#trying to decide the worst one and it might be usher

[konakoro]

Starting a list of movies and shows that features people dying horrifically on dance floors

[mins-fins]

the cure

&&. mark shows up to your place bleeding red, and red is your least favorite color.

pairing: mark lee x gn!reader

genre: fluff, spiderman!mark & student nurse!reader

warnings: descriptions of injuries, blood, and violence

word count: 1.3k

notes: this was supposed to come out yesterday but i had the worst migraine and literally ended up passing out 😆 its okay though the grind never stops!! this little bit (spiderman + med student) was originally supposed to be longer and it might still be longer form i just cant begin that right now 😓 okay everyone have a good day and dont get a migraine like isa

mark, for some reason, feels guilty.

his guilt manifests in the blood that trickles down his side, the cut digs into his heart, rips it out, and stomps on it. the figurative scars hurt more than the literal one, and though the pain is excruciating, he feels much more disappointed than anything.

jeez that guy did him bad, he didn't know pocket knives could do that much damage, he was just trying to go about his night on that skyscraper, but of course, something had to happen.

since when do robbers carry knives? he probably won't be able to get over that for a while.

but mark doesn't allow for himself to stumble, he doesn't need for things to become worse. though he would usually just go home and try to deal with the cuts himself, he instead brings himself to another apartment, sitting outside on the balcony of a familiar room.

he peaks over, pressing his face against the window. he raises his fist and softly knocks on the glass, alerting the person inside of his presence. you turn around upon hearing the noise, a muted gasp escaping your lips as you rush towards the window to open it.

"mark? oh my god are you— jesus".

mark simply gives a dorky smile, no teeth, and you usher him in, supporting him as he slumps down the moment he enters your room. "is this a bad time?" he manages to ask, biting back his wince as he feels your finger lightly grace the wound on his hip, the blood smearing onto your hand.

"no, it's just.." you pause, collecting yourself as you stare at the crimson belonging to mark. "i'll be right back" you rush towards the bathroom, and mark watches each of you movements.

after washing your hands, you return with a first aid kit and warm wet cloth, mark immediately smiles once he hears your footsteps. "alright, let's bandage you up now" you whisper, again kneeling to mark's level as you examine the cut.

there's a slit in mark's suit where the cut resides, a nauseating gash that makes even you, a nurse in training, grimace. you tilt your head to the side, lips pursued as you focus on bandaging mark up, not wanting for it to get infected.

mark closes his eyes in exhaustion, holding back his winces as you press the wet cloth to his damaged skin, dabbing away the blood. the pain is evident on his face, his expressions much too obvious to be feigned. "hurts huh?"

your boyfriend hums, opening one of his eyes. "yeah" he can't help the frown that graces his lips, a frown you pick up on.

"this isn't the first time right?" you know, of course you know, you can read mark like he's your favorite work of literature. mark never understands how you do it, but he also decides never to question it.

"no" his tongue runs over his teeth, somehow feeling disappointed. he lightly shifts in his position when he feels you apply ointment to the cut, finally allowing that well needed wince to leave his lips. "i didn't mean to hide all my wounds from you i just.. i didn't want you to worry".

you offer a small chuckle. "i worry about you either way, baby".

the petname makes the heat on his face amplify, and he looks down at the floor. "and you don't like red.."

you blink. "what?"

mark begins picking at his nails, embarrassed. "you don't like red, i didn't want to constantly show up all cut and busted up, i just wanted to save you the worry".

your gaze softens, but mark avoids your eyes anyway, somewhat ashamed of the words he just muttered.

knowing your boyfriend is spiderman hasn't really assured any of your worries. before, it was just anxiety about how much work he was putting himself through, and now it was anxiety about literally everything. he could show up on your doorstep or windowsill with wounds all over him, terribly injured, and he'd just.. smile. how could you not worry?

"you don't have to save me anything, i'm here to make sure you're okay" you say, frowning at the whole display before you. "so.. how do i take this off?"

"wow, trying to undress me already?"

you playfully hit mark's shoulder, and he giggles at your resulting expression. still, he points you to the zipper on his suit, and you begin unzipping the spandex so you can reveal his other scars much easier. mark isn't focusing on that, though, he's instead focused on the rip in his very own suit. "fucker put a tear in it".

you let out an amused snicker, but mark's frown doesn't falter. "is that really all you care about?"

your boyfriend shrugs. "well i do care about it, i spent so much time sewing it.."

realizing he was genuinely upset about it, your smile falls, pointer finger trailing down his neck, feeling all of the scars from previous battles. "i'll help you sew it back, okay?" you use your free hand to tilt his chin towards you, and the smile you offer makes him smile.

"you're so gentle" mark lets his head slowly fall onto your shoulder, humming in solace at the feeling of warmth surrounding him. "i should've come to you sooner".

"well you can come to me now" you respond, voice laced with nothing but adoration. "think i can do a better job at patching you up than what you've been doing for all this time.."

you use your free hand to cup mark's face, squishing his cheeks. you chuckle at the display, completely enamored by the sight before you. "i'll take care of you now, you always know where to find me".

mark doesn't respond, worn out from literally everything, but his smile says it all. he again leans against you, and you can feel his heart beating. the sweetness of his smile contrasts the red that still stain his skin, but he no longer minds. "you're too nice to me".

"that's my job".

mark opens his eyes, staring at you for a moment, silent. then, he sits up and places his hand on the back of your neck, pulling you in for a kiss.

you yelp at the sudden change of mood, but you snicker, and mark feels your smile against his lips. your back just lightly hits your bed, legs coming up as mark's hand holds your jaw, gently keeping you in place as his presses become much more frenzied.

there's a slight whine that comes from you, and mark retreats for air a small while after, hands still holding onto your jaw, his finger beginning to caress your skin. "sorry.." he mutters, his head falling onto your chest.

you let out a silent laugh. "for what?"

mark's arms come to wrap around you, leaving you trapped in your place. "worrying you, it was just—"

you press your pointer finger to his lips, effectively shutting him up. "you don't have to explain it anymore, babe, you're okay, and that's all that matters to me".

if mark's cheeks dust red, he again tries to hide that fact by hiding his face from you. "love you".

the words are small, nothing but a whisper in your expanse of a room, but you hear them loud and clear. his arms circled around your waist leave you with a feeling of warmth, easement that just brightens your night a little bit more.

"i love you too, but you can't fall asleep on me like this".

mark almost lets out a whine, but he just frowns. "at least let me change you into something comfortable, and finish cleaning that other cut".

and though mark doesn't want to let you go, he also can't help but smile at the words.

your favorite color isn't red, it's your least, but when mark bleeds red, that all becomes unnecessary.

you'll be here to patch up all of his red, you're sure of it.

[forthereaderinserts]

here it is

the writing

sorry if this is garbage lol I have smiling friends brain rot

tw for bad mental health

~|~|~

Your first meeting with the 'Smiling Friends' didn't go exactly as planned. When you had contacted them, you had been in one of the worst mental health spots of your life. This silly-sounding company was your last hope.

When they finally showed up at your doorstep, they were greeted by the stench of depression and old takeout, as well as your ragged form dressed in dirty clothes and sporting ratty hair.

Holding back a cringe at the smell that wafted out the wide open door, Pim put on a brilliant smile and introduced himself and his companion, Charlie. He was slower to suppress his reaction, causing you to blush in embarrassment.

"Hello! My name is Pim and this is my good friend Charlie. We heard you weren't feeling to good, so we're here to put a smile on that lovely face of yours!"

There was a pause in the conversation as he waited for your response, but the sheer force of his unbridled positivity had sent you into a spiral. Charlie, noticing your subtle yet labored breathing and the slight shake you had taken on, was quick to set a new pace.

"Uhm- Hey, why don't we come inside. Talking in the doorway is a little weird, huh?"

That snapped you out of your mental funk, ushering them in with small 'sorry's'. You nudge aside some trash in a feeble attempt to clear a path to your couch. The whole time, the two critters were accessing the situation and coming up with a plan to help you get into a better place.

Once everyone was able to sit down, Pim picked up where he left off, making sure to keep his enthusiasm low.

"So, it looks like you've been a bit depressed lately. I think I know exactly how to help!"

Charlie carried the flow, "We're gonna start by picking up some of the junk. A lot of studies say that your environment plays a big part in your mental health."

Nervousness clawed at your soul, trying to get a solid grip to sink it's teeth down and send you into a full panic. The thought of cleaning was so anxiety inducing and exhausting. It's not like you hadn't tried, but it usually ended with you crying and nothing getting done. You didn't notice but tears had started pricking at your eyes, trailing down your cheeks like hot lava.

When it was clear that you weren't responding anymore, Pim turned to Charlie and tried to figure out how they could turn this disaster of a job around. They decided that Pim would start by gathering up trash and spoiled food into the bin while Charlie sat with you and got you to calm down.

Nodding firmly at each other, they got to work. Charlie moved his chair closer to you and slowly grabbed your hands, stopping you from picking at your cuticles. Your head shot up and you locked eyes with the yellow man. Looking back down at your touching hands, your eyes flickered between that and his face. This might have been the first time you've felt physical contact, let alone comfort, in months.

As soon as he could tell you weren't on the verge, Charlie started to talk softly to you. About nothing important, just some posts he'd seen on the internet, what he'd eaten today, and his opinions on whatever he could think of. His main goal was to distract you while Pim cleaned enough so that it wasn't too overwhelming. He has even piped up a couple times to joke with his friend.

By the end of the day, the living room and adjacent hallway were livable and you were in a much better mood. Technically, you had smiled far earlier into the session, but Charlie and Pim were having such a good time just chatting and tidying that they kept working. This was one of their easiest jobs so far. No guns, no heartbreak, no death. Just talking and cleaning.

When it came time for the two of them to leave, you were disappointed. This was the happiest you'd been in such a long time. They knew that too, so before they walked out the door, they turned to you and offered their numbers. When you looked confused, they explained that they felt you weren't quite ready for normal life again, no offense. They wanted to get you set up with a therapist they had contacts with and maybe even start some medication.

At their words, you teared up again, but this time there was a giant smile stretching your mouth. Surprising the critters, you pulled them into a tight hug and whispered a gentle 'thank you'. This was the best day of your life, you think.

~|~|~

sorry the ending is so rushed I just wanted to get something out lol

[spoonful-of-citrus-flowers]

Crossroads of the Usher Children: Pt. 1

To preface this: I think whatever Verna is, it's clear that, first and foremost, she’s a creature of choices and consequences. I kind of disagree with the view that it’s off-putting that Verna would be both compassionate and cruel to the Usher children. It does make sense that Verna would be sympathetic because although most of the Usher family (save for Lenore) are not good people, none of that is why they have to die. None of the kids were able to have any say in that decision (most of them weren’t even alive!).

But although Verna can’t prevent their deaths, she can make it a peaceful one – but that all relies on the choices the kids make. Since most of the Usher family doubles down on their worst impulses, she, in turn, is cruel. A creature of symmetry, as she puts it - choosing to act as a sort of crossroads, so to speak, where the manner of their inevitable death is determined by which path they take.

Prospero/Perry Usher: She appears as a mystery guest, prompting Perry to follow her into the bedroom, and tells him directly that there’s still time to stop it, to be satisfied with what the party has been so far (implying he should stay with Verna). But Perry makes his choice to not do so, and ends up dying from the acid in the tanks.

(Personally, I think the last kiss Verna gives him as he’s dying is what she would’ve done to kill him if he’d decided it was enough – just have him die of more or less natural causes during the party, at the high point of being so close to achieving something). Instead, his last moments are full of horror and pain.

Camille L'Espanaye: Verna’s the security guard, telling Camille she doesn’t have to go back there to see what Victorine is doing with the chimps. But Camille does so anyways, because she hates Victorine and wants to find evidence of her doing something wrong – so focused on doing that she doesn’t even realize one of the chimps is out of the cage. Then, as we know, she gets mauled to death by that same chimp.

Napoleon/Leo Usher: Verna is obviously the cat shelter worker/owner, but I’d argue her first interference was with the cat illusion, where Leo thinks he’s killed Pluto while on drugs. This one is interesting to me, because it shows that Verna is deeply knowledgeable about what people will typically do.

Most people will hesitate to say “Hey, honey, I think I might have killed the cat in a rage while I was on drugs last night” and might actually say what Leo initially did – that maybe they accidentally let the cat out. So, his “crossroads”, observed by Verna, was to either save another (or all, even!) of the cats in the kill shelter, but he chose to only get the one that looked just like Pluto in order to pretend that nothing happened to the cat and erase any of his responsibility for doing something bad.

Of course, we know by the very end of the episode, that Pluto was indeed accidentally let out, and appears by Leo’s body. Similar to Perry, if Leo had decided to stop and not try to get a Pluto doppelganger, he wouldn’t have died that way.

Part Two here!

[duckandrobin]

Touch Starved

Series Masterlist

Chapter 3: Waiting Rooms (Doctors Pick the Worst Chairs)

Taehyung had always wondered why doctors picked the least comfortable chairs. The waiting room outside the HYBE doctor’s exam room had eight chairs with the stiffest fabric and bare, plastic arms at the most awkward height possible. He had asked how long it had been, and when Jin told him only ten minutes since the door closed, he got up and decided standing might be more comfortable. He was trying to do the math in his head, it had been ten minutes since the door closed, the elevator usually took three minutes, the drive from the park was less than ten, so if he assumed that they got her to the car in around five, then she had been unconscious for thirty minutes or so. Taehyung may not have gone to medical school, but he was pretty sure that you were supposed to wake up by now after fainting. Unfortunately, all he could do was wait.

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

A few minutes after he’d stood, the door opened and a nurse peeked from behind it. The nurse seemed to be looking for something, and even though Taehyung had stepped forward, she ignored him. She perked up at the sight of something behind him though, and he turned around confused until he saw Namjoon hustling.

“Joon, what’s going on?” He asked.

“The staff were holding onto her things; they’re looking at her phone now, but they gave me her passport.” Namjoon turned to the nurse to hold up a hand to ask for a few minutes, and she gave a small nod before the door closed again. He turned back and paused to look at Taehyung, hesitantly. “Her name is Y/n L/n.”

Taehyung repeated her name, it felt right as he said it, fitting.

“I didn’t see her face when she came in, but we’ve actually met a few times before. I called the doctor to tell him what I know about her, what might help him.”

Taehyung felt his heart starting to race a little, “What do you know?” God, what if she was sick? He felt like he might be sick as Namjoon motioned for him to sit down first, and then took his own seat, the others leaning in to listen as well.

“We’ve met at a few museums, exhibition, galleries. She’s an artist, a good one. I didn’t realize she had moved here already, just that she had exhibition offers and some in the art community here trying to commission pieces. She told me before that she was considering them, that she was leaning towards Seoul over Rome and New York.” Taehyung thought this was all interesting, but he didn’t see the relevance and was about to ask Namjoon to get to the point when he continued. “I’m trying to think of the best way to describe her situation… She’s eccentric, everyone who knows art knows of her, and everyone knows the rumors about how reclusive and sensitive she can be. The basic explanation is that she has OCD.” Namjoon stopped to see if they needed clarification, and they seemed to understand what that meant generally. “Her OCD is bad. She’s completely touch averse, hardly ever even leaves her house and her studio. Some people are unkind about it. There are expectations about how many hands you must shake and how many cheeks you must kiss at events, and she never meets them. There was one time I can remember that a large donor to the MET got drunk and he walked up to her, then slid his arm across her shoulder; she started having a panic attack and her agent quickly ushered her away and then came back to apologize for Y/n’s abrupt departure.”

“I thought she was scared of dogs. If it wasn’t about dogs then…” Taehyung didn’t want the answer, but he had to ask in case he was wrong. “Did I really scare her that badly that she passed out? I didn’t know but I wouldn’t ever touch someone if they didn’t want me to, not on purpose.”

Namjoon shook his head. “I think it’s more complicated than that. I don’t know the whole story, but I know her OCD comes from a fear of getting sick. The rumor is that she almost died from something as a kid, and that even though she barely survived, it damaged her heart in the process. They say she’s just scared of getting something bad again and being too weak to recover this time. I think there’s probably some truth to what I’ve heard, and I know she’s been hospitalized from the flu a few times. When she was considering offers, she asked me about how I felt South Korea handled the pandemic, and she seemed relieved when I told described it and said better than most countries, in my opinion. As for what happened at the park, I think she got scared about the bond and what it meant, and the stress was too much on her heart, so she lost consciousness as her body tried to cope: stress increases your heartrate and raises your blood pressure and if they get too high then some people pass out.”

Yoongi, who they all had forgotten was there since he’d been quiet, finally spoke up. “I hate to be the one to say it, but if this is all true…” He looked at all of them before his eyes landed on Taehyung again, and he grimaced, “how are you two going to survive if she won’t touch you? You might have a month before digestive transmutation, but after that, if you guys can’t figure something out, then you won’t have long past that.”

They all went silent, realizing how dire the situation was, and Taehyung was panicking inside. He’d always wanted a soulmate, however unlikely, and he wanted to be the perfect soulmate, but in her mind there probably was no perfect soulmate. He didn’t want her to be forced to face her fears of touch constantly so they wouldn’t starve, but he didn’t want them to die either. He needed a perfect solution that didn’t exist, but they’d have to start brainstorming, so she needs to be awake to talk with him.

“Is it normal for someone to be unconscious for so long after passing out?” Taehyung left it open for anyone to answer but Namjoon beat the rest.

“Thirty minutes isn’t abnormal per se.” He stood up to face them all. “She woke up a few minutes ago. I’d told the doctor about how it might be a heart thing triggered by stress, or at least that it was my theory and why I thought that. He called me back and asked if I’d come, she woke up and she’s a little bit confused and scared, so he thought a familiar face would be best at first. He wants me to talk with her before you do, explain what’s going on and see how she’s doing before we bring you in.”

“But I’m her soulmate.”

“I know, Tae, I know. He thinks that her trying to talk you first, when there’s so much pressure and so many more feelings between you two, might be overwhelming.” Namjoon gently touched his shoulder. “I promise, as soon as she’s ready, I’ll come out to get you. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Thank you.” Namjoon had removed his hand and almost had his hand on the doorknob when Tae spoke up again, quietly. “Tell her I’m sorry and I can’t wait to see her again, please.”

Namjoon nodded before he went inside and shut the door behind him with a soft click.

[aimportantdragoncollector]

AFO Imprints on Captain Hero

This is a funny take on the Imprint-verse! All for One immediately finishes the comic, then dedicates his entire life to saving people and only using his powers for other's sake. He tosses out all his demon king merch. He becomes a vigilante under the name Captain Hero.

In fact, no one realizes he used to be All for One because he's completely stopped stealing quirks. They think he has a random power ability. (It explains why he doesn't seem good at using his many powers!) Shouto Todoroki already has a conspiracy theory about "Captain Hero" being Neito Monoma's father. All for One is still insufferable and smug as a hero. All Might finds him very annoying but can't justify why. Nezu knows everything but isn't saying.

Yoichi is ridiculously smug about this. He drives all the other vestiges crazy because he keeps insisted his brother's redemption was caused by reading the last volume of Captain Hero, not the quirk.

There are a couple possibilities. There's an AU where the obsession never wears off. There's an AU where All for One dies saving a child before the quirk wore off, and his vestige ends up in the void with the One for All holders. Yoichi lords it over his brother for all eternity, truly the worst punishment. There's an AU where the quirk wears off and All for One is so embarrassed he decides to pretend this was all part of a plan to infiltrate the heroes. However, comedic circumstances keep causing him to do good deeds even when he's trying to betray them. For example, he destroys the HPSC and ushers in a new era of improved heroism.

[jakekiszkasleftnutsack]

Insomnia

Josh Kiszka x f!reader

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

Summary: It’s challenging to maintain the status quo when on tour with your best friend and his rowdy band of brothers, and shacking up has brought about its fair share of speed bumps. 

Warnings: 18+ GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT, swearing, Sammy slander, bottom!josh, unprotected sex, somnophilia if you squint, fingering, teasing, desperation, a little fluff on top

W/c: 4.2k

A/n:  This one shot is brought to you by this little request from a thousand years ago sorry, anon come get yo juice.  Love you all so much, thank you for your support and keep those requests coming!

Edited by the ever fabulous @gretasamfeettt

Theme Song: Sleep Walk - Deftones 

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

Knock, knock

You rap your knuckles quick and quiet against the unnaturally thick hotel room door.

“Josh!” You whisper in the harsh fashion of a scream. “Josh, it’s me, let me in!”

Normally you wouldn’t be bothering him this way since he’s very insistent on getting enough rest before show days, but in your current situation, you’re not exactly left with an array of options. 

You’re standing barefoot in the hotel hallway clutching your bag to your pajama-clad chest. Strands of damp, stringy hair stick to your cheeks. Small beads of water drip onto your oversized t-shirt and the plush carpet below. 

Knock, knock, knock

He’d only resigned to his room a little under an hour before you, you can’t imagine he’s already asleep.

“Josh, please wake up!” A bit more urgently this time. 

When the door finally cracks open and your half-naked, groggy looking best friend blinks at you with the most disdainful expression you’ve ever seen, guilt instantly washes over you.

“I’m so so sorry, I know you said you wanted to turn in early but I didn’t know what else to do I just panicked! Sam came back, he just…” The word vomit rockets out of you a pitch or two higher than your normal speaking voice.

He listens wordlessly with narrowed eyes, from either contempt or the bright hallway lights, you’re not sure which. As he takes in the sight of you, disheveled and frantic, his expression shifts to a sort of concerned fear.

“Woah woah, y/n what the fuck? Are you okay?” He interrupts you mid-sentence, something he only does to you when trying to prompt you to arrive at your point.  

Forcing yourself to take a deep breath for his sake and that of the situation that's found you still standing outside Josh’s door with no shoes, your next sentence is quite a bit calmer.

“I’m fine… Can I please stay in here tonight?” 

“Are you kidding?” He opens the door wider so he can slip into the hall to wrap an arm around your shoulders and usher you into the room. “Tell me what happened.” 

The room is shrouded in darkness as he helps you find the edge of the bed, and once you’re sat where he deems you safe he flicks on one of the bedside lamps attached to the wall nearby. He situates himself at your side, cross legged and facing you so he can take your hand in his. Eyes wide but oh so soft, his expression coaxes you into a state of comfort while also preparing for the worst. 

“Y/n, please tell me what the fuck is going on so I can decide whether I need to knock my baby brother’s teeth in.”  

“Calm down, it’s not like that.” You huff an exasperated giggle, because of course he would find a way to make you laugh. Even though you know he’s only half joking.  “I told you I’m fine, he’s just a menace.”

“What else is new?” He snorts flatly, followed by what you think he might have intended to be a subtle eye roll. Ignoring him, you toss aside an eye roll and proceed. 

“After you left we had another round, but then Jake and Danny wanted to keep going and Sam was talking to some girls, and I was tired so I just went back to my room.” Josh nods along, listening to every word carefully with knitted brows. “When I got back I wanted to shower, I was in there for like.. 10 minutes, until Sam was banging on my door. He had his arm around one of those girls from the bar and was begging me to switch rooms so he could ‘do the dirty’” you made exaggerated quotes in the air with your fingers, “his words not mine.”

He raises his eyebrows at you in delighted confusion. “And why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?” 

“He said he lost his room key.. I just let them in so they weren’t standing in the hall while I put my clothes on, I left them alone for two seconds and they were already making out on the bed!” You’re talking with your hands so animatedly that he watches them fly about with a smirk, it’s a habit of his own that you subconsciously picked up after spending years around him. 

“Okay, okay, but I still don’t get how you wound up at my door.” He bites his lip to stifle his laughter. The weight of the situation isn’t lost on him, but he’s always finding ways to rile you up and poke a bit of fun, you being so organically frazzled probably has him beyond tickled now that he realizes you were never hurt or in danger.  

“I wasn’t about to stick around and watch, Joshua.” He loses his composure at the shrill of your berating tone when you punctuate his name, but you can’t help but chuckle right along. Though you feel foolish, you can’t ignore just how outrageous the whole ordeal probably sounds to him.  

“Can’t say I blame you there.” He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “Remind me to tease dear Samuel in the morning, I’m not letting either one of you live this down.”

You jut out your lower lip in a puppy dog pout instead of answering. Though you know he’s trying to make light of Sam and his tomfoolery, the embarrassment that should be all his sits here on your cheeks. Sam would be getting the brunt of the jokes as soon as he’s not underneath his special friend, but still. 

“Y/n, you are the worst negotiator I’ve ever met…” He trails off and shakes his head while searching your pouting features. The corner of his mouth quirks up but he otherwise looks on, it seems like he’s lost in thought, or maybe reading some fine print that’s shown up on your face. It’s safe to assume he’s just trying to hold back all the jokes swimming around in his little Joshua brain that are too harsh to say out loud. 

Josh isn’t known for his self-restraint when it comes to keeping his thoughts to himself, but he’s always been a little more considerate of you and your feelings than he is with his brothers. For that, you’re grateful.

His phone rumbles against the bedside table disturbing his train of thought, you can see from the lit-up screen that he has a text from Danny. When he leans over to retrieve it you take the opportunity to find reprieve in the bathroom.

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

You puff your cheeks and sigh at your reflection as you stand in front of the mirror. There’s makeup still smudged under your eyes from your shower, your hair has halfway dried in the air making the top frizzy from not being properly treated. The shoulders of your oversized band shirt soaked from where your damp hair sat atop them.

What a fucking headache, you think, as you promise yourself you’ll beat Sam’s skinny ass into next week.

You contemplate whether you could take him in a fight while you turn on the faucet to splash some cold water on your face. Blindly grasping, you reach for the closest towel and use it to wipe the sludge from under your eyes. Slowly, you’re starting to look less unhinged. You flip your hair over and use the towel to dry the ends as much as you can manage, there was no time to blow dry or run any product through it when your nighttime routine had been so rudely interrupted.

Opting not to sleep in wet clothes, you strip off your top and discard it on the floor since you have neither the care nor the energy to fold it neatly. You snatch up a white t-shirt of Josh's that had met the same fate as yours earlier in the night. It fits you mostly fine, apart from your tits filling out the chest. The fabric lies taut against them, and the color of your nipples slightly shows through when you check yourself out in the mirror. Paired with your barely there checkered shorts that allow your ass to peek out the back, you’re barely dressed. 

Fuck it, it is what it is. You regard yourself before stepping back out into the room.

Still palming your hair through what was obviously meant to be Josh’s bath towel, you glance around taking in the room for the first time. The white light cast from the lamp barely reaches halfway across the room, but it’s enough to reveal his suitcase open and slightly picked through at the edge of the bed near where you had dropped your bag carelessly on the floor. The once pristine hotel sheets are drawn back and crumpled, confirming your suspicions that he was already tucked in when you arrived, maybe lightly snoozing with heavy eyelids. An image of the scene playing through your mind pangs that sliver of guilt again that you’re probably inconveniencing him. He would never admit something like that, even if it were true. 

Josh is still cross legged on the bed and immersed in his phone, but something else piques your interest, replacing your previous thought almost entirely. Though Josh’s bed is slept-in, the identical one beside it is entirely undisturbed. Jake still hasn’t returned.

“What do the boys have to say?” You inquire about the text he seems very invested in typing out.

“Hmm?” He hums in response before looking up to where you stand in front of him. Almost as soon as he looks up from the screen, his eyes nearly fall out of his head when he makes direct eye contact with your chest. 

He clears his throat. “I see you changed”

“Yeah, my shirt was pretty wet.” You bite your lip when his eyes linger a bit too long. 

Josh has only looked at you like this a handful of times, in the way he knows he shouldn’t, in the way that friends just don’t look at their friends. Even though he’s only ever dared to look when he thought you were too distracted to notice, you’ve noticed his eyes on you when they should be elsewhere. But this? There��s no escape from this stare down for either of you, and it’s forcing you to look down the barrel of a gun that’s been pointed at you for years.  

“Would you like to borrow my shirt?”

You could pretend not to notice, possibly ignore the situation entirely just as you’ve already done once or twice.  

But where’s the fun in that?

“Yes Joshy, may I pweeeeeease borrow your shirt?” Hopping onto the bed next to him to sit on your knees, a little too exaggerated so your tits bounce more than necessary, you flash your sweetest smile.  

He swallows hard, unable to stop his eyes from losing their focus on your face, but recovers fast. “Of course you can, thank you for asking me first.” 

“You’re more than welcome, dickhead.” You snap back in your best sticky sweet yet sarcastic voice and purse your lips teasingly for good measure.

You’d be lying if you said you had never thought about Josh that way, the idea of him being so desperate to be near you is more than enough to ignite your mischievous side. Without directly asking him there’s no way to be completely sure of your hunch, but you know he’d forgive you if you were wrong.

Bringing the topic back around to your earlier question that he had curved, or maybe forgotten about entirely, you gesture to Jake's empty bed. “Where are the guys? That was Danny, right?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, um-“ He looks away, jostling his curls in the process, and hits the lock button on his phone before setting it facing down on the bedside table. “He just said not to wait up, Jake jumped on stage with the cover band at the bar so they might be out for a while still.”

“Hmm figures, okay.  We should get some rest, you guys have a big day tomorrow.” You can’t help but roll your eyes at the thought of Jake’s ego.  Deciding not to take up any more of Josh's night, you move to make your way over to Jake’s empty bed, but he places a hand on your arm to stop you.  

“Ya know, we should- maybe we should leave Jake’s bed open for him, just in case…” You stare back at him blinking, processing his words and apprehensive expression.  The timid nature he’s using to reach out to you is so unlike Josh, always the confident one. He almost seems embarrassed to be asking.  “...If he stumbles back in here drunk I’d rather have you a safe distance from the fallout.”

You crack a smile. “Okay Josh, for safety.” Your eyes briefly lock before returning to where you previously were sitting.

You clamber up to the head of Josh’s bed and situate yourself under the white sheets as he slides in next to you. The two of you had slept in the same bed plenty of times, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. A platonic sort of intimacy has always existed between you, Josh is very passionate, but you’re in uncharted territory now.  

Somehow, in some way, Josh wants you and there’s no telling where this new development is going to lead.

He flicks off the light, leaving you in pitch darkness when he settles fully into bed. It’s a modestly sized queen, in true hotel fashion so it seems almost accidental when you adjust your position to nudge your backside into him. Your bodies are so ridiculously close without actually touching that you might be sharing a pillow by default. You throw a careless glance over your shoulder to find Josh's hand has been evicted from its resting place and is now hovering somewhere over your waist by default, rigid and unsure of where it belongs.  

“Are you comfortable?” He asks in a jokingly mocking voice. 

“Almost. You can touch me if you want to.” Like a scared animal he relaxes into you, his hand settles just above your hip and brushes over a small section of skin your shirt doesn’t quite cover.

Despite your fight to keep your eyelids from closing, the comforting scent and warmth of the bed welcome you into a dreamless sleep.  

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

A muffled sound brings you to a hazy state of consciousness. It takes you a moment to come to, but it’s accelerated by a nearly imperceptible rocking motion whose origin you can’t quite discern. The sound repeats, coming from Josh who is stirring behind your back. 

“Um, y/n?” His voice is shaking. 

“Hmm? Everything okay?” Your tone is sweet and melodic, ignorant of the position he’s put you in. Closing the gap between your bodies, you adjust the smallest bit to investigate and firmly socket your backside against him in the process. At the same time, a carnal groan escapes him. Being that you’re still half asleep, the sound throws you off, almost frightening you.  

What’s wrong? Is Josh hurt?

It’s then that he freezes, going stiff as a board when he realizes his mistake, and you realize that Josh has an iron grip on your hip and a fully erect cock nestled between your legs. 

“Oh, god.. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you.. I-I don't know what I was thinking. I’m sorry doll, please go back to sleep.” That panicked voice is back, so sad and filled with shame, you hate hearing it. You hate it so much that you want him to lock it in a box and throw it into the sea. 

He shouldn’t be this scared of me.

“No, no it’s okay, keep going.” You place your hand over his before he can pull it away and guide it across your skin, helping him map the various dips and textures. Underneath the light fabric of your top, his soft hand eventually wanders on its own to find the swell of your breast.

He squeezes carefully at first, testing the waters with increasing intensity, and haphazardly circles his thumb over your nipple, sending shivers and goosebumps all over you as your nerves come alive. You whimper, causing him to freeze yet again.

“Are you sure about this?”

So apprehensive, so worried that he’s offended you, but you know the greedy truth lurking right behind the wall he’s put up to keep you safe. 

“Aren’t you?” Maintaining your position, you slide your tiny shorts down your legs, and barely seconds later he resumes pleasuring himself against you. He moves his free hand from pinching your sensitive nipples down your stomach and into your panties to experiment with the slick that’s grown there.  

“That’s right, good boy.” You rotate your own hips in tandem with his movements so his fingers catch on your clit with each circular motion. 

“Jesus.. fuck. I want you, mama.” 

Something about the way he said it, could have been the pleading desperation in his voice, the hungry bucking of his hips against your ass, or even the way his panting breaths have been radiating over you, but something tells you that what he really meant to say was ‘I fucking need you more than I need air to breathe, and I need you now’.

“Fucking A, Joshua.” You sit up and throw the thin blanket to the side, allowing you to rise to your knees and push him onto his back. There’s no version of this encounter where you’d let him shy away from the reality of it. Everything is out in the open between you, similar to his beautiful exposed cock that’s only visible because your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You’ve seen it before circumstantially, but years ago when you were both very young. It’s smoother, and much prettier now that he’s done some growing.

Situating yourself over him, you let his member fall flat against his abdomen.  You lower your sopping pussy to grind against it, letting it slot itself between your folds through the delicate lace and Josh’s noises of protest. 

“Come on, Mama.” 

When you divert your gaze to him rather than his cock, ready to scold him for whining, you’re face to face with each other for the first time since falling asleep in his arms. It’s perplexing seeing something so familiar through a different lens, and it’s written all over your faces like a small child seeing Christmas lights for the first time, alert and full of curiosity.

Just above those baby cow eyes, small beads of sweat appear on his brow and his moans have become decidedly more agitated, proving to you that he’s earned his reward. You pull your soaked panties to the side for him but remain hovering just out of reach. “Alright. If you want it so bad, take it.”

He double takes between your face to your cunt like he’s expecting you to cover yourself and say you’re just kidding with him, but when you don’t he accepts your words like a challenge.

Taking himself in his hand, he lines up with your core, only the very tip reaches far enough to dip slightly past the entrance. After so much anticipation he slides in with ease, just a slight lift and he’s falling apart underneath you. He stabilizes himself by holding onto your hips while he brings his own up to meet them. Your moans begin to match his with each powerful thrust straight to your center, and before long he’s struggling to maintain his composure. The pace dissipates, half thrusts start nudging your g-spot as the head slides back and forth stretching your walls. 

“I can’t- I’m gonna cum.” He throws his head back on the pillow with his confession, and you can feel him start to tense as you tighten around him.   

In one final act of mercy, you take over and ride him for a few pumps until your pulsating walls are milking hot ropes of cum from his cock. Even as he doubles over and pulls himself from you, one last shot lands on your own dripping sex. Immediately he reaches for your shirt, pulls it over your head, and uses it to clean up his mess from everywhere it may have landed. 

“I didn’t need the shirt anyway.” You joke as he balls it up and tosses it somewhere on the floor to be thrown in the trash in the morning. He rolls his eyes and pulls you onto his chest while reaching for the blanket to cover your naked bodies. 

“You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that.” He sighs and pulls you down to perfectly settle against his skin. 

“Well.. I have a pretty good idea.”

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

The sun shone through a slit that the curtains failed to cover directly onto your eyes, slowly bringing you out of a heavy but peaceful slumber. Josh is tucked neatly against your back, arm draped over your waist and one leg tangled between yours. A smile creeps its way onto your face at the position, he always was the cutest sleeper.  

As carefully as you can, you lift the sheet and attempt to shimmy your way out of his grasp. He stirs anyway, and you immediately settle back into his touch, turning to face him as his eyes flutter open. 

“Good morning, sweet girl.” He mumbles almost incoherently, closing his eyes again in favor of the darkness. 

“Good morning, baby. Last night was not very ‘just friends’ of us, was it?” You tease through your smile. 

“What ever do you mean? I always fuck the homies goodnight.” He mumbles again sleepily, but his playful inflection matches yours. 

You giggle and place a peck gently on his lips, leading him to pull you tighter against him, humming in a pleased sort of way. You think he might’ve been waiting for physical reassurance from you that everything is fine, that he could touch you the way he wanted because he kisses you again. 

When you both pull away, he smiles and stretches one arm out with a yawn. “What time is it?” 

You shrug and turn towards the nightstand, reaching out for his phone since yours didn’t make the narrow escape from your hotel room. A double tap on the screen reveals the time to be an hour before his alarm is set to go off.  

“Time for a quickie?” He’s lining up sweet slow kisses across your shoulders and back, and you hum agreeing to his proposition.

You let your eyes linger on the screen and bite back a chuckle when you notice his phone background. He must’ve recently changed it from what was a landscape portrait he took during the last tour to a snapshot you recognize as one taken by Jake outside a bar just the other day when the five of you got drunk in a city you’d never been to before. Sam was in the background yelling at something out of the frame while Danny rolled a joint on the curb, Josh sat next to him and you were lying down on the concrete sidewalk with your head in Josh’s lap. You smiled up at the camera, but Josh smiled down at you. His smile seems to hold new meaning now and that thought quickens your heartbeat faster than you can push it away.

A new text comes through his phone, obscuring the memory. It’s from Danny.

‘How’d it go?’

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

thank you for reading 

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[halfmylife]

Sorry I’m Late

Pairing Modern!Finan x Reader

Summary You were supposed to be meeting someone for a blind date however but after about an hour you realise you’ve been stood up. That is until a certain stranger comes to save your night.

Warnings None

A/N This is based on a writing prompt by @creativepromptsforwriting except I decided to make it Modern!TLK because the idea was too cute!

You had been excited for your date, which was unusual. Typically you’d always shove the idea of dating far away from you, especially when your friends had pushed men your way. Yet tonight was different. Your friend had insisted that this guy was perfect for you. And for whatever reason, you agreed to a blind date. You really had been excited.

About an hour ago.

As time passed you found yourself feeling more and more defeated. The date hadn’t shown, or even bothered to message, so you assumed he might still turn up. You’d enthused to the waitress how excited you were when you first arrived but every ten minutes she’d look over and give you a sad look. Hardly the evening you were expecting at all.

You’d had maybe two glasses of wine. One for nerves. The other to pass the time. That was more than you had intended to drink the whole night. The waitress had even been kind enough to bring over some complimentary food for you to nibble on whilst you waited.

There had been a gentleman at the bar, about half an hour into your waiting. He was handsome enough from your viewpoint, with dark hair and a beard. You were sure you heard him speak with an Irish accent too. You were convinced he might be your date but it seemed less likely.

The pair of you made eye contact a few times and he even smiled, though you knew he wasn’t your date, part of you wanted to approach the bar and spend some time with him. You couldn’t help yourself but try and listen in to his conversation when he ushered over the waitress that had been serving you. Unfortunately you couldn’t make anything out.

You look at your watch. 8:03. You were supposed to meet at 7.

Tonight had not been your night. You were starving but too embarrassed to eat alone. Worst of all, you couldn’t imagine the embarrassment of walking out alone after being sat by yourself for an hour, drinking wine and waiting for no one to turn up. It was your only option.

It was decided. You couldn’t wait around any longer. So after leaving quite a generous tip, you went to grab your back and coat.

“Sorry I’m late!” You half jumped at the voice. The man from the bar stood in front of you, chucking his own coat over the back of the chair as you stared at him in awe. “Let me.” He moved to the side of you, a hand on the back of your chair. Confused, you took a seat once more and let him push you in.

You ignored any looks that were sent your way by the surrounding time, looks of pity you were certain. The only thing you could focus on was the man now sat in front of you. Surely he wasn’t your date. He seemed confident, too confident. Grabbing the menu in front of him, he opened it immediately and leant forward.

“I couldn’t just let ya walk out alone and hungry.” He whispered, giving you a wink.

“You really don’t have to.” You spoke quietly as you titled your head, he was already glancing over the menu figuring out what to eat.

“Do you have any other plans?” The only other plans you had were a date with an awful movie and a tub of ice cream. “Didn’t think so. Don’t let one prick ruin your night.”

“I’ll try not to.” You said with a half smile. Perhaps this night might go in your favour. After all, the man across from you was handsome, annoyingly so.

“Are we getting starters?” His eyebrows were raised as he watched you, anticipating your answer like it would make or break the evening.

“Of course we are.” You shrugged as though it was an obvious choice.

“Ya seem pretty set on that.” He laughed, plopping the menu down, having made his decision regarding food.

“I have been sat here waiting for an hour.” You argued, trying to laugh it off. This had not been the way you had anticipated the evening going but you could not help but revel in the moment.

“You make a fair point.” He raised his hands in defeat, smiling towards you. “Starters it is then.”

After ordering food and another glass of wine, the conversation soon started to flow. Finan had introduced himself and spent the entire evening trying to cheer you up. Truly he didn’t have to do much, the man was far too charismatic for his own good and there was a certain energy to him that just had you melting.

This date couldn’t have gone any better. Especially as he even offered to pay. Sure there had been some arguing but he was far quicker than you were and ended up paying for the whole bill, including the tip.

“You should’ve at least let me split it.” You muttered as you stepped outside, pulling your coat around you. The night was now dark and there was a chill in the air. “As a thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me.” He wriggled his shoulders into his own coat, walking beside you but leaving very little space. You hadn’t stopped smiling since the pair of you first spoke and even as you were leaving the restaurant you couldn’t help yourself.

“If you hadn’t sat with me, I would’ve probably had a miserable night, drowning my sorrows in ice cream.” You admitted, though you were grateful that hadn’t been your night. In a way you didn’t want it to end.

“Sometimes there’s nothing better than a tub of ice cream.” He shrugged, keeping pace with you. Your shoulders rubbed against one another as you walked down the street, sending a shiver down your spine. “And who’s to say you can’t still do that?”

“After that dinner, I think I’m way too full for anymore.” You laughed. It was true between the pair of you, you had eaten far too much. A whole three courses was a lot but worth every second, though perhaps the choice of outfit now felt a little suffocating.

“I have an idea.” He said suddenly, stopping a little before continuing on. Your expression dropped as you waited for him to continue, wondering what on earth this idea might be. “If you want to thank me, how about a second date? We can even include ice cream.”

“You know the way to a woman’s heart.” ice cream was the least tempting part of that offer. A charming Irishman stood in front of you, one you hadn’t even expected to meet, saved you from an awful night of loneliness and was now asking you on a second date.

“I certainly try.” He cocked his head, flashing you a gorgeous smile. “So how about it?”

“Okay, yeah.” You were sure your face had turned a vibrant shade of red as you felt the heat from your cheeks. “Yeah I’d like that.” He pulled something from his jacket, handing it to you.

“Here’s my number.” It was written on a napkin from the restaurant. You wondered at what point he had decided that he’d give you his number. It didn’t matter you took it all the same. “Message me the moment your home safe and we’ll sort something out.”

“Okay, cool.” If you weren’t blushing before you were certainly blushing now. “I’ll see you soon.” And just like that, your night had been saved.

[practically-an-x-man]

On the night of the local senior prom, Siv shows up on your OC's doorstep, hyperventilating and covered in blood. What do they do?

Ooooh good question! Thank you!

Rae: Immediately ushers Siv inside. She's got questions, of course, and she's not the best at soft comforts, but she'll offer to hear Siv out and protect them from whatever it is that's bothering her until she manages to collect herself

Robin: Immediately grabs Peter so he can zip Siv down to the nearest hospital - or maybe not the nearest one, if Siv is worried about being followed/chased. Once they're all somewhere safer and have looked into the source of that blood, she'll wait for Siv to explain their story and try to come up with a way to help

Madison: Shuts the door. She feels bad about it, yes, but she does not know Siv, she struggles to trust people in general, and she's been burned by tricks like these before.

Ophelia: Partially wonders if it's a trick, just from her skeptical nature... but she does her best to be a hero, so she lets Siv inside. She struggles with emotions and knowing how to comfort people, but she'll offer Siv food and a warm drink, and maybe even a piece of old broken tech to smash if they need to let some anger out.

Jasper: Uses their empathic sense to calm Siv down enough that they can get her thoughts together and explain. Besides, if they didn't, their emotions would reflect and it would work Jasper into just as much of a panic. They're not sure how much they can help past that, but they can help Siv clear their head at least.

Katherine: Is more than a little panicked at first, but wants to help. She'll bring Siv inside and offer them a cup of tea (and a change of clothes if she can find something that might fit). She also wouldn't ask Siv to explain if they didn't want to, but would offer her a space on the couch for a few nights while she gets herself together.

Kestrel: Is torn between wanting to help and being worried about a trick or ambush. Eventually they decide on helping, and let Siv into their cabin to catch her breath. They also offer her a mild charm that might help steady her mind - they don't know what's going on, so they can't offer next steps, but they can help Siv come up with them herself.

Quinn: Gives Siv a very scrutinizing look and waits for them to break - if it's a trick, she'll be able to spot it if she makes Siv uncomfortable enough. Eventually they'll let Siv inside, and will halfheartedly toss a first aid kit and a bottle of water at them before going back to planning her next thieving gig.

Eris: At best, shuts the door in Siv's face. At worst... you know that saying about when a shark smells blood in the water? Well, let's hope they don't assume Siv is an enemy, or things are about to get a lot worse.

Nikoletta: Initially shuts the door- then pauses, lets out a weary sigh (c'mon you're trying to be a better person and it's not like she's gonna get the jump on you in your own house with Abner in the next room... the kid can barely stand up are you really just going to leave her out there?) and lets Siv in. She's... pretty abysmal at trying to comfort her, but she locks the door and curtains the windows so Siv feels a little safer. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Nikoletta also remembers all the blood and offers that Siv could take a shower/borrow some clothes if they wanted.

[codenamesazanka]

I feel for Shoji. I really do. And I get where Shoji is coming from.

Shoji doesn’t have seemed to forgive his town, only let go of his resentment. Shoji wants to make the world better. Shoji understands the anger and pain the heteromorphs feel, he doesn’t at all deny their feelings or experiences; he only wants them to channel it into something less chaotic and more productive. He doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, and he knows neither do the rioters. He’s got an eye out for how heteromorphs will be represented and portrayed, and it’s a somber, realistic take.

Most of all, though, he’s not trying to solve the discrimination issue, he’s just trying to stop the rioters, especially because he cannot afford to let the revolt be exploited by a Demon King trying to usher in a thousand years of darkness. What can be said in a situation like that? If I was in his shoes, trying to find a way to stop a revolt, I don’t know if I can. I’ll probably resort to rhetoric too, appealing to emotion. Please stop. This is a hospital. There could be collateral damage. No one wants that.

(This argument probably would’ve worked better if it didn’t seemed like such an underhanded move by the Heroes. The facts are:

Kurogiri is at Central Hospital. He has to be there because it seems that’s the only place they can do recovery research on him.

Heroes knew AFO will try to retrieve Kurogiri.

Heroes knew about a “call to action,” that a group of heteromorphs are going after the hospital.

They knew the hospital will be targeted by the riot specifically because Kurogiri is held there—

But for some reason they decided not to move Kurogiri elsewhere and make AFO redirect the mob, now nor they they decided to evacuate the hospital despite having days beforehand to do so.

Perhaps the Heroes underestimated the number of heteromorphs that would join in the fight. They can point out Kurogiri is in the Research Building that’s separate from the Patient Ward so maybe the mob would spare that part of the hospital. They can even say the Heroes were hoping the heteromorphs would refrain from attacking the hospital because they trusted in the heteromorphs’ better natures, which is nice of them! But, objectively, planning-for-worst-case-scenario-ly, goal-is-minimizing-the-amount-of-damage-ly, this-probably-won’t-happen-but-let’s-be-extra-careful-ly they really wanted to risk that? Apparently they did.)

But Shoji’s words still ultimately fall flat for me because he’s not actually proposing any change at all, not a hint of it. The rioters are there because they want something, anything to change. Shoji essentially tells them to endure nobly, without promising anything will be different at all. He’s just a kid, sure, he can’t make any promises, but unfortunately he is a Hero student (soldier) representative of the establishment. When he took up that mantle, he’s gotta answer for the system that had promised it would protect and save its all citizens but failed to do so. (In fact they might have enabled viewing heteromorphs as more Villainous.)

What happened 30 years ago? Did the massacres finally stop? The massacres that happened because non-heteromorphs felt like it, they felt uncomfortable around heteromorphs? Fast-forward to now-ish, and villages are still tormenting their heteromorphic citizens because they feel uncomfortable. I guess that’s improvement, because Shoji, Spinner, and PLF Speech Guy aren’t dead. But the scars left on Shoji and PLF Speech Guy are on their faces, their heads; the people that hurt them seemed to have felt free enough to not care about head injuries or leaving eternally visible scars that reminds them of what they did. The moment society collapsed after Jaku, all that old latent hatred came back. All Ordinary Woman wanted was safe shelter and was denied that over and over again. What on earth has ‘not being avengers’ done? The core of their bigotry and the unspoken allowance to unleash that remains.

(I saw a Japanese tweet that observed how a system that allows shelters to refuse heteromorphs probably means there are no laws that prohibit heteromorph discrimination in the [HeroAca] world. Makes sense, especially if you consider that these are government-and-Hero-schools-run shelters, as Best Jeanist proposed? Maybe there are also private shelters, but Ordinary Woman said she went to several and all of them rejected heteromorphs and there has to be at least one government-and-Hero-schools-run shelter in those attempts.)

I’m not saying the heteromorphs should rampage and destroy a hospital and be avengers - and in the end, they didn’t! It’s just Heroes gotta give them a promise of change, to especially if the Heroes believed in the mob’s core inner goodness. The heteromorphs are doing their part; what exactly are the Heroes giving back?

Overall, things are framed as inspiring when it really isn’t, and i really think the manga should acknowledge how Heroes risked the lives in the hospital either out of hopeful but calculated strategy or astoundingly stupid incompetence. And give the heteromorphs at least one solid promise of change.

[soniabigcheese]

Best and Worst

I'm not doing these to drag out any traumatic events, but to give you folks an insight into my life.

So to speak.

If anyone wishes to share, feel free.

I reiterate that you don't have to do this, if it triggers you, please kindly move on. Please do not drag out any traumatic experiences if you did share

Best Holiday

Italy, hands down. The guided tour gave us some great places to put on our bucket list. Fell deeply in love with Florence. Not too impressed with Rome. Pompeii was boiling hot, but had an aura of sadness to it. Gelato was to die for

Worst Holiday

Can't decide between the 'booze cruise' to Sweden. Or my very first holiday abroad as an adult. To Cologne, Germany. No offense to the locals but I didn't feel comfortable at either place.

Best Birthday

Milan. Hands down. For my 50th birthday! The hotel was amazing, staff were exceptional and they even made me a chocolate birthday cake. Pity I don't eat chocolate cake and it was wasted. But still, the thought that went into it. That was also the time that I managed to achieve a lifelong, childhood (thank Blue Peter for this one) dream. To go see the Last Supper. You've got to book in advance, can't just walk in. They let groups of twenty people in for 15 minutes, then ushered out because of the fragility of the painted mural. But soooo worth going to see.

Worst Birthday

Four years ago when I'd had enough of hubby being an arse and wanted to have at least one good day to myself. So I booked two night stay at Whitby. One night bookings wasn't available, unforts. And with hindsight, maybe I should have opted for the day trip instead. Anyways, the weather was glorious. That was short-lived because a big storm struck the next day. The place I booked at was one hell of a hike to the town centre and on top of a cliff. I had to haul my case and painting stuff up four flights of stairs. Only to have the pokiest little room possible. Admittedly, there was a great view. But that was it. I paid for breakfast and stated that I didn't want baked beans. So the plate arrived half empty, with no substitutions (maybe I should have stated extra mushrooms/hash brown/whatever) it was a great first day. A bit blustery but great. Had amazing fish and chips and watched as a poor family were getting glared at by some seagulls. But hell was unleashed the next day. I couldn't take train journeys because the lines were closed. For maintenance. Everything was shuttered down so I had nowhere to go. I had to eat humble pie and phone hubby because I wasn't sure if the buses were running. He arrived and made me walk around the arcades in a coat that was absolute soaked right through.

Best Christmas

When I received my first made to order doll house. I was told to sit on a small three legged stool and close my eyes. I heard them talking about a food processor and wondered why it took two people to carry it. I opened my eyes and saw the most beautiful doll house ever. I only admired the one belonging to hubby's aunt, on our last visit but never dreamed that I would own one very similar. The man who made them, died not long after and my house was one of the last ones he made. And I had to 'purchase' it with a single peppercorn. What a sweet little ritual! Decorating and furnishing is still a WIP because it is a VERY expensive hobby. Might try to put my own crafting skills to work, making things 1/12th of the size

Worst Christmas

My foster mum/aunt had died so I was on my own and had many offers to spend Christmas dinner with folks. But I just didn't want to deal with that right now. Eventually, my family (birth parents and siblings) wore me down. They live right across the other side of town, so it was one hell of a hike. Taxis cost a fortune, something I couldn't afford, but they had a car. I scraped a few pennies together to get silly inexpensive things as presents and waited. And waited. In the end, I just had scrambled egg on toast because I hadn't bothered with making my own dinner. I was asked later in why I didn't turn up. And that was the slippery slope of letting them into my life. We're estranged now and have been for almost 30 years. Not because of that, that would be petty of me. But other events thay have scarred me for life.

And that's it.

[grantgoddard]

Sacked by a boss desperate to steal my success : 1991 : Gordon McNamee, KISS 100 FM, London

 It was a little after seven o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. Normally, I would already have been out of bed by that hour on a weekday. However, the previous night’s ‘DJ meeting’ [open to all 44 KISS FM presenters] had tired me out. I was awake, but I was still trying to urge my body to get out of bed. The mobile phone stationed beside my bed rang noisily and forced my brain into action far faster than it wanted.

It was [KISS FM personal assistant to managing director] Rosee Laurence on the line, asking if I could schedule a meeting that morning with [KISS FM managing director] Gordon McNamee. I scrambled out of bed to retrieve my diary from the battered ‘WH Smith’ black plastic briefcase I always took to work. Requests for meetings at such short notice were common although, during the last few days, McNamee had had no contact with me. Laurence suggested ten o’clock. I explained that I already had an editorial meeting [of my programming department] scheduled for half past ten, but I could fit it in as long as the meeting was not going to last too long. She assured me that it would not. I scribbled “10am – Gordon” in my diary, replaced the mobile phone in its charger and got on with the business of waking up properly.

My diary told me that I had two further meetings that afternoon – a weekly sponsorship get-together at one o’clock with [KISS FM finance director] Martin Strivens and the sponsorship manager, Gordon Drummond, followed by a debriefing session in the boardroom at three o’clock with KISS FM’s partners in the Pepsi promotion. During the drive from my flat to the office, I reflected on the possible reason for the early morning phone call. Was McNamee going to tell me what had happened at the previous day’s board meeting? Was he going to pretend that nothing untoward had happened and that the board had approved all his [unachievable] targets for Year Two?

I was already running late when I became caught up in the worst of the rush-hour traffic along Holloway Road. Although my work day officially started at half past nine, I liked to arrive at work earlier so that I could snatch a little time to myself before the inevitable mayhem started in the department. However, that day, there was only time to down a quick cup of tea before walking up to the top floor in time for my ten o’clock appointment. Gordon McNamee was sat in his corner office when Laurence ushered me in. After exchanging morning greetings, I sat facing McNamee across his huge wooden desk. He shuffled from side to side in his chair a few times, avoiding looking directly into my eyes, and he sighed unusually heavily. Several times, he looked up at me as if he was going to say something, but then stopped short.

I stared at him blankly, not knowing what to expect. Eventually, he started mumbling something apologetically, but still he was making little sense. I knew then that McNamee had bad news to break to me. He had always been excellent at whipping his team into a frenzy of enthusiasm when something good was happening, but he was almost incapable of breaking negative news to anyone. He started speaking slowly and managed to explain that he had been “extremely vexed” by the memo I had delivered to him two days earlier. ‘Vexed’ was one of McNamee’s favourite words to use in situations when somebody had done something that displeased him. Anyone else might have been angry, but McNamee was always ‘vexed.’

As he reflected upon the contents of my memo and how ‘vexed’ it had made him, McNamee seemed better able to talk to me directly and to break the bad news. He explained that the board had met the previous afternoon and had decided that the company no longer needed my services. He muttered something about this being the hardest thing he had ever had to do and how he regretted the decision, but I was barely listening to his words. Instead, I was thinking how cowardly was this man sitting in front of me. I was thinking that, even now, he had no intention of telling me the truth of what had taken place at the board meeting, or how he had probably acted to save his own skin. What I wanted to know was what he had told the board about my dissent and what he had told the board of my contributions to the station’s success.

But there seemed little point in saying anything at all to the cowering figure sat in front of me, with whom I had worked so closely for more than two years. I got up to leave the room. McNamee had failed to deliver my promised rewards on so many occasions that I did not need to hear another fabricated story about why I was not getting things to which I felt I was entitled. As I left his office, McNamee said that it would be necessary for me to leave the building immediately, and he thrust some documents into my hand. I walked straight out of his office, shocked that, even at this stage in our relationship, McNamee was still incapable of telling me truthfully why I had to go.

Before I could reach the staircase to return to my office, McNamee had caught up with me and was asking me to stop. For a second, I felt as if I should ignore him totally and just carry on walking, but I turned towards him at the very top of the building’s stairwell.

“We could say that you had resigned, to make it easier for you, if you wanted,” McNamee suggested to me.

I stared at him coldly with a combination of anger and hatred that I could feel welling up inside me.

“Gordon, that’s a fucking insult,” I spat at him. Then I turned and walked down the staircase leading to my office on the next floor.

I was incensed. After all the sweat, blood and toil I had poured into this company. After all the personal sacrifices I had made to ensure that KISS FM succeeded. After my hard work had produced the required results more quickly than had ever been anticipated. Now, I was being asked to resign from a job in which I had achieved nothing but success. McNamee’s cheek to even suggest such a thing had made me really angry. I was in a rage as I stormed into my office. The programming floor was starting to fill up, as staff trickled into work. My first thought was the speed with which McNamee had insisted I must leave the station. Rather than suffer the indignity of being forcibly removed from the building by the station’s security guard, I started to pack up my possessions.

[KISS FM head of music] Lindsay Wesker caught my attention as he walked onto the floor from the staircase. He was one of my senior team members, so I felt I should break the bad news to him personally. The only private place I could think of to talk was the men’s toilet in the stairwell of the floor, so we crowded into the tiny cubicle.

“I’ve just been sacked,” I said to Wesker, “and I’ve been told to leave the building immediately.”

Wesker looked thoughtful, but did not seem particularly shocked. I suddenly understood that Wesker must have been the only member of my team to know what was going to happen to me, before I did.

“Just as you’ve said before,” said Wesker calmly, “it’s always the programming department that gets the chop.”

These were the very words I had shared with Wesker more than a year earlier, during the first programme planning meeting I had convened at [former KISS FM office] Blackstock Mews. Wesker had mulled over my words carefully then and, now, I realised why he had found those words so interesting. In Wesker’s eyes, he had got rid of me at last. I exited the men’s toilet without saying another word.

Having received no sympathy from Wesker for my predicament, I walked back to my office and continued assembling my personal effects. I had spent far more of my waking hours in that building during the last year than I had at home, so many of my own possessions were intermingled with that of the company. There was the portable television I had brought to the office when the Gulf War had started, there was a portable cassette player I used, the records I had used to make station jingles, and unread magazines that were cluttering the floor. These were all mine. I started gathering them together into a manageable pile to take away with me. Other staff on the floor noticed me through the clear plastic partition of my office and started to wonder what was going on.

I told Philippa Unwin, who had worked with me closely as the department administrator since the Blackstock Mews days, what had just happened to me. She became visibly upset. As I told other members of my team, they stood around the floor in disbelief and shock.

[KISS FM head of talks] Lorna Clarke said to me: “They can’t sack you just like that. You’re the only one who knows how this whole station works.”

I felt pressured by the urgency to get out quickly, so I started carrying boxes of my things down three flights of stairs to put in my company car parked at the back of the building. I suddenly realised that my hasty and unexpected departure from KISS FM could be explained away to the staff on any pretext, unless I could make some kind of statement myself. The memo that had ‘vexed’ Gordon so much had recorded all the significant events of the previous week, as well as having stated my unambiguous position on wanting KISS FM to adopt a realistic strategy for its future.

After less than a year on-air, one of the staff’s major criticisms was the lack of information about company decisions that trickled down to them from the senior management. Only those staff working most closely with me in the programming department understood that I was just as ill-informed about what was going on at board level as everybody else was in the building. Using a Prit-Stick from the top drawer of my desk, I glued a copy of my memo to Gordon McNamee onto the clear plastic partition of my office. My room opened onto the floor’s entrance lobby and the partition could be seen by everyone passing through the department. Alongside the memo, I glued the document detailing the programming policy changes I had been ordered by McNamee to devise.

While I continued to gather together my possessions, staff in the department started to read my two memos, all the while expressing outrage that my dismissal could be so abrupt. Then, Wesker burst into my office and handed me a sheet of ledger paper.

“Rosee [Laurence] upstairs says these things are KISS property which you have to give back before you go,” said Lindsay sheepishly.

Inscribed in red ink was a list:

“1) security tag 13-92 + ID pass. 2) office & studio keys. 3) car keys.” 

It was evident that Wesker had been anticipating my dismissal and was acting as messenger boy for the management staff on the top floor who were too cowardly to talk to me directly. I snatched the piece of paper from him, but ignored it. I asked him, rhetorically, how I was expected to take home all my personal possessions without being able to use the company car?

Before leaving the station for the last time, I walked around the programming department and said my hurried goodbyes to the few staff who were already at their desks. Because the majority of my team worked shifts, there were only a few people there. In the DJs’ office, [daytime presenter] David Rodigan was sat at his desk, facing the front windows that looked out over Holloway Road. His back was towards the office door, so I had to interrupt his preparations for that day’s lunchtime show to bid him farewell. He expressed outrage at my sacking and seemed bewildered by the speed with which I was being forced to leave.

There was nothing left to do except thank everyone who was in the department for the good times we had spent together and to give many of them one last hug. Some of the staff were crying, others were visibly angry, and some did not seem to believe the events that were unfolding right in front of their eyes. Wesker was the only person who seemed unmoved by the whole scene. He was busy protesting that I had not left the company’s property that he had been given responsibility to collect. I could not have cared less.

I got into my company car, half expecting someone to rush out and stop me driving it away. But they did not, and I drove away from the station’s car park for the very last time. I had arrived at work barely two hours ago. Now, I was already on my way home again. It felt as if some ghastly mistake had happened, some chance mishap over which I had been able to exert no control. I could not believe that this would really be the very last day I ever worked at KISS FM. The traffic was much lighter on the roads, now that the rush hour was over, so I reached home within half an hour. By then, I was feeling neither upset nor angry about my dismissal. More, I was stunned that the end could have come so abruptly, and without McNamee having offered any gratitude for my significant contributions to KISS FM’s success.

[Excerpt from ‘KISS FM: From Radical Radio To Big Business: The Inside Story Of A London Pirate Radio Station’s Path To Success’ by Grant Goddard, Radio Books, 2011, 528 pages]

[Originally published at https://peoplelikeyoudontworkinradio.blogspot.com/2024/05/sacked-by-boss-so-desperate-to-steal-my.html ]

[warmau]

☆[nostalgic] summer romance!au bang chan  birthday present for my favorite stay! | other skz aus

you don't like the sun, ergo you don't really like summer

you've never been fond of the heat or the bugs or the overwhelming sense of emptiness that comes with watching the ice in your favorite drink melt too quickly for your liking

so when you are forced to pick up some sort of activity for the summer by your schools requirements you sign up for summer reading with the public library

the library is inside - it has air conditioning - it's not outside and under the sun

"so explain to me why we are sitting outside, where there is not air conditioner, under the sun in a park when this is supposed to be everything but that?"

hyunjin, the other poor student who'd signed up for the same program, turns to you with a thin lipped smile

"because we're supposed to recruit kids into the program and where are all the kids during the summertime?"

you sit down in the plastic chair set up in front of a small white table that features the public library's branch name and a sheet for kids to sign up on

there's a pile of recommended summer reading for children of all ages stacked up neatly and untouched

no kid in their right mind is going to sign up to read while they're having fun chasing a ball around - this is literally so dumb.

you ruffle around in your bag to see if you brought extra sunscreen in defeat and hyunjin puts his hand out for it without a word

hours pass just like this

some parents try to usher their kids your way but give up in the end to hold their attention, offering you and hyunjin nothing but polite and sorry smiles

you try to scour out any place with shade to no avail

you have an entire month left of this hell

somewhere in the distance you can hear the sound of laughter and a loud whistle

"is that a summer camp?"

you ask hyunjin who has started, out of boredom, reading an old copy of the magic tree house (an offered book on the summer list)

"yeah - i think that's the field for soccer camp."

you put your sweaty forehead down onto the table and groan

"even eight hours of soccer sounds better than this."

your first day is uneventful and still somehow extremely draining

when you get home you lay face down with the fan on blast and think about calling the library to quit

but guilt clouds over you: what about the kids who might want to sign up for the program, what about leaving poor hyunjin out there by himself, what about.......these stupid credits for school

in the end you decide you'll stick with it - maybe you'll pick up crocheting to help you pass the time

the second, third, and fourth day all pass the same way

one kid signs up for the program and it isn't even a kid - it's their parent who spends half an hour at the table telling you and hyunjin about how stressful raising children is

you two just stare up at them and melt under their ramblings and the unforgiving sun

on the first friday of the worst decision of your life - hyunjin almost quits and you have to bribe him with ice cream from the truck so he doesn't leave you

he agrees, for the price of two strawberry cheesecake bars

when you head to the truck to retrieve the briberies you notice a long line of kids all dressed in soccer uniforms

they're crowding around someone who is ordering at the window

his shoulders are wide and muscular underneath a tight sports top and he has an accent that makes itself more prevalent when he tells one of the kids to hold on a minute - laughing when they seemingly pout up at him

you're curious to see what that person looks like - you assume he's one of the counselors from that soccer camp

but you miss the opportunity as he gathers over ten different types of ice cream in his hands and is hoarded onto by the kids

when you get to the window the poor ice cream man tells you not to order the sonic ice-pop, he just sold out

"do you know any of the people working at that summer camp?"

you as hyunjin as you hand over his ice cream and he shakes some hair from face as he peels open the packaging

"i know changbin, he's supposed to be working there this summer with some new guy - apparently he just moved here."

you think that this 'new guy’ is probably the one who was in front of you in the ice cream line

“do you know his n-”

you stop mid sentence to watch the strawberry ice cream melt over the wrapper and hyunjin’s fingers and right onto the pile of library books.

yeah. this is definitely the worst decision of my life.

hyunjin is apparently “sick” on monday. so you’re alone at the table when a lone soccer ball rolls right to your feet

you look up from the ‘how to crochet: for beginners’ video you’re watching on your phone to pick it up.

“sorry, i had no clue i would kick it this far!”

you look up and squint in the sun to see the person standing before you

but the accent gives their identity away immediately 

smiling down at you are kind brown eyes and perfectly straight white teeth

the beads of sweat on his forehead look more like diamonds, and he smells good - which must be a feat if you’re running around under the scorching sun playing sports all day

“uh-”

you lose the ability to speak for a second before you realize his hands are out stretched for the ball

“r-right. here you go.”

he thanks you and tucks the ball under his arm, “is hyunjin not here today?”

“you know hyunjin?”

he gives a deep chuckle, “not really. changbin - the guy i work with does. he said he’d be here but i only, well i only see you.”

‘i only see you’. someone so hot should not be able to just say that so casually

“ah yeah he’s out “sick” - note the air quotes.”

this time the chuckle is a genuine laugh and he uses his free hand to hold his stomach 

“now i know why he’s changbin’s friend. i’m bang chan by the way.”

he extends his hand out at first and then jumps back a bit, “sorry - my palms a little sweaty”, wiping it on his side and then offering it again

you take it and try not to think about how much larger it is in comparison to yours

you tell him your name and chan seemingly wants to stay, when a loud whistle from the field catches his attention

“i gotta go, but i’ll see you around yeah?”

he waves and jogs off, leaving you in a bit of a limbo

it wears off after a bit of time and you go back to doing absolutely nothing but flipping through the books again and trying to help some parents here and there get their kid to stand still long enough to sign up

when the day ends you realize you’re going to have to carry everything back to the library by yourself

you groan, even though it’s already evening, the sun isn’t letting up and you start to clear the table slowly

“need help?”

you turn around and chan is there, a duffel bag over his shoulder and a towel around his neck

“oh it’s fine, the library is around the block so-”

“i’ll carry the table.”

he doesn’t even put his things down, just easily tips the table over to fold it up and picks it up on it’s side

you don’t even have time to refuse the help again, so you just gather your sheet and books and follow him out of the park

“are you here every day?”

he asks and you sort of try to put your hand on the table, but chan manages to stay enough steps ahead of you

“j-just the weekdays. and it’s fine i can carry the-”

he laughs, but shakes his head 

“two pairs of hands are better than one.”

you return everything to the library, usually you get a mini lecture about the lack of kids who’ve signed up, but this time even the librarian seems starstruck by chan’s looks and friendly charm

you are trying to think of a way to thank him without looking like a fool and stuttering over your words

when chan points to the left, “i gotta take the bus home.”

you blink and point in the opposite direction, “the bus is that way.”

chan’s ears go red and it turns out he’s the one stuttering as he explains that he only got here at the beginning of the summer so everything is new and confusing

without thinking you go, “if you want i can show you around some time.” 

realizing only after you’ve said it how forward that is 

only chan brightens, his already cheerful smile seems to glow stronger

“i’ll take you up on that offer!”

you say goodbye to one and other - and you try to ignore the thumping of your heart in your chest but it resounds into your ears

so loud you can barely hear anything else as you make your own way home

i mean, he’s just being nice. he seems like the type to do that - just be nice to be polite. so let’s not think anything of it.

hyunjin is out sick again the next day, he texts that a summer flu can last up to a week! to which you reply to with several choice emojis, but once again chan is there at the end of the day

helping you carry everything back to the library

you finally learn that he is definitely working at the soccer camp and he moved from overseas for school

when you ask what he’s studying, he gives kind of a faltering smile and says he’s going in undecided

something seems sad in his tone - and you think it’s a little contradictory to move to another country for a university program you aren’t even majoring in

but you don’t push it and confess that you’re kind of iffy on your future too

chan seems to perk up slightly at your openness, he jokingly goes: “becoming an adult is harder than you think, right?”

you heave your shoulders in agreement but go, “it’s inevitable though. we all have to grow up some day.”

the librarian ignores you completely this time, fawning over chan for his kindness

when you say goodbye to each other this time - chan says he’ll help you tomorrow too

tomorrow comes and finally hyunjin is back, but even so chan still shows up when it’s time for you two to pack up and hyunjin immediately reads his gaze 

becoming aware of something you are still clueless too

picking up the stack of books, hyunjin leaves you to help chan with the table

of course, chan carries it himself, and you just keep stride at his side and listen to a lighthearted story about one of the kids at his camp

this sort of becomes a routine for the next week or so

chan shows up after work to help you and hyunjin pack up, but hyunjin always insists on leaving first - giving you and chan the alone time of the five minute walk to the library 

you suspect hyunjin is doing it on purpose, and you think he’s teasing - but chan always seems to give him a look that hyunjin reciprocates and you just can’t seem to read

one day, chan shows up an hour earlier - he says work let out right after afternoon practice and he thought he’d come by and help you and hyunjin out

you tell him he’s free to come fry in the sun with the two of you, to which chan asks

“sounds like you’re not a summer person?”

“the sun and i are on questionable terms.”

chan looks around and clicks his tongue, “and there’s no shade in this park. well maybe this will help?”

he pulls a light sports jacket out of his duffel bag, walking over to you and draping it over your head - the darkness of the fabric enveloping you before you can fully register what’s going on

“kinda like a sun cloak?”

chan says, squatting down a little to lift the collar hem and look at you

the distance between your faces goes from a lot to very little

up close like this - chan is somehow even more handsome, you can make out the strong lines of his jaw and the way his nose curves down almost perfectly.

he opens his mouth, but no words come out - you both get lost in a seconds long stare

which hyunjin breaks up with a loud clearing of his throat and a, “you two really just need to get a room.”

chan shots back upright and almost tips over from the speed, his neck goes red and he tries to say something back to hyunjin who just tilts his head knowingly in both of your directions

you can only do one thing - pull chan’s jacket over your face

when you finally emerge, hyunjin is gone and chan is sitting in his place and twiddling his thumbs

you tell yourself to think of a way to make this less awkward, but your mind is blank and you’re stuck between dying from the embarrassment and maybe want to find hyunjin and chase him up and down the entire park

“you know...” chan starts and looks at you - you push all your courage up and look back 

“if you’d like to still show me around some time, i guess it could also be a .... date?”

when hyunjin comes back, he sees both you and chan are exchanging numbers. with a triumphant grin he sits between the two of you and throw his hands over your shoulders

“so - am i invited on the date too?”

the first place you take chan, when you two meet up on the weekend, is to your favorite fast food place

only to realize that he’s probably a healthy eater and you try to find something on the menu that is more green and low in carbs 

but chan just tells you, he’s a person - and he has cheat days - so you two splurge and chan even gets a milkshake after

when he can’t finish it he offers it to you absentmindedly and you don’t even know what flavor it is until you take your first sip

strawberry, maybe we are soulmates

you take chan everywhere you can, you try to fill up the day with as much as possible 

and as the evening dwindles down, chan comments that he never knew you had so much energy - you always look so down when you’re at the park

you mutter that it’s the fact that you’re in one place - you should have picked something that at least let you move around

“you can come coach soccer with me?”

you look at chan with an eye roll and he grins back

“i don’t have the endurance and i can’t handle more than one kid at a time.”

“ah yeah, then you’d have an issue with your co-worker.”

“who, you?”

“changbin. there’s already one kid too much on my plate.”

you giggle and chan bites back his lip, stopping on the sidewalk as you slow down too

“is there any place in town that you really love?”

it takes you a moment to understand his question

“what do you mean?”

“like a place that’s special on another level, i’ve never had one because i move around a lot but people say they have places in their home town that really mean something.”

you think and then nod, chan out stretches his hand 

“take me there?”

it’s actually on the other side of the park and field you and chan have been spending your summer in

it’s the side that is more green, with actual shade, but less foot traffic because it’s still dirt in some places and nothing has really been built there for a while

past a couple of old benches, you show chan a bush that sits between two big trees and look at him with an apologetic sigh

“i used to hide here when i was a kid. i know it’s not really beautiful, not a sunset on the beach or top of the mountain thing. but when i was smaller i could just sit here and be alone. and the trees always kept the sun out.”

chan looks at the small matted center between the branches, neither you or him can fit in their anymore

you imagine your younger self there, picking petals off of wild flowers or writing in your old diary

you look at chan and he seems like he’s also thinking about something, maybe he’s seeing himself there too

“remember when i told you i don’t know what i want to major in?”

he starts without returning your gaze

“the reality is my family wants me to become an athlete. actually, not even my family - it feels like the whole world wants that.”

the deepness of his voice falters, like a guitar suddenly playing an out of tune note

you do what’s natural and step closer to him, your hand squeezes his palm

“don’t get me wrong, i think it’s what i’m meant for too. i mean - i’ve always been good at it and i like it but-”

this time he does look at you, and the summer moon is suddenly showing its face over his shoulder - illuminating him softly

“but i don’t think i’ll be happy if i do it.”

“just because every one else thinks so, doesn’t mean you’re meant to do it chan.”

the words fall from you before you can stop them. you know what he’s feeling and you want to let him in on the lesson you’ve been learning yourself.

“you are meant to be happy, and you’re meant to grow for yourself and not for others. you become an adult for yourself, you live life for yourself and not for any one else.”

he swallows and turns so his entire body is facing your own

“i want-” he can’t finish the sentence, you’re not sure if it’s because he’s just pausing himself or if he really doesn’t know what comes after

instead he leans in and pulls you up close. he doesn’t kiss you, he seems to waiver because he wants your consent, and so you give it to him with a small tilt of your head.

that night you lay in bed thinking about everything chan shared with you and what you said to him 

it makes your heart ache, but when your eyes close you think of the softness and curve of his upper lip. 

you think about the way he holds your waist with both his hands clasped around you.

“i always knew he was in to you by the way, that’s why i kept leaving you two in your little love bubble.”

hyunjin says the next day as you’re setting up the table in the park

“and how did you know oh wise one?”

“he looked at you and it was written all over his face.”

“how come i didn’t see it?”

hyunjin shrugs, “because it was written all over yours too.”

the days fall into each other again, but now they feel less and less sluggish because chan comes around more often

bringing his hoard of campers with him sometimes and even changbin who asks you right off the bat how you’d rank chan as a kisser

chan gasps and covers the ears of the kid closest to him but you shyly raise your hands up to show all ten fingers

changbin gives chan a slap on the back that resounds all throughout the park

your dates with chan all endless laughter and conversation and showing him what life is like in this town while also getting to know more and more about who he is

slowly it comes out that the muscle and sporty attitude is just the top layer to someone who is so deeply creative and passionate about music and the arts

you have so much new music to listen to because of him and he goes way harder than you expect when you, him, hyunjin and changbin go out to karaoke

of course chan’s never ending energy is able to be soft and tender, as it is when he kisses you - everywhere he can reach and how he reels in the strength to handle you with the utmost care

when the librarian sees him give you a kiss before you go in to get your things, she stops you and for the first time all summer gives you a thumbs up

of course, summer can’t last forever, and the early signs of fall show their face

the soccer camp ends and you go to the final game - held against another local camp to cheer chan on

he looks so natural on the field, and he looks even more natural with the kids

it’s no surprise that a career in sports would fit him - but finally the topic of school comes back up 

and you sit cross legged on the empty soccer field, chan’s jacket around your shoulders and his soccer whistle you stole around your neck

and you go

“have you decided?”

he pauses and tries to give you the look that is supposed to get him out of these situations, it doesn’t work and you ask again

“i want-”

he stops again and then sits back you get up and stand over him, looking down into his handsome face

you take it in your hands and ask again

“chan, tell me the truth and only the truth. what do you want?”

his gaze doesn’t falter

“i want you.”

he pulls you down and ontop of him, supporting your fall with his own body as he kisses you 

as much as you want to let him leave you breathless, you pull back and open your mouth to tell him to please be serious

but chan knows what you’re going to say before you do so he finally blurts it out

“i want to do music. i want to major in music.”

a smile blooms on your face - chan swears it nearly brings back the summer sun as you embrace him with a flurry of happy noises

he rolls you two over and grins down at you

“now that i told you, can we go back to kissing?”

in the future, years down the line, you look back on this moment with him and chan swears he wouldn’t be here - doing what he loves - if it weren’t for you

as you look around his music studio, you see all his hard work, you say that it was all chan

the stupid summer sun had a little to do with it back when you were younger, but you’re never going to admit that out loud

when chan gets up from his work, placing his headphones on the table and letting you lead him out to get dinner he jokingly goes,

“so summer wedding?”

“never in a million years.” 

[yaegercockwhore]

You're a Royal Whore - Eren Yeager Smut

originally posted on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39038085

-> Prince Eren Yeager of Eldia is a hot young bachelor wanted by many women.. and he hates it. You, on the other hand, are a hot young woman wanted by many men.. and you love it. What will happen when you wish for Eren to be the next victim to your schemes?

-> TW for literally so many things. MDNI, do not read if heavy BDSM elements make you uncomfy

"You're 19, Eren," The King spoke sternly to his eldest son. "You need to chose a bride, the pressure from the other kingdoms is getting extreme. You're Eldia's most prized possession, a handsome bachelor Prince." Prince Yeager chuckled, knowing he was just some sort of sex symbol to the Kingdom. He was no deeper in substance to anyone than his looks and status. "Now, I don't want to force you into an arranged marriage, but you know how Marley is. They will have you marry Pieck if you don't marry soon." 

Eren sucked his teeth, rolling his eyes. He was so tired, tired of women throwing themselves at him. Any other man might have loved the attention, bedding a different girl every night. However, Prince Eren Yeager of Eldia had his own opinions. He thought they were desperate and unappealing, even the prettiest whores who he spent a night with had him wanting to throw up afterwards, even executing one who made him particularly sick to his stomach. Pieck was the worst of them all, though; the way she bent over and the facial expressions she made not only around him but around any member of royalty was aggravating. 

"Eren," His father, King Grisha, called him back to reality. Eren looked up at his father, uninterested. "Think about it urgently. In the mean time, please prepare yourself for our day."

Eren nodded, waving his father out of his room. He let out a big sigh, undressing as his servant chose his outfit. He watched as she selected a rather fancy outfit, complete with a long, red coat. He sneered at the cheesy gold tassels on the coat as he slipped it onto his arms before setting his crown on top of his head. His servants ushered him down to the main entrance, where his parents sat.

"Announcing the Royal Family of..." Eren couldn't hear the country or their King's name through his yawn. Nobody was looking at him anyway, a feeling Eren wasn't used to. 

"Eren, go show the Princess to her room. It's the one beside yours." His mom whispered in his ear, gently nudging him with her elbow. He nodded, wiping his eyes and stretching, deciding he likely needed to be more awake for this.

As Eren took in his surroundings, he finally realized why he didn't feel hundreds of eyes piercing his flesh and analyzing his every move. It wasn't difficult for him to surmise this was the princess of whatever Kingdom, her beauty undeniable. Eren almost snorted once he realized who you were, even more uninterested than he previously was. He decided that tonight might end up being a little more fun than intended.

"Hi," You greeted, gently curtsy in the direction of the Prince. "I take you to be Prince Eren Yeager of Eldia?" Eren nodded, already over the eyes being back on him. You waited patiently for him to speak, used to men being too in awe to speak to you. However, Eren just stood there, his eyes looking right through you. You calmly cleared your throat and patted your dress down. "Uhm, may you please take me to my quarters?"

Eren's treatment of you was frustrating. Every other Prince you had met on your tour had been all too eager to bring you to your room and try to have their way, never ceasing to be on their best behaviour. You loved to watch their dejected faces when you rejected them, guards ready to take them away and gossip ready to be spread and ruin their reputation. Some couldn't even speak to you and would just awkwardly stare with red faces as they sat you down and tried to kiss you with quivering lips. Eren didn't fall into either of the categories at hand, though, and it was driving you nuts. You had to crack him, some way, somehow.. more for your ego than your amusement at this point. 

You trailed behind as Eren walked you to his dorm, not even making an effort to socialize with you. He was attractive, you had to admit, but you wouldn't fall for it. He was more attractive than any Prince you'd played before, and apparently one of the hottest bachelors in the world. You couldn't simply give up.

Eren opened your door, gesturing for you to go inside. You sat on the bed, looking up at him expectantly, flittering your eyelashes. He cocked his head and turned to walk out before you called out to him.

"Eren, wait!" You called out. He turned around slowly as if someone had asked him to do chores. You tapped the spot beside you on the bed with a smile. "I'm a bit homesick. Won't you stay with me?" 

Eren knew better than this, but he wasn't in the mood to have his father yell at him. It was inevitable; every Princess always tries this shit with him. It's just what his dad wants, taking whatever measures necessary to have Eren marry anyone but a Marley princess.

He sat reluctantly, staring at his lap to avoid your eyes. Your hand suddenly appeared in his line of vision, resting on his thigh, way too close to where it shouldn't be. He shot you a glare that you wouldn't admit you found hot.

This was going to be hard, you thought, double entendre to your meaning. You preferred to just tease your men, as it was easier to ruin their reputation this way. "He came onto me, he's so mean, King!" She would cry to their fathers. However, Eren was really just not interested, and it was driving you insane. You had to be bold.

Getting off the bed, you delivered another award winning smile to Eren before slowly undoing your dress and letting it fall. He didn't even look, keeping his eyes on his lap. You acted quickly, getting on your knees and reaching for his belt.

"The fuck are you doing, slut?" Eren hissed, grabbing your chin in his hand. "I don't want to fuck with someone with a shitty reputation like you." 

"How do you know..." You trailed off, suddenly feeling exposed. You stood up, covering your chest. 

"Everyone knows what you do," Eren explained, anger lacing his voice. "Some think you're a whore, others think you're just a scared virgin. Unfortunately you, I'm one of the few of the former." 

"But... but every guy thinks I'm beautiful. Everyone wants me. Why are you any different?" You seethed, crossing your arms over your chest. "I'm not a whore! I've only fucked two people! You're so fucking rude, Yaeger. If you think this saves your reputation, it doesn't, I'm still going to tell everyone you called me a-"

"Whore?" Eren completed with a laugh. "Because you are. Am I supposed to prove it?"

"Yeah." You answered without hesitation, ego too big to say anything else. 

"So you're saying you consent to having sex with me? I'm just catching that so you don't fuck me over like everyone else," Eren teased, watching you nod determined. He hadn't planned on fucking you tonight, but fuck, you were hot. He had to avoid looking at you for a reason, but now he had to fuck some sense into you. Not that he intended for even a moment for you to enjoy it. "Let's start on a high note, bend over my lap."

"What? No, that's so fucking degrading." You scoffed, giving him a look that would make a normal man insecure.

"Oh, you're a brat. I thought you'd submit earlier." Eren laughed, shedding his red coat. 

"I'm not submissive, twat," You scolded him. "I thought it was rather obvious I get off on being dominant."

"Aw, that's real cute," Eren cooed. "Unfortunately, you're going to be submissive with me."

"No, that's not how this works!" You whined. "You know, I liked you more when you didn't talk and were all hot and mysterious-" Suddenly, Eren's hand was around your throat and a smirk written on his face.

"Well, I was bored then," He replied nonchalantly. "Now, I'm about to play with a new toy."

He bored his eyes into your own as he held you to the wall by your throat, watching you thrash around. Once you began to fight it less, he let go and watched you crumple to the ground like a discarded napkin. He picked you up with ease, dropping you onto the bed and gently rubbing the marks on your neck.

"I'm sorry, did I hurt you, little one?" He faked sincerity, and you fell right for it, nodding and letting tears prick your eyes. You went pale when he laughed. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of dom, huh? You're fucking pathetic, you know that?" 

"No, I am, I am, I can be... I'm so..." You tried, choking over nothing but your own words this time. He smiled and tucked your hair behind your ears. 

"Then ride me, if you wanna be a top so bad." Eren encouraged, taking his hands away from you and laying on the bed next to you. You looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights, and that's when Eren knew you had submitted to him. "Aw, you can't do that, can you? You're not high and mighty at all. You are just a submissive little brat. You just needed someone to take care of you."

Eren kneeled in front of you and peeled your legs apart, your pussy making him lick his lips in a way so lewd you had to cover your eyes. 

"You think I'm gonna give head to some slut like you?" He jeered, delivering a harsh slap between your legs that made you moan. "Listen to you. I thought you weren't a whore?"

Eren didn't speak as he slowly began to trace circles onto your clit, letting your whimpers do the talking. This was Eren's little secret: the quiet, nonchalant, highly desired Prince was a complete sadist. Though this had nothing to do with his desire to not get married; he just really fucking hated whores, enough to torment them sexually. He wouldn't lie to himself about how hot he found it to watch his own little slut melt under his touch, to cry because of him, to watch them lose all of their belligerence and submit to him. He loved his power over women in this way, though he hated the way they treated him like a sex symbol. It pissed him off until he got to see the bruises on their ass cheeks and watch them sob as he gave them no comfort, making them cum so many times they wished to never orgasm again.

Though, Eren will admit you are particularly beautiful, and he has been in a bad mood lately, so he goes easy on you. Easy isn't the way you'd describe it though, as Eren spits on your clit and continues to rub it in such a tantalizing way. His other hand finds its way to your nipple, watching you gasp as he runs his fingers over the hardened bud. He smiles, watching you enjoy the pleasure before taking both his hands away from your body. When you cry out for more, he delivers a harsh slap to your face, watching you gasp again. He loves it, every second of it. His cock is so fucking hard, he makes you watch as he takes all of his clothing off, his dick coming free with a slap.

You get on your knees again without a second thought, wanting his dick in your mouth in an involuntary reaction. He hold you back by his hair, and whether it be because he knows he'll cum too fast, or because he wants to torture you more, he truly doesn't know.

"I'm not done with you yet," He tells you, pratically dragging you back to the bed by your hair and pushing your legs apart. He wastes no time to insert but a single finger, waiting patiently for you to beg for more. Patience isn't needed with you, though; within seconds, you're begging for a second. He obliges you, but only at the expense of a painfully slow.

"Faster.. faster, more, please.." You plead, your hands in his long brown hair.

"Why should I?" He asks with an innocent. He's not innocent though, and is too impatient to wait for your pleas before he's finger fucking you with an added finger, the wet noises filling the room as you cry. "God, you preach that you're not a slut, yet listen to how wet you are." He smirks before he decides to do something different. He slowly brings his fingers back before repositioning his hand. Before you can realize what he's doing, his fist is slowly pushing into you. At this point, you're far too deep into a state of euphoria, way too fucked out to complain. As long as this man is touching you, you're content. You don't even come close to being able to acknowledge that's exactly what he wants, you've fallen right into Eren's trap.

"I knew you were a whore," Eren encourages, the use of that word haunting you still. "Look at your pussy, so loose it can fit my whole fist. It's a good thing I have such a big cock or you wouldn't even be able to please me. Not that you care about that--all you want is to feel good, huh?"

You cum with a fervor Eren has never seen before, but he doesn't care. It probably wasn't even your first orgasm, he doesn't really want to notice, though. He delivers a harsh slap to your cheek with his hand covered in your wetness, loving the embarrassment on your face in a way he can't explain.

"Okay, little whore," He finally speaks again as he gently caresses your face. "I think you're more than ready to ride me now." He watches as he stops touching your face and listens to your whimpers. He moves out of your reach, forcing you to come to him. You listen well, as Eren has trained you to do, and you sit on his lap. Your legs barely work, though, and your attempt to ride him is adorable to Eren. "God, this is so cute. Fuck. I could watch you fail to get high enough to slip onto my cock for ages, doll, I really could. But, I also wanna feel that wet pussy of yours, so let me help you, yeah?"

Eren is a Prince of a famous nation, regarded by the whole world. Of course he's in shape, but it does illicit a small gasp when he lifts you up with ease and slides his cock into you. The groan he lets out makes you cum, and you feel him twitch inside of you. Before you can even finish your orgasm, he's using your limp body like a fleshlight, fucking himself with you at a speed that makes you orgasm again and again.

"How many fucking times will you cum, you fucking useless bitch?" Eren snarls, just wanting to finish inside of you. His tip brushes against your gspot and rams into your cervix, the pain overwhelmed by the pleasure. The overstimulation becomes numbing as you start to sob, Eren's hips meeting yours at a speed entirely set by him. His cock starts to twitch inside of you, and he increases the force with which he slams your body onto his, before he cums with a low moan that makes you shiver. He fills you up and watches as his cum pours out of you and back onto himself. 

"Nasty fucking cum dumpster, god," Eren complains. "I fucking hate whores." He drops you and begins to clean himself up, leaving you to suffer on the bed.

"My father wants us to marry, Eren," You croak out. "I love you, let's get married."

Eren laughs. It will never be a happy ending for him, will it? The torment never ends.

"Sorry," He says, hand on the doorknob. "I might fuck them, but I certainly don't marry whores."

[forever-rogue]

“ looks pretty rough to me. “ “ i’ll manage. “

And “ let me clean that for you... “ for Poe dameron please?

AN | Enjoy just a little lighthearted fun, plus some “let me make it better.”

Warnings | Mention of Injury

Pairing | Poe x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 1.7k

Masterlist | Star Wars, Main

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Looks pretty rough there, Princess,” of course. Of course Poe Dameron had to be up and watching as you sneaked your way back into base. Not that you had any reason for feeling guilty; it wasn’t like you were out doing anything you shouldn’t have been (for once) but you still would have preferred to make a more quiet entrance.

“Karabast,” you hissed under your breath before swiping at the cut on your cheek. You looked over at the metal crate where he was perched with a cocky little half smile on his face. You waved him off before planning on quickly retreating to your quarters, “I’ll manage, Dameron. Thanks for the concern.”

You were sure that he wasn’t going to push it - he might have been annoying and pretentious but even he was smart enough to know his limits when it came to pushing your buttons. You trudged past him without another word, ready to clean yourself off and crawl into bed before what you were sure was going to be an early wake up call.

After a few moments of silence, you quickly heard heavier, hurried footsteps coming after you. Deciding to ignore him, you kept walking until you reached your personal room, you crossed your arms over your chest before turning back to him. Instead of the shit eating grin you were expecting to see, you found him watching you with a much softer expression.

“What happened?” he asked quietly as you just huffed lightly at him, “let me clean that for you.”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” you insisted, finding it hard to be annoyed with him when he was being like this, “I’m fine, really. It’s just a few scratches.”

“How did you get them?” he raised an eyebrow as you just put your hand on his shoulder and tried to play him off, “it’s not going to work, Princess.”

“Fine,” you gave in after a few moments of silence. Your gaze shifted to the floor as your face warmed up under his watchful gaze, “I was out…”

“Obviously,” he laughed, “but why were you out?”

“I was looking for some berries,” you admitted sheepishly, “you know - the ones we found a few weeks ago, out by that lake. I thought I could bring some back for everyone as a surprise but things didn't work out obviously.”

“You went out in the middle of the night to sneak in berries?” he asked, trying his best (and failing) to hold in his giggles, “you realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?!”

“It wasn't in my head, beforehand…” you admitted, “but when you put it like that...yeah, it sounds pretty stupid. It just seemed like a nice idea at the time.”

“Oh, what am I going to do with you?” he huffed playfully, taking your chin in his hand as he studied the small cuts on your face. You shrugged innocently before he moved to open the door to your room, slowly ushering you in. He guided you over to the bed, motioning for you to sit down, “first of all you’re going to let me clean you up.”

“You’re making a mountain of nothing,” you insisted as you watched him grab some supplies to clean up the grazes and scratches, “I could literally just have washed my face and been fine.”

“Yeah,” he agreed as kneeled in front of you, gently taking your face in his hands, “but I’m not going to let you do that.”

“You’re such a sap, Dameron,” you teased lightly as he started on the worst cut on your upper cheek. You hissed slightly at the sting of the cleaning alcohol. He tutted lightly but continued, wanting to get it over as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Once he was done, he looked you over before offering you a small smile, “good as new. Pretty as ever.”

“Stop,” your face suddenly felt warmer than ever under his intense gaze, “you’re too much. Besides, don't you have some other girl’s quarters to visit?”

“You know I only have eyes for you,” he promised as you raised an eyebrow in question.

“Oh?” you leaned in closer, to where your lips were mere inches from his, letting his warmth and familiar scent wash over you, “is that why you’re such an ass to me for half of the time?”

“It’s out of love,” he leaned in and pressed a soft, little kiss to your lips. When you pulled back, you found him watching you with a loppy little grin on his face. Before you could stop yourself, you stole another quick kiss, “I see the feeling is mutual.”

“You already knew that,” you rolled your eyes before laughing and pushing him back, “it’s you that doesn’t want to make anything official.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” he huffed lightly, a curl falling into his eyes that you quickly brushed away, “you want to make it official, princess?”

“Only if you do,” you couldn’t help but grin back at him, suddenly forgetting all about little cuts on your face and what had led to all of this in the first place, “about time Dameron, I was wondering how long it would take for you to finally do something instead of just flirting with me.”

“And you ate it up,” he pointed out as you sat further up on the bed and pulled him towards you, “you just have to tell me what you want.”

“You,” you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards you, “just you.”

“That sounds good to me, Princess.”

[spectrenightfell]

Summary: One date turns into another and then another until Steven's spending most his time with you. His life is on the up, Steven the happiest he's been in a while. Sure he's still arguing with Marc about telling you about the other man and what Steven actually is but its not enough to dampen his almost constant state of happiness and excitement. The other man will come around eventually and when he does Steven can only hope you will hear him out before deciding if he's worth the hassle or not. Stevens happy and in love so naturally this is when the other alter makes himself known in the worst way possible.

Steven's never been so terrified in his life.

Parings: Steven Grant x fem!reader / Marc Spector x fem!reader

Rating: M (implied sexual activity)

<- previous

next ->

first

From then on out Steven’s days consist of work and you. The two of you go on one date after another, the first of many dinner dates coming just two days after your breakfast turn lunch one. Steven had taken you to a semi fancy restaurant out in Shoreditch that served a mix of vegan and meat dishes that sounded exotic and interesting that maybe you would like. He had given you a bunch of sunflowers again, grinning widely when your eyes had lit up when he presented them to you. Just like with the last date time had gotten away from the two of you, the manager having to usher you both out when closing time arrived and it became clear neither of you had plans to leave any time soon. He walked you to the nearest tube, getting another kiss on the cheek before you got on your train and heading in the opposite direction to him, though he had almost followed you on to the crate, in to much of a daze to notice.

After that Steven starts spending almost all his free time with you and even some of Marc’s. He insisted it was fine, that Steven deserved it considering Marc had gotten to have a life with Layla and “its not like I do anything with my days anyway. So you might as well get some use out of them.” Steven begrudgingly accepts but only because Marc can be a stubborn pillock when he wants to be and refuses to take the body just to get his point across. He still thinks he’s doing it as some sort of weird apology, trying to make up for lying to Steven, for making him feel like he was going bonkers, for getting to have a loving and happy relationship with Layla whilst keeping Steven hidden and shunned like he was some sort of dirty secret. Whatever Marc’s reasons were Steven couldn’t really complain that much considering it meant he got to spend more time with you.

Steven goes out of his way to come up with fun and creative date ideas, always trying to find something for the two of you to do that will have you smiling at him. Marc even helps, suggesting local events that Steven’s never heard of or reminding him of your little likes and dislikes that might have slipped his mind. It gets Steven thinking, about how much attention Marc pays to you, about how he actually feels about you. Marc had told Steven that he liked you, thought you were a good match for Steven and that’s why he had pushed so hard for him to ask you out but the more he thinks about it the less sure Steven is of that.

He gets that Marc doesn’t let himself have nice things, that he thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy after everything he’s done regardless of if it’s actually his fault or not. He’s the kind of man who would see a pretty girl and the other guy (Steven) who also liked her and step aside believing that he wasn’t good enough for her so why even try. It was frustrating because despite his rather colourful and bloody past Marc wasn’t a bad guy. He was smart, funny in a sarcastic and slightly condescending way as well as fiercely loyal and protective. Didn’t hurt any that he was ridiculously good looking as well. Yes they shared the same face but Marc just wore it better. All dark and brooding with his chiselled jaw and swept back hair. He deserved to be happy and if you could do that for him, for both of them then Steven shouldn’t really get in the way of that.

Steven also knows that if it came down to a choice between him and Marc that you most likely wouldn’t be picking him. Doesn’t stop him from wanting you and Marc to meet though.

Marc isn’t so keen on the idea. Doesn’t even want Steven telling you about him at all actually. That results in probably one of the biggest arguments they’ve had in a while, both of them saying hurtful and untrue things in the moment. Steven’s not proud of his actions yelling that “it’s not really up to you is it? Just because I care about the person I love enough to actually be honest with them unlike you.” Marc’s no better threatening to “take control of the body and move us to Switzerland. I swear to god Steven if you so much as breathe a word about this I will.” It’s a mess, one that results in Marc taking control of the body and making Steven miss his next date with you. And yeah, it’s one of Marc’s designated days but he had agreed to it, hadn’t been bothered about missing time with the body when you had asked Steven to a vintage cinema playing reruns of old adventure films that you had thought he would like.

Steven screams and shouts, throwing one curse after another at the other man but Marc doesn’t relent, going about his day like Steven doesn’t exist. It does things to Steven, had him feeling like he’s finally gone round the bend. Like maybe he doesn’t actually exist and it’s just the constant mantra of “my names Steven Grant, I work at the museum gift shop. This is my flat, mine not his. I’m real. I have a life, a girlfriend, a fish. I’m real. I’m real. I’m real.” When Steven’s phone starts ringing Marc ignores it, turning the telly up to drown out the noise and his eyes not even flick over to the phone when the texts started to come through. Steven begs him to answer it, to just tell you that something came up and he was sorry he hadn’t let you know. To tell you something, anything just so you didn’t worry. Steven thinks he does, his fingers quickly tapping away before he turns the phone off and chucks it back onto the table to be forgotten about.

By the time Marc’s three days are up Steven’s caved, promising that he won’t tell you a thing, just “please, don’t do that to me again yeah? I can’t…I just can’t ok?” Marc doesn’t say sorry, but then Steven didn’t think he would any way. He doesn’t forgive Marc, not for making him miss his date and definitely not for making him feel like his whole existence was falling apart. Things are tense between them, Marc watching silently from one of the mirrors as Steven frantically apologises down the phone, begging for your forgiveness and promising to make it up to you. He’s tempted to turn all the mirrors around, make Marc look at the walls and make him feel as alone as Steven had but despite how he was feeling Steven couldn’t do that to Marc. Not after going through it himself.

You are incredibly understanding about the whole thing, Marc having told you some lie about a family emergency that Steven had needed to deal with there and then. Steven had still apologised a few more times though, asking to take you out that very night to make it up to you. Somewhere fancy that he might potentially have to swipe Marc’s bank card to pay for. Apparently you don’t need that though, the bouquet of sunflowers and blue Egyptian lotuses a beautiful and apt apology. Steven had just laughed nervously, stating that “they’re pretty flowers of a pretty lady but I want to do something with you. I hate I miss our date and it sounded bloody brilliant to. So please, let me make it up to you love?” He tried to catch Marc’s eye in the mirror but the man’s being stubborn once more and glaring off in the opposite direction, arms crossed and a slight tinge of pink to his cheeks.

So maybe he’s not as much of an asshole as Steven had thought. He still swears not to schedule anymore dates on days Marc should be fronting, to terrified that he will force Steven to miss another one and that you won’t be so understanding the next time round.

Steven’s begging seems to work but maybe not in a way he would have thought. You don’t want to go out, “I want you all to myself tonight. Just us. I’ve missed you Steven.” You ask to come over to the flat, your voice a low hesitant whisper that Steven had to strain to hear. It has his heart beating rapidly away in his chest, his fingers tingling with nerves and anticipation but he still says yes, nodding his head even though you can’t see him. From there the conversation wraps up quickly, the two of you agreeing on a time and Steven giving you his address whilst you promise to pick up take out on your way to him. It’s only when he puts the phone down does Steven really realise what he’s agreed to.

His flat isn’t exactly messy as much as it is organised chaos. He had books everywhere, postcards and news clippings stuck up on the walls and not to mention all the random trinkets and nick-naks everywhere. Some of them he had brought himself, mostly from the museum gift shop but some had come from Marc, sent to Steven whilst he was pretending to be Steven’s mum. The flat was dark, even with the windows uncovered and cramped to, the vaulted ceiling somehow making the place seem smaller than it actually was. Then there was the leg restraint by the bed and the ring of sand that surrounded it. Oh bugger it. The place looked like it belonged to some crazed shut in, not an ideal place for a dinner date. He would be lucky if you didn’t take one look at the place then turn right back around and leave, ditching Steven’s sorry arse quicker than Steven could even begin to explain.

Over the next few hours Steven cleans the flat from one end to the other, attempting to make it look a little less creepy then it normally does. There’s nothing he can do about the staggering amount of books he has stacked all around the place other than straighten them up and try and make it look like there’s at least some order to his madness. He hoovers and dusts, the windows protesting as he shoulders them open to let some much needed air in. Steven even gets down on his hands and knees with the dustpan and brush, desperate to get up every grain of sand possible, emptying it into a black rubbish bag before hiding it away in a cupboard and praying to every god he knows that you don’t somehow find it. The foot restraint is easy enough to hide, Steven impatiently yanking on the cord as he unwound it from the post, shoving it under the bed to be retraced latter.

He tries not to think too much about his bed and how noticeable it is as he changes the sheets, faffing around as he tries to make it look perfect, or as perfect as he can get his old and faded sheets to look. He had wanted to get new ones before you came over for the first time, had wanted something expensive and soft that you would have been happy to sink into. Not that he thought you would jump into bed with him the moment you stepped foot in his flat but, well, the thought was there. How could it not be?

You were beautiful, Steven taken with you from the moment he had laid eyes on you and he would be a rotten liar if he said he hadn’t thought about you like that on more than one occasion. But you were taking it slow. Hadn’t even had a proper kiss yet. Steven was pretty sure he had kissed every part of your face over the last few weeks yet the feel of your lips against his was still unknown to him. Its not because he didn’t want to he just chickened out at the last moment, terrified he was going to mess up. He didn’t really have much experience, if you could even call that one kiss with Layla that. He just didn’t want to disappoint you. Didn’t want to be a disappointment.

By the time you were knocking on the door Steven had just about finished getting himself ready calling out that he would “be there in a sec, just got to, bollocks. I’m coming,” as he tripped over a chair in his haste to get to the door. When he flung it open you were there waiting for him with a bright smile and a paper bag full of delicious smelling food. You looked beautiful as always and Steven didn’t realise how much he missed you until you were there in front of him in your to large sweatshirt and leggings and looking like you had just stepped out of one of his dreams.

It takes a raised eyebrow and you asking if you were “allowed in or are we having dinner out here?” to get Steven moving again, rushing out yet another apology and ushering you into his home. He takes the bag of takeout from you, ducking his head down and placing a quick kiss on your cheek before heading off towards the kitchen, calling over his shoulder for you to make yourself comfortable.

He can hear you moving around behind him, the two of you making general conversation as he finds plates and cutlery. It makes him nervous, knowing you’re there and seeing what he’s really like in his own space but it’s also kind of exciting. He’s never had a girlfriend before, never had someone that he liked enough to want to share his space with but with you it’s different. Steven wants you in his home, wants your little trinkets and books to mix in with his. He wants you in his life in every way possible and this is a step towards that but he knows that until he comes clean and tells you about Marc and the other alter that won’t be possible.

He doesn’t want to do to you what Marc had done to Layla, pushing you away to keep his shameful secret safe and end up losing you. The way things were between him and Marc at the moment Steven knew that if he brought it up Marc would go silent, refusing to show himself and making Steven look like the lunatic he’s always kind of feared he was. There would be no coming back from that and he was sure you would keep your distance afterwards, looking at Steven the same way J.B and Donna looked at him some times, like they were just waiting for him to snap.

Steven jumped when he felt arms wrap around his waist, almost dropping the plate when you pressed your lips against his neck. You’re concerned, picking up on the fact that somethings wrong and wanting to help ease his worry. It’s easy to lie when he’s not looking at you, covering your hands on his stomach with one of his and telling you that “everything’s fine love, just day dreaming is all.” He doesn’t think you believe him but you don’t press the matter, just humming softly and pressing another kiss to his cheek before slipping away, grabbing one of the plates as you go. Steven misses your warmth instantly, the phantom brush of your lips against his neck and cheek making his skin tingle. Like he had been out in the cold for ages then stepped into a heated room, his skin prickling and tingling as he acclimatised to the sudden warmth.

When they had gotten back from Cairo Steven had gotten a small sofa and telly for Marc in an attempt to make his home feel more like their home. He had even gotten rid of one of his reading tables and shuffled other things around to make space for it all. Steven wasn’t much for the telly but Marc seemed to like it, flicking through channels where Steven would rather have been curled up with a book. It’s where you are now, legs curled up under you with the plate of vegetable curry balanced on your legs and asking Steven what he wants to watch. So he doesn’t have to admit that he only knows the main four channels Steven tells you to pick, sitting at the other end of the rather small sofa with his own plate of food.

You chatter away happily as you flick through the channels, asking Steven for his input and quickly moving onto the next channel when he scrunched up his nose at whatever programs playing. Eventually though you settle on some documentary about histories greatest mysteries, promising to turn it off if Steven doesn’t like it.

He does like it though and once the foods gone you end up curled up against his side, his arm draped over your shoulder and fingers intertwined with yours. It’s nice, really nice and Steven can’t stop himself from grinning like a mad man as you snuggle in closer to his side. It was so domestic, something real couples did and Steven had only ever dreamed of having someone in his life that he could do these kinds of things with.

You were Steven’s first serious relationship, his first relationship at all and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have found someone who fit so easy into his life. In his eyes you were perfect, his dream girl come to life and Steven couldn’t wait until the day Marc pulled his head out of his arse and he could actually let you into his life fully. Until then though Steven was going to be the best boyfriend he could and hopefully when you found out the truth you wouldn’t leave him before giving him a chance to fix what Marc had broken.

You don’t stay the night, leaving around eleven and brushing off Steven’s attempts to walk you to the station. You thank him for the evening, your hands sliding up across his chest so you can curl your hands over his shoulders. Steven blushed, tentatively placing his hands on your waist as he stutters out that he had “had fun with tonight, YOU! I had fun with you tonight. I erh liked having you here, in the flat, just us.” That had you smiling, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck as you told that you had liked it to. There was a moment, your eyes darting across his face as if looking for some sign but before he could ask of he had something on his face you were leaning forward, head tilted back and eyes fluttering closed. Steven had frozen, eyes wide and feeling slightly panicked at the prospect of having your lips against his. If it wasn’t for a hash whisper, Marc demanding that he “move Steven” he probably would have remained frozen, making it look like he didn’t want this, want you but he managed to tip his head forward slightly just in time to meet your lips with his.

It’s a lot better than the last kiss he’d had. Not that Layla had been bad. Kissing her had been nice enough but it had been a hard press of her lips against his, Steven too startled to even attempt to kiss back and it was over as quickly as it had started. With you though it’s gentle, tentative. You didn’t force anything, slowly guiding him with your lips until they slotted perfectly together. It was perfect and beautiful and Steven didn’t ever want to stop. You felt so right against him, so familiar. Like he had done this a hundred times before and was already addicted to the taste of you.

Eventually you pulled away though, Steven swaying forward in an attempt to keep his lips against yours. You laugh gently, a soft smile on your lips as you lean forward and press a quick kiss to his cheek before stepping out of his grasp and further out into the hallway. You go with a smile and a wave, wishing him a “good night Steven with a v” as you slip into the lift, the doors closing behind you and leaving Steven wishing you had stayed, that he’d had the courage to coax you back into the flat and spent the night holding you close as you shared one kiss after another.

He moves around the flat with a dopy smile, stripping his clothes and getting ready for bed in a daze. His lips are still tingling and the memory of your kisses are on a constant loop in his mind and driving him to distraction. He doesn’t get the ankle restraint back out, doesn’t redo the ring of sand around his bed. He doesn’t do any of his normal nightly routines in fact, to happy and distracted to even notice. He falls asleep easily, memories turning into dreams where he had the confidence to not let you go, to keep you there with his lips and hands until you where gasping for breath and moaning his name. It was the best night’s sleep Steven had in months and when he wakes up he feels refreshed and happier than he had in years.

There were many kisses after that night. Hello kisses. Goodbye kisses. Kisses just for the sake of kissing. There were even stolen ones, the two of you hidden away in the museum stockroom or behind one of the exhibits, both of you grinning like idiots as you exchanged one kiss after another and tried not to get caught. Steven couldn’t get enough of you and it seemed you felt the same way about him to if the time you spent together was anything to go by. Fancy dinners and trips to book stores or museums and art galleries turned into dinners cooked in Steven’s rather pitiful kitchen and movie marathons spent curled up on his sofa that often lead to long and languid kissing sessions that had Steven longing for more.

You hadn’t made it past kissing yet, past hands on hips or buried in hair as the two of you pressed close together and just enjoyed having the other in your arms. Steven was more than ok with the slow place, letting the anticipation for what was to come next build with every drawn out and longing kiss when it came time for you to leave. Considering how long it had taken to get to this point Steven knew that he still probably had a while to wait before he finally got you in his bed and anyway he wanted that first time to be special. He wanted to take you out, wine and dine you before taking you back to his rose petal scattered bed and a hundred candles lighting up his flat to make it feel more romantic. Well maybe not candles, what with all his books and the fire hazard they would cause. Maybe he could get some little light up orbs or something instead? There had to be options right? Alternatives to potentially burning the building down.

His life’s pretty fantastic in that moment, what with you and how well your relationship is going. Things are even looking up at the museum, Donna finally letting Steven apply to be a tour guide. He thinks you might have something to do with that but when he brings it up you just smile, a knowing glint in your eyes when you declare that “it’s about time. Your knowledge is amazing Steven and I can’t believe it’s taken this long just to get an interview. Your perfect for this, trust me. Now hand over the gummy scarabs before I come take them from you.” He’s nervous about it. About the interview, not you throwing yourself at him and kissing him breathless to get at the overpriced bag of sweets. You reassure him every time that he voices his concerns that he had no reason to worry, that he’s going to do just fine. You do help him though, letting Steven trail behind whilst you give your tours at the museum so he can see first hand what would be expected of him.

It helps, makes him a little more confident with what he might end up doing. Doesn’t hurt any that he loves watching you work. The way you light up with excitement when someone asks an actual interesting question, how in-depth and engaging your stories are, making history come to life and adding little snippets of information that definitely weren’t in the museum’s guide book. It was almost like you had insider knowledge, like you were sharing a secret with your group about people you knew personally. Steven obviously knew that was impossible but it added to the whole feel of it being something a little more intimate and personal instead of it just being yet another repeat of the same thing again and again. He knows he won’t be able to achieve the same sort of thing if he actually gets the job but it does give him hope that he’ll be able to make it his own somehow instead of it just being another generic retelling of facts and assumed truths.

Things with Marc get slightly better as well. Though neither of them apologise to the other about their behaviour they manage to get back to the normal routine. For the most part anyway. Steven still doesn’t arrange to spend any time with you on the days that Marc’s fronting. He doesn’t want to risk hurting or disappointing you and he’s still a little scared that the other man will follow through on his threat and Steven will lose you somehow. He and Marc function though and to Steven’s relief you don’t question why you don’t hear from him for three days a week. He dreads to think what you assume he’s up to during the time and when he sees you next he always makes sure that you know how much he missed you, how much he cares for you just in case you thought he wasn’t interested or that he had someone else on the side. Not that he ever would. He’s amazed he somehow managed to convince you to date him and he doubts he would be able to manage it again with someone else. Not that there was or would ever be someone else.

Marc hadn’t tried to get Steven to take you out on his days, hardly mentioned you at all actually and always made sure to make himself scarce when you and Steven spent time together. He should be happy about the privacy, after all he liked having you all to himself without worrying about the other bloke watching your every move and judging Steven’s behaviour but he couldn’t shake the feeling that by staying away Marc was punishing himself. Like denying himself your company balanced out how he had kept Steven away from you. Steven really didn’t like it and he would have brought it up with the other man but considering what had happened last time Steven had tried to have a serious and open talk with the former mercenary he wasn’t in a rush to try again. Marc was the suffer in silence kind and Steven knew if he pushed to much the other man would implode, talking Steven and most likely his relationship with you with him. So he tried to act like nothing was wrong whilst Marc did the same. Both of them avoiding the conversation they needed to have if anything was every going to change.

In what Steven was sure was some sort of attempt at distracting himself Marc got a job. An actual honest and legal job that gave him a steady pay check and only required him to work two of his designated nights. It was only as a bouncer at some club out in Soho but it was a job and Steven was insanely proud of the other man for getting it. He did find it rather boring though and often left the other man alone whilst he was there, trying to give Marc the illusion that he had his own separate life to Steven’s. The extra income did wonders for their living standards though, Steven able to finally afford to go organic and Marc upgrading the telly package to include American sports channels, channels that had you giving Steven an amused and slightly confused look when you had discovered them. Lucky enough he had been able to distract you with kisses and brownies so he didn’t have to lie to you yet again.

Overall Steven’s life was good but there was one glaringly obvious issue that had both him and Marc worried. They were still both blacking out, were still missing large chunks of time that neither of them could account for. Most Sundays were now a mystery to them, Marc going to sleep in the early hours on the Sunday morning when he finished his shift and Steven waking up with his alarm on the Monday morning. Steven would be inclined to think they might have slept through the whole day except there would always be something that proved that theory wrong. A few bottles of beer might be missing from the fridge, there might be a sink full of pots and pans that hadn’t been there before and on one occasion Steven had even awoken to new Gus and Gus II’s tank having been cleaned and the little statues rearranged.

They knew it had to be the other alter, the one prone to violence and sex with random women in Steven’s flat. Though that hadn’t been too much of an issue lately. He still woke up sometimes feeling satisfied and content, scratches and bite marks littering his skin that ache pleasantly but there had been no other incidents where his bed had been left reeking of another women so Steven could only assume this other alter was going out to meet his one night stands again. Something he was thankful for even if it did still make him feel extremely uncomfortable knowing it was still happening. Though he wasn’t the one engaging in the act it still left Steven feeling like he was betraying you every time he woke up with a fresh set of marks decorating his skin.

There were still bloody clothes, loads of washing left in the machine that Steven would then hang up to dry. Another set of shoes showed up by the door, a couple of outfits hung up in the wardrobe behind his and Marc’s. There would be food in the fridge that Marc hadn’t brought and that Steven hadn’t made, ingredient’s appearing in the cupboards that Steven had never even heard of. This other alter was slowly carving a space for himself within their home, making it more obvious that he was there and yet he was still a mystery, something completely unknown and that scared Steven because Marc had been like that to start with before he had invaded Steven’s life, pulling it apart at the seems and completely changing everything he had thought he had known. Steven liked his life now, was happy and he really didn’t want that to change.

So obviously something had to go wrong. That’s just how his luck was.

Steven’s the one who finds it, a go back just like Marc’s except this one’s hidden the the floor boards in the corner of his flat under a stack of books Steven hasn’t moved in months. He had only found it by chance, looking for a book on Egyptian culture that he had told you about and you had seemed keen on reading. He had looked everywhere for it, rifling through his shelves as he tried to remember exactly where he had put it amongst his chaotic system. That stack had been the last place to look, hidden away in the corner behind a chair and almost forgotten about. There it had been right at the bottom and with a thin layer of dust clinging to the spine. Steven had been triumphant, loudly declaring “there you are you little bigger” as he dug it out from under the other books. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it, would have placed the books back and gone on his way but with the weight lifted the floorboard had creaked loudly and lifted up from the others, like the weight of the books had been the only thing keeping it secured in place.

Steven stared at the slither of darkness between the floor and the slightly raised board, a sense of dread filling him. Slowly he reached forward, Marc at the back of his mind as he asked Steven what was wrong, unable to see from the mirror across the other side of the room. The book landed on the floor with a thump, forgotten as Steven reached out, curling his fingers around the lose board and prying it up. That feeling of foreboding had only grown, knowing that he was about to find something that would change his life yet again. Just like finding out about Marc had.

It was a black nondescript duffel bag that he pulled out, the thing heavy as he picked it up and carried it over to the table. Marc was already waiting in the mirror Steven had set up there, his frown deep as he started at the bag that didn’t belong to either of them. Nor the contents inside. There were clothes that didn’t fit either Steven’s or Marc’s styles. Marc actually scrunches his noise up at the flat cap when Steven pulls it out, taking control of the bodies hands to throw the thing to the side when Steven lifts it to try it on, giving a firm “no” that leaves no room for arguments.

Marc fully takes over then, Steven relegated to watching out from the mirror as the other man pulls out the rest of the items and laying them across the table. There’s a hand gun, small and deadly followed by a silencer and an extra clip of bullets. Watching Marc handle the weapon Steven’s remind of the kind of person the other man is, his familiarity as he checks the thing over unnerving to watch. It isn’t that Steven had forgotten what Marc had done for a living before Steven had known he existed but it was easy to let it slip to the wayside when everything else had come to light.

The money and passport were to be expected, the fact that it had been in Spanish not so much but at least they now had a name to put to the alter who had been causing so many problems. Jake Lockley seemed like such a normal and unassuming name that didn’t really fit with the image Steven had built up in his head but then again the name Marc Spector didn’t really suggest a mercenary turned ancient God powered vigilantly that could kill you quicker then he could look at you.

Amongst the clothes they found the other alters phone, Marc turning it on quickly but a passcode kept them from delving any deeper. Not like how Steven had been able to get on Marc’s old school style phone and start nosing around. Marc did try though, tapping in different combinations of numbers until it locked him out. Steven hadn’t expected they would be able to guess. They didn’t know this other alter, didn’t know how his mind worked and all they were doing was taking random stabs in the dark and hoping something stuck. It didn’t and Marc gave up quickly, going back to the rest of the bags contents with a new determination that Steven found a little off putting. He wondered if this was how Marc was when he was on a job. All furrowed brows and tense shoulders as he methodically unpacks the bag and places the items to the side, each one lined up perfectly as they waited for further inspection.

The last thing to come out of the bag is a folder, the thing stuffed full of paper and Steven can see the edge of a few photo sticking out the sides, though he’s at the wrong angle to know there of. He watches the other man’s frown deepen as he pulls the photo from the file so he can look at it properly. Marc sucks in a breath, his dark eyes going wide and the panic so obvious it has Steven demanding to know “what is it Marc? Marc, what is it? Marc talk to me, your scaring me mate.” And Steven is scared, terrified of what could be so bad to have Marc acting that way because it had to something bad, really bad like a dead body or maybe something that could implement their involvement in a crime they knew nothing about.

Still Marc doesn’t say anything, staring down at the photo like he’s seen a ghost. Steven doesn’t have a choice, his fear driving him as he reaches out to forcibly take the body. He sees Marc stiffen, his eyes rolling back before there’s that telltale tug in his gut he gets when they switch, like he’s being pulled forward or tugged backwards. Steven expects to open his eyes and find Marc glaring back at him from the mirror, trying to convince Steven that it’s nothing, to not look at what had gotten him so worked up. He’s prepared for the worst, already anticipating the horror that’s probably waiting for him. The folders probably filled with a list of people this Jake guys probably killed or is going to, a hit list he’s working from for whatever reason. Steven’s ready for the worst or so he thought.

When Steven comes back to the body he’s not in the flat anymore.

Panic and confusion are quick to settle over him, Steven franticly looking for something familiar to gage where he is but it quickly becomes apparent that neither he nor Marc recognise this place. It had been mid afternoon when he had found the other alters bag but now it was the dead of night, streetlights glowing a hazy yellow along that quite street. He’s in the middle of a residential street, a row of town house behind him and what looks like a converted factory across from him. It looks expensive, a lot more expensive then his tiny attic flat and he feels out of place even just stood out in the street, like someone’s going to see him and think he’s up to no good, calling the police before he can even figure out where exactly here is.

Marc’s looking back at him from the dark glass of a car windows, trying to take control of the situation as best as he can without actually being the one in control. He tells Steven to stay calm, somethings that’s “bloody difficult to do considering we’ve lost hours doing gods knows what with that, that man in the driving seat.” He’s not outright panicking though, following Marc’s ordered when he tells him to check his pockets for anything useful, “his phone or wallet. Anything that could tell us where we are and help us get the hell out of here before someone notices the suspicious man talking to himself in the dead of night.” Steven doesn’t find a phone but he does finds his wallet stuffed in the pack pocket of his jeans, Marc’s bank card slotted right next to his and about a hundred pounds in cash that hadn’t been there before. As weird as that is though it’s not the thing that grabs his attention.

There’s a business card slotted behind the crisp looking notes. It looks like it’s been handled a lot, bent and the edges fraying slightly. He would recognise it anywhere though, the museums logo printed on the top in dark black ink. Steven’s hands tremble as he pulls it out, his heart beating so fast it feels like it’s almost humming in his chest. He’s vaguely aware of Marc saying his name, asking “what is it Steven? What have you found?” but he can’t answer, his mouth dry as his eyes follow the familiar curves and dips of your handwriting.

It’s the card you had written your number down on when you had first given it to Steven, smiling sweetly up at him as you asked him to send you one of the silly pictures he had been telling you about and promising to send him one back. It had felt like a monumental victory when you had slid the card across the counter before disappearing back to your tour group and Steven had stared at the thing for a long few moments before pocketing it. He had never put it in his wallet, instead having pinned it up next to Gus II’s tank and that’s where it had stayed right up until the moment it had peen placed inside his wallet with money that he was pretty sure wasn’t his.

Marc’s agitated hissing of his name had Steven looking up, his eyes finding the other mans instantly. He didn’t know how he looked but whatever Marc could see had his brows furrowing and mouth setting into a grim line as he demanded Steven show him what he was holding. Slowly he flips the card round, holding it up for the other man to see. His eyes flick across it quickly, his jaw tensing to the point his teeth might crack but once again Steven’s to distracted by the little card in his hand to pay Marc’s growing anger much attention. There’s an address on the back, one that Steven doesn’t know in handwriting he doesn’t recognise. All he knows is that it hadn’t been there before and as he stares at it, a feeling of dread wells up within his chest and tightening around his heart.

Across the street a light comes on, spilling out into the street and making Steven squint at the sudden brightness. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes, turning his head to look at the flats. It’s coming from a couple of the large windows on the third floor, the flat obviously large and covering almost half the floor if the lights anything to go by. There’s the flicker of a shadow, someone walking from one side of the room to the other and then there you are, stood in the middle of the window and completely unaware that Steven was watching you from the street below. The feeling of dread solidifies, turning into lead and sinking down into the pit of his stomach.

To say he panics is an understatement, Steven practically hyperventilating whilst Marc tries to talk him down from his spot on the car. He tries to reassure Steven, tries to tell him that its “a coincidence yeah? This Jake guy was probably here for one of posh assholes in those fancy houses. You don’t even know where she lives so how could he?” Steven wants to believe him, he does but he’s not an idiot, he knows a threat when he sees one.

It’s all too much to be a coincidence. The way he had come back to the body looking up at your window, the card with your number slipped in his wallet with what he was betting was your address written on the back. They had invaded this Jake’s privacy, found something that he clearly hadn’t wanted them to find and this was how he retaliated. The old ‘get in my way and the people your care most about will be the ones that get hurt’. This was him proving he could, that he knew things that Steven didn’t and was more then willing to act on the information. They knew he was violent, the bloody clothes Steven had been forced to get rid of proof enough of that and that’s not even taking into account those moments in Cairo where he and Marc had blacked out in a fight and woken up surround by blood and destruction. The man was a monster and now because Steven couldn’t leave well enough alone his sights had been set on you.

He said as much to Marc and he knew that the other man was thinking the same thing just from the look of fear and hopelessness in his eyes. He still tried to deny it though, offering Steven comfort in the form of a lie that neither of them believed. Steven understood why he was doing it, Marc still trying to protect Steven from the horrors of the world but they were past the point of no return by now, Steven having been exposed to to much at this point to ever be that naive again. He was scared, more than he had been even when Khonshu had had first shown up in his life, all billowing bandages and towering presents with his booming voice that had rattled Steven to the very core. This was worse though because it’s you. It had only been a few months since this thing between the two of you had started but you had become the most important thing in his life and he would do anything to keep you safe, even if that meant he had to keep you at a distance. It would hurt like hell but at least you would be safe, away from him and away from this Jake Lockley and whatever horrors he was capable of.

You moved across the windows, brows furrowed as you read through a stack of lose papers. You were dressed for bed, looking so soft and welcoming as you moved slowly from one window to the next. Steven wants to be up there with you, wants to hold you in his arms and never let you go whilst he tells you that everything will be okay, that he’ll keep you safe. He can’t though, knows that if he turns up on your doorstep without you ever having told him where you lived would be a red flag so big that it would probably get your door slammed in his face and a phone call made the the police before he could even begin to explain the truth. You would never believe him, even if Steven could convince Marc to show himself You would just think him crazy like everyone one else did and maybe he was. Had to be if he thought he’d had any chance of actually having a normal life with you.

Steven can’t watch you any longer, all his feelings getting too much and twisting violently in his stomach. He doesn’t know where he’s going but he know he can’t stay there any longer than he already had without drawing to much attention. He keeps his head down, that stupid flat cap chucked into a bin and his hands shoved in his pockets in an attempt to hide how he’s shaking. Marc stays silent but Steven can feel his eyes on him as he made his way through the dark streets of London. It’s comforting, knowing Marc’s there but also leaves Steven feeling on edge because what if it’s not Marc? What if it’s Jake watching and plotting just in case the two of them hadn’t gotten the message? It had Steven glancing at his reflection every couple of minutes, checking to make sure it’s still Marc there. It looks like him, what with his ridged posture and tense jaw but Steven doesn’t know how this other alter holds themselves so for all he knows it could also be Jake. Steven shoved that train of thought aside, confident that he would recognise Marc anywhere.

By the time they make it back to the flat Steven’s fear had slipped mostly into anger, the feeling bubbling and grown with every second he spends thinking about it. As soon as the door was slammed closed behind him Steven went off on one, ranting and raving whilst demanding that Jake “show his bloody face so I can give you a right good what for.” How dare he threaten you. Just because he had been caught out with whatever illegal and dangerous thing he was involved in. It wasn’t like Steven and Marc didn’t know about him, about the things he was capable of and any way if he “didn’t want us finding out about your sordid little activities then you shouldn’t have left it just laying around for any old Tom, Dick or Harry to find.” He’s rambling, spewing out nonsense but it’s easier then actually thinking about how much danger you could be in and how it’s all his fault.

Marc’s the one to finally calm him down. Yelling and making threats won’t get them anywhere any way and it was probably best not to antagonise the homicidal maniac any more then they already had. As all the anger drains away Steven’s legs give out, exhaustion taking over and sending him to his knees in front of the floor length mirror. He can’t stop the tears, crumpling over and wrapping his arms around himself as he sobs. He’s scared, terrified even and he feels helpless to stop it. He’s lost so much time since Cairo, Jake easily taking control of the body and shutting Steven and Marc out. They didn’t know what he did when he had the body, even when they got it back they couldn’t tell. Steven wouldn’t be able to stop him from hurting you, wouldn’t know that he had until he woke up and by then it would be too late.

He hadn’t realised he had been saying that all out loud between gasping sobs until Marc starts talking. He’s crouched down and Steven’s so close to the mirror that he can almost believe the other man is actually there, about to wrap Steven in his arms as he mumbled reassurances into his hair. He’s not though and all Marc can do is press himself as close as he can and promise that everything would be ok, “I swear it Steven. I won’t let anything happen to her. We’ll keep her safe, me and you, together. No one’s going to hurt her.” Steven wants to believe him but he doesn’t see how they can with Jake able to take over the body seemingly whenever he wants.

If it wasn’t for the hint of desperation in Marc’s voice Steven probably would have said as much but instead he bites down on his next sob and nods his head in agreement. Maybe Marc needed to believe that as much as Steven wanted to and Steven couldn’t very well deny him that small slither of hope now could he? So he would pretend, let Marc believe that they stood a chance at keeping you out of harms way whilst knowing that it was just a matter of time before everything came crumbling down around them like a thousand year old tomb left to the elements.