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organic-bloodbath · 2 months ago

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Knife Princess - Part 8

Chishiya x Reader

Summary: You agree to have a DNA test taken. Pouring out your frustration, you experience a more severe hallucination. Chishiya and Niragi meet again as well.

A/N: Getting Niragi into the picture a little more. They're all going a little insane.

Chapters

♤♡♧◇

You were going to have a look on one of the apartments you had been browsing online and had sent an application to. The previous tenant had moved out around a week ago so there was no furniture.

A real estate agent was going to give you a tour and show you around, letting you decide your opinion on whether the apartment was suitable for you or not.

But when you saw who the agent assigned to you was, at first you couldn’t move, heart starting to beat faster and legs locking themselves in their current place.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you spat. The man’s eyes widened as well.

“Y/N,” your one-night hookup, Takuro, gasped. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Please don’t tell me you chose me on purpose,” you sighed, ready to turn around.

“I didn’t, I swear,” he hurried to say, lifting his hands in the air as a surrender. “I didn’t even know your last name or other information about you what's included in the papers.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, taking a deep breath in.

“Come on, let’s just be professional, okay? I’ll show you the apartment and then we’ll part ways,” Takuro suggested, trying to motion you to get inside.

You let out a sigh, taking a step forward. “Fine.”

He started leading you further in the apartment, going through each room one by one.

“So, this is the kitchen,” he said. “In my opinion it looks smaller than in the images on the website but it can still fit a proper dining table.” He walked closer to the drawers and the stove. “There’s a lot of space for all kinds of utensils and food. The large window brings a lot of sunlight to the apartment too, though making summers quite hot.”

You barely said anything during the tour, except a few comments and common questions here and there once in a while, just let him talk what he had to say. You had to admit that he was a good estate agent and that he was natural at selling things to people, being much more charming than you could personally ever become.

The apartment seemed to have almost everything you wanted from your home. You could imagine yourself living here and already thought of the way you’d arrange furniture. Suddenly you properly realized that you had no furniture left and that you’d have to buy everything again.

Your favorite place here was the bedroom, the window the perfect size – making the room feel open but not too much. The walls had been painted dark red which you didn’t think you’d like but it actually looked amazing, just the right shade.

The balcony could have had a better view, but it didn’t bother you too much.

“So, what do you think?” he asked when he had introduced you to every possible corner of the apartment.

“It’s amazing, I do like it,” you admitted. It wasn’t too pricey either, and it would take only 20 minutes to get to your workplace.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he smiled, happy that he could satisfy another customer. “There’s couple of more customers interested in seeing the place, but I could offer it to you right away if you’re interested?”

“Can I think for a while and call you back?” you asked, even though you knew that you wanted this place but couldn’t make any hasty decisions. You looked towards the living room one more time, already imagining Niragi sleeping on a couch there against all your protests.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll reserve it for you for couple of days, so could you call back on Thursday, if not earlier? After that i'll have to let other customers come to check this out.”

“Sure,” you agreed.

After that, both of you fell silent, not knowing what to say to each other.

“Well, if this was all, I better go then.” You turned around and started walking towards the front door, but was interrupted almost right away.

“How have you been doing?” Takuro blurted out before you could open the front door to leave. The time of him acting professional was now finished. He had tried to form the correct words in his mind what to say to you but nothing had felt right.

“I’m alright,” you replied without turning to face him.

“And, um… How’s the baby?” he asked carefully, taking a few careful steps closer to you so that he didn’t have to raise his voice.

You turned around to look at him, raising your eyebrows. “How’s the baby?” you repeated with a mocking tone, crossing your arms against your chest. “Now you care and admit it’s yours, hm?”

“No, I just,” he started, trying to choose his words carefully since you clearly weren’t on his side. “It’s not mine, I already told you that. And I do care about your well-being, Y/N. Yes, even though we don’t know each other well.”

“Mhm,” you mumbled and turned your head away, not really knowing what to say to him. You just wanted to leave but couldn’t get your legs moving towards the front door, knowing you had unfinished business with him that you needed to get solved.

“Please, can you just take a DNA test to prove I’m not the father?” he pleaded, walking now close enough to you to gently put his hand on your shoulder to make you look back at him. You thought you’d flinch from his touch but your body didn’t react to it in any way, as if his hand wasn't there at all. “I can’t stand to know the fact that someone thinks I assaulted her and got her pregnant too. Please.”

You let out a frustrated sigh and closed your eyes, holding your hand against your forehead. You felt frustration spread in your chest and rising up your throat, making you clench your teeth harder together to keep your cool.

“I’m not aware if you’ve slept with other men or not and I don’t care, just cross me out from the list, alright?” he asked with a soft voice.

You let out a laugh, moving your gaze to look him into his eyes now. “There’s no list, you idiot.”

“Take the test,” he asked one more time, by now begging you. “Please? I’ll give you a DNA sample right now or we’ll go to a hospital. I don’t know how it works.”

“Will you then leave me alone?” you asked.

“I will, I promise,” he confirmed. “If you wish to never see me again, I won’t come to talk to you if I see you somewhere. I won’t even look at you, if you wish so. I’ll act like you put a restraining order on me.”

He seemed like such a sweet and kind guy who owned a good heart but you couldn’t get the nagging feeling inside you away that he was the only option to be the baby’s father. Maybe you needed a written proof that he really was the reason you had a new life growing inside your womb. You wished so hard that he wasn’t the dad and didn’t assault you that night, seeing the desperate look in his eyes right now how he looked at you, not wanting you to hate him for the rest of your life.

“Okay,” you agreed.

God, how much you wished you were wrong and he was right. Just because you didn't want to live your life hating someone.

But if he was right, you had no idea what to do next.

♤♡♧◇

Niragi returned to Jae-sung’s apartment, standing in front of the front door and searching for the key in his pockets. When he didn’t find the key anywhere, he started to panic.

You’ve got to be kidding me, he thought, wanting to punch the wall in frustration. Of course he had to forget the key inside. What a fucking dumbass.

Niragi knocked on the door, knowing damn well that Jae-sung was at work and you had gone outside to do whatever you were doing. Jae-sung wouldn’t be back home in another four hours, at least, so he pulled his phone and dialed your number. It rang four times before you answered the phone.

“What?” you asked, not even bothering to greet him first.

“When are you coming back?”

“Miss me already? Are you that bored?” you teased him.

“I just forgot the fucking key inside, okay?” Niragi spat, growing truly annoyed.

“And how is that my problem?” You had no empathy for his own dumb actions.

“Just tell me when you’ll be here,” Niragi gritted between his teeth.

“Not in another couple of hours,” you answered. “Go and bother the neighbors or something, I don’t care.”

“Love you too, sis,” Niragi scoffed and hang up the phone.

For the next 10 minutes, Niragi only sat on the floor by the door and stared at the wall on the opposite side. He had nothing to do except wait. Sure he could go hang out outside before you'd return but he had no idea where he would go.

Until he got one idea how to spend his time for a moment. He pulled a bobby pin from his hair, twisting and bending it into a correct position to start to pick the lock in the door handle.

“Please tell me you live there so I don’t have to involve myself in anything,” a male voice said a few metres behind him, startling him for being so silent.

He looked familiar and after a moment Niragi recognized him to be the same blond guy from the day they woke up in the hospital. The hell was he doing here?

“Forgot the key inside,” Niragi huffed and turned his face back towards the lock, trying to concentrate on getting the door open and ignore the guy’s stare.

“You’re doing it wrong, you know?” Chishiya commented.

“Yeah? Mind your own business,” Niragi mumbled. The guy was probably right though, Niragi had never managed to pick a lock in his life, he had only watched couple of videos about it ages ago when he had been bored.

“Let me have a look,” Chishiya suggested and kneeled down next to Niragi, who was reluctant to accept help just like that from a stranger. Especially a guy who was significantly shorter than him and looked like a girl, but Niragi needed to get inside.

Chishiya had opened locks before, so he knew how it worked. Niragi gave him the bobby pin and took a step away to let him handle it.

Niragi didn't say anything while Chishiya concentrated on getting the door open, eyebrows furrowed. He just leaned against the wall, arms crossed on his chest.

It took a while but eventually Chishiya got the door open, actually managing to surprise Niragi.

“You have a habit to forget your key inside too or what?” Niragi asked, then narrowing his eyes. “Unless you’re a burglar, huh?”

“Nah, just felt like a useful skill to learn,” Chishiya shrugged as he stood up and returned the twisted bobby pin to Niragi. “Not that I’d need it often. Breaking into other people’s houses isn’t one of my spare time hobbies, even though I think I’d make a good burglar if i wanted to”

Chishiya wasn’t sure why he cared to help him. Because he was your brother and you’d appreciate Chishiya for helping him? No, of course that wasn’t it. Normally Chishiya would just walk past and not give it another thought if he knew the apartment belonged to the person trying to break in. He didn't do charity to strangers.

“Do I owe you a favor now, huh?” Niragi asked, mostly joking.

One more game, Niragi’s voice continued inside Chishiya’s mind.

“What game?” Chishiya asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Game?” Niragi repeated, as confused as Chishiya was right now. “You want to play a game?”

Suddenly, Niragi heard a loud gunshot, making him jump a little. He looked around him, trying to find the source of the shot but there was nothing which would have caused the sound. It was too loud to be just a traffic crash outside or something. It happened in this corridor.

Niragi turned his face back to Chishiya, whose white shirt was now slowly being dyed red on his ribs, as if he had been shot for real a second ago. Niragi’s eyes widened.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Niragi shouted in slight panic.

“What?” Chishiya asked with the same calm voice he had talked in before, confused of Niragi's behavior.

Niragi shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, Chishiya’s shirt was back being completely white. No red anywhere in sight on him.

“Are you feeling alright?” Chishiya asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I need to lay down,” Niragi mumbled, suddenly feeling sick and went inside the apartment. “Thanks for the help.” Then, he closed the door behind him, letting Chishiya continue his way wherever he was going.

But Chishiya didn’t move from his spot right away, only kept staring at the closed door for a moment. What a strange man, he thought. Chishiya could see a clear resemblance between him and his sister, which was you, even though half of Niragi’s face was severely scarred at the moment due to the accident.

Eventually Chishiya walked towards the stairs, trying to brush the moment with Niragi out of his head.

Niragi leaned against the door for a few minutes, trying to process the previous moment he experienced. He knew what a gunshot sounded like, and the noise had sounded exactly like one. His ear was still ringing a bit by the loud sound, as if it had been real and the gun had been almost right beside his ear. And Chishiya’s shirt too? That was blood, but then there wasn’t blood at all anymore.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Niragi mumbled under his breath and rubbed his scarred face, then hitting himself on his left temple. “You’re going insane, get it together.”

When Chishiya arrived outside and was simply walking down the street, he felt some kind of presence staring at him. He couldn't explain the feeling but something felt off.

Chishiya was waiting at traffic lights to be able to cross the road and as he looked directly towards the street on the other side, he saw a tall man in a black cloak stare at him. At least Chishiya thought he looked at his way, he couldn't exactly see the man's face under the hood.

But he was carrying a massive rifle with him, and none of the other people around paid any attention on the man.

Then, a bus drove past, hiding the man behind it. When the bus was gone, so was the man, as if he had jumped on the bus without it stopping to pick up more passengers.

Chishiya didn't get scared easily, there wasn't many things he feared but that man? He managed to make Chishiya extremely uncomfortable and wake up feelings he hadn't felt in a long time.

Right after, Chishiya felt something hard hit his ankle, and when he looked down, he saw a grenade which would blow up any second.

Immediately he jumped out of the way, falling on his back and hearing a loud explosion but when he looked around him, absolutely nothing was damaged and nobody seemed to be hurt.

"Sir? Are you alright?" an older woman asked, looking down at Chishiya who was lying on the ground, breathing rapidly, eyes wide. "Do you need a doctor?"

"I'm, i'm alright," Chishiya mumbled and got up, his head feeling heavy.

He had physically felt the grenade hit his ankle so there was no way he had just imagined it.

♤♡♧◇

A few days passed, and you were anxiously waiting for the result of the DNA test. You tried to figure out other things to do which would make your mind to concentrate on other things than the test but the thought and stress of it wouldn’t leave your mind. You were so desperate to find things to do that you started even learning a new language online – French, which you would give up with after a few days.

You also started to get ready to return to your work soon, it wouldn’t be long anymore to get back to your regular routine you had been used to for the past few years. Sitting at home and forcing yourself to find things to do was making you go crazy because you were running out of ideas.

As you were watching TV with Jae-sung in the living room, you got a notification on your phone. Your heart started racing faster and faster in your chest, panic rising inside you. It was an email from the hospital, and you were more than sure that it held the answer of the DNA test. The answer whether Takuro was the father or not. He had to be, of course it had to be him.

Your stomach dropped and heart skipped a few beats when you read the result. You had to read those few words several times to believe what it actually said. Looking at each letter on one of the words.

Negative. It was negative, he wasn’t the father of your baby.

“What is it?” Jae-sung asked, furrowing his eyebrows when he saw the shocked look on your face. He had said something to you but you hadn’t heard what, you were completely ignoring him like he didn't exist at all.

“I think I need to go,” you mumbled, hands shaking.

You locked yourself inside the bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat and holding your head in your hands. You had read the email several times now, that one word so many times it was losing its meaning.

Negative. Negative. Negative.

You leaned back and held your stomach, looking down at the slight bump which was there but not extremely visible yet.

“What are you?”

♤♡♧◇

Some hours later and after the thought had properly sank into your mind, you had left the house to go to the place where you always went to pour out all the frustration and anger. You could be there in peace, nobody bothering you.

You were throwing knives on the wall one by one, aiming at a few targets you had set up. The headphones against your ears were blasting music into your head, attempting to muffle any thoughts lingering in your mind.

You had owned a large knife collection in your home and was more than upset that the meteorite had destroyed them as well. Well, you didn’t know if they were actually destroyed, but you hadn’t been able to visit your former home which was now in ruins. These two you had now were the only ones you had left at the moment, so you had to constantly walk back and forth to pull the knives out of the wall, usually you had five with you.

You were feeling so many emotions at once and didn't know how to deal with them. So you put all that frustration in stabbing the wall with the blades.

Why couldn't things just be easy for once? Too much going on and only one Y/N left to deal with all the thoughts and problems storming inside your mind and body. You were tired and just wanted to give all these things bothering you to someone else who would be able to deal with them better.

You took the water bottle on the side table, taking a few large gulps down your throat and taking a quick break before you’d go pick up the knives back again.

As you started walking towards the place where your knives were sticking out, you froze on your place, terrified of the scene you were now facing. You instantly ripped the headphones off your head, throwing them on the floor.

A man was suddenly standing about ten metres in front of you, leaning against the wall against the spot where you had aimed the knife on. He was wearing something what looked like a bulletproof vest.

But your knife wasn't on the wall – it was sticking in the man's neck.

Your eyes widened and a horrified scream escaped your lips as you looked at him holding his neck with his hand, blood pouring between his fingers. The man slowly turned his body towards you, lifting something you hadn't at first noticed he was holding in his hand.

With a murderous glare in his eyes, he pointed a gun directly at you, ready to aim and pull the trigger.

You tried to jump out of the way and shut your eyes, but there was no gunshot. In fact, there was no sound at all coming from him.

When you opened your eyes, you were all alone again, nobody else in sight. After standing still for a while, body and mind filled with fear, you walked slowly towards the wall where your knife was sticking out like usual. Not a single drop of blood in any surface. Not on the floor, wall or even the blade you had sharpened before you arrived here.

Your heart was hammering inside your chest so hard you felt like you were going to vomit, faint or experience another panic attack but the horrified feeling inside you didn't evolve as far.

You had never seen that man before in your life, even though there was a slight familiar feeling of him. The look he had stared at you with was the scariest look anyone had ever made at you, sending shivers down your spine. The look alone would have been able to kill if he stared at you long enough.

The door suddenly opened, breaking the eerie silence in pieces and making you jump back and let out another automatic scream. You were now holding one of the knives in your hand, gripping on the handle so tightly that your knuckles had turned white. You didn't even first realize how much your hand was shaking at that moment and it was extremely close that you didn't throw the knife towards the person coming inside the room.

As you recognized the person approaching you, your shoulders relaxed a little and a deep breath slipped between your lips, but you still wouldn't loosen your hold on the knife. You looked at the clock on the wall, it was starting to be the time Niragi had told you he'd come and pick you up.

"Y/N? Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Niragi asked, seeing the shocked and horrified expression on your face. He looked at your hand, which was still trembling and holding the knife. "Hey, hey what's wrong?"

Niragi held your shoulders and looked at you in your eyes.

"Niragi," you whispered, throat dry even though you had just drank water. "I think i'm starting to go insane and lose my mind."

"What do you mean?" Niragi asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"I'm seeing things," you said quietly, almost choking on your own words. "I think i'm going to need some psychiatric help."

"What kind of things?"

A smile suddenly spread on your lips, as if it had a mind of its own.

"I just stabbed a man," you laughed. You weren't meant to laugh, but you couldn't help it. There was nothing funny about it but you were feeling so nervous you could barely control it. "I just fucking stabbed a person and then he disappeared. Poof. Gone. Into thin air."

You kept laughing so hard your stomach started hurting and tears forming in your eyes. You couldn’t control it.

Niragi did look at you like you had finally lost it. You couldn't stop laughing but soon it turned into crying. The knife in your grip dropped on the floor by your feet, and your body was about to drop down as well, legs betraying you, but Niragi caught you and held you against his chest. He rubbed your back as you continued crying.

"It'll be alright, Y/N," he whispered, pressing your head against his chest as you both sat down on the floor. "I'm here for you, alright?"

"I'm so tired," you sobbed.

Niragi didn't remember the last time you had cried in front of him, it had been several years, and he knew it must be something serious. Something really bad.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Niragi suggested, eager to hear anything that was bothering your mind. Wanting to help you because seeing and hearing you cry was breaking his heart in pieces.

"I don't know where to start," you mumbled.

You didn’t want to tell him about the fact that you didn’t know whose child you were carrying. That the father wasn’t the person you thought it would be. The only person who it could have been. No, you’d leave him out of it. But all the other shit going on in your head?

"That's okay," Niragi comforted, his voice softer than usual. God, you didn't want to be a sobbing mess in front of him. "It doesn't have to make sense."

You pulled your head away from his chest, now putting a little more space between your bodies.

"Have you seen any, like, weird flashes or dreams after the accident? Or voices, like someone was speaking to you but you couldn't locate origin of it?" you took the courage to ask him. He looked like he wasn’t sure if he understood the question correctly. "Like, i don't know. Something that felt more like a memory than a dream."

Niragi was almost about to say 'no' but as he thought about it, he fell silent for a moment.

"Well, there's been couple of odd dreams i got but dreams are just dreams, right?" Niragi just shrugged.

You sat up a little straighter now, furrowing your brows.

"What kind of dreams?"

"Nah, it's stupid. They didn't mean anything."

"Niragi," you gritted between your teeth. "I'm going insane here so you better start explaining me what you've dreamed of."

He didn't believe his dreams had any meaning but you were looking at him in a way that you were going to squeeze them out of him with force.

“Well, um. I saw one where we were at a pool, there were lots of other people there too. You as well. And I was carrying a rifle,” he explained. The dream was blurry, but Niragi saw proper dreams extremely rarely and none of the dreams before had felt real. Somehow in that dream he could feel the weight of the rifle on his shoulder, even after waking up the feeling still lingered there for a moment, something pulling him down a little, until the feeling disappeared as he had gotten up.

“You were carrying a rifle at a pool party?” you scoffed. “What were you, a pool guard or something?”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m just saying what I saw. I said it was stupid,” Niragi snapped.

“Fine, what else?”

“Hm. I remember some man in a black cloak with a gun shooting people,” Niragi explained.

Niragi also thought about the moment in the corridor with Chishiya. Should he tell about it to you? How would he even explain it so that it made sense? So, there was a gunshot in our building and that hospital guy was bleeding out but then he wasn’t bleeding anymore. Was schizophrenia a side effect from a meteorite attack? Nah, that made no sense.

You had fallen silent, frozen on your spot, just staring at Niragi with wide eyes. He turned his face to you now that you hadn’t answered anything to the dream he shared to you.

“What?” Niragi asked, confused of the shocked expression on your face.

“A man in a black cloak shooting people? With a gun?” you repeated, making sure you heard him right.

“Well, yeah. So?”

“I’ve seen him too,” you admitted. “When we, uh, that night when we played cards with Jae-sung. I, I held the King of Spades in my hand and a man in a black cloak just appeared into my head.”

Niragi remembered you acting strange and getting migraine in the middle of the game.

“King of Spades, huh?” Niragi repeated, getting more familiarity to the dream as well. Like being able to give a name for someone.

“I think I should see a doctor,” you said quietly, voice trembling a little. After the stabbing incident, which hadn’t been real, you were genuinely getting worried of something being seriously wrong with your brain.

Niragi didn’t want doctors to start picking on his brain, and he knew you’d insist on taking him to the hospital as well if he admitted what he had seen in the corridor with your neighbor. Niragi wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about whatever hallucinations you had experienced but he knew it wasn’t normal at all. He just didn’t want to accept that there was something wrong with you.

With both of you.

♤♡♧◇

A/N: Obviously Niragi's going crazy too. Maybe i'll just lock all three in a mental hospital <3

Tags:

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#alice in borderland x reader #aib imagine #alice in borderland imagine #chishiya imagine #aib chishiya #chishiya alice in borderland #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya x reader #shuntaro chishiya #chishiya x you #alice in borderland #aib x reader

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giuseppe-yuki · 9 months ago

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joyride

lance stroll x fennec fox shapeshifter!reader

w.c.: 2.1k

warnings: one suggestive comment, a bit of profanity

part of my shapeshifting!reader series

summary: lance makes a accidental purchase (ft. k-mag + laura)

picture credits from pinterest :)

after a tiring day, it was nice to decompress on you and your boyfriend’s xl california king memory foam mattress. covered with silk sheets and pillow covers with a thread count in the thousands, lance always made sure you both had the most comfortable, luxurious lifestyle. that’s what you liked about lance. he was always so kind and considerate, looking out for others.

but, he wasn’t being kind right now. as you idly scrolled through your phone, splayed out on the bed, lance was next to you, eyes glancing up and down as he browsed through an online shop on his phone. you frown as you watch him continue to click through on the website. as his girlfriend, you deserved his utmost attention, right?

you sit up, and crawl towards him, wrapping your arms around his midriff and burying your head into his chest. he spares you glance and a pat on the head before continuing his shopping.

“lanceyyyy!” you trill, voice a little muffled from your position, “what are you even doing? shopping for the latest clive christian or creed cologne?”

he laughs, and you feel his chest vibrate underneath you. “no,” he laughs, “i still have the five bottles you bought me that random saturday a month ago!”

oh yeah, you think. he borrowed the expensive cologne from his friend just once, but you got hooked onto the nice scent and decided to buy him several bottles just because. as one of the youngest ceos ever of your own company, it was nice using your almost-bursting bank account to treat your boyfriend once in a while.

“okay… then what are you buying that possibly is taking you twenty hours?” you ask, pouting at him.

he looks at you on his chest, underneath his raised hands holding the phone. “well…” he hesitates a bit before continuing, “you know how chloe is having a baby with scotty?”

you nod, adjusting yourself on the bed.

“i’m going shopping for the baby!” he exclaims, flashing you a smile. “i’m buying him the latest toys that i just know he’ll love.”

“lance,” you say slowly, “you do realize that the baby is literally still inside of chloe, right? he’s not going to be born for a long while.”

“yeah, yeah,” your boyfriend says, waving a hand dismissively. “i know, but i want to get a head start and get better presents than everyone else.”

you roll your eyes. “mhm, sure, baby.” but, you get a little curious. tilting your head, you ask, “what are you buying though?”

lance puts his finger in front of his mouth in a “shushing” motion. “it’s a secret,” he whispers.

you sit up, reaching for his phone. “what? why can’t i see?” you protest.

“nope!” he declares, snatching his phone away from you.

you groan, and turn away from lance in annoyance. “fine, then!” you sulk.

pulling out your phone, you go back to scrolling mindlessly, back towards your boyfriend, while said boyfriend happily adds another item to his cart.

as you scroll through tiktok, you notice the time. it was around four am, which was pretty damn late considering that you had media day tomorrow. you almost turn around to let lance know but remember that you are mad at him. sparing him a quick glance (he was still clicking around another expensive online toy shop, you bet), you turn back to your phone. that’s when you notice lando’s girlfriend’s profile lit up with a green circle on the corner.

you shoot her a quick text,

hey, what r u doing up? i saw your online bubble on tiktok like two seconds ago, lmao! u do know we have media day tomorrow right?

it isn’t long before she sends a message back.

i was gonna go to bed early but lando was streaming and forgot about the time.. you know i can’t sleep when he's yelling at the top of his lungs. anyways, what are you doing up at this godforsaken hour???

you snicker to yourself. oh yeah, you definitely know what she means. both of you guys gossiped about how loud they were playing their little pvp games, whether it be COD or fortnite. they say some of the weirdest things too, like ‘he’s coming! he’s coming!” like, okay, calm down there buddy.

before you respond to lando’s girlfriend, lance lets out a shout. “i’m done!” he sing-songs. he sets down his phone on his nightstand and smiles out you sweetly, like he hadn’t just spend a million years ignoring you for shopping for his nephew who wasn’t even born yet. still mad, you glare at him, and get back to typing a response.

yeah girl, i get you. lance always starts raging at his monitor when he plays his video games 🙄 no but i was up because my bf was literally online shopping till like five minutes ago! like, what are you buying that is so important it needs to be bought now?? its almost four am, istg we are going to be so sleepy in the paddock tomorrow!

she replies swiftly,

omg, maybe he’s buying you that limited edition birkin you told me you were eyeing a couple of days ago! but yeah, we should get to bed. goodnight!

her profile shows her going offline then, so you shut off your phone as well.

lying back onto the impossibly soft pillow, and tucking yourself under the covers, you look towards the white painted ceiling of your apartment. “so what did you order, lancey?” you ask.

next to you, your boyfriend turns onto his side, hand propped underneath his head, smirking. “you’ll see tomorrow, baby.”

you wake up the next morning to the doorbell echoing through the whole apartment. lance is sprawled next to you, hair messy and mouth slightly open, snoring. his legs are tangled with yours, and the sun shining in through the windows makes the outline of him glow like a sleeping angel. god, you loved him. leaning over, you pepper kisses all over his face to wake him up. almost instantly, he awakens and starts laughing, trying to push you away and block you with a pillow. when you finally stop, he blinks sleepily at you with a smile on his face.

“well, that’s one way to wake me up,” he says.

you are about to reach forward to kiss him again, when you realize the poor deliveryman that was probably still outside has been waiting for the last five minutes.

after getting into your paddock-ready fit, (you had consulted with zhou’s girlfriend beforehand to find the best outfit to wear) while lance talked to the deliveryman, you head towards your apartment’s living room to start breakfast.

you were surprised to see not one, not two, but at least twenty boxes in all shapes and sizes practically flowing out of your living room.

“what the fuck did you buy, lance??” you exclaim. you spot pictures on the side of many of the boxes depicting their contents. “an indoor slide playset, trampoline, lego death star???” you cry in disbelief, pointing to each of the boxes. “baby, chloe’s child is negative one years old! he’s not even born!”

“well, i’m just being prepared!” defends lance.

you raise an eyebrow.

“the death star is for me though,” he says sheepishly.

“alright,” you say, sighing. “i guess you get a head start on being the favorite uncle, although i’m sure daniel will be one of your biggest competitors in that field.”

laughing from lance’s cry of outrage to your statement, you turn towards the kitchen to start breakfast when you find two identical boxes blocking your way. on both of them an identical smiling child in an aston martin electric mini car.

you whip back towards lance, who is giddily running around opening all the other boxes.

“lancey,” you say slowly, “did you buy two mini aston martins?”

your boyfriend turns around, looking at you next to the unmistakable two boxes containing the luxury mini-cars. “erm.. it appears so! i guess i accidentally pressed the buy button too many times,” he states embarrassedly.

you are about to tell him off for his silly mistake when you come up with a genius idea. “hey! actually, can i take one of them for a test drive in the paddock? i can safety test it for your sister’s baby!”

lance looks at you, confused. “huh? you’re too big for the car, though!”

you gasp dramatically, jokingly putting a hand on your chest. “lance!” you say insulted. “did you forget i can shift into a fennec fox? also, did you just call me big?”

laughing internally at lance’s stunned expression, and panicked stutters, you decide to add more fuel to the fire. “that’s funny for you to say, when you’re not so big yourself!” you say haughtily, hinting at something else.

all it takes for you is one look at lance’s distressed face for you to burst out laughing aloud.

it didn’t take much for lance to forgive you for the joke- just a big homemade breakfast with plenty of pancakes, bacon, and fried eggs that his athletic trainer would have a heart attack looking at, plus a few kisses on the cheek. after breakfast, lance happily loaded the mini aston martin into the back of his actual aston martin for you.

that’s how you found yourself racing through the paddock at the fraction of a speed that lance usually did on the circut. it felt fast to you though, wind coursing through your prominent fox ears and your fluffy fur. of course, you caught the attention of many fans throughout the paddock; it wasn’t common to see a fennec fox driving a pink mini aston martin being chased down by lance stroll himself.

you use your paws to control the steering wheel as you race past fans in colored merch and even a few stunned drivers. you keep in control of the vehicle until you reach the haas motorhome.

your hand slips accidentally off the slippery steering wheel, so you accidentally drive the toy car straight into the first person that walks out of the motorhome- kevin magnussen.

the collision wasn’t too forceful, but it was enough for kevin to drop the coffee he was holding onto the ground.

“what the hell?” he shouts, clutching his shin.

behind you, lance sprints toward kevin, apologizing profusely.

before kevin can start to ask questions about why lance's fennec fox was driving a mini aston martin in the paddock, lance snatches you out the vehicle with one arm, leaving your legs dangling in the air, and somehow lifts the entire mini car with his other hand. without another word to kevin, he dashes away.

he doesn’t stop running until he arrives at his drivers room, passing fernando who gives him a weird look. lance shoves both you and the car into narrow doorway of the room before shutting the door behind him firmly.

“omg, that was so embarrassing. we are not doing that again,” he mumbles, leaning on the now-closed door and covering his face with his hands.

you quickly shift back into your human form. “what??” you complain. “that was kind of fun, though!”

he cuts you off with a glare.

the next time you handle the vehicle, it is in the haas motorhome.

along with a bottle of expensive champagne, you approach kevin timidly.

“hey kevin,” you say shyly, “um, here is some champagne. i’m really sorry for almost running you over with my aston martin.”

kevin looks at you, scratching his head. “oh! it’s okay. it didn’t hurt that much, it was just a bruise.” he gracefully accepts the bottle from you. he’s about to turn away when he spots a flash of familiar pink behind your legs. furrowing his eyebrows, he questions you, “why did you bring that wretched vehicle within my vicinity again?”

“oh yeah!” you say with a smile. “since lance is prohibiting me from driving it ever again, i was wondering if laura and agnes would like it!”

as if summoning them, the girls in question appear behind k-mag.

you watch as their eyes grow wide with want. “omg pappa, yes, we want it!” they chime in unison.

“the next toy shipment arrives tomorrow!” lance says happily, scrolling on his phone.

you roll your eyes as you both walk hand in hand through the crowded paddock the next day. lance was starting to get an unhealthy addiction to buying toys for his sister’s baby.

“alright,” you remark flippantly. “as long as you didn’t buy anything too extreme.”

lance’s response to your statement is cut short by a yell that sounds remarkably like kevin’s.

you both turn towards the sound just in time to see laura magnussen back up, then drive the pink aston martin straight into her father’s shin again.

taglist: @ilivbullyingjeongin @ale-522 @formula1-motogpfan @aceyalonso @my0hmary

@mbappebby @madkohi @rakshatos @heartsforleclerc @papaya-twinks

#f1 fic #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 rpf fic #f1 x female reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #f1 imagine #lance stroll x reader #lance stroll x you #lance stroll x y/n #ls18 x reader #📝

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hd-junglebook · 1 year ago

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The Art & The Muse

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Artist!Reader

a:n currently spiraling at the moment so don't be shocked if I release five more fanfictions that I wrote 30 minutes before posting with no proof reading. lol.

Masterlist Link

Summary: A struggling artist finds inspiration in the most unexpected place - a painting class which the famous Luke Hughes has joined. y/n is in awe at his beauty, finding herself fascinated by his masculine beauty.

Prologue

word count - 1568

Luke let out a deep sigh as he sank back into the worn leather of his favorite chair, relishing the rare luxury of a day off. No early morning practices, no media obligations, no road trips - just him, his apartment in New Jersey, and the peace and quiet he craved.

Well, almost quiet. Luke could hear the muffled sounds of his older brother Jack clattering around in the kitchen, no doubt raiding the fridge for a snack. Luke rolled his eyes and tried to tune it out, savoring the silence. He loved his brother, but sometimes Jack's boundless energy and enthusiasm could be a bit much, especially on a lazy Sunday like today.

As if on cue, Luke heard Jack's familiar voice echoing down the hallway. "Hey, Lukey! Get your butt out here!"

Luke groaned, resigning himself to the inevitable interruption. "What is it, Jack?" he called back, not bothering to move from his comfortable spot.

Jack appeared in the doorway, mouth half-full of what looked like leftover pizza. "Dude, you need to find a hobby or something. All you do is sit around and talk to girls all day."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Jack gestured emphatically, spraying crumbs. "Go out and find a girlfriend or something. Do something productive for once!"

"Close the door," Luke said tiredly, waving a hand.

Jack just laughed and turned to leave, still chewing noisily. "Whatever, man. Your life is boring."

Luke waited until he heard the click of the door, then let his head fall back with a groan. Sometimes he wondered how he and Jack could be brothers, let alone teammates. While Luke treasured his rare days off to recharge, Jack always seemed to have boundless energy, constantly looking for the next adventure or party.

A girlfriend, huh? Luke mulled over Jack's words. It wasn't that he was opposed to the idea, exactly. He just hadn't felt that spark with anyone lately. Between his grueling hockey schedule and the demands of his public persona, it was hard enough to find the time and energy for a social life, let alone a serious relationship.

Still, maybe Jack had a point. Luke had been feeling a little...stagnant lately. Perhaps it was time to try something new, step outside his comfort zone a bit. With a decisive nod, Luke reached for his phone.

Luke drummed his fingers against his thigh as he scrolled through the endless list of activities and classes, feeling increasingly discouraged.

His brow furrowed in concentration as he skimmed through the options, mentally crossing each one off as it failed to pique his interest. Maybe Jack was right - he really was in a rut, stuck in the same old routine day after day.

Just as he was about to give up with a heavy sigh, a flash of inspiration caught his eye. An ad for painting classes at a local art studio.

Luke felt a faint tug of nostalgia as he remembered the hours he used to spend painting with his mom back home in Michigan, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips as the memories surfaced. It had been years since he'd picked up a brush, but the idea of reconnecting with that creative outlet was strangely appealing.

Intrigued, Luke clicked on the website and started browsing through the class schedules, his blue eyes scanning the page intently. The next session was in just two days - perfect.

Without overthinking it, he quickly signed himself up, a spark of determination lighting in his chest. With a decisive nod, he shut off his phone, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.

With a newfound spring in his step, Luke headed out to the living room where he could hear Jack clattering around. "Hey, Jack?" he called out, drawing his younger brother's attention.

Jack poked his head out from the kitchen, mouth full of what looked like leftover pizza. He quirked an eyebrow curiously, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's.

Luke wrinkled his nose in mild disgust at the display, but pressed on. "I, uh, took your advice. I signed up for a painting class that starts in a couple days."

Jack's eyes widened in surprise, a spark of amusement flashing across his features. He let out a bark of laughter, pizza crumbs flying. "Painting? Seriously?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

Luke shrugged, feeling a slight twinge of self-consciousness creep up his spine. "Well, I figured it was worth a shot. Gotta try something new, right?"

"Hey, that's great!" Jack grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, his infectious enthusiasm cutting through Luke's lingering doubts. "Who knows, maybe you'll meet some cute girls there or something."

Luke rolled his eyes, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "That's not really why I'm doing it, Jack."

"Sure, sure." Jack winked and grabbed another slice of pizza, seemingly satisfied with the conversation. "Whatever you say, bro."

Luke shook his head fondly and turned to head back to his room, a newfound spring in his step. Maybe this whole "trying new things" thing wouldn't be so bad after all.

…

Luke pulled his beanie down lower over his sandy blond curls as he stepped out onto the street, trying his best to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

He had thrown on his most unassuming outfit - a simple t-shirt, jeans, and a well-worn pair of sneakers - before hesitantly heading out the door, Jack's cheerful "Good luck!" ringing in his ears.

As Luke made his way down the sidewalk, the nerves started to kick in. What was he doing, really? Signing up for an art class on a whim - it was so unlike him.

The old Luke would have scoffed at the very idea, content to spend his rare days off lounging at home or chatting up pretty girls at the local bars. But that Luke felt stale, stuck in a rut. Maybe it was time to try something new.

Still, Luke couldn't help the self-conscious twinge that made him want to turn right back around and high-tail it home. He could already hear Jack's teasing laughter, the endless ribbing he'd have to endure. But Luke steeled his resolve, forcing his feet to keep moving forward. He'd come this far, might as well see it through.

Luke rounded the corner, nearly colliding with an elderly couple out for an afternoon stroll. "Sorry, excuse me," he murmured, deftly sidestepping them.

The last few minutes of his journey passed in a blur, and before he knew it, Luke found himself standing in front of the art studio, its glass door beckoning him inside.

Taking a deep breath, Luke pushed open the door, immediately greeted by the soothing scent of lavender. His eyes swept over the space, taking in the rows of easels and the vibrant paintings adorning the walls. A petite woman with a thick accent approached him, a warm smile on her face.

"Hello, welcome! Can I help you?"

Luke cleared his throat, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. "Uh, yeah, hi. I'm Luke - I signed up for the painting class?"

"Ah, yes, of course!" The woman's eyes lit up with recognition. "It's so wonderful to have you join us. I'm Helena, the instructor. Let me show you where you can set up."

As Helena led him over to an open easel, Luke felt a flicker of genuine interest. He followed Helena through the halls of the art studio, he couldn't help but feel a growing sense of intimidation.

The walls were practically bursting with vibrant, expertly-crafted paintings - from sweeping landscapes to intricate still lifes. He found himself glancing around in awe, suddenly self-conscious about his own artistic abilities.

Helena continued to speak animatedly, her hands gesturing as she explained the layout of the classroom and the materials available. Luke nodded along, trying his best to appear engaged, but his attention was diverted the moment they passed by a particularly striking piece.

The painting was dark, with soft whites and deep blues creating a moody, almost mystical atmosphere. But what truly captivated Luke was the subject - a male figure, rendered with such realism and attention to detail that it almost looked like a photograph.

The sculpted planes of his muscular torso, the veins in his hands, the play of light and shadow across his skin - every element was meticulously crafted, drawing the viewer in with its hypnotic allure.

Luke found himself stopping in his tracks, unable to tear his gaze away. It was as if the man in the painting had somehow come to life, his masculine beauty radiating off the canvas.

Helena let out a light laugh, drawing Luke's attention back to her. "I see you've noticed one of our more...popular pieces," she said, a knowing smile playing at her lips.

Luke felt a faint heat creep up the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious about his obvious fascination. "Uh, yeah, it's...it's really well done," he stammered, clearing his throat.

"Indeed." Helena gestured towards the open doorway of the classroom. "Shall we? The class is about to begin."

Luke nodded, stealing one last glance at the captivating painting before following Helena into the studio. As he took his seat at the easel, he couldn't help but wonder who the artist was behind such a stunning work. And more importantly, would he have the chance to meet them?

…

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fanfictionstuff · 6 months ago

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Curiosity 4 (Ikki Niko x Reader) SMUT

*Characters are of legal age*

Sorry for the late update, I know people have been waiting for it, including my friend who requested it. My favorite character from Blue Exorcist is finally back on the show so my thoughts are nonstop Amaimon. Sorry.

Normal.

Everything was normal the following day. You got up before Ikki and quietly changed into some clothes from your drawer. Since you’ve spent so many nights together, your parents and his had arranged for you to have a place to keep your clothes at each other's houses. You even have a uniform hanging in his closet, which is perfectly normal for best friends, right? It’s not.

Moving swiftly through the kitchen as if it were your own, you take various pans from the cabinets and gather ingredients from the fridge needed for breakfast. Ikki’s mom has left some miso soup for both of you. Preparing the tamagoyaki is straightforward, and there’s pickled cabbage waiting for you in the fridge.

Breakfast is normal. Ikki praises your cooking while you roll your eyes because there's really nothing to praise. Tamagoyaki is quite easy to make, and the soup and cabbage are leftovers from his mother. "You make the best tamagoyaki ______." “Whatever you say, Ikki.”

Everything felt normal as if last night hadn’t occurred. Watching you browse through your textbooks, Ikki begins to wonder if maybe it hadn’t happened.

“_____, is everything okay?” He questions cautiously.

"No. Everything is not fine. Can you tell me when I'll actually use this after high school?" You pull up the calculator on your app. "Once I graduate, this calculator will be all I need. I’d like to know when I’ll have to apply this level of math in real life, Ikki?” You lift the workbook in frustration. It’s ridiculous.

He frowns at your answer; he is not talking about schoolwork. “I meant…with us.”

“Us?”

Now, he’s truly wondering if it was a dream or something more. Could it be a dream of one of his deepest desires? “Uh, never mind. I have practice in about an hour; I need to prepare." He heads into his bedroom to put on his workout clothes. A bento his mother packed yesterday sits waiting in the fridge, which he plans to take for lunch between practices.

“_____, do you need me to get you anything?” He questions as he grabs his bag.

“No, after I finish this, I’ll grab lunch and pick up what I need.” You dismiss him, focusing on the problem in front of you. “Don’t overdo it today.”

After another twenty minutes of struggling with the workbook, you reach for your phone and decide to google the answers. At first, you try to use a website that gives you the answers and explains how it’s the answer, but then you get bored with reading about math and quickly switch to just writing the answers down.

Instead of making something for lunch, you decide to go out to a local café with great sandwiches and warm drinks. It’s just around the corner, and you make it into the coffee shop rather quickly; the scent of coffee and baked goods hits you as you enter the door. “Hi _____.” The barista grins. “How ‘s my favorite customer today?” He questions as you step up to the display case. “Good, how are you?”

"Great! Where’s my other favorite customer? I don’t remember the last time I saw you come in alone," he asks, as he begins preparing your favorite hot drink for your order.

“With his true love.”

The man snorts. “Fairly certain soccer isn’t his true love, kiddo. Anyway, what else can I get you?”

Your original plan was to come for a sandwich, but your eyes lock on a slice of cake. Would it be weird to get a slice of cake and a sandwich? Usually, you’d order one and take the other home, but you’d like to eat both now. “A panini and a slice of cake.” You point towards the slice of cake you want.

As you sip on the warm drink, you relax in the quiet cafe, watching the people walking by outside on the sidewalk. It’s not a school day, so you notice a lot of high schoolers walking by with friends. The warm comfort of the drink and smoothing warmness of the cafe is slowly starting to get to you. You and Ikki had stayed up pretty late last night, and he had to wake up early for practice today, so you wanted to make him breakfast like a good girlfriend best friend.

Shaking your head, you decide to head back to Ikki’s house. You should take a nap while you can before Ikki finishes practice.

The journey back to his house feels slower, as fatigue weighs heavily on every step. You struggle to unlock the door and carefully place your shoes in their designated spot before slipping into a pair of indoor slippers. A nap is definitely needed. Wanting to be as comfortable as possible, you remove your pants and neatly fold them before settling onto the sofa with a cozy blanket.

Ikki gazes down at his phone while eating the bento his mother prepared for him. He hardly registers the coach announcing that practice will end early today, as he's still grappling with whether last night was a dream or reality. He hasn’t received a text from you, which feels unusual since you usually message him during lunch.

After practice, Ikki makes his way to the locker room to change out of his sweaty clothes. He pulls out his phone to check for any messages from you, but finds nothing. A wave of disappointment washes over him, yet he quickly dismisses it, reminding himself that you’re likely busy with your own activities.

“______.” Someone whispers, shaking your shoulder. “Are you okay?” You groan, opening your eyes to see concerned teal eyes staring at you. “Ikki? Yeah, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I bed?” You ask while rubbing your eyes.

“Oh, you didn’t text me during lunch, so….” He tilts his head down, allowing the hair to cover his eyes. “…. I was a little worried.” He admits.

You slowly sit up, glancing around the living room. “Wait, what time is it?”

“A little after two.”

“Why are you here?”

Ikki’s concerned expression morphs into something else, his mouth a thin, straight line. “Sorry, I can go-“

“What? Where are you going? Why are you here so early? Practice shouldn’t be over yet, right?” you ask, tossing the blanket aside and standing up. Ikki’s eyes widen as your bare thighs come into view at his eye level. he swallows hard, his gaze slowly moving up; you remain unaware of his lingering stare. As you stretch your arms overhead, your shirt rises slightly above your panties.

As memories from what he’s starting to believe was a dream flash through his mind, his mouth starts to water.

Ikki quickly averts his gaze, feeling a rush of heat creeping up his neck. "I-I just... our coach let us go early today," he stammers, trying to compose himself. He clears his throat and looks away, his heart racing at the sight before him.

You raise an eyebrow at his flustered demeanor, noticing how he avoids looking directly at you. "Well, since you're here early, want to watch a movie or something?" you offer casually, not realizing your casual movements' effect on him.

Ikki hesitates momentarily, still trying to shake off the images from the dream—or was it reality? "Uh, sure. Yeah, that sounds good," he replies, finally meeting your gaze but quickly looking away again.

“Great.” He’s still on his knees when you lean forward to grab the remote from the coffee table in front of the sofa. Ikki bites back a groan at the sight of you bent over like that in only a shirt and light blue underwear.

You didn't think twice about dressing like this in front of Ikki; it was completely normal for you. Even though last night had been more intimate and left you feeling exposed, him seeing you like this now, just casually watching TV, made it feel innocent again.

After selecting a movie, you sit on the other end of the sofa. Your body angled towards him, with your knees bent and resting against the arm of the sofa. This position gives him a perfect view of your slightly visible underwear.

It had to have been a dream. Otherwise, you would’ve said something to him, right? His fingers dig into his thighs as he tears his eyes away from you. Last night, you were so open and blunt with your curiosity. So, was it a dream? He glances back at you from the corner, but as his eyes land on the blue cloth, he can’t help but feel starved. He wants to pull them down, see if you’ll make those same noises if he parts your legs and runs his tongue along your slit.

“Ikki, are you okay?” You shuffle on the sofa, not noticing that you’ve opened your legs a bit wider for his view as you do.

“No.”

“What’s wrong.” “Last night.” He watches you carefully to see any signs that maybe last night wasn’t just a dream.

Your eyes widen; he sounds upset. Quickly, you straighten up, tucking your legs under you, and sit on your knees, staring at your best friend. “I’m sorry! I pushed too far. Didn’t I? We can just pretend it didn’t happen.”

“No.”

Your hands start to shake at his blunt tone. Is he angry and doesn’t want to be friends anymore? Does he feel like you took advantage of him? “Ikki, I’m so sorry. I was being selfish.”

“______, I love you.”

“I know; I love you too. Yet, I put you in that position. I shouldn’t-”

He leans in, his forehead touching yours. You can feel his breath on your skin as he closes his eyes and sits silently with you.

“_____?”

“Yes?”

“I meant I’m in love with you.”

He leans forward, gently pressing his warm lips against yours. It’s a sweet, quick kiss, and when Ikki pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours again. "I'm sorry if I just made things awkward between us," he murmurs. “If you don’t return my feelings, it’s okay. We can act like I never said anything. I just can’t lose you _____.”

You slowly pull away, reaching up to cup his face while pushing some hair from his eyes. “Sorry if you made things awkward? Ikki, I asked you if I could give you a blow job last night.”

“_____.”

“You’re not going to lose me; I love you too. I always have.” You admit before pressing your lips to his. He responds with a low groan before nipping at your bottom lip. Encouraged, you part your lips slightly, and he slips his tongue inside, gently moving against yours. His hands slip up your thighs; they’re on your hips, fingers slightly tucked in the waistband of your underwear. “Are you okay?” He whispers against your lips. You nod.

“You’ve been teasing me since I got home today. Did you know that?” He says with a smirk. “First, I wasn’t sure if last night was just a dream. All morning, you didn’t say anything, and now, when I come home, you’re wearing only this.” He gestures towards your outfit. “Bending over, slightly spreading your legs. Right in front of my face.” He moves from the sofa to kneel in front of you. “I told you before, you taste amazing.” He gently trails his fingers over your knees, spreading them apart slightly. “Can I have another taste, ____? It's all I've been able to think about all day." He confesses, running his tongue over his lower lip.

You nod, feeling a rush of excitement and anticipation course through your body. You can feel yourself getting wet at his words and the way he's looking at you. He leans forward, placing his hands on your thighs as he parts your legs wider. His fingers trail up and down your inner thighs, causing you to shiver.

“You smell amazing, too.” He looks up at you with darkened eyes before pulling down your underwear and nuzzling against your core.

You close your eyes and let out a soft sigh, enjoying the feeling of his warm breath against your sensitive area. He starts to kiss and lick gently, causing a wave of pleasure to wash over you. You reach down and thread your fingers through his hair, gently guiding him closer to where you need him most.

You're feeling a mix of emotions: embarrassment but also excitement. Last night, you thought he only did it because you gave him oral pleasure, and he felt obligated to reciprocate. But now, as his mouth eagerly explores your core with messy licks and desperate movements, it's clear that he's enjoying this just as much as you are. Your body responds by arching your back in pleasure, and he places your legs over his shoulders for easier access to you.

He can feel your arousal building, the tension in your body growing with each passing moment. Ikki's face is buried against your core; his eyes are closed in concentration as he focuses on giving you the most intense pleasure he possibly can.

You let out a loud gasp as his thumb finds your clit, rubbing small circles that send jolts of pleasure through your body. Your hands grip his hair as your back arches off the sofa, letting out moans of pleasure that fill the room.

With his thumb rubbing your clit, he uses his other hand to insert a finger into you slowly. He watches you through his hair, accessing the situation. Your expression and sounds only hint at pleasure, so he slowly adds another finger. Still focused on your expression while starting to make a scissoring motion with his fingers. That’s how he’s supposed to do it, right? To prepare you in case you want to go further with him. His brow furrows in concentration, wanting to bring you the most pleasure possible. When you start pulling his hair almost painfully, he realizes you’re going to cum. He curls his fingers while gently sucking against your clit.

You pant out his name as you come undone, the sensation seemingly stronger than it had been last night. “I-I think you somehow got better at it, how? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Your body jolts as you feel his warm tongue running along your folds again. “Ikki! Too sensitive.” You whine, trying to pull away. “Are you going to do this every time?” He frowns at you. “I’m sorry _____, you just taste amazing. I’ve never tasted something this amazing before.”

“You’re full of shit.” You huff, not believing that the taste of your release is anywhere near the level he’s trying to say it is. Ikki shakes his head, leaning forward to run his tongue along your folds once more. “I could do this all day.”

“Can I suck your cock?” Suddenly, the tables have turned, and Ikki’s confidence melts away into embarrassment at your words. “W-what? No, I mean yes.” He attempts to hide his red face against your legs. “Yes, just let me shower first, okay? I just got back from training and wasn’t expecting to do this within twenty minutes of walking in.”

“So, you were expecting this?”

Ikki chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "I-I mean, I hoped it would happen again; I didn’t think it would happen so soon." He looks up at you with a shy smile. "But I'm not complaining," he adds quickly, the embarrassment still evident in his face.

You grin at him, finding his reaction endearing. "Alright, go take a shower then. I'll wait for you."

Ikki nods and stands up, pulling his clothes off as he heads towards the bathroom. You watch him go with an appreciation for his toned body before pulling yourself together and sitting up on the sofa.

As you wait for Ikki to finish showering, your mind races with excitement and anticipation. Last night was amazing, and you can't wait to feel that same pleasure again with Ikki.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed in comfortable lounge pants, you can't help but stare at him hungrily. He grins at your reaction before making his way over to you.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks softly as he stands in front of you.

You nod eagerly; this all started off as your idea; of course, you’re ready.

“Maybe we could go to the bedroom.”

“Right! Yeah, of course.” You probably sound a bit too eager, but Ikki is your best friend and boyfriend? Is he your boyfriend now? Maybe this is something you should confirm first. “Uh, Ikki?” You question, suddenly feeling nervous as you follow him into the bedroom.

“Yes?”

You sit on his bed, nervously fidgeting with your fingers. “So, uh, are we in a relationship?”

He pauses, suddenly becoming more nervous, too. “I hope so. I love you, and you said you love me unless you don’t.”

“I do! I just, nothing was said.”

You watch as his face starts to turn red. “_____, I thought it was implied.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” You rub the back of your neck awkwardly. “Anyway, you’ll let me suck your cock now?”

He knows you’re just reflecting your embarrassment, so he doesn’t say anything about your comment. Slowly, he nudges you to sit on his bed, and he sits beside you. His eyes never leave yours as he pulls down the waistband of his pants to reveal himself fully.

He's already hard, and your mouth waters at the sight of his length. Without hesitation, you lean forward and take him into your mouth. A low groan escapes Ikki's lips as your tongue swirls around him teasingly.

You savor his taste and feel in your mouth, loving how he responds to your every movement. You want to make him feel as good as he made you feel earlier. You take him deeper into your throat, causing him to let out a loud groan that seemingly vibrates throughout the room.

Ikki reaches down, gently taking hold of the back of your head as you continue to pleasure him. His fingers thread through your hair, his breaths coming out ragged and labored as you continue on.

"Oh god, ____," he moans softly, eyes tightly shut as he revels in the sensation of your mouth on him. "You're so good at this."

You remove your mouth from him but don’t lift your head, slightly panting; the puffs of air you release against the head of his cock just make him more sensitive. “Ikki, I’m the only one that’s done this for you. I could be awful for all you know.” You causelly comment, licking the tip.

"I don't think that's possible," he replies, his voice slightly hoarse. "You... you make it feel so good."

You grin in response, feeling a newfound confidence as you move back down to take him into your mouth again. Your lips wrap around him, and you begin to move your head rhythmically up and down, taking him deeper with each passing second.

Ikki's fingers tighten slightly in your hair, guiding your movements as you continue to please him. His breaths come out in short, sharp pants, each one more labored than the last as he approaches his climax.

"I'm going to cum," he warns you softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

You pull off him just in time, sitting back on your heels as he releases a loud groan, his hips bucking as he reaches his peak. He grips the sheets tightly as his orgasm washes over him, his eyes squeezed shut in pleasure.

As he enjoys the aftermath of his release, you lean forward, kissing the tip of his softening penis softly before looking up at him with a smile. "Glad you enjoyed it."

Ikki leans forward, capturing your lips passionately as his hands roam over your body. You eagerly respond, tangling your fingers in his hair as the kiss intensifies. His hands continue their exploration, trailing down to your core, where he finds you already wet with anticipation.

He slides a finger inside you, causing you to gasp and arch your back against him. "You're wet again," he murmurs against your lips before adding another finger and increasing his pace. Your moans become louder as he continues to please you with his fingers.

Feeling impatient, you grind yourself against him, wanting more contact and friction. “Could we, um, have sex?” You mumble as his thumb makes contact with your clit.

“Y-yeah.” He pulls away from you slightly to remove his pants completely; you follow suit and remove your shirt; your underwear is still somewhere tossed in the living room.

Gently, he guides you to lie down on the bed. “Are you sure?” You nod. “Let me know if it hurts.” He positions himself above you nervously; he expects the first time to be awkward; you are both virgins. His main concern is not hurting you when he first enters you.

“I’m ready.” You reply, reaching up to wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He takes the hint, slowly entering you, his eyes locked with yours as he moves deeper inside you.

At first, it feels a little uncomfortable, but he moves slowly and pauses to ensure you’re okay before entering more. He waits a moment once he’s fully in you, giving you time to adjust. There’s no pain, just an odd feeling of being filled. You pull his head down to place a kiss on his lips. “Okay, you can move now.” He nods, starting with shallow thrusts, watching you carefully the whole time. You moan softly, your legs wrapping around Ikki’s waist as he moves deeper inside you.

Ikki groans softly in response, his chest grazing against yours as he finds a rhythm that seems to work for both of you. His lips find yours again in a passionate kiss, his movements becoming more urgent as he tries to please you in every way possible. Ikki moves a hand between your legs, reaching for your clit, gently pinching it as he continues to thrust into you.

You gasp at the sudden sensation, your eyes fluttering shut as waves of pleasure radiate from your core. "Yes," you whisper, clutching at his back as he continues to touch you in just the right way.

Ikki's movements become more earnest, his thrusts deeper and harder as he tries to give you the pleasure you both desperately crave. His eyes are locked on yours, searching for any sign that he's succeeding in making you feel good.

"I'm close," you pant, your voice barely audible over your own heavy breathing. "Don't stop."

Ikki nods, his eyes never leaving yours as he continues his relentless assault on your body. His breath becomes ragged, his heart pounding in his chest as he fights for control over his own impending orgasm.

Suddenly, a wave of intense pleasure washes over you, your entire body trembling as you cry out his name. Ikki feels your muscles clench around him as you release. His body shudders against yours, and he lets out a rough groan as he cums deep inside you.

Ikki's breath hitches as he pulls back slightly, his gaze still locked with yours. "Are you okay?" He whispers concern etched on his face.

You laugh, “Better than okay. Hey, did you know most girls don’t have an orgasm during their first time? So, good job.” You pat his back.

His head drops to your shoulder, “_____, please.”

“It’s true. I read it online.”

“_____.”

“Fine, fine. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

You grasp a handful of his hair, pulling his head back so you can make eye contact. “So, our parents…”

If your parents knew, they’d realize they had been wrong about your supposedly sibling-like relationship all this time, and it’d be a mess.

Ikki looks thoughtful for a moment. “We’ve only got a few months before we finish high school. Let’s tell them once they’ve helped us move into a new apartment at the university.”

#ikki niko x reader #niko ikki x reader #ikki niko #niko ikki #blue lock fanfiction #blue lock x reader #blue lock

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kissmetwicekissmedeadly · 7 months ago

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MO'S FANFIC BEAUTYFYING MASTERCLASS!👩‍🏫

So it seems like you guys like how I do my banners and layouts on @xxsycamore ! I wanted to share a few tips about making similar ones, along with some of my observations on their importance! Be warned, some of the screenshots I'll use to illustrate my point will be of my smut fics! This post is intended for the ikemen series community. While the tips could be found useful for other fandoms as well, it's important to note that it's only this fandom that I've taken into account and because of that my observations could be unreliable if you chose to follow my advice outside of the fandom!

The importance

First of all, a good layout is a subjective term. Second, a "good" layout is not guaranteed to boost your fic's popularity. Not all of us are able to put the time and effort into fancy banners and dividers, but the good news is, you don't really need them! You should always strive to do only as much as you can without straining yourself. Here you can see a minimal effort fic layout vs one that took 30~ minutes to put together, both posted around the same time, both having a similar reception when it comes to notes! Keep in mind that a layout is just one of the many factors to take into account for your fic's popularity status, and you shouldn't obsess with it either way.

2. The minimum: Banner + Title

Not everyone checks out every single post on their dash while they scroll! I follow around 1100 people and while not all of them are active, it's easy to miss a post that could as well have been the best thing I'd see that day. Your brain recognizes what a typical fanfiction post looks like - a rectangular picture with a title above/underneath, followed by text. As long as you scroll past a post with a similar construction and you're interested, you might want to scroll back and check it out.

3. Banners

The information that you get from a banner is typically about the character(s) featured in the fic. Using the example above, you'll see that a simple cropped picture of the character gets the job done! (an in-game sprite at that, not a fancy card photo)

If you decide to use a card, you can browse google for a good one of your character(s). I try to select a card that depicts something similar to what's happening in my fic, either the action or the "vibes" (daytime or nighttime, outside or indoors, canon or modern, etc.), but sometimes it's better to choose the one that will look good instead of the one that's more fitting.

Finding cards of good quality is also challenging, and I'd advise you to avoid blurry/low-quality banners even if those would be best fitting.

Stick to the rectangular horizontal format if possible. I like square banners sometimes, but it's better when you can see the whole layout at once!

4. Editing the banners & photo coloring

If you decide you want to go out all, you'll need a photo editing app or a program. I use one called Snow which is mainly for selfies but gets the job done. It has many filters to choose from, but inputting text there could be a hassle sometimes. Another one I use is Pixlr. Yeah, I couldn't let it go ever since the days it was just a website...it's been about 10 years but I still rely on it (now as an app) for some stuff, like cropping down images with very big height to width ratio (like thin strips for dividers). In very rare instances I use my (paid) art program, Clip Studio Paint. I know that many people use Canva for their banners but I can't get used to it, I guess it's not my thing, haha. That's why you should see what works for you. I prefer a certain amount of limitation, like having filters to choose from, simply because I don't want to think too much about it and to be able to spend too much time on it (I'm a perfectionist)...

Maybe you just want to give your picture some nice coloring, nothing too much, just a slight change of tone that it's noticeable but not in a screaming way. There are still some things to avoid, mainly old-looking filters. I'm talking about the ones that were mainstream on Instagram during the last decade, the pinkish sepia one for instance. Ones that have too high exposure value and make the bright parts practically glow are not a good look either, same for the too dark ones. Making the character unrecognizable is also not good, and some filters can do that, especially in the case where they have fair hair and the filter makes it appear as another color. Again, those examples are bad only in my own opinion and could look good in certain circumstances or if it's a desired look!

Here's the collage for the banner used for my fic Nine Nights (MDNI) before the filter (first picture), a variation I did but scrapped (second pic) and the one I went with in the end (third pic). While the bottom pic is in contrast with what I said about making characters unrecognizable, here I rely on the fact that it's enough that it's obvious this will feature all of the Crown members just by looking at the bunch of them. I liked how the colors pop up, almost as if each one gets assigned a theme color (interestingly I didn't pick the cards for that purpose), and it's just a pretty coloring in my opinion as a whole. I achieved this by tweaking the RGB values from the "Curves" tool in Snow.

Another cool thing to do with your banner is adding transparent elements in it, like how I did with this one (see it from the link below, it's not depicted here on the pics). The thing is, this could be very energy-consuming, you'll need an app/program that can do that as not all of them work with transparent images, and in the end, it could be just barely noticeable. But it can be fun from time to time.

5. Titles

A title is the other main element of your fic's layout and it should stand out. If you hate coming up with titles (understandable...) you can just put a "(character) x reader fluff", for instance. If you look at the example in point 1, I simply used the character's name in place of a title! It doesn't have to be a stressful aspect of putting your fic out there. As a side note, you can try centering your title simply by putting some spaces at the front, but leaving it aligned to the right could be a stylistic choice.

6. Colored text

This one is very optional but good if you want to fancy it up. Tumblr already gives you a bunch of colors to pick from and you can make use of them if they fit the style of your fic, but they're very limited. Luckily we can use just any color we want. (This only works on the fonts tumblr supports! The ones you can choose from when you highlight a text) Unfortunately, the way to do this will make you work with the HTML editor which you can access at the top right corner of your post editing screen (from desktop, click the settings, scroll down to Post editor) and things might seem pretty scary if this is your first time looking there. It's not too hard! You need to use a site that takes your desired piece of text, lets you select colors, and then gives you a code that once pasted in the HTML editor will make it colored when switching back to the Rich text editor. Here's the one I use because it also allows me to blend colors. At the bottom right of the page, I put the text in the first box, select the colors, and upon clicking Run it gives me the code in the bottom box. I use colored text for my title, and sometimes for my information tags.

7. Information tags

This is how I refer to the part of your layout dedicated to showing the pairings, genre, content warnings and wordcount of your fic. This is all optional even to add in the first place. I personally don't bother too much with beautifying that part, but a good tip is using some kind of symbol to separate these pieces of information if they're all in the same paragraph (I use big dots), or to place in front of them if they're in different rows (like bullet points). This gives a lot of creative freedom for text art, you should explore it if that's your thing!

8. Fonts & font size

You can experiment with Tumblr's fonts, or you can look for more fonts online - here's a handy site. It's good to find one that is legible enough. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞. Again, be warned, those fonts that are outside of tumblr's post editor cannot be colored (as far as I'm aware of)

You can spell your title in all caps if you deem that's a good look for your fic.

Play around with bolds and italics instead of making everything a different font.

The "Biggest" font option here on the editor is not the best one to use as it's simply too big. Big title fonts should be avoided if your title doesn't fit in a single row.

Having different font sizes for different things in your layout can be eye-catching! Besides the obvious upscaling of the title, you can also upscale your information tags. Using small text is also nice and prevents your post from getting too long, but this should only be done for the part of the fic that is not the fic itself. Small text could be harsh on the eyes if it's in big quantities.

9. Dividers

Dividers are another crucial part of a fancy layout! They divide different parts of your layout, like the information tags and the fic's body. There are tons of styles to choose from. Some people like to use dividers that spell out something, like a "minors DNI" warning, a "support your creatives" reminder, the name of the character featured in the fic... You can make your own set of dividers for repeated use. I like to use very thin lines which I color differently according to the fic's theme colors. I also find dividers online, mostly here on tumblr, as there are tons of them if you look them up. It's important to use dividers which are marked free to use, or to otherwise credit their creators.

10. Additional tips

Use gifs. Everything that moves is eye-catching. But don't go overboard with it - one or two moving objects on your layout is plenty. They shouldn't be put too close to the fic's body too, as people might find it distracting. Avoid flashing and glitching gifs, or if you use those and you deem it necessary, tag the post with an epilepsy warning. You can make your banners into gifs by putting a moving filter on them, making it into a video, and turning the video into a gif (the site I use for this is called ezgif and it has plenty of other options for working with gifs and videos), and you can also make or find gif dividers.

Banner themes are nice, but they don't always look good. I'm talking about making a series of banners (like for a bunch of fics made for the same creative challenge) look the same, with the same coloring and filters. I used to make all my banners purple to follow my blog's tumblr theme but I realized not everyone looks good in purple...

Try adding a synopsis for your fic! I know, this is worse than coming up with a title, but we love flipping the book over to look at the synopsis before jumping into it. Keep it very short and try beautifying it with symbols or fancy quotation marks.

Use the "intended" font from the tumblr post editor to make your information tags or synopsis stand out and shrink the overall length of the post!

Put the body of your fic under a "read more" (the last option when you hit a new row in the post editor). This is very important, especially if you're writing smut - you wouldn't want to make people scroll through all of that if they're not in the mood for it. Putting your whole fic on the dash doesn't make it more likely for people to stop and read it, or at least that's just how I see it.

Use emojis! Emojis stand out!

Take inspiration from other people. Get out of your bubble and look at how other fandoms do it, but obviously don't steal.

11. Final thoughts

Making this post felt weird to me! I was motivated by my mutuals complimenting my layouts but also because some of them said "they can't do that" and I wanted to show them it's easy. I also wanted to show them it's not that important and that they shouldn't stress over it at all! At the end of the day it's your fic that matters, not how pretty you can make it work. But instead of simplifying it, I ended up with this massive post of 11 parts, and now it looks scarily big. It's not, okay! I went too much into detail at times, and I want to stress once again that it's all optional anyway. I, personally, don't follow all of this advice. I don't go through the 10 steps of constructing my layout every time I'm about to post a fic. I typically post my fics just before going to bed, and 99% of the time I need it to happen ASAP because it's that late in the night. It's a way to beat my perfectionism, really, and I find it to work for me. I also already have these steps tested and memorized so it all happens quickly and mechanically for me. Making the layout is extremely fun for me and this is my sole driving force for putting in the effort. At the same time, I remind myself not to go overboard because it's stupid to focus on it more than on the fic itself. I love ao3 because everything looks equal on there, but I also love tumblr because I can unleash my creativity in one additional way.

In the process of making this post, I started to wonder if it seems like I'm making this out to be way more important and difficult than it really is, and I want to assure you that this is not my intention at all!

My only hope is that this proves to be helpful for whoever feels like they can use some of the information above. If it leads to just 1 additional note to those criminally underrated fics I see, then I'd be beyond happy!

Have fun posting your fics :)

#ikemen series #ikeseries #ikemen vampire #ikemen villains #ikemen sengoku #ikemen prince #ikemen fanfci #ikemen fanfiction

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qsplaylist · 3 months ago

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digital clean-up checklist ⋆.˚🦋༘⋆

an all-inclusive guide for the chaotically digital girlies with a million screenshots and even more tabs open because "i will use this at some point"

1. quick clean (desktop)

start with a clean slate. drag everything on there into a folder called "sort later." we all know that you're going to spend hours looking through them and not actually cleaning, so starting off with a mostly blank desktop is the way to go. we can organize meticulously later.

delete those random duplicate files. you said you would get to them later. you didn't.

empty the recycle bin. i think that's self-explanatory.

2. a bit more thorough clean (finder/file explorer and browsing tabs)

screenshot purge. if you don't remember why you screenshotted it, delete it.

labeled folders are your friend. move important screenshots into labeled folders. move those downloads into labeled folders. put your cat photos in an imaginatively labeled folder: “cat."

close those random tabs. if you haven't looked at the opened tab in 2+ weeks, it's a good sign that you won't need it later either.

control-shift-D. if you're really that afraid to lose "potentially good stuff," just cntrl/cmd-shift-D. this creates a bookmark folder made of all your wonderful once-opened tabs. now, you can have peace of mind when closing the browser for good.

3. very thorough clean (notes app, downloads)

delete those untitled/randomly-made notes. a homework assignment you scanned a month ago? goodbye. grocery lists? gone.

delete those apps. if you haven't opened it in a while, it's probably just using up your phone/laptop storage.

clear the cookies (the website ones.)

go through the sort later folder. now's the best time, y'know?

restart your phone/laptop. since when was the last time you did that?

they say the spaces around you represent your state of mind, so how are our digital spaces any different?

I hope you can spend some time this week cleaning up your phone or laptop. I'm sure future you will thank you for it.

all best wishes, q's playlist

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threestarsaboveclouds · 3 months ago

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Thank you so much for 200 followers!

I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who has supported this blog. It means a lot to me that people have shown interest in what has become a pretty extensive worldbuilding project for my OC.

I know updates have been a bit slow, and I appreciate your patience. I’ve been dealing with burnout for the past few weeks and drawing/writing has been hard for me. I also have a backlog of asks to get through, so if you’ve sent an ask and it hasn’t been answered yet- I promise I will get to it eventually, it might just take a while.

(I am considering possibly closing the ask box temporarily so I can work on the backlog, but I will give a warning in advance before I do that)

Rest assured that I am working on things. Including:

More lore/worldbuilding posts!

More stuff along the lines of the in-character lore pearls I’ve already posted. I am having a lot of fun exploring the details of TSAC’s past, as well as the lives of their citizens prior to Mass Ascension.

A Neocities mirror!

Basically an archive of this blog’s posts… just in case. The website is currently very bare-bones, but I’d like to add copies of the major lore posts at the very least, organized in one place.

There’s actually some stuff on the website that I haven’t posted here (yet…)

A region mod!!!

This is the thing I’ve been working the most on behind the scenes!

I’ve been working on adding TSAC’s superstructure to the game! You can see some early works in progress by browsing the #overseer footage tag, as well as the #rain world modding tag on my main blog.

It’s still in its very early stages and is nowhere near playable yet, but once I feel satisfied I’d like to establish a discord server or something so people can give feedback on the mod. That probably won’t happen anytime soon, but keep an eye out for that I guess.

Thanks again for supporting this blog. See you soon!

-Delta

#status update

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heygerald · 1 year ago

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Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 4

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic one. When he starts being less of an asshole, and more of a person, Parker finds that he isn't so bad. Not that she would tell him that, though.

read the story here: prev / next

Parker doesn't get much sleep. Not necessarily because she's so busy that she doesn't have time, and not definitively because of the sleep disorder she has self-diagnosed off of a sketchy website she found while browsing her symptoms one day.

In truth it's because she thinks too much.

She overthinks what her to-do list for the following week should be; overthinks the plot of her favorite tv series and whether or not they are going to kill off her favorite character in the mid-season finale; overthinks whether she should spend more one-on-one time with her brother while they're both in the same city, able bodied (with his career, there was no guarantee), and with the time to waste on stupid memories. On the really bad nights, Parker overthinks whether or not she made a mistake in purchasing an old, dilapidated bookstore that has drained her bank account over the last couple of years. She worries that her life is going nowhere, that she'll soon have failed at her dream venture, and that when she dies, she'll have no accomplishments to her name.

On those nights, she ends up washing down a handful of melatonin gummies with two boiling cups of sleepy time tea.

It helps, but it also leaves her floating in a state between unconsciousness and squirrely dreams that is hard to shake off in the morning.

Harder still to shake off when her phone lights up the room in the middle of the night, the shrill song of her ringtone bleating through the pitch black of her bedroom shocking her awake in delirious fright.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the...

Parker swings her hand towards the nightstand in such a rush that she ends up knocking her cellphone onto the ground. It bounces on the hardwood floor—she doesn't even care if it breaks, the damn thing—before skidding underneath her bed. The light from it casts shadows in all directions.

What if I'm late? Gotta big date, gotta get home...

It takes her half crawling out of bed, sheets tangled around her bare legs, elbow braced on the cold floor as she blindly grapples for the device to find it. Colt always made fun of her ringtone—if you're going to pick a song, at least pick a good one, he would taunt while listening to Taylor Swift on replay—and while Parker had adamantly told him where to stick his opinion, at the moment, the song blaring in the middle of the night has her half-prepared to scratch out of her own eardrums in frustration.

The stanza continues: before the morning comes...

She grabs the phone and wrenches it—and herself—back onto the bed. The number isn't saved in her phone, and panic wells in her chest. She's gasping as blood rushes back down to her toes. "Hello?"

"Jesus, finally. I thought you weren't going to fucking answer."

Whether it's the tea, the overdose of melatonin, or the fact that she had just been woken up in the middle of the night, Parker can't seem to make sense of much. The only thing she can think about is how she has a brother who does stupid stuff for money, and has called her from the back of ambulance three times and counting.

Once on her birthday.

"Oh my god," she mutters, a hand already clutching to her chest as she can feel the cavity caving in. Clarity has no place in her spiraling panic. "Oh my god, he's finally dead, isn't he? Oh my god, Colt is dead!"

"What the fuck are you on about?" the voice interrupts her panic with a modicum of disbelief. It sounds familiar, but Parker is far more focused on regulating her breathing before she throws up than placing a voice through her half-broken speaker. The room, pitch black and without anything to see, is spinning. "I'm not even with Colt."

"Fuck," she curses, before recklessly scrabbling with her nightstand. It's a total fucking mess, and in her haste, she knocks a lamp and stack of books onto the ground. The least of her problems if her idiot of a brother is already fucking dead. "Fuck! Where are you? I didn't even know he was on a job right now. Um, what hospital is he at? Wait—shit—I need to find a pen and paper..."

"Parker, Jesus, Colt's fine. Stop spinning out for two seconds. Are you on drugs?"

She blinks, unsure if she just heard what she heard, and slowly withdrawals her hand as she tries to compute what is being said.

"He's... not dead?" she croaks hesitantly.

"He's fine. I mean, well, as far as I know," the voice drones on; it's clearly annoyed now. A scoff. "Why in the hell would you assume that he's dead?"

"Because—it's—" she wipes a hand over her face tiredly, sweeping tufts of hair off her forehead to peer at the clock in the corner. Large, red numbers blink at her showing that she had only been asleep for two and a half hours. Worse still when she makes sense of what she's seeing. "It's two thirty in the morning! Why the fuck would an unknown number be calling me in the middle of the night if it wasn't for Colt?"

"Are you—wait—are seriously his emergency contact?" the voice goads, teasing and judging all in one tone. She hates it. "That's a little pathetic, honestly."

Her left eye twitches. "Who the fuck is this?"

"It's Tom."

Parker doesn't know a Tom, she's never known a Tom in the entirety of her life, and as she struggles to clear her thoughts, the idea that some asshole with a stupid name like Tom would call her out of the blue at this time of night starts to really piss her off.

"Tom who? I don't know a fucking Tom!" she shouts into the receiver.

There's a thump against the wall, a muffled call of "shut the fuck up!" rings out from her roommate's room. Too many things are happening though, and Parker clutches her head between her hands while trying to stay on topic.

"Fucking Tom Ryder, smartass," the voice chides. "Who else?"

And—

Fuck.

Yeah, alright, maybe she did know a Tom, and, yeah, now that she thought about it, he was a raging, grade-A asshole that would call someone up in the middle of the night for no reason other than to ruin the first good sleep she had in a week. All while getting upset at her for her negative response to the impromptu gab-sesh.

You know, in the way that all assholes did.

"Why—?" she starts, before realizing that she is shouting. Parker clears her throat with a glance towards the wall and tries a second time in an angry hiss. "Why the fuck are you calling me at two in the morning, Ryder?"

"I finished the book and I want to talk about it."

The words don't compute for half a second, but when they do, Parker can feel a migraine spiraling behind her eyes. She sort of feels like she's having a seizure before realizing that it's just pure anger spiking in the bottom of her chest.

She's pretty sure this is how someone feels right before committing a violent crime.

"Are you—? I was fucking sleeping!" she hisses. "Good—fucking—bye!"

Hanging up the phone certainly isn't as satisfying as it used to be when flip phones were in fashion, and you could slam the top down to end a conversation. But pressing the big red END button on Tom Ryder does grant her a small moment of satisfaction. Even more so when she imagines the shocked furrow of his eyebrows or the crease of his mouth as he frowns.

Good, she thinks sourly while flopping back onto her pillows with a sharp huff, maybe Tom Ryder could use a few wrinkles in his life.

Her peace lasts all of twenty seconds.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning...

Parker grabs a pillow and smushes it against her face hoping that it will drown out the noise. When it doesn't, she hopes that maybe suffocation will knock her out for a couple hours of sleep. But then there's another thump against the wall and she realizes that if she dies right here and now, the last person she would have ever talked to would be Tom fucking Ryder, and she's not so sure she's okay with that.

So, she removes the pillow to take a deep breath. Then she answers the phone.

"Did you just hang up on me?" he asks incredulously.

"It is two-thirty in the morning, and you want to talk about a book?"

A huff. "Yes. Why else would I ever call you?"

If she was more awake, Parker might have taken offense at the insult. She's much too groggy to do that, though. Besides, almost everything out of his mouth was some sort of judgement. At this point, she didn't think he would be able to speak without being rude.

"Couldn't you have called me during a normal hour?"

"My audition is on Friday," he said, as if that was any sort of excuse for his behavior. "I still have to read the other two books by then."

"Wait, I'm sorry," Parker interjects with a mean laugh, pausing to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Have you been up all-night reading?"

"You could sound a little less judgmental about it," he snarks. "I do read, you know. Bad scripts and the like."

She huffs. Not quite a laugh, but not just an expression either. It's a little hard to take anything serious when she's sleep-deprived and delirious. And, certainly, he can't be serious. That's her justification for giving up, anyway. "Okay, alright, fine. Which book did you finish?"

"Contact."

"That's a good one to start with," Parker murmurs, shifting on her mattress so she can cradle her PillowPet.

It has lost of all of its stuffing, an eye, and any joy it once had, but the penguin was a gift from Colt that she can't convince herself to trash. It mirrors her frown.

"No, not a good one. I didn't understand it at all."

"What didn't you understand?"

"Any of it, all of it. Why the hell did you tell me that Dune was too complicated and then hand me this shit?" he complains. There's something odd in his tone though. Something she can hear creeping through the syllables somewhere between annoyed and confused that reminds her of their conversation weeks prior at Gail's—you don't even sound like yourself, she had said. It's only now that she realizes he hadn't sounded like himself because he was doubting himself, which was the most un-like Tom Ryder thing anyone could ever do. She frowns at the thought as he continues. "It's all about math and pi and something called a transcendental number. I should have just watched Altered Carbon."

Parker sighs. "You're getting yourself all worked up over things that don't matter."

"Don't matter? It's all the book fucking talks about!"

"That's sci-fi," she says. And while it's a piss poor excuse, it's the truth. A moment later and Parker realizes that if he really had never read anything sci-fi before, he likely wouldn't realize the rules of reading it. Sighing, she takes some pity on him to explain, "okay, look. You know when you watch an action film and there's some ridiculous sequence that makes no sense; like when the ground is crumbling beneath their feet and the character jumps at the last second and is totally okay?"

"Like in the Fast and the Furious."

"Literally every single scene in those movies."

"Okay...?"

"Right, well, you watch those scenes and tell yourself not to take them seriously. They exist because it's an action movie, right? It doesn't have to be realistic."

"Sure," he agreed, but she could tell he still wasn't getting the point.

"It's the same thing when you're reading sci-fi. Okay? All the math and theoretical physics and calculations they do—whatever it is—they throw that stuff in there to build up a universe that feels real. The audience doesn't have to understand quantum mechanics to know that Chris Pine can fly a really big spaceship in Star Trek."

"You really have a hard-on for Chris Pine, huh?"

Parker ignored his comment entirely, barreling on. "The point of the book is not that the audience is stupid and needs to take some math classes even if that's how it feels sometimes. The point is that Ellie is a genius that no one else understands or believes in. When she talks about transcendental numbers and you have no idea what she means, that's exactly how the other characters in the book feel. They don't believe her because they don't understand her."

"So, it's... like an attempt to make the audience sympathize with her but also so the author can explain how everything happens."

Parker smiles. "Right."

"That's stupid," he says, and her smile immediately disappears behind a groan. "I just don' think the author needed to spend so much time trying to sound smart."

"It's a book about interstellar travel and the existence of intelligent life," she deadpans. "It's supposed to sound smart."

Tom mulls that over, and while he does so, Parker shifts once more in bed. The red numbers blink at her are only going up, but now that her heart rate has returned to a normal level, she finds it's far from the worst conversation she's had with Tom. Especially since she gets to talk about one of her favorite books.

Even if he is an ass.

"This would have been better as a movie," he finally settles on. It's not a sophisticated opinion by any means, but it certainly is him.

"Actually, it was originally written to be a screenplay. The movie got cancelled, and Sagan adapted it into a book."

"Seriously?"

"Sure," she shrugs. She spares a glance towards her nightstand where a copy of the book lays in tatters from how often she has read it. "Ironic considering the book became so popular that it got a second movie deal a few years later."

"...you're telling me that I could have watched this instead of reading it after all?" he barks. But, well, his tone isn't so annoyed as it sounds impressed. Parker hears the taping of buttons on a remote, before he's yelling. "Jodie Foster! Seriously?"

She can't help it. Parker laughs. "It's not a bad movie, but the book is way better."

"I have to watch this now."

"I have a copy you can borrow if you don't want to rent it."

"It's three dollars. How poor are you, exactly?"

She scoffs, an eye roll that has become habit when talking to the prick even though he can't see it. Snootily, she tells him, "I just rolled my eyes at you, asshole. In case you were wondering."

A harrumph. "I do think I caught something from your bookstore. I've been sick all day. It's disgusting—it's making my mouth all dry and it practically ruined my breakfast. I couldn't even eat my avocado."

"First the cappuccino, and now the avocado. Is there anything you don't blame me for?"

The teasing got the exact reaction she wanted, and as Tom starts complaining on the other end of the line, Parker smothers a laugh into her penguin. "It was a flat white! And—"

"I'm going to hang up on you now," she sing-songed. "And fair warning: if you call me again before eight am, I'm going to post your phone number on Reddit. Gail can eat shit with her lawsuit."

"Don't you fucking—"

Parker finds a lot more satisfaction in hanging up on Tom Ryder the second time, and when the phone screen stays dark, she plops it down onto her nightstand with an amused hum. It's past three am now, something she will be regretting come morning.

Then again, it seemed that Tom Ryder was all about regrets.

Right?

----

"Do you think I'm cool?" Parker ponders two days later, a glance tossed to her brother as she idly tries on a pair of sunglasses that are in the shape of trout. They're overpriced, but she's also incredibly bored, and about five minutes away from throwing a toddler-style meltdown in the middle of the bait and tackle shop.

"Of course you're cool," he says as he models a rash guard that he's been trying on for the last half hour. He twists in the mirror, left and right, before giving himself two thumbs up. There's something dangerous about the way he grins at her. "You have me for a brother, after all. Coolest kid on the block. Always have been, always will be."

"Right. Didn't they call you Shitpants in high school?"

A passing employee coughs into their hand to hide their laugh, and Colt turns a bright red.

"She's totally joking. They didn't call me that, my nickname was something totally different," he calls after the retreating sales associate, always attempting to save face but never quite succeeding. A moment later and he's glaring at his sister. "That was one time, and it was an accident. The potato salad was—"

"Bad," Parker finishes for him with an eyeroll. "Yeah, I know. I've heard the story."

"Then why do you insist on bringing it back up all the time?" he hissed.

There isn't much activity in the oceanfront store beside the pair wandering from aisle to aisle. It's a small shack that they've frequented for years. Colt pretends to be good friends with the owner, and Parker never minds because there's a great lemonade stand right down the block. It's usually the first stop of the day when they decide to hang out on the beach. Just a place to buy ice and snacks before moving on to better things.

Which is good considering there being little to no airflow when sitting inside, and the radio seems to be on a constant loop of Justin Bieber in his pre-puberty phase. It's not so good, however, when they spend more than five minutes inside.

Today, it seems to be the first and final stop given how long they've been there. She feels her bones getting weary from all the pandering her brother has done, and she's starting to suspect that his reasons for picking her up that morning weren't as innocent as he initially claimed.

Deprived of breathable air and sleep, Parker isn't all too enthused when she props the kiosk sunglasses onto her head with a pleading look towards her brother. "Because I'm bored!" she whined, in a way that was far too little-sisterly like for someone her age. Decidedly though she doesn't care when he makes no move to leave. "I thought we were just going to buy some sunscreen before heading towards the point. That's what you said, anyway."

"We are!" he says, arms thrown wide in exasperation. Parker doesn't buy that for a second, however, and her brother folds under her stare. "Just... in a minute. I need a new rash guard. Maybe some new board shorts."

"You don't even surf."

"I... do," he argues, his head bobbing up and down as if trying to convince himself of such a bold statement. "It's just been a couple of—"

"Decades?"

"Years," he corrects her with a glare. "It's like riding a bike. You know. Probably."

"Just with water and waves and the possibility of drowning or death by shark."

"You're not helping."

She shrugs. "I never said I was here to help."

Colt's response is a melodramatic pout, pausing in his nervous shifting to wave a hand in her general direction. "Well, this would be a lot quicker if you just helped."

He punctuates the statement by performing a full spin for her, hands stuck out before realizing that's awkward. To fix that, he props them even more awkwardly on his hips, but it only makes him look like he's a Ken doll pretending to be a real person.

Parker elects to keep that to herself sensing his anxiety was getting dangerously close to his own toddler-style meltdown.

"What do you think of this? Cool? Not cool?" he continues on muttering, head bobbing in every direction as he smooths the material down over his puffed-up chest. It deflates just as quickly as he turns back to her to ask, "pink's cool, right? I'm going for a laidback look, you know. But not too laidback. Somewhere right in the middle."

Parker returns the sunglasses to the rotating stand before plopping onto a stack of buckets. He seems awfully concerned with this particular task all of the sudden, despite spending the last three years avoiding the idea altogether. Every time he was offered a chance to get back out on the water by one of his stunt buddies, he miraculously came up with an excuse not to.

It all feels weird. And when her brother got weird, there was usually a girl involved.

Ah.

"You told Jody you still surf, huh?" she puts two and two together.

His peacocking in the mirror stopped entirely. A wince. Then a smile. Then a wince again in a ball of pent-up nerves. "That's... maybe one of the—she doesn't—you don't have to hang around here while I try these on. Don't you have something better to be doing?"

"If I had literally anything better to be doing, I would be doing it."

"Okay, ouch."

Parker rolled her eyes at her brother's whining. But really, she didn't have anything better to be doing at the moment than hanging around while her brother tried to impress a girl.

Not to mention she liked this girl.

Sighing, she decided to throw him a bone. Because, what else would she be doing? Parker peered at the rack behind him for a moment before pointing to the top. "Try the blue one instead."

Colt glanced down at his chest with a frown. "But... Jody likes pink."

"Yes, but blue will match your eyes better. Make you look tanner."

"And make me harder to see if I start drowning," he huffed. But, after a moment of consideration, stripped off the pink rash guard to pull on the blue one. Always a fucking argument with him, she thought with a bemused eyeroll. Especially when a moment later, "oh, this one does look better..."

She laughed as he spun in the mirror, attempting to get a three-sixty perspective of the potential garment. Only for the moment to be interrupted by a buzzing in her back pocket.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get gone before...

Her phone's ringtone broke through her relative boredom, and as Colt ran a hand through his hair and squared his shoulders in the mirror, she plucked the device out of her back pocket.

"You really got to change that ringtone," he said half-heartedly.

Parker stuck her tongue out at him and swiveled on her bucket, so she now had a view of the empty beach outside. It wasn't even that early—nine in the morning—but this particular spot was far enough removed from LA that people didn't tend to populate it unless it was a holiday weekend.

Phone pressed to her ear, she answered with a casual, "hello?"

"Was it not possible for you to give me a book from this century to read?"

A smile teased her face, and Parker returned her attention to the sunglass rack at her side just for something to do. Testing on an oversized pair of cat-eye sunglasses, she asked, "who is this?"

"Jesus, just save my fucking contact in your phone, already."

"Why would I do that when you could just stop calling me to talk about books?" she mused, stifling a laugh when there was a load of huffing and cursing from the other end of the line. He deserved it, though. Especially after ruining her sleep the other night and practically giving her a heart attack. "There are reddit forums for that exact purpose, you know. Maybe you could ask the nerds what they think. Go right to the source."

"You're such an asshole."

"Mhm. Takes one to know one, right?"

"Earthlight isn't a movie, is it?" he barreled on. She could tell from his tone that he was annoyed, and selfishly, Parker hoped that she was ruining his morning coffee and avocado toast. "It'd be a short movie."

"No, not a movie. Could be, I guess. You feel like self-funding?"

"You're hilarious," he deadpanned, and through the phone line she could hear the distant whir of a coffee grinder working. Knowing Tom, the thing probably cost more than her car. "Maybe you should quit your little bookstore and go into stand-up comedy. Probably make more money doing that. Granted, you'd have to sacrifice your dignity, but you don't have much to start with, do you?"

Parker tutted, but the overwhelming failure of her bookstore came back to mind full force at the comment, and so rather than keep up the joke, she moved the conversation on. "So, you liked it?"

"Well don't go sounding too smug about it," he chastised. "I liked it better, but still not much. They're both so outdated."

"Too much science for you?"

"This author really fucking loves the technical bullshit just as much as the last one. Pricks, all of them."

"Arthur C. Clarke is a prick?" she snorted. That was definitely a viewpoint she had never heard before. Leave it to Tom to dislike one of the best sci-fi writes in history because he spent too much time writing, well, sci-fi. "That's a hot take. He cowrote 2001 you know."

"A Space Odyssey?" She hummed. There was rattling and banging noises—the image of a hungover Tom stumbling around his kitchen came to mind—before the sound of a milk frother cut across the line. She jerked her phone away from her ear with a wince. Muffled, his voice returned. "Alright, that's not a bad movie. I'll give him that."

"It's only one of the highest-rated films of the genre," she retorted dryly.

More banging continued on the phone and as Parker tried not to let him blow out her eardrum, a hissing sound of its own came from her end of the line. She glanced up at the airshaft above her warily, but, if the sweat pooling on her back was anything to go by, it wasn't working. She glanced around in search of the noise before a rubber pool toy bounced off of the back of her head.

"Hey," the hiss returned. Pool toy in hand, she turned to find her brother waving a hand at her. The blue rash guard had been replaced with a yellow one. Worse still, he was now wearing a matching bucket hat. He gestured to himself as if he hadn't just assaulted her with a whale shaped toy. "What about this?"

She covered the phone speaker with her hand. "What happened to the blue?"

"This one is on sale!"

"Jesus, Colt. No girl has ever been impressed by that logic."

"I—" he started, then paused, and frowned at his sister like she had just burst his bubble. She might have felt bad if she hadn't been brushing off his puppy-dog eyes for the entirety of her life. The lip wobble was a new touch, though. "...is that a no to the bucket hat too?"

Parker responded by chucking the toy back at him. It bounced off his chest with a squeak.

"Yeah, alright..." he muttered, shoulders drooping, as he snatched the hat off of his head. It left his hair sticking up in tufts.

She kept that to herself.

"—are you even listening to me right now?" Tom's voice crackled back to life. If the incredulous lilt of his voice was anything to go by, he was not used to being sidelined for other people nor did he like it. "Who the hell are you talking to?"

"There was a bucket hat situation I had to deal with."

"...are you with Colt right now?"

She laughed. First, at the fact that Tom Ryder equated a bucket hat with her brother. Second because he sounded so disgusted by the fact that she would willingly spend her Sunday morning's helping her brother shop for bucket hats.

"You mean my brother?" she corrected.

"Did you tell him that I'm auditioning for a sci-fi roll? What does he think about it?"

"Why the hell would I tell him I'm talking to you?" she asked, echoing his sentiments from their last phone call. Parker was only teasing though, while she was pretty sure Tom had meant to be mean. Regardless, she moved on as she stood from the bucket to stretch out the kinks in her legs. "A bucket hat is a bad idea, right?"

"Is this seriously more important than what I want to talk about?"

"This may come as a surprise to you, but my world doesn't revolve around things that you want to talk about," she explained exasperatedly. Not necessarily because of what he said, but because she was fairly confident that he actually believed those sentiments. Worse still, she bet no one had ever told him that before. "Particularly not at two in the morning—thanks for that by the way. My roommate is pissed at me for waking her up."

A pause. Then, "you still have a roommate? How old are you?"

"I was serious about posting your phone number online you know," she threatened idly.

Colt disappeared into the changing booth, and Parker slowly started perusing the now abandoned hat rack. Despite her disapproval, she was bored. Plus, it actually had a fairly impressive selection.

Plopping an oversized sunhat atop her head, she ignored his insult to press on more important matters. "But seriously. Bucket hats. They're out of style, right?"

"Bucket hats have never been in style."

"Fashion is all made up anyway."

"That's just what poor people say who can't afford actual fashion."

She tutted, scrunching her nose up. Derisively, she asked, "did Gail tell you that?"

"Alright, that's it. I'm hanging up."

"It was a joke—!"

Joke or not, the dial tone was the only response that she got from Tom. She stared at the phone in her hand for a moment before huffing.

So that's what that feels like, she thought.

Something bright and ugly popped into her line of vision, and Parker glanced in the mirror to find her brother sporting a cheetah print body suit paired with a trucker hat that said Wine Made Me Do It in big, cursive lettering.

"Now, not to step on any middle-aged ladies' toes, but this is fashion," he clapped his hands with a goofy grin on his face. He gestured to the hat with a crooked thumb. "Get it? Two dollars!"

Parker laughed; couldn't not even if she wanted to.

Her brother was so innocent and idiotic and awful that while she once used to be embarrassed in public by him, now she just appreciated the fact that he was, always, unashamedly himself.

"Here, wait," she poked her tongue out of the side of her mouth while angling her camera at him. "Say cheese."

"Asiago," he cooed, making a Blue Steel type face that looked ridiculous when paired with his clothes.

The picture was even better, and Parker felt tears gathering in her eyes as they giggled. The employee from earlier shot them an annoyed look, but he was promptly ignored. If she didn't care about Tom Ryder's opinion, she certainly didn't care about his.

"That was good, right?"

"Oh, definitely. Jody won't know what hit her," she teased. Colt nodded, looking all too smug with himself, despite the fact that she was joking.

This smug version of himself reminded her of someone else that he looked a whole lot like.

An idea struck Parker, and as Colt started putting back the clothes where he found them, she quickly saved Tom's number in her phone before attaching the picture to the contact. Parker hesitated when she saw his name typed out.

Asshole, she typed in big letters. It was funny for half a second, though, before she realized it didn't quite feel right.

She deleted his name. Thought about it. Then replaced it with nothing more than a simple puking face emoji.

"Are you getting that?" Colt asked, drawing her from her reverie, and when she glanced up, she remembered that she was still wearing the ridiculous sunhat. "Because, you know... I'm not so sure that's something a cool person would wear."

Parker shoved her brother towards the cash register with a laugh.

They left the store with a blue rash guard, a pair of sunglasses, and matching bucket hats.

Twenty minutes later they realized they had forgotten to get sunscreen.

---

Paker had heard a lot of stupid and surprising things in her life; things that were so shockingly idiotic that she often wondered if they had been spoken as a joke. Most of the things on that list were quoted from her brother; a man she loved, but that didn't entirely think before he spoke.

When they were kids, he had argued that fish didn't need oxygen to survive. That's why they live under water, dummy, he had said with far too much confidence that she, younger and far less educated, could only blink at him. Then there was the time in his twenties that Colt had brought up the topic of furries at the dinner table in front of their grandparents. They're not, like, really having sex... are they? he had asked while trying to figure out what costume part would go where if they did do the dirty. And of course, there was the infamous baking soda as a cure all for wounds debate, but she tried to block out the sound of his skin literally sizzling as he screamed.

Tom, in the short time that she had known him, had also said some pretty shocking things that wound up on the list. He was, after all, an unapologetic asshole/idiot that didn't care if the world was flat or round so long as it revolved around him.

But out of shocking thing she had ever heard, it was fifteen-year-old California born and bred girl that topped the list.

"I want a job," Melissa proclaimed.

Parker's pen scratched an ugly line across her poor excuse of an accounting notebook as she glanced up wildly, big eyes blinking slow and dumb, as static hummed in between her ears.

"...what?"

"I want to apply for a job," she reiterated.

The bookstore was empty save for a pair of retirees that were slowly perusing her small selection of bird watching books. An oversized fly buzzed overhead, whizzing an uneven path between the two, as an irritable car stuck in traffic laid on the horn outside.

"Like—like here?" Parker asked. There was nothing fun or young or hip about her store. Just dusty bookshelves, a musty smell she could not get rid of no matter how many Bath and Body Works' scent infusers she plugged into the corner, and a ratty reading chair that had a Melissa-sized depression in the middle. She arched a brow. "You want to work... here. In my bookstore."

Melissa rolled her eyes, shrugging. Duh, the gesture said.

"Yeah, sure, obviously," Parker hummed, despite the fact that there was nothing yeah, sure, or obvious about the current conversation. Specifically given that Melissa, on more than occasion, had complained that her store was boring. "Just... why?"

"I need money."

"Suuuuure," she drew out the syllable, wooden stool creaking as she shifted in her seat behind the register. "But wouldn't you prefer to work somewhere a little more, er, fun?"

"This place is plenty fun."

The fly from earlier buzzed between them before smacking into the windowpane. It spiraled to the floor with a depressing zzzz.

Parker raised a second brow.

Melissa, in response, threw her hands up with a huff. "Okay, so, maybe I've been rejected from Jamba Juice and Target already. Which is so, totally crazy."

"That is crazy because I thought Jamba Juice went out of business—"

"And I can get my driver's permit in three months, and I want to get my license as soon as possible. But there's no way that I'm going to have Mom drive me everywhere, so I need to get a car. And to get a car I need to be able to afford a car—which, like, the economy is awful right now if you didn't know—so I need a job. Mom and Dad said they'll match whatever money I can put towards it. And as of today, that is a fat zero."

Woes of teenage girls, Parker thought.

"That's nice of them," she said instead. Not that she envied a teenager in the twenty-first century, but for her sixteenth birthday she had been given a bike. Not even a new one. It had been Colt's old one that he outgrew, and it still had flame stickers and duck tape wrapped all around it. "But, seriously, there has to be at least one other place a kid your age would want to work."

Melissa, having been slowly circling around the center of the room, paused in her ambling to cast Parker a suspicious look. "Do you not want me to work here or something?"

"No, of course I would want you to work here—"

"Great!"

"—but I have no money. Why do you think I'm the only employee here?"

Melissa considered that. "I just always assumed you were a little uptight and didn't like other people messing with your shelves."

"Uptight?" she cried. "Why does everyone keep calling me that?"

But Melissa didn't seem to notice that she had just quoted her celebrity crush, and so she instead turned her attention to the bookstore. She cast a critical eye over everything; though there was no smoke, Parker could smell the wheels turning between her ears, and slumped further onto the counter in preparation for what was to come.

"Don't get me wrong, Park, I love your store," she started. "But it could definitely use some updating."

"Updating?" she deadpanned.

"Some new paint for starters. I think it would be so cute if you painted it, um, maybe a soft blue. Then you could paint the bookshelves in different colors—pastels, definitely—and even some flowers here and there wouldn't hurt."

Parker made a face. Pastels weren't really her thing. "You want to paint the shelves?"

"It's just so brown."

"The natural color of wood, yes."

Melissa rolled her eyes, and with a waft of Vanilla perfume, trotted behind the front desk to examine the string of posters tacked onto the wall. Most of them were salvages from the dollar store, and while Parker thought they gave the store some character, Melissa clearly didn't agree. "These totally need to go too."

"Excuse me—"

"You could still keep them," she huffed half-heartedly. Clearly, she wasn't sold on the idea, but Parker would be damned if she pitched her Jane Austen posters based on the opinion of a teenager. "Just cut them down to a smaller size, put them in some picture frames—you can get them super cheap at the thrift store—and they'll make it look less packrat-like and more eclectic."

Parker glared, an argument on the tip of her tongue.

But, well, when she thought about it, it wasn't such a bad idea. And, well, maybe giving the store a new coat of paint wasn't either. It still looked like it had when she bought it from Larry. She had spent so much money on the loan payment, that she never considered really updating the place—mostly because, duh, she had no money—but paint and some dollar store frames weren't so expensive.

"How do you know all of this?" she asked with a quizzical look.

Melissa smiled, phone waved in hand as she tossed a plait of perfectly curled hair over her shoulder. "I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. What this place needs is a total cottage-core makeover."

"That sounds so made-up."

The girl frowned. "Well, duh. Everything is made up."

Parker opened her mouth, thought it through, and then promptly snapped her mouth shut. When did kids become so philosophical?

"So," said kid leaned onto the front counter with a conniving smile. She was a pretty girl with a clear complexion, bright white teeth beneath blue braces, and a deep closest of cute, but age-appropriate clothing. When she wiggled her eyebrows, Parker couldn't help but notice how well shaped they were. "Can I have a job?"

It was a tempting offer...

She glanced at the balancing worksheet she was doing, scores of numbers and ugly handwriting sprawled across her notebook, before taking a proper look at her empty storefront.

"I'll... have to think about it," she finally hedged.

Melissa's shoulders sank in disappointment.

"I don't have a ton of money right now," she explained, not at all liking how sad she looked. Colt's puppy dog expression had done nothing to prepare her for Melissa Abernathy's professional one. "So, I'll need to look things over first."

"But...?"

A sigh. "Are you free on Sundays?"

"I thought you were closed on Sundays?"

"I am," Parker nodded. "Which means it's about the only day of the week that I could try to paint this place. If you're serious about wanting a job and wanting to help, I'll consider bringing you in on the weekends to start helping me renovate."

A grin broke out on the girl's face, and she started bouncing on her toes. "Really?"

"Just temporarily," Parker threatened with her index finger. She wasn't sure how much was being heard and how much was going over the girl's head, however, and suddenly this was all feeling like a bad idea. "You can help me paint and decorate, and then I'll look at my finances."

"And you'll hire me?"

"If I can afford it, then... yes, we could work something out."

"Yes!"

"Just a few shifts a week!"

"That's perfect."

"And I'm not paying more than minimum wage."

"Totally fair. This rocks!"

"I said if—"

Melissa was already on her phone, texting and typing away as she bounced around. Parker felt a migraine start whirring between her temples, but—well—the kid was so excited that she couldn't feel too miserable about her decision. Tourist traffic was dying down as the season's changed, and she really needed to do something if she still wanted to be in business come the new year.

There was the sound of a camera clicking, and Melissa grinned from her corner of the room. "Oh my god, Park, you're so not going to regret this. We could totally do a beachy palette—blues and greens and, oh, orange—throw some rugs down, add some little details to the bottom of the shelves that you have to look for to see. Like easter egg, stuff. Oh, this is so exciting! I'm going to get Miranda and Abby to come, they have a great eye for detail."

She watched Melissa disappear down the MYSTERY aisle, all the while chatting to whoever she had already gotten on the phone.

Parker steepled her head between her hands with a sigh.

But, well, the enthusiasm was contagious, and after a moment she was laughing to herself. Maybe a fresh coat of paint would cheer her up.

Speaking of, how much did paint cost?

She was in the middle of a google search when her phone started to ring. The caller ID only showed an emoji and a picture of her brother modeling a ridiculous outfit, and she let out a childish snort in response.

A small smile in place, she answered. "Three books in a week. I have to say that I am a little impressed."

"Hm. I'm impressed you finally saved my contact. I was starting to think that basic technology was beyond your skill set."

"Hardy, har, har," she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. Melissa was somewhere in the back of store now, likely scaring off her only customers, and she decided to give up on her accounting for the day. Twisting in her seat so she was watching the street outside, she propped her elbow on her knee. "What did you think of Nemesis?"

He seemed hesitant to answer. "I... liked it."

Parker grinned. "Oh, you did, did you?"

A sound halfway between a groan and a whine. "You're fucking infuriating, you know that?"

"For recommending you good books?"

"You don't have to be so smug about it."

"I'm not smug," she said smugly.

He scoffed, and Parker couldn't help but grin even further. The idea that Tom Ryder, pain in her ass, was admitting that he liked her recommendation was the metaphorical cherry on the top of her cake. Even better, she got to be smug to him about something.

Parker continued on to say, "I guess I'm just happy that I recommended something you like. Especially since I didn't think you liked anything other than looking in a mirror, hair gel, and hot lattes."

"For fuck's sake, it was a flat white, and it was one time."

"Was it?" she teased, enjoying the conversation far more than she should be. This was the asshole that drove her brother insane every day at work, after all. But then again, what Colt didn't know, wouldn't hurt him. "You're just so memorable, I guess. Can't stop thinking about it."

"I would hope I'm memorable," he shot back, a whole lot of huffing and puffing from his side of the line that didn't fit the whole "perfect human being" sort of vibe he tried so desperately hard to give off. A dog barked in the distance. A second, more put-off and annoyed huff argued back. "Putain, calme-toi, Jean Claude."

Parker curled an eyebrow, impressed. "Was that French?"

"Impressed?" he said, taking a page out of her book to sound unnecessarily smug.

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the window—a stupid smile in place, lip pulled between two teeth, eyes twinkling in a way that didn't suit the sleep-deprived bags beneath them—Parker straightened in her seat. "Hardly. It's an ugly language," she said, overcorrecting just a little by insulting what some considered to be the language of love. Not her best move. "Moreso wondering why you're imposing a foreign language on your dog. Seems cruel."

"He's French," Tom said, certainly rolling his eyes.

"Ooh, a French bulldog? I love those."

Something about the insinuation that Tom Ryder would own a bulldog managed to insult him, and she heard the scorn in his voice when he responded with a scathing, "I would never own a fucking bulldog. They can't breathe and can't run thanks to decades of improper inbreeding. What use are they?"

"...they're cute?"

She heard him mutter something in French, before another bark—as if his dog, the French bastard, was agreeing with whatever complaint he made against her—and Parker was so elegantly reminded of what a pain in the ass he could be.

Chin in hand, she rolled her eyes. "You want to tell me about the book or not?"

There was noise from his side of the line; music in the background kicked up, the sound of dog food being slung into a metal bowl, a faucet running, before things quieted down a bit. "I thought the idea of moon colonization is a little overplayed, plus there's the whole bit about the telepathic organism that is so fucking stupid," he said.

Despite his tone though, somehow Parker just knew that he was only complaining so he had something to complain about. She didn't wonder how she knew that.

"The book is from the eighties. I don't think moon colonization was overplayed when he wrote it," she protested anyway, sipping on her watered-down cold brew as she did so. "And the bit about the organism is fascinating to me. Everyone always writes about ET-style aliens, but I thought it was brilliant of Asimov to create something new."

"Brilliant is what I do. Not writing a short story about a family being separated in space," he grumbled. A moment later, "you're awfully hot on these writers. You've never called me brilliant before." Sore about it, obviously.

"That's not true. I think you're brilliantly self-centered and egotistical."

"Elle pense qu’elle est une comédienne, celle-ci," he muttered, much to her English-speaking chagrin. He switched back to say, "I'm the reason your brother has a career, you know. You could give me a little credit."

"Are you?" she mused, knowing it was a load of horseshit. Self-centered and egotistical horseshit that only further proved her point. "Interesting. I thought he introduced you to Gail."

A moment of silence. "He told you that?"

"We tell each other everything," she said. Though, that wasn't exactly true, was it? "Well, mostly everything, anyway."

"Hm. I could argue that's breaking our nondisclosure agreement. I could probably fire him for it, you know," he threatened, idly, though, and without any real heat to his words. There was the sound of water running in the background, and Parker really hoped that he was spontaneously washing some dishes and not talking to her while in the shower.

"Please. We both know that Colt is the best stunt-man out there. And you only work with the best, right?"

His lack of response proved that she was right; Colt was the best at his job, and he just so happened to look a whole lot like Tom Ryder. Not to mention that Tom's entire career was built around bragging how good he was, how talented the people he worked with were, how he didn't settle for anything but excellence. In fact, Parker was half-sure she could break Ryder's nose and the only backlash Colt would get would be a whole lot of bitching.

Granted, she might get arrested, but at least her brother would be relatively fine.

"When's the audition, anyway?" she asked just to be nosy.

"Tomorrow morning."

Parker raised a brow, idly watching as some idiot failed to parallel park out front. "Cutting it a little close, huh?"

"I'm Tom Ryder," he said, in his typical sense of self-importance that she loathed. Though, this time, Parker didn't loathe it as much as she found it amusing. "I know what I'm doing and don't need your fucking opinion about it."

"Do you have that written on a motivational poster somewhere?"

"No," he said immediately. A little too quickly, in her opinion, and Parker narrowed her eyes with a sneaking suspicion that his house was just plastered with photos of himself. "Whatever. I have to go. Unlike you I don't just have all day to talk."

She scoffed incredulously, reminding him that, "you called me!"

Unsurprisingly, however, he didn't care. "I need to practice some more before the audition. Unless you want me to fail."

"I didn't think Tom Ryder could fail."

"Yeah, well," he hesitated for a moment, all that bravado he'd been displaying moments earlier gone in a flash. Parker wondered if he ever talked to anyone without it, and if he didn't, then what sort of friends he had in his life. He cleared his throat. "It's a big deal. Not just for me, but Colt too. This would be our biggest movie yet. Some extra practice doesn't hurt anyone."

Pride swelled in her chest; her brother had always impressed her with how he built his own career, moving to LA without knowing anyone and not leaving until he accomplished what he wanted. And while she was his biggest fan—number one, as she liked to joke—his success was his alone, not Tom's.

Still, without Tom it may have been less consistent, and without Colt, Tom may have been stuck doing rom coms. Parker kept that to herself.

Instead, she said, almost sensing that he needed to hear it, "yeah, well, I know you don't need it or anything, but—you know—good luck on the audition. I think you'd be really good in a sci-fi film. Despite what Gail seems to think, I might actually want to, er, see that movie. Pirated, of course. I don't go to the theaters for just any asshole."

The sound of water cut off, and for a long moment it was silent. Then, a scoff. "You're right," he said. "I don't need it."

Parker hummed, rolling her eyes, and biting back a smile at his blatant audacity. Gail was right about one thing; there was no one in this world quite like him. Maybe that was a good thing, too.

"Sure. You being Tom Ryder, and all. Guess you're a shoo-in, huh?"

"Well," he cleared his throat, "I do have the blonde hair and blue eyes."

A laugh bubbled up her throat, and she only managed to keep it to herself when the door jingled with the sound of new customers. A pair of teen girls strode inside with sweet, but nonplussed looks on their faces, and mindlessly Parker waved them towards the back where Melissa had disappeared to.

Watching them amble with her phone tucked against her shoulder, she asked, "did you just make a joke? Forget sci-fi, someone should call SNL right now and get you an audition with them."

"You're just as bad as Colt. You know that?"

"And now you're just handing out compliments," she teased. He laughed in response, wasn't quite quick enough to disguise it as a huff or a cough, and Parker bit her lip to keep from smugly grinning like a total idiot. "Just don't forget to send me that agent's fee when you get the part. I accept checks and DutchBros gift cards."

"Jesus Christ, you're pathetic."

"Am I? Because I just so happen to be popular enough to have the one and only Tom Ryder calling me three times in one week."

"Good-fucking-bye, smartass."

The sound of a dial tone came a second later, and when Parker glanced at her screen she was greeted with her own reflection. She didn't mind that he hung up on her. If anything, she almost wished that he had more time to talk. If only because he seemed to be in a rare, friendly mood.

Not because she almost actually liked talking to him. Asshole-ish tendencies notwithstanding.

"What are you smiling about?"

Parker turned to find Melissa and her two friends staring warily at her across the counter. Clearing her throat, she set her phone aside with pink cheeks.

"Er, nothing."

She harrumphed. Teenagers had never seemed so intimidating before, and with a self-conscious smile, Parker smoothed her hair down as subtly as she could.

"Need something?"

"Do you have any John Green books?" one of the girls asked.

Parker nodded, shaking off the conversation to switch into work mode, and smiled a little more genuinely at them all as she stood. "Sure, loads. Come on, I'll show you," she waved them after her, and as they browsed, they filled her in on what paint colors they thought would look best.

Melissa, she mused two hours later with disheveled hair, sweat-tacked curls on her neck, a stack of notes in one hand, and a long email chain of Pinterest posts on her phone, could rule the world one day.

She just needed a car first.

#plot bunny #the fall guy #tom ryder #original female character #tom ryder x ofc #tom ryder imagine #series?

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celestiababie · 2 years ago

Text

Cat Cam- W.JH

Pairings: camboy! Jun x gn! reader (kinda)

Genre: just pure smut ngl

Warnings: mild pet play, male masturbation, indirect mentions of other members, cum eating, use of petnames (prettyboy, baby, babyboy, kitten) reader's username is princesspeach so jun calls them princess at one point. tbh this is just jun jerking off..idk what else to add

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: Okay so, I meant to post this a while ago, but a lot was going on in my personal life. Sorry that it's so short...and I didn't edit it that much, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! Feedback is always appreciated, please don't be a silent reader!

"Oh! There's a package from sweet_tangerines. Thank you very much! The last item you sent ended up being my most viewed clip when I used it, so I have a good feeling about this one," Jun said as he waved the box to the camera.

Jun winks into the camera, causing an influx of horny messages to scroll by on his screen, and the tips he made sure to thank as he opened up the package set in his lap.

Truthfully this was what he loved most about his job, the attention. How he could do anything, and his viewers would eat it up graciously, leaving messages that made his ego (and something else) swell.

At first, it meant to be a side hustle, a way to dig him out of the student debt and bills he was suffocating in. His paychecks sure as hell weren't cutting it, and he needed an answer to his problems fast.

Really fast.

Luckily for Jun, his prayers were answered one fateful night while browsing his favorite pornsite, cock in hand. Yeah, he was struggling, but everyone deserves to make themselves feel good. And if he was paying for his phone not to get shut off, he might as well make good use of the wonders of the internet.

Usually skipping over the ads, he couldn't help but hover his finger over the button, tilting his head as a light bulb went off in his head as he watched a girl in the ad promote a cam website.

Jun never considered himself egotistical, but he was far from blind to his attractiveness. He had a handsome face, a body he worked hard for despite taking up extra shifts at his job, and a pretty cock, in his opinion. Who wouldn't want to watch him jerk off? He could do that for a few months, and all his problems would be solved.

And so he did, making an account and gaining traction pretty quickly due to his looks and how much he interacted with the audience.

A year later, he was still going live for his viewers, not just for the money, but because jerking off without thousands of eyes on him didn't do it for him anymore. He needs the attention to cum; the times he tried without left him only more sexually frustrated than before he began.

Another perk of the job was undoubtedly the gifts he received over the year, but with the package in his lap now opened, he was starting to question his audience's sanity.

Jun typically refrained from kink shaming, but a pair of cat ears? Really?

"Sweet_tangerines, I'm not sure what you expect me to do with this, but I'll put it on just for you," Jun shyly smiled into the camera before going off-screen, causing his viewers to start guessing what the item could be.

sweet_tangerines: he's gonna look so CUTE!!

dinonono: is it a thong? I'm betting on a thong

gyubear97: I don't know what it is but I want it to be a thong 💓

princesspeach: whatever it is, I know our baby boy will look so sexy

princesspeach tipped 500 coins!

Jun hears his tips go off from the corner of his room as he adjusts the cat eats on his head. A blush washed over him at the sound signifying a big tip, knowing exactly who it was.

His favorite reoccurring viewer was going to watch him pleasure himself dressed up in cat ears…

Jun took one last look in the mirror before making his way back to his desk, his head out of frame due to his height and hiding the surprise from everyone. Once he plopped down onto his chair, he was sure his computer was ready to crash with how fast the chat was moving.

His shyness slowly faded as he tried to keep up with the messages as much as possible.

"I see that you guys like the cat ears. We should all thank sweet_tangerines for this generous gift," his deep voice rang out to his audience, almost as if he was teasing them for enjoying this so much.

But truthfully, he was enjoying it just as much.

Maybe not the cat ears specifically, but all the attention he was receiving because of it sure had an effect, his cock straining against his jeans, a visible tent forming, which people quickly took note of.

princesspeach: the kitty is getting hard already. you haven't even touched yourself. you should show us, pretty boy.

Jun bit his lip as he caught your message in the sea of others, making eye contact with the camera knowing you were paying full attention to him.

His hand mindlessly starts rubbing his thigh, inching further up until he palms himself, squeezing the sides of his shaft through his jeans and giving some relief. His head tilts back in his chair, eyes closing as he basked in the fact thousands were watching him tease himself.

princesspeach: show us your pretty cock

princesspeach tipped 300 coins!

The sound of another big tip forces Jun's eyes open, reading out the message and thanking you for the tip as he stands up to shimmy out of his jeans.

He takes his sweet time taking off his underwear, the band of his boxers sliding along his cock before his full length slaps against his toned abdomen, another wave of messages causing his cock to twitch.

Sitting back down, he makes eye contact with his webcam again with his cock in his hand. He slowly begins to pleasure himself, feeling his veins pulse in his grip as he moves his hand up and down along his shaft.

"How was everyone's day? I hope all of you can lay down and relax with me," he practically purrs, his deep voice rumbling in his chest.

princesspeach: how’s your hand feel, kitten? your cock is leaking so much

“Fuck, it feels so good. I wish it was you around my cock instead, baby…” Jun’s eyes flutter at the sight of the nickname, his cock jolting in response, a bead of precum leaking out of the slit of his tip. He presses his finger against the sticky substance, pulling his finger away, causing a trail of his precum to follow his finger, glistening in the mood lighting in his bedroom, driving his viewers further into a state of desire.

His intense gaze captivates his audience through the camera as he brings his finger to his lips, his tongue darting out to lick his arousal off his fingertip before sliding two digits into his wet mouth, his tongue swirling around them as his other hand takes hold of his cock, jerking himself off faster this time around.

gyubear97: oh my fucking god this is so hot…i’m not gonna last

dinonono: me neither tbh, the cat ears are a nice touch

sweet_tangerines: shit, he always looks good

princesspeach: see how many people love seeing you jerk that pretty cock, kitten? I bet you love the attention

princesspeach: such a pretty slut for us

princesspeach: I’d love to stuff your cock in my mouth, make you cum down my throat

Jun can’t help but focus solely on your messages, the words flying by fast, but fueling his pleasure, getting closer and closer to his impending climax.

Jun takes a second to tug his shirt over his head, finally giving his viewers a good look at his stunning body, the mood lighting emphasizing the hills and valleys of his abs. He chuckles at the immediate response he receives while he readjusts the cat ears on his head that nearly fell off his head while removing his shirt.

He sits back in his chair, his right hand quickly moving back to his cock, his left one rubbing up and down his stomach before inching further up to tease at his nipples, moans slipping out of him as more precum leaks out of his cock, making it easier to fuck himself with hand.

At some point, Jun’s eyes close fully, losing himself to the pleasure as his head falls back on the headrest of his chair, his adam’s apple bobbing as he desperately tries to swallow his moans but fails miserably.

Almost anyone would agree that this was one of the most sinful sights they ever laid their eyes upon.

The man's body on full display, cute cat ears adorning his head despite his acts being anything but cute. How the perspiration on his body glistened as he got more worked up, the dark red flush of his cock as it leaked precum continuously, his cock glossy from his arousal and emphasizing every vein along his shaft.

princesspeach: babyboy gonna cum for us?

princesspeach tipped 300 coins!

princesspeach: cum for me baby

princesspeach: I'll cum with you

The notification sound of your tip forces his eyes to reopen, making the grave mistake of looking at the messages that followed.

Jun's hips stutter, fucking into his hand uncontrollably as he finally falls over the edge, his whole body burning hot as flashes of pleasure run through his body.

"T-thank you for the tip, p-princess," he moans out, thick globs of cum slipping out of his slit and onto his hand as he desperately tried to ride out his orgasm for as long as possible.

Once it felt like too much, he finally pulled his hand away from his softening cock, reveling in the light and blissful feeling he get when he had an intense orgasm. He pants heavily, taking a good couple of minutes to regain control of himself before he blinks up at the ceiling.

dinonono: damn, he came more than usual today

sweet_tangerines: i hope he uploads today's stream…i need to rewatch it

gyubear97: I already came twice…

Jun finally looks back into the camera, a subtle smirk across his lips as he raises his cum covered hand to his face to lick it off.

princesspeach: does the kitten like cleaning himself off? tastes good, doesn't it?

Jun chuckles softly at your comment as he licks off the remainder of his cum.

"I think it's time I wrap up this stream, guys. I had a lot of fun and hope all of you enjoyed yourselves as well. I'll do another stream in two days but don't worry! Tonight's stream will be posted to hold you over in the meantime. Have a good night, everyone!"

Jun winks into the camera before waving goodbye, his free hand moving to his desk to stop his stream.

He lets out a huff as he leans back in his chair, too lazy to get fully cleaned and dressed just yet, but the ringing of his phone from his bedside table forces him to get up out of his chair.

He rolls his eyes despite the blush on his face when he sees who's calling, taking a deep breath before sliding his thumb across to answer.

"Did you have to call me right after I closed the stream?"

"Oh shush, I'm only calling to ask if I should come over tomorrow since you won't be live."

Jun bites his lip at the offer, his mind thinking back to the times he's had you in his bed.

"You can come over, baby. I'll even wear the cat ears since you seemed to like them so much," he purrs into the phone.

"I'll hold you to that, kitten."

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derinthescarletpescatarian · 2 years ago

Note

hi derin! i’ve been following you for a little while, and also bemoaning the nature of publishing fiction (indie or trad) for a little bit longer than that, and i only just realized today that…of course web serials are a thing i can also do!

i really love the idea of publishing serially (though i’m not totally sure i CAN, i’d like to try), so while i add this to my list of potential paths, do you have any advice for getting started? building an audience? marketing? figuring out if writing/publishing this way will work for you to begin with?

i know that’s a lot of questions, and you don’t have to answer all of them! i’m throwing spaghetti at a wall out here. i hope you have a good day though, and thanks in advance!

Getting started in web serial writing

Web serial writing has the lowest barrier of entry of any major method of publishing your story. You can literally just start. There are two steps:

start writing your story

decide how/where you want to publish it

The writing part, I assume you have handled. The important thing to note here is that you gotta see the project through. Start and don't stop until you're done. For publishing, you have a few options:

1. Publish on a website designed for web serial novels

There are a few of these around, they're usually free to publish on (although most offer a paid account to give you ad space or boost you int he algorithm or whatever), and your best choice generally depends on which one happens to gravitate to a niche that best suits your kind of work. The big names in this industry are Royal Road and Scribblehub, which, last I checked up on them (about a year ago) tended towards isekai and light erotica respectively. (You absolutely can publish outside these niches on these sites, it's just much harder to get traction.) Publishing somewhere like this comes with multiple advantages. Firstly, there's a writing community right there to talk to; there's usually a forum or something where people gather to talk about reading or writing on the site. Second, the site itself is designed specifically to publish web serials, and will come with a good layout and hit trackers and 'where you left off' buttons for the reader and all that; generally all you have to do is copy-paste the text of a chapter into the page and the site will do everything else for you. Third, there's an audience sitting right there, browsing the 'latest arrivals' or 'most popular' page of the site; if you can get high in the algorithm, you have to do little if any marketing.

The downsides of such places usually come down to the same things as the advantages. Such sites are a flooded market. Your story absolutely will drown in a sea of other stories, a great many of them terrible, and most of them with the advantage of catering to the site's niche. Gaining an audience there is often a matter of trying to game an algorithm, and the community can be... variable. Some of these places are nice but most of them are a bunch of authors trying to tear down everyone around them to make their own work look better by comparison int he hopes of poaching audiences for their story instead. If you go this route, I'd recommend shopping around for a site that fits you personality and writing style (or just posting on many sites at once; you can also do that).

These places also tend to get targeted by scrapers who will steal your story and sell it as an ebook, which is very annoying.

2. publish on another site

Plenty of people publish web serials here on Tumblr. I do not know why. This site is TERRIBLY set up for that. It makes tracking stories and updates a pain in the arse (people end up having to *manually tag every reader whenever they post an update*), building and maintaining archives are annoying, community building is surprisingly difficult for a social media site, and it's just generally far more work for both writer and reader than it needs to be. You often do have a ready-made audience, though.

This does tend to work better on other sites. Reddit has multiple communities for reading and writing various types of fiction; publishing on these is a bit more work than somewhere like Royal Road, but not very much, and many of these communities are very active. There aren't as many forums around as there used to be, but you might be able to find fiction hosting forums, if that's what you prefer. And of course, many writers who simply want to write and don't mind not being paid choose to write on AO3.

These sites are a good middle ground compromise for people who want a ready-made community and don't mind putting in a bit of extra work.

3. make your own site

This is what I did. You can make a website for free, giving people a hub to find you and all your work, designed however you like. You can also pay for a website if you want it to be a little bit nicer. This option is the most work, but gives you the most control and leaves you free of having to worry about any algorithm.

The obvious downside of this is that there's no community there. If you host your work on your own website, you need to bring people to it. You need to build an audience on your own. This is not an easy thing to do.

Building an audience (general advice)

Here is some general advice about building an audience:

1. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

If you want people to read your writing, the best piece of advice I can possibly give you is have an update schedule and update on time, always. If you need to take a break, give people as much warning as possible and tell them exactly when you will be back, and come back then. Do not take unnecessary breaks because you don't feel like writing. (Do take breaks if you get carpal tunnel or need time off for a major life event or something -- your health is more important than the story.) If you're taking a lot of breaks to avoid burnout, you're doing it wrong -- you need to rework your whole schedule from the start and slow down updates to make these breaks unnecessary. Two chapters a month with no breaks is a billion times better than four chapters a month with frequent burnout breaks.

Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

A reliable schedule is the #1 factor in audience retention. If readers need to randomly check in or wait for notifications from you to check if there's an update, guess what? Most of them won't! They'll read something else. You want your audience to be able to anticipate each release and fit it in their own schedule. I cannot overstate the importance of this.

2. If you can, try to make your story good.

We writers would love to live in a world where this is the most important thing, but it actually isn't. Plenty of people out there are perfectly happy to read hot garbage. How do I define 'hot garbage'? It doesn't matter. Think of what you would consider to be just a terrible, no-effort, pointless garbage story that the world would be better off without. Someone is out there writing that right now, making US$2,500/month on Patreon.

It is, however, a real advantage if you can make your story good. At the very least, it should be worth your audience's time. Preferably, it should also be worth their money, and make them enthusiastic enough to try to get their friends into it. Managing this is massively advantageous.

3. Accept that you're not going to get a big audience for a really long time. Write consistently and update on schedule every time anyway.

It took me over a year to get my second patron. For the first year, I updated Curse Words every single week, on schedule, for over a year, and had maybe... four readers. One of them was a regular commenter. One of them was my first patron. There was no one else.

My audience has grown pretty rapidly, for this industry.

You're not gonna start publishing chapters for a big, vibrant community. You're just not. And you have to keep going anyway. These days, I have a pretty good readership, and those couple of loyal readers (who I appreciate beyond words) have grown into a much larger community, who hang out and debate theories with each other and liveblog and drag in new readers and make fanart. My discord has over 550 members, with volunteer moderators and regular fan artists and its own little in-jokes and games and readers who make a point of welcoming newcomers and helping them navigate the discord, all with very little input from me. I start crying when I think about these people, who do the bulk of my social and marketing work for me just because they want to help, and my patrons who, after writing for over 4.5 years, have recently helped me pass an important threshold -- my web serial (via patreon) now pays my mortgage repayments. I can't live off my writing alone, but boy is that a massive fucking step.

You're not gonna have that when you start. You're gonna have a couple of friends. And that's it. Maybe for a year. Maybe less, if you're good at marketing and lucky. Maybe longer.

You have to update on schedule, every time, anyway.

Building an audience (more specific advice)

"Yeah, that's great, Derin, but where can I find my fucking audience?" Well, if you publish on a web serial site, then the audience is there and you jsut need to grab their affention using the tools and social norms offered to you by the site. I utterly failed at this and cannot help you there. You can still use these other tips to bring in readers from off-site.

1. Paid ads

I've never paid for ads so I can't offer advice on how to do it. I've Blazed a couple of posts on Tumblr; they weren't helpful. This is, however, an option for you.

2. Actually tell people that your story exists and where they can find it.

I used to have a lot of trouble with this. I didn't want to bother people on Tumblr and soforth by telling them about my personal project. Unfortunately you kind of have to just get over that. Now I figure that if people don't want TTOU spam, they can just unfollow me. If you're like me and want to just politely keep your story to yourself... don't. You're shooting yourself in the foot doing that.

You need to mention your story. Link your story in your bio on whatever social media sites you use. Put it in your banner on forums. Make posts and memes about it. Eventually, if you're lucky, extremely valuable readers will start to talk about your story and meme and fanart it for you, but first, you need to let them know it exists.

It will always feel weird to do this. Just accept that people can unfollow you if they want, and do it anyway.

3. Leverage existing audiences and communities

Before I started doing this web serial thing, I used to write a lot of fanfic. The original audience that trickled in for Curse Words comes from AO3, where I was doing a full series rationalist rewrite of Animorphs. They knew how I wrote and wanted more of it. Nowadays, I still occasionally pull in readers through this route. Most of my new readers these days come from a different community -- people who follow me on Tumblr. Occasionally I bring in people who don't follow me because we'll be talking about how one of my stories relates to something different, and fans of that thing might decide they want to check my stories out.

Your first readers will come from communities that you're already in and that are already interested in something similar to what you're doing (people reading my fanfic on AO3 were already there for my writing, for instance). Keep these people in mind when you start out.

One additional critical source of existing communities is your readers themselves. A huge number of my readers are people I've never been in any group with -- they were pulled in by their friends, relatives, or community members who were reading my stories and wanted them to read them too. This is an absolutely invaluable source of 'advertising' and it is critically important to look after these people. enthusiastic readers, word-of-mouth advertisers, and fan artists are the people who will bring in those outside your immediate bubble.

4. Your "where to find me" hub

If you're publishing on your own website, you can simply link everything else to your homepage, and put all relevant links there. For example, I can link people to derinstories.com , which links out to all my stories, social media I want people to find me on (you don't have to link all your social media), patreon, discord, et cetera. If you don't have your own website, you're going to have to create a hub like this in the bios of every site where you garner audiences from. This is the main advantage of publishing on your own website.

Monetisation

There are a few different kinds of monetisation for web serials, but most of them boil down to 'use a web serial format to market your ebook', which to be honest I find pretty shady. These authors will start a web serial, put in enough to hook an audience for free, and then stop posting and release an ebook, with the intention of making readers pay for the ending. Now, to be clear, I am absolutely not against publishing and selling your web serial -- I'm doing exactly that, with Curse Words. I am against intentionally and knowingly setting up the start of a web serial as a 'demo' without telling your audience that that is what you are doing, soliciting Patreon money for it, and then later yanking it away unfinished and demanding money for the ending.

Monetisation of these sorts of stories is really just monetisation for normal indie publishing with the web serial acting as an ad, and I have no advice for how to do that successfully.

Your options of monetisation for a web serial as a web serial are a bit more limited. They essentially come down to merchandise (including ebooks or print books) or ongoing support (patreon, ko-fi, etc.) Of these, the only one I have experience with is the patreon model.

This model of monetisation involves setting up an account with a regular-donation site such as patreon, providing the base story for free, and providing bonuses to patrons. You can offer all kinds of bonuses for patrons. Many patrons don't actually care what the bonus is, they're donating to support you so that you can keep writing the story, but they still like to receive something. But some patrons do donate specifically for the bonuses, so it's worth choosing them with care.

The most common and most effective bonus for web serials is advance chapters -- if people are giving you money, give them the chapters early. You can also offer various bonus materials, merchandise, or voting rights on decisions you need to make in the future. 'Get your character put in the story' is a popular high-tier reward. If you're looking for reward ideas, you can see the ones I use on my patreon.

Patreon used to offer the ability to set donation goals, where you could offer something when you were making a certain amount total or had a certain number of subscribers. They recently removed this feature because Patreon hates me personally and doesn't want me to be happy, so you kind of have to advertise it yourself now if you want to use these goals. I release chapters of unrelated stories at donation goals, and I found this to be far more effective than I thought it would be.

The important factor for this kind of monetisation is that it's ongoing. The main advantage of this is that it makes your income far more regular and predictable than normal indie publishing -- your pledges will go up or down over a month, but not by nearly as much as book sales can. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's not a one-time sale, which means that however you organise things, you want to make sure that donating keeps on being worth it, month after month. Offering bonuses that aren't just one-time bonuses, but things that the patron can experience every month, helps here. So does making sure that you have a good community where patrons can hang out with other patrons. (Offering advance chapters does both of these things -- the patron can stay ahead in the story and discuss stuff with other patrons that non-patrons haven't seen. I've found that a lot of my patrons enjoy reading an emotionally devastating chapter ahead of time, discussing it, and then all gathering a week or two later to watch the unsuspecting non-patrons experience it for the first time.)

Whatever method you use for monetisation, rule #1 is (in the words of Moist Von Lipwig): always make it easy for people to give you money. The process of finding out how to give you money should be easy, as should the process of actually doing it. And, most importantly, the spender should feel like it's worth it to give you money. This is a big part of making it easy to give you money. Make your story worth it, make your bonuses worth it, make sure that they're happy to be part of your community and that they enjoy reading and supporting you. And remember that support comes in many forms -- the fan artist, the word-of-mouth enthuser, the person who makes your social hub a great place to be, the patron, all of these people are vital components in the life support system that keeps your story going. And you're going to have to find them, give them a story, and build them a community, word by word and brick by brick.

It's a long process.

Good luck.

#web serials #web serial novels #writing #advice

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