, we'll be at the chamber with the candles. Just a little further!"

Just as the words left Solomon's mouth, the room went dark. When the light to the room returned, the tables became lined with a plethora of different foods and drinks. It was as if the reaper was enticing the tired and hungry group to partake of the feast, though they all knew what the consequences of eating this food would be.

"Oh my lord...I can't believe we have to deal with this now!" Fern groaned as their stomach grumbled. "After we've come all this way!"

"Do not eat...it says Do not eat...that's what it says..." Beel stared between the message and the feast, drool forming heavily behind his lips.

"Beel...You can do this!" Storm tried to reassure him, rubbing his arm gently. He just stared on, completely transfixed on the buffet before him that he was being told to ignore.

"It's no use..." Belphie groaned.

"Hey, this reaper friend of yours...they don't have a cerberus-sized pet, right? I keep hearing this...growling?" Asmo glanced around, hopping to try to see over the tables.

"I'd say it sounds more like thunder." Heart looked toward the ceiling, trying to see if the chandeliers were shaking with the force of the noise.

"Nah, that's Beel's stomach growlin'..." Mammon shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "I have a bad feelin' about what's about to happen..."

Beel closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. After a short moment, he opened his eyes and turned away from the food. "Lets go."

Belphie blinked in utter disbelief. "wha- huh?"

"We're almost to the chamber with the candles, right?" Beel swallowed his saliva, trying to quell the growing hunger pains in his stomach. "So...lets get moving."

"I...I don't believe it..." Belphie's eyes were wide as he stared at his twin. "Beel...Y-you're actually resisting the temptation to eat...How..."

"He probably cant resist it for long, so lets go already!" Mammon pushed past them, moving in the direction of an archway in the back of the room. The others followed behind quickly, each glancing toward Beel nervously as they walked through the winding dining halls- each one displaying a more elaborate feast than the last.

Beel mumbled to himself as they moved, listing off the various foods he saw displayed on the plates before him. Storm and Belphie stood on either side of him, squeezing his hands to reassure him they were here.

"We need to get his mind off the food." Belphie nervously glanced toward Beel's line of sight, seeing his second favorite dish piled on top of a serving platter. Droll pooled out of his mouth as Beel tried to breathe deeply, dripping down his chin and onto his shirt.

"Uh...I...I'm pretty sure Solomon made all this food, Beel!" Sarah shouted suddenly, causing Belphie to feel a shudder run up his spine.

"Yeah, and I betcha Fern helped!" Mammon added with a snort.

"Hey! Fuck you!" Fern knitted their brows together as they kicked Mammon hard, square in the ass. He yelped and ran toward Storm's legs. He turned and scowled at them as he held onto her pant leg, trying to stay as far away from Fern as possible.

"Hey, look! There's a door!" Heart pointed to the right, where a large double door was situated. A big red arrow was painted on the door, as if to signal they were headed in the right direction.

Belphie sighed in relief and ran toward the door. "I bet the candles are right through-"

His words died on his tongue when the doors creaked open, displaying another dining room. This time though, the tables were lined with various types of burgers- what they all knew to be Beel's favorite food. They all turned to the second youngest, nervous to see how he would respond.

"B-beel, the color has drained from your face..." Storm commented, squeezing his overly-sweating hand to try to get him to look at her. "Are you okay?"

Beel stayed silent, eyes wide and staring at the steaming plates before him.

"I don't think I've ever seen Beel fight off the urge to eat like this before..." Belphie shook his head, squeezing Beel's other hand. "I have no idea how he's able to do this..."

"Well, if ya ask me, it's about damn time he learned to keep that stomach of his in check." Mammon rolled his eyes. "I mean, he's always eatin'. Like a giant pig!"

"Shut up, Mammon." Vivi hissed, mimicking a punch of one fist to an open palm with her hooves. Mammon gulped, now skirting his way between Storm's legs for extra protection.

"Pig...pig...pig roast." Beel moaned, suddenly snatching Mammon up into his hands.

"Whoa...What- HEY! OW!!" Mammon yelled as Beelzebub bit into his back. "Quit bitin' me! I ain't food, dammit!"

"Beel! Stop trying to eat Mammon!" Storm gasped, moving to pry Mammon out of Beel's hands.

Lucifer's eyes widened in fear and he quickly snatched Storm's arms away, just before Beel snapped his jaws toward her. "Don't try to get your hands in there, Storm."

She nodded nervously, watching Mammon writhe in Beels hands.

"D'AAAH! He's gonn a eat me alive!!! Do something!" Mammon screamed

"Actually, he's just gnawing on him a little. As long as he doesn't bite off actual chunks, it should be okay." Belphie shrugged.

"And it might help keep his mind off of eating the food here." Sarah added, giggling as Beel bit down harder on Mammon's pudgy back.

"AHHH! IT'S NOT OKAY!!" Mammon shouted, finally freeing himself from Beel's grasp and leaping into Storm's arms. She caught him roughly, only being held up by Lucifer's support. She felt him stumble slightly as her body backed into his, thankful that he was there to keep her from falling. Lucifer grunted as he tried to straighten himself, clearly in pain from the impact.

"I can't take this anymore!" Beel whimpered, clutching his stomach hard. "If I try to hold back any more, I might hurt one of you!"

"Might!?" Mammon whined, rubbing the spots on his back where Beel's fangs punctured the skin. "We're already there, pal!"

Beel squeezed his eyes shut, growling loudly. "I'm sorry, I have to-"

Suddenly, a bright flash of light erupted from behind him, causing everyone to freeze in shock. After the light faded, a small little D with a spiney tail with fluff-like tip, curled ram horns, and glistening violet eyes blinked at them from a chair near one of the tables. In his hand, he held a half-eaten burger.

"Huh...so this is what it feels like to be a little D?" Belphie shrugged, tossing the burger aside. "You know, it's not really as bad as I thought."

"Exactly! Now you're one of us, Belphie!" Levi laughed.

Belphie scrunched up his face. "Ugh. No thanks. I don't mind being a little D, but I've got no interest in being 'one of you,' Levi."

Levi let out a yell, mimicking the action of a sword being thrust through his chest. "Belphie scores a critical hit, Leviathan takes 4500 damage!"

"Cringy." Heart giggled, shaking their head.

"Bel...Belphie?" Beel blinked back his surprise, his lips down-turned in an intense frown. "Wh...why would you...This is all my fault."

"It's not your fault, Beel." Belphie hopped down off of the chair, stretching his back.

"You only ate that because it looked like I was about to give into the temptation and eat it myself though."

"Yeah, well...I understand how hard that is...Believe me. Which is why I didn't want to watch you having to endure it. Like, if I had to stave off the urge to sleep, I'm sure I would have felt the same."

"You hung in really well, Beel." Storm smiled sympathetically, patting his arm.

"Plus, the reaper already has an axe to grind with you. If you were to break one of the rules, who knows what would happen to you?" Fern shuddered, not wanting to think of the other potential outcomes.

"So...It's no big deal at all if I turn into a little D. We can figure out a fix for this later." Belphie hugged Beel's leg, smiling up at him.

Beel sniffled as tears began running down his face. He snatched Belphie up, hugging him as tight as he physically could.

"Ack! Beel...I-I appreciate the hug, but not so t-tight! You're suffocating me!" Belphie choked, trying hard to wriggle his way loose to get some air into his lungs.

"Something wrong, Lucifer?" Solomon tilted his head at the oldest brother, who seemed to be holding his balance against one of the chairs. "You're looking...well, you're looking sort of pale?"

"It's..." Lucifer's eyes fluttered closed for a moment before he sighed. "My head hurts."

Storm turned to him, concern painted all over her face. She set Mammon down gently and reached up toward Lucifer's brow, carefully smoothing over his temple. "Another migraine? They seem to be getting worse lately."

"They're usually triggered by the stress of dealing with the problems your brothers though, right?" Solomon smirked as Lucifer ceased waving away Storm's concerned doting, glaring at the sorcerer.

"How did you know that?"

"Well, what do you expect?" Solomon chuckled. "When there's a demon I'm hoping to make a pact with, I make an point to observe him at all times."

Lucifer grimaced. "Well, stop it."

Solomon smirked in response to Lucifers annoyance as he again swatted Storm's hands away.

"In any case, yes...this headache seems to be worse than the ones I usually have...but it's nothing to be concerned about since we're almost at the fifth level. I will just rest when we get home and all will be well. Let's just keep going."

"Are you sure?" Storm stared at him, eyes shimmering with worry. "Maybe you should sit down for-"

"I said I'm fine." Lucifer snapped, shaking his head and moving past her.

"Well, the candle room will hopefully be right through that door." Solomon shrugged at Storm, though the look on his face seemed satisfied with Lucifer's current state. "Lets continue on, shall we?"

[golbrocklovely]

I'm truly sorry for sending an ask about seg. I didnt think about any possible stress you may be under especially since you've mentioned you work retail and it's getting to be that hectic time of year. How do you like to destress when it gets to be too much? Do you have any stories about the absolute best/worst customer you've had to deal with? Does the holiday music lift you while working or drive you nuts? Favorite holiday song?

hey you're fine. i'm not upset at any of the anons that sent in asks about the SEG situation. i get it, yall want to talk about it and inform me. i appreciate it. i just had a stressful day and tbh i just don't care about this subject. seeing snc get needless hate over something that was dealt with is just deeply annoying. not to mention bc nothing is gonna happen until after thanksgiving, i would rather we all just wait to hear what gets said until then or straight up ignore SEG than give him more clout.

so, for all the years i've worked in retail, which now is 5... omg ew, i've actually never worked a black friday. first year my dad passed away, and then the past three year i've done overnights so i'm not around customers at all. this is my first time around customers this year, bc i just couldn't do overnights, and honestly... it's not that bad. it's not great, but it's mostly the store i'm working at that's upsetting me rather than the customers, which somehow is always the case anymore lol

i plan to leave as soon as i can. i can't stand the place i'm working in anymore. i pray i don't have to keep working in retail, but we shall see.

how do i like to destress? nap. like i fucking LOVE napping. i think i also have to nap more now bc i don't really drink caffeine anymore. i'll have an occasional soda or ice tea once in a while, but otherwise it's just straight water for me. so i usually just come home and nap. then when i wake up i'll either dance or sing to some emo music (got me like a 14 hour playlist of all my favorite songs) or i'll just watch some youtube vids.

i haven't had too many bad customers, thank god, but the one that always stuck out to me was during the holiday season the first year i work at my current store. so while i haven't worked really any black fridays, i have worked the lead up to christmas multiple times and i swear, i think ppl forget christmas is when it is with the way ppl coming in like the 23 of december buying all the random shit we have left.

so, i was up at the registers, and we have only self check out. i'm assisting ppl when i can and directing the line bc it's basically to the back of the store almost. the thing is, to literally come into the store, you have to pass the registers. so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it's self checkout only. but these two women are next in line and i direct one to an open register. she immediately says "what, i have to do it myself?" i'm not in a good mood bc there is just too many ppl around (and this was pre-pandemic) and i was like "yes ma'am, you have to."

my thing was always if you ask me nicely to help you, i gladly will. but being a bitch to me will basically get you no help whatsoever.

she starts to scan her items, and scans one too many times. she starts yelling "oh my god, i don't know how to do this, i double scanned" loudly, i come over, clear off the extra item and then direct her friend to the next register, which is coincidentally was the one next to her.

the main lady goes back and forth with her friend, saying and cursing "i can't believe i have to fucking do this myself, i don't like this, why the fuck can't they help us." mind you, i work in basically a kid's store. there are plenty of children around. there is no need to be cursing that much, and i say that as someone who does curse a lot.

finally she finishes up and for some reason the register spit out her change really fast so her coins fell on the floor. she picks up one of the coins turns to me, and basically throws it at me and snidely remarks "here you go, since you clearly need it"

i about swung on her, but she's lucky i didn't.

that was really one of the very few times i ever had a bad customer. as for good ones, i think for the most part most of the customers i interact with are either normal or pretty nice. i did one time have to explain to a man what bluetooth was, which is great bc i know so much about it….. and then he told my manager i did an excellent job helping him understand. so that was nice :)

as for the holiday music…. it's 50/50 depending on my mood. sometimes it's not too bad, sometimes it's annoying. bc we play random pop songs (that most of you have probably never heard of) in between the christmas songs. so for every one pop song, we get two to three christmas songs. and we only just recently started getting mariah carey and actual well know christmas songs to play in the store. before, it was like random covers of popular songs, which is very strange to me but whatever lol

and my favorite holiday song… i'm actually gonna list my favorite christmas songs bc i think i have the weirdest taste in them lol

christmas don't be late by alvin and the chipmunks

santa baby by eartha kitt

last christmas by the glee cast

baby it's cold outside by the glee cast

feliz navidad by josé feliciano

obviously mariah carey and michael buble are the top ppl for christmas music. but genuinely… i love these songs more.

a lot of christmas songs make me sad now since my father passed, especially 'i'll be home for christmas'. so sometimes it's a bit hard to listen to christmas music. but i usually hold off on listening to until like the 23rd lol

[wordsandrobots]

It seems to have been a while since I posted an update on how the writing for the next part of Wishing on Space Hardware has been going (well, I complained three weeks ago that it wasn't, but that barely counts).

So, let's refer to the Super Accurate and 100% Serious Plan (TM). Bold represents chapters that currently have complete drafts.

Prologue: Hi, it's me, I am coming for your emotions.

Chapter 1: “Fuck my life, why am I the sensible one?”

Chapter 2: Discovering through adversity that you are in fact a spiteful arsehole.

Chapter 3: When you're well-adjusted and people won't shut up about their issues.

Chapter 4: How to turn grief and aimlessness into an international incident.

Interlude 1: More manga propaganda.

Chapter 5: Relatively normal person discovers sympathy for absolute lunatics.

Chapter 6: Manipulative bastard has meltdown; nukes career and/or starts war.

Chapter 7: Who wouldn't want to be head of state in the middle of all this?

Chapter 8: The world's most violent identity crisis.

Interlude 2: Accidentally featuring no canon characters whatsoever.

Chapter 9: When even your subconscious thinks you're a loser.

Chapter 10: Anger is not a stage, it is a permanent address.

Chapter 11: “Nobody is dying on my watch!” [Actionable threat]

Chapter 12: "Terrorism *is* a valid expression of my trauma, actually."

Interlude 3: Oh look – plot threads.

Chapter 13: Waking up to discover you work for the bad guys and deciding to fix that.

Chapter 14: Keeping going through the hardship, chaos, and narrative contrivance.

Chapter 15: Waking up to discover you work for the bad guys and failing to fix that.

Chapter 16: Ancillary character makes good, still doesn't get the boy.

Interlude 4: No, seriously, I mean it about putting literally everyone in this thing.

Chapter 17: Normal housewife deals well with additional lunatics.

Chapter 18: I swear I only invented this OC for exposition, now she's a key player.

Chapter 19: While valid, terrorism might not make everything better.

Chapter 20: Actual sensible one solves plot with quiet chat.

Epilogue 1: Pain and other assorted feelings.

Epilogue 2: The author reminds you he is, at heart, a total sap.

Epilogue 3: Hey, look, if you hit characters hard enough, they actually develop.

Epilogue 4: Take your victories where you can get them, folks.

Epilogue 5: What *do* you call the literary equivalent of a panning shot?

I just this morning finished Chapter 15 and I thought this was worth noting because it means the fic has officially passed the 100,000 word mark. In case you were wondering why it is taking me so long to complete, that's why. Chapters on this one are averaging 6000 words because SOMEONE made the daft decision to try and make each one a summation of a particular character and their role in the story so far.

We're probably looking at the whole thing coming in around 150,000 words total (bear in mind the interludes and epilogues will all be about half the chapter length). So while I am still hopeful I can finish it by the end of the year, I am increasingly unsure if I will start posting before then on account of editing and such.

My current plan is to spend the rest of this week polishing off Interlude 2 while I let the images for Chapter 16 percolate into an actual scene breakdown. After that chapter's done, I'll be in the home stretch as far as the main plot is concerned.

I must admit to not being especially happy to have slipped so far past my initial deadlines, despite knowing they were only loosely self-imposed to begin with. I really was trying to avoid leaving things on a cliffhanger for so many months. But such is life.

Anyhoo, that's where we are at the moment and hopefully things will continue to progress at the current fairly acceptable rate!

[tribadismes]

7, 10, 11, 34 for the tv show ask!

Hey love ! Thank you so much for asking !!

7. have you ever been inspired to start a new show based on gifs or memes it has produced ?

oh definitely ! probably the case for 1/4 shows i've watched !

10. what’s one show you thought you’d love but turned out to really hate ?

There's this show called Work in Progress that sounded right up my alley, it's written & stars a butch with ocd so you know basically my life story, i was really excited about it, but it ended up making me extremely uncomfortable and was a huge disappointment. The premise is already... really icky since it's about this 40 something butch lesbian who starts dating a 20 yo pre-transion trans man, but you know it could have been handled in a good way i guess ? but it wasn't, it really really wasn't, and the main character is so unlovable and, yeah, big flop, wouldn't recommend, oh at all. I was also really disappointed in Dead End : Paranormal Park, it's an adult horror/fantasy cartoon featuring a gay trans man lead and his autistic bestie and talking dog. I love adult cartoons and liked the premise and animation style so i was like this is gonna be good but it's not. I watched it less than six months ago and barely remember it so i can't really elaborate lmao but i remember the plot being both messy and underwhelming (proof : can barely tell you what the plot even is) and also that the worldbuilding was extremely lackluster, which is a huge dealbreaker when we're talking fantasy like ?? Needless to say i dropped both these shows after the first season and never looked back.

11. which TV show has the best musical soundtrack, in your opinion ?

if we're talking serious good original soundtrack obviously Twin Peaks comes to mind... if we're judging by how obsessed i am with it then... Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, oh surprise

34. what are your top 5 shows right now ?

i loooove that question and i will even make a proper ranking for yah ! I'm judging by how often I think about them and how much youtube content i consume around them lmfao.

5. A League Of Their Own : best show of 2022, favorite lesbian show since oitnb probably, actually haven't gone into a youtube rabbit hole about it (yet) but i really wanna rewatch it soon, also my thirst for butches in period clothing is endless

4. Arcane : i am obsessed with this show, watched it twice in like a week, it's amazing truly, so fucking well-written, if you're into fantasy, animation, crazy women and butches with big muscles you should definitely watch it. I don't think a show has ever emotionally scarred me like that and i loved every second of it.

3. Young Royals : i regularly rewatch scenes from this show, i'm just fascinated with the acting... also i love their love, makes me wanna fall in love again (yes i have been using it as a coping mechanism since my break up to remember love is beautiful and shit)

2. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend : i mean what can i say that i haven't already said jjjkjkjkjarf the thing is it's the only show on this little list that i watched for the first time a really really long time ago (4, 5 years ago ?) and that has finished airing (cause my obsession for the other shows is mostly explained by : i'm waiting for the next season/episode) but i'm just obsessed with the music man, i listen to it on a daily basis almost

Helluva Boss : indie adult cartoon (free on youtube), hence why it's almost unknown except if you're an embarrassing cartoon dweeb like me lmfao but it's about to be a lot more famous since a show by the same creator in the same universe was picked up by i believe hbo and is going to air sometime this year. The best way to describe the tone of the show is, it's like Bojack Horseman but in hell. It's. So. So. Good. It has everything i love : really really dark humour, fucked up characters, drama, incredibly toxic gay ships, tons of lore, great world-building, foreshadowing, and most importantly a completely hectic release schedule (due to it being indie) that makes my adhd go absolutely fucking bonkers

[cheesewelsom]

SpiderWorld AU. ( So im bored, so im just creating a spiderman world or something )

This world is called Scitan, ( originally it was supposed to mean sci-fi and manhattan, but it sounded like Satan so this is where all the shit came from)

There are two main places, Heaven and Hell ( not literally. ), Heaven is a floating platform, just on top of Hell. Heaven is where the wealthy live, like, they're very wealthy, with healthy trees, lush grass, golden roads and it literally looks like a daydream.

And hell is below heaven, Heaven blocked the sun, so now hell is this cold, and desolate place. It's dirty, run down and honestly, if it wasn't for the second sun created by the people below, they would've been dead from the lack of sun.

It's just basically south side chicago.

Honey Harper got in to a car accident, her parents are dead and now moves in with auntie may in one of the apartments. ( It's honestly in one of the good places in hell )

But the car accident gave her amnesia. Now she's suddenly in a new place, new home, and she can remember a thing.

Then suddenly, she finds a tattoo? While she is looking at herself in the mirror, she finds her neck surrounded by these long lines? There are atleast eight lines surrounded by thin lines, she turns around to see a spider, right on top of the 1st to the 4th cervical vertebrae is a body of a spider, with it's eight legs wrapped around her neck.

Okay, the doctors at the hospital didn't tell her of any tattoo. She didn't know this,but the eight legs stand for her powers.

The Eight legs :

Invisibility

Intangibility

healing

web-shooting

sticking on to walls

Enhanced sense

super speed

Clone

Anyways, she thinks nothing of it, she starts school tomorrow, she reads her subject just o get ahead.

Everythings fine until she was showering at night, she was washing her neck next thing she knows everything's way too clear, her body feels light, and why is her skin suddenly a different color? She rushes to the mirror to see no hair.

Well, no face too. She just has this.. mask? Where is her hair? Or her face? She looks at her body and her body is still human.. it's just, there's this kind of scale? This hard armour on her. She pinches it, and it isn't stretchable. It's like touching concrete, she couldn't feel anything happening under it too.

She punched her arm, nothing. She's scared. Panicking, why can she still move her arm when this armour is hard as fuck?

She touches her neck again then suddenly she's her again, she as skin. She pinches herself and it hurts.

She cries happy tears as she finishes scrubbing herself dry, she doesn't touch the spider on her neck.

The next day she gone to school with uncle ben, took the test and left. They go get ice cream and see two 5 year olds in front of them. She looks at them, she really looks at them and they seem really familiar. They both shrink under her gaze, she was even more confused.

"miss, we're sorry for telling you those things. " They apologized and she's even more confused, Uncle ben seems to sense her confusion and gives them a good smile and nods.

They get their ice cream and leave, they leave the stall, they get home and she's curios. She presses her spider tattoo and her skin changes. She still had her clothes on, which is a relief.

When she looks at her skin, she could see the little intricate details, like the tiny bumps that now make up the texture of her skin, my gosh, she's gonna feel like a snake.

She rushes to bathroom until she realizes she's already there.

Then she sees herself, ( you guys can imagine her spider suit, never have i thought making a spiderman story and the hardest thing to imagine was her freaking spiderman suit. )

And she's shocked, she looks at her hands and she notices her wrists have three rings each on them.

She figures out some Powers, she figures out she can walk on air, not float or fly which wad a bust. Stick to walls, webs ( she figures that out with finger guns, but when the webs came out, it stuck to her palm, so now she still finger guns but the palm out of the way. ) And enhanced sense.

What she heard was none of her business, and the toothpaste in her mouth mixed with ice cream was actually delicious, she's trying that combination next time.

She actually figures out the suit may be indestructible by stubbing her toe, but instead of pain, the door dented a bit.

She's never been happier in her entire life.

Pt, 1.: Not sure if im making a part 2.

[wingsofkpop]

NSFW Alphabet - Yang Jeongin (m)

A - Aftercare

Despite being on the more inexperienced side, I think Jeongin is responsible enough to know that aftercare is a must following sex, whether it be making sure you both are properly hydrated or helping you change the bed sheets. Because he’s usually babied by his members, this sweet boy treasures each moment he’s able to take care of you for a change though he won’t say no if you request to be the bigger spoon for a night or two.

B - Body Part

Seeing as our dear maknae has apparently gotten buff somewhere over the years, he likely takes pride in his biceps and arms in general as he damn well should. We’ll go more in depth about it later, but let’s just say Innie likes to use his strength in more ways than one… Moving on, Jeongin will never not be a fan of your neck. Mans has a bit of a marking tendency, but hormones aside, Jeongin’s in love with your scent, which seems to be more pungent around thah area. Plus, the crook of your neck also makes a good hiding place when he’s shy.

C - Cum

The only place this man’s cumming is in a condom. He may not be a baby anymore, but he doesn’t want any other baby Jeongins showing up anytime soon. Changbin is already a handful enough as it is…

D - Dirty Secret

Now it’s a bit out of the element here, but Jeongin sometimes gets tired of being coddled by his members. That being said, he’s had some fantasies about proving his growness—fantasies that may or may not include getting caught eating you out until you’re a literal puddle by Chan or Hyunjin, or maybe fucking you into the wall just in time for Changbin or Seungmin to walk through the door. Not wanting to disrespect you or anything, he prefers to keep these thoughts to himself… just don’t ask questions if he starts to get a little handsy during movie nights with the other boys.

E - Experience

Like most of the younger Stray Kids members, I don’t think he has too much sexual experience. He’s probably made out with a girl or two over the years, maybe felt her up a bit, but that’s as far as his hands-on exploration goes. Even so, he probably has a general idea of how things are supposed to go, generously provided by stories from his members and the wonders of porn.

F - Favorite Position

Due to his lack of sexual practice, Jeongin probably has not found his all-time favorite position just yet. He’s eager to try everything he possibly can, so expect to be blown away literally every time y’all do the do.

G - Goofy

Jeongin doesn’t mind getting a little silly during sex every once and a while, but he also knows that a more sensual, serious mood is needed too. The first few times will definitely be more casual and light-hearted, kept alive by his playful grin and mischevious fingers. But even as you two begin to become more mature, that same youthful atmosphere will remain, making it feel like the first time every time.

H - Hair

He probably just lets it do it’s own thing honestly. As long as it doesn’t get too unruly, he doesn’t mind it all that much.

I - Intimacy

Seeing he’s likely never been in a serious relationship before you, he’s all about the ideal, romantic aspect of love making. And while there won’t necessarily be rose petals and silk sheets every time you guys have sex, he knows how to make you feel loved and wanted with just his touch alone. Eye contact is also a huge must for Jeongin—he needs to see your face in the moment, to watch the pleasure overtake your body as he brings you to a headspace only few have the privilege to witness. It may sound cheesy, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he has a secret plan to marry you one day, already knowing you’re his forever person.

J - Jack Off

Innie is young, so it’s no surprise his hormones are a bit on the overwhelming side at times. For him, getting off largely depends on if and when he has a moment to himself, which is quite rare between his busy schedule and lack of privacy in the dorm. That being said, he probably masturbates no more than three times a week. If that.

K - Kink

Alright hoes, I’m gonna start this off by saying Jeongin damn well has some sort of strength kink. We’ve all seen the size of those arms. Now he wouldn’t necessarily manhandle you, but if the moment requires him to pick you up by your thighs, or maybe pin your wrists to the bed cause you’re getting a little too frisky, then a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. He also has a HUGE thing when you get all dressed up for him, whether it be in a dress/suit or a lingerie set. Some other honorable mentions of his include marking, praise, and the occasional teasing.

L - Location

Please, please, PLEASE let this man take you against the wall, or anywhere that lets him show off his strength. He turns into some type of beast, I swear—Bonus points if y’all have the dorm to yourselves, because then he will literally take you against every single surface…

M - Motivation

The second you compliment him, this man will be literal putty in your hands. He loves, and I mean LOVES, when you praise him for his stage performances or MV scenes. And don’t let him catch you watching his fancams… or else prepared to get dicked into next year~

N - NO

BDSM is completely off the table for Jeongin. While he doesn’t mind trying something new every so often, he’s just not comfortable treading into the kind of intense territory that would require use of a safe word. He’s also just not a fan of power dynamics in general.

O - Oral

Sorry fam, oral is just not it for Jeongin. It’s nothing against you, he just doesn’t prefer blow jobs because of his tendency to finish too early, and he’d much rather practice other methods of foreplay to get you both off.

P - Pace

In the beginning stages of your relationship, Innie used to utilize a rapid, sloppy pace. After obtaining more experience, his stroke game is much, much better and more fluid, though he sometimes tends to revert back to an awkward pace when he’s close to climax. But like everyone, his skill and confidence will grow more over time.

Q - Quickie

The only time he’ll settle for a quickie is if he’s completely and totally desperate for your touch. But even then, he needs to be sure your session will take place in an environment that is both private and isolated from any other people. But once he’s comfortable and secure, he’ll drive you into the nearest wall with no further hesitation whatsoever.

R - Risk

Nope, nope, nopity, nope. While the idea of getting caught makes him feel all the things, Jeongin would rather not risk anyone actually walking in on you two when you’re being less than innocent. Especially his members, because if they do, he knows he’ll never hear the end of it.

S - Stamina

He’s got pretty decent stamina. Jeongin can usually go for some foreplay and maybe two rounds depending on how exhausted he is from his schedule. Then again, on days he is a bit more on the tired side, he wouldn’t mind sitting back and letting you do most the work.

T - Toy

The most curious boy omg. Innie’s experience with toys probably stems from porn and the dark side of Reddit, so he’ll be utterly fascinated if you own any nifty gadgets of your own. And while I don’t think he’d actively shop for sex toys, he doesn’t mind spicing things up in the bedroom with a couple vibrators, restraints, or sensation play objects.

U - Unfair

Don’t let his adorable facade fool you—this boy can be the WORST tease on any given day. He’s the type of lover that will suggestively trail his hands across your breasts and thighs, then act all innocent when you call him out. Jeongin is also an expert in getting you to tell him what he wants to hear. For example, “You want me to make you cum, baby? How exactly do you want me to do that?…”

V - Volume

Honestly, this man is a moaning machine. And you may hear some cute little whimpers and whines in that mix too… At first, he was probably a bit bashful to make any noise in that context, but after some coaxing and needed praise from you, he’ll never try to be silent again.

W - Wild Card

Let me set the scene for you: You and Innie watching some horribly budgeted rom-com you found on Netflix, and literally just making fun of the entire movie. That is, until the two main leads start making out in the back of a car. Oh, this shuts you both right up, especially when clothes start coming off and the car windows begin to steam up. The scene ends eventually, but this awkward, sexually tense silence still remains between you and Jeongin, and when you look to your blushing lover, you find him poorly attempting to cover his raging hard on. Then, he clears his throat and cutely stutters, “S-So… You wanna… you know?…”

X - X-ray

He’s a bit below average: 4.5-5 inches. But he’s got some thickness to his name.

Y - Yearning

As already mentioned, Innie tends to hold back in regards to his sexual needs for fear of coming across as a horn dog. You two probably do the nasty at least once a week, but I guarantee you can raise that number if you sit your boyfriend down and explain the concept of a mutually beneficial relationship huehuehue.

Z - ZZZzzz

If there’s one thing that Jeongin loves most in the world, it’s being in your arms after a long and stressful day. Whether or not you choose to end the night with an orgasm or two, he’ll settle himself atop your body, using your breasts as his own personal pillows, and just let his tension melt away in the comforting warmth of your touch. And though he’d never admit it, sometimes he doesn’t really mind being babied after all…

[butwhyduh]

Hi if you still do request could you do a There is only one bed with Tim maybe with some teasing?

Warning: smut

“So it’s not ideal,” you said with a little smile that you covered with your hand. Tim was exasperated. You could slum it. He was not used to this.

Admittedly the cabin was worse that what you remember. As a kid, your family had visited every fall to pick apples and hike. Marshmallows by the fireplace before telling ghost stories and all.

But that was over 10 years ago and not in midwinter. Now the windows were boarded and the fireplace was barely useable. Which was good, as it was literally freezing.

When Tim had said he needed a place to crash after a mission for you both, you offered this place. It was only a few miles north of your location. But it was also trash. The couch leg gave way as Tim sat down and he almost fell to the floor.

“So this is technically a cabin in the woods. But I’d rather burn it to the ground,” Tim said. “I’m going to the bathroom, unless it’s an outhouse or just a hole in the ground.”

“No no. Real bathroom,” you motioned to it. He went in the other room. You sat on the bed, the only functional piece of furniture besides a dodgy table. You were glad that you brought extra sheets and the plastic protector over the mattress. After scrubbing the cover and putting on the sheets, you sat down to pull off your boots. Ice was still clinging to the bottom. You put them near the front door and stood by the fire. Tim came out changed into thick sweats.

“You should change,” he said, motioning to your suit. You turned away from him.

“Can you?” You asked about the long zipper that went from the top of your neck to right above your ass.

“Oh, sure,” Tim said walking close. There had always been some kind of sexual tension between you both but neither had ever acted on it. He looked at your black leather suit lit up in the firelight. It clung perfectly to every curve.

He delicately pushed your hair from the back of your neck over your shoulder and grasped the zipper. Tim pulled it down almost painfully slowly. You felt your skin prickle as he slowly touched down your back. His fingers hesitated to move away from your back. Tim pulled away suddenly and cleared his throat.

“Done,” he said in a lower tone. You turned back to see him standing so close. He watched you. Tim wasn’t particularly tall, only a little more than you, or bulky, with lean muscles. But he was so pretty with thick dark eye lashes and silky hair.

“You should probably get dressed. You’re cold,” he said noting the way your forearms shivered as they held the front of your suit up. You nodded and grabbed your clothing before heading to the bathroom. It was even colder in there. Frost covered the window and you could see your breath. You quickly dressed into pajamas.

In the main room, Tim was sweeping the floor. “Not that it doesn’t need it or anything, but why are you sweeping?” You asked.

“One bed. The couch is shit. I’m sleeping on the floor,” Tim said. There was no way you’d let him. He’d freeze with the draft and limited blankets.

“No way. Just sleep in the bed,” you said. He gave you a look you couldn’t comprehend before shaking his head. “Tim, you could freeze to death down there. I won’t let you,” you said trying to sound authoritative.

“I’ll be fine,” he shrugged.

“I won’t bite. Get up here,” you said sitting on the bed.

“Sure about that?” He said with a sly smile.

“Only on Tuesdays,” you said with a little smirk. He chuckled. “I’m not letting you sleep down there. My house, my rules.”

“Ouch. I guess I can’t argue with that, hu?” Tim said putting the broom down. He carefully climbed in the other side of the bed without touching you despite being a small bed. Tim laid flat on his back with his arms tight to his body.

You slid under the covers shivering. “Okay, I hope you’re okay with me stealing body heat from you because I’m fucking freezing,” you said sliding your back against him. Tim shifted to his side and you pressed against his warm chest. “I don’t know how you aren’t cold.”

“I’m from Gotham. The weather is terrible year round,” he reminded you. Tim didn’t lay his arms across you or anything but let you spoon against him. He was carefully passive like a gentleman. After a few minutes, you shivering stopped and you finally warmed. The pull of sleep dragged you under and you slept for a few hours.

The crackle of fire and gentle rapping sound of snow falling was the only sounds you heard in the early morning. Tim’s breath on your neck and arms wrapped around you tightly were very distracting. You resisted the urge to shiver at the sensation. How many times had you wanted this?

You shifted a little to go back to sleep and Tim’s hands wrapped tighter. One hand snakes down to cup your breast in sleep, pulling you flush to his body. You inhaled quickly and was wide awake. How could you sleep when the guy you liked was holding your actual tit? You tried to stay still but your body made small adjustments.

Tim made a soft “hmmm” sound and you froze. That’s when you felt it, he was hard. You felt like you were going to burst. He was holding your tit and rubbing his dick against you in his sleep. It’s just biology. It means nothing, you told yourself.

But you needed to get out of his grip because your body was definitely reacting to him. You tried to scoot your hips forward but this arms around you were clinging too tightly. Tim groaned and rubbed his cheek in your hair.

“Tim,” you whispered a little too breathless. He hummed again. “Tim,” you said a little louder.

“Is too early. Go to sleep,” Tim mumbled. He didn’t moved. You thought about trying to sleep but Tim was very distracting.

“Tim,” you said in a regular voice. He huffed.

“What?”

“You... you’re, uh,” you said unsure how to tell him. Your penis is rubbing up against my ass? You’re feeling me up in your sleep? “Let me go, please.”

“I don’t have you,” he protested before waking up more. Tim moved his head and opened his eyes. You could feel him freeze as he took in the situation. Tim quickly let you go and pulled back to one side of the bed. His face was brick red and his hips were almost falling off the bed trying to make as much space as possible between you both.

“Sorry! Fuck, sorry! I didn’t mean- how long was I-“ he said halfway freaking out. You turned to face him.

“It’s okay. Relax,” you said calmly.

“I don’t control when it happens when I’m asleep, you know?” Tim said sitting up and clutching the sheets hiding his crotch. You sat up and grasped the sides of his face.

“It’s fine. I know how biology works,” you reassured him.

“And I didn’t mean to grab you. I was asleep,” he added. “I swear I didn’t-“

“Tim!” You said finally shutting him up. He stared at you and gulped. Your hands on his face didn’t exactly help his uhh... problem he was desperately trying to make go away.

“What?”

“You. Are. Fine. I cuddled with you, right? Not super surprising. It happens,” you said and he relaxed a little. “It was kinda nice laying with you,” you murmured. Tim glanced down at your lips before snapping back up to your eyes like he broke a rule. “You smell nice. And you’re warm,” you added. You stared at his lips obviously.

“I got to ask, are you hitting on me?” Tim asked warily.

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Yeah, detective. I am. What are you gonna do about it?”

Tim smiled and grasped your face for a kiss. You pulled him down on top of you as you kissed. He inhaled quickly before adjusting to the change. His knees gently pushed between yours and you pressed your hips up against his and was rewarded with a groan.

You reached down to cup him in his pjs. Tim kissed down your neck and his hips pushed his cock in your hand with more pressure. His hand cupped your breast and squeezed.

“Do you want to?” He asked.

“Absolutely. Condoms are in the top zipper of my suitcase,” you said breathlessly. You’d be a fucking idiot to say no to the one chance to sleep with the guy you like.

“You came prepared?” He asked.

“They just stay in there,” you answered and he nodded before getting up to grab one. Tim turned around to blink a little as you were completely nude and staring up at him predatorily. He couldn’t say that it wasn’t hot.

“Eager,” he breathed climbing back over you, pulling off clothing. You shrugged. You took the condom from him to put it on.

“Do we need to-“

“Penis in vagina. I don’t need a ton of prep. I super appreciate the offer. Seriously, next time go nuts. But it’s like 5 degrees in here and I’m ready as hell,” you said and he almost laughed.

“Can do,” he said pulling the blankets over you both. He sunk in and you breathed out quickly. Tim wrapped his arms around you behind your back to kiss your chest and neck as he moved. It has you breathless. It was so intimate. He was completely pressed against you.

His lips found yours and he kissed you in pace with his hips rocking against yours. You bent your knees and you gasped as he was now rocking against a spot that had you seeing stars.

“There,” you breathed and Tim simply nodded. Fuck, it wasn’t going to take long at this pace. “Fuck fuck fuck,” you whimpered before clenching around him with his name on your tongue. Tim groaned and thrust through your high before finishing himself. He kissed up your collarbone and neck to your lips before pulling out to throw away the condom and pull on his pjs. You did the same in the chill.

He climbed back in bed and snuggled close. “Okay, yeah. It’s cold as hell,” Tim said with a little laugh. You laid your head on his chest and entwined your legs together with the blanket pulled tight and the cold was more bearable.

[littlemissnoname13]

Wisps of Smoke (Draco Malfoy x Slytherin!reader) - Part 5

Summary: y/n and Draco find themselves drawn to an abandoned classroom every night

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Slytherin!Reader ft. Theo Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini

Warnings: Excessive smoking, mature language and themes, smut labeled as ⚜️, 18+ content, reader discretion is advised, also Draco is kinda soft in this one. Just sayin.

A/n: Ik this was supposed to be the final part but I wanted to wrap things up properly. The last part will be dedicated to the ball itself.

A massive thank you to everyone that has read WOS. Your feedback makes me so fkn happy. I love you all sm.

Word count: 3700

Link to Part one, two, three, and four if you haven’t read them already.

My other stories are over here. And you can join my tag list here.

As always, Smoking is injurious to health y’all.

24th December

Home was just the way you’d remembered it. 

From the Goldchild Ivy covering the white colored walls and the stepping stones leading all the way to the main entrance to the way your parents kept nagging you about your “future” with Adrian Pucey.

“You still haven’t told me what kind of dress you’d like to wear to the ball.” Your mum reminded you after taking a small sip from her wine glass. 

“I don’t know mother.” You sighed,stabbing repeatedly at the sautéed mushroom on your plate. “Can’t I wear something I already own? Like the blue one I wore last year.”

“Well, what is Adrian wearing? May I suggest some colour coordinating?” 

“I really don’t know mother.” You coughed. 

“Well, why don't you ask him?”

“I can't.” You mumbled dropping your fork on your plate. The loud clanging sound earned you an eyebrow raise from your otherwise quiet father. 

“Why not?”

“We broke—we aren’t seeing each other anymore.” You said quietly before quickly standing up and dismissing yourself from the dining table before your parents could ask you a thousand questions.

As you walked away from the table and towards the balcony, you could still hear your parents calling after you while simultaneously speculating about just what you may have done to scare Adrian away. 

You weren’t going to tell them about Draco because you weren’t even sure what to tell them.

I broke up with Adrian because I’m sleeping with Draco Malfoy.

Yes, the one that is getting engaged soon. 

No we’re not together.

I may or may not have developed feelings for him.

Yes, it is inconvenient because I have no idea how he feels. 

Did I mention he is getting engaged? 

You tugged on the sleeves of your sweater to warm your hands up as you stared up at the surprisingly clear night sky splattered with only a few clouds and shimmering stars. 

You took it upon yourself to start counting the stars to distract yourself from thinking about Draco again.

Unbeknownst to you, Draco was standing on the balcony of his room trying not to think of you too. 

The only difference for him was that the sky was a little less cloudy where he lived and he wasn’t going to bother counting stars. 

“Happy Christmas Draco.” You whispered to yourself,staring at the shiny emerald ring on your finger. 

“Happy Christmas Y/n.” Draco mumbled into the night air as he fidgeted with your amethyst ring. 

~~~~~~~~~~

25th December

It was a surprisingly quiet Christmas Morning at the Y/l/n household. 

Your parents were still fast asleep when you walked towards the kitchen to fix yourself a cup of coffee. 

It was probably because your parents hadn’t quite processed your break up with Adrian and had spent their night discussing it.

Seeing it was Christmas, you decided to put a dash of white chocolate and whipped cream in your cup of caffeinated goodness in order to feel a bit more festive.

You were feeling anything but festive. 

There was a kind of dread crushing your insides when you thought about the ball. 

You’d have to watch him dance with her and kiss her lips at midnight. 

Fuck, you’d have to congratulate him after he slipped a ring onto her perfectly manicured finger. 

Just when you were about to take a sip of your drink, you heard a knock on your door. 

You frowned and walked towards the door because it was way too early on in the morning for anyone to come over. 

When you yanked the door open, you saw him of all people, standing on the other side of the door with his white blond hair messier than usual. 

He was wearing one of his rare genuine smiles that showed his pearly whites making you feel wobbly in the knees. 

“Draco—What are you doing here?”

“Happy Christmas to you too.” He said with the smile still fixed on his lips. “Tell me y/l/n is this how you greet all of your houseguests?”

“How rude of me.” You muttered to yourself still befuddled as you stepped back to let him in. “Come in, sit down. Cup of tea?”

“I’m actually in a bit of a hurry.” He said as he fidgeted with his blazer pocket. “Just came to drop off something—ugh hold this.” 

He placed a pack of cigarettes in the palm of your hand before fumbling with his pocket again. 

“Ahh. There we go.” He retrieved a lilac colored box from his pocket and brought it back to its normal size before handing it to you.

“What’s this?” 

“What does it look like y/n?”

“But—But I haven't even gotten you anythi—”

Before you could finish your sentence, he leaned in, tenderly pressing lips against yours. 

The softness of his lips made the heaviness you were feeling on your shoulders fade away as you faded into him—only him and the way he held you firmly around the waist as he suckled on your bottom lip.

“Thank you.”  You whispered burying your face into his chest, trying to inhale a scent of his cologne. “Thank you.”  

When Draco left, you ran up to your room and opened the lilac box to find a blush coloured slip dress folded neatly with a note on top of it written in his neat handwriting.

~~~~

Dear Y/n

I really am sorry about what happened to your old silk dress but I just couldn’t help myself. 

I hope you’ll understand.

I also hope I get to see you wear this one someday.  

Yours,

D.L.M

~~~~~~~~~~~

26 December 

The day after Christmas, the boys decided to do a little cleanup. 

Quidditch and house memorabilia, novelty artefacts they no longer cared enough for and items of emotional value. 

The boys wanted a fresh start. 

A clean break.

A clean slate. 

Theo and Blaise were done with their cleaning so they were now at the Manor helping Draco who was surprisingly not very convinced about the whole “fresh start” ordeal. 

“Remember this?” Theo chuckled, clearing out all the books that covered Draco’s desk and using his wand to cast a quick spell that revealed carvings they’d made the summer before their second year.

“Oh?” Blaise gleefully raised his eyebrows walking towards Theo. “I’d forgotten about this.” 

Draco rolled his eyes and followed Blaise and the three boys stood around the table reading out everything they’d managed to carve out. 

There were some very unholy words, tally sticks and unfortunate looking doodles of Harry on the table.

“Theodore Nott was here.” Draco read out loud looking unimpressed.

“Read this one.” Theo chuckled pointing at a carving. “Daphne Greengrass + Blaise Zabini.”

“Hey! We were barely second years.” Blaise protested while his eyes kept scanning the table. 

As Blaise’s vigilant eyes trailed to the farthest corner of the table, a wicked grin started to form across his cheeks making Draco’s face turn pale. 

“Y/n Y/l/n.” Blaise read out loud smirking at Draco. “Well well Malfoy—From the second year?...Interesting.” 

“It was always obvious even though he expressed himself in questionable ways.” Theo shrugged. 

“What was obvious?” Draco quirked an eyebrow with a scowl on his face. 

“The fact that you were and are absolutely enamoured with y/n.” Theo rolled his eyes. “It has always been obvious to everyone but you. Back me up here Zabini.” 

Draco crossed his arms and looked at Blaise who just gave him an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry but he’s right mate.”

“I am not enamoured with y/n.” 

“If you say so.” Blaise shrugged.

“And what if I were?” Draco spat, clearly irked by the condescending look on Blaise’s face.

“If you are, then I only have one question for you.” Blaise said with carefully selected words.

“And the question is?” 

Blaise went quiet for a brief second before looking at Draco, dead set in the eye.

“What is holding you back, Malfoy?” 

~~~~~~~~~~

27th December

Draco wondered what life decisions he’d taken to find himself seated at a murky little pub with Astoria reclining against his shoulders—sipping on Butterbeer. 

Pansy, Theo and Blaise were taking shots next to him and you were awkwardly seated right across the table next to Adrian fucking Pucey. 

What was he doing here anyway? Who even invited him? 

Even though he’d overheard you telling Pansy that Adrian was there only because of your parents nagging you, seeing you seated together bothered him nonetheless. 

Draco wasn’t even meaning to eavesdrop on your conversation with Adrian but he just couldn’t help but divert all his attention to your sweet voice and the way your lips moved. 

You were telling Adrian about the sweet shop next door and Draco’s lips involuntarily twitched and curved upwards when he noticed just how excited you were about sweets.

It was like you softened him—made him vulnerable. And the whole feeling terrified him.

Between smoking his fifth cigarette, occasionally chatting with Astoria and looking at you from the corner of his eye, one rather simple thought encircled Draco’s mind. 

Why didn’t he knock Pucey off his broom when he had the chance to?

~~~~~~~~~

28th December

Lightning crashed. Thunder clapped.

Fat drops of rain started to fall on the enormous glass window in Draco’s bedroom. 

You placed your finger on the glass as you watched the infinite droplets race all the way to the bottom of the window.

The howling winds brought in the scent of wet grass and sent the dark curtains flying in all different directions.

You took in the smell of fresh rain and sighed sinking blissfully into his embrace.

Lucius and Narcissa were away, preparing for the upcoming ball and Draco had owled you asking to meet. 

And so, both of you were now sitting on the windowsill in his room that was much larger than the one in the abandoned classroom. 

In fact, it was so spacious that it served as his own personal reading nook—complete with a velvety throw blanket and some cushions. 

His hands held open a book and you let yourself get comfortable between his long limbs, still counting raindrops on the window. 

“What are you doing?” He asked looking towards you and away from the worn out pages of his book. 

“I’m watching the raindrops race each other.” You said with your eyes still fixed on the glass. “infinite little droplets.”

“It's just rain.” He shrugged as his eyes went back to his book. “Quite mundane if you ask me.”

Sure rain was mundane. 

But this rain felt different. It sent you into a state of melancholia. 

You couldn’t dare to tell him but those infinite droplets resembled the amount of times you’d wanted to tell him that you loved him. 

Even though you couldn’t find the courage to tell him, it was like the look in your eyes gave it all away.

It made his features soften as he slowly shifted and got up from the nook to fully open the window.

You shielded yourself as cold drops of rain started to hit your face. “What in the actual fuck?” 

“Shut up and follow me.” He said as he climbed out of the window and onto the ledge.

“Are you mental?” 

“Just do as I say.” He said helping you onto the ledge. 

Both of you laughed hysterically as the rain seeped through your clothes as you sat on the ledge with your bare feet dangling in the air. 

One wrong move and both of you could fall to our deaths. But there came an adrenaline rush with the risk of it all. 

He pushed away the hair sticking to your face and brought your face close to his before pressing his rain soaked lips to yours. 

Theo was right. 

He was fucking enamoured.

~~~~~~⚜️~~~~~~~~

After coming back inside, you walked into his ensuite to fix your ruined hair and cast a quick drying charm to your clothes before heading home.

You had barely managed to pick at the tangles in your wet hair when an equally soaked Draco walked up behind you—clothes sticking to his toned body and hair sticking to his face. 

“Draco. Sorry for hogging the mirror. I thought I’d be done sooner but these tangles are—hmmm.”

He wrapped his arms around your waist from behind you and pressed his cold lips against the base of your neck.

Even though your hair was entangled and unruly, you looked bewitching to him.

Especially the way the thin and drenched fabric of your seafoam colored dress draped your body—transparent and accentuating all your curves. 

He just couldn’t help himself from unzipping your dress while he admired the sight of your dress slowly leaving your body in the mirror in front of you both. 

“Draco?” You whispered as you watched his lips move their way from your neck to your shoulders. His hands gently gripping and massaging your breasts. 

“Yes?” He whispered into your hair as he began nipping on your earlobe—his hands never leaving your breasts. 

You wanted to tell him that you were in love with him but the words just refused to leave your lips. 

“I—I missed you so much.” You said instead as you watched the corners of his mouth twitch. 

He didn’t say a word back.

Hips lips were too occupied with sucking love bites against your skin. 

He didn’t need to tell you that he missed you too. The deep reddish purple markings on your body said it all. 

Draco intertwined his fingers around yours and placed your palms flat against the marble basin in front of you. 

Your dainty fingers brought out the verdant tones of the emerald ring and Draco couldn’t help but admire his family heirloom on you. 

He slowly moved his hands up your arms and let them brush against your bare back—trailing lower and lower till he was barely touching your soaking wet cunt.

“You like it when I touch you here?” He murmured pushing one of his fingers inside for a fleeting second. 

“Hmmm.” You moaned gripping tightly onto the basin and pushing your hips backwards to get more. 

Draco brought his hand to your arse and struck once causing you to hiss through your teeth. 

“Words darling—use your words.”

“Yes….” You whimpered, opening your eyes to stare into the reflection again. There was a kind of unrestrained hunger in his eyes that only made you want him more. 

“Good girl...so fucking perfect..so beautiful.” 

He reached out and wrapped his left hand around your throat and brought your face close to him while the pad of his right thumb rubbed steady circles on your throbbing clit. 

He loved that you were always so wet and ready for him. 

“Draco..I want you inside me..Please..” 

He could have spent hours on end just teasing you with his fingers and tongue if he could. There was just something about you that just made him want to take his time to worship you—to ruin you. 

But time was not on his side and the reflection in front of him was making him increasingly impatient so he did not tease you any further. He simply unbuckled his trousers and pushed his cock where it belonged. 

“Fuck...yes Draco..”

A whimper let your lips at the sudden push and your knuckles turned pale as you gripped tightly onto the marble basin. 

“Look at you…” He murmured against your shoulder as he stared ahead into the mirror—his cock pounding in and out of you. “Taking my cock like such a good girl.” 

He let go of your throat and used his hands to hold your hips firmly in place as he fucked you mercilessly. 

Every time you two had fucked before this, Draco had constantly reminded himself to be a little gentle with you—but today, he wanted to wreck you.

He wanted you to scream his name in a bittersweet mix of pure pleasure and pain as he fucked you relentlessly.

“More...Draco...oh..fuck…yes.” 

Beads of tears started to slip out of your eyes and you started to squirm—clenching him inside of you as your started to feel your orgasm approach. 

“Don’t.” He growled digging his nails into the flesh at your hips. “Don’t fucking come just yet.” 

You winced when he slipped himself out before carrying you back to his room where he sat down at the edge of the bed—positioning you on his lap with your legs on either side as he slipped back into you. 

Draco let you adjust to the new position for a few seconds as you gripped his shoulders as you moved your hips, slowly riding his cock. 

“My perfect little slut.” He sighed cupping your face in his hands as you continued to move against him. 

After letting you ride him for a little longer, he gripped your hips and started to pound into you making your tits bounce up and down. 

“Feels so good Draco—feels so fucking good. Oh god yes.”

With one hand on your arse and his mouth attached to your nipple Draco kept thrusting into you till the room was filled with the sound of your screams mixed with the sound of his skin slapping against yours and the sound rain splattering against the window glass. 

“Fuck y/n...your cunt is so perfect, you take me so fucking good..god.” 

“Harder…”

“So good when you clench me in like that... fuck y/n..I need to fucking fill you up…”

“Draco please..don’t fucking stop...oh..I’m so close..”

You always submitted to him so easily, he enjoyed the control he had over you.

But your sweet moans, the way your lips moved when you sighed his name was enough to make him weak for you. 

You were completely oblivious to the power you held over him. 

He loved you.

And he wanted to say the words out loud over and over again. 

“I love—I love being inside you..I have missed you so much” He said instead. 

“Draco I’m—I’m fucking cumming.” You whined as he continued to move his hips.

“Let go. Fucking cum y/n. Cum with me.”

You let your head fall against his shoulders and dug your nails into his biceps as you succumbed to your orgasm.

He soon followed, painting your walls with his release as he murmured sweet nothings into your skin. 

You held each other close as you both recovered from your highs and and when he eventually fell asleep you whispered into his ear. 

I’ll be thinking of you too Malfoy.

~~~~~~~~~

29th December 

Once glimpse of the calendar and all the feelings you had shoved into a deep dark part of your mind trickled out in the form of tears.

Silent tears.

The kind of tears you cry when the silence of the night gets unbearable.

The kind where you suppress the sound of your wail and hopelessly try and mute any kind of sniffle by pressing your face hard into the pillow because you don’t want to wake anyone up. 

Silent tears are the most painful of tears when mixed with the sound of the clock ticking. 

For some bizarre reason, every second gets more prolonged than the other.

You had tried to hold it together for days. You tried to pretend like Draco’s engagement didn’t bother you. 

But it did. 

You turned your head on your very damp pillow and eyed the pack of smokes on your night stand. Draco had left when he came to drop off your present. 

On an impulse, You stepped out of your bed as your trembling fingers reached for the 25 pack of expensive looking cigarettes. 

The second you opened the box, the slight scent of nicotine wafted up your nose and you slowly placed a cigarette at the corner of your chapped and dry lips and lit it up. 

Like always, you coughed and wheezed the second you inhaled. 

You hated how it felt. 

But you loved how close you suddenly felt to Draco.

In a twisted kind of way, It felt like you were submerged in his presence again. 

Your lips tasted like they had been kissed by him again.

The more you inhaled the better it felt.

In a fucked up kind of way, The word felt right again.  

And slowly, the night faded into morning as one cigarette turned into another. 

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

30th December 

Pansy had flooed to your hour the minute she received a letter last night in your drunken handwriting talking about how amazing cigarettes were and how pretty Astoria was.

With a mug filled to the brim with tea in between her hands, she rested her back against the armchair in your room, tilting her head to get a better look at you. 

Your face was pressed sideways against the pillow and she could tell you’d been crying by the dried mascara stains on your cheeks. 

A half smoked cigarette was pressed into the makeshift ashtray that you’d made out of your bedside table making Pansy wonder if she’d ever seen you this miserable. 

Your duvet was barely covering your shoulders and just as Pansy was standing up to pull them up, your bedroom door creaked open. 

“I just wanted to drop something off.” Draco  mumbled almost like he was talking to himself as he took a step into the room—hand in his blazer pocket.

Pansy didn't say a word as she watched Draco with her eyes narrowed. She observantly watched him pull out a tiny box from his pocket and mumble a spell to restore it to its original size.

“What are those?” 

“Assorted sweets.” He said softly, with his gaze not leaving your sleeping form once. “She wouldn’t stop talking about exploding bonbons the other night at the pub.” 

Pansy heaved out a sigh as she watched Draco place the box of sweets on your bedside table before reaching to gently push away your hair from your face. 

“Don’t get me wrong Draco, but you really shouldn’t be here right now.” 

His weary eyes flickered as he turned to look questioningly at Pansy—retreating his hand from your face. 

“You are getting engaged tomorrow—look at her, look at the state she is in. She won’t say it out loud but It’s clearly killing her.” 

As much as Draco hated agreeing with Pansy, she was right. 

Even while asleep, you looked worn out and restless with your eyebrows scrunched up indicating tension.

He wasn’t even going to get himself started on the cigarettes and wine bottles on your night stand.

“Will you let her know that I came by?” He looked half expectantly at Pansy who gave him an apologetic smile in return. “Never mind I guess.” 

As Draco reluctantly backed away from you,  Blaise’s words lingered in his mind. 

What is holding you back Malfoy?

(To be continued...)

~~~~~~

Part 6: Final Chapter Preview:

The Malfoy Manor was being decorated and every little detail of the decor screamed nothing but aristocratic, pristine, perfect.

It was like everything was just a futile attempt to conceal the dullness, loneliness and the fucked up pure blood traditions hiding deep within the manor walls.

Much like his so-called arrangement with Astoria that seemed so perfect on paper.

Pure blood families, rich family history, old money.

What could go wrong right?..

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

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[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

hello to all my lovely followers!

i’m really sorry that i haven’t been active for ages — in truth, i’ve just been having a total writer’s block right now and i’m not inspired in the slightest.

to those awaiting an update on my ethan hunt story, it is coming along. chapter 5 is at around 8000 words, and it’s gonna be much much longer than that cause i’m trying to fit two missions in.

i don’t think anyone’s still expecting a follow-up for the mitch rapp fic — it’s been months lmao, and i don’t even have a plot for it.

I’m gonna list my coming stories and some ideas, just cause i don’t want you guys to feel like i’m dead and not writing anymore, because i am. I’m so sorry, and i’ll be out of this slump soon (hopefully)!

my stories in progress!

william cage (edge of tomorrow: live die repeat); okay, so this is the consequence of a long drawn-out tom cruise obsession, and it’s basically porn with a plot, but i think it’s pretty interesting for what it’s worth; it’s also basically finished, so look out for it lol

pete “maverick” mitchell (top gun); ahhhh this is one of my favourite movies of all time, and omg young tom cruise owns my heart (especially cause i think it’s before he joined scientology), and it’s a series, got lots of (rough?) smut in it (ayy), and also quality goose content because 🥲 he deserved better

newt (the maze runner); yup, my newt fanfiction phase is making a return (finally oml); turns out i actually wrote loads of ideas down in my notes and just never developed them, so, right now, i’ve got a story in development and it’s basically ready to start writing soon; this plot is separate from my other newt story btw; oh and it’s basically smut so

legolas greenleaf (lord of the rings); i love this guy so much, and i have thought out (in great detail; eleven year old me was really intense lol) the future world of middle-earth, and i’m really proud of the plot i have lol, but it’s so hard to write and it’s so long and ahh i’ve been trying to write it for ages

my ideas in progress!

peeta mellark (the hunger games); peeta is such a soft boi and i really want to write for him lol; this may sound rash, but i am going to write fucking smut for this man (a bold decision for such an innocent boy lol); i went through a really intense hunger games phase at the age of thirteen and yeah

vincent (collateral); hello *insert tom cruise character*, we meet again; i’m so sorry lol but i was so attracted to him in this movie cause we always see him as the good guy so like him as a bad guy?—wheewwww; there’s also no fanfiction for this man so i’m just doing a service to the community like 🙄; (there will be mentions of smut in this as well)

edmund pevensie (the chronicles of narnia); i have always been, am, and will forever be that bitch who would die and kill for edmund (him in prince caspian can end me); this will probably be a series, i don’t really know lol

ethan hunt (mission: impossible); there are multiple story ideas in my notes for this man, and they’re all spin-offs from the main series (the world will be dead by tomorrow, and i want you to come over; long title, i know); there is a proposal fic in this and i have made it my mission to make people cry cause i always cry at proposal fics lol; there’s stuff to do with miller as well lol, as well as other characters; this is gonna be a long ass series lol (but it’s cause ethan’s hot af)

tony stark (marvel); probably smut, and that’s all i can say about it (he owns me istg)

yelena belova (marvel); bitch i fucking love this woman with my entire body, soul and heart, and don’t you dare hate on her 🔪; but i also know her character’s asexual in the comics so

clint barton (marvel); he seems pretty chill yknow, and he could definitely fucking rail me and hence ^^

benny watts (the queen’s gambit); he’s a hot chess dude and has really nice hair and hands, so obviously he’s the perfect candidate for one of my smut fics; thomas brodie-sangster, what’s uppp 😩

whitey winn (godless); an underrated legend, deserved better, hot cowboy, so need i say more?— i don’t think so; i don’t have anything but a sentence for this man lol, but i plan on just having the one story for this guy and having it be 😃 hardcore 😃 smut 😃

okay then! there you have it: basically my entire writing plan for the next five fucking years ig.

i really hope y’all are looking forward to some of the stuff on this list, cause i sure as fuck am. and please hang around to read them lol — it means so much to me when people leave comments and likes!

okay, i hope you all have a nice day! (please go drink and eat something as well!)

[hyunjilicious]

that night [harry styles]

A best friends to something else type of story. Exactly 7.8k (literally 7800 words which is scary) and you know I can’t write that much without SMUT. This takes place during a sleepover at the end of quarantine! Maybe tell me what you thought? :) (I promise I’ll edit this soon!)

-

“Show me yer phone, love” Harry groaned, sending you the coldest of death stares. The night started off as usual, you two just watching some old documentaries, paying more or less attention to them as you mostly just sat and talked. Things took a turn when your phone started blowing up with messages. Being the kind of person who always replies in an instant, suspicions arose when you decided to completely ignore the texts. Although Harry never violated your privacy and never pushed you for answers you didn’t want to give, when you started laughing and got nervous about whoever it was that kept texting you, he figured it would be worth it to push your buttons.

“I said no” you repeated yourself, standing up from the couch. There were two main reasons you didn’t want to talk about the person texting you, and these 2 reasons were also probably the only two things in the world you wouldn’t want to discuss with him.

“Why no’?” he asked offended, following you into the kitchen, like a small child begging his parents to let him have his way, “What can be tha’ bad? I wouldn’t have asked any questions if yeh hadn’t been so off about it from the start”

You turned and looked at him dead in the eye, contemplating what to say next. He beat you to it.

“Is it a guy? Have you been seein’ someone?” Harry asked as he walked over to you, completely ignoring your personal space. “Is tha’ it? I don’t wanna read yeh texts, just tell me yes or no, and I’ll drop it. Promise”

You took a deep breath. “Yes, it’s a guy” you said calmly, “But we’re not seeing each other”

“Then why does he keep texting yeh like crazy?”

“Crazy…” you sighed, tapping your chin, “Good description”

“Come on, Y/n” Harry whined, tapping your shoulder as he walked past you and towards the refrigerator, “Just tell me, I’m really curious, crazy how?”

“Promise you’re not gonna freak out?” you laughed, grabbing whatever he was pulling out of the fridge and handing to you. You stopped paying attention after three cups of pudding and one bottle of wine.

“When have I ever freaked out?” he joked, mocking himself. He was usually a calm person, more composed than anyone you’ve ever met, and he less than rarely got angry. And from those times when he did lose his temper, 90% of cases were mild and he was still calmer than anyone else in that kind of situation, but that 10% left was pure terror. When his friends told you years ago that nothing’s scarier than Harry when he was truly mad, you didn’t quite believe them. You had to see for yourself to accept it. It only happened a few times in almost 5 years, but you always still did everything you could to keep him from going off again.

“Ok, so” you started speaking as you rummaged around your kitchen for bowls and glasses, “His name is Marcus and we actually met on Tinder-”

“Wait a second” he cut you off, “During the lock down?”

“Oh, no. It happened before all of this madness. Around january, I think”

It was obvious he was already bothered by how this conversation started, but he did his best to control himself so you wouldn’t decide to drop it. “Pretty serious, then, huh?” he said eventually.

“Literally the opposite” you laughed, pouring the pudding into the bowl, “We saw each other once-” and it hurt you to say the following part but you did it nonetheless, “hooked up, and didn’t talk since”

Pure annoyance was readable on his features. “Apparently haven’t talked until now?”

“Yeah, I mean-” you cringed, “He texted me like a week or so ago and we didn’t - vibe, and he got weird, so like I muted the conversation for 7 days because I didn’t want him to bother me anymore but he got so defensive it was funny so I didn’t really wanna block him”

“Yeh muted the guy a week ago and he still keeps trying?” Harry asked, completely taken aback, “Can’t blame him, but still, tha’s a bit much”

“It is” you nodded in agreement, and motioned for him to open the bottle of wine for you.

“He must have liked yeh a lot” he mumbled, twisting the corkscrew into the top of the bottle, “Maybe you two had a really great time, and he-”

“Harry” you stopped him, leaning your head to the side, “I know you’re squeezing information out of me right now, but I honestly don’t think you want to hear more of this”

“Ok” he sighed defeated, “I’m gonna stop pushin’ yeh. Thanks for tellin’ me tho. And sorry if I crossed any lines''

“You haven’t, H” you smiled, giving him a hug from behind. “It’s fine”

After gathering everything you had fixed up to take into the living room, the pudding and the wine, as you passed the threshold of the kitchen, you heard Harry speak up, traces of amusement audible in his voice. “But like… At least was the sex good?”

“You want me to answer that?” you chuckled, plopping down on the couch. “Do you seriously want me to answer that?”

“Yeah” Harry shrugged, smiling innocently.

“It was horrible” you said bluntly and watched his grin wilt away. “Probably the worst sex I’ve ever had. No, no, no.. Definitely the worst sex I have ever had in my entire life”

His mouth fell agape. “Seriously? Why?”

“Well, i got to his house… And you know, up until then everything was fine, like he seemed like a completely normal and fun guy while we texted but like, as soon as i got to his place he became really… I don’t even know how to put it, he was um.. Very clingy and weird and we talked for a bit but then when we went to his room he turned into literally the biggest asshole I met”

“What?” Harry exclaimed, “Tha’s not wha’ I expected”

“Exactly!” you laughed, “Neither did I!”

“Then wha’ happened?”

“I went down on him and he didn’t do the same because apparently he finds that gross? That’s what he told me but I didn’t wanna get into it because I went there to get dick so I was like let’s just fuck, and we did… We made out a bit, got him worked up again, and when we fucked I literally thought something was wrong with me, because he just.. I don’t know. Bumped into me and after he finished I was there like… What just happened?”

“Yeh were right when yeh said I didn’t wanna hear this”

“Told you” you giggled, grabbing your pudding and toying with your teaspoon.

“Jus’ stop using Tinder, please” Harry eventually shook his head.

“A girl has needs, ok?”

He was enraged and completely ignored your words, “And wha’ does he want from yeh now? He really thinks yeh’d see him again? Really?”

“I don’t even know what he’s been saying, honestly” you shrugged.

“Can I see?” 

“Can you like, read from the notification box? I don’t wanna leave him on seen”

Harry nodded in agreement and you gave him your phone. He pressed the lock button, the screen lit up, and it was instantly flooded with texts from him. Since you put the conversation on mute a week ago, you had no idea what he had been saying. It seemed that he didn’t appreciate your lack of interest and that he didn’t bother to hold back.

‘You pathetic whore, u really think ur gonna find someone better than me? U think ur so high and mighty and hot but  ur gonna die alone you bitch. Do u feel better about yourself if u juts ignore my texts???? Well good for fucking u-’ and Harry locked the phone, the screen going black.

“The fuck did I just read?” he questioned, his annoyance from earlier, now morphing into pure anger.

“You said you wanted to read” you shook your head.

“Why does he think he can talk to yeh like that?”

“I don’t honestly care” you sighed, “It’s not like I’ll ever see him again, so he can go and say anything he wants”

“‘S not how that works, darlin’” he said.

"Can we drop this, please" you sighed, unable to quite look in his direction, "I don't like this"

"Well-" Harry erupted and judging by the way his voice instantly died down, you could tell he almost lost control, "I don't fucking like it either, ok? But yeh shouldn't jus' accept tha'!"

"I wouldn't call it acceptance, H" you shook your head, discarding your bowl of pudding and jumping straight to the bottle of wine. "I told him I'm not interested, and I stopped replying. It's not acceptance... he just keeps trying"

"But for some reason yeh're letting him talk t' yeh like tha'"

"Well-" you shrugged, and took a big gulp of red wine, "He talks by himself"

"Y/n…" Harry called, his voice soft and you could tell that there was anger hidden somewhere deep inside, but you still appreciated the fact that he managed to keep it contained. He extended his arm, his fingers brushing against the side of your thigh. It was a soft, delicate touch, that made every hair on your body stand up. He did it to get your attention and boy, did it work. Instantly, your eyes snapped to his, and were met with something you did not see coming. "Can I say something?" he asked cautiously, his eyes shining with genuine worry.

"You're making this into something much more significant than it actually is"

"I'll drop it" he eventually nodded, "If you promise me something"

"What?"

"If anythin' similar to this happens again, tell me"

"And what are you gonna do about it?" you giggled, trying to lighten the mood. As you kept staring into his green eyes, you brought the wine bottle up to your lips, took a long sip, and then handed it to him.

He took the bottle out of your hands, seemingly not giving more than two shits about it. The warmth in his eyes accentuated as his eyebrows gathered into a concerned furrow, "Make sure it doesn't get to yeh"

"It doesn't" you smiled.

"Lemme make sure" 

"Ok, Harry" you laughed, "I promise you that the next time a guy from Tinder gets mad about me not reciprocating the feeling, and he starts sending me that kind of texts, I will tell you"

The sarcasm just flowed out of you, and he was not impressed.

"I meant in general, love"

"Any guy?" you taunted, "Not just from tinder?"

"Fucking put on tha’ movie" he shook his head, "I know yeh too well. Won't get anywhere until you get some wine in tha’ belly"

"That's your plan?" you laughed, "Get me drunk and make me spill all my secrets?"

"I never assumed you had any secrets, but yeah, now I wanna know those too" Harry grinned, throwing his arm around you and pulling you to his chest. Although this kind of intimacy was something you've been somewhat used to, tonight it was just a bit more difficult to bear. And it may all have been due to the way he mentioned he wouldn’t want anything to get to your head, and the way he said he’d make sure of it. Even though you weren’t truly clear how he’d do that and what exactly was going through his head, it was crystal clear how you’d have him do that.

But now was not the time. You glued your eyes to the TV screen, and begged your brain to focus on the movie in front of you and not whatever Harry was thinking about, mere inches away from you.

There had been something in the air that night, because neither of you managed to pay any kind of attention to the movie anymore. You talked, the conversation not going back to the previous topic, you laughed, gossiped like there was no tomorrow, and now it was almost 4am, and you and Harry were 3 bottles of wine in. Deciding to cut the alcohol before it was too late, you settled for water, as Harry went on to finish a weird story he once heard from a hippie touring the states in his van. He was completely smitten, his eyes shone with admiration for the old man. Harry spoke with words of great respect about a life he wished he could once live. It was only a matter of time until it would get to you.

“But,” you sighed, laying down and placing your head into his lap, “You really seem like the kind of guy to pack his bags and just leave. Like get a couple of friends or something, leave a note saying you’ll eventually be back, and just travel around the world”

“I kinda already do tha’ love” Harry laughed, double chin showing as he looked down at you.

“Not what I meant” you shook your head, “And you know it”

“Wha’ did yeh mean, then?”

He looked down at you, his hands finding their way into your hair as you contemplated how to put the words together. “I don’t know… Less social interaction-” you finally said, “Make it less about living the same songs in front of thousands of people, and more about living a completely new experience as you really get to know just a handful of people”

He didn’t look convinced. His dimples were showing, and a chuckle was threatening to escape his lips.

“That didn’t make any sense, did it?” you laughed.

“It did” Harry smiled, “Might have’ta resume this in tha’ morning, but i think i got the idea”

You pointed your finger to him, “Best”

“Me?” he grinned, grabbing your hand, “Oh, stop it!”

“Not you, your idea”

“Nice save, love”

You wanted to object and keep this topic going as the butterflies in your stomach started to riot, but just as you opened your mouth to speak, the sound of your phone receiving another text filled the air. In an instant, your eyes locked with Harry’s and you knew he wasn’t gonna let any of that shit slide. Not wanting to give him the chance to protest, you sprung up and leaned towards the coffee table, your fingers barely managing to brush against the side of your phone before Harry grabbed your waist and yanked you back, pressing you against the cushions of the sofa as he hovered above you.

The intimacy and urgency of this whole charade made your skin crawl, and you couldn’t help but let a few giggles escape, “What are you doing?” you laughed.

“Not lettin’ tha’ asshole ruin your night, love” Harry smirked, tilting your head so that you had to face him. 

“I’ll see the text in the morning and it will ruin my whole day” you played along, but as it turned out, you dug your own grave.

“Oh?” he grinned, “So it does get to you”

“No!” you belted, “That is not what I meant, Jesus harry”

“Come on, hon” 

His head tilted to the side, before he leaned down and nudged the tip of your nose with his. “Jus’ say the word”

That sent burning chills down your spine, and your cheeks couldn’t do anything but to comply and turn an erotic shade of pink.

“I’m not sure what to say” you mumbled, fighting against the urge to jump on him.

“I’m yer best friend, love-” he made a small pause, for dramatic effect, and just stared down at you while your blood boiled, “Lemme show yeh how good yeh can feel”

“I-”

He cut you off, obviously proud of himself, “I obviously wouldn’t have asked twice if I hadn’t felt you squeeze your thighs around me”

“Fuck, Harry-” you said, embarrassment rushing all over you as you threw your hands in the air.

He leaned down, and brushed his lips along your jaw, “Yeh could be screaming tha’ name”

Regaining your composure, you grabbed his chin and forced him to make eye contact once again, “What does this mean to you?”

“It doesn’t have t’ mean anything we don’t want it to” he nodded, “Just friends looking out of one another”

“Mhm..” you choked, “Yep”

“Tell me, and I’ll get off of you”

Your answer came a short second later. “Yeah, get off” you said sternly.

His features barely got a chance to show the disappointment that enveloped him, because as soon as the words left your mouth, you pushed yourself up. Excitement started showing on his face as you pushed yourself up. With a devilish smile on your lips, you grabbed the hem of his shirt; not giving him a chance to secure his balance on his knees before you pulled the material up his body. He clumsily shuffled out of it, his tattoos coming into full view.

“Is that a new one” you asked, pointing to his left shoulder.

To your surprise he took you seriously, and looked down, obviously confused, “Which one, love?”

“This one” you grinned, pushing yourself up and against his chest, this way, giving yourself a chance to press your lips to the base of his neck.

Harry’s whole body shivered under you as he let out a small chuckle. Instantly, his hands found your waist. Once your lips grazed his sensitive skin, the muscles of his neck relaxed as if under a spell and his head fell back. Harry’s fingers dug into your sides as your teeth sunk his flesh, sucking profusely. Having waited for this so many years, it felt all too real and completely unreal at the same time. There was a fire burning inside of you and the soft moans slipping past his lips were no help with taming it.

“Having fun?” Harry laughed, but his confidence and usual air of self control were shaking.

As a response, you bit into his ear lobe and delighted yourself with the whimpers of pleasure he didn’t even try to hide.

Although burning for it, you didn’t have it in you to go for his lips, so when he was the one to do it, all your radars went crazy. The way he grabbed your chin and pulled you closer, it was all you wished for. Years worth of pent up emotions dripped from your lips and onto his.

How ungrateful and inappropriate would it have been for you to beg for more and guide the situation in a different direction? Even if his gentleness made your knees weak, the heat between your legs begged for a less kissing and a lot more biting. 

It was when he pressed you down against him that made you forget about everything that held you back. His erection was rubbing against your thigh as you grinded down on him, and you couldn’t help but break the kiss and sink your teeth into his lower lip.

Harry threw his head back against your touch, and a proud smile lifted up the corners of your mouth.

“Come on” you moaned, kissing your way down to his ear, “Show me how you should treat a girl”

His fingers snuck into your hair and pulled your head back, forcing your eyes to meet his’, “Is it me? Or are yeh a bit more excited for this than you initially let on?”

Your eyes sparkled as you let out the fib, “It’s just you”

Grinning, he shook his head in mock approval, and secured you in his hold, before effortlessly spinning the two of you around. Now, a mess of limbs, you looked up at Harry with what could only be described as pure lust. And it all reflected on his features. His ridiculously messy curls framed his face perfectly, allowing his proud gaze to fuel your engines.

With all your might you wanted to let him take the lead and not show too much enthusiasm, but it felt next to impossible. Before you knew it, your hands were cupping his cheeks again, forcing his body flush against your own. He kissed you back with no hesitation, as if he too waited years for this to finally happen, as if this was his dumb way of confessing to you that he too, was head over heels for you. But that was a scenario that regardless of its likelihood, was sure to ruin your mood. 

So you pushed it aside, forced your mind to fall on standby, and instead, you concentrated on the way his hands explored every single inch of your body. When he broke the kiss, you wanted to protest, your tongue crying from the sudden loss of contact. But his lips traveled lower, kissing all the way over down your neck, along your collarbones, and across your chest. It was all aggravated and hungry, as if he couldn’t get enough. 

“Yeh good?” Harry asked, looking up at you, cheeks all flushed.

“Yep, yeah” you whispered, the weight of the moment turning your voice into a light chuckle. Breathless and innocent, you were on cloud nine, and all your struggles to keep that hidden were in vain.

Delicately, as only he could, Harry pushed your shirt over your head, leaving you exposed, a fact which sent a whole new wave of pleasure down your body. This gesture alone shook your whole world, but he wasn't wasting any time. You barely even got a chance to catch your breath before he lowered himself, and cupped your breasts into his palms. Your back arched in an instant, and when his warm lips connected to your skin, goosebumps propagated all over your whole body. As circled his lips and caught your nipple between his teeth, your mind went crazy, muscles sizzling with anticipation. A suggestive moan slipped from your throat, and you could tell it surely tickled his ego.

“Gettin’ there?” he questioned even if he already knew the answer.

You threw him half a shrug, tilting your head to the side and pressing your cheek to your shoulder.

“So fuckin’ cute, angel” Harry chuckled, shaking his head as he crawled up your body, “Why’re yeh so cute?”

“How would I know?” you blushed, playing along with his overly teasing approach, “You’re the one who sad it”

“Don’t know why I think yeh’re cute?”

You nodded no.

A small but sure fire lit up his features, and he knew it was on. He did maintain the eye contact for a while, but when he finally looked down at your body, nonchalantly staring at your chest, that was when your breath got caught in your throat. The pressure was building up, yet Harry kept pushing your buttons. 

In desperate need to pick up the pace, you nudged his chin with the back of your fingers, and when his eyes caught yours; you raised one eyebrow, motioning for him to continue. “Wha’ do yeh want me t’ tell yeh, love?” Harry grinned, leaning down to kiss your neck.

“Tell me what you like about me” you laughed, linking your fingers in his hair. While you laughed due to the amount of different emotions that coursed through you, Harry made it all the more difficult for you to keep it together. His kisses were light enough for you to feel the ounces of love that dripped from his lips, but carnal enough to keep you on your toes.

“I love everything about yeh” he murmured against your skin, his chain of passionate kisses crossing over to the other side of your neck, “I mean, wha’s there not t’ like?”

“Word” you giggled, your sarcasm coming in perfect contrast to the weakness his question brought to your knees.

“Fuckin’ love every inch” Harry said, having completely ignored your joke, “Every single part of yeh, yer body and god, yer mind”

His hands cupped the sides of your rib cage, as his lips traveled down your sternum. He seemed lost, completely absorbed. Every time he looked up at you, it was impossible not to notice how out of this world his eyes seemed. Glossy and dark, extravagant green looking to explore more of you. And those were only the times you managed to catch him staring. The pleasure this man provided surpassed the moaning level, he got you working hard not to scream in ecstasy, as his tongue ran laps around your nipples, and the way his lips sucked with that specific amount of pressure. It looked as if he already knew where all your buttons were, he acted as if he knew your body better than you did. And for you, that was a new experience, which would’ve already been too much, even without Harry involved. But seeing your fingers get lost in his absolutely perfect in a messy kind of way locks, as he treated your skin with such refined skill, you found yourself way too close to the edge.

In the high of the moment, probably following an unidentifiable stimulus, you found yourself concentrated on the way his palms felt against your skin. He held you in his arms as if you were the most precious thing he ever laid eyes on. And for some reason, that feeling alone had you skyrocketing.

It was when you moaned out loud, for the first time not holding back, that he finally decided to give you what he promised. 

“Yeh sure this is ok, angel, yeah?” he murmured, looking up at you. 

His light stubble tickled the lower side of your abdomen as his breath barely managed to reach your skin. 

“Yeah” you clumsily nodded, your words coated in fervid enthusiasm.

Something happened. Something clicked inside of him. You saw it in the way his eyes warmed up. For a second he didn’t move, instead he just took in everything that was happening. When he eventually pushed himself up, you expected him to help you or motion for you to undress, but he didn’t. Harry lowered himself on top of you, pressing his chest against your own.

His fingers locked themselves against your chin, “I really wanna fucking do this right for yeh”

His confession took you aback. The seriousness in this tone was not something you anticipated. At first, he was the one who made it all seem like a meaningless game, yet right now, it seemed as though he fell into his own trap. 

All you could do was nod. Nod in approval, nod as a sign for him to keep going. As a promise that it was all ok. This attitude of his was not something you signed up for. Even if it looked like the beginning of what you always wanted, it also felt a little bit too sudden.

“Come here” you cooed, cupping his cheeks in a loving manner.

In an instant, he leaned into your touch, his skin burning against your damp palms. For the x-th time that evening, his lips melted onto yours, but something felt different. But you kept going, allowed the moment to carry you further without giving yourself the burden of dictating a direction. 

And seconds passed, and with each one, his touch became more and more aggravated. You could feel his need, and you have loved to think that what you were feeling from him was love, but it was just too big of a step to take right now. Not too shortly after, the situation escalated towards the point you left off earlier. You let him take the lead, and he soon returned to his usual self.

Harry made his way down your body through a chain of lingering kisses, each one of them awakening yet another side of you. This time, you were given no time to prepare. His experienced hands grabbed your thighs, groping their way up to your hips. Although it was fairly fast, it felt like an eternity. You breathing picked up when his fingers hooked themselves into the waistband of your leggings, and without even thinking about it, you pushed yourself up, allowing him to take them off. 

Now, you hadn’t seen this coming, because if you had, you probably would have chosen to wear something less embarrassing than your Superman underwear. Your cheek heated up as if it was the first time a man had seen you naked, and all your insecurities washed over you. None of those thoughts crossed Harry’s mind though. 

He just smiled - a gesture whose roots you’d never know. 

Harry positioned himself between your legs, his fingers gingerly tracing up and down your outer thighs. “Really fucken gorgeous, yeh know tha’?”

His compliments have never been this hard to receive, “Shut up” you chuckled, rolling your eyes as you couldn't help but squirm under his stare.

“Wha’?” Harry grinned, leaning his head to the side as he let his teasing side take over, 

“Tha’ tinder fuckface never told yeh just how perfect yeh look?”

“This is still about him, huh?”

“It’s about yeh, love” Harry rolled his eyes, letting his nails graze your skin, “Always been about yeh, always will be”

With each word that let his mouth, he leaned down, lower and lower, until every inch of his body was pressing against your own. He dominated the moment, and you love it.

When he engulfed your lips into a kiss, his right hand traveled between your legs. That alone made your core vibrate, and knowing there was no way to hide your enthusiasm, made you smile.

You felt the back of his fingers trace up and down your opening, and his words confirmed your suspicions. He pulled away from your lips just enough so he could speak, but he was still too close for you to properly see his features - he was just a few literal inches away, “I can’t wait to taste yeh, doll”

The grin on his lips and the pride of his tone, had a visible effect on you. The hairs on your body stood up in anticipation, and you couldn’t help but arch your back and close your legs around him. You kissed him back, and this time, it was on.

As his tongue pushed past your lips, Harry’s hands lewdly traveled down your sides, caressing every inch of exposed skin they found in their way. You didn’t see the eagerness coming, but when he reached between your legs, the flimsy material of your underwear didn’t even begin to come in his way. He shoved his hand under your panties, his fingers instantly coming in contact with your opening.

It was solely the emotional value of the moment that made you nearly gasp. Harry took his sweet damn time, as if you needed any more foreplay. The pads of his fingers gingerly traced up and down your opening a few times, before coming back up again to rest against your clit. It was soft and easy at the beginning, but the feather light touch of his fingers started gaining more and more pressure as subtle circular movements started to form.

When you looked up at him, you were met with the mess of curls that had fallen onto his forehead as he had his head hanging low, with his eyes trained between your bodies. With a gentle nudge against his chin, you prompted him to look up. At first he seemed a bit disoriented, but a wicked grin shortly appeared on his lips. It made you smile.

He was the one to resume the kiss, making it gentle this time - in perfect contrast with the action of his fingers, as he slowly made his way past your folds. When the first finger went in, you curled the corners of your mouth in anticipation. It felt fine, but it was just the tip of the iceberg and you knew it. Eager for more, you allowed your teeth to lewdly sink into his lower lip, willing to show him you wanted more. 

With a grunt, Harry shuffled a bit, his knees bucking into your hips. The deep breath he released tickled your skin, but you weren’t going to let this go. As you forced your teeth just a bit deeper into his plush skin, Harry let his forehead fall against yours. 

His tongue neatly traced along your upper lip, and you thought it was in response to your actions. And this erroneous thought kept you from anticipating his next move. When Harry pushed one more finger in, your senses went mad, and the simple fact that he didn't give you too much time to adjust before he pushed a third finger in, rocked you completely. 

You moaned in return and arched your back.

"I got yeh, baby girl" he whispered softly, "Look at me, I got yeh, ok?"

After receiving an enthusiastic nod from you, Harry made his way down your body. This time, he swiftly shuffled to the side, pulling your legs together and riding you of the unnecessary piece of underwear you still had on.

Not waiting for him to take control, you spread your legs, and feasted on the carnal look he had in his eyes as he looked down at your body. He didn’t waste any time before finding the perfect spot between your legs. Your whole body shivered as he leaned his head to the side, his light stubble tickling its way down the inside of your thighs. 

And following the rough feeling of the still shy beard you didn’t think he was able to grow, when his soft lips brushed against your skin, you involuntarily clenched. You bucked your hips and your legs tried, but to no avail, to close the distance between one another. You wanted more - needed more. And he noticed it.

Looking down along your body, you could only see the top of his head. And his fingers, pressing into the skin of your legs. And the tip of his nose as he proceeded to tease you into oblivion with millions of kisses, each of them nothing less than heavenly, but still, nothing compared to what you knew was coming next. The only warning he gave you as a hurried grin, and it was nowhere near enough.

It was on. Elegantly, but with traces of dominance in his touch, and with two fingers, Harry spread your pussy wide open, his tongue lewdly slipping right inside you. The contact and the buildup made you gasp. Had you not been so over the moon and distracted already, you’d have heard him snicker in response to the sound you just made. But you were too caught up. You felt him on every inch of your body, and the signals your core were sending you, were not what you wanted.

You wanted this to last. To have him go at it, lapping at your core for hours. To feel his tongue wag until your senses went numb.It might have been the dry spell that was forced upon you as the pandemic overtook your life, or the timeless, painful crush you’ve had on him for years, but you were already on the edge.

Trying hard to make the moment last, you curled your pointer finger and shoved it into your mouth, biting down hard. Your back arched dangerously as your head flew back, but it all just worked in his favour. Your pleasure was building up, and the careful, experienced movement of Harry’s tongue against your clit was only gaining momentum.

“Yeh taste like fucking heaven but I think yeh already knew tha’” he said, for a second pulling away from your core and giving you a chance to catch your breath.

All you managed was a pathetic excuse of a nod, along with a shy roll of your eyes.

“None of tha’” Harry laughed, licking his lips, “Don’t care how close yeh are, ‘m not gonna stop until yeh moan my name, love”

“Jesus christ, Harry!” you panted, shaking your head.

He responded in a similar manner, and again, with no warning whatsoever, he went back in. This short break allowed you to regain your composure, even if it was just a tiny bit. Your excitement, although still there and just as consuming, was easier to control now. You felt his touch all throughout your body, his tongue tickling all your senses.

What brought you closer into the moment was the feeling of his hands, as he grabbed your thighs and pushed your legs up onto his shoulders. For whatever reason, this felt even more intimate, and as his fingers sank into your flesh, you felt your engines start up again.

The delicate flicks of his tongue were getting more and more aggravated by the second, and now it was close to impossible to keep calm. Sweaty palms gripping tirelessly into the cushions under you, your back under constant strain, your eyes squeezed shut - he had you entirely.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he went further. Harry pushed one finger inside of you, moving his lips up to fully concentrate on your clit. His tongue prepared you, got you all ready and wanting, and then, he wrapped his lips around your bundle of nerves and sucked - gently and with a minimal amount of pressure, but god-

“Fuck, Harry-” you called out. It was more of a cry, choked back in the depths of your throat, all breathy and muffled.

“Come on, angel” Harry whispered.

As you looked down, past your heaving chest, your eyes landed conveniently on the top of his head. Complete chaos - his unruly curls tickled the inside of your thighs, as his fingers dug into your flesh. The two rings he never takes off were sure to leave proud indents on your skin.

Harry sucked at your bundle of nerves, the eager touch of his tongue awakening absolutely every need inside your being. Add the experienced pumps of his fingers and the fact that this was Harry Styles and none other, and you were done.

With each passing second you started to lose more and more of the control you had on your body. Sweating nervously out of every pore of your body, you squirmed under his weight hoping you’d make the moment last.

“‘S good, love, isn’t it?” Harry smirked for just about a second, “I can see yeh, yeh’re a mess fo’ me”

“Fuck” you whined, covering your face with your right palm as your head tilted backwards, “Shut up”

“Oh!” Harry faked surprise, “Gettin’ cocky?”

As he spoke, Harry curled his fingers inside your pussy; maybe intentionally - maybe by chance, hitting all the right spots and making you moan out loud.

“I’ll take tha’ as an apology”

You scoffed.

Harry shook his head. When you looked down at him again, you caught him licking his lips. It was obvious he waited for you to catch him doing that.

Already at the edge of your self control, you curled your fingers into his hair, motioning for him to resume his work. He followed your lead without any complaints, and when his bottom teeth grazed your clit, even if it was light as a feather you lost it.

Your mind became numb, drunk on the pleasure he provided. Your eyes rolled back as you enjoyed every second of your high. Harry kept you spiraling, continuing to lap at your core as the muscles of your legs tensed uncontrollably around his frame.

“Holy fuck-” you breathed out, voice shaky and wounded.

He made sure to milk every ounce of pleasure out of your being, leaving you a heaving mess under his stare.

Harry pushed himself up, nonchalantly wiping his chin, his eyes not allowing yours to look away.

As you gathered yourself and worked on bringing your breathing back to normal, there was only one thought going on inside your head - that it would only be fair if you reciprocate the gesture. Thinking about it was enough to make your core buzz again, but you didn’t have it in you to bring it up, and instead hoped he’d show he wished things didn’t stop either.

But he didn’t.

However, you got to kiss him again. And no matter how badly you wanted to keep the atmosphere on fire, he had other plans. 

“Did I take good care of yeh?” Harry asked as he leaned down beside you. His hand found your cheek, keeping you in place for another longing kiss, “Did I do yeh right?”

You nodded against his lips, not willing to actually word the answer.

His chuckle made it clear that the point got through. And for a second it seemed as if the night wasn’t done. None of you was willing to pull away, and allowed the minutes to go by without a care in the world, lost in each other’s arms.

“Freakin’ love yeh, angel” Harry said.

It wasn’t the first time you’d hear this coming out of his mouth, but you couldn’t help but smile thinking this time it was meant in a different manner. You answered him by cuddling deeper into his chest, and that was a moment you wouldn’t have traded for the world.

And you fell asleep like that. No matter how big and luxurious your couch was, you still spent the night glued to one another. Harry felt every calm breath of yours on his skin and everytime he moved a bit to adjust his position, his hold tightened around you to make sure he wasn’t pushing you away.

After what was probably the best sleep you’d gotten in the whole year of 2020, morning came around. Actually it was lunch time, if we’re being generous. The sun was high up, proudly making its way into your living room, past the curtains to forgot to draw the other night.

When you awoke, Harry wasn’t there anymore. However, panic didn’t have the time to settle in as you heard movement coming from the kitchen, and the strong smell of coffee reached your nose in no time.

You got up from the couch, with herds of butterflies in your stomach. Harry’s words from last night still echoed in your head, and even now, with no alcohol in your system, they managed to bring goosebumps all over your skin.

“When did you get up?”

That was how you made your presence known.

Harry turned around with a smile on his face. He had a bag of avocados tucked under his arm, as he typed away on his phone. His undone pants were hanging onto his thighs for dear life, and the only other piece of fabric on his body was a thin, brown hair tie around his wrist. There were a few purple marks along his collar bones and his hair looked rougher than usual, things which deep down, shook you up a bit.

 “Wanted to take yeh out fo’ breakfast, but I gotta leave in like an hour, so I figured this should do”

“Yeah, yeah sure” you agreed, “It’s perfect”

“Would’ve done mo’, but Y/n, yeh have no food in this house”

You laughed, walking over to slump down into one of the chairs, “Didn’t get a chance to get any perishables”

“You got some” Harry chuckled, “You got weeks’ worth of everything you need to make guacamole and pancakes”

“I have no idea how that happened, those will spoil” you shook your head, “You can take some of them actually”

“Or I could just come over”

“Even better”

The food was ready in no time. Harry had everything done and set while you washed up a bit, and after that, you both sat down to eat. Minimal and light, but still, there was a weight in the pit of your stomach.

“About last night-” Harry began to say, but you tried to stop him.

“You don’t have to-”

“We kinda do, love” he smiled, “I need to apologise, angel”

You squinted your eyes, “For?”

“I don’t really have t’ apologise fo’ what I said because I meant every word” Harry slowly said, as if he has a hard time putting his thoughts together, “I jus’ wish I hadn’t said it like tha’ though”

“Like what?” you questioned, a bit lost.

“Like I had the right to say that kind of crap” he laughed. It was nervous laughter, like he was afraid of what was coming next, “I do fucking love yeh, but I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted to hear that”

“What are you talking about, I don’t understand” you groaned, growing a bit tired of the impatience he brought upon you.

“You’re my best friend, ok?” he sighed, “That’s all we are, Y/n, and that was not supposed to happen”

The food got lodged in your throat, and you felt like if you didn’t stand up, you’d no longer be able to breathe. “It was your idea” you scoffed.

Harry’s eyes followed your frame, but he remained seated, “I know”

“So what changed? If anything even changed. I don’t understand what the problem is. You regret we did what we did-”

“I don’t regret anything” Harry butted it.

“You said it was not supposed to happen!” you exclaimed, rolling your eyes as you walked over to the sink, just to make yourself useful and to stop just standing in front of him.

“The things I said to you-” he said sternly, pushing his chair back and throwing his hands into the air, “I shouldn’t have said those, ok? It doesn’t matter who meant what, I told you things that-”

“What did you tell me that’s bothering you so much?” you almost yelled, annoyance dripping out of your pores. You walked over to him, and he closed the distance by standing up.

“I-” Harry stuttered, playing with his hair to buy himself some more time. “All the-”

“What?” you pushed, “That you like everything about me? That’s what you regret saying? And what else?”

“God” he groaned, “I don’t regret saying tha’, it’s just tha’ it wasn’t my place to say it”

You fell silent.

“If I were you... I’d want to hear those things from someone that is more than just a friend to me” he confessed.

“And you can’t be that to me? More than a friend?”

After a few seconds of painful silence, realization hit him, “Y/n…”

He did reach out. He took a step towards you but you stepped back. The remorse in his tone was too painful to ignore. So you moved away from him and slowly made your way out of the kitchen.

“Y/n!” Harry called, following you.

“Just go”

“Please...”

“Please what?” you shook your head, but he didn’t have the words you needed to hear.

“I’m sorry”

“It’s fucking fine” you sighed, walking backwards towards your room, “Just show yourself out”

[teacupfulofstarshine]

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)