#ross gaines imagine

[mercwiththem0uth]

Piss off, Ross - Ross Gaines x Reader

summary; [ross x female reader] unemployed and forced to do a restart course. a certain someone catches your eye.

warnings; 18+ content, detailed smut, unprotected sex, strong language, mild mentions of anxiety

--- --- ---

being unemployed in my late 20s was not something i ever would've imagined happening. the company i was working for had went under and i was made redundant, and eventually left with no choice but to join a course at the local job centre. i hated it. i felt judged and patronised by everyone who saw me walk into that building on that first day - little did i know just what i was about to encounter.

"okey cokey, pig in a pokey!" a female voice called as she entered the room, carrying her handbags and clipboard.

here we go, i mentally thought to myself, slightly rolling my eyes. i still couldn't believe i'd ended up here. "good morning job seekers. my name is pauline campbell-jones."

i lost concentration and looked around the room as she babbled on about what was going to happen in this course. my eyes scanned the different people who were joining me here, a mixture of elderly scruff men, trouble-making youngsters, until finally i spotted someone who doesn't look like he belonged here. well, i secretly hoped that i also didn't look like i "belonged" in a job centre, but i was immediately intrigued by him. he was dressed fairly smartly, a blazer over his shirt, small glasses that sat perfectly on his face just under his flopped fringe, complimenting his strong jawline. he seemed to be watching pauline intensely, tapping his pen slightly against his paper. he's quite attractive, i thought.

someone cleared their throat abruptly, and my head snapped back round to see pauline stood right before me, staring in my eyes. "and what's your name, love?" she asked.

"oh- uh" i stuttered due to the sudden and unexpected pressure, "i'm y/n".

"well, y/n" pauline began to say, "maybe you wouldn't be unemployed if you spent as much time looking for jobs as you do looking at mr. ross over there." my mouth dropped open slightly at her rude comment, before reality set in over what she had actually said. out loud.

a deep red immediately flushed my cheeks, and i took a quick glance at the man she called ross, only to find he was already looking back in my direction with a small smirk on his face. was he checking me out? no, he's obviously just mocking me considering i just got humiliated on my first day in front of the whole class.  my eyes snapped back down to my papers. i wanted the floor to swallow me whole... what a mess this had already turned out to be.

i kept quiet for the rest of the session, head down the whole time. however I couldn't shake the feeling of someone's eyes burning into me. deep down, i knew it was him, but i was going to save myself from further humiliation and just ignore it. as soon as pauline announced the end of the session, i wasted no time packing up and practically running out of the building. the dreaded thought eating me alive that i would only have to return again tomorrow morning.

--- --- ---

it was the next day, and i got there extra early to ensure i was the first to arrive. i couldn't bare the thought of walking into a full room, being stared at by everyone who witnessed that monstrosity yesterday. maybe it wasn't as bad as i was making it out to be, but i was still ashamed. people eventually began to arrive and the seats were slowly getting filled. i had chosen the table right at the back in the corner of the room, in order to avoid as much contact with anyone as possible. my throat suddenly became dry as i saw that all-too-familiar man enter the room. i watched as his eyes did a quick scan before settling on me, and i swore i saw a small smile tug at his lips. my eyes shot down as i pretended to pick at my fingernails, but i could still see him out of my peripheral vision. he began walking towards me, and i prayed that he would fill one of the empty seats along the way. but no, of course he didn't. i felt his presence, and i watched from the corner of my eye as he pulled out the chair right next to me, and started sitting down. my heart beat elevated as i continued to steal small glances at him, wondering and worried about what he had planned.

"hi, i'm ross" he spoke in a fairly quiet tone, flashing a smile and extending his hand out towards me. yeah, i know, i thought. there was something far too professional about him. i stared at his hand and quickly cleared my throat as it was somehow drier than it was before.

"i'm y/n" i said, reaching out to shake his hand. his skin was smooth and his grip was firm but gentle.

"yeah, i know" he said, repeating my thoughts.

"ha... right.." i said quietly, forcing out an awkward chuckle. i decided to bite the bullet and just clear the awkward air as soon as possible. "listen, i'm sorry about yesterday" i coughed slightly again as i looked down at the desk. god, i'm so lame.

"nothing to be sorry about," ross said and i nodded slightly, kind of relieved that he seemed to be understanding. "i tried to speak to you after class yesterday, but you left so quickly. i couldn't catch up in time" he chuckled a bit.

"yes, well..." i trailed off, not really sure what to say. wasn't it obvious i was rushing off to avoid him?

i raised my eyes from the desk as the room echoed with the same "okey cokie, pig in a pokie" as yesterday. i huffed under my breath, anxious that she might do something else to call me out again. ross must have heard me, as he leaned in closer to whisper in my ear "don't worry, the only one who she's embarrassing is herself." the simple act caused chills to pass over my skin, almost making me shudder.

i let out a small laugh through my nose, grateful at his attempt to comfort me. pauline continued rambling on about today's workshop on job options, as ross leaned back towards me again. in a hushed tone, he whispered "so, how come you're here then?"

i was a bit taken back by his question, "is that really something you should ask?"

"i didn't mean it in a rude way. but come on, a pretty girl like you, i can't imagine you've just been scrounging off of benefits all your life. you look like you've got it all together, which is more than what I can say for some of the messes in here" he grimaced as he glanced around the room.

i was quiet for a moment, mainly only thinking about the fact that he just called me pretty. "i was forced to come here. i was recently made redundant. i had no choice" i sighed at the reminder, i had liked my job.

he nodded. "well that's a shame... still, this will be over before you know it." i turned my head to shoot him a slight smile. i was about to ask him the same question, considering my first impression of him was that he didn't look like someone who'd been struggling to get work, but i was quickly interrupted. pauline cleared her throat sharply, just as she had done yesterday, and we both looked up to see her scowling at us from the front of the room.

"well, well. If it isn't little miss y/n and mr ross," she began sarcastically, "sitting together are we? as if it wasn't bad enough being ignored by the both of you yesterday, now you're both just speaking over me!"

I went to reply to her, but ross beat me to it. "sorry, pauline. I was just asking y/n if she had a pen I could borrow."

"you want a pen, ross?" pauline said, "well there are plenty of pauline's pens up here at the front near mickey love. now I want you to move here so I can keep a close eye on you." I could tell that ross wanted to protest against her, but she looked at him like such filth that he quickly closed his mouth and stood up. he glanced at me as he walked away with a subtle roll of his eyes, making me giggle.

the rest of the session dragged by, i found myself staring at the back of ross' head for the majority of it, and he'd occasionally turn around in his seat to pull faces at me whenever pauline said something completely inappropriate.

"come on ross, on your feet" she suddenly said, making us look at eachother in confusion. she wanted ross to partake in the last exercise of the day for sales jobs, where he had to try and sell a copy of the big issue. i watched as he stood at the front of the class next to pauline, holding his hands awkwardly. i leaned back in my seat and craned my neck upwards, barely controlling the smirk on my face. i had a feeling this was going to be quite entertaining.

"right then, job-seekers. i want you all to imagine that we're standing on a very busy highstreet," pauline began, "and i'm an attractive young housewife." the laugh that erupted out of me was completely accidental. my hands slapping over my own mouth to stifle the noise was not enough, as pauline slowly turned to stare at me with eyes of daggers. ross however, was smiling at me widely with his bright teeth as he laughed along. i felt giddy knowing i had made him laugh. god, what is wrong with me? i barely know him.

i watched the scene unfold, with pauline mocking ross for his "poor attempt" at selling, before she strangely started asking him to beg her, making everyone in the room uncomfortable.

"no! no, I won't!" he finally snapped, raising his voice. "i won't beg you pauline."

there was a long pause. "very well..." she mumbled, "sit down please, ross." he angrily gave her the magazine back before returning to his seat. she followed closely behind, before raising the magazine and aggressively slapping it across his head. my jaw dropped involuntarily as ross cried out in pain, holding the side of his head where she had hit him. i stood up from my seat, my mouth still wide open in disbelief, and i went to approach him to see if he was okay.

pauline held out her palm towards and stopped me in my tracks, "ah, ah" she said, as if she was telling off a small child or a dog. i stood feeling helpless, watching ross continue to gawk in pain as pauline went around the room and started shouting at everyone. but i wasn't listening to her, not until she shortly announced that it was time to leave. i grabbed my bag and walked over to ross, who was also stood up gathering his belongings. "hey, are you okay?" i said, genuinely concerned.

he looked up at me, his angry face immediately softening. "uh, yeah, i'm alright."

"are you sure-"

he cut me off, "yeah honestly, i'm fine. can we just go?" he said, nodding towards the door. "i'm desperate to get out of here." he seemed flustered and agitated, but i didn't blame him. i would be too.

i nodded and followed him out of the building. we stood on the street outside of the job centre, and i turned to look at him. "we should do something, she can't get away with that." i said, but he didn't seem that bothered.

"what would we do? there's no one to even tell."

"we can report it to the authorities or something. it's just unacceptable."

ross shook his head, which confused me. this was a bigger deal than he seemed to realise. "no one will care, y/n."

"well i care" i said, looking at him as he stared me in the eyes. he glanced down at the floor quickly and nodded his head, before looking back at me. "thanks" he said quietly, poking his tongue out across his lips to wetten them.

there was a small silence. "does it still hurt?" i said, reaching out to touch the side of his head.

"not really" he swallowed, continuing to stare at me. i lowered my hand, mumbling a "good."

there was another small silence, but he broke it this time. "would you maybe want to... go grab a coffee or something? unless you have plans" he seemed nervous, but i smiled in response which made him seemingly relax.

"i'd love to" i said, and we began walking down the road towards the nearest coffee shop.

---

we sat for a few hours, talking about anything and everything. how unbelievable we think pauline is, where we grew up, where abouts we live now, what our interests are. we discovered that we had quite a lot in common. the more we spoke, the more attracted i became to him. he was so well-mannered and polite.

we both lost track of time and would have stayed even longer had we not been ushered out by the closing staff. he insisted on being the one to pay, and i couldn't resist the joke as we walked out the door. "what? just because i'm on the dole you think i can't afford a couple cups of coffee?" he snickered and used his elbow to gently nudge me in the side. i smiled widely to myself as we walked along, taking in the evening sun as it began to set in the sky.

"can i walk you home?" he turned to me, looking hopeful.

"what a gentleman" i joked, causing him to roll his eyes with a smile. "i'd love to say yes, but you live on the other side of town from me, and that's quite a long walk back by yourself."

"oh it's not a bother. i could just ring barbara to come pick me up" he said, alluding to the local taxi driver.

i refused, wanting to make it easier for the both of us, but he went to protest again. with a sudden boost of confidence, i walked forward and reached up to place a kiss on his lips, silencing him. i felt him kiss back almost immediately, after the initial shock, of course. i pulled back after a few seconds and exhaled through my nose. "goodnight, ross. i'll see you tomorrow." i smiled cheekily, turning away from him and beginning my walk back home. i felt tipsy, eventhough i hadn't had a single sip of alcohol. my mother would have called it drunk in loveee, but i shook the thought from my head, unable to control the grin on my face the whole way home.

---

the next day quickly arrived, and i awoke in the morning feeling excited for the first time in months. i got up and picked an outfit, cuter and more formal than what i'd normally wear, especially to a job centre. however i stuck to my usual, light makeup. i didn't want it to seem like i was dressing up too much.

i made it to pauline's class, but i was somehow a few minutes late. brilliant, i mentally scowled myself, and stood outside for a moment to work up the courage to knock on the door and walk in.

"ah, y/n. how nice of you to actually join us" pauline said in her usual sarcastic tone.

"i'm really sorry pauline. something came up."

"don't let it happen again" she looked at me sternly and i nodded before she gestured at the tables for me to go and sit down.

i immediately spotted ross at the back of the classroom, in the same space as where i was sat yesterday. the empty seat next to him almost grabbing me by an invisible magnetic force. i gave him a smile as i made my way over, and sat down as quietly as possible in order to prevent disturbing pauline even further.

"glad you showed up" he whispered. "i was worried you had called in sick or something to avoid me."

"no, not at all!" trying to voice my urgency in a hushed tone was difficult, but i hope he believed me. he was the only reason i forced myself to come here this morning, i certainly didn't want to avoid him.

"that's good, then" he nodded, and i watched as his eyes flicked up and down my body, observing my outfit. "you look nice, by the way"

i couldn't hide the blush on my cheeks as i grabbed my pen and started making notes to catch up with what i'd missed. "thank you" i smiled, moving my foot under the desk to lightly nudge his shoe.

---

the session was almost coming to an end, with pauline wanting to do one more exercise on practicing conducting interviews. she had already had poor mickey up the front, making a fool of himself, but now she wanted someone to volunteer roleplaying as the interviewer, so she could play the "perfect" candidate.

she had singled me out in the room, completely unprovoked. "now, i won't be asking you, y/n love. most interviewers don't show up late, it's usually a very bad impression" i swallowed and focused my gaze on the desk, avoiding eye contact with her. i could feel ross looking at me. i had told him yesterday about how i'd always struggled with anxiety, especially social anxiety, and how my memories of school had been tainted due to my teachers constantly picking on me.

"any takers?" she said, looking around the room. "come on, don't be shy."

there was a moment's silence before a stern "i'll do it." arose from right beside me. i raised my eyes from the desk to look at him, and he was staring intensely at pauline. she beckoned him to stand up, and he gladly obliged, making his way over to the front. as he tucked in his chair, he sent me a subtle wink, and i sat up in my seat wondering what he had planned.

i watched as he immediately began to tease pauline, asking for the clipboard and the pen, before making a snide comment about how he was glad that she wasn't naked. i suppressed my smile, pressing my knuckle against my lips. i continued to watch the scene, pauline pretending to enter the interview and immediately sitting down.

"would you like to take a seat?" ross said sarcastically, mimicking the tone she always used when belittling us.

"ross is quite right," she said as she jumped up. "you're in the driver's seat now."

"... i know." the look on his face as he clicked the pen and slowly smirked up at pauline made the core between my legs ache, and i pressed my thighs tightly together in an attempt to stop the inappropriate feeling.

---

this new side to ross made me feel things i hadn't felt before. the 'interview' was proceeding, with ross continuously taunting and spiting pauline. making her admit how old she was, asking her if she was an egregious person, to which she agreed, and mocking her for her lack of academic qualifications.

he was being stern and stubborn, and a small piece of me couldn't help but think he was perhaps partly doing this to stick up for me, making me want him even more.

the roleplay drew to a close with pauline cockily standing up extending her hand for a hand shake. "thank you very much, when do i start?"

the smug look on her face quickly vanished when ross scoffed. "i'm sorry, but i can't offer you this position." he went on to say that she strikes him as a bully, is foul-mouthed, under qualified, and above all else, "too old."

i mentally praised him as i listened, grateful that pauline was finally getting a taste of her own medicine. she got quiet and took the clipboard back from ross, before suddenly ripping off the papers that he was making notes on, and began shouting. "you'll eat these words!" she exclaimed, turning to him and physically shoving the screwed up papers into his mouth. "egregious, am i? foul-fucking-mouthed?!"

it all happened too fast, and i watched in horror as he began physically choking, pauline's grip on him was so tight that he could barely fight back. i stood up and ran to them, shouting at pauline to stop and trying to push her off of him. but she didn't budge and continued trying to choke ross, before mickey raised from his seat and shouted at her to "stop being a nutter."

pauline seemed to come to her senses (if that was even possible), and let go of him, before slowly turning around and realising what she'd done. i rushed to crouch down at ross' side and placed my hand on his shoulder as he leant forward in his seat, coughing and spluttering uncontrollably. i watched as he struggled to regain his breathing, and i moved my hand to rub circles on his back in an attempt to comfort him.

eventually, the entire class was slowly filing out, including pauline who didn't say a word as i glared at her. it was just me and ross left, the only noise being his small coughs that he made as he began to calm down. i moved my hand from his back and placed it on his knee, "are you okay?" i said gently, enticing him to look at me.

he took a deep breath and nodded slowly, still staring at the floor. he finally raised his head and stared at me. looking into his eyes, they seemed sad and helpless, before they suddenly changed. they became clouded with darkness and he gave me a look that i couldn't quite read. it was a look i'd never seen before. only then did i realise just how close we were to eachother, faces inches apart. i gulped, not knowing what to do.

all of a sudden, ross stood up, pulling me up with him. his hands met the side of my face as he aggressively pushed his lips against mine, taking me completely by surprise. i squealed against him before i registered what was happening, and began kissing him back. the kiss was sloppy and rough, his lips seeming desperate.

he backed me up against the wall, his hands moving from my face to my waist as he began kissing down my neck. i gripped at his hair, my breathing becoming heavy. he began to bite and suck at my neck and shoulders, careless that there would be definitely be marks there tomorrow. as weird as it sounds, i kind of wanted them to be there, a reminder of whatever this would turn out to be.

i could feel myself growing increasingly wet as he trailed his kisses down my clothed body, slowly getting on his knees. he moved his hands down from my waist to hold onto the sides my thighs, before he suddenly stopped, looking up at me. i nodded, not even sure of what he was doing. but i knew i wanted it anyway. he wasted no time tracing his fingers up my thighs and i watched as they disappeared under my skirt. i felt him playing with the hems of my thong and i groaned, desperate for some friction. he slowly began to pull my panties down, enjoying how much i was growing increasingly frustrated. he pulled them all the way to my ankles and over my shoes, encouraging me to step out of them. he held them in front of his face, observing them.

"so wet for me" he whispered, looking up at my face. i whined and pressed my legs together, much like i had done earlier that afternoon. "no, no" he smirked, forcing my legs apart.

"please" i spoke in a broken whisper, causing him to look back up at me.

"please, what?" he said tauntingly. "i want you to tell me what you want."

"please touch me" i whimpered, feeling tears prick at my eyes.

"well, because you asked so nicely..." i watched as he threw my thong somewhere behind him, and began trailing kissing up the inside of my thigh, lifting my skirt and holding it against my stomach. my breathing became extremely heavy as i waited to feel him where i most desperately needed to.

i gasped as his tongue suddenly flicked against my clit, throwing my head back against the wall at the much-needed sensation. i moaned loudly as his mouth wrapped around my pussy, his saliva and my juices mixing perfectly together.

he ate me so hungrily, liked a starved dog at a buffet. his tongue worked me perfectly, focusing near my entrance, as the rest of his mouth caressed my trembling nub of nerves. my body reflexed and bucked against him, grinding my pussy down onto his face. i moaned loudly as my clit rubbed against his nose, causing him to grip me tighter and force my hips against the wall to stop me. i could tell that he wanted to be in control. i grew excessively louder, my hands forcefully holding onto his head for something to grip on to, as i felt myself already getting close.

i allowed myself to bounce up and down on his mouth, trying to get a bit more friction on my clit. he groaned against me, the vibrations almost sending me over the edge. i felt my climax approaching and i tilted my head upwards, my mouth hung open as i readied to reach the summit. until suddenly, it stopped.

ross pulled away from me and stood up, leaving me panting heavily, and oh so unsatisfied. "what the fuck?!" i complained, only to be ignored. "i was so close."

i watched as he undid his belt, flinging it off along with his blazer, and began unzipping his jeans, through which i could see the huge outline of his bulging boner. he pulled them down to his ankles to expose his boxer briefs that were leaking with precum, and i almost instantly dropped to my own knees to return the favour. i looked up at him, trying to look as sexy as possible as i raised my hand to palm him through the thin material. he screwed his eyes shut and hissed as my fingers played with the head of his penis, and i felt it twitch, begging for more.

i smirked and pulled down his boxers to his jeans, letting his aching member spring free and slap against his stomach. he groaned at the feeling, before i collected the precum from his tip and rubbed it and down his shaft, pumping him a few times. i placed the head in my mouth and began sucking him slowly, using my tongue to expertly swirl around the bottom of his tip. i certainly wasn't an expert, far from it, but from the way i had ross moaning, i don't think he paid any mind.

i began going lower, slowly taking more of him in as i bobbed my head gently. but i must've teased him too long, as he leaned down and pushed the hair out of my face, grabbed the sides of my head and pushed his cock all the way to the back of my throat. my hands flailed to grip on to the sides of his thighs as i tried so hard not to gag. but i didn't have much time to think about it as he began rocking into my mouth, thrusting his hips. he moaned quietly, concentration furrowing in his brow. he began fucking my throat, causing me to choke below him, but i didn't mind. i enjoyed it, actually, knowing he was using me to get his pleasure.

i didn't know my eyes were watering until i felt the tears stream down my cheeks, my mascara probably getting ruined. he carried on for a few more minutes, staring down at me as he continuously told me that i was "taking him so well." he suddenly pulled away again, leaving me slightly annoyed as he had ruined my revenge plan to edge him, just as he'd done to me.

but before i knew it, he grabbed my wrists and pulled me to my feet, bending me over the nearest desk. he held my wrists behind my back as he forcefully pulled my skirt up, rubbing his hardened cock against my dripping folds. we both let out a low moan as he finally entered me, his large appendage filling me up so deeply. i groaned as he slowly began thrusting into me, lowering my head to rest it against the desk below me.

"god, you're so tight" he grunted from behind me, beginning to pound me harder. it burned and it hurt, but in the best way possible. his grip on my wrists was so tight that it was sure to leave bruises by the next morning. the desk wobbled and creaked beneath us as he sped up, the sound of our heavy breathing and skin slapping filled the room. he suddenly pulled me upwards so i was stood, my back against his clothed chest. one of his hands stayed gripping my wrist, and the other ran against my hair, collecting some of it into a loose pony tail, before he pulled it roughly, forcing my head backwards. i felt his head rest on my shoulder, grunting in my ear as he continued to fuck me. it was messy. rough and angry. and i think he just needed to use me to release his frustrations. but it was very good nonetheless. he reached down to give my arse a light, unexpected spank, making me choke on a moan.

"i think. i think I'm gonna... cum" i barely managed to get my words out, ross continuing to ram in to me. he let go of my hair and reached round the front of me, rubbing the pad of his fingers over my clit. i screwed my eyes shut dousing in the extreme pleasure, my mouth hung open silently, unable to vocalise my moans.

"come on," he whispered in my ear, "cum for me." his encouraging words and his fingers still working magic was enough to finish me. "fuck, fuck, fuck!" i moaned loudly and flung my head back against his chest, orgasm finally flushing over me. ross removed his hand and raised it to clamp it over my mouth, trying to stifle my loud profanities. his cock still grinding inside of me, helping me ride out my orgasm.

"fucking hell" he groaned through a laugh. "you're such a good girl." he pulled out breathlessly and gently turned me around, pushing me backwards so that my arse hit the desk and my knees buckled to perch on it. he stood between my legs and held my waist to push me further onto it, allowing me to be more comfortable.

he slowly entered me again, before immediately picking up the pace and ploughing me hard. i cried out, wrapping my legs around his lower torso, my arms holding onto his shoulders tightly. i think i may have trouble walking in the morning. he moaned into my hair, his hands under my skirt cupping my arse cheeks.

i moved my hips forward to meet his, copying his rhythm and grinding against him. "fuck!" he groaned against me, trying to keep as quiet as possible. he played around with the hem of my shirt for a while, looking like he was deep in thought, before he suddenly pulled it up and off my shoulders, discarding it somewhere across the room. he stared at my lace bra, my nipples large and pointed. his mouth gaped open as his hips thrusted erratically and became more sloppy. i knew he was close, and considering i was still extremely sensitive from my first orgasm, i knew i wasn't far behind him.

he began moaning uncontrollably, and the noise was like an angel choir to me. i shoved my face into his shoulder, using his collarbone to try to quiet my own noise. i don't know why, but i had only just realised where we actually were. in a public place, where anyone could walk in or hear us at any time. my hands crawled up under the back of his shirt, allowing my finger nails to dig into his skin, and i let myself go, cumming around him for the second time.

he gasped at the sensation of my pussy clenching around him, and i felt his cock twitch and pulse inside of me. he suddenly pulled out and grabbed my hips, pulling me forward to the edge of the desk and encouraging me to lay down. he held his penis and pumped his fist a few times before cumming all over my naked stomach, "oh, fuck" and "yes" being the only words he could manage. he almost collapsed onto me, my chest heaved as i watched him. I'd never seen something quite so hot before.

after a few minutes of us desperately trying to catch our breath, he stood up and walked over to pauline's desk where there were a box of tissues. he grabbed a few and wiped himself, before pulling up his pants and jeans and bringing the box over to me. i cleaned his mess from my skin and stood up, throwing the dirty tissues in the bin. i wandered around the room to pick up my shirt and my panties before dressing myself. i sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, watching ross as he fastened his belt.

"so... what now?" i questioned with an awkward chuckle, not knowing how to proceed with our relationship after the hottest and most random sex of my life.

"uhh, i don't know. late lunch?" he replied, genuinely suggesting us things to do.

"i could do with a shower, to be honest." i laughed, not really wanting to spend any time in public looking and feeling like a hot mess.

"okay, come back to mine then?" i looked at him, not sure if he was actually being serious, but the look he was giving me told me he was. i didn't really want to, but at the same time, i really did. "we can shower and I'll order us food or something. i need to talk to you, anyway."

he didn't give me much time to respond, as he began dialling his phone and ordering us a taxi. we were stood outside waiting for barbara, ross wasn't saying much and i was worried that i'd made a mistake and had set myself up for a very awkward evening. i mean, what do you actually say to the man who just fucked your brains out, completely unplanned in the middle of the day?

we were soon sat in the cab, ross and barbara speaking about what-not. she tried to include me in light conversation but i couldn't really concentrate. i ended up staring out the window as i began thinking about things. about ross...

yesterday, he kept avoiding my questions about work and why he was at a job centre, eventhough he knew my reasonings as to why i was there. he had invited me out for coffee and paid, just a moment ago he had invited me out for lunch, and when i denied he said he'd order us takeaway, and he has just paid for a cab to his flat. he didn't live very far away from the job centre, only about a 20 minute walk, which confused me beyond belief. don't get me wrong, it's not like i couldn't afford those things. I'm not completely broke. but you'd assume that someone out of work would be trying their hardest to save money if there were other alternatives, such as walking a small distance or cooking a home meal.

i didn't want to think too much about it, or judge his situation, but i was anxious about what he wanted to talk to me about. i thanked barbara and climbed out onto the street. deep down i was secretly grateful that we didn't have to walk, anyway. i'd have been hobbling side-to-side due to the pain down there. thanks ross.

i followed him into his apartment and took in my surroundings. it was pretty nice. i immediately see a kitchen island with bar stools, joining into the living space with a large couch and tv, a bookshelf tucked into the corner. "can i get you anything to drink?" he asked, putting his bag and blazer down onto the kitchen counter.

"uh, just water is fine, thank you." i felt awkward and vulnerable. i just didn't know what to say to him. i tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear as he passed a glass of water to me, and i sipped it gratefully, thankful for the refreshing hydration after the exerting events of our afternoon.

"so... what did you want to talk to me about?" i wasted no time, eventhough i was nervous about his answer. he gestured for me to sit next to him on one of the kitchen stools, and i sat cautiously, my mind racing with what he could possibly say. was it good or bad news? was he going to say that he wanted to see me more often? say he never wanted to see me again? or was he going to announce that he's riddled with STD's and has just passed them all onto me?

i watched as he grabbed multiple papers and what looked like video tapes from his bag. "so i guess i just have to jump straight in..." he began by clearing his throat and knocking the papers against the counter to straighten them.

i grew impatient as i looked at him, searching his face for answers. "now, don't be mad" oh brilliant. whenever a man says that, 9 times out of 10, he's about to say something that would make anyone go ballistic. "but i haven't been completely honest about what i've been up to for the past week."

"what do you mean?" i stuttered.

he let out a sigh, and i assumed he was nervous. which only made me want to shit bricks. "i'm actually employed, and i've been working under cover at the job centre."

of all of the things i thought he might have said, that was certainly not one of them. i sat in shock, my brows furrowed, once again not even knowing what to say. my mind raced again and it began to piece things together. the professionalism. the money.

he noticed that i hadn't said anything and carried on. "i'm an internal investigator. i've been investigating pauline and examining her classes-"

"what?" i cut him off, finally regaining my words. "you... what?" that was all i could seem to manage to say. i stood up from my seat and walked to the other side of the counter, feeling my heart beginning to beat under my chest.

"this is a good thing, y/n." he said, also standing up and beginning to approach me. i scoffed and screwed my face up.

"how? i didn't know that lying and being a faker was a good thing." i felt a range of emotions. confusion. shock. betrayal? maybe that was a bit excessive, but i felt like i suddenly didn't even know him. this man whom i'd been hanging out with and seeing every day, he was a complete stranger. was any of the stuff about his childhood and hobbies that he told me in the coffee shop even true? i had been completely honest with him from the start, finding a friend in him, opening myself up (emotionally and physically...), and this is how he repays me?

"i didn't lie to you, y/n." i resisted the urge to scoff again, but i just looked at him confused. "...withholding of information is not technically a lie." i rolled my eyes and turned away from him, wanting to run out the door and not look back.

a hand rested on my shoulder and i shook it off, walking to the door to try and slip my shoes back on. "y/n, just stop. i meant that it's a good thing because i'm going to have all this evidence against pauline. when i hand this over, she'll be locked up for good." i glanced at him as he was holding everything that he laid out on the counter earlier. "these are recordings. all of the times she was ever rude or picked on you. every time she belittled mickey. every time she... you know. physically hurt me. it's all on here."

ross' pov

i shook the papers and the tapes desperately in my arms, trying to get her to understand. i wasn't even supposed to be telling her this information, it was completely against the rules of the social services. but i trusted her. i wanted her help in being a witness against pauline. and above all else, i just wanted her to know the real me.

she was silent for a long moment, but i could tell her thoughts were racing.

"why didn't you tell me this sooner?" her voice was quiet.

i sighed, wishing i had been truthful with her from the start. "it's company policy. i'm not even supposed to be telling you now. but i trust you, y/n. i really do." i watched as she slowly turned to face me and put her shoes back down on the floor. "i didn't want to hide from you anymore."

"okay, so... what was earlier about, then?" she cradled her arms against her chest, looking nervous. or embarrassed. or both?

"what do you mean?" i wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, but she soon made me feel like an idiot for not understanding.

"oh, you know, when you randomly fucked me?!" her voice was raised. i couldn't tell if she was mad about it, or just mad at me. but surely she wouldn't have come back here with me if she was disgusted and never wanted to see me again.

"i- i just. i don't know, i was angry. i needed something. someone. and you were there being all nice-"

"so you would've just done that to anyone?" she spat, cutting me off.

"no! god, no!" my grip loosened on the evidence against pauline, letting it crash to the floor in a discarded mess. but i didn't care, the only important thing at the moment was getting y/n to understand. "i... i really like you" she looked at me but didn't say anything, so i continued. "i think you're so beautiful. i didn't mean to upset you or anything, and i'm really sorry if i did. i just thought that, i don't know, maybe you liked me too..." i sighed again and looked at the floor, feeling vulnerable and worried that i had ruined the relationship between us.

"i do like you, ross" she spoke so gently, her voice barely above a whisper. "i liked you from the moment i saw you."

i couldn't find any words, i didn't need them, anyway. i walked towards her cautiously, extending my hands towards her face. she didn't move as i used my palms to cup her cheeks, smoothing a piece of hair from in front of her eyes. i leaned forward a little, her eyes glancing from my eyes to my lips.

reader's pov

i fluttered my eyes closed in anticipation, as i leaned towards him, waiting for the gap to be sealed. his lips pressed against mine, they felt small and incredibly gentle, a huge difference to how he was kissing me earlier. i raised my hands to allow my fingers to run through his hair, enjoying the feeling. i smiled against him, wanting to deepen the kiss, but he pulled away.

he rested his head against mine, our noses almost brushing together. "will you help me get pauline fired?" he whispered. all i did was nod.

his lips curled into a small smile. "just five more weeks of torture left, before she gets what she deserves."

"torture?" i questioned, sarcasm lacing my voice. "i think five weeks of seeing me every day will be pure bliss for you" i smirked, allowing my hands to rest on his lower back.

"i think you're right" he whispered, moving to kiss me again. it immediately heated up, my tongue slipping into his mouth. he walked me through the apartment, tongues still intertwined, before softly laying me against the couch. somehow, we both ended up undressed, panting heavily as we explored eachother. my hands raked through his hair as i moaned, his lips kissing down my neck in the same spots he had done not long before. "hold on" he whispered, pulling away from me and quickly running into the next room. he immediately returned, pulling a condom onto himself, making me chuckle. "probably a bit late for that." he laughed lightly and hovered over me, parting my legs with his knee.

"are you ready?" he said, leaning down to peck my lips. i nodded and rested my head back on the cushions, hissing as he stretched me out. "i'm sorry" he cooed, "are you okay?"

i nodded again, tears pricking at my eyes. "you really did a number on me earlier" we laughed against eachother, sharing small kisses as he stayed still inside of me, allowing me to adjust to the feeling. "we don't have to-"

"no, i want to. it should be okay now." he cautiously started rocking into me, moving as slowly as he could. after a while, the stinging stopped, and the pleasure soon returned. he was gentle and loving, only making the experience even more gratifying. our whines filled the apartment, lips moving perfectly together, my fingers rubbing his back and through his hair. no one had ever made love to me the way ross was right now.

we soon reached our highs and we laid exhausted, cuddled against eachother.

"should we go have that shower now?"

[whimsicalpolitical]

a/n: This picture is doing unspeakable things to me.

summary: imagine waking up and first thing is having a make out session on the couch.

warnings: 18+ mdni

masterlist

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“Morning,” you murmur, leaning against the doorway to the living room. Ross is in a short black sports shorts and a black t-shirt. His hair is in a mess which means he hasn’t got ready yet. It’s the same with you. You’re only wearing a (Ross’) shirt and only panties.

Ross gives you a sleepy smile and puts his phone on the table in front of him. “G’morning love, sleep okay?” He asks and you move a little closer to him. His hands find your thighs and he rubs slow circles into them.

“Slept amazing,” you hum. It’s always a pretty late night, even when he’s home from tour or if he has work. But when he comes to bed, you fall asleep almost immediately after his arms find his way around your waist.

“Yeah?” He grins and pulls you into his lap. You giggle as your legs settle next to his thighs. “Yeah,” you say, “how long have you been up?” He places his hands on you waist, kissing your head as you rest it on his chest, hiding your face in his neck.

“Couple hours, had to work for a bit,” you just hum at his response and close your eyes but he lifts your head by cradling your face. “Tired much?” He laughs but you just shake your head.

You notice how his beard is at the perfect length and you bite your lip down as you think about the feeling of his beard between your thighs. “Or not,” he chuckles as he sees your blushing.

“C’mere,” he says as he grabs your hips and moves them a bit higher, the action causes you to let out a small whimper at the friction you’re gaining.

Ross rolls his hips up into you, continuing to kiss you, softly biting down on to your lip. You can feel him, hot and heavy against you and you roll your hips again, taking what he’s giving you. This time he groans into your mouth, one of his hands leaving your hip to grasp the base of your neck and pull you even closer.

You spend the next ten minutes in this position, grinding, panting and kissing. Groans and whimpers fill the air as his bulge presses into your core. You feel like you need to pull away as soon as possible because it’s embarrassing of how fast you could come.

You let your head fall back and Ross just moves down your neck. His beard tickles against your collarbone as he leaves wet kisses down your body. “Shit,” you pant.

You stop your moves and pull his head back from you. Your breathing sounds like you ran a marathon and you sure as hell feel like it. “Fuck,” He whispers breathily, once you both stop moving, hot and sticky under your clothing as you both lean into each other.

Ross’ pupils are dilated, his mouth is parted and his lips wet. The sight makes you melt and sink into him even more. “Sorry,” you say but he’s quick to speak.

“Don’t be darling,” he cups your face and gives you a kiss on the cheek, “you need a break?” He asks and tilts his head. You’re unsure, you just need him.

You shake your head and pull him in again, grinding your hips down again, earning a groan. He smiles into the kiss, “Jesus,” he says and starts to guide you by your hips. “Insatiable.”

[oceanpulls]

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a plan to soundtrack everything

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – best friends and Nine Inch Nails bandmates – found unlikely creative fulfilment (and a couple of Oscars) by reassessing what they had to offer as musicians. Now they’re thinking even bigger, and imagining an artistic empire of their own making

By Zach Baron

Photography by Danielle Levitt

Every weekday, Trent Reznor makes his way from his house, a cottagey sprawl behind a white wall in a canyon on Los Angeles’s Westside, to a studio he’s built in his backyard. There he meets his best friend, bandmate, and business partner, Atticus Ross, and they get to work. Reznor and Ross observe the same hours, Monday to Friday, 11am to 7pm. “We show up,” Reznor told me. “We’re not late. We’re not coming in to start to fuck around.” It’s a methodical, orderly existence that Reznor could not have foreseen in the ’90s, when he was fronting Nine Inch Nails and struggling with a drug-and-alcohol problem that was his answer to success. “I would do anything to avoid writing a song,” Reznor said. “I’d rewire the studio 50 times.”

Now Reznor has a wife, Mariqueen Maandig, five children, and multiple jobs. He is sober. Since 2010, when the director David Fincher asked Reznor and Ross to score The Social Network, for which Reznor and Ross won an Oscar, the two men have had steady employment composing for film. This year, Reznor and Ross are also starting a yet-to-be-named company, built around storytelling in multiple disciplines: film production, fashion, a music festival, and a venture with Epic Games.

And then, of course, there is the oldest and perhaps still the most complicated of Reznor’s jobs: being the frontman of Nine Inch Nails. In 1988 Reznor formed what was then a one-man band; the first two full-length records Nine Inch Nails released, Pretty Hate Machine(1989) and The Downward Spiral (1994), have sold more than eight million copies. (Over subsequent years and subsequent albums, the band has since crossed the 20 million mark in sales.) In the ’90s, for a time, Nine Inch Nails were ubiquitous: a phenomenon on the level of Nirvana or Dr Dre. During that decade, the success of the band nearly killed Reznor. “I didn’t feel prepared to process how disorientating that was,” he said. “How much it can distort your personality.”

These days, Nine Inch Nails, which Ross joined as a full-time member in 2016, present a different problem – how do you make something old, something so already well-defined, new again? There are years when Reznor feels like he has the answers and years when he’s less certain. He has put the band on hiatus more than once; after the last Nine Inch Nails tour, in 2022, Reznor deliberately took a break from playing shows as well. “For the first time in a long time I wasn’t sure: what’s the tour going to say?” Reznor told me. “What do I have to say right now? We can still play those songs real good. Maybe we can come up with a new production. But it wasn’t screaming at me: this is what to do right now.”

But he and Ross still come to work, daily, in search of transcendence. “We sit in here every day,” Reznor said. “And a portion of the time organically becomes us just figuring out who we are as people and processing life and a kind of therapy session. And in those endless hours it’s come up: why do we want to do this? And the reason is because we both feel the most in touch with God and fulfilled.”

It is easy to make things when you are a teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania, near the Ohio border, as Reznor was, and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain; it is considerably harder, once you’ve got older, and found a way to make things that people like, to keep going. It’s an old story: the act of creation can lift you up, but those sharp gifts can also destroy you, and if you make it past that, the sheer blissful regularity of life with money and a family can even you out so thoroughly that there is no friction left to work with. You look inside the cupboard and the cupboard is bare, or it’s a mansion and living inside of it is a person you’re bored of, and so you stop looking. But Reznor and Ross have never stopped looking, and the search for that magical feeling of finding something – that feeling of, in Reznor’s words, “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how I just did what I did, but I’ve channelled it into something that worked” – is still the thing that organises their days and their moods.

We were talking in their studio, which was low-lit and cold and full of synthesizers’ blinking lights. Reznor was on a sofa and Ross sat in a chair nearby. The two men first met in the ’90s, when Reznor signed Ross’s band, 12 Rounds, to Reznor’s Nothing Records. Soon after, they became friends, and then musical collaborators. “I was just getting sober,” Reznor said, “and I was in a pretty fragile transitional phase. And I just hit it off with Atticus right off the bat. And part of it was, he was someone who was on much firmer ground, in a mentor-y kind of way, than I was.”

Ross is two years younger than Reznor, but when they met, he’d already been through certain things Reznor was just getting around to. “I got clean when I was very young,” Ross told me. “So I had a bit more experience than him. Put it like this: I knew you could have fun without being high.”

Their friendship has been a constant in both their lives since. “I don’t know if parts of us are broken and we don’t feel good enough,” Reznor said, staring at the ceiling of the studio, “but we know if we work as hard as we can and do the best work we can, it fixes something. At the core of it, that’s what unites us creatively. On top of that, I think his take on the world and role in life helps me understand my place and not feel as detached in some ways.”

Reznor often jokes, or simply explains, that he is a “quart low” on whatever it is that makes people happy. “I think we can both, on our own devices, run below zero as a baseline,” Reznor said. “I don’t mean manic depression, I just mean we don’t take compliments well. It’s like when we won the Oscar, it was the day after: ‘Let’s take today guilt-free, kind of say fuck yeah.’ And tomorrow we’ll have settled back down to a few feet below sea level.”

In their years of collaborating with each other, both men have found some mutual reassurance – a little lift. Reznor gestured at Ross.

“I remember something he said to me – I don’t know if you want me to say this or not – in one of our talks years ago: ‘Here’s what I want today.’”

“I see what’s coming,” Ross said, nervously.

“I just want to feel OK,” Reznor said, quoting his friend. “I want to feel like I’m OK.”

One day this winter, Reznor greeted me at the door of their studio – in the course of reporting this story, I never saw him anywhere else – wearing a black hoodie made by the synthesizer company Moog, black jeans, and black running shoes. At 58, Reznor still retains the angular intensity and jet-black hair of his youth, but time and fatherhood seem to have made him quicker to smile. He looks a little like a college professor now, or an unusually-well-cared-for software engineer. He led me back, past walls of unused gear and several black-clad mannequins, all of which startled me, to their primary workspace, where Ross – a tall west Londoner (he grew up in Ladbroke Grove) with a stern face and a pleasantly reedy voice – sat at a computer, also all in black. (Once, I asked the two men whether their upcoming clothing line would feature any colour. “No,” Reznor said, incredulously. “Of course not.”)

They were on deadline for two films at the moment, including Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming Queer. “But we’re trying not to work,” Reznor said, drily. Leaned up against one wall was a photo of the two in tuxedos, accepting the Academy Award for best original score for their work on The Social Network. Reznor had contributed to soundtracks before, in the ’90s, but he’d never formally scored a film until The Social Network.

But Reznor and Ross quickly realised that the work, in some ways, wasn’t so different from songwriting. “What do we do when we write a song?” Reznor asked. “We’re trying to emotionally connect with somebody.” Take the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network:“Here’s somebody who thinks this idea is so important that it’s worth kind of fucking your friends over for it. And then realising maybe it wasn’t worth it, or I didn’t realise how I’d feel if I got what I wanted at the price of this. I can relate to that in my own language. Suddenly there’s music.”

“I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor said. “I couldn’t have predicted that I would feel this level of fulfilment.”

And Reznor found that he enjoyed the exercise of solving someone else’s problems instead of his own. “There’s something about not being the boss and working again in service to something that I initially felt guilty for feeling kind of fulfilled by in a weird way.”

Reznor said that on another Fincher film, Mank, the director suggested: “What if it sounded like maybe inspired by Bernard Herrmann and as if it were recorded in 1935 and this film canister sat on the shelf for 60 years?” OK, interesting. (Ross and Reznor were nominated for that one too.)

On the first film the two men scored for Guadagnino, Bones and All, “we got a cut of that that was nearly four hours long with no music and we kind of thought, Oh, fuck,” Reznor said. “Four hours we sat without a pee break, transfixed. It didn’t need music. And when you watch that you approach it differently.” Then Guadagnino brought them Challengers, due for worldwide release in April. Reznor said, “He started us down a path, saying, ‘What if it was very loud techno music through the whole film?’” (This is exactly what it turned out to be.)

“I wish I had his notes,” Ross said of Guadagnino. “His notes were so fucking funny on what each piece was meant to do.”

“Oh, yeah,” Reznor said. “‘Unending homoerotic desire.’ It was all a variation on those three words.”

They liked the challenge of scoring, they found, and that feeling of not being in control. They also liked the way it made them crave being in control again: “It makes you more inspired to work on other stuff when we’re finished,” Reznor said. “Even if it’s just, Thank God it’s done now and we can appreciate the freedom we had before we gave it up.”

These days, Reznor and Ross also like having jobs that let them be at home, around their families. Both men had tumultuous or lonely lives when they were younger; both men have found that fatherhood soothes certain unresolved aspects of their pasts. Ross has three kids, and “probably the greatest reward is how balanced and happy they all are compared to – certainly my growing up was an unusual sort of scenario. It was a fairly chaotic youth.” Ross comes from a notable English family, but his immediate lineage was more unstable. “My dad had a club called Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace in LA in the ’70s,” Ross told me. “He went bankrupt in England and had a judgment passed against him where he couldn’t talk to a bank manager for 15 years. So he moved here and opened this sort of Studio 54 on roller skates on La Cienega and Santa Monica.” Ross held up a coffee-table book full of photos of the club. “You don’t need to look at it, but it was just a mad life. So I grew up in some madness.”

It is particularly endearing to see Reznor, who at a distance was a fierce and terrifying figure in his 20s and 30s, find domestic bliss. I am old enough that my adolescence coincided neatly with the S&M-flavoured, I wanna fuck you like an animal era of Nine Inch Nails; when I was leaving Reznor’s house one day, I noted with some amusement the cheerful mundanity of a basketball hoop in the backyard. “I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor told me. “I couldn’t have predicted that there was a world where I would have a sizeable family with kids and feel the level of fulfilment and comfort and be able to live in that.”

Was that something you were consciously seeking before you found it?

“I think I had some abandonment issues from my parents splitting up, or feeling I never fit in, and I’d gotten accustomed to being on my own. And largely due to my own, I think, inability to really be intimate with people, or share or be open or know how to be a friend or a partner to somebody… Trying that out and doing it with pure and full immersion has led to an unexpectedly great outcome.”

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

The other film project Reznor and Ross were on deadline for was Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge, a science-fiction thriller starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. They were working on a lengthy, music-dependent scene that they’d already mostly scored. But, Ross said, “the director wants it to be a bit more, I can’t think of a better word than just a bit more scary and intense.” They weren’t sure what that directive meant, exactly, but they were content – they were happy – to try to figure it out: to enter the room once again, carrying nothing, and to try to leave it with something that didn’t exist before.

Ross called up the scene on a monitor at the centre of a long mixing board: Teller and Taylor-Joy in an evil-looking spiky forest. Reznor and Ross have somewhat fluid roles in their collaboration, but today the plan was for Reznor to improvise some music while Ross edited and manipulated it in real time. “Atticus’ superpower,” Reznor said, “is that I can come up with a melody and a chord change, and he can make that sit on the scene in a way that is meticulous, and mind-numbingly boring to watch him do.”

A studio assistant, also in all black, presented himself to help Reznor set up a microphone and a cello next to a keyboard that sat underneath another computer monitor. Ross hit play on the footage and what they’d already completed of the score, a kind of haunted, chanting murmur. “It’s basically atmosphere at the moment,” Ross said. Next to him was a synthesizer whose make and model he asked me not to print and which the two men use as a kind of sound ecosystem to feed stuff into.

Reznor began by pushing down on the piano’s keyboard, while with his other hand he manipulated the sound with a flat synthesizer on the desk in front of him. It began as a kind of mellow pan flute thing, and then, with a push of a few buttons, became more of a sad, Social Network-ish plonk. Ross stood up and started tapping the synthesizer to his left, and the sounds Reznor made began to loop and accumulate – little melodic figures that plunged in and out of feedback. Reznor moved from the piano to the microphone, where he sang a few soft passages in a baritone falsetto, more sad than spooky, and then to the cello, which he played slowly and choppily. Ross moved between the computer and the synthesizer, trying to harness it all as it built to a loud, echoing crescendo.

After about 20 minutes, Reznor sat back in his chair, and Ross soon followed suit. Everything got quiet again. “It’s going fishing,” Reznor said to me, shrugging. “Sometimes something happens.”

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

Or, sometimes, everything happens. One of the first things you see when you arrive at Reznor’s home studio are two original paintings by the Yorkshire artist Russell Mills – on the left, a razor against a rusty red background; on the right, a decaying yellow-and-black collage – that ultimately became the insert and the cover art for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral. This is the record with “Hurt” and “Closer” on it. It’s an album Reznor nearly didn’t survive.

Why do I bring this up? Well. If I may, for a moment, sound like the ageing dude in a black T-shirt leaning against the back wall of a bar where you’re just trying to be young and free of recitations of what the year 1994 felt like, there was a different quality to the way things would happen in music. Bands would labour for years, unknown, and then just get struck by lightning, is the best way I can put it: one day, you’re just a guy, and then one radio station plays your song, and then every radio station plays your song, and everyone is listening to those radio stations, because there is nothing else to do, and then MTV loops your video, and everyone watches it because, again, there is nothing else to do, and all of a sudden you are known by millions of bored people in a way that doesn’t quite happen now. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, but here Reznor is, one of the very few people who have experienced the thing I’m describing. I thought: let’s just ask him what that was like.

Reznor said, OK, he could tell me exactly what it felt like. He gave me a single moment: Woodstock ’94, which Nine Inch Nails almost didn’t play – “it seemed like it was going to be gross, to be honest with you” – but ultimately did. “And when we got there, it was terrifying,” Reznor said. “It was way bigger than I pictured in my head and walking on stage. But this is the point of the story: I knew. You could feel like you were in the right place at the right time.”

In retrospect, how did you handle success?

“Had a drink. That’s what sent me down the path. I wasn’t the guy that, you know, at 12 years old cracked a beer. That wasn’t it at all. Just, I feel anxious around people. I’m not sure how to act, especially now that you’re someone that’s supposed to act a certain way. There’s a projection. It feels uncomfortable to walk down the street and people are looking at you because they recognise you. That’s weird. Suddenly everybody wants to be your friend and you’re the coolest. Everyone wants to date you and shit like that.” Reznor said he found it was “easier to have a beer before I go in that room, and then a couple of beers before I go in that room. And pretty soon over a period of time, wait a minute, things start to get out of control. And you know how the story goes.”

Here’s how the story went: Reznor began to wonder if Trent Reznor could ever live up to the Nine Inch Nails guy that people had in their heads. “The reason I was having to drink was to fix that problem, my own insecurity. But the net result is: I’m not really who I am because now I’ve got drugs or alcohol in my system and I’m not thinking as who I really am. And that comes into focus once one gets sober and has time to reflect and kind of think about what got you there and shit you did.”

Eventually, Reznor got sober, and built himself back up. Today he’s happy to talk about all of it, obviously, but he and Ross have done a lot together since – 10 albums’ worth of Nine Inch Nails (Ross was an official member of the band for five of them), among other things – and Reznor is, by nature, not one to dwell too much on the past of a band that he’s still very much trying to figure out. “We’re not fans of resting on our laurels. We’ve been afraid of thinking about nostalgia. That’s a whole other conversation, but the reality is we’re getting older and our fans are getting older and that’s a fact. And I think, say, during the pandemic, not that you asked this question, but as I’m sure everybody was, I was pretty genuinely freaked out and very clearly came into focus: I’ve got to protect my family.”

He was consumed by fear, by terror of what might happen, of what he might do about it. “I can’t even fit all my kids in a car,” Reznor said. “But in the midst of that anxiety, sitting alone in here, I found comfort in nostalgia. I found comfort looking back at things from my youth that I’ve been afraid to even allow myself to glimpse at because it meant artistic death. Because one has to look forward. One can’t be self-referential. I was so afraid growing up in a little shitty town. I could see people that thought the highlight of their life is junior in high school catching the football. You know what I mean? That’s it. That was the peak. I don’t want to fucking be that person. I could see my fate if I stayed in that town.”

In those moments sitting by yourself, what were you getting nostalgic for?

“I miss parts of living in Pennsylvania. I miss a simpler life that I grew up with. I really loved the first INXS album in 1983. I was a senior in high school, and when I listen to it now I could almost start crying because it fucking reminds me of driving in a shitty fucking car in the summer in Pennsylvania. You know what I mean? Man. I allowed myself to kind of immerse myself in who I was at that time, and what it felt like.”

Reznor had been trying to remake himself ever since he left where he grew up, and now here he is in Los Angeles, over 40 years later. “And I kind of went on a deep dive for a while and allowed myself to realise: I am who I am. And the things that made me weren’t the cool things. I’d always been ashamed of: I came from a shitty town; I didn’t have an exotic upbringing; shitty education, you know what I mean? That’s who I am. I’m not sure what the point of all that confession was.”

Well, except: “It plays into where I’m at now.”

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

The last time I saw Reznor and Ross, it was once again in their studio. They were sitting very still. Had they been working before I got there?

“We were for a little bit,” Ross said. “And then nervously thinking about you arriving.”

Really? It’s OK if that’s the truth.

“That’s the truth,” Reznor said. They’d just been in this room for the past weeks, months – years, really, he said. Head down. Working. He gestured at me. “It’s a different mindset.”

And “I was thinking about something you said the other day,” Reznor said. That was on a Friday. I’d asked a somewhat rude question about their soundtrack work, which was: why would Reznor or Ross work for anyone else when they didn’t have to?

Now it was Monday. “I thought about that over the weekend,” Reznor said. “It’s like, Why are we doing this? The idea comes from what we think is a good place of ‘Let’s break it up. Let’s get sent down the rabbit hole on certain things and feel like we’ve got tasks being assigned to us rather than us just blindly seeing what happens creatively.’ ”

But, he said, “I think coming out of a stretch of a number of films in a row, I want some time of seeing where the wind blows versus: there’s a looming date on a calendar coming up and we’d better get our shit together. And certainly in the last few weeks I’ve been itching to do what we often do, which is just come in and let’s start something that we’re not even sure what it’s for.”

Some of that energy, he and Ross said, would probably become the next Nine Inch Nails album. Doing soundtrack work, Reznor said, had “managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel way more exciting than it had been in the past few years. I’d kind of let it atrophy a bit in my mind for a variety of reasons.”

But now, “I do feel excited about starting on the next record,” Ross said. “I think we’re in a place now where we kind of have an idea.”

And then there was the company, which Reznor and Ross spent the last two years putting together, piece by piece, with the help of John Crawford, their longtime art director, and the producer Jonathan Pavesi. The idea was, what could they do that they hadn’t already done around storytelling? Some of that might take the form of examining Nine Inch Nails from yet another angle – “we’ve been working on homegrown IP around Nine Inch Nails, stories we could tell, and we’re working on developing those in a way that are not what you think they’d be.” (As in: not a biopic.) They also have a show in development with Christopher Storer, the creator of The Bear, they said, and a film with the veteran horror director Mike Flanagan.

Reznor put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses so that he could examine a piece of paper next to him. “We just wrote some notes because I knew I’d forget what the fuck I’m about to say.” There was a short film coming with the artist Susanne Deeken. There was a clothing venture, a T-shirt line made in collaboration with a notable designer whose name they’d like to keep secret for now, which will arrive this summer. There was a music festival that they were currently planning, “where we’re going to debut as performing as composers along with a roster of other interesting people,” and a record label, both scheduled to launch around the same time.

And for two years they’ve been working with Epic Games on something that is not exactly a video game, in the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around Fortnite – “It’s what Zuckerberg was trying to bullshit us into calling the metaverse,” Reznor said. “You can’t say that word any more, but in terms of the tool kit, thinking about it through the lens of what could be possible for artists and experiences, we thought that would be an interesting way to tell a story through that.”

They were nervously contemplating the prospect of having day jobs again, of being responsible for more than just themselves. Early on, as they contemplated launching the company, they’d sat down with David Fincher to ask him about movie production: how does it work? “And he’s like, oh, you’re fucked,” Reznor said. “I can distil a two-hour conversation into that. Because, he said, ‘I know you guys, and no one’s going to care more than you do, and you will not be able to let it go.’”

Reznor has actually had this experience before, of being sucked into a project bigger than Nine Inch Nails and having it take over his entire life. Years ago he worked as an executive, first for Beats and then for Apple, building a streaming-music service.

“Trent was very clear when we started,” Ross said. “We cannot let this get into Apple terrain.”

Reznor laughed. “What I mean by that is – I will make this brief; I’m trying to think through what I’m about to talk shit on. Just to self-censor for a second.”

Reznor paused for a moment and then explained. For years, he said, he’d wondered: what would make a good streaming service? This was before the advent of Spotify in the US or Apple Music. Jimmy Iovine, Reznor’s old label boss – later, Iovine would also become Ross’s brother-in-law, after he married Ross’s sister, Liberty, in 2016 – was launching a music service at Beats, which was then acquired by Apple, and Iovine said to Reznor: come try to make this thing a reality. And Reznor surprised himself by saying yes.

“It was a unique opportunity to work at the biggest company in the world at a high level,” Reznor said. “And it was interesting, the scale of the people that you reach through those platforms, just the global amount of influence those platforms can have was exciting. The political situation I was dropped into was not as exciting.”

Reznor enjoyed working with Apple’s design team and its engineering team. “But it made me realise how much I want to be an artist first and foremost.” Reznor also became discouraged with the possibility of fixing the problem that he was trying to solve. “I think the terrible payout of streaming services has mortally wounded a whole tier of artists that make being an artist unsustainable. And it’s great if you’re Drake, and it’s not great if you’re Grizzly Bear. And the reality is: take a look around. We’ve had enough time for the whole ‘All the boats rise’ argument to see they don’t all rise. Those boats rise. These boats don’t. They can’t make money in any means. And I think that’s bad for art. And I thought maybe at Apple there could be influence to pay in a more fair or significant way, because a lot of these services are just a rounding error compared to what comes in elsewhere, unlike Spotify where their whole business is that. But that’s tied to a lot of other political things and label issues, and everyone’s trying to hold onto their little piece of the pie and it is what it is. I also realise, I think that people just want to turn the faucet on and have music come in. They’re not really concerned about all the romantic shit I thought mattered.”

Anyway, Reznor said, turning to Ross, “That was a long-winded way of saying, when we talked about this company, I just said, ‘Be aware of what success might look like because it will turn into something that eats up lots of cycles and time and attention and energy.’ ”

But, Ross said, taking on new responsibilities was, paradoxically, also a way to stay a little younger. “I know we’ve all been talking about being dads and being adults and all that,” Ross said, “and there is a part of me that thinks: it’s important to keep the kid alive.” Meaning the child inside yourself, rather than the one you’re responsible for.

He told a story about him and Reznor visiting the director David Lynch at his house to work with him on the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. “And I don’t know how old he was at the time,” Ross said, “but he was older. But just walking in there, and he had the room set up and there’s a screen there, there’s some chairs here and there’s some musical instruments there and he’s smoking a cigarette. There’s nothing old about that dude. You know what I mean?”

Lynch showed them some Lynchian footage. It was incredible, even if they didn’t quite know what they were looking at. Lynch was probably 70 or 71 at the time. “But it’s that thing of it doesn’t matter how old he is,” Ross said. “He is alive. It’s that bit of it all that one doesn’t want to lose with age.”

The point was, Reznor said: “Let’s try some stuff. We’re bored. We are. You know what I mean? We’re grateful. We enjoy doing films. We can write a better Nine Inch Nails record, I think. We can put on a cooler tour. We are aimed to do that. But man, what if we try to do that?” Meaning, the company. “What if we could take what we’re good at, like we did with film? We identified something I think we’re good at and we figured out how to apply it to something else. What if we take that theory and try it on some other things? And that’s led us into: we’re not beaten down completely yet. And it feels exciting. That’s what matters to us right now.”

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

Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu Grooming by Johnny Stuntz using Dior Capture Totale Hyalushot SFX Makeup by Malina Stearns Grills by Alligator Jesus Tailoring by Yelena Travkina Set design by Lizzie Lang at 11th House Agency Produced by Emily O’Meara at JN Production

[dean-a-mean-tae]

Paranoia | Stray Kids Extra Member AU

WARNINGS: 3rd person but switches to 1st person. Nicholas “communicates” with the reader. Depending on how well this is written, it might make you feel what he's feeling. There's angst, but I don't want to put too many warnings. Don't wanna spoil this extremely short drabble.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO READ!

Nicholas Ross Master List | Proceed with caution. I love you 💜

He couldn't name it. Granted, Nicholas didn't know much about feelings. He knew the basics. Happy, sad, mad, and fearful. Chan was the first person to help him feel safe. The most common feeling for him was numbness. But this?

This was different. 

This feeling, emotion, whatever it's called, was unfamiliar. It was this nagging feeling, and he couldn't place it. He hadn't felt something this intense, ever. No, he did. Nicholas was overjoyed when he got to debut with his friends. But this?

This is on a different scale, a completely different hierarchy. 

This feeling caused other emotions he never thought of. It made him name feelings he's already had. Feelings he could never put a label on but now could with his newly gained freedom. Nicholas isn't sure if he likes this freedom. Then again. Was it truthfully freedom?

Nicholas couldn't leave the dorm. Not without drastic security, and even then, he still needed at least two members with them. He was scared. What if something happened while he wasn't there? Fear.

Who was he kidding? What would he do if something did happen? He knows nothing. Nicholas is just a boy. Doubt.

Someone, or something, was watching him. All the time. Even at home. He could feel them staring at him. Their eyes pierced his skull, his back, and occasionally his face. Only when he dared to look back. The feeling never stopped. That feeling he couldn't place. It kept looking with inhumanly wide eyes. He could see it in the distance.

Nicholas can't tell the others. No, what if something happened to them? What if they began to see what he could see? The feeling with long hair, wide eyes, and a gaping mouth. A mouth forever stuck in a silent scream. It was there. He could see it.

 It made him overanalyze. Maybe it's anxiety? An everlasting anxiety attack? No, it's not that. It doesn't like false names. It's closer. I can hear it's scream now. It's quiet, but what if it gets louder?

You don't believe him? 

He thought he could trust you. It's why he told you. You saw his abuse. You felt for him. You saw him almost lose the battle to his insecurities. Granted, you only saw what was said and how his members fixed it. But you were there!

He can't tell other people. They'll send him to a therapist. A psychiatrist. They'll take him to someone who will give me pills. Everyone will force me to take those pills because it's for the better.

Why don't you believe me? 

Why won't anyone believe me? It follows me, and I can't get away. I'm terrified. I'm intensely scared. There's a word for it. What is it? Tell me, please. Maybe if I call out its name, it will leave me alone.

It's eyes. They- It's here. It's watching me. It could be watching you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel like this. I'll be quiet. Momma told me I scared people with this bullshit. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I won't do it again. 

You will stay, right?

I'm still me. I'm Nicholas Ross! The boy- The man you imagine. The person broken by his parents is slowly being built together again. You're helping me, right? 

You said you feel sad for me. You expressed my stories as comforting. I can tell you more. Just please don't leave me with it. 

Don't leave me with paranoia.

Nicholas Ross Master List

©️DEANAMEANTAE2024

Tags list: @bada-lee-ily, @jinnie-ret, @hwxnghyynjin, @foxilsdenn, @rensahazard, @mynameisnotlaura, @lucianidealz, You can be added by asking in the replies, sending me a message, or doing an ask thingy.

[soma-shitposts]

Hello!!!!!!!! Hope you're having a nice day!!!! I'm insane about your SOMA au, it's so nice to see an au where Simon is spared from The Horrors

Your au has so much potential and I think that's really neat, was anyone there when Simon woke up? Imagine how scary it must be if you're a pathos employee just chilling and then one of the dive suits gains sentience and starts freaking out, I'd hate to be the one to explain to him that he's not human and he's 100 years in the future

You said in one of your posts that he becomes the poster guy for robot rights, what did he do to become that popular? I'm genuinely curious about what some guy at the bottom of the ocean can do to become a major figure in what sounds like a civil rights movement

*emerges from the salt marsh covered in conference presentation abstracts and barnacles* oml I haven’t thought deeply about my beloved Paranoid Android of Pathos II AU in too long… I’m so glad that goofy little concept has been fun for you too!

1. Was anyone there when Simon woke up?

Kind of? In my head the diving suit+scanner was an abandoned pet project of Catherine’s that was quite literally shoved in a closet somewhere when other projects began to take priority. (The world isn’t ending; research is just Like That sometimes.) The closet happened to have a structure gel leak which contaminated the suit and bam! Simon is Very Confused and concerned about suddenly being in a closet. Catherine is in her office at the time, so hyper focused on her work she doesn’t really hear him come out of the closet and when he asks where he is/what’s going on she kind of assumes he’s a technician that got lost until she turns around and promptly Nopes Out. Explaining to him that he’s not human and 100 years in the future is Ross’ job (AI psychologist - that’s kind of in his job title, right?)

2. Why does Simon have international acclaim for pioneering android rights?

I’m not gonna lie that was a joke based entirely on the crack premise of him getting arrested for stealing from the on-station Panera Bread restaurant (which is entirely my own ridiculous invention for silliness purposes). I guess the reason why the world would care is because like…you arrested a robot. Does the robot’s ‘creator’ get prosecuted or does the robot? I imagine the case was dropped because it was so absurd and had never happened before but it technically set the precedent that a) AI scans are independent of their physical ‘creators’ and b) are entitled to basic rights insofar as the legal system and its proceedings.

A bit of a stretch to call it a civil rights movement since Simon is the only scan that’s ‘awake’ although I’m sure the Carthage Industries Ethics Committee is having a hell of a time figuring out if they need to stop using such scans/should they try to make more androids like Simon for profit/etc. Bad day to be in the corporate offices.

…although I reiterate that factoid was born from the joke premise of Simon stealing from Panera. A restaurant on Pathos II. At the bottom of the ocean. Because Carthage Industries has taste. So this is all a goofy crack scenario anyway lol

[rossresources]

━ ​ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ: ᴄᴏᴍɪꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ ━

(Sorry for the long post)

[ ᴇɴ ]

Hi! I have some news. My new pinned post also contains this info, but here it goes! I've received some asks regarding skin commissions. So... I finally created a page for this info which you can read here. I currently have 2 ongoing commissions (check my pinned post for updates), so I'll be focusing on those.

[ ᴘᴛ ]

Olá! Tenho novidades. Esta informação também vai ficar no meu post fixo. Eu tenho recebido algumas asks sobre comissões para skins. Então, eu finalmente criei uma página informativa que pode ser lida aqui. Atualmente, eu tenho 2 comissões em andamento (vê o post fixo para atualizações), então vou estar focada nessas.

━ ​​ɴᴇᴡ ᴇᴅɪᴛɪɴɢ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ​​: @illunis-avatars ━

[ ᴇɴ ]

Ross Resources started as a resource blog for roleplay, by posting my edits and codes. However, since my blog gained some attention (a lot more than I ever imagined), I've felt the need to separate the two quite a few times to make it more organized. I finally did it. I will only post codes on Ross Resources, but I have a new blog with all my edits, on which I will be posting all my edits from now on. If you like my edits and would like to see new ones, follow @illunis-avatars! This new tumblr is managed by me and my super talented friend @persephonaeblog, we will both be accepting requests (yes, they're finally back)!

[ ᴘᴛ ]

O Ross Resources começou como um blog com recursos para roleplay, para postar os meus edits e codes. Isto porque todos os fóruns de recursos em que eu já estive acabaram por floppar, então eu cansei-me disso e queria o meu próprio tumblr para ser o meu espaço e partilhar tudo o que eu quisesse, quando eu quisesse. Eu nunca esperei ganhar tanta atenção aqui, mas eu acabei por sentir a necessidade de separar os edits dos codes várias vezes, para organizar melhor as minhas coisas. E finalmente fiz isso! Só vou postar codes no Ross Resources a partir de agora, mas eu tenho um novo blog para os edits. Se gostas dos meus edits e quiseres ver os novos, segue o @illunis-avatars! Este tumblr vai ser gerido por mim e pela minha amiga (super talentosa) @persephonaeblog, que vai ajudar-me com os pedidos (que sim, voltaram, amém).

━ ᴀᴠᴀᴛᴀʀ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢꜱ​ ━

[ ᴇɴ ]

And lastly... I have another new blog, so that I can reblog avatars from any creators, not just myself. My goal is to have a blog where you can easily search for all avatars from any face claim. There aren't many face claims yet, but I will take requests to reblog avatars for any face claim. This new blog is @lunar-looms

[ ᴘᴛ ]

E finalmente... eu tenho um outro blog novo, que vou usar para reblogar avatares de outros criadores, não só meus. O meu objetivo é ter um blog em que dê para encontrar facilmente todos os avatares para qualquer face claim. Ainda não tenho muitos face claims lá, mas eu vou aceitar pedidos para reblogar avatares para qualquer face claim. Este novo blog é @lunar-looms

[9leaguesofmirrors]

How It Feels To Hate (a Ross Gaines x Joseph Lisgoe fanfic)

I don't know if this will ever see the light of day but, if you're reading this, that means it has and I've lost the small amount of shame I was clinging onto. Mad respect to smut-writers, because this was difficult!

WARNINGS: Hate-sex, knife play, very light choking/breath play

Ross Gaines and Joseph Lisgoe despised each other, it was obvious from a mile off. In the rare moments the two of them were together there was calm chaos, like two electrodes coming together to create a spark that threatened to set them both alight

Yes, they really did despise each other

Which is why Lisgoe hated the fact that Ross would continuously fall behind on his debts, forcing him to take time out of his day to sort it out

"What the fuck," he emphasised the question by pushing Ross hard against the door as it shut behind him "is your problem?"

"Not even a hello? What a shame."

That's another thing he hated, the fact that Ross seemed to take great pleasure in being a smarmy prick. Especially so, since his wit was quick enough to prove a challenge

"Why do you insist on making my life difficult? My freetime gets pissed down the drain because you'd rather play silly buggers!"

"You don't have to come, surely your subordinates could take over. Maybe not the fat one, but that tall man could easily take your place."

Ross expected the silence to follow, and the hard glare Lisgoe frequently gave him. What he didn't expect was the patronising smile it ended up contorting into

"Something tells me you wouldn't be too fond of that."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not stupid, Ross. You're not the kind of person to forget their debts this many times," as Lisgoe spoke, his voice became more condescending, hands on his hips "you're usually so good."

Ross hated the way that tone made his stomach turn, in a way that he couldn't equate to sickness. It was the type of turn that settled deep within up, his lower stomach... and somewhere else below. For a split second, he moved his head away and suddenly felt his chin being grabbed and tugged back with such force it almost knocked his glasses off

"Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you."

"I tend to tune out of conversations that bore me."

There was something about Ross' eyes that gave Lisgoe the creeps. They were blue, but reminded him less of skies and oceans, and more of ice. Yes, they struck through him like icicles and he hated the fact he couldn't pull away

"You have no fucking idea," Lisgoe tightened his grip on Ross' chin, stepping closer in a sharp movement "how much I fantasise about dragging a knife across your chest."

"Fantasize?" Ross repeated, looking him up and down with a glint in his eyes "What an interesting word."

"What that means," his hand moved from Ross' chin and wrapped slowly, almost teasingly, around his throat "is that nothing brings me more satisfaction than imagining every single way I could hurt you."

Ross hated the way his pelvis dropped when he heard that

"You wouldn't do that." He showed no signs of being affected, keeping his face as neutral as possible

It was the exact face that pissed Lisgoe off

"Is that right?" He replied in a half-whisper, pressing gently against Ross's neck "And why's that?"

There was something oddly amusing in all of this. Toeing the line, hatred boiling into something else. Something that rested deep within both of them, and this was all part of the game. How long before the fire started?

"Because," Ross' voice came out hoarse, but didn't lose it's smugness "I don't think you hate me half as much as you claim to."

He managed to move his knee between Lisgoe's legs, taking the breathy groan that slipped up from the bottom of his throat as a small win

"I think you're full of fucking shite." Came the retort "I hate you just as much as you hate me."

"Then show me."

That wasn't what Lisgoe expected to hear

Hell, it wasn't what Ross expected to say!

"Show you what?"

Regardless of the unexpected demand, Ross kept his demeanour calm and collected

"You talk a lot about the pain you want to inflict on me, but you're yet to actually do anything about it. It's not as if I don't have plenty of knives for you to play with, but if you don't have the guts-"

"Cut the shite, what are you on about?"

"Show me how much you hate me."

Lisgoe's jaw tightened, considering where this could go. If he were more collected, perhaps more logical, he'd have thought about how this would further complicate whatever strange relationship they had

But Lisgoe was never good with logic

"Right." His lips were brushing against Ross' ear, murmuring into it "This is what's gonna happen. I'm heading for the kitchen, you're can either wait here or leave. I don't give a fuck what you do but, if you decide to run off, god help your sorry arse when I find you."

As soon as he felt Ross nodding slightly, he was off

Ross knew he'd be in deep if he left, but then again, he didn't really care. It's my house, he reminded himself and he invited himself here. I can do what I like, who does he think he is? With that, he took his keys off the hook beside the door and left. Part of him wondered whether he should lock Lisgoe in to teach him a lesson, put him under citizen's arrest, but he quickly decided against it. He hated him, why would he want him in his house for that long?

So Lisgoe came back to nobody

"That bastard!" He snapped, fully prepared to turn the whole house apart before he noticed the unlocked door, which he swung open and stormed right out of

"Come out, you fucker..." he muttered to himself, making his way to the back of the house - where he saw Ross at the other end checking, presumably, for him

Wasting no time, he darted over and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling him into an iron grip. His torso was pressed against Ross' back and he had a knife under his chin

"I just want to talk." His voice was unnervingly soft as his eyes trailed the length of Ross' throat, meeting his eyes with a hard stare "Why do you have to piss about?"

"You're talking way too much, it's like you're overcompensating for-"

Ross was cut short by teeth running up his neck and his shirt being unbuttoned. Before he knew it, his back was slammed into the brick wall behind him. Despite the growing feeling of heat through his body, his face was unmoving

"As I was saying, it's like you're overcompensating. You're stalling." At this point, his face contorted into one of cold arrogance as he leaned towards Lisgoe, peering at him "You're scared."

"Scared, am I?" Was the response, in that dangerously soft tone "You have a lot of fucking nerve." He took his hand to Ross' throat, using it to push his against the wall again

The cold tip of the knife met Ross' lower stomach, but in a way which showcased a rare gentleness. It hovered slowly up his torso, barely touching his skin, and sent a sensation which caused him to lean his head back and sigh. It wasn't long before he could feel the bladed edge at the side of his neck

Each stared at the other. Eyes fixated, as if neither was able to move in that moment. Perhaps they didn't want to. There was something electric which had somehow become magnetic

They hated each other, but they didn't hate this

All at once, Lisgoe's mouth was on Ross' and his other hand was following the path his knife had taken, this time moving down the body until it reached his belt and-

Ross' right hand was shielding the buckle. He broke the kiss and stared at him with a cold expression, as if he wasn't being held at knife-point

"The fuck are you doing?" Rasped an impatient Lisgoe "If you didn't want it you should've said-"

"I do."

Lisgoe lowered the knife in his confusion

"I want this, but I'm not sure you do."

"What the fu- I'm the one that fucking started it!"

"And I'm not convinced by you. At all."

"OK? What am I meant to do about that?"

"Beg me."

That caught Lisgoe completely offguard and he moved back slightly. Once the shock had melted away, he couldn't help but laugh

"You're taking the piss, me? Begging you?" He brandished the knife in front of his face "I don't need to beg you for anything."

"I'm the one that's put in most of the work," Ross shrugged, as if he were discussing business plans with a colleague "you just waved a knife around and got a little violent." He pushed the knife away with a look of superiority "If you really want it, convince me."

Lisgoe's smirk melted into a sneer as he grabbed Ross' right wrist

"We both know I could rip your hand off if I wanted to."

"But you won't, because that's boring."

"If you don't shut your mouth, I'll leave you high and dry."

"You won't do that either."

Ross' eyes showed no signs of intimidation, and it was pissing Lisgoe off. To ask such a thing of him with such little shame, it was unheard of. The worst part was that he couldn't say he disliked the push-back

He moved closer, one hand gripping at Ross' wrist and the other grabbing the collar of his open shirt. He was close enough for his mouth to brush against his neck

"You're a thick bastard if you don't think I want this." He muttered sharply, running the flat surface of the knife down his throat "So cut the shite and just..." by the time he reached his collarbone, he felt something in him slipping and he let his hand rest over Ross' right hand "Please Ross, put me out of my fucking misery."

A smarmy remark brewed in Ross' head, but ultimately died there when his brain realised just how nice it sounded to hear the slight hint of Lisgoe's need slipping into what was clearly meant to sound like a demand. He moved his hand away from his belt, felt a hand move down his trousers, and everything blurred. It was just heat, friction and breath. Lisgoe's mouth pressed hard on Ross' and their heavy breaths syncronised in a way that made them both light-headed, breathing in each other's exhales until they were both pleasurably dizzy. It was like, if Ross didn't dig his nails hard into Lisgoe's back (which tore out someone quite nice from the pit of his throat), he'd end up falling. Clearly, this was a shared feeling; as Lisgoe had dropped the knife and his free hand was against Ross's jaw, his fingers gripping the back of his head like an anchor

As soon as Ross ripped his head away for air, Lisgoe took the opportunity to go for Ross' neck, but was stopped

"Work tomorrow." He panted, leaning his head back against the wall "I don't feel like explaining it to them."

"Would make you more interesting."

Ross retaliated by moving the collar of Lisgoe's shirt down and biting, hard, at his shoulder. The sound that followed send shivers through Ross' whole body and resulted in him being grabbed by the throat and held there as Lisgoe's hand pumped faster. The bitemark was prevalent, even now, despite the top of the tattoo sleeve on the man's arm

"Suits you." He breathed out

Lisgoe didn't respond, he was too busy watching every movement on Ross' face. He was trying to keep composed, it was obvious by the way his jaw clenched, showing all his teeth. And the way, every so often, he'd bite down on his lower lip to muffle any sound that might come out. He leaned in close, his breathing heavy against Ross' ear

"Next time, I'm marking you."

"Next time?" Ross raised an eyebrow, somehow not losing his smugness despite what was happening "I thought you hated me."

"And?"

"Why would there be a next time?"

This got a breathy, slightly gutteral, laugh from Lisgoe and he pressed a kiss to Ross' mouth, pulling his lower lip between his teeth

"Let's not be fucking stupid."

A/N: DONE IT'S DONE! I hope you all saw that because I will NOT be doing it again... or will I? /hj

[saintmeghanmarkle]

The Spectator: Harry Meghan and the absurdity of the awards industry by u/Von_und_zu_

The Spectator: Harry, Meghan and the absurdity of the awards industry Harry and Meghan have become like Idi Amin with his chestful of spurious medals – they are weighed down with meaningless gongs that have been bestowed upon them by friendly organisations.https://ift.tt/jpSAFTI may mock, but in truth, Harry and Meghan have achieved something useful: they have exposed once and for all the sheer vacuity of the awards industry. It is not too difficult to imagine why they have really been given these honours: because it gained the promoters publicity that they would not have received had they rewarded, say, genuine aviators or human rights campaigners. Awards ceremonies have become a multi-million dollar business which require celebrities, not ordinary mortals, on the stage – with maybe just one or two genuinely deserving recipients to make it look reasonable.  But by promoting Harry and Meghan as, apparently, history’s highest-ever achievers, the industry finally has ridiculed itself. So thank you, Harry and Meghan, for that. Maybe you should even have an award for it.Edit to add: I am amused that Ross Clark doesn't bother with their titles. Thank you Mr Clark! ​ post link: https://ift.tt/AUY1fud author: Von_und_zu_ submitted: January 12, 2024 at 04:15PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[dinotoro]

enhypen as sylvia plath poems

permanent taglist : @mochamvgz , @nyxvrse , @luvistqrzzz , @hyhees , @sngvhs warnings : none divider credit : @v6que lowercase intended.

heeseung - Poems, Potatoes

your relationship with heeseung was a short lived yet eventful one

eventful as in the lack of events

it just felt odd and cold

why even be in a relationship where the other person doesn't reciprocate the love you give?

yes it is true that not everyone loves with the same amount

but it was getting too much for you to ask for even a sliver of affection

and you were not a believer of tough love or that love blooms in the darkest of times

when everything ended, heeseung was indifferent

or maybe he did feel something, but just like always, you couldn't see or feel it

jay - Alicante Lullaby

your life could be described as a boring movie about war and bloodshed

until jay arrived; because it turned into a musical after

when you had tumbled into the deep loathing pit with no hopes of getting up, jay had extended his hand and pulled you out of it

if you were a survivor, then jay was your shock blanket and your shield

if your life was a discarded painting, then jay was bob ross

he painted shades you had never imagined to see in your life

he brought music and colour to your life

and you couldn't have been more grateful

and every time you saw the rainbow, you would think of jay's everlasting glowing smile

jake - Frog Autumn

as john green has once described, falling in love is like sleeping - slowly and then all at once

but what about falling out of it?

what is that described as?

is it like waiting up from a nightmare - when your eyes shoot open and you lay in bed trembling and panting?

or is the unsettling feeling and the soft sobs that escape the dry lips because it all felt too real?

autumn is such a nice weather; the pumpkins waiting to be carved and the leaves on the ground waiting to be crushed to give the crunchy sound

then why is it that the only shattering sound that you heart was of your heart?

how come you thought of jake as the love of your life, yet for him you were just a lover of the passing summer?

you cried out loud, hoping winter will hold the answers to the all the questions that you had

sunghoon - Black Pine Tree In An Orange Light

you have always found autumn to be an interesting season

it is such a highly anticipated season, even with all its morbid glory

well stepping on leaves and cutting pumpkins up seems like an aggressive way of displaying affections

yet you found it to be so joyful

sunghoon had always been this cold guy who pushed everyone away, afraid of love

but then you arrived in his life

he knows it's cliche, but he can't help being smitten

it's you, after all

in his life where everything was dark and black, you painted it a bright shade of orange

needless to say, the contrast nourished the glow and helps the flowers of love bloom

sunoo - Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss

you wished you were ignorant

you wished you didn't decide to visit sunoo's office

you wished you didn't see him kissing his secretary

you wished, but it was too late

you saw your boyfriend kissing his secretary

you saw everything crumbling down

when you confronted him about it, he tried to act innocent and said he will kiss your worries away; but you pushed him away

he wished he didn't cheat on you

he wished he stopped himself before it got out of his hand

he wished, but what was the point of wishing when what he did was something he encouraged and consented?

jungwon - Mushrooms

jungwon and your love and not been the most conventional one out there

it was mostly him making the decisions and you going along with it

did you let him dictate your life? yes, but only because you loved him

or that was what you would tell yourself

for you wanted a taste of freedom too

so slowly and steadily you started to gain some control

and as you two laid on the bed, limbs intertwined, you smiled at his sleepy face

yes, you loved jungwon but you loved yourself a little bit more

niki - Fiesta Melons

niki had always been a goal oriented guy

when he had his eyes on something, he was determined to get it

so you weren't surprised when he kept crushing on you, knowing very well that you would not say yes

...or would you?

all these insecurities and questions were washed away when after years of chasing you and improving on himself, he finally got to call you his other half

you were reminiscing all those times while walking down the streets holding his hand

it was the festive season and everyone seemed happy

there was colourful confetti everywhere and the fruits looked fresh

every shopkeeper had a big smile on their face

when you looked at your current boyfriend, you smiled widely

all the colours around you seem to fit well, for your boyfriend was indeed a man to be celebrated

[chirpsythismorning]

I dont even think the tag is dead at all tbh. We were really spoiled last summer with 2k post per day, and something crazy happening everyday like Mikhailgate, scriptgate, sock anon or people impersonating Ross duffer, but if you check most tags on this app, that's rarely the case. The thing is, it's been a year since season 4 came out and we're still getting around 300 posts per day and I need people to realise how crazy that is. Before season 4 the tag had like 5 k followers and there could be days without a single post. The fact that it's been a year and we still surpass 200 posts, AND we've already made it through the most content drought phase of the hiatus (since filming is about to begin and we'll increase the daily posts again) is crazy. This tag is still very much active, even for a show that hasn't released any new content for a year. And also AO3 is still active. The fact that for a whole year, there's been writers who still update fics or create new ones everyday is something I'm not used to coming from other smaller fandoms.

I get it's a bit more boring right now and we are looking back to the may-august craze, but we've already made it through the worst and we only need to hold on for one more month

This is definitely the best way to look at it!

I think I’m also maybe sad bc a lot of familiar faces aren’t as active, like some folks I remember seeing daily are gone. Which is fine!

And even despite that you’ll see posts in the tag get like hundreds of likes, so there are definitely a lot of people still lurking just not posting. Which is also fine!

It’s so true though that we are a lot more active than we realize.

Tumblr in general I used to think of as like a no man’s land pre-s4 bc it tends to really only be active in specific fandoms where like the unity is on point bc the content is just rolling in.

So many fandoms reside here at a point, but dwindle over time, and I feel like we are very fortunate to have made a big space here bc it is a cool platform when you have a lot of people that like a certain thing and want to talk about it.

And we’re fortunate enough to be so massive and not only that but this is sort of just the beginning. Imagine how many followers we’ll gain leading up to s5, during and after…? Or the aftermath of people coming here to look at theories and be like YOU GUYS WERE RIGHT! All the queer fans who kind of talked down on us (understandably) for potentially falling for queerbait, joining in and being like wow this is surreal, it finally happened. It’s going to be magical.

For now I guess it just makes me wonder if I should take a break too?? Like seeing yourself over and over in the tag is almost a wake up call that I should step back like everyone else is for the time being? Bc like idk if it’s maybe annoying to see the same person over and over? Or if it’s just the reminder of how inactive things are and that’s what makes people step back too?

Not even a bad thing necessarily like you said, bc this is still an unprecedented case of a fandom being quite active despite the circumstances.

Honestly though, even if there isn’t much news going into May and in the couple months after it, beyond like the bare minimum of what we’re expecting, I’ll try to embrace it and maybe step back or even focus on more detailed posts instead of the day to day fodder.

I also hate myself for this, but I rarely go in the top posts tag??? I’m always like living in the recent posts part of it and that’s probably also the problem 😭

So reminder to anyone that’s like me who does the same, we gotta support more of us that have top posts too bc I will literally remember the top posts exists, go there, find absolute gems (obviously it’s top posts???) and then be like why the fuck don’t I come here more often??? That’s another way I could probably curb my disappointment about us not being as active as I’m used to. And it’s super simple.

There’s a lot of stuff like that I could do better at to contribute to the solution of this being a better experience for myself and other still active on here!

Thanks for the pep talk anón 😇🙏

[mercwiththem0uth]

Agh, hi, i love your drabbles! i've read every single one so i know you've already covered it a bit, but i would love to read something about caring for an emotionally distraught Ross, on account of all the being called worthless scum who'll never amount to anything everyday. What do you think? 💜

hi!! thank you for your kind words about my work and for your request - i would love to do this for you! i wasn't entirely sure how you'd like this to be written, so i've gone for ross x gender neutral reader. i hope this is okay! let me know what you think and i hope you enjoy :)

p.s, i do have other inboxes/requests which i will reply to as soon as possible! i'm not ignoring anyone! <3

---

Ross Gaines - "Worthless Scum"

Summary: [Ross x GNreader] Ross gradually becomes worn down by Pauline's relentless bullying, and seeks comfort in the arms of his favourite person.

The look on his face as he entered through the front door to our shared apartment almost ripped my heart in two. His eyes, once bright and full of wisdom, now dull and sad. His mouth, soft lips normally smirking or twitching with intense interest, now down-turned in a melancholy frown. His face, usually so clean and smooth to the touch, now tainted with smears of dried blood, and roughened due to weeks of tiring work and pain.

This had seemed to get progressively worse over the past week or so. When he was first assigned the job of investigating a restart officer at the local job centre, neither of us imagined what horrors he would return home with every night. It started with simple, belittling comments and rude remarks from the woman he called 'Pauline', but with each passing day he'd start showing up with random bruises and telling me heinous stories of being beaten and physically attacked.

Of course I was horrified, I had begged him to report her, or at least refuse to continue working until she was fired. But Ross was stubborn, he always had been. Especially when it came to his job.

It was only a few evenings ago that he had come glumly walking into the apartment, his expression laced with unusual sadness. I was stood cooking for the two of us and expected him to give me a usual 'hello' kiss, but instead he glanced at me with a weak smile and walked straight to the shower, sighing heavily as he went. When he reappeared to eat dinner, I had tried asking him if he was okay, but he just nodded his head and changed the subject. Our evening meal was usually one of the favourite parts of our day, getting to finally spend time together and catch eachother up about our day. But this particular evening, it was quiet. He usually doused in my home-cooked meals, but he barely ate anything this night, pushing it around with his cutlery. As we cleaned up, I tried again to see what was wrong, but he dismissed me and said he just needed an early night, before taking himself to bed.

It was very strange behaviour for Ross. And this carried on up until today. I gasped aloud at the sight of him, immediately rushing towards him and placing my hands on his arms. "My god, Ross! Please... tell me what's going on" I could barely whisper as my eyes examined him, riddled with anxiety and dread as I couldn't wait any longer to find out what had been bothering my significant other.

I watched as he opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as no words came out, only a broken squeak. Hot tears immediately filled his eyes as he shook his head, falling limp as I pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. We stayed still for a while, allowing him to cry into my neck as my hands rubbed soothingly against his back and across his hair. I had never really seen Ross cry before. He had always been very selfless with his feelings and didn't communicate them much with me - apart from the things he deemed important. He was a very headstrong man, extremely patient too, so seeing him so distraught almost made me break down along with him.

When the sobbing had quietened, I held him at an arms length and gently wiped the stray tears away, trying to read his face for answers. "Talk to me, baby." We didn't use pet names very often, but this felt necessary. He sighed and lowered his head, looking at the floor for a moment. "Let's sit down" I said gently, leading him to the sofa and perching next to him. He took a shaky breath as I held one of his hands in mine.

"It's Pauline..."

He went on about how awful the past week had been. He didn't think that she could get any worse than she already had been, but he was wrong. The beatings, the insults...

"It must be true," he wailed, fresh tears falling as he continued to talk, "I'm obviously not good enough. I'll never amount to anything." I couldn't believe the words I was hearing. I was baffled, to put it simply. I shuffled closer to him, wrapping my arm around his back.

"Ross... You are the smartest man I've ever met. You don't seriously believe any of that?"

I felt his shoulders raise and fall again with a dismissive shrug. "Being an internal investigator isn't much, is it?" His voice was angry, but he spoke so gently, almost as if he was questioning the very words out of his own mouth and was asking if I agreed or not.

"That's not true. I know you don't even believe that." I squeezed his shoulders as I spoke. "It's a really interesting job, you're so good at it. And you love it, which is all that matters anyway."

He shook his head with a whisper. "Not anymore." My heart broke hearing him admit that. Ross has always been a workaholic, he has stated to me many times that before our relationship, all he knew was working, work, and even more work. And now he's falling out of love with his job? Pauline should be grateful that I don't know what she looks like, otherwise she'd be getting a hard slap.

"Oh, Ross" I sighed, pulling him into me for another hug, tears still pouring from his eyes, wetting my shirt. "No matter what you do from here, whatever you decide is best for you, I will always be so proud of you. I love you so much." I felt his head raise as he tilted to look up at me, eyes glistening. I stroked against his hair and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose where they had slipped, "You have always done me so proud. And you should be proud of yourself too. For everything. Don't you dare listen to whatever Pauline has said, you're a very successful man with the biggest heart, and I'm so lucky to love you."

I reached to grab a tissue from the coffee table and dabbed it under his eyes.

"I'm so lucky to be loved by you" he choked out in a whisper.

I smiled before laying down onto the sofa and extending my arms up towards him, welcoming him in for a cuddle. He curled into me, his head on my chest, letting me pepper small kisses all over his forehead. Some time had passed, and I was sure he had fallen asleep. My own eyes were getting heavy, and it was only until he mumbled my name that I realised he was still awake.

"Hmm?" I hummed, tilting my head down to look at him.

"Thank you." He murmured, reaching for my hand to press a small kiss to my knuckle.

When I didn't say anything, he turned his head to make eye contact with me. "What?"

I stayed quiet for a moment, allowing myself to think. "Please don't feel like you have to hide anything from me ever again. I'll always want to help you." I spoke sweetly but firmly, making sure he knew I was being serious.

With a small nod of his head, I smiled at him and leaned down towards him for a kiss. He puckered his lips and closed his eyes in anticipation, but opened them again when nothing happened. His brows furrowed in confusion as he stared at me inches away from his face, "What's wrong?"

"You've still got blood all over your nose" I chuckled, grabbing him by the hand and leading him towards the bathroom to clean him up.

[dino-fart]

A Father’s Sin | Chapter 1: A Proposition

Summary + Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Pairing: Namor x Female!Reader

Genre: Action, Adventure, Tragedy, Romance

Summary: Your father is the CEO of a biotech research company. You are the head of the research and development branch of the company. You specialize in nanotechnology and planes. You quickly gained a representation of being an infamous pilot and brilliant weapons engineer. But when an agent from the CIA requests your help to aid the most secret country in the world, will you take the chance?

You landed the plane in the hanger and got the clearance to deplane. You gave the crew the thumbs up and removed your oxygen mask. “All clear!” You shouted back and removed your helmet. You were handed a water bottle by one of the engineers. 

“How’d she fly?” 

“Like a dream.” You smirked. 

“I want to work on the engine a bit more than I’d like you to try and get the plane to Mach 10, the nanotech should be able to reduce the plane from overheating.” 

“Sounds like a plan.” You nodded. 

“Director!” You heard someone shout and you turned to see three of the board members and a man with sunglasses approach you. 

“Is there a problem?” You furrowed your brows. 

“Quite the opposite, director!!” The board member, Don, smiled. 

“Apologies for interrupting your flight session, director. My name is Agent Everett Ross. Mind if I have a moment of your time?” The older man removed his sunglasses and smiled. 

The two of you were in your large office now and you watched him pour two cups of coffee. “I’ve read so much about you, a woman accomplishing so much at your age and continuing to push boundaries despite your gender, it’s inspiring.” Ross smiled at you and offered you a cup. 

You took it cautiously, “Well I didn’t do this alone. It helps to have a CEO as a father.” 

“True but I can’t imagine your father was too pleased knowing his daughter wanted to fly planes and put herself at risk.” 

“What do you want Agent Ross?” You said firmly, irritated by his words. 

“I have a proposition for you but I’m not sure if your father would agree.” 

“My father and I don’t agree on a lot of things. And while I do work under his company, I’m not under his thumb.” 

“Perfect. I want you to come to Wakanda with me.” 

You nearly dropped the coffee cup, “I’m sorry...What?” 

“Wakanda. You and me. Their new queen needs help with nanotechnology and from what I know of you, you’re the best of the best.” Ross set the cup down. 

You furrowed your brows, not buying it. But your curiosity was peaked. “Very well. I’ll get a plane ready.” 

“Actually...Wakanda is very...Secretive of how people find them.” 

You raised a brow and crossed your arms over your chest. 

“I’ll have to sedate you or blindfold you, dealer’s choice,” Ross said so casually. 

You chuckled softly, “Agent...You can’t be serious right? Wakanda needs me? Who said no.” 

“It doesn’t matter who says no, it matters if you say yes.” 

Silence now filled the room as you thought it over. You’d always dreamed of going to Wakanda. A place with such rich technology and intelligence. You set the cup down and glared at Ross. “If this is some sort of kidnapping scheme or if I end up somewhere else than Wakanda...It won’t be my father you need to worry about.” You warned. 

Ross nodded, “Understood, I’m glad you agreed...Tomorrow morning shall we...Set off?” 

“Can’t wait.” You nodded and watched the agent leave the office. You were curious to see how this would play out and why in the hell would an amazing civilization need your help? 

There was more to this, you had a strong feeling.

Dividers By: @silkholland​

[workingonit-currently]

League of Gentlemen Fic

Just a little Ross Gaines fic inspired by @imagine-a-dream

AO3 link here:

And for all those who don't want it on AO3 and would rather read it here, click read more.

"Who did this again?" You ask Ross, one hand on his jaw as the other cleans the dried blood off his nose. He'd returned back to the flat with another broken nose, god knows why.

It's a sparce flat, nothing personal, no trinkets and especially nothing welcoming. Clean and sterile, that's how many would describe it.

"The she-demon." He answers flatly, staring off into the distance. 

Ah, the 'she-demon'. The affectionate name for Pauline, the woman who works as this stupid town's restart officer. (God only knows why Royston Vasey needed one of them considering half the jobs aren't filled and everyone here is bordering on insane.)

"Not done with your gathering of evidence to put her away then?" You ask, trying to insert some lightness into your tone but honestly you can't take much more of this. 

Everyone in Royston Vasey has faults and you are no different, you enjoy injury, but seeing Ross return beaten and bruised almost every day is testing that enjoyment. 

He doesn't answer, staying silent as you move on to cleaning his hands. 

Somehow the she-demon's managed to give him scratches and cuts all over both hands. They look raw and deep so you can't blame Ross for hissing when you press a washcloth to him.

"You're doing great." 

"Doesn't feel like it." 

Focusing on the hands and not your partner's face you hum, "Sorry, are we talking about you being a brave boy concerning the 'pen-prick' or your injuries?" 

"Both." He answers, clicking his tongue as you start wrapping his hands, making sure to only cover the cuts since he still needs to be able to write and read. (How else are you meant to spend your evening?)

You've gotten far too adept at doing this since meeting Ross a few months ago but you wouldn't change it for the world. (Even if you get a bad feeling whenever your phone rings now. Too many times he's asked for a ride due to not being able to walk.)

"Good news Ross Gaines, you and I are free tomorrow. We can spend the day out on the town, partying." You inform him with a smile, knowing full well there's shit to do around town and you both are not the partying types. 

In truth you'll spend the day wandering around the shops trying to forget the insanity of the people here and searching for things to read. 

He hums before sighing, looking back at you with a small frown, still unwilling to break the mask even in his home. 

"Come on, it'll be fun, your place needs new flowers anyway." You admit casually, moving from your place kneeling on the carpet to sit beside him on the sofa, looking at his plain kitchen table. 

It's become a habit, getting flowers to try and liven up his home ever since you returned one day with a spare bouquet of white roses. (You didn't quite realize Ross waking up to white roses directly in the middle of his table would cause a panic. You both had a very serious talk about how you definitely didn't mean anything by it though you would't be object to the idea, starting your casual relationship.)

You're not sure what to call your relationship. It's not a friendship but you patch him up after Pauline's abuse and you stay at his place free of charge. It's not a conventional relationship, you sleep in separate rooms and often miss each other from most of the day except for evenings.

You like the arrangement though. 

"What flowers this time? Lilies?" He enquires.

"I was thinking Amsonia." You respond as you loo back at him, glancing down to notice him fiddling with the bandages around his fingers.

"Amsonia." He echoes with a sigh. 

"Blue star." You state before reaching up and stroking his hair carefully. You can't hold hands but by the way he's trying to subtly lean into your touch he does want contact.

You stay there, making small movements with your hand to stroke his hair, trying to comfort him, before he eventually adjusts his position on the sofa, lowering himself down to place his head in your lap. 

"What shall we talk about tonight, you or me?" You ask, eyes firmly on Ross as he brings his hands close to his chest and curls up on the sofa. 

"You. I'm too tired to talk about Pauline." 

You hum before starting thinking of things to discuss. 

"Chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE is a degenerative disease that you could get from repeated head trauma, such as concussion. It results in behavioural problems, memory loss, mood problems, muddy thoughts, dementia, headaches and sometimes death. The most interesting thing is the suicidal thoughts that sometimes suffers have. It gets worse over time and you often find it in those injured in sports or military, yet it's part of the expected head injuries in those professions. One concussion does not a CTE make. I personally want to see a brain bleed with CTE but that'd be a horrible way to go. Did you know some might say memory loss can be a result of lack of sleep or stressful and forced sleep but there's no definite way to prove this, as lack of sleep also affects memory retention. So how do you choose if it's memory retention or memory loss. Is there a difference or overlap? I don't know Ross, I just don't know. I do, however, know Mr Hillary Briss is doing magic things with meat. I can't put my finger on it but his shop is one of the few people actually pay attention to. People schedule going into the butchers, that wouldn't happen in London."

Pausing as you look down, fingers still stroking through Ross' hair, you find him asleep, mouth slightly open.

Trying not to wake him you pull one of the books from table next to the sofa and start reading. You'll fall asleep sitting on this sofa if you need to, just not right now. 

Right now a middle aged woman has got to frame her stuck-up neighbour for the murder of a dog.

.

Fingers trace Ross' lips as you trace over the now scarring cut there. The skin is red and irritated but it's nothing

"Does it sting?" You enquire, knowing the answer already.

Logic says that of course it stings, the only area of the body that has more nerve endings than the face is the hands. Of course it sting.

"No." Ross lies or he really don't consider the pain he's feeling that bad.

Both are not good options but you can't bring yourself to press him, one lie you both know is a lie can't hurt.

Your hands are on either side of his face as he looks at you. He doesn't have his glasses and his hair is a mess from the night but to you, he looks perfect.

"If you spend any more time tracing my cuts we're going to be late." He sighs as you don't move, tongue darting out to lick along the cut on his lip.

"Late to go out wandering?" You ask.

He nods as you get up and roll your eyes. You should have expected him to schedule your day already.

.

"We should give Mr Chinnery that book." You comment as you walk, heading down the street to the market. Who knows what you're going to find today.

"What book?"

"Game of the hound." You state, referring to the book you were reading last night. Chinnery could use the book to frame anyone else for his accidental animal killings. He needs a break, it's starting to get ridiculous. 

"Please don't give that vet ideas." Ross sighs as you walk hand-in-hand. It's quiet this morning, mainly because your partner is an early bird in a town of 'never-see-the-light-of-day' moles. 

"Sorry about last night." He says out-of-the-blue as you pass the butchers.

"Hm?" You hum as you were staring in, trying to catch a glance at the meat inside. You can smell the mushed up sausage and onion even out here. 

"Last night, I'm sorry for falling asleep while you were talking. And for making you take care of me."

You stop at this, eyes narrowing at him.

"Ross."

"Yes?" He responds as he stops a few steps ahead of you, curious why you let go of his hand and stopped.

"You're okay. I enjoyed last night." You try and reassure him hoping he knows he's not going to get abandoned for being weak. 

"You enjoyed seeing me injured again?" 

"No!" You huff with a smile as he smiles back, "I only enjoy seeing people injured when it's not near constant and to someone I love." 

Ross rolls his eyes but he seems better, he doesn't try and stop you from snaking an arm around him as you approach him and start walking again.

"Don't lie." He whispers, "You like it more when people you love are injured." 

The slight good mood carries over to until you both are in newsagents trying to search for the actually drinkable water.

"Well well well, if it isn't Ross Gaines!" A grating voice calls as you both stop.

You'd never heard Pauline's voice but somehow you recognize it. 

"Hello Pauline." Ross greets, turning around to greet the woman as you subconsciously push yourself a little in front of him. 

Who knows what you're thinking, you have less of a chance of taking on the insane woman than Ross does but you still want to defend him and place yourself as a barrier between the two.

"And who is this? Another dole scum?" She asks, now greeting you as you force a smile and hold your hand out for a shake. (At least the hand that's not linked with Ross'.)

"No, actually. I work as a nurse." You explain, picking whatever job title you could that would sound impressive as she shakes your hand. 

She doesn't need to know you're something of an 'everyman', you do most of the free jobs around here. (Though most of the time it is sales, nursing and floristry.)

"Oooh, and how do you know the unemployed Ross? Not paying you to hang out with him I hope." Pauline continues in a tone you can only describe as peppy and condescending. Ross has done well to describe her and prepare you. 

As you start to answer you feel Ross' hand slowly slip from yours, confusing you until you glance and see Pauline staring at where your hands were linked and an awkward looking Ross.

Ah.

You're use to this, at least in part. Ross loves you but he's always uncomfortable with public displays of it. He'll slip his hand out of yours or step away from you when you pass someone or talk to anyone. He's got better but seeing Pauline, he's slipping back into old habits.

"We live together." You state simply before smiling, "But of course, we've taken up so much of your time, we'll be seeing you, goodbye Pauline." 

Grabbing Ross' arm and spinning around you high-tail it out of there, deciding drinkable water is not worth more time with the she-demon.

It's only half way up the street you realise Ross hasn't relaxed yet, his shoulder's tense as he stares pointedly at his feet.

He's back in the classroom. In the job centre, sitting at his tiny desk getting belittled and beaten, waiting for the next hit.

"Hey, Ross," You start, "Breath Ross, breath."

You start running your hands up and down his arm, facing him so he can see you and talking calmly, trying to get him to focus.

"You're okay, I'm here, Pauline's gone, you're okay." You continue as he blinks at the floor, the same frustrated expression he use to return home with taking over his face. 

It's progress, it's an actual expression and that means he's slowly coming back to you.

"We're stood on the pavement, near.." You look around before laughing a little to yourself, "Briss' butchers. I can smell cold meat and blood because...it's a butchers Ross, there's meat and blood."

He finally moves his gaze from his feet to look at you with a weak smile.

You give a smile back.

"Let's get the flowers home, we can read to relax." You suggest as you slowly take his hand, giving him time to pull away but he doesn't even as his hands shake he accepts your hand and you start walking again. 

"Place your bets on how many animals have been lost to Chinnery today." 

"...Five."

.

The evening plays out as any good evening with Ross should, a game of cards, cooking dinner and reading silently in each other's company. 

Followed by a tired Ross refusing to allow you not to be paid back for him sleeping on you and inviting you to sleep with him tonight. 

His pyjamas are silly and just as striped as his usual t-shirts but you couldn't be happier nestled into the black and white stripes.

You also couldn't be happier when you wake up to Ross making American pancakes and trying to hide the burnt ones as you enter, a book-shaped present waiting on the table. 

"I would have got flowers but..." 

You both look at the flowers you got yesterday before looking back at the wrapped book. It's either flowers or books with Ross and you're glad of it, but he really didn't need to, you keep telling him. 

He doesn't need to earn your love if he's done nothing wrong. 

[billiebubb]

Shostakovich You Say? That's It Hold It Right Up To The Camera So We Can See It

There's something the creators of this show want us to see here. After being expelled from the Soviet Union for a work deemed corrupt Shostakovich wrote this piece to try and win favour with Stalin and gain entry back into the Soviet Union. It worked. Does this story mimic Aziraphale's arc of expulsion and then acceptance back into Heaven?

Even more compelling is when we look deeper at the lyrics of the song much of the Symphony is based upon and imagine Metatron as the artistic barbarian:

Rebirth English translation © Philip Ross Bullock

With his lethargic brush, an artist-barbarian Scrawls over a painting made by a genius, Tracing his own illicit sketch Over it without reason.

But with the years, these alien colours Fall away like decrepit scales; And the creation of that genius Appears before us in its former beauty.

In the same way, delusions disappear From my anguished soul, And in their place, visions arise within it, Visions of pure and primal days.

Could our Season 2 be Metatron's scrawl and Season 3 be the flaking off of the paint to reveal the truth underneath?

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

Hunting Roses - Chapter 2

AN: This is a yandere Zemo fic. That means that it will have dark content. I do not endorse these relationships and behaviour in real life. This chapter contains spoilers for past Marvel movies, arguing, General Ross being an ass to everyone especially Wanda, mild coarse language, X men movie spoilers, and implied minor character death.

The atmosphere in the room was incredibly tense when General Ross introduced himself and stated the purpose for his presence, you couldn’t be the only one who noticed that Wanda seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible.

Ross’ speech began as if he was complimenting the efforts of the Avengers over the past couple of years but something about his tone warned you that that would change very soon.  Unfortunately, you were right.  Ross spoke about the damage that the Avengers had caused in the past and how one hundred and seventeen governments across the world had agreed on the importance of the Avengers being regulated by the UN.  If an Avenger failed to comply with the Sokovian Accords, they would face legal repercussions.

Ross seemed to delight in emphasising the title of the Accords once he’d noticed Wanda’s reaction the first time.  Your control over your temper was already thin because the Accords sounded a whole lot like the Mutant Registration Act that had almost become law a few years ago.

When Rogue and Wolverine had been kidnapped from the train station by Magneto, Sabretooth, Mystique, and Toad, you had been in the car with the Professor and Jean.  Magneto’s warning about the dangers of the Mutant Registration Act stayed with you to this day.  You blinked and refocused on the meeting as Ross finally finished speaking.

“In my experience, I have found that the best way to encourage people to see your point of view is not by insulting them nor is it by pressing on a tender wound, General.”  Rhodey’s tone was courteous and his words were polite but everyone present in the room could hear the warning hidden in his words.

Knowing the type of person Rhodey was and how much the armed forces meant to him, you felt your respect for the man grow. 

“You are treading on very thin ice, Lieutenant Colonel,” Ross warned, “any further words from you or any other Avenger may be treated as insubordination.”

“And when exactly did the armed forces gain the right to enforce what points of view we can and cannot argue in the United States of America?”  Your tone wasn’t as nearly as pleasant as Rhodey’s was.

“In light of the contributions that you have made to the Avengers and SHIELD during your time with both organisations, you have been granted immunity.”

All the Avengers turned to face you and some of them had betrayed looks on their faces.  You didn’t blame them in the slightest.

“Hang on Ross,” you stood up straight, “there are people around this table who have prevented far worse tragedies than you or I could possibly imagine.  So why then am I being granted immunity?”

Ross placed the Accords on the table with a thud, “I’ll see myself out then, shall I?”

The question was clearly rhetorical and Ross left the room.

“Well that was a mess,” Sam spoke up, casting a weary glance at the large amount of bound papers that made up the Accords.

Wanda’s hands dropped to her lap and she focused on the table as discussion broke out about the necessity of the Accords.  Seeing Wanda’s lip trembling, you refrained from shouting at the other Avengers about how they were focusing on the wrong thing at the moment.  Instead you walked over to where she was seated and you pulled her into a hug.

Wanda clutched at you tightly as you held her as if you were the only thing anchoring her to the Earth in this moment.

“It’s all my fault,” Wanda’s voice was so faint that you needed to strain to hear it but once her words registered, you shook your head.

“No, it’s not Wanda,” you spoke reassuringly as her tears dampened your shirt, “truthfully, I’m surprised that something like this didn’t happen immediately after New York.”

“There were many politicians arguing for it then,” Tony responded, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, “Pepper fielded quite a few journalists who supported the initial idea and SHIELD fielded the rest.  There were of course other politicians against it and it appeared to be dropped and forgotten.  Whether that’s because the politicians were associated with SHIELD, HYDRA or they opposed it morally, I don’t care.  I care that it’s affecting us now.  The pool of politicians supporting us has decreased by a lot and even though they are thankful that we’ve saved family members and communities in the past, the ones that still support us are starting to agree with the necessity of the Accords.”

“What are your thoughts on this (Name)?” Clint asked as you released Wanda but stayed standing by her side.

You grimaced and shook your head, “The only way I could see something like this maybe working and it’s a big maybe is if we had liaison officers who worked with us and the UN but…” you trailed off and sighed, “even that idea isn’t fool proof.  Our liaisons could be biased or influenced against the people we’re trying to save and because they’re our liaisons, we can’t go to help those people.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that people in the UN are corrupt?” Rhodey scoffed, “You’re talking about the most powerful body on Earth.”

“SHIELD was once one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world and HYDRA managed to infiltrate them,” Sam reminded him.

“Plus, I can’t speak for everyone here but I think it’d be extremely arrogant to think that we’ve managed to catch all the HYDRA members, allies, and sympathisers in such a short time.  HYDRA was huge in the 40s and they’ve had half a century to learn from their mistakes and hide in plain sight.” Steve added. You shot both him and Sam a grateful smile.

“That’s the thing,” Tony rebutted, “this is about us learning from our mistakes.  We need to be put in check and who better to do that than the UN?”

“Exactly,” Rhodey agreed.

Sam rested his elbow on the table and gestured to you, “(Name)’s got a point.  People’s interpretations of the Accords could place us in danger and let’s not forget about the Mutant Registration Act that was almost passed a few years ago.  We have quite a few members on the team with powers,” you barely supressed your trembling as you realised where Sam was going with this “and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for certain people to claim that they’re a danger to society.  It’s possible that the UN would act and demonstrate that they aren’t threats but there’d be people who would remain unconvinced and they could refuse assistance from those Avengers and then claim they didn’t do their job properly.  There’d be a public outcry to reinstate the Act and overwhelming support for it.”

Vision cleared his throat and looked up from the Accords.  You had been so occupied that you hadn’t noticed he was actually reading them, “Our very strength incites challenge.  Challenge incites conflict.  And conflict... breeds catastrophe.”

“Boom,” Rhodey agreed with a surly tone.

“Once I realised what my weapons were able do and actually doing, I shut down that side of the business and I minimised the catastrophe.”

“You chose to do that Tony,” Steve argued warily, “(Name) and Sam are right.  If we sign this, we risk not being able to help the people who really need it and we also risk being puppets.  We may not be perfect but the safest hands are our own.”

“You gotta make this hard, don’t you Rogers?” Tony blew out an exasperated breath, “If we don’t do this, it’ll be done to us later.  That’s a fact.  It won’t be pretty.”

Wanda heard Tony’s unspoken message, “You’re saying that they’ll still see me as responsible and they’ll come for me.”

“We’d protect you,” Vision swore.  You felt a stab of jealousy at his promise.  Why hadn’t he promised you that when he discovered the parallels between the Act and the Accords?

“Maybe Tony's right.  If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer.  If we take it off...” Nat mused.

You opened your mouth to reply but Sam beat you to it, “Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?”

You snorted at the memory and Sam’s language as Steve’s phone vibrated on the table.  You knew that it was bad news the second he looked at it.  “I’ve got to go.”  He announced as he stood up and walked out of the room.

“I need to get some air,” you declared and left the room.  You were so distracted that you didn’t realise that you were outside the compound until you felt the wind whistling through your hair.  You hadn’t actually intended to go outside.

Your mind was whirring as you inhaled the fresh air.  No matter how you looked at it, you were in a dangerous situation and while Wanda may have Vision’s protection if things went south, you didn’t.  And while you knew that you could count on the Avengers for support, you knew that the bonds holding the team together had been fractured by Ross presenting the Accords and the following argument, which was probably still ongoing.  The way the situation seemed to be unfolding now, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Accords would be pitting your friends and teammates against each other and you had no desire to go down this path again.

Calling on your powers, you reappeared in your room in the compound and packed what you absolutely needed.  Taking one last glance around the room and feeling a deep sadness well up inside of you, you swung the backpack with your things over one shoulder and hoisted it so the strap rested comfortably on your shoulder.

You focused on your memory of the partially hidden back pathway of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and your powers responded to the image in your mind.  Had you left five seconds later, you would have seen an unfamiliar car travelling up the driveway that led to the compound, and perhaps if you had seen that car through the window, you would have met Helmut Zemo under very different circumstances.

[dnfinite123]

(What if) ZACK SNYDER'S THUNDERBOLTS

1-HAWKEYE

Snyderverse Hawkeye, with Jensen Ackles Clint Barton. So with this one I wanted to basically make the equivalent of Suicide Squad like how the Avengers is to Justice League. So what better than the Thunderbolts, also I plan on making two versions of the team, one would be the David Ayer Suicide Squad equivalent, while the other would be James Gunns The Suicide Squad equivalent. So with this one I imagine that Hawkeye in Rick Flags type role, is recruited by Thunderbolt Ross (in an Amanda Waller role) working for the Government, to lead a team of villains to do good. Basically this team would take influence from when Hawkeye lead em in the comics. I also believe that they dive into Snyderverse Hawkeyes backstory, how he use to be a former villain like in the comics, and how his upbringing such as abusive father, or life in the circus, and how effected him, leading to his reform as an agent of shield. How Hawkeye having a past of being against the law, tries to help out these criminals reform, giving them another chance. 

2-TECHNO

the equivalent of Suicide Squad in the DCEU. I've already done an edit of Snyderverse Hawkeye in a Rick Flags type role, so with Techno I imagine him in Deadshot role, and like many in this universe I imagine Techno is an already established character in said universe, formally going by the name of the fixer. Where he would be recruited by Thunderbolt Ross to join new team, the Thunderbolts lead by Hawkeye. Snyderverse Techno, with Pedro Pascal as Paul Norbert Ebersol.

3-ABOMINATION

So for the team I imagine that the Killer Croc equivalent would be Abomination, who prior would have had his beef with Hulk, and was now under Shield custody. Formally a KGB Agent who underwent heavy treatment in an experiment to replicate the Super Soilder serum, based on Banners own stolen research, which lead to him gaining power but mutating in the process. Where they would use him as a super weapon to rival not just Captian America, but the Hulk in power, after some run ins with the Hulk Shield captured him, and later on Thunderbolt Ross would get him out under his own means, and recruit him to join a new team, the Thunderbolts. So Snyderverse Abomination, with Gerard Butler as Emil Blonsky.

4-MACH ONE

So with Mach One I imagine like how with Captian Boomerang in Suicide Squad gave us a cameo from the Flash. I imagine the same for Abner Jenkins, where back in his days as the beetle, he's taken down by Spidey, and thrown in jail. Where later on he's given the opportunity by Thunderbolt Ross to join team, where he not only well be taken out of prison, but also be able to upgrade his gear and put to good use by reinventing himself into Mach One, so Snyderverse Mach-One, with Collin Farrell as Abner Jenkins.

5-SONGBIRD

so with Melissa Gold like the rest has already been established as a criminal prior to the events that unfolds. She went by the name Screaming Mimi, until she was caught after loosing her former partner/lover Angar the Screamer in a hiest. After being detained once she burned out her power, she was taken in by shield were years later she'd be released and given the chance by Thunderbolt Ross to join team, as it could be her second chance. Where they help her regain her power with a new code name. So Snyderverse Songbird, with Cara Delevingne as Melissa Gold.

6-ATLAS

So Atlas, like comics was a former Marine/Mercenary, that underwent special treatment that granted him his powers, in an attempt to replicate pym particles. At first he went by the name Power Man and was getting jobs as hired muscel for criminals and other villains. Until he was brought in by Shield and given the chance by Thunderbolt Ross to join team. Giving him the code name of Atlas along with new suit/gear. So Snyderverse Atlas, with Nathen Fillion as Erik Josten.

7-METEORITE

So with Metorite, Like the comics, was a Phychologyst, and an aide to Dr. Faustus, until she stole the power of the moonstone from the former Moonstone, Loyde Bloch. Taking his power, name as her Like gwn, and starting her own career as a supervillain. Though in time after being locked up in the vualt, strings would be pulled to free her by Thunderbolt Ross orders to have her join the team. Going by new name and gear of provided to her. So Snyderverse Metorite, with Charlize Theron as Karla Soften. 

8-BLACK WIDOW

so Snyderverse Black Widow. I imagine like with the comics she use to be a Russian spy until she met Hawkeye on a mission, where they became close. And after some run in's with Ironman, they were later captured/separated until they were both given second chance and became agents of shield. No with Thunderbolt Ross assembling his team and recruiting Hawkeye to lead the team, Clint request to have Natasha as his backup on the team. So if Hawkeye is the equivalent of Rick Flags, I imagine Black Widow would be the equivalent of Katana. So Snyderverse Black Widow, with Heather Doerksen as Natasha Romanoff. 

9-BATROC THE LEAPER

so Snyderverse Batroc the Leaper, same as his comic counterpart, as a mercenary. Was a criminal and then captured, later on being brought in as a recrite for Thunderbolts. I imagine he would be the equivalent of Slipknot and that he'd be the one to die, being used as an example of what coukd happene to the team if they fail the mission. So Snyderverse Batroc the Leaper, with Adrien Brody as Georges Bartroc.

A.U not done by me big shoutout to a deveantart username 2006slick