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#than they do about my safety and existance as a human being
a-and-b-snz · 1 year
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It's a video game. You don't have to agree with J. K. Rowling, but a video game is not going to hurt you. Let people enjoy things.
Antisemitic hatecrimes are steadily rising. I don't know how it is in your country, but in mine, democracy is crumbling and descent into fascism has already begun. Anti-Jewish ideology is becoming more and more normalised in western society, and whilst that's due in part to the persistant neonazi presence, it's also thanks to the subtle, insidious nods to it in media for mass audiences to passively consume.
As a Jewish woman, I have a vested interest in not being scapegoated and dehumanised, because I'm sure you can recall the last time that came to a head. The very same antisemitic imagery that H/ogwarts L/egacy presents, of greedy, scheming, hooked nosed creatures who seek to bring death to innocent pureblood children, was immensely popular in Germany in the lead-up to the holocaust. And here it is, cropping up again! I can't speak for all Jews, but I for one am terrified for what the future might bring.
I'm so sorry that me being vocal about this obvious antisemitic analogy is of mild irritation to you. It must be such an inconvenience every time you have to listen to whiny, annoying Jews like me, begging you to show solidarity with our plight. You guys are real the victims here, you're so right!
H/ogwarts L/egacy is a kill-the-Jew simulator. If you still don't understand how that is the case, I'm happy to explain it to you again, but in the mean time, I will not be apologising for my stance on this. I am sick and tired of seeing goyim wallowing in self-pity over this issue right now. You claim to be allies to the Jewish community but you can't even boycott a fucking video game.
TLDR: Yes, a video game can hurt me. Fuck off.
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Mob!Natasha x daughter!reader headcannons
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a/n: I figured writing some headcanons was a bit less pressuring, and I enjoyed this so much! I’ll definitely be writing more headcanons in the future :)
You do not have my permission to repost, copy or translate my work
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Mob!Natasha who found you when you were just a baby. She heard crying coming out of the closet after she had just killed her target. Turns out, he had already found his next victim, you. Luckily, Natasha was just in time to save you from that horrible life and raised you herself
Mob!Natasha who raised you in the safety of her Russian home. Protected, hidden, and far away from the dangers of the world
Mob!Natasha who only allowed Melina, Alexei, and Yelena to see and know about you the first 5 years of your life
Mob!Natasha who started training you for active combat the moment you could stand, wanting you to be able to protect yourself, should you ever end up being mixed into one of her ‘jobs’
Mob!Natasha who loves you more than anything in the world, getting you whatever you want whenever you want it, yet still making sure you’re not becoming a spoiled brat
Mob!Natasha who puts her trusted bodyguard, Bucky Barnes, on any and every outing you go on. You leave the house for a walk? You better count on the fact that Bucky is coming. You want to go shopping? Don’t worry, Bucky will simply come to help you carry your bags. You want to have dinner with someone? Bucky will simply sit a few tables away from you, giving you privacy yet keeping a close eye on you
Mob!Natasha who is terrified when your existence becomes known after you and her are spotted going for a little shopping trip. She will upgrade her security everywhere, putting multiple bodyguards by your side every time you leave the house. Of course, she still trusts that Bucky is the best at keeping you safe, but just to be sure, you get a few more of her men
Mob!Natasha who sometimes allows you to sit in on her meetings, letting you sit next to her, or on the ground, whichever you prefer. It’s not like any of the people she is meeting with can say anything. That is if they want to keep their lives of course. Sometimes, if you forgot to bring something she will slide you her notepad for you to doodle on, or she’ll just stop the entire meeting and order one of her men to fetch you whatever you wish. She gets to decided how her meetings go, of course
Mob!Natasha who knows you adore her henchwomen more than anything. Your personal favourite is Natasha’s assistant, Maria. You know her and your mom have some more going on. You are not blind to the lingering touches and the sneaky looks they send each other. Of course, you are a big fan of Carol. She is just so cool and nice to you, even though she can kill someone with basically a glare. To you, she is the sweetest human on the planet
Mob!Natasha who knows you adore your aunt Yelena more than anyone on the planet. Because of that, she makes sure Yelena gets the opportunity to visit more than enough. Everytime Natasha has to leave for a slightly bigger ‘job’ she simply calls Yelena to keep you company. Natasha knows you don’t need a babysitter anymore, but she likes the idea of you not having to be lonely. Besides, it is much safer for you to be accompanied by your aunt Yelena
Mob!Natasha who knows how much you adore playing board and cards games, so she told her people to never deny you a game, were you to ask. Luckily, you mostly gravitate towards Carol and her girlfriend Valkyrie, and who were they to deny you a game? They loved your company, and they loved playing your card games with you
Mob!Natasha who, when you start dating someone, runs thousands of background checks, does hundreds of checkups throughout the day, and makes sure to give whoever you decided to date a little talk, letting them know exactly what’s waiting for them were they ever to hurt you
Mob!Natasha who had the best private tutors coming to your home to teach you everything you needed to know, giving you the highest level of eduction you’d ever need
Mob!Natasha who knows that you are financially set for life, but who still allows you to go to college if you would ever want to. Of course it would be an expensive, high security private school, but still
Mob!Natasha who takes you on the multiple holiday trips during the year. You want to go to Spain? Pack your bag because Natasha will have planned a trip next week. Obviously you both will simply take her private jet, but she needs a week to book some fancy holiday home for you two to stay at
Mob!Natasha who, despite her fortune, often books small, low budget holiday trips. Everyone knows those small holiday homes are the best and the cosiest. What kind of mother would Natasha be if she didn’t give you that experience?
Permanent tags: @marvelnatasha12346 @lesbionion @nova-kyle @darkstar225 @saraaahsstuff @marvelwomenarehot0 @screechcat @iheartjohansson @tia-thesimp @swaqcenix @karmasgxrl @marvel-lous3000 @hor1zond1ar1es @lorsstar1st @superlegend216
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davosmymaster · 1 year
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No Time To Die
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TAGS AND WARNINGS - +18, Minors DNI, no explicit smut but sexual themes, whump, a lot of angst, blood, graphic wounds and procedures (?) probably not medically accurate, could be almost gore if you squint, hurt/comfort, two dorks in love, canon-typical violence, near-death experiences. Not based on the game, I don’t know anything about the game and I don’t want spoilers please.
PAIRINGS - Joel Miller x fem!reader
WORD COUNT -  9.6k.
SUMMARY - The main difficulty of being Joel’s closest friend is not falling in love with him, but you still do. Those feelings are buried until you join him on a mission to trade supplies with Bill and Frank. With your life now hanging by a thread, Joel is determined to get you to safety, but the clock is ticking faster than he can run.
A/N - I honestly don’t know what this is. I tried to look for angsty and whumpy fics and couldn’t find any that hit the spot just right; so I wrote my own. This story is set in some time between 2010 and 2020, or so. Bill and Frank are still very much alive. The only warning apart the amount of blood in this, it’s my own knowledge of the English language.
'Breathe'
 With a shiver, you try to comply with your own command. The action itself confuses you, and you don't know where exactly in your mind that thought came from; or why. All you know is that a moment ago you were nothing, absolutely nothing, not even human. You forgot your own existence in a still ocean made of black thick ink. The ink is now backtracking, though, but the remnants of it stay in your foggy mind, clouding it as your consciousness comes back in waves.
 Waking up from a dream is easy, you just come back into yourself from a nice trip to your own imagination. Regaining consciousness, however, is a little more difficult. Instead of going somewhere, you go inwards into yourself. Your overworked mind, already tired and busy with keeping you alive, doesn't care much about bringing you to any other place so you can die peacefully. No. And the awakening is not as it should be either.
Coming back into yourself is your body crawling its way to the land of the living, with your flesh drenched in tears, blood and sweat; and nails digging firmly into the dirt. At least that's how it feels as you go back and forth between the two worlds, rocked violently by the waves threatening to drown you in its heavy never-ending dream.
 You wake up tired, and cold. The first sense that returns is touch; and with it, a pulsing pain radiates from under the right side of your collarbone and all the way down to your chest and back. The —obvious— wound is warmer than the rest of your body. It's like you've grown a second heart right at the borders of the wound; it throbs relentlessly. The second is taste. Your mouth tastes like salt and melted butter; despite not having eaten either in at least three days. Around the dryness of your tongue you feel a sticky liquid swirling around in your mouth, plastered to your gums.
 Whatever it is, you cough it out of your mouth. The old blackened blood splatters on the wooden planks below your mouth. Then, a second later, you feel a sprawled hand on your back; and the rest of your consciousness returns with it.
 He calls your name. And he, whose presence you'd have recognized even blindfolded, even miles away from there, doesn't appear in your mind for a few seconds. But even half-conscious and at death's gates, his name leaves your mouth with a sigh of relief.
 Joel.
 "I'm here," he says, his palm now pressing a bit harder into your back, trying to comfort you somehow. If you had been fully aware, you'd have been embarrassed at the relieved groan that had escaped your lips while saying his name. "How are you feeling?"
 His voice sounds less muffled now, but the pulsing pain intensifies the closer you are to the surface. A second groan escapes your mouth as the warmth under your collarbone becomes impossible to ignore.
 "I know, I know" he says.
 Your eyes flutter open. From your point of view there's not much to see except torn wallpaper, your blood stains, and the shadow of a window. You're on the floor, your cheek pressed against the dusty carpet, your body very still laying on them, and Joel rubbing your back.
 The room is dark. His fingers enter your field of vision, they dip on the wet blood stains and turn around so Joel can see the sticky fluid staining his fingers. He takes a breath, a gasp, really.
 "Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath. His hand stops rubbing your back, and as black stains crawl from the corners of your vision, trying to take you under the waves again, he talks to you:
 "I need to turn you around..." he says with a gentle voice. It's like the icing on top of a sour and burnt cake; he's trying to sound caring, but that doesn't change the fact that it's going to hurt like a bitch. "You hear me?" he says, and his voice breaks for a second. Your ears ring, the next thing he says your brain doesn't process it, your vision has been clouded by darkness again...
 A scream tores your throat as a shooting pain lights your body on fire. It feels like lightning going through your backbone. Suddenly, the waves are very far away and you're feeling way too conscious for your liking. Despite your pain, Joel is still as careful as he can as he lays you on the floor, now facing the ceiling instead.
 The throbbing pain continues, and you blink to get rid of the tears that distort Joel's face. His hand wipes the tears from your face.
 "I know," he says. He has a crease between his seemingly angry eyebrows that you had never seen before.
 Both hands are roaming your ribs now, before you can even say anything. His warm hands give you shivers as he touches your naked skin. The pain is so unbearable that all you can do to mitigate it is hold your breath. If you could move, you'd be right now curled on the floor like a pretzel. You are not crying anymore, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't close.
 "Can you breathe?" he asks then, when he doesn't find any cracks in your ribs by touch alone. You don't respond because you can't find your own voice, and he sounds desperate at this point. "You coughed blood, I need to know if any of your lungs are collapsing."
 "It-it hurts..." you wheeze, your eyes tightly shut. For a split second, you wish you were back to being nothing. Being nothing sounds way better than having a gunshot wound in your chest. The bandages, tight over your bones and shoulder, don't mitigate the pain either. If anything, they worsen it. It feels like a tight sock over a painful pustule on your heel.
 Worst part is you know all this pain is for nothing; you know you won't make it. If you go back to the QZ, you will be executed. If not, there's nobody to help you except Joel. But even if there were doctors or hospitals, you highly doubted you could find the necessary tools to extract a bullet and stitch the wound. That is, if you manage not to die of blood loss.
 "Where?" Joel asks. Even beyond all this concern and well-hidden panic, he seems to cling to an ounce of hope. "Tell me where it hurts."
 Your fingers gently trace your skin until they reach the area under your collarbone, and you sign to your back too. There's a bandage there, but nothing else, and that's when you notice you don't have a shirt on, just your blood-soaked bra.
 "Is it bad?"
 "Not that bad. The bullet went through," he said. That explains the pain on both sides of your body; you have a literal hole in your chest. "And it clotted soon enough to stop the bleeding, but you lost too much blood anyway... Anywhere else?"
 Your whole body hurts and this abandoned house suddenly feels like penance, but you don't want to scare him further, so you shake your head no very slowly.
 "Alright," he mumbles. Joel nods once, and it looks like he is reassuring himself. His eyes betray him, he looks like he is very far away from here, very buried under all the scenes playing on his mind; but despite his stillness, his lower lip quivers.
 You can't move your right arm at all, but with the other hand, your fingers lightly touch his knuckles still resting on your stomach. He winces, and your fingers are wet with his blood too. He must have beaten to death whoever shot you, that you are certain about.
 Your voice, little more than a weak breath, whispers:
 "I-I want you to do it."
 The crease between his eyebrows deepens. He seems confused rather than angry; the reaction you were hoping for. You take a breath to repeat your own words, but he squeezes your hand.
 "Don't," he says.
 "Joel..."
 "Don't even think about it," he snarls. "You are perfectly fine, don't be dramatic."
 You don't know what hurts more; his pain or yours, but his denial makes your eyes wet with tears again. This is already hard, but he is making it even harder. All he will achieve by trying to keep you alive is either prolonging his pain or getting himself killed. You both know this is no world for the injured and the sick, not out of the QZ, at least. And in most cases, not inside either.
 All you ask of him is to not leave you for the infected to find. Is that too much to ask?
 You want to insist, but you know he won't have it. Joel has lost so much already that the thought of losing what little left he has is not even going to cross his mind. Not until it's too late, at least. Also, you don't want your last moments with him to be a fight. You are tired of fighting, of swimming against the current. You just want to let go for once, give in to the external forces, close your eyes and peacefully breathe.
 What's more, you should have already known that he wouldn't do you that favor. He is too selfish for that.
 He pats your cheeks gently with his large hands, and your eyes, already rolling back into your skull, get focused on him again with a few blinks. You breathe slowly, trying to focus on him, on the world around you slowly twisting and turning.
 "...that's it," he says, it doesn't sound like his first sentence, so you guess he's been talking to you before. When you look back at him, his breathing is shallow, and you know he is trying to take a hold of himself too, trying not to give in to panic. "Good girl, that's it. Keep your eyes on me."
 Exhausted and hurting as you are, keeping your eyes open it's like asking you not to drop a weight that you cannot, in fact, handle; but you try nonetheless. It's your fault, really, for letting yourself go, for trying to give up on your fight earlier than you should. Joel is here trying to keep you alive, mending all your broken ends and stitching them together —he has always been good at that— while you're just trying to give up on him —you are really good at that too—.
 Giving up on Joel has been one of the hardest things you've ever had to do; and now you're letting him go for the last time. Part of you is glad you don't have to keep watching how he chooses Theresa over and over again. You are even relieved that fate —or whatever there is out there— is forcing you out of the equation. After all, you would never have given up fully on him.
 He refuses to kill you, what he doesn't know is that you've been dead for a long while now. Him being your executioner would be the kindest act he could have with you, the most intimate thing you'd ever share; your last moments. You want it to be him, you want him to free you from this torment.
 He refuses, though; and it feels like a punch to the pit of your stomach. You shiver.
 He gets up from his place on the floor, where you are lying just over the carpet. You follow him with your eyes and see a fire cracking up in a fucked-up chimney. He stokes the fire, throws some more wood on it and then comes back to you, covering you with his jacket, the very same jacket you had on before he turned you around. It's warm, his, and you have to stop yourself from sinking your nose into the collar.
 "I had to take off your shirt to patch you up," he says, but he doesn't say sorry. Ever. So you guess it's his way of apologizing.
 You simply nod, aware that you had wished for this very moment to happen many times before. You had dreamt of his rough hands over your naked flesh, caressing the sides of your body. You had dreamt of him watching you with those chocolate eyes as you took your shirt off, deep black pupils spreading over the brown as he watched the lace fall like a helpless witness.
 But now the bra was covered in blood and he was watching you anywhere but the lace. He had a frightened and concerned look on his face, rather than aroused. A look that would have made you feel guilty and ashamed if it had happened in the other scenario. And instead of undressing you, he was covering your body with his jacket as if you were his child.
 "What's wrong?" he is asking now, instead of whispering 'I want you' and it hurts all the same to know he's not ever going to say it, and that Tess now will have all those words for however long their lives are.
 You guess they were made for each other. And it makes all the sense, really, no one like Joel would ever look at you twice. You were grateful that he even allowed you to be his friend.
 "Nothing," you respond.
 It's always 'nothing' when it comes to Joel. It's always that nothing whenever he notices you are under the weather. It's always nothing when you are hurt, when someone tries to rob you and they leave an angry black eye on your face. It's always nothing; and he never believes you.
 "I don't make promises, you know that," he says, taking your left hand in his. "but you will be fine, I swear."
 You don't know what to say, how to explain that you are not scared of death, that you are just scared of not seeing him again. But you can't, so you say nothing and just nod.
 Does he want to hurt himself? Okay. You can't do much while lying on the floor anyway.
 After that, both of you stay silent. Joel seems to be avoiding looking at you. His eyes are stuck in the fire creaking in the chimney, but they are too restless to be present and conscious of the yellow and orange haze.
 Your palm lands on his thigh, your fingers gently brushing the denim. You want to comfort him somehow, but, at the same time, you are scared he will reject your touch and reassurance. That's all you can do for him: no words, no further touching, just a featherlight touch that indicates you are still present. There, with him.
 "I thought we couldn't make a fire."
 "Don't be dumb. The windows are all broken, it's winter and you are in shock. How else would you heat up?"
 "Got it. You're not in a talking mood," you huff. "Alright."
 Silence settles between both of you. However, one of his big, rough hands travels to where your fingertips are gently brushing his thigh. At the touch, even if you don't want to let go, your fingers begin to back off. He's not in a good mood, and you seem to be pushing his boundaries a little too much. Except that, instead of letting you go, he catches your hand in his and puts it back over his jean. This time, it's him who brushes his thumb over your knuckles.
 For a minute, the only sound in the living room are both your breathing patterns, the flames licking the air and the wind rushing through the broken windows.
 "I'm sorry..." you start. And immediately, his brown eyes are all over you again. Your voice sounds exhausted, more than you'd have liked. "...I fucked up the mission. I know-"
 "You haven't fucked up anything," he interrupts. That's Joel, all stoic, swallowing his feelings and denying everything that it is not up to his standards. "Would you mind to just rest-"
 Your eyes well with tears.
 "Joel, for once... Just for once, don't lecture me, don't ignore what I'm trying to say just because you don't want to hear it," you tell him. Then, he thankfully presses his lips together in a pained grimace, but stays silent nonetheless. "I fucked up the mission getting injured. I know it isn't my fault, but it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If you wanna go on without me, I won't blame you."
 His fingers are now squeezing yours, but you know he is not even conscious of that. He leans in a little, his cheeks now reddened in anger. He looks like he is about to spit on your face.
 "I'm not leaving you anywhere," he says. He looks offended that you even thought he was capable of that. "You and I are gonna get to Lincoln, either if you like it or not. There, Bill and Frank will help you. We have traded all kinds of things with them, and I know they are very well supplied."
 "Why would they help me?"
 "They are not just people we trade with," he says. His fingertips brush a strand of hair out of your face. "I know they will."
 "What if they changed their minds?"
 His pupils lock into your own, his jawline swells as he grits his teeth.
 "I'm persistent."
 The mission was supposed to be an easy one. Walk out of the QZ undetected, walk fifteen miles to the town of Lincoln, just outside Boston, get our things and come back. Our cargo were the two last spools of aluminum that Joel had promised to trade with them and two packets of seeds. Theirs? Two pounds of rolling tobacco and a gun. Tess couldn't make it, she had appointments with other smugglers, probably the ones who snuck the drugs in; which was more than half of their business. If it wasn't that important, she wouldn't have stayed in the QZ for anything in the world. But Bill and Frank were also important, and Joel couldn't go alone.
 The two of you should be home by now, and you wondered if Tess was regretting her decision of asking you to go with him. Last night you had both snuck out of the Boston QZ; and it usually didn't take more than six hours to get to Lincoln. But just outside the city you had bumped into raiders; and a stray bullet had hit you. Now you were stranded in a small cabin lost in the woods, about seven miles away from Lincoln; and unable to walk a single step.
 And to top it all off, Joel was enraged and neurotic.
 Still with the same expression, he takes your wrist and squeezes two fingers into it. Even if you had preferred him not to, knowing that your heartbeat got wild whenever he was around. You let him check on you, hoping that if your symptoms got better he would let you have a quick nap. Your nervousness, however, doesn't improve despite your efforts of trying to calm yourself down.
 "Since when are you a doctor?"
 He lets your wrist go, then gets back on his feet and gets his rifle.
 "You should rest. You'lll need it," he says, now heading to the entrance. He's gonna be standing on guard all night, you are sure of that. "We're leaving tomorrow morning."
 That is when you lose it. You can't believe he is that blind, that caught up in his own world.
 "I know in your perfect fantasy this is just a scratch, but I truly can't move, Joel. Even laying here awake is hard. How am I supposed to follow...? Joel!"
 But he's out of the house before you even finish the sentence.
  [***]
  Joel doesn't keep his word.
 A few hours later, not even near dawn yet, you get pulled back from a dream. Your eyes take a few minutes to register your surroundings; again. And the memories gallop back to your mind in a rush; accompanied by the burning and piercing pain on the upper right side of your chest. Your eyes shut tight, and you inhale a shallow breath. Even breathing hurts.
 "We need to go," Joel whispers. His voice sounds muffled, especially over the sound of your beating heart. "C'mon, wake up."
 He is once again rocking you rather than shaking you awake. Just to be able to fall asleep you had rolled back into your chest, cheek once again firmly pressed against that twenty-year-old dusty carpet. When he came back from checking the perimeter, not even five minutes after your argument, he placed his backpack right under your stomach so your right side was elevated. You wouldn't have been able to fall asleep if it wasn't for that. The pain was maddening, atrociously painful. Joel had found you gritting your teeth even in your sleep.
 He had said you'd leave the next day, but you felt like not even minutes had passed.
 "Morning," you complained, half a grunt accompanying your words. Joel shook you gently again when he saw you relax a second time, and your voice came back. "Y-you said...mor-"
 "I know what I said but we can't wait any longer," he answered. "I'm gonna sit you up."
 Fear pumped enough adrenaline into your system to wake you up. The ache from before rushed back into your mind, and your 'please' and 'wait' left your mouth like a prayer.
 "I can do it," you said, but it sounded more like begging than an affirmation.
 "I know you can," he lied. As your eyes opened and you saw his expression —eyes focused on you, trembling hands, half of his face hidden in the shadows, the other half gently licked by the orange-like haze of the dying fire— you understood that you had to be in a really bad condition for him to look at you that way, and feel the need to lie to make you feel better. But then, a second right after that, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes fluttered between your face and the surface of his jacket over your shoulders. His stoic mask was back on. "I'm just gonna help you, okay? But you do it."
 He did not, in fact, let you do it.
 You had managed to lift yourself barely an inch over the carpet, using all the strength left in your healthy arm, when both his hands curled around your side and pulled you up to his chest. Clenching your jaw, you allowed him to drag you a few feet back and into a seating position against the wall; your whole weight over the left side of your body.
 "Don't lean on the other side, your shoulder blade is broken."
 "Oh..." you almost chuckled. "Great."
 For a second, Joel looks at you as if you were completely insane. He reaches for his backpack, crouching on the place where you were lying just seconds prior. Then takes his flask and doubts when passing it on.
 "I'm not that desperate for water," you respond, reaching for the flask and drinking a gulp of the liquid. You swallow despite the soreness in your throat. "Next thing you'll do is spit food into my mouth."
 "Not even getting shot shuts your fucking mouth, does it?" he says, grossed out at your comment. However, a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. Relaxing him has a calming effect on you too.
 You try to pass him the flask again, but he refuses.
 "No," he says. "Drink it all. You'll need it."
 You look at him with narrowed eyes, confused. It's hard to keep a single thought in your head other than the throbbing pain in your chest and back, but you still try. Rather than asking him how you are supposed to walk seven miles, with the aluminum and his pack, you try to approach the matter another way.
 "What's the plan?"
 He takes a deep breath.
 "You're not gonna like it," he says, his deep voice almost slurring the words. It's barely a whisper. He looks into your eyes, then. "I'm gonna carry you."
 "What?"
 "You heard me."
 There's not an ounce of doubt in his eyes. Joel has that look of determination, the one you only really see when he has his eyes set on something really fucking important for him; most times that includes his own brother or not talking about the times before the outbreak. And with that look on his face, you know there's nothing you could possibly say or do to make him reconsider his own words. He's stubborn like that.
 You still try.
 "It's seven miles, Joel..." you tell him on a thready voice, a whisper. And Joel sighs through his nose —as if he had forgotten. "And we have to carry..."
 "We leave everything here," he says. "Come back for it later."
 "They won't let us in empty-handed."
 "You don't know them."
 For Joel to be so certain about it, certain enough as to put both your life and his on the hands of strangers; you understand that their relationship goes beyond trading. Joel had told you about them, about their situation and the first time Tess and him had shared dinner with Bill and Frank. Still, you were suspicious of them, and you thought that he was too; up until now, at least.
 "It's still seven miles," you tell him, and you know him, you know he's about to stop talking to you and leave the room if you don't, at least, partly give in to his reasoning. "...are you sure you wanna do it?"
 His pleading brown eyes engulf you, then, with an emotion he had never showed before. His gaze diverts for a second to your wound, to the bandages that, as you look at them, you find they are once again covered in blood. They are soaked in it, the skin surrounding it has a large black bruise —internal bleeding, you guess. And when you try to take a full deep breath, you find yourself unable to, at least not at full capacity.
 The understanding hits you, then. You don't have much time left.
 "I don't have any other choice," Joel says, but what he means is 'I don't want to lose you'.
 "Okay."
 Not even a full second has passed from your reluctant acceptance, but he is already on his feet. Joel walks to the only table in the room, takes your gun and puts it in his hip, right inside the jean. The only other thing he takes apart from ammo is another set of bandages —and he silently thanks whatever it is out there that he put those there a month ago—. He doesn't have anything to clean the wound, though; and one of his biggest fears is that it might already be infected. Even bandaged it looks bad.
 He approaches you, crouches down so he is facing the wound.
 "I'm going to tighten the bandage, and I have to keep the pressure," he says, loosening the knot. His fingers are once again stained with you blood, and he has to fight the images of him pressing on your wound from a few hours ago, when he had found you and, with trembling hands, had tried to stop the bleeding coming out in waves. He looks at you, trying to forget the awful picture of your eyes closed, your body limp on the ground. "Bite something."
 You reach for the sleeve of his jacket, the one hanging from your shoulders; and put the padded cuff of his jacket into your mouth.
 Joel doesn't give you a warning; and you're not sure if that's a good or bad thing, either. He presses the heel of his hand right over the covered hole in your chest, with such strength that you wonder if he will end up breaking your clavicle in half. As he presses your body against the wall, you can almost feel the cracked bones in your back smashing against each other.
 Needless to say, the pain is blinding. The view of the room, the feeling of his heat around you, the scent of him under your nose... all gone in a matter of seconds. Your vision turns white, all your senses stop functioning. Over the scream that falls from your lips, muffled by the jacket, you hear him say:
 "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
 He lets go, and your vision immediately darkens, the shadows flowing from the corners of the room quick to reach you. With your last grip on reality you feel yourself melting against the wall, slowly slipping to the side. Joel catches you before you hit the floor.
 Cold water is what brings you back. Your breathing quickens at the coldness of it, and the next thing you feel are his wet hands palming your cheeks, throwing water from his flask all over your face.
 "C'mon," he mumbles. "I need you awake."
 Your eyes flutter open, your whole body relaxed now that he's not applying pressure; but alert enough that your unfocused eyes make a single shape out of him.
 While coming back into yourself, Joel does not have any time to lose. He takes his jacket over your shoulders and slips your left arm inside the sleeve, the other, where the wound is, he decides to leave it as it is; and buttons it over your chest so you're not exposed.
 "You good?"
 In any other situation you'd have said some joke, or just something to piss him off. But as of right now, nothing comes to your clouded mind; and even if something did come, you're too exhausted to even do the mental effort to say it. So you just nod.
 "Okay," he nods too, talking to himself inside his head, then takes your face in his hands and looks into your eyes. "You're fine, you hear me? I'm gonna carry you and you're gonna be on my back; so I need you talking all the damn time, alright?
 You nod again.
 "Starting now."
 "Y-yes... okay."
 "Good," he says. His hand crawls to the back of your neck, and he joins both your foreheads. He takes quick breaths. He's terrified when he whispers. "You're doing so good. I'm so proud of you."
 "Y-you... are?"
 "Mm-hmm," he says. And as his words settle into your brain, you feel your chest warm. When you open your eyes and he separates, there's a tear on his cheek, but he's quick to wipe it off. "I'm gonna open the front door."
 It's just an excuse, you both know it, but neither dares to say anything. None of you wants to talk about the elephant in the room, the fact that your chances are slim even if this works.
 Joel returns quickly, with his lashes wet and reddened eyes. It makes you speechless, to know that all this effort and tears are for you. You'd have never, in a million years, thought you'd ever see Joel Miller cry; let alone for you. He had always been so quiet, so detached from everyone, even from Tess.
 Without a word, his hands get hooked on the underside of your thighs. He lifts you up, seemingly effortlessly, and your inner thighs surround his hips. You take a deep breath, again —or at least try to— as you try not to blush and show those feelings you buried long ago. This is not the time, nor the place; so you allow your head to follow his range of motion; forwards. Soon, your nose is pressed against the lapels of his denim shirt. With your good arm, you grab one of his broad shoulders. The other falls limp, and even that little movement hurts like hell.
 He freezes, his shoulders now stiff under your hand. His beard grazes your jaw as he tries to look at you, so still in his arms.
 "You okay?"
 "Yeah..."
 Better than okay, you want to respond. Better than I've been in a long time. But you don't.
 He leaves you on the table, on the edge, with your legs dangling.  His eyes waver for a second as he leaves you there, his hands squeeze your knees in such a brief movement that you wonder if he was even conscious of that. He looks like he wants to say something, but he can't think of what, so he turns around and bends his knees a little to get you to a good height.
 "I need you to push yourself up with your good arm," he instructs. "and keep the other still, okay?"
 "Okay," you respond, fighting the urge to just nod instead.
 Not even following his instructions to a t saves you from the pain. The effort, even with your arm limp in the air, makes your body shudder and an agonizing stab runs through your whole spine. The scream that tores from the depths of your throat is so intense that Joel hesitates to put you back on the table, his back trembles for a second as his body shivers in distress. But, in the end, he has you in the air with a good hold.
 He waits, but doesn't hear anything except shallow breaths, doesn't feel anything but the weight of your head over his shoulder.
 "You with me?" he asks. He is seconds away from aborting the mission.
 "Y-yeah..."
 Your arm surrounds his neck loosely. Your fist is closed tightly, grabbing the other shoulder, and he wishes he could touch you, give you some kind of comfort, but he can't let go from his grip under your knees.
 Joel does not have the privilege of time, every second is precious, so not even giving it a try, he starts walking as if you weighted nothing. He crosses the front door and the freezing cold wind of the East Coast cuts your cheeks. If he notices —and you know that he has, wearing just his shirt in the middle of the night— he doesn't react.
 "Remember what I told you?" he asks.
 In less than a minute he has crossed the space from the cabin to the highway, where you were surprised by raiders. You look around, see the bodies of five men sprawled on the floor; lifeless, drowning in a pool of their own blood. One of them has his face mauled to nothing. The sight is so sickening —or maybe you are getting so ill— that a sudden dizziness takes hold of your shivering body.
 "Hey..."
 "I'm sorry..." you start, teeth chattering from the cold. "I'm sorry I screamed into your ear earlier."
 A sound, half a relieved sigh and half a chuckle, leaves his mouth.
 "I'm half deaf from that ear anyway."
 A light chuckle falls from your lips too. Joel keeps walking west through the highway, and you keep yourself desperately clinging to him for dear life. The moon is your only other companion; without her, you both would be completely blind in the darkness of the night.
  [***]
  Joel probably hadn't thought about the possibility of taking breaks along the way. That's why, fourty-five minutes later, and under a beautiful sunrise of orange tones, he's struggling to keep going. His knees are screaming for him to stop, his biceps and hands tired of walking with a person's weight over his shoulders. And for the first time in years he remembers the times before the outbreak, when he was capable of lifting and moving huge pieces of furniture; often times on his own, other times with just Tommy.
 He might have overestimated his own strength, assuming he was as strong as before. But it seems that not only his mental health has deteriorated after Sarah's death, no. All of him has become older and darker and more broken since then. He hardly recognizes himself in the mirror anymore.
 "Joel?"
 "Yeah..." he gasps, out of air. "Sorry, I got distracted. You were saying...?"
 It is in moments like this that he hates not to be that same person he was before. He wonders if he is, finally, paying for his past sins, for all the people, infected or not, that he has killed.
It is unfair, the fact that you're paying for his piper.
 "You should stop for a while," you tell him, your voice low like a whisper. The warm air from your mouth slithers across his skin, up his neck, over his ear, and almost sends a shiver down his spine.
 "No."
 "Joel..." you huff. Before speaking again, you take a big gulp of air. "We are not getting anywhere if you don't take breaks. You'll just wear yourself off before we reach the halfway mark."
 His mind refuses to agree, but it's as if his body takes a relieved breath when he hears the words. Little by little, his body starts to listen to you before his mind does. His thighs are screaming, sore from the pain of exertion; and before he acknowledges, even, his body has stopped moving.
 "Okay," he gasps, quick tired breaths quickly entering and leaving his lungs. "...but just a minute, we don't have time for this bullshit."
 "Okay," you say, in the same tone he used earlier with you; when he lied and said he knew you could sit up on your own. "Just a minute."
 He pulls to the side of the road, and with the last of his strength he kneels down and tries to lay you on the ground as carefully as possible. You fall on your ass on the wet ground, but at least you don't hurt yourself on the spot. He asks you for the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours if you are okay.
 "I think I'm doing better than you," you respond, but your voice is so exhausted that Joel would love to just lay next to you and lull you to sleep.
 He turns around, his whole weight sitting on the grass as he takes gulps of oxygen. His eyes shut tightly, he wipes off a tear of sweat from his temple and looks at you.
 Wide-open eyes stare back at you, but just for a split second. He gets closer, his thumb brushing the shoulder of the brown jacket, his brown jacket. His eyes pierce yours.
 "Are you sure?"
 "That bad do I look?"
 Joel doesn't look at you, not at your face getting paler by the second or the dark circles under your eyes, or your hair now dishevelled. He sees you on his memories and can barely recognize you; your skin and eyes always glowing under the sun, your hair always perfectly done. Your job was often to act as an HR for their clients, and very rarely took actual FEDRA jobs that stained your hands; you weren't like Joel, you didn't care about rations or money or whatever.
 Expert fingers gently tug at the buttons, unbuttoning them so he could take a look to the wound. He had barely a glimpse of it when your fingers stopped his hands. Joel looks at you with those puppy eyes, as if you were about to faint in the next second.
 "If you wanted to see me naked you didn't have to wait until I got shot, you know?"
 You had said it in a playful manner, kidding, as a joke; but he saw beyond that. Part of you had only expected him to laugh, the other was dying —not pun intended— for him to kiss you. You'd have never said it if you weren't in this position, you'd have never gotten in between Joel and Tess.
 However, he didn't laugh, didn't make any funny remark. The way he looked at you, from under his eyebrows, lit a spark of hope somewhere inside you. Deep, deeper than your conscious mind would have ever reached. Joel didn't say anything, not even chuckled. His eyes came back to the wound, and uncovered the full sight of it.
 He had to fight a shocked gasp. His eyes fluttered, while holding his breath, between your own face and the wound. The bandage was still soaked in blood, that he had expected, but not the large bruise growing into your neck; or your right hand slightly paler than the other. He lifted, with trembling fingers, a corner of the bandage, and his action caused a trickle of dark blood to gush out, as if he had crushed a piece of watermelon between his fingers and it was now running down his arm. He looked below, inside his jacket, and saw a trail of blood that landed right into your navel.
 This time, it was impossible for him not to react. Not only his face, but also his body. He tried to get back on his two feet again, but before he finished the action, your fist closed around his wrist.
 "Joel..." he heard you call.
 "We need to go, now."
 Pressing your lips in a sad smile, you pulled him to the ground and he sat, mesmerised on that face he had only yet seen once; that time when he got too drunk on a Friday night and told you about Sarah at three in the morning. He felt his pulse quicken, his heart beating at the ends of his fingertips.
 "It's okay," you told him. Your gentle touch brushed his palm, danced around over his tan skin. "You can rest."
 Joel felt like he was in a fever dream. The setting certainly felt like it. You hadn't left the Boston QZ in a long while, and he had never pictured you out of those big silver walls either. He had not agreed to Tess' idea either, the dangers beyond the walls were almost impossible to escape. Still, Tess and him knew the city, they could get out fairly easily, had done that for a couple years to share stories over dinner with Bill and Frank. And Joel had loved the idea of seeing you sitting at that dinner table next to him, surrounded by a garden full of flowers, going through the dresses in the boutique that Tess had sworn you'd love.
 He had not signed up for this.
 "We need to go, please..." he tried a second time, but you just shook your head. He understood, somehow, what you meant.
 "A minute won't make a difference," you told him. In reality, you wanted to tell him that you'd be dead when he got the both of you to Lincoln, anyway. "If you are tired we will never get there."
 Useless and powerless as he felt, his only option was waiting. He took your hand, intertwined his fingers with yours and took a deep breath. You had never seen him so upset.
 "What are you so scared of?"
 At your words, his lower lip quivered slightly; it would almost have gone unnoticed if it wasn't because you had been watching him attentively for so many years. He looked at you, eyes barely half open, from under his eyelashes.
 "You're very important to me," he said. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, he seemed to be even more breathless than he was before. Joel had a hard time admitting his feelings, even to himself. "I don't know if you understand to what extent you're important to me."
 "I know..." you answered, nodding, your hand squeezed his for a second, trying to give him strength. "But you have Tess home, and your brother loves you... It will hurt for a while..."
 "Shut. Up."
 His eyes were tightly shut when he said it. It was a metaphor, almost, the way his eyes were closed not just to the physical world, but to the whole situation too that he couldn't escape from.
 The tip of your tongue wetted your lips.
 "What I'm trying to say is... it will pass..."
 His chest heaved, his gaps the only sound that filled the space between the two of you. And you continued:
 "People die all the time, Joel; and most times we can't do anything about it."
 His body rushed at you, his hands locked perfectly on both your cheeks, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle finally in place.
 "Not you, you hear me? Not you," he almost growled, his face a mixture of anger, determination, and grief. "Never you. You're not allowed to leave me. I will never forgive you."
 There was something hidden between the lines, something Joel wasn't saying. It was something you had denied yourself for a long time, for years, something you had insisted on not seeing because you didn't want to see it. Because, deep down, you were afraid that Joel would never love you back, that he would break your heart, that the only good man you'd ever known inside the walls of the Boston QZ would also be the one to abandon you to your luck.
 Joel had been your family for so long, and you had unconsciously protected yourself from seeing him as something else. But now there it was, clearly, latent in his confession. Your punishment for years of silence was now time, or rather, the lack of it.
 "I'm not giving up," he said. "and I need you not to give up either."
 He's close. His hot breath smells sweet -so instinctively Joel- and it's all around your face. His flesh is warm over the freezing skin of your cheeks. His body around you is shelter, is home.
 Joel is soon leaning in. He's all erratic breathing, rapid heartbeat and trembling hands; and as you close your eyes to allow his presence to swallow you like a black hole, he closes his eyes too.
 He doesn't let go, not just yet. He breathes in into your quick breaths the same way you revel in his.
 "I need an answer," he whispers over your mouth.
 "I won't, either."
 At first it's like a collision. He kisses you angrily for a split second, demanding and impatient; then, once he knows this is really happening, once he does understand that this is —finally— not a dream, he relaxes into your touch, your fingers delineating his jawline, caressing the beard there.
 He's quick, quicker than you'd have expected him to be; definitely quicker then he would have liked. He separates, then; and looks down at his jacket and the drops of blood staining the insides of it. It's not enough blood to send you into shock again, but it means part of the wound is ripping. You need stitches, not just a couple of bandages.
 "Enough resting then," he says.
   [***]
 Seven miles is usually nothing for Joel. In the first few months trading with Bill and Frank, Tess and him usually walked the fifteen miles that separated the city and the town at least twice a month. But this is all the more difficult, not just carrying you there, but knowing that he is running out of time.
 And you seem hellbent on making the journey even more difficult.
 "So...Tess?"
 "Pass."
 You huff, and the warm air sends a shiver down his spine; but he says nothing.
 "Okay."
 Your voice sounds so disappointed that he feels a pang of guilt. You know him better than to insist, and he knows that too. The guilt increases, though; and now he's inhaling a big gulp of air while still walking as fast as he possibly can without hurting his own knees.
 "We fucked a few times, before," he says. "but that doesn't mean anything. She's my colleague. That's all."
 If he was better with words, and feelings, he could say that he didn't feel anything for her. He could say that their hookups were nothing, just a fun thing they used to do before, before he realized that the one who he really wanted was you. A few months back he had realized that it never actually satisfied him, that those moments with Tess weren't as fun and innocent as they seemed to be before. They had talked about it, of course. He didn't want to play with her feelings, and that had been the end of it. She was just as fine without him, anyway.
 "I thought you two were dating."
 "If selling drugs for a living is what you call dating, then yes."
 Without even looking at you, he knew you were smiling, he could almost feel your lips stretching over his shirt.
 "I..." you said, then he heard you take another deep breath before talking again. "I'm sorry I asked you," another breath. "I... ran out of things to say."
 His brow furrowed in confusion.
 "You can say anything," he says. "Anything you really like, even a story."
 Anything just to know you're there...
 "Well..." you started. Then, a wheezing noise filled the air, followed by a gasp. "I... liked rock music-" silence. "...back in the day."
 "You okay?"
 Your fist tightened around his shoulder, your forehead pressing against his trapezius. He heard that wheezing sound again, followed by a pant. His hands squeezed harder the tender flesh under her knees.
 Joel tried to look at her, but all he could see from his peripheral vision was the top of her head and one eye tightly closed. His throat turned into knots.
 "Baby..." that was the most gentle tone you had ever heard coming from his mouth. "C'mon baby. Hold on, we're almost there."
 His whole body felt paralyzed, and he had to force himself to keep walking.
 What he didn't know was that your lungs were burning. They felt like a pair of balloons squeezing against your ribs, trying to expand beyond its cage. And it made all the pain in your back, from the shot, double as painful. The air you tried to swallow so bad, sounded like a whistle, like the breeze through an almost closed window. You were suffocating.
 "Talk to me, c'mon."
 With a painful drag of air, you complied.
 "I can't..." your fist tightened around the fabric of his shirt. "I can't."
 "Goddamnit..." he was panicking now. "Okay, that's okay baby. Just hold on to me, don't let go."
 Unable to do anything else, you just nodded as best you could and kept on holding on to him. His eyes desperately looked for signs of the town, and far away, in the distance, the row of trees ended; and he walked faster, hoping that Bill had already seen the both of you through the cameras.
 "J-Joel"
 You struggled to find air, and, therefore, the words.
 "Easy, easy" he said. "Just a bit more. You can do it, I know you can."
 His words lingered in the air, unanswered, not even him fully believed them. Joel was starting to feel his own shirt wet with blood from your wound. The feeling made him sick, his own imagination as he pictured what Bill was watching through the cameras, made it all a hundred times worse.
 He kept hearing the panting, the wheezing, becoming more desperate by the second. He realized, with horror, that you were suffocating righ there, on his back; from a collapsing lung, he guessed.
 He shouted Bill's name as he saw the fence that separated them from the town. Joel wasn't sure if he could hear him, but tried anyway.
 He felt your grip on his shirt hesitate, and he had to fight the instinct to squeeze your hand; if he had done it, you'd have fallen from his own grip. He heard you try and say his name.
 "Save it," he responded, even if it came out not as reassuring as he would have liked. "Don't try to talk."
 Before he reached the fence, it was already opening. Bill came out running, yelling something that he was too distracted to distinguish, Frank came behind him. Joel felt his knees wobble once through the gate. And now kneeling on the floor, he called your name, tried to turn his head to take a glimpse of you.
 "You did it. We're here."
 He noticed, then, that everything seemed all too silent. Everything that happened after that, happened very quickly. The hand that had been gripping his shirt slipped, limp over his shoulder.
 His mind disconnected, completely unaware of the other two people approaching. He released you with all the care that a person could have had, and his arms immediately caught you in an embrace. The sight of your closed eyes made him panic, and not having even checked your pulse, he buried his face into your neck and sobbed.
 Trails of blood ran through his forearms, and he threw up all the words that passed through his mind; a string of 'please stay' and 'I'm sorry'.
 "Joel," Frank struggled with him, fingers digging into his shoulder. "Joel you have to let go. Let us help her."
 He was too far gone, so much so that once your body hit the floor, Frank didn't allow him to touch you again. He sobbed, and, for a second, Bill saw himself in him. He would have never thought he would see Joel in this state, but yet there he was. He kept pressure on the wound, and saw himself in Joel, and Frank in you; and promised he would never let this happen to the two of them.
 Never.
  [***]
  The sun comes out the next morning. As it always does, as it always has. Orange light and blue skies illuminate the room, the clouds shine a different color; and Joel blinks; absolutely exhausted, devastated.
 His body is heavy, even if he's not holding any of his weight. He's sitting on the cold tiles, on the floor, his sore knees and thighs in the space under the bed, his head lying on the mattress, his whole body is bent over and it feels like jelly. His eyes are the only thing moving, they look at the window and see the night sky turn into daylight.
 Joel couldn't possibly say that he slept in that position; because he didn't actually sleep. He hasn't had a second of sleep since you got shot two days ago. Lying on the bed, is you, dormant; and his thumb draws circles on the back of you hand even if he's not paying attention to it. It comforts him to a degree, at least.
 Suddenly, pretty much everything has lost its meaning. Frank opens the door an hour later, almost tripping with the tray of food and water that he left the night before for Joel. He hasn't touched any of it. In fact, he forgot about it, but if it bothers him, Frank doesn't say anything. He takes it in his hands so he can take it to the kitchen downstairs.
 "We played 'I will survive' in the radio" he whispers before leaving. "It's a 70s song, but Tess will get the meaning."
 "Thank you," he mutters, his mouth pasty from barely speaking in the last twenty-four hours. Funnily enough, the only word he's said to them is 'thank you'.
 "You're welcome, Joel," he says. After a few seconds, waiting, he makes a dissatisfied sound. Frank approaches Joel, his palm squeezing his shoulder. "You should eat something, at least. Is there anything you want?"
 Joel looks at him, lifting his cheek from the mattress for the first time. His eyes are blood-shot and black circles adorn his eyes.
 "Coffee."
 "Not coffee, you need sleep."
 He huffs, his eyes lost in the window again. Frank, knowing he won't get anything from him again, vanishes behind the door and into the kitchen. He will bring him warm food later, hoping the smell will make him eat something despite his unwillingness to listen to any signal of hunger from his own body.
 A few moments later, your hand slips from his. As he loses your touch, a pang hits the pit of his stomach. But then, as he lifts from the mattress again, your fingertips lightly touch his chin, your thumb lovingly brushing his beard.
 "Baby?"
 Maybe he lost his sense of time, because he didn't expect you to wake up yet. In any case, when he sees your eyes open he practically pounces on the bed. He sits on the edge, and swallows the image of you looking at him.
 "Morning."
 He smiles at your words, feels his strength coming back into his body.
 "You're here," he says.
 Even beaten up as you look, he thinks you are gorgeous. Your face has regained its usual color, the bruising is coming down, changing colors little by little, the wound is stitched and bandaged, and the blood flow seems to reach your fingertips normally once again. Joel has no idea how Bill fixed the collapsing lung, he had said something about medical knowledge being necessary in the field too, but he hadn't paid attention. He doesn't care about the details, though. He just cares that you're safe and sound, and despite the close call, that has seemed to be the end result to this whole dilemma.
 There's no blood in sight, not even in the bandages. Frank had washed the blood from your hair the day before, and Joel had helped with the rest. He wished he could have you like this everyday: happy, clean, safe...
 In the last few hours Joel had discovered he was jealous. He wished he had a town like Lincoln all to himself, just so he could see you picking flowers in the front garden.
 "I'm here," you told him. The words felt like strawberries in his mouth. "and I'm not giving up on you."
 He released a breath he didn't know he was holding, leaned in for both your foreheads to meet, and kissed you.
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euphoricfilter · 2 months
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HIIII GIRLY. I saw your drabble game anddd how about
"How could we ever just be friends" + yoongi djskskjs
just friends:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
pairing: yoongi x gn! reader
genre: fluff || mild hurt with a lot of comfort || non-idol au
summary: maybe you were never just friends
word count: 1.2k
tags/ warnings: feelings, fluff, the smallest hint of hurt, they’re actually just really in love and the m/c is slightly oblivious but yoon is a big old sweetheart
notes: OMG HEY!!!!! you didn’t ask for a specific au so i did indulge slightly and made it fluffy and soft, hope you like it :D
drabble masterlist || all my other works
.  . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.
There had always been something utterly unique about Yoongi’s existence in your eyes. He had been the first, and only person whose life had meant anything to you.
You’d spent most of your life aimlessly wandering, taking each day as it came and only hoped it would get better the more you trudged through. Fingers letting go of the ropes of friendships you’d made and lost—people you didn’t pay any mind to now that they weren’t in your life.
You didn’t miss them. Never thought of them unless they were right in front of you, if they never made themselves known.
But Yoongi had been different.
It didn’t take his physical presence for you to wonder how he was doing. He didn’t need to message first for you to ask how his day was. Dreams filled with another reality, what the two of you would be doing the next time you met, how sweet your name sounded from his lips. Or that sweet smile he would give you every time you stumbled over your words, too caught up in his eyes your brain malfunctions and you forget how to speak.
Thoughts consumed by him, feelings wrapping around the idea of his existence, soul dancing around his in this weird push and pull, not quite just friends but not really anything more.
Special, precious, perfect, Yoongi.
In all your years alive you’d never had a crush until that first moment you met. Never once thought of another human being in any other way that wasn’t platonic. It felt as though part of your world had started to crumble to moment, you’d acknowledged how you truly felt about him, stuck in this endless dilemma. Because who were you meant to tell him about your feelings when he was your closest friend? What if he asked who it was? He knew you rarely went out, and you sure as hell would have told him if you’d gone on any dates. So, you’d been stewing in your own feelings for as long as you can remember, too scared to utter a word about what was really happening between the two of you.
Because, sure his touches lingered, warm skin pressed against one another until the heat has travelled to your cheeks and you refuse to look at him, too scared he’d see how flustered you were. And sure there was the nicknames, though that was something he’d started early on, and you had doubts he fell in love just as quickly as you did.
Sometimes it felt like he only smiled at you, and yet you could only assume it was because you were his best friend, a safety net for him as much as he was one for you.
But not once had he made it obvious he liked you any more than a friend. A fact you’d slowly decided you could live with.
Just like yourself, it wasn’t very often Yoongi went on dates, you don’t think he’s been on one in the time you’d been friends. Which makes this whole dilemma slightly easier to swallow, because at this moment in time you were probably the most important person in his life.
You got to live out your secret little fantasy, and he got a low maintenance friendship. The perfect exchange.
And truly you believed it would be like this forever, until that little dream in the forefront of your mind was shattered by someone else coming into his life, and the two of you slowly drifting apart.
That was until tonight.
It wasn’t often you drank, never indulged in the fine whiskeys Yoongi would bring over to your place, stashed away in the cupboard when he wanted a little something before bed. However, Yoongi had come over with a cocktail making kit, saying he’d done some research because he knew how much you liked sweeter drinks.
And maybe you’d had a few too many, eagerly asking him to make you different drinks from the little book he had, excited as you watched him mix everything together. Utterly amazed by how good everything he made tasted.
You can’t remember what you’d said, words tumbling out your mouth quicker than you could swallow them back down. The small, sane part of your brain slowly catching up to what was happening as you watch Yoongi’s face morph into something slightly more surprised.
“How could we ever just be friends?” he shakes his head, scooting closer to you on the couch.
“Because you don’t like m—”
He holds a finger up to your lips, quick to silence you.
“Don’t finish that”
A frown tugs at the corners of your lips, “but Yoongi—”
He takes hold of your hands, thumb running over delicate skin as he looks at your face.
“No” he shakes his head, “listen to me for a moment, yeah?”
He’s calm, voice tender and smooth.
You nod.
“You’re not forcing me into anything” he starts, “I thought I was being too pushy with you”
You swallow.
“Huh?” your eyes widen slightly, “But I could have sworn you didn’t like me more than a best friend”
The low rumble of a laugh vibrates from his chest, “Best friends don’t look at each other the way I look at you. They don’t hold your hand on days out, or wish they could kiss you when you make that sweet little face when you first wake up in the morning”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” you murmur, “I really thought—”
“And why didn’t you tell me, hmm?” he smiles, “feelings are weird.”
You nod, outburst having helped you sober up slightly.
“What now?” your legs bounce a little, so far out of your comfort zone.
“Whatever you want” he reassures.
“I’m scared” it spills past your lips before you can think about it.
He tilts his head slightly in question, “About what? Commitment?”  
You shake your head, frantic “I just—I don’t know what to do I’ve never dated a person before”
He gives you a gentle smile, “Just be you. Just like you are now, that’s all I want”
“But what if I want a kiss?” you inch a little closer to him.
“Then I’ll give you a kiss”
“What if I wanted a kiss when we go out to dinner with your friends?”
He laughs, “Doesn’t matter when or where, I’ll always be willing to give you a kiss if that’s what you please”
You chew on your bottom lip.
“I’ve never actually kissed anyone before” you say, shoulders losing their tension, because now this felt normal. Like how it always was with Yoongi, where you didn’t need to have secrets or be scared about what he thought. Because for all the time you’d known him, he had always been by your side, and you hope it will stay like that for the rest of time.
“Then I’ll teach you” he hums, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear, “Try not to worry your pretty little head too much, I know what you’re like”
“But—” you worry.
“Nope” he laughs, “We’ll work through this together like we do everything else, I’m always here for you, you know that right?”
Your eyes flicker between his for a moment, words settling into your soul as you nod.
“And I’ll always be here for you too, just so you know” the corners of your lips curl up into a smile.
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there’s something deeply wrong with the fact that if i just simply decided to walk around everywhere on all fours all day, and did absolutely nothing else differently, i would be guaranteed to have the cops called on me and be put back in a psych ward with at least 5 new diagnosis by the end of the day.
walking around on all fours isn’t even something i do or would want to do. it would destroy my arthritic-ass spine. but there’s something deeply, rage-inducingly fucked up about the fact that even something that small is enough for this society to deem it morally acceptable and necessary to dissapear you into fucking conversion therapy torture jail indefinitely and saddle you with life-ruining legal tags forever “for your and everyone’s safety”!
just commenting on this as being fucked up could very easily be enough to get me the same treatment if someone decided they wanted to! it’s not like anyone’s going to stop some psych person from deciding that this is totally real undeniable freudian slip 100% true we promise you guys evidence that i’m some kind of feral mentally degenerate personimal mindlessly beholden to some illogical instinct to crawl around and bite good normal god-fearing real people because CLEARLY you’d have to be crazy yourself and/or want to DO the thing yourself to defend this UNCOMFORTABLE THING, right? nobody could just think it’s fucked up how we treat doing (abnormal thing) without being a Secret Monster themselves, REAL people obviously know unquestioningly why it’s bad, you just want to be allowed to give in to your corrupted malformed wrong EVIL base instincts that you definitely have (INSTEAD of a conscious mind with any valid logical thoughts or worthwhile human experiences in it) because i said so and i’m The Expert so everything i say is true and right!
i can’t even figure out where to fit in the bit about how fucked it is that if you did anything “abnormal” like that literally everyone automatically assumes you’re going to be dangerous and violent about it. that if someone decides to go around on all fours then CLEARLY they’re going to randomly bite GOOD HEALTHY NORMAL REAL people for no reason. it’s like people can’t comprehend the idea of any even slightly deviant behavior that isn’t violence and just assume if anything even slightly weird’s going on it’s moving in the direction of mindless bloodshed-of good normal people’s blood, especially, personally, obviously. human-shaped things come in “actual person” and “mindless rabid horrordemon that desires only real human’s blood and pain” and as far as they’re concerned everything that even slightly inhabits, leans towards, or vaguely reminds them of the second category is functionally identical and will inevitably attack real humans the same way-for literally no reason beyond a cosmic ontological sort of Wrongness and Emptiness Of Real Thought And Soul-if allowed to exist in their field of view longer than thirty seconds.
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thegnomelord · 4 months
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I love your monster au so much. It makes the monsterlover/fucker in me real happy. Sorry just wanted to share my appreciation.
I've been thinking too, how would you feel about writing a underwater sea creature reader? (No pressure but I hope this idea tickles your fancy so I'll infodump my ideas on you) They can live on land and stuff but drag their prospective mate into a deep underwater ravine when they want to mate. Idk how to describe it, like I have an idea in my head of what the creature's traits would be but I can't find a way to put it into words.
I'm going to give it a try though, (excuse the fact it won't make much sense, my thoughts jump around a lot. But I'll try and make it coherent.) Basically, my mind went to underwater dragons. So with most of the traits that you wrote for dragons, like the purring and the tails intertwining (and the sharing of scales). But I was thinking without wings, because you don't need them underwater. But we glow in the dark, because we are deepsea creatures we have adapted to become bioluminescent. Oh and also we have gills and stuff still when we are on land.
Idk if this is confusing or just something you don't want to write but I was hoping for you to include a more sfw part with the mating dance maybe and then then an actual nsfw part (dom top male reader??)
But at the end of the day this is just a suggestion and it's up to you if you want to write it or not. (If you do write it can it be with ghost or gaz?? gaz giving us shiny things but sea related, like shells? and/or ghost struggling through knowing how to court us. Both of them being confused of what to do because we are a new type of dragon that not many people knew existed and our courting traditions are mostly unknown??
Okay this is cool and it tickles my brain of having just this big fucking monster that's gigantic due to deep sea gigantism :D, I also picked Gaz cause I like the sea/sky duality.
CW:NSFW, subbot gaz, domtop Mreader, quick and rough
When you first joined the taskforce, Gaz didn't know what to expect. Your species had been newly discovered, barely any information about you, but something about you put some ancient part of his mind on edge, ants nipping on the sinew of his wings until his body begged to return to the safety of the sky.
First time he met you, you reminded him less of a dragon and more of a Leviathan — something that dwelled where the light didn't reach, far too big than anything should be allowed to be, bright bioluminescent markings shimmering against dark scales to lure prey into crushing jaws filled with sharp crooked teeth, horns like spears to pin down what couldn't fit in your maw, powerful legs built to swim and breach the surface of the water to catch unaware flyers like Gaz just to pull them down into the abyss to be devoured.
He would have been more. . . unsettled by you had you not been so nice.
You towered over him even in your mostly human form, but you were a gentle giant, happy to let him use you as a perch and humming along as he talks, joining in on his and Johnny's pranks and hiding them when Price eventually catches them.
And Gaz doesn't even notice when your presence no longer makes his feathers puff up, the shadow you cast over him now warm and welcoming after all the times you'd been a meat shield for him. He tils his head back to catch sight of your eyes as he leans back, soft feathers rubbing against your clothes, "Hey there big man." Gaz smiled.
You hum, your hand coming to loosely hold his hip, holding the pretty thing close to you. "Hi." You purr, the small biolights along your body flickering in seemingly random patterns, but nothing about them was random to you or your kin, your interest in him painfully obvious.
But to your dismay Gaz doesn't understand, just snorts at your colorful display. "What's got you in a good mood today?" He asks, eyes tracing the dancing lights, that instinctual bird part of his mind liking the sight, and the low rumble of your voice, and just. . . being near you.
You blink, "You," You say simply, your people aren't ones to mince words.
Gaz can feel his body heat up at your declaration, feathers puffing up, but strikes down any thoughts about you before they turn inappropriate and cause him to coo at you. "Fine, keep yer secrets." He huffs and gets out of your hold, wings stretching out to purposely show off his feathers as he walks away, tail feathers flickering.
He can feel your eyes follow after him, hummingbirds pecking at his spine and he doesn't know if he should feel that way. And all you can think of is how you could drag your pretty bird down into the abyss without clipping his wings.
. . .
Gaz watches you lazily swim around the lake near their current base in your real form, "Havin' a nice soak in there Nessie?" He asks as he walks the short pier and sits down, dipping his feet in the water as his wings spread out lazily behind him.
A low rumble leaves you like a distorted whale song, your large form pushing through the water like a submarine cutting through the ice. "Nessie?" You ask as swim over to him, "Who's that?"
"Never mind about that," Kyle grins, his eyes roaming along your large form as the biolights flicker once again in that specific pattern that means nothing to him but everything to you. "You look happy."
You shrug, "It's nice to be back in the water." Without a word you heave yourself out of the water and onto the pier, large hands clutching the wood on either side of him, a deep purr rumbling in your chest at how close he is to you now. "Did you need something?" You ask, biolights flickering seductively.
Kyle swallows drily, eyes going wide as he registers you loom over him, can smell the sea and salt still clinging to your scales, something other than fear buzzing down his spine from how close your dangerous teeth are to him. "Oh, right, uh," He clears his throat to clear the molasses clinging to it, wings spreading out in a way that got his feathers shining in the setting sun as he reached into his pocket.
"I, um. . . I got you this." He said, holding out the seashell he'd found for you. His breath caught in his throat as you looked at it, hoping you liked it; he'd spent hours polishing it until it was shining, the colors vibrant and every single scratch buffed out.
"Thank you," You rumbled and took the seashell into your hand. Your pupils dilated, a very pleased purr rumbling in your chest — oh, he was so thoughtful, such a good mate to bring a rare treat for you.
Kyle felt like a bloody peacock at the way his wings spread out, but he couldn't care less about his posturing when you accepted his gift, his heart fluttering like butterflies in a jar.
Then you ate it.
You ate his gift.
His heart shatters like the seashell between your fangs, wings dropping like a rock, never having expected to be rejected like that. "I- what- why did- if you-" He couldn't even form words to say what he wanted, pressing a hand to his face in an attempt to hide the way his eyes prickled with vestiges of tears.
Unfortunately for him, you notice. "Oh, little bird, what's wrong?" Your voice is soothing, biolights pulsing in a slow and calming way as you gently pry his hand from his face, looking into his eyes. "Did I do something wrong?"
Kyle doesn't look you in the eyes, doesn't know what the hell to feel right now, the words spewing out of his mouth before he could control them. "Why would you do that!" He hisses.
You tilt your head. "You gifted it to me." You say like it's supposed to explain everything, reaching up to cup his cheek, your clawed hand cold and wet against his skin. "It was very good." You lean in closer, a deep purr rumbling in your throat, your long tail moving to curl around his leg.
Kyle sucks in a sharp breath as you push you loom over him your hands on either sides of him keeping him in place, feeling himself slowly lay back as you creep over him onto the pier, heart drumming in his chest. "Wh-what?"
You snort, eyes glowing like anglerfish lures, lowering your head down to lick a stripe up his neck, claws raking down his front. "Let me show you my appreciation, yes?"
Kyle shivers at the sensation of your teeth against his throat, body heating up, your scent — of sea and salt and something very very old — invading his nose, an involuntary chirp escaping his chest. "Ah, yeah, sure just-" Kyle yelps as your claws cut through his clothes, wings quivering as they're pressed against the wooden pier behind him.
"Relax little bird," You coo softly, licking around his lips in what counts as a kiss for you when your maw is filled with vicious teeth, tongue trailing down to lick up the drops of his salty sweat. "I'll be gentle."
And gentle you are; softly licking up the blood after your fangs had left marks on his skin, sharp claws holding his trembling hips tenderly as your rough tongue worms inside him, soft purrs and deep rumbles vibrating your tongue against his prostate until he's sobbing, his hands clutching your horns to hold your head closer as his cock leaks a puddle of pre onto his abdomen.
He whines when you continue stretching him with your tongue, "Please, mate, just-" Kyle sucks in a sharp breath as your tongue once again grazes his prostate, thighs clenching around your head. "-just please fuck me already! I can't- I'm not going to-"
Kyle sobs with joy and anguish when you pull your tongue out, the slimy appendage slithering back into your maw and leaving him painfully empty. "Alright, alright," You coo, moving up to drape your body over his, nuzzling your cheek against his as you line your hard cock with his stretched hole. "Relax,"
The tip of your cock breaching his puckered hole has Kyle sucking in a sharp breath, "Easier said than done mate," He chuckles, closing his eyes and just trying to focus on your scent and just you, groaning. Fuck, you're big in all aspects, his body clenching down like a vice before relaxing enough for you to slowly push further, spreading his walls wide until you're fully inside him, your hips resting against his.
"There you go," You purr, letting Kyle adjust as you nibble on his neck, biolights flickering happily when he rocks his hips into yours. "Taking me so well,"
Gaz can feel his body heat up at your words, throwing his head back when you rock your hips, cock hard and heavy inside him, dragging against his walls with every minute movement that has him panting and whining, his legs crossing behind your back to pull your hips closer every time you pull out.
The world escapes your notice, all your attention fully on him as you focus on mating him, pulling needy desperate sounds from Kyle's lips, your large hand gently stroking his leaking dick as your cock rubs against his prostate, your unhurried pace making him cum again and again and again until he's a moaning boneless mess by the time you cum inside him.
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13uswntimagines · 5 months
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The Come Down (Alessia Russo X MMA fighter!R)
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R is a very popular MMA fighter, and Alessia sees the parts of you that other people don't. Shes the one who gets to put you back together again after a tough fight.
Warnings: D/S undertones but no smut.
Author's note: This was super fun to write and i hope you enjoy it. Feel free to hit me up with ideas and comments and stuff.
You sighed, leaning your head against the stone walls of the Emirates tunnel, letting it soothe the twinges that always lingered after a long flight.
It was masochistic, but the ache that lingered the day after a war in the Octagon was always one of your favorite feelings, especially if you won. It helped you to compartmentalize the parts of yourself. It helped you separate the completely in-control fighter, the stone-cold monster that didn’t give a fuck about her opponents, and the human that lingered underneath. 
It was hard to punch a man until he was unconscious if you thought about how human he was. If you pictured his family and his life as anything other than an opponent for you to run through. But you never wanted that part of yourself to exist anywhere other than in the cage. 
The throb in your muscles and ache in your cuts helped you lock that part of yourself away. It helped you keep your grip on reality in all of the post-fight hormones until you could get to the grounding force that was your girlfriend. 
The post-fight come-down was always difficult for you, especially after a 5 round back and forth battle like the one you had just fought. 
You loved your job, you really did, but it was so easy to… lose yourself. To get lost in the anger of the UFC universe and the vitriol of your opponents. To get lost in the cycle of Training, listening to a man tell you he was going to destroy you at press conferences, cutting weight and beating the ever-living fuck out of someone while people cheered. 
Just being in the same building as Alessia had set you at ease, and watching her score 2 against Chelsea was even better. 
But the sound of the crowd had started to set you on edge. The way they erupted when your face, black eye, stitched gash on your cheek curving up to your forehead and all, appeared on the Jumbotron after your girlfriend’s PK had you clenching your teeth. It egged on the thoughts of murdering the keeper that had taken her out swirling in your brain, along with the desire to demolish the player who had so callously stepped on her teammate after a play. 
It was why you escaped to the tunnel, to gain some form of control over your thoughts. 
Maybe flying out as soon as you had been cleared by the medics wasn’t such a good idea, but you couldn’t stand being away from Alessia any longer than you had to be. You couldn’t stand being away from the comfort, love, and… safety she offered you. 
God, you sounded like a psycho. 
Or a submissive nearing the end of her rope.
6 weeks apart from your girlfriend was really doing a number on you. 
“Ay bruiser, fancy meeting you here,” Katie said, appearing in front of you with a wide smile. 
You flashed a toothy grin at the Irishwoman, ignoring the way it pulled at the stitches holding your cheek together. “Maccabe, always a pleasure,” 
She caught your arm. “That was one hell of a fight. Thought Less was gonna break my hand during the third round,”
You grimaced. 
The third round was the only one your opponent won. He had caught you with a big overhand right, opening the gash on your cheek and knocking you on your ass in the last 15 seconds of the round. The knees he had followed it up with to your side hadn’t been fun either. He had almost finished you, and you knew it had to be hard for the team and your girlfriend to watch. 
“My hand dipped when I tried to close the distance,”
It really was a game of inches, and he had certainly taken advantage of your small mistake. It was ok, you had gotten him in the end anyway. 
Katie made a sound of agreement, glancing at the tunnel behind you. “Certainly made us all nervous, but I’m happy you took his head off, even if it took you until the last 30 seconds of the fight,” 
She made a little kicking movement with her leg like a semi-recreation of the head kick you had used to end the fight. 
“Didn’t want to rush it,” You shrugged, nodding to the Arsenal girls as they passed you, unable to help the way you automatically searched each face for your girlfriend. 
“Ya missus is still signing for a couple of kids,” She gestured over her shoulder, a knowing smile still playing at her lips. “I can take you to her if you want?”
You shook your head. “I’ll wait here. I’m in no hurry,” 
You also didn’t think you could deal with the sounds of the crowd when your head was still pounding, a consequence of taking a flight with a concussion against doctor's orders you supposed, and you ached every time you took a step, every time you inhaled too deeply really. 
Katie’s eyes softened when she saw the emotions flit across your features. “Come on, let's go to the locker room instead. It’s away from prying eyes,”
She tugged your hand. You let her lead you deeper into the tunnel and into a room filled with wooden cubbies. 
It was nice to let your brain turn off, to just… follow along and allow someone else to lead you. 
“Hey champ,” Leah smiled at you as Katie deposited you in what you assumed was Alessia’s locker. “That was one hell of a fight last night,”
“Thanks,” You winked at the defender. “You guys had a fantastic game too,” 
“I’m not sure a football match compares to a man trying to punch you in the face,” Steph said, glancing at you from her spot near Lottie. 
You made a low sound in the back of your throat, feeling the tightness return to your chest. “But I don’t have people stepping on me after the bell,” 
“But you do end up covered in blood,” Kyra chirped. “We don’t have to worry about that usually,” 
“Most of the time it’s not mine,” You muttered, leaning further into your girlfriend's locker. Her perfume lingered in the cubby, and you let it soothe the frayed edges of your nerves.
You didn’t want to think about fighting. About the person. The savage. you were in the octagon. You toyed with the hem of your sweatshirt sleeve. It was slightly too long because it really belonged to Alessia. She had given it to you before fight week. 
It helped, but it wasn’t her. 
It hadn’t been enough after the fight, and it wasn’t enough now. 
You didn’t think you could wait much longer, but you didn’t have to. 
“The stadium is buzzin,” Alessia said slightly breathlessly, stepping through the locker room door. 
You were immediately on your feet, taking in her flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “Less,” 
A grin instantly broke across her face, and she crossed the room in 3 long strides. Her arms wrapped around you, and without thinking you buried your face in her chest. 
It made the gash on your cheek sting and the tender skin of your jaw ache, but you didn’t care, pressing yourself as tightly to her as you could. She shifted, her nails running over your back with one hand as the other cupped the back of your neck. 
It was gentle, and grounding, and everything that you craved. 
“Hey baby girl,” She breathed into your hair, her voice dipping just a little and sending a shudder down your spine. 
She was like a ray of sunshine, always warm and sweet. It was why none of the fans would ever speculate about the positions that the two of you held in your relationship. They joked that she was too soft to be a dominant, but the people who understood how your relationship worked could see that her mix of firmness and warmth was exactly what you needed. 
She waited for you to pull away first, just enough to meet her eyes. “Hey,”
She leaned in and placed a careful kiss on your lips. “I’ll shower and then we can go, yeah?”
You deflated, your fingers tangling more tightly in her jersey. You didn’t want to let her go, even if it was just for a second. 
“You can come with me,” She said, a knowing look in her eyes. “And tell me all about fight week,” 
“Ok,” You agreed, only loosening your grip long enough for her to grab her shower bag and change of clothes, before you latched back on, holding the hem of her jersey tightly as she led you towards the showers. 
You felt a bit like a child, clinging to her, but she was like a buoy keeping you from drowning in the sea of your rocky emotions, and now that she was close to you, you couldn’t let her go. You were afraid that if you did, you would lose your grip on reality. 
The warm, wet air of the shower helped too. 
It reminded you of your post-fight routine. 
Win or lose you would stand under the hot steam of the stadium, washing off the blood and sweat from the octagon until your coaches pulled you out. It was part of the routine that you had skipped since the docs wanted to stitch your cheek as soon as you were out of eyeshot of the fans. 
Then you had felt so… off balance that you raced through a cold shower and hopped on a plane to get to your girlfriend as quickly as possible. You didn’t even stay for the post-fight press conference. 
“Come on love,” She said, pulling you into one of the stalls, sliding the first curtain shut behind the two of you, and bringing her face inches from yours. 
Her hand very gently cupped your cheek, mindful of the dark bruises that littered the skin, tilting your chin up. Her eyes searched you for a long moment like she was reading your mind. Like she was deciding what you needed from her. 
Her pointer finger very gently followed the long cut that ran under your left cheek, up to your temple, and just above your eyebrow. “I thought they usually put a bandage over stitches,”
Your eyes darted away from her. “I didn’t like the way it pulled at my skin,”
“I think you’d like it less if you got an infection,” She deadpanned, using her thumb to tilt your chin up further as she stepped into your space. “You wouldn’t be able to fight,” 
“But the scar would be worth it,” You shrugged, using all of your strength to muster up fake nonchalance. 
Her lip quirked upward. “Would it?”
You let your own smile morph into a playful smirk, despite the tremendous effort it took. “Chicks dig girls with scars,” 
“I think you’ve got enough of those, cheeky,” She hummed, leaning in and brushing the thick line that lived on the underside of your jaw with her nose. “I like it more when you come out without a scratch on you or a hair out of place,” 
You hummed, leaning back on the stall wall as her lips replaced her nose on your jaw, her teeth grazing the delicate skin as she made her way down the column of your throat and back up. 
Her hips pressed into yours, keeping you pinned to the wall, her thumbs insistent under your chin, keeping your head tilted up as her tongue slid pleasantly against your own. 
You sighed into the kiss, your fingers twisting into the material of her jersey, trying to pull her closer. 
Her thigh flexed between your legs, pressing into you, and you couldn’t help the way your hips rolled down to meet her. 
Or the wince that broke the kiss when the 
movement pulled uncomfortably at your ribs. 
“Babe?” 
You whined as she pulled away, blinking open to meet her burning blue eyes. 
“I’m ok,” You said breathlessly, trying to lean back up to kiss her. 
Her hand on your chest stopped you, as did the perfect arch of her eyebrow that screamed yeah right. 
Her fingers traced down your chest to the hem of your shirt. They crept under your top, meeting the tape wrapped heavily across your abdomen instead of smooth skin. 
Her eyes widened when she pulled up your sweatshirt, revealing the thick white bandages wrapped tightly across your stomach. 
“Want to try again love?” She asked, finally looking up at you with an expression that had a shiver tingling down your spine. 
“Just two cracked ribs and some nasty bruises,” You huffed, shifting uncomfortably when her fingers grazed the material. 
“Just,” She snorted, shaking her head, dropping your shirt, and standing up to her full height. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?” 
You shrugged. “I didn’t want you to worry. The stitches were already enough,” 
“I’d rather know and worry than accidentally hurt you,” Alessia said seriously. 
You looked away from her, swallowing hard. “And I knew you wouldn’t touch me at all if I told you,” 
“Baby girl,” She murmured, her voice going very soft, her thumb very gently ghosting over your uninjured cheek. 
She knew that the come down from fights was always particularly difficult for you. That the power that you held in the octagon always made you crave submission. You craved to not have to think, to just exist, and then to let your being relax in the aftercare that followed. 
This time the desire was amplified by the brutality of the fight. 
She could see you teetering on the edge, fighting the fog that always filled your brain, and while she wanted to scold you for withholding information, she knew that that wasn’t what you needed from her. 
Not when you were already dropping so hard. 
“Ok,” She said, keeping her voice soft as you leaned further into her touch. “I’m going to shower, and you’re going to be a good girl and stay right here for me, alright?”
You made a low noise in the back of your throat, and your eyes slid closed as you nodded very slowly. 
“Good girl,” She hummed, placing a very gentle kiss on your lips, and pulling away. “I’ll be two minutes love,”
You sagged against the shower stall wall. 
You could do that. You could wait 120 seconds for your girlfriend. 
You could and would do whatever she asked you to do because you knew it would help. You knew she would fit all of your loose pieces back together again and make it ok. 
You just had to exist.
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theblueflower05 · 1 year
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Just a Little Taste
A/N: Welp. Somehow my breeding/breastfeeding kinks manifested themselves into a story. I wrote this sky high on painkillers and I am a little in love with the whole premise. @tiredmamaissy -I hope more than anything that you enjoy this. You deserve all of the goodness on this site. Your Masterlist is my personal spank bank lol
Word Count: 3k+
Warnings: This story is Filthy. Smut with very little plot. Breastfeeding. Pussy Eating. Slight mommy kink if you squint. Very pregnant reader getting pleasured, because pregnant beings can still be sexual. Aged up!Neteyam
You are responsible for cultivating your own online experience, please do not interact if any of these tags are triggering to you. Minors DNI.
Summary: You’re eight months pregnant with Neteyams child, and after a long day, you both need a little relief. Neteyam x Human! Reader
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"Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea
Bumble-bee on the scene.
Yeah, I'd give up my bakery to have a piece of your pie"
- See You Again, Tyler the Creator ft Kali Uchis
Life in the village is always busy. Constantly bustling with life and movement as everyone; human scientist, Avatar and Na’vi alike, rush to keep things afloat.
High Camp is so different then Home Tree had been, the rage of war adding a constant edge to long days and restless nights. You miss the comfort of a slow life, of hazy days down in the jungle. The jagged cliffs of the Hallelujah Mountains still don’t quite feel like home to you.
Still, you go about your daily duties.
Being a Pandoran raised human had always given you a different insight, the two massively different cultures you we’re brought up in clashing and mending to create a skill set that was like no other- it had taken many years of painful trial and error to find your place within the Omiticaya, but healing had always come naturally.
Both holistic and surgical alike. You’d spent years shadowing Mo’at and learning the ancient herbal ways of the people, while well as taking advantage of the many PHD toting scientist back at Hell’s Gate. Medicine had no boundaries, was a way for you to feel close to both sides of yourself. To broach the gap between human and clansman.
You find your skills being needed more than ever. The ever constant raids against the RDA means your hands are rarely idle, forever in movement as you tend to the wounded. Some days you sit in the big Healers Tent with Mo’at and the other Taskarem, and others you’re in the makeshift Medi Bay, which is really more of an Avatar Pod Trailer turned OR, with the handful of human surgeons.
The long hours spent on your feet leave you sore and exhausted, but you have to pull your weight.
Even if said weight is far heavier than usual as of late-
“Y/N” you’re broken out of your thoughts by Max- as he enters the trailer with a holo-tab in hand and a concerned look in his dark eyes “What are you still doing here?”
“I was just finishing up inventory- our antibiotic stock is back way up. Jake was right, those helicopter raids were more than worth it” you’d sorted out the tiny vials of vital medicine by hand, not wanting any to be misplaced or mislabeled.
“You don't think maybe you should head home?” He continues and you sigh.
You miss your tent, and the soft bed of furs that lay inside the secure warm flaps. And the man that waits for you inside of the patchwork leather walls-
“I’m fine” you assure. And really, you are.
It's a fact you have to keep reminding people of.
Yes, you’re as big as a Strumbeast, but you are no less competent. No less able bodied.
Pregnancy is one of the most natural parts of life, a base staple in all’s existence. There are plenty of pregnant Omiticaya women who were expected to play their roles, even as the battle raged outside the safety of the mountain cave system.
It was the nature of your pregnancy that was more…fragile then average. Inside your womb grew a child that would be the first of it’s kind. A scientific mystery: no one had even known it was possible for Na’vi and humans to procreate.
And yet all of the evidence now lies under your shirt. Your stomach round and pronounced, full of growing life.
Full of the love between you and the Olo’eyktan’s eldest son.
Neteyam had left his permanent mark on you. Had part of himself growing inside of you. The thoughts we’re enough to make your knees buckle if you focused on them too hard.
“You’ve been here since 6am, you really should get some rest. Take one of the empty bunks if you want. Have you checked your blood pressure-”
You’re a grown woman. You’re not going to huff and puff and roll your eyes, but fuck, do you want to.
Everyone was so overbearing lately.
Norm and Max we’re constantly breathing down your neck; “The baby has a different growth rate then a human child, we need to monitor the way that your body is responding” Followed closely by Jake who watches you with sharp eagle like eyes and Neytiri, who used to all but ignore your presence, constantly checking in on you throughout the day. Mo’at’s always poking and prodigy, and Kiri almost always has her hands on you in some way shape or form.
You are glad for the support, happy that this baby would be so loved.
But really, you missed being treated like the competent, independent woman you knew you we’re.
“My blood pressure is fine. I thought since we ruled out preeclampsia we weren’t going to worry about it anymore” you know that it’s not going to silence his worry, but still. You can try.
Max goes on one of his science mambo jumbo spiels, and by the end of it you’re waddling out of the lab and back to your hut, annoyed as shit but placating your pseudo father figure all the same. Only a month and a half mor of this and then things could go back to normal.
Everything had just…changed so quickly.
You 're a caretaker by nature. Caring for others is easy, feels right. You’d tucked the much older scientists into bed when you we’re just a pre-teen. Made dinners. Looked out for Spider and the other Sully’s-
And the role reversal still didn't quite sit right with you. Your control freak ways didn't do well with not being the one in charge- you’d been stripped of your title so to speak. You we’re supposed to relax into your new role, enjoy being doted over before the nine month’s we’re over.
You and Neteyam’s shared tent is in the centered in the cave, close to his families, but standing on its own. As private as anyone could get in the busy, close quartered camp. The walls of the hut are familiar, adorned with your combined belongings. Cozy and familiar.
You shimmy free of your confining bra, step out of your cargo pants, then toe off your boots, releasing your swollen sock covered feet with a groan before collapsing into your well loved bed, the soft blankets and familiar scent of your mate lulling you into a deep state of peace.
It’s kind of wild how quickly you can fall asleep these days. Growing a little person from scratch tends to burn a lot of energy and the moment you relax, you’re out like a light.
You don't wake up, even when the horns are sounded for the return of the War Party.
Not when Neteyam makes his way through the camp and enters the tent. He’s wearty, grime covered and hunched over. He only softens when he sees you, tucked safely, into his bed. Your eyes still closed and face still scrunched up as he strips out of his battle band and shin covers. He’s quiet, washing off with the large freshwater basin in the corner before making his way over to his much-missed bed mat.
It isn't until he's crawled under the blankets and wiggled his way as close to you as possible that you begin to stir. His large cat like snout nuzzles into the vulnerable crevice of your neck, chuffing hot breaths against the smooth skin.
You’re not upset at him for waking you up, a drowsy half alert smile stretches over your lips as your hands run up his strong back. Gently working the tense muscles.
He gets so greedy when he comes back from the War runs. He needs to be comforted, to be held and you are all too willing to comply.
Everyone else infantiles you now, and yeah, Neteyam could get a little intense and overprotective, but your relationship had always worked because you were the one person in all of Pandora that babied the future chief.
He was such a sweet man, with so much responsibility on his plate. You loved nothing more than holding him in your arms. Letting him release any and all tension because you had him. You, a tiny soft skinned human, were the barrier between him and the ruthless world.
You’d be such a great mother to his children. His hind brain purrs at the thought. That even through all of the controversy, he knows he’d chosen the right mate. Little and fierce, he hopes the baby is just like you.
“Are you okay?” You ask, tone hushed in the darkness of the tent. The only light coming from the small dying embers of the firepit in the center of the space. Hypnotic shadows dance along the canvas walls and Neteyam's breathing grows shallow as he sinks into it.
The way you smell. The way your heart beats, strong against his cheek. The way your plump body feels so good under his wandering hands. He hadn't been okay, just moments ago. He was delirious, so sick of the fighting that he felt ill with it.
But how could any of those bad feelings exist when he had you waiting for him? Ready to welcome him into your body, your heart, your mind. He doesn't think he could survive without knowing the solace of your love.
“I’m okay, narlor(beauty). Just missed you” he mutters, still trying to dig his face deeper into your skin. He wants to escape inside of you, you chuckle at his futile attempts to mend you both into one entity. His large palms rest against your bloated belly, tenderly and your heart flutters “Missed you both so much”
Being so loved is overwhelming.
You wouldn't have it any other way.
“I missed you, my sweet baby. I missed you all day” you assure him with the words you know he needs to hear. “Our son here thought it would be fun to jump on his sa’nok’s bladder all day. It was like was playing the wokau(pendulum drum) all day long- I spent hours in running back and forth to the bathroom”
Neteyam's laugh is deep and rich. Thoroughly pleased to listen to your stories of your day, eager to hear every minute detail. Desperate to drown out visions of blood and gun smoke with your voice.
“Ah, you have to be nice to your momma, little one” he chastises the bump, raising your shirt over your head, wanting that flimsy barrier gone. His lips trail over the tight skin of your bulging belly as he speaks to his child.
Your son, still safe inside your soft body, knows his fathers voice already. Recognizes that slightly accented cadence, and squirms inside of you happily.
Neteyam usually speaks strictly in Na’vi to your unborn child-
“He needs to know the language of our people, first and foremost”
-he’ll spend hours whispering his mother tongue into your flesh. It always leaves you boneless and shaking. Feeling so special and cared for. Na’vi, though your second language, is familiar to you. You’re fluent in the language- but fuck. The way your mate speaks it is the most beautiful thing. It’s musical, he tells sprawling stories with his colorful words.
There is one English he’s very fond of though. Every time it leaves his plush mouth it makes you grin, sharp. Knowingly.
“Are you gonna be nice to momma, Neteyam?” you question him after a while. His ears quirk, swiveling on his head and his tale flicks once, in obvious excitement.
You know what he’s wanted, ever since he woke you up by nuzzling at your chest. Ever since he peeled off your top and left your heavy breasts bare. Did he think you missed the way his golden gaze would flick to them, eyeing them hungrily.
He needs this as much as you do, but as usual, your sweet boy is too selfless to ask. Won't trouble you with his wants unless you bring it up first.
You reach for his big hand that rests on your belly, and drag it to where you need him. His palm enveloping your tits, the rough callus’s catching on your sensitive nipple just right-
Your pregnancy had been different than regular humanoid pregnancies. Your body worked hard, thrown into overdrive in an attempt to keep up with the fast growing fetus in your womb. You’d started lactating months ago, far earlier then normal. Your breasts firm, full with milk. Ready to feed the child that had not yet come into the world.
At first it had been both painful and embarrassing. You had no child to drink what you were producing and the other breastfeeding women in the tribe we’re hesitant to feed their babies your tawtute(human) milk. Already over emotional due to the hormone change, you’d wept at the fact that you had no one to give what your body readily made.
The fact that you couldn't be a bigger part of your community due to your human heritage, combined with the intense pain that came from having backed up ducts had been too much,
Eventually you’d turned to Neteyam, both your eyes and shirt soaking wet. Begged him to help you. And of course, as always, he did.
It should be awkward, or shameful- but connecting with him on any level is something you cherish. Why would this be any different?
“I’m always nice to you, aren't I, love?” Neteyam gruffs as he gently works at the breast in his hands. Its firm and full of milk, his mouth waters “Do they hurt again?”
“Mhmm” you whine pathetically, and you’re not lying. The skin of your chest is now marred by stretch marks and you’d had to stuff precious, hard to come by toilet paper down your bra all day to keep them from spilling over “They’re so full, Nete”
“Oh” He hums, thumbing at your nipple “Poor momma, I’ll help you. Don't worry” his lips are wet against your skin as he kisses his way to your breast, his tongue peeking out to circle your puffy nipple. A pearlescent drop of milk tops the rosy bud and he groans as it hits his taste buds.
He tells you that you taste good, often. The juices of your pussy, your spit soaked kisses. He’s always been greedy for it, his tongue bullying its way into your holes, desperate for your essence. Your milk is just as delicious as the rest of you.
It quickly goes from kitten licking, wide wet stripes against your pebbled nipple to sucking your big breast as far into his mouth as he could. Careful of his fangs as he gorges himself on your flesh.
He’s loudly appreciative as he suckles on your nipple. Grunting and humming and moaning at the flavor. Your arms come around him, cradling his head to your bosom because it feels so good. Having him this close, knowing that he'd do anything to take care of you. That he truly loved the way you tasted-
Many people thought you and Neteyam would never last. It was lust, they’d claim. Curiosity. A childhood friendship that would fizzle out eventually. Na’vi needed Tsaheylu, it was the lifeblood of all their relationships. Why would the much desired future Olo’eyktan stay with you if he couldn't even properly bond you?
While you couldn't deny that there we’re doubt filled moments that you yourself wondered why he’d chosen you and stayed so loyal to you…you still felt your own form of connection to him. While you’d love to make that sacred bond with him, you didn't feel any less close to your mate.
You never thought that you could be so intertwined with another being.
As Neteyam takes his fill from your breast, you massage the base of his Kuru, firm enough that it makes him hiss. You have no special braid of your own, but he’s always been very free with his when it comes to you.
You can do with as you please. Stroke it. Lick it. Massage it. Hell, he’d even let you touch glowing pink tendrils at the end of it before. Let you feel his exposed nerves, so vulnerable and raw in your hands that he had shed tears as you explored.
Nothing was taboo in your relationship. There was no space undiscovered between you.
Your bodies we’re so very different, and yet you knew his like the back of your hand. All of the strong muscles and hard sinew. The cobalt expanse of his skin didn't have one blemish that you haven't memorized. You could point out his striped pattern in a sea of other Na’vi.
And he knows you right back.
Loves to dig his fingers into your doughy hips, into your pillowy thighs. Your wide ass and ample chest. He loves your form, goes crazy for all of your alien curves. He never cared for your human modesty, he’d wanted to part your ass cheeks and stare at plump of your pussy for as long as he could remember. Wanted to strip you of all of those clothes and just stare.
The fact that he gets to do just that, for the rest of your lives, is his favorite, favorite thing.
You watch him eagerly as he slowly nurses. You can't get enough of the sight of him, his hollowed cheeks, the bob of his throat as he swallows your free flowing milk. He's so strong, his muscles flex in the dim light. All of that strength, and yet he’s so very gentle with you, his rough tongue laving at your sore buds every couple minutes. Soothing and tickling you all the same.
You giggle at a particularly quick swipe, letting out a small squeal as Neteyam’s tongue plays with the flesh in his mouth. His eyes peek open, glittering with mirth and low boiling heat as he meets your gaze. Whin his lips split into a smile, a dribble of translucent white milk escapes. Trickles down from the corners of his lips.
Heat pulses between your legs and you know he can smell how aroused you are.
Neteyam has always been able to turn you on without even trying. A well spoken word, or even a pointed look could get you running your thighs together. All desperate to get him alone and put your hands all over him.
You hate that you cant kiss him the way you want to, your Exo Mask, while necessary to your survival can be suck a fucking menace sometimes.
Your thumb traces his lips, the ones you want pressed against your own so bad. You rub the spilled milk from his chin. Cleaning him up in a way that's so simple, and so beyond erotic.
He breaks eye contact first, like he just can't look at you anymore. His brows all scrunched up, his chest raising and falling rapidly. He releases your sloppy nipple, completely covered in his saliva, and presses his face against the damp skin. Making a sound of distress.
Your fingernails skritch at his scalp, tangled in his many braids “What is it, baby?”
“I wanna fuck you so bad. Eywa, do you even smell yourself, Y/N? So good. I have to-”
“Yeah, yeah, okay” You nod, agreeing blindly. He can have whatever he wants.
“Fuck you hard, though. Gotta pound you. I know I shouldn't but it’ll be alright, huh? Won't hurt the baby?” his face is still buried in your skin, you cant even see his expression as he pleads for your pussy. It makes you so hot.
You push at his chest, needing him to get off of you for just a moment. He’s heavy as shit, a dead weight- doesn't really move until you're pouting and demanding for him to just give you a little space.
Enough that you can wiggle out of your panties and spread your thighs wide for him. Your swollen, sticky pussy on display for your mate.
His nostrils flare, and his thin tail whips wildly behind him.
When he swings your thick thighs up onto his broad shoulders, you let out a low, appreciative moan.
“Such a good boy for momma” you praise him the way the people praise the Great Mother. The cradle of your thighs a sanctuary where you both come to worship.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Welp, I should be finishing up Part Three of First Love/Late Spring or plotting out future installments of The Sweetest Sylaung, but here I am writing nursing filth. Lol I truly have zero regrets, this story was so very self fulfilling(even though it partially came from a request). I hope you guys enjoyed though
As mentioned many times before, requests are currently open. Please send in all that good shit. I could use a good distraction from real life!
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starry-bi-sky · 10 months
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This is very inspired by @minnesota-fats post about Danny being Bruce Wayne's clone (which has been rotting in my brain for two days) but an au where danny isn't just Bruce Wayne's clone, but also not fully a ghost.
both ideas can be used separately honestly, the idea just came to me while thinking about the bruce wayne clone idea, and a lot of this idea is just "danny without his ghost powers. i might probably make a part two that delves into him being bruce wayne's clone.
Hear me out.
A Danny Fenton who has the ghost sense and the fangs and the pointed ears and the scary eyes and an increase ecto-essence, but does not have the ability to "go ghost". His accident occurred when he pressed the "on" button on the outside of the portal, and the button electrocuted him due to faulty wiring. He ends up miraculously surviving but not without some new additional abilities (and electricity-based trauma).
Since Danny no longer has a built-in alter ego with the invert wardrobe to match, he doesn't see the point to take ghosts back to the ghost zone. What the hell can he do anyways? All he has is a cosmetic add-in, a lower body-temperature with an impressive ability to hold his breath longer than a human realistically should, and a built-in ghost detector. Not very helpful if you ask him.
That is, up until he goes into the lab after his parents catch a relatively harmless ghost and sees them vivisecting it. He's horrified. He thought his parents were using hyperbole when he said they'd tear them apart molecule by molecule.
(Granted, he also believed that ghosts were unfeeling up until he saw this random ghost being absolutely terrified for its existence on the table.)
After an argument over his parents harming the ghost, Danny goes back up to his room and refuses to leave, not even for dinner. Later that night after his parents went to sleep, Danny steels his resolve and sneaks back down into the lab and releases the ghost back into the ghost zone.
This happens a handful of times, until, finally, frustrated, Danny tells the latest captured ghost to tell anyone inside that if they even think about coming through, he'll capture them and bring them back to the zone himself. It's for their own safety.
The ghost agrees, and goes back inside. Danny steals a "failed" thermos from his parents' stash of weapons. The next time that a ghost shows up, its the lunch lady from episode one. Danny manages to defeat her without being seen, but knows that if there's gonna be consistent daytime ghost attacks then he can't base his luck around fighting without witnesses.
So he fashions himself with a makeshift outfit. This really only consists of an old, nondescript hoodie and a plain black face mask. Its the best thing he can do at short notice, however. Later, for his nighttime ghost fighting, his outfit is only slightly better.
He considered using one of his parents' lab suits. But white sticks out at night and the material doesn't protect you from road burn. His outfit is pretty homemade, with knee and elbow pads under his clothes and multiple layers. A long sleeve shirt over a hoodie over a black denim vest he found on sale. He later on manages to make brass knuckles ghost-proof and manages to stitch them into his gloves. (he gets very good at sewing).
His favorite part of the entire outfit, is a Casey Jones-style full-face mask he found while thrifting. It allows him better breathability than the face mask he was using (calling Rule Of Cool law here), and he can use his scary eyes to make him look more intimidating. His gloves, his mask, and his thermos are the things he carries around with him constantly, and, later on, wears baggier clothing to hide the fact that he's wearing knee and elbow gear under his clothes.
Did I mention he has long hair? Danny has long hair (because GNC danny ftw, it goes past his shoulders) that he braids back. it's a bit sloppy but it keeps his hair out of his face well enough. He takes the fenton creep stick with him.
(He and Bruce have, ultimately, a more lean build than a bulky one. It helped Bruce with his Brucie Wayne persona big time when he had to look like a pretty skinny boy, he uses body language, optical illusion, and body armor to make himself look bulkier as batman)
He still goes by the name Phantom. He still has a bitter rivalry with his parents, who have no idea that its him. They think he's probably some other ghost with beef with the other ghosts (he still triggers their ghost sensors), and still want to capture him.
He doesn't talk around the living. He doesn't have any fancy voice changer and dropping his voice hurts and ultimately, he just uses ASL if he ever has to talk in front of people. The ghosts know his voice at night, but not during the day.
He hardly talks to the living. He avoids them like the plague actually. When he defeats a ghost and there's an audience, he barely sticks around to have a nice friendly chat. He tries to get away as soon as possible. He's paranoid over people finding out who he is. He doesn't have that ghost form to fall back on here.
Oh god this is getting so long, so i'll post another part soon.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8
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theelastword · 1 month
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i saw a very interesting post recently from @fellthemarvelous about how Aziraphale is often treated the way female love interests are— likely because his hobbies and emotions are more traditionally feminine whereas crowley’s style and anger are more traditionally masculine despite the fact that neither of them are gendered. the thesis of the post was essentially that because crowley is the one who fell, fans have decided that aziraphale only exists to comfort and protect and bring peace to crowley rather than be his own person with his own emotions and ambitions. i’d never been able to put this into words, but it’s like this person stole what i was feeling right from my brain and i am so thankful to their eloquence.
but it did get me thinking about the end of season 2— specifically how many fans, even people who defend aziraphale for what he did, believe that the “only” way for his choices in the finale to be valid are if he did them for crowley’s safety/well-being. i’ve seen so many arguments along the lines of “oh, he has to go back so he can fix Heaven for Crowley and make him heal from falling” or “oh, he has to go back to Heaven because if he doesn’t, Metatron could go after crowley and he needs to keep him safe”. and while both of these very popular aziraphale-defenses are valid (this is not an attack on anyone’s opinion!) and i wouldn’t be surprised if they played into his reasoning for leaving, i can’t help but think of that lovely person’s female-love-interest argument.
i don’t actually think aziraphale leaving for heaven needs to be related to crowley at all. it can, of course— and likely does— but aziraphale has gone through just as much Heaven-induced trauma as crowley has, something that many fans (and even the characters themselves, sometimes) like to forget. aziraphale knows first-hand how abusive Heaven is to young angels and humans who they deem unworthy of being saved. and so to me, it is just as valid if it turns out aziraphale going back to Heaven wasn’t “for” crowley at all, but rather a way to protect these other generations from the abuse of Heaven that aziraphale has witnessed and been victim to. is it so hard or unacceptable to think that aziraphale could make a choice that doesn’t have to do with his love life? he is not obligated—nor is crowley!— to live entirely as though he’s making something up/repaying/protecting his love interest. that kind codependency is not something to idolize. i guess what i’m trying to say here is that there are other reasons to go back to Heaven having nothing to do with keeping crowley safe, and while that is a perfectly valid interpretation, i’m not personally a fan of the widespread belief that it’s the only interpretation that makes what aziraphale did “forgivable”.
EDIT/ADDITION: i ALSO think that this is why i’m so bothered by the argument that while Crowley being “selfish” and choosing his own path at the end of s2 is perfectly valid, aziraphale doing the exact same thing is not. i do not blame either one of them for making a different choice, but in my opinion far too many people believe that crowley had a right to his own autonomy and do what he thought was best for himself, whereas somehow it was Aziraphale’s job to choose the same thing in accordance to what was most healthy for CROWLEY and not for himself/his own ambitions as regards to Heaven. people think that crowley has an obligation to do what is best for crowley, but that aziraphale’s subsequent obligation is to also do what’s best for crowley. no one seems to particularly care what may be best for aziraphale. at the end of the day, if one of them can make a self-prioritizing choice, the other can, too. aziraphale is his own person, not a love interest!!!!
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creatureheart · 5 months
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Because you seem to just be deleting all replies that give an alternate view instead of replying with actual discussion, as is your right but still kinda annoying, I figured I’d make a post that you cannot delete. =3
Caring for animals and their well-being is important!
Telling people that the thoughts they have determine their morality is nazi bullshit! =D
Thought crimes do not exist!
(PT: Thought crimes do not exist!)
And I will continue to repeat that because it’s the truth whether anyone likes it or not.
You cannot measure someone’s morality or their actions based on the thoughts they have. Unless they ACTUALLY act on these things, you have no right to tell other people if they are bad people or not.
And yes, this includes all the thoughts that you and others see as immoral.
If you’re the kind of person who thinks that someone thinking something bad makes them a bad person than you’re both ableist and just an asshole, because intrusive thoughts exist and those are not purposeful thoughts and cause distress among those who have them. Hence why they’re called intrusive.
But also humans are omnivores. Humans are predatory animals. Humans eat meat. Humans have natural and instinctual prey drives!
It might not be as strong as that of wild animals, or other nonhuman animals, but it’s still there!
To condemn someone for having a slightly stronger prey drive and calling them “budding psychopaths or paraphiles” is downright defamatory, ableist and tells more about you than it does about them.
Stripping away someone’s humanity because of something you don’t like is a fascist idea, and I would recommend taking a step back and really thinking about just how you have framed your mindset.
You can advocate for the safety of animals without condemning people who have done absolutely nothing wrong to those animals.
And as I mentioned in my now deleted reply, mental health professionals would not intervene on someone having simple thoughts. The only time they would intervene is if there is an immediate plan and danger towards the individual or others.
——
To anyone else reading this:
Your thoughts do not make you a bad person.
Your prey drive doesn’t make you a bad person.
Block and blacklist those who say otherwise from interacting with you because all they are is misguided assholes who need some more time to realise that the world ain’t black and white and morality is not straight forward.
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nixite117 · 5 months
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Worldbuilding
If there’s anything I suck at more than anything in fiction, it’s world building.
So let’s get started.
The general idea of my sci fi world is that Earth has just joined the stars. While this is public knowledge, there is very little known about its dominating species, “humans.” However, Earth has been classified as a Class D planet.
Every planet in the universe can fall under certain labels and classifications based on their abilities to sustain life. N Class planets are incapable of sustaining life, and are what make up most of the universe. Whenever a planet with life is found, it is first classified by what kind of life inhabits it. The two options are sentient and non-sentient. Then, if sentience is recognized: advanced or primitive? A society becomes advanced when they have an established connection to technology.
If no sentient species is established, then the planet is analyzed for threat levels of wildlife and disease. This is their “danger class,” and trumps all other classes. If the danger class is high enough, it is then considered a “death planet” and thus is much too dangerous to land on.
The Interstellar Safety Commission is the governing body responsible for this, and publicizes information about such on all planets that are candidates for resource harvesting and/or colonization. They also do this for private companies who are hoping to mine out various planets.
This organization has existed for almost 30,000 years.
Earth was the subject of this classification just before human’s began building civilizations. At the time, not only did the federation find that the planet had, at one point, been hit by an asteroid, but that the planet was teeming with violent creatures. The federation was newer at the time, it’s many members being unfamiliar with the many shapes that life can take. Thus, sights like the glyptodonts and prehistoric hippos were new and unfathomably terrifying.
Because of the mass amount of planets across the universe, typically the solar system around a “death planet” will be quickly archived. Organizations that apply for legal planet mining can easily find new ones nowadays as tech has grown significantly since the start of the ISC. So Earth was largely forgotten, as was our solar system. So much so that our little corner of the Milky Way was one of many little things that was forgotten. This is a loophole that many exploit but that will be discussed later.
Because there was no observation of our planet after this, Earth was pretty much left to evolve in peace. 10,000 years later, it’s the year 2088 and Earth has joined the stars. Upon reviewing the planet we came from, the ISC was baffled by our ability to survive, much less evolve on what is largely considered a “death planet.” Due to this information being public, many rumors started about the human race. We’ve been amongst the stars for almost a decade, which is nothing in the great span of the universe.
Humans have barely begun diplomatic missions with the universe, as our tech is extremely primitive in comparison to most alien tech. This contributes to the grand mystery around humans.
The main misconception is that humans are naturally aggressive and deadly. They are also all huge, hulking creatures with sharp teeth and a kick like no other. As time passes in space, and we learn more about our place among the stars, many of us learn one great truth about our impression on the universe.
Humans.
Are space orcs.
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aqualesha · 1 year
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The Balladeer's Regret - Scaramouche x GN! Reader
character : Scaramouche
prompts : 19. “i can’t do this anymore” & 24. “just leave me alone”
summary : loving Scaramouche is hard, and you were aware of it. yet you never stopped loving him. his harsh words may sting, but you know deep down that he was a gentle soul and he never meant those things he said. you fell in love with Kunikuzushi, so gentle and fragile. if only he had noticed earlier how badly he had hurt you. he wanted to turn back time. but he knew that he couldn’t. he had lost everything because of his own foolishness.
- spoilers for Sumeru Archon Quest Act 2 & 3, pure angst/no-comfort, cursing, arguments, scara spitting harsh words, scara’s real name spoiler, scara’s past, not proofread
- word count : 1.8k
~ my entry for @versadies angstober writing collab - farewell, love
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“Don’t leave me…”
“Please stay…”
“I didn’t mean all those things…"
These were the words that have been echoing inside his mind now. His mind was begging for him to drop his ego and call out to you, to stop you. He didn’t want you to leave him like the others. Not when he didn’t have anyone else but you.
How ironic of him, to feel distraught when you turned on your heels to walk out the door of your shared home. He recalled the poisonous words that spilled from his mouth, that were directed towards you. The look of hurt in your eyes and the way your expression faltered when he pushed you away and raised his tone at you. He didn’t mean anything that he said.
He swore that he could feel his non-existent heart shattering at the sight of your glistening tears cascading down your cheeks and your hushed whisper of “I’m sorry..” while you backed away from him. He could never forget how your voice trembled when you uttered the words that had Scaramouche breaking down right after.
“I still love you.”
He had taken your kindness for granted. You had always been with him even before he was known as Scaramouche. You had been with him since he was nothing but a broken puppet, Kunikuzushi. You accompanied him and lent your shoulder for him to cry on when you found him cornered by the darkness of Shakkei Pavilion. You saved him from his greatest suffering, which was loneliness and betrayal.
But the greatest pain was being betrayed by his own creator, his mother. The mother who was supposed to take care of her child with care. He never got to feel a mother’s love, for his mother replaced him with another puppet after taking notice that Kunikuzushi was too weak. He cried in his dreams, which showed his vulnerability and his fragility. A puppet that has emotions simply couldn’t be called a puppet, now can it?
Kunikuzushi had always been a gentle being, far from what his creator was expecting for a divine being, a god’s replacement. Yet, he couldn’t do anything as he was created with these human emotions. He swore to lock away all remaining emotions he had in himself so that he could grow stronger. He wanted to show his creator that he is not weak.
That was until he met you. Your existence in his life changed his objective and purpose. Even so, he still desired to claim the godhood he should’ve obtained if not for his stupid emotions getting in the way hundreds of years ago.
You had always loved him, no matter the circumstances. But you couldn’t fully agree with him when he decided to seek help from Il Dottore to achieve godhood. You knew how crazy it sounded and how far Dottore could go to achieve anything he desired. He was the 2nd Harbinger for Archon’s sake.
You weren’t against the idea of Scaramouche reaching divinity, but you were worried about his safety too. But you knew better than to interrupt their plans. You could get your head blown if you try to mess with Dottore, even when you two were quite well acquainted a few years ago when you were still in the Fatui. But that was long ago.
Ever since you both started living in Sumeru, you rarely ever see Scaramouche coming home. He’d either stay in his office or not come home at all for a few days. It was starting to make you worry. A puppet doesn’t need sleep, but he wasn’t completely a synthetic puppet. You had the right to make sure that he’d taken care of himself too.
The clock in your shared bedroom was ticking ever-so-slowly, making you sigh for the umpteenth time. “This can’t keep going on..” That was when you decided to have a talk with him once he really comes back.
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You didn’t know how it turned out like this. It was supposed to be a simple talk regarding his absence and his goal to achieve divinity. That’s all. How naive of you to think that he’d apologize just like he always did. You really thought that you could simply convince him when you were talking about the only goal he tried so hard to achieve?
He was starting to think that you were doubting him and his capabilities. He was created to become a god, so why were you against it now? Didn’t you promise him to always be with him until he has fulfilled his goal to become a god? Are you betraying his trust now? How pathetic.
He was losing his temper. He knew that he couldn’t control his anger that well. The way you worded it made him realize that all humans are the same. They can’t be trusted. “Kuni, I’m just saying that what you’re planning with Dottore is quite.. dangerous.” Dangerous, you say? He was a divine being, created with the power that equals those of gods. Don’t you dare spit out those stupid nonsense in front of him.
“Are you underestimating me and my capabilities? Come on, you knew better than that.” The way he glared at you made you feel small under his gaze. It made you feel terrified of the sudden change in his aura. It has become unsettling and dark. You fucked up and there was nowhere you could hide.
"It wasn’t that.. But- You’re going to hurt the people in Sumeru.. Besides, this nation already has its own god, so why bother taking her place?“ You were careful with your words, trying to not worsen the situation you’re in. The atmosphere was getting tenser each passing time that you could barely breathe through your lungs.
“That small kid? She couldn’t even do anything. She’s weak and useless at this point. I’m just doing a favor for her people. I can be a better deity than her.” His tone was no longer the gentle tone that Kunikuzushi always used. It was Balladeer taking over the conversation. His voice was full of venom, and he stared at you with a look that feared you.
A look of disapproval was written on his face. He must’ve hated you now. How stupid you were, to bring up about his purpose of life when he trusted you to always be with him.
It had to be said even though it was going to hurt both you and him. You really didn’t want him to get hurt. It was the least you could do. “How do you know that Lesser Lord Kusanali wasn’t able to look after her people? As far as I know, she’s the gentlest and the kindest Archon.. Please have faith in her. You don’t have to do all this just because of your goal to achieve godhood. Ei had acknowledged your strength so please…”
You almost ran out of breath after holding it in for far too long. You shifted your gaze towards Scaramouche and you were stunned. He was taking quick steps towards you before holding you by the hair. Disappointment and hatred could be seen in his eyes as he made you face him directly.
"What is it that’s so fucking hard for you to understand. I was born as a divine being and this is how I’d get what I deserved. Your opinions don’t matter to me. You’re just a weak mortal who just happened to have some pity for me, hmm? You never cared, didn’t you? I should’ve known better than to trust a mortal.“ He looked at you with pure loathe. You couldn’t bear to see him looking at you as if you’ve been nothing but a burden and a hindrance.
You ignored the aching sensation on your scalp as he was still holding a fistful of your hair in his hand. The sharp pain in your heart hurt more than anything you’ve ever felt. You tried to grab him by the shoulder to make him halt his movements. It hurts so much… “Don’t touch me…” He let go of your hair and took a step away. You dropped onto your knees, hissing from the searing pain as you held your scalp with your hand. It took a lot of strength in you to hold the tears in. This truly wasn’t what you had expected.
You called out his name in a small voice. “Scara-” “Don’t you dare say anything else!” You still continued even though it was clear that he didn’t want to hear anything from you. “I can’t do this anymore..” You uttered while leaning against the wall to steady yourself. He then laughed mockingly at you, showing that he had expected this from the start.
"Are you now? Have you finally realized that you were simply useless? Look at you, pathetically crying over small insults. Humans are weak, they are too vulnerable and worthless compared to a divine being. You were just a pawn in my plan, after all. You meant nothing to me. Your pathetic emotions will only distract me from achieving my goal.“ He was too harsh, but he could care less. These stupid emotions will only drag him down.
“Oh and one more thing,” He continued while taking a few steps toward where you were weakly standing on your feet. His eyes settled on you as he gave you a deadly glare that almost had you shedding more tears. “Just leave me the fuck alone, and never show yourself in front of me again, you traitor."
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It dawned on him like crashing waves. He had lost you, the only person who stayed long enough and sacrificed their whole life to be with him. He knew he fucked up. But his ego was too big for him to chase after you and apologize, even though his mind was practically screaming at him.
He never knew warmth and love anymore. His artificial heart was beating frantically in his chest. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… He could never take those harsh words back. You probably loathe him now.
He deserved it. He was the one who had wished for this. He wanted you to leave him alone, so you obliged by getting out of his life completely. He lashed out at you and put the blame on you. He broke your heart. Your gentle and fragile heart that he once swore to protect. Five words were all it took to completely lose everything. He had lost you, his other half. You, who had given him your heart to feel the warmth of love and care.
Now, he felt nothing but numbness and emptiness. You must’ve felt lonely too when he wasn’t home for a long time. The deafening silence in every corner of your home was driving him insane. The atmosphere in your shared room had never felt this cold. The mattress felt hard under his weight. The duvet felt uncomfortable. Something was wrong. No, everything felt wrong. It lacked warmth and love. Something that he could never gain again. All because of his foolishness.
He was foolish to have pushed you away for his own selfishness. He was even more foolish to even think that he deserved a happy ending despite all the horrible things he had done. Especially towards you.
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darqx · 5 months
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Some BP/HH/General asks
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That mood when you want to share all the things but also want to keep it under wraps for the actual thing haha! Thanks very much anon!
As for your questions, I can't actually be specific cos there's no definitive number I have in mind for either. Basically there are a number of sectors (you can consider them their equivalent of countries - they have less than what we do though), and a number of species of demon of which I've designed about seven of. The ones I've shown before are these guys (and do you think I could find this pic again? No, I had to recreate it cos for the life of me I couldn't remember what ask I'd previously stuck it in lol):
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One day when i have enough species and stuff out there I want to make a proper field guide \o/
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Thank you very much for the interest! ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_ I would actually love to for BP, but before I jump the gun there I have to get the comic out first lol. That being said I have made mini-games before featuring the HH versions and some other characs alas they are all lost at the moment to the sands of Flash becoming obsolete 😩
Me and Gato do still collab sometimes (and send each other Xmas presents)! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
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I have been working on one off and on for a while actually! Hopefully I'll have some pages to post next year or so*, I've been doing a bit of thumbnailing recently :D
*that is the plan but i also don't know where people find the time to do anything with a full time job lol.
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Hullo! Glad you are enjoying the snippets of BP I've got here and there :D Here is an older ref on Izm back when i first got the idea (at that time i didn't really plan to do anything with it, it was just an AU. Now it's my main project haha. Anyway the ref is a little bit out of date in that regard.)
I used to have a "field guide" which was also made quite a while ago, unfortunately the death of Flash kinda killed it. Here's a screenshot of some relevant info from it though.
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That's an interesting one as it's questionable how sentient souls are after removal 🤔 In my mind its only form is the smoke light, it can "see" to some degree and MIGHT be able to talk (but in a very no one can hear them sort of way, a la i have no mouth and i must scream. So i guess it can think "aloud"). The more time passes the less sentience it has.
It could try, though it wouldn't really get anywhere if it's in Rire's collection. He might just eat it lol.
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.D: Good with kids, will be fine in all aspects.
Izm: The fun dad however needs a partner that knows what they're doing to ensure the child safety during shenanigans.
Marcus and Zeke: Also would be good parents though might be more helicopter out of protectiveness/worry when first starting out.
Ren: Geek parent very good for homework help. Some Asian parent tendencies eg "ah see, i told you not to do that right? Now you see what happened."
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They are similar to our known society for this! So basically, there are some good families out there (eg Zeke - who is a demon - is from a pretty average loving family), and there are some bad families out there who only care about power or having an heir or whatever.
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HH Rire is a human. I differentiate between him and Demon Rire because they are two different characters...even though they are also technically the same character lol. You can consider them as alternate universe iterations of a base "Rire" concept.
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I actually half jested this in an old comic lol
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I am sorry to inform you that a HH webcomic doesn't actually exist 😅 I did a lot of art, animations and one shots (such as the HHJ comics) with them, but nothing actually planned or serialised or anything. Whatever's currently on my DA or here is basically what exists.
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Bringing this image back cos it's relevant lol.
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You spelled it correct there though! XD
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tinycoded360 · 10 days
Text
Firefighter-g/t one-shot
Flames licked the walls of the old warehouse, sending plumes of thick black smoke billowing into the night sky. Mike Johnson sprinted towards the inferno, his heavy boots pounding the pavement. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he gripped the axe in his gloved hands.
"Let's move, let's move!" Mike shouted to his crew. His eyes watered from the intense heat radiating from the building. Debris rained down around them as part of the roof caved in. Mike coughed, the acrid smoke burning his lungs. He had to get in there fast. People could be trapped inside.
Mike kicked down the front door, axe raised. "Fire department! Call out!" He strained to hear voices over the roar of the flames. No response. Mike forged ahead, checking each room methodically. The fire raged on, greedy tongues of orange flame devouring everything in their path. He had to hurry.
Mike wiped the sweat from his brow. The sweltering heat was overwhelming. Come on, hold it together, he told himself. You can do this. Adrenaline coursed through Mike's veins, pushing back the fear and exhaustion. He would not stop until he saved everyone.
Mike moved deeper into the warehouse, ducking under a collapsed beam. The smoke was getting thicker, limiting his visibility.
"Is anyone here?" he shouted. "Call out!"
A faint sound caught his attention. Mike turned towards a small crevice along the wall. Peering inside, he could make out a tiny figure - a girl no more than four inches tall. Her wide eyes were filled with terror as she huddled in the crevice, choking on the smoke.
"It's okay, I've got you," he said in a soft, soothing voice. The little girl hesitated, then climbed onto his enormous hand. Mike slowly withdrew his hand, cradling the miniature girl safely in his palm. She stared up at him with a mix of wonder and fear.
"Let's get you out of here," Mike said. He tucked the tiny girl into his coat pocket to protect her from the flames and falling debris. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Mike charged back the way he came.
The girl peered at Mike's hulking frame from the pocket. From her four-inch perspective, everything was gigantic — the walls, the furniture, even the man who held her life in his massive hands.
Now, here she was, being rescued by a human bean. But she had no choice but to trust him. They dodged falling beams and leaping flames. The girl braced herself against the pocket as Mike kicked down a warped door and stumbled outside to safety.
The cool night air was a shock after the inferno. Mike gently lifted the girl out and set her down in his palm. "Are you okay?" he asked. The girl coughed but gave a brave nod. Mike just smiled, amazed at how small and fragile she was. He just wants to hide her away from the world.
Mike looked down at the tiny girl sitting in his palm, still amazed that someone so small could exist. She was no bigger than a mouse, with delicate features and wide, frightened eyes
"Don't worry, I've got you," he said in a gentle rumble. "You're safe now."
Carefully, he curled his fingers to form a protective barrier around her. She grabbed onto one giant digit to steady herself as Mike began jogging away from the structure.
"Well, aren't you something," Mike murmured.
The girl tilted her head. "My name's Lucy," she said in a voice that sounded like tinkling bells.
Mike blinked in surprise. "You can talk?"
Lucy nodded, a hint of amusement in her eyes. "Of course, I can talk. I'm a borrower."
"A borrower?" Mike repeated. He shook his head in bewilderment.
Lucy shifted, dangling her short legs over the edge of Mike's hand. "We borrow what we need from you giants to survive. I was just looking for some scraps when the fire broke out."
Mike frowned, his protective instincts rising again. "That's dangerous. You could get hurt."
Lucy lifted her chin. "I can take care of myself. I've been doing it for years."
Mike had to smile at her stubbornness. "I can see that. But now you don’t have to worry about stuff like that; I’ll keep you safe.”
Lucy looked troubled. “Hey, I appreciate the save, but I don’t need any more help.”
Mike just shakes his head and closes his hand over the tiny girl.
Mike cradled the tiny girl gently as he approached the ambulance. Her body was no bigger than a doll's, fitting easily in the palm of his large hand. As he walked, Mike examined the minuscule person with fascination.
Her limbs were perfectly proportioned, if unnervingly small. Mike noted her tiny hands and feet, no larger than the tip of his pinky finger. Her face held an elfin beauty, with large eyes that watched him warily. Mike felt an urge to touch her, to confirm something so impossibly tiny was real.
Unable to resist, he lightly stroked her arm with one finger. She flinched at the contact, letting out a squeak of alarm. Mike quickly withdrew his hand.
"Sorry," he rumbled. He kept forgetting how his casual touches could seem rough and intrusive to her fragile body.
Mike reached the ambulance and gently set the borrower girl down on a bench. As he explained the situation to the bewildered paramedic.
“That’s weird, man; I don’t think it’s human.” The paramedic replied, unable to take his eyes off the tiny creature. “What if it’s cursed or something.”
“Never mind that just look her over, she inhaled a lot of smoke.”
The paramedic reluctantly did his job, interacting with the tiny borrower like she was a diseased pest.
After the paramedic finished, Mike was quick to scoop Lucy up. He could tell she was frightened the entire time his coworker was manhandling her.
The girl's brow furrowed. "But...where are you taking me?" Her voice was barely a squeak to Mike's ears.
"Somewhere, you'll be safe."
Mike felt a pang of guilt seeing the sadness that crossed the girl's face. He knew she likely had a home here that was now destroyed. But he couldn't just set her loose, not at her size. She needed protection.
Arriving at his truck, Mike carefully lifted the girl out and placed her on the passenger seat. He dug out a small old rodent cage out of his trunk, one he kept for rescue animals.
"Just for now, until we figure things out," he said apologetically as he deposited the girl inside.
She grasped the bars, conflicted emotions playing across her face: gratitude that this human had saved her life and longing for the freedom she had lost. She hoped his kindness would extend to letting her go someday. “I’m not an animal; you can’t keep me!”
Mike latched the cage door, hating to confine the little thing. But it was the only way to keep her safe on the ride home. They would work things out. He was determined to earn her trust. He would protect this fragile life. “This is for your own good; you won’t want for anything with me.”
****
Mike carried the small cage into his apartment, the tiny girl gazing around with wide eyes at her giant surroundings. He set her down gently on the kitchen table.
"Are you hungry?" he asked. "Thirsty?"
The girl nodded hesitantly. Mike opened the cage door but she made no move to exit.
He rummaged through his pantry, looking for something suitably small. He held up a cracker crumb. "How about this?"
The girl crept forward and nibbled at the crumb. As she ate, Mike stared in fascination, still struggling to believe such a tiny person existed. He felt a rush of possessiveness. He’d keep her safe.
Despite her appetite, the girl kept glancing warily at Mike's enormous hands. He felt a pang, hating that she saw him as a threat. He wanted her to feel safe here.
"I know this is strange," he said gently. "But I promise, I mean you no harm. You can stay here, where no one will find you."
The girl looked uncertain and scared. Mike understood her longing for freedom. But the world was too dangerous for one so small and vulnerable. He could protect her here, keep her hidden away. Surely, she would come to appreciate that in time.
The girl said nothing, but her eyes told Mike she remained unconvinced. He would just have to earn her trust, day by day. For now, she was here, and she was safe. That was what mattered.
****
Mike closed the cage door softly once the girl had finished eating. She retreated to the back corner, eyeing him warily.
He sat watching her for a while, still mesmerized. He noticed she was shivering slightly. Carefully, he opened the cage again and placed a small scrap of cloth inside, like a blanket. After some hesitation, the girl wrapped it around herself.
"There, that's better," Mike murmured.
The girl blinked at him with her huge eyes. Mike felt that same tug in his chest. He wanted to understand her, know her story. How had she survived alone for so long? What was her life like?
He knew it would take time to gain her trust. But Mike was patient. He would start by making her feel comfortable here. He wondered how long it would take for her to stop flinching at his touch. He just wanted to hold and pet her. He had plenty of experience taming feral cats on his family farm. He knew it took time. He imagined that, with her size, she was very similar to prey animals. It’s just natural to be afraid. She’d appreciate him one day, and plus, she’d make such a good little companion.
Tomorrow, he could build her some furniture scaled to her size and get supplies from a dollhouse shop—tiny dishes, clothes, books. Bit by bit, he would make this cage feel more like a home.
There were challenges ahead, but also possibilities. This chance encounter felt meant to be. Mike would care for this little one, keeping her safe in his big world. It never crossed his mind that she would resent him for keeping her as a pet. After all, she wasn’t human—just a tiny creature that would have a better chance of survival with him.
For now, the girl needed rest. Mike turned off the lights, enveloping the room in darkness. 
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drdemonprince · 9 months
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Hello! You have opened a fascinating door into kink communities I didn't even know existed. Thanks for that. I was describing some of your steamworks adventures to my partner, who works as a Disease Intervention Specialist (aka DIS, a government healthcare worker who administers free/low-cost STD testing and then attempts to track down and notify+test the recent sexual partners of any infected individuals). (He brings some INSANE stories home from work and gets to give sex ed talks at the local Christian college using a model penis that actually ejaculates--but I digress.) He was horrified by the hypothetical situation where an infected person could have blindfolded sex with an unknown number of nameless strangers. It's hard enough trying to track down partners when the patient only knew them by their Grindr username. How do you have safe sex in these situations? Some STDs can be transmitted via skin-to-skin contact even with a condom. Do venues like steamworks enforce any rules around testing/protection/etc.?
If your partner is 'horrified' by the actual sex lives of the populations he ostensibly serves I think he needs to read more from harm reductionist thinkers and queer activists from a variety of past eras and work on processing his feelings of judgement to ensure it doesn't impact his actions in that line of work.
The books and Melancholia and Moralism, Saving Our Own Lives, and Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality are good places to start.
If you're having anonymous or blindfolded sex in cruising spaces, one route of managing risks is to assume that every person there could be infected with STIs you do not have and to plan accordingly. Vaccines, condoms, PreP, testing, and education are just some of the tools at one's disposal, and one should always be cognizant of the risks that one is consenting to. Steamworks has sexual health educators and testers present within their space regularly, but they don't gatekeep based on serostatus, health status, drug regimen or use of protection -- doing so wouldn't be feasible and would be problematic on multiple grounds.
I don't believe the goal of a public health initiative or a life well lived is to eliminate all risk, or to regard the presence of any infection in any human body as unacceptable, but rather to empower people to make informed decisions about the level of risk they are comfortable confronting, or that is worth the numerous benefits to them.
Personally, I was in far greater danger when I didn't have access to such spaces. Cruising spaces make negotiating sexual consent far safer than privately dating and hooking up with someone, and Steamworks are vitally important queer community spaces, and for me are well worth the trade off. No one should have any illusions about this ever being an experience that they can eliminate all risk from, rather they should anticipate it and plan for it.
I think "safe sex" is an unhelpful framework to pursue because it is so binary and can't ever be guaranteed. What does safety mean? Which types of exposures do we consider to be "unsafe"? Am I unsafe if I encounter another person who, like me, has had a cold sore before, like 80% of the population? Or someone who has a strain of HPV I am vaccinated against? What about if I have an encounter with somebody with a cold? I'm "safer" being fucked by an HIV positive person who is undetectable and wearing a condom than I am having barrier free sex with a long term partner who cheats. I can't even know I'm taking a risk in the latter case; at Steamworks, I'm assuming my risk level to be on the high end and planning accordingly.
I understand that testing and tracing are important parts of public health for our populations. It was vitally important when monkeypox broke out. Maybe Steamworks should collect member emails and alert them if there was a reported transmission on a night that they visited. Though even then, there are some negative public health implications to dozens of people panicking. But there is no means of eliminating all risk entirely or tracing all human sexual behavior and I would be myself pretty horrified if there was.
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