#why yes I do watch zero punctuation how could you tell

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

talk | myg | nyangnyang au

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Your husband Min Yoongi declares that he needs to be more of a whore. Nyan?!

warnings: discussion about sex life; husband!Yoongi x wife!reader with their pet white cat Nyangnyang; heavy make-out session; domestic + fluffy; nyangnyang!au but can be read alone tbh it's just a husband and wife chatting about their sex life + the antics of their peanut gallery lol

--

You didn’t quite believe in soulmates or fate, but you were sure that Min Yoongi was the love of your life.

“I think I need to be more of a whore.”

Precisely why.

Wait, what?

You looked up from wiping down the coffee table and stared at him.

“What?”

“Nyan.”

Your husband was sitting on the sofa. An attempt to rest, except the furball you both affectionately called cutie had immediately rocketed into his lap and began rolling around, loudly demanding pets and leaving white fur all over your husband’s black sweatpants. Nyangnyang the cat had zero concept of personal space. Your husband had a problem with saying no to those he loved. Her head was in his large palm as the other rubbed her belly. White fur was getting everywhere. Loud purrs punctuated the silence.

“Do you think our sex life is boring?” was Yoongi’s follow-up on his previous declaration.

You folded up the polishing cloth and left it on the glass table, figuring this was going to be more than a yes-or-no conversation. Strands of black hair fell past his temples, framing his black metal glasses and sharp dark brown eyes. He looked at you with a calm expression as if he was talking about the weather and not about how he thought he needed to be more of a whore.

You paused. “I don’t think so, but I figured the slowdown was because you worked on that important album. You said it was very emotionally draining.” Your husband was a music producer. He wasn’t allowed to talk about what he was working on, which was why he told his wife everything. Hey, his primary loyalty was to his wife. That and you weren’t going to tell a soul anyway. That would require social interaction. Ew. “You’ve been sleeping a lot and watching TV all day even after you wrapped it up.”

Nyangnyang rolled around and covered Yoongi’s thighs with more snow-white cat hair. You used to keep a lint roller in the living room until Yoongi realized the cat had been knocking it down and licking the sticky paper like an adhesive heathen. Then you switched to other types of lint-and-fur collectors. The cat still licked the tacky parts. Sigh. Now they had to be kept in the closet. You and Yoongi just accepted that you both would be covered in cat hair twenty-four-seven.

Welp.

He accepted the fluffy tail smacking his stomach and scratched behind Nyangnyang’s ears while watching you carefully. At least his baggy t-shirt was white. You stayed kneeling on the floor, curiously tilting your head, positioned on the other side of the smoked glass and black marble coffee table.

Finally, Yoongi sighed. “I think I need to try harder. I’m feeling outdone by you lately.”

You frowned. “Sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”

For some reason, the cat stood up, circling Yoongi’s lap again before flopping down. You noticed his pale hand hover over his nuts before Nyangnyang threw herself down again with a dramatic princess floof. You could relate.

Heh.

His eye twitched. “Watch it,” he muttered, casting his eyes downward.

The cat gave no fucks and shoved her pink nose into Yoongi’s palm.

“What about last night?” you continued. “You came four times. Your dick felt great.”

Your husband gave you the side-eye. “You know, there’s a person attached to this dick.”

You grinned.

He scoffed. “Just because you were into the dick doesn’t mean you were into me.”

Your grin disappeared. “What are you talking about? I only think about you during sex. There’s no one else I want to think about.”

But as soon as the words came out of your mouth, you could tell that wasn’t what Yoongi was getting at. He stuck his tongue into his cheek and his brows furrowed, glancing away for a moment to collect his thoughts. His hand on the cat’s belly stopped. Nyangnyang, being a little shit, kicked his wrist with her back paws. His hand started moving again without looking. The furball went back to purring up a storm. Your husband winced and tried not to show it. Despite his longer, lustrous hair and slender frame, Min Yoongi was a manly man at heart that enjoyed woodworking, basketball, and UFC as much as he enjoyed music, fashion, and picking out aesthetic living room pillows.

“I’ve been relying a little too much on you being sexy and leading everything without contributing myself,” he finally said, sounding a bit rueful in his deep and raspy voice.

You heavily restrained chiming in that all he needed to contribute was an open mouth and a hard dick. Good commentary, wrong timing. It was pretty clear what he was saying and it was pretty clear that you should shut up for now and listen.

Difficult for a smartass, but you’d manage.

“I don’t feel that you’re having the same experience I am. Just because you like being in charge doesn’t mean I should step back,” he went on, verbally working through his thought process and letting you in on it. You were a bit surprised hearing those words, as it was word-for-word something you mentioned before, although that was years ago when something similar happened. It had been you to bring it up then. He listens, huh. Yoongi ticked his head, his glasses reflecting light. “I feel I’ve gotten a little lazy. And, with it, been too in my head recently. I don’t like this feeling. I’m not performing well. I need to be more into it.”

It was a first for him to be so direct about this. Usually, you would bring it up for some reason or the other. He was always willing to talk about it, but, well. You had always had a more… intense… libido compared to Yoongi and, although some would argue it was a good problem to have, he often had to rise to the occasion (pun intended). Something he wanted to do and did so without hesitation, but that also meant that he was more sensitive to his own intrusive thoughts whereas you were too absorbed with fucking to notice any. Sex was when you were free, yet Yoongi had reasonable worries that interfered sometimes. You had sensed the tension last night and figured some fucking would help relax him. But it turned out the issue related to sex itself. Welp. Still, it was nice to hear him communicate with you.

“So… how would being a whore help?” you asked.

Another bombastic side-eye. “I meant being more actively involved into the sex. Acting like one.”

You raised an eyebrow with a straight face even though you were cackling inside. “Do you even know how to act like a whore? You’ve never been slutty in your entire life.” Added a little dismissive hand wave with your act. Just to be extra infuriating. “You think acting like a slut is so easy? Darling, being a whore is a way of life.”

Yoongi stared at you.

Blank expression.

“You’re so freaking annoying.”

The tip of your tongue grazed the edge of your smirk.

“Naow…”

Your husband rolled his eyes behind his glasses. Hot. Nyangnyang seemed to sense the kind of tension a cat wanted no part of and promptly abandoned Yoongi’s lap, marching off to laze somewhere else. Not that her parents noticed because they were too busy making googly eyes at each other.

“It’s the middle of the day,” Yoongi said quietly.

“Time of day never stopped a whore,” you countered.

His expression was a mix between pained and irritated. Perfect. Heavy sigh, halfway lifting himself off the couch before you started laughing, breaking the tension.

“I’m kidding,” you chuckled, flippant, standing up as well. “Have you gotten a little lazy? Hmm, maybe. But maybe I’ve been overbearing too, since all I think about is enjoying your dick until I’m worn out. I probably shouldn’t go that far, hah… Yoongi?”

He grabbed your wrist.

You paused, fixating your gaze on him. His direct stare. Dark eyes shadowed behind clear lenses. Gleaming porcelain skin. You were both in casual clothes for lounging at home. Your lavender sweatpants with a matching crop top weren’t exactly screaming sex. But, of course, you would confess that you always made sure to cress cutely for yourself.

You frowned. “We haven’t showered yet.”

He shrugged. He had reasonably broad shoulders for such a pretty face. Fucking sexy as hell. You were allowed to think that because you were his wife. “You don’t have to go down on me.” Then he let go of your wrist to reach behind your head and tilt it back, the base of your skull against the heel of his palm.

“What?”

Then you sucked in a tight breath as you felt the tip of his hot tongue slide up your neck.

His warm breath spread over your skin, sending a wave of chills throughout your chest.

“Didn’t you tell me sex is more than just the orgasm?” he murmured, heating the saliva clinging to your throat. “I completely agree.”

Under normal circumstances you would have had the smartass comment ready, was this the right situation to admit that the wife was always right, but you didn’t even have a chance to glance at him before his lips started feathering up the side of your neck, his deft hands in your hair, licking, kissing, his familiar scent invading your nose, his soft black hair against your cheek, every action tantalizing your senses.

It was then that you realized, yes, you did miss this.

As a married couple that lived together, you both had the luxury of skipping steps. You could get into the action any time and that was exciting in its own right. You also had the natural tendency to immediately get into it, using everything in your arsenal all at once. Speed, accuracy, precision, multiple sensations all over, forcing all of your past lovers to chase to keep up with you and not giving them time to react or prepare themselves. There wasn’t much time to pull on the leash, so to speak.

A whore always wanted to have sex, right?

So, acting like one meant…

Your hands slipped under his t-shirt and pulled him closer by the small of his back.

His teeth nicked the space under your ear and you shivered before moaning, feeling the tingling sensation of sucking skin and soft lips. It really was delightfully pleasant to be caught off guard by your favorite person.

“You… You’re saying I act like a whore…?” you gasped, still playing around.

His lips grazed your ear. Voice low, direct.

“You’d be one if I didn’t catch you and shackle you with a ring.”

Touché.

“What’s wrong with that?” you bit back.

He moved his head and you gazed at each other with one eye, lashes framing dark orbs that were the window to knowing each other far too well.

“Nothing. That’s why I’m trying to be more like you,” Yoongi purred.

Your lower halves collided. Layers of clothing and heated friction, his hardness pressing against your thighs, and then his lips caught yours in a fervent kiss. No different in the level of passion but you could tell he was different from last night. More mindful depth. Only focused on the moment. Tongue against tongue. His hands all over, sliding up into your hair and down your shoulder, gasping into your throat as your fingernails turned inward, scratching down his back mid lip-lock.

“Nyao!”

There was a flurry of wild flailing sounds and then a thud.

You both stopped kissing to stare into the bedroom. The door was open, as it usually was. A whizzing snow-white blur shot out of sight. The bed was partially visible from this angle. The right lower corner of the covers was messy and pulled out. You stared at it, trying to make sense of what the fuck just happened, still clutching your husband in your death grasp.

You blinked slowly.

“Nyangnyang, did you…”

“… Fail to jump onto the bed?” Yoongi finished for you with just as much disbelief in his voice.

Absolute silence.

“Hasn’t she made that jump hundreds of times?” you wondered out loud.

Yoongi grumbled. You turned your head back. He shrugged.

“Maybe it’s a sign to move to the bed.”

Hmmmm. You didn’t miss the want in his otherwise bland tone. “Why rush?” You let go of him even though your husband’s eyes were narrowing to death glare status. “It’s the weekend. We have all day. Besides, the rice will be done soon, so we should eat lunch.” As a very devious wife, you could tell Yoongi did not want to play this game but he also wanted you to give in first. He kept a firm hand on your waist.

“Hm, you’re right.”

“Yup,” was your chipper reply.

He gave you this look.

You grinned. Waved your finger as you chided him. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you dessert is after your meal? You can’t spoil your appetite with suga beforehand.” You bared the brunt of a criminally offensive side-eye. Worth it.

Then, Yoongi smiled.

Uh oh.

You had been with Yoongi long enough to know that behind that simple smile was a lot of cunning.

“But of course, my love.”

Well, a lazy Saturday just got a lot more interesting.

--

drabbles masterpost | masterpost

[sirspud]

A Vulgar First Impression of Coromon

Playing Pokémon games recently has been something akin to hiring a fairy princess to perform for your daughter’s birthday parties. The first few times she came around were fun, she made all the kids laugh and play their games, but now the princess has grown lazy, idly watching YouTube while disinterestedly mumbling the same four or five lines she’s been spouting for the past twenty-three years. But you keep hiring her regardless, even though your daughter’s trying to point out that she’s not into princesses anymore because she’s pushing 30, and you’re starting to think she might not be worth three hundred bucks a visit. And she’s starting to smell.

So as the Pokémon community sits and waits for the Diamond and Pearl remakes, because what is Pokémon if not a prolonged exercise in nostalgia bait, some indie developers have been trying their hand at doing Pokémon, but properly this time. First came along TemTem, which was, “Like Pokémon but online”, and now there’s Coromon, which is “Like Pokémon” and that’s it.

I’ll admit, I was attracted to Coromon not because of any underlying nostalgia or a want to replay Pokemon, but because the devs put out a free demo for the game, which is a rarity in this modern age of Early Access and delayed release dates. Intrigued, I decided to take a closer look, to see which warts they cut off and which ones they allowed to fester.

The game starts with our protagonist waking up in a small town with his mother about to go get his OR HER first Pokémon. So far, so standard. But where Coromon differs is that you aren’t some apple-cheeked youngster with a criminally neglectful parent, but a college kid who’s been selected for a prestigious university that studies Pokémon – sorry – “Coromon”. And incidentally, Pokémon scores the first point for having a name that actually means something. They’re monstrous creatures that can be caught in a ball and put in your pocket – “Pocket”-“Monsters”. What the fuck does Coromon mean? Because Coro only has a meaning if it’s in Italian, and I’m pretty sure these things aren’t meant to be called “Choir Monsters!”

Anyway, a dude in a wheelchair who was apparently the guy in charge gives you a magic glove and tells you about these glowing elemental orbs, which are important for some reason I wasn’t clear on, and he sends you out on a journey to collect more by finding six elemental titans and – as far as I understood the process – murdering them and stealing their essence in the name of science.

We choose our first Pokémon from a choice between the fire-type, the water-type or the… ice type? And then, we set out on our journey to fight trainers, make new friends, and shuffle about in the grass for an hour because your gobblefrog isn’t level sixty-two yet.

The first thing that struck me about Choirmon is that it really isn’t being coy with its desire to ape Pokémon. Everything, right down to the statistics of each monster, is identical to the way Pokémon does things. The types have the same names, evolving is still called evolving, it even gives you berries and other items for your monsters to hold. You can battle monsters in the wild, blundering into tall grass to scare them out of hiding and capturing them after beating them into a bloody pulp, or you can battle monsters owned by other trainers in unregulated dog fights. So it isn’t trying to be like Pokémon, it is Pokémon. It stabbed Pokémon in an alleyway, cut off its skin and is now swanning about performing a perverted Face/Off act.

Now, I love Pokémon just as much as the next guy, but I’m no deluded fanboy. Pokémon is not perfect. In fact, it’s a game with a lot of flaws. And in its desire to imitate, Collectamon inherits a lot of the same problems that Pokémon does. Using items, for example, takes up an entire turn, and while this can be forgiven in a party-based RPG, where you have other actors to make up for the guy losing a turn, you can only put out one monster at a time, and using anything other than a healing item in the thick of battle just makes you an open target.

Trying to think strategically is also a lost cause, because again, it’s fucking Pokémon. The only strategy is “use whatever the opponent is weak to” or “mash attack until one of you dies”. And while you could argue that Pokémon’s strong point is its simplicity, it does mean that winning a fight is more a matter of patience than a matter of skill.

At time of writing, I’ve been playing the demo for 7 hours. An impressive run-time for a demo, to be sure, and that’s only up to the first boss. Incidentally, it’s in that area that we meet the evil team of this game, because Pokémon had evil teams, and so must we! I don’t even understand their motivation, or who these people even are! They’re presented to us as if we already know what their deal is and why we should hate them. All I know about them is their name and the fact that they like to hang around in caves. Pitch-black ones that you navigate by wandering around aimlessly getting lost in the samey-looking environments.

Really, guys? You thought it’d be a good idea to preserve one of the shittiest areas in Pokémon? Actually, they follow it up with an even shittier level that plays like the gym leaders from the annoying puzzle gyms got together and tried to devise the most efficient backtracking machine, culminating in a game of Mastermind out of fucking nowhere.

Well, so far I’ve just been going on about how the game is the same as Pokémon. What’s different? Well, for a start, each monster has a well of stamina points that they spend to use their special abilities, limiting how many times you can use those moves before your monster has to have a little rest. So you have to weigh up whether or not you want to waste stamina using that really powerful move or whether you want to keep a steady pace with the weaker moves. Except, Pokémon already did that with each move having limited uses. So we haven’t gone anywhere. All we’ve done is paint the walls a different colour.

Erm… what else? Well, your character speaks for one thing, despite you being able to name them and customise them to your liking. I think we tried the talking player avatar thing back in Fallout 4, and it was just as unimmersive back then too. It means that you don’t really get to impose your own character on the avatar, because the avatar makes his OR HER own decisions without your input, accepting every single quest that gets handed to you without even flirting with a dialogue box because it means oh so much to them to help this random faceless NPC, whose unique name and appearance does nothing to make him feel any less forgettable.

…Ah, that’s something different. There’s a quest system. I’m not sure why. In an open world game, quest systems give the game a structure and a reason to explore the world. But, as we’ve established, Crackmon is Pokémon, and so progression is strictly linear. It’s hard to tell just how much it’ll impact the game, since it’s just a four-hour demo, but a quest system like this can easily turn into a to-do list of tedious tasks for rewards that you don’t need. One of the sidequests early on had me capture a pissweasel for some guy, only for the bloke’s mentor to smack him across the head and have him hand the pissweasel right back! This is the very definition of wasting my fucking time! The only reason I caught that pissweasel was for your quest, and I don’t want to deal with its incontinence issues!

Another way that Cloacamon tries to differentiate itself is though its Potential mechanic. Get this – whenever your pet cockcrab reaches a certain XP interval, you get to directly increase its stats by a total of 3 points, on top of the cockcrab’s normal stat increases, so you don’t have to muck around with effort values and breeding to optimise your stats. Each monster also has a “Potent” and “Perfect” form, with each form reaching these intervals sooner than the normal version of the cockcrab. So the game encourages you to abandon your monsters frequently, exchanging them for their shiny, better versions, which I would argue goes against the whole point of Pokémon. At its core, Pokémon is a game about going on a journey and creating a bond with your tag team of beasts, a bond which is impossible to form if you’re encouraged to chuck your friends in the bin the second you find their better, newer models.

I could go down my list of subtle differences, most of which are quality of life changes, like the ability to evolve mid-battle, or the ability to swap out different moves instead of permanently forgetting them, or the fact that you use HM moves yourself instead of teaching them to your Pokémon. But I’d rather finish this first impression by once again re-iterating that Cocaniumon is just Pokémon. It’s not writing any new rules, it’s not even reworking old ones, and it seems content to merely lie on its back and spin its wheels. And while you could argue that Pokémon’s formula doesn’t need to be changed, I would argue right back that not having the ambition to change has long been part of the fucking problem!

If all you want is more Pokémon but with less bullshit, then go ahead and give Coromon a try. Personally, I wasn’t motivated to continue playing past the first boss fight. Part of the problem was that I had no idea what I was ultimately working towards. Collect all the titan essences, so that we can research them! Research them for what? So we can finally uncover the mystery behind shitty Netflix sci-fi originals?

[peachyteabuck]

bitter to the taste

summary: after a long mission, natasha and steve return to find you’ve broken their number one rule. 

pairing: natasha romanoff x steve rogers x reader

words: 2,045

trigger warnings: brat taming, degradation, punishment (spanking), dirty talk, fingering, orgasm control

notes: this is my birthday present to @domromanoff! not only a wonderful writer, they’re a fantastic friend and the owner to a simply adorable kitten. enjoy!

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

You cling to Steve’s pants leg, expertly manicured nails gripping into the fabric as you tuck your face behind his calf. The man sighs as he feels you sniffle against the expensive fabric, doing your best to hide from the wrath of the woman standing just in front of the sitting man.

“You know how I feel about rule-breaking, Steve,” Natasha sighs, looking between her husband and your trembling form below him. “If we don’t punish her, she’s just going to break more rules.”

Steve tsks, leaning down so he can pet at your hair. “Oh, baby, our little girl wouldn’t do such a thing,” he turns to you, sticking his bottom lip out to mimic your pout. “No, you love following directions from Daddy, don’t you baby girl?”

You grin up at him, playing with the hem of his pants in an attempt to look extra cute. “Yes, Daddy!”

Natasha scowls, shaking her head. “That’s bullshit and we fucking know it, Steve. You saw how wet her panties were when we came home. It’s obvious she touched herself without permission!”

The man just rolls his eyes, continuing to rub his thumb into your temple. “Babe, when we set that rule at least one of us always been there whenever her desperate little cunt needed us. Even if she broke it, we’ve been gone so often we can’t really blame her, can we?”

Your core heats at his words – speaking about you as if you weren’t digging your perfectly manicured nails into his muscular calf and could hear everything they were both saying. You love it when he does that, when he gives you no choice in whatever he chooses to do, when he makes you feel all small and dumb as his cock fucks in and out of you without mercy.

Natasha rolls her eyes, heeled foot still tapping against the hardwood floor at a tempo that makes your head spin and your whole body clutch at Steve’s leg even harder than before. You’re not sure why becoming something akin to a needy koala would protect you from the wrath of the redhead, but it’s still your only hope for avoiding your ass spanked raw – even if its chance of working is slim to none.

“Steve, we absolutely can,” she bites back – stomping closer towards you as you bury your face into Steve’s calf. At the least second she crouches down, her body awash with a faux caring demeanor. “Do you want me to be mean baby?” she coos, pouting her bottom lip. “You want me to tie you down so you can’t move, can’t squirm or writhe when it gets too much? Is that it? Do you want me to edge you all night, edge you until it hurts and then ruin every single orgasm I let you have until you cry so pretty for me?”

You shake your head, tentatively moving so that you can look at her with your own large, round eyes that silently plead for mercy. For a moment you have hope that it’ll work, that she’ll go easy on you or even give you what you want. But it’s only a second later that you realize you were wrong – very wrong.

Steve exhales deeply as Natasha reaches out to grab you by the hair – his actions relaxed as you yelp in reaction to the sharp pain spreading from your scalp to the base of your spine. She drags you through the large house, ignoring your whines as Steve follows close behind. His stride is casual, almost bored – he’s witnessed this back and forth before, seen the fire in Natasha’s eyes and fat, watery tears from fall from yours as they beg Steve for mercy, pity, anything. It’s unwavering – the look you give him – even as Natasha sits on the edge of their shared king-sized bed with her feet flat on the floor, bending you over her knee as she pins both your hands behind your back with one hand wrapped around where she’s crossed them on top of each other.

Steve sits next to his wife so that your head is resting in his lap, gazing down at you an unfortunate, disgraceful painting his face. There’s nothing there for you to pull at, nothing you can manipulate to get you out of the compromising position you’ve found yourself in, even as Natasha begins one of her famous punishments.

She doesn’t both undressing you before she begins, flipping your white tennis skirt up over your ass and tucking it under your hands before pulling your matching cotton panties as far as they’ll go to reveal your bare ass. Her spanks are hard and succinct, never stopping to coo over your tears or rub at the heated parts of your ass. You keep position, though, keep your arms behind your back as your wide, tear-filled eyes beg Steve for intervention, for praise, for something. At this point you’d even accept him degrading you – a job normally left to Natasha.

Unfortunately, it’s become obvious that tonight is different than the others – Natasha and Steve particularly stressed from the bullshit Tony handed down to them since the billionaire is unable to manage is own emotions weaning their capacities for your bullshit down to near nothingness. You consider sending the man a strongly worded email as the spanks enter the double digits, the pain causing you to weep openly into the fabric of the pants you once clutched for support. You count to twenty-four before she’s rubbing a rough hand into the heated skin and commanding you to thank her.

When it comes out more mumbled, more hushes than she would like, Natasha immediately grabs your hair to yank your head straight back.

“Say it again,” she hisses through grit teeth, ignoring your cries of pain as her other hand comes down to leave a quick smack! to your face. “I don’t care if it hurts - I want to hear you.”

Your voice is high-pitched and desperate “Thank you, Mommy!”

“Aw, so our little slut can follow directions,” Natasha coos, her voice tinged with laughter that should make you feel much more ashamed than it does horny. “Too bad she has to be beaten into it.”

She punctuates her words with a final harsh SLAP! against your dripping pussy, eliciting another high-pitched scream that only dies when Steve begins to pet over your face and hair to calm you down.

“Nat, do you always have to be so harsh?” he sighs, wiping a few tears that stain your cheeks.

The woman in question just grins, ghosting her fingers over your abused skin and nearly laughing as you twitch under touch. “Is there any other way to be?”

Steve rolls his eyes at his wife’s dramatics, but still manhandles you into his lap at her direction – pressing your back to his chest as your breasts rise and fall with your heavy breaths. He knows what Natasha wants, positioning his legs over yours to keep them open while one of his hands holds your skirt up so reveal your now-soaked panties, the cool air hitting nearly-transparent fabric and sending a feeling down your spine that makes you moan.

Natasha’s eyes zero in on your trembling cunt, smirking as she looks up to see your face heating up while you try to hide behind your hands. “You’re so needy, aren’t you? And all it took was some discipline and now you’re a little crying mess, all small and obedient for Daddy and Mommy…”

She gives Steve a small nod, giving him the cue to push your panties to the side, her grin getting impossibly wider as you melt against him.

“You’re our pretty little toy, aren’t you?” Natasha murmurs, watching as his fingers rub circles around your clit. “Our cute little toy with cute little whines and whimpers…”

Steve grins as well as your wanton moans fill the bedroom, leaving kisses on your temple as your pussy tightens around Natasha’s fingers. His voice is sweet, filled with love – and it makes his words all that much filthier. “Such a pathetic little toy for us, aren’t you baby? Just our dumb little toy…” Your fervent nodding, your mindless agreement with his degradation of you – it makes his cock strain even harder in his pants. “Don’t need to think at all…just be soft and pretty and do what we say, don’t you baby?”

You cry out as Natasha begins fucking her fingers in and out of you even harder – your face scrunching up as your legs twitch where they’re held in place. “Y-yes Daddy! I’m your dumb little baby!”

Your cries get even more pathetic, though, when Natasha pulls her fingers out of you to use that hand to slap you once more – leaving a trail of your own slick against your cheek. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to,” she snaps, ignoring your cries as her fingers slip back inside of you. “It’s a shame you’re stupid…at least you’re pretty.”

Her words shouldn’t make your head swim like it does – shouldn’t make heat pool between your legs as she fits one more finger inside of you, working in tandem with Steve to illicit humiliating wet sounds from your cunt.

“You want me to fill this wet little pussy don’t you?” Natasha murmurs, more speaking to herself than to you. “You want Steve and I to fill your filthy little cunt? Want to feel both of us inside of your tight little hole?”

Your eyes are wide and pleading, desperate for something – anything.

But then Natasha sighs, and that’s always a bad sign. “It’s too bad you’re a bad little slut.”

Yup. There it is.

“You’re going to come on my fingers,” you immediately moan in anticipation but it’s almost immediately cut off with a yelp as another SLAP is landed on your pussy with Natasha’s free hand. “And then you’re on no-touch for a week. You’ll be Daddy and I’s adorable little fleshlight until we say otherwise.”

You gasp and shoot forward, the reality of your future crashing down on you at once. “N-no Mommy! Please! Please I’ll do anything please don’t put me on no touch Mom-!”

You’re cut off by one of Steve’s large hands covering your mouth, pulling you against his chest and holding you in place.

Natasha smiles up at him, eyes knowing as you get tighter and tighter around her fingers. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it babe?”

Steve just rolls his eyes as she speaks down to you, her sweet voice an incredibly hot juxtaposition to her words “It’s so easy to make you beg, isn’t it? So easy to make you into a desperate little whore? All you little brats are all the same, you act out and do whatever you want and the second someone threatens a modicum of structure or punishment and you fall apart…”

Her words trail off as she realizes how close you are, as she sees each muscle in your body tense while your hands tangle in the sheets and your jaw goes slack and your brow furrows and

“Do it,” she leans forward to whisper into your temple, your head tucked under Steve’s chin as your eyes roll to the back of your head. “C’mon, baby girl, c’mon – you can do it, you can come on from Mommy and Daddy’s fingers all over your pretty little pussy…”

You finally – finally reach your peak with a moan that sounds more animal than human, Steve holding your trembling body as you shake near-violently, your cunt gushing onto the sheets below as your already soaked panties and the seat of your skirt become drenched with your slick and sweat. It’s disgusting but so hot, and makes you pant even harder as your lungs claw at your throat for air.

Steve moves his legs so that you can curl into his lap, whole body folding into itself as Natasha moves closer to hold your face with both of her soaked hands. “Go to sleep baby,” she murmurs between kisses. “We’ll discuss your full punishment tomorrow.”

As unconsciousness overwhelms your senses, a sense of relief floods your veins as the pleasure subsides. Natasha only negotiates when she knows she’s lost…especially when it comes to you and Steve.

[sluttyminghao]

i blame 🦦 anon for this, 100000%.

you were on all fours, ass in the air, waiting for wonwoo to start fucking you.

"can you move any slower," you groaned as you looked behind at him.

"make one more noise and you won't get anything from me tonight," you heard his deep voice.

you rolled your eyes as you pushed your ass into his clothed erection and began rubbing your slick folds up and down the front of his jeans, leaving a wet spot in your wake.

"so you're just not going to do anything about this thing in your pants?"

wonwoo grunted as he gripped your hips to still you before spanking one of your cheeks loudly. you let out a whimper before saying, "is that all you got. i was expecting more."

you heard wonwoo unbuckling his belt and his pants were off before you could say anything else. you felt him spreading your cheeks and you turned back to catch him eyeing your wetness.

"are you just going to keep staring?" you pushed your ass further up.

he spat into his palm and pumped his length a couple of times, "open that smart mouth of yours one more time and you're going to get it from me."

you stayed silent as you waited and finally he ran his head between your slit and teased your entrance. you clenched around nothing as you anticipated the stretch that was coming.

he pushed into you painfully slowly and you gripped the sheets below you, feeling the burn between your legs from his size. "f-fuck... you're so wet and tight." he muttered under his breath.

you moved slightly to try and get him to start thrusting but he pushed your head down into the mattress. "did you forget who's in charge here baby girl?"

"me obviously," you goaded as you bucked your hips back.

"let's see where this little act of yours is going to take you," he growled as he picked up his pace and started to slam his hips into your ass mercilessly.

all you could do was moan uncontrollably as you came undone under him, unable to form coherent sentences.

"let me hear you say something smart again," he continued to fuck deep into you, the tip of his cock hitting your womb.

"i-is this the best you can do?" you managed to get out as your grip on the sheets tightened.

his hand found purchase in your hair and he tugged you up roughly so your back was flushed against his chest. you let out a gasp as he grabbed one of your breast and brought his mouth down to your neck and left a few wet, opened mouth kisses.

"do you want to repeat that?" he whispered into your ear between each hard, sharp thrust. the contrast between his voice and his action sending shivers down your spine.

"i know you fuck me better than this."

he brought one hand down to rub vicious circles into your clit while hr thrust into you relentlessly. you whimpered as your thighs began to tremble, clenching around him to let him know you were close.

"p-please wonwoo, i'm coming." you begged.

wonwoo moved his hand away from your clit as his hips stilled. you quickly grabbed his wrist to bring him back to you so his hand cupped your pussy. you ground down on the heel of his palm a couple of times as you let out soft cusses.

"why should i let you cum?" he asked with a smirk. "do you think you deserve to cum?"

"you're being so mean to me. i'll be good now, i promise."

"i'll show you what's mean," he growled as he pushed you back down into the mattress and holding you there by your neck as he started jackhammering into you.

his thighs slapped your ass loudly and your skin burnt. your screams were muffled by the mattress below you as your body continued flying forward from how hard wonwoo was pounding into you.

"do you want to cum?" he asked, releasing his hold on your neck.

"y-yes, please. let me cum," you pleaded breathlessly.

"tell me who's in charge here?" he punctuated his question with a deep thrust.

"you, wonwoo. you are." the coil in your abdomen threatened to snap.

"who owns this pretty pussy?" he asked as one hand reached down to slap your clit.

you flinched at the contact, "you. only you."

"good girl, now cum on my cock baby."

finally you released, your juices dripping out of your used hole and down your thighs as you convulsed below him.

he continued thrusting into your sensitive heat, chasing his own high.

his hips started to stutter and you knew he was coming, with a final thrust you felt him shooting his load into you.

he watched as his cum spill out of you as your limbs gave way to your weight, causing you to lay flat on the mattress while you tried to catch your breath.

"remember who's in charge here when you try to walk tomorrow."

i'm becoming nastier by the mINUTE but i have zero regrets... 👁️👄👁️

-🐝

[clumsyclifford]

dearly depressed and brokenhearted (i’d like to let you know that boys cry too)

it’s been a hot sec since i’ve properly posted a fic on tumblr but whatever i have the time and this one isn’t too long

anyway shoutout to @httpsgfg for the idea for the so much therapy playlist, which i somehow got through the entire three and a half hours of whilst writing/posting this. also shoutout to @rotten-candie for helping me pick a title & summary

to be perfectly clear: this is a gen fic. it is centered on a friendship. i’m not in charge of you and if you’re so inclined to read it as pre-slash then i can’t stop you, but if it’s all the same to you, it’s a friendship fic to me

tw i guess for angst, possibly hints at depression, crying, etc there are better tags on ao3 if you need them

title from how do you feel? by the maine

read here on ao3

-

It’s Saturday, or maybe Monday. Luke has stopped keeping track.

Rain is coming down, slowly but surely. Going outside is sure to end in getting soaked to the bone, probably shivering. Especially if Luke doesn’t bring a jacket.

He goes anyway.

The chill in the air wraps around him like clingfilm, settling under his skin. For a moment outside it would be bearable, but Luke plans to be outside a bit longer than that. He’s going to be cold. He is probably going to lose feeling in his fingers. It would be best to go back inside. Grab some gloves. Maybe a warm coat. Drizzling rain follows the wind and sprays in his face. Luke takes the front steps, one, two, onto the damp grass, which gives under his footsteps. Another. Another. Water soaks through the front of his shoes; his socks are going to get wet and soon he’ll lose feeling in his toes as well. 

He’s not trying to go numb or anything. Maybe he’s a bit of a masochist, but who isn’t? It’s not like the cold is going to give him permanent damage. He’ll go back inside when he can’t handle it anymore, but he has time before he reaches his threshold. Outside is the only place Luke can possibly fathom being right now. Everywhere else is wrong. Too bright or too loud or somehow otherwise just wrong.

Here, in the elements, his hoodie barely protects his face from the biting wind. Sleeves over his hands only do so much, even if he curls the ends of them into his palms. Jeans are not the right trousers to wear when it’s below freezing. The rain is only making it all worse.

Luke keeps walking.

He keeps his head down, watching his feet as they carry him forward, one in front of the other with no clear destination except away. Away will eventually circle around and lead him home again — he’s not trying to permanently escape. Something about the rain feels like a reset button, and that might be exactly what Luke needs. 

The thing is, this walk is supposed to be clearing Luke’s head, not weighing it down. Not weighing him down. Nothing is really wrong. If Luke tries to parse through his day, or the last couple of hours, he could probably single out a couple of things that might be to blame — calling home always makes him a little more fragile; call ended digs into his chest every time in a way that feels tragically, unjustifiably final — but he’s tired of having a reason for feeling heavy. Sometimes life is just hard. That’s the issue with the question what’s wrong, Luke thinks, blinking at the lights reflecting off the glistening road. Often, nothing is wrong. Does something have to be wrong for me to feel bad? he wants to say, except nobody has even asked him, and this entire conversation is happening inside his head.

Even in his head he’s creating problems where there aren’t any. Awesome.

A chill has taken up permanent residence in Luke’s body. He curls inward, trying to pretend like the wind isn’t blowing around him, like the rain isn’t stinging his face and the exposed strip of his ankles that his jeans and socks don’t quite meet to cover. It’s starting to come down harder; Luke’s hoodie is sticking to his shoulders and back and he might as well be wearing nothing at all for all the protection it’s providing him from the cold. He knows that this is the wrong thing to wear in this weather, but that had kind of been the point. It feels right to be doing something wrong on purpose. It certainly feels better than doing it wrong by accident. Or by virtue of it being beyond his control.

He’d expected to be cold, and he is. A sick sort of comfort arises from having predicted that cause-and-effect.

Luke’s mental clock is rubbish, and though his phone is in his pocket he can’t take it out and check it or it’ll get wet, so he has no idea how long he’s been out when it rings. Buzzes. Luke sighs. He digs his phone out of his pocket, cradling it to his chest to keep it out of the rain, and answers the call. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Luke waits for Michael to say anything. Eventually: “Where are you?”

“Outside,” Luke says. He looks around. “About five minutes away.”

“Away? Where did you go?”

“I didn’t — I was just walking.”

“Oh.” Michael pauses, and Luke knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “In the rain?”

“Is it raining?”

“...Yes?”

“Then yes, in the rain.”

“Okay. Well. Um, are you going to be back soon?”

Luke sighs again. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“Are you, uh…” There’s a moment of silence. Luke glances around himself, turning his back to the wind. The constant motion of his walk had been the only thing keeping him from becoming a glacier of a man, and now he’s lost that.

“Don’t worry about me, Mike,” Luke says. “I won’t be out too long. Promise.” He can’t, or he’ll get hypothermia or frostbite or something.

“Okay,” Michael says. Luke can tell he’s struggling not to ask if Luke is okay, and it makes Luke feel inexplicably affected. That Michael wants to ask, but knows Luke well enough to know that Luke won’t want him to. 

“I’m okay,” he says as a compromise. It’s not really true, but it’s what he would have said if Michael had asked him anyway.

“Okay,” Michael says again, more quietly. “Love you.”

“Love you.”

There’s a long silence. Then Michael hangs up.

The hand holding Luke’s phone slowly lowers, shoving it back into his pocket. Luke stares down at the ground. He blinks back tears, but they come faster than he’s able to stop them. There’s no mistaking tears for rain, actually, not in this weather, because these tears are hot and salty when they slide down his cheeks and into the corners of his mouth. The incongruity of warm tears on his freezing cold face almost makes him laugh, except when he opens his mouth to laugh what comes out instead is an unsolicited sob.

Shit. Fuck. He hadn’t meant to cry. He really hadn’t wanted to cry. He’s not going to become a blubbering mess in the middle of the road at midnight. Being sad is acceptable when nothing’s wrong, but crying when nothing’s wrong is crossing a fucking line. 

Why, why is it that hanging up the phone just stabs him in the heart? What the fuck is his problem?

One minute, he tells himself, crouching down because the smaller he is, the warmer he’ll be; one minute of crying and then you’re going to stop crying, because there’s nothing to cry about. One minute.

And for one minute he cries.

After one minute, he’s mostly out of tears anyway. Sniffling, he wipes under his eyes with his damp sleeve. That’s enough, he thinks firmly, sniffling again. Enough. It’s enough.

Before he stands up, he closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath. It doesn’t alleviate the weight on his chest, the weight of nothing being wrong, but blocking his vision allows him to tune into his other senses. It’s freezing cold and he shivers, listening to the rain softly hitting the pavement. This isn’t a panic attack, but Luke always finds it helpful to zero in on his senses. Quiet rain like static in his ears, the denim of his jeans creased behind his knees in his crouch, lingering salt on his tongue from the last of the tears, tight skin on his cheeks, his shaky inhales and exhales as he fights for a steady breathing pattern.

He’s okay.

Five minutes from home. Luke straightens up, hugging his arms around himself. His fingers and toes have all but frosted over by now. The world is awash in pale yellow and ashy grey, punctuated with almost-black in dark, unlit corners. On either side of him, familiar houses urge Luke onward, promising one more familiar than the rest if he just keeps walking.

So he does.

Five minutes feels very long, though Luke’s sense of time is, of course, warped beyond recognition, and for all he knows it’s ten minutes before he sees their house. Or two. 

Luke stands at the curb before the walkway. It’s freezing cold. He should go inside and warm up. He should make a cup of tea. He should take a hot shower.

Through the window it’s bright, though, so bright, far too bright for the gloomy mood still clamping down on Luke’s shoulders. Even if he went through the living room and shut himself in his room with the lights off, it wouldn’t be the same. The mood is uninterrupted and he doesn’t want to break it with anything.

As Luke stands there, shivering and indecisive, the front door opens.

“Luke?”

“Hi,” Luke says again, like he did on the phone. 

“It’s below freezing,” Michael says. “Are you coming in?”

“No.” He’s not. He can’t. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in five minutes. He can go five more minutes before frostbite becomes a real possibility.

“It’s cold, you’ll freeze,” says Michael.

“It’s not that cold.”

“And it’s raining. Cold and raining.”

“I’m not really cold,” Luke lies. “I’m okay. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Michael stands on the stoop, watching him. From this distance it’s hard to see his expression, but Luke can pretty much guess it’s a mixture of disapproval and concern. Michael has perfected it.

“Be right back,” he finally says, then slips back inside, leaving the door slightly ajar, before Luke can tell him he really doesn’t need to come back. Luke waits, though he contemplates just leaving for another walk. He’s not a dick. Although if Michael returns with Ashton or Calum, Luke will probably be annoyed. He’s not a child and he doesn’t need mothering, which Ashton is sure to do, nor is he in the mood to be cheered up, so Calum won’t be any help either.

Michael returns. He’s wearing a jacket and a beanie and there’s a blanket from off their couch in his hands.

“Michael,” Luke says. 

“Please,” Michael says. “I’m obviously not going to convince you to come inside, but I don’t want you to freeze.” He takes the steps, footsteps falling where Luke’s had, and comes close enough to Luke that when he offers up the blanket, Luke reaches out and takes it. “I know you don’t wear jackets,” Michael explains.

It feels like cheating. The masochistic walk should be all-or-nothing. But Luke can’t bring himself to refuse it. It’s not about the blanket, is the thing, really; it’s not about being warm. It’s about the gesture, about accepting the love and concern of a friend when Luke obviously needs it.

The blanket unfolds in his hands and he wraps it around himself. Some of the chill subsides. A new warmth blooms cautiously from within, starting in his sternum and spreading outward. It moves slowly and with difficulty, thawing the ice that’s formed inside Luke’s chest from all of his internal insistence that being cold had been the solution, but it doesn’t back down.

“Can I stay?” Michael asks. “You can say no.”

“Stay for what?” Luke glances around. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Yeah, I know. I just. Thought you might want to do nothing but…with a friend.”

Luke considers saying no. Michael would shrug, eyebrows drawing together in more concern, probably. Okay, he would say. Come inside soon. He would probably shift on his feet, trying to determine whether or not it would be okay to hug Luke, and ultimately decide against it. The door would close behind him and Luke would have the big, empty, glacial outdoors to himself. That had been the goal, when he’d left. To be alone. To have all the room in the world, with the hopes that attempting to fill it would spread his sadness too thin to hold weight. Except that hadn’t really worked. He’d just grown dense, stodgy instead of risen. The rain must have iced his sadness in. 

“Would you?” Luke says quietly, swallowing.

Michael nods. He does a very good job pretending like he hadn’t desperately wanted Luke to say yes, although Luke knows he had. “Are you still walking?”

“I think I was going to sit,” Luke says, glancing down at the curb. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind,” Michael says, and Luke really believes that. Luke takes a seat on the curb, even though the frozen rain seeps through his jeans, and Michael sits shoulder-to-shoulder beside him. They both stare out across the street. 

After a moment, Michael speaks quietly out into the air. “What — uh — I don’t really know what question to ask. Or if I shouldn’t ask anything.”

“Just as long as you don’t ask what’s wrong,” Luke says wearily. “I’m sick of what’s wrong.”

“Fair enough,” Michael says. There’s a beat of silence. “What are we doing out here?”

“You’re keeping me company.”

“And you’re…?”

Luke shrugs, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. It’s still raining and even the blanket is going to be soaked through soon. Luke’s hands are inside his sleeves, which are inside the blanket, but they’re still numb. “Wallowing.”

He really is wallowing, the most self-indulgent kind of sadness. Hardest to let go of, easiest to drown in. 

“Oh,” Michael says, a soft edge in his voice. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“I don’t know, yes?” Michael reaches out with his converse, tapping the side against Luke’s calf. “You’re a wallowing kind of guy. Sometimes that’s what you need.”

For the second time tonight, Luke feels abruptly like he might cry, but this time he doesn’t. “Uh. Thanks. I think?”

“I can wallow with you,” Michael says simply. 

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

A small smile tugs at the corners of Luke’s lips. “Yeah,” he admits.

“Yeah,” Michael says, like he’s just made a point. “But you shouldn’t wallow alone. You should at least have company.”

Luke takes a deep breath. He pulls his hood further over his head and glances over at Michael, who’s just watching his own feet with interest. 

“Okay,” Luke allows, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Just a couple more minutes. Then we can go inside.” He wonders if this had been Michael’s ploy, to guilt Luke back indoors by offering to freeze for him. But he’s pretty sure it isn’t a trick. Michael isn’t manipulative. He’s just loyal.

“Whatever you want,” Michael says, kicking carelessly at a loose piece of asphalt.

Luke hesitates, lingering in the bubble of silence between them that almost seems to mute the rest of the world. Michael looks over at him finally. When he meets Luke’s eyes, he quirks a transient smile. The warmth defrosting Luke’s insides grows hotter.

Luke leans his head on Michael’s shoulder, and Michael only shifts to accommodate him. “You can wallow with me. We can wallow together. If you want to. If you don’t mind.”

Michael tilts his head against Luke’s and hooks his foot around Luke’s ankle. “Yeah. Wallowing together. I can do that.”

It’s bitterly cold, and the icy rain and wind are doing them no favours. But when Luke closes his eyes this time, the only sensation that seems to matter is Michael’s shoulder solid under Luke’s weight, and he doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

[dynamics-of-an-asteroid]

Dont suppose you have a copy of the interview you could share?

For you, dear anon~

His Dark Materials: Andrew Scott on life after Fleabag and Sherlock

We’ve loved him as both Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Sherlock’s menacing Moriarty. Now, he’s back on our screens in the new series of His Dark Materials. Polly Vernon talks to our TV crush

Andrew Scott is mortified. The actor – formerly Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, then the Hot Priest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, imminently Colonel John Parry in the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – arrives at the photographic studio, bang on the appointed hour, in a fawn cashmere cardigan with a fine gold chain around his neck, bemoaning “this terrible, terrible eye infection, which is making me so self-conscious. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that you’ve massively upset me before we’ve even started. It’s so annoying. But anyway…”

Scott, 44, is small, vivid, wiry and garrulously Irish, with a face that is not handsome so much as mesmerising, intense, sharply boned, symmetrical, startlingly expressive. Sequences of emotions so subtle and complicated that I can’t begin to identify or keep up with them ruffle his brow from moment to moment. And, yup, the whole thing is rather disrupted by his left eye. This is no light kiss of conjunctivitis. It’s a swollen, red, perma-weeping situation that engulfs the whole socket. Scott turns his face two thirds on to me, so the infection is largely hidden, which would probably help if we weren’t sitting in a brightly lit hair and make-up room with a massive, inescapable mirror fixed to one wall. “Oh God,” Scott says every time he catches sight of his reflection.

Stress?

“Let’s be honest,” he says. “Let’s not skirt around the issue. It’s being overworked and…” Scott’s eye begins weeping. “Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Really, really very sorry.”

Wanna wear my sunglasses, I ask, holding them out to him.

“That would be a bit more weird, wouldn’t it? I actually did think about that in the taxi, but I thought that would be some sort of weird and screwed Invisible Man-type thing. I mean, it couldn’t be worse. And then we have to go and get our photograph taken. It’ll be one of those pictures where, you know, those creepy pictures… Of people crying?”

That’s what Photoshop’s for, I say.

“Anyway. Let’s just ignore it.”

I wonder if it’s particularly hard to walk around with an eye infection at a point in time where you’re not merely famous, as Scott is – a star of stage, screen and Bond film, winner of multiple awards, including, as of barely two weeks ago, a Best Actor Olivier for Present Laughter at the Old Vic – but specifically famous for being sexy.

In 2019, Andrew Scott became synonymous with, well, sex. While playing a character technically known as the Priest, whom the general public instantly renamed the Hot Priest, the spiritual support turned transgressive love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s supremely popular Fleabag, Scott became a cypher for the nation’s more exotic desires. A deliciously contentious pin-up. Ground zero on an earnest social media debate about whether the Priest’s relationship with Fleabag should be considered abusive, power imbalanced, “problematic”. And that was just for starters.

The Priest’s sexual iconography extended far beyond the limits of the show, becoming the subject of internet memes and real-life merchandise (visit online retailer Etsy for your £12 Hot Priest mug emblazoned with an illustration of Scott in priest’s robes, alongside the word “kneel”, a reference to a pivotal moment between the show’s lead characters, which takes place in a confession box, the climax of which, assuming you haven’t already seen it, you could probably take a stab at). There was an unprecedented upsurge in young worshippers, and women started bombarding social media “influencer” the Rev Chris Lee of west London with nude photographs. There was much foetid fan fiction.

To be publicly defined by so much sex, as Scott still is, a year and a half after Fleabag concluded, and then to be encumbered by something as visibly unsexy as an eye infection, I can see how that might make a chap self-conscious.

Scott isn’t here to rake up all that old Hot Priest stuff, mind. He’s here to talk about the second series of His Dark Materials, a lush, expensive fantasy drama based on the Philip Pullman books, jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule. The series was filmed through 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and had all but wrapped before lockdown. Good timing, as it turned out, because the extensive post-production processes, unlike shooting, could be completed in isolation.

Scott’s Colonel John Parry is an explorer, the missing father of the central character, 14-year-old Will Parry. He’s a man who slipped into a parallel universe some years earlier, acquired a “daemon” – an exterior animal-formed expression of his soul, a female osprey called Sayan Kötör, voiced with public-pleasing symmetry by Phoebe Waller-Bridge – and never found a way back to “our” world and his son. I speak as a fan of the books, which you might describe as a darker, existential response to Harry Potter, although honestly? They’re better than that. The show is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.

Did he jump at the part?

“I did, actually. It was definitely something I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those who slips into the third person when speaking about himself in a professional capacity.

Had he read the books?

“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant. I love the way Pullman tells children about spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary, intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to them. He talks to children’s souls.”

Given that Pullman effectively kills off God through the course of the books and Scott’s a lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share of shame on account of the church’s grip on his homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.

Presumably, he didn’t have to audition. Presumably, he never has to. Too famous for auditions?

“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”

Why?

“Because you’re able to understand, ‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice, but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”

I don’t care that you didn’t give me that part?

“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.

Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be enough to eliminate all residual overtones of Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’ Birdland, back when his deeply sinister Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d watched him become someone else entirely on stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.

I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining line from the play, as evidence.

“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”

The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s like to be the very definition of sexiness.

“You get invited to more parties.”

Better parties?

“Yeah.”

Better than during his Moriarty phase?

“Definitely.”

It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri in sexy, according to the whole nation.

“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really like being associated with scary. It’s not what I’m interested in being, in life, being intimidating to people. It’s not part of my nature, whereas being sexy to people…”

That is part of his nature?

“Well, they’re very different things.”

They’re both about having power over people.

“I suppose they are, yes.”

So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in 2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will make everyone think I’m just really, really sexy now”?

“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”

“Exactly.”

——————————

Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview. He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In between prostrating himself for the offence of his eye and apologising for not turning up the first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good time in his company. He is playful. He makes me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just… Shhhh!” he implores, placing a finger against his lips while expressing frustrations over the mindless jabber of social media, and he does it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet, breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.) He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.

Yeah. For Gucci.

“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”

And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly, melodiously Irish, which makes everything sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.

As for the actual business of being interviewed, of answering straight questions with straight answers, finishing off sentences, offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none of which translates into print? He’d rather not.

He tells me, as he’s told other journalists before, this is because he’s interested in navigating the line between “privacy and secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes “got away with secrecy under the guise and respectability of privacy”, as if signalling potential incoming slipperiness, which means I prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.

First up: amateur psychology.

Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the heart of his reluctance to speak more freely? Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean, as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came out], you know? But then, as a celebrity…”

He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks. This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t very well quote Scott on the presumptions I make about things he never quite says.

He had to have another coming out?

“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”

He has another coming out coming up?

“Yeah.”

So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?

“Tier 3, yeah.”

Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree openness in a person. He invokes the concept of shame more regularly than the average interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976 to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked at an employment agency. He has one older sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.

He was shy, so started attending a children’s drama course.

Did that help?

“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to be someone else. It’s more like, this is who I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,” he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly talented. He went from adverts to his first starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school but took a place at Trinity College Dublin to study drama instead, and ditched that six months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s been gainfully employed in the field ever since.

How Catholic was his upbringing?

“Well, there were Catholic priests in my life,” he says. “None of whom I wanted to have sex with.”

Does it amuse Scott to know he inspired a mass fetishising of priestly ranks? That in 2019, the Hot Priest would make, “Can you have sex with a Catholic priest?” one of the most googled terms of the year?

“Absolutely f***ing mental,” he says.

Homosexuality wasn’t legalised in Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16.

“I always think, if I’d had a boyfriend then, which I definitely did not…”

No?

“No.”

He knew he was gay, though?

“No. No, no, no, no!”

Was he suppressing it or not thinking about it?

“I would say suppressing. Definitely suppressing. I don’t believe people just don’t think about it.”

An upbeat, cheesy jazz remix of something or other starts playing outside the room.

“Oooh, this is the soundtrack for this bit of the interview,” says Scott. He wiggles his shoulders to the music.

I switch to strict dominatrix interviewer mode. Focus, I say. You were about to tell me something good.

“Oh, shit, was I? OK. I think what’s really insidious is that people don’t ask you about sex or… People wouldn’t say, ‘Are you gay or are you [straight]?’ And the lack of directness is very damaging. They just didn’t go there.”

Does he think his family, friends, the people closest to him knew then that he was gay?

“No,” he says. “I don’t think they did know. Or maybe they have a suspicion, but they think, I want to be respectful, so I’m not going to ask about that. Then [when you do come out], people say, ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ You know? If you do talk about it. So I suppose what I feel now is, talking about sex or sexuality is important. Really important.”

Having said that, “There’s still getting rid of the shame. In a situation like this, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been…” He fakes shock, horror. “Oh no! Polly’s just asked me about [he switches to a whisper] that.”

Scott will talk about his sex life only notionally. No specifics. For 15 years, between 2001 and 2016, he was in a relationship with the actor turned screenwriter Stephen Beresford (Scott starred in Beresford’s 2014 film Pride). Ever since, he’s refused to answer questions about his romantic life.

And he’s not going to talk about it now, I presume.

“No.”

What if we talk about it opaquely?

“OK.”

Where does he see himself, domestically, in an ideal world? Married with kids whom he’ll, I dunno, adopt or have via surrogacy?

“I like it. It’s bold. Am I going to adopt or…?”

Get a surrogate?

“I definitely think that’s something I would be open to.”

Great, I say, with blatant sarcasm. Thanks. How specific.

“Ha! I’m sorry. OK. Have I got any children at the moment? No. How can I… [explain]? OK. I was with a friend of mine in Dublin…”

His partner?

“No, no, no. Not my partner. Ah ha. I see what you were…”

Teasing. Yes.

“Ha! Yes. So, I was with a friend in Dublin and we were walking around and he was looking at apartments and I was like, ‘What about this place here?’ You know? And he said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I don’t live a heteronormative life, so I don’t want a heteronormative house.’ ”

What’s a heteronormative house?

“Two up, two down thing. He goes, ‘I can live in a loft or a weird space. I don’t need those things.’ He was so proud of it. He really owned it. I think where a lot of one’s pain comes from is when you go, ‘I should want that.’ And so, to answer your question opaquely, I have kids I adore. I love children, genuinely, and I had a very happy childhood. But I also feel, if I don’t have kids, that’s all right. I think I would’ve attached a lot of shame beforehand, with not living a particularly heteronormative life… Even with being gay, there’s a sort of way of being gay that’s acceptable. And I don’t feel that any more.”

He feels you can be unacceptably gay?

“Exactly. Exactly!”

I ask when shame shifted for him and Scott says it was when Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, which felt, he says, “like acceptance, genuinely. And I remember going out to this gay bar in Dublin and this girl came up to me, this cool Dublin girl, and she said, ‘What are you doing here? You need to go down to, I don’t know, blah, blah, this bar in some park.’ She was saying, ‘This isn’t the right gay bar for you. This is some shit gig,’ when the fact I’m in a gay bar in Ireland [at all] is a miracle to me, and then some person with a half-shaved head is telling me, ‘No, you need to go somewhere cooler.’ ”

His left eye starts weeping again.

“I’m so happy about that,” he says. “Even though I’m crying.”

I ask Scott if he has a game plan when picking roles, if he plots his course from Sherlock villain to Bond quasi-villain (he played Max Denbigh in Spectre) to sex icon, and, if so, what next? “No. Jesus, no,” he says.

We talk about the totalitarianism of social media, which he isn’t on, and share a mutual despair over it. “I thought it was something one would associate with the right, but actually, now it’s [the left] that is very ‘you’re this’ or ‘you’re that’. I find that quite frightening. It actually makes me feel ferocious.”

Is he not worried about being cancelled, of somehow saying the “wrong” thing, according to Twitter sensitivities, then having a thousand voices mobilised against him, demanding his firing, in the style of JK Rowling?

“I’m not,” he says. “I refuse to be. A very intelligent person I was talking to recently was writing a book and he said, ‘I’m going to get a sensitivity expert to have a look. I don’t want to get cancelled.’ I found that frightening.”

Is he rich? “Rich is the absence of worry about money,” he says. He can’t remember the last time he worried about money.

That must be nice.

“Of course it f***ing is. I think it’s a miracle. I really do. I was working in a French theatre in London for nothing – none of us was working for anything – and I remember the artistic director of the theatre talking about the fact we weren’t earning any money as some sort of virtue. I remember feeling really annoyed about that, like this isn’t good.”

This leads to an inevitable conversation about how the arts are suffering with Covid, including a segue down the Fatima route, the much shared government advert that depicted a young ballerina and suggested she retrain in something called cyber. “Her name’s not even Fatima,” Scott rails. “I think she’s called Desire’e. From New York.”

I mean to ask him about his experience of filming The Pursuit of Love with Lily James and Dominic West, stars of their own recent off-screen micro-scandal in Rome, just in case he lets any scurrilous insight slip, but our time’s up and it’s not as if Scott has much form on offering up scurrilous insight anyway.

Still, I feel grateful to him for meeting me halfway on the other stuff. And so I say goodbye to Andrew Scott, the UK’s foremost gay heterosexual lapsed Catholic faux-priest lust icon with a troublesome eye infection.

[justasparkwritings]

Merry & Bright: Baby, Please

undefined

Previous: Beacon in the Night

          Jungkook stares out the window of his bedroom, snow falling lightly, the only sound, his breath, slowly in and out. His phone, volume on, twirling absently between his fingers. In the distance, he can hear the other members laughing and yelling, their conversation and dinner prep echoing. The Yoongi’s space is attempting to be filled with their joy, as if laughing twice as hard would make up for his absence. Jungkook knows soon he’ll have to go out, pretend to be fine with the situation, and eat dinner. He’ll play make believe for as long as he can, but somewhere between dinner and the first movie or round of whatever game his hyungs force him to pick, Jungkook’s mind will slip.

           As he slips, his five hyungs will turn to the only thing that loosens him up, making his sadness bite a little bit less… Christmas Karaoke. They’ll queue the tracks, mixing in group songs with power ballads, a few hip hop and R&B tunes to balance the candy-coated sugar coma of the season, and for an hour or two, Jungkook won’t be swallowed in despair. But then, your favorite song will play, an accident, they didn’t know, and you will be the only thing on his mind. The tears will flow, mixing with whatever alcoholic beverage he’s consuming, and Jungkook will disappear into his bedroom, try not to call you, and force himself into an empty slumber.

           Instead, he’s staying on his bed, watching the snow fall in increasingly larger flakes, flurries swirling and sticking softly to the ground, building upon one another to form snowbanks.

           It’s in the middle of his reverie that his phone rings, your photo popping up.

           “Honey,” He says softly, doe eyes staring into yours.

           “Hi,” You sigh, his voice always feels like a warm embrace. It’s familiar and kind, steadfast in its ability to sooth you.

           “You look beautiful,” He smiles, eyes not crinkling at the edges.

           “Thanks, you look ethereal as always,” You smile, faltering as yours refuses to reach past your cheek bones.

           “Ethereal?” His expression is quizzical.

           “Yeah, I feel like it typically describes Jimin, but that hazy snow filter you’ve got going is just making you look so… heavenly,” You shrug.

           “You’re making me blush,” Jungkook’s smile moves closer to his wide eyes, nearly reaching as his cheeks turn a soft shade of crimson.

           “What are you up to?” You ask.

           “Sitting, feeling pathetic,” He says, the hint of a smile disappearing completely. You watch as his expression completely falls.

           “Kook,” You say, sympathetic to his pain.

           “I’m trying not to be so, sad, but it’s too hard,” He runs a hand through his hair, tussling the locks to one side, his undercut on full display.

           “I’m trying too, it just fucking sucks,” You say, instinctively adjusting your ponytail.

           “We had a plan, you know? We had a plan, we had arrangements, we had so much fun last year, and I was just so excited to share this Christmas with you, here,” His words are tumbling out of him, succinctly and organized.

           “I was looking forward to it... I bought a new hat,” You offer.

           “Oh?” He asks, happy for any sliver of joy.

           “Yeah, let me get it,” You stood up quickly, showing Jungkook your mid drift and legging clad legs as you moved through your bedroom to find your new beanie.

           “Aye, what are you wearing?” He asks, staring at the space your face was just in.

           “What? It’s a long sleeve cropped athletic shirt thing,” You answer, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

           “You look so sexy,” He says, a smirk on his lips, lust flickering in his eyes.

           “Jungkook,” You gasp.

           “Y/N,” He says eyebrow cocking.

           “Isn’t my new beanie cute?” You deflect the rising tension by placing your new cashmere beanie on your head. You bobble, showing the plush toggle on top.

           “It’s very cute,” Jungkook laughs.

           “I sent a few things to you,” You say, taking your hat off and sitting back down. “And by a few, I mean two boxes…”

           “Two boxes? How big are these boxes?” Laughter was in his voice as he waits for your response.

           “They’re standard, Jungkook,” You’re a little embarrassed by the amount of humor he’s finding in this admission of your Christmas splurge.

           “Standard? Oh my god, they’re huge!” Jungkook can’t stop laughing.

           “I got carried away, okay?” Your tone is defensive and chaste, a blush in your cheeks.

           “What’s in them?” He asks, the crinkles in his eyes present as his bunny teeth part to laugh again.

           “Goodies,” You say, trying to hide your smile by glaring at him.

           “Mm, what kind of goodies?” Jungkook settles down, taking a deep breath to tuck his laughs away.  

           “Get your mind out of the gutter, Jungkook,” You respond, faux shock laced in your words.

           Jungkook rolls his eyes at your gentle scolding.

           “What’s in the boxes?” He asks again.

           “Well, something for your hyungs,” You tell him.

           “You didn’t have to,” He’s always amazed by your generosity.

           “I know, I wanted to. It’s nothing big... I don’t know if they’ll even like it. They’re all wrapped, with their names on them. And I sent a few gifts for you, one from my aunts, one from my mom, and a few from me,” You rattle off the list, which seems far longer than Jungkook thought it would be.

           “You didn’t have to get me anything,” He says, a soft smile on his lips.

           “Jungkook, it’s Christmas,” You remind him.

           “I know, but they’re just items,” His words are delicate, he knows how you feel about the holiday.

           “I put a lot of thought into them okay?” Your annoyance is clear in the way your lips punctuate okay.

           “Hey, you know I’ll love them,” His eyes are trained on you, watching as you soften.

           “And you know, some cookies that will probably be smashed or stale… and a few, other items,” You shrug, a flirtatious look in your eyes.

           “Other items?” Jungkook raises his eyebrows, smirk on his lips. Had you sent him what he hoped for?

           “Mm, oh and something for your parents and Jung-Hyun.” You nod, signally the end of your list.

           “Jagi, you’re too sweet.”        

           “I know, my thoughtfulness is unparalleled,” You shrug at the compliment.

           “As is your humility,” He chuckles.

           “You love it,” You smirk.

           “I sent you something too,” Jungkook says, leaning back against his headboard.

           “Oh?” You’re not entirely surprised, but Jungkook has a way of getting you the perfect thing that you’d never in a million years pick for yourself. Your favorite cashmere sweater, the Chanel purse you vowed to yourself you’d buy when you made any money (which frankly, you never did), your favorite winter coat, a ring with gems from your birth months, a 14k white gold necklace with his initials, a tribute you were sure was tacky, but always made you feel closer to him… a photo album filled with your most precious memories… The year he created an entire journal full of art, poems, lyrics, that reminded him of you… You wanted for nothing, and Jungkook gave you everything.

           “Yes, it should be there soon,” Jungkook’s smile begins to falter.

           “Mine will be too,” You look down, picking at the piece of paper sat on your desk.

           “You’re not going to surprise me and send you know, yourself?” He whispers, knowing the answer.

           “No, I’m not shipping myself to you,” Your voice is hollow, eyes still downcast.

           “But can you?” His voice is small, fragile, weak.

           “Honey,” You sigh, shaking your head. “I can’t keep having this conversation, it hurts too much. It’s just one holiday. We spent decades without each other, can’t we make it through this?”

           “It’s been months, Y/N. I’ve tried holding back the tears, I’ve tried to sing and deck the halls with everyone, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas. I miss you in my bones,” Jungkook’s free hand clutches his chest, his eyelids becoming heavy as the tears start to form.

           “I feel it too… We’ve never gone this long without seeing each other,” You admit.

          The isolation of being apart from your lover for nearly a year… a year of fear, of anxiety, of sleepless nights and terrors as the world became overwhelmed by a pandemic, and the states were thrust into another round of Black Lives Matter protests coupled with an election that could be deemed as one of, if not the most, important election on American soil. All you wanted was Jungkook. His presence, ever calming, his joy, always contagious, was what your soul craved. You spent hours on video calls and phone calls, which often devolved into video sex, any form of intimacy you could muster to tie you to one another. The promotional work of BE, paired with the success of Dynamite and their Bang Bang Con and ONE concerts, Jungkook had zero ability to even try and find his way to you, or to chart a course for you to find him.

          It wasn’t fucking possible. He knew it, you knew it, and few things had been as devastating as realizing you were going an indefinite amount of time without each other.

           “Who am I going to kiss at midnight? Jimin?” Jungkook scoffs.

           “You’re performing, there’ll be so-

           “No, it won’t be you. I’m not kissing anyone except for you and our children,” Jungkook’s remark is flippant, a call back to a conversation you’d had months ago, wherein he asked where you thought your lives were headed.

           “Jungkook!” You say, eyes wide. You’d vowed to put talk of babies or marriage on the back burner until he had an idea of when he would do military service, before 30 or after. You hadn’t caught baby fever, but with Jungkook you knew it would hit and hit hard.

           “I didn’t know I would hurt this much, if I did, fuck, I would’ve flown you out sooner or come to you-

           “Jungkook you couldn’t have come to me, and there’s no way the government would’ve let me in.” Your tone is stern, moving quickly towards your limit of heartache.

           “I don’t fucking care!” Jungkook’s tears are flowing freely. You wonder if it was possible for anyone to cry us much as the two of you have in the past ten months.

           “I miss you every second of everyday,” Jungkook’s heartache punctuates every word.

           “Write me a song,” You suggest.

           “What?”

           “Write me a song, or five, fuck an entire album. Put your anguish into music, sing for me,” Your eyes are bright with possibilities.

           “I can do that,” He says, the idea sweeping over him like a wave in the pacific.

           “I’ll be here, embroidering and puzzling my sadness away,” You offer a smile. “Might as well put it into something productive.”

           “What if it doesn’t work?” He asks.

           “It won’t, I know it won’t, but can’t we just pretend it will?” You assured.

          “It’s hard to pretend my heart isn’t breaking over and over and over again.” Jungkook wipes his eyes, slightly alarmed at the number of tears he’d produced.

           “Mine is too,” Your words were soft, almost an echo of his hurt.

           “So, just, find a way to come home. Baby, please, just, come home for Christmas.”

Next: Pretend That We’re There

[dracusfyre]

Missed this when you first posted it, so, belated but: #12 from the 50 kisses list? any pairing is fine

The prompt from the prompt list was “ Sneaking away to a hidden corner to share a secretive kiss,” and I went with winteriron (surprise!). Setting is CA:TFA meets Iron Man Noir. :D  (Also on AO3) As a warning the set up took 3k words, which probably explains why I am constitutionally incapable of writing PWPs.

----

Bucky watched Steve leave with the lady in red – Agent Carter, Steve had called her – and felt the sour taste of jealousy on his tongue. Turning away, he downed the rest of his glass of cheap rotgut whiskey and gestured for the bartender to give him another. He hated that Carter hadn’t given him so much as a glance, and he hated that Steve had followed her without question, leaving him alone here at the bar, and he hated himself for caring about either; he should be happy for his friend, shouldn’t he, be happy that he was big and strong, America’s golden boy, a lady’s man, able to jump tall buildings in a single bound. A hero. “From zero to hero,” all the newspapers were saying. Meanwhile Bucky was what? Steve’s buddy, his pal, his childhood friend. Not Sergeant Barnes, a rank he’d earned through being the best goddamn sharpshooter in boot camp and being the most well-respected corporal in his unit when their last sergeant got blown to hell. Meanwhile Steve’s a captain, since presumably “Private America” or “Lieutenant America” didn’t have the same ring to it.

“Fuck,” Bucky said, grinding his palms into his eyes. This was what he was talking about. When had he become so bitter? He felt full of broken edges inside, jagged and vicious; maybe they’d pumped him full of poison there on that table, and that’s why Bucky felt like vitriol would come spilling out of him at any moment. He wished there was someone to fight right now, wished for the roar of artillery to drown out these thoughts and a bayonet in his hands so he could have some place for these feelings to go instead of building up inside him like a head of steam. His hands fell away from his eyes and he picked up the whiskey again, draining half of the glass in one go and hissing at the burn.

“Hope you’re drinking the cheap stuff if you’re going to chug it,” a voice said from beside him. Bucky jerked, because he hadn’t even noticed that someone had sat down and that’s a good way to get killed, isn’t it? Even here in jolly old London, jolly old safe London, home of Agent Carter, far from the guns and bombs and needles and lasers-

“Hey,” the voice said again, “are you with me?”

Bucky pulled his gaze from his whiskey and dragged it to the man next to him. The man was watching him with bright blue eyes that were sharp but not unkind; he had a hard time meeting those eyes, so he looked back down at the bar instead. “Whaddaya want?” Bucky asked gruffly.

“Good question,” the man said thoughtfully. Out of the corner of his eye Bucky saw him scratch his chin. “World peace comes to mind right now,” he said, and Bucky rolled his eyes. “A good old American hamburger is on the list,” boy could Bucky sympathize with that, “but for right now, I was mostly really curious why you look like your dog died when everyone else is just celebrating the fact that they’re alive.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Bucky said, still staring at the bar. The truth was tumbling out of his mouth and Bucky couldn’t stop it, didn’t want to. It was fucked up, he knew that, but Bucky had used up all of his ability to pretend everything was ok on Steve. “I guess I don’t have anything to celebrate.” He punctuated that with another swallow of whiskey and wished he’d start getting drunk already.

“You leave someone on the battlefield?” the man asked after a moment, and the understanding in his voice – not the cloying sympathy he’d heard from others, nothing so soft as an I’m sorry but rather a me too, it’s fucking awful isn’t it – made Bucky’s throat feel thick.

“Yeah,” he managed. “Me.”

The man was quiet for a few moments, long enough that Bucky was sure that the man would just get up leave, and that was good, that was fine, Bucky didn’t want company, he just wanted to be left here to drown himself in peace. It’s not like he was lonely, there were dozens of people in this bar, right? He didn’t need Steve, he didn’t need Dum-Dum or Gabe or any of them, and he certainly didn’t need this random fucking stranger-

“Hey, what do you call a soldier who can read and write?”

Bucky stared at him blankly. “What?” he asked as the man just looked at him expectantly.

“What do you call a soldier who can read and write?” the man repeated.

Bucky blinked at him, but apparently the man was serious. “I don’t know, what?”

“Sir, yes sir!” The man said.  “Where does General Marshall keep his armies?”

“Are you kidding me?” Bucky asked, but the man just shrugged. “Ok, where?”

“In his sleevies. What’s long and hard and full of seamen?” the man asked next.

“God,” Bucky groaned with a disbelieving laugh, less because the terrible jokes were funny and more because of the self-satisfied look on the man’s face when he said them.  “Why the hell are you telling me these terrible jokes? I just came from the front lines, haven’t I suffered enough?”

“Because you’re a soldier,” the man said with a grin, reaching out to flick the rank on Bucky’s collar. “If I told you good jokes, I’d have to explain them.”

“Fuck you,” Bucky said, but he couldn’t help the grin cracking his face.

“That’s more like it,” the man said. “Here, let me buy you a drink. A real drink,” he added, grimacing at the smell of the cheap whiskey in Bucky’s glass.

“Who are you?” Bucky asked after the bartender poured them both something top shelf, at least, as top shelf as it got during war time. “Because if you’re about to tell me you’re with the USO, you might want to rethink your career.”

“How dare you,” the man said cheerfully. “Made you laugh, didn’t I?”

“At you, maybe.”

“I’m Tony,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Bucky,” he said, shaking it. Bucky got a good look at the man this time, realizing just now that he tall and leanly built, dressed less like a man who had gone out for a night on the town and more like someone who had just taken a break from working with his hands and planned to go back to it soon. A mechanic, maybe, or a builder, judging from the nicks and callouses on his hands.

“So are you in London on leave?” Tony asked, sipping on his drink, turning in his seat so he was facing Bucky. “Or are you on your way home?”

Wasn’t that the question? He should be going home, if he had an ounce of brains. “Leave,” Bucky said. He glanced at where the Dum-dum and the others were all still drinking together on the far side of the bar. “And I’ll probably be heading out pretty soon, I guess.” Steve was sure ready to get back into the fight, and why wouldn’t he be? He’d never been one to back down from a fight, even if Bucky had been the one to get the bruised knuckles and bloody noses. He wondered if Steve would be so excited the first time he saw what a German howitzer could do to a human body.

“You got plans before you go?”

Bucky shrugged. “Get drunk and pour myself into bed sometime before morning reveille, I suppose. Why?”

“Well,” Tony said slowly, looking down at his glass and fidgeting with it. “I know you’re wearing a uniform, but I was wondering if you might be active duty.”

Bucky went hot, then cold, with fear at the question, and glanced around to see if anyone had heard. “Are you crazy?” he hissed.

“Aren’t we all? There’s a war on out there, and I’d rather get busy living before I get busy dying,” Tony said. “If you aren’t interested, just say so.”

Bucky studied Tony consideringly. “How did you know I wouldn’t punch you in the face just for asking?”

Tony snorted. “I saw how you looked at your friend as he walked out with that beautiful dame. If you’re going to pretend to be something you’re not – or rather, pretend to not be something that you are – you’re going to need a better poker face.”

Bucky took a sip of his drink and turned the offer over in his head, suddenly aware that he hadn’t had anyone touch him, really touch him, in months. His eyes caught on Tony’s hands again and he couldn’t help imagining how they might feel on him. “What did you have in mind?” he said in a low voice.

“I didn’t think I’d get this far, honestly,” Tony said with a rueful smile. “I was out here on a wing and a prayer. But, uh, I got a room at a hotel?”

Bucky looked down at his uniform. Disheveled though it was, it was distinctive and recognizable. “You can’t smuggle me into a hotel, Tony.”

“Right. I have a workshop,” Tony ventured. “It’s not much, but it’s not far.”

“Okay.” Bucky nodded, rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants. “Let’s, um…”

“Finish our drinks first?” Tony suggested.

“Sure.” Bucky took a swallow of his drink, now drinking for courage rather than to forget. “Do you do this a lot?”

“No, not with, uh,” Tony gestured at Bucky and Bucky nodded with understanding.  “But…” Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Once I’m done with the – this project I’m working on, I’m going back to France. Southern France. So I came out for a drink because my workshop was too quiet, then I saw you, and I thought, he doesn’t seem like he should be alone right now, and when I talked to you, I realized that I don’t want to be alone right now, so…yeah.”

“Oh.” Bucky looked at Tony with new eyes, and saw the tiredness around the eyes, the slightly grim cast to his mouth. If Tony was working in southern France, he was probably with the Resistance, and if there was a more shit job than infantry that was definitely one of them. “Carpe diem, eh?” he asked, and tapped his glass against Tony’s.

“I want to carpe something, alright,” Tony said with a smirk.

“You Americans only want one thing,” Bucky complained, lifting his nose in the air and turning his face away. “You should be ashamed.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that, doll,” Tony crooned. “I just want to show you a good time, I promise.” Tony risked a hand on Bucky’s leg, just above the knee, and squeezed, fingers rubbing along the inner seam of Bucky’s pants before he withdrew. Bucky almost choked on his whiskey as he inhaled sharply at the touch, heat suddenly thrumming in his veins. There was a glint in Tony’s eye as if he knew exactly the effect he’d had and was looking forward to doing more of it.

Then his face changed as he glanced up and leaned away from Bucky. “You gentlemen doing alright?” The bartender asked, and they both nodded.

“I’ll go ahead and pay my tab,” Tony said, and passed over way too much money for their bill. “Keep the change,” he said, and the bartender disappeared again.

But the reminder that they weren’t actually alone had been like cold water to the face, and suddenly Bucky was ready to leave. “You wanna get out of here?” he asked. He looked at how much alcohol was left and drank it all, coughing a little at the burn.

“Sure,” Tony said, taking one last swallow of his own before pushing it aside. Bucky stood and hesitated, remembering that the others were sitting by the front door and he’d have to pass them to get out of the bar. Tony touched his arm and jerked his head towards the back of the bar. Night had fallen while they were inside, and it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust; citywide blackout conditions meant that they only had the moonlight to see by, which was a week or so away from being full. “This way,” Tony said, and the hand on his arm slid down until Tony was curling his fingers around Bucky's palm.

The simple touch of another hand in his own made the words get stuck in Bucky’s throat, so he just held on, gripping maybe a little too tightly while Tony led him through the narrow streets and back alleys of London town. Tony stopped as their narrow alley emptied out into a larger street, moonlight gilding the pavement silver. He backed them up a bit, then herded Bucky into a dark corner away from the busier street.

“What’s wrong?” Bucky whispered, wondering if Tony had seen something on the street, like police or other Army officers or something. Instead, Tony just crowded him against the wall, arms coming up to bracket Bucky’s shoulders.

“Can I kiss you?” Tony whispered.

Bucky nodded, then realized it was probably too dark for Tony to see him, so instead he fisted his hands into Tony’s shirt and pulled him closer, sliding his hands up Tony’s chest to frame his face so he could slant his mouth across Tony’s. Tony made a soft hum, deep in his throat, and leaned in until Bucky could feel him from chest to knee. The stone wall was cold against his back, but Tony was so warm, so solid; Bucky suddenly wanted that weight on top of him, pressing him into a mattress. Tony’s mouth was hungry, and Bucky reveled in it; he could taste whiskey on Tony’s tongue and chased it with his own. Tony’s hands were fumbling at his jacket, then at his shirt underneath, trying to find skin. Bucky let go of Tony long enough to help him, trying to pull his shirt out from where he had tucked it into his pants because suddenly he wanted Tony’s hands on him more than he’d wanted anything, ever; this was glorious, it was heady, it was exactly the forgetting that he had been wanting. Then Tony was finally touching him, hands almost hot, the roughness of his callouses as he stroked along Bucky’s ribs making him feel like a plucked string. Relief swelled in him as fire crawled in his veins, making him feel lighter and more alive than he had in months. Tony slipped a thigh between Bucky’s legs and Bucky almost sobbed at the pressure against his aching hardness, especially when he realized that Tony was hard too.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Tony pulled away and Bucky could taste salt on his lips. “Bucky?” Tony said softly. “Are you ok?”

And to his dismay Bucky felt a sob burst out of him, all of the anger and bitterness and joy and loss and fear overflowing like a levee had broken. He felt arms wrapping around him and he buried his face in Tony’s neck and cried into his rough linen shirt. Tony didn’t say anything, didn’t try to comfort him or tell him well-meaning lies like it’ll be ok and you’ll be alright, he just held him close until the sobs trailed away into a stuffy nose and a headache.

Bucky finally straightened, feeling his face burning in the dark. “Christ, I’m so-“ Bucky started, but Tony stopped him with a kiss.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Tony said, digging into his pocket and handing Bucky a handkerchief. Tony’s hands came up to cradle Bucky’s elbows and he rested his head against Bucky’s forehead. “All of that has to go somewhere or it will eat you up inside. I’m glad that I could be here for you when you needed it.”

Bucky grimaced but he had to admit he felt better, like a flood had washed him clean inside. Except, of course, for the embarrassment of having cried on someone he was just about to get off with.  “Do you still wanna…?”

“Do you?” Tony asked. They were still cradled in the soft darkness of the night, and Tony’s breath was a puff of warmth on Bucky’s lips; he could smell the whiskey on his breath and the faint threat of Tony’s cologne and what might be grease. There was the faintest murmur of conversation from pedestrians on the big street nearby, but it felt like they were in their own little world here, and Bucky wanted nothing more than to be able to disappear into that as long as possible. So he nodded, knowing that Tony could feel it. “Then I do, too.”

The next morning came all too soon; Bucky sighed with resignation when he saw the clock and realized he’d have to leave now to sneak back to his barracks before morning formation.

“Do you want me to walk with you?” Tony offered, propping himself up on one elbow to look at Bucky’s face. They had ended up on a cot that Tony kept in his workshop, which was better than the floor but meant that they had pretty much had to be on top of one another all night in order to fit.

“No, if I get caught then it’s just breaking curfew, getting caught with someone else would just raise more questions.” Bucky kissed Tony’s forehead, the only place he could reach, then started to slide out from under him and get dressed.

“By the way,” Tony said, rolling over onto his back to watch Bucky pull his clothes on, “my full name is Tony Stark.”

“You mean, like the character from the book?” Bucky said skeptically. “Come on. You don’t gotta give me a fake name, here.”

“It’s not fake,” Tony protested. “I am the character from the book.”

“You mean he was named after you?”

“No that’s –“ Tony sat up with a huff, looking outraged. “The books are about me.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky said as he tucked his shirt into his pants. “That stuff can’t possibly be true, with Atlantis and magic masks and hidden temples and shit.”

“It is. If we had more time I’d show you,” Tony insisted. “And it’s not magic, just science we haven’t figured out yet.”

Bucky thought about blue beams of light that made people disappear as if they’d never existed, and a man who could rip his face off to show just a bloody skull underneath. “I guess,” he conceded. “So you’re a celebrity, eh? Wait until I tell absolutely nobody that I slept with a celebrity,” he said wryly, then did a double take as a thought occurred to him. “Wait, they sent you, a celebrity, into Vichy France?”

Tony winced. “That’s why I don’t tell people my real name,” he said. “It’s not like people can recognize me from the cheesy cover art of those books. I was just telling you so that…you know, in case, after the war – if there is an after – maybe you could look me up.”

“Oh.” Bucky sat down on the edge of the cot and cupped Tony’s cheek in one hand, running a thumb over his cheekbone. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

[darecruit]

First Look at Open Arms, Chapter 17!

Chapter 17: Repercussions

Jack walked back into the house after putting the burgers on the grill and was taken aback by the total chaos going on around him. Lexi was talking in angry bursts punctuated by loud tears, no doubt from the near-perfect, bright red handprint emblazoned on her cheek. Sarah was doing her best to comfort the distraught girl while Diane was yelling to be heard over the pair. John was doing his best to calm everyone, and poor Quinn and Frannie were off to the side, just trying to keep out of everyone’s way. There was no sign of Shelby or Rachel.

Just then, the front door opened and Shelby stormed into the living room. “I’m going to kill her!” he heard his youngest sister say, stabbing at her phone and then bringing the device to her ear. Her face darkened as she lowered it again and began furiously typing on the screen.

“Shelby? Rachel? What’s going on? Someone needs to start explaining, now!” Diane’s voice called from behind Jack. He turned in time to see his mother stalking towards him. She sidestepped him without a second glance, her gaze zeroing in on Shelby. “Where’s Rachel?”

“Of course I’m mad!” Shelby said out loud; it was clear to Jack that his sister hadn’t realized she had an audience. He watched as she shook her head and then took a deep breath before typing something more.

Thinking quickly, Jack reached a hand out and stopped his mother mid-step. She opened her mouth to protest but he shook his head. Shelby had brought her phone to her ear again and this time, sounded like she was actually talking to Rachel. “Let her be,” he said, easily turning his mother around.

“I need to help, Jack. Rachel’s run off and we don’t know where she is. We need to find her,” Diane argued, craning her head to stare back at Shelby. Jack couldn’t help but follow suit. It was then that Shelby noticed them and moved into the hall where she was blocked from view.

“She can’t have gone far. And Shelby looks like she has it handled. If she needs our help, she’ll let us know. C’mon, Ma,” Jack’s was the voice of reason.

Directing his mother over to soothe Quinn and Frannie, Jack’s next stop was his father. “Hey Dad, can you keep an eye on the burgers for me?” That done, he moved to his wife and daughter.

“Hey, bug, what happened?” he asked, wrapping an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

“Rachel happened!” came his child’s angry reply. “She was going off on Quinn for no reason—Quinn’s just tryingto be her friend but I heard Shelby say Rachel’s been acting bitchy to her all week and she’s probably jealous or something. Rachel doesn’t have friends at school and no wonder, if this is how she acts! So I called her out on it and she hit me!”

Jack blinked several times in quick succession, all the while shaking his head slowly, trying to process his daughter’s rushed explanation. His wife seemed to catch the drift much more quickly as he watched her eyes narrow and become stern.

“Language, Lexi—and that was a private conversation between your aunt and I,” Sarah scolded. “You know better than to eavesdrop on someone’s conversation!”

“How am I the one in trouble? Rachel hit me!” Lexi argued back.

“Yes, and her mother will correct her for that. As your mother, I’m more concerned about you and youractions,” Sarah said in a steely voice.

“That’s not fair! I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just overheard while I was taking stuff out to Dad. Not myfault you two were talking where someone could hear everything!” came Lexi’s snippy retort.

“Hey, watch your tone,” Jack warned. “What you heard wasn’t meant for your ears—that’s what your mom is getting at. And you’ve had trouble in this department before, young lady, so I’d knock off the ‘tude if I were you.” He leveled her with a look and a pointed finger—his signature ‘I mean business’ move.

Lexi huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, looking away from the matching angry frowns on her parents’ faces. She was the victim here, face still stinging where Rachel had slapped her, and they wanted to get on her about some accidental information gathering.

Jack shook his head and met his wife’s eyes. One simple look was all it took to convey a multitude of thoughts—Sarah was his rock and she would handle the situation with Lexi, keep Diane occupied if needed, so Jack could find Shelby like he wanted and offer her his big brother services, whatever that may be. Jack gave his wife a loving smile, leveled his daughter with one last warning glare, and then left the kitchen in search of his sister.

“Well, I think we both know you’ve more than earned a spanking—but it’s not the end of the world—” Jack heard Shelby say into her phone as he came up behind her. He made sure to make some noise so as not to scare her. Shelby turned, her expression guarded (no doubt assuming it was their mother instead) and relaxed when their eyes met.

“Baby, I’ve told you before, I will not let you get away with deliberate wrong-doing—and you’ve done a lot of that today,” she continued. Jack was able to hear Rachel crying on the other end and his heart went out to both mother and child. He could tell that Shelby was frustrated and sad—no parent liked the discipline part of their job—and Rachel was clearly distraught.

“Tell me where you are, Rach. Let’s get you home and—”

A thought occurred to him and he placed his hand on his sister’s shoulder. She looked up and then held a finger up to wait. “The park, okay. I’ll be right—”

“Let me go get her, Shelbs,” Jack spoke then. He had a gut feeling that Rachel needed someone on the outside to talk to before coming home, and it wouldn’t hurt Shelby to have some time to collect her thoughts.

“Honey, Uncle Jack is going to come get you, okay? You wait there for him, he’ll be less than five minutes,” Shelby changed course, understanding her brother’s need to help. It was the big brother in him and Shelby couldn’t deny the calming presence he had on her—Rachel could benefit from that same energy in this current moment.

Jack let out a sigh of relief, his hand moving to his sister’s back to rub up and down as she ended the call with Rachel. He could feel the moment the tension left Shelby’s body.

“Thanks, Jacky,” Shelby said tiredly. “I’m so sorry about—” She waved her hand around vaguely. “—this. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She’s been acting up all week but I never thought she’d…I promise I’ll have her apologize to Lexi. I’ll take care of her behavior too. I can’t believe her! I’ve been on her recently for her rude behavior—though I don’t think any of that was really on purpose—but this—THIS—is deliberate.”

Shelby was speaking nearly as fast and furious as his daughter had only moments before—the complexity and speed at which a woman’s brain functioned would never fail to astound Jack. He knew Shelby was speaking more to herself than at him, but he felt the need to interrupt her regardless. “Easy there, killer,” he said. “Lexi isn’t completely blameless in all of this. She let slip that she heard some of what you and Sarah were talking about before. I’m sure that had something to do with Rachel’s outburst. And anyway, Shel, kids fight. I’ve found it’s easier to let them figure it out themselves—nine times out of ten it blows over as quickly as it started.”

Shelby scoffed. “Did you get a look at your kid’s face yet?”

Jack smirked. “Yeah. Yeah, I did,” he said. “Rachel’s got an arm on her—that’s not even her dominant hand.”

“Jack!” Shelby gasped.

The older Corcoran sibling couldn’t help but laugh; he thought he saw the corners of Shelby’s mouth quirk up. “C’mon, Shel. I’m just saying, maybe it’s not all as bad as it looks right now. Let everyone calm down and we can find out the truth and go from there.”

“Rachel’s still in a lot of trouble,” Shelby said, her mood darkening. Rachel had a lot to account for, no matter what else happened between the girls. And whatever had pushed things over the edge, the fight had been brewing within her daughter for more than a week now. Whether it stemmed from Rachel’s growing jealousy or perhaps even another subconscious test of the rules and boundaries, Shelby knew she’d have to prove to her daughter that she was here, there was permanence to her presence, and that there would always be consistency and security wherever and whenever she was involved.

Open Arms * Open Arms * Open Arms

Tucked away in the shadows of the playground’s wooden turret, Rachel felt every bit the captured, isolated princess, waiting for either a brave prince to rescue her or else the dragon to come finish her off. The experience wasn’t anything like in the stories. Her face was hot and sticky from tears and sweat—no fairy tale princess ever had to deal with things dripping from their nose or into their eyes. No, their tears were always delicate, beautiful—not this ugly, oozing mess that was Rachel’s reality.

The rumble from a truck pulling up, followed by the slamming of a car door brought Rachel back to the present. She twisted, getting to her knees, and was able to remain unseen while looking out of the little window of her tower. She saw Jack coming closer and couldn’t help but wonder…was he the prince, or the dragon?

Why did he come for her anyway? Shelby had been ready to come get Rachel when suddenly, she was told her uncle would instead. Why? Was she in trouble with him too? She did slap his kid in the face, after all.

“Rachel? It’s Uncle Jack. Where are you, kid?” Jack called out over the playground. He didn’t see his niece anywhere.

Rachel ducked down as her uncle closed the distance between them. She didn’t think he had spotted her yet and wanted to keep in that way for as long as possible—at least until she could figure out if he was mad or not.

Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye, from the rightmost tower of the play castle. It was the biggest tower and had a ramp leading up inside. Following his gut, he easily climbed the ramp and ducked his head inside the structure. “Hey, Rach,” he said, and the small teen nearly jumped clean out of her skin. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, pal,” he added, easing himself into the spot next to Rachel. He cracked the seal on the water bottle he had brought with him and handed it to the sweaty teen.

Rachel eyed him cautiously, but took the offered drink with eagerness. Her throat hurt from all her crying and she was burning up from the overwhelming stuffiness inside her hideout. After several long gulps, she lowered the bottle from her lips and then wiped her mouth against the sleeve of her shirt. Her eyes flicked back to her uncle, who was staring at her with a patient calmness she wasn’t expecting.

“Aren’t you mad?” she asked, her tone more forceful than she had intended, accusing.

“What?” Jack asked, his surprise evident both in his voice and on his face. “Why would I be mad?”

Rachel scrunched up her face in disbelief. “Didn’t you see your kid’s face?”

Jack let out a bark of a laugh; Rachel’s response was nearly identical to that of her mother’s not ten minutes ago. It was wild, really. The look his niece gave in response only made him laugh harder.

“Why are you laughing?” Rachel demanded, defensive. She had the gnawing suspicion that she wasn’t aware of a joke being made about her. “I slapped Lexi, you know.” She wasn’t sure why she was offering up that information, if by some miracle her uncle didn’t know about it, but his laughter was unsettling. She needed him to be serious.

“I know,” Jack nodded, sobering at the teen’s expression. He could tell she was upset and on edge and, at the moment, he was only making it worse. “I saw her face. I know you slapped her. I’m not mad at you, Rach.”

“Why?” Rachel couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Mom’s mad at me,” she added as if that decided it all.

Jack sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, well…” he paused, deciding his words carefully. “Your mom’s a lot newer to all of this than I am. I’ve had seventeen years’ practice. Kids fight, and sometimes it gets physical. More often than not, it blows over without any interference on our end.”

Rachel frowned as she considered her uncle’s words. He was definitely more easy-going about this than her mother was…whether that was naturally his nature or because, like he said, he had more practice at it was up for debate. She knew without a doubt that there would be interference on her mom’s end…and Rachel would feel it on hers—Shelby had already said as much.

“Besides, I know Lexi and she’s no angel. She’s my daughter, after all,” Jack tried for levity and wasn’t all that surprised when he fell flat. He opted for a more matter-of-fact approach—it seemed that’s what Rachel needed right now. “I know she heard some things she shouldn’t have and used that information against you. So I understand your anger and why you lashed out. I’m not mad about that, kiddo.”

Wary brown eyes met his blue and he tentatively wrapped his arm around small shoulders; he smiled when Rachel relaxed against him. “That’s not to say I want you slapping her or anyone else whenever someone makes you angry, but in today’s case, I get it.”

“How come you came to pick me up instead of Mom?” Rachel asked. Her mom was all set to come get her—she had asked and pleaded with Rachel over and over to tell her where she was so she could pick her up. Then all of a sudden, she said Jack would pick Rachel up instead. Why?

Rachel felt her face drain as a thought occurred to her. “Is…is she too mad to want to see me? Does—oh, God—does she not want me anymore?”

“Rachel, no,” Jack said, his heart breaking for this child in his arms. He drew her closer to him, wanting to ground her. He could tell her thoughts were miles away.

“Are you taking me somewhere?”

“Rach—”

“Where am I gonna go? I don’t have any more parents to—”

“Rachel!”

Rachel jumped at the stern rumble of her name. Her uncle’s voice was so deep, especially in that tone he just used. It sent a chill up her spine. “Y-Yes, sir?” she squeaked.

“Hey, pal,” Jack breathed, his voice low, soothing. He hadn’t meant to scare the poor girl, he only wanted to get her attention and stop her panicked thoughts. “Easy, sweetheart. Deep breaths, okay?”

Rachel followed her uncle’s directive, focusing on her breathing. In. Hold. Out. Repeat. After several repetitions, she felt her heart start to slow, as well as her mind. She opened her eyes that she didn’t remember closing, and zeroed in on the water bottle she was still holding. She was suddenly very sad, and very thirsty. She finished the water off in two big gulps.

“Better?” Jack asked as the girl set down the empty bottle. She sighed and nodded.

“My dads used to bring me a glass of water whenever I was sad. It happened so often that eventually I couldn’t tell the difference between when I was sad and when I was just thirsty,” Rachel said.

If Jack thought his heart couldn’t possibly hurt any more for his niece, he was grossly mistaken. Not knowing what to say in that moment, he simply held her.

“Your mom isn’t mad at you, pal. I wanted to come get you. I thought you might need someone to talk to who wasn’t as, uh…involved. It has nothing to do with your mom not wanting to come herself—of course she wanted to. And she would never send you away, not ever.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t,” Rachel all but whispered. Jack heard it though, every word.

“Of course I can! I know for a fact that if even by some strange twist of fate your mom even thought about sending you somewhere, I would come kick her ass. I can do that, you know, big brother and all. Ben and Lauren would too. And if they didn’t, Nana and PopPop definitely would! Nana would be on her with her slipper faster than you could blink!”

Rachel’s mouth twitched upwards and she let out a small giggle in spite of herself—the image of her mother being chased around the house by her slipper-wielding Nana was too good!

Jack let out a relieved sigh; he got a smile out of the girl—finally! He disentangled himself from the hold he had on his niece and readjusted. It really wasn’t comfortable in this small enclosed space. “C’mon, time to get out of here. It’s hella hot and I’m getting claustrophobic.”

Rachel’s stomach dropped at her uncle’s pronouncement. The amusing mental image of her mother in the hot seat soured and was immediately replaced with her own very real predicament. She watched her uncle climb out of the tower and suddenly felt claustrophobic herself; her dread was quickly filling every available space in her once-safe hideout.

Not wanting to be alone in that oppressive space, she quickly scurried after her uncle’s retreating back. She accepted his helping hand down the ramp and onto the mulch-covered ground. “Uncle Jack,” she started, feeling the familiar prickle of tears in her eyes. She blinked to clear them. “Do you have to…I mean, can we not—” She let out frustrated breath and kicked at a bit of mulch with her foot. “Please don’t take me home yet. I—I’m not ready.”

[thistangledbrain]

Ok y’all, I’m sorry I’m having to catch up! We got a new foster in a few days ago - a particularly broken soul - and my mind has been *entirely* on him. But he’s settling in a little now, so here’s the last 3 days in one post ☺️

Autism Acceptance Month

Day 10!

“Sensory Life”

This is sort of hard to describe, but I’ll try! This is different from the next entry about stims, though both are sensory related.

It’s like being on microdosed ‘shrooms *all the time*. If you don’t know what that’s like, I’ll try to describe (this is collaborated with a friend who regularly does this - I don’t...it would probably be far too overwhelming).

Colors are far sharper to me & I emotionally react to them far more than most people. That results in some colors being genuinely offensive - not just “I don’t like that color”, but it will make me intensely angry or physically sick. This makes me curious about chromotherapy, but I haven’t really looked into it that much. My tolerance of certain colors can ebb and flow depending on my emotional state/mindset. (This crap is so sharp, I’m actually getting a twinge of irritation just *thinking* about my most hated colors LOL 😂 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Textures/skin sensations are another big one. (By now you may be asking, how TF did this chick manage Marine Corps training/exercises?!) I guess if you want something bad enough, you can shut down some of the overwhelming aspects of the sensory thing...this ability to disassociate probably isn’t what NT’s would call “healthy”, but it’s quite handy if you’re autistic, and those of us who have been through real trauma seem to be especially skilled with our ability to just shut off all circuits and “embrace the suck”). Like...I’ll nearly panic to get out of a store or something if my underwear starts feeling uncomfortable, but I’ve literally been soaked head to toe, covered in mud and sand in my *everywhere* (and I HATE SAND anywhere but on my feet) AND I pissed myself, because nobody’s gonna stop shooting/training just because you have to go potty 🙄), and I remember literally giving zero fucks about it...so it really is entirely a mindset thing. But let’s talk about when I’m NOT in “Marine mode” (cuz let’s face it, it’s been close to two decades since I got out, and I no longer HAVE to tolerate overwhelming sensations).

Sensory input is just basically dialed to 11 & the knob’s been snapped off. Bright lights, loud discordant noises, too much touching/not touching the right way, things like that. I am particularly sensitive about body hair (my own). I *strongly* prefer to have my head shaved on the back and sides (but I leave the top long). The only time I haven’t done this, was in the Marines (it was considered “eccentric” and not allowed, so they made me grow it out). Even though I leave the main part long, it’s *always* in a bun or ponytail - well, unless I’m super dressed up for something, but even then I prefer some sort of updo. Despite the fact that I like my long hair (well on the top anyway), I can’t *stand* the way it feels on my neck or especially my face - I HATE IT when my hair touches my face. If I wasn’t married...there’s a decent chance I’d just shave it all off and be done with it LOL 😆 My ponytail pulled through the back of a baseball hat is I guess what they’d call my “signature look”.

And you think NT’s have bad misophonia? *I’ve jumped out of a moving vehicle before* to get away from the noise of someone chewing loudly/smacking their lips in the back seat (he was a coworker and punching him in the mouth - which is what I DESPERATELY wanted to do - would have gotten me fired 😕)...but humans eating, or dogs licking their junk, makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. It’s mostly humans though....you have *no idea* the level of self discipline it takes to keep me from either rage crying or actually getting violent around someone smacking their mouth during a meal. I *cannot* be around my husband when he’s eating breakfast cereal even though he’s a very mannered eater - I don’t know why, but it’s *so loud* (and I’m terribly hard of hearing) - it sounds like he’s chewing rocks. It took us years to work this problem out LOL - he thought it was dumb that I had such a deeply emotional reaction. Then he tried to “chew quietly”, which all that did was slow down the rock tumbler inside his mouth 😂...gradually, for everyone’s sanity, we realized that cereal eating should not be done in close proximity to each other lololol....and now, when it’s time for family meals around the table, I’ve learned to either keep the range hood fan going (white noise is definitely my friend), or have the TV on. If it’s just mainly the sound of everyone chewing, I simply won’t eat at the table. I lose my appetite. (And all of my dinner guests/family are very polite diners. It’s MY hangup.) Phone calls are another big one. I could probably come up with several reasons why I hate it...I LOATHE it. This is one sensory hangup some people in my family just refuse to accept. I don’t think they realize I equate unexpected or immediately demanded phone calls to running naked though a mall or getting a root canal. Hissssssssss!! Give me some time to prepare myself for this shit please - you’re actually asking a *lot* from me. (And when I do have a call? Ugh I babble and am so awkward, because I’m so effing uncomfortable, which I also hate.)

But here’s an area where my “sensory overload” serves me very well:

Dogs.

I am usually *intensely* dialed into the energy and body language of an animal, but particularly dogs. I’m *so* sensitive to them, that I often actually can feel things even happening behind my back - can basically sense the energy in the area shift. (Roughly 75% of the time. I’m spacey sometimes too LOL.) The work I do with “behaviorally challenged” dogs is the biggest area where I am *grateful* for my autistic mind. I don’t think I could really do the things I do without it, successfully. (I can do this to a large degree with people as well, as can my youngest son. You cannot lie to that boy about your feelings or mood.)

We all have different levels of sensory sensitivity and different triggers, but every autistic I know has several “sensory hangups”. It often is one of our biggest hurdles to deal with, when it comes to “normal functioning”. So, many of us constantly have headphones (or muffs) on, some of us wear sunglasses *all the time*, etc (I wear a baseball hat - and I genuinely don’t like going anywhere where I have to get dressed up and can’t wear my hat. Been like that since my early teens. That hat shields me from all sorts of real and imagined sensory triggers.) You do what you can to mitigate, you know? But my “microdosing shrooms” and “knob dialed to 11 and snapped off” is really the best way I can summarize. (And that’s not all bad - my trips into a new natural space, like the redwoods, is an absolute *thrill*. I also occasionally love sensory overload - many auties do - like rollercoasters. My youngest son and I can ride till we pass out LOL!) So sensory life is love/hate, really....but I don’t think I’d change much about it.

Except the fucking misophonia. I hate that I go into almost a murderous rage over someone just chewing food loudly 🤦🏻‍♀️ - but seriously. It’s impolite anyway. Don’t do it. 😆

———————————————————

Day 11!

Stims

This is one of the biggest areas where neurotypicals struggle to understand us.

We all have stims. Stims are basically any stimulus that brings us joy or comfort. It could be rocking, flapping, walking in tight little circles, clicking your fingernails together, spinning, making weird sounds or whistling, etc. And it’s usually repetitive - that’s the part that gets on people’s nerves.

I’ve found that most *women* hide most of our stims. We only let go and stim our little hearts out when we’re alone. I do that, because some of my stims grate on my husband. Sometimes I don’t WANT to feel “watched” anyway...I’ve noticed males don’t have quite the same issue with that.

I have quiet stims I do to soothe myself, and happy stims. One of my quieter stims when I’m trying to soothe myself (like in public) is clicking my teeth, particularly my right canines. I also have this silicone bite stick I wear around my neck sometimes, that I chew on (my sons like the bite sticks as well). I carry a little bag of fidget toys in my purse, to soothe myself with when I’m stressed. There’s a thing sort of like a fidget cube, a little cowrie shell and twine bracelet that I fiddle with almost like a rosary, a small stuffed axolotyl (her name is Blossom), and a few other toys. My little stash also comes in damn handy when I encounter a bored child LOL!

One of my sons makes funny little sound effects randomly (and he’s grown & still does it). The other used to randomly shriek when he was younger - then he learned how to whistle, so he couldn’t say a whole sentence without punctuating it with little whistles (we actually thought it was adorable).

My favorite stim is putting my headphones on, putting on some favorite music, sitting with my legs crossed, closing my eyes, and rocking. I’m happy to TELL you about this stim, but it’s one I do alone, because I like to get completely lost in it and I can’t do that if I feel I’m being watched...and you’ll damn near give me a heart attack if you touch me while I’m lost in that world. (And boy does it irritate me to get yanked out of that before I’m ready, for some bullshit non emergency reason.) Better to just isolate myself (except my dogs are always with me). Another one I do alone - and I have no idea why i like it so much - is squeaking my bite stick across my teeth. (This one is weird to me because I usually HATE my teeth being touched...yes dentists are a problem.) This one I enjoy doing kind of mindlessly while I read, but damn would it irritate anyone in listening distance LOL...I mean, it would irritate the shit out of ME if someone else was doing it, because *other people’s* repetition, especially if it makes noise, gets on my damned nerves. 🙄 Figures lmao!

Stims can be damaging sometimes, though. Like I used to twist and twirl my hair when I was younger so much that the areas I usually grabbed were frayed and broken (I also chewed my hair sometimes). One stim I cannot break myself of even though sometimes it’ll make me bleed, is chewing the insides of my cheeks or my lips. That’s my most frequent (several times a day) one, and the one that is both gratifying *and* soothing. It’s also the one that’s hardest to suppress.

Some auties are either unaware or literally don’t care how you feel about their stims, but I am and do. I’d like to think I’m pretty “appropriate” *most* of the time with my stims and other people around, except the lip/cheek chewing. If my husband notices I’ve gotten pretty furious about it (even using my hand to push my cheek into optimal biting position), he’ll gently put his hands on mine to bring me back to awareness - if I’m gnawing away, I’m either super stressed or way lost in thought. Either way, I can accidentally hurt myself, so he gently guides me away/distracts me.

Stimming is an important part of Autie life and should not be discouraged unless it hurts Your Pet Autie ™️.

And if you’re looking for a neat gift for an Autie? They actually make stim toy packs. Get them one, they’re fun. ☺️ (Most stim toys are designed to withstand being put in mouths and bitten/chewed, too - LOTS of us have oral fixations.) And hey, even if you’re a NT, try stimming sometime (lots of normal people have stims, they just don’t realize that’s what they are - like nail biting. Bite your nails a lot? Get a bite stick!! God they’re so satisfying!)....

Happy stimming!

———————————————-

Day 12!

“Favorite Autism Charity”

This one is short and easy: ASAN. Autism Self Advocacy Network.

“The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is a nonprofit organization run by and for individuals with autism. According to its mission statement, the Network’s goal is ‘to empower autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us.’”

————————————————-

Day 13!

“Family”

Well that’s kinda ambiguous, isn’t it? 😒

I’ll start with this tack:

Being an autistic mom with autistic kids.

I mean for years, none of us KNEW LOL - and maybe that’s what took me so long to get around to pursuing a formal diagnosis for my youngest. To me, for the longest time, he was just sensitive and different like me (same with my oldest, for the most part, but I’m pretty sure that was me buying into the “brilliant people are just fucking weird ok” mindset also), yannow? So it was like, “well mama always told me I’d have one like me & then know what I put her through” 🙄 My oldest got lumped into the “all bright kids are quirky” category - but as I learned about ASD through my youngest and myself, it became damn obvious the oldest was also in our camp. (He’s taken the prelim test now anyway, but is not formally diagnosed.) I genuinely believe that our “shared weirdness” binds us very tightly to each other - and I’m super pleased about that.

It brought a whole new level of understanding and awareness within our little family when we realized it was ASD I guess - and acceptance. (I 100% believe that diagnosis - or even affirmation - is critical to our self acceptance and understanding.) I wouldn’t trade my little family for anything, and consider myself remarkably blessed. I can talk about how complex and brilliant my boys are ALL day (and often do LOL). Hubby is neurodivergent, and can identify with (or at least sympathize with) MANY of our hangups....but he’s “normal” enough that he’s been able to guide us (mostly me) with things like how to use tact (not often a skill we naturally possess lmao). My heart breaks when I read posts by auties whose families either don’t understand or don��t accept them & are constantly trying to basically mute who they are. Auties “live out loud”, and some people find that off putting. I know growing up, I was constantly getting my ass chewed for being “dramatic” or too sensitive, too, so I shut down and hid my sensitivity far, far away. I’m only *lately* (last few years) discarding that silly tough girl mask. (I can still be quite the little wolverine at times, but I’m not afraid to show my soft sensitive actual self anymore...to stay soft in today’s fucked up world takes actual courage - a lot of it - and strength. I was looking at the concept of being “strong” entirely the wrong way.)

I swear my husband has lived with nearly as many phases and facets, as years we’ve been together. Sometimes I ask him if this ever bothers him. He says no, because who I am at my core never changes...and he grins and says “and you damn sure aren’t boring” 😂

But since I’ve known I’m autistic, I’ve given myself more freedom to discover who I am without these socially dictated parameters. And permission to be precisely who I am, without cringing apologies when the real me shines through awkwardly.

And my husband and boys have been there every step of the way, embracing me, as we do with them. ♥️

Yeah. I love my family. We’re some pretty cool people. 😁

[tkaslut4ratchuk]

Pending Title-Brendan Lemieux

Requested: Yes

Warnings/AN: smut, sex, fuck, whatever you wanna call it. cockwarming fersure, breeding kink if you squint and widen your eyes. First time writing/posting smut so like... also: if you see anything annoying please for the love of God and all that is holy, tell me bc I’ve been staring at this piece nonstop for the last two weeks and I’m ngl, I lost my ability to care whether or not the grammar made ANY sense.... okay... umm without any further adieu?? godimnervous

‘You have got to be kidding me,’ I thought to myself. ‘This man will be the absolute death of me.’ There he was, once again, going toe-to-toe with some asshole that I didn’t bother paying enough attention to, to catch the name of. “There he goes again,” I mutter to myself, but Elise heard me and chuckled.

“What? You don’t like it?” She asked.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I do. A lot more than I probably should, actually. It’s just… He’s fighting… Again.”

“Yeah, I get that,” she chuckled in reply, and we went back to watching the game. ‘Well, technically the fight. I wonder if he’s aware of my feelings on it.’ Despite my mild annoyance, my eyes stayed zeroed in on Brendan until he made his way to the penalty box. After the fight, the remainder of the game passed relatively slow—though, conversation with Elise and the other WAGs helped pass the time a little easier, the had I been alone.

The game had ended and now I stood in the hall by the locker room, scrolling through instagram while I waited for Brendan to come out. ‘Maybe—just maybe—we can go home and I can work through his thick skull how…frustrated I am.’ I’m leaning against the wall when he finally opens the door and comes out. I looked up from my phone, making eye contact with him at the same time. I shook my head at him with a small smile pulling at my lips. He gave me a wide smile right back and held his arms out for a hug. “What?” He asked.

I rolled my eyes in reply as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m starting to think I need to get seats closer to the box,” I say, looking up at him.

“Whatever,” he scoffed. “You find it hot!” He had a cheshire grin that graced his lips and an arm around my waist—the other hand being occupied by his bag.

“No…I find it annoying.”

He laughed at this—that cute, big belly one—causing a soft smile to break out on my lips. Pressing a kiss to my hairline, he gives a tap to my ass and suggests that we head home.

…

The drive home was a quiet and comfortable one, with me glancing over at Brendan every now and then, and his hand resting warmly on my thigh. Once we are at home, we went straight to the bedroom, after dropping our things at the door. We’re both getting ready for bed—me, slipping into an old shirt of his and a pair of sleep shorts and him, only just hanging his suit jacket and tie, and unbuttoning his shirt. I look over at him, watching him in the dim lighting from the bedside lamp from the dresser. ‘Such. A good-looking. Hunk of a man.’ I smile and bite my lip, making my way to where he stood in the doorway of the closet. Stepping close, I take care of the remaining few buttons, for him. I run my hands over his bare chest, taking my time up the tan expanse of his strong abdomen to lock my arms around his neck. Looking into his warm, blue eyes, I softly speak. “I love you.” Leaning up and pressing a soft kiss to his beginning-to-swell bottom lip. His strong hands—‘Damned cut-and-bruised hands from that stupid fight. Stupid hot fight. Stupid boy.’—make their way around my waist, pulling me nice and close into his warm body.

“I love you, too, baby.” I smile in reply, rising up to my tip-toes to kiss him once more. I pull away but stay close enough that my lips brush against his own, whispering, “You know, I do actually think it’s pretty hot.” And with a sly smirk, I lower myself back down, and head to the bathroom to finish my nightly routine.

After having taken off my makeup and washed my face, I was brushing my teeth when Brendan walks in, wearing nothing but a comfy pair of sweatpants, and wraps his strong arms around my waist and pulls me flush against his chest. I meet his eyes in the mirror with a knowing look, my free hand coming to rest on one of his arms and relaxing into him. He brings his lips to my ear, maintaining eye contact and mumbles, “I knew you were bullshitting.” He then placed a soft kiss on my earlobe. I sigh as I finish brushing my teeth and bend over to spit the toothpaste out, taking care to make sure my ass was flush with his crotch. His grip the tightened on my hips, pulling me closer as he bites his lip. ‘Fuck me.’

I stand back upright re-instilling that intense eye contact with his now darkened baby blues. ‘Just you wait, you sexy son of a bitch,’ I think as I begin scrubbing my tongue. His eyes darken further and he begins kissing a trail down my neck to the spot he knows will send shivers straight down my spine and up again. I moan, dropping my hand to the edge of the counter, and lean into him, a bit. “Fuck, Bren,” I breathe out, my mouth still full of toothpaste. I bend over again to spit and he takes that opportunity to grind into me, letting me feel the start of a raging hard-on. ‘Oops! Sorry, not sorry, babe!’ I barely get to wipe at my mouth before I’m whipping myself around and pulling him down to meet me for a searing kiss. His hands tightened around my waist enough to lift me and place me on the edge of the sink, immediately allowing my legs to find their rightful place around his hips. He begins grinding into my center, leaving me utterly breathless. ‘Both from this and this hot-as-fuck kiss.’ I throw my head back, releasing a wild sounding moan and he moves his mouth back to the spot on my neck. ‘Likely, to leave a mark for me to find in the morning… Not that I’m complaining, certainly not now.’ My hands begin roaming his bare chest, my nails biting lightly into his skin and my legs tighten further around his waist, letting his thick, hard cock press so sweetly against me. ‘Fuck.’ My feet make their way to his waistband, desperate to get his pants off, while my hands bring his face back to my lips. His own hands working to my shorts off. Our mouths not taking a break, tongues in a constant battle with one another.

We finally get our pants off, and Brendan moves his hands slowly up my thighs, moving to my waist and not stopping until he’s above my breasts, bringing my—his—shirt with it. He pulls away from the kiss, successfully pulling a whine from me, with him, and pulls the shirt off, over my head. His mouth begins a trek from my jaw to my breasts, sucking marks into my skin, there, while one of his hands moves to the place that’s been screaming for him since he threw his first punch, tonight. Whimpering, I grab his wrist to stop him and shake my head. “Bren, no.” ‘Fuck, I can’t catch my breath.’ His head snaps up, caught off guard. ‘He’s confused. Sweet, sexy boy.’ “That fight really did me in… I’m so wet, B. I need you.” I’m holding his gaze and smirking, which leads him to smirk right back. Brendan’s hands quickly find their place to my hips and his lips smash back on to mine. Our tongues are mimicking the fight from earlier. This is when he deems it acceptable to strike, shoving his cock deep, leaving it to rest deliciously within my walls.

We both moan into each other’s mouths. He’s stilled for moment to allow me to get used to his size. I’m clenching, I can feel him throbbing. ‘Maybe that’s just me.’ Then, all Hell breaks loose. The grip he has on my hips turns bruising and his thrusting hips show off that strength I witnessed earlier, at the game. “You like seeing me rough, baby? Huh?” he grunts in my ear. I whine in return, my eyes rolling back in my skull. “Yeah, you do. My little slut.” I clench around him, at that. “Fuck,” he grunts. “Like that? Like when I call you what you are?” He’s panting and his thrusts get rougher. “My little slut!” he punctuates that with a rather rough thrust.

“God! B…” I may as well be panting like a dog at this point. “Don’t—Don’t stop! Please…” I whine. He hasn’t moved to touch my clit, yet. ‘Does he even need to, at this rate?’

“Fuck, babe,” he grunts. My nails dig deeper into the skin on his strong shoulders, and he’s nibbling on the spot behind my ear. I could feel myself getting closer. Each thrust of his becoming more and more pronounced. “Your cunt,” thrust, “‘so perfect,” thrust, “my God, so tight.” t h r u s t.

“More,” I whimper, clenching my eyes from the intense pleasure. He slides his hand from my hip to my knee, raising it higher around his waist, allowing him to get deeper and hit the spot that had me seeing stars. I yelped out at that. “So big, Bren. Fuck!”

His grunting grows more and more, and if it weren’t for it being in my ear, I might not have noticed from how much I’m feeling. “Gonna fill you up with my cum, baby,” he grunts out, and I moaned aloud at that. “Nice and full.”

‘Am I crying, right now?!’

“So full! Please!” I cry out, choking on the pleasure-filled sobs.

“Open your eyes, baby. Look at me!” I do as he asks, meeting his beautiful eyes, and I cum—with a shout, might I add. ‘Holy fuck! He’s so pretty…surrounded by stars…’ He gives one final thrust, letting go with such a guttural groan, that it sparks another mini-orgasm in myself. ‘Fuck. I am definitely crying now, if I wasn’t already, before.’ He works us through our orgasms, slowly, as I held him tightly and as close as possible, my head nestled in the crook of his neck. He can’t detach himself from me or pullout, much less—not that he was making any move to.

We’re panting in each other’s ears, and his arms make their way around me, hands rubbing my back, up and down, in a calming fashion as I am definitely whimpering, right now. He pulls back enough to press a kiss to the top of my head. I look up and meet his eyes and he furrows his brow. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Babe, why didn’t you sa—“ I shake my head at him. 

“So good, Bren,” is all I can whimper out, before I shove my head back into his neck, knowing that I sound rightfully wrecked. I pull him close again and feel our cum start to leak from where we’re joined—it makes me twitch, just a little, around him.

Brendan starts to pull out at that, but I pull him back, looking back up at him. “No! Longer, B…” He chuckles in reply and presses a soft kiss to my forehead.

“Let’s take this to the bed, then, yeah? ‘M sure your ass has surpassed being asleep at this point.” With that, he carries me off to bed, taking care to stay connected. ‘And inside... Hmm... I should request this more often.’ He maneuvers us so that he’s on top, knowing the weight of his sturdy body brings me comfort. My arms stay wrapped around his neck, and he brings his own under my shoulders and brushes my hair and a couple stray tears from my face, kissing the dried ones.

“You okay, baby?”

I nod in reply, a sniffle slipping through. He presses a soft kiss to my lips. And then another, and another, and then we’re laying there so deeply entwined with one another, just exchanging soft, wonderful kisses.

“I love you, Brendan,” I murmur against his lips. My voice still quite wrecked.

“I love you more,” he smiles and pecks my nose. His cock shifts just so, as he does it. I whimper and clench, tight, around him. His forehead drops to mine as he lets loose a soft huff of air.

‘Is he getting hard again?! Who the hell am I kidding? Between this and all his cum, I’m wetter than a cold beer on a hot summer day…’

I whimper as I feel him harden and I buck a little into his hips. He rolls his hips into my own, successfully grinding into my clit and eliciting a whine from my lips. That’s how it continues as we find a sweet and slow rhythm. We’re barely moving but it’s just enough to get us close to plummeting off the edge again. Panting into each other’s mouths, murmuring of sweet nothings—the complete opposite end of the spectrum from how this night started, in the bathroom, no less.

“S’ good, Brendan,” I whisper against his parted lips, combing my fingers through his unruly locks. He shifts, just so, making clench tight around him and hold him close. I moan and let go for what feels like the tenth time, tonight. It take one more before he’s reached his own peak and filling me up again. ‘Fuck, that’s so good…’

He works us through our orgasms and finally pulls out, sitting back on his knees and watching as our combined essence spills out. I watch on in awe as he bites his plump bottom lip, and gives a minute shake of his head as he pushes it back in with his softening cock.

“You’re so beautiful…”

I smile back with a playful grin. “Hmm… I’ll remember that when you end up getting me pregnant.”

He smiles a beautiful wide smile and chuckles a bit, but there’s a certain look in his eye. He then leans over and presses a few gentle kisses to my lips. He pulls away, a bit, muttering against my lips, “C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” I nod in reply, this time, pulling him down and pressing another kiss to his lips.

He pulls me up, out of bed and back to the bathroom to get cleaned up and to put on the clothes we had shed, earlier. We crawl back into bed and after getting comfortable, he turns the light off and we fall into a deep, peaceful slumber that only being curled up in the arms of someone you love could help achieve.

[johannstutt413]

“Scanning for edible substances...none found.” Ptilopsis sighed, glancing through the fridge in the Doctor’s office. “Suspicious nutrient slurries observed.”

“I’m trying to get better at cooking, I promise,” the Doctor muttered, continuing to munch on a green ‘nutrient slurry.’

She chuckled, an almost mechanical chirping. “Detecting increased dopamine within Ptilopsis. Acquiring edible substance from the cafeteria. Does the Doctor have any requests?”

“No, thank you,” he shook his head. “See you soon.”

“Departing.” As she left, Ptilopsis set a note on the Doctor’s desk.

Curious, he unfolded it, and read the message: “I learned today I can write without restricting my expression...or at least, I seem to be able to. Will update you as I learn more.”

“She never ceases to impress,” he muttered. “I wonder if there’s something I- wait, that’s it! Where’s that notepad...”

“Sustenance acquired...Doctor?” As Ptilopsis returned, she did not find him at his desk or anywhere else in the office. She frowned - where would he have gone in the middle of the work day?

A small, furtive voice whispered in her head, “he’s abandoned you. i told you this would happen, didn’t i?”

“Expanding query,” she replied aloud, gritting her teeth, as she looked around for any changes - such as the note folded neatly on her desk. “1 new search result found.”

In the Doctor’s terrible handwriting, a note: ‘Went to Closure’s shop for some salt. Nutrient slurry wasn’t seasoned well enough. I’ll be back soon~’

“Analysis complete...or is it?” Why did they add this squiggle at the end? Certainly a non-standard punctuation marker-

‘aw, does little Tilly not know what a tilde is used for? poor girl.’ The voice laughed. ‘if only your big strong doctor was here to tell you, huh?’

There were moments Ptilopsis wished she could fry her own mainframe, just to shut this stupid thing up - and as luck would have it, her narcolepsy kicked in to do just that. “Entering Power...Save Mode...”

The Doctor returned during her nap and smiled at the sight of her in her chair, emitting a slight whistle as she rested. He took off his jacket and set it around her shoulders before sitting down at his desk.

“Reboot initiated,” Ptilopsis whispered some time later. She noticed the additional layer, and in her half-asleep state, she pulled it around herself. “Building terrain...in a minute...”

“Good afternoon,” the Doctor said, watching from his desk and barely resisting the urge to fawn over her ‘reboot’ routine.

She blinked, turning her head to look behind her and seeing his jacket around her shoulders. “Calculating possibility of narcoleptic kleptomania...Zero percent.”

“No, it’s there for a reason,” he chuckled. “Check the front right pocket. Whatever you find in it is yours.”

“Searching...” Ptilopsis, jacket still firmly around her shoulders, felt around in the aforementioned pocket and located a small tablet and pen.

The Doctor watched her open the packaging for both items. “I figured it would be simpler for you to just send me messages with that than have to leave me notes. Anything you send should come up on my desktop, my laptop, my cell, and anything else I have my IM account linked to, so you’ll always be able to reach me.”

“Doctor...Surge of emotion detected in Ptilopsis...” The comment was almost an afterthought, but the next few words were a struggle to get through her censors. “I...I don’t know how to say it.”

“Write it if you have to.”

She shook her head. “No, I...I want you to hear it from me. Erecting firewall; deploying antivirus software; scanning for breaches - none found. I think I’ve bought us enough time.”

“You can do that?” His eyes widened. “Wow.”

“This is the single greatest gift I’ve ever received; despite being in charge of my treatment, Dr. Silence never once thought to connect me with some kind of outside support, so being able to contact you at any time- one breach detected- it...it means the world to me. The other voice- two breaches detected- believes I deserve the isolation my mode of speech- three breaches detected- has caused, but you- four breaches detected, firewall protocols failing to execute- you- firewall deactivating- I-”

The Doctor left his chair and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her out of her chair to do so. “That other voice can go fuck themselves.”

“Agreed...Reinitiating ciphering protocols.” She squeezed him gently, trying to pull herself into him and draw on his seemingly inexhaustible reserves of hope. “Detecting heightened cardiovascular movement within Ptilopsis...Facial heat sinks rapidly increasing temperature.”

“You know, sometimes actions are a more efficient way of communicating than words.” He hadn’t let go, and he had no intention of doing so.

…“Engaging seduction protocol.”

He pulled back to look her in the eye. “‘Seduction protocol?’ You can say that without-” Before he could continue, his mouth was suddenly occupied by Ptilopsis’ making contact with it; the amount of repressed energy being shoved into this single expression overwhelmed him. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, and although he might know just how long she’d had to fight to get to this point, the fact that she had brought him to tears.

“...Doctor?” After what felt like the longest period of clarity she’d had in some time, Ptilopsis pulled back, his tears on her cheeks. “Are you okay?”

“I...I don’t know what to say except yes.”

She smiled. “Yes?”

“Yes.” The Doctor went back for another kiss...and another...and another. “Seduction protocol successful; affection levels maxed. Warning: adult content. Proceed to cutscene?”

“Cutscene?...Here?”

He nodded. “The door has a lock on it, after all.”

“...Video paused.” Ptilopsis left his embrace to ensure the door was locked, and then upon returning, she gave him the brightest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Resume.”

“Resuming playback: ‘How to Show Ptilopsis How Much I Love Her, Pt. 1 of 1488944457...”

[alltingfinns]

A Scandal in Belgravia

So I’m back on this.

The swoosh on some sped up footage in the previously, don’t remember noticing that.

This episode’s start gets so much funnier if you read some of the fic written between this and the previous episode.

Silly song now becomes more dramatic in TRF.

What did Irene offer Jim to get him so riled up? If it’s the plot plane plan that would explain why Sherlock is needed alive. But his emotional reaction... maybe he’s already been trying to get it on his own. Indicates possibly that Jim has been looking for a way to get to Mycroft.

“You’re typing a lot.”

This montage is nicely done.

Arguing about the blog.

The pouncing on the title.

He’s so hurt. He knows ash!

“We do watch the news.”

“You said boring and switched the channel.”

First time where “people” = John.

And the hat.

“It’s time.” I never thought about the waiting period.

Ehh, Hudson called up to the next floor so John’s room? Boys?

Ha cool, a SAAB. An old one too. I’d guess a 900 model from the early nineties.

Lestrade probably makes these calls a lot.

I get Sherlock’s confusion, he’s just in a sheet it’d make sense for him to be humiliated.

Their silent conversation + John’s acceptance of the absurdity.

That was a pretty long look on Sherlock’s lap and then asking about pants.

The Swedish subtitles on Netflix just referred to John as ”kronans gosse” I love it!

John took the queen liking his blog as a point in their argument.

I always like looking at John during the sheet bit.

Mycroft and John conversing in subtext that you need to remember their original conversation from a whole series/three episodes ago. And people think johnlock is too subtextual.

They made “the woman” a work title clearly to explain why Sherlock would refer to her that way. A bit harder to work in the context from ACD canon. It would be weird if Sherlock in modern times went “a credit to your gender” for defeating him.

Sherlock’s reaction Mycroft’s veiled assertion settles the question, I think. He’s making a “damn, he’s got me there” face. Mainly because John’s presence, if we considers his previous statement. If it were just him and Mycroft he’d just say “just because I haven’t done it doesn’t mean I can’t understand it!”

Btw, in case you think my typing speed is phenomenal I am hitting pause when something gets really interesting to me.

The parallel of checking the pictures have the “obvious” reading of romantic set up. But Sherlock is still learning details of a case he has been given so another reading is that while he’s targeting her she’s targeting him.

My reading is backed up by Sherlock’s immediate demeanor. His interest in her didn’t really appear until he found out she didn’t ask for anything. Blackmailers are a dime a dozen, but someone making a point of threat against the reputation of the BRF without asking for direct compensation? That’s someone with a plan and someone who can give him the kick he feeds of from casework.

John getting the last word in only for Sherlock to get the laterer word in.

Pinching an ashtray from the aforementioned BRF, whom himself mentioned as his first client with a navy, just to make John laugh? Some things are priceless but for everything else there’s MasterCard.

Okay, I had to back up a bit but: I don’t know who’s getting these pictures for Irene, but the last one that makes her smile is focused on John. She sees Sherlock more naked in the pictures where he’s fully clothed in the back of a cab than when he was in just a sheet on the pavement.

More parallels. This is really about their similarities. Could still be considered romantic foreshadowing “they’re made of the same cloth” type.

Ah yes, punch me.

That little dialogue snippet about “punch me” usually being subtext is what got me to first watch this show.

In general I have a lot of issues with how they handled Irene. But I especially don’t think I get the nudity in this scene. It reveals to Sherlock immediately that his ruse was all in vain since she either a) knew he was coming anyway or b) usually greet priests in distress while stark naked and might therefor just be stark raving.

Unflappable John Watson. Oh dear, my flat mate who I just beat up is sitting in front of a naked dominatrix with his vicar collar between her teeth. “I’ve missed something, haven’t I?”

He doesn’t like being a third wheel either. “I had tea too! Just so you know. In case you thought Sherlock got tea at the palace by himself. I was there too. The tea was lovely. Just the right temperature.”

Dammit.

Now I want tea.

Wait wait wait! When did John put his “date” shoes on? Only time it makes sense is when Sherlock was looking through his disguises. (He definitively wouldn’t wear them to traipse around the muddy crime scene.) Maybe they’re part of his “battle uniform”? Also obviously Sherlock can only “deduce” date because he knows what shoes John wears on dates. This isn’t really clothed people are easier to deduce.

How is he not deducing the heck out of her make up and ear piercing? Is it because she’s acting so extraordinary that her indicators become harder to contextualise?

Or is that whole thing just a plot hole?

And her comes her actual opening chess move. Nudity and banter was just setting up the pieces.

“Somebody loves you.” She pressed John’s big red “DO NOT PRESS” button right away. Later she says Jim told her how to play the Holmes brothers, but he definitively gave some pointers on John as well.

There’s something about John’s facial movements when Irene says he knows exactly where to look. Hard to compare with the sheet scene because of the different angles. But yeah, John is bi.

“You do borrow my laptop” with such an angry glare.

Wait are Irene’s shoes those shoes that are expensive because they’re red on the bottom? (I do not care enough to google their names.)

And it’s when John starts to smile that Sherlock does his verbal keysmash. Officially Ben said it was because Irene was paying attention to John instead of him, but she does that a number of times previously and has had quite a moment of getting cosy at John. But up until then John has been a bit standoffish. Of course you can only take so much of a pretty lady flirting with you before your smile reflex gets activated. Also he whips his head immediately at Sherlock in medical concern for his friend and Sherlock can speak clearly again.

Sherlock thinks he knows her game now as he makes his move getting her to confirm that the pictures are in the room.

Imagine the egg on his face if John hadn’t managed the smoke alarm in time.

“Amazing how fire exposes our priorities” should be part of a collection of lines that are only said once but thematically repeated throughout the show.

Some would argue maybe “I really hope you don’t have a baby in there” could be added but I don’t think it could be considered as repeated enough thematically.

Sherlock being his usual demanding self about turning off the fire alarm. The fool! Doesn’t he know how hard fire alarms are to turn off? (Maybe just a problem for me...)

Okay sure, easy enough with a gun, but impractical as a long term solution.

Umm, excuse me why does he go “no disrespect but you were clearly born in the 80s” in an episode from 2012? The most she’d be is 32, so clearly she looks at most like that then. Why would she be insulted by that? Also he earlier called a dude unhealthy, stupid and with bad breath in front of him without clarifying level of respect. So basically he’s needling her by adding that. That’s the most positive spin it can get.

John apologising for not stopping /forewarning about a whole bunch of trained killers sweeping in? That is diehard loyalty.

She’s staring hard at him as fire exposes his priority.

She actually does give him a clue by looking down the moment he looks at her. Never thought of that.

He heard something click wrong, looked at her for additional clue so she looks to the side “get out of the way”.

I love that John’s priority is medically inclined in the action scene, checking the vital signs of the guy that got shot.

“Observant?” “Flattered?” Honestly he shouldn’t be so surprised by the first bit as it was obvious some kind of observation + deduction got Sherlock the code.

As usual Sherlock gives zero fucks about gun safety. I feel John at some point is going to tie him down and lecture him about it. “We do not scratch our heads with the barrel of a gun, and we don’t call for the police by shooting in the air!”

You know if you’re knocking him out cold regardless, you don’t need him to drop the phone first. You just wanted the beating to be literal.

“He’ll be fine. I’ve used it on loads of my friends.” Yeah no, tell the doctor what chemical knockout drug you just put in a former drug addict!!

I wonder how much of dream Adler is actual Adler speaking to a drugged out Sherlock.

Could be nothing with the only real part being “hush now, returning your coat”. Would make sense for a dreaming brain to jumble the two cases together.

Start of series 2 we get to see Sherlock’s bedroom while John’s remain a mystery after 4 series.

John is not on the top of his game this episode. “What woman?”

And so it begins.

Mycroft does not have “shut up Hudson” privilege.

That whole phone noise discussion is punctuated with embarrassment.

Ah the gaping jaw that set the sails for the lestrolly ship.

“Christmas is canceled!” I love when John banters with Sherlock.

Sherlock is mean to Molly, but to be fair she kind of blundered a bit with the others and Sherlock complaining about John being away was clearly something he told in confidence. Telling Greg and John that their loved ones are betraying the trust put in them is general misanthropy, but Sherlock probably feels justified in needling Molly about a crush that he figures none of them know anyway.

Oh John’s look there. Greg clearly knows too what is coming but John has the recognition factor.

“Oh shit. It was me. Still me? She still has a thing for me?”

For a sort of dramatic moment it still has one of John’s absolutely funniest facial journeys. “Wait, you apologised? You know what an apology is? Are you feeling well?”

Obviously Irene’s text signal gets a lot of funny moments, but nothing will beat the timing of this one. And now I am imagining Jim with a pair of binoculars sitting across the street and telling Irene “now, send it now, it’ll be fucking priceless!”

And Greg “wait really?” When you’re not sure what your consultant can do to surprise you next.

I believe I made a post about it earlier but Jeanette’s boyfriend just said he’s been keeping track up till 57 on text messages that his platonic flat mate gets where the signal is a woman moaning.

“Do you ever reply?”

Jeanette starts working on her break up speech about then, I believe.

Molly nervously gulps a drink. Now Molly is everyone’s favorite John mirror. Medical professional with a crush on Sherlock, and whose favored type of outfit involves knitwear. John usually takes a drink at emotionally difficult times. Is this Molly handling her rejection, or showing what John is doing/will do without showing John?

Mycroft. If they passed a new law why would Sherlock know about it before you?

“How did Sherlock recognize her from... not-her-face?”

Mycroft answers with a smile and leaving the room.

“I got plans”

“No” I know you. If it’s a date you’ve probably bungled it already. Regardless if it is or isn’t you’ll still prioritize my brother because you always do.

John really goes for the superconfident strategy when dating, huh? “I always thought I was great.”

“I’ll even walk your dog!”

“I don’t have a dog!”

“No, because that was the last one...”

Always thought you were a great boyfriend, huh?

When even your landlady who got out of her marriage through execution thinks you bungled it, you probably bungled it.

Think I’ll break here and continue the rest of the episode tomorrow.

[pokemontrainertom]

Keeping Things Canonical

Hello and Happy Holidays to @alittlecstaticxilophone, I was your @mlsecretsanta!

I need to say that this is only chapter one. This whole thing kinda got away from me…

Read on AO3  | |  FF.net

“You chose me because of this, Minibug. I know how to keep a secret.”

With a final wave to the tiny spotted heroine Bunnyx ducked inside the burrow, closing the portal behind herself.

Looking back to ensure she was now alone Bunnyx let out a relieved sigh and flexed her recently restored limbs. They were all there.

She promptly collapsed to the ‘floor’ with a groan.

Turns out, Chat Blanc? Total nightmare for everyone involved.

And as if she needed any more reasons to beat in Gabriel’s face.

With a slow exhale to release some of the tension her last thought had just added to Bunnyx allowed her eyelids to slowly close.

If she had anything else she had to do today that didn’t involve lying right here for the next few hours, she was going to-

“Long day?”

Repressing a groan, Bunnyx shot to her feet, her umbrella held tight in hand.

“Woah, back it up.” The intruder said, dodging back from her swing. “We really don’t want to set off that Blinovitch effect thing, especially not in here.”

Weapon still raised, Bunnyx stared at the other figure inside her burrow. The very familiar figure.

“Hey Bianca.” Bunnyx said with a wave. “Is this a bad time?”

Bunnyx blinked.

Blinked again.

Raised her umbrella to her face.

And screamed.

...

A few minutes later and feeling a lot better Bunnyx looked across at the other rabbit in the room.

“So… you’re me from…?” Bunnyx questioned.

The other Bunnyx, henceforth dubbed Futuryx to avoid confusion, looked over from where she had claimed the bean bag that was normally stuffed in the same corner she kept her bowls.

Yes she was well aware that the Burrow was round.

No she did not know how the corner existed.

Please don’t ask.

“About… a month or so by my count.”

“About?” Bunnyx asked in disbelief. “How can you not know?”

Futuryx’s nose began to twitch.

It only took her a second before she recognised the motion. Obviously she had never seen it herself, but she had been told it was the same thing she did whenever she was trying to think of an answer that wouldn’t jeopardise the entirety of time.

Ladybug had been surprised to learn that it came up so often it had its own gesture associated with it.

Chat just found it hilarious it made her look so much like an actual rabbit.

Stupid trait bleeding magic watch.

“That’s… complicated.” Futuryx finally replied.

Bunnyx sighed, though not without a smile on her lips. “Isn’t it always?”

“Tell me about it.” Futuryx said with a groan that sounded only half exaggerated.

Bunnyx snickered. “So why are you here?”

“Right.” Futuryx said straightening in her seat, managing to look cool even while relaxing on a bean bag twice her size.

She was awesome like that.

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“Right.” Bunnyx nodded, having expected as much.

You don’t time travel just for a social visit after all.

“So, the job?” She prompted.

Futuryx remained silent, nose twitching once more.

“Nothing universe ending I hope?” She joked with a grin.

Her future self winced.

Bunnyx felt her ears slump. “Seriously?”

The older hero shrugged with a sheepish smile. “‘Fraid so. It’s… Well…” Pause. Twitch. “You know how the whole Chat Blanc thing was caused, right?”

“Yeah? Minibug left her signature on her gift to Rapunzel and-”

“No, no. After that.” Futuryx interrupted.

Bunnyx racked her brain for a moment. Recent as it may have been, it had still been a lot of events she had witnessed. “Er then… “ Her eyes widened in realisation before immediately narrowing. “Hawkmoth being his- Gabriel, his Mom being alive and then being forced to choose between her and Minibug on top of that…”

“Nearly.” Futuryx commented tersely, nose twitching like mad and hands tightly clenched to the fabric beneath her, “Just back up a little bit, how did that happen?”

“They… retraced the path of the akuma, the one sent after Mininette because she had been forced to break up with Rapunzel, some bull about-”

“Stop.” Futuryx spoke, interrupting her upcoming rant. “Right there.”

“The… break-up?” She asked, head fuzzy from the rapid emotional changes.

Futuryx didn’t reply, merely staring at her, nose still twitching. “What do you think Minibug and Kitten will be up to now?”

“They… what?” Bunnyx tried, completely thrown by the apparent non sequitur.

“I know, I know.” Futuryx rolled her eyes. “Sorry. You’re nearly there though.”

“Well… Rapunzel goes back to his ivory tower, while Mininette gets dropped back into a list of responsibilities as long as she is exhausted…” She said with a wince.

“And…?” Futuryx prodded.

“Minibug will fight akumas with Kitten, while Rapunzel will be friends with Mininette, both of them somehow ignoring slash not realising the fact that they’re completely and utterly in love with each other…”

Futuryx’s eyes narrowed. “And if they were to ever realise those feelings for each other?”

“Then… they would begin to date. Likely wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other.” Seeing that Futuryx was still just staring at her she continued her thoughts, “Eventually their identities would be shared for one reason or another, their teamwork would improve which would lead to more efficient akuma fights…”

“And in response?” Futuryx asked, now slowly walking towards her, each step heavy. “What would Hawkmoth do? What did Hawkmoth do?”

The break-up. The akuma. The confrontation

“But that means…” Bunnyx swallowed, eyes wide. “Chat Blanc…?”

“Chat Blanc, Miss Fortune, Chatastrophe, Princess Justice, Black Widow…” Futuryx counted off on her fingers before trailing off with a humourless chuckle. “Different method, same results.”

Bunnyx swore.

“Exactly.” Futuryx grumbled. “Chat Blanc was the catalyst, and now they’re popping up all over. Even past events are changing.”

Bunnyx took a deep breath. “So… the job?”

“Keeping Adrien and Marinette’s relationship non romantic, no matter what. Otherwise it always manages to end up with a fight with Hawkmoth.” Futuryx sighed, head bowed. “And they’re not ready. Not yet.”

“Figures.” Bunnyx muttered. “The one good thing they have to look forward to and it manages to cause the apocalypse if it happens.” She sighed, forcing a smile. “As bad as it sounds at least I won’t have interfere too often, right?”

Futuryx didn’t reply.

“You’re joking.” Bunnyx said flatly.

Futuryx just shook her head, jaw clenched.

“No.” Bunnyx denied. “You’re telling me that even with how oblivious Adrien is, and with Marinette’s grand gestures that never work they still get together?

“They did. Do. The gestures I mean.” Futuryx clarified.

“They…” Bunnyx’s hand raised to her head. “How many?”

“All of them.”

“All…?”

“All of them.” Futuryx repeated.

Bunnyx did not shriek, she was too cool for that. “Even Operation Flower Garden?! ”

“All. Of. Them.” Futuryx punctuated, looking like she was half a second away from throttling something, probably her, paradox be damned. After taking a breath she continued, voice tight. “And every single one leading to… to…”

Bunnyx swallowed. One or two were simple, she’d done it before even, but rewriting all of that? That was a full time job on its own, let alone with all the usual surveillance she did. And that was without thinking of all the moral implications…

But if she didn’t…

White light, expanding out across everything, consuming everything-

Mustering up a grin, Bunnyx relaxed the grip she had on her umbrella and gave it a twirl. “I guess I’d better get started then…”

“Great.” Futuryx said, a grin similar to Bunnyx’s own on her face. “That’s the bad news out of the way.”

“There’s good news?”

Futuryx waved a hand. “Kind of. The better news is there’s a whole group of us working on combating it already so you’re not doing this alone.”

Bunnyx felt her ears perk back up at that little revelation. “Oh thank Fluff.”

“Yeah, we were all kinds of freaked out when time started changing on us, but we managed to track it back to your present. Of course, by the time we’d done that the whole thing had fixed itself.” Futuryx smirked. “Good job with that by the way.”

“Heh, thanks.”

“But as I said these disruptions are now turning up all over the place, changing time itself. We have no idea what’s causing it, so the most we can do is fight them as they appear. And who better to join the team than the Bunnyx who was involved with case zero?”

Offering herself a salute, Bunnyx grinned. “Glad to be of service.”

“Remember, any differences to your memories need to be changed.” Futuryx reminded. After a grimace she added, “No exceptions.”

“Right.”

“We’ve got a lot of your present handled and I’m afraid none of us can look at our personal futures so… Oh, wait you’re the youngest of the group!” Futuryx stated, ignoring Bunnyx’s raised eyebrow. “You should start at the beginning and work your way through each day chronologically for now.”

“First day they get their Miraculouses, yeah?” She confirmed. “Got it.”

At her hip Futuryx’s pocket watch beeped and was swiftly flipped open. “Agent Alice, I can confirm Agent Bianca is on board. Heading back now. Agent Bugs out.” Replacing the watch to her side she looked back to meet her disbelieving gaze. “What?”

“Agent Bianca?”

“Sorry.” Futuryx, or well Bugs she supposed, apologised, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Recruiters get the nicknaming rights. Look I’ve got to get back, but here,” A list of frequencies was carefully handed over. “To keep in contact.”

Flicking her own pocket watch on and receiving a quick message from an ‘Agent Alice’ Bunnyx looked up just in time to catch Bugs heading over to the wall of portals.

“Good luck.” Bugs said, shaking her raised foot, before stepping through a portal out of the burrow with a wave.

Bunnyx sighed before turning to the portals outlining the burrow. Already she could see static forming along the edges of some of them.

Selecting one she began rewinding the picture as fast as she could. No need to let herselves down.

The rewinding stopped, paused on the now famous image of Minibug and Kitten confronting Stoneheart. Bunnyx stared at it for a moment, her face hardening. “Sorry guys.”

She pressed play.

[the--sad--hatter]

Name Calling (29)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -  In which the ongoing and bloody war of words between you and Bucky turns in your favor when a disgruntled one night stand of his lets slip a secret when you run into her in the elevator… Now you have all the ammunition you need to destroy your enemy but you don’t plan on killing him quickly. Oh no, Bucky Barnes was going to suffer and you were going to enjoy every second. You just didn’t count on how much you would enjoy it.

Current Word Count -  82,329

MASTERLIST

Chapter Twenty Nine - Iron Dad In Law

Wanda arrived not long after the professor called her, the problem was she didn’t come alone. You stood in front of a good portion of The Avengers with an extremely disgruntled expression. Steve, Sam, Bucky, Clint, Tony and Wanda looked back at you innocently.

“Going inside my head isn’t a group activity.” You stated.

“We never do anything as a family anymore.” Clint grumbled.

“Is everything all right ma’petite?” Remy asked, probably noticing your distressed expression as he came down the stairs.

He stood next to you and casually put his hand on your hip as he looked at you in concern. You felt several pairs of eyes zero in on his hand.

“Who’s your friend Kit Kat? I’m Tony Stark, you know, her father? Also Iron man.” Tony said, puffing his chest up.

“Ah but of course Remy knows who you are Mr Stark, you are as they say, a legend.” Remy said charmingly, offering Tony his hand.

You felt Bucky’s eyes burning holes through your skull and tried not to look at him.

“Alright guys, why are you all here? We only need Wanda.” You asked.

“Moral support.” Steve offered.

“We missed you.” Sam tried.

“Uh huh, and the real reason?” You pressed.

There were a few awkward looks amongst them and they didn’t answer.

“Oh my god, are here to make sure I’m not poached by the X-Men?” You asked, outraged.

The guilty looks were answer enough.

“Unbelievable.” You muttered.

“We’re just protecting our interests!” Clint tried to defend.

Sam and Tony took a step back, separating themselves from him while Steve looked apologetic. Bucky just continued glaring at Remy.

“Your what?” You snarled at Clint and he paled.

“Our friend, we’re protecting our friend!” He backtracked.

“Ah ma’petite, you are a most powerful and striking warrior. Do not be so harsh on those who fear losing your alliance.” Remy soothed you.

Your anger visibly deflated and you went from furious to mildly irritated as Remy squeezed your shoulder comfortingly.

“Fine. I don’t have time for this anyway. WILSON!” You yelled.

“Jesus, I’m right here!” Sam grumbled and you shot him an absolutely vicious smirk.

“I wasn’t shouting you.” You informed him.

Right on cue, Deadpool came sliding down the banister.

“Yes honeybun? OH AVENGERS!” He shrieked so loudly you all winced.

“Oh man this is the best day ever, The Avengers AND the X-Men! I can finally fulfill my lifelong dream of being the stuffing in a Wolverine/Captain America meaty man sandwich! Cap! Such an honor!” Deadpool rambled, saluting Steve.

Steve looked perplexed and Sam shoved his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing. Wade peeled his mask over his mouth as he reached Clint.

“Super pleased to meet you Mister Haweye sir, wow your arms are even more magnificent in person. Those are the kind of arms you want holding you up against the wall and wrapped around you afterwards, know what I mean?” Clint just shot him an amused glance and definitely not on purpose, flexed a little.

“The other Wilson. My brother from another mother.” Wade offered a fistbump to Sam, who gave it as he shook violently from the effort of containing his laughter.

“How’s the Night’s Watch going Jon Snow?” Deadpool asked Bucky, who just glared at him unamused and that was it, it was too much for both you and Sam.

Even Tony and Clint smirked as you and Sam damn near fell over laughing and Wanda’s amused giggle caught Wade’s attention as he more or less floated over to her. You hurried over, to protect Wanda from Wade’s advances.

“She’s with Vision, Wade. Back off.” You warned him before he could do something untoward and gross.

“So? You’re with...” You panicked and stamped on his foot and kneed him in the stomach before he could finish his sentence.

“You’re with who?” Tony snapped, alarmed as he glanced suspiciously at Remy.

Everybody else, who knew you were with Bucky looked at you expectantly and you froze.

“Oh sorry Iron Daddy, she wanted to be the one to tell you.” Wade said, well wheezed.

You shot him a warning look that was more panic than anything and the evil merc threw his arm around your waist and dipped you dramatically.

“We’re in luuuuurve.” Wade said in a sing song voice.

You were stuck. You either refuted Wade’s claim and he’d probably tell Tony you were really with Bucky or you could play along. Neither option was particularly attractive. You caught Bucky’s eye. He was looking at you expectantly with a raised brow. At least it would be easy enough for Bucky to understand. You hoped.

“What can I say? I love a man in head to toe spandex.” You said and Tony looked like he was going to be sick.

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

You had never met anyone like Charles Xavier. Somehow, his mere presence had wrangled the assorted superhero’s into behaving without him having said a word.

“I believe it is best if Miss Maximoff unlocks the memories first, then I will step in, metaphorically. I will hold the memories in stasis while Miss Stark sorts through them one by one so she is not overwhelmed. Miss Stark had requested Mr Wilson, that is Wade Wilson be present for the process.” Xavier explained.

“Wade has excelled healing, if my abilities go haywire he’s the only person who can get near me.” You explained.

“Not the only one princess, I’ll be there as well.” Logan said from the doorway where he was leaning, half in the room, half out.

“Logan’s own healing allows him to safely approach.” Xavier assured you and you nodded your assent.

“Kit Kat, can I have a word? In private.” Tony asked.

“No.” You said.

“Come on kid, please? He tried again.

“Tony you’re not going to talk me out of this. I’m not mad you all kept it from me, if you’re telling the truth then you were only doing as I asked. But I was being an idiot and a coward. I need to remember what I did and learn to live with it.” You told him.

He sighed heavily and shrugged in a ‘do what you want’ kind of way.

“Before we begin, I think we need to know the exact nature of your request and the events leading up to it.” Xavier told you and you turned to Wanda.

“So did I ask you to take my memories before or after Vernichtung healed my bullet wound?” You asked her and she looked taken aback.

“How did you…?” She asked.

“Well I can’t heal on my own but my mother could, makes sense that in all the mutations that were forced on me there’ an original one, a natural one.” You explained.

“You’re right. Bruce thinks it’s why Docherty wanted you in the first place. You were primed to survive the alterations he made to your DNA.” Tony said heavily.

“Right. So what happened?” You asked.

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

AFTER MEXICO

Helen Cho hung her head low and sighed heavily. She had done all she could and there was nothing more that could be done.

“Call it.” She said sadly.

“Time of death, 2:37 am.”

With a heavy heart Helen steeled herself to tell Mr Stark his daughter was dead. She turned and walked to the door when she heard the lone beep of the heart monitor and paused. A few long seconds passed and there was another beep and then another.

“She’s alive.”

Your spine bowed dramatically and your back arched off the hospital bed as the monitors started going haywire. Your eyes shot opened and locked onto Helen’s. You ripped the tubing from your throat with a squelching sound before she could stop you.

“Run.” You gasped as the black veins began to ripple over your skin.

“Everybody out, now!” Dr Cho demanded and the room cleared in seconds.

She was the last to leave and she looked back at you from the door.

“RUN” You screamed desperately as your eyes darkened into the terrifying obsidian.

She listened, running as fast as she could.

“What’s going on?” Tony demanded as she ran into him in the corridor.

“Vernichtung.” She gasped in explanation.

Tony looked like he was ready to rush into the operating theatre as a loud crashing came from the room and Helen grabbed his arm.

“She told us to run.” She tried to warn him, like you had warned them.

“That’s my daughter in there!” he argued, trying to pull away.

“Mr Stark! I don’t think it is.” She said apologetically.

As if to punctuate her point there was an inhuman scream from the surgical room. It was high pitched and animalistic, and sent a chill up the spine of everyone in earshot. There was one last crash and then nothing. An eerie silence that was almost loud in it’s lack of sound settled over them like a heavy fog.

The doors at the end of the corridor crashed open and Wanda stumbled through them, a pained expression on her face.

“Where is she?” Wanda gasped.

“Miss Maximoff? What are you doing?” Helen asked, rushing over in concern, medical training kicking in as she hurriedly checked Wanda over.

“Tony, I have to go to her. She’s screaming for me, I can hear it in my head. I need to help her.” Wanda sobbed.

“Mr Stark we don’t know what is in that room, you can not go in there.” Helen snapped.

“Tony please. She needs us.” Wanda begged.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.” Tony told them.

“Mr Stark. TONY! You can’t.” Helen begged.

“That’s my little girl doc, no matter what colour her eyes are.” He said resolutely and rushed into the operating theatre.

You were curled into a ball on the floor, your body shaking as you sobbed. Tony fell to his knees next to you and pulled you onto his lap.

“It’s ok sweetheart, I’ve got you. It’s ok.” He assured you.

“Pain and blood, so much pain and blood.” You whimpered.

“Where does it hurt Kit Kat? Tell me.” He begged.

You shook your head and clutched onto him.

“CHO!” He yelled, standing up and carrying you in his arms into the corridor.

As soon as she saw you Wanda reached out for you and Tony carefully placed you next to her. You and Wanda wasted no time in latching onto each other.

“There’s so much screaming in her mind.” Wanda said.

“Wanda, I need you to make it stop.” You begged.

“Her wound is gone.” Helen noted.

“Wanda lock it away, all of it. You need to get rid of it and NEVER tell me what happened.” You sad vehemently.

“Yes Sestra, I can do that.” Wanda assured you.

“Wait what?” Tony asked.

“It’s too loud, for both of us. The memories, they are hurting her too much. We need to lock them away in her mind.” Wanda explained shakily.

Tears tracked down Wanda’s face as she raised her hands to your temples.

“Hold the memories you want gone tightly, I will put them away.” Wanda told you as the red light crept around your head.

It took no more than a minute before you slumped over unconscious and Wanda breathed a sigh of relief.

“It is done. She will sleep for some time and when she wakes up she won’t remember. We can’t tell her anything or it could hurt her even more.”

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

PRESENT DAY

“I died?” You asked in shock.

“Yeah.” Tony said and that one world held a world of hurt.

You went to him and wrapped your arms around him.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered.

“Are you apologising for dying? Really?” He snorted with false amusement.

“Miss Stark, Miss Maximoff? May I speak to the two of you alone before we go any further?” Xavier asked, leaving the room without waiting for an answer.

You and Wanda exchanged a look and followed him to his study.

“Miss Stark the trauma you experienced seems to be stronger than I anticipated if it was enough to affect Miss Maximoff in the way it did.” He noted.

“Wanda.” You said sadly and she turned to you.

“It was not your fault Sestra, I just wanted to help you. I could have shut you out if I needed to.” She assured you.

“Are you saying you chose to put yourself through that? You could have just turned it off?” You asked, horrified.

“I didn’t want you to suffer, or suffer alone.”

“Miss Maximoff, did you see the memories you locked away? It is important you tell me anything you can remember.” Xavier pressed.

“There were flashes. Blood mainly, Blackness and...broken glass I think?” She remembered.

“I see. And are you confident we can proceed without you causing yourself pain?” Xavier asked.

“I can bring the memories out from where I buried them and let you take over without hurting myself.” Wanda assured you both.

“Well then, now we have a better idea of what we are expecting, are you sure you want to proceed Miss Stark?” Xavier asked you.

“I… I don’t know.” You admitted.

When you had found out your memories were taken, you immediatley wanted them back. Even when you found out it had been your choice you had been determined to do better than your past self. Now, you were wondering if it was the right choice. You already knew what had happened, if you wanted to face up to what you had done you could just watch a damn video of all the bloodshed. Did you really need to remember the aftermath?

“It remains your decision.” Xavier reminded you.

“What do you think I should do?” You asked Wanda.

“Sestra, you are my friend. My family. I love you and do not wish to see you in pain. I want you to let it be but I will support you if you choose to do this.” She told you, reaching out to take your hand.

“I feel like, if I don’t do this, if I just move on… I’m condoning what happened. What Vernichtung did. I know it’s not me but I still have to be held accountable. And I know they were Hydra, they didn’t deserve mercy but I still have to allow myself to feel guilty or I’m no better than them.” You explained to them.

“A noble way of thinking.” Xavier praised you.

“Let’s do this.” You decided.

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

You were tied down at your own request, while Wade made jokes about how Logan could tie him down anyday. Tony and The Avengers were close by but not in the room.

“Are you ready?” Xavier asked Wanda and she nodded, standing by your left shoulder.

“Once you have led me to the memories and unlocked them, I will take over and you may leave the room until it is safe to come back.” Xavier told her.

“Alright. I won’t be far though.” She assured you, or maybe herself.

“Are you ready Miss Stark?” Xavier asked.

“To have two people pick apart my brain like cotton candy? Sure, why not.” You said with a confident grin.

The red mist spread from Wanda’s fingers and you thought you could hear The Professor’s voice inside your head and then it went dark.

“Hello?” You called into the darkness.

There was no answer. You frowned and spun around in a circle, looking for something, anything other than darkness.

“Professor? Wanda?”

You were starting to worry, this wasn’t part of the plan. You stepped forwards, or maybe backwards. There was no direction in this place. Something crunched under your foot and you knelt down to look. There was broken glass littering the ground. You picked it up and saw your reflection in it.

Not broken glass.

A broken mirror.

You remembered now. Everything you had tried to forget. You had made a terrible, terrible mistake coming here. You weren’t trying to bury memories, you were trying to bury IT.

“Welcome Back.” Vernichtung said as it stepped out of the darkness with a vicious snarl.

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

Reader: Dad, I'm dating Wade Wilson. Tony: *sobbing* Why would you do this? Whyyyyy? Reader: SIKE! I'm actually dating Bucky Tony: Oh thank God! ... ... ... Tony: Wait WHAT?

I REALLY need to update the summary of this story. It does not explain a damn thing. I'm awful at summaries.

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@chook007@thejourneyneverendsx@thelostallycat@inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher@kendrawr-kitkat@phoenix-whiskey-tears@the–real-wombat@buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt@meganjonezzzz

@dugan365 @fluffeh-kitty@memanda17@krystallynx@theonelittleone

@piscesbarnes @free-as-fishes@tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard

@dropthepizza346 @jaynnanadrews @likes-to-smell-books @drdorkus

@life-wanderer @metalarmlover @animegirlgeeky @jsmith509

[phrynewrites]

I'd love a platonic brooke/Nina friendship fic for 9 please if you're okay with writing it! I feel like that prompt would be hilarious for those two after a night out!

Hello lovely! Ahh I’ve been so excited to write this since I saw it in my inbox and I’m sorry for all the waiting for the drabbles. I hope you enjoy what I’ve done with these two. It’s set in no particular AU.

“You don’t remember last night at all, do you?”

Yvie opened the door, revealing two laughing fools, obviously drunk, leaning against her railing, staring off at her rose bushes before snapping their attention back to Yive. 

“You have mail you didn’t take in, Yvangeline.” Nina leaned against Brooke, shaking a couple mailers and a few envelopes. She opened up a Victoria’s Secret advert. “Look Brooke.” She held it out for her to see. “Free panty coupon.”

“With purchase or no?” Brooke slurred out. “Because that’s how they get you.”

Nina ignored her. “Ooh, this one looks like an electric bill.” 

Brooke shook a finger at Yvie. “You got to pay those. That’s what Vanjie told me. She said, Brookie, we got to cut that check,” Brooke said, roughing up her voice a bit. “So. I. Did.” She punctuated with her finger. 

“We did pay them, that’s why they’re out there.” Yvie grabbed the mail from Nina and stuffed it back in the box.

Nina took in Yvie’s bathrobe and green face mask. “Why are you green?”

“Why are you drunk?” Yvie shot back, face wrinkling. 

“Why aren’t you?” 

“Ooh, good point, goood point,” Brooke added. “We’re coming in.” 

Yvie moved out of the way, allowing the two to slink in, hoping miserably that they would be quieter inside, fully knowing that they wouldn’t. They couldn’t even walk across her hardwood floors or needlessly share the same faded floral printed arm chair—there was a perfectly good couch just feet away from them—quietly. They continued exchanging giggles, Brooke sitting on Nina’s lap, Nina braiding Brooke’s hair. 

Yvie shushed them. “You two need to be quiet. One of you can take the couch and sleep off all of this.” Yvie gestured to the two wrapped up on the chair. “Over there. Quietly.”

At first, they looked over at the couch, then at the fuzzy red blanket draped over the couch, then even further, at the coats on the hooks by the door: a run down brown fur coat and a black pea coat with silver buttons. Brooke and Nina shared a look, mouths forming o’s, before turning back to Yvie. 

“Whose coat is that? Nina sang, reaching out to accept a cup of water from Yvie, bringing it to Brooke’s lips, allowing her to take a few slow sips, puckering her lips and breathing out an ‘ahh’ in response, taking the cup from Nina and returning the favor. 

Yvie met them with confusion, half her face mask already washed off. “Uh, it’s Scarlet’s?”

“Are you two together yet?” Nina nearly choked on her water as she tried to talk and drink at the same time, Brooke using her sleeve to stop the water from dripping down Nina’s chin. 

“Or are you two still just fucking?” Brooke attempted to wiggle her brows, but just ended up squinting.

“What?” Yvie leaned against her counter, shooting a worried glance back toward the bedroom. “You guys really need to be qui–” 

“Because what worked for me and Monet, was like, just telling her, you know?”

“I just slid into Vanjie’s DMs.” Brooke finished the last of the water, twisting to place the empty cup down on the floor. 

“After you slid your tongue into her mouth.” Nina wrapped her arms around Brooke’s waist, turning toward Brooke, allowing her pointed tongue to extend toward Brooke’s mouth, Brooke own tongue nearly meeting Nina’s. 

“For the love of god,” Yvie said, already feeling her fuse drawing short. “Put your tongues back in your mouths.” 

Nina pushed hers back in with her fingers, nodding at Yvie. 

“Either way, all good ideas, so feel free to use them.” 

Yvie let her head fall into her hands. “We’re literally married. You were both there.” She spread her arms wide. “You’re in our house right now.” Yvie pulled her robe tighter, returning to the kitchen sink to wash off the rest of the mask. 

“Love is so beautiful.” 

Nina’s lip quivered. “I love love.” 

“Love’s the best.” Brooke’s voice broke as she fell against Nina, wrapping her arms around her neck.

Yvie, now fresh faced, brought her attention back to the two, who now sat sobbing against one another, babbling on about how much they loved each other and how they would love each other forever. 

God, she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of this sooner. Get Monet and Vanjie to pick these idiots up. The sooner they were out of her living room, the sooner she could go to bed, and the sooner Yvie could fall into a well deserved sleep. 

“Yvie, get over here and love with us.” Brooke mumbled into Nina’s shoulder.

Yvie returned from the bedroom with her phone. “I’m calling your wives to come get you two.” It was nearly half past one a.m., and it she supposed it was rude to call this late, but right now it didn’t matter. 

“Nu-uh.” Nina shook her head, eyes still glassy. “They’re at a bachelorette party.” 

“Sloshed,” Brooke added. 

“Very sloshed. And they can’t drink and drive because that’s bad.”

“Yeah.” Brooke peeled one arm off of Nina and put her hand on her hip. “And we can’t either. Because it’s bad. That’s why we drink and walked.” She added with a sassy little grunt, which Yvie had absolutely zero time for. 

“Okay, then again,” Yvie said, drilling each word in. “You both stay here. And sleep on the couch.” She picked up the discarded cup, refilling it with water, turning back toward the living room, only to find that Brooke and Nina were now sitting on the floor with the fuzzy red blanket over their heads.

She set the cup on the coffee table. “Okay, what is this?”

“It’s a blanket fort.”

“And you’re not invited,” Brooke yelled, pointing at Yvie under the blanket. 

Yvie rushed over, lowering Brooke’s finger, hissing “You need to be quiet.”

“What I need is more to drink.” Brooke replied easily, her arm falling heavily back down in her lap. 

“Fine.” Yvie fell back into the arm chair. “There’s a cup of water on the table.”

Brooke’s long fingers snaked out from under the blanket, like a predator stalking prey, pawing around aimlessly until she brushed against the cup, inching it toward her, and then in a rapid motion, taking it under the blanket. 

“For your kindness, fair Yvangeline.” Brooke’s hand shot out again, this time depositing Nina’s watch on the coffee table. “A gift, for you.”

Yvie breathed out a string of profanities, unable to be taken by their silliness, their lilting laughter under the blanket. She wanted to go to bed. 

Yvie yanked the blanket off, finding the two huddled together, spilled water next to them. 

“Okay, now it’s time to go to bed.” She pulled a set of sheets and an extra pillow out of the hall closet, setting up the couch and chair, shoving the spare pillow into Nina’s hands. “Please. Just lay down on the couch and go to bed.” 

“The couch is too small.” Nina pointed out. 

“Yes.” Yvie rolled her eyes. Hard. “That’s why one of you will be on the chair.” 

“But we want to sleep together.” Brooke pouted.

“Holding hands.”

“Like sea otters.” 

“Okay,” Yvie drawled out, pulling the chair closer to the couch. “Now you can hold hands.” 

Nina grabbed Brooke by the shoulders. “Or, we could cuddle,” she said. “Like the good ol’ days.” 

“I don’t care what you do, just go to bed.”

“Or…” Brooke trailed off, eyeing the oven. “We all make cookies like we did in the good ol’ days.” 

“Yes!” Nina bounced on her toes, rushing toward the kitchen, pulling Brooke with her. 

“No.” Yvie pulled at her hair. “No no no. It’s bedtime.” 

But Brooke and Nina were already opening and slamming cabinets haphazardly, in hot pursuit of a baking tray and a bowl. Brooke decided a pot was close enough. 

Nina found a tray, holding it up as Brooke gawked at it in wonder. 

“You know that one vine—”

“I swear to god, Brooke,” Yvie interrupted. “Don’t do it. 

“—with the woman banging on the pan, like—” 

Yvie’s eyes flashed angrily at Brooke, her face tightening as she saw Nina nod slowly, reaching for the pot. 

“Put that down, Nina.” 

Nina did not put it down. 

Instead, she banged it against the tray as her and Brooke yelled “I didn’t get no fuckin’ sleep cause of y’all, y’all—” 

Yvie reached across the counter, grabbing the pot.

Scarlet meandered out into the living room, dazed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, adjusting her over-sized t-shirt. “What is this?” 

The three stood frozen in their position, Nina and Brooke with their child-like grins, Yvie mouthing ‘I’m so sorry, babe.’

Nina and Brooke dropped the tray and pot, letting it land with a metallic shutter,  and ran toward Scarlet, the two pinning her against the armchair in a tight embrace. 

“We’re making cookies. Do you want to make cookies?” 

Nina nodded rapidly, feverishly grinning, hoping her own enthusiasm would wipe the confusion off her face and convince her to join them. 

Scarlet looked up, over Nina’s shoulder, quirking a brow at Yvie, who mouthed back ‘They’re drunk.’ 

“Okay.” 

Giddily, they each took a hand and pulled her back into the kitchen. 

After the cookies were finally made and eaten, the clock struck three times on the hour, and Brooke and Nina were forced to drink another cup of water each and brought back to Scarlet and Yvie’s bed, so the two of them could cuddle and hold hands to their heart’s content until sleep overtook them, Scarlet and Yvie passed out on the couch, blanketed in exhaustion.

***

Nina and Brooke stumbled down the hall, feeling the walls for balance, struck by the sunlight pouring from the open windows, the mess in the kitchen, and Yvie and Scarlet, who stood in the middle of it, eating toast and drinking coffee as though their cabinets weren’t dusted in flour and batter didn’t sag from their counter tops. 

“What happened here?” Nina asked, sighting her watch on the coffee table, fumbling to put it on, her pounding head complicating the task. 

“What’s that look about?” Brooke pointed between the two of them, Yvie letting out a bellowing laugh in response, Scarlet continuing to drink her coffee.  

Yvie brushed toast crumbs from her fingers, a devilish grin forming on her curled lips. “You don’t remember last night at all, do you?”