#then i have to go back to the black board

[runningfrom2am]

requiem // part one

summary: according to coriolanus snow, his best friend had the most beautiful voice in all of panem. she had been training her whole life constantly to get where she was; being up for a residency at the most elite opera house in all of panem. singing was her passion. her true love; and when that got stripped from her in a second, his world became a whole lot quieter. he loathed every minute of it.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.5k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: opera singer!mentor!reader (blink and you'll miss it), she's kind of a prodigy!! p cool imo, mute!reader, bestfriend!coryo, friends to lovers trope ooo, mentions of graphic violence early on (particularly the prologue) but after that it's pretty safe, depictions of ptsd/trauma, mental illness and minor suicidal ideation but at least she's not entirely alone, descriptions of minor medical treatments and use of medication.

a/n: hi again! obligatory note to say sorry i didn't update a couple days ago i meant to but i got hit by a car and then i was working lmao (i'm fine but the ao3 curse did in fact find me)

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist // pinterest board

"Mister Snow." Coriolanus's head jerks up at his name from where it was resting against his palm, nearly having fallen asleep by the side of your bed. You were out cold and had been for close to a week now, but part of him hoped he would be there when you eventually stirred.

"We have to ask you to leave now, but you can come back tomorrow after seven," The nurse tells him, a sympathetic smile on her face. This was the sixth night in a row they'd had this exact conversation.

"Of course, thank you," he grumbles as he stands up, rubbing his eyes.

"How is your mentorship going?" she asks, just for the sake of making conversation. "It is very exciting. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thanks..." he hums, hand sliding over his jaw in slight discomfort. He had little to no interest in his tribute. It was clear Lucy Gray had no shot at winning, and he had an even smaller shot at the Plinth Prize thanks to her. Now, he could hardly even stomach looking at her. "The Songbird," as everyone called her. 

In reality, his best friend had been forgotten the moment Lucy Gray Baird set foot on that stage in District Twelve and began to sing, and he loathed her for it. The way that all eyes turned to you next to him during the reaping as soon as his tribute's lips parted and began to sing made his stomach turn even now.

Coriolanus's eyes parted from the screen to look over at you, a small teasing smile on his face as he reached out to nudge you with his elbow when instead he was met with an expression of horror on your face. He could see the way your neck tensed as you swallowed hard, and he looks around to see almost everyone else's eyes on you as well for just a moment at a time, stealing glances in your direction.

Your jaw tightens while you grind your teeth together. She was good. But you were better at masking your discomfort with the whole situation, looking down to smooth out your black skirt where it lay across your lap and ignoring all the eyes that had fallen on you.

"It's going well," he lies in response.

"I'm glad to hear that. She's got a real talent, that girl," She smiles, and Coriolanus knows she's not trying to take a jab at the girl lying unconscious a few feet away, but he couldn't see it any other way. "Well, best of luck to her. And you, of course."

"Thanks. Have a good night," Coriolanus replies almost under his breath, taking a final glance at you fast asleep in the cold-looking hospital bed, neck bandaged down to your bruised shoulders before he leaves for the night.

It's sunny out when Coriolanus makes his daily trek to the Capitol Zoo to feed his tribute, and his academy uniform feels heavier on his shoulders than what he's used to.

His tribute smiles as she gets up and brushes off the front of her rainbow dress, making her way over to the bars to greet him. "Good afternoon, Coriolanus. Doin' well today?" she asks as he gets closer, already digging into his bag for the food he brought her.

"Fine," he mumbles in response, holding the folded napkin out to her that contains a cookie he took from the academy lunchroom.

"Thank you," Lucy Gray says as she takes it, unfolding the small cloth from around it and taking a bite. Chewing on it, she looks up at him again, taking note of the bags forming under his blue eyes. "I'm sorry about your friend."

His eyes flick from the cookie she was eating back up to hers, a slight glare behind them as he swallows stiffly. "Yes, well, she's alive," he tells her, looking back down as she breaks the cookie in half and holds it out to him.

"No, thank you," he shakes his head, pushing her hand away with his own.

"You should eat. You look like you need the energy," she says sympathetically.

He sighs because she's probably right. He takes it from her hand carefully, already breaking off a piece. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Lucy Gray knew their little routine by now. It was obvious when he brought her food the first time that he was going hungry. She had seen the signs enough back home to recognize it even here, hidden within what was supposed to be the endless opulence of the Capitol.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asks as he begins to chew the tiny piece of the cookie, mindful of chewing and swallowing it slowly. He looks up at her again, confusion in his eyes. "Your friend, I mean." she explains.

"No." he answers quickly, shaking his head.

His semi-hostile response only leads Lucy Gray to believe that this girl she had seen get attacked meant something to him. Though, she already knew that when they walked into the zoo arm-in-arm like birds of a feather minutes before the girl was attacked, and her mentor had to be dragged away from her by Peacekeepers when a medical team finally arrived.

"Will you tell me about her?"

"About Y/N?" he asks, eyes softening just a bit.

Lucy Gray nods in confirmation, a small smile on her lips as she urges him on.

"She, uh..." Suddenly he doesn't know where to start with you. Your parents' names are what would traditionally come first in the Capitol, but he knew that would mean nothing to the girl in front of him. That you were his best and only real friend? That you were a singer, too, just like her, but you would likely never sing another note again? "She's a singer in training for the Opera House on Presidential Way. She is... she was very good."

Lucy Gray's eyes light up as he speaks. "She was a singer?"

Coriolanus nods, putting his focus back into eating.

"She must have been amazing," Lucy Gray says, trying to make comforting conversation.

"She is," he corrects her quickly, disguising it as agreement, despite having been the one to refer to your singing abilities in the past tense.

"Of course." She agrees, a sympathetic smile on her face. "I didn't mean..."

"They are making some changes to the Games." He cuts her off, wanting to move on to avoid having to think about the current state of his best friend. It makes his heart sink and the accompanying dread causes that awful burning sensation behind his eyes that makes him want to cry. "So... you need to sing again. Get people to like you. Then I'll be able to send you things in the arena to keep you alive."

Lucy Gray seems hesitant, letting out a huff with the slight shake of her head, looking around before locking her eyes back on him. "I don't sing when I'm told. I sing when I have something to say."

Coriolanus is jarred by her statement, tilting his head a bit and clenching his jaw at the notion and her ferocity behind it. He can't help it when the sudden, stark difference between Lucy Gray and his best friend hits him like a thunderstorm coming in quick on a sunny day. 

She sang when she had something to say, you sang because you had to. This fact would keep him up at night for weeks.

The games had come and gone, and there had been no winner this year. Your tribute was shot dead the day she attacked you, and Dr. Gaul saw it as some kind of justice that after your assault, the bombing, and the deaths of your other classmates, the death of all those District kids would keep their home districts from rebelling. From seeing the Capitol as vulnerable, or something like that. You really couldn't care less. At least Felix and the twins were lucky enough to have succumbed to their injuries.

The hospital was cold and dark at almost all hours of the day. You couldn't do a thing besides sit there and wait. For what, you weren't even sure.

"She's not having a good day today," The nurse informs Coryo as he checks in to visit you. He comes by every day, sometimes multiple times a day to see you, and you have your good and bad days. He's well used to that by now.

"Has she eaten?" he asks, and the nurse shakes her head.

"Refused to touch anything we brought her," She sighs, but she's fighting back a smile, which makes him raise an eyebrow at her. Why would she be smiling at that?

"She will be able to go home tomorrow," She smiles, hearing the question he never verbalized. "I thought you might like to tell her."

"Oh... I see," Coryo hums, looking down the hall toward the staircase he would soon take to get to you.

"You don't seem pleased," She states quizzically, her grin fading.

"Why is she going home?" He asks. "She still can't even speak."

The nurse looks down, pursing her lips. "As the doctor mentioned, there's no guarantee that she will ever get her voice back. I'm sorry, truly, but there's nothing more we can do for her here. It's better that she's home with her family recovering somewhere more comfortable."

"Right," He swallows, nodding curtly at her. "Thank you," He replies simply, brushing past the nurse's station to go down to your room. 

He can always hear it before he sees it, the echo of opera music cycling through your favorite records time and time again, filling the quiet hall with something pleasant as soon as he opens the door from the stairwell.

"Y/N," You look up from where you're sitting in the corner, tilting your head at him. Coryo smiles as he walks in, and you wish you were in a better mood, to be a better host; as good of one as you could be when you were in the hospital and couldn't speak a single word to him. "How are you feeling?" He asks, already knowing the answer.

You shake your head, a pout forming on your lips. The flowers people had brought you in your first couple of weeks were wilting, and then they stopped bringing them. Your whole life you had been praised for your voice; since you were six years old, the Capitol had seemingly been buzzing with hope for your future. You would be the most beautiful, accomplished singer Panem had ever seen - no one doubted it, but within weeks you had been completely forgotten. Replaced by the image of the girl who had sung at the reaping and once in an interview. Your room was quite a sad reflection of this, and you spent every minute of every day forced to wallow in it.

"Bad day?" Coryo asks anyway, but you just shrug, looking out the window at your sad view of the city that had abandoned you.

"Well, I've got some good news," He says, which draws your attention. You tilt your head at him, gesturing in a circular motion with your hand for him to go on.

He laughs, putting his bag down on your empty and perfectly made bed. "One second, here. In case you have questions." He pulls the small chalkboard out from the drawer next to your bed, holding it out to you with a piece of white chalk. You scrunch up your nose and wave rapidly for him to put it back. He knew it would bug you, that's why he did it, recalling the day he brought it for you and you almost threw it at him.

"I HATE writing with chalk," You scribbled quickly on a napkin with a pen you stole from his pocket, throwing the napkin at him and crossing your arms.

"What? Why?" Coryo laughed, dropping the crumpled piece of soft paper on the table next to your bed.

You shook your head, pursed your lips, and looked up, trying to find a way to explain the awful sensation without saying it. He watched you patiently as you thought, until you pretended to hold a piece of the white substance in between your thumb and forefinger, dragging it down the air slowly and pretending to gag. You shook your head again in disgust, waving your hand at him.

"Oh, I didn't know you felt so passionately about this," He drags the chalk down over the board, and you cringe, covering your ears. Coryo couldn't help but think that was just about the cutest thing he had ever seen.

That had been one of your good days, even though at the time your scar was still so fresh it was bandaged, and you were littered with bruises down to your ribs. The room was littered with fallen flower petals by now, yes, but also with what must be hundreds of notes you had shown to Coryo to express yourself in the only way you still could.

That memory still makes you smile, even if you do absolutely hate chalkboards. You walk past him and grab your notebook off the same table, picking it and the pen up as dramatically as you possibly can before sitting down on the bed and looking up at him.

"What?" He asks, just to tease you, and you roll your eyes.

'Get on with it. Also, you're not funny, and I hate you,' You write, turning the page to face him so he could read it.

"Oh, do you?" He chuckles, sitting down next to you.

You smack his arm with the book, motioning again that he should just spit it out.

"Okay! Okay, fine," He sighs emphatically, placing his hands on his thighs and looking down at the floor, just for a few moments to drive you more up the wall before turning his gaze to you. "They told me that you're going home tomorrow."

You open your mouth to speak, suddenly forgetting that you can't. You quickly shut your jaw, furrowing your brow and shaking your head. 'Why?' You mouth to him, neglecting the pad of paper in your lap.

He reads your lips, frowning at your lack of excitement. He was hoping you would be looking forward to it, but he knew you wouldn't be. Not really. "They said there isn't anything more they can do for you here, that you need to heal at home."

You stand up abruptly, throwing the paper down on the ground and clutching the pen so tight that Coryo fears it might shatter.

What do they mean "nothing they can do"? They could fix you, they could operate again, they could pump you so full of drugs that you could finally forget the hell that you're living in, that's what they could do. You couldn't even say that - or scream out your frustrations.

You turn back to Coryo, and the hurt look on your face crushes him. You want to speak to him so badly. Your lips fall open, and you try anyway. 'They're going to leave me like this?' You ask, but not a sound comes out. Not even so much as a whisper. Your throat burns regardless.

"I'm sorry," he says honestly, standing up and reaching out for you. You shake your head, forcing yourself to look anywhere but at him. "Come here..." he says softly, already wrapping his arms around you as the tears brimming in your eyes begin to fall. You can't even hug him back, hands clutched to your chest as you shake under his hold.

"If I could take this from you, I would," He mumbles, shaking his head and resting his chin on your head as he rubs your back. "I'm sorry, Y/N/N."

What he wouldn't give to be able to hear your voice again.

no taglist this time around!! my fics usually get over a hundred requests to be added to the taglist so instead i made a library! follow me over on @runningfrom2am-library and turn on notifs to get updates when i post new parts!!

[ladykailitha]

Sweet Home Indiana Part 7

That last chapter things were starting to look up, and here things keep getting better until they don't.

Then it's going to be rough until the happy ending. Just a heads up if you need to be prepared for the sads.

Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

****

Eddie ran into Steve at the Hideout on Thursday night. And this time he was without his friend or his guard dog.

He had settled at the bar with a single malt whiskey and a heavy heart. He hated that he would have to leave this all behind come Sunday, but Seattle was home. Not Hawkins. Not anymore.

Steve walked in looking like a teenage wet dream. He had his floppy hair styled so that there was little curl in the middle of his forehead. He was wearing a white and navy blue striped polo shirt with the buttons undone and the collar flipped up. His jeans were darker then when they graduated school, almost as dark as the blue stripes on his shirt. The fit was tight and showed off Steve’s other best asset.

It made Eddie’s mouth water and he drained his glass.

He was about to pay his tab and go back to his hotel when Steve spotted him and gave him that little dorky finger wave of his.

Shit.

Eddie waved back and Steve came trotting over.

“No Buck today?” he asked, trying not to trip over his words.

Steve shook his head. “She’s fussing about what to wear tomorrow and after three hours of her trying to decide between two identical shirts of exactly the same color, I booked it and came here.”

“Wise choice, man,” Eddie agreed. “Chrissy gets like that some times too. She’ll claim one is rose and the baby pink and I can’t tell the difference.”

Steve laughed and nodded. “Sounds about right only Robs is trying to decide between navy and midnight blue.”

“Didn’t figure the Buckster would be one for pink,” Eddie said sagely.

“Oh she likes it just fine,” Steve said with a grin, “on other girls.”

Eddie laughed and shook his head. That sounded about right.

Steve looked over at the full pool tables and then around the rest of the bar. He turned back to Eddie. “You want to play a round of darts?”

Eddie half shrugged. “Why not? I’d have to borrow someone’s set. You can’t exactly take them on a plane these days.”

Steve’s grin was back and he trotted over to the end of the bar. He spoke briefly to someone and then came back with two sets. He handed one to Eddie and opened up the other. It was the set Eddie had got him for his school graduation. They weren’t expensive but they were well made and if the worn velvet around the darts were any indication, well used.

He looked down at the black box in his hand and then back up at Steve. “There’s no way.”

“You’ll just have to open it and find out, huh?”

Eddie opened the box and let out a choked off laugh. There nestled in the red velvet were his old black and red darts.

“How do you still have these?” he whispered. “I thought I lost them.”

Steve shrugged and cocked his head. “You’d leave them here at the bar so they wouldn’t get banged up in your glove box. So after you left, I had Terry hold on to them in case you ever came back looking for them.”

Eddie nodded and then hopped off the stool, leading the way to where the boards were hanging. He let Steve go first and they ordered a round of beers, though they really didn’t drink much. They’d learned that lesson at their ‘reception’ when they accidentally landed a dart on then Officer Callahan and he screamed like they were trying to murder him. If Hopper hadn’t stepped in he would have hauled both of them to jail.

It hadn’t even broken the skin.

It was fun and Eddie felt better about their ‘date’ tomorrow. Because that’s what it was, that’s what everyone was calling it. Even Robin had warned him that if he fucked this date up, they would be finding pieces of him up and down the interstate for years.

He believed her.

****

Steve was waiting by the entrance to the fair grounds chewing nervously on his thumb. Robin whacked his hand out of his mouth.

“You’re making me nervous,” she hissed. “You’re supposed to be the calm one.”

He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets with a heavy sigh. “I know we’re not getting back together. I can’t expect that, but...”

“He’s not the giant ass he was when he rolled into town?”

He nodded and she rubbed his back gently. “Look, there’s Vickie. Will you be all right?”

“I don’t really have a choice, but yes I’ll be fine.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow.

She nodded and linked arms with Vickie. They went to go pay for their tickets and left Steve to his whirling consuming thoughts.

He didn’t have to wait long before a sleek, black rental rolled into the dusty parking lot. It really stood out amongst the pickup trucks and hatchbacks.

But then so did Steve’s old Bimmer. Yeah it was older, but it was still a high class car.

Eddie popped out of the car and Steve was impressed to see that he wasn’t in all black. He had dark blue jeans on, but wore a red t-shirt that had some logo on it. Over it was a denim vest with all his pins and patches on it.

It wasn’t the first one he’d made, Steve still had that one, but it was so Eddie that Steve’s heart began to pound heavily against his rib cage, like a beast trying to get free.

Stop it! He thought to himself. Move on. This is the farewell tour. The final encore. The last bow.

Eddie ran over to him and smiled. “Sorry I’m late, Stevie. Someone gave me the wrong directions and I had to look it up on my phone.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said. “Let’s get going.”

Eddie paid for their tickets. It was the least he could do for having caused Steve to shut down Sweetie’s Treats because of a dumbass mistake.

They rode the rides and Steve won him this giant orange bat with googly eyes at the basketball hoops, that Eddie immediately named Dio.

Steve laughed and shook his head.

They went on more rides and ate funnel cakes and deep fried Twinkies.

Then Eddie spotted it. It was big brown eye puppy with droopy ears at the High Striker game.

“I’m going to win that puppy!” he said excitedly, tugging on Steve’s sleeve.

Steve rolled his eyes. “You do know those things tend to be rigged, right?”

Eddie turned around, his expression mischievous. His eyes were hooded and he ran his tongue slowly over the top of his teeth. Slowly.

Steve gulped. He didn’t know what Eddie had planned, but it sent that thrill down his spine that used to be because Eddie was about to ravish him. And he didn’t think that was the context here.

He watched as Eddie went up to the man in charge of the booth and paid him the five dollars.

Eddie hefted the hammer like it was a child’s toy and the heat slid down Steve’s spine to pool in his gut. Fuck was that hot.

Eddie made a couple of practice swings testing the weight of the hammer.

“You going to swing that thing any time in the next century, play boy?” the carnival worker snarked.

Eddie smirked back and swung the hammer down on the pad. The metal ball hit the bell with such force that the bell didn’t so much ring as it did gong. Everyone around them stopped to see what the hell that noise was.

To see Eddie leaning on the hammer like some, smug Norse god. The booth operator let him pick two of the big prizes so Steve got the brown-eyed puppy and the grey, stripped tabby cat.

“Bobbie and Sweetie?” Eddie suggested, naming the two animals after Steve’s shop and his best friend.

Steve nodded, burying his face into the warm, soft plushies. “Thank you, Eds.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

They had put the animals in the trunk of Steve’s car for safe keeping and were sitting on a pair of hay bales watching as the sun set and the lights of the carnival came on.

“Thanks for today,” Steve murmured. “I’d say it more than made up for that shitty special delivery.”

Eddie cackled. “Yeah, that was my big dumb mistake. I told her about you, because of course I did. But I–I couldn’t talk about what you really meant to me, because then I would have tell what an absolute coward I was.”

“And then I forced the issue.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” he murmured. At Steve’s bitchy expression he laughed. “I wasn’t being sarcastic, honest. I needed that kick in the ass.”

Steve smiled and bumped their shoulders together. “You’re welcome I guess.”

Eddie looked up at the stars that were starting to appear in the sky. “You don’t see this many stars back in Seattle.”

“No,” Steve said softly. “I don’t suppose you do.”

Eddie ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I was happy in Seattle, Stevie. I was. But I came back here and this fits too.”

Steve gently took Eddie’s hand and squeezed it tight.

“I think I’m more in love with you then when we were stupid kids doing messed up things,” he continued unhappily.

Steve laid his head on Eddie’s shoulder and sighed. “You don’t have to marry her. Stay here with me.”

Tears slipped down Eddie’s face as he shook his head. “I have to. I can’t tell you why. I’m not being blackmailed or coerced, I do love her. But god, I love you, too.”

Steve wrapped his arms around him and held him as he cried.

****

Steve chuckled as he helped a very weepy, and very clingy drunk Eddie up to his hotel room. He had even gotten the help of a nice porter to help get him into bed.

He took off all the jewelry. The pick necklace, the leather and chain bracelets, the earring, his belt, and his rings.

Steve stopped when he was half way through removing the rings. Yes, they weren’t married yet, but if there was a ring that Eddie would have given a fianceé it would have been his mother’s ring. The ring he always wore on his right hand. But there it was, still on his hand. Moved to the pinkie now. But still.

He took it off last. He held it up to the light. The band was a little worse for wear, but the gemstone still shone brightly in the dim light of the hotel lamp.

Steve set it down with the rest of the jewelry, making sure it was right on top. He took out Eddie’s wallet and keys and set them next to the hotel key. He picked up the hotel key, feeling the weight of it in his palm.

He smoothed Eddie’s hair and then he made his decision. He quietly exited the room and told the porter and front desk that Eddie left his wallet in his car and that he was just going to get it for him.

Robin was waiting for him.

“Are you really going to do this?” she asked, voice cracking as if she was holding back tears.

Steve let out a shuddering breath and then nodded.

He was back down in mere minutes. She held out her arms to him and he crumpled in her embrace. She held him as he sobbed and sobbed.

Robin looked up at the hotel where Eddie lay sleeping and wished she could hate him in that moment, but found she couldn’t.

She pitied him. Something she never thought was possible. She bundled her best friend into the passenger side of his car and drove for home.

The further away she got, the more her heart broke.

For both of them.

****

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[brucewaynehater101]

Hear me out for something Silly. Jack is not Tim's biological parent. Jack, Janet, and Tim all know this. So does Tim's biological parent. Tim does have contact with his Biodad and they do get along wonderfully. When he has time off from his very busy job and thinks it's safe, he will 100% drop by Gothem to see his son. Even if they can't see eachother a lot, Tim and his dad are still very close.

As for how this happened, Janet and Jack had a three way with a *very* interesting stranger about the time Tim would have been conceived. Since he didn't exactly look like Jack, they did a DNA test and then called the guy and asked him to do a DNA test. He told them he would but only if he got his DNA back after the test. Just one of his weird quirks that worked as Rizz on the pair.

Honestly though, it's nothing short of a miracle that they got The Question of all heroes to do a paternity test, but then again. He has always wanted to be a dad and this is an opportunity that just fell into his lap! And the day he walked into his son of 7 years old standing infront of a corkboard covered in pictures and string? It was the proudest day of his life. He had little Tim talk him through all of the strings and explain his theory and Tim started by smacking his little hand on the board and saying in the most manic voice, "BATMAN IS BRUCE WAYNE."

By the end, Question was pacing around the room as Tim also paced around the room, both rambling at eachother as they used Bruce's connections to uncover who well over half the leauge are. Does Question feel a little guilty about finding out his coworkers identities? Maybe. But he doesn't care, he's bonding with his son! His son is brilliant!! Not even he knew who Batman was!!! He could never have been prouder and it nearly made him cry.

Years later when Tim became Robin, he freely told Question about it and while Question didn't approve fully, he knew there was nothing he could do to stop his brilliant, wonderful, adorable, *stubborn* son. Tim could out stubborn a hundred mules, just like both his mother and his father. Maybe he could even out stubborn the both of them, as evidence by Question being the one to cave first. He caved on the condition that Tim get *proper* training and go to a few people of his choosing after he trains under the people that Bruce wants him to train under. Tim agrees and gets a few extra teachers in his time away.

Tim does not tell the Bats that Question is his Dad, simply assuming that if he could figure out who they were at 7 years old, they can figure out something as simple as who his parent is. Turns out, all of the Bats think that Jack Drake is his father and he doesn't find this out until Jack dies. When he does so, Bruce asks where Tim is going to stay and he replies, "with my Dad and his wife, obviously." To which there is quite a bit of confusion until Tim scoffs and crosses his arms as he states, "Jack Drake was never my father. He and Mother were very open about the fact that they had a 3 way and the other guy there is my biological father. I've been in contact with him regularly since I was 3. Sure he's not there all the time but he makes sure to visit minimum once a month. Usually at least twice a week. He's a good person and I'll be fine living with him and his wife. Hell, he's been trying to get me to move in with him for years anyways! Honestly, I thought you already knew this Bruce. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see my Dad." And simply walked out if the cave.

The Bats. Don't know who his father is. Nor for lack of trying though. His dad is The Question that man leaves no evidence of anywhere he has been and never walks into cameras. He leaves just enough that they know he's real. Jason has seen the man with his own two eyes and swears he is a red head, but the man vanished before Jason could say a word to him. However Damian saw Tim talking to someone with black hair and and blue coat on patrol, but didn't get a look at his face. The guy was gone before Damian could get there and Tim tells him that it was his dad doing a mid patrol check in, which he does sometimes.

There is nearly a very big fight about civilians and identity hiding until Tim snaps, "HE KNEW FROM THE DAY I KNEW. HE HELPED ME WITH MY FUCKING EVIDENCE BOARD AND ENCOURAGED ME. BESIDES, HES NOT EVEN A CIVILIAN ANYWAYS!" And before anyone can question it, he goes on a long rant about how it can't be that hard to piece together who his dad is because they haven't been hiding it from them At All and how disappointed he is in them. As he does so, he is texting someone and when asked who, Tim snaps, "my Dad! I'm telling him to come to the Batcave because you're all idiots who couldn't find the link between us!" This leads to Bruce getting angry about inviting strangers to the Batcave and Tim scoffs about Bruce having invited his dad there before.

30 minuets later, when The Question walks in and says, "Hello Batman." Bruce turns to him to ask why he's there but Tim cuts in and says, "finally! Dad, can you believe that none of these idiots put it together?! They have no idea were related!" And Question just says, "but. We've been living together for nearly a year. I've known you all your life and you are the greatest thing I've ever helped to create." And Tim blushes a bit at the last part but plays it off by insulting The Bats, "right? And they call themselves Detectives!"

They spend the next hour roasting the Bats together and also mentioning off the walls crazy theories that are actually true.

Years later when Tim goes on the Brucequest, he doesn't go alone. He shows his evidence to his dad and Question and Huntress both come with him to help. Tim doesn't loose his spleen thanks to them but they do have to team up with the LOA because they have Tam held hostage. They also blow up the leauge but all credit goes to Tim and when they get Bruce back, they try to give credit to Tim but the Leauge just points at Question and Huntress and says, "those two did it."

Holy shit. This AU is fantastic.

I do not know nearly enough about Question, and you've pointed out the errors in my ways. I should know more about him because you are absolutely correct (also, AUs that speculate who can be Tim's bio parents are hilarious to me).

Fuck. I just binged some of his content (a very small amount), and I swear to gods this man is hilarious. His dry wit, conspiracy theories, humor, and overall demeanor is grand. I should find more.

Anyways, I absolutely love how Jack, Janet, and Question are peacefully coparenting. There's no drama or tension. Jack isn't jealous or mad. They just raise Tim together.

Tim and Question bonding over theories, research, stalker tendencies (referencing when Question said he goes through everyone's trash), and pin boards is adorable. This is a friendship/mentor bond I didn't know I needed in my life until now.

I'm also vibing with Question messing with the Bats while Tim us legitimately confused how they haven't figured anything out yet.

I'm also imagining post Jack's funeral (if this is a good dad Bruce AU), that Bruce turns to the newly orphaned Tim. He has adoption papers metaphorically behind his back and does a blue screen at realizing that Tim has been hiding even more parents all this time. It seems his adoption addictions were stopped this time, dagnabbit.

[lulublack90]

Prompt 11 - Pirate

@wolfstarmicrofic June 11, word count 774

Previous part First part

"It wasn't until you were on top of me, inches from my face, and you'd dipped your head that I realised why I'd been a bit obsessed with you," Sirius said, before Remus had even fully sat down. "Like the second I saw you I just felt good, you know?" Remus nodded. 

"Yeah, same," He admitted. Then, for some unknown reason that only the impulsive part of his brain knew, he blurted out. "I thought you were beautiful," He froze, eyes bulging as he realised what he'd just said. He felt the heat rising in his cheeks. He tried to duck his head, but Sirius caught it with his hands.

"You're beautiful too," His words ghosted across Remus's lips and he shuddered. They didn’t talk much after that. 

That night Remus listened as Sirius padded across the cabin and slipped into James’s bed. He cracked an eye open and watched as they hid under James’s duvet, whispering and giggling as quietly as they could. 

At breakfast the next morning, after they'd made full use of their first dibs cards, Dumbledore announced that they would be creating rafts after lunch.

“So please make sure you are properly attired as we will be heading straight to the lake after you’ve eaten.” 

Remus looked down at the swimming trunks laid out on his bed. He thought about faking being sick to get out of it. All the adults there knew about his illness, so it wouldn’t take much. Sirius came in wearing black trunks with a skull and crossbones across the front and back in the style of a Jolly Rodger. He furrowed his brow at the still fully clothed Remus before his eyebrows shot up in understanding. He turned away and fished through James’s drawer, pulling out a t-shirt that would drown Remus but also had a skull right in the middle of it. It even had long sleeves. 

“Put this on and we can match.” He smiled confidently. “And if anyone says anything, just say you burn easy.” He grabbed up Remus’s trunks and started to prod him towards the bathroom to get changed. 

“But what about my legs?” Remus pleaded. The scars had faded some, but you could still see the silvery lines where the glass had torn them up. When he was five, he'd had his first episode, and he’d fallen on the glass coffee table at his grandparent's house and had a seizure on the shards. He’d been in shorts and a t-shirt. They’d been his first scars. Little did that young boy know that they’d soon have a collection of friends join them as the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with him. 

“Your legs?” Sirius’s eyes went wide and vulnerable. He swallowed and held the leg of his trunks up. “Then we can match.” And there on Sirius’s soft thigh were dozens of scars, criss-crossing the skin. 

“Sirius, I,” He started, but Sirius waved his concerns aside. 

“If anyone says anything, James and I will sort them out,” He promised. Remus went into the bathroom and got changed. 

“Stunning,” Sirius proclaimed, smacking a kiss on his lips and pulling him towards the door. “Come on, let’s go build a raft.”

The raft-building tools included blue barrels, wooden planks and rope. They were expected to find the best way to get them together and paddle them across the lake. 

“We’ve done this before,” Peter whispered to Remus, conspiratorially making Remus grin. He was feeling good, no one had said anything about the scars on his legs or the long-sleeved t-shirt he was wearing. 

He and Peter brought the supplies to James and Sirius as they masterfully worked together, seeming to read each other’s minds to build a perfect raft. 

They clambered on one at a time to check the knots were secure. Sirius and James paddled out and the raft held. They did a few more tests and were happy with its sturdiness. By this point, the Slytherin team had finished theirs as well. 

Sirius jumped to his feet.   

 “I am a pirate king!” He cried boldly, jumping to his feet and making the raft bob violently. “Hurry men, I wish to board that ship and claim it as my own!” He pointed at the Slytherin raft, where the greasy-haired boy Snape and the ever charming Mulciber were arguing over how to attach the barrels better. Before Remus could say anything, James put an oar in his hands and they started forward. “Avast ye mangy curs, your boat be mine now!” Sirius called to them with a terrible glee in his eyes. Remus shook his head and kept rowing. 

Next part

[poomphuripan]

Week 5 - My Stand-In News from YYDS Entertainment

Police arrest a skilled man who secretly zoomed in and took photos of a luxury condo. He confessed that he made a profit from auctioning off images on illegal websites.

The blockbuster movie "9 Swords" has an auspicious time to start filming the second part. Hoping to continue success Starting with the original team, complete set. Shooting in the same location brings back memories of legendary fencing scenes. Starring Tong-Tinkarn Lead actor Tong-Tinkarn revealed that he has been exercising his body to prepare for filming the second part. By attending a heavy action workshop with a team of professionals. Even though many years have passed, I still remember the precise fencing moves. Don't worry you won't be able to compete with the first part. Because everyone gave their best to the best.

Mike-Methiyuth Chairman of the Board of Directors of Akara Yothar Group revealed that the subsidiary is developing light filter products for buildings, houses, condos, and offices using new technology imported from the United States. It is believed that it is beneficial to business expansion for the Akaryothar Group. Because the group has estate market according to the latest ranking. If they become the leader in the region, glass film will be installed on every glass of the building that the group has developed. It will be a good result, especially in terms of privacy.

The villagers shouted loudly. The filming crew of an unidentified fighting movie burned all day long. Excessive release of black smoke causes air pollution. Moreover, the filming was taken beyond the time allowed by pemission. Because the filming didn't go according to schedule. Create noise and chaos for residents near the filming area. They have requested officials to investigate. An extra from the filming set revealed the reason. It is assumed that the actor's care team released the wrong queue, causing a special guest actor to walk into the scene at the wrong time. It caused reshoot on the scene. Therefore, the entire scene had to be reshot.

[duskymrel]

Part 8 of TWST as my friend group quotebook

These are getting worse and worse as time progresses (my friends and I are getting too comfortable). Also, as always, any line with a '^' before it was said, done, or about yours truly <3

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

Ace: Coochie-sakeonna😀

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

Vil: If a man wears a v-neck or a turtle neck, chances are that he’s a homosexual.

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

Lilia: *talking about cannibalizing men* girl dinner ✨殺留路

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

Vil: Fashionably ignorant?—

Malleus: Who said my name?

Floyd: Sell the children *maniacal laughter*

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

^Jack: I’m easy as fuck to manipulate if you appeal to my emotions. It’s all logic and critical thinking until you bring the wet dogs and starving kids out. 

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

Azul, reading a text from Idia: “list of things i’m handling well currently. #1: (silence)”

Lilia: pEEENISSS 😎😈💪💪

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

Crewel: Should minors be charged with adult crimes?

Leona: If they’re black, yes

^Lilia: If they’re one of them queers, yes

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

Rook: You're stepping up in the world

Vil: One stiletto at a time

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

Leona: Sometimes we have to sacrifice our lesbianism to become a straight man 

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^Cater: I want him tied up under my Christmas tree in lingerie, oiled up, and covered in whipped cream and strawberries.

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

^Ace, about Idia: Be so for real, he is flat as a board. He has NO cake. When he throws it back you can hear bones rattling.

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

Trein: Y’all need to STOP calling the 80’s “oldies music”

^Deuce: Sir, that was 40 years ago

Trein: HUSH

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

^Riddle, talking about the Vargas: is he seriosuly making the powerpoint for todays notes on the smartboard WHILE we’re in class???

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

Trein: *trying to get the class to figure out a word on their own* What’s the n-word?

First-years: *dead silence*

Teacher: ...Nationalism. It’s nationalism. 

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

^Ace: *pointing to the things they're doing in Trein’s class*

Ace: Is this for a grade?

Jack: It’s just notes, Ace. 

^Ace: *immediately shuts binder and puts it away*

Deuce: DUDE??

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

Cater: *holding ^Lilia’s dice earrings*

Cater: If I roll a six it means I’m going to kms

Cater: *Rolls a six*

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

^Idia: My life was a lot better 18 years ago back when I was still residing in my mother’s uterus as an unfertilized egg.

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

[johaerys-writes]

Summary:

Just as Patroclus gets ready for the most important work trip of his career, Achilles decides to come along for the ride without asking. After not having seen each other for a year, the friendship they once had is hanging by a thread... while the tension that neither of them wants to acknowledge is heavier than ever.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: i try to live in black and white but i'm so blue

It’s still dark outside when Patroclus hauls his suitcase out of his apartment building, waiting at the curb for his cab. The city is quiet in the twilight; there’s barely anyone in the streets, save for the garbage trucks making their first rounds. He glances down at his wristwatch: just short of 5am, and mere hours before he boards one of the most important flights of his entire career.

He heaves a sigh of relief when his cab finally arrives. The driver steps out to help him with his suitcase, and asks him if he wants to place his hand luggage in the trunk as well, but Patroclus smiles and shakes his head as he clutches it protectively close. He’d rather keep his laptop as close to his person as he can short of strapping it on him.

The driver has just shut the trunk door when the tires of another car screech, startlingly loud in the empty steet. Patroclus glances back to see another cab through the rear window skidding to a halt behind them. The car door is flung open before the cab has even stopped moving, and then—

And then, out steps the bane of Patroclus’ entire existence.

“Stop the car!” Achilles shouts. He grabs a designer duffel bag out of the cab’s trunk and slings it over his shoulder, then tosses some bills through the driver window— probably much more than the actual ride was worth— before running up to them.

“Hi!” He chirps merrily, slipping into the backseat beside Patroclus. His scent hits Patroclus like a punch in the face: a hint of expensive cologne and his own familiar smell, that heady summer smell Patroclus knows so well. It’s so sudden, it’s all happening so fast, that it renders him completely speechless and numb.

Achilles leans over to the cab driver and pats him on the shoulder. “Let’s get moving, we have a plane to catch!”

Patroclus, who had been watching the events unfold in pure shock, as if witnessing the collision of a rushing train with a brick wall, finally stirs out of his silence. “We?” he echoes. “Who’s we?”

Achilles blinks at him, completely bamboozled that he would think to ask such a question. “You and me, of course. Did you think you were going to that conference alone?”

The cab rolls down the street, steadily gaining speed. Patroclus can barely take in his surroundings for the sudden flash anger that fills him. “Wait, wait, wait —” he says, holding up a hand, which the driver chooses to ignore. “Why are you here, Achilles? What are you doing?”

“I’m flying to Singapore with you.” He grins at Patroclus as if he’s just given him the best news of his entire life, before he adds, “After being away for so long, I thought it’d be fun to surprise you. Didn’t you miss me?”

His hair is so golden and glossy in the morning’s bleak first light, windswept and yet still attractively dishevelled, like he’s spent hours trying to achieve that specific look even though Patroclus knows he probably woke up like this. His eyes are bright with mischief, like they used to be when they were kids and running around the garden of their childhood summer house in Phthia, but there’s something else in his searching gaze now: a sort of tentative hope that’s so at odds with his usual brazen confidence. A flicker of the real Achilles behind the face he chooses to put up.

After not having gazed upon him in the flesh for more than a year, being so close to him is almost physically painful right now.

Patroclus might as well have swallowed his tongue for how incapable he is of forming actual words. He turns away from Achilles and scowls out of the window, seething with frustration as Achilles nags the cab driver about connecting his phone to the car’s speakers and blasting his favourite tunes the whole damned way to the airport.

He doesn’t talk to Achilles when the cab drops them off at the airport departures, and he refuses to reply to any of his enthusiastic comments and questions as they drop off their bags at check-in and make their way through airport security. Once they make it to their gate, Patroclus leaves Achilles flicking through the pages of an airplane magazine as he steps away to make a phone call.

“Hello?” comes Peleus’ groggy answer. The man has never been an early bird, and this is particularly early even for Patroclus. He feels bad for waking him, but this can’t wait.

“It’s me. Patroclus,” he says, though he knows it’s unnecessary. Peleus can tell who he is through the caller ID. “Listen, I’m sorry for waking you but I need to talk to you.”

“What happened? Anything wrong with your flight?”

“Yes. No. Well, sort of.” Patroclus lets out a sharp breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Are you aware that your son is travelling with me?”

“Achilles?” Peleus asks, baffled. “That’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

Patroclus stays silent, guts twisting with anxiety while he waits for Peleus to properly wake up.

“I told him about the conference last night, when he came over for dinner. He was very happy to hear about you taking on this responsibility. But you know Achilles— he has never been particularly interested in the business end of things. I practically had to beg and bribe him for him to agree to start coming to the office once in a blue moon. Every year I ask him to go to one of these conferences, to start learning the job, and every year I get the same answer. I’ll spare you it; it’s too early in the morning.”

Peleus laughs indulgently at his son’s antics, but all Patroclus feels is dull and hollow bitterness. His stomach squeezes uncomfortably at the prospect of spending any time at all with Achilles, let alone the entire length of this trip. At least he’s somewhat mollified by the fact that Peleus didn’t send Achilles along to keep an eye on Patroclus, as if he can’t be trusted to do a job on his own, and that Achilles’ actions are all his own fault and of his own devising. As per usual.

“You know,” Peleus continues, “it isn’t such a bad thing that he wants to come. It’s about time he showed some initiative— and you have always been such a good influence on him. Catching up will do a world of good to you both, I’m sure.”

Patroclus grits out a reluctant acknowledgment to this, which is neither an assent or a refusal, and hangs up the phone. He isn’t at all sure that ‘catching up’ will do anyone any good, especially Achilles and himself.

By the time they board the plane, Patroclus is hungry, tired, and already has a splitting headache. He wants nothing more than to be left alone for the rest of his flight, even though there’s little chance of that with Achilles managing to find a seat right next to him on the plane.

“Isn’t it great, going on a trip together after so long?” Achilles says happily as the plane takes off. “It’s going to be like an adventure! Like old times, right?”

“I’ve got a job to do, Achilles,” Patroclus says. “I’m not interested in adventures.”

Achilles laughs, and the sound at once enrages him and makes him ache with painful longing. “We’ll be there for a week, you won’t be working all the time.”

“Watch me,” Patroclus says irritably, reaching for his laptop in the overhead locker once the sign to stay in their seats flickers out.

He barely got any sleep the previous night, working on his presentation until late, much later than was reasonable. The presentation is pretty much ready, but he can’t resist tinkering with it all the time, changing a word here and fixing the formatting there. He knows he should leave it alone, but he is simply incapable of doing that. He wants to be the best, the very best, at what he does.

It isn’t just about him being a perfectionist, though, or having a chip on his shoulder. The task Peleus has entrusted him with is the most important he’s ever had to undertake; sending him off to Singapore to one of the biggest business conferences in the world to present the growth and production of the company before an audience of hundreds, and thousands more online, is just a small token of the enormous faith Peleus places on him. Patroclus isn’t about to let him down.

And he won’t let anything distract him from that purpose. Not Achilles, or anyone else. This is far too important.

His resolve doesn’t last very long, as Achilles thrusts his face over Patroclus’ shoulder to peek at his laptop screen. “Ooh, what’s this?”

“Do you mind?” Patroclus snaps, slamming the laptop closed. He shifts around to face Achilles, schooling his features to the most annoyed scowl he can muster. “This is important stuff, Achilles. I can’t have you poking around my work. If we’re going to have to suffer each other’s company for a week, the least you could do is mind your business and let me do mine, okay?”

He hates the way his heart plummets at the sight of Achilles’ smile fading, at the disappointed pout that replaces it. Achilles edges back, all of his enthusiasm melting away.

“Fine, okay,” he mutters. “Whatever.”

He turns around and takes his headphones out of his bag, placing them over his head. Though being left in peace was everything Patroclus wanted, Achilles pulling his attention away from him feels like the sun being hidden behind thick rainclouds, taking away all its warmth. He sullenly returns to his work while Achilles gets ready to watch a movie on his tablet, and wonders how long it’s been since they’ve done anything in the same space, since they’ve sat so close. The distance between their elbows on the armrest is electrifying, and every time they almost touch, Patroclus’ heart gives a painful, frustrating thump in his chest.

Patroclus does his best to ignore it.

Read the rest on AO3

[slowips]

fire, shadows, ice, psionics 👀👀

thanks so much for this ask! -> elemental writer ask

Fire: What’s a scene that you are dying to write?

i made a wip post for this, haha. if you don't mind, i would love to talk (vaguely) about each scene for each wip i plan to write this year.

you've changed (cyno / reader longfic) — the secrets behind the disappearance of your father is revealed. a choice has to be made: admit the truth or destroy the evidence that you and cyno worked so hard to attain?

dog ears (gorou x reader oneshot) — it's not normal to ask a person you just met if they believe you're going to die. you do so anyway. gorou looks cute as he panics, visibly flustered, but it's his answer that solidifies your desire to see him again.

your ghost in the closet (kazuha / reader oneshot) — a series of incidents piques kazuha's curiosity regarding your choice of lifestyle. he confronts you about what he's seen, and in haste, you confess the feelings you've locked behind the closet.

not freaking out (cyno / reader for this series) — when your boyfriend doesn't appear when you end work, you use the opportunity to visit cyno after nilou shared concerns regarding his absence. the walk home allows you to talk with him about things swept under the carpet.

there's actually more stories for the series, but i don't have all of them planned, and this post is getting longer than it needs to be, haha.

⠀

Shadows: What’s the darkest theme you’ve ever written about?

i've not written works with darker themes and i don't know how to rank them, so i'll just list some dark(er) themes i hope to write and explain what i'd like to explore for each. all themes do not have a fic idea, so it's possible i may never write about them. it is also possible i will not write genshin fanfiction for them, but who knows! not me!

cheating / i see a lot of people not liking cheating fics, and that's understandable because i do not condone cheating too. however, the fact still remains that it is happening in the world, and i'm interested in exploring the reasons why people cheat as well as the aftermath from perspectives of all parties.

possessive behaviour / this is not related to yandere although it does overlap, so some might consider it dark? i think it's interesting because people like reading jealous headcanons. that includes a bit of possessiveness so what's the line between possessiveness that's cute and possessiveness that's dangerous?

human experimentation / simplified, human experimentation is unethical if done (1) deceptively (2) and without consent. but what if it was done with consent without deception? what if the subject was brainwashed to think that entering the experiment despite the dangers is the correct thing to do?

abduction / watched a video (22 mins) and agreed such circumstances would be a damn good psychological horror story. what if the captor gained feelings for the hostage but it is not reciprocated? many thoughts.

⠀

Ice: What do you always get stuck on when writing?

i like to write my stories chronologically, aka in the order scenes are supposed to be read. if i can't write a scene, it bottlenecks really easily and i just... end up not writing at all. i'm trying to work on that, hahaha. i think another thing that gets me stuck is dialogue and description. it doesn't come as easily compared to exposition.

⠀

Psionics: How do you get into the heads of your characters?

since fanfiction is transformative work, characters just need to feel familiar, so i try to immerse myself into the source material. that means reading their character stories and listening to their voice lines. if i want to put more effort, i will make a document and briefly jot down patterns of speech and core beliefs. i've seen this method float around fandom space when other writers get asked how they write in-character. i hope it is working, lol.

i'm trying to adopt this guy's perspective on characters (13m). i like his take that characters are not people: they are drivers of a story you're trying to tell. if the plot revolves tightly around my understanding of a character, i feel that's half the battle won.

[scoliosisgoblin]

here's some doodles cause I was bored.

Minnie looks weird in this, I did NOT do her justice (belongs to @plumbus-central )

[aeterna---amantes]

I've been officially in 2024 for 33 minutes and it's great so far 😁

Happy new year to all of you again!!

[faineant-girl]

my laptop is really on thin fucking ice right now

[noxtivagus]

i LOVE stormblood (listening to some of the ost rn <3 i love all the expansions so very much. they all mean a lot to me <3)

[beemovieerotica]

I know people on tumblr looove stories of underwater cave diving, but I haven't seen anyone talk about nitrogen narcosis aka "raptures of the deep"

basically when you want to get your advanced scuba certification (allowing you to go more than 60 feet deep) you have to undergo a very specific test: your instructor takes you down past the 60+ foot threshold, and she brings a little underwater white board with her.

she writes a very basic math problem on that board. 6 + 15. she shows it to you, and you have to solve it.

if you can solve it, you're good. that is the hardest part of the test.

because here's what happens: there is a subset of people, and we have no real idea why this happens only to them, who lose their minds at depth. they're not dying, they're not running out of oxygen, they just completely lose their sense of identity when deep in the sea.

a woman on a dive my instructor led once vanished during the course of the excursion. they were diving near this dropoff point, beyond which the depth exceeded 60 feet and he'd told them not to go down that way. the instructor made his way over to look for her and found a guy sitting at the edge of the dropoff (an underwater cliff situation) just staring down into the dark. the guy is okay, but he's at the threshold, spacing out, and mentally difficult to reach. they try to communicate, and finally the guy just points down into the dark, knowing he can't go down there, but he saw the woman go.

instructor is deep water certified and he goes down. he shines his light into the dark, down onto the seafloor which is at 90 feet below the surface. he sees the woman, her arms locked to her sides, moving like a fish, swimming furiously in circles in the pitch black.

she is hard to catch but he stops her and checks her remaining oxygen: she is almost out, on account of swimming a marathon for absolutely no reason. he is able to drag her back up, get her to a stable depth to decompress, and bring her to the surface safely.

when their masks are off and he finally asks her what happened, and why was she swimming like that, she says she fully, 100% believed she was a mermaid, had always been a mermaid, and something was hunting her in the dark 👍

[weaselle]

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

[mariacallous]

The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.

On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.

Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.

In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.

“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”

“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.

The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.

In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.

The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.

A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.

A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.

[hoshigray]

𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐙 𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 | tōji fushiguro

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Everyone knows you are Toji's favorite stripper. So, it's no surprise that he'd want to have you to himself for a night at the V.I.P. section, not that you're complaining.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Toji x stripper fem! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - sex at a public place; strip club V.I.P. room - kissing/making out - oral (m! + f! receiving) - ball massaging + sucking + heavy depiction of a blowjob - slight anal fingering (f! receiving) - orgasm denial - impact play (spanking + f! receiving) - sir kink - reverse oral + backshots positions - unprotected sex (psa: wrap it up or get tf up) - clitoral play (swiping and pinching) - pet names (angel, baby, good girl, mama, sweetheart, sweetie) - cameos: Miguel, Mei Mei and Ino (stripper, manager and DJ) - mentions of spit/saliva.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5.6k

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: yesssss, finally, a piece for toji !! this was based on a request/scenario that had me thinking about this prompt a lot afterward, so I'm glad I got the time to go more into the story with this c: enjoyyyy !!

“Toji! Back here like you said?”

“Yup, just as promised. It’s Saturday, after all.” 

“Mmm, I see. Right this way, please; Lady Mei is waiting for you right there..” 

Tonight is Saturday night, the middle of the weekend. How Toji spends his weekends comes and goes, depending on how much cash his pockets are willing to withdraw. Luckily, his stacks are ready for whatever this night has in store for him. And since he’s walking down in a strip club right now, you can guess he’s prepared for something grand. 

Saturdays tend to be one of the busiest nights – if not Fridays. The vibrating bass from the speakers could be felt in his bones, music getting people bumping and grinding by the DJ booth. Crowds swarm the bar to grab their drinks – and perhaps flirt with the bartender – as the special menus catch their eyes. And, of course, the wolf whistles and exclaimed shouts of men and women fill the open area where the dancers give the clients a night of promised fun.

Toji’s guided by one of the male strippers to the back of the club that transitions to the upstairs. By the stairwell, he sees a woman with silverish, pale-blue braided hair, wearing a white cold-shoulder blouse and a long black pencil skirt that emphasizes her hips nicely. Lilac eyes flicker in his direction, and her red lips curl into a smile. 

“Thank you, Miguel.” Mei Mei greets and dismisses the male entertainer in the same breath, watching him bow and return to his business, leaving the woman with Toji. “Well, well, well. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this moment all day.”

“Ever since ya called me this morning, Lady Mei.” The older man refers to her by her business name with a smirk and a tilt of his head. “So, they’re on board?”

She nods. “That would be the reason I gave you the call, no? The money you brought goes straight to them after this, and they said there’s no need to tip them extra.”

He snickers. “That I can’t promise; I always gotta tip my favorite girl for their service. They treat me right, and I do the same.” 

“Good service means good tips, Mr. Fushiguro. Please, follow me; they’re waiting for you.” 

As far as clubs go, this one was undoubtedly one of Toji’s spots to come to. Here, he can trust that he can have a good time and get his money’s worth with every visit. Good drinks from the bar from that Nanami guy; that rookie DJ, Ino, who likes to humor the older man whenever he’s off his set; and all the entertainers who know of Toji from his frequent visits, all good people that ensure he’s relaxed and welcomed, whether it be service from them or chit-chat on the side between sessions.

But let’s not beat around the bush here; Toji won’t lie and say he doesn’t have favorites — or else why would he be here? There had to be a reason this bulky man comes back for more, and having him known as a loyal customer by the staff of this place and their clients. 

The reason is that out of all the people here, Toji does have a favorite. This favored person is who’s making this man willingly follow the manager up the stairs and walk through the hallway. Only those worth his respect and time could have him do that.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been up here, so let me re-specify,” Mei Mei speaks, ignoring the faint howls of men and women from behind the doors they walk past. “This is V.I.P., meaning people pay extra just to have the room to themselves and my dancers. The rules downstairs apply upstairs…Well, except for today with—“

“Me and them, right?” See? He's listening.

Mei Mei hums. “You two are scheduled for two hours. Food and drinks can be brought up here, but absolutely no messes whatsoever. I don’t care what you two do in there — all I ask is that you two clean up after yourselves.” She stops at the last door of the hallway on the right. “And as for you, since no one is up here to get in the way of you two, no breaking stuff. You break it, you pay for it.” She pauses when he nods. 

“I won’t.” Forest green eyes stay on her as a dark brow rises.

“Especially on my girl tonight.” Lavender orbs narrow faintly. “I don’t want to see so much as a scratch on them. Otherwise, your account won’t be the only thing I’ll have dropped in the negatives. Am I clear?”

“Crystal. Not doin’ anything they don’t wanna do.”

A curt nod to his response, extending her hand out to him. “Their cash?”

Without hesitation, Toji slings the bag he carried on his shoulder to hand to the manager. She holds and unzips it to check the contents, and the smile on her face gets bigger before she peers back at him. 

“Enjoy yourself, Mr. Fushiguro,” she zips the bag and excuses herself before placing a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be too rough.” Toji eyes at her slender fingers sliding away, and the clack of her heels drew further and further away, clicking on the stairs to join the lively bunch down below.

Toji’s eyes examine the door before him but can’t seem to fight the sneer molding into his face. He cracks his knuckle and neck before taking a moment to himself for a deep breath. There’s something in this room that ignites his excitement before it can skyrocket, and it gets a little difficult to contain it once he turns the doorknob.

The V.I.P. rooms are all set up the same: to his right was a single booth seat from one side of the room to the other, a circle table centered by the furniture. The ceiling lights can be dimmed or dialed up, but the ones here were dimmed to a warm glow, which was pleasing and subtly set the mood with the soft white LED lights behind the booth. And the temperature felt just right, prompting the older man to remove his jacket.  

Although he appreciates the change of atmosphere, Toji doesn’t mind what mood the room is set in — because he didn’t come here for that. He came for whatever caught his attention the moment he walked in. The smirk on his face brought the scar on the right side of his lips upright. 

To his right stood a mini stage where a silver pole comes from the center to the top of the ceiling; the light from the mounted full-length mirror on the wall casts a silhouette of something slinging around the pole. Or better yet, on someone. Alas, the person he’s longed to see this entire night is before him. Y/n, Toji’s favorite stripper, was in his sights.

You maneuver around the pole and drift your limbs through the air. Elegant motions perceived by Toji alone, daring not to say anything until you noticed him. And when you do, your eyes lock in on him, and your lips twinge into a smile. Fate was sealed, and the evening for you two had finally begun.

“Toji,” he loved how you said his name. You skillfully transition from a recliner move to a pole sit. “You made it; worried you’d have cold feet on me.”

“And miss seeing you tonight?” He strides in your direction before throwing his jacket to the booth seat, his feet stopping at the steps of your stage. He takes this chance to observe what you picked to wear tonight, elated knowing that you chose one of his favorite looks. “Not a chance.”

Your makeup was the first thing that caught his eye; pink and blue eyeshadow blended perfectly well and compliment your skin, aided with glossy lipstick that entices him. There were rhinestones added at the corner and lids of your eyes, making them shine more with the lighting. Since it’s just the two of you tonight, you opted to show more skin than usual. You wore a white, long-sleeved mesh shirt that had your chest area open, exposing the black laced bra that hugged your breasts nicely. White fishnet pantyhose that comes to your upper thigh, gartered to your lacy, black underwear. And to complete the look, transparent ultra-high heels. You were dolled up — just for him.

Your smile broadens — the brightest thing in the room to him. “That’s so sweet. Please take a seat and let me warm things up, okay?” And you continue back with your routine, swinging on the pole in the ballerina move. Your movements were effortlessly beautiful. Captivating to watch you operate your body around the item and your hand gracefully float around the air as you swing.

But then you come to a stop, finding that Toji is now on the stage and taking your hand in his. Emerald eyes instantly capture yours as his fingers intertwine with yours.

“No need to warm up,” he says in a low tone, as if the music around the room wasn’t already lowered enough for you two to speak normally. His face inches closer to yours, and your breathing becomes slow. “I’ve been waitin’ for this all night.”

His abrupt change was kind of shocking as he’s never one to switch up your procedure. But you don’t take it to heart because you understand, offering him a small smile before your eyes drift to his lips coming to yours. “Impatient much, huh?”

“That’s what happens when ya spoil me all the time,” he jests before a hand comes to your cheek, bringing his lips to yours for an awaited kiss. 

You two kiss with slow pecks, waiting for someone to make the first move. And Toji’s the one to do it, licking your bottom lip and playfully nibbling it. You titter faintly, opening your mouth to permit him to insert his tongue inside and play with yours. And you moan to him when he sucks and teases yours with his teeth.

Toji’s hand on your cheek goes to the back of your neck, wanting to keep the kiss in contact. And you follow suit, carefully placing your hands on his shoulders one by one from the pole. To hope you don’t fall, his other hand comes to your back for assistance. Yet your legs are still tightly wrapped around the metal pole. 

He breaks the kiss to see for himself, chortling at the display. And you beam at him, using your finger to drag his raven bangs along his forehead. “Spoiling you, huh?” You inquire, kissing his nose. “With how this night is set up, we’ll have to see who’s treating who.” 

He liked the sound of that. “Two hours to make it count, then.”

You wink. “Two hours.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“—Mmph…! Hoohh, fuck, that tongue…keep swirlin’ like that…”

“Nnmm…enjoying yourself there?” 

“Heh, keep teasing’ me like that, and we’ll see what happens, Y/n…Hmmm…”

Toji sits on the booth seat with his denim-clad legs spread out for you to crouch in between. Your hand snakes inside his shirt; the dent of his abs is sensed by your fingertips. And the free one is gliding up and down the exposed erection that’s out for your very eyes to see. 

Oh, fuck, this was a sight to see: crouching in front of your favorite client, having his cock in your very grasp. The limb is so big and girthy that it drives you crazy just marveling at it, and the twitch of your chasm below refuses to calm down. Every slow pump urges a bit of precum to slip out the urethra, and you gasp faintly at the contact of the substance staining your pretty nails. Shit, from his veins to the delicious tip, it’s been so long since you’ve seen a dick this oddly gorgeous. 

Hell, it’s been a long while since you’ve given head. And, holy fuck, it felt too good doing it right now — especially with a dick as mouthwatering as Toji’s. You started with slow licks to the cockhead and kisses to the frenulum, evoking hushed grunts from the older man; sounds you love entering your eardrums, pushing you to want more. Slow laps gradually lose to adventurous curiosity as you take in every inch of his length til the hilt meets your lips, humming at the sensation of him filling your throat. 

You suck on his shaft with glee, swirling your tongue on the underside with every bob to the mouth. And your hand still moves to please him, your fingers eventually finding his balls to give them a knead. A hiss leaves scarred lips, and he grabs for the top of your head. Oh, he’s definitely loving this. 

“Hshhh, shiiit, just like that, baby,” the pet name makes you mewl; he said it so hot. “Fuuuck, y’re so good.”

“Mmmm…Phuaa!” You release his girth from your lips, attacking the sensitive head with teasing licks, rubbing the limb on your face while placing chaste kisses. God, he loved how beautifully dirty you were being. “Hnnmm, yo’ thwink so…?”

Talking with your mouth full results in a laugh from Toji. “Fuck yeah; barely hangin’ on right now…Oh shit,” he shouldn’t have said that because you kiss his shaft down to his balls, sucking one into your mouth to have the man almost choke on his spit. “Hmng…!! Oh, shit, shit, I’m gonna cum, mama. Take me back in, Y/n—Ahhh!”

No can do! Because you immediately remove yourself from him, standing on your toes and walking backward. Observing the genuine staggered expression on Toji has you giggling, making him sneer in return. “You fuckin’ tease.”

“Come on now; you gotta do your part as well, you know.” You turn to crawl atop the stage, your hands on the pole while swaying your ass to the side. You know he’s watching, feeling his green eyes boring holes into your being. Knowing you’re being desired like this turns you on even more. 

Toji wastes no time, marching towards your ass with a hungry grin. Rough fingers come to your underwear, bringing it down with ease, biting his lip at the wet display of your cunt. “Oh, aren’t you a pretty thing, huh.” 

You titter, shivers crawling up your spine when his thumbs spread your folds to expose your bare vagina. You grab hold of the pole for preparation. “Please be delicate with me.”

He blows on your cunt, and you take a sharp breath. “After that lil’ stunt of y’rs a few seconds ago? You better hold on to that thing tight.” Toji gives your wetness a tantalizingly slow lick, taking in every shudder of your body. “Hnnm, taste good…” 

His hands find your waist and then stuffs his face to your ass, his lips and tongue going to work and sucking in your liquids. You cry out, gripping the pole as soon as you feel a flick to your clit. Your eyes instinctively shut, and your arch elates to bring your butt closer to him. 

Toji’s strong hold on you aids him in making sure you don’t get away from him; your soapy slit is right where he wants it, and he doesn’t plan on letting go. His tongue hurries through your labia, and your essence coats his tastebuds. You moan out loud at the feeling of the muscle pushing to the entrance, your hips jerking with his nose bumping close to your taint. 

“Ahaaa, ohh Jesus, yesss,” your words come out in pretty wails. “Yess, Toji, ‘eel so good…”

He hears and gives you another taunting lick from your clit to the vagina. This time, he notes your ass jolt when he comes close to your asshole. And he can’t fight his mischievous soul, bringing his tongue ever so slowly to it for you to gasp and realize what he’s doing.

“W–Wait, no, Tojiii!” You whine. Fuck, you sounded so cute. “Not there, please…!”

“Hmm? What’s wrong?” He brings a thumb to lather it with spit before pressing it to your anus. The choked sob erupting from you has him tingle, pushing the digit further in. “Don’t want me playin’ with this?”

“—Hnnff! Noooo, stop, that’s—Mmmm!” Goddamn, how could someone look so good while whining like this? Oh, he could never get enough of you before. Now, this little infatuation for you could dwell into an obsession if you keep batting your hooded eyes at him like that. “That's dirty…!” 

He shakes his head with a prurient leer and trenched brows. “Don’t worry, angel; I like dirty.” You gulped. That’s not what I meant! “Be dirty fr’ me, ‘kay? Wanna see it all...” Toji brings his face back to your southern lips, sucking and licking in an excitable fashion that has you trying so hard not to scream (even if the walls are supposedly soundproof). 

It’s here that you give up and have your face meet the floor of the stage, sinking into the feeling of Toji ravishing your cunt to feast on your come entirely. You can shake and try to move your hips all you want, but it won’t work; Toji will instantly shut you down and shove his mouth right back to your folds. And with his thumb scraping the walls of your tight asshole, chewing your lips does nothing to suppress the haze. 

“Hohhh, hnmm, oh my God, Ohhh…!” A hand finds its way to Toji’s wrist, holding onto it to prepare for what’s bound to happen. “Haaah, I’m about to cum…Please, like that, keep going…Oooo!!”

Nope. He doesn’t let you off the hook, withdrawing his face and thumb away from you, and the climb of your promised orgasm dissipates in seconds. You turn to him with an albeit hurt expression, expectedly being met with a smug look on his handsome face. “Hahhh, so mean…”

“Oh, I know y’re not talking, sweetheart.” Toji removes and discards your underwear somewhere across the room, giving your bare ass a playful smack to which you faux cry in pain with laughs. He then picks you up bridal style and walks you back to the couch, your face gently placed on the furniture with your buttocks up in front of him. He brings the tip of his cock to kiss your labia. “Ya ready?” You nod to him hurriedly with bitten lips of glee. All he wants to do is grab you by the chin and kiss the hell out of you. “Nice and slow fr’ ya, sweetie.” 

Your breath hitches at Toji’s glans being pushed into you, using your slick and his saliva to lubricate himself for easy access. Your hands grip the booth seat with every push of him, and you gasp loudly at the insertion of his tip. The subtle pain declined in mere seconds before being raptured by the sensation of his girth stretching you. Your body quakes by the time his pelvis meets the flesh of your ass, unable to contain the pants of air leaving your lips.

Toji moves his hips tremendously slowly, making you feel every bit of him. Holy shit, it’s been a while having a living, breathing dick inside you. The indistinct dents grazing your entrance with every push and pull, the veins scraping along your inner walls ever feels so fucking good, and his tip jabbing so deep inside you. Jesus Christ, you can’t blame your slit clamping onto him; he feels so good!

“Hmm? Ya like that, baby?”And Toji can tell, grinding his hips, stimulating a shaky howl. “Y’re grippin’ on me like crazy.”

“Ahhaaa, fuhuuuck, you feel so good, Toji,” you hum, gnawing on your lips as his pace goes faster by the second. Yes, yes! “Ohhhh, ’m so full…!”

He comes down to lick on the helix of your ear. His voice being so close to you has you clamping onto him harder. “Fuuck, that grip…Just stay like this fr’ me, all nice and pretty. Can ya do that?”

“Yesss, sir.” 

Oh, that title sparked something within him. The snicker to your ear had you swooned. “Keep callin’ me that.”

You giggle softly. “Of course, sir—Rrryahhh!!” He didn’t warn you when he started bucking his hips unexpectedly. 

Strokes to your cunt became quick, the sensation of him becoming rushed for your senses to comprehend after each thrust. The sounds of skin smacking against each other fill the space between you, and the heat transferring from your warm bodies is given in quick exchanges.

It doesn’t take long for your head to be thrown into a daze, your eyes shot up to the stars with every jab to your sensitive spots. Restraint is held by a thread, finding it strenuous to keep your voice down to a respectable volume. Your fingernails leave crescents on the booth seat beneath you as Toji drives his length into you. 

“—Ohhh! Fuuuu, oh shit, Tojiii, slow d—Owwhhn!!” He slaps your ass, an action you couldn’t foretell, and prevent a shriek from leaving your mouth. 

“Not ‘Toji’ right now,” he corrects you, grinding his pelvis again to scrape your walls to the point of wails. Gripping your ass like a toy, “What do you call me?”

“Mmmph!! I’m sorry, sir; forgive me…!” Another smack and the pain stings the skin to the point your eyes water. 

“Good girl,” he’s satisfied, coming down to place kisses on your shoulder and travel down your back. 

Toji straightens at the sight before him, taking in every detail of the situation. Having his favorite stripper be a whimpering mess for him: your mouth agape for cute sounds to fly out, the motion of your ass cheeks bouncing with every rut of him, and his dick digging into your alluring body. Fuck, if only he could take a picture of this. But thankfully, he still has another hour and a half to go — an hour and a half to indulge himself more with you. He paid good money for this, so he’ll make it worth every cent.

“Hey, mama,” he comes down to cup your face with his right hand, bringing you in for a hot kiss. You happily reciprocate, allowing him access and sucking his tongue with a mewl.

The kiss has him drink your high-pitched huffs while his tempo increases to an irregular speed. Your eyes screwed shut at the pacing; the feeling of his girth filling you so much is fucking crazy. Your head begins to pound with the heat that spreads across your face, and your brain gradually churns to mush as you can sense the climb of your climax. 

“—Shhhiiit, oh shiit!!” You pule with the trembles crawling up to your shoulders, a tiny streak of drool coming down from the corner of your lips. “F–Fhhh, I’m gonna cum, sir! Please, let me cummm…!”

“Hhhck!! Fuck, me too,” he confesses in between kisses. “Lemme finish here...” Toji sneaks a hand down to your lower region, his forefinger grazing your clitoris that was left unattended throughout this time. Until now. “Cum on me, angel. Let loose…”

The rough pads of his fingers swipe on your clit; your eyes widen at the action and force you to break the kiss. Your moans come out from his swipes and pinches on your delicate bud, and the growth of your orgasm ascends tenfold. Oh fuck, it’s coming, I’m— “Ohh–Ohoooo!!”

And then it hits you; the walls of your cunt clamp around Toji tightly, making the older man groan at the fluttering contraction. So engulfed with how good you feel that it prompts him to spill his load into you. But he doesn’t stop jerking his hips, smacking his cock into your sensitive chasm until he knows every drop of his ejaculation is pumped deep inside you. 

Toji brings his body down to your heaving one, your breathing synced with his as you two let your pleasurable highs subside. When things feel as though they’ve calmed down, he’ll bury his face in the crook of your neck and place kisses while rubbing your ass. You hum to his touch, deep exhales seeping through your nostrils.

“Mmmm, that was good,” he says to your skin before lifting his face to examine you properly, removing his length from your cunt and watching the trail of his come ooze out. “Heh, fuck that’s crazy…Ready for another round, sweetheart?”

Of course, you laugh at that. “Well, sir, if you’d like to go again, please be sure to use the condoms this time. I wouldn’t like Mei Mei to come here and murder us for not cleaning after ourselves.”

He lifts a brow. “Condoms?”

You point with your chin to the table at the booth center, noting the silver tray that displayed items for this occasion. Towels, water bottles, and, of course, packets of rubbers that were meant to be used. 

Toji blinks, and then a fit of laughter bubbles inside him. “Well, now I know. But I don’t see the point since I already fucked you raw. Already spoiled the fun for ya.”

You shrug with a smile, standing up to grab the towel to wipe yourself. “Boss’ orders.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he obliges with a kiss on your cheek before he shifts to lie on the couch. He discards his jeans and drawls, spreading his strong legs to showcase his member standing strong. He pats on his thigh, “Get y’r cute ass over here.”

You beam at him, grabbing for a wrapper and tearing it up to release a condom. “Yes, sir~.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“And so? You two cleaned up everything?”

“Yup, made sure it was all clean and neat the way it was before.”

“Good. Because I had a meeting in that room this morning, and neither my client nor I would like to have the smell of sex fill our conversation. Or seeing a condom wrapper on the floor.” 

“Hehe, well, I hoped you checked under the seats. He’d probably be sneaky enough to kick at least one down there.”

“Oh, you’re such a little…” Your manager doesn’t finish that sentence and hits you on the head with a makeup brush, resulting in a strong laugh from you.

Tonight was the following night after that event. You’re now in the dressing room, adding finishing touches to your make-up before you can go out to perform for the last day of the weekend. Mei Mei was with you, helping you fix yourself since she likes to help her performers feel at the top of their game. Also, as your friend, she wanted to hear the details of what transpired last night. 

“That man, I swear…” She says while looking at you through the vanity mirror, surveying your last touches to your brows and eyelids. “I knew he was whipped for you since the first time you danced for him. Now that you two finally did the deed, I can only imagine how much he’d do for you…Ugh, I’ll need to hire security specifically for him.”

The remark has you laughing some more. “Oh, stop it. I’m sure he knows better than to flip this place down.”

“Hmmm, you sure about that?” Silver brows go upward. “Considering the fact that we’ve had multiple close calls with him and other customers, scaring your clients when they’re not out of his seat – not to mention breaking someone’s arm for you – it’s not far out to imagine this man throwing shit and bodies all over if someone so much looks at you, especially now that he got his dick wet. Oh, he’s smitten.”

You shake your head throughout her explanation with a smile, knowing that it’s all semi-true. “Guess that’s men for you, huh?”

“Don’t I know it.” She scoffs, using this small time with you to braid her hair into two pigtails. “…You do like him, right?”

The question doesn’t take you aback, not showing any expression of shock while continuing to fix the straps of your pink bra under your mesh shirt. “Yeah…I think so. He’s one of my—“

“One of?”

You roll your eyes at your manager egging you on. “Okay. He is my favorite client. I think he’s a good company; plus, he pays a good amount of money to see me.”

“Oh? Was it the money that’s always made your heart thump? I wonder…” Mei Mei doesn’t try to suppress the smirk growing on her face, aware that you’re meekly glaring at her. She grabs for your lipstick to apply to her lips. “Maybe it never was because I can recall you telling me how hot you found you the first time. Hmph, maybe now that’s dialed up since you’ve been slapped with some good dick—“

“Okay, okay!” God, you couldn’t stand her sinister chuckle, precisely when it’s directed towards you.

“I’m just teasing~. I’m happy that you two are getting along, really.” She straightens up to examine her whole figure now that she’s done. “But he’s still one of my customers at the end of the day, and you one of my people. Money on the table or not, I won’t tolerate if he does anything to inconvenience me or you.” 

The sincerity in Mei Mei’s words wasn’t hard to grasp. After all, she was doing what any good boss would do. As well as your friend above anything else. And you appreciated it. “I know. You’ll be the first I run to if stuff goes left.”

The silver-haired woman gave a genuine smile and nodded, placing a hand on your shoulder to clutch before excusing herself from the dressing room. “See you out there; I have another meeting with a priest from the other side of the neighborhood.”

You gawk. “A priest? Is he here to be serviced?” 

“Nope, but if he keeps getting in the way of my business, I just might have to make some phone calls and endow my other services to deal with him.” Your blood shifted to ice cold at that sentence. Mei Mei is your friend by all means; however, that didn’t diminish how scary that woman can be sometimes. 

She opens the door and closes it behind her, leaving you alone to finish up. You stand up from your seat and maneuver around to admire tonight’s outfit choice. A mesh shirt that showcased your pink bra and black pantyhose that contrasted with your pink undies. Now, all you need to do is go to your locker and find whatever shoes to match and—

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Yo, Y/n?” It was Ino’s voice. He doesn’t come inside the room but creaks the door for you to hear him. “Sorry, but someone wishes to speak with you.”

Huh, someone wants to see me? “Oh, okay. Tell them to wait for me by the door.”

“Sure thing!” And then the young DJ closes the door, and you decide the shoes can wait for later. Giving yourself a look or two in the mirror, you walk up to the door and pull it open to see who wishes to see you. Only to find that the person is standing in front of the doorway.

It was Toji, standing tall and greets you with a smirk once you entered his vision. The mild anxiousness from a few seconds was gone, exchanging it for a smile. “Hey,” he said it cooly.

“Hi,” you return the greeting, watching him step closer to you to lean against the doorframe. “You just got here?” 

“Mhmm, didn’t have much to do, so I figured I’d come before things are about to pick up.” Toji brings his face to yours, daring to give your lips a peck. And you allow it, kissing his scar when he draws back. “I thought last night was fun.”

“Me too,” you whisper back to him before he kisses your neck. “I’d like to have fun like that with you sometime. You know, not during business hours and such.”

He quirks up a brow. “Yeah? Hmm, me too.” He puts his forehead to yours, his hands snaking around your waist to bring you two together. “I’d love to have you around somewhere.”

You hum, bringing your arms up to wrap around his neck. “That’d be nice.”

“…But I’d also love to fuck the hell outta you like last time.” His honesty has you erupting in laughter, and your sweet voice has him grinning. “I’m serious; you drove me crazy last time. Pussy like that can’t be shared, I’m sorry—”

“Oh, my God, stop!” You try to get out of his hold, even if your laughs get louder when he tightens his grip on you. “Drove you crazy, huh?” You peer to see him nod before kissing his chin. “Well, I got a few minutes before I go out there…Want me to suck you off?”

Did you even have to ask? The man immediately leers from ear to ear, taking your wrist and pulling you back into the dressing room. And you allow him with a laugh, making sure to lock the door before the thought of getting caught fills your mind.

“Good thing you caught me dressing,” you say as he sits on the couch from across the dressing room, and you crouch between his legs. You pull down his zipper, “This one’s free of charge.”

And he shifts comfortably, taking off his jacket to discard. “Lucky me.”

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 – reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ header art by melkor mancin + dividers by @/cafekitsune.