#the eternal question: is this hot or cringe

[wordstome]

writing porn is actually something that can be so difficult,

[tenkobitch]

ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴ ᴛʀᴀᴄᴋ

Kaminari Denki x G/N Reader

Genre: Established relationship, fluff, study date

A/N: I thought I would write a short oneshot of a random MHA character just so I wasn't too sucked into writing my series, so I hope y'all enjoy!

Kaminari isn't dumb, but he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He is often praised for wearing himself out completely with his quirk – sending huge electric shock waves through any object – but he's also heavily made fun of for the side effects. His brain goes haywire, and he's nothing more than a dumb potato. His friends make fun of him the most in that state.

But you always take care of him. Even when Bakugou is angrily yelling at your boyfriend to, "Stop being a dimwit", you always manage to pull Kaminari far enough to allow him some rest. He often doesn't remember most of it because he's either spacing out, or his brain has been turned to mush. But no matter what, you always make it your duty to keep him on track.

So, you asked your boyfriend to study with you.

"Honey, sugar, lemon, sweetie pie," you called out to him, hoping to make him cringe with your overuse of silly nicknames. But when you finally reached him, he had a huge smile on his face. No disgust in sight. You sighed, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, right beside him. You both sat in silence for only a few seconds before you asked him the big question.

"Denki, I know you're not doing too hot on your school work," Kaminari was ready to deny your statement until you put your hand up, telling him to wait. "So, I propose that we study together!"

Kaminari shook his head, crossing his arms and closing his eyes in defiance. He really didn't like studying. You put on your brightest smile and tried to convince him.

"I'll bring your favorite snacks and drinks, and after we're done, we can watch a movie or your favorite show." You clasped your hands together and leaned in closer to his face. His eyes were still closed, but he could feel your breathing on his cheek.

"It'll be like a study date!"

Kaminari opened one of his eyes, clearly excited, but not wanting to give into you so easily. He cleared his throat and finally spoke up.

"All of my favorite snacks and drinks?" He said in a whisper, suspicious of your promises. You nodded, wishing that he would stop resisting the idea of studying.

"Any movie or TV show? You'll watch anything I wanna watch?" You nodded again, already feeling tired from this interaction. He was really starting to get on your nerves. He leaned in with both of his eyes open, assessing the situation.

"So, what's in it for you!"

"I'm leaving."

"No, no, no, WAIT!" Kaminari bolted from the floor as you slowly made your way back to your room. He caught up to you easily, turning you around in his arms. His face was inches away from yours as he looked into your eyes to see if you were really angry. You tried to hold your composure, but seeing your boyfriend's reaction to you leaving almost made you crack. You couldn't help but let a small smile reach your lips.

After what felt like an eternity, the gold haired boy finally spoke.

"Do you really wanna help me study? Do you really wanna do a study date?" You couldn't hold back your laugh as you saw the boy's sad eyes look back at you. You reached up to pat his head, which he gladly received. You nodded once more, and you gave him a response.

"Yes! Why would I be asking you if I didn't actually wanna help you study?" He yelped in excitement and shook you back and forth like a little kid. Things like, "Thank you," and "Oh my gosh!" were the only words you could comprehend before you felt your butt hit the ground. You looked up to find a seething Bakugou holding back an excited Kaminari.

"Dunce face, your mouth is running all over the place!" Your boyfriend's face lit up as he stared back at you. You gave the angry boy behind him a disappointed look, only to receive the same booming voice.

"Don't look at me like that, smart face! You're the one making him jump for joy like a dog!" You laughed out, only making Kaminari's face light up even more. Bakugou loudly huffed and dropped the happy boy into the floor with you.

"You both are a bunch of fools. That's it, we're all meeting in the common area!" You and Kaminari continued to laugh as Bakugou gathered the rest of the Bakusquad by their shirts and dragged them to the living room. He finally dragged you both to the couch and pulled out his notebooks, ready to teach.

After your successful study session came to a close, you all went your separate ways. As your other friends left, you heard quiet whispers from Mina and Kirishima while Sero still had a confused look on his face. You laughed and turned back to gather your things, only to see an unusually calm Kaminari. He stared at you as if you were royalty, causing you to look away with a blush on your face.

When you looked back, he was still smiling at you like you were perfection, and you couldn't be embarrassed anymore.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Your boyfriend only shrugged, keeping his face on you and your movements.

"Because you're really pretty," he sighed out, leaning his head on one of his propped up hands. You decided to look at anything else but your boyfriend's handsome face, but he continued.

"And you always help me out. Even when Kacchan wouldn't explain how to do something again, you were always helping everyone else, showing us all how to do the problems again." You turned back to the gold haired boy as he stared back at you with no embarrassment in his eyes.

"Bakugou would kill you if he heard you call him that."

"Then I'll die happy." You rolled your eyes and laughed at the audacity of the boy. You gathered your things and pointed at him with your laughter filling the room.

"Okay, weirdo!" Kaminari smiled as you walked away from him to put your things away. His bubble only popped when he heard a quiet snicker behind him.

"You're damn right! Dunce face is a weirdo!" Kaminari's smile disappeared as he felt Bakugou lean closer to him. "And y'know what I do to weirdos, don't you, dunce face?"

Kaminari tried to get up and run to safety, but the boy was pulled back by the blonde.

"Get ready to charge all of the cooking equipment, cuz I'm gonna be cooking for a while!"

And that's how Kaminari ended up in your room again, tucked into bed as you let his mushed brain get back to normal.

*Bonus*

You: "So... Do you wanna tell me what happened last night?"

Kaminari: "... Bakugou made me charge all of the cooking equipment..."

You: "And why did he do that?"

Kaminari: "Because I'm a weirdo."

You: "No! It was because you called him 'Kacchan'!"

Kaminari: "Tomato, tamato, let's just say that I did both things!"

You: "Well, you are a weirdo."

Kaminari: "I'm your weirdo~"

You: "Where's Bakugou when you need him?"

Kaminari: "Please don't get him-"

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭

[wisteria-beach]

Back to December | C.F

Pairing: Conrad Fisher x Reader

Summary: Last December you broke Conrad’s heart, now it’s April and seeing him again for the first time he wants to know why (inspired by back to December by Taylor Swift) angst with a happy ending

A/N: initially posted 06/07/23

You’d never really been one for small talk, it all seemed too formal and stiff to you. Standing there and asking the most basic level questions where the answers would barely change the response seemed so menial, so trivial. What did it matter talking about the weather? You wanted to know things about people, their deepest secrets, the things that made their hearts beat and their souls tick.

The first time that you met Conrad Fisher you were 11 almost 12 years old and he was 12 and a half. He was slightly shy at the prospect of meeting a stranger, a stranger his mother wanted him to meet no less and he shuffled over to you on the porch with his arms crossed stiffly behind his back. “I’m Conrad” he said and you nodded “y/n.”

There was a beat of silence then the awkward sound of mosquitos buzzing in the air and your mother and Susannah’s laughter drifting from the kitchen as you stood there. “It’s hot isn’t it?” Conrad finally asked you after a moment and you nodded “yeah.”

He cleared his throat, eyes darting around nervously “erm…so do you like the weather in Cousins?” He asked and you sighed internally, hating the prospect of dreaded small talk. You turned towards him and looked him dead in the eye, seeing the way he gulped but didn’t drop your gaze.

“When was the last time you cried because you were happy and why?” You asked him and he blinked.

“What?”

You looked at him with all the stoicism a tiny eleven year old could muster and repeated “I said when was the last time you cried because you were happy? I don’t care about the weather, tell me something real.”

He thought about it for a second and then almost hesitantly as if he wasn’t sure he should be telling you this he replied “when I won my first football game and dad told me he was proud of me…he’d never said that before.”

You smiled at him and the tension started to roll from his body. In the following years you’d come to cringe when you thought about this interaction, at your brazenness and choice of question, but it was your instant openness that had shocked him and drawn Conrad to you in the first place. Just like that the ice was broken and the two of you were friends, the rest was history.

In the present day that felt like a lifetime ago and in many ways it was. Almost a decade had passed, you were older and time had brought you closer and closer until it snapped and now you might as well have been strangers.

You sat at the table stirring your tea for what felt like the millionth time, the sound of the spoon scraping against the cup jarringly loud against the silence. He was too far away, his body angled away from yours even across the table and you ached with the desire to reach out and touch his hand.

“How’s work?” He asked after what felt like an eternity of silence. You paused the incessant stirring of your tea and looked up at him. His eyes were focused on a sugar packet on the table refusing to let you look too closely.

“I quit” you said and for a second his eyes flashed up, shock evident in his features.

“Oh” he replied “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay” you said instantly “it was a shit job anyway, I think I’m gonna go to college.”

“Really?” You could see that he was remembering how you’d given up your dream college, how you’d moved back home and let the fear of change keep you behind. He was remembering all of the fights that you’d had about not giving up, all the times he’d tried to convince you to follow your heart. It was ironic that it had taken losing him for you to see that he was right, that your stubbornness had only led to regret.

He swallowed “that’s…good” he said “I’m happy for you.”

You were dying inside, the boy you knew would have picked you up and spun you around, he would have laughed, he would have said ‘I told you so’ or teased at the very least. Sitting here, making idle conversation was like sitting with a stranger. It was a performance, an act between two people who knew enough about each other to fill in every single gap but were too shattered to exist together anymore. Two broken puzzle pieces and you only had yourself to blame.

“The weather is miserable” you finally said after another stretch of silence you needed to say something, anything because breathing the still air was starting to feel like inhaling glass “I’ve never seen Cousins like this.”

Conrad turned to face the window, the raindrops beating on the glass were fierce, the wind belligerent and howling. He picked up his cup and sipped slowly his eyes far away as he watched the storm. “It’s like this a lot in the winter, completely different to the summer.”

Your eyes closed automatically, you’d never seen cousins in the winter before except for once. Last December, when it all went wrong, when you tore everything apart.

It hadn’t been raining then, it had been snowing. Powder white snow that crunched under foot covering the little town with a fine mist. Your breath had fogged up the windowpane as you’d driven into town and Conrad had squeezed your hand tight. Everything had started so perfectly, your relationship at that time was so beautiful but so fragile just waiting for the hairpin cracks to fracture.

You could tell that he was thinking about it, about last December with the way that his face was twisted. There was a wrinkle between his furrowed eyebrows he only got when he thought hard, one you’d often teased him for, pressing your thumb over it to smooth out the soft skin. You were too far away to do that now and not just physically, you no longer had the right to tease him, to touch him so casually.

“How’s your mom?” You asked and he looked up from the napkin he was twisting between his fingers and caught your eye for the first time.

“She’s good” he murmured and his voice was tender and full of love. No matter what happened between the two of you you’d always have a shared love for Susannah. No one else in the world apart from Jeremiah understood how wonderful she was like you. “She got the all clear last month…she’s getting better every day.”

You’d heard it from your own mom but hearing it from Conrad directly was still a wave of relief. The bridge between you two narrowed ever so slightly as you shared a look of desperate relief.

Looking into his eyes directly was hell. These were the eyes you’d once called home, the soft blue your paradise and your dreamland. Now there was a wall behind them, the easy openness gone and you couldn’t blame him for that. His guard was up and you knew why.

December flashed across your mind again and you saw Cousins painted in snow once more, picturesque, beautiful and blissfully unaware that in her cold lay the end of it all. You saw Conrad and the bouquet of crimson red roses, so bright and vibrant against the pale grey sky. “I love you” he’d said “I’ve always loved you” the words were so sweet but they tasted bitter when you breathed them in. Everything was happening at once, Conrad was in college and you were working at home so far away from each other. Life had been padding along all this time and suddenly it had decided to sprint and everything was changing. Susanna was sick again, you’d given up your dream, Conrad was changing so afraid to lose his mom. The future which had always been something to look forward to was suddenly a terrifying thought, vast and open and bleak in front of you with no clear direction.

He held out the roses to you, told you that he loved you and asked you to move out to be closer to him and you fled. You abandoned your plans of spending a pre Christmas weekend in Cousins and ran all the way back home. You’d lost everything, most importantly your sense of self and you didn’t feel like you deserved Conrad’s love. You left without turning back, leaving the roses on the kitchen island.

Bizarrely in the coming days, weeks, months as you mulled over your decision the roses would be what you came to focus on. Did he throw them away as soon as you left? Did they wither and crumple at the bottom of the trash can buried under cans of beer and pizza boxes? Or maybe he threw them straight onto the fire, watched them be consumed by flames turning to ash and curling into smoke burning out as fast as the two of you. Or maybe he did what you suspected he did, what the most Conrad thing to do would be. Maybe he put them in his mothers big pink vase on the kitchen window sill…watched them slowly die day by day, petals falling and crumpling to the ground as he waited for you to come back and claim them, unaware that you never would. Did each crumb of hope wither away with every hour that the roses died? You thought that maybe as the scent of their decay filled Susannah’s lovely bright kitchen, cloy and thick in the air, that he finally gave up on you and left December behind.

You couldn’t look at him anymore and you broke away from his eyes shamefully. You looked at the house, the kitchen island, the old white chairs, the fireplace and the white washed walls. It was all so familiar but so different, once again you were seeing it in a new season for the first time and with Spring some of its life had washed away. In every crack in the plaster, every scuff on the hardwood floors there was a memory.

Every summer since you were 11 years old, had taken place in this house. All those beautiful, vibrant days coloured every room in shades of grey, the present failing to compare to the memories of the past.

You saw Conrad sitting next to you at the table, squeezing your hand when Jeremiah teased you. You saw yourself drinking Susannah’s sweet tea on the porch, playing chicken in the pool, laughing till your lungs ached in the living room. The summer everything became new flashed through your mind, Conrad kissing you for the first time on the porch, Conrad with sand in his hair laying beside you. Your hands tangled together, your laughter echoing in the car, sneaking down to the beach at midnight, playing games in the surf. A mirage of happy memories contrasting with the dreary April that you lived in now.

You were silent and sedentary, trying to stop the tears falling from your eyes as you thought about all you’d lost, the memories that made it hard to sleep at night. Conrad was the one to break the silence, his voice cutting over the ringing in your ears and bringing you out of the sunshine filled memories into the grey. “Why are you here?” He asked finally and his voice was defeated, tired and worn.

You swallowed hard, that was the question of the day, the question of the hour. You’d asked him to meet you in Cousins, asked him to drive down in the middle of his college break and he’d done it, despite everything he’d made time to see you and now he needed to know why.

“I-“ your voice caught and you clenched your fist under the table keeping ahold of your emotion “I needed to see you.”

His voice was thick, his gaze steadfast down at the table as he refused to look at you “why? after you left I thought you never wanted to see me again so I need to know why.”

“I made a mistake” you whispered “Conrad I made the biggest mistake of my life when I left you and from the minute I walked out of here I knew it was wrong…I - god” the tears that had been threatening to spill finally flooded out and you couldn’t speak, crying hard, pressing your palms into your eyes desperately trying to stop the flow.

You didn’t hear him stand up, didn’t hear him close the distance between the two of you. You jolted with surprise when you felt his hand on your shoulder, so warm in contrast with the freezing room. He said nothing, looked only at a fixed point above your shoulder but he stepped closer and closer until his chest was level with your head, his other arm stiffly coming to stroke through your hair. Even after everything he was still comforting you and the thought made you cry harder, tears soaking the thin fabric of his Henley.

It reminded you of another night Conrad had comforted you, the first time he’d ever seen you cry. The glum September after your beloved pet died. You were 14 and Susannah brought the boys over for a weekend in an attempt to cheer you up. It resulted in you hiding in your room crying your eyes out when Conrad had tiptoed in. He’d said nothing even then but he’d held you in his arms letting you cry until your breath was rattly and your voice was hoarse. “It’s okay” he finally whispered to you, “I’m here.”

The force of that memory was what made you finally be able to stop the tears, you pulled away and looked up at Conrad, wiping away the tears on the back of your hand. He started to say something but you cut him off “please, please just let me say this” you begged him and he paused before nodding and reluctantly taking the seat opposite you once more.

“I’ve made so many mistakes in my life” you began “so so many but none as big as when I let you go…I never explained it to you I didn’t know how to but you deserve that…I asked you here because you deserve that. I don’t expect you to take me back, I don’t expect you to forgive me, I don’t expect you to do anything.” Your voice wavered “I hope we can be friends again one day because well…because I miss you but I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again after this.”

You took a deep breath and he went to speak again but you cut him off. “I left you because I was afraid, I loved you too much and I was so scared that you’d realise I was messed up and leave that I left you myself.”

He made a sound of surprise, indignation, shock you couldn’t tell which but you carried on “you were in college, you’d met all these people and I just felt like I didn’t fit in your life anymore…you were driving for hours almost every weekend coming to see me when you should have been having fun moving forwards but instead I was making you stay stuck with me…”

You finally looked at him “I tried to set you free Conrad, I thought it was for the best but every second of ‘freedom’ has been nothing but missing you, wishing I’d realised that you were right and you were everything to me. From the minute I left this room I’ve lived here, I go back to December all the time wishing I could change my own mind and see what was real, what was my future, because it wasn’t my insecurity or my fears…it was always you.”

Conrad’s eyes were glossy with his own unshed tears and he reached across the table taking your hand in his, squeezing your fingers hard like he couldn’t believe you were there in front of him “I thought you outgrew me” he confessed “I thought I was overcrowding your life, coming around all the time when I was unwanted.”

You shook your head “that couldn’t be further from the -“ and he interrupted you, his words hurried and rushed like he needed to expel them.

“I lied to you” he said “I told you college was good, that I was having fun but the truth was I hated it. I really hated it. I missed my mom, my brother…I missed you. I didn’t care about any of the parties, no one understood about my mom or even understood me…I thought if I hid that from you and made you think I was having fun you wouldn’t see how much of a loser I’d become…that you wouldn’t move onto someone better.”

You stood up abruptly, your chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. “Conrad Fisher” you rushed to his side, squeezing his hand tightly “you were never a loser…not to me I had no idea I thought -“

“I should have told you, we should have talked to each other. I could tell you felt scared of the future but all I did was push you when I should have asked what was wrong, don’t take all the blame.”

You sniffled, wiping away a tear “how did we become such a mess?” You asked and he stood up, looking down at your face as he cupped your cheek.

“Life’s a mess” he whispered “but you were always the best part of it.”

You pressed your own fingers over his, closing your eyes briefly “I love you” you whispered “I’ve always loved you.”

You felt his breath fan across your cheek as he exhaled “I love you too, so goddamn much…do you think we could ever be what we used to be?”

You shook your head “no” you replied instantly “because If we loved again I swear I’d love you right, no more roses left to die…all in.”

Conrad blinked “I’d like that” he said “on one condition.”

Your breathing stopped “anything.”

“Let me love you too” he leaned in until your lips were inches apart, blue eyes warm as they stared into yours “please.”

You bridged the gap and kissed him, the cold frost of winter melted away in seconds, December already fading into an old memory. Spring was in bloom and you had a really good feeling that everything would be okay.

[samgirl98]

Mending a Family 3/?

Prev | Next

Feeling sad and wanted some fluff, so I wrote it. Enjoy

Danny woke up with tears in his eyes. He missed his sisters and his friends. He even missed how his parents, the Fentons, used to love him before they found out he was half-ghost. Danny tried to control his sadness, not wanting to wake up his dad, but he couldn’t help himself.

(It was weird, having the memories of a teenager but the emotional capacity of a child. He knew he should be able to control his emotions better, but he couldn’t.)

Danny sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. Was Jazz okay? Why hadn’t she and Danni been behind him when he came through the portal into Gotham? Was she still alive, or was she injured in the Infinite Realms? Why had Danny been de-aged?

So many questions he couldn’t get answers to. He had no way to access the Infinite Realms.

Danny looked up as the door to his room opened. It was his daddy.

(The teenager in him cringed at the terms ‘daddy’ and ‘papa,’ but the five-year-old in him loved them.)

“Danny-lad, what’s wrong,” his daddy asked. “you’re sad.”

How daddy could still say he wasn’t like Danny, he would never understand. He could feel Danny’s emotions. That’s something only a parent ghost could do with their child!

“I’m sorry, papa, I miss Jazz and Ellie, that’s all.”

Papa frowned, “Don’t worry, chum, I’ll find a way to open the Infinite Realms with the schematics you gave me. Then we’ll look for your sisters.”

Danny let go of his knees and launched himself at his papa. He had no reason to take Danny in, but he did. Papa gave up everything he had ever known and left his haunt so he could take care of Danny.

Danny thought of the figures he had seen in the dark jumping from building to building. White, hot anger suddenly overtook him. How dare they abandon daddy? They don’t deserve him!

“Danny, baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. Daddy didn’t like it when Danny talked bad about his old family. Danny understood; he didn’t like anyone to talk shit about the Fentons, either. That doesn’t mean he didn’t hate them.

“Chum, it’s not their fault,” Of course, daddy knew precisely what Danny was thinking about.

Danny rubbed his eyes, “If—if they came here and wanted to take me away would you let them?”

“What? Of course not, baby. Why would you think that?”

“You miss them; if they told you to give me up to return to the family, would you?”

Danny’s heartbeat was almost at a normal person’s rate as he waited for his dad’s response. Daddy got him and held him close to his chest.

“I miss them sometimes so much it hurts. I’d rather they hate me for the rest of eternity than give you up, habibi.”

Daddy only called him ‘habibi’ when he wanted to reassure Danny.

“And if they asked for forgiveness, would you forgive them?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, baby. I hurt—”

“Yeah, yeah, you hurt them first,” he repeated his dad’s words flippantly, “but don’t you see? I feel the hurt they caused you. I can taste it. You hurt them, yes, but they started it. They did something big that caused you to lash out, daddy.”

Danny tasted the sudden fear that overtook his daddy. It was an instinctual, overwhelming fear. Primal. (He could remember big words but couldn’t remember to control his emotions. That’s bullshi—poopy.”

Danny put his hand on his papa’s cheek and hummed a toneless tune. He projected feelings of safety and love.

“I’m sorry, lad,” papa said a few minutes later, “I was supposed to comfort you, and you comforted me instead. I’m not a good father, am I?”

“You’re the best daddy I’ve ever had,” Danny argued vehemently, “don’t think differently.”

Daddy snorted, “Considering what your last dad did, I don’t think the bar is too high.”

Danny smiled and then yawned.

“It’s time for your bedtime, little boy.”

“I’m sixteen. I can choose my own bedtime.”

Daddy rolled his eyes, “Well until you look and act sixteen, you have a bedtime.”

Danny pouted and then smiled, “Stay with me, daddy.”

Daddy smiled and got as comfortable as he could in the little bed. Father and son slept peacefully that night.

Miles away, a worried sister hiked through the woods with a baby wrapped around her chest. She followed Danny’s ectosignature north.

“Don’t worry, baby brother, I’ll find you.”

She got out to a rest area, and Jasmine Fenton stole a car for the first time in her life.

@idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @skulld3mort-1fan @vythika96 @theauthorandtheartist @emergentpanda-blog @jaggedheart11 @fisticuffsatapplebees @booberrylizard @fantasticbluebirdfan @thegatorsgooseoose @cyrwrites @kjoboo91 @crystallicedart @amaramizuki666 @spekulatiusmuffin @meira-3919 @kilasmess @bubblemixer @lexdamo @wonderland-daisy @mj-arts-n-stuff @amyheart19 @dolfay @the-church-grimm @undead-essence @aph-mable @lizisipancardo @purrloin77 @writer-extraodinaire @charlietheepic7 @kilasmess @sinfulloccultist @nootherusernameworked @coruscateselene @chaoticchange

[hypequeenves]

ALASTOR RADIO SHOW

So this has been sitting in my brain for a really long time. I've made about a 50 minute video on what Alastor's Radio Show might sound like. Because I am who I am I've also put some references to Vesper in there, because of course I did. The full video is will be up on YouTube https://youtu.be/zWNpshsogiQ?si=0Ct8ygRoAYF1-f4u , but it’s quite long so here is some of my favourite clips and also the ones pertaining to Vesper's story!

INTRO:

SUBTITLES: Ah, good evening, my devilish comrades! It's been an eternity since I last graced the airwaves! What with those celestial attacks and constructing a spiffy new studio, I've been positively swamped. So, do pardon my absence from our nightly rendezvous. But fear not, for I've returned with a vengeance, ready to regale you with tales that'll send shivers down your spine! But before we delve into the depths of the night, let's ponder a question that's been buzzing in the back of our minds: Is VoxTek Angelic Security as impenetrable as it claims? Or are we merely being hoodwinked by the corporate demons? Fear not, my friends, for we shall uncover the truth. But first, let's kick off this evening with a toe-tapping tune, "Let the Good Times Roll" by the incomparable Louis Jordan. So, let's not waste a moment more, shall we? Or as they say: Laissez le bon temps rouler!

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YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO BE ON THE SHOW? TW: Screaming, Crying, Someone is in PAIN BEWARE! (Also, I can't tell if its cringe or not)

SUBTITLES: The song slowly comes to an end, when the mic goes hot again you can hear someones panicked breathing along with Alastor humming. There is the sound of a knife hitting the table and then a scream. ALASTOR: Quiet now dear - You’re ON AIR. Can you be quiet for me now? VICTIM: mhm... ALASTOR: Yes? VICTIM: Yes. ALASTOR: Good. While I finish up with our distinguished guest here, let me deliver you a delightful ditty, that is just the perfect amount of ironic considering our current company. Here is "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" by the sensational Bessie Smith. The breathing gets more intense until they scream, but their scream is cut short as the mic goes cold again.

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AIRWAVE ALERTS w ALASTOR!

SUBTITLES: Wasn't that just the most delectable interruption. Well as promised: Here is Airwave Alerts with Alastor. There seems to be a string of murders in the Mafia and Weapons District of Pentagram city! You heard me right, murders! It seems that the perpetrator is using angelic bullets to take out their targets. And although I would like to stake a claim on these murders, I cannot take credit for another's work. While the culprit remains a mystery, where they seemed to have acquired the weaponry is not. Unusually Carmilla Carmine has seen fit to stay silent on the topic. One would hope that she would be able to make a public statement soon.  Ah, while you mull over that jaw-dropper, let me serenade your senses with a tune that'll have you tappin' your toes and hittin' the road in style! It's none other than "Route 66" by the legendary Nat King Cole. So sit back, relax, and let the smooth sounds of this classic take you on a ride down that ol' highway of dreams!

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UPDATE ABOUT CHARLIE:

SUBTITLES: Ah, listen up, denizens of the infernal realm! It's time for a little update from the Princess of Hell itself. Seems our friend Charlie Morningstar has taken matters into her own hands, bless her devilish heart. She's put forth a petition for those brave souls willing to stand tall in the face of the next extermination - should it come to that, of course. Now, I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but our heavenly counterparts up above have been keeping mum on the matter. And let me tell you, my dear fiends, that's not exactly music to our ears! But fear not, for there's a glimmer of hope yet! If you're ready to lay down your very essence to defend our infernal home from these angelic invaders, then you best hotfoot it over to the Notice Board smack dab in the centre of cannibal town. Sign your name with pride, for in unity lies our strength! (slightly less enthusiastic) Or something along those lines. With that obligatory bit of unpleasantness addressed, my dear listeners, it's time to lighten the mood and spread some cheer! This next tune is dedicated to none other than our beloved Charlie Morningstar, the beacon of hope in this dark and dreary place. So kick back, relax, and let the melodies of "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin wash over you. Remember, my dear souls, even in the depths of Hell, a smile can work wonders!

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GOSSIP ABOUT VESPER:

SUBTITLES: Well, well, well, my curious listeners, have I got a spicy tidbit for you! It seems our resident pop sensation, the one and only Vanessa LaBlanc better known by her stage name Vesper, has been spotted gallivanting around town in the company of none other than Asmodeus, the King of Lust himself! Now, isn’t that a twist? It's been a hot minute since the Cardinal Sin of Lust graced the Pride Ring with his presence. So, what devilish plans could he be concocting with our delightful Vanessa? Ah, my dear sinners, the plot thickens! But fear not, for yours truly will be keeping a close eye on this tantalizing tale. So stay tuned, my friends, for the juiciest gossip this side of Hell. Up next the weather! But before we delve into the forecast, let's soar among the stars with the timeless crooner himself, Frank Sinatra! It's time to let the velvety voice of Ol' Blue Eyes serenade us with "Fly Me to the Moon." So close your eyes, let the music carry you away, and dream of celestial delights as we prepare for the weather—though, as I suspect, the forecast may indeed call for a storm of scandal!

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If you made it this far - if no one has told you today, you're amazing!

[tollingreminiscentbells]

I have . . . a lot of comments to reply to. I was traveling all week and actually got home at 21:00 last night, then posted the final chapter of All changed and went to bed. I will be replying to comments, but that's a project in and of itself and will take a minute. Please don't take that to mean it's some kind of chore—replying to comments is part of this for me because fandom is a community.

But I have some thoughts and feelings that I am going to put under a cut because I don't want to ruin anything for someone who hasn't read but might.

For a story I didn't exactly intend to write, it ended up being some of the best writing I've done in years. I initially took RadioApple for a fling, right up until I got overly invested in Lucifer's characterization. I'm not here to criticize or bash. Write the stories and make the art that give you joy, and never apologize for it.

But a lot of people write Lucifer too soft, and a little too human, for my taste. I want Lucifer the devil, ancient and eternal. He's a tragic figure in the literary sense—the architect of his own downfall. He has always believed that he knows best, and he destroyed himself (with a lot of collateral damage) in his crusade to be right. But he is trying to be better. Still callous, still selfish, still a fucked-up hypocrite, but trying.

Then there's Alastor the violent sinner who has proudly earned his eternal damnation. I lovingly call him Lucifer's cringe-fail loser second wife because he thinks he's hot shit and then almost gets himself killed more than once by way of his own hubris. Alastor has never been in love before and he struggles with it, with how to love someone and be loved, but he's trying, too.

I also just really wanted to write an asexual romance. I'm asexual, but open to sex, and that is how I write Alastor. His reasons and specific desires and how he thinks about and engages with Lucifer sexually. It isn't an aside or an obstacle, he doesn't suddenly start experiencing sexual attraction, it's just a facet of their relationship. They have an active sex life, but Lucifer still isn't the One Special Exception to Alastor's asexuality (I hate that).

And it's all to get to the love confession sequence in Transformed Utterly. Starting with Alastor's semi-lucid rambling, through Lucifer showing him his true form and the closest thing Alastor has ever had to a religious experience. His moment of seeing the mosaic in its entirety, for the first time. Their shared moment of intense intimacy, just being honest with each other, no defensiveness or affectation. It took, I don't know, maybe 87,000 words to get there, but it's the title—"all changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born."

I write a very specific flavor of RadioApple. Next up is A Momentary Radiance, my Southern Gothic. Which, much like A Terrible Beauty, fits into a canon-adjacent AU timeline. It's a different genre, but in the "Alastor meets Lucifer before he dies" sub-category, so if you like my Lucifer, my Alastor, and my RadioApple, I like to think it will work for you. There will also be a few All changed side stories, at least one of which is going to be very unserious. Look, I think I'm funny and I'm going to subject all of you to it. That's just the cost of admission.

But the real point, in the end, is that I cherish everyone who came along on the journey. If you have questions, if there's something you want to know, my inbox is always open. I will be delighted to answer you, though fair warning: the answer might be a mystique-destroying "I don't know, it sounded good at the time."

💜

[thefuzzydarkness]

Miyo's Misfortune

Hello! I've been obsessed with My Happy Marriage lately so enjoy a sick Miyo.

Part One

Miyo woke up in her bed shivering. She pulled the blankets up around her letting out a harsh dry cough. She'd been feeling a bit off for a few days now but this is the first time she'd actually felt sick. Lord Kudo had left for work a few days ago and would be returning soon. He'd been working himself to the bone as of late and she didn't want to worry him with something as trivial as an oncoming cold so she decided not to mention it when he called. She had planned to spend the day resting and preparing for Lord Kudo's return but there was a loud knock at the door “Miyo, it's Hazuki! Would you like to accompany me into town this morning?” She couldn't miss an opportunity to spend time with Ms.Hazuki. “Yes I would be honored to accompany you.” She replied “Splendid, meet me by the front door in half an hour.” Miyo scrambled to get out of bed and put on her favorite cherry blossom kimono. She fixed her hair in the mirror and put a few handkerchiefs in her pockets for good measure. She walked down to the front door and opened it to see Ms.Hazuki inside a carriage. “Miyo get in, we've got to go!” She bustled up her kimono and hurried over to the carriage. “I'm so glad you came! Shopping is so boring by yourself.”and she smiled that warm smile that made you feel like you're the most special person in the world. “The pleasure is all mine.” Miyo said. Ms.Hazuki began to chatter excitedly about the type of dress she hoped to buy today but all Miyo could do was try her best not to sneeze. “I mustn't sneeze in front of Ms.Hazuki. It wouldn't be polite.” She thought to herself. She used the back of her hand to scrub at her nose while Ms.Hazuki looked out the window, but it didn't help much. She tried holding her breath but that only made her dizzy. “Miyo are you alright?” The sudden question broke her concentration. “Yes I'm fi…hiitchu itchu hh..hiitchu” Miyo stared at Ms.Hazuki’s surprised expression as a look of embarrassment crossed her face. “Forgive me, I'm terribly sorry!” Ms.Hazuki smiled “No need to apologize, everyone sneezes from time to time.” Miyo sighed relieved. She was afraid Ms.Hazuki would suspect she was sick but it seemed like she truly didn't think much of it. After what seemed like an eternity they arrived at the dress shop. Miyo followed Ms.Hazuki around as she pulled out dresses to try on and they walked back to the dressing room. She wished she could pay attention as Ms.Hazuki waxed poetically about how important it was for a lady to be properly dressed but all she could focus on was the ache in her throat and the tickle in her nose. She managed to stifle a few sneezes while Ms.Hazuki was changing and luckily she didn't seem to notice. After much debate Ms.Hazuki decided on a blue dress with white trim and they went off to lunch. By this time Miyo was feeling well and truly horrid. Her head was pounding, she was completely stopped up, and she was freezing. As soon as they arrived at the restaurant Miyo excused herself and ran to the restroom. She blew her nose hard into her handkerchief and let out a few coughs before returning to the table. “Here's the menu sweetie. The fish is really good here.” She took the menu and settled on a small bowl of soup with some hot tea. Ms.Hazuki looked at her inquisitively. “It's the middle of summer Miyo, are you sure you want soup?” She cringed internally. Of course that order choice would make her suspicious. “I'm just in a soup kind of mood I suppose.” Ms.Hazuki shrugged and began talking to her about next week's lesson. She listened intently until “hitchuu hitchuu itchu…excuse me.” She held her now snot covered hand over her face as she desperately fumbled for her handkerchief. She blew her nose before apologizing again. “Bless you my dear!” Miyo nodded in appreciation before stifling an oncoming cough. “Miyo, are you feeling alright?” That question hit her in the gut. She was supposed to be able to handle this herself.

To be continued...

[wrenrogue]

Tetsurou is writing his vows aloud.

“Kenma, you’re the best thing that ever happened to m-… no too cliché”

“I am SO lucky to have you in my life… hm no”

“There is no one else I want to spend my eternity with… no he’ll cringe at that one"

Tetsurou is writing his vows aloud, but he’s having a bit of trouble.

“Help me out here meow-san,” he says as he reaches over to pet his audience on the bed, a tabby Tetsurou and Kenma had adopted together years ago. “What words will really show how I feel about your dad?”

His audience only purrs before going back to sleep.

“Unhelpful kitty,” Tetsurou frowns as he goes back to staring at a page full of crossed out notes he thought were too cliché or not enough to express what he feels.

Loving Kenma has been the easiest thing he’s ever done, he just wishes he’d have all the words to express it.

“Kenma,” he says in their empty bedroom, hoping whatever he says next sounds good enough not to cross out later, “I’m in love with being in love with you.”

“You make the world less heavy”

“I want to ask how you’re doing everyday.”

“Sometimes I have a bad day, but then I remember you exist so it can’t be all bad.”

“I love when you look at me. I’d make a home in your eyes if it meant you'd look at me forever."

“I just love him so much meow-san!”

“I wonder if he ate all his lunch today?”

“With you, I’m my favorite self”

"Remember that time you fell into a koi pond and you almost became fish food? It’s not related to my undying love for you, I just thought it would be funny to include.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

“I love that my clothes smell like you and my coffee mug is next to yours in the kitchen cupboard”

“In your hands, I've place my heart. I don’t know where else it’ll be more cared for"

“I should get dinner started”

“Thank you for playing volleyball with me that one time in April."

“You make me want to become better, for you, for me. For us.”

“My name has always felt safe in your mouth. I want to keep hearing it.”

“I know I’m allowed, but I love asking you if I can kiss you. It’s my favorite question. I love how you always say yes.”

“Kenma, Kenma, Kenma”

“I don’t think this is going anywhere,” Tetsurou flips to a new blank page after an hour of brainstorming, turning to Meow-san.

“My love for your father is just too big to contain in paragraphs it seems.”

Meow-san looks at him, before hopping off the bed to make his way out of the room.

“Don’t ignore me, young man!” Tetsurou scolds as he gets up to follow him.

It’s dinnertime and Kenma would be home soon from his one (1) work day at his office and Tetsurou, being a good fiancé and having had the day off, had promised he’d have dinner ready by then.

He only manages getting past the door because his favorite person happens to be standing in the hallway, Meow-san already in his arms. “Kyanma??”

“Kuro”

“When did you get here???”

“About an hour ago,” Kenma shrugs as he pets their son.

Tetsurou suddenly feels hot. “How much did you… hear?”

“How much do you want me to embarrass you?" Kenma teases.

“You’re so mean go me,” Tetsurou grins, cheeks rosy as he walks toward his beloved to kiss his forehead.

“Guess I’ll just have to come up with something else that’ll be extra embarrassing now.”

“I love you.” Kenma replies abruptly, as he lets go of Meow-san.

“I love saying yes to your request for kisses too.”

Tetsurou eyes widen at Kenma’s admission, his cheeks getting a little rosier as kenma’s ears become a little redder. In a corner of his mind he can’t help but feel amused at how admitting how much they mean to each other still causes them to blush like schoolchildren. He guesses that's just how love is, it never gets old.

Tetsurou cups Kenma’s cheek in his hand who immediately leans into the touch, “Can I kiss you?"

“Yeah” Kenma's firm in his answer as he reaches for Tetsurou’s shirt collar.

"I want to kiss all your smiles for the rest of my life if I can."

“And you say I’m embarrassing,” Tetsurou teases as he feels Kenma’s breath against his lips.

“Can’t help it. You make me want to say embarrassing thing, Kuro.”

All Tetsurou does is snort in amusement and all Kenma does is kiss his smile, keeping it safe in his mouth like he's done with all others.”

Tetsurou doesn’t end up making dinner, or finish writing his vows that night. But what he does do is eats the takeout they ordered and drafts his vows with his lips against Kenma’s. He figures he can write them down later.

[royallygray]

I’m busy today ahsjsk but prepare for me to ramble your ears off later

also take a guess at which ship 💀 you’ll never get it /s

also also also did I reblog that from you and if so spill I want to hear what you’re writing /nf

OOOOOH

I bet you seventy monopoly bucks it's ethubs. just. just a subtle guess. maybe. possibly. actually quite unlikely it's not like you ship them or anything 😁

Idk if you reblogged that from me either and idk what /nf means but. ok.

So I have my main AU, soul horizon au, aka around my soul and beyond your horizon, and the masterpost of everything relating to it is here. It's Scarian and Gempearl but it's actually centered around everyone's friendship and something except I haven't actually done a lot of writing for it but I have stuff about Pearl and I have a mutual Peri @periwinklepaint (the best I love them sm just shdhagjah) she's so talented and has drawn 3(THREE!!!!!!!! :D) Pearl drawings in soul horizon au and she's the one that has kept me going in this au

And then my other main not fanfic one is iw8, that I've talked about a teeny bit, but it's my self-indulgent ass half-my-300-OCs fic, that also doesn't actually have anything written for IT-- WAIT I DO I HAVE AN AO3 AND IVE PUBLISHED SOME STUFF FOR IW8 LETS GOO

my ao3 is royalwriteswords and the series is called iw8 | Eternality under my RoyallyGray pseud

I hate half of them but yeah

uhh I've ranted sufficiently

Oh yeah I ranted a little bit about Skyler in a post. She's an OC in iw8

did I mention that iw8 is technically a Harry Potter fanfic. that crosses over with Percy Jackson. and also keeper of the lost cities. but I tend to ignore that bc it diverged primarily into family dynamics and shit bc the main family (Crownes) (Crown-nez) has a long line of people and just. a lot of people with different dynamics and shit and I could probably stop ranting but honestly I'm having fun

Okay so the main character--im unsure if I'm gonna change her name or not--is named Sarah Crownes. Which is the self insert that got out of hand and she was a Mary Sue fucking overpowered as hell (she's still overpowered but it's less relevant now) and she's massively fucked up

HO TT OGO YOU CAN TAKE ME HOT TO GO

I've gotten rly into Chappell Roan and that's been playing in my head

Anyways Sarah has a younger brother called Scott, and a younger sister called Skyler. They're all 9 years apart, and Sarah just turned 18 by the time Skyler was born.

I killed their parents, Sasha Black (yes she's related to sirius. they are twins. yes it's cringe. shut up. embrace the cringe. maybe.) and Davis Crownes (Hermione's mom's brother. now we don't know if Hermione's mom has siblings. but we also don't even know her fucking name so TECHNICALLY Davis can be canon anyways I digress) on the same day that Skyler was born (December 24, 1997). don't blame me, blame Voldemort. it was Voldemort.

Unfortunately, I fucked over Sarah bc why not. Davis and Sasha made Sarah the primary like. person of their will to take care of Scott and Incoming Baby once she turned 18 (December 18, 1997. born 1979) and like.

Sarah is grieving and also fighting in a fucking war when they die and leave the kids to her but also everyone else on their list is either ALSO FIGHTING IN THE FUCKING WAR or otherwise unfit. Like Remus? bro he's not doing well. also in war. the Weasleys? in war. Paul and Alyssa (OCs)? fighting in war.

like. they're all fucked.

also I made this decision like ages ago when I was less mature and less understanding of world, but Sarah sent Scott to Camp Half Blood and Skyler to Camp Jupiter. The reason they're at separate and not at the same is bc Sarah didn't want Scott to feel absolutely over responsible at all times over Skyler and just. yeah

but I feel like there's gotta be a more seamless way of her to do that than just sending them to camps bc she can't take care of them but I haven't figured that out yet anyways

Im done with this post let me know if you have questions and/or want more :D

thanks for the ask Kat <3

[junk-culture]

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. 5️⃣❗

now wtf is the 5 times table doing in my inbox... ! teehee... this is a lot of questions and my answers are lengthy so under the readmore they go:

5. Favourite band: HMMM this shouldnt be a difficult question but i feel like im always indecisive/struggle to identify an Absolute Favourite Above All Others...... i think i have to say depeche mode because i like them enough to have paid £[redacted] to go see them...they are definitely one of my big faves anyway........ i will add bastille as an honorary favourite simply because they are the band i have liked for the longest... i started listening to them as a miserable 14/15 year old so you know. that kind of band is eternal and forever even if i don't quite like all of their latest stuff/don't listen to them absolutely all the time etc. actually the jam are maybe tied with bastille for that sort of formative band so let's say them too. sorry i can literally never give one single answer LOL 10. Favourite model: uhm unfortunately i dont really have one im not really into following fashion or models....idk....but recently i started watching the x-men movies (cringe) and i kind of got the hots for halle berry a bit so ill say her. ik shes an actor but she started off as a model so it counts. honorable mention also to the sony d-e350 in gold . a very very sexy model (of cd player) :

15. Lucky Number: It seems there's a typo in the questions post because they've put 14 twice instead of 15....I don't really have a lucky number although I sometimes see people with aesthetic blogs posting about angel numbers or whatever and im like i could get into that........ i guess any number can be lucky if it appears in a certain moment or is recurring... since 14 appears twice in the question post ill say 14. and its a pretty good number anyway

20. 5 things you love: ONLY FIVE? BUT I LOVE SO MANY THINGS ABOUT OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD...! well to name a few: 1. mai friends (physical and virtual) ^_^ 2. BRIGHT GREEN GRASS IN THE SUNLIGHT 3. art. drawing. its my essential activity i have to do it its awesome plus so important in the world for everyone 4. when you're travelling home on the train from a pleasant day out somewhere and it's really sunny and you have a window seat and the music you are listening to is just right for that moment and its just so the beautiful world. you know? 5. shagging ur mum LOL !

25. Favourite blogs: UMM im sorry im kind of too lazy right now to like tag people plus i feel a bit shy doing that anyway but basically all of my mutuals etc...... <3 and the smug jug blog also 30. Someone you miss: hm...i don't know if there's any one person i Strongly miss but there are a few i vaguely to moderately miss. idk. such as: - my mother occasionally - not my irl best friend as such because shes still here lol but moreso i miss hanging out regularly like we did when we were teenagers? like now we're both adults and in different cities and she works full time and im either working or studying and she has a boyfriend anyway its like we dont hang out that often... many such cases obviously but i miss the time of seeing each other every single day at college and walking home together...and especially because id love to do that all over again Now when im like. a lot happier/more functional/more "normal" than i was when i was 16/17 lol. but its the way of the world what can we do - i guess i sort of miss an internet friend who disappeared .... it wasn't exactly unexpected because we always were aware of the possibility and i know its simply how such things go but i wonder how they're doing sometimes...plus we exchanged physical mail and gifts so now its like i just have these objects in my home that are from a person who i no longer talk to lol....

THANK YOU FOR ASKING, THE FIVEPILLED FIVEMAXXER!!!!! :)

[marshmellow-dragon]

Dear Stranger

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Giggling as we pretend to sleep in the dark.

Me the villain, you the hero, swords at the ready paladin!

Uncontrollable laughter every mealtime without fail.

Rumbling tractor, muddy bare feet.

Intimacy of the kind that grows into distant love.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Brown skin glowing in a stray ray of evening sun.

Eyes closed; Face leaning upwards.

World racing by in a blur of grey below.

I don’t know you.

Yet you haunt my mind, a singular persisting memory,

an impression that never leaves.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Deep conversations on a hostel night.

Hot chocolate that froze to ice.

Borrowed music we snuck inside.

A vivid memory etched deep into us.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Pani puri on the way back from college.

My first drink. You cringed, I didn’t.

Annotated book that smells of spilled coffee.

Momentary but eternal.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

20 questions and new bus routes.

House hunting and shared interests.

Books we exchange to share pieces of our soul.

Poetry we create as we breathe new air.

“It’s like we’re living the same life!”

It’s like we’re strangers who know everything about each other.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Long voice notes that bring comfort on sad evenings.

A magnetic force that keeps pulling me back to you.

Hastily typed words because I can’t go a week without texting.

So many plans.

Fledgling, tentative, prone to disaster.

The feeling of wanting to know you deep in my soul.

Dear Stranger,

Do you remember me like I remember you?

Confident walk.

Comfortable silences.

Beautiful art.

Sunkissed skin.

Shared stories.

I didn’t think so.

[writing-for-life]

I recently went through some of my ancient drafts and stumbled across my very first attempts at writing steamy romance.

Holy TROPES, Batman!

My gawd, the sex scenes!

The cringe-factor of writing the very first one and not having a clue how to bring what I saw before my mind’s eye to the page (it's always hotter when you imagine it, ya know?). But also enjoying it and just keeping on going. I like to inject humour and make things a bit more human, because apart from hot, sex is also messy, funny and all sorts of weird in my view. Sometimes, humour worked. Sometimes, it was… extremely questionable?

So I just thought I’d share one of these first…erm… marvels and let everyone who’s struggling with writing sex scenes know:

It does get better. It does get easier. You will stop worrying if it sounds right, if it’s “hot enough” or “too hot”. You will stop worrying whether using C-words will catapult you into a different category (I don't do "magic wands" and "joysticks" or anything to do with "meat", but if that floats your boat, all good).

At some point, you just write (I certainly came a long way since then - the one I’m posting here is actually quite tame, but at the time, I thought it wasn't). If you like it yourself, there will be other people out there who will, too. That’s whom you write for - forget about the rest.

This scene is taken from a romance fic I abandoned after 90,000 words (yeah, you read that right) because it wasn't going anywhere. The story is so tropey and cringey that no amount of editing was going to fix it. The bedroom antics got better with time though (this is actually the first), so I guess it was worth it in terms of "copulation practice", bwahaha.

Buckle up for the cringe-fest and meet Julian and Rebecca...

NSFW, 18+ only

Swearing

Cheating/Adultery

M/F safe sex/penetration

~2000 words to describe one fuck

When we arrived at the hotel, Julian led me through the lobby towards the elevator, past the reception. He made sure that we weren’t holding hands or looked in any way too close. My mind began to race. What if anyone had noticed? Nothing, actors probably brought hookers and escorts into their suites all the time, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if the hotel staff had been paid off. For a second, it made me feel cheap, but I banished the thought quickly.

We stepped into the elevator, and he pressed the button to the top floor. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, then turned towards me. We were standing really close, but we didn’t touch. His breathing was shallow, and my heart was racing. Once again, we got lost in each other’s eyes completely.

“Jesus…” His voice was nothing more than a whisper.

“What?”

He didn’t answer. He also still didn’t touch me, although I desperately wanted him to.

The elevator had arrived at the top floor, and the doors pinged open.

He just grabbed my arm and basically dragged me through the hallway. When we arrived in front of his suite, he nervously searched his pockets for his keycard. He pulled it through once, twice — nothing, the light stayed red.

“Fucking hell, seriously?” His hands were shaking, and I thought to myself how sweet it was to see him so nervous and out of his depth.

I gently took the card out of his hand and tried it. The light turned green, and I opened the door with a smile. Julian looked at me for a second, still holding my arm, and then pulled me in. He turned around in an instant and pushed the door shut, both of his hands resting right next to my head, keeping me trapped between his body and the door.

We were standing like this for what seemed like an eternity, just looking at each other, breathing heavily. He moved even closer, and his body was now touching mine. I really felt like I was going to combust any second.

And then he kissed me.

Gently at first. He had moved his hands away from the door, one resting on my shoulder, the other cupping my face. His lips were soft, and he seemed cautious, as if he wasn’t too sure if he really had my permission. To reassure him, I ran my hands up his chest and opened my mouth slightly. The kiss became deeper, and his hands moved lower and pulled me in closer. I arched my back, and our hips touched. Before I knew, he had lifted me up and pushed me against the door. I wrapped my legs around him, and our kiss turned more desperate and breathless.

The street-lamps were the only source of light, and when Julian carried me, he bumped into a chair. We both started to chuckle. It only lasted for a moment though, and he kissed me again, stumbling towards the bed, before we finally fell on top of it.

We were both still wearing our heavy coats and winter jackets, and I made some fumbling attempts to open the zip on his. He stopped kissing me.

“Wait,” he whispered breathlessly, sat up and opened his jacket, only to toss it on the floor carelessly. I unbuttoned my coat, and he helped me to get out of it.

Julian ran his hands down my flanks, quickly lifted my top and pulled it over my head. He paused and just looked at me, running his fingers through my hair, before he kissed me again. I so desperately wanted to feel him and ran my hands underneath his shirt.

He drew in a sharp breath and laughed quietly. “Your hands are freezing!”

“Sorry. I’m very nervous.”

“Me, too.”

I moved back my head and looked at him. “Really?”

He just nodded, and I could feel that he was trembling slightly.

“You’re shaking. Is it my hands?”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes for a second, breathed in deeply, and then opened them to look at me again. “It’s actually all of you.”

I took off his shirt and kissed his chest. When Julian took off my bra, I felt self-conscious all of a sudden, despite the dark room. He gently put his hands on my shoulders.

“Please let me look at you.”

I didn’t know why, but I involuntarily crossed my arms in front of my chest, feeling an embarrassed smile creep up my face.

He took my hands, shook his head and whispered: “Don’t hide from me.” Then he carefully pushed my arms aside.

He moved slightly to the side, and the outside lights hit me softly. His lips parted, releasing a gentle breath. It was all I needed to reassure me. No one had ever looked at me like this, and it completely floored me.

Julian kissed me again, gently but very deeply, and pulled me on top of him. I ran my hands down his body until I could feel the button of his jeans. I unfastened it and let my hand slide inside. He held his breath for a second when I touched him, and then just surrendered to my probing fingers.

After a while, Julian looked at me, breathing heavily. “God, I wanted to do this all day!”

I stared at him, wide-eyed. “You did?”

He chuckled. “You bloody well know I did!”

Within an instant, he turned me on my back and kissed me before he jumped up to kick off his shoes and take off his jeans. He knelt beside me again, ran his fingers down my legs and took my boots off, one after the other. His hands ran up the insides of my thighs, and he touched me between my legs almost casually. I inhaled very audibly. He smiled, let his hands glide higher and started to unbutton my jeans. When he had taken them off, a thought ran through my mind, and I knew I had to ask. I didn’t even have to because the very same moment, he started to swear.

“Shit, I don’t have condoms!” He just fell over backwards, put one elbow over his face and laughed quietly.

“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He turned to face me. The whole situation was absurd, and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

I turned towards him and propped myself up on my arm. “I’m sort of glad you don’t have any.”

“Why?”

“Well, I would have probably found it more unsettling if a married man had a pack of condoms on him when he’s not with his wife.”

He turned serious in an instant. “Do you think that’s what I’m like?”

I hesitated for a second. “No.” And I really believed it, as stupid as it might have been.

We were lying on our sides, facing each other, and I gently caressed his face. “Are we making a mistake here?”

“I’m beyond caring…”

He pulled me closer and kissed me again. I still wanted him so desperately, and the fire was lit again within an instant.

“Wait…” I gently wrestled myself out of his embrace, started tiptoeing towards the entrance and ran into the chair again. “Shit!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to switch on the lights?”

“No, just give me a second.”

I tried to find my bag, and once I had spotted it on the floor right next to the door, I started rummaging through it.

“What are you doing?”

I came back, fell on the bed and held the condom up in front of Julian’s face.

“Oh no, you don’t!” He faked being offended.

“Well, I’m single. Better safe than sorry.” I had to suppress a grin. “Disappointed?”

He laughed. “I’ll think about that later.” Then he turned serious again. “No, I’m actually very, very glad…”

We kissed, but the gentleness was gone. We were both desperate and impatient. I ran my fingers inside his boxers and started to pull them down until I had to move aside to take them off. I started to fumble at the condom wrapper and looked at Julian sheepishly.

“Can I help?” he asked, half mockingly, half seriously.

“I think I’m okay.”

He grabbed my briefs and took them off rather unceremoniously, over-stretching the elastic in the process, which turned them into a shapeless mess. I looked at him with fake indignation, mouth open.

“Sorry,” he whispered with a chuckle, but it was obvious he didn’t mean it.

I lay down on my back and smilingly reached out to take his hand, pulling him on top. For a moment, he just looked at me, gently rocking his pelvis against mine. Did he have second thoughts?

I ran my fingers through his hair. “Are you still sure? We can stop, and no one will ever know…”

“If you can stop now, you’ve got superhuman self-control!” He smiled, but it only lasted for a second, and he turned really serious. “You only have to say stop, I hope you know that?”

I knew he’d never understand why, but his saying this was one of the very reasons I wanted him, more than anyone could ever imagine.

“I don’t want you to stop.” I tilted my pelvis slightly and directed him where I needed him to be.

Julian gently slipped inside me, still looking into my eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

He kissed me again and started to move very slowly. It was so overwhelming, and it didn’t take long until I began to lose control.

“Wait!” I whispered breathlessly.

“What?” He stopped and looked concerned.

I tried to catch my breath. “I’ve been single for some time, and despite my carrying around condoms, I actually haven’t done this for a while.” I laughed, and it made him smile in return. “I’m really struggling to pace myself. We’ll need to take it slow, or…” I could feel myself blushing at the complete and utter embarrassment of admitting that I really couldn’t control myself.

“You’re very sweet,” he started to move again, “but I really don’t want you to hold back.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to if we go on like this.” I felt myself involuntarily grinding against him, torn between trying to slow myself down and letting go, and I started to breathe heavily again. In a feeble attempt to set the pace, I wrapped my legs around him, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

“Just let go. It really turns me on, don’t worry about me.”

He was still moving rather slowly, but the feeling was so intense and deep that I simply couldn't fight it. I started to tremble and everything tightened. Trying to suppress a moan just seemed to make me louder. And then it was over, but it also felt as if it weren’t.

Julian watched me closely, still moving inside me, a small frown appearing between his brows.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“If you only knew how hot it is to see you get off like that, you wouldn't apologise.”

“I’m…”

“Ssh.”

He had found his own rhythm, deep and strong, and we both broke out in a sweat when he picked up pace. I pulled his head towards my face to kiss him. His breathing was hard and fast, and I felt it inside me like I felt him inside me. His body began to tense up, and he came quietly, shaking slightly, his hands buried in my hair.

He kissed me again and again, softer and more gently. His breathing slowed down, and his body began to relax...

[mentally-in-northern-italy]

the right time — j.f.

** not my gif **

Summary: Jeremiah's confession of his true feelings for you always seems to die on his tongue. Until one day, they finally find their way out - AKA the three times that Jeremiah tries to confess, and the one time he finally does.

Requested: request can be found here

Word Count: ~5K

A/N: jeeeez. i got carried away with this one. i had so so so much fun writing this so i hope you enjoy it!! so sorry again for the wait but hopefully this makes up for some(?) of it? i also changed up some aspects of it from the request, so i hope that's ok!!! anyways i have a few hp requests sitting in my inbox and i wanna publish them in the next week or so, so be on the lookout :)

—

Jeremiah had always been a bit of a fan of ripping off band-aids. He liked the finality of it, the speed of it, the elated feeling that always enveloped him after the fact. He liked getting it done in one go and never thinking about it again. Whenever he watched Steven slowly peel his band-aids off his skin, he would cringe all over, wanting to shout at him to just be done with it. 

He berated himself now, as he sat on your bed, when he couldn’t seem to take his own advice. He could never listen to his better senses when it came to you. No matter how hard he tried. 

And he tried really, really hard. 

He knew that he should just tell you. The confession had been boiling on his tongue for years now – after all, he had figured out the magnitude of his feelings for you when you two were only twelve years old. 

His feelings, evidently, did not like the confinement either as they only seemed to grow in size over the years. It was not a mere twelve-year-old crush anymore, and he knew that. Perhaps that was why his tongue always collapsed at the weight of it, why he couldn’t vocalize it.

It was a bit ironic, really, how flirty he could be with everyone else and barely mean the sweet words tumbling out of his mouth but when it was you, he couldn’t verbalize even the most sincere, genuine feelings. His flirtatious jokes always seemed to fly right past your head as you shook them off to just be “Jere being Jere”. 

“Alright, red or blue?” You questioned, holding both of your tops up. You raised your eyebrows at the golden-haired boy sprawled on your bed, his arms supporting his weight as he leaned back. 

“Hmm,” he pretended to be deep in thought with a half-smile on his face. “You’re going to look smokin’ hot in either, so…” He finished with a soft shrug of his shoulders, trying his best to maintain his easy-going facade, even in this situation. 

Even when he is helping you pick out something to wear to a date with someone other than him. 

“Jere,” you said with a straight face to drive home the seriousness of this situation. This was not the time for jokes. 

“Seriously, though,” he sat up as he ran a hand through his hair with nonchalance, “You could wear a potato sack to this thing and your date would still be drooling the entire time. In fact,” he stood up, pretending to walk towards the door, “I think Mom might have one in the pantry. I can go check–”

“Jer!” you grabbed his arm as you tried your best to smother a laugh at his antics and pushed him back on the bed. “Please. Which one?”

He pouted a little as he considered the options, pretending once again to be uber-serious about this. Without meaning to, he found his eyes leaving the red and blue tops you were holding up and wandering to your face. He took it in like he had all the time in the world. 

“Red,” he said with an easy smile, which he was glad to see you return with the same ease. If this was all it took to make you smile like that, then he would be more than happy choosing your outfits for an eternity. “You look gorgeous in red. But, any guy would be lucky to see you in either.”

You grinned a little at his flattery and tried to ignore how his compliments made your stomach twist with something that you were all too familiar with when it came to Jeremiah and his sweet talk. “Well then, lucky you, you’ve won the lottery today. You’ve seen me in both.” 

He chuckled as he shook his head slightly. “Yeah. Lucky me.” 

And he tried his best to ignore the faint pang in his chest as he watched you turn away to face the mirror and fix your hair before going into the bathroom to change tops. 

He watched you close the bathroom door and he chewed on his lip nervously – which was not something he normally did. Rip the band-aid off, he found himself thinking. Just tell her.

“[Y/N]?” 

“Yeah?” Your muffled voice came from within the bathroom and Jeremiah had to lean against the bathroom door to be able to muster up the courage that he required at this moment.

“I just–” he began, looking down at his feet with one hand against the door and the other on his hip. “I just wanted you to know that…” 

“What is it? Is Max here already?” You questioned and he stopped in his tracks when he heard the excitement in your voice. 

He could never bring himself to admit it but some wicked, evil part of him wanted your date to go horribly. A small part of him even considered telling you to show him more options for your outfit tonight because he had simply changed his mind about the red, fully knowing that doing this would make you very late to the movie you’re supposed to leave for in a few minutes. 

But he also knew, somewhere deep down, that those small, wicked parts of him could easily be triumphed by the larger part of him that just wanted you to be happy. And if someone else could do that for you, then he would let them. Every single time. 

“No,” he shook his head and exhaled deeply. “No, I just hope you have fun tonight.” 

You opened your door finally and stepped out with a small smile, wearing the red top that he insisted upon. “Thanks, Jere.”

“See?” he teased with a small smirk, “I told you red’s the move.” He winked playfully as he brought a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind your ears. 

“Yeah, yeah,” you rolled your eyes and walked once again to your mirror, trying to fix hair that already looked perfect. “What would I do without your brilliant fashion advice?” Maybe it had simply been the frequency of his compliments or the flirty glint in his eye every time he said them, but you had long learned not to take any of what Jeremiah said to heart. He would compliment anything that breathed with the same sincerity.

Jeremiah watched you walk out that evening with a bitter taste in his mouth because you did look gorgeous in red. You looked drop-dead stunning. 

And try as he might to tell you of that fact, you wouldn’t really believe it when it came from him. You’d only believe it when it came from someone else. 

—

“I am not drunk!” You yelled with finality in your tone and a stance that conveyed utmost defiance. 

Well, as defiant as you could possibly look when you were clearly swaying a little with a bottle in hand and slurring your words. You could barely keep your eyes open. 

“Okay,” Conrad decided to humour you as he snatched your bottle out of your hands and replaced it with a cup of water. “Drink this anyway.” 

“You’re no fun,” You tell Conrad with a pout and he rolls his eyes at you before continuing his deperate search for Jeremiah. All he found were more drunk teenagers, flashing lights and blaring speakers. “Party-pooper.” You accuse.

Conrad wasn’t sure when he had been put on babysitting duty but when he had seen you, drunk out of your mind, climb onto a table and start belting out Beyonce, he knew his help was needed. And though you normally got along with Conrad just fine, with him being just like a big brother to you, he knew that he needed to find Jeremiah to take you home. He was the designated driver, after all. 

“Do you know where Jere is?” 

“Debbie-downer.” You spat out to Conrad, who couldn’t care less about your conniving insults. 

“Seriously, have you seen Jere?” He questioned again and pushed you to take a sip of your water.

“Conrad the killjoy,” you laughed at your own joke a little and Conrad sighed heavily, desperate for someone to take you off his hands. 

“Killjoy is spelt with a K, you know.”

“Yeah, well, then so is Konrad.” 

Jeremiah, who had been upstairs, knew at once something was wrong when he glanced at his phone and saw 6 missed calls from Conrad and a frantic text from Belly. As he made his way downstairs, he could see you standing with a pout on your face and your arms crossed like a child, with a very exasperated Conrad standing next to you. Jeremiah smiled a little at the sight of your ruffled hair and his brother’s tired look. 

“What’s going on here?” He asked finally after reaching the bottom of the stairs and looping one of your arms around his neck to support you to keep you standing upright. 

“Finally,” Conrad mumbled under his breath. “You should take her home. Be careful, though,” Conrad cast you a sarcastic look. “She might start spelling your name with a G.”

You stuck your tongue out at him and Conrad continued, “I’ll take a cab with Steven and Belly.”  

“No, I’ll take a cab,” You interject pointedly, “You should really drive him home, Jere.” 

“Alright, alright,” Jeremiah consoled and held back a snort at Conrad’s unamused expression, “I’ll drive you home first, okay? You’re my favourite out of the two of you, after all.”

As soon as you two stepped out of the house, the cold night air whipped your face and blew your hair back and you found yourself enjoying every second of it. You kept an arm looped around Jeremiah and raised the other one to cheer loudly. You felt warm and bubbly from the inside and your head was spinning in the best way possible. You never wanted this night to end. 

“Shhh,” Jeremiah shushed you in between chuckles. “You’re going to wake the entire neighbourhood up.” 

“Yeah, so?” You furrowed your eyebrows. “They should not be sleeping right now. There’s a party going on!”

Jeremiah looked at you with incredulous eyes and an amused expression on his face. He couldn’t remember the last time you had gotten this drunk. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten that drunk and he had some really wild stories up his sleeve. He smiled to himself as he looked down at the ground. You looked cute when you were so drunk that you had no filter. It was a nice change.

“Alright, come on,” he ushered you into the car when you finally reached it. “All arms and legs inside the vehicle, please.”

“Okay, but I’m not wearing a seatbelt,” you protested as you settled into the passenger seat. Your body relaxed instantly upon making contact with the comfortable seats of the Jeep and you struggled to keep your eyes open as sleep threatened to overcome your senses completely. 

“Yes, you are,” Jeremiah countered instantly and grabbed the seat belt buckle. He leaned across your sprawled body in the passenger seat to fasten it and you suddenly could not ignore the frenzy of butterflies in your stomach. He was so close that you could feel his breath fanning across your neck and even in your drunk state, your cheeks burned at the proximity. He fastened the seatbelt with a click and straightened back out with an amused smile once again. “I see what you did there.” He smirked before shutting your car door.

You waited for him to get into the driver’s seat before pressing urgently with a furrow in your eyebrows, “What do you mean?”

“You really couldn’t have put it on by yourself?” He teased with his hands set on the steering wheel. 

“Ugh, gross,” you groaned as you realized that you felt all warm and bubbly inside for an entirely different reason now. “I did not do that so you could do that.”

Jeremiah responded with a chuckle and a small ‘sure’, which made you eager to defend your side of the story even more.

“I’m not lying.”

“Admit it, I’m irresistible.” He mocked with an exaggerated hair flip.

“Seriously,” you clarified as you sat up. “Maybe I just wanted to smell your hair.”

Jeremiah’s howls of laughter at this innocent yet glaringly honest confession confused you to no end, as you squinted at him. You were still unsure of what was so funny about that fact. His hair did smell nice.

“Drunk you is really bad at flirting,” Jeremiah said with a playful lilt in his tone, which perfectly masked his true feelings at the moment. He wished, more than anything, that you would flirt with him for real. But he also knew that you didn’t see him that way, and maybe you never really would. It was cathartic in a way to tease you so relentlessly. It almost made it feel real to him. 

“I’m not flirting,” you claimed once again. “And, you really shouldn’t be flirting with me either, you know.” You said offhandedly, not thinking much about what you were saying. 

Jeremiah’s smile instantly dropped at your remark. “What do you mean?” he mustered up, already feeling horribly guilty. He braced himself for what he knew was to come – he was sure that you were about to tell him that your boyfriend had brought it up with you. Max probably felt threatened and –

“Gigi,” you said softly. “I saw you two go up into that room.” And it was true. You had seen them together and your heart had dropped. Despite the fact that you had your actual boyfriend beside you for most of the night, you couldn't help but feel betrayed at the sight of Jeremiah with someone else. You quickly pushed the feeling out of your head and grabbed the nearest drink, finding the only solace from your broken heart in your drunk state.

Jeremiah’s head was suddenly spinning as he clutched the steering wheel tighter and tried to take a quick look at you before setting his eyes back on the road. He tried to dismiss the thoughts in his brain that were ecstatic at the faint jealous tone in your sentence. 

“No, no,” he shook his head. Jeremiah desperately tried to find the words to tell you that Gigi and him had only talked – how he had made it clear that he wasn’t looking for anything romantic with her.  “Gigi and I–”

“It’s fine, Jere, really,” you affirmed as you tried to shoot him a small smile. “You don’t have to lie to me. I just… We’re both with different people now and you’re my best friend so maybe you and I should just… dial it back a little, I don’t know.” 

Just as quickly as those ecstatic thoughts had rushed into his head, they now fled. It became clear to him now that this was about Max. You were not jealous. You probably didn’t care about him and Gigi at all. He tried to regain his composure as he cracked a small smile. 

“Yeah,“ he agreed quietly. “Your boyfriend probably thinks I’m in love with you or something.” He tried to joke but the attempt was weak at best. 

“Yeah,” you half-smiled in agreement. “Gigi probably thinks I’m in love with you.” You spared a glance at him for a moment too long, causing him to look back. You cleared your throat hurriedly, “Or something.” 

Jeremiah focused on the road that stretched out in front of him as he willed himself not to look back at you. It would’ve been easy to rip off the band-aid then, to just blurt out his true feelings and leave you to deal with the aftermath. He knew it would’ve been easy but he also knew that it would’ve been incredibly selfish. 

With a lapse in self-control, he risked a glance at you and found you sound asleep, with your eyes shut in what he could only imagine as blissful slumber. He smiled as he turned his eyes back on the road. He was glad that at least one of you two would be sleeping so soundly tonight.

—

The breakup had been surprisingly easy. The aftermath, however, had been the exact opposite. 

When Max had dumped you two days before the deb ball, you hadn’t thought much of it. Your relationship was barely three weeks old and you were really only waiting for the shoe to drop. When it finally did, you felt almost relieved. You were practically yawning through Max’s “it’s not you, it’s me” routine. 

That feeling of freedom and relief were quickly snatched from you when you realized just how bad Max’s timing was. With the deb ball two days away, you were left with no date and absolutely no prospects. Conrad was going with Belly already, Steven with Shayla and you didn’t need to ask Jere to know what he would say to being your escort. That guy had sworn off balls years ago. 

“Maybe you could just, like, be a group of three with us,” suggested Belly with a hopeful smile plastered on her face. “Conrad wouldn’t mind… I don’t think.” 

You gave her an unamused look as you buried your head in your pillows. “Do we know the same Conrad?” 

“Fine, then what do you suggest?” Belly questioned as she flopped onto your bed as well. “You’re really going to go alone?” 

“What choice do I have?” 

“You could ask J–.”

“Absolutely not,” you countered right away. There was no way you were going to ask him, especially considering how you knew his answer already. No matter the reasons behind it, a rejection from him would still hurt.

“Why not?” Belly whined. “He’s perfect for you. I’m sure he can make an exception to his rule if you were to ask.” 

You raised your head to squint at Belly. “Why would he make an exception for me?”

“You know why.”

“No, I do not.” You tried to ignore the burning in your cheeks once again.

“You’re so childish, [Y/N],” Belly sighed. “That guy’s been in love with you since you two were like toddlers.”

“That is simply not true,” you muttered, wishing that Belly would drop the subject altogether. “Next!” You announced only to be met with a groan from Belly.

After countless suggestions and exhausted minds, Belly suggested that you take the easy way out of this mess. 

“Just call Max,” she whined, running a tired hand over her face. “Tell him he still has to take you to the ball and then you two can go your separate ways or whatever.”

 And so, you had. You had called Max at the opportune hour of 2 AM and he had agreed before making sure that ‘there was absolutely no romantic subtext attached to this, right?’ You had scoffed at what he was trying to imply. As if. 

It was that eventful night’s ingenious brainstorming which had landed you in this mess today. 

The ball was about to start in five minutes and all you could do was stare at the curt text that Max had sent you a minute ago. You read over it again and again in feeble hopes that that would make it seem more insignificant – like if you read it enough times, it would somehow be less humiliating. 

But the truth of the matter was that Max had bailed on you at the very last minute – literally –  and your name was about to be announced, summoning you and your escort to the stage. You looked around desperately, in hopes that perhaps you could send someone else ahead of you or if worst comes to worst, slip out of the back door yourself but none of those options seemed particularly feasible. As you looked at the other side of the stage, where Max was supposed to be standing, you saw nothing but darkness. 

“[Y/N] [Y/L/N],” the announcer called with his booming voice. “Daughter of…” It had suddenly become hard to breathe in your flowing dress and you were sure that your makeup had practically melted off your face by now. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath in. It’s fine, you told yourself, repeating it like a chant. I’m fine.

You took small steps forward, trying desperately to sync them with your breathing to avoid any disasters until you were standing on stage with a bouquet in your hand and no date by your side. You forced a smile on your face but it evidently did not look as convincing as you wanted it to as a few murmurs broke out amongst the crowd. You scanned the crowd until your eyes landed on your table, with a concerned looking Susannah and a horrified looking Laurel. Your own mother’s expression was a mixture of both.

“[Y/N] attends…” even the announcer trailed off as he peered behind the stage to check where your escort had gone. 

“Sorry!” Jeremiah appeared suddenly at your side, announcing his apology to the whole crowd. “I had to use the bathroom. Had too much to drink.” He smiled apologetically to the announcer before turning to you to send you a wink. He flashed one of his dashing smiles and offered you his arm before turning back to the crowd to pose for photos. You blinked a few times to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

“What are you doing?” you whispered to him as quietly as you could manage. You were well acquainted with Jere’s ‘no balls’ policy. Clearly, everyone else was too, as the murmurs in the crowd did not die down as he appeared by your side on the stage. They only seemed to grow, with some surprised and others outraged.

“Being your knight in shining armour, what do you think I’m doing?” he whispered back with a smug smile. He was seriously considering sending Max a gift hamper for letting him have this opportunity. 

“Jere,” you began again. “You really don’t have to. Seriously, I’m fi–” 

“Shhh,” he cut you off, gently tapping your arm. “Face the front and let everyone see how jaw-droppingly beautiful you look in white.”

“I thought red was ‘the move’ on me?” You retorted with a small smile. This guy really was an angel sent from above.

“You could wear anything and it would be ‘the move’,” he told you matter-of-factly with a small smirk as he kept facing the cameras. “Although…”

“What?”

“I’m sure you could wear nothing and it would still be ‘the move’.”

“Shut up!” You reprimanded with a shocked laugh. You were used to his flirting but he had never been quite as forward before. Jeremiah stifled a few chuckles as cameras kept flashing. Finally, the announcer gestured for you two to walk forward to stand on the dance floor as the last few debutantes got their time on the stage. 

You took your place standing beside Belly and Conrad and couldn’t help but shake your head as Belly turned to smile at you. Her grin was so big you feared it would split her face in half. 

“Told you he’d make an exception,” she mouthed slowly, making sure that you understood each word she’s intending for you. Conrad smirked silently, watching the two of you standing together. Even Steven waved to grab your attention to wriggle his eyebrows at you suggestively. You rolled your eyes at them all.

“What’s Belly saying?” Jeremiah peered from behind you at the smiling girl.

“Nothing,” you cleared your throat. “She’s just surprised you’re doing this. With your infamous ‘no balls’ policy and all.” 

Jeremiah let out a small ‘ah’ as he nodded in understanding with a small smile on his face. 

“So,” you pressed on with raised eyebrows. “Why are you doing this?” You bid your time with bated breaths as you waited for his answer to come. You really hoped it was the answer you wanted to hear.

“Because I look ridiculously handsome in a tux,” he joked half-heartedly. A storm was raging within him and he had no idea what answer to give you. 

“No other reason?” you questioned hesitantly.

Jeremiah knew that this was as good of a time as any. He could finally just tell you. He could rip the band-aid off and never look back again. Max was out of the picture now, clearly, as he abandoned you tonight. Gigi had never been in the picture at all. He had no reasons to keep the truth from you anymore. He had always stopped himself in the past with your happiness in mind. But now, standing beside you and remembering the elated smile that you had given him when he ran onto the stage to be beside you, he was sure that he could make you happy.

He knew he would choose your happiness every single time. Only this time, he’s choosing his own too. 

“And, because,” he started with a shaky breath that seemed too uncharacteristic of him. His teasing demeanour had dropped altogether. “I just… Shit. I want you to know that–” 

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer boomed, causing everyone to turn back to look at him. 

You kept your eyes on Jere as you pressed on. “Know what?” 

“I…” 

“Can all escorts make their way to the dance floor, please?”

Jeremiah sighed heavily as he realized he had run out of time. “I’ll tell you later, okay?” He squeezed your hand and pressed a dramatic kiss to it. “For now, prepare to be amazed by my dancing skills.” 

Except, there was no ‘later’ that night. Jeremiah had no idea how quickly the night would turn sour for him, all because of a simple email that he wasn’t meant to see. 

—

Jeremiah loved the beach. He wasn’t sure when the obsession with the feel of the sand running through his fingers or the sound of the tumultuous waves had started but his favourite memories of his childhood always included beaches. 

They also always included his mom. 

In his mind’s eye, he could see countless times when Susannah had been lounging on a chair with a large sun hat draping her eyes and the sun beating down on her while he and Conrad surfed in the water. He remembered how Susannah used to seat him on her lap, while Conrad ran around chasing seagulls, claiming he was ‘far too old to sit on laps’. 

“Your eyes remind me of the ocean, Jere,” Susannah would tell him as she held the little boy in her arms. “They’re so blue. So pretty.” He would smile at her mother’s affection and bat his eyes at her dramatically, which always made her erupt into giggles. 

He couldn’t remember when these frequent trips to the beach with his mom had become so rare. As he sat on the sand now, looking out into the ocean, he couldn’t help but smile sadly. He had no idea if he could have another beach trip with her. He had no idea how much time he would be able to have with her at all.

The sky was painted a somber gray as a storm threatened to rage in the distance. He could feel a few drops on his skin as he took the ocean in. Early mornings at the beach always held a different type of allure for him.

“Hey,” you tapped his shoulder gently, careful not to startle him. 

He turned around at once, with a smile on his face. Your heart broke a little at the sight. Jeremiah had always presented himself as an easy-going guy. He was cheerful at all times, always concerned with bringing a genuine smile to others’ faces before worrying about the genuinity of his own emotions.

“Hey,” he smiled but his eyes didn’t exactly translate. They didn't gleam like they usually did.

“How are you?” you asked hesitantly as you took a seat beside him, nudging his shoulder lightly. “How are you, really?” 

“Fine, I guess,” he said with a gulp and a bitter smile. Both of you sat in silence for a while as the only sounds heard were the waves in the distance. 

“She loves you a lot, you know,” Jeremiah broke the silence, turning to look at you. He held your eyes as he continued. “She never stops talking about you." He shook his head fondly. "Especially when I’m there.”

You give him a small smile before furrowing your eyebrows playfully. “Why ‘especially when you’re there’?” 

“She always wanted us to be together,” Jere said without thinking about it too much. He didn’t risk a glance at you as he continued as honestly as he possibly could. “I think she’s been planning our wedding ever since I gave you that rose to put in your hair when we were, like, ten years old.” He laughed softly at the thought. 

“Really?” You asked incredulously as heat started creeping up your neck. Jeremiah couldn’t help but smirk at you as he could see how flustered you grew with every second.

And that gave him the strength to finally rip the band-aid off. 

“Yeah,” he nodded once as he turned away to look at the water again. “I’ve been planning our wedding for much longer, though.” 

You smiled at his flirting as you shook your head but when you looked at his face, your smile dropped completely. He held your eyes and your breath hitched in your throat as you noticed how devoid of playfulness they were. You gulped as you opened your mouth to say something but couldn’t find anything. You were, quite literally, speechless.

“I think I knew it at six years old,” Jeremiah continued quietly as he kept his eyes on you. It was too late to turn back. No matter the outcome, he had to rip it off. “It was pretty silly then. I was already convinced I was your boyfriend.” He smiled at the memory. “And then at twelve, when we were watching the Notebook with Mom and Laurel and your mom, I remember peeking over at you and just knowing. I knew that you were my Allie. If I had to write letters to some girl for 365 days in a row, it would be you. Every single time. If I had to hang off a ferris wheel to get your attention, I would do that, too. And I hate ferris wheels.” He deadpanned in hopes of earning a laugh from you but you sat there, dumbfounded.

“Wh–?” You tried to get out but Jeremiah stopped you. He needed to get all of this out. He took your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before running his thumb across it.

“I knew that I was a total goner, though, when other guys started getting your attention and I still didn’t say anything,” he continued honestly. “I couldn’t bring myself to. I wanted you so, so bad but most of all, I just wanted you to be happy. And if Max made you happy or that creepy guy from the gas station that you dated for like four hours made you happy, then I would let them. I still just want you to be happy. And I get it if you don’t like me in that way–” he tried to clarify before you cut him off.

“You make me happy, Jere,” you managed to get out with utmost sincerity. It felt as if your heart was about to burst. “You’ve always made me the happiest. Not Max and definitely not the creepy gas station guy.” 

“Yeah?” He asked as his heart skipped a beat. 

“Yeah,” you confirmed with a nod as your cheeks hurt from smiling so wide. Jeremiah’s eyes scanned your face then, just as he had always scanned your face – with love, with patience. This time, though, he was pleased to see you scan his face the same way. And none of you were trying to hide it anymore. The band-aid had finally come off. 

“Do I have permission to kiss the bride, then?” he asked quietly as his eyes landed on your lips, both of you leaning towards each other. 

“Depends,” you smirked. “I need to see the wedding plans first. I don’t trust any plans that you’ve made.” Jeremiah chuckled and his breath fanned across your face. “Especially if they were made by six-year-old you.” 

“You sure?” he teased. “A LEGO wedding sounds pretty nice. Six-year-old me had some great ideas.” 

“Shut up,” you laughed against his lips before finally leaning over to close the space.

It was hard to think as your lips met his pillow-soft ones. He kissed you senseless as he brought a soft hand to your jaw to pull you impossibly closer. He tasted so incredibly sweet and he smelled of the ocean and mint and something so indescribably Jere – so familiar yet so exhilarating. Your hands found the hair at the nape of his neck and you tugged them absentmindedly, making Jeremiah smirk into the kiss. It would be an understatement to say this was better than he could ever imagine in his dreams. It was like a shot of adrenaline for him to be so close to you, and he found himself wondering how he survived his whole life without it before. 

You pulled away when you felt the first drop of rain land on your face and he looked up as he smiled. Of course it had started to rain. How very the Notebook of the universe. He looked back down to you and smirked as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. 

“By the way,” you smiled at him. “I knew you were my Noah, too. If there was one guy I had to keep coming back to, no matter what, it would be you. Always.” 

He exhaled with relief and happiness and excitement and – quite possibly every emotion he could feel at that moment. “It’s only fitting for us to recreate the rain scene, then,” he flashed a smile as he tried to calm his thumping heart, adding a wink for good measure. 

You told him to shut up for the second time that day and he dutifully obeyed. He wasn’t that interested in talking, anyway. 

And, Jeremiah knew the next few months were going to be difficult. But for a moment, here with you, everything seemed alright. And he knew that it eventually would be, as long as he has you by his side.

[anxiouswormonastring]

CHAPTER TWO:

“There’s gotta be a way out of here”

After that rather…violent encounter, you decided you’d be better off alone. As the days passed, you noticed more of those people around the mountains. It was clear that they were hunting you now. But they never stayed for long. The sheer cold of the area always drove them out after a while.

Laying on your stomach in the cave you woke up in, your fingers traced the red “gem” that you had been left with. A sigh left your mouth as you pinned it back onto your clothes.

“Is this really it for me,” you muttered softly to no one in particular. Not even the wind would whistle a response. A scowl tugged at your lips as you stood and prepared to throw a flaming punch at the wall but just before you could, a strange voice reached your ears.

A light blue orb of sorts materialized between you and the wall. It blinded you for a moment and when you finally opened your eyes, a tiny floating creature presented itself to you.

If you were being honest, it was rather cute with its little robe and wand decorated with snowflake patterns. Despite that, you kept your guard up.

“Bane of the Archons, Y/N, you have finally awoken,” it said, its voice causing you to cringe a little. Finally processing what it said, you stepped back.

“What are you and what are you talking about,” you questioned. The creature floated about in its little force field as it spoke.

“I am an abyss mage, servant of the Abyss Princess,” it paused to look at you. “You seem…confused. It is only to be expected after waking from a five hundred year slumber.”

“Five hundred year…slumber,” you repeated, brows furrowed in confusion.

The abyss mage nodded. “Yes, the Archons sentenced you to an eternal slumber but through the efforts of the Abyss Order, we have awoken you,” the little creature floated around some more as you processed what it was saying.

“Archons? Abyss Order? Does anything you say make sense,” you scoffed, something seemed off about this thing and you sure as hell weren’t going to let it slide this time.

The Mage shook its head in an exasperated manner which only irked you further, but before you could speak again, it began to explain.

“You are Y/N, created only to serve and fight for the gods of this world,” it began, “the Archons who made you cared very little for your free will. They were the ones who trapped you here in the first place.” There was a brief pause in the conversation as you sunk to your knees.

“But…why did they trap me here? What did I do wrong?”

The shield around the mage disappeared as it stood, placing a hand(???) on your shoulder. “You did nothing wrong. You must be angry…with the help of the Abyss Order, you’ll be able to avenge yourself. You’ll be able to put those pesky Archons back in their place-“ you slammed the mage into the floor before it could finish.

Rage scorched through your veins as you stood and stepped towards the creature who hurriedly tried to summon its shield again.

Your hand morphed into a large set of claws as you swiped at them, knocking them into the wall. “You are no better than those ‘Archons’,” you snarled. “You just want to use me too, don’t you? If what you said is true…then I’m done being used! I’ll get out of here and find the truth by myself,” you yelled, sinking your claws into the mage’s flesh.

It squirmed and begged but you didn’t want to hear any of it. Heat built up in your palm as you unleashed a stream of white hot fire directly onto the creature. It didn’t take long for the mage to dissipate before your very eyes.

Once again, you sat alone in your cave. “Is violence really all I was made for?” Staring down at your clawed hands, you watched as it morphed back to normal with a sigh. “I’ll find a way out of here…There’s gotta be a way out of here.”

[titan-fodder]

Pyroclastic (Mike Zacharias x Reader)

Summary: Some would argue that the park is dead, but you know better; it’s livelier than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years, a shuddering, breathing monster finally rising to its feet after an eternity of slumber. Soon, it will open its mouth in an earth-shattering scream, and then, everyone will see.

Not dead; just waking up.

Rating: E (explicit)

Word Count: ~19.5K

Warnings: slow burn, friends to lovers, Eruri, implied Mobuhan, spelling Miche ‘Mike’, swearing, fighting, lots of nerdy shit, explicit sexual content, breeding kink

A/N: This is my contribution to the Smut Pile’s Apocalypse collab. I urge everyone to check out all the pieces on the masterlist. A big thanks to @pleasantanathema​ and @whats-her-quirk​ for being about as excited about this as I was, to @shadowworks​ for always encouraging me when I take on projects too big for my own good, and to @mindninjax​ who volunteered her husband’s expertise on this. I’m pretty proud of this piece and had a blast writing and researching for it. This is by no means scientifically accurate, but I did my best to make it realistic (as in I watched Supervolcano again and spent a lot of time on the USGS website). Also, I have been to Yellowstone exactly one (1) time in my life and was terrified the entire time which is where my fixation with it comes from. 

Enjoy~

GLOSSARY

Caldera - large basin-shaped volcanic depression with a diameter many times larger than its included volcanic vents; commonly formed when magma is withdrawn or erupted from a shallow, underground magma reservoir.*

Pyroclastic flow - A hot (typically >800 °C), chaotic mixture of rock fragments, gas, and ash that travels rapidly (tens of meters per second) away from a volcanic vent or collapsing flow front.*

Tephra -  pieces of all fragments of rock ejected into the air by an erupting volcano.

VEI - The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions.*

*definitions taken from USGS website

4  Y E A R S  B E F O R E 

Levi looks pissed when he’s on screen. He looks pissed all the time, but he looks especially pissed when he’s made to stand in front of pointed cameras and outstretched microphones. 

You can’t blame him; it’s not actually his job to deal with the press, but some years ago, Erwin had twisted his arm this way and that and convinced Levi to take over conferences.

“They understand you better,” he’d said. “You enunciate better than me. We can’t have people misunderstanding me and panicking, can we?” The blond had purposely spoken with an accent thicker than usual, and Levi had called him every name under the sun, but in the end, he’d relented, and now…

“Dr. Ackermann! Dr. Ackermann! Is it true that this has been the largest earthquake in Yellowstone since Hebgen Lake?” 

Levi squints, actually cringes at the question, then waves one of his small, bony hands. “Hebgen Lake was a major quake—7.2 on the Richter scale. This was only a 5.3, and yeah, it’s been a while since the park has had a quake larger than a three, but that doesn’t mean—”

“So, should we be worried about a supereruption?” Another reporter asks, and you clamp a hand over your mouth to keep from laughing as the light leaves your colleague’s eyes. 

Levi’s jaw slides, and he pauses, no doubt to think about how to answer because this is a delicate question, one that the general public always reads extremely far into. He’s good at keeping his expression blank, at least, probably another reason Erwin requested he take over interviews. 

“Listen,” he starts off, slate eyes locking onto the largest camera in front of him. “Yellowstone is a hub of seismic energy. It wouldn’t be the park we know and love today if it wasn’t shaking and letting off steam like it usually does, right?” This gains a few relieved chuckles from the crowd of journalists. 

“Was this earthquake bigger than the ones we’re used to? Yes. Are we monitoring each and every tremor that we pick up? Also, yes. So, don’t make yourself sick worryin’ about sh—stuff you can’t control. We’ll let you know if it’s time to worry.” He sucks his teeth for a second, waiting for his advice to wash over everyone, then adds, “Keep a bug-out bag packed, though. Not because of the volcano or anything. Just because… The world is crazy and so are people, and it’s always good to be prepared.”

They take it as a joke, laugh a little louder as Levi steps down from the podium, but you’ve worked with him long enough to know he had made the comment with serious intent. It’s a lot easier to fly out of town at a moment’s notice when you already have the necessities packed, and though he won't tell them all the facts this early on, there’s a chance that they will eventually have to evacuate, yes. 

“I fucking hate that big, blond bastard,” is the first thing Levi tells you when he’s within earshot, much less well-spoken in casual situations than when his face is being broadcasted. “Voht iff they dunt understahnd me, Lebi?” He mimics your boss badly then pantomimes an uppercut with a dramatic grunt. 

“Why’d you make him sound Russian?”

“I was trying to make him sound stupid ‘cause that’s what he is.”

“I have four doctorates,” Erwin states as he falls into step with both of you, finally moving from his little hiding place behind one of the news trucks. “I’m not stupid. And, I do not sound like that.”

“That’s what you think,” Levi grumbles, doing his best to shrug away from the larger man when Erwin slings an arm around his shoulders. It doesn’t work, and Levi ends up stumbling to keep up with Erwin’s longer strides, which only serves to irritate him further. 

“You looked good up there. I mean, you sounded good. Sounded sure, comforting…” 

You shake your head at Erwin’s obvious struggle to just not be the big weirdo that he is, but it sure is painful to watch sometimes. 

Governor Zachary takes over the conference, leaving the three of you to make your way inside the lodge that the emergency broadcast was set up outside of. Levi and Erwin bicker through the lobby then through the back doors that lead you to the jeep that you all swing yourselves into. 

The sky is still a little dusty with shaken sediment, and some of the park rangers are setting up barricades at the mouths of a couple hiking trails leading to what is now a moderately large crevasse that’s opened up in the Biscuit Basin. 

Other than that, the park doesn’t feel much different as you ride through it on your way back to the lab. The Summer sun brings with it your favorite 70 degree days, and if it weren’t for Erwin’s questionable driving, you’d be tempted to hang half your body out the window just to feel the warmth better. The faint smell of sulfur in the air is soothing at this point—the smell of activity, the smell of science, the smell of home. Geysers are still shooting boiling water to the skies. The mud pots are still bubbling like ominous cauldrons. That earthquake couldn’t have shaken too much out of place if all the geothermal spots are still behaving as they normally do.

The tires kick up rocks and dust as Erwin brakes dramatically outside of the base, right behind another familiar jeep that makes Levi roll his eyes. 

“Great. The boy scout’s here.” 

“Oh, be nice, you little grump,” Erwin chastises him. “Mike’s been nothing but kind to us since he started working here.”

“Yeah, except for the time he misjudged the depth of that puddle and—”

“Splashed you with mud, yeah, yeah, we know, Levi,” you finish for him as you slide out of the vehicle. “You bring it up every time you see the guy. We know.”

“And, didn’t he apologize afterward?” Erwin prompts.

Levi doesn’t answer, but you respond for him: “Profusely. Drove him back to the lab, offered him his spare change of clothes—”

“Useless,” Levi hisses. “The dude’s a giant.”

“Not his fault he’s…” You try not to sound too giddy when you step through the door and see the man in question. “Enormous.” 

You don’t know Mike very well, one of the newer park rangers but with a background in geology which leads him to your neck of the woods very often. The few conversations you have had with him have all been pleasant. He’s soft-spoken but obviously intelligent with good instincts about both the park’s weather and wildlife. 

He’s also the only ranger you’ve seen actually pull off the dorky park uniform, but that could just be because the different shades of green look good against his tan skin and bring out his light eyes. Even taller than Erwin and a little broader too, M. Zacharias (as his little, metal name tag reads) is a slab of a man, and yet, when he grins, it’s almost boyish. 

“Hey, Mike, what’s up?” You greet.

He turns his head to look at you, flipping shaggy hair from his face, then offers one of the soft smiles you were hoping for. “Just came to drop off some samples for Hange.”

“Disgusting,” Levi mutters just for you to hear as he passes, and you shove him hard enough to make him stumble and flip you off. 

“How’d the press conference go?” Hange asks, tossing a small, corked flask of mud from hand to hand—what you assume to be the sample—while twirling in their computer chair. The last member of your team, Moblit Berner, glances away from the holographic model he’s studying to hear the answer. 

“I think it went well,” Erwin says. “Levi handled it like a champion, as always.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, old man,” the brunet bites out, joining Moblit next to the expensive projection table in the middle of the lab. “What’re we lookin’ at?”

“I’m just running the numbers from today’s quake. The possible effects it had underground.”

“And?”

Moblit is quiet for a beat too long.

“Mobs, what is it?” 

You, Erwin, and Hange make your way over to the table, staring at the laser-lit park model and the chamber underneath it. 

“Well, in most of the scenarios, it’s fine,” Moblit tries. “Nothing to worry about.”

“And, in the others?” 

He looks to Erwin, as everyone does in times of concern. Thick eyebrows pinched together, your boss motions to the hologram. “Show us.”

Moblit punches a few things in on the app he uses to control the model, then takes a deep breath and lets it play out for everyone to see, including Mike who slowly makes his way over, curiosity apparently getting the best of him. 

At first, nothing looks to change, just a living, breathing reenactment of what you were seeing today—every geyser, every fumarole, every little rumble, every minute rise and fall of the ground sped up to be detected with the human eye. 

And then, it stops. 

“Why did it…”

“Just watch,” Moblit shushes you. 

The outline of the ground fractures in several different places, statistics for different earthquakes blinking above. The known vents of the park—every geyser, mudpot, and fumarole—are rendered inactive, and under it all, that massive chamber everyone is always so worried about begins to bulge upward and outward, growing larger and larger until…

The map shorts out, flickering then disappearing entirely, leaving the six of you staring at the space where it was shining just seconds ago. 

“Was that…” 

Erwin inhales deeply through his nose before exhaling the word that will eventually bring the nation to its knees.

"Supereruption."

3  Y E A R S  B E F O R E

Even through the thick headset, the whir of the helicopter blades is loud, a rhythm pulsing through the air strong enough to be felt in your chest right alongside your beating heart. 

Thankfully, Mike’s deep voice is loud and clear when he speaks, nodding his head to the right, “Look down at about two o’clock.”

You follow his command, tilting your head and peering down at an empty field. 

“I don’t see anything,” you say.

The microphone hanging in front of his mouth picks up his chuckle, and the sound of it echoes in your ears, making you grin albeit a little confused. 

“Exactly. That’s a big spot for bison this time of year.”

“Then why aren’t they here?”

Mike lets the chopper hover for a while, both hands still on their respective control levers. 

“Ground’s been moving too much,” he says after a few seconds of silent staring. You’d known the answer already but hearing the wildlife expert confirm it fills you with a little more dread than you’d originally harbored. “They feel things we don’t, the tiny quakes, the tremors. Stuff you only think the seismograph picks up—they feel all of it.”

“They know what’s coming,” you say more to yourself than to him. 

Mike offers you one of those charming, close-lipped smiles. “When in doubt, trust the animals.” 

A line you’ve heard him say a few times now. Mike loves everything that lives in the park, from all the common lake trout and sand cranes to the endangered grizzly bears and gray wolves. 

Trust the animals, he says. Because he trusts them. Because he loves them. 

“You wanna fly over the Grand Prismatic?” Mike asks, pulling you from your thoughts, and when you look over, you find your reflection in his mirrored aviators as he stares at you. 

His mouth quirks up at the corners, causing yours to do the same, and you nod. “Yeah, always.”

It’s your favorite view in the park, the colorful spring from up above. Mike had learned that a few months ago, and now whenever you ride in the chopper with him, he makes sure to pass over the beautiful attraction just for you.

Nearly 200° Fahrenheit with a pH of 8.7, the pool, while still dangerous due to its temperature, is one of the more moderate dangers of the national park, tame in comparison to the Norris Geyser Basin with temperatures up to 459° (a thousand meters below the surface, anyway) and a pH of about two. It’s dissolved bones—human bones. And, would claim even more if given the chance. 

You suppose that’s expected for a basin that’s sitting over a chamber of 1,500° molten magma. 

The Grand Prismatic is just as stunning today as it is every other. Its outer orange and yellow rings darken to greens and blues the further inward you look, thick steam rising from all over but more condensed over the middle. 

It was one of the park's biggest attractions, tourists flocking to the spring with their cameras, too stricken by the vivid chromaticism to listen or read about the temperatures and microbials that are responsible for the colors in the first place. 

As you hover above now, just to the side of the steam, your heart aches. There are no ignorant tourists to take pictures of the pool, the boardwalks and trails to these hot spots now blocked off once it became apparent that the earthquake that took place last year was not the last of its kind. Your team as well as the park rangers went to the park board as a unit and suggested that tourists needed to be kept away from as many geothermal features as possible, all of you with the same fear in mind: someone (or many someones) falling in. 

It's always been a risk, but now, with weekly rumblings, that risk has multiplied exponentially. All it takes is someone losing their footing on the boardwalk over the Norris Geyser Basin for serene sightseeing to turn into tragedy, and that's on a good day. Throw a 5.7 earthquake into the mix, and the park could lose an entire tour group to the heat and acid. 

It's just not a risk any of you are willing to take anymore. 

Most of the park remains open. Old Faithful continues to draw people in by the thousands. They sit and watch boiling water shoot into the sky every hour or so, clapping happily at the sight, unaware of the way you and your team hold your breath in wait, hoping for the geyser to go off on its usual schedule. 

One day it will stop. One day they'll all stop. And, then… 

"I can't believe it's all gonna be gone one day," you muse, blinking down at the prismatic pool for as long as Mike will let you. 

"Nah," the man disagrees. "Not gone. Buried, yeah, but not gone."

You snort, turn back to him with a grin and roll your eyes. "Yeah, no big deal. Just miles of pyroclast and ash, probably snow when we get thrust into another ice age 'cause of the crazy climate swing..."

"Alright, alright, I get it. The sun dimeth and the land sinketh."

"Gusheth forth steam and gutting fire," you continue grimly.

Mike turns the helicopter back toward the landing zone, saying nothing else and leaving you to take in the sights below. You're grateful for the silence; it's good for processing, for preparation. 

And, you're grateful for Mike, one of your best friends at this point—soft and kind despite his intimidating stature, smart as a whip, and just as stunning, if not more so, than the Grand Prismatic. 

"Any idea what you'll do afterward?" He asks, holding a hand out to you to help you from your seat in the chopper. 

"Not really. Survive, I guess." 

You land just a little too close to him, your face nearly coming in direct contact with his broad chest, but Mike steps back just in time, making you extend your arm, still connected at the fingers, before he drops your hand. 

"A feat all on its own," he says flatly, but he perks up as you both begin walking to the park ranger base. "Maybe you'll find another team to work on."

"I don't want to find another team," you tell him honestly. "This is my team. This is my home."

Mike hums, an understanding little sound, body warm when he gently bumps into you on the gravel pathway to the lodge. "Yeah, I know."

A geophysics major at UCLA with a specific interest in volcanology, getting to intern with the Erwin Smith at the Yellowstone supervolcano had been a dream come true. You'd expected to gain knowledge and experience—nothing more and nothing less. You'd lived out here for one summer during your graduate program, clocking the field experience you needed to get your degree and taking in everything you could. 

Back then, it felt like all you did was ask questions and get in the way. By the end of that summer, you knew every variation of Levi Ackermann's irritated sighs, every different pitch of Hange Zoe's shouts and how they correlated with their experiments. Moblit had been the newest permanent addition and was even more nervous than he is now, trying and failing to keep up with Hange (which he's much better at doing these days). 

They were all fantastic, but it had been the lead researcher who'd reeled you in. You'd never met anyone as passionate as Dr. Erwin Smith, captivated by the monster underneath the park and thrilled to share his brain with anyone willing to hold their hands out for it. Hell, he'd even helped you with your Master's thesis—hydrothermally altered mineralized systems and their seismic reflections. 

When you graduated, the Yellowstone team was the first you reached out to and the first you heard back from. Erwin said you'd been a perfect fit even as a student (which you hadn't exactly believed but definitely blushed at anyway). Mobs, Hange, and even Levi seemed happy to have you back. It was like you were meant to be here. In this park. With all of them. 

Studying the volcano and all of its properties has always been like breathing to you—natural and necessary. You move when it moves, every shake and tremor a heartbeat in your own chest, every shooting geyser like blood in your veins. The mudpots are your bubbling emotions, the fumaroles, your sense of building pressure and release.

You feel at home in the park because you trust it. Because you love it. 

You don't have room for another team in your heart, but as you walk inside the lodge next to Mike, watching as he takes off his sunglasses and grins at one of the other rangers, you think you at least have room for one more person. 

2  Y E A R S  B E F O R E

The lab has two extra bodies in it—two extra unwelcome bodies who keep getting in your way and touching things as they ask questions that no one has the answers to yet.

“When did you say this was going to happen?” The rotund state governor, Dhalis Zachary, asks for the second time since arriving, picking up a sample test tube that Moblit immediately plucks from his hand with a nervous smile.

“As I said before, it’s difficult to place a concrete timeline on an event like this,” Erwin tells the white-haired man. “We don’t exactly have in depth records of the last three eruptions, so all we have to go off of is the earth itself and our simulations.”

At the edge of the projection table, Nile Dok, FEMA director, cautiously waves a hand through the holographic model displayed in front of him. He obviously doesn’t think anyone is watching him because the slender man jumps in surprise when you snort at your desk, and his angular cheekbones take on a pink tint of embarrassment from having been caught.

He clears his throat, straightens the knot that sits over it, then turns to face Erwin and prompts, “Three eruptions before. One was a lot bigger than the others, though, right?”

Erwin nods. “Huckleberry Ridge. Over two million years ago.”

“We’re hoping—if a supereruption is to occur—it’ll be closer to the size of Mesa Falls,” you pipe up.

“Which one was that?” Zachary asks.

“One-point-three million years ago, two-hundred-and-eighty cubic kilometers of erupted materials…” Levi lists off as he makes his way over to the table with a sanitary wipe in hand. He doesn’t like people in his space, doesn’t like strangers in the lab, even (especially) government officials (“They leave fingerprints, and they breathe on everything, and they waste our fucking time.”).

“Two-hundred-and-eighty cubic kilometers… That’s the best-case scenario?” Zachary looks to Erwin, eyebrows raised high over his wire glasses.

Erwin stares at him for a moment, contemplating the best and easiest way to explain this to someone who has no real experience in the field. Eventually, he settles on, “Moblit, can you run some simulations for me?”

“Of course, sir,” the mousy scientist agrees, phone in hand and pulling up the app before the boss can even finish speaking.

Everyone gathers around the table except for Levi who steps away from it, grumbling under his breath about coming back to clean it later. He at least hits the lights, making the model easier to see as Erwin starts listing off numbers and scenarios.

“The best case, actually, is only one vent opening, maybe two. It would be something comparable to Mount St. Helen’s, though probably a bit bigger, say point-five cubic kilometers of material. It would be necessary to evacuate the park and this region of the state at the very least.”

Zachary hums, “And, how likely is that?”

Erwin shrugs. “Hard to say right now. As the earthquakes increase, though, the likelihood of a small eruption like that, uh, dwindles.”

“Small,” Nile scoffs.

Zachary makes a similar noise, slightly louder, a little more offended, then rattles off, “Mount St. Helen’s killed almost sixty people. The blast, the ash, the lahars—” as if you don’t all already know.

“No one’s discounting the damage of the eruption,” Levi cuts him off. “But, if you’re sweatin’ at those numbers, all due respect, Governor, I don’t know if you’re ready to stomach the rest of this little light show.”

The older man cuts his eyes at Levi who squints right back at him, only turn and shuffle over to his desk when Erwin waves him further away, a silent way of saying ‘keep your smart mouth away from the authority figures’.

“Moving on,” you cough, twirling a finger to get both Erwin and Mobs to continue.

“Yes,” Erwin nods. “So, any eruption is dependent on how much magma in the chamber is eruptible magma. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it will come out.”

Moblit punches in a few numbers to show what a small-scale eruption would look like, first with one vent then with two.

“With just that amount, even with two vents, it isn’t enough to completely destabilize the chamber.”

“And, destabilizing it would be… bad…” Nile states more than asks, brown eyes lit up by the model in front of him.

“No shit,” everyone hears Levi grumble from his desk, and Erwin huffs and looks at you, expression a little exasperated as he jerks a thumb back toward the grumpy man in yet another one of his silent motions— a plea in this case—'go take care of him’ which you do.

Levi is slumped in his computer chair, arms crossed over his chest as he peers over his desktop at the four men gathered around the hologram.

“Should’a just gone with Hange and the boy scout to collect samples when I had the chance,” he mutters.

“You hate collecting samples, especially sulfur samples. Which is what they’re getting now.”

“Yeah, well I hate these guys even more.” He says it quietly enough so that they won’t be able to hear, and even if they could, both Governor Zachary and Nile are too invested in the information that the scientists are giving them to pay attention to anything else.

“What’d they ever do to you?” You push, curious now because sure, Levi has always been the surliest of the team, but it’s rare that he’s surly and loud about it.

“Nothing. They have done nothing because they don’t belong here. They have no idea—no fucking idea—what’s about to happen.” You can hear his frustration even through his whispers. “Best case scenarios? Why are we even going over those? We know damn well that we’re not looking at one or two vents. And, we’re not lookin’ at Mesa Falls either.”

Letting out a long breath, you lean against Levi’s desk, ignoring the way he grunts in protest.

“I know. I’m sure Erwin and Moblit will prep them for the worst case.”

“There’s no prepping for it,” Levi hisses, gray eyes flashing. “We’re talking about—"

“…A nationwide cataclysmic event.” Both of you register Erwin’s voice at the same time and glance at the other group to find them staring at the lit-up simulation of the Huckleberry Ridge eruption.

“Which would pretty quickly turn into a worldwide problem,” Moblit adds quietly.

“Worldwide?” You hear Nile question in a low but very alarmed tone. “Because of the ash?”

“Well, yes, but, it’s not just ash,” Erwin clarifies, diving into his explanation of tephra and how dangerous it is. He reminds the men how far it traveled after the Mount St. Helen’s eruption since they’ve apparently latched onto that one, then challenges, “Now imagine an eruption about… six hundred times that size.”

“Six…” Nile swallows, turning his entire, slender frame toward Erwin and repeating, “Six hundred times bigger? That’s what we’re expecting?”

In his little rolling chair, Levi’s chest puffs a bit, finally satisfied that the gravity of the situation is beginning to set in. “Maybe they aren’t as dumb as they look.”

Erwin is about to say something, right hand lifted with his index finger extended in a very matter-of-fact way, but before he can manage to get anything out, the door to the lab swings open and Hange walks in, Mike just behind them carrying all the collected samples in what almost looks like a lunchbox.

“We’re back—” Hange stops, taking in their surroundings, the lack of lights, the bright projection, the grim energy, then shouts, “Hey, get some Pink Floyd playing! Like a planetarium in here! Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me…”

“Dr. Zoe,” Moblit clears his throat. “We were just going over the utter devastation a supereruption could wreak on the country.”

“Oh, were you?” Hange pauses, brow rising, lips puckering into a sour expression. “My bad.”

Raising a hand to your forehead, you laugh to yourself for a few seconds before shaking the untimely amusement off and making your way over to Mike to take the sample kit from him.

“Careful,” he warns jokingly as he passes it off. “Got some very fragile gas and mud in there.”

“Yeah?” You tease. “So, I shouldn’t, like, shake it or anything?”

“Definitely should not shake it. Here, here, just—” He takes it back, grinning broadly as he tells you, “I think it’s best if you let a professional handle such dangerous compounds.”

All the doom-and-gloom you had been feeling mere seconds ago evaporates entirely, and you let out a frankly embarrassing giggle as you watch Mike very carefully set the samples down on Hange’s lab table, making a show of securing them and whispering a final, “Stay,” so that you clamp a hand over your mouth.

Levi groans in disgust, and, at the same time, Erwin mutters an apology to Zachary and Nile for, “… employing a team of children.”

Your face heats in embarrassment, but it doesn’t keep you from smiling at Mike when he saunters back over, looking rather sheepish himself.

“Lunchtime soon, right?”

“Yeah, in a bit—”

“Please go now, for the love of God,” Erwin sighs. “And, take Levi and Hange with you.”

None of you need telling twice, quickly grabbing wallets and home-packed meals before rushing from the lab before your boss decides to murder one or all of you.

Levi steers Hange toward his car, leaving you alone with Mike which you don’t mind in the slightest. You take most of your lunches with him anyway, some of your breakfasts and dinners too, so this is simply part of your daily routine.

“I’ve got some sandwiches packed already. Wanna hit Mount Haynes?” He suggests, sliding into the driver’s seat of his jeep.

You point a fingergun at him and nod. “I like the way you think, sir.”

He takes a very specific route, avoiding any damaged areas, having to veer off of the actual road at a certain point to take a safer path he and other rangers have made. You watch the mountains of the park grow closer and closer, what you know to be the ridge of Yellowstone’s caldera looming nearer.

Mike parks at the base of your intended destination then reaches into the backseat to grab the aforementioned lunch. You have no intentions of actually hiking to the top of the mountain—don’t have the time or the will, honestly—but as soon as the two of you have worked up a sweat and are at a decent enough elevation to look out on the park underneath, you drop to the dusty ground and take it all in.

Even from this distance, you can see some of the gases and steam in the air. That’s the only movement there is, though, save for the occasional ranger vehicle zipping along. The land seems almost barren at this point. The grass is still green. The sun is still bright as it is every Summer.

But, there are no animals, no tourists, no real life. Instead, it’s been replaced with cracks and crevasses, with barricades and warning signs.

Trail Closed

Road Closed

Danger: Keep Out

It’s been almost six months since the park decided to shut down to the public, and if you’re being honest, it should have closed its doors long before. It took people dying to bring the board to their senses, an earthquake that shook the ground for minutes, the crust of the earth splitting right under the historical lodge that so many loved.

Fourteen casualties. Twenty-nine injured.

That’s what it took.

You barely recognize the park now, feel like the last endangered species left within its boundaries. It’s just the research team, some of the rangers, and the occasional outside visitor (board members, government officials, or press that gets waved away).

Some would argue that the park is dead, but you know better; it’s livelier than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years, a shuddering, breathing monster finally rising to its feet after an eternity of slumber. Soon, it will open its mouth in an earth-shattering scream, and then, everyone will see.

Not dead; just waking up.

“You look tired.” Mike’s voice may as well be carried by the breeze, light and low, refreshing as it passes over you, and you flash him a smile while nodding.

“Exhausted.”

He grabs a sandwich from the lunchbox, and you fish hand sanitizer from one of the many pockets on your pants, squirting it into your hand first then holding it out to the man beside you.

“Seems like you spend more time here than at your apartment.”

“Oh, most definitely.” You unwrap what looks to be turkey and pepper-jack and try to ignore the way your stomach flips at the fact that it’s your favorite simple-sandwich-combo and that Mike remembered. “Lot to do in the lab. Obviously.” You take a bite—no mustard, only mayo—and feel some of the tension between your shoulder blades begin to unwind.

“Figure you wouldn’t want it any other way, though,” Mike comments before chomping into his own sandwich.

“Right you are. I mean, end of the world, potentially. Scary stuff, but also…” You swallow, lick your lips and stare out at the landscape in front of you as you grapple with words. “It’s like… I’m terrified, but I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be. Like…”

This is how I’m supposed to go out, you almost say, but you’re smart to keep it to yourself. That’s a thought for you and you alone, one you haven’t shared with anyone because nobody else would understand except maybe Erwin.

“This is what you’re meant to do,” Mike supplies, and you look over at him. “This is what you love. I get that.”

And, he’s right. But, the park and volcanology—those aren’t the only things you love.

Mike sits there, legs crossed like an overgrown kindergartener, shaggy hair blowing in the wind, light green eyes so, incredibly warm and bright, and it feels like you can’t breathe anymore, like your lungs and throat are already full of ash that hasn’t fallen yet, tight with dying declarations you can’t bring yourself to make.

“Have you ever heard of Katia and Maurice Krafft?” You ask, and yes, your voice does feel somewhat strangled, the space behind your eyes burning just a little hotter than usual.

Mike shakes his head, takes another bite, and gives you his undivided attention.

“They were these French volcanologists who got really famous for the pictures and footage they took of erupting volcanoes. The recordings they got for the community were—I mean, they were pioneers. They changed the game. There’s photos and videos of them just—” you gesture nebulously with both your hands, nearly flinging your sandwich off the side of the mountain and making Mike reach out and catch your wrist before you can.

“Please, no feeding the park’s wildlife, ma’am,” he jokes easily, and you have to shove the sandwich into your mouth to keep from giggling like a schoolgirl. Mike shows the smallest of satisfied smiles, completely unaware of his own charm, and it’s maddening and intoxicating, and it’s all you can do to keep talking about the brave scientists.

“Anyway,” you continue. “Katia would get, like, within feet of lava flows. Just walkin’ right beside ‘em in her special heat suit. And, they’d wear protective helmets because of, you know—”

“Explosions. Falling rocks.”

 “Yeah, exactly. They were just there, documenting it all happening, nerves of fucking steel. Katia was usually the one gathering samples and stuff while Maurice recorded, but he was right in the thick of it too. This badass couple learning and adventuring together.”

Mike eventually questions, “What happened to them?” but you’re sure he knows the answer when you deflate a bit.

“Mount Unzen eruption—got caught in the pyroclastic flow. Died instantly.”

“At least they were doing what they loved,” he says, and you nod.

You’re silent for a while, neither of you eating but both of you staring. You think about the Kraffts often, especially now with Yellowstone’s imminent eruption. Doing what they loved… They died for their research, and though you never got the chance to meet them or even speak with anyone who has met them, you have a feeling they wouldn’t have wanted it to happen any other way.

“Just so you know,” Mike gets your attention, and when you look over at him, your heart swells.

The sun is reflected in his eyes, making light green glow with more than just warmth and sincerity, and god, you’re so in love with him, you can feel it in your bone marrow. You ache for him, you pine for him, and you want to live for him, but how…

“I’d film you walking next to a lava flow,” he tells you. Despite the little smile playing at his lips, you know he isn’t kidding.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes, and you have to look away before any actually fall, but your sniffle definitely gives you away. You swear internally, berating yourself for getting emotional in front of Mike, though you can’t say you’re too surprised. Your stress levels have been through the roof, working non-stop for months now, the government breathing down your neck. People have died and the park is literally fracturing before your eyes, and you’re not ready to see it end—to see everything as you know it come to an end.

“Pretty dusty up here,” Mike comments while nudging you. You find him holding out a handkerchief, letting you take it then turning his gaze forward again to allow you a little privacy to dab at your eyes.

Mike has senses beyond the normal human spectrum. He has a sense for weather unlike anyone you’ve ever seen before, from thunderstorms and tornadoes to record snowfall and, on a few occasions, earthquakes. You can still vividly remember being in the lab the day of the fatal quake that damaged the hotel, seeing Mike suddenly look at the seismogram seconds before it started picking up the first tremors. Levi had called it “freakish”, but you had called him “incredible”.

It’s not just the weather, though. Mike has a way with people and animals too, like he can gauge their emotions and act appropriately. It’s how he knows what days he can push Levi’s buttons and get away with it, how he knows when Hange is too busy and overwhelmed to gather samples themself, so he gathers some for them.

And, it’s how he knows exactly when he needs to pull you into a hug, like when the team realized the chances of a small to moderate eruption were next to nothing, like when he had told you how many of those hotel guests had gotten hurt and died and you’d stared at him with wide, watery eyes, and like right now, as you think about Katia and Maurice Krafft, the fate they met and how yours might not be any different.

Will you die doing what you love? Will you be able to welcome it as bravely as they did?

You rest your head on Mike’s shoulder, letting yourself melt into his side, his arm sturdy and grounding where it wraps around you, and as you look out over the sunlit grounds, one last question plagues your mind:

Does a pyroclastic flow burn as hot as the molten feelings inside of you?

You can’t imagine anything does.

1  Y E A R  B E F O R E

The message is broadcasted straight from the state capitol, Levi's expression grim as he reads off the paper hidden on the podium. 

"I know all of this sounds apocalyptic—the ash and blackouts and probable climate change, and it is scary, but we still have some time, so there's no reason to panic. We just urge that if you haven't already started preparing, now's the time. Please."

A couple steps behind him and a little to the right is Erwin, standing tall and nodding at everything Levi says as if he's providing some kind of credibility. 

"Considering we're looking at a VEI eight, the team of volcanologists at Yellowstone have recommended that all of Wyoming and its neighboring states evacuate, but I'll let Homeland Security go over all that."

As he turns to step back, the crowd of reporters and journalists begin shouting out questions, and Levi grimaces as he moves to stand next to Erwin who places a hand in his shoulder. 

You can't hear everything being asked from where you're watching at the lab, but you can't imagine it's anything good judging by the way Levi's frown just keeps growing. 

Fortunately, the vaguely familiar secretary of Homeland Security, Dot Pixis, takes the stand quickly, holding up wrinkled hands in an attempt to calm the crowd. 

"We have some more very important information to cover in this address, so if you'll allow me…" He clears his throat and straightens a stack of papers on the podium, no doubt a huge list of protocols that the public will only half listen to. 

You swivel back and forth in your chair as you watch the thin man on screen, his voice scratchy but strangely soothing as he outlines rationing, supply storage, and evacuation routes. 

"We're also negotiating with our neighboring countries about opening borders. Now, anyone seeking refuge would still be required to fill out an application for a temporary visa, but—"

"God, you know they gotta love that," you mumble to yourself. 

Hange, tinkering somewhere behind you, laughs and agrees, "Yeah, after decades of treating immigrants like trash, and now we're just knocking on their doors, asking for help. Ridiculous."

"Embarrassing, is what it is." 

It was for whichever government official had to make that call, anyway. You're positive that had been a hard pill to swallow. 

As far as you've heard, the foreign affairs part of this mess is actually going quite well. You'd accompanied Erwin to the big meeting with Canadian officials and watched him and Pixis plead a case for America, emphasizing just how bad the eruption will be "at home", then switched tactics at whiplash speed to go into how countries needed to work together since this wouldn't just be the US's problem in the long run. 

It turned into a rather inspiring speech, if you're being honest, prompted you to text Levi a short, how is E so damn charming all the time? to which he'd responded, Believe me, you're asking the wrong fuckin guy. 

With multiple government agencies now backing the states and setting plans in motion, the impending eruption seems even more real. You thought your stress levels were high before, that your sleep pattern left little to be desired, but oh, you had been wrong. 

Case in point being Mike walking into the lab with a brown paper bag and slightly unpleasant expression as he asks, "Have you eaten today?" 

Your glare has no real meaning as you grumble, "Had a granola bar this morning."

"It's nearly six," he groans, pushing you, chair and all, up to your desk and setting the bag in front of you. "Please eat something before you pass out."

"Okay, okay, Christ. You're more attentive than my mother."

"I met your mom last year, and you and I both know she would be hysterical if she knew how you've been treating yourself lately."

He has a point. In fact, you're glad Mike is naturally quiet and didn't bond too strongly with her, otherwise you have a feeling he would have called her by now to complain. 

The chicken salad sandwich you bite into must be imbued with some kind of magic, because you let out an honest to god moan when you swallow the first bite. 

"Oh my god, what did you put in this?" You ask as you blink up at your best friend. 

Mike snorts and rolls his eyes. "Uh, actual nutrients maybe? Weird how your body needs those."

Hands too busy shoving more food into your mouth, you headbutt him right at the hip, just hard enough to make him grunt and sway. He steadies himself, glances down at you like he's annoyed but ends up breaking into a grin when he catches what you assume to be a piece of chicken salad dotting the corner of your mouth. 

"What am I gonna do with you," he mumbles, wiping it with a gentle thumb. 

Your body warms with both embarrassment and affection, but you can't quite find a response even as your head clears for the first time in about two days. You really do need to start taking better care of yourself. 

The undeniable feeling of being watched makes your neck prickle, and you break Mike's gaze to find Hange staring at both of you, a not-so-subtle smile making their mouth curl mischievously. You have a pretty good idea of what they're thinking, and you're heart starts beating a little faster at the thought of them possibly speaking it out loud, but before they get a chance, Mike's phone rings. 

You catch a glimpse of the name displayed before he picks it up—Gelgar—recognize it and tease, "One of the doomsday preppers, right?" 

Because no matter how much Mike denies it, just like he does now— "They're not doomsday preppers—" you know that his friends are a little odd. Extremely well prepared, but odd. 

"Hey man, what's up?" He answers, stepping away from you. "Isn't it almost two there?" 

You don't try to listen in, just look back to Hange and shake your head when their smile grows. 

"Stop."

"What?" They giggle. "I'm not even doing anything!" 

"You're thinking things, though."

"Well yeah, I'm always thinking things. How else would I have gotten this smart?" They flip their ponytail for emphasis and toss a wink your way, but Hange's voice gets oddly sincere when they tell you, "Seriously, though. You guys should get while the getting's good. I don't know why you haven't jumped each other's bones yet."

You splutter, look around frantically to make sure Mike isn't within earshot, and thank god, he's in the next room over. 

"Hange!" 

"I'm just saying! It's like watching Erwin and Levi from a few years ago. God, that was a nightmare."

"How dare you. I am nothing like—"

"Yeah, yeah. When do they get back in anyway?" 

You both look to the TV that's still playing the live address, easily spotting your missing team members behind Secretary Pixis. 

"Probably not 'til later tonight. Levi's gonna try to talk Erwin into getting a hotel, I bet, but he's gonna wanna come back to the lab and check everything before he goes to bed."

"How do you know he wants to come back?" 

You show a sheepish grin, fishing the chips out of the paper sack Mike brought, then answer, "'Cause that’s what I’d wanna do."

*

It's late. Far too late to be at work, but being at home never feels right these days. It's too quiet, too still, too not the lab. The only time you genuinely enjoy being there is when friends are over for a movie or meal over the weekend. Other than that, you're not at all attached. 

Not the way you are here.

Almost midnight, you move from table to table, working, organizing, just keeping busy. You're very awake, still jittery from the quake that shook the park at around three that day. It lasted for almost three minutes, splitting the ground dangerously close to Old Faithful, and the geyser hasn't gone off since which is troubling. If too many of the geothermal spots stop releasing pressure, the eruption will take place sooner than anticipated. 

It's why you're here so late, pouring over the data, studying the numbers and possible effects. 

You're not alone, though. Erwin is also shuffling around the lab, but he's focused on something else, a project of sorts. 

"Can you come take a look at this?" He calls from the projection table, and you drop what you're doing to join him. 

The model isn't lit up as a hologram, surprisingly. Instead, Erwin has paper blueprints laid, curling at the edges from being rolled up. It takes you a second to realize what you're looking at, but when it comes together, you inhale sharply. 

It's a simple design, a square floorplan with a couple entrances. The only exit looks to lead upward, though, and it's easy to tell that means Erwin wants this to be underground. There are notes scribbled in the blank spaces, 4 meters down, bomb proof top, ventilation, generators, gasoline?, rations < 5yrs, medicine, vitamins, guns. The list goes on, handwriting sloppier and sloppier the more thoughts Erwin had at the time. 

"You think this would be ready in a year?"

Erwin shrugs. "With the right construction team, yes. That one bunker designer…" Erwin snaps, trying to think of the name, but it doesn't come to him. "Whoever—He built ten shelters in two years." 

You stick your hands in your back pockets as you lean over to look closer. It could just be your overworked brain, but it looks like a good design, something someone actually has a chance of surviving in. 

Hearing your name makes you look up again. Erwin has you pinned with one of his serious blue gazes. "No one else will understand, so please keep this plan to yourself."

You nod but venture to ask, "You haven't told Levi?" 

"No," he answers, mouth pulling downward. "It's… Going to be a fight."

"Understandably so. You're basically married to the volcano, though, Erwin."

"So are you."

His eyes are shining as your lips twist into a grimace. He's gotten to know you well over the years. You've always shared a certain bond over Yellowstone, one the other team members just don't have. To them, it's just a job, just science. 

To you and Erwin, though, it's a religion. You're in love with the park, all its secrets and eccentricities. It's your home; it's where you belong. 

"Assuming this does get built," Erwin starts, lifting a thick eyebrow in curiosity. "You would want to stay, right?" 

"You mean, ride out a supereruption? Be the first to see the zone-one damage?" 

Erwin doesn't answer, but he does smile, excitement dancing just below the surface of his stare. 

You feel it too, the urge to throw caution to the wind, to take a chance that could very possibly get you both killed. The Kraffts flash through your mind again, their failed attempt at escape.

A breathless, "Fuck yeah," tumbles from your mouth before you can dwell on the consequences for too long. 

It's time to either live it up or go down in ash and flames. 

6  M O N T H S  B E F O R E 

Yellowstone is unrecognizable. The ground is mostly made up of large crevasses and smaller cracks, debris from fallen buildings left in piles with no one to clean them up. 

The geysers are all inactive at this point, but steam is still rising from the springs, and the mudpots are still bubbling. It's the only thing that's keeping the volcano from erupting. 

The ground shakes multiple times a day, the lab seismographs constantly picking up activity. The little ones don't faze you anymore. You and Mike secure the glass samples to make sure they don't break while Erwin and Levi basically hug their computers. Yours was damaged in the quake that prompted Hange and Moblit to leave—a 6.7 that caused Hange to fall into their desk, breaking their collarbone in the process. After getting Hange pain meds and a sling, the two of them were on a plane to D.C. that same night. 

Every day is another risk taken. Now, it's just you, Erwin, Levi, and Mike. 

The latter two spend most of their days dropping hints about leaving soon as well. Mike has already made plans to fly to Norway and join his not-doomsday prepper friends and brings it up often.

"You should come. See the tulip fields while they're still around."

"Gel and Nana have done a great job setting up the ranch. They wanna let as many people stay as they can." 

"You'd really like them. They bicker like an old married couple, but they're good people."

Levi takes a different approach with Erwin, appeals to the other man's desire to help and protect. 

"We really should head to the homeland security office. They don't know what they're dealing with."

"Dok is an idiot. They need a bigger brain over there for guidance or whatever."

"Your long-term plan will be better than anything those government fucks will come up with anyway."

Every time, you and Erwin gently wave them off with promises of "soon" and "just a little longer." Neither of you breathe a word about staying. Despite the fact that construction on the bunker has not started and you're running out of time, both of you are dead set on the plan: go down with the park. 

You're found out before it can come to fruition, however. 

The remaining team is sitting in the lab, busy with their own little projects, when Mike looks up suddenly, takes a deep breath, then says, "Earthquake," just as the seismogram starts going wild. 

He pulls you from your chair quickly, dropping to the ground and bringing you with him to crawl under your desk. On your knees, your body curls in on itself and you lock your hands over the back of your neck as the floor beneath you starts to rumble violently. 

You can hear Levi cursing from somewhere as the sound of glass shattering rings throughout the lab. You think another computer falls, models and books flying from shelves. 

Mike huddles over you, one hand gripping the leg of the desk while the other protects your ribs. You want to tell him to shield himself, but you know there's no use. Besides, the weight and warmth is comforting even in the face of danger—his chest hot against your back, the epitome of a knight in shining armor. 

It lasts for several minutes. The power cuts off, windows crack, doors swing open only to slam shut again. You know the lab is going to be an absolute wreck when it's over. 

When the shaking finally settles, everyone crawls out of their hiding places. Levi warns, "Be ready for aftershocks," as if you don't know, and Erwin fumbles in his desk until he finds a flashlight. 

The ray of light illuminates the damage. Just as you suspected, the place looks like a tornado blew through. Glass litters the floor along with the far-flung books and park models. Both Levi and Erwin's computers fell and disconnected, and your stomach drops as you think about all the potentially lost information. 

"You okay?" Mike asks, pulling you up to your knees so he can look at your face. 

"I'm fine," you tell him, his hands on your cheeks making you flush, so you distract yourself. "E, Levi, you guys okay?" 

"Yes," Erwin answers first. 

Levi shows his face, a deep frown making his brow furrow, as he looks at his desktop. "I'm pissed but uninjured."

The four of you spend the next couple of hours cleaning up what you can, pausing and taking cover when the aftershocks hit, then starting over as the lab sustains more and more damage. 

Mike sweeps up the glass. Erwin focuses on getting the computers back on the desks safely then goes and checks the projection table. You and Levi collect the bigger items, setting books back on shelves. 

You don't think about the mistake before it's too late, when Levi is already pulling out the blueprints that were hidden behind the stack of encyclopedias. 

As he stills completely, you turn to look at him and find him staring down at the large, uncurled papers. Your instinct is to snatch them from his hands, but it's no use. He's already seen enough. 

"What the fuck is this?" His voice comes out like poison as he immediately looks at Erwin. 

The larger man glances at Levi, eyes trailing to what he's holding, then pales. 

"Levi..."

"Is this a god damn bunker? Are you planning on staying in this hellscape?" 

Erwin strides over to him and reaches for the prints, but Levi tugs them out of reach. 

"Answer me," he spits. "Is that your plan?"

"I—" Erwin swallows thickly before answering, "Yes."

It's silent for a long time, and the more it drags on, the tighter Levi's lips get, gray eyes shiny with quiet rage. 

This is what Erwin was trying to avoid, why he insisted on keeping the bunker a secret. 

But while Levi is glaring at Erwin, you feel another gaze on you. Skin crawling, you chance a glance up at Mike, stomach churning when he looks away quickly and bites his lips. He knows. Somehow without anyone saying anything, Mike knows you’re planning to stay too.

Heavy breathing and the distant sound of rumbling earth is all that can be heard, followed by backup generators roaring to life and restoring the overhead lights. 

"You too?" Mike finally speaks. “You wanna stay too?”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, unable to answer. He sounds so disappointed—defeated—and it makes you feel sick. 

"Do you guys know," Levi growls, "How fucking insane that is? This is the dumbest, most reckless, selfish fucking thing you could do! And, I know it's all your thinking!" He drops the blueprints in favor of shoving Erwin roughly, making him stumble back. 

"Hey," you step toward him, but the small man just turns to you and accuses, "And, you egged him on, yeah? Did you even think of us? How we would feel? Staying here is suicide!"

"I have a plan, Levi," Erwin says, raising both hands to his head and effectively disheveling his own hair. "If you just look at the plans. I know what we need to survive. I've done the math, I've studied the—"

"Jesus Christ, we're talking about an eight hundred degree pyroclastic flow! Tephra that will suffocate you. You really think being a few meters down during the eruption will be enough?" Levi is screaming now, his voice cracking, and you think you see tears at his waterline. 

It makes the spaces behind your eyes burn, but it’s only partly out of guilt. The other emotion that’s welling up in you is anger, a betrayal you can barely wrap your head around, but it comes tumbling out anyway.

“Do you even know us? You think we can actually leave the park behind?” Your voice rises to match Levi’s, gains his acidic attention once again. “I don’t even understand how you can run away, after everything you’ve put into this place! How can you just—” You let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a cry as you raise your hands to your face and shove your palms to your eyes. “I get Mike because he doesn’t have anything fucking left here. He’s just been helping out—”

“You think I don’t have anything left here?” He asks quietly from beside you, and when you look at him with a watery stare, you find him wounded. His jaw slides forward as he sucks on his teeth, and fuck, his eyes are getting glossy too. 

“See, this is exactly what I mean,” Levi gestures wildly at the two of you. “Mike and I have stayed because you guys won’t fucking leave, and now it comes out that you were never planning to. When were you gonna tell us? Would you have even given us enough time to get out?”

“Of course!” Erwin takes him by the shoulders, and Levi snarls up at him. “I was working up to it. I wasn’t ready to—to deal with this.”

“I can’t believe this. You really think a whole team of workers is gonna come out here to help build this? You wanna put their lives in jeopardy too?”

“We—”

“You haven’t even thought this through all the way! When did you come up with this? When you hadn’t slept or eaten in forty-eight hours? When your brain wasn’t fucking functioning at full capacity?”

Erwin stays quiet, and so do you because Levi has a point. Taking care of yourselves physically has not been high on either of your lists of priorities, and you’re sure your mental state has suffered for it. All the nights spent at the projection table, mapping out ideas, growing giddy over the idea of staying for the eruption. Was that just two people high off passion, becoming more and more unhinged with each passing day?

Quite possibly. 

You expect the fury to be enough to push Levi away, that he’ll simply give up, drag Mike out with him, and leave you and Erwin to hunker down like you’d planned.

But, that is not the case. 

Instead, he shoves a thin finger into Erwin’s chest, gritting out, “Pack your fucking bags so we can go to D.C. where they need you.”

Erwin takes a breath then slumps in defeat. Now, when faced with the obstacle that is his boyfriend, you figure he’s weighed the pros and cons and made a decision. Between his love for the park and his love for Levi, he’d rather salvage the latter. 

Mike shifts next to you, grumbles out a low, “You too,” that makes the tears finally fall from your eyes. “I’ll take you on one last ride to the springs, but then we’re leaving.”

He stays true to his word, and you cry the entire time you’re in the chopper, headset smushed against one ear as you rest your head on the window and look down at the Grand Prismatic, the steam rising from it. It’s beginning to grow discolored with all the activity, but it’s more stunning now than it’s ever been. 

Soon, it’ll be completely covered. All of it will. And, you could have been too, stuck underground for a couple of years only to be the first to step out into the pure destruction. 

That’s not an option anymore, though, not with Mike looking as grave as he does, not with the way he shadows you in your apartment as you gather the necessities, like he thinks you’re going to bolt and run back to the lab, not when the two of you meet back up with a still-fuming Levi and a despondent Erwin to head to the airport.

The tickets are outrageously priced at such short notice, but that doesn’t stop Levi and Mike from passing their credit cards over.

“Two for Washington D.C.”

“And, two for Bergen, Norway.”

Boarding passes in hand, the four of you walk through the bustling airport together for as long as you can before you have to inevitably split up. Levi glares at you but still pulls you into a tight hug, grunts into your ear, “You’re so stupid,” before letting go and turning to Mike. “Keep her safe, boy scout. I’m trusting you.”

Mike nods, and both of them clasp hands as you turn to look at Erwin. Tears and pathetic sniffles return when you walk into his open arms, clinging to him and mumbling, “‘M sorry, ‘m sorry. I would’ve followed you.”

“I know.” He rubs your back and heaves a sigh. “I know you would have.”

He eventually disentangles you to hold you at arm’s length, wipes the moisture from your face with his thumbs, then shows a sad smile. “See you in a few years, yes?”

“Yeah.”

One more squeeze, and everyone turns away to walk to their respective gate. Mike’s hand splays across your back, warm, guiding you in the right direction, keeping you steady. He’s always kept your feet planted firmly on the ground. You figure, if there’s one person you’d like to experience the downfall of society with—above ground—it’s him. 

S I X  W E E K S  B E F O R E

Norway is kind of incredible. It has a natural beauty that takes your breath away just like Yellowstone used to, but it’s vastly different. Everything is green, including the lights in the sky at night. You’re surrounded by rolling hills and mountains, and you just know it’ll be beautiful under thick layers of snow. 

The once rustic ranch, now restored, is made up of several small houses and a farm full of cows and goats. It’s sad to think about the fate they will eventually meet (slaughter then stomachs), but you know it’s necessary to prepare for the coming years.

And, the owners have definitely prepared. 

Gelgar and Nanaba are everything Mike described and more. Between taking care of the farm and setting up energy sources, they do their best to make you and the other arrivals feel at home. They’ve designed the ranch to house up to about thirty people, a commune of sorts (minus any cult-like vibes). Naturally, everyone pitches in and helps around the place. You find yourself cleaning a lot, but you don’t mind. It’s a nice, mindless task that keeps you from thinking too hard about everything you’ve left behind. 

You also like to join Nana outside, help with the animals and enjoy the sunshine while you still can. Of course, this subjects you to endless teasing especially today when she catches you staring into the distance at Mike who's helping Gelgar fix a solar panel. 

His shirt is starting to stick to his back from sweating, muscles straining under the damp cloth, and good lord, when did he get that broad? Sure, he's always been tall and fit, but working on the homestead has definitely made him more built. That along with the fact that his hair has gotten long enough to tie up in a bun has your mouth going a little dry. 

"Like what you see?" Nanaba asks, accent thick, voice full of amusement. 

You shoot her a look, face all scrunched up when you mumble, "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh?" She sticks her tongue out. "Don't be coy. I see the way you both look at each other."

"Tch." 

"And, how both of you volunteer to cook with the other when it's your turn to. You move around each other like you know exactly where the other is. Two halves of a whole."

You roll your eyes. "We've just worked together for a while. We make a good team."

She's not wrong, though. Since coming to Norway, you and Mike have grown even closer. There was a period of time when you could hardly look at him, too guilty for trying to stay at the park, guilty for hurting him, but eventually the two of you fell back into your normal dynamic—joking, laughing, touching just a little too much, smiling when you think no one's looking. You even spent an afternoon together in a nearby field of flowers, just like he'd promised. With a picnic basket full of food, and a blanket to lay on, you'd admired the clouds overhead while enjoying the rustling grass surrounding you. 

It's been your favorite day since coming here, had reminded you of the lunches you used to share on the mountain. 

You're not brave enough to make any sort of move, though. Mike is just so good. There's a chance his affections are simply based in friendship, and that's something you're scared to ruin. He means too much to you. 

"How long did you work together?"

"Like, four years, give or take a few months."

"And, you're still acting like nothing is there?" Nanaba tsks. "Ridiculous."

"How long did it take you and Gel to get together?" You ask, then quickly backtrack, "Not that that's what I want with Mike necessarily."

"Mhm," she smirks. "Gel and I did it backwards. Got pissed at a bar and fell into bed together. Then we started to get to know each other and found out we just worked."

Sounds about right, you think. The couple has an interesting back-and-forth, half bickering, half innuendo. You can always, always see the love in their eyes, though. That's what you want in life. That’s what you want with Mike. Even if you won't admit it out loud. 

You turn your gaze back to the roof he and Gelgar are on just in time to see him making his way down the ladder. Once on the ground, he and the other man start striding over to you. Mike's face is red, sweat beading at his hairline, and Gelgar's pompadour is beginning to fall. 

"Think we got it fixed up," Mike announces, lifting the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe his forehead. 

You stare at his toned stomach for just a little too long, the lines of his hip bones leading into the waistband of his jeans. 

Nanaba's words ring in your head again—fell into bed, fell into bed, fell into bed—and you fixate on the idea of you and Mike doing the same. To have him hovering over you, or maybe you over him, thighs on either side of those hips as his hands trail up your body—

You shake the thought from your head, letting your glazed eyes refocus on the men in front of you. 

"Alright, I'm gonna grab a shower before dinner. Who's cooking tonight?"

“I believe it's Lynne and Henning," Nana answers. 

Mike nods then heads toward the little house he's been living in, right next to yours, of course. He reaches out to let his hand brush yours as he passes, and it takes conscious effort not to grip onto one or two of his large fingers and follow him. 

"God, that's painful to watch," Gelgar snorts. 

Nana laughs and agrees, "I was just telling her the same thing."

"Oh, shut up. Ya' couple of meddlers."

*

A line forms every evening outside of the main house, the one Gelgar and Nanaba share. You and Mike stand together at the back, watching everyone in front of you. Some are families, some are couples, some are here alone. You figure, no matter their status, the ranch is a nice place to be—peaceful, home-y despite its size. So far, everyone gets along. 

Only the kids complain about chores, about seven of them constantly running around together, but that’s to be expected, and honestly, you don’t mind picking up their slack. Life is about to get very difficult for them. They should get to be children for a little while longer. 

Potato soup is poured into your bowl with a ladle, topped with shredded beef and green onions, then you and Mike retire back to your little cottage home to eat and watch TV. It stays on the same channel, world news, and there’s always a long segment that covers Yellowstone and what it’s doing. 

It is not uncommon at all to look up from your food and see Erwin or Levi’s face on screen, speaking with experts, sometimes in interview-like settings.

Tonight, they’re covering a problem that’s been going on for some time, but everyone figured would resolve itself: some people will not leave the most dangerous zones, and it’s because they simply do not believe an eruption will take place. 

Even with the evidence, the science backing it—even with actual federal authorities knocking on their doors and telling them to leave—there are many people who just want to stay put. It’s insane to you, makes your blood boil. Children have been taken from their homes to be placed in safer areas, which only causes the disbelievers to get angrier. They want to say “I told you so”, but that’s not going to happen. 

What’s going to happen is getting burned alive in the flow that pours from the volcano. They will die a painful death, get buried under meters of fallout, ash, snow. There’ll be nothing to recover except for petrified, charred corpses. 

Of course, the irony is not lost on you; you and Erwin were both willing to chance similar fates, but you still think the two of you would have been more prepared than these regular-Joes who think their front door is enough to stop a volcanic eruption. 

“In the end, there’s no reasoning with people like this,” Erwin says on camera, a soft, sad smile playing at his lips. “When a person is so, uh… Dead set on staying, it will take an unstoppable force to move them.”

In your case, that unstoppable force had been Levi screaming at you while holding back tears. 

“Unfortunately for them, this force is the eruption, and they won’t be able to leave when that occurs.”

“Because they’ll be dead,” the reporter states more than asks.

Erwin nods and answers with a grim, “Yes. Yes, they will be.”

They’re not trying to be subtle, obviously hoping that this will get through to the stubborn masses, but you doubt it will. They’re living on borrowed time at this point. Any day could be their last.

Mike is quieter than usual as he eats, barely even looking at the television screen, and you have a feeling he’s thinking about how close you were to staying alongside those stupid assholes. It’s still a touchy subject, one both of you do your best to avoid. You’re mostly happy to be in Europe, spending your days with Mike and his friends and everyone else running around here. 

But, there’s also a part of you, deep down inside, that aches, that misses the park, that still wants to be right in the middle of the destruction. Watching it blow from so far away is going to hurt. This massive monster you’ve fallen in love with over the years will never be the same, and your last good look at it was that tearful helicopter ride. 

You’re not resentful toward Mike or Levi for dragging you out of the lab that day, but you are grieving in a sense. 

The program ends with Erwin giving one last warning— “If you insist on staying, I’d advise bomb-proofing your home, stocking up on several years-worth of rations, and installing one hell of a ventilation system. Good luck.”

Mike clears his throat and stands, grabbing his empty bowl as well as yours, then heads into the kitchen to rinse them off. 

Sighing, you follow him, lean against the counter a couple feet away as you think of something to say that won’t sound too forced.

“Hey,” you start.

Mike gives a low, “Hm?” as he holds the dishes under hot water, finally glancing over when you gently nudge him in the side.

“Thanks for…” You take a deep breath, pinned by light green eyes, then try again. “Thanks for bringing me here.” He blinks but doesn’t say anything, so you continue. “It’s really nice. And, I’ve bonded or whatever with Nana.”

“But, you miss the park,” he says.

You shrug. “I mean, yeah. That park was my life, but… Probably dying in it was not one of my brighter ideas.”

He snorts, shuts off the water, then turns to you. Craning your neck, you take in his face—really take it in—the few strands of hair that hang freely past his jawline, the way his beard, no longer stubble but not exactly thick, forms around his mouth and connects with his sideburns, his strong, slightly curved nose, how his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. He’s so painfully handsome, especially all shaggy and rugged, and it makes your heart beat too hard and too fast in your chest. 

Mike dries his hands on a dish towel, looking down at them when he tells you, “I’m glad we were able to get you out of there. It’s not something I’ll ever feel bad about. Even if you hate me for it.”

“I don’t hate you,” you scoff. “Never could. You’re my best friend, Mike.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you smile, then think of Nanaba earlier that day and laugh quietly. 

“What?”

You wave a hand, shake your head. “Nothing, nothing, just… Nana has… Ideas, or something.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Mike understands what you’re trying to say. He inhales then breathes out it out in a chuckle as he posts up against the counter next to you. “Yeah, Gelgar does too.”

“Guess they don’t know us very well.”

A silence hangs between the two of you, one that would normally be comfortable but is now a little thick given the subject matter of your conversation.

You and Mike. Just earlier that day you had been thinking about how scared you are to ruin the friendship, but the more you imagine, the more you get lost in the fantasy…

“Or maybe…” You glance over to see Mike nibbling on his bottom lip, eyes fixed on the ground as he continues, “Maybe they know us better than we know ourselves.”

He raises his head, gaze locking with yours, and you stop breathing. Because that stare is so hesitant, searching for something inside of you as if you have the answer, but you’re just as scared and confused as he is. Over four years of friendship—of good, meaningful friendship—is that worth risking just because you’re both curious? 

Or has it all been leading to this since the start? Since those first, short conversations, since the meals shared with one another, the affectionate gestures. Mike has always kept your head on straight, looked after you with even more care than he had with the park’s wildlife. 

You thought it’d all been one-sided pining, that he was just glad to have someone who understood him a little better than everyone else because you do. You understand his passion for the planet, you understand all his little fixations. You appreciate every eccentricity like he appreciates all your neuroses. 

“Maybe so…” 

Two very large hands are on your face, tilting upward, and your lungs begin to burn as Mike strokes just under your eyes with the pads of his thumbs. He has to lean down quite a bit, pauses just over your lips to let out a tiny huff of surprise, disbelief, awe maybe, then closes the rest of the miniscule distance. 

He is very warm and very firm against you—feels good, all the comfort of someone familiar but still so new. Your lips fit together perfectly, and at last, you’re able to breathe again, mouths moving in an experimental back and forth, feeling each other out until he runs the tip of his tongue along the seam of your lips. Gripping strong shoulders, you let the kiss deepen, opening your mouth for him, and Mike groans when he’s finally able to taste you. 

Hands fall from your face, moving down, down, down, brushing your ribs, settling at your hips, but his fingers are long enough to curl and dig into the meat of your ass, making you gasp and press harder against him.

Rolling his pelvis into yours, you very quickly find yourself pinned between Mike’s body and the counter. Your grasp travels to the back of his neck, pulling him closer—you just need him closer—and he must feel it too because he hoists you up and sets you on the countertop, making room for himself between your legs.

You feel too hot and too desperate, but it’s good, a release that’s needed to happen for far too long. All manner of geothermal metaphors swim through your mind, spurting geysers and boiling mudpots, and it makes you giggle against him, biting down on his bottom lip and smiling around the flesh as he lets out another one of those rumbling, satisfied noises. 

“What’re you laughin’ at?” Mike mumbles, and for some reason, it’s strange to hear his voice so close, so quiet, as you’re pressed together, breathing each other’s air. It’s intimate and different, but it’s right. 

“I’m just…” Another little laugh, “Thinking about the volcano.”

“When are you not thinking about the volcano?” You have a feeling he’s rolling his eyes, but he still grins and kisses you again.

“It’s all dirty things if that helps.”

Mike nods slowly, lips trailing from your mouth toward your neck. “Helps some.”

You tilt your head to give him better access and let out a little whine when you feel him bite down on a patch of skin just beneath the notch of your jaw, wrap your legs around his waist and do your best to rock into him because good god, you want him. 

Fingers tangling under his loosening bun, you tug him back to your mouth, slotting your lips against his and sliding your tongue between his teeth. He presses you closer with a hand on the small of your back, squeezing the air from your lungs so all you can breathe is him. 

“Mm, Mike, Mike,” you pant, barely breaking away only for him to chase after. You laugh, push his chest at the same time you gently tug at his hair, and he backs away just enough for you to get a good look at his half-lidded eyes and spit-slicked lips. 

Honestly, staring at him now, you can’t believe you made so long without ever making a pass at him. He’s gorgeous, built like a roman statue only larger, with sun-kissed skin and a startlingly light gaze that threatens to leave you boneless. 

“D’you wanna, maybe…” You swallow and blink up at him, too many questions suddenly invading your mind—is it too early for sex? Will he think you’re easy? What if it doesn’t actually work out? But, you bite the bullet anyway and finish, “Go to the bedroom?” 

Mike is silent for a few beats, leaving you to second guess yourself and brace for disappointment and embarrassment, but then he clicks his tongue and answers, “Uh, yeah. Yes, let’s do that,” in a voice a little higher than usual, and scoops you from the counter.

Every little house on the ranch is laid out the same, so it does not take him long to find your room. He sets you down at the threshold, and from there, it’s a flurry of discarded clothing and stumbling to the bed.

“How have we never done this before?” He huffs, crawling over you, leaving wet kisses in his wake. 

You’ve still got an arm covering your bare chest, but Mike doesn’t seem self-conscious in the slightest which comes as a surprise considering how reserved he typically is. Not that he has anything worth hiding—not the thin layer of hair that dances over his barrel chest, not the ridiculously cut abdominals or sharp ‘V’ of his hips, and definitely not the thick cock bobbing against his stomach as he moves. You would be intimidated if you didn’t know him as well as you do, but you’re sure that he’ll be gentle with you. Mike may be many things, but careless is not one of them.

He reaches your mouth, kisses you so deeply it makes you dizzy, and as he does, he very slowly pulls your arm from your chest, leaving you vulnerable—free for the taking. 

His touch is soft enough to tickle as he brushes over one of your nipples, making you exhale against him and arch your back like a silent plea for more. He traces around the bud, makes it pebble before carefully rolling it between two fingers.

Warmth spills into your gut, makes you squirm on the bed, and a moan makes its way from your throat as Mike gently tugs at the sensitive flesh. He lowers his head again, lavishing the same kind of attention on your other nipple with his mouth. He nibbles and licks and sucks, and you wriggle and whimper beneath him, one hand trailing down his body until you’re able to close your fingers around the head of his cock. 

Mike grunts, thrusts into your hand a couple times, enough to make precum drool from his tip, but before he can get too carried away, he says just above a whisper, “Let me get you ready,” then moves to lay between your spread legs.

Sliding his arms under your thighs, he locks them into place, and you release a shaky breath, feeling his eyes taking you in for several seconds before licking up your slit once then pushing deeper.

“Oh, fu—”

Both your hands shoot downward, one gripping the messy bun at the back of his head as you shudder at the sensation of his beard against your pussy. You’re wet in seconds, core pulsing as Mike uses his tongue to slowly open you up, then pulls back to flick over your clit. 

“Mike—Mike—”

He hums into you, shaking his head slowly back and forth, no doubt making a mess of his face and you. You don’t have anything to say, just feel your throat tightening like there are unspoken words that need to come out, but you can’t think straight, not when he’s doing what he’s doing, not when you feel the tips of his fingers reaching out to spread your lips. 

He is thorough bordering on methodical, makes sure you’re at the point of full body shakes before he gives you a break, and then, when your breathing returns to a normal rate, he starts all over again. There is a tightness in your gut that builds and builds then dissipates every time he stops, and he must know because when you whine in frustration, Mike just grins and kisses the inside of your thighs. 

The same pattern is repeated with his fingers, just one at first, massaging your walls perfectly, then a second that makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. He rubs over the swelling tissue inside of you, seems to enjoy every little gasp and noise you make, including the unsatisfied one you let out when he pulls his fingers from you. 

You can feel how damp the bedspread is underneath you, can see the evidence of your arousal on Mike’s face, and it makes you flush but doesn’t stop you from tugging him down for another messy kiss. 

“You ready?” He asks, sounding just as breathless as you feel, and you nod furiously, bending your knees and planting your feet on the mattress so that you can lift your hips to his. 

Mike chuckles, reaches down between the two of you to take hold of his length and taps your clit with his cockhead a couple times—simultaneously the most infuriating and most erotic thing you’ve ever experienced. Slowly, he lines himself up, just barely pushing forward, and when you bite your lip and squeeze your eyes shut, Mike tells you to, “Breathe, baby, open up for me.”

He already sounds wrecked, like he’s fighting the urge to just sheathe himself entirely, but he waits, giving you one inch at a time with periods of adjustment in between. You always sort of figured he was big, but this burning stretch is something you hadn’t imagined even in your lewdest of fantasies. You’re incredibly full, feel him in your gut and throat and everywhere, but it isn’t bad; it’s just a lot. 

“Okay,” you stroke the forearm next to your head and nod. “Okay, you can start moving more.”

Mike’s brow creases. “You’re sure?”

“About as sure as I can be with a monster cock inside m-me—” Your laugh turns to a moan as Mike begins to pull out, eyes trained on your face for any sign of real discomfort, but your mouth just drops open, your own eyebrows raising at the feeling of his length hitting every one of your most sensitive spots. 

“Holy…”

He pushes back in quickly, still mindful of what your body can take, and when all you do is cry his name and scratch down his back, Mike starts up a steady rhythm that has you seeing god. 

That tightness is back, hotter than before, threatening to burn you up entirely as your cunt flutters and spasms and leaks around Mike’s length. 

The sound of a hoarse groan makes you open your eyes, and you follow Mike’s line of vision to where you’re connected, see his cock sliding in and out of you, dripping slick and ringed in white cream toward the base. The sight makes you clench around him, and Mike swears under his breath then leans forward to gather you in his arms. Your head lolls back as he lifts you, sitting on his knees for just a second before falling onto his back and letting you drop onto him. 

You choke, and Mike pants, but his hands are tight at your hips, moving you up and down his length like a sleeve. His pupils are blown wide when you look down at him, hair nearly entirely out of its tie, bottom row of teeth exposed as his jaw slides almost primally. 

He looks completely lost in you, possessed as he fucks up into your pussy rougher than before. You bounce in his lap, whimpering his name with every thrust, growing in volume when you feel a finger press against your clit. 

“You gonna come for me?” Mike grits out, rubbing a circle over the swollen bundle as his eyes flick from your chest to your face. 

You nod, ignoring the burning in your thighs in favor of the sensation between your hips. “Yeah, I—I—Fuck, Mike—”

“Come on, baby, come on—wanted to see this for years, come all over my cock…”

You snap, legs shaking as your climax crashes through you. Your cunt pulses around Mike, coating him in more of your juices and making him groan and fuck you through it. You whine at the stimulation, swollen walls so sensitive yet taking everything he has to give you.

Every thrust to your g-spot makes you gush a little more, come a little longer, until all you can do is fall onto his chest and let him use you as he needs to. You leave marks on his pecs, bites and scratches, and Mike grunts at every one of them until he sits up and flips you once again.

“Where do you want me?”

“Anywhere, I don’t care, I don’t care,” you babble.

Mike inhales sharply then lets out a long groan as he pulls out and shoots his load onto your stomach. It’s warm and thick, some pooling in your belly button as Mike makes a trail down to your clit where he smears the last few drops. You twitch at the contact, hole clenching around nothing now, but you can already feel soreness settling into your muscles. 

Mike gives you two little pecks on the mouth, then one last, longer kiss before rolling to lay on the mattress beside you, chest rising and falling with deep breaths.

This silence doesn’t bother you. It gives you time to come back to your senses, to reflect, to remember everything that was said which leads you to ask, “You meant that—about wanting this for years?”

Mike turns his head and smiles so sincerely it almost brings tears to your eyes. 

“Well, yeah. Been in love with you pretty much since I started at the park.”

He says it so casually, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is, but it still makes your breath catch. 

“Seriously?” You turn to lay on your side, and Mike mimics the action, propping his head up with one hand while he lets the other settle on your waist. 

He lifts an eyebrow and questions, “Is that so hard to believe?” 

“No, I just… Thought it was one-sided on my end, I guess. Like, we were too good of friends.” Mike leans forward to gently headbutt you, and you snort to yourself, “Guess I was wrong.”

“We were both being stupid,” he mumbles. “But, we were also focused on other things, married to the job or whatever.”

Lifting your face makes him lift his, and you smile into another kiss, feeling happier and more balanced than you have in a very long time. 

Without much more discussion, you and Mike get up to rinse off, sharing more soft touches under the spray of the shower before crawling into bed together. Falling asleep feels like coming home.

You don’t even mind the smug grin on Nanaba’s face when she sees you and Mike leave your house together in the morning, nor the teasing jabs Gelgar throws your way over lunch. You don’t know if anything is capable of knocking you out of your perfect, peaceful little world on this perfect, peaceful little homestead.

Except maybe a supereruption, of course. 

E - D A Y 

It happens right in the middle of the morning news. You and Mike are sipping on coffee, expecting the same report you’ve gotten every day— “Nothing yet, closely monitoring, blah blah”—but as the English news anchor tries to introduce the meteorologist, he stops, holds a hand to the speaker in his ear, then looks at the camera with wide yes. 

“I’m—I’m getting news that the Yellowstone supervolcano has just begun to erupt, we’re cutting to the US address at Washington D.C. now—”

And just like that, Levi’s face is suddenly on screen, picking him up mid-sentence. 

“... One vent open at the present time, but more will open shortly. Stay indoors, ration your food. This is what we’ve been preparing for.” He looks tired, and when you do the math, you understand why: seven AM in Norway is one AM in D.C., meaning Levi was probably woken up to make the announcement. 

As always, you can make out Erwin’s figure behind him, hands clasped tight and shaking, and it isn’t until Mike puts a hand on your shoulder that you realize you are trembling right along with your old boss.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he reassures you. “We’re gonna be okay here.”

You nod and let him pull you closer to him as both of you look back to the screen and listen to what your old colleagues have to say.

The news stays on for the rest of the day. At around ten, the second vent opens up. Then another. Then another. Levi keeps track, expression never betraying the fear he must be feeling, even when he delivers the message that a full ring around the caldera has opened up. 

“Obviously, we can’t get in close enough to look, but we estimate at least two thousand four hundred and fifty cubic kilometers of eruptible magma will pour from the volcano. That’s the size of the eruption from around two million years ago, but it could be worse with the current number of vents…”

The journalists on site, usually so ready to ask questions and challenge Levi, are silent today, and you imagine they’re staring with eyes the size of saucers, not quite believing what they’re hearing because it’s happening. It’s finally happening. 

You eat a quiet, solemn lunch at Nanaba and Gelgar’s, no one knowing what to say. You feel nauseous, stunned, not unlike losing a loved one. You’re able to forget the absolute destruction taking place in the states for a few minutes at a time, but it always comes back to you, punching you in the gut with the same, brute force every time.

The park. The lab. The forests. The towns. Cities, states, homes, lives, all wiped off the map. 

Erwin takes Levi’s place as public speaker close to five, probably to let the other man get some sleep, and reports that the portable seismogram, still linked to the remaining seismographs located around the park, show that there are near continuous earthquakes taking place, “Which could either help should enough earth shift to block the magma chamber, or make things worse by disrupting it further.”

“E is not very good at keeping people’s hopes up,” you mutter, and Mike chuckles.

“Yeah, I see why he makes Levi do all the talking now.”

You both receive texts from the rest of the team, Levi’s coming at an appropriate time but the others reaching you at odd hours of the night when you’re nestled in Mike’s arms.

Neither of you sleep as reality sets in the rest of the way. That was it. The beginning of the end of everything you know. Everything is about to change.

You sniff, try to be as quiet as possible as the tears you’ve been holding back all day finally begin to fall, but Mike knows, feels your body stiffen as you curl into yourself. 

He hugs you close to him but doesn’t say anything, just rests his cheek against yours and holds your hand. 

There’s nothing anyone can say to make this better, no amount of optimism or determination that will make this any easier. Your home is covered in miles of pyroclastic flow, and as it hasn’t stopped yet, you know this is just the start. Soon, anything left alive will be suffocated by the tephra, people, animals, and vegetation alike. Though you won’t die where you are, everyone at the ranch will be feeling the effects soon enough.

Your mother calls from France where her and your dad decided to “vacation” for the next several years. She’s worked up about not being able to get through to you for almost an entire day, and even as you reassure her that you’re mostly fine, she hears the way your voice cracks and offers to fly to Norway.

“Mom, the airports are shut down by now,” you sigh. “We already talked about this. We can’t see each other for a while, but we’ll FaceTime until we can’t anymore.” Until the cell towers are knocked out, you don’t say.

“I just know my baby girl is hurting right now. I know how much you loved—”

“I know,” you cut her off, scared that hearing it from her mouth will just make you lose it again. “I know, but I’m okay here with Mike and everyone else.”

“You’re sure?” She sniffles, sounding a lot like you. “Cause your father and I will find a way to get to you if you need us.”

“I’m sure, Mom,” you tell her with a sad smile she can’t see. “Get some rest, okay?”

You share many calls like that, many ill-timed text messages until the eruption finally comes to an end six days later. The damage it’s done is incalculable—the entirety of the United states now covered in a cloud of ash that blocks out the sun. 

It doesn’t reach you for a few days, but every time you go outside, Mike sniffs the air and mumbles something like, “Smells like sulfur,” or “It’s getting closer”, but after another week, the entire globe is covered. 

1  M O N T H  A F T E R

Everything is an estimation. Everyone knows that a massive amount of magma erupted, but they don’t know how much. Everyone knows that a large number of people have died, but they don’t know how many. There are too many mysteries, and it’s nowhere near safe enough to send search crews out. 

Despite all the warnings, people are still trying to go outside—to see the ash, to review the damage, but even with cloth or medical grade masks, they’re breathing in the dangerous particles floating in the air, tiny minerals that turn to a cement-like substance in their lungs, and because of that, the death count is only rising. 

News reports cut in and out, as do phone calls. Some texts never get sent or received, so all you truly have is your little home and Mike. 

And, you cry, and you mourn, and you miss your friends and family—fuck, you don’t even know how you’ll survive so long without them—but you also revel in the fact that you’re safe. Not everyone can say that. The fact that you had almost willingly stayed in the most dangerous zone of the explosion is laughable now. There’s no way you and Erwin would have survived that, something he agrees with you on when you share a short phone call with him just to check how he and Levi are doing. 

They’ll be staying at the Homeland Security compound for the forseeable future, but he assures you they’re well-prepared to brave the years-long gray storm. 

Without any livestock to take care of, or mouths to feed other than yours and Mike’s, you find yourself with an abundance of free time. You still have power thanks to the solar panels and the couple of windmills set up around the ranch, but you don’t know how long that will last. 

You both read a lot, do puzzles together, fall into bed both out of desire and just because there’s not much better to do.

And, that part of your apocalyptic life is kind of great. Mike is great. He takes care of you both in and out of the bedroom, is gentle with you until you tell him not to be, and then he’s more than happy to succumb to your needs. He’d invested in a frankly absurd amount of condoms before the eruption so he wouldn’t have to worry about pulling out every time, but every once in a while you want him like you had him the first time—desperate and passionate and completely raw. 

That’s the feeling you’re experiencing tonight, staring at Mike from your place on the couch rather than at the book in your hands.

You see him smile before he actually looks at you, but when he does, he has a glint in his eyes you’ve gotten very familiar with over the last month. 

“Need something, baby?”

You bite your lip to keep from grinning too bashfully and glance back down at the open pages on your lap. “Nuh uh.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm,” you nod. 

“Really?” Mike puts down the wildlife magazine he’s perusing and leans closer to you. “’Cause it looks like you might want something.”

You cross your legs, flip a page you haven’t even read, and shake your head. 

It’s a dumb game you’ve both started to play, who can hold out the longest. Of course, the longest record is one you both hold—four years and some odd months—but other than that, you usually make it two or three days at most.

But it’s hard with him walking around looking like he does, and for someone so quiet, Mike is mischievous and handsy, knowing just how to rile you up only to walk away and leave you to whatever you were doing before. He whispers in your ear, he grabs your ass, sometimes he’ll just stand right behind you in the kitchen and inhale, trace his nose up your neck so that you shiver and break out in goosebumps, then mumble a shameless, “You smell nice.”

He’s troublingly good at driving you crazy, and you realize this is why it took you so long to actually get together. You can’t imagine being this wound up and wanton in the lab with everyone there to see. 

“You know,” Mike speaks again. You look at him from the corner of your eyes as he leans back against the cushions and nonchalantly kicks an ankle over his thigh. “A lot of people are dying. Like, thousands. Millions.”

Frowning, you nod. “Uh, yeah. Worldwide disaster taking place.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame,” he adds. His lips twitch upward for a second before he purses them, waiting for another couple seconds then stating, “Should probably start thinking about… Efforts to repopulate.”

Eyes widening, you tilt your head to the side in disbelief, a short, incredulous laugh bubbling from your throat.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Mike Zacharias!” 

Reaching behind you, you grab a throw pillow and launch it at him. Mike shields himself easily, choking and chuckling as he tries to defend himself, “I’m just—saying! It’s something to keep in mind!”

“Trying to guilt me into sex—” You smack his forearms with the pillow again, “As if I’m not already easy for you—" smack, smack, “—by bringing up all the people dying out there. What is the matter with you?”

He gets a hold of the pillow and rips it from your hands then hugs it to his chest and stares at you with that uncharacteristically devious look. “Is it working?”

You scoff at him, gently kick at his thigh in one last act of defiance before responding, “I mean, kinda.”

And, that’s all he needs to hear before he’s throwing himself at you, pinning you to the couch even as you giggle and squirm, ridding you of the comfortable clothes you have on so that he can kiss and lick every part of you he can reach. He acts like he’s hungry for you, and you have to use all your strength to shove him off of you just so that you can work his pants off and return the favor. 

Mike is all grunts and curses as you work him over with your tongue, a hand on the back of your head heavy but not pressuring. He trembles as you take him deeper, his tip hitting the back of your throat and sliding just a little further. 

It always hurts your jaw, leaves it sore for a full twenty-four hours at least, but the way his jaw drops and his hands ball into fists make it worth it. 

You use one hand to stroke what your mouth can’t reach, the other settling between your own thighs to get you to where you need to be, and only when Mike is panting and you’re dripping slick into your curled palm do you pull off of him.

He helps you into his lap, lets you take your time sliding down his length, because even after as much practice as you’ve had, it hasn’t exactly gotten easier. He’s still massive, and you still have to will yourself to relax around him, but once your muscles have loosened enough, you begin to rock your hips. 

Mike lets you use him like that for a few minutes, knows he’s at the perfect angle to rub over your g-spot, so he just watches and leans forward to place teasing kisses around your open mouth. 

“Feel good, baby?” His voice drips like honey as he grips onto you to aid in your movement. 

Nodding, you dig your nails into his shoulders, then shift to start moving up and down his length. Mike takes it as his cue to take over completely, strong enough to lift and drop you as he pleases, and you both fall into a frenzy of motion, desperate to get off, to get each other off, to share that euphoria. 

“Do you actually want to?” You ask in a daze.

Mike cracks his eyes open to ask, “What?” and slows down enough to give you enough breathing room to speak. “Do I wanna what?”

Making lazy air quotes with your fingers, you mimic his deep voice, “Repopulate,” then elaborate, “Have kids. Do you want that?” 

Everything stops. Your hips still, as do Mike’s, and he stares at you, the lusty haze of his gaze clearing as he processes what you’re asking. 

Feeling completely exposed, you try to rationalize, “I know, I know, we’ve only been doing this for, like, a month, and it’s kind of a terrible time to actually bring new life into the world, but if I’m gonna do it with anyone—”

Mike fists both hands in the hair at the back of your head, pulls you to him to smash your lips together. When he starts bouncing you again, your muffled moan is still loud in the small living room, and Mike’s voice comes out somewhere between desperate and destroyed when he tells you, “Yeah, I want kids. Want you to have my kids.”

“Okay,” you breathe, matching his rhythm, then again, “Okay.”

A switch seems to flip in Mike’s head. You watch and experience him devolve into someone—something—primal. He fucks you like he never has before, long hair hanging in his face, lip caught between his teeth as he groans around it, pistoning into you quick and rough.

“You want it?” He growls, pausing to suck a mark at the swell of your breast. “You want me to come in this pussy?”

Your heart stutters, jaw dropping slightly because Mike isn’t a vulgar man, never has been, but now, the way he’s looking up at you with wild eyes, you know all he needs is the right push, and he’ll lose it completely. 

“Yeah, fuck, want you to fill me up, please,” you whine.

Your world tilts as he tosses you long ways on the couch, sliding back into you with ease and demanding, “Touch yourself.”

You grin slyly, “What, don’t have the focus?”

“Not really,” he admits, flicking sweaty hair from his eyes. 

Two of your fingers find your clit, massaging it the way you always do when you’re desperate for an orgasm. It makes you clamp tighter around Mike, and you tell him again—beg for him— “Please, baby, want you so bad.”

He comes quicker than usual, shooting line after line deep inside of you until it starts dripping out around his cock. 

He can’t stay inside you for long, unable to take the way you keep clenching and twitching from your own ministrations, so Mike pulls out and shimmies down your body so that his face is just above your cunt. At first, he just stares (like always), admiring your swollen folds and how messy you are, but soon he pushes a finger into you, attaching his mouth to your clit shortly after.

It doesn’t take you long. The thought of him fingerfucking his cum further into you paired with the actual sensation of it sends you over the edge within a few minutes, and the two of you are left sweaty and panting, too drunk off each other to really think about the gravity of what you’ve just done but enjoying it all the same. 

The feeling eventually returns to your legs, some of the fog in your brain dissipating as you run your hand through Mike’s hair, and when you find that you can, you voice, “Can we even handle a kid? Or like… Can a kid handle the world as it is?”

“Kids are weirdly resilient,” Mike speaks, face pressed against your stomach so that you can feel the vibrations. “And, maybe there’ll eventually be a race of super babies or something—have enhanced lungs to deal with ash. Darkvision and shit.”

You snort and shake your head. “Dummy.”

He retaliates by blowing a raspberry just above your belly-button, grins lopsidedly when you squeal. 

“But really, our kids’ll be fine. Volcanologist for a mom and an Eagle Scout for a dad? Doesn’t get much better than that.”

“Oh my god, you were actually in Boy Scouts? Does Levi know?”

Mike makes a little ‘pft’ sound and shoots you an unimpressed look. “Of course not. Like, I’d ever let that tiny, tiny man be right about anything.”

Your laugh is so deep and genuine, it makes your whole body shake. Mike raises his head to keep it from bouncing so much, but you can feel him staring for the duration of your giggle fit. Even through squinted, teary eyes, you can see his gaze is full of adoration, and you figure having two parents who love each other as much as the two of you do will at least make the hard life ahead of you a little easier for a child. 

4  Y E A R S  A F T E R

Heavy snow falls outside, adding to the thick layers on the ground and clouding the window you’re staring out of. The carrier is nicely heated, ensuring you and its other two occupants stay toasty as you keep eye out for incoming headlights. 

“Think that’s them,” Mike says, and you swivel to look out his driver’s side window to see two dull beams of light growing brighter and brighter. 

“Don’t know who else it would be,” you joke. “No one else is dumb enough to come back to this place.”

The only sign of your husband raising his eyebrows is the way his hat shifts slightly. “You’re right about that.”

Cinching fur-lined hoods tighter, you both slide out of the tram, boots crunching on ice and snow when you land on the ground. Mike circles to your side, opens the back door, then unbuckles and collects what looks to be a bundle of jackets in his arms. Two light eyes peer out between a beanie and a face mask, gloved hands reaching out and grabbing for you. 

“You want Mama?” Mike coos before passing your son to you.

You settle him on your hip, rub his shielded nose with yours, hoping your body heat will help keep him warm out here.

It’s been winter for… Years, now, the ash from the eruption having behaved exactly as you thought it would, blocking out the sun, and sending the planet hurtling into another ice age. It was something not everyone was prepared for—the intense cold, the food and water shortage, the isolation, but you were lucky. You had everything you needed.

The other snow vehicle stops a ways off, lights left on as two figures jump out, recognizable even when completely covered up. One is nearly as tall as Mike, the other considerably smaller even up close. 

Pulling his mask down, Erwin shows a brilliant smile as he stops in front of you and Mike, and Levi immediately protests— “Oi, cover your mouth, old man! You need it for more than just talking shit.”

Mike laughs, but still reprimands the other man with a pointed, “Levi,” and a nod toward the little boy you’re holding. 

“Fuck—I mean…” Levi takes in a deep breath then apologizes over the whistling wind and falling snow, “Sorry, Huck.”

Bouncing him on your hip, you peer at your son and prompt, “Huckleberry, you remember Levi and Erwin from the computer?” 

Though your team has seen him many times on Zoom and FaceTime, this is first time Huck is meeting any of them in the flesh.

Your son looks between them for a while, quiet as he sizes up both of the men, then he reaches out for Levi the same way he had for you just moments before. Levi makes a dissatisfied noise but still takes him from you, and once Huck is passed off, you shuffle to Erwin and wrap your arms around him, breathing into his chest and warming your face. 

Your boss squeezes you tightly, mutters a low, “I know, I missed you too.”

It isn’t enough to drown out Levi’s sing-song baby voice, and both you and Erwin glance over to find him with his forehead pressed to Huck’s as he teases, “Can’t believe your parents named you after a volcanic eruption. That was pretty dumb, right?”

Mike glides over, places one hand on Huck’s head and the other on Levi’s, then sighs. “Please don’t criticize my wife’s terrible taste in nam—”

“Hey! You agreed to it,” you shout, taking the little boy back from Levi and glaring at both the smiling men. “Better shut up before you give him a complex. He can understand things, you know. He’s three.”

“Huckleberry Pine Zacharias,” Levi scoffs. “I cannot stand you guys.”

“I think it’s a great name,” Erwin interjects, lightly tapping Huck’s nose under his mask. 

“Well, you have shit taste, too.”

“Obviously, if I married a little gremlin like you,” Erwin drawls easily, leaning into the punch that Levi throws into his arm.

“Anyway, we’re here for a reason, right? Other than freezing our asses off?”

“Yeah,” Mike nods, kicking at the snow on the ground like it’ll make a difference. 

All of you know that buried beneath all the white is dried pyroclast, but under that… 

Is what remains of Yellowstone.

“How do we even go about rebuilding?” Mike is the first to ask.

Erwin stares at his own feet, face scrunched up in thought for a while before looking back up and stating, “From the bottom. Everything starts with a good foundation.”

Levi just scoffs, but you and Mike lock eyes and share a hidden grin. 

You take Huck back from Levi, leaning in for a side hug as you do, then suggest to everyone, “Well, then, now that we’ve seen a little of what we’re working with, we should head back to the shelter and start making a plan.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees. “Gotta start getting ready for the next eruption due in seven hundred thousand years, right?”

“Right.”

After splitting back up into the two separate carriers, Mike follows closely behind the other in order to make it to their newly built bunker without getting lost. It’s perpetually dark from the never ending snow and cloud coverage, hazardous even with the vehicle’s tracks, but you can’t find it in yourself to be scared. Not now, not when life finally feels to be returning to something close to normal. 

[tetsuwhore]

𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 | 𝐨𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐮

Description: in a ditch effort to avoid your fate as a lonely cat lady, you allow your best friend, Oikawa, to help you gain sexual experience.

Warning: explicit smut. size kink if you squint. loss of virginity. kinda angsty

Notes: 2.9k words. inspired by my ‘inexperienced bestfriend’ headcanons

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It had been a mindless comment really. 

The three of you were just reaching the convenience store when Iwaizumi received a call. After answering it and finishing his conversation, he promptly explained that it was his mother, who needed him to run errands for her. Which left you and Oikawa, who continued whining about his irritation at his ‘fanclub’.

Rolling your eyes, you scoff, “So, you have a literal entourage of people devoted to you? Big fucking deal. My single ass hasn’t even kissed anyone yet, y’know. At this rate, I’m gonna end up a lonely cat lady by the time we’re in college.” You laugh lightly, only meaning it half seriously. Therefore, you could be forgiven for choking on air when you hear his serious response. 

“Why don’t I help you change that then?”

And now, here you are, laying in your best friend’s bed as he’s knuckle deep in you. You’re covered in a thin sheen of sweat, breathing heavily and biting your lip in an effort to stay quiet. Your eyes are tightly shut, but you can tell that he’s still watching you intently, eyes alternating between focusing on his finger slipping into your hot cunt, and then wandering back to your contorted face. 

Struggling with your words, you manage to gasp out, “H-how does it feel so, uh, so fucking good?! It’s never like this when it’s, ah, when it’s just m-me.” Chuckling at the shakiness of your speech, he responds, “Had a lot of training to strengthen my fingers for setting. Plus, they’re much longer than your tiny ones, aren’t they? Makes it easier to reach deeper.” 

Shuddering at his words, you add, “They’re t-thicker, too.” Laughing at that, you feel him slightly shift the angle of his hand before continuing, “You usually can’t rely on fingering alone to get you off.” He follows that with a quick flick of his wrist, grinding his palm against your clit as his finger keeps prodding that certain spot inside you, adding, “Gotta pay attention to the clit.”

His attention is back on your face as you moan in response to his actions, no longer able to stay quiet. Grinning at your reaction, Oikawa continues his ministrations, rubbing his palm harder against you and increasing the tempo of his finger. His voice is silky smooth as he keeps going, “Keep rubbing harder and faster, until…”

You feel a high-pitched cry escape your lips. It’s so embarrassingly loud and shrill, but you’re unable to control it. His face is so smug - and normally, you’d want to slap the expression off of it, but this time, it just makes your face grow redder. 

“Until, it hits just... right. And then, you keep it consistent,” he whispers in your ear, “Feels good, hmm?”

Nodding frantically, you grip on to his arm, desperate to hold on to something so you don’t completely lose yourself. You hear him hiss - likely at your nails digging into his skin - but you’re too preoccupied with your impending orgasm to pay too much attention.

“Nuh-uh, keep your legs open,” Oikawa tuts disapprovingly. Opening your eyes, you realize that you had subconsciously closed your legs, trapping his hand in between - they were shaking so badly you hadn’t even noticed. You struggle, but nonetheless, move your feet further apart to allow him to continue. 

Tossing out all inhibitions, you don’t even bother attempting to hide your moans. Instead, you loop your free arm around his shoulder and bury your face in his neck, sobbing against his skin as you feel the knot in your stomach grow uncomfortably tight.

You feel his arm under you pull you closer to his chest, hand running up and down your side in a soothing motion. “Mhmm, that’s it, just like that, just like that,” Oikawa whispers - gentler than you’ve ever heard him speak - as he coaxes you through your orgasm, slowing his movements, but not stopping, allowing you to ride it out. 

He only pulls away once you stop trembling. When you open your eyes again, you find him watching you with a hawk’s gaze as you exhale shallowly, fighting to catch your breath. It makes you feel self-conscious, being under his scrutiny. Blushing, you cast your eyes into a corner to avoid his.

“Aw, (F/n)-chaaan, don’t go all shy on me just yet. I’ve still got more I wanna do to you first,” he teases as he moves his body on top of yours. 

Furrowing your brows, you begin to protest, “More? But, you said this was just for prep, right? So we could-”

Before you can finish, he interjects, “Are you really saying no to another orgasm?” Well, he had a point there. “Okay, I won’t stop you,” you concede, “but I’m still kinda, um, sensitive. Can we, uh…” You trail off, but he catches your eyes glancing down to his lips and smiles, finishing your sentence for you.

“A kiss? All you had to do was ask, sweetheart.”

You don’t get a chance to comment on the nickname because you’re too distracted by Oikawa’s hot breath fanning against your mouth as he moves his face closer to yours. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel his fingers graze your chin, tilting your head slightly upwards. And yet, he doesn’t close the distance, as if he was waiting for you to make the move. So, you do. 

The first thing you register is how soft his lips feel, lightly pressed up against yours. Suddenly feeling a wave of self-consciousness hit you, you pull away abruptly, realizing that you’re not quite sure what to do next. Confused by your pulling away, he looks down at you, eyes quickly flickering with understanding as he realizes the reason for it. 

His thumb moves to caress your cheek before he moves forward again, this time, taking the lead. It’s more pleasant this time as he guides you, lips gently melding with yours. He keeps the pace slow, and you’re thankful for that - too much too quickly would’ve overwhelmed you. But then, as you’re wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him closer, his thigh brushes against your core.

It’s involuntary, really, when you softly moan into his mouth in response to the contact, still sensitive from your previous orgasm. 

But it’s enough to drive him feral.

Tightly gripping your hips in his calloused hands, he presses his lips harder against yours, swallowing your gasps as he tilts his head forward to deepen the kiss, turning it into something deeper, hungrier. You feel his tongue enter past your lips, licking the edges of your teeth before clashing against yours. You’re not sure how you feel about that - the sensation is slightly odd, but not entirely unwelcome. 

“So, there was... s-something else you wanted to do?” you question breathily after pulling away, eyes cast up towards the ceiling - you would implode if you were to look at him while he was sucking on the sensitive buds of your breasts. Trailing his lips down your midriff, he mutters in between kisses, “Mhmm, got something I wanna show you.” His voice is so low, you almost miss what he says next. 

“Gonna make you cum on my tongue,” he murmurs against your skin, “so you’re nice and ready when I stretch you out with my cock.”

This was your best friend. The same friend you used to play hide-and-seek with as kids. The same one who coerced you into binge watching space documentaries with him during sleepovers. So then, why was it that his words made your body react by sending a flush of pink across your face, and a throbbing between your legs? 

He’s laying on his stomach now, face dangerously close to your soaked core. Scooting closer, he lifts up one of your legs, rough palm slowly trailing up the back of your calf. Shifting it to place it on his broad shoulder, he lightly brushes his lips against the expanse of your inner thigh. He’s ghosting kisses along your skin - you can feel them, but the pressure is practically non-existent, it’s maddening. 

“Oikawa, stop teasing! Do- do something…” you grit out, frustrated. 

Hearing his chuckle only adds to your exasperation as he ignores your request, deliberately straying away from the center of your legs. With that infuriating smirk still on his face, he feigns ignorance, “Hmm, I’m not sure I know what you want me to do here. Why don’t you tell me?”

When you give no response, he repeats himself, “Tell me, c’mon.” His tone is deceptively light and teasing, but you don’t miss the commanding nature behind his words.

“Want you to… to, uh, make me c-cum,” you’re trembling as you struggle to get the words out, “on your… on your t-tongue.”

Shaking his head, Oikawa tuts, “No, no, say the rest.” God, why was he such an obstinate asshole? More importantly, why was it working so well at getting you hotter?

Breathing unevenly, you whisper, “gonna get me, uh, nice and- nice and ready,” and you cringe at how whiny your voice is, but nonetheless, finish, “so you can s-stretch me out with your… with your c-cock.” The words tumbling out of your mouth are so, so filthy. He’s practically coaxing them out of you.

(You hate how easy it is for him to do so.)

Humming approvingly, he praises, “Mhm, that’s a good girl. Wasn’t so hard now, was it?” The smug smile is back as he purrs, “Can’t have you going all shy now. Not when I’m about to make you cum so hard you cry.” 

Before you can respond, he’s hoisting your other leg over his shoulder. You stare up at the ceiling, form tensed up as you wait for what feels like an eternity - you can feel his breath fanning over your core as you anticipate his next move. 

Then, you feel it. A warm, wet sensation right against your sensitive clit - you have to force yourself not to jerk away in response. The first swipe of his tongue is broad, one that languidly trails up all the way from your slit, to deep between your folds. 

The feeling is so odd, so new. And so, so delicious. 

It’s nothing like your fingers (or even his), nothing like you’ve ever felt before, but fuck, it’s good. It’s an antithetical combination of too much, and not enough - you can tell he’s holding back, going slow to begin with. And as much as you want him to turn ravenous and devour you alive, you know it’ll be too much for you to handle. 

Oikawa knows exactly when he’s got the right rhythm going. Of course, you think to yourself, of course he fucking knows - from how you’re suddenly gripping his hair, squirming around and whimpering for him. And he keeps it up, using his tongue to turn you into a mess. Licking again. 

And again, and again. 

“Mhmm, Oikawa, k-keep… oh- keep doing that! P-please, I’m gonna… I’m gonna-”

You’re cut off by a sharp moan that leaves your lips as he pulls you closer to his face, tongue digging deeper into you. You’ve vaguely aware of him lightly chuckling against you - probably at how whiny you sound.

(And you can’t even get annoyed at him because you’re too distracted by how it sends vibrations directly to your core.)

Oh. Oh. Oh, god. 

Tightly gripping his hair, you tense up, head thrown back and eyes tearing up as you release a final cry. Your hips move involuntarily, grinding against his face in a ditch effort to prolong the waves of your pleasure for as long as you can. He holds his tongue out flat, allowing you to do as you please. His eyes are locked on your face - his smoldering gaze is so intense that you feel compelled to look away, afraid that you’d combust if you didn’t. 

Oikawa only pulls away once you whimper weakly that it’s too much, your hands slowly releasing the grip they have on his locks. Planting a soft kiss on your inner thigh, he moves to rest on his elbow next to you as you exhale heavily, face flushed and hot - from your orgasm, or the embarrassment, you’re not sure.

“Good?” 

The question in itself is genuine enough, but the shit-eating grin on his face is all you need to see to realize that he knows. The bastard already knows that it was more than good. (With how you were practically sobbing his name only minutes ago, how could he not?) Choosing not to respond, you shoot him a glare instead.

“(Y/n)-chaaan, why are you annoyed at me for asking a perfectly reasonable question?” he pouts, whining, “Besides, I should be the annoyed one, seeing how you were practically yanking my hair out!” 

Rolling your eyes, you retort, “Serves you right for teasing me so much!” 

Shaking his head dramatically and childishly muttering something about how you’re ‘so mean’, Oikawa turns to face you, gently cupping your cheek. His expression and tone are more somber this time as he inquires, “You sure you still wanna go all the way though? We don’t have to go any further, just making you feel good is perfectly fine for me.”

Seeing you sit up, he moves, resting his back against the headboard as he waits for your response. You reach for the condom on his nightstand before returning back, placing yourself in his lap. Handing him the little silver packet, your hands move to his shoulders, before you finally respond, “Yes, Oikawa, I want to do this, don’t worry.” 

“Besides, we’ve already reached this far anyway,” you move your face closer to his, whispering against his lips, “It’s like you always say - if you’re going to hit it, hit it until it breaks - right?” Seeing his eyes widen in surprise at your boldness, you silently congratulate yourself - you had finally rendered the Oikawa Tooru speechless.

(Even if it was only for a few seconds.)

“Fuck, hearing you say that was hot.”

Swallowing at the roughness of his voice, you bite your lip, asking softly, “That’s what you’re gonna do then? Break me?”

Quickly regaining his composure, Oikawa smirks, purring, “Hmm, I’m not sure you’d be able to handle it, sweetheart. Maybe next time.” 

And then he’s on you again, hot mouth pressed hard against yours. Unlike earlier, he doesn’t hold back this time, quickly engaging you in a searing kiss that sends shock waves straight down to your stomach. You’re still shaky on what to do, but you attempt to mimic his movements, following his lips and working with them. 

In the midst of all your excitement, you had not even realized that Oikawa was still fully clothed. Your cheeks flush pink as it dawns on you that you, on the other hand, are completely naked. Pulling away, you hastily reach for his shirt, practically yanking it off of him before looping your arms around his neck, sighing when you finally, finally feel naked skin against yours. 

Moving back to press your lips against his, you feel his hands shift, rustling against your stomach as he makes quick work of unbuttoning his pants. But before he can put on the condom, you stop him. “Wait, c-can I?” you ask, tone laced with hesitance. He simply nods, watching you with that same scrutinizing look that he wears on the court as he hands you the rubber and waits. 

For a moment, you simply eye it curiously. It’s… surprisingly pleasant to look at. It’s ruddy, particularly at the head, and it curves slightly to the left. As for the size, you don’t have the experience to start making comparisons, but you know it’s big, at least for you. It was definitely bigger than your tampons, and those were already hard enough to put in. 

He wasn’t kidding about stretching you out. You feel a deep-seated lust settle within you as you consider the thought - oddly enough, it’s appealing, and you quiver at the thought of your tight walls being stretched thin around his large length. 

Once you’ve got the condom on, he asks again, tone uncharacteristically hesitant, “You sure?” Sighing in mock exasperation, you grin, teasing, “What happened to Mr. Stretch-Me-Out-With-His-Cock?” 

Seeing his unamused expression, you chuckle, adding without thinking, “No, really, I appreciate you doing this with me. I want to experience what it’s like, be ready for the real thing, y’know?”

Again, it was a mindless comment. As you angle yourself over him and move down, you’re too caught up in the feeling of being filled for the first time - you miss the way Oikawa’s eyes grow dark upon hearing your words. 

Real thing.

Then again, who could blame you for not realizing the impact your words had on him. You would always see him as nothing more than your best friend, as the stepping stone before you got to the real thing. Nothing more. Nothing remotely close to how he wanted you to see him. 

(Or how he saw you.)

So as he places his hands on your hips in a bruising grip, moving his hips upwards in a punishing thrust that has you keening, he swears. 

He may not be your “real thing”, but he’ll make sure to burn into your memory that no one else would ever fuck you as well as Oikawa Tooru could.