#put them in the bag because work shoes are only worn at work

[iicraft505]

i had a very autistic moment about the plastic bag i use to carry my work shoes in today

[gilverrwrites]

Meet Cutes Uglies Ft. Bruce, Dick, and Jason

GN!Reader, ≈500 words each

CWs: Mild/nonexplicit threats of violence, slut-shaming (but not really), swearing.

Bruce

The chances of bumping into a celebrity not once, twice, thrice, but four times in one day are low, but not impossible as you’re finding out.

It was kinda cool realising you’re stood behind him in line at the coffee shop, but not spectacularly cool or anything. Almost everyone you knew had a story about meeting Bruce, or another member of the Wayne family out in public so you weren’t overly excited. You just kept your head down, scrolling through your socials and wondering whether his drink was the iced cold brew, the fudge brownie hot chocolate, or the three pump vanilla no foam cappuccino. Your friend Jade was right, he is far ‘hunkier’ than the media gives him credit for, his piercing eyes really are that blue, and he smells good too, like bergamot and cedar.

It became somewhat more exciting when you'd headed to the library on your lunch break to return a book, only for him to already be there, chatting-up the librarians no less. Your friends were not going to believe this. He must sense you staring at him because he turns to look at you, when you make eye contact you smile, wondering if he might recognise you from the morning. He did not smile back.

Upon returning to work, the rest of your shift had been gruelling, job after job being piled onto your shoulders with minimal time to get them all done. You hadn’t even had the chance to tell your co-workers about your unlikely encounters with Gotham’s richest man. By the time you got off for the night, you were exhausted, the thought of having to cook dinner and wash the pots once you got home looming over you like a rain cloud until you decide to grab some take-out on your way home instead.

You’re barely out of the doors of Big Belly Burgers, a handful of fries hanging from your lips when you see him for the 3rd time. Bruce Wayne, on the sidewalk across the street, engrossed in what seemed to be a very intense telephone call. Weird.

You don’t have to wait long for the fourth encounter, it happens just a few blocks from your home. He’s much closer this time, a little too close for comfort maybe. You hadn’t seen it coming, one moment you’re rifling through your bag, looking for your keys, the next you’re suspended a few inches from the ground by a pair of strong hands fisted into the collar of your jacket. Instinctively you paw at him, one hand wrapping around his wrist, the other bunching up in the fabric of his sweater for faux support.  

You think for a moment you’re being mugged, until the familiar smell of wood and citrus hits your senses. Bruce Wayne is pressing you against the cold, damp wall of an alleyway, handsome face marred by its stern expression.

“Who are you?” He demands. “And why are you following me?”

>[Continued]<

Dick

The only thing worse than the feel of the uneven, filth-trodden pavements of Blüdhaven against your bare feet, is the thought of putting the torturous pair of dress shoes you’d worn last night back on. Perhaps you should have asked your hookup for something to wear, but that would almost certainly guarantee your having to see them again in order to return it and you’d happily walk barefoot across Tartarus before you let that happen.

Careful to avoid stepping in anything less than savoury, you keep your eyes glued to the floor, so focused on the things below you, that you don’t notice the things in front of you. The person in front of you, until you plough right into their admittedly firm chest.

The person in question reeks of stale alcohol, his shiny hair is a mess, there’s a shadow forming on his striking jawline, and the half-undone shirt he’s wearing is clearly wrinkled and stained from the night before. A fellow walk-of-shamer.

You stare at each other for a long moment before you realise you had bumped into him, therefore you should be the one to speak first.

“Oh, uh, sorry.” You murmur, voice hoarse.

“No problem.” He replied, far too chipper for his current predicament. His eyes rake up and down your body, and you might be vexed by it if you had not just been doing the same to him. “Why aren’t you wearing your shoes.”

“They hurt my feet.” You shrug, taking a cautious sidestep around him as you speak. “Just want to get home, they were slowing me down.”

That should be the end of it, but the sound of his dress boots tapping against the sidewalk follows you down the street. You can’t be certain, but you were pretty sure he’d been walking in the opposite direction prior to your collision. You cast a glance over your shoulder, and sure enough, he’s just a few steps behind you, offering you a striking smile that almost makes the grey morning feel brighter.

“Proposal?” He asks, and you stop to listen. Possibly because you’re genuinely intrigued, probably because your brain isn’t awake enough to tell your heart that you shouldn’t talk to strangers. “If I can get you home without you having to use your feet, will you go out for breakfast with me?”

“You’re really asking me out during a walk of shame?” You snicker, impressed by his audacity.

“We don’t shame in 2024, I prefer to call it a stride of pride.” He informs you, and he has a point. “Besides, might be fate that we walked into each other this fine morning, gotta give it a chance, right?”

“Right.” You agree, but your raised brow and puckered lips might suggest some scepticism. He doesn’t seem put off however, still beaming that brilliant smile at you. “And how do you plan on getting me home?”

“Easy.” He shakes his head, conveying his confidence as he beckons you closer by curling two fingers towards himself. You follow his direction and before you can comprehend what’s going on he’s crouching before you, threading his body between your legs and lifting you on his back, piggy style.

“So, where do you live?”

Jason

The coffee shop is that perfect level of busy that's not overwhelming but isn't too quiet as to be unsettling. Your drink is the ideal temperature, and the evening sun is seeping through the windows at just the right angle to warm your skin and add a golden glow to the atmosphere. By all accounts, this should be the perfect, relaxing moment, except… this book sucks.

You’d thought after years of recommendations from friends, many critically acclaimed adaptions, and its general status as a must-read classic that it was high time you picked it up, but you were about two-thirds in and thoroughly not enjoying yourself.

“Excuse me.” A low voice draws you from the pages of the book. You hadn’t noticed the 6ft+ mountain of tattooed muscle casting a shadow over your table until you looked into his eyes. Oh wow. You don’t know why he’s approached you, but whatever it is; he can have it. “Are you reading Lady Liatris?”

“I am.” You confer, lazily tilting the cover to show him, despite your reading choice already being apparent.

“Nice to meet a fellow bibliophile out in the wild. What do you think of it so far?” He smiles at you, reaching out a hand, your heart sinks as his strong fingers wrap around your own for a handshake.

“Well….” Handsome, well-read, confident enough to approach you, and you were about to blow it with your brutal honesty. “I haven’t finished it yet, so I won’t commit, but so far I am not impressed.”

“What?” He actually flinched. “No way. Where are you up to?”

“I just finished the bit where Claude professed his love for Florance at the flower show, which was the drollest thing I’ve ever read, and it went on and on for far too many pages.” It was probably impolite for you to be venting so quickly to this stranger, but you just couldn’t help it, the words just kept coming. “Not to mention its total lack of realistic feminism, you can’t just unveil your fencing champion to secretly be a woman and call it a day, every other woman in this book is either a two-dimensional gossiping villain or a two-dimensional love interest for the male side characters.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” The mystery man shakes his head at you in disbelief as he situates himself in the chair across from your own. “First of all, it was a product of its time, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest pieces of feminist literature despite its origins, secondly, did you not read any of Evie’s subplot?”

The conversation continues that way, back and forth. He emphasises his points with big sweeping, passionate movements of his arms. He nods his head and purses his lips when you make arguably good points and grits his teeth when he disagrees with you. Neither of you notice when the sun goes down, or your drinks going cold until the barista informs you both that they’ll be closing in a few minutes.

Shit. You’d been debating classic-lit with this guy for at least 2 hours, and you didn’t even know his name. The sentiment appears to be shared because he offers you a comically confused frown as he puts his jacket back on and offers you a hand standing from your seat.

You exit the café into the cool night air together. You’re not sure if you should ask his name and invite him over, or say goodbye, fortunately, he removes the need to decide by handing you a napkin with his name and number jotted onto it in black marker. Jason.

“Call me when you’ve finished the book.” He instructs, and then he gone.

[chokchokk]

𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗄𝖾𝖽 𝗁𝖺𝗋𝖽, 𝗁𝖺𝗋𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗒𝗈𝗎 | song mingi x fem!reader

an ao3 requested husband!mingi one-shot

"Are you trying to challenge me?"

𝚜𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜 : You come home stressed, feeling like the world wants only the worst from you. Good thing that your husband wants the best, right? Right...

"Baby, I would never do such a thing."

𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎 : fluff, smut

𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 : 7.3k

𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 : established relationship, girlboss office worker!reader, stay at home husband!mingi, praise kink, hand kink, size kink, service top!mingi, use of the pet-name “baby”, starts rougher but then gets really soft and gentle, cunnilingus, fingering, over-stimulation, passionate sex; reader and mingi are in their late 20s/early 30s, reader is a bit bratty but mingi is a brat as well, it pains writer mingi is not a sub in this FUCK, he puts reader in place just a tiny bit, but the dynamics are pretty even, reader and mingi love each other deeply

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎 : i wanted to make mingi wear a tanktop but when i digged for it THERE WAS NOTHING???? we never got tanktop!mingi selcas???? how do yall not die of hunger, no, THIRST?

anyhow. this was an ao3 request!!! i had lots of loving fun with it and i hope you do as well babes and bbies xoxo

masterlist link | join my taglist

Did you know married employees are respected more?

Well, that’s what statistics say, but you certainly have never had this observation be proven true. It’s been almost a year since the first time you’ve worn your ring at your work-place, but you still get weird looks for having settled down “too early in the relationship” at such a “young age”, as if they knew anything about your private life— so no, you don’t. You wouldn’t know anything about being respected more as a married employee, even if you’re a few working hours away from being promoted to General Manager.

You throw your keys into their respective tray and hold your nose-bridge, when you enter your house with the sound of your shoes immediately falling to the floor after you shake them off in frustration. Yes, you may have earned your money, but at what cost? To hear old people pick you out because “such a fragile thing can’t possibly handle life”, despite being their lead director, have their hairy fingers pointed towards you since “someone like Y/N needs extra checking” despite you never having missed a dead-line, and to be eyed by them while you’re just trying to get your papers— oh, fucking hell; that is, by definition, not respect, that is horror, and one more reason to finally just quit your job and—

“Baby, you’re home!”

You take deep breath.

“Here I am.”

“Allow me,” your husband hums, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing his torso close to your back; he’s rubbing himself against you with the excuse that he’s helping you get that fucking bag from your hands, and you let out an exhale once the weight is removed from your grip and lands on the floor. He is masterfully not referring to the fact that you came a full hour later than the initial time you have texted him you would arrive, and rather focusing on the how your shoulders feel more tense than usual, massaging his strong thumbs into them.

“Thank you,” you sigh and lean the back of your head against his breast, for he’s towering over you like a guardian pressing gentle kisses onto your hair, making him one comfortable, cushioned wall. You feel a bit guilty for not having asked how his day went, but for all you know, he’s having a blast arranging his new studio that he wants to use in the future to produce with other music artists, but most importantly, help you earn money.

Your stay-at-home husband, Song Mingi. The man who makes it— the time, the work, the stress— all worth it.

“How do you feel, baby?”, he murmurs, kissing your temple while he’s at it. He brushed his teeth not too long ago, you can smell the remains of mint toothpaste at his lip. Is he being obvious? Yes, maybe. You're not complaining though. “Rough day?”

“Yeah,” you exhale and let yourself be touched by your husband, though it doesn’t make you as calm as it should in your heart. You’re not craving for any soft vicinity here, you want to smash something to the ground and stomp on it; you’ve spend the whole day surrounded by the loudest, noisy, dim-witted idiots who are certainly preying on your downfall if they don’t fucking—

“Tell me all about it, baby,” Mingi murmurs, his vocal chords vibrating against the back of your head, as he rests his chin on top of it. “I’m listening.”

Sometimes you ask yourself whether you would still be receiving the same comments, if your co-workers knew who Mingi was. Not because he’s some famous man to be afraid of, but because he is taller than all of them, has got a louder voice and could knock those douchebags out with his muscly arms— okay, maybe they should be afraid. Very afraid.

“No, it’s okay,” you breathe and turn around to get your arms around your husband’s waist and press your face into his collarbones that you didn’t realize were revealed. "Button up,” you murmur, almost annoyed that you can inhale Mingi’s comforting scent through the cleavage as well as you can. You wanted to stay angry for just a little bit longer, but your husband makes it nearly impossible. Not to say it doesn’t make feel you any less hot though.

“What do you mean?", Mingi pouts, "Is it not good? I showered! Just for you, baby.”

You chuckle and your lips graze his freshly-washed, freshly-lotioned baby-smooth skin. “No… It’s too good…”

Mingi gets his hands into your hair and rubs his finger tips across your scalp.

“What were you stressed about, baby?”, Mingi continues to ask you, applying a bit of pressure to his touch, his hand feeling like it’s ripping off the upper layer of your head in the best way possible.

“My co-workers hate me,” you murmur, teeth gritted. Your breast begins to slightly enflame at the thought of your co-workers’ faces, but your husband doesn’t seem to mind your tone as much, allowing your mind to roam freely.

“Hate you?”

“They, like, hate my existence.”

“What would they hate you for, baby?”, he asks, working his long fingers down to the lower side of your head, reaching for your neck to scratch it. His hand is well big enough to do all of it at the same time.

Preparing to answer his question, you inhale and exhale deeply, smelling the clothing and leaving it warm.

“They hate that… I’m already settled down at my age.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And that I am as confident about it and— and as hard-working as I am…”

Mingi chuckles and strokes your hair one time to get your hair in its right place after having mushed it. His touch expands warmly on your scalp and it spreads like a soothing wave of comfort.

“They hate that,” you inhale, and then —with revelation— exhale, “I’m such a strong, successful woman.”

“There you go. My strong,” Mingi murmurs, and he’s letting his hands glide down your back, “successful,” further down your ass, “wife.” Squeeze.

“Oh,” you chuckle, fully aware that nothing is on your husband’s mind rather than to persuade you to get into bed with him. Cleaning his teeth, showering, putting on fresh clothes— Did he even shave his beard by himself? Wow.

After almost a year of marriage, some clues become very self-explanatory.

His amazing hands work their amazing ways on your ass, and as it goes for Mingi, he always prides himself that he can make you melt under his touch, especially when you come home from work late on days like these.

“You should just let your anger out on them next time,” Mingi smiles, cupping your ass with the big surface of his hand and you can feel how he’s trying to figure out whether he can raise you up like this— spoiler: he can— and continues to encourage you. “Or on me.”

Were you implying your co-workers should be scared of Mingi? Yes, but also no. For someone your size, despite seemingly being ever-so tiny in your husband’s embrace, to make it so big in such a short time is astounding; ground-breaking, even. You may or may not know, but Mingi finds you are one cold-blooded woman whose blood only boils when she’s being provoked, and if there is one thing your husband wants you to prove to your co-workers, it’s that you won’t think twice once you’ve got the title of being their supervisor.

Too harsh? Maybe. But that’s something you can consider when they’re begging you to accept their apologies, no?

“Don’t edge me on, or I might actually turn into the Hulk or something,” you laugh hoarsely and raise your head up to him. Mingi looks down immediately and grins, continuously groping his hands into your butt.

“You can’t scare me,” he lulls and kisses your forehead, “because you’ll always be my little baby, Y/N.”

“Ohh, shut it,” you sneer and can’t deny that Mingi is the only one who can make you feel this small, “I wouldn’t be too sure I can’t scare you.”

“Do try, please,” Mingi insists with a cheeky smirk and gung-ho, you’re raised from the floor, being carried to the bedroom. Was that a challenge you heard?

“Be rough all you want tonight, alright? I don’t think your stress is gonna get away our traditional way today.”

“Really? ‘Traditional’?”, you huff and raise an eyebrow, Mingi kissing your cheek, as he opens the door to your bedroom.

“It’s almost our anniversary, let’s try something new, baby. I'll do anything you want. Don't care about me. I'll just be... you know. I don't know.”

“What? Is my husband getting bored of being in charge?”, you gasp theatrically, easing your hands into his shoulders, “Does hubby want me to order him around?”

“Let’s get rid of the terminology,” Mingi mutters, a bit sheepish, not wanting to admit that he read the term ‘service top’ somewhere in the deepest corners of the internet earlier this evening and had to ask you when you came home. You coming home an hour later just made him travel further the needy path, imagining how good he could make love to you, when his "own pleasure isn't the focus" (that's a quote from the website.)

“I just want my wonderful wife,” Mingi sighs, as he lets himself fall on the mattress backwards, with you landing on his hard-on, knees propped next to his hips, “And relieve you from all your stress.”

You’re still in your office attire, got your tie on tight around your neck, everything that screams ‘not ready for bed’, but Mingi doesn’t seem to care for your sheets to become dirty. In fact, he apparently wants you to be the dirtiest you’ve ever been, huh?

His long, slender fingers hold you by your jaw, as your husband roughly presses his lips into yours, immediately opening up his mouth to get a second taste with his tongue. While he tastes like mint toothpaste, you taste like bittersweet coffee, diligence and dedication; you are dancing heavenly on Mingi’s tastebuds, and his tongue laps over yours eagerly to not let any drop of your essence go to waste. He’s making you feel wanted, no, he wants you, and as Mingi takes your blazer off, your own desire to have him grows bigger with each passing second.

Your legs feel a bit tight due to the fabrics of your suit, but it doesn’t prevent you from grinding yourself into him, pants interrupting your greedy kiss. “Let’s get this off,” Mingi murmurs into your lips, hooking his finger into your tie, loosening it up, pulling it until he can wriggle your head through.

“Let’s get all of this off,” you reciprocate and his hands are on your waist, as Mingi watches you flawlessly open up the buttons of your blouse, tongue running over his lower lip. “Your co-workers don’t know you,” he chuckles, admiring you sitting on top of him with a look in your eyes that he could feast on for days, “But they should know that you are, fuck, breath-taking.”

You move your hips over his crotch, enjoying hearing your husband gutter out his thoughts.

“You are eye-candy in that, baby,” Mingi heaves, “I’m getting kinda jealous of your co-workers here.”

Cheeky, you let the blouse droop over your shoulders, revealing your lacy bra. Saying that you’re eye-candy doesn’t put it into words, Mingi thinks, and gulps at the sight of you stroking over your own torso and your breast that is just being so perfectly pushed by your lingerie, and— though it barely needs any convincing for him to swathe his tongue around your pretty nipples and get even more prettier sounds out of you— your slight gesture gets your husband’s head fuming with the things he wants to do to you to make you crumble and eat it all up deliciously, not leave anything behind.

“I bet they don’t get to see this though,” he grins and with a quick, studied flick of his fingers, the tightness around your torso is released and your tits are out for Mingi stare into. “Only I get to see this, don’t I?"

You nod and sigh, when he traces the red indents from your underwear with his thumbs and wets his lips; but before you think he's being too gentle, Mingi doesn't let you speak out the words 'yes, only you do' and interrupts you with his mouth, his hands holding you by your waist.

"Mingi," you pant. He has pushed you over on your back to the mattress without warning, caging you in with his frame. "Sorry, baby," he grins, pulls off his tank-top, throws it on the floor, quickly— he's got things to do here!— and then zips open your pants, kissing you from your cheek down to your collarbones, covering your body with his fresh breath. "Works better this way."

Mingi hooks his fingers into your trousers and pulls it off until your panties are revealed to him, but before he's able to wriggle it down to your calves and finally have it off your body, he's having a moment to look at his wife laying in front of him; your glowing eyes are glancing up, waiting, no, teasing, urging him on to do what Mingi has been planning to do since the first time he asked you when you would arrive back home.

"Please don't mention 'work'," you hiss, pushing your tongue against the inner space of your mouth.

He knows. He has never been there at your work-place, and he never asks you more about it than he should, because Mingi does think that his distraction works way better than to rant for hours, and he sees it, feels it— your anger, your frustration, your stress— but does he... well, how should he say this... care for it?

No.

"Why not?", is what Mingi whispers into your skin to make you roll your eyes and border him in with your thighs, the pants that aren't off yet keeping him between your legs. Fuck, you're so hot when you're stressed.

Okay, wait, wait, wait— hear him out.

First, please forgive him. You really have to. Mingi would never say this out loud, not under any circumstance that doesn't include you directly asking for it, but shit, look at yourself right now. Enveloped by your open blouse, your perfect breasts hanging out of it like a window luring him to peek like the shameful man he is, your facial expression judging him for his fawning— you are a goddess in his eyes, Y/N. And gods get angry. And then, when they're angry, they're the most powerful they ever are.

So there you go; Mingi, even though he's a husband that has never, ever throughout your marriage or your relationship, made you angrier for more than 24 hours, kinda enjoys it when you come home stressed, gritting your teeth, panting, groaning— talking to him with umph. The stress makes you riled up, makes you breathe fire, shoot flames out of your eyes that seduce him to be even more ignited, just for you.

"Are you trying to challenge me?", you huff and Mingi makes himself comfortable, placing his elbows around the sides of your body, anchoring himself on your lower abdomen with his forearm.

"Baby," he grins, kissing the inner sides of your thighs, "I would never do such a thing."

Except he is. When you get— and your husband thinks he's a genius to think of this— 'worked up', you become demanding, slightly sassy, playful, and there is nothing Mingi loves more than his wife to tell him exactly what she wants, because he knows he can be a bit dense sometimes. He tries his best, always, to do things according to your liking, but usually, you just let him do his thing since sometimes you need nothing more than his presence.

"I would never tease you like that, my," he pesters, "baby." With his lips stuck at the last inch before he's able to get it near your clothed cunt, you scoff, pressing your thighs together to squeeze his face.

"You better fucking not tease me tonight," you warn him and Mingi bites his lip, feeling his already-very-hard cock twitch inside his joggers at the cause of your tone.

"I love you too much," your husband answers and moves his head around, his pointy nose grazing against your covered clit. Like an automatic reaction, you gulp and throw your face to the side, your hand intertwining with Mingi's long fingers that are resting at the seam of your panties.

"Oh, please," you taunt, “dare to give me your worst performance,” and you think you're safe, since his hands are occupied with yours, but when you are in bed with him, and proceed to tease Mingi like this, then you are never safe with your husband.

(Except the part that you are safe, and safe with the thought Mingi is indeed going to relieve you.) Pressing his tongue against the fabric, Mingi curves it into the band, pushing it with ease, without any type of struggle to— and you should've seen this coming— plunge his tongue into your folds. "Fuck, Mingi," you breathe and he's chuckling against your wet cunt, as he laps his wet muscle over your slickness to gather what has been collecting in your underwear, slow and sensually, though his heavy breathing tells you that he's going to feast on it in no time.

He ‘loves you’, you know that, but ‘too much'? — Can there ever be too much?

"Ohh, fuck, that's good, right fucking there," you groan, gripping into Mingi's hand. With your feedback, Mingi continues to purl over your clit, sucking the fluid so it can spread on his tongue and melt in his mouth.

No. There could never be too much.

You taste so delicious, and it goes without saying that Mingi finds it fascinating that you look even better from this angle; he can see every lash of yours flutter with the slow flicking of his tongue, adding speed as he goes. “Yes,” you whimper, “‘feels so good.”

His heart and mouth are cooperating wonderfully, as his lips are spelling words of awe into your labia; He’s pronouncing how good it feels so good to be your husband, how good it feels to do good— and oh, it is so good to be yours, Y/N. You can’t even believe. The sounds you let out tingle all of his senses and he’s definitely going to have to hurry with his studio, if he wants to eternalise them.

Mingi holds the eye-contact to not miss any of your expressions, laving at your cunt with bizarre flexibility that makes you twist here and there, but his forearm is pressing you down to keep you on your back. "Squirmy," he grins, babying you while you are unable to open move your legs, since your own set of trousers is keeping them closed together, "am I doing you that well?”

Panting because of how constrained you are despite wanting to move around so much, you throw your head down on the soft mattress. "Uh-huh," you exhale, feeling his tongue circle around your clit and tease itself into your entrance, "so well."

Mingi's head is spinning. He wants to make you cum so fast, but he also wants you to beg for your orgasm until your voice is hoarse from the moaning, just so he can see your ribcage move up and down the bed one more time, no, please so many times, and maybe he could get his fingers in so he can— fuck, didn't he plan this out?

He makes it look easy, but in your husband’s mind, he's puzzling and figuring out the ways to pleasure you the best way he can. Mingi heaves and laughs, noticing how he's been cutting himself short of breath, too excited to be pleasuring you. "You’re so beautiful, baby," he says, voice having become raspy and an octave lower than usual; it appears to you that he's drunk on your taste, "you're making me insane with that view."

You inhale through your mouth with your lip-corners pointing upwards, a bit shy with your husband's praise, but you have no other way around than to listen to Mingi's dreamy words. "Unnh-huh," you react, but once your husband is laving at your cunt again, talking amidst of it, you are becoming a mindlessly noisy mess.

"My pretty baby," Mingi murmurs, and as he does so, his mouth is flocking in your slick, tickling your clit repeatedly, "my prettiest, loveliest baby, so whiny for me, fuck."

"More, Mingi," you grunt, feeling like the blouse is keeping you tight, so you push yourself up and get it off your arms— Mingi uses his chance to pull your panties over your knees— and after that, the male digs deeper into your crevice, thighs pressing him in which makes him gasp for dear air, "please."

Your pleads are meaningful to him, make his heart jump, make his head click like he's a dog being asked to obey, and okay, Mingi doesn't think he wants to be a pet, let alone an animal, but— you know what? Your pleads not only show what a considerate wife you are, it also makes Mingi know how much you want him, and that’s the best feeling in the entire world, and he would do everything to chase your pleasure and praise.

“Oh, I got all night, baby,” your husband chuckles, he’s grinding himself against the bed, huffing and panting, tongue delving deep into you on your command.

He drags the intertwined hands of yours down the tiny bit it needs for his thumb to meet your clit, and as Mingi rubs extensively over it, your knuckles go white from how strongly you grip into his fingers.

Oh god, this is exactly what you wanted. His tongue, his lips, his hands, oh, his hands— his fingers; those ridiculously long fingers that cover your whole pelvic bone when extended— slender and rapid, frantically incautious over your cunt, so eager to push you over the edge, pull you back up and throw you over again and again; you love how they look against your body, on your head, on your neck, on your cunt, everywhere they travel during your desirous journeys.

"Aren't I so scarily good?", Mingi huffs, nervy and immodest, talking to get himself to breathe, clearly confident that you are feeling the best you've felt the whole day given the way your muscle was contracting around his tongue, when it was still in you; unfortunately you're unable to answer him with words, just letting out another gutsy "unnnh" as feedback.

"I know, oh, I know," he grins, his thumb rubbing over your clit like he's racing with your stuttered breath, but ultimately, he’s making you feel quite empty with the lack of his mouth at your cunt, and he’s making you feel that way on purpose, "I'm the best, I can do you the best—"

"Mingi! Your Tongue! Please."

After his pant, his mischievous little chuckle, you understand it, understand it all clearly: your naughty Mingi loves to be ordered around by his wife. Loves being ordered around knowing that, once his tongue is inside you, you'll do absolutely nothing to hold him back, and it does make you want to fuck him even more, doesn’t it? You love your husband, you feel so young with him, so undisturbedly yourself— and how loved you feel, too.

Humming a fond "I got you, baby", Mingi shuffles himself together one last time, your thighs sitting perfectly on his shoulders, and there he goes, driving his tongue into you, even more ecstatic than before; now, that you even begged him to, it's like your husband has taken enough of a back to duplicate the amount of vigor, exponentially getting faster and more impassioned. "Oh, fuck," you breathe out and with Mingi's tongue rubbing your inner walls wild and avidly, his thumb sprinting across your sensitive clit, you are heading straight to your first orgasm.

"Just like that," you whine, knowing very well that it gets your husband riled up well across his usual efforts, and you continue with it just to chase your high, "just like that, baby, just like—"

Hey now, did you just call him 'baby'? And how sneakily you did it, too! You know how crazy it gets him, you tease. Your husband’s tongue raves against your sweet spots and your slick gets combined with his saliva, his thumb using the moisture as lube to not miss any of the chances to make you squirm and spasm on his touches, but Mingi’s cock, his poor cock, twitches in the short moment his sweet, desirous pet-name is exhaled out of your pretty mouth he’s definitely going to need to kiss a thousand times until he can only taste the word “baby” on his lips.

His own pelvis is grinded deep into the mattress, and pearls of sweat form on both your foreheads, your eyes rolling to where you can’t see Mingi concentrating on your face, when it cums with a movement of your pelvis bucking up.

“… That!”, you moan, and Mingi pants, shovelling your come into his mouth, slurping it up so long until you physically have to wring with him to get his tongue off your pussy, but the trousers at your calves make it impossible. It’s Mingi’s choice here. And he’s not letting go.

“Ba—,” you squirm, rocking your body from side to side, “—by, please! Fuck!”

“Call me ‘baby’ one more time, just for me,” he lisps, laving his tongue against your throbbing, pulsating clit, all the while you try yank your ass down, overwhelmed by your prolonged pleasure.

“Baby! Baby, baby, baby—“, you whimper, and Mingi kisses your inner thigh, when he finally stops, satisfied by your calling. With one last peck on your clit, he lets go off your hands and slips out your chokehold, pulling off your pants by hooking his fingers in and sliding them off your feet. “Aww, look at you,” he beams, grinning, going through his hair and stroking his swollen lip, “all blushed away, reminds me of the older days, baby.”

“You are the worst,” you sob, and lay lax on the bed, legs once in for all extending and relaxing. Strangely enough, your head feels light, and your body that was straining and trying to get Mingi off of it, is now feeling warm and calming down from the high.

“Aw, you think so?” Mingi smiles, kissing up your leg, your hip-bone, pressing his lips on your abdomen, your tummy, your ribs, marking all of your body with his love-soaked mouth. "I adore you so much."

Having wrung with your husband, you got rid of some of the fighting needs, but— as you’re being smothered by him and his sweet antics— you sigh into the gentle, feathery contact with your skin, and play molten with his soft hair.

You remind yourself of his words, ‘don’t care about me’, but your husband would be a fool to assume that his wife doesn’t want to give him anything back. “Mingi,” you murmur— noticing that you’ve been closing your eyes due to the relaxation you are experiencing, and he immediately answers an attentive “yes, baby?” back, as he repeatedly kisses your jaw.

“Do you really want me to order you around?”, you hum.

“Haha, no, baby,” he chuckles, “it's just…”

Mingi harrumphes in his thoughts, wrapping his arms around your waist, laying his head on top of your tummy and looking up to you— whispering, "I want to do what's best for you. Especially on days like these."

Your heart throbs at the sight of your husband's hair being dishevelled, his already plump lips seemingly looking more peachy, rosy, kissable after he's eaten you out with more than greed and thirst; something that’s more valuable to a healthy marriage than the phrase ‘good sex, no ex’— Love. And the sweetest love there could ever be.

"You would do that for me, baby?", you ask him, your voice coming out sighed.

"Yes, of course," he insists, kissing you down your sternum, your ribcage moving up and down in a slow rhythm. “Baby, you work so much for us… I feel like this is something I can do for you in return, you know?”

“But what if I don’t make you cum?”

"Huh?"

Mingi stops kissing you and glances upwards. You grin. You wanted to catch him off-guard a little bit. (Though you don't know whether that's surprise in the white of his eyes or something like... intrigue.)

“… Uh,” he gutters, thinking about his words very carefully, but ultimately failing to find something good to say.

You smirk and go through his hair, gently grabbing a handful of it. “I think you’d find it hot."

"Really?", he asks, nervously huffing.

"Mingi, didn’t I edge you all during our early twenties?”

“Baby, don’t—“

“What? Well, I thought it was hot. I remember it being really hot.”

“Those were trying times.”

“We did try a lot of things during college.”

Reminiscing and visiting your rather youthful, spry days, Mingi pushes his head deeper into your hand and smiles, having calmed down from the rather exciting idea that you would suggest something so risqué to him. How long has it been? More than ten years, wow.

"Look at us now, baby," Mingi murmurs, sub-consciously wandering up the silhouette of your body with the backside of his hands, making you rather ticklish, but in a way that goosebumps find themselves on your skin, your breath feeling lighter with each stroke of his finger-tips, "Look at you." He inhales, and then exhales, your thumb resting at his ear, "You are trying to kill me, baby..."

"Ohh, Mingi, I'm not!", you giggle, and you may not know what your husband is talking about, but through his lenses— though you would be right to assume that these lenses are painted a deep, deep red— he's seeing his wife be tempered, moderate, relaxed. If he finds you so hot when you're fuming, Mingi finds you enthralling, when your eyes are barely open, the slightest of smile decorating your lips, and an even more hidden pink daubed on your cheeks... You're his wife, Mingi repeats to himself, and his heart grows double its size because of it.

"I love you," he murmurs, and for the moment, he doesn't even know he said that out loud, “I love you so much”, and means it more the second time.

And there you lay, on the mattress, your husband beginning to kiss you again, his hands cupping your head, your fingers interlaced in his hair. "I love you too," you whisper, and as Mingi grabs you by your back, inviting you to get your body up, you're right in the zone again.

Soft, smitten contact— it’s your lips this time to cover Mingi’s neck with kisses, down to his shoulders, his collarbones, your knee working against his crotch, arms swung behind his head.

“I want to take care of you, baby,” Mingi whispers, his thumb caressing your jawbone, as you peck away the sweat on his skin, he will need another shower. “I want to make love to you.”

You smile in awe of your husband lulling the loveliest of words into your ear, soft rustling from your sheets accompanying his voice. The room you decorated together, the home you fill, and even sooner, you'll start a family— with Mingi as a father to be proud of. Who has done so much to keep you happy.

"But sometimes I think—”

“No, baby,” you interrupt him, his voice was dropping and you know you are preventing Mingi from talking bad about himself. He feels guilty, though you've told him uncountable times that you don't feel like you're the only one under this roof.

"But—"

“Baby, no.”

"Okay... I guess I just love you, then." Mingi chuckles, when your fingernails trail down his breast, drawing a line along his muscle definition, “what did you think I was gonna say?”

“Something that’s gonna take me off my mood,” you hum, hooking yourself at his joggers. Mingi sighs, loudly, not yet relieved, but still at peace somehow.

“Make love to me, Mingi.”

A slight gasp leaves his mouth. Oh…

“Y/N… You can’t say things like that.”

With a smirk, your hand disappears in his joggers, and then in his boxers; his thick, throbbing, struggling cock slicking in your grip, as you wrap your fingers around it.

“I can, baby, and I will,” you sneer, “I thought you wanted the best for me?”

He grits his teeth, but Mingi smiles, finding himself at your service. “Am I the best?”, he asks you, leaning forwards to rest his head against your shoulder, pushing you down again.

“You’re the absolute best, Mingi.”

You slowly glide your hand up and down his length nibbling at his ear, exhaling, seducing him. “You’re the best husband,” you purr, “with the most handsome face,” kissing his temple, “and”, with your other finger hooked at the waist band of his joggers, you reveal “the best cock.”

Mingi is touched. A bit embarrassed, yes, it’s been a while since he’s heard you talk like this, but to hear from the best wife that he is deemed the best husband is the highest compliment he could have gotten. What, his face still charms you? His cock is still alluring to you? Don’t judge him, but even after ten years he will be moved by your words.

Moved.

“Come on, Mingi,” you coo, feeling your cunt pulsate between your legs, his cock twitch between your fingers; your husband gulps and, with your command, roams against your body, "let's get you to work."

Maybe he's really revisiting things from the past, after all the talk about your college endeavours, because you definitely recognise his canine teeth ever-so slightly sunken into your shoulder, as Mingi grabs you by your thighs and spreads your legs gently. Your body remembers, and his cock surely does as well, glistening in pre-cum as it is positioned at your cunt. "God, baby," Mingi grunts, and you lick over your lips in anticipation.

“You’re so beautiful,” he pouts, and in an almost reverent tone, Mingi brushes away a sweaty strand of hair from your face, “you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

“Not even your mom?”, you giggle, and while you think of your mother in law with utmost respect, your husband smiles, unfazed; “She’ll agree.”

And with that, Mingi is inside you, all of his length gliding into you with utmost caution; he’s driving in his pelvis unhurriedly, slow and deliberate, just so you can feel every inch of you inside expand for his girth, stretch for his entrance. "Fuck," you gutter and grab Mingi by his hair, pulling him close to you just as he begins to move, your moan coming out muffled against his lip.

"Never growing tired of it, are you?", Mingi grins into the kiss, and he's right, he's so, totally right, but your face is strained together in ecstasy, lascivious— aphrodisical to your husband. He's throbbing and he can feel how warm his own cock is, as Mingi pulls himself out of your tightness in his entirety and then, "fuck," pushes himself right back in inside you to experience it all again.

"I could never grow tired of my hubby," you chuckle and fuck, feel him, physically feel how he's getting excited about your words, something so enrapturingly hot boiling inside him; but while your personal heat ends up being your devilish little voice encouraging you to tease him, Mingi's does nothing more than to whisper him the most delicate ways of loving.

If he sucks on the spot right here at your pretty, graceful collarbone, will you sigh out an even more graceful breath? (Yes!) If he slides his tongue across your neck, just until your sensitive jaw, will you pull his hair with some type of feistiness? (Oh, god yes!) If Mingi, looking at you with sunken eyes, catches you off-guard and pistons his pelvis in at this exact moment, will you— "Fuck, baby!"

Oh, he didn't even need a voice for that one. Your husband slithers his arms under your armpits, one hand holding you by your back, the other resting on top of your head, so you don't hit the bedframe and hurt yourself, as it falls to the back with his thrust.

"Want me to say sorry?", he hums, again slowly driving himself out, knowing very well that once Mingi changes the direction, he will hit your sweet-spot again, and you shake your head rather weakly, drunken on the feeling of him filling you out.

"Good," Mingi confirms your answer, peppering kisses all around your forehead, as he quickens up his pace, breathing throughout it all. "Y/N," he sighs, you sighing with him for all the same reasons, "you feel so good."

You get used to the rhythm and let loose of the sheets, lightly scratching his skin at his waist. "You feel so good, baby," Mingi repeats himself and his eyebrows are pushed together, his grunts vibrating down your cunt. "Do you feel good, baby?"

Nodding, whispering a wispy string of a lot of 'yes'es, Mingi flashes his eye-smile and digs his face deep into the nook of your neck. He doesn't say it, because he's too busy panting, moaning, breathing out to his own thrusts, but your husband is overjoyed. You feel so tiny under his body— and maybe it's because you are, and yet the place you have reserved in his even bigger heart— which even in this moment, is beating for you and nobody else— is inexplainably huge. He wants to be yours as much as he wants you to be him, be with him, have all his life painted in your pretty colours until his canvas drivels over.

His cock is slipping in and out of you at fast speed now, your whiny moans encouraging Mingi to hold this angle since you're not stopping with it; "Are you close?", he asks and gets one arm of his out to rest his hand on the bedframe, towering over you, hair falling in front of his eyes.

"Yes, I'm close," you answer and search for another kiss, raising your hand to his cheek, Mingi immediately plunging his face into yours. He's close too, has been for a while now, but he had to get your confirmation that he was finally able to release himself into you— and then, when you nibble at his lip while a heavenly note of a moan leaves your opened mouth, Mingi's pelvis moves by itself.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck," he cusses, having to install one hand at your hips so he doesn't rock you around too much, voice becoming high and needy, greed messing with the practiced way he thrusts into you, becoming sloppy and all the while passionate, chasing the speed it takes to make you feel the best and even better. His other hand slides onto your clit, and it does so by muscle memory, knowing exactly where to rub so you clench around him, scream out his name.

"I love you so much, baby, I want you so bad, and I'm— fuck," he heaves, his voice catching up with his movement, "I'm going to love you until we grow old, baby, I want to be with you until the end of our days— I," and Mingi is rambling his free mind here, his whole body, mind and soul at your service, "I want you to have me forever, Y/N."

"Mingi," you whine, and his cock doesn't stop hitting your soft-spot, your clit tingling from his thumb, making you dopey, skipping you through time, to a future where you lay with Mingi in bed at the same late hour, both heads fuming from work, trying to your steam off together now, worried that your kids will hear your words, grunting silently into each other's ears, the words being, "I'm gonna cum!"

Oh, what good days await you two, and how straight you're heading for it, too— with Mingi's breathing being cut short, coming out stuttered from how fast he's ramming himself into you, not too rough, but fluidly and ceaselessly until you are gasping for air, feeling the string be stretched further and further, pulled for release, spiralled by your husband's vigor and his panting; "I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum so fucking bad, fuck!"

Mingi soaks sweatily in your words, his hair chaotic, his abs glistening from the heat of it all— you yank your hand out his mouth, your lower body curling up— "Fuck, baby!"

And with your tightened cunt Mingi lets out a deep, whole-hearted grumble, falling flat on your body, as he spasms; his hot, thick semen shot seeps through along the tip of his cock out your cunt, needing to be fucked right back into you so it doesn’t get lost on your sheets— you seeing absolute bliss, as he pistons into you one last time, eyes focused on your husband.

“Baby,” Mingi pants, and with your gazes meeting, his lips rush over to your cheek, pecking you one, two, three times— and then, on your lips one, two— no, holding one long kiss with you, his plump, rosy softness making your body melt into the mattress, as it falls deeper in slumber. “I love you,” he whispers into your kiss, tucking some of your hair behind your ear, “my baby.”

He pulls out, infamously slow, making you heave on his length even after you both finished. “Mingi,” you exhale, feeling your eyelids close by themselves, your husband slightly chuckling.

“Sorry, baby,” he says, caressing your waist and cheek, “you need anything?”

“Oh, Mingi,” you laugh; Mingi can't help himself, can he? Will always ask for your wishes, wishing to grant them, like he's some wizard, a magician, a devoted believer of your enjoyment and happiness— "You did all you could have done, baby."

"Really?"

"Come on, Mingi, you big baby, c'mere."

He huffs, a bit sulky maybe, your silly husband, getting the blanket from the bed to throw it over his shoulder and wham, over you— cuddling you in, for now ignoring that the both of you need a hot, steamy shower, just breathing in and out your presence, your sweet, dulcet presence, which caramelizes in his warmth, against his body, melting.

"Thank you for being there for me, baby," you smile, voice dampened by the blanket, but Mingi understands you just well enough.

You don't need to thank him. Mingi knows you know that. He's obsessed with you, and though you could try and say you're just as obsessed, your husband will try everything to your favour to prove otherwise.

As Mingi throws his arm around your shoulder and pulls you close to his breast, making you listen to his heartbeat, beating just for you, you hear him whisper all kinds of affirmations. 'I'll never leave your side, I'll never make you feel lonely, I'll be yours forever.”

A career? A family? A happy life?

It's all waiting for you, patiently, each day and night you leave and come back home— in office clothes and a chaotic mind— watching, admiring, hoping to get the weight of responsibility off your shoulders, get you a taste of freedom, a taste of the fruits of your labour.

"Are you asleep?", he asks and you groan silently, pressing your face deeper down his armpit. "Baby..."

Mingi chuckles. You need this sleep, totally, but you also need to be cleaned up, which gives him the challenge to grab you by your leg the most gentle way he can, lift you up— and, when you lie in his embrace, head snuggled into his breast— he’s careful to not wake you up with the sounds of water splashing down his hand, as he soaps you in.

It’s difficult, this is difficult, it will all be so difficult— but Mingi, being your husband, your soul-mate, your everything, he’s putting his all on it to make it work.

(Work you up, make you work for it; until your voice is hoarse, until your body shakes, until your head is light and you can do it, all over again, the next day, evening and night.

“Happy wife, happy life!”

(Maybe Mingi embraces his new role as the father of your children too much.))

[ladykailitha]

Not All That Glitters is Gold Part 7

Hello! I am really chugging along with this story I have 5 chapters done (including this one). It was supposed to be 4 with 4 on the Harrington Pattern but somehow, I got an extra chapter here and only 3 on The HP. Still not sure how I did that.

Here we have Chrissy because sometimes you just need another omega friend who gets it.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

****

Steve came home and flopped face first on to the sofa. He wanted to call Robin, but he knew she was hanging out with Vickie tonight. So he had been given a replacement handler for night as management wanted eyes on him because there was always some kind of drama at these things.

It wasn’t a date date, but now they were on the same page, there was major cuddling to be had.

He rolled over and threw his arm over his eyes.

After a moment or two of serious moping he opened the clutch to get his cell phone out. But stopped when he noticed the sparkle of the diamond. He pulled it out instead and held it up to the light. In his minds eye he could see Eddie smiling at him as he handed the lost diamond back to him.

Steve sighed heavily. He had met a lot of alphas in his line of work, but none of them had the effect on him that this one did. Yearning didn’t even begin to cover the depth of emotion ripping through him in that moment.

He rolled off the sofa and wandered into the kitchen, his heels clicking on the hard surface. He really should have taken off his shoes at least. He sighed heavily and grabbed his phone from where it was charging on the counter.

He swapped it for his burner client phone. He unlocked his personal phone to see a sweet picture of Vickie and Robin cuddling together on Vickie’s bed.

He smiled at the absolutely giddy expression on his best friend’s face. It also hit him with a longing he didn’t want to name. He could. He just didn’t feel like sobbing in his kitchen on a Saturday night.

Steve removed his shoes, kicking them off to the side so he wouldn’t trip on them in the morning and then wandered to his bedroom, eyes on his phone.

He unclasped the dress and like he told Eddie it would, it slid to the floor in a graceful heap. All he was wearing now was the gold thong he had worn under the dress. He shimmered out those as well.

He then carefully removed the remaining diamonds in his hair and put them in his jewelry box. He paused with the last one. The one he had been hold onto this whole time. Eddie’s diamond.

He went digging through his vanity until he found a small felt bag that had once contained a small bottle of perfume. He put the diamond into the bag and hung the bag on his vanity mirror.

He went to his closet and rifled through it before finding the pajamas he was looking for.

It was a pair of soft, light grey, satin pants and button down shirt. He never undid the buttons though. He pulled on the pants without underwear. He didn’t have the energy to go hunting down a pair just then. Then he pulled the top on.

He flopped on his bed and wiggled happily at the silky slide of the pajamas on his bare ass. He was still scrolling through his contacts, trying to find the right person he could talk to about this. And then he hit on the perfect person.

He hit dial and waited until it rung through. “Chrissy!” he greeted warmly.

“Steve!” she cooed. “How was the gala? Tommy has been raving for months that you got to go and he didn’t.”

Steve chuckled. Tommy wanted to go because his favorite band was Corroded Coffin.

“Senator Lombard was a wet blanket,” he pouted. “Another alpha was just being nice to me and he got super territorial.”

“Bleh!” she hissed in sympathy. “Who was your handler tonight? I heard you gave Robin the night off.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, she finally asked Vickie out and I didn’t want her to wind herself up and talk herself out of it. Again.”

“Oooh,” Chrissy said. “I get that. She just doesn’t believe what a catch she is.”

“The dilemma of the century,” Steve agreed. “To answer your question, it was Troy who was handling me tonight.”

Chrissy blew a raspberry. “Troy isn’t the bottom of the barrel, but he’s definitely the scum on bottom of the barrel.”

Steve shrugged even though she couldn’t see him. “He did his job, Lombard was put on my pre-check list and he got me home in one piece.”

“So why are you really calling me, cher?” she asked after a moment of silence. “Alpha prostrating is stupid but nothing you haven’t handled before so what’s on your mind?”

He flopped on his stomach and ran a hand through his hair. “You remember I told that the senator was pissed because an alpha was nice to me?”

“Sure,” Chrissy said. She paused for a moment. “Oh! Were they cute? Is that what’s got your panties in a twist? Super cute alpha was sweet to you and now your ovaries are ready to explode?”

“Tommy’s going to kill me,” Steve moaned.

There was silence on the line for a beat too long and Steve pulled his phone away from his ear to make sure the call didn’t disconnect.

“Wait, Eddie Munson was your hot, nice alpha who made your client so jealous and possessive you put him on your pre-check list?” This was said a question, but to Steve it sounded more like a statement. One he couldn’t refute.

Not that he wanted to. Eddie was hot.

“Yeah,” Steve said around biting his thumb. “I had diamonds in my hair and one of them must have fallen because suddenly he was handing one back to me.”

“Oohh...” Chrissy cooed. “This sounds like an ice cream and wine girl talk. I’ll be over in ten, sweetie!”

Steve let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, babe. See you soon.”

He rolled over on his back and clutched the phone to his chest. He couldn’t wait to tell Chrissy all about Eddie. He kicked his feet in the air as he giggled.

****

Steve paced back and forth in his front room as he waited for Chrissy to come over. It wasn’t as though she lived far away. She lived like two floors below him.

She was younger than he was by about two years. Like Tommy and Carol everything was happy town with her boyfriend Jason until she presented and was found out to be infertile.

Jason and his parents fought hard to have her put in the Church to be a celibate nun. But thankfully for Chrissy her dad had more sense. Not her mom though. Her mom had gone so far as to drive her to the local nunnery and drop her off.

But after a talk with the Mother Superior and a call to her dad, they made the arrangement that Chrissy would finish up her schooling at the nunnery and then when she turned eighteen she could choose to stay or take one of the other two options.

When Chrissy chose Starcourt, the money was split between the nunnery and her dad.

Money that he then put aside in case she just wanted to walk away from escort business and live her life. The money would be used for whatever she wanted and that included school.

As far as her mother was concerned, Chrissy was still at the nunnery and was just refusing to see her.

Steve thought it was delicious revenge.

The knock came part way through his revery. He leapt over the sofa and ripped open the door.

“Well someone is comfy,” she cooed. As if she wasn’t dressed similarly. She too was wearing fuzzy pjs. But hers were bright pink and had a horn on the hood of the top.

Steve tugged the hood down over her eyes and teased, “And aren’t you the cutest thing?”

Chrissy blushed and pushed on him playfully with her shoulder, her hands were full of ice cream and a bottle of wine.

Steve grabbed the wine. “Cupcake prosecco? Looks yum!”

Chrissy grinned and held up her other prize. “Cookie dough!”

Steve kissed her cheek and led her inside. “You’re the best, sweetie. You didn’t have any plans for tonight?”

She shook her head. “Nope, no clients either.”

Steve reared his head back. “Uh oh, that doesn’t sound promising. Is your handler, Amy not scheduling you right?”

Chrissy shrugged. “I think it’s because I’m nearing the end of my contract and because I have money waiting for me, management is thinking I’m going to bail so they’re trying to stave of the inevitable.”

“Boo,” Steve hissed. “They shouldn’t be allowed to that. Plus, I thought you were staying?”

Chrissy blushed. “I am!” she insisted when he raised an eyebrow at her hesitation.

“Uh huh,” he teased further. “Sure sounds like it from here. You got someone who you want to snuggle up close with when you retire?”

Chrissy ducked her head. “Not anymore.”

Steve was almost to the sofa when that brought him up short. He frowned at her a moment before his face cleared with understanding.

“Don’t say it...” she warned.

He pouted. “But I thought that’s what this was about; us both complaining about our lack of love lives and eating and drinking our feelings?”

Chrissy sighed. “I hate it when you use puppy dog eyes. It’s too fucking effective.”

Steve grinned. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks, baby...” he sung at her.

She giggled and raced him around the sofa to nab her favorite spot on the far left side.

“You cheated!” he squealed. He set the bottle on the coffee table and padded into the kitchen for a bottle opener and two wine glasses.

He popped the cork and poured their glasses. “Spoons!” he said as he was most of the way sat down.

He put the wine glasses on the table and dashed back to the kitchen Chrissy’s giggles fast on his heels. He grabbed the spoons and raced back.

“Tada!” he cheered.

Chrissy set the tub of ice cream between them and dug in.

“So Eddie Munson, huh?” she said around her spoon.

Steve took a large sip of his wine before he he told her about his night. “Like I knew he was hot before now. With Tommy and Dustin both being fans it was hard to not see the guy everywhere.”

“But he’s hotter in person?” Chrissy prompted.

Steve blushed and swirled his drink thoughtfully. “I guess. But he’s so sweet and funny and yeah it doesn’t hurt that his legs look like they could go on for miles in those tight leather pants. That his chest feels out the even tighter see through mesh top he was wearing...”

He buried his head in his hands. “I was lucky wearing scent suppressants is required for each job otherwise the whole fucking gala would have been able to smell my reaction to him.”

“Ooh...” Chrissy said. “I bet you got a little wet for him, too, didn’t you?”

Steve brought his knees up to his chest and scooted away from her.

“Oh my god!” she giggled. “You totally did. This strong, hot alpha made the Steve Harrington wet.”

“I take it back,” he huffed. “You can go away now.”

Chrissy slapped his knee. “I will not! It’s a little...” she pursed her lips trying to find the right word. “Spicy.”

Steve covered his face again. “Oh god.”

“Stevie!” she said gently pulling his hands away. “It’s not a bad thing. I know it’s hard when most of our job is about sex, but babydoll...the fact that you can still have that reaction to a hot alpha means you’re not dead inside, okay?”

Steve sighed. “But I made my client mad at me,” he whimpered.

Chrissy set down her wine glass and moved the ice cream to the table. She scooted as close to him as she could. “No you didn’t.”

He turned his head away from her, but she grabbed his cheeks and gently brought them around.

“You did nothing wrong,” she insisted. “I mean it. Eddie was the host and the two of you were only being friendly. Yeah, you got hot and bothered under the collar for this alpha, but it was up to the alpha you were with to decide how to behave and he chose to be territorial and rude. You aren’t his property. You aren’t anyone’s property, babe.”

Steve nodded. He let out a low breath. “The way Eddie smelled, Chrissy. I had never smelled any alpha like it before. It was warm and spicy in the Christmas way and not the spicy as in a burning mouthfeel way.”

She opened her mouth to reply when he suddenly shifted gears. “So tell me how long you’ve had a crush on my best friend.”

Chrissy went bright red. Scarlet even. “Like forever. Which is decidedly unhelpful. Like I know it’s impossible while she’s still your handler, because Starcourt would never let a handler date a former escort. But she’s so funny and sweet and smart...”

“That you just want to eat her all up?” Steve teased.

She swatted him playfully. “You’re just saying that to get back at me for the wet comment.”

He raised his eyebrows suggestively. She hit him again and he yelped in protest.

Steve picked up his glass and drained the rest of the liquid. He poured himself another glass and held out the bottle for Chrissy, but she shook her head.

“One glass is enough for me,” she muttered.

After a moment of swirling his wine Steve said, “Stay. After your contract is paid in full, Chrissy. Just stay. You love it, even if Robin Buckley was an option, you know you would be happier here than anywhere else. You shine as an escort, sweetie.”

Chrissy picked up her glass and downed the rest of her wine. “Fuck it. Yeah, I’m going to stay. I do love this job. It’s amazing.” She looked at the bottle a moment. “And what the hell, pour me another!”

Steve cheered and emptied the bottle into her glass. She laughed as it almost splashed over the top.

“To being Starcourt escorts for life!” he said as he raised his glass.

She clinked her glass against his. “Here, here!”

They gulped down their drinks and dug into the ice cream again, laughing and talking.

Steve smiled. Maybe tonight wasn’t the disaster he thought it was. He was so glad to have a friend like Chrissy.

****

Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666 @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @vecnuthy @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @dragonmama76 @scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @thespaceantwhowrites @paintgonewrong @mogami13 @beelze-the-bubkiss @croatoan-like-its-hot @retro-vagabond @sani-86 @pansexuality-activated @y4r3luv @dauntlessdiva

[ddejavvu]

Plain Old Man - Jim Hopper x Reader

Summary: Jim can't figure out why you love him. After all, isn't he just a plain old man?

Contents/Warnings: hop's self-conscious :(, consensual + legal age gap, fem!reader

requested: hopper x younger really feminine reader. he think she’s the cutest thing ever and that she’s too good for him so he’s kind of upset, but she figures it out and sits on his lap and kissing all over his body </333 // slightly deviated from, but i hope you still enjoy it!

WC: 1.47K / navi

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

You love Fridays, because when Jim swings by the pizza place for your dinner, he stops into the boutique next door, and always brings you something. Last week it was a pair of dangly earrings, shimmery and green in the shapes of fairy wings. The week before that it was a silver necklace with a pearl charm, to match a set of earrings he'd gotten before that.

You're buzzing with excitement as you hear his car pull up outside, and you bypass the hand he's balancing the pizza on to wrap your arms around his waist. They interlock behind him and you squeeze, wishing you could latch yourself onto him forever and hang off of him like a sloth.

"Hop!"

"Hey, sweetheart." You feel a kiss placed on the crown of your head, his mustache prickling the skin there, "Let's get inside, okay? Pizza's gonna get cold."

Your nose is, too, so you let him nudge you back inside before it starts to ache.

"I baked us muffins," You inform him, taking the box from his hands and watching him toe off his muddy work shoes by the door, "They're blueberry, but I added that topping over them that you liked last time on the banana ones. It's a little sticky, and kinda clumpy, but it tastes the same!"

He nods through your ramble, eyes lighting up at not only the prospect of muffins but of the special crumble you lay over top. He ushers you into the kitchen, but when you reach for the lid of the pizza box he sets a hand on your waist.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he pats the breast pocket of his jacket, and you visibly brighten.

"Oh! Oh," You gush, reaching eagerly for the bag that he hands you, crinkly plastic and purple-tinted, "Thank you, honey."

Your nails pry at the tissue paper that's wrapping whatever present you've gotten, and when you rip the tape away it reveals two barrettes, one pink and one blue. they're beaded, shimmery under the light, and they'll look adorable tucked into your hair.

"Hop," You gush, surging forwards to face-plant into his chest, "I love them! I can use them to twist my hair back like I've been doing lately."

"I know," He nods, leaning forwards to bump his nose into your own, his eyes crinkled at the corners with a smile, "That's why I bought them. I know the pins haven't been holding it."

You'd stolen two worn-out, dented bobby pins from Jim's nightstand, that you're fairly certain he'd used to pick locks with. It concerned you, but he hasn't asked for them back, so you're sure his lock-picking days are behind him.

"Put 'em in!" You urge him, unclipping the barrettes from the card they're on and dumping them into his large, rough hand, "You know how to do it, right?"

"I know how to pull your hair back," He scoffs, sticking one clip between his teeth so that his words muffle as he uses his hands to twist a chunk of your hair away from your face. He pulls it back and secures it with the clip, a snap letting you know it won't fall out.

"Perfect," He praises you (though you think it might be aimed at himself), and pops a kiss to the metal clip.

Your smile is infectious as he uses the other clip on the opposite side of your head, thick fingers twisting your delicate hair carefully. When it's pinned he kisses that side, too, and backs away to look at you head-on.

He smiles, but it's strange. It doesn't fade, per se, but the look in his eyes shifts, and your gut churns with nerves when they seem to be sad.

"Hop?" You tilt your head, watching him try and fail to focus on you instead of whatever's happening in his head, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," He nods, pressing a mediocre kiss to your cheek as he rushes for the pizza box behind you, "Yeah, sweetheart. You look real pretty. Let's eat, okay?"

He plates his pizza in silence, so you do too. But it's strange, because he always complains about the cheese not being gooey when he pulls slices apart, and there's not a peep out of him today. Just a downcast glance that tracks his feet all the way to the couch. He typically spreads out, eager to relax after a day of work, but he sits proper, plate on his lap and eyes on the tv.

You reach down to flick it on when you pass, and you sit closer to his side than you normally would. You feel his thigh tense up against your own, and you frown, glancing over at him.

"Jim," You croon, setting your hand cautiously against his thigh, "Are you okay? The truth this time, please."

"Yeah, honey, I.. I don't know." He shakes his head slightly, blinking rapidly and sighing, "It's fine, really. I like your clips, sweetheart, they look good."

He goes to take another bite of pizza, but you pull it out of his hands just before he can. It means that his teeth clack together instead of meeting the bread, and he looks bewilderedly at you, hand still outstretched.

"Hey," He frowns, "That's my pizza."

"I know it's your pizza," You plop it back onto the plate, setting it on the coffee table and taking its place in his lap, "It'll still be your pizza when you tell me what's bothering you."

He sighs again, and this time you feel it where your hands are braced on his belly. You smooth your hands over it, tracing your thumbs from the dip of his navel out to his sides.

"Tell me, Jim," You plead, "I'm worried about you."

He looks at you for a moment, head-on, eye to eye and face to face, and breaks. He murmurs a gruff 'fuck,' under his breath, head drooping down so that his chin meets his chest.

"Jim," You whine, tucking your fingers under his chin and lifting it so that he can't avoid your eyes, "Just tell me, honey. I need to know."

"You are.." He pauses, cupping your cheek and smiling sadly at you, "Gorgeous. You know that?"

"You tell me all the time," You promise him, shimmying your hips slightly to press your tummy further into his, "What's that got to do with anything?"

"I think you're too gorgeous for me. And sweet, and nice, and perfect. I'm a plain old man," He gestures to himself, his beige uniform and scruffy stubble, "That's it."

"You're not a plain old man," You chide him, pinching at the pudge of his belly, "You're the man I love. You know that, don't you? That I love you."

"I'd like to think so," His smile stays sad, "I just can't think of a reason you would."

"Well because- because you're.. you! Jim," Your brows furrow and you lean closer, nose-to-nose, "I love you because of who you are. Not because of any one specific reason, the reason is just you. I love you, Jim Hopper."

His hand cups the back of your neck and pushes you forwards. It's not a kiss, but your lips meet, as do your foreheads as your noses smush together.

"You're too good to me," He murmurs, his voice slightly raspy.

"No," You protest, pecking his lower lip in a sweet smooch, "I could never be too good to you. 'Cause you deserve the best."

"You are cheesy today," He chuckles, but you know it's not an insult as much as it is an observation, "Did those muffins have extra sugar in them? Something's got you all sweet."

"It's you," You grin, knocking your nose into his once more and digging your hands into the soft chub of his belly, "I'm glad you're home. I missed you all day, I wanted to call you a bunch but I didn't wanna bother you."

"You wouldn't bother me," He promises, smoothing a hand down your back, "But it's probably not good to hold up the line at the police station."

"Yeah," You hum sadly, and lean down to tuck your face over his shoulder in a much-needed hug, "It's better when El's here. She keeps me company."

"Speaking of," He glances at the clock, patting your back gently, "We need to go get her soon. Max's mom said she can't stay another night, she's got chores to do."

"Finish your pizza," You clamber off of his lap and rush for your own plate, "Because before she comes back, you're going to make me happy scream."

"Oh, yeah?" He laughs as you settle yourself back against him on the couch, attention finally turned to the television, "We should brush our teeth first, then. I'm not kissing pizza breath."

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

[klbwriting]

Finally Home - Jason Todd Blurbs

You Have a Bad Day, Jason Makes it Better

Fandom: Red Hood

Pairing: Jason Todd x GN!reader

Warnings: none

Summary: you have the worst work day and when Jason hears about it he knows just how to make it better

Notes: I'm still obsessed with how sweet these are, please if you have any ideas and want to see them written let me know! One person has asked for a Batfamily thing so I'll maybe write that one next!

               Why the universe had decided to make this the worst day of your life you didn’t know.  First was the bus ride into Old Gotham on your way to work.  A random bump and you spilled coffee down the front of the brand-new leather jacket your boyfriend had bought you.  It was hot, it rolled to your pants, and you knew you were going to feel icky all day because of it.  You arrived at work, quickly going to a bathroom to clean up the staining as much as you could, but ran out of paper towels before you could do a decent job and were left letting it dry naturally, probably making these pants permanently damaged.  Then right before you were supposed to leave for lunch your laptop gave you the blue screen of death and you called IT only to be told to come down and wait in their office and they would assist you.  That was a two hour wait and you missed lunch.  The only seeming bright point to that horrendous wait was the texts you were exchanging with Jason. 

What’s wrong sweetthing?

Everything! Got coffee on the jacket you just got me, on my pants, then I couldn’t get them cleaned up so I’ll probably have to toss them, and now I’m just waiting for them to give me a new laptop and they told me not to go anywhere and I’m starving

That is so shitty, don’t worry when you get home I’ll make it all better, love ya babe

Love you too Jaybird

               The ride home wasn’t much better, you were seated next to someone who decided they wanted to shower in their perfume, and you were having trouble breathing.  You got off the bus and in between the block between your bus stop and your apartment you stepped in something you hoped was just dog crap.  You couldn’t wait to get home and see Jason, but when you entered your shared apartment he wasn’t there.  You sighed.  Perfect, bet Bruce or Dick called needing help with something.  You understood, the protection of innocents and all, but today you were just so worn down from the day you wanted your boyfriend to be there, wrap his arms around you, and tell you everything was alright now.  You were home.  You headed to the laundry room, stripping down and putting your work clothes in the wash, scrubbing your shoes in the sink, and throwing them in the dryer before going to your bathroom to take the longest, hottest shower possible. 

               By the time you got out of the shower you were feeling a little better, dressing in comfy sweats and one of Jason’s shirts, inhaling the scent of him and letting that bring you some more comfort.  You heard something in the living room, not sure if Jason was home you did what he said.  ‘If you don’t know who’s in our place you grab one of my guns and then you find out’ he told you.  You grabbed the small gun that was under the bathroom sink and headed into the living room, held ready but finger off the trigger just like Jason taught you. 

               “Hey sweetness, its just me, but nice form,” Jason said, unloading food from a grocery bag on the kitchen table.  You let out a sigh of relief, setting the gun down on the nearby end table and going over to him.  He accepted your hug with a big one of his own, his arms finally making you feel safe and completely at home.  “Go settle on the couch, I already got your show ready to stream, I’m making your favorite for dinner and I even got us some cake for dessert, everything you like to turn this shitty day around right?”

               “You are truly a god among men Jason Todd,” you said, kissing him softly.  He chuckled and patted your rear as you turned to go to the living room.

               “Tell all my other partners that,” he teased, making you stick your tongue out at him as you got comfy and turned on your show.  You half watched, you had seen these episodes dozens of times, mostly watching Jason as he danced around the kitchen, you could hear his phone playing music he liked, volume low so not to disturb you.  You smiled as he worked, every once in awhile he would catch your eye and wink at you, maybe blow a kiss.  You know, for being a lethal killer at night he was an absolute sweetheart at home.  You settled back to watching your show, the smells of his fantastic cooking taking up the room.

               “Hey dinner’s ready, want to eat in there?” he asked.  “Or do you want to rant about your day at the table?”  You thought about it and since right now he had made you forget about all the bad shit that day you patted the couch.

               “I’ve already forgotten, did I have a bad day?” you asked.  He plated up dinner and brought it over, setting in on the coffee table and giving you another kiss.  “You’re here now, in my eyes that makes my day perfect.”

[the-froschamethyst4]

Dad’s Best Friend

➤Day 9

𖤐 Pairing: Soap x F! Reader

𖤐 Pronouns: She/Her

𖤐Warnings: Smut, NSFW, age gap, language, P in V, eating out, dad's best friend, kissing, making out,

𖤐 AN: I would like to say this kind of clashes with hes-just-a-bit-older it's kind of the aftermath after Price finds out about Y/n and Soap's little incident.

𖤐 Summaries: The day Soap and Y/n had fucked, Soap and Y/n's relationship grew, and Price was definitely weary of the relationship. Price of course doesn't want his daughter hurt and he doesn't know how he feels seeing his best friend kiss his daughter every now and then.

——————

——————

A Couple Years Later

Soap and Price were watching at football game (soccer for the American) Soap's team was winning and Price every time Soap's team would score Price would sink down into the couch as Soap would cheer.

Y/n was in her bedroom talking to her best friend. She would roll her eyes when she heard Soap cheer and Price groan. She's glad they're having fun and all, but she sometimes wishes they'd be quiet, so she could hear her best friend.

Her best friend wanted to go shopping and do a girl's day out and maybe go to a bar afterwards to have fun.

"I mean, I'll get ready, but we'll see on the bar, I'm not big on bars."

"Yeah, I understand, we don't have to go," her best friend Aria said.

"Yeah, I'll get ready and let you know." Y/n said as she hung up her phone and opened her closet pulling out an oversized t-shirt that was actually Price's old Military shirt that had 'Capt. J. Price' on the back and 'Task Force 141' on the front. It was worn out, the Task Force and Capt. J. Price where slightly creaking, and the J was fading. Luckily no holes or stains on it.

She then grabbed some black sweatpants because it was going to get cold when the sun will go down. She grabbed shoes, her wallet and texted Aria that she was ready.

She goes downstairs and sat on the love seat putting on her shoes. Price and Soap looked at Y/n getting ready to go somewhere.

"Where are you going?" Price asked.

"Aria, wants to do a girls day out, so I'll be gone for a while."

"How long is a while?" Price questioned his daughter.

"I don't know, what it's 12:30....maybe 5:00? I'm not sure," she said, putting her shoes on and kissing Price's cheek and going to Soap with a smile and kissed his lips.

Soap placed his hand on her lower back deepening the kiss.

"Okay, that's enough. It's already weird for me, seeing my best friend kissing my only daughter," Price said as Y/n pulled away with a red face and Soap just smirked.

Soap and Price are still close best friends, inviting each other to parties and anywhere to hang out like bars to talk and come over to each other's houses to watch a football match. Even though it's been 2 years of them being together, Price still finds it a bit weird that his best friend who's almost 40 years old, and his daughter is only in her late 20's and doing college work online.

Price allowed it because Y/n and Soap are happy together and he doesn't see anything wrong with it as long as his daughter isn't hurt by Soap, if Soap did hurt Y/n, Soap would be 6 feet under, and his tombstone would be saying 'died by strangulation, stabbing, shot, drowning, and fell off a cliff.'

"I'll be back," she said, walking out the door and going to Aria's car and they drove to the mall.

-------

6:00PM

Y/n had walked through the front door of her home, arms full of bags and her left hand held her phone and her right hand held a Starbucks drink.

They didn't have time to go to a bar or anything.

"I'M HOME!" Y/n shouted.

"He's not home." Soap said, coming around the corner of the kitchen holding a bowl of cereal.

"Where is he?" She asks, placing her bags down on the ground, and her drinks and phone on the counter.

"His work called him asking him to come in...he asked me to stay here till you got home to make sure everything's okay..." he said as he brought the spoon to his mouth and started to eat the cereal.

"I thought you wouldn't like fruit loops," she giggles at him, eating the cereal.

"Nah, it's good, just haven't had cereal in a while," he said. Y/n smiles at him and walks towards him. He placed the bowl down on the counter and held his little girlfriend's face and kissed her lips.

He pushed his tongue inside of her mouth. She slightly moans into the kiss, as his hands were placed on her hips, and he picks her up setting her on the counter. His hands went up her shirt and tossing it on the floor, he put his hand behind her back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall off her shoulders.

he grabbed the bra and tossed it on the shirt, his head goes down to her chest sucking on her breasts and squeezing her on breast as well. She moans and tangles her fingers into his hair.

His hands went to her sweatpants and pulled them off her lower half just leaving her in a cute black thong. He's never seen her in a thong before. Her hips just protruding from the small thin straps made him fucking melt. The small triangle just barely covering her clit and nothing covering her ass.

"Holy shit," he said with a red face.

"What? You don't like it?" She said, bring her leg up to cover herself but Soap stopped her.

"No, no, I love it. I fucking love it...you look so sexy with this on," he grabbed the thin straps hugging her sides and let them smack against her skin earning a soft moan from her.

"I don't even want to take these off of you. I want to see you just walk around in them...I want to fuck you in them..." he said, kissing her neck as his hands just rested on her hips.

"S-Soap..." she moans.

He pulls her off the counter till her feet touched the ground, Soap turned her around and pushed her over the counter, seeing her ass and giving her a hard smack leaving a red handprint on her ass.

"God," he leans over her shoulder pushing his clothed crotch against her ass and she could feel his bulge in his pants. She smirks and rubs her ass against him.

Soap looks around remembering the cameras in the house Price put up. He could see one in the corner of the kitchen looking right at them. He stops and moves away from her.

"Why are you teasing me?" She whines.

"I don't want the cameras to see us, and Price gets mad that we're fucking on the kitchen counter."

"Okay, follow me, I know where we can go..." she said as she stood up grabbing Soap's hand and bring him to the bathroom, there was no camera in the hallway where the bathroom was.

Soap looked down staring at her bare ass in the thong.

"Why does he have cameras everywhere?" Soap asked.

"We had a break in when I was 15 and...I was home alone while he was out..."

"Oh wait...your-"

"Mom...yeah...when I was 15 and the break in happened, and I was home alone my mom came home and the robber...shot her....this is when my dad started to come home a little more and then he decided to put cameras in the house so I could feel safe."

Soap felt bad that he asked.

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be, it's okay..." she shut the door behind them and placed her arms on his shoulders. "I know this is kind of weird to do it in the bathroom but it's the only place that doesn't have a camera in the room or in the hallway." She said.

"I understand." He smiles down at her. His hands went to her waist and smirked and leaned down kissing her lips.

Y/n's hands went down his chest to his pants, unbuckling his belt and pulled them down and she pulled his hardened cock out.

He smirked into the kiss and started pull her thong off her lower half pulling them down and tossed them somewhere in the bathroom.

He puts her on the sink counter, and she put her feet on the sink giving him a perfect view of her slick coated pussy. He smirks and starts pumping himself viewing at her. He smacks his cock on her lower half.

She moans as he then pushes himself inside of her. She moans and falls on her back, Soap traps her between himself and counter. He starts to go easy till she gave him a look to speed up and go a little harder, which he did.

She moans and brings her head back hitting against the marble counter. Her hands held her legs, but her arms were getting tired, Soap grabbed her legs placing them on his shoulders.

Her hands kneaded her breasts as she moans and brought her hands under his shirt pulling it off his head and she tossed it on the bathroom floor. Soap was getting the rest of his clothes off as he still was thrusting into her.

"H-Holy f-fuck," he moans. He looks down at her seeing her stomach bulging with his dick inside of her. He smirks and leans down kissing her lips pushing his tongue inside of her mouth.

She moans when his tip just barely hits her g-spot. She moved her mouth, and his lips attacked her neck leaving hickies all over her neck and collarbone.

"Ahh~" She moans when she felt herself cum on his dick. He smirks and keeps going till he came inside of her.

He pulls out of her and goes down on her, licking between her folds getting cum on his tongue and swallowing it. Y/n moans feeling his tongue go inside of her as well. She grabs a handful of his hair making him go a little faster with his tongue.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Y/n? Are you in there?" Price was on the other side of the bathroom door. She looked down at Soap who kept going but she doesn't know if she could keep quiet.

"Y-Yes!"

"Everything okay?" Price asks.

"Y-Yeah, I'm just not f-feeling well," she moans but tried to keep quiet as Soap just keeps going.

"Oh okay....hey Soap." Soap stopped and looked up at Y/n knowing they were caught.

"Fuck," Soap whispers. "Hey, Price..." he says.

"What's going on?" Price asked.

"Nothing much."

"C-Could we not h-have a con-verstaion bet-between t-the door, p-please." Y/n asks.

"Fine...I just came back for my wallet," Price said.

They heard the front door shut letting them know, Price was gone.

"Did that turn you off?" Y/n asked, Soap.

"No, don't worry about me, did you get turned off?"

"A little."

"Why don't I fix that?" Soap went back to licking between her wet folds. She moaned and grabbed a handful of his hair once again, her thighs squeezed around his head.

"Oh baby," he moans as he looked up at her and she felt herself cum again and Soap licked her clean again.

"S-Soap," she moans.

He smirks and stands up hovering over her and kissing her thighs and biting them as well.

"God...you look so fucking sexy," he said as he grabbed his clothes, and she grabbed a towel to go get her clothes from the kitchen. Soap looked down seeing her black thong on the ground and stuffed them into his pocket.

---------

Y/n was getting ready for bed wearing a shirt that was Soap's and laid on her back looking at her phone, she was looking at TikTok before getting a text from Soap.

Soap: *I have something of yours*

Y/n: *Oh? And what is that?*

Soap: *Sent 2 photos*

Soap had sent two photos of Soap holding her black thong. He had the thong resting on his hardened dick and she could see some white liquid on the black thong.

Y/n: *Is that your cum?*

Soap: *DUH!*

She looked at the other one and saw him holding it in his mouth, he was shirtless meaning...he jerked off on her thong.

Y/n: *SOAP THOSE WERE NEW!*

Soap: *Oh, I know, love, but goddamn all I could think about was you in this thong, looking absolutely sexy*

She rolls her eyes and thought she should send some back. One of her showing off her butt in another pair of underwear in Soap's shirt.

Another where she stood in front of her full body mirror lifting the shirt exposing her panties and her hips being tightening by the panties.

Another one with the shirt off and panties off.

Soap: *GODDAMN! New photos to jerk off to*

Y/n could feel his smirk from a far away and could feel him already jerking off. She placed her phone down getting her clothes back on and laid on her bed.

[m1d-45]

…was birthed chalk

summary: any smith that discards a perfectly good blade holds no amount of power over the craft. perhaps it’s better, then, that the sword is passed onto one who knows better.

word count: 6.1k (good lord-)

-> warnings: spoilers for albedo lore, rhinedottir is Awful and albedo has a small crisis over it.. a metaphor that may or may not make sense only bc i was the one that wrote it

-> gn reader (they/them)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yum1x || @esthelily || @dedef7890

<< part 1 || < masterlist >

when albedo wakes up, the sun has long since risen.

it’s not a surprise, as he stayed up rather late simply thinking, but it was inconvenient.

he sighed and reached for his nightstand, tying up his hair just enough to go through the motions of the morning. it was a fast, familiar, memorized pattern, quickly waking him up and getting him ready for the day. he rushed a little bit, knowing he’d woken later and rhine was expecting an explanation, but he still exited his room with hardly a yawn, moving for the kitchen. maybe he could indulge a bit, have something sweet- to wake him up, of course, and drain the remnants of sleep from him.

he barely had the chance to step over the threshold before rhine’s door opened and she walked out, bag over one shoulder and a folder in the other. she looked over at him, eyes sweeping over his clothes.

“what are you dressed like that for?”

he glanced down at himself. he wasn’t wearing anything stained or torn, and was practically identical to what he’d worn yesterday. a white shirt and pants, thick enough nothing spilled would quickly reach his skin but thin enough that it wasn’t a hassle if they needed to be disposed of. the same things he always wore.

“what’s the issue, master? is there a fault in my clothing?”

her face twisted like he’d said the sky had turned red. “didn’t i say you were coming with me today? that’s not exactly fit for snow.”

the room suddenly turned into a vacuum, all of the air leaving albedo’s chest even as he took a breath. go with her? where? when had she said so? he would have certainly used the time from yesterday to prepare if she had told him.

“stop staring and change. quickly.”

her words snapped him out of his haze and he nodded, a mumble of ‘right away, master’ clumsily pushed out of his mouth as he rushed by.

what did he wear? he rarely went on trips outside of the lab, and when he did it was never far enough to warrant much more than a simple coat. and where were they going? was it going to be cold? hot? dangerous? would he need to be able to move quickly?

albedo felt like his body was moving on its own, stripping off his shirt and pulling on another before he could make the conscious decision to do so. the flimsy band he used to tie up his hair fell to the floor but he hardly noticed, simply grabbing the more secure one for lab work and wrapping it around his wrist as he continued to change.

he wasn’t sure how, but he eventually made it out of his room in a cohesive outfit, a jacket thrown over his arm. when rhine looked him over again, she couldn’t find a fault, nodding and turning for the door.

albedo fought off a smile.

there was a cold wind outside so he ended up putting on the jacket as they walked, feeling odd about it. it was thick to keep out the chill, but… it was strange to have so much more weight to his movements. similarly, walking in boots instead of simpler shoes felt strange, out of place. he supposed it was simply because he’d never really worn them before, rarely ever venturing out like rhine did…

he followed her through a forest, trying to take in as many details as he could without stopping to sketch. brilliant blue butterflies fluttered on top of yellow flowers, large petals dipping and swaying under the weight. sun streamed through the gaps in the leaves, shifting as the winds rippled through the boughs of oak and pine. it bordered on overwhelming, the sounds of birds he’d never heard distracting him long enough that he nearly tripped over a large root.

rhinedottir huffed, an odd mix of amusement and irritation. “what, you never heard a bird before?”

he tracked a large red one as it hopped across branches, searching for something unseen. “nothing this vibrant… i’ve never been this far from the lab before, master.”

she gave him an odd look. “really? i expected you’d be out and about pretty often.”

he tore his gaze away from the bird to look at her in confusion, but.. she seemed serious. “you told me to practice alchemy, so… i did. i run experiments and rarely leave, only if i’m searching for a substance we’re out of. the farthest i’ve been was only around a five minute walk, to… miss alice called it starsnatch cliff.”

her face twisted at the mention of alice’s name, and she picked up the pace slightly. “don’t talk about her.”

“why? has she done something to upset-“

“just listen to me, alright? don’t.”

the conversation died in an instant, leaving albedo confused once more.

the forest soon broke, the trees dispersing out into a plain, and he looked around, trying to get his bearings. there was a map in the lab but he rarely used it, only ever looking to see if rhine could pick him up a material or another that he needed without going too far out of her way. still, he had a vague memory of it, enough to know the name of the mountain they were approaching.

“is the domain near vindagnyr?”

rhinedottir tensed, her grip on her bag tightening. “it’s called dragonspine.”

the edge to her words shuts down any further questions he had, and he bites his tongue with a nod.

another thing to learn.

they thankfully don’t go deep into the mountain, stopping only on the outskirts. he recognizes the domain they stopped at from the diagram she showed him, the diamond sigils faintly glowing yellow.

he inspected the domain, double checking both the inscription on the bottom and the idea he had to solve it. it seemed like it was feasible, but-

“here.” rhine held out a hand, holding a long sheath. a leather handle stuck out from it, the silver of a guard glittering dangerously, and albedo hesitated before taking it.

“why do i need a sword, master?”

she waved a hand as if it was obvious. ���it’s dangerous. now stay here, i’m gonna go find a geo slime.”

“i don’t know how to wield it, are you certain-?”

“if you don’t want it then just leave it behind. it’s useless anyway.”

without any other words, she left, leaving him with a sword he didn’t know how to use.

carefully, he undid the latch and pulled off the sheath, revealing a smooth silver blade. it was simple, with a basic cross guard and a neat edge, but he still felt intimidated by the razor-sharp edge. his specialty was with alchemy, not with blade-work… surely rhine knew that?

albedo flipped the sword over and blinked at the engraving along the center of the blade. wouldn’t it make sense to have it on both sides?

he brought it closer to his face, squinting a bit to make out the words. it was an old sword, evidently, and it showed in the faded marks.

‘as the creator forged, so too do i serve.’

albedo stared.

though the words were blurry and indistinct, he was certain that was what it said. but what did it mean? there it was again, the mention of this ‘creator’, this time on a blade? was it a title, referencing the blacksmith? surely that was what ‘forged’ was there for…

at the sound of footsteps he quickly put the sword back in its sheath, deciding to shelve the thought for later.

rhinedottir came up besides him, chest heaving with effort. one of her hands was carefully cupped, a yellowish slime in her hands. “alright, i’ve got the condensate. whats your idea?”

“the inscription says to take the shortest path and to repeatedly-“

“albedo, the elemental energy in this thing isn’t gonna last.”

ah…. “top right, middle left, bottom left, middle right, bottom right, top left.”

she nodded, walking towards the domain. carefully, she smeared the slime over the sigils in the order he told, each glowing brighter as she went. as every sigil lit up, the path connecting it to the center sigil seeped with energy, flowing down to the middle. when the last of the condensate was pushed into the final sigil, the center one glowed as well, pulsing brightly. with a loud and heavy crack, he domain doors split open, falling inward.

rhinedottir was crouched, wiping the remainder of the slime onto the grass, and she stared at the doors

“you did it.”

warm pride bloomed in albedo’s chest. he had.

he helped her up and she picked up her bag of supplies, but turned to him instead of the door, a stern expression on her face.

“now, albedo, you need to stay close to me, alright? don’t stray off or wander, and if you get lost stay put and shout. domains are dangerous things, and frequently filled with monsters. this one should be empty, but in the case that it isn’t… just don’t go poking around where you shouldn’t.”

he nodded, clutching his sheathed sword a little tighter. a satisfied flicker of a smile crossed rhinedottir’s face before she turned, delving into the domain.

he followed dutifully, making sure to stick to her side. it was hard not to ask to stop and look at a carving on a wall, or an inset of gold upon a door, but the idea of her irritation kept his curiosity at bay. they made their way over mossy and cracked stones, occasionally pushing through creaky, rotten doors or climbing over fallen stone. the air itself felt ancient, important, and he wondered why rhinedottir was searching this one. she want one for history, but surely there wasn’t anything of value here…

they stopped in front of a large door, remarkably intact for the state of the rest of the domain. it was simple, blank, and the only visible mechanism of opening it were the four levers, two on each side.

rhinedottir put her hands on her hips, huffing. “there’s only two of us.”

albedo looked around the room, spotting a large pile of debris and not much else. a plan began to form in his head, a rough draft of possibility, and he wrapped the strap of the sheath around his waist to free his hands. the sword was odd and uncomfortable, but it stayed.

rhine spoke before he could, “any ideas?”

oh.

he cleared his throat, carefully stepping forward to see if she would stop him.

she didn’t.

he approached the lever closest to him, noting the large ball on the end for grip. carefully, he pushed down, surprised to see it gave with little effort. the mechanics were likely rusted and tired, unable to provide the resistance it used to, or maybe the weights had snapped off due to their ropes rotting… whatever the case, it made his job easier.

he let it go, watching it ease back into position, and turned around.

“how heavy is your bag?”

at first, her eyes lit up, but they quickly dimmed. “the angle of the levers is too sharp, it’ll just slide down.”

he shook his head. “no. the levers don’t exert enough force rising up to counter your bag, provided it’s heavy enough. as long as we push it down first, it’ll stay.”

she hesitated, holding the bag tighter, but eventually caved. as she walked over, albedo pushed down the lever again, moving to the other side of it so she could hook her bag on it. her hands hovered around it as he removed his hand, but it held.

a smile spread across her face, and she looked up eagerly. “we need one more.”

albedo turned to the pile of debris and took off his jacket, laying it out on the ground. carefully, he fills it with stone, tying the sleeves together into a handle and carefully hoisting it up. a few rocks slip, but he can tell just by holding it that it’ll work fine.

rhine gets his plan and lowers the lever for him, letting him hang the jacket on it. together, they move to the other side of the door, taking their own levers. creator and creation, in sync, pushing down the levers to a domain.

when the door creaks open, albedo turns to her in joy, delighted at the show of cooperation-

rhinedottir brushes past him, pulling her bag off the lever as she walks past.

the doors begin to slide close and albedo rushes to slip between them, leaving his jacket hanging in his haste, and shivers at the cold in the new room.

it’s dark, more so when the doors shut with a bang. the only light is a pale blue in front of him, the shadow of rhinedottir outlined within it. she’s peering down at something, her bag dropped at her side.

the floor is covered in something dark, something that floats when he kicks at it. he crouched, careful not to touch it, and sees they’re… feathers. thousands and thousands of feathers, littering the floor and walls. they’re large, smooth, as if all the feathers on an impossibly large bird had simply… fallen off.

the sound of a zipper draws his attention, and he looks over, standing. the source of the blue light is gone, the light now white and coming from a headlamp on rhinedottir’s head. she’s zipping up her bag, a self-satisfied smile on her face. “i should have brought you sooner, your skills are a pretty good tool.”

the air went cold.

ice quickly crawled through albedo’s veins, faster than it would naturally just from the chill. an unnatural, frozen mass settled in his stomach, fed the more he turned over rhinedottir’s words in his mind.

she didn’t seem to notice, busying herself with brushing off feathers from a door in the corner, but albedo couldn’t shake it off as easily as she did.

why did it bother him so much?

the walk back to the lab was cold, both because he had left his jacket and because it was nearing nighttime. the lamp on rhine’s head was the only source of light, forcing him to walk behind her and keep his eyes trained on the floor to watch where she stepped. now that it was dark, he could see that something in her bag was glowing, blue light barely edging through the gaps in her zippers. she’s taken something from the domain, but what?

he didn’t notice when they arrived, too lost in his thoughts, only pulled out by the sudden warmth around him. he shut and locked the door and watched as rhine goes through her normal routine. boots off, coat off, bag in hand, and it’s only when she pushes open her door that he takes a step and realizes a problem.

“master?”

she pauses, slight annoyance flashing for a brief moment across her face. “what?”

albedo undoes the loop of the sheath, holding up the sword, but she shakes her head.

“keep it. you’ll need it later.”

without another word, her door closes, the silent click of the lock solidifying the barrier between them.

the next day is wrong.

it’s the only way he can describe it. there’s a tension in the air he can’t quite understand.

he’s cold even under his blanket, and he thinks about putting on his jacket only to remember he doesn’t have it. the floor is cold, and he shivers as he walks to his door.

the fire is out, which explains why the room is so cold, but it still feels empty beyond that. everything is in its place, nothing is overtly missing, but…

albedo grabs a lighter and some tinder, crouching besides the fireplace and relighting it. sparks fly and flame catches, and he stays for a moment to warm up, looking around the room. snow has swept in besides the door, which makes him frown. why would rhine leave again so soon after a discovery?

the fire crackles and pops to life, and he stands, backing away a bit so he doesn’t get burned.

what’s wrong?

why does the room feel so empty?

he turns, intending to check the small table by her door where she sometimes leaves him notes, but his attention catches on his desk.

it’s mostly as it was when they left the day before, with one vital exception: a large and thick book, weighing down two envelopes.

if he had a heart, he had a feeling it cracked.

he feels… a word comes to mind, dread, but he doesn’t understand it, not fully. his breath picks up as he approaches the book, as his shaking hand brushes over the print of his name in his master’s handwriting and he feels cold.

‘albedo,’ it reads. nothing more. nothing less.

his chest feels tight, his mind running rampant as it tries desperately to catalogue, define, and diagnose whatever makes him feel so nervous.

carefully, cautiously, albedo pulls the envelope from beneath the leather bound book, feeling afraid.

he pulls out his stool and sits, mostly so he doesn’t feel as nauseous, and rips open the letter, pulling out the twin sheets of paper inside. its… small. the ‘paragraphs’ are barely a line or two long, yet the handful of sentences feel like they’re being forced into his mind by chisel.

Kreideprinz,

I have found what I have been looking for. Locked within the domain we searched was the Heart of Naberius, and I have no further matters to attend to here.

Go to Mondstadt. Find my old friend, Alice, and give her the recommendation letter. Then, complete your final assignment. Any other projects you were working on prior are now void; consider this to be the only one that matters.

Your final assignment: show me the truth and the meaning of this world.

— Gold

he reads and rereads the words over and over again, but they don’t stick. his hands are shaking, worse now, and something in his chest begins to hurt. he checks the other page but only finds a map, the backs of both papers empty. nothing more. nothing less.

albedo drops the papers, if only to read them without the words shaking, but finds that his sight has begun to blur. he wipes the water from his eyes and tries again, and again, and again to understand what’s written in the letter.

rhinedottir always said that if he didn’t perform well she would simply leave; was this the end result of that? had he failed to keep up with the pace she had silently set? was there some silent cue he was meant to follow, something to direct him to the answers she wanted quicker than he would organically find them? was he meant to be quicker, more efficient, was he meant to find things at such an inhuman pace because he was never truly human to begin with?

‘kreideprinz,’ she says (nothing more, nothing less), pretending as if the title from his ‘childhood’ wasn’t something he had clearly failed to earn if she had left, if he had somehow failed. ‘recommendation letter,’ for an ‘old friend,’ as if she hadn’t stopped talking about her after the incident with klee, never inviting them back no matter how many times albedo subtly hinted alice might be able to help her.

even as he stands, as his mind registers the command of his final assignment, a large portion of his mental space is taken up by the instincts she drilled into him, desperately attempting to make sense of at least something.

maybe it’s hunger, his thoughts nudge, but he’s never had the largest appetite to begin with, and accidentally skipping days of meals while he was focused on a project never made his stomach hurt like it did now. he feels- he doesn’t know how he feels, he could stop and sit and think for a year but never know. the words he’s searching for are out of his reach, blurry, unknown to him even as he feels them all the same. he knows that it’s likely some sort of panic response, the ever-analytical sector of his mind forever chugging away and collecting data on his own feelings, but he doesn’t know why.

why?

he pulled a bag from his closet, blankly running through a checklist his brain pulled from thin air. the book rhinedottir left him was tucked into a pocket, the letter put away while the map stayed out. ‘mondstat,’ she said. he’d heard about it from alice—made sense, he was supposed to go there to see her—but while the name was familiar, he still didn’t know where it was.

he’d packed. nearly all of his belongings were tucked within the bag, save for maybe a few of the early textbooks he studied from simply due to space and weight. still, even as he set it on his desk and stared at the map, reading the names yet not registering the information, he didn’t feel ready.

feel. the word was beginning to lose meaning.

he felt things he didn’t understand and didn’t feel what he thought he should. he wasn’t angry that she left without warning, nor sad at the lack of assignments or the vagueness of the one he did receive. he wasn’t resentful—a word that hardly applied to him anyway—because she had left before she reviewed something he’d submitted to her. he wasn’t anything he knew, and everything he didn’t.

he was just… hollow.

albedo wiped the tears from his eyes and made an effort to read the map, understanding only the location of the lab, the marker designating north, and the city labeled mondstat. he folded the map and put it in his pocket, pulling a lab coat over his shoulders and hefting the bag. the door was cold, the wind outside even colder, and as he stared at the key in his palm, he wondered if it was even worth it to lock the door.

metal twisted within metal.

the chalk prince crumbled.

the first thing albedo noticed about mondstat was that it was tall.

buildings stretched higher than he’d ever seen, walls so tall he had to look up to see the guards patrolling along the top, bows in hand.

the second was that it was an island.

he checked the map rhine left him—and blocked out the part of his mind still documenting the bitterness in the back of his throat, wondering if it was emotion or illness—and upon further inspection, if he squinted.. the blurry lines revealed there was in fact water around the city.

he folded it away. at least he knows he has the right place?

he steps from the treeline where he’d been resting, pulling the familiar weight of his bag i’ve this shoulders and-

“albedo?”

he freezes, barely a foot from the shade of the whispering woods.

he turns, slowly, and sees red within one of the bushes. bright, a hat on top of a red coat, blonde twin tails broken up by specks of grass caught within them. the clover charm on klee’s hat caught the light, shining, and a warm pressure built up in his throat.

familiarity.

“klee.”

he can’t stop the way his voice almost cracks, strained with his journey (he’s alone) and the realization he’s been avoiding (maybe he was meant to be)

she lights up upon recognizing his voice, quickly rushing from the bush to latch herself onto his side. her arms wrap around him, and he tentatively sets one of his on her hat, unsure where to put it.

(her hair reminds him of rhinedottir’s, of the time she spent meticulously washing dust and debris from it after a long journey, of the blades of grass she flicked into the fire as she braided it away, tying it with a bright red ribbon alice had gifted her)

“klee’s so happy to see you! what are you doing here? where’s your mom? are you here to stay? oh, can i show you my new dodoco?”

albedo picked through her questions in his mind, deciding which would be safe ones to answer. “i’m here for your mother, alice. i’m… to deliver a letter to her.”

klee backed away, fitting her thumbs under her backpack straps. “klee can take you to her! i was going back to the city anyways.”

he glanced at the forest. “what were you doing there?”

her face suddenly flushed a bright pink, eyes flashing with what he assumed was embarrassment before she rushed forward, taking him by the hand and walking at a shockingly fast pace for somebody so young. “don’t worry about it!”

albedo had a feeling he should.

nonetheless, he followed, letting her lead up up to and across the bridge. it was empty, an eerie feeling settling over it as he walked. he wasn’t sure why; maybe it was the imposing height of the walls? maybe it was the guards in front of the gate, swords at their sides?

(suddenly, he was aware of the blade hanging at his side that rhinedottir had given him. had she known that would be the last time they met? or had she intended to teach him how to wield it?)

(he’s not sure which is more unbelievable)

the guard on the left brought his hand up in what albedo could only assume was some form of salute, in the process slightly blocking their path. “klee. who is with you?”

“this is albedo! he’s the son of a friend of mama’s, and klee’s friend too!”

the knight scanned him up and down, lingering slightly on his sword.

(would he have the heart to hand it over? would he feel better without a reminder of her, or worse that he’d give it up so easily?)

the guard eventually settled with a second salute, dipping slightly in a half-bow. “mondstat welcomes you, strange yet respectable traveler. please state your identity and purpose; the knight of favonius are here to ensure your safety.”

‘knights of favonius’… the name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t tell why. maybe from one of alice’s tales?

still, he dipped his own head in greeting, partially to stall. ‘identity’…

“i am albedo… disciple of rhinedottir in the study of alchemy. i am here to deliver a letter to alice, klee’s mother.”

klee looked up at him with a pout. “you’re not staying longer? what happened to all the things we were going to do?”

he didn’t remember ever committing to anything prior. “that isn’t my choice, klee. even if i wished to stay, i have nowhere to.”

the knight cleared his throat before the conversation could continue. “according to the knights of favonius handbook, we are to accompany travelers through the city as needed…”

“it’s okay mr. knight! klee knows her way around the city! i can take albedo to mama and then show him around.”

the knights were clearly uneasy about the prospect, likely because of klee’s age, but eventually nodded, moving back to their posts.

“mondstat welcomes you.”

klee quickly pulled him forward again, into the city, a quick ‘thank you!’ thrown over her shoulder that was likely lost in the sea of noise.

mondstat was loud. and full. more people than he’d ever seen in his entire life were gathered in just the simple courtyard she pulled him through, the calls of venders and the orders of customers melding together into an indecipherable mess. he was thankful she took him to the side, up a staircase, if only to get away from the massive crowds.

“mama is at a meeting with the knights right now, which is good! you can bring her your letter and get help from the knights at the same time,” klee explained, slowing down slightly from all the stairs. no wonder the walls were giant: so was the rest of the city.

he tugged her back, slowing to a stop. “klee, i don’t think i’ll need the help of the knights. if alice is in a meeting, then we shouldn’t bother her.”

“who said i was in a meeting?”

klee moved faster than he did, turning towards her mothers voice and running towards her, attaching to her side much in the same way she did to him. the thought pulled the corners of his lips into a smile.

“mama!”

alice laughed, catching her daughter easily. “hello, little clover.” she looked up, shock and recognition pooling in her eyes. “albedo? what are you doing here? is rhinedottir with you?”

his muscles tensed at the mention of her name, the memories of the past week of travel threatening to bubble up. he swallowed them down and hoped his voice wasn’t shaky, “no, but i’m to bring you a letter from her.”

alice’s eyes moved to his shoulders, to the large bag he’d been carrying. “are you staying here?”

“…i don’t know.”

her face twisted with something, and she turned her attention to klee before he could ask.

“clover, could you do me a favor?”

klee stepped back, “of course! what is it?”

“i need to read over albedo’s letter and sort some other things out, okay? while i do that, could you show him around the city? he’s never been here, and i’m sure he’d love for you to help him get his bearings.”

klee nodded, clearly excited, and alice walked around her to him. he pulled the letter from his pocket, but she reached for his bag instead. “let me take this.”

“that’s not necessary, i-“

“-have nowhere to go, albedo. i’ll hold your things while you walk with klee.”

something earnest and soft cradled her words, a care to the way she smiled at him when he caved and handed over his bag. he felt lighter without it.

before he could think about it further, alice was gone and klee had taken his hand in hers again, tugging on it.

“albedo? are you okay? you look upset.”

ah….

he tried for a smile. “i was just thinking about something. where do you want to go first?”

she studied him for a moment, squinting slightly, before apparently coming to a decision.

“we’ll go to the cathedral first. mama always says that if you ask the creator really nicely you’ll sometimes get help with whatever your problem is, and you look like you have a lot of problems!”

there it was again, that title…

she began to walk before he could say anything, taking him up let another flight of stairs. this one was longer, curving, and gave him time to figure out how to phrase what he wanted.

“klee?”

she turned, but didn’t so much as slow, “hm?”

“who’s the creator? you left before you could say last time.”

klee did stop this time, so abruptly he nearly ran into her.

“how do you not know? everybody knows.”

she spoke with a mix of confusion and… something akin to indignation, so strange coming from somebody so young that by the time he registered her words, she had pulled him along again, faster.

“everybody knows,” she mumbled to herself. “everybody. the grand master asks for guidance and captain kaeya for wisdom, mama prays for knowledge and klee asks for inspiration. how do you not know?”

he felt bad, somehow, even though it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know. he knew that, he wasn’t a fool, it wasn’t his fault, it was…

(flashes of blonde hair flicker in his mind, the sharp command to ‘try again, and get it right this time’ echoing in his mind. already, it felt like a year ago he last saw her)

(could be truly blame her when his mistakes were his fault?)

klee leads him up to a large building—‘cathedral,’ he remembers—but takes him past the large doors, to the back. at the end, behind it all, was a small park-like space, large stones spaces equally across the space. the stones are carved with words, but she doesn’t let him get closer to read it.

she pointed, and he followed, jumping slightly at what he saw. against the back wall of the cathedral, seeming oddly at rest for being carved of stone, was a large statue. the pedestal it sat on was simple, but littered with offerings, the flowers looking fresh. if he had to guess, it was likely a shrine of sorts, probably to-

“that’s the creator.”

ah. he’d thought as much.

klee sat him down in front of the shrine, beginning to tell a story. it’s simple, one told to children, but it’s gets the message across to him.

the creator was to teyvat what rhinedottir was to him. divine hands shaped the mountains and plains, breathing life into the soil. the very purest form of creation, forming something- forming everything from nothing, the smallest of flowers and largest of trees planted with barely a thought. rivers cut through the earth at will, every blade of grass placed by the hand of the one that made it.

klee told a story of the birth of the universe, of the colors on an invisible pallet that painted the planets and dotted the sky with stars. she sat on stone and fiddled with her dodoco, her voice never wavering as she repeated everything she was told, graciously filling albedo in.

in return, albedo untied the sword at his side, laying it down in front of the shrine. the blade felt uncharacteristically heavy, his hands cold, but he still set it down gently.

it was a lot of information, but he managed, carefully filing everything away as the way he viewed the world slowly changed. it made sense; everything had to come from somewhere, after all.

he looked not at the sheath, but through it, at the inscription along the center. ‘as the creator forged, so too do i serve.’

perhaps he and the blade were more similar than he thought.

no bladesmith made a weapon without a purpose. no alchemist dedicated years to a project only to stop when they reached the final product. nothing was made without being tested, nothing was alive without being taught, no sword was made without an edge.

and yet, somebody had to teach the smith. somebody had to guide their hammer to the stool, their hands along a sharpening stone, trained them in the skills of polishing and oiling. no god created an art without a an artist, and no teacher let their pupil loose without granting them the skills to continue the craft.

no tool existed without intention. no smith existed without their mentor prior, nor without their own student to teach.

rhinedottir may have abandoned him, but his creator never would. they would not let him be set loose without purpose, nor discarded without reason. he could tell, simply by sitting in front of the marble statue, that this was the case.

he could feel it in the wind. in the gentle breeze they guided, sweeping his worth from his shoulders. in the ground beneath him, that never grew uncomfortable. he could sense the subtle presence of the creator, the way the grass seemed to point towards the pedestal of the statue or how the sun seemed a little less harsh back here making it evident. albedo could feel the creator’s intentions as his eyes moved back to the sword, to the reminder of rhine that bore a carved reminder of them, feel the reassurance in the etched words. amidst the sea of confusion surrounding rhinedottir’s disappearance, they had appeared, stretching a hand to pull him out and back ashore, to the banks of stability.

albedo reached back.

they felt warm.

[seeminglydark]

i can't remember if you've answered this before (i feel like you probably have but i don't really know how to check): how does Johnny break in his boots? or does he just wear the shit out of them until they're broken in on their own?

I have not! so as a kid i think he would have worn the shit out of them until they broke in on their own or used the hammer towel method (hope you got a lot of heel bandaids available johnny boy!) though to be honest, i have these art pieces where hes a teen wearing docs, and im really not sure how he'd canonically even get a pair of docs, you know chief o'sullivan would never have bought him 100+ dollar boots so thats either a gift from Caro, friends, or not canon. truthfully he'd probably have worn general issue black combat boots he got at the local thrift store in his teens.

older john would be aware there are easier ways to break in a pair of leather boots without killing your feet completely, he'd resort to the tried and true way condition your leather and wear double thick socks, and occasionally apply gentle heat (hair dryer method) or toss em in the freezer.

i guess heres another Punk Rock Fact for you-

its best to wear 2 layers of thick socks, your docs /boots should be a bit snug when you buy them, cuz leather stretches and they will end up too loose if you size up (this is also why its not always great to buy leather shoes or boots from the thrift, theyve already molded to other peoples feet and can hurt and fit you very wrong!)! two socks helps protect your feets and push against the boots.

wear them around the house for a few days with your double socks to loosen up the leather, take em off when it starts hurting and extend the time every day. stuff newspaper in em when youre not wearing them if you want to help them maintain stretch. keep those bandaids and heel blister plasters close by.

so the two ways to make it happen a little bit fast is heat or cold. so for heat what you wanna do is get some leather balm (hate to shill a product but doc martens wonderbalm is actually super nice. mink oil works too.) set that aside and put on your biggest fattest socks or double layer, throw your boots on and lace em up real tight. yeah its not gonna feel good. thats ok, youll live probably. now take a hair dryer on its lowest setting and VERY GENTLY and not too close to your boot, heat all the surfaces with it for about 30 seconds per spot (but continuously move the hair dryer). dont do this for to long and only do it once or twice, you dont wanna damage the glue but the heat will help the leather become more supple and stretch faster. leave the boots and and walk around your house again, stretching them out, bending your feet, stand on your tiptoes etc. after they cool, apply the wonderbalm as per instruction to protect the leather.

and finally the freezer method, i use this mostly if my leather shoes or boots are a bit too snug still. fill a heavy duty ziplock bag about halfway with water and make sure its sealed really tight with no air inside. stick the bag in your boots, trust me on this, and throw em in the freezer over night. SCIENCE IS FUN ice expands, take em out the next day and let em defrost and voila. the leather has stretched and softened because of the expanding ice.

basically, take care of your leather! lots of conditioner and wear them gently. if you've got your own tried or true methods, let me know, im old and this is what ive always done, so id love to learn new ways!

[daemonsfilms]

On Thin Ice

Daemon Targaryen × Rhaenyra Targaryen

CW: incest, face slapping, breeding, rape/non con, choking, uncle/niece, age difference, vaginal fingering, cunnilingus, oral sex, face fucking, spanking, overstimulation, light daddy kink, vaginal sex

Word count: 2,494

Chapter 1: The Triple Axel

Summary: Rhaenyra grew up figure skating, for years she dealt with a horrible coach, but when Daemon opens up to her about his past with coaching figure skaters he agrees to coach her and for her next competition he pushes her to compete and perform a triple axel, a move she’s never done before.

———————————————————————————

It was almost time for the competition and Rhaenyra still hadn’t perfected the triple axel. 2 weeks. 14 days. That’s all the time she had left to get this right. Her coach, who was also her uncle, wasn’t making this any easier. Making her practice into the late hours of the night until she was practically falling asleep on the ice.

Balancing work and school and competition practice was starting to take a toll on her and it was showing. Spins were getting sloppy. Balance was getting more wobbly. She fell more times yesterday than she had in the last 10 months.

“Nyra what the hell is going on?” Daemon asks as she makes her way off the ice. She ignores him putting on her skate guards before carefully walking over to the bench.

“I asked you a question”

“I heard you” she states dully.

She sits down and bends over to start untying her laces. Carefully pulling the skates off she stretches her feet. Right as her uncle is about to repeat the question she answers.

“Uncle, I’m balancing school, exams, work and practice. You forcing me to stay on the rink till 1 am isn’t helping the way you think it is. I’m tired. I need a break uncle please!” She pleads looking up at him. He towers over her. His long blonde hair up in a ponytail, his black hoodie with her local rinks logo on it fading. Adidas sweatpants. Worn out Nike shoes.

“I know Nyra, trust me it hurts me to be doing this to you but I’ve seen how upset you get when you don’t win competitions. It breaks you for days. Weeks even sometimes. I’m pushing you because I care about you Nyra. I want to see you succeed and win this” he says quietly, sitting down next to her.

He’s right. The last time she got second place she didn’t eat for 4 days. Didn’t leave her room for 2 weeks. Stopped taking showers. Stopped socializing. Skating was everything to her and getting anything other than first place meant failure.

“I know uncle. I’m just so tired” she whines as she places her skates into her practice bag. She gets up and walks over to her locker and grabs her hoodie and slides it on. Walking outside the cold December air hits her face, reminding her that Christmas is only around the corner. She grins at the thought of what her uncle will get her this year. Last year it was a new laptop and new set of skates! To this day she hasn’t stopped thanking him for them.

She opens the door to his truck and shoves her bag in before climbing in and buckling herself in. Daemon starts the truck up and they start heading home. She watches him, watches as his jaw clenches each time there’s a red light, the way he grips the steering wheel. He’s so focused. She loves watching him when he’s focused.

Rhaenyra and her uncle have always been close. She’s always preferred him over everyone else in her life. So when he told her about his past with coaching figure skaters she immediately began to beg him to be her coach. At first he said no. It was unprofessional. They’re family members. There’s better coaches. Finally after 3 months he said yes. Now 5 years later she’s won 34 competitions, most first place of course. He’s been the best coach she could have ever hoped for. The only thing is she started developing feelings for him. She knows it’s wrong, he’s her uncle, but she can’t help the way she feels when he’s guiding her on where to put her feet before jumping.

When they both get home to the apartment they share Rhaenyra drops her bag in the couch and heads to her room.

“Nyra you can’t leave your bag on the couch” Daemon calls after her. She groans turning on her heels to go back and grab it. Finally in her room she takes off her clothes and grabs a pair of shorts and a t shirt and puts them on.

She pushes her chair back and moves some clothes that she discarded on her floor over the last few days and makes room to practice.

Ok now swing your leg and- she gathers enough momentum to launch herself in the air, spinning three times before landing back on her feet swinging her leg up behind her. She did it! She finally did it! Now only if she can land it on ice tomorrow.

She does a few laps around the rink. She can feel Daemons eyes staring into the back of her skull each time she passes him. He knows she’s stalling. She does 3 more laps before going to the end of the rink. She breathes in and out. In and out. She calms her breath before beginning to move. One foot in front of the other she picks up speed. As she reaches the middle she swings her leg forward launching herself in the air. 1, 2, 3 spins. Her skate hits the ice and she skates backward swinging her leg out behind her to complete the move. She doesn’t fall.

She stops. She can’t believe it, she’s landed a triple axel. She’s been training for 2 years to land a triple axel and she’s done it! She can hear her heart beat in her ears, blood rushing through her veins. Muffled, she hears Daemon yelling and cheering.

“You did it Nyra!! You fucking did it! You landed the triple axel!” He cheers from the sidelines. She rushes over to him slamming against the wall of the rink. He takes her face in his hands, staring into her eyes. She’s grinning from ear to ear. Without thinking he brings his lips to hers. She freezes.

This is wrong. He’s your uncle!

She pushes those thoughts away. She’s wanted this for years. His lips are soft, softer than any others she’s kissed before. She deepens the kiss opening her mouth to let his tongue in. Soft moans leave her mouth. He sighs before pulling back. She steps off the ice putting her skate guards on. He picks her up and brings her to the locker room. Placing her on the bench he bends down and unties her skates. He places them in her bag before turning back to her.

“I’m so proud of you my little Nyra” he whispers. He caresses her cheek. He picks her up again before sitting down and placing her on his lap. Kissing her again he slowly makes his way down towards her jawline. Then her neck. Softly sucking on the skin, not too hard as to leave marks.

“Mm Daemon that feels so-“ she’s cut off by Daemon kissing her lips.

“No talking”

He slowly slides his hands under her shirt feeling her stomach. Her bare skin underneath his hands. He removes her shirt throwing it to the side. He stares down at her. In awe. He has the most beautiful woman on his lap right in front of him. He buries his face in her neck. She wraps her arms around his head. They hold each other like this for a couple of minutes before he moves back, reaching his hand behind her to unclip her bra. He throws that to the side to before bringing his hands up caressing her tits. She exhales sharply, feeling his cold fingers begin to roll her nipples between his fore finger and thumb.

“Daemon please” she whimpers.

He looks up at her. “What did I say?” He says looking into her eyes. She nods before grabbing his hand bringing it back to her breast. He continues to caress her. The cold air from the rink making goosebumps appear on her arms. He brings his head down, attaching his lips onto her nipple and sucking. His finger rolling and tugging the other between his fingers. She gasps as she weaves her fingers through his hair. He sucks hard, flicking his tongue every few seconds before continuing to suck. He moves his head to the other nipple giving it the same treatment.

He picks her up and lays her down on the bench. Her back his the cool wood and she shivers. A smirk spreads across his face as he kneels, dragging her butt to the edge of the bench. He reaches up to the waistband of her leggings before pulling them down her legs. He traces his finger along her hip, slowly moving over the wet patch on her underwear. She tenses. He rubs his hands on her thighs, gripping them before slowly and gently rubbing them again. She’s breathing heavy as he brings his face closer to her cloth covered cunt. Feeling his hot breath through her panties she begins to squirm.

“Don’t fucking move Rhaenyra” he scolds before slapping her cunt with the palm of his hand. She jolts and let’s out a yelp. He pulls her panties off.

“You have the prettiest cunt I’ve ever seen” he whispers. He spreads her cunt immediately latching onto her clit. Suckling softly she begins to squirm. He holds her down by her hips as he starts to suck harder occasionally licking a stripe up her cunt before going back to sucking on her clit. She throws her head back moaning loudly. She snakes a hand down to grip at his hair.

“Daemon! Please!” She shouts, whimpering and whining he plunges his tongue inside her as he brings his thumb to rub circles on her clit. The stimulation soon becomes too much and her legs start shaking. He goes back to her clit before shoving 2 fingers inside of her. Pumping them in and out slowly while he begins to nibble on her clit. She yelps in pleasure, pulling his hair he groans sending vibrations through her body. He speeds up his movements adding a third finger, filling her completely. She squirms and thrashes.

“Daemon I’m coming! Please!” She screams.

“Don’t you dare cum, not until I say so”

She holds it as he continues to speed everything up. Pumping his 3 fingers in and out of her, his lips wrapped around her clit she’s not sure how much longer she can hold on. Moans getting louder, panting getting heavier.

“Cum for me”

She lets go cumming all over his hand. Her back arches as she screams. Cunt squeezing tightly around his fingers, he continues to slowly pump his fingers in and out of her as she writhes. Her juices leaking all the way down his arm. He pulls his fingers out, bringing two of them to her lips. She obediently opens her mouth and he shoves his fingers inside. She swirls her tongue around the two digits sucking hard looking at him through her lashes. He feels his cock twitch in his pants, it’s been painfully hard this whole time. He groans as she pulls off his fingers with a pop, a string of saliva following suit.

He stands up unbuckling his belt, and taking off his pants. Rhaenyra immediately pops up and shoves him down onto the bench.

“It’s my turn uncle” she smiles. He pulls off his boxers while she gets on her knees. Taking his cock in her hand it’s warmth fills out her palm as she pumps. She begins to kitten lick the tip of it, never fully taking the head in her mouth. She gathers spit in her mouth before slowly dripping it onto the head of his cock watching it slide down the side. She does this two more times in order to lube up his cock so she doesn’t hurt him. His groans grow louder with each passing minute. She gently wraps her lips around the head of his cock, beginning to move her head up and down taking more of him down her throat each time. Precum leaks from his tip hitting her tongue. He’s salty and bitter but still sweet. She moans at the taste of him, sending vibrations through his cock.

“Fuck Nyra!” He grunts, bucking his hips a little too hard causing her to gag. She pulls back a little before taking more of him in. She keeps one hand on the rest of his cock that isn’t in her mouth and brings the other to massage his balls. He begins to whimper as she bobs her head more quickly, getting close to cumming. He pulls her hair into a makeshift ponytail and gently thrusts his hips, his cock sliding down her throat. She begins to gag and sputter but he ignores it. He’s so close. He lets out one last groan before cumming, shooting hot white ropes of cum down her throat. He pulls out and pumps his cock with his own hand finishing off on her tits, painting and marking her.

He picks her up one last time placing her on his lap, wasting no time he guides his cock to her cunt, shoving himself in. She gasps and holds onto his shoulders as he fills her.

“Wait, Daemon it hurts wait” she whimpers, he kisses her neck softly. She wraps her legs around his waist, his cock knocking into places inside her she wasn’t even aware existed. Slowly he begins moving his hips. With each thrust she gasps and moans and whimpers. He grunts hearing her whimpers which only spur him on. He’s not gonna last long and neither will she. His thrusts get more rough, bottoming out completely each time. She kisses him again, shoving her tongue inside his mouth. Tongues dancing together as he pulls on her hair. She moans when he presses his body against hers even more. Pulling each other together as close as possible. Bodies entwined as he fucks her. Soon his thrusts become sloppy. He pants into her neck.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum” he grunts out, slamming his hips in as hard as he can.

“Cum inside me Daemon” she moans out.

He pulls back and looks into her eyes. “If you win this competition I’ll cum inside you as many times as you like my sweet girl” he says quietly. Their foreheads press together and he thrusts, one, two, three more times into her before he pulls out and lays her on her back and cums on her stomach. Pumping his cock to get every last drop of cum. He’s panting and sweating, hair sticking to his forehead. Her chest rises and falls as she lays on the bench. He grabs one of her towels and cleans up her stomach before he scoops her up in his arms and holds her for a little bit longer before helping her get dressed again. Quietly they both walk out to his truck and drive home. That night instead of sleeping in her own bed Rhaenyra climbs into bed with Daemon and falls asleep with his arm wrapped around her waist holding tight.

———————————————————————————

[silvfyre-writings]

Sleeping in Showers (BSD Fanfic)

Crossposted from AO3

The first thing that Atsushi does when he walks through the door of his apartment is stop, because some innate sense of his tells him that something is off, yet he can’t quite put a finger on what it is that’s amiss. He thinks back to the morning before he’d left for work; waking up, skipping breakfast because he accidentally slept through his alarm, and then leaving the apartment in a rush. Nothing out of the normal, at least, not for him. His mornings were always a little bit chaotic, even when he did wake up on time, which he tried to do, it just didn’t always work out as planned.

Which wasn’t the point he’s trying to make to begin with.

Atsushi shakes his head, and looks around the entryway of his apartment, finally taking note of the extra set of shoes next to his own, and the jacket that’s hanging on his coatrack that most certainly doesn’t belong to him, alongside a well-worn fedora—and Atsushi immediately understands what it is that’s out of place just from those few articles of clothing. Because he recognises those clothes, as he should, considering he sees them on a regular basis, although he’s not exactly sure what Chuuya’s doing in his apartment in the first place.

It's not uncommon for him to come home to find that his boyfriend’s broken into his apartment, but usually Chuuya’s at work during this time of the day, drowning in whatever paperwork it is that his boss delegates to him for that day.

So Atsushi is more than a little concerned about what could’ve happened to drive Chuuya here during his work day.

He finally steps further into the apartment, toeing his shoes off in the process, and creeps throughout it as if he’s not the main occupant. First he looks over at the couch, but there’s no redhead stretched out on the lumpy piece of furniture to be seen, so then he makes his way towards the only other place that Chuuya could possibly be; his bedroom.

And sure enough, Atsushi pushes open the door to his bedroom and spots Chuuya curled up underneath the mountain of blankets that Atsushi keeps on his bed, said blankets pulled all the way up so that the only part of Chuuya that’s actually visible is his fiery red hair. He doesn’t move an inch as Atsushi crosses the room, which is odd considering how light of a sleeper the other is. Usually, the slightest of sounds was enough to wake Chuuya, which caused the occasional problem whenever Atsushi’s insomnia chose to act out.

“Chuuya...?” Atsushi whispers, resting a hand on his boyfriends shoulder as he sits on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t get a response. “Chuuya, are you okay?”

Finally, blue eyes peer out from under the blankets, accompanied by a groan. “’m fine.”

Atsushi winces at the way it sounds like Chuuya’s voice has been attacked with a cheese grater. Now it makes sense why the other isn’t at work. “You sound terrible.”

Chuuya grunts.

“Can I do anything?” Atsushi keeps his voice quiet, running a hand through Chuuya’s sweat soaked hair in a soothing manner.

It takes a moment for Chuuya to respond. “Water…?”

“On it.” Atsushi climbs off the bed and disappears from the room in order to get the requested water. It doesn’t take long; Atsushi moves quick, filled with the need, and the urge, to make sure that Chuuya is cared for and comfortable when he’s not feeling the greatest, and soon enough, he has a glass of water in hand and makes his way back to his bedroom. Chuuya is still exactly where he was before, although it looks as if he’s made an effort to try and sit up.

If you can call being collapsed against the sheets sitting up in the first place.

“Don’t say a word.” Chuuya grumbles, forcing himself up on shaking arms to look at Atsushi. The blankets that he’d been buried under just moments ago fall into his lap, revealing a pale face covered in a sheen of sweat, and eye bags so dark it looks like someone’s drawn them on with marker.

His boyfriend truly does look like a wreck.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Atsushi says, sliding back onto the bed, allowing Chuuya to fall against his shoulder as he offers the glass to his ailing lover. “How long have you been sick?”

“Few days.” Chuuya takes a sip of water and lets out a relieved sigh, the cool liquid soothing his sore throat. “My own place was getting unbearable, so I came here. Hope that’s okay.”

Atsushi winds an arm around Chuuya’s waist and draws him close, and frowns at the heat that emanates from the older’s skin. “You know I don’t mind. I prefer it when you come here instead of suffering alone.”

“You’re too good to me, Atsushi.” Chuuya says, letting out a series of coughs that shake his entire body.

“It’s just what I like to do.” Atsushi responds, and stands up again, deciding in a split second that the best thing he can do is get some medicine into Chuuya and get him cleaned up with a shower. It’ll give him the chance to make something that’ll be light on Chuuya’s stomach, and also to change his sheets since there’s no doubt that they’re riddled with whatever germs Chuuya’s picked up, and as much as Atsushi loves his boyfriend and will happily take care of him, he also doesn’t want to get sick himself. He simply can’t afford to take the time off work if he does. “Come on, up you get.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. Also, you look and smell gross, so shower time for you.”

“Will you take one with me?” Chuuya asks, blinking innocently—for a change.

Atsushi bends over and plants a kiss against Chuuya’s sweaty forehead. “Next time, I promise. But for now, why don’t you go get clean, and I’ll get a fresh bed and some medicine ready for you?”

For a moment, Chuuya sits there, deep in thought, before he eventually nods and pulls away from Atsushi, crawling out of the bed to stumble unsteadily towards Atsushi’s bathroom. Atsushi would offer a helping hand, but it’s always a fifty-fifty on whether or not it’ll be accepted or met with an aggressive amount of stubborn refusal, so most of the time, Atsushi doesn’t bother to offer it. He’s come to trust Chuuya’s judgement over the time they’ve been dating, although there’s certainly been times where he does question his boyfriends choice at the time.

Like right now.

But Atsushi holds back and listens to Chuuya stumbling along until he hears the click of the bathroom door shutting, the sound of running water starting just a moment afterwards. He waits for just a moment before he leaves the room, creating a mental checklist of what it is he needs to get done, and the order that he should complete it in. First order of business is changing the sheets and putting the old ones on to wash, which doesn’t take too long and honestly isn’t the worst job in the world.

Really, Atsushi doesn’t mind the menial household chores. In a way, they’re soothing, and help him to relax when he’s stressed.

And even though he’s not stressed right now, it’s still soothing.

He pulls the sheets off the bed and bundles them into a ball before dumping them into the hall. After that comes putting new sheets on the bed, and he deliberately picks out the softest ones he owns, knowing that Chuuya will appreciate them, and then piles on a mountain of new blankets because if there’s one thing that Atsushi has an abundance of, it’s blankets.

Too many years of being cold will do that to a person.

Once the bed is made, Atsushi grabs some of his clothes to lend to Chuuya, cracking open the bathroom door to leave them just inside the room before he closes it again and heads to the kitchen. He’s not going to cook something, not when he’s certain it won’t be eaten. It’s not his first time taking care of Chuuya, so he’s come to learn his lover’s habits when he’s sick, and eating isn’t something he’s fond of. So he’ll just grab something like to eat; a packet of plain biscuits that can be nibbled on, along with a bottle of water and some cold medicine that Atsushi still has lying about from the last time that one of them got sick.

By the time Atsushi returns to his room, the shower is still running, and he frowns; surely Chuuya was done by now?

Atsushi leaves the food and the medicine on the table beside the bed, and heads to the bathroom, cracking open the door. “Chuuya? Are you alright?”

No answer.

Atsushi peers further into the bathroom and huffs a laugh at the sight he’s greeted with; Chuuya, slumped against the wall of the shower, eyes closed in sleep, breathing softly despite the water that cascades against his back. Now that’s a first.

He reaches into the shower to turn off the water, and grabs a towel to cover his boyfriend with before contemplating what to do next, which is to get Chuuya out of the shower and into bed—preferably dry. The hard part is actually doing it. Atsushi considers himself to be decently strong, capable of lifting other people with ease, but there’s a difference between casually carrying one of his friends and an unconscious deadweight. Not that he’s going to let that stop him.

The towel ruffles Chuuya’s hair as Atsushi dries it, and he keeps the towel wrapped around him as he lifts Chuuya’s sleeping form into his arms, grunting a little from the added weight. There’s a fond expression on Atsushi’s face as he deposits Chuuya into the bed, manoeuvring the blankets until his boyfriend is once again, buried underneath the blankets. But this time, instead of leaving Chuuya alone, Atsushi crawls in after his boyfriend, adjusting the both of them until Chuuya’s head is resting against his chest, soft breaths warming his skin through his shirt.

Atsushi runs a hand through damp ginger hair, slowly, and gently. He would’ve preferred Chuuya to take some medicine before sleeping, but considering how exhausted the other looked, Atsushi’s content to let him get some much needed rest.

He’ll just make sure to take good care of Chuuya once he’s awake later.

[strangenewwords]

gender's funny right?

like. as i get older and reflect i think about things. like how i never liked purses. i had a wallet for as long as i could remember. then it was a pocket knife acting as a money/card clip. then back to a wallet, but never a purse. because fuck purses.

i didn't wear my first bra until i was in my 20s. now i got little tits, so it was okay, but i just never liked them.

i wore "boy" clothes because they were more comfortable. i ran around in chucks because i like them better than other options (and the punk phase never really passed).

and so long i thought i was just lazy. that putting on makeup, wearing "girl" clothes, wearing "girl" shoes, just took extra effort and i wasn't willing to do it.

now my family was awesome. no one ever treated me weird or told me i needed to do something different. i got the chucks i wanted for holidays and nice new wallets/pocket knives, etc. they embraced my insane love of all things flannel and plaid. when i wanted to fuck with my hair - only ever insane colors, I've always worn it really long - or get piercings or do whatever, so much support.

but if i had been in this generation versus the 90s/00s, i think i would have been so much more comfortable in my own skin because society was never as nice as my family. highschool was the fucking worst.

when i did my corporate america stint, i couldn't be normal me, i had to be girl!me. hair. makeup. heels. the hated purse. nails.

but also like, sometimes i totally love putting on the dress, and i have a closet full of super sexy heels (and I've got nice legs so that works too).

but as this time moves forward, i can see these parts of myself with so much less guilt. I'm not letting myself down, I'm not less than because i want to wear the things i like, but i can still choose the days to play dress up.

and i still totally feel like a girl, in so far as that i feel sexually feminine (but not at all straight because that's so not my bag - BAG JOKE), and it's nice to be able to be both. or not both but just me. I'm really happy about how the world is moving forward (for all the steps back it takes).

tl;dr i got sparked by a post about purses, and spilled my gender/identity stuff all over a random post. woo.

[quietblueriver]

There Are Roads Left in Both of Our Shoes (Ch. 1)

Sister Kathleen hands Beatrice the envelope at the end of their meeting, pulling it from the small black messenger bag sitting next to her on the park bench they had used as a meeting point. 

“This came to Cat’s Cradle, via your last publicly listed assignment. Camila said to apologize—they had to open it. Standard security.”

Beatrice is too busy staring at the name on the corner of the envelope to pay much attention to what she says next. 

A. Garde 

“Beatrice?”

Kathleen is looking at her in mild concern. 

“I apologize. What did you say?”

“I was just asking if you needed anything else before I go? Sister Camila said she would be checking in at the usual time.”

“No, thank you. And thank you for bringing this.”

She shrugs, pulling at her gray cardigan and straightening her navy skirt as she stands. She’s not in a habit, of course, but she has found the closest civilian approximation of one.  

“Of course.” She sighs. “I truly hate having to wear these clothes. I cannot wait to get back to Cat’s Cradle.”

Beatrice hums as if she understands while thinking privately, and far from the first time, that she made the correct decision in leaving. Her navy trousers, brown oxfords, and gray button-down aren’t exactly loud but they are hers, chosen and worn based on how Beatrice feels about them. She brushes a strand of hair back from her forehead, another unexpected joy. It’s shaved down on the sides, the length on top held back, generally only somewhat successfully, with a dollop of mousse which Beatrice keeps buying not for its efficacy but because Ava loves the smell of it so much. The cut requires maintenance beyond what Camila could provide in the kitchen, and Beatrice knows her careful attention to it often crosses the line into vanity. She is grateful for the opportunity to be vain in this way. She’s working on using gratitude to fill the spaces that once would have been filled by shame.

Kathleen pulls her bag across her chest and nods at Beatrice. “I should get going, then. I’m hoping to catch the earlier train, if I can.”

Beatrice stands to see her off, running her fingers over the envelope before placing it in her own messenger, a worn, light-brown leather that Ava had found for her secondhand and which she loves in a way that still feels strange to her, after years of denying herself attachment to worldly things.  

“Safe travels. Please tell everyone hello from me, and from Ava. She was sad to miss you.”

“I will. I was sorry to miss her as well. Please give her my best.”

They leave in opposite directions, Beatrice gripping the strap of her bag tightly where it sits across her chest. 

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

Ava finds her later, sitting at their kitchen table, staring at the opened-but-unopened-by-Beatrice letter.

“Bea?” She calls out from the doorway. “Sorry I took so long.” Beatrice hears the familiar sound of her shoes being toed off and kicked in the general direction of the mat by the door. “I got distracted by the fruit Mrs. Brunner had just put out. Bea, the strawberries. Don’t worry, I got some, and then...” Ava stops when she spots her, frowning slightly in concern. 

“Beatrice? You okay?” 

Beatrice smiles at her, puts the envelope down, and stands. 

“Much better now.”

And she is. It’s jarring, still, that she can feel this way about someone. She is working on loving and letting herself be loved without guilt, and she’s getting better by the day, the shame being slowly but steadily pushed away by determined love. Ava closes the distance between them and drops a whale-patterned reusable grocery bag onto the table. Beatrice can see the little basket of strawberries tilting precariously on top of what she thinks must be a sleeve of Hobnobs. She reaches over to put the basket on a more even surface and slides the bag a little further toward the center of the table. She uses her other arm to catch Ava, who has thrown most of her bodyweight into Beatrice, wrapping her arms around Beatrice’s neck and kissing her soundly. Her fingers play in the short hair at the nape of Beatrice’s neck, running back and forth, and she pulls away to nose into Beatrice’s collarbone. Beatrice loves her. Beatrice loves her. 

“Hi, darling. I missed you.” 

Ava pulls back to kiss her again and shift her arms to Beatrice’s waist. 

“Missed you too, Bea.” She pushes the lock of Beatrice’s hair from her forehead, tracing a finger down her cheek and along her jaw. “What’s going on?” 

Beatrice smiles at her and breaks away to grab the envelope, taps her fingers against the paper nervously. Ava watches with concern. 

“Kathleen brought me this today. She says hello, by the way.” Ava hums an acknowledgement. “It was addressed to me and made its way to Cat’s Cradle. It’s from someone that I used to know.”

“A wedding invitation?”

“I haven’t opened it yet.” Ava eyes the broken edges of the envelope and Beatrice clarifies, “They opened it at Cat’s Cradle. I haven’t looked at it. But yes, if I had to guess, it’s a wedding invitation.” 

Beatrice shifts back and forth slightly on her feet, an uncharacteristic move, but she feels unbalanced. Ava notices and tilts her head in the direction of the living room, waiting for Beatrice to nod before tugging her toward the sofa. It’s incredibly comfortable, with worn leather cushions, and it’s deep enough that Ava can wedge herself between Beatrice’s body and the back on movie nights because “sometimes I want to be the big spoon, Bea. Hand me a pillow so I can see the screen.” Now, Ava sits sideways, one leg curled up on the cushion, and waits for Beatrice to join her. She does, mirroring Ava, their knees touching and Ava’s hand immediately grabbing at her foot, squeezing it affectionately before sliding her hand up to grasp Beatrice’s ankle in a light hold, her pinky sliding just under the material of Beatrice’s low-cut sock. 

“I…” Beatrice starts but is not at all sure where to go from there. 

Ava waits what is an astounding amount of time on the Ava scale of patience before saying, “You know we don’t have to talk about it. You’re allowed to have things that are yours, Bea. But I’m here to listen if you want.”

Beatrice runs her fingers through the hair, currently blue but recently silver, that frames the left side of Ava’s face. 

“I like this color.”

Ava grins. 

“You’ve mentioned.” She trails her hand up Beatrice’s calf, rests it there. “A few times.”

“It bears repeating. You say you like mine often enough.”

Ava reaches forward with her other hand, runs it through Beatrice’s hair. She pulls her forward into a kiss, breathes out against Beatrice’s mouth, “Because I really fucking do.”

She rocks back a bit, wipes at Beatrice’s bottom lip with her thumb and cradles her jaw. Beatrice contemplates forgetting about the envelope for the night, letting herself fall into Ava and, afterwards, strawberries and an evening of reading quietly with her feet tucked under Ava’s thighs while Ava watches that food competition show where they try to fool people into thinking cakes are shoes. Ava is trying to read her, but she must be having a difficult time. It makes sense, because Beatrice isn’t sure about her own mind at the moment. 

“Really, Bea. Wanna talk about it?” At Beatrice’s silence she smiles rakishly and presses her fingers into Beatrice’s calf. Beatrice’s stomach swoops. “Not that I’m not totally down to take this detour, but I can wait. Believe it or not, I had a plan for this evening anyway. Most details are still tentative, but this,” she moves the hand deliberately up her calf to her inner thigh, leans close until her lips touch the skin just below Beatrice’s ear, “is a definite item on the agenda.” She whispers this last phrase with intention, as if she’s asking Beatrice to do something filthy to her, uses the same breathy tone she uses to rile Beatrice up when they’re in public. Beatrice knows she’s teasing her; it’s a favorite bit of Ava’s, to bring Beatrice’s love of order and organization into the bedroom. She feels the heat pool in her stomach anyway, shivers slightly. She’s so easy for Ava. It would be embarrassing if Ava weren’t the best thing to ever happen to her by an incredibly long shot. As it stands, she’s fine being easy for Ava forever. Ava pulls her hand back to Beatrice’s ankle, leans away slightly, and shrugs, “If you’re down, that is.” 

She’s smirking. She knows exactly what she’s done to Beatrice. And Beatrice has always been competitive, has always been a strategist, so she’s very good at finding ways to even a playing field. She gives herself that, lets the envelope and all of the weight it carries fade further into the background in favor of this easy and uncomplicated desire. She takes the hand Ava still has resting against her jaw, grips it lightly and pulls until the thin skin at the inside of Ava’s wrist is at her mouth. She meets Ava’s eyes and then presses her lips to skin, lets her tongue dip out just slightly. This would be enough, Beatrice knows, but she recalls Ava’s breathy invocation of agenda items and decides to push just slightly further. She turns Ava’s hand so that her thumb is against Beatrice’s lips again. Eyes steady with Ava’s she opens her mouth and takes it in, bites gently, soothes it with her tongue. 

Ava’s pupils blow wide and she sucks in a breath, hard. Beatrice lets her hand go and it hangs in the air, Ava staring blankly for a moment before shaking her head, asking so quietly that Beatrice isn’t entirely sure she means to say it out loud, “Jesus Christ, why the fuck is that so sexy? It’s a thumb.”

Beatrice says, “Language, Ava,” with mock reproval, just for the look she knows she’ll get, the slight eye roll and quirk of Ava’s lips. Beatrice lets her own mouth shift into a smile. “Was that a real question, or...”

Ava meets her eyes, amused. “If you want to give me an answer, sure.” Beatrice leans forward to do just that but Ava holds up her hand, pressing her still-wet thumb against the skin of Beatrice’s neck and her palm against her sternum. “Wait.” Beatrice stops immediately. “Tell me later. Better yet, give a demonstration. First,” she nudges gently at Beatrice’s socked foot with her own, plain gray pushed against neon green with pink squiggles, and moves her eyes to the envelope that had at some point been wedged halfway underneath Beatrice’s knee, “I want to hear if you want to tell me.”

Beatrice breathes out, watches Ava’s toes wiggle unconsciously, loves them. She does want to tell her. If things in their lives were in any way normal, Ava might already know this story. Their lives aren’t normal, and they never will be, but Beatrice is starting to believe they might be able to find something that works better for them both anyway. Something for a former nun and a more-than-human woman who spend their time fighting demons and can’t in good conscience, don’t honestly want, to spend it doing anything else. Something that lets them be who they are and still leaves space for them to get to know each other softly and intentionally. 

It’s been just over six months since Ava got back, and they’d spent most of that time with the OCS, training and helping to fight new demons, preparing new recruits for the war. It had been brutal, but Beatrice had Ava again, so she was hardly going to complain. Six weeks ago, a tarask appeared randomly in the courtyard in front of Ava and kneeled, an apparent request for Ava to go speak with Reya. Beatrice had waited dutifully next to her as she slept under the crown of thorns and when she sat up, grinning, just under an hour later (“Who the fuck knows how time works, Bea? I swear it wasn’t more than half a day.”), Beatrice had felt relief so powerful she could hardly breathe. They had a break. Maybe not forever, likely not forever, but for the moment, Reya had her war in hand, and they had only a slightly-higher-than-normal number of wraiths and some other demonic escapees to deal with. 

A month ago, at the kind but firm instruction of Superion, Ava and Beatrice had left Cat’s Cradle to spend some time in the world. They were still technically working for the Church. They were in fact currently living in a Church property only a few towns over from their old apartment. (They went to visit, for a weekend. Hans had fallen over himself hugging Ava, no surprise, but Beatrice had been taken aback by the force with which he hugged her, a happy, “Chefin!” spoken too loudly into her ear.) Most of their time, though, is spent…living. Ava has made friends with the children on their street and the purveyors at the farmer’s market. She’s interested in gardening, loves the feeling of dirt in her hands, and spends time on the roof with their elderly neighbor, tending to raised beds and discussing soil and the weather. Beatrice has made friends with the librarian, and the teachers at the school where she volunteers as a tutor. 

They’re learning to build a home together, taking what they learned in the first tiny flat they shared and letting it grow into something deeper. Now, when Ava finishes breakfast and washes her mug without prompting because she knows that Beatrice has a compulsion about dishes in the sink, Beatrice can kiss her in appreciation. When Beatrice sees something that makes her think of Ava—a book she might like, a small pot of basil at the market, a ridiculous beaded dog keychain sold by the arts program at the elementary school—she can bring it home to her without feeling the need to pretend it’s anything other than proof that Ava is always on her mind. They learn about each other, gently and without the pressure of the end of the world, as they cook dinner and spend mornings in bed and shop at the market and walk the trails just outside of town. They’re new to this, still, but Beatrice is already in love with their life, feels hope and fear flare bright inside her any time she lets herself think about keeping it. 

She looks at Ava, sitting across from her, waiting patiently and running a thumb over the exposed skin of Beatrice’s ankle where her hand has made a home again. She wants Ava to know her, even when it’s hard. She lets herself open, and trusts Ava with a new part of her life. 

“You know that my family summered in France, for most of my life...”   ******************

Beatrice is 12 years old when she first sees Amelia. She’s in town, which is probably a generous term for the small collection of businesses and residences closest to their summer house. She had come after her ballet lesson, eager to go outside after being forced to spend hours in the small dance studio her parents had set up for her. Amelia is reading underneath a tree outside the only pub, laying back with one leg crossed over the other, foot kicking the air and head propped up on a backpack, blonde hair spread out behind her.

She looks up when Beatrice passes, and smiles. 

“Hello!”

Beatrice, unused to strangers speaking to her, much less doing so enthusiastically, is somewhat confused but responds politely, because she has been raised to do so. 

“Hello.”

The girl pushes herself up without any grace or self-consciousness, her book pressing into the ground in a way that makes Beatrice want to rescue it from her immediately. She comes toward Beatrice and holds out a hand, dirty from her journey up from her spot under the tree. 

“I’m Amelia. Who’re you?”

Beatrice blinks at her. Who taught this person how to introduce herself? (Later, she’ll watch Ava greet Yasmine with a high-five and think back to this moment.) Still, she does the polite thing, internally locating the nearest washroom as she grips the girl’s dirty hand. 

“I’m Beatrice. Beatrice Hunt.”

“Well, Beatrice Hunt, I’m a bit bored. The book is good and all but I’ve already read it and I’ve been here for ages. It’s definitely time to find some ice cream. Want to come?”

Beatrice says yes. And suddenly she has a friend. Amelia is different to most of her friends at home, who are either chosen and approved by her parents or martial arts peers, acquaintances, really, who she is not allowed to see outside of classes and competitions. Beatrice learns that she’s two years older, going into ninth grade (“Year ten, I think.”), and also an only child. She likes strawberry ice cream. She is an excellent swimmer, and she competes for her school. She’s likely to make varsity early, whatever that means. She’s irreverent and funny and makes Beatrice uncomfortable without making her feel bad about it. She’s also very smart. 

(“It’s Virginia Woolf.” She holds out the battered book as they walk toward the small shop that sells ice cream, hardware, and sewing supplies, “Orlando. I’ve read it like 50 times now. You can borrow it, if you want. Just be sure not to get it dirty.” Beatrice, eyeing the bent cover in Amelia’s unwashed hand, is unsure what to say to that. Amelia leans in and whispers, like it’s a secret, “I’m joking, Beatrice. It’s beat to hell already, obviously.” Beatrice reads it in a night.) 

Somehow, Beatrice’s parents love her. Beatrice is worried the first time that she brings her home, about a week later, because Amelia is loud and unapologetic and Beatrice has never seen her without dirty knees or dirty hands or a spot on her shirt or all three. Turns out, there was no need to worry. Amelia has a stash of wipes in the backpack she always carries with her, and she puts them to use just off the road next to the drive to Beatrice’s house. She smiles at Beatrice confidently before they walk in. “Don’t worry, Beatrice. I’m good at this.” And she is. Her posture shifts, and Beatrice notices how tall she really is, how she can take up space in that way that women like her mother do—noticeably there but still obviously feminine. It’s a skill Beatrice, who feels comfortable in her body but always out of place, fears she may never master. Beatrice had known that Amelia was beautiful; it was difficult to miss, but suddenly her green eyes and easy smile are used with a purpose, and Beatrice sees her in a new way. Her diction shifts, which Beatrice notices the further into conversation they get, her r’s softer, less American but her words cut more precisely. It goes so well that Beatrice is nearly speechless during their entire interaction, earning multiple frowns from her mother. 

It’s just, Amelia’s suddenly exactly like the girls at Beatrice’s school, which is impressive, yes, but also makes Beatrice nervous. Those girls don’t really like Beatrice, for reasons she can’t ever quite grasp, which means she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do differently. Most of them aren’t mean to her, but Beatrice doesn’t spend time with them outside of school. Her parents aren’t pleased about her lack of social status, which they apparently track through the parents of her classmates, some kind of internal tally they must have at dinner parties about whose child gets mentioned most and in what context, which birthday parties and social events it seems like everyone but Beatrice attends. She gets the occasional invitation, but it’s almost worse when that happens, as no one is under the impression that she’s there for reasons other than pity or politics. 

Unfortunately for everyone, or at least for Beatrice, she’s not been able to identify the thing that makes it difficult for her to be the way the other girls seem to want her to be. She sits with them at lunch, because she feels she should continue to make an effort, and experiments with the factors she can control. She’s tried talking less, talking more, talking about things that she finds to be, frankly, dull. She doesn’t like discussing other people, which are a central topic of conversation for her classmates, and she doesn’t like making fun of the teachers who are by far the kindest people in Beatrice’s life. She can’t really engage with the conversations about popular culture, although those are better, because she spends her free time reading and praying and practicing martial arts. When she is expected to speak, which is rarely, she almost always chooses from a very short list of topics: class, homework, sometimes ballet (never martial arts, she learns quickly). She knows she’s not generally successful in saying anything interesting and is both grateful and disappointed when conversation flags and someone moves to a new topic, leaving her to be quiet again. Toward the end of the school year, she hears them talking about her in the washroom, about how she’s weird, awkward. She waits until they leave to emerge, brushing away tears and feeling shame coil in her stomach. That evening, her parents are home for dinner, and as they talk about their coming trip to Germany, Beatrice barely manages to eat, feeling suddenly like she’s merely at yet another table where she doesn’t understand the rules of the game she’s expected to play. 

In the end, though, Amelia isn’t at all like her classmates. She keeps smiling at Beatrice the whole time they’re at tea, making a funny face at Beatrice when her parents aren’t looking and talking about Beatrice as if she’s important and interesting, working her into the conversation as much as she can. She doesn’t seem thrown by Beatrice’s silence, just smiles encouragingly at her. 

Amelia talks about her life in a way that makes Beatrice’s parents eager to know more. Amelia’s parents are French and work in politics. They send Amelia to school in the United States, where her mother’s sister lives, which explains her almost-American accent. This information makes Beatrice’s parents frown until she Amelia casually mentions the number of students they send to Oxford and Cambridge, in addition to the Ivy League. They’re Catholic. The home they own nearby, which they bought last year, is easily identifiable because it’s massive (as is Beatrice’s) and not a “new addition to the area” which is something her parents say with such disdain that they might as well be spitting. In short, they approve. She’s charming and from a “good family” and Beatrice’s parents not only allow Beatrice to spend time with her, they encourage it. They seem impressed with Beatrice, by association, even if Beatrice feels like they are still confused as to why Amelia wants to spend time with her. Beatrice herself is still confused about that, but she puts it to the side as best she can. Near the end of the afternoon, Amelia catches Beatrice’s eye, quickly rolls her eyes and winks, back to blinking angelically by the time her mother has turned from pouring more tea.

Amelia comes over regularly. Beatrice gets used to spending a few minutes behind a tree at the end of her driveway, watching Amelia dig through her backpack, out of which she sometimes pulls a cardigan or clean shoes to complete her transformation. She can pleat her hair so quickly and neatly that it often looks better than Beatrice’s, carefully put together each morning. Beatrice resents this only a small amount. 

They wander the town and walk to the nearby creek to cool off their feet and eat oranges and read in the shade. They swim in the pool behind Amelia’s house and watch movies in the massive tv room her parents let her create. 

“I think they feel guilty for sending me to school in the States and because they’re never around even when I am here. It does suck. I wish I saw them more. Anyway, they told me I could do what I wanted with this room so I did. My cousin in the States has one just like it.” Beatrice cannot relate at all but enjoys watching The Hunger Games and the series of movies that Amelia swears are based on classics: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Romeo + Juliet. She thinks fleetingly that she might be able to discuss these things with her classmates, but, as Amelia gets deeper into a rant about Emma, waving the copy she had grabbed from their library wildly around her head to emphasize a point, Beatrice knows it wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfying.

Amelia reads outside while Beatrice has ballet lessons with the instructor her parents hire to come to their home three times a week because they refuse to allow her to miss five weeks of class. Beatrice is not small enough or good enough or dedicated enough to warrant this attention. She knows it; her instructor knows it; and her classmates know it. She is looking forward to the day when the head of the dance school finally forces her parents to accept it but until then she tries and tries and tries. When she does conditioning and practices her katas and forms, she does them on her own, with written instruction from her teachers, even though she actually is good enough at this to warrant additional attention. Amelia reads in the room then, sometimes watching Beatrice. The first time, she says afterward, “That’s really fucking cool, Hunt,” and Beatrice blushes for reasons that she doesn’t quite understand. 

On Sundays, Amelia attends mass with Beatrice and her parents, running through the motions of the service and words of the prayers so seamlessly and attentively that Beatrice is convinced Amelia must find comfort in it the way that Beatrice does. She asks Amelia about church in the United States and Amelia laughs and says, “Oh, I only go when I absolutely have to. C&E Catholics, my aunt and cousins, which is totally good with me.” When Beatrice looks at her blankly, she supplies, “Christmas and Easter. I don’t even believe in God, I don’t think. My parents definitely don’t but don’t tell anyone that.” Beatrice is shocked silent but Amelia is already moving down the small ledge near the creek and doesn’t seem to notice. It doesn’t bother her, she decides, as she gets ready for bed that evening. She adds Amelia to her prayers. 

Even though Amelia might not believe in God, she doesn’t make fun of Beatrice for her faith. She waits around while Beatrice goes to confession each week. When Beatrice tells her that she cannot come over because she is going to a service during the week, she is respectful, if disappointed, telling Beatrice to come over when she’s done. Beatrice chooses to spend some afternoons, on days when she feels particularly ungrateful or angry or inadequate, in the small chapel saying the rosary. She knows it’s not normal for someone her age, but she is comforted by the thought that she can do this thing to correct herself when she otherwise doesn’t know how. She can ask for forgiveness and it will be given. This ease of forgiveness and love is so foreign a concept to Beatrice in her day-to-day life that she has no trouble at all believing that God’s grace is a miracle. How could she be anything other than grateful? How could she do anything other than try her best to live up to that incredible gift? To apologize when she fails? Beatrice offers an explanation for her absence once, on a day when she feels like she has been especially resentful during ballet. Amelia squeezes her shoulder and says, “You don’t owe me an explanation, Hunt,” hesitates before adding, “You are really hard on yourself, though. You shouldn’t feel guilty for just being a person.” Beatrice isn’t sure what that means.

It’s the best summer she’s ever had, and when it’s over, she cries, absolutely embarrassed as they say goodbye in the foyer of her house. 

Amelia grins and hugs her tightly and says, “Hey, Hunt, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you next summer and we can write letters or whatever. It’ll be cute.”

Beatrice is surprised to find that Amelia was serious, receives a letter the third week of September postmarked from Washington, D.C. It’s very short, a list of book recommendations and a story about a dog in her neighborhood that keeps escaping and digging up the garden of the elderly woman down the road, all in scrawled handwriting and signed with a heart and Amelia’s name. Beatrice writes back two days later, unable to adopt the same informality without feeling like a fraud, but she lets herself start the letter, which consists mostly of book recommendations of her own, with “Hello” and ends it with a —Beatrice rather than a more formal sign off. She rewrites it three times before she’s satisfied. 

On her birthday, she gets a handmade card with a cat in a party hat on the front, drawn badly enough that Beatrice is only certain it’s a cat because of the arrow pointing at it, next to which is the word CAT. The inside reads simply, “Happy Birthday, Hunt! Do something fun. Miss you -A” 

On Amelia’s birthday, Beatrice sends a card she finds in her favorite book store, a T. Rex with a party hat on, “Have a Dino-Mite Birthday” written above him. She writes, “Happy birthday, Amelia! I hope you have a wonderful day.” The exclamation point feels aggressive but she keeps it anyway. Amelia writes her to say that she loved it, that it’s now taped up in her locker. 

Beatrice keeps trying with her classmates, but she still can’t seem to get it right. Beatrice can throw her aikido instructor, who is significantly larger, over her shoulder. She can speak four languages fluently and is working on two more. Her teachers regularly assign her work separately, because they want to challenge her. And, although she knows her parents are disappointed in her, she is still their child, raised to carry herself with a certain level of pride and decorum. She thinks, sometimes, that these girls would like her if they didn’t have to think about her. She thinks they want her to disappear, keep her hand down, be still, quit trying, stop being noticeable, if all she can ever be is different. Beatrice can’t bring herself to do this. She wonders if her life would be better if she could. 

She keeps trying until she can’t anymore. They’re finishing in the changing room after physical eduction and Beatrice is returning from the water fountains. She hears them as she enters, groaning that Beatrice is too competitive, had been overly invested in their game of football. Beatrice hears a snort. “She would be.” There is laughter. “Gross.” “Yeah, but I’m right.” Beatrice coughs loudly and enters, listens as their laughter grows louder. She knows that they are implying that Beatrice might be different in other ways, ways that make Beatrice’s stomach hurt. They know, the small voice in her head says to her. They know. She pushes it away. There’s nothing to know.

Still, Beatrice begins to eat by herself, reading or studying. Better to be alone than to keep doing whatever it is she had done to make them think of her that way. Sometimes she sits in the classroom with her literature teacher, who likes Beatrice and is always happy to talk about books. She knows her parents would be disappointed, but she’s at the top of her class. She keeps winning at martial arts competitions. She focuses more in ballet, even though it does little good. She can’t make up for her social failures, for the capital she knows she loses her parents, but she can try to be good in other ways. She is good in other ways, although she knows it’s never enough. 

She and Amelia continue to write, irregular but frequent enough that Beatrice feels like Amelia is writing because she wants to rather than because she feels obligated. The letters get longer, and Beatrice starts to include more about her life, about herself. There’s not that much to tell, really, but every time Amelia responds with a question she feels something in her open up. In May, Amelia signs off with “SEE YOU SOON, HUNT” and Beatrice smiles for so long that during her evening Aikido class her instructor asks her if everything is alright. 

School remains the same, but in the last several weeks, it’s somehow it’s easier, knowing that she does have a friend, a real friend, who wants to hear what she thinks about books and who gets excited when Beatrice puts in details about her own life, her martial arts competitions, new foods that she has tried. She even finds the few social events she’s forced to attend to be more bearable. She knows, now, that she can find people who like her, even if they’re not exactly like her. She lets herself stay behind late at martial arts classes, speak to some of the other girls in class with her. She can’t see them outside of this part of her life, but she lets herself try to get to know them more, anyway. She finds it’s not as difficult as she thought it would be. 

Beatrice has never been more eager to go to France, is packed and ready hours before they are scheduled to leave. She is afraid sometimes that she made it all up or that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. As soon as Amelia shows up at her house, with her charming smile and a bottle of wine that makes her parents forget that it’s definitely rude for a guest to be there so quickly after they arrive, Beatrice’s fears are gone. That summer is even better, somehow. They know each other now, have patterns they fall into and inside jokes they tell and Beatrice feels like Amelia knows her better than anyone else in the world and she’s glad about that. 

Beatrice lets herself talk more freely, talk about things that she loves. When a ladybird lands on Amelia’s sleeve, Beatrice gently picks it up and says, “Harmonia axyridis.” Amelia stares at her and then laughs, “Is there anything you don’t know? Man, Hunt, you’re an actual encyclopedia.” Beatrice has had people say things like this to her before, but always with an edge, judgment or jealousy driving them. Amelia looks at Beatrice like she’s something special, smile big and eyes bright. Beatrice and the ladybird are suddenly similar shades. 

When Amelia wants ice cream twice in one afternoon, Beatrice balks. “It’s a bit indulgent, isn’t it?” Amelia shoves her without any real force and asks, “You know you’re a kid, right? You sound like your mom.” She must see Beatrice flinch because she immediately apologizes, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just mean, you’re allowed to do things that are a little irresponsible sometimes. I do. Lemme be a bad influence, yeah?” Beatrice gets a half-scoop and wonders briefly why it bothers her so much that Amelia called her a kid. She doesn’t let herself linger on the possible answers. 

She stays the night with Amelia sometimes. They turn on their sides and talk across the space between the twin beds in her room. Beatrice says things she wouldn’t if she had to look at Amelia in the light, things she’s hinted at in letters but never lets herself say outright. She confesses her hatred of ballet and her discomfort with most of the other students at her school. She tells Amelia, with shame, that she eats alone or with a teacher. Amelia, as always, meets her with kindness, and something more. “I’d eat lunch with you every fucking day. They’re shits, and they’ll be jealous of you, in the end. It’s good to be different, Beatrice. I’ve never met anyone like you. That’s a really cool thing.” Beatrice, blushing at the language, cannot quite believe her but appreciates her effort. 

Amelia’s easier with physical affection than she was last summer, grabbing for Beatrice’s hand as they walk through town, bumping their shoulders over ice cream, sitting close, close, close as they watch movies. Beatrice isn’t used to being physically close to anyone this way. The closest she comes is sparring. She finds that she likes it. There’s a clench to her stomach sometimes, when Amelia falls asleep on her in the movie room or brushes hair from Beatrice’s face in the pool, that Beatrice doesn’t want to examine. She hasn’t had a friend like this before. She tells herself it’s normal, pushes away any thought that it could be anything other than normal, and stays attentive in her prayer. She finds herself in the small chapel more often. She can’t quite bring herself to articulate her sin, but she knows, with growing certainty, that it’s there. 

Once again, she finds herself crying in the foyer of her house and once again Amelia is grinning at her. This time, she hands Beatrice a sheet of paper with an email address. “We can still do snail mail but this is faster plus I can send you articles and stuff.” 

And she does. They write each other at least once a week, and Beatrice now gets links to articles and music and movie recommendations. She also gets the occasional letter in the mail, with doodles in the margins and restaurant reviews for places that Beatrice will probably never go and stories about Amelia’s cousins or teachers. 

School is, shockingly, a little bit better. Beatrice doesn’t have close friends, but some older students eat lunch with her new literature teacher, who also likes Beatrice, and she joins them. She finds them much easier to talk to than the students in her year, and they say hello to her easily when they see each other outside of lunch. One, Jenny, likes Beatrice a lot. Beatrice knows because she’s generally quiet when they eat as a group, but she makes a point to talk to Beatrice in the hallways, smiles at her when she can’t stop between classes. She sometimes asks Beatrice to eat lunch with her outside, and they sit together in easy quiet. When they do talk, Beatrice finds herself blushing much more than she should be. She doesn’t ever tell Jenny no, even though she could. She feels guilt build heavy in her stomach. You know what you’re doing, the little voice says. Nothing, she replies with force. I'm doing nothing at all.  

At one point, Amelia writes that her aunt is excited to meet Beatrice because “she thinks I have an imaginary best friend. She doesn’t believe that a genius polyglot entomology nerd with a black belt is a real thing. She might come this summer for a week.” Beatrice has privately considered Amelia to be her best friend since about two weeks into their first summer together. That Amelia thinks of her similarly is shocking, and Beatrice feels gratitude and joy expanding in her chest. That first feeling is familiar, the second less so. She thinks of Amelia so very often, and this unexpected affirmation of closeness for some reason makes her feel better about that. 

Beatrice, for her part, sticks mostly to books and other media she finds interesting but tries to include at least one thing about her own life in each letter as well. She tells Amelia about lunch with her new teacher, about the class trip to Madrid, about how she’s working to improve her Spanish. She tells her about the new priest at her church, Father Louis, whose homilies are not as good as Father Mark’s but who is just as kind, had given Beatrice a very interesting book on women in the Church. She tells her about learning to make makowiec with the daughter of one of her parents’ colleagues, home for Christmas and happy to steal away with Beatrice to the kitchen while their parents pretended to like each other. She does not tell Amelia about the way her stomach fluttered when they stepped close to each other in the kitchen. She does not tell Amelia about how Jenny makes her blush, or about the new dreams she’s having that feature the exact wrong kind of person. She does not tell Amelia that she prays for her, or that she’s started to pray for herself in a new way, too. That is a burden she knows she will be bearing alone. 

In February, she gets an email with a subject line that is just a frowny face. It’s three sentences: 

My parents are making me go to a stupid fucking writing camp this summer instead of coming to visit. Write me? I’m going to miss you a lot. 

Beatrice finds herself crying. She gathers herself and responds:

Of course. I’m going to miss you, too. 

She deliberates for a full 15 minutes and then adds a &lt;3 for the first time ever, hits send before she can change her mind. Her palms sweat. She’ll know. Do you want her to know? She’s too afraid to answer her own question. She says her evening prayers and does the breathing exercises her instructors have taught her, easing herself into sleep. That night, the girl in her dreams is a blur of blonde hair and broad shoulders, but Beatrice knows exactly who she is meant to be, who Beatrice wants it to be. She feels it break through her as fingertips ghost over her arms, her neck, lower. She wakes, chest heaving and sweat along her back, burning with arousal and shame.

[multiplicationdivision]

Ancient story I decided to post! Hope someone likes this shit. Adapting the concept in this for a more well written thing later.

Matt made sure to lock the bathroom door securely as he retreated into the depths of the stadium. His body practically vibrated with adrenalin and he could feel like his body was already splitting. He would not let anyone see this.

The meet was over and Matt was ready to get creative.

His bag held two different running shoes, both his.

It was so obvious, why had he never thought of doing this.

He’d always wanted to be two places at once.

He reached for the pair of white socks that he’d made sure to pack, securely snuggled into the bottom of his bag.

They were incredibly soft and a pure vibrant white, like they were still brand new. Matt had found himself wearing them near constantly, whether for their effect or just because they were so well made and comfortable.

The only thing that set them apart were the two green stripes around the top, just a tad bit luminous, making the color look neon. It was a small anomalous trait that hinted to the weirder nature of the socks.

Matt began to remove the shoes he was wearing, his typical trainers. They were bright blue nikes, reliable and practically formed to his foot. He’d had the pair for years and they still looked great despite the efforts that cross country made to destroy them.

He threw them down to his bag, the trainers knocking against the other shoes inside the drawstring bag.

Huh, he hadn’t thought of that.

He had three pairs of shoes.

He grinned as he peeled off his honestly quite disgusting post-meet socks. Stuff like track was why he wasn’t constantly wearing those socks, as comfortable as they may be. Sweat still existed, no matter how durable and white a sock may appear.

They were basically magic though so maybe he was being worried for practically nothing.

The socks felt like a second skin as he finally managed to get them on his still kinda sweaty feet. A lot better than his wool ones, laying by the trash can.

Matt wondered when he became so embittered to every other sock aside from this pair. He stopped caring after a second, he had things to do.

Matt dumped out the contents of bag on the changing bench, his flats and spikes clattering on the metal surface.

He reached for his spikes, taking the left shoe and slipping it on.

They were bright yellow nikes, sleek with metal spikes covering their bottoms. Perfect for the track field, less great for hard bathroom floors.

He still liked the look of them though, matching the shape of his foot,bright and eye catching. The shoe clicked against the bathroom tile as he reached for his flats.

His flats were quite similar to his spikes in their shape. There was practically no sole, the shoe intended to bend with the foot. They lacked the actual spikes though of the other shoe and were a neon green, a nike swoosh across their sides.

He felt a bit of anxiety as he put the right shoe on. Or maybe it was anticipation?

The socks started working when both shoes were on.

He felt his body start changing as his heel slipped in.

He quickly turned to the bathroom’s mirror as the energy pulsed underneath his skin.

He had worn these both today during the meet, so his clothes didn’t both changing as he felt the first wave of energy ripple over him.

Then the second wave came.

He could feel his torso beginning to widen, his chest slowly diverting into two paths underneath his shirt.

He felt a dull tingle in his head as he saw his eyes begin to do the same in the mirror. His entire face splitting like a cell undergoing mitosis. His nose became two noses as a eye formed between them.

The tingle became intense, his vision darkening until he felt a weird pop in his skull, his head flinging sideways before ricochetting back into something else.

He looked into the mirror and there his head was, completely normal.

Aside from the other head looking just as shocked and excited as he was.

His chest was till dividing, and like an itch, he felt himself compelled to help. He could only move one arm but the other him appeared to be experiencing the same thing, both of them pushing at the shoulders developing between their split necks.

As he strongly pushed against his other self he looked down at his feet, or more accurately his foot. He had the flat foot and the itch quickly made him start working with that too step away from the body. His clone tried to do the same with his foot, although the spikes couldn’t find any purchase on the tile, scrapping as they gilded across the hard material.

It felt like eternity and then suddenly he was on the floor panting, another him doing the same in stereo besides him, dressed completely identical aside from a single yellow shoe on his left foot.

He let out a shaky sigh as he stared into his own face, a reflection doing the exact same. Then he looked at his other’s shoed foot, the sock peering out over the spikes. He could practically feel his new twin doing the same to him, staring at his own sock inside his flat.

They both looked at the pair of trainers, lying part by the bag.

“So” He heard himself say just as he also said it.

They both looked at each other, weird out a bit by their synchronicity. His twin motioned for him to speak, just a second before he could try to do the same to him. They were on the same wavelength completely, but He would take the opportunity that was goven by his slight lag.

“So” he repeated, breathing out slightly in waning exhaustion, meeting himself’s eyes.

He figured his twin was thinking the same exact thing, knew exactly what they would say.

He breathed in with a smile, looking again at the trainers.

“Rock, Paper, Scissor you to do that a again”

Chapter 2

It had taken about ten minutes for their rock, paper, scissor game to reach its conclusion. They were far too similar to actually not tie every round. Every scissor was met with another scissor and repeat for far too long.

They had begun wanting to base it on 3 losses and wins but had finally decided to just stick to the outcome of their first one, to keep with the momentum.

So after ten minutes, he was slightly put out knowing that his spiked twin would be creating the next him out of their pair of trainers.

He quickly and honorably slipped off his flat, and then his single sock to give to the victor. His twin happily snatched, heading over to the trainers to begin the process again.

It was interesting watching his own excitement on another face, played out independently from himself. It was very easy to reflect it honestly, the grin on his other face making him feel content and excited as well.

He put on his flat again, both of them on his bare feet as he watched his other self take his sweet time in actually putting on a trainer. They felt a bit uncomfortable on his feet without socks but they still felt right, lime they belonged on him. Also like they were missing something, that obviously being the socks that his twin was wearing.

It would be good though, he had many pairs at home. They would have more than enough for whatever they did.

His twin was still hesitating.

“Hey man, you good?” He called out to himself

His twin seemed startled out of his staring match with the trainers, jumping a bit before looking at him with a grin.

“Sorry man,” He paused for a second, “Me, I guess?”

“Yup, you” He returned with grin to his nervous looking clone

“I’m just a bit anxious to go through that again, felt so weird”

“It’ll be cool dude, don’t worry about it,” he replied with a hint of a laugh. “Plus, you won, so you gotta go through with it.”

His clone snorted to that, then quickly slipped on a trainer, before bracing himself on the bench.

He moved by his clone, wanting to get a better look and maybe help him through the more annoying parts of the process.

“Hey, i’m here, this'll be great,” he said to his clone who already seemed to be staring off into space a bit, in that mixture of strange pressure and relief as the body began to split. “More us, right? Its gonna be awesome.”

His clone grinned before his face began to split in two, each part of it dividing until there were two separate heads forcefully separated. Matt quickly moved to prevent them from slamming back together like before, bracing them more as they both came fully back into awareness.

Both heads were looking at him in relief, until they almost seemed constipated, their body tensing up as they both twisted their heads as far away from the other as they could.

Matt could see the rest of their body slowly parting as each head's side tried to get as good as a handhold and foothold to help it split.

Matt made himself useful, moving to the juncture of the two half formed bodies, gripping their new shoulders to push the apart. This seemed to help, as the two heads' new arms slid out of one another's bodies at a quick pace, forming like they ahd just been tucked up in each other's torso.

Matt wasn’t able to easily help with the waist, as the two struggled to get apart, their legs slipping and kicking too much for Matt to even attempt.

He watched with intrigue instead as they finally slid apart, completely identical apart from the different shoes on their opposite feet. His now two twins breathed heavily with euphoria as they collapsed on the floor, their breaths completely in sync.

They botched looked up to him at the same time, their gasps looking happy and excited. It made him excited too, looking at his copies.

“So boys, shall we go home?”

They both gave an identical grunt of affirmation as he held up both hands for them to get up.

Both of him took his hand, clearly too heavy together for him to pull up, causing him to join them on the floor, surprised and laughing amongst his new bros. He looked into those two identical faces and was met by the same relaxed joy, knowing himselves completely.

This had been the best idea.

Chapter 3

Matt and Matt and Matt gathered up their stuff as they prepared to leave the stall that now looked like a bit of a disaster.

Their bag’s waters had spilled all over the floor from being kicked by one of him and somewhere during one of his mitosises, a roll of toilet paper had fallen and rolled into a soggy mess on the floor.

Matt felt like he should’ve cleaned that up but with look at his twins and their same exact guilty but amused faces, they all collectively just decided to leave it. God knows what was on these floors.

Sure they were a bit of hypocrites of course considering they were both barefoot on that questionable floor but who cares anyways. This surely would not be the worst aftermath that the complexes janitor could come across in a bathroom visited by college twenty-somethings. Just and bit of soggy toilet paper on the floor is nothing compared to the other things that could also be on it.

Matt watched his clones put on their shoes, still splitting the socks between themselves. They looked satisfied as they got up, bouncing up and down on their heals as they looked to one another and then Matt.

The one in his trainers, their trainers, finally motioned to the door of the bathroom before walking out. Matt happily followed, spikes him’s shoes clicking against the floor.

Their car was positioned close to the stadium in the parking lot, easy to get to without any unwanted eyes seeing what was essentially three complete duplicates of a star track runner.

Trainer Matt got into the drivers seat, with Matt himself, aka flat Matt, and Spikes Matt both fitting themself in the front seat. Matt was sitting on his other selves lap, far more comfortable than he thought he would be in this position, although it was easy knowing it was just himself he was sitting on.

Spikes him warped his arms around him as the now Driver Matt put the car in drive, heading for the quickest route home.

Matt had never expected this to be so relaxing, being with more of hims, but it was quickly becoming the best part of this experience. He’d done this mostly to experiment honestly, excited to possibly share his responsibilities with his clones like any stereotypical scifi character.

All those movies tended to end in disaster though, so he’d made sure that he would be fine with being the clone in the end. Not that there really was true him right now, the socks seemed to have perfectly divided him into two then three. This was also clearly not sci-fi situation too, considering the magic socks, so Matt was pretty confident he would avoid the negatives of having duplicates.

He was also deeply enjoying being close to the other him, like he was supposed to stick with them. It was a compulsion like his shoes, just felt right being close to them.

He could see the driver Matt fidgeting as he obviously wanted to get closer to them, probably getting a bit jealous of their proximity. He kept glancing at them with longing every twenty to ten seconds as he quickly struggled between the compulsion and getting them home without totaling the car.

Matt reached out his hand to put on Driver-Trainer Matt’s shoulder, exactly at the same time as the Matt beneath him moved to do the same.

Driver Matt looked at them in earnest with relief, a happy grin replacing the frustrated anxious frown in a second.

“Thanks guys” he said, sounding a bit embarrassed

“Nah, its good man”

“Yeah, we’re here for you...us….me?”

“Fuck pronouns”

“Yeah fuck em”

Driver Matt chuckled a bit, mouthing fuck em as he focused back to the road now, no longer copying the driving style of a drunk. Which was good, for their combined health and for the benefit of not explaining why two out of three triplets were practically cuddling in the passenger seat as they gripped tight to the remaining triplet to a police officer.

God, the Matts must look very strange to the other people on the freeway, three triplet twenty year olds, looking completely identical aside from the shoes that other drivers definitely wouldn’t see.

Matt thought on it as he somehow snuggled more into his duplicate’s body. They probably actually looked pretty normal, considering the circumstances. Triplets were rare, but still nothing really unusual. They were also wearing their track uniforms still, so their matching clothing would also make sense with them being on the same team. Even without that, the triplets thing excused it because sometimes triplets just wore the same thing.

The only truly unusual thing would probably be the whole sitting on the lap of what would be assumed to be his brother. Or was his assumed brother on his lap. He didn’t know. Matt was an only child, these things weren’t obvious to him. Was that a normal sibling thing, he didn’t know.

Matt stared off into space, the cold leather feeling nice on his warm post-cloning and track meet skin. He relaxed into his seat, turning his head to look at the him driving, slipping his hand closer around his handsome driver's neck.

Driver Matt was looking at him in something akin to horror and shock.

“What the fuck just happened”

Matt gave him a confused look before his mind finally caught what was wrong with his situation.

He was alone in his seat, cool leather beneath him and nobody on top. He nearly jumped, searching desperately for a person that just wasn’t there.

He tried to figure out which Matt he was, parsing the memories of where he’d been. Paradoxically, he remembered both watching and feeling himself split, remembering himself assisting in pushing apart his own body.

He met his own eyes, reflecting the same panicked expression that his twin kept shooting at him as he once again struggled to keep his eyes on the road.

Matt, whichever one he was, looked down at his feet. It was surprising but also made complete sense.

There were two pairs of shoes in the leg space, one of which he was wearing.

Both pairs were identical, the shoes being a stylish mixture of neon colors, bright and eye catching in the ways the colors merged. It appeared like the shoes had two layers, the neon green now darker with a brighter neon color appearing to net over it. In place of the spike, there were sharp cleats. Matt could feel them bend with his foot, feeling more similar to his flats in the shoes flexibility.

Matt looked to his clone with a much more relaxed expression, waiting for his twin to look at him again through his split attention in being panicked and driving.

They met eyes and his clone seemed to relax, looking less worried now that Matt seemed calm.

“I think we just merrrrged? He drew out, still pretty unsure about what happened.

“Hm” his clone looked straight ahead processing, “Ok?”

“Yeah you can’t see but our I’m not wearing the flats or the spikes,” he said once more glancing down to inspect them a bit more. “They’re more of a merge as well, it seems.”

“Fuck, that sucks, those were fucking expensive as hell.” he seemed to tense up a bit in annoyance before Matt wrapped his arm closer around his neck, immediatley calming him. “Do we really only have one pair of shoes though?”

“Nah we still have two”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah theres two pairs of these shoes”

Matt lifted up the other pair for the other matt to dangerously inspect in the middle of the freeway. The other Matt looked over them for much to long, drawn back to attention on the road after almost swerving into another car.

“Holy shit” he said, exhaling at the pretty fucking wild shoes

“I know right” Matt replied, honestly not as shocked by this as he thought he would be.

Magic socks were what they were, he’d been surprised for like week after finding them in a weird knockoff Macys. After that, he just rolled with the punches.

The other him was clearly the same as he mulled over the situation and seemed to accept it, a sad smile on his face.

“So which one of them are you?” he asked mournfully

“Both”

“Oh” other matt replied, sounding like he did a full one eighty in a single short word from sad to curious

“Yeah, it honestly doesn’t feel that strange”

“Nah, it makes sense, I get it” other matt leaned his head against his shoulder, eyes on the road yet still obviously compelled. “We are still one person, makes sense it wouldn’t feel that weird”

He paused for a second

“Also those shoes look fucking sick”

“I know right, they are comfortable as hell too”

“Really? Even with the spikes”

“Yeah man, you gotta try em”

“Oh I definitely will”

They both smiled, the other Matt taking the exit for their way home. Well, an exit that would get them home through a bunch of side streets. They’d missed the direct route a bit ago with the whole merging.

Matt contentedly turned up the music, some local country station singing y’all every other sentence as he continued to lean into his twin. He wriggled his toes in his shoes, excited for the other him to try them too as they closed in on his one story home.

Chapter 3

Matt pulled the car into their small driveway, an arm comfortably strung around his neck as his twin leaned into him.

He was still a bit worried about the other Matt, which he thought was justified. He’d watched the entirety of the two Matts merging together and it was shocking. Thankfully there had been zero body horror to it, they’d just quickly sunk into each other, fit together like puzzle pieces without the whole biological mitosis theme of the duplication.

The merged Matt seemed okay despite the merging so he figured he could let it go. The man was fine, he didn’t need to worry much for the sake of his other self.

He switched the gear into park and popped open the door, unfortunately having to unhook the other Matts arm from his neck, much to both of their disappointment.

The merged Matt whined a bit before exiting from his side, his shoes dully clicking on the concrete, much softer than the spikes. He took a moment to slide the other pair into their track bag as Matt gathered his cooler and sun umbrella from the back. He took a quick moment to lock the old truck, before running to meet up with the other him, who was waiting by the door.

They strode in together, taking the opportunity to get a little close again before Matt had to do something with his track shit.

“Hey man, me, I gotta-”

“Yeah, I know, want any help?”

“Nah, just go up and shower, I can rinse this out while I wait for my turn”

The merged Matt leaned in and hugged him, desperately getting that last bit of contact before jokingly saluting and running into their single bathroom.

Matt rolled back and forth in his trainers as he watched his twin leave, before heading to his sink, a cooler full of melted ice and the sandwich that he’d neglected to eat during the meet. This was part of his post-meet ritual, getting rid of the soggy remains of the sandwiches he never ate.

As he slowly scrubbed away mayo and wheat mush from his old plastic cooler, he thought on the weird shit currently going on in his life. Like the duplicate of him that used to be two duplicates of him currently showering in his bathroom. That was pretty weird all considering.

He thought back to last week doing this exact thing, although then he’d been transformed into a friend from track that he’d borrowed the shoes of. This was a very important ritual, washing his cooler to contemplate how fucking strange his life was becoming.

To be fair, he did like his duplicate a lot more than the shapeshifting part of the socks, it was more comfortable. Company had always been weird for him, especially in his own home. It felt like a place that was too personal, always weirding him out whenever his friends came over.

He didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable though with his duplicate. It was essentially just him and for some reason his mind completely accepted that.

He looked down suspiciously at the single sock he was wearing. Maybe it was part of its magic.

Eh, he didn’t really care as long as it stayed pleasant. It usually was anyways, the socks were really only unpredictable for a bit before he got the hang of how they functioned in some way or situation. After that, Matt could really only blame himself.

He glanced at the almost closed door of the bathroom, some mist emanating from within. He wondered at which point he should start using clone puns with himself.

At this point he was still scrubbing an empty container and not well at that either. Matt was pretty bad at multitasking, that had been another reason for this whole cloning business. Aside from that it sounded cool.

He wondered which one of them would be going to work the next day. He was fine if it was him, he didn’t hate his work and he liked his clone. He liked his clone a lot.

A part of him loved to see his own smile, as narcissistic as that sounded. He knew that that was probably due to the socks, just wanting to be with himself. Probably a built in feature to prevent infighting or something.

He was fine with that, it felt good and was a fair trade off for avoiding the murdery betrayal of every clone trope.

Matt finally put down his sad cooler and the even sadder sponge. The thing wasn’t gonna survive much longer with his rough treatment of it, but it was cheap. It was worth a lot more to him as a tool for long pondering than actually washing his dishes. He had a dishwasher, he’d honestly bought the sponge for just this purpose.

He heard the shower stop, immediately walking towards the towel that his clone had definitely forgotten because it was a thing he did every time he showered.

Matt had just gotten to the shower door when the other Matt opened it completely, his body soaked and his expression of annoyance as he had expected to have to walk cold and wet to the cabinet across the room.

Seeing Matt with his arm carrying a towel brightened the other Matt’s expression, a thankful grin spreading from the grimace of minor annoyance. He took the towel, quickly using it to stop the rain of droplets falling onto the carpet floor.

“Thanks a lot man”

“You’re welcome me”

“Haha” the soaked Matt said sarcastically although there was a hint of laughter to his voice.

He started leaning towards Matt, his towel over his shoulders, catching the steady dripping of his short hair. Matt felt himself begin to gravitate towards his twin, hungry for the same contact that his twin was obviously craving.

They both stopped, Matt a little slower than his merged twin. The other Matt looked up and down Matts body before stepping out of the doorway to the bathroom.

“Sorry man, as much as I want to hug you, you gotta shower.” He said jokingly. “Go on in, I’ll bring you a towel once I get dressed”

“What a gentleman”

“Nah, I’m pretty self-serving”

“Lucky me”

“Shut up and get in the shower, you idiot” He finished, a smile wide on his dripping face as he pointed to the shower”

“Fiiiiiiine” He whined, amused, his mood immediately bright from the interaction.

The other Matt turned too walk away before stopping himself

“Wait, shit, uh, put all the clothing outside the door, ill start laundry”

Matt saluted him, receiving one in return alongside a couple of drops of water thrown at him by his twin's motion.

He stripped quickly, extremely ready to get in a shower after a long day. He hesitated a bit taking off his shoes and single sock, but the compulsion to wear them died off immediately as his shower started.

Weird, but convenient. Very smart compulsory magic, he immediately assumed. It could be coincidence but it literally never was so like everything else, he would just accept it. Seems like his socks were built or cursed or something for allowing the wearers to clean themselves without nuisance, works for Matt(s).

Gathering up his and his twin’s clothes, two complete copies of the same uniform, which was definitely gonna be useful, he set them outside the bathroom alongside his and his twin’s shoes.

Then he shut his mind off, stepping into the warm stream of water as he heard the door open, a towel audibly being placed on the counter.

Chapter 4

Matt shut the door as his twin seemed to moan under the water. He’d done the same, it had felt great. It felt great now knowing that they were both weird too, but that really wasn’t in question considering their being identical in body and mind.

He took a glance at the clothes laid by the door. The two uniforms, a sweaty mess on the floor. Huh, two uniforms would be useful in the future.

He saw his shoes and immediately began putting them on, the compulsion coming back with a vengeance. Eh, not really that strong, but it was still immensely comforting putting them on. Very right feeling.

He’d gone for his athletic casual clothes to match the shoes, with a pair of form fitting track pants and a sweatshirt from his old college. He hadn’t gone for a shirt and underwear though, considering they had really procrastinated on laundry. He had set out a similar outfit for his twin, figuring they would try to keep up the similarity in clothing for the fun of it.

He figured the other Matt would find it just as cute.

He’d also put the other pair of the cleats out for himself, considering the other him seemed into them as well. He wondered if the compulsion would follow.

He bounced up and down in the cleats, their spikes sinking into the carpet without a sound. It was nice not having these click around so much, even if he did kinda like the sound. It felt great wearing them with one of his pairs of the magic socks too. A lot more comfortable than just one.

He also had a theory that with two on, maybe he and the other Matt wouldn’t merge. Not that merging was bad, Matt liked the potential of it, but he wanted to be able to be close to the other him without falling into his body.

With two on he could theoretically split in two again.

He’d probably wait for the other Matt with that. Maybe they could combine again before doing that, he wouldn’t be against it. He also wouldn’t be against the other him staying apart, as long as he was happy Matt would be happy.

He did want to split again though, he missed there being 3 Matts already. Probably just because there was a backup Matt when another was doing something.

As tempting as it was, Matt picked up the sweaty track uniforms to put them in with the rest of their laundry. He got to work sorting everything out, getting focused on the single minded task of separating darks and lights. They would probably need more clothes if they stayed separate. Maybe they could just use more clothes. It would be expensive but they had socks that could duplicate everything on their person, he was sure money could be easily attained.

He was just about done when a certain person embraced him, their skin still slightly moist and warm from the shower.

“Hi”, the Matt said muffled as he pressed his face into his shoulder

“Hi yourself” he said back, pushing back into the hug.

The other him groaned happily, completely content where he was.

“I’m done with our laundry, wanna head to the couch”

“Sure” the other Matt replied. Moving to pull him towards their living room and their large second hand couch.

Matt got an actual look at his twin, seeing the outfit that he’d set out for him being worn in its entirety. Even the shoes, which was a good sign that the socks compulsion could switch around.

They both collapsed over each other on the couch, the other Matt turning on the television to Netflix immediately.

As Matt pushed himself into a little spoon-esque position, tunneling deep into the other body, his twin absentmindedly flipped through the shows, clearly paying more attention to Matt then the shows.

He selected a random show, something uninteresting and good for background noise.

Matt decided to speak up, despite how much he just wanted to sleep in this perfect position.

“How’re the shoes?” he asked with tired curiosity

“Fucking great honestly” he heard from the face currently resting on the back of his head, using him like a pillow. “Seem to fit me perfectly”

“Yeah, I wonder why”

“Magic, i’m guessing”

“Yeah, Same”

They stayed there for a bit, enjoying each other’s sweatshirt warmth, watching the nature documentary discuss whale songs or something about whales. They weren’t great at multitasking and all their focus was on each other. They were both motionless, Matt almost to the point of sleep before another question came to his mind.

“Hey, you still awake?”

“Yeah”

“Ok, cool, uhhhh”, he paused considering his question. Whether it was the time to ask it, as tired as they both were.

“You gonna ask if I want to split again?” the other Matt tiredly asked

“Oh, uh..yeah”, he replied, weirdly nervous. “Not now of course, but like later”

“Do you want to split again?”

“Yes, a lot”

“Then you should already know my answer”

“Yes?”

“Yeah man.”

The other Matt curled closer somehow to Matt.

“I've got question for you actually.” he asked quietly as David Attenbourogh explain a particularly loud bird in the background. Matt made a noise of acknowledgement as he reached for the off button of the remote. They were done with TV for the night.

The television shut off and Matt waited for the question, his other self seemingly very nervous about the question.

“Merging?” he finally managed

“Yeah?”

Matt was particularly hesitant about his other self’s answer, he wanted to be closer to himself in way that cuddling probably wouldn’t cut for forever.

“Is it good?” he finally asked.”Do you feel good about it?”

“Yeah man, it's easy and comfortable,”he replied. “If you’re game, I am, if you ever want”

His other self hugged him harder, so warm and loving.

“Thanks” he said quietly

“No prob bob”

“Go to sleep”

Chapter 5

Matt up embracing his other self, their bodies not having merged in the night. Just him and himself, wearing almost matching clothes and cleats that they probably should’ve taken off before they got on the couch. He wondered if they could do that, sleep without wearing their shoes.

Matt was honestly kinda disappointed they weren’t together again. He’d been so nervous about it, afraid that he would lose himself. Retrospectively that was dumb, but hearing the merged Matt talk so calmly about it really helped.

Well, not just helped.

Matt really wanted to merge now, push even deeper into this man. Maybe split afterwards, that sounded fun. Be together then two again.

“Hey, you awake” said his twin in front of him, carefully quiet in case he was awake.

“Nah, I probably woke up at the same time as you.” he replied, still tired but excited

“Hey, I got a question?” his twin asked in their iconic kinda nervous tone

“Do you wanna merge?” he asked quickly

His twin seemed shocked, although not unpleasantly.

“I was gonna ask about work, but I’m game, if you remember last night.”

“I do” he assured, “What about work though?”

“Was gonna ask who should go but that doesn’t really matter much if we’re merging”

“Wanna do anything afterwards?”

“Considering we’ll be merged, I’m sure we’ll some to an agreement”

“Oh yeah”

Welp, lets try this.

They both took off a shoe and a single sock before putting the shoe back on. Seems like they both had the same theory.

“So, did you just get really close?”

“Yup”, his twin happily replied as he wiggled his body deeper in Matt.

Matt excitedly returned the push, tightly hugging his duplicate as deep as he could go.

He smiled as his nose brushed up against his twin’s hair, feeling the nose on his head, making him smile from the two sensations. He felt like he was receiving the most embodying hug, better than any he’d ever had before. He’d also experienced this exact sensation before, and it was just as good and natural the second time again. He both knew and didn’t know what to expect.

A minute passed and it was just him, alone. Laid out across the couch, memories of the night jumbling around in his head.

Jesus, he felt great.

Confidant too, he had a great body. Amazing hugs.

He got up, feeling a lot warmer than before he was one.

Looking down he learned why, his body covered in two pairs of each of his clothing, aside from his cleats, with one pair just lying by his feet instead of trying to fit themselves over the ones he was wearing.

He sat there for a moment, drinking in the feeling of being both, before moving to get out of the extra set of clothing. The socks seemed a bit unpredictable with the clothing they merged and kept but this time it seemed to work out in his favor. He got to keep both sets of clothing, instead of a mismatch. Which was nice, he quite enjoyed these sweatshirts.

As great as he felt, he was already lonely, which was kinda sad. It had been about a minute and although he no longer felt a compulsion for anything, he missed it despite the inconvenience at times. It made him feel good when he could be with himself, which was also kinda sad.

He looked down at his socks, as well as the socks discarded from the two hims before they became one him. Merged him and Driver him, which were now both him, experiencing the mental nicknames of yesterday. I guess he needed some way to refer to himself but honestly, he probably could’ve been a bit more creative.

Still though, those socks were practically calling him in the way only an inanimate pair of probably cursed socks could. He super wanted to split.

But he’d wait!

For like an hour, eat breakfast first. Economics and stuff.

It probably would be fun to cook breakfast with another him. Maybe three. Or four.

That wouldn’t be very economical. Lots of wasted food, that idea. But four hims did sound kinda super fun.

He had about 10 pairs of those socks, bought them in bulk because he was pretty cheap and they looked nice. They were nice, so a win-win. Millions of dollars couldn’t buy you shapeshifting and duplication, but five books at a haunted Walmart and there you go.

Matt ran upstairs to put on something fresh, something more work appropriate, considering that was something he’d still have to do in two hours.

These cleats would probably have to go for today, stick with his boots or loafers. The business casual footwear that a semi-fine internship demanded.

There wasn’t a dress code but if he showed up in his home clothes then fucking Chad would call him a bro all day. Fuck Chad honestly. Yeah he said bro, maybe he was one, but really? Chad.

Chad walks up to him, calling him a bro and he doesn’t see the irony. Fuck that man, what a Chad.

Yeah he was just gonna go work casual, put on that cute gray button up, some dark jeans and his boots and he was stellar. Then he remembered he would need more shoes for there to be four of him, so he picked up his loafers, and two of his sneakers. His cleats probably wouldn’t mesh with this outfit, being all neon and shit.

He took off his boots before individually putting on every pair of shoes, sort of resetting the save on each of them. Making sure each of them was gonna be wearing the same outfit, gods knows he wore last in each of these shoes.

He ran downstairs before making himself a semi large breakfast, hoping to get as much bang for his buck as possible. Also to practice his cooking, he’d been working on that for a while. It seemed like a good thing he could just focus on for a bit, not think as he laid out his meals.

He had a lot of free time so he had to spend it in many creative ways. Cooking was boring, but mostly simple and cheaper in the long run. He also tend to get carried away a bit during the whole process, so by the end he had a whole saucer of scrambled eggs and far too much toast for a single man.

He got to work immediately, trying to fit as much bread and eggs as he could into his stomach. He wasn’t a very large man, average honestly for his size.

Half-way through he felt very dumb and also very stupid. The three other pairs of food lay by his stove, mocking him as they peaked from behind his fuck ton mountain of eggs.

Welp, now was a better time than any, and four people could maybe finish this off, even if they were all almost to the point of stuffed.

He remembered to put his wallet in his jean pocket, it being stuffed with a reasonable amount of money that he never used because he always forgot it at home. He had a debit card that he mostly used, so it was still packed up with about four hundred bucks.

Then he grabbed his shoes, as well as the pack of socks he brought down and got to work.

Taking off a single boot, he moved to put on the loafer. He wondered which of him would go to work, slightly worried. They might fight over being the considerate person that would go, not over not wanting to go. Honestly not the worst problem, he was a gentleman.

The loafer slipped onto his heel as he bent down and he could feel the change immediately, just like before.

First the ineffective first wave, once more doing nothing to his clothing. Then there was the second wave and he felt himself split.

There was no mirror readily available down here so he mostly just stared down as his torso began to split. He felt his neck go immobile as it began to divide at the bottom, the split travelling up his head. Once it hit his chin, his vision went dark, thankfully freeing him free of the weird sensation of having two throats. He should really try speaking the next time in the process. Sounds weird.

He felt his head snap apart, this time flexing it to prevent it from winging back into his other self head.

He turned his head around, resisting the compulsion that was already urging him to tug away from his other side’s half.

They both stared into each other's faces for a second, a gritted smile on their face.

“Hi” they said in perfect unison, before the compulsion won out and they set themselves to the process of mitosis.

Matt felt his arm slowly emerge from his other self’s side, immediately putting it to use once it had formed to pull away. His leg had a loafer on it, failing immensely in gaining any traction on the carpet.

A couple seconds passed and he felt his foot emerge from his other self’s foot, dividing completely before collapsing on the floor.

Good news was that it was a lot easier the third time around. He felt about as exhausted as he would expect for something like a short sprint.He also wasn’t sweating, which was convenient for his nice clothes.

His other self got up before him, just a split second before he was going to do the same. Matt just decided to keep laying down as he looked up to his smiling face grinning down at him.

“We gotta do that again huh?”

“Shut up, you know you love it”

“Ughhhh, I do”

He reached his hand down to Matt, of which he readily accepted. They both pulled into the hug, letting the compulsion give them that sweet dopamine. They parted after a few seconds, Matt, hooking his arm around his other self’s shoulders as they stared at their other shoe options.

“You wanna go for the Timberlands or the hiking shoes?” asked his twin, taking initiative as the gentleman in this minute long relationship.

“Hmmm, I don't know?” he replied, “Give me a second”

“Pft, sure” his twin laughed, happy to not be given the decision.

Both were pretty nice, Matt would admit. He’d stolen them from exes, back in college. It was a revenge thing mixed with an ample amount of just wanting them. They were pretty damn nice.

The timberlands looked like timberlands, aside from their top that was made of a shiny black fabric instead of the typical yellowish leather. They’d been reliable as they man he’d stolen them had not been. Equal exchange, bad boyfriend comes with nice boots.

On the other hand, his hiking shoes were comfortable as hell. They also looked pretty good too, still looking new with their smooth tan leather and faded balck soles. They were sleak unlike most hiking shoes and he’d stolen them from a boyfriend halfway through their camping trip. Man was a dick, he’d deserved being alone and shoeless on a mountain.

In retrospect, that guy was fine, they just didn’t work. Especially after he drove away on their rented jeep and never contacted him again.

He reached for the hiking boots, smiling back on how much of a dick he was. His twin nodded and took the timberlands with a reflected smile. If only his old boyfriends could match this weird narcissistic magic relationship, him and himself.

They slipped another sock on each of their sockless/shoeless feet before putting on their shoes, quickly walking to opposite sides of the room to prevent any kicking casualties.

Matt felt himself shake, going through the same exact process again. This time it was so much quicker, he watched the other him’s body seem to almost fall apart in a second just as his did the same.

It took about five seconds of squirming before both of his bodies were apart, barely even tired as they sat up.

One of the other hims spoke first, from the gentleman him. He wore a single timberland on his left foot.

“So, that was pretty quick”

Three “Yeah, it was” range out in response.

“Maybe we’re adapting to the process”

Matt let out a “Probably” in perfect sync with the other hims. They all grinned at the Timberland Matt, who rolled his eyes but seemed equally amused

“Get out of sync dudes, it may be funny, but we got shit to do”

“We know” they continued

Timberland Matt went for the pack of socks, throwing a pair to Matt and the clone closest to him to split. He then split another with the other gentleman Matt before moving to get his shoes.

Matt was happy to find himself being the one wearing the hiking boots, his other self looking a tad bit jealous but still happily leaning on him to put on the other loafer. They shivered at the contact, using each other to stand up with both of their respective shoes completely on.

Matt bounced on his soles, pretty into the idea of actually hiking today. He watched the other pair of Matts get up like them, having had to take longer tying their hightop boots.

He decided to speak up, asking the important question.

“So” he said, pausing a bit as he caught the other’s attentions, “Who wants to go to work”

“I can go” replied both of the gentleman Matts, really sticking to that role, which he’d expected. They both playfully glared at each other.

“You know, you guys don’t have to go” he suggested hesitantly. He didn’t want to go but he would do it for these guys, handsome as they were.

“I can go” suggested the Matt by him. Matt looked at him, raising an eyebrow. His twin returned one with a soft smile.

He should’ve expected that, this one having his exact mindset, wanting to subvert the whole gentlemanly trope around the other Matts. They were cute enough as is. Also, the Matt by him had the loafers, arguably the most work shoes of them all to his graduate school brain.

“Go for it then” he responded to Loafer Matt, trying to mix thanks and playfulness with one smile.

The gentleman Matts seemed a bit dumb founded, those dumb himselves. Weird pronouns as usual.

He patted loafer Matt on the back, before pulling him into a tight hug, the other Matts joining in as well. Four Matts felt infinitely better than two Matts, and with that fact, duplication was probably gonna become a problem.

Matt was already looking at the pack of socks from over his twin’s shoulders. God he was fucked.

“Welp, boys, I gotta go.” the Matt in the middle finally brought up. “Its almost nine, I dont want to be late”

“Yeah, I guess” One of them responded, gods knows which.

They reluctantly separated, Loafer Matt quickly snatching their bag before running outside, trying to avoid the temptation of just another hug.

Matt watched him go, both of his arms around the two gentleman Matts, feeling sad that Loafer Matt would miss out on a day with them. They’d merge though at some point though, so it would be fine in the end.

The other shoes in his room kept nagging at his brain, distracting from the loss of one Matt to the perils of networking.

“Hey, mes” he asked, “I got a question”

“Typical”

“Go for it man”

[donnerpartyofone]

I got up and decided that today I would start the week on a good foot by going to get some vitamins that we ran out of, which would give me some exercise, and then I'd come home and write (an overdue project) for the second half of the day. I put on contact lenses so I could wear sunglasses and also see things, which I hadn't done in a long time and I noticed that just looking at my phone through them gave me motion sickness, but for some moronic reason I filled my bag with things to read and write on and left, only to wonder later why I was dumb enough to give myself so much useless shit to schlep around. I had been walking for about an hour when I realized I forgot my wallet. I realized this because I had worn my newly repaired shoes and they were wearing blisters in both my feet, and sometimes there's a bandaid in my wallet because I'm such a fucking disaster, but I hadn't had the brains to make sure I had bandaids this time. I got angry with myself and headed home to change my shoes, put on bandaids, pick up my wallet, and start over. Half way home I fucking walked into a store and tried to fucking buy something despite that fact that I shouldn't be spending any money AND the whole point of this part of the journey was getting my wallet. I was so embarrassed that I made the person hold the item for me while I promised to come back instead of just saying SORRY NEVERMIND like I should have. I got home, grabbed my wallet, put on bandaids, changed my shoes, and went back to the store. Immediately both bandaids wadded themselves up into little sweaty dirty garbage pebbles that ground themselves into the open sores on my feet. I bought my stupid thing and thought that I didn't want to go home because I don't want anyone to look at me or talk to me at this point, but I ran into my husband who asked me to pick up coffee for him while he lugged our laundry around. I did this (the only positive thing I have accomplished all day), vaguely explained to him that I could not get us our vitamins because I'm just not competent to do something like that, and went back out, failing to replace the unsanitary bandaid tumbleweeds in my shoes. I had also forgotten to take out my contacts, which I wound up doing in a grimy bar bathroom while trying not to cry. I got a beer for lunch and thought about how even if I go home now, I won't be able to set up my work and do enough refocusing and warmup shit in order to make real progress on anything important. I won't have time to do anything other than clean the kitchen in order to (barely) earn the food that someone else has to cook for me because every time I try to contribute to our meals it leaves us both disgusted and hungry. None of these mistakes of mine are dramatic, but they are relentless and over days and weeks and years they develop the cumulative impact of a tsunami. Being stupid and incompetent can literally take years off your life, if you can never get past step one then you can never do anything of value. This is my every day, and every time someone tries to diagnose my various crimes as innocent aberrant mistakes I have to say THEN WHY IS EVERY DAY LIKE THIS and then they get to dismiss me like I'm not worth hearing from because society treats depressed people like we're either pathological liars or completely detached from reality. This repeated experience has made me paranoid as well as depressed and now I live like some conspiracy theorist desperately cataloging my every mistake on an obscure blog as if some day I will get the opportunity to show someone all my documentation and they'll be forced to admit that only I am the expert on my own life and I actually have a right to my feelings. Unfortunately, even a beautiful day like today will not turn out to be that day.

[velvetgoldminecherry]

Kakashi Week day 5: Kakashi’s birthday & Free day (Modern au)

The sound of wind

Music filled his ears as he stood in the center of the room and laced up his old slippers. He settled into the starting position and waited patiently. The beats pass delicately like fine silk or running water. Suddenly the solo begins, Kakashi begins to move nimbly and beautifully to Sheherazade's solo. He closes his eyes and lets his limbs guide him. He has danced the same solo so many times that he could do it, even if he forgot his own name.

When the music ends, the young man slowly opens his eyelids. Long, thick silver lashes gently brushing her alabaster skin, some traces of lost childhood still on her features.

Kakashi remains a few more minutes in the center of the room, surrounded by mirrors that multiply his image. He slowly walks to the drawers where he has left his backpack, adjusts the cloth mask on his face again and takes off his worn sneakers, replacing them with his old and torn tennis shoes. He should buy new ones, the soles are coming off and have been mended more times than Pakkun has chased squirrels in the park, but he doesn't have enough money.

The job barely helps him cover his scholarship and pay his room rent. someone with brains probably wouldn't have made the stupid decision to adopt a dog in his situation, but he doesn't mind skipping several meals a week, if he can have his best friend by his side instead.

When things weren't a disaster, ballet had been his life, his greatest passion, his father's greatest pride and the only thing that made him feel special among the thousands of people around him. But after his father's death many things changed and he had to abandon his bright future in ballet.

Kakashi had continued to practice after many years of disassociating himself from ballet. Luckily his high school had a dance hall.

Probably, if the opportunity to dance again hadn't presented itself, she would have ended up cutting her wrists. I felt that the ballet was the only thing that I had a memory of. It was the only thing he had enjoyed so far about his time in high school. The subjects were fine. Decent enough to take his mind off the shit he normally had on his brain, but the rest of high school had just been a lousy experience.

He went from nervous tics to panic attacks that more than once left him in a pitiful and embarrassing situation in front of the entire school. The number of diagnoses and medications for insomnia, anxiety, and depression increased, leaving him in shit. At the place where he worked, a guy arrived who did not stop harassing him and groping him whenever he had a chance, but given the lack of people who wanted to hire a traumatized teenager, he had no choice but to stay there...

But having Pakkun and the ballet had been an outlet, a reminder that at least there was still something worth living and school for.

But above all, the ballet made him feel close to his father. It made him feel like he was still by his side, applauding each new achievement, attending each recital, mending his bag and clothes because I couldn't buy new tights, he remembers him holding his trophies with pride, he remembers him putting bandages and ointments on his aching limbs . Remember what it was like to have a family.

He remembers the bouquet of wild flowers he would receive after each recital and the little vanilla cupcake, the only dessert he would really enjoy.

Kakashi finishes getting dressed, picks up his backpack and looks around the room before heading down the hall. He carefully opens the door and when he confirms that no one is there, he leaves the room and carefully closes the door. He heads out of the school, the rest of the students long since gone.

Today he has taken a day off, so he walks through the streets unhurriedly until he reaches a small pastry shop where he buys a small vanilla cupcake, then he goes to the park and spends half an hour looking for flowers, trying to remember their meanings. and how to braid them to form a beautiful bouquet.

Once he gets a successful result, he walks to the outskirts of the city and arrives at the cemetery when the Sun has started to set on the Horizon. Use the last traces of daylight to find his father's grave. He stares at the rusty tombstone for an indefinite time.

When the moon has risen, he closes his eyes, and invaded by memories, he begins to move his arms to the rhythm of the piece he performed for the first time in his life. The name has escaped his memory, but the footsteps are still there, despite the fact that almost twelve years have passed since then.

The images fill her closed eyelids. Tears start running hard. With each jump, each balance, each turn, he feels the pain ease more and more until it becomes tolerable. He finally falls exhausted to the ground, overwhelmed by so many emotions and memories.

He opens his eyes and contemplates the immense silver moon that bathes the tombs and the cemetery lawn with its mother-of-pearl light. He straightens and gently places the bouquet of flowers on the stone headstone, unwrapping the vanilla muffin and cutting it in half. With tears still rolling down her cheeks, he leaves one half next to the flowers, the other she brings to his mouth and as he chews, Kakashi swears he feels a big, warm hand on his shoulder, as well as a deep, almost imperceptible voice whispered to him by the wind seems to say:

-Happy birthday Kakashi

And as soon as he arrives, his father's voice is lost in the wind, like the last note that fades before the broken hearts of the audience...

@kakashiweek​