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#it looks like an invisible person is punching him
earlycuntsets · 1 month
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bottom of the hill, san francisco, ca 1/25/2003
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oh yeah and here's some cursed gerard
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photographed by dannyensele from sacramentomusicarchive.com
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colourstreakgryffin · 3 months
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I had a silly idea, what about an Cheshire Cat!reader x Alastor? (Feel free not to do this dearie ( ·∀·) )
Haha. OMFG. A Cheshire Cat would really match with Alastor well! So, thank you, Lady Beelzebub! I’ll try this out!
Alastor- A Little Game
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Vaggie has been so frustrated. Charlie has been trying to ease the crew. Husk is on the verge of murdering somebody. Niffty is annoyed that her cleaning equipment is gone. Angel is quite amused by what’s going on and Alastor is very invested in the cause
Lately, the Hazbin Hotel has been dealing with a suddenly appearing invisible menace causing pranks after pranks nonstop; locking or trapping up doors, stealing items and storing them high up, whispering out in the halls at night
Alastor didn’t suspect he’d ever run into the culprit of all this trouble but he has. After Charlie had been giving Vaggie a calmdown pep talk, the Princess politely asked Alastor to check around the hallways for any more prank remnants, the Overlord did so, just to see what he may find… and he made a incredible discovery
A floating cat-like sinner with magenta and pink colouring, most importantly, a big Cheshire wide grin. A rival of Alastor’s own smile and with almost half a body, as if cut in half
The sinner was in the midst of setting up a trap consisting a big silver bucket full of thick blood over the top of Alastor’s own hotel room door, but they’ve been caught in the act
And Alastor doesn’t plan on dealing out punishment… he’s too amused
“Ah… you must be the little troublesome beast causing so much disrupt in this Hotel?” Alastor asks almost immediately with literally no malice towards what’s been going on, his transatlantic accent smooth and almost making his voice sound more friendly and warm than he actually is as this cat sinner… or otherwise, you
Just giggles under your breath and disappears into thin air properly with the wide grin floating in the air for a few seconds almost magically before dissipating with you
“And if I have?” Your voice rings out after a few more seconds of silence, disembodied, invisible. You can’t be tracked with eyes but Alastor’s powerful magic can pinpoint where you are by detecting your own demonic magic, sharply looking over his shoulder to be greeted with your floating head
Just your head… no body, it’s like before when it was half of your torso. Now, it’s just your head. Your magic is a lot like the storybook fairytale character, Cheshire Cat
But that’s because you’re the most Cheshire Cat person anybody will ever met. Alastor couldn’t help but be so amused by you; you’re skilled, you’re snarky, you know what you’re doing and you’re resourceful, good at planning
Able to have avoided being caught by everybody in the Hotel for months now and you’re lucky enough to have been caught by the one member who enjoyed the chaos and madness the pranks caused
“I believe you must avoid the others if so” Alastor proclaims, almost mysterious and still silky in that radio-laced but classy and dapper tone as you tilt your head confused. For the first time, you’ve been snapped out of your mischievous chaotic demeanour
You suspected him to bark, to growl, to be annoyed so him not is so odd to you but quickly brushing it off, you manifest your whole body into frame. Cute fluffy striped cat-like ears flicking and long fluffy cat-like tail curling around, almost like a coil spring
You couldn’t really understand this Overlord, something you don’t like. You’d prefer people to be confused by you, by your style of insanity and madness, by your enjoyment of causing so much disorder and high-tension emotions
You were about to speak, basically floating over his shoulder before Alastor beats you to the punch. You can’t tell if you’ll like him or despise him with the way he speaks, almost condescending
“If you’re going to make my project topsy-turvy, I suggest do a better prank”
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ceilidho · 6 months
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prompt: IKEA soap/reader fic. PART 1. tags: dubcon
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You duck behind a stack of boxes when you hear Johnny come whistling into the warehouse.
He shouts your name out somewhere off on the other side of the warehouse, voice echoing through the building. You keep absolutely still, fingers clamped around the clipboard that’s pressed close to your chest. Even your breathing slows, open-mouthed so as to keep it almost soundless. It’s strategic. You’ve gotten good at making yourself invisible back here, practically melting into the stack of boxes. 
A minute or two goes by with repeated calls of your name, echoing from different parts of the warehouse like Johnny’s making the rounds. Searching for you. He’s probably been looking around the store for ages, with his track record. Someone must have let it slip that you were assigned to inventory today instead of being out on the floor. 
You only let out a sigh when it’s been long enough that any reasonable person might have given up on trying to find you in the loading dock.
“Hiding from someone?” a deep voice asks from behind you.
Your gut all but self-ejects. When you turn around, he’s standing there in the same bright blue shirt that you also wear. His is stretched tight across his chest though, like it’s a size too small. You wonder sometimes if it’s on purpose. It’s hard not to let your eyes wander, but by now you’ve trained yourself to keep your eyes level when speaking to Johnny. 
“Nope,” you squeak. “Just…you know…counting. Counting boxes and…stacks.”
He laughs, loud enough to make you startle. It’s far too enthusiastic, like you told a particularly funny joke instead of stumbling over your words and you still don’t actually know if he finds you funny or not. 
“Cool,” Johnny says, taking a step closer to you. The clipboard doesn’t feel sufficient enough to put any real distance between the two of you. “Thought I could maybe come hang out with ye back here. Dinnae want ye to feel lonely.”
“Nope, not lonely at all. Totally peachy. Actually glad I could catch a break from…everyone.” You take a step back.
He follows you, another step forward. “Aye, dinnae worry, I get what ye mean. Some of the others—” he whistles, “—right buggers. Glad to catch a break myself as well.”
A bead of sweat rolls down the back of your neck. “Aren’t you supposed to be…out in the front? I, uh, don’t want you to get in trouble with Jeff—”
“Ah, Jeff’s fine, kitty, dinnae worry about me,” Johnny coos, sounding pleased as punch. He takes you at face value instead of reading into the set of your jaw and the way you keep inching away from him as he gets closer to you, convinced that you genuinely in your heart care about whether he gets written up or not. “They fuckin’ love me, ye ken? Think he wants ta take me out for lunch tomorrow, but told him I’d only go if he invited ye as well.”
“Oh. That’s nice,” you whisper instead of screaming. You’re doing that a lot these days. Talking through the scream bubbling behind your front teeth. 
“Would ye want ta then?” he asks, suddenly in your face, three quick steps bridging the gap between you in barely a second, hardly enough time for you to blink. You blink and it’s just Johnny, in startling definition. Thick eyebrows and scar across his chin, the bridge of his nose perfect like he’s never broken it before. “Grab some lunch with me?”
“I, uh…I brought my lunch from home.”
“It’s a’right, I’ll buy it for ye, hen. Dinnae need ta waste your money.” Sometimes when he talks to you, he gets like this, fervent and almost desperate. He seems only half aware of it. “Ye like that mediterranean place nearby, right? Seen ye go there once or twice; wanted ta tag along, but dinnae want ta alarm ye.”
“You saw me go there?” you repeat. 
“Aye, happened ta glance out the window when ye were on your lunch break. Back before management changed my break time. Cheers for that as well because it was really startin’ ta bother me, ye ken? Not being able ta eat with my favourite coworker.” 
You never know how to respond when Johnny lets on a bit too much about how he feels about you. Sometimes he slips up and it comes rushing out, a big spool of thread unwinding in front of you.  
“Yeah, well…I don’t know about today but maybe…” you say, trailing off. There’s a danger in just brushing him off, you feel. 
“Tomorrow then,” he decides, grin still splitting his face. “I’m no’ on the schedule, but I can drop by at your lunch break and go with ye. How’s that sound?”
“Well, you know…it sounds…” He’s close enough now that if you lean forward, you’ll faceplant in between his pecs. Despite everything, you have to slightly fight the urge. Sometimes you think it’d be easier if he weren’t so absurdly gorgeous. It doesn’t make any of his actions okay, it doesn’t excuse his behaviour just because he’s pretty, yet still he pulls you in somehow, magnetic. “It sounds—you know, actually, I think Jeff wanted to talk to me about something, so if you don’t mind—”
Johnny tries to say something, but you manage to duck around him and scurry off, disappearing into the stacks of boxes before pressing forward until you burst out the main doors out of the warehouse. It leads to a hall that goes towards the store, but you haul it to the women’s washroom instead. The one place he can’t follow you inside. 
In the washroom, you can finally breathe. Resting your hands on either side of the sink, you look into the mirror where haggard eyes with deep circles underneath stare back at you. 
You flinch when one of the toilets flush and the stall door opens, another coworker stepping out. 
“Did I hear Johnny outside?” she asks, taking the sink beside you to wash her hands. You nod, still tongue tied. “He really follows you everywhere, huh?”
For a second, your shoulders relax. “God, I know, he’s always just hovering—”
She cuts you off, sighing dreamily. “You’re so lucky. He’s so hot, it’s unreal. I can’t believe he works here, like that’s insane. I’d kill to have him as obsessed with me as he is with you.”
“He’s—he’s not into me, he’s just…you know, he just hovers.”
The water shuts off. Your coworker shoots you a dubious look, almost mocking. “Yeah, alright. Sure. Not into you. Not like he hangs off your every word. You don’t have to be humble—we’re already jealous. It’s like rubbing it in when you pretend like it’s totally normal.”
You slump, defeated, when she leaves without drying her hands. It’s moot to try and commiserate with anyone. They don’t see him the way you do, not for who he is. Your coworkers love Johnny; you’ve seen someone genuinely fistpump after being scheduled with him. 
They don’t see any of the weird shit though. They don’t see the way he insists on walking you to your car well into the evening after a closing shift together. They don’t notice the way Johnny laughs a little too hard and with too much vigour when someone calls him your shadow, his eyes just a little too bright and fervent. 
They’re never around to see him ask if you want to sit on his lap while he shows you how to use the forklift in the backroom. They’ve never seen him beg management to let him take his breaks with you and doesn't let you have a moment of peace, just sits with you in the breakroom or follows you to your car when you say that you're going out for lunch. 
Sometimes you look at him and think, this guy should not be in the Appliance section of a big box store. Johnny should be on the front cover of magazines, in commercials for toothpaste, acting in Hallmark movies, or maybe hand modelling for obscenely ornate watch companies that cost the equivalent of a mortgage—not handing out free samples of sliced cheese.
That was then.
It starts like this: an overeager sales associate who butts his way to the front of the line on your first day. 
You think at first that you’re golden. It seems like a sweet deal—an easy enough job, maybe not what you went to school for, but still something to pass the time and not too backbreaking. Plus, the guy shaking your hand and chatting up a storm in front of you is making you melt inside. He’s easy on the eyes—all bright smiles, effortless charm, either just brushing or exactly six feet, and built. Broad shouldered and lean. 
Johnny’s a model employee as well—knows the handbook inside and out, and shows you the ropes on your first day along with the assistant manager giving you a tour of the store, which is helpful because there’s at least three floors that you could easily get lost on. He walks elderly customers to their cars with their bags, shows up to work early for every shift, always with a smile and a positive attitude, and you find out early on that management loves him because of his frankly incredible sales record. 
(And you get it too; you can’t imagine anyone looking into those gorgeous blue eyes and turning him down.)
He's also a spokesperson for the company in all of their internal training videos because he was hired through some “Jobs for Vets” program that they just rolled out. The guy can also stack things on a shelf like no one's business, products lined up with military precision (hence the ex-military status). 
All in all, you can’t help feeling like for once in your life, you didn’t draw the short stick. 
Then one day, you’re alone with Johnny in the breakroom early in the morning before the store has opened yet and he turns to you with a wide, boyish grin and says apropos of nothing, “Named my fleshlight after you.”
You think your brain skips a couple tracks like a record player. You rewind and replay what was just said to you. There’s no two ways about it—you must have misheard him. Of course you did because surely your coworker of two months didn’t just look you in the eyes and say with a sweet sunshine smile that he named his sex toy after you. 
He doesn’t laugh, just stands there and smiles while stirring sugar into his coffee. He takes it black. You take note of that because the brain still has to work when the mind shuts down momentarily, so you use it instead to catalogue things around the breakroom. One of the motivational posters hanging near the door is hung a bit off-centre. The fluorescent lightbulb on the far side of the room is dimmer than the others. Johnny’s eyes have a little light spot in them like the tip of an ocean wave.
“Excuse me?” you ask, dumbfounded. Your voice sounds hollow even to you.
“I named her after ye,” he repeats, not a trace of shame in his voice. “Used ta not have a name at all, but figured since I say it so much when I’m enjoyin’ her, she might as well share it with ya.” 
He stares at you after saying that, letting it hang in the air. Your brain chooses that moment to come back online and all it can do is load that image of Johnny home alone with his fleshlight, toes curled in his sheets and the muscles of his legs straining as he moans your name. All you can do is give a little awkward laugh, growing more uncomfortable by the second the longer he stares at you without blinking. 
Then, something passes over his eyes and suddenly he's back to normal, laughing and clapping you on the arm before wandering off to the men's apparel section. 
It leaves you reeling for the rest of the day, sure you imagined it. It recontextualizes a few things for you though. He’s always been on the handsy side, verging on inappropriate, but skirting just enough around the edges of it that you usually brush off Johnny’s weird behaviour. Chalk it up to annoying little brotherly tendencies. You know he has a few older sisters anyway; you figured it was just how he related to women in his environment.
Not so. 
It escalates after that initial escalation. Not that things started off on an appropriate note, but at least before you could rationalize most of his quirks.
Now it’s this: his hand on your lower back during work hours when you’re busy helping a customer and he sidles up next to you, pinkie brushing so low on your back that you worry for a second that he might slip it down the back of your pants. Lifting you up by the hips whenever you have a hard time reaching something on a shelf instead of just reaching up and grabbing it for you. A complete misuse of his height. He digs his fingers into your sides and never lets you go right away when he puts you down. 
“Aw shit, bonnie,” he coos when you complain about it hurting you. “Dinnae mean ta hurt ye. Want me to give ye a little massage in the breakroom?” 
You learn quickly that there’s no point in complaining about his behaviour to anyone. You can't complain to any of your coworkers because the second you so much as criticize his work, they bark at you to be nice to him. He's just re-acclimating to civilian life, of course he's not perfect at his job yet, they say. They defend him almost viciously; the real jealous ones even tell on you in front of him, leaving you to stand there embarrassed and on the spot until Johnny just smiles and says that it's alright. That you'll just have to teach him better. 
There’s not much you can do besides grin and bear it. You can hope one day that you'll get transferred; you don't have much hope for him being transferred. Not with how endeared he is to management.
When you finally open the door, ready to leave the bathroom and get back to work, you nearly scream when Johnny lurches off the wall across from the bathroom door where he’s been leaning. Waiting for you.
“C’mon, hen,” he says, all teeth. “Lemme walk ye back ta work.”
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redflagshipwriter · 12 days
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batmom cass: reveal
masterpost
Oh. Fuck. He was invisible. A flood of genuine fear washed through him. He was discovered again, he was away from any allies, he had to get away-
Danny went intangible out of sheer survival instinct and lurched downwards. Bruce made a punched-out sound and lunged to grab him. He actually got his hand around Danny’s wrist and clenched despite Danny being invisible to human eyes. It was no use. Danny slipped through his grip, the chair, and then the floor.
He caught himself there and paused, hovering in the flooring. He could see the weird joints underneath the kitchen, a dark crawl space with way more spiders than Alfred could possibly know about. One of them reared up and waved its front legs at him in what was either a threat or a greeting. Danny shuddered involuntarily and pulled back a little to give the arachnid personal space.
“Danny?” Cass’s voice was muffled but calm. “Sit in your chair, please.”
She made it sound so sensible.
He blinked rapidly. “Right. Right, okay.” He floated back up through the floor and avoided eye contact as he settled back into place and the visible spectrum. He stole a glance around the room. Cass and Damian looked unaffected. Bruce’s face said the same, but the pulse point was jumping rapidly in his throat. His hand was pressed firmly against his thigh as if to remind him that it was a physical thing that existed.
“This GIW is harmful to you?” Damian asked, sensible and unaffected. He pushed his empty yoghurt away a few inches on the tabletop. “I gather from the acronym that we are dealing with an organization rather than an individual.”
“....Yeah.” Danny gripped his knees under the table and clung to the hint of normalcy. If they were going to act like that hadn’t been weird, then maybe he was okay. “I think they’re government affiliated. They say they are. They, uh.” He cleared his throat. “They’re the Ghost Investigation Ward, but I call them the Guys in White.”
“And they are a problem because?” Damian asked crisply. Cass was watching with the full force of her formidable attention, but it wasn’t a heavy gaze. 
Danny forced himself to stop fidgeting. “Well, I might have died a little.” It came out as a question. “And they’re not sure it’s me- at least, they weren’t, but I guess that they are now.” Oof, that was hard to internalize. Of course they did. Now that they knew about Vlad, they had all the pieces to put it together. His parents had definitely put it together. The look on Mom’s face when she saw him hauling Vlad out of the lab…
He felt cold. Danny rubbed at his thighs as if that would help. 
There hadn’t been another choice. It ate at him a little bit that Danny had thrown his life away for someone he didn’t even like, but what else could he have done? Vlad was Vlad, yeah, but Danny couldn’t have left anyone there. 
Bruce had a look that Danny had never seen on him before. Intense. Focused. Dangerous. Danny instinctively pulled away from it, sitting all the way up in his chair. 
Bruce wiped it away, but the memory still sent Danny’s blood rushing. Ecto gathered in his mouth like saliva, his body readying to fight for his life. He swallowed it down with difficulty. 
“As you said,” Cass interjected. She scooted her chair a little closer to him and laid an arm along his shoulders. “Like Jason.” She rubbed at his upper arm. He leaned into her touch. 
“Like Jason,” Bruce echoed. His tone was hollow.
Danny ducked his head and missed the meaningful look that Cass shot her BatDad. 
“What are their capabilities?” Damian pushed. His dark eyes glittered when Danny looked back at him. “You clearly have invisibility and density shifting. Are they able to counter you?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Danny blinked rapidly to try to force himself to focus. This was… so weird. Someone had found out about him and he wasn’t fighting for his life. Even his friends had found out when he was actively under fire from a ghost. His nervous system didn’t know what to do with this. He cleared his throat. “They have a lot of tech, uh.” He flexed his hands. “From my parents.” He stared at the woodgrain on the table. It was probably real wood and not the heavy duty polymer that the Fenton table was made out of. “They’re not exactly competent, but there’s a lot of them, and they have had some success.”
His stomach lurched. He swallowed hard on bile. He didn’t think about what he’d found when he went after Vlad. He didn’t think about Vlad in his human form, strapped down and incisions pinned open, literal pins holding open his torso and skin layers on his arms. He didn’t think about the quietly despairing hums coming from rows of ghost cores on a shelf, neatly labeled with specimen numbers. 
“Let’s walk.” Cass hustled him up and muscled him down the hall without letting go of her comforting grip. Danny went along with it numbly. But she was kinda right. Moving shook him out of his head. The walls were changing around him, curtains and windows and framed portraits and some of Tim’s photography. They passed a room he had never seen before. Cass pushed the door open, let him look around, and then tugged him down the hall before he’d had time to do more than catalogue the novelty. 
She did that at the next door, too. Oh. An impromptu tour. The novelty of seeing new things started to drag him back to the real world, right now, which was not exactly a fight for his life.
At the third door, Danny managed, “Does anyone play that piano?”
Cass made a mysterious hum. It took her a while to unstick her tongue. “Damian can. Jason, if you ask with big eyes.” 
Danny nodded at this information. Damian did seem like the kind of person who would hone a few classic artistic skills. And Jason was manipulable, good information.
…Not that Danny would need much help there. He felt a little sheepish at how threatened he’d felt earlier when he remembered the sincerity and protectiveness he could sense from both Cass and Jason.  
“What should we do about GIW?” Cass broached the topic, as if she knew that he felt better. She probably did know. “Investigate cautiously? Destroy?” She held up two fingers to count off the ‘destroy the GIW’ options. “Horde of lawyers descend from Wayne Enterprises jet, or Justice League?”
Danny snorted. It turned into a laugh, hysterical and too long. He wiped tears away from his eyes. “Personally, I like the idea of blowing up their base,” he admitted. “But someone should rescue the test subjects first.”
“Oh?”
Cass was so weirdly easy to talk to. He leaned a little harder against her. She wasn’t a big woman, but there was something so solid about her anyway. It must be a Black Bat thing. “I left because I was getting someone out,” he admitted. “They were a lot more captives than I knew about.” He squeezed his free hand to ground himself. “I grabbed as many as I could and tossed them through the portal, but I don’t know if that was everyone or if just being home let them heal up.” 
Hell, maybe someone had come along and eaten all the helpless cores. Danny shied away from the horror of that thought. His intuition had identified the helpless ghost cores as viable ectoplasm, healing and delicious. They were scared at his approach because they sensed him, they knew they were helpless shells to crack open and lick out the sweet marrow–
Ah. Yup. He stopped in his tracks and heaved his snack onto the carpet.
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futureplayboibunnie · 10 months
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Aphrodesiacs Pt. 3
Miguel O’Hara x fem! spidey! reader
You and Miguel O’Hara were bitten by the same spider…what could possibly happen?
ON A ROLL BABY. U ASKED FOR IT
NSFW. (18+ pls pls pls)
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The days seemed to be getting longer and your temper seemed to be getting shorter.
As you have the same recurring meltdown the same recurring issue you began to wonder if this spanned any form or any way deeper. It scared you. You didn’t even want to think about it. So again you pushed it down, a sensation you despised at this point. All this fucking pushing, all this shoving, all this avoiding. Part of you wanted to drag Miguel by the hair and punch him until he was red and bloody for ignoring you, the other part was already on your knees, begging him to shove his cock in your mouth.
You were in the lab late. You decided to go to HQ right after you fucked yourself and found that it didn’t work, so it seemed like you had to grasp at invisible straws. You were relieved to feel that Miguel wasn’t there, a sigh of disgruntled strain fell from your throat as you raked a hand through your hair.
Miguel said that there was no cure for this physical enlightenment but you didn’t believe that there wasn’t some sort of suppressant for it. Hell, you’d work your fingers to the bone if it meant that you didn’t have to think or feel like this. You sat yourself down and began to look into the spider that bit you through Lyla’s encrypted files that only you and Miguel had access to. You looked at it’s genetic code and decided that maybe you could make a serum that if you included that with a impulse hindering chemical compound then maybe you could fix something up to help you fucking cope.
You began some tests to chemically combine everything and so far there wasn’t any explosions or manic reaction that you were having, a glimmer of hope sparkled within you, a face flashing with a certain glow, something you haven’t felt in weeks. Miguel made you dark and morally grey, he was changing your personality and the idea of it shook you up a little, there were so many things you were capable of doing and you were on your last string. If he as much lifted up a pair of scissors to cut that string, you’d go wild. A thought kept occuring to you. What if you do fix this? What if the…feelings for him are still there? Not just sex but…want. You shivered at the thought but it still remained intact in your head. You’d deal with that when the time calls for it. Right now, you just didn’t to think. Because every thought was him rawing you.
You finalised the rough prototype for the serum and you were about to go home until you felt it. Him. Here. In his office. He was so far away but you could still feel him. Now, you just wanted to feel him throbbing inside of you. No. No. Stop that. You wanted to wince out in pain. Why now? Why must he be here now? You were literally about to go home but now that idea seems like hell. He doesn’t want to see you, an sad pathetic reminder didn’t seem to deter you, in fact it made you more confident and angry.
Miguel had to see what you were up to, he has a right to know. Before you knew it, you found your feet on the outskirts of his office. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. You swung in nonchalantly, like none of this was even affecting you.
Miguel’s eyes shot open. Your presence was like heroin to him, if he had more of it he was sure he’d die a happy broken man. But he couldn’t have that. No. You couldn’t be here. Why were you so intent on not listening to him? He was livid, his breath was strained and uneven as he turned to face you.
“Why do you never fucking listen to me?” He bellowed, eyes gleaming red as the bones crunched in his jaw. He looked so exhausted, his lack of sleep seemed to be worse than yours. “No- No. Por favor. Please.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as he seemingly begged at nothing. He needed to get a grip.
“You said that there was no way to make a suppressant.” You barked at him. “Well, I’m making one and we’re going to end this for good.” You curled your lips into a frown, a flame of seriousness burning within, you rubbed your neck. “I am done being this pathetic. I can’t- I won’t.” You paused to regain a breath, the oxygen in your lungs becoming scarce as you trailed off. “We are not managing this and one day we’ll- You said you’d hurt me…but I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid of what the hell you’ll do if I ever got my hands on you.”.
Miguel glared a hole into your face, the look he was giving you was simply a one that lacked any semblance of self control, what made you even wetter was that he was trying so so hard to hold back. To be good. To be better. To do better. But he was lying to himself, he wasn’t a righteous man and he didn’t deserve the normalcy of liking a pretty girl and taking her out, the universe was punishing him and making his desires that much more clear. God, he could feel how wet you were, he could taste it in the air. It was like he was being painfully edged.
You could practically hear the tongue in his mouth move and the shift alone made you swallow and wet your lips. You fluttered your eyes shut as you felt him inch closer, you let out a breath and clenched your fists by your sides. So much for not feeling pathetic. You were sure you’d drool if he came any closer.
Miguel should stop, he needed to stop, but his feet kept moving. All he could think about was what his cock wanted, and what your pussy felt like. You were standing there so sure of yourself that this stupid serum would work he felt bad for you. He was right in front of you now, his scent made you let out a choked sob that you seemed to reel back in when your chest caved. Impressive. It was impressive that you kept your chin held up high.
Miguel was going to regret it. But he had to feel it. Just once.
His taloned finger reached out to gently smooth out the outlines of your face. He cupped your sweet and oh so fuckable face softly as a strange sort of tender sentiment in the valley of these darkened, lustful sex crazed thoughts. You looked like you were about to cry. His touch sparked wildfire throughout your entire body, your pussy was clenching around nothing and a bead of sweat trailed down your temple. Blinking up at him dumbly, your eyes pricked with tears, he looked like a wet dream.
“You know I should be tired.�� He scoffed huskily, his eyes darkening by the nanosecond. “I have not fucking slept for days because of you and I should be tired.” Miguel had a devilish sinful smile play at his lips, like he was toying with you. “But I’m not. I’m…hyperractive….” Miguel’s hand suddenly gripped around your neck unkindly, his fingers were definitely not tender now. “All I can think about is you.” He grunted huskily and you moaned as he tightened his grip, you were soaked now and he felt it. “All I can think about is how sweet and pretty your pussy would be for me….I know you want to show me, I know you want to beg me…Come on, I’m right here.” He teased relentlessly, making you chase the ultimate prize. “Say the words… beg me with those pretty drooling lips to give you what you need.”
You genuinely forgot how to speak, the mechanisms of moving your tongue seemed to go haywire. You wanted to beg him so bad but your mouth couldn’t find it and the words got caught in your throat. Miguel furrowed a brow, amused yet irriated.
“Y’know what I’ll take it then.” Miguel’s free reached his talons lower and suddenly ripped the crotch of your suit, ripping off your underwear in the process too. You gasped as he plunged 3 thick fingers into your sopping hole, not preparing you at all for how big and thick his fingers would be. Your own fingers definitely didn’t beforhand. A loud moan ripped from your throat as his thumb toyed with your clit.
“God you’re so wet. Did you try to fuck yourself before you got here?” He chuckled cruelly in your ear.
“Fuck…Yeah. It didn’t work. Miguel, nothing worked.” You choked out through sobs and he seems very pleased indeed.
“Yeah because it wasn’t me. Only my fingers are going to be in you ever, understand?” His grip went from your neck to your cheeks to pinch hard and he-
“Hey…” Miguel pinched your cheeks to look up at him, his nails dug into your skin harder and a sensation of pain flashed through you. “Hey! Look at me!” He said clearly through gritted teeth, unhappily yanking you from a fantasy that had wetness pooling between your thighs.
Miguel’s gaze softened as his fingers tenderly cupped your face again. God, it was wrong. Being near you. Touching you at all. He leaned in and whispered in your ear. “Please go. Don’t ever come find me again. I can’t control myself and I know I’d hurt you, even more than you hurting me. We’d just hurt each other.” Miguel’s voice made you still, he was so sincere and strangely caring.
You gulped, knowing he was right and he saw your expression become one of defeat. He let you go with a bitter taste in his mouth and turned around walking away from you and messing with his watch, making a portal and disappearing into the night.
-
I AM JUST THE WORST. ykw i’m going to stretch this series out so much, like the tension the fleeting touches just to torture you. U THINK THEY’RE ACTUALLYGOING TO FUCK? maybe who knows i might. u just have to keep reading
taglist (giggles): @thel0velykey190 @scaleniusrm @drefear @imkikibtw @tbeanie3 @spxctorsslxt @saturnknows @eddiestitmiguelsbigdick @mafer383 @i-feel-violated @crowleysthings @avatar-lover @tbeanie3 @l3laze @wyvernnest @rowboatweeb
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littlemoonglow · 10 months
Text
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Warning: Long post?
Jason did not expect his ghost form to feel…like this.
(Oh, dealing with his body randomly phasing through the ground and smacking his face onto hard concrete was not fun, but Jason dealt with that just like with every other hurdle in his life. By being more stubborn than the problem itself.)
It felt like something… settled into place. That was the best way he could describe it.
He felt as if spite and anger were finally not the only things keeping him awake and running. 
He felt calm, almost. Stable, at least. Whatever pent up energy that was stuck in his chest cavity now flowed freely throughout his body, redistributed, instinctually easier to manage.
It's almost like he could breathe a little bit easier.
(After much… ranting that Jason decided to ignore for his own sanity, Danny said that his case ectoplasmic corruption was probably due to the fact that Death, as a concept, doesn’t let go of things easily, time shenanigans notwithstanding.)
(Becoming a half-ghost was seemingly the only working compromise.)
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Danny once told him that broad strokes of a ghost’s personality could be guessed by looking at their physical appearance. 
Despite the cool powers, this was a slight downside. Jason dealing with the filth of the Earth meant that being to hide his emotions and who he is was kind of important. Life saving, even.
He realized later on that his ghost form was way too easy to read.
He looked at his arms covered in bandages, and got reminded of the amount of times he had to patch himself up in the last month.
His jacket was ripped in place he knew that would have been sewn together when he was a living breathing human (well, as much as he could be).
He always looked slightly on fire?
(Danny told him it's probably related to his... core?)
(He know he died in an explosion but really?)
And then, there was his… veil? Shroud? Cloak?
It looked really nice.
But on the other hand…
It drooped when he felt under the weather. It flicked and thrashed around when he’s either irritated or barely holding back his urge to headshot someone.
And—
(No Danny, my cloak was not fucking wagging when you brought me fresh ectoplasm last week, you’ll have to get your goddamn eyes checked—)
He'll deny it until the day he dies (a second time).
And then his cloak could sometimes just…grow bigger. He figured that it acted as an extension of his own body, and had a nice add-on of allowing him to sense things he couldn't see. Hell, he could even make a hand out of it (wacking Danny with it - gently - never gets old). Jason had to also admit it looked cool, with the wispy bits and with one of its sides becoming a bright yellow.
(It reminded him a bit of his time as Robin.)
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Being a ghost had a lotta perks.
Dealing with targets was so much easier when no one could see you. Inflitration was so much simpler when walls became optional. Cameras will glitch out when he's around, he left no traces visible to the naked eye and, combined with his training, to say that it was useful would be an understatement.
But, sometimes, he feels like he’s changing as well the more he transforms. Not drastically, but enough for him to look back and notice.
He usually was someone who prided on being efficient and straight to the point.
But now he’s starting to… have fun.
He started using his claws whenever he could. Don't het him wrong, he still uses his guns plenty, but there was just something deeply satisfying about vaulting over things, scaling a wall or crawling on the ceiling with bare hands. 
(Punching people is still the most satisfying by far, though.)
That one time hunting down the Joker wannabes was fun too.
(Danny said he’d get along great with Skulker? Did Jason want to find out? No.)
Fading in and out of invisibility, he picked them off one by one, watching as panic and dread slowly but surely creeped up on the remaining ones.
(After all, he has no respect for those trying to emulate the dead clown.)
(Yeah, the Joker was dead.)
(Surprisingly, that has not been a good day.)
One of the favorite things he liked to do was rooftop parkour. The… bendability of gravity is… fun, not gonna lie.
(Not flying though. Jason is used to having feet in regular contact with solid ground, thank you very much. No offense, Danny.)
But he gets why ghosts love to fly. When he’s jumping from rooftop to rooftop in Gotham in the at night, watching the city light fly by, cloak spread behind him, it’s as if nothing else matters. 
(No Joker, no petty criminals to beat up, no avoiding the Bats so they don’t find out about his existence—)
He can just enjoy, even just for a little bit.
(Somehow the Demon Brat and Orphan could sense him. Will keep and eyes on those two, and also the more reasons to avoid them.)
(The real problem was the new Bat in town. Bruce, what the fuck, another one? Again?)
(The yellow one, Signal. No time to check his profile yet, but probably a meta or something.)
(First night out and the guy almost managed to actually fucking see him —looked at him straight in the eyes and all, then did a double take. Jason never phased into the pavement so fast in his entire fucking life.)
(And so far no Bats on his cloak tails yet.)
(He did help the guy incognito, just a couple of times.) 
(And he also did steal his escrima sticks for fun, and once the guy went out looking for them, he’d put them right back where they were.)
(Turns out, he discovered later, that being a little shit runs in the ghost community.)
(Sometimes he also wonders what happened to Danny before they met.)
(He wasn't a Gothamite, that was obvious. He doesn’t pry, but it doesn’t take a lot to piece two and two together.)
(He just wonders who he has to kill this time.)
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(Jason could not believe he forgot and underestimated just how fucking persistent every single one of the Bats could be. Of course it had to run in the family.)
He gazed down, thought the agony, at the gaping wound under his right armpit.
(The Bats have been chasing him relentlessly for a while now. He got more injuries than he can count, especially from Bruce.)
(They know. Oh, they know.)
(It didn’t go well.)
(He knows the others are there surrounding him to prevent him from escaping, he knows that Dick is right behind him, but at the moment he couldn’t care less.)
It has been a long time since the last time he got shot.
(It felt like someone set his right side on fire.) 
What was flowing out in abundance was a neon, toxic green.
(The Pit Waters, ectoplasm, he didn’t even know that he could fucking bleed in ghost form—)
(Danny—)
He looked back up at Batman, holding a (frankly) ugly gun, white casing and highlights in the same shade of toxic green. 
(A gun that Danny warned him about. And everything behind it.)
Jason felt something in him... snap.
(Why did it have to be you, Bruce.) 
His mouth opened—
(waitsincewhenhecoulddothatthroughtthe mask—) 
(Jason could see the billows of neon green smoke—)
(He couldn’t see Bruce’s expression.)
(Every. Single. Goddamn. Time.)
— and wailed.
---------------------------------------------------
I am genuinely delighted that my last post got that much attention! Thank you so much, to all who liked, rebblogged and commented, it really does mean the most. 💕
This AU may be continued? No guarantees, tho.
For those interested: Part 01
@fandomnerd103 @phoenixdemonqueen @satisfactionbroughtmeback @ascetic-orange @apointlessbox @bathildaburp @fisticuffsatapplebees @aisforanonymity @phandomhyperfixationblog @help-i-need-a-cool-username @hashtagdrivebywrites @did-i-miss-anyone-tagging-is-a-monk's-job-first-time-doing-this-aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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dirtyvulture · 7 months
Text
Darkest Knight
Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Mutant!Reader
18+ only, read at your own risk
Summary: You meet a pretty woman in a bar...
AN: Came up with a new idea, let me know if you all like it. 👀
Natasha shivers when the door opens behind her, wrapping herself tighter in the thin jacket jacket that is not meant to be worn during the winter. Although she’s sitting in the corner, trying to make herself as invisible as possible, the icy wind stabs at her back and it practically takes her breath away. Her whole body aches from a lack of sleep and food, although so far the bartender had only been generous enough to give her a single glass of water.
It’s almost 9:00pm, evident by the pitch-black gloom outside the windows stained with dirt and snow. Natasha doesn’t know what time the restaurant closes, but she has no way of leaving it safely, having used the last of her energy to stumble here through the surrounding woods on foot. The next city over was probably at least 25 miles away. She closes her eyes, overwhelmed and despondent, reaching for her water glass with trembling fingers. 
A lot of luck had gotten her this far, more so than her own skills, but she feared tonight would be when it finally ran out.   
Someone drops noisily onto a barstool three seats away from her. “I’ll have a beer.”
Natasha looks over warily at the person joining her. You’re wearing a leather jacket over a flannel shirt that is only buttoned halfway up, and Natasha feels colder just looking at you. You puff on a cigar as you pull out a few folded bills and toss them on the counter. The smell of smoke causes her to cringe away in distaste and she notices you immediately take the cigar out of your mouth and stamp it out on the counter.
The bartender comes over, frowning at the new ashy ring on his wood countertop. 
“Add it to my bill,” you grunt, pushing the money towards him and swapping them for a bottle. After you take a sip, you glance over at Natasha for a second, turning to face ahead and watch the television behind the bar. 
Natasha drinks her water, wondering if she has the dexterity to steal from the tip jar when she can’t even feel her fingers. She had seen how much cash you had in your pocket–at least another $50–maybe if she played you up a little you’d buy her dinner. You were the only one in the restaurant who hadn’t eyed her like a meal, and Natasha knows you only put your cigar out for her. She has to put her plans on hold, however, when she hears heavy footsteps pad up from behind her. Someone taps on her shoulder.
“Hey, honey,” a gruff voice mumbles. 
She doesn’t turn to look at him, but from the corner of her eye sees that it’s the big bald man who had been watching her from a booth since the moment she entered the restaurant. 
“You came here alone, didn’t you?” the man asks. “You walked here.”
Natasha doesn’t respond. She notices your attention has moved from the television to the man standing behind her. 
“Let me give you a ride home,” the man says, his voice heavy with unsaid intentions. 
“No, thank you,” she says. 
The man leans in closer to her until his alcohol-laced breath is hot against her ear. “It wasn’t an offer, honey.”
“She said no,” you growl. Both Natasha and the man looked surprised at your intervention. 
“Fuck off,” the man spits. “You’re always taking girls home, let me have this one.”
You roll your eyes at his comment. Natasha looks at you with trepidation now as you get up, your footsteps somehow heavier than the man’s despite being shorter than him.
“Go home, Stu,” you tell him. “Alone.”
“Not tonight,” he spits, grabbing onto Natasha’s arm. Normally, she would never allow herself to be handled like this and would have broken Stu’s nose on the counter by now, but that’s a fight she didn’t know she could win in her current state. She tries squirming out of his iron grip but is dragged off the barstool instead. No one sees you lunge forward, cranking your arm back and punching Stu in the face. Natasha cringes when she hears what sounds like clanging metal and pushes away from Stu as he falls to his knees, crying and screaming while clutching his face.
“Are you okay?” 
Natasha looks up and sees you offering her a hand. She grabs it, your palm rough but warm, and hops over Stu to stand next to you. She’s shocked to see that the lower half of his face is completely drenched in blood from his broken nose. 
“You motherfucker!” Stu gasps, struggling to his feet.
“Stay down,” you suggest. “We should probably leave,” you tell Natasha, and against her better judgment, she eagerly follows you outside even after witnessing you take down a full-grown man with a single punch. 
The wind is prickly against her skin and the cold weighs down her bones. Snow falls in hard pellets and Natasha lifts her arms over her face to protect it.  
“My truck is over here!” you shout over the wind and Natasha numbly chases after you. It’s a beat-up red pickup truck that has certainly seen better days, but Natasha gives no comment as she climbs in and you turn on the heater, blasting her with warmth. “Sorry about Stu. I’ve never known him not to be an asshole,” you say, adjusting the vents in Natasha’s direction.
“Thank you,” she blurts out.
“Oh. Uh, you’re welcome.” You sound like you’re not used to being thanked. You turn the windshield wipers on to clear off the snow collected there. “I know Stu was right about one thing, though. You’re not from around here.”
“No,” Natasha admits. “Do you know if there’s a motel nearby I can stay in?”
“The closest one is thirty miles out,” you say. “But we’d be lucky to move even five with the snow picking up.” The windshield is almost fully caked in a layer of white again. “My place is only two miles from here. You can crash for the night and I’ll take you up to the city first thing tomorrow when the weather clears.”
Natasha wants to tear up at your generosity. She hasn’t known you for more than five minutes, and you’ve already rescued her from a creep and offered her a place to stay. Maybe her good luck is hanging on longer than she’d thought. 
“I’d like that,” she says, and you nod, revving up the engine and driving out of the parking lot. The drive is completely silent but in a comforting way. Although you’re focused on the road, you only have one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift in a very relaxed, almost casual way. Natasha stares at your hands, curious as to why she can’t see any bruising on your knuckles from when you practically turned Stu’s face inside-out. You seem to notice her staring because you suddenly clear your throat and adjust your position, moving both your hands to the 5 and 7 o’clock positions of the steering wheel.
True to your word, your cabin is relatively close to the restaurant, although the drive feels longer to Natasha because you can’t go faster than 15mph. You park on the driveway, hurrying out before Natasha can even unbuckle her seatbelt to have her door open for her.
“Thank you,” she says, although reluctant to step back out into the cold. 
“Go through the front door,” you tell her, handing her your house key. “I need to get some firewood from the garage first.”
Natasha darts to your porch, fumbling with the key frustratingly before she can get the door open. She stumbles into your home, stamping snow off her shoes. She finds the light switch, flipping it on and surprised to see how barren your house is. There’s a couch, a television, and a potbelly stove in the first room, and an opening to the kitchen on the left and your bedroom ahead. There’s not even a shelf of books or knick knacks as far as she can see.  
“Sorry about the mess,” you grumble as you come in behind her, carrying an armload of splintered wood. “I wasn’t anticipating any visitors tonight.”
“It’s cozy,” Natasha comments as you throw a few pieces of wood into the stove and light some tinder underneath. 
“The bathroom is through the bedroom if you need it,” you say. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”
“Oh, wait, you don’t have to do that,” Natasha starts. “I’m your guest–”
“Don’t worry about it.” You wave her off. Natasha doesn’t know how to respond to your unending kindness. Sometimes, she forgets that good still exists in the world after all the evil she’s been running from. “I’ll heat up some soup. I hope you’re okay with ham and potato.”
“Thank you,” is all she can manage.
“Go ahead and wash up. I’ll need some time to warm up the soup. Use whatever you need. There’s a clean towel and some clothes on the left side of my closet that might fit you. They belonged to…an old friend.” Natasha hears the wistfulness in your voice, her curiosity piqued. But she doesn’t pry and goes into your bedroom, closing the door. She finds the clothes and a folded up towel that you mentioned, so she carries them all into the bathroom.  
The hot water has never felt so wonderful as Natasha washes off the grimes from several days’ of traveling. But she enjoys it for too long and soon, the water runs cold. Motivated to step out, she dresses in the clothes you provided, glad for the wool that keeps her insulated and toasty. She joins you in the kitchen, where you’re ladling soup into two chipped bowls on the table.
“Feel better?” you ask her. You’ve taken off your leather jacket now, your checkered flannel fully hanging open over a white tank top. Natasha has no idea how you’re able to withstand the cold in the cabin, although the fire from the potbelly stove has made the temperature much more tolerable. In one less layer of clothing, she can see the muscles in your chest and shoulders, which certainly explained where your powerful punch came from. You have a beaded chain around your neck holding a pair of dog tags. While Natasha is still not sure what to think of you, she has a better idea now. 
“I feel amazing,” she says, “Although I think I used up all the hot water–”
“It’s fine. Do you want a beer?”
“No, thank you. Water is fine.”
“Sure.” You pour her a glass from a pitcher in the fridge and grab a beer for yourself. She waits for you to sit with her before dipping her spoon into her bowl. The soup warms her up from the inside and before she realizes it, her bowl is empty before you’ve even had a few spoonfuls. Her cheeks heat up as you fill her bowl without being prompted. 
“Thanks,” she murmurs and once again you only grunt in response. After you finish your soup, you don’t refill it, instead sitting back and sipping your beer. Neither of you talk, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. Natasha finishes her third bowl, scraping every drop onto her spoon, before her curiosity finally wins. 
“Can I ask why you’re being so nice to me?” she asks. 
You stare at her as if she’s just asked for your answer to a complex math equation. There’s a few seconds of pause before you respond. “Because you’re someone who doesn’t ask for help, even if you really need it.”
Your answer has Natasha even more confused.
“You remind me of myself,” you add, as if this is enough clarification. When you talk, your voice is low and gruff, almost like you’re not used to having someone listen to you. From the furnishings in your home, or lack of them, it’s clear you live alone and probably have for a while. With the closest settlement 30 miles away, Natasha is surprised you haven’t set up further out. Whatever life you had lived, it seemed like you just wanted to retire in peace, despite that you didn’t look older than 30 years. 
“I can’t thank you enough,” she says. “After tonight, you can drop me off in town and I’ll be out of your way.”
“You’re not a burden,” you reply. 
“And I’m not trying to be.” Natasha takes her bowl to the sink to wash it, but you stop her.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean up in the morning. You should get some rest.”
“Come on, let me do at least one nice thing for you,” Natasha begs.
“Hmm,” you mumble, your face twisting as you appear to think hard about her request. “How about you let me use the cold water in the bathroom to wash up, and then the bedroom is all yours?”
“Deal.” 
But while you’re in the bathroom, Natasha sneaks back into the kitchen and washes the dishes. She can’t help herself; it just feels wrong to take advantage of your hospitality without giving you anything in return. She leaves the dishes to dry on the counter, then guiltily hunts around the remaining rooms for any further insight into your life before you get out of the shower.
In one of the kitchen drawers, she finds a small pocket knife that when folded, can be concealed perfectly in the palm of her hand. She had lost her own knife running through the forest earlier that day, and even though she can’t imagine having to use it against you, it makes her feel better to have a blade on her. She pockets it, hoping you won’t miss it, and keeps looking. But there is nothing to find: no receipts, no tags, not even a handwritten sticky note to yourself.
Natasha jolts when she realizes she hasn’t even asked your name yet. 
You emerge from your bedroom, your hair flattened by the water, a towel slung around your neck. “Bedroom is all yours,” you say, dragging a moth-eaten blanket to the couch and dropping down on it. “I’ll be out here if you need anything.”
“One more question,” Natasha says. “I’m Nat. What’s yours?”
“Y/N.”
Natasha smiles. “Good night, Y/N.”
“Good night, Nat.”
***********************************************************************
BOOM.
You feel like you’ve only just fallen asleep, but you sit up at the sudden noise, momentarily forgetting where you are.
“Police! Open up!”
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
“What the…?” You blink in confusion, tripping over the blanket as you stumble to the door. Peeking through the blinds, you see four men in SWAT gear standing on your porch. All of them are armed with multiple guns and one of them holds a battering ram. But you don’t see any police insignia on any of their uniforms. A tank of a truck is parked on your driveway, blocking the path to your own, and any chance of unnoticed escape. 
“Police! Open the damn door!”
“Y/N? What’s going on?” Natasha suddenly pops up in your bedroom doorway, her hair tousled and face drowsy. 
“We’ve got company,” you respond, as there’s pounding at the door again. “They said they’re police, but I don’t think that’s true–”
“Oh, shit,” Natasha gasps. “They found me.”
“Found you? Who?” The hair on the back of your neck stands up. 
“I’m so sorry. Oh my God. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drag you into this.” Natasha begins pacing your living room as bright lights stream through the windows. You probably won’t have much more time before they force entry.
“Nat, what’s going on? Who are these people?” you ask, running over to her. You’ve hardly known this woman for 12 hours, but you have a fierce desire to protect her from whatever’s hunting her. When you had first seen her in the bar, looking roughed up and sad, you had the urge to help her. But scaring Stu off wasn’t enough and even taking her to your home couldn’t keep her safe.
“I should have never come here,” Natasha cries. “You don’t deserve this, after everything you’ve done for me–”
“I can help you,” you insist. “Please, Nat. Just tell me who they are–”
She looks up at you, and even in the darkness the fear in her eyes is unmissable.
“The Red Room.”
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AN: Any guesses on R's mutant inspiration? :)
Click here for Part 2!
Please leave likes, comments, and reblog! Follow for more content. 🥰
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probably-writing-x · 10 months
Text
The Stars That Shine
Summary: could you do something w conrad based off of mary’s song oh my my my by taylor swift 🥺
Author’s Note: Im so sorry I struggled so much writing this but I hope you love it and it’s what you were hoping for <3
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It was like there was just something between you and Conrad that everyone else could see even when you couldn’t. You’d grown up in the house next to his in Cousins and so, every summer without fail, you spent every waking moment with him. It was like summer started so nothing else mattered. He was two years older than you and for the majority of your life he’d made that abundantly clear - he treated you like a little girl in comparison to him. He saw you in the same way he saw Jere, younger than him and so someone he had to be responsible for.
When you were 8, he threw you into the pool and then fought you when you tried to get back at him for it. You’d slipped on the concrete and cut your knee, and Susannah had told him he was too big to be fighting you. He’d patched you up with a plaster over the cut and bought you an ice cream from the van when it came past.
When you were 10, he punched a boy that jumped the queue in front of you over at the boardwalk. You’d been queuing to use the karts, and a boy had treated you like you were invisible. Conrad grabbed your arm and pulled you behind him, turning the guy around and clocking him in the jaw. He bruised his knuckles and you bought him fries from the stall to make up for it. You remembered it every time you ended up back at that boardwalk.
When you were 12, he got dared to kiss you one night when the group of you were all camping out at the beach. He refused at first and both of you forgot about it. But, later that night, he’d stopped you on the sand and told you that he never backed down from a dare. You ran away before he had the chance. Neither of you mentioned it after that day.
When you were 14, you realised for the first time that you liked him. He was getting ready for a date and you watched him fix his hair in the mirror, the pain settling on your chest that it wasn’t you he’d be with. He’d told you to wish him luck and you couldn’t find a word to respond with. A few hours later, Conrad had returned and told you dating wasn’t for him, he’d shook hands with you that he’d never go on a first date again. You’d laughed and taken the bet, hoping to God for just a moment that the next one would be with you.
When you turned 16, it was like Conrad saw you completely differently. You turned up in Cousins that summer and he saw you as a whole new person. He’d looked at you on the driveway like he was looking at a stranger, until his hand stretched out and he ruffled your hair on your head. You blushed under his touch and prayed he didn’t notice.
But there was just something so different about that summer. You felt Conrad’s eyes on you whenever he had the chance, the way he listened in to what you said just a little more intensely, the way he defended you when the boys started being dicks. The little things that just didn’t feel the same as they normally did.
It was that same summer that Conrad first took you out in his truck. His father had bought it for him for Christmas and got Jere one too - now that both of them could drive. Conrad had always complained that he’d have to wait for Jeremiah but it didn’t seem to matter now that he had his car. It started with just little trips to the store, spending a little longer with each other browsing through the aisles before he took the long way home. And then one night, when you couldn’t sleep, it felt like everything changed.
———
You made your way slowly downstairs, breezing past your parents’ room where they both slept soundly. With no real reason why, you just couldn’t sleep tonight. And there was only so long you could lay in bed waiting for sleep to take you.
You slip on a hoodie over your bralette and shorts and grab a pair of flip flops, heading out of the back door and into the yard. It was so much more peaceful at night. You’d sleep out here if you could.
It was rare you spent much time at home in this place, however. All of your best memories were made in the house next door - Susannah was the hostess and your parents always accepted that. You walk down the length of the garden alongside the hedged fence joins the two yards, your eyes flicking into their side.
That’s when you see him. Illuminated by the lights in the water, seemingly giving him an eerie glow, his legs drifting back and forth under the surface from where he sat at the edge of the pool.
“Con?” You hiss into the silent air and he instantly bolts his head up to look at where the noise has come from.
He smiles when he sees you, standing up from the poolside and wiping his hands on his shorts, “Are you stalking me (Y/l/n)?”
“Don’t flatter yourself Fisher,” You roll your eyes, wrapping your arms around yourself.
He smirks and makes his way over to you until you’re both stood in front of each other, separated by the short hedge between you.
“Why are you awake?”
Conrad shrugs, “I never sleep early.”
You nod, “I can’t sleep.”
You feel the way his eyes watch you, the way they seem to melt into your skin. The way you seem to heat up just a little under his gaze.
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
“Now? Con it’s like 1am,” You frown, glancing back up to him.
He shrugs, “Do you have anything better to do?”
And so, he disappears back into his house and you take the alleyway at the side of yours, waiting for him out the front against the passenger door of his car.
Only moments later, he steps outside, swinging his keys around one finger as he makes his way over to you. You both clamber in and he drives off without another word.
You look out of the passenger window at the passing cars and don’t notice the way he watches you. The way his eyes are on you as if they can’t be torn away. Conrad wasn’t exactly sure when things had changed - or if they’d ever changed at all. He just knew that he saw you now and saw someone he couldn’t be without. Like someone had made him see you in a completely different light. Had he always felt like this and only now realised?
“Have you seen the-“ You turn your head back around and notice his eyes solely on you, feeling a blush burn at your cheeks, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just-“ He stops himself.
“Focus on the road Fisher,” You roll your eyes, drawing your knees up to your chest on the chair.
“That’s my sweatshirt,” He points out, turning another corner as the two of you drive down another country lane.
Eventually, he parks the car up on the hills overlooking the town, both of you still sat in the front seats staring out over the dark view.
“So why couldn’t you sleep?” Conrad asks you, leaning his head back against the headrest.
You shrug, “I don’t know. Just stuff on my mind I guess.”
He nods, “Go on.”
“Do you-“ You stop yourself, shifting in your seat so that you’re sat sideways, facing him directly, “Do you feel like… I don’t know, like this summer has been different than before?”
You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows the lump in his throat, “In what way?”
“Come on Con,” You scoff, “I feel like I stranger showing up here again, I know you’re all looking at me like I’m a new person.”
He jumps the gun quickly to correct you, “It’s not like that, I know you’re still you.”
You roll your eyes, “Then why are you being so different with me?”
“I just-“ He stops himself, reaching out to brush your hair away from your face, as if he wants to frame your features in the perfect light, “It just feels like this summer I actually woke up. Saw what was right in front of me.”
“And what’s that?” You stop yourself from smiling, feeling so nervous with the way he cupped your cheek.
His thumb brushes along your jaw, until it is at the base of your chin, “You.”
Slowly, cautiously, like he’s giving you both the time to overthink, he draws you into him and you pull to him like a magnet. His breath fans over your lips before you close the space between you, his lips soft and uncertain against yours. You hadn’t kissed anyone before, you didn’t have a clue on what to do. But his hand keeps you pulled into him and his fingers are in your hair and his lips move against yours like they were meant to be there. He holds you like he’s been waiting to for a short forever.
Conrad’s hands move lower, pressing against your back to pull you into him, both of you angled awkwardly over the console of the car. He fumbles in his seat to draw you close to him despite the block between you and both of you laugh against each other.
“Terrible place for a first kiss,” He mumbles against you, his forehead pressing against yours.
You smile and pull away from him, “I think we’re just impatient.”
“Oh I think we’ve both waited long enough to do that,” He scoffs, “C’mere.”
One hand drops to draw his chair as far away from the wheel as it will go before they’re both back onto you, gripping and grasping at your hoodie to pull you over to him. You giggle as you clamber over onto his lap.
He grips your waist as you settle down onto his thighs, your noses bumping together in the small space.
“Hi,” You grin, holding both of his shoulders as if convincing yourself he was real.
His hands slip beneath the waistband of your hoodie, for no other reason than to convince himself that you were real too, that he could feel you there.
“Hi.”
———
You and Conrad had stayed together for the following year without any hiccups. He drove to your home, you drove to Boston, you met in the middle in Cousins. You spent Thanksgiving with his family, and he came to yours after Christmas. You called each other nearly every night and the long distance never seemed to feel like too far. All up until when the two of you were back in Cousins. Your parents hadn’t come this summer but you had, and you stayed at Susannah’s place. It was the most time you and Conrad had ever spent together, waking up together, going to sleep together, it was all you’d been wanting since he’d first kissed you in that car.
But all pieces of heaven come with tiny bits of hell. And it didn’t take too long for the perfect bubble to burst.
You’d been at the beach at a bonfire party, and you’d been accepting any drink that someone offered you. It was starting to hit you a little bit, the sort of buzz that warmed your veins and heightened your confidence.
“Where’s Con?” You frown at Jeremiah, squinting around the mass of bodies to try and spot your boyfriend.
“I don’t know,” Jere shrugs, “I think I saw him with Steven by the fire.”
You nod and trail your steps in that direction, stumbling a little on the uneven sand.
“Hey!” An unfamiliar pair of hands grab your waist, “Come and dance with me.”
You push them away and turn your head back to see a boy you don’t recognise, rolling your eyes.
“Oh come on, don’t be boring,” He encourages, “Dance with me.”
His hands snake around your waist again and you push them off.
“Get off me!” You exclaim, turning around to face him.
“Oh is that how you’re playing it?” The boy smirks, “What have you got a boyfriend or something?”
“I-“
“Hey, do you want to back the fuck off?” Conrad’s voice bellows from beside you, coming up towards the boy and shoving him square in the chest.
He stumbles backwards on the sand but catches himself before he falls.
“Who the fuck are you?” The boy scoffs, looking up to meet Conrad’s eyes before looking back at you, at the way Conrad shields you with his body, “You’re her boyfriend?”
“How about you leave her alone?” Conrad waves the boy off, watching as he walks off from the both of you before he turns around to face you.
“God he wouldn’t get off me he-“
“We’re going home.”
Conrad’s voice is cold, emotionless - a way you’d never heard him speak towards you.
“Wh-“
“We’re leaving,” He snaps once again, “I’m driving.”
“Con wh-“
He holds your arm in his grasp and tries to lead you away from the party, getting you as far as being just slightly away from the big crowd.
“Conrad get off me, you’re hurting me!” You exclaim, pulling your wrist from his grip, “What’s wrong with you?”
“(Y/n) you’re drunk and we’re going home,” He says harshly, looking at you with eyes that didn’t feel like his own, “Now get in the car.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” You wrap your arms over your chest, “Why are you being like this?”
“Because you’ve got guys fucking trying it on with you, thinking they’ve got a chance with you, and I’m stood right there (Y/n)!”
“Nothing happened!” You half-laugh, “He grabbed me and I told him to stop. What the fuck is wrong with that?”
“You think they don’t think they’ve got a chance with you?” Conrad raises his eyebrows, “Are you fucking blind?”
“No I’m not blind Conrad but I’m not going to fucking cheat on you with the first guy that shows me attention. Who the hell do you think I am?”
His shoulders drop a little like he’s realised the effect, but Conrad being Conrad will only let the mask slip for so long before he’s back to the coldhearted demeanour he seemed to have adopted for the night.
“Okay, we’re taking both of you home,” Steven walks over to interject, “I’ve not been drinking, I’m driving.”
You look at Conrad for a moment longer like you’re hoping he’s going to change his mind and reach out for you and apologise but he doesn’t make any move to do so.
He walks off ahead with Steven and you walk behind with Belly and Jeremiah.
Everyone is deathly silent on the drive home until you reach the house and they mumble a quick ‘good night’ before going into separate bedrooms. Conrad still hasn’t looked you in the eyes and, as you sober up more and more, you’re convincing yourself he never will.
“Con can we please-“
You pause as you watch him rummaging through the closet to pull out a pillow and blanket.
“What are you doing?”
“Sleeping downstairs,” He returns bitterly, turning around towards the door.
“You can’t be serious,” You scoff, “That’s it? You’re not even going to talk to me about it?”
“I’ve said what I wanted to say,” Conrad shrugs, “We’re not going to agree so now what?”
“We fight it out Conrad. We talk about it like fucking adults,” You shake your head, “We don’t just give up and act like each other’s worst enemy.”
He doesn’t respond.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m unbelievable? I’m not the one with a guys arms around my fucking waist!”
“What the fuck was I supposed to do?” You yell, unbothered about every other pair of listening ears in the house.
Conrad doesn’t reply once more, stepping past you to walk into the corridor.
“You know what? Go fuck yourself Conrad,” You state coldly and he glances back only momentarily to watch as you slam the bedroom door, feeling it shake the room around you before you fall to the floor in tears.
The only other sound comes from his feet creaking the stairs on their way down.
The following morning, you’re up before anyone else in the house. You could barely sleep in the night, feeling oddly cramped in the spacious bed, feeling cold in the too-hot room.
Eventually, you give up on trying to sleep any more and instead make your way downstairs.
The couch is empty, apart from a small pile with the pillow and blanket stacked on top of each other. You frown a little at the sight, desperate for the calm of seeing Conrad asleep and peaceful. Your eyes draw outside to the garden where you can just about make out the shape of a body across one of the sun loungers, tucked away in the shade at the side of the pool.
He must be freezing.
You grab the blanket from the couch and tuck it under your arm, stepping outside as quietly as you can to reach Conrad.
His arms are wrapped over his chest and his heads tilted to the side, stretching out his prominent jawline. His breaths are calm and even and you’re conscious as ever to not wake him as you stretch out the blanket to lay over him.
You’re just about to turn away when you see his eyes start to flutter open just a little.
“(Y/n)?” Conrad’s voice croaks as you turn back towards the house.
You grimace a little and look down at the floor, “I- I thought you might be cold.”
Certain more than ever that this wasn’t the time to start up another argument, you start to make your way back inside with hurried steps.
“(Y/n) wait!” Conrad calls after you, “Will you stay?”
You pause in your steps and turn around to face him, “I-“
But it’s easier to not say a word, as if you don’t want to ruin the moment. You walk over to him slowly and he shifts over on the lounger so that there’s one thin half of it for you to lay on. He stretches out an arm and you lay down, resting your head on his chest whilst his other arm drapes the blanket over you. Both of you are silent at first, as if wanting to breathe in every ounce of contact you’d been missing.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Conrad says, trailing one hand up and down your back, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
You nod, “I’m sorry too. I should’ve just listened to you and I know you we-“
“Baby,” He speaks so softly you’re sure your heart swells at the feeling of him coming back to you.
You lean up slightly, just enough to rest on your elbow and turn your head to face him.
“I was in the wrong,” He assures you, “I’d been drinking and I saw you with that guy and I just flipped and I shouldn’t have.”
You nod, resting a hand on his chest, “It was kind of hot when you shoved him though.”
Conrad chuckles, wrapping his arm around your waist to pull you between his legs, letting you lay over his torso, “You think?”
You shrug, “Just yell at the guy more and not me next time.”
He smiles softly, “Noted.”
———
Arguments came rarely and calmly between the two of you after that day. When you did disagree, it was softer and sadder - less fuelled and less aggressive. Conrad never raised his voice at you, and you never raised your voice at him. You told him when you were upset and he told you when he was irritated. It worked.
You’d been together for five years before things changed again. You were a year out from graduating college and Conrad was practically waiting for the day when you would. He’d already graduated so he came to visit you on the weekends when he could, he worked a job in a research lab in Boston and he’d call you when he finished to tell you about what he’d done that day. The plan for after you graduated was to get the money to buy your parents’ Cousins house from them. The two of you, in Cousins, in the place you’d fell in love. It would be a dream.
You were back in Cousins for the summer after your third year of college and you were, of course, staying with his family and the Conklins. Everything had been completely normal until this one day where it felt like the whole house’s mood had shifted.
“Morning babe,” You yawn as you walk downstairs, into the kitchen where Conrad and Jere are speaking in hushed tones.
They stop abruptly when you walk in.
“Hey!” Jeremiah smiles a little too widely, “I’m gonna… I’m gonna head out.”
You frown as he hurries past you and turn back to Conrad.
“What was that about?”
He shrugs and walks over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist, “Jere’s Jere.”
You rest your head against his chest and breathe in the scent of cologne that clings to his clothes.
“Do you fancy waffles?” He suggests, his hands moving up to your shoulders to massage the skin over the material of your baggy t-shirt.
You pull away from him and narrow your eyes, “Waffles?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Im being romantic,” He rolls his eyes at you, walking away to get the ingredients from the cupboard.
“Oh I’m not complaining,” You grin, pushing yourself to sit on the countertop, “Did I forget an anniversary or something?”
“Can’t a guy do something nice for his girlfriend without an ulterior motive?” He questions you, walking over to open the cupboard beside your legs, pulling out the waffle iron.
You shrug, “We’ll see.”
As he stands back up, he leans in quickly to kiss you, “I’ve got some errands to run later but I’ll be back in time for dinner, Belly suggested we all go out.”
“Our for dinner? We never go out for dinner,” You frown, “Why would we-“
“Stop being so suspicious,” Conrad scoffs, “We’ll go somewhere nice.”
“You’re weird today,” You joke and he rolls his eyes at you once again.
Later that day, Conrad’s still out and you get a text from him telling you he’ll meet you at dinner rather than coming home first. You’ve been lounging around the house since he left, soaking in the sun in the garden before you came in to shower.
Belly knocks on your bedroom door as you’re laying across the bed watching The Office.
“Hey!” She grins, “Do you know what you’re wearing to dinner?”
You frown as she drops down onto your mattress, “No I’ll probably just put a jumper on or something.”
“I think-“ She looks around your room, “I think we should dress up.”
“Dress up? You’ll never get the boys to agree to that,” You laugh, “Where are we even going?”
She shrugs, “You’ll find out.”
You lean up onto your elbows and narrow your eyes at her, “Why’s everyone being so suspicious today? What aren’t you telling me?”
She laughs and her mouth moves like she can’t find the words, “I’m not saying anything.”
“Belly!” You exclaim as she hurries off from your bed.
“Just… wear something nice,” She sticks her head around the frame of your door, “Maybe that white dress that Conrad loves.”
You glance over to the closet and glaze over your appearance in the mirror. Maybe you should make an effort, it was rare you were ever going anywhere fancy enough to do anything like that. But they all seemed set on making this night a good one - who were you to question that?
Within the hour, you’ve done some light makeup, brushed through your hair and curled the bits around your face, and pulled on the white dress that Conrad loved so much.
When you step out to walk down the stairs, Belly, Steven, Taylor and Jere are all stood looking up at you.
“What the fuck is going on?” You laugh, “I feel like I’m going to prom.”
“Wh-“ Steven coughs, glancing at the others, “We’re just, um, you know, we don’t want to be late.”
You grab your purse quickly and hurry down the stairs, “Calm down, Im ready now.”
They follow you outside and you all walk over to Jere’s car where you go to open the back door.
“Um,” Belly stops you, “You can sit in the front.”
You look at her with a puzzled expression before climbing into the front with Jeremiah, watching as the other three pile into the back.
“Seriously guys what the fuck is going on?” You question as Jere pulls off from the driveway and starts down the road.
“What are you talking about?” Taylor shrugs, “We’re just hungry.”
“Everyone’s like treading on eggshells with me today, it’s weird,” You comment, “Con seemed like weirdly nervous before he left earlier too, I’ve never seen him run out of the door so quickly and I-“
You pause as the sights around you seem to change, Jeremiah taking a turn down a country lane.
“Jere this isn’t the way to the restaurant we need to go…”
You stop yourself once more as his face breaks into a grin that it’s impossible to hide.
“Seriously what aren’t you telling me?” You turn around to glance at the three of them in the back, all of their heads close together looking out of the windscreen.
Belly nods her head in that direction and you turn back to the front, your lips parting and every single sensation in your body seeming to ignite and disappear all in one moment.
There, in the exact spot where he’d first kissed you, is Conrad.
There’s a scattering of rose petals laid out across the grass and candles lining the edge of the cliff that dips down towards the town.
“Oh my god,” You exhale, glancing at the others in the car with tears already in your eyes.
“Go on, I think he’s waiting for you,” Jeremiah nods, squeezing your arm.
The other three look at you with widened eyes and bright smiles on their faces as you open the passenger door and step out.
“I was worried Jere would take you the wrong way,” Conrad calls over to you as you walk over towards him.
“Conrad this is-“ You stop yourself, glancing around at the sight that you’re sure is something out of a dream, “I don’t even know what to say.”
“You look beautiful,” Conrad reaches out his hands for you to hold, “I- God, I’d planned this whole thing and now it’s like I don’t know where to start.”
You step just a foot in front of him and squeeze his hands, looking up at him with watering eyes.
“(Y/n) I love you,” Conrad smiles back at you, “And there are a thousand words I could say now to tell you that, but nothing will be more important than telling you that I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. And so…”
“Oh my god,” You release again, watching as he lowers down onto his knee, reaching back into his pocket to pull out a small velvet box.
“(Y/n) (Y/l/n) will you marry me?”
“Oh my god,” You repeat once again as if they’re the only words going through your brain, your eyes spilling with tears.
Conrad looks up at you with overwhelming emotion in his eyes, “Well?”
“Yes!” You laugh, grasping either side of his face in your hands as he stands up onto his feet, “Of course! Yes!”
He looks down to push the silver ring onto your finger before wrapping his arms around your waist, lifting you up into his grasp before he lowers you down to the ground. His eyes shift into that same adoration they’d held for you when you first came here that night, and he leans in to kiss you with the same excitement as that first time too.
At the sight, a chorus of cheers extend from the car and you both glance over to see all four of them staring out the window with wide grins over their faces.
You laugh through the tears in your eyes and Conrad tightens his arm around your waist, pulling you as close to him as humanly possible.
In that moment, in that perfect moment, you think of your six year old self, when you’d been a blushing mess meeting Conrad for the first time. Your twelve year old self so terrified at the thought of kissing him. The sixteen year old self that first kissed him in that car. And every year since of loving him.
You see yourselves getting married, your families laughing and telling you they knew it would be this way all along. The two of you growing old together, watching your kids grow up too. And, eventually, being sat in the same spot on this same cliff overlooking this same town, with the boy who’d held your heart for your entire life.
The boy who’d always be your Connie.
738 notes · View notes
starlingflight · 3 months
Note
I have only recently discovered your writing and was wondering if you've done a scene where Harry tells Ginny he smells her in his Amortentia?
I just think you capture their personalities so perfectly that I think you'd do the scene justice.
Anon, you're my new favourite person - so I dropped everything and wrote this for you 😘
AO3 or read below:
The smell hit her like a punch to the gut. 
It had been lying dormant, in wait, hanging unseen in the air of the dungeon corridor, ready for Ginny to wander unwittingly into its trap. 
She wasn't even taking potions this year, but Luna was, and the first day of Ginny's sixth year at Hogwarts had been so lonely and unpleasant that she'd been unable to resist using the end of her free period to wander down here to meet one of the few friendly faces remaining to her in the castle when the school day officially ended. 
It wasn’t the homely, comforting aroma of her mother’s apple pie that had the heart-wrenching effect on her, nor was it the damp, earthy fragrance that brought to mind the orchard after summer rainfall. The scent that had Ginny leaning heavily against the cool stone wall was more subtle, a faint hint in the air of something woodsy, evergreen and clean, and so intrinsically Harry that she suspected it would’ve taken her breath away even if she’d been expecting it. 
The door to the potions classroom burst open, spilling a handful of her classmates into the dimly-lit corridor. Ginny forced herself to stand upright, before anyone could see a hint of her distress. 
Despite their shaking, her legs carried her forward. Some invisible force summoned her; she pushed against the crowd exiting Slughorn's classroom, slipping through the doorway; ignoring Luna's puzzled gaze as she followed the scent to a golden cauldron sitting atop the nearest desk. 
The surface of the potion within had an opalescent sheen, and the vapour rising from it was ascending towards the stone ceiling in distinctive spirals that would’ve allowed her to identify it even if the overpowering scent hadn’t already given away its identity.
“Amortentia,” Ginny read aloud, peering over the top of Ron’s borrowed copy of Advanced Potion Making from where she was sitting on the ground opposite Harry. “Sounds a lot more interesting than levitation charms.” 
Harry looked up. Distracted from his attempts at revision, his head fell back slightly against the beech tree he was leaning against. “Slughorn brewed it for our first lesson this year. I could smell it before I even walked into the classroom.” 
Ginny tossed the charms textbook she’d been pretending to read aside, giving him her full attention, which, really, he’d had from the moment he’d convinced her to leave the library in favour of the castle's sunlit grounds. “And what does Harry Potter smell when confronted with the world’s strongest love potion?” 
Harry’s cheeks flushed and Ginny’s grin widened. Making him blush was a new, and favourite, activity of hers. “I’ll tell you next year,” he said evasively. “When you can tell me what you smell too.” 
Fleetingly, she considered accepting his non-answer. It was, after all, a deeply personal question. But this was one of the few boundary-pushing questions that Ginny could ask, unlike the others that she unswervingly steered away from – what are you whispering with Ron and Hermione about? What are you doing when you’re summoned to Dumbledore’s office? Why do I feel like talking about anything further ahead than next Tuesday is tempting a fate that I’m not ready to face? – Amortentia, by contrast, seemed utterly tame. 
She rolled onto her stomach, her elbows sinking into the grass, supporting her upper body and holding it upright. Her smile, she knew, was full of challenge. “I bet I can guess.” 
Harry’s eyes wandered the length of her body, before returning to her face. He mirrored her smirk. “And if you can’t?” 
Laughter rose, light and breathy in her throat, but Ginny swallowed it down, schooling her face into a look of total seriousness. “A forfeit of your choosing… and if I win, a reward of mine.” 
Despite what half the school would probably say, Harry was absolutely terrible at hiding his smile. He shook his head. “Considering my choice of forfeit, and your choice of reward are definitely the same thing, there doesn’t seem to be much risk for you here?” 
“Or you,” Ginny countered, conveniently ignoring the risk of him having to reveal a deeply personal fact. 
The spark in Harry’s eyes told her he hadn’t forgotten the risk, though he didn’t say as much. “We should probably just skip to kissing then.”  
There was nothing she could do to contain her laughter in the face of such a brazen statement; it rang out clear and bright across the grounds. A few weeks ago, when she’d been starting to wonder if he was going to tiptoe around this growing attraction between them forever, the idea of him saying such a thing outright to her would’ve been unimaginable.
She tilted her head to the side, pretending to consider the suggestion. It did sound tempting, but Ginny knew that neither of them would really agree to it. Lines had been drawn. A challenge laid out. Satisfaction must be granted. 
She started with the obvious. “Treacle tart.” 
Harry’s smile fell, clearly concerned by the speed with which Ginny had delivered a correct guess. He recovered quickly, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Been watching my dessert habits closely, have you?” 
Ginny ignored this, finding nothing worthy of denial in the question. “Now it’s a matter of narrowing down what you like more… flying seems an obvious choice, but there’s your fondness for Hedwig to consider–” 
“Hedwig?” Harry burst out. He leaned forward, leaving the tree trunk behind as he looked at her disbelievingly. “I did not smell my owl in a love potion!” 
“Well, it sounds weird when you put it like that,” Ginny said, fighting the urge to laugh once more at the outraged expression on Harry’s face. “Stop looking at me like that!  She's an important presence in your life – I think she’s amortentia-worthy!” 
Harry’s expression remained unchanged. “...She’s an owl.” 
“Fine,” Ginny sighed, shaking her head. “But I think Hedwig would be deeply offended by your reaction.” 
Harry released a snort of laughter, returning his back to the tree. “Well, it’s a good job she’s not as nosy as you, so she’ll never have to know.” 
“Flying then,” Ginny pondered loudly, her fingers twisting in the grass as she let Harry’s comment pass without argument. When it came to her interest in him, ‘nosy’ didn’t quite cover it. 
She fell silent for a moment, considering the many possible scents associated with flying. Her mind immediately went to the rich, leathery fragrance of a quaffle, but she dismissed this at once. She was a chaser, not Harry. Snitches, delicate and metallic, didn’t really smell of anything in her opinion. Being in the air had a unique smell, fresh and clear, but that wasn’t right either. 
Flying, she knew, started before you got in the air. Flying was the sense of anticipation, flying was the rush of pushing off from the ground, flying was endless possibilities. 
“Your broom,” Ginny said definitively after another moment of deliberation. Broomsticks were freedom. 
Harry nodded, confirming her guess correct. Their eyes met, and she knew, without either of them speaking, that her reasoning was sound too.
“Two out of three…” Ginny mused, waiting for Harry to correct her if her calculations were wrong. He didn’t. 
This time the silence that fell between them was charged with suspense, though Ginny suspected this might just be in her head. A flutter of butterflies had broken loose in her stomach. 
She didn't need to be in the presence of a cauldron of amortentia to know that she would smell him. The way he looked at her, it didn't feel completely out of the realm of possibility that Harry would smell Ginny too, but they'd only been together for a matter of weeks, and she'd wanted him for years, and if she guessed herself, and he told her she was wrong, she wasn't sure she'd be able to take the blow. 
“Not Hedwig…” she smirked with an air of confidence she definitely didn't feel, buying time, and coaxing a smile onto Harry's face that went some way to soothing Ginny's nerves. 
“Definitely not,” Harry agreed. 
“More food?” Ginny hedged, watching his face carefully for a reaction. “Or something like that? You do have a liking for butterbeer.”
Harry shook his head. His lips pressed together but Ginny could still see a hint of amusement in his eyes. “You're doing this on purpose.” 
Her heart was beating frantically in her chest. “Doing what?” 
Harry cocked an eyebrow at her. “If you make me admit it, you don't win.”  
Her butterflies were flying wildly now, swooping and diving within her. For once, Ginny found she didn't care very much about winning at all. “I want you to say it.” 
“Fine,” Harry sighed. His hand found hers on the ground, fingers entwining together in the long blades of grass. Much to Ginny's delight, his blush made a return. “You… your hair, if you want me to be specific.” 
“My hair?” She asked, somewhat breathlessly. Her free hand reached out and pulled a strand of her hair to her nose. “It just smells like hair.” 
Harry's cheeks turned from a faint rosy pink, to flushed crimson. “It smells like flowers.”
“Flowers,” Ginny whispered, elevating the word to the height of the world's greatest compliment in her mind. She was certain her smile looked completely ridiculous, but she was incapable of caring. She pulled herself upright, careful that their hands remained clasped together. She shuffled forwards on the grass until her face was inches from Harry's. “Really? My hair?” 
“Yes,” Harry laughed; there was a hint of nervousness beneath the usually carefree sound. “Can you stop looking so pleased with yourself?” 
Ginny's smile remained in place as she shook her head. “No, I don't think I can.” 
“This can't be news to you,” he protested, apparently gathering some confidence from how clearly delighted Ginny was about this revelation. “Have I not made my feelings clear?” 
She supposed he had, in a very Harry-ish way. Kissing her in the centre of the full common room had been a fairly loud declaration, even if no words had been exchanged at that particular moment, and he'd been very attentive from that moment onwards, but this was different. Amortentia was magic; pure, and ancient, and undeniable. 
“I’m ready for my forfeit now,” Ginny announced, not waiting for any further instructions before leaning forwards, her lips finding his, eager to make her own feelings clear in what time they had left before lunch ended–
“Miss Weasley!” Professor Slughorn's voice pulled Ginny abruptly back to the present. 
She was standing beside the golden cauldron; her knuckles had turned a ghostly white from the strength with which she gripped the edge of the desk. She was breathing deeply, taking in great lungfuls of the heady scent emanating from the potion. 
Slughorn was frowning at her, his face a mask of concern and pity. Ginny wasn't sure which sentiment she hated more. 
“Sorry,” she said, using all her force of will to take a definitive step away from the desk. “I was just looking for Luna.” 
“I'm here,” Luna said from the doorway. Her eyes were wide, piercing. “Did you want to go to dinner?” 
Ginny nodded, now that she'd come to her senses she was desperate to remove herself from the dungeons and the heavy miasma that surrounded her. 
Slughorn cleared his throat uncomfortably before she'd taken even a step towards Luna. “Are you sure you're alright, Miss Weasley? I wouldn't want you to go up to dinner if you're not feeling yourself… there's a lot of observant eyes in the great hall these days.” 
“I'm fine,” she lied, ignoring her thundering heart, and schooling her face into a mask of perfect neutrality she was already fed up with wearing after only one day of term. 
“Very well,” Slughorn nodded, though he still looked reluctant to let her go. His eyes travelled between Ginny and Luna. “The weather's still quite fine for this time of year,” he said, his tone observational. “I always find a walk around the grounds to be a pleasant prelude to one's dinner… There's nothing quite like fresh air to clear the mind.” 
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sunburstl0v3 · 10 months
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CHAPTER TWO
✿ Ken x Fem. Reader x Barbie ✿
SUPER SHY
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘺, 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘺 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦 떨리는 지금도, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘺, 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘺
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The two chatted with each other while they walked to Barbie's Dream House, and quickly reached their destination. The whole house was packed with all kinds of Barbies and Kens. Music pumping and dancing could be seen from the entrance, "Aw! Don't tell me were late!" Ken suffered, letting go of [Y/n] and running towards the house, making sure he got to Barbie.
Which left [Y/n] all alone.
[Y/n] glanced down at her heels, how they somehow hurt her toes on the inside. And was this dress even flattering for her? [Y/n] pulled on the dress slightly, feeling tight in the wrong places, "Even though we had the same body...it didn't make a difference." She mumbled, walking towards the party.
Ken was right, there were flashing lights, Barbies cheering and dancing while Kens stood and watched. [Y/n] was mesmerized, by the way Barbies moved their bodies and danced all in sync, a smile graced her lips, as she bobbed her head lightly to the music.
"Hi, Barbie!" [Y/n] spotted Ken, the Ken she had just met, trying desperately to grab her attention, "Hi! Barbie!" he waved over again, either being ignored or she literally couldn't see him in her dance. But while [Y/n] watched Ken being ignored another person came up to her, "Hi I'm Allan."
The [e/c] eyed woman looked over and found a man with brown hair, and suspenders, which she couldn't help but eye at, "Allan? Oh, you're Ken's best friend." Allan nodded, simply proud of that fact. "Oh yeah. Oh, but anyways welcome to Barbie Land." Allan grinned, and [Y/n] hummed.
"Thank you, it's been great so far." [Y/n] had no clue if that statement was even true or not, but oh well. Allan looked back to the dance floor, "You'll get used to it, all the dancing I mean."
"No, like I get it. How could you not if you're not Barbie." [Y/n] replied, nodding along, the music starting to get a bit annoying... Allan sighed, "I get it like, not being a Barbie or Ken." Allan ruffled his brown hair, but it just fell back down to his normal natural look. [Y/n] couldn't help but eye that as well.
"But you have a title, I suppose." [Y/n] pointed out, "Ken's Best Friend." She used her fingers to use quotation marks. Allan huffed, "Yeah but not just Allan,"
At least you're somebody, right?
Allan was technically right, but how would [Y/n] know, "I guess you're right. But I would be really happy with that title." [Y/n] frowned, unnoticed by Allan. "I'm just...[Y/n]."
Did I just make it awkward? [Y/n] pondered, biting her lip, glancing back at Allan it seemed he didn't care, he was unphased, "So what do you do at parties, like this?" [Y/n] finally asked, Allan grinned, "We dance, sometimes Barbie sings, and then afterward the Barbies have a sleepover, and we all leave."
That was exactly what Ken said, [Y/n] raised an eyebrow looking back at the dance circle. "Are they just playing the same song again?"
"I know right, it's so good!" Right. This was all a bit overwhelming for [Y/n], what happens after? If they were right and [Y/n] wasn't a Barbie and definitely didn't have a Dream House, where would she go now.
Not used to this feeling of dread, [Y/n] excused herself and made her way to the punch table. [Y/n] carefully moved through the crowds, quietly saying "Excuse me." which went unheard. [Y/n]'s eyebrows furrowed, and she pushed harder through the crowd, earning some bizarre looks in the process.
Finally, she made it to the table and grabbed a pink champagne glass, filling it up with punch, (which was invisible). [Y/n] gulped down the drink and slammed it down. The [s/c] woman looked back into the crowd, seeing some Kens dancing with some Barbies now.
Turning to the right, [Y/n] faced back with Ken, the Ken. He was leaning against the house, a pink glass in his head. Swallowing a few nerves, [Y/n] strutted over to him, he was the only one she was familiar with.
"Hi, Ken." [Y/n] spoke softly, surprising Ken slightly, "Hi [Y/n]. Enjoying the party?" Ken smiled back, standing up straight now.
"Yeah, it's going good?" She answered, "If standing around watching the Barbies dance the whole time is good then I'm having a fantastic time." Ken giggled, her [e/c] eyes snapped to Ken's face, "Isn't is awesome!" Ken replied.
Ken glanced back over at Barbie, as did [Y/n], "I just wished she would pay more attention to me." [Y/n] hesitantly nodded, peeping back to Ken's face. Ken's blue eyes sparkled against the moonlight; his eyes held so much devotion.
"Does every Ken feel like this?" [Y/n] asked, rolling her head slightly over. The blond paused, taking in a breath, "Of course, all Kens love Barbie." Ken faced the [h/c] surprising her in the moment.
"Maybe you'll find a Ken!" He gasped, making [Y/n] snicker lightly, "Maybe. And maybe Barbie will actually pay attention to you." Ken laughed at her joke(?). [Y/n] gazed up into the sky, the stars shined brightly as did the moon, "Can I say something?" she muttered, but Ken nodded, only half listening as he ruffled his hair in hopes Barbie looks at him.
"Even though this party is for me...it doesn't feel like it." [Y/n] uttered, dumbfounding Ken. "What do you mean it doesn't feel like it's for you?" Ken responded, "Cause you haven't danced, like at all!" [Y/n] frowned, as he was partly right, she didn't even do anything but drink and talk.
"Oh but...I can't dance." [Y/n] explained but Ken was not buying it, "Oh come on! I'll help you." the [s/c] cheeks warmed, "It's... It's alright! You don't have to; I was just being stupid. Of course, this party is for me!" [Y/n] cleared up but without warning, Ken grasped on to her arm and pulled her out to the dance floor.
[Y/n] mouth was left agape, and her eyes blew open in surprise as Ken lead the two of them to the dance floor, "Ken what are you doing!?" She whispered shouted, pushing past Kens and Barbies.
In a second the two of them jumped on the dance floor, startling the Barbies and Ken's Barbie who looked at them with confusion, "Don't mind us!" Ken laughed, pulling [Y/n] closed to him, "Just follow my lead." He grinned, grasping her hand.
[Y/n] gasped as Ken began to dance, she began to learn some of the moves and started to dance the same way Ken as did the other Barbies. [Y/n] moved her hips to the rhythm and jumped, it was so much fun.
As the song ended, [Y/n] couldn't stop herself from laughing, clutching her stomach, "That was so much fun!" [Y/n] chuckled, turning around to face Ken.
"Hi, Barbie!" Ken waved ecstatically at Barbie who was giggling with the other Barbies, but then she looked behind her. A giant smile graced her pink lips, "Hi Ken!" she waved back.
Huh?
"Um, Hey Ken!" [Y/n] tapped him on the shoulder, but Ken didn't turn, instead, he walked over to Barbie and started talking to her, something about being boyfriend/girlfriend.
Oh um.
[Y/n] turned around, her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. She bit the side of her cheek and walked away from the dance floor back to her original spot.
Her hands curled around the ends of her dress, and she held on tightly for whatever reason, she felt insecure.
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taglist: @imogen-skye@samhomo@almostjollypizza@itstylersblog@meowkid1000 @urmomsbananabreadbxdbxtxh15spi6kerosecenturynavs-bhatdigipaw2-0manticcashewshakysifhisfuturepxppxrmintybluestuesdayhiddencatailsspookyscellarsavagemickey03 audigay hushwhennooneisaround nadjababygirl madislayyy froglovemushroom horrorcoon abbygraceasd basmentbunnyyy thatonethimbo soliarsystem urahara24 dishwaterdopplganger 6demonica9 zeyzeys-stuff navs-bhat digipaw2-0 astrvalee manticcashew shakysif hisfuture pxppxrminty hiddencatails
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makeyoumine69 · 10 months
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Guilty Pleasure
— PAIRING: Patrick Bateman x Fem!Reader
— SUMMARY: After you made a mistake in one of yours latest reports, Patrick Bateman — your boss — calls you to the meeting room to teach you a lesson.
— CONTAINS: Smut, Daddy kink, degradation, praising, dry humping, pet names, dirty talk, humiliation, nipple play/sucking, hair hulling, biting, spanking, marking.
— WORDS: 1.2k
— A/N: Sorry, I had to repost this fic due to this situation. More information about my writing challenge you can find here.
— LINKS: [MASTERLIST]; [2k CELEBRATION MASTERLIST]
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Your heart was beating like a ticking bomb inside your chest as you made your way to the conference room where your big boss — Patrick Bateman — was waiting for you. You had no other choice but to comply, even though you didn't want to go. Tense, yet annoyed, you turned the last corner and saw a small group of yuppies whose arrogant expressions made you sick. Although you tried to ignore the way one of them looked at you — Timothy Bryce as far as you could remember — something heavy dropped in your gut, you hated that kind of attitude, so you had to bite your tongue and open the door to the meeting room.
As soon as you stepped inside, you noticed Patrick sitting at the large wooden table across from the entrance, wearing his favorite black pinstripe suit with red tie and Oliver Peoples O'Malley glasses.
"You're late." He muttered, not even bothering to look at you as he flipped through a folder of documents.
"No, I'm not! You asked me to come at eleven."
Only then did he deign to glance at you — his piercing gaze instantly sent shivers down your spine. "11 o'clock was 10 minutes ago, darling."
Damn it!
A sharp breath escaped your lips as you checked your watch and realized that he was right. "I'm sorry, sir."
Bateman couldn't help but grin with satisfaction and put the folder aside, tapping his long fingers on the table surface. "Do you know why you're here?"
Embarrassed, you looked down for a second, unable to bear the way he was staring at you. "Actually, no."
His low hum bounced off the walls of the meeting room, and now you could finally admit to yourself that you were so damn nervous and even scared, but you couldn't show it to him. After all, you needed this job, you'd already done so much to get the chance to work at P&P, you couldn't let it all end like this.
"I wanted to talk to you about the last report you did for me," Patrick beckoned you with a soft smile, and you could swear that this jerk was enjoying every second of this situation, almost like having the power over you was his personal kink. "I think I found a mistake that is quite serious."
"That can't be," you gasped, moving toward his seat. "I've double-checked everything so many times and—"
"Hey, it's all right," he cut you off, watching you come closer and shamelessly checking out your legs. "Mmm, this skirt is better than your previous ones, but it's still not short enough."
Scowling, you took a deep breath to not just punch him right in his perfect face and just leave.
"C'mon, have a seat." He playfully motioned to his knee, but you pretended not to understand his gesture and tried to sit on the chair nearby. That annoyed him slightly, so he grabbed you by your hips and forced you to sit on his lap. "Are you testing me, babydoll?"
His large palm was already tracing invisible patterns along your breasts through your silk blouse, not even giving you a chance to protest. Taking advantage of your shock, he nipped at your neck, leaving a few hickeys that made you squeal.
"Mr. Bateman!"
"Shush," he growled in a raspy voice, quickly positioning you in a way that made you face him, and his knee was right between your thighs. "Do you want the whole office to know what a slut you are? If I remember correctly, you care about your job."
Smirking, he watched you close your eyes in embarrassment and pulled up the hem of your skirt to squeeze your ass. The cold metal of his Rolex brushed against your skin, making you gasp, and he used the moment to kiss you hard on the lips. He plugged his warm tongue in and your mouth and you immediately squeaked against his lips.
"Ahh, look at you," Bateman crooned sweetly, drawing a long, wet line across your face. "Such a dirty little whore! You like it when Daddy plays rough with you, huh?"
Panting, you whimpered as he tugged on your hair to make you look at him. "Yes, Daddy...I l-love everything you do to me."
"Ohh, is that so?" He chuckled and unbuttoned your blouse so he could slide his hand inside to play with one of your swollen nipples. "Now be a good girl and prove it to me."
God, everything was too much, his hoarse voice sent shivers down your spine, and not to mention the way his skilled fingers twisted your little tip, pinching it a bit too tightly, but that only spurred your pussy to pulsate even more. You let him pull you into another kiss, his lips moving greedily against yours, and you didn't even notice that you were starting to grind against his thigh, your throbbing clit rubbing against the expensive fabric of his pants, increasing the tingling in your lower abdomen.
"Mmmhm, Daddy," you clang desperately at his strong biceps through his suit, causing him to grunt in response. "Someone can see us."
"Then be quiet," Patrick licked your neck and groped your hips, forcing you to move faster. "I'm going to rip your panties off and fuck you right here if you don't cum soon."
Holy shit.
You wanted to cry at the strength which he held your thighs, pinning you to his lap and twisting your taut nipples one by one until he took one of them into his mouth.
"Aww!" You yelped quietly as he bit your peak with his sharp teeth. "I'm so… I'm s-so close… mhmm…!"
Wrapping your hands around his neck, you surrendered to his power, letting the delightful rapture consume you completely as your soft inner walls began to clench around nothing. When Bateman noticed the way you were twitching, he squeezed your hips even harder, pressing you close to his firm body as you couldn't stop shaking. You thought you would bite your lips so hard till the point of drawing blood, but Bateman stopped you by pushing his thumb inside your warm mouth, and you sucked on it as if your life depended on it.
"Yes. Just like that," he cooed to you, unable to take his eyes off your shivering body. "You make Daddy so proud."
With that, he slapped your ass and stood up, holding you in his arms. Gently, he placed you on the table and spread your legs to admire the view of your soaked pussy. He then roughly pulled down your panties — you didn't have the strength or courage to resist.
"Imagine if someone came in and saw me eating you out," he snickered, giving your cunt a quick slap that made you whimper and flinch from the overstimulation. Smugly, Patrick adjusted his pants and hid your wet underwear in the pocket of his suit. "I bet you want this."
The voices behind the door only grew louder, but you couldn't hear them because your own heartbeat drowned out all sounds. If you ended up losing your job, at least you would know who was to blame, and one day you would take your revenge, one way or another.
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P.S. Thank you for reading until the end! I don’t have a taglist. You can follow my side blog @makeyoumineagain and turn on notifications to know when I update!
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earlycuntsets · 27 days
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nobody noticed my cursed gerard pic
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photographed by dannyensele from sacramentomusicarchive.com
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yjhariani · 8 months
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warnings: angst, zombies.
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When you saw the newly promoted captain walking over towards you in the mess hall, you stopped eating. The hair on the side of his head had outgrown in a messy way, turning his mohawk into a sorry excuse of a mullet. His face looked more exhausted than anything.
Soap stopped next to your table and nodded. You stood up, welcoming him.
“Sir,” you greeted.
“So,” he started, voice heavy.
Soap swallowed a chunk of saliva and looked down briefly.
“They’re M.I.A.,” he stated.
A ball formed in your throat out of nowhere.
By they, Soap meant Simon, Price, and Gaz. Their team was backup for the team that initially left to collect an important figure to the camp that you were staying at the moment. Neither team had been reachable since the last they were in the light—precisely sixty eight hours ago.
You had been waiting for Soap, specifically, to come to you. You knew the time would come when Soap would give you one out of three news. One, that the team had returned. Two, that the team was killed in action. Three, the team was missing in action.
It was option three. Meaning Soap came here to put you in a search team.
“When are we leaving?” you managed to ask.
“In five minutes,” Soap answered. “Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir,” you nodded.
“Meet me in the hangar, gear up,” Soap nodded.
Soap did not need to tell you more.
About five minutes later, you were on a chopper with Soap and three disposable soldiers that the base was willing to give you, save for the pilot.
You were not the only person who hated that it took them almost three days before deciding that they should send out a rescue team for their best personnels. All you could hope was that Soap did not punch another superior officer for this.
The team that Soap led for this search was dropped off on a roof of the building where Price’s team was last known to be. Judging by the crowd of zombies surrounding it, it seemed they could not leave.
The door that gave access to the inside of the building from the roof was not locked. However, as soon as it was opened, about half a dozen zombies screeched from the inside and ran out towards your team. That batch of infected was easily handled by precise headshots that Soap delivered through his suppressed rifle.
The captain led the team in with you on the far back, making sure you had everybody’s back. When his round was empty, the second in line would take over his position as Soap moved behind you. The cycle went on like that.
Room after room, your team cleared all the infected. Dead bodies falling limp to the ground, being piles of new furniture. Everything went well, the flow your team had was a flourish of perfection. It did not take your team too long before you started making your ways downstairs.
About three floors down, you were finally upfront in the marching order. Unlike the upper floors, this floor was cleared. Infected were already on the ground, save for the half dozen that was roaming around the hallway.
Your heart, if it had not already, beat faster. You gripped your rifle tighter. There were hardly any infected in any of the rooms. By the state of it, whoever it was must have made quite the ruckus that caught the attention of the remaining zombies.
You pushed forwards, feeling nervous of what you might or might not find.
By the end of the hallway, you saw a zombie that seemed to be out of place. The other zombies wore either civilian or scientist uniforms whereas that one wore a military uniform and he seemed to be Gaz’s size.
Before that zombie completely turned around, you shot a bullet through the back of its head and watched it fall to the ground.
You gazed back at Soap, sharing a knowing look that your friends might have met the end of their lives here.
Soap, then, nodded you to go ahead.
You walked up, passing that last zombie in the hallway, feeling your heart being held by a taunting, invisible hand. When you looked down, however, you felt a breeze of relief seeing that it was not Gaz.
Soap knelt down next to the body, fishing the fallen soldier’s dog tags. He took a moment to look at it before pocketing the metal. He looked at you before signing at you to go ahead and check the remaining door.
The taunting, invisible hand returned to hold your heart in its palm, tight and ready to squeeze.
You stood to the side of the door while Soap stood on the other side of it. You reached a hand towards the knob and after making sure that everyone was ready to go, you twisted it.
It was not locked, but the door was not opening. As if there was something heavy blocking it from the inside. You looked at Soap.
Soap pounded the door twice with the side of his fist. There was no response.
“Price?” he called out.
Still no response.
After a moment, Soap looked back at you.
“Do you want to crowbar it or axe it?” you offered.
“Crowbar seems safer. One violent whack instead of multiple,” Soap said. “Or we could just push. There’s five of us, who’s conscious and have the ability to give a push with full force.”
“Pushing it is, then,” you nodded.
Soap took a moment, scanning the team.
“Four of us push. You stand by the opening in case there’s infected inside ready to eat us alive,” Soap stated, looking at you.
“10-4,” you nodded, raising your rifle ready.
The four started pushing the door. A squeak of heavy wood against the floor echoed as the door started parting. You held your rifle steady, ready to shoot or put your weapon down if needed.
Your heart beat faster as your breath pumped faster. Nothing was showing up from the other side. So, as soon as the door was opened enough for you to slip through, you did.
Starting from the immediate corner, you scanned the room until you caught the gaze of a pair of milky eyes. Reflex went ahead of you and your finger pulled the trigger, shooting a bullet in between the pair of milky, dead eyes.
The corpse fell in slow motion. Or at least it was what it felt. The tall corpse with a skull mask seemed to be staring right into your soul as it limped to the ground. At that moment, the taunting, invisible hand turned into a twine of thorny vines that had your heart wrapped in it and it started squeezing so hard that you felt your heart might be bursting.
The thudding of that zombie falling was layered by a painful squeak leaking out of your throat. You ran towards the recently dead zombie and knelt next to it.
It was him.
It was Simon.
Thinking that you might have made a mistake of killing him by accident, you slipped his mask off. His face was not his anymore. It was something else’s. Rotten, paled, infected.
You ran a gentle hand through his hair, holding back tears. You slowly looked up, ready to face the field captain. However, before you could turn to face him, you saw the dead bodies lined in the far wall of this room.
The dead bodies were laid down, set as if they were peacefully sleeping with their arms folded. Two of them had a bucket hat and a cap on their chest.
You looked at Simon’s dead body again. This time, you noticed the bite wound that was on his arm. 
By now, Soap had shown up and knelt in front of you. The two of you looked at each other, not being able to say anything. The most he could do was put a hand on your shoulder and squeezed it in hope to reassure you.
Carefully, you fixed Simon’s body to be positioned just the way the others were. You folded his arms before putting his mask on top of it. Then, you slipped his dog tags off his neck.
After taking a moment, you and Soap stood up and walked over to the lines of dead bodies. You approached Price first. There were multiple bite wounds on his arms that you could see. His dog tags were put on top of his hat. Gaz, with a huge bite wound that tore a chunk of flesh on his neck. His dog tags were next to his cap.
The remaining dead bodies also had bite wounds. Other than that, they all had perfectly aimed bullet holes in their heads. Whatever thorn that squeezed your heart earlier now did it again.
“He was the last one,” Soap sighed.
“He couldn’t do it himself,” you said.
You took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was a while that you and Soap shared a look before he raised his radio.
“Base, come in,” Soap said.
An instant reply said, “This is base. Anything to report, Captain MacTavish?”
“We found them,” he stated. “They’re gone.”
The radio was silent for a long time.
���Sorry to hear that. Get back here immediately, we have a situation,” the person on the other side of the radio stated before the line went dead.
Then, as if it was natural, Soap got you in his arms as you let out whatever gush of water your eyes made you let out.
Regardless of that order from the higher ups, regardless of dozens of talks that Soap gave about not having time to grief, Soap took a moment for him and for you. Just a moment of grief while you stood in the room littered with your dead friends.
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a/n: should i apologise for this?
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clockwayswrites · 10 months
Text
Like Betta Fish Do Part 22
wc: 2556, Masterpost
Danny was flying to Chicago.
It wasn’t exactly his choice to be flying to Chicago. He’d much rather be in Gotham getting some homework done at Jason’s while stealing kisses and food. That was his idea of a good weekend right there and with the end of the semester swiftly approaching he had plenty to do. But no, Sam had told him he better get his undead ass to Chicago that weekend or she’d come to Gotham and drag him out by his hair. Danny had long ago drank his respect women juice (and knew Sam would follow through), so he was flying to Chicago.
Tucker, equally as whipped by Sam, was driving into the city that same day.
Apparently they had to talk about Jason.
In person.
Danny thought it was overkill, but no one wanted to listen to the dead guy about what counted for that, he guessed, so Danny was flying to Chicago.
At least the skyline was pretty to look at as he approached.
Staying invisible, Danny flew into Sam and Val’s apartment from the outside wall. They were six floors up and in a nicer place than two college students should be able to afford. Living somewhere with the security of a front desk was one of the conditions Sam’s parents had for her going to Chicago for college. Sam had complained, but Danny didn’t think she minded as much as she claimed after hearing horror stories from friends about the state of some of the places they had lived.
Danny didn’t see Sam in the living room, but Val was in the kitchen. He floated silently up behind her.
“Boo.”
“I still can and will end you, ghost boy,” she said.
Danny sighed and shimmered into existence. “You’re no fun, Val.”
“You used to think I was plenty fun.”
“Ah to be young and stupid,” Danny said, then had to dodge a punch with a laugh. He floated up to sit cross legged on the ceiling. “Hey! I’m just saying we are both better off not dating each other.”
“I’ll wait until after the interrogation to decide on how good your current situation is or not.”
Danny groaned. “Ancients, how bad is Sam planning to be?”
Val just gave him a look and popped a piece of the bell pepper she had been cutting up into her mouth.
“Okay, yeah. I sorta expected that,” Danny said in defeat and drifted morosely down from the ceiling.
“She’s buying ice cream though,” Val said after Danny had settled into a ghostly puddle. “So if you behave it might just turn into girl talk.”
Danny squinted up at the ceiling. “Real ice cream or vegan ice cream?”
“Both.”
So there was hope then.
Sam arrived with a bang of the door about fifteen minutes later. “Val! I found something scrungly on the street.”
“Hey!” Tucker protested as he followed her inside carrying most of the groceries.
“I found something scrunglier,” Val said, pointing to where Danny was lounging on one of the couches, back to his human form.
“I’ll own that.”
“You!”
“Me,” Danny confirmed with a sigh.
“You owe us so many explanations, Danny,” Sam said, setting bags down in the kitchen.
“Like how did you meet him?”
“So—”
“And when did you know he was a halfa?”
“I mean—”
“And how long have you been dating?”
“Our first—”
“And—”
“Sam! Ancients! You have to let me actually answer if you want answers!” Danny explained.
She stepped out of the kitchen to glare at him, arms crossed. “Fine, come help get snacks and then you are talking.”
“Sure sure sure.”
-
Talking took all night. The only thing, really, that Danny managed to keep from them were Jason’s last name, that he was a vigilante, and how he died (and was revived). The last one was easy, they knew better than to ask, and the first Danny was able to convince Sam it would just distract Tucker. He promised he’d let them have a video call with Jason tomorrow and they could learn his full name then.
But the chase with Johnny, the presents, Jason’s confusion; Danny went into it all. He explained helping Jason through the ectoshots and Jason genuinely becoming his friend. He admitted how early he was crushing on the other, but thought he had no chance because Jason was handsome and smart and so kind. He talked about how warm he felt having that kindness directed at him. And then the date! And the date that he planned… he sounded completely gone, he knew that, but he was.
Luckily how gone he was seemed to sooth a lot of Sam’s anger at not being told for so long. It all went better than Danny expected, and it was good to have his best friends finally know.
None of that made him any less nervous for the video call. He set up his laptop, ignored Tucker’s ‘dude, you still have that thing?’, and pressed call. He had sent Jason a warning text before calling, so it wasn’t long before Jason picked up. He must be on his tablet. It looked liked Jason had actually taken some time to figure out where to sit that would have decent lighting and frame his apartment well. The effort was actually really sweet.
“Jason, everyone. Everyone, Jason,” Danny said, motioning at the screen.
There was a pause and then Sam grabbed a throw pillow and just started wailing on Danny with it.
“Danny!”
“Ow!”
“A Wayne?!”
“Wait, what?” Tucker asked, pulling out his phone. “Wayne as in Wayne Enterprises Wayne?”
“A Wayne, Danny!” Sam landed a particularly vicious hit.
“Sam!”
“You could stop this, you know,” Val said to the screen.
“You know, I don’t really know if I could,” Jason, the not so little shit that he was, said with a grin.
Tucker looked from his phone to the screen and back down again. “Ancients, he’s a Wayne.”
Sam landed one last hit before she took a breath, pushed back her now wild hair, and looked to the screen. “Hi, I like your father’s move to zero impact manufacturing, even if tree credits are mostly a scam and he could do more.”
“Thanks?” Jason said with a bemused sort of smile. “That’s really Tim’s area, I work with the Foundation, not Enterprises.”
Tucker sighed, “You couldn’t be dating Tim instead?”
“He just wants to cuddle the new Wayne phone,” Danny explained after spitting out a feather.
“Got it. What’s your critique?” Jason asked Val.
“Oh, I’m his ex, I just enjoy watching the chaos,” she said, hooking a thumb at Danny.
Jason nodded sagely. “Valid.”
“So,” Danny said, drawing the word out. “As you have guessed, Jason Todd Wayne. Jason, this is Sam, Val, and Tucker.”
“Wait!” Sam interrupted. “If you’re, and you’re, that means then— shit, you really died, huh?”
“Yeah, well,” Jason said with a little shrug and a crooked, slightly somber smile. “The real surprise is actually that I’m less re-alive than I thought.”
“Yeah… Danny told us that you didn’t know you were a halfa. Sorry dude, that sucks,” Tucker said seriously before he brightened and flung an arm around Danny’s shoulder. “But like, the best guy I know is a halfa so you’re in good company! Mostly. The fruit loop is the worst but Dani is great! So you know, three for four is pretty good.”
“I’ve had much worse odds before,” Jason said honestly. “Besides, Danny has been helping me figure it all out. I’d be doing a lot worse without his help. Hell, I was doing a lot worse.”
“Danny said something about corrupted ecto? Sounds nasty dude. Glad that’s clearing up for you.”
“Thanks to Danny and Frostbite,” Jason said, he didn’t exactly shift in his seat, but Danny could tell the question made him a little tense. “It’s not all settled yet, but it’s a lot better and we’ll keep working on it.”
“And what do you do for work?” Sam asked.
“Wow, Sam, could you be any more obvious with that segway?” Danny asked, twisting to look at her incredulously.
“I work for the Martha Wayne Foundation. I do a lot with low income housing in Crime Alley, but also addiction rehabilitation. Literacy is a new project I’m pushing on,” Jason said like the question didn’t bother him. “I might go back to school so that I can do more for it.”
“That’s what you want to do or just what you’re doing?”
“You knew who I was on sight, so I figure you know my story,” Jason said, his tone finally hardening some. “I got lucky, not everyone has that chance. This is a way I can give help back. I still live in Crime Alley and I’m going to make sure that when I die, for good, that it’s a better place than it was when I was born.”
“See? He want’s to do good Sam, just like you, despite having money,” Danny said pointedly.
She looked like she might argue for a moment before she just huffed out an annoyed breath.
“Look, I bet you think I can’t say anything that would actually threaten you—”
Jason raised his hands. “I always respect the capabilities of a determined woman.”
Sam actually paused at that before she gathered up her scowl again. “But I have befriended something as close to a god as you will ever meet, and if you hurt Danny in any malicious way, I will sic Undergrowth on you and no one will ever find your body because it will be decomposing into fertilizer in the Infinite Realms.”
“Got it,” Jason said. “Do you want to meet Pamela Isley sometime? I think the two of you would get along.”
“Pamela Isley as in…”
“Yep. Her wife is my therapist.”
Sam turned to Danny. “Danny, I approve of your boyfriend, even if he’s a Wayne. Val, we’re going to Gotham for spring break.”
Danny covered his laugh at how quickly Jason figured a way into Sam’s good graces, not that Danny minded in the least. He’d take this weekend going well.
-
“Danny?
“Hum? Sorry?” Danny made himself drag his attention away from his phone and up to his friends. It seemed like Jason had missed Danny as much as Danny missed him by all the messages he’d gotten the last few days. There hadn’t even been time to see each other before the week started and now it was already Thursday.
By the expressions the others had, he figured he looked absolutely besotted. Well, damn.
“Do you want to head over to It’s a Grind with us to study for the test?” Cloe asked.
“Oh, I would, but my boyfriend got done with his stuff early, so he’s here to pick me up,” Danny explained with a little wave of his phone.
“That does explain the look on your face,” Fara said with a laugh before she sang, “Danny and what’s his name sitting in a tree.”
José rolled his eyes. “Dios mío, Fara, how are you so bad with names? It’s Jason. Danny only mentions him all the time.”
“Hey!” Danny and Fara said at the same time.
“A, Fara, you are, you still don’t know our econ prof’s name and we started our final project today.”
“I do too!” Fara protested with a pout. “It’s… ah… Barry!”
“Baramore, Fara, it’s Baramore.”
“I was close,” she said, tossing a fold of her hijab like it was her hair and she was a cliché valley girl.
José rounded on Danny. “And two—”
“Shouldn’t it be B?”
“And two!” José repeated more firmly, “Danny, you really do mention Jason a lot. Not in a bad way, but you were so gone for the guy even before you started dating that we had bets.”
“We did,” Cloe confirmed. “I won, of course.”
“Of course you did. Why do I always make friends like this?” Danny asked with a sigh.
“Because you only attract the best,” Fara said with a wink and finger guns.
Danny barked a laugh at that. “Sure. But anyways, I have to go, but I will totally catch you another day to study, it sounds like this test will be a beast.”
“Sure, I’ll message you about some time, but start studying before it since you’re missing today,” Cloe ordered.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll study,” Danny said, walking backwards away from the group.
As he turned and slid through a gap of the throng of people gathered outside of the science building, he caught the end of Fara exclaiming, “who I think it is?”
He supposed the cat was out of the bag here too, and for a lot more people. Everyone was staring (and trying really hard to make it seem like they weren’t staring) at the motorcycle parked by the curb. Or, more likely, they were staring at the man leaning against it.
Danny had no qualms taking a moment to stare himself. Jason looked great in tight, black wash jeans and a black and red leather jacket over a grey button up. Ancients it was good to see him again, text and calls just weren’t the same.
“Hey dead boy!” Danny called out. Heads swiveled to him with shocked gasps, but Danny only had eyes for Jason and the smile that lit up his face.
“Hey, fish.” Jason tucked his phone in his back pocked and leaned back in a way that let his legs fall a little more open.
Danny didn’t hesitate to slip in between them and tug Jason into a kiss by his jacket. He gave a pleased hum as Jason’s large hands settled on his hips, rubbing little circles there.
“Good surprise?” Jason asked. He exuded swagger and confidence, but Danny knew Jason well enough now to see the nerves behind the smirk.
Hoping to soothe the worry, Danny kissed Jason again. “Great surprise.”
Some of the well hidden tension bled out of Jason’s shoulders. Still, he apologized, “I think people might have recognized me.”
“Ya think?” Danny asked with a laugh. “As cool as your bike is, I’m pretty sure it’s you that drew this crowd. I don’t mind though.”
“Really?”
“Really. Now stop worrying, dead boy, I’m starving and your text promised food.”
“Oh, I see how it is, you’re just using me for food,” Jason grumbled and shoved Danny playfully away.
Danny let himself stumble back with a laugh and caught the helmet that was tossed his way. “Come on, Jason, feed your starving college boy.”
“And what does my starving college boy want?” Jason asked before he tugged on his own helmet and swung one leg over his bike.
“Hum, other than you?” Danny teased once his helmet was on, knowing only Jason could hear him now. His words were rewarded with a snort of amusement. “Let’s go to that great Greek place.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“Now if I had known that,” Danny said with a laugh. He settled behind Jason, pressing close and resting a hand on Jason’s hip. As they pulled away he gave a cheeky little wave to his friends who had come to gawk with the rest of the students.
Looked like he’d have more yelling over text messages to answer. Oh well, the reward of speeding down the streets of Gotham with Jason was worth it.
-----
AN: Well, more and more people learn about Danny and Jason Wayne. I wounder who else needs to learn about them? Huuuummmmmm.....
As always, stay delightful my darlings and maybe make sure to hydrate too!
I no longer tag people! You can instead subscribe to the masterpost to be notified.
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sehodreams · 4 months
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His smile is so pretty!!!!
Bite and smile
TW and tags: biting, marking, sexual content, all consensual except for the first time he bit her, oral sex (m receiving).
Comment: I just found his smile cute and quickly wrote this, probably has mistakes.
Sohee had taken a liking to biting your fingers when you were hanging out. It was soft, innocent, completely playful, his teeth would press over the pads of them, then over you knuckles, and would end leaving a little mark over your wrist that would soon dissapear.
When you left his place you would find prints of his teeth in places you didn't expect, like over your neck after he hid his face while blushing after he said how much he missed you, if he had been lying over your lap you'd find one on the side of your thigh, and if he had kissed any part of your body that wasn't your face, you'd find one there too, but it wasn't alarming, most of the times he left a mark the sensation would vanish when you arrived home and you'd quickly forget about it, only remembering the pretty smile of your boyfriend when you found the almost invisible spots.
It wasn't until you were under him one day that you realized it was more serious than what you thought. You were on your tummy, enjoying the way his hips clasped with your ass while he stretched you with his cock, already lost in the pleasure to pay attention to anything that wasn't him touching that special spot inside you, when his mouth over your shoulder brought you back to reality.
It hurt, it hurt a lot, his teeth were sinking so deep you felt his canine almost tearing apart your skin, and you hissed calling his name for him to stop. He didn't, he continued until his thrust became weaker and his dick started spurring his thick cum inside you, but even there he couldn't leave alone your shoulder, and with fluttering eyes, almost drunk with his own orgasm, he left pecks over the same spot he had marked.
It was the first time, you told him you didn't like it and he apologized. "I don't know what happened to me, I swear", he said, and you believed him, you knew your boyfriend, and he had never done something like that before, so you decided to leave the memory behind and continue with your life.
But it turned difficult no long after, he had stopped using his teeth over you, and like an addiction you hadn't realized you got, you felt the effects over you like a punch, like a person completely leaving sugar from one day to another.
When you made out if he didn't press his incisors over your plump lip you couldn't feel the same satisfaction lingering around when you left his place, going with a smile but with a bitter flavor on your tongue. When you saw your reflection in any mirror your eyes searched for non existent little reminders of your time together, and finding nothing, an uneasiness would install in the pit of your stomach, dissapointment showing over your face even in public.
You didn't like the new you, you didn't hate the image you saw, but it just wasn't you. You hadn't noticed when, but you had been wearing his marks like a badge, proudly going around with his label on places not everyone would notice at first glance, but you knew they were there and that was enough, a kind of affection not evident but that followed you around and comforted you after being together, because when they were about to dissapear, you would go back for new ones that kept you company again.
Soon, silently, you began to ask him to leave his traces over your skin again.
His length was in front of you, tall and thick, with an angry blush on the tip that enamoured you whenever you had it in front of your eyes. You were licking it, from the tip to the base, while maintaining eye contact, making him smile of how pretty you looked down there on your knees.
You gulped the remaining saliva inside your throat and dipped your head as far as you could, holding the weight of it inside your mouth and over your tongue, making him sigh with the first deep dive.
He grabbed your hair and moved it away from your face, always thinking of you, everything was sweet and loving, the eyes meeting, the smiles reciprocated between bows and the soft praises that came out of his mouth.
You continued like that, engulfing him and eyes tearing of how good he touched that place on your throat, completely happy to please him, and then, when you felt his member throbbing inside your mouth, you couldn't help but pull out, jerking it faster with your wet hand covered on mixes of your spit and his precum. His head fell back, feeling the knots forming and closer to his orgasm, he left a surprised grunt when your teeth caressed his thigh, softly nipping his skin, and before he could ask you what you were trying to do, his cock dripped his cum over your hand when you painfully pressed them.
You, looking pleased with what you got from him, instead of leaving pecks like he did, pressed the tip of your tongue over the small dent you had left.
He held your face with both hands, and after making you face him, he tried to find any clue of what your action had meant, only encountering your honeyed eyes begging for him to do something but not verbally saying what you wanted. "Do you want me to do it too?" He asked, nervous and afraid of overstepping the boundary you had brought into the relationship not long ago. When you nodded he felt a weight he didn't know was there lifted off his shoulders, because he would never tell you, but the days without being able to use his teeth on you were like torture for him. Seeing that soft skin begging for him to leave his mark but not being able to do it had started to stress him, and when he couldn't appease himself with the memory of you saying how it hurt you, he felt like the worst boyfriend in the world.
That didn't matter anymore, he had your permission, and even better, you seemed to need it.
It became rougher, everything became rougher, messier, more painful, and you loved it. When he ate your pussy he'd leave little spots on the inside of your thighs, when he fucked you his teeth would find your shoulder like a magnet, staying still until you came over his cock with the best orgasms of your life, tightening around his cock and begging for him to stay there until the last drop of his cum filled you, leaking both juices over the bed after he pulled out. It was almost animalistic, feral, and like an obsessed person you would stand in front of his mirror when he finished with you, your fingers tracing the prints over your skin, elated with his little love reminders.
"Smile" he asked one day when you were so satisfied you almost fell asleep over his chest, and in a haze of pleasure, when he put the phone in front of your face, with the flash slightly blinding you, you made a peace sign and did what he asked you, beaming with his teeth impressions all over your shoulders and chest.
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syoddeye · 5 months
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the meeting
ceo!price x reader / ~3k words
Folks seemed to like the first installment of this maybe-series, so I cooked up a second part in between drafts of the next chapter of For the Record (shameless plug). Not sure if this will be a whole thing or a series of vignettes. Enjoy!
CW: red flags everywhere, power imbalance, alcohol (mentioned)
You lay low after the company Christmas party and losing the drama wager to Jordan. Heads down, nose to the grindstone, and so forth. You never found the courage to respond to Mr. Price's direct message over the holidays. The shock from receiving a response at all kept you up at night. The message was supposed to get lost in his notifications, buried beneath the hundreds of messages he supposedly got a day. And he had not only replied, he insinuated he wanted to grab drinks. You checked it a hundred times.
johnprice - invisible Hi, Mr. Price. I was wondering what you want for Christmas? > World peace. > I'd settle for a drink, though.
You could be reading into it. Flattering yourself. Profile photos were required on the chat app to help put faces to names, so he could have recognized you as the punch girl from the open bar. Most likely, he was making a joke and humoring an underling.
Whatever the reason, his simple reply plagues you well into the new year.
The first quarter is always hectic for The 141 Group. New regulations go into effect, and projects and initiatives kick off, setting the year's foundation. Since your boss Kyle is VP of Finance, it's even busier for him with budget meeting check-ins, payroll reports, and financial policy updates. And if his life is busy, your life is busy because his success is your success.
"Need you to bump everything I have today after three to tomorrow," He murmurs when you collect a stack of documents to copy.
"This is the second time you'll have pushed the meeting with technology directors," You remind him, but make a note anyway. "They'll complain to Mr. MacTavish."
Kyle glances up. "Let them. He's clearing his schedule this afternoon, too."
"Oh?"
"Big man's bringing the C-Suite and a few of us lucky VPs in for a meeting."
A practiced EA, you keep the instant surge of dread from reaching your face. It isn't strange for Kyle, though technically a subordinate to the CFO, to attend such meetings. Mr. Price frequently pulls him into special projects. You simply hoped to avoid the 'big man' for as long as possible. On the bright side, when Kyle never reprimanded you for flippantly messaging the CEO upon return from holiday, you assumed Mr. Price never said anything. Hopefully, he forgot about your message altogether. 
"Need me for notes?" You ask, hovering in the doorway to his office.
"Please. Something tells me it'll be tense." Interesting.
With a nod, you tuck the folder under an arm and pat the doorframe. "Got it. Lunch'll be here soon. I ordered Indian and Thai. Whatever you don't want, I'll eat."
"You're a lifesaver."
"I know."
~~
Conference Room Bravo isn't the biggest meeting space in the building, but everybody knows it's Mr. Price's preference. With an unobstructed view of the water and natural light, you like it, too. Especially since the small group of assistants who attend the more critical meetings sits on a long bench built into an alcove in the wall with a good view of the windows.
You and five other EAs ensure every seat at the main table is set with the appropriate accoutrements. Tea and coffee are on standby. With a three-hour window allocated, everyone will need a spot of caffeine at some point. Fifteen minutes before the scheduled start, you chat and make personal preparations.
"Did MacTavish seem stressed about this?" You ask Jordan as she takes the seat next to you.
She shakes her head. "No. You know him, though. It takes a bit to work him up."
"What about Laswell?" You lean forward and look down the bench at Oliver, the Chief Information Officer's right hand.
The younger man looks up from his laptop. "Same as Mr. MacTavish, kind of. Hard to tell, but she didn't take a smoke break, so…"
"Right."
The conversation drifts to weekend plans until Lucy, the newest EA to Mr. Shepherd, pipes up.
"Isn't it strange Mr. Price doesn't have a permanent assistant?"
It's a fair question for a new person. Since you started at The 141 Group, the desk outside Mr. Price's office has functioned as a revolving door. Guiltily, you stopped trying to learn their names about ten temps in, and since then, it's a coin flip if anyone's there at all. The general rule is if you have something to deliver to Mr. Price, you leave it on the empty desk. 
"Nah, nobody's good enough," Jordan answers. "MacTavish once told me Price is a workaholic with impossibly high standards. Not a good combination for an assistant."
Oliver agrees. "Laswell said as much, too. Apparently, at his place, he has a whole recreation of his office and gets right back to work when he gets home. And, his only staff are the bodyguards."
You would feel sad about that if Mr. Price wasn't a gazillionaire. An older man, hunching over a computer, completely alone in his home…when he could certainly afford staff and delegate.
Still, if he kept himself so busy, it made the fact he responded to your DM quite interesting.
The conversation dies when the attendees trickle in.
Kyle arrives with Mr. MacTavish, the latter of whom flashes a grin at Jordan and you. Close behind is the hulking mountain of a CSO, Mr. Riley, who, as usual, wears a black surgical mask. (The rumors around that accessory are practically 141 Group lore.) Other members of the C-Suite file in and Mr. Price arrives last, followed by his guards who post up at the door. He shuts the door behind him, the click silencing the room.
Your eyes glue themselves to the computer in your lap. Jordan elbows you a little, obviously enjoying the lingering effects of her wager.
As Mr. Price sits down, you finally steal a glance. He's wearing the hell out of a charcoal suit with a blue tie that makes his eyes pop, even across the room. His expression is stern, borderline grim, and thankfully, like everybody else at the main table, doesn't even glance in your direction. He's straight to the point. "Thank you all for making time in your schedules on short notice. Let's get started, shall we?"
~~
An hour and a half in, Price calls for a break. As the most senior EA on the bench, you lovingly pass on refreshment duty to Lucy and Desmond, the most junior. You follow Kyle to the hall.
"Need anything?" You ask when you're a reasonable distance down from the conference room.
"Do you think you can clean up the notes and send them to me by nine tonight?"
Your brows raise. Rarely does the man ask you to work late. He usually doesn't need to, as you pride yourself on efficiency. "Of course. I'll make a physical copy, too. What's your read on it, by the way?"
Kyle gives a tired smile. "You aren't paying attention, are you."
"I take down everything I hear to ensure you have impeccable notes. Listening gets in the way of that," You offer a grin, then glance down at his tie. Crooked. You fix it without thinking and chat more about his schedule tomorrow. A few people pass by in the hallway to use the restroom or stretch their legs, but you don't pay them mind.
"Mr. Garrick?" You both turn to see Jordan's head sticking out of the door. "They're resuming."
Kyle sighs quietly and starts back toward the conference room. You follow.
Settling back into your seat on the bench, you feel eyes on you, but when you look around, there's nothing. Weird.
~~
The meeting concludes on the dot at six. The attendees leave first, as do the rest of the assistants when you volunteer to clean up. Jordan waves goodbye when Mr. MacTavish departs alongside Mr. Riley. You sigh in relief when Price walks out with Shepherd and Laswell, leaving you and Kyle. Your boss swipes through his phone as you collect the trash and dishes, leaving everything for janitorial.
"Do you need a ride?" Kyle asks when you collect your laptop. "I'm heading your way."
"No, I think I'll finish the notes here, wait for rush hour to die down."
Kyle walks out with you and frowns. "If you stay past eight, please text. I'll have a car come back for you."
You suppress the urge to roll your eyes. Kyle is merely protective. "I'll take the train or call a rideshare myself."
He pushes the matter when you return to your corner of the executive floor, but you don't give in. You plan to stop for food on the way home and aren't keen to make his driver wait. When he finally leaves, you find yourself alone on the floor. Most folks leave at five, so everyone else cleared out when the meeting ended at six.
You clean, format, and summarize the meeting notes in an hour and a half. Due to Kyle's earlier comment, you make an effort to read into business. As far as you can tell, it's another big new project with lots of money on the table. The name of a new contractor company for extra hands mildly raises your interest. The usual choice, Chimera Company, must be busy. Other than that, everything's a slog to read. You trust that if something's important and need-to-know, Kyle will explain.
You email Kyle the notes a few minutes shy of eight and send them to the printer. Languidly stretching as you go, you walk to the copy room. At this hour, most overhead lights are on a timer and won't turn back on until morning to conserve energy. So, it's natural your eyes flick to Mr. Price's office at the end of the long hallway. There's a sliver of light beneath the door, beckoning like a golden gate. Turning into the darkened copy room, picturing Mr. Price at his desk distracts enough you don't realize you're not alone until a low, growling curse cuts through the silence.
Hunching over the copier is none other than Mr. Price himself. The low light glints off a silver watch band, encouraging the eye to a pair of thick forearms exposed by rolled shirt sleeves. You get a whole second of the uninterrupted sight before he notices.
A silent alarm goes off, and you're hopeful the lack of light saves you: Please don't recognize me. Please don't recognize me. Please–
Mr. Price does not move, and his focus returns to the copier. "Didn't realize anyone else worked this late."
You're unsure if you're supposed to respond, but you need those notes. "I usually don't. I was finishing up…Is there–Is there something I can help with?"
He answers when you tiptoe closer. "Everything's coming out with streaks," He grumbles, fiddling with random panel doors that open into the machine's guts.
This is not your first battle with the cursed thing. "I can fix that."
"Can you, now." Price mutters, barely audible.
You swallow. You might be several pay levels lower, but you aren't a pushover. "Mr. Price, please let me try." 
Again, he delays, but after an exasperated sigh, he concedes and slams a panel door shut.
After he steps back, you examine the failed jobs resting on the tray, then address the angry, blinking digital display. A few screens and taps later, you trigger the self-cleaning process and the machine whirs to life.
"All fixed?" Price asks, reminding you he's but a few steps behind you.
"We'll see," You move a short distance away, afraid if you stand any closer, it'll be enough for him to remember who you are and your dumb message. "It's self-cleaning. It will take two, three minutes, then produce a test print."
Price hums in acknowledgment, and then the glow of his phone screen illuminates his profile. You glance out of your periphery, almost relieved to see the steely expression on his face. Seems he really is a workaholic, taking advantage of any spare moment.
You lean against the supply cabinets and cross your feet at the ankles. You left your phone at your desk, so you settle for watching the copier hopefully fix itself.
Then, to your utter horror, Price says your name.
You look up without thinking.
"Thought I recognized you." He holds up his phone, and there you are, your profile picture in the workplace chat app.
You are going to murder Jordan. But first, you need to apologize.
"Mr. Price, I am so–"
Price cuts you off. "You're Kyle Garrick's assistant, yeah?"
Relief washes over you. Your message is forgotten. Definitely. All you are is an assistant. "Yes, sir."
With a hum, he pockets his phone, then steps forward to better see you. A hand plants itself on the counter, mere centimeters away. "You were at the meeting earlier." 
"Yes, sir."
"Would explain the swift fix," He muses, and his gaze drags down you in a more than perfunctory look before meeting yours once more. "Normally, I'd use the copier in my office, but it's due for maintenance. Seems this one is, too." 
He has his own copier? It would explain why I've never seen him in here, making his own copies since he apparently hates help.
"Guess so," You lick your lower lip, stomach flipping with nerves with how close Price stands. Between the proximity and the near darkness, it's all you can do to keep your imagination in check.
A cheerful beeping from the copier saves you. Price lingers a moment more, then returns to the printing tray as the machine spits out a test page. 
Price chuckles, which you take to mean the issue is fixed. He restarts the delayed jobs. "Well done, love."
"It's nothing," You say quietly, rooted to where you lean. 
A minute passes, and Price collects the first completed stack of papers. His brow furrows. "Think these are yours."
You finally push off the cabinets and venture closer, reaching for the notes. Only, he does not hand them over.
"Forgot Gaz prefers hard copies," Price murmurs. 
Gaz? 
"This is the kind of work I wish I had received from my past assistants."
If it was not the CEO speaking, you would be the defender of the voiceless, the fired employees of 141 past. If the man's gone through as many assistants as you think he has, he's the problem.
"You like working for Garrick?"
It feels like a trick question. From the outside, it appears he and Kyle like each other. For all of Price's talks on 'openness' and 'camaraderie,' he has his favorites, and your boss is one of them. Though that could be an act, and Price is actually looking for some kind of blemish on Kyle's record. Either way, you can be honest because you genuinely like Kyle.
"Mr. Garrick is a joy to work with." Anxiety flushes half of the English language and all creativity out of your brain.
Price huffs in amusement. "A joy to work with," He repeats. "That's all? You appeared quite friendly during the break."
The comment gives you pause, and you shove back through the day's events. The meeting, the break – was it because you simply straightened Kyle's tie? It's a harmless gesture, you think. No one's ever batted an eye before. You can't help but feel a little affronted. "That's because we are friends, sir. Kind of happens when you work for someone for nearly five years."
Price lifts the notes in a placating manner, then out to you. "No harm meant. It's nice to see, is all. I understand we struggle with retention."
An understatement for him. Your imaginary hackles lower. "We work well together."
Price smiles. "Clearly. And five years, eh? Should get something for that, I think."
Inwardly, you cringe. The last thing you need is another branded mug, t-shirt, or keychain. "That isn't necessary, sir."
"Nonsense. We've got to reward loyalty."
You stiffly nod, figuring it's worthless to protest. It makes sense why he's in charge. He's a steamroller when it comes to what he wants.
"Do you have somewhere to be? Someone waiting for you?"
In this context, a darkened office, alone with a man with the power to make or break your career, it's a borderline sinister question. At least, it should be, yet instead, all you feel is a brief thrill.
"No, sir."
"Then, how about that drink?"
Oh, god. "'That drink'?" You ask dumbly. You know exactly what he means.
He chuckles and sets his gaze on you again. It's heavy, somehow both a blanket around the shoulders and a cinder block to the chest.
"While you are a capable woman, I doubt achievin' world peace is within your power. But a drink? Think you can fit me into your schedule this evening?"
You will kill Jordan for the bet. Then Kyle will kill you for losing it. But do you really have a choice?
"Yes, sir."
"Please, after hours, call me John."
~~
Mr. Price's–John's bodyguards do not seem fazed when you meet them at the elevators. You watch John whisper something into the taller one's ear on the ride down, and the man hails a cab. Meanwhile, John ushers you out to a waiting town car, and the shorter guard takes the passenger seat. 
When he takes the seat beside you, shuts the door, and drapes a big arm over the back of the seats, you think to fake an illness. A forgotten appointment. Something. Then he gives you another grin, a note of triumph in it, and the thoughts of escape vanish.
~~
Your salary affords you nice things like hardcover books, daily coffees, and frequent takeaway. And until ten seconds ago, you could count stylish yet comfortable office attire among said things. Yet, walking through the awning-covered entrance to an unmarked bar, you lose that delusion quickly. The bar's host lights up at the sight of Mr. Price, then openly examines you and the pencil skirt you thought was expensive.
"Welcome back, Mr. Price. Your usual table, I presume? Is this lovely creature your date?" 
"Yes, and yes."
A firm, warm hand at the small of your back flexes. It's a silent suggestion: do not correct him. You don't.
A cocktail later, that same hand lands on your knee beneath the table. 
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