#so. even if this sucks i created something so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

💗 slow kiss / gentle kiss / inevitable / soft

Hiya Middy! Long time no see!! I hope life has been kind to you 💜💜💜

lol we're thinking on the same wavelength today @coldshrugs 😂 :>

anyway. This was supposed to be a snippet. It...did not end up being a snippet omg, it really got away from me kdlfhgjkfdhgk. It's 3:40 in the morning and this is the first piece I've (more or less) finished in like 3 or 4 months. It's just under 1,300 words. Set a few weeks after the big Endwalker finale, so vague mentions of what happened there.

[prompt meme]

nascent hope & new beginnings

The uneven rhythm of O’ravi’s cane tapping on the cobblestone announces her presence before she emerges from the early morning fog that blankets Sharlayan, and Aymeric sets aside the report he was reading, its contents immediately forgotten.

She’s starting to look like herself again, a clarity in her eyes now that’s been absent since her return from Ultima Thule. The silver and teal shawl she’s wrapped around her shoulders clashes somewhat oddly with the dark red tunic dress she wears, which in turn contrasts with the royal blue ribbon that holds her hair in a loose ponytail. It’s a far cry from the well-coordinated outfits she wears for business and battle, but it suits her.

O’ravi smiles, a little lopsidedly, a little shyly, and waves. “Hey.”

“Good morning, Ravi.” He can’t help it—he runs to meet her, and offers his arm. “You’re up early.”

“The pain was too great to stay in bed. So I thought I might as well seek you out, enjoy the fresh air.” She moves to link her arm through his but pauses, a strange look on her face. Instead, she reaches up to grasp his collar and tugs.

Wordlessly, and with no small amount of confusion, he acquiesces to her wish and leans down.

And softly, sweetly, feather-lightly, she presses a kiss to his lips.

She withdraws before he realizes what happened, content. His heart lurches like a wounded animal within his chest, his breath suddenly shaky, and she winds her arm through his as if she didn’t just send him reeling.

He can’t bear to look at her, he can’t bear to look away. The kiss in Ala Mhigo, before she set out for Garlemald—when she’d kissed him like her survival depended on it only to flee for the airship. That was moons ago, and they’d not spoken of it yet. It was never the right time.

Now, this. Against all the odds she defeated Meteion and Zenos and made it home alive, and she could’ve gone to anyone—could’ve sought out anyone she wished—but she chose to be here. With him.

Halone have mercy.

They walk together down the garden path back to the pavilion. Her gait is unsteady and torpid, but between him and the cane she’s at no risk of falling. It frustrates and distresses her to be so robbed of strength, but he’s just glad to see her up and about and alive. Safe, and free.

There’s a chill on the breeze, carrying the promise of snow and the memory of home. The long walks they took through the Pillars on the eve of battles she didn’t believe she’d return from. He lays a hand over hers, letting her clammy hands soak up his warmth. Soon, they’d go home together, and never again would she need to leave fearing what fate awaited her in far-off lands. Not if he had anything to say about it.

They make their way to the bench where Aymeric left the report, and O’ravi attempts to fold her legs beneath her only to cringe and hiss when the motion aggravates some half-dozen different wounds.

“Careful,” Aymeric says, settling down beside her.

“It never gets easier.” She leans the handle of her cane into the corner of the pavilion wall, careful not to knock it over lest its clattering disrupt the morning quiet. Her tail swishes placidly as she shifts to close the distance between them, ensuring that her arm rests against his and her leg likewise touches his.

He raises his hand slightly in silent offering; without hesitation, she twines her fingers through his.

“Aymeric,” she says, so softly it’s almost a whisper, “what do you think happens now that the Final Days are over? No more Ascians, no more Garlean expansionism, no more Hydaelyn and Zodiark…”

“Years of rebuilding, to start with. No nation was spared the destruction the blasphemies and towers wrought—in every corner of the world, entire communities were wiped out, the population slaughtered or turned, to say nothing of the state of Garlemald. We must needs—”

O’ravi laughs. “No, no, no, I meant: duty and the wider world be damned, what do you want for your future?”

Ah.

He blinks stupidly, trying to cobble together an answer. “I’ve not put much thought into it, to tell you the truth.”

In truth, that is a flat-out lie. Of course he’s thought about it. But what he wants, what he longs for above all else—he cannot ask that of her. What if the request hurts her? And, perhaps it’s selfish, but what if her answer hurts him? Their friendship is too important to take the risk. No, he will hold his tongue.

“You don’t have to have it all figured out right now,” she says, and while her smile is tender there’s a knowing look in her eye that he can’t withstand. “Just think about it for a while.”

He never has been good at lying to her. His one consolation is that she’s just as bad at lying to him.

“What of you? The world is yours now, your life is your own again. What will you do with it?”

“Well.” She straightens her spine, ears twitching excitedly, and her smile takes on a mischievous edge. “After all I’ve done, I have more than earned the right to live as I see fit. I’ve earned the right to put duty and responsibility and reputation aside—and I know someone else who has earned the same.”

“We do owe much to your fellow Scions and Warriors of Light.”

“No, Aymeric, I mean you.” She takes his other hand in her own and squeezes. “The future is ours now. Ours to shape, ours to live. After all we’ve bled and suffered and sacrificed, we need to do something for ourselves. Just this much at least.” She leans towards him, and he has no choice but to meet her gaze. “You give and you give and you give of yourself until you have nothing left. The world takes and it never gives back, and before you know it you’ve lost yourself. I know this is happening to you because it happened to me, too. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say, this is mine, this belongs to me, and the world can’t touch it. Aymeric, may I tell you what I want for the future?”

The light is glinting off the gold veins that mar her eyes. Her sincerity is painful to behold.

“Of course.”

“I want you to find yourself again. I want to find me again…and I want us to do it together. I want us to walk into the future together, hand in hand, side by side. Whatever paths we walk going forward, I want us to walk them together until the end of our days.”

“I…”

By the Fury, how is he supposed to answer that? How is he meant to—?

His heart is racing, and she’s watching him with such an innocence, a kindness that’s driving him mad.

Her wish answers the question he couldn’t voice. Yet it still leaves some things up in the air, namely: will they continue to keep a distance between them? Pretend Ala Mhigo never happened and remain friends and naught more?

A deeply foolish thought—he knows what the answer to that is, even if he won’t admit it—but nonetheless…

O’ravi raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “What say you, my brilliant blue knight?” His thoughts are spinning too rapidly to be trusted now, so despite the fact he’ll likely regret it later, he follows the impulse of his heart and kisses the scar that cuts across the bridge of her nose. Let that be answer enough.

[schizoidcel]

I have an idea for a scenario.

Pomni x reader where Caine realizes that that girlfail has a massive crush on reader and attempts to wingman lmao.

Creating dumb situations and little adventures meant to encourage feelings to bloom, but he sucks at creating any sort of romantic atmosphere lol

He is just stressing poor Pomni out more.

# POMNI x READER WITH A WINGMAN CAINE ☆

LMFSAAOAOO I LOVE ALL THESE POMNI ASKS this is absolutes hilarious

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

🖤 SCENARIO !!

warnings :: A VERY stressed out Pomni. Also not proofread urm

synopsis :: Pomni has had a crush on you for awhile, and this crush keeps growing bigger and bigger. Pomni dosen't really do anything to get together with you, instead just admiring you from near and afar, but a certain showman will not let this slide.

Pomni and you are currently talking in the hallway, both of you on the way to the main stage.

..Really, a blind person could see the way Pomni looks at you. You can see in her eyes just how much she admires you, looking at you like you're some kind of goddess or saviour.

And unfortunately, someones hundreds of eyes was seeing this.

"POMNI!" "UWAAHH???" Pomni shrieked and threw herself back, accidently hitting your side. "Ah- Sorry- Wait- CAINE WHAT THE F#()<;|<?!?" Pomni yells, clearly pissed Caine came out of thin air like that. She could've gotten another panic attack if she werent already so used to him popping out of nowhere left and right.

"Apologies Pomni, dear!" Caine is quick to apologize, though whether he will do the same 'mistake' again or not is something that isn't clear.

Pomni shakes her head, quick to calm down, as she dosen't want you seeing her quivering like this. "It-It's fine... What is it now? You're not gonna put me in... You know..." She questions, still traumatized from the entire knife action.

"The what?" You ask Pomni, and she jerks up. "Uhmm.. Well, you know.. One time -" she was about to explain what happened to her to you, but Caine interrupted her.

"Oh, goodness no! Well, if you miss it so much, we can redo it one day!"

"I don't-"

"Well, what I have planned today is an TOTALLY. EXCLUSIVE. ADVENTURE!" big ass words pop out of nowhere, then there is a slight pause.

"...Just for you two!"

"Wha- Wait, what? O-Oh god, oh god no, Caine- Caine please, not again." Pomni begs, already knowing what's about to happen. If she will truly be stuck in an adventure with you, she will either :

Stutter non stop

Blush non stop

Get overstimulated

Possibly 1 meltdown

And she wants NONE of those things to happen while she's near you.

You touch Pomnis shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but instead she just seems to freeze in place. Uhh... Mission accomplished?

"It's ok, Pomni, I'm positive we'll have fun!"

No response.

'Is she ok ??' You think to yourself.

"Oh, you'll have lots of fun! And figure lots of things out, get it? Figure things out?!"

"..."

"..."

Caine just giggles. He really dosen't even want to ADMIT that that was a shitty pun. Can it even be considered one?

Eventually though, his laughter dies down, and he regains composure. "Well then, have fun!" "W-" Pomni didn't even get to start her sentence as you two immediately got transported into some... Uh... What is this.

"Oh god- Oh god oh god oh god oh god please.." you couldn't even describe how Pomni looked like in that moment, though speechless and baffled would fit pretty well.

Well... You kind of felt the same. Why exactly are you two in a very cramped and isolated 'Tunnel of Love' ride?

Pomni goes up to you, "[name], I swear- I-I totally don't know whats going on!" She obviously did, but she looked like she was exactly one wrong thing happening away before having a breakdown, so you decided to play along with her.

"It's fine, Pomni. Let's just get in the ride and see what this has in store for us." You step towards the boat. Once inside, you gesture Pomni to sit next to you, so it can start.

You swear you saw her mumbling lots of stuff while being really out of it. Infact, she still seems abit out of touch next to you, if not even more than before she sat down on the boat.

The ride begins, which lets out a quick shriek out of Pomni. "...Sorry..." You obviously saw how embarassed she was, you giggled at her cuteness and reassured her that it's not that big of a deal.

The ride was quiet at first, but there was some really weird stuff that you passed by that you and Pomni occasionaly made comments of, and that ultimately led to a conversation sparking between you two.

"Look at that small thing!" Pomni points towards something that looks like a small figurine of a yellow female robot. "That'd fit just perfectly in your room." you tease her, and shes quick to respond "H-Hey..! No way, it'd fit in Gangles much better!" she giggles, and you can't help but giggle with her.

Though as soon as both of you had stopped laughing, the rides atmosphere changed completely.

And I mean that word for word, it looks more like some kinda haunted house now.

Pomni gets nervous fairly quick, as she is not good with handling things that go by fast. "What... Huh? It-it was bright and pink just a few seconds ago..." Pomni says, comparing the darkness and colorlessnes from this part of the ride to the part you two just were in.

"Maybe this is the adventure? Or... This place is the haunted part."

"Ha-Haunted place?!" 'Oops. shouldnt have said that.'

"Oh, I mean it in a symbolic kind of way! I don't think this place is actually haunted!" You tried to lead Pomni away from the idea that this place is haunted, she didn't believe in ghosts in the real world but 'Since this is a digital world, everything can exist here..!' ...You remember her telling that to you.

"Who knows, [name]... This p-place is full of weird freaky things..." She says, you can't really tell if her tone is annoyed or frightened.

You decide to look around the tunnel you're in right now, to see if there is anything. "Well, I don't think something will show up, and besides- Oh. Wait, Pomni!"

You nudge her abit. She snaps back into reality, only to stare on the arm nudging her for awhile, before snapping back into reality again. "H-huh? What is it?"

"Look over there!" you point towards to what seems to be like the ending of the ride.

"Oh..! The ride is about to end?.." Again, you can't tell if she is dissapointed or not, what is with this girl today?

The cart comes to a spot, and you help her step out of it. "Looks like this wasn't really an adventure at all. ...But, I do wonder why it's like, literally pitch black here, yet I can still see you clearly." You ponder, realizing there wasn't even really a floor that you two stepped on, it's just ...black.

"Oh, maybe it's like a- uhm- video game thing! You know, how sometimes you still see your character even when you're in a very dark place??"

"You played video games?" You ask, genuinely suprised.

"W-Well, used to... Couldn't really anymore because of my job..."

"First thing we do when we get out is search for a new job for you." You 'declare' in a way, Pomni has been telling you how her job stopped alot of new stuff she wanted to try out, how she couldn't do it because all it's been doing is eating away at her.

Pomni blushes abit, "O-Okay!" she almost yells, as if you were a sergeant and she was a soldier in an army.

"Woah there girl, let's calm dowwnnn..?" you were about to say, but something kind of appeared behind Pomni. Some kind of, eyes monster. ...Wait.

Pomni noticed your change in tone, "W-why are you looking behind me like that? If you're a-about to prank me, don't! This isn't some kind of ho-horror film!" she yells, obviously distressed.

"Pomni, we're running away right now."

"What?"

"Pomni-"

"WH-WHATS BEHIND ME??"

"Just-" you grab her hand,

She quickly takes a glance behind her, and yells just as fast "OH MY F()|<&lt;!\|# GOD???"

"S#!|^, OKAY GO GO GO!" you quickly tighten your grip on her hand and run like hell, the abstracted monster just barely missed a hit on Pomni.

"WHY? HOW? THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE!! HE WANTED TO KILL US, WHY ELSE WOULD HE BRING US TO THE LAIR OF THESE THINGS??" Pomni just kept yelling out stuff either similar to that, or something completely off topic, because you swear you heard her shit on Jax and Caine.

You're pretty out of breath already, even though you two are still running, so you can only attempt to say something over her breakdown. "Pomni- Let's, let's just- Calm down for now, put your distress into your legs, not- Not your mouth." Pomni was quick to shut up and nodded at you, doing what you said.

... She's faster than you now. Damn this girl has issues.

You two, thankfully, arrived back at the start. "Yknow, I just- I just realized we didn't even have to run this far." You say, still out of breath. You and Pomni decided to sit on the ACTUAL floor this time to catch a break. "They're- they're too big to fit through the tunnel."

Pomni looks abit paralyzed at this, "Son of a-" But, before she could start cussing, Caine appeared again. "No cussing!" "Waahh..?!??" Pomni stumbled back, again, she'll probably never really get used to this.

"I see you two survived! And? Did you two bloom?"

"...What do you mean bloom? -We almost, like, died or something!"

"Caine, you're just stressing me out more like this." "Oh, Pomni! Don't say that, it hurts!" Obviously it didn't.

"Look- " He takes Pomni by the shoulders and makes her face the other way from you, the two look like they're discussing how to defeat some kind of evil antagonist.

You just looked at the two with a deadpan expression as they seemed to fight over something. Pomni, once more, looked like she was one wrong step away from a panic attack. You heard stuff like "This will NOT help!" or "You're crazy!"

Eventually though, Pomni turned back, facing you again. She seems to be stressed out about something. "[name]- Look- Whatever happens next, it's because of Caine." "...What."

And just as soon as you said that, you two were in a completely different room. It looked like some kind of fancy dinner place. There was a table with professional looking cutlery infront of you, the plates contained steak with vegetables and potatoes. The table even had candles. The walls, for some reason, were full with red curtains. The floor was red aswell, and both of you even got different outfits.

"Uhm... Is he trying to couple us up?" You ask, looking around the room.

Pomni almost jumps out of her seat. "N-No way..! He's just, uhm... Messing with us..?" She gives up trying to lie when she saw that smirk on your face.

"Pomni, be honest... Do you like me?" Oh. Poor girl. Don't do that.

She just sighs and looks down, "Yeah... I like you." she looks back up, avoiding eye contact. "That's why Caine kept putting us into adventures together, and... Urhh... Did that..." She had a flashback back when you two were talking normally, and suddenly, out of nowhere, Caine decided that it would be a good idea to poof out a kiss cam out of nowhere.

"Honestly, what was he thinking..?" She cringes at the thought. If what he was trying to do is create romantic atmosphere, then 'romantic' has a VERY different meaning in that vocabulary of his.

You chuckle, "That was pretty bad, wasn't it? But, I'll be honest, him doing all of that made me notice how you looked at me at times when we were conversating, like today."

Pomni turns red, definitely out of embarassment. "Yknow... I thought I'd be having another panic attack or something, but I'm still having fun talking with you, even after you know that I romantically like you."

"Well, I like you too!"

"...Huh?"

"I like you too, Pomni."

"..."

"P-Pomni?" you see her falling out of her chair, she probably fainted from being too overwhelmed.

"...Oh dear."

Meanwhile, Caine looked over you two like some kind of proud father.

"Hahh.." he wipes a fake tear away, "Looks like it worked after all! Wait, what am I saying? Ofcourse it did!" He says, proud that his 'mission' was a sucess.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

ׂૢ་༘࿐ Thank you for reading! ♡

Bye I went cray omg 😭 I love writing Pomni like how she is in the german dub. Hope I fulfilled ur wishes anonsie 🌚

[kittyball23]

(I had this au thought in my head, sorry if it's too much😅) so in the chapter: "battle of the bands", what if it's the same but instead of jd it's floyd who saved them and it DID stab him?(don't worry he lives) when veneer witness this, he distracts his sister so he can them out of here and come clean to everybody while they hurry to the medic pod to save floyd?

Ok, so I actually combined what I have written previously to create this story for ya 🙂 Text from "Battle of the Bands," "Redeemed," and "Mission Accomplished" (all oneshots from my fanfic collection Trolls 3.0) were utilized, as I think that things would mostly be going the same way as I had wrote it, except for some minor changes. Hope that you enjoy ✨

Struck (a Trolls fanfic)

“No…” Velvet whimpered. “No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!” Her hands shook as she grabbed the cracked pieces of the diamond that had scattered all around her on the ground, and uselessly tried to piece them together.

Veneer in the meantime looked rather thoughtful. Finally, the one item that had been the cause of all the turmoil for the Trolls had been decimated. And he, for one, was glad.

But, before he could start mentioning this to his sister, and before she could even take notice of the contented expression on her brother’s face, her vision honed in on a larger piece of the diamond that had broken off, perfectly shaped as a dagger would be… and then flitted her gaze to the celebrating Trolls to the side. One thing and one thing only crossed her mind then and there, and she grabbed the diamond piece, raising it above her head and charging at the Trolls with a piercing cry.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! ”

Much happened in those next few seconds, all at once. Poppy shrieked at the sight of the maniacal doll-like creature heading for them, and Branch shoved her behind him out of instinctiveness to keep his girlfriend safe. He expected to feel the blade pierce him, but was shocked to find that something had taken the blow full on instead, shielding him.

That something – or some one as it was – was Floyd, who’d jumped in the way with a cry of “NOOO!”

In a horrific scene, like something that someone would see only in a nightmare, the BroZone brother fell to the ground, stabbed.

The brothers gasped in shock.

“FLOYD!!”

Branch was the first to rush to his side where he’d landed, sprawled and wincing. “Floyd…” he said, more quietly this time. He was stunned to see that his older brother would do something so stupid as to blatantly put himself in danger. Hadn’t the Troll had enough, having been trapped in that diamond and weakened with the power of his talent being sucked out? But… he did it to save ME, Branch realized, seeing that maybe his older brother’s reasoning wasn’t all that stupid. It was honorable, if anything, and something so true to what Floyd would do. And the blue Troll wasn’t the only one mortified over the incident either.

Veneer’s jaw dropped, beyond horrified of what his sister had done. His sister, who, in her insensitive manner towards the band’s sensitive one, was actually celebrating, cackling and nudging him with amusement for her seeming victory. But her victory would not be long-lived, not if he could help it.

Having had the last straw, Veneer turned to the cameras that surrounded them, speaking boldly and clearly for everybody to hear. “Listen up, Mount Rageons!” he called. “We are… FRAUDS!”

His admission was met with a number of gasps from the throngs of fans who had shown up to witness the performance - including the gasp of his own sister, who had been cut off from her celebratory mood.

“WHAT?” she growled.

“Don’t ‘what’ me, sis! You and I have literally been torturing little Trolls. Just look at what you just did!” He turned the camera towards where Floyd was laying in pain with his brothers surrounding him, the diamond shard jutting out in an ugly manner.

The Mount Rageons gasped once again, and that’s when the shouts began.

“Velvet did that?!”

“She’s not a popstar - she’s a murderer!”

“My illusion of celebrity has been shattered!”

Velvet shoved her brother aside and pleaded into the cameras. “Don’t listen to him! He’s a liar! I, um… I plead the insanity defense! Yeah!”

Veneer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right, sis. You knew exactly what you were doing. Just like you did when you were trying to change who I was. And there’s nothing ‘insane’ here except for you thinking that I want to become famous with you like this!”

Velvet’s cheeks were turning crimson. “How else are we gonna be famous?!”

Veneer had an answer for that. “We just have to practice. It might take time, but that’s how it is. Fame doesn’t just come overnight. You have to work at it, and have the right people by your side.”

"That Troll has been getting to your head!" Velvet hissed.

"That 'Troll' has shown me that I do have real talent within. And that we don't have to do this!" He spared a glance at Floyd, and felt worry prick at him. The Troll looked in worse condition than ever. When he was able to catch Branch’s gaze of the four brothers that surrounded him, he whispered an urgent “Go,” hoping that they would get him the medical attention he needed whilst his sister remained distracted.

“It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” Velvet whined with disgust.

“Yeah, you do,” he stated firmly, “you just never cared. Which is why I don’t care to know what you think about this!” He snapped on a pair of handcuffs to her wrists, and she gasped.

“Veneer! What did you do?!”

“What has to be done sis,” he said matter-of-factly, snapping a pair of handcuffs to his own wrists. Extending his arms out towards two approaching guards, he said, “Officers, I think we need to serve our time.”

The crowd cheered as the pop-stars were led away, elated that justice had been served.

But things, however, were not so jubilant on behalf of the Trolls themselves.

Frantically, the brothers laid Floyd down atop of the couch within John Dory’s caterbus, the Troll groaning as Branch, Clay, Bruce and JD surrounded their brother in a semicircle. Poppy and Viva stood off to one side, watching with wide eyes and giving the guys their space.

“Oh my gosh…” Clay murmured. “What do we do? ”

Branch took the lead on that. “First things first, we need to get this outta him.” He gestured at the very obvious piece he was referring to, trying not to grimace too much.

Hurriedly agreeing, each bro held the magenta Troll down while Branch gripped the diamond shard and tugged. It slipped out easily, the tip tinted a deep scarlet color. With hesitance, he looked down at Floyd, bracing himself for the worst. But, to his relief, Branch was able to determine that, while injured, his brother’s wound did not run as deep as he’d imagined. But it didn’t mean that they were out of the woods just yet.

“Quick, get me some gauze,” he urged. He managed to take the next minute in cleaning the area and applying the appropriate bandages.

Floyd, however, had stilled.

“Floyd?” Branch called, uncertainly.

“Come on, man, wake up,” Bruce coaxed. He grabbed onto his leg and shook him, but the Troll felt like deadweight.

“We need you, brother,” John Dory whispered.

“Oh, no…,” Clay murmured, when his brother still did not respond.

Branch bent down close to Floyd’s ear, speaking softly into it. “I built the hideout, Floyd… Just like the plan I drew…” A hand went to his leaf vest, where, in its inner pocket, the drawing was safely stowed away. “Well, except for the ten-story waterslide,” he amended.

A moment of silence passed after that, John Dory, Bruce, Clay and Branch silently mourning the painful loss of the gentle magenta-haired Troll.

Until…

Eyes slowly fluttered open, and a soft recognizable voice asked, “But… how will we shower?”

The Troll squeaked in surprise when all four of the brothers replied with a scream of "FLOYD!" and was subsequently crushed by arms squeezing him in a tight hug.

"You're alive!"

"Oh, thank goodness!"

"We thought you were a goner for good!"

Floyd chuckled but then winced. “Oof, not too tight, guys,” he said apologetically, gesturing at the freshly-bandaged injury.

“Whoops, sorry man!” JD replied with a sheepish little chuckle.

The three elder brothers bombarded him with phrases of relief instead. Branch in the meantime remained clung at his side, not wanting to let go, making sure that this was real.

"I'm so glad you're okay," he told him genuinely.

Floyd grinned at him, sweetly ruffling the blue-haired crop of hair atop of head. "Hey, um guys?" he asked the brothers. They immediately perked and listened in. "Do you think we could be a family again?"

Branch exchanged a look with the others. They knew just what he was thinking, so he spoke up for all of them. "Floyd, we ARE a family." And with that he went back and wrapped his arms around him again.

Seeing it as the perfect moment, Viva grabbed Poppy and led them over to the boys with a cheery shout of “GROUP HUG!”

And as all seven Trolls snuggled against each other contently, they knew that it was finally time to go home, together as one true family.

[ifidiedinadream]

Dirty BC Fantasy Delivery:

(I read it’s your birthday, so:

The happiest birthday to you, love! ✨🖤🌹💖 Hope you have an amazing day! And I just wanna take it as an opportunity to once again thank you for creating this open and accepting space! I never interacting much with the BC fandom until I found yours blog, cause I never felt safe to share my thoughts, not even anonymous. But reading all the ideas, fantasies and thoughts on here and seeing how kind most people are made me feel less insecure. ❤️‍🩹 Also, thank you for your writing and for making so many of our fluffy and smutty fantasies come true! ✨ Your works have saved my nights and days more than once, some of them have become my sleep aid, others my comfort place or my favourite fantasy to help me relax a bit.

I love you and I’m sending you all the best wishes, love, health and many hugs as well as some great orgasm 💦

This one is for you 😌)

You are in a relationship with Joel, knowing fully well he is crushing on Robin although he never would admit it. So, you and Aleksi, who happens to be Robins bf (and your crush), get an idea. One day Aleksi innocently invites Joel and you to go on a double date with him and Robin. The four of meet at their place eating dinner, you focus on Aleksi for the night, leaving Joel to Robin. And at some point, when you all settled down in the living room, after dinner, Aleksi and you decide to spice things up a little and start kissing. Leaving the other two shocked until you suggest them to do the same. They would both laugh awkwardly and blush heavily but eventually they share a quick smooch. Aleksi would demand them to do it again, more passionate this time, and they did try again. And maybe end up making out until they are breathless. You and Aleksi enjoying the show before doing the same thing. You would soon suggest to take things to the bed room, where it only gets more heated. (Of course only after everyone’s consent. But after their heated make out session it’s clear that Joel and Robin won’t stop there, so it doesn’t take you much to convince them)

When you all are naked Aleksi would go down on you, while you praise your bf who is now between Robins legs, sucking him off. But the longer Aleksi goes on the harder it’s get to focus on the couple next to you, so you decided to switch places with Aleksi, letting him have some fun as well. Robin now eagerly licking at Joel’s hole while he’s on all fours. You only take in a few glimpses of their show while taking in Aleksi, enjoying the sweet noises Joel makes.

When Robin starts pounding into Joel, Aleksi stops you, his own need to be inside you suddenly too much, and you can’t blame him, cause Joel beginning fucked by Robin is probably one of the hottest things you have ever witnessed (plus having a naked Aleksi right in front of you). You get on all fours as well, across from Joel, so you can look at his pretty face as Aleksi enters you from behind. Aleksi is not holding back, fucking you roughly and telling Joel how good you feel around him.

It doesn’t take long for Joel to come and you force your eyes open to see his face when comes, loving the sight of it. Robin comes soon after and his moans only turn Aleksi on to go faster, causing you two to come nearly at the same time. You collapse under him, overwhelmed by the force of your orgasm. You crawl into Joel’s arms holding each other while you both come down from your highs. Aleksi doing the same with Robin.

You all spend the rest of the night together as a huge cuddle pile, to exhausted to go home. Knowing fully well that their would be a next time.

(Not my best, there wasn’t much time but I wanted to do something special for you tonight 🖤)

- 🌹

first of all THANK YOU this is the sweetest message ever 🥺🥺 im so glad this gets to be a safe place for you and that my writing is dear to you, im very honored 🥺🖤🖤🖤 i feel like ive accomplished my mission somehow?? especially since irl im everything but ✨appreciated✨

and this fantasy OH GOD, it's damn perfect!!!!! it has everything i like and im definitely gonna read it again and again 🥰💖💕♥️🥵🔥✨ i love it immensely, thank you so much for taking the time to write it. its very appreciated 🥰

[bewitchingbooktours]

Cover Reveal Abandon Station by V. G. Harrison #ScienceFiction

Abandon Station

The Dyson Bridge Series, 

Book One

V. G. Harrison

Genre: Science Fiction

Publisher: Mocha Memoirs Press

Date of Publication: 1/31/2024

Number of pages: 84

Word Count: 22,000

Cover Artist: Maya Preisler

Tagline: Some planets just aren't worth saving.

Book Description:

An explosion rocks the Bridgeway Space Station. Mechanical Engineer Meridia Vail and her crew wake to find themselves on an alternate Earth where the technology is decades behind theirs, and so are the politics. 

When she realizes their space station survived the interdimensional transport to an alternate space and time, she and her crew have only one mission. Get back to the Bridgeway so they can return to their real home.

Time is running out. If the metabolic changes that come with their teleported space station don’t kill them, the politics and secret agendas will. 

Returning home makes sense, but that’s assuming there’s a home to return to. When Meridia learns the Bridgeway’s decaying orbit threatens to annihilate the planet, the Earthers will be more than happy to take their chances by destroying the greatest technological marvel of all time.

With members of Meridia’s international crew scattered across the planet and being detained, she must escape her “caretakers”, if she and her people ever have a chance at saving the one thing that might be able to save everyone.

https://mochamemoirspress.com/   

Excerpt

The door opened.

I sat up and reached for the light.

“Don’t,” a familiar voice said. “They don’t know I’m here and I want to keep it that way.”

“Who doesn’t know you’re here?” I asked as panic swept across me. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“It’s me, Meridia. It’s Julio.” The older man appeared in the light reflecting from the TV. He looked every gray-hair of his age, but there was something about his eyes that weren’t right. His entire visage seemed worn and weathered beyond his fifty-nine years. He continued toward my bed with sweat dripping from his short, gray curls. “We have to get out of here. They want to use us.”

“Use us for what?” I asked.

“Don’t you hear them talking? They want to suck the information out of our brains. They’re going to attach us to machines that will take the wormhole knowledge out of us, then use that information to build bigger weapons. They won’t rest until they’ve brought the rest of the world to their knees.”

Oh boy. I jumped out of bed and hurried toward him to grab his arms. “Calm down, Julio. These people don’t want to hurt us. They want our knowledge, so it would hurt them to hurt us.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. His gaze pleading. “You’re wrong. I’ve seen the machines. They do it round after round after round. You had your first tests today, didn’t you?”

“Julio it was just—”

He tore away from me. “Don’t you get it? The wormhole is ours. We created it. It belongs to us. Not them.”

This wasn’t the same Julio Ferrera I knew. A fusion physicist who was already on his way to greatness even before he joined the astronaut program, he was our Chief of Scientific Research and an accomplished Air Force Major. This guy in front of me was a lunatic who needed more care than they could ever hope to give him here. Seeing my friend and colleague like this wrenched my heart. I wanted to hug the fear out of him but knew it wouldn’t make any difference. He needed more help than I could give him.

“Relax, okay?” I started toward the small desk where there was a phone. “I’m going to call someone to help you. Maybe they can give you something to help you sleep.”

Julio tackled me to the floor. “You have to listen to me, damn it! Listen! They’ve hidden away more Americans than just us, so they can experiment on them more. Some of them are still up there on the Bridgeway just waiting at the beck and call. Leave them frozen until they’re needed.”

I squirmed away from him enough to grab the leg of a small side table. I smashed it across his upper back and head. Dazed, his grip loosened. I wiggled my legs out from underneath him, but he charged again, grabbing the back of my nightshirt. Threads tore as he dragged me down again. This time, he clawed his way on top of me and got his hands around my throat. He squeezed hard like he wanted to snap my neck in half, yelling for me to listen to him. I punched and clawed at his arms, fighting and kicking. Anything to free myself as a burning sensation heated up my lungs.

“You’re one of them!” He shouted, his eyes crazed. “They got to you. You can’t tell them anything—I won’t let you!”

My bedroom door slammed open. Several people ran into my bedroom and wrestled him off me. I rolled onto my side and grabbed my neck, struggling to suck air into my writhing lungs.

The orderlies threw Julio on my bed where a man wearing a pair of black slacks sedated him. Dr. Tommen knelt on the floor next to me, but I waved him away. I didn’t want anyone touching me. For all I knew, they did this to him.

About the Author:

Amazon best-selling author, V.G. Harrison, enjoys creating smart heroines who are more comfortable dealing with things like Fine-structure constant and quantum entanglement than the fallout from their conflict. She loves to write stories that leave her audience so engaged they can't sleep at night, thinking about the possibilities.  

V.G. holds a Bachelors in Biomedical Engineering and a Masters in Information Technology. When she's not writing, she's an IT manager for a healthcare information systems company. 

Her ever-growing list of hobbies include astronomy, attending comic cons, keeping an eye on the cryptocurrency and stock markets, hydroponics gardening, hiking, and connecting with her daughter, A.J., on a cool level. Building Lego sets at night with milk and cookies on the side come in handy for that. 

www.vgharrison.com 

https://www.vgharrison.com/blog-1 

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[thegodshavestring]

THE KING OF EGYPT

PHARAOH VERSUS THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE.

___________________________________________

As a human being when you look at a mouse you think that little thing is no match for me..in the Bible pharaoh thought the frogs were no weapons against him or even the blood in the water.. spirits are very wise and have knowledge about the frog that you and I don't have..there is a saying that so and so will not hurt a fly but that fly will hurt so and so. let me be clear to you,a fly is a maggot, the fly lay it's egg in the dead or the rotten,in this material a creature is created, of the dead a creature survive, of the rotten a creature survive so inside a fly DNA is the dead and or the rotten, this means when a fly land on your sandwich,and you eat the sandwich you have eaten the fly germs or DNA, now maybe it's not much from a little fly at the time but if your body is not healthy it may be much from the little fly.let's talk about the bat, a bat bite can be deadly,most people think a bat is a blood sucker,it's not the sucking out,it the puting in, and into your bloodstream the poison go. The small bug like a fleas can damage the human body. The cockroach is a bug that is also deadly, what human beings don't know about is not the cockroach that is the problem, it's the urine and turds that get on the spoons and cups blind to the human eyes. These animals and bugs are by the spirits as weapons such as the dogs tongue. If you read the story of pharaoh versus god of the universe you will see how intelligent god was and how ignorant pharaoh was..disease is a spiritual weapon, if you look deep into the fight with pharaoh versus god of the universe you can see a timer on the clock,the spirit work by time,"when the ruster crow you will denie me three times", "my time have not yet come"..the spirit will give the opponent time to back down or whatever the case might be and if opponent chooses to continue then that's when god made his final decision called the passover.. sexual transmitted diseases are nothing but a spiritual weapon, heart disease is spirit weapon,as you can see most diseases are from having some kind of pleasures or desires, it's simple you ask and you shall receive..if you ask for unholy you will receive unholy if you ask for holy you will receive holy..the story of Egypt being in a great famon is true, the parting of the reed sea is a true event and let me clear up something you may or may not know, pharaoh did let god people go,but the reason he went after them was because they take his gold with them,god of the universe seen pharaoh army coming after his people and this is why the reed sea was parted, the god of the universe made an escape for his people by parting the reed sea.. so the next time you look at a frog think about pharaoh and the next time you think about taking on a spirit alone think about pharaoh.

when a spirit creates a virus,the spirit will enter a host to carry the virus, this means the spirit can enter any living creature to carry out the mission of creating the virus, except a human being,the spirit needs the human beings permission to enter, in other cases the spirit will enter a mosquito or a dog or bird or cow and so on,to use the virus as a weapon in accomplishing the mission...in Germ warfare the common battle grounds for spirits is saliva, any form of saliva is the fastest way of attack the spirits use.. bacteria can live for along time in or outside a body,it also can jump from host to host, bacteria is looked up on as a medical or science subject but it's more than that.. when a spirit creates a bacteria or a virus it's for a purpose and this purpose will be accomplished without a doubt,sure there's man made virus and bacteria such as COVID-19 but that's nothing compared to the one's that are created by spirits,to bringing you to reality, cancer is created by the spirits,this a bloodline disease, not to get the reader upset so let me be clear, back in the history of your family bloodline your people had a situation with the spirit world, maybe god or demonic so this disease was creative for your family generation and generations until your bloodline come to terms with the spirit world,I don't know what your bloodline did with the spirit world, maybe your ancestors shake there fist at the god of the universe, maybe your ancestors made a deal with the devil, but what ever it was a price has to be paid and most payments in the spirit world are paid with blood sacrifices..look at pharaoh versus god of the universe,the passover was a blood sacrifice,look at the civil war, it's a blood sacrifice. when a sacrifice is made,the gods will honor the sacrifice and the gods will keep their promises... it's a mystery to me, I am watching very carefully about a people that just wanted to worship their god, they leave a king and a land then set out across the ocean looking for a new land that they can freely worship,they found the new land and the gods of universe blessed this land and the people that worship in this new land,this new land was a Christian nation,today you can't find one christian in the land that was built on the family of God second chosen people called the gentiles, but I know just like pharaoh,the god of the universe will come down to his beloved Christian nation and say devil let my people go!.

[harostar]

Illusion of a Plan

One argument I keep seeing around the fandom is that “Ironwood is the only one with a plan”. The argument goes that no one else has tried to come up with any alternatives, that no one else has a solid course of action.

Which is......not what is happening. 

Ironwood symbolizes the kingdom of Atlas, which includes the ILLUSION of control. The ILLUSION of having a plan, of having a course of action that could succeed.

Those arguments that “Ironwood has a plan” ignore that Ironwood has ALWAYS crumbled under pressure and that his plans has always collapsed. What I mean by this is that Ironwood is ultimately an amazing Ideas man, and he excels at providing support to others. But whenever he tries to take control and be the leader, things......tend to go horribly wrong. One reason for that is because Ironwood himself tends to panic, and he makes rash decisions.

Ironwood does his absolute best when he has all the advantages or when he is working to help and support OTHERS. Think back to when Ironwood has done his absolute best, when he’s been heroic and saved the day. What did those moments have in common?

He was working with others and had put aside his ego to cooperate. 

Beacon:

Ironwood is starting to lose himself to panic, he’s spiraling and more worried about defending the PENNY program than dealing with the current crisis. Ozpin gives him direction: Use his army and save the city. 

Ironwood rallies the students, tries to deal with the hack, and then joins forces with Glynda and Qrow. He supports the evacuation and the efforts to save people. 

He SUCCEEDS in what Ozpin asked him to do. He saves an untold number of lives that day. 

But then he makes a critical mistake.

He goes back to Atlas and begins a process of isolation. He starts giving into his paranoia. He recognizes that Haven is the next target and tells Jacques Schnee that “Leo” won’t be able to handle it. So Ironwood starts closing the borders, abandoning his closest allied kingdom. Salem’s forces explicitly state their plan requires that Ironwood remain isolated, that he not reach out to Theodore and reaffirm his alliances.

Ironwood starts taking and taking from the most vulnerable citizens. To repurpose Amity Arena as a new communications tower, he begins placing greater strains on Mantle. He uses his authority to take supplies from Mantle, creating greater danger for the kingdom in the name of an ambitious and far-off plan. He ignores the immediate dangers in favor of gambling on what COULD eventually be a major benefit for everyone. 

Mantle: 

When the heating grid is deactivated in Mantle, Ironwood once again shows his greatest strength. He joins forces with Robyn, and TOGETHER they manage to come up with a multi-point plan to address the crisis. They lure out Watts and Tyrian, they organize evacuations. Everything is going in their favor.

But then Ironwood sees that someone associated with Salem has broken into his office. His trauma comes crashing down on him, and he throws away literally every bit of progress made. 

He sends Winter to kill Fria, leading Cinder to the Winter Maiden’s location as she wanted. He falls into the same trap that was played at Beacon, and they nearly lose a second Maiden to Cinder.

He turns on his allies, ordering their arrests. He doubles-down on abandoning Mantle, because among the refugees could be more of Salem’s agents. He decides to abandon the Amity Project, even when pressed about trying an emergency launch. (Something that Ruby’s team later PULLS OFF, in spite of his interference.) 

He hasn’t planned beyond “Fuck Off into the upper atmosphere, let this be other people’s problems”. We see this in the simple fact that people in Atlas are out on picnics and living their ordinary lives while Salem’s forces are on their doorstep. While the people of Mantle are facing death by Grimm or Hypothermia, the people in Atlas don’t even know anything is going on.

There are clearly no emergency procedures of any kind, because of course not. Atlas is always safe from everything because of their military. The people do not even know how to react to the sight of Grimm, nor do they have any way to deal with sheltering the population other than shoving them down into the subway. There’s no emergency shelters, no evacuation plans, absolutely no emergency planning in sight for the wealthiest kingdom with the best technology and the one standing military.

In Mantle, people are coming together and getting shit down with what little they have. The Happy Huntresses, the Mantle Police, and other random Huntsmen are doing everything possible with almost no resources and their main source of support/resources (Atlas military) completely cut off.

In the mean time, Ironwood has spent an entire day watching things go to hell. Clinging to his desperate Escape Plan, to the point of ordering a major enemy to HACK PENNY. On the slim hope he can force things to go the way he wants.

Meanwhile, Ironwood has rejected literally every single attempt to discuss alternatives. And he has rejected them with increasing violence. Oscar nearly died, and Councilman Sleet is dead now for questioning Ironwood. 

His best plan to deal with the Whale is “send my best operatives to hand-deliver a bomb on what is very likely a suicide mission”. When he....literally......has drones. He has machines designed for the purpose of handling dangerous things like that, but instead he’s sending his best and most loyal team to probably die on a long-shot. 

Meanwhile, Team “Don’t Kill Everyone” has actually accomplished a lot. Again, with very limited resources and almost no logistical experience. I think that’s important to remember in this discussion:

Teams RWBY and JNR + O are teenagers. 

The people that should have all the experience, expertise, resources, and means to get shit down are actively hindering them. EVERYONE is in over their head at this point. But only ONE PERSON has actively and consistently made things difficult.

Ironwood has decided his plan is the only plan. And he won’t even consider the multiple attempts to discussion alternatives, to discuss other options. To......anything. He’s already decided he cannot risk his City and therefore, everyone else is a necessary sacrifice. He’s providing increasingly willing to harm and even kill the people around him, in the name of defending a single city. 

He’s managed to convince himself and his subordinates that he has a plan. 

But he’s merely dressed up his panic, and presented it as something reasonable and rational.

It isn’t and pretending that he isn’t the primary party responsible for things being so bad at this point is a mistake. He’s the one with every single advantage and most of the cards, who has consistently refused to even talk with anyone else. 

He’s covered a turd in gold, polished it, and presented it as the only possible choice. 

And then insisted anyone going, “But it’s still shit” is too naive and getting in his way. Unfortunately, some of the fandom seem to also believe you’re not allowed to point out that a gold-plated turd is still shit, unless you independently offer up a completely unique and separate, better option. 

That’s not actually how things work. You’re supposed to be able to go: “But that idea sucks” and start asking questions and making suggestions. 

[love-takes-work]

When someone toxic needs a friend

I just wanna add a little personal reflection to the discussion of Spinel’s treatment in Steven Universe: The Movie.

A few signposts so you know where I’m starting with this:

A criticism I’ve seen: 

Steven was not particularly warm to Spinel. He did not hug her. He did not offer to be her friend. He spoke carelessly and triggered her toward becoming murderous again. He only cared about what she could do for him.

A perspective I’ve seen: 

LOTS of people with borderline personality disorder or strong feelings about abandonment personally relate to Spinel and are critical of Steven from this perspective.

Rebecca Sugar’s commentary on Spinel:

The thing about Spinel is that she’s a really toxic person. 

She’s so toxic that she’s literally trying to poison people. 

In my interactions with friends who have had a history difficult enough to make it hard for them to trust other people and sometimes even actively want to hurt others, it’s just a very difficult situation to navigate. In the case of Spinel and all of these characters, that’s extremely exaggerated because cartoons have the ability to be extreme exaggerations. I wanted to explore what it’s like when you’re trying to help someone who really doesn’t want to help themselves, who wants to embody the negative feelings that they have about themselves. I think that’s something really real. I hadn’t seen that in a cartoon before. 

Spinel, unlike many other characters, actually has the goal of hurting people, which is new territory for the show. She really wants to hurt Steven, and there’s a reason that she does—because she’s in so much pain. I just wanted to explore all the dimensions of that.

I also think Steven has his way of trying to handle and dissolve conflict. It’s not necessarily a good way for him to handle this situation. It really leaves him in a difficult state, and I think what I wanted to show in the way that they interact is that at a certain point, when you can’t help someone, you have to be able to protect yourself. 

Ultimately, he can’t really convince her to change. It’s something she’ll have to want for herself. But what he can do is protect himself from her, making it impossible for her to hurt him. 

It’s sort of up to you if you would like to love her. If you watch this movie and she, you know, frustrates you, that is totally fair. I want that to be a big part of who she is.

[From the AV Club interview]

So here are a few things I want to shed light on.

It’s very interesting that Rebecca intended Spinel to be read as “a toxic person” because so many fans fell in love with her, said they’d be her friend, hated intensely on Pink Diamond because of what she did to abandon the poor Gem, and sympathized with her directly. But Rebecca was looking at Spinel from Steven’s perspective. And that’s also what I did.

I’ve been Steven. I have VERY much been Steven.

When you meet someone who was done dirty, when you recognize the horror they’ve been through, when you see how much pain they are in and agree they have the right to be angry, it’s natural for empathetic people to offer themselves as comfort.

But when you’re Steven, you also know it isn’t YOUR fault either. Before you have the ability and experience to set boundaries, you can get sucked into other people’s stormy waters and think you’re helping if you drown in solidarity with them. What’s really important to preserving yourself is learning that you can stand on the boat and toss a life preserver. That it doesn’t ACTUALLY HELP to jump in the water and sink with them.

Some folks are angry that Steven didn’t jump right into sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship in the service of an intense, literally murderous stranger who tried to poison him and his planet and lash out at his friends, robbing them of their rich pasts and their relationships because all of it hurt HER so much. It is SO easy to understand WHY SPINEL WAS ANGRY. But nothing she was doing to Steven, his friends, or the Earth was going to fix her problems, and furthermore, she FULLY UNDERSTOOD that it was NOT THE FAULT of any of the people she took her anger out on. It was irrational, yes, and that is part of her dysfunction. But also, in these situations, what helps explain it still does not excuse it.

Some have railed at Steven saying he somehow forgave genocidal tyrants like the Diamonds but couldn’t be friends with a damaged Gem like Spinel who just wanted friendship. The big difference there is that Steven got involved with the Diamonds when both parties believed he was a different person. The Diamonds believed he was the lost Pink Diamond, and Steven has also spent much of his superhero life believing he WAS his mother and was therefore obligated to accept punishment for her crimes or to clean up the messes she made. Now that he knows he is not her and that she did some pretty horrible stuff, he also wants the right to stop feeling responsible for every person Pink hurt in the entire region of space.

Steven gave Spinel basically compassionate treatment. He did not abuse her. He did not insult her. He occasionally coddled her when it seemed important (and though some said he was too businesslike while he pursued his mission, he was literally looking at the world ending within two days if he didn’t solve the problem). And most importantly . . . .

He let her leave the garden.

Spinel stayed in the garden all those millennia because Pink Diamond told her they were playing a game. All that time, she had visions of Pink returning so she could see her smile, hear her laughter. We see a sequence where she tried to follow Pink out of the garden and Pink manipulated her into staying willingly. We watch those feet leaving and one pair of feet staying behind. We see Pink disappear.

When Steven goes to leave the garden, Spinel follows in the same manner. Some have criticized him for letting go of her hands.

But he invited her out of the garden. He didn’t say stay. He said come with me.

As he sang about her deserving someone better, he was sincere. But he did not say the person to make her feel found should be him. He did not want to take on another person with thousands of years of baggage who would require a specific brand of attention and so much tenderness to avoid snapping. He did not allow her to be held by the hand and led out. He recognized that she needed encouragement to leave this place because of what was done to her, but he wanted her to take the steps.

Compassionate people are crushed all the time under the weight of needy people who make it hurt to love. People like Steven can acknowledge that Spinel deserves love and deserves to be happy without accepting that it’s heartless to stop short of personally doing it. Especially when you literally have to take physical, mental, and emotional damage as a general consequence of offering support and counseling. It is sometimes just beyond what you can do.

I made the mistake several times of getting very close to someone who treated me poorly while taking comfort in my presence. I cared that they were hurt and I didn’t know how to say “You deserve love” without stepping in and loving them. In EVERY case I was involved with, the person went from initially grateful to “why don’t you help me more?” shockingly quickly, and two of them deliberately tried to create situations where I would be trapped with them and isolated from others. 

I could get very personal here but I don’t think I need to. Those of us who relate all too well to Steven wanting to help others will have been in this situation. Your heart hurts for people who live with pain that has never touched you, but when they’ve made it clear with one of their first actions that they feel satisfied at the idea of ruining your life, trusting them could mean the end of you. Especially if they demand that you risk life and limb to fix and save them before you’d dare to call it love, and especially if they want to be fixed without feeling responsible for initiating any of it. Some people mistake suffering for working hard toward a goal. Both can hurt but only one is constructive. If I’m expected to spend extensive resources on someone, I need some partnership in the goal, and I can’t accomplish that with someone whose wish for companionship manifests as “I want you to feel as bad as I do, and will take steps to hurt you so I have someone to cry with.”

Steven risked his actual life while he didn’t have powers so he could go talk to Spinel, and he wouldn’t fight her when she wanted to fight. He protected himself while she spent her anger. He STILL put himself in the line of fire far more than a less compassionate person would. He took time and tenderness to listen to her story and sympathize with her, tell her she deserved better, bear witness to what she’d become after being treated like a discarded plaything, and bring her hope with promises of a new future and a way to feel found.

Sadly, Spinel flipped back to being murderous at the first sign that Steven might be about to prioritize someone other than her, reframing his reasonable needs as if he was planning to abandon her, isolate her, discard her. This was a trauma reaction, yes, and she isn’t entirely to blame for being upset because she was worried she was just being used and none of her actions were logically thought through. 

But does someone ever “deserve” the friendship of a specific person who can’t feel warm toward them because of their OWN bad experiences? 

No! 

Steven has a big heart but he has his very own huge storehouse of trauma, and being physically attacked with his family and planet put in danger over the actions of his mother is at the top of the list. Instead of assuming that the person who has trauma the loudest is the most hurt, can’t we just acknowledge that Spinel’s and Steven’s respective traumas make them NOT the best match for friendship?

The ending of the movie, with Spinel going off with the Diamonds, might seem a little disturbing with all the codepencency floating around there, but if you want to talk about compassion, I think this is a good place for Spinel to start. 

She just wanted to make Pink Diamond laugh and enjoy her life. She longed to do that for so long and then it all ended when she found out she would NEVER GET TO DO IT. I think bonding with the other Diamonds and having a familiar, safe place to experience the kind of love she’s used to will be a good FOUNDATION for building herself into a person beyond that. For now, she needs comfort. I hope they treat her well.

[ace-oreos]

I hope you're well. So I got a little prompt idea for alpha (and/or fordo because I love how you write the two of them). So Alpha do something extremely ruthless, borderline inhumane to accomplish the mission and kenobi get a reminded that for all their humanity, banter, past suffering and brotherhood the clones are still genetically crafted soldier based from one of the ruthless individuals that the galaxy ever known

Oh, you poor anon, I promise I haven't forgotten you. Unfortunately, this ask came in right before I started my first semester of college, and, well, the rest is history, but suffice to say I imagined having this finished a long time ago. But! I managed to produce something!

Pls enjoy Alpha being Done™️ with his general and Obi-Wan trying to process about 50 different emotions at once with whatever brain cells he has remaining + a sprinkle of childhood trauma because Kamino sucks

Alpha can feel the general’s eyes on him. That’s not an unusual occurrence - he is frequently the subject of Kenobi’s scrutiny. He doesn’t fit into the neat little box the general inadvertently created for him, and that gets under Kenobi’s skin, seeing as he’s a Jedi and all.

Alpha decides he’s content to wait out the silence. A rebuke is almost certainly coming his way soon, if the disapproval hanging over the room is any indicator, but he’s not keen to fuel that particular flame. He’s been on the receiving end of Jedi preaching one time too many.

Kenobi doesn’t share his reluctance. “Why did you do it?”

“It was us or them,” Alpha says, dispassionate. The Jedi aren’t up to a war, and it shows; even now, there’s reproach written plain across the general’s face.

“We could’ve made good use of the information they had,” he persists.

“The information they might have had,” Alpha corrects. “We’ve never taken prisoners, Kenobi. Now isn’t a good time to start.”

“You can’t know for sure they were an immediate threat.”

“It looked pretty clear to me,” Alpha says, wrestling with a temper made sharper by fatigue. “If we’d waited any longer, we would’ve suffered more casualties.”

It’s as much of a jab at Kenobi as it is a simple fact, and the general seems to recognize it as such. He doesn’t jump to defend himself; instead, his shoulders slump with resignation.

And maybe it isn’t fair to nip at his heels when Kenobi is just as exhausted as any of the men, but he accepted his rank along with the rest of the Order. If they’re only just now realizing that the war isn’t fair… well, that’s outside of Alpha’s responsibilities.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Kenobi says softly, like he doesn’t have the energy to make it an accusation.

“Because it goes against your code?” Alpha asks pointedly. “I sleep better knowing my men are alive and in one piece, thanks.”

Kenobi doesn’t understand. Alpha doesn’t expect him to.

Kenobi watches him, all thin-lipped disapproval, and Alpha stares back. Truthfully, he doesn’t know where the general is going to jump next. But what’s done is done, and Alpha would do it all over again if it meant securing his men’s safety.

Kenobi opens his mouth, then closes it without another word.

Alpha reckons he’s got a good idea what the general is thinking. Too independent, too unpredictable - too much like Jango. Too late for the Jedi to back out on the army they asked for.

“You’re not - ”

“What you imagined I would be when the Kaminiise handed us to you?”

That’s not fair, either, but then Jango taught them to fight dirty.

Still, Alpha can feel his skin prickling like it did in training, when he or one of his batch took things a step too far and the Kaminoans circled closer. Kenobi will hardly take his impertinence up with the Kaminiise - faulty product, please correct in the next model - but the unease sets in all the same, leaving him feeling both wrong-footed and defiant. A defense mechanism, only Kenobi is still letting himself be used as target practice.

“I think,” Kenobi says at last, “we could learn a thing or two from each other.”

“Probably so,” Alpha allows.

The general offers a thin smile. “I can feel your doubt in the Force.” His expression softens, like he senses more than just skepticism, but he spares Alpha the details.

Alpha returns a half-smile of his own. “Whatever you say, sir.”

[eideticmemory]

GOOD | SPENCER REID

Description: Mindless smut. A detailed account of you and Spencer’s first time.

Word Count: 1,931

Rating: M.

Warning/Includes: Graphic sexual intercourse, oral.

Sex wasn’t good until you met Spencer. You had to give credit where credit was due, and Spencer had earned it. From that first night the two of you stumbled into your apartment, giggling, happy, and holding each other close, it’s been a wrap. Spencer placed his hands on your face, leaned in and pulled you into the deepest kiss of your life. It made you so weak in the knees, to the point you nearly dropped to the ground. But he caught you. He caught you by your waist and pulled you up, his hand dangerously close to the hem of your dress. Your finger tips traced his collarbone, gently and slowly, as you broke the kiss. You tasted him on your lips, your tongue poking out to lick his saliva off of mouth.

You drew in a deep breath, pressed your forehead to his and shook your head. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Spencer Reid.”

He gulped. So loud you could hear the sound, and feel his hands shaking against your waist. “Take me to the bedroom,” he whispered. “Please?”

And you did. Best decision you’d ever made, if you must say so. Right up there with landing this man as your boyfriend. He was gentle, nervous, wanted you to feel good. Mission accomplished. From the kisses on your neck, to the kisses on your breast, everything was so, so good. He hooked his fingers in your dress, in your bra, pulled it down, and wrapped his lips around your nipple in this soft suction that made your jaw drop. His hand pressed into your back as you straddled him, your hips moving in this real steady groove against his crotch. You ran your hand through his hair, unable to keep your eyes off him, his lips trailing to your other breast where he sucked on the skin.

“F-fuck,” you moaned. “Feel like I could come from this alone.”

He pulled away, licking his lips and then looking up at you. The pressure of his fingers replaced his mouth, his digits holding your nipple between them. “There actually is evidence that females can experience orgasms from nipple stimulation alone if done correctly, since it does activate the same areas of the brain as stimulation of the clitoris.”

“Hm, I love it when you talk dirty to me.” You hummed, earning a great, big Spencer smile. You leaned in, your arms outstretched on his shoulders, and gave him a soft kiss. It didn’t stay soft very long. Soon, tongues were involved. Your hands were sliding under his shirt and you could feel his heart pounding under your palm. He laid back against your stack of pillows, hands finding their way to your face once again. You sat back, with his gaze solely focused on you, as you pushed yourself to your knees and slid your dress off.

“Oh, wow,” he murmured. His fingertips reached out to touch your stomach, trailing down to your panties where he played with the lace hem. You kept yourself focused on his face - the pure amazement, the pure love. And then you were very, very, very caught off guard by the rubbing on your clit. You let out a squeal, a pip, a squeak. A mixture of a gasp in there.

Spencer’s other hand held onto the back of your neck, his body now pressed to yours as his fingers worked their magic. “Good?”

“So, so good. Fuck.” You replied, your chest heaving at the sensation.

A look of pride adorned his face, and he continued his slow circles until your head tipped back. Then, he slowly removed his hand from your underwear, ran his fingers up to your navel, your chest, your chin and finally, your mouth. On instinct, you parted your lips and let his fingers in. They were big, long. They reached the back of your throat and you pursed your lips around them, sucking with enough force to earn a quiet moan from Spencer, who watched you intently.

“Oh, wow,” he repeated.

You chuckled, opening your mouth and sticking your tongue out, allowing his fingers to glide off. You moved in to kiss him again, and this time, you ended up on the bed, back against the pillows. Spencer’s body now laid between your legs and his erection pressed into your core just begging to be released.

“C-clothes,” you huffed. “Off. Off.” You’d suddenly forgotten how to speak. He got the gist though. He allowed you to help him pull his shirt off, and to watch as he undid his pants. His bulge popped out before his pants could fully be removed, teasing you, taunting you. There was absolutely too much space in between to two of you at that moment, so you pounced on him. You climbed in his lap and pushed him back onto the mattress, his feet now at the head of the bed. Leaning in, you grazed your lips against his, “Can I suck you off?”

His eyes went wide, his chest leaping up and down, his face flushed. “Y-y-you don’t .. even have to ask.”

You smiled and kissed his nose, then his jaw, then his neck, until your made way to his chest and began to kiss down his body. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched you, literally pinching his torso to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Nope, definitely awake. He was definitely awake and you were definitely taking his boxers off. He was definitely awake and definitely in your mouth.

He let out a strangled moan, throwing his head back and gasping for air. “Sh-sh-“ he wanted to swear, but it wasn’t like Spencer to do so very openly, so he bit his lip. He trained his eyes on you once again, as you focused on taking him to the back of your throat and slowly drawing your lips off of him. His whole chest lit up red like christmas lights, heat flowing through every vein in his body. You got a nice rhythm going, so nice that Spencer’s body had started to shake and jolt at the slightest of movement.

“Ah,” he moaned. “A-ah, ah, ah, okay. Okay, [y/n], stop, please, stop, shit.”

So, you did. But not without giving him a sly smirk from between his legs. He shook his head at you with a roll of his eyes and widened his arms. You immediately jumped into them, arms around his waist and lips on his. He eagerly pushed your panties down your legs, you working quickly to remove your bra. Both wound up on the floor and you wound up on your back with Spencer staring down at you. He stood beside the bed, his boner in his grasp and lined up at your entrance. He gave you a look, and you found yourself nodding before he could even ask. With your legs on his shoulders, he placed his tip against your opening, running it over your slit slowly and creating a quiet, sticky noise.

“God,” you laughed. “I’m a river.”

“Yeah,” was all he said, too entranced by the sight below him to respond. His large hands held onto your thighs and slowly, gently, he pressed into you. You’d never felt so full so immediately, his size stretched you out like nothing before. You drew in a breath, gripping onto the bedsheets and going cross eyed. Your toes curled upon the impact of his hips on yours, the tip of his dick practically in your stomach. You finally released your breath, looking up him as you bit your lip.

Spencer’s eyes were closed, his head tilted down, his jaw agape. “Oh, my God,” he groaned. That being said, he tightened his grip on your legs and went to work. His whole body tensed as he slammed into you, his eyes screwed shut and his hips thrusting with every bit of strength he had. It took you by surprise, the pleasure of him drilling into your soul hitting you over and over. You called out his name, “Spencer, fuck. Spencer.”

This encouraged him, and so, he sped up. His bottom lip now pulled between his teeth, he stifled his loud groans. His face contorted in multiple expressions - concentration, tension, ecstasy. And you just watched him, watched him pound into you, watched him clench his teeth together, throw his head back. He was so beautiful covered in sweat and pleasure. Little noises trailed out of his mouth and into the air, louder ones when he looked at you. His eyes held your gaze for a few intense moments before shifting down between your legs. He used his thumb to rub your clit and you fell back against the bed, gasping. “Oh, fuck, you’re gonna kill me.” You moaned, arching your back.

“Just .. wanna .. make you come.” He grunted, his hips and his thumb working in unision to bring you to the edge.

“Keep going,” you pleaded. “Keep going, keep going, keep going.”

So, he did. He pressed into your clit with more pressure, sped up his hips, adjusted his angle and you could barely handle it. You felt your body crumbling and you felt him watching you, even though your eyes were closed.

“Sp-Spencer,” you called. “Spencer, I, Oh, my God.”

It built, and built, and built. And like a bucket tipping over, it was a drizzle and then a flood. Your thighs squeezed together, your back arched towards the ceiling, your mouth dropped into a big ‘o’ shape and you tightened around Spencer cock, which had stilled inside you. Everything around you went blank, blurry, you held onto the bedsheets for dear life. All you could do was ride it out. So, so, so good.

“Fuck.” Was the only way to describe it.

When you returned to earth, Spencer was staring at you, completely mesmerized. You looked up at him through your eyelashes, licking your lips and panting. “Thank you,” you said, grinning.

He smiled, leaned down to press his body to yours, “Your welcome.” Then he was back at it. He moved slowly, but it still overwhelmed you, little shivers crossing over your body.

“You okay?” he asked.

“More than okay.”

He kissed your cheek and got the rhythm back in his hips, your chests rubbing against each other’s with every thrust. You could feel him getting weaker, coming undone, and you just held him. Kissed his neck. Told him you loved him. And that sent him through the roof. He released the most beautiful groans with his final few thrusts, before pulling out of you and jerking himself off.

You moved quickly, hopping off of the bed and landing on your knees in front of him.

“Wait, wait, [y/n], you don’t have to, ah! Ah, ah, ah, oh!” As soon as he was in your mouth, he was filling it up, moaning and groaning as you hummed against him. You pulled back, swallowing everything he gave you and rising to your feet. You sighed happily and fell back onto the bed, smiling like an idiot.

Spencer took his place beside you, pulling you onto his chest to cuddle.

“Phew,” you sighed. “That was a workout.”

“Sex does actually count as a physical activity. It can burn just as much calories as running a mile.”

You grinned, “Spence, I, uh, forgot to tell you,” you looked up at him. “I’m trying to lose weight.”

And you were lost in his lips again, ready to brace a long and perfect night. Sex wasn’t good until you met Spencer. But when it was good, it was perfect.

[rebelwrites]

Possessive/Jealous Sex - Jax Teller

Requested by @witching-hour

A/N PURE FUCKING FILTH

Pissed off wasn’t the word right now, in fact you were fuming. All because your old man wasn’t paying you any attention. The anger was only fuelled by the alcohol running through your veins. You knew you looked fire tonight by the attention you were getting off the other sons but you didn’t care about that, all you cared about was the attention from one man, attention which you wasn’t getting.

Downing the shot you slammed the glass on the bar, if he wasn’t paying you attention then you’d give him something to give you attention you so desperately craved. You knew you were playing with fire but didn’t care. You had a need that needed satisfying and you were sure as hell going to make sure it did. And plus a little flirting never harmed anyone right.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing here all by herself?” A voice next to you said.

“Not much” you shrugged looking at the guy, you didn’t recognise him so he must have been a brother from another charter that was visiting. “Just wanting to have some fun you know”

“Well then if fun is what you are after then look no further” he smirked “I’m Ben”

“Y/N” you smiled at him taking in his features, he was no Jax but he wasn’t bad looking and obviously didn’t know who’s old lady you were.

The time passed and flirty banter was being thrown around, giggling at everything he said. Your plan was working as you felt a hole being burned into the back of your head. The power of Jax’s gaze set something inside of you alight and it would only be a matter of time before he came storming over and play time would begin.

And as if on queue he did, as soon as Ben’s hand landed on your thigh, you heard the scrap of his chair against the floor, smirking to yourself as you felt his hot hand land on your wrist, gripping you tightly.

“With me now” Jax snarled, dragging you away.

Mission accomplished, now time to have some fun. Feeling your back make contact with the wall you smirked at Jax.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He growled as his hand made its way around your throat, pinning you against the wall, creating a heat between your legs.

“Maybe if you showed me some fucking attention I would be acting like a whore” you spat knowing you were poking the fire.

“Is that what this is about” Jax laughed his blue eyes darkening “you want some fucking attention”

“Finally you caught on” you smirked.

“You want to act like a whore” he smirked “I will fucking treat you like a worthless fucking whore that is only good for one thing”

He hadn’t even done anything and you knew you were wet.

“Do you want me to treat you like a dirty little whore darlin’” he growled “use you as my little fuck toy and fuck that perfect cunt until you can’t walk”

His words made you ache for him.

“Yes daddy” you said looking up at him through your lashes.

“My dorm now” he growled, removing his hand from your neck, pushing you in the direction of his room.

You had never moved through the clubhouse so fast, barging past everyone. As soon as you were in his room Jax picked you up, throwing you on the bed, roughly pushing your dress up.

“Such a naughty girl” he growled as he unbuckled his belt “not wearing any panties, I can see how wet you are already, do you like it when daddy is rough and treats you like a whore”

“Yes” you breathed “I just need you to fuck me please”

“So fucking needy” he smirked slapping your pussy “but you need to be taught a lesson you slut”

Gulping slightly, you had awoken the beast now as he grabbed a fist full of your hair, pulling you to the end of the bed so you now had his thick cock in your face.

“Well it isn’t gonna suck itself bitch” he growled as he pushed his dick into your mouth making you gag as he pushed his full length a smirk playing on his lips as he grabbed a fist full of your hair “god you look so pretty choking on daddy’s cock”

It didn’t take long for saliva and pre-cum to be dribbling down your chin as he fucked your face, tears were streaming down your cheeks.

You got a small break when Jax pulled out of your mouth but you knew the punishment didn’t end there as he pulled you over his knee and without warning his ring cladded hands made contact with your ass cheeks, you couldn’t help it as a moan escaped your lips. The pain turning into arousal with each spank.

“Such a dirty bitch” Jax growled as he pulled your hair as his spanks got harder, you knew your ass would be so red right now but you didn’t care. “Fuck this, daddy wants, no daddy needs to fuck you, I want to see my cum dripping from that sweet cunt”

The way he man handled you made you wetter.

“Who does this pissy belong to whore?” Jax grunted as he pushed into your soaked pussy.

“Fuck” you breathed as he stretched you out “it belong to you daddy”

“Damn right it does” he snarled as his hand went around your throat “and daddy doesn’t like sharing”

“I’m sorry” you panted as he squeezed slightly on your throat. Everything was getting too much and you were so close already and Jax knew that.

“I can feel you clench around my cock” he panted “you like it when daddy fucks you like a little whore don’t you”

“God yeah” you moaned as his increased the pace he thrust into you hitting the spot every time “can I cum please daddy”

“Hold on a little bit longer babygirl” Jax smirked as his hand moved from your throat to your throbbing clit.

“Please daddy” you begged “I can’t hold it much longer”

You screams were so loud as Jax purposely pushed you to the edge you couldn’t help it as you came in that instance, it was the hardest he had ever made you cum, you could feel your own wetness running down your thighs but Jax powered through he wasn’t quite done yet as he grabbed the vibrator from the nightstand putting it on the fastest setting and holding it against you clit. Within minutes you felt like you were gonna explode.

Jax knew what he was doing ever since he made you squirt a couple of months ago he’d always try and make you do it again when he was being rough.

“Fuck” you cried “daddy please”

“Come on slut I know you have one more in you” Jax panted sweaty rolling down his abs.

The constant vibration on your clit and him pounding you senseless took you to heights you had only experienced a couple of times and it wasn’t long before you came again but this time three times harder than before, the feeling of you clenching his dick so hard made Jax cum.

Your whole body was exhausted as you continued to cum, you know the sheets would be soaked.

“You feeling okay darlin?” Jax asked as he littered your face with soft kisses.

“Mmmm” you groaned keeping your eyes closed.

“You ass isn’t too sore is it?” He asked.

No matter how rough Jax was he always made sure he didn’t cross any lines.

“No” you mumbled “just sleepy”

“Rest up baby” he whispered nuzzling his face in your neck “I will carry you to the car soon and then we will have a bath and put a film on and cuddle until you fall asleep”

SOA TAGLIST

@chibsytelford @talicat713 @corebore123 @nothingeverdies @teapartydreams @mrspeacem1nusone @khyharah @itmejado @woahitslucyylu @beth-winchester21 @minnicelli @everyhowlmarksthedead @trulysuccubus @haynsey @witching-hour @destynelseclipsa @edonaspanca @abbiesthings @angelreyesgirl @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat @jadesamhart @lady-pswrld @ly--canthrope @hennessyauntie @gemini0410 @i-love-scott-mccall @est11 @mystic-shadows42 @sugary-x-sweet @starrynite7114 @skyofficialxx @terminallygenius @sadeyesgf @lauraashley93 @leaalfred @angelreyesgirl89 @sheeshgivemeabreak @marquelapage @meteora-fc @penny4yourthot @justahopelessssromantic @ilikechocolatemilkh @mayans-sauce @xbreezymeadowsx @ben-c-group-therapy @-im-fantastic- @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @milaxmariex @fvckthisbxtchup

[kimnjss]

grand gesture | ksj

⤑  series: sugar free

⤑ genre: angst, rich!jin x artist!reader, college au.

⤑ rating: PG13

⤑ word count: 1.5K

⤑ warnings: there aren’t any, lmao.

⤑ A/N: this is a bit short, but it’s straight to the point and meant to be that way!! just felt like this part worked better written then told through text, so yeah you’ll see what i mean! let me know what you think x

A full week passed. A full week of ignored gifts being dumped on your front porch. You were seriously considering selling them, no desire to collect his half ass-ed apology. This was the exact reason why you were hesitant to get involved with him in the first place. He was exactly like how you thought he'd be.

Of course, he'd approach you on a bet. Of course, this would all be about money. It was all that kid cared about. The way he was flaunting it, trying to buy your forgiveness was proof enough. Did he not get it? Was he that dim?

The only thing that bothered you about this whole situation was the time you wasted hanging around him. All that time you could've used working on projects or perfecting your craft... spent and wasted with the hope of trying to get to know the guy. What a waste.

Despite the constant interruption of a knock at your front door, you had decided that you were going to use all this new free time to concentrate on your art. Summoning all the inspiration you could to create... something. It actually was harder than you thought, feeling unbelievably uninspired and a little bit sad.

From your friends, you had requested they didn't pop in whenever they wanted. Felt like you'd work better if you had a chance to be alone. What you didn't realize was that with all this alone time you really had a chance to evaluate your feelings... what you had been suppressing since that night out with Jin.

It had been obvious to the people around you, but you refused to listen. It was hard to ignore now. You were a bit sad, to be honest. It had been a while since you were able to let go and actually enjoy being around someone... romantically, and you hadn't expected it at first but you really were starting to like him.

Things were comfortable around him, he was funny in a nice way, cared a lot about keeping things light, and actually listened when you ranted about whatever was bugging you at the time. It had only been a few weeks spent with him, two dates in that time but you really enjoyed yourself.

A little bummed that it had to end this way. Couldn't help but wonder if you had overreacted, if you should have listened when he tried to text you about it. Stopped being so stubborn and forgave him like everyone had said that you should. Maybe then you wouldn't be this miserable, suffering from this horrible artist's block, you didn't even know if you were holding your paintbrush correctly.

The welcomed knock on your door had you standing a little too quickly, ready to ditch this blank canvas and see whatever had been sent your way. Nothing came in yesterday and you had assumed he got the hint... hoped he hadn't.

There's an arch in your brow at the lack of delivery man at your front door. With confusion written in your features, you're putting the front door open; eyes landing on a sad-looking Seokjin. He's dressed casually, opposite of the expensive tops and form-fitting jeans he usually put on. Pair of joggers and a plain t-shirt. The change was nice, made him look younger.

He shifted on his feet, hands behind his back eyes trained on his sneakers. You had to fight the smile that pushed it's way onto your lips, happy to see him standing in front of you – but quickly reminding yourself why he had to show up like this in the first place. Main priority was to be strong in this situation, figure out what he was doing here and deal with it. Not swoon and go all heart-eyed just because he showed up.

He should've shown up before all of this.

“What are you doing here? No ridiculously expensive coat to add to the donation pile?” Jin shifts at the sound of your voice, lifting his head to look up at you. He looks sad that you can't help but wonder if you're being a bit mean to him.

Although, him betting on your sex life was pretty mean in itself, right? Getting you to like him just to turn around and make you apart of some sick joke, that's mean.

“N-no, no gifts... they weren't working anyway,” He sighs, arm reaching up to rub at the back of his neck in the awkward way you notice he was always doing. Couldn't believe you had started to find the action cute.

“Yeah, sucks. You can't buy someone's forgiveness,” There's bite in your tone but he doesn't flinch, just looks down nodding his head. “Yeah, I deserve that. I shouldn't have treated this like some business transaction. I hurt you... I should've manned up and came to you.”

You're reading to rip into him again until his words are registering in your mind. Did he come here to... apologize? Eyes blinking as you stare at him, Jin takes your silence as a sign he should continue.

“Yn, I'm sorry. I hate that I fucked with you like that and even more that you're upset. I know you won't forgive me, I'm not expecting you to... I just figured I should at least say it, like for real, you know? We were having a good time together and I really like you, so I owe you at least a proper apology.”

There's a warmth that spreads throughout your body at hearing his words. Not sure if it was from the apology or the fact that he had just told you... to your face, that he liked you. What you had been wanting to hear this entire week was an explanation from him, not through text and not in the form of some designer shoes... like a real explanation. Could see yourself forgiving him if he gave you that.

“Why'd you do it?” Your voice is quieter than you remember as if you're afraid of the reason. Either way, you don't back down. Staring straight at him as if you're strong, waiting to hear what he has to say. “Because I liked you. And I know how stupid that sounds, but I was too chicken shit to do something about it... so I just used the bet as an excuse,”

Jin had said that you didn't have to forgive him, but that didn't stop the hopeful look in his eyes. Watching as you tossed his words around in your head, waiting for that smile of yours to appear as you told him that it was all okay. That you forgave him and if he promised he never did something stupid like this again, you two could go back to falling for each other as you had been before.

It didn't come. Instead, you were just nodding, taking a step back into your house. “Alright, well... thanks for coming here and apologizing.”

“So that's it?” The words are falling from his lips before he has a chance to stop them. Not realizing how expectant they sound, how he had promised himself he wouldn't act that way at this moment because he knew you hated it. “I mean... were you thinking we could, maybe, try again?” You can hear the hope in his voice and you don't miss it.

Did you want to try again? Let him in all over again as he attempted to break down your walls, he had done a pretty good job at it before. Were you ready for all that? All that came with being with him... like actually being with him. Before it had been different, you weren't sure of your feelings then, but now, you knew that you'd want more from him. An actual relationship. Would he even be able to do that?

“Was that what you were hoping for? Why you came by to apologize?” He's shaking his head before the words can fully leave your mouth.

“No, I came here because you deserved a proper apology because I was sick of being a coward about all of this. I want to be with you because... well because you're amazing and I don't want to miss out on that,” He's offering a small smile up to you, one you're returning almost instantly.

Still, there's something holding you back, but you're unable to place it. Needed to figure out what it was before you were leaping into a relationship with the guy. “Could I...? Could I think about it?”

“Yes, yeah!” The smile on his lips grows as he steps off of your porch, mission accomplished. “Take all the time you need to think about it... you can call me when you decide? My numbers the same!” You can't help but laugh at his quick shift of demeanor, the way he basically runs down your driveway before you can change your mind.

You stand and watch the entire time he jogs down the street until he's ducking into his car, and speeding off with a wave out the window. A hand lifts to wave back, heart thudding in your chest as you stepped back into your house. About to give this situation some serious thought... were you really going to be able to handle being with Kim Seokjin?

– rich, spoiled and a bit of a womanizer. but underneath all of that, there’s a heart of gold. and no matter how determined she is to reject him, he won’t stop trying until she sees he’s kinda sweet.

↲ masterlist ↳

taglist: @randomkoalablog​​​ @smoljams​​​ @dee-ehn​​​ @jaiuneamesolitaiire​​​ @lilacdreams-00​​​ @sw33tnight​​​ @bangtansonyeondayyyum​​​ @okblve​​​ @jinhitwhore​​​ @tae165​​​ @hellotherehoneybee​​​ @bangtansbun​​​ @betysotelo18​​​ @cherriigguk​​​ @koostime​​​ @kooinluv​​​ @butterflylion​​​ @kookiesjoonies​​​ @uxwi​​​ @honeyoongles​​​ @imajiningseokjin​​​ @amoreguk​​​ @beeeb05​​​ @tommasauras​​​ @bluefaeriefury​​​ @butterflylion​​​ @withlovestudyblr​​​ @samros95​​​ @korkanswers​​​ @houseofarmanto​​​ @soulstaes​​​ @thesunisup-theskyisblue​​​ @jinsearth​​​ @aizuwusho​​​ @moonb0yy​​ @tan-dulset​​ @8sjaf​​​ @mini-coop25​​​ @marifujioka​​​ @sunskook​​​ @elliemeetsevil​​ @ratking101​​ @leovaldezisfire​​​ @greyaceupyoursleeve​​ @emmy17jane​​

A/N: timestamps are important throughout the fic!! if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask! also if you asked to be on the taglist and aren’t on there, it’s because tumblr sometimes doesn’t let me tag ppl for some reason.

[shadowofthelamp]

Partners

Swap Zim and Dib decide to work together. Technically a direct sequel to this thing that was posted a year and a half ago. Like, comments, and reblogs all super appreciated!

Wordcount: 1800

Warnings: Mentions of Dib experimenting on people, I guess?

Zim woke up strapped to a lab table that smelled so strongly of blood that he almost threw up. (Which was quite an accomplishment, considering it wasn’t like Zim was a stranger to animal test subjects, or even getting himself injured.) It took him a few seconds to remember why he was strapped to a bloody lab table, but hearing the familiar voice frantically muttering next to him helped.

“Come on, I need to kill him, but it’s Zim, I like Zim, I don’t want to kill him, but he’s a threat to the mission, I can’t upset my Tallest or the Professor, but maybe I could just wipe his memory...”

That voice was Dib. Dib, the stalker who had turned out to be a real live alien. Dib, the kid (was he a kid?) who must have strapped him to a table.

_____

It had started out pretty easy- he’d already known where Dib lived from the one time Dib had dragged him there when they’d both gotten caught in an explosion and he’d wanted to help patch Zim up. All Zim had to do was use a taser to short out the electric fence and some hacking to get in the front door once he found the security frequency they were using.

It was child’s play, although it wasn’t like it would be easy for anybody else. Zim was special. He was always special, always better than everyone else. Dib had seen that. As annoying as he got at times, Zim was glad that at least he was annoying because he liked Zim.

However, things had started to go south as soon as he got inside the front door. There was a chubby little pig perched right next to it, and it sniffed at him before its eyes lit up bright red.

“STATE YOUR BUSINESS.”

“You talk?” It looked like a regular pig to him, usually talking animals were a lot clunkier and more robotic-looking.

“IRRELEVANT. STATE YOUR BUSINESS, HUMAN.”

“Seeing Dib.”

“NONE MAY PASS.” The pig jolted up on two legs, and Zim noticed a small zipper on its belly only moments before the pig grasped at it, yanking it down and ripping off its- costume? It didn’t look like any fabric Zim had ever seen- to reveal a silvery robot with burning red eyes. A dozen weapons, mostly guns and knives, popped out from its head, and Zim couldn’t bite back a yelp as he fumbled in his backpack for his own laser gun.

“I know how to use this thing, you know!”

“ANY THREAT TO THE MISSION AND TO MASTER GAZ MUST BE ELIMINATED.” 

Zim squeezed the trigger, but the robot- okay, it moved way too fast for a robot that size, Zim’s tended to blow up if they tried any fancy acrobatics, but this one flipped out of the way, his laser blasting a hole in the wallpaper instead. 

He took half a second to breathe before squeezing the trigger again and swinging it around, burning a line through the wall and couch before hitting the robot and getting a metallic shriek out of it as it lunged for him, pinning him down by the shoulders and making him drop his laser.

“ELIMINATED. ELIMINATED. ELMINATED.”

“Release Zim!” Zim kicked up and heard a metallic crack before he rolled to the side, thankful for those self-defense classes he’d taken as the robot plunged about fifteen knives into the spot where his head had been half a second ago. The red eyes narrowed at him before activating rockets in its feet, and Zim ducked as it swung with a giant mallet from its head. He dropped to the floor, fumbling for the laser and swinging it around to take another shot at the thing. 

The gun managed to blast one of the arms off, but that sure as hell made it mad considering he didn’t have time to dodge the second swing of the mallet. He saw stars for half a second before there was nothing at all.

_____

“Dib,” Zim croaked, head feeling rather like it was full of rats that had thrown a dance party inside his skull and left a mess all over the cerebral cortex. 

“But this is a perfect opportunity for some experiments, you wanted that, didn’t you Dib- huh?” Dib looked up from muttering to himself.

Or rather, the alien did. It was still wearing Dib’s trademark goggles that looked heavy enough to weigh his head down with lenses too dark to see anything underneath, but its skin was an even darker shade of green, and it had a pair of twitchy antennae. No nose, no ears, and it had donned a full-on labcoat that was soaked in a whole lot of red and black stains. He’d always kind of figured aliens were real somewhere out there, but seeing it... it was like reality had tilted a little to the left. There were more pressing matters than a crisis about aliens existing anyhow, and Zim was pretty good at repressing things he didn’t like.

It sounded like Dib, though, and the way it fussed with its hands was the same with two fingers and one thumb on each, same as Dib. ‘Machine accident’, his ass. 

“You’re awake?”

“Y-yes, I’m awake. Could you let me go?” His voice came out sickly-sweet and polite, like he was talking to the counselor again to convince her that he was fine.

Dib-alien shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I really would like to, but you know too much. Protocol is pretty clear- dispose of or brainwash all witnesses when the planet is marked for conquest. But brainwashing knocks out a lot of the intelligence, and that would be such a waste, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it would,” Zim agreed. “So let me off with a warning?”

Dib folded his arms. “Nope. But the fact that you actually held your own against a SIR unit for a full minute as a smeet- and one that I modified to be extra aggressive- just tells me that you’re still useful as a specimen.”

“Hey, I’m not a- a- smeeb!”

“Smeet, child, baby, whatever term it is you humans use.” Dib waved a dismissive hand, stalking closer and looming over Zim. His eyes were a deep, electric blue like an unsucked sour candy, and Zim squirmed under the restraints. “That table is where most of my previous experiments died, and I don’t want you to just be number thirty-six, you know?”

“Thirty-six? Thirty-six what?”

“Oh, this and that. Humans are good for experiments, they’re very determined to survive so you don’t have to use as many.”

“Well, so is Zim.” Zim tried to twist away, but something metallic erupted from Dib’s backpack like a dozen sharp insectoid legs, propelling him up onto the lab table before he dropped directly on Zim’s chest, driving the wind out of him.

“I’m well aware. You’re already a survivor, aren’t you?” He ticked off on his fingers, alien butt shifting on top of Zim a bit to get comfortable. “Barely any parental supervision, yet you create machines and work on biological experiments that are beyond the capability of most humans three times your age. You almost get blown up often and yet walk away from it. You’re an anomaly.” Dib leaned closer, and Zim could taste the sugar on his breath. “I like anomalies.”

Zim attempted to buck Dib off to no avail as he continued. “Find the exception and you’ll have found the thing of most interest, the thing that makes or breaks a species. The outlier the proves the rule, and you’re a human that behaves like an irken, showing just how far ahead of the rest of your species you are. According to my research, they’re going to burn when Gaz decides what to do with this place if they don’t destroy each other before she gets around to it, but I just might keep you as a pet.”

“Zim is no pet!” Even with little oxygen left in his lungs, Zim shouted, snarling up at Dib with his lip curled. “Earth may be terrible, but it’s mine, so back off!”

“Oh? So you agree that Earth is terrible?” Dib tilted his head to the side, one of those long antennae twitching, and Zim narrowed his eyes.

“You’re not very good at research, are you? Of course it is! But it’s mine, and I don’t want any buggy alien getting his sticky hands all over it!”

“It’s not exactly up to me,” Dib replied, hearing the wheeze in Zim’s voice and sliding off his chest to the table itself, and Zim sucked in a deep breath, feeling the air reinflate his squashed lungs. “Gaz is the one who’s actually invading, I’m just here to study the planet in case there’s anything useful. You’re a pre-contact planet, or at least that’s what’s logged, so this place is a treasure trove of undiscovered species. I’m trying to convince Gaz to at least set up a preserve so I can study some of them once she’s done with the invasion.”

“Are you even listening to me? I told you to bug off! Leave me and Earth alone!”

“I’m listening, but I told you, it’s not my call. Even if it was... you said it yourself, Earth is terrible. It would be far more useful to the Empire as a sugar-harvesting operation, or a zoo, or something else. Humans don’t really deserve to be in charge, they’re just going to blow themselves up eventually.” Dib shrugged.

“If I was in charge, you wouldn’t say that,” Zim muttered, and Dib’s antenna twitched again.

“What did you say?”

“I said, if I was in charge, you wouldn’t say that. I bet if everybody listened to me, you’d take that back. I’m a human and I know I could fix everything.”

Dib stared at him for a solid ten seconds, and Zim wasn’t sure he hadn’t spontaneously kicked the bucket. Did aliens do that? “You’re a genius. You’re a genius!” 

“Of course I am, but why?”

Dib smacked his hands on Zim’s cheeks, squishing his mouth in like a goldfish. “Of course, how didn’t I see it before? Your potential is stifled by the fact that you only have access to tools that you create, but if we worked together, you could help us because you have intimate knowledge of humanity, and I could help you by giving you limited access to my technology! We could be lab partners- I wouldn’t have to kill you, and you can help reshape your species for a better future!”

Zim blinked. “Does this mean you aren’t going to do horrible experiments on me?”

“I can’t promise that, but I’m not going to kill you right now.”

“Good enough for me!” Zim tried to shake Dib’s hand, before realizing that he was still restrained to the table. Dib leaned over, hitting a button just next to Zim’s head, and the restraints popped off. Zim rubbed his wrists for a moment as he sat up, mind still whirling.

This was a chance to fix everything, to make things the way that they should be.

“So, you won’t kill all humans, and you’ll give me access to cool tech.”

“I’ll consider your input on that, and I’ll give you access to cool tech.” Dib nodded, taking Zim’s hand, and a slow grin spread across Zim’s face.

“Then lead the way, Dib-thing.”

[emilx311]

Life Update

Hey all, so I pretty much vanished off the internet for the past few months (whoops sorry about that) but things have been crazy irl! Here’s a bit of a summary for those who were wondering what happened to me:

So, for context sake a few fun facts about me. I work as a night auditor at a hotel and have done so since August 2019, I graduated Uni with a degree in Justice Studies in 2018, and I have several minor but chronic health issues that lead to me being very low energy-ie having less spoons than a normal person and needing more sleep.

Aside from the issues already inherent with 2020′s....everything we had several more personal issues at my (I say my because I work there) motel. Mainly around staffing, and especially around night audit staffing.

Since I was hired we’ve gone through 5 or 6 other night auditors (I think? maybe more). And they often.....quit with barely any notice. So, being our only consistent night auditor I’ve been called in last minute several times over the past year leading to 6 or even 7 day weeks. (Not Fun!)

Even when we have had another trained night auditor with us they often also do day shifts since we only need them for 2 nights a week. Turn over for day-shift people has been barely lower than turn over for night shift, which has led to them having to be called in last minute to cover day shifts when people left which means I also had to be called in last minute to cover the night shifts they were no longer able to do, leading to us all working 6 or even 7 day weeks (Super Not Fun!)

In summary: I’ve worked more overtime days than I have had vacation days in this last year. Heck, the last time I tried to go on vacation for like 5 days I got called in every other day and my boss (our regional manager) paid me double for the shifts I worked and refused to touch my vacation pay because even he acknowledged that was in no way a real vacation at that point (this was at the beginning of September btw...)

This was all compounded when our general manager (gm) left in late July. Her reason for leaving was super fair since she got a better job offer, similar pay to what she was making, less work since she would no longer have to do all the duties our boss should have been doing but was instead pushing off unto her. Super sad to see her go but wished her the best (still miss her) :(

This left our under manager (gsm) and me as the main people in the hotel (ie those who have been there the longest, only the gsm and housekeepers had been there longer than I had at that point-and I had not even reached my 1 year yet). Which, not super great, but the other people we had were okay so we would manage. So the gsm and I held things together and started basically running the hotel (shout out to the gsm here because I love her and she is actually like 5 years younger than me but has accomplished so much more, I am in constant awe of her tbh). Our boss (who is....kind of dumb sometimes) realized this. We became his golden girls (he plays favorites hard).

It is at that point that someone above our boss’s level in the company (he’s in charge locally, but we do belong to a large corporation, ah capitalism) hired disaster #1 as our first new gm. Disaster #1 was creepily cheerful and utterly dismayed to find out his job actually involved him doing work! Like working at the front desk during his shifts and doing manager stuff instead of it just being him sitting in the back looking important and giving us encouragement occasionally. He payed no attention to his training. He did very little of his basic work let alone the manager stuff. He took credit and praised “the team” whenever something went right and pushed blame off him unto everyone else as hard as he could when something went wrong (I once pointed out he forgot to do something and he legit said to me “can you prove it was me?” I said “yes” very firmly.)

Now, as the auditor my job is to spot, point out, and fix errors. He hated coming in to to work after me because I spotted and pointed out everything he missed or did incorrectly. At first just because I happened to notice them. Then it became personal, he cornered me one morning at shift change and told me that he dreaded coming in to work after me because I was always so critical, and he had so much to do during his shifts other than just front desk stuff (he did not, most of the “manager” stuff he was even trained in doing at this point he shoved off unto the gsm) he then disparaged the gsm. I was done, I was pissed (you do not say mean things about my gsm, nope, not okay, I will cut and slab you*) and kind of hurt (why are you taking my corrections as personal attacks? Why are you saying I’m mean for doing my job?) So, if he wanted to make it personal I decided to make it personal and made it my mission to find and point out everything he did wrong, no more overlooking small things as I had been. The pressure of actually having to work made him quit (shocking, not!).

It was also around this time that I signed up for an LSAT prep course. Because I hate myself and now that I’ve been working for a couple years and have some money saved up I want to follow through on my plan to get either a Law Degree or a Masters Degree and so am working on taking the LSAT and applying to law schools. No, studying has not been going well, time and energy have also been preventing that.

Fast forward a couple months and 2 of our best employees went on holiday (one they had scheduled months before). It’s the start of January, they will be gone for two months. In that time our boss had hired our next gm, idiot #2. Just as these two leave the other front desk person we’d been training quits with no notice. We are short staffed....again (yay more 6 and 7 day weeks, ack). To fill in this gap our boss brings in idiot #3 from one of the other 2 hotels in the area our company owns.

Idiot #2 is semi okay, he is not manager material, even months after he was hired to be gm he does not have the training and is basically just a front desk agent. He is bad about doing things himself unless you specifically direct him to with very clear instructions, but he can do the minimum (although he failed the coffee test. After idiot #1 I wrote out very, VERY specific instructions for how to clean our coffee station....he is not able to follow them. The gsm and I joked about the coffee test after I first wrote the instructions, that someone actually failed it....we despair). So, he does not think ahead, do any extra, or solve many problems but at least he rarely creates problems.

This brings us to idiot #3. I do not know what goes on in his head (very little likely) but man oh man. Some examples: the time he-after being asked like 4 times-actually sign off on the checklist after cleaning the laundry room (as everyone is supposed to once a shift) but did so in sharpie instead of one of the many dry-erase markers left around the front desk for no other reason than the clearly laminated sign off sheet. Or the time he decided on his own to give someone a satisfaction refund, far larger than it should have been (which only managers and those with special permission can do in any of the hotels, so he should know better but somehow....)

We have a book for front desk to write messages on about issues for the next people. Usually we have a note or two on any given day. Pretty much every day he worked it was full and even going onto the next page. Idk how, it’s like he touched something and issues sprung up. and Guess who got to be the one to fix all of them (woooo).

For the past few weeks I have had 2 days a week where the only people who worked were me and idiots #2 and #3. It’s been horrible. In addition, my days off were changed for these months so I haven’t been able to meet my one bubble inclusive friend to vent like we usually do once a week, because that time no longer fit in my schedule. I have been living in exhaustive hell for the past couple months, and even before that as I tried to lighten the gsm’s load as much as I could as she took on a lot of the gm stuff. My house is a mess, tbh my life is a mess because work has left me so tired and stressed that I basically get home, shower, collapse onto bed, read a bit, sleep, wake-up, find some sort of food, get ready for work, go to work, and repeat. Even on my days off I’m sleeping 75% of the time and resting to try and shore up my spoons (of which I already have fewer than most people) to get through the work week.

tl;dr Due to ridiculousness I ended up unofficially co-running a hotel and it’s sucked up so much of my energy that all my free time is pretty much spent sleeping just to ensure I’m able to get through my work weeks semi-functionally. Everything about my life has been a mess, to the point where I’m legit not sure how I’ve been keeping myself fed, clean, on meds and just generally....alive.

[irrelevantwriter]

The Art of Foreplay

Pairing: Negan x Female Reader/You

Rating: Explicit, NSFW

Warnings: Language, Daddy kink, dry humping, mentions of bodily fluids, vaginal fingering, Negan’s impatient potty mouth (it is its own warning)

Word Count: 1638

Summary: Part 1. Negan is stressed so you decided to educate him on foreplay 101.

A/N: This is my entry for @negans-lucille-tblr​ 4k foreplay challenge! Congrats on the milestone! My chosen prompt was Dry Humping. I had so much fun writing this. I really missed Negan and his shit-talking so this was a nice reintroduction. I hope you guys like it. Feedback is that good shit. Enjoy and share with your friends!

Want more Negan foreplay?

*Check out part two: Acts of Service

*Foreplay series masterlist 

*Masterlist in bio.

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

You knocked gently on Negan’s door, listening for the low rumbling of his voice through the thick wood.

“Come in.” You heard him say, though the tone was much more subdued than what you were used to hearing.

You turned the handle and opened the door, your eyes still not used to such grandiosity in the middle of the apocalypse. Negan’s living quarters would’ve been considered luxurious even before the world went to shit. In the middle of the world ending, his place was a fucking palace compared to anything else.

Your gaze caught him hunched over his desk, a glass of brown liquid in his hand. His leather jacket was off, his armor discarded for the time being. He looked tired, exhausted even. The tension in his body was obvious, the weight of what was left of this world obviously sitting on his shoulders. The sight made you sigh, the need to comfort him suddenly overwhelming.

You’d caught a passing glance of him only an hour before when he’d passed the wives’ quarters, not bothering to stop and chat. It was odd for Negan to continue on without stopping to visit or flirt, especially with you. You were the new wife and had your husband captivated at the moment. Your refusal to sleep with him right away kept him glued to your side while he was upstairs. The man looked at it as a challenge, and you’d learned rather quickly that he loved a challenge.

“Hey, doll…” He greeted wearily, the grin you loved so much now lopsided and forlorn.

You stepped towards him, the cool feel of silk against your skin making you shiver. You wore a black negligee, the lace fabric barely hiding your nipples from view. You weren’t intending on sleeping with your husband just yet, but you’d been set on progressing your physical relationship. Every night for the last week and a half you’d been with Negan. There was an abundance of kissing and heavy petting, but nothing beyond that. You were taking your time, easing into the unique relationship you’d found yourself in. And Negan was patient and supportive, making your decision more difficult each time you left him at the end of the night.

“Come with me.” You softly demanded, not leaving any room for arguing. You grabbed at his hand, gently pulling at him to follow you.

“I’ve got a lot of fucking shit to do.” He protested, but his body followed you anyways. His hazel eyes took you in as he stood, his gaze burning your flesh with intensity. Not even fatigue could tamper his sexual appetite.

“I’m gonna help you.” You reassured, leading him to the sofa. You gestured for him to sit down, waiting until he complied before you crawled in his lap. He made room for you, his hands settling at your hips as you made yourself comfortable. Your delicately covered pussy made contact with his denim crotch, seeking out the hard lines of his cock.

“Giving me blue balls is not gonna fucking help.” He stated flatly, fingertips beginning to dig into the flesh of your hips.

“I’ve never given you blue balls. You always finish.” You corrected, unable to keep your hips still at the stirring of his erection. You might not be sleeping with Negan, but you didn’t leave him unsatisfied either. You both ensured that the other found release on your nights together.

Your hands gently traced over his face and trailed to the back of his neck, tugging at the hair there. His eyes were beginning to fall, the sensations ensnaring him like a predator hunting its prey. You could feel him relaxing beneath you, his limbs no longer tense with stress but now heavy with desire.

“Every day I don’t slide into that tight pussy, my balls get tighter.” He mumbled, eyes still closed and head thrown back. Your hips were still moving over his lap, but the rhythm was slow and torturous. You were already wet, the moisture no doubt seeping from your panties and onto his pants.

You felt a jolt of pleasure as your clit brushed the denim just right. A tiny gasp tore from your lips at the action, your body seeking out the source for more. You felt Negan’s eyes on you as he realized what you were doing. He licked his lips with a seductive swipe of his tongue, his hips arching to meet yours.

“You know,” You started, your breathing now labored against the rush of lust that had made a home between your thighs. “The art of foreplay has really been lost.”

Negan grunted, gaze still taking you in as you moved over him. “Really? How so?”

He was humoring your rambling, the mirth now back in his features as he guided your movements. You could feel him swelling against the zipper of his jeans, the slight thrust of his hips into your core making your insides ignite. You could feel your nipples pebbling against the lace of your nightie, calling to your lover. You arched your back and pushed your chest forward, inviting Negan to touch you.

“There’s something to be said about not giving in to what your body so desperately wants.” You whispered against his lips, relishing in the way his hands glided up your body. His attention was focused solely on you, his eyes hooded and glinting with need. The combination made you high, the adrenaline coursing through your veins and collecting at the apex of your thighs. You pushed back against his body, letting the soaked material of your panties rub against him. His movements faltered as you mimicked riding his cock, his jaw set in barely tamed ecstasy.

“Fuck, doll…” Negan cursed, hands pushing down the straps of your lingerie to reveal your breasts. He immediately attacked the flesh, mouth nipping and sucking as he tasted you. His tongue lavished your nipples with attention as you held him to you, unwilling to let him separate from your body. His lips traveled up your chest and over your neck, teeth biting down to leave a mark. You shivered at the sting of pain and the burn of his facial hair, the sensations only fueling your movements.

“You wanna cum on Daddy’s lap? Rub yourself against me until you soak my jeans?” He encouraged into your ear, his calloused hands grasping your breasts with desperation.

You moaned at his words, the low rumble of his voice making your pussy throb. You tangled your fingers into his hair, bringing his lips back to yours.

“You cum first, Daddy.” You challenged, taking pleasure in the way his eyes rolled when your hips rotated in a seductive loop. “Can’t you feel how wet I am?” You purred.

“Goddamn…” He groaned, hands back to gripping your hips. You could feel the wet patch you were leaving behind, feel his cock straining to bury inside your depths.

You moved your hands to the button of his jeans, pulling them apart. His mouth opened to question you, but the words died on his lips when you settled your weeping slit over his cock, the muscle still hidden beneath the thin layer of cotton underwear he wore. You could feel the heat radiating off of him, the barrier between you both hardly concealing the product of your arousal.

“Fucking fuck, baby girl…” He cursed harshly. “You’re gonna make me cum.” His hips jerked and his head fell back as you increased your speed, intent on making him do just as he’d said.

“Do it, Daddy.” You practically begged, feeling your panties slip inside you. You rocked against his solid form, maneuvering his cock so that he was pressed between your lips. Your swollen clit thanked you as it came alive with longing, your walls clutching around nothing.

You sucked ferociously at a patch on Negan’s neck, riding his clothed cock with new fervor. You could feel the tendrils of orgasm starting to surround you. His hands grasped your ass, his hips meeting your thrusts as he cursed between clenched teeth.

“Shit…” A deep groan released from his chest as his body began to tense. His hands held you to him, locking you to his spasming hips. You focused on the feel of him as his cock pulsed beneath you, the warmth of his release coating the front of his underwear.

His climax triggered your own, your pussy tremoring against his stiffness. A rush of sticky liquid soaked the fabrics that separated you both, creating a mess. Your nails dug into his shoulders while his forehead rested against your chest, the myriad of sensations taking you both prisoner. Euphoria washed over you immediately, the satiation that came with orgasm now settling into your bones.

“I haven’t jizzed on my fucking self since I was a pimple-faced fucking preteen.” Negan said with a raspy chuckle, his shaking body causing yours to move with his.

You laughed along with him, raising onto your legs slightly to avoid the overwhelming sensitivity that always claimed you afterwards. You pulled his face to you, caressing his stubbled face. There was a different type of tired that now painted his features, a contentment that let you know your mission was successfully accomplished.

“If that’s your way of saying thank you, then you’re welcome.” You quipped, teasing his lips with your tongue.

“I can properly thank you when you let me fuck that pussy raw.” He insisted with a devilish smirk, a long finger edging its way into your depths. You hissed at the intrusion, your body jerking at the feel of him.

“Patience is a virtue.” You moaned, your body betraying its own sensitivity. You bit your lip as he dared to push you over the edge again.

“Doll, you should know by now that there ain’t nothing virtuous about your Daddy.”

[umbry-fic]

A Palette Full of You (1)

Summary: Glimpses into Colette and Lloyd's lives as they grow up together, learn who they are, and fall in love with each other.

(Written for Colloyd Week 2021)

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel, Anna Irving, Kratos Aurion Relationships: Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving Rating: G Chapter: 1 of 6 Word Count: 6218 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 09/06/2021

Chapter Title: Castle Invaders!!

Chapter Summary: Colette and Lloyd enjoy a sunny day at the beach as children. A sandcastle is made, but does it continue to stand for long?

(Colloyd Week Day 1: Childhood Friends)

Notes: 1st chapter of my multi-chapter Colloyd week 2021 fic, featuring my headcanon of asexual Colette. It's also a modern AU set in Singapore.

Chapter list Full fic Next chapter

~~~

8-years-old

"Lloyd! The water's here!" Colette called out, setting down the heavy bucket filled with water next to Lloyd. Mission accomplished, and without a single hitch! Mostly. She wasn't going to mention how she nearly spilt all of the water when another girl's arm missed her by a hair's width. Or how her heart was still pounding from the close call. "We can get started with the sandcastle now." Lloyd was so occupied pushing sand into one giant pile that he hadn't even noticed her approach.

Having finally gotten his attention, Lloyd stared at her blankly for a few seconds before seeming to come to his senses. Scrambling to his feet, he began to shovel the pile of sand into the bucket. Overhead, a seagull's cry rent the air, barely audible over the screaming of all the children and adults on the beach that was packed to the brim, the two vastly different in tone. "Thanks, Colette! We might need another bucket of water, though. I don't think this is enough."

"Oh, I can -"

"Nah, I'll get the next one. It would only be fair!" Lloyd grinned a toothy smile at her, prominently displaying the gap from the baby tooth that had merrily vacated his mouth last week. She herself currently had a loose tooth that she absent-mindedly pushed at with her tongue, until she pushed too hard and caused a slight stab of pain. It would likely fall out soon.

"Come on, then! This sandcastle won't build itself alone!" Lloyd said, grabbing her hand with his, rough with the individual granules of sand sticking to it.

Colette giggled and joined him, attempting to lift some of the wet sand from the bucket to start making the base of their castle - only to find that the sand seemed to have solidified into one giant clump that refused to budge from its snug home. Every attempt to separate a tiny handful yielded a sucking sound that seemed to make the sand stick together even more, ever more determined to stay with their granular siblings. With a final huff, she put all her strength behind her arms - only to flop back down onto the beach with nothing in her hands.

"That's - hard!" Lloyd grunted, faced with a similar predicament and having no choice but to give up. The sand would remain in the bucket for the foreseeable future, it seemed. He wiped his hands on his red swimming trunks before offering it to Colette, helping her back up.

"Didn't think the sand would stick together this much," Colette muttered. This was why her father had advised them not to use a bucket, huh? She stole a glance towards the collection of colourful beach umbrellas that was close by, where their parents were taking shelter from the sun. They were sitting on the same striped picnic blanket where breakfast had occurred earlier, having a relaxed conversation over cans of lemonade while keeping a watchful eye on the two of them. Noishe was there too, taking a morning nap by the blanket.

Spotting Colette, her father waved cheerily, before taking another chug from his can.

She and Lloyd had been so excited to finally visit the beach during the March Holidays. They'd been jumping up and down on the car seats, sticking their noses into the window, and chattering non-stop on the journey here, giving Noishe, curled up on Lloyd's lap, no peace to sleep in. Her father, who had been sitting with them in the backseat, had just watched with an exasperated smile, having given up on asking them to calm down when his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

The two of them would finally get to see the breathtaking ocean they had witnessed multiple times when watching The Little Mermaid, their favourite movie to watch together. Lloyd loved the vibrant ocean and the possibility of an entire unexplored world full of magic under the waves. She liked the colours and the cute designs, and the absolutely beautiful story of true love overcoming all. They’d watched it one time too many, until Flounder and Sebastian easily visited her in her dreams.

Aunt Anna had made clear upon their arrival her two conditions for letting them in the ocean. Firstly, that an adult had to accompany them at all times. Understandable, given the terrifying power of the ocean with its roiling waves, that had only been impressed on her upon actually seeing it with her own eyes. Secondly, and expectedly, that they had to wait an hour after breakfast, the familiar argument of "You have to digest all those cheese sandwiches!" leaving Aunt Anna's mouth.

They might as well make the most of the one hour, so Colette had suggested building a sandcastle to pass the time. It was one of the activities that she thought was a must-do for a first-time beach trip. After all, where else were they going to find all the sand they needed?

Lloyd had happily agreed. She was glad to see him finally perk up after wilting a little at the reminder that he needed to wait - days were much better when they were both smiling, and it wouldn't do for Lloyd to spend his first time at the beach with a frown on his face. So they'd dug up the shovels and the buckets from the car's trunk and set out to make the best sandcastle ever, one that reached the sky! They weren't going to let their lack of experience hinder them!

Perhaps that goal was a tad too ambitious. But that sure wouldn't stop her from trying!

Having made zero progress in getting the sand out of the bucket, Lloyd resorted to upending the bucket and slamming on the bottom with his hands until the sand all came out in a single bucket-shaped mound. Colette spared a worried glance at the plastic bucket, which had let out a groan. She had no clue how sturdy it was. Hopefully, it wouldn't break.

"Come on, Colette, let's do this!"

"Yeah!"

Lloyd knelt to start tamping the sand into shape, and Colette joined him.

"Could you pass the shovel?"

"We're out of water again!"

"How about we try doing this?"

Those were the only words that left their mouths as they worked together, their hands brushing. There was also the occasional peal of laughter that slipped out of either of them at something funny the other had done. Otherwise, they were in perfect sync, without the need to talk. They could just adapt to the other's actions. She remained focussed on her task, tuning out the sounds of life around her and getting her hands covered in sand, until there was even sand under her nails.

The sun continued to get higher on its arc, its rays falling on all the bare skin revealed by her navy blue one-piece swimsuit. It felt like she was roasting alive. Sweat ran down the sides of her face and her throat was dry. A can of cold lemonade sounded really nice now. She was glad, at least, that their parents had insisted they put on sunscreen, and had helped slather the two of them in it from head to toe, Lloyd squirming the whole time. If not for that, she would surely have an excruciating sunburn by now. From what she'd seen of her classmates who had returned from last year's March Holidays with red and peeling skin, she was glad to avoid it.

They made steady progress, bar the few close calls where she nearly flung the shovel into the sandcastle. It slowly took shape with a few more water-gathering trips and repeats of the not very effective bucket-slamming tactic, until finally, it was complete. Even the bucket had survived all the abuse! Colette sat back on her haunches to observe their handiwork, a smile lighting up her face.

Their masterpiece.

Okay, it wasn't a masterpiece. It was nowhere near perfect, or even amazing.

A messy tower stood before her eyes, tapering from a wide base to a thin top. It was tiny at thirty centimetres high. From the middle onwards, the tower slanted to the side, a result of Lloyd pushing just a bit too hard. It resembled the Leaning Tower of Pizza now, but, just like that mysterious tower, their tower was still standing through some unknown magic. Using a random stick he’d picked up off the sand, Lloyd had etched a smiley face with wobbly lines into the side of the tower. He'd stuck the stick into the top to act as a flag, exclaiming that the Disney castle had a flag on top of the main building, so theirs would too! She'd also dug a trench, in which Lloyd had poured the extra seawater remaining in the bucket to create a moat. Now no villain could mount a successful attack on their castle! Not even the Goombas or turtles they stomped every weekend in Super Mario Brothers.

The moat had dried up in seconds as the surrounding sand had absorbed the water, but it was the effort that counted. And it looked cool for a while!

Their castle was pretty average compared to the other ones she could see on the beach, and most definitely was nothing compared to the grand, detailed designs she had seen that one time on TV. But she had fun building it, and it was something she'd made together with Lloyd, so it was worth being proud over. That was all that mattered.

It was nice to imagine their castle standing here for all eternity, even if she knew it wouldn't last once they left. She and Lloyd's castle, powerful and durable, even against the worst of enemies!

"Looks good!" A hand landed on her head, prompting Colette to look up and see Aunt Anna waving a polaroid camera around. She could see her reflection, wide-eyed and smiling, in the sunglasses resting on the bridge of Aunt Anna’s nose. Aunt Anna must really love that pair of sunglasses; she always wore them whenever she was driving her and Lloyd to school in the mornings. To protect her eyes from the sun, and to look stylish while doing so? Who knew.

Aunt Anna had put on a giant sunhat, the brim so wide that it cast a shadow over Colette's face. "Come on, let me take a picture of you two with the sandcastle!" Aunt Anna said, raising the polaroid camera to her eye and miming clicking the button.

After a bunch of poking and prodding from Aunt Anna to get them into the best position, with loud protests from Lloyd’s end, they were finally ready to have their photo taken. For the sandcastle to actually show up in the picture, they had to stand behind it. Lloyd looped his arm around her shoulder, while she gave Lloyd bunny ears with her fingers. She would never give up the opportunity to do so. "Say cheese!" Aunt Anna yelled, raising the polaroid camera with a massive smile and clicking the button, the camera emitting a flash of light that blinded Colette for an instant.

"Can I move now, Mom? And can we finally go swimming? Pleaseeeeee?" Lloyd whined, plopping back down onto the sand before he even received his answer. Colette blinked rapidly, still trying to get rid of the spots in her vision.

"Oh, the pictures are gonna turn out sooooo cute," Aunt Anna muttered, retrieving the printed-out polaroid from the camera and beginning to shake it, waiting for it to develop. She glanced at Lloyd, sulking in the sand, and gave him the thumbs-up. Lloyd perked up immediately and scrambled to his feet to run off, only to stop in his tracks after hearing Aunt Anna's next words. "Wait a moment, would you? Your father is gonna follow you and he's still coming over."

"Dad! Hurry up!" Lloyd yelled, impatiently hopping from one leg to the other as Uncle Kratos leisurely walked over. Noishe, having finally caught up on his beauty sleep, ran over too, barking in excitement. Colette giggled, crouching down and reaching her hand out for Noishe to bump his snout against with every round he made around Lloyd's legs. Would Noishe be joining them in the ocean? It was against the rules to bring dogs into the swimming pool, but there was no such rule here. Maybe Noishe secretly liked water! There was no better chance to find out!

And the more the merrier!

"No going further than the bobbing spheres, okay? And stay close to your father!"

"I know, Mom! I know! You told me this three times already!"

"Just checking," Anna replied cheerfully, ruffling Lloyd's hair and prompting a scowl to pop onto Lloyd’s face.

"You got it too, right?" Her father asked her, having come up behind her.

"Yes, Dad!" Colette replied, getting to her feet and preparing to run down to the ocean. "I promise I'll -"

Unfortunately, Colette didn’t get to finish her sentence. One small step forward and her foot caught instantly against the spare shovel still sticking up in the sand, which had completely escaped her notice. Everyone, even Noishe, stopped what they were doing. All three adults stretched out their arms in a desperate attempt to stop her fall, but they were too far away to have any hope of catching her. Flailing her arms, she fell, the world seeming to go by in slow motion as the tower of golden sand became increasingly larger in her vision.

Until she crashed right through the tower she and Lloyd had spent the last hour crafting, in her unstoppable path to face-planting on the beach. Her hand felt the roughness of tightly-packed sand as that sand exploded in every direction. Closing her eyes against the rain of sand, she threw her arms out to cushion her fall, finally landing on the sand.

The action now over, Colette pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing. No visible wounds anywhere. No blood. No lasting pain. At least the sand was somewhat soft.

Oh no… Heart sinking in her chest, she stared at the mess that had once been a glorious sandcastle, now just a sad misshapen mound of sand. The top of the tower had been scattered everywhere.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, an awkward silence arising even as noise continued to surround them. She'd ruined everything with her clumsiness again... She wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to hide out here in the open. Maybe she could dig a hole in the sand and hide forever...

"Colette! Are you alright?" Lloyd’s voice broke the silence, a helping hand offered to her as he stared down in concern.

"Yeah." She took his hand, using her other to try brushing off the grains of sand now sticking to her whole body. There was so much... She'd never get all of it off. She opened her mouth, ready to apologise.

“Come on, there’s no time!” Lloyd interrupted before she could even say anything, tugging on her hand as he had done before. She was being pulled in the direction of the waves, stumbling a little in surprise at the sudden movement. “Our castle was attacked by enemies, and they’ve fled to the water! We need to pursue them! Right?”

Lloyd winked at her, a huge grin on his face. She could read the message in his actions loud and clear: there was no need to apologise. Just get back to the fun!

“Right!” She replied, wiping the hesitance from her expression and replacing it with a smile, worries already forgotten. The ocean would be one solution to all the sand stuck to her skin!

“Race you!” Lloyd yelled, letting go of her hand and abruptly taking off. She cried out indignantly in response, chasing after him as fast as she could, Noishe following hot on their heels with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, ears flapping up and down. Their yells about being first to get in the ocean reached Kratos’ ears, who simply sighed at their familiar antics.

~~~

“Here,” Lloyd said, pressing something small into her palm. He and Colette were both drenched from head to toe from all the swimming and water wars that had occurred. The tips of her hair brushed her shoulders, leaving tiny trails of water behind and causing water droplets to slide down her arms. Not even Noishe had been spared, shaking his matted fur furiously. The water had been colder than she'd expected, but all the running around had helped to combat it. In fact, she was exhausted from all the activity, the smile on her face so wide her cheeks hurt and her throat hoarse from all the screaming and laughter.

Now that they were on dry ground again, they were standing by the picnic blanket, waiting for their parents to return with towels. Whereafter their parents would hold the familiar ritual of smothering them with towels, squeezing each strand of hair dry.

In her hand was a seashell, rough against her skin - not the stereotypical blue ones that were always on the pages of the Chinese textbook whenever the ocean was mentioned, with its fan shape and equally-spaced out ridges - but rather an off-white colour, fantastically curved with little spikes sticking out of it to form a geometric pattern. It had a gaping opening that revealed its pink insides.

“Dad said it's called a conch shell,” Lloyd explained. “Snails hide in them, but this one is empty. I found it just now!”

“Oh, it’s so pretty! I haven’t been able to find any...” She’d been scouring the beach to no success. The most she’d spotted among the sand were tiny fragments of what had once been seashells, smashed to smithereens by the wrath of the ocean.

“Put it against your ear! I tried it, and it really works!”

“The sound of the ocean...?”

Colette lifted the conch shell, aligning the hole with her ear and closing her eyes to listen closely, covering her other ear with her hand. She and Lloyd had read about this many times before - how a shell contained the entire ocean within it.

And it did. It was a strange, mysterious sound - like there was water within the small shell lapping against its walls, somehow, even though that wasn’t the case, for any water would have leaked out of the opening by now. It was almost like she herself was surrounded by the ocean, as the shell in her hand must have been as it was carried by the currents to stop on this beach. What a lonely journey that must have been, alone in the deep darkness.

She opened her eyes to see Lloyd’s smiling face, his hand gently pulling hers away from her ears.

“Did you hear it?”

“Yeah. That was incredible...”

“Well, the shell is for you.” Lloyd gestured, grinning.

“Oh, really?” She gasped. “No, you found it, so it should be yours!”

Colette tried to pass it back to Lloyd, but he refused. He only closed her fingers around the shell with his hand before hopping just out of arm's reach. Infuriating.

“Nah, it’s fine! Keep it! I insist!”

Colette pouted, knowing Lloyd wouldn’t budge on the issue. There were times she wished he wasn’t so stubborn. There was no way she was going to win this.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you one in return… I can try and find one now!” she suggested, already scanning the beach as she took a step forward.

“No need for that!” Lloyd reassured her, returning to her side and grabbing her arm to stop her. “Mom said we aren’t staying here for much longer after we’re done cleaning up. You can just make it up to me some other time.”

“Alright! That’s a promise, then. Thank you for the gift,” Colette said, feeling the ridges of the seashell dig into her skin as she tightened her hold. They had gifted each other little trinkets like these many times before, mostly curious objects they came across whenever they played at the playground. She kept every single gift from Lloyd, just as she would this one. Anything she got from her best friend was precious.

Colette could see the adults walking over in the corner of her vision, holding the aforementioned towels and… Popsicles! Oh, those would be delicious. But it also meant her time at the beach was coming to a close.

Colette knew she wouldn’t ever forget this day. This sunny day, filled with joy, fun and wonder…

~~~

28-years-old

"Remember this one?" Lloyd laughed, pointing to the open scrapbook sitting in his lap. His finger sat on a polaroid that was held in place on the page by 4 pieces of cellophane tape, one of which was crooked, and another of which was starting to peel. Colette tapped her finger on the yellowing polaroid as well, recalling how she had gotten it from Aunt Anna and proceeded to stick it in her sketchbook. Words filled the rest of the page, denoting the events of the day, together with a doodle of a seagull sitting on a giant seashell. If she recalled correctly, this was one of the last pages of her scrapbook before she'd gotten too busy to keep it up. It was fun while it lasted, though, absolutely cramming the border of each page with a horrendous amount of washi tape.

She and Lloyd's happy faces peered up at her from the polaroid, a tiny, not very impressive sandcastle visible in front of them. The weather on that day, a foggy memory but not forgotten, for it could never be truly forgotten, couldn't be any more of a contrast to the rain currently slapping against the windows of their apartment, turning the world outside into pure white as the rain obscured all. The wind howled and caused the window panes to rattle in their housings. The air was chilly, fogging up the windows and further blocking their view of the world outside.

Colette should have been shivering on the bed in her denim shorts, but she was nice and toasty instead, legs covered by a thick blanket. She was resting against the backboard, legs stretched out, hair falling to mid-back in messy tangles. The blanket itself had the sewn pattern of dogs doing various things: jumping over fences, dozing off on clouds, running with bones in their mouths. It was adorable! And most of all, it reminded her of another dog who used to run circles around her feet and snuggle on the blankets with her, but who was no longer with them.

She’d even gone the extra mile and put on socks and a hoodie. Lloyd had taken one look at her and… hadn’t done anything else, because this was normal behaviour from her when she was cold. He’d long since accepted it.

Plus, she was leaning against the ultimate source of warmth! Lloyd, who was also under the blanket, legs pressed snugly against hers. Just as always, he could somehow survive the cold in just jeans and an old T-shirt, showing absolutely no signs of being affected. No shivers, nothing. It was impressive. He took "warm-blooded" to the next level.

Her entire body still felt tingly from the cups of hot coffee that Lloyd had brewed in the kitchen earlier. He’d done hers perfectly without even having to ask, the knowledge of how to do so having long been ingrained in his memory. “Precisely half a teaspoon of sugar and half a cup of milk,” he’d said in a sing-song manner, the warm orange of the kitchen’s ceiling light falling upon him and his gentle smile as she’d stood next to him cutting apples. The rhythmic sound of the knife hitting the cutting board, the clinking of the metal spoon against the side of the porcelain cup, and the thudding of raindrops against the window had been the only sounds filling the kitchen.

They’d drunk the coffee first, backs against the countertop and their eyes meeting across the rims of their cups, his hand finding hers in the little space between them. The hot liquid had slid down their throats with ease, settling warm in their bellies. Having drunk his coffee all at one go as he always did, Lloyd had waited for her to finish. He hadn’t said a single word, preferring to maintain the comfortable silence. The only thing he’d done was rub her fingers with his thumb.

They’d then taken turns popping the apple slices in each other’s mouths, the flesh crunchy when they sank their teeth into it, the sweet juice from the fresh fruit a refreshing contrast from the bitter liquid they’d just consumed. Lloyd, as messy an eater as always, had left little bits of apple at the corner of his mouth like tiny yellow spots that she’d had to brush away with her fingers.

Today was Sunday, the day where they both didn't have work to do, unless they were handling some big project with a pending deadline, and had some time to themselves. Their favourite activities to do on this wonderful day of the week included marathoning Disney movies, playing video games together, and going out to their favourite destinations. They also weren't opposed to just lounging on bed together, or taking some alone time.

But today was also a rainy day. She'd actually been woken up by the first claps of thunder in the early morning. The rain had no business being this heavy after the conclusion of the monsoon season, but Mother Nature was fickle, and they could do nothing but accept their given lot. No going out to the Botanic Gardens as they'd originally planned. The only thing they could do was stay home, unless they wanted to catch a cold on purpose.

It was Lloyd who had found her old scrapbook in a corner of their room while aimlessly wandering around the apartment, the book having gathered a thin layer of dust that made her sneeze when he brought it over. She'd forgotten it was sitting on one of the shelves. He had suggested looking over it, since they had nothing better to do. They had just gone through Frozen, Tangled and The Little Mermaid last week - the plots were still fresh in their minds. More fresh than usual. She could recite the entire script of The Little Mermaid from memory if she needed to.

What better time was there to reminisce than with their second anniversary coming up? What better place to do so than in the bedroom they shared, its corners teeming with keepsakes and memories, absolutely overflowing with their love for each other? Just being in here for a minute was enough to make her heart feel warm.

The framed pictures hanging on the walls and sitting on the nightstand - of them and their parents; of the two of them under a sky full of stars; of them and their friends, laughing and popping bottles of wine, fitted in elegant dresses and stylish suits. There were many more pictures, kept in the various albums lining the bookshelf above the bed, which she occasionally took down to look through on days when she was feeling rather nostalgic. Staring up at her from the pages were contented faces from all throughout time, allowing her to track her progress from days long past to the person she was today.

The Siberian Husky plushie she was currently hugging to her chest. The soft fur felt incredible to the touch, and it was so comforting to just run her hands through the fur, tightening her fingers on tufts of it. Behind those beady black eyes were more, however, a significance that no one else but herself could see. A precious memory of a carnival and the time they were finally honest with each other; a step she had been terrified to take but which she’d mustered up the courage to, in order to join Lloyd at the other end of the open door and grab the encouraging hand he offered her. She had stumbled many times along the way, but Lloyd had steadied her every time. She’d gambled on the chance, but it had all been worth it - for she had managed to find her home in Lloyd, and it had all led to the beautiful life she led today, where she got to see his happiness every day.

The wall painted over with galaxies, swirls of pinks and purples and blues, and a single adorable dog in a spacesuit, which they had hand-painted when they first moved in until they were both splattered with paint and giggling.

And of course, the two matching, nondescript metal bands, one lying atop the other on the nightstand.

"You destroyed the sandcastle not soon after, right?" Lloyd said.

"Hey!" Colette pouted, poking Lloyd's side. "Don't tease me."

Lloyd shifted his body away from her attacking finger, still smiling warmly. "I'm not teasing you. I'm just stating what happened." He turned around and retaliated by poking her on the nose, sending her reeling back in a fit of giggles. "It was fun, though!"

"It was," she agreed, struggling to hold back further laughter, bubbling up within her chest like an uncontrollable fountain. “You gifted me a conch shell afterwards. Remember?”

“Of course I remember, silly. It’s sitting on your shelf right now.”

That it was. She’d kept it all these years, the passage of time causing its colour to fade. In all other aspects, it was perfectly conserved, looking just the same as it had on the day he’d pressed it into her hand. She lifted it up to her ear sometimes, just to listen to the sound of the ocean.

Colette flipped to the next page of the scrapbook, looking over all of the memories contained there. Her childhood had been filled with joy, in no small part due to Lloyd, who took every opportunity he could to make her days fun-filled and exciting as he strived to make her face light up with a smile. There were moments where she was suddenly overwhelmed with a great sense of gratefulness for the fact that, out of an infinite number of possible outcomes, she had met Lloyd when she was young. For she was so incredibly fortunate, more fortunate than most, to have met someone who loved and accepted her for everything that she was.

She placed one hand on his cheek, fingers splayed, and turned his head to face her, his warmth spreading through her cold fingers from that one point of contact. Lloyd leaned automatically into her touch.

“Colette...?” Lloyd whispered, leaning automatically into her touch. His eyes searched hers, as he slowly came to understand what she was about to do. This close, she could make out each individual eyelash, attached to the eyelids that fluttered closed over russet eyes. Most people would conclude Lloyd was plain. Average, even. There’d been people who asked her upfront why she’d chosen to settle for him, when according to their honest opinion, her beauty could have landed her much better. They didn’t understand. She was the one fortunate enough to know his love and the miracle of such an incredible person staying by her side when there were so many things she couldn’t give him. A relationship with any other person would have been easier for him, filled with far less of a need for compromise, but he’d chosen her in the end.

Besides, there was beauty in plainness. The daisies that were ignored in favour of the orchids, the mynahs that were overlooked for the orioles. There was beauty to be found there, in the most ordinary of things, the ones people saw every day and had ceased to notice. It was a beauty she itched to capture.

Lloyd, to her, was the most beautiful of them all, a rare treasure that had somehow landed in her hands.

“Shh,” she whispered in return, eyes fluttering shut as she closed the small distance between them. She pressed her lips against his slowly, trying to push behind this one action - the gift she was currently giving - every ounce of the love and appreciation she felt at the moment, enough to fill her heart to the brim. It’d been a while since she’d done this. Two months, maybe? It was a little overdue, having slipped her mind for a time as it always did, no matter how hard she tried to remember. If not for the reminder that had pinged on her phone this morning and made the issue fresh in her mind again, she might have gone another month. She’d have to give him more soon, as per her end of the compromise they had both agreed upon when they’d first started dating, which had served them well all these years. He'd said before that he was alright with getting nothing at all, but that didn't sit right with her. She didn't think it would be fair for him to be the only person giving something up.

Kisses and anything further were always up to her to initiate, since Lloyd, as he’d told her time and time again, wanted her to be comfortable in everything she did. He’d never forced anything on her, content to wait patiently for her to feel ready, whether it be in an hour, a day, a year, or never, perfectly willing to compose their entire relationship on quiet moments spent together and nothing more. She still occasionally struggled with the idea that he was far more than she could ever deserve, even as he gripped her hand tightly and told her she was worth everything. It was getting better with every day she spent in his loving company, the extensive wounds left on her heart in her younger days by a world that told her she would never be enough slowly starting to heal. There would always be scars, but those would fade one day until they were barely visible, until the twinges of pain could barely be felt.

Lloyd’s lips were a little chapped from the cold, unmoving against hers, still tasting faintly of the sweet apple slices from thirty minutes ago. All in all, a pleasant experience.

After a second of shocked stillness, Lloyd came to life again, a small sigh leaving his lips and brushing against hers. His hand came up to cup her ear, his fingers curling in her hair as he kissed her back with nothing but gentleness, always mindful of her boundaries and never pushing her any further. Of course, he had boundaries too. If he’d decided to pull back, she would have respected it. It was the bare minimum she could do for him.

Thirty seconds passed and she pulled away, though not too far, opening her eyes to stare into his. Their hands remained where they were, connecting the two of them.

“Where did that come from?” His words became butterflies, brushing their soft wings against her lips. He tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers stroking the skin above her ear with the tenderness he always showed her.

“I just felt like saying thank you.” For everything. For all their years together. For all the love he showed her. For the knowledge that Lloyd would continue to stay in her life, for the rest of her time on this wondrous Earth.

Not that long ago, she would have broken away and covered her face with the plushie that was still in her arms, cheeks flushed and too embarrassed to meet Lloyd’s eyes, preferring that he talk to the plushie instead of her. Much like the first kiss, unconventional as it was, that they had shared. Now she could stare unflinchingly with confidence to witness the happiness that bloomed like the most incredible flower on his face.

“Thank you. For the gift,” Lloyd replied, always seconds away from showing his appreciation.

“Shall we look through the rest?” she asked, removing her hand from his cheek to cover the one he had placed on her face, her fingers slotting in perfectly between his as she smiled sweetly.

Here was her sanctuary, where all she knew was serenity and the warmth of loving and being loved.

“Let’s.”

~~~

“Mm.”

Lloyd froze in the middle of flipping to the next page of the scrapbook, watching Colette with eagle eyes. Had he…

But she didn't seem to have awakened. Not really. She made no other sound, only tightened the hold of her arms around his midriff, her face buried in his side and the rest of her lying on her side on the bed. He'd resorted to holding the scrapbook up in order not to accidentally jolt her out of her peaceful sleep. So far, his arms had not started to hurt yet.

Lloyd heaved a sigh of relief, tucking the entirety of the blanket tightly around her shoulders, leaving himself uncovered. Now, swaddled in the blanket, she resembled a cocoon. Adorable. And also what tended to happen each night, as she ended up stealing the blanket eight nights out of ten.

Satisfied that Colette was soundly asleep, Lloyd returned to perusing the contents of the scrapbook, a small smile playing on his lips.

And silence reigned supreme, interrupted only by quiet breathing and the crinkle of paper.

~~~

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