#the battery acid was bad enough

[blackwaxidol]

Hm... generally I've drawn him with flat teeth like his mother, but maybe I should give La'zaar little fangs...

[asbestieos]

i accidentally cut my finger eith the box cutter i was using does anyone want to be nice to me and pray

[gonzodangerfeels]

Ah what a great Literotica fic

Turns out he wasn't fucking his sister, just his younger aunt.

He just found out he has a twin sister but she lives in a nunnery in Brazil and is coming to visit him.

I hope he takes her virginity and turns her into this sex addiction

We are going to skip the chapter where he has both of his aunts getting naked in front of him before they go out to do so God knows what

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

Do you have any headcanons about the Ghoul's cum? Is it an unusual color, taste, or texture? Is it radioactive? If you look at it under a microscope, do the sperm cells look mutated? Can he get someone pregnant? If he cums inside someone, are there any side effects?

I feel like my answer to this shouldn't start with "I have actually given much thought to what ghoul cum would be like", and it shouldn't be as long as it is, Anon, but here we go:

I headcanon that being a ghoul does make you infertile, especially as a man...early on. Radiation is a massive sperm-killer so I think all the human sperm would be wiped out pretty damn quick. But I think if you manage to stay alive long enough into the ghoulification process (which can be instantaneous or can be drawn out over years and years), your boys could possibly adjust and "heal" from being so damaged by the radiation and start producing sperm again. In the lore of the games, there are records of ghouls reproducing with one another (though it is not elaborated on at all and is apparently rare), so why would it be out of the realm of possibility (in the Fallout universe) that they could reproduce with healthy humans?

I think it would take the right human, the right ghoul, and the right conditions (my heart says 'radstorm', but I know how deeply corny that is), but I do think it's possible for some ghouls to get women pregnant.

I don't think their sperm themselves would necessarily be remarkable under a microscope; sperm having multiple heads/tails, no head/tail, and other malformations already exists in human men, and the number of them visible in a sample is used as an indicator of sperm quality. I think, that close, a sample from a ghoul would just look like a sample from a regular man with poor quality sperm.

The semen would be very radioactive after a few years, especially if you had sexual contact with an older ghoul or a still-sentient glowing one like Jason Bright or Oswald the Outrageous. I think it has a bit of a strangely-colored hue and I think it's thicker in consistency than before. You will absolutely get sick from it (especially if you swallow it) if you don't properly prep with Rad-X. Expect all the traditional symptoms of radiation sickness (fever, fatigue/fainting, confusion, vomiting, red inflammation and burns in the places you had direct physical contact, bleeding from the nose/mouth, unusual bruising) if you don't, and have Radaway ready for afterwards. What's the stuff for if not saving us from ourselves?

When a ghoul cums inside you, you can absolutely taste it, like you rested a nickle on the back of your tongue. You'll really hate it at first, but eventually you'll come to tolerate, even like it. Try not to let them "shoot up the club" every single time, though, since it'll probably leave you incredibly raw and sore. It's also long-accepted ghoul-fucker canon that your sentient ghoul lover cumming inside of/all over you can hide your scent from feral ghouls.

When I tell you that shit would taste so bad, I'm not even sure I have the proper words for what I think it would be like. Sort of like licking a battery combined with the bitter, acidic flavor of bile (and also the taste of semen, which doesn't exactly taste great anyway). You'll probably try to be sexy and brave and at least let your ghoul lover cum on your tongue once, but trust me when I say you'll never offer again. Especially since their regenerative abilities make them cum buckets every single time.

Godspeed, ghoul fuckers. We wouldn't do it if we weren't willing to risk a little rad exposure, right?

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XIV)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

PART ONE is here PART TWOis here PART THREE is here PART FOUR is here and PART FIVE is here PART SIX is here and PART SEVEN is here PART EIGHT is here PART NINE is here PART TEN is here PART ELEVEN is here PART TWELVE is here PART THIRTEEN is here and this is part fourteen! Yes I messed it up this morning yes I had to wait all day to correct it it's all goooood

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts

Where we last left off... Bart is a good egg who is having a Bad Time waiting for his friend :(

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

Danny wakes up with a gasp.

He’s—where is he? Everything hurts. He can barely think. Danny groans, long and loud, and lifts up an aching hand to his temple.

His fingers come away green. Aw, fuck. What happened to him? What’s going on? Why is his hand…blurry? Is he concussed? Is something wrong with his eyes, or with his head??

(He hopes it’s not his head. It’s waaay easier to heal from one than the other.)

Danny tries to sit up, and— NOPE. Ow. Bad idea. Suuuuuch a bad idea. His arms and hands and his neck and his back are screaming at him, now that he’s awake enough to pay attention. Ughhhhhhhhhhh.

He lays back down. His eyes don’t—well, they don’t shut all the way, which part of his brain labels as very bad, actually, but the world does turn darker and greener as he tries to shut his eyes, and that’s close enough to closing his eyes that Danny can mostly zone out past the pain.

He licks his sore lips. They taste like copper. And battery acid. …And Pixie Sticks.

Ugh, ecto-blood. His own, he assumes.

Everything is blurry and everything kind of hurts and he doesn’t know how he got here or what’s going on. Danny tries to roll over, tries to get more comfortable, but something starts dragging on the inside of his arm, which means intravenous lines.

Ugggghhhh. He hopes it’s got pain meds at least.

Awake him can deal with this later. Danny zones out, his labored breathing evens.

He’s asleep before he knows it.

*

Danny wakes up next to quiet murmuring, and to weird sensation of something moving in his arm.

He yawns—and his jaw cracks apart farther than usual, with more clicking noises than his jaw usually makes. Weird. His arms come up, his eyes unblur…

The tugging sensation doesn’t go away. Danny sniffs blearily. Blinks.

Two white-coated humans(…?) in PPE pause at his bedside, a half-dissembled IV shared between them.

Danny stops breathing. He can’t—is he—

His eyes go to the ceiling. The floor. He doesn’t recognize the room he’s in. He doesn’t understand. Is this the Guys in White again? Is he— Did he never leave? Is he trapped? Danny doesn’t—he can’t—

—One of the white coats starts making worried noises, which. Danny’s never heard that before. It’s usually threats. They raise both their arms, and Danny flinches back—

…And so do they. Huh. Hm. Are the Guys hiring scaredy cats now? That would be a change of pace, if they were as scared of Danny as Danny is of them.

The second person clicks the new IV bag into place. Danny stops focusing on number one and starts focusing on number two.

They don’t make any overt tells either. The IV line is already in him, and the bag is… Well. It’s not red and Danny’s not in any pain, and it’s not green either. It’s just. Kinda opaque? Milky? The person doesn’t start cackling evilly or telling Danny how screwed he is, either. They both just sort of…tidy up?

The first one doesn’t get closer, either, but Danny can mostly tell that they’re scanning him visually. Their attention goes from his face, to Danny’s visible arm, to the puncture point in his elbow for the IV needle.

Danny also eyes his IV point. Well. It looks like a needle. Doesn’t hurt all that much.

Someone says something he doesn’t catch. But the tone isn’t…mean, or anything. If anything, it sounds quiet, and low, like they’re trying to keep him calm.

Danny doesn’t understand.

He moves as far out of the way of them as possible. It only has the effect of a few inches and it's so painfully slow. If that. He— he remembers. He’s supposed to be scared of— something. No, he knows it—

The labs. He’s supposed to be scared of the labs. The smell is rank there and there’s always screaming and Danny had been hurt there; really, really hurt.

He’s still hurt. He’s still in a lab. In a room. In some sort of too-small prison, and now his barely-sewn together lungs are trying too hard to keep air in his body and it’s not working, and—

Danny barely pays attention when the first doctor leaves. He sees the other back into the door and reach for the phone line, and he can’t stop breathing and he can’t calm down because that means that they’re calling for help and they’re going to hurt him all over again. Tie him down. Cut him open. Shock him, until he can’t breathe without screaming—

Someone new comes in. They look— rushed. Danny can see her actively tying up long black hair, threading a mask up over her face, pulling on one of those paper shifts the doctors wear. The only difference is that she doesn’t put boot covers on.

She has big, bright boots that go all the way up her legs. With his green vision, they look kind of…greyish? (Maybe they’re pink..?)

Either way. They look…ridiculous. Danny doesn’t exactly forget to be scared, but also…what the fuck.

The woman sees that Danny can see her. She waves.

Danny presses back against his— cot. Bed.

That doesn’t stop her. She pulls latex gloves from out of the paper slip she’s wearing and snaps them on, revealing a thin layer of something shiny underneath her elastic-bound sleeves. Once that’s on, she does a visible body checkup of herself: boots, gown, gloves, mask, hair.

…No hair net, though. Or goggles. The Docs in White always wanted to be fully covered when they saw their victims. Being able to see her eyes is a lot…friendlier.

She figures herself out. Straightens. Gives a double thumbs up.

…Danny's eyes roam around. There’s no one nearby. There's only a wall behind him. Is she looking at…him? Is that directed to him?

She doesn’t move immediately— and once she’s in, the second doctor leaves the room entirely.

…The new person takes over. She goes from monitor to monitor, getting closer, but with none of the focus on Danny, per se. She reads his stats, verbalizes them out loud, which, doesn’t sound like…English? But enough to confuse him? It’s kind of like trying to discern Esperanto when he's not thinking about how it's not English.

Ancients. The pounding in his head is getting worse. Maybe Danny has a concussion or something.

The woman doesn’t…get. Him. In fact, he seems to be the least interesting thing in the room to her. Her time is spent on reading the charts and the machines waiting around him, putting something into a…fridge? A Cabinet? In the corner of his room? And otherwise, she leaves him alone.

Until. She does get up and look at him, and all of Danny tenses up painfully. He can’t move. Something’s holding down his legs, his body’s stiff, and all of him is so tired that he genuinely can’t tell if his waist is tied down or if he’s just that exhausted.

He can hear his heart rate monitor kick up. He can’t move, not really. He tries to go intangible but his core just throbs with misery, and—

She mostly just pats his sheets. Not his person, even. Apparently the torture is being held off for now. “Eow eart wel?”

…Danny squints. That is almost English.

“Eom hebbjan yift,” she adds, leadingly, as if Danny is a friend she can tease and not a subject under threat of the knife. He doesn't like it. It hurts. Nothing is real and everyone hates him and all he wants to do is leave but his body is rejecting him and—

Something light and plastic thumps down onto the bed.

Danny blinks. He looks—down. (His neck makes him regret that.)

Is that a…is that a space shuttle? No, ‘cause Danny thinks he recognizes it. It’s Discovery? Isn’t it? That’s the one they just retired. He tries to grab it, but— ouch, oof, his fingers can’t even stretch, bad idea—

The woman gently guides the shuttle into his hand. It doesn’t even hurt. And.

It’s cold to the touch. The model is plastic, it shouldn’t be so cold, but the sensation is distinctly cool and kind of familiar.

…Oh. Danny struggles to flex his fingers around the thing.

It’s him.

Or. Well. The shuttle is his. It has his ectoplasm imbued all throughout it. He can even sort of feel the sensation of carefulplayingcareful he’d have felt while near it. The feeling is weak, and timid, but it’s still there.

So. Then. When did he get it? And…why? Why was it allowed to him? How did he get it?

Is this how they’re feeding him now? Instead of showering him with poorly filtered ectoplasm every time he gets rowdy, are they actually trying to feed his Obsession? For real?? That’s—that’s brand new behavior from the—

Danny blinks. Wait. That’s not it either. Because there’s an IV in him. So…they know he’s getting human food.

So. Uh.

Hm.

Danny doesn’t want to get his hopes up. But this…might not be the Guys in White.

Of course, they might not be better than the GIW either; it’s a total possibility that Danny’s getting suckered into some scheme where every gentle permission and soft voice is a debt he owes…some new reason to take…

His eyelids twitch as they try to shut. He’s so tired. Fear kept him mobile, but now…everything is so heavy.

The lady carefully shushes him, ever so gently. She pulls up his blanket for him. Pats it down.

Danny shivers. He’s so, so scared.

“Ræste þiht,” the woman whispers. The words sound fond. Danny’s so scared, but he’s so tired. His heart is beating so fast. “An freond becymþ hraðe.”

It’s reassuring.

Danny doesn’t want it to be.

He falls asleep the way the desperate do—clawing at the last traces of wakefulness, only to have his consciousness ripped from him.

[tokischaaaaa]

a story reader being friends with hamzah before and during 4freakshow? but like reader is like in love with hamzah, but doesn’t want to make it obvious

dumbass 🐀

!hamzah x !latina reader

notes!!: we making y/n and hamzah reallly blind to really obvious shit 🙂‍↕️

warnings: cursing, fluff ig

word count: 3.4k!!!! *longest yet**

y/n and hamzah were newly graduated high school students. they both shared the interest of not going to college, and that’s what led them to meet at a party hosted by a mutual friend.

as for plans after high school, y/n had moved out of her parents place and was living in a hotel room until she could find a place within her budget.

hamzah on the other hand, he was living with his friend, aaron. aaron was working as a streamer, it somewhat paid the bills but for the most part did. hamzah helped by working at a corner market he had been working at since junior year.

however he had admirations for something bigger, something more fun; rather than working at a corner market that had middle aged men come in all the time.

hamzah already had somewhat of a following on tiktok due to his short yet humorous videos. he assumed that the following could be useful in the future if he wanted a job that would allow him to be creative and his funny self.

both of the young adults, who were now free from their guardians, were looking for everything all at once. they both expected to have a great time at the party, but that wasn’t the case.

y/n was found on the back porch sipping her party punch, she couldn’t help but gag every time the red liquid hit her lips.

“it’s like tasting the koolaid man’s werid uncle.” a voice said behind y/n.

she turned around and saw a young man with dark curly hair, a black long sleeve shirt. aswel as baggy jeans and some white airforces.

“yeah more like the creation process of the koolaid man.” y/n smirked.

right there, they kept making jokes about the koolaid man and the horrible punch that tasted like battery acid. they had clicked instantly, expressed their current position in the journey of adulthood.

as hamzah spoke about his admiration for finding a job for creativity and being himself, y/n couldn’t help but become distracted, she couldn’t deny the fact that she was attracted to hamzah.

his courage to come up to her and make such a bad yet perfect joke to spark the conversation between the two was magnificent. and also the fact that he wasn’t looking for a quick fuck or make out session made y/n feel like she struck gold. but she couldn’t deny the fact that she kind of wished he could ask her out or anything!

“what about streaming? you can be yourself then, and you said that you also do the tiktok thing.” y/n proposed playing with her necklace.

hamzah was quiet for a moment then embraced y/n in a tight hug.

“holy shit! your a genius, uhh-“

“y/n,” she smiled

“hamzah.” he smiled back and hugged her again.

the rest of the night was filled with laughter and teasing between the two, hamzah felt as if he found the female version of him, she completed him, and his sentences, she was able to provide him with the little bits of knowledge he lacked when making decisions.

he couldn’t deny that he felt a deeper connection to her, but his charisma bar ran out, he couldn’t ask her out, then she’d think he’d want something from her.

thankfully y/n had sipped enough of the horrible party punch that she was able to have the courage to ask for his number as the party came to an end.

“where you staying at hamzah?” y/n asked as she plugged her number into his phone.

“around oakwood, so like 30 minutes from here. what about you?” he asked

“oh shit! same, kinda. i’m staying at a hotel on riverside right now so i’m like 15 away.”

“wow, how’s that going?”

“it’s a.. expirence!” she laughed.

once the two said goodbye and hopped in their ubers, hamzah was more than excited to text y/n. he was hoping that she sent her real not a fake one, since he had talked her ear off he wouldn’t be surprised if she faked it.

his finger hovered over the send button, he didn’t want to seem desperate, but he kind of was since he had such a great conversation with y/n.

aaron couldn’t help but smirk at hamzahs nervousness over a text. he elbowed hamzah which led to his thumb to touch the send button.

“dude what the fuck?” hamzah groaned.

“i’m just helping you out buddy.” aaron smiled.

y/n had just arrived back at her hotel, she jumped on her bed and fell asleep moments later. too exhausted to check her phone, she could blame the alcohol for her drowsiness but she could blame hamzah too for talking so much. but she couldny blame him, he meant good, the alcohol on the other hand didn’t and would lead to a pounding headache the next day.

the next day, around the afternoon, sleeping beauty y/n finally awoke. she jumped to check her phone as the memories of last night came back into her head, she checked messages and saw the message she was waiting to see

she laughed when she saw his texts that followed, she quickly typed a response to his worrisome texts.

once the two met up, the energy had been restored. y/n and hamzah kept teasing each other , cracking jokes, and making funny noises.

the errand run was a complete success between the two, hamzah was able to pick up everything he needed and y/n was able to pick up on hamzahs likes and dislikes. she was sure to use that information in the future.

as their first official hangout was coming to an end, y/n let hamzah know her schedule as well did hamzah, she showed him her hotel (from the outside), since hamzahs hands were full with groceries. they were going to make sure to see each other again, somehow someway.

y/n became a nervous wreck when she got back to her apartment, she couldn’t deny now that her crush for hamzah got bigger after this hangout. but she decided to push it to the side, not wanting to screw up the connection they already shared.

over the next few weeks, hamzah and y/n would meet up every few days. y/n met hamzahs roommate, and hamzah saw y/n’s hotel. they would talk, a lot. order food and talk for hours or watch tv together. hamzah and y/n couldn’t deny that there was something there but neither of them would say anything about the subject.

as for hamzah’s newly created twitch account, the followers were increasing by each stream. hamzah let y/n know about the success of his streams, but she couldn’t help but realize how long his streams had been getting, they weren’t hanging out as much.

y/n started to get jealous and it was getting harder for her to hide it, she missed hamzah, she missed his presence. however, hamzah being so infatuated with this new freedom he craved he wouldn’t respond to y/n’s texts.

her texts of asking how hamzah was, if he was okay, how stream is going, asking when they could hangout again, would all become ignored by hamzah. hamzah had been meeting new friends through streaming and eventually did group streams with his newly established group, freakshow. hamzah had forgotten about the person that made him enjoy freedom, y/n.

y/n felt absolutely shitty, she felt played, and portrayed as if she was desperate. she thoght she found someone who matched her, she was right in the beginning, but she was so far off. she wouldn’t ghost someone like this and leave them in the dust like this, even if she was busy. she was absolutely disappointed and disgusted in hamzah.

one day while hamzah was streaming he got a call from y/n, it took him by surprise. he quickly realized how long it had been since they had talked. he quickly muted stream and answered the call.

“y/n? hi, how’ve you been?”

“shit, well sleepy.” y/n’s words are slightly slurred.

“y/n are you drunk?” hamzah asked with concern.

“why does it matter to you, your a dick .” y/n snaps.

“what do you mean? are you ok?”

“your blind hamzah, blind, blind, blind! just like stevie wonder!” she yelled into the phone, a hurl could be heard from her, she quickly ended the call.

this left hamzah completely distraught, does he go to her house and see what happened? or does he continue stream?

he decided to put his job aside and check on y/n, he unmuted stream and let his viewers know that he had to leave for his own reasons.

he quickly ended stream and grabbed his keys and drove to y/n’s apartment.

as hamzah was driving towards y/n’s hotel he couldn’t help but realize how he had missed time with her, how he hadnt seen her in a while. he wondered what happened, then it hit him. it was him, he was the reason for the fun that stopped.

it felt like a slap when the guilt hit him. he realized why y/n had called him a dick but not the blind part. as least he knows why he called her one thing, the other thing is for another day, he thought.

as he got to her hotel, the front desk asked who he was to y/n, “frie— boyfriend!” he blurted out, taking himself by surprise.

the front desk woman nodded and let him upstairs. the time hamzahs was waiting to get to her room in the elevator, nerves hit him. he was worried about what he was going to walk into, but he had no choice but to put that aside, just as y/n had as they hung out.

hamzah banged on the door several times, until y/n opened it weakly with one arm and the rest of her body on the floor.

“y/n! shit! what happened!” hamzah said trying to lift y/n up.

“life. and failed expectations.” y/n hummed.

hamzah grunted as he carried y/n bridal style to her bedroom, y/n could’ve melted right there. oh how she wished she was sober to experience this and really remember it.

hamzah laid her on her bed, “shit, what do i get you?” he said under his breath. y/n was now looking up at her ceiling, absolutely fucked up.

hamzah was about to leave her bedroom to grab her some water before y/n asked,

“hamzah do you hate me?”

“no! why would you ask that?”

“you left me, no call no answer.” she mumbled.

“what did you say y/n?” hamzah asked getting closer to the bed.

y/n was silent for a few moments before hurling her brains out, thankfully in a bucket that just so happened to be next to her bed.

“ah shit! y/n here let me help you.” hamzah said trying to pull her hair back.

y/n instantly rejected him, “get out hamzah.” she cried.

“what? what did i do?” hamzah asked taken aback.

“you, your the problem, your the do, get the fuck out!” she screamed.

hamzah knew it was better than to argue with her, especially if she was drunk. he felt helpless, he walked outside her room. his heart sunk as he left the hotel.

as hamzah got into his car and started driving, the memory of y/n calling him blind kept repeating in his head.

hamzah decided to give y/n space, this time with his awareness. he didn’t know what had gotten into her, what caused her to kick him out so aburptly.

as the days got longer for hamzah since lack of sleep, due to the repeating question, “what am i blind to?”

y/n had stopped completely texting hamzah altogether, she decided to stop contacting him and having him in her head. she focused on work, she took more hours so she could be distracted from the time lost from being ‘played’ by hamzah. she was able to rent her first apartment, she was extremely proud of herself, but there was a part of herself that wanted to celebrate this big moment with hamzah.

with work, and now moving she easily became overwhelmed and she developed a cold due to overworking her body. a friend from work had stopped by and told her to not get back to work until she was fully recovered.

though y/n was stubborn she gave in and took time for herself and for her body to fully recover. however it was hard since she still had to keep making trips to the hotel she stayed at previously to move them into her new apartment.

work wise for hamzah.. there’s been a recent spike in viewers for freakshow. so he’s been enjoying making content and building friendships with chase, haley, and claire. some of the clips from their livestreams have gone viral which was great for hamzah but not so good for y/n.

as she was on bedrest, she opened instagram swiped through people’s stories but her throat started to close as she saw hamzahs.

it was a repost of someone’s story, the repost was a video of a girl yelling “i’m in love with hamzah!” and then the video transitioned into a poorly edited video of that girl and hamzah with the words ‘hamley’ across the screen. hamzah placed 🥺🥺🥺 emojis ontop of the repost.

that broke y/n. this whole time she was trying to suppress her feeling of missing hamzah but now she couldn’t suppress it anymore, this feeling now combined with anger made y/n start sobbing uncontrollably. she didn’t even think about questioning the poorly made edit, she didn’t want to ask questions, because all her questionea were answered. hamzah played her.

meanwhile 👀,

hamzah just ended another successful freakshow stream but was still on call with the other 3 members to chit chat.

however the others were talking about something that didn’t interest hamzah so he went on his phone and checked on his story. he decided to dabble on the viewers, it always excited him as the numbers rose, and the witty responses from his followers.

however he felt his throat dry up as he saw y/n’s account. hamzah’s caught off guard and remains silent for a while until chase asks,

“hamzah what’s on your mind?”

hamzah looks up at the camera , “na i was checking my story viewers and i saw this girl that i used to be really close with.”

“so what happpened?” claire asked.

“we used to hang out almost any day we were both free, talk and shit then i got busy with streaming. but like a few weeks ago she drunk called me and then she got sick and i tried to help her but she yelled at me to get out. very confusing.” hamzah shrugged.

“holdup hamzah, was it my story you reposted?” haley asked biting the inside of her cheek.

“yes, why.” hamzah says dumbfounded.

claire, haley, and chase share the same irritated expression towards hamzah.

“why what happened?” hamzah asks

“where you close , ‘close’ with her?” chase asks

“yea we used to hang out every week.”

“you fucked up, big time.” claire blurts out.

“hamzah, did she ever… text you like how was your day, check in on you? possibly tell you deep stuff? compliment you?”

“yeah, where’s this leading to?” hamzah asks

“hamzah she likes you, or did like you.” chase says.

“what do you mean? how?” hamzah cried, not being able to believe what he’s hearing.

“ she trusted yourself !! that’s how!” the 3 scream at hamzah.

“really? i didn’t know if she liked me? i thought she was just being nice.”

“no!” the 3 yell again

“ok jeesh. what do i do now?”

“do you like her?”

“yeah, like since we met at the party our energy clicked. we got along really well but like i didn’t know if she wanted to be more than friends.”

“hamzah your a fucking dumbass.” claire yells at hamzah.

it takes a few moments before everything registers in hamzahs brain completely.

then, he realizes what he has to do.

he quickly says bye to everyone on call and grabs his keys and wallet and runs to his car.

as hamzahs driving to y/n’s hotel it starts to pour hard. as he try’s to run inside to her hotel but his head becomes drenched in the rain.

he runs to the front desk and asks the woman there for y/n.

“sorry sir, she doesn’t live here anymore.”

hamzahs heart sinks.

“however she does stop by frequently to move her items here to her new apartment. here i’ll give you this spare key to see if she’s here.” she smiles.

hamzah is absolutely greatful to the elder woman, “just come back in 45 minutes so my boss isn’t suspicious.” she smiles as she hands him the spare key.

as he’s inside the elevator his heart is racing, he doesn’t know what to expect, he’s hopeful that she’s there but doubtful, he doesn’t want to be late as he was all the other times he was to her subtle hints.

he heads upstairs, to see if her room is open so he can maybe catch her to say something.

as he gets upstairs he can’t see her, he sighs in defeat and as he’s about to leave.

“hamzah. what the fuck are you doing here?”

“y/n i need to explain everything, i’m so sorry, i was so fucking blind, and such a pussy.” he starts.

“continue.” y/n says crossing her arms.

“fuck, y/n i like you, i liked you since i saw you at that party. i saw you weren’t liking it there and neither was i, i wanted to be around you, make you feel better. after time you made me feel great and reestablished a feeling that i haven’t felt since i got out of my house, freedom. but so much of that shit fucked up what was between us.”

“y/n i now understand why you called me blind, i was blind to that fact that your kindness was out of a deep connection we had, a feeling we both shared.”

y/n stayed silent for a few moments before saying, “what about your girlfriend? hamely?” she said rolling her eyes.

hamzah couldn’t help but burst out laughing, “y/n that’s a fake ship name, the group i work with, we made that up so it would add more viewers. it’s all fake, trust. also, she lives in california and has a boyfriend.”

y/n’s stern face dropped. she approached hamzah a year started to roll off of her cheeks.

“hamzah, im sorry.” she said.

“i should be the one apologizing y/n, i should’ve had your feelings into consideration. that’s all on me, let me make it up to you. let me take you out. please.”

y/n stares at him, “you gonna ghost me after?”

hamzah gets closer to y/n, he takes her hands into his, “never.” he says and puts his hand onto her jawline and kisses her deeply.

“again.” she says as she breaks the kiss.

hamzah smiles, his wet curls blocking his eyes but he doesn’t care, he can see clear now, clear that y/n was really his other half, his person.

hamzah holds his arms out and gets closer to y/n, his wet shirt clinging to his body. his smile widens as he gazes into her eyes, feeling the warmth between them despite the cool dampness of his clothes. without saying a word, he wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a tender embrace.

the scent of rain lingers in the air as their bodies press together, and he whispers softly, "i’ve never been more certain of anything. you’re everything i’ve been looking for, y/n".

“sorry for being such a dumbass.”

“it’s okay, you’re my dumbass, i can handle it.” she smiles.

[eoieopda]

FORCE QUIT // EPISODE I: SCRAPS

you didn't have "anti-capitalist revolution" on this year's bingo card, but you never turn down a good time.

pairing: lee felix x reader | series masterlist (1/4) | next episode series summary: it's 2077, and life's a fucking nightmare. corporate titans ate the state and shat it back out, leaving citizens of the new republic to fall in line, or fall to their knees. a reckoning is coming — where will you fall? au: series — dystopian, cyberpunk; episode — childhood friends to strangers to something ➢insp. by: cyberpunk 2077 + the true lives of the fabulous killjoys genre: smut + angst + some fluff word count: 15.4k rating: 18+— minors do not have my consent to interact. series warnings: violence (hand-to-hand, firearms, explosives), depictions of injuries (blood/bruising/burns), some characters have cybernetic modifications, class conflict + poverty, surprise - corporations are bad!, unethical medical/tech experimentation, self-indulgent references to non-skz idols, reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns. episode warnings: above + trainer!felix, edgerunner!reader, pov switches, time skips, reference to food insecurity + reader living check to check, reader experiences temporary vision loss after being knocked out, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected p in v penetration. reader notes: afab & uses she/her pronouns; has cybernetic retinal mods + one in her hand; grew up in (what is fka) korea and speaks korean — however, it’s not stated that she is asian and/or that her family is; does not speak fluent english; has tattoos; has long enough hair to put in a ponytail & use bobby pins (hair not otherwise described). ➢ notes added/expanded upon during 8/6/24 inclusivity review. a/n: each episode features a different member x reader pairing, but the plot is linear, so you'd need to read them (in order) to get the full picture! you can sign up for the taglist to be notified of the next uploads. thank you to my beloved @sailoryooons for beta'ing this and @jihopesjoint for being my emotional support internet wife even though she doesn't stan skz. ily both endlessly!

You don’t deal in absolutes, but you know two things for sure: vending-machine burritos are a crime against humanity; and Han Jisung is a dirty, rotten bastard.

The firm stance you’ve taken on the latter may or may not have something to do with the former, but you can’t draw that conclusion now — not with the abuse your taste buds are currently suffering, anyway.

“Who the fuck —” 

You cut yourself off to spit a mouthful at the ground. Notably, the remnants of that half-chewed abomination look just as awful on the way out as they did on the way in.

 “— Replaced this queso with battery acid?”

Chipmunk cheeks stuffed to bursting, Jisung blinks back at you. He says nothing — suddenly too polite to speak with his mouth full — and shrugs, unbothered. That’s when the realization hits you like a boot to the skull. Drenched in disbelief, your muttering comes out in slow-motion: 

“You spent the last of our cash on these.”

He swallows, though you don’t know how he could bring himself to do it. That act alone makes the rage you’re simmering in bubble over. 

You repeat yourself through gritted teeth, pausing emphatically between every word, “The — last — of — our — cash!”

“My bad?” He eventually offers. Tongue flicking out, he tries to gather the unidentified sauce that clings to the corner of his mouth. He fails. “Not sure what else I was supposed to find with that little money in this part of town, but go off, I guess.”

You bite your lips together to hold back the guttural yell you’re seconds from releasing. At your sides, your empty hands clench tightly. Instead of snapping — with your words or your fists — you close your eyes, inhaling slowly through your nose. Deep breaths won’t do you any fucking good in this smog, but your brain tends to work a little bit better without visual interference.

I can go another twenty-four hours, you think. Maybe.

It’s been a while since you’ve last eaten and even longer since your last job. This isn’t out of the ordinary; gaps are to be expected when you live on the fringe, jumping from thread to thread. Still, it isn’t like Changbin to leave you hanging the way he has been lately. It sure as shit isn’t like him to dodge your calls, either.

So, you figure, if you make an unsolicited visit to his office — the stock room of a bar you know better than to frequent — he won’t have a choice. He’ll have to look you in the eye and explain the dry spell, personally. He owes you at least that much.

With your plan finalized, you hold out your left hand to Jisung. In the few moments you’d taken your eyes off him, he’d apparently gone from sitting on the hood of your car to reclining fully with his own eyes closed. Basking like a little lizard in the sunlight, it’s a miracle the hot metal hasn’t burned a hole in his shirt.

“Come on.” You nudge his bent knee with your knuckles to no avail.

As Jisung is wont to do, he pouts. “But it’s so nice out — and your car still reeks, by the way.”

The absolute, rakish audacity.

If you didn’t love him, you’d probably kill him. 

Strike that. 

Love is irrelevant. You wouldn’t kill him unless and until there was a price on his head. After all, your mother taught you better than to do the things you’re good at for free.

“Do we want to talk about whose fault that is?” You ask with a roll of your eyes. The affection’s still there; you know he sees it. “If I recall correctly — and I think I do, having been the only sober person present — you were the one who got blasted and barfed on everything I love in this world.”

“I got blasted and barfed exclusively on the floor of your car.”

It’s your turn to shrug. “Exactly. End of list.”

Groaning, Jisung rolls his eyes as far back as they’ll go, but he still takes your hand. He always does, always has. With your help, he scoots his ass down the hood and lands with both boots — precisely where your ejected burrito bite did, not five minutes earlier. You can’t stop the satisfied grin from spreading when he whines again, this time louder and with twice as much despair.

After playfully shoving your passenger towards his door, you unlock your own. You don’t dump yourself into the seat, however; not yet. A wall of horrible heat is waiting for you the second the door opens, and you know better than to run into it, headlong.

Jisung is less patient. He’s also more regretful, face twisting in self-imposed anguish when he drops down onto the sun-scorched leather seat. And, to your delight, the hits keep coming. You watch with a smile when the consequences of last weekend’s actions hit his nostrils. The look he gives you falls somewhere between humbled, apologetic, and absolutely dead inside.

“Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit it.” He acknowledges with a wave of his hand. Resigned, he sighs, “I’ll scrub the shit out of the floor mats the next time we can afford a wash.”

Satisfied, you finally climb behind the wheel. Pushing through the slightly-muted sting of the seat against the backs of your bare thighs, you put your foot on the brake and lift your right hand to press your thumb to the ignition port. The roar of the engine covers the way your breath hitches, but Jisung doesn’t have to hear it to notice the grimace that accompanies it.

“Still sore?” He asks. 

To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned as he reaches across the center console and takes your hand in his. It’s gentle, the way he tilts your palm up, but the movement burns in every single one of your tendons. This time, you know you have a captive audience, so you don’t flinch. 

Despite the trouble it’s giving you, you have to admit that the new enhancement looks beautiful in the sunlight. In the center of your palm, two rectangular, silver brackets refract iridescence. Their shine contrasts sharply with the matte, midnight black cybernetic plating that now covers the majority of your palm, spreading to the first knuckle of your fingers but coating the length of your thumb in its entirety. 

More than beautiful, it’s deadly — and it aches like a motherfucker.

“I read a study about these ballistic co-processors last night while you were knocked out,” he hums. 

Classic Jisung. 

He has no medical or academic background whatsoever but wastes his time reading crank doctors’ research for fun. And, of course, he makes sure to mention it — casually and apropos of mostly nothing — in order to impress.

Gingerly, he runs his finger along the edge of the cyberware, mumbling, “It usually takes five days from installation for the musculoskeletal inflammation to chill.”

Your fingers twitch of their own volition, which prompts him to look up at you curiously. 

“Yeah, well…” You grunt.

Less carefully than you should, you pull your hand from his, tap the gear shift, and throw the car into reverse. Peeling out of the lot, you scoff without even bothering to look his way:

“It’s been ten.”

When the War came and went, it took the old way of life with it on its way out. You might’ve been late to the party by fifty or so years, but you’ve got the gist now. It goes something like this:

Korea, as it was once known, crumpled like a beer can in the face of a corporate uprising and was quickly kicked curbside with the trash. In its place came the New Republic — in all its stolen, neon glory — promising technological revolution, profit in excess. Although the world’s eyes were trained on the peninsula then, not everyone stuck around to watch democracy die in real time. 

Not up close, anyway.

Some people had enough cash to run but not enough to make staying worthwhile. With their tails between their legs and their life savings in hand, they left before the capitalist rot could set in fully; chose willful blindness and headed for countries where corporations rule from the shadows rather than broad daylight.

Most people, however, didn’t leave. People like your grandparents, who hadn’t looked up long enough to notice things going to hell in a hurry. And if they did — well, maybe they saw things for what they were: shitty, same as anywhere else. 

Five decades later, that fact hasn’t changed much.

Regardless of why a person opts to stay in the New Republic, their options for survival are effectively limited to two. Simply put, a person can sell their soul to the very corporations that strangled the state, or they can starve.

Nobody ever chooses the latter.

You can safely assume everything you need to know about a person based on where their next steps take them.

For example, those who crave both chic, penthouse apartments and blood-soaked streets are most likely to fall in line with WraithCo.. The name suggests that it’s a criminal enterprise run by fucking ghouls because that’s essentially what it is. More than that, it’s the arms manufacturer monopoly that out-manned and out-gunned the national military without breaking a sweat. 

The high-powered, highly-paid WraithCo. executives find joy in three things and three things only: designer suits; missiles that explode into clouds of fiberglass upon impact; and testing said missiles out on non-violent nomad encampments outside city limits.

Fucking ghouls.

Despite being the most openly violent of the major players, you find WraithCo. to be the most boring. They lack nuance, don’t bother with a false front or a positive PR spin — it’s all a little too predictable. Thanotech, on the other hand, is subtle; the perfect  cover for those who like to convince themselves they’re doing more good than harm.

In furtherance of that delusion, Thanotech replaced all public hospitals with state-of-the-art, for-profit rejuvenation centers. Worse, their lobbyists ensured that medical licensure was limited to employees of those centers, outlawing the provision and receipt of medical care outside of authorized Thanotech facilities. 

In short, those who can’t afford Thanotech’s astronomical rates — specifically, poor fucks like you — are left to fend for themselves in back alley clinics; to pray that they don’t wind up worse-off than they started, that the police don’t sniff them out, and that their new modifications aren’t just garbage-tier knock-offs.

Of course, some people give more of a shit about these designer mods than the patients who may or may not wind up with them. In that case, the last of the three titans has them covered.

It’s no fucking surprise that the Ulsan Corporation is the crown-jewel of the New Republic — it’s primarily responsible for killing the old one. As the world’s premier technology and cybernetics conglomerate, Ulsan is also primarily responsible for the research, development, and distribution of cybernetic enhancements.

Like the one your body is currently acclimating to.

No such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, right?

Ulsan may be less obvious with its bastardry than its counterparts, but as far as you can tell, it’s not good guy behavior to eat an established state and shit it back out. Even if you can’t tie any specific, ongoing atrocities back to them, you have no qualms about adding the desperate state of the union to their indictment.

You can blame them for the desperate measures they’ve necessitated, although you won’t give them an ounce of credit for the spark of resistance they so recklessly lit.

Despite it all, there are still people out there who refuse to accept things for what they are. They find an alternative to the comply or die ultimatum — run along the razor’s edge, taking what they can get, whenever they can get it.

Like Changbin, one of Seoul’s best-connected fixers.

Like you, a gun for hire. 

Like Jisung, sitting in your passenger seat as you drive across town, who’s just happy to be included.

Generally speaking, piss and vinegar don’t mix well with club security.

If you were anyone else, rolling up to The Crypt like you own the place would be ill-advised. More than that, it would be asking to get your teeth kicked in faster than you could say, “I’m on the list.”

Thankfully, as it often does, your reputation precedes you. Nobody in the block-long line bats an eye when you cut right to the front, a fact that has Jisung smirking in a way that might otherwise get him killed. Still, the bouncer shoots you a look that says you’re more trouble than you’re worth; and you agree.

Before your friend can change the muscle’s mind, you grab Jisung by the wrist and tug him through the front entrance. You don’t let go when the door shuts behind you, although it’s more for convenience than concern for his safety. He has a tendency to wander, and you don’t have the patience.

“Haven’t been here in a while,” he muses as you drag him towards the main bar, head turning to look in every direction except the one you’re moving in.

You don’t slow down.

Winding your way through the drunks at the counter, you inch closer to the large booths along the far wall. Inside, draped nonchalantly over the plush benches, sit the big guns — mercenaries with far more sway than you, far fatter wallets. They’re living the high life you’ve always dreamed of, and they don’t even notice you staring as you pass.

“Oh, shit!” Jisung waves overhead to one of them, reminding you without trying that he — unlike you — has other friends.“S.Coups, where have the fuck have you been, man?”

You still don’t slow down.

Not when you reach the stairwell at the far side of the main floor. Not when you shuffle down the steps to the employees only section. Not even when the security camera overhead silently demands that you do.

There’s only one locked door amongst the few; you fly to it like a homing pigeon and beat against the metal with your free hand. It isn’t until the burning ache sets in that you realize you chose your right.

“Goddamn it.” You growl down at it, as if your hand will apologize for hurting. Turning your vitriol towards the door, you kick it hard, steel-toed boot forcing out a thud. “Changbin, open this shit up!”

Jisung glares as he scolds you, “Manners, maybe?”

You roll your eyes, but his expectant expression doesn’t budge.

“Fucking — fine, okay? Fine.” Hands thrown up in defeat, you take a deep breath. Your next words come out saccharine, accompanied by fluttering lashes that can’t even be seen. “Changbin, darling, could you please open this shit up?”

The two of you wait in dead silence for several seconds before Jisung’s hands fly up to your hair, unprompted. Your surprised yelp doesn’t faze him. He grabs the bobby-pin from where you’ve stashed it under your ponytail, drops to his knees, and starts to work.

You snort, “Well, damn. Look at you!”

Truly, you’re impressed. Jisung normally leaves the dirty work to you, yet here he is — breaking and entering.

They grow up so fast.

He tries not to look proud of himself, but his cheeks blush a shade of sakura and rat him right out. Though you’re sure he’d love to, he can’t even lift a hand to wave you off before the lock clicks. With a quick twist of the knob, he pushes the door open.

Changbin’s office looks close to normal, with a few notable exceptions. For starters, he’s not in it. The man you’re dealing with never sees the light of day if he can help it.

Jisung pipes up first: “Okay, what the fuck?”

The office chair Changbin normally occupies is spun to the side, as if his ass left it in a hurry. Even odder than that is the small, green light which indicates that he didn’t shut off his computer before leaving it unattended. It’s not a decision someone like Changbin — neurotic and paranoid to a borderline clinical degree — makes on his own.

That, you know outright, is a problem.

Cautiously, you slip past Jisung and walk on eggshells towards Changbin’s desk. You know it’s stupid, that no one would bother rigging the floor tiles to blow under the weight of your boots, but you can’t ignore the way your gut twists with every step. That dread only gets worse, the closer you get.

To the right of his primary screen, there’s a half-eaten vending-machine burrito that’s so covered with ants, you almost mistake them for pepper flakes. That sight makes bile rise in your throat, in and of itself, but it’s the untouched cup of coffee that sends a tingle of panic down your spine. Around the base of the glass, hardly visible on the sheet of paper underneath, is a water ring. 

That coffee — at one point, however long ago — was iced.

Changbin would kill you for it if he were here, but he isn’t, so you drop down into his chair. You pause as soon as your ass settles onto the leather, still not convinced that one wrong move won’t set off some sort of trap. The breath you’ve been holding leaks out slowly when your actions go without consequences.

A quick glance up at Jisung confirms that he looks exactly as spooked as you feel. You watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows hard. 

He knows the answer before he asks, but that doesn’t stop him. It comes out scratchy, riddled with hesitation that says he doesn’t really want to hear the response. “He hasn’t been here in days, has he?”

You shake your head, just barely, then turn to the desk. Bottom lip pinched between worried teeth, you scan the surface for anything you missed on your first pass.

Give me a hint, you motherfucker. All I need is a breadcrumb.

It’s the absence of something that grabs your attention. Eyes narrowing, you lean forward in your seat to get as close as possible to his monitors.

“Does that…?” You start to ask but your voice trails off before you finish; thoughts moving too quickly to inventory before the next one arrives.

Though black, the screens in front of you aren’t lifeless. If anything, they’re still backlit, glitching subtly in a way they shouldn’t — not if the system had been locked, powered off, or otherwise put to sleep. You don’t have to be a netrunner to know that someone is running an opp, fucking up the computer’s processing and leaving it brain dead.

It’s so small that you almost miss the minimized window at the bottom left-hand corner of his secondary monitor, screen otherwise barren. Hesitantly, you reach out your hand and press a trembling finger to it.

Jisung is hovering so closely over your shoulder that you can practically taste that burrito on his breath. You elbow him once in the chest, hard.

He coughs, pointing to the screen as he sputters, “What the hell are those?”

“Numbers, Jisung.” You deadpan. “They’re called numbers.”

Ignoring the way he grumbles in response, you grab your mobile from your pocket. It springs to life at your sudden touch and broadcasts a holographic home screen in the air just centimeters above the glass. Just as fast, it tracks the movement of your eyes flicking through the list of applications. With the faintest shudder, the GPS navigation consumes the screen.

You repeat what you hope are coordinates:

35.2029, 128.6001.

As the map loads, you and Jisung exchange glances that are underscored by tense swallows. He knows it, and so do you: 

No matter where that pin ends up dropping, you have no choice but to go.

It takes three hours to drive from Seoul to Changwon. Although it’s not a route you’ve taken in years, or one you ever expected to take again, you still know it like the back of your hand. You can still navigate every turn — every crater and curve — with your eyes closed, even now. 

Despite that fact, your decision to race to the southeast this time has nothing to do with sentimentality for the hometown you left five years ago. 

This is just for Changbin, you repeat like a mantra, pressing harder on the accelerator. 

With every stoplight and thought you race through, the background grows blurrier but the big picture gets clearer. Changbin himself has nothing to do with it; and you’re not as selfless as your inner monologue keeps claiming. You correct yourself:

This is for me and my empty bank account.

Really — who could blame you?

You need steady contracts in order to eat. Without Changbin, those get fewer and farther between. It’s the transitive property, or whatever; basic math. You might starve without him, and that is the one thing in this life that you’re unwilling to do.

In the passenger seat, Jisung stirs. When he speaks, his voice isn’t weighted down with exhaustion in the way it usually is, halfway through a car trip. For some reason, it makes your stomach turn to consider that — for what is probably the first time ever — he isn’t sleeping through a drive.

“He left in a hurry,” he quietly notes.

Out of the corner of your eye, you glance at him and confirm the presence of that worried crease between his eyebrows. It’s not accompanied by the usual, furiously-bouncing knee. That makes your stomach turn, too. Clearly, he’s vaulted over mere anxiety and landed somewhere close to shutting down.

You nod. “He did.”

It spooks him when you take your right hand off the steering wheel and give his elbow a brief squeeze. You’re not the affectionate type; you both know this. It always makes your rare touches more ominous than comforting.

“Do you think he was running to something, or running away from something?”

Leave it to Jisung to say the quiet part out loud. 

Normally, you have an answer for his constant questions; and if you don’t, you resort to lying or guessing. This time, however, you don’t bother with either of those tactics because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the correct answer is, it’ll still feel wrong because Changbin doesn’t run.

Period.

Full stop.

So, the conclusion your brain keeps trying to come to is that he didn’t — he wouldn’t — if it came down to choice. The only reason Changbin would’ve disappeared like this, suddenly and wordlessly, is if he was taken.

Pulse hammering loudly in your ears, you don’t hear Jisung announce that your destination is only a few hundred meters down the road. Without his emphatic pointing out the windshield ahead, you simply would’ve continued racing forward, taking the speed limit as a suggestion to be ignored. Thankfully, your lead foot switches to the brake with enough time to make your turn. Tires hit dirt; your car fishtails as it transitions from the road to the worn-out path to your right.

“The fuck is this place?” You mutter, more to yourself than to Jisung.

It’s obsolete, you know that much. 

Something akin to an industrial park, but one that clearly hasn’t been used since before the War. There are electrical towers dotting a perimeter around the space, none of which are operational; the grid system was replaced by wind power, then by solar energy no fewer than fifty years ago. The driveway below is so cracked that patches of weeds have overtaken most of what remained of the pavement. All the rest is weathered, reduced to broken bits of cement and dirt.

Your car slows to a stop halfway down the parkway, surrounded on both sides by empty storage units with doors either broken or missing entirely. Hair raising on the back of your neck, you park but don’t kill the engine. Slowly, you rest your right hand over top of the holster strapped to your thigh and open your car door with your left.

The sun set a few hours into your drive. Its absence hasn’t done a damn thing to break the thick heat waiting for you outside. Humid air settles on your skin and leaves a sheen of sweat behind like a handprint, sticky.

“These were the coordinates,” Jisung affirms with a sigh. He stays seated inside the vehicle, leaving you to wonder why. He’s either too panicked to move, or correct in assuming you’d tell him to sit his unarmed ass back down before you made him.

You don’t respond. 

Instead, your eyes continue to scan the property for signs of — well, anything. Movement, a heat signature, whatever might register on your optical mods. There’s nothing, save for the stray tumbleweed somersaulting across the empty lot. You narrow your eyes to zoom in, heart pounding with anticipation.

You almost scream when you see it, but you swallow the urge. Fear won’t do you any good, but the semi-automatic strapped to your thigh might. It’s in your palm before you can blink, cocked and aimed at the figure ahead. At the bottom of your field of vision, your ammo count glows in translucent, block letters.

So, the ballistic co-processor is worth the pain.

Their posture is casual, legs dangling from the metal catwalk they sit on. Their elbows rest against the railing in front of them, as if they’re leaning on a counter in a bar and not spying on you from a scaffold four meters overhead. The way they’re watching in silence is unsettling enough; the wooden tal obscuring their face is fucking nightmare fuel, if you’ve ever seen it.

Head tilted curiously to the side, the stranger stares down at you through small eye holes, wooden mouth frozen in a hand-carved smile. Whoever they are, they’re immersed in the bit. They exaggerate every slow movement for their audience of two.

Good for them, you scoff to yourself.

Gloved hands come up to pantomime “don’t shoot” mere seconds before they grab hold of the railing in front of them. Just as quickly, they swing themselves underneath with a kick of their legs until they’re falling, falling, falling towards the ground below. They land easily on their feet without so much as a grunt. All the while, dust swirls in pirouettes around their ankles, spot-lit by your car’s headlamps.

“What — what the fuck?” Jisung squeaks. 

You don’t answer, but that doesn’t stop him from repeating his question, over and over.

Hands still raised, the stranger slowly closes the distance between you. Their fingers wiggle slightly in some demented version of a wave; they’re taunting you. The unhealed part of you wants to shoot those fingers off, one by one. 

You’ve never been fond of clowns.

“If you like having kneecaps without bullets in them, I suggest you stay still, chingu,” you scoff, now more annoyed than alarmed.

To your surprise, they listen. Their feet still, side by side; and their hands stay where you can see them. That is, until they curl all of their fingers into their palm, except for their right index finger. With it, they point silently over your shoulder.

As soon as you can whip your neck around, a gloved fist collides with your temple. The last thing you see before your vision goes black is a second, wooden smile looming over you.

A hushed tone manages to nudge you awake.

“You really can’t keep doing this. Seriously, your people skills are awful.”

The whole world’s blurry, and you can’t make out the source of the sound, but you’re coherent enough to know it when a second voice chimes in. It’s much less gentle than the first, higher in pitch and twice as exasperated. It snaps, “She was armed.”

“I had it under control,” the first voice huffs. 

The two seem to be too lost in their argument to notice your eyelids fluttering or your fingers twitching. Your wrists aren’t bound, you realize, but that fact doesn’t help you much in your current state. Back resting heavily against the thin nylon cloth of a cot, it’d take more energy than you have to spare in order to get to your feet. Worse, your eyes don’t seem interested in cooperating.

They should be by now. 

They’re open, you’re conscious, and —

Motherfucker.

The more awake you become, the more the ache in your temple reverberates down your jaw. You know without looking that the right side of your face is bruised to hell and back. Scraped up, too, if you had to guess; you hit the gravel like a bag of bricks.

They must’ve done it on purpose, hitting you exactly where they needed to in order to scramble your visual input. The most you get is shapes, black and white static. It wasn’t the hardest knock you’d ever taken to the head — not by a long shot — but it was perfectly targeted and timed. 

Clearly, they’re no amateurs.

One such shadow kneels down next to you. Gentle fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear while their other hand tilts your drooping head to the side. 

They tut, “Just look at what you did to her face.”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s been through worse,” the second voice scoffs. You watch the shadow’s shoulders as they shrug, wishing you could focus on their face well enough to bash it in.

The retort comes quickly, but it doesn’t come in Korean. 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t do better.”

The hands that gently cradle your face pull away, leaving you cold. The action itself isn’t as jarring as the sudden use of English, though — especially the accent it’s spoken with. You may not be fluent, but you can sense what’s missing: the consonant on the end of that last word.

You sense something else, too, but you’re still too disoriented to follow that thought from start to finish. It’s on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.

Who — ?

The bastard that broke your brain must notice your face scrunching in confusion because their next words seem to be aimed at you. Clipped and unapologetic, they mutter, “Should be fine within the hour. Already been out for —” 

They suck in a breath through their teeth. You can’t tell if they’re stalling in order to toy with you, or if they’re genuinely doing the math. 

“— Seven hours or so, now.”

Fuck!

One of the two snorts out a laugh; it’s the only reason you piece it together that you spoke out loud. Emboldened by the confirmed functionality of your voice, you speak again without thinking it through first. 

You don’t care where you are or who you’re with. You only have one question:

“Is Changbin still alive? Because if he is, I’ll kill him myself.”

The man kneeling next to your cot chuckles, soft and low, but he doesn’t acknowledge your question beyond that. Instead, he addresses his hamfisted friend. “Can you please get her some water?”

“Am I a waiter now, Yongbok-ah?” The other snips, though his tone is devoid of any real heat. If his face wasn’t blurred out of existence, you’d likely find a sneer on it. “Should I roll some gimbap for her, too?”

“Actually, you should,” counters this Yongbok. His response is buried so deeply under his breath that his back talk may as well be a secret for your ears only. “Punched her clean into the next weekday — so, yeah. It’s the least you could do.”

It grows silent enough that you can hear every incredulous footstep as the waiter storms off.

The remainder says, “Sorry about him,” and for whatever little it’s worth, he sounds like he means it. You say nothing, simply marinating in your resentment. 

Meanwhile, he shifts from his knees in order to sit fully on the ground next to your cot. Elbows extended, he leans back onto his palms and sighs gently, “Minho’s not as bad as the first impressions he makes.”

You scoff so forcefully that you feel it in your sinuses. “This is the second. His first is the reason I can’t see who’s holding me hostage.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The shape beside you sits up suddenly. He sputters, “You’re not a hostage, and this isn’t a kidnapping —”

“Then what the fuck is it?” You snap, “Huh, Yongbok?”

Blindly, you throw out a half-balled fist in a half-baked attempt to even the score. It misses by a mile, nearly knocking you off balance in the process. Your wrist is encircled by the same warm fingers you felt before, doubling over but exerting no force.

“We were scouting you. You know, like, soccer?” He chuckles sheepishly. “Changbin mentioned that you were a free agent, so to speak, and we thought you might wanna join the team.”

What the fuck?

“And — it wasn’t supposed to wind up like this.” His shadow’s hands gesture vaguely at the room you can’t see. “I did try to warn you. You just didn’t turn around in time.”

There are too many questions swirling around in your skull to choose from. One of them must break free and nudge your retinal chip back into place because something turns the lights back on. Glitching wildly, your vision flickers from low contrast to high definition. It doesn’t hurt, but the surprised gasp you choke out could easily be interpreted that way.

The man next to you is back on his knees in a second, both hands finding your shoulders to either comfort you or immobilize you — and you aren’t sure which. Against your better judgment, you ignore the reflex that tells you to fight or flee. Instead, you reach out and touch his cheekbone to confirm that the faint spots you see are freckles and not lingering sensory damage on your part.

He doesn’t even blink, much less say a word. There’s no jerk to get away, and there’s not a single question asked about what the fuck you’re doing — just tolerance. Far more than you’d be extending if the roles were reversed.

Freckles.

You aren’t embarrassed, but you drop your hand quickly and scowl at him until he does the same. Once again, he raises them as he leans back. Notably, he doesn’t wiggle his fingers like the first time you crossed paths.

That reminds me —

Abruptly, you draw your arm back to deck him in earnest. 

Just like the last time, he catches you before you can strike him; however, instead of capturing your wrist, it’s the entirety of your fist. His palm absorbs the shock, fingers closing around your hand. It’s the gentlest trap you’ve ever been ensnared in, which you hate.

Smart of you to prevent another attempt.

“Can I finish explaining myself?” He asks, voice soft. 

Bright doe eyes scan over your face cautiously as he contemplates letting your hand go. It’s disarming, sure, but you’d rather die than admit it. 

You give him absolutely nothing to work with, so he adds, “You can hit me when I’m done, if you still want to.”

All you give him in return is a glare, which he somehow correctly interprets as permission to keep going. The grip on your fist loosens, although it wasn’t constricting to begin with. Like nothing happened, you pull it away and cross your arms.

As if nonchalance has ever been your strong suit.

He stares at you, deep in thought, for longer than you know what to do with. Eyes sweeping over your features like he’ll be quizzed later, taking in every detail. It’s unsettling — what about you is even worth gawking at?

When he frowns, that spark of light in his eyes stays put. “You don’t remember me.” 

It’s not a question because he isn’t asking; he’s telling. And you have no goddamn clue what he means, no matter how loudly the voice in your head screams that you should. The familiarity buzzing through your brain can’t place him — not the button of his nose, not even those fucking freckles.

“I don’t know anyone named Yongbok,” you counter, frustration evident.

You wouldn’t be this harsh if you know how not to be. Part of you feels guilty when you see the hurt flicker across his face, but both emotions — his and yours — are gone as quickly as they appear. Consequently, the walls stay up, refusing to give. Despite you, the corner of his mouth hitches up in a lopsided version of a smile. 

That’s familiar, too.

“Never really went by it,” he chuckles. As he does, he tilts his head quizzically. 

Another bell rings, yet you can’t name the note.

Shyly, he takes his half-smile with him and looks anywhere else. The anticipation is spinning cartwheels in your stomach, tingling down the back of your neck, and you’re seconds away from trying to smack the trapped words right out of him. 

Who are you to me?

After a deep breath in and out, he glances back at you from the corner of his eye. His hesitation does nothing to prepare you for his response, which isn’t his name at all. It’s yours — a nickname, more specifically. One no one has used in damn near a decade.

“Been a while, Scraps. Hasn’t it?”

Felix has never seen anyone freeze the way you do when the realization finally hits. For a minute, he worries that Minho did more damage to your poor brain than either of them initially diagnosed; it wouldn’t be the first time. Minho’s never been known to be careful or tactful.

Your silence — and your total lack of physical response — doesn’t last, though. He nudges your kneecap with his knuckles just to make sure you can feel it. You blink rapidly, as if you’re just now remembering how.

He starts to ask, “Are you ok—?”, but your fist flies out, pops him right in the jaw, and he chokes on the rest of that question. Hands flying up to cover his face, he collapses back onto the floor with a groan. When the initial shock wears off, it dissolves into laughter that shakes his shoulders.

Honestly, what did he expect?

In a flash, you shove yourself off your cot. You’re on top of him before he can blink, pinning him down. You grip his shirt in one fist and raise the other. He braces himself for impact but doesn’t flinch, too taken aback by the fury you’re capable of communicating without a single word.

“You’re fucking with me,” you spit, breaking the silence.

Your glare is borderline feral — burning — and that makes him laugh even harder. 

“You haven’t changed a bit, you know that?”

To both of your surprise, you don’t hit him again; you don’t even try. You freeze, but unlike the last time, your eyes are shaking. Your raised arm is, too, like it’s taking all you have to keep whatever you’re feeling to yourself.

Classic Scraps.

You mutter, “You’re dead,” and it’s not a threat. 

Not even close, really. It’s a declaration, one accompanied by an expression that’s as close to vulnerable as he’s ever seen from you. All at once, you lower your arm; the rest of you slumps, too. Whispering, you repeat, “You’re dead.”

Something about your tone hurts worse than the burgeoning bruise near his mouth. It aches, even more so when he frowns. You deserve an explanation — an apology, too — but Felix doesn’t know where the fuck to start.

Maybe he should cash that reality check first.

“Is that what people are saying?” He asks.

He’s not sure what about that trips him up. It makes perfect sense that this is the conclusion people wound up jumping to. After all, he left without a word and never came back — didn’t leave a trace, either. 

Felix wasn’t the first teenager to slip through the cracks, so he’d figured that his would be another run-of-the-mill disappearance. Sure, people tend to notice when kids go missing; but that doesn’t stop the world from turning. Sooner or later, people stop looking, either too busy or too hopeless to keep holding a torch.

Eventually, they forget.

At least, that was the reality Felix had subscribed to — that, after a while, he’d slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness. It was easier to tell himself that he wasn’t missed. His guilt couldn’t keep him up at night if nobody remembered that he existed in the first place; especially when a decade slipped past in his absence.

But you did remember. 

You missed him.

You lift your knee so that you’re no longer straddling him and drop onto your back at his side.

It’s funny, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling. The two of you spent years just like this, albeit on the hood of some junkyard sedan. Two pairs of wide eyes were always fixed on constellations, dreaming of something bigger than both of you. Of some future where you weren’t still stuck in the gutter.

“There was no trace of you anywhere.” You speak so softly that Felix is left to wonder whether you’re talking to him or yourself. “No records that you fled, no word from you, no hits on CCTV — nothing. The cops said there’d be a trail if…”

Your voice fades out before you can finish that thought, so Felix picks up where you left off: “If I was alive to leave one.”

There’s a long pause before you speak again. 

“This is where you disappeared to?”

He feels a shift beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way you’ve tilted your head to gaze at him. By the time he does the same, the moment is gone, and you’re taking in the room around you. 

It’s not much, but it’s all he has: A small room in a decommissioned factory, smelling faintly of sawdust despite not containing any. The cot you just sprang from is where he’s spent most nights since he was fifteen. 

The floor underneath it — underneath you — is more dirt than concrete now, no matter how many times he’s scrubbed it; and the few iron shelves that hang along each wall are just as gross. So are the knickknacks he’s set on them, but he doesn’t mind.

The site itself is long forgotten. It’d be an eyesore if anyone ever looked, but no one bothers.

Even satellites have stopped paying it any attention, leaving it to fade into dirt and obscurity, not even a shadow of what it used to be. Once plush and inviting, the surrounding forest was leveled in a firefight that ended with ninety-percent of the nearby buildings getting blown to shit. 

The New Republic could’ve easily organized a relief team to dig through the shattered city. At any point in the last fifty years, they could’ve rebuilt what burned in that failed uprising, but they didn’t; and Felix knows they never will because that rubble has a function. Apart from burying one of the country’s most impoverished districts, it serves as a cautionary tale. A threat left behind to the masses: this is what happens when people pose risk to profits.

Still, flowers can grow within cracks in concrete. After all, his life with you started just a few kilometers away.

“Are we still in Changwon, or did you and that asshole drag me out of the province?” 

That edge of yours is ever present, and Felix is glad. It’s one of the million things he’s missed about you; a feature on the long list of reasons he wishes he could’ve called — messaged, sent a smoke signal, anything — to keep you around in whatever capacity he could.

But he didn’t. 

He couldn’t.

Felix feels the weight of a lost decade sitting heavy on his chest, so he does what he always does: he chooses light. Smiling brightly, he asks, “D’you remember that junkyard we used to run away to after curfew?”

You roll your eyes. You don’t have to say it out loud; he knows you do. The two of you spent more time there than you did in your own homes, lining glass bottles along the wooden fence posts and firing stones at them with a homemade slingshot.

“We’re a few kilometers up the road, actually.”

At this, you sit up so that no part of your body stays pressed against his. Dead silence settles in the space between you like a brick wall. You bristle, then you snap, “All that time you were dead, you were still within spitting distance?”

Felix opens his mouth to respond, but your rigid posture makes it clear that you have no desire to listen. He closes it again without saying a word. It’s what he deserves, isn’t it?

“Traded in your family, your home, your — Me.” You clear your throat to hide the fact that your voice breaks. It’s too late. “And for what, Felix? To haunt some abandoned building like a ghost?”

You clench your fists, like a grip tight enough might keep you together. That part of you hasn’t changed either, it seems. Neither has the extremely unsettling way you get quieter, the more upset you are. Just like that, he’s reminded of what you used to say: the more it hurts, the less it shows.

“I couldn’t pick you out of a fucking lineup despite all of that history,” you whisper, deflated. “And you were here the whole time.”

Talking won’t do him much good, so Felix opts to show you. Palms pressed to the ground, he pushes himself to his feet, and he doesn’t bother dusting off the back of his pants once he stands. It won’t make a difference, anyway, when the whole damn city is covered in it.

Once he steadies himself, he extends his hand to you, half-expecting you to slap it away. You don’t budge. You never do, he recalls fondly.

“One chance?” His eyes are pleading, even though you don’t look up to meet them. “It’s hard to explain, but it’ll make more sense if you see it.”

Without looking, you lift your arm and slap your hand into his. A small concession, but it’s enough to make his smile reappear. He’s practically beaming when he hauls you to your feet, and you grip his forearms to keep steady.

“Fine,” you concede with a huff. 

Then, you round on him with one pointed finger, jabbing him in the center of his chest with force. It’ll bruise, but he supposes that’s the whole point. 

“This better be worth all the fucking theatrics, or I swear to god —”

“You’ll make me swallow my own teeth?” He rolls his eyes with a low chuckle and tugs you along after him on his way to the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah — Heard that threat a thousand times, Scraps, and you’ve never once made good on it.”

Just to emphasize his point, he looks over his shoulder at you and grins with all thirty-two of them.

All things considered, you take everything in stride. You don’t react much at all when you discover that the abandoned building is anything but; refuse to bat an eye when the two people you woke up to are revealed to be a tiny fraction of the whole.

You even keep your hand in his as he ushers you from room to room — through the clinic, the makeshift and woefully under-equipped armory, the Hub — and introduces you to whoever you come across. He might even go so far as to call you friendly, which is a first. Receiving any kind of warmth from you typically requires high-level security clearance. 

Or, at least, it used to. Felix has to remind himself more than once that, small echoes aside, there are parts of you he doesn’t know anymore. This could very well be one of them.

Halfway through the tour, you finally offer up more than a lukewarm greeting and your name. It’s just the two of you now; you don’t have to make yourself palatable anymore. Blunt as ever, you throw out, “This is a cult, right? You ran away from home to join a cult?”

There she is, he thinks.

Felix pulls a face in disapproval, which you either don’t catch or don’t care about. Instead, you turn your head in the opposite direction and let your gaze sweep over the loading dock you currently stand upon.

It’s the closest thing they’ve got to a sitting room, filled with the only comfortable furniture they could get their hands on — half-busted arm chairs, ratty old couches, tables held together with duct tape and a prayer. You drop suddenly onto one such couch, jerking him back until his ass winds up next to yours on a tattered cushion. 

Felix can’t tell if you pulled him down on purpose, or if you simply forgot that you were holding onto him. Either way, he doesn’t mind, but part of him hopes it was the former.

“It’s a collective,” he corrects you, lips flattening into a firm, straight line.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. If it’s a sex cult, just say so.”

He tries not to laugh — really, he does — because the last thing you need is an enabler, but your deadpan delivery has always hit him where he’s weakest. He tries again while swallowing a chuckle: “It’s the Black Screen, home to the most talented and ungovernable motherfuckers on the peninsula.”

You don’t look impressed. Felix doesn’t take it to heart.

“We’ve got a reconnaissance team, netrunners —” 

As if he’s doing a roll call, he points to nearby stragglers with every position he names. 

“— corporate defectors, combat vets, medics, ex-fixers —”

He nudges you with his elbow, wiggles his eyebrows and murmurs, “— Edge runners —” 

If that look in your eye is any indication, you still hate it when he does that.

“And a couple of wayward drunks who — well…” Felix pauses for a moment to think. It doesn’t help, so he shrugs, snickering, “I dunno how they got here, and they don’t contribute much, but they’re fun to have around!”

The corner of your mouth twitches, ever so slightly. He grins down at you, as if to say gotcha. 

“So, it is a sex cult,” you repeat flatly after a beat.

Felix can’t beat your bit, so he may as well join you in it. Bested, he sighs, “Yeah, pretty much.”

You hum in acceptance of his defeat, clearly amused by how easily he still gives in to you. 

With pursed lips, you continue to take in your surroundings. Your brow furrows while you process the information you’ve been bombarded with so far, but you don’t offer up any further questions or snide comments. Thankfully, the silence that falls over you both feels a lot less like lead than the previous one.

Felix’s gaze stays fixed on you, though you’re too busy looking elsewhere to notice. Maybe you couldn’t recognize him, but shit — he’d know you anywhere, anytime. You’ve gotten older, of course, finally grew into those features of yours. Still, there are hints of the kid he used to know hidden all over your face.

Original traits aside, the new additions — the tattoos, for starters — all read like you. In fact, Felix is fairly confident that he’d know who they belonged to, even if the other context was removed. After all, the cyberware installed into your hand can’t undermine the familiarity of it resting against his palm. 

And it sure as shit still hits like it used to.

He considers it a blessing, really, that so much of you survived the years that flew by without him. That the scrawny girl next door — ready and willing to fight God over a single slight — still rolls her eyes the same way, still speaks in that satoori his non-native tongue could never mimic.

“Maybe I’m missing something,” you announce suddenly. The unexpected sound of your voice startles Felix so much that he jumps, knocking his shoulder into yours in the process. You ignore his reaction and continue, “This just looks like someone is collecting people as a hobby. What are you all doing here?”

Oh.

Yeah, that’s a fair question.

“We’re… starting a fire,” Felix muses. 

You arch an eyebrow expectantly, although the rest of your face remains impassive. It’s less of a demand for him to continue than it is permission for him not to stop.

“And we’re going to burn it all down.” He hits you with a devilish grin, drops his voice low in a way that makes you shiver involuntarily. “The corpo-rats, the lies they sell — all of it.”

“Sounds like anarchy,” you say, tilting your head to the side. There’s a beat, then you grin to match his. “Sign me up.”

Felix stands at the far side of the dining area with his arms crossed and his head leaning back against the cinder blocks behind him. His legs are crossed at the ankles, knees aching from the sheer amount of time he’s been holding the wall up. 

As much as his body wants to sit, the rest of him is out of options. The only table that isn’t full is the one you’re occupying with Changbin and Jisung. After the day you’ve had, you deserve time alone with something familiar. He recognizes that he isn’t that. 

Not anymore — and not yet, either. 

He finds it hard to stray too far, though. You’ve always been able to fend for yourself — that black-and-blue jaw of his is proof enough — but it’s a role he can’t help falling into, looking out for you. Muscle memory.

Although Felix can’t quite make out anything that the three of you are saying, it’s clear as a damn bell when you slam your palms down on the table. Just as obvious is the split second in which your anger gives way — when the pain in your right hand finally registers in your brain.

“That one going to be a problem?”

Hyunjin, as usual, seems to appear out of thin air. He sidles up to Felix and takes up the spot next to him along the wall. All it takes is one quick glance to confirm it — he’s exhausted. Dark half-moons sit in the wells beneath his eyes like ink, silently informing Felix of yet another all-nighter; still keeping secrets as to where he goes at night when everyone else is sleeping.

But Hyunjin isn’t a mystery Felix will ever be able to solve, so he looks back in your direction and asks, “Who, Scraps?” Then, with a shake of his head, he sighs, “No. She’s a cherry bomb, but she’s reliable. Far more than most, actually.”

It’s odd, Felix thinks, that Hyunjin didn’t already know the answer to that question. As the reconnaissance leader of the Black Screen, there isn’t much Hyunjin isn’t aware of. Felix doesn’t comment on that piece, however. Instead, he does his best to interpret your reaction.

“If I had to guess, Changbin just told her about the fake kidnapping.”

And Hyunjin doesn’t do a damn thing to conceal his smirk. That was his plan, after all. 

Two weeks ago, Seo Changbin stumbled upon a lead by accident. While Felix isn’t privy to the details of what Changbin dug up, he knows it must’ve been significant. That’s the only explanation Felix can come up with as to how Changbin wound up at the rendezvous point. Nobody — not the corporate ghouls, their war dogs, or any other sorry soul  — finds the Black Screen unless they want to be found. 

Felix is privy to what happened next because it’s the only reason he wound up involved in this at all:

Whatever intel Changbin had was groundbreaking enough to score an invitation to the revolution, but he had more to offer the higher-ups than that. He dropped the name of someone who could be an asset, under the right circumstances. Someone who wouldn’t follow a breadcrumb trail for free but would tear the peninsula apart to find whoever owed them.

For what it’s worth, Felix disagreed with that characterization the second he heard it. Despite the mask you like to wear, you’re incapable of being self-centered. You’ve never been profit-driven, heartless, or attachment-avoidant. Just hellbent on survival for you and the people you feel responsible for, even as a kid. 

The only reason Felix hasn’t asked you about your motive outright is because he knows you’d lie. The truth is simple: Unless it was for someone you care deeply about, you wouldn’t waste gasoline on speeding back to a place you hate.

Hyunjin clears his throat, pulling Felix out of the daze he’d fallen into. Given the pointed look on his face, Hyunjin must be repeating himself when he says, “She got you bad, huh?”

Confusion forces Felix’s brow to furrow. 

“This?” He takes a wild guess and gestures to the bruise on his jaw before waving dismissively. “Nah, her form is terrible. Truly garbage-tier follow-through. I can teach her, though.”

Hyunjin pushes himself off the wall and moves to exit the dining area. As he passes by, he gives Felix a patronizing pat on his shoulder. “Not what I meant, Yongbokie.”

Felix frowns, unsure how to take what he’s being given. 

The fuck?

“Not even close,” Hyunjin calls over his shoulder. 

He shoots Felix a wink, and then he’s gone, disappearing out the door the same way he entered it — like a goddamn apparition.

“Wow. Recruited? That’s — wow.”

Jisung is doing a terrible job of pretending he isn’t blushing. He clears his throat to keep his voice even, but it’s useless. He’s not fooling anyone. 

“I didn’t realize we were so sought after.”

“You’re not,” Changbin responds bluntly. He gestures across the table to you but maintains his eyes on Jisung. “She is. You just happened to be present, and they couldn’t leave a witness behind.”

Jisung doesn’t bother to hide the way his face falls. When he opens his mouth to whine, you raise your hand and silently demand that he spare you the earache. It seems to work; he slumps dejectedly and leans with his elbows against the tabletop. You proceed to ignore him.

Affect flat, you stare straight ahead at the source of all your fucking problems. The half of you that wants to hug Changbin for being alive and well is significantly quieter than the half of you that wants to grab him by the nape of his neck and shove his face into his yukgaejang.

Bastard.

“I no longer give a shit how I ended up here,” you state coolly. Liar. “That ship has sailed, and to keep it a buck with you, Binnie —” 

He cringes at the nickname, which is exactly the reaction you sought. 

“— I’m not interested in stroking your ego for getting one over on me. It won’t happen again. What I’m still waiting on —” 

The only reason you leave that clause hanging in mid-air is to see the anticipation stir in his eyes. From where you’re sitting, it’s what he deserves: a little bit of unnecessary suspense. Really, it’s a form of reparations for the giant fucking inconvenience he’s been lately. His balance is way past due. 

Jisung, perpetually along for the ride, shovels shrimp chips into his mouth while his eyes dart back and forth between your face and Changbin’s.

You shoot Changbin a sly smile and grab his beer, tilting the can his way in lieu of a bow. His eyes narrow, visibly annoyed with your stalling, but he doesn’t audibly complain when you down the rest of his drink. Resigned, he accepts the empty can that you hand it back to him

At long last, you clear your throat.

“— is an explanation for why you’re here,” you finally sigh.

Changbin rolls his eyes so hard that they go all-white for a moment. Then, to your surprise, he glares across the table at Jisung. 

“You know, my life was way more pleasant before you dragged this one,” he huffs, gesturing to you with his chopsticks, “Into my bar.”

Just for a moment, Changbin sits with his annoyance. He’s entitled to some of it, you’ll concede. You’re not easy to love — you never have been — and you’re occasionally even harder to like. Despite that, he’s been known to look out for you in his own, mostly useless way; even in moments like this, when you’re being a fucking gash simply because you can. 

But the fact remains that you dragged your ass across a peninsula for him. He knows damn well that you accept payment in the form of secrets when cash is too hard to come by, so…. 

“Spill,” you demand.

That tough exterior of his collapses like wet cardboard, just like you knew it would. He glances around the room quickly to confirm that no one is listening in, then he pushes his empty bowl out of the way. With the threat of staining his white t-shirt neutralized, Changbin leans in and asks, “Do either of you know Jung Wooyoung?” 

Simultaneously, you and Jisung respond:

“The boxer?”

“The biter.”

Just the same, your friends turn to you with identical looks of bewilderment. You shrug, declining to elaborate because Changbin asked if you knew him, not how or how intimately. Truth be told, you’re not sure that he’s prepared for that answer.

“Anyways,” Changbin segues after clearing his throat. “He’s not up to either of those tasks these days.”

Genuinely curious, Jisung asks with a frown, “Did someone finally kill him?”

Fair question, you think.

With the way Wooyoung runs his mouth, it’s a wonder he’s lived as long as he has — assuming, of course, that he’s still alive. Beyond picking fights with people three times’ his size, his specialties include fixing matches and swiping other fighters’ significant others. If he’s not dead yet, you figure, it’s only a matter of time until the consequences of his antics come calling.

Changbin shakes his head, and the look on his face seems weirdly solemn, like the answer is even worse than that. It’s sobering; it knocks the smirk right off your face.

“He was short on cash, so he signed up for some clinical trial promising a million won for participants.”

Jisung, the resident non-doctor, sits up at this development. “Thanotech?”

You’re in the middle of rolling your eyes when Changbin intercepts, grimacing: “No, that’s the fucked up part. Well, one of the fucked up parts.”

Two pairs of expectant eyes lock on him.

“It’s Ulsan running the trial.”

You don’t pretend to be well-versed in any of the biomedical, cybernetic shit going on around you, but you do know that this particular corporation never leaks details of its research and development — not ever. Doing so would run the risk of a lesser titan swooping in to try and to dupe it. 

But that’s not the only revelation that smacks you upside the head.

“Ulsan pays for lab rats now?” You scoff, surprised by your own interest. “Here I was, thinking they used ex-employees for that shit.”

It sounds callous when you say it out loud, but it’s a universal assumption. Part of the New Republic’s mythology, so to speak.

In your lifetime, you’ve never come across a single person who used to work for the Ulsan Corporation — not one. Just the same, you’ve never heard about anyone leaving; no one you’ve ever met has. It’s beyond the realm of possibility that a corporation like that has no turnover, so where do people go when their turn is over?

The dumpster out back, some say. According to others, they wind up in a secret mass grave in the oil fields.

“When he came back, I didn’t know where he’d been or why; I just saw him wandering around like a fucking zombie.” Changbin shivers. “He’s empty now, all sucked dry.”

Jisung looks pointedly at you, shit-eatin grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what happened when you —?”

An elbow to the center of his chest stops his question before he can finish asking it. He yelps instead, scooting his chair further down the table to get away from you, your sharp edges, and your even sharper glare.

“It freaked me the fuck out, and I didn’t have any answers, so I started poking around for something — anything — that might make sense of it.”

“So, that’s how you got pulled into the web.”

The voice from nowhere makes all three of you jump. You whip around to find yet another stranger. 

How many fucking people do I have to meet today? 

This particular wild card sits on top of the table directly behind yours with arms gently crossed over her chest; not closed off but cold, judging by the goosebumps making themselves known across her bare arms. Her boots rest on the chair in front of her, one chrome leg shining next to flesh-and-blood.

Whoever she is, she’s beaming. That fact confuses the shit out of you because you’re not often met with friendliness, especially from unknowns. Or maybe, you think, it’s a well-concealed effort to disarm you. Whatever it is, it’s working; the urge to snap at her for intruding is dead on arrival. 

You open your mouth to ask what she means, but you can’t get the words out before someone else interjects. 

Minho, that bastard, shouts from across the room, “Spider! Got a minute?”

Her eyes light up in a way that says she has several, so long as he’s the one asking. Without another word, she hops to her feet and pushes the chair that held them back under the table. As she heads his way, she sends you an apologetic smile, like she somehow owes you anything.

“I don’t know what they unraveled by pulling that thread,” Changbin sighs, nodding towards the pair exiting the room. “But this place has been buzzing since I got here.”

You need something to chew on that isn’t this, so you reach over and grab the bag of shrimp chips from Jisung’s unsuspecting hands. The frown he gives you is cartoonish, but as usual, he doesn’t put up a fight. Your version of an apology is holding a spare chip out to him, which he happily accepts.

After shoveling a handful into your mouth, you mumble, “So now what?”

“I don’t know about you, but if these guys —” Changbin gestures vaguely around the room with his index finger pointed. “— Give me a target to point at, I’ll pull the trigger.”

You snort, “That’s a lot of trust.” 

It doesn’t mean much, coming from you. Your metric is beyond fucked, and you know it. That word is foreign, though; so far out of your grasp that you can’t wrap your brain around it.

“Maybe it is,” Changbin mutters while he looks down at the empty can in his grip. 

For a moment, that’s all he says. All he does is stare into the black hole of its opening, as if there’s some answer lurking in the emptiness below it. He must not find it, though, because he crumples the aluminum like a piece of scrap paper. 

When he glances back up at you, you see the uncertainty in his eyes. It reads like fear, which manages to unsettle you.

“I just — I can’t see what I saw and do nothing.”

Your second month in the compound starts with a bang — no, a thud. 

With your body being forcibly ejected from your cot, crashing onto the ground, and your jaw clenching shut quickly with a click of gritted teeth.

“How many fucking times are we doing this?” You growl, less than half-awake. 

Already past today’s quota for rage, you form a fist and swing your arm back violently against the capsized cot; it scrapes along the cement floor and skitters further away from you. The sudden burst of movement doesn’t do anything to make you feel better, but it was worth a shot, you suppose.

Felix, whose sunshine smile is too goddamn bright for this hour, crouches down in front of you. He at least has the decency to look apologetic when he lilts, “Until you learn to wake up to an alarm, I fear.”

He pauses, eyes scanning for any genuine distress beyond your shitty mood.

“Does that hurt?” He frowns.

Bleary eyes follow his pointed finger to your elbow, now prickling with blood where you skinned it against the floor. It doesn’t; and you’re not even remotely concerned about it, so you swat his hand away without answering his question and shove yourself to your feet. Once standing, you wander over to your steamer trunk to grab something clean enough to wear. 

The shadowy one, Hyunjin, brought your shit to you a week ago —  thank god. He provided no explanation whatsoever for how he knew where you lived or how he managed to get inside your building, but you’re a beggar, not a chooser. You’d rather enable his burglary than keep wearing the same, re-washed clothes you came here with or borrowing from people you still don’t know well.

As you peel yesterday’s tank-top up and over your head, your gravelly voice flies out to Felix, who stands and moves to lean against the wall. “You at least going to feed me breakfast before you bore me with more target practice?”

That’s most of what your time together has been so far, anyway. The chain of command is sorting out details above your pay grade; and you condition yourself to jump as high as they may eventually ask you to.

Felix doesn’t answer you, which isn’t like him. You look at him out of the corner of your eye and find him staring up at the ceiling, like his life depends on it.

“What are you —?” 

Oh.

You glance down, cutting your question off midway through. He’s giving you and your semi-exposed body privacy, that’s what. 

Sensing blood in the water, you swim in to scoff, “You have no problem flipping my bed when I’m in it, but bras are where you draw the line? What kind of gentleman are you?”

Still averting his eyes, he rolls them. You do him the favor of tugging on a different, slightly wrinkled tank-top; but you don’t give him the courtesy of letting up.

“Where do you stand on ass, Felix?”

“Are you always this annoying, first thing in the morning?” 

Amusement slips through the cracks despite his efforts to conceal it. You slip out of the cotton shorts you slept in, dip your toes under the fabric pooled around your ankles, and flick them at him. He concedes his staring contest to the panels overhead in order to catch them.

Impressive reflexes.

“I’m this annoying at all hours of the day.” You grin impishly for just a second, then shrug. “You’re just less able to handle it, first thing in the morning.”

Bending back over your trunk, you dig through for something denim. You land on black, high-waisted shorts with a triumphant, “Aha!”, and make a big show of raising your trophy overhead. Once again, you glance at Felix to see if your attempt to get a rise out of him was successful. In a way, yes, it was — just not in the way you expected.

Based on the way his gaze lingers on your thighs and the curve of your ass, you don’t think Felix even noticed your theatrics. You don’t think he means to stare, either. As far as you can see, it’s the perfect opportunity to fuck with him further.

“Admiring the tattoos?” You arch an eyebrow and wait for him to blush out of panic at being caught. “I can recommend the artist, if you want to hit them up.”

To your surprise, you don’t rattle him. Dark eyes flick up from your body to your face, and they don’t seem ashamed of where they’ve been. Your plan backfires. More than that, it blows up right in your face, which is starting to heat up.

“The cantine closes in five minutes. Training starts in ten,” he states matter-of-factly, holding your gaze. “So, you can either eat, or you can keep pretending you’re not trying to flirt with me.”

Your mouth drops open, but you can’t even snap back at him before he chirps, “The choice is yours, Scraps,” with a playful smile.

With nothing more to say, Felix leans away from the wall. On his way out the door, he gives you a lazy, two-finger salute. Dumbstruck, you stand there, watching him leave; wondering where the hell your bumbling, sweetly shy friend from back home managed to disappear to. 

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Felix waggles his finger at you. A smug smile toys at his lips when you let out a frustrated grunt. “That’s the problem.”

He takes a step away from you, raises his fists to mimic your posture, and throws a right jab out into the air ahead of him. When he draws it back, he pauses with his shoulders even.

“D’you see the issue with this?” He asks, loosening one fist so that he can gesture from shoulder to shoulder.

You roll your eyes. “Is it that nobody’s currently hitting you?”

Felix, to his credit, is completely unbothered by the attitude you keep giving him. He’s far more patient than he should be with you. You, however, do not take criticism well.

“You square yourself off instead of retriggering an attack,” he gently corrects you. “By not turning and leading with your shoulder —” He twists slightly backwards, so that his body is angled similarly to the way it was when he struck in the first place. “— you leave all this surface area open.”

Okay, fine. 

You’ll concede that this makes sense, but you will not admit to poor blocking. In fact, deflecting is what you’re best at, so that’s precisely what you do. 

“And how exactly am I supposed to block hits that aren’t coming?”

Felix relaxes his stance with confusion scribbled all over his face. You don’t wait for him to ask what you mean, plunging right into your notes for him:

“This sparring shit doesn’t feel real because you refuse to hit me. It’s been weeks, and there still aren’t any stakes. If you’re going to insist that I learn this — which, by the way, feels pointless when I’m already armed —”

You gesture down to your thigh, where your pistol is normally strapped. 

“— then you have to make me care.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, opting instead to quietly chew on the challenge you’ve raised. For a split second, you think you’ve finally grasped the straw that’ll break his back. He turns towards the door and walks away, seemingly giving up on trying to teach a rabid dog new tricks.

But Felix defies your expectations yet again, grabs your gear off the counter at the far side of the room, and heads back to you. As he walks, he pulls back the slide to fish out the round that waits in its chamber. Bullet still in hand, his focus shifts to the magazine, which he easily removes from the base of your pistol’s grip. After tucking your ammunition into the back pocket of his jeans for safekeeping, he holds your now-empty firearm and thigh strap out to you. 

“Gear up.”

Now, it’s your turn to be confused. You accept the items he pushes into your hands with both eyebrows raised.

“Are we giving up on hand-to-hand, then?”

“Absolutely not,” Felix snorts with a shake of his head. “I’m just going to prove the necessity.” When you don’t budge, he waves his hand to hurry you along. “C’mon, Scraps. Strap in.”

Eyeing him suspiciously, you slip the vertical strap over your belt loop and fasten it before doing the same to the horizontal piece around your thigh. Once it’s nestled snugly against your skin, you slide your weapon into its resting place. 

Holding your hands up, you fire off a saccharine smile like the brat you are. “All done,” you chirp.

The smirk that appears on his face makes your stomach flip for two reasons, the least of which is the anticipation of his next move.

“You want it to feel real, right?” His voice drops so low that you feel it deep in your abdomen. “Fine by me.”

Like before, Felix steps slightly backwards. With a nod of his head towards your firearm, he challenges you, “Draw.”

It’s unfamiliar, seeing him counter you like this. Growing up, he was content to go in whichever direction you nudged him in. The version of Felix you knew back then was passive, agreeable to fault. You may not know what the fuck he’s planning now, but he radiates newfound authority that you almost want to respect, so you listen.

“Fine,” you demur while your fingertips trail over the cool, metal grip. “Make your point and move onto something useful.”

The next sequence of events flashes by so quickly that your brain can hardly keep up. 

Just as soon as you pull the gun from its holster, Felix turns in his spot, channeling the momentum into a strong push off the ground. He’s in the air before you can even level the barrel; and in the blink of an eye, the side of his boot collides with your hand, forcefully ejecting the gun from your grip. The power behind his kick sends the weapon flying several meters away, where it clatters to the floor with a smack amidst the quiet.

Gasping more so out of surprise than pain, you recoil your stinging fist and clutch it to your chest. He reads your expression incorrectly, if his widened eyes are any indication. Immediately, Felix breaks his stance to step across the distance in between you.

Worried hands come to rest on your biceps, squeezing gently. He urgently asks, “You alright?”

You blink back at him, throughly stunned by how fucking fast his reflexes are, and he misinterprets that, too. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he sputters. His next words come out so frantically that they bleed together over the course of one breath. “I really didn’t want to hurt you; I just needed you to understand that your gun can’t always save you. Sometimes, you have to —”

“That was insane,” you blurt out.

Felix’s eyes widen, caught completely off-guard by your interruption. It’s understandable, you think. After all, it’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve given him over the past few weeks. 

He peeps, “Oh?”

You nod vigorously — and there’s that sweetly shy boy from down the block, blushing slightly under the weight of your attention. 

Somehow, seeing him this way feels like home; the one you knew before he disappeared, that you might actually admit to missing. Acting solely on instinct, you unfurl your right hand and seek out the warmth of his cheek, like it’ll flip a switch and turn the clock back.

It doesn’t. Of course, it doesn’t — but you can’t help feeling like this is fine, too.

Until you realize what the fuck you’re doing, and you see the starry-eyed look he’s giving you. Then, you do what you always do.

You dodge.

Patting his cheek patronizingly, you breeze, “I guess I’ll let you train me, then,” before turning to retrieve your gun.

“Oh, really now?” He laughs, like he’s already forgotten the way your mask just cracked. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for this, or disappointed. “Is violence all it takes to win you over?”

Disappointed. 

You wish he’d called your bluff again, like he did so long ago in that closet you’re currently calling a bedroom. Once wasn’t enough; you want to be caught out, to have someone refuse to let you get away with the bullshit you’re always trying to pull. For some proof that you’re not the bulldozer you pretend to be.

Felix raises an eyebrow as he tilts his head teasingly to the side. “Are you actually going to shut up and take instruction this time?”

Like that.

“Maybe.” You crouch down to grab your discarded pistol off the ground, lips pursed to keep the satisfied smile off your face. “Are you going to stop pulling punches?”

Three weeks of sparring tick by before you manage to clean his fucking clock.

It came as a surprise to both of you; not just that Felix slipped up in the first place, but that you were fast enough to capitalize on an opening he’s otherwise never created. You might’ve gasped even louder than he did when you managed to seize the opportunity — but that memory is fuzzy already. It doesn’t matter, anyway, not to him. Either way, the point stands: 

You actually learned from the shit he’s been trying to instill in you.

Having hobbled from the training room to his bedroom, Felix now sits on top of the old, metal counter that once served as a workbench. It’s not comfortable by any means, but he’d rather die than move from his current position. Between his knees, you stand close to him, holding a frozen sponge to his left eye with your right hand. 

Funnily enough, that particular hand is the reason he needs an ice pack in the first place.

For a while, the pair of you exist in comfortable quiet. It’s nice, he thinks, just being present. He would’ve been happy to carry on that way for as long as possible, but the shitty voice in the back of his brain keeps yelling that he’s letting more moments slip by than he has to spare. Wasting time that he should be making up.

He clears his throat to shake off the rust, prompting you to glance down from his forehead to his eyes. Your expression is hard to read, but there’s anxiety in there, somewhere. Felix worries that you’re worried; you’re searching for a sign that you’ve somehow injured him further.

“You’re a quick study — if and when you want to be.” His teasing sounds pathetic because his voice is barely more than a groan. Still, he smirks, “Those corporate mercenaries won’t stand a chance.”

With his good eye, Felix watches as your mask cracks a little further in the shape of a smile. 

For once, you simply nod in acknowledgement and let the compliment slip through your defenses without trying to deflect it. He wants to compliment you for that progress, too, but he’s hesitant to push his luck when he’s already flying half-blind by the seat of his pants. 

Then again, it might be worth the risk to push the envelope — even if you succeed in punching his goddamn lights out for good. He doubts that he’d complain, if that were the case. You’d be an incredible last sight to ever see, wouldn’t you?

His internal monologue pipes up again, demanding that he gamble.

Every single muscle he has aches after spending hours sparring with you, but that’s not at all what he’s talking about when he says, “You’re a knockout, Scraps.”

It’s a cop out, but it’s something. 

Just for a second, Felix wonders if you heard what he meant, and not just what he said. All his doubt disappears when that shy smile tugs even harder at the corners of your mouth.

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, chuckling quietly. “If you want to get technical, you didn’t even lose consciousness —” 

Carefully, you bring your free hand up to his forehead and brush flyaway strands of hair out of the way of the makeshift ice pack. By contrast, your fingertips are warm enough to simmer on his skin.

“— so you’ll have to try that joke again when you actually do.”

Although you could, you don’t take your hand back after unsticking his hair from the condensation on his skin. You lower it gently, let it rest on his shoulder, and leave Felix to wonder if it’s a choice, a convenience, or a reflex. 

This eats at him.

A long time ago, this little gesture wouldn’t be something he’d have to guess at. He used to just understand, never once needed to be told. So far out of practice, he’s no longer fluent in your body language — and he hates it.

Unwilling to leave anything else up to interpretation, Felix looks up at you with one, unobstructed eye. “Wasn’t joking,” he murmurs.

You freeze without meeting his eyes. 

If he didn’t know better, he might think your retinal mods had been knocked loose again. You don’t seem to see him, and that’s all he wants. All he gets is quiet, so he tries again: “And I’m not bullshitting you, either.”

It’s his low voice speaking your real name that finally draws you out of hiding. Surprised for just a moment, your expression softens when you notice the way he’s studying your reactions. You don’t speak at first, but your bottom lip is pinched between your teeth; a telltale sign that you’re trying to.

“Since this is apparently honesty hour,” you start with an exhale.

Felix braces himself for whatever evasive maneuver you’re going to throw next. 

Shockingly, you don’t throw out a joke to change the subject. You take the ice pack off his eye so he can see you properly, set it down next to his thigh on the counter, and scrub your hands sheepishly over your face.

“You freak me the fuck out.”

You laugh despite yourself, and then you pause just like that; like you’re waiting on him to laugh at you, too. When he doesn’t, you take it as your cue to keep going: “Am I insane, or does this feel easy?

“I think both things can be true.” You shoot him a look that could — and might — kill him. He holds his hands up in surrender, but he keeps his eyes locked on you. “And I know you’re not used to easy.”

Felix doesn’t know what he expects you to do next, but your next move isn’t one he would’ve guessed. In the end, it’s your still-chilled palms reaching up to meet him, and your fingers filling the empty spaces between his. Brow furrowed, you study the way you fit together, like the words you’re searching for are hidden somewhere in the gaps of your chain-linked knuckles.

“I’m not used to it because I avoid it,” you correct him, frowning. “Easy scares the shit out of me. It just feels like a trap, you know? Like, the second you stop looking out for it, the other shoe will drop and knock your unsuspecting ass to the dirt.”

Keeping his fingers interlaced with yours, he lowers your joined hands until they rest against the tops of his thighs. You watch them go; he watches you, and he can’t help thinking that he’s the reason you armored up in the first place. That him leaving was the blow to the head that taught you to wear a helmet.

“I’ve got good reflexes,” Felix whispers, squeezing your hand.

At this, your eyes flick upwards. A microscopic crease forms between your eyebrows, and he knows exactly what’s coming next, so he says it first: “Excluding today, obviously.”

When you smile, it hits him even harder than your right hook did.

“What are you saying, exactly?” You ask, head tilting to the side as you narrow your eyes.

“Fuck the shoe.”

The look on your face suggests that he can’t possibly be serious, but he’s never been more so. Maybe he can’t promise you easy in a world like this one; and he can’t keep that fucking shoe from dropping, but he swears he’ll catch it when it does.

Felix has to let go of your hands to hold you properly. You lean into his touch when he snakes his arms around your waist; and you rest your forehead against his, careful not to press into the bruise that borders his eyebrow.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he whispers. You hum in reply, confirming your willingness to trade. “Kiss me now, and we’ll batten down the hatches later.”

Felix may have called you a quick learner, but you have to wonder what his basis for comparison is. From your vantage point, it’s him that catches on in a heartbeat, like nothing unexperienced is truly new to him. 

Coincidentally, it’s also him that’s kneeling between your thighs, bearing the weight of your hinged knees over his shoulders and making you shake with his tongue alone.

“Fuck, fuck — nngh — fuck!” 

It’s all you can say because it’s the best you can do. 

Over and over, too drunk on the sensation of his mouth, you let profanity spill out of yours. He has you dripping in more ways than one, pooling on that godforsaken counter, and you can’t spare a single thought about the mess you’re making.

Every neuron fixates on him, the cotton-candy blue strands gripped tight between your fingers, and the way he devours you, like he’s making up for skipped meals.

“F-Felix,” you beg, breathless.

Looking up at you from under his lashes, he feigns innocence. It’s bullshit — he knows you’re on the brink of death, knows your whole damn body is buzzing — and his sweet smile doesn’t match his actions. You jolt, wailing, when another kitten lick trails over your clit.

“Hmm?” That low timbre of his vibrates through you when he pulls back, panting.

God, you’re spent already, but you can’t collapse until you know what he feels like, buried to the hilt in you. Something about that need makes you shiver; has your bottom lip quivering when you manage to squeak, “Please.”

Absolutely boneless, you slump against the wall behind you. With far more grace than you, Felix maneuvers his way out from under the tangle of your legs. He ensures that they fall gently back into place on the countertop.

“Gotta work on that stamina if you’re gonna help wage a war,” he teases.

The half-powered glare you shoot at him doesn’t stop him from leaning in and pressing a kiss to your forehead. It doesn’t keep his fingertips from tracing languid lines down the lengths of your bare thighs, either.

Your voice is fucked out and weightless, far softer than you’ve ever heard yourself sound. “Is that what this is? Conditioning?”

The hand not caressing your thigh comes up to cradle your jaw, like it’s something fragile. It’s the first time anyone’s touched you as if you’re breakable, worth protecting — and motherfucker, you’re one soft smile away from crying.

“No.” 

He states it much more firmly than he kisses you. So gentle that you can’t believe it’s real until you taste yourself on him, so warm that you dissolve like a sugar cube on his tongue. 

Fuck any other person that’s ever pressed their lips to yours and called it a kiss. They’re liars, all of them. One by one, their names disappear with every passing second in which you know better.

“Need you,” you moan into his mouth. 

Fistfuls of his shirt can’t bring him close enough. Even when his head dips down and his lips are at your throat, the ache wins out. You crave him anywhere — everywhere — all over you. 

“Going crazy —” You gasp when his teeth nip at your collarbone. “— waiting on you.”

Greedy hands drop to the button of his jeans, fumbling to no avail. Apparently, your dexterity flew out the window two orgasms ago. A frustrated whine jumps out after it, pushing your head back as it goes.

Felix’s low chuckle soothes you, but it’s nothing compared to the relief you feel when his hands nudge yours out of the way. That, too, is a drop in the bucket; bliss crashes in waves when there’s no denim left to separate you. His hands land on your hips, fingertips pressing into your flesh as he guides you further down his length. 

Never — not fucking ever — have you made a sound quite as pathetic as the one you bury into the crook of his neck. You can’t classify it, not as a moan or a whimper. It’s desperate — loud. It’s an air raid siren; every fucking barricade you’ve built over the years being blown to smithereens.

This is it, you think.

Fuck your bank account. 

Fuck staring at the sky and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Fuck your contracts, your shithole apartment, and the million different ways you were set up to lose in this life.

This isn’t about you at all. It’s about you and him; all the space and time you’re dead set on reclaiming.

This is for us.

a/n: thank you so much for reading! i’ve been working on this since JUNE, and it’s a much bigger undertaking (creatively and….. mentally) than anything else i’ve done before, so i’m scared and also excited to start sharing it with y’all.

while likes are appreciated, comments/tags/reblogs with your thoughts are really what make my brain go brrrtt.

tagging: @saintriots, @mal-lunar-28, @dabiscrustyfeet

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[befuddled-calico-whump]

Augusnippets Day 27: Migraine

cw: migraine, self depreciation, emeto, gory descriptions

previous

for the @augusnippets challenge // word count: 787

=~=~=

Shades of violet and blinding green swirled around him like storm clouds, spewing lightning and egging on the pain in his head. Hunter hugged his pillow tighter, willing the color to go away. Didn't do shit. The more he thought about wanting it gone, the stronger it got, like it was trying to spite him.

A new wave hit—white fire behind his eyes, his own brain screaming—and he bit down on the cushion until his jaw started to burn.

It hadn't been this bad since… since… the beginning. Since the test that activated his implant in the first place, since he'd crawled out of the burning lab, blinded by agony, the smell of smoke the only thing that kept him moving forward.

Had he overused it finding Manak? Every time he leaned into the patterns, used them, the headaches seemed to get worse.

If he did break his brain finding that arrogant asshole, he wouldn't fucking regret it. He'd made his choice, and Manak wouldn't be here right now if he hadn't.

He needed me. All the brains in the world, and in the end, he needed me, Hunter told himself through the next bout of searing pain, screaming into the pillow as it reached a new sharpness.

He wished he would just pass out. He wished—

“Harbor.”

Speak of the fuckin devil.

It was hard to keep from whimpering at the sudden sound, words somehow both blurred by the colors and sharpened by them, driving into his temple like a spike.

“What?” he managed to spit out, trying to blink past the cloying rainbow to get a look at Manak’s color. He was expecting the usual. Irritation, red and swirling. Can you shut up? Some of us want to sleep.

Instead, he was a neutral forest green, darkness clouding his throat and shoulders, misty red pain hovering around his knee.

The mist had been a lot thicker when he'd found him; flecks of red mingling with real blood, his green darkened to almost black. Brightening at the center when Hunter made himself known, when he carried him away. Manak never brightened around him before, never.

You did save his life. Even Manak would appreciate that, dumbass.

“Are you alright? I thought I heard…” He frowned, steps clicking as he moved closer to Hunter's bed. Crutches. He hadn't even noticed them until now. Manak shouldn’t be up. He should be sleeping, getting better, but somehow Hunter'd managed to fuck up what should've been the easy part.

“Fine,” Hunter choked out. “Just. Implant bullshit.” Power came at a cost. Anyone who picked up a comicbook knew that. So whatever, it was fine. He'd ride it out. He just wished it didn't feel like his head was going to explode.

“Do you want some pain medication?”

“Doesn't work.” The orange ones just made him nauseous, and everything else didn't reach his head. The only way he'd ever shut it up was through booze, and he doubted there was any of that on this tiny compound.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Help. Why would Manak want to help? Did he feel like he owed him? That had to be it. There was no other reason he'd still be in the room, no other reason he'd bother to check on Hunter in the first place.

“You can go away,” he said, and the words came out choked. A fresh pain was building, brighter than the sun, aching, stinging, burning, growing. Like a new star was trying to form in his fucking skull. Agony too loud to hear his own voice, Hunter only realized he was screaming when his lungs started to burn from the lack of air, throat aching from overuse.

He couldn't get away, no escape, the pain was him, he'd have to cut open his skull and let his brains spill out, had to relieve pressure, had to—

Everything went away.

Not for long enough. The pain came back as a dull ache, pounding like a drum in his head. It was hard to breathe at first, hard to see. His mouth tasted like battery acid, bile on his tongue, and for a moment he couldn't feel anything but the implant. Cold metal and brain tissue.

“Are you with me?”

He was sitting up. Hunched forwards a little, arms wrapped around him.

“Breathe.”

Hunter more choked than inhaled. His body felt shaky and bloodless, head floating in a sea of hurt.

Manak was holding him, a cool hand rubbing his back, Hunter’s puke down the front of his perfect sweater.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the word barely more than a gurgle.

“Just breathe.”

He tried.

[billcipherisntreal]

WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL!

IT TOOK THEM A SHOCKINGLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME TO BREAK UNDER MY ANTICS! BUT NO MATTER, THEY WERE OF LITTLE USE TO ME, AND UGH, THE MUSIC THAT CRETIN LISTENED TO! ABHORRENT! DISGUSTING! IT MAKES MY ORAL LUNGS BLEED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT! WHAT KIND OF LOWLIFE DEGENERATE DECIDES TO TORTURE THEMSELVES BY LISTENING TO HATSUNE MIKU? I RETCH AT THE THOUGHT.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THEM, LET’S TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE SUBJECT IN THE MUTILATED MULTIVERSE:

ME!

BILL CIPHER IS NOW OPEN FOR QUESTIONING!

WANNA KNOW HOW YOU DIE? EVER GET CURIOUS ABOUT HOW MANY FINGERNAILS YOU’D NEED TO CREATE THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF ATLANTIS FROM SCRATCH? WHAT EXACTLY WAS YOUR UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOR DOING THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 24TH 1971?

ALL OF THAT AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED IF YOU, YES YOU! DECIDE TO SLIDE INTO THE ASK BOX OF THIS VERY ACCOUNT! DON’T WAIT, SUBMIT YOUR INQUIRIES TODAY BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE! TOO LATE FOR WHAT, YOU ASK? FIND OUT!

Bill Cipher is not liable for any nightmares, nightmares squared, mental anguish, physical turmoil, emotional distress, pain, suffering, agony, Deja vu, unwanted summoned entities, bad memories, future bad memories, Deja vu, eviscerations, mastications, castrations, felony charges, murders, weight loss, weight gain, weight displacement, clavicle deletion, thyroid sickness, bone duplications, alien abductions, unwanted thoughts, wanted thoughts, unknown thoughts, intrusive thoughts, politely overstaying their welcome thoughts, mucus detonations, facial reconstruction, Deja vu, locating the Beyond of Bed Bath And, being late for dinner, being early for dinner, removing dinner from existence, removing you from existence, copulating with your mom, causing your parent’s divorce, causing your Batman origin story, influencing your friends to only speak backwards, malfunctioning mirrors, Deja vu, breaking My Chemical Romance up again, theft, crime, hooliganism, roughhousing, squid parties, inverting mountains, causing your immune system to become aware of your eyeballs, spinal dysfunction, ending the great emu war, starting the second great emu war, putting cement where it shouldn’t be, spontaneous sinkholes, scheduled earthquakes, permanent removal of a random protein sequence in your DNA, gifting you the gift of too many chromosomes, killing Santa Claus, preventing baby Hitler from being murked by time travelers, giving Donald Trump plot armor, framing you for time crimes, giving the muppet joker a new kin, Deja vu, rigging the World Series, eternal bad luck, stealing all your Tupperware lids, replacing your spaghetti with snakeskin, toggling gravity off, turning off the sun, evaporating all water on earth, spinning the solar system backwards, reversing the irreversible, adding 13 to all clocks, giving giraffes sentience, making chimpanzees invincible, making mosquitoes invisible, overconsumption of battery acid, brain bleeding, soul molding, mind breaking, and cancer. Bill Cipher and his associates hold no responsibility for any and all disasters listed here. By submitting an ask you forfeit your mind body and soul to be used in the future as Bill chooses.

DSJ MB DEOUT TGB SUPBR SBARBT KHCBKONF LBDK OCCBR!

[babiebom]

Would I give them head?

A/N: I am so sorry for this I'm writing it at 3 am and I couldn't get it out of my head. I've been giggling for the past 10 minutes like a 7th grader. Also if you are reading this let me know if I should do something special for 50 followers. I know it's not a lot but I am so grateful! If yes let me know what I should do!

Tw: sexual content. Not explicit but it like look at the title. Cursing.

Genre: headcanons nsfw

Wc: idk it depends on which person. Probably 2+ for each.

This is including almost every male stardew character(obviously no kids) plus ridgeside plus expanded but not all because I cannot remember every single character and I don't wanna research rn.

Masterlist

Sebastian

Duh no doubt about it

He is the love of my life (well one of them)

I would give him the best head wymmmmm

Sam

Yes boy deserves it

Golden retriever coded guys deserve good head idc

Shane

Love sad men it's a yes

Kinda wanna make him cry because it's so good.

Maybe I can cure him

Elliott

No

Sorry it's not that I dislike him he's just not my favorite?

Maybe once as a treat but no other time than that

Harvey

Yeah he's the doctor for a small town

I gotta

Maybe he will stop billing me everytime I die

Alex

No

I am not attracted to this man he is more bestie coded to me

If he asked i would allow him a handjob I guess

Gus

Nope

Maybe he gets a Lil handjob as a treat because his food is good

Gunther

Maybe?

He kinda-

But not enough idk....

George

The reason I am writing this r n

The answer is no but the thought of doing it made me cackle

Lewis

Absolutely not

Fuck you old man

Pierre

NO

I hate this lying ass bitch I give you a kick

Willy

No sorry

He prolly smells like fish and salt and I am not fond

Love him tho stinky man

Kent

YES

would give him the sloppiest toppy known to man

He deserves it he needs it i want it pls bless me

I could beat Jodi's ass if it comes to it idc

Victor

Yes

I find him quite cute overlooking his slight classism.

Also for standing up to his mom for himself love that him

Demetrius

No

I'd rather give Robin head

He deserves no head for being crappy stepdad

Marlon

No

As much as I like him he probably does not shower

Also he is for the marnie's only

Clint

No

I wanna punch him so bad

Mr Qi

Maybe?

I don't find him attractive

But at the same time I find him mysterious and the might just be enough to convince me

Grandpa

HA

HAAAAAAA

no what is wrong with you

Andy

No

Prolly tastes like battery acid

He also gives off racist vibes

Wizard

Yeah

He's chill he can get some head

Morris

Maybe for a discount

Im equating Joja to Coke and I like coke

So only if he promises to give me a discount on stuff I want

Phillip

YES

Another love of my life

It was unexpected for me to love him but he is so cute to me

June

Yuperoni pepperoni

We love a man who is talented

Could easily convince me to give him head if he plays the piano for me ngl

Jeric

Maybe

I love but also hate him

He also gives off bestie vibes

Shiro

Yeah

I feel like he needs it:(

Ezekiel

No

I do however wanna smack his bald head

Not in a mean hateful kid of way I just wanna smack it

Lorenzo

Dilf Ngl

Maybe its because of his name idk

Answer is yes

Kimpoi

It was here where I started looking up characters bc i felt bad for leaving them out

No thank you I will not

Lance

Don't know much about him but I think hes cute so yes

His hair is cool

Isaac

Again don't know much about him hopefully he is not a child

But yeah he's cute so he gets a Lil head from me

Ian

If he takes a shower yes

Otherwise no

Kenneth

Yeah

I like his hair and I think he's cool for being an electrician

I know nothing else about him

Sean

Yeah he's cute so he can have some head

Im so sorry for not knowing im too busy simping over Seb and Phillip ngl

Anton

Uhhhhhh

Uhhhhhhhhhmaybe?

Im not attracted but unattracted to him so sure

Bryle

No

He reminds me of family

Like his face

Jio

Yea

As I have said before I love a mysterious man

Love a man with a sword

Zayne

I have no idea what this is

But I guess??

Have no reason to hate him so sure

Bert

No

He looks stinky :((

I also feel like his wife would beat my ass

Freddie

No

He is for the Lola's only

I also feel like he wouldn't be able to feel it

Mr Aguar

No

I do not enjoy his face

Pika

Simply because im assuming his food is good

I'll say sure simply for free food

Richard

No

So sorry

But no

Sonny

I will give him a platonic handjob

He deserves it bc he's a butler and probably does not get a day off with this family

[yadchi-i-guess]

Deal with the Devil(s)

By Yadchi (I guess)

Electric Shock AU by @leefl00f

So basically Uzi asks Lizzy for a favor, and after some convincing, the queen bee accepts. Anything for her girlfriend, after all...

SFW tickle fic!

Word count: 2,127

Uzi was in a bad mood.

Granted, most days she was in a bad mood, what with getting older and stuff, but today she was particularly sour. And everyone was gonna know about (or be aware of) it, if it's the last thing on Copper-9 she did.

She'd refused to do any of her schoolwork, talked back to the teacher at every turn, and had chucked a dodgeball at Chad in gym class so hard he crashed into the wall. Even his friend Thad was impressed... which might've made Uzi blush a little.

At least now it was lunchtime, and the little rebel could get some real time to herself. She let her feet carry her to a desolate hallway, perfect, wide open space to let her mind wander.

Uzi settled down at the foot of a locker with a small sigh, finally able to just chill. Batteries were on the menu today in her lunchbox, and she was about to toss one in her mouth when something suddenly grazed her neck.

"Eeheheek! Wahahat the heheeck?!" She squeaked, fumbling for the mysterious little tickler as the battery bounced off her face. She pulled it off and was surprised to see Bit hadn't tagged along for the school day. It was PomPom.

"Hehey! What're you doing here, little dude?" Uzi chuckled.

Knowing that his tickles were well received, PomPom scurring around happily in his friend's hand as he was given a battery. He flashed a "TY <3" message at Uzi, whose facescreen glitched and flashed a ">:3" back.

"Having fun with that icky little pet of yours?" Someone standing over Uzi said.

"AGH! Bite me, Lizzy!" Uzi barked as she shot up and clenched her fist around PomPom. She was almost certain sometimes that Doll's girlfriend had the Solver too, with how easily she spooked her from time to time.

"Oh chillllll, you know my locker's right where you're snackin," Lizzy replied nonchalantly. She reached in for something, then looked back at Uzi, who was still eyeing her angrily.

"Not in the mood for your dumb teasing," the little drone pouted. She was just getting to feel a little better... only for Lizzy to screw it all up again.

"Sheesh, sardonic much?" Lizzy asked. "What's with the foul attitude?"

"And why would you care?"

"Dolly's your cousin, and she made it clear I can't treat you like garbage."

Uzi let out a small "hpmh" and sat back down, forcing her attention back on PomPom grooming his front legs in an attempt to ignore Lizzy. "Just bite me. Doll's the reason why I'm so upset," she said acidically.

"Seriously? Doll making you angry? That's far from a first," Lizzy said as she leaned against the locker. "What's so different about this time?"

"The fact she got away with it!" Uzi spat back. "She tickled me and teased me, and it was stupid, and I couldn't tickle her back! And I FRICKING LOST BECAUSE OF IT!"

A couple nights ago, Doll had challenged Uzi to a Mario Kart rematch to make up for Uzi cheating earlier, but the Russian drone had used the cheeky tactic employed on herself before; tickling Uzi to distract her while they were racing. She had then teleported back home right before Uzi tackled her.

Although it was a generalized rule that revenge would always occur between cousins, Uzi hadn't yet been able to get close enough to Doll and get her sweet revenge, making her typically snarky, mischievous attitude rot like an old piece of human food since then.

But that's when a little lightbulb went off in her head. The one that usually meant another one of her devious little ideas was forming, and a smirk would grow on her face.

"Hey, Lizzy," Uzi said with a gloat. "How would you-"

"Nope, this is between you and Doll," Lizzy interrupted bluntly as she turned away. Unfortunately, she didn't get far as Uzi activated [Translate] on the worker to immobilize her.

"Ohhhhh no you don't," Uzi deadpanned. "You're gonna help me get back at Doll because nothing can stop me."

"Oh, for robo-god's sake, Uzi..." Lizzy sighed as she struggled to break free (to no avail).

"Can't you give it a rest and NOT try to get revenge on her? Besides, what's in it for-"

"First of all, we're cousins, it's like siblings fighting, but you live in different houses," Uzi retorted. "Second off... I know how to make your hangout with your girlfriend betterrrrrr!"

Lizzy just blinked. Could she really trust this little weirdo to make her hangout (totally not date) more enjoyable? Frankly, not really, but she didn't have many other options.

"Go on..." she said dryly.

"Tell ya what," Uzi started to explain. "I'm gonna give you PomPom for the night. Cuddle with Doll for a bit, get really into an old human tv show or something... then let him scurry alllllll over Doll."

"And I get in return...?"

"The delightful giggling from your girlfriend."

"..."

"Ugh... and I'll wear one of the spare cheerleader outfits for the rest of the week."

"Hah!" Lizzy chuckled, satisfied. "Consider it done!"

Uzi's face lit up in pure excitement, foreseeing the absolute chaos that would unfold during their date. She released her Solver grip on Lizzy.

"Shake on it?" Uzi asked cheekily, holding out her hand. Lizzy reluctantly took her hand, relieved to see the little rebel didn't try to pull anything.

"Anything to see my girlfriend laugh," Lizzy smirked, but it melted off her face when she saw PomPom crawling on Uzi's shoulder. "But did your friend really have to be a roach...?"

"Yes, bite me," Uzi spat.

---------------

The timing could not be more perfect.

Doll came into Lizzy’s room, looking very down and somewhat filthy. She immediately went in for a hug from her popular girlfriend, something she rarely ever did.

"What's wrong, Dolly?" Lizzy asked calmly, stroking the Russian drone's stiff wig.

["Nothing..."] Doll mumbled. ["Got in a fight. Don't wanna talk about it."]

"Yeaaaah... it's ok, girlfriend," Lizzy replied brightly. "Now you have me, and we can just cuddle and be cute together!"

Doll nodded slowly. Lizzy was so good at comforting her that it was almost ridiculous. Her bright, loving disposition was simply infectious. The solver drone settled on the bed to be as close as possible, a moth drawn to her light. Her low mood was a thing of the past within minutes of turning on some human tv show from the 90s.

["This again?"] Doll muttered. ["We watched this last week..."]"Nah, pretty sure this is a..." Lizzy trailed off as she watched the intro. "Nope, never mind. It's the pilot again."

["I've never understood why they named that character 'remember'..."] Doll commented.

Lizzy hummed in reply, and 10 minutes in, she noticed Doll seemed to be very drawn into the show, to the point where she'd barely respond to a poke on the shoulder.

Operation "Revenge of the Giggles" was a go.

The blonde drone reached under her helmet and pulled out a small, wriggling mass that had been sleeping until now. She let PomPom hop off her hand and onto Doll’s head, doing a rather good job of holding in her mischievous snickering.

["What's so funny...?"] Doll asked after a solid minute.

"Ohhhhh, it's a little secret, Dolly." Lizzy replied. "And secrets are blackmail... well, until they get found out, anyway."

["Implying... Eeheheek! *hic* Whaahaht the hehehck?!"]

Lizzy simply smirked as she watched PomPom crawl around on Doll's stomach in excitement, making the solver drone curl up and cover her belly to lessen the tickles. The way Doll squealed with laughter made a wide grin spread on Lizzy’s face, just as wide as the one her girlfriend couldn't contain. It was that adorable.

"Oop! Looks like my secret's out!" Lizzy remarked mischievously.

["Lizzyyyhyhyhy! *hic* Hehehahaa!"] Doll stammered, her voice broken heavily with giggles. ["Geeheheht hihihm off meehehheee! *hic* Ehehhahaha!"]

"Hm, nah," Lizzy answered, leaning back and going on her phone. "I'm totally enjoying this more than I thought I would."

However, it wasn't long before PomPom hopped off of Doll's belly, seemingly uninterested in tickling her more. Doll rolled away to put some kind of distance between her and the bug, falling on the floor.

["Nehehever... do that to me again..."] Doll huffed, her voice still laced with giggles. ["Heeeehh... what're you looking at...?"]

"Uhm... Is PomPom supposed to be squeaking at a random wall?" Lizzy asked, watching the bug chirping at... nothing in particular.

Doll shrugged, then examined the wall as she stood. Perhaps there was a threat on the other side? PomPom sounded very... in distress, something Uzi mentioned that giggle bugs could practically smell danger throughout the whole bunker.

Then Doll spotted the vent. A small one, but it was big enough to let an infestation of bugs in and out. There were two tiny flickers of pink light. Then two more. And more. Lizzy had noticed it, too.

"Uhmm... Dolly...?" Lizzy spoke up hesitantly. "D-does PomPom have any... friends?"

["Dozens, why?"]

"...why DID UZI LIKE, NOT TELL ME?!"

[Yep, that checks out], Doll thought.

However, she didn't get a response out of her mouth before more giggling came first. She looked down and saw the giggle bugs already crawling up her legs.

["No no no, nohohoho!"] Doll squealed as she curled around her stomach again. ["Hehhahaha! *hic* Nohohot ahahahgain!"]

"Doll!" Lizzy exclaimed as she perched herself on the backboard of her bed. She wasn’t having it any easier. The bugs had never tickled her before, which meant a lovely new friend. She had managed to get away, but not for long. One of the bugs jumped onto her leg and started its ascension.

"ACK! EW!" Lizzy screeched shrilly. "Get off me-eheeheee! Eheheheheee! Stahahahahap!"

Doll had enough strength to pull her head up and saw Lizzy being swarmed. It was somewhat adorable, hearing the queen bee's goofy, bubbly laughter... too bad she didn't seem to be enjoying it.

["Hehehee! *hic* just leheheheet it haaaahahappen!"] Doll advised as best she could. ["They'll stahahahp eventuallyhyhhy!"]

"Whehehehen?!"

["I don't knohoohOHOHOHO! AAAAHAHHAA!"]

The unholy screaming that came from Doll just after she stopped laughing almost made Lizzy assume the devil had paid them a visit. The giggle bugs had started using the fuzzy fluffs on their feet and rubbed them on Doll's skin, unluckily on her death spot.

"Hehehehey!" Lizzy exclaimed at the bugs. "Leheheheve her ribs alohoohohne!"

Unfortunately, she didn't count on the bugs getting to her armpits, and she let out an unholy scream of her own.

"AAAAAAAHHAHAA! NOHOHOHOT THEEHHEEHRE!" Lizzy cackled, throwing her head back as the bugs skittered all over her. She was having such a bad time that digital tears of mirth welled up in her optics.

After what seemed like hours (in reality, it was around 7 minutes of on and off tickling), Lizzy finally got to catch a real breath as the bugs got off her body.

"Heeeeeh... hehehe... ok... that actually felt nice... heheh..." Lizzy panted. "D-doll?" ["Lizzyyyhyhyhy! Heheheheh... heheheehelp!"] Doll giggled weakly. She'd had it way worse and was way over her limit. Unfortunately, PomPom and his buddies hadn't gotten the message.

"Oh! Uh, uh..." Lizzy jumped and attempted to scare the bugs away. Given that she had the height advantage, it worked. "Shoo! Get off her! Leave her alone!"

Little by little, the giggle bugs scurried away from Doll and back into the vent, headed up by PomPom, who the worker drones had no doubt was satisfied in another job well done.

"You good, Dolly?" Lizzy asked as she helped Doll off the floor.

["I-I'll be fine..."] Doll stammered as she tried to regain her breath. ["*hic!* hff... hff...]

"Dear robo-god... I'm so sorry, girl!" Lizzy said as she pulled Doll into a hug. "If I'd known Uzi would sic this on us, I'd have never struck a deal!"

["Is ok... is ok..."] Doll replied quietly, patting her girlfriend's back. The two pulled away from each other, looking at one another up and down. Then Lizzy giggled.

"Wow. OMG," she said. "Those giggle bugs really did a number on ya! And in a good way."

Doll looked down at herself. There was no trace of dirt and filth from earlier anywhere. No wonder the giggle bugs went on her so hard.

["Ah, well..."] Doll trailed off awkwardly as she blushed. ["Heheh... they did."]

"Oh you, always being so modest," Lizzy chuckled. She leaned back on the bed. "C'mon. You need alllllll the r&r after that."

Doll nodded and laid down halfway on Lizzy, clinging softly to her as they resumed their show.

["Hey Lizzy...] Doll mumbled.

"Hm?"

["Wanna help me get revenge on Uzi tomorrow?"]

"Totes."

["Thanks... what'd I do to deserve you as a girlfriend...]

The end :]

Wow, it has been a HOT MINUTE since I published a tickle fic! I really gotta get back into this, it's so fun writing murder drones fluff. <3

[chokingonunluckyclovers]

More about Hyper pop Punk Wally

Wally's preference: (This is mostly for those who want to ship their OCs with Wally.) His type of romantic partners are the ones that can kick his ass or are just kickass baddies. It's one of the quickest ways to win his heart. beside sharing the same interests and food. 

He has a big sweet tooth, so he eats a lot of sugary drinks and foods. Bro needs those calories because his metabolism is whack. He likes milkshakes, sugary coffee drinks, battery acid (the drink), cakes, donuts, and the like. 

He typically likes hard candy because it dilutes in his mouth, and he hates chocolate. He doesn't really like how they taste. especially dislike chocolate by themselves. He isn't a fan of gummies, as he can't consume them properly (he can't really consume solids through his mouth). Btw, Wally can eat through his eye (like the og), but he has a habit of biting, sucking the flavor or juices, then leaning his head back and spitting it in the air. which hell then eat with his eyes to properly get the nutrients? Idk why I thought of this, but I want my wallys to share traits with the OG Wally.

He likes mint candies as they hide (or mask) his smoker's breath.

Now, he doesn't take any drugs of any kind, aside from the medications his home gives him. Also, yeah, Home acts as his caretaker, making sure Wally doesn't end up getting himself killed by getting injured badly (Wally can get very badly injured at some of his fights). He doesn't take drugs, mostly due to the fact that he was pumped full of drugs in his teen years, and any recreational drugs like weed will give him a bad trip and just a bad time in general. No pharmacological drugs work on him because his body practically grew resistant to them. He refuses to do coke or meth, cuz no.

Also, the meds home give him are kind of strange cuz, 1, they can't be bought from seeming anywhere. 2. Home just seems to have a huge supply of them (not sure if I want to have home be the one making them or something). and 3, the meds are kind of scary as they make the person feel no physical pain, and weirdly enough, they seem to help relieve it as well. But the meds come with a warning (somehow it has a warning, idk) that says they are very easy to overdose on and are highly addictive. Thankfully, at home, make sure to keep Wally in check for his medications.

He likes bright, guady, colors, and fashion. Also, like alt fashion, most things are similar to punk and scenekid. He doesn't like plain white or pastels, as they remind him of the insane asylum. And he just doesn't really like soft colors or plain fashion. He likes it extreme so that he is stimulated. also doesn't do well when he has nothing to do, especially when it's quiet and calm, because he then feels like he's going insane.

He has fears of needles, being restrained, and being alone (again because of his past). Unfortunately, despite not really being a mean person at heart, he does have some anger issues (understandable so) and will at times push some boundaries, but never intentionally. but he's not afraid to insult those who kind of deserve it.

He is very affectionate with his loved ones and will shower them with love once his feelings are reciprocated (this applies both romantically and plantonically). Sometimes he gets a bit too excited about love and gets into the habit of biting. but if he is told not to do that again, he won't bite again. He respects his partners or friends boundaries and won't cross them.

but he does have a bit of a possessive side to him (which is kind of feuled by his parionoa, need for affection, and care). 

For one, he will keep an eye on them but never fully follow them around. Just whenever paths cross, he will definitely have his attention on them. He'll keep little tracks of information on them, and if ever he is invited to their place, even once, he will memorize the path. but only in case he needs to drag them back home after getting drunk or something. (He had too much experience with not knowing where to bring his drunk friends.) He will attempt to put a "tracker" (aka a little doodle of an eye or a swirl) and watch through it. So this way, he always has his eyes on them. This does come in handy when some of his friends get jumped, and he will then come running to help.

In terms of romantic relationships, he does have boundaries. Hes fine with a crazy and obessive partner, just not to the point where they try to hurt anyone who is close to Wally (does not like yanderes). But if he realizes he entered a relationship based on a lie, was used, abused, or is dating a friend's sibling (happened with Eddie's sibling Daisy), he will end the relationship.

[narcolini]

ending the night

angel reyes x gn!reader, comfort/fluff, 1982 words

warnings for descriptions of vomiting

for day 12 of whumpril, using the alternate prompt: foodpoisoning 

a/n: honestly, this is whump in the same way dessert pizza is pizza... sweet but not really deserving of the name LMAO anyway. when in doubt write angel having a hard time, am i right ? 

tagging: @cositapreciosa @drabbles-mc @hausofmamadas​ 

You’re sitting on the edge of Angel’s tub, finishing up a final text to his brother, from his phone, not yours, while Angel empties his stomach into the toilet again. You’ve lost track of how many times he’s puked now, but it’s enough times to know that your evening is well and truly over. He had barely made it from the taxi to the house when you got here, and has said almost nothing since you’d found him in the bathroom, knees to the linoleum.

Not that you mind. Not that you expect anything from him at all, in this state. If anything, you feel bad for being so helpless. And for not being sick yourself, weirdly, but that’s just how the straws were pulled. Beyond the water you’ve left for him on the counter, and the company, there’s nothing else you can do. You’ve already opened the window behind, invited cool air to draw in and, more importantly, the sharp smell of vomit to draw out. Texting EZ as if you were him, had been your most recent idea; a last ditch attempt to be productive and to improve the already dire circumstances.

‘Well,’ you announce, clicking Angel’s phone shut, ‘EZ says he can swing by the restaurant and get your bike.’ You watch him nod, head bouncing between in the hole of the toilet seat. ‘And I told him it was me that got sick, so he can’t clown you about it later.’

He laughs, all breath, and it echoes around the porcelain. ‘Thanks.’

You smile. He can’t say that you don’t look out for him, even this early into things. Five, six, dates down—formal ones, anyway—and you’ve skipped right to the in sickness part. Which you’re doing pretty well at, all things considered.

‘I can,’ he starts, pausing to swallow in-between, ‘pay you back. For the Uber.’

You shake your head. ‘Forget it. You got the bill.’ And he’s paying twice for that too, with money and stomach lining. ‘You think it was the chicken?’

He sighs, daring to look back at you briefly, forearms on the seat. ‘No idea. Shit tastes like battery acid now.’

You wince. ‘I wish I could make it stop for you.’ You wish you could go back in time and make him choose the beef dish that you had, avoid all of this mess, and finish the drinks you’d had to abandon at the bar. ‘You want me to pass you the water?’

He shakes his head before spitting into the bowl, clearing his mouth of the last bout of sickness. You’re both waiting, really, to see if it will come again. Angel breathing slowly, audibly, catching his breath over the edge of the seat. You, staring at his shoulders like they might give you any warning of it.

The time between is getting longer, you think. A sign that the worst is done with. If he can make it twenty minutes, fifteen even, and keep down the water he drinks, then you can both relax.

‘Fuck,’ he pants, wiping his nose and mouth with the back of his hand. He slumps away from the toilet, to sit on the floor instead with his back to the tub. Arm side by side with your shin. ‘I never looked this good, right?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ you nod, ‘big time. I’m practically tearing my clothes off right now.’

He groans, dropping his head to put it against your knee. ‘Can’t believe you stuck around to watch me hurl, dulce.’

‘I stuck around,’ you emphasise, ‘to help.’ You smile, glad he can’t see from where he is, because he’s too vulnerable right now, and he might think that you’re laughing at him. ‘I’m actively trying not to watch.’

He exhales, pushing it through his lips. ‘Shit, I’m sorry. Was supposed to a good fucking night, y’know, fancy restaurant and shit, drinks.’  

‘It’s not your fault.’ You pat his head, smoothing your thumb over the shell of his ear. ‘We should probably tell the restaurant, though, because it’s definitely their fault.’

And we deserve a refund, you think, but you don’t say it, because he’ll take that to mean that you didn’t enjoy yourself at all. Right now, he would probably take you standing up to stretch as a cue that you’re gonna leave, sick of him already.

‘You think you’re done?’ you ask, bending over your lap to find his gaze.

He sits upright to help you, then nods, and his eyes flick to your lips momentarily. It’s rare that you’d be so close to one another, and able to resist a kiss, but right now’s an exception. You smile, knowing that he’s thinking it too, seeing the yeah, I get it, in his returning look.

‘Give me a minute,’ he says. ‘Gotta, y’know, make myself smell less like puke.’

‘Course.’ You opt for a kiss to his damp forehead before standing, as close to his mouth as you’ll chance for now.

You decide to wait for him in his room, legs hanging over the end of his bed as the shower cranks to life. It’s the first time you’ve been in here, which isn’t the introduction you had expected, a temporary waiting room while he washed the sick from his beard, but it’s a welcome expansion to your understanding of his home. You’ve been to his place before, but never made it past the couch. He has a preference for it, you think, at least in his own place. He’s had the pleasure of becoming well acquainted with your bedroom, ending the night there the last few times that you’ve met up.

It’s not awkward, being in here, but it is new. Foreign like a hotel room. Granted, a hotel room that someone’s already living in, from the full laundry basket, the used glasses on the side table. The unmade bed you’re perched on.  

It doesn’t seem like he was expecting you to be in here today, either. You should ask him about that. Is your place nicer, or is he just too lazy to clean, and simultaneously too proud to let you see his room as it is? You don’t think you’d mind either answer. It’s nice, really. Clean enough, and comfortable in a way that stops you from feeling shy. If you weren’t waiting for the tell-tale signs of more illness, you’d probably lie back, uninvited, and crawl under the covers like it was your bed already.

After a few minutes, the bathroom door cracks open, steam pouring out of it. He must’ve had the quickest shower he could manage, only long enough to douse the sweat and stench off him, and then out again, dressed in just the jeans from before.

He looks exhausted, so tired and disposed of energy, that you can’t even enjoy the sight of him. His bare chest, the tattoos striking across it. You just about fight the urge to throw your arms out and beckon him forward with grabbing, baby hands, because, oh, he looks so helpless, it hurts.

‘Don’t think I got any shit left in me to throw up,’ he grumbles, dragging himself forward.

‘That’s good.’ You throw him a sympathetic smile. ‘Means you’re over the worst of it.’

He makes a sour face, hand lifting to rub over his stomach. ‘Doesn’t feel like it.’

‘You should probably rest then.’

You didn’t think he could look any more sorry for himself, but that does it, that tugs it out of him. His brows sink even further as he nods, unable to argue that he doesn’t need it, but unable to seem keen on it either.

‘Sorry,’ he says, for the tenth time, ‘I ruined our night.’

You roll your eyes quickly. ‘Who says it’s ruined? We’ve got…’ You find the alarm clock, red numbers glowing in the dim room. ‘At least, what, twelve hours before I gotta leave for work?’

And that’s what the extra sulking was for; he really thought you were gonna dip and leave him here to recover alone. He doesn’t realise that if he wasn’t worth looking after, you would’ve left him at the bar, blowing chunks in the stall.

‘You’re staying?’ he asks

‘You’re sick as a dog, Angel. It’d be actual, like, neglect if I left you right now.’

He sighs, finally letting himself collapse on the bed behind you. When you turn, he’s got his eyes squeezed shut, suffering from the bouncing mattress beneath—a misjudgement on his part. ‘If I wasn’t dying right now,’ he says, ‘I’d kiss you so damn hard.’

You laugh, crawling up the length to be beside him and slouch against the headboard. ‘And give me whatever you have? No thanks.’ You pull the cover free from under you, holding it open as you invite him in. ‘Come on,’ you say, ‘get comfy, chulo.’

He steals a look, opening just one of his eyes to see what you’re offering, before rolling into you, his head on your stomach, his arm threading beneath you and the mattress. You set the quilt down again, pulling it up until it’s covering your legs and his shoulders. Then your hand goes to his hair, natural like you do it nightly, rubbing circles around the crown of his head.

‘Hopefully that’s the last of it,’ you tell him.

He hums, speaking into the cotton of your shirt. ‘If I puke on you right now, I’ll kill myself.’

You laugh, bouncing his head with the force and surprise of it.

‘I’m dead serious, dulce, there’s no coming back from that shit. You’ll dump me before I’m even your boyfriend.’

You scoff, grinning still. ‘Not true,’ you argue. ‘But I would use it against you for the rest of time. Hey Angel,’ you tease, ‘remember when you spewed chicken teriyaki all over me?’

He laughs, but it weans off into a groan, his fingers tightening over your hip. ‘Stop talking,’ he pleads, ‘I can still taste that shit.’

And as funny as it is, you really don’t want to smell, or see, or feel, any more fucking vomit, so you oblige. It falls silent and you let it, fingers twirling in his hair still, disrupting the hold of his gel. He breaths evenly over your stomach, pooling warmth on the parts of your skin that the shirt fails to cover.

After a moment, you remember what he’d said afterwards, about breaking it off with him before you’ve officially gotten together. You smile into the question before you’ve even asked, ‘Do you want to be my boyfriend, Angel?’

He takes a moment to answer, and when he does, he’s mumbling it, talking around the ends of a yawn. 'We really gonna do this now?’

‘Yeah, sorry. Bad timing.’ But you’re smiling still, smirking even. Confident of the answer despite his protest. ‘I wouldn’t mind it, though. Just while we’re on the topic.’

The reply you expect doesn’t come, he doesn’t say anything at all. You try to look at him, but can’t bend far enough, not with his head resting as it is. You can just about see the thick black of his lashes, flicking out from closed eyes.

‘Angel?’

He groans, readjusting until he’s lay on your chest, with his arms wrapped tight around your middle. ‘Your boyfriend is very sleepy,’ he says, waking up just long enough to engage and send your heart-rate soaring. ‘Keep doing that shit with my hair,’ he mutters, adding a, ‘please,’ after a moments reflection.

You laugh, light and soft over the top of his head. ‘Yes, boss.’ You thread your fingers in again, as he asked you to, and trail them across his scalp. ‘I think I like you when you’re sick,’ you muse, basically whispering it now. ‘You’re way cuter.’

‘Mhmm,’ he hums, and that’s the last you get from him. He’s asleep before he can deny it.

[lux-scriptum]

Elliot Vampire AU part 3

I still haven't figured out how "being the best cook in the world is 90% of my personality" elliot is gonna handle the whole blood thing.

Last Part | Next Part

Breakfast was terrible. Elliot had dug in with enthusiasm, only to falter when he realized he really did not want to eat it. He swallowed his first bite mechanically, and could not bring himself to take another. He pushed bits of egg around on his plate without looking up.

“That bad, huh?”

Elliot glanced at Owen guiltily. “No,” he said. He tried to spear a piece of onion. “I um. It’s just not what I’m, ah. Craving right now.”

Owen considered that. “Maybe we should have looked into the books before experimenting with food,” he mused. “You might still be transitioning? I’ve never actually put much effort into learning about vampires.”

Elliot stared sadly at the plate. “They look really good,” he encouraged. “Tasted good, but-“

“Just not what you wanted. Needed. Whatever.” Owen reached over and scraped Elliot’s food onto his own plate when Elliot nudged it in his direction. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got all day to experiment and get settled, and then we can either go to my dads’ place, or Hector’s, if he’s up for going home early.”

That seemed fair enough. Elliot watched mournfully as Owen cleaned his plate with gusto, and then the kitchen after that. At least the view was good. While he waited, he found himself tracing the unfamiliar feel of the fangs in his mouth. That wasn’t helping the growing pit of hunger in his stomach, but he couldn’t stop himself. It was weird. He was used to having fangs when he was a snake, but that was a snake’s fangs in a snake’s mouth. Totally different from vampire fangs in- Well, he guessed it was a vampire’s mouth now, but he wasn’t used to thinking of himself that way.

“Well,” Owen said as he dried off his skillet with a paper towel. “We do know one thing. You can and should drink blood.”

“The suns out now,” Elliot protested. “And what am I supposed to do? Walk up to a random person and ask for a sip?”

Owen pulled up a chair beside Elliot. He held out his arm. “I mean. I’m right here. Just don’t turn me, and this can tide you over until we figure out something else.”

Elliot’s gaze went unerringly to the pulse point at Owen’s wrist. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” When Elliot looked up at him, Owen’s gaze was steady. “Like I said, just don’t turn me.”

Elliot only had so much self control. One second he was nodding at Owen, and the next he was fangs deep in Owen’s wrist. Fuck but that tasted so much better. He had never been this hungry before in his life. He was barely aware of Owen’s fingers combing through his curls (usually an absolutely not). Instead he bit down harder. More. He needed more, and this was only adding fuel to the fire of just how starving he was. Owen said something. And then he said something again, a little sharper. By that point Elliot was so lost in the feed that he didn’t even try to process it.

A jolt rippled through Owen’s arm, turning his blood to battery acid in Elliot’s mouth. The next thing Elliot knew he was on Owen’s kitchen floor. He blinked dazedly at the ceiling. “Ow.”

“I said, ‘I think that’s enough.’” Owen’s voice was a bit further away than Elliot expected. “Fuck, Elliot, you bit deep.” Owen crouched next to him, a dish towel wrapped around his wrist. “You okay? I used a lot of electricity to get you to let go.”

“I’m sorry,” Elliot mumbled. He averted his eyes; there was blood starting to seep through the towel and he was fighting to keep from snatching it to see how much he could get from the fabric.

“What’s going on?” Hector’s question was almost bisected from a yawn. The lanky witch frowned down at Elliot. His red bonnet was distracting. Red, like the blood still clearly coming from- “I thought we established no foreplay in the kitchen.”

“No foreplay,” Owen promised, ruffling Elliot’s hair with his good hand to let him know he was forgiven. “Elliot got turned last night. This morning? Didn’t kill him, but food was a no go so we were trying to figure out if blood would help. Don’t want him jumping people on the street.”

“It’ll be a few days before regular food will taste good again,” Hector said as he stepped over Elliot. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and then reached for the pot of coffee. “His body needs to adjust to the new diet. You’re lucky he didn’t spew all over the kitchen.”

Elliot sat up. “I was under the impression we’d have to ask your dads for help figuring this out.”

Hector scratched his chin. “I had a vampire phase a few years ago. Lasted about six months. I don’t know everything, but I know some. Did you know vampires came from a botched spell? Well. Botched is a stretch. The blood lust came from the witch being petty. Though, the moon curse on most wolf shifters was also a witch being petty.” Hector blinked. ���Never understood the draw behind whole cursing thing, but they are fascinating to study.”

“Thank you, Hector.” Owen helped Elliot up. “I’m going to go patch this up. Feel free to pick his brain, Elliot. I shouldn’t be gone too long.”

The silence stretched while Owen tinkered around at his worktable in the living room. Elliot licked his lips; he did so again compulsively when he realized there were still trace amounts of blood there.

“You’re going to make a terrible vampire,” Hector observed without judgment. “Impulse control is kind of paramount to not getting hunters on your case.”

“Thanks,” Elliot muttered.

“Who turned you? Why?”

Elliot threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know. Some guy I was hooking up with. He was hot, things got out of hand, and now I’m here.”

“Unfortunate.” Hector pulled down a bowl and dumped some off brand sugary cereal in it. He didn’t bother with milk, and instead dug in right away. “I bet one of my dads could nudge him in the way of some of the milder hunters if you knew. Ones who would let you live, s’long as you were under the wing of a trustworthy witch. Can’t have you draining half the city the first time you have a shitty day.”

“Comforting,” Elliot muttered.

“Well, Owen did have to shock you to get you to let him go, and you like him,” Hector pointed out. He paused. “Ah. Doing it again.”

“It’s okay,” Elliot sighed. “Deserved.” And it was. Elliot was mortified he hadn’t even noticed Owen ask him to stop.

“No point in wallowing,” Hector said between bites. “Can you still shift?”

“I haven’t tried,” Elliot admitted. “I’m scared the answer is no.”

“You’re still alive,” Hector mused. He tapped his spoon against his bottom lip. It was always a surprise to see him in the mornings; he didn’t bother to pick out his daily array of rings and other assorted jewelry until after breakfast. Somehow that made him seem more undressed than the fact that he was only wearing a pair of faded flannel pajama pants and his crimson bonnet. “Not many shifters get turned, much less survive the turning. You should try.”

“Don’t rush him.” Owen reappeared. The bandages on his wrist were stark against his tanned skin. Whatever herbs he’d used, it drowned out the scent of blood perfectly. “We can use him for dubiously ethical experiments after we find a way to keep him fed without having to magically taze him.” He winced. “Sorry, Elliot. That sounded funny in my head.”

Elliot shook his head. He addressed Hector. “I don’t want to try yet.” The idea of finding he’d lost his shifting felt like losing a piece of himself. He wasn’t ready to test it. “Are you okay with me holing up in here until the sun sets?”

Hector dropped his bowl in the sink. “Where else could you go? We don’t have enough sun screen to keep you from burning, and you haven’t brought any jackets that actually cover anything in months.” His long, brown fingers drummed the counter. “I think I remember you mentioning asking my dads’ for help? I can let them know I’m coming home early, and to expect guests.”

“Thanks.” Owen slung an arm around Elliot’s shoulders and gave him a little shake. “Chin up, okay? I’m not mad. We’ll figure this thing out.”

~~

@mecharose @incandescent-creativity @fragmentedink @idreamonpaper

as always, ask to be added to the tag list or removed!!!

[ramenwaitr3ss]

Don’t know if this has been done before- but-

What I personally think the redacted boys and listeners favorite monster flavor would be.

The boi’s first^^

David: either the regular or the Java monster, I feel like he wouldn’t drink them avidly but he’d drink them if he needed to get something done if he didn’t have enough energy.

Asher: Green or the Fruit juice one. He likes the combo of sweet and sour so usually he’ll pick depending on the mood lol.

Milo: I don’t think they sell them anymore- but monster had a tea brand for a little bit and they weren’t half bad to me personally, so I think he’d like the green tea monster a lot^^ and he definitely was upset when they stopped selling them, so now he just drinks any of the coffee ones.

Sam: Darlin’ had to get him to try one, and it was the white one so once every blue moon he’ll get the white one and drink it.

Vincent: either the Strawberry lemonade one or gold. I am firm on them, and he had a short phase in drinking monster for a little while.

Porter: Gold. No explanation needed.

Gavin: Rosa, he likes it because 1. It’s fucking pink 2. It’s fizzy, I have a personal headcannon that Gavin and Caelum love any carbonated drink because they like the fizz lol.

Damien: he doesn’t drink them. He drinks redbull.

Huxley: the mango one^^ you can never go wrong with a classic, and he sometimes drinks them before going to the gym.

Lasko: Orange, it taste like starbursts to him and he’ll drink it like his life depends on it.

Listeners^^

Angel: Any of the coffee ones, they are a life line for them. When working they always have one on hand, when they are gaming, they always have one on hand, when they are doing chores- THEY ALWAYS HAVE ONE ON HAND.

Baabe: Any of the rehab flavors, or just the regular one, they don’t really drink them unless they need to key in on something important.

Sweetheart: Gold, because it fits their aesthetic✨✨

Darlin: they will drink any flavor as long as it gets the job done.

Lovely: The purple one. They also would make battery acid 100%.

Treasure: The Aussie Lemonade, I don’t know why.

Freelancer: They mostly drink the Strawberry lemonade one as well, but they personally really love ultra black. And they have ordered a pack of them on several occasions they just never last long for them😭

Co-worker: They don’t drink energy drinks😭

These are personal headcannons lol, let me know what you think!!

[lu-lus-dicks]

Hi~

I made part 2!

I never wrote sex scenes before so it's probably pretty bad but I tried my best 😅

Alastor's tentacles tear both of his captives' clothes, neither of them has time to take a breather as his tentacles grip Lucifer's head and smash his mouth (still dirty with worm mush vomit) on Vox's dick.

The radio demon approaches the tvhead and uses a needle, given to him by a wild Nifty that jumped out of his trashcan, to make a hole in both of his nipples.

The tv lets out a static-y scream and tries to wriggle away as he put one worm in both of the newformed wounds.

Lucifer seems to not have received the memo so Alastor uses his tentacles to force his mouth open and shoves Vox's dick in it.

They wriggle, moan and keep a steady pace unsure if they're in pain, turned on or grossed out.

One of the tentacles chokes his majesty, forcing him to suck Vox harder to try and gasp for air feeling all the battery acid taste of his precum.

Suddenly the tentacles separates them and pull them up in a standing position, squishing their parts against each other's.

Out of the shadows Alastor pulls out a jar, like the ones where his grandma used to put jam, and it's so filled with worms that they barely have any space to wriggle.

He opens the lid and one of his tentacles shoves it on both of his captives' dicks, like a living and slimy fleshlight.

It brings it up and down in a faster and faster pace overstimulating the hell out of them.

"I-I...I'm cloOse!" says Vox gasping for air and bucking his hips against the King's.

"Ah ah ah, not so fast" says the radio demon removing the jar.

"You asked to be filled with more worms afterall, didn't you?" he says grinning maniacally.

"Y-yes?"

"Good boy"

Vox hasn't finished elaborating what his archenemy just said as he feels an awful pain in his lower regions and starts screaming.

He looks down and sees with horror two tendrils keeping his cockhole open as another one pushes a worm inside of it.

The Tv head is overstimulated and he doesn't even know in which way.

Once the worm's completely in, wriggling its way further inside, the tentacles bring back the jar where it was and pumps it faster and faster.

At some point Lucifer deems the pace not quick enough so he takes the matter in his own hands, literally, and pushes Vox on Alastor's chair while pumping the jar at a quicker pace.

They're arching their backs, biting each other to the bone and grinding faster and faster trying to reach satisfaction.

Vox's the first to reach it as he lets out a long and loud autotuned moan that could rilval Angeldust.

The King screams in pain as Vox's cum is literal sparks of electricity, it's as strong as a taser and yet this gives Lucifer the best orgasm of his life.

The both of them pass out.

They wake up hearing their own voices screaming and moaning.

Nifty's sitting on the ground, phone in hand watching again and again their sextape.

"Delete that! Delete that immediately!"

"Hell no, this will bring me the Diamond Play Button!"

"IT'S ON YOUTUBE?????"

"Yeah, and it already has thousands of views!"

"YOU LITTL-"

"Where's Alastor?"

"Oh, he went to take over Voxtec over an hour ago"

"HE WHAT????"

Vox pushes the King off of him and tries to sprint towards the door, he fails miserably and tumbles down the stairs

Btw, I made a sideblog.

Nothing is posted yet but it exists.

https://www.tumblr.com/notsafe4worms?source=share

Again, tagging the hoes @nunalastor

Secondly, followed. Notsafe4worms is so fuckin funny

I just woke up by the way. This is a treat to read. I love your twisted little mind <3 hot af, will reread this multiple times.

Also, you used vox cums in autotune and I am going to fucking orgasm on the spot rn. I love when people make shit for me like that