#some downsides with it is that it can crash every now and again and it is pretty difficult to learn where stuff is in the beginning

[ashie-on-starboard]

OOOOOO I LOVE THE ANIMATION!!!

“Oh, its not tonight. Where you hold me tight”🪶

Can anyone recommend any free animation software? I can only do so much in Procreate :,)

[cobaltperun]

R and Tara have been friends for a long time, you could even call them best friends.

Ever since moving to new York, Tara made a habit to go to parties more and getting more shit faced.

In that state she is more handsy and flirtatious and Y/N is the person who suffers from her wrath.

I hope it's a prompt you can work with 😊

Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts

Tara Carpenter x GN Reader

Summary: Drunk Tara is flirtier than she usually is, and you, as her best friend, have to deal with it.

Masterlist

Word count: 1.1k

You couldn't believe this was happening again. What was it? Like the fifth time this month? It was eleventh! Barely a third of the month has passed and you already had to drag Tara back to her and Sam's apartment for the fifth time! At this point you might as well accept that you were Tara’s unofficial babysitter.

"You're really adorable, you know," your drunk best friend blurted out, like she usually did. "I like your eyes," she continued. "And ears," not exactly the first thing you usually heard, but she was drunk, and it wasn't the first time she was like this when drunk. In fact, she was like this every single time and it would be adorable, if she wasn’t drinking this much. "I wanna wear your shirt," she was a hundred and ten percent, way too drunk. "You're real quiet," she hiccupped for the hundredth time since you got her to leave the party with you.

"And you're drunk like a skunk," you sighed, stuck between being done with this bullshit and not wanting to let anything bad happen to Tara while she was this drunk. Who were you trying to fool? You’d take this any day if it meant making sure Tara was safe and sound.

"I'm not a slut," she slurred as you gave up on dragging her and just lifted her up on your back. It would be faster anyway, and Tara was light, and liked being carried. It made her feel like she was taller.

"Not a skank, Tara, a skunk, the animal, the stinky one," you corrected her softly.

Tara hummed. "'Kay, I don't stick either," she sounded sleepy, well, at least you hoped she'd fall asleep, and you could avoid the other... downsides of taking care of drunk Tara.

"You reek of alcohol," you still told her and she just leaned her head on your shoulder and mumbled something unintelligible, though she did hug you tightly.

With a sigh you reached her building and began the daunting task of climbing up the stairs to her apartment. Sam was upstairs, being pacified by Mindy and Chad while you took it upon yourself to bring Tara back. Because, for some reason, she tended to listen to you, maybe it was because you've been best friends for years now.

You felt like your soul would evacuate from your exhausted body as you reached the apartment doors and leaned your forehead against the bell, too tired to do it properly.

"Damn it, Y/N, you don't have to push the bell into the wall!" Mindy exclaimed as she swung the door open, but you just grumbled and staggered toward Tara's bedroom.

From the corner of your half-closed eyes you saw Sam, her face a mixture of worry, relief and righteous fury. And you had no strength for what she was likely planning. "Scold her when she wakes up, Sam, I wanna get her to bed and crash on your couch," you had a long day, you just wanted to take care of Tara and go to sleep.

Sam probably gave up only because Tara was sleeping on your back.

You opened the doors to Tara's room and went inside. Luckily, Chad turned the lights on for you and closed the doors.

"Tara," you tried to wake her up as you just barely managed to get her on her bed and start taking her shoes off. "T," you tried again. "The Captain Dook Baba," you sighed and she sat up like she was a vampire rising from the grave, or Wednesday fucking Addams or something.

"It's The Babadook," she corrected you and you just shrugged.

"Great, whatever, just get changed," you sighed, dropping down on her bed just for a moment, just one minute for your legs to recover from all those stairs.

"You want to watch me change?" she teased you, cackling drunkenly as she turned onto her side and began brushing her hand along your arm.

"Tara," you groaned, not really in the mood to handle her drunken flirting and touching. Though her touch did feel kinda nice, it definitely always relaxed you. She was your best friend, but, well, you were in love with her, but you never did anything to show it, fearing you'd ruin your friendship. And when she flirted with you while she was this drunk you kept turning her down, because she never showed interest when she was sober, so you didn't want her to do anything she'd regret.

"It's okay if you do," she leaned in, whispering close to your ear and you just buried your face in the blanket.

"Fuck, how do others deal with you when you're this drunk?" you complained, not even wanting to imagine how the twins dealt with her. Well, Chad probably gets flustered, and Mindy probably just shuts Tara down right away

"Hmm, only with you," she somehow managed to get up and you heard her taking her clothes off.

"Wha?" you mistakenly turned your head just when she took her shirt off and quickly turned away. You felt like your cheeks were burning and you just caught a glimpse of her, and your heart was hammering in your chest, partly because of the implications of her words. Only with you? What exactly did she mean by that?!

"I only act like this with you, cause I really, really like you, Y/N," she sounded a bit less drunk as she said that, and your heart skipped a beat, but you couldn't dare to hope, you just sighed and waited until she changed and got into her bed again.

Only then did you get up. "Damn it, Tara, why can't you just say that when you're sober," you sighed, believing her to be asleep. She was always quick to fall asleep when she was this drunk.

"'Cause you keep rejecting me when I'm drunk and I don't wanna get rejected when I'm sober," she mumbled and you looked back at her, surprised.

You stared at her, somehow her eyes looked much clearer, though it was probably a temporary thing. You still leaned closer to her and pushed a strand of her hair out of her face. "Tell me again when you're sober, or don't, I might flirt first for once," you told her with a bit of a grin on your face and she nodded sleepily, a drunk, but happy smile, appeared on her face as she got more comfortable on her bed.

A/N: Well, Anon, I hope you like this, I took some liberties with the request, as you can see, so I hope you don't mind.

[kiruliom]

how to load psds on ibispaint!

this was made with coiners in mind but will work with p much every psd so no worries if you wanna use a base or a sticker pack in a psd file (note, since its important, psd files meant to change the color of an image only load as intended through photoshop and photopea, so youll need either of that for them, not any other drawing programs.)

first of all: where to find files?

honestly, there isnt a clear answer. you can find some for most of them through just seeing if the coiner has linked any. most of them will be linked through file hosting sites, most common is drive or deviant art, but I used catbox for a while then switched to filegarden personally. the user @daybreakthing has took upon solself to turn a lot of more complex flags into psd files, so you can find a lot of them on sols old and current deviantart page (linked in their pinned)

the only downside for deviantart is you HAVE to log in to download the files. it is free however and you dont have to do much else.

for this tut Ill be using the nonhuman x for x flag psd by daybreakthing, (coined by sol as well, on melabea)

^^^ this guy

now onto the actual tutorial:

youre here likely because you already tried it, but its good to go over what not to do, and the results, anyway.

if you try to open it like a regular file, you will get errors, often more than one.

its important to note that psd files, while still considered image files, have no previews (except on drive) so they will look blank or empty. no worries about that, they will load properly.

here is what to do (or what I do, anyway)

go to your gallery, google photos, or another file manager (like just files or an external file manager)

Im using google photos bc my device's gallery wont let me share psd files

select the image, go to 'share', and pick ibispaint. theres a chance it wont pop up in the first screen, so just press the more option.

if ibispaint is not an option, try another image or file manager!

it will ask if you want to convert the file to ipv, select yes!

and thats all!! if all goes well it should be in your gallery when you open ibispaint. keep in mind it may crash once or twice when you first try to open it, just clear your app history cache thing and try again! (ibis paint is held together by duct tape and prayers)

I hope that helps!! if you have questions or problems, never be afraid to ask, I love to help!

tagging @idwl since their anon had a question related to this and I was directed to, to help :3

sorry about the amount of clutter with the red arrow and circles and pixelated stuff, I wanna obscure irrelevant or personal stuff while making sure people dont miss anything important.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

yes the plants take the gem but what does that have to do with sonic and tails can you explain I'm very intrigued

i'm assuming you're referring to this post!

In the anime Sonic X, the third season was dedicated to a completely original story. (also obligatory "please watch the subbed version, the dubbed version got censored heavily" mention) The spoiler-free version is that group of aliens in fucked-up robot armor, led by Dark Oak, descend on Mobius to try and steal the Chaos Emeralds. In attempt to save the universe from these freaks, Super Sonic scatters the emeralds across the galaxy before crashing to the planet (he's fine tho). The aliens, known as the Metarex, then attack the planet and steal something from its core, causing the plants to slowly wither and die.

Around this time, a refugee from space crashes on the planet, looking for Sonic. An anthropomorphic plant, her name is Cosmo and she is the last survivor of her race after the Metarex attacked her ship. She knows Sonic as the only person who can control the chaos emeralds, and begs him to help defeat the Metarex. Turns out these guys have been planet-hopping and genociding as they go, but their main goal is to steal the Planet Egg, which is a magic thing at the core of each planet that keeps it alive and thriving. She currently doesn't know what they're using them for but it's not for anything good. And, well, now they're hunting chaos emeralds... and, as we find out later, making fake ones.

Tails happens to have a spaceship so the whole gang goes into space to fight the Metarex. This takes up the entire season and it fucks severely. Again, the English dub was heavily censored; the og Japanese has constant death and shit. In the last of the spoiler-free bits, I will say that if you have ever heard of "Dark Sonic"... this is where he appears.

The entire season is extremely dark but extremely well-written, which makes it very popular in the fanbase. Ian Flynn has previously stated he wanted to adapt this arc to comic but Sega wouldn't let him; us seeing the Chaos Emerald surrounded by plants, along with fake chaos emeralds and Dark Sonic-implications, is making us wonder if Sega's let up and we might get this arc after all.

Now, spoiler version, though I really do suggest you watch the subbed version of this season bc it's a fucking masterpiece:

We find out late in the season that Cosmo and the Metarex are the same species. In this species, the sexual dimorphism is a different "final stage" of their life cycle. The "male" plant-creatures enter their final stage as basically a kaiju, in order to defend their society from threats; the "female" final stage is turning into a giant fuckin tree in order to reproduce with seeds. The downside is that once you enter this final stage, it is FINAL, and you die shortly after.

However, when their planet was attacked by an unseen threat (it's never clarified, but a lot of people theorize it to be the Black Arms considering Shadow 05 was about to drop), they were all about to get wiped tf out. Dark Oak started experimenting with the Planet Egg in order to stay permanently in kaiju version without dying. His wife, Earthia (or "Ashia" in Japanese, but it just translates to "Earthia") is fucking horrified that he's fucking with the life of their planet like this. While he convinces the "males" to join his side, Earthia escapes with the girls and bombs their planet to kill Dark Oak and his new monsters. They survive though, and Dark Oak starts leading them to steal more planet eggs.

Turns out their plan is to use the power of the eggs and chaos emeralds (fake or real) to do a full-scale attack on the entire fucking universe, which will kill all animal-people and turn every planet into overgrown plants. We actually see some characters from a Shadow one-off episode being killed and violently turned into trees in one scene. Fucked up. That's what they want to do to everything.

And Cosmo? Well she didn't just happen to be a survivor; turns out Dark Oak spared her from the attack on her ship, semi-possessed her in order to spy through her eyes and ears, and yeeted her down to Mobius. He's been using her to spy on the Sonic Crew this entire time, against her will and without her knowledge. It fucks everyone up a WHOLE lot.

Anyway there's like a three-part finale where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are desperately trying to keep these fuckers from Mass Genociding. Finally, Cosmo realizes that she's the only one who can stop this and sacrifices herself; she goes into her Final Stage, turning into a tree but trapping Dark Oak in there with her (it's a long story, he kinda turned into a meteor). She then appears to Tails, the ship captain, and tells him to fucking shoot her to kill both her and Dark Oak, saving the galaxy.

The problem is, Tails and Cosmo have had a bit of a romance over the course of the season. It's been fucking adorable, and Tails became extremely protective of her after Shadow tried to kill her (long story). There's an uncomfortably drawn-out scene (and I mean that in the best way) where Tails is like. Emotionally broken and trying to figure out any way to do this without killing Cosmo. Eventually, he has to give in and fucking shoot her, blowing her and Dark Oak up. It saves the galaxy but traumatizes the hell out of him.

Super Sonic and Shadow contain the blast, and Super Shadow chaos-controls it away and disappears (this is likely bc they were setting up for the Sonic Heroes arc, where Shadow would have to appear out of nowhere again). When Sonic returns to the ship, Tails meets with him, desperate for him to say he saved the day last-minute and brought Cosmo back. Instead, all Sonic could find was a single seed– considering how the Metarex reproduce, it's probably Cosmo's child, but it's never clarified. This causes Tails to have a complete fucking breakdown.

The season p much ends there. They show everyone starting to heal on Mobius, have a bit where the anime-exclusive character Chris has character development and leaves to go home, and then go "and now we're going to have more adventures!! yay!!" before panning to a potted plant in Tails's workshop, showing that the seed has sprouted.

As I said, it's very dark, but VERY good, and thus we all really really hope that it's what Sonic IDW is building up to. They've been building up fake Chaos Emeralds, Tails blaming himself for things outside of his control, and Sonic being 110% done. I didn't even get into the Dark Sonic stuff, cause it only appears briefly in one episode and then is never mentioned again, which you'd think would be bad writing but no it just raises so many questions and you know that was what was intended by it.

The arc is really beloved but because it only appeared in a 2005 anime (which was heavily censored in English, and the og Japanese didn't air officially until a couple years ago), not a huge chunk of the fanbase knows about it. Which means we really want to share it and get more people into it and how good a character Cosmo is. So yeah that's what we're excited for.

[pandorasfavorite]

Unintentional

Kinktober Day 11: Accidental Stimulation

Your outfit was snug, your thighs and ass being squeezed by the black leather, the unfortunate downside of being in The Judgement Day. The outfit did you justice; although, it was slightly uncomfortable you felt and looked great, all eyes were on you and Dominiks was drilling holes into every inch of your body. Every step you took his eyes followed, and when you got too far he paddled behind you, his focus not slipping. Dominik was clinging to your side the whole event like usual, but with more protectiveness, his glare got intense when Solo got closer and he stood up straighter preparing himself. You put a hand on his bicep, squeezing the muscle and giving him the look; a comforting look but you were also daring him to not listen to you. Dominik meets your eyes and relaxes some, opting to wrap an arm around your waist for the duration of the mic work.

The match starts like normal, a disrespectful comment and fists fly. And the chaos was intense, no one knew where to look there was so much fighting. In the middle of the ring you get thrown on your back, you laying straight; opting to take a breath while you still can. What wasn't meant to happen was for a body to come flying towards you, Dominik comes crashing down, your eyes are enormously wide and you swear you are about to get seriously injured from the mistake. Hes inches away only for his hands stopping his fall, one of his hands are planted on either side of your head and your faces are just inches apart but the rest of your bodies are pressed against each other in just the right places. From the publics point of view it is cute, sweet even the way you both stare at each other in surprise and bashfullness. But you and Dominik knew something that everyone else didn't, you feel Dominik getting hard from above you, his boner pressing right against you.

The proximity is so close that the heavy breathing of shock and arousal forces your chests to meet and light hues of red to form on both of your cheeks. Dominik rolls off of you and stands up quickly, shaking off his embarrassment and offering a hand to you; now more shy than before. You grab his hand and fly up the same, you both going off in different directions to wrestle, back on track for the time being.

From the sidelines Dominik is pacing just a tad, not too out of character but still noticeable. Hes taking deep breathes; yet his eyes are still shifting over to you every second he can manage. The match continues just a little longer... the expanded time being torture for Dominik and the tightness of his pants against him now. The Judgement Day comes out victorious and the celebration in the locker room was surprisingly short, everyone was tired... ready to turn in and celebrate tomorrow. Despite the plans everyone lingers just for a while, Dominik is standing by the couch: shifting on his feet uncomfortably and his face is flushed with arousal. You stand beside Dominik, you hold onto his arm again and tugged him to the side; further away from the groups listening ears.

You tug Dominik harder on the arm just enough for him to lean down; your lips are next to his ear while you whisper to him, "I wasn't trying to get you worked up, you know?". Dominik's face is immediately brighter but he's never not been one to flirt back. “But God, you do it so easily”, he pulls back with a smug look, still close enough for privacy. “Imagine me laying on the bed with nothing but your shirt on”, Dominik becomes more serious, “Behave”, he warns to no avail, already frustrated that he can’t fuck you right then and there. You shrug, smug; you walk to stand in front of Dominik only for your ass to press against his straining cock, no one has noticed but they would soon if you both didn't leave right then and there.

Dominik grabs ahold of you and excuses the both of you from the group, you don't make it far. Dominik pushes the bathroom door open and pushes you both inside, locking the door behind him; then, instantly slipping his mouth onto yours, lips pressed together and moving, his tongue brushing against your rhythmically. Sighs and grunts of pleasure are muffled by each other's mouths. Dominik leans back to fumble with your outfit, tugging and pulling it off until it gets tossed onto the sink. Dominik walks you both backward, and your lower back hits the sink, a surprised gasp slipping past your lips when you pull away from him.

Dominik was a sight to see, his eyes wild and feverish when he looked back at you and your lips, his hair was pushed out of his face but messy like you loved it. Thoughtlessly Dominik pulls his cock out, his pants down his legs and his hand kneading at your waist; pulling your body inevitably closer. He strokes his cock at the sight of you, back arched and legs wrapped around him, pulling his closer to your aching pussy, wet and dripping. His cock slips against your cunt; disgruntled groans and wispy moans fill the small room, "We have to be quick", you whisper into his ear, your lips lingering on the skin of the tattoo on his neck.

Dominiks own moan is barely repressed, "You will be", he says lowly, cock slipping into you. You moan instantly, tugging at his hair and leaning against him, rocking your hips against him. Dominik huffs and thrusts up into you, his cock stretching you out and pumping deep inside of you. "fuck- you're stretching me", words fumbling out in a moan, the stinging stretch making you clench around him. Dominik groans at the words of praise, knowing he's making you moan and writhe on his cock, his back stretching from your nails dragging down his back in ecstasy. "God, you always know what to say. Such a good girl f'me", he grunts with every thrust, a hand holding you up and pressing below your stomach, a welcome pressure.

"You feel me up there mami?", he kisses your neck and collarbone, attached to you.

"Yes", you manage to gasp out, your body quick against him as your moans get louder and more pronounced. Dominik puts his hand over your mouth, while the other hand moves and presses against your wet clit. You hold your own hand over him, closing your eyes tightly and moaning, hips stuttering as you rut against his cock. "Fuck, need you to cum amor, please please please", he says in a plea, feeling the way you're squeezing around him and pulling on his hair harder. His hips buck up uncontrollably when you cum, and his groans and moans are nearly loud as yours when he cums after you.

[stillbeatingheart]

thought about burning the past (chapter 2)

Also on ao3

Summary: Billy is a cat, Eddie is a bat, and Steve is just trying to keep everyone alive now that they are again.

I don't see any warnings that apply, but this is post Upside Down, established polycule, Harringroveson, also it's crack so don't take it seriously

Chapter one

Chapter two under the cut:

Billy's got it made.  No job.  No school.  No father.  No social constructs to adhere to.  So he’s gotta put up with Eddie’s constant chipping and chattering all day.  His attempt at stunts that he can’t pull off.  And his crash landings onto Billy’s belly.  But if Billy wants affection, all he has to do is climb up in Steve’s lap.  If he wants food, all he has to do is brush against Steve’s ankles.  If he wants attention without physical contact, he just hops up to the counter and knocks shit off to the floor.  His biggest expenditure of energy on any given day is having to move every so often to follow the sunny spots on the floor, or the couch, or the table, or the counter, or the bookshelf, or Steve’s bed.  It’s just really not that bad of a trade-off.  

Billy spent his life, after his mom left, being the sole focus of Neil’s anger.  Trying to fit into what his father expected of him.  Then he finally had a plan, a summer job, and a savings account to get the hell out of Hawkins and out of Neil’s house in the Fall for college.  Only to have the Upside Down fuck that all up.  He has no idea how long he was down there.  He spent all of it in some weird comatose state where his mind was bogged down with visions of things he wasn’t using his own eyes to see.  Surrounded by false reality and being kept alive by the Mind Flayer for some super special evil plan to take over the world or whatever stupid shit villains are always after.  Billy doesn’t care, he doesn’t need to know, and he wants no part of stopping it if it ever comes down to some heroic action necessary.  He already played the hero card by trying to fight the Spider Monster with his bare hands.  And he died.  Or sort of died.  

So why the hell would he want to go back to his human form?  That’d be stupid.  Nothing good has ever come of being in his skin.  Maybe the fur is the way to go.

Billy rolls over onto his back, kicks his legs up and closes his eyes.  That’s the other great part about being a cat, he can sleep.  He can sleep anywhere, any time, and in any position.  

Eddie doesn’t seem to be any worse or better off either.  He doesn’t seem in any rush to get back to his human body.  He’s terrible at those wings and Billy thinks it’s a waste that he’s the one who gets to fly.  Though if Billy had wings, he’d be the fuck out of here.  Going back to nature and surviving that way without the smallest trace of a human life at any point.  

Billy’s left back leg twitches and wakes him, just enough to blink one eye and make sure Munson is still hooked on the ceiling light and not about to dive-bomb Billy’s belly.  

He’s a good looking cat if he does say so himself.  Of course his soft fluff is irresistible to Eddie and Steve.  Steve has a bad habit of messing up the fur on the top of his head, running his palm back and forth like Billy is a dog asking for a head scratching.  But all Billy has to do is give him a glare, lick his paw and smooth the fur back out for him to get it.  Not that it stops him the next time.  The idiot always smiles when he’s scratching Billy’s head, so if he has to admit it, then it’s not bad trade.  

The licking though.  That’s the biggest downside.  Licking his own body to get clean, and getting fur-balls stuck in his throat.  Of course, he just pukes them up on Steve’s sock or in his shoe or something anyway, so at least it’s amusing.  For Billy.  And Billy is truly all that matters.

Eddie appears to still be sleeping.  Lazy fuck.  Billy closes his eye again and makes himself comfortable.  He wonders if Eddie is starting to miss anyone, maybe his uncle.  Billy only met him once but he seemed like an actual decent human being - which is a strange new concept for Billy when it comes to adult males.  And maybe Eddie’s missing his bandmates or his nerd club.  For being a freak and an outcast, the guy’s got a pretty big group of friends.  

Billy doesn’t miss a fucking soul.  He never did.  Except for Steve and Eddie.  When he was allowed reign over his own mind, it would always drift to the two of them.  Then one day Eddie appeared there too, Billy couldn’t tell him to run, to stop fighting and just get the fuck out.  He couldn’t tell Steve either.  Or any of the idiots that kept coming down there.  He couldn’t say a thing.  The one small mercy the Mind Flayer had on him was not to use him as a weapon against anyone other than Max.  Max is one thing, Billy knows she’s a tough bird, he’d never tell her that, but he knew that she’d see through the Mind Flayer’s shit when he was using Billy as a puppet.  If Billy had been used against Steve or Eddie, he’s not sure they’d have fared so well.  As it was, Eddie didn’t exactly fare well considering he also “died”. 

They couldn’t communicate with each other down there.  They could see each other through the Mind Flayer’s eyes though.  It was much worse watching Eddie trapped than it was being trapped.  

Then one day the captivity was severed and they were here, in Steve’s place, in bodies that didn’t belong to them.  It was like waking up after a super long and vivid nightmare only to realize that shit was still not right.  Billy doesn’t really care though, he’s not Upside Down anymore and being a cat just ain’t that bad.  

He refuses to speak though.  He did it once when they were alone, just to see if Eddie could understand him, and he sounded so fucking stupid meowing that he never tried it again.  He can’t control the purrs, doesn’t really mind them either since they’re truly soothing for both him and Steve.  Maybe Eddie too.  Not that he'd know since Eddie always chooses the moments of deep relaxation to interrupt in increasingly more obnoxious ways.  

Billy slants one eye open, sometimes just thinking of the asshole makes him act up, like Billy’s brain pokes Eddie’s with a little needle every time he dares think his name.  Eddie’s wing is over his face.  Perfect.

Billy gives in this time.  Allowing himself to fall deep into sleep, his purring the only sound in the room.  And then a bowling ball falls on his bared belly.

His body reacts, curving into a shape that only a cat body can, grabbing Munson by the head with his claws and pushing into his body with his back-feet.  Billy holds him there for a second, right in close to his face, bares his teeth and glares.  He waits until the cocky little light in Eddie’s eyes gives way to a tiny flash of real fear and then he pushes him away.  Eddie rolls across the floor, under the couch and squawks, the type of chatter that sounds like a little kid tattling on another.  

“Fuck you, Munson,” Billy sighs as he lowers himself back down to the ground on his side.  he flips his tail and waits.  Knowing he’ll come out soon, he’ll make himself small and act all shy while he approaches Billy, like his animal nature is what made him do it and he was not in control of his actions at all.

“Fuck you too,” Eddie responds and then nearly shouts, “Wait, I just understood you!” as he’s scrabbling across the floor on his wings and feet, “Did you understand me?  I just heard you, Billy, I got that, and it was in English, tell me you got me too.”

Billy lifts his paw, keeping his claws in and holding it in the air over Eddie’s head.  Eddie cowers back a bit, stands on his feet and opens his wings to show that he’s innocent at the moment and not planning any attacks.  He tilts his head to the side and wonders again, “Can you understand me?”

“Yes,” Billy admits begrudgingly, “and it was much more peaceful before that happened, so let’s go back to just chirps and shit.”

“Ha ha Hargrove,” Eddie rolls his eyes and takes a step closer.  Billy keeps his paw hovering in the space between them. “Okay, I get it, I’m annoying.  But I don’t deserve to die - again - just for disrupting your sleep.”

Billy snorts, pushes his claws out.

“Fine.  Fine.  Maybe I do considering I’ve been doing it daily for weeks now.  But it’s so funny when you startle, you make it like a full two inches off the ground and your’e just a big furball and not at all the intimidating figure you are as a man, I have to get my shots in when I can take them.” 

Billy sneers, showing his teeth and Eddie takes another step back.

“I didn’t say not at all intimidating, I only said not as intimidating.  Or something close to that, hey, that’s not what we should be focusing on.  We can understand each other!  Billy, we can understand each other!  That’s fucking metal, man, c’mon, we’re one step closer to figuring this all out, and I haven’t heard your voice in so, so long that I almost forgot what it sounded like so can you say something now and interrupt me so I know I’m not imagining this?”

“Fuck off Munson,” Billy responds but finally puts his paw down on the carpet, kneading into it a few times before laying his chin on top of it.  If bats could smile, Eddie’s dimples would be showing by now.  

He hobbles over on his wings and feet, nudges Billy’s face with his own and admits, “I love when you cuss me out, baby.”

Billy could probably admit that he missed hearing Eddie’s voice, that he missed being able to speak.  Instead, he licks his sandpaper tongue right up the center of Eddie’s face.  Eddie squawks in protest and spreads his wings out wide to throw them over Billy’s face and attach himself there.  

Inevitably it starts a brawl, they're still at it when Steve opens the door and steps in.  Steve sighs, runs a hand through his hair, points a finger at them and opens his mouth to reprimand but Eddie hollers, “He started it!”

“I doubt that,” Steve responds.  Then freezes.  Completely.  The fact that he just understood what Eddie said dawning on his face, his mouth falling open and his eyes bugging. “Wait, did you just… did I just… can we understand each other now?  Or I guess you’ve probably understood me the whole time, right?  But can I…”

“Yeah, baby!” Eddie responds from where he’s still trying to push Billy’s paw off his belly, pinning him to the floor.

Billy only releases him when Eddie decides to nip at his toe.  He whacks Eddie across the face with his claws in, then gets up to walk over and sit on his sunny window ledge.  He needs a bath after all those bat germs got all over him.  And he’s not sure how he feels about this new development.  Being one step closer to being human again seems a lot more negative than positive.  He wants no part in figuring it out.

chapter 3

Also on ao3

[fromdevcom]

In this digital day and age, most people work on computers every day as part of their job and/or use tech for personal reasons, whether to communicate with friends and family, engage in social media, watch videos online, research goods and travel or something else. While computers have brought a lot to our lives and transformed the world for good in many ways, there are numerous downsides we all recognize, too. In particular, cybercriminals are cleverer than ever at finding ways into people’s systems, so they can steal data, learn information and crash networks. In particular, a digital threat that has become among the most dangerous and expensive in recent years is ransomware. Each year, millions of individuals and businesses around the world are affected by this kind of attack, and they lose money as well as time and energy. As such, it’s vital to take steps to increase your online security so you can keep hackers at bay. Read on for a rundown on what ransomware is and how it works plus some tips for how you can best protect yourself. Understanding Ransomware This particularly nasty strategy used by hackers in recent times is designed to make them money and sometimes to purposely cause victims to stress, too. It works by cybercriminals breaking into computer systems remotely and then holding for ransom the data they get access to. Hackers make money from this scheme by stopping people from using their own information. Thieves tell owners the only way they can get their data back, or access their systems again as if they pay the hackers a set amount of money. Typically, hackers break into computers, use their tech expertise to boot users off their own systems and put new logins in place that owners won’t be able to guess. They contact the people involved and tell them they must pay a ransom to receive the password that will unlock their computer (or website or blog etc.). Alternatively, hackers break in, give themselves an encrypted copy of all the files on the computer or network and then delete the original versions. They then tell owners a ransom must be paid for the data to be reinstated. On occasions, cybercriminals take a different path and steal confidential files, which are more valuable and which could be embarrassing or life-destroying if they got out. They threaten people with the news that they will release the information to the public domain unless a ransom is paid. This often covers things like trade secrets, patents, risqué photos and videos, and legal documents. One of the big problems for victims of ransomware, apart from the obvious stress and loss of time and money, is that hackers don’t always stick to their word. Even if people go ahead and pay the ransom, this doesn’t guarantee that information will be returned or not leaked to the public.  Tips for Your Safety It’s obviously vital to protect yourself as best you can from this kind of threat. One of the key steps is to install security software on your devices, so it’s much harder for cybercriminals to get access to any of your files. Also, regularly check over your devices to see if they already have viruses or other types of malware installed on them, which hackers could use to gain access. There are many great malware removal programs on the market now to choose from. Another tip is to create strong passwords for not just all your computers and Wi-Fi router but also the sites you log into online, where hackers could find a way into your systems. Passwords need to be at least twelve characters in length and made up of a mixture of numbers, letters, and symbols. Update these passwords often as well as the various security software and other programs you use on your computers. If these aren’t updated, security gaps can form and hackers can find ways in. It’s also imperative that you back up your data. This way, if you ever do get stung by a ransomware attack, you won’t be so stressed, lose so much time or have to pay the ransom. When backing

up, do this to a storage system separate to anything in your home and not connected to other devices. It helps to both back up to the cloud and have a physical storage drive you keep offsite to be safe.

[sleepiexx]

Valeria Garza x fem reader. Reader and Valeria get into a argument and reader ignores Valeria for an entire day.

Pushover

Valeria Garza x fem!Reader

Note: I love the way you think anon, some angst with some hurt comfort after it. Hope you like it!

Summary: (Y/N) has a hard time standing up for herself, this brews trouble for her when inevitably there is an argument in her relationship.

Warnings: arguing, self-depreciating thoughts

Word count: 1923

(Y/N) was a pushover. She knew it. She’d known since about the third time she made friends with someone who only ever put her down and had a hard time standing up for herself. Although she knew it, she still couldn’t stop herself. To her it felt like she wasn’t in control, like she was watching a car crash from the back seat.

This problem became basically null the second Valeria Garza came into her life. Like a guard dog on the prowl, Valeria stayed right next to (Y/N), willing to defend her at any given moment should conflict arise, verbal or otherwise.

This, as most things do, came with a downside; (Y/N) never truly got over her pushover tendencies and now arguments with Valeria were near impossible.

It was never truly an argument, really, how can you argue with someone who always caves and lets you win? Because of this, emotions went unchecked, leaving room for them to fester. What was originally only a small annoyance became a black hole eating at (Y/N)’s mind at all hours of the day.

With time, Valeria only became more protective. It was sweet at first, being so loved, safe, and protected. But once the near 5-month long honeymoon phase of the relationship wore off, (Y/N) quickly found herself annoyed.

It seemed now that she never had alone time. Every waking moment was spent with Valeria, who she loved but could only spend so much time with before she went stir crazy. Don’t get (Y/N) wrong, she was literally obsessed with her girlfriend and she loved her very much, but Valeria wouldn’t even let her go to the store by herself, and god, she felt like a kid again, needing to hold mommy’s hand to cross the street.

It was only when Valeria suggested getting (Y/N) a full time bodyguard that everything boiled over and she snapped.

“Fucking Christ, Valeria, I’m a grown adult, I don’t need someone following me around every hour of every day!”

Valeria straightened her posture, eyes darkening as she tried to keep her cool.

“All I want is for you to be safe, (Y/N).”

(Y/N)’s eyebrow twitched, a clear sign of her blatant annoyance, “It’s always that excuse with you, isn’t it? You ‘just wanted me to be safe’ when you scared off the first friend I’ve tried to make since we got together, you were ‘defending’ me when you got us kicked out of that bar because you didn’t like the way some guy was looking at me, and now, as if your presence isn’t suffocating enough, you want me followed by someone who will report back to you with everything I’ve done all day? You are so beyond paranoid, it’s actually fucking insane.”

Valeria tried to understand her, she really did, “Where is all of this coming from?”

But unlike usual, (Y/N) was not willing to step down, “You! Valeria, it’s coming from you! It’s like ever since we got together you won’t leave me alone and I’m sick of it! I need some privacy once in a while, you’re acting fucking crazy!”

“I have done nothing but protect you since we have met and you want to call me crazy? Without me, your weak ass would have gotten yourself killed. Call me suffocating and insane all you want, (Y/N), you need me.”

(Y/N) stood there with a deep glare etched into her eyes as Valeria seethed. Suddenly she felt as though she were trapped. She didn’t want to be here anymore, she could feel tears beginning to gather in her waterline but she would be damned before she let Valeria see her crying after all of that. She turned on her heel, grabbing her things and beelining it towards the front door.

“Yeah, run away,” Valeria spat, “run away like you always do the second shit gets a little bit tough.”

And (Y/N) did, not sparing so much as a glance back to Valeria’s house after slamming the door and making her way to her car. She wasted no time in starting it up and speeding away as fast as she could.

She didn’t know where to go, but what she did know was that she didn’t want to go home and she absolutely could not return to Valeria’s.

She ended up pulling into a random parking lot 20 minutes away from both her own and Valeria’s houses, finally allowing herself to break down.

Tears flowed freely down her face as sobs echoed throughout her empty car. Her thoughts ran a mile a minute, arguing with herself about everything she had said.

Was she too mean? God what was she thinking, of course she was too mean, she probably just lost the best thing in her life. She should have just let Valeria win, why did she say all of that? She didn’t really think Valeria was crazy, a little suffocating, sure, but crazy was pushing it. How could she say that to her? She loved Valeria, and she just threw it all away like that. Valeria probably didn’t even want her anymore.

She sobbed harder at the thought.

“Please, please, please don’t leave me,” she cried to herself.

She’ll have to put together one hell of an apology. Even then, there’s no telling how Valeria would react. She was right, (Y/N) did need her. This was the first time she was truly alone in months and yet she felt so, so awful. She thought she wanted this, but now with the threat of losing her girlfriend over her head she was so incredibly lonely.

She was broken out of her pity party by the buzzing of her phone. One look at the screen and she could see Valeria’s beautiful face and caller ID.

She couldn’t talk to her, not yet. What if she said another stupid thing and dug herself a deeper hole? What if Valeria broke up with her over the phone? She couldn’t bare the thought.

Instead of answering, she took her phone and turned it completely off, stuffing it into the depths of her purse. She started her car back up and drove home in complete silence, tears still running down her face.

Once home, (Y/N) sat in bed wallowing in her own thoughts and self hatred. She only got up once, to use the bathroom which in a shocking turn of events proved to make her more upset.

As she tugged off her pants, she was met with a dark red stain in the seat of her underwear. She was on her period. To her, this discredited everything she had said.

Maybe she was the crazy one. She just let all of her hormones get to her and make her yell awful things at her loving girlfriend. Valeria was right, she was weak. Just an idiot who couldn’t help but ruin everything good she had in her life. What an emotional wreck.

After putting on a pad, she changed clothes and sat under the covers, sobbing into her pillow.

Before she knew it, night fell and she realized she’d been moping around all day, only worsening her mood. A loud knock at the door made her flinch, snapping her attention in that direction.

As she made her way to the door, a small part of her hoped it was just a door to door salesman there to sell her on the “world’s best vacuum technology,” or even maybe just Mormons. But the majority of her yearned for it to be Valeria.

She had no clue what to do and no words prepared for when she opened the door and it revealed Valeria, standing on the porch sporting a down trodden look whilst holding a bouquet of flowers.

Valeria’s head shot up, half shocked that (Y/N) had actually opened the door. It was clear that (Y/N) had been crying for a while with her puffy red eyes and her sniffle, and Valeria felt so incredibly guilty. For what felt like the first time in her life, Valeria was at a loss for words.

“What are you doing here?” (Y/N) asked awkwardly.

Valeria cleared her throat, attempting to push aside all self-degrading thoughts and put together an explanation, “Well you weren’t answering your phone and I, uhm, I really wanted to say that I’m sorry for earlier. I said some awful things to you that I didn’t mean and it was wrong of me.”

(Y/N) quickly shook her head, fully believing that she and she alone was to blame for the argument.

“No, I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that.”

Valeria’s eyes saddened, “don’t do that, (Y/N).”

(Y/N) stared, confused, “do what?”

“Don’t back down. You never let yourself believe that you are right, even when you are.”

“But I wasn’t, Valeria, I’m on my period and I’m being a bitch.”

Valeria frowned as the words left (Y/N)’s mouth, “Don’t call yourself that. Sweetheart, just because you’re a little hormonal right now doesn’t mean your feelings were any less valid. I was being overbearing.”

“You just wanted to keep me safe,” (Y/N) whispered.

Valeria shook her head, “And I will get you enrolled in some self defense classes as soon as possible, but smothering you wasn’t the right way to make sure you were safe. I’m so sorry.”

(Y/N) pulled the door open wider, a silent invitation inside. One which Valeria gratefully accepted.

(Y/N) nodded, looking up at Valeria with sad, yearning eyes, “Can we uh, talk about this more tomorrow maybe? I’m starting to cramp, and I’m tired, and I really just want to snuggle with you right now.”

Valeria smiled warmly, so very happy that things weren’t over, “Of course, my love. I’d be happy to.”

(Y/N)’s heart warmed. She took the bouquet from Valeria’s hand and nodded towards the bedroom, “I’m going to go find a vase for these, I still have your clothes in my closet so you can go ahead and change into something more comfy while I do that.”

Valeria nodded and went off to change while (Y/N) filled a pretty glass vase with water and placed the flowers as a centerpiece on her table. She smelled one, admiring Valeria’s choice in flowers.

“Are you ready to come cuddle?” Valeria asked from behind (Y/N), causing her to jump. She quickly nodded and followed Valeria to bed.

Once settled, Valeria wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, rubbing patterns into her skin.

“Where are you hurting?” Valeria questioned.

“Huh?”

Valeria rubbing lightly at the skin on (Y/N)’s hip, “You said you were starting to cramp, is it your back? Breasts, tummy, hips?”

“Oh,” (Y/N) muttered, “tummy.”

Valeria’s fingertips drifted to (Y/N)’s stomach, slowly rubbing and kneading at the skin. (Y/N) sighed in relief.

Valeria desperately wanted to apologize again but she knew not to bring it up. Not when (Y/N) asked her to wait, and certainly not when (Y/N) was finally relaxing into her touch. Instead, she made certain that (Y/N) knew how much she cared by whispering sweet nothings into her ear and rubbing her stomach all throughout the night until the both of them inevitably fell asleep.

They would have plenty to discuss in the morning but for now, they could enjoy being with each other and knowing that neither of them wanted to break up.

[kirawaswrong]

ocean wave blues come

summary: Things at work have been hectic, but you and Chuuya can find solace even in the smallest moments.

pairing: chuuya nakahara x gn! reader

genre: fluff, comfort

word count: 1.4k (A shorty, but a goody!)

warnings: Language, slightly suggestive at one point

note: Hello! Thank you so much for your support on my other fics. This is just a little sweet idea that kind of came out of nowhere and I had to get out. Also maybe next I’ll write a proper smut fic. Hope you enjoy!

Working for the Port Mafia had its perks. There was notoriety, the pay was good, and everyone in Yokohama knew not to fuck with you. The job also had its downsides. Every day, the violence you faced would be enough to make most grown men cower in fear. Your safety was never guaranteed. It was hard to get close to coworkers, as they may not live to see another day. But as hard as those conditions were to endure, they became part of the job.

The past few weeks had been particularly tough. Many goods were being traded at once. The exasperating ADA kept interloping on mafia turf. And, within the organization, traitors had to be dealt with on a daily basis. 

While you and your peers were being run ragged, you could only imagine the stress Chuuya was under.

Chuuya Nakahara was an executive of the Port Mafia. He had to a short fuse, could come off as abrasive, and was a threat to any enemies that crossed his path. And he was also your boyfriend.

He’d been your trainer, which was why you were so good at hand-to-hand combat. The two of you became close and began dating shortly after training ended. 

It was important for both of you to separate your work and romantic relationships. Chuuya was still your superior, and you gained no special treatment from dating him. Though you were friendly during working hours, you showed no displays of affection. Per your mutual request, Mori seldom sent you on missions together. 

This made the last few weeks hell for your relationship.

At the end of a long workday, Chuuya would often give you a ride back to his place. He’d open up an expensive bottle of red wine and pour two glasses. You’d overlook the city in his penthouse and talk about your day. Bitching about work and how stupid some people were often help you both feel better. If that didn’t work, taking things to the bedroom often did. His heavy-lidded blue eyes peeked from between your thighs. He did unspeakable things to you with his fingers and his tongue. It was hard to remember your worries when he scrambled your mind.

Those nights were nonexistent now. You rarely got off of work at the same time. When you did, you were both so exhausted that you went to your own homes and passed out.

On a busy Wednesday morning before work, Chuuya texted you. He invited you to have lunch in his office. This was something you’d never done before.

Part of what made the chaotic weeks so difficult was that you saw Chuuya at work all the time. He headed a meeting at least once a week. You’d walk by him in the halls, going in separate directions. Sometimes, he was the one who ordered you to go on missions. Getting to see him as a coworker and not as your partner somehow made it worse.

The proposition of lunch meant at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time together. It felt like a life raft entering the vast sea when you’d been treading water for days.

As you limped back from dealing with a vendor who tried to refuse to pay up, you noticed Chuuya’s office was empty. A weapons trade was falling through and he had to go deal with it in person. Work had once again snatched the life raft away. Before you had time to be too upset, you were off on another mission.

At long last, the day was over. The moon hung low in the dark sky. Hardly anyone remained at the base. You knew you should consider yourself lucky, as others would be working until day broke once more. The thought of showering and crashing into your bed was heavenly. As you collected your things, a light at the end of the hall kept your attention. Chuuya’s office.

You had been under a lot of pressure, but you wondered how much more Chuuya must be under. Were the past few weeks even that difficult for him? He’d been at the job much longer than you. His strength and perseverance were admirable, but how did he do it? 

Before you could stop yourself, you were knocking on the oak of his office door. 

“Yeah?” he called out.

For a millisecond, you regretted it. Not out of fear, of course. The days of finding Chuuya intimidating were far behind you. You worried that bothering him may have been the last thing that he needed. What if he wanted to be alone?

With all this in mind, still you peeked inside. 

His office was tidy as usual. An original piece of artwork hung on the wall. His coat and hat hung on a rack by the door. The maroon pillows sat just so on the velvet settee. The anomaly was the mahogany desk, which hid beneath stacks of paper and manila envelopes. Chuuya slouched over the mess, pen in hand. He looked up after receiving no verbal response. The edge in his eyes disappeared and a crooked grin replaced his scowl.

“Hey,” he said. “Come on in.”

Entering his office, shutting the door behind you. Dark circles underlined his eyes, but the brightness in them warmed your heart. 

You leaned against the wall. “Long day?” 

“That’s one way to put it,” he sighed. “Heading home?”

“I was about to. When are you off?”

He glanced at the chaos that was his desk. “At least two more hours.”

“Damn,” you said. “That sucks.”

He chuckled at your bluntness. “All in a day’s work.”

You tried to chuckle along with him.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry I missed lunch.”

You shook your head. “It’s fine. Did the trade go through?”

“As well as it could,” he said. “What’d you end up eating?”

A smile tugged at the corners of your lips. “A burger and fries from downtown.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again!” You laughed. “It’s tasty, okay?”

“Wouldn’t kill you to eat a vegetable every now and then, you know?”

“Chuuya,” you trailed off with a playful eye roll. 

“You’re the one that complains about how junk food makes you tired,” he said. 

“Yeah, yeah. Guess I won’t tell you I had a milkshake too then.” 

He made a show of shaking his head at your unhealthy eating habits before checking his watch. “Getting pretty late. Need me to walk you to your car?”

You looked at this man, with his rust-colored hair. The man most of Yokohama knew to fear. The man who cared so much for you, in his curmudgeonly way. Though neither of you said the words “I love you” often, they showed in every action you took toward each other. 

“Actually,” you said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Shrugging off your coat, you put your bag on his couch to emphasize your point. 

“Babe,” he said in a soft tone of voice only you had the privilege to hear, “We can’t do anything. I gotta get this shit done.”

You gave a wave of your hand. “I know.”

His eyes trailed you as you retrieved a book from your bag. You took one of the chairs from the front of his desk and placed it next to him. After sitting down, you guested to the stapled sheets in front of him.

“Please, continue.”

“I won’t be good company,” he protested.

“I’m okay with that,” you said. 

He leaned back, raising an eyebrow. “You’re really gonna sit there for two hours?”

You sighed. “Yeah. I don’t give a shit what you’re doing. As long as I can just be here with you. But, if you want me to leave, I will.”

He blinked, mentally going over what you said. Then the grin reappeared. “Nah, I don’t want you to leave. Sit there and stare all you want.”

You snorted and lifted your book. “I’ll stick to reading, but thank you.”

Chuuya resumed his work, focusing hard on the papers before him. His eyes followed the inky words before he signed the dotted lines with a flourish. 

A few moments into reading your book, warmth and calluses encased your hand. Glancing over, you saw his eyes still raked over the papers. Without missing a beat, he raised the top of your hand to his lips. The tender kiss he pressed to it was the only affection he’d ever given you at work. 

“I’ve missed you, you know,” he murmured, eyes still on the sheaths of paper. 

You squeezed his hand. “Missed you too.”

He nodded and gave a slight smirk. He lowered your entwined hands to the desk and continued working. 

An hour later, you drifted off to sleep. When Chuuya finally finished his work, he drove you home.

[mrpenguinpants]

Xiao and Diluc: Opposites Attract HCs

Minor spoilers for Xiao’s and Diluc’s backstory.

Yes, more xiao content. Oh and Diluc. Diluc is there too. I wonder who my favourite child is? Honestly, it’s probably Childe. Every time I write “child” I end up misspelling it to “childe”. It’s consumed me. But yes anon I love the opposites attract trope. It’s so nice having person A be this cute cinnamon roll and person B is the ew don’t touch me go away I hate you, just mwah 💕

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Today’s appreciation post goes to imlikemoony. My entire reblog notifications have just been you and thanks for the spam haha. I love seeing new people go through my work and enjoy it so thank you^^ Please don’t feel like this is a callout post I swear it isn’t 💕💕

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Xiao Semi Series

[ Friendship ] [ Falling in Love ] [ Cuddles ] [ Protective ] [ Affection ] [ Jealously ]

Diluc HCs

[ Comfort HCs ] [ Relationship HCs ] [ Being Fathers HCs ] [ Jealously HCs ] [ Unrequited Love HCs ] [ String of Fate [Soulmate] ]  [ Fainting ]

[Masterlist]

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@hanniejji  @mikeysbike @unionwitch @musekala @twistedsunnshiii @stanzastic @akaasea @xoneaboveallx @adoring-ghost @asheseiler @childelover @dilucsz @dai-tsukki-desu @youaskedfurret @snowy224 @mayumintsu​ @tigerpriestess @yuu-yuukurotsuki @legionqueensav

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Xiao and Diluc: Opposites Attract HCs

Xiao

It occurs to Xiao one day that despite being alive for centuries, he doesn’t know a lot of people. Xiao has only known Rex Lapis and his fellow adepti and only just recently introduced this life to others such as Verr and Ming. It never bothered him and still doesn’t, he prefers his life to be peaceful and in solitude since it’s safer that way, but when you crash into his life with all your unrestrained energy. He’s a bit of a loss for words. The only other person he knows that acts similar is Guizhong, but it’s still a bit of a troubling memory but either then that, he’s never interacted with someone so...open with their feelings. Though he supposes that Hu Tao was somewhat similar but in a different way. Unlike the craziness and exasperated actions that Hu Tao brought, your presence was a breath of fresh air and sometimes he found himself caught up in your antics.

When Xiao thinks about it, if he were to ever find love he suspected he would prefer someone who was calm and independent. He wasn’t the most affectionate so he wouldn’t want a partner that relied on that and he liked the peace and quiet the inn provided. That was until he saved you one day and you felt it was your absolute responsibility to return the favour, even though he told you many times that you really did not need to. If you wanted to return the favour you could leave him alone. Simple as that. Which didn’t work and in hindsight he was glad you were so stubborn to hang around until you managed to find out his favourite food was almond tofu.

The moment that set in stone Xiao’s love for you is when he told you his past. When he was named Atalus. How he had been possessed and forced to kill against his will. How he devoured dreams and lived in agony before he was saved by Rex Lapis. He was scared that you would fear and leave him, only for you to slowly lace your hands with his and wept for his own misfortune. He’s never had someone cry for him and he realized that he never wanted to see you upset like this again.

At first your larger than life personality put him off a bit, how could someone run through life as if nothing was wrong? What would happen if you finally faced loss? Wouldn’t that make things worse? It wasn’t until he spent more time with you that he saw your point of view, that while he couldn’t adopt the same idea, he respected it and began to appreciate it. It was nice having some sort of solace in his day even if it was just for a few minutes. Something to get his mind of the darker things while you start chatting about this really nice old lady with a domain sized teapot.  

Though, there was a bit of a downside to this. Since you bared your heart on your sleeve, perhaps in Mondstadt it would seem normal but here in Liyue, everyone hid behind some kind of mask so people found you a bit naïve and would try and hassle you. It always sent Xiao into a worried state when you left the inn to go out on your next adventure. Verr likes to compare him to a cat waiting for it’s owner at the door, but as soon as they return he acts so moody as if he wasn’t waiting at the balcony trying to see if he could see your clothing peak over the hill. He has no idea how she comes up with these ridiculous ideas.

Another “downside” Xiao discovers is that you have mini bursts of affection. You describe it as a those anemo slimes that pop when you shoot them, morbid as that description is, you’re not wrong. Your bursts of affection always manage to startle and embarrass Xiao, especially when he was with others. He wasn’t going to tell you to change yourself, never will he do that, but when you clasp his hands and tell him with all your love and shining eyes that he’s “doing such a good job” and “you’re so proud of him”. He wants to melt because wow, he never noticed how much he values your praise and how it sends his heart flying. But he can’t because Childe and Zhongli are right there.

Zhongli smiles pleasantly while Childe looses his absolute shit, which causes Xiao to kick his spear at Childe because he refuses to let go of your hands and hisses at him. Even when you try and scold him it doesn’t last long because this has become a weekly occurrence. Only now Xiao will give you a quick kiss before he goes off to gut Childe while you and Zhongli wave pleasantly and talk about how the weather is faring. Everyone that isn’t a native to Liyue think’s you’re all insane as they hear Childe’s screams as Xiao attempts first degree murder.

It interesting to see you both interact to outsiders. Xiao has his piercing yellow eyes and reserved demeanor while you’re this sweet and bright person. Before Xiao met you, people could never get a good look at the mysterious man that stays in the top balcony of the Wangshu Inn. But now if they came at the right time, they could spot a soft smiled man in green listening to a very animated talk with someone else, using their hands with a dramatic flair. That is until the man notices them trying to eavesdrop and the softness in his eyes drops and goes to irritation as he glares at them, curling a hand around his partner’s waist, and he let’s off a warning growl. His partner never seems bothered, only turning around to give a small wave in greeting, smiling as if the dangerous aura radiating behind them didn’t exist, before giving the man a small kiss as they go back to their conversation.

While you live a larger than life way, you also enjoy the small moments with Xiao. Xiao prefers to spend his time sitting above the inn and overlooking Liyue which you enjoy too. Resting near each other as you watch the sun go down is calming and takes the stress of life away. But sometimes you just want to bring Xiao out and have some fun.

Which ends up with you dragging him off to the pond near the Wangshuu inn, you wanted to catch frogs for whatever reason. Weren’t you both a bit too old to be playing with frogs? But he stands by and watch's you chase around the poor animals, tracking mud all over your clothing and skin, he can’t help but let a small smile slip. It isn’t until you end up falling into the pond after slipping that he’s on alert mode that he runs over worried.

Only for you to pop up and start bursting out into laughter. Xiao is stunned for a few moment as he watches you laugh at your own mistake, mud scrapped all over your face and clothes, the fact that you’re still in the pond with a frog on your head. He can’t help but feel his face fall as his mouth twitches into a smile as he chuckles along with you. He reaches over to try and scrub the dirt off your face but it only ends up smearing it more but you appreciate the effort. He carefully lifts you up as he carries you back to the inn. He thinks back to when you both first met, how he spent so much time worrying over his life as an adeptis and you as a human, but now those thoughts have been flung out of his mind. He wants to take your approach, that why worry over the little details of the future when you can enjoy the bigger moments you have now.

Diluc

On days that Diluc works as the bartender for Angel Share, if you come at just the right time when the sun was still high in the sky, you might be able to catch the ever distant man smiling and engaged with a conversation with one specific patron. Of course, this silly “rumour” was made up by the ladies of Mondstadt with too much free time on their hands but given Diluc’s reputation and demeanor it did make some travelers curious. Only for them to write it off as this special patron to be a green bard or cunning captain. One that Diluc surely did not crack a smile at. In fact it seemed to be the opposite. But the tavern isn’t so bad, there’s this nice individual that will listen to all your sorrows with kind eyes and a gentle heart.  

As soon as the last customer leaves and Diluc locks the door, does he let his shoulder drop and he breathes a sigh of relief. Before turning and walking to you as he let’s himself relax in your embrace. He listens as you re-tell on the woes of a jewelry saleswoman from Liyue to how Venti is still getting ID checked at the Cat’s Tail as he basks in your warmth. He’s glad that this is what’s troubling the people of Mondstadt and not anything incredibly dangerous relating to the Fatui or the Abyss Order. He asks if you’re doing alright to which you grin and nod that everything was perfect, before placing a small kiss on your forehead and he leads you out back and into the night and ready to return home.

Kaeya finds a lot of enjoyment going to up to you and discussing his “concerns” about Diluc. It always leads to you fretting over his health and if he was working too hard and he should take a break. Diluc is whipped and cannot say no to you so he always begrudgingly let’s you lead him away as Kaeya smiles and waves him off. It’s gotten to the point that no matter what Diluc is in the middle of, unless it’s of the upmost importance, if he catches Kaeya anywhere near you he’s swooping in and leading you away.

Diluc has always been straight to the point, non-nonsense idle talk, but when you drag him away to simply lie down at Starsnatch Cliff just because you were worried about him, he can’t help but feel his heart warm. Watching you blow on dandelions and enjoy the peaceful winds of Mondstadt does he let his hectic life standstill. 

When Diluc first met you, it was during his three year long journey to discover the truth of his father and the Delusions. You had saved him during his escape from a Fatui stronghold and explained you were apart of a third-party observer from the North. A vast underground intelligence network that approved of his actions and wanted him to join. Diluc, still deep in his anger and untrustworthy state of anyone, declined the offer but you still hanged around him. He didn’t understand why, and frankly did not want you anywhere near him, but you did save him. Something you very much liked to bring up, even after returning to Mondstadt. He couldn’t necessarily push you away and despite leaving the Knights of Favonius, he still maintained the same chivalry that all knights had.

From then on it had just been the two of you, him looking for the next Fatui base while you travelled with him as an “observer” despite helping him and being overly chatty. Asking where the next destination is like you’re some sort of overeager kid. At first, he really disliked your presence. A lot. In his mind you were a second Kaeya and after the events of what had happened, he might have been far colder to you than he should have been. He thought you were hiding behind the same kind of mask Kaeya did and that you were secretly some Fatui agent sent to kill him. But that never seemed to deter you, even making fun of the idea that the Fatui would seriously try and send an agent to con him rather than try and kill him outright with all the information he had on them.

You both had your clashes when it came to certain things, especially when it came to taking breaks and sightseeing. He felt that you were way too relaxed for something so important and you felt he was way to uptight and needed to stop running through life. But overtime, he found that he actually somewhat enjoyed your personality and quirks. While you could kick a Fatui’s guard head off if you tried hard enough, you would also drag him to feed the ducks by a pond. He had come to learn that you and Kaeya were different, you didn’t wear a mask and bared your heart to the world. He thought you were a bit foolish for doing that since you can never really trust anyone but you instead offered that not everyone was a bad person, that if he spent every waking moment trying to backstab someone would that really be a life worth living?

It’s during the lantern festival in Liyue does he really come to understand his goals in life. Writing down wishes for the new year to send off in paper lanterns is when he acknowledges his shortcomings and finally agrees to join the underground intelligence network. You offer him a bright grin as you cheer that he finally finally got off his stubborn self and you’re now officially partners in not-really-but-still-technically crime. For the first time since Diluc started his journey, he gives a small smile and let’s himself relax as he watched the golden lanterns fly through the sky beside you.

When he decides it’s time to return to Mondstadt and take up his position as Diluc Ragnvindr, he tries to not so subtly ask if you would want to join him. He knows that you still have ties to that secret organization and you probably have your own agenda but Diluc has gotten used to your bubbly personality, he doesn’t want to live without you. But his worries are quickly squashed when you tease him for a bit but slip your hand in his and ask where the next destination is. 

---

Gripping my writing hand, I went overboard and ran with it. I really want to write pre-hcs of how you met Xiao and a continuation of young Diluc and you. But I must finish my inbox.  Also my joke of Xiao beating things into submission started all the way back to my first Xiao HCs of friendship. I did not know this lol. I just think it’s funny to imagine xiao doing it. I’m about to high five my past self.

By the way, should I break up my hcs more? I feel like they are actual paragraphs and that might be annoying to read.

[lacebird]

💜  HOW TO MAKE A GIF WITH PHOTOPEA 💜

Hey everyone! I recently got asked to do a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I know that many people (such as myself) don’t have access to Photoshop for various reasons but they’d like to get into gif making. When I started making gifs, I only had a free trial of Photoshop, but when that ran out, I had to find another way to make gifs. Enter Photopea! A free, web-based software that you can use anywhere and that works just like Photoshop! 

In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to make a basic gif like the one I did above. I use a macbook air, but it should be doable on a regular pc too!

If you found this helpful, feel free to share it with your friends! The tutorial can be found under the cut below 💜

THINGS YOU’LL NEED

A browser (I switch between Safari and Chrome, more about this later)

A screencapping software (like MPlayer OSX Extended) or, alternatively, a presentation program like Keynote or Powerpoint.

A program to screenrecord or a program that let’s you download from YouTube 

Lots of patience bc gifs are annoying little shits <3

1. GETTING A VIDEO BY SCREENRECORDING

First things first, you need to have the clip you want make a gif out of. There are plenty of ways that you can get them. I’ve seen some gifmakers say that they torrent entire movies and gif from that. The way I do is I screenrecord the part I want to gif directly from where I’m watching the movie or show (like Disney+ or Netflix [or something like 123movies if you’re a pirate 🏴‍☠️)]). That way, I don’t have to download the entire movie and I have just the part that I want.  

To screenrecord, I use my macbook’s built-in program called Screenshot. 

Open the program by pressing ctrl + command + 5 on your keyboard and you get these funny little buttons.

Click on the button that says record entire screen. The program is now recording your screen. Play the scene and make sure you expand the video into full screen so you get a full resolution. When you’re done, click the stop button that is at the top right of your screen (next to the wifi and battery symbols.)

If you don’t have Mac, I suggest you look into how to screenrecord on your computer, as I don’t know how other operating systems work. Sorry!

1B. GETTING A VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE WITH CLIPGRAB

Another way you can get videos is from Youtube. I use a program called ClipGrab for this. Download and open the program. You’ll get this window

Simply paste the link and chose the highest quality, then click ‘grab this clip!’. Done!

2. SCREENCAPPING

After we’ve obtained the clip we wanted, we can do this two ways. The first way is to use the program MPlayer OSX Extended. Here’s a tutorial on how to set it up, make sure you do this if it’s your first time using the program. Make sure that you have a special screenshot folder!

Open MPlayer, then go to file > open and find the video of the scene you screenrecorded or downloaded. MPlayer will now play the video. Use the left and right keys (< and >) to go go backwards or forwards 1 minute, but try not to move around too much because the software crashes if you do. If that happens, just click the reopen button when the popup comes on, and reload the video again.

When you’ve gotten to the point you want in the video, press the command + shift + s buttons at the same time and the program will now take a screencap of every single frame until you stop. 

If everything goes smoothly, you should find all your frames in your screenshot folder that you’ve made before when setting up the program! 

2B. USING A PRESENTATION SOFTWARE TO MAKE A GIF

If you want to skip the screencapping part and you want to have a fully completed gif, you can do the second option. That’s what I used to do before I got MPlayer. In my experience, it’s a really fast way to make a gif, but the quality isn’t really good. 

Here’s a tutorial on how to turn a slide into a gif in Keynote.

Here’s a similar tutorial on how to make a gif on PowerPoint.

Basically, you make sure that the size of your presentation is the same as your video, and that you make sure to export one slide into a gif. Also make sure that you export in the highest quality!

3. LOADING THE FRAMES IN PHOTOPEA

Finally, we can start giffing! As I said at the start, Photopea can be used anywhere, but I switch between Safari and Chrome. The reason why is that if I upload the frames in Chrome, the frames will be out of order. In Safari, that doesn’t happen, but the downside is that once I start editing, Safari will reload the page because it takes up too much memory. 

So, first I go to photopea.com on Safari. I click New Project and put in the same dimensions as the screencaps (in my case, they are 1440x900 px). You’ll get an empty project. 

Then click file > open & place and select your screenshots. Wait until Photopea has loaded all the frames, then, at the speed of light, quickly click file > save as psd before Safari reloads! You’ll find it in your folder where all your downloads are.

Next, I open Chrome (I use the incognito window because I have adblock on my usual Chrome, the program won’t work as usual if you have it enabled) and I click Open From Computer, locate your saved .psd file that you saved from Safari. 

Now, you’ll see all the frames as individual layers. Select everything by clicking on the first layer, then golding the shift button and clicking on the last layer. Press command + G to group the frames into a folder. Here’s how everything should look after you’ve grouped the layers.

^^ See how Agnes approves! Agnes things you’re going a great job!

Now, it’s time to crop the gif and get rid of the black borders. Making sure that the folder is selected, click on the crop tool (or press C) and click on Fixed Size

W is Width and H is Height, write in your sizing here. Tumblr’s max width is 540, so I put the width as such. For the height, I use 405. Then you just drag the corners until you’ve selected the part that you want, like this

Press enter and the image will be sized down 540x405 px. 

Now, our gif looks like this after cropping!

Open the folder so you can see all the layers. Select all your layers and right click on them, then click rasterize. 

Then, go to layer > animation > make frames. You’ll now see that each layer begins with _a_ - this is crucial because this is how Photopea knows that the layers are part of a gif. If your layers don’t begin with _a_, then it will not play as a gif

If you instead already have a gif done, all you have to do instead is simply click open from computer when you first open Photopea and load your already finished gif and it’ll have the _a_ at the start of every layer. You won’t have to go through the steps of loading your frames into a new project to make your gif as it’s already done and in a folder :) Just start cropping once you load it

You can preview your work by going to file > export as > gif. Make sure to change the speed in the preview window until your gif plays the way you want it! I put my speed at 500%

4. SHARPENING

Hooray, we now have our gif! But to make it look a little nicer, it’s good to sharpen it. I always use Smart Sharpen when I sharpen my gifs, and many other gifmakers use that too. It’s really good :D

To sharpen your gif, again, make sure that all your layers are selected. Go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. I use two different settings for my gifs, it really depends on the gif.

Setting 1 (which is the default setting)

Setting 2 

 Again, it depends on the gif, play around until it looks good to you!

Here’s our gif after sharpening it 

I ended up deleting the last few layers as the gif got bigger than 10mb (that’s Tumblr’s file limit, it your file is bigger than 10mb, it won’t upload). I also added a gradient map and it made the file size smaller, more about that in the next segment!

5. COLORING

Here’s the fun part! Now we get to play around with the gif, making it brighter and look Extra Nice™!  Since this is a black and white scene, I make sure that the blacks and the whites really pop. 

Notice how in the original scene it’s not actually b&w, it has a slight sepia tint to it. I want to remove this, so I add a gradient map by clicking on the white square with a black circle (I want to point out that we’ll be clicking on this button a lot in this step)

and I change the blending mode to Saturation

Then I add a curves layer using these settings

Then a second curves layer

Brightness/contrast 

Then my favourite! Selective color! First layer, I deepen up the blacks

Then another selective color layer, this time the whites

Lastly the neutrals

Here we have the final results!

Wasn’t this a gas! I hope this helped you out, let me know if you want to know anything else about gifmaking, I’m happy to help! Also, sorry if I wasn’t very clear, I’m bad at explaining 🙈

MORE RESOURCES:

Here are some other tutorials that are really helpful in making gifs. These users use Photoshop, but you can still use their tips most of the time in Photopea too, you just need to play around and see what works for you!

Gifmaking for beginners by @chloezhao (this one saved my life)

Pale coloring tutorial by @itsphotoshop

Two-Toned Gif Background by @clubgif​

Text with white outline tutorial by @anya-chalotra​

[folkloreguk]

Moving Antics (M)

A/N: This was requested a while ago and I hope you will enjoy it! I always welcome feedback of any kind! Have a good day x

genre: smut, optional bias (m) x reader (f), oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, overstimulation (a tiny bit), dom!bias, very lowkey roleplaying??, reader wears a maid outfit (not in a degrading way)

words: ~ 5.4 k

tag list: @mochi-ficz (let me know if you wanna be tagged when I post new fics!)

People had told you over and over. Moving is a stressful, exhausting process. It would take a while for you to settle in. Until everything had found its perfect place, weeks could pass. At least that’s what everybody said. What they all failed to understand, though, was that being in love could make the most tiring experience fun. Was it stressful? Sometimes. Exhausting? Why don’t you ask yourself that, when you fell into bed like a walking corpse at night? But all it took was a glimpse at your boyfriend as he carried inside the box that said ‘anniversary gifts’ and it was all worth it. You were confident in one thing at least. In the settling in department you were both ranking foremost.

You had lived in the apartment for only a week, and you couldn’t have been more all-over-each-other. Somehow there seemed to be an unspoken challenge you had both taken on. Maybe you two could set a record for most surfaces in a flat someone could have sex on. Or perhaps you should have started marking the rooms and spaces you hadn’t been able to add to your list yet. There wouldn’t have been many left. At the moment, there was only one downside to being so head-over-heels in love. A lot of the boxes in the apartment had been left unattended, as if you only waited long enough, the things would start flying out of the cartons and miraculously sort themselves out while you could stay there, in bed with your lover between your legs.

But this wasn’t Hogwarts and you weren’t some magician. And so one rainy Saturday noon you decided it would be thatday. The day you finally put away all the things that were still in the boxes. Not that the day had been successful so far. It was 12 pm and you were in bed. The shower was running in the bathroom next door, and you wondered how you would convince your boyfriend and yourself that getting things done would be a worthwhile pastime. Telling yourself you would come up with a tactic with your eyes closed, you tricked yourself into daydreaming for a little while longer, cuddled in the blankets that still smelled like him.

When you heard footsteps approach, your mind snapped back to reality. He strut through the door like a nude model, searching for some clothes to wear. His smirk when he saw you eye him was prominent and made your stomach flip. It took every last will of yours to not ask him to come back into bed with you, forget all your earlier plans and live like you were the last people on earth.

“Do you want breakfast?” he asked, finishing his outfit by pulling a shirt over his head. “I’ll make you some.”

You hummed, starry-eyed at his perfection. “Thank you,” you said. Quickly, he kissed your forehead and then walked off, presumably in the direction of the kitchen. Twenty minutes later, at the kitchen table, you finally brought up your wonderful idea.

“I think we really should unpack some more stuff today,” you said, “Don’t you think?”

“You’re right,” he said, “We’ve really been procrastinating.”

“You can say that again,” you laughed.

“Although I wouldn’t describe our scientific research of the last few days as completely pointless.”

“Our what?” you asked. You were getting up to put away the plates of your late breakfast.

“Us testing which room of the house is the most fun to have sex in,” he stated, matter of fact. “I vote for the bathroom.”

“You just love the mirrors,” you grinned, and he mirrored it.

“I do,” he said. His arms snuck around your waist from behind. “Almost as much as I love you.”

“I love you too, babe,” you said, “You know, there’s one room we haven’t tried yet.”

“The office,” he said. You turned your head and you kissed him deeply. In agreement you hummed, your arms wrapping around him. He pulled you closer, hands ghosting over the back of your thighs and up to your hips. You felt like jumping onto the counter and having him there, again, just like you had done it two days ago. But then you remembered you had other projects for the day. If you gave in to him now, you’d end up back in bed for the rest of the day, probably. Guilt was already setting in at the mere thought.

“Wait,” you pulled away and said, “We have things to get done.”

His nod was dilatory but then he seemed to recall his own determination from around two minutes ago. You wished you could have motivated him otherwise, but you were already struggling to spur on yourself to be productive. Then, you suddenly remembered something. Your eyes must have widened in surprise because he furrowed his brows at you.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Stay here,” you announced, “I’ll make sure we get through with this today.”

And you were off to your bedroom. You pulled the box out from the far back of your closet. Memories flashed your mind, of when you and your boyfriend had been watching a show together. One of the characters had been wearing a provocative maid outfit, and you still thought about the way he had grinned at it, or how he had said he found it cute, which you believed translated to sexy, but he had been a little shy back then.

Long story short you bought one. And what better occasion to put it to use than now? You went all out, stockings and heels as well as your attempt at fixing your hair quickly, which you knew didn’t really matter, since you would want it out of the way if you were really going to be emptying boxes. You strut down the hall, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. The black and white costume just about covered your ass, and on your chest was a cutout in the shape of a cat’s head. The ruffles of the material bounced as you walked, excited to see your boyfriend’s reaction.

“Close your eyes!” you shouted. “No cheating!”

“I never cheat,” he said. You rolled your eyes, remembering his video game antics from the past.

“Before you say anything…this is supposed to be a motivation for us to empty the boxes. If we do that, we can have our reward,” you said.

“What reward?” he asked, eyes still shut.

“Open your eyes and you’ll know,” you said. Oh, how dearly you whished you could have captured his face on camera.

“Babe…,” he said. Then his mouth just stayed agape, as he ogled at you shamelessly. Just because he could. Because he was just thatlucky to have you.

“Do you like it?” you asked.

“Yes. Of course I do,” he said. His tone was emotionless because he was way too busy sorting out his own thoughts in his head. “But do you really think this is a good idea? How am I supposed to focus on anything but you?”

“We’ll figure it out,” you said. “Don’t you want to feel accomplished at the end of it all? If we don’t start working now, we’ll just end up feeling guilty. Again. Come on, let’s do this.”

“Alright,” he said. “Let me have one kiss.”

You laughed and granted him that one wish. His lips lingered on yours for a while. You knew he didn’t want to pull away. Neither did you. But at last, he had enough control to remove himself from you. It was the office that still needed the most work to be done. Cardboard boxes were piled on top of each other, labelled with some sort of theme or room of belonging on the outside. When you looked his way, he was only eyeing your legs. But then you grabbed the closest box to you and handed it to your boyfriend, and he snapped out of his trance.

Believe it or not, there were up- and downsides to the maid costume in this situation. The pros included feeling unnecessarily sexy whilst doing an unbelievably humane task, not getting too warm since you were already wearing little clothing and having your boyfriend virtually drooling over your appearance. The downsides were mostly reduced to one word: heels. Climbing a ladder and balancing three boxes on top of each other in your arms was an arduous task to begin with. Now add the possibility of twisting your ankle on the top step of a ladder and crashing to the floor, probably breaking your back or worse. You really couldn’t endanger the prospect of the fun you were planning on having later by taking that risk.

That’s why you chose to abandon the heels somewhere on the floor about half an hour into the process. And you came to the conclusion that finally getting over and done with what you had been procrastinating for the last week wasn’t all that bad. You were a whirlwind, running from room to room to make sure everything had its place. At some point he had turned some music on, and it was making everything even better. After all this time, you finally had your own place to decorate however you desired. As you admired how nicely things were coming together, you hummed to yourself quietly.

You weren’t sure whether he was having as much fun as you were. Especially not when you walked past him in the doorframe, carrying four pillows. Your ass – maybe not all that accidentally – brushed against his front as you entered the room. Innocence and feigned ignorance were on your face but you noticed exactly the way his eyes dwelled on you for a little longer until he got back to work.

But everything you could do he could do just as well. Fifteen minutes later, you were occupied with stacking books onto a shelf. Wanting them to stand in a very specific order turned out to be more time-consuming than you had anticipated. You heard his steps behind you, assuming he was going to walk past you. Suddenly his lips brushed against your exposed neck.

“Remember this song?” he asked. You hadn’t been focused on the music for a while now, but of course you remembered. “Remember when I fucked you to the beat of this? Because I do.”

“Babe,” you said. There was a little part in your brain that had the glorious idea of him having you right there, against the bookshelf. You wouldn’t even need to remove your clothes. With him, it took nothing but a few magic words and you felt like giving him all of you. No. It’s not time for that yet. Your rationality vanquished that little avid thought and pushed it away, back into your unconscious where it had come from. It wasn’t gone yet, only not so urgent anymore.

“You’re right,” he said. “We’ll save that for later. Just wanted to remind you of how much of a good time we can have.”

You only shook your head and grinned as he walked off, pretending to be blissfully unbothered. What goes around, comes around, after all. And you deserved that for pushing up against him earlier. It took a minute and you got back to sorting your book titles. Time passed surprisingly fast when you were being productive. Box after box emptied itself, almost as if your wish for magic powers had become reality. But it was just two people, who were so excited about their reward that they forgot to even take a proper break in between the chaos. And soon you were down to the last cardboard box. It was full of decorations you didn’t need for the current season.

Just a few more climbs up and down the ladder to the very top of the closet and you were done. He stood next to the ladder, handing you the things so you didn’t have to go all the way down each time.

“Last one,” he said, giving you a box with holiday lights. Successfully, you placed it in its new spot. When you finally made eye contact with him, he was already staring at you like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at. To be fair, from where he stood, there wasn’t much left up to his imagination. With your stockings on display, his eyes could probably go all the way up to your garter belt.

“Is this angle too revealing?” you asked.

“Absolutely,” he said, making you laugh. Smirking, he took your hand as you stepped off the ladder. You stumbled into his body as you grinned at each other. You both had the same thing on your mind, without a doubt. It was like a little inside joke you had made up just now, making you flirt through looks and small touches. His hand rubbed the small of your back as he bent to your ear.

“My pretty maid, haven’t you worked enough for the day?” he asked. “All that teasing you did today must have been soexhausting.”

You nodded overly seriously, as if riling up your horny boyfriend was physically tiring work. “I hope I did a good job. Did I?”

“No one else could have done it better,” he said. “Now let me treat you, baby.”

You hummed with your mouth already too close to his to say anything. Then your lips finally crashed onto his. It was a little ridiculous how much you missed his touch after only hours of being without it. People had told you you’d get tired of being with each other all the time. But it had been years and you still wished you could have cuffed his wrist to yours because you loved him just that much.

Your tongues fought playfully as you pushed him against the closet front. Small noises came from both of your mouths, quietly agreeing that this was what you had been waiting for – more or less patiently. Your hands became busy with the buttons of his flannel. When you came across his bare skin underneath instead of a shirt, you smiled into the kiss. Every layer less to remove meant you were one step closer to what you wanted.

“We’ve never done it in here,” you muttered against his hungry lips. “That table looks nice, doesn’t it?”

He grinned. Your hands had already messed up his hair, but nothing came close to his dark eyes in moments like these. His look never failed to make your heart skip a beat while you wondered how you had ended up with the most handsome guy in the world.

“Will you think of us, if you ever sit there and work in the future?” he asked, leading you over to the office table. He dropped his flannel on the ground on the way.

“I always think about us,” you said. “But you can make sure this one stays especially prominent in my memory.”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do,” he said, and kissed you again. Your ass was backed against the edge of the table and one of his legs pushed between your thighs. It made you whimper quietly in anticipation. He touched the little part on your thighs that was bare, playing with your garters. With your eyes closed, his tongue on yours and his hands being so close but so far from where you needed him, your head spun with dizziness. He was like a drug, like alcohol dripping straight from his lips and the more you kissed him, the less control you had over yourself. His attention gave you loose lips and the impulse to be risky, all whilst feeling so high up in the clouds you weren’t sure you’d ever find your way back down. You hissed when he pressed his fingers against your underwear.

“You’ll keep the dress on,” he said. “Will you?”

“Of course,” you obliged. “If that’s what you want.”

“Good girl,” he said, and he pulled aside your panties to slide his finger over the slickness that had formed between your thighs. As if on command, your hips moved closer to his hand as you whimpered at the too gentle friction. All afternoon you had been thinking of his hands on you. When you had watched him peel away the tape from the boxes, when he was taking your hand to help you down from the ladder and when he had run his fingers through his hair absentmindedly – all you could think about was how much you wanted those hands to grab your hips and for him to have his way with you.

“Take these off,” he ordered. His stern but gentle voice turned your insides into mush. It made you behave almost like a robot, no ifs ands or buts. When you usually liked to tease him, you knew not to test your limits when he spoke in this tone. Your underwear dropped to the floor and you kicked it a few meters away. Again, his hands ghosted under your dress and found your center. You felt like your knees would buckle from the way he rubbed small circles on your clit. Moaning quietly, you wrapped your arms around his neck for support, leaning your forehead against his chest for a moment. You let out small huffs and whimpers against his skin and nuzzled especially close to him when he touched that one special spot for a few seconds.

“Look at me.” He watched intently as your eyelids fluttered like your eyes were going to roll to the back of your head. You tried your best.

“Put your hands on the table by your sides,” he said. You hummed in disapproval but didn’t dare say so. After all, he could have also told you to put them on your back. And holding on to a wooden edge was still better than not holding on to anything, when you felt like a child standing on its feet for the first time. When he hooked his free hand under your thigh, lifting up your leg a little, your grip on the table tightened. You swore under your breath when he plunged two of his fingers into you. He curled them, pushing hard against your sweet spot and you curled your back in response.

All day you had gone without any sort of attention, when your head had been so full of things you knew you could do with him. The most release you had gotten – which was basically no release at all – was from pushing your legs together tightly when the dirty thoughts had become too much for your brain to handle. You knew it was your own fault for setting yourself up with this challenge. But now with your chest heaving and your head feeling like a tsunami of emotions was raging inside of it, you didn’t regret it as much as you thought you would two hours ago. Maybe you should play this waiting game more often, instead of jumping onto each other any chance you got.

“You look so hot like this,” he said. At the sound of his voice your eyes opened. Those eyes. While they usually held loyalty and playfulness, they now only spoke of authority. He used his thumb to rub your clit whilst his fingers were still inside of you, making you feel like floating. You were his favorite sight, by far. Above all times he watched you, from waking up in the morning to falling asleep in his arms at night, right now was the most mesmerizing. Your parted lips were the entrance to heaven and the glow in your teary, desperate eyes was putting the evening sun to shame.

“I’m so close,” you moaned. Your chest was alternating between short puffs and not breathing at all. Maybe your brain was too focused on the bliss you were chasing to care about breathing for now. You couldn’t blame yourself.

“Don’t make a mess, baby,” he said.

“No, I won’t,” you said. “Can I touch you when I come, please?”

You gave him your most entreating eyes, knowing that even though he liked telling you what to do in the bedroom, not even the strictest boyfriend was immune to your puppy eyes. You suspected that if he had declined, you might have held on to him anyways. Too overpowering was the clamor inside your head that was telling you to be close to him.

“Only when you’re coming,” he said. “Not a second earlier.”

You nodded obediently as your eyes shut again. Good thing you were mere moments away from just that. His fingers moved quickly, now that he knew how close you were to your high. It robbed your breath all at once. And it did the job, after a short while. You whined and arched your back, your hands flinging around his shoulders. Your little noises came out muffled against his skin as you closed your legs around his hand. He barely moved his fingers anymore, but kept the pressure on your most sensitive spots, making sure you could relish in every last second of your orgasm. Only after a while your grip on him loosened, and you realized how your nails had been digging into his skin.

“Sorry,” you said, rubbing over the moon-shaped marks on his shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, baby,” he said. When he removed his hand, you shuddered one last time, but missed his touch already. His magic was always working on you. Even when he had just made you come, the mere sight of the bulge in his pants, ready to spring free, made you want to pull him right into your body again.

“You came so fast today,” he said. Softly, he kissed you, but you noticed the hint of hunger that he must had been feeling as you were coming down from your high.

“That’s what you do to me,” you admitted. “Do you think you’re the only one who felt tortured all day long? It was driving me crazy, too.”

“You seemed to have a lot of fun, messing with my head,” he said, smirking.

“You’ll find that it was worth it, after this,” you said. He raised his eyebrows in question. You were already stepping forward, dropping to your knees in front of him. Like a child on Christmas morning, his eyes lit up at the sight of you.

“Aren’t you the prettiest maid?” he asked, the question obviously rhetorical. To him, you were the prettiest person in the whole universe. You tugged on his pants and pulled them down, along with his underwear. Your mouth watered at the sight of his member, hard and red from all the waiting he’d had to endure. The way he looked at you from above made you feel small, but he stroked your hair out of your face gently and you knew this was exactly where you wanted to be right now, and any other day.

“Hands behind your back,” he said. You smiled and did as he said, holding your right wrist with your left hand on your back. He caught on to your reaction right away.

“You don’t even mind, right?” he said. You were already sitting straight, mouth open, your tongue protruding slightly. “You like it when I make it more difficult for you, don’t you?”

You only nodded and hummed a small yes, then he placed the tip of his dick on your tongue. At first, you only closed your mouth around it, not taking more of him. Your tongue licked over the swollen tip almost shyly. He groaned as he watched you test the waters. After all, he was the one who could control what you did to him. For now, however, he seemed to leave you your freedom to do what you felt like. You pressed your tongue flat against the underside of his cock, licking over the tip ever so slowly. Then, you sunk your mouth further onto his length, taking as much as you could. It was so quiet you only noticed his uneven breathing as he eyed you from above.

“Shit, you’re so good for me,” he said. “Now stop with the teasing, will you? You know what happens if you don’t.”

You knew exactly. And so you shifted from your slow movements to quicker ones. You made sure to keep your tongue on him, especially when you moved your head away, swirling it around the tip now and then. His moans were music to your ears and only motivated you further. You had always loved his voice, when you sang to the song on the car radio or hummed his latest favorite song under the shower. But nothing compared to the way his voice sounded when you sucked him off. He seemed to be the most unrestrained then, not caring who heard him because he was way to obsessed with you sitting by his feet. The way he looked at you then made your stomach turn in pleasure. He didn’t even need to say anything or touch you. His overseeing eyes alone made you want him more than anything else.

His fingers in your hair curled, pushing your head further down on him. You focused on not gagging, your eyes closing. Tears brimmed behind your eyelids, but you were determined not to let them fall. Instead, you opened your lips a little wider and stuck your tongue out to make it easier for him to use your mouth however he desired.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, sighing in relief. You were awaiting treatment a lot rougher than the one he gave you, though. He thrusted into your mouth rather slowly, giving you enough of a break to remember to breathe. When you looked up at him with your sweetest eyes possible, his expression was a mix of strain and pleasure. You suspected he was trying not to overdo it just yet.

“Baby…can I fuck you or is that too much for you?” he asked. You perked up at his request. When you started humming around his length, he pulled away to let you speak.

“Please,” you said. “Fuck me. On the table.”

“Alright, my baby’s making the rules now, is she?” he said. “Come here.”

“I thought that’s where you wanted me to remember you, wasn’t it?” you asked, getting up.

“You’re right,” he said. You sat down on the edge of the office table with your legs parted for him to stand between them. Just once he kissed you. You wanted him to hurry, so you linked your heels behind his back, pulling him closer.

“Take me like a good girl.” He ran his cock over your slick folds, and he groaned when he felt your warmth on him. In response you nodded willingly, unable to wait a second more for him. Luckily, he didn’t plan on dragging out the anticipation any longer. With ease he slid into you, finding a familiar rhythm right away. As if you hadn’t just come ten minutes ago, you whimpered pathetically at the satisfaction. You leaned your weight onto your hands behind you, watching his cock enter you over and over. There was no limit to how many times you could have him inside of you. Every time it felt the same. Like he was completing you, all whilst simultaneously ruining you. His thrusts were sharp and as you raised your legs and changed the angle slightly, your eyes rolled back for a moment.

“Harder,” you asked, even though you were already overwhelmed.

“You want more?” he asked. You hummed a yes and nodded quickly. His grip on your waist tightened as he pulled you closer to the edge of the table. He didn’t disappoint. He never did. Swiftly, he pushed your legs further open and pounded into you, making your body shake every time his hips slapped against yours. It drove you borderline mad. A part of your brain urged you to praise him, to let him know what he was doing to you. But then, those unspoken words between you were inconsequential. You didn’t need to tell him how good he was. He could read it in every part of your body. He saw it in the arch of your back, in your curled toes and in your lip that was captured between your teeth. He heard it in the way you moaned and said his name like he was your savior.

Plus, you would tell him all about it afterward. But that wasn’t what your mind was focused on momentarily. It was the way he hit your sweet spot every time and you could barely breathe normally amidst your whimpers. You hadn’t even introduced yourself to all your neighbors yet, but they most certainly had taken notice of your arrival in the new apartment.

“Can you use your hands for me?” he asked. “Show me touching yourself, baby.”

His words and the look of dominance in his eyes was all it took, and without second thought your hands went to your center. You sucked in a breath at the added pleasure. It was almost too much at first, but then you let it all in. Like a wave was crashing over you, your eyes closed, and you hummed from the intensity.

“That’s it. Make yourself come again,” he said. “You can do it again.”

“Yes,” you said, almost breathed with the weakest voice. Your body had other things to focus on at that moment, letting your vocal chords do whatever they felt like. You clenched your walls around him and the knot in your stomach tightened with every little circle you drew on your clit. His usually tender eyes were everything but that as he watched you revel in the pleasure.

“So fucking hot,” he groaned. You tried hard to uphold eye-contact through fluttering eyelids and furrowed brows. “Good girl, keep going. Tell me when you’re coming.”

You hummed a yes as one of his hands cupped the side of your neck, the other remaining on your hips so he could push your body against his own with every thrust. After all this time of being with him you knew what it meant when his moans became higher pitched and he seemed to not realize his mean grip on your skin – not that you minded. You loved seeing the marks he left on you, especially when you had nowhere to be the next days. It always made him hungry, when he saw the dark spots on your skin, like a fading memory of what you had done.

A curse fell from his perfect lips and his thrusts turned sloppy as he came inside of you. His face, all twisted in bliss and from exhaustion, was all you needed.

“Stay inside of me. Just for a little while, please,” you plead, fingers on your clit rubbing at the quickest speed you could muster. “I’ll come if you stay.”

“I’m right here,” he said, slowing his actions until he was just filling you up, but now moving anymore. “It’s okay. Come for me.”

Just having him there, stretching out your walls and making you feel so close to him was all you really needed. And his words of affirmation sent you over the edge in no time. It was a toe-curling, mind-bending surge that overcame you at your release. Stars danced delightfully behind your closed eyelids while you tried to process all of it. He gripped your hand that was touching your clit and pressed it down, urging you to go on for a little while longer. You whined in sensitivity, feeling like your legs would give in, even though you were already sitting down. For just another while, he dragged out your orgasm as you struggled to control your overwhelmed senses. He distracted you by bending forward and letting his lips graze yours.

“You did so good,” he said. “My pretty maid.”

You whimpered and then sighed when he finally lifted your hand away from between your legs. Only then you could scrape together some words.

“We both did good today,” you grinned. “And I mean not only the last half hour.”

“Agreed,” he said. “Tomorrow we could tackle those last boxes in the kitchen. What do you think?”

“Can the maid outfit make another appearance?” you asked.

“I was hoping it might,” he said, kissing you softly. Your tired limbs and mind welcomed his gentleness as your hands went to his hair. You could already guess how the next day would go, then. But truth be told, you didn’t mind it one bit.

[fairyoftbz]

maternal weariness | l. sangyeon

🐣 pairing: neighbour!sangyeon x single mother!reader 🐣 word count: 2.7k 🐣 genre: fluff, slight angst, a bit domestic, cliché AF 🐣 tw: none? 🐣 synopsis: your daughter is suffering from her growing teeth and you're about to lose your mind, but you have enough self-control to do something before bursting. 🐣 a/n: i am so domestic for that man it was almost impossible for me not to write something else for sangyeon + kids. 🐣 requested: no!

╰☆☆☆☆╮

A headache started immersing itself into your skull, hitting all your nerves at once to the point of having you totter for a few seconds. Once you finally got a grip on yourself, you decided to take your crying baby in your arms in order to desperately calm her down. You closed your eyes as you rocked her, feeling frustration, exhaustion and annoyance bubbling inside your entire body. This torrent of emotions crashing into you didn’t help with your headache, only to have it spreading at the back of your neck to your shoulders. Sitting down inside your rock chair, the cries of your small daughter didn’t subside, you almost had the feeling that they increased.

“Shht baby, I know it hurts, calm down love,” you said as you stroked her cheek with your thumb, tears gathered in your eyes as you felt helpless. It was wonderful to have a baby, you had never felt this happy in life, but it was a whole other responsibility. There were many ups and downs, but never once have you regretted giving birth to your beautiful daughter.

Today, you were more on the downside of the life of a mother. Despite all the efforts and pieces of advice you received from books or other mothers, your daughter seemed to not be ready to sleep through the night yet, forcing you to stay awake until dawn, only getting dozens of minutes of rest each night. Bringing up a child on your own was not impossible, but it was certain that it was hard. Hearing your friends that had husbands or partners willingly taking the reins so they could rest had you envious, and somewhat feeling guilty.

The baby daddy was never there, only supporting from afar through small amounts of money. At the beginning of your motherhood, you hated it but almost begged him to come and help you, but he always claimed that he had better things to do and that you should already be grateful that he was willing to financially support you two.

What kind of father did you give your daughter? Where did the gentleman and the caring boyfriend from a few years ago go? Who decided to replace him with a rich asshole that only cared about his appearance and his own health?

The tears threatened to fall as you thought of all this while rocking your daughter back and forth, the side of her cheek against your chest as she kept on yelling in pain. It hurt to see her in this state, you wished you could take the pain away from her, but sadly, you had to assist her in her teething process as best as you could, which meant only cradling her and kissing her.

However, your daughter seemed to have another sense, a sixth one if we could call it that way, and she knew when you were stressed or angry, two emotions that were currently pulsating in your veins and controlling your entire being. You wanted to scream and cry just like her, but you resisted the temptation, you had to stay strong for your daughter. The process was hard you two, but one of you was about to burst and lose her mind. Your breathing pattern picked up, became irregular, the crying of your baby only increasing.

Clutching your teeth, the tears finally spurted out of your eyes violently, uncontrollably cascading down your face onto your daughter’s pyjamas. While a tidal wave of emotions burst into your mind, you remembered one thing many mothers, as well as your own once told you: Never. Ever. Shake your baby out of pure rage or despair. No matter how exhausted or frustrated you are, pass it onto someone else before calming down.

And that’s exactly what you did. Putting on your slippers, you crossed the threshold of your apartment to appear into the corridor, the cold air only increased your daughter’s cries, probably disturbing the entire building. Violently crying and struggling to catch your breath back, you weakly crashed your fist onto your neighbour’s front door, desperately hoping that they were here.

It was getting suffocating, and you felt like fainting, but you were trying to get a grip on your emotions for your daughter. As you were about to go back to your apartment filled with utter defeat, the door opened on your neighbour, a confused look written on his face as you sighed in relief.

Sangyeon was a young man you had met on your first day moving inside your current apartment. He was kind enough to help you get some boxes inside the elevator while you maintained the metallic doors opened, helping you even more as he saw that you were his new neighbour. He looked really happy to help, relieving you of this stress as you were exhausted from the irregular sleeping schedules of being a mother.

He had let you come inside his apartment once when you had accidentally locked yourself out with your daughter as you were going on a walk to try and lull her to sleep. You felt like you had the angels on your side because he knew an old friend from an ex-co-worker that was a locksmith. He offered him a great tip, so he came within the next hour, allowing you to unlock your door and get back to your apartment safely. The next day, you walked up to his door and offered him a bottle of wine and some baked goods as a way of thanking him, and you could tell that he was touched by your gesture.

Back to the present, Sangyeon took in your messy state, concern filling his eyes as your tears never seemed to stop.

“I am so sorry to disturb you, but my daughter’s been crying for hours now and she doesn’t want to stop, and I don’t know what to do and-“ you tried to say in one breath, but your neighbour stopped you by placing a hand on your shoulder, exhaling deeply as you were lost and confused.

“Please breathe Y/N, it’s gonna be okay. Tell me what’s happening,” he said, his voice clear-cut and composed despite the disturbing screeches of your daughter.

“Her teeth are coming out and she’s in so much pain I don’t know what to do, it keeps me up all night and… and I don’t feel like being capable anymore,” you said as you kept on crying, your neighbour nodding at every word you said.

“Let’s not stay in the corridor. Can I come in your apartment?” he carefully said as he quickly grabbed his keys and locked his door, accompanying you towards yours.

“Yes, yes, of course,” your daughter couldn’t stop yelling and crying, the volume never decreased, only getting rid of the echo thanks to the smaller walls of your apartment.

Your neighbour took his shoes off and placed his keys next to yours, eyes quickly wandering around the apartment: there was no sign of a partner’s presence. He made a mental note of it and strode to the living room, your apartment layout being the same as his, just a tad bit smaller. You sat on the sofa with your crying daughter, eyes still glistening with tears as you couldn’t hold them back.

“Pass me your daughter,” he said as he extended his hands, only for you to stand up and began to guide him on how to take your daughter, but he seemed pretty comfortable without your explanation.

“My sister is a mother too, I got a bit of practice beforehand,” he explained with a reassuring smile, and you nodded, thankful that he filled in the silence, satisfied with the small nods and exhausted smiles you were giving him.

He soothingly rubbed your daughter’s back, gently resting her head on his shoulder as he strolled around the living room. You sighed as you let your temple rest on the backrest of the sofa, trying to get rid of the negative thoughts invading your mind.

“May I ask for her name again?” he asked, and you sniffled, wiping your tears with your top sleeve. “It’s Haerin,” you answered with a tired expression, the man nodding at your words with a reassuring smile. “I wish we could have met again in other circumstances, but babies are a priority,” he said as your daughter’s cries were slowly decreasing, feeling already a bit better as he seemed to be able to magically soothe her.

“I’m so sorry. I needed to give her to someone for a moment, I feel like exploding,” you explained with an apologetic look on your face, but Sangyeon just shook his head, his reassuring smile never leaving his face.

“Don’t apologise for this, you did what was best for you and your daughter,” you felt better at his words, the encouragement you were desperately craving from someone finally reaching your ears.

At the mere thought of not having someone by your side to raise your daughter, loneliness and guilt hit you like a tidal wave, eyes filling up with tears again, and Sangyeon sadly looked at you.

“Thank you. It’s just that… I don’t have someone in my life right now and I barely talk to my friends and family because of my job and my daughter, so hearing some reassurance just makes me feel slightly better,” you said and Sangyeon smiled, walking to the couch as your daughter was now magically asleep in his arms, reddened cheeks due to her cries and the pain of her appearing teeth.

“Y/N, I am sure you are being an amazing mother. It’s not innate to take care of a newborn, it requires a lot of effort, strength, and sacrifices. Of course, it is easier to have someone by your side because they can help around the house, feed your daughter, bathe her, and take care of you and her while you rest. Nevertheless, it’s not impossible to do that alone, and you are even stronger when you cope with everything on your own.” Sangyeon mumbles, gently caressing your daughter's back.

“Don’t you think you are doing a bit too much?” you asked, a bit embarrassed to be praised like that by your neighbour, but you also asked for it. You truly didn’t know what to say, and timidly looked away as Sangyeon didn’t seem to stop.

“No, I don’t think so. Not only do you take care of her, but you also do all the chores, go to work, grocery shopping, do all the administrative work, you are a wonder woman! So with all the physical and mental charges you go through every single day, it’s normal to want to break down at some point. And you did what’s best, give your daughter to someone before you burst. It was a good reflex. Even if it’s hard, you are doing great Y/N, never forget that,” he said with your sleeping daughter in his arms, her tiny fists clutching onto the fabric of his black t-shirt. Tears were streaming down your face as you managed to smile at his words, feeling some strength reappearing in your system at the end of his praising monologue. “Thank you. You don’t realise how much I needed that,” you said in a weak voice, only to have Sangyeon smiling down at you.

“It’s completely normal. You can always come and ask for help with your daughter, or anything else. I’d gladly praise you for being a single mother all over again,” you managed to chuckle at his words, looking down to the floor as you felt his eyes never leaving you.

Looking at your daughter, you felt some maternal inner peace coming back as she was now resting, looking quite peaceful. She looked so safe in his strong, muscular arms, you were almost envying her for being in someone’s embrace.

Sangyeon exuded financial and mental stability, you were glad you rang at his door and not some crazy people. He looked so comfortable on your couch, almost as if he lived there. Well, maybe he felt so comfy because the configuration of his apartment was just like yours, but something felt different. Seeing him sitting on your couch with your daughter in his hold felt… natural, almost normal.

You shook your head as you tried to get rid of those thoughts, feeling suddenly embarrassed to fantasise so easily about him. You held back a smile by clutching your jaw, putting your thoughts down on the fact that you were exhausted and slowly going crazy with managing everything in your life.

“Where is your daughter’s crib?” he whispered and you slowly stood up, waiting a few seconds as dizziness took over your brain, your neighbour holding your forearm with his free hand.

“Follow me,” you tiptoed to her purple bedroom, Sangyeon smiling as he looked at the pretty decoration. He handed your daughter back to you to get her ready for bed, admiring the walls to give you two some privacy. Once you placed her down and neared her stuffed toy, you turned the baby phone on and switched off the light, Sangyeon inviting you to leave the bedroom first before closing the door.

“Thank you so much for your help,” you whispered, and he shook his head, a friendly hand landing on your shoulder.

“You can ring at my door at any time, I’ll try my best to help you,” he said with a reassuring tone. You felt like he was slipping away from you, and before you could do anything, your mouth spoke faster than your brain.

“Can I maybe cook you dinner to thank you?” his eyes widened for a quick second. “It’s really nice of you Y/N, but you are exhausted, you should rest.” “I insist, I think I can do it,” you cursed at yourself for sounding this helpless, watching him ponder your offer before sighing. “Only if you let me help you, then,” he said and you nodded, getting into work in silence as not to wake up your daughter.

With a warm dinner now digesting in your stomach, you both sat down on your couch, unintentionally sitting close to the other as you were exhausted. Closing your eyes for a second, you felt like you had been hit at the back of your head, your tiredness being easily readable on your face.

Drawn features, pale skin, dark circles falling to the middle of your cheek, you looked extremely scary, almost sick. But at least your daughter was healthy, and that’s what mattered the most to you as a mother. Sangyeon started chatting with you about some things, but you were too tired to keep up with what he was talking about.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” you mumbled as silence filled in the room, Sangyeon looking at you before letting a smile emerging on his face.

“It’s okay, it was just chattering anyway,” he said and you swallowed down the lump of guilt on your throat, heavily sighing as your whole entire body was screaming and begging you to go to sleep.

The man next to you noticed your drowsy state and exhaled as well. Your head kept falling downwards, only to immediately raise it back up and blink a few times. Without even noticing it, Sangyeon sat closer, and his hand raised to your cheek, cradling it as he gently pushed your head to the side. Your other cheek landed on his shoulder and you frowned, trying to move away as his hand didn’t leave your face.

“Rest Y/N,” he whispered, and you weakly smiled, now realising how your daughter fell asleep in a few minutes in his arms.

Only by resting on his shoulder, you could feel your body grow heavier and more comfortable. His body warmth mixed with his laundry scent and cologne were a surprisingly good mixture to lull you to sleep. Your eyes grew heavier, and you finally gave up, shutting them before falling asleep within the following seconds.

Sangyeon chuckled at your state, gently pushing you away to unfold his arm and wrap it around you, resting your head against his chest. His thumb rubbed in circular motions on your upper arm, sitting comfortably on your couch as you slept against him.

He threw a few glances towards you and you were heavily sleeping, smiling to himself as you unconsciously wrapped your arm around his middle. Maybe he was meant to enter your life and to be honest, he wasn’t willing to leave anytime soon.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Creepypasta au ramblings

Including some ideas, headcannons, potential plot stuff, ect ect

Gotta get the brain juices flowing and written down somewhere

Okay so. Admittedly, I haven't really been working on the au that much, due to my hyper fixiation on the owl house taking up my brain. And that'll likely still be the case with the upcoming finale so.. yeah!

Anyways, with what I have now;

I already know this is going to be a written collection of various connected stories; as opposed to a comic <\3

If my experience with making comics in the past says anything to me, is that it'll crash and burn before any of the juicy stuff happens.. and I'll get burnt out incredibly fast

Only downside to sticking to a written format is that a lot of these characters have redesighs <\3

Not big ones, most carry their basic look that just about everyone knows

Save for Kagekao and Laughing Jill

Good news is, Kagekao, as of now, doesn't have a role.. yet.. maybe.. again, I'm still figuring out the overarching story

Bad news: Laughing Jill is actually a huge roll in one of the side plots (more on that later). She still holds the same basic design elements as her canon design has: black and white clown gal

Only difference between the real design and my take is that Laughing Jill is a funky ragdoll; and she's small because.. yk, she's a doll. Can literally fit inside a decent sized backpack (again, will elaborate on this later)

Though of course I suppose I could just

Describe her as small

(I'm dumb and writing this as I think)

Moving on

I also want to do different plots and side things that all either connect to larger story, or show different perspectives and such; maybe each chapter switching from one characters POV to another

And I already have a long term plot! For... two specific characters

I want there to be a side thing where Jane is trying to hunt down Jeff and put an end to him for

Well

You know

Offing her parents

Along the way she stumbles into Jill, and the two team up to find the dude; along with Jane trying to balance her goal and everyday life. Because unlike most of the other characters, she lives a very normal life otherwise... when you don't look at her past. She has a job, she lives in her own apartment, she's gotten her education. Other than gunning for Jeff, she has no interest in taking the lives for others. So with Janes chapters it'll likely follow both settings/sides of her life

Speaking of settings

Locations

I don't know where exactly it would take place; country/town wise.. it may be spread out across different areas since itd be odd if all these creatures and stuff were living in the same place; gotta dispurse them or people will just. Leave the area

Yk?

But as for like

Actual places that the characters will be interacting in will be anywhere from towns, woods, eft ect

And yes

Because this is a mix of fanon and canon

The slender mansion will be in this au

Although probably not in the way most people interpret it; it won't really be a safe house for every creepypasta character buuuuut im still working on the way i should execute it

Probably make it a hotel of sorts; for most characters its not a permanent home. Be it they dont wish to stay, or they arent welcome there

Moving on, Im gonna write masky/tim and hoodie/brian the same way i do in my silly imagines and hc posts; treat the proxy as a separate personality from the person. Each having their own set of morals, behaviors, and memories; not too dissimilar to how MH shows them off IIRC

Though these versions of them are a mix of MH and CRP since I enjoy both renditions, as a fan of both materials. Plus I feel like if this did become something, a few of yall would be upset if i didnt have them... plus theyre fun to write

Speaking of characters that 100% wont be in the au, for various reasons, are:

Ticci Toby: because I just don't really jive with him like i used to, and the character has more or less been ruined for me by others.... though theres a chance he MAY appear, its just HIGHLY unlikely

Clockwork: she just makes me uncomfortable

Off*nderman: do i really need to elaborate on why I'm not adding him?

Really those are the main 3 I have beef with, but

Yeah

Anyways

Yeah idk what else to type but

!!

Hopefully I'll have more ideas cooked up soon

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 18: THE PARTY PONIES INVADE

Percy only heard Will's voice read the new chapter title, not the actual words, let alone what Magnus and Jason were asking about so excitedly. Only finally having an upcoming battle with Luke deterred him from sitting around worrying about the how's and why's of someone he'd instinctively known was a friend from the moment he'd seen her. Whatever Thalia's part in this, it had nothing to do with him being replaced...he was mostly sure.

"One on one," I challenged Luke. "What are you afraid of?"

"Losing, probably," Jason said confidently. Percy had already beaten him once on a practice sparing match, and he'd had so much more experience since then. He'd taken down Ares, and Polyphemus. Luke would be an even match at best, and they were still right on the ocean front property.

Luke curled his lip. The soldiers who were about to kill us hesitated, waiting for his order.

Before he could say anything, Agrius, the bear-man, burst onto the deck leading a flying horse. It was the first pure-black pegasus I'd ever seen, with wings like a giant raven. The pegasus mare bucked and whinnied.*

"Wow," Percy said right along with everyone else, even as he ran his hand through his hair in frustration and wondered why on earth a deck of cards came to mind.

I could understand her thoughts. She was calling Agrius and Luke some names so bad Chiron would've washed her muzzle out with saddle soap.

"Chiron can understand horses too?" Nico asked keenly.

"How do you think he always knows the gossip around camp?" Will grinned.

"Sir!" Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. "Your steed is ready!"

"Ready to murder," Alex said, he didn't need to read the flying horses mind to know Luke wouldn't make it to the airport.

  Luke kept his eyes on me.

"I told you last summer, Percy," he said. "You can't bait me into a fight."

"And you keep avoiding one," I noticed. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"

Luke glanced at his men, and he saw I'd trapped him. If he backed down now, he would look weak. If he fought me, he'd lose valuable time chasing after Clarisse.

"Percy for the triple win," Jason applauded that was three plans working back to back.

"Gods I hope I don't do everything in three's," he frowned as he instantly imagined three or more bad things crashing around him soon enough.

For my part, the best I could hope for was to distract him, giving my friends a chance to escape. If anybody could think of a plan to get them out of there, Annabeth could. On the down-side, I knew how good Luke was at sword-fighting.

"What exactly was the upside again?" Thalia frowned at him. "Aside from pissing off Luke."

"That's not worth any downside?" Percy smirked.

"I'll kill you quickly," he decided, and raised his weapon. Backbiter was a foot longer than my own sword. Its blade glinted with an evil gray-and-gold light where the human steel had been melded with celestial bronze. I could almost feel the blade fighting against itself, like two opposing magnets bound together. I didn't know how the blade had been made, but I sensed a tragedy. Someone had died in the process.

"Doesn't someone die in every Greek story?" Magnus had gathered. "I get the feeling newly minted ones get no better a treatment."

Thalia pursed up her lips and decided against informing him this blade wasn't new at all. It's original owner had used it to destroy Ouranos.

Luke whistled to one of his men, who threw him a round leather-and-bronze shield.

He grinned at me wickedly.

"Luke," Annabeth said, "at least give him a shield."

"You must love she hasn't tried to scold either of you for fighting," Will said conversationally. "No, no, keep the fight fair boys."

"A great warrior indeed," Percy grinned, but it wasn't very confident. She was rooting for him to win...right? And yet, would she ever forgive him if he mortally wounded Luke?

"Sorry, Annabeth," he said. "You bring your own equipment to this party."

"Tell Annabeth to toss you her hat," Jason pointed out, "same rules as he just used."

"I can't ask her to do that," Percy whispered. He was already worried about the outcome of this, the less she was involved on every level except escape, the better.

The shield was a problem. Fighting two-handed with just a sword gives you more power, but fighting one-handed with a shield gives you better defense and versatility. There are more moves, more options, more ways to kill. I thought back to Chiron, who'd told me to stay at camp no matter what, and learn to fight. Now I was going to pay for not listening to him.

Magnus and Jason exchanged excited looks about Chiron showing up any second to scold Percy about this in person, it was perfect! He'd already been mentioned in Florida, and what else could that chapter title mean?

Percy frowned at the two geeking out this much over his teacher giving out an 'I told you so', if he ever saw him again.

Luke lunged and almost killed me on the first try. His sword went under my arm, slashing through my shirt and grazing my ribs.

Percy rubbed at the graze now and looked around, waiting for someone to start laughing at him or make reet, reet noises. None did. They seemed surprised, worried even. He'd faced monsters and gods without a scratch, who was Luke to be doing this...

I jumped back, then counterattacked with Riptide, but Luke slammed my blade away with his shield.

"My, Percy," Luke chided. "You're out of practice."

He came at me again with a swipe to the head. I parried, returned with a thrust. He sidestepped easily.

The cut on my ribs stung. My heart was racing. When Luke lunged again, I jumped backward into the swimming pool and felt a surge of strength. I spun underwater, creating a funnel cloud, and blasted out of the deep end, straight at Luke's face.

The force of the water knocked him down, spluttering and blinded. But before I could strike, he rolled aside and was on his feet again.

Will was reading as calm and steady as ever as if he didn't notice Percy was having some invisible fight with a game controller, his hands and feet in constant movement, his whole body twisting and moving from a fight he was trying his hardest not to be a part of. He'd yet dealt a real blow back to Luke and the only thing he could let himself focus on was if the others had made it off that ship.

I attacked and sliced off the edge of his shield, but that didn't even faze him. He dropped to a crouch and jabbed at my legs. 

Percy hissed, his adrenaline momentarily disrupted by clamping his hands down on his leg at the remembered pain instead of throwing the might of the ocean into Luke's face!

Suddenly my thigh was on fire, with a pain so intense I collapsed. My jeans were ripped above the knee. I was hurt. I didn't know how badly. Luke hacked downward and I rolled behind a deck chair. I tried to stand, but my leg wouldn't take the weight.

"Perrrrrcy!" Grover bleated.

Thalia grabbed Percy's wrist and squeezed tight to stop him choking Will out. "It's okay Percy, you know he's okay," she fervently reminded.

His best friend had been through so much, exchanging one hostage situation for another in mere hours and Percy felt like a failure as he went limp in his seat. He'd lost. He'd let them all down...

I rolled again as Luke's sword slashed the deck chair in half, metal pipes and all.

"Someone's not having fun on the pool deck," Percy muttered, the rapid fire part of his brain remembering the pink towel underneath he'd leapt away from, the scent of sunscreen and blood in the air. He wondered if that family was somehow still alive while he fought for his own.

I clawed toward the swimming pool, trying hard not to black out. I'd never make it. Luke knew it, too. He advanced slowly, smiling. The edge of his sword was tinged with red.

"One thing I want you to watch before you die, Percy." He looked at the bear-man Oreius, who was still holding Annabeth and Grover by the necks. "You can eat your dinner now, Oreius. Bon appetit."

Thalia's nails dug in tight, on any other person she would have broken skin as she flashed with a murderous outrage of her own she was forced not to act on. Some piece of her would never believe Luke would idly stand by and watch something terrible happen to Annabeth, let alone give the order. That same part was now dwindling into a twisted black mess as she slowly released Percy's wrist, but her fingers just contracted into a useless fist on nobody in here.

"He-he! He-he!" The bear-man lifted my friends and bared his teeth.

That's when all Hades broke loose.

"Did Hades change his mind about killing you?" Alex asked in surprise.

"Just what I need, more skeletons," Percy was blinking like a bright light was in his eyes though.

Whish!

A red-feathered arrow sprouted from Oreius's mouth. With a surprised look on his hairy face, he crumpled to the deck.

"The Hunters?" Percy asked in confusion, looking at Thalia.

"Were you not paying attention?" Jason demanded in shock. "How did you miss a word of this?"

"Well I'm so sorry I don't have attention perfection disorder instead," he huffed.

"Rescue," Thalia quickly intervened, "that's the important part here. Go on Will!"

"Brother!" Agrius wailed. He let the pegasus's reins go slack just long enough for the black steed to kick him in the head and fly away free over Miami Bay.

"Now that's a noble steed," Magnus said in delight.

For a split second, Luke's guards were too stunned to do anything except watch the bear twins' bodies dissolve into smoke.

Then there was a wild chorus of war cries and hooves thundering against metal. A dozen centaurs charged out of the main stairwell.

"Ponies!" Tyson cried with delight.

My mind had trouble processing everything I saw.

Percy sympathized with his past self, it wasn't any better remembering, nor having it second hand described with how chaotic these creatures who were so unlike Chiron could be, while his mentor was mixed in made it all the more eccentric.

Chiron was among the crowd, but his relatives were almost nothing like him. There were centaurs with black Arabian stallion bodies, others with gold palomino coats, others with orange-and-white spots like paint horses.

Some wore brightly colored T-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTY PONIES: SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER. Some were armed with bows, some with baseball bats, some with paintball guns. One had his face painted like a Comanche warrior and was waving a large orange Styrofoam hand making a big Number I.

"So, for once, I would have accepted the answer of both to our game," Alex whispered in Magnus's ear.

"Good to know who you break the rules for," Magnus grinned back, "I'll be sure to find that centaur and tell him."

Another was bare-chested and painted entirely green. A third had googly-eye glasses with the eyeballs bouncing around on Slinky coils, and one of those baseball caps with soda-can-and-straw attachments on either side.

They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned. I couldn't tell whether they had come to celebrate or attack.

"Why not both?" Will asked sincerely, it really was what they were best known for.

Apparently both.

"You don't get credit for that, knowing this already," but Nico was smiling at how proud of himself Will seemed for quoting the book.

"I'm sure I can find some way to get extra credit down the road then," Will shrugged.

As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom made arrow with a leather boxing glove on the end.

"I wonder who his favorite superhero is," Magnus snorted in delight.

It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the swimming pool.

'I know he's mine now,' Hearth cheered, 'you think if I made one he'd sign it for me?' Making Magnus laugh all the harder.

His warriors scattered. I couldn't blame them. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion is scary enough, but when it's a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior would retreat.

"Can confirm," Jason assured.

"And who are you to claim being the bravest warrior?" Percy rolled his eyes.

"A man with confidence," Jason smirked.

Percy wasn't impressed, but he was a little jealous. Wasn't the guy as blank on his past as him?

"Come get some!" yelled one of the party ponies.

They let loose with their paintball guns. A wave of blue and yellow exploded against Luke's warriors, blinding them and splattering them from head to toe. They tried to run, only to slip and fall.

Chiron galloped toward Annabeth and Grover, neatly plucked them off the deck, and deposited them on his back.

Percy breathed a sigh of relief for that at least and even exchanged a smile with Thalia. It was nice they weren't the first to be rescued, even when he was the one bleeding to death.

I tried to get up, but my wounded leg still felt like it was on fire.

Luke was crawling out of the pool.

"Attack, you fools.'" he ordered his troops. Somewhere down below deck, a large alarm bell thrummed.

I knew any second we would be swamped by Luke's reinforcements. Already, his warriors were getting over their surprise, coming at the centaurs with swords and spears drawn.

Tyson slapped half a dozen of them aside, knocking them over the guardrail into Miami Bay.

But more warriors were coming up the stairs.

"Withdraw, brethren!" Chiron said.

Jason bit his lip uneasily at the call. It was the right one, better to take this victory and retreat, regroup, but the nagging worry bothered him. If this surprise attack of highly formidable creatures hadn't even made a dent in this army, what was going to be capable of stopping Luke?

"You won't get away with this, horse man!" Luke shouted. He raised his sword, but got smacked in the face with another boxing glove arrow, and sat down hard in a deck chair.

"Revenge from its brethren," Nico smirked.

"No chair shall ever let him forget it," Jason chuckled.

A palomino centaur hoisted me onto his back. "Dude, get your big friend!"

"Tyson!" I yelled. "Come on!"

Tyson dropped the two warriors he was about to tie into a knot and jogged after us.

"A sad but valid need for interrupting that very important work," Alex nodded.

He jumped on the centaur's back.

"Dude!" the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson's weight. "Do the words 'low-carb diet' mean anything to you?"

"Depends on what you call an all peanut butter diet?" Percy was rubbing absently at his leg without a care as he beamed for his little brother getting to live out his dream right then of finally riding on a 'pony.' The smile on his face was almost worth the multiple stab wounds.

Luke's warriors were organizing themselves into a phalanx. But by the time they were ready to advance, the centaurs had galloped to the edge of the deck and fearlessly jumped the guardrail, as if it were a steeplechase and not ten stories above the ground. I was sure we were going to die.

"I've been confident of that several times," Will chuckled, "you've yet managed it."

"And you're always telling us not to tempt the fates," Nico scoffed in agreement.

We plummeted toward the docks, but the centaurs hit the asphalt with hardly a jolt and galloped off, whooping and yelling taunts at the Princess Andromeda as we raced into the streets of downtown Miami.

I have no idea what the Miamians thought as we galloped by.

"Circus," Alex offered.

"A really strange motorcycle gang," Jason shrugged.

"The clowns taking over a rodeo," Thalia said with confidence and a snap of her fingers, and then a smug look at Percy.

He had no clue why, but he gave her a finger back for good measure.

Streets and buildings began to blur as the centaurs picked up speed. It felt as if space were compacting—as if each centaur step took us miles and miles. In no time, we'd left the city behind. We raced through marshy fields of high grass and ponds and stunted trees.

Finally, we found ourselves in a trailer park at the edge of a lake. The trailers were all horse trailers, tricked out with televisions and mini-refrigerators and mosquito netting. We were in a centaur camp.

Magnus whistled in surprise at the idea, wondering how welcoming they were to homeless people stumbling into them. Did they invite them in for a drink and a rest, in-between the near death stunts?

"Dude!" said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. "Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: 'Whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!'"

The centaur with the googly-eye glasses laughed. "That was awesome! Head slam!"

The two centaurs charged at each other full-force and knocked heads, then went staggering off in different directions with crazy grins on their faces.

"I've finally found the ancient ancestral act of this," Thalia said, "and I wish it had gone extinct."

"But then what would the jockeys do to wake up their brain cells?" Alex rolled his eyes.

Chiron sighed. He set Annabeth and Grover down on a picnic blanket next to me. "I really wish my cousins wouldn't slam their heads together. They don't have the brain cells to spare."

"Ooh, Chiron burn," Percy smirked, "never thought I'd hear that."

"Chiron," I said, still stunned by the fact that he was here. "You saved us."

He gave me a dry smile. "Well now, I couldn't very well let you die, especially since you've cleared my name."

"Is that all it takes to get a rescue from him?" Will chuckled.

"I don't think that's permission to set him up for something else," Nico mock rolled his eyes.

"Darn, there goes Connor's plans for the summer," Will sighed.

"But how did you know where we were?" Annabeth asked.

"Advanced planning, my dear. I figured you would wash up near Miami if you made it out of the Sea of Monsters alive. Almost everything strange washes up near Miami."

"Wow teach, tell me how you really feel," Magnus was laughing all the same for whatever the reason.

"Gee, thanks," Grover mumbled.

"No, no," Chiron said. "I didn't mean ... Oh, never mind. I am glad to see you, my young satyr. The point is, I was able to eavesdrop on Percy's Iris-message and trace the signal. Iris and I have been friends for centuries. I asked her to alert me to any important communications in this area. It then took no effort to convince my cousins to ride to your aid. As you see, centaurs can travel quite fast when we wish to. Distance for us is not the same as distance for humans."

I looked over at the campfire, where three party ponies were teaching Tyson to operate a paintball gun.

"That's a terrifying idea," Will frowned. "What's next, monsters with assault rifles?"

"Those already exist," Nico muttered.

"I think it's cool," Jason smiled, "I call him on the next capture the flag game." No one really wanted to know what Jason would be loading that paintball gun with considering that diabolical smile.

"Like hell, he'd be on my team!" Percy protested.

Thalia cleared her throat loudly and waved Will to keep going before this escalated.

I hoped they knew what they were getting into.

"So what now?" I asked Chiron. "We just let Luke sail away? He's got Kronos aboard that ship. Or parts of him, anyway."

"So who's going to announce the countdown for the ship getting blown up?" Alex asked enthusiastically, though Percy wasn't the only one who winced, Will did too. Alex pursed up his lips and resisted the urge to keep asking, even as he exchanged a concerned look with Magnus why that could ever be considered a bad thing.

Chiron knelt, carefully folding his front legs underneath him. He opened the medicine pouch on his belt and started to treat my wounds.

"Oh good," Thalia snorted, "I was starting to wonder if he was just going to let you bleed out while expositioning."

"I'd rather bleed out than hear what I already know," Percy said tragically.

"I'm afraid, Percy, that today has been something of a draw. We didn't have the strength of numbers to take that ship. Luke was not organized enough to pursue us. Nobody won."

"But we got the Fleece!" Annabeth said. "Clarisse is on her way back to camp with it right now."

Chiron nodded, though he still looked uneasy. "You are all true heroes. And as soon as we get Percy fixed up, you must return to Half-Blood Hill. The centaurs shall carry you."

"You're coming, too?" I asked.

"Oh yes, Percy. I'll be relieved to get home. My brethren here simply do not appreciate Dean Martin's music.

"Someone you should endeavor to look in on," Will gave Nico a hopeful look, "he's Italian, maybe you and Chiron can have a karaoke night."

Nico gave an unimpressed smile now and thought Will wouldn't think himself so clever if he just asked Chiron for another boombox to take into Tartarus incase he needed to scare away more monsters.

Besides, I must have some words with Mr. D. There's the rest of the summer to plan. So much training to do. And I want to see ... I'm curious about the Fleece."

Percy looked from Thalia to the book and back several times like he'd developed a bad twitch. He'd been wrong about Luke, but his doubt had made him think the worst of Tyson when he should have trusted his instincts about this little brother. He didn't want to do the same again about Thalia...maybe he even did want her to be the child of Prophecy.

I didn't know exactly what he meant, but it made me worried about what Luke had said: I was going to let you take the Fleece ... once I was done with it.

Had he just been lying? I'd learned with Kronos there was usually a plan within a plan. The titan lord wasn't called the Crooked One for nothing. He had ways of getting people to do what he wanted without them ever realizing his true intentions.

Over by the campfire, Tyson let loose with his paintball gun. A blue projectile splattered against one of the centaurs, hurling him backward into the lake. The centaur came up grinning, covered in swamp muck and blue paint, and gave Tyson two thumbs up.

"You're little brother is in heaven right now," Thalia gave him a winning smile to which he had no doubts in.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "perhaps you and Grover would go supervise Tyson and my cousins before they, ah, teach each other too many bad habits?"

"I've heard nothing but good things from all of this," Alex scoffed, "if he wanted them to leave, at least be subtle!"

Annabeth met his eyes. Some kind of understanding passed between them.

"Sure, Chiron," Annabeth said. "Come on, goat boy."

"But I don't like paintball."

"Yes, you do." She hoisted Grover to his hooves and led him off toward the campfire.

"That satyr has been punished enough for a lifetime," Will huffed, "let him go find some tin cans and get some rest for peats sake."

"The part of the story that always gets glossed over," Nico agreed in amusement, "naptime should definitely be in order." Percy hadn't always been the prefect hero, Annabeth didn't have all the answers, but it was nice to think some things he'd always thought about camp were still true. Will probably had hauled in Grover and locked him into a bed when he got back for just this.

Chiron finished bandaging my leg. "Percy, I had a talk with Annabeth on the way here. A talk about the prophecy."

Uh-oh, I thought.

"It wasn't her fault," I said. "I made her tell me."

"Yes, you held your sword point to her and demanded it," Jason raised a brow, "you absolutely did not logic your way into her spilling the beans."

"Like Chiron would have believed that either," Percy scoffed, "this was faster."

His eyes flickered with irritation. I was sure he was going to chew me out,

"A legit worry with two stomachs to contend with," Alex nodded seriously.

but then his look turned to weariness.

"Thankfully the nonlethal one won," Percy sighed.

"I wonder which that is though?" Magnus grinned. "Horses are plenty deadly, so it probably was the human teeth set in."

"You guys are dragging this out way to much," Thalia told them with an unseemly grimace, she did not need the mental image of Chiron switching out dentures for his meals!

"I suppose I could not expect to keep it secret forever."

"So am I the one in the prophecy?"

Chiron tucked his bandages back into his pouch. "I wish I knew, Percy. You're not yet sixteen. For now we must simply train you as best we can, and leave the future to the Fates."

The Fates. I hadn't thought about those old ladies in a long time, but as soon as Chiron mentioned them, some-thing clicked.

"That's what it meant," I said.

Chiron frowned. "That's what what meant?"

"Last summer. The omen from the Fates, when I saw them snip somebody's life string. I thought it meant I was going to die right away, but it's worse than that. It's got something to do with your prophecy. The death they foretold—it's going to happen when I'm sixteen."

Chiron's tail whisked nervously in the grass. "My boy, you can't be sure of that. We don't even know if the prophecy is about you."

Percy's face settled into a grim expression for several daunting moments. The others all braced themselves for something, the room to bend to his power again, Percy to start screaming in pain as he remembered something, but he exhaled quickly enough and waved Will on. Still, the uncomfortable look lingered, and Percy knew he was still missing something. Maybe even something Chiron and Annabeth themselves didn't know about all of this.

"But there isn't any other half-blood child of the Big Three!"

"That we know of."

It took little effort for Nico to school his features and pretend he'd heard nothing of importance, he was used to being overlooked, and that had been plenty true at the time. He actually found himself smiling for a moment as the four not in the know glanced to Thalia, and back to the book. For the first time down here, he actually wasn't looking forward to these books ending. Anonymity was nice.

"And Kronos is rising. He's going to destroy Mount Olympus!"

"He will try," Chiron agreed. "And Western Civilization along with it, if we don't stop him. But we will stop him. You will not be alone in that fight."

A smile came naturally to Percy's face for that assured knowledge, but he still had an uneasy feeling about this matter. This prophecy mess made him almost wish the Camp would abandon him to this for a moment so nobody else would die like Tyson almost had, even if he knew he'd never make it alone.

I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but I remembered what Annabeth had told me. It would come down to one hero. One decision that would save or destroy the West. And I felt sure the Fates had been giving me some kind of warning about that. Something terrible was going to happen, either to me or to somebody I was close to.

That same shadow passed over Percy's face again, and they recognized it this time as grief. For a knowledge he no longer knew about, but a tormented memory none the less trying to overwhelm him. He worried at it now, not wanting to let go of the answer. Annabeth was tied into this key, something had happened he knew he must remember-

"Percy," Thalia said in a very long suffering kind of voice as she glared at the pile of books still to come before smacking his knee. "Don't force it," she finished sharply.

"Right," he jolted back to the here and now, still rubbing his temple, still wishing he could tear into all of those now and just find the one stupid page that would make all of this make sense, but he knew he couldn't. Even the ocean might not heal that, and if his father had wanted him to, he would have appeared here to do it himself without all the run around. There was something in these books he had to wait for.

Boy was he not the patient one.

"I'm just a kid, Chiron," I said miserably. "What good is one lousy hero against something like Kronos?"

Chiron managed a smile. '"What good is one lousy hero'? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something like that to me once, just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War."

"Let me guess, child of Hermes," Magnus sighed, finally convinced nothing would surprise him anymore.

He pulled an arrow from his quiver and turned the razor-sharp tip so it glinted in the firelight.

"Celestial bronze, Percy. An immortal weapon. What would happen if you shot this at a human?"

"Nothing," I said. "It would pass right through."

"The fletching and all?" Magnus's eyes glazed over in confusion for a moment as he imagined the immortal weapon on one side of him and the shaft stuck right through the middle. The weapon might just be the tip, but the rest of that could still hurt someone!

'Intent matters,' Hearth seemed to be saying that's exactly what would happen though as he shrugged.

"That's right," he said. "Humans don't exist on the same level as the immortals. They can't even be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy—you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That's what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal. Monsters never die. They are reborn from the chaos and barbarism that is always bubbling underneath civilization, the very stuff that makes Kronos stronger. They must be defeated again and again, kept at bay.

Alex and Magnus exchanged amused looks. Hearth would swear Alex mouthed a name, but he couldn't follow exactly how that translated to dumbdoor.

Heroes embody that struggle. You fight the battles humanity must win, every generation, in order to stay human. Do you understand?"

It was a hopeless speech made to someone who would never give up, so Will somehow made it sound empowering. Every hero in that room straightened just a little in their seat in a silent promise those words would be true for them.

"I ... I don't know."

"You must try, Percy. Because whether or not you are the child of the prophecy, Kronos thinks you might be. And after today, he will finally despair of turning you to his side. That is the only reason he hasn't killed you yet, you know. As soon as he's sure he can't use you, he will destroy you."

"You talk like you know him."

Chiron pursed his lips. "I do know him."

I stared at him. I sometimes forgot just how old Chiron was. "Is that why Mr. D blamed you when the tree was poisoned? Why you said some people don't trust you?"

"Indeed."

"But, Chiron ... I mean, come on! Why would they think you'd ever betray the camp for Kronos?"

Chiron's eyes were deep brown, full of thousands of years of sadness. "Percy, remember your training. Remember your study of mythology. What is my connection to the titan lord?"

I tried to think, but I'd always gotten my mythology mixed up. Even now, when it was so real, so important to my own life, I had trouble keeping all the names and facts straight. I shook my head. "You, uh, owe Kronos a favor or something? He spared your life?"

"Percy," Chiron said, his voice impossibly soft. "The titan Kronos is my father."

"So?" Percy's scowl was ready to defend his teacher from anybody in here who had a problem with that. "That still never should have put any of this at Chiron's fault."

"Zeus wouldn't even admit Kronos was coming back, so it's still a piss poor excuse to kick him out," Alex agreed testily.

"Nobody at camp really got it either," Will soothingly agreed.

Alex watched Magnus carefully to see what he thought of that kind of news, but he just looked pained as he said, "man, that cannot be fun to live with. Hope Annabeth doesn't have that in common with him." He'd never found out why she left home again this time and was very worried his Uncle Fredrick was still making her life miserable just like that Crooked One was to his kid.

Nico watched Will hand the book to Jason still feeling a little baffled at the underwhelming response. He found it hard to believe not a single person at that Camp had really not blamed the centaur for his fathers actions, but Will was a nice guy. Maybe he just hadn't heard any of the bad rumors, or wasn't sharing them.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

*Question that has bothered me for years, is this supposed to be Blackjack? Percy says in the next book this is the same horse from Luke's ship yet Blackjack's male, when this is a mare. Did Rick change his mind and change the horse's gender, or were there more pegasi that escaped and Blackjack stuck around, which seems least likely as none others were mentioned. If the first, why not just keep Blackjack female? I'm so confused by this unimportant change.

My ultimate conclusion is Blackjack was the first genderfluid character and we never got to see any of Blackjack's feminine days. Sorry Alex.

[rebelwrites]

Imma Take Care Of Your Body (NSFW)

Clay Spenser x Reader

A/N THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN REBEL IS IN A THIRSTY AS FUCK MOOD!!! Also this took me THE WHOLE FUCKING DAY to write please show it some love.

Warnings: PURE AND UTTER FILTH! Was gonna put warnings on this but there’s too much to list 😂

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Clay Spenser Masterlist

This Months Writing

Being one of the few females on deployment had its advantages, the main one being, you got a hooch to yourself. You didn’t have to bunk with the rest of Bravo. The one major downside was you couldn’t always fill that need on your own, and the rest of the team had no idea of your little arrangement with a certain blondie, well that’s what you thought anyway. You had a itch that was in desperate need of scratching but you had no idea when you and Clay could sneak off to have some fun of your own.

Walking out of your hooch, the warm breeze tickled your skin, it was the first night of deployment so everyone was chilling around the fire pit, beers on hand. Looking around you saw that every seat was taken, and you didn’t fancy sitting on the floor, the sand was a bitch to clean out.

“That’s it guys,” you laughed grabbing a beer from the cooler. “Take all the seats, it’s fine, I didn’t want to sit down anyway!”

“Why you always gotta be dramatic Y/L/N?” Sonny laughed.

“Urm because dramatic is my middle name, Sunshine.” You laughed, hitting round the back of his head. Before moving round the group, standing the stop between Clay and Trent.

“I got the perfect seat for you baby,” Clay said lowly so only you could hear, as he glanced down at his lap, his hand position perfectly, near his crotch. “You know this seat is always free for you.”

“Is that right Blondie?” You whispered as Clay pulled you down onto this lap, this wasn’t out of the ordinary for the two of you, so no one mentioned it.

It was like Clay knew what you were feeling, as he didn’t stop bouncing his leg, it also meant he was in a teasing mood.

“Quit wiggling would ya!” you laughed.

“Why, is it getting to you baby?” He hummed against your ear, his hot breath tickling your skin and you could feel his semi pressing right against the spot you needed him the most.

“Clay,” You said, meaning for it to come out at a warning but instead it came out breathless.

“What’s up babygirl?” He hummed, gently grazing his teeth against your skin.

“You know what, Spenser.” You said as you took a deep breath, trying not to show just how turned on you were right now, it was like a game to Clay. He always tried to tease you in front of everyone.

“Don’t know what you are on about, Princess.” He whispered as he moved his free hand to your thigh. “But you can’t hide how turned on you are , you know I know every inch of this body, and just how it reacts to my touch.”

You couldn’t help but bite your lip as his hand ran up and down your thigh.

“You know Imma take care of this body,” he whispered, “kiss every inch of this soft skin, teasing you, slowly running my fingers over your clit, before pushing my fingers inside of you.”

“Clay, please stop,” you breathed as you squeezed your thighs together.

“Princess, you know I never stop,” he laughed, as he slowly pressed his hard on against your core “I’m going to watch as you squirm in pleasure from just the feeling of my fingers, moaning my name, making you feel like no one else can.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, as you let your eyes flutter closed.

“I wanna feel your body pressed against mine, listen to you moan as I slowly push my hard cock in you, giving you what you really want.” He breathed.

“Oh god,” you mumbled, as he pressed up against you again.

“But you won’t get any of it baby, not until I hear you say it.” he whispered, gently biting your ear lobe.

“Fuck” you breathed. “I need you Clay, so fucking bad”

“That’s a good girl.” he smirked, kissing your forehead. “Who am I to deny you of what you need, let’s go”

You didn’t need to think twice, as you stood up without saying anything to anyone. You headed back to your hooch, with Clay following close behind you.

The moment you were behind closed doors, he pinned you against the wall, his lips crashing down on yours as he pressed his body against yours. You couldn’t lie you were addicted to him, the way he made you feel was like nothing you had ever felt before.

“Fuck, you don’t know how bad I want you right now” he breathed against your lips, as his fingers fumbled with the button on your trousers.

“I’m all yours to take,” you whimpered, leaning into his touch.

“You just know the right things to say to me,” he growled as he pushed your trousers down your legs, pulling your shirt over your head, leaving you standing there in just your underwear, his eyes roaming your body before pushing you down onto the bed. “Damn you are so fucking perfect” he hummed as he pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor.

“Clay, please,” you whimpered, making him smirk “I need you so bad”

“Patience babygirl,” he smirked as he dropped his jeans and boxers, making your mouth water at the sight that was in front of you. “I told you how things are going to go!”

“Yeah well, change of plan,” you giggled, as you crawled over to him, leaning back on your heels as you kissed his thick thighs, his breathing getting heavier as you got closer to his dick. “You always focus on me, it’s time I returned the favour” without any warning you ran your tongue along the underside of his shaft, feeling the veins against your tongue, slowly making your way to the head as his fingers knotted themselves into your hair, throwing his head back as you sucked slightly harder before taking him all on your mouth. It took a couple of attempts and some gagging, due to him being big and thick, but you weren’t giving up until you had all only him in your mouth.

“Fuck,” Clay grunted, as his grip on your hair tightened, “You and that pretty little mouth of yours will get you into so much trouble one day babygirl.”

Looking up at him through your lashes, as you continued to make him feel as good as he makes you feel, his heavy breathing and grunts, spurred you on, feeling his dick twitch in your mouth. Before he pulled your hair, pulling you off him.

“Playtime is over, Princess,” he growled, as he managed to unclasp your bra with one hand, before pushing you down on the bed. His lips connecting with your neck, gently sucking and nipping at your skin, sending sparks through your body, Clay knew your body like the back of hand, so he knew just what buttons to press.

He slowly and agonisingly, moved down your body, placing hot, open mouthed kisses across your skin, he was in this for the long game and you knew after you would be exhausted, but it was so worth it.

“Clay, please stop teasing.” You cried as he slowly ran his fingers through your wet folds, smirking when he realised just how much he was effecting you. Without warning he pushed two fingers inside of you, making you cry in pleasure, arching your back as he curled his fingers finding your g spot. “Oh god,” you moaned.

“God I love hearing you moan my name,” he hummed against your throbbing clit, the feeling of his breath adding to everything you were feeling, the moment his tongue found your clit made you scream out, tangling your fingers in his hair, your whole body felt like it was on fire and was about to explode any moment, Clay also knew this as you felt him smirk before stopping everything he was doing, making you whine in annoyance, you were so fucking close. “I’m in charge, Princess, you remember that. And you cum when I allow it.”

Feeling him slowly pull his fingers out, you whimpered from the loss of feeling of him, but it wasn’t long before his fingers were at your mouth, without thinking you took his fingers in your mouth, sucking them clean, tasting yourself on him only made you hornier. You didn’t know what it was but Clay always managed to bring the inner slut out of you, doing things you’d never do with anyone else.

“That’s my good girl,” Clay breathed, as you looked up at him through your lashes. “Now where is it? And don’t bother trying to tell me you didn’t bring it because I know you did,” he laughed as he looked around the room. “I know you just can’t live without my cock baby.”

“Backpack,” you breathed, as he took his fingers from your mouth. The anticipation of what was coming was driving you crazy, the item in question was originally meant as a gag gift but now it was something you couldn’t live without.

“Got ya.” Clay grinned as he pulled the black box out, pulling the vibrator out, but this wasn’t your standard vibrator, this was molded from his own cock. “See I knew this gift would be the best thing ever.”

“Baby please,” you moaned as he turned the vibrator onto the fastest setting, holding it against your clit, making your squirm. “I just need you,” you breathed “need you so fucking bad.”

“Patience Princess,” he laughed, watching your breathing get heavier, grasping at the sheets as he kept the toy pressed against you. “Tell me babygirl, how often to you fuck yourself with this, wishing it was the real thing?”

“All the goddamn time,” you cried, bucking your hips against the toy, trying to get some sort of release. “Please Clay,” you whimpered “please just fuck me.”

“Well seen as you asked so nicely,” he grinned as he positioned himself against you, reaching up grabbing a spare pillow to put under your ass, both of your moans filled the room as he finally pushed his solid cock in you.

“Oh fuck,” you cried as you clawed at his arms, the feeling of his hard thrusts and the toy still pressed against you clit sent your body into a frenzy, your legs were shaking and your eyes were rolling back in pleasure. “Oh god, Clay.”

“Fuck baby,” Clay grunted as his grip on your hips got tighter. “Don’t you dare cum yet Princess, not yet.”

“I’m so close,” you cried.

“Soon babygirl, soon,” he moaned as he felt you tighten around his cock. “Fuck you are so tight.”

“Fuck, please, shit,” you cried, the pleasure was just too much for you, the overstimulation and his long hard thrusts were too much, and you couldn’t hold back any longer. Digging your fingers into his arms, you cried out, you didn’t care that the walls were thin and the whole base could probably hear you screaming Clay’s name as the most intense orgasm washed over you, your whole body was shaking as Clay continued to thrust, his grip on your hips getting tighter, and would definitely leave marks but you didn’t care right now, all that mattered was the connection you had with Clay.

Opening your eyes, you bit your lip as you got lost in his blue eyes, your heart was pounding against your chest, your breathing was heavy and it felt like you were floating as you road out your high as Clay found his own climax, his face screwing up, as he took his final thrust, moaning your name as he came.

The toy had now been turned off and tossed to the side, as he collapsed on top of you, taking his weight on his arms, resting his forehead against yours.

“Fuck baby,” he groaned, trying to catch his breath.

“Tell me about it,” you breathed, resting one hand on his cheek and the other in the centre of his chest. “Think that’s the hardest you have made me cum.”

“Won’t be the last either,” he smirked, pausing in thought for a second, as he pulled out. “I want more Y/N.”

“Damn boy, let me recover first.” You giggled as he helped clean you up before laying next to you, pulling you into his arms, resting your head on his chest.

“No, I’m fucking spent right now.” He laughed “What I mean is I want more, don’t get me wrong the sex is mind blowing, but I don’t just want us to be each other’s booty calls. I want to be able to call you my girl.”

“Good job I want the same then.” You whispered running your fingers over his chest.

He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to, his kiss said everything that needed to be said. Yes the lust was still there, but it was full of passion and love and once again left you breathless.

“I guess we better go rejoin the group,” he whispered against your lips.

“Mmm, ten more minutes,” you whispered, “I don’t wanna leave our bubble just yet and face the real world.”

“I mean if they didn’t know something was going on between us, they sure do now. You really don’t know how to be quiet, do you Princess? Might have to gag you next time.”

“Is that a promise, Spenser?”

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