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weekend-whip · 6 months

Note

DR PART 2 SPOILERS

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Does Cole leave again?

I am assuming this is the same anon that sent the Aftershock Angst ask (which I accidentally deleted, oop-) sooooo here ya go I guess

(also kinda acts a semi-sequel to this in case some extra context is needed)

. . .

Cole inhales, taking in the old-new smell of the monastery one last time before his pending journey as he gathers up his things in his small pack.

It's nothing much—just some spare clothes, emergency supplies to hold him over, a few rations to last until he reaches his next major destination, and a couple newly-sketched maps of the realm gifted to Lloyd from Harleigh and now placed into Cole's hands for the venture to come. A surefire way to make sure he gets to where he's going...and then, to come home again.

He runs his fingers through his bangs, contemplating all the goodbyes he still has left to give. He wasn't sure if he should show his face at the monastery to begin with, thinking it would have been easier to take off without getting everyone's hopes up just yet...but Nya insisted. Just to show the others that yes, he was still alive. And he's never been very good at telling Nya no.

Kai had been ready in the courtyard with a warm hug, along with a few inquisitive sniffs from Riyu and Wyldfyre. Arin immediately dove into a fanboying phase while Zane's eyes literally lit up at the sight of him—and, okay, it was refreshing to be among (most) of the old gang again, and to start getting to know the new faces. It was just sad that it was going to be...well, temporarily temporary.

But, he couldn't rest. Not when they still needed answers on whatever happened to Master Wu, and Cole might have a chance to find them. And not when other members of their family were still out there somewhere. Someone had to keep up a dedicated search between training sessions and knocking around those that sought to cause trouble.

It's just...well, there's other little loose ends that Cole...is terrified to confront given his impending re-departure. ...amongst other things.

Therefore, it's best if he gets going as soon as possible. He can explain everything better when he's back for good, sooooo–

"You're not leaving without talking to him," Lloyd practically grinds the words through his gritted fangs, catching Cole before he can consider a preemptive escape through a back window. He grabs Cole by the collar and drags him single-handedly down towards the bedroom hall. He drops Cole off in front of the door with the Surprise insignia, giving him a glowing green-gold glare all the while.

Cole gulps, so not about to challenge Lloyd when he's like this...but dread sits like a rock in his stomach as he gives the door a shaky knock. There's a long, heavy beat of silence before a melodic yet melancholic voice beckons him to enter. Lloyd only slips away once Cole fully enters the room, though Cole knows he's still lurking not too far from ear's reach.

Regardless, believe it or not, Cole's got scarier things to worry about now.

The door creaks as Cole pushes it open, having to duck a bit to get through the doorway without his ponytail catching the frame. His marigold eyes snap back up to scan the room—spotlessly clean as it always was, with the only disturbance being the body sinking a dent into the bed, facing the window.

Jesse barely glances over his shoulder to acknowledge Cole.

"...Hey, Jess," Cole starts lamely, and they both know it. Cole still keeps trying to speak around the growing lump in his throat. "I...I wanted to–"

"You're leaving again, aren't you?" Jesse cuts to the chase, lacking the patience for Cole to just spit it out. Cole flinches at the abrupt acidity in the other's tone, and at how easy he is to read, but concedes.

"...yeah. I was just finishing up my round of goodbyes...saved the best for last, y'know?"

Jesse laughs with the dryness of a desert, shaking his head.

"Creation's sake; barely back for a day and already taking off again...! Wow, what a surprise. Have fun, then."

Jesse dismisses him with a half-hearted wave; the lump in Cole's throat thickens. Wilting, Cole pushes the door shut behind him, taking a few steps closer to Jesse.

"You don't have anything else to say besides that?"

"...what does it matter what I say? You're still going to leave anyway." Jesse balls his fists in his lap, knuckles turning white. "Just like you always do. On purpose or otherwise."

"It's not like I made this decision lightly," Cole protests. "Jay and Pixal are still missing, and we still don't have any clues about Master Wu except the voice we've been hearing...whether or not he's out here still...if there's a chance I can learn something...I've gotta take it. You know how much Wu means to me; you know how much Jay and Pixal mean to everybody...!"

Jesse turns enough to give Cole a sideways, partially disbelieving look.

"...Hmph. None of that seemed to matter or be urgent when you were perfectly fine wiling away the years with an entirely different family. Certainly took you long enough to start worrying about anyone else."

That hits Cole like a punch to the stomach. He suddenly feels sick, too nauseous to even defend himself in the moment. Jesse deflates, still not fully looking at Cole as he absently fiddles with one of his Blue Crystal earrings.

"Must've been nice, to be with somebody actually strong like you...decently artistic like you...good with children like you are...and someone that still has Elemental Powers..."

"J-Jess, it's not like—I wasn't—I didn't—but I couldn't just leave them! They couldn't leave! And I didn't know if you were—or Cam—and it's—you raised her all by yourself when you shouldn't have had to, and—you did amazing—and I—I was the one that–I should've—I...I'm just...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Jesse half-turns, taking some pity on how desperately repentant Cole sounds. He speaks so rapidly and thick with emotion, like he can't get out all that he wants to say fast enough and starts somewhat slurring his words together, all choked by guilt. It's not enough repentance to make him not want to leave again, but...at least Jesse recognizes that there is a little regret for not making attempts to return sooner.

"...surprisingly, I'm not that upset about it," Jesse confesses. Which...definitely throws Cole for a loop; it's not really a secret that Jesse runs along the jealous type, especially when he was younger. And he obviously isn't happy about the turn of events, but...it's not to the extent Cole had been utterly dreading either. "Not that I really wanna make excuses for you, but...given the circumstances, and how well I know you...I can understand."

Jesse sees Cole's blatant confusion—and somewhat bewildered relief—and responds with a shrug.

"You wake up in a strange land you don't recognize, you find comfort in the first friendly faces you see, and you, being the kind-hearted person you are...couldn't bear to leave them behind, let alone defenseless. And then five years pass, and you don't know if everyone else you ever knew is even still alive...and even just the idea of having lost them all upset you."

Each passing word hits the nail on the head. Cole's body feels heavy, and his palms start getting tremors just thinking about the turmoil he was wracked with each passing year, and had it not been for Geo, then—

Cole gasps, feeling Jesse reach for his quivering hand. Their fingers pitifully mingle together, with Cole standing just a touch too far for them to fully connect. Jesse locks his gaze on their partial connection with a sad smile.

"I know how you get when you're upset...your hands start to shake...and you need something to ground yourself...so I can't blame you for seeking that source of strength where you could. I can't say I wouldn't have done something similar, if I were in your place, I guess."

"Jess..."

Cole finally maneuvers himself around the bed, sitting himself beside his husband. He fully links their hands together—it feels like coming home—and presses his face against Jesse's hair, taking comfort in the familiar scent.

"Listen, I ended up in a Land of Lost Things. A place where the stuff that nobody remembers winds up...could you have blamed me for thinking there was no one left to remember me after The Merge, in that case? It's not like...it hasn't happened before...and I'd somehow managed to convince myself that I was better off staying in place than taking a gamble on a fragile hope. I was scared...that the truth was going to something too terrible to handle."

Cole presses a quick kiss into Jesse's hair, heaving a sigh afterwards.

"And, of course, turns out I had little reason to worry at all."

Jesse leans himself against Cole's chest, trying to re-memorize how nice his support feels. How nice having him back is...fleeting though it is.

"You were safe, and you were happy, with people who cared about you...everything I could've hoped for the whole time..." Jesse shrinks, his shoulders hunching and making himself very small. "But it just...wasn't with me and Cam. And now I don't know what this means for us going forward...especially if you're leaving again. And at this point...I'm kinda just numb to it."

Cole feels his heart snap in his chest as he frees his hands to tug Jesse closer, pulling him into an embrace. Jesse slumps bonelessly into it, doing his best to swallow down the sniffles he hadn't realized he'd been holding back.

"...you know, you could always come with me," Cole offers, a thin layer of humor trimming the edge of his words. "Been a while since we've gone traveling with one another. There's definitely some new sights to see, ahaha...?"

"And what?! Drag our eight-year-old daughter into potential unforseen other-worldly perils?! No thank you."

"You cooooould leave her with your sister for a while?"

"...that's an even worse idea." Jesse makes a face, and Cole genuinely laughs for what seems like the first time all day. "...Can't you at least just stay a little bit longer first? A night and a day with you after five years isn't nearly enough."

"I know, I know." Cole coddles Jesse tighter, fully wrapping his arms around him. "But the faster I leave, the faster I get to come back and stay, right? I hate that I have to do this...but, I have to do this."

Jesse frowns, forlornly shaking his head. "What am I supposed to tell Cam when you're gone? You promised her—"

"I will tell her that I'm going off to find the rest of our family, so none of us have to be apart like this ever again," Cole declares. "And I will tell her that I will love her and miss her every second I'm away from her, as I have for the last five years. ...just as I have with you."

A sob breaks free from Jesse, just as he tilts his head up to showcase the glitter and tears speckled upon his cheeks. Their presence makes him laugh hollowly.

"...huh, maybe I'm not as immune as I thought."

Cole bites his lip, always hating to see Jesse cry—especially when he's the cause—

...but, even then, Jesse's still the prettiest person in the room to Cole.

Cole inhales, his breath shuddering, overwhelmed by it all, as he adjusts to fully look at Jesse straight on.

"I know...I have a horrible habit of constantly causing you to worry, of making you think I've died somehow, or convincing you that I don't love you, and that might just be the worst thing about me...but, do you know what is consistently good about me?"

Jesse takes the bait, glancing up to meet his glittering gaze with Cole's. "And what would that be?"

Cole reaches up to Jesse's head in his hands, using his thumbs to flick away the sparkling tears before pulling him in for a kiss. And wordlessly, breathlessly, hopelessly, Jesse melts into it. And eventually, Cole parts just enough to deliver his real point against Jesse's lips.

"Come what may for us, in one way or another...I always come back to you, Jesse Marvell."

#yea i'm coping #ninjago dragons rising #legacyverse #cole brookstone #oc: jesse marvell #aftershockshipping #cole x oc #oc x canon #ninjago oc #ninjago spoilers #ninjago dragons rising spoilers #spoilers #my stuff #fic tag #sorry if there's typos my eyes are giving out heyo #asks from nice people

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tapedsleeves · 2 years

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" don't use the job as an excuse! you're scared! scared to commit" for max pacioretty and mark stone (if you write for them)

HII!!! i do, in fact write max pacioretty / mark stone fic - you've. asked me the perfect question. This was a lovely prompt, and I hope I did it even a little bit of justice - it seems super dramatic to me, so maybe a little OOC, but it was fun to write. Thank you so much!!!

here's a link to the fic on ao3 but i'll put it under a readmore, just in case you can't read it there

So the thing is: Max knows that Mark has had a ring for the last six months. He’d found it in his sock drawer, looking for some of his dress socks that he’d sent out with the laundry service, and always somehow ended up in Mark’s drawer.

But Mark has also… never proposed. Hasn’t even brought up marriage at all. Max is getting kind of impatient about it.

Max had kind of expected it sooner, to be honest. Mark knows that Max’s parents ask after Mark every time he calls. He talks to them, half the time. They all love him, would happily welcome him as their son in law.

It itches in the back of his mind for a while. So when Max comes back from his run, sticky and sweaty, absolutely fuming through his shower, instead of brushing it off again, he wraps the towel around his hips, and heads to their bedroom.

Mark looks at him appreciatively when he walks in, sitting on the bed like he was about to get up and join Max in the shower. Max stalks toward the dresser and pulls out the black velvet ring box.

Mark sucks in a breath, and then says “Hey?” like it’s a question and a protest all at once. Max turns, and throws it on the bed.

“Mark.” Max says, voice flat and tired.

“Max, what’s this about?” He picks up the box, rubbing his thumb over the top of the box. He clicks it open and snaps it closed once or twice.

“You have a ring.” Max says. He’s trying to drag Mark out and make him say something. It’s about knowing which buttons to press to get him riled up. Max isn’t opposed to pressing a whole bunch of them at once, just this time. To get what he wants.

“I didn’t know you knew about it.” Mark’s voice is still measured, a little cautious. Like he’s not sure what Max thinks about it, and isn’t willing to give enough away to get himself hurt. Like he isn’t sure Max will say yes. Max crosses his arms over his chest. He shifts his hips, hoping that he secured the towel well enough that it won’t fall mid-fight.

“Why haven’t you proposed?”

“It hasn’t been the right time. Everything’s been so busy. I…” Mark trails off. He takes a deep breath, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t want it to be a distraction from our jobs.” His voice is quiet and small. It’s obvious that Mark has thought about this for much longer than the maybe three minutes since he’s been confronted, but Max is so fed up with it. With everything. He’s been trying to tell Mark for months that he was ready, that he wanted this, them. So either Mark hasn’t been picking up on his hints, or. Or.

“Don't use our jobs as an excuse! You're scared. Scared to commit to me.” Max sets his jaw, and resolutely doesn’t think about the cap situation, about his pending UFA. About the fucking injuries this season and how useless he’s felt. How he can feel the tide of their fates shifting underneath them, trying to pull them apart. Mark might love him, might have wanted to propose once, but he’s decided that Max isn’t worth it.

Better to just have it out there and over with, then.

“What?” Mark says. His head moves with the force of his word, shaking a little no, as if he can’t believe it.

“Well, you bought a ring and never used it, so what else am I supposed to think?” Max shakes his head a little, trying to calm himself down. Now that the fury’s gone, all that’s left is the fear - that he won’t be back. That no one wants him. That he’s not worth it. “What?” Mark says, again, even louder this time. “What the fuck?”

“If you’re going to break up with me, I’d really rather know about it sooner rather than later.”

“That’s… quite a leap of logic there, Patch.” Mark says. He clenches the box in his hand, and for a second, Max worries about him crushing it. Max purses his mouth and doesn’t say anything. Mark takes a deep breath and sighs it out, something Max recognizes as resignation. “I’ve had it since July of 2019.”

That takes Max completely off guard. They.. hadn’t even been together then. Was it originally for someone else?

Mark must see his confusion, because he continues. “I bought it after that first, awful playoff run. I knew then that I wouldn’t want anyone else. It was stupid, because I didn’t even know then if you wanted to be with me, but.” Mark shrugs his shoulders. In their big, soft bed, he looks small. He flicks the ring box open, tugs the ring out of the foam.

He twists it in his fingers, a nervous habit that Max hasn’t known Mark to ever have.

“And then we got together and I knew it was too soon. And then the perfect time came and went and came and went and. The longer I had it, the weirder it felt. I’d had it longer than we were together, how could I explain to you how certain I was - am - that you’re it for me without it sounding crazy?”

Max can’t make his mouth say words. Can’t even begin to decide what words he would even say.

“So, no. I don’t want to break up with you.” Mark says. He closes his hand around the ring, like hiding it makes the whole thing go away.

“What the fuck?” Max asks, finally, something building in his chest. He isn’t sure whether it is going to be laughter or a sob. Or a scream.

“I’m sorry.” Mark looks so downtrodden about it, that Max just kind of. Crystalizes.

“No.” he says, firmly. “Don’t be sorry. Do it.” Max isn’t sure if there’s any gentleness to his voice, but he wants there to be. He wants to take Mark’s face in his hands and cradle it until his sad little pout goes away.

“What?” Mark looks up at him, his eyes so green today. Clear and bright.

“Do it now. Ask me to marry you.”

“Uh.” Mark says, and then gets up off the bed. “I guess it isn’t the most romantic, but.” He takes the couple of steps over to Max. He grabs one hand, the left. He presses a kiss on the back of it, and Max thinks, hysterically, that he won’t be able to say yes when Mark asks, if he doesn’t do it soon.

Mark sinks down to one knee, the ring in his hand looking silvery and small. “Will you marry me, Max?”

“Of course I will.” Max says. Mark slides the ring on his finger, looking at it for a moment. Max can’t see his face, but his heart jumps when Max presses his mouth to it there, on his finger. It fits, because of course it does. It feels like it belongs there.

“We can never tell anyone this story.” Mark says. He looks up at Max, grinning wide. Max tugs him up.

“Oh, definitely not, for sure.” Max presses a kiss to that grin, not the first, not the last. One of many more.

#6167 #hrpf #hockey rpf #my fic :)

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percontaion-points · 3 months

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Clawless chapters 9 & 10

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine – Jasper

I so cannot wait to read several pages of him wangsting about not being able to be with Vail, while simultaneously calling her a slut. /prediction

“Don’t like that, do you? Well, you have a choice, Alpha. Push for the trackers, and I offer her the claiming mark. Let it go, and I’ll do the same.”

I knew my eyes must have been burning like the fucking sun, because my wolf was half-ready to push a shift and tear that smirk off his face. But I swallowed back his howl and shook my head. “She hates you almost as much as she hates me. She won’t go for it.”

My favourite part about this is how they’re having this discussion in a room full of omegas. Like they are literally right there. There’s no way that they can’t hear all of this.

Edit from the future: Vail claimed that she had no idea what had happened at the start of the next chapter. But she also continues to shove her head in the sand in regards towards literally everything, so I’m not quite sure that I trust her narration.

“Get your shit under control, Alpha. A pack is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Chapter 9 summary: Well, the chapter did start off with Jasper moping about Vail. But this is quickly overtaken by the other alphas getting angry and implying that Jasper wants to tag all of the omegas, like dogs.

However, it’s Reed who points out that none of the other omegas are actually at risk; this is 100% about Vail. That this is simply a measure to control all of the pack.

Here, Jasper pauses briefly to tell the readers about the inter-pack politics he’s been dealing with the past week, since he killed his dad. 3 different wolves challenged him, but then backed down when they realised that they would follow Jasper’s dad into an early grave. He banished 2, and sent one to do paperwork in the arctic. (IDK why this is relevant, but sure.) Also, the lab was shut down, pending investigation. If they would have tortured Vail, who knows what other bullshit is going on in there.

Reed then says that if Jasper wants to put the tracker into Vail, then he can. But Reed will also put a claiming mark on Vail, so that HE can know where she is at all times, too. This pisses Jasper off enough, and he realises that he can’t win this one. He tells all of the omegas to leave.

Chapter 10

“Anything you want to discuss, you come to one of us and we’ll help. But you’ll probably get the best feel for it all tomorrow, at the dinner dance.”

I blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

“The annual Alpha and Omega Dinner Dance is tomorrow.”

JFC, it’s barely been a week since the last dance!

Tomorrow I’ll be a good Marshall omega. But tonight, I’m just going to bury my head under a pillow and pretend I’m Vail Chance, and a million miles away from Hunter Moon Academy.

Chapter 10 summary: As the omegas leave the auditorium, Reed finds Vail and says that Penny told him that some of the other alphas were basically saying rude things about Vail’s bio parents. That he wants to make a statement by having Vail sit with him at dinner. Vail thinks about how the alphas all sit up at a fancy high table, and she’s like “No thanks.” However, Reed accepts her excuse of wanting to fit in with the other omegas, and lets it slide… for now.

The girls go back to Jasmine’s dorm, where Vail finally asks about Mr. Wentworth. They tell her that he went back across the pond. Vail is hurt by this, and thought that he was on her side.

They then start talking about Jasper’s new role. However, Vail is a bit out of the loop, and they have to spell out for her that Jasper killed his father. Because she straight-up doesn’t understand. But hearing what Jasper needed to do in order to try and keep Vail safe makes her feel physically ill, and she leaves to go lie down for a bit.

She sleeps through lunch and the start of afternoon classes before she mopes around for a while. Eventually, she decides that the best course of action is to 100% avoid Jasper from here on out, and to strengthen her ties to the Marshall clan. She finds Penny on her way to dinner, and asks for help in learning what it means to be an omega. Penny gives her a huge binder, and tells her that it’s always an adjustment. But that being part of a clan is more instinct than anything. Vail says she doesn’t feel well, so she skips out on dinner.

#clawless #hunter moon academy #bookblr #readers of tumblr #book review #omegaverse #werewolves #supernatural romance #romance novels

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cyarskaren52 · 9 months

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shaunking ➡️ When you’ve gone 75 years without an ounce of accountability, this is what happens when you enter the complicated legal bureaucracy of presidential politics. ⁣

⁣

In some ways, becoming President was the WORST thing a law breaking scoundrel like Trump could ever do. He’s never been forced to follow the law until now, and it’s crashing down on him. ⁣

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So, this is, rightfully so, going to dominate the news for a very long time. ⁣

⁣

Let me try to break a lot of facts down for you, OK?⁣

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1. Federal charges are ALWAYS serious and are ALWAYS hard to defeat. ⁣

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2. This was not an official announcement from the DOJ. It’s verified, but not official, if you know what I mean. The official announcement may not come until Tuesday, we are told. ⁣

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If it’s 7 different charges, as we are told, Trump is in a world of trouble. ⁣

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3. Trump has been charged already with local criminal charges by the Manhattan DA on a different case. He has another federal case other than this one pending that’s just focused on trying to illegally overturn the election. And he had a case in Georgia pending. And a case in NY state pending.⁣

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4. A special prosecutor named Jack Smith was appointed in this case. That’s also a nightmare for Trump. They literally hired Jack Smith away from the International Criminal Court where he prosecuted war criminals. ⁣

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He’s a serious, somber, methodical, thorough man. The last person you ever want to cross. ⁣

⁣

5. Trump, for his own survival, is running for President because he thinks he can squash these federal charges if he wins. Or if another Republican wins they can, perhaps, pardon him if he’s convicted. ⁣

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6. But no President can pardon him from the state and city based cases piling up on him. ⁣

⁣

7. Trump has a HORRIBLE legal team. He’s an awful client. He’s known to not only refuse to pay people, but it’s said that in some of these cases, the lawyers he hired have been asked to do illegal and unethical things. He burned through lawyers as President and before and after the elections. ⁣

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So now that he needs great ones, they are hard to find. ⁣

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8. Republicans are defending Trump without seeing the indictments. That might be a bad idea.⁣

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thea-dacity · 1 year

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Thinking about the last time that she had a flounce of this variety, which was last September (2022). Like she's always simmering but it usually takes something that I said in passing to someone else to get her to snap like this and I know its always something like... she's been talking to her mother, or one of B's moms said something, or something just hasn't been going right for some reason and she needs to make us feel bad about doing normal things.

On this instance of last September, it was because I had said to B that we apologize in advance if we seem to be hogging the playstation in the coming month because Genshin was having a major map update and we might need to be reminded that the outside world exists.

It was a lighthearted conversation between me and B about our various videogame habits because like... they also hog the consoles from time to time so we're all very aware of our faults.

The next morning at... 4am, because she gets the insomnia bad, A tells us through the chat that if we were TRULY sorry for hogging HER playstation (it was a gift from B, and we were given permission to use it within reason) then we would help her out with the chores in the house because she's the ONLY person doing housework.

September is my busy season at work. I am working almost 40 hours and I drive 300 miles a week, but I still find time to be home to make dinner, shop groceries, plan meals, do dishes. B works 40 hours a week all year round and sometimes does dishes, but also feeds and entertains the animals, and probably a few other things. Girlfriend... could be better about doing chores but like... we all could be.

A DOES do most of the housework, but she also finds chores that I've never really considered to be done as frequently as they are. Like, for example, she's the only one that comes from a house with smokers and none of us smoke. So I don't consider washing the walls, couch covers, and deep vacuuming to be a weekly thing. And no one told us that these things needed to be done at the specifications she wanted.

So how... was I supposed to know that this needed to be done? And I think it wears on B a lot, too. Because they're autistic, and they don't really pick up on context and they don't really catch social cues and A is from a very... Southern-style upbringing where you don't ask things, you imply that you want them.

And that does not WORK in a house full of autistics. (Personal diagnosis pending, but Girlfriend went to a wedding in my family and... uhh... I trust her judgement when she says my whole family is autistic.)

So we went back and forth with her about what we could do to lighten her load and Girlfriend asked for a list of chores and how often they needed to be done.

It was a... very long list, which included 'organize the garage- pack two boxes a month.' Again- my stuff is what keeps getting shoved in there because it doesn't fit her perfect idea of what a house should look like. So i'm supposed to organize the shit that she shoves around in there. And 'clean the cat tree' which is one of those things where if they were OUR animals we would absolutely be doing this.

Also, why do I need to be organizing the garage? Are we expecting company in there? Is there an inspection I don't know about? Most of the mess in there is unprocessed boxes from amazon and chewy purchases.

But I'm focusing on the wrong thing here.

Remember: the trigger here was that I took a preemptive measure to make sure we weren't hogging a shared item.

I'm getting my ass reamed for being courteous. And the reason she gave was that because I apologized to B instead of A. Because its HER playstation.

The point of this rant other than to blow off some steam is that this particular outburst resembles the one we just had about the car. And in trying to find a common trigger, one of them might be talking to her partner about house matters.

Which I realize is ridiculous. Because how am I supposed to do things like... plan meals and figure out schedules if I can't ask the ONE person in the house that doesn't have a completely open schedule?

I'm trying not to armchair because I'd hate it if I was the shoe was on the other foot. But if I was gonna pick a reason, I'd say it comes down to not feeling like she has total control of the household.

Which is again ridiculous because its four goddamn adults. Adults are gonna make plans without you, and I've been the one in charge of meal planning for the past three years because she dropped the ball on it for three months and I just took charge because someone had to.

But it does make sense that its about control. She does this with B's personal relationships, too. Like anytime B goes to hang out with friends A sulks the whole evening. Like B always extends the offer to her, especially on holiday- like she's been invited to passover every year but she only went once (though... that's religious trauma and she's ... uh... she's got some misconceptions about judaism and has said some.... things that make me wonder if she hasn't quite shaken her mom's antisemitism) But no matter how many times B tries to let her into her social and family circles she refuses and then spends the whole night salty that her partner is out doing something without her.

Sorry, it got away from me again.

But yeah, control. I think the problem is a lack of control. And unfortunately, I don't have a solution to that other than to quit lying to her therapist. (the walls are thin and I can hear everything.)

Anyway, sorry. I finally have like a little bit of freedom to talk about this and its turning into verbal diarrhea.

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cjjohansson · 3 years

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NONE OF THIS WAS MEANT TO HAPPEN- PART 2

NATASHA ROMANOFF x BLACKWIDOW!READER

SUMMARY; After being apprehended by the Avengers and growing closer to Natasha, you let slip a secret she didn't know you knew. What happens when she realises you know the truth?

WARNINGS; mentions of abuse, swearing, previous suicide attempt, self harm, self doubt, mental health, smoking, drinking. sad natasha.

-PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION-

WORD COUNT; 4.5K

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“So you’re telling me Yelena lied?”

Natasha didn’t expect this. She hadn't heard that name for a while now, not since destroying the Red Room herself with the help from her but since then nothing but radio silence. She thought Yelena was too busy still trying to free other widows but she knew from finding you and helping you Yelena hadn't finished her mission yet. But she was confused at how you knew Yelena and still had her in your mind even through the torture of the mind control and manipulating you had experienced. She continued staring at you, she didn't know what to do or say to you.

“So was she lying or not Natasha?” your voice came through her ears making her refocus. Your voice sounded desperate to know the truth, you needed to know the truth.

“I don't know what you’re talking about y/n.” Nat knew she should tell the truth, why was she still hiding this part of her past from you, no one knew about the help she had received when destroying the red room but no one knew her as well as you. Only knowing each other for this short amount of time you both opened up in different ways, it was freeing for Natasha to see someone who went through the same pain as she did and it helped guide her in helping you. Knowing if she could help you it’d help herself, she still saw all the red in her ledger but she was determined to wipe it in hopes she could help you wipe yours. She knew how you felt about the terrible things you did under control and for all the years up until now. She knew you shared the same pain. Apart from you only had Natasha. Slowly growing more open with the team but Natasha had you AND the team, the team she had grown so close with over the years to now finally call her family. But still the lie fell from her lips like it was a simple song.

“You’re lying, I know you're lying and I don't understand why it's me Natasha!” your voice only grew louder the more frustrated you got.

“I still remember holding Yelena the day you managed to escape the Red Room, I remember her crying and having to keep her quiet at night so no one saw her and thought she was weak! She constantly fell asleep holding the only memory she had left of you. But it all stopped months after I was taken from her in my sleep being transferred to a new location! I remember mouthing to her ‘it’ll be ok, we will find eachother again’ but after that nothing. I cannot even remember how long ago that was now Natasha, the years after being put through the mind control barely anything feels real. It was all confusing at the time trying to work out who this girl was that I kept seeing in my dreams and anytime I asked them it would only end in a beating. I knew not to ask anymore. But I remember being sent on this mission to kill you Natasha! I remember after I finally woke up again and saw your face that this person in front of me will help because my friend never gave up hope in you! It was like all I could see was Yelena and this random blue haired girl!”

“I'm not lying. I don't know who or what you're talking about!” another lie, slipping past her lips like it was nothing. Her lies only fueled you with more anger and frustration. Her face just stayed staring at you like she was trying to burn the lie into your head. You thought you knew her, but the person who was standing in front of you now lying was most definitely not the same person you shared a kiss with only moments ago.

“You said I could trust you Natasha. You might be able to get away with lying to the team but you're forgetting we were taught to lie by the same people. I can see straight through you.” your voice hit back at her laced with venom, she could see the disappointment in your eyes. You slowly turned to leave, you couldn't stand here with her right now knowing she was lying. How could she lie to you after everything she has helped you with over the last few months. You thought you loved her, you thought she might have loved you. You got off the bed and walked towards the door, you couldn't be here right now.

“Y/n/n wait.” she grabbed your wrist, stopping you from reaching the door, the same wrist that was littered in a big scar from the time you woke up. Her touch burnt, all she received from you was a flinch and you pulling your wrist from her touch.

“Don't you dare fucking touch me Natalia! Only moments ago I thought I finally had someone I could trust, someone who would keep me safe. But now all I see is the Black fucking Widow stood infront of me. So no Natalia, I won't wait. I won't stand here while you lie to me straight through your teeth. I wont stand here while you tell me you don't know who or what i’m talking about when I held that some person for months through her fucking tears because her so called sister left without her! I picked up the pieces you fucking ruined and now you expect me to stand here and think that you're telling me the truth and Yelena lied all those years? You expect me to think the voice in my head the day I woke up after I slit my wrist wide open telling me to trust you is fucking lying? Because if it was lying I wish, I fucking wish I let myself bleed out right then and there.” You knew you hit her then, like your voice was so loud filling the room like it was pounding in her ears. She knew you were right that it wasn’t her standing in front of you but was the Black Widow trying to manipulate her targets for information. Before she could even reply, the sound of the door slamming brought her back to focus. She quickly wiped her cheek as she felt the tears slowly falling from her eyes, not even remembering when she had started crying. Why did she lie? Why did she ruin the chances of you? Ruining your trust like it didn't take so much time to try and gain it? What had she done? Her and Yelena were ok now, they had worked on their differences and she had apologised for what had happened all the years ago but why wouldn't she tell you that? She knew Yelena held a grudge and hated her for leaving without her when they finally saw each other again but that wasn't the case now. Everything was different now and the main difference was Natasha finally realising that maybe she was falling for you and she had ruined all her chances in that becoming a reality. She needed to give you space, she knew that if she was to chase you now it would only make you more angry, she knew she needed to figure out how to talk to you and explain why she had done what she had done, until then she couldn't risk seeing you.

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It had been a week since your argument with Natasha. Nothing made sense to you. It was driving you crazy at how she lied to you like you were nothing to her, like you weren't the person she had spent nights laughing with over stupid movies and also crying too when talking about each other's pasts. You had only slept once since then, a few hours after your argument, you had finally made your way back to your room knowing she would have left. You felt exhausted, only moments before your argument you had woken up from a terrible nightmare to then being in the comfort of her arms, to then kissing her to then shouting. It was like the only thing your body wanted to do was sleep right then and there. When you woke up hours later looking at your clock did you see the time read 4am, you had slept for 12 hours and by that point you understood why.

-flashback-

You steadily got out of your bed still feeling disgusted from being in your gym clothes from the day before everything happened, you made your way to the shower knowing you needed to rid all this grime off of yourself. You stood still in the shower letting the water fall off your shoulders like it was the first time you had ever seen water before it felt relaxing. Letting yourself get lost in the feeling of it but still your mind grew to the thought of what it would be like if Natasha was standing behind you right now washing your hair, touching you so delicately like you could break from any sudden movement. It felt too overwhelming. You crumbled to your knees like your body could no longer hold your weight anymore, your tears getting lost within the water that was over your face. It felt like you couldn't breathe, you were trapped in a place with nobody you could trust. Your mind grew dark so quickly, like the only way to get out of this place was to reopen that wrist but she still lingered in your mind, the thought of her finding you on this shower floor was breaking you even more. Why were you still feeling this sympathy for her after everything that had happened. You couldn't do this you needed to get rid of this feeling inside, it felt like your body was on fire, you felt scared and it was something you hadn't felt for a few months now, you had felt safe in her presence to now feeling as if you would leave this room and pass out, you needed it gone. You scrambled up from your feet in a hurry trying to find anything in your bathroom for a release, you remembered Natasha had made sure anything you could hurt yourself with had been removed from your pending room after your incident. There was nothing in here you could even butter bread with, it only made you feel more anger towards her. You stopped looking, taking a deep breath and staring at yourself in the mirror, wiping your hand over the mirror to see yourself clearer due to the fog clinging to it. And that's when you realised this would do. Bringing your clenched fist up to pound into the mirror sending shards flying everywhere, thank god for your enhancements you thought, that brought a light chuckle out of you. Frantically picking a big enough shard off the floor and moving yourself to sit on the toilet you knew this would help. Blood came seeping out of each cut, dripping down your leg and running onto the floor, you knew you'd done enough. The pain you felt inside had felt like it had disappeared more and more after every cut. You moved back into the shower preparing yourself for the sharp stings of pain that would soon follow, washing yourself quickly and exiting your bathroom, closing the door and leaving it shut. You knew you’d had to clean up later but for now you dragged yourself back to your bed in hopes to sleep more even though you knew you wouldn’t.

-end flashback-

You sat on the balcony of the compound still trying to work out how and why this had happened, you hadn't seen her for a week, you knew people had grown suspicious as to why you weren't joint at her hip and instead was constantly wrapped in a blanket on the balcony. The only person to come over and talk to you was Wanda, you would never say much. Only asking her if she could get you some cigarettes from the shop and some vodka, you knew if she said no you could always just ask FRIDAY to get some delivered, but she always came back hours later with the two things you'd asked her for, you always sent her the softest smile with a quiet thank you and she would leave after that. You wondered if she knew she was feeding into your new addictions and a way to stop the pain coming forward. You wondered if you were taking advantage of her but still you never wondered to ask.

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You brought the cigarette up to your lips lighting it quickly, the feeling burning your throat and lungs as you slowly inhale the toxic chemicals it gives out, you had never smoked before this whole thing with Natasha, it wasn't until you had seen someone smoking in a movie did you grow curious of whole thing but now look, it was like you was a natural. Cigarette in one hand, half a bottle of vodka in the other, that is all you've done all week. You only moved from this spot to go to the toilet, not even bothering with food. It wasn't healthy and you knew that, you also knew this was a pathetic way of coping from everything with Natasha but it was helping.

A small cough is what brought you out of your train of thoughts, you looked up towards the door seeing her standing there. You hated how the first thing you thought was how beautiful she looked with the moonlight shining in just the right way. It made her eyes even more beautiful than they already were, you threw your head back to look at the trees across from you, no you needed to be angry at her.

“Smoking isn’t good for you, you know.” you wanted to chuckle at her but the hurt seeping through your veins was too much to deal with, gulping down the growing lump in your throat you continued smoking while staring. She sighed moving to sit opposite you so she constricted your view. You now sit facing her staring into her beautiful emerald orbs hoping the tears don't start to fall.

“I’m sorry” watching her slowly lowering her head after her words, her hands running through her hair, you're sure you heard a slight sniffle but you continued to stare, not caring to reply.

“Please say something, anything” she sounded so vulnerable, so small but you needed an explanation not just an apology. You go to speak but your tears are already threatening to fall so you turn your head to the side gulping down some vodka to ignore the pain.

“I'm not good at apologising, I'm even worse at talking about my past. I did lie. But I shouldn't have. I lied because I didn't want to remember what I did to her back then, the things I did in general back then.” you finally turned to look at her again slowly nodding for her to continue.

“Me and Yelena, we…errrr...we had a mission when we were young. Acting as sisters with two other agents as our parents. It was nice, you know, acting normal. I went from being in the Red Room, to a normal life. To then just be taken back away again. But it was different for her, I tried to not let them take her, she was too young, but like they said, I was younger…” she stayed staring down at her feet, you could tell it was a lot for her to be doing this, you were thankful she was opening up telling you the truth but you could see her discomfort seeping through. Holding out the bottle of vodka for her to take she brought her head up slowly looking at you and then to the bottle. She let out a light chuckle moving to accept the bottle from you and taking a drink. She gave it back, wiping the few tears that had escaped, you thought she was done talking until she sighed and carried on.

“I held her as they took us to the Red Room again, well me again, not her. It was terrifying. I just held her trying to shield her from seeing anything and everything, she just clung to me, sobbing. We were so young and I knew what was going to happen to her and there was nothing more I could do. I knew as soon as we were there she'd be taken from me and I'd never see her again. But I did see her, of course you know I did. It was quick stares walking past each other or it was me looking for her subtly when we would be eating, I couldn't protect her anymore. We could only protect ourselves. Any signs of love, affection or even friendship were frowned upon. How could I comfort her or look after her when everything I wanted to do I would have been punished for? That would have scared her even more. So I kept to myself.”

You didn't know how to react or what to do, the woman who was so continuously strong no matter what was thrown at her was sitting in front of you sobbing, it broke your heart and you knew it was breaking hers.

“Tasha, it's ok. Please.” you couldn't watch her cry anymore but you knew there was so much more she needed to say.

“No, y/n I...I need to do this.” you gave her a small nod, urging her to continue as you swallowed your own tears.

“She got out about 7 months ago too. Things happened and well me, her and our parents, Alexei and Melina. We took down Dreykov, we took down the main Red Room. I found out about all of these other widows that were placed all around the world being controlled. Yelena had this antidote that managed to break widows out of mind control, she found out the hard way what it was but we managed to save the widows that were at that Red Room. We only had one dose left, so with the help from Melina and Alexei they created more so they could go and save all the girls that were left. When you showed up I knew that clearly she hadn't finished the whole mission yet but I knew that 4 months wasn't a lot of time to do that hence why she hadn't reached you yet. I hadn't been in contact with any of them since then, I tried to get in touch but I never received anything back even up until two weeks ago.” she had stopped crying now, she looked more comfortable talking, it released this ache in your heart knowing she was becoming ok. You just wanted to hug her, so you did. You moved quickly, cigarettes and bottle of vodka long forgotten about and settled on her lap. She tensed slightly when you first sat down but soon enough you felt her relax, you just couldn't stop looking at her. Her eyes glassy from the tears she had shed, the light smell of the vodka she had drunk coming out from her lips as she breathed slowly. You just forgot everything that had happened in the past week. You cupped her face making sure all of her attention was on you, leaning in slowly to finally connect your lips in a gentle kiss. You finally moved away when you felt tears dripping down your cheeks, not evening knowing if they were yours or hers. Her hand came to settle on your cheek wiping away the tears that had fallen, the smallest of a smile on her face.

“I went to find them this week.” her words shocking you, making you shake your head confused. She laughed lightly at your reaction.

“Arguing with you just made me realise that I had no clue what was going on, I just left them with this information and took off, so I went to Melinas where I knew one of them would be and saw them there. That's why I had been gone all week.”

You felt relief when something rolled through you, although all this week you had been trying to avoid her, every time you moved from the balcony to the toilets you hoped she would pop out of nowhere. It wasn't until the third day you thought she was actively trying to avoid you too, it's what made you grow more angry. Thinking she just upped and left without a word but you now knew she didn't and suddenly all this anger and pain you felt towards her through the week was gone off your shoulders, but you now hated yourself for the way you reacted, the way you screamed and shouted at her for lying when now you understood why she done what she done out of fear of remembering. You hated yourself for the way you threw yourself into hurting yourself along with smoking and drinking. The guilt settled in your chest, it felt like it was too much to handle once again and you couldn't stop the tears from crashing down, a painful sob falling out of you as you suddenly felt like you could feel your thighs starting to tear and bleed again, like you could feel your throat burning from the bottles of vodka you had consumed and your lungs feeling as if they were suffocating from all the cigarettes you managed to smoke in such a short time.

Natasha reacted quickly, holding you tighter as you tucked yourself into the crook of her neck, a death grip on the back of her shirt as if, if you were to let go, this would all be a dream and she would disappear.

“Hey, hey, hey. Shhh it's ok, you're ok, I’m ok. We are ok. I'm here. I'm sorry for what happened and I'm sorry for leaving without explaining. I'm just so sorry.” her words were meant to be comforting but it only made you sob more.

“The things I did when you were gone Tasha, I overreacted. I'm sorry for everything I said that day of our argument. I understand everything now I do and I'm so grateful for you telling me and I'm so happy Yelena is safe. I'm so sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry.” your voice muffled as you sobbed into her neck only made her grow nervous. No one had said anything about you all week when she called to check in on everyone.

“y/n, what happened?” She spoke so softly, one hand stroking small circles at the bottom of your back and the other hand moving to the side of your hair to move your head up so you were looking at her. It made the words you were trying to say even harder seeing how much her eyes showed her concern and worry.

“M...my...my bathroom, I...I...I ruined it, haven't been in my room since you left. I've stayed out here just smoking and drinking Tasha. I felt so angry and hurt and I hate what I did because now I understand why and what happened and I just overreacted so much and all I've done is cause myself pain and I know you don't want to know or even think that but I have. I hurt myself Tasha, I broke my mirror to do it, gosh thats so fucking stupid and it was only the one time and that doesn't make that ok I know that but it hurts so much. I feel like I'm suffocating, this guilt is too much. You've come back to explain and now here I sit crying and making it sound like everything I did this week was your fault but it wasn't. I'm sorry.” you rambled on continuing to sob, her eyes now just looked so sad, it broke you but you couldn't stop the ‘I’m sorrys’ from falling off your lips but she still stayed stroking your back, leaning your foreheads together telling you over and over that it was ok and she forgave you.

Your sobs finally slowly subsided, the exhaustion finally settling in after the week that had gone by so slowly, it consumed you. But Natasha never let up her continuous flow of ‘its oks’ and never failed to tell you ‘I’m here’ until you finally settled in silence. The silence felt comfortable between you, even though the past hour or maybe even longer held so much pain for the both of you. Your grib finally loosens on her t-shirt, moving to sit up straight to look at her.

“Я люблю вас” she blurts out in a hurry, you stayed staring at her in shock. You made no move to reply or even hug her or kiss her, it made her grow nervous. You felt her tense underneath you straight after it came flying out of her mouth.

“It's fine, you don’t need to...umpth” you cut her off short pulling her into an intense kiss, moving to straddle her lap, she moaned softly into you, making you melt. Even through the gentleness it still felt so rough and aggressive, neither of you pulling away until air became a problem.

“я люблю тебя больше моя Наталья”

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The night seemed to flow so much more calmly after your late night confessions. You both moved to Natashas suite in hopes of getting some more privacy. Your night consisted of movies playing in the background as you both consumed each other with so much love and affection. You knew for sure that no one could ever love you or care for you the way this woman could. It overfilled your heart with so much joy, that even after these years where she was in pain and she blamed herself and the word for everything that had happened to her, that she could still love and feel so deeply. How she could still love you with so much passion in such a short amount of time, when you both grew up being told that it would make you vulnerable and that it was for children.

You knew the way you grew up was terrible and traumatic but in this moment, laying in Natashas arms sharing the smallest of kisses, giggles erupting from both of you, kind words whispered as if anything louder would ruin the moment, you were somewhat grateful that somehow no matter where this life was suppose to take you or what was meant to happen with you, you had never been so happy to have failed your mission against Natasha Romanoff, because right now who knows where you would be or what you was doing. You managed to be so lucky that this woman still accepted you with open arms and made herself vulnerable and somewhere fall in love with you that nothing from your past mattered in this moment. All that mattered was the love you were sharing and the love you can only hope to continue to share into the future.

Maybe ‘None Of This Was Meant To Happen’ but god was you so incredibly happy that it did.

#natasha romonova #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha x reader #natalia alianovna romanova #black widow #black widow x reader #black widow imagine #natasha romanoff fanfic #natasha romanoff x reader

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lilliganshitposting · 2 years

Text

Ok so LGBTQIA+ talk time since I seem to be amassing more identities and labels for myself.

I’m L! I’m bi, I’m non binary (pronouns pending) and I’m on the aromantic spectrum.

Sexuality

Being bisexual was something I denied for the longest time and I tried to ignore it in order to fit in. Guess how unhappy that made me? This was in part due to being in an environment that wasn’t very welcoming for those who weren’t hetero and partly because I didn’t know anybody else who was bi.

When I first found out one of my old friends was bi, I started thinking more about my sexual identity. I joked about liking women, I said I had “girl crushes” but this was just a way of trying to justify my thoughts, being afraid to accept something I had been trying to push down for the longest time.

I knew I wasn’t straight, straight people didn’t have the same thoughts as I did. They didn’t get flustered in same-sex changing rooms, didn’t get awkward about Victoria Secret adverts, didn’t gaze too long at women and tried to play it off as wanting to be like them.

So I accepted something I had known all along. I didn’t come out about it, I was just bi. Nobody had to know, nobody needed to ask, it was just about who I liked. I have a preference towards men, but I can happily say I am attracted to women too!

Gender Identity

Last August about a week or so after my birthday, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Hmm.”.

And then I texted my main gc with my irl friends and said “I’m nonbinary.”. I had cut my hair quite short a few months previously, and throughout those past months I had been thinking thoughts such as:

“wow I look so genderless”

“people might see me as a boy or a girl or…”

“I could be mistaken for a boy!”

“this outfit is so unisex”

I’d also been dressing less “femininely” and wearing more “masculine” clothing. However when I texted that I was nonbinary into my gc it had also been a shock for myself. The thought of myself being nonbinary had never even popped up in my head over those months. Usually I took the time to ruminate over things, give careful consideration before going ahead with thoughts and words, but it seemed as though my body was working faster than my brain.

I felt as though I was lying, that I couldn’t take back what I said and I’d have to stick with that.

But I did think. And I thought and I thought and I thought. I asked my friends to give me time to think about my pronouns. To give me time to think about my new name. To let me think about what this meant for me.

I told teachers at school, but again I was scared about how my school body would react. I wouldn’t be bullied, because 1) that’s a crime and 2) I have such a violent reputation it wouldn’t end well, but I didn’t want to face the relentless questioning from my peers.

The scariest part of it all however, was when my teacher told me I would have to tell my parents about my identity, since any letters home would have my new name on them.

I had told my cousin and my sister about my identity since they knew and were a lot more open about trans identities, but my guardians were a lot older and not the most accepting of the LGBTQIA+. My guardians are my father and grandmother, who are quite old, and it was very nerve wracking for me to sit down with the two of them and talk about it.

“I’m nonbinary and I’m bisexual, and being nonbinary means I don’t identify as male or female, I exist outside of that.”

I showed them some videos and talked to them about what it meant to me personally, as well as what I wanted my new name to be. They took it surprisingly well. There’s been some hiccups and a lot of adjustments, but they didn’t kick me out of the house like I thought they would or call me a slur! It’s still not perfect, but it’s fine because I’m estranging myself from them for ✨family reasons✨ unrelated to this.

I didn’t mean to come out as bisexual, but it kind of slipped out in the moment. Not that they cared about that either.

The other hurdle was my mother, whose English isn’t the best and also wasn’t known to be a great supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community.

But even that went surprisingly well. It was pretty funny, I used a Thai translator and everyone there all laughed about it. I wouldn’t have cared too much if she hadn’t accepted me, we have a very complicated past.

To be honest, I’m still figuring out my identity.

This wasn’t the same as ignoring my bisexuality. There were no glaring signs, or moments where I may have thought “huh im not cis”. I had some weird things with how I felt about my body and the way I presented myself gender wise when I was younger. But then I knew this wasn’t a spontaneous thing like how it had been when announcing to my friends.

Sometimes I feel like I’m faking being nonbinary; that what I feel isn’t what being nonbinary is defined as and that it’s a ‘phase’ or something, conning everyone around me.

I’m doing my best to stop thinking like that, and when I start therapy I’d like to focus on that. I know that no human feels the exact same as any other. How I feel is valid and whatever pronouns I choose to feel or whatever my gender identity turns out to be in the future is my business and my business alone.

The term genderfluid popped up for me and it does seem to better represent how I feel, but I definitely prefer the term nonbinary. At the start of my journey I had the feelings of “dressing femininely to announce I’m masc and dressing masculine to announce I’m femme”. So don’t worry if any of it is also confusing to you, I think that’s how I want to come across! As an enigma. Think of Najime from Komi San.

A-Spec

So I just figured this out like 3 days ago? 2?? Who knows! This has been the best aspect of my identity and figuring out who I am so far. Unlike my sexuality and gender, I didn’t even realise I might be on the aromantic spectrum! I’d heard about ace and aro, seen awareness posts and heard stories— hell I’ve even seen Jaiden’s animation!!! I didn’t relate to it all! But then this post about being lithromantic popped up for me and I related with it so much.

I put the thought on a back burner since it’s actually exam season right now, but while MAKING A POST ABOUT MY SHIPS AND NOT UNDERSTANDING THE ROMANCE BEHIND IT, I GOOGLED AROMANTICISM MORE THOROUGHLY AND FOUND MYSELF ALIGNING WITH SOME OF THE FEELINGS AND EXPERIENCES COMMON WITH AROS. I was screaming a lot.

How had I not realised?? The signs were so obvious and I hadn’t even realised. Hetero romance is shoved down our throats from the moment we gain consciousness, so queer kids already know when their feelings don’t match with what’s being broadcasted around them 24/7. Same with gender, when everyone else seems to act and behave in the same way but you feel like you’re performing at all times. It’s not quite the same for ASpec, which is really fucking annoying.

“Oh you just haven’t met the right person!”

“You’re just coy!”

“Wait until you’re older.”

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! Do you know how many other people probably lie somewhere on the aroace spectrum but have NO clue? All because of how we’ve perpetuated this idea of one type of relationship dynamic? That everybody falls in love, that we all bone the right person and everything is amazing!

BULLSHIT. My friend also came out to me as on ace spectrum when I told her I was on the aro spectrum!

I now DO relate with Jaiden thinking she had high standards and nobody was appealing enough for her, I relate with the trying to choose a crush to have someone to talk about with peers or not understanding what the fuss was about someone.

I understand myself SO much better now! I love that I’ve now realised something about myself that I didn’t even know! It’s exciting! So many more things make SO much sense! Why I never pursued a romantic relationship! Why all my dreams and fantasies never involved a significant other! Why I hadn’t experienced romantic attraction to someone for almost a DECADE.

I’ve found more terms that convey how I feel but I just prefer to say I’m on the aro spectrum. I love romantic media and shipping characters, and I feel all the butterflies when something romantic happens to them. Sometimes I may even like someone but I don’t want a romantic connection with them or a relationship. Well, I haven’t had romantic feelings for anyone in a long time now, and I don’t even picture myself in romantic scenarios anymore. I don’t even think I can! I love that I can experience all this and I love that I can finally express it all!

Oh I’m not asexual btw, I want to bone the shit out of someone. Down bad and proud 👍. Though I would say I’m somewhere on the ace spectrum since I don’t think I can bone someone without first forming an emotional connection.

Being aro is something I want to go around proclaiming to everyone! Hopefully I’ll be waving my little bi flag and displaying my they/them pin, my outfit all the colours of the aro flag when the weather is better.

I hope you can relate to some of my experiences, maybe feel a little better that someone is going/has gone through the same shit before! I hope you enjoyed reading :D.

#not a shitpost #bisexual awareness #bisexuality #bisexual #bi #nonbinary #nonbinary awareness #gender identity #gender and identity #genderqueer #genderfluid #lgbtqia #lgbtqia awareness #aromantism #aro #aro awareness #aromantic #aromantic spectrum #arospec

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st0rmyskies · 2 years

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WIP Tag Game

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs (or as many peeps as you want, really- ‘tis just for fun!)

Thank you for the tag @drsteggy!!!

Oh gods, are you ready for this? Are you sure?? I don’t think I’m ready.

In the order in which they were last opened…

Omega!Sky - a.k.a. That fic I’m totally not writing.

HSH: The Brave - Gods I am so close to having the next chapter finally fully drafted…

LMTCOY_TwiDark - Because I’m a glutton for punishment and have to clean up the mess that I’ve made.

Poly!Sky Reunion - Basically Twilight’s recovery fic, because somebody isn’t good at handling grief and loss and parting ways with loved ones.

HSH: Twis Parents Suck - Ever wonder why Twilight came to stay with Time in the first place? Ever wonder who Twilight’s parents are, and how they’re related to Time? Stop asking questions, this is going to be a bittersweet WIP.

HSH Time Pairings - The LMTCOY doc. Pending chapters (with no descriptions for you) include Indulging Wars, WarrTime Rough Start, Time/Champion At The Lake, Wild/Warr/Time First, The Toystore, Malink Pegging, Time/Hyrule/Leg Shibari Lessons, and Naughty or Nice.

Team Bonding - I had a very special request from some very special friends for a follow-up Twime chapter.

TwiSkyWars Baby Fics - a.k.a. What happens after the polycule starts a real honest-to-goddess domestic life together.

HSH Downfall Marry Me 5+1 - Five times Hyrule asked Legend to marry him, and the one time Legend said yes.

HSH WildSky - Two Royal Guard dropouts get drunk one night and try to stick Tab A in Slot B. It's sloppy and hysterical so far.

HSH Zombieland prompt - Sketchy so far, it includes a pretty gruesome description of field medicine during a zombie apocalypse, and explains why HSH Wild might lose his arm ala BotW2.

Hero’s Shade and other Time Stories - A collection of super angsty and sad Time drabbles that I only touch when I’m having a really really bad brain day.

Monster Oneshots - This is where Team Bonding originated, but I also have a HW Link/dragon!Volga consensual oneshot growing cobwebs in there.

HSH Holiday Quickfic 2021 - Will get recycled for 2022, maybe.

Among Us - I actually couldn’t find this anywhere among my files??? But it IS somewhere and I AM finishing it I PROMISE.

The Knight and the Queen - My GanZeLink WIP that was getting pretty noncon, so I shelved it for a while.

I started a taglist and then got worried about calling people out, so do it if you want to and tag me so I can ask you things!!!

#wip ask game

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liptonsbabe · 3 years

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Chains of a family [B.W]

Bill Weasley x Grant! reader

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Summary: Molly thinks that Bill’s and the reader relationship is a mistake so she wants them apart from each other. Bill’s against his mother wishes and he find a way to drag the reader into the Weasley family officialy

Word count: 1.9K

Warnings: none

A/N: Hi! Part 4 of this thing lol. I’m so happy that you guys like this story. It’ll have like 20 chapters or so, i’m still deciding that so yeah, that’s pretty much the thing. Btw, from now on chapters will be more interestings... i hope so lol. Again, english not my mother language. Please let me know if something’s wrong. Aaaaaand if you want to be tagged in the next chapters tell me and i will add you! Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Arguments

The rest of the afternoon passed as normal as the days before your arrival. Arthur Weasley made sure of it. Even if Molly attacked you with her dagger gaze when you and Bill hugged each other after you were done with dessert.

You didn’t know what Mr. Weasley had talked about with his wife while you were taking a shower, however, you noticed the tension rising from their bodies after you sat down at the table next to Bill and saw an annoyance sign on Molly’s lips. Her temple was frowned, reminding you of your own mother's gestures. Those flaming eyes, cleft chin, and pinion lips. Both women contract their features too much when they were upset and in your distress, you knew that they must not be disturbed.

The last thing you wanted was to hurt a marriage as solid as the Weasley's. More than once you heard your mother talk about it with your nanny making a powerful emphasis on how Molly and Arthur were able to carry out their marriage even if their economic conditions were precarious and the war was on their heels. They were an envied couple. Few dared to expand the family as much as they did without money in their pockets and spreading their progeny like a plague. No one was surprised, not even your mother, not when her marriage to Evan Grant was merely for financial advantage. Now Arthur and Molly looked upset, too upset for your understanding and you just hoped they could get along soon.

You weren't sure you deserved the sacrifice Bill's father had made for you, yet a flame of hope lit up in your chest. If Mr. Weasley started to trust you that was a good sign for others to do as well, right?

The afternoon continued as normal, seeing how Bill's plans to distract you from the fervent harassment of his mother was marred by the twins intervention. They had just finished a new product for their store and needed a good taster to certify the quality of their merchandise. It was a bad idea, he told himself, because twins were just a disaster and you didn't know them well enough to deny their good-natured pretensions.

"Be kind!" He yelled at them as Fred and George pulled you into their. Bill exhaled, pleading that his brothers wouldn't bother his girlfriend more than his mother already had.

Before taking you home, he thought about the pros and cons of your stay in the burrow. His conclusion was based on the fact that his entire family welcomed Harry Potter with open arms, so you didn't have to be the exception. He knew the difference in conditions in which his theory developed, yet he put his trust in the good judgment of his family even if the Grants' past left much to be desired. Bill didn't talk much about you with his mother, in fact, your presence at home was the last of his worries, the real problem came at the time of joining the Order of the Phoenix, would you be willing to fight against your relatives even if that mean betraying your own blood? Bill hope you will

Coming downstairs, Bill found his mother storing the leftover food in the fridge while the dishes soaked in the sink. Then he watched her clean each plate with her bare hands, no magic. William knew his anger was real.

"Want some help with that?"

"I'd love to, honey, thank you," his mother answered without looking at him. Bill raised the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, dipping his hands into the tide of water and bubbles that flew across the kitchen. Molly was silent, drying the dishes and flying them to her place in the display case across the kitchen. Bill cleared his throat doubtfully "It never hurts to help, much less when I have so many things to do before the rest of the Order arrive"

"Don't worry, I'll help you with that too."

"Perfect"

"Mom, can we talk?"

"About what?

"You know what," Bill clicked his tongue, passing her the last plate from the sink to continue with the spoons. "(Y/N)..."

"Your father has scolded me enough about that girl, I don't need you to do it too"

"I wouldn't if you had a little consideration with her."

"More consideration?" Molly asked in a squeak. Bill shook his head. "I'm letting her stay at my home!"

"Our home, mom, ours," he corrected, drying his hands with a cloth. "This house also belongs to my dad, my brothers, and me. It's the burrow, a family property, not a secret club where some people can get in and others cannot."

"You know what I think of her"

"And you know I don't care." Molly looked scandalized at her son. She didn't understand what he had seen in someone like you or what you had given him to come out and defend you as he did "I don't ask you to love her, but at least you have to try...

"Have you ever wondered what will happen when she betrays us?"

"That's not gonna happen"

"You're very sure of that, William"

"I'm convinced, Mom. You don't know her like I do and, you know what? I see that wanting to talk to you was a mistake"

"Moody thinks like me," Molly stopped him when Bill was ready to go upstairs. The woman clung to the railing watching her son standing in the first step out of the kitchen "(Y/N) Grant is a danger to the Order"

"Really? Like Mundungus Fletcher? I beg your pardon, mom, but if there is anyone who represents a latent danger to the Order of the Phoenix, it's him and yet you have assigned him for the mission tonight"

Molly's lips parted and if it weren't for the fact that Bill knew her mother too well, he might think the woman was about to throw herself on the floor in a tantrum. Still, she clenched the bars tightly, her brow furrowed, and the redness on her cheeks washed over her forehead.

"William!" Don't talk to me like that!"

"I wouldn't if you had a little more respect for my girlfriend."

"Don't you understand? I care about you! For all of us!" She snarled angrily. "Having a Riddle in this house..."

"A Grant, mom, (Y/N) is a Grant and that's not the same." Bill descended his steps, approaching her mother, returning that angry look that she had inherited from him. It was a strange sensation. A dyad of emotions between joy and fear where the composed emotion was guilt. He had never exploded that way with his mother, but Molly hadn't behaved that way with anyone either "His grandfather is Lord Voldemort's half-brother and his brothers are all Death Eaters, what does it matter? (Y/N) is not. And when do we judge others by where they come from? If so, we could start with half of us. Being a Weasley is equivalent to being a blood traitor"

"William!"

Molly's face went from fury to shock to fury again. Bill's eyes were twinkling and Molly swore she had never seen any of her children this angry, or worse, this determined.

"What would you have done, Mom?" Bill questioned taking his mother by his arms in an attempt to make him feel her despair. Molly opened her eyes, scared. "When your family tell you not to accept dad? When your brothers object to your engagement, just 'cause the Weasleys have long been considered blood traitors?"

For the first time that day Molly's mind went blank, Bill guessed, rewinding the memories of how difficult it was for the Prewetts to accept the marriage. Bill pleaded silently, but pulled away from her when his mother gave no indication to be a little more respectful with you.

"We aren't like that. We don't separate people by where they come from, we hug them" Bill resumed his way towards the stairs, stopping a couple of steps up, turning to take a look at Molly's stunned figure "As you did with Hermione, Remus and Harry when you and Dad became his godparents after Sirius died. (Y/N) is no different"

"She will turn her back on us when the Order fight the Grants. That moment will come and you know it"

"Don't worry, i'll make sure that doesn't happen"

"She is not part of this family"

"That can be solved very easily," he said and the smile he wore gave her a terrible chill down her spine. "Because I'm going to ask her to be my wife."

Molly's gasp was the only thing Bill heard before climbing the stairs and heading to the twins' room. He always respected his mother a lot and even thinking of opposing to her wishes was inconceivable, but your well-being was something that was involved and Bill couldn't just let her mother control his life at her will. Maybe the mistake he made was not telling his parents the truth about you from the start or, in that case, mentioning that the woman he loved was the fucking niece of the strongest fucking dark wizard of all time.

Bill Weasley rubbed his face as he reached the twins' door. He no longer had to torment himself, it was done and the only thing pending at the moment was to get Harry out of his uncles' house, take him safely to the burrow and find the courage to do what he told his mother he would do.

Would you agree to marry him? He hoped so and if not, he wouldn't pressure you. You were young - even a little younger than him - and it would be understandable if you refused to tie your life to someone else's from one moment to the other. The war progressed every day and if you were going to do it, you would do it as soon as possible.

Loud laughings brought him out of his thoughts to observe you and his brothers sitting on the floor, right in the center of both beds, laughing at each other and touching your faces. From the doorway Bill can't see the full painted room, however George's face showed a rather abstract mural full of bright colors when he felt the presence of his older brother. Fred did the same showing his face in the same situation and then you turned to Bill, still laughing and your face smeared with paint. It seemed the twins had created a paint bomb in millimeter pills, that explode when you put a little bit of pressure. You tried to clean yourself with the sleeve of your sweater but you spread the paint even more. Fred and George laughed and so did Bill.

His heart swelled with love as he saw that at least someone in his family - besides him and his father - had hope in you. God, he may have even cried with happiness.

Bill never understood how a sunshine as beautiful as you was never accepted in your entire life.

Tags:

@purple-vodka-99

@vampirestrawberries

Thanks for the 100 followers!❤

#bill weasley #bill weasley imagine #bill weasley x reader #harry potter imagine #harry potter cast #Harry Potter imagines #domhnall gleeson imagine #domhnall gleeson x reader #domhnall gleeson #weasleys #fred weasley imagines

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blue-mood-blue · 3 years

Text

They tell him that his name is Benzaiten Steel.

They tell him that he’s been shot.

Officially, publicly, his condition is unknown - they haven’t released any details yet, pending the investigation. As he understands it, the investigation amounts to his mother and brother pointing to each other in accusation, both of them held in separate interview rooms of the HCPD while Ben lays in his hospital bed. They were hoping he could give them answers, Ben realizes when the doctor and the officer both hover around his door uncertainly before turning to go.

But Ben doesn’t remember anything. He can’t tell them if his brother in law enforcement went corrupt or if his mentally ill mother finally slipped too far. If it was an argument, or an accident, or which of his incredibly small family is more likely to lie. He wouldn’t have been able to tell them his name if they hadn’t told him first, because Ben hardly remembers anything at all.

It’s the head injury, the nurse tells him at two in the morning while she gives him more pain medication. Not from the blast, which had caught him in the shoulder and was more than enough damage to a body on its own, according to her. He must have hit his head on something on the way down, gave himself a nasty bump and some swelling. Nothing to worry about too much, she added quickly after getting a good glance at Ben’s expression. Just... just the memories might not come back. Hard to tell with these things.

Ben chews over the possibility after she leaves, slipping in and out of sleep. He should want to know, right? He should be searching for those memories, and the way he fit between them. He should be looking for himself... looking for the truth.

There are two people in his family. One of them shot him. He can’t imagine a truth there that wouldn’t tear him in two anyway.

Ben takes a moment to pity whoever it was he used to be - must’ve had a sad life, in the middle of that mess. Couldn’t possibly have been happy, in that little apartment in Oldtown, no one to call or contact besides the people led away in handcuffs. Such a small, tiring existence... didn’t he feel stifled, trapped? He does now. He thinks about going back to that, and he can’t breathe.

Ben looks at the window instead. He can make out some stars, but only a few - it’s hard to see much around the light pollution and the dome. He doesn’t remember, but logic tells him he hasn’t lived the kind of life that’s ever taken him off of Mars; he’s never seen any of those stars, or the planets around them, or their moons - not really. He thinks he might like to, and it’s almost a surprise when the thought comes to him; it’s as if his mind has been cleared of some dome hemming him in, holding him in place, and now there’s room to want. Ben feels untethered, adrift... free. Free in a way he knows, somehow, he’s never been before.

It’s a heady feeling. For the first time since waking, Ben smiles. He could be free. He could reach up to those stars and never come back down.

Benzaiten Steel might not remember anything about himself, but he learns that he’s a good actor. When the officer comes back with more questions, Ben tells them he’s afraid for his life, more afraid because he doesn’t know who or what to fear. “Be honest,” he asks, voice shaking with something (not fear, but the officer doesn’t know that). “Do you think this could happen again? Am I really safe?”

Benzaiten Steel is declared dead, and Ben boards a ship.

~~~

He still calls himself Ben; everything else, he cuts away and leaves behind as deadweight. He’s Ben Nothing, Ben Nobody, and he runs between the stars like there’s something chasing him. He finds work where he can, and he finds that the most lucrative work is the illegal kind. He finds that he’s good at it, charming people with a smile or disarming them with a few tears, and then liberating them from whatever they have in their pocket, or safe, or bank account.

Ben is happy. Ben is competent, secure, well-liked in the circles he moves through. Ben is as free as he ever wanted to be, in this life or any other. And if he feels like something unnamed is breathing down his neck some days, well, he is a thief, isn’t he? There’s always someone after him, law enforcement on several planets at least. If he avoids Mars and anywhere too close to that little, red planet, it’s his own business. There’s not much on Mars, anyway; only the Cerberus Province and the connections he could make there, and it’s a small sacrifice to make for all of the things he gets to see.

Ben isn’t lonely. He just feels a little adrift sometimes.

And it’s years before anything catches him.

He has a jewel that toppled a dynasty with the conflict it caused hidden in his pocket, and he slips into a dark, mostly empty theater to wait out the afternoon and the authorities. He already has a spot waiting for him on a ship traveling several planets away, but it won’t take off for hours. He has plenty of time.

Ben pulls out his comms to waste some hours, ignoring the movie playing on the screen; a kids’ movie, probably with the hope that whole families would make the effort of taking a trip to the theater to spend time together. It was a bad gamble, with the only person there other than Ben asleep in a chair in the corner. Ben snorts; kind of a stupid thought, that anyone would bother when they could stream whatever old movies they wanted directly to their home.

He’s in the middle of a game when he looks up at the screen. There’s a woman fighting a dragon, and he isn’t sure what caught his attention until it happens again.

“Andromeda!” someone on the screen yells.

Ben’s head hurts.

Andromeda! a younger Benzaiten yells. He can feel the warm sun beating down on him, the familiar sounds of shouting down a street somewhere too far away to worry about. His voice, thin and reedy and so young, makes its best attempt at a growl. You will never escape me!

“You will never escape me!”

His head throbs, and he could cry with how much it hurts.

I do not intend to run - I will stay and fight, because good must always succeed! Someone with his face answers back, swinging a sword made of paper towel rolls and too much duct tape, and then breaks from the script: And I’m faster than you anyway, Benten, so I can escape whenever I want to.

For a moment, he rests on the divide between Ben and Benzaiten. If he tries, he could pull back - but he also knows he could no more let go of that voice than tear his own heart out.

Juno. A knowledge from the long-dormant pieces of him whispers an answer he doesn’t ask for, as it drags the whole of his messy, painful history with it. That’s Juno. Your twin. Your family.

Benzaiten is still crying, hurt radiating from his head and his chest, and there’s no one around to care so he doesn’t stop. He watches the stupid movie three times, then boards a ship and tries to hide the evidence with makeup and a bright smile. He’s two planets away by the time he thinks about going back, all the way back, and by the time he’s three planets away he’s decided that it would be a ridiculous idea.

It’s been years. Fuck, it’s been so many years. Does Juno live in the same place? What if he’s married now; out of the two of them, he was always the one looking for someone to hold onto him. Would he even want to see Ben?

The answer should be yes, but Ben’s not an idiot, he knows reality is more complicated. Juno buried him, and mourned for him, and maybe even started to heal - and Ben had run. Run without looking back, leaving a death certificate and open wounds behind him.

Is Sarah still alive?

The question stops him cold, staring through the window and the pieces of galaxy he’s passing. If Sarah is alive, he would have to see her, too. That’s a promise he made himself a long time ago - that he wouldn’t choose between them. He was the one who held the family together. He’d always been that.

The Benzaiten in his head, the person he isn’t sure he is yet - anymore - tells him she loves you.

Ben, here and now, tells him she shot you.

Both of those things are true. And when Ben pulls away from the window, he tells himself that’s what he’s afraid of, that someone he loved hurt him and could do it again, that he might let them in the foolish, stupid need to find out if the love was still there somewhere under all of the hurt. To know trying hard enough could mean getting better.

If there’s another fear, if he can feel the gravity of Mars pulling him back and down and heavy, he doesn’t let himself think it. And he’s gotten pretty good at deception, so he might even believe it.

~~~

Ben dances more, when he remembers dancing. Nothing feels as free as the movement, as his total control over it. Not even the stars.

How much of his running was escape, and how much was just running?

~~~

He still calls himself Ben.

He has his reasons. “Benzaiten” is too memorable, and sharing a face and a last name with a sibling seems like a really good way to get that sibling into trouble. There’s a reputation in place already with the name he used. There are days when he doesn’t feel like he fits in Benzaiten’s life. He finds plenty of reasons.

He doesn’t visit. He thinks about it, comes close - as close as a planet and one ticket fare away, once - but Ben can’t bring himself to step foot in Hyperion City. Hyperion belongs to Juno, somehow. He was the one who stayed (I do not intend to run - I will stay and fight), and going home feels like... trespassing. Ben knows Juno wouldn’t say that. It doesn’t stop him from thinking it.

Hyperion City has a newspaper, though, and a subscription service that seems a little optimistic in its range. Maybe not all that optimistic, since Ben regularly takes advantage of it - between jobs, and only on his personal comms. Most of it has nothing to do with him, but he skips and skims through the digitized pages anyway, looking for whatever hints of a life he can find. Juno is a private investigator now, which doesn’t surprise Ben. There’s an engagement announcement and no following marriage announcement, which does.

(Sarah is guilty, and dead, and he doesn’t know how he feels about that. He doesn’t linger on the thought.)

Sometimes, when he feels brave, he imagines what it could be like. So what’s this about a gala at that new art gallery? You know, the one that lasted a whole night before it got blown up?

Juno’s laughter from the other side of the comms connection, maybe a little too young. Uh huh, I heard. The HCPD put it all over the news, along with how they saved the day. Or didn’t you hear that part?

They can say whatever they want, I know a Juno Steel case when I see one. Now, Ben adjusts on the bed, miles and miles away, glancing at the window to see if he can get a peek back the way he came, tell me everything.

Maybe the next time you come to see me, Juno says, and just like that the thought disintegrates. He can never put too many words in Juno’s mouth; there are just too many things he doesn’t know.

Ben gets lucky one day and sees a whole half a picture of Juno, looking out on a crowd. He’s not the focus - he’s standing next to some politician in the middle of a speech, a Ramses O’Flaherty who makes a lot of promises that sound like the “too good to be true, but wouldn’t it be nice” kind - but Ben will take what he can get. He can’t decide if Juno has more or less scars than he would have expected, given his line of work. He wonders how they all got there. Juno is standing on the stage with the politician; he must buy some of those promises to put himself so clearly in the man’s corner.

There’s a kind of worry in his gut about it, but Ben tries to take it as a good sign. The Juno he knew had a hard time trusting people; it would be nice if he’d found someone to believe in. It would be nice if that trust is well-placed.

Ben has to leave his comms behind for a job, taking a burner along instead, so he gets the results of the election at the same time he gets the announcement of O’Flaherty’s death and the conspiracy over Newtown. It doesn’t have to mean anything - just another politician who wasn’t what he seemed to be, or didn’t manage to hang on long enough to make good on his promises. That’s all it is.

He still looks for Juno in the stories he reads. He can’t seem to find him, anymore.

~~~

For the first time since they were nineteen, Benzaiten sees Juno across the room.

For a moment, he feels like he’s seen a ghost. A ridiculous thought, from the dead twin.

Juno Steel is so far away from Hyperion City, talking to Zolotovna in a resplendent dress as if he’s lived the kind of life that makes him belong, immediately and implicitly, among the disgustingly rich. Ben, who is there for a reason, he knows he’s there for a reason but fuck if he can remember why, tries not to make it obvious that he’s staring. He’s failing at that, he knows.

But Juno is here. Juno is here in the room with him, so different than he remembers, with so many more scars. With one less eye. Ben wants to ask when that happened, wants to demand that story, just as much as he wants to fade into the crowd and run.

He feels untethered; he feels like, if he runs, he’ll never find his way back again. Just this once, Ben lets himself understand that the tug of gravity pulling him back was never a leash around his neck as much as it was a rope around his middle - giving him a way back home. Juno had always been his anchor, keeping him from drifting too far.

There’s no going back, now. There’s no going home, no home to go back to.

Juno’s glance turns in his direction, and Ben is about to duck out of the way - an amateur move, guaranteed to catch his sibling’s eye, but he thinks he can be forgiven for being a little bit off his game - when Ben realizes he’s not who Juno is looking for. A man slips by him, tall and confident and familiar in a way that tells Ben exactly why he should be familiar. Juno can’t seem to help the way his face changes when he spots the man.

So the thief grabbed at Juno’s heart and pulled him away from Hyperion. That’s why Juno is here. It’s... infuriating, because there’s no way a common con deserves Juno Steel. Because it was never a thought in Ben’s head that Juno could be convinced to leave Hyperion, and he never thought to ask. (I do not intend to run. Running was Ben’s job.)

Ben is ready to do something stupid. He’s halfway across the ballroom, walking directly towards his brother well and aware that the impact will cause an explosion of a scene, when he sees Juno tilt his head.

There’s a comms in his ear.

Ben has been a thief long enough to recognize the habits of another thief - especially a new one.

He doesn’t remember what he came to this event for, but there’s nothing, mark or prize or job, that Benzaiten wants more than to understand the stranger in the dress who almost has his face. If he breaks something with an impulsive decision, he thinks as he continues to cross the room, well - wouldn’t be the first time.

He’ll let himself be selfish. That’s what Ben does.

#the penumbra podcast #tpp #benzaiten steel #juno steel #junoverse #ben lives au #don’t ask my why i do not know #i was just curious about a Ben who becomes a thief #and it kinda spiraled from there #so i guess the hot takes are:#Ben’s family is a grounding force for him #and Ben also struggles with dealing with his mistakes #GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR VERY COMPLICATED EVENING JUNO

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silhouetteofacedar · 3 years

Text

Pearl, Ch. 3: A Yes

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rating pending

She said yes.

Mulder’s world has been upset like an overturned fishbowl, leaving him gasping in biting air. He had presented Scully with an idea that’s crazy, even by his standards, making her an offer that was simultaneously a pathetic fraction of what she deserves and also more than he could possibly give. Her beautiful, keen scientific mind mulled over his bullshit, and instead of arguing with him or trying to make him see sense… she said yes.

She must really be dying.

There are so many things he needs to say to her, feelings he’s been slowly building up the courage to confess; but the idea that he could be running out of time has slowed his progress and thickened the words on his tongue until they stick to the roof of his mouth like cold honey. His throat is tight every time he looks at her.

He knows he’s useless to her in this moment, but he still goes home and stares at the ceiling until the small hours of the morning, tearing his brain apart. His mind loops in endless, shaking circles, as though he could possibly cure her cancer before sunrise or shrink a tumor by force of will alone.

This is all he has to offer her. No science or medicine or clues to the puzzle; just obsession and insomnia and a desperate need for her to live.

When he slumps into the office the next morning he immediately notes that she looks tired too.

Maybe it’s the cancer. Most of the time she seems fairly healthy, save for the odd nosebleed, but he always has a creeping fear that he’ll turn around one day and see she’s half gone, withering to nothing, her strong little hands carved down to matchsticks.

I can’t let you die.

“Morning,” she says, barely hiding a yawn. He could kiss her full, slender fingers. “Sorry, I was- I was up early,” she continues.

Mulder nods, dropping heavily into his chair. His eyes land on a manila envelope sitting on his desk. “What’s this?” he asks, picking it up.

“Just something I’d like your opinion on,” Scully says. “Annotations are welcome. I’ll get us some coffee.”

Before Mulder can reply, she’s up and out the door. Jesus, she practically ran out of the room.

He opens the envelope and finds a sheaf of neat, typewritten papers. He wonders briefly if this is going to end up being her resignation. Or a Dear John letter.

Mulder -

First of all, this is document is regarding your proposition from last night. If you wish to revoke your proposal, please read no further and discard the contents of this envelope in their entirety.

If you wish to proceed with the aforementioned proposal, I think we should outline the terms of our arrangement so that we can both enter into this union with clarity and confidence.

His heart grows heavier as he reads. She’s outlined practically everything, he thinks. It must have taken hours; potential scenarios and how they might handle them as a married couple, financial liability, power of attorney…

Mulder is so engrossed in her document that he doesn’t notice her return until she sets a styrofoam cup of coffee under his nose. He robotically takes a sip, noting that it’s black with one sugar. Just the way he likes it.

“So,” she says, sitting across from him. “I see you’re still reading.”

“This is incredibly thorough, Scully. Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

“I had a lot to think about,” she replies, sipping her coffee. “We have a lot to think about.”

“Is this… something you’re open to discussing in the office?” he asks quietly.

“Briefly,” she replies. “It’s not personal, after all. But discretion is of the utmost importance.”

He nods. “We should dig into this more later, off the clock,” he suggests. “Since there’s evidently a hell of a lot we need to prepare before we ring any wedding bells, though it seems like you covered the gist of it,” he adds, leafing through the pages.

“There is one thing I failed to mention,” Scully admits, absently carving a half-moon into the side of her cup with a manicured fingernail. “The impact of this arrangement on your personal life.”

“Generous of you to assume I have one,” Mulder says dryly. “How do you mean?”

Scully’s face flushes slightly. “If… if you meet someone,” she says softly, “I don’t want to hold you back from that. For however long I have left.”

She speaks so matter-of-factly about dying, and it sharpens the edge of sorrow cutting through his chest. “Scully,” he says gently, “That is the last thing you need to be worrying about right now.”

“Even so,” she presses, “since we’re discussing terms, I want to propose one. That our marriage is a professional matter, a legal safeguard, and not personal. You are free to… to be with someone else, as long as the original purpose of our union is upheld.”

He leans forward, folding his hands atop the desk. “Then that goes both ways,” he insists, holding her gaze. “You're free too.”

Scully drops her head. “Mulder, I don’t think that’s necessary in my condition.”

“Believe what you want,” he says. “But you’re going to get well. The way I see it, you have a long life ahead of you and should spend it with- with somebody you love.” He coughs. “And if you ever find that guy, I’ll step down as husband and let him take over.”

“A divorce?”

“Or annulment, whichever applies. If we keep this marriage a secret it shouldn’t be too much trouble to quietly end it if need be. And as long as we… we don’t consummate it… that should help.”

“So we’re professional spouses,” Scully says. “Placeholders for the real thing.”

Mulder nods. “Same legal status, just a few different benefits.”

Scully’s eyebrow twitches upward, and he gives her a little smile. “Though I’m always open to negotiation,” he jokes.

Scully presses her lips together tightly, and a mask seems to fall over her face. “We can discuss this further tonight, if you’re free,” she says briskly, setting her cup on the edge of the desk. “Iron out the details. And I can set up an appointment for us to get our license, if you have a date and time you’d prefer.”

Mulder chews his lip. “I hadn’t thought of it,” he admits. “Next Tuesday, maybe?”

“You have a dentist appointment next Tuesday,” Scully murmurs, reaching into her briefcase and pulling out a datebook. “We can take a long lunch on Wednesday, March 12th.”

Is there anything about him that this beautiful, stoic woman doesn’t know, any aspect of his life she hasn’t touched?

She has to have some idea by now, Mulder thinks. She must know he wouldn’t offer to marry just anybody.

There’s only room for one.

#my fic #pearl #msr #txf fic #xfiles #cancer arc #secret marriage #marriage of convenience #my grandmother just died so like. I'm not at my funniest or brightest rn.#but hey it works for angst so you're welcome xx

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cozycryptidcorner · 3 years

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Abel the Asrai, Chapter 2 (lemon)

Tags: pegging, masturbation, dom reader/sub fae

Faebruary prompt:

To be honest, you were expecting to spend your first day on land inside a sex shop, after all, you had promised to help Abel find something he could use to find some relief. You did not, however, expect to be the expert consultant in the matter.

The little boutique is tucked away in the recesses of this island's designated red district, curious bystanders and sexually frustrated crewmen alike flocking to witness its various wares. The windows are high and open, letting a steady stream of sunlight filter through the hundreds of different phallic-shaped sculptures lining the shelves. It's the largest and most dependable store in your experience, and you plan on doing your own shopping once Abel is distracted. Or when you gather enough courage to do it in front of him.

He seems positively fascinated with all the different options, face turning a strange shade of teal as one of the clerks lets him hold the so-called Destroyer of Bussy, the damn thing as long as his forearm and as thick as a mast rope. It makes his long fingers look nothing more than a child's, swallowing up his fist and palm. You put an end to that debacle, knowing full well he needs to start out small and go up from there.

As you drag Abel away from the dragon-sized dildos, he seems to quickly forget about them in lieu of the far more decorative selections. Some of the more expensive examples are secured behind display glass, locks magicked against thieves. Cock rings embedded with pearls, handcuffs made from gold, the kind of objects that can't be used for much more than a show of opulence are snuggled in red velvet for the sake of being ogled at.

"What about this?" He asks, pointing to a maroon, glass blown object, one that's curled with bumps protruding on one side, suspiciously akin to a tentacle.

"That's a little too advanced for inexperienced hands," you suggest, "let's try to stick with a basic shape for now."

"And your hands are not advanced?" Abel asks, arching his eyebrows.

You try to brush him off, your own face heating up with embarrassment, "my hands are plenty advanced, but you can't tack this one to the wall to pleasure yourself with."

"And that's what I'll be doing?" He dares to ask. "I thought you were supposed to help me with my little problem."

"I'm helping you right now," you say, reaching over his shoulder and pulling down a rubber dildo. It's not the same size as the positively enormous Orc Cock Delight (trademark pending), far from it, but given Abel's slim frame and inexperience, it would be a decent start. "Here, this one's probably best."

As though inspecting its shape and sculpture like an art authenticator, he takes it from your fingers and holds it in his palm. Then, to check for its plasticity, he flicks his wrist, watching it wiggle with the movement, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. "Well," he remarks at last, "I trust your judgement on the matter."

"We can get the tentacle one too, if you like," you offer, "these are your wages you're spending."

Abel has also only recently been made aware of how money actually works when you're not some pampered prince living up in a tower. After some… hazing, you think, from the rest of the crew about some misconceptions of how one can't just go to the bank and withdraw a large deposit, he's a lot more thoughtful about what he says. And definitely more frugal, too.

You see his lips purse with frustration as he has to mentally tally what he has versus what he wants to spend, but you see a breakthrough moment where he relents. "Alright," he says almost sullenly, cradling his dildo like it's an infant, "this one will do for now."

"Good," you say, glancing over the selection of glass sculptures yourself to see if anything catches your eye, but you're mostly happy with what you already have. "Now we need to get you some lube."

"What for?" He asks, following close behind as you slowly make your way to the other side of the store.

"Trust me, you can't just shove something up a hole without a bit of lubricant. Ever had carpet burn before?"

By the way his face twitches, the answer's yes.

"Same concept, but inside your body." Glass vials decorate the shelves, some small, some large, each advertising a different benefit for its use. There are various massage oils, lube, and other select liquids that claim to aid with libido and arousal… Mouth pursed, you run your fingers over the labels, trying to decide which one you'd like to use on yourself as well. "This one says it's coconut and rum flavored."

"Why is it flavored?" Abel is also looking over the bottles, brow furrowed in thought.

"Sometimes your mouth goes where the lube is, and tasting honey lemon is more palatable to some." How does one get the taste of champagne in lube, you wonder, trying to figure out if you even need something infused with flavoring.

As though reading your mind, Abel asks, "which one would you prefer?"

Oh, fuck him, he knows exactly what he's doing.

"Why?" You ask, testily. "Do you think I'm going to be licking it off your poor little cock?"

Abel sucks his breath in, but you see that the barb did none of the damage you wanted it to. Instead, he seems…. Excited? Aroused? "Only if you want to."

Everything inside of you ignites, but you tamper it down. Sucking your breath in to ground yourself, you gesture vaguely in his crotch direction, "wouldn't be that great for you if you can't even cum from it."

"The long row of chastity belts seem to disagree." He points to the shop's opposite side, furthest from the windows, multiple mannequins showing off the various different styles available for purchase. "Might as well see what the appeal is since I'm stuck with one."

You don't want to admit he's making sense here… but he is. Wordlessly, maintaining eye contact, you aim your finger, watching him grasp the bottle without being told twice.

"You know," you say, walking leisurely over to the apparel section of the shop, "there's a lot of flack that comes from being the captain's special whore."

"Is that what your crew thinks of me?" He asks, running his fingers over a leather whip.

"You're not particularly subtle about it."

"Only because you weren't paying attention to my advances."

"Only because I didn't want you to think I only brought you aboard for the pleasure of wrecking your virgin ass."

He snickers but doesn't say anything in response, now looking over the different options to hook his dildo onto. Though, since it's really your decision, you begin poking around the mannequins yourself. Even though you wouldn't necessarily want something with all the bells and whistles, maybe one that's colored to set off your eyes? Some of the leather ones have been stained with various hues and tones.

"I just want you to know that I do already have a strap," you say, picking a new one out, "it's just not on my ship."

"So you're telling me," Abel says, almost completely serious save for that slight twitch on his mouth, "that you don't fuck every single damsel in distress you come across?"

You sigh loudly, heading towards the front of the store to purchase your tiny collection of pleasure toys. "Not all of them, just the ones that ask me so nicely."

Abel hums, and you sense a trace of jealousy aimed towards your previous bedmates, but he doesn't say anything more. Once the both of you complete your purchases, hiding them in your respective satchels, you hop down the steps out of the shop. It's just the afternoon, with plenty of time left in the day, but you know that Abel is quite literally aching to try out his new toys, so you let him drag you back to the docks.

"Where are we going?" He asks in protest as you take him down to the lower decks instead of your private room.

"Do you have any idea how many people probably ran their hands over that thing before we bought it?" You're relieved to see that no one's occupying the kitchen, especially since the cook isn't a fan of people using the giant kettles to do what you're about to.

There's a barrel of water already sitting to the side, mostly for washing dishes and scrubbing the floor. You find a clean pot and fill it halfway full of the seawater, setting it on the still lit wood stove to boil. With little ceremony, you rummage through his satchel, pulling out the dildo, and plop it into the water to boil.

In the meantime, Abel seems to struggle over what he should be doing with his hands. Nervously, he folds and unfolds his fingers, weaving them together and pulling them apart, only occasionally looking you in the eye.

"Are you okay?" You ask, and he jumps.

"Y-es," he mumbles, "just excited."

"We don't have to do this today if you're-"

"I am literally begging you," he interrupts, face blushing, "to help me now. Please."

Steam begins to curl up from the pot. You nod, poking at the rubber cock with a stick, as though that will somehow speed the process. "Just a few more moments, Abel."

Once the thing is done sanitizing, and in the safety of your cabin, the door firmly locked, you can hear his breath quickening as you pull out the different objects to start experimenting with. Slowly, you pull at the front of your leather fest, loosening the laces until it's wide enough to pull off. Your nipples rise, not from cold, but from arousal, hard at the promise of shoving that false cock up his ass.

"Abel," you direct, calmly, "you need to take off your clothes."

He obeys without question, pulling his shirt up over his head and throwing it on your chair. His body has filled out slightly with muscle, no longer a wiry frame of skin and bones, but he's still not nearly as stocky as you or the rest of your crew. Anyone on this ship could lift him over their head and toss him across the deck like he weighs nothing.

Already, he's so excited that he's erect, though the head of his cock is swollen with unspelt arousal and pleasure.

"Did you ever touch yourself after the spell?" You ask, coming up close, resting your hands on his bare hips.

"Yes," he whispers, eyes almost ashamed.

"It's alright," you rub your thumbs in soothing circles right over the bump of his bone, "I'm just wondering how this works." Pause, let him think. "Did you ever um… leak precum at all?"

He blinks. "I don't understand."

You try to rephrase the question. "When you touch yourself, sometimes before you finish, a clear liquid will come out. Did that ever happen, or no?"

"No, nothing comes out." His voice is slightly raspy, you aren't sure if it's from embarrassment. "I've always had to use lotion or oils, and it would feel good for a little while. Then it would just hurt."

"And you would have to wait until it went away," you nod, as though this isn't the first time you've dealt with such a stupid, controlling and abusive curse. "But the wording is going to be our friend, here, and many males cum when being penetrated without the use of hands."

"Thank you." There's an awful lot of hope in his eyes, so you bite your lip and pray to whatever god that might hear for your success.

"Help me out of my clothes." You gloss over his adoration, feeling a tightness in your stomach.

He gets on his knees, watching you for any twitch of approval you might give, and begins to unclasp the straps on your boots—one by one. When you step out of them, you don't even have to tell him where to go next, because he's lifting your shirt up and kissing your stomach as he works your belt. Carefully, he undoes the buckle, sliding it out and opening up your waistline.

Down go your pants, then undergarments, and you take the initiative to remove your shirt yourself. Now you're also naked, standing before Abel, just two bodies open for mutual exploration. His breath quivers as you reach up and brush some hair away from his face, dragging your fingers down to cup the side of his face. Slowly, as though you both have all the time in your little shared infinity, you press your lips up against his.

This isn't the first time you've kissed. The first time was after a particularly brutal sword fight that you had managed to win with only a few scratches, Abel practically jumped on you once you had kicked your opponent overboard. That one was quick, numb with relief and over faster than it started. Now there's time, locked away from the prying eyes of your crew.

Abel has kissed before, that you can tell by the way his lips move and adjust to where you lead them. You wonder if he had done it in some hidden nook somewhere in the palace he grew up in, under cover of darkness, all hormones and drive without the promise of relief. The practice has paid off, you decide, leading him back to your bed, gently setting him down, legs spread.

"Alright," you breathe, "show me where you touch yourself."

His face is dark and blue, mouth half-open, his tongue swiping over his lips. You get the bottle of lube out, pouring some onto the palm of your hand as he slowly begins to trace the outline of his cock. Propping one of your knees up on the bed, with an arm wrapped around his shoulder, you begin to mimic his movement, rubbing the lube up the shaft and over the head. Abel winces and whimpers at how cool it is.

For encouragement, you press your mouth onto his neck, gently nipping at the skin. "You're doing so good right now, baby, it's okay."

Slowly, you cover the entirety of his cock in the lube, pumping your wrist and watching it throb and pulse between your fingers. Abel was right, nothing seems to bead out from the slit at the top, his stones even quicker to puff up and become swollen. As he arches his back, leaning towards the mattress, his hips quake and shake, but where you might expect a ribbon of white to burst out of the head, nothing happens.

You suck in your breath sympathetically rubbing the tip with your thumb to see if you can't tease anything out, but whatever cursed him is concrete and binding. When you retract your hand, he almost whines, face bright with blood, tears threatening his eyes, lower lip swollen from his teeth biting down. At this point, you think, impotence would have been the kinder option because the brief sensation of pleasure would quickly be overruled by the misery of being unable to actually spill.

"Good boy," you whisper as he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder, "that must have hurt, but you're so strong for me."

He lets out a little whimper, one you swallow away with a kiss. Slowly, he lays back against your blankets, letting you straddle his waist as you nip his lips far gentler than you usually would.

"There are two ways I can take you," you say, your tits pressed up against his chest, "like this, with your legs spread out, or from behind, while you're on your hands and knees. Since this is your first time, you may pick."

He squirms beneath you, his cock painfully hard and delightfully present against your stomach. As you drum your fingers right by his ears, you can see the gears running circles in his head, carefully weighing the pros and cons of each position while so aroused his entire pelvis must feel like it's being crushed.

"Whatever you don't choose, we can do next time," you offer, hoping that might motivate him to choose a bit better.

"I-" his face becomes more flushed than it already is, "I just want to look in your eyes."

Oh, he’s sweet, the little fucker. If he keeps this kind of syrupy attitude, you might just end up falling in love.

You slide back off the bed, planting yourself firmly between his legs. "Like this?"

"Yes… please." He adds the last bit like an afterthought, but he's learning at least.

"Good boy," you purr, gently rubbing his thigh. "I'll put on the strap."

He watches you like you're a prized prostitute putting on a strip show for the ages, irises locked on your hands as you begin to pull at the various buckles and buttons. Carefully, you loop his choice dildo through the metallic ring centered right in front of your pelvis, tightening the straps to secure it in place. Once you're satisfied it won't fly off once you start thrusting, you grab the bottle of lube and bring it over to where Abel lies.

Pouring some out into your hand, you warn, "this is going to feel a bit strange at first. Since you're not used to it, I will move slowly, but you need to tell me if it hurts."

He nods sharply, his breath quickening as you start massaging his ass with the lube. You're careful here, wondering if it might be easier on him if his legs were restrained, one hand firmly on a thigh while the other experimentally prods at his hole.

"You're doing so well," you tell him, pushing your thumb up into his asshole while he whimpers. "You're going to take this cock so good, Abel, it's going to slide right in."

After adding a touch more of lube, you push your index and middle finger in together, making a gradual scissoring motion to stretch him out further. His breath quickens, his hands clawing at your blankets, but he doesn't say anything beyond a soft, wordless moan. Satisfied with how his body seems to be adapting to the intrusion, you add a third finger, and begin to pump in and out in a sort of thrusting motion.

"How does that feel?" You ask, watching the way his cock twitches and shudders.

"Good," he manages to choke, his eyes begging you for more.

"I think you're ready," you nod, taking the bottle of lube from the bed and tantalizingly rubbing it onto your fake cock. "Are you? Do you want me to start thrusting into you, baby?"

"Yes, please," his breathing accelerates, his face wild and pained.

You stretch his ass out, careful with the head of the dildo as you slowly push it in. Just to make it easier on him, you pull his knees up, spreading his legs out further and holding them steady while he quivers. Then, inch by inch, you keep moving forward until you've buried it to the hilt, your hips brushing up against his innermost thigh. You stay like that for a moment, allowing him to get used to the object's size and intrusion, petting his thighs right where your hands rest to offer some comfort.

"Does it hurt much?" You ask soothingly.

"Just a bit," he murmurs, wiggling a little as though trying to get comfortable, "not as much as I thought it might."

"Good," you bump your hips a bit, just so he knows what you're about to do. Still moving without a bit of urgency, you move back, pushing your hips away, watching his face as the pain transitions away into pleasure. Then, repeating the previous movement, you thrust forward, a bit quicker this time.

"Fuck," he curses, "that feels… that feels nice."

At that behest, you pick up the pace slightly, still going significantly slower than usual, but still maintaining a structured speed. "You like it, baby?"

"Yes," he breathes, "I like it."

"Good," you keep going, watching his body struggle to stay still as you begin to up the speed of your thrusts.

He raises his hands to his mouth, biting down, so he doesn't cry out. You feel his thighs spasm and shake beneath your fingers, his body rolling up against yours as though silently begging for more. His eyes are shut tight, brow furrowed, a strange expression twitching at his face like he's experiencing a sensation that he doesn't know is positive or negative.

"I think," he gasps, his hips thrusting in their own accord, "I- It's-"

A thick, white spray of liquid shoots out of his cock, flying high and landing on his stomach. It doesn't stop there, though, seemingly a lifetime's worth of unspelt cum trying to escape while it can, a thick, hot layer erupting out and dripping down on his waist in tandem to your thrusts. You don't stop, either, especially not when he cries out, holding his legs firmly in place as he squirms and sobs with pleasure. Only once his cock falls limp do you stop, pulling the dildo out, and a river of lube drips down his ass.

He's shaking, as though experiencing some kind of awakening. As he props himself up on his elbows, he looks down, noticing the ribbons of cum that have accumulated on his chest and pelvis, then at you. After he sees some on his hand, he licks it, not to be coy, not to be sexy, but with the general curiosity of someone who has never tasted cum in his life.

"It's salty," he says, blankly, voice void of either dashed or met expectations. Like he legitimately has no idea what he's supposed to think.

And then he begins to cry.

You're so shocked by the action that you just stand there, dildo still in hand, as tears fall out of his eyes and dribble down his cheeks. Then you snap into action, wiping your sticky fingers on an available towel before threading them through his hair, pulling him close in an embrace, ignoring the cum that's now on your skin. His face is wet against your chest, his arms wrapping around your torso in a tightening hug, chest shuddering.

"You did so well," you say soothingly, petting his hair as he tries to get himself under control, "I'm so proud of you, Abel, you really did so wonderfully for your first time. You can cry if you need to, I know this was probably very difficult."

Before you know it, you're laying down with him, his body pressed up against every single curve and crevice of yours. His face is up against your chest, arms around your waist, and you hold his head in the crook of your elbow. While his chest shudders and shakes, you whisper and murmur a myriad of encouragement and praise, but you think that's only adding fuel to his emotional fire.

So you let him process his state of mind, remaining present throughout so he has someone to lean on. After a while, he quiets down, but he makes no motion to either sit up or start round two. To be entirely honest, both of you are probably done for the day, especially with how he's handling it, but you can't walk around with stale cum on your body. Once his breathing evens out, you untangle your limbs from him, waking him up from a shivering nap.

"Hey," you say softly, poking at him, "we need to clean off."

"R-right," he sniffs, rubbing his eyes, "I-I'm sorry, that was-"

"Don't apologize," you say, almost sharply, "that must have felt very intense, and you have a right to express your emotions."

He kisses you, slowly, lazily, and you cradle his face in your hands.

"We only need to wipe off a portion of this gunk," you say, unbuckling the strap from your waist, "I think that tonight we can spend some extra money and time in a bathhouse."

"What do you mean?" He asks, glancing down at the mess he spilt on his skin.

"There's this absolutely incredible bathhouse up the mountain, right where a hot spring is. The water is supposed to be three times as effective for cleaning and rejuvenating your skin or whatever, I think you deserve a little extra pampering tonight."

"Really?" He looks like he's about to cry again.

"Come on," you pull him up until he's sitting, "let's first get marginally cleaner, so it doesn't look like we've participated in a street-side orgy."

As he pours a bit of powdery soap in your tub of scrubbing water, you begin to unbraid his hair, brush in hand, running your fingers through his green tangles to smooth out the evidence of sex. He sponges his chest and torso clean, using smelling oils to hide the scent of cum as you begin to twist and knot his hair again.

"You handled this size very well for the most part," you say, using a pick to sharply part a section of his hair away, "I think that you might be ready to upgrade in a few months, we could get that little glass one that you wanted so bad."

"I would like that," he rasps, face just as flushed as when you bottomed out inside him.

Once you clean yourself off, you dress and leave, Abel in tow. The bathhouse is a large building, overtaking a fair amount of the presumably dead volcano that overlooks the bay. You've been there before, most of your crew has, but it's the sort of place that's so far from the docks that it's a hassle to get to. By the time you're up the cliffs, Abel is panting like he's never walked this far before.

You pay the teller, not bothering to make Abel take care of his own entrance fee. A wave of wet, sticky heat hits your face when you walk into the large marble atrium, the steam from the hot springs thick in the enclosed area. There's a convenient marble map on the wall, the building's outline labeled with thick letters.

"Where do you want to go first?" You ask, mentally wondering how they make the currents for the so-called wonderous whirlpool.

He points to one of the private pools, the side of his mouth twitching up.

"Those costs-"

"I can pay," he says, patting his satchel.

Okay, he wants to play games, you can get on that level. So you shrug, and follow him down the hallway, down the stairs to the long row of private rooms. After paying the attendant down there, you pick out a random section and close the wooden door behind you for some much-needed privacy.

Abel is already stripping bare, throwing himself in the water once naked. A window lets a small amount of light through its wooden blinds, only bright enough to see his outline. Once you're also undressed, you slip into the water, sighing with relief at both the heat and the scent of the oils. You settle on a curved section, probably explicitly built for laying on, and slowly begin to scrub at your skin with a bar of pumice you brought.

Oh, and Abel seems to be enjoying himself a lot, floating on his back, face staring up at the ceiling. He looks like he's in a faraway place, mouth in a soft, genuinely content smile. You let him be in his own little world for as long as he needs to be, satisfied with cleaning the last remaining hints of sex off your body while waiting for him to come back to you.

"You know," he says finally, rising out from the water and coming close, "despite everything else, I was very spoiled as a prince."

"No," you deadpan, "really?"

"Yeah- wait," he sniffs out your sarcasm much better now, "I mean, yes, it's probably undeniably obvious."

"Supremely so," you say, remembering how another captain asked you if you were holding Abel hostage because he was too goddamn refined compared to the rest of your crew.

"I was always told that I wasn't in a place to complain," he angles your body so he can play with your hair, "and I suppose in some aspects, that was true, but now I know that everything that happened beneath that roof, golden gilded or no, was… not healthy."

"No, Abel, I can't say that it was anything remotely so." Every time you hear about some aspect of his childhood, you're filled to the brim with murderous rage on his behalf.

"But at least now I can say that after living in the quote real world, I most definitely prefer this to that." You feel his fingers twist your hair into braids. "For example, your crew doesn't follow your commands because they're afraid of what will happen if they don't, they follow your commands because you've proven to them that you're a trustworthy and capable leader."

You open your mouth, but he interrupts you.

"Luck has nothing to do with it, either. I saw you dive after a freed slave in open water because she couldn't swim. That's not luck, that's courage, and those are the kinds of actions that your people take to heart."

"I guess," you don't like accepting heartfelt compliments, especially when you think you don't deserve them.

"Which is why," he finishes, pulling you closer, "I trusted you enough to ask you for help."

"And are you satisfied with the help I provided?" You ask, remembering how much cum he had spilt from that one single session.

"Oh, yes," he purrs, seemingly completely recovered from his near mental breakdown. "I'd give you a five-star review, but I don't think I like to share."

"Really? I garner that well of a reputation?" You ask, watching his hand slide between your legs.

"I want to thank you," he says, mouth on your ear, "but I need you to show me how. Teach me where to touch you?"

You suck in a lungful of steam, watching his long, elegant fingers slowly draw little circles on your thighs. "You're going to be walking all the way back with an erection."

"But you would like that," he accuses, entirely correct, "watching me walk back while so fucking hard I may start crying."

You believe you will, realizing that the idea of him trying to keep his fucking shit together while out in public does has some kind of appeal. So you remove yourself from his lap, hauling your body up onto the cool marble floor. Trying to seem enticing, you spread your legs for him, bringing your fingers down to offer up a clearer view of your entrance and clit. Breathing harder, you say, "Remember when we kissed?"

He nods solemnly.

"Similar concept, but here. Use your tongue and mouth."

With reverence, he places a hand on both your thighs, sinking down to his knees. Of all the things you've noticed about him, one of his better qualities is how he's such a fast learner. He kisses your lips as instructed, eyes flickering up to make sure you approve of his actions. When you nod encouragingly, he continues, opening his mouth to start licking at your pussy.

You lean back, pushing your weight onto your hands, lifting up a leg and placing it on his shoulder. "That's good Abel, just like that."

He presses his face further into your slick skin, kissing and sucking on the dark puckered flesh. While his tongue is only slightly rougher than you would have expected, it's not… painfully so, no, it's more like an added texture you didn't know would feel good. Up and down, he licks, capturing a bit of your opening between his teeth and gently pulling, if only to see your reaction.

To help him a little more, you push two of your fingers between your legs, finding your clit. "Here, Abel, lick me here, baby."

The obedient little thing, he does, finding it with ease now that you've directed him. He kisses it with reference, like it's a thing to be worshipped, taking your clit between his lips and sucking. When you hiss with pleasure, his eyes turn elated, like the two of you just shared an intimate secret, and he does it again.

"Fuck, Abel," you gasp, trying to find words of encouragement, "you lick my pussy so good, baby, it's like you were made for me."

"Does that make me your little whore?" He asks, voice thick with arousal.

"That makes you my special little whore," you correct, tucking a flyaway hair behind his ear.

He smiles lazily, pressing his mouth back between your legs, returning to work with more enthusiasm than before, flicking his tongue against your clit. Then, as though mimicking how you had opened him up earlier, he slowly presses a thumb through your slit, rubbing your inner, slick ridges. Fuck, he's a clever little bastard, and by the way you buck in his mouth, he's going to know it, too.

The pressure in your stomach grows, a wave of warm arousal dripping out of your core. Abel licks it all up like a seasoned prostitute, pulling you closer to the edge so gravity shifts your body down. He presses up, mouth and nose grinding up against your clit, now, adding far more pressure than before. You swallow thickly, trying to find the words to praise him, but thoughts start escaping your mind, replaced by pleasure.

"Good," you manage to croak out, "that feels good."

You can feel the smugness emanating off of him from making you speechless, his boldness only growing as you further spiral. As your hips start jerking, your thighs shaking, he continues to eat your pussy like he's a starving animal, the sounds from his open-mouthed sucking driving you positively mad.

It doesn't hit you all at once; instead, your orgasm comes in waves, each more volatile and pleasurable than the last. Abel must have sensed its arrival, locking his arms around your hips to hold you in place as you buck into his mouth. Nor does he deem you worthy of mercy, either, showing you every amount of vigor and determination you offered him barely hours before.

When you've ground it out, only plagued by a few aftershocks, he pulls away, a long trail of saliva and cum connecting his mouth to your core. And he smiles, he smiles, heaving for breath, lips flushed and swollen.

Slowly, you slide back into the water, legs weak and still shaking, right onto his lap. True to your prediction, he's hard, cock upright in the water, but he doesn't seem too bothered as you straddle his waist. You kiss him, taking things nice and slow, tasting the scented oils and sulfuric water along with your pleasure on his tongue.

"Did I do good?" He asks, digging for more praise.

But you give it to him, he deserves it after this kind of day. "Yes, Abel, you ate my pussy like a fucking slut."

His breathing quickens in excitement.

"I don't think the whores down in the red district could eat me out like that, and you did it on your first try." You pet the side of his face, running your fingertips over his pointed ears. "My clever, sweet little prince."

He nuzzles his face between your breast as you play with one of his braids.

"I think I'm going to keep you," you muse aloud, "would you like that? Would you like to be my bedmate from now on?"

His throat bobs as he swallows thickly. "Yes."

"Good," you whisper, tracing the path of his spine, "I think I can buy you that glass dildo, after all."

#fae/reader #asrai/reader #exophilia #monster boyfriend #water fae

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82mkl · 3 years

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pretty sure (lee jeno)

lowercase intended. not proofread.

note: okay when i said i had a lot of drabbles, i mean two... lmao. i have other writings here but these are series, but i want to post it once i finish writing the whole thing or even half of it, so updates wont be slow. i have three pending writings tho might write it later. im open for requests now, but dont expect for fast updates, but i’ll try my best to do it (except smut).

“jeno is over there, go say hi,” jennie nudges my arm. “are you kidding me? no way!” i roll my eyes as we walk the hallway. you see, lee jeno has been your crush for about two years now, but you never shoot your shot. how could you? he’s the school’s ‘it boy’ as what they would call him. he also had a reputation of ignoring every girl that would confess to him. why would you even risk not ever speaking to him again even though you never had a conversation— well maybe except for that one time he accidentally spilled his soda on you.

“oh my god, i’m so sorry,” jeno says, immediately taking his jacket off and handing it to you. “it’s fine. no need for that,” you tell him, trying not to stutter, trying your best not to look at him. “it’s fine, take it,” you look at him and here he is giving you the puppy eyes. oh god, why is he so beautiful? “it’s fine. i’ll just go home, it’s 5 minutes away from here anyway.” before you could walk away, you hear him talk, “i’m really sorry, y/n!” he knows your name. the lee jeno knows your name. you chuckle, and looked at his soda bottle, “you should probably not drink soda this early morning though, it’s bad for you,” your eyes widen at what you just said. you quickly look at him and he has this confused look on his face, so you immediately left— you messed up.

“come on! just wave at him,” jennie teases. “he probably thinks i’m some weird girl, no way!” “jesus, have some courage y/n!” yeri tells you. you look at jeno one last time— maybe you stared a little, and he catches you doing so. you panicked and just gave him a wave. you notice his group of friends laughing at him when they see you, so you hurried out the hallway. fuck. his group knows you like him. you’re pretty sure they do.

“so, ms. soda girl waved at you,” haechan teases. jeno rolls his eyes, “shut up, donghyuck.” “why don’t you just go talk to her?” jaemin asks. “i spilled soda over her at six in the morning, she hates me, i’m pretty sure she does,” jeno tells them. “you should have walked her home and offered to grab some lunch. you missed a great opportunity,” haechan tells him. “for a pretty smart student like you, you are so slow when it comes to love. how long have you liked her again?” renjun asks. 4 years. it’s been four years since he liked you, and he messed it up. he’s pretty sure you will never reciprocate his feelings now. heck, you probably might not even want to talk to him— look at how you hurried out the hallway. he’s pretty sure you hate him.

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haikyuuuuuhypeeeee · 3 years

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Ch. Eight

⚠WARNING: Slight mention of unhealthy coping mechanism.

• ────── ✾ ────── •

You push open the door to the face, the heat from inside warming your cold hands. You walk up to the counter and greet the barista with a smile.

“One jasmine tea and one black coffee please.”

You pay and move so the next customer can order. You scan the cafe, immediately finding Osamu in the same corner he’s always in. As you approach he looks up from the book he’s reading and gives you a sleepy smile.

“Heya, how’re ya doin’?”

You smile but inwardly frown as you take in the darker than normal bags under his eyes and the coffee cups littered on the table. “I’m alright. Were you able to get any sleep last night?”

He gives you a small smile and shrugs his shoulders. The movement is sluggish and you can’t help but tsk.

“Osamu,” you chide quietly.

“Well now ya know my secret,” Osamu replies. He yawns hugely before continuing. “It’s been a few days since I’ve slept so I know I’m due for a crash soon.”

You frown at him as you remove your jacket. “It’s not healthy for you.” He doesn’t respond, save for looking up from his seat with a sleepy smile. You can’t help but feel a smile tug at your lips. “I shouldn’t indulge you but I ordered you a coffee when I came in, let me go grab it.”

“Yer a saint.” You hear behind you. You’re glad you’re facing away from him as you feel a slight blush take over your face. Your tea and his coffee is waiting on the counter for you, the barista giving you an extra smile before you walk back. Osamu’s watching you return to your table, the same dopey look on his face. As sweet and docile as he looks you can’t help the twinge of guilt that shoots through you. Sure he claims he doesn’t sleep but he also stayed up late to talk to you last night and was there for you when you needed someone. So his current state can 100% be blamed on you.

“It’s the least I could do.” You say as you set your cups down and sit. “You’ve bought me tea before, and you helped me last night.”

Osamu waves his hand while sucking down his coffee. You shake your head at his dismissal but don’t bring it up again. You two sit in silence, enjoying each other's company and the atmosphere of the cafe. You steal a few glances at your friend, examining his face as close as you can without staring. Now that you know he chooses sleep deprivation to help with his problems you can’t believe you didn’t notice how tired he actually looks. He’s hid it well these past few weeks, and that makes your heart clench painfully.

You notice he has a tuft of hair sticking up in the back. It honestly looks adorable but you motion to his head so he can fix it.

“Your hair is sticking up weird.”

At the blank confusion on his face you lean forward to try and help him. “Here, just,” you bring your fingers to his grey locks. His hair is smooth and soft, surprising you. You shake your head and focus on fixing the one stubborn bit of hair that refuses to go down.

Once it does, you run your hand through his hair a few times, attempting to capture a relaxed, windswept look. In your motions you glance at Osamu’s face.

He’s watching you, wide-eyed and seemingly frozen to his seat. His expression makes you falter, your hand resting in his hair. Imperceptibly, and if you had to bet without his doing, his head leans into your touch. It’s your turn to freeze but only for a second before you sweep through his hair one last time and retract your hand.

Why did I do that? Your face feels hot as you quickly bring your hand to your tea and take a hasty sip. Why the heck did I just do that? You swallow the tea and gently set it down before chancing a glance at Osamu. He’s looking out the window of the cafe, but you can spot the blush on his cheeks.

It makes you blush even more and you take another sip to try and calm down.

“So,” Osamu finally says. “You said you had a group therapy session yesterday, right?”

You nod, eagerly taking advantage of the change in topic. “Yeah, it’s something that one of my friend’s therapist told him about. We’ve been going for about three months now. It’s specific for people who’ve lost those who were like family, but I know people who’ve lost relatives are welcome.”

“Hm,” Osamu hums in reply. “Well I might look into taggin’ along one day.”

“That’d be great! It’s helped me and my friends talk through our problems with other people, and it’s helped us communicate with each other as well. My own therapist said it was a good idea too. I can’t imagine your therapist wouldn’t say the same.”

At that Osamu scoffs. “I don’t have a therapist.”

You tilt your head. “What? I thought you said something about your therapist when we first met?” You know he certainly did.

“Oh, that was my therapist back home. But he was crazy, he was always trying to push me into havin’ an emotional release. And when I told him to stop he didn’t.” Osamu rolls his eyes. “Plus I didn’t think it was helpin’ me all that much. So I haven’t found one since movin’ to Sendai.”

“Oh.” You really didn’t know how to respond to Osamu’s cynical explanation. You couldn’t fathom the idea of not seeing your therapist and having that professional outlet to help you. Not only did your therapist offer explanations for your feelings and insight, she’s also kind and generous. Your sessions are a safe place where you can grieve properly and feel no shame.

Hearing Osamu speak bluntly about his less than ideal experience with his therapist back home and his now negative opinion on therapy in general doesn’t sit right with you, but you don’t feel comfortable trying to get him to change his mind.

“So how far away is home?” You ask, changing the subject again. You think it's a safer topic but Osamu furrows his eyebrows.

“Hyogo.” He answers shortly.

“Wow, that’s far right?”

He nods. “Sendai U is a good school and I needed a change of scenery.” His replies are clipped and he doesn’t meet your gaze. You sense his uncomfortableness.

“Was it hard moving away? Are you lonely?”

Osamu pauses in bringing his coffee cup to his mouth. He looks over the rim at you appraisingly.

“Nah,” he says. He takes a sip and sets the cup down. WHen he swallows he gives you a friendly smile. “Not so lonely anymore.”

The soft gaze aimed your way sends your heart into overdrive. Another blush threatens to overtake your face and you have to look away.

You don’t miss the satisfied smirk that touches Osaumu’s lips and you feel your blush deepen.

• ────── ✾ ────── •

A/N: After that last chapter Y/N NEEDS some tender comfort from Osamu....and it looks like someone is catching some feelings!!! It still seems like there's a bit of mystery around the guy still but it looks like things are progressing nicely for Y/N and Osamu.

I want to mention that opinions about therapy and coping mechanisms in this story are my strictly my own. I am not the leading authority on seeking treatment for any mental health or physical health reasons. In this story Y/N is proponent for seeking help for mental health, but Y/N is not a doctor either. This is a fictional story, and if you are reading this unsure of whether or not you need to seek help, please consult a doctor or someone you trust.

And after that last chapter I threw in some Makki and Mattsun crack because I love them and my petition for them to adopt me is still pending. :/ And we're just gonna ignore Oikawa for now kthxbi.

Thank you so much for reading - I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far!

Taglist Open! Please send an Ask with the request to be added to It’s [Not] Okay Fic & SMAU: @psycho-nightrose @camcam1617 @kamalymaly @toobsessedsstuff @shookykookie30 @roro-707 @qualitygiantshoepsychic @cerealfrdinner797 @ara-mitsue @gray-444 @tanakasimpcorner @rintarovibes @jellien @everytimeswift @bongofrito @babucrow

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natromanxoff · 3 years

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Queen live at Forest National in Brussels, Belgium - August 24, 1984

Some parts of the Hammer To Fall promo video were filmed during this show - the camera was filming the audience reactions during TYMD, Radio Ga Ga and Hammer To Fall. On the next day 20 fans from the Dutch fan club were invited to come again to the filming of the promo video.

At the gig, the band asked the audience to return the following day for the shoot. However, most likely assuming it was all a joke, the vast majority stayed away; in fact only a dozen fans turned up. Undeterred, the shoot went ahead anyway, with the band's performance that day interspersed with footage shot the previous night.

(x)

This is the first show of The Works tour.

According to the July '89 issue of Record Collector, Queen ran through about 40 songs during rehearsals. This list of songs rehearsed that didn't end up in the setlist comes from someone who worked on the tour:

Great King Rat (longer version), Brighton Rock (full song), I'm In Love With My Car, Sweet Lady, White Man, We Will Rock You (fast), Play The Game, Need Your Loving Tonight, Put Out The Fire, Las Palabras de Amor, Life Is Real (both Freddie solo piano and Freddie/Brian acoustic duet versions)

The keyboardist for this tour (and also the '86 Magic tour) is session musician Spike Edney. He would also lend some vocals to many songs and play rhythm guitar in Hammer To Fall. He and Roger Taylor would form a band called "The Cross" in 1987 which spawned three albums, and he would return to Queen in the 21st century to play on the tours with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.

Spike was recruited in a very informal way by a Queen associate. He went to Munich for their first rehearsal in early August, wound up partying for most of the first night, and missed the first day's rehearsal. It later transpired that everyone else had. He recalls, "The next day, we all managed to get to it eventually, to the first rehearsal, and all the gear was set up. The stage was huge, and I thought "Oh well, here we go then" and we got to the first song , and what I'd forgotten was that they hadn't actually played together for two years. So they said, OK, let's try one of the new songs, I think it was Radio Ga Ga, and we started playing it, and course, I knew it, I'd been studying it for weeks. You know, 1,2,3,4 and we start and we get about a minute into the song and the whole thing collapses. And they all look at each other, you know, very sheepishly, and they say, "Anyone know how it goes?" and I say "well, actually, I know. I know how it goes" and they said "Ah". And so I started showing them the chords and everything and Fred looked at me and said "You don't know the words, do you?" and "Well, yeah I do actually" so then they all came round the piano and we spent the whole day just going through songs, and I thought, "I'm gonna be all right here, this'll be OK"!"

The show started very late, as the band were still doing soundcheck when they were supposed to go on. Apparently over the previous week there were few occasions when all four band members actually showed up for rehearsal. Many songs (likely those listed above) never made the setlist, and soundcheck was an extensive cramming session, particularly for the older material that they hadn't played in years.

Roger Taylor later reflected that this European tour was one of his favourites, and many fans cite the early Works setlist as their favourite ever played by the band. Three medleys are now played, two of which have revived many old songs: Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Stone Cold Crazy and Great King Rat. Staying Power from Hot Space returns to the set, as does Sheer Heart Attack from News Of The World. Only half of Staying Power is played, and it runs into Dragon Attack, followed by an improvisation running into a more compact version of Now I'm Here compared to previous tours.

Many people who attended shows on this tour recall Queen having a very heavy sound, especially on songs like Liar and Stone Cold Crazy. By 1984 they had gained a reputation as being one of the best live rock acts in the business.

Six songs from The Works are performed each night, and the introduction tape is from the album track "Machines". After the heavy G chords are heard on the tape twice, the band walk on stage in the darkness to play the chords the third time, which leads into the brand new "Tear It Up". This is yet another effective opening to a Queen show, something they would perfect time and time again.

I Want To Break Free is performed each night in 1984-85 as the first encore, with Freddie coming on stage sporting a pair of huge plastic breasts under a pink shirt. Part way through the song, he would remove the breasts and twirl them around for a while before finally throwing them into the audience. Some souvenir! As a result of this gag, Another One Bites The Dust has been moved from the encore to be earlier in the set.

This tour showcases an incredible lighting rig and an overall setup mimics the movie Metropolis, from which scenes were used for the promo video of Radio Ga Ga last year. The huge wheels behind the stage (modelled after the ones on The Works album cover) rotate at mostly random times - usually because they are turned manually by various crew members such as Roger's tech Chris "Crystal" Taylor whenever they have a free moment (Freddie Mercury's assistant Peter Freestone told the tale in 2021):

“Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters…”

However, a crew member who worked on the tour recalls otherwise: "I do know local crew members were used on the UK shows and certainly (a number of) European gigs. The other thing is that Radio Ga Ga had a set piece with the cogs and lighting, using low ambient lighting and strobes to emphasise mechanical motion of the cogs during the instrumental break. Would Roger Taylor be happy with no one covering him/his kit during a show? Possibly Peter Freestone is remembering production rehearsals when any spare bodies might have been asked to operate the cogs?"

During vocal improvisations on this tour, Freddie would often include bits of "Foolin' Around" and "Living On My Own" from his pending first solo album, which he had been working on during this period.

Freddie now plays a Telecaster for Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It would remain like this through the Magic tour.

The band no longer bring a gong with them on the road. Roger now does a cymbal roll at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody.

A fan recalls hearing the band running through Tear It Up whilst queuing up to enter the venue.

Freddie's voice is in superb shape for this show, but it will quickly weaken as the tour progresses. As incredible as Freddie Mercury was, he certainly did not take care of his voice at times, especially in the mid-80s. After a couple years of heavy smoking, Freddie's voice now sounds a lot deeper and raspier overall.

Before It's A Hard Life, Freddie says, "I think tonight we're gonna do songs from just about every album that we've ever made. You heard some very early stuff from the first album. Right now I think we're gonna do something very new, and we'll see what you think of it."

Freddie does a vocal exchange with the audience before Staying Power, singing "Get Down Make Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin" a few times. The band would improvise bits of the latter a couple times in 1986.

This is the only show on the entire Works tour where Roger plays regular acoustic drums on Another One Bites The Dust (before which Freddie teases the audience with a bit of Mustapha). For the rest of the tour, he'd play electronic drums. He'd also integrate the electronic drum kit into a few other songs, like at the beginning of Hammer To Fall, where one might argue that his sounds don't appropriately complement the guitar to create the intense, heavy sound.

The band sound very tight on this opening night of the tour, with the only exception being the rough transition from Stone Cold Crazy to Great King Rat. The keyboard and guitar solos are integrated together for the first few shows of the tour, during which Brian plays a few bits from Machines. Spike Edney uses his vocoder (a Roland VP-330) for the "machines" and "back to humans" lines heard throughout the tour during this spot (he would use his vocoder for the "radio" lines in Radio Ga Ga as well). After this segment, Brian then gets a few minutes to play on his own as usual.

Parts of the promo video for Hammer To Fall were filmed during this show. Claims from some (even official) sources state that Freddie invited the audience back for (what would actually be "additional") filming the following day aren't true. Here is all that Freddie had to say before the song: "This next song we're gonna use in our next video. So everybody just go mad and maybe later you'll see one of you guys inside the video one day. Oh, just go crazy, take your clothes off. It's called Hammer To Fall." After the song, he simply says, "Good night, you guys!" as that was the last song of the set.

Here is a fan's recollection: "On the night of the gig, there was a camera mounted on an arm that would swing over the front rows of the audience during a few songs. These audience shots were taken during Tie Your Mother Down, Radio Ga Ga, and Hammer To Fall itself. I guess they also had a camera up in the box at the back of the hall [as there are a few shots of both the audience and the band]. I don't remember any cameras onstage during the gig - just the one mounted on the arm."

The Dutch fan club invited only about twenty of its members to attend the video shoot the next day. They were instructed by a roadie to sit quietly on a chair and not to move or approach the band members. After a few hours, Brian came over and had a chat with them, checking to see if they were enjoying themselves and if they were hungry. He then promptly ordered them some take-out!

A minute of Tie Your Mother Down from this show was later broadcast on the Belgian TV station "RTBF" (x) (x). An audience-shot video allegedly exists as well, containing five songs.

After years of speculation, the existence of more footage from this show was proven when bits of it were included in the promo video for Let Me In Your Heart Again in 2014. About 30 seconds of Somebody To Love (largely crowd shots) were seen. There is, however, no accompanying audio. (x)

The first photo is from the autumn 1984 Queen fan club magazine. Brian is seen with a watchful eye over the proceedings. Tour manager Gerry Stickells and his wife are also in the shot.

Pics 2 through 6 were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli, and the seventh pic was taken by Dave Matkin.

(x)

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

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