catmemey

[lexirosewrites]

The only thing worse than having to get braces put on as an adult is presenting as an omega on the exact same day— both far later than is typical.

It results in utter chaos.

At least, that’s how Steve felt about the whole ordeal.

Robin had been kind enough to stick around for his long appointment so she could make sure he had everything he needed afterwards.

Ice pack, pain killers, mouthwash. All the essentials.

They were prepared.

Just… not for a sudden presentation heat to start on the way home.

“Oh god. Oh god, Steve, okay listen— don’t panic. I know you’re in pain, but you need to hold tight so I can go get stuff to help you. Shit!”

Steve’s entire face feels worse than after Hargrove got through with it. Like ground beef.

His gums throb and his jaw aches terribly.

And now Robin’s leaving. Why is she leaving?

“Robsh?” Steve slurs out in a yell. The action makes the bands pull tighter.

“Be right back!”

She’s out the door and he’s left on the couch by himself. In pain. Awful, agonizing, burning pain.

Steve squirms around, trying to get comfortable.

Everything is hot. Too hot. It’s more than just his face— it’s his whole body. His muscles are twitchy, like they need to be stretched.

He’s laying in something wet. Blood? Could be. Maybe his mouth is bleeding. Seems reasonable at the moment.

“Owwww,” he whines to himself. “Fuck.”

The orthodontist said it would be mildly agitating pain and discomfort afterwards, not whole body sweats or cramps.

His head spins.

Where did Robin go again? She left so quickly, it’s hard to recall her reasons for leaving in such a rush.

Is he gonna die from braces? Can that even happen? Would he be the first?

“Hey, Stevie. As promised, I’ve got a strawberry banana smoothie with your name on it. Did Robin go home? Her car isn’t in the drivew—”

Huh?

“—and what in the hell is happening here?”

Steve rolls over to confirm that it’s not a burglar in his living room, but it’s just Eddie.

Oh. No? Hold on a moment.

Eddie has never smelled like that before.

He’s always had a faint smoke and leather sorta scent that even Steve’s unrefined beta nose could pick up on, but it’s much stronger than that now.

It’s deeper, more powerful and overwhelming.

It’s mouthwatering. Thigh clenching, even.

He whines in want.

“Alpha?” slips out before Steve can overthink it.

Eddie freezes and his eyes widen for a second. Then they narrow in a calculating way, like they’re trying to figure him out.

He sets the smoothie down and kneels next to the couch, one hand reaching out to cup Steve’s cheek lightly.

Steve winces at the touch, but his fingers are cold and they actually feel good on his sore face, so he relaxes into it.

“Hi there, pretty boy. Pink bands, huh? Cute. But it seems braces aren’t the only new thing today. You doing okay?” Eddie asks gently, soothingly.

He sounds more alpha than Steve’s ever heard him speak. The tone is comforting and reassuring.

Steve still isn’t entirely sure what they’re talking about though. He knows he had braces put on and then Robin left him alone. There’s some gaps in there somewhere and he feels like death.

His head is spinning too fast.

“I don’t know where Robin went,” he confesses in a whisper.

Eddie nods slowly, his expression understanding and kind. It makes Steve feel safe, unjudged for losing his best friend.

“I’m guessing she went to get some supplies for you, sweetheart. I’ve heard that the first one isn’t usually too bad, but Robin worries about you, ya know?”

He smells so good. How is Steve supposed to pay attention when Eddie smells that good?

Confused, he asks, “She was worried about my braces?” Too many words. It pulls at the bands in his mouth and he winces.

Eddie’s thumb brushes along his cheek sympathetically.

“No, baby… not quite. You’re in heat, Stevie.”

Heat?

No, that’s for omegas. Steve would know if he was an omega. He’d have heats. His body would be too hot and he’d produce slick and be attracted to alphas.

Ah.

“I’m an omega?” It’s as much a question to the universe as a shocked statement.

Eddie purses his lips. Conflict.

“You’re presenting a little later than usual, but evidently so. I’m guessing your lack of a pack before didn’t help anything, but you have us now. We’re gonna take care of you, honey… I’ll keep you safe, omega,” he promises solemnly.

The wetness between Steve’s legs becomes far more apparent.

It’s not that Steve never looked at Eddie before and thought he was attractive or that he’d make the perfect alpha to some lucky omega.

Steve just didn’t think he was that omega.

Or an omega at all, for that matter.

Eddie deserved more than some fucked up beta. He’s brave and kind, a good man.

He can visibly see when the scent of his fresh slick hits the alpha’s nose. The way Eddie’s nostrils flare and his breathing catches in his throat, like he’s trying not to inhale too deeply.

“Eddie?”

His eyes instantly dart to Steve’s mouth. He looks hungry. Starving, even.

For once in his life, Steve’s confident he won’t be rejected.

It’s in Eddie’s warm scent, in the way he’s always glanced at him a little too long, and never breaks his promises to him. Steve can see it clearly now.

This has been a long time coming.

“Anything.”

“Kiss me, alpha?”

Eddie doesn’t question whether he’s sure. He doesn’t tell Steve that this is a conversation for later or even hesitate.

He just holds Steve’s face like something fragile and precious when he kisses his lips far too carefully. Soft. Gentle.

They’re chapped from his appointment. Neither seem to care.

It’s a slow, lingering kiss. It ends much the same way.

The rush of pleasure and pure joy floods his entire body, making the pain in his jaw negligible when he lets out his first omegan chirp of happiness.

He still aches and yearns, but the ache is focused now. His inner omega just wants Eddie— his alpha.

“Please, Ed,” Steve whimpers, tucking his face into Eddie’s neck and getting his scent right from the source.

The alpha scratches down his back slowly, trying to calm him.

It’s an act full of love and kindness, Eddie’s attempt to not take advantage of him in his current state.

In any other situation, it would be noble. Steve would be flattered by the self control it cost an alpha to not ravage in omega in heat who’s begging for attention.

But he needs this. He’s also technically only in late pre-heat. That’s as far as presentation heats usually get.

Fever and need are there, but not the complete lack of awareness that accompanies full heats. He can make decisions.

“How can I help you, sweetheart?”

Steve can tell the effects of heat are taking ahold of his inhibitions though.

There’s no other reasonable explanation for the way he blurts out, “Cum all over my braces?”

[peaches2217]

My first therapy appointment in several months went really well! I’m returning to the councilor I’ve had for a couple years now. I updated her on my transition journey because the last time I saw her was a couple weeks before I started on T; I told her about coming out to my dad last night, and how disappointing it was.

The ensuing conversation was both productive, and so fucking validating.

My recent depressive episode? Complicated by an event with a former friend, but set into motion, and dragged out for so long, because of the stress of what was to come. My voice has gotten too low to even PRETEND it’s just a holdover from being sick or part of allergies or what have you. I’ve known for the past month that the time to tell my dad was coming. The fear of his reaction and the consequences it could bring since I’m currently in a financially vulnerable place was killing me.

And as we talked, I figured out that the unpredictability is still my only real, big fear: my dad promised me he wouldn’t kick me out, but there’s that lingering fear that he could change his mind, and even if he doesn’t, he could start draining my paychecks — I told him my GAC, insurance copays and all, has been coming exclusively out of my pocket, so I get the sneaking suspicion he’s gonna take advantage of us sharing a bank account and deepen that financial dependency. And above all, I’m afraid of losing our relationship. I’m okay with him not accepting my identity so long as he doesn’t treat me any differently in spite of it. But if he starts pulling away or pushing me away or withholding love as punishment for following down a path he disapproves of, what then?

My counselor told me that, sad as it is, I can’t control how he chooses to react. But I have my mom and brother’s support, my girlfriend’s support, and an online community of friends; if I lose my relationship with him, that’s ultimately his decision and his loss, and no matter what he does, I won’t face it alone.

I had hoped that assuring him I felt God’s peace in my choices and that I’d spent years praying over the situation would at least sorta put him at ease, but all he did was infantilize and illegitimize my entire experience as guided by evil and selfishness. I can’t reason with him or come to a happy medium with him like I did with my mom. The faith he’s praised me for sticking close to he’s now decided is all lies and self-delusion simply because he doesn’t like the conclusions I’ve come to. Nothing I do will satisfy or convince him… so why waste energy trying?

I just have to live with his disappointment, and as much as it hurts, it’s also freeing. I’ve done all I can do. I don’t have to hide anymore. I don’t have to live with the stress of what will happen once he knows, because for better or worse, he knows now. If he doesn’t like it, so be it. I’ve laid my cards down, and how things progress between us is entirely up to him. When I put aside my stress over our relationship, I feel nothing but confidence and happiness and certainty. If he thinks this is a mistake… well, he’s gotta let me make my mistakes. I spent 20+ years not doing anything for fear of what bad might happen, and that left me a suicidal wreck by age 18. I won’t sit by and let ominous warnings and premonitions hold me back any longer. It COULD be a mistake, or it COULD be the best decision I’ve ever made. How will I know if I freeze up in fear?

My counselor noted several times that I look, sound, and act more confident than she’s ever seen from me. Without the pressure of keeping secrets, I’m able to more easily sort between what thoughts are mind and what thoughts my dad, my trauma, or both have planted in my head. I can say with my whole chest that I feel I’m going in the right direction. I can even say “Fuck it, my dad’s approval or disapproval is on him, not me” with greater conviction. I’m acting on things I’ve wanted from the moment we first spoke, and she says the positive change it’s made radiates off of me. She said she’s extremely proud of the progress I’ve made.

I’ll be seeing her again next week, then dropping down to seeing her every other week. In spite of how relatively poorly last night went, I feel empowered. God I’m so glad to be back.

[vulpini-mage]

tell me about your HON rewrite

Uhhh, this is so much longer that i was expecting it to be and not cohesive.

some pretext about what happens before Zoey shows up. Nerefet is the big bad of the series. rather than being this major powerhouse that everyone is in awe of, she's this overzealous social climber that was banished from high vampire society and is slowly building up power to take everyone down and take what she considers her true place, the ruler of all vampires.

Aphrodite was her most recent pet project after the last one died on her.

Aphrodite was a major vampire nerd before being turned into, a menace in every vampire forum, studying everything publicly known about vampire culture, you get the picture. but it worked out.; in vampire society, she has been making a name for herself.

The important thing here is that Nererfet only cares about being the most powerful and at the start of the rewrite that's vampires. once she discovers something better, she will sell out the entire vampire race to get something greater. Aphrodite actually cares a lot about vampires and vampire society. and once she figures out nerefet isn't as devoted she wants to annihilate her for that

zoey is the perfect replacement.

zoey is fucking dumbass; she's sorta a heather duke/Starscream; always been kept mostly in check by a queen bee (her mom, her older sister, and her friend Kayla) is constantly trying to be the head bitch but the second she gets a bit of power, she can't handle it. so in this zoey's not so much mary sue, she is just not considered a threat compared to other characters so she gets to glide by while in house of night. she will not let go of any sort of power for love or money and will take everyone down with her.

so we have; gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: vampire edition, and these three are the most powerful spirit users in centuries.

everyone else in vampire society: why tf are we stuck with them?

other than these three let's talk about zoey's friends.

stevie rae is the most reluctant about becoming vampire; of all the nerd herd she is the most put together before being turned; meaning she'll be the one going through it the most. she's desperately holding on to her humanity.

the twins, their gimmick was paper thin, made no sense, and fucking stupid, so now they're actual twins with Erin being albino. Erin is not part of the herd; she's part of Aphrodite's crew here. she's been alienated most of her life from her albinism, kids are cruel and she's always got called a vampire; it got worse in high school. so when the opportunity to be a creature of the night came up she jumped on it.

Shaunee's been told to look out for her sister for as long as she can remember and being her sister's keeper has colored a lot her personality. the second most reluctant to become a vampire; at the start, she and her sister aren't talking. no one knows that they're twins, just that they got to the school at the same time.

Damien......I don't know. his personality was basically gay™ and the only one who studied for the SATs. here's the tentative plan for Damien; since this takes place during '07 he would have gotten bitten to escape his homophobic parents and maybe he got the idea to be bitten by an online friend/boyfriend.

I'm struggling to figure out how to remove zoey's Cherokee background/ magic; mostly it doesn't make sense, I believe it used to just add a mystical element into the series and I do not feel comfortable touching that.

a little expansion on my part: in the original, there were humans, vampyres, red vampyres, and oc gods, and gods.

in this: vampires, ghouls, damphirs, vampire hunters, and humans, maybe some others.

Stevie Rae still dies in book 2. Book 3, no wait. lemme explain the timeline.

the series og timeline fucking stupid, semi takes place in real-time of the 7 years (2007-2014) that the first books were being published then another 6 books from the end of the original books to the start of the spin-off.

but by the time series is over everyone is about 17. Zoey was 17 for 9 years. I know I really should give a damn about the timeline but that does mean that every single thing that happens in the course of the series happens in a little over a year. and that does bother me.

In this version, book one takes place over the course of 3 months from 10/31 to 12/24, Zoey's birthday

book two is from March to June. etc.

Zoey in og was 16➡17, so she was a sophomore. in this, she's 15➡16, and is the youngest of the group, so her awful self entitled attitude makes more sense.

aphrodite and Erik are 17 so they will be full vampires soon.

oh like I said, Stevie rae still dies but her spirit is still around. Zoey gets attacked by her ghoul self and accidentally fuses stevie rae's spirit and body together and makes her into a damphir. stevie are runs away in the chaos and later we find out not only can she walk in the sun but she has spirit powers in addition to her earth powers and has been turning ghouls into damphirs. they're the same group as the red vampyres. this includes Kramisha, nerefet's former pet project.

she still has the gift of prophecy but not bad poetry. Aphrodite still has her visions. kramisha's gift is limited in information but focused on a target while Aphrodite's vision is overloaded with information but happens randomly.

There's more but this has been sitting in my drafts for months and maybe I'll get more ideas to do something with this

[vampiromano]

okay uhhhh all my thoughts are scrambled so this is just kind of midnless yapping. about. stuff

1. okay so the king is. yeah idk why I trusted him when I should've logically understood that the guy has absolutely no idea about the previous convos we had. it does make me wonder whether I could've changed his mind by asking EVERYTHING and gifting him th flower all over again but. I doubt it. why would he change if this is all he has y'know. and if his literal god sorta told him he was doing what he had to.i dunno he's very interesting and I'm actually looking forward to the next fight

2. also looking forward to my next chat with loop. gotta wonder what they'll have to say about the guy who was so desperate to be understood thry Wished to get another self to talk to. I'm not sure it's gonna be the chat that gets me to The Reveal Of Loop's Identity as Siffrin2 or whatever BUT it's certainly heading that way if it isn't.

or maybe not! they're fun like that.

3. colours!!!!!!!!! nothing more to add just Colours.

ACTUALLY definitely something to add. did the same thing that happen to colours happen to the island????? is that it???????? will it be explained????? i really doubt it'll be explained. alas.

4. How Does Loop Feel About Their Home Country No Longer Existing. do they feel like Siffrin? or are they avoiding it the way Siffrin was for a while? are they detached bc now it's technically not theirs (assuming they're Alternate Siffrin and not Future Siffrin, bc I don't think Future Siffrin would make that much sense? okay maybe. some sense but. idkkkkk)? LOOP I NEED TO LOOK INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

5. Isabeau is soooo perceptive I luv him. my aversion to the crush has gotten slightly better the more Siffrin is reciprocating it and the less I'm thinking of Siffrin as Guy I'm Playing As (the more I think of them as A Character and not An Avatar, is what I mean). so I'm growing to appreciate him a lot more he's my fave guy. truly so cool. I get him. if nobody got me I know my man isabeau got me. he's my best friwnd.

6. fuck okay where was i. anyway everyone's reacting differently the more time passes and I think it's bc Siffrin is having such an astronomically bad fucking time it's transcending time. i feel like if I were in a room with them I'd just DIE I'd just say fuck this stupid baka life and drop to the ground and never move again from how rancid their vibes are. Siffrin is having the worst time anyone's ever had and I feel so sorry for him I hope I can at the very least lead him well enough he'll TALK to ANYONE(other than loop) about ANYTHING or else.

(I feel like talking to Loop is not very helpful bc Loop is just THEM but WORSE. like they already had their worst life. I don't think much good can come from talking to the version of yourself that DEFINITELY had it bad as well and seemingly BECAME A FUCKING STAR about it. idk. I'm rambling. I need to know more about Loop I need to help them also. I hope they get a happy ending with my Bones.)

7. Odile my best friend Odile is ALSO being very perceptive but she's kinda scary about it. either way I hope god do I HOPE she'll be the first to figure the loops out. or SOMETHING. bc I need Siffrin to talk to her about them I need to know what she THINKS.

8. irks me that nobody ever mentions that Siffrin poses for the picture!!! they're literally smiling!!!! every time!!!!! anyone say anything please!!!!!

9. Siffrin cut himself on glass. I was surprised! not sure it's quite self harm yet bc it didn't seem intentional BUT I have a feeling we're heading down that route!!! which is interesting!!!!!! they're certainly very self loathing and quite safe of Proper Death. idk. need to keep playing I guess.

10. Messi❤️

11. anyway yeah that's it I've got a lot of thoughts I hope someone found them mildly amusing at least!!!!

[hunter-the-sad-skeleton]

SORRY FOR THE DELAY, HERE'S THE ADAM MURRAY POST UNDER CUT

Adam is. Sorta different from canon, in that he isn’t AS BIG OF AN ASSHOLE TO JONAH BECAUSE THEY ARE FRIENDS AND I DON’T CARE, YOU TWO WILL BE FRIENDS, SO HELP ME GOD.

Adam is still the emo-ass guy he is in canon, but he’s more like “I don’t have friends. Friends are for cowards. *Attracts people who are positive* I have A FEW friends.”

He’s low-key aroace in my AU because just LOOK AT THE BASTARD. THAT MOFUCKER DON’T DO ANY OF THAT.(Please don’t get mad at me-) also I may be projecting on him a wee bit, don’t at me-

Adam is very goal-oriented, having to be pulled away from his computer to take breaks so he doesn’t overwork himself, mostly being pulled away by Jonah because yk. I see Jonah as being fairly strong-

Adam, when he goes into the basement, after he has the argument with Jonah, sorta feels like he’s at his lowest. Then Limbo pops up and proves the bitch wrong.

So, the way Volume two plays out is slightly different in my AU than canon, in that Adam realizes “Oh shit, I could DIE down here and never find Her.” and he bolts to the basement door to try to get out, finding it locked.

Adam, knowing Jonah well, thinks this is a prank from Jonah(It isn’t, Preacher is keeping him locked down in the basement) and screams for him to unlock the door.

Nobody answers back, so Adam, in his forever glory, decides to try kicking the door down, now realizing the whole trip was a trap set by alternates.

It takes him a few tries, but he manages to kick the door down at one point, and he rushes back out to the van, pausing as he realizes who’s left at the Van.

He’s run into Jonah. And unlike in canon, Jonah and Adam were actually friends, and thus Adam feels REALLY BAD for Jonah.

Adam picks up Jonah, helping him into the van, speeding back to BPS headquarters.(This is a LOT of shortcutting here because I'm still working out volume two in my AU a little-)

Adam isn’t completely unaffected by the encounter in the basement, he just keeps telling himself it was just the alternate fucking with him and lying to him.

He tries to give Evelin the answers she asks for, but some answers, for some reason, he can’t give.

He gains an almost Spidey-sense as he becomes more like an alternate, and it activates mostly whenever an alternate is nearby, although it does falter sometimes.

His Guardian Alternate(Surprisingly and completely on accident) is Limbo, funnily enough lol.

I’m still working him out a bit(Like I’m trying to figure out how to have Presto and Catalyst fit in timeline-wise), but this is Adam so far! 

Also, like, if he had to have a theme song, it’d be The Main Character by Will Wood, because he is NOT IMMUNE to me kin assigning him Will Wood music.

[spacedhead]

homestuck reread #18: the prologue (briefly) and meat p1

----brief context----

i sorta fell out of homestuck a little after i finished it and its november now but in light of james roach reviving homestuck beyond canon i figured i might as well get the ball rolling on this. i originally started this post in september but i couldnt find it in myself to continue reading due to not liking where the story was going and also finding myself having a new hyperfixation

----end of context----

september 7th:

okay im gonna make a rule that this shit show thats about to happen is NOT CANON to me and in my head they won and then they created earth c and they all lived happily without any of this inane bullshit thats coming up.

ok to start off look at these fucking tags dude oh my god this is gonna be so BAD man what the FUCK did they do to these characters

theres no art which actually sucks! but with these tags maybe its good they didnt show this in images. instead they just describe it in excruciating detail. anyway, here's the first character interaction in here.... they both feel different. even in this brief exchange, something feels... off. maybe its just cause theyre older but they feel distinctly more... angsty? maybe they just seem sad. i dunno. homestuck has its sad moments but for the most part the characters arent like. sad people

/rolls eyes yeah i like the reference but not in this context...

ok so rose just explained what john has to do which is go back into canon and defeat lord english but.... this is really fucked up man . she knows

meat or candy.... fuck which one should i read first.... do i wanna be sad sooner or sad later ... MAN the epilogues SUCK!!!!! FUCK

um okay this is really gross. what is the point of this?? like EW john what the fuck

ok this is fine i guess i mean i like davekat

i guess i also like how he still has this weird obsession with obama

november 10th:

im back . but i think updates to this series will be slower. i need to ease myself back into it yknow? also. if i hadnt made it clear. i DO NOT LIKE the epilogues. especially because homestuck proper is my FAVORITE MEDIA OF ALL TIME. seeing the characters i love ruined like this in what is the most official capacity it could be in is.... just. sad to me. anyway. dave predicts the future about obama . cool.

yeah i do too man. cant have shit around here

yeah like. what even is this plot. jane has become this evil xenophobic cartoon ass villain. and everyones just like. damn thats crazy that shes just like that now. i also dont even understand WHY she wants to be president of earth c. like literally everyone else is just chilling. god whatever

brother he is not coming back

also, this has nothing to do with the epilogues per se. but at the time of writing this tomorrow will be 11/11. i am a little bit expecting a homestuck beyond canon updateeee hehehe . also burning down the house which is a really really good homestuck fan comic is supposed to update too. so awesome. hopefully both of those things happen. or even like. just one. anyway back to this slop

casual dave xenophobia classic dave you know how it is he would definitely be like this for real i believe this

man this would be so cool if it was like. drawn. i wish i could see it instead of having to envision it in my minds eye. not that i dont appreciate my minds eye for what she has to offer me but. imagine this what this panel would look like

noooooo FUCK

stares at you furiously judgementally

okay both of them most likely dont know shit about shit and neither do i but dave at least grew up in a time where there were people around and things happening and dirk thinks he knows everything but he actually doesnt know anything so i wouldnt trust him on fiscal policy

fym nuh uh

average teen roxy adult john interaction

literally down ontologically at this point

blah blah blah ultimate self blah blah evil arc WHO CARES. im bored. can i say that. i seriously D. GAF about dirk rn. monkey d. gaf

bro i fucking HATE JANE. LIKE WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING RIGHT NOW

i dont have much to say about this i just thought it was worth putting here

nah. cause what the hell are you talking about girl. hello. why is she so horny. ong bro u gotta relax

okay well. this is pretty funny . hes dave and im karkat and we are the denial brothers

youre so intolerable is crazy. like hes trying to help you because you are bleeding tf out girl

wow. jane jake kiss. this rules. SAID NO ONE EVER. jake is asexual. jane is a nazi. and I. AM TIRED. OF THIS!!!!!!! I DONT CARE ABOUT ANYTHING THAT IS HAPPENING .

wait fuck

marvel ass dialogue

NOOOO WHAT THE FUCK

okay this is the end of the first epilogues post. initial thoughts i dont like it why did i do this i dont wanna do it. but you know what they say in order to ascend first you must descend. little homestuck reference for you all. um idk when the next post will be im sorta busier than i used to be. and also? this sucks i dont like reading it

[icerosesummerbracket]

[SUBMISSION]

Okay, but I HAVE to talk some more about the Jardin Sauvage, because they were pretty much what kickstarted my obsession with french history!!!

Starting off with the difference between between Chance and Mercury. As their two sorta-leader-figures (I know they don't really HAVE leaders, but let's face it, they're the most invested) literally the ONLY similarity they share is that the monarchy has to go.

[SUBMISSION BREAK FOR COMMENT FROM ZERO]

I'm afraid I can't give you Chance and Mercury as leader-figures because Chance is in the 14-18 range with Rose and some others which means they're a little young for that, and Mercury is set at 16-20 which is only marginally older. I can give you "they represent two different sides of beliefs people in the group hold" instead

[SUBMISSION CONTINUES]

Chance is more focused on bringing down the system and creating a new working one, they're more focused on long-term goals, and ensuring that what they do really is FOR THE PEOPLE. That's why even before Radiance officially becomes next in line for the throne in book 2, Chance is already suspicious, "those children she has seem a little fucked up, huh. Let's send Etienne to spy, I wonder what's up with that".

Meanwhile, Mercury is really more focused on immediate action, and making sure the CURRENT regime is gone as fast as possible. Hence why he doesn't really consider Radiance to be a threat in book 1 and the first half of book 2, guy has a bad case of tunnel vision. He prioritizes efficiency, and does everything in his power to achieve his goals. (Hell, in the beginning of book 1 he's even hopeful that Etienne's spying will result in them having Radiance as an ALLY). Honestly? I think he would have made for a damn good villain, but I'm so glad they didn't go that route.

Now for Etienne!!! She's there for vengeance, lol, I mean, half of the people are, being poor under fantasy feudalism really makes for a tragic backstory, huh? (And then we haven't even talked about her parents smh). But even then she doesn't really fit in with the group, I mean Currant is there, and she's glad to reunite, but everyone is just so Good and Helpful, and it feels so unfamiliar and weird. And then se gets send spying. Hoo boy. And these people??? They're like *her*. They're fucked up in more ways than one, and it'd be so *easy* to stop the facade and genuinely join. But she sees Radiance and the atrocities she commits, and it's all too familiar to the people who oppressed her. AND THEN SHE'S FORCED. TO DO. THE SAME. She tells herself it's to keep up the act, to gain Radiance's trust, to report back to The Good Guys, but she can't help but wonder if she is just as bad as them. If she has grown up to be just like the people who hurt her. If there is no redemption for her, if she should just stop fighting and accept that's she's a monster. ((Current see's this of course. He may not have seen his sister in years, but he *knows* her. Ultimately, he can't help though, and isn't that just another tragedy in itself))

Anyway,,,,those are my thoughts,,,,I'm a Jardin Sauvage fan first, human second, proud owner of official merch for it and everything

[OOC: yessss, thank you for accepting the ask about this, as a french history and literature nerd it made my day, and also, hope this vision for Etienne fits with what you (and everyone) had in mind < 3]

[SUBMISSION END]

[Out of character] I can't think of any snappy comments riffing off ideas here at the moment tbh, but I want you to know those Etienne ideas are hitting in such a good way, oh my god I love her

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers DARK FATE ー Yuma Maniac [04]

ー The scene starts in the bedroom of Mertz’ manor

Yui: ( Haah...I finally found him. So he went back to his room. )

( He was with me when I started cleaning the entrance hall to help out Mertz-san. )

( But once I came back after being called to the study room by Mertz-san to help tidy the place up, Yuma-kun was gone. )

( I get anxious when he suddenly vanishes like that... )

Yuma-kun?

Yuma: I’m asleep. So don’t talk to me.

Yui: Geez...You’re obviously awake.

Yuma: ...Shut up.

Yui: ( Is he upset, perhaps? )

Listen, while I was helping Mertz-san organize his books, I found this book on flower gardens in this region.

I figured you’d enjoy this one, so I borrowed it. Here you go. 

Yuma: Ah...? Che, the fuck?

Yui: Eh?

Yuma: I don’t want this stupid book. ...Don’t get too involved with that dude.

Yui: That wasn’t my intention. I just...

Yuma: ...From my point of view, the two of ya seemed to be havin’ plenty of fun tho. 

Yui: You were watching? Gosh...You should have just reached out then. 

Yuma: ...Che, fuck off.

Yui: ( Is he suspecting something, perhaps? )

( Haah...I feel like I’ll start feeling down too at this rate. )

( But I shouldn’t give up, should I? I want to cheer him up somehow. )

Selection

→ Give him a sugar cube (M)

Yui: ...Here, a sugar cube.

Yuma: Aah? Where did ya get this...?

Yui: I spotted them in the kitchen and decided I had to get some for myself.

So I asked Mertz-san because I wanted to cheer you up. 

Yuma: ...

Yui: Yuma-kun...?

Yuma: ...I don’t need this shit.

Yui: Eh...?

Yuma: I’m not happy to receive this.

Yui: No way...

ー Yuma pulls her close

*Rustle*

Yui: Ah...

Yuma: Can’t ya tell that I’m pissed off, huh!?

Yui: ( I know but it hurts to see him all down like this. )

( He pulled me close by my arm...hurting me by pressing down hard. )

→ Give him a stuffed animal (S)

*Rustle*

Yui: Here. This little guy is super fluffy and feels great to hug, you know?

I spotted him in the entrance hall, so Mertz-san let me borrow him.

Yuma: ...Oi.

Yui: Ah...Um, I just thought it’d might help soothe you...?

Yuma: ...I see. I guess ya like this sorta stuff.

Yui: Yeah...They’re cute, plus they feel nice and cozy so I do.

Yuma: Gotcha. Then I can do as I please too, huh?

Yui: Eh...?

ー Yuma pulls her over

*Rustle*

Yui: Kyah...

( He strongly tugged me over by the arm...It hurts. )

Yuma: Ya keep on runnin’ off and doin’ yer own thing...

It’s hella annoyin’...!

ー He hugs her close

Yui: Ah...I...can barely...breathe...

Yuma: I bet. I was thinkin’ of ways to shut that darn mouth of yers. 

So I decided Imma crush ya with my arms.

Yui: No way...Stop...!

Yuma: ...How many times do I have to tell ya to shut up before ya do? 

Ya really are a hopeless Sow.

Nn...

*Smooch*

Yui: Nn...Haah...What has gotten into you all of a sudden?

Yuma: Shut up. Phew...Nn...

Yui: Nn...Nnh...

Yuma: Hehe...The face ya make when you’re suffocatin’ isn’t half bad, ya know? 

Yui: ( Ah...I can’t, my body is going limp... )

Yuma: Done already? What? ...Are ya gonna entertain me some other way now? 

Yui: Ah...Forgive me...I’m...sorry.

Yuma: Che...Yer face’s white as hell. Come on, get up!

*Rustle*

Yui: ( Ah...He pulled me up..I can’t move... )

( What will he do next...? )

Yuma: Let’s hit the hay.

Yui: ( Ah...He laid me down on top of him...Eh...? )

You’re going to sleep like this? 

Yuma: What? If ya wanna collapse on the floor again, then be my guest!

Yui: Uu...But aren’t I heavy?

Yuma: Well duh.

Yui: Then push me off?

Yuma: ...It’d be a pain if ya go wanderin’ off on yer own again while I’m snoozin’, so this’ll do.

I can tell right away when you’re ‘bout to step out of line.

Yui: Okay...

Yuma: What? Still got somethin’ ya wanna say?

Yui: I mean...

Yuma: I don’t wanna hear it. If ya refuse to shut up no matter what...I guess you’re just a lost cause. 

ー He kisses her again

Yuma: Nn...Phew...

Yui: Nn...Again, I can’t breathe like this...

Yuma: Hah, you dirty woman. But well...I’ll keep yer lips sealed until ya pass out. 

Phew...Nn...Hah...

Yui: ( That’s not even what I meant but I can’t, I’m growing dizzy... )

ー She loses consciousness

Yuma: Idiot. Don’t go talkin’ to other dudes behind my back. 

God...Nn...

*Smooch*

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー 

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

<-[ Maniac 03 ] [ Maniac 05 ] ->

[chil2de]

Hi!! if possible can i please request yuuta having a girlfriend that’s his childhood friend? (So like instead of rika it’s y/n and she doesn’t die) that loves to dote on him cause that boy needs some love. Thank you!! <3

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE THIS MADE ME SO SOFT!!!!! ohmygod!!!! growing up with yuuta would be THE best onshdhfsh thank you sososos much anon this was such a pleasure to write! i don’t know why but the “and she doesn’t die” had me screaming LMFAOOOO

enjoy! no warnings, just old fashioned cute fluff and heart wrenching moments! thank you for giving me the opportunity to write for the best boy mwaaah you deserve eternal happiness! hope no insects bite you during these warm months <3

“okkotsu!” you cried out, feminine and shrill voice ringing in the air. the cicadas chirped melodiously, calling out their delightful songs in the spring air.

the young boy staggered around, losing his balance from spinning too fast. his fragile hands reached out, pulling in small grabby motions towards your innocent and joyous face.

you were always so optimistic, even when you were younger. yuuta could only huff and wail as his caretaker hauled him away from the playground, gesturing it was time for him to come home. thick and messy tears spilled out the corners of his eyes which hadn’t yet endured countless sleep devoid nights.

he was so far away, but that was okay because you knew you’d see him the very next day.

“okkotsu! promise to play with me again tomorrow!” you cupped your hands, exclaiming as much as your little lungs could endure. yuuta could see the tears heavy in your gaze, but even then, you prevailed. you grinned, all for him.

ever since the very start. till ‘death do us apart.

-

“okkotsu! come oooon, don’t cry, okay? (y/n)’s got your back! see, see?! look! they don’t bite!” you braved a smirk on your features, beckoning the shy and introverted young man over. his face looked uncertain and his lips wobbled as though he could crack at any moment. he took a few cautious steps, maintaining his distance between you and the furry animal on the floor.

“r-really? it won’t bite?” he coughed, reaching his unstable fingertips out.

“eh?! that’s the first time you’ve spoken to me! your voice is so nice! it’s so cool! hey! can i hear it again? pleaaaase? i know you’re shy but i’d really like to hear it! hey, okkotsu, say my name? pretty please?”

“um- i, uh.. it’s okay.. you can call me yuuta.”

-

“yuuta! you’re going to be late for your first day of junior high! i totally told you to wake up on time too!” you stood with your hands rested firmly on your hips, face stern and tone impatient.

“sorry! sorry- it’s um, my hair. i don’t know how to style it.” he admitted, albeit sheepishly by trailing the last few words off into a murmur. you only gave him a sigh before kneeling down behind him, propping yourself up to take a look at his hair in the reflection of the mirror.

“how on earth are you so tall already? we eat the same food, you know. slouch over a little.” you pinched his cheeks before glossing over his hair.

when you ran your fingertips through his hair, you felt butterflies and anxiety rock your stomach.

that’s never been there before.

you’ve touched yuuta countless times, whether that was accidentally hitting him, holding his hand to cross the street…

so why was it different?

you could feel yuuta’s body tense up and run rigid underneath your touch.

that definitely wasn’t there before.

“relax. it’s me.” you cooed quietly, roughing up his hair into different styles.

“like this? looks like you just woke up, sorta, but i think it’s cute.”

yuuta’s heart rate skyrocketed through the roof and his breath hitched.

“cute?” he reiterated, chewing out the phrase like he’d never heard it before in his life.

“hm? yeah-“

you caught his gaze in the mirror, eyes half lidded and attention averted. the tips of his ears were tainted a deep red with small flicks of blush painting his cheeks.

“eh?! nononono- not like that i’m- i just think it suits you, you know? oh, crap, would you look at the time? okay we gotta go and leave!” you clambered out of his bedroom, thudding the door shut behind you.

yuuta only gawked at you with bewilderment, lips slightly parted and fingertips outstretched in his failed attempt to stop you.

he turned to himself in the mirror, studying his features before running one hand through his jet black locks.

“cute, huh?” he muttered, avoiding his own judgemental gaze.

-

the bittersweet part about growing up with a childhood friend is change.

for all the time that you’d spent with yuuta, you didn’t realise that your relationship with him was something to not take for granted.

especially with those around you who would kill for what you two have.

you’d always get mundane questions from high school girls who thought they could have a shot with him, “what’s his type?” “do you think he likes me?”

meanwhile you only played along with their charades, laughing inwardly when he was actually extremely introverted.

“so? what’s the deal with you and okkotsu-san? you guys dating?”

“no. we’re just friends.”

“seriously? you guys are always glued at the hip. you know he has a picture of you in his locker, right?”

“yeah? so do i. it doesn’t mean anything.”

“it’s kind of a shame, he’s such a nice young man.. gone to waste like that..”

“what’s gone to waste?” yuuta inquired with an indifferent tone, plopping down beside you with his bento box. the classmate sat opposite you only gave him a phony cheerful temperament, twirling her index finger around her hair.

“oh! okkotsu-senpai! we were just talking about you! how was your da-“

“please leave.”

you could only gape at him in your peripherals, sputtering on your sandwich as you watched the life drain from your classmate at his monotony. yuuta didn’t spare you or the girl a glance as he worked to unpack his lunch, hell the guy even murmured a small itadakimasu as if nothing happened.

“wh- okkotsu senpai?”

“listen.” he let out a deep sigh before proceeding.

“whatever shot you thought you had with me? it’s gone out the window. don’t disrespect (y/n) in front of me like that again.”

“you’re making us uncomfortable, so get up and go.” he motioned with his chopsticks, giving her a dead gaze towards another table.

the girl scoffed, mouth hung wide open as she picked up her bag and stormed out of sight.

whilst your face was as blank as a stone, internally, you were only screaming in the depths of piping hot hell visible from the sun itself.

baby girl? that was when you noticed how fucking fine of a man yuuta grew up to be.

“that was seriously nerve wracking.. my stomach hurts so bad right now” yuuta coughed through a bite of his sandwich, refusing to meet your gaze.

you slapped his back, because, holy shit??? awe painted your face like you just witnessed your own child talking or walking for the first time.

“what the shit? yuuta? are you kidding?”

“oh, huh? did i overdo it or something?“

“no?! are you kidding? that was fucking awesome! i swear! this is why i love you-“

oh.

uh oh.

oh no.

yuuta let out a shrill squeak unbeknownst to any human being able to produce such a volume. it was a cross between a floorboard creaking, a mouse sniffing and him choking on his food. the poor boy had to excuse himself to the bathroom, hacking and sniffling in an ugly fit of coughs from the food that got caught in his windpipe.

your blood rushed to your head, veins lit ablaze, bones rattling as you could hear the chatter pound and drill into your skull, scoring you deep and down into your bones.

“did she just say she loves him?”

“i totally knew they were going out!”

“i can’t believe it…”

“do you think he’ll reject her?”

it replayed over, and over, and over. what a fucking fool you felt. did he even feel the same?

that’s why i love you.

i love you.

i love you.

a blob of black clouded your vision and you could hear the glass breaking.

yuuta sat himself back down, excusing himself.

you could hear nothing but the tune of his heartbeat. or was it yours? it sounded too heavy to belong in either of your bodies.

his voice came as a wobble because of his anxiety, but this was the one thing in his life he’d be absolutely certain of.

“that’s okay. i love you too.”

-

“yuuta? you okay? you’ve been spacing out for at least five minutes. something on your mind?” you lightly shake your boyfriend, grip reassuring but firm. it takes a couple of seconds for his gaze to gloss over as he returns back to reality.

“sorry. was just thinking about our childhood, that’s all.” his voice comes out deep and masculine. it doesn’t have that tremor as it used to before, like he’d break down at any minute.

you can say with absolute certainty as you stare up your entire 5’10 boyfriend that he’s matured well.

his hand snakes around to your waist, pulling you into him for comfort.

some ways better than others, you suppose.

“can we stay home today?” he hums, resting his chin on top of your head,

“same as ever, yuuta, aren’t you? it’s fine, i’ll tell nobara my period’s making me act up. she’ll understand-“

“hm? you’re not due for another week though, right?”

you crease your eyebrows as you type out an apology to nobara for cancelling plans, glancing up at yuuta curiously.

“how the heck do you know that?”

“i’m not supposed to? i’d always count your cycle so i wouldn’t irritate you on the wrong day. besides, don’t you think it was too convenient for you to always find snacks in your locker when it rolled around?”

“those snacks were you?! oh my god! i was trying to figure that out for forever!”

“i know. i remember you ranting to me about it.”

“you just sat there?! yuuta! you’re so cheeky sometimes, i swear!”

“only for you.” he chimes, peppering a soft kiss onto your head. you smile against him, though unfortunately pry out of his familiar and welcoming touch.

“i’m gonna step out for a second tho, ‘kay? i think that’s itadori at the door with my chocolate and painkillers” you snort, giving yuuta a bold wink as you put on your best act, keeling over and clutching at your abdomen as though you’re on death’s door.

“you’re awful.” yuuta chuckles, slumping down onto the sofa to hear the events unfold right in front of him.

you clear your throat and slouch your shoulders as you pry the apartment door open.

“(y/n)-senpai! i came as fast as i could and i brought you some of your favourite sna- oh, okkotsu-senpai! hello!”

“hi there.” he leans his head back, giving itadori a small wave.

“i won’t interrupt you guys so get well soon! and fast! cause i wanna hang out with you! bye!”

you cradle the necessities itadori brought whilst gleaming at yuuta with a wicked grin plastered on your face from ear to ear.

“you want anything?” you cock an eyebrow, showing him the arrangement of snacks.

it’s not the answer you were expecting, but it definitely wasn’t unwelcome. it made you feel warm inside, like eating warm and soothing soup on a cold winter’s day. this, for you, was okkotsu yuuta at his best, stripped clean and vulnerable.

you’re the only one who he can relax around, act like the world is carefree. like he’s young again, prancing around in that dingy colourful playground he met you at.

“i want you to kiss me.”

[mypoisonedvine]

piano lessons || soft!dark Frank Adler x reader

multiple requests for soft!dark Frank Adler led me to write this today, hope you guys enjoy!

word count: 2k

warnings: smut (dub con!!), drinking, semi-public dub con touching, Frank being a bit creepy/pushy, slight obsession/yandere vibes?, that’s pretty much it, sorta short but hey it was unexpected

PIANO LESSONS, for children and adults

take one!

Frank examined the sign as he pulled one of the tabs from the bottom, pocketing the phone number and not even thinking about it again for a few hours.  If only he’d known once he met you that his life would never be the same.

“My piano teacher says that it’s important to practice every day,” Mary reminded him firmly as she swung her legs on the wooden bench.

“Yes, but I don’t think the owner of this store likes us coming in here to practice on pianos with no intention to buy one,” Frank countered, noticing the way the old man was glaring at them from across the room.

“Then we should buy one!” 

“Mary, we can’t afford a piano,” Frank chuckled. 

“Maybe we can go to my teacher’s house!  She has three pianos,” Mary remembered.  

Frank figured you would charge for daily practices, but when he called in desperation, you actually took pity on them.  And that was how he ended up seeing you every night, so Mary could practice on a real piano.

“Thanks again for letting us do this,” Frank nodded to you quietly as you both sat on your couch, hearing Mary’s practice from across the hall.

“It’s no trouble at all,” you assured, “she’s my best student, and she has a real talent and love for it.  She’s always welcome here.”

“Am I?” Frank pressed, and he loved your smile as you laughed.

“Until she can drive herself,” you answered jokingly.

“Since you won’t let me pay you for daily practices, I insist you let me buy you dinner instead,” he offered.

“Alright,” you agreed, “I can do that.”

A week later, he showed up at your door with a 6-pack and Thai takeout.  

“Dinner in!” you realized with a smile.

“The best kind,” he agreed, stepping in and setting it on the table.  “I got a bit of everything since I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

“You’re too kind,” you sighed, sounding a little enamored already.  This was going so much better than he’d planned.

As the night went on, and the beers were emptied, you started to get a little more comfortable with him.  He moved to sit a little closer to you on the couch, even putting his arm around the back when you sat up to put your empty bottle down on the table.

You seemed to notice that he was a little closer than before, looking down shyly as he leaned in a bit.

“Mary loves you, you know,” he reminded you in a low voice, loving the way you looked so flustered all of a sudden.  “It’s hard for her without a mother figure.”

He watched as you bit your lip slightly, nodding and meeting his gaze again with those sweet, innocent eyes.

“It’s hard for me, too, without somebody to... share all this with, somebody to talk to, to hold at night...” he trailed off, letting his finger brush over your cheek.

“Frank,” you gasped, blinking rapidly as he leaned in.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered back, cradling your jaw in his hand as he pressed his lips against yours.

For a moment you started to push back against his shoulders, but your resistance was lost quickly as you began to kiss him back, the taste of you distinct behind the aftertaste of beer.

His hands moved down to your waist, pulling you closer until you were straddling his lap; he deepened the kiss carefully, wrapping his arms around you when he felt your hips rocking slightly against his.

Just as he started to move his grip down to your ass, guiding your movements, he kissed his way down to your neck as you moaned quietly.

“Frank, we shouldn’t—” you began to mumble.

“Shh,” he soothed, biting down on your pulse just enough to make you whimper.

He let his touch wander up your shirt, fingers teasing around your bra until he finally reached under it as well and groped your tits in his palms.  “Ohh, fuck,” you moaned, and he realized he’d never heard you swear before.

It made his cock hard instantly.

He flipped you down onto the couch, slotting his body between your legs as he caged you in between his arms.  “Fuck,” he groaned as he pressed his hips down against you, feeling the warmth of you against his cock even through his jeans and your shorts.

Your hands reached up to squeeze his biceps, and he grinned proudly; he’d caught you staring at his muscles a few times before, which is why he was sure to wear a shirt that showed off the guns tonight.

But it was time for it to go, so he sat up quickly to pull it off over his head, laughing when you gasped audibly at the sight of his tattoos.

“I knew you were hiding something under those hawaiian shirts,” you giggled.

“And what are you hiding?” he purred, pushing your shirt up to get a glimpse at what he’d only felt so far.  He growled a little at the sight of your nipples already hard, looking perfectly pinchable which is exactly what he did, making your back arch.  After a moment of that, he leaned down to suck one into his mouth eagerly.

“Ohh my god,” you breathed, “Frank, fuck…”

“So sensitive,” he praised, reaching down to pull down your shorts roughly.

When he had you bottomless, your shorts and underwear thrown aside, he licked his lips and spread your legs.

“Oh, baby,” he grinned, “what a pretty pussy you’ve got, and you’re already so wet… all for me?”

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” you rushed suddenly as his hands moved up your thighs, and he shook his head.  

“It’s not,” he promised sternly.  His thumb pressing against your clit seemed to get you back on track, your eyes fluttering shut as you took a shaky breath.  

He teased you that way for a bit longer, but his cock throbbing in his jeans reminded him of his own needs, and he stopped to quickly open his button and fly— you watched him nervously, making a poorly-hidden face of shock when he took his cock out and stroked it slowly.

“What do you think?” he asked with a smirk, watching your pussy flex a little all on its own.

“Um… I’ve never…” you stammered.  “S’big.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, leaning forward to rub the head over your clit for a moment, finally sliding down to just barely breach your entrance.

“W-wait, do you have a condom?” you asked quickly.

He pretended not to hear you as he pushed forward, groaning at the feeling of you— hot, and silky, and gripping him so damn tight he could barely breathe.  “Baby,” he whispered, capturing you in another kiss as he thrusted slowly, savoring every inch of you.  

Your body shivered beneath him, but it certainly wasn’t from the cold.  If anything you were burning up, your skin warm to the touch as he grabbed your tits again and sucked a mark onto your neck.

“Tell me how it feels,” he demanded roughly.  “Tell me how my cock feels inside you.”

“So good,” you breathed, “so… so deep…”

He grinned and placed his hand on your lower stomach, pushing down so he, too, could feel how deep he was inside you.  Your eyes rolled back as you choked on your breath, and he became more determined than ever to see you like this every day from now on.  “Anybody ever fucked you this good before?” he asked darkly, confident already in the answer.

“N-no, Frank,” you shook your head, “no, just you…”

“Gonna ruin you,” he promised through his teeth, “for anyone but me.”

The shock on your face made it obvious you weren’t used to or expecting that kind of talk, but the way wetness seeped out around his cock until it was dripping down his balls also made it obvious you liked it.

“Oh, sweetheart, I can feel you getting tighter… you gonna come?”

You nodded, sweet little whimpers falling from your lips every time he buried himself in you; he grabbed your hips for leverage and began moving even faster, harder, slamming his hips into yours.  Your back arched as your head fell back, your moans getting louder and higher-pitched until he watched you crash down all at once, one more gasp of his name that made his heart clench.

“Fuck, so pretty when you come for me,” he groaned, brutal in his movements now as he chased his own high.  “Gonna make me come, too, beautiful, so fuckin’ hard…”

Your legs wrapped around his hips and he smiled proudly, knowing you wanted it deep inside you— and he was happy to provide, in fact he was already about to bust and he normally had much better stamina.  But it was different with you; everything was different with you.

Including his orgasms, apparently, because he already felt his whole body getting all tense and tingly as he drew close to the peak, your pussy trying to milk him for all he was worth with the contractions around him: you felt like heaven, honestly, and now that he’d had a taste he was never gonna let you go.

He stuttered out his moan as he finally filled you, his cock flexing as more come than even he had expected poured into you.  You breathed heavily against his ear, your arms weakly pulling him closer, and he smiled before giving you another slow kiss.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised with a whisper against your ear.

And he did.  He saw you every day, because of Mary’s need to practice, and every time you tried to resist him but failed completely.

“Frank, stop,” you breathed as you tried to push his hand off your thigh, “she could hear something.”

“She’s busy playing, she won’t hear anything,” he dismissed, “as long as you can stay quiet… it might be hard for you, though, we know how much you love to moan my name when I make you come…”

He slipped two fingers inside your panties— honestly, the fact that you were trying to act like you didn’t want it when you were wearing a dress, giving him such easy access, was laughable yet adorable— and found your clit right away, circling it slowly as your breathing sped up a bit.

“Yeah, is that how you like it honey?” he cooed right against your ear, pulling your body closer to his until you were basically sitting in his lap.  “Nice and slow?”

You didn’t answer, so he gave you a spank right on your clit that nearly made you yelp; but you kept it down, like the good girl you were.  “Answer me,” he demanded.

“I like it however you do it, Frank,” you finally whispered back, and fuck if it didn’t go straight to his cock.

“Ohh, sweet girl,” he groaned, “tryna make me fuck you right here, huh?”

“Y-you wouldn’t,” you gasped.

“I could,” he shrugged.  “I could get my cock out, plant you right on my lap and bounce you on my cock until you come for me… wouldn’t even take you that long, I bet.”

Just when you almost seemed ready to agree to it, he took his fingers out of your underwear and readjusted your dress back to covering you properly.

“But, unfortunately, we’re out of time,” he grinned as he kissed your ear and lifted you out of his lap, setting you on the couch beside him before he stood up.  Just as he had predicted, the piano music in the distance stopped and Mary came bounding into the room.

“I’m done practicing!” she announced.  

“Then I guess I’ll… see you tomorrow,” you mumbled back, struggling to compose yourself much to his delight.

“I really like her,” Mary explained as he guided her back to the truck, and he chuckled a little.

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed, looking back at the door and knowing he’d be here again soon for another day of piano practice.

[keingleichgewicht]

WERE YOU KIDDING ABOUT THE ASK GAME if not i dont have any specific lyrics in mind but i always thought the lyrics to the mill were so cool and maybe you could get some thoughts out of them? :0

YEAH GOD OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MILL. LET’S TALK ABOUT UHHHHHHHHH [THROWS DARTBOARD]

this line. this MIGHT go on for a while so i will............  readmore

so the mill feels kind of notably different to the rest of the pafl songs, which tend to be unusually literal for lyric, either straightforward retellings of events (punch it, punk!) or character piece monologues set to plot visuals (strike 3) or both (all of them, but for instance particularly comfort zone, which is just dmitry’s horrible manifesto until it gets hijacked by a death sentence in the second verse.) the mill is a lot more like what we expect from poetry these days, which is to say it’s heavy on imagery, low on clarity, and fucking confusing!

I’ll draw a circle in the sand, drive myself around the bend in a desperate attempt to hold on to your battered hand Rocked to sleep beneath the snow, she is bathed in youthful glow ‘Strong enough to let it go,’ he says, but darling, I don’t know

a lot of the mill is about circles. this is in the name: a mill is something which turns. a waterwheel is a circle, a grindstone is a circle. it’s even in the melody: the chorus is a cyclic, pentatonic four-note riff that keeps going up and down and up its own ladder, chasing its own tail, not really reaching resolution. and then it’s also in, you know, the story:

the meat grinder!!!! everyone’s favorite fucking hellhole!!!! it is only semi-explicitly identified in the song but that’s because it’s a concept from the source material - both tarkovsky’s stalker and roadside picnic feature the meat-grinder, as a location nicknamed thus by stalkers because it is even more fucking deadly than the rest of the zone, all of which is already ridiculously fucking deadly, and if you’ve seen the movie:

it is more or less instantly recognizable in the mill as well. so here we have a circle! here we have a mill (the title has about seventy double meanings but this is certainly one of them,) and as it turns out, this mill at least will absolutely kill you. and horribly too. interestingly though, in roadside picnic (the book) the meat-grinder is not a tunnel, and it’s not round - it’s just a nondescript patch of ground which will wring you out like a dishcloth and kill you extremely dead if you walk into it. on the other hand what we have in the book in terms of circles is the golden ball, which is the equivalent of the movie’s the room, which is, well,

in short both stories ultimately hinge upon the idea that there is a something in the zone which can give you your heart’s desire. anything you want. everything you want. whatever you want. it is infinitely powerful; it is infinitely capable. the catch is that it will only give you what you want. the catch is that giving you what you want is not the same as giving you what you are asking for. the other catch is that in both cases you have to get through the meat-grinder first.

(so, by the way, what the fuck, right? does pafl’s zone have a wish-granting factory? is it also behind the grinder? where were the original trio going when they got themselves fucked up? and did they get there?)

but the point is: the golden ball, the wish-granting factory, is also a circle. it’s just sort of a sphere. it’s a big round fuckin yellow thing. you know, sorta like:

which is THE ONLY TIME yellow is used in occam’s razor not counting the full-colour shots, and it drives me CRAZY, but it is also me going full conspiracy board so let’s not even worry about it. THE POINT IS.

the circle is the death-machine and the wish-machine. neither of these things are really.... very good. the circle, or at least the arc, is also very closely associated with death:

(розовая дуга предрассветного, ‘rose arc of pre-dawn’. if i’ve fucked up that nominative please feel free to stone me to death!) 

in the gdoc notes to message lost ferry briefly refers to the dawn as if it were a good thing, the dawn of hope, which is a usage that sort of agrees with the desolate and deathless hope of strike 3′s ‘everything will pass / a day will come,’ but on the other hand it really is very closely associated with dying. nikolai bites it; nikita bites it; sergei and olga left significant chunks of themselves behind. and the thing about ‘this too shall pass’ is that it’s always true, as is ‘everything ends’, but of course that’s ‘cause the thing that ends might be you. and as we know

dawn is an ending. so that seems concerning!

i think the circle, the arc, the bolt falling back to the ground, is not a good thing. i am getting a little conspiracy board here in general but forgive me, i cannot make you a wholesome answer, my wit’s diseased. i think the circle is an enclosed space. it’s an unbroken cycle. it’s the grindstone. it’s the mill. it’s about what pafl’s always been about: about being trapped, about having no chances, about being bordered upon. the circle’s the geometric figure of equidistance from a given point, and you can walk on it forever, and nothing will ever change; you will never get closer, you will never get further away, you will never get out! the sun rises, the sun sets, and you are no closer to anything you wanted. it’s worth noting that anya’s borderline city, the zone-edge port town she complains is trying to crush all her dreams, her mill

is a circle. (a cog in a machine! a grind-wheel! a cage!)

and yura, whose dreams have already been burned out of him, who starts the series already resigned to never getting out of here, calls it ‘this dire deja-vu’, i am specifically resisting putting the accent marks back onto that, which is to say, it’s a repetition that haunts him. it’s going round and round and getting nowhere.

so if we bring it back around: drawing a line in the sand, as the phrase is generally used, means setting a border, means saying this far and no further. often it’s yourself you’re setting the border for. you hit some divide you can’t abide crossing so you say this stops here, it may be too early or too late, but i say it stops here. so logically: drawing a circle in the sand means you’ve locked yourself in completely.

I’ll draw a circle in the sand, drive myself around the bend in a desperate attempt to hold your battered hand

the whole first half of this song, i think, is olga promising to grind herself down in a hundred ways if it means she won’t be left alone. how hard can it be to never let it overflow? she may feel lower than the low, she may wish she could just disappear out here, into the postindustrial rust, but though it gets harder all the time she will keep pretending. she isn’t going to burden sergei, or indeed anyone, with her problems, her fears, her scars. she is hurt, but she’s used to it, she’s gotten used to being haunted long ago. she keeps her bad eye covered. she stays within her circle she has drawn. she keeps going round and round. she will take the smallest sliver of human connection and be happy, she promises she will be happy, she promises she won’t ask for more, she will take just the ‘hello.’

but you knooooow it’s not true. you know it’s grinding her down, that she’ll be milled to nothing pretty soon, and really she knows it too.

i am perhaps seventy percent sure that this line is a reference to the windmills of your mind by michel legrande, which features such lines as

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

which on one hand seems sort of obscure to be a purposeful reference but on the other hand would be a hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t, wouldn’t it. either way it characterizes circles ambiguously, but definitely unsettlingly. going around in circles is chasing infinity, but what in god’s name would you do with it if you caught it? what are you even hoping to accomplish? and: 

the second half of this song is bitterer, sharper - staring down the mouth of the meat-grinder she’s a little more willing to admit to herself that this is going nowhere. she is running out of cages to keep herself in. she is very tired. it’s easy to say why don’t you leave it all behind, it’s easy to say, she’s strong enough to let it go, it’s easy to say, too strong to die. it is a lot harder to actually live.

this is also where the flashbacks admit to us how badly hurt they really were - sergei with his whole side in shreds, she still hides her eye but at least we get to see it’s bleeding. this moral compass is forever misaligned, she says, so there is damage, and it is lasting. and she can’t settle for hello, she can’t live like this, she needs someone by her side. the trouble is whether she can believe she has any hope of getting that

as for who ‘her’ is, or the ‘she’ of ‘she is bathed in youthful glow’, i figure there’s two possibilities: either it’s nadya, who haunts olga too, because nikita’s abandonment of nadya represents exactly what she most fears for herself, or it’s olga’s younger, unbroken, binocular self - both of whom were so young, and so easily hurt, and are now unfindable.

and then there’s this conclusion: ‘the sun will rise, until then / i’ll be waiting for you on the other side.’ which maybe is a sort of hope after all? she’s reached no real conclusions in the zone - she knows there must be hope but she can only barely believe in it - she thinks she is destined to self-destruct. but on the other hand she still has that, a version of sergei’s own ‘a day will come’

you may be hurt, but if you can hold yourself together, you can hope for a dawn someday. an ending. a change. but the trouble’s that there’s more than one kind of ending. and there’s more than one meaning for other side. there are cages, and then there are cages. and you know what else looks like a tunnel, a circle?

staring down the barrel of the gun.

[pa-panda-heroes]

blue hour.

demon!au!dabi x reader nsfw; find the sequel here

Inspired (sorta) by this post. This was initially a 400 followers celebration fic but took so long I got to 500, plus it’s Halloween!! 🎃🎃🎃

i listened to Mothica’s song Blue Hour while i wrote this and honestly fell in love with it. hence the name! please go give her a listen!

Minors, go away. This content is not for you.

Warnings: brief description of kidnapping, tiny mentions of religion (nonspecified tho!) and human sacrifice, injury + blood mention, foul language, brief cremation, Dabi being horny (hehe), Dabi absolutely 100% not using magic on you nope, thigh fucking, orgasm denial, biting, dirty talk, degradation?, spanking, overstimulation, dumbification if you squint?

Words: 14k+

Summary: Kidnapped and held as an offering to an ominous demon, you thought your death was near. Soon enough you find your captor dead and the demon you were offered to becomes your savior. Dabi clearly has plans for you, but what are they? Or was everything just a dream?

Your heartbeat thrummed within your ears, sweat sweltering and becoming a thick layer on your skin all over, making the fabric of your clothes cling to it ever-so-uncomfortably. It felt like you were being smothered from head to toe in fabric. The cooled blood that began just above your temple and trickled all the way down your face and neck had dried by now, acting as a crusty reminder of the reason behind the throbbing in your head. Trees swayed in the chilly winds that passed, making the cool air even colder - yet here you were, sweating like there was no tomorrow. You were bound by the wrists and ankles to a musty wooden pole in a forest you’d never seen before, the sky dark yet bright for the blue moon. The stars looked so free, so beautiful, so serene tonight. Yet you didn’t feel it.

Your breathing was quick, panicked, and hurried to the extent that you’d take in more oxygen by breathing less. Your poor, puffy lip was numb from having been chewed on so much, to the point where you couldn’t remember whether you were a chronic lip biter or not; but you sure were, now. That is, until he gagged you by tying an old handkerchief around your face. You struggled against your scratchy, dry restraints so much, they began to dig into your skin and bleed, sending a trail of blood down your arms and a jolt of burning, throbbing, stinging pain through your nerves.

You were far from alone.  

The only other human body you knew of was the one who put you in the position you currently find yourself in after a night of dancing, booze, and sweat. The inebriation from the alcohol made you an easy target, you guessed. God damn it all.

The night began with your celebrating a friend’s birthday at a club, drinking, dancing, and making merry. You had regretted agreeing to go at first after having a long, agonizingly tiring day at work, which gave you the burning desire to wrap up after a bath and lay in bed until the next day when you’d have to get up again. But as the night progressed, you were glad you tagged along; after all, it was an unexpectedly nice release after a bad day.  

Now you were regretting it again.

If only you hadn’t gone to the club.  

If only hadn’t agreed even if begrudgingly to go.

If only you hadn’t left your apartment.  

You made the mistake of trying to find a bathroom on your own and ended up in an alleyway. The last thing you saw was a filthy dumpster before it all went black, and upon waking you found yourself bound in this horrifying forest.

Around you was a circular dirt clearing bordered with a solid line and filled with various marks made upon it, ones that you’d never seen before. They looked to be of a lost, long-dead language - the language your masked captor was evidently speaking as he sat on his knees with his hands in the air before a makeshift altar of a sort. There was some distance between him and the altar, probably about two meters, that being the same distance he sat from you as you watched in horror.  

He was going to kill you, but not before torturing you - or other things. For some hideous purposes that looked a lot to do with a demon or something. All because you were a virgin that just so happened to cross his path.

You tried making noises, tried screaming, but it made no difference. He wouldn’t stop his hideous chanting and no one could hear you anyway. The thick forest swallowed your every scream and the gag held back your every cry. More tears run down your cheeks at your predicament, your struggling against your binds only digging into and stinging your skin as piping hot blood continued to trail down your tender wrists and ankles. It felt like frostbite was setting in. Was it actually, or was it your nerves? 

A pillar of black smoke began to rise from the ground in front of your masked captor, who then bowed with his forehead to the ground. Your own heart was beating in your ears so quickly you thought it would explode any minute. If only it would - you wouldn’t have to endure this any longer. 

“What... the hell do you want?” you hear a voice boom, distorted in such a way that made it sound like it echoed a thousand times. “Filthy human.” 

“Your favor, my lord. I offer you this virgin.”

You try screaming again, your throat beginning to feel scratchy and dry. It almost felt like it was bleeding. Could it be bleeding? Your mind was almost a haze, now. 

You can see a form emerge from the ground where the black smoke stands, and you’re stunned and scared into total silence as you see the silhouette of two large wings and a pointed tail. Other than that, the silhouette appears mostly human. But it’s not.

“My favor, eh?” you hear the voice again. The silhouette swings his arm and with it vanishes the smoke, and the reality that this... thing isn’t human finally settles in your heart. His hair is black and spiky, there are pieces of what look to be burnt flesh under his minty eyes and the lower half of his face, bound to the unblemished skin by silvery staples that seemed to spit steam. Three dotted piercings adorned his nose, and plenty more his ears. His wings reminded you of a bird’s with feathers and all, and they were a flat charcoal in colour, albeit they seemed a little worse for wear and severely burnt. The demon’s horns poked out from each side of his forehead and curled around like that of a ram’s. He wore a dark, simple cloak.  

You almost wondered if he had goat hooves for feet.

He looks down on the human who summoned him, literally and figuratively, it seemed. His eyes narrow viciously at the man, before jolting to you - and you, honest to all that exists, feel what you can only think of as a bolt of lightning course through every nerve - no, cell - of your body before it feels like your heart stops beating. You can feel the blood coursing in your veins, and it’s ice-cold, all of this forcing you to tense every muscle you’re able. He looks away and you’re instantly back to normal, slouching in your restraints.  

“Is this asshole bothering you, little one?” the voice of what’s clearly a demon rings.

“I-I beg your pardon, m’lord Dabi?” 

“Shut your trap, moron.” Clusters of the brightest, bluest flames you’d ever seen erupt above each of the demon’s eyes and he leans downward to grab the man by his neck, before easily lifting him in the air as the human choked. “Y’know, back in the day, sacrifices in some cultures were an honor. It was seen as a gift, a way to serve ancient -  nonexistent, mind you -  gods. People vied to become a sacrificial lamb. I’m ancient, too, you know that.”

The human man stammers and stutters, trying to say something coherent but failing out of fear.  

Dabi lets the man rest his feet on the ground as he jerks your captor to look at you, and you want to just shrink into yourself. “What the fuck is that, huh? Do you see the fear in her eyes? The bruises covering her body? The blood seeping down her arms as she fights against that rope? Does that look like a willing sacrifice to you? Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think she is willing at all.”

You blink. What? How? Why?

“You piss me off.”

Dabi throws the masked man to the ground away from him, then raising his palm into the air and summoning flames to filter out of the ground. They swallow him hole, and whilst he’s screaming in agony and burning alive, the demon turns on his heel and saunters your way. “Well, this is quite a mess, eh, dear?” His eyebrows are pointed upward, almost as if the gentle tone behind his words is sincere, yet almost as if there is deviance behind them.

You can’t help but gulp at the look in his eyes. Smile and arch his brows as he might, he was still clearly a demon unfitting of your trust. Right? He was going to hurt you. Surely.

His hands reach up for your face and you shut your eyes tight and turn away.

Much to your surprise, fingers work away at the handkerchief splitting open your poor, stretched, and saliva-coated lips, and you nearly gasp at the relief of pressure on them, the ache in your cheeks quite apparent and downright agonizing. Not only that, but the corners of your mouth were rubbed raw, and you weren’t sure if there was saliva mixing with more saliva, or blood mixing with saliva at the site. Dabi drags a finger from the corner of your mouth up to your cheek to wipe away the tears staining your skin, and you have no strength to fight the shiver that runs up your spine as your eyes fall half-lidded.

“Fuck me, you’re lookin’ a bit worse for wear, little one,” you hear him coo. “Easy, babe. You’re alright. That ugly, scary man’s all gone.” He seems to chuckle at the irony, before a toothy smirk splits his lips. His teeth are sharp, certainly enough to puncture skin without much effort, and you shiver again.

You’re quickly relieved of your bounds, but with the little strength you have left, you’re not able to stand on your own and collapse into his chest, spent and sore. He’s warm. It’s... nice. Fuzzy. Cloudy. Soft. Where are you, again? What’s going on? Why is everything spinning?

Everything fades to black.

:·•·:

You groan and turn over in your bed, pulling the fluffy covers up closer to your head as your body ached. You were warm and settled in, nothing could make you leave the comforts of your bed, yet you knew you needed to. To explain the achy joints, you tried reminiscing the night before. You remembered that night. Parts of it, anyway. When you tried to remember the feeling of being bound or the blood trickling down your wrists, nothing came up. When you tried remembering the chanting of your captor - nothing. It seemed that any parts which could be deemed... unsavory were gone from your memory. You brought your wrists up and felt around them and-

Also gone were any wounds.

It was odd. You could remember it all happening, but at the same time, you couldn’t. Must’ve been some whacked out dream induced by the alcohol.

You had no want to, but you sat up in bed and reached over to your nightstand to switch he clock around so you could see it. It read about half an hour after midday, and you sighed. How long were you asleep? You picked up your phone from the nightstand and switched it on, your heart leaping into your throat at the amount of notifications. Texts, emails, calls, there were dozens upon dozens of them.

“How long was I asleep?!” you shriek.

“Enough to nearly get evicted.”

Your head jolts up so quickly you hear your neck crack, and you see the demon leaning against the wall in front of your bed. You can’t help but gasp and scoot away, your back banging against the headboard of your bed. It wasn’t a dream.

He waves his hand lazily. “But don’t worry, I got it covered. Congrats, you have free rent for life, now.” His wings, horns, and tail are all gone, and he almost looks human, save for the staples and scars. You guess he can’t change his appearance much. Perhaps he doesn’t want to.

The teeth showing off from his smirk look just as sharp as before, however.

Your eyes are drawn to the huggies piercing the cartilage of his ears. They’re as shiny and plentiful as you remember. Your heart rate spikes, and you begin to breathe heavily.

“That soreness is probably from you bein’ out so long, sweets,” he comments, arms crossed in front of his chest, his right ankle also crossed over his left. His voice is smooth and a clear attempt at comforting you - yet there’s something behind it.

“Th-thank you. For saving me, and... the rent... I guess.” You hoped he would leave if you thanked him. Why else would he stick around?

He only shrugs, though. “Sorry, little one, but you’re not special. That sacrifice wasn’t done right in the first place.”

‘Ouch!’

Ah, you remembered that, now. But you couldn’t remember his name.

“What’s your name?” you ask hesitantly. He’s obviously not going to kill you by now. Why would he stick around?

“Dabi.”

“That’s it?” You tilt your head. You were surprised at how... nonchalant you were beginning to feel about this. The longer he stood there, the more it felt normal.

“That’s it, dollface.”

:·•·:

He ended up not having goat hooves for feet.

You knew there was a catch to being saved by that demonic bastard.

Aside from the fact that he wouldn’t leave you alone, keeping a demon cooped up in your apartment wasn’t easy. It especially wasn’t easy when said demon was constantly on your heels, pressed right up against your back. Personal space was not in his vocabulary. Dabi was constantly up to something, and he loved to harass or scare your neighbors with his devilish form; it was just too easy. “What else have I got to do while you’re gone all day?” he’d say. “Gotta entertain myself, somehow, doll.”

Apparently, it had been a long time since someone had summoned him at all, let alone with an offering of some kind. He hadn’t seen the mortal realm in hundreds of years, and because you were offered to him, he decided to stick around you. You only agreed to it as long as he never left your apartment.

Well, technically. He wasn’t actually giving you a choice, he was going to stick around anyway. Dabi so loved giving innocent mortals the impression that they were in control when they never truly were. The demon practically got off on the idea of giving a helpless little thing like you a false sense of security.

Having him essentially stuck to your hip, you couldn’t let him cause any trouble with the human world, be it harmless pranks or downright murder; hence why you left a line of salt in front of every opening to your place one day, to keep him home. He was a curious demon, a sketchy one.

And a bit of a horny one, at that.

If the groping or peeking in on your showers wasn’t enough of a clue, the fact that he did everything else in his power to seduce you certainly was.

Demons don’t sleep. They’re immortal, they don’t need to. Yet, as you lay snuggled up in your bed at night, he always snuck in with you to poke and prod at you, the exchange usually ending with you kicking him out of bed - sometimes literally. Other times, he’d randomly lean into your ear and say the filthiest things you’d ever heard - and then some, obviously - to get a rise out of you, giving him the opportunity to tease you about unconsciously clenching your thighs, whether it was for friction or out of denial.

You were starting to think he was a damn incubus.

But no, he denied that. He looked almost insulted when you made the insinuation before explaining that incubi and succubi are one and the same, changing back and forth between male and female. First as a succubus, the demon collects... “seed,” and then transforms into an incubus to “plant” it. He could change his physical appearance if he so wished, but he never had much want or need to, save for hiding away or using his devilish form; nor could he procreate, he was so proud to tell you.

It seemed the fact that you were a virgin only spurred him on to seduce you. With Dabi being the vile and damned being that he is, you thought he wouldn’t give a damn (ha) if you consented or not at first. The thought was honestly horrifying. Yet not once had he forced you or went too far. It was “poor taste,” he once said, there being no fun in it. You wondered if his rule of consenting sacrifices played a part in his discipline.

And of course, Dabi would go on about how badly he, a demon, an unsavory being to say the least, wanted to be the one to take your virginity and “defile” you, “the pure, innocent treat that you are.”

Defile? Really?

And treat?

‘Pick better wording next time you sex-starved, pointy-tail-having, staple-wearing, horned son of a bitch,’ you thought sarcastically, shoving dishes into their proper places after having dried them. He’d left you alone for most of the day, talking to you and treating you like he was a normal human being. ‘Then, maybe I’d consider letting you get your dick wet.’

Would you, though?

Nah...

Right.

One of the plates was a little wet still, and managed to slip out of your hand and shatter on the counter in front of you. You yelped when a shard cut into your palm after you’d instinctively reached to catch the plate, failing miserably. “Dammit,” you mutter, holding your left hand up to inspect the cut. From the looks of it, no stitches were needed, but it still stung like hell.

You should’ve known better than to think he cooled his jets for the day, because in an instant he’s standing next to your left side and reaching for your wrist.

“It’s fine, just a tiny cut,” you mutter, quirking a brow as he seemingly glares at the wound. “I think I’ve got a first-aid kit somewhere... Have to keep it clean, at least.”

“Nah, don’t need it,” he mutters, before pulling your hand toward his mouth. His tongue slithers out from between his lips and drags along the cut in your palm, the wet appendage searing against your skin.

A shiver runs down your spine at the sensation, and yet another soars when you see the hungry, predatory look in his eyes, which are fixed on your wound. You can’t help the gulp that sounds from your tight throat, or the yelp that fights out of your lips when his whole mouth latches onto the fatty part of your thumb where the cut is. Your knees begin to feel weak and your eyes fall half-lidded.

Dabi sucks on the flesh there, licking the wound occasionally as well. His eyes then flicker to yours, and they burn into you like no other ever has. You feel the heat of a blush trail up your neck and to your cheeks and ears, your heart thrumming in your chest and lips slowly falling open just a tad as he licks away at the opening in your skin.

“Ah-“

The demon pulls away with a pop from one final suck of your flesh, whilst a trail of his saliva - do demons have saliva?! - hung between your hand and his mouth. “See? Take a look.” He pushes your hand towards your view, and amidst the clear wetness on your skin, you see no wound at all.

Your mind flips back to the wounds you should have had from that night.

“Back then... did you... y’know...”

“Naah. There’s spells and the like for bigger stuff like that,” he explains nonchalantly with a shrug. He almost seems proud of himself with his next line. “Tiny paper cuts like this can be taken care of with good ol’ fashioned demon spit. It’s nice, huh?”

You deadpan at him. “No, it’s totally gross.”

Dabi chuckles at you, waving a hand as if to wave you off. “Admit it. Your virgin ass enjoyed it.” His words are crass, but you know he’s only teasing and they’re not meant to insult.

Yet it still riles you up.

That heat crawls up your neck again, and you huff at him. “Shut up!” you gripe, then turning away from him to at least try to clean up the dish shards. There was nothing wrong with being a virgin! A lot of people wait for the right person, or they just aren’t ready. People have their reasons, and there’s no shame in it! Just like there’s no shame in being the opposite. As long as it’s healthy, that’s all that matters!

“Jerk! You seem to forget whose apartment you’re squatting in!” you grumble, scooting the pieces of the plate you broke together - ever so gently - with a washcloth from the sink. “I could kick you out, y’know.” You forgot for a short moment that he managed to achieve free rent for life for you, but you told yourself it wouldn’t matter anyway. It was still your apartment, after all.

“Really, now?” The demon scoffs, then leaning against the counter and crossing his arms - clearly at you. “How would you go about that, little mouse?” His tone is unconvinced and sultry, the look on his face painted with doubt.

You avoided eye contact with him and perused the kitchen for a plastic bag before marching back to the mess of plate shards and trying to sweep them off the counter and into the bag. “I’d exorcise you,” you mutter. Finding a priest in this area would prove difficult, but you could manage to find one willing to travel. You could do it if needed.

Dabi only laughs you off, though. The sound is smooth and velvety, yet you’re left to describe it as littered with smoke and ecstasy. “C’mon, doll! That wouldn’t work,” he says finally. “Besides, we both know you don’t wanna do that. You like havin’ my sorry ass around too much, eh?”

“Ha! You’re right about you being a sorry ass,” you sass with a huff before tossing the bag into the waste-bin.

Oddly enough, while you’d never tell Dabi this and end up stroking his already massive ego, you felt safer with him around. It was hard to pinpoint why. Nothing had happened for him to be called to protect you; however, you lived in a less than savory part of town, which wasn’t entirely unbearable, but shit still happens. And you’ve already been abducted once, leading to your acquaintance with this horny (I’m more ways than one) asshole. Maybe it was because you knew part of what he can do, all that aside. Push comes to shove, he’d protect you, right?

That was a nice thought to have, if a bit naive, you thought.

He was a demon, not a guardian angel of some sort. He had no obligations to you.

Yet here he was, still living with you over a month after that awful night.

Your thoughts are completely swept away when you’re pushed by the hips against the counter with your back to it, your hands instinctively bracing the edge on each side of your hips for support. The demon’s face is immediately in front of yours, his breath easily filling your nostrils with an ashen smell. You see those horns of his again and have to fight the urge to reach up and grab one, maybe even give it a tug. He’d probably cremate you for it.

Could he hear your thoughts? Previous instances somewhat insinuated that he could, but he never admitted to it - or denied it.

Dabi was right. You don’t want to get rid of him. Especially not when he’s looking at you like that. There is an intensity in those half-lidded, fiery eyes of his that has never before been directed at you by anyone, and it leaves you wishing you could read his thoughts. Are his eyes merely looking at your own, or are they bearing into your soul, calculating and appraising it?

What you can tell is that it’s full of impatience and want. Greed. Lust. And so much of it all.

You tilt your chin down a bit and look up at him with a gulp quietly. You can’t think of anything to say, and tension builds within your chest as you search; you feel as if that silence ought to be filled, yet here you are, at a loss for words as you stare at your own reflection in his glossy eyes. On the other hand, he seems totally content letting you lie in it, letting you squirm for him as he smirks.

And so you look away, bringing your hands to your chest and holding them there bashfully. The sleeves of your sweater are soft and warm and plush - just how Dabi would describe you right now.

This maneuver of yours not being what he wanted, Dabi scowls a bit and grabs your chin to essentially force you to look at him, his thumb ghosting over the softness of your lower lip. He tilts his head at you almost curiously, perhaps evaluating your reaction as it’s been so long since he has seen or felt the mortal world. Those eyes narrow at you, though not out of ire. Dabi’s thumb pokes at the crevice between your lips, and the rest of his fingers on your jaw tug downward.

Confused, you comply anyway and part your lips for him, only for his thumb to invade your mouth and press hard on your tongue, coaxing you to gag and instinctively grasp both hands on his wrist. You attempt to pull it away, to relieve the pressure in your mouth, but he doesn’t want that.

Hell, in reality, neither do you. You just don’t feel like gagging and clouding your vision with tears.

Aw, you poor dear.

With a contemplative hum he pulls his appendage out of your mouth and holds it not far from your mouth, as if planning another venture into your wet cavern. You can’t help but stare at the string of saliva still connecting your lips and his hand as it glistens in the low lighting of your kitchenette.

“Open back up for me,” he huskily demands, but it’s not cruel and dictating, so you comply, entranced as if under a spell. But you know you’re not. This time, it’s his forefinger and middle finger that roam between your teeth, and as if he had told you to do so telepathically, you close your lips around them. With an innocent, doll-eyed look, you suck his fingers and lick at them with your tongue, earning yourself hushed praises and a searing trail of touches up your ribcage and back down. You continue to lick away, occasionally wrapping your tongue around his digits or cradling them as you suck on them, coating them in your saliva as some of it trails out one of the corners of your mouth. They feel cold, as if there was a lack of circulation, and it only spurs you on to warm them with the toasty cavern of your mouth and soft plushness of your tongue.

You’re sure you’re less than apt at this, but the praise and touch you’re receiving helps you feel less... off.

Dabi leans in for your ear, his hot breath against your cartilage sending a chill down your spine before his wet tongue laps at it, and you jump in your skin at the burning, completely unknown sensation. It’s so hot it almost stings, but it’s not painful; tingly, maybe. In the process you lean away to your left a bit, at which he seems to pause. But then you lean back as if to tell him to go on, and you can nearly hear the simper he gives just before he latches onto your ear, licking and nibbling away as you tremble and whimper around his fingers. The heat at your core throbs in tandem with your racing heartbeat, creating a melody of your arousal that you hoped only you could witness.

But you knew better than to doubt the senses of a demon.

“You’re doin’ good, doll,” he breathes into your ear, aggravating the sound of blood flushing through your ears and the thump of your heartbeat. “Such a good girl for me...”

The digits in your mouth get a little adventurous and explore your wet cavern a bit, but they’re quick to push down on your tongue again and you gag around them. Tears start to pool within your eyelids and your whimper is stuck in your throat.

The demon then unceremoniously pulls his fingers from your mouth to reach down at the hem of your sweater and yank it up over the swell of your chest, leaving your torso and bra-covered breasts bare. Dabi seems to drink up the sight of you as if it were a sweet wine he hadn’t indulged in for centuries. Both his hands then trail ghostly fingers - really, they felt like spiders - up your belly and to your sternum. You shiver and a mewl fights out of your throat unexpectedly, your back arching unintentionally toward him as you clutch onto his forearms. Dabi lets out a hot breath, just thereafter his hands roughly squeeze your breasts through your bra as he grinds his pelvis against yours, the outline of his hardened cock clear as day against you. You don’t even try to fight back the moan it elicits as your head droops back at the stimulation.

Why bother, right?

The inhuman entity before you takes the opportunity to use your open mouth, his own latching into yours and tongue exploring your mouth in a battle for dominance you have absolutely no hope to win as he makes a mushy mess of you. You accidentally lacerate your tongue on the sharp point of one of Dabi’s teeth and flinch a bit, the sting on your tongue nearly coaxing you to pull away while the taste of iron floods your mouths. That tase you could certainly live without only encourages him, as Dabi growls and grips the base of your neck to hold your head in place as he quite metaphorically devours your tongue with his own, before his teeth latch onto your lower lip and you squeak in surprise as he pulls away.

“Aw, what’s’a matter, little mouse?” Dabi taunts, left palm dropping to rub against your clothed sex.

“Ah, Dabi-!” You jolt at the sudden stimulation on your clit and breathe in hard. Even if there are a couple layers keeping his bare hand from touching you, if feels damn good to have someone else touch you like this. Ripples of warmth flood through you and you feel your body temperature rocketing. Your own breath feels as though it’s on fire as it leaves your heavily salivated mouth and bloody lips in rabid succession, alongside your increasingly rapid heartbeat. Your grip on his firm arms tightens and you resist the urge to grind against him as he continues his ministrations. “Fuck...”  Your lips throbbed, yet you weren’t sure if it was from the tiny wounds he created or your blood pressure spiking.

“Hm?” The demon hums, inquisitive and high in pitch - yet maybe condescending. “‘Fuck,’ huh?” His grip on the back of your neck relaxes only slightly before his tongue pokes out of his mouth and drags along your lower lip, lapping away at the blood pooling there and drawing a slight whine from you. “What about it? You sayin’ you want me to fuck you, doll? Tell me.”

Blood rushes to your face like there was a race and your eyes wander from his bashfully, instead choosing to look at the horns cutting through his spiky black hair. He’s right, you do, you have to admit it. But admitting it out loud was embarrassing! With a gulp you elect to simply nod, but his brows furrow and he’s clearly unimpressed considering the animalistic growl that claws out of his throat.

“Hey, I’ve been locked away from you humans for so long, y’know,” he breathes, his voice dark and low. “I’m a bit behind on gestures. You have to tell me.” This time, you can tell by the almost playful tone of his voice that he’s really lying and just trying to make you admit it aloud. Dabi’s palm leaves you before moving up to the waistband of your jeans while his other hand snakes up your neck and latches onto a fistful of your hair. “C’mon, say it. Where’s all that spunk from earlier? You’re all bark and no bite, little one.”

“Y-yes, Dabi. I... I want you to fuck me.” You finally meet his eyes again, and the hunger in them from before hasn’t faded at all; it’s only deepened. What else has changed was the hunger and arousal in your own eyes.

That smirk appears again and Dabi leans into your ear. “You want me to fuck you,” he parrots, “do you? You want my demon cock to take your virginity and fill you up? You want me to fuck you against this counter until your voice gives out? You’re a slut after all, little one. Beg like one, then.”

Your thighs clench together and you gulp. This was... not how you fantasized your first time to carry out. “Demon cock” was not something you’d ever thought you would hear someone say.

But who cares? Not you.

“Yes, please. Please!” You tug at his jacket in an attempt to coax him toward you, your knuckles turning white from your grip. “Please, fuck me with your demon cock...” Your this time voice is less loud and demanding, albeit it’s more desperate and pleading. “Please.” Your voice breaks this time.

Nor was it something you thought you would ever say.

A groan rumbles from Dabi’s chest. “Good little human. Keep it up, yeah?”

You squeak as he roughly yanks your sweater over your head before working to unbutton your jeans, his lips and teeth savoring your neck all the while. Your head cranes back again, a mute gasp leaving you at the sensation of his searing tongue on your recently sweat-slicked neck as his fingers work to remove your bra before they move onto yanking your panties down. At least, you thought he yanked them down, but a quick glance to the floor revealed he ripped them off, rendering them unusable.

“I liked those!” you whine, still panting.

“Tough luck. I didn’t.” It’s not like you need to wear panties around him anyway. He’d burn every pair you owned to mere ashes if it meant getting you to waltz around your apartment with no panties. They just got in the way.

“Daabi! Why would you-

“Oh god!”

You jump and thrust against Dabi’s hand when his fingers run through the slick of your soaked cunt, your breathing ragged, while he gathers the slick abundant there and edges toward your clit. His tactic coaxes ripples of pleasure that lull a low moan out of you.

“Ha,” he scoffs in your ear, “no gods have anything to do with it, babydoll.”

Dabi’s fingers finally work their way to your clit and circle around it a few times before rubbing in a steady rhythm around it. You moan at the combination of the bliss he gives you and the pet name, and your legs instinctively open wider for him as you mewl.

“I’m really not sure you are a virgin, doll,” he starts with a chuckle, “You’re fuckin’ soaked, you know that? Like a slut begging for my dick.”

“D-Dabi!” You flinch at the sinful words he’s spitting at you, embarrassed.

The demon’s digits leave your clit and trail back through your folds, and the wet, lewd sounds that result almost surprise you more than the fact that you want to fuck a demon. You buck your hips in hopes of encouraging his fingers back to your clit, albeit his other hand distracts you with a flick to your nipple, before it rubs circles over the sensitive nub as the rest of his hand palms at your tit.

“Ah, feels so good,” you find yourself muttering.

In response his ear seems to twitch. “Speak up.” His lips are sucking and nipping at your neck, either ignoring or enjoying the layer of sweat built up on your skin as the heat coming from his body begins to overwhelm you. Not that you mind either way. He’s definitely leaving a mark here and there as he works around your neck. Not that you mind either way.

“Your fingers... ah, feel so good!” Your head cranes backward, your hands dropping to the counter against your ass for support as your legs begin to feel weak. The shockwaves of pleasure his hands send through your nerves leaves you feeling weak and mushy.

“Good. Now hold still.”

You give a confused look, eyebrows pointed upward before you feel the tip of his digit poke at your weeping hole, eliciting a loud gasp from you when his finger plunges into your pussy with no reserve. You hiss at the sudden intrusion, you walls stretching pleasurably yet painfully as he slowly moves his finger around, letting you adjust. His other hand merely plays with your breast.

Biting your lip, you lean forward and plant your sweaty, flushed forehead on his shoulder. “Hey, it kinda hurts,” you whine.

“Just relax, doll.” Dabi’s voice isn’t as crass as it was before, nor is it entirely soothing. You figure he just doesn’t have it in him to coddle you, being a demon and all that.

You whimper as Dabi ever so slowly thrusts his finger in and out, the mixture of pleasure and pain not at all what you’d expected. When his finger hits a spongy spot, you jolt and moan for him, and he takes the opportunity to take over your mouth again in a wet, hurried kiss with a groan. Dabi swallows any and all sounds that you make, and in the process you feel the hand on your tit move downward to your hip before it swings around and wraps under your thigh to lift your knee up to his hip level. The muscles of your legs tensing and the choked moan in your throat tell him the pain is starting to very slowly fade away. At the realization, he carefully dips another finger into you and you moan, higher in pitch, into his mouth before he pulls away to stare at the sight of his fingers fucking into you for only a short moment. Dabi is then quick to shove his tongue back into your salivating mouth.

The lithe digits within your wet walls pick up pace gradually, giving you time to adjust and not barreling into you. By now there is still a barely-there stretch, and all the pain has essentially faded as the assault on your nerves takes place and you near an orgasm. Your eyes lull shut and your head cranes back, your hips almost thrusting involuntarily on his fingers as his pace keeps increasing and pushing you over the edge.

“I’m- ah, I think I’m...”

Dabi hums as if requesting you repeat yourself or perhaps simply acknowledging your sputtering, but you’re too busy moaning louder and and thrusting into the palm of his hand, to do so, as the coil between your legs tightens. His fingers graze over that same spot as before and you cry out for him, for which his fingers increase their pace even more rapidly and slam into that spot over and over and over again as he groans at the lewd, wet squelching resulting.

“Shit! I’m gonna cum, Dabi, I’m gonna cum!”

“Do it. Cum for me, babydoll.” His voice is much more authoritative and huskier, and as per Dabi’s demand you cry out almost loud enough for your neighbors to hear as your orgasm slams into you like a tsunami of pleasure crashing into your nerves. Your soft, hot walls convulse around his fingers in your release as he uses them to fuck you through your first orgasm of the night, with your hips still thrusting toward him uncontrollably as you go through your high and begin to climb down, panting.

Your head feels light in the best way possible and your legs are weak, so you whine lowly as he pulls his fingers from your heat with a pleased sigh. The second your legs give out, he catches you by the ribs before grabbing your trembling hips and lifting you onto the counter, with you latching onto him and holding tight all the while, your forehead on his shoulder and arms around his neck while your legs wrap around his hips.

Dabi drags the tips of his fingers up and down your spine, sending a jolt of calming, electric waves up your spinal cord as he repeatedly kisses your hair and ear on the side accessible to him.

“Atta girl,” he mutters into your hair.

Do you... thank him? He’s giving you a compliment, after all, right? Do you nod? Do you hum? You have the energy to do all three, but what response does he expect of you?

“I didn’t... do anything,” you mutter quietly, chest rising and falling in quick succession.

“Technically. Doesn’t matter because you will, soon.” He leans into your ear like he’s so fond of doing, his lips grazing your earlobe. “We’re not done, doll.”

Your legs twitch around him unconsciously, eliciting a deep, amused chuckle from the demon.

You see pointed pearly whites bear at you before he lifts you off the countertop and plops you down in front of him. Dabi’s hand squeezes your ass cheek, said hand then spinning you around to put your back to his chest. Searing breath on the back of your ear makes it twitch. “You’re wet and all, doll, but I’m not sure you’re wet enough,” he taunts, his hands splaying out on your abdomen and gently roaming around, fingers spread wide as they adore your body.

“For what?” Dabi’s chest against your back prevents you from turning around and giving him a confused look.

“My cock. What else?” he jabs.

Your curt reply is totally cut off and forgotten when you feel a wet tongue singe the side of your neck toward the back, and you gasp shakily.

“What to do, what to do...?” you hear Dabi whisper into your now-pebbled skin, his hands ghosting down toward your thighs.

“Oh.”

Remaining silent yourself, you could feel the damn lightbulb light up in the bastard’s horned head, but you didn’t know what exactly would entail.

Before you can ask what the hell he was on about, his fingers drove between your glistening  folds and prod around, as if measuring the lewd slick settling there. They quickly pull away after a quick hum from Dabi.

“Be a good little human and bend over, yeah?”

Without a word or thought against it you comply, bending over your countertop and leaning on your elbows a little. You gulp at the thought of your leaking cunt bearing for Dabi. You weren’t sure what he could see from this position, but you were a little embarrassed, nonetheless. With a gulp you shift your weight back and forth on your feet nervously.

Hands rub and palm at your ass cheeks as thumbs rub deeply into your flesh in a symphony of soothing touch. You sigh blissfully and spread your legs for the demon without realizing, but it’s over all too quickly when he instead moves your legs back together. You crane your neck to look at him. “Wha...?”

Wasn’t he going to fuck you from behind?

Suddenly the weeping tip of his cock slips between your thighs, gliding against your dripping cunt and through your folds. There’s no piercing despite his many others, though perhaps that was why he asked you to take him to a parlor not long ago.

Dabi’s cock manages to grace your clit and your body unwillingly jolts a little, still having been sensitive from your previous orgasm. A soft gasp leaves your swollen lips and you hear Dabi growl behind you while he pulls back from your ass end only to jut forward again. Legs beginning to tire out, you unconsciously spread them, only for his hands to push them together roughly.

“Don’t fuckin’ spread ‘em,” he hissed, hips holding still. The fingers on your thighs push deep with force sure to leave bruises while you hiss quietly at the stinging pain they bring to your nerves. But that sensation is quick to fade into something warm and euphoric yet electric and sensitive, causing your head to spin even though he’s not fucking your desperate pussy. He pistons his hips into your ass, and you mewl.

“That’s your last warning, fuck!” he grunts.

You nod vigorously, content with letting him fuck your thighs so long as he keeps grazing your puffy clit like this. His pace quickens and soon enough you hear loud skin slapping against skin, his hips jutting into your ass and balls pattering against the crevice between the soft flesh of your thighs. The quick pace and silkiness of his cock against your clit is euphoric, leaving you to wonder if it would be better than this if he were inside of you. Are you drooling? Your head droops lazily as you revel in pleasure.

The wetness and heat between your legs has increased several-fold, but it’s apparently not enough for Dabi. Your poor body rocks against the counter and your eyes are clenched shut, head fixated on the sensation of his cock grinding against your cunt and between your soft, drenched thighs. You weren’t sure if it was the position or your nerves going haywire, but your legs ached with a dreadful burn.

“D-Daaabi,” you whine pitifully, “my legs... aah, hurt...!”

A hand jumps to your navel and brings you back toward him to allow room for his fingers slithering to your cunt. Before they graze over your clit, they stop. “Cum for me, then,” you hear him command, voice deep and breathy and sending a chill up your spine. “Maybe when you’re done, I’ll take you to the bed and fuck you into the mattress. You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, doll?”

“Yes, b-but,” you suck in a breath when his hand envelops your tit, “‘maybe?’” You parrot the word desperately, your head going blank as you near orgasm.

“Mhm.” You can hear the smirk in it, and the sound of the hum rumbling in his chest is oddly euphoric for you to hear.

You hated having him behind you like this. All you wanted in the moment was to latch onto him and relish in his heat no matter how intense it would be for a mortal like you. You wanted to touch him, to be able to see him, and he was depriving you of it all - very likely on purpose.

Your moans and squeals get higher in pitch and Dabi evidently picks up on your cues, thrusting against your cunt faster and faster until your entire body tenses.

You cry out his name ever so quietly, yet before you can climax he pulls away and leaves you panting and weeping, a whine escaping your throat. “But you told me...!”

“Changed my mind.”

“You’re a jerk!” you half-gripe and half-whine, standing up to glare at him. “I was so... so close, you know! You better make it up to me!” You huff and puff from the intensity of almost cumming.

“You’re awful feisty when I’m not touching you,” he remarks cockily.

You’re going to regret saying what you said. At least, that’s what the look in his eyes tells you when he spins you around. It’s dark and already you shrink in front of him. The next thing you know, Dabi’s pushing you against the counter and mumbling something into you ear, that something being an incantation that sends a trickle of electricity though every nerve of your body. Suddenly you’re cumming hard as heavy waves of pleasure wrack your cunt clenching around nothing rapidly as whatever the demon used on you pushes you through your orgasm, your toes curling and lips shrieking, head falling back so fast it almost slammed into the cabinet if he hadn’t caught it. You don’t register that you had wrapped your arms around his waist until his hands grasp them as if holding you there.

“How’s that for makin’ it up to you, eh?”

With his voice pulling a moan out of you, your poor brain goes foggy and full and it spins within your skull as you pant away, your body feeling heavy. Dabi grabs hold of you and lifts you onto the countertop when it seems like your legs are going to give out. “Hey,” he mutters into your sweaty neck, “don’t tire out on me. I wanna fill that pussy up with my cum ‘til it’s dripping out.”

You feel heat rush from your heaving chest up your neck to your cheeks. “Stop... that! You pervert.”

Dabi chuckles at you. You weren’t prudish, you were inexperienced. “What? Stop what, hm?”

“Talking like... that.”

He only hums, though, and he’s not to comply with your request. “Ya know, if you weren’t a virgin, I’d take your ass, too. Or put you on your knees and shove my cock down your throat until you’re chokin’ on it. Fuck, you’d sound like an angel.” Dabi chuckles at his ironic comparison, seemingly proud of himself for it.

You shrink in front of him and shiver, the room feeling so cold. You glance at your bedroom door and he notices promptly.

“I’ll carry you, for a price.”

Your eyes flicker back to him and the simper he flashes you would’ve had you weak in the knees had you been standing.

“Like what, my soul?” It’s a slightly genuine, slightly snarky question.

“Your mouth.” Dabi waves a hand at your widened eyes. “Not tonight. Maybe next time. You won’t know up from down and I don’t feel like playing teacher more than I already am.”

The demon doesn’t wait for your snarky remark before he picks you up and lugs you to your bed. You let out a noise when he literally drops you onto the mattress, your form bouncing atop it before he pins you to the bed roughly, so quickly you get dizzy. He dips his hips between your legs and spreads them wide while his mouth delves into the crook of your sweat-coated neck to let him begin suckling and leaving stinging marks with sweet, little kisses peppered in between.

It seems he’s suddenly gone soft on you, but it won’t last, even if you don’t know it.

Your back arches against him, ready to finally feel his torrid body against yours so that you can relish in his warmth despite the fact that your body was soaked in sweat; you wanted so much more, you needed it. Your next moan is dealt without a care who can hear, and thereafter with you wrap your arms around his neck tightly. Dabi grabs your hips and squeezes the plump flesh before his hands roam down your thighs to your knees as he hikes your legs around his hips, with you far too eager not to comply.

“Dabi,” you breathe, and he hums with one of his hands still on your hip as the other supports his weight by your shoulder. “Kiss me. Please.” Your voice is desperate and needy, and you’re starting to think this is more than lust pushing you on.

Had he used another demonic spell on you?

When Dabi complies, his hips grind against you to allow his hardened cock to nudge the folds of your glistening pussy.

This time around, with his tongue prodding in your mouth at a slower, more passionate pace, you catch on and realize he has a tongue piercing. Your walls clench at the thought of what it would feel like licking stripes up and down your soaked cunt, wondering whether it would be cool to the touch or searing hot due to his body temperature.

Searing hot would be the answer, though you don’t know that as of now.

The demon grinds against you as he devours your mouth with his own, his weeping cock sliding through your your wet folds. On the other hand you’re careful not to cut your tongue on his teeth again, albeit he wouldn’t complain if you did; if anything he’d encourage it. Your hands splay on his hot back, and you wonder that if leaving them on his searing skin for too long will burn you. If it gave you the opportunity to roam your fingers over his muscles and caress the staples, goddamn would it be worth the burns. With a sigh into his mouth your hands move from his back to grab onto those horns you’d thought about, your grip gentle yet exploring as you try to focus on feeling the rough texture of them.

Dabi pulls away from you to pepper open-mouthed kisses among your jawline, growling all the while. “What’re you doing?” he brusquely asks between the wet gestures, and you croon. His voice was so rough and gravelly while the gestures were soft and... sweet. You almost dare to say it was heavenly.

“Just feelin’ ‘em, babydoll.”

You throw his pet name back at him purposefully, and the mockery elicits a dark chuckle from him. Ever so slowly, you were beginning to learn how to be more brazen. You were getting comfortable with him on this intimate level. You’d already been comfortable in some way with him living forcibly in your apartment for over a month, but not on this level, not like this.

The stapled hand on your leg disappears before it reappears in your hair and gives a pull - not a yank - to tilt your head back and further expose your neck. You expect him to ravage it with his mouth like earlier, but he stopped to admire his apparent handiwork. You can’t see the marks he’s left, albeit he’s apparently satisfied as he smirks.

“What’re you doing?” you mimic him playfully.

“Thinkin’ about how I want you, of course.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

In response, you huff at him.

“Let’s see,” he begins, moving closer to you, his breath fanning the lower half of your face as his eyes bore into your soul, “chest up against the wall, or on your hands and knees... hell, maybe just your knees...” He moves down so that his breath reaches just under your jaw, his eyes still staring intensely up at you while his hand slithers to your tit, rolling the hardened bud under his finger and you mewl. “...could always put you in a mating press and fuck you like a bitch in heat... I might even let you get on top, if you’re a good girl. Decisions, decisions, eh?”

“What,” you huff, “you mean, with all that whoring and harassing you did, you never thought this through?” You mirror his smirk with your own quirked brow while you rub the horns on his head, thoroughly enjoying their soft yet rippled texture.

“Oho, that’s the problem, doll. I’ve thought about it too much.” Dabi’s teeth put on a show for you to see from his widening smirk. Next thing you know, his fingers are pinching and tugging your nipple roughly for the first time and you keen under him from the shock before his wet mouth matches onto your other tit, tongue lulling over the bud. You mewl and flick your head back, chest heaving in your panting as you feel him suction onto your plump skin and suck away with a sopping, hot mouth, his low sigh into your skin blissful.

Your hands drop to his shoulders as a result of the distraction his mouth brings. Demonic saliva coats your tit and glistens in what little silvery moonlight filters through your blinds, all while you feel the pull of your leg over his right shoulder and prodding at your weeping heat with the tip of his cock.

“Ya know what?” he murmurs into your skin, “I wanna see these lovely tits of yours bounce.” With his other hand he guides the tip in and gives a moan at how warm and slick the entrance of your cunt is around him. And tight as hell, too. Of all the summons he could’ve answered, he answered the one that, unbeknownst to Dabi, lead to you, just on a whim. And fuck, if it wasn’t worth it.

You whine and writhe underneath him, needy as can be, as your entrance clenches around the head of his cock.

“Use your words, babydoll.”

You groan at him. “Just please hurry up and fuck me!”

“Your wish is my command...” Dabi’s voice is full of tease and mockery, which makes you want to bite his tongue.

Without any warning he sheaths his cock all the way into you as a groan escapes his throat, and you jolt at the sensation of suddenly being so goddamned full, your lustful gasp resonating off the walls of your bedroom. That one hard pump of his hips sends a wave up pleasure through your nervous system and the stretch of your tight walls leaves you wanting more. He’s much longer and thicker than his fingers, and you can’t help your cunt clenching around him like it does. The subconscious movement has Dabi groaning and panting out as you clench on his cock, and he still can’t help but relish in how fucking worth the wait you are.

That stretch of your cunt is back again, sweet and sinful as before. His cock brushes against all the right places, filling you up perfectly and having you drool for more.

Dabi holds still at least, though you can tell it won’t be for long.

“So goddamned tight,” he spits through his teeth against your neck, fighting the demanding of every cell in his body to fuck you like a rabid animal. Dabi’s hot breath fans over your neck, his teeth clenching as a result of your tightness around him.

His hips slowly start pushing and pulling to gently thrust his throbbing cock in and out of you, slowly letting you adjust before he can pick a normal pace.

...is what you thought he would do.

But nay, he begins with slow and agonizingly yet blissfully hard thrusts into your wet core, his grunts being drowned out by your wails and mewls as he slams into your sopping cunt. The lewd sounds of wet skin slapping slowly against skin and hot squelching mixes into it all, creating a melody of sin only you and Dabi share, that only the two of you can hear.

You were definitely going to hell, by now. But hey, good dick seemed worth the eternal damnation. Right?

With one particularly hard thrust, Dabi bites into the crook between your neck and shoulder, unexpectedly not breaking the skin, eliciting a cry from your parched throat and your eyes shut tight. The teeth latching onto your skin feel less sharp and more human, as he’s morphed them not to tear into your flesh and draw blood. He’d never hear the end of it for getting blood on your sheets, he knew that. Besides, if he wasn’t careful it would kill you.

He doesn’t want that happening again. Ugh. That was a godsforsaken mess - literally.

With every pounce of his hips, your tits bounce on your chest like he set out to do and he was sure to take in the sight of it all very well, having waited over a month for it. The smarting pang you felt earlier when his fingers fucked you is completely gone by now, leaving you to writhe and thrust your own hips from the overwhelming fucking of your senses.

“Dabi, Dabi!” you sob, your thoughts blending together until nothing but the demon inside of you remains in your consciousness. Your nails dig into the skin of his shoulders, drawing a thick, black liquid in the deep crescents, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Words, babydoll,” he breathes out, emphasizing the first word with a thrust. “C’mon, you know better.” He groans above you.

A yelp and another, higher in pitch slap of skin resonates within the room amidst the wet, sloppy ones and his grunts, but it doesn’t register that he’s slapped the underside of the thigh perched on his shoulder until you feel the pulsating sting that scatters through your leg. The yelp was apparently yours.

“Faster!” Your voice is devoured by a whiny tone and squeals that fight out of you, but it’s drowned out by the rhythm of his hips against yours.

Another slap hits your senses, and you cry out, tears flooding your eyelids. All you need is a little push.

“So fuckin’ demanding... Where are your manners, little mouse?” His lips are on your ear again, almost as if threateningly. “I’d be a little more... ngh...  polite if I were you.” The covers bunch and roll under your body when it’s slid back against them from the hardest thrust he’s graced you with yet, the process bringing a shriek out of you and shock as a result of his hitting that special spot after angling his hips just right and causing your poor head to spin. With Dabi then yanking you back to where you were with the hand on your thigh above the reddening cloud of flesh, you croon underneath him as he stops fucking your dripping wet heat altogether. You’re left to stare into his fiery blue eyes directly while hot breaths flood out of you in rapid succession. His nose almost touched yours, and the look in his eyes tells you he’s dead serious.

“Hate to break it to ya, but you’re at my mercy, doll. If I don’t want you to cum, you won’t.”

“Nonono, I’m sorry! Please! Please! I’m sorry!”

A cross between a hum and growl leaves his throat, and you shrink underneath him.

“‘Please,’ what?”

“Go faster, please!”

Dabi’s teeth are on your neck again when he picks up his thrusting into you, increasing in speed and fucking your sopping pussy like you had requested. With his hands on your hips, the demon mutters praises and moans into your neck and you sputter incoherent gibberish when you’re not gasping for air and squealing and bawling out from his almost inhuman, blissful pace. The leg wrapped around his waist clenches as hard as you’re physically able as he slams into you, and while your senses are being ravaged and brutalized, you hear faintly those wet squelching noises and the sounds of metal and wood creaking. You weren’t sure if the thrumming in your eardrums was your heartbeat or your headboard hitting the wall, but the thought of the latter rolled your eyes into the back of your head. Dabi angles his hips just right and smacks his cock into that oh-so-special spot within your soft cunt, and the jolt of pleasure and utter bliss that results brings you back to reality momentarily - yet still somehow throwing you out of your mind.

“Right there! Dabi! Oh, fuck!” You sob with a slur, your hands grasping and clawing at his back desperately. Incoherent garbling follows thereafter, and Dabi doesn’t even try to decipher it even if it is silk against his ears.

The fingers gripping onto your hips are so tightly embedded into your skin, Dabi’s sure they will leave round little bruises in their wake and he relishes in the idea, but the sting they bring you feels so damned good, you welcome it, too. The tension that builds within your cunt keeps building and building, your hot walls clenching around Dabi as you near carnal release. You’re close, so fucking close to the height of true bliss, your moans getting higher and higher in pitch as your back lifts off the mattress without you willing it. You feel that familiar tingle before-

It stops.

You sob at the utter emptiness and lack of release, your head spinning.

The ancient bastard denied you of your orgasm.

Chest heaving up and down in your panting, your wordless whine and protest at the emptiness you can feel is seemingly ignored by Dabi. The lack of warmth at your pulsating core is almost... cold. So cold.

“Wh-why...?” you whine.

The demon lets out a breathy groan. You can feel him dip his lips to your collarbone and smirk. “Just ‘cause.”

Quickly the demon sits back on his haunches and your arms droop off his shoulders. Dabi blinks at you with his hand holding your ankle to his shoulder, all the while staring you down with an intensity that has you feeling small, like an ant before an elephant. You’re so vulnerable and naked under his unwavering gaze, it’s nearly frightening. There’s something in his eyes you haven’t seen before. It’s soft but it’s predatory. He drinks in the sight of you leisurely.

You know damn good and well blood is rushing to your face, your hot breaths leaving you in weak puffs.

“Aren’t you precious?” you hear him remark with a toothy smirk. “Just for me. Right?”

You nod.

Demonically slitted eyes narrow at you darkly. “Say it, then,” he demands.

“Just...” you pant, “for you.”

Dabi’s hand pulls your ankle off him and puts your foot flat against the bedding next to his knee as he looks down at you. The moonlight striking the vibrant color of Dabi’s eyes is breathtaking, if your breath could be knocked out of your lungs further. It almost forced you to liken the sight with tinted ice, with icy waters off Iceland or perhaps glacier-dwelling seas of the Antarctic. And yet, you knew better.

The sight before Dabi was more than he’d expected, albeit just as sinful. Seeing you splashed out in bed, sweating and panting and dripping in your own essence just for him drove him wild. You were so adamant against fucking him, about retaining your innocence and saving it for the “right” person, in the beginning. And yet now, you let him do as he pleases and he didn’t doubt it would be the first time. He knew better.

“Get on your hands and knees, love.”

That was a first. “Love?” You like it more than the several others. It was smoky and gravelly and breathy all once.

Without your knowing your eyes soften and you grin the tiniest grin at the demon, knowing he won’t return the favor and be as gentle and sweet with you. He’s quick to quirk a brow at you, but you turn on your side to maneuver your body around and comply with Dabi’s command. Your breath has evened out by now, as you prop yourself on your elbows with your ass pointing out to Dabi, weeping cunt ready to be filled. It was embarrassing being on display like this again. You glance back at him with curious eyes, only to be met with silence and what felt like a dark presence. He’d gone cold on you.

You feel a hot hand on the nape of your neck and swear on whatever god you used to believe that your skin sizzled for a bit, while another lands on your left hip as his cock presses up against your folds and slithers through between your legs a couple times, gathering the slick of your essence - as if it needed to! - before he delves into your pussy once again. You croon in front of him, and the moan that comes out of Dabi has you clenching around his cock for the countless time. He mutters something untranslatable to you and pushes down on your nape, easing you face-first into the mattress. Your bedding was so soft and warm from your own body heat. Maybe it was leakage from the demon’s body temperature, you weren’t sure. Maybe it was a mix of both, intermingling like perfectly-cut pieces of a puzzle.

With a sharp moan, Dabi bottoms out in you, your mewls being swallowed by the bedding pressing against your cheek. You sigh into plush warmth, but the soft and gooeyness you feel is quickly torn away by a harsh snap of Dabi’s hips. Your gasp is cut through by a squeak from your throat, only urging him further as you already feel that coil tightening and readying to snap. You feel him shift a little against you, and you try to glance at him as much as you can before he begins thrusting into you again. That hard but slow pace makes its appearance for a short while, and hot damn is it heavenly. You moan and whine completely unabashedly. The walls of your apartment were thin and cheap, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

It was just an effect he had on you.

So what if your neighbors knew your were getting railed by a demonic being from ages past?

He certainly wanted them to know.

Dabi’s pace picks up again and you already feel the ripples of pleasure soaring through your body from your clenching cunt, your grip on the fabric underneath you tightening as you fight back the urge to bite into it. Even the lewd slaps of his hips against your ass are louder and quicker, and fuck aren’t they wetter. Dabi himself seems proud of this.

Your breathing quickens and your lungs almost burn like the hand on the back of your neck, your keening and sobbing getting higher in pitch and filled with rushed air. His thrusts only seem to get deeper and harder, if it were possible, and your eyes close shut tightly as your body trembles. Dabi adjusts his hips and continuously hits that oh-so-sweet spot that makes your head cloud over totally, his head falling back at the way your pussy hugs him tight.

“Dabi!” you sob. “Don’t stop, please!” Your wording is heavily slurred and slightly hushed from the impact of his fucking your nerves and your cheek being pushed into the bed, but you manage, nonetheless. You can’t fight back the drool that droops out the corner of your mouth.

The demon chuckles. Dabi could hear you say his name like that for a thousand years straight and it wouldn’t be enough. “S’pose you’ve been a good girl, babydoll. Go on, I’ll let you cum.”

The hand on your neck moves to your shoulder and soon enough, your chest and face are removed from the sheets, albeit you’re still on all fours as he fucks into you. Thereafter you feel the piping heat of his chest against your back, a crude reminder of the seven layers of arson Dabi’s capable. His hand holds you still while he continues to wrack your body with thrusts into your wet heat. You feel his fingers rub and circle your clit after a torrid hand snakes around your ribs and down your navel, and the pace of Dabi’s fingers is almost in beautiful tandem with his fucking as he hits that special spot over and over and over again. You can feel your essence flowing down the insides of your thighs like you thought wasn’t even possible, pussy dripping onto your bedding.

Ah, fuck.

With a lustful shriek, your spongy walls convulse around his cock as he fucks you through your orgasm, your vision going white as your eyes roll into the back of your head and your body rocks back and forth, legs twitching and torso shuddering. It takes almost everything Dabi has not to cum then and there, his hiss and loud growl being evidence of that. You just feel so good, why wouldn’t he want to cum now? But no, that would be a treat for you later.

Your clutch on the bedding underneath is as tight as you’re fully capable, and your knuckles turn white while you revel in your own personal bliss, courtesy of whatever the hell Dabi is. The intensity of it all has your head spinning and body pulsating. Poor body beginning to come down from the fierce high, you wondered if Dabi would stop and let you bliss out - but nay; he continues to fuck you like an animal and abuse your clit while you cry it all out. You were drenched in sweat, your cheeks flooded with tears you didn’t know were there until now.

“Too much, too much,” you squeak quietly, so quiet you’re not even sure he could hear you. But maybe it was incoherent. Maybe you were babbling and drooling like a fucked out hole at this point. Was it getting overwhelming? Yes. Did it feel ungodly good? Fuck yes.

“You’re so fuckin’... wet, though,” he pants, before slowing down slightly. “I think you’re playing innocent. You like this, ah, don’t you?” Dabi groans as you continue to flutter, sensitively, around him. “You want me to fuck you stupid, to fuck you until you can’t take it anymore, right?”

Dabi chuckles at your lack of response and continues to ram into your soaking heat with your cries and squeaks only urging him further. An attempt to glance at Dabi is mostly thwarted by the pace he’s taken on, or maybe it’s because everything’s spinning - or is it the tears flooding from your eyelids - you manage to meet his icy, slitted eyes once, which prompts him to poke kisses at your nape and behind your ear. You feel that familiar warmth in your entire pelvis, you cunt clenching down on his cock as the waves of pleasure intensify.

“Dabi, I- nnn, it’s too mu-much,” you whine. “Please.”

“Nah, you’re okay, babydoll,” he drawls cockily, voice gravelly and breathy enough to make you cum on command. “I think you’ve got a few more for me, don’t you? C’mon.” He makes a point to hit your g-spot harder than before after he’s done talking, and goddamn does it take the air out of your lungs. You choke on your own spit when you feel that piping hot hand patted against your asscheek repeatedly.

Your shriek and wet slopping fills the room as you cum yet again, albeit this time the pressure on your nerves feels different - smoother, warmer - and the tingle in your belly is intense as your scream feels like it claws at your throat until it bleeds. Your thighs are drenched in your juices, cunt twitching and clenching in the aftermath of your mind-splitting pleasure. You mumble and whimper as he finally slows down and gives you a sliver of mercy, both of his hands now holding you up by your hips when your torso slowly droops down like it was before. Dabi chuckles behind you quietly as he comes to a halt.

“You good, doll?”

He’s definitely not sincere.

Your eyes squeeze shut and you heave and pant, the fabric in your fingers wrinkling in their grasp.

“Oi, you can’t quit on me now,” he demands. “I haven’t cum yet and I gotta make you squirt again.”

Trying to get a whole, solid word out was a struggle as a result of your heavy breathing and the overstimulation. Your head was fuzzy and the room was spinning like a damn typhoon, and for a split moment you thought you’d fallen unconscious. What spills out is garbled nonsense.

The demon hums that inquisitive hum again, urging you to speak.

You lift your cheek off the bed slightly, as you’re able. “Will...”

You’re not sure why, but the thought of Dabi skipping off after taking your virginity so unceremoniously rang into your thoughts, giving you a sense of loneliness and anxiety. Why, though? Why now?

“Huh?” He leans in so close, his horn bobs off the side of your head when he arches over you to put an ear to your lips. “Try again, love. Go on.” He sounds quite intrigued, probably the most you’ve heard him.

“Will you... hah, leave... me?”

The grin against your neck is dark.

“Whaddya mean, little mouse?”

His voice was downright excited. You were worth the wait. How long had it been since he’d had a human so obedient, so innocent yet so easily corrupted? You were his, now - whether you liked it or not was irrelevant. But he knew you would. Dabi had grown on you far more than you’d ever admit, he knew that for a fact. You were clearly enjoying yourself now, anyway. And it didn’t take magic to do all of this, save for one here and there to coax you to enjoy yourself and to bring out subconscious feelings. Like right now. You felt these things, he just amplified them to an unbearable extent. Whoops. You poor thing.

“Don’t go.”

Eyes half-lidded and droopy, you turn your head to look back at the demon, only to be met with sharp teeth shown off in a naughty grin. You blink once and you could’ve sworn you saw an image of a black, smoky aura surrounding him.

“If you can handle me, dear.”

You nod against the bed slowly before trying to push your ass against him with what little stability you have. Even if his cock was still buried in you, without any movement you felt empty and... alone.

“I thought it was too much?” he quips, hand rubbing at your reddened ass cheek in a way you have to describe as soothing. It felt so silky and mellow. Yet you knew he was far from that. “Well? I thought you were bitchin’ out on me like the virgin you are.”

“In... insi... inside,” you sputter shyly, mental clarity not quite returning, albeit you manage enough to think of that at least. You want him to cum inside, to know what it feels like to be stuffed full of his cum, to feel his cock twitching inside after his release. “C-um.”

You never would’ve thought about that before you met him. Why would you feel this way?

“Aw, what is it?” The hum that results from his scarred throat is dark. “You want me to cum inside right now? I’m not sure you’ve earned that yet.” His voice is bastardly and maybe even a little teasing, and he sighs almost happily at your squirming. “Asking me to cum inside like that the first time you get fucked - such a whore. Have I fucked you stupid already, doll? Shame, I thought you’d hold out better than that.” Dabi clicked his tongue and shook his head, though you can’t see. “Broken so early. Guess there’s no point in me stickin’ around after all, huh?”

A noise sounds from the back of your throat in protest and nearly unbeknownst to you, drool slithers out the corner of your mouth. Dabi seems to ignore your noises as his hands adjust your hips, giving you enough friction to elicit a whine from your lips. You can’t register this at the moment, but Dabi was a victim to his own whims and could be a mix of soft and downright mean in the bedroom, and there’s no telling which will arise. Sometimes he’ll want skin against skin, tongue lashing against yours, fiery pleasure; sometimes he wants to insult you and lash his hand across your ass cheek, leaving bruises or drawing blood wherever he can.

“I was gonna make you convince me,” he breathes, slowly thrusting. “But considering you’re still conscious, I think that’s enough.” Dabi chuckles behind you. Well, you were only conscious as per his meddling. He was the one keeping your consciousness pulled to the surface, preventing you from letting go of reality and passing out. “You’re most welcome to cry and beg, though, babydoll.”

Hell, that list was half-checked off. Tears stained your cheeks and blurred your vision already, and the more he fucked into you, the more they fluttered out. Your lungs burned at this point, a searing heat cutting through your chest. Anything you try to say comes out incoherently, a sputtered and garbled mess, when it’s not a pitiful sob.

You push your hips back against him in an attempt to fuck yourself on his cock while Dabi fucks your puffy cunt, drawing a condescending chuckle from him. The jolt of overstimulation beckoned you to crawl away and relieve yourself of him, but the need to have him thrusting and cumming inside you overcame it. His release and what it would feel like to have his cum mixing with your juices and dripping out of you was all you could think about, as if entranced in a spell that bound your consciousness to that one thing. The rest of your thoughts were jumbled and incoherent even to you, the drool trickling out your mouth and the rolling of your eyes into the back of your head representative of that.

As Dabi watched your pussy envelop him, he couldn’t help but envision his name carved into your asscheeks with a sharpened claw of his. Ah, the squeals and squeaks that crawl out of you would be divine in the most sinful way possible, and the threads of blood that would trickle down your skin would taste head-spinningly beautiful. Maybe next time. Dabi’s jaw clenched at the throb of his cock within your sputtering, velvety walls, the tightness in his abdomen building. Just one more...

“Fuck, little one...!”

As the demon drags sharp claws up your thigh and asscheek, it leaves red ribbons in its wake and the squeeze of your cunt and pitiful squeal tells him well that you’re enjoying it far more than you ever thought you would.

“Such a good fucking human... good fuckin’ hole,” he grunts, voice strained. His hand plants on the middle of your back and pushes hard, bowing your poor back as his other hand keeps your hips up, his cock ramming into you at a faster pace. Dabi lets out a loud groan when he sees the blissed out, tear-stained, drool-covered face of yours before his thrusting loses rhythm and he suddenly feels your pussy flutter around him hard in orgasm again, soaking him in your slick again. Finally he allows himself to find the release you’d internally begged for, fucking into you at a less than rhythmic pace as his own mind begins to become overwhelmed with pleasure.

“Ah, shit. Fuck, fuck, motherfucking-!”

Dabi soon finds his teeth embedded into your flesh and gripping it hard enough to leave a bruise or even cut into the skin as his hips move entirely on their own against you. With a strained moan he cums, thick, warm ropes of cum painting your fluttering, sensitive, and overstimulated walls as you literally cry and sob underneath him, his hips still involuntarily thrusting into you as your cunt milks him for all he’s worth.

“Fucking hell,” he bites out, body relaxing against yours as he comes down from the high, yet he doesn’t pull out. “I missed this.” His voice is breathy and littered with pants against your neck. Dabi leaves a few wet kisses to it before leaning back and slowly pulling out with a groan, leaving you empty and dripping before him. He watches as his cum begins to trickle out but is quick to gather it with his fingers and push it roughly back into your pulsating cunt.

“Atta fuckin’ girl.”

Your poor head spins and you don’t know up from down, so Dabi ushers you to lay down and before he knows it, you’re passed out asleep. Eh, he’ll consider aftercare next time maybe. With a yawn that’s more out of sudden boredom than it is exhaustion, Dabi lays down next to you and props his head up with his hand, leaning against his elbow as he watches you sleep peacefully, a complete contrast to a few mere minutes ago. With a smirk he wipes the tears off your cheeks. Those cheeks...

“I oughta answer sacrifices more often.”

[bigskydreaming]

And one more bit from the “Kings of the Sky” AU albeit several installments in, because I just......don’t know when or why I stumbled into an obsession with the dynamics between Dick and Jason and Cass as the eldest three Wayne siblings, but its there, its real, and its happening. I’ve stopped fighting it. I just....enjoy writing those three being dumb siblings who are dumb like so, so much.

Anyway, in this AU series, Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia and die, but rather eventually joins Dick at Titans Tower more regularly and is Flamebird. Both are closer with Bruce here than in canon because Dick helped Bruce and Jason get through the Garzonas stuff and Jason helped kick Bruce in the direction of Dick and adoption papers right after the Brother Blood storyline. Then Cass is actually the third to join the family, by way of Babs, and she’s Batgirl and then Black Bat, but there’s a period of time when its just Dick, Jason and Cass as the Wayne kids. 

(PS - this is the same series as where Jason ends up with his own age group of Titans, and accidentally falls into a love quadrangle of doom that is absolutely NOT a polycule dammit, with Tom Bronson (Tomcat), Ray Terrill (The Ray) and Todd Rice (Obsidian). Which amuses his brother and sister to no end).

Tim and Duke are both next, but sorta at the same time? Like Tim’s story takes a sharp turn when Robin II never dies and obviously is Flamebird now like Robin I is Nightwing, and Tim winds up in foster care after his parents die differently than in canon. Duke is also in foster care at this time, though a different placement, and while no Robin has died here, its been awhile since there’s been one in Gotham, and to kids who grew up with the idea of there always being a Robin, that feels weird and wrong ultimately. 

So Tim and Duke both hit on the idea of being Robin like, at around the same time and totally disconnected from one another, and that leads to them both joining the Batfam around the same time, and co-sharing Robin until Damian arrives much later and they both move on to new identities. But there’s no real confusion between Robins because Duke is the daytime Robin with more yellow coloring in his costume and Tim is the nighttime Robin with more red, and people say Red or Yellow if they ever need to differentiate which Robin they’re talking about. Anyway.

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

So [Tim and Duke] run into trouble eventually and then when running from trouble they run into each other and they’re like….huh. Awkward. And then they decide well, might as well both run from trouble in the same direction, I guess. So they do.

“Did you have a plan for dealing with these guys?” Tim yelled at Duke. The other boy looked back over his shoulder briefly and gave what would probably have been a half-shrug if he didn’t awkwardly try to barrel-roll over a car two seconds later.

“Umm, sorta?”

“How sorta are we talking about? Maybe the two of us together could fill in the gaps in the plan and come up with one full plan?”

“Uh yeah, no, its not that kinda sorta. I meant sorta in the sense that I thought I had a plan but it didn’t work and that’s why these guys are after me. Sooooo…”

“Not helpful, basically.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And hey, I don’t hear you offering up a plan! Did you even have one at all?”

“Uh….I mean I kinda didn’t think I was going to need one because I figured some kid running around in a mask making a nuisance of himself was the sorta thing that was bound to attract Batman. And so I was just pretty much running around until that happened, and then I’d make a case for how I obviously need training and Gotham needs Robin and if its not me its likely to be someone else trying eventually anyway so why not be me?”

Duke paused just long enough to squint at him. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Tim rolled his eyes. The effort didn’t pair well with his huffing and over-all exertions from running for his life and all that, but necessity demanded. “Yeah I know, that’s why I never said it was a plan! It was mostly….more…idea-ish.”

“I’m just saying, I thought I was doing this wrong, but at least I had a plan! I mean yeah, it might have ended up with me accidentally busting in on what I thought was a bunch of Riddler’s henchmen setting up some kind of clue thing, only it was actually a bunch of Intergang type guys with alien space guns or some shit all dressed up as Riddler henchmen for some reason? I dunno what they were trying to do honestly, but so yeah I might have ended up running away on foot from like twenty of them and some kind of hovercycle -”

“I’m going to cut you off there and say wherever this is going its probably not the superior vantage point I think you think you have.”

Meanwhile, Batman was not going to be coming because he’s off on a JLA mission. However, in his absence Dick and Jason are in town filling in, and they finished taking out the bad guys several blocks back and caught up to whomever was running from them, figured out the situation and are currently sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching them realize they’re totally lost and trying to figure out where to go from here. Mostly because Dick and Jason are incredibly amused listening to their back and forth and also just…this whole situation.

Dick justifies not piping up to let them know they’re safe now by saying this is good intel gathering so we can offer Bruce our assessment as to whether they’re gonna try and keep doing this whether we train them or not, and also how they handle this whole being lost situation. Not knowing they don’t have to run anymore isn’t going to hurt them and really, this is a good field exercise almost.

Jason justifies not piping up by saying this is fucking hilarious and I will hurt you if you end this any sooner than we have to, I deserve this, I had a rough week.

Which is right around the time that Cass pipes up from where she’s been lurking unnoticed behind them this whole time: “Oh no. Was it Tom? Or Ray? Or was it Todd?”

And she does it right in Jason’s ear so he kinda aborted-shrieks and almost falls off the roof except Cass is ready for that and grabs his arm to steady him.

“I hate when you do that!” Jason growls in an attempt to cover up how badly she got him and also because he hates when she does it which is why she does it a lot. Again, they don’t hate each other at all, but they do seem to act like it a lot, and neither of them is entirely sure why. They kinda just started doing it and have each been trying to get the other back ever since and ended up locked in an unending spiral of gotcha-gotchaback, except, y’know, Batfam style.

Dick occasionally picks sides just to muddy the waters. And then he randomly switches sides without warning, so neither of them ever wants to risk getting too peeved at him even when he’s helping the other, because that might push him fully over to the other side and leave them permanently outnumbered, so they’re kinda stuck, which is exactly as he likes it, lol.

“Why are you Satan,” Jason hisses dramatically as he gets up and stomps over to the other side of the roof to sulk, lest she almost knock him off again. Its not the almost falling part that bothers him, its that she’s the one that snatches him to safety each time. She’s like a freaking cat toying with a - yeah not going there, just blaming Selina. Knew them hanging out was going to be bad news for me somehow, he gripes.

Cass just shrugs and smoothly sits down cross-legged right where she is, grinning Cheshire-cat style at him from there. “Childhood trauma,” is her answer.

“Great, and now you’re stealing my comeback on top of it?! Is nothing sacred to you?”

She offers another shrug. He would like to return those for store credit please. Maybe get something useful instead. “Haven’t decided yet. Babs is still helping me explore my options. We’re going alphabetically and we’re only on  the E-religions.”

“God, you’re the worst. I can’t believe you ruined sisters for me.”

“You already used that same line last week when you came out of your room still half-asleep and she was just sitting directly across from your door waiting and staring unblinking and you yelped and dropped your laptop on your toe, and then cursed so loud that B came running around the hall thinking we were being invaded,” Dick reported idly, still perched in the same position he’d been in all along and watching the boys below them. “Just in case you thought no one noticed when you recycle.”

“I noticed too,” Cass added solemnly.

“I have no siblings,” Jason intoned. He threw up his hands dramatically and then loudly jumped down to the street below with a little help from the fire escape. It drew both Duke and Tim’s attention and they startled before realizing it was Flamebird. And that he’d landed on the street and was stalking past them while barely acknowledging them. And that that was Nightwing standing on the roof now with his hands on his hips yelling after him.

“Oh, reeeeeeal subtle. You’re not having fun anymore so you gotta make sure nobody else does either. Wow, the Brat-like behavior, just jumped out of the shadows with that one!”

And that was Flamebird not even turning around and just yelling back. “I HAVE NO SIBLINGS!”

And also they were both pretty sure that was Batgirl crouched on the roof next to Nightwing now, and she was…..sticking her tongue out at Flamebird’s back? No, Batgirl very much definitely was sticking out her tongue, that wasn’t in doubt, it was more just….very unexpected to see.

What was happening right now?

********

Eventually Tim and Duke have inevitably worn down [Bruce’s] resistance to training them by insisting they’re gonna keep doing this and if its not them its gonna be someone sooner or later anyway. Because, as they put it, you guys may not know this but Gotham’s gotten used to Robins by now and it freaks people out not to see one and Robin’s as important as Batman really and there needs to be a Robin and its not just us that will think that, like look at the fact that already two of us had the exact same idea, huh? And also, we’re gonna keep doing it anyway, sooooo….there’s that.

And then Cass vouches that they’re both 100% serious about that.

And then Dick vouches that as a former determined daredevil kid that was absolutely going to keep doing the same thing no matter whether you’d helped me or not, B, I also am of the assessment that these two mean it all the way.

And not to be left out and just to have something to contribute but also grumpy because his brother and sister are picking on him and he’s eighteen going on ten, Jason throws in: “And my assessment is that they both definitely seem dumb enough to keep doing this without help anyway and they definitely need help or they definitely will die, I’d give it a month, month and a half tops.”

And then Bruce dryly thanks his children for their contributions, their keen insights in this matter have been absolutely invaluable, he has no idea how he would make a decision here without it.

“Oooh, a rare sighting of Bat-snark in the wild. Someone call Nat-Geo quick, maybe he’ll do it again,” Dick says.

Bruce sighs. Duke and Tim look like they’re trying to decide if they’re allowed to be amused or if that’s also part of some weird Bat-test that they’re probably taking without even knowing it.

So Tim and Duke move in, start training together, and then also get sent to school together and it takes a month or so of settling in before they decide whether or not they actually are happy about this. There’s a period of deciding they’re supposed to be bitter rivals who snipe at each other back and forth across the dining table at every available opportunity, but that changes the first night Dick and Jason come back from the Tower since Tim and Duke have moved in and where Cass is also home instead of at the Clocktower with Babs.

Since all three of the older Batkids, upon seeing Tim and Duke squabble at dinner, decide to obnoxiously coo about how adorable it is watching the kids play. Which pretty instantly cements Duke and Tim as realizing their best chance of surviving the sudden acquisition of three older superhero ninja foster siblings who all can be as obnoxious as they are dangerous but also as much as they are - Duke and Tim are convinced - all quite insane.

A belief further cemented the next morning, with all three of them having spent the night at the Manor as well. Treating Duke and Tim to their first Saturday morning episode of the Cass and Jason show.

In this episode, Jason emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas still but warily peeking his head out first to look both ways down the hall before deciding it was clear…..and then makes it just almost to the end of the hallway leading to the stairs, when Cass drops down from where she’d been waiting perched above the other side of the door, in such a way as to suddenly fill the doorway just in front of him, hanging upside down suspending herself just with her feet wedged above the doorway, all while keeping her hands crossed her chest, a dead-eyed expression on her face, and with her tongue hanging out like she’s some kind of vampire hanging upside down in mid-slumber.

Jason shrieked and stumbled back a foot before catching himself and shoving two fingers in a cross shape in her direction.

“Demon! DEMON! Goddammit, I abjure thee, that’s supposed to fucking do something about having a demon sister, now what the fuck does it take to banish you!?”

“Can’t be banished,” Cass informed him, still upside down. “Can be bought though.”

Jason halted. “What?”

“I’m really surprised you never figured it out,” Dick said from his room further down the hallway. He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms casually crossed.

“Why did you think she never goes after me?”

Jason swiveled back and forth between his siblings suspiciously, trying to scry both their inscrutable (and in Cass’ case, still upside down) faces for signs they were telling the truth. “You’re telling me that Little Miss Monstrous has been a pain in my ass from day one and the reason she’s never so much as eked a single boo in your direction is you’ve been bribing her all this time?”

Dick shrugged. “Its all about getting in on the ground floor.”

Jason squinted, still unconvinced. “Nuh-uh. No way. You’re just fucking with me. Like if this is for real, what have you been buying her off with?”

Dick smiled beatifically. “Cuddles and hugs.”

“NO! NO! Bullshit! I am NOT falling for this crap again, you are not gonna get me this way this time. I call BS, fuck you, nuh uh, you’re lying out your ass and your ass-face both.”

“Wait, what is this ‘this’ that I did before? What ever are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Is this about the Care Bear you had when you were fifteen?”

“Shut upppppppppppppppp, I didn’t have a Care Bear then, you’re such a - “

“Oh, I dunno, I’m preeeeetty sure there’s some holiday photos from that year that would say otherwise, pretty definitively in the form of you and your Care Bear….”

“That I only had because you literally just gave it to me as a present solely so that you could claim that I had a Care Bear when I was fifteen, you douchebag!”

“Just because I gave you the Care Bear didn’t mean you had to keep the Care Bear and hold the Care Bear and love the Care Bear, Jay. You chose to do all that.”

“I only kept the damn thing because you’re an asshole who lied about it being a family heirloom so I felt like I had to or I’d be a total jerk. Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I didn’t lie! It is a treasured family heirloom! Its the first Care Bear I gave to my little brother to teach him the important and valuable lesson that Care Bears - say it with me now - “

“Finish that sentence and they will never find your body.”

“CARE!” Cass shrieked from behind him before jumping on Jason’s back and bearing him down to the floor in an undignified tangle as she splayed atop him like a starfish and he stared up at the ceiling in a kind of strangled frozen fury, like there was so much emotion he wanted to process he’d overheated and now was stuck like that until he cooled down.

That was when Dick leaned over him and solemnly added one final thought, as though it was a crucial addition of the gravest importance:: “A lot.”

Jason’s eye twitched.

Dick’s eyes went wide in response. “Uh oh. He went to the Danger Zone. Run Cass. We’ve unleashed the dogs of war!”

Cass was off and on her feet in a second, taking off down the hall like a rocket. “Not the dogs of war!” She yelled.

Dick was only seconds behind her when behind him, Jason rose like an eruption, growling wordlessly and sparks practically flashing from his suddenly flinty eyes. He charged after them like an enraged bull.

“Kenny Loggins wouldn’t want this!” Dick yelled over his shoulder as he rounded the doorway and vanished. Jason rounded it in hot pursuit.

“Poison Ivy won’t even be able to make compost from what’s left of you when I’m through!”

The yelling and running vanished into the distance. Duke and Tim finally looked at each other blankly.

“What?” Tim asked. Duke shrugged helplessly.

A door opened at the end of the hallway. Bruce stuck his head out. “Is it safe?”

Tim just stared at him.

“What?” Duke asked.

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

LOL mostly I just want to get to the tail end of the series, when Dick and Jason go undercover as supervillains in the Society of well, Supervillains....Dick as War Shrike and Jason as Gray Jay. (A kind of bird usually known for or referenced as being thieving and unpredictable and unexpectedly dangerous despite its size. Jason never went into the Lazarus Pit here and so isn’t as huge as he is in canon, he’s on the smaller side due to his early life’s malnutrition. Living with Bruce helped him catch up enough that he’s not TINY tiny, but he’s still smaller enough that this particular mantle fits him a little better than it would his massive canon depiction).

Cass also partakes in the undercover storyline, just showing up uninvited in a persona she’s crafted for the mission and calls Black Swan. And War Shrike and Gray Jay are both so startled and obviously a little freaked by her unexpected arrival, that combined with her being ticked at her brothers for leaving her behind, RUDE, and them sufficiently cowed and guilted by her wrath, that it all adds up to the other villains as being clear evidence that she is the boss and they are her advance minions. 

Which mollifies and satisfies Cass immensely, and leaves Jason grumpy that their mission was hijacked and also his sister is The Worst, and leaves Dick temporarily disgruntled because This Whole Thing Was His Idea DAMMIT but then five seconds later finding it hilarious because Dick is a chaos connoisseur and he has an appreciation for whimsy and the unexpected.

“I can’t believe you not only gate-crashed our extremely sensitive and delicate undercover operation, but you completely hijacked it as well! This is so typical,” Jason grouched.

Cass simply swept ahead of him and strode down the hallway with lethal grace. “Silence minion.”

Jason spluttered behind her and she grinned to herself. He really made it too easy sometimes.

[ezwhump]

Let the Cat Out of the Bag - pet whump, pet-sitting, pampered pet, introduction of characters 

“Explain it to me again.”

“Aw, fuck off, Farhan.”

“No, seriously!” Farhan spat a seed shell into the solo cup and  took another swig of his beer. “This woman puts an ad in the fucking paper, for christ’s sake, asking for someone to what? Look after her kitty cat?”

He buckled over, eyes creasing, and barked out a laugh. 

“No you got that exactly right, man,” Gregor let his mouthful of warm beer dribble back into the bottle and set it down on the table. “She’s got some sorta terminal illness, says she won’t be home enough to look after it, yeah? That’s where I come in.” 

Farhan snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah but she could just sell it though. Get some dough before she croaks.” He leaned over and snatched the paper off the table. “Pet-sitting. Fucking hell. I can loan you the money, you know.” 

When Farhan got serious he got fancy, started picking up his ‘t’s, shortening his vowels. Offering money. It made Gregor raise his hackles. 

“When you think about it, it's not a bad gig. I get to fuck around in some OAP’s house all day and I get paid for it. If I do a decent enough job maybe I get in on the will.”

Farhan shook his head, flipping to the sports section of the paper. “You’re a fuckin’ vulture, man.”

Gregor smiled to himself and drank his warm beer anyway. Farhan didn’t really understand, it didn’t matter what the job was, it mattered what the pay was. And he’d do pretty much anything at this point (except become Farhan’s charity case), so long as food got put on the table and the bills were paid, even looking after some geriatric’s pet. 

Even if he was allergic to cats. 

--

The car pulled up a few streets away from the old lady’s, and Gregor opened the passenger door. 

Farhan leaned over and rolled down the window. “You got your cell?”

Gregor patted his jean’s back pocket. 

“Right, good. Wallet, keys?”

“Fuck off, Farhan.” Gregor was getting irate, jumping on the spot with his hands in his front pockets. It was too fucking cold outside for chit-chat, he wanted to get into the warm house and start eating. 

Farhan laughed and cranked up the window with a “right, right”. 

The house was in a cul-de-sac of luxury townhomes, redbrick with intricate railings and a courtyard with a fountain. Gregor was suddenly very aware of his ratty sneakers and DIY buzzcut. He spat into the bushes and rang the doorbell, stopping short of shouting up to the closest window. It seemed like the sort of place where people would stop and stare if you spoke too loudly, and god forbid he caused a kerfuffle and the police were called. 

He patted his pocket for his dab pen and rolled it between his thumb and finger while he waited to be buzzed in. 

“Katz residence.” 

Gregor jumped and turned to the intercom speaker on the side of the doorway. He pressed the little purple button. 

“Uh, hi. It's Gregor. Enache. I’m here for the pet-sitting gi- job.” 

He waited for a moment, wind whipping inside his jacket and making him shudder. Then the intercom buzzed and he heard a lock click, so he took his cue and went inside. 

After processing the excessive grandeur of the lobby, Gregor took the elevator up to the top floor. All the hallways were cream with soft white lights in sconces and glittering from chandeliers. The floors were marble, and Gregor almost laughed when his soles squeaked and tracked dirt if he scraped them hard enough. 

There was a soft tinkling music coming from somewhere and all the doors were painted a deep plum colour with gold handles. The whole place smelled like sweet perfume. Part of Gregor wanted to break everything just to check if it was real (especially the little statues on the antique tables), part of him wanted this whole place to be preserved in resin so he could stare at it forever, but he mostly just wanted to see if there were price listings for any of it. The pawn potential made him lightheaded. 

“She’s gonna pay you,” he reminded himself, stopping at door 19 and rapping the golden knocker. It was shaped like a cat. 

  A boy answered the door. Well, not really a boy, though he seemed younger. He looked around Gregor’s age, 22 or so, but they were leagues apart. 

He had pearl-blonde hair that stopped at the base of his throat and his lanky frame was a little taller than Gregor. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and slacks made out of the same muslin fabric, but his feet were bare and clean. 

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Enache.” A woman’s voice called out from the guy who stepped aside silently to let Gregor in. 

Salma Katz was sitting on a white lounge sofa in a skirt and blouse, her legs crossed at the ankles. She wasn’t geriatric by any stretch of the imagination but she did have an air of vulnerability around her, like something was wrong and she was using every vice at her disposal to hide it. It showed in the way she picked at her nails or kept tucking back her blonde bob. 

“Hi.” Gregor stood dumbly in the entryway, eyes darting to all of the fanciful objects littered about the place. Little markings of money, of privilege. He felt sort of trapped. “Um, so where is the little guy?”

Salma was blinking sluggishly, and Gregor couldn’t help but compare it to when his mom had gotten hold of Farhan’s Vicodin after his dental surgery last month. Hazy, drugged up. It was probably painkillers or something. 

“There are a few things I should go over before I leave, but just in case there’s a list on the refrigerator.” She gestured for Gregor to sit and he did, slumping into the love-seat across from her, a glass coffee table between them with a small vase of peach roses in the middle of it. 

“I’m very invested in the comfort and safety of my pet while I’m enjoying treatment, and thus very meticulous. . . about who watches him.” The boy had taken a seat on the floor in front of her lounge chair, and Gregor had to drag his eyes back to Salma. 

“Right. Well, I mean, why put it in the paper then? Any dickwad off the street could come in.” A humoured smile lit up her face, and Gregor caught himself. “Uh, with all due respect, ma’am.”

Salma laughed, an airy, unbothered sound. “Well, just prove to me that I made the correct choice young man, and we won’t have a problem.” Her eyes trailed Gregor up and down and he tried not to squirm, setting his jaw and meeting her eyes. They glinted. “Now, Leander has a particular diet which I included on the list. I presume you can cook?”

Gregor nodded. He’d had to learn a long time ago. 

“Wonderful. Taking him outside the apartment is discouraged, however we do have a balcony if you’ll be needing to smoke or he needs fresh air. He takes a bath most nights, and you’ll know what to wash him with. Oh, and of course if you need anything from him all you need to do is ask.” 

“It’s trained?” Gregor felt his eyes widen, impressed. Cat’s weren’t usually trained, but he should’ve figured given the context of the whole situation. 

“Indeed he is. Now, I wouldn’t want him to get lonely, either. He has his own room but he does enjoy company. Would you be available to watch him five days a week?”

Gregor thought for a moment and nodded. He’d cover his bases, pay his dues, on the weekend. And besides, pets didn’t really require all that much effort. 

“Perfect. Does 7-12 feel appropriate? Of course we’d provide you with adequate food, a bed, transport, and whatever else you require to perform your duties.” She was talking slowly, like she was trying to coerce a wild animal into a cage, but Gregor wasn’t going to complain. Living in a place like this all day, free food, a fucking car, and all he had to do was refill a food bowl and wrestle it into a bath sometimes? He felt like he’d stumbled upon a get-out-of-jail-free card. 

“Sure, no problem.”

Salma smiled again and smoothed her hand along the boy’s hair, standing up and gesturing for Gregor to do so as well. Gregor tried to keep the incredulity from showing on his face. 

She reached out and took Gregor’s hand, clasping it briefly and then turning back to the boy. Gregor looked around again for a tabby, a persian. A fucking tiger. 

Salma ushered the boy forward, and he stood graceful and silent in front of Gregor, avoiding eye contact. 

“Mr. Enache, this is Leander. My pet.”

--- 

I’m taking a short break from Russ & Lennon, but hopefully you guys will enjoy reading about Gregor & Leander as much as I enjoy writing them :) I’m starting up a new tag list for these two so if you’d like to be included pls just let me know! <3 - ez 

--

tag list: __ 

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @wincest-endgame donated $25, and requested Sam & the amulet through the years. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

(read on AO3)

Dean pushes Sam into the bathroom, after what feels like a day of questioning and caution and Dean being withholding—he's so bad at it, Sam doesn't know why he even tries—and Bobby avoiding Sam's eyes—and Sam'll figure that out, eventually—but it's really only four in the afternoon, and he's got food in his belly for the first time in what feels like a week but he's assured is a year, and he's had a beer and a cup of coffee and Dean's squeezed his arm, on his bicep just above the bend of his elbow, and looked into his eyes for a full heart-rich moment when Bobby was on the phone in the kitchen and couldn't see—and they didn't do anything, of course they didn't, not in Bobby's house, but Sam closed the door behind himself with that look thick in his head, the knowing that Dean was safe and okay and that Lucifer didn't hurt him—that everyone was okay, that what he'd done by jumping into the cage had worked when he hadn't been sure, not at all, that it would—and he still doesn't really know how he got out but he'll get that out of Dean eventually—and he turns on the shower and smiles at the rickety jump of the hot water because, holy shit, he's alive to suffer Bobby's godawful shower—and he pulls the shirt off over his head, and unbuttons his jeans, and fishes in his pocket for his phone and his wallet like he always does—and finds a new phone that he doesn't recognize, which makes him frown, a wallet that he does, and—the amulet.

The air goes out of him. The shower's guttering down, getting warm at last. He hears Dean's voice through the door, saying something to Bobby although Sam doesn't know what. Sam twines the leather cord around his fingers and crushes the little metal head in his palm, standing there in his socks and boxers. He didn't lose it. Somehow he—hadn't thought about it, until now, but now that he has he just—assumed it'd be gone. He's not in the same clothes he was wearing before he fell, so—did Dean—? He doesn't know and in this second doesn't care. He brings his closed fist up to his mouth, the cord thin and worn against his lips. He breathes in, slow.

The last time he held it in his hand was—Detroit. Milkjugs of blood sitting in the trunk. Dean—somewhere, talking to Cas maybe, and Sam alone, and Sam was alone a lot then. It feels like yesterday. He'd felt distant somehow. Even if Dean had forgiven him, or at least had been willing to try to forgive him. Ever since the second he'd made the decision to say yes, and decided to make Dean agree, it was like he'd been one step outside his life, looking in. Watching Dean try to accept it and knowing Dean never would. Watching Dean, with his hands in his pockets, and his hand curled so hard around the amulet that the horned edge had actually cut into his palm and he'd bled, inside his jeans. Not minding that and squeezing it tighter. Reminding himself why what he was doing mattered so he wouldn't falter. He wasn't going to falter.

Lucifer had healed that little wound without even acknowledging it. Sam remembers that if nothing else. He opens his hand and he's made sore white marks where the edges of the demon-head have cut into his palm. The shower hisses, next to him, and there's a thump of the side of a fist against the door—"Hey, princess, don't take forever on the primping," Dean says, muffled, the idiot—christ, Sam loves him.

He looks up at the door, startled. Creak of floorboards outside, like Dean's just standing there. Sam blinks at the peeled paint, and calls back, "Dude, it's my first shower in a year, hold your horses," and Dean says, "Yeah, yeah," and Sam closes his hand around the amulet again, his chest—thick. He can't take a full breath. He stoops, and loops the amulet cord around itself three times, four, and tucks it back down into the deepest corner of the pocket of his jeans. He crouches there for a second, feeling—feeling. The steam in the air curls against his skin. He has to stand up. Take the shower, get into fresh clothes, get back out into the house, figure things out. Figure where the world is, after a year without him in it. He crouches there, instead, taking in air. There's a little spot on his jeans, he realizes. Worn, nearly white, where something's made a space for itself. You wouldn't notice the difference, if you saw it every day, but with a jump of time between the last time he wore these jeans and now—it's obvious.

*

Of course it was longer than a year. Of course there were things Dean didn't tell him. Soulless, Sam thinks, trying the word out by himself, when Castiel's left and Sam's waiting for Dean to get back with the sword. Soulless. Not—a good thing to be. He's pretty sure.

Things that are described as soulless: corporations, governments. His comparative philosophy professor in junior year. Soulless due to lack of consideration, due to lacking character, due to—what? Indifference. Cruelty.

When they got to Portland, Dean picked the motel by turning into a random parking lot off the highway, and Sam hauled most of their bags in because he could tell Dean was tired after all the driving, and he'd barely made it through blinking at the one king bed before the door slammed behind Dean and Dean hauled him around by the jacket and gripped his shirt and said low and fervent, Sammy, if you don't want to you're gonna have to knock me out, and Sam dropped the bags right there in the entrance and got his hand on Dean's face and dragged his thumb soft over Dean's pretty lower lip and felt how Dean tensed, and then how the tension spilled out of him like water.

He doesn't get it. He walked around, he was told, without a soul, for a year. More than a year. Castiel was very precise about it. He'd left Dean with Lisa and found his grandfather, instead—his grandfather!—and he'd hunted. When they came to Dean it was by accident, Castiel said, and then when Dean had started hunting with Sam it had seemed to be for convenience, rather than something that meant—anything. Shifters, alphas. Vampires. Castiel knew all of it and told Sam earnestly, not judging. Sam had tried to kill Bobby but it was all right, Castiel said, because Dean had gotten so fearful and sick that he'd let himself die, to speak to Death, to make Sam right. He would have died, if Sam hadn't gotten right. It had been worth that. It had been that bad.

There's a text, from Dean. Sorta got the sword. Back in 8 hrs. Want any sourdough?

Sorta? Sam chews his lip. Just the dragon-killing magic weapon, thanks, he texts back, and Dean texts him a :) and Sam puts down his phone and stands up from the table and wants to vomit. Jesus christ. Soulless, he thinks, again, and pulls the amulet out of his pocket, winding the cord around his knuckles, staring at it.

He kept it. Somehow, some way. A year and more. From however he got spit out of the cage, from looking at Dean and choosing to turn away from him, to having Dean back and treating him like—he shudders. His indifferent callous body, carving an efficient line through the world. Sam wants to remember and doesn't. He does want to know what the exact moment was like, when he stuck his hand in his pocket standing on a street under a flickering lamp, watching Dean through a window like a damn pervert, and felt the amulet skin-warmed and heavy against his skin, and thought—what?

He puts it back in his pocket. Eight hours, until Dean gets back. Sam drags his hand over his mouth. When he shifts he can feel it—a little, nagging weight, pressed against his thigh. A year and a half of that with no reason to keep it. With all the reason in the fucking world to keep it. He blows out air until his chest is empty. Eight hours. He'd better have something to show for it. He gets to work.

*

He remembers, of course, later. Fractured, incomplete. Three selves' memories colliding and sleepless nights with a monster whispering in his ear. He curls on his side in a too-warm bed and watches Dean, curled beside him, sleeping. Frowning in his sleep. Lucifer says, though Sam ignores him, "Imagine how much easier he'd have had it at Lisa's, right? Bet she wore sweet little nightgowns, too. Where's yours, Sammy?"

In the cage he hadn't worn the amulet around his neck, not like he had in the year of Dean's absence. Lucifer didn't allow that. Sometimes he would crouch alone in the dark while Lucifer and Michael fought and he'd get space to breathe although breathing there always felt like the coldest depth of a North Dakota January. Shards of ice in his throat. The air thin. The air, of course, not real, but no matter how much Sam's conscious brain tries to rationalize when he has a moment to think, the cage isn't a place for rationality. Lucifer throttles him and Sam knows distantly that his lungs aren't real but he chokes anyway. He chokes. The air whittled thin in his throat and the edges of his vision vignetting to black, to sparkle-shot oxygenless, uncertain—

He turns his head, gasps deep. "Aw, thought I had you there," he hears, and turns fully onto his back, and they didn't bother undressing tonight before Dean crashed miserably into the mattress so he's still got his jeans on, and he shoves his hand into his pocket and wraps his hand around the amulet and squeezes so hard the horned heavy edges tear into his thin unhealed skin and the pain—god, the pain, piercing, cleansing.

It hurts. The room's quiet, except for the rattle of the heater under the window. Dean's breath, at his side. Not quite a snore. Sam's bleeding. He can feel the bandage getting wet. He curls his hand tighter and fumbles in the dark. A hitch—Dean's baby snore, interrupted—and Sam goes shh, as soft as he physically can, and Dean huffs and turns over and puts his face on Sam's shoulder, and Sam squeezes his hip through his jeans very gently, settling down. Lucifer will be back, he knows. When it's worst. When he thinks he's nearly fallen asleep. When Dean wakes up, in the pre-dawn because he has to piss, and he leans in first and kisses Sam's jaw, rough and sleepy with his breath rank, when Sam loves him just—the absolute most—Lucifer will ruin it. Even if Sam knows it isn't real it's as predictable as it is gutting.

He pulls his fist out of his pocket, amulet included. Dean won't wake for—what time is it?—hours. He turns his head toward Dean's, presses his lips against the warmth of his hair. He settles his fist on his chest. If the blood spills—well, it won't be the first time Sam's lost a shirt to blood.

*

Taking the amulet out of the trash wasn't a decision, when he did it. When animals are cornered their lashing out is survival, nothing else. He kept it because—he had to keep it. It wasn't possible that it be left where it was. An indifferent housekeeper dumping it into the mixed refuse of a half-dozen rooms; a trip to a dumpster, and then a dump, to be lost. No.

They had—

Sam knew it didn't matter in the face of what came later but he still felt it. That day. Vermont, autumn. The leaves dark red in the setting sun, or red just because they were. Immaterial, with Dean's back against the tree and his face tipped up to Sam's. Shocked. Sam's fingers on his jaw and then trailing down his throat, hooking into the cord of the amulet and pulling, down, to the demon-head, and Dean letting that tiny insignificant weight tip him forward so he met Sam's mouth when Sam offered it. The bodywarm of it against Sam's thumb when Dean's lips touched his, and how his hand closed into a fist on instinct, shocked too.

Whatever betrayals had come later. Whatever misunderstandings and miseries. There was still that day, and all the days before. This solid thing that had marked Dean as Sam's brother, for all the months and years marching all the way back to that stupid, shitty Christmas morning, five a.m. cold and disappointing, and Sam making the first decision that was really his own that he'd ever made. Handing over the shitty little packet of a gift he hadn't picked, and Dean looking at him with this—rare, uncertain happiness. Not willing to take it, in case it'd be snatched away like everything else had been.

Maybe that hadn't been a decision either, in retrospect. It was Sam's first day, in a hunted life that wasn't one he'd chosen, and maybe that was just instinct. Looping something around Dean's throat and saying, please. Dean had taken it. Said yes. Tossing it in the trash, later—well, Sam didn't blame him, but and he understood if the yes was retracted, but—Sam couldn't let it go. Even if he was the only one who remembered. Even if, ever after, even if they hurt each other and found each other again and circled each other like twin stars in an uncertain orbit—even if they met, in a dark room, and Dean said to him soft and sorry, Sammy, I swear, and Sam dragged Dean's body over the top of his and took the weight and feel of him like a payment, due—even then. He kept the damn thing, quiet, and his.

It didn't even register, after a while. It transferred from jeans to duffle to backpack to jacket. Part of the morning pat-check, unthinking unless something was missing: phone wallet amulet keys. Amelia never asked about it. Gadreel never interfered with it. When Dean was a demon Sam got up every morning in an empty bed and took a shower and carefully lifted his sling over his head and being ready for the day meant sling wallet keys amulet phone list of contacts he hadn't burned through yet and it just—felt like part of him. He thought about it as much as he thought about his lung.

On the day that Dean almost killed him Sam got dressed without thinking because there were more important things than thinking, and he put on jeans and he put on his boots and he put on shirt, shirt, jacket, and he dragged his hand through his hair instead of combing it, and he put in his pockets keys phone amulet wallet and he stood there, then, in the total quiet of the bunker, and took the amulet back out of his pocket. He looked at it in his palm. Small, heavy. The cord looping back over his knuckles. Dean had had to get new ones, he remembered. The leather ones kept wearing through, because Dean wore it every second: sleeping, waking, in the shower. When they were in bed, and Sam folded Dean in close against his chest, and Dean's lips brushed his jaw, and Sam slipped careful fingers under the cord, worrying at it. If only he'd known, then, the things he had to worry about.

He put the amulet back in his pocket. He went to Dean's room, in the bunker, and found the pictures Dean didn't keep very well hidden, and flicked past the ones of them together until he found the one of their mother. That, maybe. That would work. It wasn't fair, that day, to try to pretend anything else would, and as far as what mattered more to Sam—that was his problem, he thought, and nothing that needed to bother Dean. It was important, he thought, to be realistic.

*

"Give us a minute," Dean says.

"Dean," Sam says, appalled.

Chuck—Chuck? Jesus christ—jesus christ! Sam thinks. Chuck looks entertained, standing there in his sneakers—his Chucks! Jesus christ!—and his jeans and his simple short body and how he's—he's—

"Dude, seriously," Dean says, impatient, and Chuck raises his hands like surrender and says, "Hey, no, I get it! You've got stuff to talk about! Just say my name when you're ready, we've got all the time in the world, I'm sure my sister isn't planning the imminent destruction of all creation," and he winks, and then—disappears, jesus christ because Chuck is GOD—

"Sammy," Dean says, firm.

"Dean," Sam says back, immediately, "what are you doing—holy shit, do you realize—"

"Sam," Dean says, in a different tone, and Sam's gut jolts, hooked. Diverted.

The bunker, quiet around them. They're in the map room and the lights are all on full, bright and warm. Dean's looking at him and Sam—they've been good, it's been good, for months and months—the best it's ever been, even better than those first heady days when they were learning each other, young and reckless—and even with all that, Sam's nervous, somehow.

"How you doing, Sammy," Dean says, eyes narrow.

Sam lets out a sharp breath.

Dean seems surprised at the lack of answer and his chin tips up. He looks at Sam steadily. Sam doesn't know what he's supposed to say and so stays silent, and Dean keeps looking at him and then slides his hand into his pocket, and pulls out—of course.

He holds it low, in front of himself, dangling from two fingers. The heavy pendulum sway. Dean's eyes are low, fixed on it, but Sam's watching Dean's face.

There are obvious things to say that Dean doesn't say and Sam's grateful for it. "You took the other one," is what Dean says, and he doesn't look up to see Sam frown confusion but he must sense it, somehow, because he continues: "From that—jesus, Sam. From that play, that the girls put on. When I came out to the car the next morning it was gone. Doesn't seem fair. You got the prop and the real thing, both."

"Sorry," Sam says, and Dean says, "Christ," and takes the three long steps across the room to where Sam's got his back to a pillar and kisses him. Sam takes it, breathing in. Not soft, not that giving sweet that Dean can be, but it's Dean's mouth and therefore it's a miracle, every time.

Dean pulls back. His brow rolls against Sam's, brief, and then he sets down from where he lifted up on his toes, and he looks at Sam from six inches, their hips pressed together. The amulet swings against Sam's stomach, from where Dean's hands are fisted on his sternum.

"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam takes a deep breath and says, "I didn't mean to keep it—secret."

It's a lie and a bad one. He doesn't know why he said it that way but he doesn't know a truer one. He didn't—make a decision about it. It was just that…

Dean doesn't call him on it. "You said," he starts, and then his cheek sucks in on one side. Sam notices for the first time how tired his eyes are. It was a long day. The fog and the people they couldn't save. He folds one hand over one of Dean's, pressed against his chest, and Dean's eyes dip, and maybe that makes it easy enough because Dean says, "Sam, I wouldn't choose her."

Sam takes a deep breath. Their hands rise, all knotted together. Dean says, "It kills me, Sammy. That you think I'd—but I wouldn't. If it were any choice, if I could—make it how I wanted it to be. I wouldn't, not fuckin' once," and Sam says, "I know," just to stop Dean from talking, with his voice thickening up that way.

God's somewhere, waiting in the wings. Sam doesn't give a shit, anymore. Dean's mouth turns up at one corner but it's not happy, and Sam slides his free hand up Dean's side, gripping through his jacket, trying. However he knows how to try. "I know," he says, again, because—christ, he does. That nasty awful fog doesn't get to take this from him. "Dean, I told you before. Whatever she makes you—think, or do. I got it. I can handle it."

Dean bites his lips between his teeth and he looks down. His thumb catches the swinging cord of the amulet. "You know," Dean says, echoing. A question, buried down in it.

He hasn’t said it, specifically, out loud or internally or even when he prayed, back when he thought that praying was something that mattered, but: Sam hates Amara. Hates every aspect of her, baby to adult to imagined vision to physical manifestation to the haunted look, in Dean's eye, when he thinks Sam isn't looking. Hates how she makes Dean doubt. Hates how she makes Dean afraid. Hates every fragment of her that draws Dean's attention away, makes him look into the shadows of the room, makes him weak and afraid of his own weakness. In their bed at night Dean lays awake and Sam is awake with him and he thinks—how can he prove it? How can he show Dean how much he wants to take this burden away—to make it so the darkness is nothing that could come between them?

"Sam," Dean says. "You're…"

Nothing goes there. What could? Sam slides his hand from Dean's side up to the back of Dean's neck, cupping his skull, holding. He ducks his head. His temple against Dean's temple, Dean's breath against his throat. He closes his eyes and reaches and finds the amulet, dangling, on his first try. Luck. He gathers it into his palm and knocks Dean's fist open and closes their hands together, fisted around the sharp little weight of it. Any other day Dean would make a crack about holding hands.

Sam says, "I kept it because I wanted you. It wasn't your fault that things went bad. Or, I don't know. Half yours and half mine. Or maybe it was destiny's fault—fate, or something. It doesn't matter. What mattered was—how you stuck with me. How we—figured it out, every time. No matter how crappy it got, or how much we didn't trust each other, or… Because it's us, right? Every time. It's us, no matter what. I knew that on days I didn't know anything else. Nothing's going to take that away. Not the Darkness. Not God."

True. Dean's temple tips, against his. Their stubble drags together. "Not even the big guy, huh?" he says. Frail. "Seem pretty sure of yourself, there."

"I am," Sam says, not joking, and hears the breath Dean takes in. He squeezes their hands together, squeezes the back of Dean's neck.

"Shit," Dean says, and lets out a fraction of a laugh. "I wish I..."

He shakes his head, tipping away from Sam. Sam looks at his profile. The sweep of his eyelashes. His nose, with the little broken tilt. His jaw, squared. Sam bites the inside of his cheek and then lets go of Dean's neck, and folds their hands together all in a square—Dean's hand over Sam's over Dean's over Sam's—and when he unfolds them the amulet's caught in Dean's palm, and Sam folds his fingers over Dean's fist and pushes it, down, tucking it neat into Dean's jacket pocket. Dean blinks at him.

"I don't need a reminder," Sam says. Echo of something that feels like forever ago, surprisingly—now—true. "I'll be right here. No matter what. I swear."

He lets go of Dean's fist and slides up his arm, holding his shoulder instead. Dean looks back and forth between his eyes. "Thank you, Sam," he says, serious.

Sam nods. Dean looks up into his eyes, and then at his mouth, and when he leans for the kiss Sam responds simply, holding him and trying to say—everything there is to say. There could never be enough time, to say all there is to say.

Dean pulls back, after a few seconds. Not nearly enough. Their noses brush together and Dean's hands are on his chest, heavy. The amulet in his pocket. Where it belongs, Sam thinks, but it doesn't—matter, the same way it did before. It's not tying Dean to him; it's not a relic of a promise, broken and then kept. He touches Dean's jaw, with his thumb, and Dean sighs against him.

"Guess we should call him back," Dean says. "You think he knows we totally made out just now?"

Sam groans, and pushes Dean away, and catches him smiling. "You're totally going to hell," he says, and Dean winks at him, and turns away, and calls out, "Yo, Chuck!" like he's calling the literal creator for a dinner of hot wings, and Sam would despair but Dean's hand is in his pocket, and—well, they're okay, so. It's okay.

[davidmann95]

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

*  Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.