#way to often really got to remember to post update more…

[h0useslut]

don’t let me in with no intention to keep me .ᐟ

requests | masterlist

pairing : gregory house x fem!reader

w/c : 1,7k

warnings : hurt/comfort, references to gun violence (handled subtly), post-shooting trauma, angst with a bittersweet edge, arguments, gregory house being emotionally constipated

summary : house can't understand why reader stays after everything he does. after he gets shot, it all comes crashing down on him. one fight and almost tearful confession later, he finally understands why she stays.

a/n : this is something my dear @ariluvzzz prompted, and who am i to say no to her?

It starts with House doing his little schemes on you. Mixing up your coffee order. Accidentally dropping your lunch on the floor while you ate together. Paging an emergency when in reality, he just wanted to mess with you.

At first, you thought it was funny. Hearing him say “What’s got your panties in a twist?” after writing post-it notes with incorrect patient updates was a little infuriating, but you also enjoyed seeing that devilish smirk on his face.

But then the schemes kept coming. More specific. He started knowing exactly how to get under your skin. How you hated reports being mixed up, how the smell of tuna made you gag, how your mug had to face the same direction every morning. You don’t remember telling him those things. He noticed, as he always did.

It didn’t take you long to notice what was actually happening. This wasn’t just boredom or cruelty. It was his version of attention.

And in some backward, ridiculous way, it made you feel seen. Wanted, even. You didn’t say anything, just went along with it. You were pretty sure by now the entire team had noticed the fact that you were in love with him. It was too obvious. Even though you doubted he would ever admit that he did those things out of affection, his eyes lingered on your face way too often, and his voice lowered when he said your name.

It was real.

That playfulness lasted so long, had it not been for the shooting. You weren’t there when it happened. But you remember the look on Wilson’s face when he told you. House had been shot in the neck by a former patient.

You don’t remember much after that. Just how cold your hands felt. How empty the hallway was without his usual complaints and clatter.

You couldn’t bear to see him in the hospital bed. And when you did, it was usually when he was asleep. It hurt too much.

When he came back, something was different. First, came the shouting about the carpet. Then, the jokes stopped. No more coffee-swapped orders, no scribbled notes on your patient's charts.

And the worst of all? He became cold towards you. Silent. Shrugging you off as if you weren’t important. As if you weren’t working in the same team with him.

You knew he was holding back so much. All the things he couldn’t say were now locked up even tighter. And it broke something in you too. Seeing the man you were in love with becoming distant and just not really there.

You weren’t supposed to be there after 8. Technically. But practically? You stalled for a minute too long. You just wanted to see what was wrong. Get him to talk. Anything that would mean that he’d talk to you for more than a few seconds.

Slouched in his office chair, glasses perched low on his nose - he barely heard you come in.

You hovered in the doorway. He glanced up, barely. Just a flick of his eyes.

“Breaking and entering? Bold move” He muttered, voice flat. “Looking to steal my pain meds or my will to live?”

You gave a small laugh, but it didn’t rise to the bait.

“I was just um- I was just passing by”

He didn’t bother to look up from whatever he was doing. Or actually what he wasn’t doing.

You stepped in slowly, coming to stand in front of him. “House” you spoke, softer now.

“What? What do you want?” He snapped, making you take a step back as he stood up.

You blinked at his outburst, trying not to let it sting. It did though. It always did when it came from him.

“I just- Well” you tried, voice smaller now. “I just wanted to talk. You’ve been shutting me out”

He scoffed. “You’re not that special. I shut everyone out”

“Yeah well, not me” You snapped too. “Not like this. Come on now”

That seemed to hit somewhere. His shoulders stiffened, jaw clenched like he was biting back words that might betray him.

“You almost died, House” you continued, stepping closer to him. “And since then, you’ve been acting like you want us to disappear. Like you want me to disappear.”

He finally looked at you again, expression unreadable. “You don’t get it. This isn’t about you”

“Then make me get it” you pushed, heart hammering in your chest. “Make me get it, please. Explain to me why you keep pushing me away”

Silence. He looked down, avoiding your gaze again.

“I can’t keep doing this. Not if you don’t even try to meet me halfway” you say, voice breaking a little.

And so you storm off.

House just stands there, his eyes ridden with something… maybe guilt. But he doesn’t run after you, he doesn’t chase you. You slam the door behind you, and he winces at the sound.

Running a hand through his hair, he sat down - pretending that his charts were the only important thing on his mind. Though he found himself muttering,

“Why does she always wait for me?”

And then it was quiet again.

He knew he should move, so he did. Anything. He kept staring at the door you’d just slammed, torn between looking for you or just ignoring the entire situation.

If he didn’t ignore the situation, it would mean something. And maybe that's what feared him most. That it would open up something inside him - space for someone.

You waited because you loved him. He knew it. That’s what made it worse. That’s what’s made it unbearable. You kept showing up, soft-spoken and with steady hands, even when he offered nothing but sarcasm and lewd comments.

He rubbed at his temples, then lingered on the faint scar near his jawline, the reminder of how close it all came to an end.

You could've left him after the shooting. Most people would have. Hell, maybe you should have left. But you didn't. You stayed.

That terrified him more than death ever did.

He exhales slowly. Maybe it's not about what you see in him - maybe it's about what he's too afraid to see in himself.

By the time he's on his feet, he has already made up his mind about it. It's already decided, though he doesn't really know what to say. But for the first time in weeks, his footsteps don't feel aimless.

Gregory House was coming to you.

You hadn't expected him to come. Not after the way you left. Not after the way he stood there, still as stone and dismissive while you opened your heart to him.

Curled up on the couch, lights dimmed low while a record was spinning in the background - not loud, but still there - you were caught off guard when a knock came on your door.

Your breath hitched. It couldn't be him, could it?

Oh, but you knew it was him. No one else knocked like that.

When you opened the door, he didn't say anything at first. Just stood there, like the words were stuck in his throat.

''I shouldn't have said that'' he muttered. ''I shouldn't have said a lot of things''

“Come in” You whispered, stepping aside.

He stepped inside, noticing how your shoulders slightly trembled.

House stood awkwardly in your living room, gaze flicking over the smallest details - the soft blanket you always curled into, books on the coffee table, on shelves, literally everywhere.

''You always listen to sad music when you're mad at me?'' he asked, attempting to joke. No sarcasm in his voice though. Just searching.

You didn’t answer right away. You crossed your arms, more to hold yourself together than anything else. “I’m not mad” you murmured.

“Just tired of feeling like I’m trying to pull you out of a place you don’t want to leave”

That made him wince. But he didn’t back down. Instead, he moved closer to you.

“Look at me” He whispered, voice soft. “I don’t want to hurt you”

You blinked hard. “Then why do you keep doing it? Why do you keep letting me in?”

“Why do you let me keep caring if you’re going to shut me out. If you have zero intention of actually letting me stay”

His jaw clenched, and he looked away just for a second. Like facing you - facing this entire moment was harder than any other case he’d taken up.

“I didn’t think you’d stay”

You felt something twist in your chest. He couldn’t be saying this, right? After everything you’d been through.

“I have stayed, Greg” you protested. “I stayed after the shooting. After you stopped talking to me. I stayed after you acted like I wasn’t even in the room.”

Silence fell between you again. This time it just helped the ache in your chest grow.

Then he said it, in a slow- agonising way.

“You were in the room. And you definitely mattered to me. You mattered to me more than anything”

Another step towards you. “You could’ve left,” he said, voice raw. His hands twitched awkwardly at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“Stop saying it, please. You know I wouldn’t. You know me” You said hoarsely, eyes teary.

“Why do you keep waiting for me?” he asked. This time his question wasn’t bitter. It was quiet. Almost scared.

You swallowed. “Because I love you. I’m in love with you- and- I know at least for some time you liked me. I know if I wanted to love you right I needed to give you space. I had to let you figure it out”

Tears spilled down your cheeks, and you did little to keep them locked inside you. It was all coming undone. You didn’t expect him to say anything. You were used to him handling these types of situations with silence.

“You missed a little something” he finally said, voice cracking.

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

House stepped closer again, his hand hesitating on your waist before coming to rest there. His eyes were locked on yours like he needed you to see the truth behind what he was about to say.

“I’ve always loved you, sweetheart”

[draco-after-dark]

I was away for like some months, and now you changed your art style... *missing the old art style*

You’d have to kill me to stop me from drawing in cubes

I’ve just been working on a larger scale art piece for a good while now… the canvas time is already up to 16 hours and I’m not done of the line Art yet. Please send help.

The ‘squishy’ or ‘jelly bean’ style I adapted just came purely from me being bored one day and I wanted to draw toe beans. Toes beans just don’t translate very well into my angular style. >:[ Not yet anyway. Plus I have a bad habit of getting distracted when working on larger or more elaborate art works. But it will be worth the wait. Just trust me on this. I’ll finally have a coloured piece done of ALL the Feral bros.

[kathaynesart]

The eye of the hurricane. I like to think Cassandra sometimes called the brothers by the nicknames their dad used, given they were probably pretty close before his passing.

BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT MASTER POST

Man oh man, this one was way messier and off model than my last few updates but whatever, we got to keep this ball rolling! Life's been crazy so I've had to take some unwanted breaks in between updates. Thanks everyone for your patience as always!

One thing I wanted in this flashback was to really get a sense of how the brothers worked as an experienced team with Leo at the helm as a proper leader. It's something we never got to see much of in Rise and I felt it was important to include since half the team is already gone by the time of Replica. Team Dynamics Ted Talk under the cut!

We know from Casey Jr that Leo stressed the importance of listening to your team. A big part of that also means knowing how to communicate with them in general.

With Michelangelo, he keeps it short and succinct, trusting his brother to know what he's doing when in his element. This trust goes a long way with Mikey, having spent years of his youth as the baby striving for the respect he felt he deserved. Leo knows it's best to not bog Mikey down with details, allowing him to improvise as needed. This unspoken freedom has only grown over time as Mikey has dipped deeper into spiritual arts that, frankly, go completely over Leo's head.

The greatest sacrifice Leo has ever made was read Donnie's Big Book of Bad Guy Codes. While he doesn't remember ALL the numbers, he has memorized the ones that matter and it has helped tremendously in avoiding miscommunication with his genius brother. More importantly it silenced any of Donnie's usual belly-aching. As Leo's "twin"/"equal" the two still butt heads from time to time. Donnie respects his brother's authority (mostly) but will still push the boundaries of what he's allowed on a semi-regular basis. Give Donnie an inch and he will take the mile and then find a loop hole that allows him to go twenty miles more. This is partially due to him often being the one left behind at HQ, making the turtle just a TAD stir crazy. Leo does his best to keep him in line regardless.

Big brother Raph will forever and always be big brother to Leo. As such he holds a place of authority in Leo's heart and is someone he still regularly seeks counsel from in both the ways of leadership and more. Raph is always happy to support his younger brother and does a surprisingly good job (albeit after years of practice) of walking the line so as not to step on his brother's toes in the process. At least not since the secret of "the Key" blew up in their faces several years ago. They don't talk about that anymore. Leo is the leader now and he's done a great job in recent years as far as Raph is concerned. He trusts him to make the right call. The two have a close bond and regularly use mind meld to quickly communicate rather than speak ...this will be important to remember for the future.

Hope that overall feeling came through for this group!

[mingi-s-dimples]

Dear Diary... - San

~"Hi love hope you’re doing well✨ Ive read your San kitten fic and I enjoyed it 😀tremendously 🔥. Now If it’s ok with you (I couldn’t find it in your blog that if you’re ok with this kink or nah) to write [cnc+ dirty talk and corruption kink]with San?? And if not cnc anything that comes from authority figures of him. Pls plssss ignore this if it’s makes you uncomfortable ❤️🍓" ~ queen I haven't written cnc corruption kink in my life. I hope I got the idea, even the slightest 😞.

pairing: san x fem!reader

genre: 18+

summary: san read your little journal.. and that ends with you screaming his name.

wc: 5.6k

warnings: dom!san, big dick!san, he eats her out, dirty talk, some cnc + corruption kink (he kinda softly makes her submit to it when he reads her diary + he doesn't care that she's a virgin and he actually encourages it even more so i guess it works? i'm so sorry i never wrote corruption kink before i promise i'll do better 😞💖), she's a virgin, neck holding and softly choking, marking all over, mamhandling, vaginal sex, he doesn't fuck he pounds, multiple orgasms, she screams out his name duh, some crumb of aftercare, cockwarming, unprotected (she's supposedly on bc but booo use protection!), unedited might edit later, for sure forgot something, completely consensual (after he makes her submit to him!)

Author's Note: woahhhh I haven't wrote in a while ngl. Felt good to be back.. sorry for not posting 😞. Life updates: Had 3 exams and I almost failed one but upsies it's maths 💀, had a bf for 3 days cause he acted weird and he said I'm his everything and that he loves me and that he can't be without me and I was like brotha ew we've been tgt for 3 days... and he got offended and unfollowed me everywhere 💀 boys these days... (i sound like a 70yo granma). Anyways I hope I'll post way more these days! There are only two exams to go, one this Friday and one this Saturday (for tutoring!) so I'll disappear again until Saturday night 🧍‍♀️ but I'll post on Sunday ! everyone cheer pls. Love youuuuuu allll

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and does not represent the reality of the member in any way.

The rich scent of steak still lingered in the air, mingling with the faint remnants of laughter and conversation from earlier in the evening. Your small apartment felt quieter now, with only the faint hum of the fridge and the occasional clink of San’s beer bottle against the counter breaking the silence.

The others had left hours ago, leaving just you and him—like it so often did. You couldn’t even remember how it had started, the unspoken rule that San always stuck around longer than anyone else, as if this place belonged to him as much as it did to you.

“You’re really not going to let those dishes wait until tomorrow, are you?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen counter with a smirk. The casual authority in his tone was infuriatingly familiar, yet somehow impossible to ignore.

You glanced at him over your shoulder, rolling your eyes as you stacked the last plate. “And let me guess—you’re going to stand there, drinking your beer, and not help.”

“Exactly.” His grin widened, infuriating and so utterly *him.* “I’ve got my role down. Yours is to overachieve and keep pretending you don’t have OCD about cleaning up after people.”

“I do not—” you started, only to cut yourself off with a sigh. There was no winning with San.

Instead, you gave him a look, grabbed the last of the plates, and disappeared down the hall toward the bathroom. “Try not to break anything while I’m gone,” you called back over your shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he drawled. “I’ll keep myself entertained.”

San watched you go, waiting until the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut echoed faintly down the hallway. Then his attention drifted lazily around the room.

Your apartment was familiar in a way that made it feel like a second home—organized chaos, with books, mismatched blankets, and stray notebooks scattered across every available surface. It was the kind of place that felt lived-in, every corner a reflection of your mind: half-stressed, half-dreaming.

It was a notebook on the coffee table that caught his eye.

It wasn’t hidden, exactly. Half-tucked under a glossy magazine, its leather cover gleamed faintly in the low light. The word *Private* was written neatly across the front in a handwriting he’d recognize anywhere—yours.

A slow grin spread across his face. “Private, huh?” he murmured, setting his beer down and reaching for the notebook.

He flipped it open, expecting to find the usual: to-do lists, random doodles, or the same kind of perfectly planned schedules you’d been making since grade school. But instead, his eyes landed on something else.

*Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to lose control completely. To have someone take charge and make me do things I’d never admit I want. Things I’d never say out loud...*

San froze, his grin fading as his eyes skimmed over the words. The meaning hit him slowly, like a low-burning flame that spread heat through his chest and settled somewhere.. lower.

*...to be pinned down, held in place, unable to fight back but not really wanting to. To have someone whisper filthy things in my ear and tell me how much they love seeing me fall apart under their control...*

He swallowed hard, his grip on the notebook tightening as he kept reading. The words painted vivid pictures in his mind—images he’d never dared associate with you before, no matter how many times his teasing had drifted close to the edge.

But this was different. This wasn’t teasing. This was your handwriting, your fantasies laid bare on the pages in front of him.

And the worst—or maybe the best—part? He couldn’t stop reading.

The sound of the bathroom door opening snapped him out of it. He quickly snapped the notebook shut, placing it back on the coffee table just as you stepped into the room.

When your eyes landed on him, standing far too close to the coffee table, your expression immediately shifted. Suspicion flickered across your face, followed by alarm as you spotted the notebook.

“No,” you breathed, your voice almost a whisper. “San... Tell me you didn’t.”

He arched a brow, leaning casually against the arm of the couch as if nothing had happened. “Didn’t what?”

Your stomach twisted. “You didn’t read that, did you?”

He shrugged, the corner of his mouth curving into a smirk. “You left it out in plain sight, sweetheart. Hard not to be curious.”

“San!” Your voice rose in a mix of panic and mortification as you rushed over, snatching the notebook off the table. You clutched it to your chest, your cheeks burning so hot you could feel the heat spreading to your neck.

He watched you with infuriating calm, his dark eyes gleaming with something you couldn’t quite name. “Relax,” he said, his tone deceptively soothing. “It’s not like I read the whole thing.”

Your heart sank. “What... what did you read?”

San pushed off the couch and stepped closer, closing the space between you with deliberate ease. He stopped just inches away, towering over you in that way that always made you feel small—and not entirely in a bad way.

“Enough to know you’ve got some... interesting thoughts rattling around in that head of yours,” he said, his voice low and teasing. “Care to explain?”

You shook your head, mortified. “No. Absolutely not. You shouldn’t have—”

“Shouldn’t have what?” he interrupted, his tone sharpening just slightly. “Picked it up? Read it? Or are you just embarrassed that I know now?”

You glared at him, though your resolve was already wavering. “This isn’t funny, San.”

His smirk faded, replaced by something darker, more serious. “Who said I’m joking?”

He reached out, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “Maybe it’s time someone gave you what you’ve been asking for.”

The room felt too small, the air too thick. Your lips parted, but no sound came out. You couldn’t bring yourself to say the word, even though you knew you should.

San’s smirk returned, slow and deliberate.

“Mhm-” he murmured, his voice heavy with unspoken intent.

His gaze lingered on you, sharp and assessing, as if he could see through every feeble defense you were trying to put up. The notebook still clutched against your chest felt like a useless shield, doing nothing to block the heat of his presence or the weight of his words.

“Not going to tell me to stop?” he asked, the challenge clear in his tone. “Guess that means you don’t want me to.”

You swallowed hard, your heart hammering in your chest. “This is not funny, San,” you whispered, though even you could hear the lack of conviction in your voice.

“Funny? Not even a little.” He stepped closer, his eyes glinting with something darker. “But it is fascinating. You, scribbling all those dirty thoughts down like a good little secret-keeper, acting all innocent around me—who would’ve guessed?”

“Stop,” you said, the word trembling as it left your lips.

“Why?” His brow arched in amusement, though his voice remained low and intent. “Does it make you uncomfortable? Or is it hitting a little too close to home?”

Before you could answer—or even think of a response—he reached out, plucking the notebook from your hands with maddening ease.

“San!” you exclaimed, reaching for it, but he held it out of reach, his grin never faltering.

“Let’s see,” he said, flipping it open again as your heart dropped into your stomach. “Ah, here it is... *I want to be taken—rough, merciless, made to feel like I can’t get enough.*” He glanced at you, his smirk widening at the audible hitch in your breath. “Quite the vivid imagination you’ve got there, sweetheart.”

“Give it back!” you said, your voice cracking.

“Why?” He shifted the notebook to his other hand, holding it out of reach. “Are you scared because I know how badly you want this?”

Your knees felt weak as he stepped closer, invading your space with the kind of confidence that left you feeling unmoored.

“You’re such an ass,” you muttered, trying and failing to glare at him.

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, his grin sharpening. “But at least I’m honest. You? Not so much.”

San’s free hand brushed against your jaw, his touch light but firm, sending a shiver down your spine.

“You’re blushing,” he observed, his voice teasing but softer. “Is it embarrassment? Ouu, is it.. something else?”

“San,” you said, his name coming out more like a plea than a protest.

“What?” he asked, tilting his head as his thumb traced along your jawline. “Can’t take the heat?”

You shook your head, but you didn’t pull away. You couldn’t.

He chuckled, low and satisfied. “Thought so.”

Without warning, his hand slid to the back of your neck, his grip firm as he pulled you closer. His other hand dropped the notebook onto the couch, freeing him to let his fingers trail down your arm, light enough to make you shiver.

“You know what I think?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a husky murmur.

You shook your head, your breath uneven.

“I think you’ve been waiting for someone to see past all that sweet, good-girl bullshit,” he continued, his thumb brushing along the line of your jaw, “and call you what you really are.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs, the words lodging in your throat. “San...”

His grip on your neck tightened slightly, enough to make you gasp. “What’s wrong? Don’t like hearing it? Or do you like it too much?”

The way your thighs pressed together didn’t escape his notice, and his grin sharpened.

“You’re easy to read,” he said softly, his voice thick with satisfaction. “You’ve been wanting this for a while, haven’t you?”

Your lips parted, a faint whimper escaping before you could stop it.

“Good girl,” he murmured, his fingers slipping lower to trace the curve of your waist. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath hitched as his lips hovered near yours, the air between you crackling with tension. He didn’t kiss you, but the sheer proximity left you trembling.

“You can tell me to stop,” he said again, his voice rough but steady. “One word, sweetheart, and I’ll walk away.”

You opened your mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

San’s grin returned, slower and more deliberate. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

His free hand skimmed the bare skin above your waistband, teasing and slow, and you felt your knees buckle slightly.

“You’ve been waiting for someone to push you,” he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, “to see how far you’ll let them go. Haven’t you?”

You couldn’t answer, your breath coming in shallow gasps.

San leaned back just enough to meet your gaze, his eyes searching yours. “Say the word,” he said quietly. “And I’ll stop.”

Your silence said everything, and his lips curved into a smirk.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, his voice low and full of promise.

His free hand skimmed the bare skin above your waistband, teasing and slow, and you felt your knees buckle slightly.

Before you could process his words, his hands were on you again—fast, firm, deliberate. His grip was steady as he lifted you effortlessly, as though you weighed nothing at all. A gasp escaped you, your hands instinctively clutching his shoulders, but the smirk never left his face.

“You wrote about this, didn’t you?” San teased, his voice dripping with amusement as he carried you across the room. “Right there in your little journal. I had no idea you had such... vivid thoughts.”

He dropped you on the bed. San stood at the edge of it, arms crossed, his dark eyes gleaming with a mix of amusement and control. You were there, sprawled across the mattress, your chest heaving from the tension that hung heavy between you. The heat of your earlier argument still simmered in the air, but now the power had shifted entirely into his hands—and you both knew it.

“You’ve been quiet ever since,” San murmured, his voice low and mocking as he stepped closer, each movement slow and deliberate. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Not so bold now that I know what’s been running through that pretty little head of yours?”

Your gaze darted away, heat creeping up your neck, but San wasn’t having it. He climbed onto the bed in one smooth motion, his weight sinking the mattress as he caged you beneath him. One hand pressed into the sheets beside your head, while the other traced the curve of your jaw, forcing you to look at him.

“Don’t even think about hiding from me now,” he said softly, the mockery in his tone laced with undeniable command. “Not after everything you wrote. Not after you left me to read between the lines of those fantasies you scribbled down so... shamelessly.”

Your breath hitched, and you pressed your thighs together instinctively, which only made his smirk widen.

“I have to admit,” he continued, leaning closer until his lips were brushing the shell of your ear, “I didn’t know you could be *this* filthy. Wanting to be manhandled? Thrown around? Tamed?” His breath was warm against your skin, his tone both teasing and heavy with promise. “Tell me, did you ever imagine I’d actually do it?”

“I-..” You shuddered beneath him, your fingers curling into the sheets as you struggled to form a response. But San was relentless, his hand trailing down to your throat, his grip firm but not restricting as he tilted your head up toward him.

“Don’t play dumb now,” he whispered, his gaze locking with yours. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you left that journal out. When you wrote about how badly you wanted someone to take control. To leave you breathless, shaking… *ruined.*”

You swallowed hard, the air between you thick with tension, and he chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through you.

“Admit it,” he murmured, his lips brushing your jawline, his hand still firm on your throat. “Admit that you’ve been waiting for me to push you like this. That you wanted me to see *every* word of it.”

“I—” your voice faltered, trembling under the weight of his intensity. “Mh..mhm” you were only able to mumble some word.

His fingers loosened just enough to stroke the column of your neck. “Good girl.”

He leaned back just slightly, enough to drink in the sight of you beneath him, flushed and trembling. His grin was wicked as he reached for your wrists, pinning them above your head with a grip that left no room for resistance.

“Now,” he murmured, lowering himself until his lips hovered mere inches from yours, “let’s see if you’re ready to live up to everything you wrote, sweetheart.”

Your head tilted back against the mattress, and the tension in the room thickened until it was nearly suffocating. The way San hovered above you, all sharp grins and teasing touches, had you trembling with anticipation. But as his words replayed in your mind, something inside you snapped.

“Fuck it,” you muttered, your voice shaky but certain. “You’ve already read it. You know exactly what I want.”

San’s brow arched, his smirk sharpening as he leaned in closer, his nose brushing yours. “Oh? And what’s that, sweetheart?”

You swallowed hard, your pulse hammering in your ears. “You. All of you. No teasing, no holding back.” Your voice softened, almost a whisper now. “Please.”

San let out a low chuckle, his dark gaze flickering with amusement and something darker—something primal. “You’re begging now?” he mused, his tone rich with satisfaction. “Didn’t think I’d get to hear that so soon.”

“I’m serious,” you said, your breath hitching as his thumb brushed your jawline. “No going back now. Just—just fuck me, San.”

His grin widened, and for a moment, he just stared at you, as though savoring the sight of you so vulnerable beneath him. Then, with deliberate ease, he sat back and tugged his shirt over his head in one swift motion, the fabric landing somewhere behind him.

You couldn’t help it; your eyes roamed over his toned chest, the sharp lines of muscle catching the dim light. Your breath caught, and he didn’t miss the way your eyes roamed.

“Like what you see?” he teased, his voice dripping with confidence as he reached for the hem of your shirt. He didn’t wait for an answer, peeling the fabric off your body just as effortlessly. His gaze swept over you, slow and deliberate, and you shivered under the intensity of it.

“Perfect,” he murmured, almost to himself, before his hands moved to your waistband. His fingers made quick work of the button and zipper, sliding your pants down your legs with maddening precision.

But then he stopped.

Stepping back, he straightened to his full height, his hands already moving to unbuckle his own belt. The metallic clink of it sent a shiver down your spine, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away as he worked.

He was slow—so agonizingly slow—pulling the leather free and tossing it aside before unbuttoning his pants. The sharp sound of his zipper being undone felt deafening in the charged silence, and the deliberate pace had your heart racing.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked, his voice smug as he slid the denim down his hips, revealing inch after inch of skin.

You didn’t answer, too captivated by the sight of him to form a coherent thought. Your gaze locked onto him, your chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, and you could feel the heat pooling low in your stomach as desire overtook every part of you.

“Thought so,” he murmured, stepping closer, his smirk never fading. “You just can’t get enough, can you?”

You shook your head, your lips parting slightly as you stared up at him with nothing but raw, unfiltered lust. “Not even close.”

His laugh was deep, rumbling, and utterly intoxicating. “Good,” he said simply, lowering himself back onto the bed, his body hovering over yours. “Because I’m just getting started.”

San crawled over you with the precision of a predator closing in on its prey, his movements slow and deliberate, his gaze locked onto yours. His weight pressed into the mattress, pinning you in place as he leaned in, his lips hovering over yours, teasing but not yet giving.

One of his hands wrapped firmly around your neck, the pressure just enough to remind you who was in control. The way his thumb brushed against the side of your throat made your breath hitch, a soft gasp escaping you as your body instinctively arched toward him.

“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice low and rough. “Already falling apart, and I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

His other hand was down around his cock, his movements slow, lazy, and unhurried as he stroked himself. The subtle motion made your mouth go dry, your gaze flickering downward for a split second before snapping back up to meet his. The heat in his eyes was unbearable, and yet you couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the way your body responded to the tension crackling between you.

San smirked at your reaction, his thumb pressing slightly harder against your neck as he brought his lips closer, brushing them lightly against yours. It wasn’t a kiss—not really—but the sensation was enough to send a jolt of electricity straight through you.

Then, just as you started to lean up, desperate for more, the hand from his cock moved. Slowly, almost torturously, he trailed it from himself to your thigh. His fingers brushed against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine, before he hooked his hand under your leg and spread it out beneath him.

“Perfect,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp as his palm pressed against the inside of your knee, holding you open with deliberate ease. “Just like I imagined.”

You swallowed hard, your breath catching as he leaned in closer, his lips finally crashing against yours. The kiss was searing, hungry, and consuming, his hand still firm on your throat as he claimed you completely. Your mind was spinning, your body surrendering to the heat of him, to the way he dominated every inch of your senses.

His grip on your neck tightened slightly, grounding you as his thumb brushed along the curve of your jaw. The other hand remained on your leg, his thumb stroking lazy circles on your skin as he shifted his weight, pressing himself closer.

“You’re mine now,” he muttered against your lips, his voice rough and commanding. “No running, no hiding. I’m going to make sure you don’t forget it.”

Your only response was a soft whimper, your hands reaching for him, desperate to pull him closer. And San, ever the tease, chuckled low in his throat, his lips moving to your jaw as he whispered, “Good girl.”

As San’s lips devoured yours, leaving you breathless and pliant beneath him, a quiet confession slipped out before you could stop it.

“I’ve never done this before,” you whispered, your voice trembling and almost lost in the heat of the moment.

San stilled for just a second, his head tilting slightly as he looked down at you, processing your words. The smirk that crept onto his lips was slow and deliberate, a mix of surprise and amusement lighting up his dark eyes.

“You’re a virgin?” he asked, his tone low, curious, and laced with disbelief. “After everything you wrote in that journal?”

Your cheeks burned, and you couldn’t meet his gaze, but you nodded, swallowing hard. “I... I just—”

He didn’t let you finish. His grip on your neck remained firm as his free hand slid up your thigh again, spreading you out even further beneath him. “So what?” he murmured, leaning in close, his breath warm against your ear. “You think that changes anything?”

Your heart pounded as his lips brushed against the shell of your ear, his voice taking on a deeper, more commanding edge. “You want this, don’t you?”

You nodded quickly, unable to form words, and his smirk deepened.

“Good,” he said softly, almost mockingly. “Then I’ll make sure your first time is something you’ll *never* forget.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. His lips crashed against yours again, hungry and consuming, stealing the breath from your lungs. His kisses grew rougher, more possessive, as though he was claiming you in every sense of the word.

When he finally pulled away, your chest was heaving, your lips swollen, and he wasted no time. His mouth trailed down the curve of your jaw, leaving open-mouthed kisses that turned into light nips. His tongue soothed each bite, sending shivers down your spine as he moved lower, down the column of your throat.

“You’re mine now,” he murmured against your skin, his voice dark and dripping with authority. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” you whispered, your voice trembling with both nervousness and desire.

His kisses continued, his teeth grazing over the soft curve of your collarbone before he bit down gently, just enough to make you gasp. The sharpness of it sent a jolt through your body, and you arched into him, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

“Such a good girl,” he muttered, the praise making your stomach flip as he moved lower. His lips and teeth marked a path down your body, every kiss, every bite leaving a faint bloom of heat behind. He was methodical, deliberate, as though he wanted to cover every inch of your skin.

When he reached your hips, his hands gripped your thighs, spreading them further apart as he settled himself between them. His lips ghosted over the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, his breath warm and teasing.

“Right here,” he murmured, his voice dark with promise as his fingers gripped your leg firmly, keeping you pinned in place. “This is where you’re going to feel me the most. Where I’m going to leave my mark.”

You gasped softly, and before you could respond, his teeth sank into the tender skin of your inner thigh, hard enough to sting but not enough to hurt. The sensation was intoxicating, his tongue soothing the bite immediately after, and the combination left you trembling beneath him.

San pulled back slightly, his lips curving into a satisfied smirk as he looked up at you. “You’re already shaking,” he teased, his hands gripping your hips to hold you steady. “You’re going to fall apart for me, sweetheart. And you’re going to love every second of it.”

Your hands instinctively found their way to his hair, your fingers tangling in the soft strands as he hovered over your inner thighs, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin. The way he teased you—his lips brushing so close but never where you wanted them—had your body trembling with anticipation.

San chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against your skin as he tilted his head up to look at you. His smirk was infuriatingly smug, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement.

“Impatient, huh?” he drawled, his voice low and teasing as he gave your thigh a gentle squeeze. “Can’t wait to have me, can you?”

You whimpered softly, your grip on his hair tightening just enough to pull a satisfied laugh from him.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he murmured, his tone darkening as he settled himself between your legs. “I won’t make you wait any longer. Let’s see how loud I can make you.”

And with that, he dove in.

His lips pressed against your clit, hot and unrelenting, and a sharp gasp escaped your lips as your back arched off the mattress. The first touch of his tongue was slow and deliberate, a languid stroke that left you breathless.

San wasted no time after that, his mouth working against it with a precision that had your head spinning. His hands gripped your thighs, keeping you pinned in place as he devoured you, his tongue flicking and swirling in ways that sent shivers racing down your spine.

“You taste so good,” he murmured against you, his voice muffled but still thick with satisfaction. “Even better than I imagined.”

You couldn’t respond—not with the way he was overwhelming your senses, reducing you to gasps and whimpers as he found every sensitive spot. Your hands tightened in his hair, and he groaned at the pressure, the vibrations only adding to the fire building inside you.

San pulled back just enough to press a kiss against your inner thigh, his lips swollen and glistening. “Don’t hold back,” he murmured, his voice rough and commanding. “I want to hear everything. Every moan, every gasp—let me hear how much you need me.”

And then he was back, his mouth and tongue relentless as he brought you closer and closer to the edge, his grip on your thighs tightening as your body started to tremble beneath him. You couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but surrender completely to the way he consumed you, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.

Your body trembled beneath him, the overwhelming waves of pleasure crashing through you as you cried out his name, your hands still tangled in his hair. San didn’t stop until your body went slack against the mattress, leaving you breathless, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath.

But he wasn’t done—not even close.

“Look at you,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to survey the sight of you sprawled beneath him, still shaking from the aftermath. His voice was low, rough, and dripping with satisfaction. “So pretty when you fall apart for me.”

Before you could respond, San moved with the kind of precision that left no room for resistance. His hands gripped your hips firmly, flipping you over onto your stomach in one fluid motion. A startled gasp escaped you, but it was quickly muffled as he pressed your face into the mattress, one hand splayed across the back of your neck, holding you in place.

“Don’t think we’re done yet,” he growled, his voice dark and commanding as he leaned over you. The heat of his bare chest against your back sent shivers down your spine, and you felt him press his hips into you, letting you feel just how ready he was.

Your heart raced as his free hand slid down your side, gripping your waist possessively. He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispered, “I hope you’re ready, sweetheart, because I’m not holding back… at all.”

His teeth grazed your earlobe, and you whimpered softly, your body arching instinctively beneath him. His voice dropped lower, the words sending a thrill through you as he murmured, “You’re mine now. Every inch of you. And I’m going to make sure you *feel* it.”

The blunt heat of him pressed against your cunt, and before you could even brace yourself, he pushed into you in one smooth, unrelenting motion. The stretch burned, but the pleasure quickly overwhelmed it, and you cried out, muffled against the mattress as he filled you completely.

San groaned low in his throat, his fingers digging into your hips as he pulled back slightly, only to slam back in with a force that made your entire body jolt. “Perfect,” he muttered, his voice rough and thick with lust as he set a relentless pace. “You feel even better than I imagined.”

The sound of skin against skin filled the room, each thrust drawing gasps and moans from you that only seemed to spur him on. He leaned over you, pressing his chest to your back as he buried himself deeper, his lips brushing against your ear.

“Take it,” he growled, his voice dripping with authority. “Every. Fucking. Inch.”

Your head spun, your senses overwhelmed by the rough, unyielding way he moved against you. His hand slid from your hip to your throat, pulling you up slightly so he could press his lips to your shoulder, his teeth sinking into your skin to leave yet another mark.

“You’re mine,” he muttered again, his voice ragged as his thrusts grew even harder, each one sending shockwaves through your body. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“I-I'm yours..! ,” you gasped, your voice trembling as you clung to the sheets, completely lost in him.

“Good girl.. or should I say..” he murmured, his grip tightening as he drove you both closer and closer to the edge, his pace never faltering, never giving you a moment to catch your breath, “good slut?”.

His words made your cunt tighten around him, a grunt escaping his throat.

San’s pace didn’t let up for a moment, his grip firm on your waist as he powerfully ounded into you, every thrust driving you closer to another earth-shattering release. Your body trembled beneath him, overwhelmed by the intensity of it all, and he could feel the way you tightened around him, your breaths coming in ragged gasps.

“That’s it,” he growled against your ear, his voice rough and commanding as he reached one hand between your legs, his fingers finding the spot that made you jolt… your swollen clit. “Give me one more, sweetheart. Come for me again. Let me feel you.”

The combination of his relentless thrusts and the way his fingers worked you had you teetering on the edge in seconds. Your cries grew louder, the tension coiling in your stomach until it finally snapped, a powerful wave of pleasure crashing through you as you screamed his name.

“San!” you sobbed, your body shaking violently as your orgasm ripped through you, leaving you breathless and trembling beneath him.

He groaned low in his throat, his thrusts growing erratic as he chased his own. “That’s my girl,” he muttered, his grip tightening as he buried himself deep inside you, his hips stuttering as he reached his peak.

A guttural moan escaped his lips as he spilled into you, the warmth of his cum filling you completely. He didn’t pull out right away, instead leaning over you, his chest pressing against your back as he kissed your shoulder, his breath hot and uneven.

“You’re incredible,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your damp skin. “You took me so well, sweetheart. Screaming my name like that... you’re so fucking perfect.”

You whimpered softly, still trembling from the aftershocks, and he smirked, his voice dropping to a darker, dirtier tone. “Bet you loved having me ruin you like this. Didn’t you, baby? All that talk about wanting to be manhandled—looks like you got exactly what you wanted.”

Before you could respond, his hand slid to your neck, gripping you firmly as he pulled you upright, your back pressing against his chest. The move made you gasp, your head falling back against his shoulder as he tilted your chin up to meet his gaze, his cock still deep inside you.

“That’s what you get for leaving your little journal unattended,” he growled, his smirk sharp and satisfied as he stared into your eyes. “I bet you loved every fucking second of it. Didn’t you?”

Your lips trembled, but you managed a breathless, “Y-yes… y-es I did..”

San’s grin widened, and he leaned in to press a lingering kiss to your temple, his grip on your neck softening as his free hand wrapped around your waist, pulling you close. “Good girl,” he murmured, his voice softer now but still carrying that edge of dominance.

He held you there for a moment, his arms wrapped tightly around you, his breath warm against your ear. “You’re mine,” he whispered, his tone gentler now, though no less possessive. “Every inch of you.”

Your hands came up to rest over his, your body leaning into his embrace as you whispered, “Always yours.”

San let out a satisfied hum, holding you close as the heat of the moment began to fade, replaced by a warmth that felt just as overwhelming. “That’s my girl,” he said softly, his lips pressing against your hair as he held you, his arms never loosening.

NETWORKS:

@blossomnet

@illusionnet

PERMANENT TAGLIST:

[creations-of-the-dreamlight]

I was inspired by @theoneandonlysourcandy’s The Doctor headcanons that I wanted to make a few for The Goop of All Time Doey (I’m totally copying you :3). Updated a bit and added some more.

🎩 He gives you the space you need to grow and learn, and they help from the sidelines and watch. He trust you on your own in the factory. They know what you’ve done and they respect how far you’ve come.

🎩 with ^^ being said, you often find them muttering to themselves about how worried they are about you. How much they wish they could keep you by their sides forever and never let you out of their sight

🎩 cold can be a big trigger for them due to The Doctors traps. Smetimes they will wrap a piece of dough around you- either entire body or just the smallest bit. He lies, saying he’s worried it’s too cold for you. But deep down both of you know they need your warmth.

🎩 Doey really enjoys music. When he isn’t doing his job as the guardian of Safe Haven, he likes to sing. You and them sometimes sing duets when you are patrolling together.

🎩 they have learned how to shape themselves perfectly to make the comfiest bed for you when you two are sleeping.

🎩 Doey pretty much has all the love languages except words of affirmation- most nice things are really a trigger to him. Being around you is different. You focus on action over words, and hardly speak. You’re not one of the ‘gentle voices’ to him.

🎩 Doey, as a personality, is a bit seperate from the three original kids. It’s not its own seperate personality, but kind of like a mask they put on that gained legs and can move on its own sometime. When you first met it was just this mask. You’ve gotten to know each one better.

⭐️ Jack is still a child at heart- and all he wants to do is play. When he’s with you he’s normally raring with energy. You either play with the other toys, play a game by yourselves, or read books together. You taught him how to make a chess board and then how to play it. He oftentimes falls asleep curled up around you while you read to him.

🍊 Even when it’s just him, and he has downtime, Matthew always has to be doing something productive. Deep down he feels bad- if anyone should have time to themselves, it’s Kevin and Jack- so he forces himself to ‘bring something to the table’ and be useful when he’s out. Nothing could deter him from this, so instead you just help him. Cleaning up, taking care of toys in medical, scrapping up food, you do it together. Your company means the world to him.

💥Kevin was the most suspicious of you. He held onto his suspicion for a long time. But who could blame him? He was the angry one, he was the one who had to snap on any potential danger. And they learned Everything was a potential danger. The first time you ever saw him on his own he was breaking down. For a moment he tried to fight you. But you’re more resilient than that. You toughed through and eventually got him to sit down. He sobbed in your arms for a long time. He doesn’t like to be out on his own, but when he is it’s normally with you, holding you in some way.

🎩 Jack eyes are more yellow when he’s front, Matthew’s orange, and Kevin’s red. If they are just Doey, their eyes are blank and hollow with no light in them.



Bonus one for my trans/gender fucky gang like me :3

🎩 They use their clay to help you with dysphoria (making different clothes, changing different parts of your body, helping to bind safely)

🎩 they spent months searching the factory for things to make comfortable clothes for you

🎩 Many of the toys only remember you from your time in the factory (pre-transition). Doey is gentle with those who don’t get and need to be explained, and fiercely defends you against anyone trying to be rude on purpose.

🎩 If they continue even after he told them off? Dinner is served, ig.

Edit: this is my most liked post yall tysm :3

[pinkaditty]

Holidays with Ghouls (Sho Haizono x Reader; Tokyo Debunker)

please read:

okay. big news + life update: i got into a major car accident a little while ago. my first one ever! i am in a lot of pain so things may be slow-going for a while and ill be unable to commit as much time to writing due to the tangled mess that is dealing with modern insurance companies and recovering from my injuries. thankfully its not so bad to be hospitalized, but its bad enough to limit my activity for the time being. i am somewhat ashamed to ask, but if you like my writing, please consider donating to my cashapp: $cindyfromstarbucks! my car was 100% totaled, and im gonna need to save up for a new one, and my job doesn’t pay very much. thank you for your consideration! please enjoy, regardless! (this paragraph will be on my posts indefinitely, probably until i fully recover)

a/n: LET ME START THIS OFF BY SAYING IT’S ENTIRELY SELF-INDULGENT… i have a green thumb and i’ve been growing a small garden lately (limited space. i hate captialism.) and i just thought “hm. what if we grew fresh ingredients for sho’s food truck?” and the idea stuck and didn’t leave no matter how much i tried 2 shake it off. mc is basically written as me im not gonna hold y’all, but i kept it 2 a minimum so it could still be an ‘x reader’. 

summary: self-indulgent reader x sho. in which you do something nice for him and he struggles to return the favor. 

no cw! enjoy!

big fan of the “woman that is so wound up all the time and extremely professional and tries to keep everyone at arm’s length distance” x “guy that is only a few years younger than the woman but loves calling her by age-appropriate honorifics (i.e. noona, ojou, jiejie, madame, etc) and goes out of his way to teach her how to fucking relax every once in a while” trope and essentially if i were with sho that is how the relationship would go LMFAOOOOOOO

You used to have a bit of a garden before becoming a student at Darkwick. A part of you often wondered if there were people tending to your garden now so you could return to it, well kept and exactly as you remember it, when you were cured of this curse and got this anomalous ring off of you. You'd never really had the idea to plant anything here; you were much too focused on missions and other incessant errands the ghouls saw fit to send you on. You didn't like it, but held your tongue regardless. If all went well, you wouldn't have to deal with this after less than a year. 

You were fond of a few ghouls, though. Some of them were a nice reprieve from the other harsher and more selfish ghouls. Haku was a great example of that, and so was Subaru, his dorm's captain. You'd grown fond on the Jabberwock ghouls, as they were always kind and polite. You didn't really mind the Obscuary ghouls, either. Even if odd, they were good natured, and never turned you away. You appreciated that Rui had a bit of a green thumb too, and would often stop by to assist him with plant care. 

The one ghoul you were the most fond of, despite his less than agreeable best friend, was Haizono, or Sho, as he insisted on being called. Sho, despite his friend Leo, was actually pretty friendly. You enjoyed the time you spent around him, whether that was collecting supplies from the diner, or training with him, or even helping him meal prep for the following day for his food truck. It was fun, spending time with Sho. You're almost angry the idea didn't dawn on you sooner.

Said idea is why you carefully sift through the dirt in your compost container, careful not to split any of the worms with your nails. The potatoes should be done growing by now. The idea had dawned on you one day when Sho mentioned not having enough potatoes to serve fries the following day. Potatoes were an easy crop. And they took three months, at most, to grow. Sure, if worse came to worst, you'd die, but growing potatoes was a good distraction and encouraged you to plan for the future, as though you wouldn't die. After a few favors from Benji and some begging towards the chancellor, you had a small garden behind the chapel. Granted, you'd just started it three months ago, so it wasn't as full as your garden back home, but it was good enough. It was hidden from the rest of campus by the surrounding trees, ensuring no one would find the garden unless they had reason to cut around the chapel, which wasn't necessary considering the path out front. Not only did it serve as your little place of respite, it allowed you to do nice things for others. You were just growing potatoes for now, but it felt like enough of a starter, at least. You’d just planted some tomato seeds that you’d hoped Sho would also find a use for. 

Once done harvesting a substantial batch of potatoes, you wrap them up in plastic bags to look like you bought them. It would save you the embarrassment of having to explain that you’d grown them yourself. 

It’s pleasantly chilly outside, the still afternoon air heavy with promises of cold weather and a white winter holiday. Dirt remained underneath your fingernails from all that harvesting, but it was a small price to pay. Your heart pounded with anticipation and exertion as you made the trek to Vagastrom, heading for the nearby food truck. As expected, you find Sho sitting on one of his supply boxes, far underdressed for the cold weather. You can’t tell if he’s resistant to it or rebelling against it, but you can tell he’s cold. His cheeks and nose are tinged red and his eyes are squinted against the cold wind. You can even tell he’s sniffling with how often he inhales. You exhale both fondly and exasperatedly. The stubbornness of these ghouls was simultaneously attractive and irritating. 

You make it no secret you’re approaching, the bag of potatoes crinkling with your upbeat steps and your own runny nose sniffling in response to the cold wind. You place the bag of potatoes beside him with a heavy ‘thud’, to which he finally looks up, appearing jolted out of his thoughts. 

“Here,” you start, taking your scarf from around your neck and tying it around his without waiting for a reaction. “You must be an idiot to sit out in the cold with just your uniform on.”

“Senpai.” He greets you with wide eyes, watching but not protesting as you tie your scarf around his neck. He appears confused at first, his lips pursing at your actions, but seems to relent as he buries his face into the scarf. You watch as he settles into it, his eyes sliding shut against the cold wind, his nose and lips finding warm solace in the comfort of your scarf. Before long, he pulls it away, revealing himself back to the chilly air with a slight wince. “...No need. Thank you, though.” He glances up at you with a smile before rising to his feet and dusting off his knees. “Whatcha got here?” He gestures to the plastic bag before picking it up, far more effortlessly than you, and inspecting it. 

“Potatoes.” Your breath puffs out in a white cloud. “They’re for your food truck. I remembered you mentioned you were running low, so… I decided to help and buy you some.” At some point, you’d shifted your attention to the ground, toeing at a rock as you realized how ridiculous that sounded. Surely Sho could handle himself. He might even find your help embarrassing, when you really think about it. 

You sneak a glance at him and are relieved to see a small smile on his face as he observes the potatoes. He huffs out a light breath, his face visibly softening. “You didn’t have to do that.” He slings the bag over his shoulder, using his other hand to ruffle your hair and return the scarf. “Come on,” he turns around, headed for the door of the food truck. “You can help me prep.”

‘That’s only helpful if you’ll have any customers in this cold,’ you think to yourself, but decide not to say aloud. Instead, you watch the slow smile on his face as he nods towards you, and continues towards the truck. Crazy, how a simple glance of his could make your heart race. Something about the warmth of his smile, the feel of his fingers carding through your hair, and the leftover scent of his cologne lingering on your scarf tugged at your heart, just a little bit. 

You briskly follow after him, throwing the scarf back over his neck. “Keep it,” you say sternly, watching as he turns to you quizzically. “Have you seen the state of yourself in this cold?” The phrase ‘I want you to have it,’ lingers on your tongue, but you decide not to voice that, instead letting a small amused smile rest on your face. You vaguely gesture to him, your gaze flicking to his red cheeks and nose. He rolls his eyes, noting your point, and keeps the scarf around his neck, opening the side door to his food truck.

“Alright, fine. I’ll wash it and return it.”

As he steps inside the food truck, even from standing behind him you feel a wave of warmth. You follow, stepping inside, feeling the sweet relief of pleasant warm air and smelling the scent of roast chicken. The environment is warm and cozy, wrapping around you like a cushy blanket or a hug from a loved one. Sho closes the door behind you and you note your scarf is still around his neck. Something clicks.

“Wait a minute. You won’t need that.” You point to his scarf, your nose crinkling in mock displeasure. He instinctively flinches away, looking at you with a raised brow. He was seemingly already protective of your scarf, even though he’d only just received it. “Hand it over.”

“That’s hardly fair.” A crooked smile forms on Sho’s face and his brow raises higher. “Why do you assume I won’t need it?”

Indignantly, you gesture to the warm space surrounding you. Sizzling meat, a warm oven, and heaters in a corner, adjusting the temperature of the truck. “Vagastrom is literally right next to here. What do you need that for?”

He doesn’t answer directly, instead tilting his head at you. “I seem to remember a certain someone insisting I keep this scarf. Are you going to go back on your word?”

You clamp your mouth shut, remembering what you’d said and did earlier. He was right, you had insisted, even if only a little. You huff out a frustrated breath, crossing your arms and furrowing your brows. He laughs at your display, pulling the scarf off of him and tossing it on a high shelf of boxes you couldn’t reach. “Like I said, I’ll wash it and return it.”

You decide to swallow this loss. You had other scarves at the chapel anyway, and if he was going to use it, at least it wasn’t going to waste. 

You look around the space again before taking off your coat and hanging it on one of the hooks on the door. “Any plans for winter break? Will you be going anywhere?” 

“Nah.” Sho shook his head, checking on the chicken in the small oven before continuing to stir fry a vegetable medley on the stove, jutting his shoulder out towards the cutting board, covered in various vegetables. You wash your hands before heading over, carefully scraping at the dirt built up under your fingernails from digging. “Unless my… brother… goes, I’m not going. He’ll beat my ass if I don’t and he does.” A look of displeasure crosses Sho’s face, and you have to hold back a laugh at the thought of Professor Hyde chastising Sho for not seeing his family over break. 

You head over to the vegetables laid out on the cutting board, and start with the garlic, peeling it out of its husk. “Sounds like a struggle.”

He scoffs, pouring soy sauce over the vegetables and tossing them before scraping them off on a nearby to-go container. “Holidays are always a struggle with pushy family.” Despite his outward scowl, amusement lights up his eyes for a moment. 

You chuckle, having finished chopping up the garlic and moving to a green bell pepper. You slice it open, its seeds spilling onto the cutting board. “Your family’s pushy?”

“Yes, too pushy sometimes.” Sho shakes his head, shooing you to the side as he grabs potholders to pull the chicken out of the oven. “My brother’s more like my parents than I am.” He carefully places the roast chicken down on a short counter. It’s golden brown, stuffed with rosemary sprigs, lemon slices, and garlic cloves. 

He places it to the side, readying the frying pain and reaching for the peppers you’d chopped, tossing them into the oil. You finish a pepper and reach for a leek next, slicing it into thick chunks. Your eyes flicker back over to the chicken momentarily, rosemary stems sticking out of it like a tail. “The rosemary stems look like a chicken tail.” You voice the thought absentmindedly, smiling to yourself. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sho glance over at the chicken himself. You hear a huffed laugh as he returns his attention to the peppers, sizzling in the oil. “Yeah, it does.” He’s silent for a moment before speaking up again. “Speaking of, it was hard to find fresh rosemary this time around.”

You look up, having finished cutting the leek. A confused expression crosses your face. “Where in the world would you find fresh rosemary in the dead of winter?” You look away, reaching for a carrot, slicing it thinly.

“Rosemary’s an evergreen,” Sho states flatly, reaching for the leek and garlic you cut earlier, mixing it in with the batch of peppers on the stove and stirring them. “You can find that fresh anytime. What’s harder to find, however…” Sho trails off, leaving the stove for a split second, reaching for the bag of your potatoes he’d placed on the ground earlier. He opens the bag and pulls one out, some dirt still stuck in the indents of its skin. “...Is fresh potatoes. They’re typically harvested in the fall.” He smiles at you, before turning away to rinse it off.

Realizing you’d been caught in a lie, you turn away from him, putting all of your focus on the carrot in front of you. You hear his footsteps slowly approaching before he places a freshly washed potato right in front of you, his hand shaking with mirth. 

“Come on, MC. Don’t think I didn’t notice the dirt under your fingernails.” He chuckles before turning back to the stove, stirring the vegetables again. You drop the knife with a clatter and hide your hands behind your back, too nervous to check if you’d missed any spots. 

You sneak a glance up at him, mistakenly making eye contact with him. His eyes gleam with amusement and his smile is soft and fond. “...It can’t have been that obvious.” You decide to admit to it, realizing the heat in your cheeks probably gave it away. 

“It wasn’t.” Sho nods to you, pouring soy sauce over the stir-fried mixture and tossing it before scraping that off in a different to-go container. “I just happened to notice the dirt when you handed the scarf to me, and your potatoes smelled extra earthy.” He takes the pan off the heat, moving over to the chicken and carefully cutting out the breast. 

It’s silent for a few moments, you staring at that freshly cleaned potato and Sho slicing through the chicken, placing the breast in one to-go container and the wings in the other. Sho finally speaks up, though his voice is low. “...You didn’t have to do that, you know.” You look up again, just to find him turned away from you, his ears turning red. Silence falls again as you watch him check off the to-go containers he’s finished. You assume he’s trying to distract himself from the obvious blush on his face, but you can’t say for sure. Something about it makes you feel similar, your heart rate picking up and your face reddening more. It wasn’t due to your embarrassment anymore. “I dunno, I’m bad at thanking people. Just, well…” Sho trails off, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, hiding his face from you. His voice lowers significantly, and contrastingly, the blush on his ears brightens more. “Thank you. I know potatoes take a while to grow. And…” He trails off again and swallows thickly. You don’t bother asking him to finish his sentence. The implications of his words grow somewhat heavy in your heart, and you wring your fingers nervously. Of course it was profound, growing potatoes for someone when you’re doomed to die, now in nine months. The thought of dedicating your time to anything that wasn’t curing your curse was odd, but this distraction had done you well nonetheless. You didn’t want Sho to feel bad about it at all. You were certain that, if anything, the gravity of being recognized by a girl doomed to die was dawning on him. 

The words spill out before you can really stop them. “Don’t worry about it, Sho. I did that because I wanted to.” Confessing this was almost as raw as confessing your feelings, and your chest tightens at that thought, but you continue despite that. “You’ve been kind to me since after our first mission. And I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, including things as mundane as meal prep!” You gesture vaguely to the setting before you, hoping to get your point across. “I just randomly had the idea, and figured it couldn’t be so bad to act on it. It’s been a good distraction anyway, and what with all that happens here, a distraction does me some good.” Silence falls once more, and Sho finally turns to look at you, face flushed. He wipes his palms on his apron and worries his lip between his teeth, his gaze flickering between you and the floor. “...So what if I used up three months to grow potatoes? The time will pass anyways.” You turn away from him, looking at the washed potato. You reach for it and pick up the knife, beginning to cut it into cube chunks. 

“...I guess you’re right.” You can hear a gentle smile in Sho’s voice, and it warms you up internally, feeling thankful he’s accepted the gift. You glance towards him, giving him a smile, and catch him staring. There’s an odd glimpse of admiration in his eyes, which makes your cheeks warm.

“Go on and finish cutting the chicken.” You wave off his stare and jerk your gaze away from him, hiding your blush and focusing on the cubed potato. 

He scoffs and turns away, picking up his knife. “Giving me orders in my own kitchen, huh?” 

You don’t respond. You don’t need to. The warmth of the heaters settles into your skin and the warmth of the previous pleasant conversation settles into your heart. You glance down at the bag of potatoes that started it all. The eyes of the potatoes seem to stare up at you knowingly.

You’re carrying a short stack of to-go containers outside to Sho’s bike, Bonnie, your boots crunching the frosty path beneath you. Snow would surely be coming soon. You gently place the stack in the box on the back of Bonnie, careful to make sure none of them tip over. You hear more crunching footsteps and turn around to see Sho, carrying the rest of the boxes. He places them in the box as well and organizes them before securing the box with a few straps. He steps back and exhales, smiling to himself. You can’t help but smile at his pride.

“Now, to deliver these…” Sho approaches Bonnie and gets on, patting her twice affectionately. The gentle thrum of the engine comes to life in response. He looks to you and smiles, and you notice he’s wearing your scarf. “Sure you don’t want a ride back to the chapel?”

You eye the box of food already on the back of Bonnie and shake your head. You wouldn’t test fate today. Your eyes find your scarf again, sitting snugly around Sho’s neck. “Well, at least you have a use for it.” You say, resigned. Part of you wonders if you’ll ever get it back. 

Sho smiles, reaching up to touch the scarf. “Again, I’ll wash and return it.” He looks up to the sky, and you follow suit, noting the pale white blanket of clouds blocking the sun. “That said…” He starts, lowering his gaze to you again. “It is cold out. I may need this for longer than I expected.” There’s a teasing lilt to his voice and his smile turns crooked, as though suppressing a smirk. 

“...I’m not getting that back, am I?”

Sho shrugs, revving up Bonnie. “Who knows?” He smiles fondly at you one last time before speeding off, the wheels of Bonnie leaving tire tracks on the frosty path. You watch him as he leaves, his hair lifting in the wind, the tendrils of your scarf billowing behind him. You watch until he turns a corner and you can only faintly hear the rumbling of Bonnie’s engine. ‘I guess he really did have customers, even in this cold…’ You think to yourself, a faint smile growing on your face. You inhale the crisp cool air, feeling a bit cooler around your neck now that you’re missing a scarf. You idly look back up at the sky again, wondering if it really would snow today. Despite you enjoying the stillness of the winter air on Darkwick campus, the cold eventually bites at you, urging you to return to the chapel. Your footsteps crunch along the frosted path, following Bonnie’s tracks.

It’s Christmas evening, and things are finally winding down for the day. You’d been to Frostheim and made snow angels with Luca and Kaito, had coffee and played chess with Tohma, and Jin, despite himself, hadn’t asked you to run any errands for him today. You’d been to Vagastrom and exchanged gifts with Alan, tolerated Leo’s selfies with you, and looked around for Sho, but hadn’t found him. You’d been to Jabberwock and fed the animals with Haru, watched a romance movie with Towa, and played a holiday-themed horror game with Ren. You’d been to Sinostra and done some gambling with Taiga while Ritsu tagged along to ensure Sinostra’s reputation wasn’t damaged further, and had a surprisingly pleasant conversation with Romeo despite him saying your large coat made you resemble a slug. You’d been to Hotarubi and had tea and holiday sweets with Haku, Subaru, Zenji, and Lyca, who was visiting Subaru. You’d been to Obscuary and had Rui’s new holiday-themed drinks with Ed, chattering time away at the bar. You’d been to Mortkranken and reluctantly exchanged gifts with Yuri, aware of the fit he’d throw if you hadn’t gotten him anything, and pleasantly exchanged gifts with Jiro, reminding him to take good care of himself. 

Finally, after a very long, exhausting, and eventful day, you were back at the chapel, counting the vines growing under your skin, glowing lavender like the flower on the back of your neck. Some small flowers broke your skin and bloomed here and there, leaving the exit wounds somewhat inflamed. Granted, you didn’t have much time left, and these vines made that clear, but this holiday had been much better than you’d expected it to be. You appreciated the effort most of the ghouls put forth to make this holiday at least somewhat enjoyable for you, especially considering it may be your last. 

You sit by the fireplace in your room, watching the snow fall from the sky through your window. You had a tiny pine tree near your bed, decorated with handmade tinsel from the three Hotarubi ghouls and some small ornaments from Jin. You wore new pajamas from Romeo, though you weren’t sure how in the world he knew your size. You had a new bracelet from Taiga, who had originally forgotten who he’d gotten it for. On your nightstand lay a dreidel from Kaito and a snow globe from Luca. The hot chocolate you sipped on was a gift from Tohma, and some wine awaited you in your fridge, a gift from the Obscuary ghouls. You had a few new ugly holiday sweaters from various ghouls, Yuri and Ren included, and some not-so-ugly ones, thanks to Haru and Towa. A thick, heavy book about the origins of the laws of Japan sat on a nearby table, a gift from Ritsu that you had no plans to read. You had lit a scented candle from Leo, which you thought was surprisingly thoughtful, and had set aside the wax melts from Alan, planning to use them after the candle ran out. The new watch from Jiro was wrapped around your wrist, displaying the increasingly late time. In all of this, you wondered where your gift from Sho was. You hadn’t been able to spot him today, and the thought made you feel a little down. You’d wanted to spend some time with him today, but guessed he was probably too busy preparing Christmas dinner for all of Vagastrom and Hotarubi that he simply hadn’t had the time. You set your hot chocolate down on top of the accursed thick book and sprawl out in your chair, turning to the window again. Regardless, this had been a surprisingly wonderful holiday. The ghouls had given you gifts and willingly spent time with you, doing various fun activities and filling you with holiday cheer. It was a nice escape from the reality of your situation, even if it was only for a little while. 

You check the vines under your skin again, resisting the urge to scratch at where a new white flower had bloomed near your elbow. You could feel that, soon after the holiday season mellowed down, it would be back to reality, and you’d have to face your own death once again. Part of you dreaded the eventual change in weather and in the length of days, knowing your predicted end was growing near. But a part of you was also resigned to it. Regardless of whether you were due to die soon or not, this had been a nice holiday. And you could stand to live in the now, just this once. 

You carefully pluck the flower from your skin, wincing at the sharp pain. You bleed for only a few moments before it clots up. At least you could stave off the growth of the curse for now. 

You hear a gentle knock at your door. Physically, you’re too exhausted to have much more fun at this point, but mentally, you could use a pick-me-up. You head down your stairs towards the door, opening it crack by crack, trying to prevent too much of the cold wind from slipping inside. You peer through the open doorway, jolting in surprise when a familiar pair of dark blue eyes meet yours. 

“Hey,” Sho starts, lifting two boxes in his hands. “Thought you could use a warm holiday dinner.”

Your heart swells and all at once, a wave of emotion hits you. Sure, you didn’t have much time left, but that didn’t stop these ghouls from caring, and that was evident in the gifts piled up in your room, the fun you’d had all throughout the day, and the ghoul now standing at your doorstep, seeking more time with you. There was a reason he was your favorite. 

You swing the door open wider, unable to hide the smile that breaks across your face all at once. “I was looking for you, you know.” You cross your arms and narrow your eyes in mock disappointment. “Where’ve you been all day?”

“Cooking.” Sho lifts a brow and shrugs, tilting his head at you. He smiles fondly at you, and you notice he’s finally dressed appropriately for the season; a hat covering most of his hair, a matching coat and gloves keeping him warm, and your scarf, tucked snugly against his neck inside his coat. Yet again, you realize you are probably never getting that scarf back. 

“That scarf is still mine.” You gesture at his scarf, and he laughs, reaching up to brush the built up snow off of it. 

“And I’m still using it.” He replies, smiling wider. “So… Gonna let me in or what? It’s cold out here.” His breath puffs into white clouds, and you notice his cheeks and nose are tinged red again thanks to the cold. You smile and step aside, letting him in. 

You close the door behind him and he shakes off the snow built up on his coat. When he looks at you, his smile holds the warmth of a thousand candles and his voice holds the joy of a thousand holiday carols. “So… got any mistletoe? If not, we can start with gifts. Either works for me.” A blush covers his face as he pushes the boxes towards you, his smile growing wider and fonder.

You figure, regardless of how much time you have left, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a holiday with your favorite ghoul.

Bonus:

The gift, wrapped surprisingly delicately inside one of the boxes, is a knitted scarf in your favorite colors. It’s not bad, but you can tell it was done by a beginner. Holding it in your hands, a small smile grows on your face, and you sigh, totally resigned. 

By god, you are never getting that scarf back. 

“Well, thank you for your collateral replacement, but I expect that scarf back one day.”

Sho shakes his head, smiling as he chews on your shared meal, packed in the other box he was carrying. “No can do. It’s still cold and I still need a scarf.”

“I’m withholding the mistletoe, then.”

Sho huffs, rolling his eyes and continuing the meal. At his lack of a reaction, you purse your lips, thinking of another thing to withhold that might gift you a victory. Sho speaks, having swallowed his mouthful, “I can find other reasons to kiss you-”

“I’m withholding the potatoes.”

Sho looks at you in shock, dropping his forkful back onto his plate. “...I’ll think about it.”

Maybe you would get that scarf back, after all.

----------

a/n: it's done. finally it is done. finally! i've been writing this romance fic 4 a long while so im glad it is finally done

thank you all so much for reading!! as usual, i love likes, but especially comments, reblogs, and asks detailing how much you enjoyed my work!!! please feel free 2 fill up my inbox with whatever, i love talking 2 u all! but be warned my responses will be slow... im still recovering!

happy holidays 2 you all! i hope, whether you're surrounded by family, friends, or by yourself, that it's a wonderful and fulfilling holiday season 4 u. merry christmas 2 those who celebrate, and happy kwanzaa 2 those who celebrate that as well!! not very well versed in other winter holidays, but may they be joyous and merry!

[mayrose713]

Beautifully Cruel World-Chapter 10

Series Masterlist | Previous | Next

ABO Non-Idol Stray Kids Universe Poly OT8 x Reader 18+ MDNI

Warnings in the Series Masterlist as well as any other information needed

Warning: Smut First time I've ever written smut, so I'm sorry if it sucks (I'm updating the warnings in the series masterlist so this is the only other warning for smut from here on out)

Also want to let everyone know that with holiday seasons coming up, work is getting busier and I'm gonna be working more days than my normal here soon so it's gonna be a bit harder to write. I promise to update as often as possible and I'm gonna start adding dates next to the upcoming chapters in the masterlist on when they should be posted so refer to that.

thank you everyone for reading, now enjoy

Chapter 10

“How was it?” Jisung asks after Y/n walks out of the office he was waiting for her in front of as she was talking with her therapist and psychiatrist and he can see the signs that she’s been crying which doesn’t surprise him. 

“Weird.” She sniffles, wiping her nose with a tissue. “They asked me a lot of mental health questions mostly, and they want to put me on anti anxiety meds for sure and maybe antidepressants.”

“It’s not too bad.” He takes her hand to lead her back to the lobby where Chan is waiting for them. “I was put on the same when I first started coming here. Still take the anxiety ones actually.”

“Really?” She looks at him surprised. 

“Yeah.” He nods his head. “I was homeschooled as a kid so I didn’t socialize as much as I should have and it caused a lot of anxiety because of it. The only reason I know Chan and Changbin is because my dad worked for their dads originally. Really they were my only friends back then.”

“Good to know.” She nods, frowning. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I just realized I don’t actually know a lot about all of you guys, or how you all came to be.” She whispers, looking at the floor. 

“Well feel free to ask questions whenever, we‘ll be happy to answer.” He squeezes her hand as they walk out into the lobby and Chan looks up at them.

“You okay?” Chan stands as the two walk up to him and he pulls her into his side. 

“Yeah, it was just a lot.” She hands him the paper for her anti-anxiety prescription. 

The alpha looks over it and sighs but understands and reads the note about possible antidepressants but they want to have more sessions with her to determine that. 

“I’m gonna ask you like I had asked Ji when they wanted to prescribe him this too.” He moves her to look at him. “Do you want to be put on medication? Do you think it will actually help you?”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve never taken stuff like this before.” She stutters. “But I’m wary because of the injections.” She then looks over at Jisung. “Does it help you?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He smiles at her. “I feel like I’m able to get through the day easier with it. And don’t worry, it’s nothing like how the injection was.”

Y/n nods her head still thinking about it and Chan tilts her head to look up at him. “Hey, you can try them out for a bit and if you don’t like how they make you feel or don’t think they’re helping then we can slowly get you off of it.” He reassures her. “We did that with Jisung for his antidepressants.” 

“Okay.” She whispers. “I’ll try it.” 

Chan goes and gets the prescription sent in to be picked up at the pharmacy in Stayville and picks it up on their way home. 

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

“Baby girl.” Chan stops the omega as she walks past his room and motions for her to come in. “I’ve noticed you’ve been in your head since we got home, talk to me.” He shuts the door after she walks in.

She sighs as he leads her to sit on his bed. “I just realized today that I don’t actually know a lot about all of you.” 

“That’s all?” He watches her closely as she nods her head. “Baby, all you have to do is ask us questions and we’ll tell you anything you want to know.” 

“Can you tell me about your family and where you came from?” She asks shyly. “I remember Minho telling me that Hannah visits from Australia a lot. And Dr. Hajoon was calling you Chris.” 

“Yeah.” He smiles and laughs a little as he sits next to her. “My English name is Christopher. I was born here but was mostly raised in Australia. My dad went back and forth from there and here to help Changbin’s dad run the company. His dad retired so he and I handle the Korean office while my dad still runs the one there.”

The omega nods as she listens. “Your brother is an omega. What about Hannah? And your parents?”

“Lucas is our only omega in my family pack too.” He smiled at her. “My dad is an alpha and so is Hannah. My mom is a beta.”

“Would we ever be able to go visit Australia?” She whispers.

“Of course.” He lifts her head to look at him. “As a pack we own a vacation house there so that Felix and I are able to visit our families often.”

Y/n’s jaw dropped. “How did I not realize that Felix is also Australian?”

“I don’t know, baby.” He laughs a bit. “Felix and I have known each other since we were kids. I taught him Korean and after I had moved and gotten settled here with Changbin, Jisung and Seungmin we moved him here.” 

“Ji said you guys were the only friends he had since his dad worked for yours.” She looks over his facial features. “How did everyone else come into the pack?”

“Well, Seungmin and I went to high school together here. I was his senior.” He smiles as she listens closely. “He was a bit unsure of himself when he realized we were fated. I had to go up to him first and tell him about Changbin and Jisung, who I was living with and tell him about Felix back home.”

“Minho had run into Jisung at a caffe not far from the office. At the time Minho was a backup dancer for BTS but after meeting Ji and wanting to court him since he was his fated mate, he decided to stay in Seoul and started teaching dance. And Ji convinced him to meet the other four of us as he knew we were his fated mates too.”

“Min was a backup dancer for BTS?” Y/n gawks. “I don’t believe it.”

“Look up some of their live performances, you’ll see.” And she makes a mental note to do so later. “Hyunjin and Jeongin met each other in school and knew they were each other's fated mates. Hyunjin had started taking classes from Min and even though they both realized they were fated mates, Jinnie was too scared of Minho to talk to him about it and Min wasn’t about courting his student.”

Y/n couldn’t help but laugh at how cute the whole situation is. “So how did it finally happen?”

“Felix.” Chan smirks. “Changbin had dropped him off at the studio one day to bring Minho lunch and Hyunjin fell in love at first sight. After that Lix made Jinnie and Min talk and Hyunjin told them about Jeongin and they told him about the rest of us.”

“That’s all really cute.” The omega gushes. “Best story ever.”

“I don’t know.” He grins at her mischievously. “I think my favorite story is the one about how we met our omega.” He grabs her pulling her onto his lap so she’s straddling him causing her to blush.

“Channie.” She pouts as he holds her hips and Y/n can’t help but to glance down at his lips, thinking about what it would be like to kiss him.

Y/n starts to wonder if they’re gonna claim her soon or not, thinking back to what her brother had told her, about them possibly just using her.

“You’re thinking too much, baby girl.” The alpha grips her hips a bit tighter causing her to whine a little. “Just say it.”

“Please.” She looks back and forth from his eyes to his lips.

“You’ve gotta say it.” She continues to pout though and he lightly spanks her ass. “Come on baby, I don’t know what you’re wanting if you don’t speak up.”

“Please claim me, alpha.” She sounds disparate.

“Fuck.” He growls, pulling her down to kiss her lips. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

The kiss is heated and passionate, he smirks at the small wines she’s making. He spanks her again causing her to gasp and the alpha takes the opportunity to slide his tongue past her lips. She doesn’t try to fight back with her tongue, already submitting to him.

He pulls away from the kiss and starts trailing kisses down her jaw to her neck, relishing in the little sounds she makes. He groans into her neck when she bucks her hips against him, her nails digging into his shoulders. 

Chan buries his nose into her scent gland before switching their positions so she’s on the bed and he’s hovering above. One arm next to her head to keep himself up and the other lightly trailing up her bare thigh to the bottom of her skirt. 

“Are you sure about this, baby girl? Because once we start, I’m not stopping.” He looks into Y/n’s eyes, seeing how desperate and needy she already is as she nods her head. “Words baby, I need you to use your words.”

“Yes alpha, I’m sure.”

“Good girl.” He growls as he pushes her skirt up and cups her sex, feeling how damp her underwear is. “Fuck, my little omega, you’re already so wet.” 

Y/n covers her face with her hands in embarrassment as he continues to rub her through her panties letting out little whines and moans. 

“Don’t hide from me.” Chan grabs both of her wrists with one hand and moves them from her face and pins them above her head. “There she is, my beautiful girl.”

“Channie.” Y/n bucks her hips against his hand. “You’re teasing.”

“Am I?” He fake pouts at her before taking his hand away from her and she whines and squirms as he still holds her in place. “What’s wrong? I thought you didn’t want me to tease you? So I stopped.” 

“Chan, please.” And with a smirk at her begging he lets go of her wrists, moving his hands to her blouse and takes it off and raises a brow at her bare chest. “No bra? Tsk, naughty girl.”

“Took it off when we got home.” Y/n pants. “It was uncomfortable.” 

“Of course it was.” He coos, kissing her lips again and cups her boob, squeezing it a little before playing with her nipple. 

She arches her back, moaning into his mouth as she starts pulling at his shirt trying to get it off. Chan sits back pulling the shirt over his head and she ogles him, eyes roaming over every muscle of his torso. She then notices the bulge in his jeans, sitting up she unbuttons them as he smiles while watching her, helping take his pants off leaving him in his boxers. 

Chan grabs the waistband of her skirt, pulling it down along with her panties before pushing her to lay back down as he looks over her.

“You’re so beautiful.” He whispers, moving his fingers to play with her slit before pushing a finger in causing her to bite her lip. “You’re so tight, baby. If you can’t take my finger, how are you gonna take my cock?”

“I can take it.” The omega moans as he starts to finger her. “Please alpha, I can, I promise.”

“Let me prep you first.”

He pushes a second finger in and makes a come hither motion and she arches her back once again grabbing onto his arm as he speeds up his fingers. 

“Channie, please.” Y/n whimpers as he pulls his fingers out of her pussy, bringing his fingers to his mouth to taste her slick.

“Mmm, you tastes so good. Gonna have to eat you out sometime.” He wastes no time sliding his boxers off before leaning over her, lining up with her. “This might hurt a little, but I promise it will get better, just let me know if it gets to be too much.”

“Okay.” Y/m whispers and gasps when he starts to push in. 

When Chan feels some resistance he gives a hard thrust, completely bottoming out inside her causing her to moan a little in pain and pleasure. He stays still, looking at her face to check she’s okay and wipes away a tear from her eye.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little.” The omega whimpers before grinding against him. “Please move.”

Chan pulls out a bit before thrusting back in causing her to gasp again as he moves. Her expression soon changed from that of a bit of pain into pleasure.

“You’re so tight, baby girl.” He grunts as her hands go to his shoulders, claws coming out and start digging into his skins as she becomes a moaning mess under him.

“Please alpha, more.” And he speeds up his rhythm, rutting into her as he looks down to where they are connected seeing just how well she’s taking him. 

When he sees some blood, which shockingly didn’t make her feel bad for hurting her but turned him on more knowing he’s taken her innocence and now belongs to the pack, to him. The sight of it causes him to harden his thrust and he grabs her hands from his shoulders placing them next to her head and holds them.

“Channie… ah.” Y/n squeezes his hands, head turning to the side as her eyes close, her walls clamping around him.

“Fuck.” He growls, loving the sound her slick makes around his cock. “You close baby?”

She nods in desperation and the knot at the base of his cock starts to swell. “Please, Chan, so close. Want your knot, please. Please claim me.”

Chan nuzzles into her neck for a moment smelling at her scent gland before biting down hard, teeth breaking the skin as he tastes her blood. She screams and cums around him, shaking in pleasure, her juices squirting everywhere making a mess of both of them and the bed. She thought the bite would hurt but instead she just feels a flood of his love and emotions for her.

He stays latched onto her neck riding out her pleasure before his knot inflates all the way and he releases his load into her. His knot keeps him locked in as his cum fills her up, some spilling out around his cock. It isn’t until she’s milked him dry that he lets go of her neck, licking his lips of her blood.

Y/n gazes up at him looking fucked out as he lets go of one of her hands to push some of her hair out of her face. “You did so good, baby girl.”

“Wanna bite you too.” The omega whimpers as she tries to move but his knot still hasn’t softened, keeping him in place.

Chan leans down, giving her access to his neck, the side with only three mate marks and she bites down just under the bottom one. He groans in pleasure and lets her stay there as long as she wants. 

Once she lets go she looks up at him, eyes full of love. “My alpha.”

“That’s right baby.” He coos and kisses her lips. “I love you so much.”

“Love you too.”

______________________________________________________________

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[sashaisready]

Since You've Been Gone: Chapter 1

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Series Masterlist

After a regrettable first meeting in the cemetery, you discover that you have something in common with a certain member of the Avengers. Unfortunately, you can't choose your neighbours, even in death.

(Setting is approx. post TFATWS)

Hi, I'm back! I have no idea where this came from, or where it's going! So apologies as updates may not be consistent while I figure it out. Warnings for death of parents, grief, mentions of cemetery/graves - please tread carefully if these are triggers for you.

🍂

It was a chilly Autumn day, but not unbearable. Your coat could more than handle the frigid breeze. You squinted at the headstone as you crouched on your knees, angling your head to make sure you hadn’t left any streaks or marks from the polish. Satisfied with your performance, you trimmed a few of the roses that were leaning against it before standing and taking a step back to admire your handiwork.

Immaculate as always, so neat you could almost be fooled into thinking you weren’t even outside. You could hear your parents’ voices in your head now, joking about being able to keep their graves far cleaner that you ever managed your bedroom to be, their frequent nags falling on deaf adolescent ears.

You smiled sadly as you looked at the intricately engraved text below their names on the shared stone:

Beloved parents taken too soon,

Waiting in heaven to be reunited with their only daughter

You’d never really like that phrasing; it was a little too whimsical for your tastes – especially all these years later. But a recently orphaned teenager wasn’t exactly an expert in choosing the best headstone wording. You’d been more than happy to let your aunt and the funeral home lead the way, too paralysed by grief to make even the smallest decisions in the hellscape that was death admin.

Still, you’d never want to upset your aunt by getting it changed, there’s a lot of strange emotion tied up in grief even when time has passed, and that mourning teen has become an adult. And it wasn’t like new headstones were cheap anyway…

As you packed up your cleaning kit your attention was drawn to the two graves next to your parents’ - George and Winnifred Barnes. They had both passed several decades earlier, long before your parents were buried next to them. They had died only a few months apart according to the text…maybe they’d couldn’t survive without each other.

It was easy to infer that they no longer had anyone left earthside. The graves had been long untouched, unkempt, and overgrown, the inscriptions getting harder to read – and you’d never seen any evidence of a visitor in all your time coming here. Except of course when the cemetery staff did one of their occasional mass clean-ups of the neglected graves.

About a year ago, you’d started tending to them alongside your parents. You weren’t sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. They were neighbours after all. And you’d want someone to do the same for your mum and dad if you weren’t around.

You’d cleaned their stones, wiped away the grime and given them a decent polish. You’d trimmed back the weeds and laid fresh flowers. The first time took a while, but after you’d got them to a reasonable standard it was all pretty easy to maintain.

You’d often wondered who they were. What they were like. The dates suggested they’d died of old age, a luxury your parents didn’t have. Were they kind? Funny? What hobbies did they have? They were around during the war, that must’ve been tough. You knew from the inscriptions that they had children who would’ve been over hundred by now. Maybe no grandchildren which is why nobody came by to see them anymore. It made you feel sad, how we could all be just a few generations away from being forgotten entirely. At least you could try to remember them.

You gave their graves a quick once over, took away the dead flowers and added some fresh roses in their place.

“Well, I’m done,” you said aloud, “see you soon, mum and dad. And you too, George and Winnifred. Sleep well”.

You sighed, walking back to your car and back to your life. You knew all too well that the dead may be still, but the world continues around them.

🍂

A week later you were back at the cemetery with your cleaning kit slung over your back, your arms full of fresh flowers.

“Afternoon, mum and dad,” you said as you placed your kit and flowers down and pulled out the foam pad that you used to kneel on, “and you, George and Winnifred”.

“Work has been kicking my ass this week,” you sighed as you got to work on your parents’ stone. “There’s only so much I can take of Brock’s moaning about the numbers…it’s getting harder not to smash my keyboard over his head – yeah I know, violence isn’t the answer, blah-blah-blah…”

You worked diligently, chatting away as you went through your maintenance tasks. It was nice, talking to them like this. You could say anything, really. No judgements, no admonishment, just silent acceptance of everything you told them. It was a bit like therapy for you. You often imagined your parents were sitting behind you as you spoke, just out of sight.

You liked to use old newspaper to buff up the marble. As you gathered your things together, you glanced at some of the headlines from the copy you’d brought with you. Lots of dreary grimness unfortunately. There was also a longread feature on the Avengers and where they were now, their photographs lined up across the top of the page. It was sad that a few of them were dead now, or at least no longer here. You felt a pang of sadness for their loved ones – you knew what that was like.

You didn’t know all the details of The Avengers and their associates, but like everyone else you knew the basics. It was a strange time, just a decade or so ago nobody had ever thought superheroes really existed…but then all of these ‘enhanced’ people started crawling out of the woodwork, revealing weapons and technology that previously had only existed in sci-fi movies. It was hard to believe, really.

You scanned the newspaper page, looking at the pictures for a few moments. You took your time studying their faces before sighing and placing it back down.

“All done…now let’s help out George and Winnie over here, looks like you guys need some new flowers…and all that heavy rain we’ve been having has really done a number on your stones…let me just-”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the gruff voice behind you demanded, causing you such a shock that you nearly joined your parents.

You spun your body away from the graves, horrified to see a man looming over you as you stared at him open-mouthed in surprise. You hadn’t heard him approach, not quite understanding how you hadn’t noticed him coming at all…

“I said what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he repeated to you, his blue eyes alight with anger.

He was big. Bigger than you. Even under his coat you could see his broad shoulders. A mop of dark hair framed his face, most likely quite an attractive face when it wasn’t pulled into a furious sneer like it was now. He wore black gloves as he pointed at you accusingly. The fact that you were kneeling on the ground while he stood towering at his full height had not gone unnoticed by you.

There was something strangely familiar about him, but you couldn’t place it. Did he shop at the same market as you? You couldn’t quite…

“I’m…I’m just-” you spluttered as you fumbled for the words, still caught in your surprise and the fact that this normally serene time had been interrupted by a stranger yelling at you…

“Get away from there!” he snarled.

You quickly realised he was talking about the Barnes’ graves. You bounced backwards, landing painfully on your ass in your desperation to do what he said. He had a chilling air of authority that you didn’t want to screw with. You weren’t trying to piss off an angry man while you were out here all alone…

“I was just tidying them up,” you managed weakly as you sat up and clutched at the flowers.

“Nobody asked you to,” he scoffed in response as he leaned over and ran a gloved finger over Winnifred’s inscription, “you shouldn’t be clambering all over graves of people you don’t know”.

You frowned as the initial shock of the encounter wore off, now annoyed now at his abrupt rudeness towards you when you only had good intentions.

“Oh, and you know them, do you?” you snapped back sharply as your felt your emotions surge and your eyes water, your cheeks hot with mortification, “well, nobody has been to visit those graves in years so-”

“Yeah, actually I do know them - I’m their son,” he spat furiously.

Your head bounced back in surprise and confusion. You curled your lip and frowned at his strange claim, he appeared to be his mid-to-late 30s at most – many years away from the very elderly man he’d need to be for that to be true.

What was his goal here, exactly?

Was this guy just looking to start an argument and decided you’d be his target? Spouting off nonsense about random graves just to mess with you?

And where did you know him from?

Despite your survival instincts, you couldn’t help but fight back. You didn’t appreciate being messed with at the best of times, let alone when you were only here to visit your deceased loved ones. Who came to a graveyard to fuck with people? And yell at them?!

“Huh? Son?” you scoffed with derision and jabbed a finger towards the inscriptions about their children, “well, that can’t be true as that would mean their kids would have to be over a hundred…and how many one-hundred-year-olds look like you…?”

“I’m 107 years old, actually,” he said venomously. He sounded utterly sincere despite the ludicrousness of his claim. His face was sullen, his eyes piercing.

You ignored the shudder that threatened to roll through you in response. It was a strangely familiar expression on his face.

Where had you seen that look?

“Oh, yeah! You’re 107…Sure!” you laughed sarcastically. “You just have the greatest plastic surgeon of all time, in fact there’s a bunch of centenarians wandering around looking thirt-”

You trailed off as a wave of recognition suddenly hit you and the penny dropped. Oh. Oh.

He wasn’t from the market…

It was him.

Your eyes panned down to the crumpled newspaper lying next to you. The same man’s face scrutinised you from the page, an exact mirror image of the brooding 3D version in front of you. A little older now, but still unmistakably the same man.

Oh!

Now you remembered that same picture on the news. Read about the terrible things he’d done before when he was under hypnosis. For the Nazis? The Soviets? Both? Flashes of recollection hit you at once, disjointed and scattered.

It wasn’t really him doing all of it, it was a mind control thing, they’d said. He was like the Captain…the first one from the 40s. Kept young…somehow. He had a robot arm. Then there was the big government pardon after he’d helped to save the world. The deep dive the New York Times had done on his assassin past. What had they said he was called? Iceman? Winter? Winter hitman?

The Winter Soldier.

Barton? Baines? No, Barnes.

Barnes.

As in…son of Winnifred and George?

Ah.

He must’ve seen your train of thought written all over your face as he nodded solemnly at you.

“Yeah. It’s me. And I only found their resting place a few weeks ago,” he said with disdain.

You got to your feet, taking a few cautious steps backwards. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You didn’t need to be a jerk - I’ve just been coming here for years, and I’d never seen…”

You trailed off, he didn’t care. His focus was on the graves, one gloved hand gripping the top of his father’s stone as he peered down at the grass below.

You turned to leave, giving him his privacy, “I’m sorry for your loss,” you mumbled quietly as you picked up your kit.

You started to head back to your car, then turned to face him again after a couple of steps. You warily moved back towards him and leaned over, placing a single flower between the feet of his parents’ graves. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t pick it up and throw it back in your face, either.

As you walked away, you thought you felt the weight of his gaze on your back.

🍂

Another week passed and you were back at the cemetery once more, working the usual routine and doing your best to forget what had happened the last time you were here. Upsetting a war veteran slash Avengers superhero by accusing him of not being his parents’ child was impressively incompetent, even by your standards. But in your defence, he did just start yelling at you out of nowhere. And you were only trying to help. And he was a literal defiance of nature, time, and aging…

But then again, people weren’t always their best selves in a cemetery. It wasn’t exactly Happy Hour over here. And you’d probably freak out too if you caught a stranger tinkering around with the resting place of your parents. The parents who died of old age while you were cryogenically frozen and a prisoner in your own body…

You’d done a little more reading up on him, James Buchanan Barnes. ‘Bucky’. The man behind the scary winter soldier mask. The older images of him in his combat gear were chilling, as were the alleged stats of his kills, but mainly you just felt immense empathy for a man out of time. A man who had lost his youth, a limb, his autonomy, and everybody he once knew from his old life.

You tried to put it out of your mind, catching your parents up on what they’d missed and pretty-ing things up a little around their plot. You didn’t touch the Barnes’ this time, just gave them a little wave and concentrated on your own flesh and blood.

You were a million miles away, lost in the quiet fog that often seemed to overtake you when you were working in the cemetery. It was peaceful, really. This was the one place you could switch your brain off and quiet the chatter of your head, just concentrate on the tasks you knew so well by now that your hands did them on muscle memory alone.

You were just adjusting the newest flowers when a voice interrupted you.

“Hey,” it said.

It startled you as you were still in your own world and hadn’t heard anyone else approach. You whirled around slightly panicked as a pair of eyes the colour of sapphires met yours.

It was him again.

“Oh, hello,” you replied quietly.

He stared over at you, wrapped up in his coat as he was last time. His stare was still intense despite appearing much calmer than when you first met him. He wore black pants and boots, his hands tucked away into his pockets, a dark backpack slung over his shoulder. His face was more relaxed than it was during your first encounter. His blue eyes were just as arresting, but the absence of anger made them sparkle rather than burn. He had a soft dusting of stubble across his taut jawline, his dark hair was pulled back behind his head as he absent-mindedly ran a hand over it. He was…

…hot?

Fuck.

He nodded at you in acknowledgement and moved to George and Winnifred’s plot, kneeling in front of their stones. He pulled a candle out from his backpack and lit it with a lighter, placing it between where his parents lay.

You turned away sharply, not wanting to look like you were intruding during what was clearly a private moment of mourning. You focused on your own parents’ graves, clipping back the flowers as quietly as possible.

The two of you continued doing your own thing, the awkwardness thick in the air. You remembered how furious he’d been with you last time. You considered saying something, trying to explain that you were only trying to maintain the graves, but you didn’t want to provide any more ammunition for potential anger. Instead, you continued your routine in silence, keeping your eyes down.

After you finished you packed up your stuff and cleared your throat, ‘uh, bye,” you said quietly to him as you hurried down the path and back towards your car. He didn’t respond, but looked up at you as you passed, studying you intently.

[sturniololover005]

Chris Sturniolo - Can't resist

Warning ⚠️: smut, small amount of angst, f!masturbation, oral (m. receiving),cheating (Chris),

Summary: You and Chris used to fuck buddies, that is until he gets a girlfriend - but can he really resist you?

Words: 3.2k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Chris had a complicated history. There were good times, like when you two hooked up, and bad times, like when you confessed your love for him. He rejected you, and everything changed after that, especially when he got a girlfriend a month later. She was beautiful, exactly his type, and it hurt you deeply. You saw every Instagram post, every comment, and every TikTok they shared. You tried not to let it get to you, even though you spent sleepless nights dreaming of being in Chris’s arms.

Despite your best efforts to move on, the memories lingered. Each social media update was a painful reminder of what could have been, and it seemed like everyone but you was moving forward. Your nights were filled with a mix of longing and frustration, remembering the intimate moments you had shared and the connection you thought you had. It was a struggle to let go of the hope that maybe, just maybe, things could have been different. Your nights were filled with longing and frustration, thinking of the intimate moments with Chris. Letting go seemed impossible, each memory a bittersweet reminder. Alone, you touched yourself, reliving the passion you shared.

Your favourite memory was the time you did it in the car where he and his brothers filmed their videos. You wore his forgotten shirt, his favorite panties, and escaped into your own fantasy. You missed his long fingers, the way he curled them inside you, hitting all the right spots.

Toys couldn’t compare, only making you more desperate. That’s when you decided to see if he could really resist you. You would wear his shirt, the scent of him still clinging to it, and the panties he loved. You needed to remind him of your nights of passion, make him remember.

Could he really resist you? You were about to find out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You take a deep breath before knocking on the door, trying to steady your nerves. To your luck, someone opens it almost immediately. Unfortunately, it’s not Chris, but Nick, standing there with a wide smile. "Hey y/n! I haven’t seen you in a while. Where have you been?" he asks, his cheerful demeanor a stark contrast to your anxious state. "Oh, I’ve just been busy," you reply, attempting to match his casual tone. "Is Chris here?" The question escapes your lips with an almost desperate edge. "Yeah, he’s in his room. Come in, I’ll go get him." Nick steps aside, opening the door wider to let you in. "This is my chance," you think, heart pounding. "Oh no, it’s fine. I’ll go myself," you say with a reassuring smile, trying to mask your nervousness. You walk down the familiar hallway toward Chris’s room, each step making your heart race faster. Your sweaty palm curls into a fist as you approach his door. The closer you get, the more you feel your heart beating in your ears. Your breathing becomes unsteady, the wetness from your palms sticking to your fingers, sending warm shivers through your body. Finally, you raise your hand and knock. The door creaks open slowly, revealing Chris standing there. His hair is messy, and he’s wearing a wife beater and pajama pants that fit him so well it’s almost criminal. For a moment, you’re both silent, just taking each other in. "Y/n?" he says, his voice filled with surprise. Hearing him say your name again brings back a flood of memories. You realize just how much you’ve missed him. "Why are you here?"

“I missed you,” you say, using the sultry tone that always made him go weak. You had used it often in the past, and it worked every single time. Chris clenches his jaw the moment he hears your voice, fully aware of your intention. He hated that it was working—it wasn’t supposed to. He had Isabelle now, but God, did he miss you. He missed the way your soft giggles would escape when his hair brushed against your thighs, how your fingers would tangle in his hair, pulling him closer. He missed the sound of your gasps, the way your grip would tighten on his wrist when he found that perfect spot. He missed the sight of your lips, swollen and bruised from your own teeth as you tried to stifle your moans. He missed the electric connection, the raw passion that ignited between you two every time you touched. He missed the way your bodies moved together in perfect sync, as if they were made for each other.

Chris struggled to keep his composure, his mind torn between loyalty to Isabelle and the undeniable pull he still felt toward you. The memories of what you shared were vivid, almost tangible, and resisting you felt like trying to hold back the tide. Despite everything, the intensity of his longing for you had never really faded. His internal conflict was palpable, and you could see it in his eyes.

“Stop that, Y/n,” he says in a low tone, but he doesn’t realize it only makes you want him more. You step closer to him, a slow, deliberate move. “You know you miss it too, Chris. Don’t lie.” He turns his head, avoiding your eyes, but you see the conflict written all over his face. You close the door behind you, sealing you both in this intimate space. Still stepping closer, you watch as he retreats, his steps unsure until he backs into the bed. Seizing the moment, you climb onto his lap, straddling him. You reach out, gently turning his head to face you. “Look at me,” you command softly, your voice a mixture of desire and determination.

His eyes are narrowed, his jaw clenched tightly, and his hands grip the sheets so hard his knuckles turn white. He’s trying his best not to reach for you, to maintain control, but you can see the internal struggle. The tension between you is palpable, a magnetic pull that neither of you can ignore. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he mutters, his voice strained. He’s battling his own desires, trying to stay loyal to Isabelle, but the longing in his eyes betrays him. He wants you just as much as you want him, and it’s taking everything in him not to give in.

You lean in closer, your lips just inches from his. “I know exactly what I’m doing, Chris,” you whisper. “And I know you want this too.” His breath hitches, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that sends shivers down your spine. Slowly, hesitantly, his hands leave the sheets and rest on your hips, his touch igniting a fire within you.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers, but his grip on your hips tightens, pulling you closer. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the undeniable chemistry between you two reigniting. “Maybe not,” you reply, your voice barely more than a breath, “but we both know this feels right.” He hesitates for a heartbeat, then he moves closer, pulling you into a kiss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You respond instantly to the feel of his lips on yours, your body reacting with a shiver of anticipation. Your hands move up to cup his face, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw and feeling the slight stubble there. His skin is warm beneath your touch, grounding you in the moment. His hands are not idle either, traveling over your body with a sense of urgency, as if he’s been longing for this moment as much as you have. His fingers press into your back, pulling you closer, as though rediscovering the way your body fits perfectly into his hands. You can feel the heat radiating from him, matching the growing fire within you. Every touch, every movement, feels electric, heightening your senses. The world outside fades away as you lose yourself in the kiss, the only thing that matters is the connection between the two of you. You bite his bottom lip gently, eliciting a low, guttural growl from him. The sound sends a thrill through you, a spark of excitement that makes your heart race even faster. Taking advantage of his reaction, you deepen the kiss, your tongue tentatively exploring his mouth. The taste of him is intoxicating, a blend of familiarity and desire. He responds eagerly, his tongue meeting yours in a passionate dance. His hands roam your body, memorizing every curve and contour as if he’s afraid this moment might slip away.

His touch is both demanding and tender, a combination that leaves you breathless. He pulls you even closer, his hands sliding up to tangle in your hair, tilting your head slightly to deepen the kiss further. Your bodies are pressed together so tightly you can feel the steady beat of his heart against your chest, a rhythm that seems to sync with your own racing pulse. The intensity of the kiss grows, a fiery exchange that speaks of all the emotions you’ve both kept bottled up. His hands drift lower, finding the small of your back and pressing you even tighter against him. The sensation of his body against yours is almost overwhelming, a heady mix of comfort and desire that leaves you yearning for more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You slowly begin to pull away from the kiss, savoring the lingering warmth of his lips against yours. As your eyes flutter open, you become acutely aware of the firm pressure of his hard cock pressing against your ass. The sensation sends a shiver down your spine, igniting a deeper desire within you. Every nerve in your body feels electrified, attuned to the intimate connection you share in this moment.

With deliberate slowness, you rise from his lap, the heat of your bodies momentarily parting. Your breath quickens, anticipation building with each passing second. As you drop to your knees on the floor, you glance up at him, meeting his gaze, which is filled with raw, unspoken desire. The intensity in his eyes makes your heart pound even faster, your skin tingling with excitement. Your hands tremble slightly as they reach for the hem of his pants, your fingers curling around the soft fabric. You take a deep breath, steadying yourself, before tugging gently but firmly, pulling his boxers down along with his pajama pants. The motion is slow, deliberate, a tantalizing tease that only heightens the anticipation.

As the material slips down, you watch with bated breath as his cock is gradually revealed. It stands proud and erect, rock hard and pulsing with need. The sight of him, fully exposed and waiting, sends a fresh wave of excitement coursing through you. Your eyes linger on his length, taking in every detail, the way it throbs with every beat of his heart. You feel a surge of heat between your thighs, your own arousal growing in response to his. The sheer intensity of your desire threatens to overwhelm you, but you revel in it, embracing the passionate energy that crackles between you. Your hands move with a mind of their own, fingers lightly grazing his skin, eliciting a shudder from him. His breath hitches as you lean in closer, your lips brushing against his inner thigh. The touch is feather-light, a whisper of what’s to come, and you feel him tense beneath you. You smile to yourself, knowing the power you hold in this moment, the ability to drive him wild with just a touch.

Your eyes lock onto his, and you see the storm of emotions flickering there—desire, anticipation, and a hint of frustration. You maintain that eye contact, letting the connection between you deepen, before you let your lips trail teasingly to the tip of his cock. Your kiss is feather-light, barely a touch, but it’s enough to make him shudder. The soft gasp that escapes him as his head falls back is music to your ears. You know that his dick hasn’t been teased like this in a long time, and the realization sends a wave of satisfaction through you.

You continue your slow, deliberate exploration, your lips pressing gentle, lingering kisses along his cock. His reactions are intoxicating, his body responding to your every touch, his breaths coming faster and more ragged. As you reach the tip again, you flick your tongue out, just barely grazing the sensitive head. His response is immediate and intense, a deep groan rumbles from his chest, and his hips jerk involuntarily. You smile against his skin, knowing that you have him right where you want him. The power you feel in this moment is heady. You glance up at him again, taking in the sight of his head thrown back, the tendons in his neck standing out as he struggles to maintain control. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and you can tell he’s fighting the urge to take control, to guide you, but he holds back, letting you lead. The trust he shows in you only heightens your desire, making you want to drive him even wilder.

You continue your teasing, alternating between soft kisses and gentle licks, keeping your touch light and playful. His reactions are everything you hoped for, his body trembling with need, his breaths coming in harsh, uneven gasps. Finally, you take the head of his cock fully into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it with deliberate slowness. The sensation is overwhelming for him, and he lets out a guttural moan, his hips bucking up towards you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as you’re deep in the moment, lost in the sensations and the heat between you, his phone rings. The sound is jarring, cutting through the intensity of your connection. You glance at the screen and see the name flashing: Isabelle. Fuck. You can feel Chris’s body tense with nervousness, his muscles tightening under your touch. The change in his demeanor irritates you, the intrusion snapping you out of the passionate haze. With a sigh, you reluctantly take his cock out of your mouth, looking up at him with a mixture of annoyance and disappointment. "Just pick up," you say in an irritated tone, rolling your eyes as you sit back on your heels. He hesitates for a moment, then reaches for the phone, his hand shaking slightly. He answers, trying to sound casual, "Hey baby." The words infuriate you, a sharp pang of jealousy and anger flaring up inside you. You listen as her cutesy voice chirps on the other end, "Hey babe, what are you doing?" The sweetness in her tone grates on your nerves, and you can feel your blood boiling. But then, an idea forms in your mind, a wicked smile curling your lips as you remember a particular night not too long ago.

It was a night when you had gone on a date with another guy. When Chris found out, he had stormed into your place, furious and possessive. He had taken you roughly, fucking you raw, all the while making you call the other guy to cancel any future plans. The memory of his dominance, his need to claim you as his, sends a shiver down your spine. Now, it’s your turn to take control, to make him feel the same jealousy and possessiveness. With a devious glint in your eyes, you lower your head again, taking his cock back into your mouth. You hear him suck in a breath, his body tensing even more as he tries to maintain his composure. You start slow, teasing him with your tongue, your lips sliding over his length with deliberate slowness. His hand trembles as he holds the phone, his voice strained as he tries to keep up the conversation.

"I'm just... hanging out," he says, his voice faltering slightly as you take him deeper, your mouth working expertly. Isabelle’s voice continues, oblivious to what’s happening on the other end of the line, "Oh, I was just thinking about our plans for tomorrow. Maybe we could go to that new restaurant?" Chris struggles to keep his voice steady, his free hand gripping the edge of the bed. "Uh, yeah, that sounds... good," he manages, his breath hitching as you swirl your tongue around the head of his cock. His hips twitch involuntarily, and you feel a surge of satisfaction at the control you have over him.

"Are you okay? You sound... out of breath," Isabelle says, a hint of concern in her voice. You smirk around his length, the idea of her suspecting something making the moment even more thrilling. Chris clears his throat, trying to compose himself. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just... a bit tired, that's all." His words are clipped, strained, and you can tell he's struggling to keep up the facade. You increase the intensity of your movements, your head bobbing up and down, taking him as deep as you can. His free hand tangles in your hair, a silent plea for mercy that you have no intention of granting. As you continue, you slide a hand between your legs, touching yourself, feeling your own arousal heighten with every reaction you draw from him. The sensation of pleasuring both of you at the same time makes the moment even more electric.

Isabelle chatters on, her voice a background noise to the symphony of pleasure you're creating. "I can't wait to see you tomorrow. I've missed you so much. It's been too long since we've had a proper date night." Chris’s responses become more monosyllabic, his concentration split between the conversation and the overwhelming sensations coursing through his body. "Yeah... me too... tomorrow... sounds good..." His voice is a mix of breathlessness and barely contained arousal. "Chris, are you sure you're okay? You sound really weird," Isabelle’s voice cuts through, more insistent now. You glance up at him, meeting his eyes, and you see the desperation there, the need to keep it together. "Yeah, I'm... just really tired," he says, but his voice breaks slightly, a low moan escaping despite his best efforts. Isabelle falls silent for a moment, and you can almost hear her suspicion growing. You suck harder, taking him deep into your throat, and his body shudders violently. "Chris, what's going on? Are you sure everything's okay?" Her voice is sharp now, almost demanding. "Isabelle, I... I have to go. I'll call you later," he manages to say, his voice strained and breathless. He hangs up quickly, the phone dropping from his hand as he finally lets out a deep, guttural moan, his body shuddering with the release of the tension he had been holding back.

You smile around his cock, feeling a sense of triumph and satisfaction as you continue to pleasure him, driving him closer and closer to the edge. As you take him deeper, your movements become more urgent, more demanding. You want to push him over the brink, to make him come undone completely. His hands tighten in your hair, his hips thrusting up to meet your mouth, and you can feel him getting closer and closer. The power you feel in this moment is intoxicating, and you revel in it, knowing that you’ve turned the tables, that you’ve taken control. When he finally comes, it’s with a raw, primal intensity that takes your breath away. His body convulses, his cock pulsing in your mouth as he spills into you. You take it all, swallowing every drop, savoring the taste of his release. As he collapses back, spent and panting, you pull away, wiping the corner of your mouth with a satisfied smirk.

“I know you can’t resist me”

[bladekindeyewear]

Light/Void and Ascent/Descent, Outward/Inward

I was helped in putting together something pretty huge this week, Aspect-ways. Sometimes lately, I've been chatting with Taz (aka optimisticDuelist, @utopianparadoxist) and we discuss or debate over character and Aspect interpretations, or they link me some interesting thoughts they've posted blogways or from a third party. This time we were discussing a post they made on Void's potential connection to Gravity and all its potential conflated meanings, such as Love pulling things together, which they based on analysis stemming from @lime-bloods's Void/Home association theoryposts -- I was skeptical of this Gravity interpretation, for reasons I'll go into later below the cut, but one of those reasons was I felt as if paired terms between Light and Void are important when solidifying the domains of each Aspect, and I couldn't think of one for Void's "Gravity" that had a Light equivalent. For example, recently I had the belated inspiration in terminology, for instance, that Light is "Location" where Void is "Dislocation", a perfect tie between Light's links to Maps and Landmarks contrasting it with Pumpkin-like "disconnectedness from spacetime" and ability to appear anywhere, which I quickly added to the Aspect Duality post in late February (I should add the edit date in on that).

And while we were tossing the idea around, we stumbled on another set of even MORE important paired Light/Void terms that made me do an acrobatic pirouette off the fucking handle. I got permission to paste the conversation:

BOOTS: otherwise there might be other aspects that better fit what's going on

((does Light "Push" where Void "Pulls"? could that be it? no, that sounds more like Breath and Blood…))

((actually that might be really important to Breath and Blood, shit! wind pushes forward/outward, chains pull in))

TAZ: I think its pretty fair to say that its a nebulous and abstract reading where a lot of the evidence is hard to parse, like I said at the end of the post I definitely still feel like I'm missing stuff about Void

And I also agree that other aspects have a lot of room to play in this space and overtake Void in readings, primarily Heart and Blood in this context

BOOTS: ((and the "inescapability" of black holes carried Blood associations with other inescapable things))

TAZ: Indeed

TAZ: But isn't that part of the nature of Void? To be a subtle force that falls into the backdrop and lets other things more visibly take over?

BOOTS: you could call that descending into the Ocean, into the abyss over a cliff, into irrelevance; it's Descent, but not necessarily Gravi---

AAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TAZ: Well this is exciting

BOOTS: LIGHT IS ASCENT, VOID IS DESCENT

TAZ: Yeah, I can see that

BOOTS: there are so many fucking associations across the comic and I'm remembering so many of them oh my god

And that Gravity is wrapped up in this association as everything is naturally PULLED DOWN. The rest of the conversation is under the Read More cut where we started listing out more than a dozen freakin' examples to each other that show how UTTERLY PERVASIVE a theme this has been throughout the entire goddamn comic, from the start right up to and including the very latest update of Beyond Canon. (Contains HS^2/Beyond Canon spoilers if you're coming here from elsewhere, stop reading here if you're not caught up to the 2025-03-26 update!)

EDIT: (Just a brief note I'm adding to this above the cut, but a Discord friend just gave me ANOTHER association to add to Light and Void: Outward vs Inward, Light's outward projection the pair to Void's inward gravity!!! Shining Stars versus Black Holes! Void's Inwardness finally brings together its metaphysical ties with Heart and how the latter often sits isolated in the Ocean of Void like Dirk's house, the natural inward-looking nature of Heart-- compared to the outward-facing nature of Mind and its façades, tying Light and Mind together like Vriska and Terezi!)

TAZ: It might almost apply as a broad division to the upper and lower halves of the wheel in general, actually?

BOOTS: even in this LAST update they go UP to enter Canon a black hole is always Down

TAZ: But I like it as Light and Void specifically right now, lets examine that

Yeah yeah BOOTS: Looking at Light almost always entails looking Up, looking down is usually staring into the Void, with the exception of Derse players staring out into the Ring

mainly abysses and oceans with looking down TAZ: Dirk's consumption by Ultself is described as him being subsumed into the Ocean/descending into its watery depths, while Rose outright says about hers "I am ascending, and it is terrible"

BOOTS: Rose begins her grimdark path by destroying her first (UPWARD) Gate and rocketing off elsewhere and of course she's the prime example shown off by the comic of the Descend-before-you-Ascend of role inversion

TAZ: And Heart is on the lower half of the wheel with Blood and across from Void. So maybe there's something there

mmmhmm, mmhmm

BOOTS: it's been said even in like, Andrew's commentary outside the comic, that "Skaia is always Up"

it's never shown setting

TAZ: And of course they shoot the meteor Up towards the Green Sun

BOOTS: and the trolls see the creation-splosion of the green sun Up to direct them in Cascade--

yeah, exactly [what you said]

TAZ: Terezi's looking slightly Upwards as she remem8er's Vriska in [S] Remem8er

(Vriska) and (Terezi) staring Up into the Light of paradox space breaking

it really is all over the place, huh

for that matter, (Vriska) and Meenah looking Up into the fireworks as (Vriska) comes to the true realizations she does about how miserable it is to live the way Vriska and Lord English live

BOOTS: going against your hero role, Descending, is so often denying your true self agency and straying away from philosophical Truth-- after which comes the Ascent where you find and accept yourself

oh and by going into what's been constantly called HELL inside the Plot Point and then emerging out stronger, Vriska "descended" ala Dante's Inferno and then Ascended out of it

TAZ: indeed! indeed

Oh! Dirk and Hal's conversation on the rooftop!

Dirk sits on the side of his home and is literally staring down at both a long plummet/implied s*****e and literally into his Shades/his own Self

BOOTS: hell, if you wanted to make a pun of any love association, instead of gravity you could call it falling in love!

There's just SO MUCH MORE to this, so many examples of Light and importance and enlightenment and Skaia's philosophical truth being UP or involving ascent, where anything that drops or falls DOWN into the water or off cliffs becomes dislocated and its relevance unknown until it might eventually perhaps resurface unpredictably elsewhere. Tavros being driven down off a cliff by the Thief of Light to break his legs and stunt the playful drive he needed to become a fully realized Page of Breath, Aranea's snapped-neck body being dropped into the flames to fade into such irrelevance that she never surfaced post-Retcon, Vriska stealing all the luck/Light from the enemy creature in the first Meteor walkaround and it falling into a collapsing dark pit, so many people always going UP to reach concrete destinations, Roxy and others crashing DOWN through fenestrated windows and falling to reach the Furthest Ring, and of course there's always the Jung psychology stuff that was woven into Sburb (as I've reiterated in the past) and an essential metaphor for Descending into your shadow and Ascending from it to merge your shadow self with your conscious self for true self-acceptance and balance, like Vriska just did in the Plot Point, like the normal Quest Bed method of attaining God-Tier merging the Real and Dream selves and everyone looking Upward to see John RISE UP and achieve ascension: (From an older edit of the Wikipedia page for the Jungian Shadow--)

Nevertheless, Jung remained of the opinion that while “no one should deny the danger of the descent […] every descent is followed by an ascent”, and assimilation of—rather than possession by—the shadow becomes a possibility.

“We begin to travel [up] through the healing spirals…straight up.”

As I've said before, the game IS the psychotheraputic journey from start to finish, complete with the same monumental challenges, pitfalls, rejection and acceptance (of help and of oneself!) that all sorts of different people must confront in order to simultaneously fully appreciate and become themselves, and also become the people they truly want to be. Skaia's Light and the path it guides players on thus represents a journey to one's philosophical enlightenment about oneself, their ASCENT, and the challenges and misleading dejection that causes them to reject this journey and fight against their natures is DESCENT, so often involving the Horrorterrors who embody the essence of Void in nature and motive.

Gosh when you think of all the times "UP" or "DOWN" has been the focus of major or even offhand scenes or panels, there's just SO MUCH that fits them into Light and Void respectively. I couldn't possibly begin to list all the examples, you're probably noticing more in your mind as you read this post.

--

I'm going to integrate this Ascent/Descent meaning into the Aspect Duality post's sections on Light and Void, and link this post there, but before we finish I wanna delve into the potential Gravitation meaning of Void that optimisticDuelist brought up and reasons I might agree or be skeptical of the ties drawn in their post... especially stemming from this Rose quote they included:

That seems to tie Void pretty inarguably to Gravitation, or perhaps the vacuum pull of nothingness, but because I didn't have a clear counter-meaning in Light I wanted to look up the full context of this quote when I made this post... (readmspa.org is a very useful tool while Homestuck.com is down and mimics the old manual search function)--

ROSE: Or what about, the tale of Isaac Newdon under the tree?? He was BONKED on the head by an apple. ROSE: Not reallyan apple though… an atomic idea. An emlemental unit of inspripation itself, id clocked him right on then noggin. ROSE: And this indivisible notion colliding with hish awareness, much like.. . a high speed partical fired to create a nuculear chain reacation, jarred from the void a more profund unnerstand, HIC, ing of the intrinsic nature of nothiness. Thatis,. Gravivitation. ROSE: Of course thess stories are acutually bullshit. They didn't happen in realaity. But thef act that they'rare bullshit makes them more inshresting. ROSE: Men have crefted many stories that are bullshit out of symbols risen from the abyss of coinsciousness withou necesharily knowing whath e fuck they were doing or saying, as they flounered around for some truth. ROSE: Bust in spite of themseleves they would for howefer briefly cross through a ray of light regarless. Becuss of the sbymbols. Dave.. The symbols hol dall the power.

Taz also mentioned that a commenter in their server pointed out that this Gravitation quote and the reference to a high-speed particle collider could also be an intentional reference by Andrew to the Graviton, the theoretical elementary particle responsible for mass and its gravitational force that has so far not been detected/discovered yet, remaining obscured (Void) compared to the particles tied to the other elemental forces.

Black Holes ALWAYS had strong ties to Void, the ultimate sinks for the destruction of information, ultimate darkness, (ultimate Down/descent), the compression of all meaning and separation into a melange forever irrelevant to the rest of Reality beyond one's Event Horizon (thanks @sagaciouscejai for the reminder). And in the Epilogues forward, "Non-Canon" belongs to the great Black Hole and everything that falls nigh-inescapably into it-- as opposed to Canon's comparative association with Light and story importance. But, hm... if Void is "down" and "descent" and the "abyss of [Jung's collective] consciousness", to what extent is it important as "Gravity" specifically, as well? Or is that just tied to the fundamental concept of "down" in the comic's metaphysical framework? Taz mentioned Dirk linked to gravitation to tidal forces too, hence the Ocean which is Void-linked. Does Gravity have a balancing opposite in Light that I can put into keywords besides "Up/Down" or "Ascent/Descent"? And if it DOESN'T have a balancing concept in Light... could Gravitation be part of Void's tie to Space that explains them as neighbors, a shared domain that Space and Void might possess?

In the end I think I'm positive toward Rose's speech and the fact of Black Holes (as well as "DOWN/DESCENT") establishing a definite tie between Gravity and Void, but where I'd disagree with Taz is how over the rest of their original post they pointed to "succumbing" to toxic influences and generational trauma as a sort of Gravity, which I'd disagree with and say has more to do with Void's existing and known "submission and divestment of agency" associations, as well as Centrality coming from it (which I'd have to reconcile with Light's "Location" meaning) not quite adding up for me, and Love as stemming from Gravity which I really don't think has enough in-comic evidence tying the two together. If we eventually deduce that Love has some Void associations-- and the Void characters we've met have certainly been more than a little Love-obsessed at times-- I expect that any association would have to stem from Void's other established meanings such as the submission of agency required by a relationship as opposed to making all the decisions yourself (Light's agency) and hogging the spotlight, like the contrast between Vriska and (Vriska) toward the end of Homestuck proper. There's more to lime-bloods's post that I haven't given enough thinking time to, like Voids always being the central seeding-place for new creation like a Womb, which would ALSO explain its proximity to Space on the official wheel... but, yeah. Those are all my in-progress thoughts on that for the moment, anyway. ((EDIT: "Outward vs Inward" like I mentioned above the cut finally completes the Gravity association!))

I'm still blown away by how clearly Light and Void can mean "UP and "DOWN", can mean "ASCENT" and "DESCENT", that's... just such a blindingly stunning revelation for us to have come to so late, IMO. I bet there's half a dozen theorists out there who put it together AGES sooner and I just never saw their posts. Wow. :D

[rydengg]

A Chilling Encounter at the Gas Station

REDDIT

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. The wind whipped against each lamp post as I passed them on the two lane strip of road that connected my house to the nearest - well, anything west of it.

I would normally have no reason to drive this far in the opposite direction of civilization but, unfortunately, my time is often lost to the screen of my computer or tv. By the time I realized how hungry I was, the clock on my lock screen read 1:24 A.M. and maybe in a more densely populated area, that wouldn’t be a problem, but this town is a church town. Like, a church every day of the week type of town. Nothing is open past 10.

Meanwhile, if you drive a ways out in the opposite direction, you’ll find a mediocre little gas station in, more or less the middle of nowhere. The place hadn’t been updated since 1974 but they carried some of the best snacks. The fact that the weirdo boss had a knack for exclusively hiring pretty cashiers was just an added bonus for a small-town closeted bisexual like myself. Even if he hadn’t; my fridge was empty and thus, the journey was necessary.

That night, the entire feeling as I pulled my shitty little Civic into the parking lot of the Glorious Day Gas ‘n Go was off. Even before getting out of my car, I could see the girl behind the cash register through the large storefront windows. She was absent-mindedly braiding a strand of pin straight brown hair before letting it go, allowing it to unravel and repeating the process again. I recognized her, actually. Kathleen. She wasn’t necessarily THE popular girl back in school but she was certainly well liked, even though pretty much everyone agreed that Kathleen was a bit of a ditz. An airhead. The less nice girls would call her stupid but she really wasn’t. More than a little absent-minded; definitely, just a sweet girl with her head in the clouds.

Shit, I’d remembered just then that the GDGNG has a window service only policy after certain parts of the night. The main counter stood in the center of the building but there was a smaller version near the door, one which contained a small metal hatch and drawer, where you’d have to do your transaction when it was really late. This was annoying as the attendant would have to shop for you. I couldn’t remember whether or not it kicked in at 1 AM or 2, but I figured I’d have to approach the building and find out either way, so I got moving.

Shutting off my car, I got out, slamming the door closed. Kathleen made no effort to move towards the night drawer, so I went for the door and found it unlocked. So, I shopped like normal. She continued to play with her hair, seeming at least somewhat aware of my presence but not quite responding with the normal “hello” or “welcome in” greeting most of the girls were likely required to say.

I found myself shopping a little slower than usual, stealing glances back at her to see if she’d moved, somehow kind of knowing in my skin that she’d still be standing there, playing with that same strand of hair. She wore the required “uniform,” mainly street-clothes but with a small apron that would normally be white but she’d clearly tried to DIY dye hers pink. I’d already known from school that this was a regular thing she was known to do with much of her clothing. If she couldn’t buy it pink, she was gonna make it pink.

Her eyes were locked into an empty stare out the large front window, her mind seemingly somewhere different. Not to either end of the road. Just out into the nothingness that surrounded that gas station. She had been doing so from the moment I’d pulled in and by then she still really hadn’t stopped. There was a strange feeling growing in the air, although my awareness of it was at the time chalked up to the lateness of the evening. I tried my best to mind my business as I grabbed a few small bags of chips, some microwavable noodles, a bag of peanut butter m&ms, two packs of gum, and a mountain dew.

The sound of me setting the products quietly on the counter startled Kathleen - her name tag reading KATY with two glittery little bubble stickers shaped like pink butterflies on either side - out of her odd trance. I felt my heart skip a beat when her gaze broke from the window and turned to me. It was like I had snapped her out of a dream and she wasn’t quite awake yet. “Oh, shit, you aren’t supposed to be in here.” It seemed like she was saying it more to herself than me, which she also became aware of and put on some semblance of the “customer service” act everyone who’s ever had to work with the public knows too well. “Sorry, I mean our front doors are supposed to be locked. I can check you out here though, just don’t tell my boss.” I could tell she’d said this to lighten the weird static in the entire building but there was a hollowness to it that started to make my stomach turn.

Katy didn’t immediately move to start scanning my items - although she did cease fiddling with her hair - and instead, continued talking. “I’m not used to night shifts. My co-worker’s kid is sick and I had to change my whole routine - my boyfriend was NOT amused.”

My tummy started feeling even more sick and yet there was a strange… pull I had to her, like I was unable to disengage and address how truly strange the situation felt or just why such a normal exchange had my skin feeling like static. “Oh man, Kathleen, I’m sorry to hear that. Men can be such assholes.” I said, letting out a fake chuckle afterwards that was surprisingly convincing for how utterly disconnected I felt from everything around us. Katy’s hands returned to her hair though she did seem a bit more present in the moment. She chuckled too. There was a slight glimmer of recognition that came after that. “You went to Harrington, too.” she said with a hollow smile. “Yeah, I think I was two grades below you.” I shuffled my body weight from one foot to the other. The handful of words between the two of us felt like they stretched across hours already. I was barely thinking of the snacks anymore or my growling stomach.

“Everyone in high school used to use my full name, but Dan is the only one who calls me Kathleen anymore.” Her fingers that had once been easily looping her hair in an effortless little braid now began to look a little stiff and clumsy, although Katy didn’t seem to notice it. “I prefer to be called Katy.” She trailed off and her gaze had returned to the exact same spot out the window. The little glimmer that I could feel was waning.

I tried to keep the conversation going in hopes she’d snap out of it. “It’s been so long, I'm glad to see a familiar face at least - the face of a friend.” We really didn’t interact much at all back in the day, but this intentional choice of wording brought back a little bit more warmth into the exchange between us. Still, it didn’t fully penetrate to break the blank behind her eyes. “Definitely! I feel like I’m either always working or hanging out with Dan. I can’t remember the last time I did something fun...” She trailed off again a little bit before snapping back to normal, picking up and scanning my items. “That’ll be $7.54.” Katy said the words but didn’t reach out her hand at all to grab the cash. After several seconds of silence, I set the ten down on the counter. She looked at it but didn’t pick it up, instead pushing a button on the cash register that popped the drawer open.

Empty. Like, empty empty. “Huh.” The inflection - or lack thereof - in her voice sent a chill down my spine. “I think I forgot to stock my drawer when I came in tonight.” Katy pushed the drawer back closed and allowed her gaze to float back to the window. I began to think that maybe she’d taken something - like pills or molly or whatever - that wasn’t agreeing with her. She’d be far from the only person who’s gotten inebriated and then was suddenly called into work, maybe she was just having a bad reaction.

“How do you feel right now, Katy?”

Katy didn’t respond, not to that or several other verbal tries to get her to respond; even the lightest conversation or the most direct questions. Without thinking much of it, I reached across the counter and gently shook her left shoulder.

Several things happened in quick succession. The touch of her skin gave my hand a shock. Small, but it hurt. It disoriented me, too. Katy began to gasp in a panic but the air and the sound was more reminiscent of someone trying desperately to swallow puke. There was a gooey burbling sound, too, but I couldn’t figure out the location it was coming from. She stumbled backwards and that same elbow knocked several packs of loose tobacco to the floor, a few of which burst open and spilled behind the counter.

We both stood there frozen for a minute, not saying anything to one another. Katy now had both her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, almost hugging herself while still gazing out that window. Despite this, she was aware of the mess. “Fuck.” she said under her breath - or rather OUT of breath.

I realized at that moment that had few options; I could get the fuck out of there, call for help, and leave her alone + possibly strung out in an empty gas station - or I could accept that I’m already in this weird fucking situation and try to get this girl some help, or at the least see her through whatever trip or high she was experiencing. So far, behaving as normally as possible had worked to keep Katy from spinning back into a daze, so trying to be helpful seemed a good way to normalize the situation.

“Katy, do you have a broom? Where do you keep your cleaning supplies? We should clean this up or something.” I was taking measured breaths, doing everything in my natural ability to achieve calm even just for myself at that point, not only for her sake. Still, the task was harder than it should’ve been; it wasn’t hard to think. It was more like my brain felt like a steel trap while my body waved from autopilot and fight/flight/freeze.

“Over there.” She pointed to the little narrow hallway that led to the bathrooms. I didn’t look where she pointed then. I could only stare at her face.

Katy’s mouth was bleeding. Not badly, but her teeth were thinly coated in blood. I thought “This girl isn’t just high. This girl is not well.” She needed help and although my brain told my body to grab her and leave, I felt myself instead moving towards the hall and bathrooms.

Something in my body said “you need to get the broom” although it made little sense to do so. I just had to get that broom, head back to the counter, get Katy and get out. I cleared my thoughts and moved with nothing on my mind but the task at hand until I felt my palm on the handle of the broom. There was no sense of relief from this and the desire to get the hell out only compounded as I turned myself around, not getting all the way before freezing in front of the women’s bathroom. The door was wedged open a bit by something pink.

My stomach didn’t just hurt anymore. A thick wave of nausea started to fester at the lowest part of my belly and my heart began to race as I gently pushed the door with my free hand. It was a pink slip on shoe. More importantly, these were Katy’s pink slip on skate shoes. Puke fought its way up my throat as opening the door revealed more of the scene.

Katy was laid on her back with her limbs spread out. Her jeans, t-shirt, and hodge-podgely pink dyed apron were stained in copious amounts of slowly darkening and drying blood. It pooled out widely beneath her. A rather large hunting knife stuck out of the left side of her chest, right dead in the heart. Her head was turned to the side and her eyes stood open, staring blankly. It wouldn’t occur to me until days later that she’d been facing the same direction I’d seen her staring the entire time. One skinny little braid sat over her shoulder, half undone and saturated in blood. Her name tag, “KATY”, had miraculously remained unsullied by any carnage.

Surprisingly, the puke that had begun to build went back down. The nausea washed back away and it felt that I was instead caught in the river-like current of electricity that had been carrying my every movement from the moment I tapped on Katy’s shoulder. I gently let the door rest back in place before dragging the broom and dust pan to the counter. Katy still stood there in some strange defiance of the horrible reality of her own demise. She didn’t move to grab the broom but I didn’t move to help her clean it up, either. I just leaned it next to her and moved back to the front of the counter.

“So…” my voice shook, but surprisingly not nearly as much as I thought it would. “Who else has been in tonight?” Katy’s eyes fluttered with some level of lucidity. “I…. I guess I don’t know.”

I couldn’t tell you what guided me through that conversation. It wasn’t wit. It wasn’t knowledge. It wasn’t overwhelming compassion. I felt like an audience member if nothing else. I listened to myself ask all the right questions as if nothing was wrong though it was hard to pay attention to the answers. Katy continued to deteriorate right in front of me. Her breathing became wet sounding - a familiar thing I realized I’d heard when she had gasped earlier. Blood began to seep from under her apron, left side obviously, and eventually much more from her mouth.

“Dan killed me, didn’t he?”

He had.

Katy being a “ditz” wasn’t the only chat around the town. Dan had gone to school with us too. He had always been the violent type of jock with a garbage personality to match their bad reputation, and everyone knew that. The two of them, Katy and Dan, didn’t get along in high school. I still don’t know how they ended up together down the line.

It had only gotten worse with age as alcohol inevitably became involved. That’s how this shit always goes. Dude becomes a monster. Somehow the girl gets blamed. Before her death, everyone said she was too stupid to leave or liked the attention or whatever.

Anyway, that’s just word around a small town.

I couldn’t tell her for sure what had happened, but I knew she had to know inside somehow.

“I don’t know, but you do.” the words once again sort of came without thought. It’s odd to hear your own voice and yet… not quite recognize it.

She lifted a now off color arm up to awkwardly wipe her mascara tears. It was a lethargic and clumsy attempt by fingers that seemed stiff as stone. Every moment appeared to be bringing havoc upon her form. “I always forget to lock that stupid fucking door. I saw him coming but I really thought he couldn’t get me….” Even in that moment, I somehow still thought “she's so beautiful.” She rested against the back counter and slid down into a crouching position while burbling in a nauseating sounding way and choking out one self-deprecation after another. This only lasted for a minute or two before the tears ceased and Katy absent-mindedly stood back up.

With clumsy hands, she grabbed my items from the bag they’d been in and put them into a new bag before repeating (or rather sputtering through little trickles of black thick blood) “that’ll be $7.54.” I picked up the ten and handed it to her once again. She grabbed it this time and I felt that shock of energy again. She didn’t do anything with it; just kept grasping it in her hand.

I still look back now and wish something more profound had come out of my mouth at that moment but instead, only a simple gesture came to mind. “Thanks, Katy. Hit me up sometime, I’d really like to catch up. I think we’d make good friends.” Kathleen said nothing but smiled. Blood still poured from within.

The next few minutes were a blur but, as I’d later see on security footage, I more or less went through the motions. I left the store and got into my car before picking up my cellphone to call 911. I came back to a somewhat coherent level about halfway through the call when I was sobbing profusely as some poor emergency operator tried their damndest to decipher my words.

Dan knew Katy had a tendency to forget to do lock-ups, especially when she was alone. He knew he could confront her without costing her that job and set off to do so that night. Katy thought she’d locked the door. She ran to hide in the bathroom and the gesture of her running away pissed Dan off enough that he pulled the hunting knife he brought with him just about everywhere. She got most-way into the bathroom, he lunged in after her. Being a hunter gives a person knowledge about anatomy and killing cleanly, so I guess he had no problem plunging that thing directly in a way that would puncture her heart. He didn’t expect to nick her lungs but it didn’t matter. Her heart bled into her lungs. She died too quickly to understand what happened to her.

Being a hunter made him a more capable killer with a weapon but it didn’t make him smart about getting away with murder. The security camera caught him doing everything except the act as well. It didn’t take law enforcement but a minute to figure him out. He was caught in the middle of a half-assed suicide attempt after the security footage was watched and the knife was traced back to him. The first half of the security cams were enough to fry him. We know what he did.

After his crime, Dan left the GDGNG in an emotional frenzy, only coming back for a moment to ransack the cash register in hopes of making it look like a robbery before getting into his truck and leaving. About thirty minutes pass, then this odd mass of dark black purple and blue opalescent light and camera fuzz slowly moves from the hallway back into the middle of the counter space, behind the cash register. Ten more minutes pass, my car pulls into the parking lot.

Every time I touched her - it, the light, I DONT KNOW - I was seen in the video actually touching it. Just watching, I could feel some semblance of that same feeling, just in the very tips of my fingers. It all went the same way. It handed me my things, it held my ten dollar bill - that really stuck with me at that moment because up until then, I wasn’t sure if any of it had happened at all or if I was truly losing it. That was proof to me; seeing those detectives and doctors faces of puzzled disbelief seeing the very same thing I was.

The second half of the tape was left out of criminal proceedings, naturally.

Yet after a while of fruitless treatment, the doctors sat me down and were frank with me; there is no explanation for what’s happening - not one they’re realistically finding - unless they pick one and just assign it to me. Eventually, they ruled it was a “temporary bout of psychosis brought on by trauma” essentially saying that finding “a dead girl” was too much for my brain to comprehend. They gave me a clean bill of mental health, they gave me back my shit, and let me leave.

I hadn’t cried in a while at that point but sitting there in the same clothes (yeah they didn’t even give me something clean to leave with) with the gas station store bag packed in with my wallet, car keys, and random shit that was in my pockets… Well, yeah. It reasonably brought on the waterworks. I pulled out the keys and my wallet but stared at the rest for a while before finally pulling out the generic THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU plastic bag.

A mountain dew, some noodles, chips, chocolate, and gum. I picked up each and held them in my hands for a moment before moving onto the next one. I could’ve waited until I got home but knowing this would probably be my only quiet moment before family absolutely smothered me like I knew they wanted to, I felt I needed to do it then. I got to the last item, a pack of pink bubble gum. The weight and density felt off and the shape of the brightly printed packaging was bulging at the corners. With shaking hands, I removed the somehow untampered plastic wrap to find what I already knew in my heart would be there.

A name tag, pristine. Printed KATY with tiny little pink butterfly bubble stickers.

The Glorious Day Gas ‘n Go was closed within the month of that horrible incident. All four pumps had already been removed by the time I left the hospital. Even though that little corner store was barely even part of our shitty church town, the embarrassment of a passion killing at a gas station was not a lovely look and the owner was quickly elbowed out of business and eventually out of town.

What I didn’t expect to later find out was the overflowing compassion for Katy. Nobody blamed her for not locking that door. Actually, come to find out, the owner could’ve set it to automatically lock and chose not to. He felt Katy would only learn to be less absent minded that way. People didn’t see it that way.

People held memorials. There were quite a few photos, bears, flowers, and other things now placed lovingly outside the building. People loved her more than she gave herself credit for.

It’s been a while since then and I consider Katy a dear friend and someone close to my heart. The story of her death has become more of a local scandal and I suppose one day it will become urban legend, though as far as I know, nobody knows the truth of what happened to me that night.

I saw her one more time; just once. I drive out there every few months, just to remind myself of her. I think I lingered the longest the year anniversary of that night. Right before I went to start my car to head back home, I felt that familiar static energy in my fingertips and it caused me to look up at the deeply dilapidated building one more time.

The silhouette of a person stood where the cashiers counter once was.

l swear, she way toying with her hair.

[thesweetestofdreams]

Collapsed 3

Steve Harrington apocalypse 1.4k (part 1, part 2)

marauders post coming tomorrow btw! is this far too short for my liking? yes. but expect much more frequent updates because that is a goal of mine and if you want to scream at me to write more or write something you want to see please do

You'd been walking for hours, the sun an ever-rising beacon overhead. You just had to make it to sundown. Then you would all stop. Then you could rest. Nancy said the whole trip shouldn't take more than three days tops. Three hours was enough to have your side burning but at least your head wasn't spinning as bad as it had on your way back to camp with Steve.

Robin hadn't stopped talking for the last hour. To her credit she was doing so quietly especially after some thinly veiled sighs drifted from Nancy's station at the front. Steve and Jonathan held up the back and you thought it must kill Steve not to be at the front as he so often was.

"That was when I decided I hated camping," Robin said.

You nodded, hardly paying attention. You got the feeling Robin was talking less to have you listen to her and more to have something to do, which is why it surprised you so much when she leveled a very genuine and curious look your way.

"What were you like when you were little?" she asked.

"What?" You looked at her like she'd just spoken a different language.

"When you were little," she started again, "what were you like? Did you like horses? What did you want to be when you grew up?"

It seemed like a very redundant question now. There was no point in remembering who you were before, what you liked, what you wanted. It was all gone now, everything. You liked Robin. She always meant well, which is precisely why you couldn't say all of that to her.

"I don't really know," you shrugged and quickly regretted it as it pulled on your side which was growing increasingly sore. "I liked to read. I think I might have wanted to be a librarian."

You heard Steve snort behind you. "What about you then, pretty boy?" You threw at him, although you could have guessed exactly what kind of child he was.

"Firefighter," he said, his chest puffed out slightly, clearly he thought highly of the choice.

This time Robin snorted. "He wanted to be He-man," Robin said to you in mock secret. Steve made a childish sound but he didn't object.

"I think we would have been friends," Robin said, like it meant the world. "Don't tell anyone but I didn't have very many friends." She laughed but it sounded more like a sad sound.

For Robin's benefit you admitted, "I didn't either." You don't know why but you kept going. "My sister said it would get easier." Thinking about your childhood, your family, burned, like hot coffee scalding your tongue. You'd slipped. It had been so natural to say less than a month ago, to think of her. Now, it caught your breath at the top of your lungs.

"I know what you mean," Robin said, solemnly, like a condolence. Everyone here had lost someone, whether they were gone or truly lost. You never knew how much you had until you truly lost it all.

"We should stop for a minute, Nance," Jonathan called, cutting through the silence. Nancy was further ahead than she had been.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm hungry," Jonathan said with a soft smile. At that Nancy snapped into the here and now. You'd quickly learned that had it been anyone else she would have easily told them no, but she listened to Jonathan. It must have been love.

"We can stop for lunch," she said, dropping her bag onto the ground. "But not for too long, we were making good time." Jonathan pulled the oatmeal out of his bag and Steve groaned from beside him.

--

After lunch when conversation died and the steady rhythm of walking left the forest hollow, Steve did what he did best, tried not to worry.

He held up the rear alone now as Jonathan walked side by side with Nancy. His mind was tangled in a loop, caught between checking the surroundings for red skies or deformed creatures that spilled over from the upside down, that and the thing he tried to avoid most.

The last phone call he'd had with Dustin. It was so normal. He was counting the days for senior year to end. He said it'd be any day now that he'd get a flood of college acceptance letters. Steve knew he would. He was the smartest kid, smartest person, he knew.

Now where was he? Was he with the others? Was he alright? That was a dangerous question. One that made his chest tighten. It was the question that restarted the loop, that forced him back to the forest and watching his footing and counting heads. Which is exactly how he knew you were falling before it happened.

The terrain wasn't nearly as flat and open as it was closer to the barn. The forest was denser, wet from a rain you didn't see at camp. Your arm slid down the tree ripping bark with it as a root caught your shoe. Steve was close enough to grab your elbow, pulling you up before your face could collide with a rock.

He expected wide eyed shock or maybe even a hint of gratitude on your face, but there was neither. All he saw was a painful grimace as you gasped for a breath. Before he could even voice his concern you wrenched free from his grip taking a few unsteady steps forward.

"You guys alright?" Nancy asked, not turning around.

"No," Steve said at the same time you said "yes," voice tight.

The three in the front turned around, stopping to stare between the two of you. "Are you-"

"I just tripped," you said with a wave of your hand all the pain from before wiped from your face. "I'm fine, we can keep going."

"Good, we've been making okay time." Nancy said looking down between her watch and her map.

No, not good, Steve thought. Maybe before he could throw aside that nagging feeling that something was wrong, simply choose not to worry about you, but now, he knew something was well and truly wrong. He couldn't let you threaten the group. He couldn't take that chance. Now it would be on him if anything worse were to happen any of them.

He could tell you were walking quicker now, avoiding him, but as much as you liked to think so, he wasn't an idiot.

"What was that?" he hissed over your shoulder.

"What?" you said, the picture of innocence on your face.

"Don't what me. You know exactly what I'm talking about?" He could feel his face heating up, trying to real in his anger.

"I tripped at the store, a bruise remember. I mean told you just this morning you really must never listen, Harrington."

Yep you definitely thought he was an idiot, but if there was one thing Steve knew by now it was getting his ass kicked.

"A bruise," he said it like a question but it wasn't one. "Doesn't do that," he said pressing his finger into your side. It wasn't soft but he didn't press hard either and here you were sucking a breath through your teeth. A bruised rib maybe but he wasn't buying it.

"God, you're such an asshole," you said just loud enough for him to hear.

"Just tell me the truth."

"I. Am," you said through gritted teeth.

"Fine I guess we can see what Nancy thinks." He started walking towards the front. You grabbed his backpack, a weak pull holding him in place.

"Don't," you said it like you say everything to him, harsh and defensive if not mocking and derisive, but he saw the pleading slant of your eyes.

"Give me one good reason not to." He locked his eyes on yours but you refused to meet his.

"Guys," Robin called from a few yards ahead. When had she gotten so far? She beckoned you both forward. "Hurry up," she said, an urgency in her voice that tightened the ever present knot in Steve's chest.

He heard you exhale. "You're not off the hook," he said pointing a finger at you as he walked backwards, he almost tripped but he caught himself.

He found his place at Robin's side, and before he could ask he saw it for himself. Patches of red sky seeping into the blue. It spread dark as blood into pure white clouds. Lightning cracked through them. It spread like a sickness into everything it touched the sky, animals, people and now it was coming for them.

A/N: i have a plan for the next couple parts so they shouldn't be a month in between anymore sorry about that

[jakeluppin]

wip wednesday

hello i remembered this time woo. i wanted to do it last week and forgot so! snippet from my rabbot fic

Saturday update: fic has been posted on ao3

[Robby] places his phone back in his pocket and looks up to see Jack heading his way. He must be starting his shift and since he hasn’t yet started on any cases, it seems Robby gets to be his first. Lucky him.

“What happened?” Jack asks when he reaches him.

“Overhead lamp. And here I thought we were friends but it just went and attacked me for no reason.”

“No reason? You sure about that?”

“I mean maybe I was flirting with another lamp and it got jealous. Who knows. You know me, I just can’t help myself.”

Jack laughs and puts on gloves before reaching up and looking at the wound. Robby can’t seem to focus on anything more than the feeling of Jack’s hands in his hair, even if all he’s doing is moving it out of the way to get a better look at the cut.

“Well, you definitely need stitches. Shouldn’t take too long. Let me go get a suture kit and I’ll be right back.”

Robby nods and watches him walk off, his eyes maybe staring at his ass for longer than he should.

When he’s back, Jack asks, “You want something for the pain?” as he starts cleaning up the wound.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, tough guy,” Jack replies with a laugh. Robby smiles but knows it’s less about that and more that he doesn’t want to be numb, that he wants to be able to feel Jack’s hands on him.

“Happy birthday,” Jack says as he starts suturing.

“You remembered.”

“Of course. Why would I not?”

It’s a good question. Robby’s not sure why he’s surprised that Jack remembers. With how long they’ve known each other, the number of birthdays they’ve spent together, it really is no surprise.

Only it is for some reason. Robby doesn’t like to try and dig into these thoughts – these feelings – all too often. But he thinks that there’s always just this part of him that’s surprised Jack cares about him at all.

[nanabansama]

Catvestigating (Update)

Within the last two chapters, we have gotten much more information on the cat, and I wanted to compile all of the interesting new information and update you all on how I'm feeling about it. Spoiler alert, there is no clear answer as to who the cat is yet, and you will not find it here. (Or will you...!? *Gasp*!)

While I was initially quite certain it was Tsukasa for several reasons, and I'm loathe to admit I'm ever wrong, I do think there is great argument for it being Amane. AidaIro has done a good job of keeping up the mystery. 👍

For one thing, the cat says he was human and was changed into this feline form after messing with the past. So the Clock Keepers were not punishing the supernatural Tsukasa for being an accomplice in the crime of destroying the Big Clock by turning him into a toy cat after all...and I'm inclined to take the cat for his word on this. (But you must admit, it would be fitting if he were being punished for both crimes incidentally!!)

It's also established that humans who change the past have a part of their soul taken out and put into a doll by the Clock Keepers. The fact that it's a part of the soul is especially interesting - it begs the question where the other part goes. And the fact that there are already a Yugi Amane and a Yugi Tsukasa accounted for in the altered world could explain how they are able to exist whilst another part of either (or both?!) of their souls dwell within the toy cat.

Anyway, given that the Clock Keepers very likely went back in time to 1968 to create this new timeline, and one of the twins was trying to fix the clock during this time to travel through time... well, it's very easy to imagine that they got punished for this. And of course, the one that I'm referring to is Amane.

However, we do know that Tsukasa was often with his brother during this time, and it's really not that hard to believe that Tsukasa (in all his multi-talented glory) could have done something to the past himself here. So while there is more evidence pointing towards Amane, we still can't completely rule out the possibility that it's the other Yugi either.

It's also still quite a mystery as to why the Clock Keepers chose to go back to this point in time... it seems the overall goal was to get rid of Tsukasa and the thing inside him. Additionally, Hanako can't remember why he tried to do it let alone whether he succeeded in fixing the clock or not, and Tsukasa claims nothing came out of Amane's efforts. There's really so much we don't know...so how can we know what the Clock Keepers were trying to change?

Well, we can't...but what if one of the twins actually did use the clock in the old timeline, then either suffered amnesia or didn't reveal this, and the Clock Keepers stopping him from doing that created this new timeline? Or maybe it's that they helped Amane finally do what he wanted, thus creating a new timeline, and then punished him afterward? Or what if Tsukasa (and/or the thing inside him) tried to get in the way, and were stopped and punished for that...?!

Personally, I like the idea that Amane was responsible for getting rid of Tsukasa in the new timeline for thematic reasons, but since the Clock Keepers more or less wanted that to happen, I would find it kind of cruel if that were the reason why he was being punished. That's another reason why I lean towards Tsukasa being the one punished - it seems more likely that he would do something the Clock Keepers would punish. Otherwise, perhaps the Clock Keepers are just strict about the rules, so even if Amane changed the past in the way they wanted they still had to punish him? 🤔 Uhh...anyway. This is a post about identifying kitties, not really a theory post...

In Ch. 124 and 125, the cat got quite close to Nene by riding on her shoulders multiple times. While he appears to derive no visible pleasure by being near her like this, you can't deny this behavior is reminiscent of when Hanako (the ghost) cuddles up to her. Still, there is enough plausible deniability here to cast doubt, and Tsukasa himself has gotten up close with Nene and even been carried around by her before:

I mean come on... he's even blatantly being compared to a cat here... I'm not that crazy!

Good boy!

Anyway, the other thing I wanted to mention is that the cut of the kitty's suit is similar to the trim on the old school uniform of Kamome Academy (aka the gakuran). I hadn't realized this until someone I knew pointed it out!

Additionally, as you can compare in the images above and below, he also exhibits a similar behavior to Hanako: explaining something with a starry wand.

But, both twins have worn the gakuran, so once again this is insufficient evidence for me. I find this all amusing nonetheless, and I cannot deny that the evidence once again stacks up in Hanako's favor. (Curses!)

In conclusion, I suppose the moral of the story is that if any of us were forced into indentured servitude as toy cats and given amnesia that it would be difficult for our friends or lovers (especially our brother's lovers) to recognize us, and that you should be very careful about which members of the time police you happen to piss off should you find yourself with the power to travel through time, less you wind up even more haplessly misidentified as your identical twin than you already are. 🐈‍⬛️ But what do I know! Thanks for reading.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: @boltedfruit! boltedfruit has 104 fics posted to AO3 in the Stranger Things fandom and 43 of them are in the Steddie fandom!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @boltedfruit:

I'll Teach You Wonderwall

last man in the city

these tired empathies

to be known

Crave

"Boltedfruit has written a whole bunch of compelling short micro-fics and one-shots for Steddie fandom events, as well as several interesting AU's. Boltedfruit really excels at compact, succinct character studies within unusual plots/settings or unsettling premises. He often writes Steddie with darker, angstier elements, depicting imperfect relationships or characters, and it's always interesting to see what he comes up with for each new story. I always fly through his stories and come away amazed at how concisely he can portray complex ideas." -- anonymous

Below the cut, boltedfruit answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I got hooked on the ship like a lot of others did and it was an emotional break from writing harringrove for so long before that. I find endlessly adaptable and the ship brings me joy.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I’m so bad at remembering tropes, but I really love certain flavors of omegaverse. Outside of that, I also enjoy forced proximity to get something done and maybe intimacy is part of the ruse/deal, and accidental feelings being acquired. Basically idiots being idiots. Also like when a bumbling character has something dark they’re hiding.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Very similar to above!

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Touched, Prism, Qualia, and The Girl Who Eats Flowers (and everything else) by Az aka oonionchiver, Heaven Cannot Wait Forever by rabidheart, Something Lost, Something Found by novemberthorne, and Tuesday's Gone With the Wind by thisappliepielife (one of the single most devastating stories I’ve ever read in my life and thus will never read again. It’s perfect.)

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

For my current Big Project I’m excited to write tropes associated with crime fiction/mysteries and to weave those with a parallel timeline dealing with canon supernatural events.

What is your writing process like?

Getting a great idea, plotting it completely out, losing steam and feeling bad about myself, and finishing something now and again.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I need to be sitting at my desktop computer. Laptops are too small unless it’s an emergency. Phone is w o r s e.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I’ve done a mix of both!

Which fic are you most proud of?

Everything in my 31 Days of Steddie Halloween Horror, especially Buried, Arrest, and Cage. Outside of Steddie, one of the more recent harringrove fics I’ve written called Feast, Wolf.

How did you get the idea for these tired empathies?

I didn’t really plot it besides ‘Eddie hurt, Steve help’ which is like so basic but I also used it to try and see how stats were affected if I posted on a schedule. That got kind of sidelined by a lack of plot/short amount of chapters and the fact I got sidetracked and didn’t stick to my schedule for the last one or two updates. I need to try my experiment again.

When writing crave, what was something you didn’t expect?

I didn’t expect to add in ‘the sex pollen is making Steve’s ass wet’ but it happened and worked out!

What inspired to be known?

An absolutely astounding gangbang record by a woman in real life and the original prompt by cowboythighs. I loved the idea of Eddie sneaking his way into a scene to have his one chance at making Steve feel good and then Steve going absolutely 0 to 100 to track him down and be like “hey you made me feel nice, wanna be together forever?”

What was your favorite part to write from I'll Teach You Wonderwall?

Definitely Steve’s disability, which is entirely thanks to the original prompt by @3minsover.

How do/did you feel writing last man in the city?

It was one of my first steddie fics, so I was still nervous trying to get the characters to feel right to me. But rereading it now it plays out a lot more confident than I originally felt when writing it.

What was the most difficult part of writing last man in the city?

Even though it was a smut prompt fill I had the hardest time transitioning into the sex scene.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Everything I write I have fave scenes/moments in, but in Buried I really like this line (and when I manage to write lines like this in general they tend to be my favorites: ‘I am nothing more than anything you might think me to be.’ 

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I’m still intending to finish Dom Eddie Week and March Mating Madness prompts, then I have several larger stories I’m working on too. My next major idea is a continuation of a oneshot I wrote two Halloweens ago called ‘Missing’ that will take place over multiple decades and deals with two timelines running parallel to one another. There’s a lot of true crime/investigation details I’ve been researching to get the story right which is why it’s taken so long. But I officially started writing it last week. I also have a Victorian Steddie au and a Twilight au planned.

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Thank you so much to whoever nominated me! This is a very cool idea and I’m touched to be thought of.

Thank you to our author, @boltedfruit, and our nominator! See more of boltedfruit's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[irlnorthshaw]

is your blog shador free? if so, whats your fav ship??

well anon i come bearing great news... my blog IS shador free !! there is a long story behind it which does include a 16 year old me on instagram getting harassed by the shador crowd BUT let's put that behind

moving on to ships i DO absolutely enjoy (not in order)

THE MIDFIELDERS

starting off w my absolute fav, they could never fail me. a dream come true would be to have an episode centred around them... 😁👍 i love their dynamic sm.

it makes so much sense why they're paired up together on the field, they have the perfect balance and dont take shit from everyone else

shakes/klaus

can't go wrong w a classic. have been a fan since day 0, they're so wholesome and i enjoy their back and forth more than shakes and el matador (yes... i did just say that)

i love shakes being the one to always have kalus' back, ESPECIALLY when everyone else doubted him. oh when he reassured klaus to not doubt himself bc he IS a great player is so... chefs kiss i love them

UPDATE: guys. the worst did, in fact, come. after this post i sat down and finally watched rookie season (which i havent done when i made this) and so now im aware of shakes and klaus'.... ambiguous age gap. this is truly my nightmare come true

SHAWDOR !!! (thats what ive named them at least)

this trope never fails me. adrenaline junkie dudebro with the self centered diva??? COUNT ME IN. TAKE ALL OF MY MONEY PLEASE.

klaus w literally anyone

i really cant blame them, i too love klaus 😋 i like these two ships especially, i don't dive into them as often BUT I WILL BE SEATED !!

onto the other teams AND cross-team ships

these two are for sure crack ships BUT yk me... i will literally consume anything given to me, without a doubt. there's definitely more than i can think of. im starting to really like dingaan and klaus BUT i havent ventured into them as much.

but these two? wow... 10/10 i love it and i need more of it. Im STAAAARVING

psstt uber and skarra got me feeling some type of way... emotionally unstable height difference? a tear fell down my cheek

uber/ja nein

can you blame me? they're literally perfect. jock/nerd w a bit of spice... i am always sat whenever an episode has these two. god bless "man in the iron tank mask" 🙏🙏

dingaan/skarra

ANOTHER CLASSIC !! they're literally shakes and klaus but like... the evil counterparts 😭😭

UPDATE: dingarra is lame.

AND THAT'S ALL!!!

that i can remember....

there's definitely more that i haven't thought abt. Including coach ships (i definitely have one or two, i AM a big fan of old man yaoi) AND my beautiful yuri ships... i will continue in another post then 😋👍

thank you anon for this opportunity to gush abt shipping... its what i live to do 🫡