#when were laptops. invented

[fozmeadows]

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

[your-nanas-house]

"Mr. Coleman said that..."

◇ Pairing: stepdad!Austin Butler X stepdaughter!Reader

◇ Warnings: kind of dark, SMUT, sessions, therapy (invented by me, dunno if it exists), pervy, stepdad x stepdaughter dynamic.

◇ Summary: Austin gets bit lost in the feelings that the "bond" therapy gifted him.

◇ Note: Sorry for the mistakes and the English. It took me so long, thanks for the kind anon that reminded me what Austin fic I wanted to publish. I think it's the very first Austin fic that I wrote... 🫣. For other fics like this.

A small click and the front door of his attic was open, allowing him to enter and finally drop down the bag he carried all day around... plus the new script.

Austin had been out all day and he honestly felt all those hours on his shoulders other than his mood. He really was tired but happy, since he was about to see his little princess.

As his feet lead him to the open kitchen he could already hear her soft humming, which informed him that she was busy entertain herself with something

"Hi stepdaddy, how was your day?" Her sweet voice beamed after his footsteps popped her little bubble of calm. She didn't look upset or annoyed when seeing him... which was a good thing since they had some issues when her mom left them both.

Issues that with a bit of father and daughter therapy should had quickly disappear... or so the man, who was following the process, had told them the first meeting.

"Bit tiring but... it was good. How about yours? What did you do while I was out?" Austin's low raspy voice asked as his hand removed carefully his AirPods before his coat so that he could focus his attention on her completely.

She was still in her cute pajamas, a silly one that she had begged him to buy her as soon as she finished watching one of the latest movies of his... 'Elvis' 2022. Reason because her pants were of a baby pink filled with pictures of the king, matched by a baggy shirt with the quote 'Keep Calm and Love Elvis Presley'.

"Bit boring, studied a bit... and nothing much, I cleaned the house though" Y/n informed him after taking a big sip of her tea, humming softly when the older man's arms wrapped around her torso.. hugging her close to himself.

"So sweet of you" he murmured in her ear, tickling her with his short beard as his face snuggled in the crock of her neck more so to make her chuckle before pressing his lips against hers for a quick 'hello' kiss.

His head now resting on top of hers calmly.

"Also!.. I need your help" Y/n hummed out, putting down her cup as her heart beat faster in her chest.. butterflies forming in her stomach at her stepdad's cuddles.

She could already feel his chest vibrating softly as he replied with his voice which became even more lower that it used to be due to the time and work.

"With what, kid?" His big hand ruffled her hair playfully while his body moved to rest against the table of the kitchen so that his beautiful eyes could stare at her as she talked.

She really was so cute like that, her hair bit messy because of him and the glasses she put on just when she used her laptop so to protect them. It seemed quite domestic... bit too domestic since his body started to react a bit, aroused by the innocent scenario.

And the cute mad face she made every time he would tease or annoy her, was so cute but also such a strong turn on for him... expecially those pouty pretty lips, now covered by a watermelon lip gloss.

"Do you remember what Mr. Coleman suggested?" Y/n asked casually, glancing at him with the face he grow to know as 'the testing face'; a serious but funny expression that she always used when she wanted to see if he remembered something or if he forgot about it.

"Of what, sweetheart?" Austin replied with her same tone as he put down the script, pouring himself a glass of water before sitting on the counter to look in her direction. She was giving him her back but he could already see the pouty face accompanied by a small snort of disappointment since he didn't remember.

"The bonding exercises, Baba!" She whined out, looking at him while scoffing softly at his amused expression. He really knew her too well.

"Of course I remember, baby" Austin lied as he placed his glass on the surface so he wouldn't look her in the eyes without distractions

"He said at least once a week, two is better though..." she repeated what their therapist said to them some weeks ago, her eyes looking at him lazily bit tired of her lonesome day. Even too tired to notice his stare taking her whole in shamefully.

"You know that I'm always free to spend some quality time with you, baby" he rasped out before clearing his throat and finish his water, his body warming up at the mere view of her cute behaviour.

"That's a lie but anyway... Let's start it, hm" the young woman murmured, pecking back as soon as he leaned down to steal a bit of love while picking her up easily and move them on the sofa in the living room where there was more space.

"What were the exercises again?" Austin asked, his hands rubbing soft circles on her hips while his eyes pierced intensely in hers the whole time she explained to him "The 5 senses exercises to feel more connected. Touch.. with the yoga, hearing.. by listening and talking, taste.. by eating together, and.. view.. the stare".

Those were all topics they had to go through in their therapist's opinion.. a way to bond with each other better and share some quality moments as father... even though he wasn't her real dad, and daughter.

"I remember perfectly now... and what was the last one?" He asked while playing with a lock of her hair, smiling slightly when her index finger pressed against his nose while talking "It's the smell... we have to take in our scent... and that should be all. So!... where do we start?" The young woman beamed, getting up from his lap.

The older man really enjoyed seeing her so full of energy and joy, it was addicting.

"Okay, little one, let's start. You can choose with which one we begin".

.

Her choose was quickly and he found himself warming slightly up to start the first step. The Touch.. aka Yoga exercises.

Simple but helpful positions they had to do together to feel the struggles and the moving of their bodies.

"Need to change! Mr. Coleman said that we have to be as bare as possible for this one." The young woman reminded the older man from the other room, busy changing into something to start the exercise and have yoga behind so they could relax.

He said that?, Austin questioned in his mind and raised his eyebrows... he really didn't listen so much when that man spoke with them. He clearly needed to stay more focused in the next sessions.

"You need to change as well!" Her sweet voice urged him as she was now standing in front of him in the set of underwear he gifted her that Christmas. Matching bra and panties which colors were identical to her favourite bun that she had used to tie her hair up.

"Sweet baby Jesus above, you are stunning" he commented, holding himself from just cursing in front of her since he scolded her more than once when some bad words left her pretty mouth. It had became a game of theirs just saying some silly things instead of vulgar language.

"It's the set you gave me!" She informed him with a smile, her hands busy fixing her hair happy and warm to start

"I know, little one" the actor murmured while still staring, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed the lump in his throat.

His body was reacting bit too much for his liking and he started to sweat a bit so he decided to get quickly ready and just move his hands to pull off his shirt and threw it away, exposing his built body to the air so that they could begin with the yoga.

Y/n was the first to lead and help, her smaller frame kept doing her best to keep up and help Austin while ending up most of the time just clinging on him like a koala or bouncing to reach his hands.. way too high for her reach.

It was funny, adorable and relaxing... till the sensations changed when he was the one leading the exercise.

"Baba! You have to follow my body" Y/n explained in a whiny playful voice as her young body bent down in front of him, her ass brushing against his crotch and then pressing lovingly when he moved on her, hugging her hips with his strong arms.

Fucking hot, he thought now that his cock overpowered his brain.

His breath became bit heavier while his hands massaged her flesh, he could have stayed like that all day... with his boner pressed between her firm and round ass cheeks still barely covered by those damn panties.

"Ready for the rhythm? Remember sync to let our bodies connect" she parrot what Mr. Coleman told them, making Austin curse internally since he had forgot about the movements... not that he minded though, since his worries disappeared as soon as her ass hit his half-hard dick.

His hips started to follow, taking the lead unconsciously, grinding his clothed cock against her soft flesh shamelessly.

"You got your phone in your pocket, Baba?" Y/n asked after a while, glancing behind to check on him, yelping softly when he moves her head easily by her chin. Making her look back ahead.

"Mhhm... focus, little one. Sync, remember?" Austin rasped out as his hips increased their rhythm, making her loose the balance she had and end up flat against the floor with him on top.

Her heart was beating fast and she couldn't deny that her panties were getting wet by his movements... she wasn't sure it was part of the exercises but who was her to correct her stepdad.

"You're doing so good, baby. So good" his low voice praised, making her maintain the rhythm and match his when his hips increased the tempo as his big hand, which was on her tummy, helped her continue it.

It was starting to get tired, her breath becoming breathless as she heard him grunting next to her ear.

"Austin, I'm not sure this is part of Mr. Coleman's exercises—" Y/n weakly spoke, letting a broken whine escape her mouth when his little finger pressed roughly against her clothed clit

"It's all part of Mr. Coleman's exercises to bond, baby. And call me like he said you should.. don't you want to make the sessions pay off?" Austin murmured huskily, inhaling deeply while lowering quickly his sweatpants and press his bare, rock-hard angry cock against her ass again, pulling the fabric of her panties so that it was stuck between her ass cheeks like his lenght.

"I said call me like Mr. Coleman said, little one" his tone became more stern as his hand spanked her soft flesh making her jolt

"Sorry, daddy! Sorry" she whined out, moving her ass up so to allow him to continue without interruptions... just like a good girl.

It was twisted but felt so good, so... damn good, with the soft skin of his cock caressing her inner thighs as he made sure to keep them closed so that he could fuck them. Hitting her clit with each thrust.

Her stepdad was dry humping her and she was loving it as much as he was... and she could tell that he was enjoying himself pretty much due to all the noises and praises that escaped his lips.

"Such a good girl! Fuck— fuck, fuck. Little one!" His horsed voice growled in her ear as his body shook against hers before something started to wet her thighs and panties. The young woman didn't had time to check before her own orgasm hit her whole and her back arched, a soft curse, which earned her a harsh spank, escaped her innocent sweet mouth.

"Language, baby... now how about we move to the food now, hm?" Austin suggested while massaging her warm flesh, moving his softening cock away from her shaking thighs.

[natalievoncatte]

It began with a sneeze.

Lena’s entire body tensed, pain wracking her sinuses, and she tried to tamp it down and swallow it. There was a room full of investors, and she paused mid-presentation. She held up a protesting hand, signaling that she needed no help, and waved off her assistants. Finally the feeling subsided and she soldiered on, accidentally repeating part of the presentation. It didn’t matter, it was just a formality.

After, she was sitting alone in her office and she did sneeze this time, hard, into a silk handkerchief. A dull ache had settled into her bones and she felt droopy, tired. Still, she had work to do. Not the work she wanted to do. Not running the company, not strategizing. Not inventing or innovating. It was menial. It was assigned. She worked for her brother.

It was his pretty revenge, because Lena shot him two times in the chest. Then a bunch of very strange shit happened and Lena suddenly found herself in an entirely different world where Lex had never died, even though they both remembered it. A hellish nightmare world where Lillian was a philanthropist and Kara and all her friends worked more or less for Lex, keeping aliens in check.

Lena couldn’t go to her best friend for help, because her best friend had betrayed her. Lena almost wished she’d been erased when the multiverse collapsed, replaced by a copy of herself who’d never felt this agony.

There was a truth she would never admit, even to herself.

She’d feel better if Kara was here.

The days dragged on and so did her cold. Except, it wasn’t a cold. On the third day she woke to a high fever, feeling a little wobbly when she forced herself out of bed. Her sinuses burned and she had to breathe through her mouth. When she took her temperature, it was elevated, close to being dangerous. Every muscle and joint on her body ached and the sight of food made her retch involuntarily.

Lena had the goddamn flu.

She did something she’d never done: by a curt email, she informed her staff that she was ill and would not be in the office today. Instead, she rummaged through her closet, her breath catching on a familiar sweatshirt.

It was a Midvale High School Mathletes sweater. It was Kara’s, but Lena knew with a certainty that Kara had not been in Lena’s penthouse since It Happened. There was no way for this to get here but…

She stifled a sob. This world had its own Lena, one whose life she’d appropriated or merged with or God knows what, and that Lena Kara’s clothes in her home. Lena kept stumbling across them and it hurt more every time.

Had they been happy, before? Kara must have spent the night. They must have been close. Lena had been close with her Kara; they hung out and Kara had slept over a few times but they weren’t really on your-clothes-in-my-closet terms. Had that been what happened here? Did they share the bed? Were they…

Did they…

Lena put it on, felt it shelter her body. She put in two pairs of leggings and hoped her laptop would warm her. She curled with it on the couch, and got exactly nothing done. After three hours she closed the computer and flipped channels until she found the old friend of the seriously ill and the chronically unemployed: reruns.

Curling on one end of the couch, she laid her head to rest on the arm and her eyes slid closed.

It seemed that as soon as she did, she opened them again. Her head was throbbing. She tried to push herself up, but it was too great an effort and she flopped down again. Her throat was dry and sticky, and unable to breathe through her nose, air came in reedy wheezes. Swallowing only made it worse, and she felt a rising panic.

Something beyond sleep, thick and heavy, was dragging her down, even as she struggled.

A chill night breeze rolled over her, and she shivered explosively.

"Easy now. I've got you."

Powerful arms lifted her limp body and carried her. Gently, Lena was laid on her bed and a blanket thrown over her.

She opened her eyes. Kara sat her up, cradling her in one arm as she held a glass in another, so Lena could drink. She let the cool water wet her throat and did her best to breathe again. Gently, Kara lowered her back down to rest and folded a cool, damp cloth on her forehead. Lena sighed in relief.

“Get out. Don’t want you here.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispered. “I can’t leave you alone like this. I’ll be right back.”

She was indeed right back, Supergirl walking into Lena’s budoir carrying a drug store bag full of medicine. She sat Lena up again and administered the foul tasting stuff over Lena’s protests, then shut off the lights.

Lena tried to roll on her side. It didn’t go well.

Kara knelt and slipped out of her boots. Then, she undid one side, then the other, and unclasped her cape from her shoulders. She then swept it over Lena and tucked it around her gently.

“Kara,” Lena muttered.

“Hush. It’s a blanket. It’ll keep you warm.”

Lena wasn’t sure what happened next, if she dreamed it or if it was real, but she felt the bed shift as Kara climbed aboard and laid down beside her.

Eventually, she woke up again. Kara was tucked against her back, one arm thrown protectively over Lena’s side, resting on her blanket cocoon. Kara snored lightly, lying on the bed so that her chin rested on the crown of Lena’s head.

Kara noticed she’d stirred and silently stood, offering Lena her next dose of syrupy, nasty medicine. She accepted it just as silently and laid back down to sleep.

The cycle continued. Day came. Kara didn’t leave her. She drew the curtains and laid on the bed beside Lena, never speaking, never making any demands.

Finally Lena was well enough to roll over and face her.

“Why are you here?”

“I heard Gillian’s Island coming from your living room and thought you must be in danger.”

Lena snorted in spite of herself.

Kara softened. Her big blue eyes, eyes that could launch a thousand ships, carried such a weight of sorrow that Lena felt a surge of pain and regret in her heart, wondering why in the hell they were feuding. No. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t just…

“I’m sorry.”

Lena tucked herself into the blankets. She wanted to roll over, to turn away, to stop this before she did something she would regret later.

“I keep finding your things in my place,” Kara murmured. “It makes me wonder if it was different here. If we were different. What if I’d made other choices. If I’d been honest with you. Bolder.”

“You weren’t,” said Lena. “You aren’t. That’s the way it is. That door was closed.”

“When I landed on your balcony, it was open.”

“A mistake I won’t repeat. Careless. Thank you for helping me, but I didn’t need it. I don’t need you.”

Kara closed her eyes and sighed.

“I hate doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re lying.”

Lena jerked back, as much as her aching body would allow, anyway.

“How do you know?”

It didn’t hit Lena that she hadn’t offered a denial, at least not until later.

“Easy,” Kara smiled. “I cheat. Skin conductivity and moisture levels. Heat bloom on your skin. Pulse. Pupil dilation. Breathing patterns.”

“I have the flu. That’s why.”

Kara frowned.

“You’re wearing my sweater.”

“It’s not yours. It’s hers. The lives we stole.”

Kara shook her head. “That’s not what he did. Your brother created this world to live out his fantasies and make me suffer. That’s why your things are at my place and mine at yours. It’s showing us the life we should have had,” a tear shone on Kara’s cheek, “had I not been a fuckup and a coward. If I’d trusted you.”

Lena choked back a small sob, and started to cough violently.

Without a word, Kara gathered her up and rested Lena’s head on her shoulder, walling her up in those beefy, protective arms of hers. Lena allowed it, curling her fingers against the twitching muscles of Kara’s back.

Lena wanted to pull away…

No. That was a lie, a miserable fucking lie. She didn’t want to pull back. She didn’t want to fight. She thought she had to, that she needed to.

“Don’t cry,” Kara said, tenderly brushing a tear from Lena’s cheek. “I know you’re furious with me. I know things are bad. I know your brother has power over us. It’ll get better. I won’t let him hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”

“You already hurt me.”

“I know,” Kara whimpered, her voice wobbling. “I’m sorry, Lena. I’ve never been more sorry about anything in my entire life. I wake up every day praying I can find some way to take it back."

"You can't."

Kara tensed.

"Maybe you don't have to," said Lena.

Kara's breath caught. She lowered Lena to the bed, and this time wrapped them in the blankets together. She was so warm.

"I've got you."

Blessedly, Lena slept.

Each time she woke, she felt better. Eventually, she was well enough for Kara to leave the bed. A few minutes later, Kara came back, and she brought breakfast. Her appetite back, Lena dug in, enjoying the tea Kara brought.

Kara took the tray and plates when she was done.

"You look a lot better."

Lena nodded. "Ah, yes, thank you."

Silence. There was a heavy pause, and then Kara sat down beside her on the bed.

"I wish I'd been brave before."

Lena looked at her, really looked at her, this enchanting vision looking at Lena like she hung all the stars in the sky, her eyes so full of longing that Lena felt she might fall into them forever.

"What would you do if you were brave?"

"This."

Warm fingers curled around Lena's chin. Kara leaned in, and Lena felt it happen even before their lips touched. When they did, it was electric. Lena felt the world spinning. Kara caught her and lowered her to the bed.

"I don't care about multiverses and cosmic entities and your evil brother. No matter what they throw at me, I will always find my way back to you. If you want me."

Lena pulled her down into another kiss, and that was her answer.

[coolsvilleprincess]

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!! <3

Wanted to draw a bunch of different pairings so here we go!! I wanted to draw them on how I imagine their dates with each other would go.

Fred and Shaggy started out on a walk but halfway through Fred saw a place they caught a bad guy once and started reminiscing on their good times spent together and who is Shaggy to complain, they definitely went to get food after it though.

Daphne and Fred went to a screening at the Coolsville local cinema where they were showing one of the first ever 3D movies. When the movie is over Fred spends the rest of their date talking about how impressive the improvements to 3D films have been since they were first invented. Daphne doesn't mind that much since she still gets to cuddle and they also probably went to get food after it where Daphne assigns their friends roles in the movie they just watched.

Shaggy and Daphne went to a football game where Shaggy gets to eat very many football game foods such as Hotdogs and whatever else they eat at football games. Daphne isn't even rooting for a team cause at first she wasn't sure about going but it hits halftime and she's caught up in the atmosphere and uses the celebration of any of the teams scoring as an excuse to kiss Shaggy.

Velma and Daphne are working on very important mystery solving and journalism career things on their laptops so they don't have time to go on a date date HOWEVER that will not stop them from flirting through messages as they work. Daphne sends Velma things like videos and songs that remind her of her and Velma can't flirt back so she just sends hearts like a disaster lesbian, good for her tbh.

[blairboo]

BAD DECISIONS

Noah Sebastian x Fem! Reader!

Summary: When Noah stops giving importance to his relationship, he realises the nonsense he did. What will he do to try to win you back?

Warnings : angst, crying, pain, heartbreak, Noah being an idiot

Words count : 1430

All Pure Fiction!!!!!

---

They say that the feeling of falling in love is one of the best feelings to have. I knew this when I fell in love with Noah; I felt like the butterflies in my stomach were lifting me up. What you never expect is for that feeling to change or to fade away completely. I knew Noah was busy with his new album, dedicating 99% of his time to it, and I never got upset or angry with him for that. Since he was a kid, it had always been his dream, and I wasn't going to take that away from him.

The problem started when he couldn't balance work and family anymore. I'd come home, and he’d be in his studio on a call with one of the guys, discussing the album. When I would call him to have dinner or even just to spend time with me, he always brought his laptop along, saying he was almost done and would turn it off soon. I always believed him. That never happened.

I was sitting at the kitchen counter when I heard the front door open; I knew it was Noah. There was the sound of keys, backpacks, and voices.

Wait.

Voices? Who would Noah bring home on a Wednesday at 9:00?

I recognized the voice; it was Jolly. I knew that Jolly was the one who helped him write songs the most, and that was probably why he was there. The footsteps got closer to the kitchen, and soon I saw Noah's brown eyes looking at me.

I looked at him and gave a weak smile, and he returned it, saying, “Oh hey ” as he came closer and gave me a kiss on the forehead, “Hey, my love,” I said, putting my arms around his neck. I felt someone’s gaze on my back; I knew it was Jolly.

“Hey to you too, Jolly,” I said, a playful smile on my face. “Hey, y/n, how are you?” he asked as he approached. “I’m good, and you?” I felt Noah loosen his grip on me.

We continued talking about my day and about their new album.

We had already had dinner, and Jolly had just left. Now, I was on one end of the couch, and Noah was on the other. We hadn’t had a chance to talk alone yet, but I could feel something strange between us.

His silence was killing me. It wasn’t new, though; I had felt the need to ask him what was happening between us for a while now. I didn’t have the courage, and I didn’t know if it was a lack of courage or fear of knowing the answer. My thoughts were interrupted when I felt Noah get up from the couch; he was heading to our bedroom.

“Are you going to stay there?” he asked, not looking at me, then hesitated for a second and I don’t what happened, my mouth let slip the question I had been avoiding.

“Do you want a divorce?” The words finally came out.

I felt him stop what he was doing and turn to face me; confusion was evident in his eyes.

“What?”

“You heard me.” I couldn’t look at him.

“No, I want you to look me in the eyes and ask that question again.” He seemed offended by my question.

I felt furious. How could he be mad at me? After weeks of ignoring me and pretending our marriage didn’t exist?

I looked at him, feeling angry tears burning in my eyes.

“Do you want a divorce?” I almost spelled out each word.

“Why would you ask me that? Is that what you want?” He raised his voice.

He seemed to want to read my thoughts, to know whether I wanted the divorce or if I thought he was the problem. At that moment, I did think he was the issue, but Noah knew me better than anyone.

In our three years of marriage, no one had kept my secrets the way he had, no one understood me like he did, no one cared for me as he did.

“You know that’s the last thing I would want for our relationship.”

“Then why are you asking me this?”

I thought about inventing a lie, saying that maybe we just weren’t understanding each other or that things weren’t working out. But that was a lie. In the last few weeks, I cared more about our relationship than I did for myself. I had done everything I could to try to save what was left of us. Nothing helped.

“Maybe because you are making me feel like you want this”I let my feelings get the best of me.

“I tried to make this work, Noah. I really did, and now I feel like I'm the only one ‘loving’ in this relationship.”

“That’s not true; you know I love you.” His hesitation to respond made me doubt it.

“I don’t know, Noah. In the last few weeks, all I felt was that I was alone.” Tears threatened to fall.

“I’m here, always.” He seemed to believe his own words.

That wasn’t true; he wasn’t here. His body might have been, but my Noah wasn’t.

“No! You’re not here. You know that. All you’ve done in the last few weeks is spend hours on the phone with Jolly discussing the new album.” I was tired of trying to point out his mistakes.

“Yeah? That’s my job. You know I need to do this. I have people depending on me, my record label needs me to do this; the guys need me to do this.”

“And at what point did spending hours in the studio become more important than family?” I was staring at the floor now.

He seems angry and annoyed

“I can’t do that right now, and I won’t.” He turned his back and headed toward our bedroom, and soon after, the door slammed.

I felt a burning blade in my throat; my eyes were pleading for me to let my tears fall. And that’s what I did; I released all the emotions I had bottled up in the last few weeks. I needed this.

I felt disheartened seeing that he truly didn’t care about us, even a little.

I turned off the kitchen lights and went to the guest room; I wasn’t going to sleep next to Noah, not after he simply turned his back on me, leaving my question hanging.

I lay down and didn’t feel Noah’s familiar warmth beside me; it felt strange. I closed my eyes and let the tears flow again. How long would I endure this? Feeling alone and like I was the only one in the relationship.

Lost in my thoughts, I fell asleep.

I guess it was time to maybe make a bad decision, but I decided to think about that the next day.

The next morning, I felt rays of sunshine on my face. I reached for the pillow beside me, trying to feel Noah. When I felt the cold bed, my eyes opened, and I turned towards my hand. I wasn’t in our bedroom, and Noah wasn’t with me.

I went down to the kitchen and saw a note on the counter.

“Maybe we should take the day off , separately. I’m not breaking up with you; I just think I need to figure out what I want. I’m gonna be home after 10:00. Love you forever.

Noah.

Wow, he really left. I crumpled the paper, throwing it in the trash and headed to our bedroom. The bed was made and his side of the closet was open. A mess into the closet.

I looked at our photo on the dresser. I took it down. Maybe this was the end for us.

I felt determined not to wait for Noah to decide what he wanted to do with his life. I needed to make my own life.

I grabbed a suitcase from our closet and started throwing my clothes inside, packing everything I needed. I looked at the photo I had put down, thinking about putting it in the suitcase. But no. I needed to move on. With Noah or without Noah.

After I packed everything I needed, I headed to my car, putting my suitcase in. I looked at the house that once brought us so much happiness , and I felt sad. Knowing that maybe our marriage had ended this way.

It’s okay. You’ll be alright. I told myself, trying to convince myself that I would be okay.

Noah made his bad decision, and now he would have to live with it. But it wouldn’t affect my choice.

Be careful with your bad decisions.

---

Heyyyy, just an idea that come into my mind and i just wrote it

Maybe a part 2????? lmk if u want :)

Thank You

Blair 👾

[shalomniscient]

MACHINIST! || grace howard x reader [NSFT][MDNI]

GOT YOUR BODY ON THE BED I CAN SEE THE PRESENTATION / SAID SHE A MACHINIST / BODY UNDER PRESSURE / I BE FIENDING / COMPANY YEAH I KNOW THAT SHE BE NEEDING

cw. reader is an android and has a robot dick (thanks grace), some praise, dumbification, established relationship, robotfucking (?), some breeding talk/breeding kink, switch!grace and switch!reader, handjobs, creampie, vibrators (technically)

notes. had MACHINIST! by Sh!nki on repeat while writing this, please do check out their song it’s genuinely so good !!! also shoutout to @nbdaddykink for enabling this brainrot

“What were all the functions again?”

From between your legs, Grace looks up at you, sunset-red eyes glittering. The artificial cock resting against your thigh is attached to the rest of your body by a connective plate around your groin, the base measurements perfect to the milimeter. Somehow, Grace managed to get your skin tone correct as well, so much so the inter-plate spaces are barely visible. Distantly, you wonder if she used a color picker on you at some point without you knowing—you honestly wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s better that way, anyway. You’d nearly choked the first time she asked to take measurements of your crotch, and you don’t even breathe.

“Since it’s just my first prototype, Mark I, it’s only got a vibration function,” she explains. She trails a finger along the soft length—medical grade silicone, she had assured you—and nods to herself when you grunt in response, fingers curling into the bedsheet. “And the sensory input, obviously.”

“Right,” you huff. She continues to stroke you somewhat absently, more curious than particularly aroused. You, on the other hand, are quite the opposite—your entire body feels warm, too warm, and the small flaps on the vents along your back and shoulders flip up as your system draws in cool air to manage your steadily climbing temperatures. It’s almost embarrassing, the way Grace can get you overheating like some cheap laptop at the slightest of touches, but the she smiles when she looks at you like you’ve given her the answers to the universe and it’s rather difficult to feel anything other than affection in that moment.

“Feels good?” she asks, leaning up to get a closer look at your expressions. Your cock twitches in her hand, slowly hardening, and you give her a strained, wry smile.

“Quite,” you answer, sucking in a sharp breath as her hand pumps up and down. You’re only half listening to her explanation about the dick’s engineering—thin tubes reroute some of your synthetic blood into the cock when it’s stimulated (or whenever you please, really), making it hard, much like an organic dick. The real treat of her little— actually, no, relatively large invention is the fact that it can vibrate, and that you won’t get soft until you consciously make that decision.

“As for cum, I managed to synthesize something kind of close to the real thing,” Grace continues, her thumb swiping over the tip and smearing some of the pre-cum along your length, drawing a strangled groan from your throat. “But I’ll have to take it off to replace it once you’ve used it all up.”

You can only manage a grunt in response, hips twitching at her touch. You buck up into her fist, and Grace’s grin widens. “Are you getting close?” she asks, and you nod rapidly, utterly unable to form words. Pleasure clogs your processors, and your vision fuzzes blue at the edges. Grace’s hand moves faster, and she climbs fully into your lap, plush thighs on either side of your own. She leans in close, her breath mingling with yours before she kisses you so softly, experimentally, and it’s enough to send you over the edge with a hiss.

Artificial cum spills from your cock and onto her hand, a thick, creamy white that almost looks like glue. Grace pulls back and looks at her hand with pure marvel in her eyes, removing her hand from your still-stiff dick to note the way your cum coats her hand. She pinches two fingers together, then spreads them apart, and a thick, viscous string connects them together. The action is enough to make another shudder run through your wired nerves, and you grip her waist and flip her over onto the bed before she can protest or insist on writing down some preliminary observations.

She yelps lightly, but then her lashes flutter as you roll your hips against hers, the wet tip of your cock pressing against her clothed cunt. Your sensors pick up on her elevated heart rate and increased oxytocin levels, and you breathe out a pleased sigh, leaning down to kiss at her neck and down to her shoulders, your teeth scraping against the tattoo on her right.

“How about we move on to phase two of testing, hm?” you rasp. You roll your hips again, and Grace mewls, looping her arms around your neck and leaning back into the pillows.

“Th-that’d be good, yup,” she responds, and you smile against her. You kiss her shoulder again, and the saltiness from the light sheen of sweat on her skin blooms on your tongue. You draw back and make quick work of her pants, shimmying them down her thighs and discarding them on the floor. You can’t help the groan that rumbles in your chest when you note the state of her underwear—entirely soaked and clinging to the lips of her pretty pussy.

You draw a finger along the drenched cloth, and Grace squirms, the muscles in her stomach jumping at the sensation. “So wet, baby,” you murmur, voice low, “all for me?”

Sunset-red eyes meet your again, and Grace’s voice is deliciously breathless when she answers. “All for you, jus’ you.”

“Good girl,” you hum, and a full-body shudder runs through her at the praise. Grace has always been terribly weak for it; not that you mind. There’s little you quite enjoy more than telling your darling machinist how wonderful she is—if anything, you think she needs to hear more of it.

Your fingers find the waistband of her panties and you tug them off, tossing them into the same pile her pants have ended up in on the floor. Gently, you spread her legs a little wider, shifting slightly to position yourself correctly. Your tip catches against her clit and it draws a pleased noise from both of you, and you squeeze her thighs as a reflex, the flesh so plush under your touch.

“‘m gonna put it in now, baby,” you murmur, bracing yourself over her with one hand. Grace’s own clutch at your shoulders and she nods, her eyes blown wide as she looks into yours, and so you have the privilege of watching them roll back into her skull as you slowly sink into her, spreading her open on your cock. The first thing that hits you is how warm she is; the next is the tightness. You nearly whimper at the combined intensity of being wrapped by her perfect pussy, inner walls clenching as you sink another inch and then another into her slowly but surely.

Fuck, you don’t think you’ll ever be able to go back to using a strap after this.

Grace whines loudly once you finally bottom out, your hips meeting hers with a wet smack. Her inner thighs are smeared with her own wetness as it leaks out of her beautifully stuffed cunt, and you grit your teeth to hold yourself back from pile driving her into the mattress. “You okay?” you manage between lungfuls of air, inhaling more to cool your overheating components. Beneath you, Grace nods frantically, her face flushed and nearly as red as her irises.

“You can move,” she gasps as she wriggles her hips, chasing any sort of friction from your stationary cock. “D-don’t forget to try out the vibration function—“

You nip her rambling in the bud by both kissing her and pulling out until the tip, before slamming back inside. Grace moans into your mouth and you devour it greedily, like you needed it to keep operating. You give in to your desire from before and drive her into the mattress with such intensity that Friday could consider retiring early. Your mouth travels hungrily from her lips down to her neck, sucking and biting marks into the pale skin that you know will have Koleda aging another ten years while Ben won’t be able to look neither you nor Grace in the eye.

You nearly rip Grace’s bra off in your haste, fingers fumbling with the zipper. She sighs as her breasts are freed, then moans again when your lips seal around her nipple and sucks. You lave her chest with attention all while you pound into her cunt, the wet sounds of sex echoing all around the room. Her fingers dig into your back, blunt nails creating a delicious pressure that has you bucking just a little harder into her.

“Baby, I’m— I’m gonna—“ she mewls, and you fuck into her faster, utterly rearranging her guts. You’re sure if you look down, you’d see a little bulge forming over where your cock nestles inside her. But you don’t, not this time, because the sight of Grace’s debauched expression is already taking up so much of your processing bandwith. You push up on the bed, nearly folding her in half as your teeth ghost the shell of her ear.

“Gonna what, Grace? Use your words,” you breathe, and she whines, one leg nearly kicking out against you.

“Cum, gonna cum,” she babbles, arching up into your chest, spit-slicked breasts pressing against your chest. You manage a slight chuckle at that, but you aren’t better off either. That blue fuzz creeps along the edges of your vision again, and you know you’re close.

So what better time than to test out the final function?

Activation is impulse related, you remember Grace saying, which basically means all you have to do is think about it for it to activate. And activate it does—Grace screams as the vibrations come to life, buried as you are eight inches deep in her pussy. She bears down on you, hard, nearly pushing you out. You only grunt and put a little more force into your thrusts and Grace sobs fat tears of pure pleasure that you reverently kiss away. You see any higher order thinking skills fade from her eyes as she loses herself in the feeling of you and your cock in her cunt, and she looks so achingly beautiful like this that you can’t resist the urge to kiss her softly, a far cry from the way you’re fucking her almost ruthlessly.

“Good girl,” you pant against her lips. “Good girl, so good for me, my Grace. My genius girl, making me all sorts of toys for me to fuck her with, hm?”Only the whites of her eyes are visible as she slurs out pitiful ‘thank-yous’ at your praise. She gets impossibly tighter, and you know both of you are only seconds away from an orgasm that will have you undoubtedly short-circuiting.

You press a hand to her tummy, over the bulge your cock makes. “‘m gonna cum inside this cute cunt, baby,” you promise, trading your fast pace for slower, deeper strokes, practically assaulting her g-spot with pinpoint accuracy, made only more intense by the vibrations. Your thumb finds her clit and Grace howls, loud enough that anyone in the house would definitely hear. “Jus’ a shame this cum is fake—else I would’ve given you a baby like you want, hm?”

The combination of your words in her ears, thumb on her clit and cock in her cunt send Grace careening off the edge with a sound between a scream and a moan, her entire body locking up with the intensity of it. Squirt sprays out of her clenching pussy and all over your abdomen, and the sight forces you over as well, the blue fuzz swallowing your vision whole. You can barely feel the way your cock pumps the fake cum deep inside her, your hips moving entirely of their own accord as your system reboots from the force of your orgasm.

By the time you come to again, you’re braced over Grace, her legs locked around your hips. Your cock has stopped vibrating on its own, probably due to the fact you practically bluescreebed. Some semblance of thought has returned to Grace’s pretty eyes, and something flutters in your mechanical heart at the satisfied expression on her face. You brush a strand of dark hair out of her eyes, and she wordlessly asks for a kiss. You indulge in her request, lips meeting hers gently. You fit so perfectly against her sometimes you wonder if you were manufactured for her.

“I take it the first round of testing is a success?” you ask, and Grace laughs, her voice somewhat hoarse.

“Definitely.”

(For scientific reasons, you do another two rounds of ‘testing’—after all, repetition is good to ensure the accuracy of the result, right?)

[missmarveledsblog]

Odd one out ( logan howlett x reader)

summary : logan's adjusting to new life , new friends only thing he can't put his finger on is wade's friend Y/n , he knows she hiding something and he right but he is so wrong too

warnings : fluffy , goofy , no major deadpool and wolverine spoilers , violence , wade wilson , grumpy logan , grammatical errors (sorry in advance )

Adjusting  to a whole new world , universe where everything was the same but different .  Knowing someone and yet learning to know them all over again , like he was re familiarizing himself with ghosts from his past in one place and creating a new future in another. Adjusting to the one fucker who had him here in the first place was hard too , wade wilson was a strange one , hard to tell where the smart sarcastic ball of undiagnosed ADHD  started and ended . yet he had this wonderful and strange group of people around him , they all stuck out and fit in somehow , not that he would admit it out loud ever . (“ i knew it he loves me!” wade wink to the reader) .  but the dickward (“ harsh” the merc gasped.)  well he grew on him.  He wasn’t too bad not all the time those few seconds of silence truly when logan howlett  actually would consider him a friend then his mouth started it usually nonsensical rambles and well he changed his mind again . 

The friends he didn’t mind being around the lot they all had their own quirks , their own little nicknames or insults for wade and they all took logan in no matter what even when wade explain their whole adventure even the dark past that followed logan around even to this day . one friend he couldn’t get a read on , one for some reason stood out more than the others was Y/N  or as wade tended to call her princess sparkle maybe it had to do with the midnight black glitter case she had her laptop in . the other made sense in a way all either mutants or coming from some sort of background, but well Y/N was different . apparently, when she was a kid she used to drink her apple juice while sitting in the corner of the notorious sister margarets helping mercs of all kinds find their targets for a fee of course . Her bond with wade was helping him locate some chick or atleast logan was sure it was giving francis was the name but in that whole thing she was the one that helped wade find them all using that laptop ln the black sparkle case . Giving she was youngster of the group and just well ordinary no powers the others we’re protective but something about her well logan couldn’t put his finger on it and it was driving him nuts what was her secret .  

“ you know if you keep staring at her peanut well your going to give off a certain i got candy and white van sort of vibe” logan could feel wade once again too close giving the asshole breathe was in his ear . 

“ it’s not like that , she hiding something i mean she not so social , closed off a little and well she barely talks about herself” logan scoffed yet his eyes never once left her form . 

“ ok baby girl you probably know this phrase given you're so old you were there when they invented it but pot meet kettle”  the merc gestured between the two . “ he is butt nuts into her it’s so obvious right?” he looked to the reader . 

“ who are tal… nevermind i am not into her i don’t trust here plus she too young for me” he rationalized . 

“ she’s an old soul i mean not american civil war old but get what i’m throwing down” wade winked .

 “ hey i’m heading out i wanna grab books and coffee before the shop closes” she called rushing out before anyone could offer to walk with her. Logan didn’t even say anything just followed after.

“ he totally wants her right” wades looking at you reader. 

“ wade who you taking to?” 

“ the… nevermind hey did i ever tell you  about my future prince , king god of thunder buddy thor” he asked heading toward his friend . 

………

She hated it , lying to her friends not telling them she wasn’t as smart as they thought she was or how the sight of wades new roommate topless made her brain not function therefore caused her life to be now in danger. She been looking into her past , more so the men who had left her with no childhood nor a family resulting her sneaking into a seedy bar and helping hitmen and vigilantes find their targets .  she wanted to make sure they weren’t still doing it and when she began to see multiple account of money she could use to well give back to the world well she got herself caught. She wanted to tell wade but she didn’t want to bother him too much it wasn’t even a year after his whole TVA  incident and well saving the world so she decided she could handle it alone which that wasn’t the lie , she totally could it was just dealing with it in silence. Plus giving the said hot roommate hatred for her , she didn’t want to give that man any more ammo against her. It was a mystery to why he hated her so much , at first she thought maybe he knew a version of her in his universe that done him dirty but he was quite easily able to tell her she wasn’t anything thing to him , he didn’t know her there which was only good part of that place. Thankfully she grew up the way she did or else it would of hurt a lot more than it did , ok it still stung but she got used to it . she love their group like a family so instead of being interrogated or scared away by logan she avoided him kept her space from the man , ignore how he looked like he was going to rip her apart and not in the 50 shades of gray more like national geographic lions and a giselle sort of way . 

She was so lost in her thought she didn’t notice logan following her or the group of agent sprawled out ready to pounce. Scanning the shelves for the next read she felt the metal barrel pushing at her side . 

“Act natural or else” the voice smiled so she did she couldn’t cause a scene or react too many civilians and a lot of them were children.

She shrugged and let the man follow at her side as she stood at the counter pulling out the metal reusable cup . 

“ the regular you know three pumps of caramel” she winked . “ oh this is my cousin franny” she smiled as the man looked at her before smiling to the barista . 

“ oh free book today with each coffee so enjoy”  the barista smiled handing her the scalding cup but she bit her tongue and kept walking “ somebody call wade” she whispered back at the staff. 

Logan stood grinning , he  had his moment of being right seeing her all smiles with a clearly shady prick , he was about to confront her for his big gotcha moment only he stalled when he heard them as if they were saying it to him . 

“ in position we got her , subject will be brought back to containment “ that threw him off well that was til she walked out with the man throwing the coffee she had  in his face and a gun he didn’t notice before falling to the ground as she told the civilians to get somewhere safe. First time in his life or a decade he stood shocked at scene before him . agent clearly not the good guys with this octopus looking things on their tactical gear rushing towards her.  One man went to grab her only for him to fall to the ground convulsing and yet  logan couldn’t see the taser she clearly had to off used .  his jaw dropped as her skin began to glow almost a whitish blue all over her body and what looked like sparks floating around her. Not once did she looked scared or even phased  at the situation , she took them on one by one almost like a dance in her movement as she sent them to the ground . when they did get a hit on her like the mere touch sent them to the ground convulsing . he honestly stood conflicted he knew he was way off but also who the hell was this girl really . he wanted to help but she didn’t need it even when they ganged up on her she  held her own . when last man  fell she returned back to normal  skin back to color , the sparks disappeared like a mist and she leaned over slightly panting . 

“ call the authorities tell them to get shield here or fbi” she stood only for one to sneak out and hit her head hard sending her to the ground unconscious . thats when he snapped into action how dare that man touch her like that , what a cheap shot too  logan knocked man out ignoring the lady who yelled she called the cops and he brought her back to wades. 

The moment he walked into the apartment with her in his arms out cold the room went silent .  he growled at  shatterstar and colossus making them instantly move from the couch as he placed her gently on it.  Vanessa ran to check her over as logan explained what  happened . 

“ she was fucking glowing like a night light or some shit …. You don’t look surprised so you already knew , why did no one tell me ” he looked to see not one of them looked shocked to know she was a mutant. they all nodded giving him a sympathetic smile.

“ why do you think i call her princess sparkles , the coffee place rang” wade called heading to his room before returning . “ you saving her ass like a knight in tight yellow spandex , i knew you liked her kitten” he winked as he placed the adventure time comforter over her sleeping form .

[muzansfangs]

Heya, just saw your drink event. Congratulations on your 1 year! ♥️♥️

Can I request Grappa + Nanami Kento + 2 ice cubes (praise kink and clit edging)

Say my name.

Starring: Nanami Kento x f!reader;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, praise kink, clit edging, use of alcohol but everything is consensual, implied sexual tension betwen the reader and Kento on previous encounters, love confessions, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex;

Plot: It was curious how to finally confess his feelings for you, Kento had waited up until you two had to take a flight to Paris. Although you were only supposed to attend business meetings and lunches, he had meticulously planned a romantic ‘after dinner’ in his hotel room. Two flûtes of champagne, the warmth provided by the fireplace and the snow coating Paris brought you two together.

Drink chosen: GRAPPA (passionate sex in front of the fireplace)

MASTERLIST FOR THE EVENT | RULES FOR THE EVENT

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

When your boss had introduced you to Nanami Kento, you knew that the blond, Stakhanovite man would have been the cause of many nights spent in inventing romantic scenarios in your head, before you succumbed to sleep. Your guesses were soon proved correct. Nine months of shooting subtle glances at him, whenever he was engrossed in his work, staring intently at screen of his computer; months of jogging towards the elevator to be able to wish him a good evening, whilst he was leaving, and months of struggling to hide your excitement, whenever he suggested to grab a coffee together, or go to his favorite bakery for lunch, were part of your routine and, apparently, it followed you in dreamland.

Handsome as Hell, dedicated to his work, despite he did not hide how bittered he had grown of being a salaryman, once you two gained enough confidence to share a drink at the bar together, Kento had stolen your heart from your chest and now you were agonizing, waiting for him to give it back to you. You needed him to teach you how to breathe again and, supposedly, how to live without a beating heart in your chest.

There was something between you two, though, and none of you could deny it.

Through the months, you had learned to read his body language, or, to be fair, the way his eyes betrayed his intimate thoughts throughout the day. When your colleague averted his gaze from his laptop to look up at you, you could swear to see something different in every stare he gave you. There was something in the way he looked at you when you entered the office in the early morning with that dazzling smile of yours. Sympathy, cordiality, admiration. There was something else, changing in his usually soft eyes, in the way he watched your boss winking at you. Jealousy, irritation, longing. Lastly, when he began to brush his hand down your forearm, squeezing your shoulder reassuringly before leaving the office, his splendid eyes gave off a whole other feeling. Affection, lust, protectiveness.

Something was blooming in that office. Still, the idea of dating a colleague sounded scandalous enough, even for you, and you feared he was way too uptight to let himself fall for a co-worker. It would have drawn too much attention. Honestly, the idea of the geese of the hours gossiping about you two during the lunch break made your heart sink into your chest too, but you had already fallen for him. It was not like you could force yourself to ignore him, to forget him and the way butterflies fluttered in the pit of your stomach, when your fingers accidentally touched.

Now, walking down the carpeted hall of the luxury hotel in Paris where you were staying at, watching him talk to the concierge, you felt in a frenzy. What were you doing exactly in Paris with Kento?

Working, much to your dismay. In the snowy, romantic, european city, you were attending meetings and lunches, courting potential new clients and pleasing those rich snobs for the sake of your company. Walking side by side with the most handsome, kind and perfect man you had ever had the luck to meet and yet not even sharing a kiss with him was a torture.

It was your last night there and Kento had suggested you to join him for a drink after a fraught meeting with the choosy men you had pampered for a whole week. You were glad Kento had always had your back. Actually, you were also glad he had prevented you from flinging that hubristic man against the wall and hurling the contract out of the window. He perfectly knew you could handle anyone without losing your cool, but the tension between you and the client had grown obnoxiously unbearable and Kento had seen your eyes gleaming in sheer frustration. At some point, you were really about to pop a vessel and he had been such a gentleman to ask you to call your boss and let that rich bastard to him.

Now, back at the hotel, you two had more than a reason to celebrate and slack off. The travel had ended and the client was yours. A drink and a chit-chat with him was absolutely well-deserved.

“Thank you for having prevented me from throttling that man with his necktie earlier. — you said, shrugging your coat off of your shoulders, as you were finally alone in his room — You saved my life” you faintly smiled, draping your coat over a nearby chair and taking your heels off with a sigh of relief.

The room was warm enough for you not to shiver at the contact of the marble floor underneath the thin fabric of your thigh highs. Honestly, it was such a blissful feeling getting rid of the eight inches décolleté biting at your flesh unforgivingly.

Kento tugged at the knot of his tie, loosening it “As long as I believe you’d look good in orange, a prison uniform doesn’t suit you” he noted, earning a chuckle from you.

“You’re right” you agreed, watching him pour the expensive champagne he had asked at the reception into the two crystal flûtes. Soon enough, he had pressed one in your hand and he had sat down in front of the fireplace, his back against the base of the sofa as he lolled his head back onto the comfortable seat.

He was visibly tired and you smiled softly, sitting next to him without asking for permission. You had never really asked him if you could make small, friendly gestures to get closer and you did not recall him doing it either. All that you two knew was that you had built up a bond that gradually made you take certain liberties with each other. You were comfortable around him and he was comfortable around you. You wished it could be enough for you, but you cared about him so much more than a close friend is supposed to do.

“I will never forgive the boss for having sent me to Paris and ruined my permanence here with work” you grumbled, taking a swig of your drink, embittered by how funny it was for you to be in one of the most romantic places in the world, in the company of such a wonderful man, but not on a honeymoon, or an idyllic getaway.

Kento stared at the fireplace, hooded eyes watching the flames creeping, almost enamoured with the scenery “He may have ruined the week, but not this night”.

You quirked your eyebrow up curiously “What?”.

“What I meant to say, actually, is that he may have swamped us with work, but the job is done by now. — he said, leisurely reaching his hand up to remove his tie completely — This is our last night here and, frankly, I don’t want to think about our boss and how he ruined our week. Would you let me make it up to you?” he asked, eyes darting on you with a new glint in the color of his splendid irides.

You felt your cheeks heat up, lips disclosing in search for the right words to say, but he spared time for the both of you. Settling his flûte at his right, he reached out to grasp your hips and cradled you into his arms. You were definifely in a daze now, relishing this unexpected moment of tenderness as he settled you onto his lap. Your back was pressed against his broad chest, one hand reaching up to tilt your head to the side, allowing your eyes to meet.

You could feel his breath tickle your earlobe, your jawline. You had no shame to admit you were staring at him stupidly, your brain barely making you realise that you should have placed the flûte down as well, not to spill its content on you two.

“You’re quite stressed out. That man tested your patience earlier. — Kento whispered, your breath catching in your throat when his hand skimmed down your stomach, deft fingers curling up the hem of your sheath dress to access to your underwear — Can I help you relax? Because, frankly, if I don’t win you over tonight, I’m not going to forgive myself for the rest of my life” he whispered, the pads of his fingers playing with the waistband of your panties hazardously.

Who were you to keep him waiting? You were you, if not a girl who had longer for this for almost a whole year?

Fluttering your eyes close, you nodded your head almost imperceptibly “You don’t have to ask for my permission” you breathed out, a throaty moan ripping from your chest the moment he slipped his hand underneath the fabric of your undergarment.

Kento hummed, lips capturing yours in a tender, brief kiss, tasting your lips, before he began to draw circles over your bundle of nerves. His touch was magnetic, electric, absurdly precise. It felt almost as if he knew your body better than his own. Your back arched, this time you were the one who pressed your lips against his and your tongues met midway.

Squelching sounds soon filled the silent room, Kento’s bulge pressing firmly against your arse as you began to feel a warm feeling in your lower belly. Sensitive, your clitoris had become too sensitive.

“K-Kento… I’m close” your cried out, thinking he was going to finally penetrate you. But his fingers did not change their destination.

He kissed your cheekbone, lips then trailing towards your ear when you began to tremble and squirm in his arms “Patience, darling. Focus all of your stress on your clitoris. Let me lead you through liberation. I promise I will not leave your insides untouched” he groaned out, when you accidentally rotated your hips over his crotch.

He was hard rock and you were practically sure he was desperate for you. Therefore, eager to finally let him have his fair share of bliss, you followed his instructions blindly. Your orgasm washed over you violently, leaving you panting, as your body convulsed in pleasure. Your moans were louder than you ever recalled them to be and your breath was too irregular.

“Such a good girl for me, aren’t you? Do you think you can take more, my jewel? Just a little more for me, alright?” he whispered, while your dreamy eyes stared at the flames burning in the fireplace, casting orange glows in the dimly illuminated room.

“I can be good all night, Kento” you smiled lazily, shifting around only to kiss him passionately on the lips.

It took him two minutes to disrobe you and himself completely, condom rolled smoothly over his cock. Hands settled at the sides of your head, he fucked you right over that carpet, drunk on his desire to finally make you his. His because he could not stand your boss constantlt hogging you, his because in this way he could finally give you everything you could ever want. His because you belonged to him, because he had had his eyes on you from the day you first met.

Naked over the carpet, panting, you two knew how hard it was going to be going back at word and keep your relationship a secret.

Still, you asked “We’re dating, right?”.

“Definitely. Rather rude of me sleeping with you before taking you out”.

“Mh, that’s right. Maybe, if we let the rumors spread, we can really give them something to talk about for a while” you jested, rolling on your side and kissing his cheek.

“Don’t tempt me, or I will add this to report” he gruffly replied, grinning before wrapping his arm around you.

Paris. That city really was magic, after all.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! I’ve finally posted the Kento request! Maybe it’s just my problem, but when I like a character I am never satisfied with what I have written. I am constantly scared of not having made him/her/them justice. Ugh, I hope this turned out to be decent at least! Likes, comments, reposts are greatly appreciated!

Until next,

X O X O

TAGS: @pseudowho because we’re Kento lovers and I want to feed you for once✨

[klausysworld]

(This is based on that cam girl idea I had except I ended up making more boring than I initially thought so I might make another or something? I dunno, either way I hope everyone likes it cuz it’s still cute)

Something special

Klaus was no stranger to sex. Over a thousand years he had tried damn near everything and knew just how to pleasure both himself and others. He found it both amusing and inspiring how humans invented new things to satisfy their needs and often tested them out. Webcaming sites were one of his favourites.

Having an eager, gorgeous girl on his screen teasing him for hours and moaning softly. It helped that he had a lot of money, it mean he had private chat rooms and calls with a lot of these girls. There, when it was only him, they would begin to lose more clothing. Some were happy to be completely naked for everyone to see but the ones who were out for money only did it for the right amount. They were his favourites, knowing that they got excited when he joined the live because he would offer what they needed.

He hadn't been on for a good while while he was busy with his curse and hybrids but once he had the time, he decided to log back on. He scrolled for a little while to find someone who peaked his interest. Klaus was careful with who he picked, he didn't want to have loads of girls waiting for him, he needed them to feel special and wanted.

But after a little while, he found her. Y/n, or at least that was her name on here. With a slight smile, he joined. She was in her panties and an oversized baby-pink jumper that went just over her thighs and swallowed her pretty body. Her hair was down and she was simply eating her dinner, gammon egg and fries. The wall behind her was white and he could see the end of her bed at the edge of the screen. She smiled at the camera as she dipped her fry in her egg and took it into her mouth, chewing slowly before swallowing it down.

He watched the comments, and then her, studying how she reacted to different requests and compliments. Some people were asking for her to take off the jumper, some were asking her to lick her knife and others were asking to have a private or members only stream. She hummed softly as she took a sip of her drink, which was a tall glass of milk making Klaus smirk.

She shifted to sit up in her knees, her thighs parted but the jumper making it impossible to see between them. A good few people send her money, most a maximum of $50 but he could tell that she was happy with that. She let out a soft laugh at one of the comments, "mm it's just milk, I'm sorry" she smiled and as though it were contagious, so did Klaus.

For the next few nights he just watched her. The most she would let anyone see of her was her thighs or sometimes a little cleavage but she wasn't explicit at all. He began to wonder how much it would take to have her take her panties off. So, out of curiosity, he asked.

He watched as her face went pink and she fiddled with the edge of her t-shirt. "You're very forward..." she glanced at the accounts name "Nik" she murmured softly and he grinned.

A hundred?

He questioned with a sly smile and she nibbled her lip and ignored him making him hum lowly to himself.

Two hundred?

He asked, his eyes narrowing slightly in determination. When she still didn't answer him and instead began talking to a different one of her...fans I suppose, he decided to send her some money. $500 to be exact. Her eyes went wide and she seemingly shrank into herself. "I- um..." her face reddened and she paused for a moment before the steam ended. He then received a private message

I can refund you

was all it said and he frowned

Why would I want a refund? It's for you, sweetheart.

he replied with a click of his tongue, watching the three dots dance across his laptop screen.

I won't do what you want for it. You can have it back.

she was scared and he knew that but he didn't want her to be.

That's alright, love. You can keep it anyways. Maybe buy yourself something and wear it in your next show.

he offered, hoping she would accept. As soon as she did, he was in.

If you're sure? I'm very sure. Well then thank you, Nik ❤️

he smiled at his screen and went offline for the rest of the night. He began to picture how her body would look beneath her baggy clothes, he imagined her sexy little figure crawling towards him on his screen and her lips whispering his name like she had before.

The thought stuck with him even in sleep and followed him all the next day and onwards.

It took a good couple of weeks to fully gain her attention. Then he was on every day, sending in money and flattering her. He was happy to do so though, besides she had been more confident and a little more seductive with her behaviour. She still never took her clothes off, especially not for everyone but when he went into a members only room with her and a few others she would be in only her underwear. No shirt or jumper to hide her soft skin.

And after persistency, he managed to have a one-on-one session. He had his camera off to begin with but when she shyly asked if she could see him, he didn't want to deny her sweet voice. Her expression was somewhat relaxed when she saw him, he wondered what other kinds of people would manage to get her like this.

He smiled and hummed as he allowed her to look him over for a moment. "Better than expected sweetheart?" he purred and she shrugged sheepishly.

"Well yeah honestly" she laughed and so did he. Most of the men she went one-on-one ended up being either old and alone, young and horny or married and telling her she needed to be quiet because his wife was in the next room over or that he was on break at work. Still, she never hung up, they were paying her after all. Some of them were there purely to talk and of course others were much more direct about what they wanted.

Nik had been a bit of a mystery to her. Sometimes he was asking to see her panties and the next he was just wondering about her day or what things she had in her room like the teddy bears on her bed which she didn't mean to have in the shot.

So she was curious as to how this first personal interaction would go.

Klaus was mostly proud that he had gotten this far but also somewhat excited, after realising that Y/n had become his release for his stress after a long day in Mystic Falls, he began to feel a little something for her. He just knew if she were here that she'd be terrified, she was far too lovely for war and pain. If Klaus were honest, he didn't really understand why she was on this kind of platform, she really didn't seem the type but he assumed it was for the money or perhaps she wasn't as innocent as she made him and the others believe but he didn't think that was the case.

Either way, he had been looking forward to this evening for a while. "Well I'm glad I haven't disappointed" he chuckled and she smiled. She sat back against her fluffy pink beanbag so the camera could see her top half. His eyes traced the pattern on her white lace bra, a little jewel handing for the bottom. Her hair looked freshly done and he could tell that she put in much more effort for her spenders.

"Don't worry about disappointing me, I can promise that you won't" she told him, her voice smooth like silk as his tongue wetted his lips and he straightened up. He was sat in bed, his laptop on his lap over the covers and a bottle of lube on his bedside table just incase.

They began just talking about simple things, she asked him questions and he answered to an extent and vice versa.

But as the night grew older, he began to ask if he was allowed to have a better look at her. She agreed easily and stood up for him, giving a 360 of her body. He groaned softly and damn near begged for her to take her panties off and by the end of the call she did. Her thighs squeezed together but he could see her smooth little mound. She sat back in her beanbag on her side so the curve of her ass was on display for his eyes and occasionally when she shifted, he would catch a glimpse of her glistening cunt.

After a good while she had to go and thanked him for everything he had said to her and given her. He smiled back and thanked her in return "Perhaps next time we'll get rid of that pretty bra of yours too?" he teased and she blushed.

And next time, he did. He had her completely naked, lead on her front and eating some chips while they spoke. Klaus could imagine her tender breasts spilling out of his hands as she told him some innocent story without realising his attention being elsewhere as she leaned up on her elbows allowing him to see her pebbled nipples. Once he let out a groan, she popped her head up and realised. He could see something dim in her eyes and it made him feel some sort of guilt? But she brushed whatever it was away and smiled, asking if he wanted her to help him feel better.

After that he began to push further and further each time, becoming aware that when she trusted him enough, she would do just about. anything.

Her manicured nails would squeeze at her budded nipples while he gave slow strokes to his hardened cock, occasionally cupping his balls to tease himself.

Her legs would part for him to get that view he had longed for, his mouth watering and cock beginning to twitch with the need to bury inside her and yet he feared that he never would.

Often it was one-sided, Klaus would get off while she spoke delicious words to fuel his desire and showed off her body. But after a while he began to request that she showed him how she played with herself. He asked if she ever thought about any of her spenders when she was alone at night and if she would ever let any of them, more importantly him actually meet her. Touch her, fuck her. God he wanted to, he needed to.

Seeing her little fingers curl inside her tight little cunt was becoming addictive. It got even better when he would send her the money over and a link of the toys he wanted her to play with for him.

Sometimes she would bring her toys out in some of her normal streams, she would have her vibrating panties on while she spoke to her fans, grinding against a teddy and biting at her own lip to keep quieter than she would be normally.

Klaus and Y/n had become somewhat emotionally involved without telling the other of their true feelings. They both assumed the other was their for physical things. Y/n especially thought Klaus could care less about her. Especially when he suddenly stopped turning up. Never joining her performances or even coming online. She assumed he must've gotten bored or something?

She didn't know that he was in New Orleans, in and out of wars and living in a house full of bloodsucking creatures, night howlers and magic practisers.

And he didn't know that she was also in New Orleans, working in a little coffee shop out of the way. Not until he found himself inside it after a very long night. He didn't want to go home and stayed out, wondering until the sun rose and shops began to open. That was when he stepped inside and his eyes found hers.

Recognition flashed through both of them and he could hear her heart pounding as she stepped back quickly, tripping on her foot as her breathing escalated and a whispered chant of "nonono" slipped past her lips. On instinct he rushed forward to follow her, shoving past the little gate that let the employees go behind the counter. Other staff yelled at him but he just focused on following her breathing.

He got to a small room which a couple coats hung up and some bags, then he heard a slam and lifted his head to see a window smack closed.

Hurriedly he went back out through the front and sped round where she must’ve climbed out, he could faintly hear the quick patter of footsteps and chased it. His breathing was almost as fast as hers as he turned corners with pace and ran straight into someone. He apologised with a grunt and looked up only to find himself surrounded by people once again as the day was beginning in the busy city.

He let out a frustrated groan and spun around, checking through the crowds as much as he could. “For fucks sake” he growled, storming through the people until eventually finding his way home.

After that day he went back to that coffee shop every day until he eventually compelled one of the other workers only to find out she quit on the same day she saw him there. He compelled every person in the building until one of them told him that they knew where she shopped.

He then continued to hang around the shopping centre for hours like a full on stalker.

Eventually he spotted her, and he did not waste a single second before he was directly behind her “Y/n?” He whispered and she physically jumped as his hand came in contact with her shoulder. She smacked his hand off her, wide eyes staring at him and he knew she was ready to run so he moved forward. Hands either side of her head against the shelves of the supermarket.

Her breathing was laboured and fear rolled off of her. “What do you want?” She whispered, her voice a little more breathy under the circumstances but still mellifluous.

“I- I don’t know” he whispered back, becoming a little confused. What did he want from her? As if realising the situation a little better he moved his hands away from her. What the hell was he doing?

He had caged the poor girl, scared her and for what? To look at her? He could do that online though he was certain she would have blocked his access by now. He didn’t even think to log back on.

His jaw clenched and he took in the anxious expression painting her face. Had someone found her before? Did she think he was here to hurt her?

“I’m sorry” he murmured, taking a hesitant step back “I didn’t know you were here, I just saw you and- I don’t know…I just wanted to…see you? Or talk to you? I don’t-“ he could feel his mouth going dry as he stared at her

“How did you know I’d be in here?” She asked, afraid and a guilty look spread through him.

“Well…okay that makes it look worse” he laughed uneasily. “I just…I missed you” he whispered and she studied his face

“It’s not like it’s hard for you to see me” she whisper yelled and he sighed

“Well I know that but I couldn’t come on there anymore” he mumbled knowing that a number of beings would’ve been able to hear it.

“Right, you’re married or something. Look I don’t care okay? I’m not gonna tell anyone. I don’t even know if your name is Nik” she promised. “I won’t say anything and you won’t say anything…right?” She asked, a twinkle of desperation glistening in her eyes.

His expression softened slightly and he backed away slightly so she wasn’t trapped. “I’m not, married- but I won’t do or say anything. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you” he told her, still confused with what he himself was thinking and doing.

She watched as he left, bumping into someone by mistake as he left. She wasn’t sure whether she should be more afraid or at ease. She leaned more towards the first one.

She began to look over her shoulder whenever she was out, she moved apartments and changed her loyalties when it came to shopping.

And yet still, even with Klaus also trying to avoid her and leave her be, they managed to collide.

Walking straight into each other in the middle of town. His hand had lurched forward to catch her from falling and they both looked to the other prepared to look annoyed before both going silent and wide-eyed. After a second he let go of her and they both muttered an apology, what was worse was that he was with Rebekah and Hope. As soon as Y/n saw the child she turned moved past him, gaining speed as she went. Rebekah could tell something was wrong as her brother went to follow the girl only to sigh and turn back to Hope.

“Secret lover?” She teased but he didn’t look amused so she kept it to herself though she had Hope shared a look.

Klaus however only appeared troubled. He found himself making a new account to watch his girl once again but she’d been inactive for a little while, people asking for her to come back. He hoped he wasn’t the cause but part of him knew he was. He’d spooked her.

But after a while she came back and he watched, send in some cash and eventually he was on a one on one session again. He apologised for how he’d come across and promised he never had ill intentions. After a little time they fell back into pattern and their confidences grew when asking and doing things.

And when he saw her working in an art store selling paints and other mediums as well as helping out with some galleries nearby, he decided to actually talk to her comfortably.

He asked if she’d consider going to dinner with him and gave her his actual number. After a good week she agreed and he had in a fancy restaurant. He could practically smell her nerves but tried his best to soothe her, promising everything was okay and safe. She told him she did the camming for two reasons, for the money but also for herself because she enjoyed it and it made her feel good about herself. They both agreed that if their relationship progressed that it wouldn’t stop her from doing what she wanted just like she wouldn’t stop him from his….job that he made up.

In fact he asked if she’d ever let him join her. She had laughed and shook her head but several dates later when he had her pressed against the same bed that he’d watched her touch herself in months earlier, and was sucking pink marks into his skin, he asked again. And with convincing, she agreed.

God he couldn’t wait to have people know she was taken, he knew it would take a little while but he wanted to make all those people watch as he fucked her senseless. Show them how a real man could treat her instead of those toys.

Not that he didn’t enjoy using them with her, whether it was steaming or in their personal time. He kept her hidden from his family and she didn’t want to ask about it, a little worried for the answer after that time she saw the little girl and blonde women but she had fallen in love with him and it frightened her to think that any of this wasn’t real for him.

For her, she was safe. She was with someone who respected and knew about what she did and would pleasure her not only privately but willingly be apart of her…show.

And for him, she was someone who didn’t see him as a monster or a freak. She wasn’t caught up in any of his family drama or causing any. Everything was nice…for a while.

[papaya-twinks]

Hi kika could u do a lando x reader smut fic where reader is in uni but keeps procrastinating her work even tho its exam season and lando has to force her to do her work by like being a tease and only promising her what she wants after she does her work? Thxx love ur work ❤️

Warnings: Smut, 18+, teasing

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

A/N - I’m making Y/N a law student coz im working towards my bachelors and I only know about law 😭 I’m using my flipping sociology textbook

“Lando there’s so much,” you groaned, rolling your eyes at the amount of work. There were stacks of books, textbooks and papers on your desk, your laptop open, flickering with a video as you spun your desk chair round, whining. Lando looked up from his phone, he was lying on the bed, on his stomach, wearing nothing but a towel hung low on his waist - a thin golden chain dangling on his tan chest. 

“How much do you have left?” Lando raised an eyebrow, your tired expression tugging at hid heartstrings. “Twenty questions,” you looked at your medical questions. “Lando, I can’t,” you groaned, standing up from your chair, your gaze flickering down to his bare chest, small water drops clinging to his body. How were you supposed to work with him looking like that? 

“You’re staring, Y/N,”  he said simply, still laying down, resting his head on his hands. “Let’s make this easier for you,” he took your hand, leading you back to your chair. You whined, guessing he was gonna make you do the work anyways, your head slumping in disinterest. However, your eyes widened as he undid the towel, dropping it to the floor, and sitting on the chair. 

Noticing your bemused expression, he smirked a little, taking your hand, tugging your skirt down. How were you gonna get your work done now? His finger teased at your wetness, gliding along softly before he pushed in, pumping you slowly as you moaned, eyes wide, before they squeezed shut. “Feels good, yeah?” Lando smirked, his thumb teasing at your clit. He pulled you onto his lap, his hard length between your legs, before he shifted your body.

“Lando, fuck,” you gasped as he sunk into you, sitting you on his lap, your juices dripping down him. “First question,” he said, making you turned to him, confused. “What was the name of the man who invented Marxism?” Lando asked, his voice almost demanding. “Karl Marx,” you replied, still bemused. “Good,” he said, his hands on your hips, lifting you so his cock nearly slid out of you,before he slammed into you, a loud moan leaving your lips. 

“Next question,” he said, sitting you back down as you gasped, recovering from the movement. “When did Max Weber die?”. You thought for a second, cheeks bright red as you wriggled, sitting on him still. “1920,” he let out a noise of approval, slamming into you again. “Good girl,” Lando smiled, asking the next question. “Which country was slowest on the industrial revolution?”. 

“France,” you answered instantly, hid hips hitting harder against you. “Oh fuck Lando,” you gasped. He asked the questions til he got to 17, your cheeks bright red from the questions. “Who influenced Weber’s views?” he asked, your mind going blank. “I said, who influenced his views?” Lando asked again, his hips slamming into yours almost as a wake up call. “I-uh, Durkheim,” you answered, eyes blurry as you gasped.

An almost disbelieving scoff left his lips. “And you were doing so well,” Lando shook his head. “Who influenced Weber’s decisions?” he asked again, slamming his hips into yours with each word. “Lando, fuck, I- uh, Karl Marx!” you shrieked, a smirk dancing on his lips. “Right answer,” he said. 

You didn’t get any wrong afterwards, your cheeks flushed red, lips parted. “Oh, look who’s done all their questions,” Lando smiled, your body squirming for more. “Desperate,” he said, hands on your waist as he held you up, hips thrusting upwards into you as you moaned. “You deserve it,” he groaned, “doing so well for me,”. 

You nodded, your hand reaching backwards to rest on his thighs, your knot undoing as you shrieked, his orgasm spilling into you and down your thighs. “You better pass, girl,” he smirked, pressing a kiss to your neck. “If I pass, I think you’re gonna end up putting kids or something in me,” 

[solurae]

four eyes (more to love underneath the frames) — PT.1

HELLO!!! okok the prologue received some good reception so i will!!! be continuing the series :3c THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE NICE COMMENTS AND REBLOGS AND OHHHH MY GOD THE MOTHER OF NERD!MIGUEL @nymphomatique REBLOGGED MY PROLOGUE (i could die happy) ty for the food and the inspiration to start this series!!!

i’m still the process of setting up my tumblr because my ass made this my secondary blog (but idek if that changes anything… i don’t think) OH AND YES THERE IS NOW A TAG FOR THE SERIES! ALSO PLSPLSPLS DON’T BE AFRAID TO SEND THROUGH ASKS FOR DRABBLES OR REQUESTS OR ANYTHING REALLY!!! i’m more than happy to feed us both hehe

tw/cw: mmmm not any i can think of (FIXING ANY GRAMMATICAL ERRORS AFTER POSTING BECAUSE I’M COOL)

PROLOGUE?! < <

“sorry students, the projector is currently out of order so i’d like for all of you to just go through the powerpoint on your own. feel free to come up and ask questions.” the professor sighs as he closes his laptop and settles down onto his desk, the chatter of other students and laptop keyboards create the perfect white noise for your 8AM lecture.

you weren’t really that keen on studying this period anyway so you’ll just get it done later but god he looked so much better up close. why did miguel have to be so fucking dorky and hot and cool all at fucking once? it bothered you that miguel has never spoken to you. ever. but with that in mind, no one would ever think of the effect this nerd had on you, not even the nerd himself.

“oi mate, mandem depending on you to pass this class.” you shake your head after you’re slightly shoved to the side of your desk by none other than your best friend bad influence. hobie, hobie, hobie… you groan as you look his way, legs propped up on the desk as if he’s completely unaware that he’s in an lecture hall. next to him is peter, trying to shove hobie’s legs off the table for fear of accidentally hitting miguel who was seated right infront of you.

peter and hobie were the angel and devil on your shoulder that manifested into your closest friends. it was so hard to make friends (partially because you weren’t interested in anyone aside from miguel) and that everyone in your class were already in tight knit friend groups, and it was clear they all wanted to keep it that way with the silent treatment and one-sided conversations. but that didn’t matter. what did matter was that neither of them were taking this class seriously.

hobie - for god knows what reason - just took the class for fun. well, hobie took it out of spite. he said and you quote, “it is my take on deconstructing the stereotypes and preconceptions of particular social groups alongside us punks that dictate that we lack the desire and strive for academic feats”. and you know what? for someone who likes to laze around and count the panels of wood used on the ceiling for half the lecture, his high grades put his narrow-minded folks to shame. oh and peter? although he couldn’t afford to skip his classes, he did anyway. mary jane, MJ - the mother to his children, as he calls her - is in the humanities elective they both share. and peter might as well skip that class instead of looking at MJ as if she invented humanities. you don’t know how watching you and hobie bicker was a better investment of peter’s time but no one was complaining. someone had to remind the both of you of operation miguel mutation, or in other words, get his gaze out of his books and onto your face.

“so much for wanting to prove the world wrong when you’re relying on someone else to do it for you”, you scoffed at hobie, pretending to brush dust off your shoulders. he chuckled, “i just wanted to know how it feels to be those good for nothing, narcissistic capitalists, is all”. you shoved him so hard it rattled your seats and you didn’t even realise you accidentally kicked miguel’s seat until his cold hard gaze towards you even made hobie look like an art piece in the middle of rendering.

“can i help you?”, fuuuuuuck off. he sounds so fucking hot. insanely hot.

his large pitch black frames could never obstruct how chiseled miguel was, he had angular features such as his nose, his jawline and even his cupid’s bow. but these features were softened with warm red eyes and wisps of his hair coming down to frame his forehead. o’hara’s face overall was slightly scrunched, his hand gripped onto the fold away desk while he faced you, his casual attire in sweats could barely hide his build. his mouth was slightly open, the very tip of his fangs making themselves known. he was definitely a specimen, a gorgeous specimen for lack of better word. you didn’t even realise you were staring at miguel until he raised his eyebrow and glanced over at hobie, then over to peter who was just happily content watching your unplanned, unconventional first meeting.

“oh. um, no?”, you were still confused why miguel (the man you’ve been trying to get the attention of ever since the first inkling of a feeling), suddenly turned around and spoke to you—

“excuse me, may i ask that you don’t disrupt your peers during class? i’m watching you too, brown.” if your teacher scolding you like a wack ass boy in year 9 wasn’t enough to make you embarrassed, your quick descent into realising that you quite literally pushed yourself - pushed miguel, rather - to make the first move. in the worst fucking way possible. you ducked your head a bit in an attempt to avoid the gazes of your classmates only to find your shoe jammed between the gap next to miguel’s seat, missing his elbow by a mere few centimetres.

you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

so much for devising a plan to properly introduce yourself by actually trying in class by answering the lecturers questions, to the point miguel can’t help but wonder that there is in fact competition. aware of his competitive nature, miguel would try to get ahead of you or widen that gap but then realise he was all wrong from the moment you’d tap his shoulder for a question you pretend to not understand, to look as if you’re struggling so much miguel can ignore his own studies for a little while to help you. men are stupid after all. miguel doesn’t apply here but being an outcast adjacent of the entire university has its benefits, in a way where it benefits your elaborate plan from stroking miguel’s ego by helping you, to ever so slightly become more and more interested in you. once you slowly ease into getting out of pretending to be an academic victim and miguel finds the joy in being academically challenged by the one girl who braved the odds and approach the mysterious mutant, he’d ask to you to meet at the cafeteria or the library. it didn’t matter. you would then, finally then, be in miguel’s line of sight.

“if this is your way of trying to get into my pants, i’m not interested.”

papers were stuffed into bags and the squeaking of chairs reverberated the lecture theatre. people were making their way to their next class while peter, hobie and yourself shared looks of disbelief, disgust, along with hobie’s infamous expression that scream the words i fucking told you so.

what the fuck? what the actual fuck was that?

o’hara didn’t miss a beat and swivelled around to start packing his belongings, completely unaware of how his response alone completely changed and destroyed all prior preconceptions about this man - or boy as you would now call him - turns out being smart never stopped anyone from being dickhead.

you felt like you just failed a quiz you didn’t know that was happening, despite being prepared to ace it.

it wasn’t like you to fail, however. especially not to him.

[ 🩷 — TAGS! @angelicful @lilipads @zaunsin @m4dyy @okkotszn @rhythmloid @cosmicbarstardust @thespaceinbetweennothing @cu1tvenus @huniedeux @oharasfilipinawife @ilovemuppets @loonalockley ] feel free to comment if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

[nevadancitizen]

-> (I'VE BEEN) DREAMING OF YOU

synopsis: könig comes into your reality.

word count: 1.2k

characters: könig, player! reader

trigger warnings: mention of canon-typical violence, maybe slightly obsessive könig oops lol

notes: self-aware cod au belongs to @puff0o0 , inspired by @simp4konig // i moved for college lol hopefully i'll be able to upload(?) more often + salf-aware aus are really my thing huh. my jam if you will

It had been a week since König figured out he wasn’t real. 

At least, that’s what he approximated it to be. Time was tricky if he actually tried to count the seconds and minutes and hours. 

But when he stepped off the helicopter and trudged back into base, he knew he would at least have some sense of relief. Some sense of… realness, even though he knew he only existed through the wires of ethernet cables, or maybe even something as primitive as a CD.

König knew his boots tracked in mud and blood and maybe even guts, but he didn’t care. Everything would be wiped clean and be put on a new plate tomorrow for… he guessed they would be called the players, to eat. 

He shut the door to his quarters behind him and leaned against it, closing his eyes and sighing. He desperately wished he could tell someone, anyone, about what he had witnessed – what he knew to be true. 

He felt crazy. He felt blessed. He felt like a conspiracy theorist that was just re-inventing the idea that the whole world is a simulation – because it is! People re-invented ideas all the time, but there was nothing shameful in it. But if the rest of humanity (and for all he knew, humanity could only be KorTac and Specgru) oohed and aahed and said, “God, we live in a simulation? I’ve never heard that one before!” just to make him feel good, nothing would ever get done. But it still stung to know such a heavenly being existed and to keep such a huge secret. 

Of course he was talking about you, thinking about you. When did he not think of you, actually?

He felt almost hollow without you. Like you had given him warmth with your control – a raging bonfire he could only observe from a distance, but still felt the full heat of: as in, an actual heat in his chest whenever he felt his control slipping away, replaced with the security that came with being in your presence. And König didn’t hate it. Not at all. 

He didn’t even bother to shrug off his work equipment before he threw himself onto his bed. He turned over and swaddled himself with his blanket to try and emulate your warmth. It did nothing. 

It was a while before he fell asleep. And he had the strangest dream…

He was in your room. He had only caught glances of it, but here he was, tangled in your blankets and in your bed. 

And there you were. Sitting at your desk, typing away at your laptop. Your back was to him, but he could tell it was you. Even at this distance, you were so warm. 

You were wearing the big, chunky headphones you always wore when you played. He could hear quiet thumping bass coming from them. It was the only sound he could hear aside from your quick keystrokes. 

König slowly untangled himself from your blankets – he still had his boots on, the ones that had mud and blood and maybe even guts. Then he realized he had all of his work equipment on. 

He stood and surveyed his surroundings. Everything in your room was so… you. (Obviously. It was your room.)

His eyes snapped back to you when you took off your headphones. You pressed a button on the side to pause your music and then set them down. You stretched your arms above your head and let out a quiet groan as you leaned back. 

You looked so soft. So cute. Nothing like what König had seen through the screen. You had been slightly bitcrushed and pixelated, but now…

The warmth that blossomed in his chest was like no other. It spread out into his limbs, almost making him weak in the knees. His eyelids fluttered, but he forced them open to look at you, take in more of you. 

He tried to say your name softly, as to not startle you, but it came out choked and loud and awkward. His voice even cracked. 

You were so scared you nearly punched a hole through your monitor. You stood and turned, immediately grabbing a pair of scissors that were on your desk. 

Your hand shook as you pointed the pair of scissors at König. “T… take off the hood!”

König kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, even bending at the knee a little to be less threatening. He puts up his hands in a surrendering manner. “Schatz, no, it’s me. It’s König.”

“Shut up!” you barked. “I’m not – no way am I being killed or robbed or whatever by someone in cosplay!” Your eyes flit over his body, spotting a knife on his utility belt. “And give me your knife. Try anything and I’m – I’ll…” you glanced down at the pair of scissors (which you can’t really stab him with). “I’ll snip your dick off!” 

It honestly takes a bit of effort on König’s part not to laugh. Still, he slowly, carefully took the knife out of its holster and offered it to you, the blade pointed towards his chest. “Please, be careful.”

“I know how to handle knives,” you snapped. You put the pair of scissors back on your desk and took to pointing König’s knife at him. You took a tentative step closer, your jaw set. You reached a shaking hand out towards König’s face. “Don’t… move.”

"Mein Leibling.” König breathed out the words. “What are you doing?”

“The mask,” you said. “I’m taking it off. Then I’m calling the police.”

König just looked at you with wide eyes, his blue-grey eyes stark against his eyeblack. His eyebrows creased as he looked down at you, but said nothing. 

And then, König felt a blossoming warmth as his face was exposed for the first time in what felt like forever. 

His eyes fluttered shut as he felt your eyes rove over his face. Under the hood wasn’t a face: nothing except for his eyes, eyebrows, and a little bit of the surrounding skin. The rest of it was unloaded textures, a checkerboard of black and bright purple. 

“Schatz…” 

“König…”

König’s eyes opened as you said his name. You didn’t notice before, but his eyes were detailed, told a story. This wasn’t the king of the battlefield – this was König. Here, he wasn’t a killer, wasn’t someone who saws someone’s head off with a dull plastic knife and doesn’t even blink when the blood spurts out. He wasn’t the long-shot-drop-pop one-bullet-wonder. He was a man. 

König gently reached up and took your wrist and pulled your hand away from his hood. It fell back into place, covering up his checkerboard face. 

He looked down at you, his eyebrows still furrowed. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. 

“You’re…” you sighed – not disappointedly, but more surprised. “You’re actually him. You’re König.”

“I am,” König said simply. 

“Schatz,” you said. “What does that mean?”

König smiled down at you, even though he didn’t have a mouth. His eyes crinkled at the outsides. “Treasure.”

He gently let go of your wrist, his hand traveling up your arm until it came to your shoulder. His fingers brushed against your jaw, the rough texture of his gloves making you tense just the slightest bit. 

He whispers softly, like he’s afraid of you hearing his voice. “My treasured player.”

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Claimed by the Devil

Small Creatures, Chapter 1

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader

summary: When the well-known vigilante of Hell’s Kitchen saves you from disaster, you realize he might mean more to you than you thought.

warnings: swearing, Matt Murdock’s self-destructive tendencies, mentions of a cult and subsequent trauma, allusions to drowning

a/n: This is it, y’all! A Matt Murdock soulmate AU as requested by that poll a few weeks ago. A HUGE shoutout to @zomtart for helping me plan this AU!! I am so excited to share this new verse with you, I really hope you like it! As always, please let me know what you think by replying and reblogging! This chapter takes place about a month before the beginning of Daredevil S2.

w/c: 4.1k

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is only bearable through love.” Carl Sagan

Since the creation of man, each soul was created with another. Two, sometimes more, mirrored fractions of a whole, destined to forge a bond. Particles of a spiritual atom, drawn to each other by invisible forces, finally satisfied through connection. Soulmates. Each body marked with a symbol, to help them find their other half. Sometimes a word or a shape, a small clue to start their journey.

For a while, that journey was short. It would still take time, of course, to meet your soulmate, to fall in love—but it took less than one lifetime, while the world was still small, the human race still growing.

After a few generations, and centuries of invention, the population began to travel. Groups of people living on all 6 continents, developing new cultures, traditions, languages. As they moved, the average distance between bound pairs grew. It became less common to ever meet your match. Humanity found love in other places, built families on opposite sides of the globe, living their entire existence without their intended.

With each non-bound couple, came children without bonds. Scientists have puzzled over the phenomenon for years, some drawing the conclusion that our biology began to reject the bond, to continue without it as if it was a recessive gene. Through countless wars and plagues, and the continued spread of humanity, finding your soulmate was almost an impossibility.

And then the pendulum swung back. Wars became fewer, food more prevalent, medicine more exact. Lifespans were stretched and, with the help of machines, it was easier than ever to find your soulmate. The damage of an era without them began to repair itself.

Within 5 generations, chances of forming a true bond soared from one in one-thousand to one in thirty.

A sharp vibration from your laptop interrupted the voice in your head. Glancing at the bubble that flashed across your screen, you rolled your eyes at the message. It was the seventh—yes, SEVENTH—in a string of emails from the same haughty woman demanding the pictures of her great aunt's 90th birthday party.

The party was beautiful, and the photos reflected that, but it had been less than 48 hours since the event. Every contract you signed gave you a window of 5-7 business days to edit the photos, more time depending on the length of the shot list you were given and the number of pictures they wanted. If this woman wanted professional, edited photos, she needed to give you a damn break.

Clicking on the small white cross in the corner of the pop-up, you huffed out a small laugh, imagining the fuming woman growing redder in the face when you didn't answer her at 4:02 on a Sunday afternoon. Setting your own hours, as well as being able to ignore frustrating clients during your down time, were just two of the perks of running your own photography business. The flexible schedule and lack of strict routine were a welcomed change after your upbringing in a highly controlled community.

While you did understand why experts used that terminology, you were much more content calling your “community” what it was: a cult. “High control group”—or whatever other politically-correct, secular terminology people wanted to use to describe a bunch of adults deciding to use their limited power to exploit others in the name of some bogus goal—was too polite for the assholes from your hometown. The bumfuck rural town where “religious” leaders congregated to torture dozens of children over a tiny, immovable mark on their skin.

A brand of the devil. That’s what they claimed soulmarks were. The sign of a being destined for evil. And, in order to save humanity from said evil, it was up to this specific community to cleanse you of your threatening aura, to rid the demonic energy from your body and spare your soul.

They’d used written and verbal propaganda, forbid outside contact, relied heavily on fear-mongering—the whole nine yards of brainwashing, all to supposedly grant the town salvation. Given that your particular mark was on the inside of your right wrist? Well, it definitely didn’t help the “damned” accusations coming your way.

Something flashed across your mind. A memory. Tepid water, turning frigid as you were forced deeper and deeper. All traces of oxygen slowly draining from your lungs, your body struggling desperately against the hands gripping you forcefully by the arms, holding you under.

Shuddering with discontent, your mark itched fiercely, as if it was trying to snap you out of the flashback. Absentmindedly dragging a nail over it to quell the unpleasant sensation, you inhaled deeply, studying the image as you did.

It was a simple thing, a series of a few lines just over the pulse point on your forearm. Two triangles, placed horizontally and pointing away from each other, with three small straight lines fanning out beneath. From your limited knowledge, it was a rune of some sort, though you hadn’t been able to narrow down the origin or meaning quite yet. Not scary enough to warrant the actions taken by your wonderful hometown though.

After surviving, and escaping, your upbringing, a lack of a rigid schedule was a necessity—which meant freelance event photography was a perfect career path. Unfortunately, an anxious mind and spontaneity didn't always mix.

It didn't matter that you didn't hear the messaging daily anymore. You were still struggling to unravel the mind games and indoctrination you'd been subjected to, hence the re-reading of this particular article. It wasn't the most informative, and the author clearly had a fully-realized bond herself, but it was the first piece of literature you'd ever read that wasn't propaganda.

There was a historical explanation for the disappearance of your condition, as well as a documented existence of others like you. Your mark didn't make you evil—it meant you were loved.

You re-read the blurb on days like today. Days where your conscience buzzed with apprehension, adrenaline flowing freely despite the lack of danger. There was something in the air around you. A warning, illustrated by the tiniest changes in your environment. On days like these, you felt like a bug beneath a descending shoe, scrambling to understand what was coming so you could make it out alive.

Expecting a disaster was illogical, you knew that. But reason wasn't the driving force in your brain on the anxious days. It was your desperate need to survive, to be prepared. On your bad days, your eyes flew open like you'd heard the door come crashing in or felt the cold steel barrel of a pistol against your temple—your body readying for a fight before you were even fully conscious.

Those days, your heart hammered in your chest, battering your ribs until they ached. Your lungs constricted when your blood pressure rose, each breath coming as a pant as you struggled to inhale enough oxygen. One wrong move and you'd send yourself spiraling into a full anxiety attack. Hopefully, you'd at least be able to stave that off over the last hour of daylight today.

Chewing at the edge of your thumbnail, you aimlessly scrolled through the page again, blowing out a terse sigh. The biggest annoyance when it came to your anxiety was that each experience was unique. There wasn't a universal solution. Sometimes, staying at home where it was familiar and safe was all you needed to settle your nerves. Other times, the constancy only made you more jittery.

As much as you'd wished that a sedentary day would slow your pulse and ease your breathing, that clearly was not in the cards.

Time for Plan B.

Growling almost inaudibly, you resisted the urge to start pulling your hair out strand by strand. Working up the energy to get through the door was always the hard part. As exhibited by your professional side, freedom to roam and choose your own path was vital. Despite your nervous brain trying to deny it, leaving your place to wander on a small adventure would be good for you in the long run.

When you'd escaped the clutches of the nutjobs running your old neighborhood, you'd made a promise to yourself–try at least one new thing every week. It seemed childish, but you'd missed out on so many things when under the control of the Order, you wanted to make up for that. Pretty quickly, it became clear that you thrived on flexibility and exploration.

So you kept up with it. Made a list of things in case you ever ran out of inspiration or couldn't decide what to choose next. That line of scribbles in a worn notebook came in handy on days where you disappeared into yourself, where you lacked the excitement that normally accompanied your little outings. Allowing the intense reluctance in your gut to churn, you reached for the leatherbound pages, sliding the book from where it lay on the coffee table and into your lap. Heaving out a breath, despite your protesting lungs, you thumbed through the paper, letting the smell of ink and coffee-stained parchment wash over you.

You weren't looking for something big. And the idea had to be plausible, there would be no mountain climbing or language learning in a single evening. Trailing a finger to the side of the dried ink, you skimmed each bullet point, eyes lingering on a particularly messy string of words.

“Golden Skyline Ink 48”

Thankfully, the gibberish you'd immortalized was recent enough that you could decipher it. Sunset photos of the skyline from the Ink 48 Hotel. You'd swung by the prestigious building for a meeting with a potential client, but you'd been too busy to snap a decent shot from the roof before your next errand of the day.

Pondering for a minute, you decided to go with your hesitant gut instinct. You craned your neck, hunting down your camera bag as you rolled your shoulder to unravel the tension balled up in them. Shoving up from your horizontal position on the couch, you closed your laptop and shuffled towards the door. Hefting the bag into your arms, you strode down the entryway.

Your hand reached for the doorknob at a snail's pace, halting mere inches from it as if the brass had a forcefield around it. ”You can do this.“ You muttered to yourself, forcing your fingers past the barrier and around the knob.

Stepping through the door, you flinched at the bright fluorescence of the hallway lights, hissing slightly like a vampire seeing the sun in a cheesy TV show. Swallowing the flash of pain in your head as the lights continued to beam down, you took another step. Here goes nothing.

Matt was grateful for the new body armor. He was, really.

He just wished Melvin’s talents included making the damn thing breathable. He’d never admit that, of course. On the spectrum of pain he lived with, being a bit overheated was closer to the bearable end. It wasn’t a stab wound or a broken bone, it wouldn’t impede his patrolling. If he could work through a punctured lung, he could handle a little sweating.

But when the nights got quiet and slow, it was more difficult to keep his mind from latching on to the discomfort–blown out of proportion by his fickle senses.

Sitting atop an apartment building on 55th Street, Matt could feel pure thermal energy bubbling up from the concrete beneath his feet. The waves of heat collided with his shoes, seeping into the rubber soles and blanketing his skin. Around him, the short ledge wrapping around the roof refracted more warmth, sending the sweltering air to smack directly into him.

He wasn't a fan of the heat, never had been, but the thick, skin-tight suit he was wearing only exacerbated the issue. Sweat beaded in the paper-thin gap between his skin and the fabric surrounding it, suctioning it impossibly closer to his body. Grinding his teeth in aggravation, Matt prowled to the edge of the roof, leaping off and rolling to deflect the impact from shattering any of his limbs. With a quick jump, he was back on his feet, taking off towards the next building in the line.

If he patrolled towards the Hudson and back around, he could escape the worst of the heat without neglecting his duty to the city.

Not that there was much action these days. The past handful of weeks, his outings in the suit had been unusually unproductive. It wasn’t that he was missing out on fights–it’s that they didn’t exist. Gangs were staying holed up, petty crime had taken a dive, even the steady drug or arms traders like Turk had gone radio silent. As much as Matt wanted to believe that his time as Daredevil had made a lasting impact on the city he loved so dearly, a current of doubt continued to whirl beneath his skin.

Crime was more likely in the summer, that was an inevitability. Increased temperatures shortened people’s fuses. Spats with loved ones were more likely to turn violent, miscellaneous expenses are more likely to add up and cause financial distress, it was statistically probable that he’d have busier nights leading up to the fall. And yet, here he was, twiddling his glove-clad thumbs while metaphorical tumbleweeds were swept down the streets.

He was confident something had changed, but he hadn’t quite determined what. So, despite the lack of problems he felt the need to solve, he continued to remain out until all hours, ears straining to pick up a scream or the explosive pop of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.

Body on high alert, he ambled towards the piers, vaulting from roof to roof in a familiar trajectory while his brain fought off an incoming onslaught of guilt at the notion of staying out. Foggy would be furious tomorrow, when he saw Matt gulping down the cheap coffee from their machine–which was held together by masking tape and sheer luck these days. Matt had foolishly admitted his conundrum to his business partner, remarking that the city had been eerily still lately, that there was less of a need for him. That he’d been searching so urgently for justification that he’d been going out before dusk.

The idea that Matt’s nighttime activity was no longer an absolute necessity had upset the tenuous understanding the pair had reached over said activity. A simple slip of his tongue and Matt was on the receiving end of Foggy’s chastising, being told he should take advantage of the lull and “get some goddamned rest for once”. (Foggy’s words, not his own.) The renewed argument had become such a frequent topic of discussion that Karen had almost been clued in a few times when Matt’s frustration had narrowed his senses. Just that morning, he and Foggy had been going at it when she’d arrived at the office, surprising both of them with her bright greeting and intrigued glance.

Hurling himself to the next rooftop, Matt huffed out an aggravated breath, clenching his fists as his muscles tightened with irritation, his friend’s desperate pleas echoing in his head.

“You can’t keep going like this.”

“You’re hurting yourself for nothing.”

“The city will be fine without you.”

That last one stung the most, ripping open an invisible wound he’d crudely stitched after taking down Fisk. His work had helped people. His infamous alter ego was the final straw in the case against the organized criminal, imperative to his arrest. To the people of this city, Daredevil mattered–which meant Matt Murdock mattered.

If he boxed up the suit…

No. That wasn’t an option. He couldn’t–

The shuffle of a shoe on concrete caught his attention, snapping him out of his downward spiral. His chest trembled as he panted in and out, his shallow breaths deepening as he focused in the direction of the noise. He wasn’t alone.

Mouth parting as his atypical radar closed in, his nose scrunched with slight confusion, brow furrowing with concern. There was a person perched on the brick ledge–a woman, balancing on her tiptoes and facing the city. She hadn’t noticed him, her pulse far too slow. Her hands held something blocky, the plastic object dragging along her skin as she positioned it, arms outstretched over the nearly 20 story drop to the pavement below.

He bit back an incredulous scoff as she bent further towards her death, practically rolling his eyes to the heavens as he approached. Not only was this position begging for disaster to strike, she had one headphone in, her lips moving as if mouthing along to the lyrics. She heaved in a dramatic exhale.

“Let’s try this again,” She murmured, finger slotting into a divot on an edge of the thing in her grasp, prompting a series of mechanical clicks to burst from it. Shutter sounds. A camera. A camera? You were risking your life for a photo?

Before he could judge you too harshly, your mouth twitched and your heart rate jumped. You’d realized he was there, then.

“You know, if you fall off that ledge, the effort you went through for that picture will be wasted.” He quipped, his lips twitching with a hint of a smirk as you squeaked indignantly.

It was only amusing for a moment.

As you whirled to face him, apparently surprised that he was there, you lost your footing, tumbling backward off the ledge.

For what it was worth, your little adventure had been going pretty well before the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen almost killed you.

There weren’t too many people out tonight, probably because it was disgustingly hot, so you’d made good time–jogging the few blocks to the hotel and sneaking into the elevator with a young couple who were too busy being at each other’s throats to care that you slipped in. The roof was vacant and more perfect than you could’ve dreamed. Swathed in the lights of nearby skyscrapers, you were presented with a gorgeous panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline at sunset, the stark red-orange hue of the sky peeking between towering steel.

Once you’d attached the proper lenses, you began snapping photos, but you couldn’t get the exposure to set correctly. To capture a good picture at this time of evening, you needed the settings to be just so. It was a tedious, attention-consuming process, that, when combined with the soft music blasting from your lone earbud, had prohibited you from hearing someone approach…until he spoke.

“You know, if you fall off that ledge, the effort you went through for that picture will be wasted.” His growl was low, but contained traces of a humor you weren’t expecting.

Damn your anxious self for startling so easily. With a tiny squeal, you slipped from the ledge, your careful posture crumbling as you fell. Your heart lodged in your throat, air rushing into your ears as you began to descend, but before you could even scream, a pair of warm hands grasped you firmly by the arm.

Face jerking up, your eyes locked onto the masked vigilante’s snarl of exertion as he hauled you over the cement shelf and onto stable ground.

Breathing shakily, still in his grip, your face went slack with a nauseating combination of shock and relief. “Th-thank you.”

He let out a puff of a laugh. “You’re welcome. That was a close call. Do I need to call a hotline?”

His lips twitched with a smirk, his face clearly displaying humor despite his eyes being covered by a mask. Head tilted cockily, he seemed to be studying you, maybe evaluating whether you should be in a psych ward.

Shaking your head furiously, you scrambled to your feet, nearly tripping over yourself as you backed away from your savior. “No, I’m good, that wasn’t the plan. I just–”

As you began to retract himself from his hold, his thumb brushed over your forearm, tracing the faintest line over your exposed soulmark. When his fingertip made contact with the lines over your wrist, the world exploded.

When you were a small child, you’d electrocuted yourself when unplugging a lamp. It was an act of rebellion against your parents when they had demanded you clean up after compulsory bible study. The inflicted shock had careened through your entire body, feeling as though you’d been dipped in boiling water and then flash-frozen as your body tried to adapt to the new current. An abrupt change of temperature, the suddenness uncomfortable but the aftermath numbingly calm.

Touching the Devil felt like that.

Your mark glowed with warmth like embers in a dying fire. The hair along your arm stood on end, your heart nearly bursting with energy as you were clobbered with a realization.

“You..you’re my–” You whispered, taking a step closer to the vigilante.

His hand had clasped around your wrist, holding it delicately, chin dipping towards his chest. His breaths were labored, his complexion seeming to grow more pale as he ran a calloused finger over the mark again.

“I don’t–” Dropping your arm as if it had burned him, Daredevil’s face settled into an angry mask as he hurriedly stepped away from you. “I have to go.”

“W-what?” You stammered, running your hands over your arms as your body recovered from his touch, goosebumps undulating beneath your palms. “But we–”

“It’s late. You should get home before it’s too dark.” He responded tersely, turning away from you. Striding across the roof, his hand landed on top of the short stack of bricks, head turning over his shoulder with a sorrowful pout. “I’m sorry.”

Gracefully jumping over the side, he was gone.

Feeling dumbfounded and slightly defeated, you stared after him for a minute before shouldering your bag and beelining for the fire escape.

Karen stretched her arms over her head, groaning softly as the knot of tension between her shoulders unfurled. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she jiggled the mouse on the desk before her, turning her laptop back on to try and appear busy. After the law firm of Nelson and Murdock put Wilson Fisk behind bars, the clientele began to pour in–though whether that was for their proven representation skills or their shitty but functional AC, she wasn’t sure. Regardless, there had been a steady stream of walk-ins this week. And now that it had finally slowed down, she felt almost disappointed.

Being a secretary at the tiny little office was one of the most interesting things she’d ever done. Each case presented completely new realities, new opportunities and challenges. It was like she was given the chance to start fresh every day, and she was grateful for it. But in moments like these where the people filed out of the crooked doors, it made her a bit antsy.

Foggy and Matt were buried in new evidence for a guardianship revocation, holed up in Matt’s office, leaving her to schedule their appointments. She sighed, contemplating whether or not to interrupt them, to ask for something to do. Depending on when the guys would be heading out, they might want dinner or more coffee…

As she was running through a list of takeout that all of them could stomach, that hadn’t been ordered too recently, her phone’s display lit up, a new message appearing on the lock screen. An anonymous message in a chat board she frequented–one dedicated to opinions about Hell’s Kitchen’s hero, Daredevil. 

When she joined the board, she was solely intending to be a spectator. Unfortunately, the internet made it easier for trolls to share their bullshit opinions. Call the vigilante a threat to justice. Say that he should be put down. There was only so much she could handle before her blood boiled over and she sent her responses. 

These days, she was a pretty active poster. She rarely received private messages though, so the notification set her on edge. 

Hesitantly tapping the glowing bubble, she held her breath as it opened. No context, no identifying information, just two bizarre sentences that she was not prepared for.

“I know this is strange but..I think Daredevil might be my soulmate? And I was hoping you might know where I could find him.”

Taglist: @marytheweefrenchie @cheshirecat484 @siampie @xxdrixx @gracethyomen @ignore-mp3 @silas-aeiou @screechingphantommaker @spiderstyles04 @paradox-brody-chase

[river-bottom-nightmare]

au where the batkids just sort of,,,,,,invent a new batkid

it starts fairly innocuously, a cowl for someone’s costume ends up the wrong shape or the wrong colour. dick, having dropped by the cave to hand off some evidence or beg alfred for his new potato recipe (most likely both), sees it and his instant reaction is oh my god did bruce adopt another child vigilante? he’s colour-coding us now? fucking splendid

the confusion is cleared up quickly, but everyone got such a good laugh out of it that they keep the new helmet, insisting it belongs to bruce’s new kid ecurb. their vigilante name is Shadow The Dark Lad Blackwing Moron-With-An-Orange-Helmet Batbird. ever so creative.

(bruce doesn’t want to know.)

they collectively design a new costume for him. they convince oracle to help them get ecurb into the system, though it really doesn’t take much convincing, just a bit of dick’s puppy eyes and the utter ridiculousness of the situation that has her cackling. ecurb’s backstory is that he was part of travelling circus in america when he was kidnapped, held as a hostage, and tortured by the joker, during which he learned of batman’s true identity and also How To Fight Good, then was sent to kill bruce but was adopted by him instead. he’s a little older than damian but a little younger than duke, fights exclusively with brass knuckles, and his costume is black with orange polka dots.

(bruce really doesn’t want to know)

they talk about good old ecurb, or batbird depending on the company, amongst themselves all the time. good old ecurb, the only bat fast enough to get cass in rooftop tag. i heard ecurb took on bane with nothing but a water balloon and an empty laptop case and won. well i heard ecurb can get the gotham’s corrupt politicians to apologize to him. yeah, well i heard ecurb’s secretly a meta whose power is to neutralize other metahumans, and bruce keeps him as the ultimate contingency plan.

they talk about ecurb so much that the justice league believes bruce really did acquire a new child. other superhero teams are a little more skeptical, but after several select appearances in which different batkids donned batbird’s armour and were conveniently caught on camera, even they start to believe it. the titans really want to meet this new vigilante who can actually, consistently get dick to sleep. young justice want to fight him. but ecrub’s always undercover, or on a mission, or recovering because bruce trusts him so much, he’s already putting him in charge of the big stuff.

(bruce really really doesn’t want to know)

there are legends about ecurb. photos of him looking powerful yet mysterious, a carbon copy of batman but with orange polka dots. there are stories of the villains ecurb took on singlehandedly and won. apparently the green lantern corps contacted him and he turned them down. apparently he infiltrated the fortress of solitude and now is the leading expert on kryptonian tech. ecurb doesn’t fall off a cliff, he just changes the altitude of his fight. ecurb crashed a plane into a mountain and the mountain apologized to him.

they fake ecurb’s death as part of a plan to save the world. over a hundred heroes show up at the funeral. clark’s heart aches at bruce’s red-rimmed, watery eyes. bruce is two seconds away from collapsing on the floor in disbelieving laughter. ecurb rises from the dead a couple weeks later, no worse for the wear. his new costume now includes orange and pink polka dots.

the bats swear to take the secret to the grave.

[teatreeoilll]

𝐓𝐎 𝐄𝐑𝐑 𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐄 (𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭!𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐮 𝐗 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)

˚• . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . •

w/c - 9k content - MDNI! 18 + , minors and ageless blogs do not interact! fem!reader, evil!reader, a lot of plot with porn, much hurt, much angst, cussing, mention of drinking and smoking, VERY shitty parenting, child abuse, character death but not one of the mains, manipulative themes, i invented suguru's parents names, did i say much hurt? everyone's in their early twenties, cellist!Geto, saxophonist!Gojo, violinist!reader, shitty!everyone, kinda dark really i guess so please read at your own discretion, I'm sorry, really

a/n - there will probs be a second part based on the ending, if my back will ever stop hurting from being hunched over my laptop for four days straight writing this insanity.

Dedicated to the dear @telvess who read every scene like five times while I wrote and re-wrote this.

• . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° .•

Jealousy. As a result of your young age, you couldn't put it into words quite yet, but you felt it - choking up your dry throat as your father held your head steady with his fingers digging deep into your scalp to make sure your head wouldn't move an inch.

"Look, child," he said, "really look."

"M-My head, Dad," you sniffled, "It hurts."

You peered through the tiny crack in the large white doors into an empty rehearsal room. Bare walls, empty chairs - all but one, where a young boy sat in the middle, dragging his bow across the strings of a cello like it would be the last thing he does in his life. He did it fervently, desperately, repeatedly over the strings to rumble the sounds through the room. His brows furrowed. His raven black hair was a cluster of strands jolting up and falling on his face each time he moved. It made him look exactly like what you felt - electrified.

Your jaw slacked, and your heart raced within the confines of your chest.

"You see, child?" Your father's words lingered above your head, "Can you finally hear what beauty sounds like?"

You heard, and it haunted you.

-

When he's playing, anyone would agree that Geto Suguru is breathtaking. Below the cuffs of his white button-down are pale hands, guiding long, strained fingers to move feverishly across the fingerboard. Above them, his face, a marble carving with half-lidded eyes, pointed idly at his cello.

Weary music for weary people, he thinks, lifting his gaze just enough to meet the dull faces with greying hair filling the large hall. Their constipated expressions stare back at him. They're just waiting for the cue to clap, although he doesn't mind - not as long as each note of the concerto* he played was perfect.

And by god, do they clap. A standing ovation, long enough to escort him in his path to the stage exit, loud enough for the echoes to linger as he greets the tall, blue-eyed man waiting for him there and frenzied enough to make your knees buckle under the tight fabric of your tailored evening dress.

"It was a good one," the blue-eyed man says, "as far as alarm clock music goes, that is."

"Funny how you keep calling it that, Satoru," Geto chastises, his fingers undoing the clasps of his cello case, "but you're always on the verge of falling asleep when you hear it."

Oh, you think, fiddling with the violin in your hands, so that's Gojo Satoru. Everyone knew who he was; the Gojo family name was arrogantly plastered on the walls of every concert hall in the city, including the one you were about to play in now.

Your tremble. You can't help it - that standing ovation set the bar so high you fear the bow in your hands might snap from the intensity of your grip. But it doesn't, and someone briefly introduces your name on stage.

You glance at the two men, catching Geto's uninterested expression. Your stomach churns. The dignified way it graces his annoyingly good-looking features makes your muscles tense; it's as if he's exhausted from doing the crowd a favor by allowing them to worship his playing.

Arrogant fucker. You think, and he nods at you stiffly, acknowledging the misfortune of performing after him.

As you drag your feet across the polished floor, you can only hear the sound of your own erratic breathing. "Breathe in, breathe out," you mutter under your breath as your shaking knees give the last of their strength to get you to the center stage.

And then a twitch, a breath hitch, and a loud thud.

The room hums with gasps for an instant before going silent again, and every eye in the vicinity watches you lay splayed across the wooden floor.

The shame burns in your cheeks, rushing through your face down to warm your aching body. As a desperate escape you turn your head away from the crowd, only to catch in the corner of your eye the two men still standing at the stage exit.

Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't look at me.

"Oof," Gojo huffs, wincing at the sight as he turns to his friend, "Come on, we'll be late if we don't head out now."

Like looking at a trainwreck, Geto's unable to turn away. His lips purse; what a pity.

The silence grew, and you knew you must do something - anything to let this moment pass. You push yourself up, throwing a quick glance at your violin, a string snapped, fuck. "I hope -," you grunt, your voice hoarse from disuse, "I hope Rachmaninoff* gets the same gasps." A wave of suppressed chuckles and claps gushes around you. Oh, thank god.

Your cheeks are still hot, and the first stroke of your bow is hesitant, just a soft flick of the wrist to see if the three remaining strings are still in tune. Is this a good idea? But the crowd's anticipating gaze burns through you, rendering you unable to move. You focus on replacing the missing notes and play the piece - with jagged strokes coming from your still shaking hands, some notes cut it, but just barely.

Gojo nudges his friend's shoulder, "Hey, I said we'll be late."

Geto's pursed lips open lightly, his dark eyes fix intently on your bow, "Hmm?" He hums at his friend's words, dragging him back from his thoughts.

a/n - * - Bach's Cello Suite in C Minor, Sarabande. * - Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor, originally for piano, transcribed for violin.

-

"A Jazz club?" you furrow your brows at the music and the tang of smoke already reaching you from the narrow entrance hall.

You'd only met Shoko a few short weeks ago when college started, and she quickly became your only friend - as often happens to two people in a room who prefer to be alone.

"Yes, my friend's playing - you'll hate him," she says. Shoko has that thing where she doesn't change her tone when she says something sarcastic, so you're stuck nodding at her words with an uncomfortable grin on your face.

She tugs you by the sleeve of your shirt, guiding you down the stairs and through the prematurely drunken crowd that eagerly awaits what would be the third song of the evening.

"This would never pass in our concerts," you mutter under your breath, although you kind of wish it did as you look at the people laughing, reaching for another drink, huffing smoke from their mouths while making idle chatter as the players take a short break between songs.

A bright, warm note pierces the room, and like an obedient platoon to an officer's 'attention,' all the eyes fall back on stage. The white-haired man under the mellow spotlight makes a swift move to wipe the mouthpiece of his saxophone before returning it to his lips and blowing into it again - this time, a cue for the drummer, who starts a ruthless pace on his cymbals.

"If jazz is a god," Gojo's voice rings through the room, "then the saxophone is its altar."

How could he say that with a straight face? You think, unable to take your eyes off his clearly pretentious demeanor that would be borderline comical if it wasn't redeemed by his outstandingly handsome face, from the rolled-up sleeves and undone button of his blue dress shirt to the round sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, he looks like pure sin.

"The Voice of Chunk*," he announces the piece and the room booms with shouts of excitement as the saxophone howls its first long and angelic Mi.

By the time the set ends, Gojo's a mess. A dusty red color flushes his pale cheeks as he pants, a mad gleam in his eyes when he looks at the crowd, which only shouts for another encore. He wipes the sweat off his brow and leaves the stage without a word.

Shoko drags you down to an empty table near the stage, a cigarette propped between her lips as she utters, "Ah," to the sound of a squeaking chair, which Gojo Satoru plops on, splaying his limbs on the wood.

He turns to Shoko, pointing a thumb at you, "Your friend?"

"Mhmm," Shoko confirms, "(Name)." She takes a sip of her cheap beer.

Perpetually assuming everyone already knew him, Satoru Gojo doesn't introduce himself. "What'd you think?" He asks.

"It was very good," you say, and mean it. He wasn't humble, but as far as performances go, he didn't need to be.

"Good?" He turns back to Shoko, looking at her like a wounded puppy, "Shoko.."

"She did say very, Satoru." Shoko sighs, "He hates the word good."

Your breath hitches as Gojo lays a large hand on your thigh, "Calling jazz good is terrible." He says, "It means it did nothing to you. Even calling it horrifying is a much better choice."

Another chair squeaks in your proximity, and Gojo removes the hand from your thigh to place it on the table, "Suguru!" He exclaims. "How was it?"

God, what's he doing here?

"Horrifying," Geto smirks at his friend.

His dark eyes turn to you as he says, "Geto Suguru," and extends a large, calloused palm, which you hesitantly shake. The skin contact makes you shudder. His eyes narrow, "Have we met before?"

The truth is - Geto knows rather well that you have met before. He spent two days after the concert thinking about your figure lying on the wooden floor, and it wasn't for the curve of your ass that pointed towards him, although that didn't escape his thoughts either. His mind raced with thoughts of how quickly you bounced back from your fall, made a joke, and started playing. Could it really be so easy?

"Oh - maybe it's - uh," you babble, your mind already trying to devise an excuse to leave.

"Ah, I know!" Gojo chimes in, "It's our tumbling violinist," he chuckles, "I never forget a girl after I've seen her on all fours."

Geto raises an eyebrow. "We both know that's hardly true."

You stare at Shoko with desperate eyes pleading for a change in topic. She puts down her drink, "Where were you Suguru? I didn't see you the entire gig." Thank god.

"Just there," Geto motions to the side of the bar, where a beautiful light-haired girl sips on a drink, "I've seen him play plenty of times."

I should be polite. "Oh, so you like jazz?" You ask.

Gojo chuckles, removing his sunglasses to reveal clear sky-blue eyes, "Entertain our guest, Suguru."

Geto leans back, arms crossed over his chest, and even his words sound carefully rehearsed - as if he's being interviewed, "It's not that I don't like it. There's just no merit to it." Against your wishes, you meet his gaze, restraining yourself from rolling your eyes at him. "It's mostly improvisation. Not one jazz piece stays the same over time - it blatantly disregards why we value music. Can you imagine someone changing even one note in Rachmaninoff's preludes?"

Is he talking about the ones I played?

Geto leans back, "And that's without mentioning the mistakes."

You furrow your brows, and your chest tightens at his words, "The mistakes?"

"Suguru's just jealous," Gojo smirks, and his arm snakes around your shoulders, "because I've got an ability he doesn't. I like to call it blue." His other hand traces lines across the wooden table, making an invisible note staff, "You see, in jazz, there's no such thing as a mistake. It's considered beautiful even if you play a note a bit too harsh or out of key. They're called blue notes."

"Well, a mistake is just a mistake, isn't it?" You lie, too proud to admit you were ashamed of the embarrassing performance they witnessed, "You shouldn't be proud or overcritical of it - it just is."

"It's a good philosophy," Geto says softly, and a faint smile appears on his lips, it makes sense now, "It works well if you just play for fun."

A decade of rigorous violin practice flashes before your eyes, the callouses on your fingers you were teased for as a child, and he dares to say it's for fun?

Your cheeks heat up, "Well, what do you play for? Suffering?"

"Perfection," he answers. Prick.

"Perfection?" You sneer, clenching your jaw, "Then what about improvisation?"

"Leave that vice for the jazz musicians." He says, and his expression suddenly changes, "I'm sorry, I know you improvised in your Rachmaninoff; you did the best you could - considering." He means it earnestly.

The veins throb in your forehead, Is he pitying me?

Gojo laughs, "If you keep bickering, I won't remain the star of the show tonight," and you notice the not-so-discreet looks of the people at the other tables ogling you.

"It's getting kind of late anyway," Shoko says, smothering her cigarette butt against the ashtray's bottom, "Why don't we go before we miss the train?"

"I'll give you a lift," Geto says, and you stare at Shoko, hoping that your wide, begging eyes will lead her to decline, "Come on," He adds, standing up, "It's raining outside, and our violinist can slip up even on dry flooring."

a/n - * - Voice of Chunk, The Lounge Lizards, 1988

-

"I'll see you in school," You say to Shoko, who exits the back seat of the silver Toyota, leaving nothing but a bitter smell of smoke and a long, strained silence lingering in the car.

"Which way?" Geto points to a fork in the road.

"Left, then straight for a while." And could you be so kind as to crash us into the nearest wall? You chuckle inside your head.

He turns his head as if he heard you, "So, a mistake is just a mistake, is it?"

And your fists clench momentarily, their tension softened only by the quiet, sweet sound of Samuel Barber* playing through the radio, weaving its melody with the heavy pounding of rain on the car roof, "Well, if you dwell on them too much, you're not going to have any time left to fix them." You wish you meant it.

He ponders silently before asking, "How'd you start playing?"

Is he only asking to make a snide remark? You decide to keep your answer curt. "My father gave me his violin when I was young."

The windscreen wipers work full force to make the dark road ahead visible, "My mother never let me touch her cello," he says, his unbothered tone now laced with somber notes, "I hated the thing."

The ache in your chest is almost unbearable, your fingers dig into the fabric of your trousers. He hated it, and he still plays like that?

"Then why play?" You inquire, watching the streetlights' reflections glint in his dark eyes.

Because it matters, it has to matter.

He laughs, and you can't help but notice how his face softens when he does, "It pays for college," a speck of red tint dusts his cheeks, and a strange pull flares in your chest at his defenseless look, "Don't I look like a scholarship boy?"

"Maybe if I squint," you say as he turns to look at you. You narrow your eyes, "Nope, can't see it," and he laughs again, making the remnants of alcohol turn in your stomach.

When you arrive, you step out of the car and he watches you disappear into the building's front, his fingers tapping restlessly on the wheel. A weak, burning sensation plagued the muscles around his jaw; were they really so unaccustomed to laughing?

a/n - * - Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Op.11

-

15 years ago

The Geto residence was an ever-tastefully decorated one-story house in the rural areas outside Tokyo, always graced by the echoing sounds of an Italian-made cello. Geto Suguru himself was a wide-eyed child, six years old, and already praised for being prematurely intelligent by his parents' arrogant friends; "Your little Suguru is so clever," one of his mother's friends said, leaning over the dinner table to tug mercilessly on his cheek, "I bet he'd skip a grade as soon as he starts school, don't you think, Kieko?"

To which his mother only hummed in response, quickly diverting the subject, "The Bolshoi* is performing in the city next month. Will you come?"

Suguru didn't mind these things much. He wasn't the kind of child to look for praise; he didn't care for it from strangers' mouths and never knew the delight of hearing it come out of his mother's ever-pursed lips.

The next morning, Kieko Geto sat on a sturdy, padded stool and played with unwavering concentration until the midday sun sipped through the windows, blinding her eyes. Only then did she stop, turning back to notice her son's inquisitive gaze peering from the doorway.

"Come," she instructed, and Suguru took a few hesitant steps to the middle of the room. His mother positioned the cello upright, the wooden beast towering over him as she pressed a flat palm to the middle of the fingerboard, measuring his height against it. "One day," she said, "you'll be big enough to play it, Suguru."

A phone rang, and his mother stepped out. Suguru stood a long while staring at the instrument that leaned lazily against the wall. One day - he didn't want to wait for some vague, distant day, and his arm itched with impulse.

Suguru lifted the bow from the stool, ramming it violently across the strings. It made such a horrendous sound that he thought for a moment he hurt it, and now the thing was howling in pain.

"Suguru!" his mother shrieked as she shoved him out of the way, "What did you do?" Her pale fingers grazed the cello, searching for new marks on the wood.

The bow in her hand glinted like a Katana under the sunlight as she swung it at his head.

The next few minutes were a blur. Suguru guessed he screamed since his father stormed into the room, pushing him to stand behind his back. His eyes were fixed on the creases on the back of his father's shirt, changing their shape like sand dunes as the man's arms moved frantically through the air as if he were conducting his own shouts.

The boy placed a hand on his forehead. "Dad," he tugged hesitantly on the creases, leaving red stains on the pale blue shirt, "Dad."

a/n - * - The Bolshoi Ballet

-

A failed poet turned local journalist once described Geto Suguru's playing as having a gut-wrenching elegance, and as you stood at the large doors leading to the conservatory's hall, you couldn't help but hear what he meant. Angelic strokes on the rumbling strings, and each note is -

"Shit," he cusses, dragging the bow harshly along the strings as if it could saw the instrument in half if he tried hard enough. Even as he does so, he can't seem to make it sound bad. The bow drops on the floor with a hollow thud, and he runs a defeated hand through his hair, brushing back a long black strand to reveal a two-inch, pale scar on the side of his forehead.

He lifts his gaze up, noticing you standing by the door. How long has she stood there? "Violinst," he says. "Come to practice?"

Seeing him laugh a few days ago must have been a figment of your imagination. "Yes," you utter.

"It's occupied until six."

You make your way to the low stage through the aisle between the empty rows of seats, "It's ten past six," you remark, and Geto glances at the clock, frowning at it like it broke a long-standing promise.

You reach the stage, putting your violin case on the still-warm seat of the lone chair in the middle. You shudder at the warmth, watching Geto lift the massive cello case as his other hand reaches into his pocket, taking out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, "You want one?" he asks, holding it open.

You shake your head, "Thank you."

He puts one smoke between his lips, patting down his pockets, "Got a light?"

You shake your head again, "Sorry."

He shrugs, his eyes fixing on the violin in your hand, and you notice the slight puffiness under his eyes. "Not my day, I guess." And it's a long gaping silence while he puts the cigarette back in the pack, "Do you mind if I stay?"

"No," Yes. "But if you scrunch your nose at my mistakes, you leave."

"I don't scrunch my nose," he retorts.

"You do."

Geto runs a long finger along the bridge of his nose down to the tip, leaning forward slightly to meet your eyes, "Straight as an arrow," he says without a smile, and you turn red at the sudden proximity, fixing your gaze on the shiny white floor beneath your feet.

"Alright then," you mumble.

Geto sits in the front row, reclining on the backrest of the crimson-colored seat with his hands resting on his spread thighs while his cello case leans on the seat next to him like a second observer. You might as well put on a burlesque show from how naked you feel under his steady gaze.

You drag the bow across the strings, echoing a dissonant tone throughout the room.

"Are you testing me?" He says with a smug smile plastered on his lips, but you hoped for a heartfelt one instead.

"Mhmm," you hum, taking a few steps forward to the verge of the stage, where you take a seat with your legs dangling from the edge, "You passed." and he chuckles, soft and low.

As you begin to play, Geto gets up from his seat to pace back and forth along the aisle, his brows furrowed and his thumb pressed against his lips while he listens to the music.

Your muscles strain, bracing themselves for the suite's climax, now's the hard part, you think, letting out a frustrated huff as your eyes fix on Geto. You miss the first note.

He halts, and your bow leaves the strings as you await his reaction in the irksome silence of the hall.

For a moment, he's desperate. Desperate for you to do what he thought was an almost inhuman feat after such a mistake.

He takes a few steps closer, towering over you while his eyes stare intently into yours, "Keep playing," he demands.

Your breath hitches as you watch him slowly lower himself to his knees beneath you. He places large, calloused palms on your knees, eagerly spreading your legs while his eyes are still honed on your face, relishing in the red flush burning your cheeks. He runs a hand under your skirt, grazing your thigh with long, rough fingers, a hint of a smile on his lips when he hears your breathless gasps, "Keep playing," he repeats.

Smile, god, you hated that smile.

You play a few jagged notes before your arms give in, and you place the violin on the floor with a soft clunk. Your now free hands grasp his hair, freeing it from his neatly tied bun to fall down his shoulders.

"Eager girl," he mutters, tracing his finger along your wet panties, and you tug harder at his hair. I'm the eager one?

"Q-Quit teasing," you stammer as he yanks you closer to the edge of the stage, pulling off your panties with a swift move. You shudder as his warm breath fans over your exposed cunt, panting heavily as his fingers dig deep into your thighs.

"Hmm?" He murmurs, placing soft kisses against your inner thighs, letting his teeth graze the skin but stopping every time right before he reaches your soaked pussy. Just do it, for the love of god, just do it.

You're reduced to a quivering mess, fighting the urge to push his head into your wetness, "Please," you whimper breathlessly, frowning at the loss of your pride under his touch, "p-please stop teasing," and you finally feel his tongue lick a stripe up your clit as he grunts softly at your taste.

"Good girl," he groans out, letting his lips wrap around your bud, burying his face so deep in your cunt you feel his nose rub against your clit while he rasps out a soft "Fuck," that sends shivers up your spine.

He was messy, fervent, eager as his tongue worked on your clit, and you grew dizzy at the sight of the usually calm and collected man disheveled and red-faced between your legs, moaning out his name as you felt yourself clench against his lips, "S-Suguru, fuck -."

He'd never heard his name come out of your lips before, but this was a better first time than he could imagine. He grew unbearably hard in his jeans, rutting against thin air almost instinctively every time you rolled your hips into his face, "Say it again," he demands, and his deep voice sends a rush of heat to your face.

Can he do it? Can he make you even more of a mess on his fingers? Can he watch while you stutter his name, while your face is a beautiful flushed mixture of those blunders he loved seeing you make?

"Suguru," you look at him through glazed eyes, and he frees the hand that grabbed your thigh to slide two skilled fingers into your soaked cunt, "S-Suguru," you whimper out when they sink deeper, pumping into your sweet spot with a harsh pace.

A drunk smile grazes his lips when you clench against his fingers. It takes him all his strength to pull away from your cunt, "You want more, princess?" He teased, fingers pumping lazily into you.

You manage to whine a quiet, "Y-Yes."

"Then ask," he coos, his smile turning into a devilish grin, and you squirm at the loss of his tongue, clutching his hair tighter.

"Please, Suguru," you breathe. How many times will he put me through this? And your muscles contract when he flicks his tongue over your cunt again, "p-please, Suguru - I'm - " you babble as he resumes his harsh pace, your thighs closing on his head, hips rutting desperately for some more sweet friction against his tongue.

"Please, fuck - " you moan, arching your back. His fingers still push into you as he groans at the taste of your wetness gushing on his tongue, licking it hungrily while you pant almost inaudible whispers of his name, and he thinks he might come from the sweet sound of your voice alone.

His lips finally let go of your clit. He pushes himself up from his knees to face you, his mouth wet with your essence as he brushes his lips against yours. Barely a kiss, but you grow dizzy anyhow, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, running your other hand along his T-shirt-clad stomach down to the bulge in his jeans.

"No," he utters. No?

"Huh?" Your brows furrow, "Do you want me to take you out for a cup of coffee first?" It was supposed to be a thought, shit.

He laughs, and you watch the lines form in the corners of his eyes, "Could be nice," he says, "besides, it's your rehearsal hours; don't you want to practice?"

"Not really," you grumble, "You can use them if you like." You reach down to pick up your panties from the floor where he discarded them, only to see him grab them first.

"I could," he muses aloud, "I'm playing the Grand Hall opening in a few weeks," and he catches your gaze for a second, "but I'd rather watch you play." And you blush as he tucks your panties into the front pocket of his jeans, "You'll get them later," he says, "If you're good."

"If I'm good?" You furrow your brows, "If I don't make any mistakes, you mean."

"No," he asserts, his words a bit loud, catching you off-guard as you fumble for your violin, "If you're good."

After you refuse his ride home, it's a long walk of shame back to your apartment. You feel as though your pride was left in his pocket together with your underwear, but maybe, just maybe, you'll make something good come out of it.

-

"Dad put it - " Suguru's arm held his father's in a tight grip across the coffee shop's table, urging it to release the silver spoon in his hand, "Put it back, please."

"They've got plenty," his father barks, his eyes darting around to observe the busy staff of the cafe while he hides the spoon carefully in his bag.

Suguru lets out a weary sigh, focusing on the swirling cream in his coffee mug, "So do you," he says, the taste of stale regret mixing in with his drink when he lifts it to his mouth.

"Eh?" His father's eyebrows knit together, wrinkles forming under his five o'clock shadow when his lips purse, "You here to judge me, boy?"

Suguru takes a sip from his coffee but finds it stuck bitterly in his throat under his father's hostile stare.

"Thought so," the man says, his dirty fingernails tapping on the wooden table as he adds, "Now, will you finally quit fooling around with that thing?"

"I don't know, Dad," Suguru chokes out.

"She croaked this morning, the bitch. She won't come to see you play now, would she?"

Suguru's eyes widen, his hands quivering, pads of his fingers digging into the scortching coffee mug, threatening to tumble the liquid over the rim, "What?"

"Croaked, gone, dead. She left you that cursed cello of hers," his father eyes the sugar dispenser on the table, brushing his fingertips on it, "So you'll sell it. And give the money to your father," his shoulders draw back, he's proud, "for all the things he did for you, yes?"

"I don't know, Dad," Suguru mutters.

The man's agitated expression deepens the wrinkles on his forehead, "'I don't know Dad," his father mocked, "I'll tell you what you need to know. I took you away from that vicious whore when she'd done your face in with her bow, and you've never thanked me once, just begged me to buy you a damn cello when you knew that all our money was left in that house." A brute splatter of spit lands on the table as he sneers, "And I did, didn't I? Bought you the damn thing, drove you around with it like some chauffeur. Where's my thanks? Eh, brat? Where's my money?"

The man raises his arm, and a young, blonde waitress appears momentarily by their table, all smiles when she says, "The check, sir?"

"Yes," Suguru's father says, the chair under him screeching as he gets up, "My son will pay."

-

For hours now he'd been contemplating where to go. Who he wanted to see. but when Geto finally gets to your door, his face still flushes with the soft pink of an irredeemable shame while his urgent, stiff knuckles pound on the door. He knew you were home. He wasn't a brute - he texted to check, but he still couldn't calm the restless ache burning in his chest.

When you open the door, there's no hello, just the unyielding feeling of his body flat against yours as he presses sloppy kisses along your jaw, groaning when his teeth graze the tender skin of your neck, "Fuck," his breath fans over you neck as he pants out the words, "you smell sweet."

His face lingers in the crook of your neck, relishing in the warmth like a cold-blooded animal who'd die without the heat. His fingers dig into your thighs so harshly you fear they might bruise them as he lifts you up, "Smell so fucking sweet - " he keeps muttering under his breath as your legs wrap around his waist, your hands clinging to the muscles on his back to keep your balance.

"Suguru," you pant when he drops you on the bed, noticing the unfamiliar ruthless look in his eyes, hardly the same one you saw between your legs a few days ago, "Did something - "

"D'you want to stop and talk?" He chuckles, large, warm hands running across your body to discard your clothes, "Hmm?" He purrs, already confining you under his body, planting soft, teasing kisses on the valley between your breasts.

"N-No," you whimper at the feeling of his teeth against your hardened nipple, and you run a hand through his dark hair to yank him away, while the other hand tugs at his shirt to signal him to fuck, take it off.

He almost doesn't want to break away from your body, not even for the sake of finally feeling your skin rub against his. But he manages to regain his composure long enough to use swift movements to discard his clothes as you watch him, strong and veiny, a body that could be carved in marble if it ever stopped moving with devious intent.

"Suguru," you knew he loved it, the sound of his name coming from your mouth. "Please," you writhe under him, desperate for any kind of touch as he looms over you, holding himself up while deep pants escape his parted lips. He's too far for you to crash your lips against his, no matter how you try. You lift your head from the pillow, and he chuckles at your efforts, pumping his already hard and leaking cock, groaning when he lets the tip brush against your folds.

"So wet already, hmm?" His hand abandons his cock to push a finger inside your cunt, the squelching noises making the blood rush to your head. He's mad with need but can't let your squirming be over so soon, "All for me?"

"Fuck, Sugu - " you cut yourself off to grip his hair, making your lips crash, feeling his tongue swallow your moans as he takes his finger out only to push his cock into you with a deep thrust, "Ah - fuck - " you moaned into his mouth, feeling his tip rub against your sweet spot when he finally bottomed out.

He starts a mean pace, and a hint of pain jolts through you while you adjust to his size, loud moans escaping your lips, "Oh my, ah - God."

"Suguru," he corrects, reaching a hand to adjust your hips, and you moan at the friction against his abdomen, "moan it for me, princess," he groans out against your neck when you pant his name, "louder - fuck - " he pleas, his breath hitches when you clench against him.

He knows he can't hold it much longer, threatening to spill his load at every pant and moan and brush of his lips against your skin, "S- Suguru - " you whine, feeling his fingers draw circles against your clit, digging your nails into his back to leave shallow red scratches along his shoulder blades.

"You close, princess?" He lets out a shaky breath when he feels you clench again, gritting his teeth at the tightness around his cock.

The coil in your stomach tightens, and your eyes shut at the feeling of his messy, erratic thrusts, "Suguru - ," you moan, "Suguru - I - " you pull his head back by the hair.

"Mhmm," he coos, "you what?" he growls, his thrusts feeling almost impossibly deep when the heat pools in your stomach.

"I - I'm - close - " And it's all he needs to hear, locks of black hair falling to brush against your face as he smashes his lips onto yours, savoring the taste of your mouth as your back arches and walls contract around him.

"Good girl," he rasps into your mouth, pounding a few harsh thrusts before his hips stutter. You watch through glazed eyes how muscles tighten as he spills his seed into you with a low groan.

He collapses atop you, pressing his sweat-dampened face against your chest to relish in the sound of the fast, thumping beat of your heart. A few more seconds, and he can measure the tempo.

"Listen," Suguru says, smoking a cigarette out of the open window of your room while he watches you get dressed in the corner, "there's a few things I have to do early tomorrow," his eyes trail out to the street lamps out the window, their blinking lights reflecting on his car outside.

"Suguru," you stand over him, brushing the pads of your fingers against the scratches you left on his back, "did something - "

"Just a few things I have to do," he says, looking around the room for his shirt, "so I'll call you, yeah?"

-

"Uhm, so, did you hear from Su-" You cut yourself off, watching Shoko take a long drag from her smoke with her eyes waiting for you to finish your sentence. "I mean - " you clear your throat, "You know how a guy does something, and then he -" Your face grows red at the memory of Suguru's naked body, "And you think it was nice because you had fun, and then he -"

Shoko watches you babble for a while before saying a confused, "Yes?"

"Suguru didn't call me back," you finally utter. Wasn't it enough for him that I called first?

"Oh," Shoko takes a long drag from her cigarette, "and he needs to call you because..?"

Your face flushes crimson as you bury your face in your hands, "B-Because we fucked and I haven't heard from him since," you mutter through your palms.

Gojo Satoru has a habit of entering places like his presence was eagerly anticipated, swinging the door open with a dramatic expression, "Shoko!" He cuts through the conversation, his height exaggerated by the confines of Shoko's small dorm room as he puts his saxophone on the table, "The key is stuck. I'm going to need you to fix it again -"

"Later," Shoko sounds like a reprimanding mother as she motions toward your sulking face.

Gojo's eyebrows knit together, "Did something happen?"

"Suguru didn't call her after - " Shoko reconsiders her words for a moment, "after they had a nice time together."

"Hmm?" Gojo plops down on the bed in the corner, "Well, he won't call for a while."

You raise your gaze from your palms, tilting your head at the man, "What do you mean?" And your mind races, Oh god. He can't - hate me?

"You didn't hear?" Gojo's smirk fades from his lips, "His mother died last Saturday."

Wait, the same day he came and - ?

You widen your eyes at Shoko, who only shakes her head in response.

"His parents were divorced for quite a while," Gojo continues, "he hasn't seen his mother in over a decade - "

"But she's still his mother," Shoko remarks, huffing a cloud of smoke into the room that lingers stagnant above the table.

Gojo sulks, "I was about to say that. He's been stuck in his room for a week now. My father's pissed."

"Your father?" You puzzle, watching Gojo wipe his sunglasses on the edge of his shirt.

"He was supposed to play the Grand Hall this weekend." And you squint your eyes, waiting for him to continue, "My father pays his tuition for these shows, y'know."

"Your father pays Suguru's tuition?" You repeat.

Gojo chuckles, "Well, I'm not sure for how long, now that Suguru won't even answer his phone. Dad's been planning this grand opening for a year now."

Oh?

"Can't you talk to him?" Shoko was still holding onto the smoking cigarette butt in her hand.

"It's like talking to a - " Gojo cut himself off to knock twice at the white plaster wall beside the bed.

Your muscles tense, and the sound of your own racing pulse deafens your ears.

I should say something. "He's your friend," you croak out.

Gojo's expression changes to a stern one, a terrifying sight on his soft features, "What would have me do? Make him play while he's mourning for his mother? Fight with my father only to have him cut Suguru off anyway?"

You go silent, mulling over his words, but find nothing to say.

Shoko picks up the saxophone from the table, "Which key is broken?" she asks, and there's a hint of defeat in her voice as she waits for Satoru's answer so, at the very least, she can fix something.

-

Suguru had stared at the cello case for days now, hesitant to take the instrument out of its shell. He started staring at it when he took it from his mother's house after the funeral and kept staring at it on the two-hour bus ride and the three-hour train journey, and then, when he leaned it against the wall of his apartment, he still couldn't take his eyes off of it.

It called him. Not in the way you called him - the kind that made his heart flutter when he saw your name pop on his phone screen, which he ignored, simply having no clue as to what to say.

He still ran the imaginary conversations in his head every time you did, letting out sad chuckles into the stale air of his room. How have you been? Oh yes, my mother died, and I'm sitting here with her instrument, which she always loved more than me. Is it nice? Oh, it's more like a successful older brother - you want to hug him just as much as you want to chuck him out the window. Would you like to grab a coffee?

"It's been almost two weeks since you sat there," Geto stands in the little kitchen of his apartment, making a cup of tea he knew would join the others piled up on his bedside table. I'm talking to it now, he thinks, I've finally gone insane. "How about you pay rent?" He chastises the instrument.

For a moment, he thinks it really might pay his rent - for about four years - if he decides to sell it, and keep the money to himself. His hands find themselves opening the case.

He inspects it for a long while, his hands brushing reluctantly over the wood until they find the small scratch in the varnish, the one he'd left there over a decade ago, and he focuses on it. It's small, pale looking, almost too tiny to notice, like the scar on his forehead.

"Maybe it's fair," he mutters at it, "I hurt you, and she hurt me. Balance."

A knock on the door makes his hand falter.

"Suguru," you bang on the door, feeling your leg squash something under it. "Mochi?" you mutter as you pick up a bag from the floor, and the lock clicks.

He looks terrible, you think, with tired eyes and strands sticking out from his usually perfect hair. You hand him the crumpled bag, trying no to smile, "It was just here," you point to the doorway.

"Hmm?" He takes it from your hands, "Satoru's been leaving those here every day. I've got plenty. You can have it if you like."

The air in the room reeks of smoke and coffee grounds, and he steps away, losing your eyes as he moves clothes from a chair to his bed for you to sit on.

"How are you?" you ask.

"Fine," he responds instinctively. Silence. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Sure." Silence again. A good time to pick up smoking, you think.

Your gaze lands on the cello peaking from its case in the corner. "A new one?" You puzzle as he puts a cup of coffee in front of you.

"My mother's," Geto says, sitting on the chair across from you.

"It's beautiful," you say, and you watch a sullen look settle in his eyes. "Wrong thing to say?" you give him a half-hearted smile, attempting to lift his mood, "Because in that case, it looks terrible."

"I like it when you say the wrong things," He suddenly says, "They don't feel so wrong when you say them."

You take the cup of coffee in your hands, warming your palms against the glass, "You can say them too sometimes, y'know."

He takes a sip from his coffee, only to find he can't stand the taste anymore, wrinkling his nose, "I hate that thing. I've been contemplating whether to sell it or just throw it out the window."

"And what's the verdict?"

"Play it," he says.

"Then play it."

He gets up, pushing the chair back to the middle of the room as he walks to take the instrument out of its case. You're almost startled by how stiff he looks leaning it between his legs, a hold so tight on the bow his knuckles turn white.

He puts the bow to the strings with a feather-light stroke, and halts.

He looks scared of it.

Is that what stage fright feels like? He thinks as he watches you lean forward against the table, eyes honed on his hands.

"You just need to play it, y'know? Like children do, just wiggle the bow a few times." You say.

Like children do. "It'll be dissonant," Geto utters sternly, releasing his grip on the bow.

"That's how they laugh," your lips curl into a soft smile, "That's what my father used to tell me when he heard the horrible screeches I made on his violin when he first gave it to me, 'Don't worry, that's how they laugh.'"

His chest tightened at the words, and he forced the bow onto the strings, making a loud, off-key tone penetrate the room.

It's the first time you've heard him make a mistake, and it made every nerve in your system tingle. Your head went euphorically dizzy. This is much better.

He almost stopped at your wide-eyed look, but you just laughed, "Oh, please, you call that dissonant?" And you watch him push the bow onto the strings again, brows furrowed at the terrible sounds, but his movements unwavering.

It's fine to play it like this, he thinks, as long as it's accompanied by your laughter.

"Suguru," you utter, and he lifts his gaze from the instrument, "Will you play the Grand Hall tonight?"

He ponders for a moment, "I think I will."

"Then you better answer your phone," you motion towards the buzzing cell phone on the counter, "and take a shower," you laugh.

He looks down on his disheveled clothes, "That bad, huh?" He chuckles.

"Just a little."

You hear the shower water running as you fiddle with your phone, still dazed at what just happened. You press the contact and dial.

"Hey, Dad?" You chirp into the cell phone, "Are you still coming to the Grand Hall opening tonight?"

-

The new Grand Hall is a sea of white marble floors and golden framed artworks, crowded by black-suited CEOs and their overly lavish trophy wives.

Geto sits on the lone stool in the middle of the stage, watching them all take their seats, still busy exchanging pleasantries with each other while they wait for the show to start. His eyes drift constantly to the stage exit, where you stand with Gojo, smiling softly, mouthing, "Don't worry," at his stiff figure.

His mother's cello is still unfamiliar to the touch, a beast different than the one he owns which he had already spent years taming.

People fill the seats like ants, and the lights dim above his head. The pianist behind him is a weak-looking man, and he adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his thin nose before giving Geto the cue to start.

The first stroke of the bow is a hesitant one across the strings that once earned him a blow to the head, but the second one has more vigor, and his eyes, half-lidded still, find your smiling face again to soothe his nerves. His bow falters; he didn't have time to change the rusty strings; what would Elgar* say?

And you can't help but smile at each terrible pitch echoing around you; each horribly dissonant tone is more beautiful than the next to your ears.

The sounds are low and deep, growling against the marble hall. He almost has it - the feeling - the one that'd let him stop quivering in his seat. His bow jitters. He never knew he could make so many mistakes in a piece that he played hundreds of times, but with your smile at the corner of his eyes, he feels it creep up his fingertips, rushing through his chest - joy.

"My son!" The doors to the concert hall bust open with a bang; it overpowers the soothing sounds of his cello and the melody of the piano, "He's my fucking son. Let me see him!" Suguru's father stumbles drunkenly into the hall, two dark-suited men at his heels.

The hall washes over with whispers, women pressing their carefully manicured hands to their painted mouths in awe while their husbands are already halfway out of their seats with a proud "I'll take care of the bastard, honey" stuck on their lips.

"Fuck off, pig." Suguru's father spews at the guard trying to drag him away, "He owes it all to me, the brat. Play for our guests, Suguru! " He turns to the crowd, "Enjoying the show, money-rolling cunts?"

Suguru stiffens, his eyes two dull, widened orbs staring at the scene as he stops his playing, ignoring the piano player's whispers to just play, kid.

Gojo rushes to the man screaming in the hall, "Mr. Geto, long time no see," he says, one hand gripping him by the edge of his booze-soaked shirt, the other wrapping around the man's neck in an almost affable way, "How about you see your son after the show?" A smile is frozen on his soft lips, his blue eyes staring daggers at the man, "Now be nice, or they'll tase you," he breathes down the man's ear, motioning to the guards whose fingers are already clutching the tasers.

"Fucking bastard," Geto's father mutters at the white-haired man, "Money-rolling cunts," he slurs all the way out of the doors. They close with a soft thud, leaving the hall in a dead silence.

a/n - * - Edward Elgar, Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85

-

12 years ago

"You hear that?" Your father stood over you in the rehearsal room of the conservatory, his arms crossed over his chest as he paced back and forth, "That's how they laugh. Every time you make a mistake, they laugh at you, girl."

Your eyes were red as you stopped your playing, "L-Laugh?"

"Instruments make that sound so they can mock you," your father explained, correcting your grip on the bow, "and you have to do everything so they don't do that."

Every day, he'd drive you up to the conservatory and stand over you in that room for hours on end, brows knitted together at each whine the violin screeched out. And when it was finally over, he'd walk you down the long white corridor to the room at the end, where a small, dark-haired boy would play his cello.

"See that, girl?" He'd point through the crack in the door, "Perfection."

Perhaps that was when you started to despise Geto Suguru. Over the years, the feeling only grew, but it hadn't peaked before his smug smile sat next to you in a jazz club, finally uttering the first words he ever directed at you, "Geto Suguru, have we met before?"

And it felt strange because you had - or at least you thought you had, over a decade ago. Not that he'd know that you watched him play almost every day through that time, with the scrutinizing words your father whispered above your head, "Look. Really look," your father held your head steady with his fingers digging into your scalp, "It doesn't laugh at him, see?"

And you did see. And you wished that it laughed at him, too. Why were you the only one supposed to be laughed at?

You didn't mean to at first, really. Something about him just ticked it off, the urge for revenge. How dare he hate his instrument and play it so well, when you loved the violin and it betrayed you with every stroke?

You didn't mind the sex; he was still a handsome man. It made him trust you - and as long as you made him make a mistake - every laugh, every encouraging smile, every word, was worth it.

-

"Fucking bastard," Geto's father mutters at the white-haired man, "Money-rolling cunts," he slurs all the way out of the doors. They close with a soft thud, leaving the hall in a dead silence.

Suguru looks for them - your eyes, and that smile that seems to perpetually grace your lips - but when his eyes finally land on you, he finds it gone. You mouth something he doesn't quite catch before disappearing from the stage exit. He can't do it; he can't play anymore. His hand freezes against the strings.

You finally made a fool of yourself, Suguru.

You wait outside the Grand Hall doors, body shivering with anticipation when the crowd finally starts to leave the hall.

"Dad!" You shout when you see him, making your way through the people, heels clacking against the marble until you grab your father's arm, "Dad! It was horrible, wasn't it?"

"Hmm? Who'd you come with dear?" Your father inquires.

"Leave it, Dad. He was horrible, right?"

He looks at you a long time before saying, "It's a shame for that boy, the beginning was perfect."

-

10 years later

When he's conducting, anyone would agree that Suguru Geto is breathtaking. The moment he dropped playing the cello ten years prior, every one of his admirers had almost lost hope - that is, until he picked up the baton. A true genius, they'd say, forgetting his last horrible performance, which graced the headlines for a long time after he ditched it in the middle, and how he disappeared for the next two years after it. Lonley? Gods no, he's a busy man, or perhaps struggling with all his greatness to find a mind akin to his own.

But only the small orchestra that played under him knew that all these words were just flattery - he was cold and unforgiving of any and all mistakes, and he really, truly despised the violinists.

Or he did, until the new violinist ran late to the first rehearsal of the year.

[eightyonekilograms]

I went to the Apple Store yesterday to try the scripted demo of their VR headset. My overall impression is that it's the best possible execution of what might be a fundamentally flawed idea.

The passthrough video is pretty incredible. It's somewhat dimmer than reality, and the color accuracy is just OK, but it's more than good enough to feel like you're looking through clear displays at the real world. I'm told the passthrough on the Quest 3 is even better, but haven't tried that and can't comment. One thing is that there is a weird motion blur effect when you turn your head, I'm not sure if that's a display tech limitation or introduced deliberately by the software as a workaround for a different display tech limitation.

The resolution is 4K per eye, which, as mentioned, is more than enough for a powerful sense of presence in the real world. One of the nifty bits of the demo was when you turn the dial to tune out the world and suddenly you're sitting by a mountain lake, and the feeling of actually being there is overwhelming. The dystopian implications of needing a VR headset to sit at a mountain lake aside, it would be cool to have one just to have your office be anywhere you can imagine. Not $3500-before-tax cool, but cool.

Wow sports leagues are going to love this thing. I don't give a shit about sports and even I was thinking, "If the NBA put a stereoscopic camera courtside and sold you games for $50 a pop, I'd absolutely buy that"

But 4K per eye is not enough to do work, not even close. The experience of using normal computer-y applications on this was not unlike plugging your laptop in to a TV that's at the normal TV distance. You can do it, it works, but it's not anyone's preferred way of working. Text is amazingly legible, but only at sizes that are equivalent to having a single webpage take up your entire 4K monitor at normal monitor distance.

It is not particularly comfortable. Part of this might be that the store demo makes you use the "catcher's mitt" strap, which only goes around the back of your head and so gravity has to be countered only by the pressure of the thing against your face. Reviewers have said that if you use the other band that goes over your head the situation is better, but still.

A lot of early comments were making fun of Apple for having the battery be an external thing you put in your pocket and attach with a wire, but I think that's just fine: we all walk around with giant batteries in our pockets anyway, and anything you can do to have less weight on your head is a Good Thing. But then Apple took all those weight savings and spent them on making the stupid thing out of metal and glass instead of polycarbonate. It's nuts! It's like if you made a car that was 500kg lighter because you invented magical tech for keeping the engine somewhere else, and then went "great! with all the weight savings now we can build the body out of lead". Apple, you don't need to fear plastic. Plastic is good! Plastic built modern civilization.

You control it with a combination of eye tracking and pinch gestures. This is the main piece of evidence of my "best version of a bad idea" thesis: it works really, really well; so well that I can tell this is probably an evolutionary dead end. It's just fine— miraculous, even— for dragging windows around and doing the basic stuff the in-store demo has you do. It's amazing that you can more or less have your hands anywhere, including on your lap, and the recognition works perfectly (by contrast with the HoloLens I tried 5 or so years ago where the gesture recognition was total crap). But it's immediately obvious that you can never do serious manipulation of your computing environment with this.

The takeaway is that it's incredible for passive consumption of specifically-made media, assuming that ever exists at scale. But it will be a long time before we're gogged in like Hiro Protagonist to do our office jobs this way.