#now that it did click it’s a pretty clever line

[herearedragons]

fun NPMD fact: it took me A While to realize that “can I shit or will I drown” in Hatchet Town references the way Richie died.

for a while I was perfectly willing to accept they just put in a line about poop for no reason

[thekiltongrammarwriter]

Under the same Moon

Pippa Fitz Amobi X fem reader

Summary: Sleep. Fascinating topic, really. Did you know that being near someone you love can actually help you fall asleep faster? It’s all about oxytocin—the cuddle hormone. When you’re close to someone you care about, your body releases it, calming your nerves and easing you into slumber.”

Warnings: infinite fluff, Pippa Fitz Amobi being a cuddle bug, insomnia comfort. Some light angst at the beginning, and panic attack Pip and Stanley Forbes mention. Pip being the ultimate girlfriend and dancing you in her arms, humming Pippa Fitz Amobi just for your amusement and request. A few curse words. Could be used as a sleep aid? but more for some comfort and of course all the hugs to Pip. SPOILER BOOK TWO MENTIONS

words: 3.3k+

Author Note: Could possibly have turned out better but alas I have some other Pip ficts lined up in the near future.

It was always there. The sound of the bullet hitting the ground was so vivid and loud in Pip's mind, etched into the way her brain was formed. Lodged in her memory, didn't matter how much time had passed it was still there, forever looming over her like some curse she couldn't lift.

It was here now as she typed on her computer, blue-grey eyes looking downcast as she eyed the illuminated screen in the dark hollowed room of your flat, the small space illuminated only by the small yellow desk lamp that waddled every time she typed a single letter. Pip flinched upon every touch of the keyboard, the sound of the gunfire hiding in every click and every creak of the flat. Pip inwardly cursed herself, 'You're better than this be better than this'.

She admonished herself for every weak thought and every day she would smile and laugh because it felt like in some odd morbid way she was forgetting Stanley, moving on with her life when he didn't have the chance to. It made her knuckles white and blanched when she would think about him, it wasn't as often anymore, and Pip didn’t know what was worse, having him has a ghost or forgetting him and making him into one. Before she would wake up with strangled cries in her throat and would thrash around till you would turn on the bedside lamp and take her into your arms, press butterfly kisses to her warm flushed skin, and cacoon her like some baby Joey in need of its mother's pouch. At first, pip had found it to be embarrassing. She was a young woman now, capable of so many things, she had solved two cases that even Little Kilton police hadn’t been able to. And yet every night without fail you held her close with your soft eyes and even softer hair that would tickle her sides and make her lips lift up into an eager calm grin like some sort of drug from the chemist.

Pip couldn't help but smile when she thought back to you, her grey eyes crinkled inward and she found her chest was lighter, like she could finally breathe after such a long time of her head being underwater. Her eyes moved to the clock, it was witching hour it seemed, 3 am in the small flat on the outskirts of London. When anxiety would take hold of every bone in her body pip knew that it was best to retreat back to you, it was better than having a night full of night terrors and memories of Stanley plaguing her mind.

Turning off her laptop she padded her way softly into the room, eyes taking in the way you breathed, Pip was clever enough to notice that your chest didn’t move as slow, and your eyes were open and staring at the wall like you were in deep thought. “What is a pretty girl like you doing up at this ungodly hour?” She moved to sit in the bed beside you, the soft mattress dipping underneath as she slowly pulled you to her chest, seeking that comforting warmth scent that only you could provide.

You buried your cheeks into her neck, hearing Pip giggle when your warm cheeks met her cool neck. “I’ve been thinking is all. I want to sleep but my brain won’t shut off, it’s like a bloody mouth that doesn’t know when to stop yapping. I’ve been up since you left”.

Pip sucked in a breath, she had left you at a quarter to nine hoping that you had been asleep, but now she felt even more angry with herself. “You mean you haven’t slept at all? All night?”. Her voice was filled to the brim with concern, etched into her furrowed brows and the way the soft pads of her fingers brushed against your hairline, trailing over your skin with gentle ease.

You furrowed your nose, a smile lifting your lips. Whether by utter exhaustion or simply because of being in the presence of a concerned cuddle bug Pippa Fitz Amobi you didn’t know, “It’s cute when you act all concerned pippa…but I’ve been dealing with this for a long while. I just need some melatonin. I just haven’t the time to have a drop-off at the chemist. I suppose I should soon” You smiled softly at her, but Pip knew by the bags under your eyes and the fatigued glint in your colored hues that you were positively hanging on by a thread. She was too, emotionally more so.

“I can’t sleep either. It’s Stanley” she spoke. Her grey flecks eying your soft eyes seemed to fill with hurt at the man’s name. “I’m so-“Pip sighed into your neck, feeling that rush of emotions and the way her tears brimmed out of her eyes, fast and without even acknowledging her and asking if she felt like crying and the weight that came with crying. The weighted chest and unbearable stuffy nose.

“I’m so angry”. The words rushed out, muttered into your warm skin. You instinctively moved to wrap your arms around your girl, your fingers working effortlessly in her hair, massaging her neck and kissing the inner workings of her warm forehead. You knew Pip and her utter distaste for crying, for “sniveling like a school child” she would say. You knew how clever and logical she was, how she worked well with certain aspects of life. Emotions were not one of them.

“I’m so angry at myself for feeling normal. For the first time in years, I feel like myself again. I feel happy..” at this pip clung to you, “and I feel selfish because half of me yearns for that, yearns for a life with you where I don’t feel guilty, where I can leave Stanley behind in peace knowing that I did all I could”.

But did she?

Had she really truly tried enough?

Pip was brought out of her inner thoughts by warm solid hands on her cheeks, bringing her eye level with you. You looked conflicted as you eyed her; like a million thoughts were floating around your head.

Your fingers cupped her chin gently, “that was not your fault….that was not your fault”. Your words were hard and filled to the brim with utter conviction that Pip knew you were right. Some deep part in her mind hidden away recognized you were right. Whether she wanted to admit it was difficult to say.

“You did all you could pip. God that house was on fire and you still tried all you could”. You chuckled, emotion in your eyes as you peered down at your girlfriend’s eyes. They were such a dark color of blue in this light, a deep solar system blue that you would love to peer at through bed sheets and often times upside down as you would kiss her lips before departing.

But now they were filled with anguish, and it hurt you to know that. You wished you could take it all away. The hurt, the anger, the feeling of loss. Of looking over your shoulder. But you knew you couldn’t, so you settled for being her comforter.

“I don’t want you to blame yourself anymore my love”. You wiped a tear from her pale cheeks. “Say it…it wasn’t my fault”.

It took a second, more than a second. Pip struggled to say the words, her lips shook and her eyes pooled with unshed tears, and through it all, you held her closer and leaned your forehead against hers, eye to eye, heart to heart, pulse to pulse.

“You can do it pip” you urged, your voice gentle, soft as if soothing a child.

Pip drew in a long breathe, her breathing ragged as she closed her eyes and tears fell down her pale cheeks, but soon they were open and eying you with such adoration you couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

“It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault…I didn’t…I didn’t kill Stanley”.

You wanted to cry too at her admission. Wanted to bring her close and cry into her neck and tell her that she was so strong, a solid person with a strong courageous heart. You wanted to cocoon her close and never let go. Never let the world bark and scratch at her like they had, had been ever since the case. You wanted to keep her all to yourself, some selfish part of you wanted to keep her close.

You settled for an encouraging smile, the tips of your fingers ghosting over her lips, “yeah…that was good love. You did so well”.

Pip immediately dove into your arms, landing on your lap and cuddling into like a koala would its mother, you chuckled, pulling her flush against you.

“I love you”.

The admission made your heart flutter and leap. You loved this girl too, sometimes so bad that it hurt, and you knew you would do anything for her. Anything. Pip could ask you to jump, simple, and you would ask with your adoring eyes ‘How high?’. It was almost panic-inducing how much your love-filled heart was stitched together by pip.

“I love you pippa fitz Amobi. More than you could ever know”.

Pip smiles that wide bashful smile, her grey eyes glinting as she moves from her spot on your chest, her demeanor shifting as her sneaky nimble fingers fly up your arm till they make contact with your chin, pulling gently but firmly that you felt like a deer in headlights as pip loomed over you, her eyes a deep and hollow blue, taking in everything from your sleep shirt to your messy tousled bed head, strands of wavy hair falling at your shoulders.

Pip could feel her heart soar in her chest as she eyed you, under her, under her fingertips. Something in her preened at knowing you were hers, it screamed the word ''MINE' over and over again as her eyes scanned you, leaving her dizzy and full of aching want. A want that made her want to pull you close and never let you go. Wanted her to hear your heartbeat against her ear during long nights and know that even if she was far away in her head you were across the room with your sweet smile and kind eyes. You were always there. And she needed that.

“God I don’t think I’ve told you how beautiful you are” Pip’s voice was soft yet hoarse from her crying, but her eyes were delicate as she smiled that same pip smile. The smile that made your stomach twirl and your heart face at just the sight.

At the same moment, Pip jumped from bed, so fast and sudden you didn’t even register her soft fingers as they pulled you up from your comfy bed, “I have a brilliant idea, come with me”. Her voice was tinged with excitement and a teasing smile that made your head fill with cotton.

Before you knew it pip was pulling you into your dark kitchen nothing but the shine of the moon looming over you two, a smile on her face as she briskly filled the kettle with water quite impatiently and placed it on the hob, all while eying you with bright teasing blue eyes.

“What are we doing?” You giggled as Pip moved closer to you, a new glint in her eye as she pulled you close, her hands firm in the way they held you, “Dancing” she stated, and you couldn’t help but laugh as Pip began to rock you back and forth, steady in her movements.

“There isn’t any music pip!” You giggled into her neck but you didn’t mind, not one bit. Not when Pip was laughing and her eyes had a shine to them as she pulled a certain move and twirled you around your small cramped kitchen flat. Pippa Fitz Amobi was dancing around your shared flat with wild abandon, brown chestnut curls wild as she pulled you close to her chest and rocked her body with yours, giggling and laughing along the way at your absolutely horrid dance moves. Although she could never have them, not when you looked so flushed and so beautiful.

She couldn’t help but watch you as your lips flew into a smile that filled her aching heart with joy. The type that she searched for when she was too far gone, lost in the memories that haunted her, you had always been her light in the tunnel of life. Pulling her out of the dark depths of her mind and making her feel like she was the only one in the world. She was more than the girl who solved cases, more than everything little Kilton and the world had coined her as.

Pip also just didn’t understand how you could look so devastating and heart wrenchingly attractive with your pajama shirt that rode up a few inches and your hair an unruly mess, but you were. A sight for sore eyes as she brought you fast into a twirl into her chest holding you close and laughing into your neck when you teased her about her moves.

It was only till the giggles had halted and you relaxed your body into her tight embrace that you began to watch the way Pip’s eyes eyed you. Gone was the playful joyful pip, her embrace was soft yet held a certain air to it as she began to eye your lips. A quick snap to your pink crimson cheeks most likely brought on by the wild dance in the kitchen and Pip was leaning down to connect your lips. Her fingers moved to take your chin in her palm, her kiss soft and gentle but slowly building up speed as she pushed you up onto the counter, careful not to get you close to the kettle. You responded in time, your own fingers pulling her in closer by her hair and you smiled vigorously when Pip gasped into your lips and her tongue began to tease your lips with that wild curiosity that made your stomach twist and the white-hot heat slide into your veins.

Kissing Pip was like a dream, the way your chest would ignite and fill your heart with that spark, that fluttering in your chest that you knew was love. You began peppering kisses against her jaw and nipping at her ear the way you knew she liked when the sudden scream of the kettle caused Pip to sigh against you and pull away.

Her cheeks were ruddy and her lips pink as she licked her lips, sighing into you with broken breaths.

“Like that dance did you?”.

You smiled and jumped of the counter, Pip being her usual gentlewoman self and offering you help, her fingers almost possessive as she lifted you of the counter and onto your feet.

“You just sit right there pretty girl"” she stated before going back to the kettle and pouring copious amount of milk into the mugs.

You wanted to listen to Pip and sit on the stool like the good girl you were, but you were also curious about what Pip was doing, she had never acted so in the moment filled with sporadic ideas till now.

“What are you doing? I was so distracted by your sudden dance performance I didn’t ask what you were doing” you spoke into her as you wrapped your arms around her figure, leaning your head over her shoulder slightly as she pulled some Cadbury chocolate mix into each before stirring.

“I’m making us some hot chocolate, isn’t that what your mum use to make when you were little? You mentioned when you couldn’t sleep your mum would make you some hot chocolate and you’d talk and talk till you fell asleep. I thought we could keep that tradition”

The warmth that filled your chest was light and you only smiled that shy smile, you had mentioned that to Pip maybe once in primary school, in the canteen filled with the anxious rambling pupils of Kilton grammar and you had been sure she hadn’t heard you, but she apparently had.

“I mentioned that to you in year 10 pip, I honestly thought you hadn’t heard or you didn’t quite remember” you spoke and Pip shook her head, mouth twisted in a bewildered expression, “of course, I remembered! You were the cutest thing sitting in front of me with your wild fast lips. Who else would I have paid attention to?” Pip asked, her lips warm as she pressed a firm kiss to your forehead and handed you your cup, “it’s hot so be careful”.

“Do we have any peppermint sticks? ”

“I still don’t get your obsession with those peppermint sticks” Pip spoke, shaking her head before producing one and stirring it in your cup, but she had to admit the sight of you with a candy stick between your wet pink lips was definitely something she had never seen before.

Once Pip had her cup and tasted some, her expression filled with utter kiddish glee she took you by your waist as you both stumbled back into bed, you chastising Pip to be careful over your sheet covers as you had just done a full washing the day before did pip laugh and smile, “I’m always observant and careful my love, I did solve two cases remember?”.

“Of course of course my mistake inspector Amobi” you chuckled into your cup.

Your flat was calm and quiet as you and pip some, laughs and giggles falling out of your mouths, “Cara did not say that. She would never!”

Pip eyed you with wild eyes, “have you even met Cara? That is exactly something she would say! She has an ungovernable tongue that girl”.

“Speaking of ungovernable tongues” you spoke, putting your mug down on the nightstand and moving into Pip’s lap, eyes taking in the way her eyes flew down to your mouth.

“That little make-out session you gave me in the kitchen was very well received” you spoke, smiling against her lips when she pulled you in for one more long kiss, stealing the air from your lungs and making your stomach flip with every brush of her fingers against your skin.

“Are you still sleepy?” She asked between kisses, and you chuckled. “I would totally fuck you on this bed right now if I could but my eyes are closing and I feel like I’m eating your lips” you mumbled.

Pip laughed, breaking the kiss before moving to lean her head against yours.

“I should probably get my tired girl to bed shouldn’t I? You have an early morning and it’s already 3:30. Sleep. Fascinating topic, really. Did you know that being near someone you love can actually help you fall asleep faster? It’s all about oxytocin—the cuddle hormone. When you’re close to someone you care about, your body releases it, calming your nerves and easing you into slumber.” pip spoke as she pulled you to her chest, all clever tongue as you both positioned yourself under the covers.

You smiled at her knowledge, moving to nestle your cheeks into her chest. Her fingers were soft as they drew calming circles of messages on your hair, the world calm and dark as you listened to her heartbeat, it was strong and seemed to lull your wild thoughts in your mind.

“Would you mind if I asked you a favor?” Your words were slurred, evidence of your tired state. Pippa chuckled and smiled even through her sleepy state, her fingers still managing to caress your cheeks and your hairline. Soft touches that eased your eyes closed. It reminded you of your mother and her soft eyes.

“What would this favor be?” Pip spoke, her anxiety had calmed down significantly and having you in her arms was like a dream, a way to lull her to sleep and calm her night terrors.

“Could you hum me to sleep?”. You were too tired to care how childish you sounded, but pip had a calming humming voice, soft and delicate that filled your head with warmth.

“For you anything”.

The soft hum of pip’s voice was all you needed. It only took a few moments before your eyes were closed fully and your chest rose and fell with even breathes. Pip followed behind, her fingers moving to lay over you and being you closer to her. Your calm and even breathes mixed with your warmth was the perfect calming remedy lulling her to sleep.

[fauxdette]

The Procurist pt. 5

Azriel x Elain

Summary: Elain learns more about The Procurist and Rhys enlists some help.

Warnings: None

Word count: 1.5k

...

I need you to open your eyes.

Elain blinked, adjusting to the darkness.

She spotted a window, edges curving towards its top like the window of a church. Grey light shone through the glass, highlighting the thick black lines that adorned the domed frame. No, not adornments; bars.

A wooden table sat underneath the window, its top cluttered with bottles and pots and amidst these peculiar items— flowers. Tulips, daffodils and hollyhocks, stuffed into jars or tied together and hanging from the ceiling. Part of the collector's treasures, she realised. The rarities he procured and traded, all piled on top of one another.

On every side the walls were wooden. Beneath her feet the floor was wooden too.

Like a cabin.

Or a coffin.

The thought made her shudder.

She heard something rumble underneath her, like the turning cogs of a machine, or the clicking tongue of a beast.

Rhys? Are you seeing this?

I'm seeing it. Are you okay?

Yes. I— I don't know where he is.

Are you chained? Trapped?

Elain examined her arms and legs. Everything seemed fine. Felt fine.

I'm not chained but—

She spotted a narrow door, tucked between two barrels and a well-aged cabinet.

—there's only two exits and one is barred. I can't see outside or determine our location.

I'm working on it, Elain. Just hang tight.

As if they'd been speaking out loud, the handle of the door turned, causing her to jump back. A moment later the stranger swept in.

"Apologies for the theatrics," he stopped in front of her, grin spreading across his face. “I have an extensive client list and inventory, so precautions must be taken."

Elain shook her head, clasping her hands in front of her dress. "I understand. I wasn't sure what to expect, to be honest."

"Well, that makes two of us," the stranger replied. "When I heard someone wanted to sell a cure for blood magic, I wasn't expecting... this."

His hand waved down her form.

"You certainly don't look like an alchemist."

His gaze lingered and Elain forced herself to blush even as Nuan's pretty, clever face flashed in her mind. He'd either never met the brilliant fae or he was trying to appeal to her with flattery. Perhaps he'd spoken similar words to the women he'd taken.

Her stomach sank.

"That's because I'm not an alchemist," she replied truthfully.

Jethro's expression turned serious. "Well then, fair fawn, how did you come by such a rare piece of magic?"

“My father was an alchemist, of sorts. A scientist really. It was something he had been working on.”

“And where is your father now?”

“He’s dead.” Another bit of honesty, mixed with the lies.

"So the fair fawn is all alone?"

The hair on the back of her neck rose as he took another step towards her. Below, she heard that growling beast stir.

If she said yes, would he pounce on the vulnerability? Assuming no one would miss her? If she said no, would he become suspicious of her? Refuse the exchange before she'd learned anything of use?

"I'm afraid you'll have to trade me something for that piece of information."

The corners of his mouth turned down, eyes glittering. He almost looked impressed.

"Jethro."

"Pardon?"

"You want to trade? Take this. They call me The Procurist, but my name is Jethro."

•••

Taken.

His world shifted, dropping off its axis.

Taken.

This was worse than the first time. Worse than seeing her gagged and bound inside that tent wearing nothing but a nightgown.

Taken.

Because this time he was different. They were different.

Lucien was standing now, glaring at Rhys.

"You let her go on a mission??" Even his metal eye blazed with emotion. A male whose mate was in danger.

It might have angered the Shadowsinger if he was able to feel anything other than the wash of horror and guilt at realising that while he had been camping in the human lands, Elain had been putting her life at risk.

“She volunteered for a mission,” Rhys corrected. “And right now she’s doing what she’s been trained to do. But we have no way to get to her when she does need us. Nesta’s scrying as we speak but he’s too well-warded.”

“What are you thinking?” Azriel searched his brothers face, trying to connect the pieces. How could Lucien help them when no one else could?

“The bond.”

“The mating bond?” The Autumn Lord shook his head. “I don’t understand—“

“Through the bond you can sense the other person. It’s how I knew what was happening to Feyre in Spring, how her visions came to me before she was turned. Mating bonds are powerful, maybe the only thing powerful enough to withstand Koschei’s wards.”

Lucien thought for a moment.

“Okay. Tell me what to do.”

•••

“Hello, Jethro.”

His eyes shuttered slightly, head tilted to the side, as if he enjoyed the sound of his name from her lips.

“May I know your name?”

“If that's what you want to make us even.”

He studied her again, and Elain felt herself tense under that grey stare.

"Mmm... no." He wet his lips. “I might save that favour for later. Fair fawn suits you just fine for now.”

She was beginning to understand how this male had amassed such an impressive collection. He was not only beautiful, he was confident, commanding, and she felt powerless under his gaze, like a worm caught in the claw of a bird.

But she had squirmed enough, played his games, answered his questions. She needed answers of her own. For those missing fae, for their families, for herself.

"Do you... live here?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to trade me something for that piece of information."

She nearly rolled her eyes at the teasing. Instead she said, "Mmm... no. I think I can figure it out just fine for now."

He grinned again. "Oh, really?"

She shrugged. "Really. You're not as cautionary as you might think."

"Please enlighten me."

"Well—“ she began pacing the room, running a finger along the edges of chairs, drawers, and shelves, feigning interest at the valuables displayed . “First of all, there’s no washroom, at least not one you wouldn't have to winnow to. Which means this is either a temporary abode or you don’t have many visitors. However, you did mention your extensive client list earlier, so I'm guessing it's the former."

He laughed. “Very good. I use this place for business or when I travel."

"Must get lonely. Travelling as much as much as you do."

She had stopped in front of what looked like an antique china cabinet, but instead of mugs and bowls and stacks of crockery, jewellery spilled out of the glass doors. Lengths of pearls, coined belts, a tiara or two— Elain even spotted a large red ruby, neatly perched inside a black box. But that sound interrupted them again, so close it shook the floor—

Travelling cart.

The recognition came to her in a flash and she threw the thought to Rhys in her mind, hoping he had heard.

"Are you offering to keep me company?"

She was close to the door, but risked a look over her shoulder. Jethro was watching her, mouth curled into a smirk.

There and then—

"Because I think I would really, really enjoy that." He winnowed in front of her, blocking the way.

Too close. Entirely too close.

Rhys!

"Gods you're beautiful," he reached out and ran a strand of her hair between two of his fingers.

Her heart thundered in her chest.

"That cure is tempting but you—“ he leaned in, running the tip of his nose along her cheek. “You are something else entirely."

Rhys!

*Thump*

The knock on the door was so loud the frame groaned in response.

The Procurist's eyes narrowed. "How did you—"

*Thump*

His head moved swiftly between Elain and the source of the sound. Assessing.

*Crack*

And she didn't have to look. She didn’t have to see the mane of red hair or inhale the smell of apple orchards and crackling firewood to know who it was. She had felt the unmistakable tug on her rib with that first rap against the door.

Lucien Vanserra had come for her.

Read part 6

•••

Tags: @lavenderbloomsinthegarden @greenleaf777 @sakurakittypeach @diabookmama @downingg2001 @teapagesandpetals @nxs98

[crappymixtape]

lovesick

during your shift at family video steve notices something’s off about you, you’re not looking too good, so he closes up a little early to take care of you | (  1.3k, pure fluff, friends to lovers, steve x you, steve x reader )

L O V E S I C K 🎶 wish on an eyelash, mallrat

It was dark out already, snow falling outside the Christmas-light-framed windows of Family Video, little white flurries dancing in the dark. There was only an hour left, only one more hour until you could go home and take off your stupid scratchy green vest and crawl into bed. Why were you so tired? And did Keith crank the heat up again before he left?

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Glancing up you blinked a few times and Steve came into focus, waving a hand in front of your face.

“Whoa, you don’t look so good,” his brow furrowed with concern as he took a step closer to you.

“What? I’m fine,” you snarked, but you couldn’t hide the shake of your shoulders as you shivered, pulling your sweater closer.

“Yeah. Okay,” he drug out the last word, clearly not convinced. Rolling up the sleeve of his henley he closed the gap between you and pressed his wrist to your forehead, “Jesus, you’re burning up.”

“Am not. You’re just mad I’m hotter than you for once,” jerking away from him you started to laugh at your own joke, but it stuttered as you winced at the pounding that had started in your head.

“Incredible, that’s incredible. I see what you did there,” he grinned. You were clever. Shaking his head he hopped over the counter to flip over the ‘Open’ sign hanging on the door, “It’s only an hour.” Steve clicked off the florescent store light and rolled the returns cart back over to you, “Besides, no one comes in after five on Sundays anyway.”

You groaned in protest, but felt your body slowly melting into the counter as you leaned your elbows against it, exhaustion wrapping around you. “I’m fine,” you grumbled, putting your face in your hands, “What if Keith comes in?”

“Alright, first? You’re not fine. You’re sick,” he started, fixing you with the most dad face you’d ever seen as he yanked his coat on. “Second. Screw, Keith. He doesn’t even like that movie, the one with Alex P. Keaton? C’mon, how can you not like it? The guy’s a menace,” after pulling his hat on he grabbed your coat and held it out expectantly. “Your arms go in the sleeves,” he prompted giving it a shake.

Your lips firmed into a line, but you didn’t have it in you to fight back so you crammed yourself into it with a grumble.

“Keys?” Steve made a grabby hand at you.

“Oh, right,” you dug around in your bag, fingers blindly looking for them. Was your head pounding harder now? You shivered again, finally finding them, and dropped them with a clink into Steve’s hand.

His car, his baby, had gotten a ding in the parking lot yesterday and was in the shop getting fixed so he had hitched a ride with you in your crappy old beater. It ran! That was all that mattered. Point A to point B you’d told him. So Steve went out first to get it warmed up as you fumbled with the lock on the shop door. Giving it a good jiggle it finally slid into place with a click. Thank god.

“Alright, c’mon you,” Steve came back to your side, a hand at the small of your back as he helped you to the car. As he opened your door you felt the shivers come back in full force, shaking against him.

Groaning you fell into your seat and ran your hands over your face. “Its so hot,” you whined. Okay, fine, maybe you were sick. You felt like you were burning up in all your layers, forehead dewy as he reached over to click your belt for you.

“I know, let’s get you home,” he shut your door and jogged around to the driver’s side, cranking the car to life and pulling out of the lot down the road to home.

By the time Steve got you in the door, wrangling your coat and shoes off, you did look pretty bad. Catching a glimpse of yourself in the entryway mirror you saw just how red your nose was, eyes bleary and tired looking. You let out a frustrated sigh and wrapped your arms around yourself, hot and cold? This was the worst. “Steve,” your voice wobbled with the shivers that were wracking your body again as you took tiny steps toward the hallway.

“Yeah?” his head poked out of your room and when he saw you shuffling along he waved a hand at you. “Oh, hey. Hey, hey, lemme help,” wrapping an arm around your waist his hand took yours, steadying you as he guided you down the hall and into your room.

Your bed was made and turned down neatly, a nice little pile of pillows against the headboard, and an extra blanket just in case. A flush rose in you cheeks, but it wasn’t from your fever.

You couldn’t help looking at Steve as he got you into bed, noticing the little moles on his cheeks. The way his hair stuck out haphazardly after taking off his hat. The long sweep of his lashes as he focused on tucking you in. Maybe you looked a little too long because after he finished his eyes flicked up to meet yours.

Words failed you, maybe from the headache, maybe from the fuzzy feeling the fever gave you, or maybe. Maybe it was this sweet boy. This beautiful boy who had dropped everything to take care of you.

“Are you okay?” the mattress dipped as he sat down next to you and put his wrist to your forehead again. He clicked his tongue. “You need some Tylenol,” and he was off out the door.

When he came back you were nestled under the blankets shivering, your brow knitted together in discomfort, and he felt his heart squeeze in his chest. Steve hated seeing you like this. Seeing you hurting and tired, your sass and playful grin all but gone.

“Here, take these,” he set a tray on your dresser and brought over two tabs of Tylenol and a glass of water. Slipping a hand behind your back he helped you to sit then went back to the tray as you took the medicine. Coming back for your glass he put it on your nightstand and then gently helped to lay you back down, shifting you just slightly to make room for himself as he settled in next to you sitting up.

Mumbling something to yourself you rolled into him on your side, feeling his hands softly guiding your head into his lap. “Thank you,” you said into the fabric of his shirt, your eyes slipping shut. You couldn’t see it, but the look on Steve’s face was so content. So happy to just be here taking care of you. Being your warmth, your safe place.

He gently ran his hand through your hair, pushing it out of your face to dab a cool cloth to your forehead, “You’re welcome.” Leaning over carefully so not to move you, he grabbed the other thing he brought back with him – a book. Opening it to the first page, he held the book in one hand and rubbed your back gently with the other.

“The trawler plunged into the angry swells of the dark, furious sea like an awkward animal trying desperately to break out of an impenetrable swamp,” he started, scrunching his face up at the next sentence. “The waves rose to goliathan heights, crashing into the hull with the power of raw tonnage– goliathan? Jesus, what the–?” he turned the book over to look at the cover: The Bourne Identity. “What in the hell is The Bourne–” Steve started to ask, but stopped short when he heard your soft little snores coming from under the blanket.

Smiling down at you he closed the book, putting it on your nightstand, before leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead, “G’night you.”

crappymixtape™ • steve harrington masterlist // stranger things masterlist

[adelaidedrubman]

sorry. i guess i have to do this a second time

wip. whatever. i just woke up

been tagged by dears @henbased @socially-awkward-skeleton to share a wip! sadly haven’t gotten much new writing done following a stressful weekend, so here’s a short little piece from one of the comfort prompts that got way too long. warnings for discussions of stalking and graphic violence, you know how they get.

“How did —” she runs a frustrated hand through her hair, pushing it back towards the opossum still clinging there. “How did you even find my spot?! You stalkin’ me now?” A sharp grin carves itself into his face to push back the modest rounds of his cheeks and deepen the sag of his laugh lines, his eyes lighting up with an irritatingly proud twinkle.  He slides a hand beneath his vest, pulling out a sleek smartphone with a cross insignia on its case. “Scathing negative reviews of Snowshoe Lake suddenly popped up last night on Fishbrain, FishHub, ANGLR — even AllTrails and 27 Crags mentioned the nearby mountain pass being subpar.”  “You saw somewhere with shitty reviews and figured you belonged there?”

“I figured it was the work of my clever, reclusive little angler slyly marking her territory.” A slow bat-batting of his eyelashes punctuates the statement. “And lo and behold, here you are.” The hinge of her jaw; her nose twitches. “I like my privacy,” she drawls slowly, so that he may understand. “Now that we’ve gone over the how, maybe we can move on to why the fuck you’re here? And when you’ll be fucking leaving?” If it’s within the next ninety seconds, perhaps she can still salvage her perfect day.  “Why, you haven’t been keeping track?” His tongue clicks against his teeth with a furrow of his brow in a contrived display of woundedness. “We’re celebrating our one month anniversary today!” She snarls and bugs her eyes. “Great! Our fake relationship reached a fake milestone I wouldn’t even celebrate if it was real!” “Do you think that attitude could have been a contributing factor to the death of your real relationship?”  She thinks how beautiful her fishing knife would look lovingly buried to the hilt in his jugular, the sweet glug glug glug he would make choking on his own blood. She thinks about how pretty he would look with that sharp grin sliced to gape and droop like a catfish’s mouth.  “I think interrupting my fishin’ time is about to be a contributing factor in your death,” she settles on. “The only way you’re gonna be any good to me around here is if I chop you up into little bits and use you to bait my fucking hook.” 

no pressure tags out to @wrathfulrook @fourlittleseedlings @galaxycunt @cassietrn @florbelles @g0dspeeed @unholymilf @belorage @shallow-gravy @roofgeese @socially-awkward-skeleton @corvosattano @inafieldofdaisies @direwombat @afarcryfrommymain @poetikat @blissfulalchemist @deputyash @confidentandgood @captastra @voidika @just-another-wasteland-merc @strangefable @8bitpizzacoupons @stacispratt @orionlancasterr @v0idbuggy @jackiesarch @strafethesesinners @henbased @simplegenius042 @clicheantagonist @firstaidspray @quickhacked @miyabilicious @nightbloodbix @thedeadthree @shellibisshe + join/unjoin my wip day tag list by liking/unliking here!

[yoshihashismattebum]

9 People I'd Like to Get to Know Better

Thanks @sycamoretrees for the tag!

Last song: I'm going to cheat and go for a whole album. I've been really enjoying Where's My Utopia? by Yard Act recently: deceptively clever stream-of-consciousness lyrics that walk the line between wry irony and passionate sincerity, all set to post-punk beats that you can dance to. (Shout-out to HELLMODE by Jeff Rosenstock and Sorry for the Late Reply by Sløtface too – both brilliant albums as well)

And while I'm breaking the rules, I might as well mention my wrestling playlist that I've been working on! It's a really eclectic mix of songs that remind me of various different things in wrestling – feuds, characters, general vibes etc. It's not finished yet (I'd like to organise it thematically and write some annotations to explain my thinking behind the choices), but maybe you'll find something on there you like!

Favourite colour: it's a tie between blue and purple (especially lilac). Also currently enjoying the yellow-green of the new leaves that are appearing at this time of year!

Currently watching: wrestling, surprise surprise. I'm just about keeping up with AEW and completely failing to keep up with NJPW. Other than that, I've not really been in a big TV/film mood recently. Although I did see Dune Part 2 the other week, which I thought was fantastic. My partner and I have also become slightly addicted to watching Gab Smolders play Nancy Drew games on YouTube.

Spicy/savoury/sweet/(sour)/(salty)/[umami]: since @sycamoretrees set a precedent of adding options, I'm going to go with another write-in candidate: my beloved umami. I am a Marmite fiend and will eat just about anything if it has soy sauce/miso/strong cheese etc in it. I enjoy pretty much all of the above tastes though, especially when combined in interesting ways. If I had to choose between the original options, I probably lean towards savoury; I have extremely strong opinions on crisps.

Relationship status: I've been with my partner for almost 11 years now :) (While I'm here, go check out her fantastic art and tabletop RPG writing at @mortphilippa! Obviously I'm biased, but she's super talented!)

Obsessions:

Too many to mention them all, but here's a selection:

Wrestling (of course): as well as my usual AEW & NJPW, I've watched some CMLL recently, which has been fun. I also recently reached new levels of nerd by emulating King of Colosseum 2, a Japanese wrestling game from 2004, on PC. It's good! Holds up well!

Tabletop role-playing games – an ever-present obsession for me. I've just wrapped up a 4+ year D&D campaign that I was GMing, which is an odd feeling, but I'm so proud of the story we told together. I'm also currently GMing/writing stuff for Cy_Borg, Liminal Horror and Brindlewood Bay, among others! There are tons more I want to run though – too many games, not enough time! (I am always up for conversations about TTRPGs by the way – I could talk forever about them! Hit me up if you wanna chat!)

Puzzle games: more of a recent obsession. I continue to do the Wordle every day, but I've recently been enjoying Connections (sorting words into categories), Heardle Decades (identifying songs from the intros), and Squeezy (a weird game about fitting letters into other words). I'm also going through a bit of a point-and-click adventure phase. Really enjoying Unavowed by Dave Gilbert currently. I'm not usually an urban fantasy fan, so it's a testament to how good the writing is that I'm loving it as much as I am.

Spring flowers: spring has well and truly sprung here in the UK, and I am loving all of the flowers that are popping up everywhere! There's nothing that brings me joy quite like going for a walk and doing some plant-spotting (I'm trying to get better at identifying plants this year! I'm mostly reliant on Google Lens and a bit of inherited knowledge from my Grandma currently)

Oops, that was A Lot! Enough about me. Time to tag some other people! (Only if you feel like it though! Absolutely zero pressure)

IRL friends (I know you all very well already, but I always love hearing what you're up to 💙): @thewaythroughthewoods, @thepenultimaterolo and @mortphilippa (and @unpairedbracket if you fancy it!)

Some Tumblr people wot seem cool (sorry if we've not interacted much – I've not been on Tumblr a lot recently and I'm bad at starting conversations!): @norfkid, @sybilius, @dansedan, @unlikelywrestlingfan, @punkrockpariah

[gretavanlace]

Sweet Little Toy (part 2)

Jake kiszka Danny Wagner x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: graphic sexual content, unprotected sex, language, dirty talk, oral sex, orgasm denial, penetrative sex, daddy kink, restraints, impact play (alluding to), breath play, etc, idk

“You look so pretty like this, princess.” Jake’s arms wrap warmly around your waist from behind as you pat your cheeks dry with a hand towel. “All scrubbed clean and sweet.”

“Ugh,” you groan, hiding a smile. “I’m hideous…a monster! Look away!”

He huffs a listless laugh into the crook of your neck. “You’re beautiful. I wish you wouldn’t wear makeup at all.”

“Why’s that, Sir Jacob Thomas?” You’ve let your tone soften. “Is there another way you’d like to paint my face?”

“Princess!” He pretends to be scandalized, rutting himself against your lower back so you’ll feel how hard he is for you. “Are you asking to wear my cu—“

Danny’s voice, powerful in its irritation, cuts him off. “I told you to get ready for bed.”

Your eyes meet his in the mirror, but dart away from their brooding heat immediately, offering only a nod of acknowledgement.

“So you understood, but chose to let him climb all over you like a whore who doesn’t know what’s best for you, anyway?”

“Daniel.” Jake’s tone now carries authority and weight as well. “Don’t be disrespectful to her. You know I hate that.”

“She likes it just fine, don’t you, dove?” A tiny squeak of a sound trembles out of you as he moves closer.

In response to that, Danny wraps his massive palm around your arm and pulls you away from his counterpart. “Did you brush your teeth? Wash your face? Take your vitamins?”

When you confirm that you have done all of those things with widened, innocent eyes, he’s tugging you out of the room. Admonishing you as you skip and stumble along behind him, trying to keep up with the stride of his long legs.

“I know you think he’s your Mr. Wonderful Prince Charming Precious Jakey, but he’s too soft, baby. The rules are put in place for you…for your own good. Spare the rod, spoil the child and all that.”

A delicious shiver races up your spine as he guides you down the hall. “I’m not a child.”

“Your bratty attitude says otherwise.” He snaps.

“Someone has to balance out your bullshit.” Jake snarks as he follows. “All you do is boss her around and dole out punishments.”

“And all you do is let her get away with whatever she wants.” Danny sounds dangerous with irritation. “She could commit murder for fun and you’d pat her on her pretty head and get rid of the body.”

“So?” Jake clearly can’t see where the problem lies in that.

Suddenly, as though you’re the one who’s smarting off, Danny has you pressed up against the wall with his hand pawing teasingly at your throat. “She likes it, isn’t that right, sweetness? She likes it when I put her over my knee. When I spank her like a naughty little girl. She fucking loves it.”

It’s mostly metaphorical, Danny’s punishments are far more creative- but you nod eagerly all the same.

“Well, she also likes it when—“

“Shut up.” Danny growls out, head snapping to face Jake so quickly his curls whip softly against your cheek. “You’re in trouble too. You’re fucked. So, just watch yourself.”

A breathy moan trips off your tongue before you can catch it. It’s quiet, a barely there puff of air, but they both pick up on it.

“I think your pretty, coddled princess likes the thought of you down in the flames beside her, Jacob.” He nudges the tip of your nose with his own. “S’been a minute, hasn’t it, little one?”

“Fuck…” you sigh, arching away from the wall, searching for the weight of his body.

“No, no, baby,” he tsks, clicking his tongue quietly. “No swearing. That isn’t very nice.”

“I’m allowed to curse in our bedrooms.” You smirk, feeling extremely smug and clever to be reminding them of their own rules.

Danny is quick to set you straight back into line. “Are you stupid? We’re still in the hallway.” He squeezes your neck just a touch harder. “Haven’t even had a cock inside you yet, and already you’re just a dumb little baby.”

You reach to pull Danny closer, and also extend a grabby hand out for Jake…he feels so far away, but Dan is having none of it and drags that hand back in close to him.

“Go ahead and beg for him, dove. Stack your crimes as high as you want. I’m the executioner tonight.”

“Might as well make it worth your time then, Wagner.” You whisper, licking over his plush, soft lips, fighting to hide a self-satisfied smile.

“Oh, does someone think she’s cute? Hmm?” His knee slides up between your legs as Jake’s mouth appears, lapping languidly over your exposed shoulder. “Is our gorgeous girl feeling brave?”

“Fuck it right out of me.” You pant, grinding down shamelessly. “Make me behave.”

Danny drops the dominance for a blink. “You want it?”

“Need it.” You correct.

“You sure, princess?” Jake speaks up beside you, sounding halfway down the road to nervousness.

It isn’t that watching you take your punishment is the worst thing in the world, his cock aches at the thought…it’s just that he prefers to punish you with pleasure. Overwhelming pleasure. He’d rather fuck you blind over and over until you’re boardering on incoherence; soaked in your own cum and begging for sleep.

“She’s sure.” Danny’s fingers dip under the towel you’re somehow still wrapped in, and delve between your thighs. He drags them gently over you until they drip with your desire, and then offers them up to Jake, who eagerly sucks them clean with a murmur of a groan.

“Taste that?” He slides the pad of his thumb over Jake’s beautifully chiseled cheekbone. “She wants it so badly. Says she needs it. You want our angel to have what she needs, don’t you?”

Without further hesitation, Jake pushes away from the wall and tugs at Danny’s mass of wild curls as he passes, with a hushed, “C’mon.”

Dan hauls you up into his arms and tosses you over his shoulder, cracking your ass swiftly through terry cloth when you shriek in surprise.

With little time to process, you’re slung onto Danny’s bed with a gasp punching out of your lungs upon bouncing impact.

“Listen to all those whiny little noises,” he smiles absently at you while addressing Jake who is watching over you with a darkened gaze. “Fussy tonight, isn’t she?”

This isn’t your favorite thing… when they discuss you as if you aren’t there to overhear it, but something in Danny’s cadence tells you they won’t be a team for long, so you let them have their moment.

“Too many clothes.” Your god of a drummer orders offhandedly, leaving your beloved guitar player to handle that while Dan moves to the chest at the foot of his bed…sifting through silicone, and leather, and metal.

Jake has stripped you of your towel and himself of everything by the time Daniel straightens; his prize clutched triumphantly in his grasp.

“The collar?” You snipe. “I wore it last time. You’re boring.” There’s that unshakable brat marching to the battlefield once more.

He laughs softly, and without humor as he searches your ankle cuffs and chains out, “Oh, little one…” the restraints land onto the duvet at your feet with a deafening clink, and then his hands are in Jake’s hair. “Who said anything about you wearing the collar tonight?”

A sound of needy shock shudders out of Jake.

“Get up.” Danny orders with the quiet authority only he seems capable of.

You rise to your knees as he leads Jake onto the bed between the two of you. He is flushed such a warm pink, and breathing so heavily it flutters over your face, tickling your cheeks pleasantly. What a beautiful moment…you file it away as one to never be forgotten.

“So sweet, Jakey…” you soothe, bestowing a single, gentle kiss at his temple. “I love you.”

He nods, and stares into your eyes with smoldering devotion.

Danny offers up the collar, and you take it, mesmerized by being on the other end of it. The power of it all, the commanding weight of leather and steel in your grasp. You feel like a deity…one who may bless with her mercy should she so choose, or curse with her wrath might that suit her better.

But you know Danny through and through, and this unexpected authority will be snatched away soon enough.

Just as well, you decide, you’d much prefer to be on your knees before the throne, rather than reigning upon it.

“Put it on.” Danny whispers, shattering your reverie.

“Hmm?” You feel a million miles away with your fingers curled around the supple leather.

“Collar him.” He reiterates, this time with a more readable force.

“Do as he says, Princess.”

“Why?” You search Jake’s eyes, swimming down deep into the adulation you always find in them. “Because you want it? Or because you don’t want to see me in trouble?”

You won’t stand by idly and watch him endure something he doesn’t want simply to spare you from enduring something you certainly do want.

“You’re already in trouble, sweet thing.” He grins that perfect smile that lights up his entire face. “Now c’mon…and cinch it tight.”

Breathing in a broken, stuttering pattern, you complete the task as Danny hold’s Jake’s hair up and away from the buckle and your shaking fingers.

“Good girl, little one.” He praises, stare on blazing fire as it ravages yours. “Now take the leash.” He nods towards it. “Go on.”

Tentatively, you let the metal chain snake through your fingers as they both clock your every move. Watching as if you’re their favorite movie and they are unwilling to miss a single frame.

“Good girl, again, dove.” Daniel’s approval sets your chest on fire and the smallest moan betrays the burn. He’s heard it, you’re sure of it, but mercifully, he refrains from taunting you about it.

“That’s just so, so good, baby.” Once again his eyes are blackened into a slick of oil and narrowed in lust. “Now give him to me.”

“What?” The insubordination has been leached from your veins, this is genuine confusion. Judging by the growl that trembles wantonly out of Jake, he doesn’t share in your misunderstanding.

“He’s yours, baby. Not mine.” Danny clarifies, clear and strong. “I won’t take him from you. I’d rather you give. Can you do that for me?” His fingers stroke through your hair lovingly. “Can you give him to me?”

Demurely, you offer up the leash. Presenting it like a gift…and isn’t exactly what it is? It leads to your Jacob, and he is most certainly a gift.

“Good girls share, don’t they?” Danny coddles you with his words.

“And you’re such a good girl, aren’t you, princess?” Jake’s voice is satiny smooth, drifting through your head like poetry. “Say it, out loud.”

“I’m such a good girl.” He was right, speaking it into the room makes goosebumps spring to life on your skin.

“Yes, you are.” Danny agrees verbally, as Jake nods with adoration in his eyes. “Lie back now, sweetheart. Let Daddy cuff your ankles so you stay where you belong.”

Drifting back, your eyes flit between the two of them. You love them beyond measure, need them more than anything…and to know they feel the same makes your existence feel like a fever dream.

Jake watches on quietly as his friend secures your ankles to the footboard, he pays close attention when Danny buckles the cuffs, no doubt ensuring they aren’t too tight. He worries over your circulation incessantly when you’re bound.

The leash is whipped into his palm the second he has you strapped tightly to the bed. “Isn’t your little princess cute? So needy and spoiled.” He breathes into Jake’s ear, reaching a hand down to skate two calloused fingertips over his cock.

A strangled noise catches in your throat; they so rarely touch each other this way, but it never fails to absolutely level you.

“She liked that.” Jake whispers with a subtle thrust of his hips…he liked it too.

“No shit she liked that.” Danny quips like it was a stupidly obvious thing to say. “It isn’t about what she likes or wants right now, though, is it? Our angel is being punished.” He yanks up on the leash to punctuate himself, sending Jake sailing back against him.

“Look at her pretty pink cunt.” He licks over Jake’s ear between words. “She’s soaked. See how she catches the light?” He hums in appreciation, as if you’re art in a gallery. “Just like diamonds. Gorgeous girl.”

You rock away from the mattress in response as your cheeks flush with heat, and your knees attempt to meet…you feel so completely on display.

“Keep them open.” Dan orders, reaching forward to swat at your thigh. “We can switch to the spreader bar if you prefer.” His fingers drop to tap at your cuffs.

With the spreader bar, comes the thinnest of canes…they go hand and hand in Daniel’s book, and you can easily conjure the white hot sting of the cane hissing through the air to sizzle into your flesh. Sometimes you welcome it, sometimes you beg for it…tonight is not one of those times, so you shake your head and comply.

“Is my little dove going soft on me?” Dan teases, kissing a trail down the curve of Jake’s neck. “She can sass me all evening but doesn’t want what comes with it?”

“No.” You lift your chin in defiance you can’t seem to help. “I’m not soft at all. I can take it.”

He suppresses a proud smile, but you catch it anyway. “So if I got the cane right now and turned you pink wherever I felt like, you wouldn’t whine and beg me to stop?”

“Turn me purple wherever you feel like. I don’t mind.” You challenge with a shrug as Jake calls for you to just shut up for once.

“Aw, Jakey’s worried about his lil sweetheart.” Danny taunts, fisting Jake’s twitching cock again. “I won’t cane her tonight, just for you, alright?” His mouth is ghosting over Jake’s cheek as he whispers to him. “I won’t spank her, or smack her, or choke her, would you like that? If I didn’t make it hurt? Just for you?”

“Yeah,” Jake nods with fervor, a hissing breath sucking in through his teeth as he rocks into Danny’s grip. “Be nice to her. Treat her sweet…she’s my girl.”

“Our girl.” The chain rattles hauntingly as Dan yanks it harshly in warning. “And I never said I’d be nice, I only said I wouldn’t make it hurt.”

You can’t decide whether to pout or breathe a sigh of relief. Not a single crack of his palm? No ironclad grip around your throat as he chokes an orgasm out of you?

He must catch the conflicting emotions in your gaze because he offers up a flash of a wink, and then creates some slack on the leash, giving Jake a guiding push to the shoulder. “Down you go, I think our girl would like a little kiss, wouldn’t you dove? Right on your spoiled cunt? Would you like that?”

“Yes, please…” you pant, eyes on Jake as you address Danny.

Jake drops down like a man starved, face buried between your legs before his tongue has even made an appearance, lips kissing and pressing against you feverishly, cheeks sweeping back and forth until his face is shining with your slick. “Fuck, princess…” his words are muffled agony. “Move you hips for me, sweet girl, fuck your pretty cunt against my face.”

Without thought, your body gives in, and you’re rocking into his kiss as his tongue begins to swirl wet circles over your clit. He suckles it into his warm mouth now and then until you're shaking and thrashing beneath him. Moaning obscenities and fisting his hair ruthlessly.

“Yes,” you breathe, absolutely lost in the haze of it all. “Fuck, yes…please…don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop…”

He groans blissfully into you -a promise that stopping is the last thing on his mind- sucks your swollen clit straight into his mouth, dragging a scream out of your lungs, and then he’s gone…

Yanked up and away from you hard and fast by the leash clutched in Danny’s grip.

“No,” you plead, springing up to grab for Jake. “Please…”

Jake fights to return to you, eyes locked between your legs like he’s never needed anything more in his entire life. “Let fucking go.” He reaches back and attempts to pry Danny’s fingers away from the lead. “I want her…wanna make her cum. Let go.”

“Shh.” Danny snaps, hitching back on the tension brutally. “Just shut up.”

Tears spring to life in your eyes and Daniel mocks them immediately. “Look, poor baby is gonna cry already. Spoiled, bratty, little thing. Gonna throw a tantrum now, are we? Maybe kick your feet and…oh wait,” he pretends as though he’s just remembered the cuffs keeping your feet firmly in place.

He bides his time with a smug air dancing about his beautiful features, watching you closely and holding Jake in place until he’s satisfied you’ve calmed down sufficiently.

When he at last lets loose on the leash, Jake descends with his eyes burning fiercely into yours. Stay quiet, he says without a word, I’ll get you there and he never has to know.

Hesitation has no place here, and your aching clit is tucked into Jake’s sweet mouth right away. He works it back and forth with his soft, full lips, silken tongue fluttering over it like butterfly wings. He plays you perfectly…like you’re his beloved Gibson. Coaxes every silent note of pleasure out of you like your body was molded just for him.

He feels it coming, and reminds you not to tip your hand with narrowed eyes burning up into your flushed face, and a silent ‘shh’ that ends with his soft tongue curling over you.

A tiny gasp is your only tell, but he is wrenched away from you once again. He struggles back until the collar has rendered him beet red in the face and unable to draw breath.

“Stop,” you urge him, voice shaking like a weak autumn leaf clinging to its branch. “Jakey…stop, baby.”

“Yeah, baby…” Danny snipes into his ear. “Stop.”

Jake stills in defeat, eyes raking over your quivering body desperately.

“You think I can’t tell when our little girl is close? Even when she’s quiet?” Danny addresses his other half, but his eyes are on you. “She blushes pink so pretty…and her mouth gets sort of pouty…it’s very cute. Nostrils flare just a hint, legs spread a bit wider…”

He pets at Jake’s hair soothingly as he looks you over. “You can’t hide from me, dove. I know you inside and out.”

“Let him make me feel good, Danny.” You beg, opting for another angle. “I’m sorry I acted up, I’ll behave. I’ll be your very good girl. I’ll keep my eyes on you and it’ll be your name on my lips when I cum, I swear.”

A sound of huffing upset sounds out of Jake, but you ignore it in favor of placating Daniel. “I need it. Need it so badly…please?”

“Well, would you just listen to her?” Danny clicks his tongue as if he thinks you’re adorable. “Cute as a button when she begs, isn’t she? You wanna take care of that greedy little cunt for her, Jacob? Wanna make your princess a happy girl?”

Jake nods with a heated urgency that makes your entire body throb and pulse painfully. “Make a mess in my mouth, princess…” he breathes, as Danny slackens the tension on the chain. “Lie back and let me take care of you, sweet girl…I’m gonna do such a good job for you.”

You relax back against the pillows and tuck your hands into his silky soft locks…they’re slightly dampened with sweat and tangled into snarls of exertion the way you love best…he could be on stage from the looks of them, but you know better.

“Yes, Jakey…” the praise moans out of you the instant his mouth seals around you. “Just like that…fuck,”

A growl sounds out of him, rumbling against you like vibrating waves, in response. You tug harder on his hair by way of calling back.

“You’ve got her so close already.” Danny pretends to sound impressed, but there is something else hiding in the shadows of his tone. He addresses you with daggers in his gaze “Does he eat your sweet cunt better than I do?”

For less than a split second, your stare flutters away, running from his question. It happens so fast, it’s barely there at all, but he catches it just the same as if it had lingered on.

“Oh,” he grins, a snake curling closer to an unsuspecting mouse. “He does, doesn’t he, dove? You like his pretty mouth? Does he know just how to baby your clit? Does he know how to suck it just right?”

Jake sucks you into his mouth as he listens on, humming against you when you fuck against his face.

Your grip grows frantic as you pull him in, thrusting against his mouth with tiny, wanton pants of breath. “Just like that, Jake…baby, please…feels so, fuck…please!”

“Nope.” Danny sighs nonchalantly, before dragging Jake up and away from you once more.

“You fuck!” You snap, jerking your body up as best you can to cling to Jake as he writhes against the collar you know so well.

Your whole body is alight…burning in raging flames as you scrabble against the refuge of Jake’s body.

“Lie down!” Danny barks, startling you enough that you shrink back.

Once you’re settled and panting against the pillows, Dan trails his free hand slowly down Jake's chest. Journeys a winding trail down his stomach, and then wraps a loose fist around his thrumming, leaking cock. Jake doubles over slightly with a hitching moan of pleasure.

“Yeah?” Danny teases in his ear, gentle as you might coo to a newborn babe, “S’that what Jakey needs?”

He strokes over him a little faster, tightening his hold.

“No,” Jake stutters, shaking his head with zero conviction. “I need her.”

“Fine.” Dan nods, “Look at her then. Isn’t she stunning? Look at her face…”

They both soak in the fire burning in your eyes, your parted, bitten, puffy lips, the sheen of sweat that makes you look like an angel.

“Look at her body…” their gazes trail down, drinking you in as you arch away from the bed, grabbing at your own breasts, desperate for touch of any kind. “She how she’s shaking? She wants us so badly.”

Danny squeezes Jake’s twitching cock faster, twisting over his glistening head with a flick of his wrist.

“And look at that gorgeous pussy…” he purrs, loving on Jake’s cock with greater aggression. “Fluttering and clenching around nothing. Can you see it? Look how pretty…”

“Touch it, princess…” Jake’s tone is hushed, rasping need and want. “Touch your cunt for us. Make that sweet little bit of velvet heaven feel nice for us. Be a good girl.”

Your fingers drop between your legs and dip into your dripping, clenching warmth, without hesitation. Two fingers sink into your cunt, but it isn’t enough and you plunge a third in with a broken whine, back bowing away from the mattress.

They growl in unison as they watch your fingers disappear and listen to you moan and cry out as if you’re being fucked by a thick, perfect, cock.

“Don’t forget your clit, sweet girl…” Jake reminds through needy gasps that make you throb from head to toe. “Take care of her for me, alright? Lick your fingers, so they feel like my mouth.”

Your opposite hand fumbles through the haze to your lips and you suck your fingers in, wetting them just like you’ve been told, and then there they are, circling your clit lightly, lapping against it, trying to find that beautiful rhythm Jake’s tongue always dances in.

A sharp intake of breath steals through Jake’s gritted teeth and it pulls a needy moan out of your chest…listening to him fight against the pleasure Danny is coaxing out of his quaking body has set you on fire. You want him to cum, you want Dan to make him cum…you want to watch it happen.

“Look at her…” Dan hushes into Jake’s ear. “She wants me to make you cum. Can’t you see it in her eyes?”

Jake nods furiously and fucks up into Dan’s grip. “Yeah, look at your pretty girl…your greedy little cock princess is fine with her own tiny fingers right now even though they aren’t enough…even though she has to chase it down…all because she wants to watch you cum in my hand.”

“Fuck yes, Danny…” it bursts out of you before you can stop it. Are you breaking whatever spell seems to have drifted over them? Dan catches your eye and his stare forces you to finish your thought. “Make him cum…I want to watch him…c’mon. Do it. Do it, please…”

Danny’s fists crushes against the weight of Jake’s dick as it pulses and throbs, and Jacob falters down against you, his forehead barely grazing your navel before Dan pulls him away, leash clinking like filthy, ominous, music.

“Oh princess…fuck, fuck…” he whimpers as Dan jerks him into the oblivion of his climax…pumping furiously along his length, working him through until he’s spilling warm, white cum all over your belly instead of in your mouth where you really want it.

The sex choked air in the room swells further with the broken sounds gasping out of Jake so beautifully. You can’t take your eyes off of him, and yet somehow, you can feel the weight of Danny’s stare clocking him as well. You are both completely enamored. He is so entrancing.

Danny gives him a few moments to collect himself and then guides him away from you, grasp still tucked tightly around the leash. “Get up there and baby her.” He orders in a quiet rasp, leaning down himself now to curl his pretty pink tongue over your belly, cleaning up the mess Jake’s made.

“Oh…” it shakes and stutters out of your chest stupidly as you watch Dan lick up a tiny puddle of Jake’s cum.

“So good, little one.” Danny breathes after savoring it on his tongue. “Jealous?”

“Share…” the begging, whining, plea sounds so foreign it makes you want to ask who has spoken. “I want to taste him. Please?”

It’s Jake who responds, stroking his fingers down your cheek. “Pretty princess begging to taste my cum.” You watch as he moves forward, gently nudges Dan out of the way, laps up a few droplets of himself and then blesses you with a kiss that tastes like him. Bitter and sweet, and so very Jake.

“Thank you.” You sigh, after swallowing him down.

“Anything for you, angel.” He whispers back, kissing across the sheen of your brow.

“Hate to interrupt the wedding vows…” Danny snarks, sounding territorial in the most decadent way, “But are you ready, dove?”

The warm, swollen tip of his cock is slicking back and forth between your folds, teasing over your entrance, nursing it’s way inside as you whine and claw at his waist, ready for more…ready for it all.

His eyes lock onto yours with dirty mischief playing in his gaze just before he slides into you. One smooth thrust, and you’re filled to the hilt with his hard length.

He warms you from the inside as you whine and squirm…he feels too fucking good.

“Danny,” your voice hitches and shakes like your throat has never uttered a sound before. “Fuck me..fuck me…”

“Hmm?” He goads, loving this moment.

“Fuck me…” it whimpers out of you. You’d like to say more, you just can’t quite remember how.

“What?” He presses on, sliding his cock back and forth so, so, slowly.

“Fuck me…” tears are sneaking up on you.

“You heard her.” Jake intervenes. “You’ve had your fun.”

Like Jake has been calling the shots all along, Dan begins to piston in and out of you just right as you purr and writhe beneath him.

“So pretty with a cock inside you, princess…” Jake praises, petting at your hair. “I wanna watch you cum.”

“Yeah..” you nod, completely lost and cloudy.

“Yeah?” Danny’s voice carries a taunting edge. “Little dove wants to cum on my cock?”

“Yes…” you gasp, clawing at his forearms. “Please, please…”

“Someone found her manners,” he pants, betraying how close he actually is. “Good fucking girl, baby, good girl..”

You hum, preening like a spoiled kitten at his praise and Jake’s gentle touch.

“You like that, sweetheart?” He huffs, biting down on your throat. “You like being a sweet little thing for me? So warm and tight? Pretty whore just for me and Jake? Hmm? You like that?”

You dig your grip into his back and then release, only to pound your fist against his shoulder blade as your orgasm sinks its teeth into you, shaking its head like a rabid dog until you’re lost in it completely, tossed about this way and that in the heated pleasure of it all.

Your vision slowly clears to the sound of Jake’s soft voice, praising and loving you with his words, though the only one you can make out is, “...messy…”

You find his eyes and bask in their love while Danny pants against you, clutching at your waist as though you might just disappear.

Messy makes sense when, with a shuddering growl, Danny pulls out. It draws attention to the soaked sheets below you, and the drenched thighs you can’t ignore.

You pay it all little mind and float away into the afterglow of it all. They’ll take care of you, you know that. They’ll coax you back and clear your head. They’ll love on you with their hands and their prose…you’ll be dipped into a warm bath, treated to a glass of wine. They’ll worship you gently, they’ll love you gently. They always do.

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @gardenofgreta @theweightofjake @tripthelightfandomtastic @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @seventieswhore @jakeslovehandles @jake-kiszkas-smirk @tripthelightjaketastic @jakeslovehandles @loofypoofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @calumspretty @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @greta-flanveet-admin @alisonwonderland29 @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @sparrowofthedawn @avagvf @joshkiszkas @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @gretasmokerising @tripthelight-fanfic @mckenna4 @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @rhythm-of-space @paintmyhouse @dvrkblooms @highladyofasgard @jordierama

[the-lonelybarricade]

You Look Like Bad News - Part II

Summary: Elain hated living next to Lucien Vanserra. Almost as much as she hated the girl he was fucking.

Thank you to @velidewrites and @vulpes-fennec for quickly beta-ing this, I appreciate you so much!! This is a VERY late birthday gift and slightly late Valentine's gift to @separatist-apologist, who I hope feels better soon.

CW: Smut, Dirty Talk, Bad BDSM Etiquette, cockwarming, sex toys, restraints, overstimulation, rough oral sex. 6.4k words of pure, depraved filth

Read on AO3 ・ Read Part I Here

-

Elain had never had a relationship with a man that was just fun.

She had never woken up with one in her bed, uncertain if she should offer him breakfast or demand he go back to his own home so she could get ready for work.

Letting him spend the night had probably been a mistake—a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. Because somehow inviting him to spend the night had blurred into making him a cup of coffee, and now she could see him grinning over her laptop as she took her morning meeting at her kitchen table instead of her fucking desk.

It’s the abs, she thought, hating him for wearing nothing but his boxers as he perched himself comfortably against her counter. She was absurdly weak to the sight of that golden brown stomach, and giving him a cup of coffee had been her weak-willed excuse to keep those stupidly toned abs in her sight for just a few hours longer.

“Good morning, everyone,” her boss chimed brightly through the speakers.

Elain responded with her own equally fake enthusiasm, before muting herself to say to Lucien, “Just give me like ten minutes on this call.”

And fuck, if that responding grin didn’t make her teeth clench. It was far too mischievous for 8 in the morning, and Elain was certain she wasn’t equipped to handle whatever plan was forming behind those clever eyes.

All he asked was, “Are you muted?”

Her eyes darted to that red microphone button in the corner of her screen, which assured Elain that she was muted. But this wasn’t her company-wide call and she would undoubtedly have to speak at some point. Hyperaware of the camera aimed at her face, and the zoom call of 20 hardly-smiling faces watching her, Elain did her best to say with her eyes don’t you fucking dare.

Lucien wasn’t staring at her eyes, though. He was watching her fingers, waiting to see if she would click that button to unmute herself. And when she didn’t, he set his coffee on the counter.

“I think I need to make a few apologies,” he said. Elain couldn’t trace an ounce of remorse in his voice.

Deciding to treat him like a problem that would go away if she simply stopped giving it attention, Elain fixed her eyes stubbornly on the screen in front of her. Whatever apologies he needed to make could wait ten minutes.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lucien walking towards her. She wondered if this was how it felt to be pinned beneath a predator's gaze, trapped between the table and chair with no means of escape.

Lucien braced his palms on either side of her laptop, demanding attention as he leaned over the screen. Any closer, and his long Autumn-leaf hair might have fallen into the camera’s view.

Keeping her head as still as she could, Elain flicked her eyes up at him through long eyelashes, batting them in a way that she hoped would make him at least half as breathless as his dark eyes were making her. She tried to ask, What do you have to apologize for?

She could see the way he stirred, how his expression nearly sharpened at the challenge. “I saw the way you winced when you sat down,” He said in a low voice. Elain thought the smug smile on his lips was a far cry from apologetic. “That pretty ass still sore? I can kiss it better.”

It was an effort to draw her eyes away from those lips and what they were threatening to do. If she wasn’t in a meeting, she might have taken him up on it. “My ass is fine,” she said dismissively.

“It is,” Lucien agreed, with a grin that spoke of far more satisfaction than Elain felt was earned. She batted errantly at his hand, trying to communicate that he needed to go away as she unmuted herself.

“I have a meeting with Olaya at noon,” she said to her team, narrowing her focus back to the panel of coworkers staring absently at their screens. If they had noticed her speaking to someone off camera, they certainly weren’t invested enough to look intrigued. “I’ve put aside time for us to discuss the Velaris Inc. proposal and I just wanted to go over a few points before I meet with her…”

Seemingly bored now that her attention was elsewhere, Lucien retreated from her field of vision. And Elain relaxed back into her role, hoping that perhaps he would leave during her meeting and spare them both the awkward goodbyes. Not that it would spare them from the awkward hello when she returned to her office and saw him sitting at his window tomorrow morning.

God, what had she started? The more she thought about it the more she realized her rational brain had been switched off entirely yesterday. How could she keep a casual relationship with a man that she had to stare at 40 hours a week? She wondered if that tongue was even worth—

Elain jolted in her seat as something wrapped around her ankle. Strong, slender fingers, soon replaced by the caress of soft fabric. At first, her curiosity made her complacent. Whatever Lucien was up to, it wasn’t worth garnering the suspicion of her coworkers.

But then her ankle was pulled taut against the wooden leg of the chair, and when she tried to move it, she was met with resistance.

She muted herself long enough to growl a warning, “Lucien.”

“Everything okay, Elain?”

Her heart rate spiked at the sound of her manager’s voice. “New dog,” she answered quickly. Could they see how tense her smile was? Could Lucien? “He keeps jumping on me.” Elain peaked under the table to find Lucien on his knees, staring proudly at his handwork. He had bound one of her ankle to the chair with the belt of a dressing gown, and he offered her a shameless grin as he reached for her free leg.

“Down boy,” she chided, kicking her leg out. With a sigh of resignation, she returned to the meeting. “Sorry, I’m still teaching him how to behave.”

Lucien expertly wrangled her free ankle to the other side of the chair, asserting more force in the way he gripped Elain by the knee and spread her legs open. As payback for calling him a dog—or simply because he’d gathered she enjoyed it.

“I thought this was supposed to be an apology,” she whispered at the next chance she had to mute herself.

From beneath the table she heard that low, devastating laugh. “I’m on my knees, aren’t I?”

The camera only captured her from the waist up, which was why Elain hadn’t bothered to change out of the pair of thin pajama shorts that subjected far too much bare skin to Lucien’s mercy. He started with his hands. Slow, taunting strokes. Just to say: I’m here. Are you nervous? Then his lips, sucking kisses into her tender skin, trailing up from her knees to the seam of her hip. She wondered if she’d be painted in even more bruises tomorrow, her entire body a monument to his desire.

She wondered why she liked the idea of being covered in him.

Maybe it was the impermanence. Graysen had given her jewelry that she still had tucked away in a drawer. When she looked back on old pictures with her friends, she could still see his gifts glinting around her wrist, her neck. The trace of him tarnished so many memories.

But a bite mark on her thigh? That was equally a way of saying I like you without forcing her to keep it, to examine it, to look too closely at what she was doing. When the mark faded, there would be no evidence Lucien was ever there to begin with. It would be her quiet secret to keep in the back of her mind, on lone nights when she slid a hand between her legs and thought about how he had touched her the same way beneath her kitchen table…

Elain’s lungs hitched as his fingers snuck beneath the fabric of her shorts, coaxing her back into the moment, forcing her to confront the camera that captured every stuttered breath rising out of her too-flushed chest. She foolishly thought, at least he can’t pull them off while I’m sitting.

Lucien, she was learning, was not a man who was daunted by obstacles, nor confined by convention.

Rather than try to remove her sleep shorts, he pressed his face into her clothed center and laid a teasing, open-mouthed kiss directly against the fabric. Elain didn’t realize how worked up he’d made her until that small kiss, delivered with just the right amount of friction, had her bucking her hips closer. His responding breath of laughter made her stomach flutter.

“That feel nice, baby?” he murmured, dipping his head to press another teasing kiss with just enough pressure to drive her insane. If not from that, then from the scratch in his voice on the word baby. Almost like he meant it. She was already contemplating slamming her laptop shut so she could topple over this table and chair and find a way to get her revenge on him for constantly interrupting her meetings.

Instead, she whined. A high pitched, needy, embarrassing sound that made her resist the urge to cover her rapidly reddening face. Elain didn’t know where the sound came from—just that somewhere in trying to keep her expression restrained and her body still, it slipped out.

“I thought so,” he hummed, slipping his hand beneath the flimsy material of her shorts. She squirmed as much as she could with her restrained legs, which prevented her from snapping her knees shut. He dragged a finger leisurely through the seam of her cunt. “These meetings can be so dull. Let me make it more enjoyable.”

“Luc—”

She cut herself off with a sharp inhale as he sunk two fingers inside of her, gliding easily to the knuckle. Her body immediately clenched at the intrusion, tightening around his fingers. Lucien groaned at the sensation—she knew what he was imagining, and the thought made her entire body go loose and taut at once. Two of his fingers stretched her nicely, but she’d already seen him naked. The stretch of two fingers would feel nothing like the stretch of his cock.

Suddenly, her mouth felt dry and she ached. For more. For Lucien. For something other than the smug look he flashed her, fingers stilled as he smiled like he was doing her a favor by not moving them.

Her colleagues were still speaking, making arrangements for the next meeting. They weren’t concerned with the way she shifted, grinding herself as subtly as she could against Lucien’s hand.

“There you go,” he cooed approvingly. “Let me take care of you.”

His fingers made an obscene noise as he slid them out of Elain, then pushed them back in, creating a taunting rhythm that felt less like let me take care of you and more like let me torment you. Maybe to Lucien, those things meant the same.

Elain’s lips parted open, a silent moan wavering in the hollow space. With the camera on her, watching her every move, and her legs pried open on the chair, there was nothing she could do but take what Lucien saw fit to give her.

“Think you can whimper for me again, baby?” He slid a third finger in, forcing the sound like he wanted to prove she’d never had any choice to begin with. “There it is.” His voice was molten silk pouring over her skin, and when he leaned forward to suck her clit through the thin shorts, he pulled the noise from her again. “Such a pretty sound.”

“Elain.”

She froze.

Lucien didn’t, still fucking her on his fingers as her boss asked, “What is your availability looking like tomorrow?”

God, was he really going to force her to speak with his fingers still moving inside of her? He’d slowed his pace, ensuring the slick sound of her arousal didn’t carry to the microphone as she unmuted herself and stuttered, “I-I am available to meet any time past noon.”

“Okay, good. Then we’ll schedule our meeting for 12:30.”

“Sound perfect,” she said, knowing her voice was strained. Lucien had swept his thumb up to rub cruel circles against her clit. “See you all tomorrow.”

The call ended, saving Elain from the difficult task of looking herself in the eye after what she was letting a man, a stranger, do to her.

“You’re getting better,” he murmured. The digits buried in her cunt curled, brushing against a spot that made her back arch while he continued laying praise at her clit with the pad of his thumb. “You didn’t make any noise while you were unmuted.”

“Asshole.”

His laughter was little more than a rumble in the back of his throat. “Speak to me like that, and I’ll reconsider giving you a reward.”

The words could have been a blade held against her pulse for the way it quickened. The way she held her breath and considered her next words carefully. “I thought you were supposed to be apologizing.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I’ll punish you for being a brat later.”

Later.

“For now…” Lucien trailed off, sanctioning his actions to communicate in the place of words. His hand slipped out of her shorts and she watched, lips parted, as he drew each of his fingers into his mouth to suck on them like they’d been coated in honey.

Then he surged forward, not waiting for permission or reproval—Elain hadn’t decided which she would have given. Not that it mattered. Every thought eddied out of her mind the second he pulled aside her shorts and placed a messy, loose-tongued kiss against her bare pussy.

Elain tipped her head back and moaned as his tongue laved greedily through her folds. She understood why he had waited for this until the call was over. With the added moisture of his tongue, and the way he slurped and sucked like he could have drowned happily in her taste, there would have been no disguising what they were doing.

Her fingers tangled into his hair, roughly pulling him closer. She let her nails dig against his scalp to urge and beg in ways her pride wouldn’t let her voice. Lucien grunted against her wet skin like he understood, hands finding her hips to pull them off the seat, giving him a better angle to fuck her against her tongue until she was nothing more than a mess of useless whimpers.

“Fuck,” he groaned, the word muffled and barely intelligible, but she could understand because she was thinking the same. Fuck. He garbled something else, something like, are you going to come for me?

And it was all Elain could do to say Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes—

Lucien had been winding a ribbon of flame slowly down her spine, and at this final pull it snapped, barrelling her towards him as blood rushed through her ears and for a moment, her vision blurred. Lucien licked her through it, riding her slowly down from the high until her fingers slackened their death-grip on his hair and she slumped back into her seat, gasping.

The restraints on her ankles fell away one at a time, then he pushed the chair back so he could rise to his feet.

His eyes met hers, pupils blown so wide they nearly swallowed the russet entirely. Her arousal acted like gloss over his full, smirking lips. “Thank you for breakfast.”

Elain was still trying to catch her breath, but she managed to whisper, “I was raised to be a good host.”

Lucien laughed, before the smile shifted to a grimace when he saw the time. “I should probably get going. You aren’t the only one with a meeting first thing.” He leaned forward, catching her mouth in his own with a kiss that was too long, and contained far too much tongue, to be a standard goodbye. “I’ll see you later.”

Later.

Elain thought a lot about later, once he’d left her sitting shell-shocked in her kitchen, shorts uncomfortably wet. What exactly encompassed later? This was all just for fun, and she didn’t know how often two consenting adults were supposed to meet for just fun. If she wanted to see him again this evening, did that make her clingy?

She waited until the final hour of the day before she returned to her office, wearing a pair of leggings that she was determined not to let him ruin.

“There she is,” he greeted once she sat down.

It felt safer looking at him through two sheets of glass. He was still devastatingly beautiful, looking nothing like the shirtless rogue who had gotten on his knees for her that morning. Now he wore a light brown pullover sweater, a white collar peeking out of the neckline. He’d rolled up his sleeves to his elbows so that the white cuffs folded out. It shocked her. She’d forgotten, in all his debauchery, that he was actually a businessman. A respectable member of society.

Or so one would think, before they saw the smile that bloomed across his face.

“Are you nearly finished?” He asked.

Elain knew nothing good could come out of his expression. If she was smart, she would tell him she was working late, and go back to her kitchen. But she wasn’t smart. And she’d come into her office for a reason.

“Why?”

“I don’t have any more meetings,” he said with an innocent shrug. “Thought maybe you’d like to come keep me company.”

“I’m still working.” it felt at least like she was trying not to indulge her worst impulses.

Lucien gestured toward the computer in front of him, brows raised. “So am I.”

She had finished everything vital. Really all that was left was a few emails that she could get back to in the morning if she really needed to.

“I think you’re determined to get me fired,” she said. But for some reason, she was standing up from her chair anyway, gathering her work laptop and anything else she might need for a… change of scenery. What a nice way of labeling a booty call.

He answered his door quickly. Evidently there was no panicked cleaning on his part. No rushing to hide old plush toys and dirty laundry. At first, she thought it was because like so many other men, he probably didn’t care about keeping a standard of cleanliness.

But once she was inside, she noticed the organized shoe rack, the clean floors devoid of any clutter, and the neatly framed pictures on the walls. She thought that maybe there had been no panicked cleaning because the place had… already been clean. And if she didn’t think he’d been stupidly attractive before, then seeing the state of his house would have been effective in changing her mind.

“Same layout as yours,” he said, noting her scrutiny with a raised brow.

Elain couldn’t help looking at the photos in the entryway, many of Lucien with other redheaded boys, presumably his brothers. One of a pretty auburn haired women held in the arms of a large, dark-skinned man with a smile as wide as the sun peaking over the horizon. His parents? It felt inappropriate to ask, though she was suddenly stirring with curiosity about his life. The man behind the glass. Behind the wicked tongue and smart mouth.

But this was all just fun, so she swallowed her questions and followed Lucien into a room that she was familiar with, though she’d only ever glimpsed it looking in from the window. It was larger than she expected. There was so much beyond the small nook where he perched every day at his desk, and the dresser along the wall where she’d spied him changing. Now she could see the double bed tucked into the corner, neatly made and decorated with a butterscotch orange duvet that had four matching pillows. It looked soft, but she resisted the urge to run her hands across the fabric.

“This is… nice,” she said. What she really wanted to ask was, why did you put your office in your bedroom? What was in the other room that he dedicated so much space towards?

Lucien laughed. “Thanks.” He slid back into his desk chair and Elain paused, hovering awkwardly with her laptop in hand as she glanced around the room. Where was she meant to go? His bed, she assumed, but when she started to step in that direction, he called, “Elain?”

She paused. “Yes?”

“Where are you going?”

Elain glanced hopelessly towards the bed, then back to Lucien. His expression was beginning to make her wonder if she’d made a mistake coming over.

I’ll punish you for being a brat later.

“The bed?” She answered, knowing it was the wrong answer. Not knowing what she should have chosen instead.

“So soon? And I thought I was forward.”

Elain bit her cheek. His stare was getting heavier. More reproving.

“You know where brats have to sit?”

She stared back, still trying to decide what game he was playing and what part she should play. She blinked at him, doe-eyed and sweet.

Lucien didn’t fall for it. “Brats have to sit on my cock.”

“What?”

Smirking, Lucien unzipped his trousers, freeing his erection from his briefs. Her mouth went dry as he took himself into a large fist, pumping slowly down the engorged length. Arousal wept from the tip, gleaming against his flushed head.

“Take off your pants.”

Elain swallowed, still staring at the rosy tip. It was such a flattering color, the same shade as Lucien’s lips. She obeyed the command if only because this didn’t feel like a punishment at all.

“Good girl,” he praised, pumping himself again. Another fist wouldn’t have been enough to cover the entire length. “Now take off your underwear and come here.”

If she ran, would he chase after her, she wondered? Push her against a wall in the hallway and fuck her there like a wild animal? She didn’t want to stop and consider why that thought appealed to her as she slowly pushed her underwear down her legs, the weight of his gaze warming a fire in her gut.

Slowly, she walked towards him, eyes fixed on his thick erection, wondering if she was prepared for the stretch. Tension tangled around them, twining around her limbs, constricting her chest until Elain felt she couldn’t breath. When she sat her laptop down on the desk, the soft noise was somehow too loud.

“Face towards the window,” he said.

Elain turned, seeing her empty desk through the window.

Lucien was still sitting, his words landing at the base of her spine as he said, “I have the best view in the entire building.”

She fought a shiver. “It looks pretty boring now.”

A large hand cupped her backside, prodding gently at the tender bruises he’d left there the night before. “Not from where I’m sitting.”

Lucien’s hand slid up to her hip, tracing the shape of her figure with a gentleness that felt reverent, before he started slowly guiding her backward onto his lap. She yelped in surprise at the first nudge of his cock, but he went slow, easing the blunt head first through her folds to coat himself in her arousal. Then he hitched himself at her entrance and gently pushed his hips forward. Her breath fled on one long exhale, like her body needed the extra space to accommodate him as he eased her back, further and further, onto his cock.

It was so much bigger than two fingers. Elain couldn’t help whimpering a bit at the stretch, fullness bordering on pain while her body clenched painfully tight around him. Lucien's head fell forward against her shoulder, fingers iron tight at her hips to keep her from moving. She could hear him struggling to catch his breath.

“Fuck, Elain.” He groaned, taking several, shallow pants. “Fuck.”

It was rare to see him so surrendered. Elain couldn’t resist the opportunity to teasingly grind her hips backward, relishing that she was the one in control. Lucien made a choked noise in the back of his throat and Elain giggled, moving against him again. She cooed, voice ripe with pity, “Do you need a minute?”

“Brat,” Lucien rasped. He delivered a sharp tap to her clit, not hard enough to sting, but enough to make her yelp. “Here’s what’s going to happen. For the next thirty minutes, I’m going to finish work and you’re going to sit on my cock and stay still like a good little slut.”

Maybe it was the use of that word that kindled her defiance, made her back straighten, and dared her to ask, “Or what?”

“Or you’ll find out what happens to slutty brats that can’t behave.”

Spanking, she assumed. That had been her punishment for misbehaving before. As much as Elain told herself she shouldn’t enjoy the threat of being hit, nor the way he was speaking to her, there was no denying the way her body clenched around him.

Lucien groaned. “Christ, Elain.” He palmed the curve of her ass, thumb trailing prickling heat as it swept a wide arch along the purpled skin. She held her breath at the slight pressure. He was balancing her on an edge, knowing if his touch became any firmer it would cause her pain.

“I need you to stay still for me, baby,” he murmured, softer this time, partnered with a kiss against her shoulder. “Then I can play with my needy girl.”

The sweetness softened her, melting her body into compliance. She laid back against the hard slope of Lucien’s chest, and he hummed like he was noting his gentleness had subdued her more effectively than his dominance.

“Good girl.” The fingers at her clit moved in a slow, congratulatory circle. She sucked in a breath, shifting her hips at the unexpected friction. “Ah.” Another reprimanding tap. “Stay still. I’m not going to warn you again.”

Lucien withdrew his fingers. Elain resisted the urge to whine, knowing it would only get her further from what she really wanted: Lucien, pushing her forward onto his desk and fucking her senseless on the cock that was keeping her achingly, tormentingly full as it throbbed inside her.

“Enough of that,” he chided, feeling Elain’s body tighten from the fantasy.

She took a shaky breath, forcing herself to relax. Lucien’s attention had somehow returned to his laptop, arms bracketing either side of her body to begin typing out a response to an email. Her laptop stayed closed, fifteen minutes still left in her workday and yet she knew if she even attempted to send an email now, it would be completely incoherent. She could catch up later. And if anyone asked where she had gone for the final fifteen minutes, she would say she needed to run off for something urgent.

Though she wouldn’t believe Lucien had ever heard the word urgent in his life.

He leaned forward, chest pushing further into her back so she could feel every warm breath skitter along her neck. She shifted her weight, just to readjust, and Lucien’s cock twitched at the movement.

He said in a low voice, “That’s one.”

One spanking? Elain thought she could deal with that much, even if her ass was still sore.

“Sorry sir,” she purred.

A soft laugh, pouring over her like silky espresso. Rich and dark. “Two, for being mouthy.”

Mouthy, she thought. Between Elain and her sisters, she had always been the last anyone would describe as such. I’ll show you mouthy. But maybe not today. The idea of three spankings was beginning to make her feel nervous. So Elain held her tongue, fighting the ache that climbed her spine, begging her to roll her hips.

Lucien’s focus didn’t seem at all impacted, despite the evidence that he was very much aroused. Elain had to grit her teeth as she watched him write email after email. Until her palms were beginning to dampen where she clutched them at the end of his armrest.

“L-Luci—”

“Shh,” he hushed, pulling his hands from his laptop just long enough to tap her sharply on her neglected clit. Air rushed through Elain’s teeth as her entire body trembled at the touch, desperate for him to hold the pressure there just a little bit longer. She could hear the cruel smile in his voice as he said, “I need to focus, Elain.”

“But—”

“That’s three.”

Elain knew she could say their safeword and he would let her off, her three spankings forgotten. But while another 15 minutes sounded excruciating, so did the idea of giving up now, when she knew Lucien would likely take her to his bed the second he was finished with work to reward her for being such a good girl. She wanted to hear him say it, craved it nearly as much as his touch.

But as much as she wanted to be a good girl, Lucien had set her up for failure with this impossible task. He knew it, because he laughed when she wiggled her hips hardly five minutes later. She could feel herself dripping into his lap.

“Four,” he said. “You’re just getting greedy now.”

Lucien’s hands seized her hips, forcibly stilling her as he ground his hips upward. Elain let out a low moan at the sweet relief of friction and Lucien chuckled. “Is this what you want, baby?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her face warmed at the admission, but it was not any less flushed than the rest of her body.

“You want to come on my cock?”

“Please.”

“Of course,” he murmured, offering her another slow grind of his hips.

Then he stopped, and Elain could have wept at the loss of movement as Lucien reached into his desk drawer. Elain watched in horror, realizing he’d prepared for this. She was imagining paddles, maybe even a whip, but what Lucien retrieved was instead a small bullet vibrator. He held it out in front of her as he switched on, causing the machine to buzz as it vibrated in his hand.

“You moved four times,” he said, moving the vibrator between her legs. “So that’s how many times I’m going to make you come on my cock.”

“Wha—” The question shriveled on her tongue the second Lucien brought the device to her swollen clit. She cried out once it made contact, body immediately tensing at the foreign sensation. Then Elain began shaking—legs, knees, arms, trembling like every bone had been turned to liquid and sharp pleasure shocked through her.

“Lucien,” she gasped, grabbing onto his arm. Not to stop him, just to hold on, to have something to ground her body as it became untethered. All her awareness narrowed down to was the burning, consuming sensation wracking through her body.

“That’s it,” he groaned as her walls spasmed around him. “Come on my cock Elain, just like that. Good fucking girl.”

Elain was gasping as she came down from her climax, but Lucien kept the vibrator running, pressed firmly to her clit.

“That was one. Give me three more.”

The first one had wrecked her. Elain thought there was no way, none, that she would be able to repeat it three more times. But Lucien was merciless, ignoring the way she shook her head as her body continued trembling, unable to differentiate between sensations as one orgasm dived into the next, like a platform was pulled suddenly out beneath her and she was just falling—screaming as she went.

“There you go,” he cooed, stroking her hair like he wasn’t the one administering the torture. “Two more Elain.”

Tears stung her eyes. It was too much. The blunt metal vibrating against her clit was beginning to burn uncomfortably, pleasure that coalesced into pain.

Elain shook her head again. “Lucien, I can’t.”

But she didn’t say the word. And Lucien didn’t stop.

“I thought you wanted to come,” he said. “Wanted it so bad you couldn’t even sit still.”

The muscles in Elain’s stomach constricted. She felt suddenly like the dancer atop her jewelry box, being wound tighter and tighter. And tighter.

“Lucien,” she begged as the pleasure grew sharper, more unforgiving.

“You’re nearly there, baby”

Elain practically sobbed through her third orgasm, overwound and aching.

A soft chime saved her from Lucien pushing her through the fourth. Lucien swore softly, switching off the vibrator. Elain immediately slumped, so overcome with relief that it hardly registered that Lucien was getting a call from his work laptop. Until he lifted her, gently yet urgently, out of his lap and onto the floor.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he said to her. “Just stay there a moment, Elain, I’ll get off this as quickly as I can.”

Then that was that. Lucien answered the call, leaving Elain utterly stunned beneath the desk as she recovered from the onslaught of orgasms he had inflicted.

Lucien inched his chair closer. “Hello Tamlin.”

His cock was still out, still hard and completely soaked in her arousal.

“Lucien. Amarantha just withdrew from the deal. I need you to chase her up and get her to reconsider.”

From Tamlin’s tone, and Lucien’s resulting sigh, Elain assumed it was something very serious. And well. How better to get her revenge?

“I supposed I could— fuck.”

Elain smirked, repeating the motion. She swirled her tongue around his flushed head as her fist found the base of his cock, gliding easily along the slick of her own arousal.

“Lucien?”

“S-sorry.” One of his hands came beneath the table, trying to push her away. Stubbornly, Elain took his head into her mouth, hollowing her cheeks to suck. Lucien swore again. “Sorry, Tamlin. I’m just caught off guard. I thought Amarantha was on board.”

“Well, she’s not. And it’s your job to close the deal.”

“I know,” he said tightly, fingers scrabbling for purchase in Elain’s hair as she bobbed her head forward, trying to take more of him into her mouth. “Here, let me get off this call and I'll chase her now.”

“No,” Tamlin said. Lucien’s fingers tightened in her hair. “She withdrew because the Night Corp. undercut us. Find out what they offered her first.”

“Okay.” Lucien let out a soft grunt, hips bucking forward involuntarily when she ran her tongue along the underside of his cock. It forced Elain further down his length, and she tried not to gag as his grip pulled her forward, almost punishing. “I’ll get in touch with my contact at Night, and I’ll put together a new pitch for Amarantha in the morning.”

“Good. Don’t let me down.”

Elain recognized the distinct call ended tone. She expected Lucien to pull himself out of her mouth, to put her over his knee and continue the torture that Tamlin had interrupted, but he only tightened the fist in her hair.

“You want to suck cock?” He asked, voice as dark as the bruises on her ass. “Then suck.”

Lucien thrust forward, forcing more of himself into her mouth as his hands forced her head still. He was big, bigger than she’d ever taken before, but the added lubricant helped him glide further down her throat until her nose was against the coarse, curly red hair that decorated his pelvis. Elain spluttered around the thickness of him in the back of her throat, eyes swelling with tears as she fought her gag reflex, but Lucien held her still.

“You look so pretty on your knees, Elain.”

Elain made a muffled sound in response, causing Lucien to grunt at the resulting vibration. He rocked his hips against her mouth, slowly at first, then faster, bobbing her head at his chosen pace as he fucked into her throat.

“Do you like letting me use your mouth like this?” He asked roughly. “Fuck. Open that pretty mouth wide for me.”

His hips stuttered as he spilled into the back of her throat with a long, guttural sound that warmed every nerve in Elain’s body. She swallowed, relishing air again as Lucien pulled himself out.

Immediately, he jumped out of his seat to help her back up. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, voice raspier than she expected.

Lucien smoothed her hair out of her face, frowning. “Would you like to go lay down? I just have one last thing I need to take care of at work, and then I will focus all of my attention on taking care of you.”

“Of me?” She repeated.

“Of course.” He swiped his thumb against the corner of her mouth, wiping away some saliva. “What we just did was intense. And you did such a good job. Go rest, pretty girl. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

Elain’s legs still felt shaky as Lucien helped her walk over to his bed and sit down. She thought he would go back to his desk, but he immediately disappeared into his kitchen to return with a glass of water. He handed it to her with a kiss against her temple.

She drank slowly, watching beyond the rim of the glass as Lucien sat down at his desk and quickly typed out an email. He shut his laptop the moment he was finished.

“Do you need anything?”

The bed dipped beneath his weight as he came to rest behind her, pulling Elain against the front of his body.

“No,” she answered, content to relax into the soft hands that began wandering her body, rubbing soothing circles into her hips, her back, her stomach. He traced kisses along her shoulders and neck. Finally, she asked, “What is this?”

“Cuddling,” Lucien said, sounding amused.

“Why?” Elain asked. Then, afraid he would think she didn’t enjoy the cuddling, she clarified, “I thought you wouldn’t want to do stuff like this. Since we’re just having fun.”

Lucien shrugged. “The sex was fun. This is fun. If you’d like to, I could take you to dinner this evening. That would be fun, too.”

“Like…” Elain bit her lip. “A date?”

“I’d like it to be.”

“Okay,” Elain said softly.

She thought that she’d like that, too.

[signalhill-if]

How Signal Hill will dynamically update your saves

So it's pretty common to make big, fundamental changes in development that require players to start a new save. Sometimes shit just breaks. Sometimes you overhaul a system, and the new one is better, but the old one has to go. That's fine, especially since a lot of the games on here are only so many words and players tend to enjoy re-reading them anyway.

But with Signal Hill's unique structure, I saw an opportunity to make development super modular and updates really easy. That problem of needing to restart saves, though? That always nagged at me. I'm a perfectionist, so the idea of idea of making updates easy for me but keeping them hard for the player wasn't enough for me. And if you've ever developed a game, you know that "just don't make big changes that require a restart" isn't an option.

So I've come up with what I hope is a clever solution to make updates relatively painless. I'll get into the player's experience first, and then talk about the nitty gritty under the cut for my fellow devs (hiiiiiii~)

Seamless Player Experience

When the player opens Signal Hill, they are brought to the main menu where they can choose to load a save, resume where they left off, or start a new game.

If an update has come out, loading a save from any previous version will cause a permanent popup to show up on the top of the screen informing you that an update is required. This can not be removed or minimized without updating.

Clicking on the update will bring the player to a page with a brief explanation of how updating works and a changelog for the current version. The game will automatically determine what needs to be updated based on their save's data. Some updates will require the player to answer a question, such as "What choice did you make during this scene?" or "Did you succeed on this roll?"

Once the questions have been answered, the player will be brought back to the page they started on and will be able to continue the game seamlessly without issues.

Under the cut, I'll explain how this actually works in Twine.

Under the hood

So there are two kinds of updates that cause problems, assuming the content itself hasn't been rewritten. One is updating the StoryInit to add new arrays or set defaults for numbers. The other is when things have happened in the story that you need to record as a variable and reference later, but you didn't have the hindsight to do it at the time.

The game will now track a variable called $gameversion. Any time a major version is released, the $gameversion in the StoryInit will be updated to the new version, so a player starting a new save will automatically be on the correct version.

If the player is not on the correct version, a line of code in the header will identify that and show them the update message. This will bring them over to the update page.

Any simple StoryInit changes will be done automatically, such as adding new arrays or setting new variables to 0 so that the game can do math with them.

Signal Hill is a massive game and saves a fuckton of data, so this info can be used contextually to dynamically update more complicated variables. Here's are some examples.

The game saves a list of every character you've encountered as an array, $met. If $met.includes("yasmin"), that means you've met her. But the line of code that adds her to the list wasn't included in the first version by accident. However, this can be easily remedied.

When the player completes a lead, it is added to a hidden list called $playedleads. If $playedleads.includes("waveform"), that means you've completed the lead that introduces Yasmin. So if $playedleads.includes("waveform"), we can $met.push("yasmin"). We'll just have to include an extra safety measure at the end of that lead, so that anyboy who updated their game mid-lead will still get her added to the $met list.

In addition, the game saves events that happen through HiEv's Event Flag macro. If the player failed a roll at the end of KC's intro, they won't be getting paid for tagging along during Test Run, and it'll SetFlag "TestRunIntern" (some of my flags have very good names, tragic that you'll never see them haha). But that, also, was missed in the original release somehow. So if $playedleads.includes("lamplighters"), the game will prompt you on whether you failed or succeeded at that roll and the flag will be set accordingly.

The game version being recorded in the variables means that extremely old saves should still be salvageable, they'll just have to endure more updates. As the game recieves more updates, it'll send players to the appropriate page for their version. If the current version is 1.5.X and the save is from 1.2.X, then the player will be brought to the 1.3.X update page, which will include all of the updates from 1.3.X to present.

Eventually, old saves may become untenable due to some massive future change that can't be predicted right now. But assuming things go as planned, this should prevent players from ever having to start a new save if they don't want to.

This has been a little dry, but I hope it game you some ideas or was interesting! I'm pretty proud of this little hack, hence why I'm sharing, haha. Hopefully in the future I'll find ways to streamline this process even more.

[gojonanami]

Hi Sab,

I just wanted to preface this message by telling you that I really, really enjoyed the first part of your Professor Geto series!

I have to confess, when I saw yesterday evening a message from you saying that you'll be uploading it tonight, I was super, super excited, and I went to bed thinking of your fic, and I woke up in the morning, all excited and ready to dig into your text. I was so, so excited when I clicked on your page and saw that you did indeed upload the first part of the series! It was the first thing I did today.

To begin with, I would like to thank you for putting in the time into formatting and editing. Upon opening your page, the first thing I thought of was the fact that I really do approve of the artwork that you chose to headline this fic. It's one of my favourite drawings of Suguru—I've seen it around before, but it never fails to make me swoon. And I love the purple—clever, in a sense, due to both the atmosphere that this all-purple drawing conjures and also in the sense that it is a nod to Suguru supposedly having purple eyes in the manga.

I have truly, truly loved your work. It was delightful, exciting, captivating, engaging, fun, sexy, riveting, and so much more.

Today, I had a boat trip with my family. And as I was standing on the boat looking out onto the ocean, I found myself thinking—'What do I owe myself and those around me?'—and as I was thinking about it, I found myself thinking that I owe you a proper thank-you as you managed to write, edit, and create something that truly brings me and a lot of others a lot of joy.

I am not sure how I can properly thank you. If I could, I would thank you via endless notes, but I'm afraid I can't do that. I also do not have the influence or the means to spread awareness of your fantastic fic.

And so, as I was thinking, I supposed that perhaps expressing my gratitude in the form of this message would, if not be enough, be an attempt to express my gratitude towards you.

I would like to begin this analysis of your work by focusing on the opening.

“You’re late,”  Your first impression of Professor Suguru Geto’s class was that you could never be late again, unless you would like to be chided in front of all your peers for your tardiness. 

Your opening is fantastic. It is so simple and yet so effective. It really imbues your work with flavour and a certain sense of drama. In other words, your set-up is fantastic—our delightful A** student protagonist was already in the wrong from the beginning, and it only teased at her journey towards seeking Professor Geto's validation. In my opinion, your opening was very, very effective.

I also have to say that I absolutely and unabashedly love your descriptions. I think you do a really good job of teetering on the line of being concise and descriptive—your descriptions never feel overwrought; instead, they're just enough. They're carefully observed, personal, beautiful, and effortless all at once.

Your first impression of Professor Suguru Geto himself was that he was truly the most breathtaking man you’d ever laid your eyes on. His inky black locks tied into a neat bun, his deep royal purple vest buttoned over a crisp white button up with pressed gray slacks, his pretty lips pressed in a small frown, as his dark gaze pierced through you. And you don’t know what stirs in your chest — a fleeting moment that is tucked away under a bite of your bottom lip and burning cheeks. 

You are funny, too. You are naturally funny. I could feel that in the way you respond to asks. My guess would be that you're a person who's easy to get along with, someone who is flexible and adaptable, and sympathetic and humane. And for me, your natural humour naturally seeps into your writing. You are sometimes funny without almost meaning to be so funny, perhaps, but it produces the absolute best results.

And now you knew why when you had walked into class, the amount of unfamiliar faces in this course had far outnumbered the ones in your usual course load — the same reason why this man undoubtedly had three chili peppers next to his professor rating on some website out there. 

The quip about the 'chili peppers' rating made me smile.

I loved the way you conjured the main character. I love that her strengths lie in philosophy rather than ethics. She is believable. She is likeable. She feels real. I love that she eagerly wanted to do well, and I loved her internal quiet confidence in terms of doing well—the expectation of doing well due to past experiences. I absolutely loved how she 'eagerly flip[ped] to the last page of the paper, wondering what accolades and compliments [she'd] receive this time'. I just loved the way you tracked her emotional journey of first contending herself with studying this module on ethics and expecting to do well, to the excitement of feeling as though she'd written a fantastic paper, to the nerve-wracking and adrenaline-fueled process of receiving feedback, to the huge disappointment of receiving a B+ of all things.

You tracked her psychology fantastically. And your writing throughout that process was crisp and mature, and fluid and natural, and without any unnecessary descriptors or anything, and just so utterly captivating. I am truly impressed.

I also liked how you hinted at Suguru's character. Submitting a paper both physically and electronically is a small detail, but it is a good one. It shows his character—he is pedantic and careful. He approaches papers like an actual teacher instead of resigning himself to the role of the professor-showman. He carefully spends time 'litter[ing]' his students' papers with pen scrawls.

I also love, love, love the way you use metaphors, similes, imagery, and all that. You just do it in such a mature manner. It is incredibly clever. I loved this:

You were seeing as red as the ink that tore your paper to shreds. 

This is unbelievably clever. At first, it seems simple, but it is such a clever way of putting her thoughts into feelings. Yes, it's simple, but it is so incredibly charming, and it is lines like these that linger in your mind many hours later. I still think about it. It's incredibly witty.

I loved the description of Professor Geto's office. Not only does it set the scene perfectly for their world, but it also speaks to the context of the lurking conflicts within that world, and it also hints at Professor Geto's eminence. (Is it also not a way to question their ethical framework? How should we give out offices? Due to status or due to how many years a professor has worked for a department? How do such things work?)

I think you did an excellent job of presenting Professor Geto as enchanting. He is attractive, yes. He is sexy, too. But he is more than that. He is truly and utterly captivating. It is not just his looks that are attractive, but also his attitude and his mind. And so, in light of that, I loved the way you introduced him when she came into his office.

And you know what I loved? I loved the way they interacted with each other. I love the way he approaches his criticism of her paper. It is true—sometimes people forget that students are here to learn rather than just get degrees so that they can move onto the next milestone. Professor Geto underscores and reminds us of that, and Reader, conversely, reminds us of how easy it is to get bogged down in being overly concerned with academic grades and percentages.

I would insert the whole scene that I loved, but I'm afraid that it would take too much space. But what I truly loved about it was how back and forth it was. It was incredibly clever, witty, and fast-paced, and I was truly and utterly captivated. I love that he says that he knows why she's here—and he does. He does because he's been in her shoes before. And you know what else I love about this scene? I love the fact that how back-and-forth it is hints at how they complement each other as two brilliant minds—simultaneously in perfect harmony and yet different enough to challenge each other.

I also want to pay due deference to the fact that you made Professor Geto sound like an actual professor. His feedback sounds like that of an actual professor. He feels real and tangible. He is believable. The words that come out of his mouth feel authentic. His feedback feels authentic, and it reminded me of some of the feedback I used to receive from my supervisors.

I also love how he motivated her to do better. In my eyes, she was motivated to do better not just because she was disappointed with her grade and because she finds him to be incredibly attractive, but also because when she looked around her office, she truly realised how eminent he is, and in a way, seeing all those 'awards on his walls, pictures of him giving lectures or receiving honors, and the books that lined his shelves' motivated her to do even better and be the best that she can be, and perhaps even overshadow him while giving her a skeleton in her mind as to how she could plan out her future career trajectory if she chooses to stay in academia.

The man was stubborn, even when you’d come back with an improved draft, he’d only hand it back to you with a smile barely tugging at the corner of his lips, with no compliment to be had — only small check marks scribbled in the margins in your papers, with the occasional “good” written next to it. 

One of the things that I loved the most about this fic is how you easily pick up on the most mundane of details and present them anew. The way Professor Geto marks is the way I've seen professors mark before. But seeing it presented, dissected, and re-evaluated makes me see it in a new light and makes me truly think about the nature and process of marking papers and how individual those processes can be.

And I have to say yet again that the way you write dialogue is incredibly witty. The way you write how people speak is incredibly clever. I love the way it feels so real. I love that I can imagine real people saying those things. I love how grounded in reality your writing is. I love how human it is.

And he rolls his eyes, and you notice that his dark eyes are hidden behind glasses today — and god, why does it only make him even more gorgeous? He’s already brilliant, it’s unfair for him to look as if he was sculpted by the gods as well, “It takes a lot more than a chuckle to earn extra credit,” and you can’t help but bite your lip. 

I absolutely love this quip from Professor Geto: 'It takes a lot more than a chuckle to earn extra credit'. It is just so funny, but also so believable for a character like him to say. It also, in a way, underscores his role as an educator—she needs to 'earn extra credit' after all—while also hinting at the fact that he's got a good sense of humour (and perhaps hints at his youth, too).

I love how Professor Geto can also poke fun at himself. Personally, I really like this quality in people, and this makes him so much more likeable.

“Many times, and the same one,” and your mouth opens, only to find a wry smirk on his lips, “I’m teasing, another one of my very tedious qualities, and how you stand it during class astonishes me,” 

I also love that he is genuinely a good teacher. In a way, it is almost unexpected. He had all the means to become a professor who does not care about his students that much (as bad as it may sound). He has enough eminence, status, and fame to do as he pleases. He is the type of professor who could cancel one hour before the lecture and no one would be able to say anything because everyone at the university is so desperate for him to stay as there are tonnes of other universities eagerly awaiting his presence. He does not have to take so much time in terms of marking essays. I've had famous professors who've only written me two sentences as part of their feedback for their course at the end of the term. I've had professors who only wrote 'good' here and there and then wrote short comments without taking the time to properly dissect my writing and tell me what is exactly good and what exactly can be better. Bottomline is Professor Geto is someone who, in theory, can afford to slack off for the sake of dedicating his time to other pursuits—be it his research, conferences, or something else—but he doesn't, and instead he makes time in his schedule for his students to properly look over their work. Is it due to his character or his personal code of ethics? I cannot answer. But regardless, it presents him as having an extremely likeable character, and it makes me really respect him as a professor.

(I love the fact that you added an image of his paper using Google Scholar. I don't know how you did it, but it's incredibly charming. I love it. I love how you transformed your writing into a mixed-media work. It is so fascinating. I've never seen anything like this before. It truly made me grin!)

And you know what I truly loved? I loved the fact that she—as the big nerd that she is—found his writing sexy. I know it may sound weird, but I feel as though some of us may agree that there is something incredibly attractive about confidence and assurance in writing. And so I do not blame her one bit for suddenly clenching her thighs together as she read his paper. I can imagine her being enchanted and impressed with his writing—his ability to present his ideas confidently and concisely, presenting complicated matters in simple yet complex and beautiful ways—that it elicited a certain kind of positive envy, wherein his writing is so fantastic that she almost wishes it were her own. (At least, I imagine, that is how I would react, perhaps.)

Now, I loved this scene. I loved it from the beginning to the end. I think it's one of the sexiest scenes I've ever read. I just loved the subtle undercurrent of sexual tension that was present throughout this portion of the text.

I loved how careful you were in observing and subtly notifying the reader that this is her dream. The lecture hall is a familiar setting for her, yes, but the touch of warmth in Professor Suguru's gaze, along with his usual amusement, is unusual and is a fantastic way of carefully foreshadowing to the reader that this is a dream, not reality. (I liked the subtle referencing of Tantalus. I'm afraid that when I read it at first, I did not recognise his name and scoured my memory for the very many paintings of Greek mythological figures until I finally relented, googled, and thus reawakened my memory of this mythological figure. I really, really liked this reference. It is subtle, but clever. It is incredibly well done.)

I think there is something incredibly sexy in the way that you painted this scene in her dream. I love that they are alone in the lecture hall. I love that he stands behind her. I love that he subtly brushes her hair aside. I love that he gently presses a kiss on her shoulder. I love how responsive her body is to the subtlest of his touches. I love that he wraps his arms around his waist, beckoning her closer. I love that he moves his face to her neck. I love, love, love that he takes off his glasses and places them on the side (yet another example of presenting a mundane action in a new light and imbuing it with a new kind of potency in its reassessment). I love that he presses a constellation of kisses across her neck. I love the way she desperately pleads for him to 'touch' her in his dream. And what does this dream end with? With him calling her a 'good girl'. It is really, really well done, and I am absolutely in love with the way in which you tackled this scene.

I love that her dreams are repeated. And you know what? I did like the fact that you mentioned how they were edging her. It's clever, in my opinion. It's a nod to their sexual nature, yes, but it also adds a sense of humour to it. It also highlights how restless they make her and how desperate she is, as, in my view, if one edges someone enough, there will come a moment in which they will break—like a glow stick.

And I love, love, love the mention of the vibrator! It is so incredibly funny! I love that the vibrator is no help, and I love how it, instead, starts to feature in her dreams. I love it. (And now, as I am writing this, it makes me think—what if, later down the line, perhaps when she is a little too tired and not thinking straight, she blurts out to Professor Geto, or Suguru as she calls him now, that she used to dream of him and how even his papers would make her hot and bothered and how her vibrator was of no help.)

And I love, love, love the fact that when he calls out to her, her reality starts to mirror her dreams. Of course, it would drive her crazy. She constantly sees him at night, kissing her, touching her, and looking at her and only her, and so seeing him anew in this setting wherein she has to act professionally and maintain her code of conduct with due deference would drive her mad as her imagination would be bound to recall her memories of her dreams once more. And, of course, to mark the parallels between her reality and her dreams further, he calls her a 'good girl' thus underscoring and foreshadowing how her dreams and her reality will soon collide, or rather, perhaps, merge.

And I love that Professor Geto, despite his status and fame, is not only a diligent teacher but also a caring one. He not only shows his care for his students via his endless notes and comments, but also by checking in on them, offering them the option to delay their papers, ask for extensions, or just speak to him in general.

I know it's subtle, but I love how later they make eye contact, in spite of the crowd of eager students surrounding him, desperate for his attention.

I also absolutely loved the dream that Professor Geto had. It was one of my favourite scenes. (I find it incredibly difficult to make up my mind as to what my favourite scene in this fic is. I've been racking my mind over this, but I haven't decided, and I don't think I ever will.) 

I loved that he dreamed about her, too. I loved that he was thinking about her. For me, it almost felt as though his dream was almost fatigue-induced. I love how he ruminates over her character, how he sees his own experience in her without being condescending, and how he sees her potential and how he wants to milk it out of her. I love how he was checking his mail, wondering to himself if information about his office hours was sent wrong, as he was just so desperate to see her.

And I love how when she comes in, she comes in discussing Scanlon and Professor Suguru Geto, the academic.

I just also wanted to highlight this little section of the text, which I thought was incredibly clever and witty and which really, really charmed me:

He raises an eyebrow, and he can’t help but tease,  “Clarified or criticized? Are you planning on turning the tables on me?”  “Well I do have a red pen,” you click your pen, lips curved in a smile, and there’s a hint of heat that he wishes to unearth, pluck from the earth and possess himself, “but I promise I’ll be civil,”  “I have no doubt,” he had a million when it came to you — but that wasn’t one of them. He runs his fingers through his hair, a few strands coming loose, “of course, let’s discuss it,” 

I love how he, even in his fatigued state and even in his dreams, thinks and evaluates the risks and his burgeoning feelings through the lens of Scanlon. Of course, it makes sense! And it's so incredibly clever. I love that they reassess the wrongs and rights of a student-professor relationship through a dissection of Scanlon's work. (Just as a note, I think that you chose a very good scholar, work, and topic to focus on for this fic. I have read through your responses to your asks before—which are an utter delight—and I saw that you mentioned that you feel like an amateur in this field. I would like to reassure you that, in my opinion, you genuinely did a very good job of approaching Scanlon, and while I am not the best ethicist around, I would say that for me, your tackling of Scanlon was great.)

And I love her quiet, subdued confidence as she approaches him—challenging him intellectually while also challenging the essence of their relationship, encroaching into uncharted territory by reaching out for him, into his space, brushing her fingers against his, running her fingers up his arm, and trailing along his button-down. And I love how, in his dream, he makes his choice and makes the move to kiss her.

I love how you wrote the way in which he imagines her. Everything he was doing was testing his personal moral code. I love how he imagined her—in her tantalizing sundress with her legs spread out on his desk, all for him and his eyes. I love how he talks to her; I love how he (affectionately?) mentions her wittiness ('Where’s that mouth now? So needy f’me,') and how he imagines treating her right, indulging in her, treating her in the best way possible, prioritising and accentuating her pleasure.

And I love how he imagines doing it again and again with her, making her reach pleasure multiple times, as he just wants her to feel the best that she possibly can, as he just wants to bring her to cloud nine over and over again.

I love how her voice affects her. I love that she didn't truly listen to the lecture. I love how much attention you paid to truly reflecting how attractive she found his voice to be and how her body responds to it, and how her attraction towards him runs so deep that she can be hot and bothered by his voice alone. I love how her imagination runs wild and how she, out of neediness and desperation and lust and attraction, starts imagining him and herself with him and gets so involved in her imagination that she forgets about her task at hand.

I know that at first, this may seem like a simple detail, but I love that when she comes to see him in his office once more, he's sitting on the sofa rather than at his desk. I love the initial interaction—it is just so natural!

You knock at his door, “Come in,” and you open the door to see an empty desk, blinking, “I’m over here,” And your head snaps to your right, and Professor Geto is sitting on his couch, his legs crossed with a stack of papers in hand. His jacket is slung over the side of the couch, his deep maroon button up sleeves rolled up, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. 

(I loved this line; it truly made me smile: 'He clicks his red pen, readying his sword'.)

And I love their concluding interaction. What stood out to me was that Professor Geto, despite his status, fame, stature, and the like, respects his student as an individual and truly speaks to her like his equal. He does not look down at her, even though he can. He respects her, and you can see that and feel that.

I loved this scene:

“You’ve come a long way,” he says, as he flips it back the front, writing only a few notes here and there.  “But?” You wait for it.  His gaze flickers up, a tilt of his head, “That was the end of my sentence,”  You pause a moment, “Really?” 

I love, love, love the way you wrote this interaction. It is just so well-written. It is slick, fast-paced, clever, and natural.

And their dialogue in this section of the text is just fantastic. It is truly just so fantastic on so many levels. I read it again and again and again. I loved it. I loved it so much that I truly don't have much to say about it, as I feel as though the cleverness of the dialogue in this section of the text speaks for itself. It is incredibly charming and captivating. I truly, really loved how you wrote that. It feels easy—the way it reads. The words glide over and bounce off each other, phrases complementing one another, seamlessly driving towards a compelling conclusion. I really, really, really, really, really enjoyed this portion of the text. Sincerely. I truly, truly, truly loved it from start to finish, and I wouldn't change it for the world. (It is really hard for me to pick out standout lines in this scene. I think maybe this is my favourite scene, but I am still unsure. I just love the way you wrote this scene. I love the dialogue. I love their dynamic. I love how back-and-forth the dialogue is. I love how it is spurred on by feelings. I love how playful their interactions are. I love how they bounce off each other—both in terms of humour and in terms of challenging one another. I just really and truly loved it, and I sincerely applaud your writing, especially in this portion of the text.)

I thought it was clever how you added the tidbit about the head of the department—it was a clever way of foreshadowing the ending of part one and hinting at the tensions arising in part two. I thought it was a clever nod. (And you know what else I liked about this? The fact that this seemingly small and insignificant interaction is actually a key facet of the story. I am a keen propagator of the idea, which I unfortunately do not always practice, of everything in the story being relevant at all times and no unnecessary information marring the text. You subscribe to this idea wholly, and this, in part, makes your writing fantastic. And to me, it seems, this comes almost naturally, and perhaps it is nature's gift to you.)

(This is a funny nod to existentialism—'Oh, great, you were becoming existential'. I enjoyed it.)

I love how she dresses up for their meeting, paying attention to choosing the right appearance, and I love the fact that he noticed it! I think this says a lot about them. It tells us that for her, his opinion matters, not just in terms of academic validation but also in terms of his perception of her as a person. And it says a lot about him, too. Not only is he perceptive and pays a lot of attention to detail, he also pays a lot of attention to her, and so of course he would notice such details and appreciate them.

I loved, loved, loved his feedback for her essay. I loved it. I loved it so, so much. I loved how he mentioned Scanlon once more. It is so witty. I loved it so much. I know you said that Scanlon is not your expertise, but mentioning him in such a way is just so incredibly clever that I would've never thought of it. I am truly impressed. It is just so fantastic. It has the right amount of humour, the right amount of nerdiness, and the right amount of romance. So good. 

99 — I was impressed by this paper not only by the content but by its comprehension and use of both ethics and philosophy. But I was also impressed by the person who wrote the paper. You’ve shown determination and growth throughout the semester — and you have reminded me what we owe to each other. And I think we owe each other a drink, and a chance for this. 

I think his feedback also says a lot about him as a person. She is significant to him not only as a student but also as an individual. I love that he paid attention to her progress, stressing the importance of learning more and more, chiselling at oneself, and improving oneself, and how one should not be afraid of doing so, and acknowledging the difficulty of doing so, as receiving challenging feedback is not easy, and he knows that.

I loved the nod back to 'What We Owe to Each Other'. It's one of my favourite things about this piece—the fact that it features as a recurrent refrain throughout the text. I love, love, that Suguru wrote that they 'owe each other a drink, and a chance for this'. For me, this is incredibly romantic. I think this is something that will stay with me for a very long time, and I will keep thinking about it again and again from time to time.

I love how they debate their relationship within the parameters of ethics. And I love how concerned they are about each other. (The boundaries of such things are slippery, and I appreciate how this text hints at and acknowledges that.)

I thought this was incredibly funny:

“So you think it’s funny to mess with your professor?” And his voice drops, a playful tone that makes you nearly shiver, as he leans forward, resting his chin against his elbow. 

I loved the way you wrote the kiss. I feel like people often underestimate how difficult it is to write a good kiss. And the way you wrote this kiss, in my opinion, was fantastic. It was passionate, frenzied, fast and spontaneous, and passion-driven, and the way it was first a gentle peck that soon transformed into a deeper, more passionate kiss captured my heart.

And you know what else I loved? This:

“Not very ethical,” you chuckle breathlessly, as your fingers rake through his now disheveled bun, “but I can’t find the sense to care,” your noses brush, as you can’t help but smile, “what would Scanlon or Kant say about this?”  And his arms lift you onto his desk, several papers crumpling underneath, “Who the fuck cares?” he’s hissing, his lips find yours in a searing kiss, as his thighs press yours apart, as he settles himself between your legs, his knee grazing your core, drawing a delightful gasp from your lips, “I know what I want,” and his eyes soften, his fingers tracing the length of your cheek, “do you?” 

The ending is brilliant. It is brilliant in many ways. Not only does it perfectly set the scene for part two, but it is also imbued with tension, and this tension will be fertile ground for you to explore later. I greatly and passionately wait for the release of part two. (Although, of course, I think that it would be only proper of me to remind you that above all else, your health and your happiness should be your main priority and that you should—at least in my opinion—take as much time as you need to focus on part two and let it guide you, not rush, and just enjoy the process of writing it.)

If it wasn't clear already, I really, really enjoyed this fic. I think it may be, perhaps, my favourite fic on Tumblr? It is certainly one of my favourite fics on Tumblr. It is just so slick, well-written, appropriately paced, and so well done that it certainly holds a very special place in my heart.

I feel incredibly lucky for the fact that you are such a brilliant writer. I believe I should follow Professor Geto's example in not only acknowledging and appreciating you as a fantastic writer but also in recognising and cherishing the person who wrote this fic. I wanted to thank you for the time that you put into thinking of this fic, writing it, editing it, formatting it, and sharing it with us. Doing all of this takes a lot of mental fortitude. Doing all of this and sharing your work takes even more mental fortitude. And for that, I am incredibly grateful. I am thankful that you have chosen to share this brilliant fic with us, and I sincerely look forward to the release of part two.

I also wanted to say that I really appreciate the fact that you put so much time and effort into answering the asks that you receive and for the fact that you always answer so kindly and politely. I am truly very thankful for that and appreciative of that and your kindness. Reading your responses to asks is a true joy, and reading your responses to them has truly brightened my mood.

I would like to round off this message by reiterating how much I loved this fic and by thanking you once more for writing and sharing it with us.

I truly wish you all the very best.

I greatly look forward to part two.

Thank you once again for sharing your brilliant work with us.

(I've been having issues with Tumblr, so I'm not sure if Tumblr duplicated my message accidentally. I hope it got through to you!!)

i don't even know how to begin to reply to this message. i've read it like, i'm not sure how many times?? it's literally so, so sweet and i can't even fathom coming up with a response that does this analysis and walkthrough of my fic justice, but i'll try!! (very long reply under the cut)

first of all, thank you so so much, this means the entire world to me!!! i can't express to you how lucky i feel to have people as sweet as you and others who write these long messages to me, and its literally a writer's dream to have someone like you who quotes their work and tells you what stuck out to them. you are truly truly a rare breed and i feel goddamn lucky that you found my work and found it worthy of this effort <3333. ok but onto my reply:

it makes me so happy when anyone says they look forward to my fics or my updates and it's the first thing they do. like it just makes me so so happy?? just because i know the things i look forward to and the things i do right in the morning are the things i really, really want to do, so it makes me so happy that my writing is something like that for you

i'm so glad you enjoyed my formatting and the art i chose!! i usually prefer to use manga panels because i don't want to end up using stolen art (unfortunately happened before) or ai art, but from the searching i did, i found this art to be legit and i believe i found the original artist behind it. they did a wonderful job on it - literally its gorgeous. the art was literally how i imagined geto in this fic and i was so pleased. i'm glad you noticed the purple coloring!! it's funny even before i realized geto's eyes in the manga are purple, purple was just a color i associated with him.

i'm so glad the opening really struck you because it's something i was struggling with, i always have trouble beginning things and i'm the type of writer where i can't just jump in write a random scene and come back (unless a line of dialogue jumps out of my head and onto the page). again, i love when people say my descriptions are good - it makes me so happy!! i'm naturally not a very visual person -- i can't picture things in my head really well so i had teach myself how to do it through reading and writing.

i'm glad you think i'm funny - i don't know why but someone complimenting my humor is like one of my favorite things?? T_T i think i am easy to get along with - i try to be anyway. i'm glad it comes across in my writing. hahah i had to do the chili peppers i grew up with 'ratemyprofessor' with my siblings who used to always use it (and i did as well), and my sisters and I would always laugh when we saw a professor with those infamous chili peppers next to their names.

i'm glad reader's character came across well!! i always try to keep reader pretty vague, at least in terms of appearance, so people can superimpose themselves onto her pretty easily. i have literally had so many papers where i submitted that i thought an amazing job on and then only to get them back and internally scream when i saw a grade inconsistent with what i thought i deserved. i feel like the papers i didn't care about were always the ones i did well on and the ones i overthought were the ones that never did well.

honestly suguru having papers submitted both ways was by necessity but i also thought it fit in well with his character and how he is. he's meticulous and thoughtful. and i'm so glad it came across!!

i'm glad you enjoyed the "red as the ink that tore your paper to shreds" because that was also one of my favorite lines i wrote and sometimes i have to try to write a simile like that or it comes easily. that one came easily which i was very pleased with.

with his office, i can't take all the credit for that -- an anon had submitted an idea about his office being very large and opulent and i thought that fit in so perfectly with the story that i had to include it :)

i am so happy you liked their banter - i was concerned that it would come across as disingenuous or like forced, but i'm glad it was successful :). i always have this fear that like my characters will come off pretentious so i always try to ground them in experience or my own vernacular in some way to give them a more real person feel. i'm so glad his feedback sounded realistic - a lot of it was based on just experience of getting feedback and also just giving feedback (i used to be a writing tutor for a brief time).

i'm so glad geto comes across as likeable that was definitely important to me and honestly i hadn't thought about the fact that some professors only give brief feedback, but its very, very true. sometimes they don't. and i'm glad that struck you because i was really only thinking of what kind of teacher geto would be and i think he would really be a wonderful one (sad to think about in the context of jjk but its true).

the google scholar was all @laneysmusings. i asked her while i was writing that scene if she could make one up for me because i was going to just leave it as text but i thought a google scholar page would be a cute reference for anyone who saw the post about me researching on google scholar hahah. and she did amazing. she even wrote the descriptions and everything - she even chose tokai university because its located in shibuya -- so i owe all of that effort to her. she truly is my platonic soulmate :).

ahhhh the lecture hall dream scene was the one i was looking the most forward to writing!! it was the one that i went into the fic knowing i wanted to write and it was so fun writing it. the tantalus reference was added in during edits because i just love using mythology references in my writing and i thought it fit in well with the academia vibe :).

the edging line literally also made me chuckle when i wrote it, because i too felt like this fic was an exercise in edging after this scene and then geto's dream - it felt like i was taunting the reader hahah. also "break like a glow stick" made me laugh when i read it, and i'm still giggling as i write this now.

omg i definitely want to do that now - i definitely will include a scene where she's talking about the dreams with him and it would be funny if 1) he slips up and says "you had dreams too?" and 2) if he decides to use the vibrator one her later hahahah.

honestly the scene where he stops her is based on my own experience in college when a professor stopped me and asked if i was okay when i was very despondent during class lol (i was just super depressed at the time). and i thought it was so sweet of her to ask me how i was doing and i feel like suguru would do the same for his students, especially ones he knows well.

honestly writing geto's dream was so fun, while simultaneously difficult haha. because it was like toeing the line between fantasy and reality, and trying to make it seem realistic at first and then having it go speeding off the rails with his desires. i'm so glad honestly that scanlon worked out - because i was trying to figure out how to frame it, and then i thought of scanlon because of the good place and when i started reading 'what do we owe to each other,' i thought it fit perfectly (i do also have mike schur's book that he wrote about ethics and writing the good place and this almost makes me want to read in prep for part 2 hahah). i am most definitely an amateur, my extent of knowledge of ethics / philosophy comes from the good place and from a legal perspective, the latter of which was not very helpful here hahah. i'm so glad it came across well!! and hey, i will take the compliment because i think, based on what you've said, you are more versed than i am.

hahah the sofa was definitely because i wanted them sitting closer this time -- kinda showing how the line is blurring more and more and the gap between them is closing (literally and figuratively, because no big desk blocking them from each other).

honestly the scene in their office on the couch was the most difficult scene in the entire fic to write -- because i remember i wrote it at night and i was super unsure about it. i sent it to laney and i was like internally 'she's probably gonna say it needs more because it doesn't feel like enough' and then when she read it in the morning she was like its great, just a typo. and i was like....don't you think it needs something?? and she like no??? lol.

i'm so glad!! because the T.A. thing was how i wanted to end the fic, but obviously i wanted to foreshadow it. but i was thinking about having it earlier, but professors don't think about TAs until the semester is about to end anyway. the existential line was also funny because i had stopped writing the night before right before that line and when i came back to it, i was like huh, i was really getting existential before bed. and thus that line.

i'm so glad the kiss came across right!! i was super worried about writing it because its such a pivotal scene and i wanted it to be just right. and i was really channeling jess and nick's first kiss from new girl energy (but more hesitant at first).

i appreciate the reminder of about my own wellbeing over writing :). i love writing this series though so i am very eager to continue - but i really gotta write some 2K fics first because i'm almost to 4K and i haven't written a single one and no one is pressuring me, except my own little voice in my head haha.

i'm so so glad you enjoyed it this much to send this incredibly wonderful, thoughtful message to me. I can't express in words what this meant to me. thank you for doing this as well!!! it literally means the world. reading all of your asks and everyone else's literally make my entire day, along with the wonderful reblogs, tags, and comments everyone has left. but these asks are so so special to me. thank you so much - i really can't thank you enough <333

(i did get it twice but no worried :) i just chose to respond to this one so i could let you know it came through!!!) <33

[blackjackkent]

🖍Post Any sentence from your wip ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP ❤️Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

(Ask Game for Writers to Procrastinate Working on Your WIPs)

🖍 Post Any sentence from your wip

"And it's true she has never been sentimental, no matter the dangers pressing around them. This fear, though, is not sentimentality but something far deeper and older and more primal - the rage-fear of the mother tiger whose cubs are threatened. No logic, no stoic resolve, no discipline or self-control will allow her to escape it. It was only the pure knife-edge clarity of adrenaline that has kept it to the back of her mind this long. Now the danger is past, and she is forced to take stock of the things she may have lost in this victory."

From the post-game Jaheira one-shot that's currently top of my WIP pile. (More than a sentence, I know, but I'm pretty pleased with how this whole paragraph came together. c: )

-----

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

One of the reasons Chap4 of Open Your Eyes took so long is that I spent quite a while writing a whole opening sequence where the crew escaped from the guards through the "Muzad" - the Undercity warrens of Calimport. I ended up scrapping it from the chapter because the necessary exposition screwed with the pacing of what was supposed to be a hectic escape sequence.

I did really like some of what I wrote in it, though, so I saved most of it and I think it may end up seeing use in a later chapter instead.

Excerpt from the scrapped scene:

They have, quite suddenly, left the sewers and entered a broad pathway lined by buildings on either side. It might, indeed, look very much like a nighttime street, except that the "sky" is smooth sandstone, some thirty feet above their heads. A small crowd of urchin children, startled at the unexpected appearance of new faces, scatter into the shadows between the buildings. "Welcome to the Muzad," Rasaad says with a mild flicker of something like pride. "The true heart of Calimshan, some have said." "Muzad?" Minsc asks. He prods at the brick face of one of the buildings as they pass by, as if half-expecting it to tip over and reveal itself a clever facade. "A city that hides within the sewers as Boo hides within Minsc's pocket." He grins, sounding somewhat impressed. "This is a magic not seen every day!" Jaheira smiles slightly. "Intertwined, I think - like two balls of yarn tangled in each other," she says quietly. "Or so Khalid once described it to me." She shoots Rasaad a sideways look. "The Undercity, yes?" "The Muzhajaarnadah," Rasaad agrees. "The city of shadow. Calimport has rebuilt itself time and time again, and each time it leaves fragments of itself below, and below, and below..." Imoen clicks her tongue softly. "We know how well Caden fits in with criminal sorts," she says dryly. "This'll go well." "Shut up," Caden says idly, but he gives Rasaad a concerned look. "Dangerous sort of place?" Rasaad hesitates. "To describe the Muzad only one way is to attempt to describe all of the gods in a word," he says after a little while. "Many criminals make their homes here, yes, and do business in the dark corners. And many people who scrounge their living by honest means where the opportunity allows. Some who come by day to escape the heat of the city streets. Some who come by night to find pleasures too strongly censured by the amlakkar. It is said that darker things still lurk in the forgotten corners of this place, things that slumber and should not be awakened - but these, I think, are fairy tales only. It is simply a city, as all cities are." He shrugs. Another long pause. "I was born here," he says, more to himself than to Caden.

-----

❤️Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

Ahhhhhh, thank you! And back at you - now that I've finally actually caught up and read some of your writing, I am doubly flattered at the kind words you've had for mine. <3 TYSM friend.

[tobiasdrake]

Guess we're doing this. Job acquired. Let's go--

That doesn't even have a trigger on it, Iruka. This isn't about wanting to play with your cool guns; You're just murder-hungry.

Shachi, how the hell did a pacifist like you wind up hiring a bloodthirsty killer like Iruka? She is way over the line in the opposite extreme.

In any case, Shachi's off to go try and talk down a fight in the street. Good on him, conflict de-escalation is a valuable use of his time, I'm not gonna make a joke about that. And we're off to get job details.

Details from Servan, the guy who watches the cameras. Who is, predictably, right where we left him: On the opposite side of the room from his cameras, playing cards. Which means we absolutely would have gotten away with going down that fire escape, Yuma.

The size of that little push-click button on top tells me these are probably pretty small. That's good, since they need to be easily hidden.

Ooh, now I feel like a super-spy. After you guys all either get murdered or get soul reaped, can I keep the trendy watch-phone? I'd like to set up the whole Nocturnal Detective Agency with these. It'd make rounding people up so much easier.

Then again, it would also make snubbing Yakou's meetings harder, so maybe let's not.

Oh cool, we're unlocking two new Districts in this chapter. Aren't we fancy.

Easy enough. Not sure how we're expecting to capture police misconduct via a camera set up on the underside of a phone booth receiver, but whatever. Feel like the main thing this camera's going to capture is an awful lot of crotches from people trying to use the phone.

Credit where it's due, that's super clever. Maybe that's why Amaterasu did the... the, uh... whatever they did to cause permanent rainfall. If they wanted to isolate their power grid then they needed a reliable source of clean energy.

[needleworm]

i don't know josh please tell me about him. if u want

ough i would love to. this is going to end up so much fucking text because i don't know how to be concise so courtesy readmore also the linebreaks might make no sense but it's better than a massive chunk of text which is what it was initially before i realized that is Awful

ok so josh(ua majkavić) is my character for my friends and i's monster of the week campaign The Body and like his entire character concept is being if damien thorn or rosemary's baby or any other human-raised demonspawn grew up to become a guy who sucks. he grew up around the appalachian part of georgia but has been living in the general area of chicago with his ineffectual nerd roommates for most of his adulthood now

he's pretty majorly depressive/somewhat of a doomer, terminally insincere, and is generally predisposed to cruelty, but he's a pretty funny guy mostly intentionally. in all reality he cares quite hard and usually does not actually mean to be awful but it is literally his nature it makes him feel kind of bad sometimes but he also genuinely has to throw up if anyone cries around him. he also did beat a kid on an opposing roller hockey team to death when he was like 15 and made blood and dead fish rain on his town for about 12 hours don't worry about it.

he doesn't really leave his room if he can help it he has a really scary like prison gym setup in there and a carefully controlled climate both so he can keep as covered up as possible all the time and so his intricate crypto rig(/only source of income because he doesn't want to be a line cook again) doesn't catch on fire

has tyler durden-esque god-daddy issues despite having no father involved in his creation and is a COLOSSAL momma's boy to the point of getting about as close to being a misandrist as a cis bi man can get. speaking of which his mom (rosemary<3 aren't i clever) is a slightly hippieish cultist who had him as part of a ritual so he can bring about the radical change her group wants and bring about the end times but she also loves her baby (29 year old son) so so so so so so so much. he knows that most kids didn't have animal sacrifices at their birthday parties but he doesn't feel like having that conversation with anybody!

ok anyway ummmmmm let's see. he is the kind of guy that shaves his head in response to any occasion of major stress. starting as a young teenager one of his favorite hobbies was writing gruesome chainmail stories and he stopped in his early 20s but he thinks about going back to it sometimes. he was hooking up semi-regularly with their now-dead roommate and that is going to be a bigger deal than he ever expected it to be. his favorite movie is martyrs and his favorite game is cs:go which he is VASTLY toxic in. he's 5'10" and gets insecure about it sometimes. while he is quite good with computers he is still the least tech-inclined of his household and he recently clicked on a sketchy link his sister's hacked account sent him once and his roommates have lost all faith in his internet safety knowledge and he is suffering the consequences more in that way than he is in actual damage to his pc. he has a really bad tattoo somewhere but i haven't decided where or what yet a tribal tattoo is tempting but almost feels too obvious for a former linecook

he is very fun i think i do a bad job at describing him in a way that doesn't sound intolerable to play with i promise everyone loves josh. i still have not finished art of him at any point but the best i have to offer is this. jotch at 29 at the time of the campaign, around 15-16, and at his ninthish birthday with his mom:D

[fromcainwithlove]

tagged by @sgtjamesrogers 💜

tagging @hungerpunch @husbono @thermocrying @veryspecificfantasies @baking-soda @astronomical-light @seulgoodtome @yekoc @ anyone else who wants to please do

pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the mid point, pick a line, and share it! Then tag 10 people.

the enemy of good (steph/klay)

The light in the bathroom clicks off, tumbling the room into a fuller darkness. Klay moves like another shadow, only taking on weight and form when he settles on the bed. Even then, he’s softly drawn at the edges, pencil lines and shades of grey.

almost total wreck (charles/his own fucked psyche)

“Okay,” he said, letting everything else fall away. Transmuting rage to stillness. Making himself into a mouth to be kissed.

Pierre held his face in both hands and kissed him again, and Charles felt the anger in his stomach jackknife into desire, but it left behind a wound.

staring at the sun (steph/klay/jordan)

He loses time there, heart synced to the rhythm of Steph’s mouth, the sound of his own breathing. The way he can’t feel his hands and feet really, might not even have any but like, who needs them, he’ll get new ones. Everything’s narrowed to mouths: the warm velvet of Steph’s lips and tongue, and his own mouth working over Klay’s fingers in sympathy, all spit and teeth. It’s so good he keeps sliding sideways out of his body, watching from the edge of the bed, and he has to tell himself get back get back be in there.

untitled gyuhao i really need to finish

Mingyu found a sheet of glow-in-the-dark stars his sister sent him on his birthday and they stuck them all over the ceiling, the back of the door, their own skin. There’s one on Minghao’s forehead, a tiny shooting star on the curve of his cheek, the soft chemical glow just enough to catch the shine of his eyes when they turn out the lights.

“I like it in here,” Mingyu says into the three inches of watery grey darkness between them.

“Me too,” Minghao says, the sticker on his cheek pulling with his smile.

the random yukierre thing i wrote a couple weeks ago or whenever what is time anyway

“nope,” yuki says, popping the p, “now i am just fine if you lock up because you are busy thinking about me,” and pierre laughs, the sound punched out him, gathering yuki’s face in his hands and saying, “god, you’re so—” before breaking off to show him what he is.

ask me twice (louis/zayn)

"Yes, Zayn, that's exactly it. I've been so miserable the last year, as evidenced by how I pretty much live at your and Harry's flat, that I decided to take you out to a nice restaurant on our anniversary and break it off. How did you see through my clever plan."

read the right signs (liam/louis)

"It had gone on long enough," Zayn says. "Y'always let things go on too long."

"I don't either," Louis sulks. "You're just not any fun. Liam's fun. Liam understands that some things are always funny."

They've transitioned from fighting to cuddling with no step in between, the way they often do; Louis's head suddenly feels leaden against Zayn's shoulder, and Zayn's hand on his face has turned gentle, stroking over the lingering warmth in his cheek. "Liam lets things go on too long, too," Zayn says, his voice sounding deeper, burred with relaxation and resonating in his chest beneath Louis's ear. "You're both idiots, s'why you're good together. And also, like, awful together."

"We're not anything together," Louis says, perhaps too quickly. "Except mates."

"Ah," Zayn says.

"Bandmates. Mates in a band."

"Mm."

true north (a hockey player you’ve never heard of/a baseball player you’ve never seen)

Once, in his sleep, he cupped the knob of your shoulder in his palm, and his fingers fell straight down your bicep. The next time you watched him start he threw that pitch for the out and you thought about where those hands had been the night before, you wondered who he'd been facing down in his dream when he held you so carefully.

lost year (jason spezza/antoine vermette)

You laugh and you dance and you drink until you're thick with it, mouth numb with tequila, the stupid meat of your tongue pinpricked and studded with salt. Someone's hands are holding your head up, counting off the double-time run of your heart, feeding you shots; it doesn't matter who they belong to. Melted down inside your skin like this, every touch is good. Every smile is easy. Everyone likes the way you shine.

[tyrannuspitch]

recapping general, initial feelings on comics i've read recently (JiM2011 + YA2013):

journey into mystery does do some very interesting stuff, but it also does a lot of stuff that i personally find quite tiresome. i'm just not entertained by Elaborate Schemes where we have to follow loki striking bargains with five different people and it will definitely be clever in the end we promise. sometimes the payoff IS good, but while it's happening, it feels like narrative white noise :(

i also tend to find crossovers pretty tiresome. i am weak; i do not have the comic fan's constitution.

i don't really care about leah :( i'm sorry, i did try, but i just find her kind of flat and uninteresting. i might feel differently on a reread, especially if i knew more about her relationship to hela/how she came to be? i'm genuinely not sure if she has a backstory, or if she was invented for JiM specifically. (like, clearly there's something being referenced with her being hela's hand, but that doesn't mean she was a *character* in any previous story. it could literally just be that she was created.)

i did like thori. but thori is funny...? idk, i feel like thori was a supporting character pitched correctly. you aren't asked to be more invested than his writing justifies. he's funny and he represents a single clear idea, and that's enough.

sometimes i like kid loki. i feel like i could/should like him more... he's fine, i see the potential, but something just hasn't clicked for me (yet?). not sure what.

i REALLY like loki's characterisation in young avengers. truly delightful jester energy. he has the wit of a three thousand year old and the audacity of a twelve year old and he is here to cause problems on purpose!!!

the line "i'm not the murderer, i'm the murder weapon" really compels me, and i wish we got more explicit exploration of that. (<- likely thing for an mcu loki fan to say.) alas. more subtextual significance may be revealed on further investigation.

in general, the identity soup is... interesting. JiM concerns two to three lokis (kid loki likes to conflate ikol and the dead loki, but they're not really the same), but YA raises the possibility of ikol-in-kid-loki's-body as a new entity, and, iirc, AoA also treats ikol as separate. hall of mirrors. infinite lokis fighting each other forever. (except not because they resolve it. but still. hmmm)

i have said before that jim/ya/aoa frustrates me, because, for my tastes, it's too focused on self-destruction and not enough on the initial external violence which ends up being internalised. but i've deleted my most recent post on this subject, because i want to re-assess how true this is. i think there is some truth in it, but i'm still just beginning to process what i've read and it's probably a lot less true than i initially thought.

now i guess i should reread agent of asgard, with full(ish) context at last.

[wh-da-backup]

lyrics dump- grade 10 so far

Published: Apr 9, 2011

note: these are bits of lines and lyrics i jotted down from whenever my last lyric dump was until about late january (when i started a new songbook) they are in no particular order, chronological or otherwise.

------

the only thing surrounding me drink the water, it's a part of me immersed with my insanity my insulation from reality -----

we can still be salvaged from this life ----

you drink about music, you brew about leaves you jolt-jump-spark at your own ideas we're easy to talk to, and easy to please come live in my novel, i'm easy to read ----

you bound my arms in puppet strings and dressed me up and made me king and now i bleed imagining i could cut through the puppet strings ----

you'd be even more beautiful without that gun in your hand

you're my favorite waste of time ----

call me names and call me spit bury me in my dug pit oh pity me... pity me...

give me ears to lick and make me beautiful with dumb pinpricks oh pretty me... pretty me...

(and making me tear up my lips oh) ----

I write what I can't say and call it fiction I remember when I used to read sick to my empty/bleeding stomach cesspool genes caffiene dreams ----

the hourglass is filled with quicksand -----

it's cute that you think you'd be so easily replaced; quit calling me pretty, I'm more than a face ----

precious eyes in a beautiful face

stringent dark eyes in a fingernail face ----

I am not down to earth and/or water off in my head somewhere never get things done lazy own daughter

nuclear reactor guild sun fusion sun I'm (a) jaded Ray I'm (a) faded Ray ----

who is standing in the door... way... my heart is a table (my heart is a table) leg and you write on the table (write on the table) write me a new escape ----

eat your solids drink your liquids breathe your gases nothing matters ----

i got your postcard yesteryear the photo said wish you were here but sadly i am out of reach we'll meet again on pensive beach ----

so bombastic oh degrade me

why so shy in silent shell?

leave avec un violon ----

teacups are fragile this one's been pushed over the table's edge

you can hold the pieces together but they'll just fall apart when you remove your hands

and you did but you did the best you can -----

I'll shine in your smile like a firefly's ass

we'll breed the cutest maggots your mother ever saw ---

you feed my ego when i'm broken you're glue ---

I've been known for shooting mirrors no one wants to hold my fingers life is a price

you listen in and think i'm clever stitch the glass and see forever life is nice ----

I can't sleep in this ----

friend, i love you no more scars ----

leave me be I'm no forgever I will have these scars forever ---

this is not a riot, this is the norm. -----

he can read his own mind as you can't do we understand each others' too he wakes at night in violent screams at least he knows what it means to dream ----

all is fair now we're just friends

now we can't move cause we're still friends ----

brainblanks

been thinking about bullets hoping one will lodge

now my mind is blanking no wonder i haven't been shot ----

souls with whom i've shared a room in a house in some past life

it's always better late than never we all love each other now i'm figured out ----

afraid your arms aren't strong enough to crush the world before it crushes her she likes to dream in your ear unconditional listener she likes to hide from everything she wants to tell you all the sad things, things she almost

(things she always) ----

memory barricades everyone sees them your life is tacked up and you dream with your past around ----

to stroke the dreams of anyone dying and be happy for any two people in love ----

butterflies don't cause hurricanes it's the vibrations from knocking on unanswered doors

puzzles click and people feel don't thnk i've ever met such real- life eyes

the hourglass is filled with quicksand and my mouth with sandy lies -----

I like the time you said to me well don't you want it all? and what if overall it's not your fault ------

mentalliterate

out of my mind and out of your mind too we talk all night and lips are last to rest we're like the rats i guess little feet and little hearts the music starts there's nothing talk can do -----

so hot and scary let's compare ea- -ch other's lies

be my fracture let's commit a crime -----

we were down not so long ago broken minds and starving egos

people in a world of creatures, humans, talk, and TV zombies

faster than a speeding taxi best and worst and most indifferent

I know you make all the difference

you and I can say anything true and breathing's all we have to do we can stay and dream for hours nothing has to move -----

you put her in the world, tell her it's wrong to see her breath, she'll stop breathing

you build a perfect world take her and put her in that dress mirror bleeding

(tell her she's no good if she can't fit into that dress mirror-reading)

thin as the paper they're printed on ashamed of their own flesh beauty is fleeting

flesh it what it is, plastic flaws and now you must confess-

she's not breathing -----

he's so shallow she's so callow yet their love is hallowed fools will follow -----

this boy will someday be a man this man was once a child ----

we put us down and say we're ugly we are in denial we are beautiful

and all the empty pages we'll write and turn the stages and they will fill with roses human, we are beautiful -----

I see the shadow we cast on a smile in the sky

I hear you drum again and there are major repercussions

you call yourself my ventillation (rusty ankles pay attention) i don't want to need you to breathe

I'll sing you an alibi

fall asleep and you'll forget me never did remember all your dreams

is there something you're not telling me?

those 13 days are my favorite lucid dream -----

you have CDs now I kept the cassettes mix tapes we made recording the radio remember when we recorded the radio? we always laughed at high school sweethearts secretly wishing we knew each other that young

new year denied me millenium kiss -----

light from all around my friends are ghosts who saved my soul and carry on to heaven whole -----

you'll improvise me a serenade ------

and in the days of gold they smiled and weaved their voices to caress the child

sing until the baby breaks

simple as syrup she's as good as drowned

it leaves a candy wake

drink water

gravity corrects ----

I think we're floating out to see we'll build a flag to save our sanity our love is paranoid and in a drowned world there are some things that only swimmers know the sea recedes and she will not grow old -----

should it be something i admire should it be something i resent it seems i'm only smiling when i'm smiling on your latest compliment

when i dress like a bruise ----

on a bridge where rivers meet so cold but not quite freezing the swimmers you and i won't join it seems to me this is a dream

and in the end it's all beneath i'd kiss your teeth and drag my feet and in the end is this the end everything's fair now we're just friends ----

no one's gonna take your records you can paint the walls any colour you like

know i'm never gonna leave you you can stay with me -----

voulez-vous, voulez-vous, you ask the questions but don't follow through

too few freckles under the wrong eye ----

your nickname reminds me of razors i'm sorry i've got a dark mind ----

she is the prettiest poison in apology glass bottles they'll break on your face as soon as you kiss one ----

and wait for the Aurora, borre Alice and as Aurora bore Alice she has been erased -----

we brought her home today she's got a deep voice and when she cries the floor shakes ----

you're so commercial there's industry in misery

you're clueless like me -----

my heart's feet under my mind is caught in my throat tread all the water I got I wish I could float

my heart's feet under my mind is caught in my throat tread all the water I got til the water... chokes

I don't expect a stranger to row up in a life boat don't expect a savior to show up with a raincoat do you expect the answer to show up at your door I don't ----

I've got you in a jar you should not have told me that I seem to like to tap on glass how long before you get tired of this? you'll only get all cut up again breaking out twist around the other way you'll tangle up your puppet strings cutting through the puppet strings -----

the transient

it was all a stupid dream I woke up with your jewelry on my throat -----

tugging on my strands of hair and thanks to you I'm stranded here ----

to see you as i do i wish that you could you're a little to rough on yourself, I believe if it isn't enough if your writing is "good" you can grow as an artist but fire won't breathe

it's life or death for your ideas a title that transcends the years you'll always mean a lot to me regardless of whether you're man of the century -----

he's got music in his head

I want you to be happy even if it means i'm left behind -----

the whole time I was thinking how she's so much more perfect than me with each other you can be yourselves I'm a skeptic- I warp reality

I hate my smile the two of yours spell perfect chemistry you figured out soon enough I'm not the replacement your heart thought I would be

no date no hurt I hope I'm not jealous, if I am it's only of your happiness no lies no secrets everyday in silence, my thoughts growing heavy in my pockets ------

don't mind me I'm only special ---

you cry yourself an ocean hoping it'll drown you I'm sick of playing coast guard to your soul -----

screw the rules, say whatever you want within the walls of the school ----

I saw the light I saw the light I saw the light it passed right through you are you wearing thin my friend?

I saw the guns they were shining in the sun you were born with an army in your hand have you sent them marching in my friend? off to distant lands... ----

my beauty only lies within the clouded eyes on my beholder beholder is no longer blinded I'm a dream you won't remember -----

not gonna kill myself over a bad day, used to be yours but it's your loss anyway -----

stitch-hearted smiles ------

ask me what I'm writing it's ruined and YOU'RE SITTING RIGHT THERE I get a new enemy every year and I make him promise not to care (well it never works) ----

planets in the sewers full of shaved-off hair that's gotta go somewhere -----

love seems to scare you- let's talk about death

like a river, will you take me? ----

I feel better for having spoken ----

you can suck my APATHY

do they speak in signals do the signals carry speech?

we're not broken up just changed

all I do is drink your voice

If I loved somebody I'd be important

my lungs aren't lungs they're a summed-up mess ------

(these are old cause i saved them for some reason)

what are these crystal spheres they fall like rain yeah fall like rain what is this sticky river raindrops fall and sting the spring

red the fissures cut like scizzors red the oil, yeah red black gold my soul the fissures cut like scizzors red the oil, uh red black gold my soul

tangle me in metal strings and string me up like in my dreams

I feel left out of my own conversations silence is an innovation rowing nowhere on a rubber stream

shot my twin brother, thought he was me

saw pavlov's dog chasing schrodinger's cat

I write all these songs 'bout a soul in denial neglected to mention that person was me

there will be other mud-spattered clothing

tournez la page en vie and rivers run avant de vous fermez un oeil

the road will be long the path will be varied some climb to the top and then others are carried

I'd tell my friends but then they would care cause of drama, sew-sight scare

we all need change to complain about

you'll take away my children to own and abuse them and make them your bitch you could turn me into a whore for my fame it aint gonna happen i already know your name

tenderly kiss the gangrene don't be ashamed of your sores rotting is only human

I can't stand this body knowing these are the arms you died in

it's a supernova

I relate to people fine if they're like me

fame is vivisection

the dogs start whining, I already fed you today (lay down) ------

you wear yourself well ----

I'm such a waste I take up space but if the space is in your heart then it's ok ----

he can't sing like an angel or scream like a rock star -----

the earth is pressed against my body she said, "I am electrifying, better out me in charge." ----

I'm ok with anything you want because I know you wouldn't want too much through voices taunting and picture eyes that haunt this is trust ----

your face is flushed, I'm turning read where love is dead the notes have bred you're right about the things you said you're hollow wings, a clouded head -----

she's sitting there painting her suicide portrait notes are for writers she thought to herself

she's been walking on flashlights ever since the coals ran out and she thought all the guitars were teeth to whom will she them all bequeath? ----

my heart is a brick ----

it's got an average mean meaning nothing means nothing means nobody means ----

forget the pages, take my dreams ---

I think that these novels have gone to your head let us be what we are, and not what you've read ------

used to think I was the best, I wasn't good enough I guess ----

loved ones strewn about the floor whoever are you waiting for? ----

speak in reply to conform to convention, speak out of turn and you'll catch my attention ----

I've been an enigma lately because you can't read your own handwriting ------

(this one is also from 9th grade)

you broke into my home passed out on the bed left dream marks on the pillow next to your intoxicated head oh no... won't you see this through?

you opened up your eyes scremaing locked and red slurred the words and asked me not to hear the stupid things you said oh no... won't you see this through? don't go... the sky of blackened blue ------

for a second there i believed in myself turns out you thought i was someone else -----

never gonna grow up always gonna lie never gonna be too pretty might as well die ------

you were only a dream but you were my favorite dream

fire's out

you realized I'm no replacement ------

like this guitar my walls have scars we've all got scars because of me -----

say things to me you needed someone to say to I just want someone I can say

one for change and one to keep it

been thinking about you got nothing better to do

you don't deserve these pictures I wish I could pray your nightmares gone

--------

Unfinished Songs in my Songbook

jeans getting too tight on my legs feet getting too big for my shoes anger's getting too much for my skin to hold one of these days, gonna break lose

body's getting too frail for the grip (my addictions) ego's swelling to great for my skull (go on feed it) hair in my face too long to see anything one of these days, losing control --------

I'm sad, it's hereditary guess I got blue genes oh ha ha very funny it's got an average mean meaning nothing means nothings means

you're bad, this is necessary pass on your cesspool genes we'll smile on our offspring teach them the average mean meaning nobody means nobody means nothing means nothing means

I'm done with thinkin about old wars we'll breed the cutest maggots your mother ever saw