#wanted to be important for people in my life

[sansaorgana]

— STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

PAIRING — Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x fem!Reader

SUMMARY — He's a psychotic killing machine and you're a shy and innocent lady. You have nothing in common except for the fact your bloodlines have been manipulated for centuries to create a match. And you seem to be destined to be together.

REQUEST — (1) // (2) // (3)

AUTHOR’S NOTE — I don't write children!Readers unless it's for the retrospections and memories. That's why I combined all these requests into one fic. Some parts of the requests didn't make it but I felt like it was already getting long 🙈 I included the trope of Feyd and Reader being destined to be together – some sort of Soulmates AU, I guess? ✨

WARNINGS — arranged marriage, blood, spiders, mentions of Baron Harkonnen abusing Feyd, SMUT, fingering, oral, hints of innocence kink, The Harpies being a bit non-consensual

WORD COUNT — 7,500

🔞 THIS FIC IS 18+ 🔞

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

Giedi Prime was surely a scary and intimidating place for a twelve years old girl. The lack of colour and friendly faces made you shiver and anxiously cling to your father’s hand. You couldn’t understand why he had insisted on you accompanying him on this official state visit for the meeting with Baron Harkonnen. He would never want to take you with him to much more pleasant places. You were too young to understand the hidden agenda, the Bene Gesserit scheming – whose plans had been destroyed by Lady Jessica giving birth to a son instead of a daughter. They needed a new match for the young na-baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, The Baron’s nephew. After years of searching and studying many possibilities, they had decided to create a union between your House and The Harkonnens. Your father was more than happy – it was an honour to bond with such a powerful family. You were from one of the planets of a lesser importance. That was the reason for The Baron’s distrust towards the plan. He would rather see his nephew marrying a great lady, perhaps even an Imperial Princess.

While he talked to your father, you were left alone with no one but one guard in an empty room. You were sitting on a black couch and looking with awe at the portraits on the walls. All men looked the same on them – big, bald, hairless and scary. They fascinated you as much as they intimidated you.

After a while, the doors leading to the corridor opened and you startled at the sight of a boy more-less your age entering confidently with a contemptuous look upon his face. He looked like all The Harkonnens – sickly and scary. He was wearing clothes you had only seen on gladiators and warriors before but it looked disturbing on a body so skinny and small, even though he was tall for his age. There was a splash of blood upon his face and it made you gasp and take a step back. He smirked at you.

“So, that’s you? Disappointing,” he commented harshly as you swallowed thickly.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” You looked nervously at the guard but he remained stoic.

“I’m Feyd,” he introduced himself. “My training has been interrupted and I’ve been told to meet you for whatever reason. Haven’t expected such a scared, little bunny,” he sneered and you spotted his teeth were black. They didn’t look rotten, though.

“What happened to your teeth?” You asked him, raising an eyebrow.

“My Uncle made the medics paint them black to intimidate my enemies,” he answered, proudly.

“What kind of enemies might a twelve year old have?” You asked, surprised.

You had no enemies. Your life was of a typical spoiled young lady – full of mother’s kisses, father’s embraces, candies, ponies and maids braiding your hair in the evening while telling you tales of handsome and brave prince charmings. You couldn't imagine that it was different for other people.

“You’re stupid,” Feyd pointed out and you shut your mouth, feeling hurt at his words as tears pricked your eyes. He approached you and you took a step back, scared of him. “Don’t cry,” he tilted his head at the sight of your wet eyes. “Has no one ever told you that you were stupid?” Now it was his time to be surprised and you shook your head. “Do you want to see something?” He proposed as his eyes sparkled.

“I’m scared,” you admitted, genuinely.

“I will protect you,” he offered his pale hand and you looked at it with fear in your eyes.

“I am scared of you,” you raised your eyes to lay them on his face again while you explained.

“Good,” he nodded with a chuckle. “But I’d get in trouble if something happened to you. You are the daughter of my uncle’s guest. Come,” he encouraged.

Your status gave you courage as your curiosity only fueled your desire to actually follow him. Just like the portraits on these walls – he was as intimidating as fascinating to you. Perhaps because you had never before met such a boy.

You took his cold hand and a shiver went down your spine. For a short while, you thought you would faint as an odd feeling filled your small body. A familiar warmth that you only felt when you were back home, in your bed, feeling safe and sound with the nanny or your mother caressing your head to help you sleep. Like he was home. But he couldn’t be. You had never met him and he was scary. 

“Have you felt that, too?” You gasped.

“No,” Feyd lied. “Come,” he dragged you behind him and the guard opened the doors in front of you.

Feyd took you down the corridor and led you downstairs to some sort of dungeons beneath the fortress. You were starting to have a bad feeling about it but something deep inside you made you trust that odd boy. Without understanding it yet, you were starting to realise he was the one who had been meant for you from the day you were born. There was some connection between your bloodlines that was drawing you towards each other.

You found yourself in an old, dark and damp room. It smelt of something rotten and it was full of spiderwebs.

“What is this place? It’s disgusting,” you pointed out as you winced. Feyd let go of your hand and sneered at you.

“Life is unpleasant. The sooner you learn that, the better,” he pointed out and suddenly, he reached for a short knife by his waist you had not noticed before. You yelped at the sight, convinced he had only dragged you there to kill you.

“Don’t be silly, I won’t hurt you,” he rolled his eyes and you nodded, unsurely. “Do you want to see me kill something?” He smirked playfully at you.

It felt wrong and you felt the anxiety rising in your abdomen when you realised you’d get in trouble for that. On the other hand, you did want to see him kill something. It was curiosity mixed with excitement to witness something forbidden and something you had been sheltered from.

“Yes,” you nodded, eagerly. He was a little surprised at your reaction but he only smiled.

Feyd beckoned you over by waving his hand and you followed him, quietly. Then you gasped and covered your mouth as you gagged out of disgust at the sight of a big, fat spider in the corner of the room. It was huge – nearly as big as you were. But it was also fat and slow. The legs were long and thin, furry black sticks.

“I found it a few days ago,” Feyd told you as he looked at your disgusted face. “Gross, isn’t she?”

You nodded.

“She reminds me of my uncle,” Feyd explained with hatred in his voice. “Do you see those small spiders on the ground?” He asked and you looked down. It was full of smaller spiders but they were all laying there dead. “She feeds off of her own children.”

You took a step back, utterly disgusted and sick. Feyd snorted at you and turned his back on you to gut the big, black spider. You watched with terror how much satisfaction it was giving him. He struck the monstrosity so many times that you lost count. He kept striking when it was already laying there dead.

“That’s enough,” you whispered and Feyd froze before turning around to face you. There was pure murder in his eyes and when he walked towards you with a knife in his hand, you were sure he would kill you now, too.

You took a deep breath in and closed your eyes, expecting the worst. But when you felt his breath on your face, you heard him hiding the knife away.

“Stupid little bunny,” he told you and you opened your eyes, hesitantly. He was staring at you as if he was studying your face.

The door opened suddenly and a few guards entered, sighing out of relief. Your father was standing behind them, scared. Baron Harkonnen was there as well, floating ominously.

“There you are!” He raised his voice and you spotted that all Feyd’s confidence was gone in a second. The boy looked down and blushed. “I’ve told you to behave. Why are you scaring Lady (Y/N)?!”

You turned around to face The Baron, hiding his nephew’s from his sight with your small body.

“He did not scare me, my Lord,” you assured with a slight bow of your head. “I wanted Feyd-Rautha to show me around,” you lied to protect him.

You had a feeling his uncle would punish him and he looked like a man you would never want a punishment from.

“She’s naive,” your father tried to save the situation. “Curiosity killed the cat,” he reminded you and grabbed you by your wrist to pull you closer to him. “Forgive my daughter, my Lord Baron.”

“She is forgiven,” the big man smirked viciously before lying his eyes on his nephew. “The boy, however, is not.”

You wanted to protest but your father gave you a stern look and announced it was time for you to leave now. So, you obeyed and walked away, following the guard leading you out of the corridor. But you kept looking behind, trying to see Feyd-Rautha for the last time.

“Will I see him again?” You asked your father, looking up.

“Who?”

“Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha,” you explained and your father sighed as he looked down at you.

“You will in eight years,” he announced. “You will become his wife.”

Those eight years you had not wasted a day, practising for your new role every day. Learning all about The Harkonnens; their culture, their history, their customs and war strategies. You knew that their nobility would not give you an easy time for being a Lady of the lesser house. You wanted to prove your worth with knowledge.

Your wisdom was your only weapon because you lacked confidence nor experience in nearly anything. Sheltered your whole life, surrounded by books and teachers, you were shy and innocent. The spider incident on Giedi Prime still remained your only sin – that no one except your husband-to-be possessed the knowledge of.

You had not been in touch with him at all but the stories had reached you about his nature and his victories in the gladiator arena. You believed them all because your short encounter had been enough to give you an idea about what kind of man he would become. You had never protested whenever your marriage was mentioned but you felt anxious. You didn’t belong on Giedi Prime, you didn’t fit in the world of death and violence.

Tested by Gom Jabbar, you nearly failed the test. The scary Reverend Mother gave your mother a look of disapproval. On the very next day you were shipped to Giedi Prime for your wedding, though. You had survived the trial and only that mattered – the long-planned scheming couldn’t be sabotaged.

On the day of your arrival, you were led with your parents to a room you had remembered from your last visit. There was the same black couch and the same portraits on the wall – only now there was one more than before. The last one in line, of a young man with handsome facial features, signed with your betrothed’s name. You opened your mouth slightly as you kept staring at it. He was a young and handsome na-baron; a strong warrior surrounded by men and women who admired him. You could only imagine how inconvenient a marriage had to be for him. Especially to an uninteresting and unimportant woman like you.

The doors opened and you turned around to see him in real life as he entered the room in black gladiator gear. He looked better than in the portrait – raw and magnetic, dangerous. Your parents stiffened at the sight of him and they both bowed their heads.

“Lord Na-Baron,” your father greeted him. “We have delivered our daughter to you, according to the agreement,” he explained. “We have hoped to be greeted by your uncle The Baron.”

“He’s busy,” Feyd interrupted your father in a low and raspy voice that sent a shiver down your spine. His eyes were only fixated on you – curious and mocking. You bowed down slightly as well, not wanting to disrespect him.

“Y-yes, of course, my Lord…” your father took a step back.

“You’re grown now,” Feyd-Rautha stood in front of you with a smirk and you took a deep, shaky breath in.

“So are you, my Lord Na-Baron,” you nodded.

“She hasn’t changed a bit,” Feyd turned around to give your father a contemptuous look. “A timid little bunny. But it’s no surprise since she’s been raised by a coward and bootlicker like you.”

“My daughter is of many qualities, my Lord, I can assure you…” your father panicked.

“A wife only needs one quality,” Feyd sneered at him as your blood ran cold at his words. “Show them to their rooms,” he told the guards and left the room.

“I can’t believe you’ve made deals with these people,” your mother snapped angrily at your father who was standing there with his head kept low, ashamed.

But it was not like he had any saying in this. It was the plan of the Bene Gesserit. You were nothing but pawns in it. You tried to remember that Feyd-Rautha was a pawn, too.

After the scary and bloody wedding party, you were taken to your husband’s bedroom where you were supposed to be prepared for the wedding night. However, it was not the maids waiting for you there. Three bald Harkonnen women were sitting on your husband’s bed and smirking at you, showing off their sharp teeth. They were dressed in black leather and clinging to each other as if they were one body instead of three.

“We will prepare her for the Master,” one of them told the servants who had taken you there. You looked at them with panic and they only looked back with guilt and compassion before walking out as quickly as possible, leaving you alone with the scary snake-like creatures.

They were circling around you, sniffing you and chuckling contemptuously. You didn’t understand anything but you tried to bravely keep still and endure. Then, one of them approached you and licked a fat stripe across your cheek. Your eyes widened in terror.

“Oh-so-innocent,” she commented. “Have you ever pleased a man?” She asked.

You were terrified and embarrassed, you didn’t know what to do.

“N-no, my Lady,” you stuttered and nodded your head, unsure how to address her.

They all found it amusing as they laughed.

“My Lady, she calls me. I might like this one,” the woman caressed your hair with some sort of perverted delicacy that made you feel even more scared. Your heart was pounding in your chest and your hands turned cold and sweaty. “I’m not a lady, na-baroness. I am your husband’s whore,” she informed you and you nodded again, hesitantly. “We are his favourite pets. You see… Our Master likes perversion,” her hands landed on your hips as she pulled you closer to her body. “We will teach you how to please him and how to take him.”

“He’s a lot to take,” another woman stood behind you and grabbed your breasts from behind.

“W-won’t he mind, my husband?” You swallowed thickly.

“Not at all,” the third one giggled. “He always shares his toys.”

“Not this one,” the doors opened as Feyd-Rautha entered the room. He glanced at the women angrily and they immediately let go of you and moved away. “She is not a toy, she is your na-baroness. What are you doing here?” He snapped. “Have I not forbidden you from entering this room from now on?”

“Oh, Master…” one of them approached him to put her arms around his neck but he pushed her away.

“Get out,” he hissed and they ran away.

When the doors closed behind them, Feyd looked at you and sighed before approaching you and caressing your cheek.

“You alright, wife?” He asked.

“Y-yes, thank you,” you nodded and flinched at the feeling of his cold fingers brushing your cheek. An odd and out-of-place warmth started to fill you like all those years ago. It made him startled, too, and eventually he took a step back.

“You must be exhausted,” he only said as he looked away, awkwardly. “We can perform our duties in the morning.”

“Th-thank you,” you nodded. “I’ll go take a shower now…”

Feyd pointed at the doors leading to the bathroom and that was all for that night. When you came back to his bedroom, he was already gone. You went to sleep without him, confused by his behaviour.

Baron Harkonnen watched carefully with his own eyes and through the eyes of his servants. He observed and he listened – nothing could ever escape him. But the new na-baroness was as easy to read as a book. When she joined him and Count Rabban by the breakfast table, she didn’t wince while sitting, which was an obvious sign she had not been claimed by Feyd the previous night. The Baron smirked when the new na-baroness began to eat the meal, keeping her timid gaze down, terrified of her surroundings.

If Feyd-Rautha refused to be her friend, The Baron would surely find her a purpose. She would be an easy tool to keep Feyd in place. A silent, obedient shadow following her husband everywhere. A perfect spy.

“Na-Baroness,” he addressed her and she flinched before looking up, scared. “I would like you to join the council after the meal. Your husband rarely takes part in them since he is too busy training but now you are an extension of him,” The Baron forced a smile and she nodded. “I’ve been told by your father you are well-trained in Harkonnen history and customs.”

“Y-yes, my Lord,” she bowed her head.

“I know that Feyd-Rautha is not an easy man to be around,” The Baron continued as Rabban raised his head, curious about his uncle’s scheming plan. “He’s been like this ever since he was a child. I’ve been trying to temper him.”

“I remember,” the young woman whispered.

“You can tell me about anything that is worrying you,” The Baron assured her and she smiled genuinely. “Has he hurt you?” He squinted his eyes, knowing the answer already but wanting to test her honesty.

“No, my Lord. Feyd-Rautha did not spend the night with me at all,” she answered and he nodded as Rabban sneered.

“You have to forgive him, my Lady. He prefers other… forms of entertainment,” The Baron explained softly.

“I believe I have met them, my Baron,” the woman looked down.

“Most likely, yes. They don’t like to share him,” The Baron chuckled.

“But the heir…”

“Do not worry about the heir. You are both still young, you have time. There is no need to hurry anything. Take your time to adjust on Giedi Prime first,” The Baron tried to calm her down and she looked up with so much gratitude in her eyes that he was sure he had succeeded. She was his agent now.

To your own surprise, you found new friends in your husband’s family – his uncle and brother – but not him. Feyd-Rautha was mostly avoiding you and a few attempts to claim you were ending in a fiasco. You couldn’t understand why he would pull away suddenly and leave you without a word or fail to get hard enough no matter how long his touch lingered upon your body. It made you feel as if you were lacking, because you knew for sure he had no problems of this sort with his concubines. They often bragged to you about it. They had offered to help you to excite him and you nearly agreed to that but Feyd hated to see you around them. He snapped whenever he caught you talking to them or them approaching you.

He hated to see you around his uncle and brother, too. He had been warning you about them but it felt cruel to do so. Did he want you to not have any companionship at all? To be sad and lonely and miserable all your days?

You weren’t appreciated in marriage but you were appreciated as a part of this family – representing the na-baronship during the council meetings with your decisions and advice. The Baron seemed to be pleased with you and Count Rabban had stopped to make fun of you over time. Still waters run deep, The Baron would often say about you as your cheeks heated up and eyes sparkled. Perhaps all the years of studying the customs and tradition of this House would not be useful in your marriage but they seemed to be useful when it came to your political presence.

It still bothered you that Feyd-Rautha was acting so weirdly towards you. You remembered the boy he had been eight years earlier. You had never feared this union because you had been sure there was some sort of bond now between you two, some sort of connection. Perhaps you had been wrong.

It was right after one of Feyd’s failed attempts to claim you, when he left you half-naked in bed with tears pricking your eyes. He walked away and most likely went to his concubines as you fixed yourself and left the room, too, not wanting to remain in the chambers filled with the smell of embarrassment and humiliation anymore. You nearly crashed with your brother-in-law walking down the corridor.

“My Lady,” Rabban nodded at you. “Is everything alright?”

“Y-yes,” you answered, trying not to show your nervousness. There was no need for him to know the details about the problems your marriage was facing.

“I was just looking for you,” he confessed and you raised an eyebrow at him. “Tomorrow, my uncle wants me to lead the council meeting only for the most important members of the court. It’s about a matter of a very high importance and it’s confidential,” he whispered. “I hoped you would join me. Without my uncle there, I will be the only one representing our family.”

“But tomorrow Feyd has his fight. I am expected to be in the stands,” you looked up at him.

“Uncle will be there. You are more needed here, (Y/N),” Rabban tried to convince you. You could see his hands were a little shaky – he was stressed about the responsibility placed upon his shoulders by his uncle. “It’s not like Feyd will even notice your absence,” he added.

You bit on your lower lip. He was right.

“Alright, I’ll join you in the council,” you nodded your head. “Our state affairs are much more important than some fixed gladiator fight anyway.”

The servants’ slim fingers were applying the black paint upon Feyd-Rautha’s body as he observed his three harpies from the corner of his eye. They were giggling between each other and some of the words reached his sensitive ears.

“...naive…”

“Silly little thing.”

“...taste her heart…”

“What are you talking about, pets?” Feyd turned around to face them as he asked and they went silent.

“Nothing important, Master,” the bravest of them all answered eventually.

“I have a feeling you’re whispering about my wife,” Feyd pointed out.

“As I said, nothing important,” she chuckled and the rest giggled. Feyd squinted his eyes and approached them with a clenched jaw and an angry expression on his face. When he grabbed her by the chin, they stopped laughing.

“You are forbidden to even think of her,” he hissed out. “You’re not worthy of that.”

“M-Master…” She trembled as she pleaded for his softness. Her companions hid behind her and observed him carefully. “She doesn’t even know how to please you, Master.”

Feyd’s hand dropped down and the squeeze tightened around the woman’s neck. He watched her struggle to catch a breath for some time as he observed with a smirk. Eventually, he let go of her.

“My wife belongs to a different realm than you,” he stated. “She is not to be discussed, looked at, thought of… Am I understood?”

“Y-yes, Master,” they all nodded, obediently.

“Good,” he smiled and went back to the servant girls.

“You might be interested in the gossip, though, na-baron,” one of the concubines whispered. “We are your eyes and ears…”

Feyd pretended not to be intrigued although he was. He didn’t react, hoping she would say more. And so she did.

“Your uncle keeps the young na-baroness close. The rumour has it he wants to make her one of his agents. And she is slowly taking your place during the councils. Count Rabban is his Plan B if you fail. Then she will be given to him.”

“I’m sure Rabban won’t have a problem with fucking her,” the bravest concubine added as if his punishment had not worked at all. Because it didn’t. She loved his punishments. “Her innocence will only make him more eager. He will tear her apart.”

“Shut up!” Feyd growled, making the servant girls take a few steps back as he turned around to face the girl with a big mouth. “Let me remind you that I don’t need your tongue to fuck you,” he sneered. “Your sisters are better at using their tongues than you anyway.”

The woman looked down and he was informed that he was about to enter the arena in five minutes so he went back to putting the gear on, furiously clutching to his blades. He was grateful to his concubine for fueling his anger so much – he wanted to make good use of it in the arena.

But when he approached the tower with his uncle’s balcony to bow down, he spotted that his wife was not there. Suddenly, the fight made no sense to him at all. What was the point of putting on a show, what was the point of killing with grace when she could not watch?

He had been waiting eight years for her to come back. The timid little bunny girl that made him feel so warm inside. That made him feel like home. Nothing had ever made him feel this way. They were destined for each other. Now, when she was by his side, he had no idea what to do. He had been training his body for years to impress her and be able to protect her but nothing was working out the way he had planned. She was slipping away.

She was slipping away because of his uncle’s scheming and because Feyd-Rautha himself had no idea how to approach a creature so pure and innocent as this woman. If anything in this world was still able to save his rotten soul, it was her. But maybe he had been naive to think so. He was beyond saving.

He didn’t give the audience a show on that day. The fights were quick and swift. No playing with his victims, no tormenting. Just a kill after kill to finish it as fast as possible. And no bowing down at the end. He just walked out of the arena, still clutching his fists on the blood-dripping blades. He walked past the guards and servants, not wanting to change or bathe – he wanted one thing only. To find his wife.

The sounds of the cheering audience were becoming more and more quiet. They waited for him to walk back and bow down, raising his knife in the sign of victory. He had no plans in doing so. He would not kneel in front of his uncle. Not when his wife was not beside him, because it was her he had been kneeling for. Not Baron Harkonnen.

The council was over now but you stayed inside the conference room with Count Rabban to discuss what had been decided and what to tell his uncle. You were staring at the maps of Arrakis and wondering whether the Emperor’s assurances of help were trustworthy.

“What I’m saying is… If he is so willing to get rid of The Atreides just because he considers them to be dangerous… He might do the same to us one day. We are a real danger to him way more than any Atreides is,” you pointed out.

“Especially now when we have knowledge that can turn other leaders against him and…” Rabban’s words were interrupted by the heavy black doors opening rapidly. You flinched and instinctively hid behind your brother-in-law’s broad shoulders.

It was Feyd-Rautha himself walking inside with an angry look on his face. Wearing his gladiator gear stained with fresh blood and still wielding two bloody swords. He looked ferocious as his cold eyes searched for you. When he spotted you behind his brother, his jaw clenched and so did his fists on the handles of the blades.

“What is going on here?” He barked as you and Rabban looked at each other, questioningly.

“Husband,” you tried to be brave as you took a step ahead to approach him very carefully. “I see you’re finished now. I assume you’ve won.”

“(Y/N), wait,” Rabban grabbed your sleeve to keep you in place. He didn’t want you near Feyd in such a state. But Feyd didn’t like his brother’s gesture.

“Let her go, brother,” he snapped. “She is my wife and she will approach me if she wishes. I would never lay my hand on her,” he drawled through gritted teeth.

You felt Rabban’s fingers letting go of the fabric of your dress and you walked up to Feyd. Something inside you was telling you that he needed you at that moment. Perhaps that was the intuition of a wife.

“Oh, we all know that you don’t lay your hand on her at all, brother,” Rabban snorted at him.

You watched in terror how your husband’s face became even more angry than before. He yelled and attacked his brother with all the burning wrath he had before been trying to stop from outbursting with.

“No! Stop! Please,” you pleaded as they fought and struggled one against another. Rabban took out his own blade now, too, and they ended up wrestling on the floor like two children. “That is enough, please!” You cried out.

Your tears brought attention to only one of them – your husband. He was distracted by them and ended up with his brother’s blade pointed at his face. You froze and Rabban laughed with contempt.

“Such a great warrior you are, my brother. Trained day and night for years, got your little arena shows… And now you got distracted by a woman,” he pointed out.

“That woman is my wife,” Feyd drawled.

You looked around in panic but the guards stood there petrified. They were afraid to attack any of the brothers. Usually shy and timid, you felt an odd outburst of courage as you took a blade from the guard standing nearby. He did not protest but only watched in terror as you approached the brothers and pointed the blade at Count Rabban himself.

“Don’t be stupid,” he laughed at you.

“Let my husband go,” your voice shivered but you managed to stand your ground.

“Or what?” Rabban sneered. “We both know you won’t strike me.”

In that very moment Feyd kicked him and got out of the direction of his brother’s blade. He ended up on top with his own knife pointed at Rabban. A smirk on his face revealed that he had never been defeated even for a second, he was only toying with his brother… and with you, too.

“She might not but I will,” Feyd hissed at his brother. “My marriage is none of your business, brother. And you stay away from my wife.”

“I am only representing you during the councils,” you tried to explain and Feyd looked up at you with his brow furrowed. “Your uncle told me I should because you rarely take place in them.”

“He’s scheming, can’t you see? Trying to turn us against each other. Thought you were smarter than this,” his anger was directed at you now.

He let go of Rabban and stood up to walk out of the room. You swallowed thickly and lowered your blade, scared of your brother-in-law’s reaction now when you were left alone with him after threatening him.

“Why did you take his side?” He only asked as you gave the blade back to the guard. “He doesn’t treat you any good. He never will.”

“He is my husband,” you explained quietly, avoiding his curious gaze.

“By name only. Your marriage is not even consummated.”

“Feyd was right,” you looked up. “Our marriage is none of your business, brother,” you emphasised who he was to you now before walking out to follow Feyd. It was easy because he left a trail of sand and blood from the arena behind him.

He went to your chambers so you took a deep breath in and pushed the doors open to face him in all his wrath and anger. He was struggling to get out of his gear with shaky hands as he shot you a furious glance over his shoulder.

“Should I call for the servants?” You asked.

“No,” he snapped and you sighed before approaching him and helping him yourself. At first he tried to shake you off but you were stubborn so he gave up and allowed your gentle fingertips to work on the pieces of clothing. “How do you even know how to do that?” He asked. “Did Rabban show you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear husband. I’ve read dozens of books about The Harkonnen art of warfare. I know your gears by heart. And Rabban is no gladiator,” you explained.

“Dozens of books about the art of warfare and The Harkonnens and yet it slipped your mind what masters of manipulation we can be?” Feyd barked at you and you chuckled. He didn’t find it amusing as he looked you up and down with contempt so you leaned in and placed a kiss upon his soft lips while your hands cupped his face. He was visibly taken aback by that, he didn’t even close his eyes for the kiss and he continued to observe you as if you would attack him any second.

“I have studied everything like a good pupil I was,” you whispered after breaking the kiss. Your hands kept caressing his cheeks in a soothing manner. “And now I’m one of The Baron’s closest people. I’m your inside man, Feyd-Rautha,” you smiled gently and his eyes sparkled at the realisation.

“But… why?” He only asked, confused.

“What do you mean why?” You bit on your lower lip.

“I’ve been treating you… coldly,” he admitted.

“Well, that is another matter. But that is between you and me. The marriage is between a husband and a wife. Not between them and his uncle or brother,” you explained. “I still remember that big fat spider. I’ve known ever since I was twelve years old that the thing you crave the most is to gut your uncle like you did to that monstrosity in the dungeons. And as your wife… I will do everything I can to help you,” you assured him.

But Feyd was not convinced. He pushed you away although he did it way gentler than you’d expect. He walked away from you as he stepped out of the pile of clothes by his feet. He was wearing nothing but underwear now and you watched how his muscular body glistened with sweat after the fight. 

“You can be a double agent, wife. I don’t trust you,” he confessed.

“You have no reasons to,” you nodded. “Except for the fact we have fate and destiny bonding us. Am I the only one feeling this when we touch?” Your voice lowered as uncertainty began to grow inside of you. Perhaps you were. Perhaps you were the only one feeling that warmth indeed.

“No,” Feyd admitted, nearly inaudibly. “Why do you think I can’t fuck you?” He approached you again and you gasped at how close he chose to stand.

“Because you find me unattractive? Or boring perhaps,” you shrugged your arms. “I don’t care about that. Our bond is stronger than physical attraction.”

“I can’t fuck you because that feeling is overwhelming me and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt like that. You’re too pure for me,” he confessed, visibly uncomfortable with his own words as he looked away.

You were stunned for a moment.

“You’re an idiot, Feyd-Rautha,” you laughed eventually and he blushed. “I am not pure. I am flesh and blood just like you,” you told him. “For example now… When you’re standing in front of me… like this,” you allowed your hand to wander all over his hard muscles. “You’re starting a fire that will be difficult to put out later,” you looked up to meet his gaze. “Every time you start and don’t finish, you leave me in torment,” you confessed. “And nothing helps,” you pouted. “I writhe and I roll around and grow more and more bitter knowing that you’re giving your whores what you’re supposed to give me.”

He was nearly paralyzed in a way he was staring at you. You grabbed his hand and pulled your dress up to press his hand to your womanhood. You were soaking through your underwear now and he blinked a few times as his gaze intensified.

“I will never forgive myself if I break you,” Feyd took his hand away despite your protests.

“You’re breaking me by refusing to touch me,” you whined.

“Touch yourself,” he said suddenly as his eyes sparkled and you were left speechless. “Touch yourself for me. I will help you. I’ll make it feel good,” he proposed.

Out of desperation, you decided this was better than nothing – at least for now – so you agreed. As fast as possible, you got rid of your dress and remained in nothing but your sheer underdress. You laid on the bed and watched him approach you. Feyd laid next to you, observing you carefully. His eyes were admiring every curve of your body and every inch of your skin. Without waiting for his command, you pulled the underdress up and took off your underwear to toss the panties aside and start playing with your wet folds. It was embarrassing to see him watch but it also excited you in some twisted way. You toyed with your clit, moaning softly, showing him what kind of pleasure you could bring to yourself – what kind of pleasure you had to bring to yourself since he refused to do so.

“Easy, slow down,” Feyd breathed out and placed his rough hand on your waist. He was caressing you and joined your lips together in a sloppy kiss. His free hand undid the ribbon on the top of your underdress to free your breasts. They shivered under the touch of his big hand as he played with your nipples and buried his face in the crook of your neck, breathing in your sweet scent and sucking on the sensitive skin below your ear.

You shut your eyes close, trying to focus on the pleasure as your fingers rubbed on your sensitive swollen clit but it was not enough. It never was.

“I can’t…” You admitted your defeat as you tried to catch a breath.

“Yes, you can,” Feyd whispered into your ear in that low, raspy voice of his that sent shivers down your body and straight to your core. “What’s stopping you?”

“It’s just… I don’t know…” You didn’t know how to find the right words. “It’s not enough,” you admitted. “It’s not you.”

“Let me, then,” he raised himself to look into your eyes as his hand moved your hand away and his fingers replaced yours on your exposed clit. You gasped at the feeling of his fingertips drawing circles and teasing your entrance. 

You pressed your hands to his chest and then you moved them lower to explore the hard muscles of his abs. To feel them underneath your fingers was enough to make your back arch needily, exposing even more of your hungry pussy. Feyd smirked at that and buried his fingers deep inside as you gasped out of pain but it was quickly replaced with pleasure.

His free hand grabbed your chin gently and when you looked up, batting your eyelashes and opening your lips slightly, he put his fingers inside of your mouth and you grabbed his wrist to hold on to it as you sucked and moaned. His other hand was bringing you close to your release as his movements were fast and rough and his thumb circled your clit.

You cried out but his fingers muffled it so you ended up choking on the sound escaping your lips as you came writhing under him with sweaty forehead and single hair strands sticking to your face, your whole body set on fire, trying to catch a breath. Feyd swallowed thickly as his eyes sparkled.

You yelped as he smacked your sensitive pussy right after pulling his fingers out of it and licking them clean, looking deep into your eyes. You were speechless as your mind was left thoughtless.

You could only watch him lower himself and open your thighs even further with his strong arms as he buried his face between your legs to lap on your juices. You were sensitive so it burned in the beginning but the uncomfortable feeling submerged into pleasure once again. Feyd’s tongue was cleaning your folds thoroughly and penetrating you while you threw your head back as you laid your hands on the back of his neck, keeping him close. But this time he didn’t let you cum so easily.

When you were about to reach the peak again, he moved his head away and the next thing you saw was his face right in front of yours, his chin dripping with your wetness and his cold eyes filled with so much fire that you felt like a prey trapped by a big predator.

But you loved that feeling. You loved to feel small and tiny under him, trapped, vulnerable. You dug your nails into his biceps and looked down. He had already tossed his underwear aside and his cock was hard now, swollen and aching for you, you could see it twitching and leaking black precum. He looked heavy and big and you wanted him badly to claim you and violate you to the point no other man would ever even think of touching you after him.

You had never made him that hard. You had never gone so far before. You were sure you’d succeed now.

“Take me, claim me, make me yours,” you pleaded. “Please, I want more of you.”

Feyd shut you up with a kiss and a strong, stinging pain of his hard cock finally penetrating you. Your eyes widened as you whined. He intertwined your fingers together and held you through the process of adjustment to his size. You were the first one to impatiently rock your hips to show him you wanted him to move. So he did, slowly and carefully. He winced from his attempts to keep himself in control and you let go of his hands to pull him closer by his shoulders and deepen the kiss.

You moaned softly and helped him to fuck you by you rocking your hips against him as your legs wrapped around his waist. You both had been waiting so long for this moment of unity that it didn’t take long for you two to reach your highs and the familiar feeling of warmth filled you whole. You didn’t remember your own name, the only thing you knew was that you were home and the man above you was destined for you; you were born to be his wife and he was born to be your husband. The thousands of years of manipulation of the bloodlines had led you to this moment and nothing could tear you apart now. No amount of rumours, scheming or the disability to show emotions.

You were catching your breath as Feyd was slowly coming back from his high above you, panting heavily and looking at your face with hazy eyes.

“You belong to me,” he leaned in to kiss your lips again. “You always have.”

“No matter what happens, we are one,” you agreed with a nod and intertwined your fingers with him as you held his hand. “Now, when that is settled, we shall focus on our most important task.”

“And that is?”

“Killing the fat spider in his nest,” you answered.

“Thankfully, we have experience,” Feyd teased before placing yet another soft kiss upon your parted lips.

MASTERLIST

[hepbaestus]

lullah wrote Phil a book and then asked if Phil could adopt her "for real" this time

[Start ID: A Five page Minecraft book written by Lullah to Philza and a purple adoption certificate on the QSMP Minecraft server that says:

Papa, you know how I love to ramble and I could write several pages long about how I feel. But this time I want to be straight to the point. A lot of people saw me as an extension of someone who's no longer part of my life, despite them being.

important at some point. With the reset taken into account, I had the liberty to start from zero and dettach myself... give myself the opportunity to be more ME without relying on someone else. Like I mentioned, ever since you adopted me back in July...

it made me be happier and accepted. You know me like the back of your hand (which I don't know if that's terrifying or endearing) but that's ok! Because that means we've spent enough time together to actually create a bond and share trauman :D

Anyway, thank you for being YOU and for being the best dad I could ask for. Even if I was not assigned to you on the first place, I am grateful for everything you've done for me.

I guarantee I am trying to also be the best daughter out there^^ Love you mucho (Spanish for a lot) tu niña (Spanish for your daughter) Lullah.

The adoption certificate is purple with a purple sunflower in the corner and says "Certificate of Adoption. Egg Name: Tallulah has been officially adopted by: Philza and Missa. Congratulations! /EndID]

[fire0nfire]

king of my heart | pt. 2

pairings: lando norris x fem!reader | pato o'ward x fem!reader

warnings: love triangle? kinda.

author's note: go get some popcorn cause we have some drama here🍿... and it's a long part, so enjoy!!

part 1 | part 2

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

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, isahernaez, frosenqvist, and 79,121 others!

yourusername Miami GP over and out ✅🏁 No words could ever explain just how grateful I am for all of you and for the opportunity that I get to cover this amazing sport with such incredible people by my side. Thank you for everything Miami, I hope to see you again soon! 🌴💖

user1 the power she holds 🙌

user2 she's really living my dream 🥹

lissiemackintosh so happy to be able to share this with you!! love u❤️

yourusername we really need to do this more often😘 love u too! user3 y/n and lissie hosting track tv together is my new roman empire fr user4 SLAY QUEENS!! user5 the queens are thriving user6 i wanna be friends with them so bad 😫

user7 omg girl you're STUNNING

user8 BEST F1 WAG

user9 facts facts facts user10 she's not even a wag lol it's so obvious lando just keeps this nobody around for when he's bored and horny user11 user10 this "nobody" has done SO much in terms of women representation in motorsport, she's hardworking and a lovely woman. meanwhile, you're just a sad little person who's jealous of her because she's successful and close to your crush, who doesn't even know who you are. so get a life and stop embarrassing yourself. user12 user11 SAY IT LOUDER 👏 user13 user11 PREACH!!!

user14 i don't know if i wanna be her or be with her😩

user15 this is such a mood tbh

landonorris so proud of you, boo😍

yourusername 🥰🧡 user16 YNLANDO NATION WE WON user17 we love a supporting boyfriend 🤩 user18 i want what they have, your honor user19 is this considered a soft launch or what? user20 y'all are delulu😂 it's so obvious they're just friends user21 user20 girl being delulu is the solulu 🙌

user22 so when are we gonna talk about felix liking the post?

user23 i'm lost sorry, who's felix? user24 user23 he's pato's teammate in indycar and one of his besties user25 if felix liked then WHERE'S PATO user26 user25 doing more important things than being focused on this girl.

lilymhe such a pretty girl 💗

alex_albon should i be jealous? yourusername you should indeed. can u fight? user24 the friendship i didn't know i needed 🥹 user25 MY FAV WAGS INTERACTING YAY

user26 f1 is so lucky to have you!!!

user27 LOOOL why would they be lucky to have her?😂😂😂 she's nothing special user28 user27 and yet she's still rising 💅 user29 user27 then why are you even on her post? lol obsessed much?

user30 my role model ❤️‍🩹

📞 incoming call

[y/n; normal] [pato; cursive]

"...Hello? Did you butt-dialed me or something?"

"Uhm, hi. It's not a butt-dial. I-I actually just wanted to talk to you. Hear your voice, y'know. I've been kinda missing you."

"Oh really? And here I was thinking that your cold behavior toward me over the past three weeks meant that you didn't want anything to do with me. Silly me, I guess."

"I-I'm... [sighs]. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. About the way I've been treating you. I'm sorry, y/n. I really am sorry. I know I've been a total jerk-"

"Yeah, you can put it that way."

"...I've been a total jerk and I regret it very much. You didn't deserve it at all. I just- I'm not trying to excuse my awful behavior but I just think I got- Uhm..."

"You got what?"

"Well... I saw Lando's instagram story when you went back to Monaco, as you've probably already figured it out. And I think- Well... I got jealous. And I know it probably sounds stupid now but at the time it felt like a punch in the face."

"Pato..."

"I know I didn't and still have absolutely no business to be jealous about you and Lando, cause you and I are not dating or anything and you don't owe me any kind of explanation about the type of relationship you have with him. But after the great time we spend together in Long Beach... I don't know, it just hurted seeing you with him. But that doesn't excuse anything and I just regret so much the way I've been treating you since then, it hasn't been fair to you at all."

"And it didn't cross your mind that we could have had this conversation way before now? I mean, you waited three weeks to finally talk to me like a decent human being, how-"

"I know and I'm so-"

"Let me finish."

"Sorry, go on."

"However, I do appreciate that you're finally acknowledging all of this and communicating with me like an actual adult. I know it's not always easy to do. And although I don't owe you any kind of explanation, I just want you to know that there's nothing going on between Lando and me."

"So you and him...?"

"We're friends and that's it. We care for each other but there's nothing going on."

"Oh... well, thanks for clarifying that for me."

"Yeah, yeah. You'll have to work harder for my forgiveness, anyway. I appreciate the call but it won't be that easy for you."

"Is that so?"

"You've heard me."

"In that case, what would you say if I invite you for a few days to come here to Punta Mita? Maybe that'll help me a little to earn your forgiveness."

"... I'm sorry, what!?"

"You've heard me."

"You're joking. You have to be joking."

"I'm not joking. You're still in Miami, right?"

"I am..."

"Great! My brother in law is in Miami too and he'll take the jet tomorrow morning. If you want to, you can join him and come here with him! We'd be thrilled to have you here too."

"Oh my God... Pato, I don't know what to say!"

"Say yes and you'd make this birthday boy the happiest man in the world. You'd even make my sister happy, I've been telling her a lot about you and now she's eager to meet you."

"I hope you've been telling her good things about me, then."

"Only the best. She's even on your side, y'know. Said I was being a giant cabrón and needed to make things right. She wasn't wrong tho."

"[giggles] Fine. I'll go, but I'm only doing this for your sister."

"I'll take that anyway! I'll let Brett know you'll join him and I'll send you the details, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Now go and pack your bags for tomorrow."

"Hey! Don't get bosy with me, mister!"

"[Laughs] Fine. Take care, I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you, birthday boy!"

patriciooward posted to his story!

[caption 1; 🦈] [caption 2; beautiful views]

yourusername posted to their story!

[caption 1; para-para-paradise 🌞] [caption 2; in his sharkboy era] [caption 3; 🐶❤️]

paddockgossips

liked by magui_corceiro and 84,091 others!

paddockgossips Among the alleged "breakup" between y/n and Lando, the McLaren driver was photographed last night having fun in a Monaco club in the company of Max Fewtrell and other friends. Some sources have said that Lando seemed very cozy with a blonde woman at the party, whom he later left with. However, we cannot verify this information in any way, so it remains a rumor.

user1 I HAVE A CHANCE AGAIN (i'm delulu)

user2 so this confirms ynlando is over?? 😭

user3 girl i'm devastated 😭😭😭 user4 i'm still in denial user5 well they were never together to begin with user6 user5 THIS!! people act like they were a couple when they NEVER confirmed anything 😂

user7 "blonde woman at the party" "it remains a rumor" and magui goes and like the post LOL

user8 she's so desperate for attention🙄 user9 who's magui??? user10 user9 she's kika's friend and she was dating football player João Félix not so long ago (in fact, i thought they were still together lol) user11 user10 and don't forget she's a cheater. user12 user9 she's trouble

user13 yn >>>>>>>> magui

user14 user13 no need to compare them

user15 sorry but single lando it's so hot 🥵

user16 SO TRUE user17 FACTS he looks so good omfg

user18 in his heartbreaker era 😎

user19 in his reputation era 😎 user20 in his idgaf era 😎

user21 i'm a child of divorce fr

user22 i know y'all love y/n for some reason but i'm SO glad lando finally got away from her.

user23 SAME. and if magui makes him happy then great for him user24 stfu i'm mourning here

user25 y/n this magui that but max was, is and will forever be lando's true wag💅

user26 the one and only indeed

elbaoward posted to her story!

[caption1; off to dinner] [caption2; my love🤍] [caption 3; lovebirds!]

patriciooward

liked by landonorris, yourusername, brettkimbro, and 86,382 others!

patriciooward BDAY WKND DUMP 📸 thank y'all for all the love❤️‍🔥

user1 THE HARD LAUNCH IT'S HARD LAUNCHING

user2 OMG IT'S HAPPENING EVERYBODY STAY CAAAAALM

user3 he really said i'll give you what you want: thrist traps and y/n... and he's so real for that

user4 he really knows his audience user5 king behavior if u ask me user6 everybody say thank you Pato 🙏

user7 YNPATO NATION HOW ARE WE FEELING??

user8 I'M STILL SPEECHLESS user9 they're so perfect i wanna cry😭 user10 LOVE TO SEE🔥

user11 as a ynlando shipper i have to admit they're cute but ngl this still hurts 😩

user12 MOOD user13 ynlando will always be in our hearts 🥺 user14 ynlando >>>>>>>>>> ynpato user15 user13 girl grow up.

user16 THAT SHOULD BE ME

elbaoward where are my credits for the last pic? cuties🤍

user17 u literally gave us the cutest pic ever user18 elba thank you so much for your service🫡 user19 elba is ynpato's #1 fan and you can't tell me otherwise user20 elba is just like us fr user21 LOVE YOU ELBAAAAA 🩷

user22 MOM AND DAD

user23 can't believe how fast she moved on and got together with this dude lol lando really dodged a bullet with her

user24 how fast she moved on?? girl y/n and lando were never even together so stfu user25 ???? why are you even on pato's ig post? go away user26 user23 y/n is such an attention seeker and yet everyone loves her, i'll never understand it 🥱

user27 not to be that person but i would KILL to be that piñata😏

user28 MOOD

frosenqvist oh to be tanned, young and in love

patriciooward 😜 user29 IN LOVE??? FELIX BESTIE TELL US MORE user30 i don't know about y'all but this is all the confirmation i need about ynpato being real, bye user31 i think i can hear the wedding bells user32 user31 yesss and felix as pato's best man

user33 bestie don't be shy and drop more y/n pics 🫶

user34 i second the motion !!!

user35 NOT LANDO LIKING THE POST LOOOOL

user36 he is so unserious i love him user37 ICONIC BEHAVIOR TBH user38 yeah but i just know he's crying inside user39 user38 for what? lol lando knows he's so much better than this cheaper version of him. user40 user39 i'm so done with people like you who insult pato just because you cannot defend lando with good arguments.

yourusername magical weekend 💖

patriciooward with you there? always user41 STOP THEY'RE SO CUTE OMG user42 this is such an upgrade tbh user43 SO HAPPY FOR THEM 🥹 user44 what a bitch.

yourusername posted to their story!

[caption 1; back to reality✈️] [caption 2; I'm a high performance athlete. Athletes sweat. Sweat, baby] [caption 3; cutest model🧡]

paddockgossips

liked by magui_corceiro and 53,237 other people!

paddockgossips NEW WAG ALERT? 🚨 Magui Corceiro, the Portuguese model and actress, attended the Monaco GP after being seen a few days ago having lunch with Lando. It has been rumored that they could be in a relationship, especially since Lando and y/n apparently went different ways, and Corceiro's presence in the paddock has not gone unnoticed by anyone. Still, neither Lando nor Magui have confirmed or denied these rumors.

user1 A TRIGGER WARNING WOULD BE NICE NEXT TIME

user2 um let's hope there isn't a next time user3 user2 let's pray girl, let's pray 🙏

user4 "neither lando nor magui have confirmed or denied these rumors" well that's bs cause she just liked the post

user5 istg she's trying so hard to get attention user6 lando was asked about magui and he said she was just a friend... and then she goes and does this lol what a clout chaser user7 and people used to say that y/n was after lando's fame and yet she NEVER did anything like this user8 she's such a pick me girl

user9 everything i know of this girl has been against my will istg

user10 SAME

user11 oh good luck lando

user12 oh be prepared for the y/n fans and little girls that'll come attack magui when she hasn't even done anything wrong

user13 literally they're just mad at magui cause she's dating their fav driver loool user14 they're only jealous cause magui is a gorgeous woman user15 user14 she's gorgeous but she's still a snake

user16 i'd ask why lando would be with someone like her, but then i remember he's an adult and if he wants someone like her by his side then that's up to him. let's not treat him like a baby please

user17 say👏 it👏 louder👏

user18 weeeeell if this is the kind of people lando likes to have around then i guess y/n really dodged a bullet with him

user19 FACTS user20 i mean at the end of the day he's just another privileged white boy, so🤷‍♀️ user21 i really don't get all the hate that she's getting, is she really that problematic? user22 user21 girl google it yourself but yeah, she is

user23 I MISS MY GIRL Y/N WHERE IS SHEEEEEEEE??

user24 what is she even doing there?

user25 must be cause lando wanted her to be there user26 why y'all never asked the same thing about y/n? y'all are such hypocrites istg user27 user26 cause y/n was actually doing her job????? user28 user26 oh you're stupid 😂😂

user29 magui in the paddock, pato not being able to finish Indy 500... it really is a shitty day huh

user30 DON'T EVEN REMIND ME WHAT HAPPENED WITH PATO OMFG user31 I'M STILL SO MAD ABOUT PATO user32 the only good part is that y/n and his family were there for him ❤️‍🩹

see y'all in part 3!

taglist: @drunkinthemiddleoftheday @evie-119 @evans-dejong @minkyungseokie @noneofyourfbusinessworld @bernelflo @eiaaasamantha @ijustgomessitupx @honethatty12 @daemyratwst @f1fan65

(if you'd like to be tagged in the next part, just let me know in the comments!🧡)

[vanteguccir]

Hey guys! I actually spent long minutes staring at these reblogs and debating whether it was worth responding and talking about or not. But as I'm not the type to take hate and keep quiet, I decided to talk about it.

First of all, Reia, you really seem like a person who doesn't read many fanfics for the way you put it in your text, so I'll explain the meaning of the word. Fanfic, short for "fan fiction", is a story written by a fan based on characters, universes, or real people (like the triplets). Fans create their own narratives, expanding or reimagining everything, creating their own version, which in real life does not exist OR, as writers, we often draw inspiration from real-life events too.

And yes, you and Evangeline are trying to be "fanfic police" and even "sturniolo police", if you scroll through the thousands of Sturniolo Triplets fanfics, you will come across A LOT where Matt, Nick or Chris go through situations of anxiety attack, panic attack, OR where the "reader" herself goes through this, sometimes even involving situations way worse than that. Furthermore, there's thousands of fanfics describing explicit sex scenes with them, the famous smuts, does that bother you too? Because in the world of someone who writes a FANFIC in here, it doesn't.

And yes, I was indeed writing about the meet and greet situation, and this was nothing new to ANYONE in the fandom WHO READS THE FANFICS HERE. I even made a post the day before ASKING who would like to read the idea, and you want to know the news? All 200 people who voted wanted it.

I understand that you feel this story is disrespectful FOR YOU, especially because it touches on a real-life situation that may be sensitive or painful for some people. I want to assure you that it was never my intention to cause harm or disrespect anyone involved in that situation.

I myself am diagnosed with chronic anxiety, and even so, I didn't feel affected by the way I wrote. In fact, I described how I feel during MY anxiety attacks.

In no way did I make fun of the situation Matt went through, in fact, my intention in writing this story was to explore Matt's complexity and show how he deals with real problems, such as anxiety. It was a way to give more depth to his situation during the tour and highlight the importance of the emotional support he receives from "Y/N". It was not my intention to mock him, but rather to explore his humanity and the challenges he faced, and I know with all the certainty in the world that I did not mock him, much less affect the people who read the story.

Please, I ask you to reevaluate the need to throw hate at a person who has nothing to do with your outside the box opinions of what WRITERS ON THE STURNIOLO'S TUMBLR should or shouldn't write about.

There are thousands of posts on Instagram and TikTok from "fans" really mocking Matt and throwing hate at him about "their bad experiences" during one of the shows, these are the people you should be giving a piece of your mind to, not me. 🩷

[kiwisbell]

helen ; chapter five

be seeing you

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, the choice.

series masterlist | my masterlist pairing: joel miller x f!reader tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, hitman!joel, husband!joel, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship, sacrilege in the name of romance, flashbacks, graphic violence, guns, blood + injuries, tess cameo, childhood/religious trauma, criminal underworld, secrecy/lies, betrayal, ANGST, bamf miller bros, smut, fingering, joel is an emotional munch, shower sex, unprotected PIV, handjob, male whimpering, conflicting emotions, orgasms aplenty, Big Angst and Big Sad but also Big Epiphanies, ambiguous ending, i'm getting emotional writing these tags, it feels so final, the typical alcohol/smoking/profanity, dividers by @/saradika word count: ~ 9.3k a/n: hi, friends. i can't believe we're already at the end of the main story, and tbh if i think about it too much i'll probably cry. i want to thank @cavillscurls for beta reading this chapter as always and giving me the guidance and support i need. we'll have an epilogue after this chapter, so there's still more to look forward to, but nonetheless, i hope you enjoy and thank you so so much for reading. xoxo prev | next

Her eyes are so sad, you think, stepping back to take in the full scope of the canvas. It’s doused in paint from corner to corner, still wet to the touch, the woman and her lover intertwined so thoroughly that it’s difficult to tell where they both end. It’s in shades of glum blue and flecks of angry red and brown where his eye watches you. But it’s her eyes that cannot lift to meet yours. It’s her lashes that fan across her cheeks as she casts her gaze toward the bottom edge where the canvas is wrapped taut around the wood. 

The sun will soon rise, but you haven’t slept. The contours of the sky are washed in a haze of greys and pale blues and light pink and the air smells warm, heavy—a storm about to roll in. The clouds on the horizon are thick with a blackening rage. You sit in the alcove by the window and put your temple to the cool glass. You yawn. Joel does not come back.

“Do you think it's true,” you asked him one night, your head on his chest, hand on his heart, “that art makes nothing happen?”

Joel, drawing shapes on your back, dozing off in the golden light of the sunrise, frowned. “Someone tell you that?”

“It's something my art teacher used to say,” you told him. “No matter how much it moves people, it doesn't do anything.”

“Your art teacher sounds like a fuckin’ downer.”

You laughed, hiking your thigh up over his hip and playfully biting his jaw. “So it's bullshit?”

“I think,” said Joel, tucking his chin to kiss the top of your head, “that your art makes people feel. It brings ‘em together. It's important because it's yours.”

You propped your head up on his chest and threaded your fingers through his too-long hair, overdue for a trim. A curl draped over his forehead, his beard patchy and soft under the pads of your fingers. “Sometimes I wonder why you chose me,” you said. “I wonder why the universe brought you to me.”

Joel shook his head, guiding his rough, callused fingers up your arm, curling them around your wrist, gently prodding your veins. “Wasn't the universe,” he said quietly. “Wasn’t a choice. I was yours the second I saw you. So, I guess it's your fault.”

You just rolled your eyes and kissed him, mouth to smiling mouth. 

Your paintings may be yours, made with life and energy and colour, but when they are finished, they don’t move. They are stagnant as a heavy rock beneath a cliffside, washed over and over again by the cresting waves, its salt stolen for the water, eternal damnation to a fate of non-movement. And sometimes an artist will walk under the cliff, shove their easel into the fleshy ground the way a man erects his country’s flag in the earth he has stolen, and paint the rock. The artist is moved by the breathtaking colours of the shore and the way the wind flutters through the grass. But the rock does not budge. It never will. 

Your art will never erupt from the boundaries of the canvas and tell you what it means. The lovers in your painting will not tear open their mouths like the seams holding a wound together. They will not tell you what they want, need, crave. They are you, and that is what you hate—because dimpled flesh and lustful fingers and the press of his mouth to her throat cannot tell you what you’re supposed to do. 

You had become complacent in his love for you. You had let him press his worn hands to your body and pull your soul out through his mouth and you had been a wife, while all the time there was a stranger who occupied his heart, a spirit in an abandoned body. All the time, he'd been haunted. And although you had loved him, your love had not been enough to exorcise the guilt and trauma, pecking at him, an eagle at his liver. 

Crossing the room and sitting back down in front of the easel, you press your fingers to the corner of the canvas. The paint is cool to the touch, and you leave behind fingerprints where your signature should be. Pulling your hand back, you examine the accumulation of colour, the blues and reds swirling into the deep purple of a bruise, the bodies on a canvas that may only ever mean something to you, and you wonder, Is this all I am? A cautionary tale, a love lost? A fucking footnote at the end of a clause that reads: “See, for example, the one who never loved deeply enough to make it count”?

You bring your hand to your face to wipe away the tears beneath your eyes and blink hard at the sting, realising you’ve smeared paint across your cheekbones. 

In the bathroom, you scrub furiously, the cloying scent of it clinging to your throat and your tear ducts, washing away the evidence of their entwined bodies, their love, your pain. 

Once, you tried to get Joel to paint. You sat behind him on your bench, your legs bracketing his hips, your paintbrush in his hand. 

“I don’t know where to start,” he said.

Your lips brushed the shell of his ear as you spoke. “There’s no rulebook.”

He tried to turn his head and kiss you, but you nipped his ear in reproach. “Remember when you took me out driving at the airstrip because you wanted me to feel the road? Think of this like feeling the canvas. Go on, cowboy. Make nothing happen.”

Joel’s painting still hangs over your shared bed. The intruders never found it, or never cared enough to destroy it. It’s a candle, just a candle, its lines imprecise, the paint unevenly applied in places, the shine of the flame more orange than yellow. But it’s a painting, so the candle always burns. He titled it Love. 

The pain still sits low in your chest, pulling down your heart as if tied to it by a string. But Joel is still out there, fighting his way back to you, the way he always has, always will. You look down at your left hand, clutching the edge of the marble vanity, and decide to clean your wedding ring. 

“I’m sorry, brother,” says Tommy, turning the gun on Joel. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” growls Joel, struggling against his bonds. The clip rattles faintly in his brother’s hand as a tremor courses through him. 

“He’s following my orders,” says Cabrera, clapping his hand down on Tommy’s shoulder. “Fascinating what a man will do when he must consider his family’s well-being.”

Joel sucks on his teeth, his eyes not once leaving his brother. 

“It's my son,” Tommy says through his teeth. “It's Maria. If I don't do this—”

“Yeah? You gonna kill me, Tommy? Is that why your hand’s shakin’?”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” his brother snaps. “You think I want to do this? I gotta save my family, Joel. You know what that's like.”

“All I’ve done for you,” says Joel, his hands curling into fists behind his back, “and you put a bullet in my head?”

“Not just your head, Joel,” says Cabrera. “When we're done with you, we’ll take your pretty girl as payment for my son’s life.”

Joel growls like a dog, blood roaring in his ears. “Kill me yourself, you goddamned coward. Kill me yourself and don’t you mention my wife again, or I swear to Christ—”

“You take His name in vain a lot for a nonbeliever,” says Cabrera, pulling his sleeves through his coat and setting his teeth as he looks toward Tommy once more. “Do it.”

“Yeah, brother,” Joel says darkly, “do it.”

Tommy nods once, planting his foot and pivoting. Five distinct sounds of handguns cocking echo throughout the warehouse as Tommy points the barrel between Manuel Cabrera’s eyes.

“Now that I’ve got a gun to your head,” he says evenly, “you can go ahead and pull that contract.”

Joel at last twists his wrists free of the ropes that bind them and shucks down the sleeves of his jacket to rub the raw skin. Not one soul does a goddamn thing to stop him as he rises to his feet. His chest heaves, his open lungs coarse and wet with a brittle rage, his exposed heart throbbing red, transparent as the stained glass windows of the church.

God does not tolerate anger, said the Sisters, again and again, bringing down the whip across his back. Sinew and bone and skin peeling back to lay bare some tender part of him they sought to rot out. Put your energy into His worship.

Slowly, Cabrera lifts his hands, sneering. “Your wife,” he warns, “and your unborn son—”

“Are family,” says Tommy. “Just like my brother. Now tell your guys to put down their guns and I won't kill you where you stand.”

Joel joins Tommy at his side. “Took you long enough,” he says under his breath. 

“Got held up,” he says. “Your wife’s a good artist.”

“Yeah, whatever. You bring me a gun?”

“I’m sure you can find one yourself.”

“Jesus, Tommy. I’m too old for this.” Joel turns to Cabrera and glares at the same stubborn arrogance that once gleamed in his son’s eye. “You pull the contract, and I’ll leave for good.”

Cabrera’s laugh weans out in the air like rings of smoke. “You think you can really leave, Joel? You think that there won't be consequences for what you've done to my son?”

“Yeah,” says Joel, “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“And you?” Cabrera’s lip curls up at Tommy, whose gun no longer wavers in his grasp. “I promised your wife and child security. You’re willing to throw that away?”

“My wife and child are safe because I don’t take deals from men like you,” says Tommy. “You trusted a Miller to turn on his own blood, Manuel. That was stupid. Now pull the contract.”

“So this is your great suicide mission.” Cabrera smiles, a man who knows he has lost or a man who still expects not to. “A man who has seen Hell does not willingly descend back into its depths—not unless he likes the taste.”

Joel feels the corner of his mouth twitch, a wound on his cheek reopening. “Maybe I do,” he says plainly. “Maybe it’ll taste even better when I take you down with me.”

The gleam in Cabrera’s eye shifts as his gaze flickers behind Tommy. Night has since descended, and yet the predator’s eye glints in anticipation of the hunt. Joel turns and shoves his brother out of the way—just as the shot rings out. 

He hears Tommy’s breath punch out of him as they both hit the concrete hard. Joel tears the handgun from his brother’s grasp and puts a bullet between each of the two men behind them. He rolls behind one of the hulking bodies and holds up his weight as a shield against the incoming bullets. Tommy takes the dead man’s gun and fires at the remaining three assailants. Only one shot misses, but Joel sends his brother a look anyway and finishes the job. 

“Rusty,” grunts Tommy, pushing himself to his feet. 

Joel grimaces as he accepts his brother’s outstretched hand, his wrists bleeding from the relentless rub of the ropes. “He ran,” he says, grinding his teeth. “Goddamn coward. Just like his son.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome, by the way,” says Tommy, giving Joel the dead man’s gun and snatching back his own. “Saved your ass.”

“And he got away.” Joel kicks his chair, and the clattering echo of metal reverberates like a choir off the cavernous walls. His hands flex, open, closed, open, closed, until they make tight fists and he can see nothing but red and the silver moon mocking him through the broken windows high above. 

“Joel…”

For a moment, he hears the young boy his brother once was, whispering across their shared bedroom to him in the middle of the night when they were both meant to be asleep. 

Joel… Are we going to be okay?

“I gotta finish it, Tommy,” he says quietly, his hands shaking loose. Parts of him bite and sting, touched by new and old wounds alike, and he wants to come crawling home to you. He wants to curl into your side and wash away the blood in your cleansing pool, daisy and honeysuckle, some faraway field where you are the warden, where he knocks on the door to be let in, to be gathered, covered in white, buried, unearthed. 

“Was he right?” asks Tommy. “Do you… enjoy this?”

Joel casts his eyes toward the ground, his trembling hand, the gleaming band on his ring finger, his skin speckled with blood but the metal pristine. “I don’t know,” he says. 

This is who you are, Cabrera would tell him. The Sisters: Your place is here, under God, under His word. And God Himself, silent as the air, the ringing in his ears only ever quieted by the soft brush of your knuckle across his cheek, the whisper of My Joel in his ear. 

“Think hard on it,” says Tommy, “because you may like it, but you’ve gotta consider if your revenge is worth more than what you’ve already got. And if you choose wrong, Joel, you’re gonna lose no matter what.”

A figure leans stone-still against the wall by the hotel room door, the gleam of a blade in the soft light the only indication that it is not a mere shadow. 

“Hey, kid,” says the apparition. 

Joel nods in greeting. “Tess. Could get in trouble with that knife out in the open.”

“You expect me to keep your girl safe with just my fists?”

“You make it sound like you couldn’t.” Tess snorts, and Joel places fifteen gold coins in her waiting palm. “I appreciate you doing this.”

Tess peels away from the wall. “You and your brother are paying me good money to babysit a door. I think I can live without the thanks.”

“Still,” he says, “you did us a solid.”

Tess, who itches at the prospect of gratitude as much as any other gun-for-hire, shrugs. “Everyone’s saying you’re coming back. That true?”

“Just visiting,” says Joel. “On my way out soon.”

Tess flips one of the coins and turns it over and over across her knuckles, evidence of a restless energy that’s always made Joel’s eye twitch. “One way or another, huh?” she says.

“One way or another.” He shakes her hand and watches her retreat down the hall, still twirling the godforsaken coin, before he turns toward the door. Joel presses his forehead briefly to the cool wood and turns the key to seek the field that awaits him.

A key rustles in the door and Joel steps through, closing it gently behind him. Judging by the quiet click of the lock, he expects you to be asleep, but you jolt upright from your seat in the alcove and cross the room toward him.

He meets you halfway, his right hand flexing at his side. You inspect him: the gash on his cheek, the bruise on his jaw, the blood splattered on his white shirt. He makes no footfalls as he walks but you can hear every stride like thunder between your ears. You feel his hand at the back of your neck, cool from the night air, rough as the underside of a shark’s belly.

The moment coils taut between you as your hand reaches up to grab the lapel of his jacket, and he smells of iron, cologne, Joel, some paint. Maybe that smell is you, stuck underneath your fingernails, embedded in your blood. Maybe this is a mistake, maybe you could never help but fall, maybe it never mattered anyway, and you’re already snipping the final thread, unwinding the spool, and kissing Joel Miller like it’s the first time. 

He let out a small groan, tasting the first drop of water in a drought, steadying you with his arm around your waist, his hand cradling your head. He’s gentle, exploratory, careful not to jostle, to shock you out of it. You feel his heartbeat thud, strong, calm, steady behind his clothing and skin and muscle, and your body caves.

It’s coming home, you realise, your arms snaking around his neck, fingers tousling the messy curls on his head. It's the warm press of his hand to your spine where it begins to curve inward. It's a soft mouth, a plush lower lip, made for slow mornings and black coffee, for the aching release of a thumb pressing deep into a muscle knot, a wound. Old aches soothed in the space where bodies meet, beginning to colour the slate-grey world. 

It’s the exchange of gasping breaths when you pull apart, his mouth still vaguely chasing yours, opposite charge. 

You hold him tighter, swallowing the lump in your throat, your hands squeezing his shoulders. "Are you…"

Joel inclines his head. "Yeah."

"Did he..."

"Yeah."

Need pulses. Supernova. Bright as the moment of obliteration. "Can you—"

He nods vigorously. "Yeah."

Joel’s kisses are like raindrops: velvet-soft to the touch—his hands bringing the hem of your shirt up over your head, his fingertips scorching, branding, grazing the supple swells of your breasts—before the crescendo roars in your ears and he loses himself to the storm. He always does. 

There is nothing reserved about the way he shows his love. Lightning crackles across your skin where he touches you, baring you to him, his lips making a map of you, mouthing at your jaw, your throat. You hear yourself hum at the press of his lips to the spot beneath your ear, detaching from your own body, absconding with the pleasure of being close to him and leaving the fucking world behind. 

Joel staggers forward so he can press you to the wall and begins to sink to his knees. Your breath catches as he pulls down your ratty bottoms, your cotton panties, his mouth burning into your hips and your belly and the ring on your finger. 

“Joel,” you say brokenly as he clutches your fingers. Tears prickle, pressure building behind your nose, and he shakes his head, unfurling your palm like a bud in bloom and kissing its heel. Wordlessly, you watch him, your eyes shuttering, blood singing. 

Don't hurt me again. 

He understands even though the words cannot come alive on your tongue. He squeezes your hips, his thumbs dumpling your flesh, his forehead falling to your belly. 

“I’m yours,” he says. “I’m whatever you want.”

Your legs haven't forgotten the way they part so easily for him, one thigh on his shoulder, opening the core of you to his waiting mouth. His lips part, his tongue wetting them, glistening, and your stomach tightens at the sight of his eyes so black. 

You could easily cower. His hands are stained with blood. His knuckles are split. But your terror has become an arid thing, no kindling to burn, no oil to ignite. Watching him now, as eager to please as he always has been or maybe more so, on his knees like a supplicant, the hairs on your arms do not rise in apprehension. Your body does not squirm in fear. You see a broad horizon, the sun outside spilling its golden blood over the city, and you see all of him in a way you never did before. 

He’s Joel, who grew up in darkness, lashed and beaten for not believing in a false god. He’s a man who has lied and killed and yet he is no liar, no killer. He holds you as he always has, your body liquid in his hands, your mouth proclaiming the word he will follow. You're the truth he's always told. 

It still unsettles you to see the dark eclipse that warm brown, to watch his desire consume the hypnotic shapes in his irises, and wonder if that cavernous black was the last thing so many men saw before he snuffed out their lives. But there's nothing of the death shudder in the way you guide your fingers through his hair and beg him—

“Please.”

He brings his mouth to your core and parts your folds with his thumbs, slowly gliding his warm, wet tongue through your slit. You die a hundred little deaths in the split-second of that first touch, that first agony.

You sigh, your head thudding against the wall as he licks through you, his hands holding your hips in place, keeping you from writhing. Joel flicks his tongue over the sensitive pearl of your clit, the pleasure searing, and you tug at his curls to push him away even as you cry out, More, please, please. God, I need more.

He obeys you as easily as breathing, though you suspect he can barely hear your pleas, opening his mouth and flattening his hot tongue to your clit. You gasp, your core pulling taut, your eyes locking with his as the muscle undulates over, over, and over again. 

“Oh,” you whimper, your hips bucking to meet his face. He groans, his mouth working your clit, closing his lips over it and sucking. You cry out, your leg kicking, the sounds of the world muffled in his stifling closeness. Your thighs begin to ache, tensing and relaxing a hundred times over in the throes of his attention. 

And his fingers are gliding across your hip, seeking the warmth between your legs. You gasp his name, your hips flexing, as he collects your wetness on two fingers. 

“Let me in, baby,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to your puffy clit. It relaxes you enough to welcome the press of his fingers inside you, sinking to the knuckle, curling up against the spot he would know in his sleep. 

You whine, your body keening toward him, tugging his face back toward your pussy. He obliges with a quiet moan, and you think he needs this just as badly. 

The obscene squelch of his fingers inside you rings in your ears as he licks and sucks at your clit, his free hand grabbing desperately at your ass to keep you fixed to him. You’re crying, “Yesyesyes, Joel, please—fuck, that's it,” the pleasure stuck in the grooves of your brain. Absentmindedly, you reach for his hand and clasp it tight, your engagement ring digging into his palm. He holds you with the same fervour as he coaxes you higher, his face buried in your pussy. He grunts and groans like it's his own pleasure he seeks, his battered knuckles stinging. 

“Joel… Joel, oh, I’m…”

He knows, of course, from the telltale squeeze of your thighs around his head, the relentless crushing of his fingers in your own, your body tightening for him, cavitating, unwinding—

You come with a shout, your throat raw, writhing in his grasp as he keeps sucking, keeps licking, rubbing, pressing. You're dizzy by the time your head lolls to the side, your muscles twitching, eyes glazed, and Joel is there, pulling his fingers out just to place them on his tongue and swallow you down. 

Your breath rattles through your lungs. Joel presses his lips to your inner thigh, beard soaked in your arousal, moustache glistening. His mouth soothes your sore muscles and your eyes begin to droop. 

“You need a shower,” you say, your tongue like lead in your mouth. You gently pass your thumb over a cut on his cheek and frown. “You're all bloody.”

He nuzzles his face against your thigh, inhaling you. “I know.”

“You were gone so long.” Your voice quivers, pressure prickling behind the bridge of your nose. “I thought…”

Joel rises to his feet, his hands cradling your face. “I’m all right,” he says. “I’m here, and I’m safe, and I’m so goddamn sorry.”

You shake your head, pressing your lips together so the sob will not escape. Tracing his face with your fingers, broken in places, healing in others, you see the echo of a boy who didn't know his place in the world. You see the haunt of days gone by. A ghost still occupies the cage of his ribs. 

“I think you should tell the little boy that still lives here,” you say, putting your hand on his chest. “Tell him he’s alive. Tell him that he made it.”

Joel lowers his head, watching the way your fingers splay over his heart. He puts his hand on yours and pushes, and you feel the strong thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat. 

“He knows.”

You lean forward and put your mouth to his temple. “Shower, Joel,” comes your whisper in his ear. 

He nods, wrapping his arm around your waist and guiding you into the bathroom. The water hits you both true, scalding, the drain circled with red. He’s naked, his back to you as he sets his hair and lets his wounds bleed what they need to. 

You lift your hands and trail them down his broad shoulders, your forehead dropping between his shoulder blades where your name is inked into his back. Joel’s muscles idly flex, his palm flat against the shower wall. His body shudders when you press your lips to the name on his back. 

Wordlessly, you bring your arms around him, caressing his side, careful of the new bruises. Your other hand drops to his steel-hard cock and you begin to slowly stroke him. The noise that wrenches free from his throat is half pleasure, half agony, his hips bucking into your fist. You bump your nose against his back, your years-old sign to Just relax, and Joel hides his face in his bicep as you work your hand over him.

“G—fuck,” he grunts. “Goddamn… honey, I—”

You squeeze him at the base and twist your hand up and down the length of him, the weight warm and heavy, your thumb coaxing out a bead of precum. Your cheek is warm on his back, your arm struggling to reach around the width of him, your chest humming at the sound of his gruff moans. 

“Let me…” He cuts himself off as you speed up your strokes, and you can feel his abdomen tense. “Fuck, let me make you feel good. Shit… let me…”

“Joel,” you say, “for once, stop trying to be my hero.”

His head falls back and you press your lips to his throat, nibbling the sensitive spot behind his ear: the old scar, that tiny circle, that hairless patch. He groans your name, and you’re smiling despite yourself, your mouth curling against his warm, tender skin. 

“Inside me,” you whisper, the pace of your fingers over his length slowing to a crawl. “Remind me how it feels.”

He turns his head to look into your eyes, his lashes dewy, blinking hard to flick away the water, brow furrowed. His moustache bristles as his lips part in a question he does not (or maybe cannot) articulate, and you’re fractured into pieces by the intricate curve of his nose, the freckles on his jaw, the silver strands in his beard. A rough hand cups the back of your neck and another takes you by the waist, and you’re flattened to the wall, your hand braced on the glass next to you as he kisses you deeply. 

Consuming, heady, warm—you give in, your hands avoiding the delicate skin of his wrists where he’s been bound, helpless. Sighing softly into his mouth, you let his kiss humble the part of you that still needs the walls you’ve built from the marrow of your anger. It circles the drain, lead-filled paint, as you remember under his hands how it feels to live.

You reach between your bodies, your leg wrapping around his waist, and slide the head of his cock through your weeping slit. Joel sucks in air through his teeth, the water lashing his back like a whip, and he surges forward, grasping you by the waist and sinking his cock into your tight hole. 

You cry out his name, burying your face in his throat and baring your teeth. Your name leaves his mouth in kind, an apparition, sounds you barely recognise anymore. As you take him inside you, the memory of who you were with him pounds at your ribcage, begging to be let out. And you covet them, selfish as you are now for fucking him this way, needy and impatient, your fingers tugging his wet locks. 

You see no point in scooping out the marrow; there is still sweetness stuck to the bones of your old life with him. Instead, you coat your teeth in this, the slow drag of his cock, the depths he reaches so easily, so knowingly. His fingers prod the bruised flesh of your hurt and yet you still guide him inside. You still pull his hair and kiss his throat where his Adam’s apple bobs and you still let him hold you close enough to splinter. 

He’s grabbing fistfuls of your ass and sucking on your throat, his thrusts sloppy as he tries to hold back, to make you come first, but you tighten, clenching down on him, making his groans pitch up into whines. 

“Joel,” you gasp, your needy fingers prickling his scalp where you pull his hair. His teeth graze your throat and you want him to bite, you want him to sink in deep, you want his jaws to latch onto your skin. You want him never to leave again. 

He comes hard. His hips buck, pushing so deep he disappears into your body, and you see the blues, browns, reds of your painting as he empties all he has left inside you. 

Panting, he drops his head to your breast, his open mouth still scattering weak, worn kisses over your skin. Your lungs expand under his palms, fingers stuck in the grooves between your ribs, his body an offshoot of yours, not the other way around. In the ringing afterlife of your pleasure, you vaguely feel him mouthing words you cannot hear. You run your fingers through his hair and enjoy the battering of the scorching water as it melts you both into one.

Later, in the sticky, humid silence of the bathroom, steam still swirling around your heads, fogging the glass, you trim Joel’s hair.

"Do you ever get scared?" you ask him, the shhhick of the scissors gliding across a chunk of his hair. "Do you ever go out on a job and think to yourself, What if I slip? What if this is it?"

Joel huffs. "It's not so much about myself as making sure the other guy goes down first."

“I think I’d be scared.” You twirl a lock of hair around your finger and let it fall over his forehead. “I don’t think I’d be able to look into someone’s eyes and take their life.”

He casts his eyes to his lap, flicking off some hair from his thigh. “One time, I thought it was over. I wasn’t quite seventeen yet, runnin’ drugs for some gangster. He sent me to El Sauzal to discreetly transport a couple kilos out of the city; someone had snitched and he didn’t want any rival gangs to find his stash. But the people there, they… They didn’t know any better. There were mothers, kids. Innocent people, y’know? Just strays. I decided I’d come back for ‘em.”

Your stomach twists. “What happened?”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “I was too late. By the time I got back, the whole goddamn city was on fire. The people were either dead in the streets or close to it. They didn’t do anythin’ wrong. They didn’t ask for any of it. But they were weaker, slower. I couldn’t walk ten feet without seein’ some kid wrapped up his mother’s arms, burned to a fucking crisp. So, I came back with weapons, marched into the gang’s territory, and I killed ‘em all.”

Days ago, you’d be afraid of the man whose back warms your belly where you stand just behind him. You would hesitate to reach out and put your hand on his shoulder the way you do now. But you curl your fingers over the muscled curve of his arm and his head falls back against you, spidering open, his gooey molten centre bared for you.

Joel. Just Joel. 

“Did you see the painting?” you ask him quietly. 

“I see everything you do,” he says. “It's beautiful, baby.”

You drop your gaze from his face in the mirror and set down the scissors on the vanity. “I can't pretend to understand what you've been through, Joel, and that makes things even harder. All I've ever wanted is to love you, to take your pain, and all this time there's been so much I never even knew about. And I’m sorry.”

Joel’s hand comes to cover yours, clasping your fingers. They’re warm, rough, but you do not sense the phantom blood. “If I’d told you from the beginning,” he says, “maybe I never would've hurt you in the first place. All those years I thought I was protecting you from myself, I was hurting you—the one thing I swore I would never fuckin’ do.”

“Joel…”

“Baby, don't apologise to me,” he says firmly, putting his lips to your knuckles. “Never apologise to me. And don't you let me off easy.”

“Have I ever?” you say with a halfhearted smile. 

“Yeah,” he says, “the day you let me marry you.”

You scoff. “Oh, please. Wedding planning was hell on earth for you.”

“Just because I didn't like the photographer—”

“You didn't not like the photographer, Joel. You wanted to draw and quarter the photographer.” 

He huffs like an angry dog, frowning at you in the mirror. “He kept puttin’ his goddamn hands on you.”

You laugh, brushing your thumb over the patch in his beard to indicate you're finished. “He was posing us, cowboy.”

Joel rises to his feet and closes the scissors away inside the drawer. “Posin’ you, sure.”

“He was afraid to touch you. Probably thought you’d take off his hand. And the pictures turned out great.”

“Yeah,” he says, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Way the sunlight caught in your hair, your eyes… I don't know. Beautiful.”

He was so shy the first time you kissed him. Cheeks flushed, eyes cast toward the ground, the wind ruffling his curls where it blew over the water. He was made in an artist’s image, you thought that night, the details pored over like paperwork, the sparkle in his eyes something the painter covets. But the portrait has never wilted in the years you've known him. It's grown older, sure, but it is not old. He's still shy sometimes; he still looks down when he smiles, and he still turns his cheek when you tell him he's beautiful. 

“Do you…” He rubs his palms over his thighs, looking up at you through his lashes. “Do you wish you could go back?”

It's your turn to sit. You drop into his chair, your arms curling over the back of the seat, and watch him on his journey to his knees. “I don't know, Joel,” you tell him. “I think about that day and part of me wants the magic of it back. I want the breeze and the sun and the white canopy and I want you sliding this ring on my finger. But knowing what I know now…”

“You wouldn't have married me,” he says like it's the only answer. His eyes are wet and sad and they sparkle so bright in the day. 

“I wish I’d known,” you say plainly, bringing his hand to your cheek and resting it over the cool wedding band. “I wish you would have told me everything. I wish you didn't make me question your love, even for a second. I wish you could have spared me all this anger I have—all this pain.”

He’s stone-still, a figure in a portrait, and you brush your fingers across his cheek. “But killing isn't what you are, Joel. It’s what you do. And I’m so tired of being angry.”

You say it fiercely, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, your throat tightening. You swipe your thumbs under your eyes and meet your husband’s eye. “I love you more than my anger and my hurt have room for. And if I can love you this hard, if I can feel all this pain and still be that same girl who fell for the guy from the restaurant, then I can let myself get hurt all over again.”

Joel shakes his head, cupping your face in his hands as his eyes brim with tears. “Oh, baby…” 

“I know it's never been an easy marriage,” you say, your voice breaking, “and I’m always travelling, and I know that I can get snippy and we bicker, but I wouldn't go back to that day, Joel, because I wouldn't change anything. Even if I have to feel all of this again, I wouldn't take it all back.”

His inhale shudders through him and your heart lurches out of your chest. “I don’t deserve that,” he whispers, his thumb stroking your cheek, catching a tear that falls. “I’ve hurt you too much to ever be worthy of what you've given me, sweetheart. I ain't a good man, or even a decent one. But fuck, if I can be good for you, I’ll pray to whatever God they want me to. I’ll scrape my knees and put my hands together and fake it ‘til I’m someone you want. I swear it, baby.”

“Joel.” You gently pry his hands away. “The life you've lived, the things you've been through… I can't change any of it. I can't be what you need all the time, and fuck, I want to be. I do, Joel. But this life is something you have to figure out yourself. Nobody should force you to believe in something that's only ever caused you pain.”

He never told you about the tattoo; you had to find it yourself. Shucking the hem of his shirt up over his head, two weeks separating the last time you’d been able to indulge in his body, you trailed your fingers up his back and paused at the sound of him hissing through his teeth. 

“Easy, cowboy,” you cooed. “Are you all right?”

Wordlessly, he turned, taking your hand and lifting it to the reddish skin around the black ink. You gasped, your fingers jolting backward as if struck by a feeler of lightning. 

“Joel,” you said tremulously, “please don't tell me you were drunk and this was an impulse decision.”

“Guys in the Marines would get tattoos that meant somethin’ to them. Easier to carry around with you when you're away.” Joel met your gaze again, your tearful eyes, and brought your knuckles to his mouth. “Tell me you want it gone, and it's gone.”

You shook your head, a laugh snaking past the lump in your throat. “Selfishly, I think it’s very sexy.”

He chuckled, kissing the breath from your lungs. 

The memory is heavy in your stomach. It's something you'll have to roll around in your mouth a thousand times before the taste begins to dissolve. 

“I need time, Joel,” you tell him. “I need to wrap my head around things. I… I can't be the girl you want right now.”

Joel brushes his thumb over your chin. “You have always been the girl I want,” he says. “If you need time, you have it. If you need a warm body, you have it. I’m whoever you want me to be. And if it ain't a husband, then… then that's okay. But I can’t promise you that I won't stop tryin’ to get my wife back. That’s not who I am.”

You sniffle, twirling the ring on his finger. “You’ll get sick of it. The waiting.”

He smiles so softly that you can feel a bud begin to bloom in the core of you, nourished by the way he keeps his hand on your thigh, absently rubbing the sore muscles there.  “I waited my whole life for someone like you to come along—someone who could give me the purpose I’d been lookin’ for. I can wait another lifetime. I can wait a thousand.” 

“You’ll resent me. You’ll start to hate me.” You don't know why it comes pouring out of you, but the gates are brittle wood and they snapped in the torrent. “I’m an angry drunk. I smell like paint half the time. I travel for work.”

Joel just studies your face, some inexplicable calm etching out the agony. “You take your coffee with milk and sugar and you can't stand it black, but you make it that way for me anyway. You sleep until noon when you're jet lagged and I sit up in bed just to watch you dream. You lie in my arms on the couch at home and ask me about my day even when you're noddin’ off. You dreamed about love when you were a little girl, the way it happens in books. You told me in your wedding vows that you'd found it with me. You think I could resent a girl like that?”

He smiles like it hurts and heals all at once, like it's a foregone conclusion, like you were meant to be loved by him. 

“Time doesn't mean a goddamn thing. I know the girl I see in front of me now. Time won't change how much I love her.”

Flipping through the list of potential venues, Joel tucked into your side, you said, “We’ll have an outdoor ceremony. No churches.”

“Baby, I won't burst into flames if I step inside a church.” Joel playfully flicked his tongue over your nipple, obscured by his T-shirt. “Tommy, on the other hand… things he's done…”

You laughed, gently pushing at his head. “No churches,” you said again. “I don't care how much more we’ll have to pay or travel to get around it. You're my husband. You're my comfort, and I want to be what's comfortable for you. Understood?”

He looked up at you, his lips parted as if on the precipice of speech. You beamed, bringing his face to yours and kissing him deeply. 

“But if the wind knocks over the gazebo, you're not getting your dick inside me on our wedding night,” you said against his mouth. Joel shook his head, yanking you on top of him and tearing the shirt from your body. Your binder landed with a flutter of loose pages to the floor. 

“You didn't kill Cabrera.”

Joel lowers his eyes. “No. He got away.”

“So there's still a contract on your head.”

“For now.”

“So,” you say with a sigh, crossing the room and digging through your bag, “you have to go.”

“I have to go,” he echoes, following you like a shadow. “No matter what… I’m finishing it. Tonight.”

You pull the switchblade from your bag, open Joel’s fist, and place the cool wood hilt in his palm. 

“Goddammit, Tommy,” he says under his breath. “He shouldn't have…”

“But he did,” you say. “He said I should be the one to have it. I think it should be yours.”

He curls his fingers over the hilt and flicks open the blade. It's light, but it seems to weigh him down. You rest your hand over his. 

“Do what you need to do.”

He drops his forehead to yours and closes his eyes, soaking in this final breath exchanged between your silent bodies, dipping his fingers in the sanctified waters and coming out unscalded. 

Bill calls Joel not a moment after he steps onto the street outside the Continental. 

“That's a heavy price on your head.”

“Yeah, Bill, I know.” He breathes in the cool air, like cigarette smoke, his nostrils stinging. Trash and a new, fresh breeze carried into the city. Nothing that stays here ever thrives. “Stayed alive so far.”

“So I hear,” grunts the Manager, “and leaving behind a hell of a lot of cleanup.”

“I won't stick you with the check,” says Joel. “It's my business.”

“I don't conduct business inside this hotel,” says Bill, “which is why I won't tell you that a certain helicopter at a certain helipad is refuelling as we speak.”

Joel smirks, flicking out his cuff to check the time. “Any reason why you aren't tellin’ me this?”

“I like you, Joel. Despite myself.” 

Silent, he waits for more. 

“Besides,” Bill continues, “we live and die by honour. And you've saved my ass more than once.”

Joel snorts. “Which time are you thankin’ me for?”

“Just take my goddamn advice and leave this world. For good this time.”

“I will,” says Joel. “One way or another. Thanks, Bill.”

High above the ground, sitting in the alcove by the window, you watch storm clouds gather over the city, darkening the sky, the sun, and your Joel, so far away, slouching calmly toward whatever end he will choose. 

It's raining. 

The first time you kissed him, a downpour suddenly swept up the both of you and you'd scrambled underneath a bridge by the water. You both laughed until your ribs were sore, holding hands as you ran, a soaking wet playbill above each of your heads for cover. 

“At least the show was good,” you shouted over the roar of the rainfall. 

Joel was mesmerised into stillness by the colours of the traffic lights in your eyes, how they shifted over the planes of your face. Starting to think like an artist, you'd tease, and he'd lean into it, a planet circling its sun. 

“It was all right,” he said, taking the playbill from your hand. “You could catch a cold. We should get a cab.”

“Always my hero.” You grinned up at him, your eyes scanning his face in that particular way they did, as if ingesting the sight of him to later put the lines to a canvas. “Did you have a good time, Joel? I mean, really. You won't offend me.”

He grimaced. “I, uh… well, see, I’m not the best judge, and… I guess—”

“Joel.”

There was a gleam in your eyes that could have been amusement or could have been hunger. He doesn't remember. He only saw you tilt your chin and lower your eyes to his mouth, to that one place the Sisters always called vulgar, obscene, a place meant only for His word—

“Can I kiss you, Joel Miller, or will you keep being all heroic?”

It was soft, gentle, exploratory. Your mouth opened his like a wound, setting the scorching blade of your lips to the gash, staunching the blood. You healed and burned him, one hand on his back beneath his jacket, the other cupping his face. It reminded him of the statue that lived in the theatre underneath the church where all the boys and girls trained. An angel cast in white marble, cradling the face of Saint Eustace. The statue was chipped where his eye was meant to be. 

He remembers the way he shuddered when you touched him like that. He remembers the chill that started in his feet and crept up his spine. Something like coming alive, settling back into his own body—no longer a spirit haunting the shell of a home but a man. 

You pulled back, but Joel curled his hand around the back of your neck and kissed you again, deeper, maybe a little too eager, too inexperienced—but you gasped, fingers curling in his hair, your body curving into his. Your noses bumped when you separated, and he remembers laughing. 

The rain is nothing like that night. It's the lash of a whip across his face, seeping colour from the world instead of infusing it with light and movement. The water by the docks slaps against the concrete and boats rock and groan against their mooring. The lights of the city are distant now. 

Joel steps out of the car. 

He marches toward his target, cocking the pistol in his hand, and calls out a name. It gets lost in the roll of thunder across the sky and lodges in his chest. 

Cabrera waits on the landing pad, looking wraithlike in a long black coat and a pair of leather gloves. His pilot fuels the helicopter nearby. Neither of them hear Joel’s voice in the air. The rising sun is what gives him away—or maybe the gunshot, as he lifts his arm and pulls the trigger. 

It does not pierce flesh. It ricochets off one of the rotor blades. He had aimed slightly to the left. 

The pilot scampers off into hiding, but the slash of the bullet through the rainfall is enough to get the attention Joel wants. Cabrera reaches inside the lining of his jacket and fires a single shot. Joel can feel it tear through skin and muscle, but it doesn't hurt. 

“Joel,” greets Cabrera. 

“Manuel.” 

His chest heaves, his jacket soaked through, the cold sinking bone-deep. 

“Let's finish this.”

The glimmer in those depthless black eyes is the panther at the hunt, relentless in its hunger, licking its chops at the sight of a challenge. For all the coward’s blood in his veins, it still pulses at the prospect of winning. 

“Like men,” says Cabrera, tossing his gun aside at the same time Joel does. “With honour. No more guns.”

And it's laughable: the thought that there is any honour left in a world like this. A world where children are beaten and lashed and trained to hold a weapon too big for their hands. A world that burns villages, butchers families, and still claims that without rules, we live with the animals. 

A world as unruly as this cannot be ruled. He never truly considered it until he saw the sad gleam in your eye, felt the empathetic touch of your hand on his face, and began to realise that maybe he should be furious. 

But because he already knows he's going to win, Joel lets his opponent land the first blow. 

The blood is tangy, near-sweet, as he swipes his forearm over his mouth and smears crimson on his shirtsleeve. It tingles faintly on his lips and crackles, warm as the melt from a late-winter snow. He feels it settle in the grooves of his palms, the hairs of his beard. He’s drowning in it. 

Cabrera hits hard, but he’s slow. He’ll take five punches in the time it takes to wind up for one. Joel brings his arm up to block the next and delivers a blow to the sternum with his knee as his opponent’s guard drops. Wide open, Cabrera stumbles a few steps back, choking down the telltale wheeze of being winded. Joel marches forward, relentless in his crusade, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, teeth bared like a mad wild dog, and bears his skull down on the side of the railing. Around them, the wind howls and lashes at his clothes, but he still hears the pained scream as if it were poured into his ears. 

Cabrera drops to his knees, and Joel grabs him again, bashing his head repeatedly against the steel bar, the lapel of an Italian leather coat bunching between his fingers, tainted by rainwater and the fist of the man who's come to take his life. 

And fuck, Joel wants to make it last. 

But there's a knife in his opponent’s hand, conjured from the darkness of his coat pocket, and Joel must release him to avoid the lethal slash of the blade. Blinking blood and lashing rain from his eyes, the man lunges with a snarl, and Joel recovers from his lost victory, stopping him with his fingers curled around his opponent’s wrist. He brings his hand to the crook of Cabrera’s elbow and uses his leverage to snap the bone.

Yowling, Cabrera drops to his haunches, the knife clattering to the ground. Joel, chest heaving, stands over him, flexing his fingers as he readies his fist for the killing blow.

His name leaves Cabrera’s bloodied mouth, accompanied by a mouthful of crimson-tainted saliva spat on the ground at Joel’s feet. 

“Joel…” He lifts his head, cradling his broken arm, and sneers. There’s a chilling glow of satisfaction in it. “Did you get your perfect life, Joel? Do you really think you’ve won? It won’t ever stop. Not after you’ve killed me, not after you’ve killed all of them. Is that what you’re going to do? Kill them all?”

He could. He has done far worse. He has spilled blood for gold coins and superficial alliances and someone else's revenge. He has stalked, stolen, lied, killed, and he could finish this now, so easily, with the flick of a blade. 

But the song of death does not call to him now. 

For so long he had trudged, unmoored, through heavy crimson blood. Like pulling at the seams of velvet, he'd sewn more lives into the sea of red and he never looked behind him to see the souls trying to pull him down at the ankles. He didn't know purpose until he saw the way the candlelight flickered in your eyes, until he tilted his head to the side and realised your smile was a new kind of beautiful from each angle. 

The rain sticks to his lashes and he thinks of an old song of prayer the Sisters used to chant. He remembers curling his fingers around one of the rosaries that hung from the large cross in the cathedral and wincing in anticipation. He thought he would burn—that the metal would leave a red stain on his palm. It never did. 

Maybe that's why he never believed. Surely, if there was a God, Joel Miller would have burned by now. 

He thinks of shopping for furniture and date nights and lazy mornings, tangled in bedsheets. Your mouth, smiling against his, whispering I love you across the breakfast table. Dancing—or swaying, more like—under the kitchen light. Loving easily, never feeling as if he must grab hold of the cross and burn himself upon it just to feel. 

Joel turns the switchblade in his hand, lurches forward, and plunges the knife into Cabrera’s chest. 

There is no noise but a faint gurgle from his mouth, his hand weakly rising to grasp the hilt. Joel drops to his knees and fishes Cabrera’s cell phone from his pocket. 

“The blade is stuck in your aorta,” he says. “If you pull it out, you’ll bleed out and die.” He puts the rain-slick screen in front of Cabrera’s face. “Pull the contract.”

A few feeble taps are all it takes, and Joel Miller is no longer a target. His name glares back at him on the screen, from two million to nothing, not the boogeyman any longer but something akin to a civilian. Joel tosses the phone into the water and turns to leave. 

“See you in hell, Joel,” Cabrera chokes, still grasping the shiny wooden hilt of the blade.

He barely hauls himself into the car, which chokes to a rumbling start. There's blood seeping through his shirt where Cabrera shot him, and his fingers shake as they pull away from the wound, the red so bright, so alive. Joel grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. 

If there’s a God, he thinks, I hope you fucking hear me now. 

Tell me that we don’t get what we deserve. Because there is nothing I deserve in this world if I cannot keep what I’ve found.

His fingers trembling, smearing blood across the screen, he makes a call. 

And your voice on the line, soft, sticky with sleep, whispering his name—just his name: Joel?—is what wrenches the first sob from his throat. 

Joel, you say, like it means something, like it's precious. A jewel pressed from dusty black coal. Come back to me. Come home. 

So he does. 

[cenorii]

Wesker: personality

This is my psychological analysis of the character, which includes important details of the story, an analysis of the decisions they made and the concept of the phenomenon of «Guiding Fear». Contains spoilers!

Even if you know lore 100%, you will be able to learn something new from my thoughts

I did this to practice analyzing personalities and reliably prescribe my own characters.

[These are all my personal reflections that I have been accumulating and analyzing for six months. You can see the same analysis with Chris here. In Wesker's case, I dispel the myths that he is evil-evil and crazy, it's not that trivial here... Thanks to everyone who reads this, I really appreciate it and it's nice to know that my thoughts are of interest to someone!]

The most difficult subject of all. An attempt to embrace the immensity. He is infantile and the desire to prove this quality forced me to write such a huge article.

Wesker embodies the fear of losing himself, the anxiety of being someone he is not. He knows nothing about himself from the beginning, neither his Spencer-prescribed destiny nor his real name. As he tries to resist and exercise his individuality, he is eventually confronted with the truth that his every move has been pre-planned, never answering the questions: where are his own decisions? Where is he himself? What is really his?

I chose this fear for Wesker for a reason. The fear of losing himself can cause a person to purposely distance himself from others and not allow anyone to get close to him. He strives to shield himself from everyone, and we can observe this in his desire to be alone. Outwardly, such a person may appear indifferent and cold, even indifferent, so as not to give away to others (and to himself) his true feelings and needs. Wesker believes that it is right not to show anyone that something matters to him, otherwise he will develop weaknesses. After all, what people hold dear can be manipulated. And he doesn't want anyone to have control over him. He hates being controlled, so his surroundings know the bare minimum of information about him.

Who's Spencer? One of the founders of Umbrella, to put it succinctly. A man who is obsessed with identical mansions and mysteries and immortality and creating «perfect humanity». Rich and powerful.

But let's get to Wesker's story. A lot of things happened to him in his 48 years of life.

First of all, I want to point out that at an early age he was taken from a family that Spencer believed had a unique combination of intelligence and genes. But he wasn't the only one who was treated this way as part of «project W» (the experiment to create the perfect human). There were hundreds of children who were later given the surname Wesker. Until their adulthood, they received the best education, living in a boarding school (presumably), and were selected to be the best.

The children, being a blank slate, absorbed Spencer's teaching, being brought up according to his ideals. Their lives were pre-scripted, every step of the way. Those who were unremarkable were weeded out. Competition, anxiety. The lack of a normal childhood could breed a fear of losing oneself in every Wesker, for life was controlled. Personal boundaries and choices were absent, Spencer's worldview was pounded into everyone's head. Children were also distorted with notions of right and wrong, forced to be emotionally detached from a non-ideal world. This upbringing has produced people who have no empathy for others, empty machines with no personality of their own, ready to perform perfectly in any job in which they find themselves successful. They see the world through Spencer's eyes, but not their own.

In the end the best were 13 people, where number 12 was Alex Wesker and number 13 was Albert, the one in question. Someone who really always wanted to see the world with his own eyes, wanted to transcend.

The 13 candidates, following Spencer's plan, had to mature before moving on to the final stage of project W - injecting themselves with a special prototype virus. The power that this virus can bestow is so great that an immature individual, according to Spencer, has no right to possess it. In theory, this virus should improve a person, make him perfect, but in fact it turned out to be very selective and killed 11 candidates out of 13. Only Alex and Albert survived. Alex didn't gain any strength, because at the time of the injection she was sick, and the virus cannot improve a weak organism. But her half-brother was lucky, and the virus endowed him with all possible positive properties, changing his body and turning him into an almost immortal creature, looking completely like a human. That is, outwardly, except for the color of his eyes, nothing had changed in him. At the time of the injection, they were both 38.

I don't believe in theory that he lost his «humanity» due to mutation. On the contrary, he was never «human» in the classical sense of the word. He, like the others, was raised not to show empathy for others and was indoctrinated to believe that he was superior. Wesker had not changed, but because of his newfound freedom, he was no longer constrained by the limits Spencer's upbringing had placed on him.

When Wesker was 18, he was sent to the «Umbrella Executive Training School» with his future friend William Birkin, who was 16. They were research associates. As one could guess, the stress didn't end with his childhood, it coexisted with it. Following the text from his report, Wesker continued to feel like a mere toy in the hands of Umbrella, and further in the hands of Spencer, he literally raved in every paragraph about the old man. And to get out of this state was impossible from his words.

He and Birkin were led to Lisa Trevor, a subject who had been physically and psychologically abused in this School for many years. The horrible picture that opened before them, gave Wesker confidence that he could be in her place if he did his job badly. But he had no idea that he'd always been there, that every stage of his life was Spencer's experiment, just not as ugly.

Wesker wrote in his report: «We had two choices: succeed in our research... or lie here and rot like her. Thus we had only one option. This woman tied to a pipe touched something in our minds»

These thoughts are literally a revelation of his subconscious fear that has haunted him since childhood. A manifestation of humanity.

When Wesker entered this School, he felt freedom and saw the horrors of science for the first time. Perhaps a turning point in his life, for in order not to lose that little freedom, and his life, he had to do as he was told. Had to adjust and ignore the rationalism screaming inside. Working there greatly affected Birkin and Wesker, but Wesker had to transfer elsewhere to get more information about Spencer and also because of the realization that he had reached his research limit. When Birkin started studying the G-virus, Wesker realized that it was beyond his knowledge. Although he was good at science, he didn't want to do it all the time, he wasn't looking to improve his skills and knowledge, reaching for something else, as if trying everywhere, trying to find his place.

Close to the age of 38, Wesker gets a job in a special police unit as Captain of the S.T.A.R.S. Squad and a double agent. But he was already then pursuing a personal goal and found himself a triple agent. His goal was not simply to test bioweapons on members of his squad, as the assignment stated, but to escape with the results to another organization. The only way to break free from the influence of Umbrella, which is why he gave up his best people so easily.

It's unclear why he planted supplies on Chris in a difficult moment and helped him in every way he could if the trial was supposed to go «natural». Perhaps he wanted Chris to 100% make it to the final trial, but Chris was doing fine without it. Maintained the image of the captain? Game rules? Anything is possible. I'll use the code word «WX» to note this behavior, because I'll come back to this topic a few more times. «WX» stands for Wesker's penchant for actions that do not conform to his basic behavior, including helping others that does not bring him any personal benefit or benefit. In other words, good without any reason.

At the mansion, Chris and Jill get rid of the bioweapons in their path and make their way to the lab, where they catch Wesker off guard. There are 12 endings in the game, but only the one where Wesker is stabbed in the stomach by the Tyrant is canonical, as that is the ending depicted in Umbrella Chronicles, where the story is told on his behalf.

He survives by regenerating from a pre-injected prototype virus, but it's unclear if his death was part of the plan. His first report states that Wesker planned his temporary death from the Tyrant, but in subsequent retellings of this moment, I began to question how relevant this report was. His reaction and facial emotion shown in the re1 remake described surprise. But he couldn't be faking it at that moment, because he already had his back turned to Jill and Chris. Considering the way Wesker in Umbrella Chronicles describes his death, it seems like he really didn't expect this. Something didn't go according to plan. He didn't plan for this kind of trauma to activate the virus within him.

The point about the prototype virus is also worth mentioning. Birkin, on Spencer's orders, misled Wesker by telling him that this substance was developed specifically for him. That is, Wesker did not know the truth and details about having a huge probability of simply dying from the injection. Judging by the information in the notes, if Wesker had not injected it into himself, the virus would have entered his body in some other way, it was inevitable. The remaining 12 Weskers were injected with the virus, some by force, some at the request of a friend, and some under the guise of vaccination.

Let's take it a little further. Wesker was declared dead and moved on to another organization. Now his plan was to get rid of the sinking ship that is Umbrella. But why was he so intent on destroying it? It could have been a personal vendetta, after all, it was Umbrella that had manipulated his life and taken away his freedom. It was also a way to prove to his new organization that he was worth something.

By executing his plan, he inadvertently helped Chris and Jill, who were seeking the same thing. I'd call it «WX», but since he was pursuing a personal goal for his own benefit, it's 50\50.

Then in re4 he gives Ada the task finds the amber with the parasite Plaga. Considering that Wesker moves quietly around the island in the remake, it's odd that he didn't get that amber himself. With the power and speed from the virus, he took it all on the shoulders of one Ada, who was also infected during the mission, which only wasted his time. Didn't want to get his hands dirty? Maybe. But if he had gotten them dirty, the mission would have been completed faster, and isn't that a tactical advantage?

In the remake, he manifests «WX» (DLC Separate Ways) when he shows up at just the right moment for Ada and saves her from the ganados. After likely killing them with a gun, he takes a passed out Ada to Mendez's bedside, where he gives her a temporary recovery shot (or draws her blood?) But you know what's even weirder? He purposely chose a comfortable place for Ada, rather than laying her down on the ground somewhere. He was also there with her the entire time she was lying unconscious. I'd put an exclamation point on that weirdness, because... why? First of all, why did he save her when he could have continued the mission in her place? Recall Code Veronica, there Wesker arrived on the island with his HCF squad, but then we find his soldiers infected. He showed no concern for them and actually continued the mission on his own. Second, why did he keep sitting there? To scold and pathos leave?

He envisioned the option of Ada's possible betrayal and later stole Krauser's body, from which he had already extracted the Plaga sample, but he saved her anyway. Why? All of Ada's subsequent tasks on the island he could also have accomplished on his own and much faster. It's not like he was very busy if he allowed himself to sit with a sleeping Ada. The next meeting with Ada takes place on the elevation. Wesker brings her a case, pointing a gun at her. What is this gesture for? I don't think he sees her as a threat. Maybe it's a way to lend weight to his words, but doesn't he consider his authority absolute? He's a much bigger threat than the gun in his hand, so it's an odd action that makes him seem insecure.

After Ada's betrayal, one of Wesker's allies informs him that her helicopter can be attacked, but he refuses, calling it her "little act of defiance". Thus, he gives someone the Plaga sample she stole, and also spares Ada herself. It's «WX», though he could have gotten rid of two problems at once - the traitor and the competition.

We are now transported to the future, in the DLC for Re5 – «Lost in Nightmares». Here's where the fun begins.

DLC reveals to us that something has been bothering Wesker all his life, and that something is a subconscious manipulation that has been psychologically programmed into every Wesker. The so-called «Spencer's presence». It was a defense mechanism that constantly caused a sense of anxiety and a desire to seek out Spencer, to obey him. But this defense stopped working as soon as the old man met his prodigal son and told him everything. Wesker learned from him the whole truth about himself and about «project W», that his whole life had been manufactured. Then the defenses in his head were destroyed and he quietly killed Spencer, appropriating his dream for himself. He failed to deal with the realization of the truth, taking his dream of becoming God and creating a perfect humanity. An infantile fantasy of an unjust world that needed to be changed to fit his ideals.

In that moment, he faced his fear head-on. There she was - the cause of his fears, the person who had gotten into the depths of his mind, into his innermost being. Spencer. And now this old man was lying bloody on the floor. Perhaps Wesker should have been relieved and finally started living the life he wanted, not this old man. But he had taken Spencer's dream for himself, thus, once again acting against his will. In doing so, he didn't walk away from the problem, but exacerbated it without even realizing it. Wesker must have guessed that he had some problems, but his inflated ego that prevented him from thinking about it, screaming that he couldn't have any flaws. The problem became a hole that he tries to fill with things like this.

Whereas other characters conquer their fears by facing them, Wesker drowned in them, unwilling to change anything. His entire personality was built on the horror of losing himself, and when he found out that he basically had no self all his life, he lost his mind. He decided, since this world was unfair to him, then he needed to completely rewrite it and turn it into his own utopia, in which he would be whoever he wanted, untouchable, whom no one would point out and control.

However, thanks to the re4r (DLC Separate Ways), we now know that similar thoughts haunted Wesker even before he met Spencer. His desire to change people and start a new era he expresses after the credits. With this, the writers patched a few plot holes that appeared after re5. Now Wesker sounds like he didn't assign Spencer's goals to himself, but even before meeting him, he decided on a vision based on his upbringing.

Unfortunately, there is a long known scripting problem re5, because Wesker was not planned as a character who will survive the events of this game, so his motivation sounds stereotypical and stupid, because his plan and should not have been realized. Must be in the remake they will fix this flaw, because the beginning has already been made. His moment of frustration after killing Spencer is interrupted by Chris and Jill coming up. Consumed by rage, Wesker is seriously trying to kill Chris this time, or he was playing with him again, knowing that he would not oppose him. After saving her partner from death, Jill pushes Wesker out the window, falling down onto the rocks with him. After falling off a cliff, Wesker obviously survives, but also saves Jill. Why not just leave her to die? Why treat her and then plan to make her a test subject? Aren't there other healthy people out there? Stupid and empty revenge is not in his character. This is just another manifestation of «WX» and his obsessive desire to cling to the past.

I don't have much to say about re5, because Wesker died there, or we were made to think so. The only thing I will mention is his unhealthy attitude towards Chris. He displays it at every chance he gets. The notes about Wesker in Umbrella Chronicles state «As a spy he held the concurrent post of S.T.A.R.S. Captain and has been impressed by Chris' combat abilities since then», and during the events of Umbrella Chronicles, Wesker said the phrase «Chris, it appears our fates are forever intertwined». In the re1 remake and Code Veronica, he openly stated that Chris was «his best man» in a sort of unobtrusive admiration. It's no longer possible to perceive Redfield as separate from Wesker.

Each time he points a gun at him, Wesker never takes a shot on target. In the battle on the airplane, he points the gun at Chris without even putting his finger on the trigger. Such a good opportunity to kill him, to get rid of the enemy for good, and he just stands there holding a gun he's not even going to use. Just take the shot and it's over, but no, he's standing there babbling on as if it's actually that much more important to him. It's like Wesker was looking for an opportunity to vent to the very person from his past. It's reminiscent of the moment he pointed the gun at Ada. It's like he was trying to add weight to his words, to show the importance of what he was doing.

In Code Veronica, he decided to play with Chris instead of killing him. So many opportunities were missed, as if he couldn't physically hurt «his best man». Chris is Wesker's only drop of common sense. If he was sure of what he was doing, and also sure of himself, he wouldn't have left Chris any chance of survival. He would have killed Redfield at the first opportunity, but he stands there every time and doubts what he's doing. Chris is a kind of controlling element to him that constantly makes him hesitate.

And this strange hatred for Chris also raises questions. Maybe he hates him because he was jealous of what he owned? Something that cannot be obtained with money. Support, understanding, the love of a sister and close people, trust. Wesker compulsively convinced himself that he was not made for such things, for even having a sister, they did not possess affection. From the beginning he had no friends and his only companion was Birkin, though their relationship could hardly be called a normal friendship. He had no family or loved ones, and the only support he received came from «patrons» who were actually agents of Spencer and Umbrella. Seeing the Redfields supporting each other in difficult moments, being heroic, Wesker truly realized that he would never do the same. He has no people he holds dear, nor does he have those who hold him dear. There are no irreplaceable people in his worldview, but this connection between Redfields is probably beyond his comprehension. It's a simple human problem, which is why he's so fixated on himself, because if he loses the only thing he has, he'll have nothing left. He's miserable and drowning in his own despair.

While interacting with Chris on the volcano, Wesker first reveals his idealistic, infantile nature, naively dreaming of a better world without war and disease. Losing control of his powers and realizing that he will not defeat Chris in such a state, he decides to overdose himself with Ouroboros, which in the end does not make him stronger at all, but only slows him down, making him drown not only in weakness, but also in his own uncontrollable anger and frustration. Events are moving too quickly and so it can be assumed that his words here are not addressed to Chris, but to himself. After all, in the last battle he claimed to be «saving the world» and now he wonders «is it worth saving?» He dies without knowing the answer.

«However, there is no point in power if it consumes itself» his phrase, well suited to the situation at hand.

Btw, in the original idea, the moment before he died, his eye color would become natural, showing despair and horror. An interesting idea that was discarded.

I would also like to parse his phrases: «Only those with superior DNA will be chosen by Uroboros. Only those fit for survival will be allowed to carry their genes into a new age!» Also, «I don't need anyone else. I have Uroboros!»

Wesker is more aware of how the world works than anyone else. Corruption, betrayal, human vice and filth. He had to participate in it to achieve his goal, had to go through a lot of disgusting people for the sake of getting benefits, himself to sink to their level. Seeing this, he has become disillusioned with people, so he wishes they would disappear, giving way to someone more «worthy» of life. He also renounces everyone, entrusting his fate to his creation, desperate to gain understanding.

His life was cut short at the age of 48 (2009) in a volcano, but that's according to official reports. In theory Wesker and his possible clone are alive now, which we could learn from Umbrella Corps. But I'm not going to tell you about it here.

I failed to mention that at 32, Wesker had a relationship with a woman named Muller. Strangely, she was still alive afterward and had a good opinion of him. Although it would seem that with such a personality it should be the other way around.

She ended up pregnant, and now, as of 2021 in the re8 storyline, their son is 29 years old. I can understand why she might not have informed Wesker about the son, because first of all he might not have approved and made her get rid of him, and secondly she might have lost the ability to contact him, since he was working in secret. But the fact that she kept the baby speaks volumes. That the man she broke up with is genuinely pleasant to her. I mean, if he'd been the way he was at the time of his death, it's unlikely she would have kept the baby. Often victims of violence/abuse get rid of their children, no one wants a child from a tyrant. That's the side of this character that we don't know anything about.

It's hard to imagine how a person who has a fear of losing himself and who distances himself from others has managed to find a short-term relationship at all.

What about his personality? There's a double bottom here.

It's ambiguous. At first you see a stereotypical villain and then a psycho who wants to «save the world» by destroying it, a standard hackneyed scheme, nothing interesting.

But if you look closely, we see a simple man on the verge of despair. With his past behind him, he cannot give up everything and live the way he likes, because he is superfluous in this world. Because of his own fears, he has developed a belief that he has to strive for something in order not to lose himself. All Weskers have been raised to believe that they have a great destiny, which builds an unhealthy and extremely vulnerable self-esteem.

With his fear of losing his identity, Wesker isolates himself from others, creating psychological walls that even he is afraid to penetrate. This may be the reason he broke up with Ms. Muller. She risked getting into places where even his foot had not set foot, so it became necessary to distance himself from her in order to avoid unpredictable consequences.

His dream, adopted from Spencer, actually echoes his deeply buried problem. «Infect people with a virus that will only improve and not kill a select few like him» That is, Wesker dreamed of making people like himself. Isn't it loneliness and desperation that makes people do such things? It didn't seem that he was hungry for «power» specifically, because he already had it in the traditional sense. All the more, based on his words, he did not wish for evil with this gesture, he wished to «save» humanity, knowing that millions would die. For the sake of finding a company «worthy of him», he was willing to risk killing everyone and being alone. Desperate and lost, he began to make bad decisions.

You know, it's been unusually hard for me to see beyond the obvious. I feel like I did the wrong thing by taking it upon myself to judge him without knowing almost anything about him. I originally had a biased and negative opinion of the character. But now I've gone neutral.

What do I see in front of me now? A character disconnected from his own lore. We read about one thing and see something else entirely. And also an unhappy man. Wesker is famous for his reports. They were always interesting to read because of their informative and judicious tone, so it was much more interesting to watch him when he acted in accordance with his reasoning.

Judging from the story, he is able to evoke compassion and empathy in the viewer, but does he evoke it in action? In action, he evokes nothing. He is not even annoying, although a well-written character should evoke an emotional response, but he evokes it only with his story.

Creating something unambiguously negative is not a bad thing. But such a thing should be presented wisely, and it should have a certain kind of backstory, which will only deepen our belief that this object is evil.

But in Wesker's case, things went wrong from the start. Having created a story that resonates in you with an atmosphere of hopelessness, lack of choice, and fear of losing yourself, we see a character that doesn't match that. It's the events of the personal story that create the character, but if the character feels pulled from it, something went wrong in the writing.

If you are creating a character who is supposed to be compassion, the story should help with that, make you feel his problem. The same is true if you're writing someone who is negative and should be disgusting. Murder isn't enough to make a character a villain, the story is the main key. And our victim's story isn't about becoming evil at all, it's about fighting fear, where fear wins in the end, which doesn't fit with the concept of evil evil at all. That's why the player/reader/viewer can't always decide who he is: antagonist? Anti-villain? Who the hell is he?

[The beginning of an optional fragment]

By the way, there aren't enough facts in this analysis, so now we're going to break down the prototype virus that was injected into 13 Weskers. If you're not interested in that, skip to the next section. I haven't previously mentioned the Progenitor, from which many viruses in this universe originated, so the prototype is an unstable strain of the Progenitor, weakened dozens of times so as not to be too toxic. This virus either gives a person immense strength or kills them altogether. Alex stayed somewhere in the middle, because nothing happened to her, but her brother changed a lot.

Wesker has special genes, as well as immunity, that made the prototype fused with him. But activation, according to Birkin's report, requires a stressful situation. That means the hormones released as a result of stress dramatically amplify the influence of the virus, helping the body to initiate the fusion. It's all about hormones, we'll come back to that.

When Wesker received an injury incompatible with life from Tyrant, the hormones produced at that moment triggered the V-ACT process. He went into anabiosis, transforming all the cellular tissue in his body as well as repairing the damage he had sustained.

But having gained strength through a complete reorganization of his body, he was not yet aware of the instability of the virus inside. He didn't know that the prototype doesn't «fix» in his body. Therefore, the strength provided by the virus is not eternal, weakening with time.

So Wesker has to take PG67A/W regularly to re-secure the virus inside and stay strong. An insufficient dose of PG67A/W can cause malaise, and a large dose becomes poison. Which is what happened in re5 when Chris and Sheva injected him with the substance an extra two times. He experienced pain, and then presumably his powers escalated to the point where he no longer had control over them and they lost usefulness.

His son, Jake, also inherited genes and special immunity, which is why most viruses are harmless to him, but also do not give any advantages.

The fact that the forces of an overdose are not lost, proves the moment when Wesker easily damages the rocket with his bare hand.

Now back to the subject of hormones. Not only do they provoke viral activation, but they are a completely controlling element. Wesker, when provoking his emotions, can change the density of his own body, which also causes bioluminescence in his eyes. I noticed this when rewatching the re5 cutscenes. Always when he is about to strike, his eyes start to glow. Glow is emotion, and emotion is hormones.

This is why Excella can free pierce his skin with a needle and inject the drug, because at this point Wesker is calm and his body density is close to that of a human. In battle, his body is like a stone, it hurts Chris to hit him and this can be seen in his animations.

[The end of an optional fragment]

The injections are another painful element that robs Wesker of his sense of self-worth and freedom. Therefore, coupled with the fear of losing himself, he has an inferiority complex. This complex manifests itself outwardly in a superiority complex - in arrogance, an inflated ego, which we see in his behavior. This is the answer to the question of many people, why he behaves this way. Not considering himself a full member of society, not considering himself suitable for ordinary life, Wesker begins to believe that he is above «all that» and calls himself God, in other words self-deception.

An inflated ego is the result of psychological defense, a sign of hidden fears (loss of self). It also indicates the presence of insecurity, which he tries to hide by creating a strong image for the outside world. However, like many people with large egos, Wesker has a fragile self-esteem, which is why he hates so much the rude Chris who initially discerned his weak side. His self-esteem is closely tied to his ego, so with the image he has created, Wesker protects a side of himself that he never shows to others. He hides it even from himself, as I mentioned earlier.

I thought Jake's AI words would be perfect here:

This is the only fragment where I decided to have fun with AI, but it gave me something that really makes sense.

I would like to summarize, because the analysis turned out to be long, and something towards the end may have already slipped the reader's mind. So... What do we know?

Because of his nonstandard childhood and obsessive upbringing, Wesker has an unhealthy and extremely vulnerable self-esteem. By deceiving himself, he began to consider himself superior to everything ordinary, and to believe that he is simply not made for this cruel and unfair world with wars and diseases, so he dreams of creating «his own world», where there will be «equal» people, so that he will no longer feel superfluous.

Also, because of his childhood, he is withdrawn to the point where he hides his true feelings and needs even from himself. He feels safe as long as no one knows what he cares about. If you don't know what a person cares about, you can't manipulate him. And if he doesn't care about anything, he is invulnerable. He is afraid to be himself and express it. He himself doesn't know what «he» is really like. Judging by his phrases in the game, Wesker would like acceptance, but would never admit it openly.

It is also an echo of an effect he has been under the influence of all his life - the «fear of losing himself». This fear has become a convenient pattern of behavior in his life: pretending not to care about anything and believing it. People with this fear need to appear indifferent, not letting anyone know that anything matters to them.

But what is «fear of losing yourself»? It is the phobia that someone more powerful can manipulate you and take away your sense of security, of reliability, whereupon you no longer consider yourself strong and confident. Wesker felt for years that he was under Spencer's strong influence, his puppet, which cemented the «fear of losing himself» even deeper. Every step in his life was not his personal choice but Spencer's, Wesker was only made to think that he was acting on his own free will.

Loneliness and lack of empathy were also his eternal companions. Never having friends, never having family and support, and never having anyone that Wesker could cherish. And no one who would have treasured him. That's why he's so fixated on himself, because if he loses the only thing he has, he'll have nothing left at all. That's why he prioritizes pragmatism over emotion, easily betraying anyone and replacing one with another. But he also tends to cling to the past, sometimes betraying his pragmatism.

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

Due to a misunderstanding, I would like to supplement my text. This analysis is only my personal interpretation and my personal view of the character and his story. I do not claim that it is 100% canon, because canon is so vague and disjointed that it is impossible to fully assemble it objectively. Everyone is entitled to have an interpretation different from mine. Best wishes to all!

[genderkoolaid]

hate to be that person but siwas rebrand is a deliberate thing to cover up the shit she put the children on her show through. aside from a kid with medical conditions being forced to continue practice even though she was bleeding from her belly button (she was told to just put a pad on her clothes to hide it and continue) she also ripped them off for a lot of money.

i wouldn't be surprised at all if it is deliberate. but that also doesn't really change my point. every single thing i've been recommended about this situation has been framed around her being Weird and Cringe. because people have been mocking his girl for her entire life & it just so happens that she has also done harmful shit which they can use to justify their obsession with mocking her. however genuine her feelings are wrt the new aesthetic, people are still more concerned with hating this girl they find annoying and weird instead of making a substantive criticism of her as an equal.

& i also think its important to point out that like. her mother seems to be the one dictating her business decisions? & i feel like its pretty easy to draw a line from her growing up on a famously heinous dance competition show to her acting heinous alongside her mom on her own show. this is not to say she's not responsible for her actions, but i also think its telling that she is the one who gets 100% of the blame while her mom isn't brought up?

like other child stars have also acted like assholes once they hit adulthood. with various motivations. and they aren't excused from their moral responsibility, but its also important to understand where they are coming from. i've seen people bring up that's she's perpetuating the cycle of abuse- which is true!- but like. has she even really had a chance to escape her own (potential, i dont want to put words to experiences i don't know about) abuse? why isn't more negative press directed at her mother, who set her up for this shit and is financially benefiting from it?

we can and should criticize former child stars but i think its vital we do so while understanding the kinds of vulnerable situations they can be in. & we should do so because we want them to grow as a person, not because we think they are Cringe and their harmful behavior is just a convenient excuse so we don't have to feel bad when we cyberbully them. i just don't see much compassion here, and i have never seen much genuine sympathy for jojo. if it is a coverup than all anyone is doing is helping them cover it up and being needlessly cruel.

[hazbinsimp777]

Hey

Can i please fanfic (Hazbin Hotel) Adam x fem reader x Lucifer

the reader is in a relationship with Adam, lucifer is intrigued by the reader and starts flirting with him

how does Adam react when witnessing this scene (Lucifer flirts and accosts the reader but the reader is not interested in him)

❗the reader does not know about Adam's connections with his previous wives (due to his pride, please use it)❗

LUCIFER X READER X ADAM

A/n: I love this concept so much! Thank you for the request anon! <3

✅️ Loyalty ✅️Protective and Violent Adam ✅️A little spice (end) ✅️ Fluff

!Warning: Reader is read as female and LONG before the battle in the season finale!

You are Adam's third and final wife, he had met you when you two had met in heaven. You only had died recently, having a good life on earth and genuinely being a good person. At first, you were very hesitant of Adam when he had asked you out. Seeing him only with his fuck boy personality, how he proudly bragged about how many people he has hooked up with.

Despite being in heaven and being the first man.

Nevertheless, your colleagues at your job had encouraged you to do so. As to being known for rejecting suitors who had asked you out. With much hesitation, you had accepted his offer. You recall being very nervous on your first date.

Soon you came to realize, under all of that masculinity, he was a total sweetheart to you. Behind closed doors of course, he started to become more trusting towards you. Coming to the conclusion on his true intentions, eventually, the two of you started dating. Which had lead to you having an wedding ring on your finger.

At that moment, Adam had given you the title of, "My sexy as fuck wife." Sure, you were never too keen on that title and Adam going around and announcing so. But you knew that only met Adam was proud to call you his. People had informed you of his past marriages, which lead to many questions in your mind.

Why hadn't he told you about these past relationships? As his new wife this puzzled you, was he not supposed to tell you everything? When confronting your husband about this, he suddenly had a change in attitude.

"Oh it's not important babe! I got you now and that's all I need!"

Noticing he obviously did not want to talk about his past, you had left the topic alone. Wanting to be a good wife, you promised to never ask about it again.

That is, until Lucifer questioned for an meeting with heaven regarding the growing population of hell. As one of heaven's biggest leaders, Adam was required to go. He tried to convince Sera to not go, but his request came denied. Adam was complaining to you all day when he was forced to go. You, for some support, asked Adam if you can, by any chance, accompany him to this meeting.

In your shared home, while Adam was bitching about this, you approached him, taking off his mask, cupping his face, "Maybe I can come with you. I know how much you dislike Lucifer, I can perhaps be your support or source of comfort."

Adam's eyes widened, his lips turned from a frown to an smirk, "Babe...." He started, picking you up, placing you on the counter, "You are a fucking genius! This could be my chance so show him my sexy ass wife!" He said, placing himself between your thighs.

You placed your finger on his lips, "Or...you can call me your beautiful and intelligent wife."

He rolled his eyes, "Yes Hot Stuff you are that too." At that it was decided, you are going to be at Adam's side of the meeting.

At the day of the meeting, you and Adam were called to meet in Heaven's meeting room, where as you can guess, the meeting will be held. For an odd reason, you were nervous, finding yourself fidgeting with your fingers. Sitting beside Adam, who he himself looks uneasy, it was quite obvious, even with his mask on.

"Babe?" Adam called you, turning his head towards you.

"Yes Adam?" You asked, turning your chair to the right, facing him.

He sighed deeply, "Stay beside me, whatever you do, do not leave my side." He warned.

This request confused you, "Why so?"

Adam groaned, "Just don't leave my fucking side okay!" His voice was firm and assertive. Not aggressive, but to the point it got his point across with you.

"Okay Adam." You said, turning your chair back toward the table. Continuing to fidget with your fingers. It only took a short moment until the door swinging open rung throughout the room.

Standing in the middle, Lucifer you assumed. The short man had a white top hat, a snake and apple wrapped around it and an cane with an apple on the top of it. Wearing long black boots, red eyes and blonde hair going back. You had to admit, he wasn't anything you would expect, very much shorter than you had pictured him. And he had no nose?

Nonetheless, Adam's grip on your hand had tightened, wrapping around your hand. Noticing this, you squeeze his hand, as an act of reassurance. Giving him a nod and smile. Looking down, you seen a small smirk appear on his face, his masked eyes softened.

The other angels had not arrived yet, you Adam and Lucifer being early for the meeting. Which meant, you all three were alone for the time being.

"Ah! Adam! We meet again." Lucifer walked up to Adam, swinging his cane in hand as his boots tapped against the floor.

"Lucifer, meet my hot wife right here, she is sexy, did I say she was my wife?" Adam bragged, showing you off to Lucifer.

Which was not out of character for Adam, but this was....a bit much from Adam. Why was he so determined to show you off to a man you hand't even met until now? Regardless, you weren't complaining, you loved it when Adam showed you off.

Lucifer's eyes scanned you, looking up and down, as if analyzing you. In which he hummed, putting both of his hands on his cane, "She is a looker I'll give you that." The short man smirked, taking a seat across from you. Adam was suprised that Lucifer had not mentioned Adam's past wives.

Something that was unknown to you or Adam, is that Lucifer was intrigued with you on first sight. Taking in your attractiveness, when he had seen Adam's arm around you, he instantly knew you were his new wife. But that did not bothered him whatsoever. Adam was giving Lucifer the most dirtiest glares known to man, occasionally glancing at him while he was talking to you.

In a matter of what seemed like hours, the other higher ranked Angels have arrived. Taking their seats, annoying the meeting had begun. During the whole meeting, Lucifer kept darting his eyes at you. You felt his sharp gaze on you, making you uncomfortable, not wanting to make this meeting worse for your husband, you brushed off the feeling.

The meeting had taken two hours, you and Adam were on the verge of falling asleep due to all of the boredom. You didn't even know what they were discussing, Adam didn't even say anything, what was the whole point of him coming in the first place? This truly did irritate you!

"Adam, a word please?" Sera called Adam, standing from her seat to the door. A serious expression written on her face.

Your husband looked at you with pleading eyes, then back at Sera, "Can we just talk later Sera? I need to stay with my fucking hot wife." He tried sounding normal, but his voice kept cracking.

"No. This will not be negotiated." Sera commanded.

You got up and gave Adam a kiss on the cheek on his mask, to give him more confidence. "I will be fine Adam, I promise, go do what you need to." You assured him.

Adam groaned, "M'kay Sweet Cheeks, be right back." After that statement, he went on his way, walking beside Sera. Turning to look at you occasionally before the doors had closed.

Now, it was just you and Lucifer in the meeting room, it did not help that he was seated right in front of you across the table. With a hum, Lucifer pulled his chair, walking around the table towards you. You felt your blood go cold, eyes widening, why was he walking towards you? Surely you are no interest to the sin of pride, right?

A tap of his cane hit the ground echoed the room, being the only source of sound.

"Tell me Dear, why are you with Adam?" He leaned on the table, putting a finger on your chin.

With pure disgust, you gently take his finger off of your chin, "I love him very much and because we are married." You told him, "And I see you are as well." You point at his own wedding ring.

Lucifer simply brushed this off like a spec of dust on his coat, "Oh that is not important gorgeous." He leaned on the table with his arm, "You do know Adam's history with his wives right?"

"Not much at all and I do not intend to know more." You said firmly, tapping your finger against the table.

"As it is known knowledge is power Beautiful, and I know you must be smart as you are divine." Lucifer held your hand, giving it a gentle kiss.

"Ew! As I have said before I am a taken woman!" You slip your hand away from his grasp.

"What the fuck is this?!" Adam exclaimed, staring at everything in disbelief. Rushing to your side, using his wing to pull you closer to him, staring at Lucifer with pure fury and hatred.

"What? Me and your supposed wife were just having a conversation between adults." Lucifer said.

"Listen here you nose less fuck! Stay away from my wife, you know what? Get the fuck out of here, NOW!" Adam commanded, pointing to the door.

"Why? Afraid I might take this one too?" Lucifer teased, both of his hands rest on his cane as he gave Adam a smirk.

Your eyes widened, "Adam, what is he talking about?" You ask.

Adam's face went tense, his masked eyes widening, "N-nothing hot stuff, I uh- don't know what he is talking about." He stuttered, not even looking at you.

"Too prideful to tell her-" Lucifer got cut off by Adam punching him, Lucifer was not able to defend himself in heaven. Due to his abilities being taken away from heaven.

This action from your husband has taken you by surprise. There have been times when Adam had been jealous, he would simply tell them off, maybe a punch or two. And you two will be off your way.

But this was different.

This was fill with many emotions. Ones with pure jealousy, rage and fear.

Every punch he gave Lucifer was personal, Adam was laughing like an maniac, "Your in MY house BITCH!" He kept saying with every punch. You had to get Sera and other higher ranked Angels involved.

With being dragged away from the sin of pride, Adam kept lying, "You get the fuck away from MY WIFE YOU SLITHERY FUCK!" After that, Sera demanded Lucifer to return to Hell. While you were right next to Adam once he had calmed down.

You were compressing his wings, which always calmed him down when you did it. He had his arms crossed and a cute mad expression on his mask, grumbling curse words under his breath.

"Do you mind telling me what was that about?" You asked softly, but in a gentle but demanding tone.

"Fuck..." Adam cursed under his breath. Looking down at you, "Do you really have to know?"

You only nodded, "As your wife, I want to know. Not out of curiosity, but because I want to know you better. So I have a better understanding of you. Just know I will love you no matter what." You assured him, putting your forehead against his.

"I am so lucky to marry you...." Adam started, then that is when you two shared a kiss. You felt Adam smile against your lips. He told you everything about Lucifer and his past wives. In which you comforted him and assured him, Lucifer would never steal you away from him. Or any other man for that matter.

"You know, you standing up to Lucifer was kind of hot and sexy as fuck Babe." Adam whispered in your ear, "Makes me want to fuck a baby in you." Adam said, gripping your ass.

"And wholesome moment ruined." You muttered.

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

A/N: I hope this was up to your standards Anon! Request are open, terms in pinned post!

Drink water and Stay Healthy Lovlies! <3

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Lesbians WIN & I'm excited about a Thai BL again!

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

April 2024 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

My Stand-In (Thai Fri iQIYI) ep 1 of 12 eps - Adaptation of Chinese novel Professional Body Double by Shui Qiang Cheng. Stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please) directed by the same team as KP (not a recommendation IMHO - my biggest criticism of KP was the clashing directing styles). The MDL description made it sound complicated af but actually it's not so bad. In fact it's GOOD.

Stuntman Joe dies on the job and wakes up in the body of another Joe who has an entirely different life. But our Joe just gets his new body right back into his old existence, full of friends, enemies, and one troublesome ex. Poom is absolutely killing it in the lead. Mek is perfectly cast as the Actor du Jerk. I’m not sold on Up’s bratty brokenhearted rich kid... yet. The show though, I like it. I like a one (two) night stand starting things off and I like a lot of morally gray characters. Fun fun!

Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 8fin - The lesbian moms are the cutest thing in the world and my favorite thing this week. Bar none.

Summation:

It's about a host club and all the gay boys in it and some stuff that's not important because... PEOPLE OF EARTH WE HAVE A HONEST REP OF POLY IN A BL. Stand up and raise your hands in prayer to the Thai BL gods because sure as shit no one else was ever going to give this to us. For that alone this show gets 8/10 from me. Bonus Lesbian moms and great kisses.

Two Worlds (Thurs iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - Say what you want about MaxNat all these years that they've been paired makes them great onscreen boyfriends. And you know me, I'm a total sucker for linguistic negotiation. Makes my heart go all mushy. That said, now that the leads are together, I’m really uninterested in all the drama around the ex-boyfriend/triangle. I'm glad this is only 10 eps.

1000 Years Old (Thurs iQIYI) ep 11 of 12 - They gave me the tiniest teaser for the kinky vampire BL that I have wanted my whole life. And now I'm just fucking annoyed with the rest of the show. 

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 3-4 of 16 - Q & Toey are the only interesting thing going on. I actually didn’t like this pair in My School President, but I’m enjoying them here. The others are all fine but these two have my heart. I have questions like: did Phum ever get his shopping bags back? And why is Phum driving a different colored car half way through the ep?

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 3 of 12 - The quality is good (it’s GMMTV) but the acting is... not. Still I loved that Moo just made the confession for both of them. Very in character. Does this plot remind anyone else of Footloose? Just me? Side couple was cute but now a bit too stalker for me. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues YouTube & Viki) ep 10 of 12 - It’s fantastic. Such a great show. We are so lucky. This is basically Taiwan’s The Eights Sense. I didn’t know they had it in them, but I’m really glad that they did.

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 3 of 10 - As JBL’s go this is way more my speed (than Alaska). It’s just so sweet and awkward but charming about it. The confession was so earnest. 

Blue Boys (Korea YouTube) 2 of ? No MDL link - It’s very sexy this one. Not sure what Korea thinks it's doing, but I’m not mad about it. 

Gray Shelter (Korea Thurs iQIYI) ep 5fin - summation: About a slacker nursing a crush on the (brief) older stepbrother who abandoned him. Upon finding him again he moves in with him, upends the mans lost suffering life. A dark gritty piece with confusing subs making it too chewy to really grok. It's trying to do too much for its length. The tension is real and the acting is good, it's just everything else stymied clean execution of the core concept. Frankly I spent this show expecting (and wanting them) to just fall into bed together - in a kind of desperate fight sex. It didn’t happen, and I’m disappointed by the non-ending we got. (Whether it’s going to have more in the series or not.) 7/10 I'm open to changing the rank if a part two fixes this one's flaws.

Boys Be Brave AKA Roommates (Korea Thurs Viki) ep 1-2 of 8 - Oh dear. Terrible hair. Jock nerd pairing. OCD baby cakes. Cohabitation trope. Killer side couple. Def unhinged. 

At 25:00 in Alaska AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - I’m still genuinely not sure about this one. It’s just a little too awkward for me in the wrong way. I expect all Japanese BL to have a certain aura of awkwardness so I don’t know what it is about this one turnign me off. I do enjoy that we’re getting both stories, the one between the actors, and a little bit of the roles that they’re playing on screen but... yeah

Love is like a Cat (Korea Mon Viki) eps 7-8 of 12 - The leads finally had a moment but there is negative chemistry. Why am I watching this? 

It's airing but...

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

Memory in the Letter (Thai WeTV) - 6 eps, when it's done, tell me if I should bother?

In case you missed it

Kiseki Chapter 2 (Sun iQIYI) 6 eps - finished its run but I won't be finishing it. Stays dropped.

GMMTV announced the second half of their 2024 line up. I got excited and picked my favorites, details + trailers here. Basically my ranking is:

The Heart Killers

ThamePo

Revamp

Sweet Tooth

Perfect 10 Liners

The Ex-Morning

Ossan’s Love Thailand

Next Week Looks Like This:

What happened?

Knock-Knock Boys (Thai WeTV) - 4 college friends conspire to help their friend lose his virginity. Familiar faces like Seng (yes, Billy's previous pairing) and Best, news here. But will it actually air this month?

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

I have adopted him. He is MINE. I love him, your honor. (The Stand In)

I love them SO MUCH. (Deep Night)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[skteezcursed]

❝0025❞ — j.wy.

PAIRING. jung wooyoung x fem!reader.

GENDER AND WARNINGS. smut. friends to lovers. kinda idiots in love. switch woo. switch reader. teasing. strip poker. mentions of alcohol. pet names (pretty boy, bunny, love, good girl, etc). praising. p in v. unprotected sex (please, do NOT!). oral (mostly fem receiving). creampie. kinda breast play. mostly filth, i'm sorry. lmk if i forgot anything!.

SYNOPSIS. you and wooyoung have always had a thing for each other, but never acted on it, until one day he gets tired of waiting once he notices you want him just as bad as he wants you.

RATING. R (+18) - MDNI.

WORD COUNT. 3,3k.

NOTES. english is not my first language. part of the ateezchella especial. bye ♡.

IMPORTANT. this is a work of fiction, it has zero intent on portraying how any of the people quoted here are in real life.

CREDS. dividers by cafekitsune ♡

The idea that something could be so infuriating and exhilarating at the same time was confusing to say the least, but that was how you felt whenever Jung Wooyoung would look at you, the eyes that held a teasing and menacing gaze at the same time they burned to your skin as if you were the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. In all truth, you were, and he was expecting to make that known to you that night as he had managed to convince you to play a game of strip poker, the drinks you had earlier not helping one bit at keeping your judgment clear. 

It’s not that you were bad at card games, no, you were amazing at them, except when you had something – or several – to drink, which was now the case. Although Wooyoung wasn’t too far behind you in being intoxicated by the alcohol, he seemed to have kept his cool, almost sober as the cards were dropped and clothes started to fill in the floor you two were in, thanking heavens that you were alone with him at the comfort of your house, at the same time trying to ignore how the pool that was forming in between your legs kept getting more annoying as the time passed and your clothes were on the floor while he still had his pants and one sock on.

  “Oh, look at that…,” the grin that took over his lips made you want nothing more than to rip it out as you groaned loudly looking at the cards he was showing, winning again. “C’mon pretty, take some piece off.”

“I fucking hate you,” his laugh reverberated through the room as he watched you take one of your socks, trying your best to push away the cold that involved you as you were only in your lingerie. Sensing the disappointing look Wooyoung sent your way, you hid your smile trying to calm your heart. “Be ready to take off some pieces next time, you are gonna lose!”

The smirk was quickly back into his lips as he picked the cards shuffling them around his hands, as you forced your eyes to not stare at them, not to imagine how good they always looked on your thigh or how flustered you always were whenever Wooyoung was bold enough to touch you a bit longer and in a daring way. The truth was, you’ve always had a thing for Wooyoung, if you were honest, how could you not? He was the perfect mix of a gentleman and a menace, but never going as far as making you uncomfortable, whenever a slight hint that you were annoyed by his antics, he would stop and apologize to you. The fact he was a touchy person didn’t help keep your feelings at bay as you grew closer. 

As the cards were thrown, you tried your best to keep your poker face and legs crossed – the latter so he wouldn’t be able to see the wet patch on your underwear. Wooyoung was already cocky enough about all the attention he got, although he got shy, you knew he enjoyed teasing the living shit out of you whenever someone would compliment him or indicate they wanted him, but curiously enough, he never gave them another second of his attention, just politely declined and kept on with whatever it was that your group was doing, also leaning closer to you, even if it was to tease how many gorgeous women and men wanted him. 

Although you wanted to deny, you loved how he would decline all the offers that came his way. You weren’t much of a jealous type, but you were definitely a possessive one, as much as you wanted to tell your brain you shouldn’t be like that towards Wooyoung. Whenever he would tease about that, you’d play it out by saying that’s how you were with all your friends, receiving a laugh from Wooyoung as you felt his hands linger on your body, sometimes he would talk back against your ear, others he would pull you closer with some excuse, and on rare occasions he would just stay like that, fingers burning on your skin as the tip of his fingers would lightly caress your exposed skin. 

“YES! Told you I’d win!” You cheer with excitement as you draw your cards laughing loudly at his pout as his eyes bore into your figure and you notice a small smirk appear on his lips before he gets up, eyeing you with that menacing glare. “No, I don’t care what you say, I’ll win the next ones too and -”

As his fingers went to the buttons of his pants, your voice stopped at once, eyes ignoring the apparent tent that was there. Once his fingers found the zipper, your eyes averted to the ground, specifically to his feet that still had one sock, which brought an inquisitive look to your face, turning into shock as his pants fell at his feet before he took them out completely kicking them somewhere along with his shirt, the sock joining it not long after, bringing your eyes to finally look up, straight into his face, as the tongue was in between his lips along with the growing grin that made you clench your thighs together. 

The movement did not go unnoticed as you saw Wooyoung’s eyebrows rise and fall before he took a few steps closer to you, noticing finally how you had your legs up to your chest cursing at yourself as you realized he probably saw the wet patch in your underwear. As he lowered himself in front of you, the maximum you would allow your eyes to wander off was up to his chest, the tattoo on his ribs finally visible for you to see, for you to touch, to –

“My eyes are up here bunny,” luckily, you only clenched your own cunt and not your legs as the pet name reached your ears, as your eyes found his predatory ones, the smirk with a slight gap between his lips, allowing you to see his tongue moving inside his mouth… God, you needed it in – “still need to go a bit further up,” his finger found your chin bringing your eyes to finally meet his and stay there. “That’s it, I like when you look at me, especially when it’s like that.”

“Fuck off,” you push his hand away and turn your legs around in front of you, still covering the growing wetness between your legs, making Wooyoung chuckle before he returns to his position, “why didn’t you take your socks off, you are supposed to only take one piece of clothing.”

“Are you complaining, love?”

You rolled your eyes as you pointed to the cards in between you two, ignoring his grin as his fingers nimbly organized the cards, ignoring how his eyes were fixed on you.

“You're scared you will lose?” 

The scoff that came from Wooyoung made you finally eye him as he finished organizing the cards. “I was planning on suggesting something for the grand finale.”

“You definitely scared to lose though, you were the idiot who took two pieces of clothing, while -”

“You would do the same if you had noticed how hard my cock is as it only got harder as I saw how wet your cunt is,” that shut you up at the same instant, the deck of cards being left on the coffee table as his eyes never left you, the smirk growing as his tongue wet his lips, sitting cross legged in front of you as his hands found his thigh, chuckling as he noticed you finally noticing his hard cock against his underwear. “Are you still gonna pretend you don’t find me attractive and that you don’t want to fuck me as badly as I want to fuck you?”

  “Wooyoung, look -”

“What do I have to do for you to understand I don’t see you as a friend and that I want you to be mine?” As your eyes averted from his, you could hear the movement and see it from the peripheral view, only to get his hands on your chin, making you eye him as he towered above you, trying to ignore how his hard clothed cock was inches away from you. “I never wanted to be just your friend and I sure as fuck ain’t blind not to notice how you react to me, so are you gonna be a good girl and let me fuck you senseless before becoming officially mine, or you still gonna be fucking brat?”

Instead of responding you palmed his clothed cock watching as his mouth opened with a gasp as you squeezed gently the length, his hands moving from your chin to caress your cheek as you smirked at each other.

“Tell me again how badly you want me, Wooyoungie.”

As you said that, both your hands moved to the waistband of his underwear, pulling slowly as you sustained eye contact with him, until you noticed that the tip of his red angry leaking cock was finally seen. Making you eye him before moving your face closer to his hip bone, leaving a tender kiss there as you slowly moved towards his cockhead, watching as it twitched slightly, his chest going up and down rapidly, making you giggle before your lips touched the tip making him groan loudly. 

  “Fuck you are gonna torture me?”

“I told you what I want, if you give it me, I’ll give it to you,” another kiss on his cockhead makes him throw his head back groaning before his hand go to the back of your head, your hair getting tangled within his fingers, “it’s a fair trade don’t you think, pretty boy?”

“Fuck I knew you were gonna be my end the day I laid eyes on you, bunny,” at that, you finally took the rest of his underwear, making his cock slap you in the face, making you giggle before holding it with one of your hands, putting just the tip inside, feeling his precum on your tongue before squeezing lightly the base of his cock. “Fuck, you are such a fucking tease, the way you’d sway your hips, how you always wear something that shows skin just to have my hands on you trying to take those fuckers who just want to fuck you away -”

“But you are one of the fuckers who want to fuck me, aren’t you Wooyoungie?”

“The difference between me and them my dear bunny, is that I can fuck you senseless and you’d still come begging for more, because you are just as desperate for my cock as I am for your cunt.”

At that he forced your head down his cock making you gag as you took him all in, tapping his thigh after a while, feeling him pull your head back and up, as his lips finally met yours. It was sloppy, desperate, lustful, it was all you both wanted and more and you felt him pulling you closer, his other hand found your waist going up your back to unclasp your bra, but never leaving your lips, not even when he felt your hardened nipples against his chest, pulling you closer to his, letting his cock press against your stomach.

You tried to put your hand in between you two, but he wouldn’t let you, keeping you firm against him as his tongue explored your mouth, God the amount of time you imagine those lips against yours, leaving wet traces until it finally found itself between your legs with your hands on his hair as he ate you out. 

“Be a good girl and sit on the couch, legs spread open,” he was as out of breath as you were, yet you complied taking off your bra first, but he stopped you as your hands went to your panties to pull them off. “Did I say something about taking these off?”

“Then how are you gonna eat me out properly?”

“Oh, my sweet bunny,” he hovered over you on the couch, the smirk forever present as you wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him closer to you, “I’m gonna make you scream my name in no time once I get a taste of you, and then I’ll fuck into oblivion until you beg me to stop.”

“Is that a promise?”

The doe eyes you sent him not matching the secret wish that question held, making his smirk grow as he pulled you in for another kiss, one of his hands going all the way from your waits to your knee as his other, found your breasts, pinching the hardened nipple making you moan against the kiss before he slapped it before massaging it all over again, making you whimper against his lips.

“It’s a promise since the moment I first saw you,” his lips lingering closely to your own as you felt his hand squeeze your thigh as his other moved up to your neck cupping your face pulling you in for another tender and innocent kiss before he started moving downwards, leaving a trail of open mouth kisses on your jaw and neck before reaching the valley of your breasts. “It’s a promise from the moment I saw your tits almost slipping out of one of those dresses you wore for the first night out we had as a group, where I almost had to fight a few guys who wanted what was mine.”

“I thought I wasn’t yours yet.”

“You were always mine, you just didn’t want to accept it,” his mouth fully involved your breast as his hand massaged the other, feeling the little random bites that would sure make their appearance in the morning, but you couldn’t care less as your fingers found his hair moaning every time he sucked and bit your breast, “so pretty like that and I barely touched you, I wonder how pretty you look all fucked out.”

“Why don’t you start by putting your mouth to use somewhere else?”

“Your wish is my comment, love,” he kisses you one last time before the wet trail of kisses happens all over again, slowly but surely accompanied by small bites here and there as Wooyoung makes sure to hold you down and spread your legs open as he gets closer to your clothed core. “Fuck, you are so wet, I wonder how much you can last.”

Combination of his words, eye contact, fingers gently taking the edges of your panties and the small kiss he leaves on top of your clothed aching clit, makes your hips jolt up, bringing a chuckle to Wooyoung’s mouth as he finally takes your panties of, a this line connecting your panties to your soaking core makes him curse before completely throwing your panties somewhere along with the other clothes. “Fuck, I can’t wait to taste you and make you cum on my mouth.”

Before you could say anything, his hot breath collided with your sensitive clit, a tender and contained kiss being left there as you could sense the chuckle Wooyoung left at your whimpers, reverberated through your body before your fingers found his head pulling him into your soaked cunt. His hands firmly on the back of your thigh spreading them open, your knees up to your chest as his mouth fully involved your clit, the kitty licks making you moan loudly and arch your back, feeling the small laugh he let out reverberate through your body once more.

“Woo, fuck-,” you cried as he lowered his head, his tongue at your entrance as his nose would meet your clit sending shocks of electricity and warmth through your body, “fuck, just like that Woo, fu-fuck, your ton-tongue, I can’t I-”

“Don’t you dare hold back, I wanna hear you, bunny.”

As two fingers entered you and his mouth closed on your clit sucking it, a scream left you. His fingers were quick, curling from time to time inside you making you squirm under him, as his arm could barely hold you still, but he honestly didn’t care, the sight of you shaking under him, your taste on his mouth, the feeling of your cunt clenching his fingers was sending him into overdrive and he wasn’t even inside you yet. 

The first wave hit you like a truck, the guttural sound that left your mouth followed by a scream as your fingers pulled Wooyoung’s hair was enough for him to finally let go of your wet folds. Once you felt his face away from you, your eyes met with his face glistening with your juice as he pushed his two fingers into his mouth, ravishing on your taste before pulling you in for another kiss. Your hands quickly ran down his chest to find his hard cock, before he stopped you.

“But Woo-”

“We’ll have plenty of that, unfortunately, if I don’t get inside of you right now, I’m afraid I’ll combust,” as you pulled him in for another kiss, your heels found his ass and thigh, pulling him into you, your hand finding his hard leaking cock and putting it at your entrance, making him whine against your lips as you squeezed him with your hand as to pull him closer to where both of you needed. “Fuck, I’m gonna break you, bunny.”

“You can break me as many times as you want if you are willing to put me back together.”

“God you are so perfect,” as his lips found yours with a tender and borderline innocent kiss, his cock pushed through your gummy walls making you gasp and moan against his lips before he hid his face on the crook of your neck, biting the base as he slowly entered your tight hole. “Tell me when I can move.”

A small shake of your head was all he needed before he started progressively thrust into you, his hips finding yours at a rapid pace as both your moans and grunts filled the house along with the sounds of your bodies. Wooyoung was a bit over average size, but he was girthy, so you were still getting used to his size as he fucked you, the head of his cock hitting your cervix every so often. 

His hands pulled your legs towards your chest making him hit a whole new spot inside you, making you scream at the feeling before his thumb start rubbing circles on your clit, your legs already shaking, mouth open, uncontrollable moans leaving both of you as his thrusts became sloppier, his kisses were messy and you clenched so much around him that ripped profanity after profanity from his lips. 

“Woo, I’m coming, fuck, please don’t stop, don’t fucking stop, it feels so good!”

“Cum with me, love, cum all over my cock,” as if magic, his words hitting your core sending you to combust under him, shaking and screaming as you felt your orgasm reach you, feeling his warm seeds inside you as his thrusts faltered before coming to a stop. Your legs were numb, but your arms quickly wrapped around him, your nails scratching his scalp softly as his body weight held you against the couch. “You are just as perfect as I imagined you to be.”

Your giggle came with the small kisses and love bites he left on your neck before pulling out of you and placing some distance between you two as he watched his seeds leak from your fluttering hole, a smirk on his lips before his lips met with your clit making you cry a moan.

“Wooyoung, please…!”

“Sorry love,” his face was quick to go up to yours, a kiss on your lips as you both smiled at the current situation. “So, can I ask you to be officially mine, now?”

“I was yours from the moment we met, Wooyoungie.” “That’s my good little bunny.”

general masterlist here ♡

network: @cultofdionysusnet ♡ @atzhouse ♡

©skteezcursed (2024) — all rights reserved. reposting/modification of any kind is not tolerated.

DO NOT REPOST, TRANSLATE, PLAGIARISE OR REPURPOSE.

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Brienne and Femininity (and Masculinity)

I’ve been musing how one of the most important topics in Brienne's storyline is femininity, and even though her story isn't finished, we can fairly see what some of her major themes are around this—particularly, how performing or failing at performing femininity affects her both internally and externally.

Often I see people pointing out that, in spite of all of Brienne’s traditionally masculine ways—her clothes, her skill set, her body shape, to name a few—she does not fully reject femininity. That she likes little cute animals and fairy tales and wears dresses, and is shy and blushes frequently. This is an important point because, very often, fantasy settings made the assumption that a woman can only be taken seriously if she goes beyond “her womanhood” and acts and thinks “like a man,” as opposed to other girls who are too busy mending or wanting romance. Brienne challenges those tendencies that GRRM saw in his contemporaries. Things have changed a lot since (hello The Locked Tomb, for example), but you can still see where he is working from, and how many of the aspects of Brienne's story still resonate with more modern audiences because, well, sexism hasn't stopped existing. It's also important because the larger asoiaf and got fandoms often refuse to see this side of her, reducing her to a walking sword or a cardboard cut out of a pushover.

Now, my main issue here is that I feel several interpretations of Brienne have now gone on the other direction, and focus so much on Brienne PERFORMING traditional femininity—wearing luxurious dresses, using make up, accepting lavishing gifts, or wondering if she can be desired, for example—that we've gone sometimes on the opposite direction. I feel like many times we’re afraid or do not know how to approach characterizing her as someone who rejects aspects of femininity without making her into another “not like other girls” stereotype.

My two cents on the matter is that if we focus too much in what Brienne can't but "wants" to perform, we forget that she is, in fact, gladly rejecting some common impositions of femininity in her society.

Beginning with swordplay at a young age, for example, she was very glad to ditch a more traditional education in order to learn how to fight the way we know men are taught in asoiaf/got. She is also explicitly more comfortable in men's clothes. We all like the scene where Jaime makes an effort to give her a dress and she appreciates it, but we don't even find out what happened to the dress, because, presumably, the dress itself is not THAT important, at least not as much as the fact Jaime gave her gifts as a form of appreciation. Dresses have been used in Brienne's past to mock her (the event with the bear being the most recent one), and the important part is that Jaime is the only one who has given her one without that ulterior motive. The point of the scene is that where everyone undermines and underestimates her, he is acting the opposite way. We’re seeing how the relationship between them has evolved and that he is doing his best to mend what has happened and what he has done. She is given a dress and a sword as symbols that someone else in the story is beginning to appreciate her for all she is.

Beyond that, we even get details on the old shield Brienne got at Harrenhal, but not a word about the dress. Brienne explicitly doesn't really like being in dresses, she prefers mail and breeches, and feels more at ease in them than anything else. This is not her hating dresses because she is above them. I can’t remember well but as far as we know it’s just her preference: I don’t recall her saying she hates dresses, just that she prefers trousers. She must have been wearing dresses her whole life! It’s not likely she is unused to them. But we do know the act of being given a dress is important in Brienne’s story. The problem is not that they can’t make dresses for her, the problem is that everyone who forces her to wear a dress wants to signal how lacking she is as a woman, trying to fit her in a box too small for her real shape and then mocking her because she doesn’t meet their standard. The problem is they want to make her uncomfortable and they want to humiliate her, because she dares to exist in a way that doesn’t conform to patriarchal ideals. And the problem is that she likes to wear trousers and mail. She likes to wear masculine clothes, and they want her to be very aware of how much they disapprove.

And we also hear a great deal about marrying and having children out of duty. There's a certain loss she feels there because she believes that, at that point, all those missed opportunities will never present themselves again. All her life, she grew up with a dichotomy that dictated that the chance of having a family or children was through duty or none at all, because she is her father’s heir and—they kept telling her—nobody would want an ugly, masculine, temperamental girl as a wife. They could only want her for the money she brought. The point of the story is that, once again, failing the standards of femininity has forced her into a mentality where she thinks she can’t be loved because nobody would like who and what she is. But even then, even with that thorn in her mind, she still feels relieved she didn't have to perform these particular duties. The only thing she’s sad about is that she thinks she's missed any chance at having a family at all and will never know what that might be like. She doesn’t actively want babies or even to be married. She is still young, and at least to me, she seems to view these things in hypothetical rather than explicit goals or wants. She thinks that, at 20, there is no opportunity for her to experience these things because of how her society works. It’s the lack of choice that she mourns, down the line. But she rejects that particularly role that femininity imposes on her now. She didn’t want it, and she is happy it didn’t go through. She literally fought an old man to prove how much she didn’t want those impositions.

All this is interesting to me because Brienne also sort of thinks of herself as her father's son as well as her father's daughter. It almost slips her mouth once or twice. She is aware, I think, that many times the differences between a son and a daughter boil down not really to gender but to the sort of duty they perform. And she wants to do the sorts of things sons do, too. Men regularly learned to fight and wore the clothes she liked best and used hard-earned skills in a way she wanted to use them. There are layers to this (we’ll get to that in a bit) but she is, I think, very aware of her masculinity, and, if left to her own devices, she seems comfortable in it. The problem is she is NOT left to her own devices.

Most of Brienne's self doubt comes from outside forces. As a woman, they underestimate her. As a woman, they think she is stupid. As a gender non-conforming woman, every jape uttered goes directly to her womanhood. As a woman, if she looks the way she does and dresses the way she does and fights the way she does, when she expresses any vulnerable emotion, any shred of “femininity,” she is mocked for it. She likes dancing and beautiful things and pretty boys but a woman as masculine as she is is not the sort of person who gets to express those preferences without judgment from those around her.

The point is Brienne’s world wants her miserable either way: being unable to be a woman the way they demand of her, because she is too much “like a man” for it, or being unable to be a man, because she is too much a woman for that. The point is she can’t win regardless of what she does. Because that’s how sexism works.

But Brienne’s story is, I think, one about choices. The thing is that the world makes it harder for her, but she shouldn't have to be one thing or the other. She shouldn’t have to be defined by one or the other. If she wants to fight in the mud and smell roses and wear chain-mail and talk to charming men, she should be able to choose all of those things. I think it’s easy to focus too much in what aspects of femininity Brienne likes or dislikes instead of looking at what the story is proposing, which is to look at what Brienne,as a person, likes or dislikes. What she wants. Her parallel story to Jaime is about how the world will always try to put folks in boxes, especially those who, for some reason or another, do not easily fit in those boxes. The question is not “what feminine/masculine parts of Brienne is she happy performing” but rather “what does Brienne want, and why does she feel like she cannot get it and doesn't dare ask.”

This is also what drives her to servitude. There’s a phrase out there that says that if you don’t think you can be liked, you try to become useful, so at least there’s a reason to keep you around. It’s heartbreaking to see how Brienne’s vision of herself has been so skewed by the emotional abuse, parental neglect, and bullying she’s experienced since a young age. She doesn’t think anyone will grow close to her, so at least she can be close to people by serving them. She wants to put her skills to use, she wants to find a place where she fits, where she can be more herself, but she isn’t sure what that looks like or how to find it. She’s still searching, and learning many things on the way.

And Brienne is still very young. We can see her confidence growing and her worldview challenged and she is beginning to see the realities of herself and of the world around her through various trials by fire. Misogyny makes her feel incomplete, but we know the things she trusts about herself while simultaneously seeing the way she constantly doubts others. How she can't never express all of herself without constant judgment or mockery.

I feel like yes, the fact Brienne doesn't reject all traditional femininity is really important to her themes, but by extension, it's as important that shedoes reject some of those traditional expressions of femininity. What she is truly rejecting is imposition, not femininity. What she truly needs to embrace is freedom, not masculinity. She's making her own vows, breaking her own promises, going through her own mistakes. She is learning the hard way. Agency in a world of limited choices is one of Brienne's main themes too. There are moral issues that go deep within her story as well as examinations of the effects of war and the struggle to find authenticity and connection in a community that refuses to acknowledge yours, a community drenched in pretense and lost in performance.

And I think it’s easy to get too caught up in her wanting to be a girlfriend or a mother or wearing a dress that we bypass the whole conversation around why that matters at all. I feel like Brienne's success isn't going to come from her fully embracing all her feminine traits or fully accepting all her masculine traits but from being able, down the line, to be exactly who she is.

[rubberduckyrye]

Okay in all seriousness. There's something that I REALLY want to talk about as an open discussion with the fandom, but. This is not going to be a very nice thing to hear/talk about.

It's about how Gonta is treated by the fandom.

As a fan of all the V3 characters now, and as someone who has always been a fan of Gonta, and as someone who has many mental disabilities and two diagnosed neurodivergancies... I'm tired of playing nice about it.

You all need to stop being ableist towards Gonta.

I've mentioned in the past that I don't like shitting on personal interpretations. I don't like saying something is or is not canon because narration is just a big web of text that you try to decipher with your own personal biases, experiences, and thoughts. That's why two literary analysts analyzing the same text with the same literary criticism rules can come to wildly different conclusions--why people develop different headcanons from the same canonical information.

But one of the things that challenged my integrity is just how many people view Gonta as this innocent, naive, ignorant, baby boy who can do no harm/never has a complicated/dirty/violent/sexual thought in his life ever.

This incredibly ableist interpretation of the character bothered me for, well, obvious reasons (See: It's fucking ableist, need I say more?) but I never challenged it as harshly as I am now because to be frank, it's not my place to tell people how to HC a character. It still isn't. But I've pretty much given up on my integrity on the subject and have decided to go all in on discussing why this interpretation of Gonta is just. Really bad.

First of all, not to promote my own analyses here or anything, but I think this analysis I did of Gonta explains a LOT in regards to the ableism the cast gives him in canon. I also think that this subtle ableism is why the fandom is so bad with Gonta's characterization in headcanons and fanfic--because they've seen how the cast treats him, and they think it's normal. They don't see the microaggressions, they don't see the subtle ableism in the cast--they just see this big giant idiot who speaks like Tarzan in the English version (which... I don't actually know why people assume Tarzan (Thinking of Disney's version) is stupid. Like as a boy he had to reinvent the spear with no one to guide him on how to do it. He was able to strategize and outsmart "civilized" men in the final showdown. Still I digress) and don't see the literal genius behind his social awkwardness.

There is also another very important point I'm going to make in addition to this, and it's going to be very uncomfortable to Gonta fans who insist he's nothing but a sweet baby who only has pure thoughts. Especially to the fans who insist he "can't be sexual" or think it's weird to ship him with his peers.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but... Gonta blatantly has sexual desire and gets horny right in canon.

This is further clarified here:

It wasn't a matter of Gonta didn't want to touch her because touching someone in their underwear was inappropriate, or being flustered because she was in her underwear which is inappropriate...

It was literally a "weird feeling" that made him unable to approach her or touch her. A "weird feeling" that Miu makes pretty obvious as to what it was--sexual arousal.

He literally was sexually attracted to and felt sexual arousal from looking at Miu in her underwear. He had sexual feelings and thoughts about Miu. Why?

Because Gonta is a young man.

Gonta is a brilliant, talented young man who has normal human thoughts for someone his age--sexual desires, upsetting thoughts, complicated thoughts, ectect. He is not a child, he is not mentally stunted (I've been informed that people have literally said this on Ao3 for the NSFW Gonta fics, please for the love of god stop that)

I think the reason why Gonta fans typically want to keep him as a "pure baby child who can do no wrong" is because treating him like the young adult that he is makes it harder for them to justify Chapter 4. Every time I've seen a Gonta fan that hates Kokichi, it's always followed by the sentiment of "Kokichi manipulated and abused Gonta into killing Miu, so it's all Kokichi's fault." They're afraid of nuance and liking a character with the grey morality of genuinely thinking Mercy Killing the cast is a viable option, because it challenges their own morals about the character they adore.

To those people who read this and are upset: You can and should like Gonta! Gonta is a magnificent character who showcases the subtle way microaggressions can manifest and hurt people, he's a good-hearted person and a literal genius, he cares deeply for his friends and loves everyone with upmost sincerity.

But.

You need to re-evaluate your stance on Gonta if you think he's a stupid, naive fool who Kokichi manipulated. You need to re-evaluate why you think those thoughts, why you think Gonta being shipped with anyone is "Kinda weird" or "has weird consent problems" or "give you the ick." You have to challenge yourself and ask yourself uncomfortable questions in regards to why you treat Gonta like a child when canon has proven otherwise, why you think he cannot have violent or sexual thoughts, why he can't think mercy killing his class is the only way to save them.

This isn't an attack on you--but understand that these specific takes on Gonta? They are ableist in nature. They belittle and dismiss him, they treat him like a child, an idiot who can't think for himself--and you have to come to terms with the fact that Gonta is a far more complex character with complicated thoughts and feelings who is a young adult. Not a child. A young adult.

So again, ask yourself this: Why are you treating this young adult like he's a toddler?

[vikkirosko]

Hi! I really love your work. Like man you have me kicking my feet like I'm 12 again.

Anyway to the point, I was wondering if I could request a Cubby Reader with insecurities and how each chatcter would handle that. (Lucifer, Vox, Asmodeus + Fizzi, Emily and any other you might want to inculde) It's my first time ever requesting something, I hope I did it right.

Thanks you so much, and again I really love your fics.

Headcanons Self-doubt

🖥 Vox x Reader 📱

You have worked for Vox for a long time and often you have worked with him, as well as with Velvette and Valentino. Despite this, you were quite insecure in yourself and because of this you had problems. Vox knew you better than the others, because you were dating, and he knew what you could really be in a comfortable company, and therefore he helped you feel more confident

Vox often rebuked his friends when they said rude things about you, covering it up with a joke. He knew that you could take their words to heart and he wouldn't be surprised if that was their goal. That's why he acted as your protector, knowing that you needed help sometimes

He saw how confident you were when you were alone. You were open and confident when you spent time together. He tried to help you behave as confidently with the others as when you were alone, but so far you haven't had much success

Vox knew that he couldn't be with you all the time, so he tried to help you become more confident and be able to defend your views. You were in Hell, which meant that you needed fortitude and self-confidence if you didn't want everyone to take advantage of your insecurity

🍎 Lucifer Morningstar x Reader 🐍

Lucifer and you met at the hotel. He saw that you were uncomfortable talking to him and he thought that the reason for this was that you were afraid of him. However, everything turned out to be wrong. From his daughter, he learned that you were quite insecure and because of this it was difficult for you to communicate with strangers. That's why you were so nervous when you talked to him

Watching you, Lucifer realized that you were a really good person. He saw how you sincerely smiled at your friends and helped them. Charlie and Vaggie cheered you up, which made your self-confidence grow. He tried to get along with you at the request of his daughter, and the more you talked, the more open and confident you became. You were changing right before his eyes and he liked to see you confident in yourself

Lucifer has started to help you become more confident. He praised your work, supported you and reminded you how wonderful you were. He wanted you to see yourself the way he saw you and realize that even if someone says bad things about you, they weren't right

The King of Hell knew well what it was like to lose self-confidence. He remembered how he felt when his dreams crumbled to dust. Lucifer didn't want you to go through this, so he tried to help you become more confident. He was sure that through the joint efforts of you and your friends, your confidence could become stronger

👁 Emily x Reader ✨️

Emily did a lot for others. She sincerely wanted to make others happy, including you. You were one of the people closest to her and she truly cherished you. You were kind, attentive and caring, but you were insecure, which caused difficulties in your life

Emily knew you had a lot of potential. You could do a lot of things and you had wonderful talents, but you doubted it. At such moments, Emily would vividly remind you that you were really wonderful and that you were talented. She was ready to shout about it to convince you of it and protect you if someone said something bad about you

Emily helped you become more confident in yourself. She came up with different exercises that you did together so that you would believe in yourself and your strength. Most of the time, these were verbal exercises, but they were also important so that you would doubt yourself less. Seeing how every day you become more confident in yourself, she couldn't help but rejoice

Emily sincerely cherished you and wanted you to be happy. She was trying to help you. Emily wanted to see how you courageously communicated with others, how you defended your opinion and were not shy about sharing your ideas. She knew that it was still a long way off, but she intended to continue to help you

🎪 Fizzarolli x Reader x Asmodeus 💕

Fizzarolli and Asmodeus knew that you were insecure. You were cozy and caring, but because of your self-doubt, you couldn't be as brave as Fizzarolli and even more so Asmodeus. That's why they tried to be there for you to remind you how wonderful you were

You and Fizz often spent time together. He was preparing for the performance and you were cheering him on. At such moments, he returned compliments to you. When Ozzie had free time, he would join you and help Fizz make you think better of yourself. Asmodeus saw that it made your life difficult, so he supported Fizz when he tried to help you become more confident in yourself

They both knew that you had many wonderful qualities, but you didn't seem to notice it. You tried to fight your self-doubt and were grateful to them for trying so hard to help you. You really appreciated it

You cherished Fizz and Ozzie and their support. They were the most important people to you and you really became more confident around them. You were ready to move mountains for them. To support and protect them, you were ready to become much more confident in yourself

[verdantcrimson]

Kanna Natsu Idol Story - 1

(Unproofread)

[Two years since ES was established. In a corridor of an ES building leading to the Starpro office]

Kanna: Thank you very much for helping me, Miss Anzu.

Kanna: As you can see, I am a child, so escaping from a situation where I am surrounded by a crowd of people is difficult.

Kanna: Though, if I had used my head, I think I might have been able to escape, call for help, and have my pursuers apprehended.

Kanna: But using my brain on those people is a total hassle.

Kanna: A complete, and total, hassle.

Kanna: … Yes? No, I’m not lost. 

Kanna: So you’re the type of person that judges people based on their appearance, right.

Kanna: No, I’m not criticizing you. Just categorizing.

Kanna: I find talking to other people to be a hassle.

Kanna: Ideally, I would like to be able to have a conversation by categorizing people as much as I can, and then only using a fixed set of phrases that correspond to that category.

Kanna: I want to have conversations using only a set of standardized phrases, like: “For sure”, “Maybe”, “That’s nice”, and the like.

Kanna: A computer could do that. It could handle things with just some numbers and a program.

Kanna: Why can’t the same method of operation work for humans?

Kanna: Ah, It’s okay. I wasn’t actually looking for an answer. It was just a question I asked myself, and presented.

Kanna: Please don’t worry. I will think for myself and find the answers to all of my questions.

Kanna: Yes. I have no expectations of you, or anyone else.

Kanna: Now, if you would excuse me. And really, thank you very much for helping me out just now.

Kanna: … Hm. Yes, what is it?

Kanna: Aren’t. Yes, yes, how can I help you?

Kanna: Quite the annoyance you—

Kanna: Yes. No, I’m affiliated with ES.

Kanna: I’m Kanna Natsu, and I’ve recently begun working as an idol here.

Kanna: Yes. People say that I’m like a stray cat that can’t quite get used to humans. It means I am ‘Natsu Kanna-ected’ with and don’t miss other people. Quite interesting, right?

Kanna: Would it be better if I had laughed? But that would be a hassle.

Kanna: I think my life would be much easier if I at least learned to smile politely, but that really is such a hassle.

Kanna: Yes. Ah, you know about me? I thought so too.

Kanna: I have long since concluded that I am like an exotic creature that has a tendency to make the headlines of newspapers and magazines.

Kanna: The people pursuing me earlier were magazine reporters that have been following me around recently.

Kanna: The entertainment industry is a world where you could throw a stone into the crowd and hit a genius, quite literally, so I didn’t see the need to bring it up.

Kanna: That sort of sensibility, I envy it.

Kanna: When humans see something behaving oddly, it’s surprising and interesting to them, it seems.

Kanna: Ah, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I honestly envy it. It’s quite tedious to have to add a note clarifying my intent at the end of each and every sentence.

Kanna: Hm. Eh? You’re asking me if I’m a celebrity…?

Kanna: So you only knew who I was because of me being a new idol, Miss Anzu? You remember seeing my name and face on the roster?

Kanna: I get it. Yes, you are that kind of person. I understand now.

Kanna: That’s right. There are people who don’t know who I am. Heh.

Kanna: So. It seems I have overestimated my importance.

Kanna: Ah, that was my first laugh in fifteen days. Tomorrow, my facial muscles are going to be sore.

Kanna: Thank you very much. I was able to have a rare experience.

Kanna: …Hm? Yes, anything else?

Kanna: I am an ES affiliated idol, so you should know that it isn’t out of the ordinary for me to be walking around here.

Kanna: Do you not understand this? It would be a hassle if you didn’t.

Kanna: ……

Kanna: Hm. So you thought that there might still be reporters remaining around the area? You thought to call for security, just in case?

Kanna: “A kind and gentle person”, “A respectable member of society”, “A very noble, goddess-like person”.

Kanna: Of these three, which do you prefer?

Kanna: I would like to present you with an evaluation. Because I appreciate your concern, and your words are commendable.

Kanna: However. I am inexperienced at communicating with people, so I don’t know which words would be most touching.

Kanna: That is why, I would like you to pick what words I should give you.

Kanna: That is all. ...Is that wrong of me to do?

[tyttamarzh]

Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter.

This will probably be very long, so if you want to read it, go grab some popcorn and get comfortable.

I have to talk about this because it's eating me up inside. I think I shouldn't give so much importance to comments coming from sewers like Twitter and much less Tiktok, but it makes me so sick (and I'm such a masochist that I even spend time looking for the shit they say to make me angrier and debate them xD).

I am very happy that it was finally made official, with papers certified by the federation, that Tallulah is the daughter of Philza and Missa, I think that was not entirely necessary for them, because they had assumed it for a long time (let's assume that Tallulah needed the pappers to end her W arc), although I suppose that more than anything it was done for those people who still cannot accept it or who deny the paternity of Phil and Missa (With Missa, although it bothers me, I can even understand it, he He hasn't been as present and many people don't know him, but god, it would be a crime to deny Tallulah's paternity to Phil, the man who has kept her alive and given everything for her throughout her life).

I'm glad that, although I have seen negative comments, the majority have been positive (even if it hurts them, it doesn't matter, it's official, screw them). Mainly, the negative comments have been from defenders of W and their arguments are so poor and weak that they are easily refuted. It is obvious that these people do not know Tallulah and have never met her, many do not even know how things turned out and say nonsense like that the current Llulah is an imposter, that it is not fair that they "rewrote" history and erased W (which It is false, Llulah's words make it clear that history was never changed, she simply moved on and that person remained in the past).

I refuted all those arguments on Twitter but screw Twitter, I hate the fucking character limit. So I'm going to expand (I have a lot of poison to get out of my skin). I have some points:

1- "That's not Tallulah" Of course it is her, those who witnessed her life and her growth during the year that passed, can realize that this was her natural evolution. She is the same girl who grew up overcoming her limitations, who suffered, who felt alone, who had abandonment problems, who everyone saw as a poor abandoned girl and who found comfort next to someone who has always loved her like a father and a brother who gave everything for her.

2- "They erased all her lore" No. Tallulah's lore is the one she built with Philza and Chayanne over the course of the year they lived together. Her relationship with W and her longing for him was only part of her story (although people made a lot of emphasis on that), but it was not the only thing that defined her, it never was and only people who never got to met her think that. They see her like an extension of that other person, as the only thing that kept him on the server, but did not see her as an individual character and definitely did not watch Phil's Vods and they never really knew her lore.

3-"How do they explain this in the lore?" Simple, there was someone in her life, someone who was her first father, but who spent very little time with her, who left a long time ago and who is currently no longer part of her life. She learned to let go of the past and focused in the family she has in the present, the family that loves her, that watched her grow up, that makes her happy and gives her security to believe in herself and that is the Death Family, Chayanne, Philza and Missa. Time passes, not all people stay, treasure those who are by your side and let go of what never brought you anything but pain.

4- "They should have created another egg and replaced her" Why replaceher? It has no sense or reason. She is a character who built her own story with her family, a story that never really involved that other person other than with one or another sporadic mention, why eliminate a character that evolved by itself? Little by little she separated herself from what she was at the beginning and that bond that she had with that first father was practically non-existent. What would be the point of eliminating it or replace her with another new character?

5- "No matter what other parents and appearance give her, she will always belong to W because she still carries the name he gave her" No. She never belonged to him. She lived with that man for 2 days and apart from leaving him the promise of a reunion, she did not contribute anything else to her life. She formed her own path, her passion for music was not because of him, it was something she already had before, her love for nature, for animals, everything was built in the days she lived with Philza (even with uncle Bad). She suffered for her first father but she moved on, she matured, she discovered her link with death and her powers as a medium, she acquired her own personality and little by little she built the Tallulah she is now.

She never belonged to anyone but herself and she always fought to prove that, but people insisted on dumping trauma on her and reminding her that she was an abandoned child waiting for someone who at a certain point was nothing more than an idealized dream, because There was never a real relationship between them, they never lived together long enough. She little by little made her decisions and chose the people she wanted to be her parents (and it's not that she had few options, Quackity, Bad and even F wanted to adopt her at the time and asked them to, but she was not a girl who was looking for parents). She could choose and she chose Philza, the person who had always been there for her and later she chose Missa, someone who despite not knowing her very well gave her his love unconditionally and gave her security when she needed it. Then she was able to feel the warmth of being part of a complete family.

6- "They should change her name because W gave her that name! That impostor is not Tallulah!" Why? Her name is not anyone's intellectual property, at the time it was given to her, it belonged to her for better or worse and yes, in some way it will always be a tie to her past, but a past she has already left behind and managed to overcome by creating new memories and dreams.

To a certain extent I understand those who became attached to her because she reminded them of that other person, but if they couldn't see her as her own character, it means that they never cared enough to make the effort to get to know her.

It would shock us all if a character we liked suddenly changed drastically and left behind what like us in the first place. But if they had really watched her, they would have realized that the change was not sudden, it was gradual.

She found in Phil a protective and understanding father who always put her and her brother before anything else, who suffered with her her pain and outbursts of frustration due to the depression caused by the absence of her first father. She found in Missa a cute and loving father who always showers her with love and helps her to have confidence in herself. She doesn't lack anything with them. She has closed a cycle of pain in her life and now she can heal.

She chose the look that makes her feel finally free to be herself, whatever the external reasons that led to that, she finally has a future ahead of her unbound by the past and prefers to be more like the people she considers her family now. If you can't see what all of this really meant to Tallulah and her evolution, it's because you never cared to see even 20% of her story. Well, since the middle of last year she began her journey to break away from a name and be herself, fighting to be seen for who she was.

If those people decide to continue supporting someone despite his shit, that is their right, but the server and the admin were also within their right to decide to kick him out and want to distance themselves from a person they consider unpleasant.

7-There were comments of another type, mainly from people who are really very lost with the lore, people who consider her the daughter of Quackity, even confusing her with Tilín (saying that Q didn't know if she was the daughter of W or Luzu and that she should get a DNA test), when we all know that from the beginning she was W's daughter as a single father and that the only reason Quackity could have become Tallulah's father was if to marry W, but that never happened, W didn't come back and Quackity was never able to develop that relationship with Llulah, she considered him a possible father because she knew W loved him, but Q always being kidnapped or something, they never really related much. There are people who, even with a certificate, continue to insist that Tallulah should have been given to Quackity to raise with Luzu (she had a tender interaction with Luzu and people were already asking him to adopt her, saying that she was alone and had no parents, I seriously hate them!) I shouldn't take seriously people who obviously haven't seen Philza even once and I know that many of those people are hispanic and are limited by the language barrier but if they don't have the slightest idea They shouldn't give their opinion… Tallulah is not an object to be passed from hand to hand, she chose and in order to do so she had to go through a very long and painful arc.

8- I firmly believe that it is a great win to now have a certificate that endorses who the people she considers her parents are, but I insist, it was not necessary, because that has been known for a long time and I am sure that if it was created it was to close the mouth mouth to all those people who are not capable of accepting that.

Tallulah is the daughter of Philza and Missa (and no one else), she is part of the Death Family, that is her story, it is not a whim, a whim is continuing to link her to something she is no longer a part of or wanting to make her a part of a lore that never happened or wanting to give her other parents different from the ones she grew up with (Quackity already had Tilín, Richas and now Pepito, I don't think she needs more children and Tallulah doesn't need any more shitty drama in her life).

Tallulah is a beautiful being, both with her old look and with the new and as Missa says "She deserves only the beautiful things in the world"

Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! Tallulah is Phil and Missa's daughter!!! And I can shout it a thousand times because it's true and she always was, but now it's certified by the government and no amount of complaining or tantrums can change that fact.

Sorry for my bad english. See you!! jajaja ando re agresiva, pero es que nadie se mete con mi familia xD

[steviewashere]

Loving Who You Are, Not What You Offer

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Referenced Rape/Non-Con (Not Between Main Pairing), Panic Attack (Sort of) Tags: Post Season 4, Post Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Asexual Steve Harrington, Coming Out, Protective Eddie Munson, Patient Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington Has Sexual Trauma, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Slight Comphet Steve Harrington, Dialogue Heavy

Okay, honestly, this one comes from a more personal place. So I'm gonna have to ask y'all to be kind about this one. I've recently come to terms that I'm somewhere on the asexual spectrum and I just needed to apply that somewhere, so. Also, writing from Eddie's point of view rather than Steve's helps me, so I don't wanna hear shit about it.

Read the content warning one more time before you continue and let me know if I missed anything <3

🩵—————🩵 There was an uncovered layer to Steve Harrington, that much Eddie has deduced.

It’s a subtle, blink and you wouldn’t notice, kind of thing. But even this uncovered layer had layers. And he’s not sure if anybody else has caught on. He was able to catalog several odd things about Steve that just…didn’t match his character. Not at all. Which has led, though it started casually and accidentally, to Eddie making a whole new doctrine.

The Odd Steve Behavior Doctrine. With a few noticeable bullet points:

-Don’t touch him without asking -Don’t ask him about his sex life -Don’t talk about sex around him, at all -He especially doesn’t like casual intimacy -Earning Steve’s trust is like climbing up a rocky mountain

He follows these rules he’s made for himself. Tries to keep himself casual and known in Steve’s presence. And hopes that it’s enough to get Steve to crack, even the slightest. Maybe he’ll say why these things bother him, Eddie initially thought.

Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let Steve come to me in his own time, he eventually noted. Because he doesn’t need to be in everybody’s business all the time, which is a typical thing for Eddie. He likes being nosy and involved with the lives of people around him. He likes to think of himself as the person his friends can come to, no matter the reason or the intensity of their need. And maybe part of it is selfish, too. He can admit that to himself. That he, in turn, wants to be everything Steve needs at the end of the day. Bearing the brunt of all that Steve has going wrong or right in his life.

Things come to Eddie little by little from Steve’s mouth. None that answer to any of the bullets in his doctrine, but things that are important, too. Like confessions, moments that Steve saw as flaws.

“I called Jonathan Byers a queer in 1983. That’s why he beat me up. I deserved it,” he told Eddie one day. Casually, complete nonchalance, as easy as discussing the weather. Steve had been cradling a mug of coffee at their local diner. Picked at the pancake platter he ordered all for himself. And, at Eddie’s coming out (“I’m gay, Steve,” Eddie admitted quietly mere moments before. He brought up love lives. Was poking around what was going on with Steve’s. And casually, he realizes, it just came up.), Steve took a sharp inhale. Confessed this bomb of a statement. Grimaced at the memory that must’ve played out behind his eyes. Then, murmured, “But thank you for trusting me with that, Eddie. I just need you to know that I was somebody you wouldn’t before. In case that…In case maybe you wanna take back that trust. Wouldn’t blame you, that’s all I’m saying.”

Eddie sat in that for a good several moments. As they slurped at their room temperature, rather mediocre mugs of Joe. “I still trust you,” he eventually said, “You don’t have to keep proving yourself to me, you know?” Steve merely shrugged. And that was confessional number one.

Following that, Steve mentioned being tortured by Russians. Which, Eddie thought that was reason for him not liking touch. It may be part of the reason, but there was something to Steve’s eyes that told him that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Eddie didn’t ask. Steve didn’t elaborate. Tortured by Russians, beat up by his peers, chewed up like a dog toy, the list in Eddie’s mind of All the Bad Things That Happened to Steve was growing longer and longer by the day. But Steve was telling him things, letting him in. It was a start.

So, Eddie had two catalogs all about Steve to keep up with in his mind. All the Bad Things and The Do’s and Don’ts of Steve Harrington.

Being his friend was an earned thing and it was a pleasant thing, but it also broke Eddie’s heart bit by bit. He’d never admit to this, but he had to realize that at some point. He wondered if Robin ever felt the same. Maybe even Nancy. But he wasn’t going to ask. Because who asks something like that? Eddie won’t be the first, but it won’t be the last somebody thinks that, he’s sure.

Even though Steve was breaking through his own mold, cracking his mask, shattering mirrors of who he was, none of it actually answered any of Eddie’s don’ts regarding him. None of it eased him. None of it lended itself in any sort of way. If anything, all of these other greater things only added to the incessant itch that couldn’t be scratched under Eddie’s skin.

Who are you really, Steve, Eddie asked himself all too much.

He doesn’t want to upset the poor guy.

But he’ll never know, he’s coming to realize. It’s just not in the cards.

———

It comes to a head, because of course it does. And he didn’t mean for it to, but it just happens.

They’re hanging out at Steve’s new-ish apartment. Lounging around on his, frankly, ugly floral second-hand couch. It’s musty and not all that soft on the cushions, lumpy and shifting. But they make do with it as they have a movie marathon. Steve is sprawled between the far right and middle cushion, Eddie is leaning against the left arm rest, legs crossed one over the other, head in his hand. Then, his stomach grumbles all too loudly in a room full of droning noise.

He leans into Steve’s space slightly. Reaches out a hand and places it on his thigh. Squeezes Steve’s leg and opens his mouth to ask if he’s hungry. But, for some reason, Steve tenses to the extremes underneath his touch. His hands grip harshly to the back of the couch and the throw pillow near his head. Legs going taut and straining against Eddie’s touch.

“Steve?” Eddie calls softly.

“Stop,” musters from Steve. It’s tiny. Cracking in half. Brings tears to his eyes immediately.

Eddie furrows his eyebrows, though. “What?” He asks. “What am I doing?” There’s a thrum in his chest. Something unsettling and obtuse. It pulsates and shifts and bitters his throat the way acidic bile does.

With force Eddie’s only seen in the Upside Down, Steve latches onto Eddie’s wrist. Tight enough that Eddie has to bite back a yelp of pure and unadulterated pain. Nearly enough to break the bone that Steve’s thumb digs into. He shoves Eddie away with just his grip. Scrambles to the far corner of the couch, legs tucked in close to his chest, knees colliding with his chin. He wraps his arms around himself.

And then, the softest noise breaks through between them. It’s quiet, yet somehow louder than the tape playing. It works its way under Eddie’s skin. Into his stomach, through his throat, and into his brain. Steve’s gentle, manufactured cries. Stifled behind his lips. In real time, Eddie watches him shatter. The way his eyes gloss over, his cheeks going splotchy with the sounds, his shoulders shake.

“Woah, hey,” Eddie whispers, reaching out again. He wants to ground him. Wants to comfort the way he knows how. How he soothes Wayne’s panic episodes. And how he calms Dustin down from lashing out. Or when Robin talks herself in circles. Wants to just…be there. “Hey, Steve, are you—“

“Don’t touch me,” Steve bites out, “I don’t have anything—You—I don’t want to.”

Immediately, Eddie drops his hand to the now unoccupied middle cushion. The fabric meeting his palm. Going cold. Warm where Steve had just been relaxed. And Eddie—he may be a dastardly fool most days, dumb as rock the others, three time senior—knows exactly what he did, now that he’s focused on every small movement he makes. He’s perceptive to the way Steve is leaning as far away as possible. How crumpled he makes his body. Eddie notices how much space has been created and where his hands lie.

I’m so stupid, he thinks, that’s like rule one. 

Don’t touch him without asking.

“Fuck,” Eddie softly curses. He pulls himself away. To his own corner of the sofa. And swallows the bit of panic that rises in him. His eyes drift away from Steve’s fearful face, to his own hands. Twitches them in his lap, against his knees. Wants to cut them off. Throw them into a blender. Feed them to the birds. Something. But he forces himself to look back up.

Steve trembles against the couch. In a way that is not the Steve Harrington that Eddie met when fighting other worldly creatures. That dismantles everything and anything he once knew.

“Shit. I—Steve, I’m so sorry,” he quickly apologizes. “I’m sorry. I know that you don’t like that unless people ask. And I just—I wasn’t thinking, I promise. It was just—You know, I’m touchy with all my friends and I was just going to see if you wanted me to make some dinner or order some food. I was just trying to get your attention, y’know, and I didn’t mean anything by it. I promise, I swear. I swear on my mom, Steve. I would never—“ He takes a deep, gasping breath. Coughing on the inhale. His hands shake, now. And he doesn’t think he’s ever seen fear paint itself so clear and bright on a person’s face, but he’s looking into it. Steve’s pallor and yet still red cheeks. And his all consuming, though far away eyes. His built body, yet childlike hold.

A part of Eddie wants to cry, too. I’ve fucked up, he panics internally, I’ve fucked everything up and now he’s not going to be my friend and he was such a good friend, too. Why did I have to do that? I just wanted to make sure he was fed, too. That’s it. He’s such a good friend and now I’ve fucked it and I just—I—

“You wanted to make me food?” Steve quietly croaks.

Eddie, in an instant, nods. “Yes!” He exclaims in his own panic. “Yes, I swear, Steve. I wasn’t thinking when I touched your thigh. And I—What do you want to eat, Stevie? Say the word, I’ll find a way to make it or…something.”

His hands twitch in his lap once more. Thumbs catching on the ripped holes of his jeans. The threads soft and wearing away under his skin. The scratchy, dry bit of skin that peers through. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t think he breathes. Just makes eye contact with Steve. Which, surely, is overbearing and unnecessary and…I’m probably freaking him out more, calm down. He takes a deep breath, blows it away from him, and lowers his shoulders from where he didn’t know they were hiking.

“It was nothing more than to check-in. I promise,” he reiterates, murmuring.

Steve, finally, draws away from himself. With his own breath. He unravels his legs, stretching them out to their full length onto the middle cushion. Arms going limp at his sides. Hands resting against his thighs. His eyes dart—left and right and left and right—between Eddie’s. Nods once. “Okay,” he meekly musters. “Okay, Eds. Can…We can order pizza. There should be a menu on the kitchen counter. I’ll—“

Eddie stands from his own cushion before Steve gets the chance to. “Nope, don’t worry about it. Just try and relax, yeah? I’ll go put in an order, pay for it. You…Pepperoni pizza?” Steve just nods, tentative and surprised. “Cool,” Eddie states, “I’ll be right back.”

The phone call goes by quick and he easily sets the money out for when the driver gets there. But he’s not entirely sure his presence is going to be a warm welcome in the living room again. He gets a glass of water anyway because, surely, Steve will tell him to go if he isn’t wanted.

Steve’s in the same position as when Eddie left. Though, his gaze isn’t entirely there. Somewhere beyond Eddie’s shoulder. But there’s a gleam, a little shine that tells him that Steve isn’t gone from himself, not yet at least. He sits back down in his own cushion. Glass on the coffee table. And turns, keeping himself tight to his own body.

“Hey, Steve?” He calls out, watching as Steve blinks sluggishly back into his body. “I—uh—I got you some water, if you want it. Drinking water usually helps me feel better after…After a down moment, y’know?”

Next to him, Steve hums. He sighs. “Can I trust you with something?” He asks, forgoing the water entirely.

Eddie nods in haste. “Of course, Steve. If you have something you have to tell me, I can keep things to myself,” he states. Which is one hundred percent true. He may be a loud guy, screaming and yelling when need be. May be somebody that fills a room with noise, if only so he doesn’t succumb to the silence. But he knows how to keep a secret. It’s sort of a survival tactic, is what he’d say if somebody asked him about it. He’s kept secrets about his parents, things behind lock and key in his ribcage. Granted, he may forget, but he won’t say a damn thing. And he surely won’t spill Steve’s beans, especially with the way he looks to him in open earnest.

“Okay,” Steve responds. His legs fall away from the couch and he rights himself into being completely upright. Ramrod straight. On the far right cushion. Mirroring Eddie’s tight pose. Feet flat to the floor. His eyes trace something on the coffee table, cracks probably, but Eddie can’t exactly tell. “Okay. I…You’re going to be the second person I’ve ever told this to, alright? And I—I figured that it would come out sooner or later, but you’re gonna need an explanation for whatever the fuck just happened. And I don’t know how else to talk about it without just going all-in. So…I just need you to listen. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, “you have the floor, Stevie. My mouth is shut.”

Steve nods slow, a ghost of a smile on his face. Breathes in through his nose, it traps in his chest and comes out as one gentle gust. He swallows heavily, words seemingly rising in his throat. And that smile falls away just as it sprung.

“In middle school, before I was popular and whatever, I had a group of friends that I ran with. We were all nerds, I won’t deny that. And—And I would involve myself with some of their interests, if only because I wanted to fit in,” Steve explains first. His eyes roam again. Not picking a spot, but Eddie won’t fault him for it. He continues, voice fracturing, “One of the guys I was closer to, we’ll call him R, he was interested in this club. It was kind of like a tech club? Focused on radios and channels and math and…Things that I was actually kind of good with, but needed a better understanding on. So, I figured, I’d sign up for this club. Go with my…friend.”

Before he goes on to say more, he leans over for the glass of water on the table. Holds it gently between his hands. Doesn’t take any sips. The condensation droplets roll down his fingers. Cold most likely keeping him grounded to the room.

Eddie can already tell he’s not going to like wherever this part of Steve’s past leads him. How Steve has to take breaks, it upsets Eddie greatly. He’s not sure he’s entirely prepared for whatever confession comes from Steve this time, but he’ll digest it. Get through this with the guy and figure out all he needs to.

Another steadying breath. And Steve’s voice is like gravel, but he keeps talking.

“It was a weekly thing. And we’d go in. Be taught about gadgets and whats-its and whatnot. R was there, though. He was always there. We’d talk, laugh, shoot the shit. Normal friend bullshit.

“One day, though. One day, something was…different. He looked at me. There was a sense of hunger. Want. A drive to him that I’d never seen before. He’d lean more into my space, drop his voice lower, whisper right into my ear.” Steve blinks in rapid succession. His breath keeps stuttering. And something in Eddie’s stomach sours. He goes, though. Pushing through. “I told him to stop. To knock it off. Kept telling him that I was trying to learn. That I wanted to focus. And he just…He wouldn’t,” he explains.

Eddie spikes with great unease and anger. Never at Steve. But whoever this so called ‘friend’ is, Eddie wants to maybe kill him. He keeps quiet, though. Steve wanted to share and he needs this out. And Eddie can listen. He can, even if it makes him want to cry, too.

“I thought that’s all it would be,” Steve speaks quietly, “Just him talking to me in this new tone. With this new level to his voice. But…I’m kind of stupid, I guess, so of course that’s not all he’d do. The next week at our club meeting, he got closer than before. He began to…” Steve stops and swallows. A single, silent tear crawls down his face. It doesn’t even phase him, the way crying usually does. It’s just background at this point. “…He began to—to touch me in ways I’d never been. And I—I told him to stop, I remember doing that. I remember putting distance between us. And saying no and saying stop and shoving his hands off me. But he just—“ A broken little sob. “—He was supposed to be my friend,” he states, small as a child.

The sobs rack Steve in such a way that his whole body is jolting with it. Nearly toppling off the couch. He chugs the water between cries, but doesn’t move from his spot. Tight and closed off within his own body.

“I wanted him to just be my friend,” Steve continues a moment later, nasally and choked. “But he didn’t want that. He kept overpowering every single decision I made. His breath on my earlobe. And his hands on my thigh, on my…He fucking touched my crotch. Tried to coerce me into having sex,” he spits. “That guy…He made me feel fucking disgusting. About my own body. About things I loved. About sex,” Steve growls, “Made me sort of dislike all those things, too.”

Eddie, for how loud he can be, is completely silent for once. Unable to form words. Not sure how to comfort. And if he could comfort, isn’t sure if that’s something he can do the way he wants to. He can’t touch. Can’t do what he’d normally do. And his body aches to take care of Steve or to simply hold him. To be…well, to be a friend. But that’s not something Steve can exactly trust.

He feels sick to his stomach.

The last bit of water is sipped at slowly, as Steve comes down. Then, he turns to face Eddie. Making direct and purposeful eye contact. “It’s not your fault, that I reacted like I did,” he states lowly. “And it’s not your fault that I close up when you want to talk about sex. Or you wanna talk about all that intimate shit. It’s something with me. Like something’s broken. It’s like a deep crack in me, Eddie.

“And I just wanted to clear up all that. Explain what I can, I guess.” He snakes out a tentative hand. It’s shaking and hesitant, but it still lands softly on the back of Eddie’s right. Squeezes. “But thank you for taking notice. And being concerned. And for apologizing. I feel safe with you, Eddie. I trust you a lot. Which is like—That’s probably highest honors you could earn with me.” And he chuckles slightly. It’s not a humorous thing, but it’s not exactly humorless either.

Eddie lets himself soak in this, though. Smiling warmly back at Steve. Because he needs it. They both need it. He murmurs, “Thank you for trusting me with that, Steve. That wasn’t easy and I’m proud of you for speaking up about it. I’m glad to be somebody you can trust.”

With another exhale, Steve relaxes back into the couch. His hand doesn’t move from Eddie’s. “I also want to say that you’re allowed to talk about your relationships with dudes,” he states quietly. “Seriously, I don’t mind. But just…Just check in with me? Before you do?”

“Of course,” he agrees instantly. “I’ll keep that in my noggin, promise, Stevie.”

Ghost of a smile on Steve’s face again. “Thanks,” he whispers.

A lull floats in the conversation. Steve removes his hand, watching as his fingers twitch, and there’s a little uptick to the corners of his mouth. Something pleased and almost…reverent at the way he looks at his hand.

Before Eddie can get up to change out the movie, he heaves a little sigh. And says, “Y’know, if you ever need any sort of physical comfort, need to talk about this, or you just need somebody to tell you that you’re okay, you can lean on me. Don’t even need to ask, really. I’m all arms.”

“I’ll think about it, Eds. This has been enough for me."

——— Steve comes out to him at the same diner Eddie did only a few years later.

It’s 1990, Eddie’s twenty-four and Steve’s freshly twenty-three. He has a certain spark to him. A sparkle to his smile and a pep in his step. And Eddie’s happy to see him happy.

Happy to eventually call their relationship romantic. Happy to share spots on the couch, curled around each other. Happy to kiss him slow and sweet or not at all, just able to gaze over coffee mugs and across the room and when Steve thinks he can’t be seen.

Eddie’s just happy to be allowed this love that fills his chest and in the colder, vacant spots of their lives.

But he realizes he still hasn’t heard everything about Steve. He gives it time, though. Because the second most important thing to Steve—first just being there for him—is patience.

The next of their chats happens when things get heated on the couch.

Soft kisses turn hungry, carnivorous. Hands wander over heated skin. Steve’s fingers against the hem of Eddie’s t-shirt. But his hands shake. And Eddie places his own hands off to the sides of the couch, pulling himself away before things can get any farther than they already are.

“Hey,” he softly speaks, “Steve, we don’t—I’m okay with just kissing right now. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

Steve stops next to him. Tensing up only slightly. “Are you—You’re sure about that?” His voice is so tiny, so unlike him. And though Eddie’s heard this tone before, it still breaks him.

He says easily, “I don’t want you to be scared of our first time, baby. It’s okay if we need to take things slow.”

He watches as Steve heavily swallows. “And if I asked if we never had sex?”

Eddie eyes him for a moment. Not wearily. With something like subtle pride. “Is that what you want?” He asks in turn. “Would that make you more comfortable?”

Subtly, Steve nods. “I—“ He sighs sadly. “I’ve been thinking about how to talk to you about it. With girls, I never even liked it. I just did it because it…There was something to say about a guy who could have sex with anybody he wants. But I also…I don’t know.” He shrugs as if trying to dismiss it, but Eddie doesn’t like that.

He sets a hesitant, soft hand on Steve’s shoulder. Squeezes when he doesn’t move away. “If you never want to have sex again, I’d be okay with that. I’d be more than okay with that,” he states assuringly. “You being happy and comfortable is what matters most to me. Not sex. I don’t give a shit about sex, not when I get to see you every day, smile on your face, and your eyes shiny and beautiful.”

Steve gives another small sigh, but the smile he has doesn’t waver. “Okay. I—Eddie, I don’t think I want to have sex,” he admits quietly. It shakes from his throat, but it’s still confident the way it lands between them. “It just doesn’t feel good to me. And I—I don’t want to force myself to do it. And it wouldn’t be fair to you, either.”

Another affirmative squeeze to Steve’s shoulder. “Alright, baby. Then we don’t have sex,” he agrees softly. “And if you ever change your mind—not that I’m forcing you to—then I’m okay with what you want.” He scoots himself closer so that their bodies are one single line, warm against each other. Reiterating, “Your happiness and comfort matter the most to me.”

With both of his hands, Steve wraps Eddie’s free one. Traces the veins on the back of his hand. Toys with his fingers. “We can still kiss, though,” he states quietly. “Maybe I want a kiss.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Mhm,” Steve hums. So, he closes the gap. A wet peck to Eddie’s lips. Soft and venturing. One that last only a few seconds. He draws back with the softest smile adorned on his features. Murmurs, “Thank you for hearing me out on this. And for understanding. And for accepting this.”

“I love you, Steve. Just for you. Not the sex or touch. We could never do anything except sit next to each other and talk, and I’d still love you,” Eddie swears.

Steve sniffs something wet. Shoves himself a little closer, cuddling into Eddie’s chest. To which Eddie wraps his arms around his back in response. And he sighs, but it’s a sound of long awaited relief. “I love you, too, Eddie. God, I love you.”

The conversations are tough and they are stomach turning, but after it all, Eddie gets to have Steve. How he is. How he wants to be. And that’s all Eddie could hope for.

He kisses the top of Steve’s head and relaxes back into the couch. “I’m proud of you, Steve,” he murmurs, “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Thank you for being patient. Being here.”

Eddie squeezes them together even tighter. Warm in his chest at the content noise that draws itself from Steve. This could be all that they do forever and Eddie would never ask for more.

🩵—————🩵