#but it's some terms & conditions agreement | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snenbubs · 7 months

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I've made you all wait too long for this. Its an eeensy weensy bit late, BUT ITS DONE. I present to you;

HB MAMMON X GN!READER NSFW/SMUT

As previously stated, I've done afab terms bcz thats all I really know how to write! Apologies if this isn't to your taste :[

Also this is lowk rlly bad pls dont mind it, if you do like it though feel free to send an ask!! :3

NSFW Under the cut! 18+ Only!

The relationship you had with Mammon wasn't binding. There had been no written agreement, formal signing, or anything of the sorts that dedicated yourself to the demon. Aside from, of course, the one he made you sign when you had agreed to work for him; but that did not cover the basis of what had been on his mind.

No, it didn't even come close to what was on his mind, what made him writhe about idly in his seat. Leg bouncing against the thick leather chair whilst his deep chartreuse eyes glowered in the dark of his office. There he sat, alone, pen to paper as he attempted to sort through the weeks finances. His work was lit by nothing but a small, faulty lamp that flickered on and off unreliably. He'd refused to rid himself of the sickly possesion, claiming over and over again that despite its withered condition, he'd be saving money by keeping it as it was. You'd whine to him about it incessantly, pointing out the bad habit, and how it would ruin his eyes, yet nothing changed. He was a sin, anyways, so it wasn't like reading with a shitty lamp would hurt him, but he enjoyed your attention far too much to tell you that.

It was clear to tell through his demeanour that Mammon was not in the best of moods. With both his upper hands being used as a resting point for his head whilst one of his lower hands absently scrawled a pen across an endless mound of paperwork. As previously noted, however, he wasn't quite there. Practically on auto-pilot, his thoughts swirled and stormed and crashed against one another. All of his bubbling emotions however, all of his regret, and rage, and worry, surrounded one singular person: you.

You were Mammon's star. His favourite. A talented clown who not only brought him tons of revenue, but also, the only clown who actually enjoyed his shitty personality. You thought he was funny, and actively sought out his company, so it didn't take long to climb your way up the pedestal. It took even less time for things between the two of you to become more... intimate.

Which was why he was so pissed off.

Part of why, anyways.

As one of his most talented performers it wasn't unusual for venues outside of the Greed ring to request a show. Often, these high class clubs, or restaurants, would pay high fees for a glimpse of his most sought after clowns. He could never refuse these offers, after all, money was money and he was the King of Greed. So, when an offer came through from a small, upcoming club in the Lust ring, who was willing to offer a big sum of cash for a glimpse of his stars presence, including transport and accommodation, how could he say no?

Well. He'd sure learn to say no. He'd have to hold some sort restraint, when it came to you at least, and not throw you off into the midst of the clawy, grabby hands of your fans. Especially, those of Lusts origins. He wanted to throttle Asmodeus for creating such blatantly horny demons that they'd flirt and coo with any living thing, disregarding just who they may piss off in the process.

And oh, was he pissed off;

It had all occured the night before.

You were so pretty, adorned in a pristine clown outfit - which had been specially catered to Mammon's likeness. You were eager to head to head to the performance, and Mammon, keener to make a bank from your fans, waited by your side to bid you a farewell. A specialty he reserved for only you.

But, as the sleek black limousine pulled to a halt outside of his large manor, regret seemed to bubble deep within his chest. A tight, sour feeling, of disgust welled as he watched that god-awful incubus offer his hand to you. Mammon caught the way that demons eyes raked your body, filled with lust, he caught the way the demons hands lingered over yours, the sly glances he threw your way and the way he spoke in such a flirtatious tone.

What was even worse, was that you were aware of such advances, and didn't do anything to stop them!

He had no right to be feeling the way he was. You weren't his to keep or control. That he knew. Yet, adressing the wrongness of his burning anger did nothing to quell it. If anything it made it worse, because now he felt like a shitty person.

Four fingers raked across his desk with anticipation. The cold touch of wood beneath his gloved fingertips a good enough distraction from his overwhelming thoughts.

At this point, the once towering pile of clean, straightened papers that had sat beside him had moved across the desk. Now painted with his sigil and signature, creating contracts that would bind demons to him eternally. He'd be sure to regret not reading through them first later, which would just be another thing to add to his growing plate of mistakes. Right now however, he was nearing the end of his workload and was desperate to call it quits. He pressed his head further into his own palms as he continually signed his name onto paper, after paper, after paper.

Reasonably, he was upset, when three coordinated knocks rapped against the large mahogany doors which sealed his office away from the rest of his manor. He recognised the concentric nature of the knock to be that of one of his various Fizz-bots, which he had replaced all of his work staff with in the sake of saving money.

Discontented, and desiring to be alone to wallow within his own solitude, Mammon's lips curled into a snarl which showcased his rows of many, many sharp teeth. A god-awful growl reverberated through his throat. He paused his hand, yet he didn't tear his eyes away from his work.

The only issue replacing your servants with robots, is that they didn't know any social cues. Upon hearing his gutteral remark a living demon would certainly back away and give the sin his space. But, the Fizz-bot didn't quite catch onto that, and instead, took the sound as an affirmation.

The doorhandle to Mammon's office was golden, and had been intricately decorated with that of antique design. It's ochre tint glistened prettily against the thinly covered lampshade that flickered at the demons desk. This glistening however was rudely interrupted as the handle began to rattle obnoxiously, twisting a few times whilst whining and croaking in protest before finally giving way and allowing the large door to swing open.

The Fizz-bot strolled in almost too casually for the Royals liking, its lanky limbs loose at its sides. Mammon bore his fangs toward the bot, rising from his seat ready to tear the thing apart bit by bit. He hesitated however, when it spoke out to him;

"(Y/N) has returned." Rasped out its monotonous voice. At its words, Mammon's demeanour calmed, he resisted in attacking the poor bot and instead opted to to glare at it.

"What?" Came his thick Aussie accent, laced with interest as he now decided his work could wait until later. He leaned forward, the tinkling of his bells signalling his movement.

The Fizz-bot stood still for some moments before repeating its original statement; "(Y/N) has returned," it cocked its pale face to the side curiously for some moments. "In the lobby, with limousine driver--"

The poor bot didn't have a chance to finish its sentence. The moment it had mentioned that fucking limousine driver, Mammon had shoved his entire desk to the side and began marching forward. The Fizz-bot, who had been in his way, how decended to the floor in two sparking pieces of metal, fabric and silicone.

He left his office in a flurry, storming down the expansive, winding corridors of his manor with little to no care for the priceless items that lined its corridors. Fizz-bots would have to dive out of his way or else face becoming a mutilated mess such as the one that had unfortunately gone to his office to inform him of your return.

Usually, it took a long while to traverse the halls of his manor, for it was large, and he was never in any rush to be somewhere. Yet, he knew you were alone with that horrible incubus and that alone was enough to make him move faster than he needed to, and so he made it to his location in almost minutes.

The double doors which blocked him from the lobby were thrown open, a loud clang echoing through the grand enterance which signalled his arrival.

The lobby was a fancy room, grand in its size as it was its decor; the opening doors, lined with real gold, were surrounded with authentic stained glass, depicting Mammon and his... many charitable acts that definitely did happen. Across from the door was a grand staircase, split into two with a balcony at the centre wich looked over entire ensemble. That was where Mammon stood, towering over the room like a king to his subjects, the subjects being you, and that shitty incubus who spoke to you. He watched with narrow eyes, as you laughed at the demons words, clinging to each sentence so endearingly that you hadn't even noticed his overbearing presence. Mammon liked the way you looked when you laughed, and he found that the demon you were offering such a look to was not worthy of laying his gaze on such a sight.

Bolts of lightning surrounded his figure, glooms of green began to seep the surface of the balcony and in the blink of an eye Mammon had been enveloped in a cloud of flashing sage and jade, dissapating from the balcony and reforming in another flared pall.

"(N/N)!" His voice cooed out, tone now sweeter than before as be put forth a joyous persona as to not give way the fact that he had been brooding over this situation just moments beforehand. "How is my favourite clown doing this fine afternoon? Did the show go well? I bet it did, people love you!"

You cast your cheery gaze onto Mammon, now distracted from the limousine guy as the tall green Sin slung an arm across your shoulder, practically draping his body across yours.

"Oh, Mammon! Yes, it did go well." You adressed him accordinly, a wide smile etched into your lips which gave-way the results of your performance which had happened the night before. "Actually, we we're just-"

"We we're just talking about how they should totally come back and perform for us again."

You had been cut off by a sultry, breathy voice, that of the incubus who was stood opposite with a cocky grin across his sharp-toothed face. Mammon was not pleased with the demons interruption, and, by the way your smile faltered, threatening to slip to that of a frown, he could tell you were not pleased either.

"Hi, my name is--"

"I don't care." Mammon clipped back at the demon, happy-go-lucky persona now melding to that of his buried anger. He gave the guy a snarled expression, unhappy with his disrespect toward Mammon's sinfulness.

The incubus' brow furrowed, eyes clocking into a look of confusion. "Okay... rude much," He placed a hand on his hip, "As I was saying..."

Mammon took his arm away from your figure, not missing the way your body leant into his touch as he retreated. He opted instead to pull himself up to full height, glaring down at the demon dangerously. It was at this point the incubus began to cower backward, tail between his legs with knees threatening to buckle underneath his own weight. Mammon growled again, this time louder;

"They will not be going back to that shit-hole of a joint, d'ya hear me?" He leant in closer to the demon, who was now nodding his head profusely in complete understanding to the bigger, more powerful demons commands. Mammon remained quiet for a few moments, before huffing. "You can fuck right off, I don't like you. Get back to your limousine, cunt."

He didn't have to tell the incubus a second time, for the second he finished his utterance the pink-ish skinned creature was scurrying backward as fast as his hooved feet could take him.

As he watched the demon leave, Mammon hesitated for a moment, afraid to turn around and meet your gaze. He had... vastly, overreacted to a situation that could have been handled with ease. Yet it just pissed Mammon off how the fuckwad, so full of himself, never gave you a moment to preach.

The Sin stood languidly for a few moments, before a huff of relief soundes from behind him. He turned his head to gaze at you, watching as you chuckled nervously, fret filling your stance. He was unsure of what to say.

"Oh my god," You began, deciding after a moments silence between the two of you to plafe your input. "I'm so glad he's gone, he was so invasive, and annoying." You made a gagging motion, hoping to put a smile onto the big jesters face.

Clearly, it worked, his first gaze softened on your form before morphing into that of a big, charming grin. "Right?" He cackled, striding over to your side once more to place a hand atop of your head, roughing you up cheekily. "Honestly, I felt so bad leavin' you with him yesterday, worried you'd kill yourself from boredom." It was a complete lie, but he wasn't about to let you know he had convinced himself you wanted to fuck the demon, and had let himself get all pissy over it.

"God, I thought I was too." You rolled your eyes at the memory, having to sit in the small limousine for a whole ride through the Greed ring, with an elevator stop, then another ride through the Lust ring, all while he yapped on about how cool he was. You shuddered.

"I'll do another show there, though, the audience was great. I'll get one of the Fizz-bots to sort it out." You yawned as you spoke, tiredly rubbing a fist against an eye. You began to head to the grand staircase, intent to head to your luxurious room and collapse against the plush bed Mammon had bought specially for you.

The great Sin followed behind close at your heel, so omnipotent that his shadow cast over you ominously. "Well actually," He began, tone now turning to that of something more formal. You knew that voice all too well, he was about to push forth a business proposal. "I don't think you should do shows in Lust anymore."

At first, you were ready to groan. To shun him out and tell him that his ideas could wait until the morning. However, his words brought you to a firm halt, stood still half-way up the golden lined staircase. You turned to face the jester with a cocked brow, expression not near enough to showcase the confusion you felt, which was only pushed further once you saw the state Mammon was in: fidgety, and odd. He wrung his top set of gloved hands together, and occupied the bottom two with the fabrics of his clothes. He kept his gaze low. From this, you could gather no source of his intent, only that he was anxious. A state you had only seen of him once or twice in all the years you had worked under his watchful eye.

"But Lust is where I get most of my revinue from," With a soft, lighthearted tone you chose to remind Mammon of your worth, mentally praying that he was not firing you, and instead had a secret promotion up his well decorated sleeve. "If I stop doing shows there I'll be one of your least sought after clowns."

Mammon felt your cold, petrifying gaze on his figure. He lifted his gaze from the floor, but rather than looking at you, he directed it somewhere else - across the room, where a rather interesting portrait of he and Lucifer sat. "Well, it's always good for a change once in a while, aye? Besides, you're a star, (N/N). No matter the ring."

You continued to gaze at him narrowly. "I don't... understand?" Was all you could seemingly muster out.

Once more, Mammon remained silent, hesitating to speak the truth. "I just, don't think you should do shows there 'nymore. I don't like the way they treat you." He twiddled his fingers together idly.

You took a moment to process what he had said, mind running amock with the thoughts of why he was making such a rash decision; he didn't appear to be firing you, simply moving where you performed your shows. It was an unnecessary edit, all because he 'didn't like the way they treated you'? You considered the phrase for some time, before it finally clicked in your head. Once it had, a wide, sly smile spread across your cheeks.

"Oh, really, why?" You spoke coyly, lowering your lids provocatively as you lowered yourself a step closer to Mammon so that the space between the two of you had been eliminated completely. "I don't mind the way they treat me."

He gazed down at you unblinkingly. "Well I don't, and my word is final-"

"Why~?" You cocked your head to the side, smirk only growing in size as he stuttered backward on his words. Letting out a faux gasp, you continued; "Oh, Mam, you aren't... jealous, are you?"

His face flushed, a dead give-away to his true feelings. Your smirk only widened at this. "N--No, I'm not, it just makes me uncomfortable, how much they wanna fuck you-"

You let out a sarcastic chortle, placing a hand to your chest. "You so fucking are! You're jealous!"

Mammon remained quiet on the matter, keeping his head turned away as to not face embarassment of admitting to such a defeat. He was jealous, he was so fucking jealous, ever since he had watched you leave that night beforehand it had burnt deep within the pits of his core, every inch of scathing grump he had boiled down to work stress was because of you. He huffed. His refusal to answer was enough in itself, and so, you chose to now offer a hand of rapport and sympathy;

"If its any consolation," You started, now averting your gaze from his larger form. A show of embarassment, as your cheeks flushed hottly. Mammon, through the corner of his eye, caught onto this. It interested him greatly. "I couldn't stop thinking about you last night."

Now he looked at you. "Really?" Came a rushed response, he was surprised at his own eagerness to hear such input. This, of course, was a state he had been reduced to many a time. Desperately greedy for the attention you were willing to offer him.

"Yeah," You started once more. Though your gaze was not on him, you could sense his close presence, evading your space as each second passed. Not that you minded, his warm figure had always been a guilty pleasure. "I don't like being alone, you know that. I missed you, I wished you could have been there."

It was no surprise that when you returned to look at him, you found his face only inches away from yours. His hot breath fanned against your face in bursts, and you had to resist the urge to lean forward and plant a sweet kiss to his lips.

It was his turn to be cocky now, with eyelids coated in thick eyeliner lowered egotistically. "That why you're here so early, aye? Wanted to see me?" His eyes motioned to a large, fancybclock which sat against the wall at the very top of the grand staircase, it tattled of your earliness; three hours early to be exact, you had been eager to see Mammon.

"I want more than that." You pressed your forehead against his, sly smirk now returning as you regained some semblance of confidence.

For a moment, the two of you stood, head-to-head, pressed closely together as you basked in the comfort of each others presence. Eventually, however, Mammon retracted himself, standing at full height and grinning evilly at the whine you let out at the loss of contact.

"And what is it you want from me, (N/N)?" You wanted to murder the bastard for his overgrown confidence, stood below him with your arms crossed over your chest and cheeks puffed out angstily. He wanted you to say it outright. He always did; he wanted you to profess how badly you wanted and needed him. Stroke his ego and reap the rewards.

With a short blow of air from your nostrils, you caved in. Deciding that if it meant getting to be shoved hard into a mattress for the evening then you could deal with his arrogance in the morning.

"Mammon," You cooed out softly. You took a moment to bend your knees, and jump up onto him. He caught you in his arms reflexively, holding you close to him allowing you to lean close to his ear. "I want you, to fuck me."

And you didn't have to tell him twice.

The tinkling of bells was all that could be heard echoing through the halls of Mammon's large, lonely manor. He held you close in his arms, and moved quickly. Quicker than you had seen him move that one time one of his Fizz-bots had dropped a bag of money on the street. There were so many deaths.

As previously stated, it would have taken a while to traverse the lond and winding halls of his manor, but, now fixated on a new desire to have you all to himself, he made it to his extravagant bedroom in moments.

His room was large, lined with accents of gold, black and green; at the centre, was your destination. A large bed, fit for that of royalty, with plush sheets and pillows significantly larger than your small Hellborn figure, as they had been made for Mammon, who was taller and more substantial than anything you had ever seen. The bed was lined with curtains of thick green-ish grey webbing, which, as you were thrown to the centre of the bed, concealed you from the rest of the room.

Mammon threw you to the bed almost carelessly, lost in a haze of need. You bounced against the expensive mattress, laying amonst the pillows and such that had been strewn across his bed lazily. The larger demon loomed over you ominously, casting his gaze down upon you and bathing your body in a light chartreuse glow.

"You have no bloody idea how much I hated letting you go off with that fuckin' prick." He almost growled, placing his forehead against yours once more. An act of intimacy you found greatly comforting. A set of his hands found their way to your hips, pulling you closer beneath him so that you were flush to his body.

You let out a soft chuckle, bringing a hand up to flick a bell at the end of his coxcomb. "God," You huffed, now bringing your hands to wrap around his neck. "You're such a big oaf." You we're lucky to be so important to him, otherwise he would have had you punished for such an insult.

Instead, he simply huffed. Content to let you bully him so long as you just stayed so, so close to him. He relished the warmth of your presence for a few moments, simply content to have you with him, but it didn't take long for him to begin craving more.

He brought his lips to yours and pulled you closer toward him, if that was even possible at this point. He keenly pressed hungrily sweet kisses to your mouth, which you returned with an equally as needy fervour. Soon enough, his forked tongue was tangled with that of your own as he took every inch of your mouth as his own. The sides of your hips stung from where Mammon held you, his claws digging into that of your clown costume and probably ruining it for future use. Such a thought was long forgotten however, in the heat of the moment. From how close the demon held you to his body, you could feel the hardened tent in his pants, which only egged you on further.

Cautiously and almost tauntingly, you raised your hips toward his in a slow roll. Grinding against his clothed erection with a pert demeanour.

At the sudden contact, Mammon let out a short whine. His grip against your hips tightened impossibly, using the hold he had on you to unfortunately pull away. His tongue left your mouth with a string of drool, which left you midly grossed out but also extremely turned on.

You frowned; "Hey!" Was all you coulf muster out, a cocky remark to distract yourself from the building heat that had settled between your legs. In all truth, you weren't going to complain for you knew whatever Mammon was to do with you, it would be amazing.

Mammon eyed you up and down, his eyes filled with that of awe and desire. "Enough teasing," He started, finally removing his hands from your hips and instead focussing all four onto the task of undoing your complex clown outfit. "I want that stunner cunt of yours, I've had a rough day."

You let out a short laugh at the demons half assed excuse for being so demanding. "Anything for you, Mam." Was your obedient response, and you took to helping him unfasten the outfit. He was pleased with your compliance, if the grin on his face was anything to go by.

Soon enough, your clothes had been thrown astrew somewhere across the bed, lost in a sea of webbing and you sat in the nude, vulnerable beneath the Sin. You did not shy away however, not like you had the first time you had found yourself in such a situation with Mammon. No. Now you lay confidently in your berth, for you knew he adored you in all your demonic body.

And adore he would do.

With a pair of hands and your hips holding you in place, Mammon brought his second pair to pry your legs apart. An action which you allowed with relative ease. At this point you were an eager mess, biting your lip with anticipation to the sensations he would offer. The burning heat at your very core sparked ebbing embers of need and want which only increased as you watched Mammon lower his head between your legs.

Your hips bucked with anticipation, moving your hands to rest atop of his green coxcomb and gently egg him on. He chuckled darkly at your impatient attitude. It was with that, that he decided to finally ease you of your yearning, and so, with his forked tongue, he licked a long stripe across your enterance.

At the sudden contact, a breathless gasp slipped past your lips. Mammon paused for just a moment to relish in the sound you had let out, a sound he knew only he was able to bring from you.

"Fuck," He growled out, looking up at you from between your legs. A position only you could force him into. "You've got one hell of a cunt, you know that? I could get drunk off of you." The comment made heat rush to the edges of your cheeks, but you did not have long to fawn over his sudden comment for within moments he delved back down between your legs.

You were inclined to believe him when he claimed to get drunk off of you, because Mammon ate like a man starved. With hands gripping at your thighs and hips he had himself pressed flush against you, as far as he could so that he could greedily and hungrily lap at you over and over. You were glad he was a Sin and could not die, for if any normal demon did this you were sure they'd surely suffocate.

With his repititive, almost frantic motions, all you could do was pant and whine, hands gripping his coxcomb so tight your knuckles began to throb with pain. It was different, from being fucked, this brought forth a different kind of rapture; waves of pleasure rolled through your core, you felt a familiar coil bubble through your midriff, tightening and tightening the more Mammon continued.

Mammon took note of each sound you made, listening intently to the ways in which you gasped and mewled beneath him. If he found a sound he liked the most, such as when you'd utter his name in a strangled moan, he'd work twice as hard just to hear you do it again. Plunging his tongue even deeper within you, ravenous for the way you made him feel.

"Oh-- Mammon!" You cried, voice audibly cracking when one of his hands gently caressed across your thigh and moved down to play at your clitoris. Such an action, combined with the etches of his tongue deep within your cavern, tasting and devouring every inch of you for himself pushed the bubbles within your core to the very edge. You pushed his head further down. "I--I'm close.. ah! Please!"

Mammon was not one to deny you of your wishes.

For a moment, he paused his actions. Retracting his tongue slowly to hear the loud growl of protest you'd let out, but, within moments he delved back in; circling your clit with his thumb and fucking you thoroughly with his tongue.

It was this action that pushed you over the very edge, snapping the coil in your core suddenly. You threw your head backward as Mammon fucked you through your orgasm, white clouding your vision whilst waves of pleasure shot through your system. Your legs twitched from overstimulation.

After a few moments, you felt Mammon's long tongue leave your body. You lay dizzily against the bedsheets, lost in a post-sex haze which had you unbearably turned on. Much to your joy however, you soon found Mammon's presence above you once more. His glowing eyes connecting with yours before he leant in for a sloppy kiss, messier than the first one had been, filled with a fervent passion that had grown in the vial of your lust.

Mammon's hands roamed your body, as yours did his. He groped at your sides and waist, holding you close so that you could grind your body against his. Palming the tent in his pants eagerly.

"You're too good for me, you know that, right?" The larger demon grumbled, barely pulling away from your lips as he spoke. So much so that the vibration of his voice hummed into your mouth.

You chittered against him longingly, meekly shaking your head against his. "I'm really not." You griped, rolling your eyes to the side before promptly letting go of his body and letting yourself fall backward into the sheet. "I was made for you.. now... if you would please do me the honours. Fuck me."

At your desperate demand Mammon was quick to action. "Anything you want, darl." He purred with a seductive drawl. The sin towered over you dangerously, leaning down to press loose kisses to your lips, slowly traversing his attention down toward your neck and collarbone. Where he licked and nipped against your skin widly. Desperate to hear the little gasps you'd let out from his dangerous attention.

He brought his hands away from your body, an action you whined against, but ultimately submitted to for you knew he removed his hands to fumble with the his pants, the piece of Fool themed garment that stood between you and getting what you wanted.

Oh, and where you about to get what you wanted.

Mammon brought himself toward you once again, pressing soothing and loving kisses to your lips as he aligned himself with your enternace. You felt the shaft of his cock rub against your slit tauntingly, bringing forth a mewl of pleading nature from your lips. The Prince chuckled darkly at that, which only lead to you pouting against his lips embrace.

Mammon brought a pair of his hands down toward your hips once again, with another one moving upward to intertwine with one of your free hands which were held high above your head. With this position, melded close to his body so that he could nuzzle his head into the crook of your neck, he held you steady and began to sheath himself into you.

Tears bubbled at the corners of your eyes, and you panted harshly. His enterance stung, it always did, he was so much larger compared to you so he had to be careful as to not pain you too much. The demon hushed your silent cries with a cautious nip to your neck, sinking his sharp teeth against your pretty flesh lightly in a weak attempt to subdue your other worries. His tongue flicked across your neck tauntingly, which resulted in a choked moan from your end. Slowly, the stinging which ran through your system melded into that of recreation and your pants of pain turned to pants of pleasure.

He brought his head upward and gazed down at you yearnfully, hands kneading gentle circles into your hips. "Are you ready?" He inquired, voice soft with worry. He kept himself full inside you, concerned that the slightest of movement would hurt you.

You took a second to catch your breath, swallowing thickly before nodding your head at his words. Offering a sly smirk in his direction.

He was slow, at first. Cautious as to how you would take him, he always was. He pulled his girth away from your tight channel all the way, before oncemore pushing himself back inside. Caught in awe at the whines and moans you'd echo outward at each thrust.

He wanted to be easy with you, he really did. He wanted to be nice and slow so that he couldn't possibly hurt you, but, you just kept making such sweet sounds. Chanting his name like a mantra, worshipping him like the God he was. With each thrust you clenched around him tightly, milking waves of pleasure from him each time. He was a greedy, greedy man and he needed all of you at once, everything of you he could have.

He brought his mouth back to yours in an attempt to taste you, letting his tongue explore the wonders of your mouth, but allowing enough space so that you could keep letting out moans and mewls each time he pounded into you.

"You-- aah, you are so, so.." Mammon brought his mouth away from yours for just a moment, trying his hardest to muster up a compliment but was lost in the heat of the moment. He let out a breathless whine, before lowering his head to your neck once more. "You're fuckin' everything."

You tried to respond, to thank him for his kind words or maybe make fun of him for being so sappy. However your words were lost in translation, turning into half-assed sentences amongst whines and gasps, too lost in a cloud of your own hot, burning pleasure to even think about functioning properly.

"M--Mammon.." You mumbled, voice hoarse and raw from all your cries and pleas. You bucked your hips against his, trying to match his unwavering, borderline bruising pace to chase the high that was now building in your core.

The demon lifted his head away from your neck, now locking eyes with you intently. Once again you were basked in a soft green hue, reflecting prettily against your sweat-lined skin, midly coated in the blood from where he had bitten your skin, and bruises from where he had given you hickeys. He grinned devilishly at his work, proud of the ways he had claimed your skin.

Such thoughts seemed to snap something within him, pushing him over the edge. His thrusts grew rapid and desperate, even more so than before. You could feel a coil building in your core again, and he could tell you were just as close as he was from the way you clenched around him so tightly.

"I'm so- o--oh! I'm gonna.." You whined out your state to Mammon, urging him to keep at his needy pace.

Pleasure rolled through your system, burning your whole body overwhelmingly and tightening progressively. It bubbled under your skin before finally, as Mammon's thrusts grew irate, snapping. Your orgasm rocked your body almost painfully, leaving you limp and shaking, cunt clenching around him as he grew sloppy and lazy. Mammon whined needily as he spilt his cum inside you, grip against your hips and hand tightening and loosening unpredictably.

There was a silent few seconds where you and Mammon simply stared at each other. Bodies still melded together in a spent, wheezing heap of fucked out demons.

You cocked your head to the side with a sly grin, leaning up to place a sweet kiss to the corner of his cheek. "So, you wanted to talk about my shows in Lust?"

Mammon groaned. His eyes rolling to the side sarcastically before he lowered his head to rest against your chest. Nuzzling into you softly. You brought a hand up to pet the top of his head lovingly.

"I think we need to add some things to your work contract."

#helluva boss x reader #mammon hb x reader #mammon hb #i need him so bad #helluva boss x reader smut #mammon hb x reader smut #i love him #lowk shitty but isnt it cool #mammon is so ooc #but its okayv #because i love hin

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yaekiss · 9 months

Note

#Mailroom Open!　─ Hello Qi! I hope I am able to get this letter in before the cutoff 😖 May I send a love letter to yan!Jing Yuan, and have him address a Foxian!reader w gn nicknames?

\\\______\\\\________\\\

To my dearest Scoundrel,

You are quite the terrible influence my dear general, are you aware of this? How am I supposed to resolve this trade agreement with our fellow Xianzhou flagships in a timely manner, when you have more or less conditioned me to take naps during most hours of the day?

Truly despicable of you really. And on top of that, your "parting gifts" you left on me are still very tender; very distracting from my work. Efficiency and diligence, I fear will be strangers to me during this trip.

Regardless, I hope you are doing well and are not causing to much trouble for the commission during my absence. (Please try to not stress Fu Xian too much, I don't need further distractions from her blowing up my phone because of your shenanigans.) Maybe if you are on your best behavior, I might even give you a reward. Perhaps even something of your choosing if you are especially well behaved~.

Before I sign off and leave you to return to my work, I have sealed a gift for you. Consider it...my own unique "parting gift" to you until I return to you. Which I know in our vast lifespans will be over before you know it my beloved.

-Sincerely, your sleepy vixen

(Enclosed in a small red and gold box, is a simple blue collar with golden accents and filigree with a note that says "wear it until I come back ;)" )

꩜ Letter Content: Dom! GN! Reader x Yan! Sub! Jing Yuan, no gendered terms for reader, Jing Yuan calls you "my tranquility", unhealthy obsessive relationship from Jing Yuan, lightly implied drugging, mentions of reader topping and edging Jing Yuan, quick mention of biting and blood, lmk if I missed out anything ! ꩜ Delivery Notes: You have quite the roster of guards at the door of your hotel room huh? Looks like nothing's going to slip past them if they were chosen by Jing Yuan himself! ꩜ Wanna write a love letter yourself? Check out it out here!

As you return to your temporary quarters after sitting through a particularly arduous trade meeting, you’re alerted by your guards assigned to you (by none other than Jing Yuan) about a suspicious delivery left for you while you were away.

Inspecting the box, a laugh escapes you when you catch the ink paw prints of a lion stamped haphazardly on both sides of it. After explaining that this was a personal delivery from the Xianzhou Luofu’s Dozing General, it seemed to dissolve any remaining apprehension your guards had and they handed the box over to you. Thanking them for dutifully carrying out their work, you step into your room.

Your room is spacious, ridiculously so. Why would one person need such a massive room for themselves? It’s the kind that only a general could manage to procure. The open sliding window leads to a balcony that showcases the bustling lively environment of the streets below and a cool evening breeze fills the room. Settling down on the edge of the bed, you set the box in your lap.

Upon opening up your delivery, it seems that Jing Yuan had prepared a pair of gifts in return for you. The first of two is an intricate small glass spray bottle set within a satin-lined box. The small tag tied around it says, “Some of the fragrance that I often use. For you to spray on your pillows when you sleep. :3”

Spritzing a fine mist onto your wrist, the scent of your lover wafts from the area; not too strong such that it’s unpleasant for your keen sense of smell, nor too faint that it’s hard for you to pick up. The fragrance is soothing and familiar, a thoughtful gift that will no doubt improve the quality of your sleep, as evident from the yawn it draws out from you.

The second gift you retrieve from the box is a soft sleep mask in your favourite colour. Sliding it over your eyes, you find that the fabric is smooth against your skin and the mask manages to completely block out all light, fully blacking out everything. The elastic strap isn’t overly tight but secure enough that it ensures that the mask doesn’t slip off too easily. Perfect for tossing and turning.

Finally, laid at the bottom of the box, is the reply from Jing Yuan, concealed in an elegant envelope. The quality is top-notch and flawless, and it’s sealed securely. Running your hand over the envelope, you feel the crest of the Cloud Knights embossed lightly on the surface. You break the seal and remove the letter contained within.

His handwriting is steady and dignified, each and every brushstroke on the page graceful. At the end of his letter, is his own name seal, stamped in red ink. Jing Yuan’s reply reads:

“For my dreamlike haven,

My apologies, it seems that Mimi got its paws on the box while I was out of my office and left a couple of paw prints on the sides. Sigh, you should’ve seen how much ink I had to clean off the surfaces, truly troublesome. Perhaps it knew that the box was meant for you and wished to leave something for you as well, haha!

I have to admit, Mimi is not the only one missing you, my tranquility. I find myself looking over to my side to ask for your wise input on things, only to realise that you’re away. Fu Xuan laughs at me whenever I do this. :(

It's just not the same to take afternoon naps without you by my side. Nothing is as comforting as your warmth in my arms, or for me to jokingly complain about the tips of your furry ears tickling my nose when we cuddle together. My slumbers are no longer restful when I can’t spend them with you, my tranquility.

The things I would do to have you next to me again. Are the marks and scratches I left on you still visible, my tranquility? Judging by how the ones you left on me are fading, I assume my parting gifts left on you are doing the same. Would you let me mark you up again, and won’t you extend the same generosity to me too? I yearn for your searing touch, my tranquility, for your fangs to pierce my skin and bring forth the vivid red beneath. Whenever I close my eyes, the only thing I can see is you, as if you linger in my every thought and dream.

Speaking of dreams, it seems that lately, my dreams have taken quite a raunchy turn. The starring role for all of them is obviously, you, my tranquility. You’d have me pliant and satisfying your every whim. In one, you had me bent over my office desk, fucking me hard as I rocked back against you. In another, you were edging me mercilessly, over and over again, until I could do nothing but beg helplessly for my release. That look you had in your eyes still sends a shiver down my spine. I’m hoping that soon, you can help turn these dreams of mine into reality.

Additionally, thank you for the collar, my tranquility. I’ve taken the liberty of adding a charming little bell at the front of it, I think you’d find it quite endearing. (And perhaps deserving of a reward? :3)

Do take care of yourself, or else I might just have to come and do it myself, haha. I’ll try to be on my best behaviour but no promises! I miss you dearly, my tranquility, come back to me soon.

Your rascal of a general,

- Jing Yuan -

P.S. Remember to use the fragrance on your pillows and the sleep mask!”

Rising from your seat on the bed, you pack everything back into the box before stepping into the shower to… cool off after reading Jing Yuan’s letter. In the bathroom, you find yourself relaxing as the water patters on your skin. Your ears flicker slightly whenever they pick up noise from beyond the locked door. A shout from the busy streets below, a soft sigh and the tinkle of a bell, the water splashing onto the floor around you.

Whilst clothing yourself, you lift your wrist to your nose and sigh when the scent of Jing Yuan has expectedly, (begrudgingly), been washed off. However, when you return to your bed, the scent of him still lingers, one that wasn’t here before.

Your heightened foxian senses can just about make out where it’s concentrated the most, and it points towards your pillow. It’s saturated with the smell of him, to a disconcerting degree. Lifting it up, you’re greeted with the sight of the usual red ribbon he has tied around his hair.

The world falls silent around you.

He was in your room.

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

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centrally-unplanned · 9 months

Text

Gonna make this a quick one since I just don’t have the spoons for a really big effort post: Pre-CCP 20th Century China Did Not Have Feudal or Slave-like Land Tenancy Systems

Obviously what counts as “slave-like” is going to be subjective, but I think it's common, for *ahem* reasons, for people to believe that in the 1930’s Chinese agriculture was dominated by massive-scale, absentee landlords who held the large majority of peasant workers in a virtual chokehold and dictated all terms of labor.

That is not how Chinese land ownership & agricultural systems worked. I am going to pull from Chinese Agriculture in the 1930s: Investigations into John Lossing Buck’s Rediscovered ‘Land Utilization in China’ Microdata, which is some of the best ground-level data you can get on how land use functioned, in practice, in China during the "Nanjing Decade" before WW2 ruins all data collection. It looks at a series of north-central provinces, which gives you the money table of this:

On average, 4/5ths of Chinese peasants owned land, and primarily farmed land that they owned. Tenancy was, by huge margins, the minority practice. I really don’t need to say more than this, but I'm going to because there is a deeper point I want to make. And it's fair to say that while this is representative of Northern China, Southern China did have higher tenancy rates - not crazy higher, but higher.

So let's look at those part-owner farmers; sounds bad right? Like they own part of their land, but it's not enough? Well, sometimes, but sometimes not:

A huge class (about ~1/3rd) of those part-owners were farming too much land, not too little; they were enterprising households renting land to expand their businesses. They would often engage in diversified production, like cash crops on the rented land and staple crops on their owned land. Many of them would actually leave some of their owned land fallow, because it wasn’t worth the time to farm!

Meanwhile the small part-owners and the landless tenant farmers would rent out land to earn a living…sometimes. Because that wasn’t the only way to make a living - trades existed. From our data, if you are a small part-owner, you got a substantial chunk of your income from non-farm labor; if you owned no land you got the majority of your income from non-farm labor:

(Notice how that includes child labor by default, welcome to pre-modernism!)

So the amount of people actually doing full-tenancy agriculture for a living is…pretty small, less than 10% for sure. But what did it look like for those who do? The tenancy rates can be pretty steep - 50/50 splits were very common. But that is deceiving actually; this would be called “share rent”, but other systems, such as cash rents, bulk crop rents, long-term leases with combined payment structures, etc, also existed and were plentiful - and most of those had lower rent rates. However, share rent did two things; one, it hedged against risk; in the case of a crop failure you weren't out anything as the tenant, a form of insurance. And two, it implied reciprocal obligations - the land owner was providing the seed, normally the tools as well, and other inputs like fertilizer.

Whether someone chose one type of tenancy agreement or the other was based on balancing their own labor availability, other wage opportunities, the type of crop being grown, and so on. From the data we have, negotiations were common around these types of agreements; a lot of land that was share rent one year would be cash rent another, because the tenants and market conditions shifted to encourage one or the other form.

I’m doing a little trick here, by throwing all these things at you. Remember the point at the top? “Was this system like slavery?” What defines slavery? To me, its a lack of options - that is the bedrock of a slave system. Labor that you are compelled by law to do, with no claim on the output of that work. And as I hit you with eight tiers of land ownership and tenancy agreements and multi-source household incomes, as you see that the median person renting out land to a tenant farmer was himself a farmer as a profession and by no means some noble in the city, what I hope becomes apparent is that the Chinese agricultural system was a fully liquid market based on choice and expected returns. By no means am I saying that it was a nice way to live; it was an awful way to live. But nowhere in this system was state coercion the bedrock of the labor system. China’s agricultural system was in fact one of the most free, commercial, and contract-based systems on the planet in the pre-modern era, that was a big source of why China as a society was so wealthy. It was a massive, moving market of opportunities for wages, loans, land ownership, tenancy agreements, haggled contracts, everyone trying in their own way to make the living that they could.

It's a system that left many poor, and to be clear injustices, robberies, corruption, oh for sure were legion. Particularly during the Warlord Era mass armies might just sweep in and confiscate all your hard currency and fresh crops. But, even ignoring that the whole ‘poverty’ thing is 90% tech level and there was no amount of redistribution that was going to improve that very much, what is more important is that the pre-modern world was *not* equally bad in all places. The American South was also pretty poor, but richer than China in the 19th century. And being a slave in the American South was WAY worse than being a peasant in China during times of peace - because Confederate society built systems to remove choice, to short-circuit the ebb and flow of the open system to enshrine their elite ‘permanently’ at the top. If you lived in feudal Russia it was a good deal worse, with huge amounts of your yearly labor compelled by the state onto estates held by those who owned them unimpeachably by virtue of their birthright (though you were a good deal richer just due to basic agriculture productivity & population density, bit of a tradeoff there).

If you simply throw around the word “slavery” to describe every pre-modern agricultural system because it was poor and shitty, that back-doors a massive amount of apologia for past social systems that were actively worse than the benchmarks of the time. Which is something the CCP did; their diagnosis of China’s problem for the rural poor of needing massive land redistribution was wrong! It was just wrong, it was not the issue they were having. It was not why rural China was often poor and miserable. It could help, sure, I myself would support some compensated land redistribution in the post-war era as a welfare idea for a fiscally-strapped state. But that was gonna do 1% of the heavy lifting here in making the rural poor's lives better. And I don’t think we should continue to the job of spreading the CCP's propaganda for them.

There ya go @chiefaccelerator, who alas I was not permitted to compel via state force into writing this for me, you Qing Dynasty lazy peasant.

#Chinese history discourse blog #essay

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ghostboneswrites2 · 8 days

Text

To help break free of writers block, I’m doing these. Enjoy 🍓

Young Daryl Dixon x Strawberry Reader

(a short little drabble)

(Fem!Reader) (Reader descriptions: freckles, hair long enough to be messy and put in a hair tie - no race or body type mentioned)

-18+ MDNI-

Masterlist

In his early twenties, Daryl had only two friends he dared to associate with. One of them was Gunner, a man of few words with a short fuse. The other, a guy called Wylie, like the cartoon coyote. He earned that nickname for a few reasons, but mostly due to his poor luck with women. The joke was that he’d chase them forever but he’d never actually catch them. The only girl in the entire town that would associate with him was his little sister, Y/N.

She was only a year younger than he was, but she was smarter than him by far. He was a dumb boy, with not much going on behind those bug-ish.

All in all, they were a trio of losers. Daryl had been the only attractive one of the bunch, and even he had zero game. The three of them would often hang out by the lake. A lake which had no name, proudly referred to by the locals as ‘The Lake.’

They’d lean against Daryl’s beat up old Ford, the same truck he’d always been working on in his dad’s driveway in high school. Merle always told him it was a lost cause — that they should have just junked it for a quick dime. Daryl was insistent, though, that he could get it running, and sure enough he did. It only costed him two years of his life and a handful of dead end jobs to afford the parts and pieces it required.

With a functional vehicle, a young man in his prime was surely unstoppable. As often as he could manage, Daryl would scoop up his two friends and find some kind of trouble to get into. That particular day, they opted for a dip in the lake. Georgian summers were no joke, but this particular summer was more than any of them could have anticipated. The record high temperatures had rendered many air conditioning units useless. The only HVAC company in the county couldn’t keep up with the calls. In simpler terms, it was hot as fuck outside.

“Hotter than a damn dingle berry in the devil’s ass-crack, I’ll tell ya that much.” Wylie joked, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the dingy old Metallica shirt he’d just taken off.

The boys all mumbled in agreement as they stripped down into their trunks, excited to take a dip in the cool water.

“Least we picked the spot with the best view.” Gunner snickered as he looked around. The Lake was busy that day, as it had been all summer.

Young people and small families lined the bank of the water. Kids played and splashed, young couples took turns on the rope swing, women laid out on their towels and floats to soak up some sun.

One particularly bright young lady caught Daryl’s eye among the crowd, with her bright red top and torn up daisy dukes. The sun left a radiant glow on her skin as she shook out her messy hair from its previous updo. Freckles littered her skin like strawberry seeds, especially on a sunny day. It took him little time to realize she was Y/N, Wylie’s previously mentioned younger sister.

She notice the gang of merry idiots as soon as they noticed her. She rolled her eyes and strode over to them, glaring them down as she ate a fresh strawberry.

“And just what the hell are you three tit-for-brains doin’ here today?” She questioned suspiciously.

“Swimmin’, cause it’s hot. Just like everybody else out here.” Wylie defended.

“Surely it’s not ‘cause you knew I was comin’ out here with my friends today.” She pressed on. “Always followin’ us around like puppy dogs to catch a glimpse of my friends.”

Her eyes scanned over Gunner, then Wylie, before landing mischievously on Daryl. “Or, me.” She teased. Daryl scoffed.

“Yeah right.” He waved her off. His dismissive facade couldn’t hide the way his eyes lingered on her glossy lips as she sucked her finger clean of strawberry juices. He cleared his throat and gulped. “The hell y’all doin’ out here anyway? Y’ain’t got nothin else to do, like doin’ your hair and talkin’ ‘bout boys?”

“Ain’t no boys worth talkin’ about in this town, Dixon.” She fired back.

“I could think of a few.” Wylie chimed in, smirking at a pair of girls as they walked past in their bikinis.

“Please.” She snorted. “Ain’t a single lady in the state of Georgia that would touch any one o’ you buffoons with a ten foot pole.”

“That ain’t what your friend Gina said the other night.” Wylie said with confidence.

“Oh, that’s right!” Y/N snapped her fingers, as if attempting to recall something. “I believe what she said was… that your breath smelled so bad she nearly fainted tryin’ to hold her breath.”

Gunner and Daryl stifled their laughter as their friend had his ego torn apart once again by his little sister.

“Whatever, man. Let’s just go swim.” Wylie grumbled as he shuffled toward the water. Gunner followed after him, followed by Daryl. Y/N matched her pace to the young Dixon, eying him curiously through the corners of her lashes.

“Why do you even hang around with those two dimwits, Dixon?” She asked him, just as they reached the edge of the water where Wylie and Gunner were acclimating to the cold.

“There my friends.” Daryl shrugged, kicking off his shoes.

“Mm. Dead weight is what they are.”

“Wha’s that mean?” Daryl arched a brow curiously.

“Just that…” She trailed off, looking him up and down once more before she smirked. “It can be hard to appreciate a nice thing when it’s surrounded by garbage, that’s all.”

With that, she winked at him, and walked back over to her friends. She left him in disbelief for a moment, before he’d shake his head and follow his friends into the lake.

For the rest of the afternoon, he’d splash and joke with his buddies, occasionally leaving the water to pull a beer from their cooler and return. Sneakily, he’d pass a glance toward Y/N, but somehow she always caught him looking. Conveniently, she’d make sure to stretch it bend over just as he did, batting her eyes and licking her lips each time.

#daryl dixon #daryl x reader #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl #daryl x female reader #daryl twd #daryl fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl x you #daryl x y/n

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transsexualfiend · 2 months

Text

"Gross" art will always exist. If you think you have any authority over art, especially the art of the oppressed, you are fundamentally unprepared for the revolution. Putting "ACAB" in your bio means nothing if you roleplay as police force on the internet.

I see a lot of "This persons weird kinky art makes me think they are abusive and predatory". This is badjacketing, and is a right-wing tactic to shutting down anything against the status quo- because there is no collective agreement on the terms and conditions of "acceptable" as well. You are also just denouncing years and years worth of the fight for queer/sexual liberation too.

"But them engaging in this art is just a gateway for them to do this harm in real life! Violent art makes violent people!" Actually a violent WORLD makes violent people. Everyone is exposed to violence on some degree. And I promise you that the REAL WORLD is doing more harm on individuals than someone's "weird" kinky digital art.

If you want to fight abuse, fight abuse. But calling people you DON'T EVEN KNOW on the internet "abusers" for simply making art you find disgusting is so awful and counterrevolutionary. It's super easy to just block them and move on with your life.

#anti censorship #no gods no masters #acab #no cops anywhere. ever.#online art community #art liberation

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secretivemessenger · 1 year

Note

long time no see... 🫣

Sugarbaby!BtmZhongli x ProviderTop!MR

Now everybody and they mfing mama know zhongli broke asf 😒..

but the past few days he's been "working" with you he's begun to grow some affection. You specifically told him not to catch feelings and what does he do? catch fucking feelings. Good thing you don't know that...or maybe you do and you're just not saying anything? Maybe you're waiting for a chance to humiliate him? He wouldn't be mad if you did.

he pondered and pondered, going insane from the thought that you might reject him. Anytime he'd see you walking the streets of Liyue he'd immediately walk the other direction, just hoping you didn't see him. Too bad the feeling of desperation eventually came up to him and he was left touch starved, so he thought of the most reasonble solution.

pathetically ask for Mora because he totally did not spend it all on random shit so he could have his sweet moments with you.

TWS!

Spanking, Impact play, humiliation, begging, deep throat, gagging, ect.

I have a feeling a fangic like this had already been made but I much prefer to see you write it

Failed Contract

Bottom zhongli x top male reader

Rating: NSFW

warnings: Friends w benefits! Unrequited love! Mean reader! Deep throating! Face fucking! Spanking! Orgasm denial! Multiple orgasms! Fingering! Angst at the end?!

Author note: ahem- so uh… i know this took sooooo long to come out 😀 so long like more than three months. Im sorry 😭 but is just that I never had the motivation to do it but now i do (somehow).

Kinda hate this ngl-

The moment this all began, the both of you agreed on one thing thats considered as a part of the “terms and conditions”. And that was, don’t catch feelings. do and this is all over. - These were your very own words.

He thought it would got smoothly for him. Getting the money from you in exchange to you using his body however you like, then you’ll just continue to live on your life like it never even happened. And he never worried about “catching feelings” or such.

He took this a bit too lightly for his own good. After spending more time with you without even realizing it, he was head over heels for you.

And so he broke the only rule you had set for him. He knows if you found out this would all be over, but he doesn’t want that. He still wants you, he still wants to feel your hands on him. Even if he knows he shouldn’t be feeling this was, he still want his heart to continue beating for you. But he’s sure as hell you don’t feel the same. And he knows that it would only end badly if you were to find out.

So the only logical option is for him to distant himself. Because he knows how bad he is at holding himself back when near you.

Well spoilers: that did not work. It only resulted in him being more desperate then he ever was. It felt like torture away from you, and you didn’t approach him first and it made him even more desperate.

Till he said “Fuck it” and hurriedly went running looking for you. He just wants to be near you and held by you, even if it’s only you holding his legs up to give yourself better access inside him.

Once he found you he knew exactly whats the magic word that he had to say. “Got any mora to spare?”. Per your agreement, if he wanted money he had to satisfy you first.

Without a word you went back to your house with zhongli following behind like a little puppy. Upon reaching the house and closing the door he didn’t waste a singular second and sat down on his knees mouth wide open waiting for you to do however you please.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the obvious desperation in his eyes. Along side the adorable desperate eyes is an eager one, wanting to please and be pleased already.

Saliva dripped down his opened mouth, with his tongue sticking out. You always found the shape of his tongue so fascinating. it was paler than normal human tongue and much more longer. You can already imagine how it would feel like around you.

You pressed your index to the surface of his tongue. observing his reaction as you moved your fingers deeper, tracing his tongue as you made your way down his throat.

He looked so majestic. Slowly gagging at your fingers invading his mouth, almost at the verge of tears. You made his body twitch needly because of the way you looked down at him. Almost like he was some type of a dessert, and you were ready to eat him whole.

Soon the desperation turned to arousal which turned to greed. He wanted more of you rather than just fingers, even if he didn’t say it directly you can see it deep down his eyes. He wanted to be messed up, so why deny him?.

You wasted no time in undoing your pant, already half hard. The sight of your cock always made his mouth water and eyes shine with lust. Wanting you inside of him sooner rather than later.

Slowly guiding him to take you in his mouth. His tongue wrapped around your cock hungrily. His oh so warm mouth, it made you pant loudly. “Amazing as always” you said it with a hint of amusement in your tone of voice. You grunted while throwing your head back, it felt fucking incredible. His tongue working your cock so good, throat so tight around you “such a good boy, doing so good for me”.

Zhongli felt his whole body shiver and shake at you words, it brought him to tears how much of an effect you have on him.

Yes he’s a good boy only for you <3

He just wants to continue being good for you, he wants to be the source of your pleasure. If he can’t have your love, he’ll be enough with being able to make you cum because of him.

He continued teasing your tip with the back of his throat, while tracing the veins with his tongue. By time it became even harder to hold back, if this continued you’ll just burst completely. Even so you didn’t pull out instead you pushed his head impossibly more deeper, putting up a tight grip on his hair. It made him let out an adorable whimper as tears streamed down his face, it just left you in “aww”.

As you fucked his throat like a little toy you noticed his body reacting to your thrusts. His body arched so beautifully all of a sudden. Soon your confused sound turned to hysterical laughter. Looking down you can see a large spot on his pants.

He just came inside his pants. Why? Just because you acted a bit roughly with him. How funny for none other than the geo archon to cum all over himself like a virgin.

“If i knew fucking your throat is all it takes to make you like this I would’ve done this sooner”. Soon your laughter came down to a stop. “But i don’t remember giving you the permission to cum”.

Zhongli’s embarrassment disappeared once he heard your words. Grabbing his hair and roughly pulling him away from your cock made him whine in pain. “You better Handle the consequences of your own actions, Morax”

You almost ripped his clothes apart from how rough you handled him. It made him gasp loud in surprise. Stripping him naked, you harshly pushed his head against the wooden door. Looking at his quivering body turned you on even more. His thighs covered in his own fluid from a while ago.

His ass too clear to your liking. You raised your hands just to bring it back again on his ass, his body jolted in surprise. he let out a choked out cry as your hand’s smacked his ass again and again, until you felt satisfied enough. The clear skin now had obvious handprints on it. His face couldn’t look more fucked up than it is now.

Swallowing his moans. He looked back at you with beginning eyes as he huffed out in between hiccups “please, do it already”. Spanking was a good punishment, but you still wanted to bully him a bit more.

“Do what? You know I can’t read minds” you said with a wide mischievous smile on your face. It would usually make him so embarrassed, but now he was so desperate to have you inside of him that he lost all the self dignity that he had. He does not care anymore about how shameful it is to beg, he just wants you so so bad.

“Please, i want you inside of me” he cried out “please pleaseplease, pleasseee”. You wanted to laugh at his pathetic pleadings. But the way your cock twitched at the sight. It felt impossible to hold back anymore. Yet you still somehow did it.

Due to avoiding you for quite sometime means thats his hole is absolutely not stretched enough to handle you yet. And You weren’t ‘that’ mean to just ram inside of him without preparations.

So you spat on his hole before using your fingers to spread it all around his rim. A mixture of ‘please’ and whines of your name escaped his mouth.

A loud yelp was what you received when your fingers went past his rim. Determined to stretch him well enough that you can fuck him for continuous hours without stopping.

One finger became two, two fingers became three which soon turned to four. Four fingers stuffing him full. He would’ve came so many times if it wasn’t for your other hand squeezing his tip. Denying any droplet of cum to escape. Which left zhongli a breathless crying mess. Until you deemed him ready.

You didn’t have much energy to tease him or hold back anymore, so you took your chance and rammed your cock all the way hitting his prostate first try.

With that singular thrust he came all over himself, painting the brown door white “Hah, you came just because i put it in? Thats pathetic of you morax” you teased him which resulted in his face becoming full of shame as it dusted dark pink. But it didn’t last long till you started railing him hard again.

You could swear everyone is hearing you two right now from how loud zhongli was being. Moaning out like a needy slut. Screaming your name so loud you actually suspect he’s doing it to show off how much of a whore he is for you.

Going in and out at a fast pace, hitting his prostate with every thrust you make made it all more pleasurable. And from the overstimulation he went through when you denied him his orgasm multiple times made him extra sensitive. And it didn’t take him long for him to cum all over himself again and again, till he can no longer cum anymore.

Chasing your own orgasm. You wrapped your hands around his tummy going in slow and deep, just to feel every part of his warm hole around you.

You both were in such intimate position that it almost made him forget that your weren’t actually together. You were connected together but it still wasn’t what he wanted.

“You like me don’t you” a confused ‘huh’ was let out by zhongli. He looked back at you confused, then that confusion turned to a terrified expression. You never stopped your movements, still fucking into him.

He couldn’t think of a word to say as you kept your steady motion. Before you grunted and pulled out. Jerking yourself off just to cum with a loud sigh. Painting both his back and ass with your cum.

Once you were done his leg’s finally gave up on him and he fell down to the floor. He didn’t know what to say so you talked instead of him.

“As the god of contacts, to break one of the rules of the contract must be a huge sin, eh” silence was what you received so you continued “as per contract, since the only rule was broken. The contract is cancelled.”

“Take this last session as a parting gift” you said as you turned to leave before remembering “oh and have your portion” you said as you threw a bag filled with mora his way. “Never see me again” was all you said before leaving zhongli who’s seated down on the floor being as speechless as a rock.

He was just dumbfounded that he got thrown away like that, thrown away like nothing but a cheap expired toy.

“This was all just a big mistake”

🏷️: @gaybitchfx @vyloy

#genshin impact x male reader #dom reader #top male reader #dom male reader #zhongli #zhongli x male reader #bottom zhongli #sub zhongli #sub character #sub genshin #sub genshin x dom reader #genshin x male reader

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multidimensionalguidance · 4 months

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Jupiter-Uranus 2024 (The Big Zap)

I noticed this very interesting planetary force that will be coming together and will be felt specifically from February till end of May 2024.

It’s something that only occurs every 14 years, and paying attention to how this will affect in a collective and an individual level during this time could be beneficial.

Jupiter bring expansion and Uranus gives it a sudden “oomph” or energy force making it even more noticeable. As sudden and bright as lightning, and perhaps as loud as thunder. It comes with major spiritual AND technological changes to the entire collective that will trickle down to all of us in some way.

For a lot of people this might be the “lottery ticket” or sudden activation that will lead them to a very significant event, and for some others it will be the sudden realization that will lead them to upgrading a certain aspect of their lives. As if it was a necessary calibration or adjustment.

It is important to have the correct focus and to be in alignment to enjoy the more positive effects, and its not to say that if you are not aligned to your path it will be terrible, but its like the universe will push you towards doing so which might not necessarily be pleasant.

Here are some briefs explanations of how this conjunction will play out depending on where it will be sitting in your natal chart:

1H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your desires, environment, physical appearance, health, mannerism, outlook towards life, personality, and self-interests.

2H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your resources, finances (gain or expenses), security, freedom, and perhaps necessity to become more vocal/expressive.

3H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your hobbies, skills, vehicles (for good or bad so be weary), communication through technology, gossip (towards your or you towards others), reading, academic duties, short traveling (meaning within your country or outside but for a fixed amount of time), and overall your mindset.

4H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your home (meaning moving to a different one or something radical occurring within it), shocking family news, in your emotions, real estate from homeland, wealth from parents, and mothers health could improve for the better or the opposite if there are underlying conditions that have not been treated.

5H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your creative expression (hobbies as well), friends, romantic life/love affairs (won’t necessarily be long term), motherhood (getting pregnant 👀), feeling the urge to take more risks (like gambling or market stock), overall lots of fun/joy that could lead to overindulgence so be mindful.

6H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your daily routine (adding more technology day to day or it breaking down), in healthcare, in exercising, in work (workaholic vibes or changes in employment), cooking (doing so more or having accidents in it), healing, getting a new pet, employees (if you have a company).

7H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your agreements (contracts), partnerships of all kinds (beginning of one or change in status if you are in one already), one-one businesses, perception of others, and overall interpersonal style.

8H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your finances (particularly savings or income you get from others as gifts of some sort), occult practices you’re interested in, perceptions of your sexual energy, psychic experiences, partners family, and overall major transformations that will help you integrate more your dark/toxic traits. an opportunity to reinvent yourself.

9H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your beliefs/religious/spiritual systems, opportunities of settling abroad (permanently or just a long journey), high education (getting more educated in a subject through an institution), fathers health, or abilities to predict future events.

10H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your career/profession, public perception (getting more noticed for good or bad), finances (money earned from work), ambitions, worldly perception, and anything related to the relationship you have with your superiors.

11H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your social circle (close friends and acquaintances), ambitions/aspirations for the future, memberships you pay of any sort, finances (return from investments, business income, or anything that affects money long term), social media presence, and overall your hopes or wishes might take a sharp turn to align you where you are meant to be.

12H ➡️ sudden changes or expansion in your finances (loss of money or increase in expenses), opportunities to travel abroad, hidden affairs, spirituality, self limitations, karmic responsibilities, and possibilities of working through your blind spots.

If you want to take it a few steps further, take a look at where the lord of that house is sitting at, and it will give interesting details to the grand picture.

Example:

Jupiter-Uranus conj sitting in 2nd house of resources and finances

Lord (planet ruler) of 2nd house is sitting in 9th house of foreign travel, luck, growth, beliefs

There will be sudden financial changes or expansion of their resources in relation to foreign matters, education overseas, father, ideologies, spiritual growth, traveling, etc

Please keep in mind these topics will manifest differently depending on the natal planets or angles in your chart it might touch as well.

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painted-bees · 10 months

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Haha! Okay..! [[deep inhale]]

So, back before Magritte moved in with Raf, when they were first just meeting up for weekly jam sessions at the recording studio, Raf had kinda…only agreed to jam with her on the conditions that nothing would be recorded, no photos or social media posts about it, none of that. Magritte didn't care, she just wanted to play music with someone who was fun to play music with and wouldn't get bored of her after only an hour of it. She never pushed it. It never even came up in conversation. Total non-issue.

Eventually, once Magritte moved in and Raf started getting more confident/comfortable about her, he found that he very enjoyed collaborating with her on compositions, and had found himself wishing he could hear recordings of it. And so, it was him who suggested that they record some of the stuff they played, and–allowed her to post it to YouTube and such, so long as he was left uncredited or given a pseudonym.

Magritte wasn't comfortable leaving him uncredited, and so consistently credited him as "Albatross" whenever his contributions were present in the work and recordings she posted. Raf knew about this, she never uploaded anything without permission. Her online presence/audience was very small and humble, it was fine.

They began playing at very small venues together, their "band" being named something totally different, and increasingly silly with each new gig. For Raf, this was his deliberate, careful, slow crawl out of a decade of extreme burnout. He promised himself that if it became at all stressful or stopped being fun, then he'd stop--plain and simple.

His hard, fast rule with Magritte was "no contracts". If something required his signature, it wasn't gonna happen. He wasn't interested in getting dragged back into the "business" of music and showmanship, but he was very cautiously keen on rediscovering his joy for playing violin, and of playing to an audience. Magritte was, genuinely, the perfect accompaniment to help him ease back into it on his own terms. Though she wanted to make a living with her music, the money wasn't her goal--it was simply a thing that would allow her to keep playing music. If she didn't need the money to live, she'd have been content just playing music for fun every day for whoever would wanna listen to it. There were no dreams of "making it big" just dreams of "doing this forever, without anything else getting in the way of it".

It's hard to say if it was due to one of Magritte's "Albatross" uploads, or if it was an audience recording from one of their small venue shows, or something else that put them on the radar, but one afternoon, Magritte received a very exciting email from the A&R division of a major record label--and experienced that ADHD bone-rattling excitement that only an impossible dream-come-true email inquiry could provide lmao.

She and Raf stop by a local coffee shop after work most days, and this was when Magritte decided to hand Raf her phone, asking if the email looked legit. He seemed to be in a pretty good mood, and she intended for the question to serve as a barometer as to whether she should suggest giving the label a chance or not. She figured, if he seemed uncomfy just assessing whether the inquiry was real and not a scam, then she wouldn't push it further than that.

But honestly, with a label this big, if it was legit, he'd at least be a little curious to know more about the offer, right?

No.

It's doubtful that Raf had even read past the first line of the email before his "pretty good mood" became stiff and cold as stone. Magritte felt the chances of a receptive outcome drop below zero as she watched the muscles of his jaw tense up.

His response was to ask, "Why are you bringing this to me? It doesn't matter if it's a scam or not, we had an agreement."

Taken aback by his hard, almost hostile tone, Magritte stammered that she thought he'd at least find the inquiry somewhat amusing, but "you're not even going to consider it, just for a second?" Raf repeated to her again that he had already told her contract and such were out of the question. She had been fine with it, she had assured him, even, that it was a non-issue. “Yeah, but–this one’s kind of a big deal.” To which Raf balked, “You thought I’d just change my mind if a ‘big enough’ company reached out to us?” And Magritte, defensively, blurted, “No, because it didn’t even cross my mind as a possibility!”

Raf pushed the phone over the table to her, and leaned back in his seat, stunned for a moment by the onslaught of his own racing thoughts and really, all he was able to say was "Why are you doing this to me? Why you?"

Recognizing that 1) she really stepped in it, and 2) she was too excited about this stupid email to abandon the pursuit of its possible offer as suddenly as the situation was demanding her to, Magritte stood to her feet suddenly, muttering apologies, saying something in frazzled tones about needing to get her thoughts straight before she said something stupid. She took her abrupt leave, but not before telling Raf that she'll meet him at home because she needs to settle her brain over a walk before she can talk reasonably with him about it. A quick “I love you” and she was out.

Genuinely, it was the best thing she could think to do in order to avoid stubbornly, injuriously digging into the subject deeper while her ears and face flushed hot with both shame and disappointment. It wasn't going to be a productive conversation while her vision danced with black splotches under the intensity of her emotions.

Unfortunately, removing herself from the situation as suddenly as she had created it meant that she had left Raf to sit and plummet into dread, with no voice to counter the incomprehensibly catastrophic flurry of his thoughts.

As he had grown more and more comfortable with her, there had been a louder and louder alarm in his consciousness that told him the other shoe was gonna drop, that he had to back off if he wanted to avoid the devastating affirmation that Magritte, too, had only ever intended to use him. God, she played him so brilliantly, too. How had she managed to convince him to let her record? To post their sessions? To play in venues. How had she managed to get him to suggest it, like it had been his idea. It felt crazy to him that he somehow didn't realise it was all leading to exactly this situation. He had considered it, the notion was always there tickling the back of his mind like a persistent rash…but he really, really thought he was just being paranoid. He wanted so badly to believe he was…just being paranoid. Like a fucking idiot.

He got himself home, it was past dinner time, he didn't wait for Magritte to get back. Slammed back some sleeping meds and slam dunked himself into bed in order to avoid losing his goddamned mind.

Magritte's evening was…considerably more productive. The walk back home began with her mulling over all the ways Raf was being unreasonable and unfair for not at least entertaining the email. If the offer turned out to be no good, then it was no good! They should at least be able to discuss and consider it in a calm and mature manner, right? While it was true that he already had (and ended) an extremely successful musical career, she herself had yet to even get her foot in the door. She wasn’t anywhere near close to being able to make ends meet with her music, and her parents would never take her hard work and passion for it seriously until she was able to prove to them that it was actually worth something; that it was a sustainable, reliable path to pursue. It shouldn’t have mattered to her what they thought, but for some reason, she couldn’t help but make their approval/recognition/validation a core motivating factor in proving herself as a ‘competent’ musician. That competency, unfortunately, was measured by income and the willingness of a well known company to invest in her work. Being able to tell her parents that she was signed under something like Universal or such would have definitely turned their opinion around, and maybe…MAYBE they’d even see the value in helping her afford to study music at a university..! And shit, she’d finally be able to contribute to paying rent and utilities without breaking a sweat about it…she might even have gained an expendable income, she could finally start repaying Raf for all those little gifts and surprises he’d treat her with. Imagine.

Even before she had attempted to approach Raf about the email, she already had the picture of their life making music together as they have been–but with a more tangible goal/purpose, and without any outside obligations taking them away from just waking up and jamming every day. Playing music that just…paid for itself. Stress free!

But Raf couldn’t even entertain it. He was so upset that she’d even bring it up at all. Did he even read the email? Or did he see just the subject line and shut down?

She elected to read the email again, an effort to soothe herself by finding any reason to believe it was just a scam; that all her excitement and fanciful thoughts of the future were just her getting childishly ahead of herself. She didn't find what she was looking for. The name of the scouting agent was legit, there was no mention of money nor a fee, the email was clear, straightforward, and without any hype-y language. But what Magritte did notice–that she had somehow missed the previous fifty times she had read the email–was that the email didn’t refer Raf by his ‘Albatross’ pseudonym. It had named him in full; Rafael Ephrem. Somehow, -somehow-, the person who sent the email had been able to identify him. And–if they knew who he was… Magritte considered…The inquiry was sent to her email but the offer, specifically, was likely much more interested in him. It made sense. Magritte herself was untrained and unproven; a literal nobody. But, she was the only person Raf was making music with, and his name was very provenly bankable; a safe bet. Magritte had been so flattered and excited by the notion that she was being noticed and contacted by a label, it had been such an uplifting validation–but… The simple fact was that they likely would not have given Magritte the time of day had they not, somehow, recognized Rafael’s involvement in her work.

The offer was about him, not her. She was simply easier to get in touch with.

When she considered the situation from that angle, other aspects became apparent. Raf had, in no uncertain terms, been very clear from the beginning that he would not be signing anything with her. She knew that he was recovering from burnout, that he was wholly disinterested in pursuing music in any kind of professional capacity. Even if he had gone along with indulging Magritte’s excitement for her sake, would he have been sacrificing the joy of making music with her, and surrendering himself to the labor of it, instead? Would it have slowly soured their relationship? If he felt obliged and pressured to create and play, would that have leached the joy out of it?

By ignoring the inquiry, Magritte wasn’t actually losing anything, herself. There was much to gain, potentially, by pursuing it–but she lost nothing in ignoring it. Things were already really good. She liked the relationship she had with Raf, as it was. He had given her a place to stay, and encouraged her near single-minded focus on music, allowed her to compose and play music as much as she wanted without pressuring her to divide her focus on other, more ‘important’ things. He didn’t take offence or feel ignored when she’d spend an entire weekend in her room just doin’ music stuff. He’d never even startle her out of the productive flow by shouting her name from the kitchen, in annoyance, to tell her for the upteenth time that she needed to clean the dishes right now. He let her pursue her joy and, often, he’d delight in joining in on it as well. This was the happiest, most comfortable she had ever felt in her life. In her mind, signing onto a label would have just let her continue doing that, but more securely.

For Raf, though…signing onto a label, being forced to take the work ‘seriously’, it likely felt like a tremendous loss to him. And–she had put him in an unfair position. If he signed on, he’d be surrendering himself to the work he did not wish to do, and would be inching ever closer to the life he had worked so hard to escape and recover from. But–by defending his own desires, comforts, and boundaries, and shutting down this whole label thing without giving it any space to sink roots as a tree of possibility, he risked planting the seeds of resentment into their relationship by denying her a potentially life-changing opportunity that he, no doubt, knew was of tremendous significance to her. From his perspective, it must have looked like a lose-lose situation. A situation that he had foreseen and took fair measures to avoid long, long in advance. He had already told her from the very beginning that this was something he would not do. But she had to test it anyway. Because she got too excited. Because of course she did.

Nah, she decided. She’d just get back home, tell Raf she was suffering excite-brained tunnel vision, wasn’t thinking realistically, and that she had therefore agreed with him that they’re much better off to just keep doing what they’ve already been doing–because that’s been working out just fine and she’d rather not introduce anything that could ruin it for them. She shouldn’t have brought it up. Even just the fact that she felt she needed to ease him into the conversation as softly as possible–by asking about the legitimacy of the email instead of diving into the meat of the matter–should have been enough to tell her that she was pushing it. She had known she was–but she bulldozed ahead with her excitement, anyways. And it had upset him. Hopefully not too much, since she felt she had taken some care with her approach, but yanno. He was clearly upset–and after going through such clear, careful measures to avoid this kinda thing, he kinda had a right to be. She needed to apologise.

By the time she got home, Raf had already put himself to bed–which worried Magritte somewhat. She never liked going to sleep without closure. But, she resolved to tell him her conclusions in the morning and hoped for an otherwise normal day.

And so, when the morning rolled around and she found Raf making coffee in the kitchen, she began with a “good morning”, an apology for not getting back home before he fell asleep, and then she simply unloaded the entire content of her thoughts and conclusions from the previous evening. She felt proud of herself for being able to reassess things with as much fairness and objectivity as she could manage, and she was confident in her choice to completely ignore the whole ‘email inquiry’ thing. More than that, she was beyond apologetic for even asking him to consider it, admitting to him that she realised it kinda put him between a rock and a hard place. She then suggested it’d be best just to assume the email was a scam anyways, “is that ok?”

Raf, who listened to her whole spiel without a single interruption, watched her for a silent moment with half-lidded disinterest (or was he just tired?) before replying with a flat, “mmhm.”

“Okay.” Magritte had been hoping for some assurance that her reasoning, her apology, and her resolution were…yanno…adequate or somthing. But, as Raf sipped his coffee with an unconversational, chilly demeanour, Magritte wasn’t feeling assured by any measure. And so, to find an emotional baseline, Magritte offered a mousey, but genuine little “I love you.” To which Raf replied with a slight twitch of a smirk and an avoiding gaze, “Yeah, I’ll bet you do.”

Immediately, Magritte felt as though she had been tossed whole-bodily off a cliff, and didn’t pursue the conversation further. Shut right up, and spent the rest of the morning very quiet and withdrawn. Too uncomfortable and ashamed to take up space in Raf’s apartment for very long, she headed out to find a quiet, isolated park bench or something to cry on lmao, ‘cuz whuff.

Raf, who had fully expected that his snipey reply would coerce Magritte to trade out the ‘timid sad mouse’ act for something a lot more angry and defensive, was largely unsure of what to do with a Magritte–that instead–seemed to have completely shut down. Before she left, while maintaining his defensive coldness, Raf bothered to measure her vitriol by way of asking Magritte if she needed a ride anywhere. As delicately and sweetly as she could–Magritte declined, telling him it was ok, not to worry about it. And that was really the only additional dialogue they had together that morning. She should have been mad at him. She went through all the trouble of explaining things, apologising, and capitulating to him–and he deliberately stonewalled her in an attempt to get her to unmask. He had called out her bluff; she wanted something from him, he refused to give it to her, she attempted to take the higher ground, putting him in the position where the kindly, good response would have been to capitulate in kind–at least by confirming that the email wasn’t a scam after all, and reopening that dialogue for a more ‘level-headed’ conversation. But he identified the manoeuvre and deliberately shut it down. And then–out of pure spite–he refused to provide her the simple reassurance that a half hearted ‘I love you, too’ might have provided. Because he had spent the entire night and the whole morning fretting, and questioning, and dreading everything–and being the source of it, she deserved to feel it, too. But then her response had been to … ???? ????????? She left, but she didn’t take anything with her, she didn’t pack her belongings or make a show of wanting to move out, none of that kind of thing. She didn’t tell him he was being unreasonable or unfair, or that he needed to think things over. She just sorta–disintegrated in front of him. Just completely wilted. Wtf did that even mean??? Was she trying to guilt him? What else was she going to do? Likely, she intended on just avoiding him until he was ready to apologise or something. Like–if he phoned her right now, she wouldn’t answer. Right? To test his “punishment by avoidance” theory, he called her number–only to hear her answer on the second ring. And–after he hesitated for a moment too long, she asked if he was okay–if there was anything she could get him while she was out. Not having planned to actually say anything, Raf grasped for something believable to ask, landing on “Do you have your keys with you? I’m going to be at my uncle’s so the door will be locked.” To which Magritte assured him that yes she’s got keys, no worries. Say hi to uncle Bill for her.

This kinda sent Raf’s thoughts scattering. She was upset, she was -clearly- upset, he gave her reason to be upset and then he gave her more reasons to be upset. She had spent the whole morning looking downright miserable. She WAS upset, but she wasn’t…putting him through it. She wasn’t punishing him or reasoning with him or trying to position him. She wasn’t worried about him talking to his uncle, which means she hadn’t gone to him herself to get him on her side of this whole thing. What the fuck did she have on him? If she–worse case scenario–decided to get back at him by getting in contact with his mother, then she’d have to–

“Oh. I’m being crazy.” It was almost like a record skip. Any time ‘his mother’ popped up as part of a ‘logical course of action’ in what ever the fuck he was freaking out about, it served as a blaring alarm signaling that he had left grounded reality behind. No matter how much fucking sense it made to him, or no matter how careful his thoughts were in framing it as ‘unlikely’ or ‘worst case scenario’, any, ANY consideration of ‘his mother’ as a thing that could happen to him was a signpost that he had left the realm of reasonability. He made it a deliberate rule that the moment she popped up in his brain, he needed to assume he was thinking irrationally–until he could get a second opinion (and maybe a third, if he didn’t like the second). At least in this way, ‘his mother’ served as a helpful guiding figure in his life. Christ. Alright, alright. At what point did he fall off the rails, though? Magritte DID come to him about a…fucking A&R inquiry of all things. That was real, that happened. She got upset that he wouldn’t entertain it. That was also real, that also happened. How was he supposed to take that? She knew, she knew–it was something he would not do. He had told her, he had told her more than once–he was so clear about it. The rest made no sense to him, if his assumptions from that point forward were in fact…ungrounded.

And so, while he hadn’t actually planned to visit his uncle that day, Raf showed up at his door anyway. Sat down with him, and walked him through the events; the actual, physically observable things that happened, and the things that were said out loud. And Uncle Bill kinda made the “yikes” face, because…yikes.

So, uncle Bill attempted to recount from his perspective; Magritte pushed a boundary, no question. But–the assumption regarding why she did that needed to be challenged. Was it something she had been actively planning for and waiting on? Did she manipulate Raf into feeling safe enough to shed his boundaries? Did she use Raf as bait to reel in offers and interests she wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise? Well…What do we know about Magritte? We know that she’s excitable, impulsive, she projects and assumes the best case scenarios and constantly counts her chickens before they hatch. She can’t keep a secret to save her life. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, which makes her a terrible liar... Bill recites that, according to Raf, Magritte cited excitement, impulsiveness, and the thought of being able to make more music with the added benefit of financial security as her reason for bringing the email to him in the first place. She liked the idea of being able to help pay his rent, she wanted money to buy him gifts the same way he had bought gifts for her. Bill suggested that, if they were to read her motivations in a manner consistent with what they know and have seen about Magritte as a person, the future she was projecting on this inquiry email didn’t exclude him as a beneficiary, he was very much included in her happy little fantasy as someone she wanted to share the experience with. Magritte’s excitement had given her this same kind of tunnel vision before, preventing her from seeing other perspectives or outcomes of a captivating situation. And–they’ve seen that go both ways for her. It’s worked out before, but more often, it really doesn’t, and the fallout usually hurts her more than it hurts anyone else.

So–what’s more possible? That Raf has now found himself in the splash zone of this kind of…hypomanic/giddy impulsive behaviour they’ve seen from Magritte a few times already? Or is Magritte finally showing a more selfishly machiavellian side of herself that she was so good at hiding, it was barely comprehensible? “Okay, but…” Raf asks if his uncle had any explanation for why Magritte, despite being obviously upset, was putting an effort to act as though he wasn’t the reason for it? To which Bill was like, “well, have you asked her?” before, maybe a bit foolishly, offering up his best guess of “She already told you she knew she was in the wrong. She apologised. You didn’t accept her apology. My guess? She’s just gonna do what you want her to do. Stop making music with you? End the relationship? Get her to move out? I don’t recommend testing it unless it’s what you actually want.” Bill offered his honest opinion to Raf, that Magritte’s a good one. A very good one. And Raf needs to talk to her–about all of this. They’re both good kids, they’ll figure it out.

When Raf returned home, the door was unlocked and Magritte’s shoes were on the boot rack. He didn’t see her in the kitchen nor the living room, and so knocked on her bedroom door, asking her to sit with him on the couch when she had a moment to do so.

He had barely sat down before he heard the door to Magritte’s room creak open. Soon after, she sat curled into herself on the opposite end of the couch from him, eyes and nose peeking out from behind her knees. Small.

There was a moment of silence between them before Raf asked, “Honestly, now; are you pissed off at me?”

Magritte answered, “No, but you are, at me.”

He elected to make no platitudes about it, “I was. I’m trying not to be. What are you expecting me to say?” To which Magritte replied, muffled into her knees, “I don’t know…don’t make me answer that. I don’t know.”

And so Raf asks instead, “What are you hoping for?”

“I don’t know, I love you. You don’t even gotta love me back but I wanna play music with you and I want us to keep having fun together and I want to delete the whole past twenty-four hours from my brain. That’s all.” And, while Raf paused to weigh that in his mind, Magritte hesitantly added, “I think there’s something wrong with me.” “With you?” Raf was taken a bit aback by this.

Magritte continued, “How does anyone get so excited and eager about something that it ruins everything? It didn’t even exist, it wasn’t real, there was no deal. They could have come back with an offer that was like ‘we want all ur music for zero monies’, ‘we want full, exclusive rights to your name, likeness, and social security number’, ‘we will provide you a $2 advance in exchange for your first born child’. Like–it could have been total garbage–I don’t know, it didn’t exist. But in my mind, it did exist, it was gonna be great, and–we were gonna be able to make so much music together, just like we are already, but without any of the stress. That wasn’t real, either. There’d have been so much more stress.” As she sunk further into herself, she concluded, “This is real. This sucks. I put us here.”

At this, Raf couldn’t help but let a genuine laugh escape through his nose as a little snort. “Actually…This isn’t so bad.” It wasn’t meant to be an insensitive snort, the irony had simply struck him. While Magritte had been carried away by dream situations, Raf had been consumed by nightmare scenarios. For him, the reality of sitting on the couch with Magritte, trying to come to grips with the fact that she hadn’t been trying to manipulate him like a tool, that she had been operating on the pure puppy-like head-empty jovial excitement that he was usually so fond and protective of–was a huge upgrade from the situation he had been imagining in his head. For Magritte, sitting on the couch with him, trying to come to grips with the fact that she may have negatively impacted a relationship and living situation that she had enjoyed dearly–was most certainly a gut-wrenching downgrade from the rosy “make music, get money, laugh and play” dream she had been imagining in her head. Raf had to be honest with her; he was still entirely firm on his stance of no contracts, no labels…and now–probably no live shows nor online media posts featuring him in any capacity. At least, not for a while. It would be too much of a raw nerve for him, and not something he wanted to stress over. They could still jam, and record–for themselves, privately. And sincerely, this was all it took for Magritte to uncurl her knees from under her chin, and perk up with hopeful gratitude. That she didn’t look as though she were being punished by Raf’s backsliding into old restrictions, and instead appeared genuinely surprised and happy that they could still just make music together–convinced Raf that Uncle Bill’s assessment had been, as usual, spot on. Magritte was a good one. A very good one.

He couldn’t stop himself from asking though, “If I said no more music, full stop–?” “Could I still play music?” “Well–yeah.”

“Would you let me make you listen to it??”

“I like your music, Magritte–”

Her big, happy grin said plenty, before it dissolved into big, blobby tears and wet sniffles.

She admitted that she was so scared he was gonna tell her the whole thing was over, but he didn’t and she’s so relieved, and she loves him so much and she’s so sorry.

Struck a bit numb by the notion that ‘ah, I’ve been a complete asshole’, Raf pulled her into a big ol’ hug, buried his face into her hair, and apologised in kind for his deliberate callousness in the morning–and more than that, for allowing his fear and suspicion convince him in the first place that she was something she wasn’t. It wasn’t right of him, it wasn’t fair to her, and this whole situation could have been resolved over breakfast if he had just…believed what she was saying at face value. Or at least he could have tried not to be a dick about it until he talked it over with his uncle. He couldn’t promise that he’d never fuck up like this again, just like she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t get carried away either–but he promised to always return her statements of affection, especially in moments when he’s mired in panic and suspicion… to serve as a reminder to himself as much as to reassure her.

Because, in truth–though he’d never saddle her with the knowledge of this–she’s the closest he’s ever felt (outside of guilt-motivated blood relatives) to believing that someone could afford him genuinely unconditional love. A great deal of his fear is rooted in the understanding that–if she was proven to be playing him, there was absolutely no hope–zero chance that he’d ever be able to convince himself that he could just be–loved like a normal human being.And that’s not a state of mind he thinks he could confidently survive. For Magritte’s part, any music or career-related thing that requires his involvement–she just doesn’t entertain unless he’s the one bringing it to her. Raf has never stopped her from pursuing music in a professional capacity where it didn’t involve him–in fact, he has always been extremely eager and supportive from the side-lines. She is literally, without any question, his favourite musical artist. Most of her equipment these days is bought and paid for by him, any opportunity he can find for her, he brings to her–and he is only able to comfortably, confidently do so because she never asks or expects it of him.

Her favorite music is the music she makes with him, and eventually…eventually…they do end up performing shows together again (along with Cortes). But their music is theirs first and foremost. For themselves, before anything else. And it is a gift more precious to her than anything.

#Cortes #long post #LOONG post lmao sry #Hi-Note #rafael #magritte

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dreams-writings · 11 months

Text

Reverse Interrogation -

Part 2

sub!Feitan x top!reader

‼️NSFW / MDNI ‼️

Synopsis: For the first time in his life, Feitan fails an interrogation. Refusing to admit defeat and give up his perfect track record when it comes to his specialty, he begrudgingly allows reader to strike a bargain in exchange for her secrets.. and is shocked to learn what she truly wants. His body. Frustrated and furious with his predicament, he angrily accepts her conditions purely for the sake of the Troupe, agreeing to do as she says. No other reason...

[afab reader is more experienced, Feitan is a virgin. This part is long, it takes a while to get him to open up.]

Tw: smut, torture, violence, NSFW/MDNI, vulgar language, Feitan gives verbal consent but still isn't happy with the situation/ (dubcon????)

Taglist: @chrollosbiggeststan

"Don't understand request.. why..." Feitan's defensive hiss of displeasure was voiced as he felt the odd and foreign sensation of body weight pooling down upon his hips. Since the start of all this, he'd begrudgingly done exactly as his prior victim asked, to fulfill his end of the bargain they made. If he followed her commands, he would get the answers he'd tortured her for earlier, and failed to pry from her lips by his own terms. Now he had to do it her way.

He'd complained through every second of bandaging her wounds, and changing her into fresh clothing before the main event - one of her first commands to him. But he just couldn't meet her gaze anymore the same way as before if he was being truthful. He was terrified to make eye contact, and melt into a visible puddle of humiliation. Just knowing what they were to do together soon..

He was worried she might see how much the proposition of sexual intercourse affected him. So, he kept his face and his eyes turned away from her in total stubborn avoidance. It was also one of the only ways he could somewhat protest without disobeying, before he figured out more that is. He could be a sly little brat to handle.

She was straddling him, and he squirmed uncomfortably. He hated this. Closeness, intimacy, all of it - Feitan found it extremely detestable and he was already overwhelmed. Feitan didn't know how he was going to get through this for Chrollo. "Why? You heard me and my standards for this little agreement perfectly fine just earlier. Far too late to ask questions now, interrogator. Besides-"

"Can't believe you would.. ask Danchou to his face for this type of arrangement.." the feral man with ebony hair and narrowing gray eyes spat at her in reply, disgust making his lip curl. He continued avoiding her eyes.

"Don't interrupt me," she said, abruptly. Feitan scoffed incredulously, his brow knitting together into an expression of fury. How dare she. Yet, at the same time, he found himself marveled and perplexed. He had to begrudgingly admit.. she had balls, talking back to him, after he was practically tearing her fingernails off not even an hour ago for a chunk of desired intel. He was still very puzzled by her bold personality and the fact that he didn't scare the living daylights out of her.

He could ruin her fucking life. And she was telling him to shut up. The audacity. Although, perhaps a bit of his rage here was tied to his hurt pride and the unexpectedness of this whole situation. He had never failed an interrogation before. This woman was just some sort of freak of nature, or perhaps bloody insane. This whole deal where she supposedly would get to use him like a toy or something.. it felt like the ultimate humiliation. Punishment for his incompetence. This wasn't going to be witnessed by anyone in person, sure - but Chrollo knew. His great respected leader. And that alone was enough to put a stain on his name, and wound his ego astronomically. Hence his rigid resistance.

Nonetheless, he couldn't find the words to bite back anyway, for what he originally meant to say. He knew the foul word for "whore" in his first language but didn't quite recall the verbage to express the insult to her face right now, in hers. He was frustrated with his lack of vocabulary with which he swore he would've weaponized a million clever offenses to cut her down. Unfortunately she had him kind of tongue tied.

A woman... A pretty woman this close.. it wasn't normal for him. Even with people he'd known his whole life. She was a stranger.

Rather, the pale raven was insistent about keeping everyone an arms length away at all times. He didn't like what this was doing to him. He was already beginning to sweat, whether it be from stress or just biological response.

"You're a virgin, aren't you?" She practically purred. He felt her shift slightly, probably a purposeful move, shimmying to position herself a little lower down his abdomen. The fucking bitch could feel he was already getting hard, couldn't she?

The poor, touch starved man couldn't help it. A girl wanted to fuck him for the first time and he was furious that his yearning body betrayed him so openly. She would certainly know one way or another, eventually. So he told himself it wouldn't matter if it were unavoidable in the end, anyway.

At least, he did this to avoid the realization that something as unremarkable as her close proximity already had his bloodflow rushing south. In the past, he'd soothed his instinctive reproductive urges like any self isolated male did. Chronic masturbation.

It had been a frequent activity that was intended to simply satisfy his needs and hold him over through a life without any positive touch from anyone. It wasn't ever completely ideal when he knew (supposedly, by his male friends' unsuccessful encouragements) that women felt much better. And looked much better in the flesh than the adult content he read. But he wouldn't know what he was missing out on anyway, would he? Therefore it was all irrelevant.

It's just that he didn't trust anyone to get that close. Phinks had tried to persuade him a time or two, on rare occasions the Troupe hit up a club or bar for whatever reason. Asking him to try and aim for a girl to take home. But Feitan always refused.

"Could be spy or enemy," he would always insist with a huff. And his friends would then proceed to tell him he's too up-tight before running off to find their own temporary mistresses for a scandalous night. He would watch, perhaps feeling a tad left out but not affected enough to complain about it.. knowing full well that if he even tried, he would fail. He wasn't the charming type who could take a girl to bed after just one conversation. There was just no way he could pull that off and he didn't want to get laughed at by the others when it inevitably happened.

Phinks had a confident and self assured masculine presence about him that women were attracted to. He was also big and fit. Shalnark was clever and had a kind of boyish playfulness that often made the girls laugh when he talked. What did Feitan have? A sharp tongue and a grand total of 5ft of height.

As a result, Fei was then left to take over watch for the evening when he returned to base by himself. Someone had to do it, he told himself.

Chrollo would gaze at him as he stepped back into the building solo, giving a sigh. "Just you?" He'd ask.

"Yeah." He'd mumble. And they both understood what had happened.

He was 28 now and he'd continued to deny himself sex for what he considered his own safety. He wasn't ready for all that. Although, perhaps Feitan would have changed his mind had he known what kind of first time he would have. If he'd had any sort of experience then maybe all this repressed desire that he'd deliberately stuffed deep down, wouldn't be resurfacing at a crucially horrible time.

To his dread, all of this made his body so incredibly ready, but his brain was panicking and running in the polar opposite direction as his dick.

Why couldn't it be with a girl he actually tolerated? He'd literally just met her today. And all he knew about her was how she didn't respond to torture, and how her personality annoyed him. In fact, her hauty little attitude was peeving to him, enough that he began to dislike her in such a short amount of time. Or at least he thought he did? She was irritating indeed. But only because she'd bested him. He wouldn't admit to that, so really, who's fault was it?

He could be as horny as humanly possible but it wouldn't change the fact he didn't trust her. Not one bit. He was certainly having intrusive paranoias that she might pin him down and kill him like this if he gave in too much.. if she caught him too weak and distracted. So, he'd protest against his body with his verbal and mental self control. Easy. He had pretty steadfast faith in his willpower.

He just had to endure. Do this ridiculous form of reverse interrogation, if it meant securing crucial information. If he had pride in anything at all in this lifetime, it was that he always carried his weight in the Troupe. He was supposed to be the most reliable by his own self imposed standards. Damn this woman, for having something they needed so badly. And demanding something like this of him, in exchange for it. She must know she had sizeable leverage here.

Feitan always took what he wanted by force. He was a thief, after all. This route suddenly being unavailable to him was difficult to accept. Why did SHE get to have the upper hand and make such a mess of him?

He didn't answer her question about his virginity. Because it shouldn't matter to her. This was an empty business dealing. A bargain. She didn't deserve any scrap of knowledge about him as a person.. or what he has and hasn't lived through.

"Will you be a good boy for me and give me an answer?" she cooed. And Feitan found himself tensing, fists balling up tight as she leaned forward, stomach to stomach, lips lowering to caress his sensitive left ear as she whispered.

"You really don't need to though... I know a touch starved man when I see one. Every time I move, you make the cutest little faces. You've never been touched before by a woman, have you?" She nibbled gently on his ear in a manner that could almost be considered playful. But it made him jump, barely suppressing a yelp of surprise. Thank heavens he was on such high alert.

"Perhaps if you did... You wouldn't have such a stick up your ass." She gave a sly giggle. He was seeing red by now, especially with that irritating little sound she made.

His blood was boiling and Feitan had to practically chew on his tongue to keep from blindly strangling her. She wouldn't have anything smart to say then, would she? But he endured. For Chrollo. For the Troupe. "...fuck you," was all he could say, with all the passion and loathing in the world. His eyes bore daggers into hers as she stared him down, face to face, her lip curling into a coy expression.

"Yes dear, that's the idea. Be patient, you'll get to have that soon."

Feitan gave a sharp gasp as she smoothed her hands up his sides, molding around the shape of his slender waist, and reaching up to his toned arms. Her weight.. her scent.. the softness of her body.. he was pinned down and forced to take it all in. She was truthfully so much woman to experience, in comparison to his contrasting form of high muscle density. She was purely such a visage of femininity.

He was learning that being obsessively alert towards her every movement to ensure his safety had its drawbacks; suddenly hyper aware of the way her back arched into graceful curve when she lifted her hips to hover a little higher above him. Teasingly, her thighs spread like butterfly wings, lowering slowly till they were plush and soft against his abdomen in a tight straddle. Fuck.

"You're acting as though I intend to hurt you. I promise I'll be so gentle with you. Besides, if you really, truly couldn't stand the thought of fucking me, then - you would've declined this exchange offer. Wouldn't you? You're no pushover." She was slithering down closer to his neck now, and he felt his blood pressure rise, his heart rate doing the same as his instincts told him to protect his main arteries. His vitals where her lips were slowly advancing on him.

"Oh, dear... it's feeling a little too tight right here isn't it?" Feitan wasn't prepared for the moment she palmed him without warning, applying some pressure to send a little shockwave through his body, and he bit his lip to stifle any reaction.

"You're so terribly turned on for me right now, isn't that right, Feitan?"

"Not that simple," he spat back resentfully. She should know that. He despised what she was suggesting right now. Was she arrogant enough to think he lusted for her? His defiant thought was interrupted as she moved to reposition her hips a little lower yet again. She planned to gradually inch her way down bit by bit it seemed.. And he held his breath to keep it together through those short moments where her shifting weight provided him with some rubbing sensations to his groin, teasing his undeniably aching hard cock.

Yes.. he felt a bit of a stirring urge just now, admittedly, after watching the lewd way she opened her body up to him. But he rejected the feeling as much as he could, while simultaneously realizing he really wished there wasn't a barrier of clothing in the way.

By now her hair was cascading around him, tickling his collarbones, and he could feel her plush ass settling between the dipped junction of his thighs and hip bones. Not to mention, even through her clothing, he could make out a few anatomical details from between her legs, and determine that his dick was settled right where her clit would be. Torturously separated by undergarments and pants. Despite that, he could still feel a faint warmth, assumingly radiating from her core.

He had truthfully only ever been able to dream of sex before. Feitan knew he was undesirable to women. Short in stature and quite tense in appearance - he was also just as abrasive, cold, and detached as a man could possibly be. Any girl with a scrap of self preservation knew to avoid him.

He was lacking in physical traits that were appealing in terms of social norms, and even moreso in personality. He'd written off the idea of sexual connections entirely, and years ago at that, unwilling to try and be more approachable to achieve it. So, this happening so quickly, not only did it confuse him horrendously - why this woman seemingly thought a chance at his unappealing body was worth a damn dime, but furthermore, his unpreparedness and desperate yearning betrayed him.

He'd only ever fucking daydreamed of being buried balls deep in a hot, tight pussy belonging to a stunning woman such as her. It was so difficult not being tempted now that his own genitalia was hungrily drinking in whatever faint hints of warmth he could cling onto from beneath the crotch of her jeans, like a mouse still clings to its bait from within the trap it's sprung.

As more thoughts of denial crossed his mind, reminding himself he couldn't give in so easily, his eyes ended up transfixed on a pretty view from within the open window of her blouse. Round, full breasts that looked even softer than plump pillows.

Feitan gave a hard swallow as he felt the woman's breath fan over his neck. Was this what a rabbit felt like, cowering under a fox's intentful eye? Or even.. what his victims felt like beneath his malicious aura? A moment later she was kissing there, with surprising reserve. He'd half expected her to voraciously pounce him. He said nothing, struggling to refuse all the impulses he had to end her and this situation right now, while also quietly gulping for air as his lungs compressed inward. Again, no fucking warning was given.

He paused as his brain processed what he was feeling, being kissed. He had not expected such tenderness and it oddly made his ribcage tighten. He just had to endure. Endure. That one goal.. that one mindset was all he could drill into himself at the moment to get through it. Dammit, he could survive anything, which was why he agreed. This was extremely temporary. Hell, he likely wouldn't even be harmed. So it made logical, practical sense to accept the exchange. Suffer temporarily.. and gain a long lasting win for the Troupe. His mind had always worked this way for means of survival. Prioritizing was a skill he had to learn.

Feitan's breath was a bit labored by now, as this woman's kissing continued, and he did also notice as she began to deepen the level of intensity with which she explored the junction of his neck. Tingling butterfly kisses became more sensual and wanton. Her mouth was warm.. her tongue was smooth as she left circling patterns over his skin and then sucked softly here and there at her leisure.

He just needed to focus on something else. Anything else. The creaky ceiling fan above began to look hazy.

Fuck... Fuck, fuck.. she sounded fantastic right now, hungrily suckling on him and moaning in satisfaction as if she couldn't get enough of him. Her sighs were pleasing to his ears. He wanted to just throw caution to the wind, ignore her commands despite his promise, and flip her over into the mattress. All this, to brutally fuck her into submission until she screamed out his name -

Dammit, no- stop it.

He couldn't do that. He couldn't succumb. It was hard to focus on something else. Anything else. But he was grounded in the moment by the sensation he couldn't ignore, no matter how unshakable his willpower typically was.

Her lips were.. oh so soft. He could not block out the slight details, like the wet remnants where her intimate path had left behind, and the cold rush that followed if any surrounding air were to billow past. "So pale," she commented on his complexion, once she'd abruptly pulled away, to Feitan's surprise. Her voice unexpectedly was lacking that same sense of mockery as before. It caught him off guard and he struggled to catch back up again before she was already upon him like before. Why now, did she sound so doting?

"....you're so fucking pretty." She cooed.

I am?

He almost answered aloud.

It was mortifying that such a simple compliment made his ears redden at the tips. Did she really think that about him? He wasn't used to receiving them. It was certainly a first if someone thought that way about him, with his prominent stress lines aging his skin from years of jaw clenching and tension.. and his tired, exhausted eyes. He was too small to be attractive and too cold on the surface to draw people in. How could he be beautiful to someone with eyes?

"You wanna watch me touch myself before I play with you? Maybe then you'll appreciate it more, since you're still trying to resist what your body wants,"

She made the suggestion as she scooted back a little more, notably removing the pressure off his member for a moment, but he was somewhat relieved when it returned a second later after having been positioned to sit upright. He didn't resist.

Feitan was quiet for a moment, unsure of what to do or what to look at, as she wordlessly started to unbutton her pants. He thought he was going to have a moment of recovery time, his gaze and his thoughts distracted momentarily as he noticed some of her blood from before still caked against the steel chair he had set up for interrogations. He was about to contemplate how he ended up here.. but he was snapped back into the present when he felt her other free hand wrap around his neck.

"Kiss me.. but I also want you to watch closely. That's going to be one of my demands, actually. Don't take your eyes off my fingers as I show you how to touch women. You need to learn it."

She didn't hesitate to connect their lips into a heated kiss - suckling rather lewdly on him. He was preoccupied dealing with this, noticing she tasted sweet yet a little metallic at the same time.. probably some remnants of her blood still lingering on her mouth. He didn't mind it, being utterly desensitized to all things gore related, moreso just bothered by the fact that this was intense and he was slightly overstimulated.

His ears picked up on a sound other than the exchange of wet kisses, however, and a brief moment of confusion passed when he realized what he might be hearing. Instantly, he pulled away from her, eyes lowering to determine if he was right.

He almost gave a strangled gasp at the sight, but instead kept the outward response limited to his expression. Her drooling cunt was presented to him clearly, seated in his lap and weeping with aroused lubrication. It aided her two fingers as she rotated them skillfully in a steady pattern, drawing his attention in to the point of unhealthy fixation as he observed her getting off right on top of him.

"Fei.. Feitan.. are you watching me..? You should be watching and learning.. maybe I'll let you touch me like this if you're good to me.."

She was panting softly, her other arm wrapped around his shoulders to hold herself up, and thoughtlessly, he found himself grasping onto her to keep her still, assisting her in maintaining this position. He just watched. Hungrily drinking in every minute detail.

He was still quite resistant to all this physical touch, but mostly just struggling to accept that he was feeling a profound reproductive response throbbing from his nether regions, begging him to receive more attention from a girl who perhaps wanted him. Hell, the amount of wet slick clinging to her fingers and glistening in the candlelight definitely suggested she did. Maybe this wasn't all just mock him, after all.

He would never admit it.. but perhaps it was stupid of him to expect that this wouldn't affect him at all. That he could just defy his urges because he was stubborn and egotistical. "I can't wait to have you," she whined, with her fingers submerged up to the base of her knuckles inside her pretty hole.

This declaration left him shaken. Such a crude implication in all these words. Feitan found himself giving a helpless huff of exasperation, realizing he might think she could look cute bouncing on his cock. He was in awe, listening so intently to the heavenly sounds of female masturbation.. and becoming acquainted with the wet symphony of her fingers massaging and stretching her insides. He really liked these noises.

The steady waves of arousal that rode through his body made him grip the sheets just a little tighter when she promised to fuck him. Scatteredly, he thought to himself.. is this what it is like, to feel desirable? She said she couldn't wait to have him. God.. it was good when she said it that way. Would she say more nice things to him maybe? Even if he didn't ask? Cuz he wouldn't.

"It feels so good when you watch me, Feitan.. watch how I touch my clit.."

And he did. His intense gray hues were full of fire as his gaze bore into the space where her fingers worked, noticing the precise movements and how she would rotate between penetrative stimulation, and then back to slowly rubbing circles against the sensitive bud of her clitoris. Her pink pussy reminded him of a pretty flower, spreading apart the petals to play with the sweet nectar leaking from within.

"You want to feel like this too..? Let me teach you how to have some fun.. since you're such an overworked man."

She began to sit up, and he stayed put, still in a trance and unsure of himself this far into it. "I want your mind to be empty for a while. Wouldn't that be so nice? For a stressed and weary man like you? It's about time you got to try it too... The same kind of fun your teammates get to have with the pretty little things they find off the streets or from the bars after a mission. The fun Chrollo has had.. and likely even a creep like Hisoka too.. don't you think you deserve it as well?"

But there was no turn to speak when he found his lips claimed again by hers, melding between the spaces of his own. Her hands, they ghosted up his wrists and intertwined fingers, pressing him needily down into the springy mattress below. It gave a creak under the shifting weight distribution.

Feitan growled softly, making a grimace, but she wasn't going too fast surprisingly. The kisses were lingering, and Feitan was just seeing how all of this felt for the first time. Whether he liked it or not, and with her - this was likely the first and last time he'd ever experience this common phenomenon which was a miracle in his personal books. Curiosity existed deep down inside his mind, naturally. The more she coaxed him in with little addictive samples of touch, the more he was seduced into temptation towards her words. She was.. persuasive. Not just with her honey sweet promises but with her body too. He kind of resented her for it.. for making him feel so fragile.

He didn't kiss her back - he still didn't know how, and he was embarrassed that it might be obvious. Feitan was suddenly shy and clamming up quickly, but he was enduring. Doing as he'd promised.

His genuine surprise began to really set in when he felt something strange on his head. He hadn't noticed through her attempts to make out with him that her hand had slipped away and was now tangling up through his hair. The dark raven locks sifted between her fingers as she began to.. pet him?? It was more like little strokes, in a gradual pattern. He felt the resulting sensation against his head to actually be rather soothing for his headache. He almost always had headaches...

"W-What.. why ..." He had broken away to voice his dumbfounded concern. "Relax," she tried, and Feitan scowled. "No," he retorted. Still stubborn as ever. But something in her expression gave him the feeling that his attitude didn't actually bother her.

He doubled back when she leaned forward suddenly, to stare him down and whisper softly. A challenge in her eyes. "I could be a whole lot meaner to you, interrogator. I really could. I'm being so gracious to you, after all you've done to torment me earlier."

He just stared back at her, but his look was more calculating this time. Trying to test her boundaries here and figure out how far he could still push her, without receiving concequences. Because Feitan knew he could endure torture if that's what she was suggesting. He had before and he would do it again if he had to. To him, it was not a foreign experience by any means.

If anything, the current situation was more challenging, and more frightening. Still, the problem was that if she hurt him, he was sure he'd go ballistic, and murder the Troupe's one potential source of information. He had to stay put.

"Good," she praised, as if she could see the moment he mentally accepted his fate through reasoning. He just ignored her. He would stop questioning her actions so long as it didn't hurt.

"I'm going to start now." Even with a warning, Feitan experienced a bit of a shock as she slipped her hands beneath his garments, a slight gasp of fright, at fingers caressing his bare flesh. "My, I can tell you're a beautiful man beneath the thick clothes. You're so stunning, you know that?"

Feitan shuddered, finding himself baffled by the compliments, and unable to refuse the flush overcoming his body from more rare flattery. But it was still strange to him, her tactics, and how she spoke to him with a voice that wasn't commanding.. but moreso sweet and cunning. The confidence was jarring, because he felt he couldn't offset her goals here even with his insults if he tried. It made it tempting to give up the act. Nothing was working - his stoicism tactic was crumbling. He didn't know how to combat an approach that was so.. passive. Her tone was always sappy, like sugary syrup, since the start of this. Was this seduction? Why the fuck would anyone want to put the effort into seducing him anyway?

Feitan's muscles continued to retract and tense beneath her touch, feeling her fingers slide down the plains and ridges of his stomach. Couldn't she just fuck him already and get it over with? The more he complained though, the more she seemed to punish him by dragging it all out. He repressed a sigh of impatience.

This was taking fucking ages. And the warm stirring in his nether regions was getting a little more unbearable than even she was to him, with how painful his erection was growing. The surging bloodflow literally hurt to a degree. That stunt she pulled a bit ago with her fingers in her cunt really left him hopeless when it came to any prior potential recovery. He was doomed and horny beyond fucking belief.

With her descending movement he was suddenly, painfully aware of plush breasts cushioning themselves against his chest. His next breath was a bit heavier, and he would tell himself it was the extra weight. She was kissing him again.. it was like she was trying to condition him or something. Because it was getting a lot more bearable, out of frequent exposure. He was acclimating to the circumstances by repetition.

She wasn't saying anything to him but she did suddenly begin pushing him along into new territory by steadily rocking her hips in a sensual, hypnotic rhythm.

"Oh fuck.."

Feitan hissed at the new sensation before spitting out a curse. He legitimately couldn't spare the thought to be humiliated because the rush of relief was so fucking good. The teasing.. it all must've been deliberate, because now, he could really only think of chasing more and more of this feeling. It was just a natural reaction that he had no true willpower over.

She was using his whole stubborn act against him with the subtle, light stimulation. The fucking bitch was teasing him even more now, giving him scraps when he wanted a feast.

"How is it? It's going to get much better for you soon," she told him, and he ignored her again. He was busy trying to handle this sudden overload of sensory input all at once. His cold hands had shot up to grip her waist where the pleasing motion was coming from as she began again, hearing the bed creak in rhythm with the rocking. It was just a little bit of rubbing, getting him off through his clothes - but it was enough to make him feel extra warm down there. He groaned in a mixture of annoyance with her clever tactics, as well as more relief when he started matching her motions with a furious amount of insistence. He just wanted his cock stimulated now, that's all he cared about anymore, god dammit.

"How do you think it will feel, being inside me? We haven't even gotten close to the real thing. You're not ready. I knew I'd have to be patient with you.. but you're getting there."

It struck him as peculiar that she cared even remotely whether or not he was ready. In truth he didn't think he ever could be, but he was also not able to pay much mind to her words when he found himself preoccupied noticing other things.

The grace to her motions, the pressing sensation of her tits with every roll of her body, flush against his chest for his viewing pleasure. He was watching her spine do the work, observing the curvature of her hips and ass. What a strange way to move. Yet he found himself mindlessly enraptured. Hypnotized. He was slipping, enough not to consider trying to regain his composure now.

Fuck.. she was sexy. Always had been. He had definitely been eyeing her before during the interrogation when he was in charge of the power dynamic - he just doubted she'd notice. But there were other signs. The dragging of icy cold metal, from his tools - over compromising areas.. hoping to see a reaction. Elated, and delighting in it if there was. Even if all he got was a gasp or some goosebumps. She was a work of art. With or without his angry blades carving and bleeding crimson designs into her. Instead, apparently, he'd get to pierce into her a different way.

He didn't resist too much now, trying to just get through this with minimally damaged pride, as she kept grinding on him and soon returned back to kissing him. He didn't actively pull away or reject her anymore, nor did he return the gestures. He just sat like a puppet for use, letting her use his lips, and paying attention to how it actually felt.

Feitan's shoulders eased up a tad bit as he focused solely on that warm pit growing in his stomach. It was liberating, as well as the fact that his prior pounding head was ebbing away into something empty. Thoughtless. Perhaps it was the strokes through his hair that made him release tense muscles that he hadn't even realized were strung up tight. Or the comfort of her warmth.

Feitan had really overworked himself within the Troupe, because his duties were all he had left for a sense of purpose. It was typically something he took too far. No breaks. He was just up-tight in general, as a human being. So such a sudden release of all this pent up repression was kind of unfathomable. His mind was turning off slowly..all that could be left was primal instinct.

His victim opened her mouth and traced the tip of her tongue over his bottom lip - an open mouthed kiss for the first time was enough to make him shake, feeling a twitch between his legs, and he released his tight fists from the sheets to ball up in the material of her shirt.

He gave consistent puffs of air accompanied by a gasp or two between their tongues twirling. Without his noticing, he'd begun rolling his hips willingly, slowly in sync to meet with her fluid movements every now and again. It was truthfully a relief. he panted quietly as her hands yet again reached up to grope and feel him beneath his long tunic.

"You're feeling good, aren't you? You look so stunning. So relaxed. This is truly all I wanted from you." She purred warmly and lifted a hand to brush a few strands of hair away from his face. He winced away like a flighty, untamed cat.

Deep inside his mind, that normal part of his stubborn personality that had been melted away, yelled out that this was a trap and she must've hypnotized him with some cheap technique involving nen. He couldn't be this weak.

But since when did being weak feel so fucking good? It seemed she meant to prove her point because he realized a moment later that her head was missing. He felt her stirring to crawl beneath the thin blankets.

A groan of disappointment came from him followed at the loss of pressure around his groin area. His captor giggled. Or... Was she technically his captive victim still?

"Be a little patient for me, sweetheart. You're about to be rewarded for trying things my way. Close your eyes and relax for me, alright? I'm going to suck you off now. You're being so, so good." Being praised like a fucking pet dog was utterly humiliating, so why did his chest feel a swell of warmth?

A lurch of excitement also came suddenly with the mere possibility of receiving his first blowjob - which he kind of hated himself for too. God, he definitely had to kill this woman after they fucked if he ever wanted to see his face in the mirror and not feel his pride crumble at his feet. Where the absolute fuck was his unyielding dignity right now? He needed it. Yet the part of his mind that wanted to melt into her words and her body, told him it was fine. He could hate the woman and yet love her body simultaneously. No need to fret over it. She was making for a promising fuck so far.

"Hurry up," he demanded, and by now his blood was on fire at the sensation of lean, clever fingers lowering down his trousers slowly and pulling his out his cock, to place the tip in-between a pair of lovely lips. "I was just going to admire you for a moment.. but if you insist my love, then, as you wish." She stroked it a few times, causing him to grit his teeth.

The snug warmth that enveloped him a second later was like a fucking godsend to him. Her mouth was hot, and his dick felt great in it.

"Fuck, yes-" he cursed through gritted teeth, feeling his head fall back into place upon his pillow, a sweet sigh cascading from his mouth. His shoulders practically gave out at that moment, the usual tight expression stuck plastered to his face loosening into a blissed out look of numb content. He could see why Phinks had told him for years that he desperately needed to get laid. This was fucking great.

Feitan kind of just stayed there like that and fixated on every sensation as she got started on him. Her nails grazing over the ridges of his hip bones, her tongue prodding against the underside of his cock, then swirling across the head in a way that made him throb. She was taking her time but he didn't mind now.

Once she actually took him all the way in and started getting him off, she was messy and unapologetic with the way she sucked dick. But it wasn't unpracticed or sloppy. She blew him like a professional whore and he was a twitching, shuddering wreck. His hesitant, quiet moans were genuine, even if muffled by his hand in complete embarrassment. He was just so sensitive all over.

This woman knew how to incorporate every part of her mouth, to create the most utterly irresistible cock sleeve for his free use. Once she began to take him in deeper, he instantly loved the tight, gummy walls of her velvety throat squeezing him in a way that made him feel feral. Before he knew it, he was breathing huskily, drowning in euphoria all the while humping shallow thrusts down her throat. He couldn't help it. He could not stop.

She was salivating heavily now, creating a gutteral squelch that was muffled in the back of her mouth with every single beat of motion that had him fully sheathed, his tip kissing the part of her soft pallet which was furthest back in her throat. Better yet, she moaned after giving a slight gag, and Feitan's breath hitched as his nails dug into her head at the vibration, thin fingers dragging through her hair. "Keep.. keep on.. sucking it.. yea..." He pleaded with her mindlessly. He was sweating and hot, body heating up and flushing with more and more lust.

The dusty, echoey room was filled with a light reverberation of her gulps and his panting. He was a mess by now, head resting back on his pillow as his limbs began to feel odd. Like jelly. Was this normal at all? Whatever. He'd just keep fucking into her mouth as he pleased with wild abandon. But.. suddenly his cock was released from where he felt it should belong.

"How are we feeling?" She purred at him, after having pulled lifted the blankets to peek up at him through hopeful lashes. Feitan gave a low growl at the loss of warmth because the building, twisting sensation in his core had abruptly unravelled... Disappeared the moment she confiscated her heavenly mouth from him, holding her lips hostage away from his now twitching, aching penis.

"Why you stop?" he barked, lifting his head to glare at her. The woman just chuckled. "Enjoying it that much, huh? I thought you were supposed to be impossible to break."

He rolled his eyes.

"I only stopped because I could tell you were getting a little too close. I wouldn't want to provoke a man like you with orgasm denial. That would've pissed you off even more, wouldn't it?" She said. Her reasoning was sound of course but Feitan wouldn't say so. He also didn't like the sinister twinkle in her eye as she said that.

"Besides. I want what I came here for. What I bargained to have. I want to claim your first time, and I'm gonna take your virgin cum inside me. Once it's mine, you can't give it to anyone else the same way, ever again... Okay?"

For a second he was really questioning if she had a couple screws loose too many - but he was one to talk. He ended up deciding he didn't care enough to say anything. If she had some sort of weird fetish with the circumstances then that wasn't his business. He was just pleased that he'd get to fuck at this point.

"You know how it works?" She asked, almost teasingly, and Feitan grunted as she lifted herself up and placed her weight back down on him, her hips moreso pressed onto his tummy temporarily.

"Of course, not an idiot" he grumbled. "If you here to take innocent person, I am not."

Rude of her to assume he was that stupid. After all, he was an enthusiast about specific kinds of content that he read, which had taught him about the act and all its possibilities ages ago. Hell, he could probably put up a case that he was a shit ton less innocent than she was, based on that kind of exposure alone - but he wouldn't make the attempt. Maybe she liked hardcore BDSM comics too, judging on the way she had him purposefully pinned with her straddled legs whenever given the opportunity.

"I'm going to take you inside me now and ride you, ok?" She seemed to be trying to distract him momentarily from what was happening in case he was nervous but really, Feitan was just antsy and getting tired of waiting. He wanted that empty headed, mind numbing, drugged out feeling he had earlier which made his fucking brain empty.

"Just fuck me already, whore. No more wait," he huffed. Seems he could remember the word after all.

The girl laughed. "Talk to me like that again and you might regret it," she practically purred. He found it a bit alarming and strange that her threats always came in a chiming tone of voice. Such a light, upbeat way of saying it made him suspicious of what might happen if he did it again. He'd never seen such a tactic before. MAYBE he could admit to himself that it was a little frightening.. but he'd never give her that satisfaction.

"Now, you are to do exactly what I tell you.. this is about what I want, so you're going to just lay there and take it obediently until I'm all finished with you, kay~? You've been so wonderfully compliant and I'd hate to have to wring submission from you the hard way."

She spoke with a sly smile as he watched her arms cross over her torso and latch beneath her slightly blood splattered shirt. Another reminder of the pain he inflicted her with earlier, and how she somehow still wanted anything to do with him. It was beyond his understanding.

He watched attentively as she undressed herself completely, starring in silence as he realized this was his first time seeing a real woman completely bare. Her skin was smooth.. she was admittedly very pretty and well built. Any other guy might even say he was lucky. But right now his eyes were stuck on some of the wounds he'd given her during their interrogation. It left him baffled how they seemingly didn't bother her.. but seeing marks on her by his hand oddly amped up his arousal a bit. He'd left a few imprints on her nice little figure. She could lay claim onto him by saying she took his first time.. but her scars would last visibly forever. She was *his* first.

"You can touch.. you have my permission," she told him, and he huffed softly. He didn't need her permission, he was just going to do what he wanted to. He didn't particularly like this woman but he enjoyed how she felt and how she looked. That didn't have to have anything to do with her actual personality or their relationship of course. He could still just kill her after this, so Feitan didn't hesitate to reach for her tits and grab at them greedily with eager hands.

Arms outstretched, be began to knead them, quite interested in the way they moved. Not exactly what he had ever imagined in person but he sure as hell wasn't disappointed. Soft, and almost squishy, pooling in between the spaces of his fingers anytime he massaged them. He didn't notice that he was somewhat wearing his fascination on his sleeve here, eyes transfixed and hungry.

To his surprise she made a sound, the moment his thumbs grazed over pink nipples. A little shuddering breath - and his eyes shot up to her face, completely in awe over the idea that HE had caused that this time. So far she had only done things to him.. she hadn't let her composure slip until now.

Feitan found himself wanting more of that,to establish more control - before he could even stop himself. Though.. he wasn't the one in charge here. It was part of the bargain that Feitan follow her directions. Do what she wanted. And to his utter dumbfounded confusion she seemed to want to focus her efforts on him, instead of forcing him to do all the work. It made no fucking sense to him what she could gain by eliciting reactions from him.

His dick still wet from her mouth, she pushed his coat fully up to his hips, motioning for him to remove it entirely, and he reluctantly did so without a word. He sat up, pulling it over his head, finding himself merely a few inches away from her chest once he had tossed the article over the edge. Before he could lay back down fully however, she stopped him, lacing her arms around his ribcage. "Stay right here," she whispered. "Look at me, for every second and every inch that I take of you inside me."

The order made his stomach flip flop in a weird sort of way, but again he would wordlessly follow it, jolting as he felt her fingers wrap back around his swollen need. Her thumb brushed between the slit of his pink head, teasingly smearing a bit of precum over the top, and then he felt her begin to guide his length where it needed to be. Somehow, in that one frozen moment in time, he realized many things. That he was quivering, holding his breath, hands lowering to grip needily at her hips and pull her down prematurely straight onto his throbbing cock so he might feel the perfect sensation of sexual pleasure once again. That warm stimulation he had become acquainted with by her mouth just a bit earlier.. he really really needed that back for some reason.

Feitan gave his first real groan as soon as she stopped his insistent behavior, placing a hand on his chest, meanwhile she simply lowered herself to align him with her sopping cunt. He could feel the heat emitting from inside her..

And at that moment it dawned on him how he really felt about this. He was ready. He wanted to have sex with her and he felt prepared, thanks to her slow acclimation techniques.

He wouldn't say anything about it but it was subtly present in the way he adjusted his grip to hold on to her a little differently, to assist in her descent.

He sure didn't know what he was in for.. but he was about to find out that the beginning.. was all child's play.

She had some plans for him, that were intended to break him down further.

#feitan porter x reader #feitan portor #feitan #feitan x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #hunter x hunter #18+ please #mdni #phantom troupe #hxh smut #hxh

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y-rhywbeth2 · 6 months

Text

Lore: Common Phrases & Words

Accuracy Disclaimer & The Other Stuff [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Translating some earth phrases and words into their Faerûnian equivalents, plus some words specific to Faerûn; Here's how make friends and insult people in Faerûn. Also they have coffee, guitars and health insurance.

Also included a handful of Waterdhavian phrases and words.

Phrases and curses:

"Before all the gods..." - "I swear to god..."

"Well met" - default greeting; hello

"Well again" - greeting between acquaintances, business partners and friends.

"Well enough" - agreement; "ok", "that's fine with me"

“Never undress in a room with a window, a Harper may be near!” – "Be careful what you say, you don't know who's listening. an interesting warning courtesy of Waterdhavian noble matrons.

"Haularake!" - The polite way to say "gods fucking damn it!" while in front of small children.

"Hrast!" - Damn it!

"Hrasted [thing]!" - Damned [thing]!

"[Deity]'s Blood" - eg "Cyric's Blood" Religious oath, rather like jesus christ. Contracted version of Blood of [deity]

I swear that I have seen "Umberlee's Teats" and "Cyric's Balls" said somewhere...

"Being an ox-haunch" - "Being an asshole"

"a breath" - a moment, a second; "wait a breath"

"A breath or two" - A moment/second; eg, "give me a breath or two to finish this."

"A goodly breath or three" - a minute. (Waiting for a notable amount of time, maybe ten minutes, but not that long.) -- The dwarven variant is "but a little while" -- Halflings call it a "long song"

"Counting like a halfling" - Being contrary just to be difficult Most of the Realms counts on their fingers starting with the thumb, halflings do it the other way around.

"Naeth!", "Naed!" - Shit!

"Sabruin" - Fuck you, Fuck off.

"Lay down [good] coin" - "pay [a lot] for something"

“Resourceful as a bard”

"Life's better when you're not a frog." - "Avoid wizards."

“Sweet water and light laughter until next we meet” - A goodbye said between nobles. Technically an elven farewell, but human nobility decided it made them look cultured or something.

"Gone to Daggerford" - Waterdhavian phrase meaning to hide from the law by lying low outside the city

"Black as a black opal" - used to describe people who seem evil, but aren't really. (Especially if they'd dislike you saying so)

- Faerûnian Lexicon:

Scorchkettle - a Karen.

Dining-house - a Restaurant

Glim - Eye-catching, beautiful, flashy

Kaeth - Coffee ~Fireswallow - a colloquial term for Coffee.

Yarting - acoustic guitar

Short scroll - Newspaper

Nandra - mediocre, meh.

Dael, daelin - a year, years

Saer - a term to address nobility when you don't know the proper title, or when they're children

Lackwit - Idiot

Roundskull - a prejudiced idiot who doesn't use their brain; "often applied to local folk who sit drinking in their tavern displaying prejudices and repeating the words of their parents and grandparents, rather than making their own judgements about changing conditions around them, and new concepts, items, and customs."

Handfast - an engagement (to be married) Handfasted - engaged

Goldnose, Goldnosed - Haughty. aka. "Has a stick up their ass." Highnose - as above

Lackcoin - a derogatory term for those living in poverty.

Darkmorning - the early morning hours between midnight and sunrise

Highsun - Midday

the Eavestrough - the Gutter

a Bell - an Hour

a Candle - an Hour

Festhall - a type of establishment found in the Realms. A kind of fusion between an inn, laundromat, spa, night club, brothel and casino. I'll explain these in another post. Suffice to day that BG3 is the most accurate portrayal of how damn horny this setting is that I've seen in a CRPG so far.

Blesséd - an elven loanword referring to immediate family.

Harhand - a labourer (minimum wage employee)

Healthshield - Health insurance, also known as a "healing-bond"

Fire-bond - Fire insurance

Rivvim - horny

Dawnfry - colloquial term for breakfast A common breakfast, especially for travellers at camp, is to quickly fry the leftovers from last night's meal.

Highbite - colloquial term for lunch Long variant is "Highsunfest."

Latebite, Evenfest - Dinner Abbreviation of "Eveningfeast."

the Art - Magic

Lackspell - a weak, or novice wizard

Aloft - Upstairs; "she went aloft/upstairs."

High-coin - Expensive; or referring to a high paying job Low-coin - Cheap; or paying minimum wage

Finework - intricate and valuable metalwork. Silverware and jewellery, for example

Finesmith - a smith who works with precious metals.

Hiresword - Mercenary

Stareyed - naïve

Shraehouse - a type of very small tavern

Fastmud - Cement

a Swords out - a brawl or violent argument

a Smur - a light, misty rain

Beast-men - common word for ogres

Big Folk - Term used by gnomes and halflings to refer to the other races

Longears - term for an elf

Little man - insult aimed at dwarves

a Blackstick - something like a grease pencil. A writing utility made of a stick of thorden (juniper) wood that can be sharpened on one end, which is then slightly charred and used to write with.

a Blandreth - a three legged cooking pot

a Boot - a Traveller

Dadacky - Rotten, Decayed

Heartstop - a Heart attack

Coin - Money; "I've got no coin until I get paid next week."

a Broad Cry - Headline of a newspaper/broadsheet

Holy hand - a temple guard

Tenday - equivalent of a week (10 days instead of 7) Other, less commonly used terms include; an "eve," "hyrar", "ride" or a "domen".

the Elf day - the Weekend. The tenth day of a tenday, sometimes a day of rest.

House storming - a burglary; home invasion

the Realms Below - the Underdark

a Black Robe - a magistrate [Waterdhavian dialect]

a Sun - a platinum coin [Waterdhavian]

a Dragon - a gold coin [Waterdhavian]

a Shard - a silver coin [Waterdhavian]

a Nib - a copper coin [Waterdhavian]

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plothooksinc · 7 months

Note

As promised, I have arrived with a prompt for NRFTW extra-content. I would loooooove to see the Hamato family come over to meet April's parents over dinner. 👀😎

this was less written and more 'the characters stuffed the author in the trunk and drove the plot themselves, but at least they gave the author popcorn'

WARNING: THIS IS A 30 PAGE STORY, IT IS THE UNDERDARK OF FAMILY DINNERS--

“Okay, so remember what I said about Raph.”

“He’s big. Don’t stare.”

“Great. I mean yeah, he’s huge, but he’s a big softie—”

“I get it. Stop being so worried.”

“Oh, and keep the gravy separate—”

“I got it!”

“—for Donnie, he has—”

“April.”

“...sensory issues?”

“So does your dad. Business as usual. You remember we’ve had this conversation three times already, right?”

“Sorry, mom. I’m just, uh…”

“You’re sitting down with friends you’ve known for years, not going to prom with a flock of mean girls. Stop pacing, for Pete’s sake. Look, get the potatoes out of the oven for me.”

“You got it.”

“How is… Leo? Is it Leo?”

“Yeah. He’s coming. AOPBA.”

“I have no clue what that means.”

“He has over-protective brothers.”

“Well, great, two birds with one stone. Go make up the couch so I don’t have to look at your face. Green is a better look on your turtle friends, baby, just sayin’.”

“Thanks so much.”

---------

There was really no good reason to be nervous. Donnie had already met her parents in less than stellar circumstances, and it had put Mom in a good mood for the rest of the evening. The ice had been broken; the guys had wanted to meet her family for ages, and she knew now it would be okay.

It didn’t stop the low level jitters as April padded the couch out generously with pillows and a comforter or two. It was like elation and terror had decided to go clubbing together somewhere in her rib cage. In the end, it came down to this being new. Something life-changing. The status quo forever being overturned. It was a good thing.

(It was damn terrifying, was what it was.)

The living room floor was generously covered in rugs and loose carpeting—both new and borrowed—because they weren’t made of money and the floor was still in the process of being repaired. Her dad had made fretful noises about inviting guests over in such conditions, and it was Carol that had reminded him, dryly, that “Honey, those kids live in a sewer. I don’t think they’re gonna judge us.”

“They live in an old subway station now,” April had said helpfully, and August had perked up with some interest and asked about logistical details, because her dad was a nerd like that and enjoyed his boats and trains, and his nerves about the floor were long forgotten. Nobody mentioned the fact that the guys already knew her apartment had been half destroyed in the little Krang’s attack. It was a fact that, by unspoken agreement, they had all decided to sweep under the rug.

Literally.

Hah.

Anyway, given Carol had slung a whole bunch of rapid-fire questions her way about the boys’ dietary requirements and August was fretting about being judged, April was reasonably sure her parents had come to terms with the fact her four best friends were giant walking turtles with comparative ease. It probably helped they’d been thrown into the deep end of things, even if it had led to super uncomfortable conversations and her parents staring at her as if they were expecting her to don a cape and go fight crime or some dumb stunt. It probably also helped that they knew Donnie and Mikey had come to bail her out, and that they were literally, y’know, responsible for saving the city.

Most of April’s nerves weren’t about the turtle aspect. It was whether her two families would like each other. Which was hilariously one of the most mundane things to worry about, considering literally everything else.

Story of her life, honestly.

She’d just finished squishing a pile of pillows into the corner of the couch when she heard her phone buzz, and fished it out.

Donnie: >> We’re here. Wardrobe check? Puppy eyes face.

Dumbonardo: >> Donnie has no class. 🥺

Donnie: >> Leo has no brain, but you already knew this.

She snorted. Then April glanced toward the kitchen to make sure Carol was busy with the oven and sidled toward the front door, slipping through as quietly as she could.

They were waiting there for her in the hallway. Splinter stood slightly apart from the boys, arms folded and looking sulky, but his fur was neatly washed and combed through and he was wearing a nice shirt which… was more flattering than some things she’d seen on him. April could be that generous. Donnie was wearing his sweater vest combo and standing ramrod straight like someone was about to push him onto a stage—no surprise there—and Mikey was wearing some nice slacks and an orange turtle-neck and beaming widely, carrying a casserole dish.

“Hiii, April,” he whispered. “We clean up good, right?”

“Puttin’ the rest of us to shame, Mikey,” she said with a grin, and gave him a fist bump.

“Speak for yourself,” Leo said lazily, draped over Raph’s shoulder like a blue and green fur stole. He was wearing one of his over-large hoodies; comfort over style, and April was relieved, to be honest. “I think Raph gives him a run for his money.”

April turned to take him in, and-- “Damn, son.” She gave a low whistle at Raph’s white suit and pink shirt, hanging on him pretty stylishly for all that his spikes had already done a number on his elbows. “You go shopping for that? Tell me you didn’t just have that hidden in your room this whole time.”

Raph preened a little before glancing down at the carpeted floor, pushing his fingers together bashfully. “We had to find something nice for Casey to wear anyway, so Raph thought—”

“Raph thought right.” April gave him a double thumbs up. And then frowned. She couldn’t see the last invited guest. “Is he not here?”

“Oh, he’s here,” Leo said quietly, a small helpless smile on his face. “He’s just shy.”

And Raph and Donnie separated so she could peer down the hallway; at Casey, who was literally lurking in the gloomy corner by the entrance to the stairwell, hunched as if trying to make himself small.

April frowned.

“Be nice, April,” Mikey whispered. “He’s, uh…”

“I get it.”

April made her way past them all, coming to a stop in front of Casey. He cleaned up pretty nicely, actually; she wasn’t sure who’d dressed him, but dress jeans and a nice jacket over a dark T-shirt nearly made him look like a different person. His hair was tamed and in a neat braid, and he looked up and gave her the shyest of smiles. “Hi, April. Sorry, uh…”

“Not used to the idea of family dinner?”

“Not really a thing where I come from, no.” He ran a hand through his hair, causing some of the strands to come loose, and she hid a grin. “But it’s not that. Um… are you sure I’m... welcome? I’m not really—”

“You think these guys would take you for a fashion montage if you weren’t?” she said drily. “Mom and Dad know you’re coming, trust me. They’ve made some simpler food just to make sure you can stomach it okay, and they’re looking forward to meeting all of this extended family. Which you are a part of.”

“Tooold youuu,” Leo sing-songed down the hall.

“Shut it, Nardo.”

“You can’t talk to me like that, I’m walking wounded—”

“Who’s walking?”

There was some general cackling. Casey’s next smile was more relaxed, and he let April tug him back down the hallway.

...and then they all jumped as the door to April’s apartment was flung open suddenly and her mother leaned casually in the open frame, tugging her oven mitts off, meeting their deer-in-headlights stares with a wry look of her own.

“Hi—um, that—um--” Donnie pushed forward and saluted her mother, and April clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the laugh. “Hello, Mrs O’Neil! As you can see, I am a sweater vest—I mean—”

Leo made a strangled sound and flopped limply over Raph’s shoulder; he’d have slid down if Raph hadn’t reached out to steady him with a tired move that said he was very used to this happening. “Oh pizza supreme, don’t make me laugh, you know I’m fragile—”

Mikey slapped a hand over Leo’s mouth, smile bright and eyes a little too wide. “Hi, Mrs O’Neil!” he chirped. “It’s nice to meet you, we brought casserole!”

Said casserole was snatched out of his hands a moment later by Splinter, coughing dramatically before he gave a dramatic bow that meant he was mostly addressing Carol’s knees. “I brought casserole, in fact! It’s my traditional green bean casserole, handed down through generations, made for one of my biggest fans!”

Carol raised an eyebrow.

“Dad, we talked about this,” Donnie muttered.

“No, you talked about this,” Splinter huffed. “I was going to come dressed in style, until you rudely tackled me to the ground and took my clothes.”

Carol’s raised eyebrow took on a level of alarm, and April sidled up to her mother with a quick hiss. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“No, we did in fact do that,” Donnie said flatly. “Trust me, it was necessary.”

“...okay, it is as bad as it sounds—”

“My own sons,” Splinter grumbled. Then he straightened, beaming at Carol. “Children, am I right? Full of well-meaning hypocrisy. Sure, my son gets to dress as that hack Don Johnson, but when I try to dress as—”

“Yeah, Raph still doesn’t know who that is.”

Splinter wilted. To April’s delight, Carol seemed to wilt right along with him. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Well,” her mom said, dry as the desert. “If you’re done making us feel old as dirt, won’t you come in? Unless you want to spend the evening in my hallway doing more fashion checks. I could always bring you a mirror. But if you’ll take my word for it, I think you all look just fine.”

She stepped aside and they filed past, shuffling into the living room more bashfully than April had ever seen them, which was altogether kind of endearing. Carol paused long enough for April to close in with Casey still in hand, and gave him a warm smile that made him relax just a little more.

Then she hissed quietly to April, “Biggest fan?”

Eugh boy. “Yeah, you uh…” April trailed off, wondering if she could just deflect that question with a shrug as if to say she had no clue. But she knew Splinter; he would keep making comments, so better forewarned, right? “You know how you started watching Lou Jitsu movies with me? And, uh, how much you like them? To the point Dad threatened divorce if you mentioned Lou’s tight pants one more time?” Which was an empty threat, given Dad watched those movies almost as closely as her mom did, and April suspected it was for the same reasons. It had been a running joke for a while.

“Yes…?”

“Great! Get ready to be emotionally scarred.”

“...what?”

---------

They introduced themselves properly once they were all inside, and to her credit Carol was still smiling, even if April could see the faintly wild look in her eyes. At least she’d never told Splinter just how much her mom liked him-- enough to say she was a huge fan, nothing more.

“August will be here in a moment,” she said cheerfully. “He’s just finishing up with the roast, and then we’ll serve. You can call us Mr and Mrs O’Neil, or you can call us Carol and August. We don’t mind. It’s lovely to meet you at last. Donatello, your sweater vest looks great.”

Donnie jerked ramrod straight again, voice high-pitched. “Thank you!”

Bless her mom for throwing him a bone. April grinned. “So, this is Splinter, or Hamato Yoshi—”

“You can call me Lou,” Splinter said with a small bow, taking the casserole from his hands with his tail and depositing it onto the table with a flourish. April had never seen him like this. It was hilarious and painful, but the mortified looks on the guys’ faces made it worth it. (Casey just looked clueless. Lucky kid.)

“Nice to meet you, Lou,” Carol said, politely and as if April hadn’t upended her world not thirty seconds ago. Damn, but her mom was good. “And Donnie I’ve already met. Hmm, can I guess the others?”

“Oh, go ahead,” Leo said cheerfully, waving at her from his perch, and her smile softened considerably as she glanced up at him, taking in the curve of bandages just visible through the over-large neck of his hoodie.

“You would be Leo, then. You doing okay, sweetie?”

Leo blinked. “Uh… yes? I mean, of course! I mean—” He darted a look at April, eye ridges raised.

“She knows,” April assured him. “It’s okay.”

Leo grinned in response, letting himself flop loosely in Raph’s grip to finger gun with both hands, and April grinned as Raph obligingly kept hold of him and rolled his eyes. “I may be a little bruised, but I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs O! I also rock a mean sweater vest, but my brothers would only let me travel casual.”

“You’re lucky we let you come at all,” Donnie muttered.

“You’re just jealous because I, unlike some brothers I could mention, did not make my first impression in—”

Then he yelped as Splinter smacked him in the side of the head with his tail. A light smack, April noted with amusement, as Donnie flicked him from the other side. Clearly Leo was slowly losing all his coddling rights.

“Well, a little bruised or not, it’s nice to meet you too,” Carol said easily. “April did tell me you’ve been laid up until just recently, so we’ve made up the couch for you, okay? There’s no shame in tapping out early if you get tired.”

Leo blinked at her, looking taken aback. And then his answering smile was a faintly relieved, hesitant thing as he held out a hand for her to shake, voice small.

“Deal. Thanks, mom.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Mom?” Mikey said slyly.

Leo promptly went as red as his stripes and planted his face on Raph’s jacket. But he kept his hand out until Carol shook it—gently, holding back a laugh—and then went full limp noodle. “Case,” he whined. “Help me out here?”

Casey helpfully reached out to tug the hood over his head. Leo gave him a thumbs up.

April dissolved into cackling as Carol turned a carefully blank face on Raph. “April’s told me just enough about all of you, really. You must be Raph. And this sweet little man here must be Mikey?”

She was expecting a clap back from Mikey about being little, so April was very surprised when he just dimpled sweetly and gave her his best I-am-an-innocent-child impression. His cheeks were faintly flushed, and for the first time she wondered if she should be recording this for posterity. That was like… three blushes, so far.

“That’s right! Raph’s all gentle giant and I am just the sweetest little package, baby.”

“I’m sure,” Carol said, straight-faced. And then lastly she turned to Casey, and her smile was warm. “And you’re Casey Jones. Are you nervous?”

“A little,” he admitted, tugging at his braid but he smiled back. “But it’s so nice to meet you again. I mean—sorry, the first time, I’ve just heard a lot about you—”

April blinked, mouth open as she considered that particular insinuation. And wasn’t surprised when Leo’s head suddenly shot up, all sign of embarrassment gone and with a blinding smile. “Yeah, I gotta say April has told us so much about you guys that it does kind of feel like we’ve met you already!”

“Well, then,” Carol said lightly. “You’ll have to tell me all about yourselves to make us even. April’s told us a little this week, but it seems we might have years to catch up on.”

“We would be more than happy to regale you with tales of our exploits,” Splinter beamed back. “And in turn perhaps you could tell me your—”

“And we should all sit down because Dad’s probably almost done,” April said loudly. “Save the talking for after dinner! I’m starved.”

“I should help August bring the dishes out anyway.” Carol gave April a pointed look. “Hon? Would you give me a hand? The rest of you, table’s just through here…”

---------

“What do you mean that’s Lou Jitsu?” August hissed, handing April the cauliflower bake. “He’s a rat. Lou Jitsu isn’t a rat.”

“He is now, babe,” Carol said blandly.

“A rat with four turtle children?”

“And a human child.”

“How does that even—”

“Remember asking about the skeleton, sweet pea?”

“...okay, fine,” he muttered, nose wrinkling. “I’ll be good.”

April eyed them both. “Look at it this way, dad. The longstanding threat to your happy marriage has been removed.”

“April—”

“—O’Neil!”

She burst into giggles and skipped out of the kitchen, balancing the cauliflower and potatoes and the jug of gravy, and wasn’t surprised to find Mikey just outside the kitchen door, making grabby hands for her dishes. April cheerfully palmed them off and returned for more, grinning sunnily at the twin glares of her parents. “Anyway, Casey’s… uh, adopted? That’s the simplest way of explaining him.”

“Gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting the one I find the strangest to be a normal human boy,” Carol mused. She frowned. “Is he the one from the, uh. Future?”

“The future,” her dad repeated back mechanically.

“Shush, dear.”

“Yeah.” And April had both a burning curiosity of how Casey knew her mother in the future and a dread to find out, because she was pretty sure none of them got happy endings where Casey came from. “Best to leave that well alone. Too heavy for a dinner topic.”

“Right. Future discussions are off the table,” August said, with a weary tone that said sure, fine, this might as well happen. “The invasion too, obviously. Anything else we haven’t already covered?”

“No. But just so you know,” April said mildly, “Rats have excellent hearing.”

She nudged aside her suddenly frozen parents, scooped up the roast tray, and sailed back out to the table.

Mikey took that from her, too, apparently intent on setting the table with a certain amount of flare, and April let him, more than happy to watch him handling pans that he might have had difficulty holding a week ago. She knew his arms were still bandaged under the sweater-- and knew also why he was wearing an actual turtleneck, no pun intended. The scarring up to his chin was still fading, but they’d stopped hurting days ago, leaving him with full range of movement.

(“Unless I’m really tired,” he’d said, giving her jazz hands at their last movie night. “So I’m still being careful.”

“Yes,” Draxum had said flatly. “It’s amazing how fast one heals when one actually pays attention to a mystic’s expert advice.” Mikey had thrown a pillow at him, end of discussion.

...which reminded her--)

“Hey, Mikey. Barry knows he’s invited, right?”

That earned her a predictable snort from Leo, who had been settled into a chair by Raph. “I’m not sure Draxum does family dinners.”

“You’d be surprised,” Mikey muttered.

“What was that?”

“I said what a surprise.” He twirled the roast tray once and settled it down on the table with flare. “He’ll be here. Just in time for dessert, he said! He’s looking forward to it.”

“Uh huh.” Donnie eyed him. “You threatened him, didn’t you?”

“I would never.” Mikey waved a finger at them, planting his other hand on his hip. “I merely pointed out it would be sad if he wasn’t included in this family get-together, given he is now family, unless he wants to deny any such attachment, and shunning a family dinner isn’t the proper or the neighbourly thing to do—”

“Oh, my apologies. You emotionally blackmailed him.”

“That’s better.”

“Why dessert?” April wanted to know.

“He’s, uh…” Mikey trailed off. “Well, it. Takes a while to bake brownies.”

Raph squinted. “Draxum is baking. Brownies.”

They all paused to take in that mental image.

“Oh, that’s not going to be edible,” Donnie muttered. “The guy can make a sandwich. Barely.”

“He can make a mean gruel, though,” April said wryly. “I mean. Literally.”

“I left him a recipe!” Mikey defended, though the way his shoulders hunched told April it was more out of loyalty than any actual belief in Barry’s capabilities. She frowned.

“Shoulda just told him store bought was fine, Mikes. Then he’d be here for dinner.”

Mikey gasped theatrically. “First of all, how dare you.” Leo gave a snort at his little brother’s affront and reached out for the gravy boat, flinching back when Mikey slapped his hand away without even looking. “Second! He wanted to try. You don’t want to hurt the nice goat scientist’s feelings, do you?”

“You want an honest answer?” Leo muttered. Mikey yanked his hood violently down over his face.

“Letting him try is just fine,” Splinter said with great generosity, leaning back in his chair. He’d been sporting the same cheesy grin since April walked back in from the kitchen, and that promised to be entertaining. But later. “When he fails, we can point and laugh—”

The way Mikey just teleported right in there to tower over his dad was impressive, and April reached out automatically to grab the back of Splinter’s chair before he could tip it all the way backwards in sheer terror. “We are not doing that.”

“No, we are not,” Raph said comfortingly, hands up as it to forestall a tiny mystic warrior explosion. “I know some will hate to hear it, but Draxum really pulled through for us. We should support him! In his, uh… domestic endeavours.”

“And his mad science endeavours.”

“Donnie.”

“What? I have my interests.”

“I do hate to hear it,” Leo said slowly, and they all turned to look at him as he peered out from his hood like some evil alternate Kermit!Leo. “Buuut you know. There’s petty, and then there’s mean. If he’s trying to be nice, let him try.”

There was silence at the table for a second time.

Then Donnie stood and pointed dramatically. “Who are you and what have you done with our brother?”

“Wow, Leo, that’s very mature of you,” Raph said suspiciously.

“I know, right?” Mikey wiped away a fake tear. “He’s come so far.”

“I am the very model of maturely letting my grudges go,” Leo said, stifling a yawn. “And if he accidentally poisons us all, I can hold it over you for at least a month.”

Oh. That was more like it.

---------

It took her parents longer than strictly necessary to bring out the rest of the food, and April was pretty sure they’d just been schooling their expressions into the most poker-faced they could, mortified by the knowledge that Splinter had probably overheard every word-- and honestly, given that Splinter occasionally gave a small muffled snort into his hand and tried to look innocent every time his sons stared at him, Carol and August were. Probably still talking about him. She was kind of glad she couldn’t hear them. April shoved his chair with a foot as she sat down and levelled him with mock glare over the rim of her glasses.

“Be nice,” she whispered severely.

Splinter leaned towards her to whisper back. “April, such little faith. I am already having the time of my life at this dinner. Why would I do anything to spoil the mood? I know how to act around fans.”

“These aren’t just fans, these are my parents.”

“Well, I know how to act around parents, too,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and outright leering, oh god. “I was a teenager, once, and dating was—”

“Please stop talking,” she hissed.

Splinter gave her a wide and mischievous grin, and that’s when it occurred to her he was being a little shit on purpose. But his smile faded, and he folded his hands delicately on the table in front of him. “Trust me. I know this is important.”

She breathed out. Yeah, okay. She did, after all, trust him, and he had dressed nicely for dinner. If he was truly set on arriving dressed as his eighties-Lou-Jitsu persona, April was pretty sure the guys wouldn’t have been able to stop him.

“What’s important?” Mikey said from the other side of the table, and she glanced up to find the others looking at them with curiosity.

“Good table manners,” Splinter said mildly. “Which means you should all stop leaning on the tablecloth like that. Elbows off!”

They all immediately pulled back and sat primly at the table, looking various shades of guilty—except for Casey, who flinched back from the tablecloth as if it might bite him. Poor guy had no reference for things like this, did he?

“Surprised you know decent table manners,” Donnie muttered.

“If it is such a surprise to you, I have failed as a father and we shall practice them more often at home.”

“Don’t you—”

“Leo,” April interrupted, watching Leo list faintly to the side. “You’re hurt. Nobody’s gonna care if you keep leaning.”

“Thank you,” he said fervently, and promptly flopped forward again, just as the kitchen door swung open.

Oh, good. Her parents had gotten over their crisis and were ready to feed the hungry. Carol hip-checked the door with her arms full of dishes and Mikey immediately jumped to his feet to help, and she shook her head at him, smiling gratefully. “I’m okay. But if you could help August with the glasses—”

“On it!” he said cheerfully and caught the door for her, holding it until she was clear before vanishing inside.

Carol smiled widely at the table and the guys smiled back, some smiles more natural than others—Donnie still looked like he was trying to get A Good Grade In Family Dinner—and she slid her burden of plates easily onto the table around the roast platter.

“Okay, so it’s a bit more buffet style than a usual roast dinner, but I thought that would be better, given I don’t know what you’d prefer. Casey, hon?” She favoured him with a warm look, and Casey straightened even more. “I’ve got both seasoned and steamed vegetables here, and a few alternatives in case the meat is too much for you to handle. The seasoned ones are on the spicy side. April tells me you’re still getting used to richer food?”

“Oh…” Casey blinked, darting a look at April that was both surprised and faintly grateful, and she huffed. She’d told him this already. Did he think she’d lied to him? “That’s—yes, that’s right, ma’am. I appreciate it, I’m sorry you had to go to so much effort—”

“None of that.” She handed him a plate. “This is a dinner for all of us. I’d feel like a lousy host if you couldn’t enjoy it. Pick and choose as you like, take it slowly. No one’s gonna judge. That includes the rest of you, just FYI.”

“No judgement!” Raph saluted, eyes darting to Donnie. “We appreciate it, Mrs O.”

“Thank you,” Donnie muttered quietly, eyes on the tablecloth.

“You’re very welcome.”

Mikey exited the kitchen with a tray of glasses and August trailed behind him with a collection of bottles-- soda and juice, and something that distinctly looked like the wine from the top of the fridge, and April squinted at it before raising an eyebrow at her dad.

“None for minors,” he whispered back. “Liquid courage.”

She snorted. “You’ll be fine.”

“But will your mom?”

“I heard that.” Carol snatched the wine away and deposited it by Splinter, whose eyes lit up. “Anyway. We’re sorry to keep you all waiting. Dig in! Don’t wait on us, there’s plenty for everyone.”

Leo put his hand up. “I admire your optimism, but I still vote Raph goes last. He’ll inhale everything here if he gets the chance—”

“Leo!” Raph sounded scandalised.

“What?” Donnie said, finally looking up with a more natural smirk on his face. “You know he’s right.”

“There’s a lot of me!” The poor guy was going as red as his mask, and April hid a grin. “You know Raph’s still a growing boy!”

“Raph can have as much food as he likes,” Carol said firmly, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. God, April loved her mom so much. She was just rolling with this table of lunatics. “I honestly wasn’t sure how much to cook, so we’ve got plenty extra even if you do somehow inhale everything here. Just try not to inhale the dishes.”

“I would never,” Raph said, sounding horrified. “Turtle’s honour—”

April burst into giggles. “She’s joking, Raph, chill.”

“Oh.” Raph blinked. He met Carol’s gaze, who stared unflinchingly back and held up a hand.

Raph blinked again. Then he hesitantly gave her a high five, watched Carol’s smile grow, and finally grinned, the tension going right out of his shoulders.

April loved to see it.

“Aight, everyone,” she said, clapping her hands. “No more picking on Raph unless you want me to poke fun at you fussy eaters to make it even. Dig in, and don’t you dare insult my mama’s cooking.”

“We would never!” came the chorus.

Yeah. This should’ve happened years ago.

---------

The meal passed with some minor chatter—mostly complimenting the chef and asking for plates of food to be passed around. Mikey helped Casey pick out some simpler fare for his plate and he ate sparingly, but the expression on his face said he savoured every moment of it. Donnie was similarly picky for Donnie reasons, and looked faintly apologetic about the whole thing until April kicked him gently under the table and sent him a text.

April: >> Dad has sensory issues >> dw abt it

He relaxed a little after that, flashed her a small relieved smile, and even unwound from his stage fright enough to engage in conversation with her dad about the subway station and its abandoned trains. Mikey and Raph ate with their usual flare, though Mikey paused on each individual dish to gleefully exchange cooking tips with her mom. Splinter was surprisingly well-mannered, given April had seen him more than enough times with cake crumbs all throughout his fur.

Leo was being uncharacteristically picky, but he’d only come off a simple diet himself not so long ago, and the painkillers would be doing a number on his appetite. Raph and Donnie were both piling his favourites on his plate and he was clearly enjoying the food, but April had never seen him eating so slowly before, still balancing one arm on the table to support himself. Poor guy.

She wasn’t the only one to notice. Carol watched him waver and frowned. “You doing okay, Leo?”

He promptly flashed a peace sign at her, beaming. “Oh, for sure! I’m just a little low on energy. Kinda want a little bit of everything here, but—“

“Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak?”

“Hah…” His grin became rueful, and he lowered the fork to his plate. “Not weak enough to stop me eating your delicious food! Tragically, I have no devoted servant to feed me lovingly by hand, so I’ll make do.”

“Um—”

“That was absolutely a joke, Case, don’t you dare.”

April grinned at Casey as he wilted back into his own seat. But okay, yeah, she could read the signs—from Leo’s slouch, growing worse by the minute, and the glances from his brothers that probably weren’t as surreptitious as they hoped. April nudged her mother quietly and made a meaningful gesture toward the living room, and Carol gave her a thumbs up and kept smiling pleasantly as if nothing had happened. “Well, I’m glad my delicious food has such a draw to it. I heard Barry is gracing us with a visit and dessert, is that right?”

Donnie visibly shuddered, but Mikey beamed as if she’d complimented his six year old son’s bronze swimming medal. “Yeah! He’s making brownies! He assures me they’ll be edible.”

“Consider me assured,” Carol said dryly. “I must say I’ve never tried Barry’s cooking before this in any form. We invited him for dinner a few times but he always refused. I guess I know why, now.”

Splinter peered at her. “You do?”

“Well, uh…” She looked sheepish. “I never really saw him out of his robe. He seemed like such a shut-in at the time, but… I guess dressing for dinner might have given away a few things.”

“Ah yes, that sounds like Draxum,” Splinter muttered. “Shut-in, barely bothers dressing—”

“Sounds like someone else we know,” Leo said sweetly, and Splinter choked.

“Leo defended Barry,” Mikey whispered in awe, and Leo pointed his fork at him.

“Leo saw low hanging fruit and went for it,” he corrected. “Besides, something about houses and stones? Isn’t that how it goes? Don’t throw glass at a stone house, it’s pointless and makes a mess?”

“Nardo, that is not how it goes and you know it--”

Carol coughed politely. “If you’re done being mean to your elders…” They all shut up and tried to look innocent—save Splinter, who merely stared back at his sons mournfully as if he could not believe the wrong they’d done him. “It seems there might be a pause between dinner and dessert, so I was going to suggest you kids go pile up in the living room after and go through our movie collection. August and I can continue to pick on your dad in your absence.”

“You can?” Splinter said warily.

“In a manner of speaking.” Her smile was warm, and maybe only April saw the sharpness around its edges this time, and she swallowed. But… again, she knew this was coming, too. “A parent to parent talk, as it were. Nothing too serious, I promise.”

And it gave them a good reason to transfer Leo to the couch without him feeling like he was ruining anything. April grinned to see his eyes light up at the idea.

“Oh, are you roasting our dad, too? That seems so fitting given the spread—”

“I dunno, Leo, a roast followed by a roast seems a bit overkill,” Mikey said thoughtfully.

“There’s no such thing as too much delicious roast.” Leo leaned forward. Which also had the effect that he could support his weight entirely on the table, April noted. “We’d be more than happy to clear out of your amazing hair until the totally safe brownies arrive.”

Carol transferred her smile back to him, the sharpness gone. “You can take your plate with you, if you like. I don’t want you to feel you have to rush through eating. April, could you find him one of our TV trays?”

“I’m sure that’s doable.” Actually, at this point she had no idea if those had survived the home invasion, but there was one way to find out. “Is everyone else done? I could help clear the plates—”

“No, that’s fine, hon. Your dad and I will clear the table.” Carol gave her a peck on the cheek and a small, meaningful squeeze to her shoulder. “You stay with your friends. August?”

August blinked up at her, startled, half a potato still speared on his fork. “Oh, now? But I just-- okay.” And he shoved the potato into his mouth, fork and all, to gather up empty dishes.

Leo watched him do it, and smiled lazily.

Then there was a sudden quiet after both of them vanished into the kitchen, and he slumped forward.

“That was… an attempt at subtlety, right?”

April grinned. “Dad doesn’t do subtle too well, that’s for sure. But they’re parents, Leo. They’re just worried about you.”

“They only just met me,” he grumbled, resting his head on his arm. “They’re really nice, but—”

“My mom probably decided you were adoptable at about the point Donnie made high-pitched noises in her general direction, my guy. Just accept her concern and move on.”

“Oh. So good to know my humiliation had some kind of strategic effect,” Donnie muttered, reaching across the table to snag Leo’s plate. “You want any more while we’re here?”

“...I’m fine.”

“Well, Raph wouldn’t mind a bit more beef,” Raph said comfortably, sharing a glance with Casey over his head. “And some potatoes! We can just use Leo’s plate for that.”

“Blue?” Splinter was quiet and out of his chair, patting his knee, and Leo lifted his head to peer at him. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

“Man, all this fuss.” Leo grinned faintly. “I promise I’m fine--”

Mikey loomed on his other side, not saying a word.

“—okay, maaaybe I wasn’t quite ready for sitting upright at a table for so long.” He made a face. “But I refuse to be banned from the O’Neil family dinner! You know how long we’ve waited for this—”

“Well, congrats, achievement unlocked,” April said, holding out her fist, and he obligingly bumped it with his own. “Now go curl up on our couch and quit your whining.”

“I wasn’t whining!”

Donnie raised an eyebrow. “He whined, whiningly.”

“Raaaph, they’re picking on me!” Leo whined.

Raph raised an eyebrow. “You wanna complain about it some more or do you want the comfy couch?”

“...couch, please.”

---------

Splinter stayed at the table, waving them off dramatically with a napkin, but the smile he gave April as she left was reassuring. It settled her nerves a little—she wasn’t stupid, she knew what was coming—and so she trailed after Raph as he carted Leo into the living room and settled him on the couch, burying him in comforters.

The sigh of relief Leo made as he sank into the cushions was more than enough to convince her that the move was well timed. “Heaven. I think everyone at family dinners should laze on a couch, honestly.”

“We’d need more couches for that.”

“That could be arranged,” Donnie said, passing a bottle to Casey and then… dropping to his hands and knees to investigate the carpet. What. April folded her arms and watched him.

“I think they’d need more room for the couches,” Casey said, opening the bottle—and oh, those were Leo’s painkillers.

“That could also be—”

“Donnie.” She scowled at him. “What are you doing?”

“Checking the damage,” he said absently, finally finding the edge of the carpet section and peeling it back, scowling at the torn up flooring beneath. “Huh. Bishop really refused to help pay for this?”

“Yeah, well. Bishop also didn’t arrest me for, I dunno, cavorting with evil yokai or whatever, so. I’ll take it.”

“This balance doesn’t add up,” Leo said mildly, taking his pills from Casey and his glass of juice. “Mr Edgelord also put you in danger in the first place. And your parents. Who we are adopting, by the way.”

“I don’t think it works that way—”

“It does, I don’t make the rules. Donnie, verdict?”

“Huh?” Donnie peered up at him. “Oh yeah, yeah, I guess we can adopt.”

“I meant the floor. But okay! Duly noted.”

Mikey started cackling as April threw her hands up and went on a hunt for the TV trays. Donnie blinked at Leo for a moment, then turned back to run his hands over the damage, flicking his goggles down. “I’m not much of a handyman type, but it looks like the structural integrity is intact. It’s just cosmetic and not particularly safe to walk on in the dark. Though that… is an understatement. The Krang did this?”

“Barry did, actually.” The TV trays had survived after all. April fished one out from its hiding place and passed it over to Raph. “But if he hadn’t, I’d probably be kind of torn to pieces, so--” She broke off to smile softly at Raph as he full-body flinched, and then stumbled as Mikey latched onto her like a koala. “Sorry. Anyway, I figure I’d give him a pass on that one.”

Leo slow blinked at her, resting his chin on the back of the couch, and his smile was an oddly cold one. “Yeah. Seems fair. Donnie, you still got a back door into Bishop’s stuff and things?”

Donnie hadn’t looked up, and his voice was very flat. “First of all, stuff and things is like literally the lamest way you could explain a black ops infrastructure, and second of all, why is it you just assume I would still be in his systems now that we’re—”

“Dee.”

“He’s upgraded his security in the past week. I’m doing the digital equivalent of eating popcorn and sidestepping his laughable experts.”

“Good to know. I s’pose getting on his nerves wouldn’t be the smart thing to do right now.”

“It is the opposite of smart. But the EPF is already footing the bill for the O’Neil hotel stay, I don’t see why they can’t shell out for the floor as well.” Donnie finally sat up, flicking his goggles back, and frowned at the scratched walls. “New paint job all round, actually.”

Leo nodded in satisfaction and settled into his nest of comforters, taking the tray from Raph who was surprisingly… not seeming even slightly upset about the whole idea of stealing money from a bunch of amoral secret agents.

April opened her mouth and shut it. “Uh—”

Donnie finally smiled at her. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But—”

“Seriously, he deserves it.”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about!” she snapped, and she waved an arm at Donnie as aggressively as she could with Mikey still limpet-clinging to her from behind. “You guys are on thin ice with him as it is—”

“So?” Leo said, eyes drifting shut. “He’s also on thin ice with us.”

“April.” Donnie finally got to his feet to regard her intently, leaning on the edge of the couch and deftly avoiding Leo’s attempt to nudge him with a foot. “I see you’re worried, but please give me some credit for basic money laundering tactics. The man’s never going to notice where the money actually went, if he even notices it’s gone at all. He’s got bigger fish to fry and it’s not as if we took millions.”

“You know, it says a lot when you say ‘basic money laundering tactics’ and everyone just rolls with it,” she said wryly, but her hackles settled a little. Bishop did deserve a little payback. She just didn’t want them painting even more of a target on their backs. “Raph? You sure you’re okay with this?” He was quiet and looked a little troubled, so--

“Well, see, the thing you gotta remember is…” Raph paused, clasping his hands together in front of him for a moment, and then exhaled gustily.

“...Raph only got to hit him once.”

There was a brief pause.

Leo burst into laughter, then hissed an ow and sank out of sight onto the couch, which caused Raph to dive for him with a panicked look. April wasn’t particularly concerned, given she could see Donnie rolling his eyes. She huffed a faint laugh herself, finally relaxing, and was rewarded with a squeeze of her shoulders and a full hug from behind.

“He messes with family, we mess with him!” Mikey said cheerfully in her ear. “Just go with it, April. You know Donnie covers his tracks.”

“Hmm.” But she smiled anyway, reaching up to pat his head. “Okay. Not gonna complain, as long as I can find a way to explain to my parents. But seriously—don’t go getting arrested or dissected or whatever on my account.”

“Depends on if we get a sequel or not,” Leo wheezed from the couch, resurfacing as Raph helped him sit back up.

“You sure you’re okay?” Raph said, still fretting.

“Oh, peachy. I can’t believe you punched a government agent and I didn’t get to see it.”

“Skill issue,” Donnie said, sounding bored. “Don’t get kidnapped next time, idiot.”

“Wow, rude. Raph, throw a pillow at him for me.”

“Yeah, Raph’s not doing that. Eat your dinner.”

“Aw, c’mon--”

A cushion sailed across the room and clipped Donnie in the face, sending him reeling backward, and Mikey caught it on the rebound, hollering. “For Leo’s honour!”

“You got kidnapped too, you know—”

“For my honour! For everyone’s honour except yours!”

“GASP!”

And the room promptly descended into chaos, which honestly she’d been expecting sooner than this. April just grinned, clicking her phone camera on to record Mikey’s subsequent attempted pillow beat-down of a hissing Donatello. Raph alternated between snorted laughter, half-hearted attempts at lectures, and trying to keep Leo’s tray of food balanced while Leo picked roast potato daintily off the plate with his fingers like popcorn, observing the proceedings with glee. He caught April’s filming and nearly choked, before sinking back out of sight on the couch again with a wave of his greasy fingers as April giggled.

It took her a few moments to realise that Casey had vanished from the room.

---------

“They sound like they’re having fun,” Carol noted.

“They’re probably destroying your living room,” Splinter replied glumly, taking the glass of wine August offered him. “Boys.”

“I’m sorry. Have you seen our child?”

“...teenagers.”

“Better.” Carol grinned and offered her own glass for a toast. “Here’s to new friendships?”

“Very traditional!” But he beamed anyway, clinking against her glass and then August’s. “To new friends and old fans. Aaand awkward conversations.”

Ah. “Kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

“A little.” His smile faded, showing a seriousness that seemed somehow out of place. “But you are good parents and April thinks the world of you. If we did not have this conversation, I would be a little concerned.”

August took his seat again, sitting far more relaxed now that the kids had gone, and tapped the rim of his own glass. “Your boy, Leo. How did he get so hurt?”

Something flickered through Splinter’s eyes that she couldn’t quite catch, and he stared down at his wine, mouth twisting. “A very long story. All of my boys were hurt during the invasion, but Blue unfortunately took the brunt of it. I am as proud of them as I was terrified for them.” His voice was far too mild for that statement and all the depth it contained, and Carol bit her lip as he tossed half the glass back.

Then he beamed at them. “But that is not the question you really want to ask.”

No. No, it wasn’t.

Carol needed to know, but she wasn’t sure how to phrase it and found herself hesitating for other reasons besides—so she glanced to August, who had a knack for being terribly blunt at times. He gave her a brief nod, and put his glass down.

“How safe is our daughter?”

Straight to the point. Splinter took a smaller drink, and met his gaze.

“All things being equal, far safer than the average teenager.”

August frowned unhappily, and his voice was flat. “She was involved in an alien invasion. They came to our house. Her nose was broken—”

“Lou,” Carol said softly. “We’re just worried about her. Your boys weren’t just here for the invasion, they fought on the front line. And so did she. Didn’t she?”

“Your daughter,” Splinter said steadily, “Took out one of those aliens with a wrecking ball. She blinded it, one eye at a time.”

“Is that meant to make us feelbetter?” August demanded, and Splinter turned a sober gaze on him. “We know April can look after herself. She shouldn’t have to. How much danger is she in just by associating with your family?”

“August.” Her voice was sharper that time.

“I’m sorry,” her husband said more quietly. “I don’t mean it quite like that—they’re obviously good kids. You should know, the turtle and rat thing is… confusing, but in the end that isn’t what this is about.”

Splinter smiled a little. “What this is about is that you think my boys dragged April into their fight and made her a target. Has April ever told you how long she has known them for?”

August paused, but it was only to calculate the passage of time. They both knew when it was that April had come home talking about the boys she’d met on the roof. Six… seven years ago? Maybe eight? And...ah.

“This is the first time she’s been in trouble,” Carol said, feeling relieved. She understood. After all, holding an alien invasion against Splinter’s family would be extremely rude. April could have been hurt worse if she didn’t know such powerful people--

“Oh no,” Splinter said bluntly. “She’s definitely been in trouble before this.”

“...what?”

“Let’s see…” He sipped his wine. “She’s been captured by your upstairs neighbour at least twice by my count—”

“What.”

“Don’t make those faces, he was nice enough to let her go again. Then there was the fiasco with Big Mama and Shredder, the yokai train, tangling with the Foot clan and fighting at the stadium—”

August stood up. “I’m sorry, she was at the stadium? When that maniac was threatening to wipe out the human race!?”

Splinter raised an eyebrow. “You do know who that maniac was, don’t you?”

---------

April found Casey in her bedroom—or half in, half out, leaning out the window and breathing in the night air. She could hear sharp voices carry over from the kitchen window, and distorted with only a word here or there making it through, but she recognised her mother’s voice all right, shrill with stress, and winced. Splinter had said to trusthim. She was wondering if that had been a bad call.

She sat on the window ledge next to Casey, and he jumped, smacking his head on the window frame before ducking back inside. “Commander—I mean. April. Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“To get some space?” she asked dryly.

“Well…”

Casey rubbed his head for a moment with a wince, then pulled himself inside, and April listened briefly to the yelling before she decided to resist all temptation and closed the window. She didn’t want to hear it, really. It would just make her feel awful and she’d be hearing the fallout soon enough.

“I did come out for space, and to see where the rats, uh. Came in. Or tried to? I felt—felt like it should be looked at,” Casey said awkwardly. “The eavesdropping was unintentional.”

“I believe you,” April said easily. She did. He wasn’t the type—or at least, she didn’t think so. None of them knew him too well, yet. “All quiet on the rat front?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean… evil alien rats, anyway.” He smiled a little. “I think there’s some normal ones further down.”

“Guess we’ll have to live with that.”

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the laughter coming from the living room. Her light was off, but there was enough coming in from outside that she could just catch Casey’s wistful look at the door, and April nudged him gently with a shoulder.

“You wanna go back out?”

“...in a minute. Just… getting my head in order.”

“Too busy? Too loud?” She hesitated. “Weird seeing more people you used to know?”

He jumped a little at that, turning to look at her in the gloom. “How did you—”

“Kind of obvious, Future Boy,” she said dryly. “’Nice to meet you again’?”

“Aheh.” He ducked his head. “Yeah, I guess I’m not so good on the spot. I was… trying to prepare myself for seeing them again, but it was so different once I did.”

“More of a shock than meeting those idiots again?” She gestured toward the living room.

“A little. The turtles—when they grow up, they’re a lot bigger. Sensei is so much taller! And Uncle Raph was huge.” He smiled, looking down at his hands. “And like-- you were an adult. Commander O’Neil. I knew what you would all look like from the photo, and it was kind of like… meeting you all for the first time, even though-- well. It’s complicated.”

He really wasn’t good at it, was he? Not giving things away. Sensei is taller. Raph was huge. It told her so much. It was painful, and a small part of her turned over in grief-- an empathetic grief for the kid next to her, a pang of knowing it could have been so much worse. She was so relieved she could hear Raph through the door. (...yelling “Not the gravy!” which, eugh boy, okay, she would pretend she didn’t hear that.)

Then it occurred to her what Casey was trying to say, and April froze. It didn’t mean anything. They’d avoided the whole apocalypse thing. But--

“My parents… they look the same to you?”

Casey shrugged. “Well, they’re already grown adults. They’re not gonna get another five feet taller or something weird.”

Oh. Oh, that was… she was an idiot. “Hah,” she said after a moment with a small laugh. “For a sec, I thought you meant they like... died young. Or—”

And she felt the silence change, in that dark room.

An idiot twice over—looking at the crystal stillness of Casey’s reaction to her opening her dumbass mouth, April curled up on the seat next to him and knew she’d basically tripped into a minefield. A personal one, because this wasn’t just people Casey had known and grieved.

They’re not dead. They were yelling at Splinter two rooms over, words echoing off the fire escape outside, and she tried to focus on the more rational dread that they were gonna try and stop her from seeing the guys. But…

...she couldn’t stop her stupid brain from picking over the what ifs.

Casey saved her the struggle, touching her arm gently in the dark. “Do you…” He swallowed and tried again. “You wanna hear about them? I’ve probably given you the wrong impression. Well… half of one.”

She found her voice, rough, and forced a smile. “Not if it’s gonna stress you out. Besides—” And this time she stopped herself in time, because saying it’s never gonna happen now, right? to someone who had lived those events was so cheap and awful. It had sure happened for Casey.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “Uh, if you want to know… it might. Actually help.”

Share the grief, huh. Let him not be alone with some of this.

April breathed out. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

---------

“Oh! And there was that one time when she accidentally got a job with an evil ninja organisation, but now that I think about it that was sheer bad luck...”

Carol was getting a headache. She refilled her glass, trying to sort out whether she wanted to laugh or scream or just throw a wine bottle at Lou, which definitely hadn’t featured on her list of Ways To Impress Him before she realised he was now a mutated father of four turtle boys. August had left the room, but the door to the kitchen was open and so she knew he was still listening; he was going through the bottles on the fridge perhaps a touch more violently than he needed to.

“Lou,” she said wearily, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I don’t get you. I would have thought you’d be trying to show us how safe she was with you, not—”

“Not be honest?”

She startled, glancing up to find him watching her shrewdly, and the smile that tucked into the corner of his mouth was an amused one, which made her bristle. Splinter put down his empty glass—his second glass, and he was still very sober in a way she wished she was not—and leaned forward. “Sure! I could have said, ‘Mr and Mrs O’Neil! My boys lead very boring lives! The worst scrape they’ve ever been in was an unfortunate one involving a skateboard and a cat and one too many magnets, and this alien invasion was a complete anomaly! Of course it will never happen again!’ That certainly is one way to lie to your face. I can think of more subtle attempts, but—”

“So you’re making fun of us?” August’s voice wafted from the kitchen, curt, and there was the snap-fizz sound of a fresh can of something being opened. Lord, Carol hoped it was strong and her husband was about to share. “You’re treating this whole situation with such irreverence that—”

“August.” Her voice was too sharp, and she softened it before she continued. “He’s not making fun. Maybe he’s being a bit of an ass, but—”

“I’m being a whole ass, thank you very much,” Splinter said mildly, and she pointed at him, baring her teeth.

“You are not helping. Tell me why.”

He raised his eyebrows at her in genuine curiosity. “Why be honest? Seriously?”

Carol paused, retort dying on the tip of her tongue.

Because. Because while he was telling them in the most irreverent way, it was the truth. Their lives were crazy and chaotic, and he was saying to expect nothing less. That the insanity of their lives had reached out and snagged their daughter at an early age, that—that she’d already been a target before these aliens came along. That Barry wasn’t who he said he was, had been a danger well before this and she’d been trying to introduce him to a daughter he’d apparently already kidnapped twice by that point--

Wait. That didn’t make sense.

“Barry saved April from the zombies,” she said slowly. “And reunited us. Are you saying that’s an act?”

“Good grief, no.” He tapped his empty glass and made a mournful sound, and one ear twitched back. “Much as I hate to give him any credit, Draxum is a changed goat. There is much behind his early motivations that I enthusiastically suggest you ask him about, if for no other reason than that it would be funny! But he just needed to see the bigger picture—that not all humans seek the destruction of anything they don’t understand.” He raised his eyebrows. “I am not sure if he would have come to that conclusion so quickly if it were not for your daughter. She is absolutely his favourite human, you know.”

There was a soft click as August exited the kitchen, shutting the door softly behind him. He came bearing another two bottles of wine and an opened can of Twisted Tea. Carol smiled at him, and he smiled back tiredly, a smile that faded into seriousness as he looked at Splinter. “Do you trust him?”

“With everything but money and my dignity,” Splinter said at once. “He’s a jerk, but he’s our jerk, I suppose.”

“You could have led with that.”

“I could have,” he said agreeably. They waited for him to explain further.

He didn’t.

“Okay,” Carol said finally, accepting the can from her husband and nodding as he refilled glasses all round. “So, what? You gave us a litany of horrific danger that our daughter has been involved with because…”

“Because to lie would have been extremely disrespectful, and you both seem strong enough to take the truth—oh thank you—” To August as his glass was refilled, and he snatched it up. “Of course I do not want you to separate the children. But you are both her parents, and good people, and you deserve to know all the facts so you can make a decision without any of us pretending that anything about this is normal.”

“As if it were as easy as that,” August muttered. “She’s already eighteen.”

“Well, that’s a you problem, I’m afraid.” Splinter sipped his wine. “But I’ve told you all about the disaster situations our children like to land themselves in. That’s only the ones I know of, mind you.”

“That’s so much better, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” He cackled, offering his glass up for a toast. Carol gave him one, half-heartedly, and he favoured her with a softer smile.

“Now, I have a question for you,” he said. “How often has she come home hurt? Upset? Scared?”

August went to retort and then paused, looking thoughtful. Carol glanced between them both and frowned, thinking back. April had been hurt before… there was a sprained ankle she knew had come from an accident at school. A few minor bruises from early scraps with that girl with the purple hair. Nothing she wouldn’t expect from an outspoken teenage girl who picked fights with bullies.

Nothing that had raised alarms, until now. Until April’s poor face, bruising turning her skin even darker, coated in dust with blood in her hair, because aliens had attacked them directly. Because Agent Bishop had set them up as bait, which was a fault that could be laid at his doorstep, not the Hamatos’.

It took an alien invasion.

“I cannot make promises about how safe she will be. How safe any of them will be.” Splinter spoke gently now, drawing circles around the rim of his glass with a claw. He glanced up to meet their gaze. “Chaos magnet teenagers, the lot of them. But I will tell you that she is their big sister, and they would never let anything happen to her. And I will protect my family with everything I have. All of them.” He paused, then flashed a small smile. “It turns out I don’t do too bad a job!”

“All things being equal, you said,” Carol murmured.

“Yes, well. One would hope we don’t have to deal with anything as ridiculous as alien invasions again.” Splinter made a face. “They’re so exhausting! Barring city-destroying events, I truly think your daughter is safer than the average teenage girl. And I swear, large amounts of time go past in which the most exciting thing to happen is we’re late returning a DVD to the store, or the pizza order is wrong.” He paused. “...actually, that second one is generally a cause for alarm—”

Carol snorted in amusement, and she was relieved to see a faint smile on August’s face as well. “So. Family, huh?”

“Er, well. I know she already has a father and all,” Splinter muttered. “Just think of me as, I don’t know, cool wine uncle Randall.”

“Randall?”

“Oh, and while you are considering what to do—” Splinter put his hands together. “Please take into account that we would miss her a great deal. But also, she is the intelligent one. I would appreciate it if you did not remove the brain cell from my boys…?”

Carol grinned outright. “I’m sorry, are you sure you know my daughter that well? Because—”

---------

Carol O’Neil died when Casey was seven.

“There weren’t a lot of kids on base,” he said. “I mean-- there were bunkers, and civilians and their families mostly hid there, all through the cave systems below us… but for kids whose parents were active soldiers and had no one else-- I think there was maybe four of us all up. My mom and yours knew each other pretty well. Mrs O’Neil gave her a lot of advice about kids. I mean, my mom was your age, so…” He paused, staring into the darkness for a long moment with a mild frown. “You guys were friends, too. A long time ago.”

“Your mom and me?” April asked tentatively.

“Yeah. So I got to see you guys a lot as a kid. You worked out in the field more with my mom, and you’d both come back after days on end and mom would demand reports from the playroom and you’d laugh at her.” He grinned at her in the gloom. “But I’d see Mrs O’Neil a lot more because she stayed at base. I think she did a lot of behind the scenes stuff—I was too young to really get it. But I know she looked after us, too, and made sure we ate and got clean and slept safely. Ran drills for us on what to do if we were attacked. Where to run, where to hide. That kinda thing.”

Wonderful way for a kid to grow up. She gave him a small smile. “Mom does like to boss people around. She’s real nice about it, though.”

“Yeah, she is. And she’s, uh. Fierce when threatened.”

And a mama bear through and through. The Krang tried to take out the base while diverting most of the resistance fighters to another location, and they had to run. And Carol had made them go first and put herself between a bunch of scared kids and a pack of Krang war dogs. Casey didn’t see it happen. But he heard it, on the other side of the heavy trap door, too small to really understand what was going on, huddling with three other kids in the corner of the tiny secret basement.

He spared April the details. Her imagination had no problem filling them in for him, and April curled her knees up to her chest, wishing she couldn’t see it so clearly. A sick feeling curled in her gut, and she tried to remind herself her parents were still two rooms over with Splinter, but--

“It was a bad day for… everyone,” he said slowly. “The Krang hit us hard on two fronts, and we lost a lot of people that day. Including—” He broke off, and winced. “Well. Sensei and Master Donatello were the ones that pulled the survivors out, and I don’t remember much following. But I know the base was trashed and we had to move. That… happened, sometimes. Less as time went on.”

So her mom was a casualty among… dozens? Hundreds? More? She had trouble wrapping her head around the numbers and, if she were being honest, April didn’t want to think too hard about it. It was awful enough as it was. There was an odd, terrible relief that her mom hadn’t been singled out somehow. Because she’d seen what the Krang liked to do when they hated someone personally.

It was still a horrible way to die.

(There were no good ways to die in an apocalypse, huh?)

“You okay?”

She blinked, and found Casey much closer than he’d been a moment ago, hovering in concern, and April unclenched her fingers from each other and gave him a wan smile. “Hey, I knew going in it wouldn’t be pretty. I’m more worried about you.”

“You don’t need to be,” he said softly. “This was a long time ago.”

“Time doesn’t magically make things better.”

“I guess not,” he murmured. “But I grew up with this story. This is the first time you’ve heard it.” And he sounded so apologetic about it that she patted his shoulder.

“S’okay, Future Boy. I appreciate knowing. My mom was a total badass to the end, right?”

His smile was hesitant, but there all the same. “Right.”

She took a breath. “So, in for a penny, blah blah blah. If you’re up for it…?”

“...yeah.”

“Dad… did he outlive Mom?”

“By a whole lot.” His smile faded. “I really didn’t know him much until after Mrs O’Neil passed. And then he was kind of everywhere. He threw himself right into intelligence support, and he was so good at it—his strength was logistics and efficiency of movement on a mass scale, and we were still struggling with organisation, so… he and Master Donatello worked together a lot. He wasn’t a fighter, your dad, not like your mom. But he knew his stuff, and I know a lot of his ideas helped keep our home safe and our supply lines going as long as possible. He worked way too much—you came to drag him back to his room so many times.”

Wow. Was it weird to feel proud of her future and now non-existent dad? She hoped he’d never have to go through something similar. August was generally a laid back, quieter guy who enjoyed his trains and ships as hobbies.

That he’d weaponised his knowledge was amazing, but also heartbreaking. April could read between the lines just fine—he buried himself in work because Mom was dead.

“I can’t tell you exactly how he...uh.” Casey bit his lip. “We were always kind of awkward around each other. I think because of Mrs O’Neil. So I kept my distance.”

April frowned. “He can’t possibly have blamed you kids for Mom’s death. I’ll kick his ass. I’ll march right into the kitchen now--”

That surprised a laugh out of him. “No! No, I don’t think he did. But… you know. She died, and we were there. I think… it was just a reminder. And every time I saw him, I’d remember her too, and it just—it was like this presence in the room, I guess. By the time both of us got around to being rational about it, things were just weird. And I wasn’t really a logistics guy and had other places to be, so… we just let things go.”

She wondered what had happened to the other kids. The answer was obvious, given… well, everything. April kept her mouth shut and let Casey tell her the rest: that, actually, her Dad had survived up until the last days before Casey was thrown through Mikey’s time portal. That it was only when they were close to a full rout that he finally fell, along with the rest of the base personnel. That, as far as Casey knew, April had been with him when he died.

And by the clipped, hesitant way he spoke, constantly glancing to her as he paused and searched for words—giving her this heavily edited version, trying not to give her any other information—April could gather that she’d probably died at the same time.

That they all had, maybe. With the base down, and the guys choosing to send Casey back more than twenty years instead of continuing to fight…? That was some Terminator shit right there. Only this time, the good guys were the ones that lost. That wasn’t exactly a surprise; it had been kind of obvious since Casey first arrived. Time travel was a last resort kind of option.

In the future, they all died.

April wished that changing the future would wipe the slate clean for Casey, too. For the rest of them, it was a case of Hooray! Disaster averted! and they could be relieved that none of this would ever happen. But it had, for one of them. She wondered how he was going to cope with that.

“...sorry.”

Annnd he was apologising to her again. April wrinkled her nose—gingerly, it was still healing, stupid Krang—and flicked him on the forehead, smiling grimly at his yelp. “Casey Jones, I’m fine. Is this why you didn’t want to meet my parents?”

Casey blinked at her owlishly in the dark, and then pulled back, looking guilty. “What? N-no, I did, I swear—”

“Lemme put it another way,” she said, taking pity on him. This kid still took everything so seriously. But, you know. Justified and all. “Is this why you were so nervous about it?” More ninja than the guys, hiding in the one gloomy patch of hallway and trying to be invisible. But he could probably have gotten away with not coming for any number of reasons, so the fact that he was willing to try…

“...a little,” he allowed after a moment. “I mean—I know it’s dumb. Your parents—your dad has never met me in this time. But I kept thinking he’d take one look at me and just kind of… know.” He paused, then ran hand through his hair sheepishly. “Not very rational, I guess.”

April smiled. “Nah. But it still makes sense. And you made it through dinner okay, right?”

“Yeah.” He smiled back. “Your parents are really nice. I can tell the guys like them, too.”

“Don’t remind me. They’re threatening to adopt.”

“...does it work that way in the past?”

She couldn’t help the snort of laughter at his genuine confusion. “Oh, man. We so have to give you a crash course in literally everything, don’t we.”

“Probably,” he said wryly. And paused again, before sighing. “Also, I think they finally worked out we’re not in the living room anymore.”

April blinked at him, and then turned toward the door—and yeah, it had gone suspiciously quiet out there. She put a finger to her lips, grinning at Casey, and reached down for her Journalism and Media Studies text book.

Then she threw it at the door hard and burst into laughter at the girlish shriek that came from the other side. Even Casey gave a soft huff of amusement as the door was flung open a moment later by Donnie, Mikey sprawled on the ground behind him.

“See,” Raph grumbled in the distance, “I told you guys—”

“April O’Neil,” Donnie demanded, “Are you throwing books at us?”

“It’s the outdated thing they gave us in class that you found the newer edition of.”

“In that case, carry on.”

“Don’t carry on,” Mikey wheezed, rolling up to his feet. “Books are scary.” And he dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “Also, Leo is asleeep.”

Oh, whoops. April glanced at the sofa, where Leo’s hood and red stripes could just be seen under the comforter, Raph sitting in front of him and polishing off the last of Leo’s food. She lowered her own voice to something more reasonable. “Then you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”

“Of course we were!” Donnie proclaimed, arms folded. Then winced. “--n’t. Weren’t eavesdropping. Don’t be ridiculous, we were merely concerned that you had run into emotional difficulties of some—” Mikey smacked him in the shoulder. “I mean. Eaten by rats. Because rats. Are a thing in these parts. Zombie rats. They could still be here.”

“Uh huh.” She folded her arms. “Casey?”

He honest to god saluted her with a perfectly straight face. “No rats in the apartment, Commander. Could be a liar or two, though.”

Raph snorted, choking on his mouthful of beef as Donnie gaped at them. Mikey planted his face on Donnie’s shell and gave a muffled giggle. “Someone tell Casey the house rules—”

“We have house rules now?” April wanted to know.

“Uhh, something something don’t be funny while people are eating?” Donnie suggested. “You nearly killed Raph.”

Raph pointed in their general direction but said nothing, still coughing.

“That’s not a house rule. That’s something you came up with to get Leo to shut up and eat.”

“In our defense, his puns are very painful,” Donnie noted. “Also, how long has he been Dumbonardo in your phone?”

“My—” She glanced down to see her phone in his hand, and April snatched it back. “Give me that.”

“I was updating it for you.”

“With what?”

“Answer the question and I’ll answer yours.”

She glared, but after poking at her phone to make sure he hadn’t put Yet Another Firewall on it, April gave a shrug. “Since the invasion.”

“Hmm. Some might say I am required to speak in my beloved brother’s defense, but I merely question why you didn’t do it earlier.”

Raph finally found his voice, still pointing. “Don’t use Raph as an excuse. Also Leo went to sleep, like, five minutes ago—you sure you wanna be roasting him like this?”

“It’s a night for roasts,” Mikey said sagely. “Speaking of, d’you think we can stick a fork in Dad and call him done yet?”

“I don’t know,” Splinter said from behind the couch. “Can you?”

They all yelped and jumped away from him—with the exception of Leo, who let out a small snore, and Casey, who just lifted a hand and waved. Splinter beamed at them and continued picking his teeth clean with a nail which, ew. April made a face. “When did you get in here?”

“A good ninja never reveals his secrets.”

“Oh, so you’re going to tell us everything—”

Splinter’s tail cracked into Donnie’s head, and April cackled, flopping into the armchair as he waved a finger. “The O’Neils will be in shortly! I came to warn you in advance so you can repair all the damage you’ve done.”

“Huh?” Raph’s brow furrowed. “What damage? If you’re talking about the gravy, we dealt with that—”

“There was no gravy,” Donnie said swiftly, and April immediately started scanning the cushions and the carpeting with dread. “It’s all in your imagination.”

“Who cares about gravy?” Splinter hissed, flailing his arms in dramatic outrage. “What about what you’ve done to the walls?”

They stared back at him in disbelief.

“Okay, first of all, that wasn’t us,” Donnie said, voice flat. “Second, I admire your faith that we can somehow put the walls back to rights in the moments we have before the O’Neils descend upon us with whatever imagined wrath you think we deserve—”

April raised a hand, sighing. “In light of Leo being asleep, let me be the one to tell you that was totally Draxum, and the walls were like that before you guys arrived.”

“Draxum, you say?” Splinter said gleefully. “I mean—oh no, your poor walls.”

“Hey, he did it saving April!” Mikey defended.

“Yeah, he’s off the hook for that one,” Raph said, ruffling Mikey’s mask tails. “You can blame him for a lot of things, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Draxum drawled, towering behind Raph suddenly. “What am I being blamed for now?”

They all yelped and scrambled in the opposite direction. Except for Casey, who waved again, and Leo, whose snoring took on a more stubborn sound, and April eyed him suspiciously. Draxum loomed over them all, dressed in a surprisingly nice kimono, its stylishness ruined somewhat by the traces of chocolate staining its sleeve, and he was holding a tray that was…

...gurgling. Huh.

Splinter recovered first. “Everything I can possibly get away with, and surprise ninja entrances are my thing! Get your own!”

Draxum raised an eyebrow. “Surprise ninja entrances? I walked through the door. Perhaps your supposed ninja family needs more training in observation.”

April glanced behind him to see that, yes, the door to the kitchen was open, and Carol was leaning against the frame watching them all. She caught April’s stare and grinned, offering her a wink.

And April relaxed. Whatever her parents had talked about with Splinter, it had turned out okay.

Draxum eyed them a moment longer, then gave a disdainful sniff and set the tray down on the coffee table. It was full of brown, bubbling and uneven sludge, and an attempt to slice it into squares had clearly been made before the pieces melted back together again. They surrounded it and eyed it dubiously.

“Brownies,” Draxum said proudly. “I grew them myself.”

Mikey peered at him. “Don’t you mean baked—”

“I said what I said.”

There was silence as they all stared down at what, honestly, looked a little like a horror story. Like a village buried under a sudden mud slide, maybe. The lumpiness did remind April a little of tiny drowning people, and the fact that it was still bubbling didn’t help.

It did smell delicious, though--

“Who would like to try one first?” Draxum asked. “Carol? As host—”

“Oh,” Carol said cheerfully. “As host, I’ll… find you some plates.” And she was gone with a speediness that April envied. She wondered if she could somehow vanish through the same doorway without being noticed.

“I’ll pass,” Casey said, raising a hand, and he looked sincerely apologetic. “I’m still meant to stick to a simple diet, and I think your brownies are too… rich?”

Nice save. April felt a little bad for Draxum as he looked around with confusion and frowned. “I promise you they taste just fine.”

“Did you follow my recipe?” Mikey asked weakly.

“I improved on your recipe—”

“I’ll go first,” Raph said, face dark and slamming a fist into his open palm. “I’ve eaten weirder.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Donnie was on his phone. “I am not eating anything that looks like a crime scene. Tampering with evidence is a no-no.”

Mikey peered at him. “That’s not what you said at the college labs—”

“You’re all babies.” Raph rolled up the sleeves of his jacket, wincing slightly as the holes at his elbows grew a little bigger. “I bet it’ll taste great and you should all give Barry the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thank you,” Draxum said with a sniff. “I tasted them myself and I am in perfectly good health. I don’t know why all of you are such cowards when it comes to yokai cooking.”

“Raph ain’t no coward.” Yet despite this, he hovered over the tray for a long time, fingers wiggling as if he wasn’t sure what to grab, and April watched the drop of sweat roll down his cheek. Everyone watched him in silence. Except for Donnie, who was humming. April thought it might be a dirge of some kind.

Another green hand reached out and stabbed a finger down into the tray, twirling a pile of warm goop around it, and they jumped. Leo stuck it into his mouth, eyes still half closed.

“Uh—”

“Sensei—”

“Nardo, don’t swallow that—”

“Oh, sweet pineapple on pizza,” Leo breathed, eyes flying open. “This is amazing. Who made this?”

There was dead silence. And then everyone pointed to Draxum. Leo blinked at him, wrinkled his snout, and snuggled back into his pile of comforters. “Oh, that’s right. Well, whatever, can’t win ‘em all. Can I have a plate?”

“Wait,” Donnie said, disbelieving. “You’re serious? You’re not just trying to trick us all into food poisoning?”

“You don’t wanna eat any, Dontron, it’s more for me.”

“Well, not that I doubt you...” Donnie squinted at the plate. “But brownies are meant to have a certain internal consistency. If you can twirl it around your finger I feel they should be classified as something more liquid—”

“Save me from picky eaters,” Draxum said, rolling his eyes. “If you wait a little longer I’m sure they’ll set.”

“They’re meant to set before you serve them, Barry—”

Mikey crossed his arms. “Hey, he tried! And therefore nobody should criticise him!”

“Oh, I think we can find plenty to criticise,” Splinter said, dabbing chocolate goop away from his mouth, and April gave a start and wondered when he’d managed that theft. “But I suppose in this case the brownies are exempt. I hate to say it, but they are delicious. In a strangely muddy kind of way.”

“Oh, nobody died?” Carol had reappeared, holding a stack of small plates. “I brought spoons as well, given their… unique texture. We can call it pudding instead of brownies, right?”

“But I made brownies,” Draxum said sulkily.

“Special recipe yokai brownies,” she said with a dry smile. “Clearly we poor humans don’t recognise quality when we see it.”

“Well, seeing as you brought it up—”

April stomped on his foot. Hard. Which probably hurt her more than it hurt him, given he had hooves and he merely gave her a blank look, but it did shut him up.

“Everyone stop arguing about dessert and eat it already,” Leo said, yawning. “Mrs O, dinner was delicious. I don’t know if I said that before, so…”

That prompted a general round of agreement, and she smiled at them, handing out the plates. “You’re very welcome. Maybe when you’re feeling better, we can do this again, huh?”

Splinter perked up. “You mean like a traditional Sunday dinner?”

“Not every Sunday,” August said, finally entering with a tray of glasses. “I’m not sure our poor apartment can take it. I heard something about gravy?”

“There is no gravy.”

“Oh, glad to hear it. Drinks, anyone?”

A chorus of hands shot up.

“I think there’s enough room for all of us,” Carol said, pointedly flopping down on the ground by April’s chair. “You guys haven’t picked a movie out yet. Anything in particular?”

“Do you have any Jupiter Jim?” Leo said, peering over his comforter.

“Who cares about Jupiter Jerkface.” Splinter huffed. “I happen to know they have the entire collection of Lou Jitsu’s hidden 80s gems—”

“We are not watching Lou Jitsu movies.” Draxum paused between serving up his pudding-slash-brownies onto plates to give him a disdainful look. “We already have to look at you enough today.”

“You only just arrived with faulty brownies, you don’t get a say—”

“My delicious brownies. Even the annoying one thinks so.”

“Don’t drag me into this, I’m horribly injured.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Anyway,” Mikey said determinedly, stuffing Leo’s mouth full of chocolate before he could retort, “That’s one vote for Jupiter Jer—Jim and like minus five for Lou Jitsu—”

“How dare you!” Splinter gasped. “The lack of respect!”

“Lou Jitsu’s ‘hidden 80s gems’ are uncut and not for children,” Carol said firmly. “Don’t scar them.”

“What do you mean—” Donnie paused, and then went a fascinating shade of grey as April hid her face. “Oh. Never mind.”

“I haven’t seen much of the Jupiter Jim franchise, actually,” August said thoughtfully. “Are they any good?”

“Actually,” Casey said, raising a hand with a hesitant smile, “I haven’t seen any. For, uh… obvious reasons..?”

There was silence as everyone stared at the two of them.

Then Leo reached out and smacked Donnie in the arm, making garbled sounds through his mouthful of chocolate sludge, and Donnie sighed. “Translating for my dum-dum brother here, I believe he wants me to say ‘Well, now we have to watch them. From the beginning.’”

“We don’t own any of them, though—”

“That is not a problem, believe me.” Donnie produced his tablet from out of thin air. “April? May I borrow your laptop?”

“You got it, Dee.” She wriggled out of the chair and scrambled past them to her room, cackling as Splinter stopped grumbling and snatched up a plate, perching on the far arm of Leo’s sofa. By the time she returned, dad had pulled in a chair from the kitchen to sit on and the rest were mostly lounging on the floor with what spare cushions they had, and Donnie was perched in an unlikely sprawl across the back of the sofa, setting up the connections they’d need.

“Okay!” Donnie straightened up as she handed him her laptop. “Given there are more than eighty films in the franchise we will clearly start with just the one, so let’s go for one of the more iconic for new viewers and take bets on how long it takes Nardo to fall asleep again—”

“Hey,” Leo protested sleepily. “Rude. I wanna watch people watching JJ.”

“Again, skill issue. I suppose we can ask April to throw more text books—”

“I know who I’m gonna throw ‘em at if I do.”

“—but books are sacred and should not be treated that way. I give him five minutes.”

“Eight,” Carol said mildly.

“Mom!”

“Oh no, Raph is not losin’ another Leo bet. I give him three minutes, look at him, he’s already yawnin’—”

“You’re all jerks.”

“Shush, Leo, or I’ll rig the bet in my favour. You will not like my methods.”

“Dad, Donnie’s threatening me again.”

“Be quiet and go to sleep! Preferably after four minutes.”

“You’re all gonna lose,” Mikey sing-songed. “Leo loves these movies. I’ll give him a full half hour.”

“Thank you, Miguel, but also you’re still a jerk.”

“I love you too.”

“Shh, shh-- the movie’s starting.”

“Shh.”

“Ssh!”

April’s phone buzzed as her dad got the lights, and she blinked down at it.

Donnie: >> I updated your panic button. For all your potential home invasion needs. If we can’t answer, it’ll summon a drone. No more zombies. Share it with parents?

Oh… right. The update. April smiled, and offered him a thumbs up in the dark as the movie started. She’d have to break the news to her parents that they were adopted after all.

Her chair hadn’t been stolen, which was nice of them. She settled back into it, and Carol glanced up at her with a small smile.

“Okay?” April whispered.

“More than,” Carol whispered back.

And...okay. Good. Great. Something in her settled into pure warmth and she curled her knees up to her chest, glancing at her dad. He smiled and gave her a quick nod. Two for two.

It was gonna be more than okay. From here, it was gonna be amazing.

#rottmnt #rottmnt fic #nekotsuki #no rest for the weary #(adjacent)#this probably has terrible pacing THEY WOULD NOT SHUT UP #super long post

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