#x1 hard hours

[minheeskitten]

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[hyper-fixates]

Time After Time

Logan Howlett/Wolverine x AFAB!reader (no pronouns/gendered language).

Explicit content (18+)

Word count: 15.2k never let me near him again

Tags/warnings: age-gap due to logan’s mutation (reader’s age not specified), mutant!reader, unprotected sex, teasing, friends to lovers, explicit language, dry humping, storm cameos, fluff, domesticity, the claws come out when he’s close (👁️👁️), detailed descriptions & scenes of nightmares/trauma/PTSD/panic attacks, one (1) ass smack, alcohol consumption, vomiting, biting/marking, angst, soft!logan, creampie, groping/touching, use of “baby” once, aftercare, yearning (kindly let me know if anything was missed!).

Summary: 4 times you end up in Logan’s bed, and the 1 time he does something about it.

Notes: this falls somewhere in between “which could mean nothing” and “we can fix each other” 🫡 (written with a mix of X1 & X2 logan!)

Your heart, despite always being alive and beating, sometimes wakes up before you.

You can feel it before your eyes even have a chance to open. It jolts your sleep-ridden body and collapses your lungs without giving your brain a chance to fight against it. Muscles and limbs feel lifeless and detached from your body, shaking from the sleep that your heart knows wasn’t completely dreamless.

You kick the blankets off of yourself and sit up in a panic, trying to regain some control of your sudden erratic breaths while bringing a lethargic hand to your heaving chest in hopes to ground yourself. It never works.

Maybe your ribs are shrinking and squeezing your lungs, making you delirious from the lack of oxygen, but you know that’s not the case. Your heart feels like it’s being squeezed and broken into a million tiny pieces.

No part of your body feels real, yet you keep your hand on your chest as firmly as you can, trying to focus on controlling the pounding of your heart that’s working so hard with each beat that it hurts. 

“Fuck. Fuck,” you choke out, feeling the tears finally breach and roll down your cheeks as your nervous system catches up to what’s happening.

 Panic. It’s all panic.

You can’t do anything but sit there and let the tears hit the freshly-washed fitted sheet on your bed. So you let it happen. Nothing can stop it.

Trauma is such a fickle thing. One moment you’re fine, and then the next, your heart is screaming at you and forcing your body to process something at 4 a.m. on a random Friday when all you wanted was some goddamn sleep.

There is no choice. Your mind doesn’t give you one.

The tremors subside slowly after a few minutes, giving you the feeling back to your arms and legs, albeit minimal.

You slide to sit at the edge of your bed, resting an elbow on your thigh and setting your chin into your palm with a defeated, yet shaky, huff. 

You look to your window and see that the sun hasn’t even started to rise yet. You’ll be up for the rest of the foreseeable morning, but there’s not much to do so early besides wander aimlessly and think…then think some more. 

You’re confident the professor isn’t even awake at this hour, which says enough about your state. You would typically go visit Storm for some comfort, but she’s been gone fuck-knows-where with Hank and Scott until Sunday at the latest. Thanks, Charles.

A questionable, and probably manic, decision comes to mind. One that’s only two doors down, one over from Storm.

Your impulsive feet make up your mind for you. The cold hardwood floor shocking you further into consciousness as if your heart didn’t do a good enough job.

You tiptoe a couple steps down the hall, forcing yourself to turn and face the large wooden door when you reach it. You just stand there staring at it, unknocking, analyzing the wood grains, suddenly very interested in what type of wood it is and what stain was used to—

“Uh. Are you okay?”

You refocus your eyes onto the man now standing in front of you in the doorway, adorning a barely-zipped school hoodie and black sweats.

“Huh?” You blink a few times, disoriented.

Logan quirks a brow, looking you up and down cautiously. “Are you okay?” He asks again, offering a look of concern—or maybe confusion—that you haven’t seen often. A look that’s never needed to be directed towards you.

You come back to yourself. “But—I…didn’t knock,” you respond, looking equally as confused as him as you point to the door. 

He leans against the edge of the door, face softening. “I could smell you before you passed Storm’s room,” he clarifies, a hint of reluctance in his tone. Oh. 

You feel like a child who has just gained awareness, all too conscious of your situation.

“You’re…awake?” Is all you manage despite probably needing to say much more than that to explain just why exactly you’re standing outside Logan’s room at 4 a.m.

“So are you,” he counters with a curious look. “So let me ask again. Are you okay?” He locks his eyes on yours, probably in hopes to understand why the fuck you’re outside his room at 4 a.m.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” you say, and it’s the truth. 

You should probably be embarrassed. You show up at Logan’s door unannounced, dressed in a flimsy shirt and matching sweats—thanks, Charles—that can’t fully hide the remaining quivers throughout your body.

Logan pulls his lips together at your admission. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head trying to figure you out.

“Can’t sleep?” He questions, but he knows he’s right.

“Yeah.” You don’t know why you’re making it Logan’s problem, though. Sure, he happens to be awake, but maybe this is all too personal to push on the guy who’s seemingly all pride and no solicitude most of the time.

It’s not that he’s not a good, nice guy, but you don’t know how you would define your relationship, or lack of.

You know each other well enough from existing in the same space over the past couple months, being part of the same “team”, but it’s nothing to call a close friendship like you and Storm. He’s a bit of a rare species in the mansion, not really lingering around.

He cocks his head in a half shrug, the soft points in his hair broken by sleep shake gently with the movement.

“I don’t think I can help you,” he says wearily. “I’m no better. Clearly.” He gestures between you, drawing attention to the fact that you’re both awake. The helpless cannot help the helpless.

“Oh—no, I’m not looking for help. I think I’m beyond that at this point,” you laugh but stop yourself short when Logan doesn’t follow. Tough crowd.

“I, uh, don’t actually know what I’m looking for,” you offer.

You knit your brows together in thought, still wondering why the fuck you’re here. Comfort? Entertainment? Some other unknown third thing?

“I’m not really used to Storm being gone for so long,” you admit. “I just feel…all over the place, I guess.”

Logan considers your vulnerability for a beat, eyes flicking to yours. “I can hear you sometimes,” he says, a knowing—almost sympathetic—look on his face. “We have the same problem.”

You go cold, any expression you had on your face sliding away. You wish the floor could swallow you right now. You know things have been getting worse recently, but you didn’t think anyone could hear that fact. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise from someone who could smell you from down the hallway.

He steps back, pulling his door open further. An invitation.

You don’t move right away. Could this be a false awakening? You’re not sure what you expected when you came to his door, but you also didn’t expect him to open it without you knocking, so you have to suspend disbelief for now. You figured he’d offer a few words of advice and dismiss you, or maybe even tell you to fuck off, but he opened his door wider for you. But you didn’t exactly think any of it through in the first place anyway.

You force your feet to carry you into Logan’s room. It’s not much different from yours; scarce belongings, minimal decor, a small work desk, brown curtains that are drawn back, and a bed. 

“Were you, uh…sleeping before I came?” You sit on the unmade bed, nothing noticeably different from it compared to yours.

He shuts the door quietly, moving to the small desk across the room and filing some scattered papers together neatly.

“Trying to,” he says, keeping his gaze on the desk.

Fucking duh. “Sorry if I disturbed you,” you wince to yourself. 

You see him briefly shake his head at your unnecessary apology. “I had to get up anyway.” His voice is still gravelly from sleep.

It feels like you’re invading his space. But he invited you in. How many others have had the opportunity to be in here? Probably too many. There’s nothing to make this special.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” you sigh, flopping back on his bed defeated. Simply overwhelmed with the uncontrollable repercussions of your mutation.

“Try to sleep. If you want,” he offers, moving to the edge of the bed. “It’s easier said than done, but I have to meet with Charles in an hour.” It’s gruff, but he’s sincere.  

Maybe the professor is awake after all.

You roll your head to the side to look at him. Was he really offering for you to stay in his bed?

“Oh, wow…uh, sure.” It comes off as more of a question, but he quirks his brows in acknowledgment, turning back to the desk and collecting a handful of other miscellaneous papers.

“I have to head downstairs and take care of some things. Stay as long as you need,” he says, zipping his sweater the rest of the way up. Thank God in heaven.

A shy “thanks” is all you manage as you situate yourself on the bed.

Is this fucking weird? You could name a handful of others in the mansion right this second that would kill without hesitation to be where you are. They’d probably kill you specifically to get it. It’s not much of a secret that Logan is the subject of almost all students’ desires. He knows it, too. 

“See you later,” he adds, his lips forming the slightest hint of a caring smile as he sees himself out. You throw one back before the door clicks shut.

Should you be offended that he didn’t stay? That he left so quickly? No, no, he can’t. He couldn’t. Charles is expecting him. The timing is just horrid. But now you’re just…alone…in Logan’s room, expected to sleep because of a random act of kindness in his heart.

Lying in his bed instead of yours is an odd sensation. The sheets and mattress are exactly the same, the pillows are just as fluffy, yet it feels unalike. 

You flop your head on his pillow, tugging the blankets up to your chin. Your fingers graze something by your hip as you settle in, making you push the blanket back down. Leaning over, you see three puncture marks in the mattress, fraying the bedsheet material into feather-soft strands around the deep holes.

Your eyes widen, remembering his words before he invited you in: “We have the same problem.”

Part of your heart fractures for the second time today. Your eyes cross over to the other side of you, seeing a matching set of holes just below the pillow. It’s suddenly easy to understand why no one besides him has been seen coming and going from this room in a while. One day, things just seemed to change. 

Maybe his act of kindness was an act of mercy. Trauma will always find you, and it will make sure you feel it until you either destroy it or it destroys you.

Even the Wolverine isn’t an exception. 

━━━━ ● ━━━━

The gold liquid is gone from the glass as quickly as it was poured.

Your throat clenches and protests the swallow as you try to suppress the urge to gag. You gently set the shot glass back on the counter, watching Storm chase with a piece of lime that does nothing to help the puckered face she makes from the tequila. 

“No more, no more. I can’t.” Your arms anchor you to the counter to stop yourself from swaying too much.

Storm nods, still fighting off the sourness with furrowed brows and a scrunched nose. You giggle at her when she quickly screws the cap back on the bottle, sliding it out of reach.

“You’re a bad influence,” she scolds as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“No—I’m under the influence,” you counter, a playful smile on your lips. “There’s a difference. You still have your own free will.”

Storm rolls her eyes so hard you only see the whites of them. “We have training tomorrow,” she slurs. “Charles will not be happy if we show up half-conscious.” She rounds the counter to you, grabbing your shoulders for stability, and you do the same.

“He’ll be lucky if we show up at all,” you mumble. 

The dim kitchen lighting embraces the two of you, the rest of the mansion blanketed in darkness with everyone fast asleep—like you both should be.

You close your eyes with a roll of your neck, more giggles falling through your lips as you clumsily grab onto Storm and rock and sway together for a moment, the alcohol quickly catching up to your motor skills. It feels like you’re spinning through time and space, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel fucking euphoric. At this rate, neither of you will be able to make it back to your rooms.

“Am I interrupting something?”

You lose a bit of your balance as you try to find the resonant voice, eyes shooting open. Storm unintentionally startles and stumbles away from you, white hair also jumping from the excitement.

You grab onto the counter again, sucking in a deep breath. “Fuck, don’t do that,” you growl through your teeth, a hand on your chest as you try to calm yourself.

“Don’t do what? Come to the shared kitchen to grab a drink?” Logan huffs a laugh, an amused smile creeps to his lips as he takes in your drunk and shaken state from the entryway.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep in this place?” He mumbles to himself.

“And with that, I’m done for the night,” Storm chuckles, fixing her hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her eyes lock intensely on yours, index finger firmly poking the middle of your chest to make her point for you to show up to training very clear.

“See you, Logan,” she dismisses, stumbling as she passes him.

Logan shakes his head, still smiling. He steps to the fridge, opening the double doors and plucking a bottle of soda from the bottom shelf. No alcohol is readily available in the communal fridge because, after all, you’re all in a school full of kids, so Storm had to get creative; Scott will be missing a rather large bottle from the now not-so-secret stash in his room.

As the alcohol continues to settle in you, you feel more and more lightheaded as it brings you to a new level of euphoria again. You only know this because watching Logan pop the cap of his drink with mindless ease feels a little more exciting than it would be if you were sober. But you’re not sober, and that’s the problem.

“Not gonna follow Storm?” He asks, taking a generous sip from the bottle as he casually places his free hand on the counter to lean on across from you.

A tight smile forms, mostly to yourself. “I don’t think I can make it down the hall,” you laugh in embarrassment. Maybe that last shot was one too many, and it’s not even fully done working its magic yet.

Logan raises a brow. “Want some help?” There’s no judgement in his tone like you expect. Then again, you don’t know what the fuck to expect from him.

Your already half-closed eyes, blurry and unfocused, meet his hazel ones in interest. Another favour?

It’s been two weeks since he let you sleep off the nightmares in his bed. Two weeks since you learned he’s burdened with them, too. You traced the holes in the mattress over and over before you eventually fell asleep, wondering what—or who—could have hurt him so badly. He plays it off cool; you wouldn’t suspect anything from talking to him. The same could probably be said about you.

“I didn’t know wolverine’s were chivalrous,” you tease.

The yellow hue of the lights dance over the quaffed points in his hair, making them appear sharper than usual. You would never admit it, especially to him, but you adore them. They give him an absurd amount of character that you’d expect a guy like him to not care about. 

You’re not exactly complaining about the fitting grey tank-top he has on either.

“Not overly,” he plays along, taking another mouthful of the fizzy drink. “I like to think I’m special,” he says quieter.

“Maybe you are,” you say as you try and straighten yourself to see if you can stand unassisted.

The world tilts as you stand to your full height, eyes rolling into your head from the wave of dizziness. “Wow, okay,” you say to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the spinning. How many shots did you have again?

A warm hand presses between your shoulders. “Woah, nice and easy. Nice and easy.” Logan appears by your side to steady you, other hand grabbing your elbow to pull you straight. You wobble in his grip, letting him guide your useless, alcohol-ridden body.

His hand on your back rubs a few small, comforting circles as you work to regain your bearings. He watches your expressions intently, looking for the right moment to get you moving back to your room safe and sound.

Your arm crosses over your body out of instinct to grab the hand he has on your elbow for extra support.

“Are you okay?” He asks. He seems to ask you that a lot.

You lean into him, your shoulder to his chest, and you can feel the blackout creeping up on you like humidity from a thunderstorm—it’s usually too late to do anything once you notice it. 

“I drank a lot,” you laugh deeply, rolling your head onto his shoulder to look up at him.

He looks so much more delicate under the ambient lights—his usual defined features have shifted and melted him into someone that doesn’t look like they should be a feared animal out in the world.

Logan all but cradles you, that same look of concern crossing his features from the night you went to his door. The only difference is that you’ve had a generous amount of tequila—and are currently being kept alert by the hot touch of his hands. That’s new.

“Can you walk?” He holds your squinty eye contact, probably searching for any signs of a coherent thought behind the blissful expression on your face. “Or will I have to carry you?” He muses, a hint of a smile crosses his lips as his hand moves up to gently rub over your shoulders. 

Drunk you likes the sound of anything relating to Logan keeping his hands on you right now. You wonder what sober you would think.

“I’m not gonna tell you no, but it feels like I’m floating in a bubble that won’t stop spinning,” you hum as you let the sensation consume your senses. “I might fly away.” You dip your head back off of his shoulder in amusement as you laugh again. 

“Yeah, you’re fucked up,” he mumbles lovingly. Just like anyone else who’s concerned for your well-being would. 

“Hey, kitty cat—I’m perfectly buzzed,” you emphasize the teasing nickname, narrowing your eyes at him sternly as you bring your gaze back to his in defence.

“‘Kitty cat’? Really?” He snorts. “I think you’re past your bedtime by three drinks,” he remarks back with equal levity.

“Then take me to bed if you’re so concerned,” you sigh dramatically, going limp in his arms to make your point. 

Truthfully, you’re probably past your bedtime by five shots. But he doesn’t need to know that. You just know that you can’t control your limbs like you were able to ten minutes ago.

“Maybe I will.” You don’t see it, but he does his quick little eye roll that you’ve seen pointed towards Scott too many times. 

He slides the hand on your elbow down to the backs of your knees, pulling you up off the floor and into his chest as you fall into the arm that was rubbing your back. 

Oh, so it’s gonna be like that. 

An excited—or maybe shocked—noise escapes your mouth as he adjusts you in his arms. You extend your right arm up and over his shoulder to hug his neck and keep yourself stable.

The trip to your room isn’t one that should take long, but each sway from Logan’s steps goes straight to your stomach in waves of queasiness. It feels like forever before you feel him bend awkwardly to turn your doorknob.

You’re fighting to keep yourself conscious the entire time, not wanting to regret missing the feeling of being in his arms.

The room is only lit by the silver moonlight creeping through the window. It’s hard to distinguish anything through your bleary eyes besides Logan’s look of determination to get you in your bed.

He leans down, shuffling you out of his arms and onto the mattress as swiftly as possible. The care of it all pokes at your heart. 

He silently goes around each corner of the bed adjusting the blankets. It may be dark, but the moonlight highlights the peaks of his shoulders as he moves. Your eyes might be involuntarily half-shut, but that doesn’t stop you from staring.

You’re now probably no better than every other mutant in this school.

“Logan,” you start before you can fully process the foolish thing you’re about to say next.

He rounds the bed back to the side you’re huddled on, looking down on you. “Yeah?” The subtle jingle of his dog tag pierces the quiet that’s lingering in the room.

You part your lips to speak but the words die in your throat. They’re replaced by a flood of saliva that has you sitting up at a speed that shouldn’t be possible for someone as intoxicated as you. You cover your mouth with your hand, feeling your stomach churning and finally rejecting the tequila. 

You suddenly feel very awake.

“Hey, hey.” Logan squats down in front of you with his already permanently-furrowed brows pinched closer together than you’ve ever seen before, a hand coming to your shoulder in concern. “What—”

“Bathroom,” you mumble through your palm, eyes rolling shut at the nausea. 

He doesn’t say another word. He pulls you to your feet by your arms, walking behind you fiercely with his hands gripping your shoulders to guide you to the small bathroom across the room.  

You push the door open, falling to your knees in the darkness over the toilet as the mistakes from the night expel themselves from your body through rounds of coughing and gagging. He lingers in the doorway, keeping an eye on you but still giving you privacy.

“Fuck,” you cough, resting your warm forehead on your hand as you slump against the toilet. That definitely sobered you up fast.

Exhaustion hits you like a truck. “Logan…” you croak from your crumpled position on the tile floor. 

He steps in, bending down again to reach your height. You can barely make out the shadow of him in the fading moonlight.

“Just…help me back to bed,” you groan, reaching for his arm as you use the toilet seat to push yourself the rest of the way up. You stumble against him as you try to make it back through the doorway.

He guides you to the bed the same way he did to the bathroom—steering you from behind.

“I’m gonna get you some water,” he says as you settle back into bed, head hitting the pillow with a quiet thud. “Even though you did this to yourself.”

“Fuck off,” you groan.

You close your eyes, hearing his footsteps fade back toward the bathroom. You hear the tap run for a couple seconds before he’s next to you again, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Drink. All of it,” he says firmly, holding the cup out to you.

You sit back up slowly, no doubt lethargic, an unimpressed look on your face that earns you a raised brow that tells you there’s no room to object.

You finish the cup in four mouthfuls, handing it back to him. “Thanks.”

You fall back onto the pillow, no longer feeling like you’re travelling through space and time.

The clothes you’re in are close enough to pyjamas. There’s no sense in undressing in front of Logan, especially with what you were about to say to him before you were rudely interrupted by the consequences of your own actions.

He returns the cup to the bathroom and you pull the blanket over your waist as you hopefully settle in for the rest of the night. You owe him big time for this. The thought of just how exactly you’ll manage that fills you with anxiety.

You turn on your side, fingers sliding over the mattress with the movement. They graze familiar strands of feather-soft fabric by the pillow.

This is Logan’s room. Are you just that drunk that you couldn’t tell the difference when he brought you in? Or are your rooms just that similar to each other?

You dip a finger in one of the three holes, hearing the bathroom door click shut as Logan makes his way back. 

“Why am I in your bed?” You see him rustling through some drawers of clothing by the small desk, but he stops when you finish your question.

“You can’t take care of yourself tonight,” he says. “You’re too drunk.” He pulls the grey tank-top off, stuffing it in one of the drawers and shutting it.

You sit up at that, head still foggy and tipsy, watching him move to the foot of the bed across from you. You try to focus your eyes on anything but his bare chest and the dark hair that adorns it and trails down past the waistband of his sweats. His hair is somehow even more wild from mindlessly pulling the tank-top over his head.

“Ah. I was gonna ask you to stay anyway,” you reveal, almost whispering the bold confession.

You were planning to ask before the tequila decided to make another appearance, but maybe doing it this way isn’t so bad either. He did all the heavy-lifting.

A modest, tight-lipped smile graces his lips. “I think you still have some tequila to sleep off.”

Whether or not you still have some shots in your system, what you feel and want right now is real. It’s not influenced by anything besides some mild andronitis created by the fact that you share a common struggle.

“Is it…safe? To share a bed?” The most coherent thought you’ve had all night makes him stiffen from your sudden nervous tone. Your body could easily replace the mattress and become a new home for the deep punctures. 

Your eyelids have been fighting against being pulled shut by alcohol-induced drowsiness, yet your eyes are wider than they’ve been all night in this moment.

You’re sat right in the middle of the bed and Logan comes around to the right, sitting on the edge of the mattress to come down to your level.

“You’re just gonna have to trust me.” His eyes are imploring and apologetic all at once. He understands the prospect of even having you here in the first place.

You nod, sliding over to the left to give him more room. 

Logan wouldn’t put you in harms way, you reason with yourself. He wouldn’t risk potentially killing someone, especially a fellow mutant, if he wasn’t absolutely sure of his mental state. But you also don’t really know his demons.

You roll onto your right side, tugging the blanket up to your chin in comfort. “Why haven’t you been given a new mattress?” You ask as he turns to face you in the same position, his half of the blanket resting at his hip.

The bed dips significantly on his side, almost encouraging you to roll over against him.

“Forgot to ask,” he says quietly, running his right hand through his hair to push the shorter strands off his forehead.

From his tone you can decipher that he actually means “can’t be bothered.” It’s a devastating thing to imagine just how many he goes through, anyway. He probably doesn’t see the point in replacing something that will inevitably have the same fate as the others.

There has to be less than an arms length between you two. It’s a surreal situation to be in considering what you thought you knew about him. A recluse. Standoffish. Maybe it’s all a fluke and the alcohol is severely fucking with your perception of what’s actually happening.

“Thanks for everything,” you whisper as if someone else will overhear.

“Get some sleep,” he insists, rolling onto his back. You do the same.

You stare at the blank ceiling for a while, noticing the exact moment Logan falls asleep; his breathing grows slow and his body runs even hotter than before. 

You think about how he could wake at any moment, claws accidentally sliding right through your stomach from a nightmare or two. You imagine all the others that have been in your position—if they felt scared, if they even knew. 

He asked you to trust him, and that should be enough. 

There is a body full of secrets and hurt sleeping undisturbed next to you with the ability to withstand and regenerate from any physical injury, yet there’s something that hasn’t allowed the same to be done for his mind. 

━━━━

The bright amber sun hits your closed eyes through the window, making you roll your head away onto the other side of the cool pillow.

You want more sleep. Your head feels like a bag of bricks and your body feels like it got beat with them.

You stretch a leg out, gently grazing something solid with your foot. Your eyes shoot open, the night coming back to you as you drift into consciousness. Logan. 

You shoot up, bouncing a little from the momentum.

Logan startles next to you, clearly interrupted from a deep sleep. “What the fuck…” he groans, rubbing a hand over his face, not seeming interested in making a move to sit up with you.

“What time is it?” Your eyes bounce around the room looking for a clock.

He grunts, reaching for a watch on the nightstand. “Seven-forty.”

You needed to be in the Danger Room for 7 o’clock.

“Fuck!” You rip the blanket off, almost tripping as you run to the bathroom.

Logan also wants to roll back over and go back to sleep, but he knows he won’t be able to. He doesn’t work like that. So he just lays there, listening to you swear and make a mess of his bathroom as the clattering of fuck-knows-what fills the room. 

The surprise of how well he slept makes him feel uneasy. Although it definitely wasn’t eight hours, it was uninterrupted. He doesn’t want to credit that to you, though. He wants to believe that he’s getting better overall, and maybe he is, so he can’t offer you any flattery in his mind.

Another distant “fuck” escapes the bathroom, pulling him out of his thoughts. You exit a few minutes later, as refreshed and presentable as you could get yourself, and the sight of Logan still in bed makes something in you ache for another moment of feeling him care and tend to you. Maybe that’s your hangover talking.

“Thanks again. I’ll see you around,” you say hurriedly, offering an apologetic smile as you turn the doorknob to leave.

“Good luck with Charles.” It’s a genuine advisory. Fuck. You’ll be so incredibly lucky if he doesn’t give you more than a stern lecture in front of everyone.

You take a deep breath in and slip out of Logan’s room. There’s not a single cut, mark, or scratch on you, just like he promised.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“I was told it’ll take a day to fix,” Storm explains with a shrug. “You’ll have to find somewhere or someone to room with until tomorrow. Jean already offered to have me stay with her.” A contrite look passes over her face.

You stand outside your rooms, staring in at the remnants of the mess caused by two terrakinetic kids fucking around in the courtyard when they weren’t supposed to be. They somehow managed to throw, or launch, sizeable tree branches right through each of your windows. Of course it wasn’t on purpose, but the Danger Room exists for a reason—to avoid mishaps like this. 

Shards of glass and fragments of wood splatter your floors. The branches are hanging half-way out both of your windows, caught on the window sills and bobbing in the evening summer wind. The kids are extremely fortunate that neither of you were in your rooms when it happened.

“It’s fine. It’s just one night,” you sigh, rubbing your eyes in frustration. You don’t love how quickly your mind picks out who to go to. It’s already nearing 11 p.m., so you have to work fast. 

Storm squeezes your shoulder in comfort. “The living room is always free,” she suggests with a remorseful smile.

But you don’t want the living room. Stiff couches mixed with students clamouring and passing by at the crack of dawn isn’t exactly a recipe for a good nights rest. As if you usually get one, anyway.

“Not a fucking chance,” you laugh. “I’ll be fine,” you say again, dismissing her worries. You wish her goodnight when she steps by you to head towards Jean’s room at the very end of the hall.

You glare at the mess in your room, not daring to step in. The amount of shattered glass everywhere makes the floor look like a body of water from the reflections of the pale moonlight bouncing and refracting off of the jagged shards.

“Fuck,” you spit through your teeth, solely to yourself.

Not even a full week after Logan saw you at your worst, you’re going to go back and ask for the left side of his bed. Shameless.

You don’t have much of a choice; you’re not comfortable having it be anyone else. It’s only because Logan saw you at your worst that you feel he’s the most logical choice. Already having shared a bed with him this week may also have some weight in your decision.  

You take the few self-assured steps to his room, once again standing in front of his door. This time you feel more confident in approaching the Wolverine in his den.

You knock three times, the piercing sound echoing through the hall.

“You start to miss me or what?” A bare chest enters your view. You note the dog tag hanging from his neck again before you find his unyielding gaze full of ambiguity, wondering why you’re here. Again.

You blink at him slowly in hilarity. “Ha, funny. Can I stay with you tonight?” You ask flatly, not thrilled with the situation, but not completely displeased with being here now. “My window—”

“I know what happened,” he interrupts. “Figured you’d go for the couch in the living room.” He looks at you more pointedly with teasing suspicion. 

“I think you know no one would ever willingly choose to sleep out there,” you reason, running a hand over your face in both shame and defeat.

He makes a face that tells you “touché” and you smirk in satisfaction. “If you don’t mind giving up half of your bed again, I would really appreciate it. I promise I’m not trying to make this a habit,” you sigh. Spending the night in Logan’s bed three times in the past month has to be a record for anyone recently. 

“I don’t think it would be a bad habit,” he argues. Oh. “C’mon.” He gives a jerk of his head to allow you in, his tufts of his hair bristling with the quick movement.

“Thanks,” you squeak. He wants you here? 

He shuts the door behind you, following you to the bed that’s clearly already had him in it. The blanket rests in waves on the mattress that remind you of just how human Logan is despite his reputation and image.

“Do you have an early morning?” You ask, slipping under the blanket.

“No. Charles was feeling nice for once,” he raises his tone sarcastically to rag on Charles’ judgement, which has clearly been a much needed one before now.

“Not an early bird?” You roll onto your right side like last time, facing him as he settles on his back with a deep breath. The bed sinks in again where he lays, your body wanting to give in to the laws of gravity and fall into him.

“Fuck no,” he laughs lightly, eyes crinkling around the corners. It’s self-deprecating, but it’s still a genuine laugh. The condescension from it lingers in the air, all directed at himself in a way that tells you he’s thinking about how inconceivably fucked up he is.

The last time he had a decent sleep was when you were drunk in his bed a few days ago.

“People like us don’t usually get the pleasure of a full eight hours,” he notes, sliding his gaze to yours for a fraction of a second.

He props an arm behind his head, the other resting on his chest and idly twisting the dog tag between his fingers. You watch the thin piece of steel slide and flip easily, the chain tinkling with every movement.

People like us.

“You mean mutants,” you state. You see his jaw tense in what little light there is from the half-moon tonight.

You see his brows pull together. “Yeah.” He has a point.

You think about the mutants you know, how they all have some horrific story about their gifts or family, or both. How they either were shamed by society or experimented on like rats. 

The scenarios are endless. If you can think of it, some mutant has probably lived it.

Your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach. You and Logan are not isolated or special cases, but you’ve already shared a moment of vulnerability with him when you came to his door all those weeks ago seeking solace for the same thing he fights with: the inescapable ability of remembering.

You pull the blanket tighter against you. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.” 

He turns his head to you, confusion written on his face. “What?” He stops toying with the dog tag.

“Your claws. I trust you.” You didn’t feel like you were in immediate danger that first night, but you want to reassure him anyway. Or maybe you’re reassuring yourself. 

He hasn’t had to say a single word for you to know his nightmares trigger something instinctive and combative that’s been hardwired into his DNA. In this case, it’s his claws needing to find a home in his mattresses, where another body could potentially lay one night. Like yours is right now.

You noticed the lack of holes in this mattress when you first got to the bed. Maybe you mentioning them last time was enough for him to finally request a new one.

Logan knows he shouldn’t make promises he doesn’t know he’ll be able to keep, but he wants to keep you here tonight, so he improvises. He abandons the dog tag between his fingers completely, turning onto his side and reaching to find your hand under the blanket. You meet him halfway, sliding your fingers between his as your palms lay flat on the bed.

A smile tugs at your lips for a moment. He watches your interlinked fingers, observing the size difference, wondering if he really just did that—and why. 

You assume it’s his way of saying “thank you” for your trust when you probably shouldn’t be putting that much into him.

“Does it hurt?” You whisper, pulling your fingers out from his just enough to caress the divets between his knuckles that conceal the claws.

He knows what you’re asking. “Every time.” He softly pushes his fingers back into yours, squeezing a little. 

There’s a deadly stillness in the room despite his window being cracked. You both know you’re one in the same in a way, and that’s a connection that Logan hasn’t let himself experience. Not everyone likes looking in a mirror.

To be truly seen by someone, wholly, without judgement or fear, is what he deserves. 

“What are you?” He asks, rubbing his index finger back and forth along the top of your hand. “Telekinetic? Psychic?” His curious voice grows quiet, hazel eyes fascinated with you and your lack of a physical mutation, at least nothing that he can see.

It never occurred to you that he didn’t know your mutation, or that you’ve never told him. It was never needed, but it seems unfair that you know about his when he wasn’t the one who told you.

“Ha, close.” Your eyes twinkle as you notice how intently he’s listening. “Psychometric,” you correct, watching his forehead crease.

“Sounds like math,” he quips, readjusting his head on the pillow. He’s close enough that you can feel the heat he’s putting off.

You laugh quietly. “No, it’s extrasensory perception. It lets me see the history of any object or person I touch, but only if I accept the energy,” you explain.

You watch his eyes narrow and you know what he’s thinking, so you quickly interject as he begins to pull his hand out from yours. “I need to touch a pulse point to be able to see anything,” you reassure, feeling his fingers slide back against yours. “The heart remembers everything,” you clarify.

The catch? The person’s memories and past stay with you after you see them. It’s become hard to distinguish what memories are yours or someone else’s. They all become intertwined. Good or bad, violent or gentle. You see it all, and then it’s part of you. Forever.

“I haven’t looked. I promise.” 

“Good. You don’t need to see that shit,” he huffs, eyes wandering over your face. He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he’s a little startled for the first time in a while.

“I’m sure I’ve seen it all,” you state. It’s probably not far off from the truth. Your gift came when you were all too young, and plenty of time has passed since then for you to rack up this amount of damage from near-strangers and their lives.

“No, you haven’t.” A sure expression passes over him, shaking his head as best as he can against the pillow. 

“Then I’ll count myself lucky,” you say softly. You have no idea what Logan has experienced, but his demeanor makes you want to stay curious. Not everything needs to be known, and you’re definitely not entitled to it.

A faint smile appears on his lips, then it’s gone just as quick. “Get some sleep,” he rasps. He turns onto his back and his hand abandons yours. 

It’s a complete repeat of last time.

Something twinges in your heart, and you don’t like it. What exactly had you expected from Logan? He’s just doing you a courtesy by letting you stay here for the night. Nothing more. And that’s what you should expect: nothing.

The hum of crickets outside eventually lulls you into a dead sleep. It’s heavy and deep, not a single muscle twitching in your body. Logan breathes steadily next to you, a hand on his chest as the occasional snore fills the air.

From above you two might look like you’re transient, only here in this moment for a short time. And, realistically, you are. 

━━━━

Logan was no where to be seen by the time you woke up, and you made quick work to get out of his room. It always feel wrong to be in someone’s space when they aren’t there.

Just like Storm said, the windows in your rooms were fixed the next day. It looks as though nothing even happened.

“Thank fuck,” you mumble to yourself as you step back into your room.

If you ever have to spend another night in Logan’s bed, you might as well wear a shirt that says “yes, we’re fucking!”, even if it isn’t true. You could deny it all you want, but it won’t stop what students would say. Nothing gets past them, even if it’s behind a closed door.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“Are you fucking Logan?”

You almost swallow your tongue. “Sorry?” Your brows shoot up in surprise, eyes round in disbelief.

“Are you guys sleeping together?” Storm casually asks as she flicks through the T.V. channels, glancing over to you from her spot on the couch.

You’re sat comfortably in an arm chair, suddenly no longer caring what channel she decides on. “Why would you think that?” Technically you were sleeping together, but not like that. It may never happen again, no matter how badly you want it to.

“Things travel fast around here,” she deflects with a cheeky smile. “And, you know, Logan is…Logan.” She shrugs.

You don’t even know what to say to that. Is there a right or wrong answer?

“It wasn’t like that,” you grumble. “He was doing me a favour. As a friend.” It hasn’t even been a full day since he let you stay with him while pieces of your window laid on your floor, and people are already convinced you’re fucking. 

You haven’t even managed a chaste kiss, despite how much as you want to, never mind his dick being balls deep in you.

“Right.” She emphasizes the word, not convinced. Or just pushing your buttons because she can. 

You roll your eyes. “If anything was happening, you’d be the first to know,” you point out. 

She looks back over to you. “I know,” she says with another, more sincere, smile. “You two would be cute, though.” 

You give her some side-eye, not quite sure if you disagree entirely with that statement. Whatever happens, happens. Logan is not something you can control or influence. He does what—and who—he wants, when he wants. 

━━━━

A bolt of lightening strikes you. You gasp, then release a choked cry, eyes flying open as you claw at your chest in terror.

Your throat tightens and you break out in a cold sweat as you sit up. The soft blanket around you feels constricting. Sporadic and short breaths make you heave as your body registers the horrors in your subconscious. 

There was never any lighting. That’s just what the pain feels like.

The muscles in your shoulders and neck tense from your panicked state as your heart struggles to keep a normal rhythm. You yank the blanket off, feeling weak from fear and the onset of tremors. Your whole body gives up on itself as you sob through broken exhales. Your legs have gone cold, lungs shrinking inch by inch with every passing minute. 

You crawl to the edge of your bed, wanting to just get out and leave—the blanket. The bed. The room. Most of all, you want to escape your own mind.

You sink onto the floor when a foot touches the ground, and you realize walking isn’t in the cards right now. You’re shaking too badly to be able to physically move. All your strength is gone, robbed by your memories.

Balmy tears paint your face in determination, making sure no part of you is left untouched by this spell.

You screw your eyes shut, tears still slipping out with ease anyway. Leaning your back against the bed-frame, you curl into yourself and wrap your arms around your knees on the chilled hardwood.

You try to focus on your breathing to at least slow your heart down to a pace that doesn’t hurt.

Wounded cries rip their way out of you, interrupting the breaths you try to steady. A hand touches your arm and you yelp like an injured dog, flailing at the contact as your arms swing out from around your knees in shock.

“Hey, hey, it’s me. It’s me.” Strong hands quickly wrap around each of your wrists to stop your arms from thrashing.

You try to focus your eyes, blurred and stinging from tears, on the person kneeling closely in front of you.

“L-Logan…” you whisper, balling your fists to try and expel the shakes.

He looks like someone who shouldn’t be able to be concerned about another person, yet the look on his face scares you. Brows pinched together in worry, eyes frantic, lips parted from heavy breaths. All because of you.

“It’s just me,” he hushes your cries. His thumbs stroke the undersides of your wrists tenderly, no doubt feeling your racing pulse. 

You feel disoriented. “Wh…how…” 

“I heard you,” he explains, watching you process everything. He drops your wrists when some recognition passes over your face.

“What do you need?” He follows your gaze as it wanders around the room, trying to keep you from spiralling further.

You look at him for a moment. He’s got his white tank-top on, the black sweats, and an intense need to help you written all over him. Fresh tears burn your cheeks as you come back into reality.

“I want it to fucking stop,” you weep, head falling into your hands in shame.

You don’t want him to see you like this, even though it’s a commonality between you two. It’s too intimate. You’d take him seeing you blackout drunk everyday of the year over this.

Then you do remember that it has stopped. Each time in Logan’s bed. There was silence. Peace. For the whole night. For both of you.

“Tell me what you need,” he says firmly, angling his head down to keep your eyes on him, desperately wanting an answer.

“You.” You suck in an agonizing breath to try and collect yourself.

He doesn’t flinch like you expect him to. If anything, his eyes become more pensive, clearly considering something. Then he shakes his head in wariness.

“C’mon. Let’s get you out of here,” he breathes, voice barely above a whisper. The only sound echoing in the room is your wobbly breathes, your body jerking with each one as you enter the aftermath and begin to go slack.

An arm slides behind your back, his hand grabbing ahold of your side while he pulls your legs over his other arm, picking you up off the floor.

He cradles you against him just like he did when you were drunk, carrying you out of your room.

He left your door open when he came in, and you hope no students heard or saw anything. He tilts to grab the doorknob, shutting it without a sound.

You wipe and rub at your eyes as Logan takes a few steps down the hall, quickly getting to where he needs to go when you feel him lean for his doorknob.

You’re sure a few rogue, leftover tears fall onto his shirt before he manages to sit on his bed lightly, you still curled tightly in his arms. 

His hand pushes on your back for you to sit upright on his lap. “Face me,” he encourages, holding onto your sides as you twist around, bending your legs to slide over his thighs and straddle him loosely. 

You look down at him, he looks up at you, feeling the quivers in your body dissipate as you melt further into his lap. A fondness crosses over both of your tired faces. He rests his arms over your thighs, warm hands linking behind your back as you do the same around his neck. 

It’s nothing provocative or seductive. All you can feel is the care and concern rolling off of him in suffocating waves. He wants you to feel safe, and if that means overrunning your senses with his presence, then that’s what he’ll do.

“Got anything to say?” He murmurs, the fallen strands of hair around the edges of his forehead bristle with each move of his head. The rest of his hair fails to fully resemble the cat-like ears he had earlier in the day. 

What does he want to hear? 

You let your head hang a little, your nose almost brushing his. “I have nothing to say,” you assert, fidgeting with the chain of his dog tag at the nape of his neck. 

You don’t necessarily feel embarrassed about him seeing you in such a helpless state, but you don’t want to simply unload your shit on him. So, in turn, you have nothing to say.

“Bullshit.” He almost rolls his eyes. There’s no real threat of him forcing you to say anything behind it. He won’t pry, but he doesn’t believe you.

An offended look overcomes your face, and you almost pull away. You don’t want to feel the humiliation of elaborating on just why exactly you said you needed him in this moment out of everything else. 

“I just…” You roll your lips together in thought, measuring the words you could say but won’t. “Want to sleep. Here,” you sigh. “I don’t wanna go back.” You deflate in his arms, voice wobbly. 

It’s already who-knows what time, and you need to pacify your wired nervous system; Logan simply holding you has already helped with that more than you want to admit.

His mouth quirks up briefly at that. “What happened to not wanting to make that a habit?” His eyes soften as his arms retract from around your sides, letting you slip easily onto his bed from his lap in a moment of calm, or relief.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

“Special circumstances,” you reason, already pulling the blanket over you while he keeps his place at the edge of the bed, observing you with amusement.

“Seems like you get into those a lot,” he notes, pushing himself off the mattress.

He steps around to the other side—his designated spot—and slips the tank-top off, letting it drop to the floor. You’re not trying to be a freak, but you watch the whole thing.

The flex of his arms and shoulders are out of your mind as fast as they entered as you watch him hook his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats and pull them downright in front of you, not even turning around or to the side to try and conceal himself.

Your eyes widen, then you reel in your thoughts before they get lost at sea. No one who is sane fucking sleeps in sweatpants. Duh.

But didn’t he the last two times? It’s hard for you to remember, but you’d certainly recall if you were face-to-face with the outline of his di—

“It’s rude to stare, y’know.” Logan pulls his lips together, interrupting your thoughts. You try to not eyeball the bulge too hard, but it basically looked at you first. 

The snug briefs do little to hide anything. They hide nothing, actually.

You almost scoff, but the playfulness in his tone tells you he couldn’t give a shit. He probably likes it anyway. From what you know, he definitely does.

“Oh, yeah, like you’ve ever cared about modesty,” you throw back, averting your gaze to the ceiling anyway.

It’s not that he runs around the mansion naked, but he definitely isn’t shy about what he looks like or against showing some skin. You’ve seen and heard enough over the past few months.

You hear a stifled chuckle as he joins you under the blanket without a retort. He knows you’re right. He’s just glad you’re a little lively and alert.

“Will you be okay for the rest of the night?” He brings both hands behind his head on the pillow, propping himself up a little.

“I should be fine,” you say confidently. “The challenge will be getting back to sleep.” You laugh in exasperation. 

It’s always hard to calm down and get back to a place of tranquility after everything has settled with your mind. You’re pumped full of adrenaline and there’s not much that can curb something that persistent flowing through your body.

You haven’t found anything to help with it. Yet. 

“There’s not many people that’ll understand what you go through,” he starts, voice rough with fatigue. “But I do.”

You look to him, sliding an arm under your pillow as you turn on your side. “How do you…help it.” You’re not sure if you phrased that right. It feels crude to reduce something so complex to the likes of a common cold that has an array of over-the-counter solutions. 

“You don’t. It just has to run its course.” He looks to you, wanting to see your reaction. 

It wasn’t meant to be hurtful or insensitive, but he’s not going to lie to you and say that things can only get better and that the worst is over. Especially for mutants, that’s not always true.

Although you don’t know what Logan lives with every day and sleeps with every night, you do know that his capacity for empathy is still intact. Here you are in his bed after all, seeing and indulging in a side of him that many never will. 

You sigh lightly. “We’re quite the pair.” 

A comfortable half-smirk slips over his lips. “I think we’re just fucked up insomniacs,” he suggests with a breathy exhale that’s close enough to a laugh.

You wish you could slide a thumb over the pulse in his wrist and see what’s haunting him, just to understand what happened to the Wolverine, but you’ve learned that doing so usually isn’t worth the price you’ll pay after. If what’s in his head is horrific enough to cause him to go through a couple mattresses a month, then it won’t do you any good either.

“I sleep pretty good with you,” you offer, seeing how he raises a brow in doubt almost instantly.

He sleeps well with you, too. It kind of rattled him when he noticed a pattern of uninterrupted nights and you being by his side. Not a single mattress ruined on those nights.

“Try not to knee me in the stomach tonight,” he deflects with ease. He takes his hands out from behind his head, sliding his left arm under the pillow as he turns over onto his side and closes his eyes. Facing you.

You mentally smack yourself. Multiple times. You didn’t think you drifted that much when you slept. 

“No promises,” you mutter. You catch a small shake of his head before you let yourself join him in unconsciousness as you mirror each others lonely bodies.

━━━━

Your eyes ache—to open, to move, to touch. Enough crying will do that to you.Your eyelids are heavy, but there’s something else weighing down on you. 

A tired groan crawls from your throat as you try to place yourself for a moment. The morning sun is just beginning to shine too brightly for your liking, and you squish your face deeper into the pillow.

You’re still tipsy with sleep, lying flat on your stomach, but there’s something dense and hot resting over your back. 

You prop yourself up on your forearms, giving yourself a minute to wake up. You twist your hips around to sit yourself up, feeling the thing on your back slide down to your waist. 

The blanket pools around your hips, and you feel a hand reflexively squeeze over the meat of your hip in disapproval of your moving. Something in you clenches at the sensation of something invading the area with ease. A spot reserved for intimacy.

Your head quirks to your right, seeing Logan on his stomach with his right arm thrown over your midsection. 

You blink in surprise, staring at his sleeping body. His hair is sticking up every which way, his head half-off the pillow, his side of the blanket not even covering the curve of his ass anymore. It’s endearing to see the Wolverine in such a normal, human state.

But if someone were to walk in, it would look like you two spent the whole night fucking. A lot. That wakes you up a little more.

You peek over at the nightstand behind him and see the time blinking on his watch. It’s already 8 a.m. 

You rest a hand over his shoulder to gently guide his arm off of you, but you stop yourself. Instead, you lightly trace your fingers down his shoulders and upper back a couple times, occasionally scratching softly over the ridges of muscle.

A shiver quickly rolls through his upper body, but your touch doesn’t fully wake him. He knows it’s just you.

It’s the least you can do for him as a thanks for recovering your broken body from the floor of your room and bringing you here when he didn’t necessarily have to.

It almost feels like instinct to offer comforting gestures to him. There’s something inside you that just pulls to him. You want to be the one that can give him comfort and help him put himself back together. 

You want to be the only one.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

There’s a shadow that’s been following you around the mansion. 

As soon as you stepped out of Logan’s room that morning a few days ago, it started. 

This shadow likes to be nosy about what you’re doing. This shadow likes to be in your space. This shadow wants to be in your space. And he is.

No one has seen Logan out around the mansion this much, including you, and that’s how you noticed he’s basically been attached to your hip ever since he decided your back was a comfortable armrest. 

He’s always just there, like a stray cat begging for food or affection. There to entertain you, banter with you, indulge you, in any way he can, including now as you trail back inside the mansion well behind Storm from an evening walkabout in the garden.

“No smoking in the courtyard,” you sing as you pass him carelessly, not even offering a glance to him in interest. 

You like playing this game. Whatever it is. Constantly poking and prodding at each other to see what you can do to get the other to break in some way, no matter how slight. 

Your heart flutters and flips every time; maybe from the thrill of it all, maybe from the arousal you get from the tension. You hope he feels everything, too.

He turns his head to watch you cross into the entryway. “Blow me,” he throws back playfully through a thick puff of smoke, leaning against the brick wall with a cigar pinched between two fingers.

You suppress a chuckle, keeping your unwavering pace. “Yeah, you wish!” You yell over your shoulder. You know he hears you. He wouldn’t let himself miss it.

Logan smirks and shakes his head in amusement, always impressed with your quick rebuttals that occasionally tent his jeans. He takes one last drag out of spite before following your footsteps inside. 

You have become, by definition, friends…in a way. Even if you sorely cross the line into other territory more often than not. Sexual innuendos and friendly flirting can only go on for so long before the underlying intentions and meaning reflects real desires. 

It’s evolved into more than just borrowing his bed a couple times or helping each other out. It’s surpassed the fear of whatever habit you were afraid of forming from doing so. It’s become a dependency to get that adrenaline high from simply riling each other up.

You have an assumption that if you were to end up in Logan’s bed again, somehow, there will be a point of no return that you’ll be faced with. There aren’t many more excuses that can be used for explaining to yourselves why you’re together in bed before you have to recognize the truth.

That platonic line is being stretched too thin, and you’re not sure how much farther it can go.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“How’ve you been sleeping?”

“Fine. You?”

“Could be better.” Logan hides his smirk, but you can hear it in his voice.

You narrow your eyes skeptically as he fishes around in the fruit bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen island.

“How so?” You ask. Your legs swing leisurely as you sit upon the chilled countertop on his left, idly waiting for Storm to show up and go with you to training.

A smug, tight-lipped grin flashes across his face, a green apple rolling around in his palms before he puts it back. “You could be there,” he provokes, his eyes bright.

It’s your turn to raise a brow at him, but you can’t stop your smile. “Oh?”

He turns to you, tenderly grabbing the tops of your thighs and parting them slightly to stand between your legs.

This isn’t the first time he’s done this, and he knows it rouses you in all the right ways. But, neither of you will do anything about it. Not even a brief kiss.

“Come on,” he goads, planting his hands down next to your hips, bringing himself in closer as he bears his weight on his arms. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” He sways his head side to side to emphasize his point.

Fuck. That’s good. 

That may be exactly what you did for him, but it’s now a figure of speech for something else entirely. It’s almost impossible to argue against either way, as if you want to. This is what you’ve been patiently waiting for. 

You put your hands over his as you lean back a little to put some distance between you. “How sweet,” you hum.

His eyes flick from yours to your lips one too many times before you continue. “You start to miss me?” You tease as you lean forward again, echoing what he said to you the night your window got smashed in.

“Smart-ass,” he mutters as you laugh quietly. The tips of your noses barely graze each other as he steps in closer again. You’re almost at the same height like this. 

“Save me the left side,” you advise, bringing your hands to his shoulders as you fondle his white t-shirt between your fingers. You’re so close, and he’s already so warm against you just like this.

“Always do.”

━━━━

You want to rip your heart out of your chest from how hard it’s pounding against your ribs. It’s almost throwing you forward with each heavy beat.

Three resounding knocks fill the hallway as you shuffle on your feet, waiting for Logan to open the door.

It feels like you’re doing something bad. Something parents would warn their kids against. Something greatly envied.

Everything inside you feels on fire. Your thoughts, desires, anxiety, all jumbling together into one distorted state of mind and body.

“Ah, welcome back.” His sarcastic tone makes your face go hot. A satisfied smirk crosses his lips as he runs a hand through his shaggy, unstyled hair. 

You shake your head, pursing your lips. “Knock it off.” You gently shove at his bare chest. Misbehaviour already. But are you really surprised?

Logan grabs your wrist, delicately guiding you into his room. “You enjoy it,” he says lowly, quickly shutting the door as soon as you’re in. 

“Maybe,” you hum in response, pulling away from his grasp and seeking out your side of the bed. Logan follows closely behind, giving your ass a light smack in encouragement before he cuts away to his side while you jolt in shock, a stunned look on your face as you whip your head around to him across the bed.

“Oh, really?” You scoff. He’s biting back a smile, not moving until he knows what you’ll do next. He’s never gone that far before.

“I’m sorry, that was rude—how can I make it up to you?” He almost chokes on a laugh, pulling his dog tag back and forth along the chain while he considers you.

This Logan is very different from the one you were met with the first night he let you in his space. This one is attentive and exuberant, yet he hasn’t given you much up until this point right now. You’ve gotten way too comfortable with him without even doing anything to you. 

In this moment, he isn’t the brooding, animalistic Wolverine many see him as. He’s just Logan—for you. 

You watch him carefully, easing yourself onto the bed. “Get in the fucking bed,” you slap his side of the mattress with a thump of your palm. “And do what you promised earlier,” you stare pointedly at him.

He owes you that “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” favour he decided to pull out to get you here. 

“Mm, alright, alright,” he surrenders, a look of amusement still on his face as he kneels onto the bed. “I thought of a pretty good idea for it,” he says softly, crawling to sit next to you on top of the blanket as the bed-frame creaks with the added weight.

Your shoulders almost brush against each other. You shift, turning your body fully toward him. “Oh? Wh—woah!”

You squeal when his strong hands latch onto your sides, lifting you just enough to pull you over his legs to plant you on his lap. He leans back against the headboard, pulling on your thighs so you straddle him tightly. 

He looks devilish when you catch his gaze again, and you know what’s coming. What’s been coming. Your hands find their places on his shoulders, warm and taut, as his hands hold your hips. 

The bond between you will culminate tonight. It will be wrapped in a blanket and trapped between two alike souls that lie heart-to-heart in the dead of night. It will be perpetual.

The heat of him between your legs makes you restless. It’s just you, him, and the darkness in the quiet room you’ve become too familiar with.

“Logan…” you trail off bashfully when you feel something firm through his sweats poke against your cunt. It clearly doesn’t take much to excite him.

“Hm?” He takes you in for a split second, hands running from your hips up to your chest leisurely with a sharp inhale, not yet completely bothered by the fact that you have a shirt on. 

You suck in a shaky breath when your hips accidentally shift over his bulge from his hands pushing and pulling over you.

“What’s the idea?” Your voice wavers.

You know what it is. He knows that. You just want to hear him say it and fill the silence.

“Something I’ve wanted for a while,” he murmurs, eyes hyper-focused on you. 

Your fingers dance their way to the sides of his neck, brushing along the supple skin while you feel muscles and tendons flex with every slight movement. You subtly press the pad of your index finger against the pulse point right under his jaw, just to ground yourself and truly feel that Logan is there in front of you. 

His pulse is steady but hard, much like yours, and the prickle of energy festering against the finger almost makes it go numb from not accepting it into your body. 

“Show me, then.” You smile sweetly, leaning in closer while you tilt his head up with the hand under his jaw, your finger slipping from his pulse and caressing over the dense, coarse hair along his cheek.

Your noses bump while your lips part in anticipation. His eyes flutter as he falls into you and frantically claims your mouth in an unbreakable kiss.

The first kiss. Nothing could tear him from you in this moment.

Your hands cradle his cheeks, keeping him from pulling off too far. His hands scratch and paw at your back, trying to find a way to somehow get you closer against him.

It’s all a little messy, your lips mostly just mashing together without any rhyme or reason, but neither of you care. You only care about how electrifying it feels to finally have Logan and feel how perfectly connected you are together after all these nights. You go together like a key and its lock.

“Logan,” you pant when his mouth releases yours for a fraction of a breath. The seconds between kisses dwindle the more you take from each other.

Your thighs tense as he pulls half an inch away just to reconnect more crazed as his lips lock over your bottom one aimlessly. Something deep inside you trembles and aches.

He grunts, accidentally sucking the tip of your tongue briefly before slotting his lips back over yours in an apology. “Hold on,” he mumbles in a rush against your parted lips. He knows what you’re asking—or trying to ask. He snakes an arm up along your spine and wraps the other around your waist.

Then the world is tilting.

He drops you on your back on the bed from his lap, hovering over you as he distracts you with harsh but pleasing kisses and wet bites along your neck, settling his hips heavily between your thighs. You squirm and feel how bolts of arousal are making your cunt pulse involuntarily. 

Logan groans. “Fuck—I can smell it. I smell you.” He slowly grinds his hips into yours almost reflexively. He squeezes his eyes shut, and you tip your chin up to press a chaste kiss to his slick lips. 

“Taste…if you want to,” you propose, lightly scratching up and down his shoulders and arms, only enough to leave faint red lines for a couple seconds.

Logan’s eyes almost roll into the back of his head before he gives it a small shake, a conflicted look overtaking his face. “Of course I fucking want to, but—fuck—next time. I promise.” He swallows whatever you were going to say with a deep kiss that has you nearly shaking when he sucks on your bottom lip. 

“Let’s just take things easy,” he says roughly, bearing his weight on his left arm while he tries to get your sleep shorts and underwear off.

A promise of a next time makes your brain go fuzzy like static.

“I’ll hold you to it, then,” you resolve, lifting your hips as much as you can for him to lean back and pull away to wrestle your clothes the rest of the way down your legs, discarding them just as quickly.

“I hope you will,” he breathes through a small laugh as he shuffles on his knees. He doesn’t want to completely overwhelm you and scare you off, he just wants to enjoy you in a simple way that won’t entirely ruin you for tomorrow.

He doesn’t know what you can or cannot handle, but he’s going to find out.

The fresh air in the room brushes cooly against your wet cunt. It’s a nice contrast to how fiery your whole body feels, but Logan feels even warmer than you somehow. Maybe wolverine’s just run hot.

His sweats have ridden down his hips from his desperate grinding against you, and the dangerous cut of his v-line grows more and more narrow as the waistband teases the reveal of what’s underneath.

You watch him—palming his dick once as your knees sway side-to-side in waiting. His thumbs hook under the stretchy fabric, working what remains of his clothes down his sturdy thighs.

“It’s rude to stare.” He pops a brow, a smug, arrogant grin quirking his lips.

You push yourself to sit up, considerably shorter than him in this position as he stands on his knees, and walk two fingers up his toned stomach to his chest, avoiding the hard cock between you. 

He looks at you with curiosity until your hand grabs his dog tag in a fist, pulling it towards you. “Then stop showing me your dick,” you say as he leans in to your pulling a little to not have the chain break away.

You knew the night Logan dropped his pants in front of you and let you eye-up his bulge would come back to haunt you. But it’s alluring. Big. Curves a little to the left, barely noticeable. A respectable amount of hair decorates the space between his bellybutton and the base of his cock.

He gives in to the tension on the chain, falling back to the mattress with you and trapping you between his arms as his cock rests heavy on your clit.

“How about I find somewhere to put it?” His smile pushes a whole new wave of arousal from you.

“It would be a damn shame if you didn’t,” you say against his mouth, giving your hips a roll just to tease him before hugging his waist tightly with your knees.

“Good.” He gives you a strong kiss with a small grunt, running his hands over your sides under your shirt. The movement pushes it up, up, up, until you have no choice but to stretch your arms out above you and let him slide it off between more thoughtless kisses, leaving you entirely bare.

He lets you breathe for a moment, dipping his head to bite and suck marks along your collarbones messily. You squeeze around his hips harder, trying to get him to give you something other than his scratchy cheeks rubbing against your skin and the chilled steel of the dog tag dragging over your chest.

The tip of his cock falls and catches over your clit when he moves lower, licking and sucking over your chest like a starved animal finding food for the first time in a week. You gasp from the mixed sensations.

“C’mon, kitty cat, you can do all this while inside m-me,” you say breathily, fingers digging into his shoulders to stop yourself from trembling too much. 

Logan bites over a nipple before pulling himself back up to look at you. “Is that a promise?” He says lowly, that stupid smirk gracing his face again.

“Try it and find out,” you demand, enjoying the sting of the deeper bites blooming on your torso.

He purses his lips, shifting his weight back onto his knees to grab ahold of his cock to angle and guide it in.

“Hm, guess no lube is needed,” he muses when he gets a look at your cunt, sparing you a glance through his lashes.

You roll your eyes shut when your whole body lights up red-hot. “Jesus fucking Christ, Logan,” you slap a hand over your eyes as you grimace. You don’t want to be that aware of your naked self right now.

He suppresses whatever expression was about to cross his face when his cock notches itself between your soaked folds, teasing your hole with the blunt tip. His brows pinch together and you forget the embarrassment from his crude remark.

But he leaves his cock like that, on the precipice of sliding the rest of the way in with a snap of his hips. Instead, he carefully uncurls his upper body to crawl his way back up to you while holding his hips deathly still.

“Alright, stay with me,” he whispers against your neck when you moan, pressing a tender kiss to your rabid pulse in reassurance. 

“O-okay,” you sigh, running a hand through his hair and tugging at the roots while the other squeezes around his arm as best as it can. You’re not even really sure what he’s saying.  

He kisses up your cheek and over to your lips again. You try to keep up with his quick mouth, licking and sucking whatever part you can get ahold of, but you’ve become lost in the feeling of him all over you. 

He’s in your mouth, on your chest, against your stomach, nudging your cunt. Everywhere.

He slips his tongue over yours, securing your lips together at the same time he pushes his cock in halfway. Now you understand what he was saying. 

The lightheadedness from being filled, even just a bit, almost makes you lose yourself. The stretch makes your stomach drop, your legs shake, and your mouth fall open with a whine. 

“A-ah—fuck. Fuck, Logan,” you whimper, fisting his hair with both hands to stop yourself from falling apart.

He groans, either at the grip you have on his hair or how good your cunt feels already, and runs a hand up your left thigh in comfort as you squeeze around his hips tighter to draw him in. 

“Just a bit more,” he soothes, trying to resist the urge to slide into you in one fell swoop. It would be so easy to just let his hips fall into yours and fill your cunt.

Another heated kiss, another few inches. He works his cock into you the rest of the way with ease. You guess the lube thing wasn’t really a joke. His hungry, needy kisses may have also helped with that.

You choke on your gasps, not wanting to get too loud, and Logan does the same. He tries to muffle both of your moans with his mouth, attempting to form complete kisses, but it just turns into you panting against each other as he finally bottoms out, hitting his end. 

Your legs relax around his waist as he deftly rocks his hips in small thrusts to get you familiar with his size, his small grunts filling the air each time you swallow him whole.

You let out a deep breath, dropping your hands back to his tense shoulders. He lines your jaw with soft kisses, fisting the blanket in his hands beside your head.

“Fuck. Already feels too good,” he moans, pressing into you harder and unintentionally rubbing himself over your tender clit.

You smile, squirming while he works down your neck again. “Best of luck,” you huff, amused at the fact that he might not last as long as he wants to.

He brings his face back to yours, a completely blissful expression controlling his features, but there’s still some mischief in his hazel eyes. “Oh? Yeah?”

You hold each other’s gaze, both equally dazed and overwhelmed, and he draws his hips back and pushes into your wet cunt with a complete, strong thrust. The sound of his pelvis hitting against the backs of your thighs makes him laugh in pleasure and satisfaction when you instantly roll your eyes and head back.

Your cunt quivers, gripping him tight, and then it’s Logan’s turn to lose composure. He drops his head to your chest, managing a few deep breaths as he slowly pulls out halfway just to push right back into you, over and over. 

It’s a pace that isn’t quite pure, mindless fucking, but it’s also not somewhere near earnest love-making. It’s something that feels specifically curated for you. Something that feels measured and sincere. 

The strength of his thighs hitting against yours pushes you up the mattress a few inches, and you don’t know whether to gasp or moan. He reaches somewhere deep inside you, and you know he can feel that, too.

A helpless groan slips through Logan’s lips. “Where have you fucking been, huh?” He muses through shaky breaths, the determined plunge of his cock hitting something that makes your muscles tense throughout your body. 

Your fingers tangle in the hair at the base of his neck, keeping him close. “Two doors down,” you giggle, understanding that’s not quite what he was asking.

“Fucking smart-ass,” he grumbles, silencing any further rebuttals with a wet kiss. You don’t think you could manage much more of a conversation even if you wanted to.

The silence is quickly filled with obscene sounds that only seem to leave you wetter and Logan throbbing. You can hear your bodies connecting through your gasping for air and his choked moans, and you can feel the mess you’re making all over him. It’s smeared along the inside of your thighs from how deep he’s been hitting. The squelching only seems to make him fuck into you harder.

Something inside you starts to grow tight and wind up in your core, making you repeatedly clench around him while his cock strokes all the right spots inside you as he makes sure he’s fucking himself in to the base. He doesn’t deprive you of anything. 

He drops his head to your neck, wedging his face in to latch onto the spot right where your neck starts to slope into your shoulder. The dense muscle there gives him something to basically chew on, sinking his teeth in as deep as he can without drawing blood.

“H-hah, Logan,” you whine, tilting your head into the side of his and squirming from the pleasant sting.

You feel his arm move beside you, then you hear the sound of tearing fabric as he gives a particularly brutal snap of his hips, followed by a deep groan against your skin.

You can barely form any thoughts, but you can guess what just happened. If he pulled his hand back, three long, slim holes would probably be where his knuckles are right now.

“Fu-uck, Logan, you just got t-this mattress,” you laugh a little, your words choppy from how hard he’s driving into you now.

He draws back from your neck, seeing your half-lidded eyes trying to focus on him. “Can’t always control it,” he reasons, giving you two short, fleeting kisses as you hear his claws retract from the innocent mattress. 

You see the double-edged sword. You can guess that that’s the same explanation he would probably use for the nightmares. It can go either way, and now you’ve seen both sides.

“It’s okay,” you say in a hushed tone. You cradle his face, and he rests his forehead against yours. “Keep going…keep going,” you coax, face scrunching from your nearing orgasm.

You can feel it in your toes, your stomach, your shoulders—you’re tightening up everywhere, and he can undoubtedly feel it in your cunt as you pulse around him. It grips him just right for a couple seconds before relaxing completely and leaving him to chase for more.

“Keep squeezing me like that and you’ll get whatever you want,” he offers, fighting to maintain his steady pace for both your sakes.

You almost whine, knowing whatever your body does is beyond your control at this point.

“Just—inside.” You can’t even string together a full sentence anymore, but the urgency and stress on the last word makes Logan’s ears perk up.

He presses a soft kiss to your clammy forehead in acknowledgment, the muscles in his arms straining and flexing as he grabs ahold of his own orgasm after a particularly inviting flutter of your walls.

You’re both walking the line, teetering on the edge of utter euphoria, and you know nothing will be the same after. You don’t want it to be. You hope it isn’t.

He reaches an arm back, sliding his hand up your thigh again and slotting it behind the bend in your knee. He pushes forward—only slightly—bringing your leg closer to your stomach to stretch you open for him.

His cock brushes over something new. Something that makes you bite your tongue. The angle lets him fit perfectly against you, not hindered by the flesh of your thigh stopping his hips.

You want to cry from how good it all feels. You want to be suspended in this feeling forever. You want Logan to—

“Focus, baby. Focus on me,” he coos, bringing you back to reality. He holds the side of your head with his other hand affectionately. “Come on…come on, I know you’re almost there,” he encourages with a quick kiss that goes straight to your stomach.

The burn in your thigh from the stretch can’t overpower the sparks of your orgasm, and Logan just fanned the flames with a few little words.

You come with a broken sob, convulsing around his cock while he fucks you through it, submitting to his own orgasm only seconds after with deep, shaky breaths as he empties himself inside your cunt.

He doesn’t pull out or pull away. He relaxes on top of you, sweaty and sticky with cum, and he places the barest whisper of a kiss on your chin, your parted lips, your nose, and then your forehead. 

Your ears ring from your orgasm, eyes still slightly out of focus. Your body trembles from your muscles finally releasing the tension they’ve been caught up in. 

You desperately suck in air, trying to calm your pounding heart, and you just lie there and let Logan walk your body through a cool-down. Soft kisses. Soft touches. Soft looks. Between sweat, cum, and whatever else.

He rocks a little on his knees, weak from his release, and carefully pulls out of you with a huff as he caresses your stomach and thighs appreciatively to wind you down. You get a good look at him. Not a scratch. His hair tells a story, though—one where he’s completely possessed by bliss. 

You probably look like you survived an animal attack.

“Are we even?” Logan says through a kiss against your stomach.

A mindless laugh crawls from your throat, caught up in the feeling of his hands rubbing circles over your hips. “I think I still owe you,” you argue, resting your hands over his as they travel smoothly up your side.

You’ll find a way to make everything up to him. Including the sex. The scale is now tipping to his side too much. All the nights spent in his bed, what he’s done for you, what you’ve done for each other, may just be immeasurable, but that won’t stop you from finding a way to get him back for it all. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he mumbles, snaking back up your body and pressing himself against you. Face-to-face. Chest-to-chest. 

You mindfully run your hands over the sides of his head, trying to tame his hair and style it back to how it was earlier in the night. It doesn’t work. He enjoys it anyway.

“Do I have the pleasure of staying here tonight?” You ask rhetorically, enjoying the warmth of him on top of you against the brisk air creeping in from the cracked window.

Logan blinks. “You can stay every night.” 

A loving smile springs over your face. This may be the beginning of the end to your troubles and worries.  

You—maybe foolishly—trust him. You trust that he won’t accidentally bury his claws in your side during the night, but you’ve had impressive luck with that up until this point. The only thing you can do now is continue to push that luck.

Healing isn’t linear, and you can’t expect someone to fix you, but everyone finds their thing at some point. 

You slither your hand down to his neck, index finger grazing over his pulse again. You feel the energy biting against you.

Your lips graze over his, tempting him to give you a slow, deep kiss. “Can I have the left side?” Rhetorical, again.

Logan chuckles against your mouth. “Always.”

[freakassfemme]

MWAH wishing u a speedy recovery!!!!! listen u always do my requests sm justice YOU JUST GET IT, i will always crawl back into ur askbox i am patiently waiting while kicking my feet :3

original ask YOU ARE SO SWEET! I appreciate you. here u go, i have brought you a gift <3 unfortunately my only explanation to 'getting it' is that I am always having or striving to have filthy nasty lesbian and queer interactions. or I am writing or reading about it. my sole purpose on this earth is to curate queer experiences. hope that helps <3 btw I wrote this from 6 - 9 am so bare with me wc: 2.9k warnings: metaphorically consuming each other as a form of desire, yeah I know I switched present/past tense its a bad habit of mine but I *don't care* nor do I care about consistent capitalization, I'm crazy for this woman obviously, rough sex, f/f, vagina/breast anatomy, biting, overstimulation, crying, maybe I get a little too poetic about gay sex, proof read by only me one singular time and it was mainly to see if the music fit the vibe, penetration, scissoring, I love pussy, orgasm denial x1 (?), slight size kink and worship but really that's in all my fics

see how it shines [smut] ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ

playlist: it will come back / be / abstract (psychopomp)

(yeah we r bringing hozier into this </3)

eighteen fucking hours. that's how long you'd been clocked in at the medical bay for what seemed to have been maybe the third or fourth time this week, and it was only Thursday.

the truth was, medics and doctors were dropping like flies these days, going AWOL and leaving the remaining staff to work what would need twenty sets of hands with maybe seven or eight. with the seraphites becoming more aggressive everyday, the peace in the stadium and other bases for the WLF had been short-lived, and many understandably weren't holding up well to the pressure, especially with the way the cleanup crews had been hauling back nonstop truckloads of friends and loved ones, and requests to be stationed elsewhere other than the stadium and two were immediately denied at this point.

so yeah, you were pretty fucking tired. at this point in the staffing shortage, they were having to send the folks on watch on additional rounds just to bring food to medics, on duty or at home, because they were simply too exhausted to go down to dining.

no one even acknowledged you as your blood and mud-ridden boots skidded across the concrete floors, your eyes practically closed even as you walked through crowds to get back to your dorm. the soldiers, civilians and staff alike parted like water around you, making an avoidant path and trying not too hard to look at you or the posters on the wall, outright begging people to sign up for medical classes.

you kicked the food delivery box inside of your dorm as you unlocked it, hands fumbling with your forehead pressed against the cold metal. inside, you quickly stripped out of your uniform top and boots, and crashed out on the couch.

abby herself was exhausted when she trudged into your shared living space hours after you, having just come off of a 48 hour rotation. her eyes wandered over the little trail of belongings leading to you on the couch, the boots left a few steps after the other, your button up discarded over the railing and the abandoned delivery box just a few feet from the door, which she didn't notice until she nearly slipped over it, causing a loud thump that had her wincing.

her eyes flicked to you, where she could only see the back of your head, and when she decided you weren't going to stir, she let out a sigh of relief and began stripping herself of her own uniform.

on her way over to the bathroom, she stopped next to you, taking in your splayed out form. your hair was a fucking mess, and you still had drops of (hopefully) someone else's blood across your forearms, one thrown against the back of the couch and the other hanging over the side. your pants were halfway undone, like you had tried an attempt that you decided wasn't worth the energy, and you looked pale as a ghost.

as much as abby wanted to let you sleep, wanted to let you get the rest you needed, she couldn't leave you like this. it'd been at least three days since she last saw you for more than a fleeting lunch break, and she couldn't find it in her to take care of herself and not you, especially when you had been eating away at yourself providing the undying care to strangers who wouldn't want to return it even in several lifetimes.

she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before she nodded, crouching down and grunting from the soreness of her own body as she scooped you up.

when you groaned and gave a small shove back, she hushed you, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"c'mon, sweet girl, it's just me. i got you."

you hadn't put up much of a fight when abby propped you up on the sink. you leaned the back of your head against the mirror as she shimmied your pants and socks off of you, stripping your shirt and undergarments next until your cold skin was left against the glass and stainless steel, and you began to shudder. abby was quick about turning up the hot water in the shower though, allowing the steam fill the room before she helped you to your feet, letting you lean against her and whisper weak protests as you climbed into the hot shower.

instantly, you relaxed against her, and she ran her fingers through your hair, fully saturating the dirty strands as you sighed, wrapping your arms around her firm waist to steady yourself.

you stayed like that for a while, pressed against your girlfriend's tone form as you slowly collected your own strength, letting her gentle hands and soft voice lull you back from your weak state until you could help her wash you both up, even if it took a bit longer than usual.

"lean your head forward f'me, angel," abby murmured, one of her large palms warming up your spine with gentle caresses as she held a half-formed braid of your hair in the other. you obeyed quietly, letting abby tie back your now managed hair into something similar to how she usually kept hers, though she left her own loose.

when she was done, abby shifted closer behind you in the bed, her arms slipping underneath your borrowed shirt to hold you against her. she buried her face into your neck, letting you curl into her until you were turned on your side and entirely wrapped in her strong arms.

her nose nudged yours, and your eyes weakly fluttered open to meet abby's soft gaze, her seafoam eyes almost hauntingly bright against the cool illumination of the moonlit windows. it spooked you a bit, in all honesty, to have her this close to you again after so many days, days where you had considered the other possibilities in which she may come back to you.

you weren't any less unnerving to her -- she could tell you hadn't been eating nearly enough since she had been gone, and in just a few short days you already looked withered enough to drop like a limp daisy. your skin was ghostly, its usual warmth dampened from a lack of sunlight.

still, she was your girl, and you were hers, even in your worn states. and god, she had missed you.

abby's pine soap filled your nose as she pressed her lips into yours, the warm skin hesitant under your cool, cracked ones, and you accepted her gratefully, even if just for a moment it was as useless as whiskey on a winter night.

but then, of course, like any decent drink, the buzz hits.

and even though your limbs are screaming against you as you do so, your fingers curl into abby's loose hair, and you turn your head just a bit more. when you kiss back, abby's shyness, her gentleness quickly melts away, replenished by a hunger matching your own as you desperately search for more of her, pulling her against you like you hoped to swallow her whole.

your teeth crashed against her soft skin, tugging at her lip and making a slot for your tongue to force its way into her mouth. instantly, she shuddered, groaning into you in a way that you could feel the vibrations in her chest. it was like an open invitation, a warm meal laid out just for you, and you accepted it greedily.

you pulled abby on top of you by her hair, whining back when she moaned against your lips again. her own hand snaked up your body, squeezing at your thighs and hips as she fell on top of you, then pushing your oversized shirt over your chest, exposing your chest and making a clear pathway for herself. still, as starving as she was, she tried to take her time with you, wrapping her fingers around your jaw to hold you in place, and only stiffening up when you parted your legs, wrapping them around her and shoving your bare cunt against her firm stomach.

"wait," she whispered against your lips, "wait f'me, baby. let me have some."

you whine and protest as abby's strong arm holds you down by your throat, her other coming down to pin your fighting, impatient wrists to your stomach.

"baby, baby please," you're crying between broken moans as her tongue runs up your neck, stopping just so you can feel her heavy breathing against the shell of your ear when she slowly begins to work her hips against yours, the fabric of her boxers smearing your arousal across her thighs.

"fuck, baby I know," she groans, and if it wasn't for the way she gritted her teeth, you'd think she was annoyed rather than desperately holding herself together.

"abby, I --"

abby's hand on your jaw slips up some so she can shove two of her fingers in your mouth, and she lets out a stupid, desperate moan when she feels you choke around them for a second. then your eyes roll back just when she looks up, checking on her little angel, and she can't help but grunt louder, slamming her hips into your core in a way that makes you keen and your back arch, your smaller fists squeezing underneath her grip.

"god, shut up," she's practically begging as her hips rut into you. "please just, fuck, be quiet for a second, shit -"

she buries her face in your neck again, trying to satiate herself and regain some of her sanity, but your legs are now locked around her, pulling her against you in a way that has her clit brushing deliciously against the seam of her boxers. her head spins every time, and she lets out broken whines as she feels herself already tipping dangerously towards that edge as your body fights to consume her.

and god, it's torture for her, but for you, you just can't get enough. your fucking beast of a girlfriend trying so futilely to hold it together from just this stupid game of dry humping, when you're so, so willing to give her so much more.

let me have you, let me have you, you're chanting in your mind, your ankles pushing at the hem of abby's boxers.

you swallow around her fingers, and that seems to do it for her, granting you some edge as her other hand releases your wrists and flies to the side to hold herself up as her back arches against you with a loud groan.

your hands rush on to her back, your nails finding purchase just below her shoulder blades and ripping down the muscle until her fingers tear from your throat to slam against the bed and she stifles a cry by biting down on the base of your neck so hard that for a moment, you're worried she might draw blood.

"fuck," you rasp out against the pressure.

abby's shaking in your arms, moaning between the prettiest sobs as she gives in. she's pliant when your hands slip down to grab at her ass, and she lifts her hips to help you slip her boxers off, kicking them behind her.

she leans back, her blonde hair dripping onto your exposed tits. the cold water makes you shudder, and you let abby shove her bare cunt between your legs and slotting one thigh over you.

your lips fall in a open-mouthed gasp and she swears as her entrance rocks against your throbbing clit, one of her hands coming down to steady your hips and the other to hold her shirt up over her stomach so she can see the way you're making a mess of her thighs.

she stays there for a minute, brutalizing your bundle of nerves for her own pleasure. your head falls against the mattress, and you let out ridiculous whines, your hands fisting and slamming against the sheets below you, even coming up to claw at her strong thighs that kept you pinned so tightly in place.

"fuck, fuck, 's too much," you're choking out, and now it's your turn for the waterworks while abby only chuckles, laughing breathlessly as she presses down harder.

"no, no baby," she coos between her own moans, running her tongue over her teeth as she shudders. She slips her hips down some until you're fully rutting against each other again, the sheer wetness making it that much more difficult for your brain to process. "'s not, sweetheart, you can take it. i know you can baby."

you shake your head, and abby rolls her eyes, quickening her pace until your cheeks rouge and your whining grows. your hips twitch beneath her, uncontrollably bucking up to kiss her pussy again and again and again despite your pleas.

"what's wrong?" she purrs, her hand coming from your hips to run itself down from your neck, to your chest, to the back of your thigh. "thought you wanted it, thought you were begging for it, baby."

you whine again, shivering under her touch as she leans down, her mouth capturing the meat of your thigh as she rocks against you. she bites harder with each push and pull, and your tired body can't take it. it's too easy to get worked up for her like this.

"abs, ohmygod, stop, 'm gonna-"

abby's all to keen, knows exactly what you're going to say before you can even finish your sentence.

"shit, fuck, no you're not," abby grunts, ripping away from you in an instant.

your arched back hits the mattress with a full on sob, and you can feel your unsatisfied arousal leaking onto the sheets, the sickness between your thighs and on your stomach, the smell of abby, abby, abbyabbyabby until you jolt back up, letting out a small cry at the sudden impact against your clit.

she does it again and again, slapping your swollen cunt until your body is on the verge of cumming just from this. you're already so pent up, so touch-starved that you'd probably cum just from her biting you again, and she knows it, knows you're both like that right now.

your arms prop you up as one of her hands holds open your parted thighs, and her lips are consuming yours again as she growls with every spasm and whine she pulls from you. she doesn't stop until she really thinks you might burst, when you're starting to lift your hips for more instead of trying to hide away.

"god, you're filthy, baby," she groans against your mouth, and you only nod dumbly, knees shaking as you try to catch your breath. she's kneeling between your legs, ready to worship her sweet slice of heaven, ready to piece you back together.

abby's hand comes down gently this time, just the tip of her middle finger tracing over the mess between your legs until she's prodding it against your entrance so delicately that your brain nearly short-circuits.

she looks back up at you, her chest heaving from some sort of late-onset restraint and with such devotion filling her dilated eyes that you almost can't move, can't breathe. her eyes rake over you, holding every detail for an extra moment to commit it to memory, and when it's clear you're too awestruck by her, too overwhelmed by the sight of her poised in reverence, she speaks for you.

"gonna let me in, pretty girl?" abby asks, the words dripping off of her tongue like a velvety chocolate. you nod stupidly, your head bobbing in a way that's a little too eager, but she doesn't say anything about it.

instead, she hums, licking her lips as she wraps a hand around your head, pulling you so that her nose bumps against yours. abby presses her lips against yours, and one of your hands shakes as it finds its way up to grasp at her bicep. she's much more gentle this time, much more cautious as the tip of her finger begins to delve inside.

you pull away from her lips with a gasp when she intrudes, turning your face to hide it in your shoulder. you can't help but squeeze around the single digit, your knees already trembling.

"uh-uh," she tsks softly, her raspy voice echoing against your ear. she kisses your temple, and her hand slides down some to turn your face back towards her.

"let me see you," she whispers, sucking in a gasp as she pushes her finger farther into you, curving her palm to fit snugly against you.

your eyes flutter up to hers, almost shyly as you feel your ears burn and your eyes threaten to water as she holds your gaze. she nods when you do, curling her finger inside of you as she praises you, the ridges of your walls clinging to her finger so tightly that she's taking small, shallow breaths now.

"that's it," she murmurs, holding your head in place so you have to look at her. "that's my girl."

you let out a small whimper, the embarrassment running straight to your core as she begins to work her finger in and out, guiding it further each time until the base of her thumb glides over your clit. when it does, she groans, and can't help but push her hand harder against you until she's practically shoving you into the mattress and you swear you can feel her in your throat.

stars flutter around the blurry edges of the halo that is her golden hair, and the tears in your eyes begin to slip again between the way she's carving a god damn signature inside of you and how she's holding you so tightly against her.

you open your mouth, trying to speak but hopelessly interrupted by a mixed sob and moan. she chuckles softly, but it's tender and sweet, and she nods, brushing her thumb over your temple.

"I know, sweetheart, I know."

[cat3ch1sm]

⛪️~ okay i just KNOW gojo is the type of mf to fake moan out of fuckin nowhere while you’re on a call with someone else. like this bitch is just that annoying.

regular college au?? gojo is an upperclassman but everyone else is the same age👍🏾

sfw-ish? just crack basically 😭

“I have no fucking clue what’s going on.”

You, Nobara, Itadori, and Megumi were on a video call with one another via computers, working on a very long geometry packet that your professor had assigned the day before. You and Megumi were the only ones getting anywhere, but admittedly, it was mildly difficult for you to understand as well- so Nobara and Itadori were beyond lost.

“Me neither,” Itadori whined hopelessly, and you saw his head fall out of the camera frame as he dropped it on his desk forlornly. “I’m just gonna have to fail. I’m totally finished.”

You sighed exaggeratedly, rolling your eyes to the ceiling before looking back at the grainy images of the pitiful Itadori, the exasperated Nobara and the perpetually disinterested Megumi. “Oh, my god. Guys. Seriously, try and stay with me here?” You gestured to your notes spread out in front of the camera for your friends to reference. “An attempt at anything on this assignment would be nice.”

“Yeah, no, we’re past that point,” Nobara deadpanned. “Do these teachers get a kick out of torturing us or what?”

“No, they don’t,” Megumi answered swiftly, his voice somehow more apathetic-sounding over his microphone. “Now if you’d just listen to my or Y/N’s explanation instead of whining about how hard this is, I’d appreciate it. You both know the formula for the midpoint, right?”

Only feedback from either student’s mics. You resisted the urge to slap yourself in the forehead. Megumi, however, seemed unfazed.

“Right. It’s xm, ym equals x1 plus x2-“

“Are you trying to kill me?” Itadori finally sat up, pink hair tangled all over his head.

“I… didn’t even finish telling you what the formula is.”

“Um… nah.” Nobara waved a hand dismissively at the camera, and Megumi rolled his dark eyes. “Anyways, gonna go play in traffic. Anyone down to join me?”

You blinked and made a face at Nobara. “Wha- you’re not even giving it a chance?”

“Nope. My brain clocked out hours ago.”

You blew out some air and were about to say something else before you heard the door open behind you, and you noticed Gojo Satoru, your roommate, walk into the frame of your video. “Oh, hey, Gojo,” you greeted him, a little absently.

“Hey, Y/N! On a call?” He leaned way down over your shoulder, prompting you to grimace and move to the side some while he shoved his entire face into the camera. “Hi, guys! What’re you doing?”

Itadori lifted his head from his arms to reply in an agonized tone, “Dying,” before dropping back down with an alarmingly loud thud on his desk.

Megumi pursed his lips in annoyance before acknowledging Gojo. “We’re trying to finish some math homework. Unfortunately, Y/N and I are the only ones putting in an ounce of effort.”

“I refuse to waste my effort on this bullshit,” Nobara added nonchalantly, and you saw her fly in and out of the frame on her swivel chair.

“Yeah, okay, Nobara. I suppose this is pretty self-explanatory,” you sighed, limply gesturing to your computer screen. “We’re getting nowhere and it’s been like, two hours.”

Gojo smirked in amusement before backing up from your screen. “Sucks to suck. See ya!” And with that, he disappeared to the back of the dorm.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” you muttered, propping your forehead up on your fingers. “Maybe we should just-“

And then you heard it.

A muffled but not muffled enough sound from the bathroom- and a very explicit one at that. It was a long, continuous sound at first, and then it was a breathless series of the same noise. Your eyes flew wide open the second you heard it- mostly because it sounded so forced and fake that you knew exactly what the cause of it was. Unfortunately, you reacted too late, and you only realized it when the video call went dead silent.

Nobara had reappeared in front of the camera, her eyes the size of frying pans and a manicured hand cupped over her mouth. Itadori had his head lifted from his arms only so you could see his wide eyes, and Megumi looked way more annoyed than usual.

Meanwhile, your jaw was dropped and a furious blush spread across your cheeks, and as if expecting to see something horrible, you slowly turned your head to stare at the direction from which the sound had come from.

It was silent for a second before explosive laughter erupted from your dorm bathroom, undoubtedly from Gojo, who thought his little joke had been absolutely hilarious. You abruptly snapped out of your trance, yelling furiously at him, but his laughter only grew louder with every word you said.

“I am logging off right this second.” Megumi’s image vanished from the screen with a low notification sound, and Itadori started laughing as well while Nobara was still in the exact same stance as she had been before.

“Tell me he’s faking.” Nobara’s voice was muted behind her hand.

“Fuck. He is. I swear he is,” you replied hurriedly, eyes darting from the door to the bathroom in hopes that nobody else had just heard that obnoxiously loud fake moan. “Gojo! Are you fucking kidding? What the hell- okay, no way we can save this video call, guys.” You dropped your head into your palms, shaking it slowly in disgust. All you’d wanted to do was work on the damn math homework. “Really. Just hang up or something- while I kill Gojo.”

[thefisherqueen]

Sherlock Holmes: The hound of the Baskervilles chapter X1 - The man on the tor

Another day, another chapter!

The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has brought my narrative up to the 18th of October, a time when these strange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible conclusion. Terrible conclusion? I should emotionally prepare myself for tragedy? Oh damn, I was having such a fun time with all those spooky vibes. Guess I should have expected that at some time actual horror would set in

The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty. Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty. And these 'failings' in her beauty are an indicator of some failings to her character or morality, I suppose? Don't like that type of storytelling at all. But let's see how this continues before I'm judging the hell out of Doyle

“You knew him, did you not?” “I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am able to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he took in my unhappy situation.” “Did you correspond with him?” The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes. “What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply. Oh she is fierce, I like her! Come on lady, give Watson a hard time! It's his own fault for not planning what he would say

“The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should ask them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.” She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked up with something reckless and defiant in her manner. “Well, I'll answer,” she said. “What are your questions?” Watson is damn lucky she's going along with this, considering that he has no actual proof whatsoever to start a scandal

“But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know enough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he has done?” She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness. “There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of Sir Charles's. He was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that Sir Charles learned about my affairs.” Another good thing we learn about Stapleton. It really is hard to suspect that man of being up to no good “Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?” I continued. Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again. “Really, sir, this is a very extraordinary question.” “I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.” “Then I answer, certainly not.” “Not on the very day of Sir Charles's death?” Watson's not doing bad in his role as interregator at all

“But why at such an hour?” “Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day and might be away for months. There were reasons why I could not get there earlier.” “But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?” “Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor's house?” She has a point here. Doyle is doing wonderful again at adressing the difficulties in women's position “My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor. The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the time that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met. It meant everything to me—peace of mind, happiness, self-respect—everything. I knew Sir Charles's generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help me.” “Then how is it that you did not go?” “Because I received help in the interval from another source.” Holy shit - I thought her husband had just abandoned her, not that he was stalking her. Do we have our main villain here, then? If her husband had somehow learnt about Charles Baskerville's willingness to help his wife get a divorce - that is a proper motive for murder. The question remains: from what other source did she get help?

If this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth, where my master had failed. Watson's sole motivation: approval of his Holmes (by the way, Watson's making a rather large assumption here that this man and the man in London are the same. I still have a suspicion that the mysterious man on the moor is Holmes himself. It such a Him thing to do, and all the facts so far fit)

Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed all appearance of interest. A child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied by a boy. It was on his track, and not upon the convict's, that Frankland had stumbled. If I could get his knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt. But incredulity and indifference were evidently my strongest cards. “I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one of the moorland shepherds taking out his father's dinner.” The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old autocrat. His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray whiskers bristled like those of an angry cat. Watson finally discovers his acting talent! The key to unlock is in getting people angry xD

I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the facts. My submission pleased him and led him to further confidences. No so surprising: that mr. 'here to be used' and 'he's my master' Watson is good at being submissive But down beneath me in a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to act as a screen against the weather. My heart leaped within me as I saw it. This must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my foot was on the threshold of his hiding place—his secret was within my grasp. *is just as excited as Watson is* “It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known voice. “I really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.” It IS Holmes!!!! I knew it!!!! Welcome back, my silly detective, missed you :)

[squib-2006]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! @ammo0648!

I’m your secret Santa! I present to you

Kai faces his fears and probably gets a concussion in the process

December was a weird time of year for the ninja. First of all, there was Christmas season, which meant an uptick of thievery and other petty crimes. Secondly came the stress of deciding what to get the others for Christmas. For some ninja it was easy but for others it was the worst part of Christmas. You would think Kai would have a very easy stress free gift shopping experience.

Well it would be easy if Kai could escape his siblings for five minutes. The thing was Kai was the master of fire, he had a higher temperature naturally, this his siblings Latched on to him like leaches during the winter. It was literally impossible to get away from his very cold warmth sucking siblings. Well, kai had one idea on how to get them off his back for a large amount of time. But his plan would require a lot of planning and a perfect execution. Knowing him only one of those things would happen. So three days before Christmas he hatched his plan.

Step one. Fake a fever.

This was easer said than done. Especially when he lived with two living fever detectors. But with a little lying he was able to pull it off.

Step two. Get his family out of the monestary and away from him.

This one was probably the hardest part, but with a call to his favorite noodle store owner and promises of favors, he was able to stage a crime of mass theft in chen noodle stores. Thus his family had to leave him alone to deal with the “crimes.”

Step three. Get presents and get home before the others get home.

That was where Kai was now. He had faked a fever, sold his soul to the noodle devil to get his family out of the monestary, and was now in the middle of a packed store. He began slowly making his way through the store and getting what he thought his family and friends would like for Christmas.

Some new tea for wu, he can never have enough. A new pan set for Zane, totally not so he can get more of Zane’s food. Three boxes of cake mix and three things of pre made frosting for Cole, he was pathetically easy to shop for, just get him cake and he will love you forever. A fritz donagan shaped dog toy for jay, with this gift there’s only a 50% chance the nya will smack him for comparing jay to a dog, because he likes the thing it’s from! A tiny red model car and a fluffy purple blanket for pixal, one was a gag that he had started doing after Zane was back and pixal had a body in reference to the car that was and he quotes “this car is worth far more than you. I would not advise returning it with a scratch.” He did end up ruining that car, so he gets a tiny red model car that looks similar to the x1 for a laugh and to say that he’s “paying her back.” He also gets her a real gift too.

It was a bit harder picking a present for his only biological sibling. Long before he had joined the ninja, it wasn’t hard getting nya something for Christmas because they didn’t have much money to their name. So, a small cheep gift would work, but now it make him seem cheep if he got something like that now. After looking around for what felt like and hour he settled on a book box set from one of her favorite book series, and finally for Lloyd, he got an oversized dragon plushy, it was easy and he was running out of time.

He had gotten other presents for people outside of the ninja and was heading for the checkout when he saw a familiar mop of brown hair. Kai herd loud complaining coming from the people jus half an aisle away from him. “ZANE! It’s freezing!!!! Can we pleeeaaassseee move from the col food isle!” Jay whined. Cole voiced his own opinion “yah zane, why can’t we go with nya and Lloyd! Why do we have to suffer the cold when they don’t have too!” Zane calmly answered “it would be illogical for you to go with nya and Lloyd as they are getting last minute Christmas gifts. If you stay with me you have a smaller chance of running into them and ruining the suprise.”

At this point kai was panicking and made a very rational sane decision. He grabbed his gifts, put them into shopping bag he brought,abandoned ship (or cart if you want to be serious), and jumped on the top of the aisles. For some reason the other three ninja didn’t notice him due to the loud complaints coming from two of them. All was well until kai lost his footing and fell off the aisle straight onto his head. He was kinda disoriented for a second but the concerned voices of ninja that were going to catch him coming from a few aisles over made him get up and bolt.

Kai somehow got to the front and checked out. He was about to walk out of the entrance, but one final challenge faced him. Nya and Lloyd were rapidly approaching his location. They hadn’t noticed him yet so he looked around for an escape. He saw only one option, but he would have to face his worse fear. ELVES. The little freaks were positioned in a display with their creepy little faces and stupidly Long arms. But Kai would sacrifice his dignity to escape capture. He dove behind the elves hid his bags then hid behind another one of the demon spawn. He heard Lloyd and nya stop by the entrance but he really couldn’t make out what they were saying, he really hoped he hadn’t hit his head too hard.

Eventually, the other ninja met up with nya and Lloyd. Once they all left, he bolted to the inconspicuous car he had borrowed from a friend of a friend, and bolted home. He barely managed to get home on time. He told his family that he was miraculously well and Christmas was saved! He still really wanted to burn some of those elves though.

That’s it! Hoped you liked it!

[grim-faux]

X1 _ A Tame Flame

First - A Small Quiet

The Pale City subsisted as a broken and all but abandoned plain, filled with headstones worshipping the spike driven into the heart of the urban spread. Rain fell for the majority of the hours that rose and fell with the tempered light slipping through the thicket, the ever thickening of stratosphere curled around the distant glimmer of the signal beacon. Sometimes the cloud cover was so thick for so long that it seemed the sun had faded into fantasy, and nothing but the tentative sheen of lamps lining roads afford the denizens passage through the suffocating black. The electric system which held on by caretakers tasked by unknown commands carried on the duties, or had a vague idea of time long gone that demanded the lights work, thus the televisions could jabber about the latest deals, or rising trends in fashion styles. Only few of the denizen to the city borders had the capacity to decide if they should follow such compulsions, others would rather charge after the charming melodies… even if that meant diving into a chasm which separated them from the piece of medium.

When the gales rebelled against the slicing rain, the windows chattered about the creaking interior of the buildings they observed. Some of the glass blades held better than other frames decayed and nullified of barriers, it left rooms shielded from the cleaving elements in better state. Usually a room here or there, since erosion still bore through walls and the weight of an endless chiseled cleaved the flesh from the buildings surface. The guts of these buildings creaked and groaned, bellowing about the state of the structures spine or how the knees might buckle. And always, the presence of rain drummed across the walls, becoming lost in the twisted warrens chewed through the towering monoliths.

The floors hummed as somewhere far distant and lost in the swirling storm, a skyrise lurched sideways but favored not to fall. Not yet. It was thinking about it, about giving up and crumbling into a pile of concrete speared by rebar and splintered bits of wood. For this hour and whatever consisted of a ‘day’, it would stand a while longer and endure the punishment the storm wrought.

Elsewhere, one structure held defiantly against the storm, and received the blasting pellets of icy water as if it was a contest. The outward countenance gave no hint of its interior segments, but nonetheless it remained steadfast – despite a domino of buildings ground into an obscure heap of jagged cement hills mashed into its side.

Deep within the knotted halls, the rain found its way into everything. The water trailed across veiny shapes carved into the plaster walls, icy pellets plopped onto the glossy and slimed floors. With each crackle of the ceiling struggling with the icy trace of intrusive waves, the bulbs glittered, but the tentative current of electricity held.

A curious thing happened in one room. A shy flicker of light alit on the floor and huddled, steady for but a breath. When a shrouded heap lunged from the gloom, the crafty glimmer vanished.

The child stayed stock still above where the intrusive glare once was, both hands capped to the dingy floor. He breathed hard, the edges of his coat tail fell against his dusty pant legs. He wondered… was done. Caught? It might escape again.

Very carefully, the boy eased down to his knees and hung close to the floor, the edge of his hat settled beside his bent elbow as he knelt down further. And further still. One hand remained latched to the floor, his fingers – sticky and sweating for once – flexed as he tried to keep no gap from appearing. Then very-very-VERY cautiously, watching with every ounce of his focus, he lifted his palm by a crease.

Stunned, he snapped his entire hand off the floor and gaped.

IT HAD FLEE!

Mono rested on his haunches, hands keeping his balanced as he flashed his gaze across the room. It was murky, but for the dull lamp standing in the corner; the lampshade atop the pole practically dissolved. His gaze skimmed a small cabinet, a collapsing dressed, a chair, then the couch over by the corner of the room. No trace of the glimmer flame snatched his rapid examination, and he racked his mind with details. How was fast? Children were fast (they needed to be), so were insects, and small animals. He had not seen it move.

Though the flame was not an animal or other living thing. It was a piece of fire, like an ember. It was a strange burning thing all the same, cause the light bulbs and refrigerators would make him hot or burn him if he wasn’t careful. The small flame came and went without trace, and he hadn’t figured if it was warm yet.

On the spur of a twinkle, he lunged at where the glittering light flashed. This time, it was skipping away from each pounce he made. He snort, next jumped a pile of ruble that had fallen from the ceiling (at some point), and plopped onto a flattened shirt. He expected the glittery flame to singe the fabric, but it didn’t.

It sort of made him think of the smoldering light from the smoke sticks. Mono was familiar with fire and smoke and embers, he had never seen one without the other. This was definitely some sort of ember, like what the Thin Man ate. But the Thin Man ate smoke, or did he eat fire? He decided the Thin Man would like this bit of ember.

A gravelly cackle was stifled by the man in the hat.

Mono halted to hold the flame with a glare. It stopped moving, maybe because he stopped moving? He didn’t know for certain, but it was stopped and so was he. But he needed to catch his breath after all the dashing and pouncing. It was also second nature to curb the ragged heaving of his breath, he could not make a lot of noise. It might alert some creature, and it could make the light zip off once more.

At times, it almost seemed alive. He had watched it flicker across the floor a few times, as if it were a curious beetle rooting for a hidey place. And right now, the light began shuffling across the floor. Mono tried to adjust his hat as he leaned over, but realized in all the jumping it had fallen off somewhere. He scratched his matted hair of out his eyes, and tried once more to look closer at the flame. It was scooting to the side, then curved back and began… inching closer to him.

Without breaking eye contact, Mono curled his spine back and pulled his arms up to his sides. He arched his hands up with his fingers splayed like claws, his unblinking eyes all the time locked onto the glittery light. His movement was so controlled and skillful, it had not startled the light into a retreat – that happened before. This time, he would wait for the perfect moment to strike. He held his breath and wound up his muscles….

On the couch, another snicker purred under the static. Mono didn’t care what the Thin Manor his hat thought. This was the way to catch skittery bugs. If he messed up this time, the shiny might dash into a crack, never to be seen again. He didn’t know if it could bite, or if it might burn… he remember the time he snagged the beetle, but the jagged jaws gave him a bad bite.

When the glimmer came just an inch shy of striking range, it stopped and shimmered on the floor. He watched it carefully without a twitch, and maybe the shiny suspected he was observing it. Maybe it was waiting for the right moment—

He lunged faster than an arm, faster than a blink of chittering static. That had to have done it! He had to have caught it.

A spray of dust smashed into his eyes and he needed to blink so hard before it turned mushy and seeped out between gummy tears. No matter what, he wouldn’t move his eyes off his crossed fingers, lashed over the place where the flickery bit was. He tried to feel for movement or heat, or anything else that might clue him in if he was successful. Would he feel anything? He didn’t feel anything right now.

Pressing his palms down firmly, he scooted through the thick dust on his knees and very slowly pried his palms away from where the gleaming thing had been.

Somehow! It appeared right on top of his hand, barely when he shifted it away from the spot. Out of reflex he launched backwards, anticipating a terrible pain or an ugly mark to appear on his hand. After retreating a safe distance, he brushed off his hand and checked for damage.

He gazed utterly petrified at the lack of anything awful. The back of his hand and sleave was the usual drab blotchy colors it always was. His skin was not blistered or bloodied, or oozing. The sleeve of his coat stayed intact, with no scorching – just the usual ravels from the worn fibers, but nothing new.

Shoving the back of his hand to his face he gave his skin a lick, almost cringing at the expected tenderness that came with checking a wound. Nothing. Just dirt and crumbs from whatever he’d been eating on earlier – he didn’t remember what, it was bland.

The glittery light flashed over a rumble in the carpet, curious about what he was doing. Without hesitation, he lashed for the glimmer. It retreated, as he expected. But he wasn’t hurt like he had thought prior, and could give chase fully.

On the couch at the other side of the room, a slight smirk crossed the sheltered face beneath the hat. Mono didn’t like the look, but he would feel better when he showed the Thin Man. He always thought Mono was a simple dolt, but he would show the man and his hat. Mono was good at catching anything he wanted. He did good tricks, he protected the Thin Man. The small glimmer would be a wonderful gift, and the Thin Man would smile in the favorite way.

But for now, Mono had to use all his agility and spryness to corral this flashy thing.

Sometimes he lost track of it in the dust, and for a while the shimmer doused. Mono turned over scraps of wood or tussled tatters of cloth practically embedded with the soot crushed into the floor. His diligence always paid off, and the glittery thing darted from its hollow or hole or the crack he overlooked. Always it managed to evade that fully body lunge from Mono. He was quick to scramble upright and continue the pursuit, with a snort and a snarl in his throat.

If the Thin Man was gonna be a jerk and snicker at Mono’s efforts, then he’d just eat the glimmer thing himself. If it didn’t hurt him, that is. It wasn’t like the embers he was familiar with, it was animated and knew Mono was hunting it. If it didn’t care, he would have it caught ages ago.

It was nice to chase something, though. Usually Mono was running for his life or trying to decide the best trick for a danger - usually a Snatcher (Viewers weren’t hard to figure out). He’d catch fish for Her, but most of the time if food scraps went scarce, he would prowl for insects. They weren’t hard to catch, but some didn’t taste right and others slipped into crevices he couldn’t get into. Then, they disappear forever.

He scampered after the glittery thing, clawing across his hands and feet or managing on his own two feet. Most of the time he wasn’t paying attention to where his feet went, he stumbled all the time, and barely stayed on his toes without crashing to his face. The wonderful coat snapped at his heels as he twisted on a dime, and skid onto his side whenever he lost traction. He was always swift to get back onto his feet and resume, practically clawing after the fluttery shape.

And then he nearly smashed head first into the wall, if hadn’t tripped again and did three full summersaults. He did collide with the wall, but not as bad as he might’ve if he was charging full force with his head tucked down and his arms out.

As for the glittery light? It slipped right up the wall, just like a bug. It stopped a few feet up, flashing just like an ember. It was yellowed and glittery, and very pretty. Mono wanted to taste it first.

He leapt, but was just out of reach. After a brief glance around the floor and for anything that might assist, but finding nothing, Mono returned his gaze to the glittery shape. It hadn’t moved much. It sort of looked like it was breathing.

Mono was breathing hard too after all the running. While it was going nowhere, he rubbed more of the crust and dust from his eyes. And stared. Or glare. It hadn’t gone anywhere, still.

Another giggle rippled through the static. Mono would show him. He’d catch it. That’d show the man and his dumb hat, that Mono could do anything he put his mind to.

He jumped again. When that didn’t work, Mono plucked up some debris and chucked it at the thing. No of the bits of wood or whatever got close to smacking it. The thing didn’t even budge. It made Mono huff and puff his cheeks. He could do this.

He could feel the Thin Man staring at him and his failure. He knew the Thin Man had the dumb smirk, too. He was probably tapping his finger on his knee, waiting to see the next silly thing Mono did. And, to watch the light flash away.

The glittery thing inched down a bit. And Mono crouched, prepared and coiled. He waited until it was in close enough range, then leapt!

He’s sure he slapped it. He’s sure he snatched at it. But the light stayed right where it was, on the wall sitting on a crack. It didn’t vanish into the crevice or anything like that, it didn’t slip away, or dip out of reach. It stayed put, right where he could see it. But he couldn’t grab it. He was sure he looped his fingers around it. This didn’t make sense.

Then it vanished without a trace, and Mono was left crouched – prepared for another lunge – panting hard, as his eyes remained locked onto the wall. The room around his was steady and hushed, if he ignored the Thin Man’s dumb snicker.

Mono moved his eyes off the wall and began searching around. It must’ve fallen somewhere—

“O̷͕͘v̶͚̈́ḙ̶͒r̸̫̈ ̸͔̃ Ḧ̶̹́e̷͇̅r̶̪͝ë̶̜́.̷̦̅.̸͇̓.̷̣͝.̵̨̌”

He zipped around, eyes darting across the floor and searching the gloom for the tale tell highlight of the glinting flame. Not in the dust. Not on the clump of socks….

“A̶̘̎l̴̙̿m̷̜̐o̸̢̔s̵̭̍ṱ̷̏.̵̬̈ ̴̠̎ G̵̥̒ẻ̶͎t̵̜̄t̵͉̍i̶̇͜n̵̳͂g̶̯͠ ̵̣͝ W̵̻͒a̵̭͌r̶̛̙m̸̖͒e̵̪̓r̷̜̍.̴̬̃.̵̡́.̷̩̄.̴̨̎”

That confused him, but he didn’t think too much about it. His eyes dashed across a patch of mold, and then at last became entrapped by the shimmer of the flame. A throaty snarl burbled in his throat right as he lurched, almost but just missing the glimmer when it retreated. Fast.

It was getting tired, he could tell. The glimmer zoomed only beyond his leaps, but he had a chance to gather back some strength and resume his very important task. If he kept at it a bit longer, it wouldn’t be able to get much further.

The glimmer darted to the right, then his left. Another lunge and a big pounce, another cloud of dust smacked him in the face. Without care for his aching eyes he made another long jump, completely missing how fast the floor came to his palms. The impact jarred up his shoulders and for a moment he was blinded, between the murk of the room and the powerful sneeze that erupted from his nose.

“Ack-eh,” he growled, struggling between a wheeze and crushing the shock in his frame. Another tremor wracked his body, but he wouldn’t let himself make a sound that would alert a threat. “Keh!”

Searching the floor over, the light didn’t glide under his sharp gaze. He thought a shimmer peaked at the edge of his vision but before he could check, another painful convulsion pulsed through him. “Hick! Kech-ugh. Spee! Eck!” He was no good like this, and proceeded to rub at the dust on his face.

For a splint second he brute forced through the snorts, and managed to check the floor over for his target. He glimpsed the Thin Man, when he returned the small blade to his coat. The tall figure hunched over and put his face into his hands. That was all Mono made out, his gaze still sought that glimmer of light, and tears poured from his eyes. He tried to clear his nose of the fuzzy-burning, but no amount of snorting made the scratching less.

“Hah-kuh!” He tucked his head down, but it was thunderous in his ears. His dry throat became more dry and parched, while another tremor ripped through his chest. “Kuhh! Huff!” He pulled the collar of his coat over his head and struggled to contain the persisting cries he couldn’t stop. Tears streamed from his eyes, but his nose burned with how dry it was. How was that even possible?

A whole new sound croaked from his strained throat, as finger looped around his middle. He tried to squirm away before the grip locked tight, but another snort bounced from his throat.

“O̶̖͝h̷́ͅ ̷͓̓ D̵͖̎e̴͓͂a̵̻͂r̶̯͝,” the static warbled. “Ẉ̷̐h̴̡̀ã̸̼t̴͓͝ ̵̢͂ H̷͙͋a̵͖͑v̶͇͌ë̸͇́ ̸̱̿ Ý̵̹ơ̶̝u̴̱̅ ̸̼̾ M̴̠͒à̷̭n̸̘͠a̵̼͠g̸͍̍e̷̠͗d̶̛̬ ̵̫̒ N̴͉̒ǒ̷̦w̶̲͗?̴̼̄”

Despite losing track of the floor, Mono writhed at the grasp fitted around his chest. He could see nothing but blurry grays and black, but he knew he was moving. Another painful burst rocked his head.

“That was quite a S̶̞̓n̴̰̈́e̴̬͌e̵̞̽ž̷̰ẽ̷̠.̸̣́”

The click of the Thin Man’s steps barely come through, as Mono contends with another explosive shudder. Will this ever end? A sneeze was common enough with wandering through dust and tickling particles, but this was something else. He was cursed! He wanted to chew on the Thin Man’s finger, but between the suppressed tremors and having worked so hard – for nothing shown – he was exhausted. He didn’t realize the Thin Man was not moving and didn’t pick up the noise of a faucet hissing, and he barely registered a cold rag pressed to his face.

He growled but didn’t fight the pressure away. Also, another lurch robbed him of all sense. It took a moment for him to realize he was sitting on a dusty surface, it felt like the countertop he was crawling over a while before.

“H̴̜̉ơ̵̡l̴̡͆ď̴͓ ̸̼͊ S̶̳̍t̴͔͋e̵̼̽a̷̪͘d̷͙͆y̷̽ͅ.̸̲̈́ ̸̲̽ C̸̢̀e̵͕͑ȁ̸̗s̸͖̍é̵̼ ̶͈̀ that S̶͉͐q̵̡̇u̵̱͋i̴̟͝r̶̠͆m̴͙͌i̶̯̾ń̴̬ḡ̶̖.̸̙̔”

He didn’t get what the Thin Man was rumbling about, but another of the powerful tremors jarred him all the same. The stiff rag rubbed harder at his face and more of that tingling bitterness surged inside his head. Before he could get a breath in or wind up, his teeth chattered against the blow. This time, it helped that the rag cushioned his face. He could see a bit more, but he still blinked at the grit rolling in his eyelids.

“Try S̸̭͋ó̶̡ṁ̵̥ḙ̶̚  ̷̲͌O̵̜̓f̵̘̂ this.”

The grip around his chest vanished and soon after, the wet edge was pressed to his mouth. He didn’t realize what was happening before bitter liquid splashed his face. Water from the faucet always had a strange tang to it, but he preferred it to the puddles he sipped at. It wasn’t enjoyable having water splashed across his face and soaking his nice dry coat. This time when he snorted, it was mostly from the water surging up his nose.

“T̷͚̉a̴̼͗ḵ̸̽e̶̞̕ ̶̬̚ I̸̼̐t̸͚̚ ̶̝͗ Ę̶̂ả̷͙s̵̤̀ȳ̷͖.̴͍̓”

Mono didn’t bother hissing when the cup went away, to be replaced by the stiff rag. Another series of jolts and half snorts went into the rag, but it absorbed the worst of those noises. The Thin Man was cackling again, and his fingers shook around Mono’s waist.

“For the Tower. T̸̠̽h̷̩̚o̸̫̿s̸̨̉e̵͎̽ ̸̼̆ are ̴̪̾S̸͇͂o̸̦͒m̵͔̕e̷̥͂ ̵̟́ Ň̶̰ǭ̵i̴̮͠s̴͈͘e̴̛̩s̶͕͆.̵̥̍”

Mono wanted to yowl at him, but he was busy with another hack. It wasn’t as offensive as the ones before, and after another chocked-wheeze, the intensity was down somewhat. He hung with his face pressed fully into the damp rag, and arms dangling under him. The Thin Man rubbed at his back and that felt nice, despite everything. And the laughing.

“There you go. Much better.”

Mono was disappointed. He tried so hard to catch the glittering light thing, but it was probably long gone by now. The Thin Man didn’t care, or he could’ve just been happy Mono was willing to try so hard to make him happy. Another stiff grunt bolted out of Mono, but he barely felt it. His nose still itched and he tried breathing through the stuffiness.

“D̷̰̈́ö̶͓́n̴͉͠ę̶͑?̷̱͒”

Before Mono could dwell on the rustle of the Thin Man’s tone, he was lifted from the dusty countertop and set onto the floor. Without the rag against his face, the dry and musty air brought another bought of sneezes. The intense cough and huffing ebbed quickly, especially after Mono gave his whole face a hard rub. His vision hadn’t cleared entirely, but the clicking steps of the Thin Man faded on the other side of the kitchen.

Are to leave? For go?

The Thin Man didn’t go back to the room with the couch, and the glittery thing Mono had tried to catch. A cloud of smoke swelled under the hat, the dark tinges cleared somewhat as the tallest creature turned a corner and stepped into a room.

Picking up speed, Mono charged into the room – he anticipated it to be empty, but it was hard to tell when the Thin Man used his powers. He felt the crackle of energy and from the doorway, the lights doused briefly; sometimes the lights dimmed just because of the Thin Man being around.

Nope. The Thin Man was not in the room he had stepped into.

Leaving Mono to stand a bit inside the entry, his head tilted. At his back, the crisp steps echoed through his head.

“T̵̺͂h̴͙͂e̴͕͐ṙ̵̻ě̶̩ ̸͖̅ I̷̭͝s̶̖̒ ̵͖̊ T̸̟͆h̷̥̏e̴̻̾ ̷̼͝ Ḅ̴̒o̷̲͌y̶̭͗.̷̭̊”

Mono raced from the room and searched the corridor, though there was nowhere that the Thin Man could have ducked away to. It was long, and the pulsing light briefly concealed the entire space until the power restored.

The Thin Man was out here, he’s sure. But the tall man and his hat vanished without a trace. He was very good at that.

Movement snatched Mono’s eye, and he whipped his head to inspect the shoe settled to bent floor panel to his left. Instincts kicked him into a dive, but he managed to tilt his head back to view the towering figure that appeared without a tremor. The cloudiness in his eyes and sinuses made him miss that unmistakable pop and fizzle that announced the Thin Man’s powers. Or, the Thin Man was just that good at sneaking up on Mono.

He hated that.

“W̸̯͗ȟ̸̡o̷̭͆ò̴̼p̴͉͝ş̷̈!̸̙͌ Better watch Y̵̲̕o̸̪͗ů̷͚r̵͖̍ ̷̭͝ S̵̝͆t̶͖͊e̵̻̊p̴̏ͅ.̸̝̔”

Before Mono could hiss back, he had fallen onto his butt and slammed to his back. When his vision drained of the smokey fog, the Thin Man was no longer shadowing him with his tallest shape. It took barely a second for Mono to recover himself and sit up.

Game. The Thin Man wanted to play a game. Mono liked to play games with the Thin Man, but he preferred to choose the games. Whatever. The Thin Man wanted to play, and it was rare when the tall adult wanted to.

To begin, Mono was supposed to search the rooms and corridors. He didn’t get that far before he exited the corridor, into the next large room filled with furniture. Another exploring place for hide, but no food stuff.

The dimmed bulbs indicated the Thin Man was teleporting, but Mono wasn’t sure where. He opted that behind him would be the spot. It was obvious. He lunged through the dark, but something snagged his ankle.

“W̵̓ͅh̸̘͝e̵̦̓r̸͔͆e̶͗ͅ ̵͎̓ A̵̛̪r̶̰̓e̶̯͐ ̸̧͗ Y̵̢͋ọ̶͋u̵͚̓ ̴̰̆ G̴̈́͜o̷͍͘i̴͎̚n̸͓͊g̵͉͒?̸̛̭”

The tight pinching lifted his foot, as with Mono, until he was suspended a ways or something above the moldy carpet. Upside down. Mono wrenched his foot tethered in the vice hold, but he was held fast. He stopped fighting to get himself right side up and instead dangled, so now he stared... down? at the Thin Man - who looked like he was standing on his hat.

“I̵̼͆  ̸̩̓À̸͉m̵͕͠ ̷̰̊ R̷̳̐i̴̘̐g̵͎̎h̶͓̎t̷̰͊ ̶̢̉ H̴͉́e̶͍̔r̵̟̕e̶͊͜.̵͌͜”

Mono’s ankle was released, allowing him to plop onto his hands and feet. He stumbled as he rocked back to his toes and propelled himself upright, he ripped around – briefly recalling his own powers – and collided with the knee planted to the carpet. He clamped his arms around the Thin Man’s thigh and bit as hard as he could, determined to keep the tol figure from dissolving into static.

“Keep,” he rasped. The current buzzed through his ears and rattled his bones. “Mm! Have.”

Nothing was uttered, but the electric sizzling pulsed through his skin. Mono kept a tight grip on his Thin Man, he caught him, he won. The Thin Man had to stay for him now. After a long time of nothing happening, Mono untangled his teeth from the fiber of the pant leg and turned his face up to the figure arched above him; the face remained partially sheltered by the hat, only the eyes glittered in their spooky way that was familiar to Mono. It could be scary to look at the Thin Man when his face was stony and reflected nothing, especially when the static bristled across Mono’s skin. The smoke stick smoldered against the edge of light creeping across the hats rim, and a swell of smoke swam into the yellowed light.

“Have. When caught, mm’keep. Mm-hm.” A lot of times when he tried to explain how things worked, the Thin Man stared at him but didn’t speek. “S’important. For keep.”

“H̴̳̏m̸͉̊m̷̝̽.̷̜̓.̸͕̇.̸̯̉.̴̺̐”

“Mm-hm.”

“You K̵̯̿e̵͎̓è̴͈p̴͉̎ me?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh. Impor-ent. Und-Eer sand?” The Thin Man sort of snickered.

“N̶̺̚o̶̼͑.̶̰͐”

Mono fixed the Thin Man with the fiercest glare he could manage. “S’come tuh’ooo.” That made the Thin Man duck his head down and his spindly frame to shake. Laughing again! He was stupid. “S’will,” he growled. “Y’see. S’come.” He buried his face against the dense fabric of the knee and sniffled.

The Thin Man always pried at Mono, asking if, “U̸̽͜ń̵̩n̵̘̾e̶̢̾ṛ̷̛'̴͈̅ ş̸̃ą̵̓n̴̻̽d̸̰̔?” Or whatever. But the tall man and his hat didn’t understand anything either. It was important to have someone, and Mono wanted to keep the Thin Man. The other kids didn’t want the Thin Man like Mono did, they couldn’t know how to find him the best food, or trick the horrible monsters. Mono did all of those things.

He did all that for H̶̛̰͔̤̒͝e̴̻͊̆̄r̶̟͇̐̓̈́ too, but she didn’t care either. After everything he did and how much he fought, all the hurt he had taken... She didn’t want him.

“C̷͕͠h̵̛̭i̵͖̔l̷̗͑d̶̩̒.̸̰̀”

Mono crushed his face against the leg and growled in his throat. Fingers prodded at his back. Hard.

“Nuh,” he mumbled. A crackly sigh drifted through the dark space his eyes occupied.

“Y̸̙̓ő̷͙ú̴̞  ̴̘͋A̴̯̿r̵̘̾ȅ̶̘ ̶̭͊ B̷̙̀ē̵͓i̸̯͗n̵̠̔ǧ̷̭ ̷͈̔ F̸̰̾o̵̡͠o̸̝͑ľ̶͇i̴̟͛s̴͖͒h̴̻̐.̷̹͑”

“Yoo fooh-ish,” Mono mumbled. It got very quiet and the static vibrated through his head; a dull ache whittled at his forehead like a beetle sting. He hissed and tightened his arms on the threads of the Thin Man’s pant leg.

The edge of his collar wretched him away from his perch. Of course he fought to get loose, before the Thin Man could disappear again. This would be impossible, because his feet dangled in midair and he was still sketchy on teleporting without a solid surface under his feet – that thought frustrated him, and a creaky snarl leapt from his throat.

Rather deposit him aside or toss him, he was coiled up in fingers and tucked close to the smokey collar of the Thin Man’s suit.

“Ị̵̆s̸̙̄ ̸́ͅ T̴̹̋h̸͍̑ä̴͕́ț̷̋ ̸͍̅ N̴̙̓e̷̛͇c̴̦̐e̴̻͒s̵̤̈́s̵͇̋a̴͗͜r̶̘̔y̵̨͠?”

Mono rubbed his damp face on the crisp collar, and hid his face beside a fold in the fabric. “T’glow.” He winced when the Thin Man used his power to glitch out of his kneel, it gave him the same sensation of falling, which he didn’t like.

“H̴̟͘m̵̢̆m̵̭͝?̸̗̊”

Sometimes the Thin Man’s rumbling noises felt nice, too. “Shiny. S’glow.” The steady clicking of the Thin Man’s steps rolled across the narrow walls of the corridor, and the bulbs shimmered with each tap. The Thin Man’s thumb brushed against the clumps of hair sticking to his forehead. Sometimes fizzing and humming crowded Mono's senses when the Thin Man flashed across a span of the floor, but other times the tall figure dipped forward to clear a doorway. It never ceased to unnerve Mono to rock backwards while in the Thin Man's grip, but with the coil of fingers around his back he felt secure enough. And he always had his own fingers knitted into the suit threads.

“Didn’ catch.” One time he caught a fish for Her, and that made him think She would always be Together. But he’s almost certain the Thin Man would like the ember. “Am tried.”

“You are tired?”

The Thin Man was strange. He didn’t understand how much Mono worked or what it meant to Mono that he could keep. These things made Mono the best, but the best of Together and share didn’t mean nothing to kids that didn’t care.

The dulled light of the broken lamp flared timidly as the Thin Man crossed the room, his glitchy form dissolved then into nothing, then reappeared beside the couch. Mono blinked against the acrid glare, but settled to turn his gaze away. It still bothered his tinder eyes, but after scrubbing more of the crust off his face, he felt a little better.

“Shiny,” he muttered, again. He did turn his head more around to see some of the floor, but he didn’t expect to find the glittery thing wandering through the dust. “Was catch.”

“The… light?”

Mono shook his head. Sort of. He adjusted his feet against the Thin Man’s fingers. “Nuh-un. T’glow.” He did shuffle around to face the Thin Man, and reached up to his face. “Flicker.”

“T̴̖͠h̸̦͐ị̴͐s̸̮̋ ̴͖̀ İ̶ͅs̷͙̓  ̷͚̾N̴̪̈ö̵̪́t̷̳̔ ̷̘͂ F̴̞̃o̸̤͝r̸͎̂ ̵̟͊ Ý̴̢õ̴͇u̴̹̓, ̸̟͛” the static buzzed. “W̷̪̾ȩ̴̿ ̵̱͝ H̶͈̍a̵͎̋v̶̯͐e̸̟͒ ̴͎́ B̶̰͠è̷ͅe̴̪̿ṋ̶̆ ̷̱̕ T̶̟́h̴͉̽r̶̩͋ō̶͓u̶̖̎g̶̢̈́h̸̜͑ ̵̛͚ T̴́ͅh̴̢̀ï̴̫s̶̤͌ ̸̫̇ A̸̝͝l̴͍̊r̶͖͝e̶͍̚à̶͍d̴͖̔y̷̥̓.̷̣́” He took the cigarette from his lips and tapped the end of dust off. “N̶͊ͅo̷̟͒.̶̝̌”

Mono curled his hands back into his own coat. “No. S’ glow. Am catch.”

A reply was not for him, not even an undignified glance. The Thin Man tucked the stick back into his lips and reached aside. Another book. The Thin Man wasn’t paying attention. His thumb drifted across Mono’s back, sometimes plucking at the strands on the back of his head.

“Was try,” Mono reminded.

“H̴̪̑m̴̺̾m̸̡͑.̴̮̈.̴͕͐.̶͎͝.̷̩͛”

“Catch. Fer’ooo.”

“H̸͖͌ú̴̦s̸̰̽ḣ̶̯.̸̳̔ ̸̛̳ T̸̥̏ẖ̵͊e̶̬͝ ̶͔̽ M̷̯̀ö̶̯́n̷̮̏s̵͇͌t̶͍̓e̸̠͛r̶̫͘s̶͉̽ ̶̩̀ W̵̱̒i̶̻͒ĺ̸̖ļ̶̓  ̸̥͝F̶̱́i̴̲͋n̴͕͝d̶̬́ ̴͉͛ Y̶̧̾ȯ̵͍u̵̼͆.̵͇̌”

That made Mono shut his mouth. For a total of seven thrums of the noise in Thin Man’s chest. Mono wriggled around, kicking at the Thin Man’s fingers and thrashing, until he sprang free and tumbled heel over head to a seat of the couch. A rusty sigh curled through the static.

“Ŕ̴̨e̵̜̔a̷͈̎l̷̦͌l̷̜̀y̴͈͝,̷͖̓ ̸̰̿ C̵̱̀ĥ̵̪i̴̘͝l̴̘̿d̵̮͘.̷̳̀.̸̱͗.̸̟̑.̴̥̈”

Mono hopped form the couch and to the floor, where he was certain the glittery light was last. “Find.” Another rough exhale, and he could imagine the smoke swirling around the Thin Man’s hat. “For yu.”

It was probably long gone, the tiny glimmer. But it wasn’t like bugs the chased or furry animals. Maybe it did nest in this room and didn’t go anywhere else. What did it eat? Probably little bugs.

He dragged aside a dust coated piece of paper and prodded matted clothing. He didn’t find anything, not even the smaller bugs. The search is endless, he has a lot of floor to cover and a lot more junk plastered and matted against the splintered floor boards. He check cracks, and leaned down to check any hint of a glimmer – a trick of the pulsing lamp, beside the couch. Not the glimmery thing he sought.

“W̵̛̩h̸̭̆a̶̳̋ť̴͓ ̴̮͑ are you D̵̲͊o̸͇͆i̶̯͑n̵̘͝g̶̯͝?̷̙̓”

“Find.” He wasn’t doing much finding. “Hmm.” The shiny probably slipped into a crack and was gone forever. He had never seen anything like it, and probably would never see something like it again. It would’ve been perfect for the Thin Man, but… thinking on it, maybe not.

He turned from where he was crouched, after checking under a heap of a crumpled shirt. When he saw the Thin Man, just watching him, the tol figure gave his head a shake and returned his focus to the book he held aloft.

Mono pushed himself into standing and padded back over to the Thin Man. He used the pant leg and the unraveled threads of the couch to hoist himself up to the seat. He placed himself next to the Thin Man’s leg and stared up at the impassive face lost in the pages of the book. The thicket of marks filling each paper always reminded him of static. It was the Thin Man’s favorite.

“Story.”

“H̶̖̚m̶̟̈́m̴͈̀.̶̪͆”

Mono patted his leg. “Can story?” He scooted a little close when the Thin Man very slowly shut the book, and then turned to look down on him. He smiled for the man in the hat.

“I am not telling S̴͕̀t̸͈̂ǫ̴̈́ř̸̘i̸̹̎e̵̢͆s̴̫̕ at this  ̴͇͠T̶̬̓i̵̝͋m̵̗̀ë̸̠.̴̥͑”

He tugged on the pant leg. “Nah. Am tell. Make story.” For good measure, he shook the pant leg harder. Or, as much as he could to keep the Thin Man’s attention. Which worked.

“You?” rumbled the towering shape. “W̶͙̿a̴̟͘n̷͈͝t̵̡͆  ̸̬̃T̸͖́o̴̮͋ ̵̤͆ tell M̵̰͗e̵̯̽ a  ̷̼͋S̴͎͝t̵͈̅õ̶͇r̸̦̿y̷͕̑?”

Nodding, Mono’s smile grew. “S’turn. Make tell. Hmm. Lissen.” The Thin Ma touched his face… no wait, he pressed his knuckle to his lips. Mono thought he was gonna blow some, but he didn’t. The tol shape shook a bit and the eyes glittered. It was probably not his favorite smile, but the Thin Man was happy. That was important. “Story.”

The Thin Man shook more, but after a rustling breath he sighed smoke. His body quaked and he touched his face a few times, before the quivers stopped.

“Ọ̸̈k̸͇̉á̶̝y̸̬̓.̶̥̊” He rattled and tried again. “Alright. Let us hear this Ŝ̷̹t̵̯͘ǫ̵̌r̵̦̀y̵͔̓.̸̦̍”

Mono puffed up his chest and put on his most serious face. He really didn’t know what story to tell the Thin Man – he had so many – but they were all for kids, and the Thin Man wouldn’t get what he told.

“Have best,” he assured, after a short but cluttered pause. “S…mmm, tree.” He dropped his gaze from the intense gleam of the Thin Man’s drilling stare, and picked at a callous in his palm. “Boy’n s’tree.”

For a long moment the Thin Man did no speek and wouldn’t budge. Mono listened, waiting for the static to soothe. At last, the shift of fabric and hum of current gave hint that the Thin Man had relented. He looked up at the tallest figure in all the Pale City.

“How does your Ŝ̷̹t̵̯͘ǫ̵̌r̵̦̀y̵͔̓ go?” The Thin Man put his scorching gaze into the book, but he set his other hand around Mono’s shoulders.

Mono bit his lip to hide his smirk. “S’lost.” He began. “Rain s’much, and sizzles.” He looked around the room, assuring nothing unseen and no lost hazard had wandered in on them. After the Thin Man did the scout earlier, he decided it was safe (even if the Thin Man wasn’t very good at look or watch).

After relaxing a tad and thinking over the Story a bit more, he began once more. “S’boy. N’uun… rain. S’much rain’eeng.” He made the Hissing of falling rain, along with the Plink of hitting hollow metal eaves. “Lost. Not see. And cold.”

“H̵̘̓o̵̗͊w̸̖͆ ̶̬̔ M̶̠̃í̷̫s̷̢̽e̸͉̔r̵̗͑a̴͈͆b̴̺͋l̷̩̀e̴̢͘,” intoned the tower of a figure. He was still fixed on the book and in the process of flipping a page. He did it with his thumb, and it looked so fancy.

Mono nodded. “But click-click,” he the sound with his tongue, against the roof of his mouth. “Very tol. Scary.” He held his breath when the glint of the Thin Man’s eye slipped to the corner of his eye. It was important, especially when the Thin Man tried to pretend he couldn’t care. Mono hid the smug smirk, by flashing his arms up.

“From mist. Click-tick. Him come. Tol. Whooo…. Spooky. S’danger for see. Knows every’ing. But boy s’brave.”

And he proceeded to tell the Thin Man all about the time when a child met a bent Tree in a long and drenched road, and how frightened the boy had been. How terrible it was to be caught, and then how lost he was in the dark of nothingness. But the crooked Trees branches hadn’t broken the boy, but instead the bare limbs spread out and collected the rain clouds. The Tree sent the dark clouds somewhere else, and then the rain stopped falling. The boy chased the Tree everywhere it went, and they had many wonderful adventures. Then when the boy couldn’t follow the Tree anymore, it dug a hole in the street and put the child there. The Tree left one of its branches to keep the boy company, and then went far-far away, so it could think about the child and remember important things.

For a long time after Mono finished, nothing was said. He decided the Thin Man couldn’t understand what a story ending was.

“M̷̱͆ö̵̙n̴̻̋o̴͔͝.̴̝̚ T̸͖̔h̷̥̾a̴̡͂t̴͔̃ ̷̨̕ was M̶͖̏ȍ̷̪r̵͆͜b̵̛̺i̸̼̕d̵̂ͅ.̷͙̈”

He wasn’t surprised the Thin Man didn’t get it. “Was good story. S’best. Tree has happy.” He jerked his head up when the Thin Man snapped the book shut and set it on his knee.

“C̴̯̓h̸̝̾ĭ̸̬l̴̘͑d̷̂͜.̸̛̫.̸̰͐.̴̗́.̷͂͜” whatever was so important was maybe not that important. The Thin Man touched his face. Mono stuck his tongue out at him. “You know what? N̵̙͂e̸̥͋v̶̰̓ę̶̾r̵̼̀ ̶̿ͅ M̷͕͑ȋ̵͇n̴̦͆d̸̗͐.̶̣͊  I̴͉͒t̸̨̐ ̷̰̔ Ị̷̄s̷̒͜ ̷̞͐ N̸͎̿o̶̺̽ț̶̕ ̵̙͛ W̷͉͛ö̴̱r̵̖͗t̵̺͑ḩ̸̚  ̸̫̈A̴̝͝ṛ̶̔g̷̻̓ủ̷͙ḭ̴͠ṋ̵̊g̴̛̬  ̸̗̋A̷͔͑b̷͇͋o̴̞̾u̴͈̎t̷͈̅.̸̯̽”

With a nasally snort, Mono wriggled around until he had himself curled up and his head resting on the Thin Man’s leg. The story was incredible, it was his new favorite story. The Thin Man didn’t know anything, which is why the Tree had to leave the boy. Nothing lasted forever, that was important too. But the Thin Man was right, he couldn’t make him get it. Mono settled to stare off into the murky haze of the room, as little fuzzies of dust swirled around and explored the open air they had free reign over. He listened as the Thin Man returned to his dumb book and slowly flipped the pages, the static buzzing or gently hummed through his head. And every so often, the Thin Man’s thumb brushed against the back of his head. With another deep sigh, Mono shut his eyes and let his mind dip into the black nothingness that was as illusive as the important things he tried to share with his Thin Man.

Next

[callmearcturus]

What made you choose the odin over other similar game boxes?

GREAT question because there are a LOT of options out there, I even did a big post about them a while ago when folks were curious.

I actually started out with a Retroid Pocket 2+ as my first device. I hugely enjoyed it, played a bunch of DS games on it as well as a lot of PSX games. I think the current iteration of it, the Retroid Pocket 3+, is an excellent pick if you want a midtier device. At this point, the RP3+ is like a Odin Lite Lite.

My issue with my RP2+ was that I really wanted the ability to stream games from my PC, because I am a pirate yo ho ho and I wanted access to that much more robust library. Also, my interest in the Dreamcast/Gamecube/PS2 console generation is at its peak right now and that's the library I want to play comfortably.

So when I got a bonus from work, I bit the fucking bullet and got the AYN Odin Lite, because it also happened to be like 50$ off at the time.

(Oooh, which it currently is right now too, go figure!)

For the curious, I loaded my RP2+ with literally as many games as I could stuff into the things and I gave it to a friend as a gift.

I was worried that I wouldn't use the Odin enough to justify the purchase..... but then I immediately put like 20 hours into Pokemon Unbound and I completed Persona 3 Portable. And then I used Parsec to play the entirety of Persona 4 Golden and I am now 80 hours into Persona 5 Royal. And now I might spin up a playthru of SMT4 or the PS2 version of SMT 3 Nocturne, unsure.

Here's the reasons I like the Odin, even though its one of the pricier devices you can get:

Yes, it costs 200USD for the Lite model. But the Lite model does pretty much everything the more expensive Base and Pro models do with minimal compromises. Also for 200USD, you get extremely good components, very comfortable professional feeling buttons and joysticks-- like, this thing feels slightly better than a Switch Lite, honest to god. Unless you wanna dual boot Windows, you don't need more than the Lite.

It has Wifi 6 so it streams like a fucking dream. If the Odin itself can't handle emulating a game but my computer can, I can play flawlessly from Parsec. As I mentioned before, a few weeks ago I was sitting in a cute coffee shop literally like 25 miles away but was playing Persona 5 via Parsec. It also works natively with Game Pass streaming perfectly.

Even without streaming, this fucker is BEEFY. I personally love it for PSP games. Playing at 4x or 5x resolution makes the games look stunning.

My biggest problem with my CFW 3DS is the battery. I tend to play games for 4ish hours at a time, and then put the thing aside for a few days. With my 3DS, the thing will HAVE to be left plugged in or it will be dead by the next time I wanna play. This also means I can't just drop it into my bag to wait around for time to play, it'll inevitably be dead. My Vita and Odin can live in my bag for over a week before I have to worry about the battery. That is HUGE for me.

The Retroid Pocket 2+ very comfortably and ably played up to the DS and most Dreamcast games, but PSP was a crapshoot and even some PSX games weirdly could only run at x1, which was disappointing to me. The Odin Lite can play everything I want to play and as a bonus it can do what seems like half the 3DS library and about 40% of the PS2 library, which I would like to revisit.

Cracked devices and emulation are becoming a hobby of mine as everyone sans Microsoft works around the clock to make their enormous back catalogs fucking inaccessible. The fact the 3DS shop is closing soon pisses me off so much I can barely express it, I think that shit should be illegal. There are so many games and frankly works of art that are going to be completely inaccessible legally! FUCK THE ESA!

Point is, this stuff is important to me. I back up games I never intend to actually play on my external hard drive just in case. But out of all the devices I have played with, my favorites are easily the Odin and my cracked Vita. Both are miraculous, and I feel like I'm literally defeating my "hmmmmm what do I wanna play" indecision thanks to them.

That said, depending on your needs, I still think the Miyoo Mini and the Retroid Pocket 3+ (current iteration of Retroid) are excellent choices. As is a Vita! My god I love my Vita! I've never been a fan of any of the Anbernic devices and would avoid them.

[tankbredgrunt]

End of year wrap-ups, 2023

It's presently June while I start to write this, and I thought if I wanted to put together a list of media consumed over 2023 I could at least get an early start, for as much my sake of mindfulness and talking about the things I loved/hated. If you're interested too, you can read more; first is video games, then music, then movies and tv, then books. If you feel like talking about anything in here don't hesitate! This is going to be a nightmare to tag though so, I probably won't lmao.

Nothing is necessarily ranked in order either btw, and just because I didn't write any thoughts with something doesn't mean I disliked it. Just no thoughts you know? I could have thoughts though. For the right price.

Viddy Games

For the games I haven't yet beaten but did spent some time playing, I made 12 hours of progress into Hollow Knight and am very keen to get back into it; I played Cyberpunk 2077 for about 47 hours, and am very keen to get back into it; Baldur's Gate 3 has ~9 hours at this moment, and I'm keen, etc; and Starfield has 32 hours in it and I am NOT keen to get back into it. I can get into that later though. 🏆 means I got the Platinum achievement trophy too :3

Last of Us Part 1 (x2)/Last of Us PS4 Remaster (x3)/Last of Us PS3 (x1) 🏆 - 5 stars On top of regular playthroughs, this year also marked the dip into Grounded mode. I completed one Grounded round on the Part 1 PS5 remake, and 2 more on the PS4 remaster (for the achievements). It would be impossible to discuss the reasons why I love this game so much so I will spare yall, a mercy dedicated to anyone who's already had to/gotten to hear me go on about it. I also got two TLoU tattoos this year. Ask me about my theories still though. One of my favorite moments from my 2nd Grounded run (Including one of the nearly-100 fuck ups leading up to that point):

Death Stranding - 5 stars I'm coming in to write about this one retroactively, because I've spent all this time since beating the game thinking about it. Did I understand half of what was going on? Vaguely, but it was beautiful, and heartfelt, and the world was interesting, and it satisfied the need I had to go outside and run my errands. Loved Cliff's character, and his plight as a father, how he carried it with him to the afterlife, and his speech to Sam is on loop constantly as a goosebumps generator. All the webs this story weaved came together and fray in such intriguing ways.

Detroit: Become Human (x2) - 5 stars These were my third and fourth playthroughs of this game and I find myself fonder for this little game each time I play. The perfect example of how a setting is so much deeper for the things it DOESN'T say than the things it does, once you think consider it. Under the cover of fun little robots, this world is so bleak, and I love the thought experiments. A very good example, imo, of what kind of tool cyberpunk really is as a setting. Quantic Dream also slips in one unanswered aspect into each of their stories, and while it's true that the ambiguity can be frustrating, Quantic Dream accidentally does it in a way that I find so alluring. Ra9, in this case, examining the clues on my own, coming to my own conclusions. It lets the world live on after the games have ended. I don't care about having answers--the game focused on what it needed to. It was not a portal into the greater world, it was one into Kara, Connor, and Marcus. We can look at the world on our own.

Disco Elysium - 4 stars Admittedly while this one took me a few months to finish, with a break spanning between November 2022 to March, and often found it VERY dense with information, I still really enjoyed myself. It's also the sort of narrative that is very self-aware, and as such pokes fun at itself, and as another such is sometimes lost under a few too many layers of irony and sarcasm. It's a bit hard sometimes to know what information to take seriously and what to disregard. As wonts these sorts of games the content is made entirely of dialog, very reading heavy, and puts me to sleep--I couldn't imagine playing this game without the stellar voice acting. Haunting and comedic sometimes even in the same line of dialog, I'm glad I found it after the Final Cut was released. Highly recommend, looking forward to another play-through.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 4 stars I loved BotW from the moment I got my Switch on launch day. Interestingly with TotK, I found my high opinion slipping the more I played, and too afterward. It seems more and more to me that Nintendo isn't exactly as keyed into what people are looking for with Zelda as they thought. TotK comes complete with shallow villains and anime tropes and a bastardization of a fair bit of the work done in BotW. It is not a story that is aware of it's own narrative, characters, or concepts. I don't say this as a person who demands to know which timeline and where exactly it takes place, only as someone invested in the universe and hopes to have somethings meaningfully extrapolated on. I'm hungry for subversion. Won't get much of that with this game sadly. That said, where gameplay was concerned I still really enjoyed myself. Before release I was worried how they would fill a world I've already spent 300+ hours exploring, and it turned out the answers were 2 entirely new maps and a largely transformed overworld. Discovering the newness in a world I already knew so well was fantastical. The building mechanics were enchanting, the shrines legitimately challenging, and the world still fun to explore. Don't see myself replaying for quite a while though, if ever, which was also the case with BotW. EDIT: having read and heard of all the nightmares about this games development since I've played it, just have to say 😬 yikes dude. Really recontextualizes the story for me. Idk though the gameplay was still super fun, so where an overall rating is concerned, I'm a bit conflicted. I'll leave it where it is I guess but let the record show it's still a Yikes from me about certain things.

Heavy Rain - 3.5 stars So, in the driver's seat of this, I found myself not doing much else besides complaining. The controls on the PC port are horrible; the 'twist' was less that and more... dishonest; voice acting was rough; David Cage exists; etc. But idk dude!! Something about it was still as charming as the first time!! It's been just about 10 years since I first played it at release, and the nostalgia was strong. It was a perfect distraction from real life at the time, and I've always looked back on the game fondly, though I've never replayed it. There ARE functional things I do dislike about the plot and writing and the awful ending, which discounts its score to the 3.5 star rating, but idk yall. I find Norman dorky and lovable, flawed yet well-intentioned; Ethan is a desperate dad trying to correct mistakes he still can't reconcile with; even Scott's motivations are understandable. I, like one key character, cannot deny that seeing a dad do whatever it takes to save his son? I'll have what he's having.

Oxenfree - 3 stars One thing about me is I have a great hatred for time travel stories. They always inevitably fall short. Oxenfree however used what I believe are the true assets of the trope. The struggle of fate, predetermination, and how-could-anything-be-different. (I also believe a key function of time travel stories is the character's understanding that they aren't the first version of themselves caught in the loops but that's a different convo). Anyway the ambiguous ending was also a big win to me. All in all a fun little game. Give it a try if you want some low-stakes entertainment with a good story.

The Uncharted series - a mixed bag So this doesn't include Uncharted 1, which I played damn near a decade ago when I first got my PS4 and the Nathan Drake collection. My thoughts on that are hazy but one I remember vividly--fuck the ship level. Anyway I mark this as mixed bag because my feelings towards it are complicated. I still felt the essence of NaughtyDog throughout, their care for their characters and sympathetic storytelling. While not as morally gray as their TLoU stuff, and rated Teen, it was still compelling, and despite my intense grievances with the combat systems in 1-2-3, I never questioned whether I would continue with the next game. However. Those grievances. Holy shit. Snap-to-cover is NEVER the answer, game devs. I know and forgive that games 1-3 are over a decade old, developers have better tools and understanding now. See an example of my jimmies being rustled here:

Take a shot each time a headshot doesn't hit. For gameplay reasons only I can't give the first 3 games any higher than 3 stars. And even though 3 has the best story of the 3, gameplay might even knock that one down to a 2. Anywho, the whiplash in quality between 3 and 4 was insane. I played the PS5 port, and loved everything about 4. Loved Sam, loved baby Nate, loved the story. It was as if ND had kept a .txt file of every single issue up till that point and corrected each of them. Seeing the bones of TLoU2 was also nice. Phenomenal game, and I look forward to playing it again sometime soon. Ratings for each game go: Uncharted 2 and 3 - 3 stars Uncharted 4 - 5 stars Uncharted: Lost Legacy - 4 stars Sadly I don't have the tools or plans to play the PSP game. PS Vita? Either way.

Last of Us Part 2 (x3) - 4 stars This was probably my 3rd time playing TLoU2, and while I don't have many strong comments to make concerning the story, I feel like this was finally the first time I truly understood Ellie's character in this game. The truth of her grief and what it was really over. And Abby as well, how she wasn't just a foil for Ellie, but for Joel as well. That said, I do still feel I would love this game so much more if it was just told linearly. The pacing is DOGshit dude, wow. Love it though. I've also completed a Grounded playthrough and got the Plat trophy this year as well, which I only mention for bragging rights 💅

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice 🏆 - 5 stars I don't think I have much to say about this game besides general comments about how phenomenal the experience was. Never played anything like it. Fun exploration, environmental puzzles, great visuals. Combat was good, sound design was excellent. Story was good, acting was amazing. All around VERY thrilled I played.

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage 🏆 - 5 stars I GOTTA SAY, This game surprised the hell out of me. I’m on a journey to play all the Assassin’s Creed games; so far I’ve finished 8 out of ~18. For how badly Valhalla sucked ass I was hesitant to play this one, since it acts as a sort of prequel to a particular character, but DAMN if this didn’t completely surprise me. The world was incredibly fun to explore, and even included environmental puzzles. You will legitimately feel like an assassin with the amount of player freedom this game gives you, and the story was just as good. Best Assassin’s Creed game? 👀 Hard to say till I’ve finished them all but so far it’s absolutely a contender. Basim I love youuuuuu

Unmentioned, in alphabetical order: [Assassin's Creed 1 - 2.5 stars; Assassin's Creed 2 - 3.5 stars; Assassin's Creed: Chronicles: China - 3 stars; Assassin's Creed: Chronicles: India - 3.5; Assassin's Creed: Chronicles: Russia - 3.5 stars; Beyond: Two Souls - 3 stars; Ghost of Tsushima - 4 stars; Gone Home - 3 stars; Indigo Prophecy - 2 stars; It Takes Two - 3 stars; A Plague Tale: Innocence - 3.5 stars; The Quarry - 2.5 stars; SEASON - 3 stars; Spider-Man 2 (2023) 🏆 - 3 stars; Stray - 3.5 stars; Super Mario Wonder - 4 stars; Twin Mirror - 3 stars; Viewfinder - 3.5 stars; A Way Out - 3.5 stars; Where the Goats Are - 3 stars]

Starfield: Putting this one down here at the bottom so I don't start this list out with complaining lol. Anyway the fact this game was nominated for Best RPG at the game awards tells me they don't play some of the games they nominate lol. I don't think I've ever had an experience like this game gave me. I somehow played 30 hours, and had a great time, before realizing it was bad. Nothing happened in the story to stop me, there wasn't suddenly a new gameplay mechanic that I didn't agree with. There was just something in the glamour of those 30 hours that got me. Maybe it was the father figure referring to me with neutral pronouns. But anyway I guess I just came to my senses. I took a break to play something different, came back, and it was an entirely different game. The overworld is barren. They expect you to explore hundreds of plants that have nothing on them besides some minerals and animals you scan. These are laaaaarge swaths of time spent running back and forth in near silence, because not only is there next to nothing meaningful to interact with on these worlds, your companion repeats the same 5 quips the entire time. There are no tools to traversing the overworld more quickly, so you are running for thousands of kilometers so you can scan a useless monument and get 20XP. There is no incentive to exploring, there is no incentive to doing anything other than fast-traveling to your next destination--until the game stops you for not having the appropriate ship parts installed, and you realize it's going to be a 5 hour grind to upgrade that part. Looking back at those 30 hours I enjoyed, this was all still there, but idk man, idk. For this amount of content this should have only been a $30 game, MAX, and they sell it for $70. But I bought it for $70, so who is the real chump here. I think the only thing I truly enjoyed (besides Sam Coe) was the mission 'Entangled', where you are unwillingly forced between two alternate universes, due to an experiment in a research facility. It sits right on the cusp of horror, between one universe where the research facility exploded and nature took it back, and another where the explosion never happened. There is drama, intrigue, decisions, exploration, everything. Nothing else in the game came close at all to touching that and I'm mad I spent so long before realizing it. Who wrote this mission, so I can thank you?

Music (and the lyrics that make it)

My complete 2023 favorites Spotify playlist

Favorite albums: Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain Slut Pop by Kim Petras Guard Dog by Searows I Let It in and It Took Everything by Loathe Heavy Glow by Soulkeeper

Individual tracks and my favorite lyric: Master & A Hound by Gregory Alan Isakov 'Where were you when I was still kind?' Sun Bleached Flies by Ethel Cain 'If it's meant to be then it will be.' Don't Keep Driving by The Paper Kites 'There's nothing wrong with a little space. But not right now; don't leave.' Honey Dripping Sky by Georgia 'No matter how hard we try, I won't deny--it's for you.' Coming Clean by Searows 'If I kill you would I have to forgive you still?' Francesca by Hozier 'I’d tell them put me back in it. [Darling,] I would do it again.'

TV and Movies

I am severely illiterate when it comes to movies so the goal this year was to have watched at least one movie a week. Did I succeed,Future Me? [Yeah!]

Kingsman: Secret Service and :Golden Circle - 5 and 4 stars The cinematography?? The choreography? Hello? Across both movies, they were all so incredible. While Secret Service was my favorite of the two, Golden Circle had my favorite fight (though the church scene is a clooooose second)(Pedro Pascal I love you):

Gentlemen Bronco - 2 stars This movie was dull as shit BUT, it had one of my favorite scenes of the year.

Knock at the Cabin - 3.5 stars Just wanna put this one here real quick to get the Worms out--what was the point? Narratively, what was the point? I have been rolling this movie around my head since I watched last night and I'm hoping to read the book soon for better context, but man. While I enjoyed this movie a lot I just do not follow the themes, more so considering the ending. Was it a fight against providence and predetermination, only to prove its own point? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (Mr. Spock)? I can't tell exactly what this movie was asking me. As a rule I generally don't enjoy stories where the psychos are proved right with no closer examination of the themes and circumstances. Like yeah the MCs being a gay couple framed the story differently but that is also just a side effect of having distinctive characters lmao. It also insulated some sacrificial-minority stuff? Weird. And asks no questions about fate or anything, which is a wild loop considering Andrew's previous history with Redmond (a red herring? However I feel if the intro of a red herring completely recontextualizes the larger possibilities of the world, then it's not a good red herring, it's lazy). Ultimately I understand a theme is save your family or save humanity--it's on the DVD cover lol. But yeah man idk. All the other stuff, it made for a weird soup that I just cannot decipher. Anyway. EDIT: I have since read the source novel and it was incredible. I will not be watching any more Shyamalan movies lmao

Pacific Rim - 5 stars I also don't have anything much deeper to say about this than gotTDAMN dude, what a good fucking movie. I decided to watch because of all the Pacific Rim AUs that take place in fandom, and I decided I finally needed to know why and I DO know why now because good lord. What a good movie. That said the sequel was a hot pile.

The Arrival - 3 stars The way this movie had my heart racing the entire time--and shat it all away at the immediate end. Pure whiplash. "You know what surprised me the most? It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you." What kind of straight nonsense. What kind of anticlimactic. What kind of bullshit. I was immediately snapped to my senses, I'm not over exaggerating. Insanity.

Unmentioned, in alphabetical order: [After Yang - 4 stars; Assassin's Creed (2016) - 2 stars; Asteroid City - 4 stars; Barbie - 4 stars; Begotten (1990) - 2 stars; Bullet Train - 4 stars; Come and See (1985) - 3 stars; Dead Poets Society - 3 stars; El Dorado - 3 stars; Grave Encounters - 3 stars; The Green Knight - 4 stars; The Hateful Eight - 5 Stars; IT and IT: Chapter 2 - 4 stars; Jennifer's Body - 3 stars; King of the Hill (all 13 seasons) - episode determinate; Knives Out - 5 stars; Knives Out: Glass Onion - 2 stars; Labyrinth - 2 stars; Lady Bird - 3 stars; Lake Mungo - 3 stars; The Lighthouse - 3 stars; Mad Max: Fury Road - 3 stars; The Magnificent Seven (1960) - 4 stars; The Magnificent Seven (2016) - 3.5 stars; Martyr (2008) - 3 stars; Matrix - 3 stars; Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions - 1 star; The Menu - 4 stars; Midnight Mass - 4 stars; My Own Private Idaho - 3 stars; NOPE - 4 stars; Once Upon a Time in the West - DNF; Possum - 3 stars; The Power of the Dog - 3 stars; RE: Damnation, Death Island, Degeneration, Infinite Darkness, and Vendetta - 3 stars; Saltburn - 3.5 stars; Seven Samurai (1954) - 3 stars; The Shape of Water - 4.5 stars; Skinamarink - 3 stars; Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 2.5 stars; ST: Search for Spock and ST: Voyage Home - 4 stars; ST: The Wrath of Khan - 4.5 stars; The Thing (1982) - 3 stars; The Thing From Another World (1951) - 3 stars; Tideland (2005) - 2 stars; Unforgiven - 4 stars; The VVitch - 3 stars]

Favorite Books

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez - 5 stars I have never EVER in my life read a book like this one, and I urge everyone to give it a try. Two men must escort a dying god across the country in order to stop the control of her tyrannical children. If you aren't digging the book, at least try and make it 100 pages in. The beginning, like every chunky fantasy, is a bit of a tough learning experience, and the uniqueness of the prose didn't exactly make it an easier task. However, it makes it extremely lyrical and poetic, and intriguing. The entire package is mind-blowingly unique. AND it ends happily, if that makes you feel better.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers - 5 stars My thoughts on this little story aren't overly complex or anything, I just found the setting very nice, the B plot concerning Earth interesting, and the ambiguous ending intriguing. While the events might be a little harrowing it was the hopeful attitude of the prose and characters that made it very comforting nonetheless. I loved the experience while I was reading it, and think about the ending now, even all these months after reading.

The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr - 4 stars A black sleep car porter tries to keep his job and his sanity after their train is stopped by a mudslide. Before this I can say I'd never read anything in this setting before, and it was what drew me in initially, but it was the writing that really captivated me. The narrative has a very intimate feeling, nostalgic almost, as if you're hearing the story secondhand even as you read. It's also refreshing when a book just says 'cock', and no extra-curricular euphemisms. Where's that video of Taron Egerton saying cock over and over btw cause I can't find it

The Magpie Coffin by Wile E Young - 4 stars The first in a collection of splatterpunk westerns?? It was so fun to read, and the cover is so badass. It knew what it was and it did so well.

In the Distance by Hernan Diaz - 4 stars A young Swedish boy, separated from his brother, fends for himself in the early USA west. I was on hold for this through my library for nearly a month and a half, so by the time I got it in my grubby hands my exciting was pretty high. Though I found much of it slow, I was still somehow on the edge of my seat. It's a crime that this was the Pulitzer runner-up, and that Less by Andrew Greer won instead. It's been a very very long time since I've felt so strongly about the well-being and outcome of a character but Hakan if you're out there--I love you.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - 5 stars

Nothing to add to this decade long conversation other than this holds up :’) I was gasping like I was in high school again, reading it for the first time.

Honorable mentions, in alphabetical order by author last name: [A Psalm for the Wild Built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers - 4 stars; How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix - 4 stars; Texas Outlaw by Richard Jessup - 4 stars; Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - 4 stars; Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - 4 stars; Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum - 4 stars; The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage - 4 stars; East of Eden by John Steinbeck - 5 stars; The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay - 4.5 stars]

LEAST Favorite Books

I'm nothing if not a hater so I wanted to give some space to the books I most disliked.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer - DNF SAUR upset that this won the Pulitzer prize of its year instead of In The Distance by Hernan Diaz. 100 pages into it and I could not find anything redeeming about the main character. Pretentious, bitter. Like maybe that was his arc? He would outgrow that maybe. But it was just not the book nor the characters for me, unfortunately, so I did not stick around long enough for that to happen.

Bath Haus by PJ Vernon - DNF WHEW boy was the writing in this one bad. Like yall ever read a queer book and just know it was written for straight people? Let me find a picture I took of one paragraph.

Yikes and a half, dude. Anyway

Meat by Joseph D'Lacey - 1 star This was just plain bad. Like 'Oh isn't it so crazy they're eating people?? They're treating people like cattle, that's so demented right??' No. Not really. There's cannibalism in the cannibalism genre? Get a grip. I live near Donner Pass, we got cannibalism in the water here. Although maybe I'm also partially to blame for expecting some deeper storytelling from splatterpunk.

The Troop by Nick Cutter - 2 stars I don't know that I have anything really critical to say about this book other than I just didn't enjoy it. Writing was fine, prose was fine. It's told a bit out of order, think Carrie by Stephen King--snippets of interviews and articles detailing the aftermath of the events of the book. I do remember thinking that the facts were contradicting themselves a few times but was really not invested enough to care too deeply. The isolated, abandoned feeling we get from the island was nice, and the atmosphere good, I just don't believe Nick Cutter is a good writer. A bit too many slurs in here as well, methinks.

Books I DNF'd: With 15 in total this was the year of DNFing for me; it's amazing was Prozac can do for a person. (Disclaimer: I've only listed 13 of them here. The other two had to go back to the library before I could finish them so I marked them as technical DNFs :( and it doesn't feel right to include them in this list for haters)

Bath Haus by PJ Vernon (explained above) The Singularities by John Banville (nothing offensive, just didn't vibe. Books will often try way too hard on the opening paragraph and I'm not here for a philosophy lesson as I crack open a book you know what I mean) Heartless by Marissa Meyer (I just don't think YA does it for me anymore) There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins (" ") If We Were Villains by ML Rio (I just don't like being lectured and this book was clearly written for someone who wasn't me lol) Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (I find that a lot of times thrillers written by women employ stereotypes against men and their 'perverse' sexual tastes. The lines between pornography/fantasy and reality don't seem as nuanced in this genre, unfortunately. A man is not immediately a villain because he enjoys CNC or roleplay, and the pearl clutching is a little tired) Campfire Cooking in Another World by Ren Eguchi (why is every light novel like this:

The Lies of Locke Lamore by Scott Lynch (this was too quippy for my tastes. It was a little too busy being clever and not busy enough being interesting.) Less by Andrew Greer (Mean Gays, the next Tina Fay movie) Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (just wasn't my cuppa) Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (I read a review that counted how many times Zane Grey used 'sage' in this book. I don't remember the number but there was a lot of them. Too much mormanism going on, just wasn't my cuppa) The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson (only alright, not bad but wasn't going anywhere fast. More of a character focused, soft bit of mystery, which was fine, I just didn't find myself enjoying the characters either) Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (I just wasn’t vibing you know how it is)

2023 Reading Statistics

I also keep a track of the pages read and ratings, as well as genre, where I read the book and in what format, so I'll put that here too for posterity's sake. And If you'd like, I use GoodReads, and we can be friends!

62 books read 18,217 pages in total 3.25 average star rating 19 (30.6%) of the books read were owned; 43 (69.4%)(nice) were from the library 14 (75.8%) were physical books; 12 (19.4%) were ebooks; 3 (4.8%) were audiobooks

That's it! I don't make reading goals anymore, in terms of how many to read, but I do know I want to TRY and read the copy of Battle Royal I've had since my junior year of high school. And I'd like to try and finish the Tsubasa manga series, since I never made it past volume 15 I think. I can't think of anything other than that! It was a good year!

[anywaychina]

ANYWAY Smart Board | 65 inches Interactive Flat Panel | All In One Interactive Whiteboard

ANYWAY Smart Board | 65 inches Interactive Flat Panel | All In One Interactive Whiteboard Features: - 65-inch 4K UHD display (3840x2160) with anti-glare option - Android 13.0 system 4GB RAM+32GB ROM - Infrared 20-point multi-touch with 8ms response time - Supports finger touch or any opaque object - Built-in dual 10W stereo speakers for multimedia use - Durable tempered glass with Mohs level 7 hardness - Wide viewing angles (178°), perfect for large audiences - Multiple input ports including HDMI, VGA, USB, and RJ45 Specifications: Display Panel Information: - Diagonal Size: 65" - Resolution: 3840x2160 4K - Display Area: 1430.5x805.5mm - Display Type: D-LED - Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - Best Viewing Angle: Up 89°, Down 89°, Left 89°, Right 89° - Max Viewing Angle: 178° Touch Information: - Touch Technology: Infrared - Touch Points: 20 points - Writing Points: 10 points - Input: Finger touch or opaque objects - Touch Response Speed: 8ms Interfaces (Back of Panel): - HDMI in x1, HDMI out x1, USB 2.0 x2, USB 3.0 x2 - VGA in x1, Audio in/out x1, RJ45 x1, AV in x1 - Touch USB x1, Earphone x1, OPS slot x1 Tempered Glass: - Type: Tempered Glass - Mohs Hardness: Level 7 - Glass Transmittance: 85% - Anti-glare: Optional Physical Specifications: - Panel Dimensions: 1485.8x888x84.8 mm - Package Dimensions: 1605x1010x195mm - Net Weight: 33 KGS, Gross Weight: 39 KGS - Frame Material: Alloy - Lifetime: 50,000 hours - Stand-by Power: ＜0.5W - Speaker: 8Ω 10W x 2 Environmental Conditions: - Operating Temperature: 0~45℃ - Storage Temperature: -20~60℃ - Working Humidity: 5%-90% Accessories: - User Manual x1, Warranty Card x1, Power Cable x1 - Wall Mount Bracket x1, Write Pen x1, Pointer x1 - Optional Mobile Stand x1

ANYWAY Smart Board | 65 inches Interactive Flat Panel | All In One Interactive Whiteboard Read the full article

[minheeskitten]

ofc! I haven't finished it and likely won't but i feel it's better to put it out than not!

You didn’t know quite how you got into this situation. Your ‘cute’ boyfriend had you tied up, completely at his mercy. Every time you tried to think about how you got here, your thoughts were interrupted by a touch here or a caress there. Never enough at once to do much more than distract you from whatever you were trying to think about. Wooseok didn’t want you moving, or even thinking about anything other than him and only him. He had made it difficult for the last hour to think properly. You had vague thoughts of how you had gotten here, but couldn’t quite focus on it, with his gentle touches demanding your attention. You were tied so you could barely move, strapped down to the bed by rope he had specifically bought for this purpose. Tying you down in such a way that you cannot move, designs so intricately tied that you were a work of art for him; Entirely bare except for the ropes drawn taut against your skin. You briefly tested the ropes again, trying to get him to touch you more. As soon as you did, his voice spoke up, loud against the gentle quiet of the room. “Did I say you could move, doll? No, I didn't. Stop moving. I know you want to be good for me. I don’t want to have to punish you again.” His voice reminded you that he had told you to remain still and quiet, saying that he didn’t want his housemates to hear you like this, all prettily tied up for him. He gently pet your cheek, smirking at how you settled down after he reminded you. “Good baby~” He gently ran a hand along the ropes decorating your skin, a finger running under it to ensure it was still perfectly tied. His fingers danced over your thighs, then your stomach, where the ropes trailed together in an intricate web that ran over your whole body. He hummed softly as he trailed his hands higher, tracing the heart shape the ropes left on your chest. He then distracted himself by running his fingers over your nipple, watching you for any movement. Your soft whimper, enough for him to roll it between his fingertips, gently tugging to get a reaction out of you. His action pulled a gentle whine out of you. He let go, to continue trailing his hands over you, slowly moving them around the rope. Every touch felt like fire, blazing across your skin. He pulled his hands away slowly, tugging at the rope once more. “You look so pretty, tied up for me, should we do this more? I think we should, I enjoy this.” He leaned over you, placing a gentle kiss on your lips, using that moment to assess whether or not he should continue. He obviously felt like he should, and gently kissed your jaw, before moving down to your neck to leave a mark on the column of your throat. As he was doing that he let one of his hands trail down, to gently tap a soft rhythm on your inner thigh. 

Yeah. This is as far as i got. I do hope you like it though @metalchick529 !

[bowsnbots]

Vio's thing with da comfort things

Comfort food(s): I am simple American woman I eat simple American cheeseburger and enter state of American Nirvana. No, seriously though, I will never turn down a good cheeseburger. Fuck, I won't even turn down a mediocre one.  

Comfort drink(s): Sodaaaaaaaaa... Doctor Peppy specifically, but I'll drink damn near any soda. I also have a preference for this alcoholic apple cider I tried a while ago, really wanna get that again. Apple cider in general fucks hard.

Comfort movie(s): I admittedly have trouble sitting through movies without it being a Big Event, so this one's harder for me. I'm unfortunately a huge Marvel movie nerd, so a lot of those hit all the right spots. The first Spider-Man movies, the Deadpool movies too. Maybe Nightmare Before Christmas, though I hesitate to call that a "comfort" movie; that's usually an event for me.

Comfort show(s): Ben 10... specifically Alien Force onward. Spongebob too, 1000%. I also really liked Sonic Prime and could totally see it becoming a comfort show for me in the future.

Comfort clothing: You show me a good hoodie I will show you a Happy Vio. I want dresses to be on this list too but I do not get to wear them very often on account of The Closet

Comfort song(s): Literally any song by The Megas. Even the ones I don't listen to very often. Gamma Unchained, I'm Not The Breakman, Metal Dance, GeminEye, Walk Away From Light, if I have to pick. A few specifics. The Hounds by The Protomen is up there too. A few Oingo Boingo songs too, like Private Life and Grey Matter. I REALLY like music.

Comfort book(s): I've been meaning to get back into reading for fun, and when I do, it will be by rereading Percy Jackson. I love those books more than I love breathing.

Comfort game(s): Mega Man 6, Mega Man 11, Mega Man X1, not necessarily in that order. I can beat any of these games in a couple of hours and have an absolute blast doing it. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is also HIGH on that list, as it tends to be my "turn my brain off and give my fingers something to do" game. Smash 3DS used to make this list, too. I had 600 hours in that game.

tagged by: Nobody I don't think. I stoled it tagging: I vote The Great Mighty Poo, and I'm also going to nominate You—

[hammadchauhdary]

Top Tech Gadgets to Boost the best Productivity in 2024

In today's fast-paced world, staying productive is essential. The top tech gadgets of 2024 promise to enhance efficiency and streamline daily tasks. These gadgets include smartphones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, external hard drives, smart speakers, and standing desks, each designed to optimize your workflow and boost productivity.

Essential Tech Gadgets for 2024Smartphones

Smartphones are indispensable for productivity, offering a range of features from communication to task management. In 2024, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max stand out with their advanced AI, camera capabilities, and 5G connectivity. Key features to consider include battery life, processing power, and display quality. Additionally, productivity apps like Todoist, Google Calendar, and Microsoft OneNote can further enhance efficiency.

Laptops

Laptops in 2024 combine performance and portability, crucial for professionals on the go. The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED and Acer Swift Edge 16 are notable for their lightweight designs and robust performance. For those prioritizing battery life, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chip offers over 18 hours of usage. Top models for professionals include the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Dell XPS 17.

Tablets

Tablets have become versatile tools for note-taking and multitasking. The Apple iPad Air and Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 are leading choices, featuring compatibility with styluses like the Apple Pencil and S Pen. These tablets support extensive multitasking, with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 excelling in this area through its DeX software, providing a desktop-like interface.

Smartwatches

Smartwatches in 2024 offer significant productivity features, including voice assistants, health and fitness tracking, and extended battery life. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 are top models, supporting calls and text messages directly from the wrist. Health tracking features, such as sleep apnea detection and high blood pressure monitoring, make these devices invaluable for maintaining well-being while staying productive.

Wireless Earbuds

Noise-canceling wireless earbuds are essential for maintaining focus in noisy environments. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds and Sony WF-1000XM5 are top performers in this category. Battery life and comfort are also crucial, with models like the Sony WF-C500 and Beats Fit Pro offering long-lasting usage and a secure fit.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives provide substantial storage capacity, essential for managing large files and backups. Options like the Seagate Expansion Desktop and WD My Passport series offer up to 18TB of storage, with features like password protection and hardware encryption ensuring data security.

Smart Speakers

Smart speakers, equipped with voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri, enhance productivity by managing reminders, calendars, and home automation tasks. The fourth-generation Amazon Echo and Google Nest Mini are popular choices, while the Apple HomePod Mini is preferred for its integration with Apple devices.

Standing Desks

Standing desks promote health and productivity by mitigating the risks associated with prolonged sitting. Top adjustable models like the Flexispot E7 and Uplift V2 offer robust build quality and versatility. These desks support a range of heights and include features like built-in braces and multiple mounting points for accessories.

Conclusion

Embracing these tech gadgets in 2024 can significantly enhance productivity, allowing individuals to stay organized and efficient. Whether it's the latest smartphone, a powerful laptop, or a versatile tablet, integrating these devices into your daily routine can lead to improved workflow and better overall performance. By staying updated with the latest technology, you can maximize your potential and achieve your personal and professional goals.

For more detailed information on each of these gadgets, check out the full article on Top Tech Gadgets to Boost Your Productivity in 2024.

[ugaka1204]

5 Reasons Why Lenovo Makes the Best Laptop

Lenovo boasted a global PC market share of about 27.1% as of the fourth quarter of 2021. This makes Lenovo the overall global PC market leader, closely followed by HP. If you’re in the market for a laptop, maybe a Lenovo laptop could be the perfect one for you.

Lenovo saw its inception way back in 1984, as a personal computer company in Beijing. In 1988, Lenovo was incorporated into Legend Hong Kong, two years after IBM made its first laptop. Nineteen years later, Lenovo took over IBM’s PC business and now makes the best laptop on the market.

Lenovo has an expansive portfolio that covers all types of desktop PCs, laptops, tablets, and even mobile phones. Perhaps the most notable product in Lenovo’s portfolio is the ThinkPad. ThinkPad from Lenovo is a range of business laptops that boasts stellar performance, incredible functionality, and unmatched versatility.

Walk into any office today, and there’ a high chance that you’ll spot more than a few Lenovo PCs. Whether you’re in business, a student, or a hardcore gamer, a Lenovo laptop may be just what the doctor ordered.

Durability and Reliability

When looking for a laptop, you want one that can stand the test of time and is always up to the task. Lenovo laptops offer exactly that, unmatched durability and reliability. That’s why you’ll find Lenovo laptops even in construction sites and mines.

That’s because Lenovo utilizes superior quality materials for their laptop’s chassis. Take, for instance, the Lenovo Yoga C930 that sports a sleek aluminum chassis that’s as strong as they come. The laptop can handle drops from high places better than other laptops in its price range.

Build quality aside, the Yoga C930 also boasts a bright screen with rich and vivid colors and stellar performance. The first reason why Lenovo makes the best laptops is that they never compromise on the durability and reliability of their products

Very Affordable

If you really need a decent laptop, but you’re strapped for cash, then look no further than the Lenovo shop.  The good thing about having an expansive portfolio is that Lenovo can offer laptops of various price points to fit your budget. In fact, Lenovo was the first company to show the world that a portable computer doesn’t have to cost $3000.

If you do your digging, you can snag yourself a beast of a gaming rig from Lenovo for a little over a thousand dollars. Other gaming rigs are well into the two thousand dollars price range. If you’re on a budget and need a laptop for whatever reason, then Lenovo is your go-to option.

Incredible Battery Life

It’s hard to find a laptop with incredible performance and long battery life. If you’re looking for such a laptop, you might want to consider the Lenovo ThinkPad X1. This beauty of a machine can stay on for as long as 13 hours on a single charge, depending on your laptop usage.

If you’re always on the road, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 might be the perfect laptop for you. It’s also great for people working in remote areas with limited power supply.  You can also get this laptop if you don’t want to worry about your battery running dry after only four hours.

Lovely Design

If you can’t afford a high-end laptop, you’ll want one that at least looks the part. Regardless of your occupation, you can’t walk around with a laptop that looks like it came straight out of the 90s. With Lenovo laptops, you don’t have to worry about anyone laughing at your laptop.

Lenovo laptops boast sleek, stylish, and modern designs that are elegant but not too over the top. The best part is that the performance matches the looks to provide you unparalleled user experience. 

Another great thing about the design is that it’s not only visually stunning but also very functional.

Just because the laptop looks stunning, it doesn’t mean they can’t take a beating. Lenovo laptops are sturdy machines that can survive the harshest conditions.  If you’re going on a mountain hike, don’t forget to carry your Lenovo laptop with you.

Innovation

You’ll notice that over the years, laptops have gotten better, smaller, and cheaper due to consistent innovation by laptop manufacturers to develop incredible machines at lower costs. Lenovo, of course, is at the frontline of doing so.

The company boasts a diverse team of researchers and technical experts who push innovation to the limit. That’s why Lenovo laptops seem to get better and better after every new release. There’s no stopping the computer giant’s innovative capability.

If you don’t believe us, all you have to do is take a look at the Lenovo Yoga Book C390.  All you have to do is push a button, and watch the E-link panel switch from a screen-based keypad to an illustrator or an e-reader. Not many PC companies can match Lenovo’s Innovation, and that’s why they’re the global market leaders.

One thing about Lenovo is that they don’t overprice their innovation regardless of the technology. They also don’t compromise on performance and functionality, just to prove that they’re innovative. If you want to be at the forefront of laptop technology, then look for a Lenovo laptop.

There are plenty of models to choose from to match your budget. You can learn more about these beasts of machines at the official Lenovo website, lenovo.com.

Lenovo Makes the Best Laptop

It’s no secret, Lenovo makes the best laptop in the world. If you want a durable laptop that will serve you well throughout its lifetime, then a Lenovo laptop should be on your shopping list.

[anantradingpvtltd]

Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details) [ad_1] Feature: 1. 6.1in Large Screen: The unlocked mobile phone uses a 6.1in HD screen, which not only brings a broader visual experience, but also has extraordinary bright colors and amazing clarity, allowing you to explore every detail and maximizing your visual experience. 2. 4000mAh Large Battery: The smartphone is equipped with 4000mAh batteries that are higher than the average level. The battery life exceeds your expectations, which can call for 6‑10 hours, listen to music for 8‑15 hours, play games for 3‑5 hours, and stand by for more than 72 hours. Intelligent and thoughtful AI battery management can reduce excessive cache to save more power, thus extending standby time. 3. For 11 System: This dual card mobile phone is equipped with the latest for 11 system, which can run multiple applications with sufficient mobility and responsiveness to meet your work efficiency and entertainment needs. 4. HD : The smartphone has a 16MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera. You can further edit your photos using filters, emoticons or other technologies, and it only takes 1 second to unlock the phone by face unlocking. 5. Network Band: The network band of the mobile phone supports 2G: GSM 850 900 1800 1900, 3G: WCDMA 850 2100, 4G: FDD: B2 4 5 7 8 20 TDD: B40. The phone supports dual card dual standby, and has 3 card slots (2 nano SIM cards and 1 small memory card can be installed at the same time), and the small memory card supports 128G at most. Specification: Item Type: Mobile phone Material: ABS, LCD Weight: Approx. 410g/14.5oz System: For 11 Supported Languages: Support multi language CPU: MTK6737 8 core Memory: 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM Hard Disk: Support up to 128G small memory card Display Screen: 6.1in Bluetooth: Support Touch Screen(Resolution): HD + large screen I/O: 3.5mm earphone port x1, Micro USBx1 Horn: Single horn Vibration Motor: Support Microphone: Support WiFi: Built in high performance, For 11 System: This dual card mobile phone is equipped with the latest for 11 system, which can run multiple applications with sufficient mobility and responsiveness to meet your work efficiency and entertainment needs. 6.1in Large Screen: The unlocked mobile phone uses a 6.1in HD screen, which not only brings a broader visual experience, but also has extraordinary bright colors and amazing clarity, allowing you to explore every detail and maximizing your visual experience. Network Band: The network band of the mobile phone supports 2G: GSM 850 900 1800 1900, 3G: WCDMA 850 2100, 4G: FDD: B2 4 5 7 8 20 TDD: B40. The phone supports dual card dual standby, and has 3 card slots (2 nano SIM cards and 1 small memory card can be installed at the same time), and the small memory card supports 128G at most. HD : The smartphone has a 16MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera. You can further edit your photos using filters, emoticons or other technologies, and it only takes 1 second to unlock the phone by face unlocking. Warranty not applicable for this product [ad_2]

[smarteshop04]

SGIN Laptop 15.6 Inch Laptops 4GB RAM 128GB ROM SSD Windows 11 Laptops with FHD 1920x1080 Display, 2.8Ghz IPS Display Intel Celeron N4020C Supports 512GB TF Card Expansion

List Price:$1,049.99$1,049.99 DetailsWith Deal:$259.99$259.99FREE Returns You Save:$790.00$790.00 (75%)

Capacity: 

128GB SSD 4GB RAMBrandSGINSeriesSGIN M15Screen Size15.6 InchesColor银色Hard Disk Size128 GBCPU ModelCeleronRam Memory Installed Size4 GBOperating SystemWindows 11 HomeCard DescriptionIntegratedCPU Speed2.8 GHz

About this item

Efficient Performance: Traditional Laptop Pre-installed with the latest Windows 11, equipped with a powerful Intel Celeron N4020C CPU with a turbo boost frequency of up to 2.8 GHz, it provides instant response to efficiently and quickly handle multi-application and multimedia tasks, smoothly transfer 4K content and play your favorite high-quality PC games.

Storage and Memory: With 4GB of built-in RAM and 128GB of SSD storage, the laptop 15 times faster performance than traditional hard drives, allowing you to experience improved multitasking and higher bandwidth. It also supports 512GB TF card expansion

Powerful Battery Life: The compact and lightweight laptop is equipped with an advanced 38,000 MWH rechargeable battery that lasts up to 8 hours.

FHD IPS Screen: With a 15.6" Full HD IPS display (1920 x 1080), the Laptops has richer and more vibrant colors for excellent visual effects. 80% screen-to-body ratio, 16:9 aspect ratio and four narrow bezels.

Multi-functional Connectors: Fast connection to Bluetooth 4.2 and dual-band Wi-Fi fast wireless. Type-C port x1, HDMI x1, 3.5mm headphone jack x1, USB 3.0 port x2, microSD slot x1.